Initiative Category: Education

Along with celebrating graduates on May 8, the College also honored the emeritations of two long-time faculty members who have retired at the end of the 2020-21 academic year: Joy Meyer ’78, Ed.D., associate professor of education, licensure officer, and dean of education; and Rick Snoeyink, Ph.D., professor of education and director of online instruction.  

Dr. Joy Meyer
A Trinity alumna, Meyer said that around the time of her graduation, she heard God telling her she would be back at the College someday. That was a truly prophetic moment. After teaching elementary school for 11 years, she was taking some time off to raise her young children and decided to look for a part-time job. A friend kept encouraging her to apply at Trinity. Meyer did, and after interviewing with Liz Rudenga, professor of education emerita, she was hired to supervise Trinity’s student teachers. 

Meyer did so well that she was invited to teach a general teaching methods class the next semester. “I continued to teach that class during my time at Trinity,” she said. “In fact, I still taught that class my last semester here.” Gradually, she began teaching more classes, joining Trinity’s faculty full time in 2000.  

But her gifts extended beyond the classroom. Along with teaching, she also served as department chair, then became director of teacher education, a role she held for 15 years. Meyer also worked as licensure officer, a role she will continue to fill. During that time, she also earned her doctorate from Aurora University.  

As a teacher of teachers, Meyer said the College has always worked hard to ensure students would be successful.  “I just really wanted to see students flourish and make an impact for Christ on the next generation,” she said. “I really wanted them to learn the best teaching practices they could. I work with wonderful colleagues and learned a lot, even through the challenges. I got to serve on interesting committees. It was a great run.”   

Among her fondest memories are helping with Young Authors Festival. Meyer said she also learned to be flexible and adaptable in working with the Illinois State Board of Education and other agencies. “We became known as a quality  program, and those qualities are still in place now. Our alumni have been very positive of their experience, and we have alumni as far away as Malaysia. They go where they are called.” 

Meyer said she also appreciates Trinity’s work around diversity. “It challenged me to do a better job and make sure I wasn’t bringing any biases to my work. And it was a challenge at times to open the eyes of students who didn’t have a lot of exposure to diversity before coming here.”   

While she will continue to serve as licensure officer at Trinity, Meyer is looking forward to spending more time with her family, including three grandsons. She and her husband are also planning to travel and spend more time at the family summer home in Michigan.  

Rick Snoeyink
Before coming to Trinity in 2001, Snoeyink worked for 23 years as a teacher and coach at the Berrien Springs, Mich., public schools, Terra Ceia Christian School in North Carolina, and DeMotte (Ind.) Christian School. 

During his time at DeMotte, Snoeyink realized he wanted to continue his own education and earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Purdue University. His interest in educational technology was sparked during that time, and he realized he wanted to teach at the college level.  

“I knew [Professor of Education Emerita] Liz and Jack Rudenga, and I came to Trinity to spend a day consulting on technology standards. Liz let me know there was an opening in the Education Department. I applied and got the job.” 

Along with his teaching responsibilities, Snoeyink impacted the College and its community in many other roles, including as chair of the Education Department, chair of the Teacher Education Committee, and chair of the Education Student Advisory Committee. He has also served faithfully as Director of Online Instruction for the College. And as long-time chair of the Technology and Student Learning Committee, he has trained more than 100 professors in Trinity’s online instruction course. 

When Snoeyink started focusing on educational technologies, his tools included cassette tapes and Commodore 64 computers. That evolved to far more sophisticated tools and approaches, including quickly moving the entire Trinity community to the Brightspace learning management software after the campus closed down in March 2020 because of COVID-19. “We weren’t planning to move that quickly, but everything was in place and ready,” he said. “It was a crazy year and a half. So many faculty had to learn so quickly. It was a challenge, but I’m glad I could help.” 

During his classes, he always encouraged students to use technology, but more importantly, to understand how technology can be used. “It’s not about the tools. The technology always going to be changing, so you can’t get too hung up on that. It’s about the pedagogy and what are you doing with the tools. It’s about what works.” 

A graduate of Calvin University, Snoeyink and his wife are considering a move back to the Grand Rapids, Mich., area to be closer to family. An avid bicyclist and photographer, he plans to continue those hobbies. “I would like to stay involved in learning somehow. One thing I’m thinking about would be bicycle mechanics class,” he said. 

Congratulations to both professors on this well-deserved honor! 

Trinity’s Education program has been recognized by Colleges of Distinction based on four key areas: engaged students; great teaching; vibrant communities; and successful outcomes.

Along with the Education program, Colleges of Distinction recognized Trinity in multiple categories for the 2020-21 academic year, including among  Christian colleges and Illinois colleges. Other areas recognized by the organization include:

—Nursing Programs

—Business Programs

—Career Development

“Trinity Christian College has been changing students’ lives since 1959,” Colleges of Distinction noted, citing the individualized attention students receive, along with our extensive network throughout Chicago and dedicated faculty. “Through a Biblically informed liberal arts education, the College community endeavors to provide an environment of Christian integrity and love, enhancing and supporting the entire learning experience.”

In honoring Trinity’s academic programs, the organization noted the stability, practical experience, and dedicated advising and counseling Trinity students receive.

Trinity’s career development work was also praised for its integrated career exploration and preparation; accessible programs and training; and career-centered staff.

Congratulations to Prof. of Education Bill Boerman-Cornell, Ph.D., on the publication of his new book, Using Graphic Novels in the English Language Arts Classroom. 

The book, co-written with Jung Kim, fills a gap about how graphic novels can be effectively used in junior high school classrooms. Drawing on research, surveys and classroom observations, it offers teachers ways to effectively incorporate graphic novels in their classrooms. 

According to Boerman-Cornell, graphic novels can be used in teaching English for more than just getting students’ attention and interest. “They can be used to helps students identify themes in literature (drawing on images as well as text), to analyze story structure (especially in contrast with regular text books. ) They can be used to learn literary interpretation. Contrasting a graphic novel’s adaptation of a book like To Kill a Mockingbird or King Lear can help students learn of the affordances and constraints of different formats,” he said. “And, learning to read graphic novels prepares students effectively for learning to get information form internet sources that communicate multimodally – using both images and text and the interplay between the two of them. Also, they are fun to read.”

Boerman-Cornell’s new book highlights two different studies already that show that graphic novels do not discourage students from reading regular text books. “Actually graphic novel readers tend to show increased interest in reading regular text books,” he said. “Our book doesn’t suggest that graphic novels should replace regular books, but they are worth being considered alongside them.”

For Boerman-Cornell, his love of reading graphic novels goes back to his childhood, when he discovered his cousin’s stash of comic books. “I read through them thoroughly – some old Marvel superhero books, Carl Barks’ run on Donald Duck, and a bunch of Classic Comics – Moby Dick, Ivanhoe, that sort of thing. My aunt noticed and for my birthday took me to a comic book store and gave me a $20 bill to spend as I wanted.”

Over the years, his love of reading comics expanded to include a love of reading anything. After majoring in English in college and working as an editor and writer, he went back to school and found himself teaching high school English. “I loved doing that, but noticed that some of the most intense conversations about reading that I heard were not in my classroom, but in the hallways, with kids talking about connections between Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

When he began his Ph.D., Art Spiegelman’s Maus had recently won the Pulitzer prize. “A lot of creators were using the graphic novel format to tell all sorts of stories: memoirs, non-fiction, realistic and fantasy novels, and a lot of graphic novels for kids. So, I ended up focusing my Ph.D. on ways to use graphic novels to effectively teach high school history. I have been researching how to use graphic novels in the classroom ever since.”

This is the second book Boerman-Cornell and Kim have collaborated on. In 2017, he, Kim and another graduate school colleague Michael Manderino wrote Graphic Novels in High School and Middle School Classrooms: A Disciplinary Literacies Approach. “That book was published by Rowman and Littlefield, a small academic publisher. It partly targeted an audience of researchers and argued that graphic novels offered a useful tool for reaching learning goals within each of the academic disciplines,” he said. “In history class, for example, it is important to get students to learn to recognize bias and perspective in primary source documents. Traditional textbooks, because they are printed with solid columns of Times New Roman Type and black and white documentary photographs, often seem like they are a purely objective summary of a particular historical event. Students are often reluctant to critique or question such a impressive looking book. A graphic novel like the award winning biography of U.S. Representative John Lewis, March, because it is presented in a format that appears less formal, is easier for students to question and interrogate.”

That book did reasonably well, he said. “But when my co-authors and I were speaking at conferences, we kept getting requests from English teachers for something that was directed specifically toward their subject area.” Manderino had just left Northern Illinois University to take a job as assistant superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction for Leyden High School. “But Dr. Jung Kim, a professor of literacy at Lewis University and I did some brainstorming and submitted a proposal to Bloomsbury and they accepted it. 

“Then it just took a year or so of writing, timed with a wonderful sabbatical from Trinity for me, and we were able to pull it together,” he said. 

Continuing a years – long tradition of excellence and recognition, Trinity Christian College has been named among the “Best Colleges” by U.S. News & World Report for 2021.  Trinity was ranked 21st among  Midwestern regional colleges in this year’s survey. Trinity was also named a “Best Value” college and a “Top Performer on Social Mobility.”

“At Trinity Christian College, our community is focused on providing a rigorous, life-changing education, and our graduates go on to find success in their careers and vocations,” said Trinity’s President Kurt D. Dykstra. “We are pleased that U.S. News & World Report has once again recognized how Trinity prepares our students to change the world.”

Said Provost Aaron J. Kuecker, Ph.D., “We are proud of the excellent academic programs that are supported by Trinity’s world class faculty. Rankings like these are a recognition of the top quality, whole-person vision of education that we pursue at Trinity.”

Trinity is frequently recognized for its high academic standards. The College’s honors include being named a “College of Distinction,” a “Best BSN Program in Illinois,” and a “National Strength and Conditioning Association Education Recognition Program,” among others. Trinity, which is a university partner with 1871, the world’s top university-affiliated startup incubator located in downtown Chicago, also has a world-class business department that recently led the State of Illinois with both the highest pass rates and average scores on the most recent certified public accounting (CPA) exam. The Trinity Athletics Department was also recently listed among the Champions of Character Five-Star institutions by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).

The U.S. News rankings are based on qualitative and quantitative information in several categories, including peer assessments, graduation rates, social mobility, and faculty information. The “Best Value” ranking is determined by a school’s academic quality and the net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid. The “Social Mobility” ranking is based on how successful a college is at advancing social mobility by enrolling and graduating large proportions of disadvantaged students awarded with Pell Grants.

–By Christy Wolff ’10

From the time Holli Moote ‘13 was young, she had her heart set on becoming a teacher. During her high school years, her love for music grew, which helped in her decision to teach music. In the years to follow, Moote learned from her own music teachers about what it took to become one herself. Four years at Trinity and two countries later, Moote is living out her passion by teaching music to children halfway around the globe.

Small class sizes and large performance groups at Trinity – specifically choir and band – gave Moote valuable class time and hands-on experiences throughout the time she was working on her degree. Moote especially appreciated the freedom she had in her music classes. On one occasion, she chose to study Icelandic music for a project. She located an Icelandic woman living in Chicago to help with the project — a benefit of Trinity’s campus being just 30 minutes from the diverse city of Chicago.

Moote always wanted to study overseas. However, with the significant courseload of the music education program, she simply didn’t have the capacity to fit a traditional semester abroad into her schedule. Dr. Joy Meyer, Trinity’s Dean of Education, helped Moote find an international student teaching placement through a Trinity alumnus in Indonesia. “This is when I fell in love with Indonesia,” Moote recalled. “The food, the people, the landscape, the weather – I loved everything about the country.”

Moote’s student teaching experience was focused on music and English, both of which aided in Moote’s growth as a teacher. A number of Trinity professors also visited Indonesia while Moote lived there. “They made a point to contact me and visit, which meant a lot,” Moote shared.

At the end of her placement, the school offered Moote a position, which she accepted. For five years following graduation, Moote taught middle and high school music classes. Knowing her heart was in elementary music, she felt pulled in a different direction with new opportunities in 2018: South Korea.

Currently living in Seoul, the bustling capital of South Korea, Moote found her dream job of teaching music to 350 students between second and fifth grade. “With teaching elementary students, there is still exploration and play associated with music. I enjoy helping kids grow and discover joyfully,” Moote said. The school she teaches at is made up of students from 60 different countries, with differing levels of English-speaking skills.

Moote also enjoys exploring a new region of the world, particularly the culture, food, and learning a new language. “I was able to travel around Korea this summer and got to see the countryside, beaches, and mountains around the country. Getting to see so many beautiful places helps me love it even more,” Moote shared.

Reflecting on her teaching journey that began at Trinity, Moote described how prepared she felt to teach abroad, thanks to Trinity’s professors and classroom experience. Moote recalls a project called “Building Bridges, Serving Communities” where Trinity students worked with local Muslims to begin cleaning up what is now known as the Cal-Sag Trail near campus, with the purpose of strengthening the community. “Connecting with people and loving people – that’s what Trinity does best,” Moote shared.

Moote is also thankful for the theology and philosophy classes she took at Trinity, which challenged her and prepared her to talk to people with different backgrounds and beliefs. “Living in a different country opens your eyes to the world and how many perspectives there are,” Moote said.

For Moote, Trinity wasn’t just a four-year college experience; she still connects with several professors as she is able to. “I felt seen and known at Trinity, and that continues even today,” Moote said. Through an incredible program, a global classroom perspective that capitalized on its location, and a community of people that took the time to understand her hopes and dreams, Moote is impacting lives all around the world through music. She embodies the Trinity spirit that seeks to live out their calling for good, for God, and for the world.

At the May 2020 commencement, Trinity announced the retirement of two beloved, long-time professors, Professor of Education Liz Rudenga, Ph.D., and Professor of Music Helen Van Wyck, D.M.A. Both professors were awarded emeriti status by Trinity’s Board of Trustees.

Dr. Liz Rudenga

Rudenga taught her first Education Department course at Trinity in 1981. She went on to impact the College in countless ways as a professor, department chair, provost, interim president, mentor, and friend.

She joined Trinity after teaching high school and upper elementary level students, with a focus on special education. She started teaching part-time and in 1992 joined Trinity’s faculty full time. Rudenga quickly began taking on more administrative roles. “In 1992, Vice President Burt Rozema asked if I would chair the Education Department. I agreed to do it for one year. But then, I liked it, and ended up chairing the department for eight years,” she said. Rudenga became provost in a similar way, when that one-year assignment lasted for 14. Rudenga also spent a year as interim president in 2014-15 before returning to the classroom when Trinity’s current president, Kurt D. Dykstra, was named.

“Some of my best memories involve the relationships with students. Being an advisor was a joy,” she said.

Trinity’s Education program has been recognized as a 2019-20 “College of Distinction.” The program was honored for its exemplary commitment to the four distinctions identified by the Colleges of Distinction organization: engaged students; great teaching; vibrant community; and successful outcomes.

Along with the Education program, Trinity overall was named a College of Distinction. Trinity was also recognized in several other areas, including: a Christian College of Distinction; Nursing College of Distinction; and Business College of Distinction.

Colleges of Distinction was founded on the premise that there are hundreds of remarkable colleges across the United States, each with a unique strength to offer the next generation of college-bound students.

Trinity’s education graduates leave our campus prepared to make a difference in a world that needs them. One way we do that is through our partnership with Southwest Chicago Christian School, where Trinity students get classroom experience. A Trinity student recently ran a small group with preschoolers by role-playing farmers and customers at the pumpkin patch.

(Photo courtesy of Southwest Chicago Christian School)

Congratulations to Dr. Bill Boerman-Cornell, Ph.D., Professor of Education, for being awarded the 2018 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention for the book “Graphic Novels in High School and Middle School Classrooms: A Disciplinary Literacies Approach.”

The book, which was published last year by Rowman & Littlefield, was coauthored with Jung Kim and Michael L. Manderino

Since 1902, the Society of Professors of Education has provided a forum for addressing the issues facing the discipline and vocation of education. The awards ceremony will take place on April 14 in New York.

According to the publisher, “The ultimate guide for using graphic novels in any middle school or high school classroom, this book considers how the graphic novel format can support critical thinking and help reach disciplinary goals in history, English language arts, science, math, fine arts, and other subjects. Using specific graphic novels as examples, this book considers how to help students read, question, and write about both fiction and non-fiction. Whether teachers are new to graphic novels or have been working with them for years, this book will help improve instruction.”

At Trinity, we prepare our Education majors for the classroom. And our recent 100% pass rate on the Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) for traditional undergraduate students is further proof of that.

“This is a great testament to our students’ abilities and the education they receive at Trinity,” said Dr. Rick Snoeyink, professor of education. “The edTPA is a strong indication of what teachers face in the classroom.”

And Trinity graduates agree that they are prepared when they enter the classroom. “Trinity (and the edTPA) prepared me so well for my first evaluation in the real teaching world!” one graduate recently reported. “All of the reflections, full-out lesson planning, and observations are worth more than I could’ve ever known.”

edTPA is a performance-based, subject-specific assessment and support system used by teacher preparation programs to emphasize, measure and support the skills and knowledge that all teachers need from Day 1 in the classroom. The assessment features a common architecture focused on three tasks: Planning, Instruction, and Assessment.

Trinity offers majors in art education, biology education, business education, chemistry education, elementary education, English education, mathematics education, middle grades education, music education, physical education, Spanish education, and special education.