Calvin board wraps up February meeting

The 31-member Calvin College board of trustees concluded its winter meeting this weekend on the school's campus in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The winter meeting is one of three annual sessions for the Calvin board, which also meets in October and May.

Faculty interviews are always a highlight at the February board meeting. This year's meeting was no exception.

The Calvin board interviewed and granted tenure to: Patrick Bailey (computer science), David Dornbos (biology), Kristin Du Mez (history), Matt Halteman (philosophy), Phillip Hash (Music), Youngkhill Lee (HPERDS), Matthew Lundberg (religion), Corey Roberts (German), Aubrey Sykes (engineering).

Besides the tenure interviews, the Calvin board also approved for reappointment an additional 10 faculty members.

The board also attended a special dinner where Calvin's 19th-annual Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching was given to associate professor of Asian Languages Larry Herzberg. The Board also attended a sold out premiere of "A Shared Space: Learning from the Mustard Seed School," a documentary produced by Calvin media production professor Brian Fuller and a handful of his students.

Another important item for the board of trustees was approval of the new 2011-2012 rates for tuition, fees and room and board. The overall budget will be set when the board of trustees meets in May.

Tuition and fees for 2011-2012 will be $25,340, while room and board will be $8,760. With additional required fees of $225, the total costs for 2011-2012 will be $34,325. This represents an overall tuition increase of just 2.8 percent.

Calvin vice president for enrollment management Russ Bloem notes that Calvin continues to deliver a high-quality, high-value education at a cost below that of its peers. And the cost to attend Calvin College is considerably less than the national average for four-year private colleges.

Calvin's commitment to remaining affordable is evidenced by the maintaining of a strong financial aid program, which added $740,000 of additional assistance for the upcoming school year. More than 90 percent of the Calvin student body will receive some form of financial aid, making the actual cost to attend Calvin, in most cases, well below the $34,325 total figure.

There was also a transition in the executive leadership of the Board of Trustees this weekend. Bastian Knoppers, who has served as chair for the past five years, passed the torch to Scott Spoelhof, who has served on the board during Knoppers entire tenure as chair. Knoppers noted that a change in his responsibilities at work made it impossible for him to devote the time necessary to hold the chair position. He noted that having someone willing and able to step in made his decision much easier.

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Received on Tue Feb 15 10:14:22 2011