Gina Bivins | Festival of the Arts – One Perspective
Gina Bivins is a lifelong resident of Grand Rapids. She spent over 45 years volunteering on Festival of the Arts in numerous capacities, including chairing the event in 1991. She volunteers at the Grand Rapids Public Museum where she also worked for over three decades. Gina sits on the board of the Grand Rapids Historical Society.
Leanne Kang | Uncovering Grand Rapids Public School’s History as a Community
Dr. Leanne Kang is an Associate Professor of Educational Foundations at Grand Valley State University. In 2020, she published Dismantled; The Breakup of an Urban School System, a History of the Detroit Public Schools from 1980-2016. Dr. Kang is currently working on her second book on the history of the Grand Rapids Public Schools from 1968 to present.
Stephen T. Staggs | Tracking Down a Local Indigenous Footpath
Stephen T. Staggs is the Executive Director of the Eastown Community Association (ECA). He earned a PhD and graduate certificate in Ethnohistory from Western Michigan University. Staggs is also an author and independent historian who recently published Calvinists and Indians in the Northeast Woodlands. His research focuses on the interactions between Indigenous, African, and European peoples in colonial North America.
Ruth Stevens | Give Mother the Vote: Images from the Women’s Suffrage Movement
Ruth Stevens is a retired professor of Legal Studies at Grand Valley. She is the President of the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council and serves on the Grand Rapids Historical Commission. Stevens is a frequent presenter on a variety of local history topics, including women’s suffrage.
Le Tran | Vietnamese in West Michigan
Le Tran immigrated from Vietnam to Grand Rapids in September of 1975 with her father and five siblings. She became an art teacher and has taught at Kentwood High School for the past 23 years. In 2021, the National Art Education Association named Le the National Secondary Art Teacher of the Year. Over the past 50 years, she has returned to Vietnam a dozen times to visit family and study, most notably in 2024 when she received the Fulbright Hayes GPA and was one of 15 Michigan teachers to travel and study for five weeks in her homeland, where she focused on silk painting.
Matt Vriesman | Vietnamese in West Michigan
Matt Vriesman is an AP history teacher at East Kentwood High School. His work as an educator focuses on the use of historical archives and primary source documents to bring history to life. Matt and his students worked with the Grand Rapids Public Museum, and his colleague Le Tran, for “GR Stories,” commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. In 2023, Matt was selected from 7,000 nominated educators as the National History Teacher of the Year from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Matt serves on the Board of the Michigan Council for History Education.
History Detectives GR 