The Oregon Extension Fall 2013 Stipend

Recognizing that the new permanent faculty of the Oregon Extension will all be in place for the 2013 fall semester, the Oregon Extension has just been awarded a development grant for the fall of 2013 from the Clif Bar Family Foundation. Under the terms of the grant, any student who applies and is accepted for this coming fall will receive a $5,000 stipend for the semester.  The stipend may be used to pay for room, board, activities fee, books, tuition, travel, or any expenses related to the semester.  This is a one-semester grant and applies only to the fall 2013 Oregon Extension program. Spaces for the fall are limited, but we are still considering applications, and the $5,000 stipend will be awarded to all fall students.

1/28, 29 – Hope – Jamie
1/ 29,30 – Westmont – Tad
2/4 – 6 – Eastern – Melissa & Heidi
2/7,8 – Villanova – Melissa & Heidi
2/11 – 13 – Messiah – Heidi
2/11, 12 – EMU – Melissa
2/11, 12 – Goshen – Jamie
2/14, 15 – Bethel – Melissa
2/15, 18 – 20 – Gordon – Heidi
2/16 – St Olaf – Melissa
2/18, 19 – Calvin – Jamie
2/18, 19 – Augsburg – Melissa
2/20, 21 – Macalestser – Melissa

coming in March: Houghton…

Crawford, Matthew B.  Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work. New York: The Penguin Press, 2009.

Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamozov (Dover Thrift Edition). Trans. Constance Garnett. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005.

Doyle, Brian. Mink River. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2010.

Dunlap, Thomas. Faith in Nature: Environmentalism as Religious Quest. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2004.

Girard, Rene. I See Satan Fall Like Lightning. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001.

Griswold, Eliza. Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.

Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2006.

Hart, David Bently. The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005.

Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness in the American Mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.

Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow. New York, NY: Ballantine Books (Random House), 1997.

Shell, Ellen Ruppel. Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. New York, NY: The Penguin Press, 2009.

Smith, Christian. Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Follow April’s blog for even more photos.

Images from http://aatinyhouse.wordpress.com/

The chapel is due for completion and dedication in the spring of 2012.

Concerning her experience at the Oregon Extension, Debbie writes:

“I had always been a consciencious student, able to get A’s and turn things in on time but until the OE I had never really learned to roam freely in my mind. The professors weren’t feeding us the pre-packaged, the well rehearsed, the preconceived (they weren’t striving to make tenure or sell their ideas). It seemed to me that they were hoping to free us to form honest, penetrating questions—one’s that had been languishing about in the cracks and corners of our minds and hearts, our histories and bodies.

We also roamed physically: the desert, the wilderness, San Francisco. There was nothing in my education at Wheaton or Yale Divinity School that quite matched the vivacity and honesty of my education at the OE. I still live in community with friends I met there, and am grateful, daily, in my role as a minister, for the way I learned to engage with the Biblical text. I wouldn’t have considered working for the church if it weren’t for the possibility the OE opened up for a lively and bumbling sort of faith.”

–Debbie Blue, OE 1985, pastor at House of Mercy, author of Sensual Orthodoxy and From Stone to Living Word.

David James Duncan

“Several Decembers ago I was invited, in my capacity as a novelist and freelance writing teacher, to a little Christian college extension built out of a converted logging camp in tiny Lincoln, Oregon.  I’m not too big on Christianizing efforts, generally speaking, but if there is anything on earth I like seeing converted it’s logging camps…”

So begins “Wonder; Yogi; Gladly,” an essay written by David James Duncan after his first visit to The Oregon Extension in the 1990s.  You can find the rest of this essay in Duncan’s most recent collection of nonfiction, God Laughs & Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right (2006).  And you can find Duncan himself at The O.E. this fall (2009), spending a few days with us at Lincoln.

We’ve loved Duncan’s books here at the O.E. for a long time.  His bestselling novels, The River Why (1983) and The Brothers K (1992), have held spots among our core books nearly ever year for over a decade, and this year The Brothers K will once again be our summer reading.  Duncan’s essay-and-story collection, River Teeth (1996), and his memoir, My Story as Told by Water (2001), generally circulate as favorites among student cabins as well.

So what’s the big deal about this writer?  What is it about his baseball and fly-fishing narratives that gets us so excited?  That’s hard to say.  If you invite an O.E. alum out to coffee and pitch him or her that question, you’re bound to get an earful.  It could be the deep spiritual issues that Duncan explores with humor and honesty in his stories.  It could be the mess and beauty of the families that people his books.  It could be the unique variety of mysticism that shows up in his pages, wearing waders and casting a fly rod and singing a gut-wrenched love song to wild salmon and to Montana’s Blackfoot River.  It could be all of the above.  Or something else altogether, something impossible to pinpoint and impossible to forget.

David Duncan is currently hard at work finishing his new novel.  We’re grateful for his willingness to carve out some time to come and chat with us at Lincoln.  We welcome him heartily, and we welcome you, incoming students.  We look forward to the conversation.

OE Group Photo, Fall 1997

From Nate Windon (OE’08): 

Not having a cell phone in Lincoln is a good thing. At first, the transition will be eased by the new environment and new people. Later, when you start to feel the phantom vibration in your pocket from a cell phone that isn’t there, you’ll make some decisions all based on the question: do I really want to talk to _____? If the answer is yes, then you will find a way to communicate. During my time at the OE, I wrote a lot of letters and made a good amount of phone calls. While they were inconvenient methods compared to a cell phone, they made me more aware and appreciative of my relationships. The fact that I deliberately chose to communicate allowed my relationships with loved ones to grow. For me, the lack of cell phone didn’t make me feel distant; it actually made me more deeply connected to friends and family.

From Allison Rivers (OE’08):

Personally, I was kind of excited to get rid of my cell phone for a semester. And don’t get my wrong – I loved my cell phone. I still do. But I was looking forward to getting to know people without the distraction of having my phone ring constantly. It was a way to be more fully present to this new experience around me. There are plenty of ways to keep in touch with friends from home while in Oregon, and you’ll see them soon enough. You’re only in Oregon for three and a half months, and you won’t want to miss out on any of it. I know if I had my cell phone on me the whole time, I would have been more focused on things going on at home than on getting to know my classmates, having amazing conversation with my cabin mates, and enjoying the incredible experience at hand. I’m really glad I was so deeply involved in my community while I was in Oregon.  I have new friends for life and new memories to cherish. I’m so relieved I didn’t spend my whole time out in Lincoln on the phone. I know it seems ridiculous, but you can go a whole semester without your cell phone.

From Grace Olson (OE’08): 

Life at the OE is a little quieter and much less distracting than usual college life. To preserve that quiet space, we agree not to use cell phones except on trips into town. This keeps cabins open for studying or being present to the people at the OE, instead of withdrawing into the safety of cell phones. It’s not difficult – you can substitute emails for phone calls, or make more infrequent calls to people at home, or take up the art of the handwritten letter. It makes communication precious, and it prevents conflicts in the cabins. You’re welcome to use your phone during the few days in San Francisco, but it’s not necessary. I had no phone at all, and that didn’t hamper my ability to get around, meet up with people, or enjoy the city. You can also use your phone to travel to and from Oregon, but again, I traveled without a phone and made it to Lincoln and back home without a problem (I even managed to reschedule my flight). So, to those of you attached to your cell phone: this will be a nice break. You will learn to separate yourself from it, and you will find yourself becoming better friends with people at the OE because of it. And to those of you not attached to a phone: enjoy these few months. It’s delightful to spend real time with people.

From Sarah Grimes (OE’08):

At first, I was worried about having limited cell phone access for a few months. After all, at home our phones are constantly on us, like a security blanket. The first few days at the OE were definitely a challenge, but after a week I had to admit I liked living without my phone. I didn’t feel stressed or pulled in so many different directions. Instead, I could concentrate on the beauty of each moment as it came. However, the most important thing was the relationships formed with both students and faculty. Without the distraction of excess technology, people were able to give their full attention to one another and truly listen. I’m convinced this is why our community was so tightly woven. It was incredibly refreshing to be around such authentic people at the OE. I would encourage anyone to try living this way, even only for a semester.