66 percent of EMU’s tenure or tenure-track faculty are Mennonite; this number has been in steady decline since 2009.
For the Fall 2021 semester, 196 of EMU’s 770 enrolled undergraduates are Mennonite. That’s only a quarter of the undergraduate population but is still the strongest represented religious group on campus according to EMU’s Factbook.
I am part of that 25 percent. When people find out I’m from Mississippi, they almost always ask what could’ve possibly brought me here to EMU. For the past two and a half years, “I’m Mennonite” has been a sufficient answer. It shuts people up; they automatically assume they have an understanding of my life prior to EMU.
What they don’t know is that my family isn’t historically Mennonite; my mom joined as a young adult. When hearing my full name, people typically don’t assume my Mennonite faith because my last name isn’t “Pennsylvanian” or Dutch.
Because of this, I’m in a unique position of Mennonite anonymity at EMU. When I showed up to my first Thursday morning Ruling Ideas class, one largely representative of Mennonites, there was one story I was repeatedly hearing from my peers.
A first-year student who was raised Mennonite in some rural region of the USA grew up with vastly different views than their geographic peers. Often this meant that they held liberal beliefs while the community they left held strong conservative views.
That was my story, and I was hearing it echoed by many of my peers as their own experience.
I think this is the reason so many young adult Mennonites come to EMU and finally feel at home – at home in the community and with their other Mennonite peers.
My last name was where our stories diverged. I obviously wasn’t related by blood to any of them – and thus couldn’t participate in the aptly named “Mennonite Game.” This is a conversation
game between Mennonites – the idea is that if you talk long enough, you eventually figure out how you’re related because you are, undoubtedly, related.
Students with last names like Yoder, Lehman, Miller, or any other traditional Mennonite surname come to EMU with a surplus of privilege, whether we recognize it or not.
Holding the same last name as many of your professors is a privilege. Attending convocation in a building that shares your name and history is a privilege.
Feeling represented by authority figures is a privilege. Being represented within this institution is a privilege – one that the vast majority of undergraduate students don’t experience. By being Mennonite without a traditional last name, I still benefit from this privilege.
But I also have a clearer perspective of what it’s like to be at EMU but not in EMU. By that, I mean I understand a little bit of what it’s like to feel like just a student in a program and not a student shaping the program, living into the curriculum as much as fellow peers.
I don’t have any solution to this problem that EMU hasn’t already considered or isn’t already working towards.
The cultural shift, though, has to happen within the student body.
Acknowledging our privilege and recognizing that it can be used to benefit those without privilege at EMU is a strong first step towards progress.
