We love faces; our lives depend on it from an early age. And a close-up on a face is one of the most notable differences between the experience of a movie and the experience of live theater. When we choose to see a film instead of a play it may be, in part, because were drawn to the human face. In her latest installment of her Psychology Today blog (What Shapes Film?) Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan explores what attracts us to cinematic face time. Her article is aptly titled “3 Reasons Why We’re Drawn to Faces in Film.” Maybe it should be four reasons, because music plays a big role as well. It’s a fascinating read, and Tan demonstrates her points with faces from some pretty famous films, including Amelie, It’s a Wonderful Life, Saving Private Ryan, and Toy Story 2, among others. Of particular interest is how facial close-ups make us, the audience, both mirror and blank-canvas-and-painter, depending on a face’s intensity or nuance, respectively.
Category: Faculty & Staff
Hands-On HOPES
Regina Stevens-Truss, the Kurt D. Kaufman Associate Professor of Chemistry has written an article updating an idea of hers and the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: the HOPES Initiative. HOPES pairs teachers with working scientists so that together they could provide hands-on opportunities to students. “We didn’t anticipate the sweeping impact the program would have across the nation,” wrote Stevens-Truss in the update. The HOPES initiative has resulted in 27 partnerships in 22 cities across the U.S. and has affected the education of more than 3,600 fourth- through 12th-graders.
K Provost Mickey McDonald Supports Kalamazoo Communities in Schools “Promise Me” Campaign
Kalamazoo College Provost Michael “Mickey” McDonald represented the College and delivered remarks at the recent Communities in Schools of Kalamazoo (CIS) Promise Me campaign public phase kickoff event. Mickey joined Kalamazoo Public Schools Superintendent Michael Rice, Kalamazoo Valley Community College President Marilyn Schlack, Western Michigan University President John Dunn, students, parents, and local leaders who lauded CIS for its effort to help remove the barriers between disadvantaged children and their K-12 success. CIS addresses the academic and basic developmental needs of students by connecting existing community resources to students at school. The Promise Me campaign is nearly halfway to its $4.5 million fundraising goal and is seeking the support of the greater Kalamazoo community in reaching it.
An Archaeology of Yearning
Kalamazoo College Professor of English Bruce Mills’s fifth book, An Archaeology of Yearning, has been published by Etruscan Press. Using the metaphor of an archeological dig, Mills maps the artifacts of life as a father of a son with autism and as a boy himself growing up in Iowa. Of the book, Carolyn Kuebler, editor of the prestigious New England Review, writes: “This urgent and affecting memoir of parenthood is also a testimony to the way acts of imagination can lead us out of isolation and into communion with others, however tentative.” Ginger Strand ’87, author of Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies and Killer on the Road: Violence and the American Interstate, states that Mills “has written a rare and grace-filled book, one as true to reality-bound family life as it is to the soaring speculative beauty of archaeology, history, and thought. We come away with a deeper understanding of what it is to be a parent, a family, and finally, a human being.” Information about the book and upcoming events, including a reading on Tuesday, November 12, 7-8 pm, at Chelsea (Michigan) Public Library can be found on Mills’s blog.
Bruce Mills appeared on WWMT-TV Ch. 3 on Sunday Nov. 24 to discuss his book.
Michigan Radio broadcast an interview with Prof. Mills on Jan 22. Listen here: http://michiganradio.org/post/one-michigan-familys-journey-autism
Saved Seven Times Before the Age of Five
Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss ’78 will have her third volume of poems, Four-Legged Girl, published in 2015.
Her first collection was It Blows You Hollow, and her second, Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open, received the Juniper Prize for Poetry.
Last month Seuss was interviewed by Missouri Review intern Anne Barngrover for the Review’s Text Box anthology (October 15). It’s a fascinating read, much like a Di poem: “Four-Legged Girl is specifically concerned with embodiment, beauty, loss, addiction and desire,” says Seuss. “Maybe it is post-body, post-beauty, post-grief, post-addiction, post-desire. I think so. I believe it is located more outside the boundary of community than my other books; its imagination is more iconoclastic, arriving at ferocity, femaleness, freakishness, and solitude–which to me is poetry.”
The interview touches on the treatment of religion (“I tried to be Catholic about the same year as I got breast buds.”), female sexuality (“The four-legged girl’s lonely freakishness is a signal of her monstrous royalty.”), and the recurrence of the name “Mary” throughout her work (“…maybe the four-legged girl is named Mary. I think my notion of the goddess has gotten a lot racier. But in tandem with that raciness is an omnipresent grief.)” The reader also learns a great deal about the College’s resident writer’s writing process–“I have never been someone who writes daily….There is a window of opportunity in which I know all and see all from the poem’s point of view and language palette….Once the window closes, I’m lost. Out of that lostness, when it’s just me and the dog and the nameless stars, comes the next poem.”
Weeping Baby
Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan wrote an article (“Why Does this Baby Weep when her Mother Sings?”) for Psychology Today that elucidates an infant’s actions in a You Tube video gone viral. The video shows an infant — Mary Lynne Leroux — emoting deeply to her mother’s singing. Tan suggests the infant’s reactions result from psychological phenomena called emotional contagion and emotional synchrony in combination with the bell-shaped melody of the song itself and just plain wonder. Of course, people (21 million views and counting) are responding more to the magic of the piece rather than its clinical explanation. And the latter in no way diminishes the former. To the question of whether her analysis made the video “any less magical,” Tan wrote, “In my view, it may be even more remarkable and even more compelling to think that what we are witnessing may not just be the power of the human voice and singing — but a window into how deeply and powerfully we are moved by the emotions of those around us, even in our earliest interactions.” It’s an intriguing video and article.
Kalamazoo College Professor Péter Érdi Earns Award from International Neural Networks Societies
Péter Érdi, K’s Henry R. Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies, served as the Program Chair for the 2013 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), the premier international conference in the area of neural networks theory, analysis, and application. This year’s IJCNN was held in Dallas, Texas and was attended by more than 500 people.
Professor Érdi, who teaches in K’s departments of Physics and Psychology, was also one of three chairs of the Organizing Committee to receive the Outstanding Service Award from the International Neural Network Society and the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers Computational Intelligence Society, the two leading professional organizations for researchers working in neural networks.
He joined other big names in neural research who received awards at the conference, including Stephen Grossberg (Boston University), considered by many in the field to be the father/inventor of adaptive resonance theory; Terry Sejnowski (University California at San Diego) who works on President Obama’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative, which is being compared to the Human Genome Project and the moon landing initiative; and Frank Lewis, a Distinguished Professor at University of Texas Arlington Research Institute who received the IEEE Pioneer in Neural Networks Award for his work in bringing together optimal and adaptive control.
Arcus Center Invites Proposals for 2014 Conference “WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS?”
KALAMAZOO, Mich. [Oct. 23, 2013]: Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) invites proposals for papers, workshops, roundtables, and think-tanks for “WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS?” a conference to be held September 25-28, 2014 on the Kalamazoo College campus—including in the new home of the ACSJL currently under construction.
The deadline for submitting 150-word proposals is Jan. 15, 2014. Send entries to Karla.Aquilar@kzoo.edu. Entries selected for the conference will be notified by Feb. 15, 2014. For more information, email Arcus.Center@kzoo.edu or visit https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/withoutborders.
“Conference-goers will explore the very notion of borders both physical and theoretical,” said ACSJL Academic Director Lisa Brock, Ph.D. “Borders and boundaries of all kinds, whether intersectional, cartographical, ideological, political, cultural, and social, will be deconstructed.”
Confirmed conference speakers include award winning performance artist Guillermo Gomez Pena, 2011 National Book Award poetry winner Nikky Finney, artist Ashley Hunt, scholar Saree Makdisi, musician Ugochi, and scientist Jon Beckwith.
According to Brock, the 2014 WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS conference aims to foster both theoretical discussion and practical problem-solving around key questions such as how individuals and groups can:
- cross academic borders and break down organizational silos in order to embrace emerging disciplines and create interdisciplinary spaces;
- remove or open seemingly fixed national and military borders such as the U.S.-Mexico border or the conflict between Palestinian and Israeli territories;
- span cultural borders such as race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation; and
- connect and combine historically separate social justice issues and work in solidarity across social justice movements.
“We are interested in creating conversations on emerging epistemologies, radical geographies, critical solidarities, and transgressive practices that transcend disciplinary and academic/activist borders,” said Brock. “We want conference attendees to show us how they would re-map the world—with and without borders.”
WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS? builds on the ACSJL’s successful spring 2013 Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership that drew more than 100 entries from around the United States and 22 other countries, and culminated in the awarding of three global prizes and one regional prize.
The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (www.kzoo.edu/socialjustice) was launched in 2009 with support from the Arcus Foundation (www.arcusfoundation.org), including a $23 million endowment grant in January 2012. Supporting Kalamazoo College’s mission to prepare its graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world, the ACSJL will develop new leaders and sustain existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice.
Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.
Healthy K
Kalamazoo College has been selected to the Honor Roll of the 2013 Michigan’s Healthiest Employers program. Word of the award came to Ken Wood, the College’s wellness and fitness advisor. The awards and best practices program is presented by Crain’s Detroit Business, MiBiz, and Priority Health to recognize companies around the state whose policies, programs, and culture create healthy employees and healthy workplaces. As an honor roll member, the College will be invited to attend the Healthiest Employers Awards & Best Practices event (January 10, 2014) at DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids. After a healthy breakfast, finalists and honor roll organizations will enjoy a panel discussion with the winning companies to learn about their best practices, challenges, and plans for the future.
Professor Emeritus of Physics David Winch Has Died
The Kalamazoo College community is saddened to learn of the death of Professor Emeritus of Physics David Michael Winch, age 78. David, of Taos, New Mexico, passed away unexpectedly October 7, 2013 while riding his bicycle. David taught at the College from 1967 to 2001. Before coming to K he taught at John Carroll University, Clarkson College of Technology, the United States Air Force Academy, and British Open University. He conducted research for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Argonne National Laboratory, and the Desert Research Institute.
Winch was an enthusiastic bicyclist, and was often seen on campus on his bicycle. He usually biked the 13-mile round trip from his home to K. He also loved the out-of-doors, especially mountains, and he co-founded the College’s popular LandSea wilderness first-year orientation program.
In addition to physics, he was deeply involved in science education at all levels. He believed that science is best learned using a hands-on approach, and he believed that science is best learned through collaboration and group work. He was a founding board member of the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center, a magnet school for gifted high school math and science students in Kalamazoo County. He also was a teacher and director with ScienceGrasp, a national program that encouraged elementary school teachers to use hands-on science teaching strategies in their classrooms. During his career he received more than $2.8 million in grants on behalf of science education, and he published more than a dozen articles and presentations on physics education for various learning levels. In one of those publications he wrote, “An infant reaches for a brightly colored object; tiny fingers squeeze the object, exploring its shape and texture. The infant shakes the object to see if it rattles and almost certainly puts the object in her mouth. She uses all of her senses to experience the sizes, shapes, colors, sounds, and textures of her world. A child is naturally curious and begins at an early age the lifelong business of learning about this world in which we live. This innate curiosity is perhaps most evident during the period of human development marked by the question ’Why?’ It can be frustrating to deal with a child who wants to know ’why,’ yet it can also be refreshing to have renewed contact with this childlike curiosity. Science tries to answer the ’why’ of the physical world. It is a grand journey, guided by a myriad of questions and a few answers. We, as teachers, are guides in this journey of exploration.” Winch said that the most important element of his pedagogy was to “ask questions and then keep quiet,” and he noted the difficulty of the latter for teachers. And yet the duration of the period of silence following a question, said Winch, is (to paraphrase an aphorism about teaching often ascribed to Socrates) the difference between kindling a flame and filling a vessel.
After moving to Taos in 2002, he served as president of the Upper Las Colonias Neighborhood Association. He loved Taos. He also loved skiing, kayaking, canoeing, He is survived by his wife, Suzanne Winch; children, Michael Winch, Janet McBarnes, Martin Winch, Douglas Winch (Lisa), Kenneth Winch, Robert Kuiper, Shelli Kuiper, Joseph Kuiper (Kim); and 11 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, many other family and friends. A memorial service in New Mexico will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to C.A.R.E. or the American Red Cross.
A memorial service for David will be held Sunday October 20, 1:30 p.m., in Stetson Chapel on the K campus followed by a reception in the Olmsted Room, Mandelle Hall. An obituary appears in the Kalamazoo Gazette.