EMU centennial theme to celebrate “past, present and future” of university and Eastern Mennonite School

From an inaugural graduating class of seven students to 467 for the class of 2014, Eastern Mennonite University is not the same school it was a century ago. Plans for the school’s centennial celebration, which begins in fall 2017, are already in motion.

After some delay, EMU’s centennial steering committee met last week to choose a theme for the celebrations, which will last throughout the 2017-18 academic year. “Transformation: Past, Present and Future” will guide the committee’s efforts, chairwoman and class of 1979 alumna Louise Hostetter said Monday.

“The reason we came up with that theme is that, as we look back, the history of Eastern Mennonite School started as a very small, insulated community,” the Harrisonburg resident said. “Over the years, we’ve developed into high school, a university with graduate programs and now [have] become a very global university.”

The nine-person committee, which includes two students and several administrators, began exploring possible celebration ideas in 2008 and commissioned a history of EMU by sociologist and Mennonite cultural scholar Donald Kraybill.

EMU received six proposals from alumni for artistic performances and installations to be featured during the 2017 homecoming weekend. Proposals had to be for theatrical or musical performances, but ideas for incorporating the visual arts were welcomed.

Submissions included a 30-minute original orchestral piece, a musical, a play and an art installation. Hostetter said that although the steering committee did not receive as many proposal requests as expected, members would not reopen the submission process.

“We’ve received some very good proposals, and we feel comfortable with what we have to work with,” Hostetter said. The committee’s centennial budget is “still under development,” she said, and members will meet again next month.

In the meantime, the committee hopes to produce audio and video interviews of alumni and others connected with the university for archival purposes and centennial events.

“Technology provides with us with ways to capture a lot of the memories, as well as people, that have been very important and instrumental in the development of Eastern Mennonite University,” Hostetter said.

Although EMU is not the insulated institution Hostetter said it once was, the ideas of service and peacebuilding have “remained consistent throughout all those changes.” She emphasized the increase in international student membership and global academic partnerships.

In October, of the 1,870 students enrolled, 37 percent identify as nonwhite or international, administrators said.

Hostetter said one of the steering committee’s student members was deliberately chosen to represent the interests of multicultural students. EMU remains a Mennonite institution and emphasizes Christian principals, but according to its website, only about 43 percent of the school’s current undergrads have a Mennonite background.

Events will be scheduled throughout the 2017-18 school year but the homecoming weekend for EMU and Eastern Mennonite School will be the centerpiece of the celebration. Because EMU grew out of Eastern Mennonite School in 1917, the two locations will combine their events for the first time.

Diana Berkshire, EMS associate director of development, said a committee was in place to design EMS’ centennial events, as well as those at the university, but the agenda is not final. Normally, Berkshire said, EMS’ homecoming weekend involves sporting events, performances and as many as 15 class reunions.

“We share a common history,” she said. “There’s so much to celebrate – it’s 100 years.”

Courtesy of the Daily News Record, Jan. 27, 2015