Old Hopes for a New Place: The Legacy of Arend D. Lubbers at Grand Valley State University by Stephen Rowe (review)

184 Michigan Historical Rxview In the nineteenth century it would have been difficult for Jane Johnston Schoolcraft to stand up to an overbearing husband hke Henry. Her writings were her own creations, but her husband's influence upon them was great. Parker faced a daunting challenge in preparing a documentary edition of Jane Schoolcraft's work?something he has accomphshed masterfully. Thanks to his scholarship, readers can now appreciate the scope of her work and the sensitivity and intelligence that gave rise to it, even as her familiar Ojibwe world "was giving way to a world of Indian removal and racial polarization" (p. 43). Because of the painstaking labor of this dedicated scholar, the shadow that looms over Jane Johnston Schoolcraft's work is now smaller and less opaque. John Fierst Clarke Historical Library Stephen Rowe, ed. Old Hopes for aNew Place: The Legacy ofArend D. Lubbers at Grand Valley State University. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2006. Pp. 152. Photographs. Cloth, $39.95. Stephen Rowe, professor of philosophy at Grand Valley State University, has collected and pubhshed fifteen speeches by the university's former president, Arend D. Lubbers. During Lubbers's tenure, which spanned the last three decades of the twentieth century, he witnessed wars, economic crises, tremendous technological developments, and the emergence of what is sometimes called the postmodern world. These speeches detail Lubbers's identification of these changes, the challenges inherent in dealing with them, and the role of education, including higher education, in addressing these changes. Lubbers saw education as the historical hinge pin on which turned the nation's optimism and development. Education was the means by which the human spirit was invigorated and inspired by the past, informed by the liberal arts, and challenged by the unknown to reach for new goals. During the twentieth century higher-education's role was challenged by trends toward stale repetitiveness, as American culture suffered from tunnel vision and closed-minded negativism. During this period as well, access to higher education expanded as the manufacturing and service sectors and various professions looked to colleges and universities to prepare their future personnel. Lubbers argued that under such circumstances universities needed to avoid becoming merely advanced trade schools by building on their Book Reviews 185 hberal-arts foundations. Emphasizing the liberal arts would help colleges and universities produce students who viewed themselves, their roles, and their future occupations within the context of community and avoid the self-centered negativism that became widespread from the 1970s onward. Students prepared in this way would work toward solutions to community problems, rather than waiting for solutions to come from the community. Lubbers concluded that this process would be aided by three dynamics of religion?faith that keeps humans looking forward, rational thought that keeps humans moving toward the future, and a respect for mystery, since all discoveries reveal stillmore mysteries. The speeches in Old Hopes for aNew Place were clearly written by someone who was both a participant in and a keen observer of higher education in Michigan, and whose views were tempered with West Michigan rehgious values. From this perspective, these addresses offer an insight into higher education during the last decades of the twentieth century. Such occasional pieces cannot provide a detailed analysis or critique of higher education, nor did Lubbers intend them to offer one. But for scholars and the general reader these speeches are an excellent starting point for such an analysis. Richard H. Harms Calvin College Nick Salvatore. Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, theBlack Church, and the Transformation ofAmerica. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Pp. 448. Bibhography. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paper, $24.95. Few would disagree that religion and music are hallmarks of black American culture, or that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the black preacher was a central figure in the black community. Remarkably, however, little is known today about the hves of some African American ministers who were most renowned in their time, black men and women who were distinguished for their preaching prowess, musical talents, and political activism. The graveyard of black history is littered with the names of these, and many more notables, who await the biographer...