David James of the Hope College faculty will be the featured speaker in the “Life After Hope” series organized by the Global French Studies Colloquium on Wednesday, Feb. 19, at 4 p.m. in the Fried/Hemenway Auditorium (room 135) of the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Each spring, the colloquium invites a Hope alumnus/a who majored in French to speak on his/her life and job experiences after graduation.
James, who is an adjunct associate professor of English and Academic Support senior associate at Hope, graduated from the college in 1976 with majors in English and French, having studied for a semester in Grenoble, France. He taught high-school English, French, and theater for five years; did his graduate work at Iowa in English, specializing in teaching writing; and is now completing 29 years at Hope of teaching writing, literature and FYS, coaching students in study skills and transitional survival through the Academic Support Center, and, for 23 of those years, directing the writing center.
At midlife, James began writing poetry (as D.R. James) and now has four books to his credit with a fifth due out in May. He also completed the MFA in poetry at Pacific University in June 2013.
A father of four and stepfather of two, he is married to hospice bereavement counselor Suzy Doyle and lives in Holland.
The Martha Miller Center for Global Communication is located at 257 Columbia Ave., at the corner of Columbia Avenue and 10th Street.