David Rathbun founded the photography program at GVSU in 1981 following an apprenticeship in Santa Fe with photographer Eliot Porter, graduate education at Columbia Teacher's college and Princeton Theological Seminary and a teaching stint at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has lectured and exhibited widely and his images are included in numerous public and private collections. In addition to his photography work about color, he sailed and traveled extensively. Rathbun retired from GVSU in 2017, and was promoted at that time to professor emeritus.