In September of 2004, every staff and faculty member of the Calvin community received a small green booklet titled From Every Nation: Revised Comprehensive Plan For Racial Justice, Reconciliation and Cross-Cultural Engagement at Calvin College. The little green book was speedily nicknamed with its now-familiar acronym, FEN. A tiny tome with big ideas, FEN will have a lot to say about how the Calvin community shapes itself in the coming years.

“I think FEN is a radical document,” said Barbara Omolade, Calvin’s dean for multicultural affairs. “I think its full implications have not been teased out.”

FEN takes its full name from the Bible — specifically from Revelation 7:9: “I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every language, tribe, nation, and language, standing before the throne.” The framers of FEN hope that Calvin will one day reflect that biblical picture of an eternal, multi-national kingdom of God.

The FEN document is a re-write of the 1985 Comprehensive Plan for Integrating North American Ethnic Minority Persons and Their Interests Into Every Facet of Calvin’s Institutional Life (commonly called the Comprehensive Plan), the stated purpose of which was to make Calvin a “genuinely multicultural Christian academic community.”

The earlier plan aimed at four specific targets: the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority faculty and staff, the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority students (along with the development of multicultural communities for both of these groups), the development of Calvin’s broader multicultural Christian community and the development of multicultural curriculum.

A considerable amount has already been accomplished toward achieving those goals, said Randal Jelks, who came to Calvin as the college’s first director of academic multicultural affairs in 1992. “The Comprehensive Plan was ambitious, broad and an effective tool,” Jelks said. He points to several staff positions that serve multicultural student recruitment and development, initiatives such as the Entrada Scholars Program and the office of pre-college programs, both of which develop and recruit ethnic minority students; Mosaic Scholarships to recruit African American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American students; an expanded international student presence; new interim and off-campus study programs; academic programs in Asian Studies, International Development Studies, and African and African Diaspora Studies; and the Multicultural Affairs Committee (MAC).

Despite these successes, there was a growing disquietude across the Calvin campus, said provost Joel Carpenter, that the college was not as successful — or as focused — as it could be at fulfilling its now 20-year-old vision. He characterized the prevailing emotion as follows: “We’ve seen some growth and change, but why is it coming so slowly? … Are there patterns, customs and policies at Calvin that push people of color to the margins?”

In answering those questions, the Calvin Anti-Racism Team — a group of Calvin staff and faculty who had undergone diversity and anti-racism training and who advised the college on multicultural issues — asked a subcommittee to re-write the Comprehensive Plan. And FEN was born.

FEN builds even more accountability into Calvin’s plan to become a diverse community, laying out specific recommendations for departments and offices at Calvin to work toward anti-racism and inclusiveness. The document also empowers MAC as an oversight committee for the entire Calvin community — both faculty and staff — on issues of diversity. “We’re kind of a checking mechanism as a committee. We’re asking them for self-evaluation,” said current MAC chair Won Lee.

FEN also re-shaped the director of academic multicultural affairs position as the dean for multicultural affairs, a role that Omolade assumed in January of 2004. “The challenge of what I want to do is spell out what it means to be a global Christian through multiculturalism,” Omolade said. Carpenter, too, noted that, in an era of globalization, Calvin’s initial vision of multiculturalism has to expand: “A lot of the reason we decided to go with From Every Nation is that [multiculturalism] has gotten ever so much more complex.”

While several Calvin offices — notably, human resources and student life — are already at work on staff training in anti-racism and healing racism, the practical task of diversifying the Calvin community in its classrooms, conference rooms and offices is a big one for everyone involved, said Omolade — and one that hasn’t yet been pioneered in academia. “The culture of the academy is conservative; it is hierarchical. It moves slowly. Calvin doesn’t have a lot of multicultural institutions to learn from.”

Nevertheless, she said, Calvin’s administration is doggedly seeking out the best strategies for attracting faculty, staff and students of color to Calvin — and for building a truly multicultural community. And those who were involved in the creation of FEN and in the many initiatives that surrounded it remain hopeful.

“I think Calvin has a role to play,” Jelks said. “The new tradition is coming, as we reach out to all God’s people.”