President's Office

Can learning be fun?

Michael Schneider — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 23:09:19 +0000

Last week Kansas had its 150^th birthday. Washington Elementary School celebrated by setting up each classroom as a one-room school house. It was a hit.

I had the following conversation with my girls Perrin and Hayden (1st and 3rd grade) after school. Draw your own conclusion, but I found the conversation insightful…

Me: How was the day?

Perrin (1^st grade): We learned more today than we have all year!

Me: Really? Why?

Perrin: We got to do stuff.

Me: Like what?

Perrin: Like make butter…you know we got to move around and do stuff.

Me: Hayden, did you have a good day?

Hayden (3^rd grade): Oh yea, it was great. We had kids from all grades in my class. It was cool.

Me: How did that work?

Hayden: I got to learn and teach…we got to sit together and there were only 13 kids in my class.

Me: What? Only 13 kids? Where did they find teachers for every class?

Hayden: Everyone who worked at school was a teacher today.

Perrin: Why are you asking so many questions? You don’t have to be a President all the time.

Hayden: Everybody was learning today…

Me: Everybody?

Hayden: Yea, even the teachers, because we did different things.

Me: So were you ok with the teachers learning today?

Hayden: Oh yea, it was fun. And you know dad, you learn more when you have fun!

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How are you promoting your college?

Michael Schneider — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:39:58 +0000

This letter was written by the 8-year old daughter of McPherson College graduates. It is written to her 3rd grade teacher’s daughter who is currently weighing her college options.

Dear Emily,
I have a suggestion for college and a few Good Lucks! First, I’d like to start off with a college you should think about. It is McPherson College. Yes, yes you probably haven’t heard of it. It’s a small collage, but it is a great one. I know the president of the college and he is a great guy. Their basketball team is like in the top twenty or something. My brother’s basketball team went on a tour and my dad was the coach so of course I came. The dorms are sooooooooo nice. Now I hope you decide to take a tour! Good luck finding the right college!
Aimee

Someone told me once that the best compliment you can get is a referral. What are you doing to promote McPherson College?

Thanks, Aimee Bray, MC Class of 2024!

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An Enterprising Idea…

Michael Schneider — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:58:08 +0000

We had an idea. We wanted to try something different that would demonstrate that the Liberal Arts is enterprising. So we created the Global Enterprise Challenge.

Thirty students signed up as individuals and were teamed up to create a social enterprise in Haiti. The best idea would take their enterprise to Haiti. They had 10 days to generate ideas, create plans and make a presentation.

Here’s what happened…

We didn’t assign a book. However, between the 6 teams they checked out over 60.

There was no instructor of record. Just a mentor. However, the teams managed to involve “secret weapons” (professors) from 10 disciplines.

There was no meeting time. However, teams managed to meet on average twice a day over the 10-day period. They met early in the morning and late at night around work, class and co-curricular schedules.

There was no prerequisite to participate. We got students from almost every discipline and every classification. We got students who have traveled extensively and students who have not left the state of Kansas.

We only gave them 10 days to complete the challenge. However, the written and oral presentations were outstanding.

We didn’t give them many resources. However, every group made contact with organizations on the ground in Haiti. Most of the teams had formal partnerships by the time they made their presentations. One team even brought a partner organization to campus to meet with their team.

There was no grade. However, there was a lot of learning.

I think there is a lot McPherson College can learn from this experience…

http://blogs.mcpherson.edu/entrepreneurship

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Borrowed Shoes

Michael Schneider — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:18:07 +0000

When W. Marvin Will arrived on campus as a student in the 1950s the first thing he needed was a pair of shoes. He got shoes and a McPherson College education.

Marvin graduated from McPherson College, went to graduate school, met his wife Doreen and settled into a 30-year career as a history professor at Tulsa University. He and Doreen led an extraordinary life. He wrote books, published papers, organized elections in the Caribbean and even started a civics program to engage kids in government. Marvin became an expert in Caribbean politics and Doreen spent much of her time editing his papers. They traveled all over the world together.

Marvin died in 2007 after battling ALS and Doreen died one year ago. They loved McPherson College.

Funny thing about those shoes Marvin got when he arrived on campus all those years ago… he always said they were just borrowed. The Will’s estate was recently settled and their legacy is an endowed scholarship fund at McPherson College to support needy students interested in studying history and political science.

The total gift amount… $1.8 million.

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Jumping out of Swings

Michael Schneider — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:25:08 +0000

Remember when you were a kid? When you could sing. When you were an artist with your work displayed on the refrigerator. When you were an architect in the sandbox. When you could sell anything. When you jumped out of swings.

What happened? What happened to that kid who could do anything?

When I was a kid I collected stuff. Some notable collections included rocks, bugs, ball point pens, hats, insects, bottles and baseball cards. (My baseball card collection funded part of my McPherson College education.) At the age of 7, I decided to turn my bedroom into a museum where I could display my collections. I turned a 10 x 20 room into the Smithsonian of Rossville, KS. I invited people over—mainly my parent’s friends and family members to start. After a while word got around about my little museum and at the peak of its success my spiral ring note book had 6 pages full of visitor names. Then one Saturday a friend came over. I asked him if he wanted to tour my museum. I took him to my room. He laughed and said, “that’s stupid.” So, what do you think I did? I closed the museum.

So, who told you that you couldn’t sing?

Somewhere along the way we lose something. Maybe it is confidence…maybe courage. Maybe we just decided to do as we are told.

What if you could get some of that back? The college days are the sweet spot of life. The time when we can get some of that back. What if you went to a college that didn’t dock you for making mistakes? What if you went to a college were there weren’t all those rules—discipline, but not so many rules. How about a place that placed more value on ideas than majors? What if you were a liberal arts graduate—an entrepreneur.

What if you just closed your eyes, kicked your legs out and jumped out of that swing—you might fly.

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My Last Flight?

Michael Schneider — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:59:24 +0000

I was on a flight from Des Moines to Chicago early last week. I was seated next to a 7 year old girl—this was her first flight. Her name was Erin. She had the middle seat. I was in the aisle. There was a teenager next to her in the window seat. He was asleep. The weather was stormy. Rain pounded the tarmac prior to take-off. She was a little nervous, but excited. The climb to altitude was bumpy, but it didn’t stop me from scratching notes in my moleskin notebook. Then the bad stuff hit. The lightening was so bad it seemed to shake the plane with each flash. The lights in the cabin went off and the pilot came over the intercom to announce that the flight attendants would not be offering beverage service as they “needed to stay strapped in for the duration of the 47 minute flight.” The guy across the aisle and up one row looked green. The bumps got more severe and frequent. Erin told me she didn’t like roller coasters. I told her I didn’t either. I asked her if she was going to throw up. She said no. I was relieved. I tried to keep her mind off the ride by telling her a silly story about my first plane ride. It kind of worked.

The turbulence lasted about 30 minutes into the flight when the bumps stopped and it was smooth. This only lasted a couple minutes before the pilot came over the intercom again. Let me pass along some advice—when your pilot says, “hang on” you should make sure you have your seat belt on. He barely finished his “stay in your seats” speech when the plane dropped and we banked sharply. We were back on the coaster—this time with oxygen masks. Now, I’ve probably been on 300 flights in my life and I thought those things were a myth. You’re probably unconscious if a bunch of yellow masks hanging down from the ceiling of an airplane won’t get you a little excited. But of course there was still some guy wearing half eyes a couple rows up reading his Wall Street Journal and the kid in the window seat next to Erin was still asleep. Anyway, I put my mask on and helped Erin with hers just like they tell you to do. By this time Erin has a pretty firm grasp on my forearm. She is terrified. And the plane dropped again. Then it happened. The lady right in front of me stood up and yelled, “we’re all gonna die.” (I thought I was in a sitcom.) The pilot came over the intercom and said in a cool voice, “Flight attendants please prepare the cabin for landing. We will be on the ground in 5 minutes.” What? I felt pretty “prepared” considering I was lit-up with O2 and my arm was wrapped around the arm rest. You could hear the landing gear coming out and within a couple minutes we were on the ground at O’Hare.

We were safe. Our wheels were on the ground. (Our friend in the isle seat was still asleep.) I helped Erin get her mask off. Then she looked at me and said, “I think I will do something fun today.” Amazing. She got it. We were lucky to be okay. We should do something fun. As I sat in Concourse C waiting on my connection to Wichita, I was struck with the feeling that I had lost some perspective. So, I penned a list of things to do. The list reads something like this:

“Say Yes to becoming a co-advisor for a Freshman Seminar Group at MC.”
“Host a Murder Mystery Party for Kandee’s birthday.”
“Sign up for those surfing lessons.”
“Bring our cat, Snickers, to Hayden’s class for show and tell on Friday.”
“Take a day off.”

Erin, thanks for helping me see things a little more clearly. Life is always interesting.

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Welcome from Michael Schneider

Michael Schneider — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:32:22 +0000

Welcome to McPherson College, where we are focused each day on our commitment to our mission of “developing whole persons through scholarship, participation, and service”. We want to be the best private college in the state of Kansas, and we want to do that by getting better at teaching and learning every single day.

Our community is reinventing liberal arts – an idea that is changing in higher education. We need to redefine what it means to us. Our mission to develop whole persons prepares students for life and our career oriented liberal arts focus prepares them for earning a living. But there has to be more… we need something to tie it all together – something bigger – finding new ways to live out our mission.

Thank you for your interest in McPherson College. Please come visit our campus soon. Feel free to stop by our office when you are here.

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