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Building Fires and Boiling Water: The Generosity and Expertise Powering Calvin's Infrastructure Renewal

msk23@calvin.edu — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 14:30:43 +0000

Building Fires and Boiling Water: The Generosity and Expertise Powering Calvin's Infrastructure Renewal msk23@calvin.edu Wed, 01/28/2026 - 09:30

When most people think about supporting a university, they imagine scholarships, new buildings, or classroom technology. Very few think about boilers—the unseen giants that quietly provide the heat keeping students, faculty, and staff comfortable throughout the year.  But for John Wiesehan, an accomplished engineer, entrepreneur, and founder of Protherm Corporation, helping ��ɬֱ�� modernize its heating infrastructure was the perfect fit. 

At 74 years old, Wiesehan still brings the same energy and expertise that built Protherm into a national leader in steam generation, heat transfer, and energy conservation systems for industrial manufacturing plants. And in Calvin’s case, his generosity is helping rebuild two critical boilers at the university’s Science Building power plant—equipment that literally keeps the campus running. 

“These boilers run 24/7, 365 days a year,” said Brett Hoogewind, Calvin’s associate director of facilities for mechanical, energy management, and sustainability. “If we lost one—or both—it would be devastating. They’ve been in service for decades, and many of the parts are obsolete. John saw that and offered to help.”

What makes Wiesehan’s contribution remarkable isn’t just his financial support, but the depth of his personal involvement. After touring Calvin’s mechanical rooms and campus infrastructure, Wiesehan offered to design, fund, and help install custom-engineered components for the boilers—including new burners and controls that will make the system more efficient and easier to maintain.

Making a significant investment

“He designed everything,” Hoogewind said. “The burners were custom-made specifically for our system. He’s not just donating equipment—he’s donating his expertise, training our team, and walking us through every detail of the installation.” 

The project, which began earlier this fall, will extend the life of Calvin’s boilers by decades, reducing natural gas and water use while improving reliability and safety. The new system includes advanced controls capable of self-diagnosing problems—saving time, money, and energy.

“If we had to replace the boilers entirely, we’d be looking at more than half a million dollars,” said Hoogewind. “John’s work is saving the university hundreds of thousands of dollars and setting us up for another 30 years of reliable heat and hot water.”

The why behind the work

Wiesehan’s connection to Calvin runs through his son, Chris, a Calvin graduate who spoke highly of his time at the university. That connection—and a shared Christian commitment—motivated Wiesehan to give back in a uniquely practical way. 

“He’s one of those rare people who wants to help with the things no one else sees,” Hoogewind said. “He believes in the mission of Calvin and wants to make sure our facilities match the excellence happening in the classroom.” 

Beyond the boilers, Wiesehan has already expressed interest in helping with future projects, including potential plans for a new power plant. 

“John is an engineer at heart,” said Hoogewind. “He’s always thinking ahead.  After we gave him a tour of our infrastructure, he called me one Friday night and said, “looks like you need help with the elevators and the boilers. I’ll take the boilers.” 

Creating opportunities for students

The project also provides learning opportunities for Calvin’s engineering students. The facilities team has invited student groups to observe and learn from the renovation process - offering a real-world look at applied engineering, HVAC design, and sustainability. 

“Our students are passionate about energy conservation,” Hoogewind said. “This project lets them see how it happens behind the scenes - how thoughtful design and maintenance can make a huge difference.”

Serving with excellence, supporting sustainability

Providing quality service has been John’s philosophy. “Building fires and boiling water sounds like an ordinary mission and it is. But we succeed when we do ordinary things extraordinarily well. We provide our customers with energy-efficient durable operator-friendly equipment and control systems. We commission and service the equipment. We train our customers to operate it, provide their spare parts and give them our cell numbers to call any time. When the next project comes up, there isn’t much competition.”

As Calvin continues to invest in campus sustainability - from solar panels to geothermal systems - the boiler rebuild represents a less visible but equally important step toward long-term energy efficiency and reliability. 

“This is a huge step forward,” Hoogewind said. “We’ll use less natural gas, less water, and have systems that are easier to maintain. But most importantly, it shows what can happen when generosity meets expertise. John’s gift is keeping Calvin warm and helping us build a more sustainable future.”

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 - 12:00

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Class project sharpens soft skills and creates sustainable path for the city of Grand Rapids

msk23@calvin.edu — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 13:10:26 +0000

Class project sharpens soft skills and creates sustainable path for the city of Grand Rapids msk23@calvin.edu Wed, 12/10/2025 - 08:10

In early September, a senior mechanical engineering class at ��ɬֱ�� was asked this question: “What would it take for the city of Grand Rapids to establish and operate a green revolving fund?”

The question wasn’t theoretical. The practical implications were real. The customer was the mayor of Michigan’s second largest city.

For the next three months, the students divided into teams focused on policy, finances, and energy efficiency projects—working together to answer the question.

On Tuesday, December 9, 2025, five student representatives presented their answer in a public seminar to the mayor and other municipal sustainability leaders. While their recommendations may ultimately lead to exciting new initiatives for the city, the student presenters say their experience over the past few months has sharpened skills they’ll use throughout their life.

On September 4, 2025, Matt Heun posed a big question to his ENGR 333 class.

What was your initial reaction when you heard about the project?

Jude Veldboom ‘26: I’ve never been presented with such a large-scale project, and in my head, I was just thinking ‘we are going to flounder, and I have no idea where this is going to go.’ But there was also a lot of excitement.

Brayden Meyer ‘26: It got my mind spinning, because I can see we have an opportunity to directly impact the city that we’re in. That’s a very cool thing, because it’s very tangible.

Ava Tatko ’26: Honestly, I was a little bit scared. We had just started senior year and all of a sudden Professor Heun told us our client was going to be the mayor of Grand Rapids … I was a little bit nervous at first, but I’ve been very pleased with the support and direction that the project has taken, because I think we have ended with something that is very good.

What’s the biggest challenge you faced throughout the project?

Jude: The biggest challenge I think our whole class would agree was communication, trying to figure out as five or six different teams how to work together toward this one goal and stay on the same track throughout this semester.

Dafna Heule ‘26: Something that was challenging is not knowing the quality of work that was expected of me because I think I wanted to create something so amazing, but I had no idea how … Typically in your classes you know what exactly is expected of you. So, to kind of create your own expectations for yourself and what your deliverables are was a challenge.

Ethan Bosscher ’26: One of the most challenging parts of doing the project is that it is something you’d do in the workforce. There’s a lot of the interpersonal soft skills that are very important for actual engineering out in the world that you never have to do in a traditional class, so there’s a lot of skills we were all building throughout the process.

When we started, we had to be introduced to going and talking with other teams and giving them what our expectations are and what we need and also trying to think how can we help the other teams, ‘ooh, I bet they could really use this information, we should message them.’ So, just the perspective of we’re a whole class working together for a project and so the faster we can get information to other people the faster they can do it, so the interdependencies of real-life work came into play.

What was the experience like receiving regular feedback from city leaders?

Dafna: I liked the experience, it was a good challenge, and it was representative of what might happen in my future career. It can be hard because you get so in the details about your project or what you are working on for those two to three weeks and then you have to present it to someone who hasn’t been involved in that process with you and maybe you need to change something or step back and look at it from a more aerial perspective and that can be hard. It required some almost mental gymnastics with the project to shift the focus.

Multiple times throughout the semester the mayor and other municipal sustainability leaders attended in-class presentations to receive updates and provide feedback.

Brayden: I think the first thing that stood out to me was how much they cared about the project and our progress on it that they were willing to set a time every other week to come to campus to hear updates and provide feedback. That meant a lot to me because I could see how much our contributions meant to them.

Ethan: Giving the presentations to the mayor and all the dignitaries was a really cool experience as a student because you see these people, you hear about what they’re doing and there’s a big difference between an engineering student and the mayor, but for this project we are all coming together with the goal of making a successful project. So, it was fun to be treated like normal engineers. We are all kind of on the same level, all working together for a goal and so that was a great experience that you don’t really get anywhere else in other classes.

Ava: It was incredibly gratifying to see their interest in our project. They spent a lot of afternoons sitting with our class listening to our presentations in the classroom that we also had lecture in. But it also added a feature of quality to the overall project, because we were able to implement their direct wishes and feedback into the direction that we took.

What’s a skill you further developed during this project that will serve you well in the future?

Jude: Communication, just on a larger scale. I think growing up you naturally have to learn interpersonal skills. But understanding that communication line on a wider scale between different groups, that was instrumental for my career.

Dafna: To be a more effective leader in the future, one thing that I want to put more time into is understanding how my group members operate, what kind of structure do they work best with, and what’s going to make us the best team possible based on the different personalities or preferences that people have.

Brayden: One of the main skills I learned in this project, out of necessity, was written and graphical communication. If I understand exactly what something is or how it was done that is only good insofar as I am there to explain it. But if someone else can see a figure I’ve made, read a table that I’ve made, or a read a paragraph that I’ve written and be able to understand what that is, what it means, and how it applies, then that’s where you can really make progress. And that’s the necessary means to get work done between groups, but also to share that work with the delegates that come in every other week.

Ethan: Because we were as an executive team charged with organizing and leading our smaller teams we needed to learn how to manage a group of people to get to the goal, not just expecting people to automatically know what they are supposed to be doing and how that fits into the bigger picture … Over the process of the project, we learned that that was very key to having a team that worked well, fast, and was able to get the results that we needed in a timely manner.

What do you hope comes about from the work you’ve done?

Brayden: The overarching goal for this project was to determine what it would take to establish a green revolving fund in Grand Rapids. I think we have done an excellent job as a class estimating the feasibility—not only the feasibility of whether or not it was possible, but also how you could implement it and some different ways to scale it. We’ve tried to share it best we could. I would love to see this project go into effect because it’s not driven by abstract opinions and other things, it’s something more concrete where you can say ‘if these projects are working, they fund more projects like these.’ So, it’s a self-growing, self-sustaining thing that relies on proper implementation and technology to ultimately help the city and the environment.

On December 9, 2025, members of the executive team gave their final public presentation.

Dafna: I hope our work does go somewhere as that’s always nice when you put a lot of hours into something … I think it can be very unifying for sustainability in a divisive world because it has that kind of fiscal conservative element to it while still holding social and sustainable responsibility.

Ethan: First of all, I’m very proud of the whole class and the team about the work we’ve been able to get done. I would be very satisfied to see this go into effect in some way, because that adds a lot of then value to all the work that we’ve done. All the hours we’ve put into this will have an impact on the city. When we compile all of the amazing work that we’ve done I hope this is something we could hand to another actual engineer with years of experience, and they are able to use it and get valuable information out of it.

Ava: I think we’re all hoping that this fund is actually implemented by the city—the mayor proposed it to us initially with that being the goal, and I think he’s planning on bringing it up sometime in the spring semester officially. It would be so cool to see some of these projects implemented, even if it’s 20 years from now, and to know that the work of a random engineering class at Calvin contributed to that.

Wednesday, December 10, 2025 - 12:00

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(From left to right): Mechanical engineering majors Dafna Heule, Ethan Bosscher, Brayden Meyer, Jude Veldboom, and Ava Tatko.

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��ɬֱ��’s Matthew K. Heun Receives Prestigious 2025 Engineering for One Planet Innovation in Sustainability Award

msk23@calvin.edu — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 14:41:26 +0000

��ɬֱ��’s Matthew K. Heun Receives Prestigious 2025 Engineering for One Planet Innovation in Sustainability Award msk23@calvin.edu Wed, 12/03/2025 - 09:41

��ɬֱ�� engineering professor Matthew K. Heun has been named the 2025 Engineering for One Planet (EOP) Innovation in Sustainability Award recipient, a national honor recognizing visionary leadership in embedding sustainability into engineering education. The award, presented by ABET and The Lemelson Foundation, celebrates individuals, programs, and teams that demonstrate exceptional innovation in integrating sustainability concepts into ABET-accredited curricula.

The EOP initiative seeks to ensure that future engineering graduates understand the essential social and environmental principles required to design solutions for a resilient and sustainable world. Heun’s work stands as a model for how these goals can take root within an academic program.

A Leader in Sustainability Education

Heun is recognized for significant contributions to incorporate sustainability in engineering education through innovations in curriculum development, pedagogy, undergraduate teaching, and applied student research, as well as impacting global energy policy.

As professor of engineering and director of ��ɬֱ��’s sustainability designation, Heun teaches in the energy, environment, and sustainability and mechanical engineering concentrations. His academic journey began at Calvin, where he earned his B.S. in engineering before completing M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Prior to entering academia, Heun worked on cutting-edge aerospace systems ranging from lighter-than-air vehicles to cryocoolers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and at Global Aerospace Corporation, a research and development company he co-founded with colleagues from JPL. These experiences, he says, shaped his teaching philosophy.

“Those experiences gave me a lot of interesting stories and a deep understanding of the way engineering works,” said Heun.

Innovating for a More Sustainable Future

Heun’s research explores the relationship among energy, materials, and the economy through the lens of sustainability. His expertise spans refrigeration and air-conditioning, aerospace systems, green revolving funds, and the rebound effect. He believes engineers have a central role in addressing global challenges.

“The sustainable use of energy and materials is at the heart of one of the biggest challenges humanity faces,” noted Heun. “Engineers have the greatest opportunity, maybe of anybody, to influence the direction those things go—because we are the ones making the machines and deciding how efficient they’ll be.”

During more than two decades at ��ɬֱ��, Heun has advanced sustainability in numerous ways:

Creating Calvin’s sustainability designation within the engineering program
Developing innovative sustainability-focused curriculum and pedagogy
Leading global research partnerships
Embedding students directly in applied research that spans continents

A Teacher Who Inspires

Heun and VanAntwerp attended the ABET Awards 2025

Colleague and nominator Jeremy VanAntwerp, engineering professor at ��ɬֱ��, says Heun’s impact reaches far beyond course content.

“Part of the reason I nominated Matt for this award is that he inspires me—and I’ve seen how he inspires students as well. He cares deeply about sustainability, and he cares even more deeply about students,” said VanAntwerp.

For Heun, that calling is clear: “I can't imagine another career for myself at this point. It’s really gratifying to see students devote their lives and careers to doing better by the planet.”

A Message from President Greg Elzinga

��ɬֱ�� President Greg Elzinga praised Heun’s dedication to both student formation and sustainability leadership. “Matt’s work embodies the very best of ��ɬֱ��, that being academic excellence, a deep sense of responsibility for God’s world, and genuine care for students. His commitment to integrating sustainability into engineering education not only strengthens our programs but also equips our graduates to serve and lead in ways that matter. We are grateful for his vision, his scholarship, and the powerful impact he has on our community.”

A Vision for the Next Generation

Looking ahead, Heun hopes for a future where sustainability is woven into everyday decision-making, from households to global policy tables. “I hope for a more sustainable future, one in which policymakers, leaders, and citizens understand the links between energy, the economy, and emissions. I long for a world where that understanding leads to better policies, reduced emissions, and a better future for my children and all future generations.”

ABET and The Lemelson Foundation celebrate Heun for his transformative contributions to curriculum design, pedagogy, student research, and sustainability innovation, and for helping shape a new generation of engineers equipped to build a thriving, resilient world.

Wednesday, December 3, 2025 - 12:00

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Aero engineering takes off this fall at ��ɬֱ��

msk23@calvin.edu — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 11:36:43 +0000

Aero engineering takes off this fall at ��ɬֱ�� msk23@calvin.edu Wed, 09/24/2025 - 07:36

Starting this fall, an aerospace engineering concentration is now being offered at ��ɬֱ��. The addition adds strength to an already nationally respected engineering program, which recently rose to its highest ranking ever (#38) on U.S. News & World Report’s best undergraduate engineering programs list.

Since the program was officially announced last fall, it’s drawn a lot of interest from both incoming and current students.

An unique opportunity

“I was looking at other smaller Christian schools and a lot of them didn’t have engineering in general, and I specifically wanted to go into aerospace,” said Kyle Chakery ’29, a first-year student from Grand Prairie, Texas. “So, Calvin’s program drew me in and knowing it was the first year was really exciting.”

“I think it’s the first Christian college to have an aero program,” said Juan Moon ’27, a junior who grew up in South Korea and Thailand. “Tying aerospace engineering and Christian values together is so valuable when you go into industry because it helps set your heart posture to appropriately focus on the right things.”

A seasoned first-year program

While the program is in its infancy, aerospace engineering majors at Calvin are encouraged that the professors they are learning from have vast industry experience. Ken Visser spent a decade working at NASA and Boeing, including helping design the Boeing 767-400ER. His groundbreaking contributions to the field of aerodynamics led to him being honored as an Associate Fellow of the AIAA earlier this year. While Visser assumes a leading role in launching the new aerospace engineering program, he is part of a team of faculty colleagues with aerospace experience, including Matt Heun, who worked with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before teaching at Calvin, and Fred Haan, whose specialty is experimental aerodynamics, to name a couple. 

“I am excited about learning aero here because the profs who are part of the aero program have a lot of experience up their sleeves. They’ve been everywhere, done everything,” said Ava Ibrahim, a sophomore from Whitinsville, Massachusetts. “The education I am going to get is going to be valuable, which is a solid foundation.”

Christ-centered values add value

But students say it’s more than just being prepared with all the technical skills.

“There are a lot of profs here who I believe are overqualified based on what they’ve achieved in industry, but they are here because they found God was calling them to be here in the first place and I feel that’s a gift for the students,” said Moon. “They teach more than just technical things. Yes, the profs are qualified to teach those aspects, but they go beyond to relate these technical aspects to Christian values, showing us how to live in industry guided by what you believe in.”

Passionate professors, caring mentors

What the students in the aero program find most valuable is something common to all disciplines at Calvin—professors who are passionate about their field and committed to personally knowing each of their students.

“I really appreciate the passion of the professors that I have. They care a lot about the material and it’s easy to follow along with lectures when you can tell they have a passion in what they are doing and a lot of real world experience to share with the class,” said Michael Liggett, a junior from Rockford, Michigan.

“On my visit to campus last year, I got to have a one-on-one visit with Ken Visser, and we chatted for 20-30 minutes, and he was amazing to talk to. We talked about planes, some of the Apollo missions, and it was really exciting. You could see the passion he has for aerospace. I love that he has a major passion for exploration, design, creativity, and critical thinking,” said Chakery. “Now, as a student, I feel the professors are very easy to talk to, specifically Visser, and I’m not afraid to ask questions if I’m confused.”

Going beyond aero helps other skills take off

Beyond the proximity to professors who serve as both industry experts and mentors, students in Calvin’s aero program also see the immense value of a liberal arts education.

“I think a lot of engineering requires good written and verbal communication, and I know that the liberal arts education I’m getting at Calvin will be most helpful in those areas: reading, writing, and speaking,” said Ibrahim. “So, it’s been so good to have an oral rhetoric class for engineers.”

Ibrahim is also grateful for the opportunity to take sociology and psychology classes. “Learning the way people around you think is really helpful and I think some people would miss out on having that knowledge, how to integrate into society without a liberal arts education.”

“It [a liberal arts education] just expands your broadness of thought. You get a wider scope of what there is out there theologically and philosophically, which I think is unique and important in understanding engineering design as well,” said Chakery. “We talk about moral norms in engineering design which means stuff has to be up to code morally, ethically, and physically, because some of the stuff you build will have an impact on other people, so you would have to build that with a broad scope in mind.”

Learn more about the aerospace engineering program at Calvin.

Wednesday, September 24, 2025 - 12:00

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Charting a Greener Future for Students and Grand Rapids

msk23@calvin.edu — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 11:15:18 +0000

Charting a Greener Future for Students and Grand Rapids msk23@calvin.edu Thu, 09/11/2025 - 07:15

“What would it take for the city of Grand Rapids to establish and operate a green revolving fund?”

That’s the question Professor Matt Heun posed to his engineering students on the first day of class.

“It's a huge question, right? And then it’s funny, Matt has several other bullet points beneath the main question. One of them is ‘are you going to include non-municipal buildings?’ Right there is probably its own project,” said Mike Troupos, a 2012 engineering grad of Calvin, who was in the room as the students first heard the question.

A Big Challenge

The question Heun asked is the student’s semester project. And it’s not hypothetical. The Mayor of Grand Rapids, David LaGrand ’88, seated next to Troupos in the back of the classroom, is the client.

“I thought ‘woah,’” said Dafna Heule, a senior mechanical engineering major, upon hearing of the project.

“My first thought is ‘Calvin? This is happening at Calvin and not a bigger school?’” said Jude Veldboom, a mechanical engineering major.

The students were initially shocked by the scope of the project. But Heun says, “I know what the students do not yet know: Calvin students are ready to address big questions. Calvin students can change the world!”

Learning “Soft Skills” Through Asking “Hard Questions”

“What I love about this in general, and Matt does this every year, is it’s such a big project and such a huge question that there’s a lot of narrowing of the scope over the course of the semester,” said Troupos. “And I think that’s really good. We all have to do that in our own lives. You have a million things you can do when you’re young and at some point, you decide I’m closing these doors so I can open these other ones. It’s a metaphor on life but it’s also good discipline as a human being to understand that I can do anything, but what should I actually do? And then to keep chiseling down so at the end of the semester the students actually have something to show for it.”

Troupos, who is now vice president of Foresight, an energy and sustainability consulting firm in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was in these students’ shoes about 15 years prior. In fact, he was one of the first interns for the Calvin Energy Recovery Fund (CERF), a green revolving fund established in 2009 at ��ɬֱ��. During his time at Calvin, he helped install motion sensors in Science Building bathrooms, implement a lighting overhaul in North Hall, and investigated low-flow showerheads in the dorms, a project implemented after he graduated.

Invested in, Now Investing

Now, Troupos is one of the advisers Professor Heun has brought back to help students navigate this huge question.

“It’s really cool and it makes me proud to be a Knight,” said Heule. “I think he said he graduated in 2012, before sustainability was trendy. So, it’s cool to see the effect of a genuine Christian university that’s trying to take better care of the Earth. So many people have been invested in sustainability at Calvin before it was trendy.”

For Troupos, he wasn’t looking to go into the field he’s in. He credits the investment professors like Matt Heun made in him, including as his mentor during his time as intern for the Calvin Energy Recovery Fund.

“I wouldn’t be where I’m at personally or professionally if it wasn’t for the opportunity to be the CERF intern,” said Troupos. “So, it’s a joy to come back because I want to pay it forward. I really learned and found my footing on what I want to do, what my calling is in life because of this opportunity, and so my hope and dream is that some students here understand that energy efficiency and sustainability are real viable career paths and also paths where you can find joy in what you do and feel good about the impact that you can make.”

Building Excitement, Expanding Imagination

As the students began to ask clarifying questions and hear more from the advisors and Mayor LaGrand about the project, the weight of the project didn’t go away, but an excitement started to build.

“I’m excited, but it also feels very daunting. I’m mostly looking forward to how we can break this down,” said Veldboom. “I think that’ll be the biggest lesson coming out of this.”

“This is really cool, because it’s so tangible and can actually make impact,” said Heule. “When we started talking it was exciting to hear about all the ways we are going to be able to be creative and I’m excited to use our brains in unique ways to come up with solutions.”

Proven Value of a Calvin Education

Troupos says trusting ��ɬֱ�� students to propose a solution for an entire city is a testament to how community leaders view the value of a Calvin education. And he says his experience pays witness to that.

“I’ve always loved that Calvin’s interdisciplinary. When I was in high school deciding on an engineering school, I liked that Calvin was a liberal arts school first and not a technical school. And it ended up paying out,” said Troupos, who over the past five years transitioned from an engineering and technical role to a leadership and sales role with his company.

“There’s a lot of engineers in the world that don’t just sit in the room and run calculations, they have to deliver presentations, they have to solve big problems, they have to get buy-in from a lot of different stakeholders,” said Troupos. “So, I think the skills you develop in unpacking questions like the students will do in this class are a lot more powerful for somebody like me who isn’t working in an engineering role for their entire career.”

The engineering class will have the next few months to come up with a proposed recommendation, which they will present on December 9 to their client Mayor LaGrand in an event open to the public.

Thursday, September 11, 2025 - 12:00

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The mayor of Grand Rapids, Mich., David LaGrand '88, is the client for Professor Matt Heun's senior engineering class. He's entrusting ��ɬֱ�� students with answering a big question that could have a major impact on the city's sustainability efforts.

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Q&A with Entrada grad Yohana Yigezu

msk23@calvin.edu — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:53:51 +0000

Q&A with Entrada grad Yohana Yigezu msk23@calvin.edu Thu, 07/31/2025 - 15:53

Yohana Yigezu ’29 is from Cairo, Egypt. While she never visited campus before deciding on coming to Calvin, she had plenty of positive feedback from those at her church, who she says, “are almost all alumni from Calvin.”

Her first visit came in July 2025 during the Entrada Scholars Program. She said that one-month college immersion experience gave her time to “not only prepare for college life, but also to experience living in the U.S. for the first time.

How has your view of college changed since attending Entrada?

It’s changed because everyone tells you it’s a lot of work, a lot of time management –But when you experience it, it is different. So, in navigating that you see that ‘oh wow, I need to step up my game for college.’ I was scared to make new friends, take new courses, but I realized it’s not as scary as I thought it would be. In high school you hear people say that no one will help you in college and that you’re on your own, but in the Entrada program I had a lot more support than what I was expecting.

What’s your experience been like with professors?

Coming here and professors saying ‘you can call me by my first name’ or ‘here’s snacks for you to share while we study’ or them opening up office hours to spend time with you wasn’t something I was used to. I grew up in an educational environment with clear lines between teacher and student. But here, I’ve found there to be an element of friendship and care that I really like.

What is your greatest takeaway from this experience?

My greatest takeaway would be “do it scared” – I think there’s so many new things I had to do and learn that I was scared or nervous about, but those 30 seconds of fear before meeting a new person, that 20 minutes of learning a new thing you were scared to admit you didn’t know is not even comparable to what I ended up learning or friendships I ended up making. It was worth it. Putting myself out there, doing it scared, gave me a much greater reward.

Because of Entrada, I feel more confident in …

I feel more confident in coming to university and starting in the fall. I think that if I hadn’t done Entrada, had to start all of my classes all at once, to not know where everything is, and to experience living in the U.S. for the first time, that would have been much scarier for me.

Thursday, July 31, 2025 - 12:00

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In 2025, Yohana Yigezu begins her studies in civil engineering at ��ɬֱ��.

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Calvin pre-health grads in demand, acceptance rates significantly higher than national average

msk23@calvin.edu — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 20:38:36 +0000

Calvin pre-health grads in demand, acceptance rates significantly higher than national average msk23@calvin.edu Fri, 04/25/2025 - 16:38

Calvin pre-health graduates are in demand. The statistics don’t lie. In 2025, Calvin grads registered an impressive 88% acceptance rate into med school and 62% into PA school, both significantly higher than the national averages of 41% and 31% respectively. Grads heading to PT school saw similar success with an 87.5% acceptance rate, while 100% of applicants to dental, optometry, occupational therapy, and pharmacy schools were accepted.

“This is a phenomenal cohort of students,” said Tammy LaRue, director of pre-health advising at ��ɬֱ��. “These numbers are nearly unheard of.”

While this cohort’s acceptance rates are higher than most years, LaRue says Calvin consistently trends much higher than the national average across these categories.

Standing out with soft skills

And it’s clear to her why that’s the case. While she says grads score well on the MCAT and have the necessary clinical and research experience to compete in the application process, what puts them over the top are the soft skills.

“We strongly encourage students through advising, through their capstone courses, through all avenues to think deeply about what they are doing and how to articulate that well,” said LaRue. “These critical thinking and communication skills set them apart when they are side-by-side with students from other institutions who have met the checklist of admissions requirements as well.”

Proven value of the liberal arts

Students who are heading off to grad schools this fall credit their cross-disciplinary education as one of the keys to their preparation.

“Calvin’s liberal arts education has equipped me to engage in thoughtful conversations on a range of topics beyond medicine,” said Claire Cassiday, a senior studying biochemistry who is attending GVSU’s PA program this coming fall. “This academic challenge has given me the confidence I need as I enter into PA school and learn about other complex subjects.”

“My experience at Calvin not only prepared me to collaborate effectively with others within my own area of study, but it also equipped me with the skills to engage in meaningful collaboration with individuals from diverse academic backgrounds—which is an increasingly vital competency for working in any healthcare setting,” said Erin Cawley, a senior on the pre-physical therapy track studying psychology, who is heading to the University of Colorado this fall.

Personalized education leads to stronger network

Grads also clearly point to the individualized attention and mentorship they received as being crucial to both their character formation and to their acceptance into grad school.

“The small class sizes and approachable professors made it easy to ask questions, seek help, and build relationships. That kind of environment gave me confidence to be curious and ask questions when I was confused on a topic, a mindset I’ll carry into PA school,” said Cassiday. “Through one-on-one conversations, I received advice and mentorship that went beyond academics. Those personal connections also led to strong letters of recommendation from professors who truly knew me and my goals, something that I believe helped me get into PA school.”

“Calvin having small class sizes has enabled me to have close relationships with my professors and I still stay in touch with professors from my first year at Calvin,” said Daniel John, who’s graduating this May with degrees in biology, chemistry, and mechanical engineering and attending the University of Michigan Medical School in 2025. “As I applied to medical school, Dr. LaRue and Professor Sinniah were especially helpful in crafting my application and gave valuable feedback as I wrote my essays.”

“I was able to receive personal research mentorship from three different professors across three different departments and fields of study,” said Cawley. “Each of my professors I worked under invested in me—they got to know my life story, the unique experiences and perspectives that have come to shape my vocational pursuits. They intimately knew my story and actively shaped it as well.”

This fall, 56 students will be heading off to graduate schools in the health professions, from Boston University to Creighton, Case Western to University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison to Northwestern, to dozens of others.

Friday, April 25, 2025 - 12:00

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Trio of Calvin students earn nation’s most prestigious STEM research award

msk23@calvin.edu — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 11:25:49 +0000

Trio of Calvin students earn nation’s most prestigious STEM research award msk23@calvin.edu Wed, 04/02/2025 - 07:25

Aerin Baker (Saugatuck, Mich.), Maggie Grabill (Ada, Mich.), and Ava Tatko (Grand Rapids, Mich.) have been named 2025 Goldwater Scholars. The scholarship, awarded by the Barry M. Goldwater Foundation, is widely considered to be the most prestigious award for undergraduate students in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering in the United States.

More than 1,300 students from 445 schools applied for the award, but only 441 students received it. This marks the second straight year that three ��ɬֱ�� students earned the distinction.

“To have multiple students most years earning this distinction is a testament to the strength of our students and the strength of our research programs here at Calvin,” said Chris Hartemink, professor of engineering and Calvin’s campus representative for the scholarship.

Personalized research experiences

Common to all three students’ experience is they were invited into research during their first year at Calvin. One thing they discovered was they would have incredible access to their professors and be seen as partners in the research.

“The professors are so intentional about connecting with you as an individual, as a person, and that grows during the research,” said Baker, a junior studying chemistry. “You are working alongside your professor, not under them.”

“Whenever I had advice to give or a research-related question to ask I could walk into my research advisor’s office anytime and sit down and have a conversation,” said Tatko, a junior studying engineering with an energy, environmental and sustainability concentration. “At a larger university, where you have more of an impersonal relationship, that is not an option.”

Impressive outcomes

While the students have felt like partners in the research, their names being listed as co-authors alongside their professors in major journal articles validate that feeling.

“We’ve published four papers and we are working on a fifth now,” said Baker, who also presented her research at the American Chemical Society’s National Meeting in Denver, Colorado this past summer. “My advisor [Professor Doug Vander Griend] and I are also working on a collaboration with a university in France.”

Grabill, a chemical engineering and chemistry double major is only a sophomore, yet she already has two publications to her name.

As for Tatko, she’s already seeing the tangible benefits of her research on a global scale. She’s been working on getting a manuscript published about centralized chlorination for rural communities in the Andean mountains in Ecuador. While she says the water disinfection systems in the U.S. are well proven, they aren’t necessarily available to other countries because of material needs and regulation restrictions.

“So, the engineering department at Calvin is partnering with an engineering and missions organization in Ecuador and we are working with them to do design for specific communities. So, I have been organizing and doing design for 18 different communities over six years of data and organizing that into a formalized paper to get it published to share the design so others can do it for other countries.”

Practical applications

In Spring 2024, Tatko got to travel with her research advisor and two other student researchers to install the design they had created as a prototype in their lab during her first year of summer research.

“It was so very interesting to have my research directly applicable. It was novel research, and we then had the opportunity to install it and do ‘real engineering’ and work with the community and make sure they knew how to do maintenance and installation themselves so they could operate it once we had returned to the U.S.,” said Tatko.

Support leads to success

While Baker, Grabill and Tatko realize the research experiences they received at Calvin helped them earn the prestigious Goldwater award, they also credit their professors and advisors who invested countless hours to help their students stand out amongst their peers.

“All the applicants worked closely with Professor Hartemink during the month of January to do essay writing and drafts and reviews and to make sure this application was as polished as it could be,” said Tatko.

“I had been told as a sophomore you’ll put your best foot forward, but know that you can’t be as competitive as the juniors because you only have one year of experience,” said Grabill. “So, I thought I’d be applying next year. But I’m super grateful that despite the odds, Professor Hartemink and other professors at Calvin had enough confidence in me to take the time to write letters of recommendation.”

“I think Calvin provided me a lot of support to win the Goldwater,” said Tatko. “My application wouldn’t have been as strong without Chris Hartemink’s and Julie Wildschut’s, my research advisor, guidance and support throughout the process.”

Made the right decision

While the three still have time to decide their next step after Calvin, one thing they all agree on: they made the right choice in coming to Calvin.

“100%! I thought my idea of research was pretty solid coming in, but as I’ve gone through Calvin, it’s a lot deeper than I originally thought. You get to connect with so many people, collaborate not just in your own lab, but across departments and with people from other schools who have knowledge of what you are working on,” said Baker. “Calvin is a great place in the research community and a lot of great opportunities come out of that.”

“I don’t think I’d be where I am if I wasn’t at Calvin. I think it’s been a really great experience,” said Grabill.

“The longer I’m at Calvin the more grateful I am that I chose to come here,” said Tatko. “It’s really worked out for me in every sense I wanted.”

Interested in learning more about Calvin and the opportunities available to you? Get started.

Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 12:00

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Chemistry professor Doug Vander Griend researches alongside Aerin Baker '26. At Calvin, students have opportunities to work 1-on-1 with professors on important research projects. Baker's research experience has already led to co-authoring multiple papers for journals and presenting at a national conference.

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Getting Ready to Fly at ��ɬֱ��

msk23@calvin.edu — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 22:56:25 +0000

Getting Ready to Fly at ��ɬֱ�� msk23@calvin.edu Mon, 11/11/2024 - 17:56

For one weekend each month, Reuben Arends heads about 45 miles east to Grand Ledge Army Aviation Support Facility and Armory where he works on helicopters.

“Something I always wanted to do since I was a kid was to fly something,” said Arends. “And the military was always something that appealed to me too. I thought it was cool. It’s very different than any other job that I’ve seen.”

During his senior year at Unity Christian High School (Hudsonville, Mich.) Arends joined the Army National Guard. After high school he completed basic training in Oklahoma before moving on to advanced individual training (AIT) in Virginia.

“As my AIT graduation date was approaching, I was wondering what’s my next step after this,” said Arends.

Knowing he didn’t want to be far from his family, that he wanted a Christian education, and he was looking for a strong engineering program, ��ɬֱ�� became the clear choice for Arends.

Right Place, Right Time

“My goal is to go to Army Flight school and fly Blackhawks,” said Arends. “And I know a degree from here will help.”

So this fall, Arends started at Calvin pursuing an engineering degree with a mechanical concentration. Within weeks of starting, he realized he was in the right place at the right time as ��ɬֱ�� announced it was starting an aerospace engineering program.

“It was a pretty pleasant surprise,” said Arends, who plans to switch his concentration to align even better with his future goals.

A Depth of Preparation

As Arends prepares for the next step in his journey, he’s grateful for the community he’s part of at Calvin.

“The community is proving to be better than I expected,” said Arends. “In the military environment you have to look out for yourself, here it’s very different, people really care for other people.”

He also appreciates the depth of his education.

“An education is one thing, but here there’s much more of a focus on development that goes beyond just an education,” said Arends. “This place uses a Christian lens to grow you in more ways than just your degree and that’s definitely appealing.”

Monday, November 11, 2024 - 12:00

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