HOLLAND, MI (PRESS RELEASE) – A total of five long-time members of the Hope College faculty are retiring this year.
This year’s retirees are Dr. Isolde Anderson, professor of communication; Jean Bahle, assistant professor of theatre; Dr. Edward Hansen, professor of geology and environmental science; Dr. James Herrick, the Guy VanderJagt Professor of Communication; and Dr. Roger Nemeth, professor of sociology. Nemeth retired at the end of the fall semester but has continued to work on research projects. Anderson, Bahle, Hansen and Herrick are all retiring at the conclusion of the spring semester. The five have taught at the college for a combined 152 years.
Anderson has been a member of the faculty since 2003, and chaired the Department of Communication for six years. Her research areas are pastor-parishioner communication, women’s leadership, leadership pedagogy and online social support.
Bahle started teaching at Hope in 1994 as an acting instructor. She has taught beginning and more advanced acting classes, Play Analysis and Play Writing, and Introduction to Theatre, and co-taught Musical Theatre Workshop. She has been involved with the arts in West Michigan for about 40 years, primarily as an actor, director and teacher.
Hansen has taught at Hope since 1984, and chaired the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences from 1995 until 2001. His primary research emphasis has been on the history of the sand dunes along the southeastern coast of Lake Michigan across the past 5,000 years.
Herrick has been a member of the faculty since 1984, and chaired the Department of Communication from 1993 to 2002. His areas of expertise include history and theory of rhetoric, argumentation, new spiritual movements and the rhetoric of technology.
Nemeth joined the faculty in 1983. He was the first director of the college’s Frost Research Center, chaired the Department of Sociology and Social Work, and was an exchange professor with Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. He has taught courses including social-research methods, environmental sociology and urban sociology; has led student study-abroad programs to Japan, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Romania and South Africa; and has mentored students through collaborative research.
