Calvin Provost Inauguration Set for October 25

October 5 , 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY

The inauguration of Claudia Beversluis on October 25 as the seventh provost of
Calvin College will feature a bit of a twist: the featured speaker will not be
Beversluis.
 
Rather, Beversluis, Calvin's first female provost, has chosen an admired
colleague to deliver words of wisdom that day at 3:30 pm in the Calvin Chapel.

Roberta Hestenes, the president emeritus of Eastern College in Pennsylvania
and the former board chair of World Vision International, will speak on "The
Unfinished Challenge: Women, Global Poverty and the Kingdom of God."

Beversluis, a 1974 graduate of Calvin, says that in Hestenes she finds much on
which to model her own academic career.

"Dr. Hestenes is someone that I have always admired," she says. "She was one
of the first women in leadership in Christian higher education. She is clearly
moved by the world's needs, and has been a leader in programs to address those
needs. And she has written convincingly that all of us need to step forward and
answer the call to serve. Some of the phrases from her writings were actually
echoing in my mind when I considered whether or not to accept the nomination
for this position."

In a recent piece for Christianity Today on the history of evangelicals, Notre
Dame professor Mark Noll cited Hestenes as a leader in the evangelical
movement, listing her alongside such luminaries as Francis Schaeffer, C. S.
Lewis, James Dobson, and Richard John Neuhaus.

Hestenes was thrust into the national spotlight in 2004 when she delivered the
concluding prayer at the Democratic National Convention. But she had played a
key role in evangelicalism for many years prior to that moment.

She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, and has served
churches in Washington State and California. Her articles have appeared in
Christianity Today, Eternity, and Sojourners magazines and she is the author of
several books.

For the full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2006-07/provost-inauguration.htm

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Received on Thu Oct 5 10:40:38 2006