Dr. Steven Bouma-Prediger has been presented the 35th annual "Hope Outstanding Professor Educator" (H.O.P.E.) Award by the 1999 Hope College graduating class.
Bouma-Prediger, an associate professor of
religion, was honored during the college's annual Honors
Convocation, held in Dimnent Memorial Chapel on Thursday,
April 29, at 8 p.m. The award, first given in 1965, is
presented by the graduating class to the professor who they
feel epitomizes the best qualities of the Hope College
educator.
"Steve Bouma-Prediger has been an outstanding
faculty member at Hope--as a teacher, as a scholar and as a
person who cares for students," said Dr. John H. Jacobson,
president of Hope College. "I am delighted that he has been
chosen this year to receive the H.O.P.E. award."
Bouma-Prediger has been a member of the Hope
faculty since 1994. His areas of specialization include the
philosophy of religion and philosophical theology,
philosophy and theology of nature, ecological ethics and
Christian theology.
He has regularly led a Hope "May Term" in the
Adirondacks that concerns ecological theology and ethics.
He was the college's commencement speaker in May of 1998.
His book "The Greening of Theology: The
Ecological Models of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joseph
Sittler, and Jurgen Moltmann" was published in 1995, and he
is co-author of the 1996 monograph "Assessing the Ark: A
Christian Perspective on Species and the Endangered Species
Act," written with Virginia Vroblesky. He is also the
author of numerous scholarly articles and reviews.
From 1990 to 1994, Bouma-Prediger was an assistant
professor of philosophy and chair of the department at North
Park College in Chicago, Ill. While he was at North Park
College, "The Chicago Tribune" named him to its 1994 "All
Professor II" academic team, which
recognized 50 outstanding faculty from smaller Chicago-area
colleges and universities.
He was a member of the philosophy faculty at North
Park Theological Seminary in Chicago from 1992 to 1994, and
at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1993.
He graduated from Hope in 1979. He holds a
master's degree in philosophy from the Institute for
Christian Studies of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, a master of
divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a doctorate
from the University of Chicago.
His wife, Celaine, is also a 1979 Hope graduate.
They have three children, Anna, Chara and Sophia.