Year 1 at IWU (1997-1998)

I started teaching at IWU in the fall of 1997.

1. Compared to now, it was a relatively small Division of Religion and Philosophy with nine professors. As I leave IWU, there are twenty of us including me. [1] Joe Seaborn and Duane Thompson were leaving just as I was coming. [2] Joe went to pastor College Wesleyan full time, Duane to retirement. [3]

Bud Bence was the chair. Bud is a brilliant guy who imprinted more than one generation of students. They can quote his lectures. He was also known for spilling coffee all over the place.

One of his more interesting characteristics is occasionally to do or say things whose potential impact he doesn't quite seem to realize. (We referred to it as being "Budded"). For example, because I was initially on a one year contract, he would occasionally put a job advertisement for a teaching job on my chair. I joked that he was trying to get rid of me.

There was a time the next year, after I was married, that he saw Angie and I holding hands on campus. Because of a scandal the previous year, his immediate thought was that I was holding hands with a student and he became very concerned. :-)

2. Because I didn't know for sure if I would have a second year, I did indeed follow up with one of Bud's job opportunities and applied to teach at Bethel College in Mishawauka. I had a vague connection with Eugene Carpenter, although he had left my second year at Asbury. I had however learned the first few verses of Genesis in Hebrew listening to his tapes. He taught Hebrew inductively, throwing students right into the Hebrew waters of Genesis (I would love teaching with LaSor in Esther as a teaching fellow). Carpenter would later drown in 2012 under strange circumstances while fishing.

The process was interesting. On the faculty at that time was a theology professor who was particularly zealous for matters of inerrancy. I especially remember a grilling on the historicity of Adam and Eve. They offered me the position, but the entire interview turned me off. I had no desire to go there and, thankfully, IWU shifted me into a permanent contract.

Before I forget, Paul Collard was Academic Dean/Vice President for Academic Affairs for my first year at IWU. By Baylis would then come my second year. Although he is not too fond of me quoting him, one thing he said offhand has forever stuck with me is that "Students don't come here for the liberal arts. They come here to get a job and we have to trick them into the liberal arts." He has since carefully qualified this statement. IWU was none too academic when he came from Messiah College and so this quote was specific to that period of IWU's history.

What I would say is that it is indeed a minority of college students in general who love their general education/liberal arts classes. The usual response (e.g., I heard Don Sprowl say this once in UALC) is that we need to show them their benefit and teach the public how important they are. In general, I think this will always only have limited success. Yes, we can show stats and quote articles about their value in the workplace. It's all true. Yes, we can surely fashion their shape to maximize a sense of their importance. We can have Elaine Bernius talk about restoring the fragmented sense of truth in a fallen world in FYE at NSO.

But most students in America in general probably still will not be convinced. We have to "trick" them into growing and getting their benefit despite what they are likely to think of them. :-) Houghton may be different because the liberal arts are its niche and the students who go there know this fact.

3. It would be the old David Smith's last year. He would develop brain cancer in the spring of 1998 and be gone before the year was out. David and I had in common a connection to Frankfort Bible College. My grandfather had taught there and my mother and older sisters had gone there before it closed in 1972. (Incidentally, that virtually makes them Houghton alumnae, since the credentials of FBC were transferred first to United Wesleyan and then to Houghton).

David had taught at Frankfort. He told me a story about renting a TV to watch something or another in his trailer. Well, TVs weren't entirely kosher in those days and a couple teachers came to his trailer to "spy out the freedom that had been given to him." He responded, "You come in here and we'll be over to your place next to see what you have."

Smith ran the MA in Ministry program at that time. It was a 36 hour program where you took something like 6 hours in Bible 12 hours in practical ministry, 3 hours in theology, 3 hours in church history, 3 hours in either theology or church history, and the rest electives. These were one week intensives where you came to campus and blew through a course. It went well when Joe Seaborn was out there advertising it in conjunction with his speaking.

I taught my first intensive in this program in February 1998--Romans. It was a one week class. I remember spending every evening getting the overheads ready for the next day. 8-5 was grueling!

Bonita Wuertley was the division secretary and Karen Bingham was the secretary for the grad program. Teresa Batman ran LifeGrow, I believe. Karen's desk was right across from my office in the north part of the corridor. [4] I remember having a conversation about not really using my filing cabinet. Her response was that I would soon. I never really did though. :-)

4. Tragedy would give me some of my first chances to teach in New Testament. A scandal in the fall would rock our division, leading to the departure of one professor. Interesting how history unfolds. Because of his departure, I ended up teaching an evening New Testament survey in the spring of 1998. My wife was a youth pastor in Kokomo at the time and would audit that class to brush up on her Bible. The rest is history.

P.S. Wilbur Williams tried to set me up with a ministry student that year who was already engaged to someone. :-)

Then because of David Smith's cancer, I would end up teaching a one week Biblical Theology course he was scheduled to teach that May. I taught it with mixed emotions, so sad for David but I certainly enjoyed teaching Bible.

David Smith was known for his teaching on eschatology. He was a preterist, someone who believes that almost all of the prophecies of Revelation were already fulfilled in the first century. I have long since used him as an illustration of the fact that you can be an inerrantist and a preterist. I extracted his files building toward a prophecy book from his laptop, hoping to publish his thinking. It was to be his big contribution.

It needed a lot of editing I unfortunately never got to. On a funny note, he had given his own file extensions. He didn't understand "doc" and "txt" but gave them all his own unique extensions relating to their subject matter.

In the spring, students came to Bud saying that David had begun to act strangely in class, getting confused and such. It was soon discovered that he had the tumor. He was so afraid that he would be replaced when he had full intentions of returning to teaching in the fall. But unfortunately his condition would only worsen.

5. I love teaching! My first year I was full of all the energy and excitement of someone with their whole career ahead of them and a whole lot of naivete. Students from that year used to refer to "first year Schenck." All my strengths and weaknesses were on full display.

If I remember correctly, my first semester I taught ethics, two general philosophy (PHL-180) sections, and an Old Testament Survey. It would be the only time I ever taught OT for some reason. I was in AC-150, one of the largest classrooms. I remember making a joke about if the King James was good enough for Peter and Paul, it was good enough for me. A girl came up after class and said, "Paul didn't write the King James?" A little startled, I revealed to her for the first time that the KJV was translated from Greek and Hebrew 400 years ago and that English didn't even exist at the time of the Bible.

Ethics was required of ministry majors at that time. I loved going through Louis Pojman's book, which Duane Thompson had used. STM keeps all syllabi of other professors on file and they are available to all other professors for borrowing and synthesizing. Mind you, I had never taken an ethics class in my life. It was the beauty of teaching at IWU in those days and frankly I don't think the students suffered. Students I remember from that first year included Matthew Trexler, Paul Gorsline, and others.

Anecdotally, while we were discussing homosexuality in ethics, I remember DPJ telling a story about a mother in her church who one week requested prayer for her son. She was afraid he was gay. The next week she brought back a praise. "Praise the Lord! He got a girl pregnant."

I used Robert Wolff's About Philosophy, which Thompson had used. Under Steve Horst's influence, I would later add Sophie's World. I did have James Bross for philosophy in college. I knew some philosophy from Mr. Stock's Humanities class in high school. I took Philosophy of Theism and Apologetics with Jerry Walls at Asbury, and an independent study in Aquinas with David Bundy. I took Nicomachean Ethics at UK with Robert Rabel. But the rest of my philosophical knowledge was done on my own time (e.g., I studied a bit of Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, and Foucault in England).

I would read Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy before philosophy class. This tradition would eventually get me onto the regular docket of "Friday Night Live" reading Deep Thoughts by Ken Schenck. Dan Stellar and I put a lot of them together. I found some old ones the other day. "Next time, instead of circumcision as the sign of the covenant, how about a holy handshake? It hurts less, and you get to keep your hand." I occasionally got into trouble for these. :-)

6. "Humanities Philosophy" was (and still is at IWU) one of four "180" courses required of all residential students in the College of Arts and Sciences. The story I heard was that several of the most prominent IWU professors went away on retreat--Glenn Martin, Mary Brown, Vicki Hess. When they returned they had a vision for the four core courses.

They had intended for them all to be taught in the first semester, but that would never happen because it was too impractical. They were supposed to be taught from a historical perspective. This was probably key for Dr. Martin who interestingly saw history as something like the unfolding of a certain dialectic of ideas (a bit Hegelian :-).

I have long felt that the historical approach to philosophy is much less valuable to most students than a topical approach. The greatest take-away from philosophy for most people will be the ability to think critically and reflectively on the world. The historical approach gives you a lot of names and peculiar ideas. Obviously Duane Thompson approached the subject topically, given the textbooks he bequeathed me.

If I had stayed at IWU, I had hoped to see a gen ed revision this year, one that moved toward a more smorgasbord approach in categories and pruned the package down to 30 hours plus the 9 hours of "revealed truth" courses in STM (OT, NT, theology). The 30 hour number has to do with the Indiana transfer of general education. IMO, the 180s are dead; long live the 180s.

I resisted this smorgasboard approach twelve years ago because I think it's ideal that students have a core knowledge of names and dates. But I have come to accept that the old approach is not very competitive in IWU's market. I also came to the conclusion this year that IWU's 12 hours in history and the social sciences is probably a testament to Dr. Glenn Martin's power and influence years ago. That's way out of proportion.

7. In the spring, I taught a Modern and Contemporary Philosophy course. I loved it but of course I was no expert on things like existentialism or continental philosophy. In that regard I feel bad for not giving the students as good a presentation as they should have had. I could do much better now.

I especially remember good interaction with a brilliant "Martinite," as we called proteges of Dr. Martin. Dr. Martin, for all his intelligence, had a pre-modern understanding of the Bible. That is to say, he assumed that a biblical worldview was an obvious and given entity. But who decides what the Bible means? What if it turns out--as is the case--that the meaning of the Bible itself is often a matter of debate. It largely pulls the rug out from under his whole system.

McConn Chapel still stood at that time. It had once been College Wesleyan Church. Then in 1961 it became the chapel of IWU, with religion classes in the basement. When I came, McConn Coffee was run out of the basement (started by the Business Division in 1995).

Angie and I went to a concert there while we were dating in the spring of 1998 and sat in the balcony.

9. First year Schenck had two principal weaknesses. The first was getting assignments back to students. My office in those years was quite full of papers, perhaps not quite as bad as Steve Horst today. However, Chris Bounds often said that the state of my office made him feel better about himself. Since papers began to be submitted electronically, the state of my office has vastly improved. However I very much used the pile method in those days.

My second weakness was my near inability to say no. The more responsible students in my classes (often nursing or education majors) would no doubt find it incredibly frustrating when a mere request by a student could get the due date for an assignment changed. I waffled on those sorts of practical matters.

I didn't have very good boundaries with students that year in my drive to be liked. I think I said something in one class about students being welcome to call me in the night with a question. I lived in a rental on 39th street that year (arranged by Bonita). It's now underneath the front side of College Wesleyan Church.

I did get a couple calls that year in the night. One was a prank call from Paul Gorsline at something like 1am. I recognized the voice. He opened with something like "Who is this?" Groggy, I said "Joe." He then said "Joe who?" And I said, "Joe Mama," and I hung up.

Other interactions were more bizarre. Another phone call in the middle of the night was very bizarre. Then a student took my Deep Thoughts a little too far and left a pumpkin with a knife in it and a note that said "You" on my front porch (It's a deep thought).

10. As I said, I was able to teach an evening New Testament Survey in the Spring. That class had John Drury in it (Wes Pate, EJ, Brandon Schenck, Pam). My future wife had appeared in my door in early January. The class was full and she wondered if she could get in. I thought she was pretty cute. I told her I would need to check on the others in front of her first but I thought it was possible. By the time I got back to her she had decided to audit. She was in my age range and already had a bachelors degree, for the record. :-)

It was my second class in AC-150. Those were days before wireless, meaning that students would get really antsy in a three hour class. I would give plenteous breaks as necessary. I remember trying to be creative, trying to make the room into a map of the Mediterranean world. When I got to Thessalonica at the back of the room--and no one was looking at me--I realized my experiment had failed.

Angie and I would get married that summer. All of my colleagues came to Main Street United Methodist in Kokomo on August 1. I also gave a paper that summer at St. Andrews in Scotland. I went over a couple weeks early and hung out in my old stomping grounds in Durham. During that time, I also managed to meet Keith Drury, Jeremy Summers, and Rob Juilliard and climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain.

Good times! Feel free to contribute your memories or corrections in the comments!

[1] As of August 1, here is the cast of characters in STM.

• I am Dean. 
• Brian Bernius and David Vardaman are division chairs (Division of Practical Theology and Division of Religious and Ministerial Studies). Vardaman will likely be interim dean this year as I depart.
• Keith Springer and Jim Lo are still with us (as is Bonita as secretary). Keith is Christian Education. Jim is Global Ministries (although he was Intercultural Studies when he came back from being Dean of the Chapel in 2015, same year as I came back)
• Constance Cherry is our worship professor.
• Steve Horst and Scott Burson are our philosophy professors, although Scott also advises Sports Ministries.
• Charlie Alcock and Mandy Drury teach Youth Ministries, and Eddy Shigley also chimes in a little, although he is primarily KERN. Stacy Shaw is coming this fall to fill in for Mandy for three years while Mandy is on a grant.
• Sarah Farmer has just finished her first year in Community Development.
• Dave Smith has served this year as STM Ambassador, half time teaching, half time out in the churches.
• Jon Morgan does theology. Miranda Cruz does theology and church history.
• Elaine Bernius, along with Brian is Old Testament.
• Norm Wilson, along with Jim Lo, is Global Ministries.
• Judy (Huffman) Crossman is Pastoral Care and Counseling.
• David Ward (former Dean) is Homiletics.  

[2] I remember Mark Smith, Mark Demichael, Cindy Gunsalus, Suzanne Galer being in my "freshman class" that year as well, along with Melanie Kierstead, of course. Doug Daugherty and Tom Lehman were in that group as well.

[3] Joe was a very dynamic and entrepreneurial fellow. He set up a program called "LifeGrow" that involved a lot of VHS tapes of lectures covering the gamut of ministerial training. I remember the tapes being in a storage room. I think they were eventually sold to FLAME.

[4] I have a hard time remembering the lay out of Noggle when I came, although writing this has brought some aspects back into mind. Here is today's sketch: