Dining Service Workers Chase the Dream at Gordon
Alvarez "Marvin" Melendez pausing from work to humor the camera
People come to America looking for a better life. Some like Alvarez Melendez come across the border to provide for family back home. Others, like Pascal Huguet come across the ocean for the pursuit of happiness. Their journeys brought them too Gordon College.
Melendez and Huguet work for Gordon College dining services. Melendez has been employed for 11 years as a dishwasher and Huguet for nine years as a chef. They belong to what Jack Lawrence, Dining Services Manager, calls one of the most diverse departments on campus. Dining Services employs staff from Honduras, France, Japan and students from across the world. Immigrants are a common sight in kitchens here and often across country.
Melendez introduced himself as a “Spanish man” who “didn’t speak English too well.” In the food and service industries, employees like Melendez and Huguet only need to know conversational English. “It’s an easy job to grab when you come from a different country,” said Huguet. “You don’t need to learn all of the language.
Melendez came to the United States from Honduras and worked in New York City before coming north. “It was a big difference,” he said. “In New York you rush to live.” A niece’s phone call brought him from New York to Gordon College Dining Services. She worked at Gordon and called about an opening in 1998. Melendez now resides in Salem, MA, and enjoys New England’s quiet and slower pace. Many students and staff appreciate his work in the dish-room.
At Gordon, Melendez carries the nickname “Marvin.” Lawrence has known him the longest of any of his employees. Family matters to Melendez. His mother lives in New York, and he heads home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but concerns himself most with his father and son in Honduras.
“He has never forgotten his family in Honduras,” said Lawrence. Melendez sends money to his extended family, a process, according to Dr. Ruth Melkonian Hoover, professor of political studies at Gordon College, is typical of Honduran immigrants. Money that immigrants send back to Honduras accounts for a sizable portion of Honduras’ Gross Domestic Product, said Melkonian.
“My country is very poor,” said Melendez, “ Everyone comes [to America] looking for a better life.” Many Central Americans come to the U.S. seeking the same goal. The 2000 U.S. Census reports 2.2 million Central Americans residing in the country. Some, like Melendez, do well in the U.S.
While some immigrants come for money, others are drawn for different reasons. Huguet married an American, who brought him from France to America and began working at a yacht club in Marblehead, MA. He finished working there in 2000 when he responded to a Gordon advertisement in the paper. Following a successful interview with Lawrence, he stayed at Gordon. Huguet works as the assistant head chef.
“I’ve been here for nine years,” said Huguet. “I must be happy to be here.” Before coming to the United States, Huguet worked in Paris’s kitchens, a place, he described as a showcase of the world. He finds a bit of Paris in Gordon’s kitchens, where he works with students from across the globe. It’s the first time he’s worked with college students and says their age and heritage make them more fun to work with than the staff. People, according to Huguet, make Gordon unique.
Huguet mentioned that he will always be a cook. A love of cooking and good food makes his job enjoyable. Many students appreciate Huguet’s work, and enjoy working with him. Huguet’s French background engenders a passion for culture and food.
According to Lawrence, 15 per cent of dining services employees are “diverse.” Like Huguet and Melendez, Gordon employs people from across the world.
“It makes your life different when you know people from a different country,” said Huguet.
Steven Fletcher is a sophomore Communication Arts Major from China ME. He ascribes to the writing track of the Comm Arts Department.
A minute for Elements
by Steven Fletcher
Written by Jo Kadlecek
News writing has a well deserved reputation for bleakness and most people find newspapers drearier than a Seattle morning. They echo back to an age of black and white films and the occasional private investigator. Black type on grey paper fit easily into an age of color-blind media.
Newsprint finds fitting in much harder sitting between flashy magazines and beneath color television screens. Information, in the age of color television, disseminates like the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Each outlet firing off any information that fits into its proverbial revolver.
Americans love a good shootout. The western cowboy roots himself deeply in our cultural imagination. Information release then becomes a gun-fight, with newspapers slowly resembling the moron who brought a knife. The paper fights with a considerable handicap against television and the internet. People lose interest in printed stories.
Why, in the words of Walter Wood, a slick businessman and character from Jo Kadlecek’s A Minute Before Friday, are New Yorkers not interested in traditional newspapers? I think most people find newspapers bereft of life, and wonder if they should rest in peace. Black type lacks color and with color comes humanity and feeling. Newspapers fail at providing a striking image in the way television and even radio do.
Wood suggested adding “color” to the stories. Writing them in a way that would make them sell. His advice begins a slippery slope to tabloidism, shown clearly by reporter Jonna Lightfoot MacLaughlin’s fight to write a story about the China Town Jesus Center. Yet Wood stands starkly opposed. He finds a story about rallying wiccans or “witches” more interesting. Each story is unusual, yet only one is “sensual.” Only one has enough dirt about it to sell newspapers.
His method works in the short race. Lightfoot’s paper, the Clarion survives. But the paper reduces its reporters to mudslingers. Regardless of what Wood says, there’s a better way to make the newspaper more immediate.
The answer is not telling better stories, but telling stories better. Reporters can write hard news and attract readers. They need not write entertainment. A reporter needs to make his information engaging and relevant. The Elements of Journalism pushes this point home. The stories we tell aren’t as bleak as type. We don’t need to tell them that way.
Made known
In 1963″Bull” Connor, Birmingham Alabama’s commissioner of Public Safety, assaulted non-violent protesters with dogs, and the fire department. Reporters caught his acts on camera, and propelled them into American homes, making the civil rights movement tangible. What one does in secret will be made known.
A&L #1
The Complete History of America: Abridged
By Steven Fletcher
An off-kilter rendition of the national anthem began Gordon College
The Complete History of America: Abridged
Theater Department’s production of The Complete History of America: Abridged, written by Adam Long, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor. The play satires American history, covering nearly everything from Amerigo Vespucci to George W. Bush.
Directed by Jeffery S. Miller, chairman of the theater arts department at Gordon College, History features theater majors Benjamin Drake ’10, Sarah Romig ’12, Kyle Huck ’10, Alec Lewis ’11 and Jasmine Myers ‘11. These actors have played in past Gordon productions such as last year’s Joyful Noise and Our Town.
Miller wrote in his director’s note, “The Complete History of America: Abridged, despite its skewering of any and all things American, is a wicked and wry celebration of a country decidedly flawed but astonishingly unique in human history.”
The production fires off comedy at a breakneck pace. Actors could change roles and characters at any given moment. History fills the Margaret Jensen Theater with pun and poetry, drawing the audience in as part of the gag.
Actors call on the crowd for questions, douse the seats with a few bursts from a super-soaker, and hand out Famous Women of America trading cards. “You’re assaulted,” said Miller. The front row seats are indeed splash-down seats. Unlike most plays, which tell the audience a story, History brings them in as additional actors.
“Every single audience is different,” said Huck, mentioning that the actors never know what to expect from the crowd. This play gives its actors the freedom of improvisation; no two shows are identical. “It’s going to keep getting better,” said Miller.
The cast described the production as a necessary departure from the sentimentality that often accompanies American history. “It’s really great that we are able to poke fun at our own country,” said Jones.
Miller wrote, “The biting sting of satire is a kind of occasionally needed rebellion against complacent, inhuman, and even oppressive cultural ideas.”
The play showed on Friday, Oct. 22 and Saturday, Oct. 23, and will show again on the Oct. 27 and 31. Student admission is $7.
Tartan Sports #2 ::Volleyball::
Ruth Rosentrater
By Steven Fletcher
Gordon College women’s volleyball began preseason on the 19th of August. They said farewell last year to senior players and welcomed new athletes and a new coach – Ruth Rosentrater. Coach Rosentrater marks the third coach of women’s volleyball in the past three years years.
Rosentrater began her first season switching the team around, getting the players trying different spots. “I like the way she started preseason,” said Megan Spurgin, a junior communication arts major and veteran of the volleyball team. Spurgin appreciated Rosentrater’s methods, feeling that they benefited the new team. Spurgin described Rosentrater as approachable. As coach she made an effort to be available to the team. “She brought new eyes to the game.” Rosentrater is passionate about volleyball, the only sport she has played competitively.
“God gave me opportunities in volleyball that I didn’t deserve,” said Rosentrater, who was part of several ministry programs involving the sport. She was in Israel with Athletes in Action and in Sibera with Push The Rock ministries. She coached at Oswego University in New York for two years before coming to Gordon.
Rosentrater said she felt called to coach at Gordon and found herself happy with the Christian college environment. “I came on campus and it was a perfect fit,” said Rosentrater. She felt welcomed by Gordon’s athletic department and her team. “I couldn’t ask for a better group of girls,” she said. Rosentrater admires her team’s drive to improve in all aspects of life and their positive attitude despite losing the season’s first two games.
Coach Rosentrater hopes to place fourth in the conference, and at two wins and two losses, her team has more than a chance. Rosentrater’s new eyes pulled a new team together, and so far, things are going well. `
Tartan News Article #1 ::Kromophone
Technicolor Ears: The Kromophone Project
By Steven Fletcher
Gordon Students Zachary Reynolds ’10, and Zachary Capalbo, ’12 traveled to Tokyo
from flickr
on Sept. 30. They participated in the 5th Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy Conference at the University of Tokyo — on Oct. 1-2 Reynolds and Capalbo presented “Kromophone,” a sensory substitution device.
Reynolds and Capalbo, with the help of Dr. Brian Glenney, a philosophy professor at Gordon, designed the Kromophone.
Their project began in the ’09 spring semester when Glenney started work with Reynolds, a philosophy major, on sensory substitution devices.
They worked primarily with the vOICe program to determine the possibility of perceiving shapes without color. Toward the end of the semester, Glenney introduced Capalbo, a computer science and philosophy major, into the project. He looked at the vOICe program and said, “I can do this better.”
The vOICe program sees the world in black and white. It works by observing the contrast of light and shadow, and relates the information with computerized sound. The device allows a person to navigate without vision. The Kromophone, like the vOICe, translates sight into sound, but it is, according to Capalbo and Glenney’s paper, Hearing Color, “a color sonification device,’ — an instrument that lets a person hear color.
The device consists of a pair of blacked-out ski goggles, webcam, and headphones. When the Kromophone focuses on a specific color, it makes a corresponding sound through the headphones. Capalbo displayed the prototype Kromophone at last year’s undergraduate research display. “[I had a] rough version that didn’t work,” said Capalbo. “What I had was proof of concept.” Glenney wrote his dissertation on whether color could be perceived independent of shape and took interest in the Kromophone. Capalbo said “ Glenney is interested in anything.”
Kromophone was constructed last summer.
Capalbo coded the program daily from 8 to 4:30 as part of an internship with Glenney. His internship resulted in a working Kromophone, which he described as marginally useful. David Botticello ’11, a history major, navigated Boston’s Harvard Square while wearing the device without an accident. Glenney said that Botticello learned how to use the Kromophone in four hours, unlike other devices, which can take up to forty hours.
Glenney and Capalbo have hopes for the Kromophone’s uses.
“The most obvious,” said Capalbo, “is the potential to help people who are losing their vision navigate.”
Glenney noted that such a device could allow blind and visually impaired persons to paint.
Capalbo said that he could build a better SSD, and Kromophone, according to him, is one of the few, if not the only SSD to use color.
As for his claim, Glenney said, “I think he proved it to a lot of people in Tokyo.”
caveat: Written for the News Section of the Tartan Newspaper in October 2009
Journalism Class series #5 :: Convocation::
Gordon Alumni Honored at Convocation
Gordon College's A.J. Gordon Chapel
By Maggie Lafferty and Steven Fletcher
The A.J. Gordon Chapel resounded with a bagpiper’s rendition of Amazing Grace, signaling the start of the college’s homecoming festivities. Echoing pipes served as a prelude for the 2009 Alumni Awards convocation held on October 9th where five graduates of both Gordon and Barrington College received awards.
The convocation began with the Alumnus of the Year award, given to Reverend Eugene Neville, a ’69 Barrington graduate. He serves as pastor at the Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Brockton, MA. Neville created several ministries while serving; a prison ministry was most notable. He gave a short message on Psalm 27:4, telling the audience about his desire to “dwell in the house of the lord all his life.”
Herbert Boyd, a ’52 Gordon Graduate received the A.J. Gordon Missionary Service Award for 55 years of church planting in the Netherlands. For his service Queen Beatrix made him a member of the Order of Orange-Nassau, the highest civilian honor in 2008. At the convocation, he said a chapel speaker inspired his work in Holland expressed to the audience “listening is hearing and doing something with it.”
Shella SaintCyr, a ’03 graduate Gordon graduate received The Young Alumna of the Year. SaintCyr serves as a social worker in both Boston and Chicago. Her message to the audience imparted a strong hope in God’s faithfulness.
The final award, the Winfred Currie Alumni Award in Education, was given to Dr. Gary Schmitt, a ’72 Gordon graduate. Schmitt writes young adult literature and teaches English at Calvin College. Schmitt arrived at the convocation just moments after Mering announced his award, but came not a moment too soon to speak. Schmitt told the audience his Gordon education reminds him God is in the details.
The Jack Good Community Service Award winner, Melissa Winchell a ’99 Gordon graduate, could not attend the convocation. She serves at Lynn Classical High Schools in Lynn, MA.
“The award winners are just the tip of the iceberg of what people from Gordon and Barrington are doing all over the world,” said Mering. Gordon’s Alumni awards convocations draw award winners from the Philippines, Romania, the Netherlands and others.
Good Night and Good Luck Comments
Concerning Elements and Edward
By Steven Fletcher
Good Night and Good Luck, a film about Edward R. Murrow
Gorge Clooney’s “Good Night and Good Luck” (2005) makes a compelling case for vetted and trustworthy news-writing and broadcasting. The film tells the story of Edward R. Murrow’s report on Senator Joseph McCarthy. The story illuminates the epitome of journalism as a discipline of verification and art of making information engaging, relevant, and honest.
People called Murrow the “most trusted man in America.”. His news came with an objective method, not with objectivity. The report on McCarthy lacks objectivity when seen through the eyes of “neutral” fairness. Murrow believed McCarthy a threat to democracy and foundational American beliefs. His perspective lacked any smoked glass. One doesn’t find many anchors requesting to read from a script to ensure the accuracy of their information, in this film, Murrow does.
He doesn’t sensationalize, and the content of his report on McCarthy belonged to the Senator himself. Murrow composed the account of McCarthy’s own words and images. Before the images aired, he told the audience precisely the purpose of the images. Murrow’s method stood transparent. He let his viewers know his intent, his credibility rested on transparency.
Murrow’s journalism then, is as Kovach and Rosentiel, authors of The Elements of Journalism, write “a discipline of verification.” Murrow’s most explicit use of an objective method exists in the McCarthy report itself. He added little to what had occurred in McCarthy’s own hearings. Murrow reports t in a way that both engages the audience and makes relevant his material.
Murrow stands as an example of what a journalist needs to do in the age of modern communication. His words cannot insulate, or entertain for the sheer purpose of attracting viewers. A journalist must not say what is merely interesting, but make interesting what needs to be said.
caveat: Article posted on October 6th 2009. From the Hard Copy Blog
Journalism Class Series #4
Rabbis on the Psalms
Rabbi Baruch HaLevi lectures at Gordon College on Psalm 145
By Steven Fletcher
Gordon College’s four part convocation series “Rabbis on the Psalms,” began on September 11, 09.
Rabbi Baruch HaLevi, a self-described “pulpit rabbi” and leader of the Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, MA, began the series with a lecture on Psalm 145, a psalm central to the Jewish community.
“All you need to know is in this Psalm,” said HaLevi. Psalm 145 is an acrostic poem, which he described as the A to Z of what you need to know to live your life. The Psalm is incorporated into each of the Jewish daily prayers.
Dr. Marvin Wilson, professor of biblical studies at Gordon College engineered the series; continuing Gordon’s 40-year legacy of inviting Jewish Scholars and Rabbis to speak on campus.
“Every student needs to learn some things about interfaith relations,” said Wilson. “When we bring Jewish Scholars to campus, it helps us understand better how to build relations with one of the largest religious minorities in America.” Wilson believes that Christians can learn from Jews, and vise versa. Gordon College takes Christian-Jewish relations “very seriously” according to Wilson.
“It’s a bit audacious for the Church to take the psalms from the Jews and interpret them back to the Jews,” said Wilson. He understands that in order to comprehend the Old Testament more fully, it is necessary to listen to the people who wrote it.
caveat: Article written on September 24th 2009, taken from the Hard Copy Published Works Blog.
Lane Series #1 ::J.Ray::
Behind The Counter:
Jonathan Ray
By Steven Fletcher
Jon Ray, ’12 a Foreign Languages and secondary education major from Rhode Island never worked with any frequency before coming to Gordon College. Now, he dons a blue polo shirt with a tan hat, and takes a daily walk to the Lane Student center. He works everywhere in the cafeteria, preparing pizza, compiling sandwiches and fighting with the dishwasher.
This year marks the second year that Ray has worked for Lane Dining Services, and he maintains a positive opinion of the workplace. “It’s been good,” said Ray. “It’s a great place to start out, even for somebody who’s just looking to earn some money on campus and on a schedule that works around classes.” Dining services is primarily staffed by student workers, providing jobs from food preparation to pot-washing, and every hour from six in the morning to eleven at night. Ray worked for most of his freshman year and doesn’t remember a time when the cafeteria was just a place for eating.
“There’s a lot more going on at Lane than just food service,” said Ray. “There’s interaction with other workers and the chefs.” Working in dining services provides the opportunity to grow in his ability to work with other people – and learn a bit about cooking.
“I did absolutely no cooking whatsoever before coming to Gordon,” said Ray. “ I’ve made mistakes, some more momentous than others, but its great because when I go home, I can make a pizza.” Working with “people who actually know what they’re doing”, as Ray puts it, has helped him in learning, and he describes his experience as “positive enough.”
“It’s been a lot of fun,” said Ray, “but, you make mistakes, and then you own up to them, like catching the grill on fire.”
