The "Phelps Scholars Program" will allow an
  ethnically-diverse group of freshmen to live in the same
  residence hall, where in addition to living together they
  will have an opportunity to enroll in courses examining
  cultural diversity.
          The program, which will begin in the fall of 1999,
  is intended to surround the participants with a broader mix
  of students than normally found at the college while at the
  same time using the living situation as a starting point for
  discussing questions facing society generally, according to
  Dr. John H. Jacobson, president of Hope College.
          "The Phelps Scholars Program is intended to bring
  together minority students and majority students in a
  setting in which they can share ideas and information, and
  also come to know each other," Jacobson said.  "It
  represents a significant commitment to producing an
  educationally valuable interaction between majority and
  minority students, and creating an environment in which the
  presence of minority students is helpful to majority
  students, and vice versa, and in which the ideal of
  community can be realized."
          The program is coordinated through the college's
  Provost's Office in collaboration with the Office of Student
  Development and the Admissions Office, linking the students'
  academic and residential experiences.  The program's
  director is Dr. Charles Green, who is a professor of
  psychology at Hope.
          One of the goals is to immerse the participants in
  a living setting that reflects the nation's ethnicity, so
  that they can be better equipped to function and contribute
  after graduation.
          Projections anticipate that minorities in the
  United States will collectively be in the majority by the
  end of the next century.  Hope's current enrollment is about
  92 percent Caucasian.
          "What we're trying to do is create a living and
  learning setting that serves as a model for students,
  regardless of ethnicity, that this is the way the world
  looks and that this is the way the world is," said D. Wesley
  Poythress, who is assistant dean for multicultural life and
  liaison to the college's president for minority
  participation.  "One of the themes for this program is that
  everyone has something to give and everyone has something to
  share, if they would just not be afraid to do so."
          "Yes, they will have issues, they might have
  disagreements, but then they will have collaborations, they
  will have interactions and they will have new experiences,"
  he said.  "The biggest thing is that they will grow, and I
  believe they will grow in ways they might never thought they
  would or could."
          "I believe the Phelps Scholars Program will serve
  as a shining example of how we as individuals can learn from
  our differences as well as our similarities and build from
  there," Poythress said.
          The goal of the program is to begin with 45
  students in the first year.  In addition to living in the
  same residence hall, which is still being chosen, all of the
  students will be enrolled in one of three new, fall-semester
  "First-Year Seminars" that will explore diversity-related
  topics.  In the spring, they'll each enroll in an "Encounter
  with Cultures" course on racial and ethnic sub-cultures in
  the United States.  The students will also participate in
  workshops and group discussions on practical aspects of
  living and working in a diverse community.
          The seminars and workshops will take place in the
  residence hall, "Just to send the message that what we're
  studying in the classroom relates to decisions we make about
  how we live our lives," according to Green.
          The program will be open to all regularly-admitted
  members of the incoming freshman class.  The students will
  be given an opportunity to apply to participate, with the
  final mix selected to include majority and minority students
  alike.
          "We want a diverse student group," Green said.
  "If the students are not from various places in the country
  and around the world, and don't represent different groups,
  then this program won't work as intended."
          While a major emphasis will be placed on
  benefiting all participants, the college is also hoping that
  the program will help provide a comfortable environment for
  minority students in particular, according to Jacobson.  The
  hope is that with a higher proportion of minority students
  in the program, and its emphasis on diversity issues, Hope's
  appeal will be enhanced--and that the effect will multiply
  with time.
          "Hope College has a program that is exactly right
  for many minority as well as majority students," he said.
  "And yet we have to recognize that sometimes participation
  at colleges like Hope is difficult for minority students."
          Jacobson noted that the Phelps Scholars Program is
  part of a comprehensive plan that is taking many approaches
  to improving minority participation at the college, by
  focusing on minority student recruitment and retention,
  increasing the presence of minority faculty and staff, and
  emphasizing cultural understanding.  "The Phelps Scholars
  Program is an excellent program, but instead of doing some
  one thing, we have to be working on many aspects of the
  situation simultaneously," he said.
          Palesa Mazamisa, a senior from South Africa, has
  been involved in planning discussions as the Phelps Scholars
  Program has taken shape.  She noted that she faced
  challenges as a freshman, particularly in her housing
  situation, that the Phelps Scholars Program would have
  helped address.
          "At least for me, a place like this would be
  helpful because then you'd have a group of students who are
  willing to address and look at issues of diversity," she
  said.  "That doesn't mean that they'll know how to live with
  issues of diversity, but at least they'll have that intent,
  that good intent of doing so."
          According to Green, the Phelps Scholars Program
  began developing from the experience of Dr. Steven Spencer,
  a member of the Hope psychology faculty from 1995 to 1997.
  As a graduate student working with Dr. Claude Steele at the
  University of Michigan, Spencer had studied the university's
  successful "Twenty-first Century" program, which also brings
  together minority and majority students in a supportive
  residential situation.
          The Hope program's name, Green noted, was
  suggested by the college's provost, Dr. Jacob E. Nyenhuis,
  in recognition of the emphasis that Hope's first president,
  the Rev. Philip Phelps Jr., had placed on developing a
  diverse student body.  The six members of the Class of 1879,
  for example, included two students from Japan, one of whom
  was the valedictorian.
          "Hope's very first president, back in a time when
  Holland was literally a colony of Dutch immigrants, said
  that our students deserved an opportunity to study at a
  college where they were meeting people from all over the
  country and all over the world, and took some very active
  steps to diversify the student body from the very
  beginning," Green said.  "So in a way, although we're going
  about it quite differently from the way Philip Phelps went
  about it, we're harkening back to an idea that is as old as
  the college."

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