Central Methodist Research Articles

The Establishment of the Swinney Conservatory of Music at Central Methodist University

The Swinney Conservatory of Music at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri has a long history with unique beginnings. After the Civil War, Central College (Central Methodist’s original name) grew alongside a “Female Seminary,” Howard-Payne Female College. Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the two schools developed their own distinct musical cultures with Howard-Payne faculty developing a music curriculum, and Central students forming their own musical ensembles. When the schools merged in 1923 these two cultures united to create a conservatory of music at a time when many other American conservatories were being established. Just before the merger, Kansas City banker Edward Fletcher Swinney, who had strong family ties to the Fayette area and a history of philanthropy towards causes in Missouri education, donated $35,000 to Howard-Payne College for the construction of the conservatory building that would eventually bear his name. This article focuses on the early history of both Central College and Howard-Payne Female College, the role that music played at both schools (as a curricular and non-curricular activity) and the events leading to the formation of Central College’s music curriculum and construction of the Swinney Conservatory.

Capabilities expansion for marginalised migrant youths in Johannesburg: The case of Albert Street School

In this article, we used the capability approach as normative grounding to analyse a particular faith-based intervention targeting ‘youth at the margins’ – in this instance, marginalised migrant youths from Zimbabwe living in Johannesburg, South Africa. We used Albert Street School (AS School), run by Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church, as our case study to show how this faith-based organisation, through its focus on education, created not only spaces for marginalised youths to aspire towards a better life but also practical opportunities to convert their aspirations into action. Drawing on first-hand accounts of 12 Zimbabwean migrant youths who had completed schooling at AS School, as well as of representatives of both the school and the CMC, the article first sketches the Zimbabwe-South Africa migration context post 2000. A discussion then follows of AS School as a faith-based intervention which addresses the constrained capability for education amongst marginalised migrant youths.

Recording Life Stories: A Service Learning Project for the Composition Classroom

Recording Life Stories: A Service Learning Project for the Composition Classroom Travis W. Johnson (bio) and Jeremy Reed (bio) We’re here today to share with you a service learning project that we’ve integrated into our advanced composition courses. This project—what we call the Life Story Project—asks students to record interviews with local community members and design exhibits based on their life stories. Students also deposit the interviews and transcripts in an archive at Central Methodist University’s Smiley Memorial Library. We had three goals in mind when we designed this project. First, we wanted to record and preserve the life stories of community members in Central Missouri. Second, we hoped to strengthen the connection between university and community through civic engagement. Last, we wanted to provide students with unique opportunities to develop their communication skills. Today’s presentation will show you how we met those goals, guiding you through the major steps we took in designing and integrating the Life Story Project. We’ll also reflect on some of the challenges we faced along the way. In sharing our project and course materials with you, we hope you’ll be able to design a similar project for your own writing courses. We’d like to start with some artifacts that our students produced in our advanced writing classes. We have an abstract painting done by a student after he listened to a story of his father’s, a video collage of wedding photos set to period-appropriate music and snippets of voice recordings recreating a moving story of how a local woman fell in love, and a canvas on which students painted icons representing important moments in the life story of a community leader. Likewise, we have a mock sash covered in merit badges created to help tell the story of a former boy scout, a briefcase that opens to show a photo collage representing the law school experiences of a student’s mother, and playing cards inscribed with a local woman’s reminiscences of familial bonding over games of canasta. Admittedly, these aren’t the kind of artifacts people typically associate with writing courses. Instead of having students simply write essays about a range of topics, we wanted assignments that would put questions about the nature of composition and representation at the fore. In this class, we wanted students to explore what it means to represent ourselves and others. We asked them to parse whether or not representation need be strictly and traditionally textual. And we encouraged them to think about the connections between representation and truth, or representations and truths. [End Page 313] What is the meaning in a person’s story about themselves? How can we find that meaning? Is it possible for us to convey it to others? What is lost in translation? What is gained? With the Life Story Project, students must grapple with these sorts of questions because they’re asked to not only record an interview with a community member but also to create an exhibit that showcases the essential meanings of that story. It is through these meaningful exchanges with the community—the student’s recording of a life story and composing an exhibit for that story—that this oral history project becomes a service learning project. That is to say, in this process, there is a genuine exchange, a collaboration, that is mutually enriching and produces a positive learning experience. The opening passages from our assignment sheet for the Life Story Project immediately introduces students to the spirit of service learning: Your major project this semester is to collect the life story of a local community member. What is a life story? A life story is a type of oral history, a recorded interview in which a person reflects on his or her entire life. Or, as Robert Atkinson puts it, “A life story is the story a person chooses to tell about the life he or she has lived, told as completely and honestly as possible, what is remembered of it, and what the teller wants others to know of it, usually as a result of a guided interview by another” (8). Your task this semester...

Elaborating on ubuntu in a Johannesburg inner-city church

The article was originally delivered as the speech of the winner of the 2014 Donner Institute Prize for Outstanding Research into Religion, and deals with some core findings of the research that won the prize, namely, the doctoral thesis Challenging Ubuntu: Open Doors and Exclusionary Boundaries at the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg. The author approaches the meanings of ubuntu (Nguni: humanity/humanness) in the context of a Methodist church that sheltered thousands of African migrants in its premises in the inner city of Johannesburg. Using ethnographic research methods, she analyses both the inclusionary message of humanity preached at the church and the exclusionary boundaries between the people who lived in the church and the local congregation that worshipped there. Based on the social dynamics of the church community, the author suggests the rules of reciprocity and survival as some of the socio-moral patterns that set the boundaries to the actualisation of the moral ideal of ubuntu in this context. Overall, the case of this particular church speaks to a broader discussion of the meaning of and limits to being human in one world.

The African Supplement: Religion, Race, and Corporate Law in Early National America

In unexpected ways, corporate law in the early Republic provided African Americans in religious institutions with rights that they were denied in other venues. As black congregants developed legal expertise, they built powerful and long-lasting churches. Yet these rights were fragile, as the legal rules governing such institutions also sustained dissent and fracture. Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was incorporated in Philadelphia in 1796, setting the stage for subsequent battles over legal and spiritual autonomy for black congregations. Such struggles were conducted through legal means. During the two decades following its incorporation, Bethel’s leaders ever more powerfully defended their church against attempts by the central Methodist Church to assert control. In an era when increasing racism and aggression imperiled free blacks, church corporations were uniquely empowered to protect African American religious institutions. Repeated encounters with law produced both victory (over the white Methodist denomination, which was forced to recognize Bethel’s independence) and defeat (at the hands of breakaway Bethel members, who founded another church nearby and who successfully sued Bethel leaders for theft and trespass). The resulting plurality belies a unitary “black church,” even as it serves as evidence of great resilience and creativity.

“We’re not liberated yet in South Africa”

This article makes a case for employing the concept of humanity as the core category in the struggle(s) for liberation in the context of the Central Methodist Mission (CMM) in inner-city Johannesburg. It does so through engaging with the praxis of the leader of the CMM and, in particular, analysing his theological reflection. The concept of humanity offers a flexible framework for an on-going liberationist ministry in a changing society; it also allows the ministry to retain a liberationist edge while it addresses the complex manifestations of inhumanity in actual communities. Moreover, the case of the CMM shows that the content and method of grassroots liberationist ministry overlap: as much as the concept of humanity defines the content, it also has methodological implications for reading the signs of the times.

Local Religious Organisations Performing Development: Refugees in the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg

AbstractThis article presents the situation of the Central Methodist Mission in inner‐city Johannesburg and the role played by its religious leadership in defining, shaping and supporting relief and longer‐term development projects. Following a series of xenophobic attacks in 2008 the number of migrants and refugees assisted by the church increased exponentially. Despite the difficulties that this organisation encountered, the work of assistance to those in need was pursued, thanks to the tenacity and vision of the religious leader of the institution. This underlines the crucial role of leadership within religious organisations delivering development, especially in small organisations that are not used to the language of the development apparatus. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

2010 Annual Ruth First Memorial Lecture, University of the Witwatersrand: Making the Invisible Visible: A Story of the Central Methodist Church

In 2008 unemployment in Zimbabwe went up over 90 per cent, and the country was hit with rampant inflation, food insecurity, political violence, a cholera epidemic and a near collapse of the education and health systems. The crisis hit its peak in that year after failed elections. These conditions in Zimbabwe have forced nearly one quarter of the population into a diaspora, much of which has travelled to South Africa. People cross the border as a matter of survival, many heading to Johannesburg in search of work. Over the past several years, growing numbers have sought refuge at the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg which had opened its doors to the homeless and destitute. The Ruth First Fellowship supported the author's research to explore conditions at Central Methodist Church. This lecture shares some of the complexity of addressing the challenges there.

Joseph A. Labuta and His Life in Music Education: An Oral History

Oral history is a relatively new technique in historical research. Some of the first efforts in oral history (of former slaves and poor rural white populations in the southeastern United States) were sponsored by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. (1) Allen Nevins started the oral history program at Columbia University in 1948, (2) and in 1966, the Oral History Association was formed. (3) A primary purpose of oral history has been to document memories and reflections of past events as seen through the eyes of a particular person. Oral history differs from a traditional autobiography in that the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee serves to draw out memories and clarify issues provided by the interviewee. (4) The result of this process is the creation of a primary source document that can be used by other historical researchers. Several oral history projects have been conducted in music and in music education. Musical figures such as Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, and Charles Leonhard have been studied using these techniques. (5) One of Charles Leonhard's former students was Joseph Anthony Labuta, who followed his mentor's example and also became a leader in the music education profession. He is the focus of this oral history project. The purpose of this study was to create a preliminary biography on Dr. Joseph A. Labuta, one of the major figures in American music education during the second half of the twentieth century. Labuta's recalled memories were used to explore selected aspects of music education history during that period. Labuta, professor emeritus of music education at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, has written four well-known music education textbooks that are still currently in use, as well as influential articles and monographs. (6) He has been a leader in the field of music education in the United States, holding a number of offices at the state and national levels of MENC: The National Association for Music Education.(7) Over the course of his career, Labuta has left a legacy of more than 900 music education and conducting students who have benefited through his teaching. (8) Method Labuta was contacted by the study author and agreed to participate in the project. Dates for the face-to-face interviews were set, and Labuta provided the researcher with preliminary written material to assist in the preparation of the interviews. Oral history life techniques were used to create the materials for this project. (9) A series of autobiographical interviews were conducted with Labuta, focusing on a variety of topics related to his career. Bennett's 1992 oral history project on Charles Leonhard served as a model for the selection of interview topics. (10) The list of topics below was agreed upon by the researcher and Labuta. 1. General Life Overview 2. Public School Teaching 3. University of Illinois 4. Central Methodist College/Shepherd College 5. Leonhard and University of Illinois 6. Early Articles 7. Wayne State University, 1967-1977 8. Wayne State, 1977-1987 9. Wayne State, 1987-present (retirement) 10. Courses 11. Books: Teaching Musicianship in the High School Band 12. Books: Basic Conducting Techniques 13. Books: A Guide to Accountability in Music Instruction 14. Books: Music Education: Historical Contexts and Perspectives 15. Articles 16. Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME) Editorial Committee 17. Professional Activities (officer, clinician, conductor) 18. Student Accomplishments An open-ended format was used, based on the outline prepared for each interview session. (11) Neutral, open-ended questions were used to elicit responses from Labuta and were organized either by chronology or by general topic area. …

SCM Core Text: The Philosophy of Religion – Gwen Griffith‐Dickson

Reviews in Religion & TheologyVolume 13, Issue 4 p. 581-584 SCM Core Text: The Philosophy of Religion – Gwen Griffith-Dickson Ronald Grant Nutter, Ronald Grant Nutter Central Methodist UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Ronald Grant Nutter, Ronald Grant Nutter Central Methodist UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 August 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9418.2006.00316_7.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume13, Issue4September 2006Pages 581-584 RelatedInformation

Interdisciplinarity as Reading: Truth Commission Journal and Notes

August 5, 1998: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is holding an amnesty hearing at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg. The hearing is a continuation of one held in May, concerning the events now remembered as the Shell House incident.2 In March 1994, security guards from the African National Congress headquarters at Shell House, an office building in the middle of Johannesburg, fired their guns at a large contingent of Zulu marchers, some armed with "traditional weapons": cow-hide shields, sticks, clubs, spears.3 Eight marchers died, and the guards have applied for amnesty. A witness, one of the marchers, is being quizzed on what happened. Mr. Mhlaba, in dark trousers and a bright blue team jacket, wearing glasses with a gold trim, is being questioned as to the meaning of the chant amandla! ngawethu! uSuthu! uSuthu!, which he is asked to utter, with accompanying gestures, before the members of the Amnesty Committee. Since official record-keeping is in the form of a transcript, the Chairman, Justice Hassen Mall, must summarize what he has witnessed: let it be noted that the witness chanted with raised fist, taking two steps forward and then one step back for each chant. The fist will have held a stick or a spear: ubhoko, umkhonto. The lawyer cross-examining Mhlaba on behalf of the guards has several questions in this regard. Isn't this a war chant? No, it is not a war chant; as he has said, it is the praise uttered, according to tradition, when you are going to see a king or a chief; the word uSuthu is part of the name Mangosuthu. The chant amandla! ngawethu! comes from Zulu tradition. It means power - to us. The lawyer, who professes to know nothing about Zulu culture or tradition, insists: isn't uSuthu! a cry of warriors going into battle? Mhlaba tries another tack: I have never heard of warriors going into war chanting. When you go into war you do not make a noise. If you make a noise, the enemy will know where you are coming from. The lawyer returns several times to the same line of questioning, as if to confirm a prearranged passage of reasoning: Zulu therefore warrior therefore killer therefore ANC guards acted in self-defense. The right cultural explanation will be his first premise. As "native informant," Mhlaba has only to provide it in order to vindicate the guards and implicate himself. I sit in a cold pew, earphones on, hearing both Mhlaba's testimony, which is in Zulu, and the simultaneous translation into English. There are a few others in the church, mostly black, most also wearing earphones. Also sitting there are two black policemen, who, in spite of their regulation blue caps and jackets, are visibly cold. It is a relief afterwards to reemerge into the warm winter sunlight.

Mantle of Christ: A History of the Sydney Central Methodist Mission. By Don Wright. Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1984. xiii + 272 pp. $25.00.

Mantle of Christ: A History of the Sydney Central Methodist Mission. By Don Wright. Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1984. xiii + 272 pp. $25.00.

Modular Training at Central Methodist

Modular Training at Central Methodist

Summer Meeting of The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

The National Council of Trachers of Mathematics will hold its an nual summer meeting on the afternoons of June 28, 29 and 30, in the church house of the Central Methodist Church, Woodward and Adams A venue, Detroit. On Monday afternoon, June 28, the high school sections are meeting jointly with the Department of econdary Education in the Cass High chool. Teachers of mathematics should make a point of including this Detroit meeting in their summer plans.