ANDREAS CENTER

Current Projects

"Through Their Eyes"

“Through Their Eyes” is a collaborative community project where local children (primarily Hispanic and Caucasian) learn about and photograph key aspects of their culture and community in order to discover more about their own perceptions of community, from family to neighborhood to world, and how to improve them. “Through Their Eyes” involves Dordt education students, Dordt instructors, and the Sioux Center Public Library. CRWM missionary and Dordt alumnus Megan Ribbens, who has also performed similar workshops in Nigeria, will also help orchestrate the project.

The Slum Documentary Project

"Slumdoc"— A film documentary by Professor Mark Volkers and Prairie Grass Productions on the slums of the world. Professor Volkers took students to the Philippines during Christmas 2008 and to Kenya over the Christmas break in 2009. His purpose is to give digital media students on-the-job training and a better understanding of what daily reality is like for the many people living in the slums. The Slum Documentary Project was featured in a 2009 article by the Sioux Center News.

"Charis: Boundary Crossings" Traveling Art Exhibition

"Charis: Boundary Crossings" exhibition comes out of an experiment in cross-cultural engagement. In June 2008, 18 artists and art scholars from the United States and several Asian/Pacific nations gathered in Java and Bali to consider Indonesia’s cultural wonders while sharing ideas of how they engage their home cultures as Christians and as artists. The exhibition is comprised of almost 40 works, including paintings, sculptures, assemblage, fiber constructions, and installations. The exhibition will visit Dordt College from October 11 to December 31, 2011; it will travel throughout North America through 2011 before heading to Asia.

Center for Educational Services

Through programs, workshops, and conferences, CES seeks to improve elementary school, middle school, and high school Christian education around the world. In the past, CES has hosted the Heartland Teachers Conference, the B.J. Haan Conference, and has helped with the Iowa Core Curriculum Project.

Center for Psychological Restoration

Dordt's Psychology Department is researching community psychological health needs to consider creating a center for psychological restoration that would provide a variety of psychological services to underserved members of the community.

Center for Public Justice/IAPCHE Archives

Support establishing an archival collection of CPJ and IAPCHE documents at Dordt College. Hopes are to expand this collection to include resources from other organizations that have their roots in Northwest Iowa and Dordt's reformational heritage and vision.

Crossings

Crossings is a Kuyperian experiment in student publishing. It is designed to be a student counterpart to Pro Rege, Dordt's academic journal, showcasing the best thought and most graceful writing of students across a wide variety of disciplines. It emphasizes interdisciplinary research through collaborative panels that approach a mutli-aspectual topic from a theoretically non-reductionistic standpoint.

Historical Math Textbook

Dr. Calvin Jongsma, Dordt Professor of Mathematics, is writing a middle school mathematics text that incorporates historical perspectives, to serve as a resource for middle school mathematics teachers and those studying to teach middle school math.

Northrise StreetNorthrise University

Located in Ndola, Zambia, this Christian university seeks to prepare students for leadership in the church and business community. During summer 2009, Professors Ron Vos (Agriculture) and Tom Wolthuis (Theology) taught courses at Northrise and explored further exchange possibilities between Northrise and Dordt. To read more about Tom Wolthuis's experiences, you can read his blog. Vos returned in summer 2010, this time with Dordt students in tow.

Professional Development School (PDS)

Andreas Center supports the PDS initiative and will fund a three-year pilot PDS program with Rock Valley Christian School. This pilot project began in the fall semester of 2009 with the first year dedicated to research and setting up the pilot. In years two and three, the pilot program is being fully implemented. Assessment data is being collected in years two and three to verify that the PDS is making a significant difference in the learning of our pre-service teachers, the K-8 students, and the K-8 in-service teachers. The PDS is also setting up a project that allows exchange of students between Dordt and an institution in the Netherlands.

Socorro Woodbury/REEDUCA

Support for Socorro Woodbury to serve as an advisor and steering committee member for World Mission/CSI consultation meetings in Miami and Managua on the topic of Christian Education in Latin America. Dr. Woodbury also provides workshops in Haiti and Guatemala on Christian education.

Men’s Basketball Camp in Chicago

Support (with a decreasing balance over five years) for conducting a free three-day summer basketball camp for inner-city youth on Chicago’s west side (in conjunction with Chicago Hope Academy)—starting in 2011, to be offered on an annual basis, and involving current basketball players and staff.

Monitoring Preschool English Language Learners

Dr. Kathleen VanTol has received funding for year one of a multi-year project to develop and implement curriculum-based assessments of vocabulary acquisition for use with children in local Head Start programs, a large percentage of whom are English Language Learners.

Master Class in NYC

Partial subsidy for Dordt College photography students to participate in a master class in and of the streets of New York, mentored by Professor Douglas Burg and René Clement. In addition to photo shoots in the city, they will create images of day laborers for Project Hospitality on Staten Island. Upon return, they will also produce a body of work to be shown at Dordt College.