Susan Emel started having her students read Scripture lessons during worship services in 2003.

Emel, professor of mass media and communication, believed it was an effective way to present the message.

This group would become the Baker University speech choir – a group of students unlike any other on campus.

“Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the story or in the odd working of the text,” Emel said.

In 2003, the group performed between four and five different events and has averaged the same number of performances each semester since. Except for this year.

<br/>Listen to an entire speech choir performance.<strong>Listen to an entire speech choir performance.</strong>
Listen to an entire speech choir performance.

“This fall, we had 10 (invitations),” Emel said. “I used to say I would do all of them, but I’ve found that we do have enough students to do them all, but we don’t have enough time to put the scripts together, to practice and get them all ready to go.”

The group is doing more performances this semester than ever before.

Junior Bob Linebarger still gets nervous before each performance.

“I do a lot of theater, and I’ve grown out of nervousness through that,” he said. “But for some reason, I’m kind of nervous when I go up for speech choir.”

Speech choir is one-of-a-kind. No other college or university that Emel knows of has this sort of activity.

For the 22 students involved in the group last semester, this presents a challenge – one they welcome.

"It's not really normal. It's really awesome, and I think it really goes back to Dr. Emel," Linebarger said. "I think it's cool to be something like this."<br/>It takes more than stage presence and excitement to make an event happen. When the group is asked to speak at an event, Emel first checks the group's availability. Then the students are asked to do research in the form of poetry, literature, drama and news.It takes more than stage presence and excitement to make an event happen. When the group is asked to speak at an event, Emel first checks the group's availability. Then the students are asked to do research in the form of poetry, literature, drama and news.
It takes more than stage presence and excitement to make an event happen. When the group is asked to speak at an event, Emel first checks the group’s availability. Then the students are asked to do research in the form of poetry, literature, drama and news.

They send their information to Emel, who constructs a script. After a script is assembled, the team begins the editing process.

“They will say, ‘This joke isn’t funny,’ or ‘So and so should read this line,'” Emel said.

After the script is perfected and the group has settled on a complete script, practices begin. Then it’s time to perform.

The group performed at convocation the past two years, as well as the alumni gala and the student reception for University President Pat Long’s inauguration in 2006. The speech choir also did a presentation for the School of Education in Jan. 2008 and performs numerous times each semester in chapel services.

“Almost all – 95 percent – of our audiences are Baker things or campus-sponsored things,” Emel said. “We have done a couple of things off campus, and we have one or two more opportunities for that in the spring, but we try to save our schedule for Baker things.”

University Minister Ira DeSpain thinks when the speech choir performs an obvious connection between the group and the audience exists.

“There is a familiarity,” he said. “Any time that students watch other students perform … there is a connection.”