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11 May 2006

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Growing Up Together

New Saint Andrews celebrates first class to go through building

By Kate Baldwin Daily News Staff Writer
Photographs by Roger Ames/Daily News

The 26 spring graduates of New Saint Andrews College are bound together by the adolescent growth spurt they rode out with their school.

Top graduating senior Ty Rallens said his class came during “the BB era,” or before the building. His class witnessed the maturing of NSA that came with the purchase and renovations of the downtown Skattaboe Building. In fact, they were the first students in its classrooms — even their names remain in the walls.

Graduate Corinne Rodman expects the next freshmen to come in with no idea of what it took to buy the building and renovate it.

Or to get the library, Rallens added.

And to get the permit to stay.

“Our class was the first one in the building, and the last class to know what it was to meet in two tiny little buildings,” Rodman said.

Rallens agreed. “We were part of the growing up of NSA.”

The class even broke in five new faculty members and welcomed a new director of student affairs. NSA President Roy Atwood described the graduates as a wild and crazy class with a great mix of personalities and characters. He remembered them as underclassmen, pulling pranks like putting bicycles in the library stacks to taunt a particularly staunch librarian.

Rallens laughed at the memory. He said people thought they were wild because they would also do things like sneak into the East City Park to play volleyball at night by the light of their car headlights.

Atwood watched the class develop into one of the most engaged in voluntarism. They conducted downtown clean-ups, blood drives and community carnivals.

Meanwhile, their school also was growing up. Milestones at the classical Christian school came often over the past four years.

In just the past year, the school opened the specialized 56,000-volume Tyndale Library. It earned full accreditation from Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. It also fought for and received a conditional use permit to stay open at its present location after heated, citywide zoning debates.

Through it all, 26 students attended classes, challenged their professors and earned their degrees in liberal arts and culture.

The students came from Canada and 11 states across the country. Nineteen earned the four-year bachelor of arts degree, and seven received their associate of arts degree.

Where they’ll go next is as varied as the students. Rhiannon Geraci plans to continue the line by going into teaching. She plans to earn a master’s degree to help students with learning and reading disabilities.

“As much as we’ve affected NSA, NSA has affected us more,” Rallens said. “We want to see something we’ve been in continue.”

Rodman and her classmates agree that they want their alma mater to be there for their brothers and sisters and generations to come.

“Part of our future is tied up in it, too,” she said.

“Like Corinne said, we built it,” Rallens said.

Kate Baldwin can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 239, or by e-mail at kbaldwin@dnews.com.

10 May 2006

Ninth Commencement honors 26 graduates; Jim Wilson receives Distinguished Christian Service Award

Outstanding Students, 2005-2006 (L-R) Brooke Moody, Jess Monnette, Ty Rallens, Jon Dion, and Lindsey Leithart	Graduates & Members of the Board of Trustees
(L-R) Ty Rallens, Doug Wilson & Sam Fernandez del Nogal	President Roy Atwood & Jim Wilson, recipient of the Distinguished Christian Service Award
New Saint Andrews College Choir	Jenny Jo, pianist for Commencement 2006

The College's Ninth Commencement ceremony, held Wednesday, May 10, at the Logos Field House, drew more than 400 friends and families to honor the 26 members of the Class of 2006, and to honor Pastor Jim Wilson, of Community Christian Ministries, with the College's first Distinguished Christian Service Award.

The College faculty also recognized Jon Dion, Lindsey Leithart, Jess Monnette, Brooke Moody and Ty Rallens as this year's Outstanding Students. Ty Rallens delivered the class address, and Lindsey Leithart read poetry during the ceremony. Eric Engerbretson, Tom Garfield, and Douglas Wilson gave the principal commencement addresses that also paid tribute to Jim Wilson.

3 May 2006

Daily News features College's building in Historic Downtown Moscow Walking Tour story

"Tour offers colorful journey through time"

By Omie Drawhorn
Daily News Staff Writer

St. Brigid’s Conference Room once was a joke among those who worked in the Skattaboe Building next to Friendship Square in Moscow.

April 6, 2006

Nate Wilson's "faking the Shroud" project covered in French popular science magazine, Sciences et Avenir

Fellow Nate Wilson's "faking the Shroud" project, which originally appeared as an extended article in Books & Culture magazine last year (see Spring 2005 archived story) and was then covered on ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and the Discovery Channel has now gained attention in--incroyable!!--France.

France's popular science magazine, Sciences et Avenir, with a French-language circulation of about 150,000, published an article on the Shroud and Wilson's experiment in its April 2006 issue, complete with a picture of the "fake shroud" image Wilson created by leaving cloth in the sun under painted glass.

The project explored the possibility that crafty medievals may have created a fake death shroud of Jesus that later became known as the Shroud of Turin.

See more on this story and the project at Shadowshroud.com.

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, April 1, 2006

NSA forms parking plan, advisory group

By Omie Drawhorn, Daily News staff writer

When the Moscow Board of Adjustment on Tuesday gave New Saint Andrews College the go-ahead to stay downtown, parking restrictions were not part of the package. But New Saint Andrews staff and students have stepped forward with a plan to alleviate parking concerns, and they are inviting some of the businesses who expressed concerns to participate.

The businesses, student leaders at the college and others were invited Thursday to join an advisory group that will weigh in on a parking plan proposed by the NSA board. “We appreciate the wisdom of the board’s decision to allow us to address parking concerns,” said New Saint Andrews Executive Vice President Bob Hieronymus.

The college, a nonprofit educational institution with an enrollment of 140 students, has been on South Main Street adjacent to Friendship Square since 2002. Controversy started broiling early last year after a complaint was filed against NSA on the grounds that educational institutions were not allowed in the central business district. Atlas School and the Moscow School District’s alternative high school were caught in the zoning debate. Eventually, the City Council passed a law that allowed schools and educational institutions downtown through the conditional-use permit process.

Before approving the school’s conditional-use permit, the Board of Adjustment talked at length about how to give customers at downtown businesses more parking. Various neighbors, including Lewis Reed of Basilio’s Steak and Seafood Ristorante; Tom Bode, owner of the Moscow Hotel; and Kathy Gessler of Sweet Peas and Sage, complained that NSA students and faculty take up too many parking spots in the Jackson Street lot.

“We wanted to respond immediately,” Hieronymus said. Hieronymus said parking issues had to take a back seat while the college fought to remain downtown. The plan gives preference to neighboring businesses, reduces students’ and employees’ dependency on cars, reduces student parking within the Jackson Street lot, and provides parking in a lot away from the building. Hieronymus said

NSA hopes the plan will encourage neighbors to work with the school to discuss solutions and hopefully realize the college isn’t the only establishment using parking spots in the Jackson Street lot. He said NSA uses fewer spaces than it would with commercial retail on the ground floor and offices upstairs. Because the building was empty for a few years prior to NSA’s occupancy, business owners had become accustomed to the amount of parking spaces that were left open.

The advisory board is represented by one student in each of the classes at NSA. “We wanted students to be involved to help contribute to parking solutions,” Hieronymus said. By being involved, the students will hear first-hand from neighbors how they are affected. Students have been responsive to the solutions presented by the board, Hieronymus said.

Bob Greene, owner of BookPeople, located just down the street from New Saint Andrews, was asked to join the committee. He just received the materials and is considering joining. Sweet Peas and Sage floral shop is located across from NSA in the Moscow Hotel Building. Gessler said she is just tired of the parking situation. “I don’t want to do it,” she said of serving on the advisory group. “Just move down and park (further away from my business) and I’ll be fine.

Nothing ever gets resolved and I’m tired of it.” Paul Kimmell, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, also was asked to join. He said the chamber board has been working on setting up a committee to address the parking situation downtown.

He said NSA and the chamber’s proposed group “could possibly blend into the same thing.” “The parking problem is typically a good problem. It means people are out buying goods and services downtown,” he said.

The first advisory group meeting is set for 4 p.m. April 20 in the Machen Conference Room at NSA, 403 S. Main St.

Omie Drawhorn can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 234, or by email at odrawhorn@dnews.com.

Speaking up for NSA More than 40 members of the community spoke at the CUP hearing or wrote letters in support of the College's conditional use permit application, including three former City Council members, the former mayor, and a number of local business representatives. The local newspaper also published a favorable editorial. Below are some of the comments of note:

Moscow-Pullman Daily News Editorial (3/27) ". . . The City Council already decided educational institutions are allowed dowtown in the central business zone on a case-by-case basis. NSA is the question. Is this classical Christian religion-based college of 140 full- and part-time students a good fit? The past two years have given no reason for doubt. . . ." Virginia Henderson For the Daily News editorial board

". . . New Saint Andrews has been part of enhancing downtown. They have proven themselves by investing in our community, taking what was an eyesore of a large vacant storefront and remodeling and restoring the exterior to complement downtown. . . ." Peg Hamlett Former Member of City Council

"The issue is not ideology, not even tolerance, although that is very high on my list of political values; the issue is land use. As far as I can see, the use to which NSA is putting its building is compatible with surrounding uses. I don't believe parking is a problem. But if it is, it is a solvable one. Reasonable people can work out a solution that satisfies everyone. From all I can tell, NSA is a good neighbor. Their activities do nothing to reduce property values of nearby landowners, indeed their stewardship seems to enhance those values. The conditional use permit should be granted." Sheldon Vincenti Emeritus Dean, UI College of Law

March 29, 2006

Finally An End to the Zoning Flap?

City grants NSA's conditional use permit to remain downtown

About 120 people attended the conditional use hearing at City Hall.

Last night the City of Moscow Board of Adjustment granted a conditional use permit, on a 5-1 vote, for the College to continue operating at our building on Friendship Square and Main . We are very grateful to God for His kindness to us through this process, and for the many, many people who stood up at the hearing and spoke so supportively about the College and the positive impact we’ve had on the community.

This decision means we can to continue operating at our downtown location.  There were only two conditions placed on the College:

(1) that we limit enrollment to 200 FTE and
(2) that we maintain the current amount of public frontage along the street (i.e., the library and restaurant spaces).

There is always the possibility of an appeal being filed, so we may not have heard the end of it. Please pray that last night’s decision would bring closure to this dispute or that we will be vindicated in any appeal.  Either way, the positive outcome and the overwhelming show of public support for the College last night should encourage us all, and prompt us to offer our prayers of thanks and praise to Him who holds our College, our City, and our lives in His hands.

At this Friday’s Disputatio we will take a moment to offer our thanks in prayers and psalms for this new blessing, so please join us if you can.

                                                                                                                    

March 9, 2006

CBN features New Saint Andrews on national broadcast

Reported by CBN News Anchor Lee Webb (video version and web version)

CBN.com – MOSCOW, Idaho - Over the last two decades, a number of Christian schools have popped up around the country employing what is known as the classical approach to education.

They are modeling the curriculum of one school in Moscow, Idaho.

CBN News traveled west to check out the school and discovered that its approach is not new at all.

At first glance, Logos School looks like any other school – busy hallways, lockers clanking shut, and students scurrying to class.

But it is in the classroom where the difference can be seen and heard.

Logos third graders greet teacher Julie Garfield in Latin. By the time these students are in the tenth grade, they will be able to converse and read original works in the ancient language.

Douglas Wilson was the co-founder of Logos. “At the beginning, all I knew is that I didn't want my kids to have what I got,” Wilson said. “I felt ripped-off, vaguely. And we were trying to impart the kind of education that none of us had received.”

Wilson had discovered an essay titled “The Lost Tools of Learning,” written by British author Dorothy Sayers in the late 40s.

Sayers wrote, "Although we often succeed in teaching our pupils 'subjects,' we fail lamentably, on the whole, in teaching them how to think."

That shift, in this country at least, began in the mid-1800s, when the focus of education became preparing young people for specific jobs.

Schools today place a premium on computer training, while only 31 percent of college graduates are able to understand lengthy passages from books.

Sayers argued for a return to the educational method that had been used for centuries. A method that employed what was known as the “trivium”: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Each phase was designed to take advantage of learning characteristics as children grow and mature.

Wilson embraced Sayers' ideas, and in 1981, Logos opened its doors with 16 students.

“And as we implemented it, we discovered she was really onto something,” Wilson said. “It really worked in a spectacular way.”

Tom Garfield was the school's first principal. Now, 25 years and 230 graduates later, he is still leading Logos and touting the classical method.

The trivium begins with the grammar stage.

Children -- kindergarten through sixth grade –are good at memorizing, Tom said. Singing and chanting are some of the ways they learn the facts about math, history and language.

“Rote learning is almost a bad term in many cases -- the idea that children should memorize something without having a complete concept of it,” Tom explained. “Well, we submit that they won't get a complete concept of it until they're much older and more mature."

And to make it more fun, they even play games to learn their Latin vocabulary.

But why teach a language long considered dead?

“The reason I teach Latin is that it teaches students to think in a detailed way,” said teacher Julie Garfield. “I also like the way it reinforces their English grammar.”

That is because much of the English language is derived from Latin.

By the eighth grade, students are ready to move on to the logic phase. While reading one of the logic lessons, a student said, “If one of the statements is true, the other must be false.”

Tom said, “They see the connections. They want to find out fallacies, they want to catch people out. And they love engaging in that back and forth.”

In other words, they learn how to reason and argue.

By high school they are studying rhetoric, and learning to how to convey all they have learned, persuasively.

Ninety-two percent of Logos graduates go on to college.

Many of them go no further than a couple of miles away, to New Saint Andrews -- the classical Christian college also co-founded by Wilson.

Greek is added to the mix of foreign languages taught at New Saint Andrews. Even the math is based on the classical method developed by Euclid, the founder of geometry.

The professors make no apologies for the heavy workload.

Sophomore Sarah Halverson stands next to all the books that New Saint Andrews students are required to read in their freshman year: a total of 85 books, with an emphasis on the classics of western civilization.

New Saint Andrews students are given at least 16 oral exams over a four-year span, and before they graduate, they are required to write and defend an 80-page thesis.

All of this prompts critics to say that the classical approach is only for the best and brightest.

“We're a small town in Northern Idaho,” Wilson said. “We've been accepting average kids of average American families and seeing what they can do.”

Apparently, they are doing well. Logos has had 25 National Merit semi-finalists, which is per capita the highest in Idaho.

And its students score 35 percent higher than the national average on year-end achievement tests.

Word of that success has spread. Wilson wrote a book called Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning.

Now there are 160 schools here and abroad based on the classical model.

One New Saint Andrews alumnus was Regent University Law School's Distinguished Graduate in 2004.

But critics also wonder how a classical education trains students for the real world. One of those critics is Kjell Cristophersen, the owner of an economic forecasting company.

“Kjell came to me,” said New St. Andrews College President Dr. Roy Atwood, “(saying) I wish you would teach these kids something useful, like economics or computer modeling - something like that. Give them some practical skills, so I can hire them.”

Atwood challenged Cristophersen to hire just one New Saint Andrews graduate.

And now, 12 of his 18 employees are from the college, and Cristopherson is one of classical education's biggest advocates.

“I have actually never seen anybody who can move up on the learning curve as fast as these kids have,” Cristophersen marveled.

Filling the workforce is not the focus at Logos or New Saint Andrews -- it is equipping young Christians to be life-long learners who think critically.

Halverson said, “I can pick up a book and read and pull things from it, and be able to explain something I pulled from it or something I came to understand through it, and then apply it to other areas of life.”

“They will know what it means to be a Christian,” Atwood said, “to have an identity that goes down to the very bones; that everything they do and think is going to, in a sense, be biblically-grounded and Christianly-oriented.”

And capable, Atwood says, of engaging an unbelieving world with a credible profession of the Gospel.

Wilson said, “You measure success by faithfulness to God.”

Does the next generation want to carry on in a covenantal faithfulness? Do they want to do it again?

Wilson says the answer to that question is overwhelmingly yes.

Clck here to see the video version of the CBN story

March 4, 2006

NSA Concert & Chamber Choirs perform Lenten music

The orchestra included College, church and guest musicians	The NSA Choirs, Christ Church Choirs and Orchestra, and Atlas Boys School
Allison Bradley (Sophomore, B.A.), soloist	David Beauchamp (B.A., 2002), soloist
Full house for the performance	(L-R) Mark LaMoreaux (bass), Kristen Johnson (B.A., 2003, cello), and Lois Blackburn (guest cellist)
NSA Students and members of the CC Girls Choir	Mark Reagan takes a bow

The New Saint Andrews Choirs, under the direction of Mark Reagan, performed music for the Lenten season, Friday, March 3rd, to a large audience at the UI Administration Auditorium.

The concert, which included the Atlas Boys School, and the choirs and orchestra of Christ Church, Moscow, featured music of Gibbons, Lotti, Purcell, Barber, and two works by Faure, notably his Requiem, Op. 48. Sophomore Allison Bradley and 2002 alumnus David Beauchamp performed vocal solos.

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February 3, 2006

Atwood delivers "State of the College 2005" address to College community & Moscow's League of Women Voters

New Saint Andrews President Roy Atwood delivered the "State of the College 2005" address--twice--last week, highlightng the College's recent accreditation, its new library collection, student and faculty achievements, and the College's growing national reputation for excellent teaching and scholarship.

Atwood also announced three new developments for 2006: the start of a paid public Library Membership plan, the organization of a new national apprenticeship program, and the launch of the planning process for establishing new campuses elsewhere around the country.

Atwood delivered his address to the students, faculty, administration, and friends of the College assembled at the weekly Disputatio on Friday, Jan. 27. He repeated the address to Moscow's League of Women Voters on Wednesday, Feb. 1, at the League's invitation.

Notes from Atwood's "State of the College" 2005 address are reproduced here (left). Highlights of the new developments slated for 2006 include:

· Library Membership Plan
The College is pleased to make its new library resources available to members of the community through a paid Library Membership Plan. For a small fee, non-students may gain access to the library collection during limited hours. Professionals and life-time members can have full and unlimited access for proportionally higher membership rates (for more information call 882-1566).

· National Apprenticeship Program
To encourage reformation in other areas of life, especially the reformation of business, we are working with Christian business leaders around the country to develop a National Apprenticeship Program, which will allow classical Christian education and vocational preparation to occur simultaneously, rather than sequentially.

· Planning for New Colleges Around the Nation
With the College’s remarkable success and growth in demand, and in keeping with our commitment to a limited enrollment model at any one location (keeping enrollment under 200 FTE students), New Saint Andrews is pleased to announce that we have begun planning for the establishment of several sister colleges elsewhere around the country. We should begin to see the first fruits of this planning, Lord willing, within the next 3-5 years.

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January 27, 2006

Story from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Library unveiled at NSA's accreditation celebration

By Kate Baldwin, Daily News staff writer

The New Saint Andrews College accreditation celebration brought about 150 visitors to mix and mingle between the tall stacks of the community’s newest resource — a library.

(Left: CBN News Anchor Lee Webb [yellow jacket] and his news crew attended the accreditation celebration and Tyndale Library Open House)

Amidst his excitement in recognizing the accreditation, NSA President Roy Atwood invited the public to become members of the Tyndale Library during his address Thursday night.

After struggles with tax hearings and zoning debates, Atwood hoped the invitation would be viewed as an outstretched hand.

(Left: Mark Reagan conducts the College's Chamber Choir during the Open House).

“It’s to benefit those who’d like to use it,” said Bob Hieronymus, executive vice president. “We bring a library with a particular, unique character.”

The Tyndale Library boasts 56,000 volumes in its collection. It suits the curriculum of the classical Christian college with a focus in supplying literature, history, theology, philosophy, social sciences and the other areas of the arts and humanities.

Membership has an annual fee because the library relies on private funding to operate. The rate ranges from $35 for an individual 18 and older to $2,500 for a lifetime membership. There also are some stipulations on select books and hours to maintain maximum access for the students — such as during the week prior to final exams.

One display in the library drew more attention than even the appetizer table. People crowded to have their photos taken with a nearly six-foot tall stack of books.

Senior Brent McLean said the stack shows what freshmen are required to read. He pointed to one of his favorites among the 84 books, “Leave it to Smith” by P.G. Wodehouse. He said the stack was only about 60 books high when he started.

The change in books is only one small event for students like McLean, who plan to apply to graduate schools. NSA received accreditation on Nov. 29. from the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

Juniors Robin Harris and Bethany Waller agreed.

“It’ll make it easier for universities to accept NSA transcripts,” Harris said.

The evening marked a triple event as it honored the accreditation, acted as an open house for the library, and shared the night as a Moscow Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours open house.

Shirley Greene, owner of Greene’s Body and Paint Service, said she attended in support of each aspect. “(NSA) gives the community more options,” she said. “Like anything, it’s a business, and it’s good for the community.”

She said it brings in students from all over the world and that’s positive for the community and “a plus for our area.”

Hieronymus said the college’s accreditation has been received “with delight and congratulatory remarks” from numerous community members.

“It’s not every day that a college is born and this accreditation is a major milestone in the life of a college, so it’s an affirmation of what we have set out to do,” he said.

Kate Baldwin can be reachedat (208) 882-5561, ext. 239, or bye-mail at kbaldwin@dnews.com.

The Accreditation Celebration, Library Open House & Business After Hours Program, Jan. 26
(click on image to enlarge)

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