Anthony Thomas `06 had already lived in five Middle Eastern countries by the time he was a teenager.

Before the start of his tenth grade year, his parents encouraged him to complete high school in the United States; they hoped he would attend an American college and thought having a few years to adjust to the culture would be helpful.

At first, Anthony struggled to fit in at the rural high school in Dayton where he enrolled. Two years later he would face some of those same struggles at Messiah College.

But, through a relationship with an unlikely mentor at Messiah, Anthony came to know that “God is real” and turned his life around. He ended up having a transformational experience at Messiah.

In October 2009, Anthony talked with Naomi Greene of NPR’s StoryCorp about his experiences.

Read more about Anthony Thomas.

Editor’s note: Since the recording of this podcast, Anthony and his wife Jessica are living in New York City; Anthony works in the development office at New York University.

School of the Arts alumni showcase talent around the world

Perhaps a hidden gem of Messiah College is its School of the Arts.  It is there that aspiring actors, musicians, and artists hone their skills in creative and public expression. Graduates from the School of the Arts have gone on to be international performers and excel in instilling their artistic vision in the communities where they work and live in while creatively contributing to the larger, global artists’ community. Mipa Lee (’05), Efthymios Mavridis (’89), and Jesse Baxter (’02) are all alumni from the School of the Arts who work internationally.
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Messiah program helps students to become financially literate

With all of the costs associated with college, Messiah students are learning the importance of budgeting. A program developed by alumna Janelle Curtis-Beaman ’04 explored how students could live on $8 an hour, the average hourly wage of student employees at Messiah.

The concept
“I noticed a lot of students seemed to be nervous about money,” said Curtis-Beaman.  “I thought it would be a great idea to develop an on-campus program that addressed those concerns especially in this economic climate.”

Curtis-Beaman, an employee within the College’s administrative offices, gathered sponsorships from the Office of Annual Giving and the Career Center and worked alongside individuals from the Internship Center, Residence Life, and the Agape Center for Service and Learning to spread word about the program.

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Two Messiah College Philadelphia Campus students accept the invitation to “Love our City. Teach our Children”

Tackling the “old school” reputation of its inner city educational system head-on, the School District of Philadelphia has instituted the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows (PTF) program, designed to recruit, train, and retain highly-qualified and diverse teachers for the public school system’s high-need classrooms.

This program proved to be an ideal fit for two Messiah College students, who studied at Messiah College’s Philadelphia Campus (MCPC) at Temple University, and were drawn to the urban charms and challenges they discovered in America’s sixth largest city. (more…)