Mars Hill College News

MARS HILL COLLEGE CLUBS PROMOTE DARFUR FUNDRAISER

As the academic year began, author Daoud Hari challenged the students of Mars Hill College to make a difference for the suffering people of Darfur. Now, students have taken up that challenge -- but they need your help.
Hari visited the campus as the speaker for Opening Convocation to discuss his memoir, “The Translator.” The book, chosen by faculty as the summer reading selection, gives a first person account of the horrors of widespread genocide against the tribal people of Hari’s native Sudan. Since 2003, hundreds of thousands of African Sudanese have been killed in Darfur, largely by the Sudanese government. Another 2.2 million people -- mostly women and children -- are crowded into camps surrounded by a barren landscape. In response to Hari’s call to action, Mars Hill’s Student Government Association has organized a campus-wide project to sell Berkeley Darfur Stoves. These high-efficiency stoves make it easier and safer for families to prepare food as they live in the refugee camps of Darfur.

According to Mars Hill senior Kasey Boston, the Darfur Stove project was chosen by the student government association as a way to get the various campus organizations involved in one large campus-wide volunteer project. While the tribespeople of Darfur are the main beneficiaries, the SGA has made the project fun for students by encouraging a competition between organizations. The target goal for the campus is at least 50 stoves.

“The idea came from Daoud Hari's book.” Boston said. “We knew that so many students read the book and were deeply touched by it and yet the students had no outlet to do something about the terrible things they had read.” Boston said the project gives everyone who purchases a stove a tangible way to have a direct impact in the lives of Darfur’s people.
The Berkeley Darfur ultra high-efficiency cook stove uses up to 75% less fuel than a standard cooking fire or other stoves. This minimizes the time that refugees, often women and girls, have to venture outside the safety of the camps in search of fuel. These trips to search for fuel can take individuals miles from their camps and they often end in violence.
In addition to its efficiency, the Berkeley Stove can be built in Sudan by locals, enabling them to earn extra income. Other advantages of the stove are that it emits less smoke than other stoves, minimizing smoke inhalation for families in close quarters; it is suited to local high-temperature and high-wind outdoor cooking methods and helps the denuded environment recover from severe overharvesting.
According to SGA president Grace Kim, the Darfur Stove Project shows Mars Hill College students and community participants that awareness of a problem is insufficient to make a positive impact.
“Knowledge without action has no power,” Kim said. “It is part of a well-rounded education to be aware of difficult and dangerous situations throughout the world. That knowledge is important, but by adopting this project, we wanted to say that knowledge alone isn’t enough. Our SGA wanted to be an example to our fellow students and to our community that, unless you move from knowledge to action, you cannot help those who are suffering.”
When participants “buy” a stove from a student at Mars Hill College, they are actually subsidizing $20 of the stove’s $30 total production cost. To ensure that stove recipients will use and value their stove, and not merely re-sell the metal for scrap, refugee families in most cases are asked to contribute $10 themselves.
In addition to selling stoves, students at Mars Hill are selling t-shirts for $12, and profits will go toward stove purchases. Community participants will also be able to purchase stoves as Christmas gifts in honor of a loved one on Dec. 1st at a "Gifts that Give Back" sale in the Bentley Fellowship Hall.

For general information, go to thehungersite.com; and for information on purchasing a stove, contact any Mars Hill student, or contact Kasey Boston at s000141908@mhc.edu or 727-455-1023.

OPEN HOUSE AND DEDICATION OF RENOVATIONS TO WALL AND
FERGUSON COURTYARD

The public is invited to an Open House and Dedication of the newly renovated Wall Science Building, and the adjoining Lion’s Eye Courtyard on the campus of Mars Hill College, Saturday, November 7, beginning at 11 am in the Courtyard.

Wall Science Building, which has housed Mars Hill’s science facilities since it was built in 1940, was renovated during the 2008-09 academic year. Classes resumed in the building with the beginning of the 2009-2010 academic year. Wall is connected to the Ferguson Math and Science Center, which was completed in fall of 2008. The completion of the Ferguson/Wall complex doubled the space at the college devoted to science and math, and provided a new and updated location for Mars Hill’s fashion and interior merchandising department.

Lunch will follow at noon on the Wren Patio. To make reservations for lunch contact Barbara Hassen at bhassen@mhc.edu, or at 828/689-1102.

BAILEY MOUNTAIN CLOGGERS WIN TWO MORE NATIONAL TITLES

As many times as it happens, it never gets old.

The Bailey Mountain Cloggers, Mars Hill College’s precision clogging team, added the 17th and 18th national titles to their credit last weekend at the American Clogging Hall of Fame National Championships. BMC won national distinction as Overall Traditional Precision Team and as Overall Show/Artistic Expression Team at the competition, held October 23-25, at the Stompin Grounds in Maggie Valley.

Dancers Nena Bryant and Blake Sanders also brought home an overall show duet title.

According to General Manager Danielle Plimpton, the Overall Traditional Precision Team award was presented for the team’s ability to dance with accurate and parallel movements. Judges also looked for advanced choreography, showmanship, energy, costuming, skill level, and the control and skill of the caller.

The Overall Show/Artistic Expression Team award was based on originality, overall togetherness, difficulty of footwork, stage use, creativity, costuming, and music selection.

Plimpton said BMC has worked extremely hard since August to put together 13 new routines to use at the ACHF Championships. “The Bailey Mountain Cloggers continue to win national championships despite the special challenge of essentially having a new team makeup every year. The team comes together with a whole new class of freshmen each fall, perfects new routines and excels while competing against teams that have been doing the same routines with the same dancers for years.”

This year’s BMC team is especially talented and dedicated, Plimpton said. She described the ACHF competition as one with an atmosphere of fun team spirit.

“The competition was very close with other teams this year and we were very nervous as a whole,” she said. “Everyone at the competition seemed to be rooting for our team, and it made the entire win, much more important to everyone. We also had some tears of joy, and some students who wouldn’t let go of the trophy!”

Dustin Presley a sophomore BMC dancer said, “I am very proud of how the team came together this weekend, and danced as a family. Everyone cheered for everyone the entire night. We were all so supportive of not only our team, but every team that danced.”

Clogger CJ Tate said “I am so proud of being a part of BMC, winning these titles means the world to me.”
 

MARS HILL COLLEGE HOSTS TRIP TO SAN CRISTOBAL, MEXICO

Mars Hill College, in conjunction with the San Cristóbal de las Casas Committee of Asheville Sister Cities, will be hosting a trip to the Mexican state of Chiapas, May 9 through 18, 2010. This trip is open to the public.

Places to be visited are San Cristóbal de las Casas with its rich colonial history and considerable indigenous influence. The tour also includes the waterfalls at Misol-Ha and Agua Azul and the Mayan ruins of Toniná, Palenque, and Bonampak. The indigenous villages of San Juan Chamula and Zinacantán are also on the itinerary as is the 2400-acre national park at Lagunas de Montebello, on the Guatemala border.

The price per person, which includes round-trip airfare, lodging with breakfasts, and all entrance fees is $2417.00 but the cost will decrease with more participants. For information, contact Dr. Greg Clemons, Professor of Spanish at Mars Hill College at gclemons@mhc.edu or (828) 689-1120.