I student taught abroad at Frankfurt International School In Oberursel, Germany. I lived with a host family, a mom, a dad, a 25-year-old sister and a 16-year-old sister. My younger host sister did one year of high school in the US the year before I came. Through this experience, I was able to understand the…
In his last stop before his election in 2016, Donald Trump visited Grand Rapids, Michigan, rallying a crowd of thousands at about 1 a.m. Two years later, on March 28, 2019, Trump returned to Grand Rapids, this time with the title of President. I attended the rally with Anna Bauer (’21) and Aidan Piwnicki (’21)….
Faced with deteriorating infrastructure and a tight budget, the governor of Michigan has come up with a new plan to fill potholes without an unpopular hike to the gas tax: make every Michigander responsible for fixing and maintaining their own ten-foot stretch of road. “If Michigan residents don’t want to pay more taxes, they’re going…
With rising global temperatures and concern over melting icebergs, political figures around the globe are encouraging creative approaches to solving the world’s climate change crisis. Many businesses are turning to common measures to reduce their ecological footprint: reducing CO2 emissions, pulling plastic from ocean tides, cannibalizing humans to reduce cow consumption and so on. But…
As polarization and divisive partisan rhetoric erode trust in American democracy, one political science expert has proposed a new way of choosing governing officials, inspired by Hope College’s longstanding tradition known as the Pull. Democratic elections would be replaced by a massive, threehour tug-of-war competition between Democrats and Republicans. The party that holds the most…
When Stefanie Jacobs (’19) toured Strath Haven High School with her fellow students in the Philadelphia Center (TPC) program, she noticed that something felt off. Jacobs recalled meeting with the vice principal and two members of the student congress. “When we spoke with them, it felt disingenuous and almost like there was an agenda,” Jacobs…
After years of underfunding, Ottawa County Community Mental Health (CMH) will get an additional $2.5 million from the state over the next four years. Lynne Doyle, director of the county’s CMH, explained in an interview with the Holland Sentinel that this won’t be enough to guarantee financial security for the crucial public health organization. The…
A few weeks ago, the Anchor published an article on the Chinese oppression of Uighur Muslims. Despite its massive scale, this human rights crisis still isn’t widely known or condemned. The government of China has gone to great lengths to make sure that these abuses stay under the radar and to quiet international criticism. That’s…
Michiganders who enjoy ice fishing, skating or simply walking on the frozen surfaces of the state’s many freshwater lakes may find that these pastimes are no longer possible if current warming trends continue. A study recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change reveals that more than a thousand Michigan lakes that typically froze over…
When Hope College professor Holly DeVivo’s mother left for the Mexican Consulate one morning, she hoped that she might finally be able to get help achieving permanent resident status in the United States. Instead, she missed her exit and ended up at the Canadian border, where she was arrested and placed in deportation proceedings. Since…