Calvin News

In September 2003 current Calvin provost Claudia Beversluis gave a talk at the college's annual fall conference for faculty and staff, a talk titled "Community As Curriculum." 
It began and ended with references to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), including the worry by George Kuh, the primary force behind the NSSE, about what the appropriate balance for colleges and universities might be when it comes to emphasizing character development and intellectual development. In fact, he has wondered if they are mutually exclusive.

At Calvin College we believe they both are consistent parts of a fully orbed, fully engaged life. As Calvin's Expanded Mission Statement says: "Christian education at the college level needs to be seen as a dynamic process in which all of us continually try to get our deepest commitments, educational activities, and life practices headed in the same direction."
Calvin's NSSE Results Affirm the College's Christian Mission
We have found through our participation in the NSSE that our students affirm that their education has matched our mission statement. For example we score well compared to our peers in the Level of Academic Challenge category, but also on the Supportive Campus Environment category.
Indeed these are two of the most critical NSSE categories for Calvin and get at the heart of intellectual and character development. The Academic Challenge category measures such things as preparing for class, number of papers and written reports, working hard in the classroom, the emphasis on campus on studying and academic work and much more. Providing a challenging academic environment for our students has been central to a Calvin education since our founding in 1876.
The Supportive Campus Environment category also measures factors we believe are an important part of the education we offer. That category asks questions about whether or not the campus environment provides the support students need to succeed academically, whether it provides what students need socially and what the quality of relationships are between students and fellow students, students and faculty, students and administrators. Students learn best in an environment that is both challenging and supportive. NSSE shows that our students believe they are getting all of this at Calvin in significantly higher numbers than our Carnegie peers.
Education Beyond the Campus
Yet while a supportive campus environment is important, we believe that a Calvin education grows and flourishes away from campus as well. Thus Calvin has greatly expanded off-campus program offerings to a host of other countries and also brought coursework and service opportunities into our West Michigan community.
The NSSE category called Enriching Educational Experiences measures such activities -- things such as co-curricular opportunities, internships, study abroad and more. Our students, especially our seniors, report via NSSE that they find numerous such opportunities at Calvin, more than at Carnegie peer institutions. We are grateful for such data and, in fact, the opportunity for feedback from our students, and the opportunity to reflect on what we do as a college for our students, is what prompted the college to sign Calvin up for NSSE initially!
A Different Kind of Learning Flourishes Here
We believe there are many good liberal arts colleges in North America, but perhaps none that prepares its alumni, as Calvin does, for a specific kind of Christian engagement with modern culture.
At Calvin, faith and curriculum come together in an academic climate where a different kind of learning flourishes -- learning that can change the world. Rooted in this climate, students develop into transformative leaders, eager to work for renewal wherever they are called.
Central Questions for Calvin College
The central questions about learning and student engagement that we ponder every day at Calvin are these:
How do we move students into greater self authorship, and still help them know the supreme author of their life?
How do we move students into the decentering process, and still keep them connected to the center of the universe? 
How do we disorient, and still help students know who they are? 
How do we help students integrate the head and the heart and the hand-their thinking and heart direction and active lives of service, even when it feels like these are going in opposing directions? 
How do we dare go beyond just good practices and good habits, and encourage active, critical reflection on those habits and practices? 
How do we liberate through the liberal arts, and yet keep students firmly tied to the one who is our only comfort in life and in death? 


We answer these fundamental questions in two parts. First, very carefully! Second, in community. We believe that teaching and learning that takes place in a genuine academic community is the kind of teaching that works on multiple levels and multiple ways to move students into fuller awareness and fuller commitment, that works to prepare minds and hearts and hands to engage God’s world. 
That kind of teaching and learning takes place daily on Calvin's campus. And we invite others to join in this project. So check out the links on this page and in the box on Calvin's distinctives. Explore Calvin. And contact us if this is the kind of place you'd like to learn more about. We're eager to have you get to know Calvin better.