Staff Profile: Matthew D’Oyly
Residential Life Coordinator, Kollen Hall
and Assisting Producing Director,
Hope Summer Repertory Theatre

Through his work as a member of the student development staff, Matthew D’Oyly has been impressed with the students at Hope.

“Students at Hope are driven. They value being involved in various activities,” he says. “They are also well-rounded leaders in a global society, as Hope provides opportunities for students to excel and to lead.”

D’Oyly was initially drawn to Hope through his involvement as an intern in the popular summer repertory theatre program, which brings theatre professionals and students from around the country to campus, while he was attending Otterbein College. He valued the sense of community that he found at Hope, and was pleased to have the opportunity to become residential life coordinator in Kollen Hall during the school year while also serving now as assistant producing director of summer theatre.

“There is a certain spirit at Hope and a type of loyalty that is unique compared to other colleges,” he says.

The emphasis in residential life at Hope is on providing a positive living environment that itself gives students solid opportunities for learning and growing. In the same way, student activities in general are designed to be co-curricular—not apart from students’ classroom experiences, but instead providing different sorts of lessons and new ways to explore and discover interests.

D’Oyly believes that students should become involved during their first year. They will, he notes, learn lessons that they will use throughout their lives, as they continually grow as individuals. It’s something that he has seen not only as residential coordinator in Kollen, but through his work as chair of the programming committee for all of residential life and housing; as he’s served as advisor for the InterFraternity Council; as he accompanied the students who traveled to Washington, D.C., in 2008 to present the college’s theatrical production of Rose and the Rime at the Kennedy Center; and in numerous other ways.

“Get involved. You have to make your experience at Hope what you want,” he says. “As Hope looks at the whole person, it is the college’s goal for students to grow in the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of their lives.”

He has also enjoyed seeing the bonds form between students as they make the learning journey together in a shared residential experience that provides opportunities not only to learn lessons, but also to form enduring friendships.

“At college you are able to make connections and have friends that you will know for the rest of your life. College students have deeper relationships because of their common experiences,” he says.

This profile was written by Christopher M. Lewis, a 2009 Hope College graduate from Troy, Mich., for the 2009-2010 Hope College Catalog.

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