Our first “language” is music, according to the latest Psychology Today blog post of Kalamazoo College Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan. Or, more accurately, our first language is the interaction of our bodies with music, which begins as young as 10 months old! We may not synchronize our movements with the sound until the age of four (or thereabouts), but as infants we sure love to enlist our new skills in movement to explore sounds. In fact, this is how we build our knowledge about the physical properties of objects. And young as they may be, infants engage in that exploration very systematically. Finally, infants express their musical sensitivity in the way they listen to music. Siu-Lan provides video examples of the many nuances she discusses in this, her most recent blog post, and the infants she enlists to underscore her points are unforgettable (some have been seen by more than 20 million viewers). Our music-body language may be our first, but it lasts. I was thinking about this idea (and Siu-Lan’s blog) just yesterday on my walk to the bus, reciting in my head two lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (nearly the last words the two lovers speak to each other when both are conscious). Juliet: “O, now begone! More light and light it grows.”/ Romeo: “More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.” Two lines of iambic pentameter that match the iambs of a human heart beat, or a walk to the bus stop. What’s interesting is whether the music of the lines (and heart’s systole and diastole) help the hearer more deeply understand the complex combination of sorrow and joy that Shakespeare explores in his play. If so (and this reader thinks it is), then our first language matters a great deal to a life deeply lived.
Category: Faculty & Staff
Challenge and Imagination: Working Science at K
Parker de Waal ’13 had a wish: he wanted to work on a computational chemistry project.
Laura Furge, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry, had a challenge: she needed models of the variants of an important human enzyme. (Some background: The aforementioned enzyme, found in the liver, helps the body process medicines, but it’s not exactly the same–hence, variants–in all individuals. Such variability means some people react differently (including adversely) to important medicines. That’s a serious health problem, and part of Furge’s current grant from the National Institutes of Health calls for the study of these variants. And for such study a model of the variants’ structures would certainly be useful!)
In spring 2013, wish met challenge, and, one year later, the two researchers (along with co-author Kyle Sunden ’16) have published a paper in PLoS ONE, the online journal of the Public Library of Science.
That culminating publication traces back to a laboratory question: Could de Waal (a student in Furge’s “Advanced Biochemistry” class) make computational models of the variants? “I suggested some different ways to approach the problem,” says Furge, “and those approaches took Parker all of about two days!” It was at that point that de Waal suggested to Furge some different, more powerful computational approaches–specifically, molecular dynamics using more sophisticated software. “I said, ’Let’s go for it!’” says Furge. “And we both started on the journey to learn more about Molecular Dynamics approaches.”
The journey included consulting with other scientists around the country and the world (Germany, the Czech Republic) both by email and in person at various scientific conferences. Furge and de Waal used a supercomputer at the University of Texas for the computational work. Analysis of the resulting structures was completed by Furge and Sunden during the winter and spring terms of 2014. “The project is a beautiful example of how research and teaching go together at K,” says Furge. The work has been presented at two major medical meetings.
The paper includes 21 figures and tables. Parker de Waal performed all the experiments that led to the figures; Sunden did the experiments and analyses for two of the figures. Furge did the majority of the analysis. In true liberal arts fashion, the cross-disciplinary work combines computer science and biochemistry. Furge taught Sunden, a chemistry and computer science double major, the relevant biochemistry as they progressed with the project. Sunden hopes to continue the work for his Senior Individualized Project after he returns from study abroad in Australia. The work may one day contribute to personalized solutions for people who have adverse drug reactions to important medicines. The paper has had more than 300 views in the six weeks since it’s been published.
Great academics, cross-disciplinary collaboration, research at the edge, and science that matters! Science education at Kalamazoo College: a double helix of challenge and imagination.
Advancing Civic Engagement
Like many Kalamazoo College alumni, Jillian McLaughlin ’10 is as creative as she is passionate (in her case, about important public policy issues). This fall the public policy graduate student (she attends the John Fitzgerald Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) collaborated with photographer Peter Rausse to create the “Unsexy Policy Project.”
The project’s goal is to get people, especially people aged 18 to 29, to think about, and act on, policy issues that, stuffy as they may seem, affect millions of people. McLaughlin’s tactic: bring back the “unsexy!” or, put another way, articulate a matter’s gravitas and hitch it to a metaphor generally recognized as “sexy.” In application, this meant combining cheese- or beef-cake photos of some dozen current or former students of the Kennedy School with short, lay-language summaries of a particular issue, such as voter ID laws, tax reform, telecommunication competition, among others. The project took three days to complete and rolled out before the November mid-term elections. McLaughlin and Rausse made a calendar out of the photos and will donate proceeds from sales to an organization selected by the project’s Facebook fans.
Before she started her graduate program, McLaughlin worked as a researcher for the National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy organization dedicated to improving the economic security of low-income individuals and families. At K she majored in political science and was an outstanding cross-country runner. We love her title at the Unsexy Policy Project: “Co-Founder and Chief Mischief Maker.” Very K-like.
K Professor and Students Publish Important Chemistry Research
Laura Furge, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry at Kalamazoo College, is the senior and corresponding author of an important scientific paper that includes three Kalamazoo College student co-authors: Amanda Bolles ’14, Rina Fujiwara ’15, and Erran Briggs ’14. The paper is titled “Mechanism-based Inactivation of Human Cytochrome P450 3A4 by Two Piperazine-containing Compounds” and appears in Drug Metabolism and Disposition, a highly regarded, high impact international journal published by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. The research the paper describes, which was conducted in the Furge Lab on K’s campus, contributes the understanding of how some drugs “apply the brakes to” the activity of an enzyme–in this particular case, an enzyme important to the metabolism (or processing) of about half of all medicines! What are the human implications of the work? “Many individuals take multiple medicines each day,” said Furge. “Multiple-drug regimens can lead to unwanted side effects, including drug-induced inhibition of the very enzymes responsible for the metabolism and clearance of other co-administered drugs.” In fact, side effects from drug interactions of polypharmacy therapy are the number one cause of hospitalization in the U.S. “This paper adds in understanding of how certain classes of drugs may cause this type of unfavorable medical event,” said Furge. “New insights will hopefully lead to better prevention in the future.”
The paper includes 13 figures and tables. Furge noted that Bolles, Fujiwara, and Briggs performed all the experiments that lead to those figures, and “all the work was done on the campus at Kalamazoo College. We had all the equipment here needed to complete these studies, and we have already started full swing on another set of experiments for a future publication.” The students have presented parts of the preliminary data at national meetings in the past year, and the research forms of basis of the Senior Individualized Projects for Bolles and Fujiwara.
Such research, and the extraordinary educational opportunities it provides for K students, requires the cooperation, coordination, and collaboration of many funding sources. “This is so important,” Furge stressed. The Richard Cook Fellowship and the Alan and Elaine Hutchcroft Fund (endowments created and supported by alumni gifts) paid for the summer stipends of Fujiwara and Bolles, respectively. The mass spectrometer essential to the experiments was paid for in part by the Hutchcroft Fund and a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The research also was funded by grants Furge secured from the National Institutes of Health.
“Drug Metabolism and Disposition is an international journal with a high impact factor,” added Furge. Impact factors measure how frequently manuscripts in a journal are referenced by other authors.
Baby Tears and Dancing Twins
Psychology Press has launched a new social media campaign called “Ask Dr. Tan.” And, yes, it’s “our” Dr. Tan–Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan. Psychology Press is one of her publishers. Their Twitter account has many followers (among the highest number of any academic press). To celebrate having surpassed 50,000 followers, Psychology Press asked Siu-Lan to do #ASKDRTAN.
They chose wisely. Even though Siu-Lan confessed (in a recent BeLight article) to being a neophyte in the world of social media, her blog about a baby moved to tears by her mother’s singing was an incredibly successful “must-read” on two popular blogs in 2013. Psychology Press has launched its Twitter campaign with videos of twin girls dancing to their father’s guitar at ages 1, 2, and 3. The videos had gone viral, and #ASKDRTAN invites denizens of the blogosphere and Twitterverse to ask Siu-Lan any questions that come to mind about the girls’ behavior and their early responses to music. Example: What do most infants respond to first in music: melody or rhythm?
Siu-Lan will receive all questions before October 29 via Psychology Press’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Submitters of questions deemed top picks get a prize (a free copy of her book, Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance). Top pick questions will be developed as part of an article that will appear on the Psychology Press website and on Siu-Lan’s Psychology Today blog, What Shapes Film?
Philharmonia Director Wins Music Award
Associate Professor of Music Andrew Koehler, who also serves as music director of the Kalamazoo Philharmonia, is the 2014 winner of The American Prize in Orchestral Programming—Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award—in the community division. Andrew was selected from applications reviewed this summer from all across the United States. The American Prize is a series of new, non-profit competitions unique in scope and structure, designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, ensembles and composers in the United States based on submitted recordings. The award honors the work of Vytautas Marijosius, who served for 35 years as director of orchestral activities at the Hartt School of Music of the University of Hartford. Andrew has appeared as a guest with the West Michigan Symphony; the Lyatoshynsky Chamber Orchestra in Kyiv, Ukraine; and the Festival South Chamber Orchestra in Mississippi, among others. Recently, he took part in the 9th Grzegorz Fitelberg International Conductor’s Competition in Katowice, Poland, where he won First Distinction and the Youth Jury Prize. Andrew is a graduate of Yale College, where he completed a B.A. in music and German studies (graduating with honors and distinction in both majors). He holds a certificate in conducting from the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, where he studied for two years as a Fulbright scholar, as well as a Master’s degree from Northwestern University.
A “Big World” K Story
Conventional wisdom holds that it’s a small world, but really it’s a big world with a lot of K in it. “A young woman came by my office to introduce herself,” wrote Charles Holmes ’93, M.D., M.P.H., the director and chief executive officer of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research (CIDRZ) in Zambia (Lusaka).
Charles was writing to his old biology professor, Paul Sotherland, the former professor of biology who now serves as the College’s coordinator of educational effectiveness. CIDRZ is a non-governmental organization that improves access to quality healthcare in Zambia through capacity development and implementation of sustainable public health programs. And the young woman who stopped by Charles’s office was Idah Chungu ’13, who earned her degree at K (economics) as an international student. She matriculated to K from Zambia.
Charles told Paul the rest of the story. “In a funny coincidence, my parents were biking through Kalamazoo a few months ago and my dad was wearing the Zambian soccer jersey that I gave him. Idah noticed the jersey and ran over to them to introduce herself and find out what he was doing wearing a Zambian soccer jersey in the middle of Michigan. He recommended that she stop by our offices once she was back in Lusaka, which led to yesterday’s meeting.”
Charles majored in biology at K (hence his strong connection to Paul). He completed medical school at Wayne State University, and internal medicine and infectious disease training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Prior to his position in Lusaka, he was deeply involved in the global response against HIV disease and AIDS. He loves Zambia and its people. “I highly recommend a trip,” he wrote to Paul, ever the naturalist. “We saw African wild dogs and a pennant winged nightjar in Kafue National Park last weekend!”
Zambia is located in south eastern Africa, bordered by Angola on its west, and Zimbabwe and Mozambique on its east. Both far from and near to the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa (Sierra Leone and Liberia). “We’re integrating some Ebola sensitization into our community work,” Charles wrote. “And we’re trying to put a team together to go west to help. It’s challenging because we’re always stretched thin simply running our own projects.”
After graduating from K, Idah worked for the College’s advancement division and for the Center for International Programs. She is currently looking for a job in Lusaka. Who knows, perhaps she and Charles will one day become colleagues. It is, after all, a big world with a lot of K in it.
Rolling Through…Time?
Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan’s latest blog–“Rolling Through Time“–reunites her with former K student John Baxa in a conversation about an animated short feature John helped create. That short is titled “Ball” and is about time. Or is it memory (its power and limitations)? Or aging? Play or death? All this in a three-minute animated short? Of course, suggests Siu-Lan and John. It’s a matter of layers (certainly a part of What Shapes Film) as well as all that a viewer brings to the experience (the story is in the eye of the beholder). Enjoy your own encounter, to which you bring…what?
Three or four viewings evoked for me two poems, one by Wislawa Szymborska and the other by K’s own Con Hilberry. The poems are related to each other and to the animated short, though the three differ, especially in the feeling of their endings. The poems are shared below.
John graduated from K in 2009. He majored in psychology and earned a concentration in media studies. He recently completed a Master’s degree in entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon. His short has no speech or text. Layers of image and music are everything. The music, somewhat ironically, is titled “Words.”
Still Life With a Balloon
(by Wislawa Szymborska, from Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, Harcourt, Inc., 1998)
Returning memories?
No, at the time of death
I’d like to see lost objects
return instead.
Avalanches of gloves,
coats, suitcases, umbrellas—
come, and I’ll say at last:
What good’s all this?
Safety pins, two odd combs,
a paper rose, a knife,
some string—come, and I’ll say
at last: I haven’t missed you.
Please turn up, key, come out,
wherever you’ve been hiding,
in time for me to say:
You’ve gotten rusty friend!
Downpours of affidavits,
permits and questionnaires,
rain down and I will say:
I see the sun behind you.
My watch, dropped in a river,
bob up and let me seize you—
then, face to face, I’ll say:
Your so-called time is up.
And lastly, toy balloon
once kidnapped by the wind—
come home, and I will say:
There are no children here.
Fly out the open window
and into the wide world;
let someone else should “Look!”
and I will cry.
Memory
(by Conrad Hilberry, from Until the Full Moon Has Its Say, Wayne State University Press, 2014)
Everything that was—touch
football in the street, Peggy
McKay in the hay wagon,
Miss LaBatt’s geometry, the second
floor in Madison, where
one daughter slept in a closet.
Is any of this true? Nightgowns,
glances, griefs existing nowhere
but in this sieve of memory.
Newspaper files, bank accounts,
court records—nothing there.
It’s gone, except for these scratchy
words—blackbird on a branch,
long story caught in his throat.
Paper’s Tops at Conference
Amy MacMillan, the L. Lee Stryker Assistant Professor of Business Management, co-authored a paper titled “Improving the Collaborative Online Student Evaluation Process”—a research effort so fine it received the award for Best Conference Refereed Paper from the Marketing Management Association. The award was presented at a lunch during the MMA conference in San Antonio, Texas. Amy wrote, “I am enjoying representing Kalamazoo College at this conference, attended by hundreds of marketing educators, as well as industry experts and journal editors. From teaching ideas to research strategies technology tools, there are many things I’m excited to bring back to campus.” The financial support to attend the conference is part of the endowed professorship that Amy holds. That aspect of endowed professorships–the encouragement of faculty learning and scholarship–is one reason they are so important and a primary focus of The Campaign for Kalamazoo College. Amy (at left) is pictured with two of the paper’s co-authors (both from Western Michigan University). The fourth co-author teaches in China.
Breaking down and crossing borders at “Art & Borders” performance
For a moment, it was hard to distinguish reality from performance.
Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Michèle Ceballos Michot walk through a door in a wall of windows and onto a concrete porch at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Gómez-Peña lights a cigarette. Michot lifts a pickaxe and places the handle behind her neck, begins a series of stretches, then eases the pick down her neck, the point of it pressing a line into her skin.
It turns out it was just a pre-performance warm-up. But with an international reputation for performance art that precedes them both by miles, it’s easy to believe otherwise – or at least want to. A short while later, the plenary “Art and Borders,” began, one of several sessions on the first full day of the “With/Out Borders” conference hosted by the Arcus Center.
Michot begins a dance routine, a stand of tall trees glowing in afternoon sunlight framed in the glass wall behind her. She powders herself, then grabs a handful of powder and lets it sift through her fingers and into her mouth. After tip-toeing around the stage area, and sprawling out on her stomach, gasping, she enters the crowd, climbing over chairs and falling into the arms of a man whose face turns pink with blushing, places her behind in another man’s lap, reaching down to pick up his Starbucks drink, and takes a sip.
No one is off limits. All of the 100 or so in attendance are living props, it seems, characters in this improvised dance. There are no borders.
Meanwhile, Gómez-Peña, dressed in all black, eyes behind sunglasses, a black line drawn across his face, reads from a poem, the moving prose deriding the treatment of immigrants (“We shape your desire while we contract our services to postpone the real expulsion”) recognize the borders we put around ourselves (“We are equally scared of one another”) and realize the healing, paradigm shifting, immense power of art to break down those borders (“You just can’t take our art away).”
Later, Gómez-Peña and Adriana Garriga-Lopez, K’s Arcus Center chair and assistant professor of anthropology, participate in a question and answer session, the format of which, again, breaks through the borders of what is considered normal.
Gómez-Peña wears a dog collar attached to a chain that Garriga-Lopez is holding. She queries him on his motivations for performance art and what he hopes it achieves.
“How do you view the body?” Garriga-Lopez asks.
“The performance artist sees the body as a landscape, a map, an architectural artifact, mythological creature, text,” Gómez-Peña says.
“Do you see yourself as a poet, or a dancer, or a performance artist, or an activist? Or are all those things the same thing?” Garriga-Lopez asks.
She tugs at the chain.
“Are you choking me?” Gómez-Peña says. “I am this and that and everything in between.”
“What are you like in your personal life?” Garriga-Lopez asks.
“When I’m on stage, I’m more warrior-like, more Indian shaman, a little more queer, more deliberate and outrageous. And off-stage, I am just another perplexed mediocre human being.”
Perhaps. But like the start of his performance, it’s hard to tell.
Learn more about Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Michèle Ceballos Michot at www.pochanostra.com.