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Calvin Cheers Its Change to a University

July 17, 2019

Dressed in black robes and wearing a floppy ministerial hat, John Calvin pumped his fist and called on the crowd to usher in the newly named Calvin University with loud cheers and shouts of joy.

Those attending a dedication service, held in the campus chapel July 10 to mark the change from Calvin College to Calvin University, responded with vigor and lots of noise.

“Never could we have imagined that a day like this would come,” said Dale Cooper, the former Calvin College chaplain dressed up as John Calvin. “This is a day of gratitude, and we are surrounded by God’s benefits.”

Every year on July 10, Calvin College — now Calvin University — has held an ice-cream social or some other activity to celebrate the birthday of John Calvin, the 16th-century Protestant Reformer and namesake of the school.

But this year, on the 510th birthday of the Reformer, the celebration also marked the formal transition of the Christian Reformed Church’s denominational college to becoming a university.

Before the dedication service in the chapel, which concluded with the appearance and cheerleading of John Calvin, there was a panel discussion in which university faculty spoke about the role and increasingly global nature of the school.

Leading off the panel discussion, Joel Carpenter, former Calvin provost and now director of the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity, said Calvin has long been a college with the soul of a university.

The depth of its faculty, its focus on academic excellence, and its wide-ranging expertise in many academic disciplines have placed it in the top ranks of private liberal arts institutions for a long time, he said.

“Calvin has been building out its capacity at an accelerating rate for many years,” said Carpenter.

Even from its start nearly 150 years ago in a single classroom on Williams Street in downtown Grand Rapids, with one faculty member, one academic discipline, and just seven students, the school has been reaching out for excellence and at the same time glorifying God and all of God’s creation.

“Calvin is all about a mission,” said Carpenter. “The school doesn’t focus too much on students, but instead it focuses on mission so that students can grow and find concrete ways to use what they have learned out in the world.”

Also on the panel, which was held in the Recital Hall of the Calvin Covenant Fine Arts Center, was Todd Cioffi, director of the Calvin Prison Initiative, a joint program with Calvin Theological Seminary that works to offer a five-year liberal arts degree to prisoners at the Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, Mich.

This initiative reflects the values of Calvin in clear and powerful ways, said Cioffi. The program exemplifies Christ’s call to include all of God’s children in the work of redemption.

“We intentionally take two-thirds of our students who are lifers so that they can discover who they are and that they matter and can have a career,” said Cioffi.

There are people who may say lifers have no life; so why give them the chance to earn a degree? But such reasoning goes against the grain of Calvin’s mission, which is ultimately the mission of God.

“We want to see these students become servant leaders, to be Christ’s agents of reconciliation in the prisons throughout Michigan,” said Cioffi.

Other panelists talked about partnerships between academic departments as the university builds a new strategy for the future.

As part of that strategy, Calvin University will continue to reach out beyond itself to bring its programs to the wider community, said Adejoke Ayoola, an associate professor of nursing.

“We prepare nurses to work with the homeless, in women’s health programs. We build relationships and create partnerships,” she said.

Ayoola works alongside her students, equipping and empowering women to make better choices for their own health and the health of their families.

“Being a university is not just about prestige and employment but for witness and reconciliation in the world,” said Cheryl Brandsen, the school’s provost.

“We cannot rest on our legacy. We must face crucial questions and external pressures as we build and sustain a university that maintains a Reformed focus.”

Following the panel discussion, people gathered in the chapel for the dedication service. In the service program, which included several songs and a special litany, Michael Le Roy, the university president, sketched what the gathering meant.

“Today, let us celebrate past and future, accomplishments and aspirations, and our work as a college and our vision as a university. By God’s grace, may the fruits of Calvin University be multiplied through the hearts and hands of our students, faculty and staff, and alumni spanning the globe.”

In a prayer during the service, Le Roy said: “We may see the future through a glass darkly, but we put our trust in you, Lord. You are our rock — and let us build this university on you.”

As the program ended and Dale Cooper, dressed as John Calvin, led the crowd in a round of cheers, the former chaplain also offered some words from Calvin himself on piety — an underlying virtue that helps guide the Christian life. Piety, Calvin wrote, “designates the right attitude of man towards God, which includes true knowledge, heartfelt worship, saving faith, filial fear, prayerful submission, and reverential love.”

And Calvin University, said Cooper, will seek to inspire and instill these attributes, particularly true knowledge, in its coming generations of students. “We are to trust God’s promises and not allow our minds to be overcome with fear,” said Cooper. Addressing everyone in the chapel, he added, “You are on a very sacred path. The Lord is blessing you — and never has the future looked brighter.”

After leading the arm-pumping cheers, John Calvin (Cooper) led a procession from the chapel and, accompanied by a host of people carrying flags, marched through the sweltering afternoon heat to the west campus for a time of refreshment, fellowship, and continued celebration.