In those years the university was trying to encourage faculty, especially new faculty, to buy property in and around the university. IWU was in a period of major growth and so cleverly wanted to soak up as much property around the university as possible for possible expansion. So IWU would give a $5000 loan-grant if you settled near the university. Each year you stayed, a $1000 of the grant was forgiven.
This property expansion of the university was a bit of a sore spot with some in the community. The first time I visited Marion College in 1987, Nebraska Street ran right in front of the Noggle Christian Ministries building and the old student center was across the street. Neither were there when I came to work in the fall of 1997. (Anyone know the year it was torn down?)
I remember a session in the PAC in spring 2001 (I think) with then mayor William Henry. He complained about the loss in property taxes because of IWU soaking up properties. David Riggs, I think in his first year at the college, pointed out that people like him would not be in Marion, Indiana if it weren't for the college. In other words, the "paying customers" that IWU was bringing to town offset whatever loss in property taxes there might be.
For a long time, there was a narrow strip of grass intruding into the parking lot north of what is now Elder Hall. Someone in California owned the strip and either refused to sell it or jacked the price up so high that Barnes refused to buy it. Eventually, Barnes just paved over it anyway. There was another man in between the college and what is now College Wesleyan who did not want to sell. Eventually he was the only house left.
2. In the fall of 1999, Steve Lennox became the Chair of the Division of Religion and Philosophy. For the next two years I would allegedly become the Graduate Director of the MA program. I taught Joshua-Judges-and Ruth as a one week intensive for that program in February 2000. I hate to say that the program continued to dwindle during that time period. The secretary of the MA program during that time was Pam Sempel.
3. The biggest change at IWU my third year was that Dr. Melanie Kierstead left IWU for Asbury College. Her departure opened up the door for me to become a New Testament professor. I still taught philosophy, but now my schedule was full of new fun courses:
a. I now began to teach New Testament Survey regularly.
b. In the fall of 1999, I taught Hebrews and General Epistles for the first time. By the way, John Drury often says he "majored in Schenck." He not only had me for NT Survey, philosophy, and ethics, but for Latin, Hebrews, Acts, and more. He minored in Bence.
c. I taught Latin for the first time. I used to say that, if you were willing to teach it as an overload, you could teach anything at IWU. These sorts of classes added great value to the students and didn't cost the university as long as all the electives on offer had enough students in them. With students now coming in with massive credit hours from high school and with our three year KERN program, the opportunity for these sorts of courses has pretty much dried up.
d. In the spring I believe I taught Acts for my first and last time (the new David Smith would arrive the next year and teach it). I remember some of my colleagues being a little concerned when some of my students came to reject a date for Acts before AD70 out of hand, as I do. :-)
e. In the spring I taught an honors section of New Testament Survey. The Honors College had started my second year (1998). At that time the Honors College had the same courses as other students but took them at an advanced level.
For a long time, I dreamed of offering advanced OT and NT intros for all students to be able to take, especially ministry students. I also dreamed of basic Bible courses for all students that did not require Methods of Bible Study first. Neither ever happened, largely because we just didn't have the margin.
4. One of the most exciting developments at this time was my foray into web pages. As you would expect Keith Drury was an early adopter of this new fangled thing called the internet. In fact, when he was at Wesleyan HQ in the early 90s, he tried to get them to put all of the Wesleyan curricular materials online for free. Imagine if they had. The primary curriculum available for churches would have been Wesleyan. Imagine the influence we would have had on American theology.
But as you might expect, the response was from one person, "Then how will we make money off it?" And from another, "The internet is a fad."
Wikipedia would come out the next year (January 2001). To most faculty the reaction was condescending--"A crowd sourced encyclopedia? Why anyone can change it. Hmmph. Definitely don't put it in a bibliography for me!"
For people like Keith and I, the implications were staggering. How long did it used to take to create an encyclopedia? And how limited in scope were they! Yes, there were the jokesters that fiddled with the entries (although that fad seems pretty much over). But the level of scholarship on Wikipedia is astounding. I offer this page as a random sample.
A paradigm shift was happening from hierarchy to networking. I offer this book as a foray into the shift. I have been frustrated from time to time with the persistent academic penchant for hierarchy and symmetry. It stunts growth unnecessarily. Every once and a while I'll think to myself, "Didn't we make this shift in the early 2000s?"
5. Keith was learning HTML in those early days and I jumped on the bandwagon too. Soon I was writing my New Testament Survey book and putting portions online. I had webpages for some of my classes. When I came to Marion, I was using iquest, but soon I took out kenschenck.com. My site is not current, but I suspect some of those early webpages are still lurking there in the hidden recesses of the internet.
As is usually the case, it would not be too long before the software made knowledge of this level of HTML unnecessary. For a few years the university gave me a license for Dreamweaver, since I was one of the few who was engaged in this sort of web use. In the years before YouTube, I made a few videos and put them on another website I took out, cafetutor.com. Here is the earliest one, now on YouTube.
At one point later on I had made so many videos on my laptop that it crashed. I remember getting a scolding from a VPAA who isn't at IWU any more. I think it was the second time in two years that I needed a replacement. :-)
YouTube came out in 2005. At first they only allowed 10 minute videos by people like me, so I didn't use it much at first. Then around 2013 they opened the floodgates, and I now have 931 videos up.
6. Another exciting addition this year was the Fall Religion Colloquium. For a number of years the Division of Religion and Philosophy would have a colloquium in which the religion professors (and then later a student) would present papers on a particular topic. We largely surrendered this function to the Honors College once it began to invite in top name speakers each year.
I gave one of the first papers that fall--"The Bible as an Object of Knowledge." I remember that we met in the old College Wesleyan Church (where Ott is now). The purpose of the paper was to show that what the Bible says or a biblical worldview is not a self-evident or self-contained thing. The meaning of the Bible does not come pre-loaded on our hard drive. It is something that has to be inputted into our system, making it an object of knowledge like other things we have to interpret.
Reason is thus always involved in our interpretation of the Bible, and the meaning/appropriation of the Bible is potentially ambiguous for three reasons: 1) words themselves are polyvalent by nature, susceptible to multiple possible meanings, 2) we have to connect the meanings of the individual books to each other, and 3) we have bridge the gap between that time and our time.
7. The fall of 1999 saw the launching of UNV-180, World Changers, largely under the guiding hand of Jerry Pattengale that first year, with Bud Bence also a main speaker. Students would meet in a large session on Monday and Wednesday. Then there would be break-out groups on Friday. I was a break-out leader that first year.
In keeping with the Martin tradition, Jerry gave the course a heavy worldview emphasis. The following year when Bud was primarily in charge (2000-2001), it would have a more theological emphasis. I think Brad Garner eventually took it over and gave it an even more "welcome to college" emphasis.
8. In terms of my personal doings, I taught my first FLAME course that spring on the grounds of Frankfort Camp. I taught General Church History. I wasn't really qualified to teach it but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Then in June Jim Maness invited me to do a FLAME course on 1 Corinthians at the Wisconsin campgrounds. I strangely and selfishly had them read Wayne Meeks' The First Urban Christians.
In the fall the Society of Biblical Literature was in Boston. I gave a paper to the Historical Jesus section on the historical Jesus and the afterlife. It was well-received. N. T. Wright came up at the end and requested a copy. Angie, Stef, Stacy, and baby Tom came with me. Angie's parents came with us too. It was a memorable trip.
9. I believe the picture below is from the spring of 2000. I am puzzled by the fact that Melanie is in it. I believe Steve Horst is in it because he was adjuncting philosophy for a couple years before he came on full time. I see that I have forgotten also to mention Phil Bence, who filled in for the Division for the 1999-2000 year.
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