Kevin Enns-Rempel has been appointed permanent director of Hiebert Library. The FPU Board of Trustees made the decision at its regular meetings March 2-3.

Enns-Rempel has served as interim director since 2010. Among the initiatives the library has made during that time is implementing the Encore library discovery system, which makes it easier for library users to find both print and online resources.

Head men’s and women’s swimming & diving coach Peter Richardson will return to his alma mater, having accepted an offer to become the head coach at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.

Richardson, who started the FPU program from scratch in 2007, turned Fresno Pacific into a perennial national power at the NAIA level. In five years as the head coach he led the men’s and women’s programs to three NAIA national championships and three national runner-up finishes as the program heads into NCAA Division II next season.

Students, faculty and staff have all come together for Godspell: A Musical Based on the Gospel According to Matthew. The show will be March 22-April 1 in Ashley Auditorium on the main campus.

Peace and justice as seen by God and humanity will be the topic of the 2012 Believers Church Lecture Series March 21-22 at FPU.

Fernando Enns is the guest speaker. A native of Brazil, Enns is director of the Center for Theology of Peace Churches at the University of Hamburg and professor of theology and ethics at the Free University of Amsterdam. Among his books are The Peace Church and the Ecumenical Community: Ecclesiology and the Ethics of Nonviolence (2008) and Seeking Cultures of Peace: A Peace Church Conversation (co-editor, 2004).

The American legal system is based on equality before the law—but does legal equality mean identical treatment? Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, J.D., M.Div., associate professor of peacemaking and conflict studies at Fresno Pacific University and director of the Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, has an alternate view that is being successful in the Valley and beyond.

As he prepares to retire after 10 years as FPU President, D. Merrill Ewert can look back on many honors. But the Harold Haak Award from the Fresno Compact is particularly meaningful.

“It’s a great honor to receive this award, having known Dr. Haak and then being the person who replaced him at Fresno Pacific. He’s a man I have enormous respect for. I’m literally sitting in the chair in which he sat,” said Ewert, who often tells how Haak recruited him and called FPU a “gift to the Valley.”