High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Hope College is a medium-sized (3,200 undergraduates), private, residential liberal arts college located in downtown Holland, Michigan, a few miles from Lake Michigan. It was opened in 1851 as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants four years after the community was first settled. (The first freshman college class matriculated in 1862, and Hope received its state charter in 1866.) It has been historically associated with the Reformed Church in America (a Calvinist denomination), and it retains a Christian atmosphere. The school's campus now 91 acres (368,000 m²), adjacent to the downtown commercial district has been shared with Western Theological Seminary since 1884. Since 1999, Hope has been led by president and alumnus James E. Bultman.