Kalamazoo College History Professor James Lewis has released a new book through Princeton University Press about former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr.
History Professor James Lewis is the author of “The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis.”“The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis” is available through many bookstores and websites.
“The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis” explores 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).
Lewis earned a bachelor’s degree in government and foreign affairs from the College of William and Mary, a master’s degree in history from the American University, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia. He has been teaching at K since 2003.
A Kalamazoo woman who participated in last year’s Kalamazoo County initiative to provide under-documented residents with government-issued IDs has earned one of three Regional Fellowships from the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College.
Nelly Fuentes received one of three Regional Fellowships.
Nelly Fuentes, of Movimiento Cosecha Kalamazoo, hopes to expand the organization with the project funds she receives through the Fellowship, which runs until June 2018. Movimiento Cosecha seeks permanent protection, dignity and respect for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Fuentes, who migrated to Michigan around 2000 and arrived in Kalamazoo in 2006, hopes to expand the organization to about 25 members. She wants to culminate her efforts with a May Day celebration for farmworkers in coordination with other local Movimiento Cosecha chapters, including one in Grand Rapids.
Each Regional Fellow receives a $5,000 stipend and funds for travel and project-related expenses, in addition to professional development and coaching for their social justice-related goals.
“The Regional Fellowships are our way of providing concrete support to local leaders who are working for justice and equity in Southwest Michigan,” said Mia Henry, executive director of the Arcus Center. “We believe that our partnership with these visionary organizers will help them strengthen the impact and increase the reach of their projects, which will benefit our community well after the fellowship period ends.”
Also receiving fellowships are:
Linda Cypret-Kilbourne and Julie Dye, who are creating a campaign that will inform and educate K-12 teachers about institutional racism related to Native American-themed mascots in interscholastic sports.
Julie DyeLinda Cypret-Kilbourne
Cypret-Kilbourne is a co-founder of the Michigan Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media, a member of the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media and a chairperson of Native American Student Community Organization Movement. Dye is a Pokagon Band and Walpole Island First Nation Potawatomi Native American. As an anti-racism and environmental activist, she works to improve the lives of Michigan’s indigenous people through education.
Kalamazoo College graduates Gina Bravata and Ryan D’Mello, who are addressing race-based health inequity through anti-racism and implicit bias training for future healthcare providers as co-leaders and co-organizers of the Social Justice Interest Group at Western Michigan University’s Homer Stryker, M.D. School of Medicine.
Bravata was born and raised in Kalamazoo and is a student at the Stryker School of Medicine. Before attending medical school, she was a chemistry teacher in Newark, N.J. She is interested in using her background in education and health to promote health equity by increasing discussions regarding the integral link between social justice and medicine.
D’Mello was born in Kalamazoo and has lived, worked, researched and volunteered there. After graduating from Kalamazoo College, he worked with a team of local health professionals on The Kalamazoo Heart Project, evaluating undetected heart disease in the community.
About the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College is to develop and sustain leaders in human rights and social justice through education and capacity-building.
Kalamazoo College Psychology Professor Siu-Lan Tan, with co-authors Peter Pfordresher and Rom Harré, has released a second edition of her 2010 book titled “Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance.”
The second edition of “Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance” was released on Monday, Nov. 6.Psychology of Music Professor Siu-Lan Tan signs copies of her book “The Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance.” The book’s second edition was released Nov. 6.
The new version, released Nov. 6 through Routledge Publishing, considers music from its beginning as an acoustical signal to its manifestations across cultures. As a second edition, it puts greater emphasis on linking academic learning to real-world contexts, and on compelling topics that appeal to students and their curiosity.
Chapters have been updated with about 500 new citations to reflect advances in the field. A new “Chapters in Action” section includes exercises and application assignments designed to engage students in active learning.
Tan has enjoyed teaching since 1998. Her research focuses on listeners’ perception of musical structure, graphic representations of music, and the role of music in film and other multimedia. Her other contributions to the field of psychology in music have included a book titled “The Psychology of Music in Multimedia,” published by Oxford University Press in 2013; and a film documentary released last year, “SCORE: A Film Music Documentary.”
We all have a shadow, but Mickey’s has a name: Michele.
Beginning this fall and throughout the school year, Michele Kelly, associate dean of arts and sciences at Macomb Community College, will periodically shadow Kalamazoo College Provost Mickey McDonald.
Throughout the school year, Michele Kelly, associate dean of arts and sciences at Macomb Community College, will periodically shadow Kalamazoo College Provost Mickey McDonald.
McDonald’s mentorship of Kelly is under the auspices of the Michigan-ACE Network for Women Leaders in Higher Education. The “Moving the Needle” Senior-Level Leadership Shadow Program aims to increase the number of women in top college and university leadership by providing them the experience they need to move into positions such as president and provost – the chief academic officer for a higher education institution.
Kelly, who was chosen for the program through a competitive process, acknowledged that Macomb – a 40,000-student community college serving the Detroit suburbs – is a very different kind of school than K. But she said there is much that observing McDonald can teach her.
“I hope to be a provost someday,” said Kelly, whose previous experience includes administrative positions at Queens University, a private liberal arts college in Charlotte, N.C. “I think that there are some trends in higher education that transcend institutions. It will be interesting to get the perspective of a completely different institution to fill in the gaps of my own knowledge. Following Mickey around I hope to do that.”
McDonald said Kelly won’t just be working with him.
“It’s more than just following me around,” he said. “She has access to everybody at K, and specifically digging into the areas she kind of wants to fill in in terms of her own background. Whether it’s around budgeting, strategic planning, global initiatives, diversity and inclusion – one of the things we’re trying to do is pair her up with the people on our campus so she can learn about different leadership styles, different approaches to various areas in higher education.”
He said her time at K – up to 150 hours through June – will be scheduled around key learning opportunities. For example, a recent visit allowed her to sit in on a meeting about the College’s strategic plan – an aspect of administration in which she said she had not previously participated. Other visits will allow her to leverage her own experience, such as when administrators discuss the follow-up to K’s assessment by the Higher Learning Commission, a process she helped lead at Macomb.
McDonald said he sees mentoring Kelly as benefiting K, too.
“While it is not necessarily explicitly supporting the mission of preparing our students for their lives after K, I think implicitly by supporting women’s leadership, and higher education leadership, it’s contributing broadly to our mission,” he said.
It’s also a way of giving back to ACE, the American Council on Education. McDonald said a yearlong ACE Fellowship at Ohio’s Baldwin-Wallace College (now University) during the 2001-02 school year, when he was an administrator at California’s Occidental College, helped further his career.
“It certainly much better prepared me for leadership opportunities and gave me the confidence and specific experiences that would make me a more effective leader,” he said.
Beyond experience, the ACE program allowed him several years later to make what turned out to be a vital connection. Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez, then at Trinity University in Texas, was an ACE Fellow during the 2007-08 school year at Pomona College, a near neighbor of Occidental in the Los Angeles suburbs.
Joseph Stulberg ’67 says he sometimes marvels at how two or three years spent in a particular place can set the course for a lifetime.
Suzie Gonzalez ’83, Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez, Midge Stulberg, Janet and David Scarrow and Joseph (Josh) Stulberg ’67 (from left to right) gather at the home of Philosophy Department Chairman Christopher Latiolais during Homecoming weekend to celebrate the Stulbergs’ endowment of the Janet and David S. Scarrow Endowment for Philosophy.
For Stulberg, more commonly known as Josh, that place was Kalamazoo College, where people like David Scarrow, then a philosophy professor, and Scarrow’s wife Janet served as role models who inspired his own distinguished academic career.
Marking the 50th anniversary of his graduation and his class reunion during the 2017 Homecoming weekend, Stulberg – the Michael E. Moritz Chair in Alternative Dispute Resolution at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law – and his wife Midge are creating the Janet and David S. Scarrow Endowment for Philosophy. He says the fund is aimed at ensuring today’s Kalamazoo College philosophy majors have the sort of experience that helped shape his life.
The Stulbergs previously created scholarships for students majoring in philosophy and in English or theatre. Philosophy Department Chair Christopher Latiolais says their latest gift goes a step further, both supporting students and making possible what he hopes will be a fundamental element of the department’s program: the funding of teaching assistantships for philosophy majors.
The Scarrow Endowment will also support travel by philosophy majors to academic conferences where they can gain experience presenting their research. And Latiolais says the department hopes to launch an annual newsletter to help keep alumni connected to current students.
He says the Stulbergs’ gift is not only the largest the department has received during his tenure, but also is the product of years of discussions with the couple, who asked “hard, good, strong questions about what we were doing.”
“I thought it was a remarkably thoughtful gift,” Latiolais says.
College President Jorge G. Gonzalez says it is especially gratifying to see one professor honor another – and in the process, foster yet another generation of scholars.
“It reinforces that we are part of a profession that values its past yet is always looking ahead,” he said. “Nowhere is that more apparent than at a place like Kalamazoo College, where the liberal arts tradition endures.”
Stulberg says he and his wife are “thrilled” to be able to “provide some tangible resources” to support the mission of liberal arts education at Kalamazoo College – “the place I know best.”
As for Scarrow, now 91, he is self-effacing when asked about the reverence Stulberg holds for him, but pleased, honored and confident that the endowment “will enhance the lives of students who are serious about studying philosophy.”
For more information about the Janet and David S. Scarrow Endowment for Philosophy, contact Al DeSimone, Kalamazoo College Vice President for Advancement, at 269.337.7292 or Al.DeSimone@kzoo.edu.
If you visit ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, be sure to check out three entries from artists with Kalamazoo College connections. Help Desk Administrator Russell Cooper ’89, Web Services Director Carolyn Zinn ’82 and Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Firth MacMillan all are participating.
Russell Cooper is competing in ArtPrize for the sixth time. His art shows a black-and-white image of his daughter holding an oval frame at a playground. That frame is reflecting a color image of Violette on a swing.
Cooper is competing for a sixth time at ArtPrize, the event touted by organizers as the world’s most-attended public art event. His two-dimensional work again features his daughter, Violette, although the end result reflects inspirations from photographers and artists who create optical illusions, and the Persian Poet Rumi, who said: “There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine. O traveler, if you are in search of that, don’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek that.”
Cooper’s art shows a black-and-white image of his daughter holding an oval frame at a playground. That frame is reflecting a color image of Violette on a swing. The final product is on display at PaLatte Coffee and Art, 150 Fulton St. E.
Zinn is entering ArtPrize for the first time. Her quilt – which is an image of her daughter, Kirsten, that uses 480 hexagons and 60 commercial fabric prints – was designed through a technique called English paper piecing. She said the technique involves wrapping paper shapes in fabric and then stitching the fabric by hand with a thread and needle. The paper is removed before the quilt layers are stacked and topstitched.
Carolyn Zinn’s quilt is an image of her daughter, Kirsten, that uses 480 hexagons and 60 commercial fabric prints.
Zinn added she has been sewing her entire life, although she became fascinated with geometry and the color of traditional Amish quilts when she was a teenager. She made a quilt for the first time when she was a student at K and living in DeWaters Hall. In recent years, Zinn has become involved in art quilting, focusing on original design and nontraditional materials and methods.
“I believe fiber art is an underrepresented medium in the art world,” she said. “By entering my work in this open competition, I hope to raise awareness of the medium and inspire others who work with fiber to continue challenging the boundaries of art, craft and design.”
Zinn’s quilt is on display at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, 303 Pearl St. NW.
MacMillan has been teaching ceramics and sculpture since coming to K from The University of Colorado-Boulder in 2016.
MacMillan became familiar with ArtPrize while living in New York City through art critic Jerry Saltz. When she returned to Michigan, where she attended high school and college, she took her K sculpture class to ArtPrize, and decided that she should enter this year. Her work is being displayed at the U.S. Post Office at 120 Monroe Center St. NW.
MacMillan’s father, a photography enthusiast, was among the first to inspire her to become an artist. “He helped me learn to frame the world outside through the viewfinder,” MacMillan said.
Firth MacMillan’s sculptures, including the pieces presented at ArtPrize, are often three-dimensional representations derived from her photographs.
In fact, her sculptures – including the pieces presented at ArtPrize – are often three-dimensional representations derived from her photographs.
“In my work I reinterpret experiences of pointed yet everyday moments from life like the play of shadows from sunlight filtering through a canopy of trees,” MacMillan said on the ArtPrize Web page showing her work. “I take these ephemeral moments and translate them into three-dimensional form.”
First-round voting continues at ArtPrize through Sept. 30. Anyone attending ArtPrize can vote in the first round for their favorite artist or artwork to win a share of a half-million dollars in cash and prizes. Public attendees vote through their computers after they register onsite or through the mobile app while visiting the ArtPrize district. Mobile app users need to tap the “thumbs up” icon after entering an artist’s five-digit code. Computer voters tap the “thumbs up” icon at each artist’s profile. The five-digit codes are 64719, 64662 and 66515 for Cooper, Zinn and MacMillan respectively.
ArtPrize runs through Oct. 8. Learn more about the event.
Kalamazoo College announced today that Senior Instructor of Economics and Business Chuck Stull will receive the 2018 Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching, awarded to a K faculty member in recognition of outstanding classroom teaching.
Kalamazoo College announced Wednesday, Sept. 18, that Senior Instructor of Economics and Business Chuck Stull will receive the 2018 Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching.
Stull joined the Business and Economics department in 1996, and has taught courses such as principles of economics, industrial organization, law and economics and business statistics. Before coming to K, he taught at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Wells College, Western Michigan University and Michigan State University. He studied economics as an undergraduate at Northwestern University and as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Since 2002, Stull has been the director of the Kalamazoo College Center for Economic Education, which works to improve the teaching of economics at all levels. The center is a part of the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE). He has led workshops on economics for K-12 teachers and has published several pieces on teaching economics. He is currently working on a textbook, “Economics for Global Travelers.”
Outside of the classroom, Stull enjoys spending time with family, kayaking, photography, sketching, blogging and traveling internationally. He spent the 2014-15 academic year in Salamanca, Spain, and Oxford, UK, and the 2006-07 academic year in Montevideo, Uruguay. Other trips have included visits to South Africa, Dubai, Turkey, China, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Mexico.
A ceremony to officially confer the lectureship for excellence in teaching will occur in the spring term.
Photo by Epicleff Media. “SCORE: A Film Music Documentary,” featuring Kalamazoo College Psychology Professor Siu-Lan Tan among its interviewees, is coming Sept. 22-28 to Celebration! Cinema Crossroads in Portage.
Mark your calendars today. “SCORE: A Film Music Documentary,” featuring Kalamazoo College Psychology Professor Siu-Lan Tan among its interviewees, is coming Sept. 22-28 to Celebration! Cinema Crossroads in Portage. Two showings, one at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 23 and one at 12:30 p.m. Sept. 24, will include question-and-answer sessions with Dr. Tan. Kalamazoo Film Society President Mike Marchak will host the Q&A’s.
Tickets for the shows with Q&A’s are available here for Sept. 23 and here for Sept. 24. Tickets and show times for Sept. 22 and Sept. 25-28 are available by entering the date you would like to attend here. Online ticket purchases are recommended, especially for weekend shows because they could sell out.
“SCORE: A Film Music Documentary,” a New York Times Critic’s Pick, explores how music brings magic to movies. The film, rated 92 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, is a ground-breaking documentary as the first film to focus on film music with this breadth, with more than 50 Hollywood composers, directors, studio executives and others. It also features more than 30 iconic movie moments from Hollywood films.
Photo by Robert Batsell. Kalamazoo College Psychology Professor Siu-Lan Tan stands with the team from “SCORE: A Film Music Documentary” in Hollywood, California.
Dr. Tan’s interview was filmed at Dalton Theatre as the film crew visited from Los Angeles. Other interviewees include Hans Zimmer, James Cameron, Danny Elfman, Quincy Jones, Randy Newman, Rachel Portman, Alexandre Desplat, Bear McCreary, Trent Reznor, Moby and 40 others.
Two national honors, thanks in part to Kalamazoo College mathematics professor Eric Barth, are providing a local children’s music program with recognition and funds for expansion.
Photo by Liz Youker, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. Kalamazoo College mathematics professor Eric Barth helps children develop their interest in music through Kalamazoo Kids in Tune, which is earning two national honors.
Barth has served as the curriculum director and conductor of Kalamazoo Kids in Tune (KKIT), an afterschool orchestra immersion program available to first- through eighth-graders, since its inception in summer 2012. Such work is earning KKIT:
a Carnegie Hall PlayUSA award. Such awards support instrumental music-education programs benefiting low-income and underserved youths; and
National Arts and Humanities Youth Program honors that recognize 50 outstanding creative youth-development programs across the country for their work in providing excellent arts and humanities learning opportunities.
Barth’s KKIT duties might sound unusual for a math professor although music’s connections with math are boundless. Rhythms, scales, time signatures and more allow musicians to build valuable skills and talents through practice.
“My undergraduate degree was in music,” said Barth, who also has a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mathematics, all from the University of Kansas. He said when he got involved with KKIT, “that inner musician kind of came out,” putting him in a role the organization needed. That role allows him to take the symphony orchestra music difficult for children and compose easier, yet meaningful music for them.
“Often the kids will recognize the music because it’s in movies and on television,” Barth said. “Through careful edits, we strip out the hard stuff, while offering a chance to perform music that moves the audience.”
Each student in KKIT selects an instrument to study and participates in group lessons and orchestra rehearsals. By learning to play instruments in an ensemble setting, students develop a sense of community while building mastery and resilience, skills that provide success in classrooms. The program and instruments are provided free of charge to participants, thanks to several local foundations, businesses and individuals. The program is a collaboration of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Communities in Schools of Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo Public Schools.
About 85 participants a year have learned in the dedicated classes that have integrated music lessons and orchestra rehearsals in a culture of kindness to one’s self and others. However, the Carnegie honors will allow the program to grow. In addition, Carnegie representatives will visit KKIT participants in November, and group organizers will visit New York for an event at Carnegie Hall in February.
Barth said the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program recognition provides evidence that the quality of KKIT places the program among the best in the nation and shines a spotlight on the arts scene in Kalamazoo.
KKIT previously has been featured in publications such as the Huffington Post and shows such as WGVU’s “Kalamazoo Lively Arts.” Other videos with more information are available in this promotion and through Public Media Unit GVSU.
A message about DACA developments from the presidents of Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo Valley Community College and Western Michigan University.
To our campus communities:
Jorge G. Gonzalez
Our hearts go out to all DACA students, and we stand committed to the idea that their success as students and members of our community enhances the success of each of our respective institutions.
This is a community that cares deeply about education and the role it plays in realizing the American dream. Students, we support your efforts to inform your fellow students and our communities of your plight as you face the possibility of losing the status you have gained under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals order.
Support for the retention of DACA as a way of showing our nation’s compassion and basic sense of fairness crosses party lines and is steadily growing among Americans from every walk of life. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch and several other Republican leaders urged President Trump not to end the program. On the other side of the aisle, Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called on her colleagues to protect dreamers and “shield families from separation and heartbreak.”
With growing and heartfelt support for DACA protections and the widespread dismay at the idea of losing DACA, we believe the time has come for Congress to legislate a solution. This is an opportunity for all to make their views known and work with their elected representatives.
We are proud of all of you, student dreamers, for your courage and for using your voices to make the cause personal and more understandable to those around you. Our campuses are better places for your efforts.
Edward Montgomery
President, Western Michigan University
Jorge G. Gonzalez
President, Kalamazoo College
Marilyn Schlack
President, Kalamazoo Valley Community College
