(left to right)
Dr. Stefanie Baker, Donald Cronkite, and Dr. Nora Espinoza
Hope College Professor Speaks To Erskine Biology Students
Dr. Donald Cronkite, professor of biology at Hope College, Holland, Mich., spoke Monday to four Erskine biology classes on the topic, "Creation and Evolution: Finding the Middle Ground."
Cronkite has worked with Dr. Jan Haldeman, professor emerita of biology at Erskine, and Erskine alumna Dr. Jane Ellis, biology professor at Presbyterian College, on a National Science Foundation program called "Forging a Link" that encourages partnerships between high school and college teachers.
"A former Hope College professor is now teaching at Furman, and she and her husband were hosting Dr. Cronkite," said Haldeman. "Since I am one of three 'Forging a Link' participants at South Carolina colleges, he wanted to visit us."
Cronkite spoke later in the day at Presbyterian College, and in the evening conducted a workshop at Furman University for middle school science teachers.
Haldeman said Cronkite refers to creation and evolution in musical terms."He's hoping to create a duet that represents a middle ground between the two sides of the issue," she said. "But you can't have a duet if the two sides won't speak to each other."
Cronkite earned a Ph.D. in zoology at Indiana University, Bloomington, and has had visting research appointments at University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Maryland, the Marine Biology Laboratory at Woods Hole, and Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
