In the days after the terrible news of attacks in Paris and Beirut, members of the history department looked at each other and asked "What can we do?" As we are inundated with stories of terror, violence, and hatred around the world, we struggle as individuals and as communities with how to respond. As historians, …
Continue reading ISIS, Terrorism and Refugees: A Teach In
by Anna Lindner. (Excerpt from the Service-Learning at Calvin College blog.) The history department, by virtue of its nature, could and, I believe, should have a close relationship with the Service-Learning Center. History is not merely the study of the past; it is also an investigation of humans, the way they perceive and then try …
Continue reading Service-learning for the history student
by Rachel Watson (Excerpt from an article on October 12, 2015 on Calvin's News & Stories.) Tucked safely away in a climate-controlled space in Calvin College’s Meeter Center is a medieval devotional manuscript the college has owned since 1912. It recently became an object of deeper interest to Frans van Liere, professor of history and …
Continue reading Professor Dives Deep Into History of Rare Manuscript
by Amanda Armour Greenhoe (Excerpt from an article in the Fall 2015 edition of Spark) You’re surfing the internet when you find an article on the Italian Grand Prix, a tale of fast cars at dangerously fast speeds. This story of the race’s 1928 running, written in 2015 with the advantages of hindsight and historical context, …
Continue reading History in Action
by Bob Schoone-Jongen. This address was written for and presented at the Calvin College Teacher Commissioning Ceremony on May 22, 2015. You can watch the ceremony online; Bob Schoone-Jongen's address begins at about 40:30. At the risk of jumping the gun a bit, let me address you as “fellow teachers.” Consider this: Students tend to …
Continue reading To Teach Is To Learn
by Coryn Mulder. This entry comes from Coryn Mulder, a senior nursing student in Professor Karin Maag’s spring online History 151 class, responding to a final exam question about the value of taking a core history class. Her response is featured here with her permission. History 151 covers human history from the Paleolithic era up …
Continue reading Student voices: Why take a history survey class?
Historical Horizons 