Hope Psychology
Tracing the history of the department
Tracing the history of the department
Tributes given at Retirement Dinner -- May 10, 1993
A Tribute to Phil Van Eyl on the Occasion of His Retirement
By Jane Dickie, May 6, 1993.
How do you pay tribute to a person who built your home? How do you thank the man who unassumingly taught nearly every course we offer and a few that we don’t have anymore? How do you capture three decades in three minutes?
Perhaps try by giving an image. When I think of Phil Van Eyl, I think of a faith-full visionary with a hammer in his hand. Not a man to call attention to himself, in fact, he hates to be the center of attention, Phil set about with a vision but with some practical knowledge and tools of how to get us where we needed to go. Phil took risks for the benefit of students in particular and yet the students who today benefit from his vision have no idea what he did. Phil’s special talents lie in his ability to envision projects from their inception to their conclusion. Then, he has initiative and industry to see them through to completion. Phil’s style is very concrete. He stays close to what is happening and directs changes as needed. Several prominent examples of this within the Psychology department are overseeing major curriculum changes in our departmental offerings. Conceptualizing and rearranging the physical aspects of classrooms and office space and then, as often as not, proceeding with paintbrush or hammer or drill in hand to make the needed changes. Vision and concrete work are some of what Phil has given us.
Phil has also taught us how to face life’s transitions. His own life, while blessed, has not always been easy. Leaving home as a young man he emigrated to the United States. His immigrant experience sensitized him to the struggles of international students. Often, throughout his years at Hope College, they have sought him out for advice and counsel. Recognizing the difficulty of the immigrant’s transition, he founded the soccer team at Hope, realizing that many international students could find a place and become part of the college by joining the soccer team.
Facing the tragic transition when his first wife Miriam died, Phil opened himself to new possibilities in his life. He placed himself in God’s hands and though like Jacob he found himself in a God wrestle sometimes, his experiences and his willingness to share his feelings helped those of us who are close to him grow in our understanding of faith. That experience opened him to understand how others coping with life tragedies needed support. When I discovered I had breast cancer, Phil was the first person genuinely there sitting with me to comfort me.
And now he faces the transition from the structured work life of a Hope professor to restructuring and designing his own life with Mickie in the years ahead. And once again Phil shared with us in a recent talk he gave to Hope Psychology seniors, what were some of the struggles, the joys, and the anxieties he faced in transition.
Perhaps one of the difficulties in leaving Hope is looking back and wondering whether or not contributions that one has made were important. Clearly the contributions that Phil made were important. Clearly the contributions Phil made are not in a specific area or course that he taught because psychology changes. A discipline is a living thing and Phil helped us know that. When he was hired in 1959 he was not just Professor of Psychology but Philosophy as well and perhaps Bill Vander Lugt, who hired him, felt some sadness to see the separation of psychology and philosophy but Phil knew with his vision that psychology was changing and that we needed to be forward thinking and restructuring. It was Phil who moved the Psychology Department into the modern experimental approach.. He made these moves and these transitions because he was sensitive to the times and the larger discipline and to our students’ needs. It is Phil, more than anyone, who lay the foundation for our current strengths in the Psychology Department. Phil helped us know that the integrity of a discipline is in the community of scholars and therefore changes will happen. What Phil gave us is much more important than any individual content area could be. Because he did the important essential work at the the time he did over the last 30 years, we are able with faith to continue making changes when needed but remaining sensitive to a vision that Phil Van Eyl crafted.
And I have no doubt that as Phil faces the next transition, I will be watching and learning as I always have from him how to be faithful, to hold a vision, and to always have a hammer in my hand.
An Affectionate Tribute to Phil Van Eyl
By David G. Myers
Retirement Banquet, May 10, 1993
F. Phillip Van Eyl, or, to be more exact - and to satisfy your curiosity - it’s Florus Phillip Van Eyl whose distinguished career we celebrate this evening. Florus Phillip Van Eyl - founder and pioneer of modern psychology at Hope College, international citizen - and a genuinely good person.
Phil Van Eyl was born in the Netherlands in 1928, educated in The Hague and in economics at the University of Rotterdam. At age 21 he immigrated to the United States and served during the Korean War in the 11th Airborne Division of the U. S. Army. A year after completing military service to his new country, he entered Hope College as a 25-year-old junior, hoping to continue his studies of economics. The American liberal arts approach to education compelled him to study in areas other than economics, which led him into Lars Granberg’s introductory psychology, from there to a course in industrial psychology, and from there into a new career direction. Taking a variety of courses, he discovered, “provides a wonderful opportunity to discover what you’re really like and what you can do best.”
After Hope, Phil began doctoral study in experimental psychology at Claremont Graduate School and then in 1959 returned to Hope as an instructor of psychology and philosophy. His only colleague was the future Education Department chair, Bob DeHaan, and the sum total of departmental facilities was the single office which they shared in Van Raalte. When Bob got an external grant, they were also able to hire a part-time secretary and to buy a typewriter - all cozily housed in that one office. Phil recently recalled for us the look on History Department chair Paul Fried’s face when he stepped in to see that aqua-colored typewriter. “In those days no department had either its own secretary or own typewriter. He was visibly envious.”
From that humble beginning, with no labs and no equipment (apart from what he and his students constructed in his basement), Phil Van Eyl built the psychology department and program as we know it today. If the truth be known, our department is young enough that he has lived our history. Not only lived it, but guided it. Consider:
So, if you share any of our pride in psychology at Hope College, give Phil Van Eyl a word of congratulations and thanks. The facilities, the people, the program are his legacy to future generations of Hope students.
But Phil has done much for Hope College beyond building a psychology program. He has given leadership on numerous committees, directed the summer school, bridged the college to local organizations such as Donnelly’s (which harnessed his expertise in perception research), and worked with students on numerous research projects. But as much as anything else, what we’ve so greatly admired about Phil is his heart for international students, especially those from Third World countries.
As one who came to Hope College as an international student, such sensitivities come naturally to Phil. Phil is a citizen of the world, someone who not only grew up in Europe, but who has lived and worked as a Ford Foundation scholar in Turkey (where he planned the construction of yet another laboratory), as a research scientist at the Institute of Perception in the Netherlands, and a visiting professor in India. From all these experiences, he draws a keen sensitivity which has led Phil and Mickie in recent years to show hospitality to countless international people, and which led Western Seminary’s president to tell Phil that he would be the perfect person to take leadership in coordinating their hospitality to international students. All this care and hospitality he offers without seeking recognition, and in fact probably with mild embarrassment over the adulation heaped upon him this weekend. If you didn’t notice the traffic in and out of his office, or the international correspondence in and out of his mailbox, or hear the appreciative things people have said about him, you’d probably never be aware of the enormity of Phil’s kindness and hospitality.
There is no better example of Phil’s heart for international students than his starting the Hope College soccer program. As a European who grew up with soccer, and wished he could have played soccer while a student here, Phil appreciated what soccer could offer as a vehicle for bringing international students together. With Phil as organizer and coach, a junior varsity program began in the fall of 1964 with 21 players, half foreign nationals from Africa, Asia, and South America, the other half Americans who had learned the game abroad, often as sons of missionaries. To introduce the sport to Hope College, they played the first ten minutes of their first home game during half time of a football game, before adjourning to another field to record the first-ever Hope College home soccer game.
Encouraged by the first season’s winning record, Phil set about developing the present soccer field. Ever the planner/designer, he found out that removing 27 trees, filling the low spots, and seeding would cost $1,800, which he then raised. So it was one beautiful summer day in 1965 that found Phil spending three hours with a chalking cart, laying out the field boundaries. Then he convinced Holland Furnace to donate the metal framework for the present bleachers. To help keep the expenses to $1,280 for the 1965 season, Miriam did the laundry and ironed the uniforms. Talk about commitment to students!
Florus Phillip van Eyl - founder of scientific psychology at Hope College, world citizen, and, thirdly, a genuinely good person. Phil’s uncommon goodness is reflected in my colleagues’ recollections of him. Chuch Green recalls “the many kindnesses he showed Fonda and me during our first year here - fixing a ‘plain’ Dutch supper for us, inviting us to Easter dinner (and surprising us with our own Easter basket).“ Tom Ludwig, reflecting on his move here with Deb and their six-week-old son, remembering how “Phil went out of his way to make us feel welcome and to take us under his wings.” Jane Dickie recalls how “When I discovered I had breast cancer, Phil was the first person genuinely there sitting with me to comfort me.”
We retain other fond memories as well:
Now, Phil begins his next developmental stage. At graduations - the one yesterday and the one this evening for Gene, Elaine, and Phil - don’t we all feel a mix of gladness and sadness. We celebrate significant achievements and the hopes that come with a commencement into things new. Yet we also feel the sadness of separation from familiar surroundings and friends, and of our awareness of the inevitable life cycle that pulls us all, inexorably, swiftly, towards our ultimate destiny, making us ponder at times like this the things and people that, in the final analysis, really matter the most to us.
And so, Phil and Mickie and your wonderful blended family around you, we gather tonight in celebration and sadness - and thankfulness - for all you have invested in Hope College, in its students, and in us. You built a modern psychology program. You befriended strangers in this foreign land long before multicultural awareness was in vogue. And, friend Phil, you are a very good person. Someone will succeed you, but no one will replace you.
So I speak for us all in saying, well done, good and faithful servant. We will miss your daily presence among us. But knowing that you are a youthful 65, we extend Godspeed and warmest good wishes for many more productive and satisfying years spent, what else - designing, dreaming, caring. May it indeed be true for you that “The best is yet to be.”