David Myers is an award-winning social psychologist, a psychology professor at Hope College, in Holland, Mich., and a 1964 Whitworth alumnus and current trustee. He has been a repeat guest speaker at Whitworth, most recently in October, when he presented a lecture based on his latest book, A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists: Musings on Why God Is Good and Faith Isn't Evil.
Myers' writings have examined diverse topics including happiness, intuition, sexual orientation, group influence, assistive listening, and faith and reason. His recent essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and on the Newsweek/Washington Post religion blog. His articles have appeared in three dozen academic periodicals and four dozen magazines, and he has authored 17 books, including psychology textbooks that have been translated into 12 languages.
Read on to learn a few choice tidbits about Myers:
Q. Why did you major in chemistry at Whitworth?
A. I was a pre-med chemistry major, biology minor. During college I worked three summers as an orderly in Seattle's Harborview Hospital. I took the Medical College Admissions Test and completed half of my medical school applications. After doing everything right to become a physician, I abruptly changed my mind and decided I'd rather be a college professor.
After my junior year I thought back to how much I had enjoyed a psychology class I'd taken my first year. So I took several psych classes my senior year, with mentoring from Pat MacDonald (professor emeritus of psychology), and got admitted to two science-oriented psychology graduate schools.
My Whitworth science and math training prepared me to appreciate psychology as a science and to do
experimental research with support from the National Science Foundation, which ultimately led to many other opportunities.
Q. How did you meet your wife, Carol, '65?
A. We met over Whitworth's family-style dinner – four women and four men to each table. That practice forced a shy guy like me who'd never seriously dated to meet and talk with women. Voila! Carol and I were engaged before spring break of her second year and married that next summer. We then lived in a small but free HUB apartment, with my being responsible for locking up the building each night.
Q. What factors spur you to research and write about certain topics?
A. Occasionally I come across information and insights that strike me as so fascinating and humanly significant that I have an urge to tell more people, which has prompted my writing of trade books and magazine articles, and books relating psychological science to Christian faith.
My avocational passion, making American assistive listening hearing-aid compatible, grows out of being a person with significant hearing loss. My efforts were inspired by my experiences with hearing assistance in the United Kingdom, where my hearing aids can serve as customized in-the-ear loudspeakers at venues ranging from churches and cathedrals to post office windows. These experiences led to my creating www.hearingloop.org and authoring related articles, to introducing this technology to west Michigan (where it now can be found in some 300 venues, including most churches and both concourses of Michigan's second largest airport), and to supporting its spreading adoption in other states and communities.
For more about David Myers, visit www.davidmyers.org. A podcast of Myers' Whitworth lecture is available at www.whitworth.edu/podcast.
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