Vander Velde Scholar Celebration Honors Student-Faculty Scholarship

Junior Scholars ProgramThis spring marked the first formal celebration of Trinity’s Vander Velde Junior Scholars program.

Students and alumni, including current and former scholars, gathered for dinner and conversation with faculty mentors and other professors last month. The event was hosted by the Honors Committee.

Also, attending the event was Dr. George Vander Velde ’63, vice president for campus development, who instituted the Maurice Vander Velde Junior Scholar Award in honor of his father.

In just over the past decade, the Vander Velde scholars program has supported some 28 projects of original scholarly research in the exact sciences and some 31 projects of original scholarly research in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts. 

Dr. Aron Reppmann ’92, professor of philosophy, delivered the keynote address, reflecting on ways in which faith is important to scholarship: receiving the faith; sustaining the faith; and testifying in faith.

After expounding on these three points, Reppmann concluded that emphasizing both overt and not so overt Christian pedigrees in visions of Christian scholarship are “crucial to the life of a Christian intellectual community, in which we stand together with one another’s work, across disciplines, across methodologies, across the years, to affirm that all of our scholarly work is called to be a testimony to our Lord, the God of heaven and earth.”

Congratulations to the 2011-12 Vander Velde Junior Scholars and their faculty mentors:

Brian Hofman ’13 of Waupun, Wisconsin, and Trevor Schaap ’13 of Lansing, Illinois, (mathematics), working with Drs. Mandi Maxwell and Sharon Robbert: “The Black Chamber”

Katrina Hopman ’12 of Orland Park, Illinois, (biology), working with Dr. Clay Carlson: “Histone Modifications in Mesenchymal Stem Cells”

Adam Perez ’12 of Racine, Wisconsin, (music), working with Dr. Mark Peters: “Music, Theology, and Christian Worship: A Study of Hillsong”

Alaina Ver Meer ’13 of Leighton, Iowa, (biology), working with Dr. Bob Boomsma: “Investigating the Effects of Environmental Conditions on MSC Differentiation”