Commons Annex 131
(616) 526-6244
Rev: Dale Cooper
email: coop@calvin.edu

Meet our Staff

Rev. Dale Cooper - Chaplain
Cherith Nordling - Director of Spiritual Leadership Development
Robert Nordling - Director of Spiritual Leadership Development
Paul Ryan - LOFT Coordinator
Lori Gesink - Mentoring Coordinator

Adjunct Member
Cindy de Jong - Worship Coordinator

Department Assistant
Megan Piersma

Dale Cooper is chaplain of Calvin College and (part-time) professor in the Religion and Theology Department. He provides pastoral care to the students and staff, preaches regularly in the college’s worship services, and directs the mentoring program. When he thinks about that long parade of Calvin students who have shaped him, I Thessalonians 3.9 springs immediately to mind: “How can we thank God enough for you…?”

Cooper studied at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Free University of Amsterdam. He recently co-authored a book of devotions for athletes, Lasting Victory, and is writing another on the role of worship in a college setting.

Calvin sports teams — all of them — ignite his joy. He’s even been known to lead a cheer — especially if the contest is close and the game’s on the line. He has a fondness for his trusty 1941 John Deere “B,” a tractor than which none greater has ever been conceived.

Cherith Nordling is Co-Director of Spiritual Leadership Development at Calvin College. Her responsibilities include teaching, training and mentoring of student leaders on and off-campus. She also teaches occasionally in the area of systematic theology.

Her theological areas of interest include early and contemporary Trinitarian theology, Biblical theology, the community of the Church, gender relations and worship.

Cherith holds graduate degrees in counseling psychology from the College of Notre Dame (Belmont, CA), in theology from Regent College (Vancouver, BC) and has a Ph.D. in systematic theology from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland).

Robert Nordling
robert.nordling@calvin.edu
Co-Director of Spiritual Leadership Development
(616) 526-8851

Robert G. Nordling is Co-Director of Spiritual Leadership Development and works out of the Office of the Chaplain. His responsibilities include working with student leaders on and off campus by helping them realize their potential as leaders through coaching, training, mentoring, and discipline.

Robert also serves as conductor of the Calvin College Orchestra where he brings his experience as a conductor in the professional orchestral world to Calvin students playing in this ensemble.

His interests include Arthurian literature, poetry, English football teams, Mexican food, furniture-making, Welsh Terriers, Tom Waits, Gustav Mahler, Cherith Nordling, and espresso coffee.

Cindy graduated from Calvin in 1981 with a BA in English Secondary Education. She also took post-grad courses in literature and writing, worship and theology. Cindy taught English four years at Valley Christian High in Bellflower, California, and a few semesters of freshman English at Calvin. Currently she teaches the first-year Calvin Prelude course.

After helping to create the worship planning team at her home church, Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church, Cindy has served there off and on since starting her job as Coordinator of Worship at Calvin.

Cindy enjoys nature walks with son Blake and drama activities with daughter Amy, and has been married to Ed, a photojournalist and videographer, for more than 20 years. When she has time for fun, she participates in a monthly book club and a movie group.