While growing up in the town of Central Canton, Illinois, the young Janel Curry used to ponder that town’s place in the wider scheme of things. “I think I was always curious about why places were the way they were,” she said.

Curry specifically wondered about the differences between Central Canton, a blue-collar, factory town and the farming community where her parents grew up. “I always wondered why they were so different.” Curry said. “You had one town where people worked in the mines—and how that affected the social capital—as opposed to a farming community.”

Pondering place

A geographer with a specialty in rural geography, Curry has continued pondering those questions all of her professional life.

She will further explore them in "Religion and the Social Order:lessons illuminated by the tragedies of Hurricane Katrina and the Asian Tsunami," her inaugural lecture as the new holder of the Gary and Henrietta Byker Chair in Christian Perspectives on Political, Social and Economic Thought. The lecture takes place at 7 p.m. Thursday, February 26, 2009 in the Willow Room of the Prince Conference Center.

Enriching intellectual life

"The chair's emphasis is to draw on Reformed philosophical and economical thinking in understanding society," Curry said, and she's eager for the opportunity to do so: "If you do it right, you should be enriching everybody's intellectual life, rather than just your own," she said.

The second holder of the chair, established in 2004, Curry hopes to foster Reformed thinking—through reading groups and other means—among the Calvin faculty. "I think you can expect speakers from a variety of perspectives," she said.

Curry also hopes to create a vibrant conversation around the topic of economic policy. "I'm interested in creating forums where people on both ends of the political and economic spectrum can meet together as people of faith and have some communal understanding," she said.

Integrating thought

Curry likes the interdisciplinary focus of the chair. "It's integrative," she said. "Geographers are used to thinking in an integrative way."

Curry first studied geography at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn. "That was my family school," she said, laughing. "I had an aunt who taught at Bethel. My parents went to Bethel. I met second cousins at Bethel. It's like people going to Calvin." Following graduation, she did ethnographic and historical research with the Houma tribe in southern Indiana through the Mennonite Central Committee.

Curry moved on to the University of Minnesota, earning her master's degree in geography in 1981 and her PhD in 1985. She taught that subject at Central College in Pella, Iowa for 11 years before coming to Calvin in 1996 as the second holder of the William Spoelhof Teacher/ Scholar-in-Residence Chair.

Beliefs and places

Curry brought with her to Calvin a depth of expertise in how what she calls "human nature relations" have affected land-use patterns. She has studied religious worldviews among different Iowa communities, focusing on how what people believed shaped the way they farmed. She has compared Canadian and American forest policies and studied marine and coastal management in New Zealand. Curry is also among a group of scholars exploring the relationships among theology, social structures and the earth.

Recently, Curry co-edited with Calvin history professor emeritus Ronald Wells, the book��Faithful Imagination in the Academy, a collection of essays about faith-based liberal arts scholarship. She has also published in such journals as��The Geographical Review, the��Annals of the Association of American Geographers,��Society and Natural Resources��and��Agriculture and Human Values. Since 2000, she has served as Calvin's dean for research and scholarship.

Uniting scholars

Janel's work illustrates the power of worldview in our social, economic and political lives," said Calvin provost Claudia Beversluis, "and her work has always been collaborative, uniting scholars within the college with larger networks in the country around issues of place and culture. I'm eagerly anticipating her contribution to social thought through this chair."

Curry hopes that her tenure in the chair, named for Gary and Henrietta Byker, (parents of current Calvin president Gaylen Byker) raises Calvin's profile: "One more goal I would have," she said, "is to bring prominence to Calvin in the public stage in terms of bringing debate to the public sphere,"