Category: Winter 2023

Distinctive Hope: Mural Festival

Hope College’s Transportation Garage sits a few blocks away from the core campus. If you didn’t know it was there, you might miss it! But thanks to the Tulip City Walls Festival, held during the most sweltering days of this past July, the garage has been adorned with a colorful mural, along with many other… Continue Reading →

From the President: Matthew A. Scogin ʼ02

Dear Friends and Family of Hope College, During the season of Christmas, hope comes alive. And I don’t just mean Hope College — although that happens, too. The massive tree between our home and Voorhees lights up, we sing carols in Dimnent, and celebrate long-standing campus traditions like Vespers. Those joyous occasions are celebrating the… Continue Reading →

Quote Unquote: Convocation 2023

Even a welcome, sought-after change can lead to anxious moments. As Hope formally launched its 162nd academic year with its Opening Convocation, featured speaker Rebekah L. Starkenburg provided tools to help the members of the incoming Class of 2027 navigate those moments and make the most of their time as college students. Starkenburg, who is… Continue Reading →

Campus Scene

COMMENT PARTNERSHIP SUPPORTS DEVELOPING MORAL IMAGINATION Comment magazine has selected Hope as the first institution to pilot a new community subscription program called Comment for Groups, providing additional resources for students, faculty and staff as they consider how the historic Christian faith can help meet the world’s deepest needs. Comment is a quarterly magazine of… Continue Reading →

Grit and Gratitude

In a season filled with gratitude and togetherness, the Hope College volleyball team accomplished so much as one tight-knit group. Led by American Volleyball Coaches Association Co-National Player of the Year Addie VanderWeide, the Flying Dutch posted a remarkable NCAA championships run that included a national runner-up finish and a Division III-record four consecutive five-set… Continue Reading →

50 Years and Counting

Maxine DeBruyn teaching a class in the basement of Durfee Hall, 1969. Dance department founder Maxine DeBruyn joins the faculty in 1965 and creates and teaches Hope’s first dance class, in modern dance; 17 students enroll. Even as she continued to build the college’s program across the next four-plus decades, DeBruyn went on to become… Continue Reading →

What is Truth?

COVID vaccines. Election security. Accusations of media bias. AI-generated images and deepfake videos. Homeopathic medicine. Climate change. The world, it seems, is becoming overrun with competing claims, misinformation, conspiracy theories and outright lies. It’s gotten so bad that many of us can’t tell what’s true anymore, or (worse) whether the truth even exists. “As an… Continue Reading →

To Foster a Healthy Mindset and Body Image, Offset Negative Messages

There’s nothing like filtered TikToks and photoshopped celebrity images to make us dissatisfied with our own bodies. And boy, does modern media deliver a constant barrage. Dr. Mary Inman, professor of psychology and department chair, knows that affirmation is a powerful antidote. In multiple strands of research with colleagues and Hope College students, she’s identifying… Continue Reading →

Mentoring a New Generation of Jazz Musicians

Robert Shipley is widely regarded as one of the most versatile, accomplished drummers of his era. Equally at home in jazz, pop, blues, R&B and Latin genres, he began his career recording with Grammy-winning blues legend Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and has performed around the world with Diana Ross, Natalie Cole, The Temptations, Chaka Khan and… Continue Reading →

Van Raalte Institute Books

History Remembered With the 30th anniversary of the college’s Van Raalte Institute on the horizon, some of the books most recently written or edited under its auspices provide a sense of its ongoing role not only chronicling but also enhancing the past and our understanding of it. Named for Hope’s cofounder and established in 1994,… Continue Reading →

10 Under Ten

Before the “Hope in the [Real] World Panel”, an engaging conversation about life after Hope for current students, I always ask the recipients of the 10 Under 10 Awards, who serve as the featured panelists, to gather inside Graves Hall. This year, as I welcomed designers, doctors and researchers into the space, I noticed a… Continue Reading →

On Top of the World

Jenn Drummond ’01 Becomes the First Woman to Ascend the World’s Seven “Second Summits” The air was painfully frigid and the wind lashed at her face like a million tiny whips, but Jenn Drummond ’01 felt nothing. The sun shone intensely and the view was otherworldly, but Jenn Drummond saw nothing. The wind yelled at… Continue Reading →

Rising to the Occasion

On a challenging course, the Hope College women’s cross country team rose to the occasion again. The Flying Dutch provided one of many highlights during the 2023 fall season by rising eight spots from the pre-national rankings to place 17th at the NCAA Division III Championships on November 18 in Newville, Pennsylvania. Hope finished ahead… Continue Reading →

O Christmas Tree

The annual lighting of the Christmas tree outside the President’s Home on Nov. 29 provided an opportunity for the campus community to gather in anticipation of the Advent season and celebrate the promise of salvation embodied in the birth of Jesus. In a fortuitous conjunction, a timely snowfall a few days before the event blanketed… Continue Reading →