Campus Scene
BEGINNING OF SCHOOL
Beginning this year, Hope is starting fall classes on a Monday instead of a Tuesday, a change that enables the college to extend Thanksgiving Break. Accordingly, the schedules for student arrival and New Student Orientation have also shifted a day earlier.
The members of the incoming Class of 2028 will arrive on Thursday, Aug. 22, with the rest of the students beginning to return on Saturday, Aug. 24. The Opening Convocation will still be on a Sunday (Aug. 25) at 2 p.m., with Dr. Brooke Odle, assistant professor of engineering, as this year’s featured speaker. Attendance at the Opening Convocation is limited to students, faculty and staff, with the event livestreamed for others at hope.edu/live and the college’s YouTube channel. Classes begin on Monday, Aug. 26. Thanksgiving Break will run Wednesday-Sunday, Nov. 27-Dec. 1.
ALEXANDER JONES NAMED VP OF PHILANTHROPY/ENGAGEMENT
Hope has appointed an experienced leader with a passion for Christian higher education as its new vice president of philanthropy and engagement.
Dr. Alexander Jones, who started on July 1, brings more than a decade of experience to his new role at Hope. He was most recently vice president of institutional advancement at Roberts Wesleyan University and Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York. Prior to serving at Roberts, he led fundraising efforts in the Midwest at Wheaton College (Illinois) as regional director of development for the Great Lakes.
TRUSTEE APPOINTMENTS
The Hope College Board of Trustees has elected five new members in addition to reappointing two members and appointing new Executive Committee members.
The new Trustees are: PJ Huizenga ’98 of Hinsdale, Illinois; Eric Keen of Nashville, Tennessee; Dr. Steven McMullen of Holland, Michigan; Dr. Dara Spearman ’99 of Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Frances Schrock ’89 Traisman of Seattle, Washington.
Trustees reelected to serve second terms are: Andrew Ohm ’00 of Redondo Beach, California, and Laura Paredes of Old Greenwich, Connecticut.
Victoria Brunn ’84 of Seattle has been elected secretary. Dr. Stephen Boerigter of Los Alamos, New Mexico, is continuing to serve as chair, with Dr. Matthew Wixson ’08 of Ann Arbor, Michigan, continuing to serve as vice chair. In addition to Boerigter, Brunn and Wixson, the board’s six-member Executive Committee includes Lisa Meengs ’95 Joldersma of Washington, D.C., appointed chair of the Protecting the Mission Committee; Andrew Ohm ’00, continuing as chair of the Living the Mission Committee; and Carol Girod ’81 Van Andel of Ada, Michigan, appointed chair of the Sustaining the Mission Committee.
The Trustees who have concluded their service on the board are: Dr. Llena Durante ’00 Chavis of Holland; Sandra Gaddy of Caledonia, Michigan; the Rev. Dr. Nathan Hart ’01 of Holland; Dr. David Paul ’10 of Rochester, New York; and Timothy Vande Bunte ’83 of Holland.
THEATRE PROGRAM RECEIVES NATIONAL Acclaim
Hope College Theatre earned multiple national production awards this past spring from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival for The Boy Who Hates Everything, an original work that was devised and premiered at Hope in April 2023.
The production as well as individual students, members of the faculty and staff, and guest artists received 11 awards, including Outstanding Production of a New, Devised or Company-Generated Work. The awards are given by the National KCACTF Committee and the selection team after seeing all of the productions that were highlighted at the eight regional KCACTF festivals in January and February.
A LASTING GIFT
Holland will benefit for years to come from a community ice skating park spurred forward by a retired Hope mentor and alumnus. Although he didn’t live long enough to see his dream in action, he did get to see it begin.
Frank Kraai ’60, who died on Thursday, July 11, 2024, spent 17 years supervising Hope student teachers after retiring in 1988 following nearly three decades as an educator with the West Ottawa Public Schools.
Wishing to share his fond childhood skating memories, he proposed the idea to Holland’s City Council and then donated his life savings to jumpstart it. An additional lead gift from the Jim Jurries (’63) Family and other support followed, and the city broke ground on April 23. Located near campus at Riverview Park / Window on the Waterfront, the complex is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2025.
CO-DIRECTOR APPOINTED FOR PRISON-ED PROGRAM
After a nationwide search, Kary Bosma has been named co-director of the Hope-Western Prison Education Program operated by Hope College and Western Theological Seminary to provide a Christian liberal arts education to incarcerated men at Muskegon Correctional Facility.
Bosma has joined HWPEP from the Calvin Prison Initiative, where she was director of operations, and has provided leadership in establishing the statewide organization of colleges and universities that operate such programs. She serves as co-director with Dr. David Stubbs, professor of theology and ethics at Western Theological Seminary. She succeeds co-director Dr. R. Richard Ray, a professor of kinesiology at Hope who retired this spring.
NEW ENDOWMENT HONORS FACULTY
The name of the endowed position held by economist Dr. Stephen Smith has changed by just one word, but the difference reflects a major new way for Hope to honor and support professors who have leadership responsibilities along with their roles as teachers and scholars.
A member of the faculty since 2016, Smith had been appointed to the Robert W. Haack Professorship in Economics last fall. As confirmed by the Board of Trustees in May, the position is now the Robert W. Haack Chair in Economics, recognizing his additional service as the department’s section head for economics and leadership of the department’s May Terms to Asia.
It’s the first endowed position at Hope in the new category of “chair” or “director.” The title doesn’t involve being the chairperson of one of the college’s academic departments, but instead honors an outstanding faculty member who oversees broader programming than is reflected by appointment to Hope’s endowed professorships.
The professorship was established in 1991 by Robert W. Haack ’38. It was enhanced to the level of chair through additional gifts to the original endowment by Haack’s son and daughter-in-law, Thomas and Olga Haack, and through the estate of Haack’s daughter, Elizabeth Haack-Barr.
SENIOR EMMA RUDISEL NAMED GOLDWATER SCHOLAR
Hope senior Emma Rudisel of Midland, Michigan, has received a highly competitive scholarship from the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
Only 438 scholarships were awarded nationwide by the Board of Trustees of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, in partnership with the Department of Defense National Defense Education Programs. The scholarships, selected on the basis of academic merit, are for one or two years, and cover the cost of tuition, mandatory fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.
Numerous Hope students have received scholarships through the years, including six during the past three years.
SOCIOLOGIST DEBRA SWANSON HONORED FOR SERVICE
Dr. Debra Harvey ’83 Swanson, who retired from the Hope sociology faculty in 2022 after teaching at the college since 1989, has been honored by the North Central Sociological Association for service to the organization across more than a quarter century that included a year as president.
She is one of two recipients of the NCSA’s 2024 Aida Tomeh Distinguished Service Award. She received the recognition during the NCSA’s annual meeting, held on Friday-Saturday, March 29-30, in Columbus Ohio.
Swanson was president of the NCSA during 2016-17, following a year as president-elect, and was the NCSA’s vice president-elect and vice president during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years. Especially active in the organization’s teaching section, she made several presentations on teaching during association meetings through the years.
CHEMIST KENNETH BROWN RECEIVES MENTORING AWARDS
Dr. Kenneth Brown, who is the John H. and Jeanne M. Jacobson Professor of Chemistry, has been presented one of two 2024 Janet Andersen Lecture Awards by the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science.
The awards honor faculty at consortium-member colleges and universities who have vigorous research programs involving undergraduates, who are exceptional mentors for undergraduate research students, who are engaged and skilled teachers, or who create interdisciplinary research opportunities for undergraduate students. They are named after Dr. Janet Andersen, who had directed the consortium for five years and was also a member of Hope’s mathematics and statistics faculty for 14 years before dying of injuries sustained in an automobile accident in November 2005.
This past spring, he also received the college’s Vanderbush-Weller Award for having a strong, positive impact on students.
Chad Carlson chosen for H.O.P.E. AWARD
Dr. Chad Carlson ’03, professor of kinesiology and the director of general education, received this year’s Hope Outstanding Professor Educator (H.O.P.E.) Award from the graduating Class of 2024.
The H.O.P.E. award, first given in 1965, is presented by the graduating class to the professor who they feel epitomizes the best qualities of the Hope College educator. Carlson received the recognition during the college’s Commencement ceremony, held on Sunday, May 5, at Ray and Sue Smith Stadium.
FOUNDATION NAMES HOPE A “TREE CAMPUS”
Hope has received 2023 Tree Campus Higher Education® recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation, the sixth year in a row that the foundation has honored Hope for its commitment to effective urban forest management.
The program honors colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals. Hope achieved the title by meeting Tree Campus Higher Education’s five standards, which include maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and student service-learning project. Currently there are 411 campuses across the United States with the recognition.