Wednesday, October 31, 2007
January Series- The Legacy Continues
For more than two decades, The January Series of Calvin College has lead the nation with its cultural arts series. The topics, along with presenters, have been diverse and have changed with culture. No issue has created too much controversy at Calvin, a liberal arts college with a reformed background. The Series is used to teach students and faculty to think with discernment and to be contemplative skeptics.
The Coordinator of the January Series is Kristi Potter. This is her first year as coordinator, though she worked with the previous coordinator, June Hammersma, for 11 years and co-directed with her the last two of them. “There is pressure to keep it at the caliber it is. I am fortunate that it has such a strong foundation,” stated Potter
The vision has not changed-She will continue to take advantage of both new ideas and technological advancements. Yet a new logo and staging things are being developed. Potter desires to feed the FAC’s coverage to other areas, such as the DeVos lobby, Library Lobby and Johnny’s café, making it more available to students.
“I want a buzz to be created among students, so they might want to hear the next day’s speaker in the auditorium,” stated Potter. Adding, “I hope all are aware and take advantage of it [the Series]”.
Potter goes through the various recommendations for speakers she receives from faculty, students and members of the community. This is her most difficult tasks, as there are a lot of suggestions and only 15 spots to fill. Potter has the final say on who speaks, yet she gathers advice from people in the academic departments regarding the recommendations. There might be several speakers mentioned with a topic and though she picks only one, the topic does get covered in the Series. “It’s good because I see all the recommendations. I see the repeats and similar topics being recommended,” said Potter.
The complete list of speakers can be found on the January Series website. There are several I would like to highlight and suggest you attend. The first is that of Debra Reinstra, an English Professor at Calvin, who will present on “Words Wear Out: How Writers Help Us Renew Religious Language”. Her recent book entitled “So Much More: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality”, which is a creative orientation to the Christian faith. It has been described as “a doorway for people to look through and see home.”
The second is that of James Abbington, speaking on “100 Years of Black Gospel Music in an Hour”. Dr. Abbington has researched music and worship in the Christian church, African American sacred folk music, and choral music. “I expect to be at the lecture and [would say] that [Dr.] Abbington is a well-respected authority on gospel music,” said Professor Elizabeth Vander Lei, of the English Department.
Potter expects that both Ishmael Beah, and Sonja Nazario will draw large crowds with their presentations. “Beah seems to be popular with students and Nazario, who wrote ‘Enrique’s Journey’, a lot of people have read [her] book.”
The biggest change Potter has made was adding 12 remote sites featuring webcasts during the series. The idea began a few years ago when a church in Holland asked to hold a seminar there, it was then tried out a couple years later with Eugene Peterson [January of 2006] and went quite well. Last year ten of the seminars were remotely fed to that church in Holland along with a church out in Massachusettes.
The sites include six other areas in Michigan, from Muskegon to Troy along with an additional downtown Grand Rapids location. The other five are being hosted in the states of Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois and California. It is a win-win situation, making it more available to more people,” noted Potter. Yet, she believes it is still important to fill the FAC’s auditorium, as speakers gain more energy from a large crowd.
Potter sees the series as a gift to both the college campus and the community. “It’s a chance to bring the community to campus to see the work going on at Calvin,” said Potter.
The lectures are given at 12:30 pm in the 1000-seat Fine Art Center Auditorium on campus. There is no charge to attend for Calvin students, faculty and members of the community.