2003
The Voice: Spring 2003
Faculty News
Dr. Duane Bajema, professor of agriculture, attended the annual meeting of the Foods
Resource Bank, a new United States organization similar to the Canadian Food Grains
Bank. Bajema attended on behalf of the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee. He
reports that the organization received a $1.4 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation
to help get started. In December, Bajema attended the National Agricultural Education Research
Conference. Participants presented papers and attended workshops that focused on improving agricultural education
at the undergraduate level.
In February, Bajema attended the State of Iowa Leopold Animal Issue Team meeting
in Ames, Iowa, to discuss issues and determine strategies for dealing with concerns
about animal agriculture in this area. He also served as a reviewer for
four articles submitted for the Western Regional Agricultural Education Conference Meetings of the
American Association of Agricultural Education to be held in Spokane, Washington.
In January, Dr. John Visser, professor of business, conducted seminars on stewardship for
a church retreat of the Georgetown Protestant Reformed Church in Michigan.
Dr. Jim Vanderwoerd, professor of social work, gave one of forty invited papers
at the Spring Research Forum of Independent Sector, a non-profit organization whose goal
is to strengthen and promote a healthy and independent public sector. The theme
of this year’s forum was “The Role of Faith-Based Organizations in the Social
Welfare System,” and Vanderwoerd’s paper was titled “How Faith-Based Social Service Organizations Manage
Secular Pressures Associated with Government Funding.”
Vanderwoerd also wrote a review of the book Serving Those in Need: A
Handbook for managing Faith-Based Human Services Organizations by E.L. Queen II, which was
published in the journal Social Work & Christianity, Volume 29, Number 3, Fall
2002, pp. 248 - 250.
Dr. John Kok’s essay “Social Spheres and Law Spheres” and his translation of
Dirk Vollenhoven’s “Sphere Sovereignty for Kuyper and Us,” was published in Philosophy as
Responsibility: A Celebration of Hendrik Hart’s Contribution to the Discipline, edited by R.A.
Kuipers and J.C. Wesselius (University Press of America, 2002).
Dr. Ken Petersen, professor of environmental studies, gave a talk titled “The Use
of Christian, Biblical Themes to Direct and Motivate Environmental Education” at the 2003
Midwest Environmental Education Conference in March.
Dr. Chris Goedhart, professor of agriculture, presented “Soil Fertility Assess-ment for Organic Agriculture”
for the Iowa Organic Crop Improvement Association’s Chapter 1 meeting on Saturday January
18th, in Cherokee, Iowa.
Goedhart also attended the Practical Farmers of Iowa Annual Conference in Ames on
Saturday, January 25th in Ames, Iowa, and presented a poster prepared by Dr.
Robb De Haan and agriculture student Marcel Busz. The data and research results
were collected at the college’s Agriculture Research Center (ASC) by agriculture students in
the “Field Crop Experiences” course taught by Dr. Ron Vos. The poster reported
results of two experiments: “Corn Following Oats With and Without a Red Clover
Cover Crop” and “Premium vs. Inexpensive Corn Hybrids.”
Dr. Sydney Hielema, professor of theology, and Lloyd Den Boer, professor in the
education department, conducted a day-long workshop for Denver Christian Schools on February 16
titled, “Dancing Inside the Story Of God.”
Communication Professor Tim Vos, currently on doctoral leave, presented “Political Broadcasting in a
Two-Party Country: The 1959 Amendment to Communications Act” at the American Journalism Historians
Association (AJHA) and Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) History
Division Joint Spring Northeast Regional Conference, New York, New York, March 22, 2003.
Dr. Sherri Lantinga and two of her senior students, Kelly Hubers and Elizabeth
Graf, presented their senior research project as a poster titled “The influence of
meta-experimental factors on compliance: Participant motivation and experimenter demeanor” at the 10th Midwest
Institute for Students and Teachers of Psychology in Glen Elyn, Illinois. Lantinga also
presented some teaching-related research, as well, in a poster titled “The psyche in
psychology: Teaching about the self.”
Dr. John Van Dyk, director of the Center for Educational Services, has been
traveling the world to present workshops and seminars on Christian teaching: he conducted
a seminar for teachers representing Christian schools of four Central American countries at
the Nehemiah Center in Managua, Nicaragua, on January 6 and 7; from February
3 - 7, he worked with teachers and administrators at the Lacombe Christian
School in Lacombe, Alberta; he led a two-day seminar for the teachers of
the four Perimeter Christian Schools of Atlanta, in Duluth, Georgia, on February 13
- 14. The Perimeter schools are associated with the Presbyterian Church of America.
From February 24 – 28, he taught a week-long course on “teaching Christianly” for
teachers of Christian schools in Peru. The location was the Colegio San Andres
in Lima, Peru.
