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Trinity Christian College has announced the launch of its new Graduate Studies programs, scheduled to begin in fall 2012. Trinity’s Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology and Master of Arts in Special Education will be offered at the College’s main campus in Palos Heights.
“Our presence in the Chicago metropolitan area, coupled with the applied nature of both of these programs, answers the growing need for graduate study from a Christian perspective in the helping professions,” said President Steven Timmermans, Ph.D.
Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology 
Those seeking an advanced degree in psychology can earn their M.A. in Counseling Psychology through either a two-year or three-year program option. Courses are blended with online instruction and evening face-to-face classes. Graduates of the program will meet the educational requirements for Licensed Professional Counselors (LPCs) in the state of Illinois.
“I am grateful to our Lord Jesus Christ that Trinity is able to offer a quality graduate program in Counseling Psychology based on a Christian worldview and designed to educate and train professional counselors in the latest counseling methods and scientific research,” said Dr. Michael DeVries, director of the Counseling Psychology Graduate Studies Program.
Master of Arts in Special Education
Certified regular education teachers looking to add expertise and credentials necessary for teaching a wide range of students—from those with learning disabilities to those with severe multiple impairments—can join the M.A. in Special Education program. This program is designed for State of Illinois Learning Behavior Specialist 1 (LBS1) certification. Students earn their master’s in 1½ years by means of online and face-to-face evening classes. Other options are available for obtaining an LBS1 endorsement or certification without the master’s degree.
“We are excited that we will be offering a Christ-centered program,” said Dr. Patti Powell, director of the Special Education Graduate Studies Program. “Our proximity to Elim Christian School offers our program access to quality professionals in the field of special education as guest lecturers and the chance to interact with children with a variety of disabilities.”
For more information, visit graduatestudies.trnty.edu or call the Graduate Studies office at 708.239.3900.
Clutching pillows and approaching the Blueprints welcome table surrounded by family members, new Trinity students began their college adventure at the annual registration weekend on June 29 and 30.
Blueprints gives students an opportunity to connect with future roommates, classmates, and professors; register for classes; and get acquainted with their new community.
Friday highlights included the president’s barbecue dinner; evening worship; gaming and sports activities; and movies late into the night. Students began Saturday at the faculty-hosted breakfast, followed by one-on-one advising sessions.
The Professor Open House provided more time for questions and answers, and the Information Expo supplied students and parents with information about campus organizations, and local churches, banks, and businesses. Students then attended sessions about the First Year Experience and life at Trinity.
Clutching pillows and approaching the Blueprints welcome table surrounded by family members, new Trinity students began their college adventure at the annual registration weekend on June 29 and 30.
Blueprints gives students an opportunity to connect with future roommates, classmates, and professors; register for classes; and get acquainted with their new community.
Friday highlights included the president’s barbecue dinner; evening worship; gaming and sports activities; and movies late into the night. Students began Saturday at the faculty-hosted breakfast, followed by one-on-one advising sessions.
The Professor Open House provided more time for questions and answers, and the Information Expo supplied students and parents with information about campus organizations, and local churches, banks, and businesses. Students then attended sessions about the First Year Experience and life at Trinity.
Harold Boyd ’10 grew up in the Roseland community on the south side of Chicago and began attending Roseland Christian Reformed Church around the age of 10. As a child, he enjoyed the fellowship he found at Roseland Christian Ministries (RCM) and remembers the year Joe Huizenga ’01, pastor of Roseland CRC, was an intern from Trinity.
Today Boyd, who also served as an intern as a Trinity student, works with Huizenga at RCM to bring the message of salvation to the community, as well as support services such as interim housing for homeless mothers and their children. Boyd recently began a newly created position as youth director and pastor, roles he fills with several years of experience of working with children and a heart for being a missionary to his community.
After graduating from Trinity with a bachelor’s degree in theology, Boyd ventured to the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, where he served with Mission Year, a year-long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. One of six team members, Boyd lived in a trailer park in Atlanta’s East Point neighborhood, becoming part of the Hispanic community he served. As part of that community, he and his team worked through a local church to tutor and mentor children.
Soon after he began his work, Boyd was featured by CNN in a story about Mission Year and the low numbers of African Americans in the mission field. “We can be missionaries to our communities, and once we live a mission life there, then we can go out to other places,” he said.
Although Boyd’s time in Atlanta ended in July, he continues to work as a Mission Year alumni mentor with team members serving in Roseland for the next year.
At RCM, two of the youth offerings Boyd oversees include Transforming Minds, an after-school program, and Daughters of Zion, a program that helps girls develop their self esteem and reinforces moral messages. He hopes to develop a similar program for boys called Men of Honor but emphasized the great need for more long-term volunteers to serve the children.
The cornerstone of Erie Neighborhood House in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood reads: “To the glory of God and the service of his children.” Emily Hunter ’11, a sociology major while at Trinity, spent her last semester navigating the narrow hallways of the building that houses an organization that has served the immigrant populations of Chicago for over 100 years.
Hunter’s role during her Chicago Semester internship with the organization focused on immigration services, helping people with such tasks as applying for citizenship.
Working in the citizenship program also gave the Spanish minor an opportunity to hone her foreign language skills as she interacted with clients and facilitated some computer classes for women in the community and English-as-a-Second-Language classes for students.
Hunter’s interest in the area of immigration developed when she was a college freshman. “Many of my friends at Trinity were international students on student visas,” she said. “These relationships piqued my interest in people emigrating from other countries and the challenges they face.”
She continued to nurture her interests through her participation in Trinity’s student organizations, including the Social Justice Chapter, Service Committee, and Acting on Aids. Hunter also took advantage of one of the College’s other study abroad options, Semester in Spain, which immersed her in Spanish culture for an entire semester of experiential learning in Seville.
Chicago Semester expanded Hunter’s understanding of culture and immigration as it relates to life in the United States and specifically to the city of Chicago.
These experiences will aid Hunter as she travels to Spain this fall to work for the Ministry of Education as a cultural ambassador in the province of Extremadura. There she will serve as a stand-in representative of North American culture, educating students about the United States and assisting in the teaching of English at El Instituto de Educacion Secundaria Llerena, in Llerena, Badajoz.
In a world of dinosaur bones, mummies, and ancient artifacts from around the globe, media producer Emily Ward ’09 works with her team at Chicago’s Field Museum to produce informational videos for various exhibits. The museum attracts thousands of visitors viewing its collections of millions of specimens.
For a while during her Trinity education, Ward was “running two tracks.” She loved the study of mathematics but began working with video production and discovered not only a love, but a talent, for the medium during a Trinity Interim trip to Nicaragua.
The trip fed both her ever-present desire to travel and her interest in visual storytelling. Along with fellow Trinity student Jordan Huenink ’07, Ward created a video about the Nehemiah Center, a trans-denominational ministry and community development effort of Nicaraguan leaders and North American missionaries.
Ward later returned to the country and to the Center during Trinity’s Semester in Nicaragua. Students participating in the program are provided with an internship at the Nehemiah Center and live with host families, as they immerse themselves in a new culture. As part of her experiential learning, Ward produced yet another video, this time pursuing the answer to a question she had begun to ask herself each morning.
Being a socially conscious college student, Ward wondered where her coffee came from, besides the local grocery or corner coffeehouse. “I wanted to know whose hands were laboring for my morning cup of coffee,” she explains in her documentary Harvest: the journey to a small coffee farm, in which Ward explores first-hand the meaning of “fair trade” in the coffee industry.
An internship with Cultivate Studios, followed by her next semester program at Trinity, kept Ward a little closer to home as she took advantage of the College’s proximity to Chicago and enrolled in Chicago Semester.
The experience also opened the door for her to work at the Field Museum where Ward interned as part of her semester education. After graduation, she continued working as a summer intern at the museum and was eventually hired full time.
When Matthew Vander Laan ’97 was a senior at Trinity, he took an internship in Chicago at Edelman, a leading independent global public relations firm. “I was hired on full time before I even graduated, and that internship experience set the stage for the next 15 years of my life,” he said.
Today as Edelman’s executive vice president for corporate affairs, Vander Laan leads a team of 20 professionals who develop public relations campaigns for Fortune 500 clients.
Originally a pre-med major who excelled at science and planned to become a doctor, Vander Laan said that after taking courses in English, theology, philosophy, and art, he discovered that working with the “other side” of his brain was even more fun and interesting. “Professors Michael Vander Weele ’73, Dan Diephouse, Virginia La Grand, Annalee Ward, and others really helped me unlock my critical thinking and writing skills.”
Vander Laan eventually changed his major to English and worked as the editor of the Courier,Trinity’s student newspaper, and as a reporter for the Regional News in Palos Heights. These experiences proved beneficial to his future work. “It helped hone my sense for what people find interesting, engaging, and provocative,” he said. “Everyone wants to hear a good story, and I put that core idea to work for my clients every day.”
From the perspective of a professional working in Chicago, Vander Laan advises students to not only enjoy the cultural and entertainment options but to look at the city and its people through the eyes of what they’ve learned on Trinity’s campus.
“If we learn to see the world through the lens of God’s sovereignty, the centrality of Christ, and the hopelessness of sin, then we realize the city provides an intense display of both unimaginable beauty and utter brokenness. Such sharp juxtapositions force you to sharpen your observing, evaluating, and thinking skills in ways that more homogeneous surroundings just can’t,” said Vander Laan.
“Trinity, with its proximity to the city, is a great place to learn these habits of heart and mind.”
After graduation, Osvaldo Montelongo ’11, a business and Spanish major, secured a position at the company where he interned during his Chicago Semester experience.
Montelongo enrolled in the Chicago Semester program with this exact goal in mind. “I wanted to finish my last semester at Trinity with an internship that opened doors to potential jobs in the Chicagoland area.”
His internship at Sunstar Americas, Inc., a member of the Sunstar Group of companies that serves oral health care professionals and consumers in 90 countries, provided Montelongo with international business experience. He said the Chicago Semester program allowed him to apply his Trinity education in real world business situations.
“The internship had great benefits for me,” said Montelongo. “I was encouraged by management to grow into an international professional.” The company has continued to help the recent graduate reach that goal, offering Montelongo a position as an international product line manager.
“I loved working at Sunstar as an intern, so when they asked me if I would be interested in working for them again, I accepted the position,” he said. “I’ve always had a passion for working internationally, and this is the perfect fit for me. God is faithful!”
As a manager, Montelongo will be responsible for Sunstar’s oral care product lines throughout Latin America, including Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia, providing product branding, positioning, development of new products, and communicating effectively to customers in Latin America.
“I look forward to learning about my products and how they’ll perform in my Latin American markets,” he said. “And I’m excited about the international travel.”
Every morning, Crystal Williams ’11 walks along one of the Great Avenues of the World, passing lovely streetscapes, fine dining restaurants, high-end retail stores, and luxury hotels to reach her office at The Greater North Michigan Avenue Association (GNMAA), which represents more than 700 businesses interested in promoting Chicago’s Magnificent Mile as a world-class destination.
Williams, an administrative assistant and assistant to the program director, first began working with GNMAA during her Chicago Semester internship in the spring of 2011, her last semester as a Trinity business major. As a student, Williams was a recipient of the Academic Excellence, Diversity Leadership, and Dining Hall scholarships. She was a First Year Forum mentor and a student manager in the cafeteria for three years. That experience taught her management skills and led to an interest in event planning.
Williams was thrilled to secure an internship with the Association as an event planning coordinator, developing promotional pieces for events, attending community meetings, and creating surveys to gather feedback from Association members.
When her Chicago Semester ended, Williams’ work at the GNMAA did not. She was asked to stay through the summer and was later offered her current position.
“What I love most about my job is meeting with my committees, sitting around the table in our conference room, taking a blank canvas, and creating successful events,” said Williams. Some of her summer projects included planning and promotion for the Magnificent Red Carpet Boat Cruise and the ACCESS event (Admission to Chicago’s Coolest Experiences on the Summer Scene).
“I always think back to my Chicago Semester and my internship,” she said. “I am grateful and thankful to God that he blessed me with a spectacular job right out of college.”
The professor effortlessly navigates the sidewalks crisscrossing campus, his guide cane tapping along the paths he has walked for the past 33 years.
From his house that sits adjacent to Trinity’s campus, he walks the short distance to the classroom building, contemplating how he will most effectively teach history today while resting in the pleasure of this daily walk and the contentment he finds in anticipating his destination.
Dr. Robert Rice, who was honored with the inaugural Professor of the Year award at Trinity’s May Commencement ceremony, acutely feels the weight of his responsibility as a professor despite his many years of experience. He has high expectations of himself, sometimes demanding perfection while simultaneously experiencing moments of doubt.
“I impose perfection for myself but not for others, but perfection can immobilize. I’m responsible but not sovereign,” he said, adding, “except two times a year when I make my syllabi.”
Born with some sight in one eye, Rice said that through God’s grace and the support of his family, he quickly accepted the eventual and complete loss of his sight at the age of 15. “Most people who have lost their sight hold on to the loss, but when you get stuck with loss, it shapes how you deal with people,” said Rice. “I gave it up before I lost it. Blindness is a significant part of my life, but it is only one strand of brokenness in God’s good world.”
Rice teaches mainly European and global history and notes that the curriculum is difficult and requires a great deal of reading, critiquing, and “taking on the hard stuff.” For Rice, some of the hard stuff involves Christianity in the classroom. “Christianity can’t be an ‘add on,’” he said. “It can be hard work to integrate faith into the curriculum, but it is imperative to do so.”
So he and his students look at how culture responds to God’s call and in turn gain an understanding of culture and Christian faithfulness. These were also lessons Rice began learning at a very young age, along with a heightened awareness of the world outside his home.
Rice’s father was a veteran, and family vacations centered around culture, with visits to museums and fortifications. “My parents had an infectious interest in global affairs and a sense of past and present, and they were hopeful people.”
He recalls that at age five, he watched his first TV program when his parents gathered their children together to witness an important event, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. All these experiences opened his mind early. “I grew up with a sense of global interest, an awareness of the world beyond my home and neighborhood.”
At the age of only six, Rice’s neighborhood became the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia, 75 miles away from the family he loved. The experience of leaving home was traumatic, but he felt fortunate to return home each weekend and every summer, an impossibility for many of the school’s children.
Rice believes that living at the school all the way through high school graduation in 1965 helped him to “look outside self.” He said, “I learned early to listen and to develop greater empathy toward others.”
That empathy was especially felt for those who were disconnected or distant from their homes and those who were marginalized in society.
So the boy who, at 12, announced to his seventh grade science teacher one afternoon that he planned to teach history held on to that pronouncement with the same conviction that the world was an expansive and enthralling place that he was called to care for, learn from, and one day teach others about.
Rice went on to earn his bachelor’s degree from Houghton College in New York and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois in Urbana. Throughout his college education, he carried his early experiences with him. And those most important lessons he carries with him still…and into the classroom.
The connection with his students and with Trinity runs deep. Rice believes in caring for “the whole person” and “treasures” advising students, preferring to refer to those who are undecided as “still deciding.” He and his wife, Gail, served as resident directors at Trinity for over six years, and their former campus apartment has long been occupied by department offices and a classroom in Groot Hall. (Gail, the longest-running volunteer tutor in the PACE program at Cook County Jail—33 years—used to accompany groups of student volunteers to the jail.) Rice has also served on various committees to encourage diversity on campus, and this year was a recipient of the Catherine Yonker Award for those efforts.
Being chosen as Professor of the Year was uplifting, affirming, and very surprising, especially with so many deserving faculty, said Rice.
At the end of the day, the professor who has saved every student evaluation since 1979 walks through his Trinity “neighborhood” to his home, reflecting on the day’s classes. “These are the things I could do better” or “This went well,” he thinks. He knows awards are lovely but that life is about so much more; he knows that the world stretches far beyond the well-worn paths we see before us.
Thoughts from the Trinity community
Dr. Liz Rudenga, provost
“Bob is an amazing, talented professor whose characteristic commitment to teaching and scholarship has been remarkable over his 33 years of service. His voice is one that is valued and respected, for colleagues know that Bob thinks carefully and enters into conversations with wisdom. Bob exemplifies the Trinity professor – he cares about students and their learning, challenges them in their vocational calling, and knows and explains well the interweaving of faith and learning.”
Dr. Michael Vander Weele ’73, professor of English
“In a family or a church or a college it takes more than one person to create a welcoming space, that is, a space that people can go out from in their own orbits and also return again and again to be together. Both the going out and the return are part of their identity. We know, perhaps better than Bob does, what an important stake he has had in holding such [spaces] up, whether through warm humor…or through principled thought and action, or through affection. I think that was affirmed in his receiving Trinity’s first ever Professor of the Year award this last year.”
Dr. John Fry, professor of history
“Bob is the most approachable professor that I know. He knows European history inside and out, and he knows how to communicate his passion for the subject to students. Bob’s teaching is centered on a Christian perspective on history.”
Dr. Mackenzi Huyser ’98, dean for faculty development and academic programs
“I find Bob to be an incredibly caring colleague. He seeks opportunities to honor colleagues for their work. He is knowledgeable about the work of each and always has an encouraging word about this work. He shares this encouragement in phone calls/voicemails and on the sidewalk. Bob is also always willing to help out with any task that is needed. From meeting with and advising undeclared students to chairing significant committees. He is always willing to serve.”
Joy Meyer ’78, assistant professor of education
“I find Bob Rice to be a man of integrity, inquiry, knowledge, and peace. He always has a kind word of encouragement. Students who have had him in class are in awe of his knowledge and appreciate his pedagogical style. In the class he is affirming, yet challenging. I know Bob is a man of God and serves him in many ways on campus and in church. He has been a powerful influence on the ethnic diversity committee. I enjoy Bob and congratulate him for this award.”