A memorial service for Rolla Anderson will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 5, in Stetson Chapel.
Rolla Anderson, namesake of the Rolla L. Anderson Athletic Center on Kalamazoo College’s campus, died on Wednesday, April 25. He was 97 years old.
Anderson came to K in 1953 and was director of men’s athletics until his retirement in 1985. In 1962, he led the Hornets to an undefeated football season and was named Michigan Coach of the Year in news media balloting. Under him, the team again won the MIAA championship in 1963. He also led teams to championships as a coach in tennis, golf and cross country, and he coached basketball. Anderson was a long-time director of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Boys’ 18 & 16 National Championships.
“Generations of Kalamazoo College student-athletes benefited from Rolla’s guidance and leadership,” said President Jorge G. Gonzalez. “He was well-known for tirelessly stressing the importance of sound physical education in the liberal arts.”
Named a professor of physical education in 1965, he continued to be an active and enthusiastic supporter of the College in retirement, and was a leader in Kalamazoo civic organizations and the USTA.
Anderson Athletic Center was dedicated in his name in 1981, and he was inducted into the Kalamazoo College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992. In 1997, he received the Kalamazoo College Alumni Association’s Weimer K. Hicks Award, which recognizes employees who have made exceptional long-term contributions to the College.
A 1944 graduate of Western Michigan University, he was a star in basketball and football there and was inducted into the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1982. He also is in the hall of fame at Southeast Missouri State University, where he was a member of a championship basketball team before transferring to Western.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Patricia, in 2010.
A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 5, in Stetson Chapel, followed by a time to visit with the family. Anderson’s family has asked memorial gifts be made to the Rolla and Pat Anderson Athletic Endowment at Kalamazoo College, a fund that will support the Hornets in perpetuity.
Ed Menta, the James A.B. Stone College Professor of Theatre Arts, is this year’s recipient of the Lux Esto Award of Excellence, which honors an employee who has served Kalamazoo College for 26 or more years for a superlative record of stewardship and innovation.
Ed Menta, the James A.B. Stone College Professor of Theatre Arts, is this year’s recipient of the Lux Esto Award of Excellence, which honors an employee who has served Kalamazoo College for 26 or more years for a superlative record of stewardship and innovation.
Biology Department Chair Binney Girdler and Educational Technology Specialist Josh Moon, who received Outstanding Adviser awards, and the Rev. Elizabeth Candido, the College chaplain, who received the Outstanding First-Year Advocate Award, also were recognized at the annual Founder’s Day Reflection on Friday, honoring the College’s 185th year.
Menta, a faculty member since 1986, has directed dozens of productions at K, including award winners such as last year’s college debut of “Fun Home.” K’s staging of the Tony Award-winning musical, co-written by Lisa Kron ’83, was selected for a featured performance at the Region III Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in January 2018.
Nomination letters by students, faculty, staff and alumni praised Menta for what they said has been his dedication to teaching, his efforts to build and bolster the theater community at K and across Kalamazoo, and his willingness to take on challenging and culturally relevant works that expand the horizons of actors and audiences.
In presenting the award, President Jorge G. Gonzalez cited a nominator who wrote that “Ed’s mark on the College is simply indelible.”
Provost Mickey McDonald, who after 10 years is leaving the College to assume the presidency of the Great Lakes Colleges Association, gave the keynote address for Founders Day, reflecting on how being a “fellowship in learning” — a concept that originated during the 1922-1935 presidency of Allan Hoben — has allowed K to navigate decades of challenges and changes.
“This has been an amazing, rewarding 10 years for me,” McDonald said. “I have witnessed Kalamazoo College continue to become a more equitable place to live and learn and work … and I have relished being part of a fellowship of learning that embraces a sense of innovation. That ability to change, to adapt, to reflect — as we are reflecting today — is an essential part of what has kept Kalamazoo College vital and relevant for almost 200 years. And I have every confidence that it will sustain the College as it enters its third century.”
That’s the phrase Kalamazoo city government officials and Kalamazoo College faculty and staff frequently use to describe a burgeoning partnership in which K students are gaining invaluable hands-on experience conducting research that is providing the city much-needed data to focus unprecedented community improvement efforts.
Sharmeen Chauhdry ’20 has gained experience conducting research for programs such as Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo, an antipoverty initiative coordinated by Kevin Ford. Chauhdry, seen here with Ford at the city planning office, will continue her experiential education with a summer internship through the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement.
Though having students work with the city is not a new idea, it’s getting fresh attention because of a strategic confluence. The K Board of Trustees has adopted a new strategic plan for the College that calls for strengthening the K-Plan in part by finding more effective ways to link classroom learning to real-world experiences. And the city, with tens of millions of dollars in philanthropic support, is implementing its own strategic vision, Imagine Kalamazoo, with new initiatives such as Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo that provide just those sorts of opportunities.
“From its perspective as an institution and a brain trust and a shaper of young lives, the College benefits,” says Kevin Ford, coordinator of the innovative antipoverty program. “And from the city perspective, we have that relationship with an influential local institution and we can tap into that brain trust and the opportunity to do research—things we don’t have.”
“I think it’s a real opportunity,” says K Anthropology Professor Kiran Cunningham ’83, long an advocate of such programs.
“It just a win-win all around,” says Laura Lam ’99, Kalamazoo’s assistant city manager in charge of Imagine Kalamazoo, who credits an early K-city learning partnership for launching her career.
Alison Geist, director of K’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), says the new partnership is far larger than anything that preceded it. A model for how it will work is Cunningham’s winter term 2018 Social Research for Social Change class. Students not only read and discussed how to do research, they joined Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo to conduct it, interviewing residents about their needs.
The student-researchers, advised by Cunningham and Ford, focused on the means low-income residents have devised on their own for dealing with barriers to employment, such as costly child care and limited public transportation. Among those strategies: pooling resources to look after one another’s children during working hours and creating a sort of informal Uber to ensure jobs are accessible even when bus routes aren’t.
As the culmination of their classwork, the students wrote a report and recommendations documenting those solutions and the residents’ suggestions for how to make them more effective and broadly available. Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo is using the data in partnership with community members to devise new initiatives.
The city is in a position to carry out this work because of a burst of philanthropy intended to narrow the gap between what has been described as Kalamazoo’s two divergent cultures—one characterized by an uncommon cultural and educational resources, and the other plagued by persistent poverty and inequity. Underpinning the initiative, William D. Johnston, husband of former K Trustee Ronda Stryker, and William Parfet, brother of K Trustee Donald Parfet, joined forces to donate $70.3 million, creating the City of Kalamazoo Foundation for Excellence.
The city’s growing need for data to carry out its ambitious plans, and the College’s push to provide students opportunities to apply their learning, are coming together at just the right time, says Geist. She says the CCE is dedicating nearly half of its upcoming internships to Kalamazoo city programs, working with City Planner Christina Anderson ‘98.
“This is such an amazing opportunity,” Geist says. “It’s a real city with real city assets. It faces so many of the challenges faced by Rust Belt cities elsewhere but it has so many resources to address those issues.”
One of Cunningham’s students in the winter term research class, Sharmeen Chauhdry ’20, says being part of Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo brought home lessons about how ground-level community research can pave the way for meaningful change.
“We got to see what the real experts, the people in these situations, say about what works and what doesn’t, and what they need,” she says.
The anthropology-sociology major says she now sees government as a potential career choice, and will continue her work with the city this summer in one of the CCE internships.
Even for those who don’t choose such a career path, the benefits of experiential learning with the city government can have a lifelong effect, Geist says.
“It creates opportunities for our students so they can learn what it means to be a citizen,” she says.
a postage stamp-sized New Testament (above left) presented to Augusta Todd, wife of Rare Book Room namesake Albert M. Todd, sometime in the early 20th century. Records indicate the book was one of five that was produced in Vienna by the famed Zaehnsdorf book bindery. Copies also were given to British Queens Alexandra and Mary;
the “Bird Book,” (above right) a quirky California production about which little is known;
this 14th century illuminated psalter, or Book of Psalms, written on uterine vellum, the cured skin of an unborn calf;
an original 20-volume edition of Charles Dickens’ novel “Little Dorrit,” printed in pamphlet form as it was sold on the streets of 1850s London. Replete with illustrations and ads, this serialization was sold on the streets of London at a price of 1 shilling for each monthly edition from 1855 to 1857. The Rare Book Room also has a similar edition of Dickens’ “Bleak House;”
this incunabulum, or early printed book, of Livy’s history of Rome, dating from 1470, when the Gutenberg press was a relatively new innovation;
a manuscript leaf of an undetermined age from a Quran that appears to be hundreds of years old;
this reproduction of the Chinese New Year picture scroll, or nihua, “Welcome Spring,” was a gift to Kalamazoo College by the parents of Mengyang Chen ’11 upon her graduation;
this leaf from a Latin Bible produced in France in 1240 that might be the oldest item in the collection; and
this parchment Antiphony of the Common of the Saints was designed to allow an entire choir to see it simultaneously. Bearing the stamp of a library in Rome, its date is unknown. It is the largest book in the Rare Book Room collection.
Hours for the Rare Book Room, 326 ULC, are currently 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday, 8:30 a.m. to noon Wednesday and 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday. To access the collection, or to get your own tour of its holdings, contact Rare Book Room manager Mallory Heslinger at 269-337-5762 or mallory.heslinger@kzoo.edu. And keep an eye out for an upcoming spring display at the library, curated by College Archivist Lisa Murphy ’99. Titled “Murderous Plots and Rivalries During the time of Mary Queen of Scots,” it promises to be a “Game of Thrones”-like exhibition of Gothic illustrations and artifacts, drawn from the Rare Book Room collection.
A Kalamazoo College professor has a featured role in a documentary, premiering Sunday, about the improbable toppling of Utah’s gay marriage ban.
Taylor Petrey, associate professor of religion, says he gave an extensive interview to the makers of “Church and State” about the role of the Salt Lake City-based Church of Latter-day Saints in the fight against legalizing gay marriage.
Taylor Petrey, associate professor of religion, has a featured role in a documentary, premiering Sunday, about the improbable toppling of Utah’s gay marriage ban.
The movie, premiering at the American Documentary Film Festival in Palm Springs, California, documents how a gay-rights activist teamed with a small Salt Lake City law firm to win an unexpected 2013 court ruling that overturned the conservative state’s law against same-sex marriage. When the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the ban the next October, gay marriage became legal in Utah. With a Supreme Court ruling in 2015, it became the law nationwide.
Utah is more than 60 percent Mormon, and “the conflict between Mormons and gay-rights activists became the defining issue of modern Mormonism,” Petrey says in a clip from the movie trailer.
In the interview for the movie, Petrey, who was raised in Utah and is a member of the church, addressed how Mormons, as they sought mainstream acceptance, moved from sanctioning an alternative form of marriage — polygamy, which they abandoned in 1890 — to adopting conservative positions on social issues that mirrored those of evangelical Christians.
Though he specializes at K in the history of ancient Christianity, he also studied the history of Mormonism and sexuality, and wrote about the issue during a 2016-17 stint as a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School.
He says he first met one of the Utah-based producers of “Church and State,” Kendall Wilcox, five or six years ago during a previous project on gay Mormons. “We’ve been in touch off and on,” he says.
Wilcox’s partner in the production, Holly Tuckett, says that in the film–edited, coincidentally, by Kalamazoo native Torben Bernhard–Petrey appears repeatedly, serving as the main authority on the history and positions of the church on homosexuality and gay marriage.
“He helps contextualize all of that for us.” she says.
Petrey says the choice to use him as an expert on the subject was understandable.
“It’s a small world of Mormons who are interested in this stuff,” he says.
He hasn’t seen the movie and got his first glimpse of it when he watched the trailer online, he says. Set to be released to theaters late this summer, it was named as one of the documentary festival’s “10 must-see” films by The Desert Sun of Palm Springs.
“I guess I’ll see it when the rest of the world sees it in August,” Petrey says.
With specialties ranging from the psychology of adolescents to Victorian literature, five Kalamazoo College professors have achieved tenure.
The milestone recognizes the scholarship and teaching they have completed to the point of tenure, and it is also a sign of confidence in the contributions they will make during their entire careers. The College’s Board of Trustees, meeting in March, voted to grant tenure to:
Fletcher holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan. Her scholarly work focuses on the role of culture, socialization, and decision-making on sexual health and substance use outcomes among adolescents and young adults.
Fong holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Davis. He teaches a broad range of courses in 19th- and 20th-century British literature, as well as courses in women, gender and sexuality. His research focuses on Victorian literature and culture and, more specifically, how the Victorian novel has shaped and been shaped by contemporary fiction, film and popular culture.
Heinritz holds a Ph.D. in English from Western Michigan University. She teaches courses in journalism, creative nonfiction writing, and literary theory. Her scholarly and creative work includes feature and arts reviews in journalism and memoir and flash essays in creative writing.
MacMillan holds an MBA from Harvard University. She teaches courses in marketing and management. While she comes to academia from the corporate sector, she has developed research interests in marketing-related areas as well as in the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Sugimori holds a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from Boston University. She teaches intermediate and advanced Japanese language courses, as well as select courses on Japanese culture and society taught in English. Her interests span multiple disciplines including sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, language ideology, oral history, integrating technology into teaching Japanese, and bilingualism.
Brockington’s wife, Cathy, donated funds to ISDSI in his name after he died Aug. 10, 2015. The institute at the time was building its new campus in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Those funds were applied to the library as a fitting way to remember him and his wife, who is a former librarian.
Joe Brockington speaks in fall 2008 at Stetson Chapel as Kalamazoo College celebrated its 50th anniversary of sending students abroad. The International Sustainable Development Studies Institute (ISDSI) in Thailand, a study abroad site for K students, has named its newly finished library after the late K associate provost and Center for International Programs director.
ISDSI developed in 1998 as a result of Brockington’s work. Today, it teaches American students about the key issues of sustainability through a close collaboration with its local communities. The program has welcomed more than 600 students from more than 50 colleges and universities in the U.S.
Brockington earned his bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and Ph.D. from Michigan State University. He began his career at Kalamazoo College in 1979 as an instructor in German language and literature. He was recognized internationally as a safety- and risk-management expert in study-abroad programming.
During his career, he served in various positions of the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA), an association of international educators, including as a chair of the Section on U.S. Students Abroad and a member of the International Education Leadership Knowledge Committee. Brockington also served as a member of the founding board of the Forum on Education Abroad.
Brockington published and presented several papers on modern German literature as well as a variety of study-abroad topics, including orientation and re-entry, international programs administration, and campus internationalization. He led best-practices workshops in legal and risk-management issues and co-edited the third edition of NAFSA’s “Guide to Education Abroad for Advisers and Administrators.”
During Brockington’s tenure, K sent students to countries such as China, Japan and India in Asia; Kenya and Senegal in Africa; Ecuador, Costa Rica, Chile and Mexico in South and Central America; and Greece, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, France, Spain and Germany in Europe.
As a result of Brockington’s professional efforts, most K students study a foreign language and live with host families while participating in an individualized cultural research project that requires them to explore a community, participate in a service project, and write a report about the experience. “The goal,” he once said, “is to help the student look at other cultures, other peoples, and say ‘we’ instead of ‘they.’ ”
Kalamazoo College History Professor James Lewis has been named a finalist for the George Washington Prize, a $50,000 annual award that recognizes the authors of the past year’s most influential books about the nation’s founding era.
“The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis,” written by K History Professor James Lewis, is a finalist for the George Washington Prize.
Lewis’s 2017 book, “The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis,” explores former Vice President Aaron Burr’s travels through the Trans-Appalachian West in 1805 and 1806, gathering support for a mysterious enterprise, leading to his arrest and trial on treason charges in 1807. Rumors at the time stated Burr had enticed some people with plans to liberate Spanish Mexico, others with promises of land in the Louisiana Purchase, and others with talk of building a new empire beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
The book, available through many bookstores and online sites, also examines the political and cultural forces that shaped how Americans made sense of Burr’s intentions and movements, and the crisis after his arrest including concerns about the nation’s fragile union and uncertain republic.
Lewis has taught courses in U.S. history, Native American history, American environmental history, Revolutionary America, the American frontier and Western history, the history of U.S. foreign relations, post-World War II America, American political culture, the trial in American history and a senior seminar in history at K. He is a professional member of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.
Lewis’s other books include:
“The Louisiana Purchase: Jefferson’s Noble Bargain?” (2003);
“John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union” (2001); and
“The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire, 1783-1829” (1998).
The George Washington Prize was created in 2005 through the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Washington College. A news release from Washington College says the honor is one of the nation’s largest and most notable literary awards. In addition, “The finalists’ books combine depth of scholarship and broad expanse of inquiry with vivid prose that exposes the complexities of our founding narrative. Written to engage a wide public audience, the books provide a ‘go-to’ reading list for anyone interested in learning more about George Washington, his contemporaries, and the founding of the United States of America.”
Kalamazoo College History Professor James Lewis is the author of “The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis,” which is a finalist for the George Washington Prize.
The other six authors named as finalists for the 2018 award are:
Max Edelson for “The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America before Independence;”
Kevin J. Hayes for “George Washington: A Life in Books;”
Eric Hinderaker for “Boston’s Massacre;”
Jon Kukla for “Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty;”
Jennifer Van Horn for “The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century America;” and
Douglas L. Winiarski, “Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England.”
The winner of the 2018 George Washington Prize will be announced and all finalists will be recognized at a black-tie gala May 23 at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
Kalamazoo College Associate Provost Laura Lowe Furge is one of 65 women leaders from across the country who has been selected to attend the 2018 Higher Education Resource Services (HERS) Institute. Furge will be a part of the University of Denver cohort that meets from June 18-30.
Furge, who is also a professor of chemistry, was one of just six HERS attendees awarded a Clare Boothe Luce (CBL) Scholarship, which provides full tuition, accommodations, meals and travel to women in STEM higher education to attend the HERS Institute.
The HERS Institute will support and encourage women as they develop strategies for their leadership roles and establish communities including peer-and-mentor connections. Working together, they can thrive in and shape a new environment for equality and excellence in higher education.
Furge, who is also a professor of chemistry, was one of just six HERS attendees awarded a Clare Boothe Luce (CBL) Scholarship, which provides full tuition, accommodations, meals and travel to women in STEM higher education to attend the Institute.
For more information on the HERS Institute, visit its website.
Kalamazoo College’s efforts to get science majors experience in student research, one of the most important factors in providing them an exceptional start in their post-college careers, just got a big boost.
A $247,500 grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation will boost the availability of summer student research experiences for K biology, chemistry and physics majors.
The Sherman Fairchild Foundation will provide $247,500 to fund stipends of $4,000 apiece for students in biology, chemistry and physics to conduct research in summer. The three-year grant will also provide up to $1,500 apiece for students to attend scientific conferences to present their findings and to offset the cost of supplies, said Associate Professor of Physics Arthur Cole, who will serve as director of the project.
The student research beneficiaries, 15 each summer, will include both rising seniors working on their Senior Individualized Projects (SIPs) and younger students, allowing them to get early exposure to life in the lab before deciding whether to pursue science as a career, Cole said. He worked with Assistant Professor of Biology Santiago Salinas, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dwight Williams and Anne Dueweke, director of grants, fellowships and research, to conceptualize and develop the grant proposal.
“It gives students an earlier chance to seek out research experiences,” Cole said. “A lot of times you think you want to go into the sciences and you don’t know what research is like until you get to try it.”
He said the grant also will make it possible for those who support themselves while attending the College to concentrate on student research, rather than having to seek summer jobs, and could open doors for members of groups who are underrepresented in the sciences.
Salinas said summer research as an undergraduate played a major role in his own decision to become a scientist and professor.
“It’s more than what’s in the textbook,” he said. “They start to see the bigger picture. And they get to try things. It’s how they learn. And it’s fun.”
For those who do decide to pursue scientific careers, Williams said, the opportunity to get early research experience can give them a “leg up” on getting further grants and research opportunities.
“It’s a great way for us to get more students involved in research, particularly with an emphasis on first- and second-year students, instead of waiting until they’re seniors working on their SIPs” he said.
Though most of the research that the grant funds will involve students working with professors on the College’s campus, it will also provide support for up to three K students a year to participate in research at other institutions, Cole said.
A 1944 graduate of Western Michigan University, he was a star in basketball and football there and was inducted into the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1982. He also is in the hall of fame at Southeast Missouri State University, where he was a member of a championship basketball team before transferring to Western.
