Calvin Students Watch History in Washington, D.C.

Attending the inauguration of President Donald Trump and participating in the next day’s Women’s March on the streets of Washington, D.C., were two of several highlights of a January interim course for Calvin College senior Abbie Schutte.

Schutte was one of 17 Calvin students who went with Prof. Doug Koopman to the U.S. capital for a 16-day course this month that provided an up-close look of the workings of political life.

Among those, Schutte said, was when she and others had the chance last Thursday night to sit in an overflow room to watch and listen as a U.S. Senate panel asked questions of Betsy DeVos, a Calvin graduate whom Trump nominated to serve as his Secretary of Education.

“I don’t think we anticipated the tension that would bubble up at the hearing. We didn’t think it would be that controversial,” said Schutte, who is from Olathe, Kan., and is majoring in public policy studies.

DeVos, a West Michigan-area philanthropist and schools-of-choice advocate, went through more than three hours of heated questioning from senators who voiced concern over what her policies might be, especially in relation to public schools.

“Every so often people in our room would stand up to talk. They weren’t disruptive,” said Schutte. “Some were from Detroit public schools and told us how charter schools have affected them.”

Hearing different sides of the issue from protesters, senators, and DeVos herself was a great experience, said Schutte.

The same was true, she said, when she attended the inauguration on Friday, Jan. 20, at which the new president stated his positions, and then on the next day when she took part in the Women’s March.

“It was kind of a whiplash experience,” said Schutte in an interview after finishing the march with fellow students. “The inauguration was about the right and its ideas, and then it flip-flopped to the other side in the march.”

Doug Koopman, a Calvin political science professor and former aide for nearly 20 years to various members of the U.S. Congress from West Michigan, said that exposing his students to a full range of viewpoints, along with attending the inauguration, were the main reasons for the interim class.

“When we were putting together the class, we were thinking the students would be there for the inauguration of the first woman president [Hillary Clinton],” he said. “But clearly that wasn’t the case.”

Regardless, they had the chance to attend lectures, have one-on-one discussions, review the November election results and, especially, witness what has been a hallmark of the U.S. democratic process.

“They were able to get a view of how the government so quickly and so peacefully moves from one set of leaders to another set of leaders in the executive branch,” said Koopman.

Students also met and spoke with Bill Huizenga, a Republican Congressman from West Michigan. Huizenga gave them a look at how the incoming Trump administration is filling jobs and setting its legislative agenda.

In addition, they met representatives of a progressive think tank to give students an ideological balance, and they spoke with Calvin alumni who are working in Washington, said Koopman.

“The more conservative people we talked to spoke about how their Christian faith combines with local issues,” said Koopman.“They also talked about how encouraged they are to see that Republicans will now have more influence.”

The progressive people with whom they met “discussed the theme of justice and national government being a tool to make way and [make] room for more just outcomes [in society],” he said.

Overall, Koopman said, the class gave students a chance to see what it might be like to live and work in Washington. It also gave them a taste of history by attending the inauguration of the first president who never served in the military or previously held political office.

“The inauguration is a quasi-religious ceremony that celebrates we are a peaceful nation that can have serious disagreements about policy, and yet at 11:59 a.m. we had one president [Obama], and at noon we had another,” said Koopman.