Inspire, Fall 1999

What's Your Blend? Counseling services works closely with many campus departments, one of which is career services. In spring of 1998, these two offices worked together to provide a coffee shop atmosphere for freshmen as they sought to discover "What's Your Blend?" Using peer and staff counseling, aptitude testing, and slide shows, these departments had the opportunity to work with more than 100 students. Beginning this fall, career services and counseling services will once again team up to offer a comprehensive career assessment to guide incoming students in choosing their life work. Designed by Life Pathways, a division of Larry Burkett's Christian Financial Concepts, CareerDirect evaluates each student's skills, interests, personality, and values. This program will enable counseling services, career services, and academic advisors to participate as a team in guiding students' career and ministry decisions. Sandra miner On The Road Sandra Entner '59 presented two Myers-Briggs seminars for the Association of Christian Schools International's Pre-Field Orientation (PFO) in Denver this summer. In addition, she presented a seminar for the Network of International Christian Schools in Mississippi. These PFO's are training programs for teachers and dorm parents going to Christian schools around the world. In September, Sandra did a seminar for the Morrison Academy in Taiwan. Shown with Sandra are three Cedarville graduates who attended one of the seminars in Denver: Kim Rideout '99 (China), Chris Leverett '98 (Taiwan), and Melissa Wabeke '99 (China). Kim Ahlgrim and Lori Phipps Vasquez '96greet students seeking career counseling. Manyfaculty and staffcouples volunteer to mentor engaged couples. Here,Dick and Murtha Kaercher meet with Mark Allen '98 and Cynthia(Blanton)'99. Are You Fit To Be Tied? Fit To Be Tied (FTBT), a popular program for engaged couples, is sponsored by counseling services, but employs the services of a number of departments. The FTBT Committee is composed of staff from counseling, Christian ministries, and other student services departments. The program, which included 42 couples this past school year, combines testing, seminars, and a mentoring program in a format designed to help students face their coming marriages in a thoughtful, realistic, and committed way. Faculty and staff volunteer their time to do the seminars and to become mentors to the couples. A measure of success for the program has been the fact that several couples who have been through the program have used the FTBT model to start similar programs in their home churches. Dr. Richard Blumenstock of the department of biblical education has done a great deal of work to make this program successful. He states, "Premarital preparation provides opportunities for couples to communicate about the real issues of life and marriage." 7FALL 1999