Jeff Bouman, PhD
Director, Service-Learning Center
Calvin College

Member, Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church

Member, Board of Trustees, Ann Arbor Campus Chapel and Center for Faith and Scholarship

Married since 1989 to Julie;
2 children, Bastian (1995), and Abigail (1998).

Welcome!

I've been at Calvin since 2002 and am interested in collaborating widely in the area of college students and their making connections between intellectual, spiritual and physical dimensions of their lives. I am deeply committed to the pursuit of Biblical shalom, and hope that by training college students to see the world in light of God's Word, a corner of the darkness can be peeled back. Here is why I have hope:

Curriculum Vitae

Resources (book reviews, links etc)

A Seamless Coat of Learning: Weaving Together Telos and Praxis Through Committed Community Engagement, 2007.

L. Braskamp, L. Calian Trautvetter, & K. Ward, Putting Students First: How Colleges Develop Students Purposefully, 2006.

Andrea Chapdelaine et al., Service-Learning Code of Ethics, 2005.

Barbara Jacoby, Building Partnerships for Service-Learning, 2003.

Claudia DeVries Beversluis & Gail Gunst Heffner, Commitment and Connection, 2002.

Books that matter to me:

The Fabric of Faithfulness, 1996, Steven Garber.

The Soul of the American University, 1994, George Marsden.

To Be Near Unto God, Abraham Kuyper.

Course information

Reformed Activism
In 2004-05, under the auspices of the Calvin College Faculty Scholars Program funded by the Lilly Vocational Grant project, I developed a three-credit interdisciplinary course on the history of student activism in America. Focused on a Shalom-directed Christian student activism, the course weaves together history, theology and sociology.

Culture, Family Life, and Social Services (Interim 2007)
Along with Prof. Beryl Hugen, we visited Mexico City, Puebla, Cuetzalen, Acapulco, and the remote village of San Miguel Tzinacapan, to learn and experience Mexican culture and the community structures and social welfare services that assist Mexican Families in meeting their needs for food, housing, healthcare and education.

Social Entrepreneurs in Romania, IDIS W42(Interim 2008)
Students will participate in the work of the New Horizons Foundation in Lupeni, Romania, exploring connections between Adventure Education, Service-Learning, community organizing, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Between January 3 and 23, 2008, students will participate in a variety of experiential learning activities, travel to Bucharest, and other regions of Romania, and learn about the realities of post-communist Eastern Europe, Romania’s entry into the European Union, and what the work of social entrepreneurs looks and feels like. A primary goal of the course will be to put flesh to the idea that a Calvin education can be put to use in socially entrepreneurial ways around the globe, and at home, wherever home may be. The group will have the option of a day of down-hill skiing at the resort area of Straja, accessible by chairlift from downtown Lupeni. Teaching will occur in close contact with Romanian staff and volunteers in addition to local academic advisors to the program, and extensive contact with Dana and Brandi Bates, founders of the program, and Janelle Vandergrift and Daniel Heffner, interns and 2006 Calvin alumni.