On Being the Beaver

So what is it like to serve as Bluffton’s mascot? Now that the identities of J. Denny Beaver have been revealed, Jonathan Luginbuhl, Zeke Tracy and Brandon Fullenkamp, tell what it’s like to be the Beaver. (watch the official "beheading")

Brandon: Almost a year ago around this time, I was asked to perform as the new mascot. From then on, I helped served on a committee of faculty/staff and students to help design the suit and figure out how we were going to introduce him and everything, the rest is history.

Dressing up in a giant beaver costume gives a person a different mindset when attending events. When nobody knows who you are, you are free to do pretty much anything you want without worrying about what people think of you, it’s absolutely fantastic!

I would say one of my favorite things about being J.D. was being able to interact with every single person I came into contact with in some way or another. It was kind of a personal running joke of my own to mess with Estee Arend because she was so frightened by me, so naturally I messed with her whenever I saw her! I think at one point I proposed to her at a football game so she would laugh instead of screaming! I also loved all the kids that followed me around; they made my job a lot easier when I was really tired.

Zeke: Being in the suit was fun and sometimes kind of nerve racking. I found it difficult to go up to people I didn’t know and mess with them. The funniest thing that happened to me was when my bandana fell over my eyes while I was taking pictures with people and I had to be led out of the room in order to fix myself.

I had never seen a live mascot before so I didn’t really know how they worked. It was definitely an experience.

Jonathan: One of my favorite parts of being the mascot was interacting with all the kids. It didn’t really matter to me what we were doing, sometimes it was just sitting with them at the games, or chasing them around, they were so much fun.

AD Phill Talavinia presented the three J. Denny Beavers with Varsity B jackets at the "beheading." Jonathon, Zeke and Brandon will continue to perform as J. Denny Beaver through the remainder of the school year. Applications are being accepted for the 2011-12 mascot through mid-March.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Did you know that roughly a quarter of all Bluffton alumni met their future spouse on campus?

I’m glad to be represented in that number. Doug and I met my freshman year when my roomie and I took a shortcut through Bren-Dell lobby. We happened upon a group from Third Bren-Dell watching M*A*S*H in the lobby. Honest, we were just looking to save a few steps. It’s pure coincidence that we both ended up marrying guys from Third.

Guess the upcoming Valentine’s Day has me waxing nostalgic about new love on campus and remembering those days of dating on a college student’s budget. Twenty some years ago there was a wonderful Italian restaurant in the Lima American Mall. Great food and cheap! And you had to love dollar nights at the Shannon Theatre. Didn’t much matter what was playing, we were there.

I could bore you with stories of our courtship - like the night that forever turned Valentine’s Day into Hallmark’s Day for my hubby. (If you plan to play cards on a special day, play guys vs. girls. Do not play couples as partners! Just saying.)

I’m more interested in your stories. How did you meet? How did you date? Did you ever kiss on the bridge by Ropp Hall in the moonlight?

Are the memories flowing? Share the memories with your honey, and with us!

Forget greeting cards and chocolates, this year I think we’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day with spaghetti, warm bread sticks, and break out the M*A*S*H season 5 DVD.

XOXOX

Students take the lead

Hundreds of campus events are planned each year by academic life professionals to expand students’ and community members’ horizons. For instance, guest speakers present at Forum, authors give readings in the Library and Bluffton’s own share research during Friday Colloquium.

On occasion students take the lead to organize and present. Three such events are happening this month - Global Weekend, the Inter-Collegiate Peace Fellowship and Spiritual Life Week.

Global Weekend
We don’t need to travel to experience a different world view. This weekend the International Connection (Bluffton University ICON) will host their annual Global Weekend festivities.

Global Weekend events are open to all, from on and off campus, children and adults alike. Items from international students’ home countries will be displayed during an Saturday evening ethnic meal at The Commons in Marbeck Center. Children will have the opportunity to break a piñata followed by an international variety show.

Inter-Collegiate Peace Fellowship
Mennonite colleges/universities take turns hosting the annual Inter-Collegiate Peace Fellowship. “Rooting for Peace: Go Peace, Grow Peace” will be the theme of the 2011 ICPF on Bluffton’s campus.

Leah Roeschley and her committee began last fall to organize this weekend conference focusing on ethical food production with keynote speaker Ragan Sutterfield, a writer, teacher and gardener.

While students from the sister Mennonite colleges are the primary audience, faculty/staff and community members are welcome to attend either for the full weekend or Saturday only. Registration deadline is Feb. 7.

Spiritual Life Week
Each semester students, along with the campus ministries staff, plan a week-long intentional focus on spiritual life for Bluffton students. Representatives of Renovaré Ministries will be guest speakers at the Spring Spiritual Life Week beginning Tuesday.

What a great opportunity for these students to gain experience organizing and promoting an issue they feel strongly about. If you get a chance and are interested, feel free to support them with your prayers and your presence.

Inspiring excellence

The thing about those who inspire us to excellence, is that many times they may not know the impact their lives have had on ours. The amazing ones inspire by example, with nudges and challenges to consider new ways of thinking, to venture outside of the comfort zone.

While they may not be looking for recognition and awards, we as alumni we have the opportunity to publicly recognize those who have quietly shaped our lives during our Bluffton experience.

Four awards are presented annually by the alumni association during Homecoming weekend. In addition to the Faculty/Staff Service Award which is presented to former employees who “provided mentoring and inspiration to students, guiding them down their life's path,” alumni awards are also presented.

Alumni awards are presented to those who live out the university’s mission statement, that they were “prepared for life as well as vocation, for responsible citizenship, for service to all peoples and ultimately for the purposes of God’s universal kingdom.” Awards presented include the Lifetime Service, Professional Achievement and Outstanding Young Alumni.

Did anybody’s name just pop into your head? Are you thinking that perfectly describes (fill in the blank)? Then nominate them!

In April, members of the alumni association review the nominations to select next year’s honorees. But in order to select recipients, they need nominations. In other words… they want to hear from YOU!

Check out the alumni awards web page for more information, including stories about previous recipients, award descriptions and nomination forms.

Then share the love! Let people – alumni, faculty, staff, coaches – know how much they have inspired you. Nominate someone today.

Keep doing what you do

"God’s providence brought us together and God’s providence sustains us going forward…" shared Lawrence Matthews ‘78, director of financial aid, at Bluffton’s annual employee recognition banquet.

Faculty/staff reaching five-year employment milestones were recognized Sunday night. A written bio was included in the program for those with 20 years or more of service. Those with 25 years of service or more were invited to speak.

Sue (McDougal ’76) Van Eman, associate director of admissions, and Gary Schiefer, associate professor of business, received the 20-year award; Phill Talavinia, director of athletics, 25 years; and Larry Kinn, buildings and grounds carpenter, and Lawrence, 30 years.

A reoccurring theme in presentations by Phill, Larry and Lawrence was “I only planned to work at Bluffton for a short time.” So what turns a 2-3-year job into a 20-30 year career? As I near one of these milestones, I can’t help but internalize this question.

It is the people, fellow staff/faculty and students. Each of the presenters spoke of people who were important throughout their careers – the late Elmer Neufeld, Don Schweingruber, Lee Snyder and others.

It’s also the mission, the working environment, and, yes, God’s providence which sustains us through the rough times.

But at the end of the day it’s all about enjoying what you do. As Phill shared, “Real success is finding your life’s work in the work that you love.” (David McCullough historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize winning biography Truman)

Congratulations to all who were recognized and thank you for continuing to do what you love to do.

Remembering a friend and mentor

The name of Paul Soldner may not be familiar to those outside of the ceramics world, however in his passing last week, we lost an important and innovative artisan, not to mention a Bluffton graduate and friend. Paul Soldner was a family friend and mentor of Bluffton grad and art professor Gregg Luginbuhl ’71, whose reflections follow.
LA Times obituary
New York Times obituary


Paul Soldner was the son of a Mennonite pastor, and it was his father’s career that brought the family to Bluffton when Paul was in junior high school. Paul and my father, Darvin Luginbuhl, became close friends.

They shared an interest in photography. Dad remembers working in the basement of Paul’s home, where they mounted an enlarger to the floor joists, projecting to the floor to make large prints. Paul struggled to keep the family activity on the main floor quiet, so that the enlarger would not jiggle during the long exposures that were required for the large format prints.

The Soldner Mixer, still in everyday use after 46 years, has prepared clay for more than two generations of Bluffton art students.

They both entered Bluffton College in 1939 where they were art majors studying under professor John Klassen. Their interest in photography continued, and while there were no formal photography classes, they continued their work in a makeshift darkroom in the attic of College Hall, where the art department was then housed. They continued to make large format prints of campus scenes, some of which received their final rinse in Riley Creek. A few of these prints can still be found framed on the walls of campus hallways and offices.

W.W.II service in the military’s medical corps interrupted the college education of both young men. Both came back to Bluffton to complete their undergraduate degrees in 1946, and initially took their first jobs as high school art teachers. While my father pursued graduate work in art at Ohio State, receiving a master’s degree in art education, Soldner entered graduate study at the University of Colorado, and later launched his career in ceramics when he joined the influential and iconic mentor Peter Voulkos at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles.

My father was hired to teach at Bluffton College in 1959. During his tenure, he continued to communicate with Soldner, who had begun to develop a national reputation through his development of a new approach to the ceramic medium, which came to be known as American Raku.

Paul’s trips to Bluffton to visit his family became occasions for dialogue between the two old friends, and Soldner would occasionally provide ceramic workshops for Bluffton students. My family often visited the Soldner family in Aspen, Colo. We enjoyed frequent sightseeing trips, with meals off the tailgate of Soldners’ Plymouth Suburban.

In 1965, Soldner, who had begun building and marketing potter’s wheels, was working on the design of a clay mixer to add to his product line. He made a prototype of one of those machines available to the Bluffton ceramics program at a very minimal price. It is a testimony to the quality of his design, that this same Soldner Mixer, still in everyday use after 46 years, has prepared clay for more than two generations of Bluffton art students.

Soldner also made two kick wheels of his own design available to Bluffton in those early years, and they too are still in use in our studio. As the Soldner electric potter’s wheels became the standard for smooth, quiet, powerful operation, I added 10 wheels that bear his name to our Bluffton studio in the 1990s.

In the summer of 1967, the year that I graduated from high school, I lived with the Soldners for 10 weeks. While Paul and the family were away for a series of workshops that summer, I lived with, and was nurtured by, his artwork, land and buildings. My tasks were to feed and water the horses, water the plants and young trees Paul had started in the dry Aspen climate, and shoot the pesky ground squirrels that proliferated in the area.

Those activities left a lot of time for working on my budding potter’s wheel skills. Paul had given me one lesson before his departure, and provided a large barrel of clay, which he said I should use completely before asking further questions.

Perhaps most importantly, I was exposed to a lifestyle that was inviting, and started me down the path toward a 35-year adventure as a college art teacher.

When I was a young teacher, at Findlay College in the late 70’s, Soldner provided a workshop for my students who were duly impressed with my friend and mentor, and worked with greater energy and abandon after his visit. Paul was always at home in a ceramics studio and among students.

Early in my tenure at Bluffton, Paul came for a show and workshop. A deluge of artists and students came from a 150-mile radius for an energetic event in the new Sauder Visual Art Center that featured the creation of one of Paul’s signature forms and a free exchange of ideas, including Paul’s best advice concerning the building of hot tubs.

On many occasions Soldner supported Bluffton by participating in events planned around him. In 1990, I invited Bluffton ceramics graduates to provide work for a show that I mounted at the NCECA conference at the University of Cincinnati. The show included work by two artists who had received the honor of being named Fellows of the organization: Paul Soldner and Jack Earl. Paul shipped a wonderful piece for our exhibit, and showed up for the opening party on the first night of the conference. Later, he consented to be part of a show of “Mennonite Artists” that was organized at the Canton Art Institute.

Most recently, in 1999, as we planned the Sculpture Garden Walkway around the new Centennial Hall, Soldner donated one of his signature winged forms to the project. The Untitled bronze piece is located near the College Avenue entrance to Centennial, and is a fitting monument to Soldner’s longstanding relationship with Bluffton.

My father and Paul Klassen purchased two of Soldner’s salt fumed works from his last Bluffton show in 2000, and donated them to Bluffton. These pieces are on permanent display in public locations on campus: a wall plaque with pink fuming and some free brush work adorns the wall behind Sally Siferd’s desk in the president’s office; and a classic Soldner ceramic winged form with stamped surface impressions and copper green fuming is in the outer room of the art department office complex in Sauder Visual Art Center.

For at least the last three decades, Soldner has been at or near the top of his field of ceramics. It could be argued that the combined influence of his inspirational teaching, his energetic and gregarious personality, his design of ceramic equipment and, most importantly, his extensive and outstanding body of work, make him the most influential ceramic artist of his generation.

Though much of the impetus for Soldner’s success was acquired after his undergraduate career at Bluffton, he retained a pride in his home base, and was supportive of Bluffton and its art tradition.

The new year

“For us in academia, the slate-wiping New Year sits squarely in the middle of our calendar.”

Bluffton’s academic dean Sally Weaver Sommer shared this observation in a ‘welcome back’ note to faculty/staff.

January 1 seems like such a random day for the new year to begin. Why not a date in the spring when the grass is greening to represent newness, or in the autumn as the leaves are falling to represent the fading away of the old.

Being the curious type, I Googled to find out how January 1 was set as the first day of the new year. It turns out it was randomly set by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. (at least according to wilstar.com - be warned this site annoyingly plays “Auld Lang Syne” without a stop button.)

It’s interesting that a query on the university Facebook page about hopes and dreams for the new year resulted in few posts. Do we shy away from making New Year’s resolutions, or do we just resist sharing our resolutions with others?

Personally, while I have been known to set points of emphasis for the coming year, I resist calling them “resolutions.” Resolutions have a bad rap.

Whether you mark the new year in January or in August at the beginning of the academic year, the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start fresh with a blank calendar is a blessing. It’s almost like getting new school supplies when we were kids, there’s so much potential represented by that pristine book.

Here’s hoping that your calendar – whether it’s brand new or dog-eared from the semester past – serves as a record of many successes and met challenges.