CAS - Faculty and Staff

Jake Bosmeijer
Heather Leigh Brown
Randall Buursma
Randall Bytwerk
Mark Fackler
Robert Fortner
Debra Freeberg

Brian Fuller
Daniel Garcia
Peggy J. Goetz
Kathi Groenendyk
Jan Hennink
Camille Jones
Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence
David J. Leugs

Beth Macauley
Michael Page
Garth Pauley
Carl Plantinga
Christian Poquette
Robert Prince
Amy Richards
William D. Romanowski
Stephanie Sandberg
Quentin J. Schultze
Christopher R. Smit
Patric Spence
Helen Sterk (Chair)
Judith Vander Woude

NOTE: We do not publish faculty and staff email addresses on this site. When you click on a name, the email address that pops up will have a "2" instead of an "@" in the address. Please make the change and then send email.

Jake Bosmeijer manages all of the technology in the DeVos Communication Center, including video and audio studios, editing suites, and associated control rooms. Born in the Netherlands, he studied at the University of Amsterdam where got his degree in electronics, computer science and business management. He moved to Michigan in 1979 and worked 14 years at a large corporation as manager of communications technology. He has been a consultant on various ventures, from point-of-sale kiosks to the design and installation of sound and video for worship, and has managed projects ranging from Web sites and video programs to creative content asset management.

Heather Leigh Brown (MFA Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is the Costume Designer for Calvin Theatre Company. A designer and technician, her credits include production work for University of Illinois, Syracuse Stage, The Old Globe Theatres of San Diego and American Players Theatre. Costume designs for CTC have included: As It Is In Heaven, Doll's House, Jane Eyre, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility, which she also co-adapted.

Randall Buursma (Ph.D. Michigan State University) has a unique position in CAS. He teaches one course for the department that is not found in any CAS major - CAS 214, Creating Communication Arts in the Classroom. The course explores how the communication arts, such as creative drama or reader's theater, enhances the educational process. Randy's interest in education stems from teaching nine years at an elementary school and his graduate work at Michigan State University. He also teaches courses in the Education Department. Randy has directed a number of children's plays at Calvin, including, Telling Wilde Tales, No One Will Marry a Princess With A Tree Growing Out of Her Head, and Good Boogie which was written by CAS colleague, Debra Freeberg. In February 2007, Randy became a full-blown member of the "Cold Knight Club. Click here to see the chilling photo. To see the photo gallery click here. Sabbatical Fall 2008-Spring 2009.

Randall Bytwerk (Ph.D. Northwestern) teaches public speaking, rhetoric, and persuasion. A specialist in propaganda, he has published three books and numerous articles on Nazi and East German propaganda. His German Propaganda Archive, a collection of material from the Nazi and East German eras, draws an average of 5,000 visitors a day. He also sponsors the Moses Award, a prize to encourage practical joking at Calvin. Professor Bytwerk is an enthusiastic traveler and leads an annual backpacking expedition in California's Sierra Nevada. [Home page] [Publications]

Mark Fackler (Ph.D. Illinois, Champaign — Urbana) teaches primarily communication ethics. He has lectured at universities from North America toAfrica and Europe. He co-authored Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning (Longman, Allyn/Bacon) and Good News: Social Ethics and the Press (Oxford) as well as many scholarly and general-interest articles. Professor Fackler has written radio drama, biblical commentaries, and encyclopedia entries. His teaching and research interests focus on development communication in East Africa. He also officiates baseball. [Publications] [Statement on Faith & Scholarship]

Robert Fortner (Ph.D. Illinois at Champaign—Urbana) teaches audio design and aesthetics, broadcast journalism, screenwriting, international communication, communication in society, and theories of communication. He authored International Communication (Wadsworth) and Public Diplomacy and International Politics (Praeger), served on the board of Critical Studies in Mass Communication and the Far East Broadcasting Company, and was a panelist for the National Academy of Sciences. He has researched for the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Voice of America, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Professor Fortner has led workshops in over twenty countries and executive produced an international radio feature program. He golfs and jogs. [Home page] Leave of absence 2007-2009.

Debra Freeberg (Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh) teaches acting, directing, playwriting, and communication courses. She has lectured and conducted workshops on communication, leadership, and theatre across the U.S. and Sweden. Professor Freeberg has directed more than 30 plays and musicals. Her favorite productions include The Ghost Sonata, My Dearest Sister, She Stoops to Conquer, A Dream Play, 1940s Radio Hour, Joan of Lorraine, Peer Gynt, and Tiger at the Gates, and a lauded staging of Mendelssohn's Elijah for the Calvin's Oratorio Society. Her research includes Scandinavian theatre, children's theatre, playwriting, and directing. Her current projects include Embarrassment of Riches, a book about the role of theatre in the Christian academy and Theatre and A Way of Knowing, a co-authored volume on the practice and pedagogy in Christian higher education with colleagues from Wheaton College and Valparaiso University. Debra is a Board Member of Christians in Theatre Arts and a former member of the Governing Board of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education and a member of the Dramatists Guild. [Publications] [Statement on Faith & Scholarship]

Brian Fuller (MFA University of North Carolina - Greensboro) is an Emmy Award-winning director and editor who teaches media production. Brian was transplanted to Calvin from the North Carolina mountains, where he was a professor of communication and the principal of a private media production firm. His 2004 film, FutureWorship 1.0 , examines the use of presentational technologies in churches. In 2006, he completed Hope of the Quechua, a documentary chronicling community development efforts in Ecuador. He speaks widely on the topic of multimedia design for worship. [ Home Page ] [ Creative Activities & Presentations ]

Daniel Garcia (MFA Ohio University) teaches introductory and advanced video production as well as screenwriting. Born in Trujillo, Peru, he obtained his B.A. at the Pontific Catholic University of Peru. He spent several years teaching high school literature and language, working as a creative writer in a local advertising company, and serving as a theatre director and writer for several plays performed in local churches and university campuses before pursuing graduate studies in communications and film. Professor Garcia has written and directed numerous short films, most recently a documentary about the lives of minority inmates in the Peruvian prison Lurigancho. He is working on a video installation inspired by the life and writings of Trappist monk Thomas Merton.

Peggy J. Goetz (Ph.D. Michigan) teaches speech pathology, including phonetics, child language development, speech and hearing science, and the anatomy and physiology of the speech and hearing system. Her articles on children's justifications and theory of mind development have been published in the Journal of Child Language and Bilingualism. She previously spent two years teaching English as a second language in China, where she developed a liking for steamed dumplings and beer. She is a film buff with wide-ranging interests in travel and culture. [Publications]

Kathi Groenendyk (Ph.D. Penn State) teaches visual and oral rhetoric, communication criticism, and environmental studies. Her research includes environmental rhetoric as well as the relationship between mass media and the environment. Professor Groenendyk has studied how movies use landscape to help tell a story and how filmic images correspond to social beliefs about nature. She is also the Associate Director for the Academic Writing Program. She and her husband have two sons; together they listen to a lot of jazz, watch baseball, and hike when they can. [Publications]

Jan Hennink (BSN Michigan) manages the department's finances and also serves as publicist for CAS' theatrical productions. Working with West Michigan media, she ensures that Calvin's actors play to large audiences. She grew up in New Mexico before attending college in Ann Arbor, where she met and married a Grand Rapids native. Jan enjoys reading and traveling, but especially delights in her grandchildren.

Camille Jones (AA Grand Rapids Community College) became the CAS department's Administrative Assistant in June 2008. She came to Calvin College 2 years ago to work in the area of housing in the Residence Life department.

Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence (MCS Regent College) is the Costume Shop Manager for Calvin Theatre Company. Born just outside of Chicago, Joy grew up in Georgia and North Dakota and spent 4 years in British Columbia. She also works as a freelance writer, volunteers in local community theaters, and remodels a bungalow with her husband Justin. In her spare time she cooks and eats locally, knits rapidly, and sleeps heartily.

David LeugsDavid J. Leugs (MFA Michigan) currently serves as Director of Theatre for the Calvin Theatre Company. He teaches design and technical production in the theatre program and serves as scenic and lighting designer for department productions. Outside of Calvin, his design credits include work with Actors' Theatre, Aquinas College Theatre, Community Circle Theatre, Hope Summer Repertory Theatre and The Michigan Shakespeare Festival. He has been honored with a Grand Award for scenic design and two Meritorious Achievement awards in design from the American College Theatre Festival. In his time away from Calvin, he enjoys independent films, foreign and domestic travel, fine food and wine, and nearly any live sporting event. With his wife Danelle, he continues to work on three simultaneous, on-going productions: Jessica, Patrick and Duncan.

Beth L. Macauley (Ph.D. University of Florida - Gainesville) is an Associate Professor in the Communication Arts and Sciences department.  She earned her Ph.D. (1998) in speech-language pathology specializing in brain-based communication disorders with a minor in neuropsychology. Her favorite areas for teaching, research, and clinical service are neurogenic communication disorders across the lifespan, such as aphasia, dysarthria, apraxia, dysphagia, reading, and writing, as well as stuttering, and ethical issues.  Dr. Macauley has special places in her heart for adult stroke survivors and children with multiple disabilities.  She is the only doctoral level speech-language pathologist with clinical certification in speech-language pathology, animal-assisted therapy (AAT - dogs), and hippotherapy (HPOT-horses).   Dr. Macauley is the leading researcher in applications of AAT & HPOT to persons with communication disorders: speech, language, voice, stuttering, developmental delay, autism, etc., and is the editor of the Scientific and Educational Journal of Therapeutic Riding.  [Statement on Faith and Learning]

Michael Page (Ph.D. London) teaches acting and communication and culture, and is the Director of Theatre. He a member of Equity, the professional actors’ union. He has taught English at Western Michigan University, and was Visiting Professor of Theatre at Hope College before coming to Calvin. He has directed productions for, and taught at, several Michigan colleges and theatres, and was for 13 years a regular company member of The BoarsHead Theatre in Lansing. For the last nine years he has performed in the summer with the Peterborough Players in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He is also an award-winning reader of books on tape. Dr. Page is on sabbatical in the spring 2008.

Garth Pauley (Ph.D., Penn State) teaches rhetoric and public address, as well as politics and the mass media. His research on the rhetoric of the American civil rights movement and twentieth-century American political rhetoric has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, the Journal of Black Studies, the Western Communication Journal, the Southern Communication Journal, and by Texas A&M University Press. He is a past recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Communication Association's Karl Wallace Memorial Award. An avid jazz listener, he also teaches a January course in jazz history and styles. [Publications]

Carl Plantinga (Ph.D. Wisconsin-Madison) teaches film theory, history, and criticism. He is the author of Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film (Cambridge), co-editor of Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion (Johns Hopkins), and The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film (forthcoming), and author of numerous book chapters and essays in film studies. He has served on the board of editors of Cinema Journal and is on the Board of Directors of the Society for the Cognitive Study of the Moving Image. He enjoys hiking, biking, birding, gardening, and the Detroit Tigers. [Publications]

Christian Poquette (BFA Central Michigan University) is the new Technical Director for the Calvin Theatre Company. Before landing at Calvin he served as the Technical Director at Mason Street Warehouse in Saugatuck. Since coming to Grand Rapids in 2003 he has designed and built scenery for the UICA, Actor's Theatre, Jewish Theatre, Heritage, Aquinas, Circle Theatre and Mason Street Warehouse, as well as various High Schools. His interests outside theatre include music, film, literature and the tranquility of a deep forest.

Robert Prince (MA Michigan State University) joins the faculty in the fall of 2008 as assistant professor teaching media production. A 1999 graduate of the Calvin CAS department, he has 15 years experience in video production, ranging from directing live studio productions to filming in remote Alaskan villages. His 2005 documentary "Making Choices: The Dutch Resistance during World War II" won the Audience Award at the 2005 Newburyport Documentary Film Festival and was picked up for public television distribution by the National Educational Telecommunications Association. He is currently near completion of a documentary about the resurgence of traditional Native dancing among the Alutiiq Natives of Alaska.

Amy Richards will be joining the department as Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Fall of 2008. Check back for additional information as it becomes available.

William D. Romanowski (Ph.D. Bowling Green State) teaches film, communication, and culture studies. He is the author of the award-winning Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture (Brazos) and Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life (InterVarsity). Professor Romanowski's three-part video series based on Eyes Wide Open and produced by the Calvin Media Foundation was an Aegis Award Winner and received a Communicator Award of Distinction. In his free time, he enjoys tennis and golf. [Home page] [Publications]

Stephanie Sandberg (Ph.D. California - Santa Barbara) teaches Theatre History and Communication and serves as a director for the Calvin Theatre Company. She trained as an actress at the California Institute for the Arts and completed a liberal arts degree at Westmont College. Since the Autumn of 2001, her focus has been the dramaturgy of new plays, bringing living playwrights to Calvin College and performing their works. The focus of these productions has been on developing new plays centered on questions of faith for Calvin's Festival of Faith & Writing . Currently she is working on Deborah Brevoort s The Women of Lockerbie for the 2008 festival. Last season she developed a new adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility for the Calvin College stage with costume designer Heather Brown. Stephanie also serves as a staff director at Grand Rapids' Actors' Theatre where she is now developing a new play Seven Passages: The Stories of Gay Christians, based on four years of research and interviews about the intersection of homosexuality and Christianity. She has received numerous Grand Awards and American College Theatre Festival Awards for her work, most recently for her work on András Visky's Disciples.[Statement on Faith & Scholarship]

Quentin Schultze (Ph.D. Illinois at Champaign—Urbana) teaches mass media, senior seminar, and public speaking. He is the Arthur H. DeKruyter Chair in Faith and Communication, and Executive Director of the Gainey Institute for Faith and Communication, which sponsors the Calvin Workshops in Communication. He speaks widely and has authored hundreds of articles for general-interest and religious periodicals. His many books include the award-winning Christianity and the Mass Media in America (Michigan State University Press) and An Essential Guide to Public Speaking: Serving Your Audience with Faith, Skill, and Virtue (Baker) with an accompanying website. In 2000 he received the Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching at Calvin. He loves hiking, birding, and travel. [Home page] [Publications]

Christopher R. Smit (Ph.D. University of Iowa) teaches mass media, including television, gender and sexuality, and popular music. His edited Screening Disability: Essays on Cinema and Disability ( University Press of America) was the first book to be published on the topic of film and disability. Professor Smit's essays on disability, media, popular music, and culture have appeared in Disability Studies Quarterly, Studies in Popular Culture, Journal of Popular Culture, and several edited collections. His current book project concerns theology, disability, and the Christian faith. He is a singer/songwriter whose latest CD is The New Midwest (2006). [Publications]

Patric Spence (Ph.D. Wayne State University) joined the CAS faculty late summer 2006 to teach the new Business Communication course as well as Advertising and Public Relations. Previous to arriving at Calvin, he taught Research Methods and Organizational Communication. His recent work has been published in Communication Research Reports and Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods. Patric also serves as the coordinator of the department's internship program.

Helen Sterk (Ph.D. Iowa) is department chair and teaches and writes on rhetoric, feminism, gender, and popular culture. In 2006-07, Professor Sterk toured America, Canada, Hungary, Korea, and Switzerland as the Calvin Worldview Lecturer. She co-authored Who's Having This Baby? Perspectives on Birthing (Michigan State University Press) and co-edited several books, including Gender and Applied Communication (Sage). She has published in the Western Journal of Communication and the Journal of Communication, and in edited books such as Evaluating Women’s Health Messages: A Resourcebook (Sage, 1996). Professor Sterk has served as the President for the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender, President of the Religious Communication Association, Chapter President for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and as a member of the state executive board for the AAUP (Michigan). She loves walking, reading detective novels, and watching her teenage children grow up. [Publications] [Statement on Faith & Scholarship]

Judith Vander Woude (Ph.D. Wayne State) directs the Speech Pathology and Audiology Program. She teaches courses on phonological and language disorders and conducts research on literacy development and neuroimaging of adolescents’ language comprehension. She has co-authored several articles and book chapters on language and literacy development and a book on speech-language pathology treatment. Professor Vander Woude has presented internationally on the positive effects of parent-child communication. She also is the Associate Coordinator of American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Special Interest Division 1, Language Learning and Education. Furthermore, she is the Co-Chair of the 2008 Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CAPCSD) Annual Conference and an associate editor of CAPCSD’s Learning Objects Exchange (LOEX). [Publications] [Statement on Faith & Scholarship]

Quick Reference Guide to CAS Faculty and Staff

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