Original research by Hope students on topics ranging from the foraging efficiency of sparrows, to the effect of high-tempo music on sprint swimming, to anti-immigrant violence in the United Kingdom, to Don Quixote and social media will be highlighted during the college’s annual A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity on Friday, April 11, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Richard and Helen DeVos Fieldhouse.
The public is invited. Admission and refreshments are free.
The A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity is designed to spotlight the quality and importance of student-faculty collaborative research at the college. It is scheduled in advance of national Undergraduate Research Week, designated by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) and running April 21-25.
Hundreds of Hope students engage in research with faculty mentors part-time during the school year and full-time for several weeks each summer. They regularly present their research at regional and national conferences and publish their research as co-authors with their faculty mentors.
The April 11 event will feature 203 research projects presented by 354 Hope students, who along with 40 others conducted the work with 117 mentors at Hope as well as off-campus. The students and their projects will represent all of the college’s academic divisions — the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural and applied sciences — and 26 departments and programs.
Most of the presentations will feature posters illustrating the projects, with students on-hand to discuss their work. The displays fill the basketball and volleyball courts and concourse of the fieldhouse. As a new addition this year, more than two dozen of the students will be making brief oral presentations in adjoining classrooms about their research.
Hope first held the celebration in 2001. Underwritten by Gentex Corporation, it was renamed beginning with last year’s event to honor A. Paul Schaap and Carol C. Schaap, who have long been ardent supporters of Hope and the sciences.
To inquire about accessibility or if you need accommodations to fully participate in the event, please email accommodations@hope.edu. Updates related to events are posted when available at hope.edu/calendar in the individual listings.
The DeVos Fieldhouse is located at 222 Fairbanks Ave., between Ninth and 11th streets.
The History and Recognition of Collaborative Faculty-Student Research at Hope
Research has a long and storied history at Hope. More than 100 years ago, biologist Dr. Samuel O. Mast designed research laboratory space for the college’s Van Raalte Hall, which opened in 1903. The late Dr. Gerrit Van Zyl, who taught chemistry at the college from 1923 to 1964, is widely recognized for developing research-based learning at Hope in its modern sense.
Hope has received national recognition in a variety of ways through the years for its success in teaching through collaborative faculty-student research, and for the high quality of the research itself. As one current example, the most recent Best Colleges guide published by U.S. News & World Report, published this past fall, ranks Hope 31st nationwide among all of the country’s 4,000 degree-granting postsecondary institutions for student research experiences. In February, the “2025 Research Activity Designations” report released by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching included Hope among the top 30 undergraduate-only institutions in the nation for extensive research activity.
Among other acclaim historically, in 1994 Project Kaleidoscope named the program in the natural applied sciences a “Whole Program That Works” — a model for other institutions to emulate, and in 1998 Hope was one of only 10 liberal arts institutions in the nation to be recognized for innovation and excellence in science instruction by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with an “Award for the Integration of Research and Education” (AIRE). Based on the college’s proven history of excellence, CUR chose Hope to present the national webinar “Transformational Learning through Undergraduate Research and Creative Performance” in April 2011. In 2017, Hope was one of only three colleges or universities nationwide to receive a Campus-Wide Award for Undergraduate Research Accomplishments (AURA) from CUR, and one of only nine to have received the recognition since the award was established in 2015.
About A. Paul Schaap and Carol C. Schaap
Across the past two decades, Carol C. Schaap, who died on Aug. 4, 2023, at age 85, and Dr. A. Paul Schaap have provided major gifts for facilities including the A. Paul Schaap Science Center, the Jim and Martie Bultman Student Center, and the Saint Anne Oratory at the Carol C. Schaap Chapel; and for endowment in support of faculty and student collaborative research in the natural and applied sciences. The funding has been in addition to the significant contributions they have faithfully made annually to the Hope Fund for more than 40 years to support students and financial aid/access to a Hope education.
The Grosse Pointe Park couple’s connection to the college was initially through Dr. A. Paul Schaap, who graduated from Hope with a chemistry major in 1967. He subsequently earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard University and then taught and conducted research at Wayne State University. His research focused on the study of dioxetanes (high-energy chemical compounds which can be triggered to generate chemiluminescence or light). While continuing his teaching and research efforts at Wayne State, he formed Lumigen Inc. in 1987 to commercialize the dioxetanes which had been developed in his research laboratory. A. Paul Schaap received a Distinguished Alumni Award from Hope in 2006, and was a member of the college’s Board of Trustees from 2007 to 2019.
Carol C. Schaap was on the staff at Wayne State University for approximately 30 years beginning in 1961, having previously been a secretary with the FBI and Parke Davis. She held a variety of secretarial positions during her time at the university, including first as secretary to the chair of the Chemistry Department and finally as executive secretary to the president. The Schaaps met while both were employed at Wayne State, and were married on March 16, 1976.
About National “Undergraduate Research Week”
On Nov. 16, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives declared the week of April 11, 2011, as national “Undergraduate Research Week.” Since that time, CUR has designated a week in April each year as “Undergraduate Research Week” to showcase what colleges and universities are doing to celebrate undergraduate research, to congratulation students on their research, and to thank faculty and other mentors who have helped guide the way for undergraduate research.