There's a Christmas tree in a Main Street business that is home to an owl, reindeer and lots of other animals. Icon viewers will find the tree in Ten Thousand Villages, 115 S. Main St. The shop has lots of great Christmas gift ideas. Click for a video.
Nathan Sommer, a Bluffton native and Ph.D. student at the University of Cincinnati, will explore the evolution of the human-computer relationship in a Bluffton University Forum at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 8, in Founders Hall. The presentation, titled “Teaching Our Machines,” is free and open to the public.
Sommer, whose research currently focuses on musical applications of machine learning, will discuss how machine learning is entering our lives and what we are teaching—and attempting to teach—our computers.
The chorus for Bluffton University’s spring-semester Masterworks Concert—the former Bach Festival Concert—will rehearse at 7 p.m. Tuesdays, beginning Jan. 8, in the Gilliom Room of Mosiman Hall.
Rehearsals will culminate with the Bluffton Choral Society’s concert performance of “Requiem,” by Florian Leopold Gassmann, at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, in Yoder Recital Hall.
Singers from high school through adults are encouraged to join the choral society, which will be conducted by Dr. Mark J. Suderman, professor of music at Bluffton.
Portraits by painter Amanda Joseph will be on exhibit beginning Monday, Jan. 7, in the Grace Albrecht Gallery of Bluffton University’s Sauder Visual Arts Center.
The exhibit is free and open to the public through Jan. 27. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 1-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The gallery will also host a reception with the artist from 1-3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13.
“Spirituality & Shalom: Living at the Intersection of Faith & Justice,” the 2013 Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship conference, will be held Feb. 8-10 at Bluffton University.
Spirituality’s role in peacebuilding—and peacebuilding’s role in individuals’ spiritual lives—is the focus of the conference, an annual gathering of representatives of Mennonite colleges and universities but open to the public as well.
The Icon received several letters written from youngsters at the Bluffton Senior Citizens Center during the Cookie Walk on Saturday. The Center forwarded these to the Icon.
