Ottawa University hosted Dr. Os Guinness as its annual Norwood L. Jones Convocation speaker on March 7-8, 2012. Guinness presented two lectures, “Can Freedom Last Forever?” and “Challenging the Darkness.” He also presented a seminar aimed at clergy members. “Can we really change the world?” Guinness asked audience members during Wednesday’s presentation. Guinness said many people believe they can change the world – and they believe it to be a fairly effortless task at that. �

He did it because of his love of music. He did it because he enjoyed playing the saxophone. He did it because a career as a professional musician is difficult financially. But mostly, music teacher Marlin Cooper ’61 did it for the students. “The students were the most enjoyable part of my many years in teaching,” says Cooper. “I especially enjoyed the wide variety of students, their various skill levels and their energy.” Cooper was recently recognized for his more than

Ottawa University – Online was recognized in January as a leader in distance education when it received the Distance Education Best Practices award from the Association of Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), a professional association dedicated to improving instruction through technology. The award, which is sponsored by Information Age Publishers and AECT’s Division of Distance Learning, was announced following AECT’s review of the University’s online application outlin

Dear Friends, As always, we are pleased to bring you this new edition of the Spirit magazine. Our editor, Paula Paine, our senior designer, Lee Stadler and our communications specialist, Courtney Servaes do a great job for us on these publications and we appreciate their hard work and creativity. We get many compliments from our readers, and we are glad that you seem to enjoy this regular update on the status of our institution with its far-flung reach and scope. This edition’s theme is