Author: Eva Dean Folkert

Going Coast to Coast

As voluminous waves rose and flowed more than three miles off the Holland shore, Brian Kieft ’01 looked out over the black-green topography of Lake Michigan and scoured the waterscape. His small boat, as well as his eyeballs, bobbed up and down with each swell, rolling like marbles on a parabolic joyride. The undulating motion… Continue Reading →

Sport and Religion

In America — with its foundational tenet of religious freedom and expression and with its fanatical devotion to sport participation and consumption — a prominent and perplexing marriage weds fierce competition and sincere faith on our playing fields, televisions, and newsfeeds. In kneeling Tim Tebow and post-game-midfield prayers, in evangelistic Athletes in Action and in… Continue Reading →

King of Diamonds

In the time it takes you to read this — just the word “this” — DJ Reyburn ’99 will make up his mind. In fact, in the time it takes you to read this — “this” now being this entire story — DJ Reyburn will make at least another 50 decisions. Ball, strike. Fair, foul.… Continue Reading →

How on Earth?

Challenging Borders for the Good of Hope in the World By Eva Dean Folkert ’83 To look at the Earth from above, as a bird sees it or from an astronaut’s stratospheric view, is to see a gloriously blue-green-white sphere as one splendid whole. Rivers and mountains cross expanses unabated; oceans flow uninhibitedly from one… Continue Reading →

Role Reversal

In Dr. Kenneth Brown’s analytical chemistry laboratory, details are amenable obsessions. Precise measurements, exact reaction times, specific compound properties, meticulous journal notes — it all requires a special law and order of the chemical kind. While the terms bantered about in Schaap Science Center lab 2116A would make any layperson’s head spin with their particular… Continue Reading →

Just Call Him Dennis

Those who know the Reverend Dr. President Dennis Voskuil well — and more tellingly, many who don’t — skip over any one of his titular honorifics, earned and respected as they may be, and go straight to Dennis. Just call him Dennis, that’s all he wants. The new, 13th president of Hope College even signs… Continue Reading →

Let’s Talk

In today’s America, a craggy schism rocks almost any brand of public discourse, leaving deep welts of incivility on families, communities, the workplace and, of course, college campuses. For a country that has (or had?) prided itself on open dialogue, a remarkable number of people now shy away from controversial discussions for fear of immediate,… Continue Reading →

Genius Born of Necessity: Unique Team-Up Earns Dance Acclaim

Creative thinking and collaboration were the answers to an unfortunate overlap in scheduling between this year’s Dance 44 concert and the American College Dance Association’s East-Central regional conference. The conflicting circumstance caused senior dancers Emily Mejicano-Gormley and Nia Stringfellow to combine their previously performed solo works, “Memory” by Mejicano-Gormley and “The Will” by Stringfellow, into… Continue Reading →

Champions on Ice

If you want to know all about the Hope College hockey program’s past history, current state or future hopes, you really only have to talk to one person. Just one conversation with one guy is all you need to find out the team’s passage from its humble, eclectically skilled beginnings in 1996 to winning the… Continue Reading →

Food for Thought

You recently finished one holiday meal and will soon belly up to another. As you sit down to partake of whatever traditional Christmas menu is yours, put your fork on pause and consider this: How many things does your food affect? Health. Check. Culture. Check. Economies. Check. Arts and science. Check. Dispositions. Check. Your waistline.… Continue Reading →

The Art of Being Human

Megan Constance Altieri ’13 As artist Megan Constance Altieri ’13 began to dismantle Sonder, her recent award-winning work of art, a myriad of reactions overwhelmed her — melancholy, appreciation, introspection, even laughter. But that was precisely the point of the piece. Sonder was meant to evoke the gamut of emotions, for artist and art-lover alike.… Continue Reading →

On the Way to His True North

If not for a simple, hand-drawn map, Danny Kosiba ’17 would not be where he is today, nor where he was six months ago, nor where he was a year before that. Spare though neatly illustrated, the map would not only guide him to a physical destination in the Cook Islands, but it led to… Continue Reading →

For All of God’s Good Earth

According to a recent Yale University survey, only 18 percent of American evangelical and born-again Christians believe that caring for the earth is part of their faith. When environmental theologian Dr. Steve Bouma-Prediger hears a statistic like that, he matter-of-factly responds, “I have a lot more work to do.” That work, which he has undertaken… Continue Reading →

Human Form and Function in Costume Design

The silken bodice of Cinderella’s gown, the furry makeup on the Big Bad Wolf’s face, the crimson woolen cape over Little Red Riding Hood’s shoulders — each element helps bring to life Stephen Sondheim’s amalgamated fairy tale Into the Woods. Professor Michelle Bombe and two student assistants designed every character’s costume from head to toe… Continue Reading →

Finding Meaning in the Storms

“Why did this have to happen to me?Where is God?How could God let this occur?What am I going to do?Who am I going to be?” Those massive life questions — uneasy, uncomfortable, overwhelming — are smack dab at the heart of Dr. Daryl Van Tongeren’s prolific research and writing. The scholar of experimental social psychology… Continue Reading →

Finding a Brain Cell Fix

About 2 percent of a person’s body weight is mostly responsible for the way the other 98 percent of it functions. The complex human brain, which usually weighs in at about three pounds, is the ultimate multi-tasker of human organs — processor of senses, memory and knowledge; coordinator of heartbeats, breaths and motor skills; releaser… Continue Reading →

The Athletic Ability of And

This fall, a long-awaited friend will return to DeVos Fieldhouse. Its presence will be warmly welcomed, even affectionately embraced, and then it will be shown to its preferred place of honor, right alongside 36 other “colleagues” who also live in the rafters. In traditional Hope orange and blue, a 37th banner — that friend whose… Continue Reading →

Hope’s Deep Dive in Cozumel

Twenty-five feet below the surface in the Caribbean Sea’s show-off turquoise water that rolled and swelled beneath an equally-gaudy cobalt sky, Anne Sangliana ’19 discovered something she hoped she’d find. A fanciful creature with an orange-splotched body had perched itself on a vibrant coral reef. As flamboyant as it was, the little animal was actually… Continue Reading →

Two MVPs and the Coach In-Between

Of the many qualities of water, its ability to represent the flowing movement of time is perhaps its most preternatural. For a story about swimming greatness, that metaphor could go something like this: February, 1987. Rob Peel — a tall, slender Spring Lake, Michigan-native, obsessed with going fast in the freestyle — has smashed Hope… Continue Reading →