Lifetimes of Impact
Except for being a parent, there is arguably no greater commitment to the future than being a teacher.
In important ways, the mission and impact are the same: providing guidance while helping young people discover who they are meant to be and ultimately preparing them to walk their own paths, journeys that in turn will touch others, and others and others.
At Hope, that happens with a specific focus, which, as per the college’s mission, “is to educate students for lives of leadership and service in a global society through academic and co-curricular programs of recognized excellence in the liberal arts and in the context of the historic Christian faith.” The phrase is so familiar a part of the Hope fabric that it could easily become nothing more than a platitude, but it is never that. And it lives not least of all because of the faculty who dedicate themselves with a sense of personal mission to the students in their charge.
As the school year draws to a close, the college celebrates with gratitude five who are concluding their tenure after embodying the message, making it not just said but true, for a combined 152 years: Dr. Isolde Anderson, professor of communication; Jean Bahle, assistant professor of theatre; Dr. Edward Hansen, professor of geology and environmental science; Dr. James Herrick, the Guy VanderJagt Professor of Communication; and Dr. Roger Nemeth, professor of sociology.
Nemeth retired at the end of the fall semester but has continued to work on research projects at the college, and Anderson, Bahle, Hansen and Herrick are all retiring at the close of the spring semester.
Please visit the college online for biographical sketches of each of the retirees.