For 10 years, the Phelps Scholars Program has been helping prepare students to better bring hope to the world by bringing the world to Hope.

The freshman-year program emphasizes preparing students to understand and thrive in the diverse, interconnected world in which they will find themselves after graduation. It takes a holistic approach, with the students—60 to 70 annually—not only studying about diversity-related issues but continuing the discussions on their own while living in community in a single residence hall.

“Numerous research studies show that college students with diversity-related experiences do better academically and achieve greater personal development than students without those experiences,” said Dr. Chuck Green, professor of psychology, who has directed the program since it began in 1999. “The underlying purpose of the program is to give people the opportunity to get to know a wide variety of folks, to work on developing relationships and to explore cultural diversity in a supportive environment.”

The program is named for the Rev. Philip Phelps, the college’s first president, who made international outreach an institutional priority in the college’s earliest years. This fall, the Phelps Scholars Program was recognized nationally as an exemplary program by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, which profiled it in the book More Reasons for Hope: Diversity Matters in Higher Education.

Living together in Scott Hall, the Phelps Scholars all attend one of three sections of the fall First-Year Seminar “Creating Community Together” and bi-monthly meetings on a range of topics related to diversity. They also attend field trips to destinations like Detroit’s Holocaust Memorial or Chicago’s World Music Festival, and additional events like dinners and ice cream socials.

The planned activities provide structure and concrete lessons, but Dr. Green noted that it’s the interaction and fellowship that are at the heart of the experience.

“What the students tell us is that they found the classes valuable, that they had fun on the trips, that they sensed a great deal of support from faculty and staff, but far and away what they say is that the most meaningful to them is developing a strong network of friendships with people from a wide variety of backgrounds,” he said.

Coming to school in West Michigan represented a major change for junior Grace Olamijulo of Brooklyn, N.Y. Her family background is Jamaican and Nigerian, and she attended a predominantly Asian high school. She enrolled at Hope drawn to the new experience of attending a Midwestern college that reflected another tradition and Profilethe opportunity to participate in campus discussion related to diversity. She has appreciated the Phelps Scholars Program for helping her adjust to her new environment while providing a venue for the exploration she sought.

“The program was incredibly helpful,” she said. “Coming here was a really big culture shock, and it was very far from home.”

“Whenever I had a problem, it gave me an outlet with other students that would listen to me, number one; would respect my opinions; and would help me,” Olamijulo said. “I feel like there’s definitely an open-minded atmosphere that’s created here—very friendly.”

She stayed involved this past year as a resident assistant, a role in which she will continue next year, working with new groups of students as they experience the program. She is also proud to highlight the program when working with prospective students on behalf of admissions.

“I like to host prospective students. I feel like the Phelps Scholars Program is one of the best places I can show,” she said. “When they come to this building and meet other participants in the Phelps Scholars Program who are having a positive experience, it shows them the best things about Hope.”
The program’s impact continues beyond Hope as well. Jennica Skoug ’06 has recently completed two years as a mathematics teacher in Vanuatu, an island nation in the Southwest Pacific, through the Peace Corps. She credits the Phelps Scholars Program with helping prepare her to work with people from other cultures.

“Although values, beliefs and customs vary with different cultures, I think that overall, most people want the same fundamental things: to have a home to belong to, to be loved and accepted, to have enough food and clean water, to have the opportunity to create a good life for themselves and their family, to be happy,” she said. “I started learning this during the Phelps Scholars Program when I was able to live with people of various backgrounds, and I continued to learn it when I moved to Vanuatu.”

“Cultural differences are a vehicle for valuable and interesting friendships and a rich, informed worldview,” Skoug said. “I have found them at times to be a challenge but never a barrier.”

As they complete their freshman year and move from Scott Hall to other residences on campus and become active leaders in a variety of organizations, the students who have participated in the Phelps Scholars Program continue to embody, and serve as informal ambassadors for, the program’s message. The Phelps Scholars Program, however, is also working to connect with the larger Hope community in other ways.

“Over the last 10 years, we have developed a rich array of opportunities for students who are interested in pursuing issues pertaining to race and culture,” Dr. Green said. “Part of what we’re trying to do is take what we have to offer and cooperate with other offices on campus.”

In March, working in cooperation with the department of economics, management and accounting, the program hosted a panel on cultural competence in the workplace that featured representatives from Fifth Third Bank. In April, the program and the department of psychology co-sponsored the address “Identity-safe environments: How positive environments can unlock latent ability” by Dr. Steve Spencer ’88, professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo.

Dr. Spencer’s address was a particularly appropriate anniversary highlight. As a member of the Hope psychology faculty from 1997 to 1999, he had originally proposed the Phelps Scholars Program based on his previous work while a graduate student at the University of Michigan, during which he studied the university’s “Twenty-first Century” program, which also brings together minority and majority students in a supportive residential situation.

“The Phelps Scholars Program is near and dear to my heart,” Dr. Spencer said as he addressed a standing-room-only audience in VanderWerf 104. “I think it’s a credit to Hope that they put the work into it. Certainly it’s a credit to Chuck and the other people that work on it that they have put together such a successful program.”

(This article, written by Greg Olgers '87, was first published in the June 2009 issue of News from Hope College)