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 Features Personal testimonies of the trials of eating disorders. World News U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, deals with Saddam Hussein. Opinions Homosexuality at Calvin: a hush-hush issue. Sports Women’s basketball takes on K-zoo for MIAA championship. | Former professor writes letter questioning vision By John J. Vander Meer News Editor At the end of first semester, Calvin history professor Dale Van Kley resigned. On January 30th, Van Kley wrote a letter to the Board of Trustees which he also sent to some faculty members that has raised questions about the vision of Calvin, and the methods by which President Byker is evaluated. Van Kley, now a historian at Ohio State University, was a member of the Calvin History Department for 28 years. Provost Joel Carpenter has advised all who see a copy of this letter that it has slanderous and partially erroneous content. “I think the comments made by Van Kley are very unrepresentative of faculty opinion,” said Carpenter. “As I said in my letter [which was sent to the faculty in response to the Van Kley letter], I think there are major distortions of the truth and certainly major misreading of the President’s character. There are a number of things that he says happened that did not happen and there are other things that did happen which I think he misreads...it’s both a matter of either imagining or manufacturing events that didn’t happen, or I think misinterpreting some things that did happen.” President Byker said, “we get highly emotional letters every day, I’m not going to comment on this letter at any length.” Essential among Van Kley’s concerns about the Byker Administration is the accessibility of the President, “I had a problem with the fact that I didn’t receive one word of thanks from President Byker after 28 years of service,” said Van Kley. “I must have tried two or three times to talk with Byker in a one-on-one basis and none of those attempts produced any dialogues.” This assertion contradicts Carpenter’s assessment of President Byker policy toward receiving faculty criticism. “I’d say the act of writing a letter to the President expressing
concerns is indeed legitimate. That’s something that any of us
ought to feel welcome to do, and even more than that, the President
has stated that he’s got an open door policy. If you have a concern,
you want to talk to him about Calvin faculty and staff reach the media in a variety of ways according to Phil de Haan, Director of Media Relations for Calvin. De Haans office releases stories to different publications, depending on the relevance of the story to the periodical. What my office exists to do is tell people about Calvin, he said. For example, on the front page of the February 8 New York Times, Calvin Provost Joel Carpenter is quoted in a story about evangelicals and fasting called In Hope of Spiritual Revival, a Call to Fast. Carpenter speaks about seeing the worst of times possibly becoming the best of times. The author also mentions Carpenters recent book Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. In the February 14 Times, an article entitled Think Tank uses Calvin Classics Professor Mark Gustafson as an example of unusual specialities amongst professors. Gustafson received recognition for his studies of tattooing as punishment during the third through ninth centuries. He tells that criminals used to be tattooed with a description of their crime and punishment and sent to work in mines. Many people were tattooed for the crime of being Christian, but the tattoo soon became a symbol of power. But Calvin coverage is not limited to just New York. Communications Arts and Sciences Professor Bill Romanowski received
mention in the February 21 issue of the Dallas Morning News. He
was cited for his expertise on pop culture and Contemporary Christian
Music; two books of his -- one forthcoming -- get specific mention.
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