Archives: News Stories

Matt Croasmun, Associate Research Scholar, Director of the Life Worth Living Program at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, and Lecturer of Divinity & Humanities at Yale University, recently visited campus for a series of events with faculty, staff, students, and others in the community, where he discussed examining, defining, and achieving what constitutes as a good life.

During a public lecture, Croasmun spoke on “What’s Worth Wanting?” He asked the audience, “How should we examine our lives? We need different modes and different moments.”

Croasmun spoke of four different modes: auto-pilot; effectiveness; self-awareness; and self-transcendence.  He compared the different levels to diving deeper. “But after plumbing the depths, we still need to surface. It would be foolish to try to live life below the waterline.”

Croasmun’s visit also marked the launch of Trinity’s Center for Teaching and the Good Life. The Center’s work will be focused on resourcing the imaginations of Trinity’s faculty and staff to help students discover and articulate the joy of their vocation in ways that include and extend beyond career and work. The Center is led by Professor of Music Mark Peters, who serves as director, and Executive Assistant for the Provost Mallory Boyce, who is associate director.

Fusion59, Trinity’s Campus Innovation Center in partnership with the Innovation Club, held a standing-room-only networking workshop on Oct 21. Future Founders Chief Operating Officer Katie Sowa offered advice to students on effective and proper networking etiquette.

Trinity’s Innovation Club meets semi-monthly to help foster innovation on campus through all majors and disciplines – hosting creative workshops, networking events, and field trips.

On Oct. 17, the Honorable Eric Whitaker, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Niger, visited campus and spoke at several events with students, the community, and faculty.

In a public discussion that took place at Fusion 59, Whitaker talked about a range of topics, such as the current state of affairs in Niger, which is located in West Africa. He also spoke about the United States’ goals in Niger, which he described as “A good country in a tough neighborhood.”

A career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service who became ambassador in 2017, Whitaker described his own career path, including serving in the Peace Corps in the Philippines. His previous roles in the Foreign Service include serving as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary with East African Affairs, Sudan, and South Sudan, and Director of East African Affairs. Whitaker is originally from Dekalb, Ill., and has a BS in biology and an MS in community health education from the University of Illinois, a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Master of Public Policy degree from the Wilson School at Princeton University.

Whitaker speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French, Visayan, and Korean as well as English and has received 11 Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards, as well as the Department of Defense Meritorious Civilian Honor Award.

Learn more about Ambassador Whitaker and the U.S. Embassy in Niger here.

In 2019, Trinity nursing graduates continue their perfect first-time pass rate on the NCLEX-RN exam. This success represents the fourth time in the past five years that the College is celebrating a 100% pass rate, which represents the highest five-year NCLEX average of any BSN or ADN program in Illinois.

“The mission of the Department of Nursing is to: prepare academically and clinically excellent professional nurses for a lifetime of Christ-like serve to others.” A key element of that mission is being able to pass the NCLEX for licensure, which allows Trinity’s BSN graduates to work as registered nurses.

According to Nursing Department Chair Tina Decker, D.N.P., NCLEX preparation is not an afterthought in Trinity’s nursing program. “It is woven throughout the entire curriculum, starting in the very first nursing courses students take,” she said

“We are so proud that all of the hard work of the students and faculty for the class of 2019 has once again resulted in the best possible outcome of 100% of the graduates passing the NCLEX on their first attempt,” said Decker. “And we are excited for the impact that the Class of 2019 can have by using their skills and knowledge in service to others.”

The NCLEX-RN exams are administered by NCSBN, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, through which boards of nursing act and counsel together to provide regulatory excellence for public health, safety, and welfare. The exam is taken after the student graduates from a bachelor’s degree-granting nursing program.

Trinity’s nursing program, which is ranked as one of the best BSN programs in Illinois by RegisteredNursing.org, is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.

Click here to learn more about Trinity’s nursing program.

Three of Trinity’s professors participated in the eighth biennial conference hosted by the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning, “Shaping Christian Learning,” earlier this month at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich. For the first time, the Kuyers Institute co-hosted the conference with INCHE (the International Network for Christian Higher Education).

In a session on shaping curriculum, Trinity Professors of Music Helen Van Wyck, D.M.A., and Mark Peters, Ph.D., and Professor of Philosophy Aron Reppmann, Ph.D., led a session on “Creating a Mission-Specific Departmental Curriculum: A Case Study.” They spoke on how the College completed a significant revision of the music major curriculum in spring 2015. The discussion focused on how Christian faith and institutional mission shape curricular design and examined three courses in detail: Being a Musician, Reading and Writing about Music, and Aesthetics.

Peters participated in another session, “Shaping Culture Makers in Music: The Use of Igor Stravinsky’s Poetics of Music in Christian Higher Education,” with Associate Professor of Music John MacInnis of Dordt University.

Learn more about the Kuyers Institute Conference here.

The Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) celebrates 42 years of bringing beautiful music to the Southland as it opens the 2019-20 season with Opening Night: Rhapsody in Blue  on Saturday, October 19, 2019, at 5:30 pm at Trinity’s Ozinga Chapel Auditorium as part of the Southland Arts, Municipalities and Business Alliance’s (SAMBA) Fall Wanderlust Festival. Maestro Stilian Kirov leads the orchestra for his third season with IPO. Immediately following the concert, the opening night festivities will continue with the Act II Opening Night Post-Concert Celebration Dinner at Midlothian Country Club.

The night opens with the world premiere of Ukko written by IPO’s second Composer-in-Residence and winner of the 2019 Classical Evolve Composer Competition, Martha Horst. Ukko, a rememberance of Horst’s time living in Finland, depicts the Finnish god of thunder, Ukko, in sweeping musical terms. The night continues with Leroy Anderson’s Piano Concerto in C and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue featuring world renowned pianist, Xiayin Wang, who most recently performed with RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin, Ireland. The concert concludes with lesser known, but highly influential American composer, Walter Piston’s melodic Symphony No. 4.

The night will continue to Midlothian Country Club for Act II Opening Night Post Concert Celebration Dinner beginning at 7:30 pm.

During the Post-Concert Dinner Celebration, IPO’s Board of Directors will present the the Ruth D. and Ken M. Davee Excellence in the Arts Award. This prestigious award honors an individual, group of individuals, or organization whose exceptional commitment, vision, leadership and achievements have resulted in major contributions to the arts and music. The 2019 winner of the Ruth D. and Ken M. Davee Excellence in the Arts Award is Sharing Notes. Sharing Notes is a non-profit organization with a mission to improve the quality of life for Chicago hospital patients through personal, intimate, engaging and uplifting live music performances. Allegra Montanari, Founder and Executive Director of Sharing Notes, will receive the award on behalf of her organization.

Montanari said, “Having the recognition of such a prominent and beloved arts institution as the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra is an honor. We hope that the visibility from this award will give greater awareness for our work and the value of personalized arts programming in hospital settings. We have the warmest gratitude for all who have helped support and allowed us to fulfill our mission for over seven years.”

Concert Single tickets start at $27 in advance. Student tickets are $10. Season subscriptions are still available. Post-Concert Celebration tickets are sold for $100. We welcome everyone to join us in the celebrating the beginning of another successful season of IPO.

To order, or for more information, visit ipomusic.org or call 708.481.7774. The IPO Ozinga Chapel box office opens one hour before the performance on concert night.

Podcasts and Plato may not seem to have much in common at first. But students in Dr. Craig Mattson’s COM 111 class connected “Phaedrus” to today’s communication practices during a field work excursion to 1871 in downtown Chicago, where Trinity is a university partner.

During the day-long trip, students also participated in a larger podcast studio recording with three Chicago-based social entrepreneurs, including Jonathan Brooks, recruiter and mentor for Trinity’s five-year B.A./M.Div. program with Northern Seminary.

The students came prepared for the day, Mattson said. “They did extensive preparation for their podcast production, including planning their conversations and choosing the various production elements. I also introduced them electronically to the social entrepreneurs with whom we’d be doing the paneled discussion.”

The discussions with the social entrepreneurs were also memorable, he said. “The three discussants from Chicago talked about communication and spirituality in their companies. The first two self-identified as atheists; both spoke with great wisdom. I was really pleased to have the students experience post-secularism in such articulate and humane form.  The last discussant was Jonathan Brooks, and he was quite simply on fire!  He engaged the other discussants really well, seemed perfectly at ease with their different religious standpoints, and yet spoke articulately about the Christian faith,” said Mattson. “I like to expose students to good people with very different standpoints.  But I was doubly glad to have a complexly Christian perspective on offer as well.”

Trinity’s relationship with 1871, the world’s number-one university affiliated tech incubator, enhances opportunities such as these. “As a networking experience, it’s great,” said Mattson. “It’s also wonderful as an agreed upon place to meet professionals in a variety of fields.”

Theatre Department will perform “Eurydice,” by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Dr. John Sebestyen, as the Fall 2019 Mainstage Production.

Shows will take place at the Marg Kallemeyn Theatre on Nov. 15, 16, 22, and 23 at 7:30 pm. A post-show discussion, free and open to the public, will immediately follow the performance on Friday, Nov. 22.

“In Eurydice, playwright Sarah Ruhl reimagines the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine,” according to Samuel French, the play’s publisher. “Dying too young on her wedding day, Eurydice must journey to the underworld, where she reunites with her father and struggles to remember her lost love.”

“With contemporary characters, ingenious plot twists, and breathtaking visual effects, the play is a fresh look at a timeless love story.”

Eurydice, and her new husband, Orpheus are celebrating their wedding near the beginning of the play. But at the end of that scene, things take a turn. When Eurydice enters the Underworld, she discovers a place where the dead have been dipped in the River, in order to forget their previous lives. But Eurydice’s father is there, and has been resisting the water. He remembers his daughter, and takes it upon himself to help her remember him, too. And to remember herself.

The play was written in the early 2000s, and it honors the original ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice while adapting it to the contemporary style of magical realism, where supernatural things happen to everyday people – but those supernatural things aren’t questioned as being out of the ordinary.

One of the ways the play hearkens back to its ancient Greek origins is by the inclusion of a “chorus of Stones” in the Underworld: a big stone, a little stone, and a loud stone. They experience the Underworld with Eurydice and her Father, but also comment upon the story as both insiders and outsiders.

Due to some death-related themes, this production is recommended for audience members of high school age and older.

CAST & CREW

Cast:

Kyli Ayers, Bethany Dadisman, Benjamin Friesen, Ryan Howey, Mateo Perez, Jonah VanderNaald, Bethany VanderPloeg

Crew:

Production Manager: Sam Jankosky

Assistant Stage Manager: Sydnie Tiemens

Production Assistants: Dani Daujatas, Hannah Last

Scenic Designers: Dr. John Sebestyen & Rick Schuler (’08)

Lighting Designer: Larissa Mulder

Sound Designer: Jake Szafranski (’09)

Costume Designer: Machaela Whitlock

Hair & Make-up Designers: Dani Daujatas & Evie Dykhouse

Properties Master: Sam Jankosky

For information on ticket purchases, visit Trinity’s Box Office.

What a weekend to honor Trinity’s past and look forward to the future! Six decades after the first class was held at the new College, Trolls past, present, and future gathered for fun, fellowship, and reflection.

The weekend of festivities kicked off with a gala at the Chicago Hilton Oak Brook Hills Resort, where more than 650 people came together to enjoy each other’s company, along with gourmet food, cocktails, dancing, and lively auctions. Together, attendees raised more than $450,000 for Trinity student scholarships, which included $66,640 to refresh and rejuvenate the Bootsma Bookstore Café!

The weekend activities continued in to Saturday, as alumni and friends “came home” for a day full of opportunities on campus. Heritage Science Center, DeVos Athletics and Recreation Center, Huizenga Memorial Library, and the Art & Communication Center  welcomed visitors to an open house experience. The BBC featured anniversary food and drink specials, along with deals on Troll gear and live streams of athletic events. The evening capped off with a special showing of “Toy Story 4.”

On Sunday, the community came together again for a special worship service, with a message by Marc Nelesen ’91, Pastor of Congregational Life at Georgetown Church in Hudsonville, Mich., followed by brunch in the Dining Hall.

“Oct. 1 marked that day when, in 1959, Trinity officially began its operations, starting with an opening Convocation led by Chair of the Board Rev. Dr. Art DeKruyter, followed by the first class–Latin, taught by Dr. Derke Bergsma,” said Trinity President Kurt D. Dykstra. “It was a wonderful weekend filled with great enthusiasm and a sincere gratefulness to Almighty God for the wonderful ways in which he has led and guided us throughout our first 60 years.”

If you missed any of the activities, or would just like to relive them, you can check out one of the videos featured at the gala here, and a photo gallery here.

Are you an employer looking to hire a Trinity student or recent grad? Are you a student or alum on the hunt for a job? Then it’s time for Handshake!

Trinity has recently partnered with Handshake, the college-to-career network with access to all types of jobs and internships posted by partnering employers. According to Jeff Timmer, Director of Vocation & Career Development, Handshake allows for easy posting and searching of jobs and internships. “We’re excited for the ability to implement an integrated platform that is friendlier to both employers and students/alumni–and has greater potential for additional uses on campus,” he said.

Employers, alumni, and students who are interested in learning more can visit www.trnty.edu/handshake to register, log in, or post a job.