2003
The Voice: Winter 2003
Faculty News
Dordt College President Carl E. Zylstra is among a select group of Christian
leaders who shared essays about their years as college students in a recently
released book, College Faith: 150 Christian Leaders and Educators Share Faith Stories from
Their Student Days.
The book of essays was compiled by Ronald Knott and published by Andrews
University Press, which published the book to inspire students, staff, teachers and administrators
with simple faith stories. Writers for the book include the presidents of sixty-plus
Christian colleges, universities, theological seminaries and Christian ministries.
English Professor David Schelhaas gave two presentations at the ASCI convention in Chicago
in October. One was titled “Teaching Poetry So They Love It” ; the
other was “The Ideal High School English Curriculum.”
Dr. Keith Sewell, professor of history, presented a paper titled “The Crisis in
Evangelical Historiography” at the Conference on Faith and History in October.
From Oct 22 to 26, Dr. John Van Dyk, director of the Center
for Educational Services, participated in an IAPCHE Conference in Los Banos, the Philippines.
He led a “track” on the responsibility of Christian higher education for elementary
and secondary schooling.
From Nov 18-21, Van Dyk served as a member of an Ontario Alliance
of Christian Schools team to evaluate Toronto District Christian High School (TDCH). He
also gave a presentation at the society meeting of TDCH on the topic
“Teaching Christianly” and lead a professional day for the staff of Toronto Christian
High School on the topic “establishing and maintaining a collaborative classroom.”
On Oct. 1, Dr. Danny Hitchcock took a group of eleven students to
the annual Nobel Conference in St. Peter, Minnesota. They attended lectures given by
some of the world's best researchers in behavioral neuroscience. The conference topic was
“The Nature of Nurture” and included a lecture by Nobel Laureate Eric R.
Kandel on the physiological basis of learning and memory.
Darryl De Ruiter, HPER instructor and soccer coach, qualified for and will participate
in the 107th Boston Marathon next April. De Ruiter qualified for Boston by
running a three hour, 11 minute marathon at Grandma’s Marathon (qualifying time was
3:15) in Duluth, Minnesota this past June. It was his sixth marathon completed.
On November 2, Dr. Arnold Sikkema and Dr. John Zwart took students Pam
Vandermeer, Phillip Pambuh, Ben Zieske, and Barry Viss to a meeting of the
Iowa chapter of the American Association of Physics Teachers, held at Southwest Community
College in Creston, Iowa. Sikkema gave a talk titled “Droplet Formation: Four Demonstrations
of the Rayleigh Instability,” and Zwart gave one titled “High Precision 19th Century
Spectroscopy.” At the meeting, Zwart was voted in as president of the state
chapter for next year.
Dr. Wayne Kobes, professor of theology, and Dr. Ron Vos, professor of agriculture,
gave a presentation at the ninth annual Ag Missions conference at ECHO in
Florida on November 11. They were joined by Dave Evans of Food for
the Hungry International. The title of their presentation was “Biblical Holism.” Five Dordt
students also attended the conference.
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy Dr. John Vander Stelt read a paper on “Runner’s
Implications for Issues in Theology” at a conference to celebrate the legacy of
Dr. H. Evan Runner, held on October 4 and 5, at Redeemer University
College in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.
On behalf of IAPCHE (International Association for the Promotion of Christian Higher
Education), Vander Stelt lectured in the Philippines on “Christian Higher Education within Kingdom
Context” at the Alliance Biblical Seminary (in Manila) on October 21 and at
the Christian Reformed Bible College (in Los Banos) on October 22. He also
functioned as coordinator of Track I (dealing with general cultural, historical, societal, and
faith traditions and issues) at the IAPCHE-sponsored “Manila Leadership Conference” from Oct. 23-26.
The conference was attended by forty persons from seven regions in Asia/ Oceania
and five persons from Canada and USA.
Vander Stelt plans to spend four months in the Netherlands during the spring,
continuing work on a book he is writing.
Agriculture Professor Dr. Duane Bajema participated in the annual meeting of the Foods
Resource Bank on November 16-17 in Ft. Myers, Florida. The organization is a
consortium of denominational relief and development organizations whose goal is to work cooperatively
for the alleviation of world hunger.
