From the President: Matthew A. Scogin ʼ02

Dear Friends and Family of Hope College,

As I write this, I’ve just celebrated the conclusion of my first year as president of Hope College. What a year this has been! A year of turbulence like none of us have seen before. As we look ahead, we wrestle with questions like, how do we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic? How do we pursue racial justice and reconciliation? With the presidential election just a few months away, what can Christian political discourse look like? How we answer these and many other questions of global, national and local significance will have impact for generations to come.

Yet, when all is said and done, I believe we will look back on this time and see that it was an enormous opportunity.

It is an opportunity for teaching moments, and colleges exist for teaching moments! It is an opportunity to learn about new modalities of teaching and rethink the future of higher education. It is a chance to engage in difficult conversations about racial injustice. We have a lot of work to do in this area. But we will not miss this opportunity to dedicate ourselves to creating an environment that more closely models the biblical picture of unity and diversity within the Kingdom of God.

As the hashtag has said, students, alumni, faculty and staff have been focusing on #KeepingHope — and that is the greatest opportunity of all. We need the virtue of hope — the confident and joyful expectation that something good is going to happen — now more than ever. When we view these challenging times through the lens of hope, we already see evidence of God bringing growth and beauty out of chaos and difficulty. And there is no better place to cultivate and spread hope through the world than a college for which true, biblical hope is a foundational identity. As I look back on my first year and look forward to the year to come, I’m excited. I’m excited for the role that Hope will play in preparing tomorrow’s leaders with hope at heart.

Spera in Deo,
Matthew A. Scogin ʼ02
President