A Grand Rapids Public School (GRPS) employee told the Service-Learning Center (S-LC) in a letter dated Nov. 3 that she no longer felt comfortable working with the Calvin program following the Board of Trustees’ decision regarding Dr. Denise Isom.

“It didn’t make sense to me to continue the connection,” said Ginny VanderZee, an itinerant social worker with Gerald Ford Middle School and Brookside Elementary School. “In good conscience it’s not where I felt things needed to be.”

VanderZee has worked with the S-LC to place 10 Calvin sophomore education students in classrooms at each of these two schools each fall. As a part of the Educ 202 course, Calvin students are assigned to observe individual students while assisting teachers in classrooms around Grand Rapids.

With hundreds of Calvin students working with the GRPS every year and 40 to 60 schools generally involved with placement of Educ 202 students, these 20 places in two schools will not detrimentally cut the S-LC’s connection with the GRPS.

Additionally, VanderZee said she would be able to share names of others who could take over her job of coordinating with S-LC. Knowing the great appreciation teachers have for the hard work of Calvin students in their classrooms, she was confident another willing coordinator could be found.

VanderZee’s response serves more to remind us that decisions — especially those tied to internal principles at Calvin — can have broader consequences in our interaction with our community.

“I didn’t expect [this kind of response] directly, but it didn’t surprise me,” said Jeff Bouman, director of the S-LC. “I’m surprised there wasn’t more.”

The S-LC is bearing a consequence of the Grand Rapids community’s reaction to a decision it may struggle to understand.

“It was disappointing and frustrating,” said junior Katy Chadwick, the education coordinator in S-LC who works with VanderZee and other school representatives. “A relationship suffered because of something that wasn’t my fault.”

“It seems like [Calvin] doesn’t have a clue how the community sees them,” said VanderZee.

An important part of the picture of Calvin that the community receives comes from The Grand Rapids Press. A story like that of Isom frequently elicits sensational headlines and many letters to the editor. This time people read “Calvin ready to oust Baptist professor.”

“We’ll pay the price for that headline for 10 years,” said Bouman.

The debates at Calvin over policy and goals which in practice seem to conflict are not so accessible to people on the outside.

“I believe there are reasons for the [faculty] requirements and the decisions made,” said Chadwick. “The problem is our image to the community — they don’t understand.”

VanderZee spoke of her colleagues who find it hard to believe Calvin would have these kinds of rules and debates; they don’t connect with it. The message of the rule, she says, is that Calvin wants their students to gain from GRPS students, but that it still wants to keep them elite.

This is not the first significant exception denial to send these kinds of messages. A little over half a decade ago, Robert Reed, a faculty member serving as a counselor on the Broene Center, found himself in a situation similar to Isom’s.

Reed and his family felt themselves called to move into an urban community and place their children in the public school system. They became involved with Jefferson Elementary School, bringing their dedication to a place that significantly benefited from their presence.

“That’s what I see our schools needing — more involvement, more integration [like the Reeds did],” said VanderZee. Here was someone living what he believed in and doing wonderful work, she said. But then Calvin told him it was unacceptable.

“I think that kind of narrow, rule-making thinking hurts the college and hurts the community,” VanderZee said. “It cuts out any kind of true diversity, true cultural acceptance.”

Calvin’s Reformed commitments put it in an interesting place when relating to the community. Bouman describes both the dedication to civic engagement and thus included ourselves in areas like public education, and the support of Christian schools where the “whole truth” can be taught, acknowledging the strong influence of faith in all aspects of life and learning. In many ways, the current debates are similar to those arguments which divided the CRC and RCA.

In some ways Calvin’s current actions exemplify the ongoing attempt to fit together the variety of commitments. While faculty requirements generally enforce faculty children’s Christian education and presence in a CRC church, they certainly do not prevent other involvement with the public schools or other churches, or living in any variety of communities.

Also, with programs like those through the S-LC, Bouman says that critics of the faculty policy must also acknowledge that Calvin is not entirely absent from the public schools. But “our presence is not ideal.”

Calvin continues to work out its place as a “citizen of a local community but not an exclusively local entity,” says Bouman.

As internal debates continue, Calvin must also consider how to share with and explain to the community of which it is a part.

“I hope [VanderZee’s response] can let us know what the community sees of Calvin,” says Chadwick.