A Kalamazoo College department is expanding its offerings to help the greater community build skills that are convenient for the great outdoors.
The College’s Outdoor Programs team launched the Outdoor Leadership Training Center (OLTC) in January, providing public in-person community courses, workshops and certifications for every level of expertise in outdoor education, wilderness medicine, first aid and CPR/defibrillator (AED) training.
Opportunities are expanding this spring to include new workshops:
A backpacking series beginning with free leave-no-trace instruction on March 26. Courses will continue in April with how to pack a hiking pack, layering techniques, backpacking stoves, cooking, water purification, map and compass navigation, first aid, shelter building and trip planning, ranging from $35 to $70 per class.
A climbing series that will cover climbing anchor principles (May 16), natural anchor building (May 17) and a skills test (May 18), ranging from $35 to $150 per class. Register for all three as a package for $225, a discount of $30 over signing up separately.
A mountain biking clinic available May 25 or July 5 at Maple Hill Trail for $150. Expert trainers will lead riders of all experience levels, covering fundamental techniques such as braking, cornering and shifting, along with advanced skills such as climbing, descending and line selection. Bikes and helmets can be provided when they’re needed.
“The Outdoor Leadership Training Center is here to provide the community with a fun, safe and welcoming space to learn essential outdoor skills,” OLTC Training Coordinator Hannah Wolfe said. “As a new resource in the area, we’re filling a need for accessible, hands-on training that helps people connect with nature while staying safe. Whether you’re a beginner who wants to explore the outdoors with confidence or someone looking to refine your wilderness skills, we’ve got something for you. Our courses are perfect for outdoor enthusiasts, families, educators or anyone wanting to prepare for any outdoor adventure. We love helping people of all backgrounds gain the confidence to enjoy the outdoors and discover new skills along the way.”
The Outdoor Leadership Training Center at Kalamazoo College in January provided new public in-person community courses, workshops and certifications for every level of expertise in outdoor education, wilderness medicine, first aid and CPR/defibrillator (AED) training. Additional courses for all levels of expertise will be available this spring.
As an international student from Romania, Bernice Mike ’26 knows what it’s like to face a choice between staying with one’s family and pursuing life far away. Such is the choice her lead character makes in Eurydice, the play coming to Kalamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse, 129 Thompson St., this week.
“I’ve loved Greek mythology since I was a child,” Mike said. “And being a dramatic play, Eurydice is the kind of story I gravitate toward. I read it over winter break and it hit me immediately, so I thought it would be a good role to try out for. I haven’t dealt with grief the way she has to, but I know what it’s like to make a choice between staying with loved ones and going away.”
The original Orpheus and Eurydice story is told from the perspective of Orpheus, a musician who travels to the Underworld to try to save his wife after she dies on their wedding day from a snakebite.
“Orpheus plays the most beautiful music in the world,” Mike said. “There are so many other people who are attracted to him, but because the story is Greek mythology, we don’t know much about Eurydice and why she’s the one for him. It’s a love story that shows you don’t have to put why you love someone into words, but she’s a big enigma.”
Eurydice, though, is told from the heroine’s point of view. The play—directed this week by K Professor of Theatre Arts Ren Pruis—premiered at Madison Repertory Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2003. In Mike’s words, Eurydice is an intelligent and loving character, and the play emphasizes her internal struggle as she grapples between a desire to stay with a predeceased family member in the Underworld or return to Orpheus. Audiences will see her navigate stages of life as she forgets and then relearns how to be herself.
“It’s cool to portray this character who turns out to be strong and brave through the lens of Sarah Ruhl’s play,” Mike said. “She deals with a loss from a young age, but has a lot of love to give. We see some of that in her relationship with Orpheus, but also with her father after they reunite in the Underworld. What is important is that she constantly stays true to who she is.”
Bernice Mike ’26 and Davis Henderson ’25 rehearse for “Eurydice,” which will be staged Thursday-Saturday at the Festival Playhouse. Photo by Andy Krieger/Inspired Media.
Mike said she feels the story also wants audiences to learn to follow their own hearts.
“Eurydice follows her heart and her own story,” Mike said. “It’s almost a coming-of-age story in that way. I’ve learned from playing Eurydice that it’s important to constantly seek and get to know yourself no matter the situation you’re in. There’s a lot of tragedy that goes into it. I would say the story’s message is to constantly get to know yourself and seek what your heart wants to do. At the end of the day, it is the best decision that you could make.”
Eurydice will be staged at 7:30 p.m. from Thursday, February 27–Saturday, March 1, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 2. Tickets are available online or by calling the Festival Playhouse at 269.337.7333.
“I think you’ll be able to go through a lot of emotions if you see it,” Mike said. “There are funny, heartwarming and gut-wrenching moments. I think for people who love theater and want to feel those emotions, we offer a great array of them. It’s an immersive experience and a different one because it’s Greek mythology told in a modern way. It’s not something that you get to see every day.”
The Learning Support Center at Kalamazoo College has a week of events scheduled that will challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about neurological differences between people on campus and beyond.
Neurodiversity Week, starting Monday, will provide the K community a chance to recognize the skills and talents of neurodivergent individuals, while creating more inclusive and equitable cultures that celebrate differences and empower every individual. Events will include:
Snacks and games in the Learning Support Room daily.
Panel pop-ups from 11 a.m.–1 p.m. Monday–Wednesday at Hicks Student Center. Students and staff will answer questions and engage students in conversations about neurodiversity across campus. There will also be giveaways, raffles and a vote for what fidget toy the Learning Support Center will 3D print next.
A sharing of Senior Integrated Projects from 7–9 p.m. Wednesday in the Learning Support Center at the library. Seniors will talk about their SIP processes and experiences as neurodiverse students.
A neurodiversity mixer from 3–5 p.m. Thursday in the Learning Commons. The event will serve as a crafting party with make-your-own brain collages, snacks and games. Students can also meet the Learning Support Center mascots: axolotls of all kinds because you need to “axolotl” questions to succeed. A grand prize raffle winner will receive a large stuffed axolotl.
A fidget-toy petting zoo from 4–5 p.m. Friday in the Learning Commons. Enjoy cake and try a variety of fidget toys.
A study group for everyone from 2–4 p.m. Sunday in the Learning Support Room.
The Learning Support Center empowers students to develop study skills, notetaking methods and time-management strategies through a variety of methods that help students engage in deeper learning.
“We are excited to share our love of brains of all kinds,” Learning Support Specialist Candace Combs said. “We encourage everyone to learn more about neurodiversity throughout the week.”
Neurodiversity Week begins Monday, February 24, at Kalamazoo College.
The Community and Global Health concentration at Kalamazoo College will host a researcher and physician who specializes in infectious diseases at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 19, in Dewing Hall Room 103.
Larry Lutwick is a specialist within the Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and is a former professor of medicine and biomedical sciences at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. He will present his address, “The Pandemic Clock is Ticking. We Just Do Not Know What Time It Is. The Spread of Infections in a Connected World,” discussing how the medical field monitors and responds to epidemics in a globalized world. He received his medical degree from State University of New York Downstate Medical School and completed his residency training at Barnes Hospital through the Washington University School of Medicine. He completed an infectious diseases fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine.
A small reception follows the lecture. For more information, contact department student advisor Sofia Fleming at sofia.fleming21@kzoo.edu.
An immersive art exhibition titled Tipping Point—created by a Kalamazoo College faculty member and developed through eight years of projects—has drawn acclaim from viewers as it approaches subjects such as climate change, fossil-fuel extraction, environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions.
You’re invited to hear directly from that artist, Jo-Ann and Robert Stewart Professor of Art Professor Tom Rice, in a free lecture at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, February 6. The presentation will take place in room 2008 at Western Michigan University’s Richard Center for Visual Arts.
Rice stated that “tipping point” is a term made popular by journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell in his 2000 book, Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.
“Gladwell was talking mostly about what he calls social epidemics or trends that suddenly have great success in our culture and how that happens,” Rice said. “Climate scientists, however, use the term to focus on changes to the atmosphere, oceans, carbon sinks, air temperature and ecosystems. In an ideal world, I’d want my work to be a tipping point as Gladwell describes it—one that starts a social epidemic toward real progress in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. There are other things that need to be done to slow the pace of global warming, but reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is critical.”
“Tipping Point” is currently in the Albertine Monroe Brown Gallery at Western Michigan University’s Richard Center. It features a 95-foot drawing of the mountain-top removal mining process, works addressing the complexities and absurdities of oil refining, and miniature silverpoint drawings portraying accidents related to fracking and crude oil transportation in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields.
The collection, currently in the Albertine Monroe Brown Gallery at the Richard Center, features a 95-foot drawing of the mountain-top removal mining process, works addressing the complexities and absurdities of oil refining, and miniature silverpoint drawings portraying accidents related to fracking and crude oil transportation in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields.
Rice says that his use of plastic made from natural gas is intended to raise questions in the viewer’s mind about the ubiquity of petroleum-based products in our culture.
“If people will be led to discuss the contradictions, then I’ve done my job,” he said. “While the effort to transition to renewable, upcycled and sustainable materials is gaining strength—even within industry—the truth is that complete divestment from petroleum-based design is going to require a growing awareness of how deeply petrochemical byproducts are embedded within capitalism. Everything from dyes and adhesives, the plastic in the products we use every day—such as our cell phones and computers—all the way to packaging and the synthetic fibers contained in our clothing and furniture are built on the foundation of petrochemicals.”
As a result, when presenting his work, Rice often questions whether his lecture is an artist’s talk or more of a call to action. To decide for yourself, hear the lecture or visit the exhibition, which is on display through Friday, February 7.
“Avoiding a complete climate disaster is going to mean sacrifice from all of us,” he said. “As author Naomi Klein says in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism and the Climate, it’s going to take mass social movements to start the change we need in regards to battling global warming and environment degradation. It’s not one behavior or action that humans can take to slow the pace of climate change and environmental degradation. We really can’t predict with certainty when the tipping point will be, or what outcomes will result, but we can be sure that our climate is changing and those changes are not only making the planet warmer, but less inhabitable for humans and many other forms of life.”
Alain Kassanda, the director of Coconut Head Generation, will virtually join a screening of her film live at 4 p.m. this Saturday, January 25, in Dewing Hall room 103 at Kalamazoo College. The event will be co-hosted by the African studies concentration and the student organization KalamaAfrica.
Dominique Somda, the director of African studies at K, said the film explores the daily lives of students at the University of Ibadan, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Nigeria, while focusing on their engagement with important social and political issues through a film club hosted by the Institute of African Studies. It also highlights the activism of Nigerian youths, particularly their involvement in the 2021 #EndSARS movement, a mass protest against police brutality. Somda explains that SARS, also called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, was notorious for abusing ordinary citizens. In fact, a video of a man being killed by police went viral, sparking outrage and demonstrations that largely were led by young people.
The film club participants watched works by John Akomfrah, Jean-Marie Teno, Med Hondo and others, which helped them have compelling discussions about corruption, gender roles, LGBTQ+ rights, colonialism and more. The young people at the time were called “coconut heads,” a term that accused them of being lazy and passive. However, the label was ironically reclaimed, transforming it into a badge of defiance and identity.
“This remarkable film centers on young people—students the same age as those at K—who, despite very different circumstances in another country, engage deeply with films that explore diverse ways of being human across the planet,” Somda said.
Hoping that many will attend the showing, Somda would love for participants to be curious about youth activism, different ways of life and the rich complexities of Africa. She added that students interested in films and filmmaking will find a unique, meta aspect to this experience with it being an opportunity to watch and discuss a film about people watching and discussing films.
“The film is about seeing, thinking and resisting,” Somda said. “Regardless of their positionality or political stance, I hope students at K can do the same—drawing inspiration from the vibrancy and resilience of the students at the University of Ibadan. This film helps viewers reflect on how every generation seems to think down on the younger generations, thinking that they were better, but actually shows how each and every generation has the opportunity to contribute and fight their own battles.”
Editor’s note: This story was written by Lily Stickley ’25. She serves as a social media ambassador for the College Marketing and Communication team. She’s also the co-editor for K’s student newspaper, The Index.
African studies and KalamaAfrica are co-hosting a special screening of “Coconut Head Generation” on Saturday, January 25, at Kalamazoo College.
She also explained that the film is the first installment of what she hopes will evolve into a rich and engaging film series, Seeing Africa.
“As we relaunch the African studies program at K, one of our core missions is to challenge and transform how we view the continent,” Somda said. “Rather than seeing Africa as a place of lack, waiting to be saved by foreign intervention, we aim to present it as a continent of vibrant humanity—a place where people suffer, smile, laugh, fight, debate and generate new ideas and movements. I, for one, think that this is going to be a wonderful installment, and I am excited to see how it continues going forward. This spring, the classes Africa Today and Global Black Feminism will provide great spaces to further explore themes of youth, art, activism and social justice from Africa, so please come and join the #KAfricanStudies community.”
A local theatre company’s full-circle moment will come to fruition this week when it presents Sunset Baby at the Nelda K. Balch Festival Playhouse, 139 Thompson St.
Face Off Theatre presented The Mountaintop in its first season at Kalamazoo College 10 years ago and is returning to stage Sunset Baby at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Also, before the Saturday night performance, the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, 205 Monroe St., will host a community discussion about the play at 5 p.m. with Bianca Washington Ciungan—a local actor, director and theatre professor at Hope College—serving as the moderator.
Sunset Baby features Kenyatta, a former Black revolutionary, who visits his daughter, Nina, in East Brooklyn, New York. The estranged father looks to obtain pieces of his late wife’s legacy including the letters she wrote to him while he was in prison. Nina, meanwhile, pursues her own life with her boyfriend, Damon. Ron Ware portrays Kenyatta, Western Michigan University alumna Mikaela Johnson performs as Nina, and former WMU student Delanti Hall embodies Damon. K alumna Milan Levy ’23 will serve as a production manager.
Face Off Theatre Managing Artistic Director and founding company member Marissa Harrington, another WMU grad, will direct the play, her fourth at a K venue between company productions and the Festival Playhouse.
“I’ve directed at a lot of theatres,” Harrington said. “This is one of my favorites and an inspiring place to work. The College’s mission to lean into equity and representation with its stories makes this production a smart way to start our season. It’s a play by Dominique Morriseau, who is a fantastic playwright, and her work is hard. You want to produce a show like this with people who know what they’re doing. Everybody at K is a true professional and that has made this a great time.”
The director said she saw Sunset Baby for the first time herself with her husband in 2017 in Chicago.
“I was immediately taken by the story,” she said. “You have this beautiful woman in Nina who is strong, driven and convicted, and her father comes out of the woodwork to reconnect. That in itself is an intriguing storyline. But Dominique Morriseau weaves in current events with all her shows. She takes this man who was a figure in the Black Panther movement. He’s looking for things and Nina wants nothing to do with him. There’s discourse in this show around love, activism and their costs in fighting a system that isn’t made for you. When you have this interpersonal dynamic, between a man and his estranged daughter, that is powerful. You then layer in the idea that she was a lovechild—a product of two Black Panthers who wanted to continue their work through love because love was the answer after all that fighting. It’s a well-written, powerful show.”
The Festival Playhouse is hosting Face Off Theatre for its production of “Sunset Baby.” Five shows are available this week through Sunday.
Ron Ware (from left) portrays Kenyatta, Mikaela Johnson performs as Nina and Delanti Hall embodies Damon in “Sunset Baby.”
Sunset Baby will help Face Off Theater take its first steps toward its renewed goals of expanding opportunities for People of Color as actors, directors, stage managers, costumers and more in Kalamazoo while instilling a love for theatre in local Black and brown youths. Harrington said she grew up in South Central Los Angeles in an area that many would consider to be a bad neighborhood, where theatre was the only activity she had to shape who she is today.
“I think we take for granted the skills that youths gain from the arts,” Harrington said. “When we talk about arts education, we talk about a well-rounded education. All kids deserve to have access to that. We want to lean into how we can create community impact and change through what we’re doing. We talk about graduation rates, reading levels and attendance in Kalamazoo, and there are statistics to back up that. Kids engaged in the arts, especially with afterschool activities, their whole trajectory of learning changes. They’re more excited about learning and school, and their test scores increase. It’s about accessibility.”
Black and brown representations within all roles of theatre are important, she added, to ensure young people pursue that accessibility.
“Regardless of good intentions, safety means, ‘you look like me,’” Harrington said. “You look like me, I feel welcome, and I can do this, too. We’ve had 10 years of beautiful community work. Now it’s time to lean into training the next generation with an arts organization that is Black-ran, woman-ran and queer-ran to see what the need is in the community and address it. I think it’s important for us this year as an organization to show that we’re arts and activism together: artivism. That’s who we’ve been this entire time. But moving into this next generation, we see the importance of training Black and brown artists now more than ever. We want to be a beacon of light for the kids who don’t see themselves going into engineering or business, but they love creating, writing plays and seeing stories in their minds. They love taking a moment and recreating it. We have kids who have that talent, and they don’t have anywhere to put it. We want them trained to be hirable.”
Tickets for all performances of SunsetBaby and Face Off Theatre’s entire 10th season are available at its website.
A Kalamazoo College faculty member and expert in artificial neural networks, sometimes referred to as artificial intelligence, will discuss two of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recipients at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Olds-Upton Hall, room 207.
Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies Péter Érdi will talk about the work of John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton in an address titled “Nobel Prize for Physics in 2024: Interdisciplinary Science, Neurophysics and Learning Machines.” Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data and perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, email Kristen.Eldred@kzoo.edu.
Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies Péter Érdi
An award-winning author and assistant professor of history at Princeton University will visit Kalamazoo College this week to deliver the annual Edward Moritz Lecture presented by the Department of History.
Corinna Zeltsman will discuss her book Ink under the Fingernails: Printing Politics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico in a public event at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, November 7, in Dewing Hall, Room 103. A livestream will also be available.
As a trained letterpress printer, she researches the history of printing books, political culture and labor in Latin America. She is currently working on a project that mixes the material, political and environmental history of paper in postcolonial Mexico.
Zeltsman’s book, which received the Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History from the Latin American Studies Association, addresses individuals and factions who embraced the printing press as a key weapon in the broad struggle for political power during Mexico’s independence era. It takes readers into printing shops, government offices, courtrooms and the streets of Mexico City to reconstruct the negotiations and contests that surrounded print through a century of political transformation, from the late colonial era to the Mexican Revolution.
The history department’s annual Edward Moritz Lecture honors the late professor Edward Moritz, who taught British and European history at K from 1955–88 and served for many years as the department chair. For more information on this event, contact Abigail Davenport-Walker at Abigail.Davenport-Walker@kzoo.edu.
Princeton University Assistant Professor of History Corinna Zeltsman will discuss her book, “Ink under the Fingernails: Printing Politics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” during the Edward Moritz Lecture at Kalamazoo College.
Shayna M. Silverstein, an associate professor of performance studies at Northwestern University, will visit Kalamazoo College on Friday, November 1, to discuss the topics in her book, Fraught Balance: The Embodied Politics of Dabke Dance Music in Syria.
At 4:15 p.m. in Dewing Hall, Room 103, Silverstein will talk about dabke, one of Syria’s most beloved dance music traditions, which is at the center of the country’s war and the social tensions that preceded conflict. Drawing on almost two decades of ethnographic, archival and digital research, Silverstein’s book shows how dabke dance music embodies the dynamics of gender, class, ethnicity and nationhood in an authoritarian state.
Silverstein, originally from Spokane, Washington, has studied in New Haven, Connecticut, and Chicago; lived in New York City, Washington, D.C., Syria, and Lebanon; and is now permanently based in Chicago. She holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University.
The lecture, sponsored by K’s Department of Music, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Music Event Coordinator Susan Lawrence at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
Northwestern University Associate Professor of Performance Studies Shayna M. Silverstein.
