Tag: Spera

Conceptually, the changes Professor Nancy Cook and Dr. Susan Brondyk engineered in Hope College’s student teaching model seem straightforward: More mentoring. More teamwork. A new tool to guide student teachers and seasoned professionals in a collaborative process of goal-setting, strategizing and regular assessment of each student teacher’s growth. But leading organizational change is anything but… Continue Reading →

Dr. Sarah Kornfield likens the cultural effects of television to a distorted reflection from a funhouse mirror, and she doesn’t mean it in an amusing way. When she thinks about TV’s reflective light, she does so as a rhetorician who studies the portrayals of gender in mass media. Using that lens to look closely at… Continue Reading →

Lisa Walcott can’t recall just what the item was. A blouse, perhaps? But she can picture the open drawer and the garment tossed across it. She was struck by the fabric’s fluidity — how much, draped there, it looked like liquid. But why would water trickle down the front of a bureau drawer? Why, indeed?… Continue Reading →

Before the swirling coats were contemplated, before he resolved how 18 roiling bodies would storm across a stage without colliding, before his reimagined storyline took shape, Professor Matthew Farmer spent a year filling his head with Igor Stravinsky. In his car, on his phone in the breaks between classes and appointments and choreographing other pieces,… Continue Reading →

The Rev. Dr. Lynn Japinga has spent years telling the stories of the women of the Bible and, in many cases, doing her level best to redeem the reputations with which she feels they’ve been unfairly saddled over the centuries. “I joke that stories about women are always about either sex, violence, or sex and… Continue Reading →

As a Marine veteran and military historian, Dr. Fred L. Johnson III is regrettably too familiar with the atrocities of war. As a college professor, he has not tucked away that horrific knowledge, but instead is adding a new perspective to it. Johnson recently gravitated toward extraordinary stories of friendship and forgiveness during times of… Continue Reading →

Teaching is foundational for professors at Hope. In Dr. Darin Stephenson’s case, he’s teaching not only students, but also computers. And they speak a different language. From the binary language of dune topography (0 = on the ground, 1 = not on the ground) to a birdsong sound wave turned visual, Stephenson is fluent in… Continue Reading →

Life — in all its varied forms and interactions — is one of the Earth’s most studied mysteries, one that scientists have spent centuries unraveling. Among them is botanist Dr. Jianhua Li, who is ranging through continents and (thanks to the insights of DNA) through time to uncover the branching trees of life of various,… Continue Reading →

Dr. Jennifer Hampton is captivated by interesting materials — especially those in the electrifying world of electrochemistry. She’s currently studying iron hexacyanoferrate, better known as Prussian blue. This name, unsurprisingly, comes from the compound’s striking hue. Prussian blue has been used as a colorant in numerous applications, from the paint of van Gogh’s “Starry Night”… Continue Reading →

For many, chemistry brings to mind the apparatus: ethereal blue flames, miles of plastic tubing with interestingly-colored chemicals snaking through, and — perhaps above all else — test tubes and beakers of all shapes and sizes. But for Dr. Brent Krueger, chemistry research often occurs on a computer screen, in the form of molecular models.… Continue Reading →

In 2013, Dr. Thomas Smith took a leave from Hope to spend a year at Emanuel University in Romania. Originally an underground college for pastors, it became a Christian university after the Soviet Union dissolved. Some students he taught there still seek his counsel as they grapple with how to live out Christian ethics in… Continue Reading →

The upcoming production was Dance 43, Hope College’s annual faculty recital. Forty-seven student dancers were rehearsing with seven faculty and guest choreographers, and Jessica Hroncheck was the fly on the wall. Hronchek spent weeks shadowing the dance company and interviewing choreographers to learn more about how people share information in a creative context — and… Continue Reading →

As digital resources continue to change the face of research and teaching, Victoria Longfield helps Hope College faculty and students explore how cutting-edge tools can help them broaden and exceed their goals. Her job title as Van Wylen Library’s digital liberal arts librarian is unusual even in this high-tech era. Hope is among just three… Continue Reading →

The rhythms of Afro-Brazilian music still echo the ancient drumbeats of Africa — carried across oceans on slave ships, adapted across the centuries, and today encompassing both a distinctive cultural identity and a communal national bond. Christopher Fashun (at right in photo) spent four months of 2019 in Brazil as a Fulbright Scholar, researching the… Continue Reading →

Dr. Virginia Beard was into identity politics long before the issue showed up on America’s front pages. For more than a decade, she’s investigated how religion, ethnicity and gender influence democratic attitudes and behaviors. In two papers finished in 2019, she lays out how religious identity affects attitudes toward democracy in some countries in sub-Saharan… Continue Reading →

Dr. Choonghee Han believes every nation has a time in its collective past that it would just as soon forget. In America, for example, it could be Vietnam. “There have been lots of discussions and publications about the Vietnam War, how it was interpreted or digested by the public through the media,” says Han. “It… Continue Reading →

In 2016, when Boston magazine ranked the “100 Best Bostonians of All Time,” Isabella Stewart Gardner came in fourth — just behind John F. Kennedy and right before Malcolm X. The wealthy, influential Gardner (1840–1924), whose eponymous art museum is a Boston must-see, transformed the city’s cultural landscape more than a century ago by being,… Continue Reading →

Years ago, when Barbara Vincensi’s work as a parish nurse took her to the homes of low-income senior citizens, it became clear to her that many would be healthier if regular medical monitoring were available to them close at hand. That unmet need stuck with her as she joined the Hope faculty and worked with… Continue Reading →

While the fight against viral and bacterial human pathogens stretches back to the dawn of human history, on some fronts we have yet to mount an effective defense. At the nanoscopic level, viruses have been infiltrating and using our cells with impunity for as long as they and we have existed. The battle against pathogenic… Continue Reading →

One engineer’s problem may just be another scientist’s solution. At least, that seems to be the case with a curious physics phenomenon known as microplasma. Dr. Stephen Remillard has seen it from both sides: as a problem during his earlier career as an industrial physicist, and as a surprisingly useful phenomenon now that he’s a… Continue Reading →