Calvin College, one of the largest Christian colleges in North America, is internationally recognized as a center of liberal arts teaching and scholarship set in the context of a Reformed Christian worldview. Graduates serve around the world as skilled and visionary leaders in God’s kingdom.
What’s New
In the CRC’s 150th anniversary year, Calvin College helped celebrate the denomination’s long history of Christian service and renewal, while marking its own 131-year legacy of excellence in Christian higher education.
The school year began with fall convocation, where the campus community gathered under the theme “Caught up in God’s Story,” a theme that also became the focus for campus worship in 2006-2007.
President Gaylen Byker welcomed first-year students and spoke on “Stories and Faith: The Roles of Narrative in Christian Life and Witness.” “I am grateful that each of you is here and has chosen to make Calvin College part of your story,” he said.
He also talked about a day further down the road when first-year students might return to campus as alumni. “We pray that you will remember how this place helped join your story to the great story that is so simple that anyone can tell it, yet so deep that our lifetimes cannot exhaust it.”
Events throughout the school year connected Calvin to God’s story, and the school year came full circle as the college recognized nearly 900 graduates at the May 2007 Commencement.
Distinguished Alumni Awards were presented to William J. Garvelink (1971) and Joel D. Holtrop (1972). Garvelink, a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, served at the United States Agency for International Development to oversee major humanitarian operations and was recently nominated to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Holtrop is Deputy Chief of the National Forest System, overseeing all 155 of the United States’ national forests, including wildlife, range, timber, watershed, recreation, and minerals management.
In the fall of 2007 Calvin began the new school year with convocation and with a conference held in recognition of the CRC’s 150th anniversary. Assessing the Past: Facing the Future—The CRC at 150 was cosponsored by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship and the CRC 150th Anniversary Committee. It featured both plenary and small-group presentations on the historical heritage of the CRC and challenges faced now and in the future.
Website: www.calvin.edu
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Quick Facts
- 4,199 students
- 403 faculty members (313 full time)
- Students from 49 states, 7 Canadian provinces, and nearly 50 countries
- Student to faculty ratio 14.7:1
- 881 graduates in May 2007
- All ministry shares provide grants for CRC students
- 235 U.S. ethnic minority students (5.6 percent)
- 55,735 members of the Calvin Alumni Association
- 90% of Calvin students receive financial aid
- 39% of students are children of Calvin alumni
