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Tuesday Evening Keynote Speaker: Bryant Terry, Eco-Chef and Food Justice Activist
Bryant Terry is an eco-chef, food justice activist, and author of Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy and Creative African-American Cuisine (DaCapo/Perseus, 2009). For the past nine years he has worked to build a more just and sustainable food system and has used cooking as a tool to illuminate the intersections among poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity. His interest in cooking, farming, and community health can be traced back to his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee, where his grandparents inspired him to grow, prepare, and appreciate good food.
Bryant is currently a fellow of the Food and Society Policy Fellows Program, a national project of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He has garnered many honors and awards for his work including receiving the inaugural Natural Gourmet Institute Award for Excellence in Health-Supportive Food Education and being selected as one of the 2008 “Hot 20 Under 40” in the San Francisco Bay Area magazine 7x7. Bryant’s first book (co-authored with Anna Lappé, foreword by Eric Schlosser), Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), is a winner of a 2007 Nautilus Award for Social Change.
Since the publication of Grub, Bryant has traveled to dozens of cities, doing cooking demonstrations and speaking at public events as well as at universities and colleges. Bryant contributes essays and recipes to a number of online and print outlets, and his work has been featured in Gourmet, Food & Wine, The New York Times Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Vibe, and Domino. Bryant has a regular column, “Eco-Soul Kitchen,” on TheRoot.com. He has made dozens of national radio and television appearances (Fox, NBC, PBS, BET and Sundance) including making a guest appearance on the eco-reality series, Mario’s Green House, and being a host on The Endless Feast, a 13-episode public television series that explores the connection between the earth and the food on our plates.
We are delighted to welcome Mr. Terry to campus as the Tuesday evening Keynote Speaker for this year’s Critical Issues Symposium.
Wednesday Morning Keynote Speaker: Joel Salatin, Farmer, Lecturer, Author
Joel Salatin is an American farmer, lecturer, and author whose books include You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start and Succeed in a Farming Enterprise, Salad Bar Beef, and Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front. Salatin raises livestock using holistic methods of animal husbandry, free of potentially harmful chemicals, on his Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Meat from the farm is sold by direct-marketing to consumers and restaurants.
Salatin has been honored as a Heinz Award recipient for creating alternative, environmentally-friendly farming techniques, spawning a movement towards local, sustainable agriculture that has been replicated by family farms around the country. Mr. Salatin has developed a new paradigm for agriculture by successfully challenging the commercial production of chicken and beef by food industry giants. His pioneering agricultural practices inextricably and beautifully interweave a food system with the land and have been embraced by farmers nationally. At Polyface Farm, Mr. Salatin’s 550 acres of rolling Virginia hills in the Central Shenandoah Valley, he raises beef, sheep, chickens, pigs, rabbits and turkeys in a complex rotation based on the intricate relationships of these animals to one another and to the grass that is at the basis of the farm’s food chain.
Polyface Farm nets more than $150,000 annually, which, maintains Mr. Salatin, is proof that sustainable farming is a viable way to keep family farms together while producing healthy food in harmony with the environment. Mr. Salatin, with his bold confidence in the benefits of his alternative methods for a healthier planet, has been featured in books, periodicals and the 2009 documentary film, Food Inc.
What began as a foray into organic farming has evolved into a breakthrough model. Through his system for rotating animals to enhance their symbiotic relationships, Mr. Salatin is accomplishing nothing less than a transformation of traditional agricultural practices, a shift that will have a profound impact on farming well into the 21st century. In hundreds of speeches across the county, Mr. Salatin presents solutions to bridging the gulf that separates the environmental movement from agricultural reform, demonstrating that there is a model for raising food animals that reflects both environmental and moral values.
Salatin describes himself as a "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist farmer" and considers his farming a ministry. He holds a B.A. in English and writes extensively in magazines such as Stockman Grass Farmer, Acres USA, and American Agriculturalist. His family farm has been featured in Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, Gourmet, and in countless other radio, television and print media outlets. Profiled on the Lives of the 21st Century series with Peter Jennings on ABC World News, his after-broadcast chat room fielded more hits than any other segment to date. Polyface achieved iconic status as the grass farm featured in the New York Times bestseller, Omnivore’s Dilemma by food writer guru Michael Pollan.
Salatin’s humorous and conviction-based speeches are akin to theatrical performances. His speaking and writing reflect dirt-under-the-fingernails experience punctuated with mischievous humor. He passionately defends small farms, local food system, and the right to opt out of the conventional food paradigm.
Mr. Salatin will also offer a Focus Session on Wednesday afternoon. We look forward to welcoming him to Hope College as our Wednesday Keynote Speaker for this year's Critical Issues Symposium.
Morning Focus Session Speakers
  Panel Discussion: Community Supported Agriculture: Making Good Connections between Eaters and Local Farmers in the Holland Area
Lee Arboreal is the owner of Eaters’ Guild Farm, located just outside of Bangor in southwest Michigan’s famous fruit region. As a young farm family they started out with crops like lettuce and carrots, which produce quick cash in just one year. Comfortably profitable now, several growing seasons later, Lee and wife Laurie are adding blueberries, blackberries, cows, turkeys, and goats to their 40-acre place. The Arboreals reached this milestone not by trying to compete with lettuce from California or strawberries from Chile. They did it by selling to Michigan’s burgeoning market for food that is grown for its flavor rather than for its ability to survive cross-country shipping. The farm currently supplies subscribers to a season’s worth of food through their Community Supported Agriculture operation. They sell at three farmers markets. And they drop off thousands of dollars worth of produce every week at another farm’s nearby loading dock for pickup by trucks serving Whole Foods Markets in Michigan.
Kristen and Noah Livingston are MDiv candidates in their final year at Western Theological Seminary. They are proud alumni of Hope College, graduating in '07 with English and Music degrees, respectively. The theological importance of eating locally has prompted Noah and Kristen to become part of several CSA's in the West Michigan area. You are likely to find them at the Holland Farmer's Market, a variety of U-Pick farms, and their own kitchen. In addition to growing as many vegetables, herbs, and native flowers as their small plot of ground can hold, they also make a mean batch of ratatouille.
Anja Mast is the co-owner of Trillium Haven Farm with her husband, Michael VanderBrug. Founded in 2001 in Jenison,MI, Trillium Haven Farm is dedicated to feeding the Greater Grand Rapids community, and to that end has focused on teaching culinary skills to its members. Anja and her dedicated band of avid home cooks offer on-site cooking and tasting demos, Saturday cooking classes, canning classes, and all members have the opportunity to share their recipes and food journeys on the trillium haven yahoo group. Changing food habits is hard, but it comes much easier through tasting and appreciating delicious food! (Not pictured: Anja Mast.)
Norman Wirzba
Norman Wirzba is Research Professor of Theology, Ecology and Rural Life at Duke Divinity School. He pursues research and teaching interests at the intersections of theology, philosophy, ecology, and agrarian and environmental studies. In particular, he focuses on understanding and promoting practices that will equip both rural and urban church communities to be more faithful and responsible members of creation. Current projects focus on eating as a spiritual discipline, theological reflection as informed by place, and agrarianism as a viable and comprehensive cultural force.
Dr. Wirzba has published The Paradise of God: Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age and Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight. He also has edited The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land and The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. Professor Wirzba serves as general editor for the book series Culture of the Land: A Series in the New Agrarianism, published by the University Press of Kentucky. He has earned his degrees from Loyola University, Ph.D. and M.A., Yale University Divinity School, M.A., and the University of Lethbridge, B.A.
Kyle Morrison
Kyle Morrison is a native of Niles, Michigan and currently resides in Holland, Michigan. He is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Kinesiology at Michigan State University and will defend his dissertation research this coming spring. He is the pediatric exercise physiologist and program manager of the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital Healthy Weight Center. His research interests focus on environmental and genetic influences of the growth, maturation and health of children and adolescents. Kyle graduated with honors from Hope in 2004; he competed on the Flying Dutchmen cross country and track teams and was an Academic All-American while pursuing his undergraduate degree.
 Tracy E. Ore
Tracy Ore is a professor of Sociology and currently serves as the Interim Associate Provost of Undergraduate Education & Student Support Services at Saint Cloud State University (SCSU). A 1984 graduate of Hope College, Dr. Ore received her Ph.D. from
the University of Michigan in 1999. She counts among her teaching and research areas sustainable agriculture, race and ethnicity, oppression and inequality and the global politics of food. Her most recent text is The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality (fourth edition), published by McGraw-Hill. The connections between her scholarly work and her activism and community engagement efforts are made real in the SCSU Community Garden, which she established in 2005. In addition, Dr. Ore has consulted with several area churches and organizations in the creation of new community gardens and the development of the St. Cloud Area Community Garden Network.
Afternoon Focus Session Speakers
Larry Hollar
Larry Hollar is Senior Regional Organizer with Bread for the World (Bread), a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad by adopting more compassionate and effective policies and programs affecting poor and hungry neighbors, wherever they are. From 1985 to 1991, Mr. Hollar was a policy analyst and later Director of Issues for Bread for the World, heading the organization’s policy and Washington-based advocacy staff. He has traveled to countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, meeting with grassroots organizations engaged in sustainable development, cultural preservation, and justice advocacy. He is the author or coauthor of Bread background papers on topics that include micro-enterprise credit programs, democracy in Haiti, and the U.S. legislative process. He conceived and edited Hunger for the Word: Lectionary Reflections on Food and Justice, three volumes of weekly hunger-oriented reflections written by Bread members for the three-year lectionary cycle of Bible readings, published in the U.S. by Liturgical Press and in Bangalore, India for Asian readers by Asian Trading Corporation.
Mr. Hollar is a graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts, received the Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School, and a Master of Theological Studies degree, summa cum laude, with an emphasis in Biblical Interpretation, from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. He was a visiting scholar at the Churches’ Center for Theology and Public Policy in Washington, DC, and has taught mission and evangelism at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
Stephen H. Webb
Stephen H. Webb is a Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Wabash College, which is his alma mater. He has been teaching there for 22 years. His wife is a Professor of Theatre at Butler University and they have four children. He is the co-founder and former co-chair of the Christian Vegetarian Association and author of many articles and two books on the topic of Christianity and diet, On God and Dogs (Oxford University Press, 1998) and Good Eating (Brazos Press, 2001). He has also written books on the theology of sound, Bob Dylan, the doctrine of providence, and Karl Barth. His most recent book is The Dome of Eden: A New Solution to the Problem of Creation and Evolution (Cascades, 2010). In 2007 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church.
Rosa Ramirez
As campaign manager for Chicago’s school wellness initiative, Go for the Gold, Rosa works with a wide range of non-profits, public agencies, elected officials, foundations and community and faith-based organizations. Through these collaborations, she works to develop and implement policies and practices that promote a healthy school environment for all students, teachers and staff. Prior to working at Healthy Schools Campaign, Rosa provided technical assistance to community groups and promoted best practices around social justice issues for the national research and action institute PolicyLink. During her time working as a youth organizer in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, she successfully strengthened multi-generational coalitions and managed projects in Chicago’s Latino community. She is passionate about environmental justice issues related to health, transportation, land use, and the overall impacts on historically disenfranchised communities. Rosa holds a master’s of science degree in Community Development from the University of California at Davis and a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy and Sociology from DePaul University.
 Rebecca Rasdall
Becky Rasdall is an International Specialist in Regulatory Affairs, Research, Quality and Innovation at ConAgra Foods, Omaha, Nebraska. A native Californian who grew up in Colorado, Rasdall came to Hope College for a double-major in Foreign Area Studies Political Science, and German. After a year in Germany at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and a semester in Washington, DC with the DC Semester Honors Program, she graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of the Arts.
Rebecca started her professional career working for Congressman Camp in Washington, DC, and after two years, left Capitol Hill to pursue her M.A. in International Relations at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. After she obtained her M.A. she returned to DC once more, turning her attention to non-profit work and began working with the food industry on food safety matters at the International Food Information Council (IFIC). Recruited from IFIC by ConAgra Foods, Rasdall has been a vital member of ConAgra’s regulatory team since 2007, assisting with food safety, toxicology, and international regulatory and trade policy concerns. Her leadership at ConAgra with international issues led to her appointment as ConAgra’s corporate representative with several industry trade association committees. It also led to her current position of carrying sole responsibility in regulatory concerns for ConAgra’s international businesses. Rasdall is an active volunteer with the ConAgra Foods Foundation as well as other Nebraska-based community organizations.
Additional Session Speakers
Susan Kundrat - Speaking in a Pre-CIS Event on October 4
Susan Kundrat, MS, RD, LDN, CSSD, is the President and founder of Nutrition on the Move, Inc. A Licensed, Registered Dietitian, Susan has a passion for helping clients learn to eat to enhance overall health and wellness. An athlete, Susan earned 16 high school letters in 5 sports and played college basketball, volleyball, and softball. She was named to the Waldorf College Hall of Fame and was an Honor Athlete at Minnesota State University-Mankato.
Susan works with clients in her office in Strawberry Fields Natural Food Store (Strawberry-Fields.com) in Urbana, IL on a variety of nutrition issues including nutrition to enhance sports performance, weight management, cardiovascular health, non-insulin dependent diabetes, vegetarian nutrition, and gastrointestinal health. Susan is the sports nutrition consultant for several organizations, including the Northwestern University Wildcats teams in Evanston, IL, Bradley University Athletics, and several University of Illinois teams. In 2005, Susan's first book, "101 Sports Nutrition Tips" was published by Coaches Choice. She has spoken to athletes all across the U.S. and is an adjunct lecturer with the University of Illinois Food Science and Human Nutrition Department. Most recently, she has teamed with sports dietitian Michelle Rockwell, MS, RD, CSSD, to form RK Team Nutrition.
Susan received her B.S. degree in Dietetics from Minnesota State-Mankato and her Master's Degree in Nutrition from Iowa State University. In 1997, she was named Illinois' "Young Registered Dietitian of the Year." In 2003, she received the SCAN (Sports, Cardiovascular, and Wellness Nutritionists) Excellence in Practice Award for Sports Nutrition. Susan is a member of the American Dietetic Association (ADA), the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), Nutrition in Complementary Care, and Nutrition Entrepreneurs. Since 2003, Susan has been a member of the Gatorade Sports Nutrition Board.
Department Session Speakers
Lindsey Boeve
Lindsey is a junior from Holland, MI majoring in social work and minoring in psychology. She spent the summer months working as a student research assistant with Dr. Deborah Sturtevant and as a 2010 New Student Orientation Assistant Director. Currently, she is continuing with the research project and has begun working on the 2010 data.
Wayne Brouwer
Professor of Religion, Hope College
Paulette Chaponniere
Professor of Nursing, Hope College
Paulette Chaponniere has followed her passion for justice in health care for the underserved in Third World countries, in particular in francophone Africa. In addition to working in 15 countries on that continent, she has also visited an additional 10, and worked in Haiti, Jamaica, the Philippines and Bangladesh. She has been taught by her national colleagues and families how to communicate health messages more effectively in cross- cultural settings. She will present some of the lessons she learned under the baobab tree.
 Ralph Edmond
Ralph Edmond, co-founder of Laboratoires Farmatrix, grew up in the midst of three drugstores as the son of a pharmacist. After studying at the State School of Medicine and Pharmacy in Port-au-Prince, he accomplished a second degree in Business and Marketing Management at the Bernard Baruch College in New York City. Upon returning to Haiti in 1989, Ralph took a different step in the field of pharmaceuticals—a step toward the Haitian production toward the Haitian market. He and his business partner soon founded Laboratoires Farmatrix, which today employs over 65 people and produces nutrition, vitamin and hygiene products for sale in Haiti. After a decade of experience as an entrepreneur, Ralph attended a conference in Michigan on “Business as a Calling”, where he discovered his goal to bring mentoring and job creation to Haiti; with Sylvie Theard and Ernso Jean-Louis, Ralph co-founded Haitian Partners for Christian Development in 1999.
Through the tool of mentoring, Ralph believes that businesspeople and entrepreneurs can break the barriers of social and economic class. “Every little thing we have, we can bring people together to motivate,” he says. “In Haiti, most people stay within their own social group; they don’t move. Mentoring is a way to connect with someone, yourself, and God.” Over the years, Ralph has mentored numerous entrepreneurs within the business incubation program of HPCD; he has also served as President of the HPCD Board 2000-2004, and Vice-President 2004-present. Ralph and his wife, Chantal, have three children: Zahry, Nakim, and Izka.
Matthew Halteman
Dr. Matt Halteman teaches philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is a graduate of Wheaton College (BA) and the University of Notre Dame (PhD) and a Fellow in the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. He is the author of Compassionate Eating as Care of Creation, and his work in 20th Century European philosophy has appeared, among other places, in Continental Philosophy Review and Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. He has an insatiable appetite for vegan desserts.
Teresa Housel
Professor of Communication, Hope College
Lauren Janes
Lauren Janes graduated from Hope College in 2004 with majors in History, French and Religion. While at Hope she was awarded the Ray de Young History Prize and the Gerrit H. Albers Southland Award. After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue her Ph.D. in French History from UCLA. She completed her Masters in European History from UCLA in 2006. During the 2007-2008 academic year she was an exchange fellow at the Ecole des Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Lauren is currently writing her dissertation, “The Exotic and the Familiar: Colonial Foods in Interwar Paris,” to be completed in June 2011. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband Dustin (Hope ’04) and their daughter Daphne.
Tracy E. Ore
Tracy Ore is a professor of Sociology and currently serves as the Interim Associate Provost of Undergraduate Education & Student Support Services at Saint Cloud State University (SCSU). A 1984 graduate of Hope College, Dr. Ore received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1999. She counts among her teaching and research areas sustainable agriculture, race and ethnicity, oppression and inequality and the global politics of food. Her most recent text is The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality (fourth edition), published by McGraw-Hill. The connections between her scholarly work and her activism and community engagement efforts are made real in the SCSU Community Garden, which she established in 2005. In addition, Dr. Ore has consulted with several area churches and organizations in the creation of new community gardens and the development of the St. Cloud Area Community Garden Network.
Julia Randel
Assistant Professor of Music, Hope College
Bev Schroeder
For the past 24 years, Beverly Schroeder has served as the "Prevention Coordinator" at the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District, Holland, MI. She provides training and consultation to Ottawa and Allegan county schools in all area of health including nutrition, substance abuse prevention, reproductive health, physical education, communicable disease control and positive school climates. She is also a nationally certified trainer for Dr. Ruby Payne, Framework of Poverty, and works part time as an adjunct professor for Grand Valley State University. Currently, she is coordinating an evaluation project of the PE4Life Program, implemented in several area schools. The project will measure academic achievement, behavior and fitness levels of physically active youth. Prior to coming to the ISD, Bev worked as a health educator at the Ottawa County Health Department. She has a bachelors and masters in Health Education / Public Health from the University of Illinois. She is the past president of the Comprehensive School Health Coordinators' Association and served as executive director of the Michigan School Health Foundation. For fun, Bev runs a children's theater camp each summer, enjoys acting and choreographing community theater productions and continues to take dance lessons. She and her husband of 29 years are enjoying the "empty nest" as both children are attending Michigan universities.
Kevin Soubly
Hope College Senior
Kevin is a Hope College student who completed a significant research project during his semester abroad in Geneva, Switzerland. His research topic is genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). In addition to conducting library-based research, Kevin interviewed scientists and government officials in Switzerland, France, England and Scotland.
Deb Sturtevant
Dr. Deborah Sturtevant is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Work. She is interested in understanding causes for the profound number of orphans and vulnerable children worldwide and the consequences for civil society. Her research has included various projects in Romania, Guatemala, China, and Zambia. "Every Child Deserves a Family!" This United Nations proclamation is central to Dr. Sturtevant's passion for her global work on behalf of children.
Scott Swinton
Scott M. Swinton is a professor of agricultural, food and resource economics at Michigan State University. His current research explores economic approaches to enhance the provision of ecosystem services from agriculture, including projects with the National Science Foundation’s Long-term Ecological Research agroecological site in Michigan and the U.S. Department of Energy Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. He teaches graduate agricultural production economics and undergraduate ecological economics. He earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota, M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University, and B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Swarthmore College.
Heather Winia
Heather Winia is a certified group fitness instructor and Holistic Health Counselor. She has been working in the Holland area for over 20 years spreading her passion for vibrant health and energetic living. She currently teaches at GVSU, Zeeland Community Hospital, and a variety of other venues around town. She works one-on-one and in small groups with clients, inspiring them to add healthy whole foods, great relationships, deeper spiritual connections and appropriate physical activity into their lives.
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