Category: Events

Journalist Ray Suarez Will Deliver K’s 2014 Commencement Address, Receive Honorary Degree

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Female graduate hugging a well-wisherVeteran journalist Ray Suarez will deliver the 2014 Commencement address at Kalamazoo College on Sunday June 15, in a ceremony beginning at 1:00 p.m. on the campus Quad. Suarez will address approximately 300 members of the Class of 2014 and receive an honorary degree (Doctor of Humane Letters) from the College. Ms. Xinyu Hu ’14 will also address the graduates in her role as senior speaker.

The event is free and open to the public. The College sets up about 3,000 chairs on the Quad, but guests are invited to bring a bag chair or a blanket to stretch out on the grass. The weatherman says no rain! But just in case, Anderson Athletic Center on Academy is the alternate site. Unfortunately, the gym can only accommodate the graduates, some of their family members, and K administrators/faculty, and we use a ticketing process for that. Parking will be in high demand, so give yourself extra time.

For those unable to attend, K Commencement will be livestreamed.

Suarez is the permanent host of the Al Jazeera America daily program “Inside Story.” He joined the new American news channel in November 2013 after an extensive television and radio career in which he excelled at delivering, as Al Jazeera America president Kate O’Brian put it, “compelling coverage of the most challenging news stories and events with objectivity and depth, punctuated by Ray’s own brand of thoughtful analysis. That’s exactly what ‘Inside Story’ is all about.”

Suarez came from PBS’ “NewsHour,” where he worked from 1999 to 2013, most recently as its chief national correspondent. He also served as the lead correspondent for the program’s global health coverage, reporting on some of the world’s most threatening health crises from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Before joining PBS, he hosted National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” for six years.

The Brooklyn native who now lives in Washington, D.C. is the author of the critically acclaimed “Latino Americans,” the companion book to the PBS documentary series of the same name, published in September 2013. He also is the author of “The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America” and “The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration” and has contributed to several other books.

The World is My Oyster, and I am the Pearl: Peer Gynt at Festival Playhouse

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Students rehears for "Peer Gynt"
A scene from PEER GYNT (photo by Emily Salswedel ’16)

It’s grand finale time for Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College’s golden anniversary. To close its 50th season, Festival Playhouse presents Colin Teevan’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Thursday through Sunday, May 15-18, in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse.

Guest Director Todd Espeland has set the play in a contemporary punk rock club, with an “in-your face” attitude still capable of shocking a 21st century audience. (Peer Gynt contains mature subject matter and language, and some of the material may not be suitable for children.)

“I selected this modern adaptation because I felt that the updating of the language and situations would make the message and story connect more to our students,” says Espeland. “The roughness of the language, modernizing Peer’s adventures by making him a human trafficker, and its references to the way we idolize TV celebrities, brings Ibsen’s message into the 21st century while still keeping the heart of the fairy tale.

“As human beings, each of us must ask ourselves who we are, what we believe, and to whom we have obligations,” Espeland adds. “This play inverts the usual paradigm of characters that look inward for answers: Peer looks outward to the entire world to serve him. His duty toward himself is to manipulate others to fulfill his needs, regardless of the suffering his manipulations impose on others.”

Dramaturg David Landskroener ’14 comments: “Audiences will be struck by this play’s denouncement of pride and self-interest. The ever-increasing modern societal message is that everything is about ’me,’ which this adaptation deconstructs in an even more timely and resonant fashion through references to reality TV.”

Peer constantly changes his persona to suit the occasion at hand: he’ll do and say anything to get what he wants. Kyle Lampar ’17, who plays the title role, describes his character as “vulgar, carefree, and unapologetic…but behind that persona of tough teenage angst, there’s a fragile individual who only wishes to fulfill his dreams.”

The design team includes Theatre Arts Professor and Scenic Designer Lanford J. Potts, Costume Designer Elaine Kauffman, Lighting Designer Katie Anderson ’15, and Sound Designer Lindsay Worthington ’17.

The show opens Thursday, May 15 at 7:30pm (which is “pay-what-you-can” night), and runs Friday and Saturday, May 16-17, at 8pm, and Sunday, May 18, at 2pm. Tickets are $5 for students, $10 for seniors, and $15 for other adults and may be purchased at the door. To make reservations, please call 269.337.7333 or visit the website for more information. Note: Thursday’s performance will be followed by the golden anniversary’s final alumni talk back, led by Kristen Chesak ’94, managing director of the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre.

Thanksgiving in April

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Logo for Tuition Freedom DayOn Wednesday, April 9, Kalamazoo College is putting the K in thanKs!

“Because tuition covers about two-thirds of what it costs to educate a K student, we celebrate Tuition Freedom Day to mark the point in the school year when tuition stops covering a student’s education and charitable contributions take over,” said Matthew Claus, assistant director of the Kalamazoo College Fund. “From this day forward, generous donors make a K education possible.”

Students will be gathering in the Hicks Student Center to write hundreds of thank-you notes to alumni, parents, and friends who gave through the Kalamazoo College Fund.

Donors are also invited to get involved in Tuition Freedom Day by submitting a Why I Give quote.

On behalf of the entire K community, thank you!

SLEEPWALKERS Author to Lecture at Kalamazoo College

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Book cover for "The Sleepwalkers"Kalamazoo College’s 2014 Edward Moritz Lecture in in History features one of the world’s most distinguished historians, Professor Christopher Clark, Cambridge University, United Kingdom. The title of his talk, “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914,” is the same as his recent book, an authoritative chronicle that draws on new research and traces the paths to World War I in a minute-by-minute narrative of events. 2014 is the centenary of what David Barclay describes as “the primal catastrophe of modern history from which subsequent, even greater catastrophes emerged.” He also notes that Clark’s book has been widely hailed as the most important publication on World War I in many years. “The German edition has been on the top of that country’s non-fiction bestseller list for many weeks,” says Barclay,the Margaret and Roger Scholten Professor of International Studies at Kalamazoo College as well as the executive director of the German Studies Association.

New York Times book reviewer Harold Evans called Clark’s book a masterpiece. In his review (“On the Brink,” May 5, 2013) Evans wrote: “The brilliance of Clark’s far-reaching history is that we are able to discern how the past was genuinely prologue. The participants were conditioned to keep walking along a precipitous escarpment, sure of their own moral compass, but unknowingly impelled by a complex interaction of deep-rooted cultures, patriotism and paranoia, sediments of history and folk memory, ambition and intrigue. They were, in Clark’s term, ’sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.’ In conception, steely scholarship and piercing insights, his book is a masterpiece.”

Clark’s lecture occurs Wednesday, April 9, at 7 PM in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room. It is free and open to the public. The Moritz Lecture is made possible by a generous donation from a local family. It honors the legacy of the late Professor Edward Moritz, who taught history at Kalamazoo College from 1955 to 1988 and served as department chair for many years.

Amina Wadud, Scholar on Islam and Gender, Delivers Annual Thompson Lecture at K

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Islamic and gender studies scholar and author Amina Wadud
Islamic and gender studies scholar and author Amina Wadud delivers annual Thompson Lecture on March 6 at 7PM in Olmsted Room, at K.

Author and scholar Amina Wadud, Ph.D., will deliver the annual Thompson Lecture in Religion at Kalamazoo College, Thursday, March 6, 7:00 p.m. in the Olmsted Room, Mandelle Hall, 1153 Academy Street.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Her lecture, “We are One and We are Diverse: Muslim Women’s Responses to Gender Reform,” will focus on the changing dynamics of traditional Islamic gender justice and inclusiveness.

Dr. Wadud is an internationally known scholar on Islam and gender. She is professor emerita of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., and a visiting scholar at Starr King School for Ministry in Berkley, Calif. She is also the author of several books, including Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam (Oneworld Publisher, 2006), and Qur’an and Women (Oxford University Press, 1999).

“Since the turn of the new millennium, the emergence of Islamic feminism has challenged the traditional conflict between secular Muslim feminists and Islamists,” said Dr. Wadud. “Islamic feminism uses anti-oppression theology to articulate the necessity for greater inclusion in the policy, spirituality and identity of the Muslim community. My lecture will focus on the interaction between major perspectives on gender justice in Islam today, highlighting the trend toward greater inclusiveness.”

The Paul Lamont Memorial Lecture at K was established by a gift from the sons and daughters-in-law of Paul Lamont and Ruth Peel Thompson. Paul Lamont Thompson was president of Kalamazoo College from 1938 to 1949.

FIREBUGS Alights

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Three students rehearse for "The Firebugs"
Mikey Wecht ’14 (left, Chorus Leader), Madison Donoho ’17 (center, Eisenring) and Jack Massion ’14 (Biedermann) in a scene from THE FIREBUGS. Costumes by Elaine Kauffman. Photo by Emily Salswedel, ’17

Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College presents Max Frisch’s The Firebugs on Thursday, February 27, through Sunday, March 2, at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse. The reprise (the play was originally staged and directed by K theatre arts professor Nelda Balch in 1964) celebrates the 50th anniversary of Festival Playhouse, which was founded by Balch.

The Firebugs is a satirical comedy that tells the story of Biedermann, a man who foolishly allows two arsonists into his home. Fearful of offending of them, he goes out of his way to accommodate their outrageous requests, much to his own—and others’—detriment.

A comedy that Frisch himself described as “a learning play without a lesson,” Firebugs nevertheless delivers a serious and timely message. Dramaturg Belinda McCauley ’16 says, “It has been speculated for decades that Biedermann’s dilemma throughout the play is allegorical to the way humans unintentionally allow evil into their lives, most specifically how the Nazis worked their way into the lives of average German citizens.”

Director Nora Hauk ’04, currently working on her doctoral dissertation in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Michigan, emphasizes that Biedermann chooses political correctness over what he knows to be true and right—with dire consequences. “The Firebugs is a play about the trouble that people can get into as they try to maintain the status quo and their own social standing in the face of major challenges,” explains Hauk. “Despite all the warning signs, Biedermann fails to take a stand.”

“There are many messages one could possibly take away from The Firebugs,” says McCauley, “but perhaps the one to be concerned with is the way words are used. What do your words say about you? Do your words start fires? Or do your words save lives?”

The production’s design team includes Professor of Theatre Arts Lanny Potts (scenery), Elaine Kauffman (costumes), Lydia Strini ’14 (lights) and Lindsay Worthington ’16 (sound).

The show opens Thursday, February 27 (pay what you can), at 7:30 PM. Friday (February 28) and Saturday (February 28) performances begin at 8 PM. Curtain rises for Sunday’s performance (March 2) at 2 PM. For all performances except Thursday’s tickets are $5 for students, $10 for seniors, and $15 for other adults. Tickets may be purchased at the door. For more information about these and the remainder of Festival Playhouse’s golden anniversary season (including Peer Gynt) call 269.337.7333 or visit the Festival Playhouse website.

Kalamazoo College Symphonic Orchestra Presents Valentine Concert

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Beethoven saying Hey, GirlEnjoy a musical valentine when the Kalamazoo College Symphonic Orchestra presents a concert of romance on (of course) February 14, at 8 PM in Dalton Theatre of the Light Fine Arts Building. The event is free and open to the public. Selections include Exhilaration (Larry Clark); Scheherazade (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov): Wedding March (Felix Mendelssohn); music from West Side Story (Leonard Bernstein); Fur Elise (Ludwig van Beethoven); Dans Bacchanale (Camille Saint-Saens); and Mambo (Leonard Bernstein). The Symphonic Orchestra is conducted by Thomas G. Evans, professor of music and director of bands.

Piano Concert

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Cedarville University Professor John Mortensen at a piano
John Mortensen

John Mortensen, pianist and professor of music at Cedarville University, will present a concert at Kalamazoo College on Thursday, January 30. The event is free and open to the public.

The concert will feature Mortensen’s original improvisations of works by Domenico Scarlatti (Sonatas), Robert Schumann (selections from Davidsbündlertänze), Sergei Rachmaninoff (Selected Preludes), and Astor Piazzolla (Tangos). The concert begins at 7:30 P.M. in Dalton Theatre in K’s Light Fine Arts Building.

In addition to the concert, Mortensen will teach a master class culminating in performances by K students. Those performances will occur at 4 PM on January 30 in Dalton Theatre.

In addition to his work as a concert pianist, composer, and teacher, Mortensen performs and teaches Irish and American roots music, playing mandolin, octave mandolin, Irish flute, Irish button accordion, five-string banjo, Uilleann pipes, and Irish whistle. He leads The Demerits, Cedarville University’s premier roots ensemble, and he created America’s only college-level traditional Irish music session class.

College Honors Legacy of Nelson Mandela

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If ever there was a human being for whom the descriptor of sublime applied, that person is the late Nelson Mandela. His magnanimity was nonpareil; as was his capacity to unite that which seemed irrevocably divided. “It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of the former South African President,” said Lisa Brock, academic director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Brock knows the Mandela family, and she was interviewed about his legacy by WWMT-TV, WOOD-TV, Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive, WKZO radio, and the Chicago Tribune.

Mandela died on Thursday, December 5, at the age of 95. “After serving 27 years as a South African political prisoner on the infamous Robben Island, he emerged as a symbol of freedom to millions worldwide,” added Brock. “Revered as a hero and human rights leader, he will be dearly missed.” In honor of his legacy, the College will hold a vigil on Friday, December 6, at noon in front of Stetson Chapel. All are welcome.

David Barclay, the Margaret and Roger Scholten Professor of International Studies, shared his personal encounter with Mandela. “It was almost exactly twenty years ago, in 1993. I was sitting in Johannesburg airport, waiting to change planes,” Barclay wrote. “As I recall, it was a very long wait, and I was trying to finish some work. I vaguely noticed a group of four or five individuals as they sat down in the seats next to mine; but, as one does in airports, I didn’t pay any particular attention to them, continuing instead with my work. At one point I lifted my head and looked over at them, and suddenly I noticed that one of them was Nelson Mandela. I couldn’t help myself. I decided to be a crass American tourist and ask him for his autograph. I began to search for a blank piece of paper, and all I could find was the reverse side of a set of Kalamazoo College faculty meeting minutes! So I walked up to him and asked if I could bother him for his autograph. He very graciously stood up, asked me my name, and signed the K faculty minutes! We then spoke for about five or 10 minutes. I was a nobody, an autograph-seeker, a complete stranger, yet he spoke to me as though I were actually important. I was immensely impressed. This was in 1993, three years after his release from prison and one year before he became president, and he had absolutely no security detail of any kind. It turned out that he and his colleagues were waiting for another group of colleagues who were arriving on a delayed flight from London. At the head of that group was Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in 1999. So on that day, purely by coincidence, I saw two future presidents of South Africa.”

Poet Reads from REDUCED TO JOY

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Book Cover of "Reduced to Joy"Poet and philosopher Mark Nepo will give a publication reading for his new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, on Tuesday, November 19, at 7PM in Stetson Chapel at Kalamazoo College. The event is free and open to the public. The new book, just out from Viva Editions, contains 73 poems retrieved and shaped over the last 13 years. Wrote Nepo: “These poems explore the nature of working with what we’re given until it wears us through to joy.”

“Mark Nepo’s poems reduce me first to grateful silence, and then to tears, and then to laughter, and then to praise,” says Elizabeth Lesser, co-founder of the Omega Institute and author of Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow. “He joins a long tradition of truth-seeking, wild-hearted poets—Rumi, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver-—and deserves a place in the center of the circle with them.” Nepo has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for 40 years. The New York Times bestselling author has published 14 books and recorded eight audio projects. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages.

In a recent two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey, Nepo shares his thoughts on embracing the moment, the power of listening, and more.