After assembling, shipping and delivering several large kits, Kalamazoo College Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts can say, “Let there be light.”
Normally, Potts’ lighting design course, conducted each fall, would use a light lab filled with hundreds of lights and pieces of lighting equipment to guide his students. This term, though, required some quick thinking for their three projects when classes were moved online.
“We couldn’t bring the students to the light lab, so we were going to bring the light lab to the students,” Potts said.
Student workers helped Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts assemble 15 kits for his lighting design class this fall.
It took four weeks and many assistants to pack all the materials, yet he sent 15 kits containing items including seven lightbulbs, several feet of wiring, dimmers and a professional mannequin head. You can watch a video of Potts and student workers assembling the materials through YouTube. FedEx delivered one kit to Texas and five throughout the Midwest. He personally delivered the other nine to students living locally.
“Lighting design is very unique,” Potts said. “It’s an ephemeral art form. It’s there and when the light changes, it’s gone. That’s a challenging thing to learn in isolation.” However, it’s beneficial for students to study lighting regardless of their major and where they’re doing it from, especially in the liberal arts.
“Lighting is always about problem solving,” Potts said. “I can’t think of a better thing to engage in than doing live event production or lighting design. I always end up doing something I’ve never tried before. Sometimes you ask, ‘What are the tools you have in your tool box?’ You then try some things and see what works.”
In the first project, students find an image of a painting and reproduce it at the size of a postcard. The second project involves taking 30 to 60 seconds of music without lyrics and making a video that includes light cues to that music. Finally, students use their lights to help them re-create a scene from a play through a lighting plot, similar to an architectural blueprint. In all these projects, the intensity, color, angle and distribution of light are important.
“It’s been fun,” Potts said. “I do know that by receiving these lighting kits, the students will be able to do everything we do here. They won’t have access to the hundreds of lights we have, but they will all be able to show all the things a light does.”
Potts, a professional lighting designer and consultant, has worked in international lighting and production design; national tour designs for opera and dance; and regional designs for opera, modern dance, ballet, drama and corporate events. He also earned his third Best in Lighting Design Wilde Award from EncoreMichigan.com in 2019 for his work in a 2018 Farmers Alley Theatre production of Bridges of Madison County in Kalamazoo.
“I absolutely love light,” he said. “How lucky am I to do something I love to do? Most of my students aren’t going to be professional lighting designers. But I feel when you learn a lot about light, it teaches you to be a keen, critical observer. And being a great observer of things around you, that’s a great life skill.”
Professor of History James E. Lewis Jr. was named the recipient of the 2020-21 Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship, honoring his contributions in creative work, research and publication.
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 History James E. Lewis Jr. was named the recipient of the 2020-21 Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship, honoring his contributions in creative work, research and publication; and Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics Office Coordinator Kristen Eldred was granted the W. Haydn Ambrose Prize, recognizing her outstanding service to the Kalamazoo College community.
Lewis’ scholarly record includes published essays and book reviews in addition to four authored books:
The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire (1998, University of North Carolina Press), which was recognized as a Choice Outstanding Book for 1999.
John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union (2001, Rowan and Littlefield).
The Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics departments cited Kristen Eldred’s cheerful attitude, strong work ethic and creative community building in nominating her for the Ambrose Prize.
The Louisiana Purchase: Jefferson’s Noble Bargain (2003, Thomas Jefferson Foundation), which was commissioned by the Jefferson Foundation based on Lewis’ previously published work.
The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis (2017, Princeton University Press), which was recognized as a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize and long-listed for the Cundill History Prize.
Lewis has taught courses in U.S. history, Native American history, American environmental history, Revolutionary America, the American frontier and Western history, and more at K. He also is a professional member of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.
A ceremony to confer the Lucasse Fellowship traditionally occurs in the spring term, where the honored faculty member speaks regarding their work.
The faculty across the Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics departments cited Eldred’s cheerful attitude, strong work ethic and creative community building in her nomination for the Ambrose Prize. She works to support the Sukuma group, an organization for underrepresented students in the sciences, and Green Dot, a campus movement to stop power-based personal violence. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, she also organized a weekly teatime for faculty and students, where students and faculty could informally have non-academic discussions.
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, Eldred has earned a crystal award to commemorate the achievement and an invitation to sit on the Prize’s selection committee for two years.
Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of History Rochelle Rojas, with help from an American Fellowship through the American Association of University Women, will finish writing a book over the next year titled Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witchcraft in Early Modern Spain about Spanish witch trials that were conducted in Northern Spain during the Inquisition.
In standing up to inquisitors, a local court from Pamplona in the Basque region of Northern Spain smuggled more than 150 people accused of witchcraft away from the Spanish Inquisition for the sake of conducting 30 independent trials in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Left behind was one of the richest records of witch trials in Spain, said Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of History Rochelle Rojas, with more than 3,000 pages of accounts from townspeople, prostitutes, net makers, priests, fathers, children and others, setting the stage for Rojas’ latest research project.
“About 500 years ago, these people told the Spanish Inquisition that they could go pound sand,” Rojas said. “So my project is amazing in that it’s the first and only one dealing with witchcraft in Spain that isn’t based on Inquisition sources. This brings to life those voices of people, mostly women, who had to endure terror and execution due to being labeled a witch by others.”
The voices will help Rojas write a book over the next year titled Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witchcraft in Early Modern Spain. She has written three chapters and plans to complete two more chapters before traveling to Spain next spring to finish it. The excursion will be funded by an American Fellowship she earned from the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
The first six chapters of her book, she said, will be a straight-forward look into the history of these Spanish witch trials. Examples of people discussed in these sources, such as Graciana Belza—meaning Graciana Black—will help Rojas argue in the epilogue that there are similarities between the treatment of the accused witches, and how some groups, such as immigrants and other marginalized citizens, are treated in the modern-day United States.
“In 1569, she was poor, and the entire village blamed her for everything,” Rojas said of Belza. “Someone’s kerchief was missing from the drying rack; it was blamed on her. Someone’s daughter died; it must’ve been her fault. A man became impotent; it must’ve been because of her. Everybody blamed her.”
Belza, in fact, was tortured and her jailers broke both her arms while the court demanded that she leave town within 10 days after her trial. However, with two broken arms, she was unable to transport her belongings. That led to her being jailed again, and ultimately dying from untreated torture wounds.
“It’s interesting in this case to see how people had a preconceived notion that she was a bad person and how she was treated very unfairly; just as someone today who might not speak English or someone who’s Black,” Rojas said.
Labels such as witch were invented, predicated on fear.
“They didn’t have the labels that we use now to label our undesirables, so they invented them,” Rojas said. “And the word then literally was witch or bruja.”
Stories like Belza’s will be at Rojas’ fingertips when she visits Spain thanks to the fellowship she received. The AAUW American Fellowship, started in 1888, is the oldest non-institutional source of graduate funding for women in the United States. It supports women scholars with up to $6,000 when they pursue full-time study to complete dissertations, conduct postdoctoral research full time or prepare research for publication.
Thousands of women in academia from across the country apply for the fellowship and only about 200 were awarded it this year. The fellowship panel considers applicants like Rojas based on factors such as scholarly excellence, the quality of their project design, their mentoring of other women and teaching experience.
“Sometimes It’s hard to pitch the importance of something having to do with witches from 500 years ago in a tiny village, so I was happy that the AAUW was able to understand my vision of why this topic is relevant,” Rojas said “This was the first post-graduation grant I applied to and it’s a pretty hard one to get. That makes me feel really good, especially when people who support K can see that we as professors are actively engaged in trying to earn larger recognition for the College.”
Karen Isble, an associate vice chancellor and campaign director at the University of California, Irvine, will be K’s new vice president for advancement beginning Sept. 14. Photo credit: Steve Zylius/UCI.
President Jorge G. Gonzalez announced today that Karen Isble will join Kalamazoo College as the institution’s new vice president for advancement. Isble, associate vice chancellor and campaign director for university advancement at University of California, Irvine, will begin her new role on Sept. 14, 2020.
“Karen has had a long and successful career in advancement and administration, both in higher education and the nonprofit sector, and I’m confident that her expertise will allow us to build upon our past successes,” said Gonzalez. “She is smart, thoughtful, and passionate about opening the doors of K to students from all backgrounds.”
Isble joined UC Irvine in 2017 and led the planning and execution of the university’s $2 billion comprehensive multi-year campaign, “Brilliant Future.” In this role, she worked with campus leadership, deans, unit directors, faculty members, foundation trustees, volunteers and advancement staff to foster partnerships, create awareness, and coordinate the activities which support the university’s campaign fundraising goals.
Prior to joining UC Irvine, Isble served as assistant vice president for development at the University of Michigan. During her 11 years at Michigan, she oversaw the prospect development, data and technology infrastructure for the 600-member development staff community, covering 36 schools, colleges, units, and the academic medical center. Isble also played an integral role in the university’s $5.3 billion “Victors for Michigan” campaign, coordinating multiple aspects of campaign planning, and working with campaign counsel, volunteers, donors and university leadership.
A Detroit native, Isble worked in arts administration and fundraising roles at the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Goodman Theatre prior to joining University of Michigan. She served for five years on the board of Apra, serving as president in 2013-14. She has been a speaker and author, regionally and nationally, with Apra, CASE and AFP, among others. Isble earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and her master’s degree from the University of Michigan.
“I’m absolutely delighted to be joining K, and I look forward to working across campus and with the community to ensure we can continue to make a transformational impact on its students for generations to come,” Isble says. “The opportunity to create a sustainable future for K through philanthropy and alumni engagement is an exciting challenge that I’m honored to undertake.”
Isble succeeds Vice President for Advancement Al DeSimone, who retired on July 1 after nearly a decade at the College. She was selected after a competitive nationwide search conducted by an on-campus committee with the assistance of Storbeck Search & Associates, an executive search firm specializing in the education and non-profit sectors. Comprised of faculty, staff and trustees, the committee was chaired by Provost Danette Ifert Johnson.
Kalamazoo College Religion Department Chair Taylor Petrey wrote Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism as a history of gender identity in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Religion Department Chair Taylor Petrey has authored his second book, Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism.
An often-forgotten member of the religious right and its views on gender identity are the subjects of a historical book released this month by Kalamazoo College Religion Department Chair Taylor Petrey.
Petrey said the post-World War II views of Evangelicals and conservative Catholics are well-documented, as they traditionally reflect political opposition to feminism, same-sex relationships and trans identities. But what about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as Mormons? That record has been incomplete if not completely non-existent until the release of Petrey’s book Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism, published by the University of North Carolina Press.
“I’m trying to situate Latter-day Saints in a broader conversation about the nature of gender and sexuality,” Petrey said. “I’m showing what’s most surprising is that even conservative religious groups think not that gender and sexuality are fixed and predetermined or divinely ordained categories, but rather they rely on social constructions of gender to make sense of conservative teachings.”
The LDS Church’s leadership and older generations of church members have steadfastly maintained conservative views related to gender identity despite experiencing some discrimination themselves from other denominations.
“Latter-day Saints have often felt that sting of being excluded from the broader culture of Christianity,” Petrey said. “But one of the strategies they’ve used to integrate themselves into the broader culture of Christianity has been to adopt these conservative values and create social and political alliances with the religious right. That made a lot of sense after World War II. It created a kind of alliance or shared identity to say, ‘We’re Christians just like you.’”
However, younger generations of Latter-day Saints in congregations nationwide have commonly aligned themselves with more progressive views.
“At a local level, you might find a diverse range of views on these topics with a generational divide,” Petrey said. “Younger members tend to be much more liberal. They might not be as liberal as generational peers, but much more than their own older generations.”
The book doesn’t push for change toward more progressive views as a result of this trend. Yet the historical record shows how the church’s teachings have shifted somewhat, prompting some optimistic outlooks for Mormons in the LGBTQ community, for example.
“The popular story that most people know or believe is that the church has never changed its teachings,” Petrey said. “It’s a common way that many churches express themselves. ‘We’ve always taught this.’ What the book shows, actually, is the church has changed its teachings quite a bit in the last 70 years. And for many people, that gives some glimmers of hope that it may continue to change.”
Petrey’s first book, Resurrecting Parts: Early Christians on Desire, Reproduction and Sexual Difference, was released in 2015. He also edited Re-Making the World Christianity and Categories: Essays in Honor of Karen L. King in 2019 and the just-published co-edited volume The Routledge Handbook on Mormonism and Gender in 2020. In 2018, Petrey was prominently interviewed in Church and State, a documentary about the toppling of Utah’s gay marriage ban, and he currently is the editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Plus, his latest work, available online and at bookstores, has generated public enthusiasm since the first advance copies were distributed about six weeks ago and Petrey is looking forward to receiving more feedback.
“I have been overwhelmed by the positive response,” Petrey said. “Immediately, the most eager readers were other Latter-day Saints, especially gay Latter-day Saints, and I’ve been incredibly happy with the first reviews that have come out online and the buzz about the book so far.”
Three Kalamazoo College faculty members from the English, music and political science departments have been awarded tenure.
The tenure milestone recognizes excellence in teaching, scholarship and service to the College, and signifies its confidence in the contributions these professors will make throughout their careers.
The following faculty members were approved by the Board of Trustees for tenure and promotion to associate professor:
Shanna Salinas
Arcus Social Justice Leadership Assistant Professor of English and Co-Director of Critical Ethnic Studies Shanna Salinas
Salinas teaches 19th, 20th and 21st century American literary and cultural studies with an emphasis on American race and ethnicity. She received her bachelor’s degree in American literature and culture with a minor in Chicana/o Studies from UCLA; and her master’s degree and doctorate in English from UC Santa Barbara.
Her published work includes “Raced Bodies, Corporeal Texts: Narratives of Home and Self in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street;” Critical Insights: Virginia Woolf and 20th Century Women Writers, 2015; “Coloring the U.S.-Mexico Border: Geographical Othering and Postbellum Nation Building in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (Studies in American Fiction 41.1, Spring 2018); and “For the Pleasure of the Chicanx Poet: Spatialized Embodied Poetics in Ana Castillo’s My Father Was a Toltec,” New Transnational Latinx Perspectives on Ana Castillo, ed. Karen Roybal and Bernadine Hernández (forthcoming, Pittsburgh University Press).
Beau Bothwell
Assistant Professor of Music Beau Bothwell
Bothwell has taught courses in ethnomusicology, music theory and music history since completing his Ph.D. in musicology at Columbia University in 2013. He received B.A.s in music history and ethnomusicology/jazz studies from UCLA, and previously taught at Columbia, the Juilliard School, the American University in Beirut, and the New School.
Beau’s research addresses the music, media and politics of the Arabophone Middle East and the U.S. He has published in a range of venues, and co-translated (with Lama Zein) Ali Kisserwan’s two-volume analysis, the Compositions of Mohammad ʿAbdel Wahab for Umm Kulthum. He is also co-chair of the Society for Arabic Music Research, President of the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music, and founding co-director (with Ahmed Tofiq) of the Kalamazoo College Middle Eastern Orchestra, the Bayati Ensemble.
Justin Berry
Assistant Professor of Political Science Justin Berry
Berry teaches Introduction to American Government; Race, Law and U.S. Politics; Constitutional Law; the Presidency and Congress; and Voting, Campaigns and Elections. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Villanova University, master’s degrees in education and educational leadership from Loyola Marymount University and Fielding Graduate Institute respectively; and a doctorate in political science and international relations from the University of Southern California.
A term in distance learning created many firsts for Psychology Professor Siu-Lan Tan (upper left), her Social Development class (pictured), Developmental Psychology class, and their co-authorship projects this spring.
A term in distance learning forced faculty to rethink how they teach and conduct their courses at Kalamazoo College this spring. That was especially true for Siu-Lan Tan, K’s James A. B. Stone Professor of Psychology.
Tan normally has her Developmental Psychology class work, one-on-one and in person, with children at Woodward Elementary School. Together, through a co-authorship project, they write and illustrate their own storybooks, revealing the children’s wondrous minds and creativity. Tan’s Social Development class was also set to get involved this term with a group of slightly older children. Yet once upon a time, a pandemic came along, forcing schools to close and K students to spend a term away from campus. A happy ending to this story was in doubt.
“I told my classes I cried for three days,” Tan said. “I knew I’d really miss seeing my students, and I thought the experiential components of the class would have to be dropped.”
Nevertheless, after watching a news report about bored children and stressed-out parents, Tan wanted to get creative to fill a need. She decided her students could attempt the co-authorship project if they paired virtually with young relatives, or children of acquaintances, and worked together via Skype, Zoom, FaceTime and other methods. In fact, if they were successful, it meant the distance learning component would allow the classes to take their projects beyond Kalamazoo for the first time in the program’s 22 years.
“I knew if we could get the kids’ minds to flourish during self-quarantining, that would be a major accomplishment,” Tan said. “I’m not somebody who could be on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic to help with medicine. I can’t sew or make masks. But in a way, the classes were our way of trying to brighten lives.”
K students in Developmental Psychology paired with 5- to 8-year-old children, and Social Development students collaborated with children aged 8 to 12. Tan taught her students to use scaffolding, a method of guiding children to achieve goals as independently as possible, by providing questions, prompts, clues, and other tools. But, she wondered, would college students be able to scaffold young children remotely via a computer screen?
By the end, children stuck at home without school made new friends while participating in stimulating activities, parents were eased of their home-schooling duties for a little while, and K students were wowed by what children can create. Here are some of the results.
Carter Vespi ’21 partnered with a 7-year-old boy from Atlanta, Georgia, in the co-authorship program. The pair created Flion the Flying Lion, a player in the Animal Football League, who enjoyed practicing on Mars.
Developmental Psychology Flion the Flying Lion
When Carter Vespi ’21 partnered with a 7-year-old boy from Atlanta, Georgia, the two began their friendship by drawing together. The boy was good at drawing the solar system, with the planets identified and all in order.
“He told me how in school he had recently learned to draw a lion,” Vespi said.
After noticing that the lion the child drew had wings, Vespi asked, “Can he fly?” And in no time, they brainstormed Flion the flying lion, the namesake and hero of their story. Flion is a professional football player in the Animal Football League. He goes to Mars to practice because he enjoys playing in low gravity.
“Flion had a big game coming up so he came back to Earth, where his team played a game against the Tigers,” Vespi said. “Of course, with a flying lion, Flion’s team easily won 49-7.”
In the co-authorship program, Anne Kearney Patton ’22, of Birmingham, Alabama, worked with twin 7-year-olds and created Arty the Painting Dragon.In the co-authorship program, Anne Kearney Patton ’22, of Birmingham, Alabama, worked with twin 7-year-olds and created Arty the Painting Dragon.
Arty the Painting Dragon
Anne Kearney Patton ’22, of Birmingham, Alabama, partnered with 7-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, who she previously knew from working in her church’s nursery.
When the twins were frustrated by the drawing process, Patton told the kids to try drawing a heart for the dragon’s head and an oval for the body, prompting one of them to yell, “Oh yeah, and triangles for the wings!” Arty the dragon was born.
“Arty fell into magical paint and found himself in Candy Land, where he started eating the houses,” Patton said. “The ocean was made of melted blue chocolate.”
The plot describes Arty’s process for making amends to the owners of the homes he ate.
“Something I’m taking away from this is that what we learn in the classroom can be applied to real life,” Patton said. “I enjoyed it. I’m pleasantly surprised I could find a class this engaging considering it was distance learning.”
Noah Coplan ’21 worked in the co-authorship program with Logan, the 6-year-old son of Kyla Day Fletcher, the Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Associate Professor of Psychology, to create Ringo the Dragon and his paintbrush sidekick, Colorful.
A Dragon’s Home is Its Castle
Noah Coplan ’21 didn’t know any 5- to 8-year-old children going into Developmental Psychology, but was matched through Tan with Logan, the 6-year-old son of Kyla Day Fletcher, K’s Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Associate Professor of Psychology.
“He’s a funny kid,” Coplan said. “He’s super bright, really talkative and he tells you exactly how he feels. I would wind him up with a question and let him go.”
That questioning led Logan to create a dragon named Ringo and his sidekick, a paintbrush named Colorful. The two win a painting contest by illustrating a castle that becomes their prize, which they give away to another character, Toothscary.
Logan and Coplan quickly developed a friendship. In fact, Logan was comfortable enough with his partner by the time midterms came that he told Coplan, “You look tired. Did you take a nap today?”
“It was the little things that mattered to me with this class,” Coplan said. “I would tell him, ‘I have to go, I have more homework to do.’ Immediately he would say, ‘Can you call tomorrow?’ Even on our last call he had more plot-line plans. It was cool to see that kind of stuff.”
Fletcher was equally pleased.
“I’m a big believer in the experiences Logan gets to have with people other than me and my husband,” she said. “It was an opportunity for him to sit and be boundlessly creative, and then channel that creativity into producing a book of his own. Just the time he spent with a college kid and the attention he got is the wonderful part. Noah was absolutely amazing with him.”
Lillian, 8, and Eleanor, 6, created Kitty Luke.Lillian, 8, and Eleanor, 6, the daughters of Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Jennifer Perry, drew Kitty Leia.
Star Wars Meets Kitty Mermaids
You’ve heard of catfish, but what about kitty mermaids?
Ola Bartolik ’22 guided Lillian, 8, and Eleanor, 6, the daughters of Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Jennifer Perry, through their story following the Four Ferocious Kitties, four cats that live in a magical potion factory. A potion spills and spreads, creating kitty Jedi and kitty mermaids, including Snowflake, Lightfury, Luke and Leia, who conduct an epic battle with Cat Vader and Darth Kittious.
Eleanor taught Ola how to draw Mermaid Kitties.
“I was nervous meeting them,” Bartolik said. “I remember talking to my friend beforehand and asking, ‘What if I’m not cool enough for them? What if we don’t come up with anything?’”
But during their first meeting, there was a chance to break the ice.
“I thought I heard roosters in the background and they said, ‘Yes! We have chickens!’ It led to a whole conversation about chickens and what they do. Even their little brother would talk with me.”
Perry was grateful her girls had someone else to talk to, even if it was from a distance.
“I typically homeschool my kids and I was looking for educational opportunities for them that are different than what I might be able to offer at home,” Perry said. When the girls first met Ola, “I told them we were going to turn on the computer and talk to this student and they sort of looked at me funny. They weren’t excited at first, but Ola was enthusiastic about talking to them and listening to what they were saying. I could see the girls getting more and more excited. They loved working with her.”
Social Development
Play Ball, They Call, While Including All
Although most in Social Development created a book for a general audience, Saahil Patel ’21 and his cousin, a 12-year-old girl, developed a book specifically for another cousin, a 7-year-old boy.
“She told me our cousin had recently developed an interest in sports, and we wanted our plot line to solve a problem,” Patel said. “She was always the shortest in her class and got picked last for teams so she wanted to create a book that showed no one should be excluded from participating in sports.” As an added challenge to the project, his cousin wanted the story to rhyme, given her love of Dr. Seuss.
At the end, the 12-year-old added a dedication to the book to make her cousin feel special.
“I was shocked by this, as this level of consciousness and thought is usually developed later in life,” Patel said. “But as usual with this project, she continued to outperform my expectations for her. As a college student, you get so used to working with other college students. Dr. Tan said not to underestimate our partners, and my cousin blew me away with her ability. She made it easy for me.”
Teaching About the Pandemic
Raphaela Varella ’20 and her 9-year-old cousin created a book that tells children about what people are doing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.Raphaela Varella ’20 and her 9-year-old cousin created a book that tells children about what people are doing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Raphaela Varella ’20, a psychology and biology major, came to K from Los Angeles as a Posse Scholar, although she has family in Michigan. That family includes a 9-year-old cousin in Traverse City, who was excited to help with the co-authorship project.
“The first time we FaceTimed, I thought it would be for 30 minutes,” Varella said. “We did it for two hours because she was so into it.” Over the next several weeks, Varella met with her cousin regularly.
Work sessions included Disney music, drawing, coloring and brainstorming ideas for their plot. Because the book was intended for a younger child, the duo decided to craft a story that explained the COVID-19 pandemic and why it meant children couldn’t go to school or play at a friend’s house. That meant Varella would ask her cousin questions such as “Why do you think people are staying home?” and “How does that impact people?”
Ultimately, Varella’s cousin surprised her with her creativity and they were happy to find a unique opportunity to build on their relationship.
“It’s hard for her not to have an older sister,” Varella said. “I always wanted to be there for her, and this has helped me to be a role model. I’m thankful for being able to foster such a connection with her.”
In class, Varella mentioned that she plans to continue doing creative projects with her cousin.
“That’s one of the most moving outcomes of this quarter’s project. Some had barely known their younger relatives, occasionally seeing them at family events.” Tan said. “Many students expressed how relationships with younger siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces, had gotten closer and felt forever changed.”
Laura Hanselman ’20 and her 11-year-old partner, Alexis, created a book titled It Started with a Rainbow for the co-authorship project.
Animals Learn Kindness
Laura Hanselman ’20, a chemistry major from Ann Arbor, plans to follow in her dad’s footsteps as a dentist one day. When she does, she might have a book called It Started with a Rainbow in her office’s waiting room.
The book, created by Hanselman and an 11-year-old family friend, Alexis, provides advice on what it means to treat others with kindness. The partners started by drawing rainbows and proceeded to build a plot featuring anthropomorphic animals with alliterative names such as Daisy the Dog, Peter the Pig and Rowan the Rabbit.
“The story starts where the dog does something nice thing for the frog, and at the end, the kindness came back to a pig doing something nice for the dog,” Hanselman said of their pay-it-forward-themed story. “She was definitely nervous at first, but everything she came up with was excellent. She surpassed my expectations.”
Course Reflections
The co-authorship program this year included a story created entirely in sidewalk chalk between the homes of a student and her 6-year-old neighbor, who practiced social distancing and used their own chalk.For the first time, the co-authorship program included a book first written in a foreign language (French) and translated into English.
All told, the K students wrote stories with more than 40 children in many states, including Alaska, and even a couple of international locations. Despite the initial disappointment of distance learning, the courses yielded several successes and many firsts for the project, including:
A story created entirely in sidewalk chalk between the homes of a student and her 6-year-old partner. The two practiced social distancing and used their own chalk.
A student and partner who completed the co-authorship while camping and observing social distancing.
One story first written in French between a student and her French cousin living in France, before it was translated into English.
A record three sets of twin children writing stories alongside K students.
“The variety of children, stories and drawings that we see every time has been one of the greatest sources of interest and joy for me as the project always has many colors,” Tan said. “But this year, the rainbow is even fuller as the students have individualized their partnerships with children in so many different ways, more than I ever could have imagined.”
With respect to this project, Tan reflects: “I always wanted to teach in a way that takes learning outside the classroom. As long as learning is just contained within a space and not linked outside, there’s a real limitation on growth. That’s why it had such an impact on me to see how the tremendous dedication and resourcefulness of the K students made this co-authorship project so bright, during a quarter of distance learning.”
The pandemic of novel coronavirus has reshaped our world and transformed our institution in profound ways. Over the last few weeks as we pivoted sharply to take our classes online, we have seen the painful and unequal impact of the virus-related changes and restrictions on our most vulnerable students. We have witnessed how disparities in access to technology and internet service affect student learning. We have also witnessed the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Brown, Latinx, and immigrant communities in Kalamazoo and across the nation. We know that many of our community members have lost loved ones and are grieving them now. The pain of losing relatives and coping with the death of over a hundred thousand people in a few short weeks has been exacerbated by our inability to mourn them together and by the knowledge that many of these deaths were preventable. Our pain and frustration have been compounded by the violent murder of unarmed Black people by white racists.
The lynching of Ahmaud Arbery for being Black while running, the shooting of nursing student Breonna Taylor by police as she slept in her bed, the killing of Black trans man Tony McDade by Florida police, and the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police have shaken us to our very core. The incident in New York’s Central Park involving false allegations made by a white woman named Amy Cooper against a Black birdwatcher has also been a chilling reminder of how Black and Brown folks are harmed by large and small daily acts of white entitlement, untruthfulness, and aggression. We cannot go on without acknowledging how this violence affects us as people and as members of the Kalamazoo College community committed to social justice. We stand in solidarity with protesters in the US and around the world calling for an end to the murder of Black people by police, and for abolition, decolonization, and Black liberation now.
Beyond the discourse of institutional diversity as an asset, we want to strive together to create a different reality in which our Black, Brown, trans, queer, and gender non-conforming community members’ lives are valued, cherished, and protected. How do we move forward in light of these new realities? We need historical perspective to help us discern the crossroads where we stand—a place of both convergence and disjuncture. We need to learn from and mobilize forms of historical memory and anti-racist coalitional work now more than ever.
We need to move forward together. During the past week, we have heard from you: in emails, in video conferences, in phone calls, in SMS texts, in posts on the K-College Facebook site, and ongoing informal and formal correspondence.
To Black students, we have heard your anger at what is happening on campus, of the wearying effort to just be heard during this term and your years at K. Beyond Kalamazoo, we have heard you tell of what is happening outside your doors and in your communities. We have heard your righteous anger and justified fear. We have smelled the smoke of fires burning outside your doors and heard the sounds of sirens, not from the news or Facebook or Instagram, but from your own lives and your own witnessing. We have seen parents and siblings walk in and out of your screens and so felt the immediate presence of those you love and who love you, and who make it possible for you to be part of the K College community. And, for some, the turmoil and anger mixes with the grief of family members, friends, or neighbors who have lost loved ones or feared the loss of a parent, grandparent, relative, or friend who contracted COVID-19.
To non-Black students of color, we have witnessed you engage in acts of solidarity and moral courage. We have learned of you providing transportation and aid to protesters and filming protests. We know you have been challenging anti-blackness within your own communities. We have heard you tell us of how you have reached out to friends and fellow students who absorbed in traumatic and inexpressible ways the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery. And you have told us of your own experiences, when you felt able and heard, of what it means to walk in a Brown body on our campus and in the streets.
To white students, we have heard your own struggles with negotiating the pandemic and the violence perpetrated upon George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and others. Albeit in very different ways, these struggles also exist within your own communities, and, in painful ways, among friends and family members. We are hearing you give language to systemic racism. We are learning of difficult family conversations. We are reading emails reaching out to us in support of students of color, especially Black students navigating the impact of the past week (and weeks).
To first-generation students, for those who have had to work many hours to help their families, or struggled to find secure housing, we have watched the burden and your response to it unfold during the past weeks. We have witnessed your struggles with housing and food insecurity. We have also seen folks risk the vulnerability of speaking, loving, and standing in solidarity.
At the end of this long academic year, everyone is carrying the added burden of the lockdown, quarantines, illnesses, family health concerns, curfews, and this next cycle of social unrest. All of us are suffering, but especially Black students, faculty, and staff. We must collectively recognize the impact of these events on our community members’ well-being.
As we acknowledge that we are differently positioned within the institution and in the world, we can work together by prioritizing Black, indigenous, queer, trans, and people of color leadership within this historically predominantly white institution. Attempting to think from and with the point of view of the most marginalized among us will help us overcome some of the enduring inequalities that limit the free enjoyment of our learning community by all.
We understand that completing academic assignments may be very difficult, even impossible for some, especially for students who are being and have been affected by systematic racism and violence. The quarter’s Credit/No Credit grading format provides flexibility to professors to extend grace, accommodations, and alternative projects to satisfy requirements for passing a class. It invites, too, a framework for faculty to use remaining time and assignments as tools for timely critical reflection, taking stock of what is truly necessary at this point. We can alter expectations without lowering standards.
We wish to encourage faculty to adjust expectations for final work, including canceling exams or making assignments optional wherever possible. This is a time when we need to make peace with doing enough instead of doing the usual and students just need to do enough to pass.
At the end of his address, “In Search of a Majority,” delivered to students, faculty, and staff at Kalamazoo College in November of 1960, James Baldwin said: “Whether I like it or not, or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. We are part of each other. What is happening to every [Black person] in the country at any time is also happening to you. There is no way around this. I am suggesting that these walls—these artificial walls—which have been up so long to protect us from something we fear, must come down.” Let’s dismantle these walls together.
The Kalamazoo Valley Museum was abuzz with bee exhibits last June during Art Hop. Niko Nickson ’21 was a Kalamazoo College representative presenting displays on native bees. Nickson now is a student behind the Southwest Michigan Bee Watch, still actively recruiting citizen scientists on World Bee Day.
There’s been a buzz in the national news as Asian hornets, also called murder hornets, have appeared for the first time in the northwestern U.S. The two-inch-long invasive insects have frightening stinging power and are significant predators of honeybees.
As the world marks World Bee Day on May 20, Kalamazoo College Biology Professor Ann Fraser said she doesn’t expect Asian hornets to arrive in Michigan any time soon but they could be a threat to local honeybees if they arrive.
“I got to see some of these Asian hornets when we were in India in December,” Fraser said. “Some people were fighting them off with sticks or even cricket bats. But can they survive in this climate with Michigan’s winter? I’m not sure of their range in terms of temperature tolerance. And are they going to decimate the honeybee population? Probably not, but they’ll certainly take out some hives.”
Nonetheless, climate change, habitat loss and pesticides are already threatening bees worldwide and have been for years. That makes World Bee Day—which marks the 1734 birthday of Slovenia-born Anton Janša, a pioneer in modern-day beekeeping—essential for preservation. The international affair, established in 2018 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, recognizes the world’s 20,000 species of bees, including about 465 in Michigan. A number of these are in decline, including some of our bumblebees. Fraser said habitat loss and pesticides are of particular concern as food sources are disappearing for bees, and neonicotinoids, which are pesticides chemically similar to nicotine, are deadly for them.
World Bee Day recognizes the world’s 20,000 species of bees, including about 465 in Michigan. Bumblebees like this one can be found at the Lillian Anderson Arboretum.
To work against the declines caused by these threats, swarms of World Bee Day events will be conducted virtually this year, and Fraser recommends acting locally. For example:
Fraser is recruiting citizen scientists from nine counties in Southwest Michigan for the Southwest Michigan Bee Watch. She and her students, including Niko Nickson ’21, are tracking bumblebee diversity and measuring local restoration efforts. Residents from Allegan, Barry, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren counties are invited to participate. Learn more about volunteering at the organization’s website.
Fraser and Nickson recently participated in a virtual Lunch and Learn through Pierce Cedar Creek Institute, discussing general bee facts and the Southwest Michigan Bee Watch. You can watch the recorded event on YouTube.
You can take the sting out of habitat loss for bees by planting a diverse array of native wildflowers that provide food for pollinators. Minimize your use of insecticides and shelter bees by providing bare ground, limiting mulch in flower beds or providing a stem nest. A stem nest typically is a wood block with drilled holes in various sizes and hollow plant stems or paper tubes. Varieties are available at many hardware stories, gardening stores and retail centers.
To bee or not to bee is not the question: bees are vital to humans. And when it comes to World Bee Day, Fraser says, “Anything that puts the spotlight on them can help them thrive.”
Padlet is a colorful online system of boards, documents and web pages, which has been convenient for art classes in distance learning.
In examining how Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff have adjusted to distance learning this spring, it’s easy to see the community’s ingenuity in shifting from in-person instruction.
For example, if it’s true that art imitates life, what is an art professor to do when distance learning forces a college’s classes online? If you’re Sarah Lindley, the Arcus Center of Social Justice Leadership Professor of Art, you paint plans that provide students with the personal interaction they expect, sculpt activities they can do at home with common household materials, and craft an environment that stimulates creativity in technology.
Padlet has been a convenient tool in distance learning for World Pottery, a class that introduces a variety of clay-forming techniques and historical perspectives.
Lindley this term is teaching World Pottery, a sophomore seminar ceramics class, and Mold Processes, an intermediate sculpture class for juniors. The first requires student research and reflection in a class that introduces a variety of clay-forming techniques and historical perspectives. The intermediate class uses mixed media casting processes to develop the more advanced body of work expected of art majors.
The sophomore seminar’s technology is Padlet, a colorful and easy-to-populate online system of boards, documents and web pages that looks a lot like many social media platforms, especially Pinterest. The format allows an asynchronous course model where students view instructions through mediums such as video and submit their projects before meeting individually with Lindley.
Arcus Center of Social Justice Leadership Professor of Art Sarah Lindley provided video through Padlet of how to create a pinch pot at home when a special guest made a cameo appearance.
Their first project involved creating pinch pots with paper and egg whites in an activity like papier-mâché. A second assignment asked students to stack objects from around the house, look at their curves and see how they might emulate pottery.
The juniors also utilize virtual classroom technology, including the use of Microsoft Teams, a collaborative platform that combines chat, video meetings, file storage and more to allow for regular face-to-face exchanges. Lindley wants her advanced students to build confidence for creating art under any circumstances and learn they can start a project from nothing. Lindley added creating something from nothing can feel like one of the hardest things to do and developing that skill will help her students for the rest of their lives.
“A lot of what we are doing this term is creative problem solving,” Lindley said. “Course planning is creative problem solving. This is just a more extreme version than we are used to. I’m also hearing from a lot of students that they really appreciate a curriculum that acknowledges different learning styles.”
So, given the term in distance learning, how does Lindley measure the success of her teaching methods this term?
“I look for indications of depth of learning in lots of little ways—an unanswered question someone raises in a reflection paper, a connection to contemporary pop culture in a presentation on historical objects from a distant past, or an “aha” exclamation in a one on one virtual chat,” Lindley said.
“My goal would be for everyone to participate in each activity this term,” she added. “The students still have rubrics, but students would have to persistently not respond to assignment prompts and feedback not to pass. So far the quality of work has been pretty good to great.”
