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Alumni Profiles
Alumni Profiles
Calvin seeks to equip students to think deeply, act justly, and live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in the world. These stories demonstrate how our alumni are living out that mission.
Jaylyn Gough is the founder of Native
Women’s Wilderness, which strives to create a platform for native women to use their voices to speak out against injustices, to bring awareness to indigenous people and land rights, and to serve as adventure-seeking role models for native girls.
Janet Staal and Katelyn Egnatuk launched one of West Michigan’s first nature-based preschools, a movement that is rapidly gaining momentum across the country.
2021
Alumni Honorees Grand Rapids’ Aperitivo manager Evan Talen has taken his passion to a whole new level by winning the Cheesemonger Invitational, a national competition that pitted him against many of the top cheese connoisseurs from around the country. Tim and Andrew Harris are the founders of ColorHub, an innovative digital printing company specializing in high-end graphics packaging and retail displays.
THE CALVIN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD RECEIVES MANY NOMINATIONS FOR THESE ANNUAL AWARDS, AND THEY PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER EACH ONE. THESE ALUMNI HAVE MADE CONSIDERABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEIR FIELDS AND THEIR LIVES, REFLECT THE MISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY. RYAN STRUYK ’14 YOUNG ALUMNI AWARD
Read more profiles online
calvin.edu/spark
Read more profiles online
calvin.edu/spark
As a senior producer for CNN, Ryan Watch profile videos for each honoree Struyk is always learning. He gets to write calvin.edu/go/alumni-awards questions for guests and spends a lot of time researching and writing. His love for journalism was sparked at Calvin, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Nominate alumni student newspaper. Email: alumni@calvin.edu
Janet Lenger Staal ’98 Katelyn Ver Woert Egnatuk ’13
For 35 years, Elbert van Donkersgoed has served in leadership for the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. He sees this work as “faith work” and has helped the organization develop policies on farmland preservation, marketing, land use, and environmental stewardship.
RODNEY LUDEMA ’83 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD
Rod Ludema has served in the U.S. International Trade Commission and the White House Council of Economic Advisors and, most recently, chief economist for the U.S. Department of State.
A determined quest for truth
Ryan Struyk ’14 Young Alumni Award winner
For alumnus Ryan Struyk ’14, journalism is an ongoing education. “I love learning something new, which is one of the reasons I love this gig,” he said.
Struyk’s “gig” is serving as a senior producer for CNN, a role that requires him to know a little bit about everything. “My job is specifically to write interview questions for our Sunday morning show State of the Union, so it’s a lot of research; it’s a lot of writing. One of the reasons I love my job is because you have to have an inch-deep knowledge of just about everything from infrastructure to immigration to foreign policy with China, Russia, and North Korea to, obviously, the pandemic.”
A SOLID FOUNDATION
Having a broad-based liberal arts education as a foundation has aided Struyk in this regard, particularly his double major in mathematics and political science.
“I came to Calvin wanting to be a high school math teacher,” he said. “I was going to major in math. Then I took a political science class and fell in love with it and decided that working in a classroom was not going to be my thing. At one point I told my (political science) adviser I was going to drop math, and he was like, ‘no, no you’re not.’
“That was just some tremendous advice that I got from Professor (Doug) Koopman, who was looking out for my best interest,” Struyk said. “That’s why I ended up working as a data reporter for several years right out of college.”
Struyk began work on a polling unit and the 2016 election for ABC News and then moved to CNN, where he has been for the past five years.
During his Calvin career, Struyk was also encouraged to pursue his interest in journalism, eventually finding himself as editor in chief for Chimes, Calvin’s student newspaper.
“That was an opportunity that I bring into work every day at CNN,” he said. “The experience I gained in how to navigate a team, how to lead other people, how to think about news judgment and what’s important and not important was all invaluable.”
HIGH PRESSURE, HIGH REWARD
Struyk spends his days catching up on the latest news and thinking about guests he may want to have on the show. Once the guests are booked, he focuses on writing interview questions.
“I’m reading everything the guest has said in the last several weeks, reading what legislation they are working on, continuing to stay up on the news of the day, and trying to figure out how we can conduct the best interview with this guest,” he said.
“It’s high pressure, but it’s also high reward,” he added. “It’s really satisfying at the end of the day to have put a show on the air and have this finished product. It’s also really exciting when your question makes news or your guest gives you an important answer that you feel like really furthered the conversation in Washington.”
SPEAKING TRUTH
Journalistic integrity is at the heart of Struyk’s work; the principles of truth and being a voice for the voiceless are fundamentals learned from his tenure at Chimes.
“Currently, we’re in a season where journalism is under a lot of scrutiny,” he said. “What’s important in these moments is to return to the fundamentals of journalism, verifying facts and reporting the truth.
“I see a lot of really important ways that the Christian faith maps into the work of journalism, that is speaking truth, embracing the image of God in all people, exposing injustice, amplifying the voices of marginalized people. These things run central throughout Scripture. It always surprises me when there are Christians who dismiss the work of journalism. The core goals of news overlap pretty clearly with our calling as Christians and believers in Jesus Christ.”
Planting a sustainable future
Growing up as the son of immigrant farmers, Elbert van Donkersgoed ’67 had a familyassumed career goal: farming.
“My younger brothers eventually took over the family farms,” he said. “But early on, I was saying to my parents, ‘I don’t want to be on the farm. I want to go off and study and do church work.’ And that meant leaving the farm and maybe being a pastor in a church or a Christian school teacher.”
In the end, van Donkersgoed’s career culminated in a combination of farming and “church (or “faith”) work,” serving 35 years in leadership for the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, an organization that promotes economic, social, and environmental sustainability through farming policies based on Christian stewardship principles.
DISCOVERING GOD’S CALL
His idea of “church work” was quickly expanded to “faith work” upon his arrival at Calvin in 1963. “During my first year at Calvin, I started reading philosophy with [Calvin professors] Evan Runner, Alvin Plantinga, and Nick Wolterstorff, and those three changed my view of what I should do with my life. I should actually do ‘faith work,’ not just church work. It was a bigger calling.” Upon graduating, van Donkersgoed returned to Ontario with a clearer understanding of vocation. “Calvin got me thinking about living a life that recognizes the lordship of Jesus Christ, wherever we find ourselves and wherever we’re called to serve,” he said.
So when he read about a position as a fieldman for the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, he knew it was his calling.
“When I applied for the job, I had no doubt what my career was going to be,” he said. “When I started the position, I was given a bit of history about the organization, three boxes of paper, the names of 100 farmers scattered all around Ontario, and $20 in the bank.”
He started his career driving the backroads of Ontario meeting with family farmers, and by the mid-1990s that list of 100 names had grown to 4,300 members across the province, about 10% of Ontario’s farmers.
“My role was to strategically encourage discussions among family farmers—as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17)—on subjects that really counted and on which we could make a difference from a faith perspective,” he said.
WORKING OUT FAITH
Under van Donkersgoed’s leadership, the organization developed policies on farmland preservation, marketing, land use, and environmental stewardship.
For instance, in 1990 the government leadership in Ontario changed, and farmers were concerned about government-agencydesigned regulations for environmental sustainability.
“Within two weeks we put together a coalition of 28 farm organizations determined to put together our own plan,” said van Donkersgoed. “The key commitment was to ask all farmers to voluntarily put together an environmental plan for their own farm, identifying strengths and weaknesses for the environment. And where there was serious concern, there was a plan to improve the situation. We got that adopted throughout the farm community, and we presented it to the government, and all of the government agency plans went away.”
His foundation at Calvin helped van Donkersgoed prepare well for his nearly four decades of service to the Ontario farming community, he said.
“My time at Calvin gave me an approach to the world. I’m able to look at a slice of our culture and say ‘how can we make our faith and the lordship of Jesus Christ relevant in this very narrow and specific area like agriculture?’” he said. “And at the same time, Calvin gave me a worldview that looks at the big picture and holds it all together.
“In Genesis, God tells us, ‘It is good.’ So how does one hold onto that notion of the original blessing of the creation along with the nitty gritty of working out one’s faith in fear and trembling? It’s part philosophy and part a life approach, and Calvin gave me that.”
Elbert van Donkersgoed ’67 Distinguished Alumni Award winner
Rodney Ludema ’83 Distinguished Alumni Award Winner
A worldview that influences the world economy
As a youngster on a family trip to Washington, D.C., Rodney Ludema ’83 was inspired: “I remember going to the Lincoln Memorial and seeing this big statue of Abraham Lincoln and going to the Jefferson Memorial and seeing this big statue of Thomas Jefferson and seeing the Gettysburg Address engraved in the wall in marble; I just thought, ‘Wow, this is something.’ I think that is where my interest in policy started.”
He took that interest to Calvin in the early 1980s, thinking he would major in political science. “I asked around and was told if you wanted to become involved in policy, you should be a lawyer,” he said. “But that’s one of the beauties of the liberal arts curriculum at Calvin. It wasn’t until my junior year that I took a course in economics, and suddenly it clicked. Econ was exactly what I was looking for.”
Encouraged by Calvin professors like George Monsma, John Tiemstra, and Evert Van Der Heide, Ludema pursued a PhD in economics at Columbia University in New York, in preparation for a career as a professor, like his father, Ken Ludema ’55, a longtime professor at the University of Michigan.
A PROFESSOR AND POLICY MAKER
He reached that objective, spending the majority of his career as a professor at Georgetown University, in the heart of Washington, D.C., the ideal location for a person with an interest in policy.
“Georgetown turned out to be the sweet spot,” said Ludema. “The really great thing about being in Washington, D.C., is I could take a leave of absence to go work for the government, without having to pick up my house and move it. It’s just a different subway stop.” During his 26-year tenure at Georgetown, Ludema has taken leaves for government roles with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the White House Council of Economic Advisors under former President Obama, and most recently, chief economist for the U.S. Department of State.
Ludema was hired by then-Secretary of State John Kerry to help the department gain a better understanding of the world economy, develop smarter policies, and make the economic case for U.S. policies abroad.
SHAPING GLOBAL AGREEMENT
It was in his role as chief economist that Ludema helped to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an international free trade agreement that facilitated the development of production and supply chains, and seamless trade between the U.S. and 11 other countries worldwide.
He also helped prepare the State Department for negotiating the Paris Climate Accords, an ambitious global action plan to fight climate change in cooperation with nearly 200 other countries. “There were a number of policies that I contributed to, but these were two I was particularly proud of,” Ludema said. “They were leveraging what the U.S. does best, which is to lead our allies and friends—and in the case of the Paris Climate Accords, even many of our non-allies.”
Ludema’s involvement in these and other policy decisions was shaped by the “normative perspective that Calvin professors brought to the field of economics,” he said.
“Normative,” he said, “is thinking about the way things should be rather than the way things are. Many, or at least some, in this field are devoted to understanding how economies work, but understanding how they can get from where they are to where they ought to be is something not all economists are interested in.
“Calvin’s emphasis on a Christian world and life view and trying to understand life in all of its facets through that single lens shaped how I think about policy,” he said. “It made me think about how policy could be used in bringing about something better.”
RETURNING HOME
BY ANDING SHEN PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY
Despite the gray skies and blustery cold of a Michigan winter, my dad, Yuanhua Shen, decided to visit Grand Rapids in January 2015, traveling all the way from China. He came specifically to visit Calvin and to learn about Reformed theology. Dad wasn’t born into a Christian family; as a matter of fact, he was an atheist and a communist for more than 60 years. Then, he found Christ— or rather, Christ welcomed him home.
With his newfound faith, Dad was so excited to learn about theology. And Reformed theology made particular sense to him, especially the emphasis on God’s election and unrelenting grace. After we talked with theology professors at Calvin, I took him for a walk around the campus and we visited the art gallery. He was captivated by the paintings depicting the Prodigal Son and his loving father. It was a story that truly touched his heart—God, the loving father, waiting for a Prodigal Son (like Dad) to return home. He told me, “I want to do a calligraphy piece on the Prodigal Son.”
My dad wasn’t a formally trained calligrapher. In fact, his career as a physics professor and researcher may seem farremoved from any interest in art. But our family always knew Dad had artistic talents, as shown through his photography and his occasional craft projects. After his retirement, Dad devoted all his free time to Chinese calligraphy. He wrote poems and recorded them using different calligraphy styles.
As promised, after Dad returned from his vacation in the U.S., he produced this piece: a work of calligraphy highlighting not only the story of the Prodigal Son, but also his own life: “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate.” Luke 15:24
This story originally appeared in Returning Home: Further Journeys into the Art of Forgiveness. Shen hand delivered her father’s calligraphy from China to Calvin’s Center Art Gallery in 2016.
THE ART OF FORGIVENESS
This artwork and reflection are included in Returning Home: Further Journeys into the Art of Forgiveness. Larry Gerbens ’69 is the editor of the book, which includes art and writing inspired by the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Returning Home is a followup to a similar book, The Parable of the Father and the Two Sons.
Funded by a gift to Calvin Theological Seminary from the Edgar Boevé estate, Returning Home features several authors from the Calvin University community and artwork from the university and seminary, as well as from Gerbens’ and other private collections.
For Larry and his wife, Mary, this project is very personal. The couple have been collecting and speaking about art inspired by the Prodigal Son parable for many years. Larry traces his passion for art to a class he took from beloved art professor Edgar Boevé. “When speaking, I often share this quote from a Banner article by Nicholas Wolterstorff, ‘Art is the human spirit made visible. It is indispensable to our flourishing as God’s human creatures,’” Gerbens writes in Returning Home.
The book will be available in the Calvin University bookstore in early 2022.
