Upon entering Little Mexico one hour before opening, the feeling of pride that every employee shared was evident. From those who were cleaning the floor to those preparing food, it was clear that everyone knew their place. After sitting down with the owner of Little Mexico, Señor Ignacio Bravo, it was apparent where this sense of pride and purpose originated. “It’s true, I run a tight ship,” said Sr. Bravo as he finished making preparations from behind the bar, “I feel like it helps remind everyone how far we have come.” And they have come a long way. For Sr. Bravo, his journey started at the age of sixteen when his family moved from the Mexican state of Jalisco to southern California. When his family decided to immigrate to the United States, Sr. Bravo admits that, at sixteen, he had “big dreams.” His pursuit of those dreams started out slowly, however, and his journey was not devoid of difficulty.

On Wednesday nights at the Newman Center on Grant Avenue, a revival is occurring. In a sense, this revival does involve miracles and speaking in tongues. However, this has nothing to do with Pentecostalism. Instead, a revival of the traditional Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church is occurring. Something which many people thought was dead has revived, and the speaking of a dead language of Rome has caught a zealous fire amongst Catholic youth here at Wabash and across the nation.

As for her motivations for teaching, she says, “I teach because it’s fun. The minute it stops being fun, I’m out.” So far, we can then assume, her time at Wabash has been enjoyable. She describes her experience with Wabash students as “extremely positive.” “At the end of the day, whether I’m here next year or not, this was the best choice for me, because I’ve become better already,” she explains, “I made an excellent choice. I know I did. I made an excellent choice in coming here.”

Around Wabash: A look at interesting policies, issues, and conversations taking place on our beautiful campus each day

For a large majority of Wabash students, their financial aid statement has an item total labeled Employment Self-Help, or ESH. This is an alternative to borrowing that allows students to work on campus to help pay the cost of their own attendance. The total is supposed to reflect the amount a student is eligible to earn throughout the year and the amount they will need to come up with in order to cover the costs of attendance. A recent survey of 58 ESH eligible students found that earning all of their ESH is unrealistic, since the system has become over saturated with student workers.

“I created Kwanzaa,” laughed Ron Karenga like a teenager who’s just divulged a deeply held, precious secret. “People think it’s African. But it’s not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn’t celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that’s when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!”

It is not the creation of Kwanzaa, however, that is Karenga’s most controversial part of his history. In 1971, Karenga was convicted of kidnapping and torturing two women from his US Organization. He was sentenced to one to ten years in prison.

WCU: In one of your reports to Congress, you talked about political Islam. What exactly is political Islam, and how do we confront it?

Beigi: That’s the million-dollar question. Political Islam is when some social thinkers think that in order to confront the West and in order to deny the West, they politicize their religion, only to achieve their own economic goals. And since religion is a touchy subject, they were able to reach the hearts and minds of some people who were willing to be violent in promoting those ideas. That’s how the Islamic regime came to power in Iran. The best way to confront political Islam – we first need to talk about the necessity of confronting it. It’s a real thing; it is threatening Western civilization; it is threatening humanity. They openly talk about how they want to wipe Israel off the map. They openly talk about destroying America. And they openly challenge the West. So these elements are threatening the world. How do you confront them? By showing to the people of the Middle East or the Islamic countries, that the ideas that these political leaders are promoting do not have a solid base in their religion and also show the political motivation to delegitimize them.

Richard Mourdock is Indiana’s State Treasurer. After an over thirty year career in the energy sector working as a geologist and consultant, in which he gained substantial fiscal knowledge, Richard was drawn to politics. As a politician, he has held office as the Vanderburgh County Commissioner from 1994-2002, and Indiana State Treasurer. He was also the Republican nominee for the 8th district of Indiana in 1990 and 1992. Possessing excellent speaking skills and an insatiable knowledge for politics and American History, Richard avidly speaks for his beliefs and for maintaining the American and Hoosier way of life.

The Christian Studies Center will serve the College, including students, staff, faculty, and alumni, by creating and supporting programs to promote Christian excellence at Wabash. We want to support Wabash Christians in both their intellectual and spiritual pursuits. Indeed, we believe that Christians anywhere and everywhere cannot separate the intellectual from the spiritual. To grow spiritually, you need to be challenged intellectually, but intellectual challenges work best when they are theologically informed and spiritually nourishing. The Wabash Christian Studies Center will unite hearts and minds in the pursuit of Christian excellence.