Thanks for your comments. Sounds like the actual day was pretty low-key, and the speech was short and appropriate.

Your point is well taken, that controversy ran the risk of distracting from the real business of that day. That’s probably something the college admins should have thought of before agreeing to let Bush speak in the first place. It’s not that any President at any time would have been too controversial — but this one, at this time, most certainly is.

While we enjoyed the postponed Earth Day fair in Kalamazoo, the story that has dominated my blog entries of late…

I been following this story off the blog, since I am not only a Calvin alumnus, but a former GR resident with many friends that live in Grand Rapids and work at Calvin.

They are now concerned that they would be distracting from the real business of the day: celebration of our graduates. They did want to send a message to the public at large that Calvin College is not “a bastion of evangelical thought,” but they tend to feel that that message has now been heard by those who have ears to hear it. The day itself should be devoted to the graduates.

I applaud these faculty members for swallowing their pride in the interests of honoring students. This is, in my opinion, typical of the kind of responsible, circumspect, and caring people that work at Calvin College. (And I don’t just say that because I teach there!)

Unfortunately, deciding not to wear an armband is not the kind of story that makes flashy news. It reflects one quality of Calvin College that I would most like the world to see, but which will almost certainly remain invisible.