A total of 13 long-time members of the Hope faculty are concluding their teaching careers in May.
They comprise the largest faculty "graduating
class" in the history of the college. Their combined
service to Hope exceeds 360 years. They represent 10
departments, none with fewer than 19 years at Hope and some
with 35.
"It's always humbling to have people who have been
significant and integral parts of the campus community
retire and move on to the next phase of their lives," said
Dr. James Bultman, president of Hope. "It's humbling
because that means that those of us who remain now need to
carry the mantle without the direct daily involvement of
friends and colleagues who have meant so much to the life of
the institution."
"They won't be replaced," he said. "They will be
succeeded."
Retiring this year are: Dr. Jane Bach, professor
of English; Dr. Rodney Boyer, the Edward and Elizabeth Hofma
Professor of Chemistry; Dr. Allen Brady, professor of
biology; Dr. Earl Curry, professor of history; Dr. Robert
Gentenaar, associate professor of economics; Mary Jellema,
adjunct associate professor of English; Dr. Judith Motiff,
professor of French; Anthony Muiderman, professor of
business administration; Dr. Theodore Nielsen, the Guy
VanderJagt Professor of Communication; Gordon Stegink,
associate professor of computer science; Dr. Elliot Tanis,
professor of mathematics; Dr. Richard Vandervelde, professor
of mathematics; and Dr. James van Putten Jr., professor of
physics.
Bach's service at Hope is charted since 1975, but
her career with the college actually started earlier. In
addition to her years as a student, she was at Hope from
1969 to
1971 as a part-time instructor. Her first husband, Stanley
Harrington, was on the art faculty from 1964 until his death
in 1968.
Her primary teaching fields are the genre of
poetry, and 20th century British and American poetry. Her
secondary fields are American women writers and American
literature from Hawthorne to James.
She is a published poet. Among other honors, she
received Lilly and Mellon grants and a Danforth Graduate
Fellowship, and participated in a National Endowment for the
Humanities Summer Seminar.
A biochemist, Boyer has been a member of the
faculty since 1974. He has directed the research of more
than 70 undergraduate students, published more than 40
papers in peer-reviewed journals and written three
biochemistry textbooks.
Boyer is working on the third edition of his book
"Modern Experimental Biochemistry." He was recently
selected to serve as a member of the editorial board for the
new international journal "Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology Education," and in 1999 was appointed to a three-
year term on the Task Force on Educational Resources for the
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Brady first taught at Hope as a "Kettering
Teaching Intern" for a year, after completing his doctorate
at Harvard in 1964. He returned in 1966 as an assistant
professor of biology and has remained ever since.
His major interests are invertebrate zoology,
systematics and evolution, but he is especially well-known,
both on-campus and off, for his expertise and interest in
spiders in particular. He is a past president of the
American Arachnological Society, and has received awards
from the National Science Foundation in support of his
research. In 1988, former student Dr. Robert Wolff named a
new species of spider "Cyclocosmia bradya" in his honor.
Curry has been a member of the Hope faculty since
1968. His primary field is United States history from the
Civil War to the present, with his interests also including
Irish history and Latin American history. Among other
campus activities, in recent years he has co-led a Hope May
Term to Ireland with John Tammi of the theatre faculty.
His publications include the book "Hoover's
Dominican Diplomacy and the
Origins of the Good Neighbor Policy" as well as reviews and
scholarly articles. He has presented numerous papers at
professional conferences, in addition to speaking locally on
topics ranging from international affairs and domestic
politics to local social problems.
Gentenaar has been a member of the Hope faculty
since 1977, teaching courses in macroeconomics,
international economics, money and banking, principles of
economics, corporate finance and econometrics. In 1984, the
graduating senior class presented him with the Hope
Outstanding Professor Educator (H.O.P.E.) Award.
He also taught at Grand Valley State University
for more than 20 years, and has presented a number of papers
and invited addresses.
His scholarly expertise is complemented by his
experiences as an hourly employment manager with Bendix
Corporation in St. Joseph, and as owner of a drive-in
restaurant and gas station from 1961 to 1971. He has also
served as a consultant for local businesses and
organizations.
Jellema came to Hope in 1968 as a part-time
instructor in English, joining her husband, R. Dirk Jellema,
who was on the English faculty from 1964 until his death in
1994. She began teaching the college's course "Literature
for Children and Adolescents" in 1975.
In addition to visiting Nepal in 1995, she taught
Chinese teachers during an eight-week English summer school
in China in 1986. She has also taught at Calvin College,
Grand Rapids Community College and Ohio State University,
and at the secondary school level in Oregon.
She has had articles in "Reformed Worship" and
"The Banner," and has made a number of presentations.
Motiff joined the Hope faculty in 1969, the same
year as her husband, psychologist Dr. James Motiff, who will
continue to teach.
Her teaching interests have included not only the
French language itself, but also French civilization and the
methodology of teaching foreign languages. While
coordinator of the French section, she created a new
curriculum in French. She supervises student teachers in
all modern languages, and reorganized the training workshops
and guidelines for apprentice teachers in the department.
She served on the Executive Board of the
Association of Departments of Foreign Languages, in addition
to chairing the department at Hope.
Muiderman joined the Hope faculty in 1977, and
specializes in business management and entrepreneurship. He
has been faculty coordinator of the Baker Scholars Program
since 1978; he developed the department's "Executive-in-
Residence" program. The graduating senior class presented
him with the Hope Outstanding Professor Educator (H.O.P.E.)
Award in 1986.
Prior to Hope, he was an adjunct member of the
Grand Valley State University faculty as well as at Grand
Rapids Community College. He also spent 25 years in
industry in manufacturing and in executive positions.
Nielsen has been a member of the Hope faculty
since 1975. He developed the classroom program of cable
broadcasting that has given Hope students on-the-air
experience in television production for more than 20 years.
Prior to Hope, he had taught at the University of
Massachusetts, Ohio State University and the University of
Wisconsin. He had also worked in radio or television from
1953 to 1967, and won the Peabody Award in Education
Broadcasting in 1958 for his work as director with Fred
Rogers at WQED in Pittsburgh, Pa.
His wife, Joyce, has worked in the college's
library since 1977, and will continue to do so after he
retires.
Stegink taught at Dickinson College and Grand
Valley State University before joining the Hope faculty in
1981. His work at Grand Valley included serving as manager
for computer operations and user services for 11 years.
His teaching ranges from the department's
introductory course to supervising internships and
independent study.
He has benefitted students abroad as well. He
spent the 1990-91 school year teaching in Malawi, through a
Fulbright lectureship, and taught in India in 1996.
Tanis has been a member of the Hope faculty since
1965, and served as interim dean for the natural sciences in
1993. He received the Hope Outstanding Professor Educator
(H.O.P.E.) Award from the graduating senior class in 1989.
He specializes in statistics, and is co-author of
the textbooks "Probability and Statistical Inference" and
"Probability and Statistics: Explorations with MAPLE." His
interests have included using the computer to produce
artwork inspired by the repeating patterns of Dutch graphics
artist M.C. Escher.
He is a past governor of the Michigan Section of
the Mathematical Association of America. The association
presented him with a Distinguished Service Award in 1996.
A member of the faculty since 1967, Vandervelde is
an avid runner who in addition to teaching has worked with
the cross country team.
He is past chair of the college's annual "Albert
E. Lampen Mathematics Contest and Conference" for high
school students. He also helped found the Holland
Recreational Youth Soccer League, serving as a member of the
board from 1979 to 1984.
He was co-investigator of a grant from the
National Science Foundation to link mathematics and physics.
His professional activities beyond campus have included work
with the Advanced Placement Mathematics Program, and the
Mathematical Association of America.
van Putten, who joined the Hope faculty in 1967,
is a "generational professor": his father, the late Dr.
James Dyke van Putten, was a member of the political science
faculty from 1952 until retiring in 1969. And as his father
had set up the college's political science program, he
played a leadership role in developing Hope's engineering
program, which today offers three different majors.
While his father was the first president of the
West Ottawa School Board, he is the first president of the
board for Black River School, a charter school in Holland.
van Putten is also president of Macatawa Computer
Services Inc. in Holland, and has been a consultant with a
number of corporations.