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“The rate of change is increasing, and today is the slowest day you will have for the rest of your life.”

That is the according to Betsy Ziegler, CEO of 1871, who spoke on March 13 at a TBN event at the Marg Kallemeyn Theatre. “The future is here,” she said. “And the most successful companies should be the ones most concerned about the future.”

Ziegler is the first female CEO of 1871, which was ranked as the number one university-affiliated tech incubator in the world in 2018. “1871 exists to inspire, equip, and support founders to create great businesses,” she said.

Previous to 1871, she was the chief innovation officer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Prior to Kellogg, Ziegler served as a principal in McKinsey & Company’s Chicago office.

Located in the historic Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago, 1871 is the hub for Chicago’s thriving technology and entrepreneurial ecosystem and home to nearly 500 early-stage, high-growth digital startups. Trinity is the eighth institution of higher learning to form a university partnership with 1871, along with others such as the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Loyola University, University of Illinois, Illinois Institute of Technology, and DePaul University.

In her wide-ranging discussion, Ziegler touched on the high-tech environment in Chicago. “Something special is happening here,” she said. “And it’s our time to rise.”

She also spoke about the growth of technology and the intersection of higher ed, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

TBN, the Trinity Business Network, sponsored the event, along with Fusion 59, Trinity’s incubator. The event drew business leaders and members of Trinity’s community, who also participated in networking before Ziegler’s talk. Attendees of Ziegler’s talk included TBN Partner Rick Powell and Palos Heights Alderman Jeff Key, who expressed their excitement about the launch of Fusion 59 and the spirit of entrepreneurship that is flourishing on Trinity’s campus.

Located in the Jennie Huizenga Memorial Library, Fusion 59 is a place where Trinity and the Palos Heights community can come together to connect, collaborate, and create–all for a better tomorrow. Fusion 59 is open to business owners and others in the area who are looking to dream up their next venture or brainstorm on a project, according to Assistant Professor of Business and Department Chair John Wightkin. “It is designed so that everyone can use their creativity in utilizing this space,” he said. “The space is whatever people can imagine it to be.”

From a tour of the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant to a three-session course on the gangster days of Chicago, Trinity is pleased to announce the Spring 2019 SALT season! Trinity’s SALT (Seasoned Adults Learning at Trinity) program is a membership program for those 55 and over who are interested in ongoing education and lifelong learning under the direction of the SALT advisory board.

“We are pleased to offer another wonderful variety of classes for Spring 2019,” said Ginny Carpenter, SALT Program Coordinator.

Along with the opportunity to participate in courses, being a SALT member provides additional benefits:

–Invitation to take SALT classes (when members take 3 classes, the 4th is free!)

–Free “listener pass” classes in Trinity’s traditional program in both the fall and spring semesters

–Limited access to Trinity’s fitness center

–Free on-campus parking sticker

–Invitation to special theater performances and lectures

–Invitation to music department recitals and concerts

–Free admission to regular-season home athletic contests

–Free WiFi while on campus

–Significant discount rate for Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) performances on campus

The individual annual membership fee is $35; membership is required before registering for classes.

For more information, contact Ginny Carpenter at 708.239.4798 or ginny.carpenter@trnty.edu.

TBN, the Trinity Business Network, is pleased to welcome Betsy Ziegler, CEO of 1871, to campus on March 13.

Ziegler will present on the intersection of Higher Ed and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Drawing on her experiences in Higher Ed and now at 1871, she will talk about the pace of change, what is required for leaders today to stay ahead of the curve, and how institutions of higher learning and business have to continually adapt to our changing world.

3:30pm Light Refreshments
4:30pm Presentation

The event will take place in the Marg Kallemeyn Theater in Trinity’s Art & Communication Center. Register for this free event here.

About Betsy Ziegler

Ziegler is the first female CEO of 1871, which was ranked as the number one university-affiliated tech incubator in the world in 2018.

Previous to 1871, she was the Chief Innovation Officer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she was responsible for integrating technology into the Kellogg educational experience as well as portfolio innovation. From 2011 through September 2015, she served as associate dean of degree programs and dean of students.

Prior to Kellogg, Ziegler served as a principal in McKinsey & Company’s Chicago office, where she led the firm’s Life Insurance Operations and Technology practice and co-led its Financial Institutions Operations and Technology practice.

Ziegler holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and received a B.A. in Economics from The Ohio State University, where she graduated with distinction. She is also is a member of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Board of Directors and an advisor and investor in many young technology companies.

In honor of International Women’s Day 2019, Trinity celebrates all of our female professors, including Gerda Bos, Ph.D.–the first faculty member to be hired by the College at its founding in 1959.

According to If We Begin with Christ by Donald Sinnema, a history of Trinity’s early years, the Board of Curators offered Bos a contract to serve as Assistant Professor of English on April 4, 1959. “By mid-April Bos accepted the position, so she became Trinity’s first professor,” Sinnema noted.

A Chicago native and a graduate of Calvin College, Bos had earned her master’s degree in English from Loyola University and was pursuing her doctorate at the time of her hiring. During Trinity’s first year, Bos taught English 103 and English 104. Along with teaching, Bos’s duties included serving as a counselor to female students during Trinity’s earliest days.

Her area of specialty was Victorian literature, and her dissertation topic was “The ‘Fallen Woman’ in English Novels: 1870-1900.”

Before coming to Trinity, she taught at Ripon Christian High School in California and Chicago Christian High.

Bos continued to teach at the College for decades and received emerita status in 1985. She passed away in 2006.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “#BalanceforBetter,” and we proudly salute our ground-breaking professor Gerda Bos!

As part of Trinity’s exhibits by professional artists, the College is pleased to welcome Sara Black & Amber Ginsburg’s show 7000 Marks to the Seerveld Gallery.

The exhibit runs from March 1-28, with the artists’ lecture on March 28 at 6 pm in the ArCC DeWitt Lobby, with a closing reception following at 7 pm.

In 7000 Marks, Sara Black & Amber Ginsburg have transformed a Sudden Oak Death-infected tanoak tree into 7,000 pencils. An outcome of global industrial trade, the pathogen Phytophthora ramorum (SOD) has traveled on lumber and nursery trees to the United States.

Trees infected with SOD are “quarantined” until processed into lumber and kiln dried. This tightening of boundaries is a move toward conservation, but echoes a rising tide of nationalism, xenophobia and boundary reinforcement on a global scale. The work contrasts Joseph Bueys’ utopian project, 7000 Oaks, by problematizing tenets of conservation through the lens of immigration.

Artist Statement

Sara Black and Amber Ginsburg work together on projects that draw a material through-line, pointing to the complexity of ecological systems. Sara’s enduring commitment to the material and history of wood and Amber’s background in ceramics incline them to the language of craft, often employed as a metaphor for the relationship between human endeavoring and non-human forces. Their large-scale projects reach into time on a geologic scale and engage audiences to think forward in their habits and practices.

Sara is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Amber is a Lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

At Trinity Christian College, our professors are dedicated to sharing their knowledge with students and growing their own gifts and talents inside and outside the classroom. We celebrate with the Trinity faculty who have recently reached career milestones with promotions and the granting of tenure.

Congratulations to our professors on these successes!

–Clay Carlson: Promoted to Professor of Biology

–Sarah Gouwens: Promoted to Associate Professor of Nursing

–Shari Jurgens: Promoted to Associate Professor of Physical Education and Exercise Science

–Bethany Keeley-Jonker: Granted indefinite tenure

–Lenore Knight-Johnson: Promoted to Associate Professor of Sociology

–Yeon Lee: Promoted to Associate Professor of Spanish

–Deb Majewski: Promoted to Associate Professor of Psychology.

–Jeff Nyhoff: Granted indefinite tenure

–Abbie Schrotenboer: Granted indefinite tenure

Trinity was pleased to welcome music director, performer, and producer Demond Mickens to campus on Feb. 22. He led and participated in several events, including the Diversity Scholars visit and Gospel Fest 2019.

Mickens also spoke at Chapel, offering a meditation on the theme “I Am.” He spent time with the Diversity Scholars who were visiting campus and discussed “Diversity Designed by God.” Mickens shared some of his story about growing up in Gary, Ind., moving to the Chicago suburbs, and his explorations of different church congregations as an adult. “Whether we believe it or not, we are all part of a bigger picture,” he told the group gathered in the Vermeer Fireside Room for the discussion. “We should never look at what we come from and our culture and shun it.”

Mickens ended his day at the College as a featured guest at Trinity’s Annual Gospel Fest that evening.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor of History Kyle Dieleman, Ph.D., on the publication of his book  The Battle for the Sabbath in the Dutch Reformation: Devotion or Desecration?

According to Dieleman, the book, which is published by Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, began as his dissertation project while earning his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.

In the book, Dieleman focuses on the doctrinal and practical importance of Sunday observance in the early modern Reformed communities in the Low Countries of the Netherlands. “My project investigates the theological import of the Sabbath and its practical applications,” he said.

Dieleman’s family and faith backgrounds have Dutch connections, so the topic seemed like a natural fit for his interests in church history and theology. “I started exploring the Sabbath the first year of my doctoral program when I saw it coming up in a lot of the church records I was looking at,” he said.

His book delves in to the ways that the theology of the Sabbath moved over time from an emphasis on spiritual rest to participating in the ministries of the church to a strict rest from all work and recreation. The book also looks at congregants’ actual Sunday practices.

Dieleman’s book brings to life how people during that time and place truly observed worship. Among the stories he discovered was how a local tavern was supposed to close during church services. “That wasn’t happening,” he said. “And when the consistory brought the owner in for his discipline, the owner mentioned that he didn’t know when to close because he didn’t have a clock telling him when the services would start—an obvious lie they didn’t buy!”

He reveals another anecdote about the general reluctance of congregants to go back to the second service, which took place on Sunday afternoon. “There’s a church document where the church authorities demand those services be held even if the only people present are the preacher and his family,” he said.

To research the book, Dieleman visited the Netherlands. “I mainly went to one archive in the city of Kampen, connected through a Dutch friend,” he said. “There I looked at the manuscripts of consistory records from their Reformed church from the early 1600s. I was, of course, paying close attention to the ways in which they talked about and disciplined Sunday observance.”

A friend of Dieleman’s, Herman Selderhuis, connected him to the publisher. “He recommended I submit the book to the publisher and series, so I did. It was accepted, so then it was a matter of some revisions, edits, and so on,” he said.

And while much of the work for the book was completed before joining the College in 2017, Dieleman said he appreciated the insights and encouragement of his colleagues here. “I want to thank Trinity for supporting the latter stages of the project,” he said.

As part of Trinity’s annual observation of Black History Month, the History Department brings a scholar of race relations or African American history to campus as a guest speaker.

On Feb. 18, at the Vermeer Fireside Room, guest lecturer Nathan Jérémie-Brink, Assistant Professor of the History of Global Christianity and the L. Russell Feakes Memorial Assistant Professor of Church History at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, offered this year’s lecture. “We can’t just receive and memorialize black history,” he said. “It’s something we do.”

Looking at history requires looking for evidence, interpretation, and offer critical thinking, he said. “We reaffirm the past and think ethically as we live as human beings with dignity and respect,” he said.

During his lecture, Jérémie-Brink spoke about “Moving Abolitionist Print: Activist Networks, African American Churches, and Antislavery Print Distribution in the Early American Republic.”

According to Jérémie-Brink, in the early 19^th century, there were several eastern areas in the United States that distributed print materials advocating for the abolition of slavery. This distribution took place in diverse areas from New Jersey to South Carolina. Ministers, laborers, and teachers were a vital part of using print to expand the message. These materials included hymn sheets, independently produced information sheets, and newspapers, as well as early black textbooks. Once printed, these were read and passed along to others, which helped spread the message of the abolitionist movement.

For example, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself,” was published by a commercial printer, at the Anti-Slavery Office in Boston in 1845. “This book continued to expand the availability of abolitionist ideals through print and continued to strengthen the groundwork for the abolition of slavery,” said Jérémie-Brink.

Improvements in technology in the 19^th century helped the expansion of the printed word. “Paper was improved and became more available,” he said. “Printing presses improved, which enhanced quality. Distribution improved through rail lines and shipping routes. This allowed the printed messages to spread from several to all areas of the United States.”

The way people thought about print also changed in the 1800s. By the 1830s, many black thinkers embraced print as a message mover. While the ante-bellum experience tended to support the view that blacks were from the south and were slaves, black people lived in areas across the United States. “The printed message was available to them as well,” he said.

The role of the printed message that worked to abolish slavery was a complex process, according to Jérémie-Brink. “You needed thoughtful writers, editors, printers, binding, and distribution, and then an understanding of who would receive and use these printed messages and put them into their living practice,” he said. Churches and social communities made these publications free to readers, or to those that could read and pass on the message in the spoken word. “Anti-slavery print came to empower people,” he said. “We need to be liberators of the liberated word.”