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Thursday, January 18, 2007

 

Calvin College is establishing a new center that will help Christian school administrators better do their jobs

January 18, 2007 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: Calvin College is establishing a new center that will help Christian school administrators better do their jobs. A $2 million gift is funding the center and Dr. Shirley Roels has been named the first director.

Contact Shirley Roels at 616-526-6557
For the full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2006-07/vanlunen-center.htm

An innovative new center at Calvin College will bring fresh resources to beleaguered Christian school administrators.

The VanLunen Center for Executive Management in Christian Schools is being established at Calvin thanks to a $2 million gift to the college from the Richard D. VanLunen Foundation. The Center's purpose will be to provide world-class executive management education for heads of schools based on the historic Christian faith (of which there are some 20,000 across the continent).

The center will serve faith-based schools large and small across the U.S. and Canada. And it will practice a big-tent philosophy, reaching out to schools from a wide range of faith traditions, including Catholic, evangelical Protestant, Episcopal, independent Christian, Lutheran and Reformed Christian day schools.

Gordon VanderBrug, a trusteee with the VanLunen Foundation, says Calvin was a natural choice to host the center.

"We were looking for an institution that had a solid understanding of Christian schools and was excellent in management education," he says, "and we found it in Calvin College."

Dr. Shirley Roels has just been appointed as the first VanLunen Center director and will shift into the role after a 27-year career at Calvin that has seen her serve the college in a variety of ways, including as a professor of business management and the dean of academic administration. She will continue to serve as director of the Lilly Vocation Program.

Roels says now is a critical time for such a center.

She notes that many schools with a clear Christian mission, sound strategy and good planning are growing, but that the role of Christian school heads is changing -- often times in dramatic ways.

Jim Marsh, head of school at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis, Missouri, where he has served for two decades, agrees.

He says the role has seen a significant shift from internal to external, requiring skills and capacities far different from those of an educational leader who comes up through the ranks of the schoolhouse.

"School leadership is becoming more complex and challenging," he says. "Boards are looking to the head, the CEO if you will, to set and keep the school’s vision, take significant leadership in fundraising and strategic planning, and recruit and retain the best and brightest faculty and staff."

Echoing those sentiments is Bill Burke, head of school at St Sebastian's, a Catholic school in Needham, Mass.

He says a three-day course he took years ago on developing executive leadership (in which he was the only educator among 40 participants) was one of the most memorable experiences of his career. And he is eager to see the VanLunen Center make such experiences available to educators around the continent.

"The center will fill a huge void," he says. "It is an idea whose time is long overdue. I can't wait to get started."

Roels is eager to tap into that kind of excitement and to connect to educational leaders from a wide range of circles.

"The cultivation of senior leaders from many ethnic groups, both men and women, is important," she says. "God's church includes people from every culture and future Christian schools should mirror such diversity."

Contact Shirley Roels at 616-526-6557
For the full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2006-07/vanlunen-center.htm

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About Religion Press Release Services
Religion Press Release Services distributes press releases, press advisories, photos and other stories on behalf of religious organizations, denominational offices, think tanks, watchdog groups, advocacy groups, coalitions, foundations, colleges, universities, seminaries, publishers and others. The organizations and/or individuals who submit materials for distribution by Religion Press Release Services are solely responsible for the facts in and accuracy of their materials. Religion Press Release Services will correct any errors brought to its attention.

Contact Us
To distribute press releases through Religion Press Release Services, contact Claudia Sans at csans@religionnews.com or 202-383-7870. For more information check out our PDF brochure.

Religion News Service, 1101 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036 (202) 463-8777

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