Category: Summer 2019

Distinctive Hope: Where Ideas Begin

Hope’s emphasis on serving not only its students but the community is exemplified in the NEA Big Read Lakeshore that the college has organized each fall since 2014. The program invites all ages across the area to read a specific novel and then get together to discuss it and the issues it explores. Winning funding… Continue Reading →

From the President: Matthew A. Scogin ʼ02

Dear Friends and Family of Hope College, In just a few weeks, we will welcome the members of Hope’s Class of 2022 to their new home-away-from-home. If you are an alumnus of Hope College, you may remember the feeling of arriving on campus as a student for the first time. I certainly do! Twenty-one years… Continue Reading →

Quote, Unquote: Commencement 2019

As the 713 members of the Class of 2019 prepared to cross the stage during Commencement at Ray and Sue Smith Stadium on Sunday, May 5, featured speaker Dr. Kristen Gray reflected on ways that their lessons had prepared them to travel from the campus community to living in the larger neighborhood of the global… Continue Reading →

Hope is … welcoming

Hospitality is a hallmark of the Christian faith. Hope seeks to be a community that affirms the dignity of all persons as bearers of God’s image. We are a community where all come together to offer their gifts of understanding to one another. Students of all faiths — or no faith at all — are… Continue Reading →

Campus Scene

from blogs.hope.edu “Part of the college experience is exploring things you may not have had the opportunity to do before. Try it out and if you don’t like it, if it doesn’t fit in your schedule, or if it simply isn’t for you, don’t be afraid to step away from it. That’s okay.” Featuring student… 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 →

The Epitome of Selfless Service

Bookended by Alumni Weekend and Commencement, the closing week of the school year was the natural time for the Hope family to thank the husband-and-wife team that stepped up and stepped in to help the college in a time of transition by serving a two-year term as Hope’s first couple. The Hope College Alumni Association… Continue Reading →

A Passion for Interfaith Dialogue

Allison LoPrete ’19 opens with a greeting given by the risen Christ himself: “Peace be with you.” It’s the opening of a liturgy that one might expect to find in Sunday morning worship services around the world — or perhaps in Hope’s own Dimnent Memorial Chapel four times a week. “And also with you,” the… 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 →

Happiness is Research about Happiness

A smile — that universal expression of happiness — usually needs no translation. Upturned corners of a mouth mean “gladness”; add teeth and you have jubilation. Yet, as with most things in human life, it’s not always that simple. What makes one person put on a happy face might make another express ambivalence at best.… 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 →

150 Years in the Making

The landmark anniversary history tome Hope College at 150 has so large a story to tell that it fills not one volume but two. Subtitled “Anchored in Faith, Educating for Leadership and Service in a Global Society,” the 1,410-page magnum opus has been published in paired hardcovers by the college’s Van Raalte Press as part… Continue Reading →

Window to Hope’s History: Beanies for All!

Being a new student was just a bit different five-and-more decades ago, with all freshmen of those distant days provided green beanies to wear during the fall semester. Born in an era when one’s school-year identity perhaps mattered more and Hope was much smaller, the student-organized practice, as is typical of such traditions, was intended… Continue Reading →

Closing Look: There’s No Place Like Hope

With apologies to one of American film’s most famous lines, there’s no place like Hope’s hometown of Holland and the college together, each enhanced by the other’s presence in an outstanding town-gown relationship that is the envy of many other communities and schools. For example, Ali Jesky of the groundskeeping staff is a member of… Continue Reading →