This year's Commencement speaker will be the Dr.
  Steven Bouma-Prediger, associate professor of religion.
  The Baccalaureate sermon will be delivered by the Rev. Dr.
  Charles Van Engen, who is the 1997-98 president of the
  General Synod of the Reformed Church in America and a member
  of the faculty at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena,
  Calif.  Van Engen's daughter Anita is a member of the
  graduating Class of '98.
          Commencement will be held on Sunday, May 3, at 3
  p.m. in Holland Municipal Stadium.  Baccalaureate will be
  held on Sunday, May 3, at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. in
  Dimnent Memorial Chapel.
          Bouma-Prediger has been a member of the Hope
  faculty since 1994, and has been an adjunct professor of
  theology and ethics at Western Theological Seminary since
  1996.  His areas of specialization include the philosophy of
  religion and philosophical theology, philosophy and theology
  of nature, ecological ethics and Christian theology.
          His book "The Greening of Theology:  The
  Ecological Models of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joseph
  Sittler, and Jurgen Moltmann" was published in 1995, and he
  is co-author of the 1996 monograph "Assessing the Ark:  A
  Christian Perspective on Species and the Endangered Species
  Act," written with Virginia Vroblesky.  He is also the
  author of numerous scholarly articles and reviews.
          From 1990 to 1994, Bouma-Prediger was an assistant
  professor of philosophy and chair of the department at North
  Park College in Chicago, Ill.  While he was at North Park
  College, "The Chicago Tribune" named him to its 1994 "All
  Professor II" academic team, which recognized 50 outstanding
  faculty from smaller Chicago-area colleges and universities.
          He was a member of the philosophy faculty at North
  Park Theological Seminary in Chicago from 1992 to 1994, and
  at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1993.
          He graduated from Hope in 1979.  He holds a
  master's degree in philosophy from the Institute for
  Christian Studies of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, a master of
  divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a doctorate
  from the University of Chicago.
          His wife, Celaine, is also a 1979 Hope graduate.
  They have three children, Anna, Chara and Sophia.
          Van Engen is the Arthur F. Glasser Professor of
  Biblical Theology of Mission in the School of World Mission
  at Fuller Theological Seminary.  He was elected vice
  president of the RCA's General Synod in 1996, and president
  in 1997.  He will be receiving a Distinguished Alumni Award
  from Hope on Saturday, May 2.
          He has been on the faculty at Fuller Theological
  Seminary since 1988, and was appointed to his endowed chair
  in 1996.  From 1985 to 1988, he was an assistant professor
  of missiology at Western Theological Seminary.
          He was previously a missionary for the RCA for 12
  years, from 1973 to 1975, working with his wife, Jean, with
  the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico in the state of
  Chiapas.  He was a youth pastor in California from 1971 to
  1972.
          Van Engen is the author or editor of more than 20
  books, including "God's Missionary People:  Rethinking the
  Purpose of the Local Church" (1991) and "Mission on the Way:
  Issues in Mission Theology" (1996).  During the past 20
  years, he has preached, taught and spoken on mission
  extensively in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, Asia
  and the United States.
          He graduated from Hope in 1970.  He holds a master
  of divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and
  doctorandus and Ph.D. degrees from the Free University of
  Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
          Van Engen's wife, Jean, is also a 1970 Hope
  graduate.  In addition to Anita, they have two other
  children, Amelia and Andrew.
          In the event of rain, Commencement will be held at
  the Holland Civic Center.  Admission to Baccalaureate, and
  by Commencement if indoors, is by ticket only.

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