Strategic Priorities

Identifying strategic priorities for community engagement has been an important part of the initial work undertaken by the Office of Community Engagement. In 2005, strategic planning occurred involving faculty, administrators, staff and some community partners in a review of Calvin’s past accomplishments in the scholarship of engagement and in dreaming of where we’d like Calvin to be in the next five to ten years.

Four broad areas of interest emerged which are capturing the attention of a number of Calvin faculty and staff in response either to current needs or to particular issues existing within the Grand Rapids community—environmental sustainability, urban revitalization, literacy, and racial reconciliation. These emerging priorities form the foundation of our strategic thinking and decision-making about particular projects to pursue. Encouraging faculty to pursue research and scholarship in areas of importance to the Grand Rapids community is one focus of the Office of Community Engagement.

• Environmental Sustainability

  • Environmental programs and creation care at Calvin College

  • Calvin Environmental Assessment Program (CEAP)

    • The Calvin Environmental Assessment Program are a service-learning initiative that focuses on environmental research in order to assess and improve the environmental health of Calvin and the surrounding community. Urban neighborhoods often suffer disproportionately from environmental pollution including poor air quality, water contamination, or lead poisoning. CEAP collects and analyzes data to address issues of environmental concern in Grand Rapids.

  • Plaster Creek Stewards

    • In recent years a number of faculty, staff and students at Calvin have gathered to brainstorm ways we can care for our watershed. Because of our location in the Plaster Creek watershed which is part of the Great Lakes Ecosystem and because of our commitment to environmental stewardship, we are constantly seeking ways to use our programs and expertise to preserve, protect, and restore local environmental resources.

  • Food for Thought: A Farm-to-College Initiative

    • Local food procurement, for many institutions and businesses, offers a powerful opportunity to create an additional sense of enthusiasm about sustainability. Food connects us with people and celebrates our sense of place. Our approach to food touches on culture, economics, land use, our seasons and the environment—all at once. Food for Thought is a new initiative at Calvin to provide local food in some of the campus eating venues as well as to weave food issues into the curriculum across various disciplines. With new ideas generated from a visit to Kenyon College in the spring of 2006 and support from the Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council, Calvin intends to build on the momentum started in 2005-2006.
• Urban Revitalization

  Community Health Initiative

  The Calvin nursing department has spearheaded an initiative in community-based teaching and research, which has become a model for other departments. This initiative has involved community-based research in three urban neighborhoods where the voices of residents and health providers are actively sought and recognized. Priorities have emerged regarding residents’ health needs and those needs are being addressed through collaborative strategic planning. Residents from each of the three neighborhoods have been hired to serve as community health workers, to partner with nursing faculty and students, and to connect residents to needed resources. Working with active community partners has proven vital to the growth and success of this community-driven initiative.

  Get the Lead Out!

  Calvin College has worked closely with Get the Lead Out!, which is a multi-agency collaborative whose vision is to “end childhood lead poisoning among children in Kent County.” Deteriorating lead-based paint is recognized as a significant cause of childhood lead poisoning and each year hundreds of additional Kent County children are diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels. This is a long-standing problem that requires thinking and acting in new and different ways. The Office of Community Engagement has facilitated the involvement of of Calvin faculty and students (through the nursing, social work and psychology departments) with Get the Lead Out!

  Get the Lead Out! brings together diverse partners to solve this problem and is a collaborative effort of two dozen organizations. Its key strategy is reflected in its mission statement of “bringing the community together in strategic action to end childhood lead poisoning in Kent County.” The Collaborative's purpose is to coordinate new and existing activities, to seek change and/or build systems for more effective prevention, and to build local capacity.

  Get the Lead Out! is a national Children's Environmental Health Excellence Award winner (2006). For more information check out these good links to other organizations:

  • Alliance for Healthy Homes
  • National Center for Healthy Housing
• Literacy

  Rates of illiteracy among adults in Grand Rapids match the national average (21% of the adult population is functionally illiterate in their first language). Calvin students have been involved in tutoring in area schools and after-school programs for many years. Recently a small group of Calvin faculty have begun collaborative research on literacy and language development issues.

  Greater Grand Rapids Reads hosted a Community Literacy Summit in the fall of 2005 and recently introduced a Community Literacy Plan which will help coordinate community action around this important issue facing Grand Rapids.

• Racial Reconciliation

  Racial reconciliation

  Calvin College is committed to promoting racial reconciliation and to becoming an antiracist institution. The pursuit of shalom calls for not only concerted efforts to promote racial reconciliation and Christian community but also for deliberate measures to identify and address practices, structures and attitudes, both institutional and personal, that may militate against those efforts.

  From Every Nation

  The Revised Comprehensive Plan for Racial Justice, Reconciliation, and Cross-Cultural Engagement at Calvin College.

  Community Voices Project

  The stories and perspectives of long-term residents, refugees, and recent immigrants are being collected in this oral history project, giving voice to their life experiences and bridging cultural, racial, ethnic, and social differences. Watch soon for a link to the archives for these oral history interviews.