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His job titles range from stage director to director of Credo to professor, but after this semester, Randall Burghart will say goodbye to his many titles and goodbye to Cornerstone.

“Cornerstone was, for a long time, a really joyous place to be,” Burghart said.

This joyous experience began when he attended Cornerstone as a student, and he found some of his professors to be “significant mentors.”

“They modeled exactly what I wanted to be … once I ended up teaching,” he said. “[It] was genuine care for me, certainly as a student and a musician.”

Among other professors he mentioned, he said his trumpet teacher Greg Good was more like a Zen master to him because of the respect Burghart had for him and the example Good set.

Burghart said he was not only held accountable “in the name of some abstract idea of excellence, but a mutual accountability with each other before God.”

He said his professors taught him a teacher does not just dispense knowledge, but also invites people into the space in their life in which they can flourish.

“I have found in the practice of music to bring life and flourishing to my community,” Burghart said. “If we aren’t offering what we have as a gift, I wonder whether we are ever able to serve.”

Not only has Burghart gained knowledge from his mentors when he attended college, he has also found “intellectual iron” in the persons of Michael Stevens, professor of English, Matthew Bonzo, associate professor of philosophy, and Michael VanDyke, associate professor of English.

“I have to thank my dear friends Stevens, Bonzo and VanDyke who have taught me so much,” Burghart said as he choked up, almost unable to continue.

In addition to Stevens, Bonzo and VanDyke, Burghart said Rick Railsback, assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies, was also a valued colleague and mentor.

“His style of scholarship and his breadth and depth of … erudition is quite an inspiration to me,” he said.

The final mentor Burghart thanked was Dave Landrum, “whose easy-going manner made him so approachable,” he said.

Burghart also mentioned how much the students at CU have had an impact on him individually and on his family.

“Cornerstone has been a really joyous part of my family life,” he said.

Over the years, Burghart has had more than 100 students visit his house and said, “Nothing is more heartbreaking to face the prospect that my children aren’t going to be exposed to that anymore.”

“There is no efficient formula for the relationship between a student and a teacher,” he said. But he said nothing can replace sitting with each other face to face and communing with each other around great ideas.

“I have had some incredible students whose inquisitive spirits, thirst for knowledge and love of music making had made the task of teaching and all the things that go with it pure joy,” Burghart said.

He named several of these students; Lauren Root, Nathan Reynolds, CU graduate Elizabeth McDaniel, Megan Tibbits, Rachel Schaefer, Kyle Juresich and Reagan Boomershine. Most of these students he worked with during “Little Women,” CU’s musical last year.

These students have not only touched his life, but Burghart also affected their lives.

Sophomore Reagan Boomershine, who has been influenced by Burghart in fine arts class, Chorale, Credo and “Seussical the Musical” in addition to “Little Women,” said, “He’s a really strong father figure. He really has a heart for students.”

“He’s shown me what our job as Christian artists is and how we should cultivate our skills and use them for the Lord, not for ourselves,” Boomershine said.

While she said Burghart has taught her a lot about music, that knowledge has taken “the back burner” to what she has learned from him spiritually.

Another student who has been touched by Burghart is Junior Megan Tibbits.

“Burghart is a light to this campus,” Tibbits said. “The way he loves his students is so evident. His heart shows through his work.”

“I have been blessed by how much he cares for his students individually,” Tibbits said. “Burghart asks about our lives. He is sensitive to our needs outside of the classroom. He invites us over for parties.”

Tibbits said she had been “inspired by his intelligence and his wisdom … intrigued by his stories … [and] grown in music by watching his leadership.

Even though Burghart must leave the place where he has grown so much, affected many and been touched by so many individuals, he has still learned several things as he faces a new season of his life.

“Life isn’t fair,” Burghart said. He has learned there is a time to downsize as he joins the other 12 percent of Michigan residents unemployed, and he said it has not been a fun lesson to learn.

However, he said, “It is also a great opportunity to turn and learn to trust in God. I’ve not lost a minute of sleep [with] anxious thoughts over the future.”

And through his overall experience at CU, he has learned, “The best any of us can do is pour our lives into other people.”

Tibbits believes he had done so and said, “He wears his love on his sleeve, and it blesses everyone he encounters.”

Burghart attended CU from 1989 to 1994 and has worked at CU since 1995, but because of harsh economic times and school cuts, he will not be able to experience CU much longer.

Since every student and faculty member on Cornerstone’s campus has a laptop, Technology Support keeps busy with computer repairs. Some of the ways the laptops end up in Tech Support are not only amusing, but unbelievable.

Most of these cases are because something is spilled on the laptop, someone forgot where they left their laptop, or someone forgot their laptop was a laptop for a few seconds too long.

Bryan Johnston, director of information systems, works at Tech Support, along with Jason Bowers, helpdesk manager; Andrew Bishop, lead technology support specialist; James VanBemmelen, technology support specialist (2nd shift); and Tom Symons, technology support specialist.

They compiled a list of laughable tales: “Top Ten Reasons” computers have been brought into Tech Support.

At CU, there are many faculty members, staff and students with small children. Some have brought their computers into Tech Support with several missing keys.

“Generally they turn their head for a minute, and the kid has pulled off half-a-dozen keys,” a Tech Support staff said.

Tech Support said they have seen a number of computers with something spilled all over them, but this is one of the crazier ones:

Staff said, “A student brought her laptop in full of melted chocolate. There was melted chocolate all over the inside, on the keys and stuck in the fan.”

One CU student, who served in Iraq as a soldier, brought back a pile of sand as a souvenir—in his laptop.

“We opened it up, and it was full of sand,” staff said.

“A student brought their computer in covered in wax. They left a candle burning next to it. The candle was bumped, and it spilled all over the keyboard and screen. It then cooled and turned solid. It was a mess and embedded under the keys,” one of the Tech Support staff members said.

More than once students have set their laptops on the top of their cars, but then they forget about them. When the car takes off, the computer slides off and falls to its demise.

“A member of Cornerstone personnel fell down [the] stairs with laptop. Both were injured,” Tech Support said, with a hint of humor.

Many students at CU like to keep fish as pets in their dorm rooms. However, they should be careful the next time they leave their computer unattended next to their fish bowl.

“A student had their laptop near a fish bowl. The student returned to find that the fish had jumped out and landed on the keyboard. It brought water with it, and the water fried the computer,” one staff member said.

To personalize their laptops, many CU students put stickers on their computers of favorite bands, causes they support and other such things. One student took it a step further.

“We had a student who carved his name into the lid of his computer with a knife,” Tech Support said.

CU’s campus experiences a lot of rain. What do some students do if they forgot their umbrella?

“Nearly every spring we see a student or two who has their computer open and held over their head like an umbrella,” one of the staff said.

A student was in a car accident with their laptop sitting in their back seat.

“The computer was thrown and crushed. It ended up in an “L” shape, a 90 degree bend,” another member said.

According to Michael Young, professor of business and division chair, the emphasis was eliminated from the business department because it did not make it through evaluation by the undergraduate academic council (UAC) in charge of what programs at CU are added or cut.

Part of this evaluation, provost By Baylis said, was the amount of faculty for the degree and “the idea of sports management or marketing could be viewed as part of marketing and management skills.” Since this was the case and there was only one full-time faculty member for the emphasis, eliminating the program was the best choice, he said.

“If you are a good marketing student, and you have a little bit of sports acumen and sports course work, one should be able to be successful in sports marketing and the same for sports management,” Baylis said. Thus, having a specific emphasis is not necessary to have a career in sports management or marketing.

But in the fall 2009 catalogue, a sports management or marketing track will be offered.

“It was felt that it would benefit students if they have some kind of credential,” the provost said. Students could already choose to focus their electives in sports, but by adding the track, it gives the students “some way of identifying what they were doing already,” Baylis said.

The differences between a track and emphasis are few because both are focusing students’ electives in one area and giving it a name for about 12 credit hours, according to Baylis.

But by having a track, “Students will have a way of validating the statement ‘I studied in sports management (or marketing),’” said Baylis.

Young said with this the sports management or marketing track will appear on the student’s transcript. In addition to it showing up on the transcript, students taking the track would focus their electives in four sports courses.

The four courses are Sports Marketing and Sales, Introduction to Sports Management, Sports Media Relations & Event Management and Sports in Society. All of these are new courses at CU except the introduction course, which changed from a kinesiology course to a management course.

While Baylis said it is OK to label what an individual is focusing on, it is more important to gain hands on experience in the field you are studying.

“An internship in that area can be of much greater assistance,” Baylis said.

Dave Grube, athletic director, teaches sports management and marketing classes.

“When he teaches, his class has always required a practicum,” Young said, speaking of Grube. This provides the hands-on experience Baylis is looking for within the track.

In fact, three of the four classes require some sort of practicum. Introduction to Sports Management is the only one that does not require one.

“When being interviewed for a job, it’s good to be able to tell [about your experience],” Young said.

Grube is not the only professor who teaches these courses. Mike Riemersma, CU women’s basketball assistant coach and Champions of Character Representative, also teaches some of these courses.

After giving students the recognition for the area they are studying in, the program was also brought back because around 25 percent of the student body at CU is involved in intercollegiate or intramural sports, Young said.

He said prospective students have also shown an interest in this program. Five students visiting this past fall chose the sports management or marketing track.

Thus, Young said, “I believe there is a demand for this.”

As one of the CU urban ministry opportunities, sophomore Danielle Westmaas, along with other students Courtney Grek, Rebecca Boblett and Lynette Musser, drives to downtown Grand Rapids each Tuesday night to Urban Family Ministries on Eastern Avenue.

The main part of the evening involves helping the children with crafts, according to team leader Westmaas. She  said the evening begins with a game of hide-and-seek.

After the game, the kids and volunteers delve into a variety of crafts from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Westmaas said she first became involved with Urban Family after working at a camp for inner city children last summer. She fell in love with the culture and the children.

“I was actually at Civitas, and Urban Family had a booth and Emma [Rosauer, senior and CU’s urban ministries coordinator] was there,” Westmaas said.

Civitas is an event on campus every year where nonprofit organizations and churches from the area send representatives to campus, so students can become involved.

“I wanted to be involved in urban ministry, so I signed up,” she said.

In addition to these craft nights, a handful of LJ groups work with Urban Family for their service project. However, instead of volunteers going to Urban Family, the kids come to CU.

Lauren Honigford, a freshman whose LJ group works with Urban Family on Wednesday nights, said she enjoys her involvement with Urban Family because “it gives kids a chance during their week to hang out and have fun with college-age students. When I was that age, it would have been the coolest thing ever to have older kids pay attention to [me], especially because these kids don’t get a lot of that attention on a regular basis.”

Another way CU is involved with Urban Family is through their Super Saturdays program at Calvary Church, where several CU students volunteer on their own.

Gerald Longjohn, director of ministry development, said the reason CU encourages students to serve in the community of Grand Rapids is to reinforce the fact that ministry is a part of discipleship.

“Ministry is not just something you schedule into a one week spring break trip,” he said. He also said ministry is part of spiritual growth. “You can grow to a certain point, but unless you are actively serving, you can’t grow beyond that point.”

Longjohn also said serving is a way for CU to be a good neighbor to the surrounding area and expose students to all areas of GR.

With CU’s new core classes now being taught to freshman and transfer students, many of the old core classes are no longer being offered or are in the process of being phased out. SCI 100 is one such class.

Timothy Detwiler, associate provost for traditional programming, said students were informed in the fall of 2007 that SCI 100 would no longer be a core class and students should take the class while they still could.

The course was offered last summer, last semester and this current semester and will be offered May term one more time to give students one last chance to take it, Detwiler said.

Detwiler said the reason SCI 100 is no longer part of the core is because of the core’s shift in focus.

The new core focuses on four major themes: “civitas, which is citizenship, leadership, worldview and information literacy,” Detwiler said. The course that will be taking the place of SCI 100 addresses these themes.

The new course is SCI 311: Science in Culture. Detwiler said the course asks, “How do we as Christians get involved in the various issues of culture?” He said that the course deals with such issues as euthanasia, abortion and the environment.

One difference between the two courses is their grade level. SCI 100 was a freshman level class, while SCI 311 replacing it is a junior level.

Detwiler said this has to do with the new core being linked through all of a CU student’s education. He said freshmen will work on most of their core classes throughout the year, then this will be followed up by a sophomore experience. Students in their junior year will take SCI 311, and then they will conclude with their senior seminar their last year of undergrad.

Placing the course at a junior level will ask students to seriously think about “what it means to be a Christian involved in scientific concepts” and will ask them to think more critically because of the advanced nature of the course, Detwiler said.

Students in the new core will not only have to take SCI 311 to fulfill their science requirement, but they will still need to take a lab science and the prerequisite SCI 213: Quantitative Reasoning.

Jim Fryling, professor of chemistry, said that when CU decided to redo the core, two science courses were chosen to replace SCI 100 because of some problems professors were encountering with the curriculum.

Fryling said that CU was graduating students who could not deal with quantitative information very well.

“While many students know how to get this information, there [is] a significant amount that don’t, and they sometimes just get misdirected by quantitative information. They have a hard time bringing things with numbers into the equation,” Fryling said.

Thus, the idea of SCI 213 is to get students “recognizing the importance of using data in their decisions, evaluating data and then evaluating arguments,” Fryling said.

Fryling also said that the purpose of SCI 100 was to instruct Christians on how to incorporate science into their worldview, evaluate scientific arguments and understand some of the accomplishments of science. This component is picked up in SCI 311.

As far as when these courses will be offered, Fryling said SCI 213 is being offered for the first time this semester. SCI 311 is “pretty much ready to roll” according to Detwiler. However, it will not be offered until the fall 2009 semester because it is not yet needed.

Wittmer is a professor of systematic theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. He started working at GRTS in 1996 as an adjunct professor and became full-time in 2000. Wittmer first had the idea to write this book a couple years ago when he noticed that the questions his students were asking started changing.

He said his students started asking questions about things he used to assume they knew. Wittmer said the questions were “about sin, the Atonement, other religions, Hell, and Scripture.”

He wrote the book to address the questions this generation of students is asking.

Wittmer said that the emergent church believes in order to be a Christian people do not have to necessarily believe Christ as the Son of God; they just need to love.

“It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you love,” Wittmer said is the mantra of the emergent church. He said that they use “following Jesus as a substitute for believing in Jesus.”

On the other hand, Wittmer said he grew up where all he had to do was “say a prayer and be saved. That’s it,” he said. “Following Jesus [was] optional.”

Wittmer said that his book confronts these opposites and “argues for a third way that transcends both.”

“We should believe like the conservatives say and love like the liberals say,” Wittmer said. “It is a false choice to say believe or love.”

Thus, his book asks 10 key questions that address the above mentioned matters.

Wittmer said every chapter begins with a “fundamentalist extreme” and then discusses a balance between this and the emergent church’s view.

Several examples of these questions are reflected in Wittmer’s chapter titles: “Which Is Worse Homosexuals or the Bigots Who Persecute Them?,” “Is Hell For Real and Forever?” and “Must You Believe Something To Be Saved?”

A couple of Cornerstone faculty members familiar with the book had nothing but good things to say.

Douglas Fagerstrom, president of GRTS, said the book “addresses and initiates a thought provoking dialogue on the emergent/postmodern discussion of the direction of Christ’s church.”

Fagerstrom said the book fits well with Dr. Stowell encouraging students to embrace the person, work and word of Jesus.

“This [book] fully engages our young adult culture. It opens up an honest and meaningful conversation,” Fagerstrom said.

Speaking of the content of the book, Fagerstrom said, “I would love to see an open forum of students and faculty coming together to participate in this dialogue.”

“It’s of benefit to the church,” said John Duff, associate professor of Bible, about the book.

“I think it’s well articulated…and accessible to the average reader. It’s not too technical,” he said. This makes the book even easier to grasp for students, not only in content but also in how it reads.

Duff said that Wittmer “wants to say that right belief and right behavior are both emphasized in Scripture.” Duff said he agreed with him.

Duff said, while the book is written primarily for believers, he would encourage everybody to read it.

“It’s very relevant to our community, students and it’s just really relevant to the church in North America,” Duff said.

Duff has used the pre-published book as a supplemental text in his Theology I class and said he might use it in Theology II or Christian Theology. He said the responses that he received from his class were all positive.

“I think the book is timely, and its message reflects the tenor of scripture, that both belief and behavior matter to God,” Duff said.

“Don’t Stop Believing” was not Wittmer’s first book. Wittmer said the first book he wrote, “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” was also a 1980s pop song, and he hopes to write a third book in the future entitled “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” He is still working out the ideas for that book, however.

Wittmer said he wants any book he writes to “have theological depth, but communicate to a general audience.”

“I hope that the book generates a conversation about the essentials of the Christian faith,” Wittmer said.