Category: Faculty & Staff

Viewbook Goes Virtual

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digital viewbook screenshotOne of Kalamazoo College’s most important tools for attracting prospective students and applications just got a lot more effective, according to Director of Admission David Anderson.

K’s award-winning print viewbook is now virtual and will soon go viral—at least that’s the hope. The new digital viewbook REPLACES its print predecessor.

It takes a lot of courage to walk away from that adjective “award-winning.” Why the change? “As excellent as it was, prospects weren’t reading our viewbook,” said Anderson. (It’s a brave new world out there.) “We wanted to share the ethos and the value of a K education where our prospects ’live,’ so to speak. And that place is the digital universe, where they engage with colleges and universities and with each other.”

Of course, K is one of countless denizens of the digital realm. So “we need to be at the forefront, at the cutting edge of this work,” added Anderson. K’s digital viewbook delivers edginess, in five ways: paralax animation; gamification; extensive use of Go-Pro video; Prezi-like mosaic technology; and responsive design.

K’s digital viewbook visitor’s perspective opens on outer space, zooms across the country, and alights at Kalamazoo College. “That staggered, three-dimensional movement is paralax animation,” explained Anderson. And it works.

digital viewbook character choice screen
K’s digital viewbook reader/explorers can take the journey as Buzz or as themselves—-an animated figure with a pasted “selfie.”

Once “landed” at K, the viewbook visitor experiences gamification, “a visual digital tool that makes progression through the viewbook (and its introduction to the K experience) active,” said Anderson.

That “physical” activity well aligns with the predominance of Go-Pro video sequences. ’Go-Pro is a fish-eye (wide angle), high definition approach to videography originally used by surfers and race car drivers,” said Anderson. “It captures active life as it happens,” a reality very fitting for a place like K, which is far less an adjective and far more a verb, a muscular one at that.

Not only muscular, but also wide-ranging. “We sent out Go-Pro cameras with students all over the place,” said Anderson. In K’s case, that means across the globe to capture study abroad experiences. One campus Go-Pro was even mounted on a Quadra-copter.

The visit to the digital viewbook ends with the “Prezi-like mosaic,” a collage of images that open to still photos and more videos that convey the life of a K education. Work continues on raising the mosaic’s ratio of videos to stills and to complete photo labeling where needed. But even now, all images are animate with K living. Action is paramount—throughout the viewbook visitors are called on to apply, and at the end of the journey, they can to that as well as ask for information and schedule a visit.

The fifth cutting-edge element, responsive design, often presented the most challenging technical difficulties. “Responsive design means the viewbook works on any time of device (phone, tablet, computer) in any browser,” said Anderson. “That wasn’t easy.”

The College conceived the digital viewbook’s creative concept and then partnered with higher ed marketing company TWG+ for the execution. The project took 12 months. Anderson worked closely with K’s Director of Publications Lisa Darling. His admission teammate Rudi Goddard ’13 served as the project’s unofficial chief cinematographer. Her fellow admission colleague Andrew Grayson ’10 piloted the Quadra-copter.

The department of admission launches the tool to prospective students this week, but it’s already done some testing with admitted students.

“During spring’s VISIT THE ZOO days we shared the viewbook with the visitors,” said Anderson. He admits the comparison isn’t exactly apples-to-apples; admitted students by virtue of that status likely have more interest in K than a “cold” prospect. Nevertheless, the 56 percent open rate was excellent, even with such a predisposed group.

“If we get a rate close to that with new (prospective students), we will be ecstatic,” said Anderson.

What about that walking away from an award-winning print publication? Well, it’s a lot less intimidating now that the digital viewbook can boast its own honors. In fact, the digital viewbook has won two gold-level awards sponsored by the Higher Education Marketing Report. Before it was launched, even. Before its technical de-bugging was complete! The awards are called the Educational Digital Marketing Awards, and we think a good nickname would be THE EDGIES. K has two (for best online publication, and for interactivity)!

The (Busy) Life of a Writer

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Kalamazoo College Writer-in-Residence Diane SeussThe New Yorker magazine has accepted for publication a poem by Kalamazoo College Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss ’78. The poem is expected to appear in the fall. Many other good things happening relative to Di’s writing.

Her third book of poems, Four-Legged Girl, comes out in early October from Graywolf Press, arguably the best poetry press in the country

She also recently finished a draft of her fourth collection, which will likely come out from Graywolf 2018. “It’s a departure for me–titled Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl–and all based on the aesthetics of early still life painting,” wrote Di. “I’ll be revising that manuscript this summer and working on some new stuff. Poems from Two Dead Peacocks are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and (yes) the New Yorker. I also have new poems coming out in Blackbird this spring and various other magazines.”

Di had a residency last summer at Hedgebrook, a retreat space for women writers on Whidbey Island off the coast of Washington State in Puget Sound. There she wrote a good portion of Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl. This summer she will be in residency at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire this coming summer to continue working on the fourth collection and generate new material for what she hopes “will be something like a memoir,” she wrote. “I believe MacDowell is the oldest artists residency in the country. It has hosted James Baldwin, Thornton Wilder, Leonard Bernstein, Willa Cather, Audre Lorde, and many more contemporary artists. I’m excited to be in a space where there are visual artists, musicians, and writers all in our own studios making new work.”

Di writes brief nonfiction as well as poetry. She recently learned she won Quarter After Eight magazine’s Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest, and she will have another piece of nonfiction published in Brevity in the fall.

Breathless yet? Not Di. This month she will moderate a panel at the Associated Writing Programs National Conference in Minneapolis. The panel includes Di, poet Adrian Blevins, fiction/nonfiction writer Claire Evans, and fiction writer Bonnie Jo Campbell. It’s called “Hick Lit: Women Writing from the Circumference.”

Di will read her work at Sarah Lawrence College in June, and at Colby College in the fall.

K’s 3 of 300

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Rina Fujiwara
Rina Fujiwara

Three Kalamazoo College chemistry majors presented at the 2015 Experimental Biology meeting, a joint meeting of six different societies including the American Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) as well as societies for physiology, nutrition, pharmacology, pathology, and anatomy. More than 15,000 scientists attended the meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.

Rina Fujiwara ’15, Sarah Glass ’17, and Victoria Osorio ’16 shared results of the research they did in collaboration with Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge. Their presentations were part of both the Undergraduate Poster Competition and as part of the regular scientific session for ASBMB. Some 300 undergraduate posters composed the ASBMB competition from students across the country and from a variety of college and universities.

Fujiwara’s work, part of her Senior Individualized Project (SIP), showed how the work of two human liver enzymes vital to the body’s processing of medicines is halted by two small molecule inhibitors. The research took place in the Furge lab at Kalamazoo College and was published in Drug Metabolism and Disposition (Fall 2014). Other co-authors included Furge, Amanda Bolles ’14, and Erran Briggs ’14.

Victoria Osorio
Victoria Osorio

Glass and Osorio presented a poster that centered on recent work in the Furge lab with variants of an enzyme responsible for metabolism (or processing in the body) of about 15 percent of all medicines. The presence of these enzyme variants in different individuals can lead to vastly different responses to some pharmaceutical drugs, including cough syrup, the breast cancer drug tamoxifen, and many more. Though not present at the meeting, Mike Glista ’06) and Parker de Waal ’13) were co-authors on the posters.

This summer Fujiwara will enter the University of Pennsylvania Graduate Program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. Osorio and Glass will continue research with Furge this summer. Both plan to attend graduate school after graduating from Kalamazoo College.

Sarah Glass
Sarah Glass

At the Boston meeting Professor of Chemistry Regina Stevens-Truss once again directed her highly acclaimed HOPES project, connecting science teachers with practicing scientists to enhance the quality and hands-on authenticity of primary and secondary classroom science instruction.

Professors Furge and Stevens-Truss are members of the ASBMB and attend the meeting every year. Travel to ASBMB for students Fujiwara, Glass, and Osorio was supported by grants from the Richard J. Cook Research Fellowship Fund (Fujiwara), an award from the ASBMB Student Affiliate (Fujiwara), the Provost Office (Glass, Osorio), and a grant to Furge through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Travel for Furge and Truss was supported by the Hutchcroft Endowment as well as NIH and grants from ASBMB.

Adding Voice to VISIONS

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Six faculty and staff members representing the VISIONS + Voices Planning Committee
The VISIONS + Voices Planning Committee includes (l-r)—Eric Wimbley, director of security; Mia Henry, executive director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership; Jacob Lemon, area coordinator for residence life; Kyle Schultz, circulation supervisor for Upjohn Library; Laura Wilson, associate director for the Kalamazoo College Fund; and Jane Hoinville, prospect research analyst for College advancement.

A committee of six faculty and staff members is offering a three-part multicultural training titled “VISIONS + Voices,” which is open to all Kalamazoo College employees.

The sessions build upon diversity training offered in previous years to faculty and staff through the “VISIONS” program. According to members of the planning committee, attendees felt that program provided helpful resources but lacked a platform for sharing personal experiences. “VISIONS + Voices” augments the original training.

“We felt we could extend some of the conversations we had. We wanted to explore these conversations in more depth,” said Jacob Lemon, residential life area coordinator and member of the “VISIONS + Voices” planning committee.

A Diversity and Inclusion Mini-Grant made the planning committee’s vision a reality.

“We felt it [the grant] was a good fit for the follow-up work we were doing,” said Mia Henry, committee member and executive director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.

Three supplemental sessions are offered: “Microaggressions,” “Monoculture, Pluralism, and Multiculturalism,” and “Marginalization on Campus.”

The first session (microaggressions) took place on April 8. About 40 staff and faculty members attended, just short of the 50 person cap.

The major take-away from the first session was attendees’ openness and willing to develop support groups, according to committee member Kyle Schulz, circulation supervisor for Upjohn Library.

“It’s clear that there is a thirst for faculty and staff to connect with one another and learn,” said Henry.

Two more opportunities remain for interested community members to attend. The session on “Monoculture, Pluralism, and Multiculturalism” will be offered on Thursday, May 7, and the session regarding “Marginalization on Campus” will take place Friday, June 19. Both sessions occur from 8:15- a.m. to 10 a.m. at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.

Interested faculty and staff may register online.

Text and photo by Matthew Muñoz ’14

Un-COMMONS Learning

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Six K colleagues work in the Learning Commons
The Learning Commons is all about collaboration. Among its champions are (l-r): Candace Bailey Combs, Hilary Wagner, Paul Sotherland, Robin Rank, Liz Smith, and Amy Newday.

Kalamazoo College’s ‘Learning Commons’ had its grand opening on Thursday, April 9. The Learning Commons is located on the first floor of Upjohn Library and is all about students helping other students raise their academic achievement.

Amy Newday, director of the Writing Center and one of several collaborators in the development of the Learning Commons said, “We are trying to move away from ‘cubicle’ style studying. Students actually learn and perform much better when they study in pairs or groups. With the Learning Commons, the end goal is to create a mobile physical space for intellectual collaboration.”

The Learning Commons offers peer assistance in math, physics, writing, science, and library research. Its five centers include the Writing Center, English as a Second Language, the Biology & Chemistry Center, the Math-Physics Center, and the Research Consultant Center. Learn more at the Learning Commons website.

Text by Mallory Zink ’15, Photo by Susan Andress

The R in K’s DNA

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Rob Townsend standing at recycling receptacles
The work of Rob Townsend has been key to the recycling culture on K’s campus.

RecycleMania 2015 is over, and if you didn’t know that (or if you weren’t aware the contest had even begun) that’s because for the second consecutive year the College has competed without promoting the contest–sort of a test to see the degree to which R (for recycling or Rob, as in Rob Townsend) has become part of K’s DNA. The results are good.

Kalamazoo College recycles far more than half of the solid waste it produces, according to Associate Vice President for Facilities Management Paul Manstrom. “We placed very high in many of the categories despite the fact we did not promote the contest at all on campus–unlike most other schools that competed,” said Manstrom. “Our performance is a testimony to the recycling culture that Rob Townsend has built at K over the years. While some schools need the publicity of a contest to up their recycling statistics, it just comes naturally at K.” This year the College had three top-ten finishes out of eight categories. K’s ranking (and number of participating institutions) by category follow: Grand Champion–32nd (233); Per Capita Classic–10th (334); Gorilla–201st (334); Waste Minimization–116th (148); Paper–20th (141); Corrugated Cardboard–4th (163); Bottles & Cans–3rd (142); and Food Service Organics–129th (175).

RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. During an eight-week period, colleges across the United States and Canada report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week and are in turn ranked in various categories based on who recycles the most on a per capita basis, as well as which schools have the best recycling rate as a percentage of total waste and which schools generate the least amount of combined trash and recycling.

Kalamazoo College earned silver-level recognition for its 11 years of RecycleMania participation, and it’s unlikely to rest on the excellence of its tradition. Said Townsend: “The data shows our numbers slipped a bit from the previous year. We won’t get complacent.”

The Iconography of Justice

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Arcus Center for Social Justice LeadershipDesigned by world renowned architect and MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang, the architecture that houses Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership has inspired rave reviews by many. Perhaps no work better explicates the iconography of the space than the video that was commissioned by Studio Gang Architects and produced by Dave Burk. The piece features many persons from Kalamazoo College, including President Eileen B. Wilson Oyelaran and Trustee Jon Stryker ’82, whose gift made the building possible. Convening on behalf of social justice often has taken place in small and out-of-the-way spaces designed for other purposes. The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College brings these discussions up from the basement, so to speak, and squarely into public consciousness.

The Arcus Center works to develop emerging leaders and sustain existing leaders in the fields of human rights and social justice. As a learning environment and meeting space, it brings together students, faculty, visiting scholars, social justice leaders, and members of the public for conversation and activities aimed at creating a more just world. We invite you to take the seven minutes to view this short film. Together, the space and the people who experience animate, and the film shows how.

Kalamazoo College President Announces Retirement

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Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran and Charlotte HallPresident Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran today announced her retirement from Kalamazoo College, effective June 30, 2016. She made the announcement at the College’s spring term all-campus gathering, a meeting of faculty and staff.

President Wilson-Oyelaran was unanimously elected the 17th president of Kalamazoo College by the board of trustees on December 11, 2004. She began her duties in July of 2005. Prior to the presidency of K she served as vice president and dean of the college of Salem Academy and College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

A native of Los Angeles, President Wilson-Oyelaran earned her undergraduate degree (sociology) from Pomona College, a liberal arts school in Claremont, California. She studied abroad in England as an undergraduate, and used a postgraduate fellowship to study in Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania) for 16 months.

Eileen B. Wilson-OyelaranShe returned to the U.S. to earn a master’s degree and Ph.D. in child development and early childhood education (Claremont Graduate University) and then taught in the departments of education and psychology at the University of Ife in Nigeria for 14 years. She married Olasope (Sope) Oyelaran in 1980, and they have four children—Doyin, Oyinda, Salewa, and Yinka.

The family moved to the United States in 1988. President Wilson-Oyelaran taught or served in administrative leadership positions at North Carolina Wesleyan College and Winston-Salem State University prior to joining the faculty of Salem College.

At K she led the development of a 10-year strategic plan for the college that, among other priorities, focused on the re-imagination and integration of the elements of K’s internationally renowned curriculum, the K-Plan. “We’re helping students integrate and reflect on the building blocks they use to construct their own unique K-Plans,” said President Wilson-Oyelaran: classroom explorations in the liberal arts, study abroad, career internships and networking opportunities, civic engagement, social justice leadership, and the capstone experience that is the senior individualized project. “Those elements, alone and in concert, enhance the four years that students spend at Kalamazoo College and will enhance students’ lives for years to come,” added President Wilson-Oyelaran.

Other curricular improvements during her tenure include revised graduation requirements, implementation of the Shared Passages Seminar Series (which helps students reflect upon and integrate their academic and experiential opportunities), three new academic majors (business, women and gender studies, and critical ethnic studies), two new intercollegiate sports (men’s and women’s lacrosse), the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, and new career and professional development programs such as the Guilds of Kalamazoo College.

President Wilson-Oyelaran helped envision and implement another key focus of the College’s strategic plan: building a campus community whose diversity reflects the world where K students will live and work. She acknowledged that much work remains to be done in order to create a learning environment that is equitable and inclusive for each member of K’s diverse learning community–the most diverse in its history. In this the 10th year of her tenure, 26 percent of K students identify as U.S. students of color. International students (degree-seeking and visiting) are nearly 10 percent of the student body. Fifteen percent of K students are the first in their families to attend college; and one in four comes from a family of modest income.

President Wilson-Oyelaran has reinvigorated campus spaces that students and employees use to solidify the sense of community that characterizes Kalamazoo College. Not since Presidents Hoben and Hicks has the physical campus made such extraordinary gains in beauty and utility. New spaces that have been renovated or erected during President Wilson-Oyelaran’s tenure include the Hicks Center, the athletic fields and field house, and the extraordinary work of architecture that houses the social justice center. In addition to these spaces, construction of a new fitness and wellness center will begin at the end of summer, and preliminary design of a new natatorium is complete.

Also, per the strategic plan, enrollment has grown to nearly 1,500 students (the 2017 goal specified by the plan), and the College has implemented an ambitious alumni engagement plan. President Wilson-Oyelaran also has led the most successful fund-raising campaign in the College’s history. That effort, called the Campaign for Kalamazoo College, is in its final stages, having raised $123 million of its $125 million goal.

Charlotte HallChair of the Board of Trustees Charlotte Hall ’66 said that the search for a new president would begin immediately. She noted that the search committee would include trustees, alumni, students, faculty, and staff. The 18th president of Kalamazoo College is expected to assume those duties on July 1, 2016.

That new president will have big shoes to fill. “Eileen, we are so grateful for all the ways you’ve helped prepare K for its future,” said Hall. “I know I speak for the entire K community, the Kalamazoo Community, and all the people you have touched throughout your time in higher education when I say we hope the best for you and Sope.”

President Wilson-Oyelaran cited the “singular honor” of serving at Kalamazoo College and shared her belief that, K, “the very best is yet to come.”

Her legacy here is truly a blessing for our entire community. More than a decade ago, when she was considering the decision to move from Salem Academy and College to Kalamazoo College, Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran was seeking some sort of sign to tip the scale. She found it when she learned that the great abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth had once met with kindred spirit Lucinda Hinsdale Stone (head of the female department at K, which was one of the first colleges in the country to provide higher education for women). “Ever since I was a child,” President Wilson-Oyelaran said in 2004, “Sojourner Truth has been an icon for me.”

Now, in turn, Kalamazoo College President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran can be an icon for us.

Kalamazoo College Professor Awarded NEH Grant

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Dennis Frost, the Wen Chao Chen Associate Professor of East Asian Social Sciences, was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to support his project titled “The Paralympic Movement, Sports, and Disability in Postwar Japan.” His was one 232 humanities projects in the country to receive NEH funding. Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Professor Frost earned his B.A. at Wittenberg University and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He completed research programs at University of the Ryukyus (Okinawa, Japan) and Iwate University (Iwate, Japan). He is the author of Seeing Stars: Sports Celebrity, Identity, and Body Culture in Modern Japan. In addition to his study of the Paralympic Movement, sports, and disability in postwar Japan, his current research interests include a comparative exploration of military “base towns’ in Okinawa and mainland Japan. Said NEH Chairman William Adams: “The grants announced continue the Endowment’s tradition of supporting excellence in the humanities by funding far-reaching research, preservation projects, and public programs.”Congratulations to Professor Frost!

Great Adventurer

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Richard T. Stavig[NOTE: A memorial service for Dr. Stavig will occur on Saturday, May 9, at 2 p.m. in Stetson Chapel. A reception will follow in the Hicks Center Stone Room.]

Richard T. Stavig, Ph.D., died on Sunday, Easter morning, April 5, 2015. He was 87 years old. During his tenure at the College Professor Stavig established his legacy in several areas. Generations of students remember him for his inspired teaching, careful scholarship, preparation and dedication to excellence. Colleagues at home and abroad owe a great deal to his skills as a gifted administrator. The College community benefits from the legacy of his high ethical and moral standards.

In 1955 Professor Stavig began his 37-year career at Kalamazoo College as an assistant professor of English. Some 30 years later–in a speech he gave on Honors Day (October 31, 1986) about the beginning of study abroad at Kalamazoo College–he described his feelings on being chosen to accompany the very first group of 25 K students to experience three months of foreign study in the summer of 1958:

“Wonder of wonders, a thirty-year-old untenured assistant professor of English who had been at K only three years, who had never been to Europe, and whose oral language skills were minimal was selected to take the first group over [on the ship Arosa Star, departing from Montreal on June 17] and give them–what else could he give them–minimal supervision. Plans had been carefully made, but there was simply a lot we just didn’t know. We did know, however, that we were involved in a great adventure, an adventure that had tremendous implications for us and our college. And we knew we had the responsibility for making it work.”

That same year he accompanied the first group of students to study abroad Professor Stavig also was promoted to associate professor English.

He became a full professor in 1963 and served in that capacity until his retirement from K in 1992. And he did much more. In 1962–the year the K-Plan launched as the College’s curriculum–Professor Stavig became K’s first director of foreign study. In this role he established procedures and goals that are still valid today. Five years later he was named dean of off-campus education. He served in both of those posts until 1974.

Rightly considered one of the founders of the K-Plan, Professor Stavig loved, believed in, and advocated for the educational leaps that result from foreign study. He credited study abroad in large part to the vision of his friend, English department colleague, and fellow K-Plan architect, Larry Barrett, who also died on an Easter morning. “Larry Barrett saw foreign study as a unique opportunity for us to experiment and innovate,” said Professor Stavig, “to see if a boldly different kind of educational experience could be made to work. And he wanted this because he always wanted education simply to be better for the students.” And so, too, did the man who wrote those words about his friend.

Funeral arrangements for Professor Stavig are pending. The family is considering a memorial service in Stetson Chapel some time in May. More information will be shared, and an obituary will appear in the June issue of BeLight magazine and the December issue of LuxEsto.