Faculty & Staff Archives - News and Events

Warhol Foundation Grant Supports Research Travel for K Professor

Posted on December 3, 2024December 3, 2024

Anne Marie Butler, assistant professor of art history and women, gender and sexuality at Kalamazoo College, is a recipient of a 2024 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, the foundation announced December 2.

Butler is one of nine grantees in the article category, for her article, “Deviance, Penetration, and the Erotic in Aïcha Snoussi’s Drawing Installations,” examining the Tunisian artist’s work. Butler’s research focuses on contemporary Tunisian art, global contemporary art, contemporary global surrealism studies, Southwest Asia and North Africa studies, gender and sexuality studies, and queer theory.

“I am honored to have been selected from amongst many wonderful scholars to receive this prestigious award,” Butler said. “This grant will support 2025 travel to conduct primary research for a new scholarly article on Aïcha Snoussi’s (Tunis and Paris) works. Informed by Heather Love and Audre Lorde, I argue for a new reading of Snoussi’s drawing installations, illuminating intimate relationships between theories of queer of color archives, deviance, and erotics.”

The grant program supports writing about contemporary art, with the goal of maintaining critical writing as a valued way of engaging with the visual arts.

“Artists play a vital role in illuminating key issues of our time, but it is thanks to the attention and insights of arts writers that artists’ visions become widely known and discussed,” said Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “The Andy Warhol Arts Writers Grant supports and celebrates the crucial contributions of writers who not only transmit but creatively engage with artists’ methods, intentions, contexts, and blind spots to bring their perspectives into focus in the public sphere.”

Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant recipient Anne Marie Butler — Assistant Professor of Art History and Women, Gender and Sexuality Anne Marie Butler is a recipient of a 2024 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

In addition to nine article writers, the 2024 Arts Writers Grants include nine books and 12 short-form writing awardees, for a total of $945,000 to 30 writers. Ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 each, the grants support projects targeted at both general and specialized art audiences, from reviews for magazines and newspapers to in-depth scholarly studies.

“The 30 writers receiving support this year are working on projects asking urgent questions about art’s place in the world today,” said Pradeep Dalal, director of The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. “Exploring topics including art’s relationship to fossil fuel extraction, Native art and activism, migration and questions of visibility, internationalist solidarity networks, DIY publishing, and LGBTQ comic artist communities, and covering artists working in Chile, Columbia, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Venezuela, this year’s grantee projects actively expand our understanding of contemporary art. Many of these projects make unexpected connections between seemingly disparate aspects of art and culture. Despite the severe contraction of available venues for publishing in the arts, these writers continue to enrich and expand the academic disciplinary frameworks of both art criticism and art history.”

Butler’s writing has appeared in publications including ASAP/Journal, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, and the London Review of Education. She recently co-edited a new book, Queer Contemporary Art of Southwest Asia North Africa (Intellect Press, 2024).

National Honor Salutes K’s Voter Participation Efforts

Posted on November 20, 2024November 20, 2024

A nonpartisan and nonprofit initiative is saluting Kalamazoo College today as one of 471 U.S. institutions doing the most in higher education to increase student voter participation.

K is just one of two private institutions in Michigan being recognized as a 2024 ALL IN Most-Engaged Campus for College Student Voting, meaning that the College:

Reported its 2022 student voting data to the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE), which is run through the Institute of Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts University.
Shared that data with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, an effort that strives to improve and increase democratic engagement activities on college campuses.
Developed and submitted to the ALL IN challenge a 2024 voter-engagement action plan.
Received support from the College’s president through ALL IN’s Higher Education President’s Commitment to Full Student Voter Participation.

K Votes volunteers drive voter participation by offering assistance at the Center for Civic Engagement — K Votes volunteers, including Oakley Gabriel ’21 (center), offered students rides to the polls on Election Day to drive campus voter participation.

K Votes—the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement’s (CCE) nonpartisan coalition to inform the College’s students, faculty and staff members about voting and civic engagement—is the primary driver of the institution’s efforts in increasing voter participation. K Votes representatives work in partnership with students to register new voters, mail absentee ballots, provide rides to the polls, and distribute candidate information with maps to local polling places.

CCE Program Associate Oakley Gabriel ’21 leads K Votes, along with students, faculty and staff.

“The relationships and momentum built among community organizations and our campus were critical to implementing our robust action plan as supported by a grant from Students Learn Students Vote Coalition,” Gabriel said. “We expanded voter registration initiatives, increased capacity for voter education and elections support, and made connections with hundreds of students. More than 200 K students are newly registered voters thanks to our K Votes Coalition. The Center for Civic Engagement took on a massive undertaking, and the campus and Kalamazoo communities showed up with us, and I’m very proud of what we achieved.”

Student Filmmakers Praise Instructor, Showcase

Posted on November 18, 2024December 5, 2024

After a pandemic pause, a favorite Homecoming tradition returned in October, showcasing the creative talents of Kalamazoo College film and media studies students. A film festival featuring the introductory and advanced students in classes led by Visiting Instructor Danny Kim, allowed alumni to peek behind the curtain and see how students hone artistic skills through documentary filmmaking. After the screening, alumni asked questions of the filmmakers to learn more about the projects and applauded the students’ talents.

The projects required students to take B-roll footage to supplement the main footage, conduct about four interviews and use a filming technique called framing that shows the interviewee looking somewhere other than at the camera. Three of the student producers recently shared what they learned from their experiences.

Homecoming film festival with instructor and filmmakers — Visiting Instructor Danny Kim (from left), and students Ethan Galler, Davis Henderson, Alex Quesada, Megan McGarry, Emma Frederiksen and Jane Bentley, all from the class of 2025, attend the Homecoming Film Festival.

‘Saturday Night Live’ if it Had No Budget

Davis Henderson ’25 put K’s TV-production class in the spotlight with “ARTX-200,” a film named for the course taught by media producer and studio instructor Jaakan Page-Wood.

“To quote Jaakan, it’s very much like Saturday Night Live if Saturday Night Live was filmed on a Thursday afternoon by amateurs with no money, and was at 4:15,” Henderson said. “It was a great time, and I wanted to give it more attention. It’s definitely helped me find a space at K where I’m able to make stuff.”

“ARTX-200” presents Henderson’s peers as they explain how the course provided a creative outlet they had yet to find elsewhere on campus. Henderson, a theatre major who plans to pursue voice acting, developed an interest in filmmaking as a child when he and his brother began making skit videos with his mom’s photography equipment along with editing tools such as iMovie.

“ARTX-200” by Davis Henderson ’25

“Documentary filmmaking is interesting to me because it’s challenging,” Henderson said. “When something unexpected happens, you can’t restart. There’s no script and you pick it up as it goes. I can open up a history book and get bored. But being able to open a documentary, and see and hear what people are talking about, provides demonstrations that allow your imagination to take over. This is probably the most influential and crucial class I’ve taken here at K. I was able to create something tangible that will go in my portfolio and use it to get a job.”

An Art Form That’s Interesting and Exciting

Jane Bentley ’25 took a much more serious issue of importance to her and created “Students for Justice in Palestine,” a film about the student organization of the same name.

The film opens with Suha Qashou ’24—then president of K’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)—leading a vigil outside the Light Fine Arts building, surrounded by signs and supporters. She discusses her desire to commemorate the lives lost in Gaza in an honorable way.

The subject matter provided Bentley with some challenges.

“Between rallies and meetings, I set up a lot of my shots so a lot of people wouldn’t be identifiable for two reasons,” Bentley said. “First, I wasn’t confident that I was going to get a release form for every single person who might be there. And also, when you’re making something about the pro-Palestinian movement, especially in the immediate aftermath of October 7, you have to consider that leaving someone recognizable could put them in a vulnerable position.”

“Students for Justice in Palestine” by Jane Bentley ’25

Regardless, Kim’s class provided Bentley a chance to be expressive in an inclusive fashion that was supportive of all the student members of SJP.

“If you have something in your life that you think is worth talking about, the best way to get people interested in it is to package it in a form that’s interesting and exciting,” Bentley said. “I think a documentary can be the best way you to do that.”

A Day to Live Graciously

Unlike Bentley or Henderson, Ethan Galler ’25 had the problem of being uncertain when circumstances would allow him to film the bulk of his footage given his subject matter, K’s Day of Gracious Living.

“This is DOGL” captures student voices and some thoughts from Vice President for Student Development Malcolm Smith the day before DOGL 2023. They discussed the importance of the traditional day off toward the end of the spring term as well as the history of it being a secret date selected by student government representatives and revealed in advance only to a few administrators.

Thankfully, Galler scheduled the interviews in advance through some sleuthing and logical conclusions.

“This is DOGL” by Ethan Galler ’25

“It was getting close to the end of the term, and either DOGL was the day it was or there would’ve been conflicts with other student events,” he said. “We picked the day before for interviews and hoped for the best.”

Despite cloudy and cool conditions for DOGL, Galler collected footage of a good number of students having fun at the beach in South Haven and supplemented it with footage from K’s archives of previous DOGL activities.

The end product and his enjoyment of the creative process led him to echo Henderson and Bentley’s praise for their instructor and the advantages of taking the class.

“It’s always good to have a little variety in the classes you take, especially if you’re a K student,” Galler said. “Everybody can be a fan of film in their own way, and making a documentary, you get to see behind the curtain with a production. It’s a fun experience.”

All the student videos from the film festival are available on YouTube. Click the links below to watch the others.

Featured Filmmakers

The other student filmmakers featured in the film festival and their projects included the following. Links are included where available:

Ian Burr ’24: “Football,” spotlighting K football players and what their sport means to them.
Sam Douma ’26: “Via Ferrata,” in which a voracious duo aims to harness their raw musical energy despite being young and distracted.
Emma Frederiksen ’25: “Growing with Disability,” showcasing three K students who describe their experiences navigating adulthood and transitioning into college while living with a disability.
Alek Hultberg ’26: “Tom Evans,” showing students and friends of Music Professor Tom Evans honoring him as he prepares to retire.
Caleb Kipnis ’26: “How to Run Hillel,” presenting insights into the Jewish student organization Hillel and its board members’ roles in planning and executing an event.
Megan McGarry ’25: “Clay and Community,” with ceramics students collaborating to make art pieces in response to a problematic mural.
Alex Quesada ’25: “Train Swag,” featuring cities, states and people that can seem far apart, but with a train, the world becomes smaller and connected communities get bigger.
Amalia Scorsone ’24: “A SuperKut of Us,” with friends discussing the importance of their time at K as they approach graduation.
Luke Torres ’25: “Squishmallows,” in which Jenna Paterob ’23 reveals her obsession with Squishmallows toys.
Tariq Williams ’23: “Sustainability at Kalamazoo College,” showing K’s efforts in sustainability and the impact of recycling on campus.

“Football” by Ian Burr ’24

“Train Swag” by Alex Quesada ’25.

“A SuperKut of Us” by Amalia Scorsone ’24

K Faculty Member Co-Edits Contemporary Queer Art Book

Posted on November 15, 2024December 2, 2024

Anne Marie Butler, assistant professor of art history and women, gender and sexuality at Kalamazoo College, co-edited a new book, Queer Contemporary Art of Southwest Asia North Africa (Intellect Press, 2024), with Sascha Crasnow, assistant professor of art history at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Part of the Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East series, the book presents new perspectives on queer visual culture in the Southwest Asia North Africa (SWANA) region from artists and scholars. In addition to serving as editors, Butler and Crasnow wrote one of the chapters, “Transing Contemporary Art: Aïcha Snoussi and Khaled Jarrar.”

The book is important because it stands as the first volume to consider this particular intersection of geographical location, visual arts and queer studies, Butler said—hopefully, the first of many.

“Obviously, it’s a resource for people to learn about queer visual culture in the region and at diaspora, but Sascha and I very much don’t want this book to define that field,” Butler said. “We are more interested in the book generating questions, responses and new inquiry than marking off a territory. We hope it is used to build on.”

Each of the book’s three sections—Unfixed Genders, Intersectional Sexualities, and Sites and Spaces—includes at least one of each type of chapter: scholarly essay, interview and artist contribution.

“I think it’s unique to have that many interviews, and having artists’ contributions is a little bit unique to scholarly volumes,” Butler said. “Especially since this is about contemporary art, we wanted to have those artists’ voices represented. The artists’ contributions are one of my favorite parts of this book. It’s fantastic to read artists talking about their own work in this context.’”

With her research focused on contemporary Tunisian art with an emphasis on gender, sexuality and the state, Butler has long cultivated connection with the artists she studies. Working on this volume allowed her to continue that approach while broadening her lens.

“This volume was great for me to be able to think about some of the things I read, and some of the things that my scholarship is in conversation with, in a little bit bigger way,” Butler said. “Continuing to work with the artists and the people that I’ve made connections with has been important to me. I want to continue to build and maintain those relationships. I also want to continue to ask different questions and ask questions in different ways.”

The work of building relationships served Butler well as she and Crasnow prioritized contributions to the book from people living in the SWANA region, representing diaspora and bringing different perspectives and experiences to the collection.

“We have fewer contributors living in the region than we might have liked to, which is a product of some of the tensions that this volume embodies,” Butler said. “This book comes at an unparalleled moment of queer global visibility, and with queer and trans visibility, there’s always this paradox where it’s good that people are more visible, but also it can put people in danger. There’s also, on the larger scale, cultural imperialism, problems with global flows of scholarship, extractive scholarship, misguided ideas about saving LGBTQ people from their cultures, and a homogenization of a global queerness that is the Euro-American perspective of what queerness is. Visibility comes with all of these complications that we need to be really attentive to.”

Queer Contemporary Art Co-Editor Anne Marie Butler — Anne Marie Butler, assistant professor of art history and women, gender and sexuality at Kalamazoo College, co-edited a new book, “Queer Contemporary Art of Southwest Asia North Africa.”

Butler Queer Contemporary Art book cover — “Queer Contemporary Art of Southwest Asia North Africa” is available from the publisher at intellectdiscover.com.

Gayatri Gopinath, a preeminent scholar on visual culture and queer studies, wrote a forward to the book that Butler believes helps to contextualize the importance of the book at this moment.

“Anne Marie Butler and Sascha Crasnow’s astute framing of the uses of a trans methodology in the study of contemporary SWANA art is a reflection on the mobility of many of the artists they study,” the forward says. “For Butler and Crasnow, to actively trans SWANA contemporary art is to foreground flux and fluidity, and movement over origin or destination, as well as to jettison rigid identity categories. … The very formations of ‘SWANA,’ ‘queerness,’ and even ‘contemporary art’ are predicated on an acknowledgement of the difference, heterogeneity, and incommensurability of the various social and aesthetic formations that fall within these capacious rubrics. Rather than flattening out difference to create a coherent, homogenous whole, the contributors to this volume attend to the particularities, divergences and incoherences within and between these categories. They suggest that it is perhaps only in the recognition of the radical difference and unknowability of the other that a truly ethical relationality can be forged.”

Although the edited scholarly volume is primarily intended for an academic audience, Butler believes that the artist interviews and contributions make parts of it accessible to anyone who is interested. She hopes people will encourage their libraries to purchase the volume, making it available to a larger audience, since they were unable to secure the funding to publish the book online with open access.

“I think it’s a really special book, and I think that a lot of times when people hear edited volume or academic collection, they think, ‘Oh, that’s not something that I would enjoy reading or looking at.’ But I think that this book has a lot to offer a lot of different people.”

Butler has taught at K since 2019. She holds a Ph.D. in global gender and sexuality studies from the University at Buffalo, an M.A. in arts politics from New York University, and a B.A. in art history and French from Scripps College.

Queer Contemporary Art of Southwest Asia North Africa is available from the publisher at intellectdiscover.com.

NSF Grant Benefits K’s Tresca, Lab Students

Posted on November 13, 2024November 13, 2024

A National Science Foundation (NSF) grant will help a Kalamazoo College faculty member and his students develop a lab partnership with some of their counterparts at the University of Toronto while performing research with peptoid nanomaterials.

Blakely Tresca, assistant professor of chemistry, has been awarded nearly $250,000 under the NSF’s Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS). The LEAPS-MPS grant emphasizes helping pre-tenure faculty at institutions that don’t traditionally receive significant amounts of NSF-MPS funding, including predominantly undergraduate institutions, as well as achieving excellence through diversity.

Tresca and his students will create peptoid nanomaterials, which are synthetic molecules that show promise in detecting harmful substances in water or people, for example, or in creating coatings that can impart new properties onto other materials. Their work will dovetail with research at University of Toronto in the lab of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Helen Tran.

“I’ve been working with Dr. Tran on putting an alkyne functional group into peptoids, and then studying how the peptoids can self-assemble into materials,” Tresca said. “And once they self-assemble, we want to know how alkynes react in these materials.”

Tresca explained that his lab’s processes require several repetitive tasks including shaking and rinsing samples five or six times each with 10 to 18 individual steps requiring a total of 18 to 20 hours of work when done by hand. The grant covers the cost of a robot that makes the process faster, easier and safer.

“Dr. Tran’s lab has expertise in doing automated synthesis,” Tresca said. “They have a robot that’s the same as the one we have here now. They also have expertise in characterizing the materials, using instruments like an atomic force microscope or AFM. I’m excited because, if things turn out the way we plan, we will be able to work on some really cool applications to design new ways of sensing, either analytes or toxins.”

The grant also covers funding for Tresca’s students to work in the lab, travel to conferences and visit the University of Toronto over the next two years. He estimates that two K students will assist in his lab during the academic year and five will work during the summer.

Tresca’s grant is one of two NSF awards given to faculty members in K’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the past year. The other has allowed Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Assistant Professor of Chemistry Daniela Arias-Rotondo to redesign the lab portion of inorganic chemistry (CHEM 330 at K). It also has helped her and her lab students make compounds that can absorb solar energy and turn it into electricity using manganese, a low-cost, low-toxicity alternative to the materials currently used in solar energy conversion, which tend to be rare, expensive and difficult to mine.

NSF Grant Recipient Blake Tresca in his lab with a student — Assistant Professor of Chemistry Blakely Tresca, a recent NSF grant recipient, works with students in his lab

NSF Grant Recipient Blake Tresca with students — Tresca poses with his lab students in summer 2024.

K’s Potts Earns Community Medal of Arts Award

Posted on October 31, 2024November 1, 2024

A celebrated Kalamazoo College faculty member with several career awards and honors to his name has earned another accolade. The Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo announced Wednesday that Professor of Theatre Arts Lanny Potts will be the latest with K connections to receive the Community Medal of Arts Award.

Since 1985, the annual award has recognized an artist who is a leader in their field, has a significant body of creative activity, has received local and/or national acclaim, and has impacted the Kalamazoo community through art. It encompasses all art forms, including but not limited to visual, musical, theatrical, literary, performing, multimedia, architecture and design.

“I think this is an honor for all artists within the community,” Potts said. “When we celebrate the work of any of us, we celebrate the work of all of us—as artists, as a community, and importantly, as an incredibly rich artistic community. The work of the Arts Council celebrates this incredibly vibrant cultural life in our community. When I think about being recognized as part of our artistic community, I think about all of the amazing artists I’ve been able to work with, the collaborations that have been fostered, and the stories that have been told.”

Potts’ local work began in summer 1986. After serving the John F. Kennedy Center for the American College Theatre Festival as a stage manager, he worked as a technical director and lighting designer with the Kalamazoo Civic Youth Theatre program. He was hired in 1987 as the technical director for K’s Festival Playhouse, which then was a summer professional equity theatre founded in 1962 by Nelda K. Balch and Dorothy Upjohn Dalton.

Since, his career has included professional design and production work in Germany; international design work in Caçeres, Spain, and Varanasi, India; and hundreds of local and regional productions. Close to home, Potts has earned five Michigan Wilde Awards in the category of Best Lighting Design through the Farmers Alley productions of Gypsy, The Light in the Piazza, Bridges of Madison County, Camelot and Bright Star. He also earned a national lighting award for Fun Home from the John F. Kennedy Center; regional design awards in Atlanta, Chattanooga and Lansing; and two governor’s commendations in Georgia and Michigan.

Community Medal of Arts Award recipient Lanny Potts smiling at a graduate during Commencement — Professor of Theatre Lanny Potts will receive a 2024 Community Medal of Arts Award from the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo.

Potts says his greatest joy has been working with students for 27 years alongside his amazing colleagues at K, where he received the 2024–25 Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship in September, honoring his contributions in creative work, research and publication.

“As an artist I consider it a gift to be able to work in Kalamazoo, and as an educator, an honor to work alongside our amazing students at Kalamazoo College. Lucky me,” he said.

The 2024 Community Medal of Arts Award Ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, December 10, in the Dale B. Lake Auditorium at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. The event is free and online reservations are requested.

Neural Network Society Honors K Professor

Posted on October 3, 2024October 3, 2024

The International Neural Network Society (INNS) is honoring Kalamazoo College Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies Péter Érdi with a promotion to its College of Fellows, providing him with the highest grade of membership in the organization and recognition of his exceptional achievements in the field of neural networks.

Artificial neural networks are a set of algorithms, inspired by functions found in the human brain, that recognize patterns. Such systems learn to perform tasks by considering examples through processes such as image recognition. The networks might learn about those images to identify similar images, then label them and organize them. The INNS gathers global experts interested in neural networks as they seek to develop new and more effective forms of machine intelligence. Fellows of the society are elected by the INNS Board of Governors.

Érdi received the 2018 Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship, the highest award bestowed by K’s faculty, which honors the recipient’s contributions in creative work, research and publication. He was also recently recognized by a group of alumni from the Class of 2009 who initiated an Interdisciplinary Fund for Complex Systems Studies in Érdi’s name.

Érdi has dozens of publications from his time at K, including two books since 2019, Ranking: The Hidden Rules of the Social Game We All Play and Repair: When and How to Improve Broken Objects, Ourselves and Our Society. He also recently finished another book due out in November, Feedback Control: How to Destroy or Save the World, and has served the University of Michigan as a visiting professor and scholar.

Portrait of Neural Network Society honoree Péter Érdi — The International Neural Network Society is honoring Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies Péter Érdi by naming him to its College of Fellows.

“I have received the two most significant recognitions of my life this year, and they come from two separate communities,” Érdi said. “The Interdisciplinary Fund for Complex Systems Studies was established by my former students, and I have been voted to be a Fellow by my peers from the neural network community. I am not sure I deserved it since the majority of the fellows are the giant pioneers of the field. I mention just three names: Shun-ichi Amari, Stephen Grossberg and the late Teuvo Kohonen.”

K Welcomes New Faculty for 2024

Posted on October 1, 2024October 1, 2024

Kalamazoo College is pleased to welcome the following faculty members to campus this fall:

Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Kelsey Aldrich

Aldrich arrives at K from Duquesne University, where she earned a Ph.D. and served as a graduate teaching assistant in biochemistry. Her educational background also includes a Bachelor of Science in chemistry with American Chemical Society (ACS) certification from Grove City College, where she was an undergraduate teaching assistant in organic, analytical and general chemistry.

Aldrich will teach a Shared Passages Seminar course this fall titled Cultured: The History and Science of Fermented Foods. In winter spring terms, she will teach classes in general chemistry and biochemistry. Her professional affiliations include membership in the ACS and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB).

New Faculty Member Kelsey Aldrich — Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Kelsey Aldrich

Visiting Assistant Professor of English Erika Carbonara

Carbonara recently earned her Ph.D. in English from Wayne State University. She additionally holds a master’s degree from Oakland University and a bachelor’s degree with university honors from Wayne State.

She specializes in early modern literature with an emphasis on gender, sexuality, and kink studies. In her previous teaching positions, she has taught a wide range of courses from introductory composition to literature classes focused on Renaissance literature, children’s literature, and women’s literature. This term she will lead a course on social justice from a literary perspective with a focus on issues, events, movements and historical moments while emphasizing areas of power difference such as race and ethnicity, disabilities, class, gender and sexuality.

New faculty member Erika Carbonara — Visiting Assistant Professor of English Erika Carbonara

Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rachel Chaiser

Chaiser’s educational background includes a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a bachelor’s degree with honors in mathematics from the University of Puget Sound.

In Boulder, she served as a part-time graduate instructor in linear algebra for non-math majors and calculus courses, a graduate teaching assistant in precalculus and an advanced undergraduate research mentor. At K this fall, she will teach calculus with lessons in algebra, precalculus and analytic geometry.

New faculty member Rachel Chaiser — Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rachel Chaiser

Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Sharon Colvin

Colvin has teaching experience with the University of Pittsburgh School of Education as an instructor, leading students with research methods and applied research; and the University of Maryland First-Year Innovation and Research Experience (FIRE) as an assistant clinical professor. Before getting her PhD., she was a youth services librarian for 10 years. At K, Colvin will teach educational psychology in fall, which applies the principles of psychology to the practice of teaching.

Colvin holds a Ph.D. in learning sciences and policy from the University of Pittsburgh School of Education, Health and Human Development; a master’s degree in library science from the Simmons University Graduate School of Library and Information Science; a master’s degree in mind, brain and education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education; and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wellesley College.

New faculty member Sharon Colvin — Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Sharon Colvin

Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Caitlin Coplan

Coplan arrives at K from Northwestern University, where they recently earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. They also hold a bachelor’s degree with honors in physical and educational chemistry from the University of Utah.

Coplan has prior professional and teaching experience as an instructor as a part of the Arch program for incoming first-year students, and a teaching assistant for general chemistry and nanomaterials courses at Northwestern. They have also served as an interim undergraduate chemistry advisor, College of Science student ambassador, and teaching assistant in general chemistry at the University of Utah. At K, they will teach analytical chemistry this fall.

New faculty member Caitlin Coplan — Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Caitlin Coplan

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Mahar Fatima

For the past seven years, Fatima has served the University of Michigan, first as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a research laboratory specialist. Her research interests include studies of the sensory neural circuits under physiological or pathological conditions, the molecular mechanisms required to interpret sensory information, and how relations between neural and non-neuronal systems contribute to chronic pain, chronic itch, and pulmonary disorders. This fall, Fatima will teach neurobiology at K, addressing the structure and function of the nervous system with topics including the cell biology of neurons, electrophysiology, sensory and motor systems, brain development, and nervous system dysfunction.

Fatima earned a Ph.D. from the National Brain Research Centre in India along with master’s and bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry and life sciences respectively from the University of Allahabad.

New faculty member Mahar Fatima — Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Mahar Fatima

Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion Shelby King

King holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) along with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Texas State University, San Marcos.

Her teaching areas include the history of religion in America, religion and popular culture, religion and American politics, theories and methods in religion, and theories of genders and sexualities. Her professional memberships include the American Academy of Religion, and the UCSB Center for Cold War Studies and International History.

New faculty member Shelby King — Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion Shelby King

Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Cemile Kurkoglu

Kurkoglu comes to K from Denison University, where she had been a visiting assistant professor, teaching undergraduate mathematics and statistics courses since 2021.

Kurkoglu holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Indiana University Bloomington, where she served as an associate instructor for algebra, calculus and finite mathematics courses and she assisted for graduate mathematics courses. She also has a master’s degree from Bilkent University and a bachelor’s degree from Hacettepe University. Her graduate-level coursework included abstract and commutative algebra, number and representation theory, and ordinary and partial differential equations, real and complex analysis, and topology.

New faculty member Cemile Kurkoglu — Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Cemile Kurkoglu

Visiting Assistant Professor of History Josh Morris

Morris is arriving at K from Wayne State University, where he has been a visiting assistant professor at Grand Valley State University since 2021. Elsewhere, he has served St. Clair County Community College, the University of Toledo and Wayne State University as an adjunct faculty member; a graduate teaching assistant at Wayne State and Cal State University Pomona; and a lecturer for the Los Angeles Workers’ Center and the University of California, Irvine.

Morris holds a Ph.D. from Wayne State, a master’s degree from CSU Pomona, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, all in history. His professional memberships include the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Historical Materialism Society for Critical Research in Marxism, the Labor and Working-Class Historical Association and the Historians of American Communism.

New faculty member Joshua Morris — Visiting Assistant Professor of History Joshua Morris

Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Koffi Nomedji

Nomedji holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Duke University, a master’s degree in economics from Oklahoma State University, and bachelor’s degrees in sociology and economics from the University of Lomé, Togo, West Africa. At Duke, Nomedji taught courses in introductory cultural anthropology, the digital revolution, the anthropology of money, and development and Africa.

New faculty member Koffi Nomedji — Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Koffi Nomedji

Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science Nick Polanco

While recently earning a Ph.D. in computer science at Michigan State University, Polanco conducted research in automotive cybersecurity specific to autonomous vehicles. He also was a teaching assistant in artificial intelligence, computer organization and architecture, software engineering, computer systems, discrete structures, mobile applications and development, and database systems.

At K, Polanco will teach courses in introductory computing and programming basics for JavaScript and web development this fall.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science Nick Polanco

Director of African Studies and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Dominique Somda

Somda has arrived at K from the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where she was a research fellow. She also has past appointments as traveling faculty with the International Honors Program (IHP) at study abroad and world learning sites in the U.S., Spain, Jordan, India, Nepal, Senegal, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and Chile; as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Reed College and the Department of Anthropology and Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; as a visiting scholar in anthropology at the London School of Economics; as a postdoctoral fellow at the Université Paris Nanterre in France; and as a teaching and research fellow at the University of Paris Nanterre.

Somda has a Ph.D. and two master’s degrees in ethnology and comparative sociology from the University of Paris Nanterre, and a master’s and bachelor’s in philosophy from the University Clermont Auvergne.

Somda will lead a course this fall at K titled On Being Human in Africa. The course will examine the experiences of Africans through racialized and gendered existences, their affective relations, their ways of relating to and caring for each other and the land; and explore what it means to think and write about Africa with representations and discourses including fiction, academic writing and social media.

Director of African Studies and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Dominique Somda

Assistant Professor of Biology Clara Stuligross

Stuligross was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Riverside prior to K. She holds Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California, Davis, and a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Earlham College.

Stuligross studies the impacts of environmental stressors on native bee ecology and recently received a federal grant to study the effects of climate change on bees. She also has professional experience as a museum educator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, where she taught science outreach programs and developed hands-on climate change education lessons. At K this fall, she will teach Biology Explorations.

Assistant Professor of Biology Clara Stuligross

Visiting Instructor of Chinese Ruyuan Yang

Yang has a master’s degree in teaching Chinese to non-native speakers from the Beijing Language and Culture University, and a bachelor’s degree in teaching Chinese as a second language from Yunnan Normal University in Kunming, China.

Yang previously has taught college-level courses in beginning, intermediate and advanced Chinese at K; basic and intermediate Chinese, and Chinese dance and culture at Western Michigan University; and integrated Chinese and Chinese listening and speaking courses at Beijing Language and Culture University. Yang’s courses this fall include beginning and intermediate Chinese.

Visiting Instructor of Chinese Ruyuan Yang

K Awards Lucasse Fellowship, Ambrose Prize

Posted on September 30, 2024October 2, 2024

Kalamazoo College today awarded one faculty member and one staff member with two of the highest awards the College bestows on its employees.

Professor of Theatre Arts Lanny Potts was named the recipient of the 2024–25 Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship, honoring his contributions in creative work, research and publication. Kelly Killen Ross, office coordinator for Campus Safety and Religious and Spiritual Life, was granted the W. Haydn Ambrose Prize, recognizing her outstanding service to the College community.

Potts is a professional designer and consultant. His work includes international lighting and production design; national tour designs for opera and dance; regional designs for opera, modern dance, ballet, drama and corporate events; concert work for Willow Creek International and the Indigo Girls; work in architectural lighting and consulting; TV studio production design and consulting; and consultant planning for performance venues and events including the 1996 Olympics.

In addition to such work, Potts has sustained a 25-year teaching career within higher education while also providing guest masterclass design instruction at various venues, and providing professional presentations on lighting design, design communication, and leadership and creativity within the arts at professional conferences and workshops. He has presented portfolio examples of his work at regional conferences, worked at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and has received numerous professional awards including a Michigan Governor’s Commendation and Atlanta Critic’s Choice awards for his design work, which included the Atlanta premier of A Few Good Men.

In recent years, Potts has earned five Wilde Awards—distributed through EncoreMichigan.com—for his lighting-design work in Farmers Alley Theatre productions such as Bright Star, Bridges of Madison County and The Light in the Piazza; and a National Lighting Design Award from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College production of Fun Home. He’s also served K as an associate provost of academic affairs..

A ceremony to confer the Lucasse Fellowship traditionally occurs in the spring term, where the honored faculty member speaks regarding their work.

Killen Ross received five nominations for the Ambrose Prize, with nominators saying she’s humble, kind and always putting others first. They credited her for organizing chili lunches for struggling first-year students, breakfast for custodians during the pandemic, and transportation to the train station or airport for those in need.

The Ambrose Prize is named after W. Haydn Ambrose, who served K for more than 20 years in a variety of roles, including assistant to the president for church relations, dean of admission and financial aid, and vice president for development. Ambrose was known for being thoughtful in the projects he addressed and treating people with respect.

In addition to a financial award, Killen Ross has earned a crystal award to commemorate the achievement and an invitation to sit on the Prize’s selection committee for two years.

Congratulations to the honorees.

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