A children’s village in Rwanda, wolves in Michigan, the college’s new art museum, the importance of science education, ethnobotany, and the digital liberal arts will all be featured during the annual Hope College Winter Happening on Saturday, Jan. 31.
Winter Happening will feature multiple seminars in two blocks in the morning, a luncheon featuring musical entertainment, and a home men’s basketball game with Trine University. Open to the general public, the event is sponsored by the college’s division of public affairs and marketing.
Admission to the seminars is free. There is an admission charge for the luncheon and the basketball game.
The morning will feature six seminars, three at 9:30 a.m. and three at 11 a.m. The 9:30 a.m. seminars are “A Preview of the Kruizenga Art Museum,” “Public Perceptions of Wolves and Their Return to the Great Lakes State” and “Making Science and Science Education a National Priority.” The 11 a.m. seminars are “A Celebration of Five Years of Innovative Student Research in the Traditional and Digital Liberal Arts,” “Chemical Aspects of Ethnobotany” and “Behope: Nibakure Children’s Village, Kigali, Rwanda.”
“A Preview of the Kruizenga Art Museum” will highlight the vision for how the new facility, scheduled to open in the fall of 2015, will enhance the educational mission and campus culture of Hope, and serve as an educational resource not only for the college but for West Michigan. Founding director Charles Mason will also discuss the architecture of the building and share highlights from the college’s Permanent Collection, which includes American, European, Asian and African art.
“Public Perceptions of Wolves and Their Return to the Great Lakes State” will consider how wolves have been recovered after near total extirpation from the continental United States. The presentation will focus on a survey conducted by the advanced research methods class in sociology regarding Michiganders’ views of wolves and their return to the Great Lakes State, and will include a survey of those attending on their attitudes about wolves and how the state should manage them in the future. The seminar will be presented by Roger Nemeth, professor of sociology, and Hope sociology majors Ethan Gibbons and Christopher Seto.
“Making Science and Science Education a National Priority” will explore new modes of student learning that will help today’s undergraduates become tomorrow’s “convergent” scientists: specialists who are able to work effectively in teams with colleagues specialized in other disciplines. The seminar will be presented by James Gentile, who is dean for the natural and applied sciences at Hope and past-president of Research Corporation for Science Advancement of Tucson, Arizona.
“A Celebration of Five Years of Innovative Student Research in the Traditional and Digital Liberal Arts” will feature the college’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars Program in the Arts and Humanities, which is designed to foster collaborative, scholarly research in the arts and humanities combined with experiential education and engagement with digital technology. The seminar will be presented by William Pannapacker, professor of English and director of the program; Anne Heath, associate professor of art; Alex Galarza, the digital liberal arts fellow for the program; and Hope students Elizabeth Ensink, Jennifer Fuller, Hope Hancock, Allyson Hoffman, Matthew Meyerhuber and Cullen Smith.
“Chemical Aspects of Ethnobotany” will consider the field of ethnobotany, which examines how people of a particular region utilize the plants around them, and the way that additionally understanding how plants function at the chemical level can lead new ways to treat medicinal problems. The seminar will be presented by Kenneth Brown, associate professor of chemistry, who will examine the role of ethnobotany from a global perspective and share some of the results from his research laboratory.
“Behope: Nibakure Children’s Village, Kigali, Rwanda” will focus on a student-led initiative on behalf of an orphanage in Rwanda that both cares for 19 orphaned children and supports education of 11 children in the local community. The program seeks to empower orphans and widows in Rwanda while providing Hope students, faculty and staff with opportunities to live, study, work and learn in a vibrant developing country overseas. The seminar will be presented by Dianne Portfleet, associate professor of English, who has previously led a student trip to the village and will do so again in May; and Hope students Anysie Ishimwe, Natalie Polanco and Brooke Wolthuis.
The luncheon begins at 12:30 p.m. at the Haworth Inn and Conference Center ballroom, and costs $13 per person.
The men’s basketball team will host Trine University at 3 p.m. at the DeVos Fieldhouse. Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for children, and a limited number of general admission tickets will be available for persons attending other Winter Happening events.
In addition to being required for the luncheon, advance registration is recommended for the seminars. Additional information may be obtained by calling the college’s division of public affairs and marketing at (616) 395-7860 or online at hope.edu/pr/15WinterHappening.html
Registration during the morning of the event will be from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Haworth Inn and Conference Center, located facing College Avenue between Ninth and 10th streets.