Category: Spring 2019

Distinctive Hope: Fellowship of the Spring

Held on the last Friday of April prior to semester exams, Spring Fling serves on one level as an opportunity for students to relax before the intensity of finals week. More, though, the event reflects Hope as a community. Hundreds of students fill the central campus not just for a mix of activities and a… Continue Reading →

From the President: Rev. Dennis N. Voskuil, Ph.D.

Dear Friends, So, here we are, nearing the end of both another academic year and my two-year tenure as Hope’s president. As you have already seen on the cover, this issue highlights my successor, Matthew A. Scogin ’02, who will take office this summer. I have enjoyed getting to know Matt, and I am certain… Continue Reading →

Quote, Unquote: Presidential Family

Through the magic of the Internet, readers and viewers around the world learned mere minutes after the decision had been made on December 7 that Matthew A. Scogin ’02 had been named Hope’s next president. Members of the campus community, though, enjoyed a bonus: the opportunity to greet in person the president-elect; his spouse (and… Continue Reading →

Hope is … faithful

Hope College is a Christian community that invites all its members into a holistic and robust engagement with the historic Christian faith and a personal encounter with the living Christ through the Holy Spirit. We are guided and challenged in mutual journey by three aspirations — to be faithful, to be welcoming and to be… Continue Reading →

Campus Scene

from blogs.hope.edu “While staring at a stone, I’ve witnessed a whole culture — gossip in Latin on the walls, pleas for remembrance during a plague, a whole host of animals and faces, staves of music carefully laid out, building plans and even reminders to pray.” As she has shared in “The Accidental Archaeologist” on the… Continue Reading →

“The Perfect Leader for Hope’s Next Chapter”

Matthew A. Scogin ’02 named 14th president President-Elect Matthew A. Scogin ’02 It is telling that when Matthew A. Scogin ’02 spoke to the college’s staff in November as a presidential candidate, the crowd that packed the room seemed ready to stand up and cheer. His heartfelt understanding of, and appreciation for, Hope had that… Continue Reading →

280 Years, Unquantifiable Commitment

Hope is in the final weeks of its 157th academic year. Add together the years 2018-19’s nine retiring faculty have been at the college, and they have that beat by more than a century. Their combined service, from 21 to 41, totals 280 years, representing thousands of days, countless hours and unquantifiable commitment to providing… Continue Reading →

20 Years of Building Community

Caryn Dannah pulled up to Scott Hall last fall ready to launch into something really new. Not only was she moving away from home for the first time — she’d opted into a living situation unlike anything that she’d experienced growing up in Grand Rapids. As a Phelps Scholar, Caryn “does life” with 95 other… Continue Reading →

Giving Back While Paying Forward

That old saying — “It’s not what you know but who you know” — is not only cynical: It uses the wrong conjunction. It is actually what AND who you know that make a difference in calling and career. Deep knowledge of “what” and giving connections from “whom” are the perfect combination to move a… Continue Reading →

Who was A.J. Muste?

Tell me you’ve heard of him: Abraham Johannes Muste (1885-1967), labor leader, world-renowned pacifist and probably Hope’s most famous alumnus. Born in the Netherlands, Muste immigrated to Grand Rapids with his family in 1891; he graduated from Hope College in 1905, valedictorian, captain of the basketball team, president of his fraternity (the Fraters, of course),… Continue Reading →

The Secret is Persistence

Matthew Baker ’08 dreamed of becoming a professional writer since the fourth grade, when he entered a “When I Grow Up” speech competition. “My speech was all about how I wanted to be Brian Jacques, the British guy who wrote the Redwall books,” Baker recalls. He wrote throughout high school in Grand Rapids but readily… Continue Reading →

Window to Hope’s History: Caught in the Rain

Where is the dividing line, if indeed there is one, between cliché and timeless truth? For example, while the aphorism “April showers bring May flowers” gains no marks for originality, it at least might — in 2019 as in this moment previously depicted in the 1964 Milestone yearbook — make for a comforting mantra on… Continue Reading →

Closing Look: Civil Rights Lecture

Jewellynne Richardson of West Michigan Jewels of Africa speaks to a capacity audience in Dimnent Memorial Chapel during the group’s presentation of African culture as part of the college’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights Lecture on Jan. 21. Presented first in 1989, the annual event has grown across the decades into a large-scale… Continue Reading →