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Faculty: William Vande Kopple

William Vande KoppleWilliam Vande Kopple, Professor, Department Co-chair, English

616-526-6465
vkop@calvin.edu
Office: CFAC 279

Weekly Schedule (Portal login required)

Educational/Professional Background

Professor Vande Kopple completed his undergraduate degree in English and German at Calvin College in 1972. From there he went on to earn a master of arts in English from Chicago University in 1973. After spending time teaching at the secondary level, he began work towards his PhD in English language and literature at Chicago University, receiving his degree with honors in 1980. He joined the Calvin College English department in 1980.

Academic Interests

  • Discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis
  • language and ethics
  • linguistic variation and educational practice
  • secondary education
  • mentoring beginning teachers
  • the style of scientific prose

Recent Activities

Professor Vande Kopple is currently partnering with Professor Elizabeth Vander Lei to chair the English department. He recently contributed twelve "Notes on Grammar, Style, and Rhetoric," to Vander Lei and Dean Ward's Real Texts: Reading and Writing across the Disciplines, published by Pearson Longman in 2008. Sections written by Professor Vande Kopple in the textbook include "notes" on first-person pronouns, passive verbs, hedges in persuasive writing and the language of motivation. He also wrote a forward to the recent release by photographers Todd and Brad Reed, Luddington State Park: Queen of the North.

Hobbies

  • Fishing
  • hiking
  • mountain climbing/trekking (yes, Gary Schmidt, author of Trouble, I have indeed climbed Mt. Katahdin)
  • bird watching

Favorite books

  • Any of the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series
  • The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Adam Bede by George Eliot
  • Trout Madness (especially “The Intruder”) by Robert Traver

Additional information