GRAND RAPIDS – After seven years of leadership at Van Andel Education Institute, Gordon Van Harn, Ph.D., has announced his retirement, effective Jan. 1, 2009. Van Harn will continue to serve on the VAEI Board of Trustees and the Van Andel Institute Graduate School Board of Directors.

Assuming the post of VAEI director is VAI Graduate School Dean and Van Andel Research Institute Scientific Investigator Steve Triezenberg, Ph.D.

“As much as we are excited about the future of VAEI under Steve�??s leadership, we are also grateful to Gord Van Harn for his seven years of exceptional leadership,” said VAI Chairman & CEO David Van Andel. “Under his leadership Van Andel Education Institute has seen the founding of the Science Academy and the VAI Graduate School, has hosted important national and regional educational forums, and has changed its focus from technology to science education.”

Van Harn’s service at VAEI followed a long and distinguished career in academia. After undergraduate work at Calvin College, Van Harn received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois. He served for over thirty years as a faculty member of the Calvin College Biology Department where he taught physiology, undertook muscle and cardiovascular research, and served as provost and academic dean for the natural sciences.

Van Harn is credited by VAEI colleagues with giving shape to a mandate that was still somewhat broadly defined when he came aboard in 2001. He is credited with working diligently to define the scope of the VAI Graduate School, securing its charter from the State of Michigan to confer degrees, and enlisting an excellent board of directors to guide its development.

“Gord’s legacy also includes the manner in which those achievements have been carried out,” said Triezenberg, “in which excellence is coupled with humility, and in which innovation and creativity are coupled with careful planning and thoughtful execution.”

Triezenberg’s own career includes a combination of excellence in the fields of scientific research and education. Following post-doctoral work at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, he served for 19 years as a faculty member of Michigan State University’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology where he became the Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Cell and Molecular Biology. In 2006, he accepted the dual role of Scientific Investigator in the Laboratory of Transcriptional Regulation and Dean of the Van Andel Institute Graduate School.

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