Calvin Hires Director for Festival of Faith & Writing

April 13, 2005 == MEDIA ADVISORY
<<for a photo see http://www.calvin.edu/news/photos/staff/sdunn.jpg>>

Calvin College has hired Shelly LeMahieu Dunn as the director of its biennial
Festival of Faith and Writing (FFW), a new, part-time position designed to lift
the administrative burden from the English department faculty.

"It's important," says Calvin English department chair John Netland of the
hiring, "because putting together a festival is more than just booking big
names. There are all kinds of practical decisions that have to be made, ranging
from a venue to put somebody in, to figuring out which sessions go together, to
figuring out who interviews whom."

The Festival, which has welcomed such luminaries as John Updike, Oscar
Higuelos, Maya Angelou, Annie Dillard and Madeline L'Engle, has grown since its
humble beginnings in 1990 to an event with some 2,000 attendees, numerous
authors and multiple venues. The 2006 Festival is scheduled for April 20-22.

Netland says LeMahieu Dunn's background has given her the expertise to deal
with the Festival sprawl.

"We were very impressed with the management and entrepreneurial skills she
will bring to the position," he says.

A 1992 Calvin graduate, LeMahieu Dunn has worked since 2002 as the owner of
Red Wheelbarrow, a freelance copyediting company. From 2001 through 2003, she
worked as a grant proposal manager in Calvin's development office and from 1999
through 2001 as a coordinator of publications, lectures and conferences for the
Acton Institute.

She also has worked intermittently since 1997 as a part-time writing
instructor in Calvin's English department, a not-inconsiderable qualification
for her current job, Netland says.

"She's an experienced and successful teacher," he says. "It helps a great
deal."

Susan Felch, a Calvin English professor and member of the Festival committee
says: "In many ways putting together a good festival is like putting together a
good syllabus. You want to introduce people to new ideas and new authors but
you want to include familiar authors who will nurture folk."

For her part LeMahieu Dunn is excited about the new Festival-related tasks at
Calvin (which will take up about 60 percent of her time).

"The Festival has been an amazing collaborative effort for 15 years now," says
LeMahieu Dunn, "and has been blessed with a lot of people who have made
enormous contributions to its success. I'm excited that I'll be able to
contribute in some small way to the energy and enthusiasm behind the Festival,
and I'm looking forward to being part of the conversation and the
collaboration. It (the Festival) really is a great event, an event unlike any
other in my opinion. It's a thrill to be part of it."

Calvin also has hired Kristin Otte as an administrative assistant to the
Festival. A 1996 Calvin graduate, Otte has worked for the past six years in
Chicago, first as a school teacher and then as a paralegal and office manager
in a law firm. Otte will work part-time on FFW and part-time on another
venerable, biennial Calvin English department event, the Youth Writing
Festivals.

"Both these hires," says Netland, "mark the college's commitment to continuing
and building on the great work of so many over the past 15 years."

Netland notes that organizers were tempted to cancel the Festival after its
2004 edition (when former director Dale Brown stepped down as director) because
of the extraordinary demands it makes on Calvin's English department faculty
and staff. They reconsidered, Felch says, because of the enormous impact the
festival has had on attendees from all over the U.S.

"We in Calvin's English department get to walk up and down the halls and talk
about new ideas and books we've read," she says, "but for a lot of people the
Festival is an oasis every couple of years. It didn't seem like it was fair for
us to let the oasis dry up."

For a photo see http://www.calvin.edu/news/photos/staff/sdunn.jpg

-end-
Received on Wed Apr 13 15:09:47 2005