On April 15 of every year, I celebrate my citizenship by sending a big check to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States of America. This year I am hoping some of my tax money will come back to fill the massive potholes on Burton Street near the entrance to the college. These potholes have been swallowing up Buick automobiles lately, and this must be stopped! I trust many of you similarly enjoy April 15, tax day, and the day I submit my copy of this column to my Spark magazine colleagues.
On or about April 15 of every year, I also start getting “transition readiness” and “mission readiness” information from the graduate survey my office administers to May graduates. While sending a check to the IRS is a sobering experience, early graduate survey information about first-job successes and graduate school admission successes makes me feel warm in all the deep places! (Thank you, Anonymous Bosch, for the preceding nine beautiful words.)
Both the Class of 2012 and Class of 2013 had a 96 percent success rate of being employed or in graduate school within six months of graduation. Although we are still in the process of gathering data for the Class of 2014, we anticipate similar results.
Since I have personally met more than 300 students from the Class of 2014, I know for certain that they are not only “transition ready” for employment, but also “mission ready” to live the mission of Calvin College:
To think deeply,
to act justly,
and to live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in this world.
So with delight and anticipation, we present the Class of 2014 to the world as people who are learning to love the things that God loves so the world is blessed by their leadership.
Calvin graduates come to campus from every nation, and they leave campus to serve every nation. I pulled 16 Class of 2014 names out of a hat of the graduate survey results. The map on this page shows where they are going and what they will be doing as they live the Calvin mission. These 16 students are transition-ready, mission-ready successes. I will fill in the map with several hundred more when all the data are collected! This is a celebration greater than April 15!
