Frank Deford
That Peculiar Modern American Institution: School Sports
Thursday, January 6
Underwritten by: Varnum, Riddering, Schmidt & Howlett, LLP
Frank Deford was a sportswriter, broadcaster and author and the former senior writer for Sports Illustrated. He is the author of fourteen books including, "An American Summer," "Everybody's All-American," and "Alex: The Life of a Child." He has been a commentator on ESPN, NPR's Morning Edition, & HBO's RealSports with Bryant Gumbel and was elected to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters.
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Terry Gross
An Hour With Terry Gross
Friday, January 7
Underwritten by: John and Mary Loeks & Mark and Carol Muller
Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Gross received a bachelor's degree in English and M.Ed. in communications from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Gross was recognized with the Columbia Journalism Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 2008 and an Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Princeton University in 2002. She received a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1993 and Doctor of Humane Letters in 2007, both from SUNY–Buffalo. She also received a Doctor of Letters from Haverford College in 1998 and Honorary Doctor of Letters from Drexel University in 1989.
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Mara Liasson
Washington Through the Eyes of a Journalist
Monday, January 10
Underwritten by: Miller, Johnson, Snell & Cummiskey, P.L.C.
Mara Liasson is a national political correspondent for NPR. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, DC — focusing on the White House and Congress — and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway.
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Thomas Banchoff
Exploring the Fourth Dimension on the Internet: It's Not Just Time Anymore
Tuesday, January 11
Underwritten by: West Michigan Blue Cross/Blue Shield
Thomas Banchoff is an American mathematician specializing in geometry. He is a professor at Brown University, where he has taught since 1967. He is known for his research in differential geometry in three and four dimensions, for his efforts to develop methods of computer graphics in the early 1990s, and most recently for his pioneering work in methods of undergraduate education utilizing online resources.
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Eugene Rivers
God vs Gangs:Resurrecting Hope For Our Children
Wednesday, January 12
Underwritten by: Hope Network
A former gang member from Philadelphia who studied at Harvard, Eugene F. Rivers III is pastor of the Azusa Christian Community in Dorchester, an inner-city neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife, Jacqueline C. Rivers, and their three children. His programs to get churches involved in curbing youth violence have been emulated nationwide. Rivers has been active for over thirty-five years working within local communities and with the federal government on issues of domestic and foreign policy. He advised both the Bush and the Clinton administrations on their faith-based initiatives and issues of foreign policy in connection with the African AIDS crisis. In his work to shine a spotlight on street violence and underprivileged youth, Rivers has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and Fox. He is a contributing editor to Sojourners magazine. Rivers is the co-founder of the Boston TenPoint Coalition and co-chair of the National TenPoint Leadership Foundation.
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Eileen Collins
Space Shuttle Mission STS-93:Exploring the Invisible Universe
Thursday, January 13
Underwritten by: URS Greiner
Eileen Collins was selected by NASA in 1990 and became an astronaut in 1991. In 1999 she became the first woman shuttle commander, leading a crew of four other astronauts on a five-day mission which was highlighted by the deployment of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the heaviest, largest and most powerful X-ray telescope ever launched into space. She was recently awarded the Empire Freedom Medal by the state of New York for "etching her mark on history by knocking down barriers," according to New York Governor George Pataki.
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Jeremy Begbie
The Music of God and the God of Music
Friday, January 14
Underwritten by: Carroll and Jeanette Bos
Professor at Duke University Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina and Cambridge University in England, and founder of Theology Through the Arts, Begbie has performed extensively as a pianist, oboist, and conductor. He is the author of several publications as well as the co-editor of Resonant Witness: Conversations Between Music and Theology. He studies philosophy and music at Ebinburgh University and theology at Aberdeen and Cambridge. He is the ordained minister of the Church of England, having served for a number of years as the assistant pastor of a church in West London. He has taught widely in the UK, North America and South Africa.
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Robert Harms
The Voyage of the Diligent
Monday, January 17
Underwritten by: The Woodrick Institute of Aquinas College
Robert Harms, who received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1978, is the author of River of Wealth, River of Sorrow: The Central Zaire Basin in the Era of the Slave and Ivory Trade (1981), Games Against Nature: An Eco-Cultural History of the Nunu of Equatorial Africa (1988/1999), and The Diligent: Worlds of the Slave Trade (2001). His graduate courses include reading seminars on African environmental history and African agrarian history, and a research seminar on African History.
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Alvin Plantinga
Faith and Science
Tuesday, January 18
Underwritten by: Lawrence D. Sr., and Dolores Bos
Alvin Plantinga is the 2017 Templeton Prize Laureate, the inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy at Calvin College, the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center on Culture and Civil Society at the Independent Institute. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University.
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Steven Meyer
The Balkans: Tragedy in Perspective
Wednesday, January 19
Underwritten by: Huntington Bank
Dr. Steven Meyer is the National Security Program Chair at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School. He has extensive professional experience and expertise, serving 25 years in the Central Intelligence Agency. He was a member of the intelligence support for conventional arms control talks in Vienna and nuclear arms control talks in Geneva and for the medium-range nuclear weapons treaty.
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Gilbert Meilaender
Death: Enemy or Friend?
Thursday, January 20
Underwritten by: Hospice of Michigan
Gilbert Meilaender is Senior Research Professor at Valparaiso University and the Paul Ramsey Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. He taught at the University of Virginia (1975-78), at Oberlin College (1978-96), and at Valparaiso University (1996-2014), where he held the Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics.
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St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
Friday, January 21
Underwritten by: Sand Ridge Bank, Schererville, IN
From a modest beginning in 1959, with a four-concert season, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is now recognized as one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world, with more than 150 concerts in a 38-week season. In addition, the orchestra is heard on over 100 radio stations and has produced 58 recordings. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is celebrating its 40th anniversary and is preparing to enter the new millennium with new challenges and new optimism.
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Rebecca W. Rimel
Jefferson's Legacy: A Call to Civic Responsibility
Monday, January 24
Underwritten by: Spectrum Health
Rebecca W. Rimel is the president and CEO of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Rimel joined the organization in 1983 as a health program manager, and became executive director five years later. She assumed her current position in 1994.
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Calvin Community Drama
Voices of Calvin: A Celebration of Community
Tuesday, January 25
Underwritten by: Creative Dining Services
Community drama is an art form that explores the unique characteristics, spirit, attitudes and ethos of a group of people united by shared belief and symbolic action. It is drama produced by and for a given community. Directed by Dr. Robert Hubbard, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College, students present a community drama about the identity of Calvin College as an institution and as a community. Oral history, poetry, memoirs, speeches, journalistic accounts and music combine to serve as a living and lasting expression of the story of Calvin College as a Reformed community.
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Valentina Lisitsa & Alexei Kuznetsoff
Valentina Lisitsa & Alexei Kuznetsoff: Duo Piano Players
Wednesday, January 26
Underwritten by: Spectrum Health
Val and Al, as they have come to be affectionately known in their previous visits to Calvin College, demonstrate a bewitching unanimity of musical goal in their duo-piano performances. From tender quiet passages to raging virtuosic display they touch the emotions of their audiences, communicating the meaning of the music through their passion for music making. "Val and Al" received their training in the Ukraine and this year became citizens of the United States. For The January Series they will play Rachmaninoff's fetching Symphonic Dances and Schubert's hauntingly beautiful and sad Hungarian Divertimento. Plan on pleasing encores as well.
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