James Waller
The calendar indicates it’s still summer, but EMU is gearing up for the start of the 2004 fall semester.
The annual faculty-staff conference will be held Thursday and Friday, Aug. 19-20, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building on the theme, “Who’s Teaching Whom?”
(Click here to download the two-day program in PDF format.)
James Waller, the Edward B. Lindaman Chair and Professor of Psychology at Whitworth College, Spokane, Wash., will give two presentations during the conference. He will speak 9:15 a.m. Thursday on “The Vocation of a Christian in an Educational Community” and at 1:45 p.m. that day on “A Shared Pursuit: The Classroom as Learning Community.”
Whitworth is known as a school that fosters mutual inquiry between students, faculty and staff in order to engage students more actively in responsibility for shaping their own learning as opposed to viewing themselves as receptors of received knowledge.
Dr. Waller is a widely-recognized scholar in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies. For 17 years, he has taught courses on intergroup relations, prejudice and genocide studies. He released a critically- acclaimed book in 2002, “Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing” (Oxford University Press).
In 1996, he developed a innovative study tour titled “Prejudice Across America.” The tour drew national media attention and was named by former President Clinton’s Initiative on Race as of America’s “Promising Practices for Racial Reconcilation.” Many of the tour experiences are chronicled in Waller’s book, “Face to Face: The Changing State of Racism Across America” (Perseus Books, 1998) and in “Prejudice Across America” (University Press of Mississippi, 2000).
On Friday, teaching faculty will attend a workshop on writing, while administrators and staff will take part in a training activity planned by the STAR (Seminar on Trauma Awareness and Recovery) program, part of EMU’s Conflict Transformation Program.
Both days of the conference will open with worship led by Herman H. (Herm) Weaver, Jr., associate professor of psychology, and Karen Moshier Shenk, regional director of development.
A picnic for all employees and their families will be held on the front lawn of campus Thursday evening.
Student leaders – including community advisors and campus ministry assistants – will begin arriving Aug. 19 for orientation, and student athletes will arrive over the weekend to begin practice for fall sports.
New students will check into the residence halls Friday, Aug. 27. Orientation programs for new students run through Sunday noon, Aug. 29.
Returning students will arrive on campus Sunday, Aug. 29. Fall semester registration will be held Tuesday, Aug. 31. Fall semester classes will begin 8 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 1. President Loren E. Swartzendruber will speak at an opening convocation 10 a.m. that day in Lehman Auditorium.
EMU’s fall semester runs through Dec. 17.