Dr. Steven VanderVeen, who is a professor of management and director of the Center for Faithful Leadership at Hope College, has received a Michigan Campus Compact (MCC) Faculty/Staff Community Service-Learning Award.
The award recognizes outstanding community service and service-learning by faculty and staff at the colleges and universities that are members of MCC. Recipients are honored for engaging or influencing students to be involved in community service or service-learning through modeling, influence or instruction. The awards are given to one recipient from each member institution that nominated someone.
VanderVeen was honored on Monday, Jan. 30, during an awards ceremony and dinner scheduled in conjunction with MCC’s 15th “Service Learning and Civic Engagement Institute Conference,” which was held at Michigan State University at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center in East Lansing.
“Receiving the award was a bit embarrassing because it’s the really students at Hope who deserve the recognition,” VanderVeen said.
VanderVeen has been a member of the Hope faculty since 2004, and has directed the college’s Center for Faithful Leadership since 2007.
Established in 2005, the Center for Faithful Leadership emphasizes servant-leadership principles in helping students “to positively respond to the challenges that God has placed on their hearts” and identify and develop their interests and skills with an emphasis on empowering them to work with and in turn empower others to address needs in the world. Components of the program include ASI Student Research and Consulting, which partners students with community organizations on projects; the LdOut3 leadership training program for Hope, high school and middle school students; Hope’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, which mentors students in developing marketable concepts; and coursework that includes a minor in organizational leadership practice.
In addition to directing the center, VanderVeen teaches courses in the leadership program as well as management courses at the college.
He has authored or co-authored articles in a variety of scholarly publications, including the “Journal of Biblical Integration in Business,” “Christian Higher Education,” “Christian Scholar’s Review” and “Perspectives,” and has presented papers and invited addresses at numerous scholarly conferences. Among other honors through the years, he received the “Johnson Award” from the Christian Business Faculty Association in 2009 for his scholarly contributions toward integrating the Christian faith and business, and in 2008 received a national award from the Used Textbook Association for reducing students’ book-buying costs through creative re-use of an earlier edition of a textbook. During the college’s annual “Winter Happening” event on Saturday, Jan. 28, he and students together presented a seminar about Hope’s Entrepreneurship Initiative.
Prior to joining at the Hope faculty he was a member of the business faculty at Calvin College, where he also received an MCC Faculty/Staff Community Service-Learning Award. His work experience also includes having been a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a stockbroker.
He graduated from Calvin College with a B.A. in 1982, completed an M.B.A. at Western Michigan University and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Michigan Campus Compact is a coalition of college and university presidents who are committed to fulfilling the public purpose of higher education. The compact promotes the education and commitment of Michigan college students to be civically engaged citizens, through creating and expanding academic, co-curricular and campus-wide opportunities for community service, service-learning and civic engagement. Some 43 Michigan colleges and universities are members of MCC.