Stephen Hemenway has taught English at Hope College since 1972 and has directed the college’s Vienna Summer School since 1976. More than 2,600 students have participated under his tutelage. 2020 will be his 45th year in a row in charge of this 64-year-old international program. Dr. Hemenway has taught an Expository Writing I course called “Crime and Punishment” for 48 years. He has taught many survey courses of:

• Western World Literature 1 and 2
• Early British Literature
• Modern British Literature
• Modern American Literature
• Modern Drama
• Catholic Fiction
• African-American Literature
• Literature of India
• Global Race Matters

He has taught upper-level courses on the writings of James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Ernest Hemingway and the Beatnik Generation. He has conducted distinctive senior seminar courses on campus and in Vienna and directed many independent studies. In the field of creative writing, he has taught courses in satire and creative nonfiction. Before coming to Hope, he taught for one year at St. Mary’s College in Above Rocks, Jamaica, West Indies, for the Jesuit Mission Program, and for one year as a Fulbright teacher at Panjab University, Chandigarh, India.

Education 

• Ph.D., English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1972
• M.A., English, Boston College, 1967
• A.B., English, College of the Holy Cross, 1964

Selected honors, grants and awards

• Distinguished Service Awards, Hope College, 2001, 2010, 2015
• Dedication of Fried-Hemenway Auditorium in Martha Miller Global Education Building, 2005
• Hope Outstanding Professor Educator (HOPE) Award, Hope College student body, 1977
• First recipient of the Hope College Vanderbush–Weller Award for extraordinary contributions to students’ lives, 1999
• Named Michigan Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, 1992
• Knight’s Cross First Class, Order of Merit of the Republic of Austria, 1991

Selected presentations and publications 

• “I Believe in Vienna,” address to honor the 60th anniversary of Hope College Vienna Summer School and the 90th anniversary of the Austro-American Institute of Education, 2016
• Hope Beyond Borders: The Life and Letters of Paul Fried, Van Raalte Press, 2014
• Convocation speaker, Hope College, 2004
• Commencement speaker, Hope College, 1981
• The Novel of India, Vol. 1: The Anglo-Indian Novel, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1975
• The Novel of India, Vol. 2: The Anglo-Indian Novel, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1976

Outside the community 

Dr. Hemenway is active at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Holland and serves on the advisory board to Hope College’s Saint Benedict Institute, which seeks to strengthen and encourage Catholic students at Hope College and engage them about important issues from an explicitly Catholic perspective. He speaks regularly to community groups on topics that range from Beatnik writers to French films, from African-American authors to the life of Dr. Paul Fried.