[xtypo_dropcap]B[/xtypo_dropcap]randon Sullivan (23) was often cast as Jesus Christ in the Youth Theatre of his town, Exton, PA. He attended St. Paul’s Lutheran Church there.
He says, “We did a variety of plays over the years, including Rock Nativity,
Cotton Patch Gospel and Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat....” These three
main productions had up to 80 youth on the stage...but our first and favorite play was Godspell.
“The plays were cast in the 70’s tradition, with clown or tie-and-dye costumes; the frames were airy as in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with Rock Music, interspersed with serious scenes from the Story of Jesus.”
“We would often form a smaller group of 15-20 over the summer to perform Godspell at various churches in the Philadelphia area.
“This allowed us to meet lots of new people and reach out to different congregations and people in need.
“Some shows were performed for special needs children, or people with varying disabilities so it was great to spread the message of the gospel to so many different groups.”
In Brandon’s life there was a connection between playacting and work at college. If you cannot walk on water as Jesus did, or float on a reed as in the folktale, you can at least design bridges.
As an undergraduate at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, Brandon majored in structural engineering because he was very interested in designing bridges.
“Each year I participated in the National Student Steel Bridge Competition to design a 20-foot model steel bridge that had to meet many different dimensional constraints.
“The bridges were tested under 2,500 pounds of weight, and the vertical deflection was measured. They were judged based on the weight of the bridge, the time it took to assemble the bridge at the competition, and the amount of deflection under the full test weight.
“I was the captain in my senior year and led a team of 15 students in designing and fabricating all the members of the bridge. We learned to weld, grind and cut the steel to form virtually any piece we needed. It was a test of creativity and ingenuity.
“The bridges created by the different colleges were very different. Some schools would choose, heavier and sturdier design to limit deflection, while others would try to keep the bridge light, and keep faster the assembly time.
“Like all things in engineering, a winning bridge requires optimization of the different scoring categories, so this was an excellent practice for real world engineering.”
From his junior year at Lehigh, Brandon was interested in recycling. For graduate school, Brandon attended Cornell University. He says, “I think Lehigh is still less focused on sustainability than Cornell (where I attended grad school this past year) but we helped Lehigh to take a step in the right direction.”
During his graduate year at Cornell, Brandon lived in EcoVillage. He says, “I was intrigued by the name. I originally came here because of the “Eco” component.
“A few searches gave me a lot of info about EcoVillage, and I knew it would be a great place to focus on sustainability and to learn from people who have been trying to minimize their impact on earth for years.
“What I didn’t really expect to love more was the “Village” component of the name. I could see right away that this would be different from any place I had lived before—everybody knew each other and walked to visit their neighbors.
“The emphasis on community seems even more important than the emphasis on ecology, because if you are going to live in tight quarters with your neighbors and try to reach sustainability goals as a group, you truly need to be a united community and not simply a group of residents.”
He says, “We did a variety of plays over the years, including Rock Nativity,
Cotton Patch Gospel and Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat....” These three
main productions had up to 80 youth on the stage...but our first and favorite play was Godspell.
“The plays were cast in the 70’s tradition, with clown or tie-and-dye costumes; the frames were airy as in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with Rock Music, interspersed with serious scenes from the Story of Jesus.”
“We would often form a smaller group of 15-20 over the summer to perform Godspell at various churches in the Philadelphia area.
“This allowed us to meet lots of new people and reach out to different congregations and people in need.
“Some shows were performed for special needs children, or people with varying disabilities so it was great to spread the message of the gospel to so many different groups.”
In Brandon’s life there was a connection between playacting and work at college. If you cannot walk on water as Jesus did, or float on a reed as in the folktale, you can at least design bridges.
As an undergraduate at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, Brandon majored in structural engineering because he was very interested in designing bridges.
“Each year I participated in the National Student Steel Bridge Competition to design a 20-foot model steel bridge that had to meet many different dimensional constraints.
“The bridges were tested under 2,500 pounds of weight, and the vertical deflection was measured. They were judged based on the weight of the bridge, the time it took to assemble the bridge at the competition, and the amount of deflection under the full test weight.
“I was the captain in my senior year and led a team of 15 students in designing and fabricating all the members of the bridge. We learned to weld, grind and cut the steel to form virtually any piece we needed. It was a test of creativity and ingenuity.
“The bridges created by the different colleges were very different. Some schools would choose, heavier and sturdier design to limit deflection, while others would try to keep the bridge light, and keep faster the assembly time.
“Like all things in engineering, a winning bridge requires optimization of the different scoring categories, so this was an excellent practice for real world engineering.”
From his junior year at Lehigh, Brandon was interested in recycling. For graduate school, Brandon attended Cornell University. He says, “I think Lehigh is still less focused on sustainability than Cornell (where I attended grad school this past year) but we helped Lehigh to take a step in the right direction.”
During his graduate year at Cornell, Brandon lived in EcoVillage. He says, “I was intrigued by the name. I originally came here because of the “Eco” component.
“A few searches gave me a lot of info about EcoVillage, and I knew it would be a great place to focus on sustainability and to learn from people who have been trying to minimize their impact on earth for years.
“What I didn’t really expect to love more was the “Village” component of the name. I could see right away that this would be different from any place I had lived before—everybody knew each other and walked to visit their neighbors.
“The emphasis on community seems even more important than the emphasis on ecology, because if you are going to live in tight quarters with your neighbors and try to reach sustainability goals as a group, you truly need to be a united community and not simply a group of residents.”
