Calvin Prof Honored By Humane Society

January 17, 2008 == MEDIA ADVISORY

SUMMARY: A Calvin College professor has been honored by The Humane Society of
the United States.

Full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2007-08/halteman-humane-society-award.htm
  
Calvin philosophy professor Matt Halteman was recently honored with a 2007
Animals and Society Course Award from the The Humane Society of the United
States for “Peaceable Kingdom: Transforming Our Relationship with Animals,”
a class he teaches during Calvin’s January Interim term. The award included a
$500 prize to the Calvin philosophy department to support course development
and outcomes.

“Developing this course has been a rewarding experience, and I am most
grateful for this vote of confidence,” said Halteman.

“Peaceable Kingdom,” which Halteman is teaching for the fourth time this
year, is an examination of the philosophical, ethical, environmental and
socio-economic issues surrounding the treatment of animals by contemporary
agribusinesses and other industries. Halteman stressed that he was passionate
about infusing “Peaceable Kingdom” with the Calvin mission.

“What attracted me to teaching this class in the first place was Calvin’s
emphasis on the creation-fall-redemption triad and the idea of transforming
fallen structures,” he said.

In its first year, the “Peaceable Kingdom” Interim did all the legwork to
create Students for Compassionate Living (SCL), a Calvin organization that
advocates the just and merciful treatment of animals through on- and off-campus
educational workshops, films, speakers, dinners, and weekly meetings.

The class also hosted a mini-conference in its second year, which grew into
Wake Up Weekend. Now in its second year, Wake Up Weekend, a non-Calvin-
sponsored event to be held January 18 and 19, 2008 in Grand Rapids, will draw a
whole array of organizations from Michigan and beyond for sessions on animal
advocacy, an art auction, a vegan chili cook-off and a vegan potluck. This
tendency of the “Peaceable Kingdom” to spread the message of animal
compassion to a wider community is one of the reason’s the Interim garnered
the award.

“The judging panel was particularly impressed with the conceptualization of
the course, which cast the treatment of animals as an important question not
simply within Christian theology but as a matter of serious concern for the
Calvin College community,” said Bernard Unti, a senior policy advisor at The
Humane Society of the United States. “Its innovative character was evident in
other respects, too, but most prominently in its requirement to raise broader
awareness within the student body.”

Halteman shares all the honors of the award with his students: “The passion
and conviction of my students played a key role in motivating me to teach this
course, and it is their exemplary commitment to seeking a more just,
compassionate and sustainable world that makes the class work.”

-end-
Received on Thu Jan 17 14:39:29 2008