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Campus News
Plaster Creek Stewards work to restore the local watershed.
PLASTER CREEK STEWARDS RECEIVES TWO GRANTS
The Plaster Creek Stewards is a Calvin University initiative that was founded in 2009. Faculty, staff, and students work with local schools, churches, and community partners to restore the health and beauty of the Plaster Creek watershed in Grand Rapids.
Earlier this year, the group received two Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grants. One extends its curb-cut rain garden initiative in the Alger Heights, Garfield Park, and Oakdale neighborhoods. The other funds the planting of 390 trees in the watershed. Both projects began in summer 2020 and will finish fall 2021.
Next summer will be especially busy for Plaster Creek Stewards because they were also awarded a $806,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy that begins this fall and extends to December 2022. This grant allows the group to perform a large floodplain restoration project, add additional rain gardens, and to install permeable pavement in the parking lot of one of its church partners.
SAO director Jack Droppers hosts a variety show called The ToKnight Show.
SAO: CONSISTENTLY CREATIVE
If you want to experience a bit of Calvin, head over to the Student Activities Office’s YouTube channel. You’ll find mini-concerts, discussions, and episodes of The ToKnight Show, a weekly variety show.
SAO director Jack Droppers has had to think creatively to safely engage students in the ongoing discussion of how Christians should engage with popular culture. Droppers has also organized in-person events such as small outdoor concerts and films.
“This year has been a weird year for everyone at Calvin and everyone in both the live music industry and movie industry. However, one of the gifts all three of these have in common is the ability to adapt to changing culture,” Droppers said.
The work of the SAO this year has been funded in part by students, alumni, and friends who donated more than $45,000 to the Save SAO campaign in 2019.
“That money was used to augment the hours of the SAO director to nearly full time through the 2020-21 academic year,” said vice president for student life Sarah Visser. “Absent additional donor funding, after this school year, the role will continue at 60%.”
The university seeks donor partners interested in endowing the work of the Student Activities Office. To donate, contact Melanie Lyons at mnl2@calvin.edu.
VISIT YOUTUBE
Search for “Calvin SAO” on YouTube to see videos from the Student Activities Office.
Calvin is highly rated in leading guidebooks.
CALVIN ADVANCES IN NATIONAL RANKINGS
This year’s edition of Best Colleges by The Princeton Review includes Calvin on a short list of institutions that excel in delivering health and counseling services to their students.
Calvin is ranked 10th in the nation in the guidebook’s “Best Counseling Services” category. And for the ninth straight year, Calvin appears on the “Best Health Services” list, ranking 15th in the nation. Calvin is also included as one of the best institutions for undergraduates to earn their college degree.
The Princeton Review’s lists are ranked “entirely based on what students attending the schools … tell [them] about their colleges and their experiences at them.” In U.S. News & World Report’s “2021 Best Colleges Guidebook” rankings, Calvin gained ground in several categories while maintaining the school’s No. 3 overall ranking in the “Midwest Regional Universities” category.
Among Midwest regional universities, Calvin retained its No. 5 ranking for “Best Undergraduate Teaching” and No. 3 ranking for “Schools with the Most International Students.” Calvin also moved up to No. 13 in the “Best Value Schools” category, up five spots from last year.
Calvin was also rated highly by a number of other leading guidebooks, including “Fiske Guide to Colleges,” Forbes, Niche, and Washington Monthly, to name a sampling.
New master’s degree offered in the communication department.
CALVIN OFFERS NEW MASTER’S IN MEDIA AND STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION
Calvin’s Communication Department is launching an innovative program this spring. The master of arts in media and strategic communication will cultivate skills that industry professionals seek: media production, team management, and strategic thinking. In years past, such skills could be gained on the job through an agency’s junior training program—programs that no longer exist in today’s marketplace. To deliver these tools, faculty will explore theory, practice, and ethics, with an emphasis on developing a participant’s internal ethical compass.
Gregory Braun, an advertising leader who has created work for big-name events like the Super Bowl, will lead the program’s creative agency. Under his direction, students will solve communication problems for real-world clients.
Throughout the program, students will have the opportunity to hone their video production skills and deliberate ethical issues. They will consider how their stories influence culture and community and learn to advocate for the humane treatment of their subjects.
In just one year, students can elevate their media production, strategic communication, and ethical practice skills to a new level. For more information visit calvin.edu/communication.
CALL PROGRAMMING CONTINUES TO THRIVE
The Calvin Academy for Lifelong Learning (CALL) is a member-based learning community for people over the age of 50.
All programming has been moved online, so curious learners can deepen their understanding from anywhere in the world. Courses are taught by Calvin professors and other experts, and learners join in over Zoom. This fall, there were 850 course registrations. Topics have included Jane Eyre, electric vehicles, managing anxiety, and C.S. Lewis.
“The professor was a pro and very clear in his presentation,” one CALL participant said. “I had the chance to sit in my own office chair, have a cup of coffee, and just listen.” Another CALL member signed up for four fall classes on Zoom after a positive experience in one.
The CALL program has over 2,000 members and was established in 1996 by the Calvin Alumni Association. You don’t need to be a Calvin alum (or have attended any university) to participate.
The spring session of CALL classes starts in February and courses will be listed on calvin.edu/call. For more information email call@calvin.edu or phone 616-526-8777.
Photograph by Matthew Erickson, Class of 2024
HOMECOMING DIFFERENT, BUT STILL FUN
Calvin’s 2020 Homecoming and Family Weekend moved to a virtual format this year. This pivot gave alumni across the world an opportunity to connect with Calvin in new ways.
The completely virtual Calvin Classic 5K had over 400 participants, from Washington state to the Netherlands. Another popular choice was the trivia events that gave Calvin alumni, friends, students, and families a way to compete as a team even at a distance. One team even consisted of a three-generation Calvin family with ages ranging from 12 to 80! “It was wonderful to be able to participate in a Calvin alumni event,” shared a Calvin alum. “Since I live in Australia, it’s rare that I’m able to make it to campus (and certainly impossible this year). My mom was also really happy because we could be on a team together even though she’s in Ohio.”
There was also plenty of action for the current students with the first Knights4Life scavenger hunt and the traditional Calvin Grand Prix (bed races), which had the largest bracket of participating students ever.
STAY CONNECTED
Find more campus news daily at calvin.edu/news.
The January Series speakers for 2021 are available at calvin.edu/january.
JANUARY SERIES 2021: UNPRECEDENTED ACCESS
The January Series is an award-winning lecture series that draws more than 70,000 attendees each year at Calvin and 60-plus remote sites. In 2021, Calvin will offer an impressive and relevant lineup, all accessible online.
“We value our audience and are working to make it as easy as possible for anyone to join from where they are, whether at home, church, in an office, on a couch, or at the kitchen table,” said Kristi Potter, director of the January Series. Potter says the series aligns with the mission of the university. While the speakers will dig deeply into their areas of expertise, their talks are not just about helping attendees gain knowledge, but also helping them learn how that understanding can inspire action.
Speakers include Tara Westover, author of Educated, a book that stayed on The New York Times bestseller list two years; Jemar Tisby, author of The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, which received the 2019 honors for Book of the Year from the Englewood Review of Books; and Bruce Feiler, author of six consecutive New York Times bestsellers.
Calvin University classes were in session and in-person for the 2020 fall semester thanks to significant preparation and planning over several months. The university’s testing of students, faculty, and staff before the semester began proved to be successful, and having that baseline to identify positive cases early mitigated community spread.
The community-wide commitment to health and safety protocols, including the daily completion of the #CampusClear App, contributed greatly to Calvin having no active COVID-19 cases among on-campus students in early October.
However, Kent County numbers began to rise later that month, and by early November, the numbers in the county continued to show an uptick, and Calvin was no exception. By midNovember, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services issued an epidemic order requiring all colleges and universities to move to remote learning through December 8. (This represented a slight shift from the university’s original plan of pivoting to remote learning after Thanksgiving.)
The university will return to in-person living and learning for interim and spring semester. To stay updated, visit calvin.edu/safe-return.
