Most students at Calvin are used to hearing from fifteen speakers every January as part of Calvin’s annual January Series. This coming January, there will be only ten.
This restructuring is for a number of reasons, including budgetary restrictions and a more competitive speaker scene. However, the restructure opens a number of doors and enables the Series to be more competitive and flexible in several ways.
January Series Director Michael Wildschut views the history of the January Series as being in three general sections. At its inception, the Series was in-person only and coincided with the Interim term at Calvin. Under the direction of Kristi Potter, the Series grew and expanded with the addition of remote viewing sites in locations with large alumni networks. In the current era, the Series features real-time live streaming worldwide and an expanded palette of options for viewing, including the January Series in July videos posted to YouTube.
However, according to Wildschut and Professor Emeritus of English Karen Saupe, balancing budgetary restrictions with a longer Series and Calvin’s new calendar is becoming more difficult. According to Saupe, “by bringing fewer speakers to campus, you can use the same budget and spend less on travel and accommodations and all the complications…You’ve got more money to spend on fewer speakers.” Saupe believes that this will enable the Series to bring in higher quality speakers or bigger names than they may have been able to in the past.
Furthermore, according to Wildschut, “it’s a far more competitive environment than it used to be.” Wildschut said that Calvin is not the only organization providing this sort of information in this sort of format and that the speaker market has become more expensive in the last few years, making offering a 15-day Series of high quality more difficult.
While solving some budget and competitiveness issues, the restructuring poses some difficulties as well. According to Chantale Van Tassel, a senior Honors scholar who has taken the “Inside The January Series” course with Professor Saupe, the broad perspectives and intersectionality of the January Series in its previous iteration enrich the liberal arts at Calvin.
According to Van Tassel, many professional programs feel “very self-contained,” but the interdisciplinary focus built into Calvin “helps you break out of that a little bit.” Van Tassel values the breadth of perspectives inherent to the January Series and said that she is not worried about the shortened Series shrinking that breadth.
Wildschut says that the new format and the new options available to the Series have made it more competitive and more “nimble.” According to Wildschut, the move towards online-only lectures in July under the January Series name makes some speakers feel more comfortable and also enables some speakers who may not wish to come to the Midwest during winter to still present under the January Series brand. Provost Noah Toly echoed this sentiment, saying “I think one of the things that [the restructure] does is give us an even more intensive experience…and then to also bring in really good [speakers] throughout the year.”
According to Wildschut, the expansion to a year-round model also helps the Series more adequately meet demand from constituents and potential partners. Wildschut said “now, if something becomes popular in the fall, we can approach that. We can also find new partnerships with organizations whose goals align with ours, but maybe January is not a good time for them. We can partner with them and it expands both of our reaches, and it utilizes our resources in a very stewardly manner.”
