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Serving both the mission of the College and the athletics department and following the spirit of the NAIA Champions of Character initiative, the athletics teams of Trinity Christian College found various ways to serve both local and distant communities.

Throughout the 2017-18 school year, teams took part in a variety of service projects, volunteer work, and mission trips. In these activities, Trinity’s teams and coaches were blessed, established new or renewed existing community relationships, and developed stronger team chemistry.
“We value service opportunities and encourage all of our teams to find some way to impact others in a positive way,” said Athletics Director Bill Schepel. “Again this year, each of our programs was able to reach out in a variety of projects to serve communities near and far.”

Here are some of the ways in which Trinity athletes and coaches served:

–During their trip to California in August, the women’s volleyball team took time to help out at Grove Community Church in Riverside. They worked on some landscaping projects for the church.

–The women’s soccer team was involved in a number of projects during the season.  They continued their ongoing relationship with Elim Christian Services in Crestwood and worked alongside adults with disabilities to assemble Hope Packs.  The team members volunteered at both the Children’s Hunger Fund and Feed My Starving Children. They were also helped out at the spring fundraising banquet for the Southside Pregnancy Center.

–The men’s soccer team connected with Cornerstone Community Outreach in Chicago and served at their homeless shelter. Team members helped prepare and serve a meal and clean and fix children’s play equipment, as well as help move a mother and her kids who were transitioning out of the shelter.

–Members of the women’s and men’s cross country teams once again volunteered at the Dutch Festival, a major community event sponsored by Elim Christian School. Team members helped out with a variety of activities and provided needed services throughout the day.

–For the second year in a row, the women’s and men’s golf team volunteered at the Restoration Ministries Golf Outing in September. The Trinity golfers helped on the course, greeted participants, unloaded golf bags, worked at prize holes, and ran other fundraising activities.

–The women’s basketball team joined with the Alsip Fire Station again and volunteered at their Open House. Team members helped out the various stations, such as snacks, an obstacle course, and temporary tattoos, which the fire house hosted for the community.  The team also spent a day packing food at Feed My Starving Children.

–Reaching out to a distant community, members of the men’s volleyball team took a mission trip to the Dominican Republic in December. During the trip the team was able to serve the local community in various activities and spent time with the children in villages, at schools, and in orphanages. They also conducted a volleyball clinic for kids. The team played a few volleyball matches against local club teams and was able to share the gospel and their testimonies at those events.

–The track and field teams volunteered at the Palos Heights half-marathon in May. The athletes worked at the registration and information tents, at water stops, and as course marshals.

–During spring break trip, the softball team connected with a third grade class at an elementary school in Clermont, Fla. They visited the class, met the students, made posters, played games, and had a question and answer session where team members were able to share ways to achieve goals and talk about the qualities and values it takes to be a collegiate athlete.

–The baseball team maintained its work with Faith in Action and once again worked in splitting logs and stacking wood at a site that serves a local community.

–Three members of the Athletics Leadership Program for Students, all from different Trinity teams, conducted a leadership workshop for local high school student-leaders.

In addition to these events, many student-athletes were involved in on-going and weekly service projects on campus. They also interacted with other organizations on campus and in the community to show the love of Christ and develop as student leaders.  All of the projects help to create, build, or strengthen relationships with those in the community, on campus, and on their teams.

Art can transcend language and cast a magical spell. And the artwork by Ryan Thompson, professor of art and design and department chair, is doing both at an exhibition in Barcelona.

The show, “An Exhibition as a Spell,” runs through July 14 at the Centre Civic Can Felipa. It includes pieces from Thompson’s “Bad Luck, Hot Rocks” project. Thompson’s project draws on photos of petrified “rocks” from the Petrified Forest in the Painted Desert of Northeast Arizona, and copies of some of the hundreds of “conscience letters” people have left over the years after returning the pieces of wood they had taken, a common practice but prohibited under national park regulations.

The exhibit is curated by Caterina Almirall. Along with Thompson, other featured artists include Alejandra Pombo, Batia Suter, Duncan Gibbs, Francisco Ruiz Abad, Ilana Halperin, the Muse, and Quim Packard.

According to the show’s organizers, “Magic is a form of relationship between the natural world and the cultural world, and conjures up the attempt to control what is unknown. Words, stories, are the way of ordering the world, and therefore being able to inhabit, control, understand. From artistic practice, in a transversal way, we can understand mechanisms of knowledge and structure of the world. In the form of a story, the exhibition is presented as an opportunity to think about the relationship between language and things, as the language gives shape to the world and the world forms things as we know them. An exhibition is also a ritual of which we decide to participate.

Whether spoken aloud or not specified, words are used to access and guide magic power. Magic involves the use of language. Even beyond human and linguistic capabilities, we can think of other beings, creatures, objects, materials that develop their powers and their spells. In this exhibition, we want to think about the relationship with the environment in a constitutive way. Each object is tailor made for other things, and we also tailor these objects (dogs, volcanoes, mushrooms, words, rocks …).”

The internet has changed the way aspiring musicians learn and share their works, and educators may be able to incorporate these informal approaches into the classroom, according to an article by alum Dr. Christopher Cayari ’03, which was recently published in the prestigious publication “Music Education Research.”

Cayari now serves as assistant professor of music education at Purdue University. Along with his undergraduate degree from Trinity, he holds master’s and doctorate degrees in music education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2015, Cayari received the outstanding dissertation award from the Council for Research in Music Education.

The Calvin Studies Society is dedicated to the writings, life, and times of John Calvin. And beginning in 2019, Dr. Yudha Thianto, Ph.D., professor of theology and department chair at Trinity, will serve as the society’s president for a two-year term.

“The Calvin Studies Society brings together pastors and scholars who are seriously studying John Calvin and Calvinism in general,” said Thianto, who currently serves as the organization’s vice president and program chair. “The society is unique in linking pastors as well as scholars. It doesn’t just focus on academic studies, but how that impact is felt in the church.”

The society launched in 1976. Thianto has been involved since working on his doctorate at Calvin Theological Seminary, which he completed in 2003. Society members have phone meetings and meet in person during the annual Sixteenth Century Society and Conference.

The Calvin Studies Society also hosts a colloquium every two years. The 2019 meeting, which has the theme “Calvin and the Old Testament,” will take place at Trinity from April 11-13. “The colloquium brings together pastors and academics, including many of our members who engage in both professions, for an invigorating exploration of a particular theme related to Calvin and the Reformed tradition,” he said. “Each year’s presentations are then brought together into an edited volume and published by an academic press.”

Presenters at the 2019 colloquium will include Dr. Michael Vander Weele, professor of English at Trinity, who will speak on the topic “Calvin & Theological Grounds for a Rhetorical Aesthetics: A Reading of Deuteronomy and the Ten Commandments.”

At Trinity, our Communication Arts students learn to effectively listen, write, and speak in all aspects of their lives. And two of our CommArts professors recently demonstrated their skills in these areas through publishing articles in prestigious journals.

Dr. Bethany Keeley-Jonker, Ph.D., associate professor communication arts, along with Jamie Laundau, recently published an essay in the Quarterly Journal of Speech. The article, “Conductor of public feelings: An affective-emotional rhetorical analysis of Obama’s national eulogy in Tucson.” The article explores how orators can engage apparently uncontrollable public feelings—in this instance, by taking a detailed look at the address that President Barack Obama delivered on Jan. 12, 2011, following the near-fatal shooting of U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords.

Dr. Craig Mattson, Ph.D., professor of communication arts, also recently published an essay, “A Better Feeling for Making the World Better? TOMS’s Tropes and the Buy-One-Give-One Mode,” in Rhetoric Society Quarterly. This essay explores how social enterprises such as the apparel company TOMS can generate affective investment in consumers at a time when many shoppers are fatigued by cause-related messaging.

“Our work is mutually supported, often conferred over in departmental conversation, and much discussed with students,” said Mattson.

Congratulations to Dr. Keeley-Jonker and Dr. Mattson!

Ken Boss’s story with Trinity began in 1967, when he spent a year as a student here. It picked up again in 2001, when he returned to the College as Director of Planned Giving. In between, Boss got married, served in the Vietnam War, raised a family, spent several decades in the insurance industry, and volunteered in many different capacities. Now, as Boss plans to formally retire to a reduced role at Trinity, the College was pleased to present him with an honorary bachelor degree at commencement on May 5.

“To receive this honorary degree is without a doubt the highlight of my professional and academic career,” said Boss. “Trinity has given me a place, a purpose, and a position for which I will be forever grateful. Thank you for the opportunity to express my sincere gratitude for the privilege of serving this great community committed to shaping lives and transforming culture.”

“When Ken Boss joined us back in 2001, we were looking for a person with a commitment to Christian higher education, focused on Kingdom building, with integrity and a strong work ethic. Ken fit the position perfectly and has given Trinity excellent effort ever since he started. Our planned giving and church relations programs continues to grow and impact the College.” Rick VanDyken, VP for Advancement.

Boss was born in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago and moved to South Holland, Ill., when he was four. He attended Illiana Christian High School, and then enrolled at Trinity in 1967. “It was a very formative year,” Boss said. “I came to understand Trinity’s focus on developing a worldview and finding my place in God’s world.”

Boss was interested in computer science, which was not a degree that Trinity offered at the time. So he transferred to a community college his sophomore year, and married his wife Margie in February 1969. That August, he received his draft notice. That December, they welcomed Dawn, the first of their three children. “At that point, deferments had been scaled back,” he said. “My faith was challenged, but God had a plan and God brought me home.”

When Dawn was eight days old, Boss left for Vietnam. After serving in Vietnam, he completed his tour at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and returned home in 1972. Boss took a job in the insurance industry, where he worked for the next 30 years. Soon, Tina and Eric joined the family.

In 2001, Boss was considering the next steps in his career. He met with Rick VanDyken, then Trinity’s vice president for development and executive assistant to the president. “It was an exciting time to be at Trinity. Ozinga Chapel had just been completed, and construction on the Heritage Science Center had just begun,” Boss said. “So, I decided to return ‘home’.” In 2011, he added the roles of major gifts officer and church relations work.

“It’s been very rewarding developing relationships, and particularly seeing the impact of scholarships and donors’ commitment to estate gifts,” he said. “Such gifts allow our faithful supporters to be remembered after they are gone.”

In his time at Trinity, Boss said the greatest changes have been the growth in new programs and the addition of facilities. The future will continue to be exciting, with the expansion beyond campus to places such as 1871 in downtown Chicago. “It’s been very rewarding to see,” he said. “It’s also been rewarding to work with such dedicated and talented colleagues in the Advancement Department and throughout the Trinity community.”

Boss will gradually wind down his duties at Trinity, switching from full-time to part time work. That will give him more time to spend on his hobbies, such as cycling, hiking, and photography, and his volunteer work, which includes serving as a Stephen Ministry leader. As he and Margie prepare to celebrate their 50^th anniversary, he will also have more time to spend with his family, which now consists of eight grandchildren, including one Trinity alumnus Josh Stammis ’17.

Congratulations to the Trinity Trolls baseball team, who competed in the NAIA National Tournament! The Trolls were seeded fifth in the Opening Round in the Kingsport, Tenn., bracket. They earned the tournament spot after winning the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (CCAC) tournament.

The team lost its first tournament game on May 14 to Clarke University of Dubuque, Iowa, 7-4. The Trolls came back to win a thriller against Madonna University of Livonia, Mich. Trailing at the bottom of the ninth, the Trolls tied the game and, with the bases loaded, executed a successful suicide squeeze play to win 7-6.

The Trolls faced Clarke again on Tuesday evening. After a rain delay, the Trolls fell in an 8-1 defeat. With the loss, the team was eliminated from the tournament. The Trolls ended their season with a 35-23 record.

The team’s post-season play in the Opening Round was the baseball program’s second NAIA national tournament appearance.

Dr. Shaniqua Jones, Director of Community Engagement and Diversity Programs, and Dr. Kara Wolff, Director of the Graduate Program in Counseling Psychology, presented at the annual Illinois Association for Multicultural Counseling (IAMC) Conference on May 4, 2018. The IAMC is a division of the Illinois Counseling Association that brings together counselors in professional practice with the goal of promoting culturally competent practice.

Their presentation was titled “Building Therapeutic Strength Through Vulnerability”. The session focused on the ways in which restorative justice practices, a process that engages participants in the development of empathy and vulnerability, can be beneficial for counselors.

In the session, participants engaged in a restorative justice circle, an interactive experience that allows each person to consider the ways in which restorative work is needed in their own lives as well as the lives of those around them. The process highlights the ways that empathy and vulnerability can help to humanize those who have been dehumanized.

“Our time at the conference was a rich opportunity to connect with other counseling professionals in Illinois,” said Dr. Wolff. “It is a great example of the extensive cross-disciplinary work we do here at Trinity.”