Research Initiatives

Strengthening Liberal Arts Education by Embracing Place and Particularity
A Proposal to the Teagle Foundation from Calvin College
(2005-2007)

(Download White Paper here)

At a recent “state of the community” breakfast, leaders from business, education, and the government discussed the present and future of the city of Grand Rapids. While all acknowledged we are going through tough economic times related to the loss of area manufacturing jobs, many expressed a measured optimism. They asserted that we have resources in Grand Rapids to help us rebuild and maintain our fine city, in particular the new biomedical corridor and the technological training offered by our community college.

This response by civic leaders prompted us to wonder: In a city with ten colleges and universities (including branches of state universities), why weren’t the liberal arts mentioned as a valuable resource for enhanced city life? How can the liberal arts be identified as a major resource for the understanding and enrichment of a particular place? And how would this linkage between a particular place and the resources of the liberal arts transform, enrich, and strengthen the liberal arts themselves?

In the fall of 2005, we submitted a proposal to the Teagle Foundation to explore the relationship between liberal arts education and a sense of place and our proposal was funded through 2007. The key questions we will explore are: How can the liberal arts tradition serve the common good in a particular place? How should this particular place influence and shape the liberal arts tradition at Calvin? How can we use our city as text to strengthen liberal arts education for our students? We are embedded in a particular community with particular issues, strengths, and needs. As we plan for engaged scholarship, it must grow out of the resources and issues where we are embedded. The needs here (urban revitalization, literacy, education, racial tension, environmental concerns) create the context from which our scholarship of engagement grows.

An upper level sculpture class began exploring issues of place by considering how to reclaim unused space in particular neighborhoods for urban gardens.Their project, called PLANT! can be explored through their blog site which documents their work and insights as the project unfolded in the spring of 2006.

A group of informal Calvin students interested in exploring issues of community and place have begun meeting regularly and are keeping a blog.In addition they plan to gather students, faculty and interested others for a monthly conversation beginning in the fall of 2006.

Community Research Initiatives

Urban Altruism is a research initiative and seminar concerned with seeking the welfare of the city. This seminar was taught in the Spring of 2006 by Dr. Jamie Smith of the Calvin Philosophy Department.

Three Focus Neighborhoods - The College has worked for decades in many neighborhoods within the Grand Rapids metropolitan area. More recently, the Provost’s Office, the Service-Learning Center, the Office of Community Relations, and several academic departments at Calvin have collaborated with churches, schools, and organizations in the Burton Heights, Baxter-Madison, and Creston-Belknap communities, focusing on multiple community issues and disciplinary approaches.

Publications by Calvin faculty on Engaged Scholarship - Calvin faculty have been actively involved in engaged scholarship in various disciplines and have begun publishing about this work.   Included here is a partial list of publications by Calvin faculty who have written about the scholarship of engagement:

Articles/Chapters:

• Curry, Janel M., Gail Gunst Heffner, and David Warners. 2002. “Environmental Service-Learning: Social Transformation Through Caring for a Particular Place.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 9(1): 58-66.
• Curry, Janel M. 2002. “The Development of an Ethic of Service to Place.” In Commitment and Connection: Service-Learning and Christian Higher Education, edited by Gail Gunst Heffner and Claudia DeVries Beversluis, pp. 167-181, Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
• DeGraaf, D., Lankford, J. & Lankford, S. 2005. “Cities and the good life: Urban sprawl, New Urbanism, and the role of Parks and Recreation.” Parks and Recreation. 40 (8): 56-64.
• DeGraaf, D. & Jordan, D. 2003. Social Capital: It’s about community. Research Update. Parks and Recreation. 39 (2): 20-27.
• Heffner, Gail Gunst, Janel M. Curry, and Claudia DeVries Beversluis. 2006. “Transforming Liberal Arts Education through Engaged Scholarship. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement. Forthcoming.
• Heffner, Gail Gunst, Gail Landheer Zandee, and Lissa Schwander. 2003. “Listening to Community Voices: Community-based research, a first step in partnership and outreach.” Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement 8(1): 127-139.
• Heffner, Gail Gunst and Beversluis, Claudia DeVries, eds. 2002. Commitment and
  Connection: Service-Learning and Christian Higher Education. Lanham,
  MD: University Press of America.
• Heffner, Gail Gunst. 2002. “Creating Social Capital through Service-Learning and
  Community Development at Faith-Based Liberal Arts Colleges.” In Connection and Commitment: Service-Learning and Christian Higher Education. Edited by Heffner and Beversluis. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. pp. 3-19.
• Mulder, Mark, and Jeff Bouman, Joy Van Marion and Don DeGraaf. 2006. “Connecting the Mind, Heart and Hands through Intentional Community at Calvin College.” Journal of College and Character. 7 (2): 2-13.
• Mulder, M. & DeGraaf, D. 2006. Urban growth, community, and the environment: An experiential pedagogy. Journal of Cities and the Environment. (under review)
• Timmermans, Steven R., and Bouman, Jeffrey P. 2005. “Seven Ways of Teaching and Learning: University-Community Partnerships at Baccalaureate Institutions.” Special Issue of the Journal of Community Practice, January, 2005.
• Timmermans, Steven R., and Bouman, Jeffrey P. 2004. “Seven Ways of Teaching and Learning: University-Community Partnerships at Baccalaureate Institutions.” In University-Community Partnerships: Universities in Civic Engagement. Edited by Soska, Tracy M., and Johnson Butterfield, Alice K. New York: Haworth Press.

Books:

• Commitment and Connection: Service-Learning and Christian Higher Education, ed. Gail Gunst Heffner and Claudia Beversluis, Lantham, MD: Univ. of America, 2002.

Last updated Thursday, April 24, 2008