Category: Faculty & Staff

K Professor Honored at International Conductors’ Competition

Posted on

Kalamazoo College Associate Professor of Music Andrew KoehlerAndrew Koehler, associate professor of music at Kalamazoo College and music director of the Kalamazoo Philharmonia and the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra, was recently honored at the 9th Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors, one of the more prestigious international competitions for conductors of all nationalities born after 1976.

The competition, held in Katowice, Poland, every five years, took place in three stages during November 17 to November 23, 2012. A selection committee, consisting of eminent Polish and international conductors and musicians, chose 50 participants from an initial pool of approximately 180 applicants. These 50 were invited to the first round of competition, from that 12 semifinalists were chosen for a second round, and from that, 6 finalists.

“I was the only American in the final round,” said Koehler. “We were judged on technical skill, our interpretative decisions, and our ability to work with the orchestra. It was a great honor.”

Koehler was awarded First Distinction, or fourth place, in the competition, with a monetary award of 10,000 Euros. The Krzysztof Penderecki European Music Centre also invited Koehler to perform sometime in the second half of 2013.

Yet a third award came in the form of Karol Szymanowski State General School of Music of the 2nd Degree in Katowice – the “YOUNG BATON MASTER” award granted by a Young Jury jointly to Koehler and Russian semi-finalist Stanslav Kochanowskiy.

K Writer-in-Residence Publishes Multiple Works

Posted on

Writer In Residence Diane Seuss has been hard at work, and the result is a prolific fall and winter. Her poem “Either everything is sexual or nothing is, take this flock of poppies,” appears in the 2013 edition of the Pushcart Prize anthology, which is hot off the presses. And her poem “Oh four-legged girl, it’s either you or the ossuary” is in the fall/winter issue of Black Warrior Review. The poem won the Summer Literary Seminar’s Poetry Prize. “Hub,” a lyric essay, won Wag’s Revue’s winter contest (To access all of the essay’s pages, click on the arrow on the right margin). “I emptied my little wishing well of its emptiness” won Mid-American Review’s Fineline Competition and appears in its fall/winter issue. Two poems, “I’m moved by her, that big-nippled girl,” and “The ghosts down in North-of-the-South aren’t see-through” will appear in Ecotone’s “Abnormal” issue. The poem “Hindenburg” will appear in a forthcoming issue of Devil’s Lake. In other news, poet Adrian Blevins wrote a review of Di’s most recent collection of poems that appears in “On the Seawall: Ron Slate’s Website.” Just reading/hearing the titles of Di’s poems is a rewarding poetic experience!

Just Lead: K’s Jaime Grant Pens Huffington Post Op-Ed

Posted on

 

Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Executive Director Jaime Grant
Jaime Grant, Ph.D., Executive Director, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College.

Jaime Grant, executive director of K’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, wrote an op-ed piece entitled “Just Lead” that appears in the Dec 6, 2012 Huffington Post. In it, she praises “the power of community in motion; the power of innovative, just collaboration.” Grant’s piece coincides with the launch of the Kalamazoo College Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership, a biennial $25,000 prize that honors an innovative and collaborative leadership project in the pursuit of social justice and human rights anywhere in the world. 

Kalamazoo Chamber of Commerce Panel on Higher Ed Includes K President

Posted on

The average student debt with which some K students graduate “is comparable to a new Ford Focus,” Kalamazoo College President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran said today. “That Focus depreciates the minute you drive out of the dealer,” she added. “But that degree continues to appreciate over time.” Wilson-Oyelaran spoke as a member of a panel discussion on higher education topics sponsored by the Kalamazoo Regional Chamber of Commerce. She was joined by the presidents of Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

Four K Faculty Present at East Asian Studies Conference

Posted on

Rose Bundy, Japanese, was chair and organizer of a panel discussion at the Japan Study 50th Anniversary Conference: The Future of East Asian Studies at Liberal Arts Colleges. The conference took place at Earlham College in early October. The name of the panel presentation was “Passages to Asia: The Japanese Studies Curriculum–From Intro to Senior Seminar.” In addition to Bundy the panel included her fellow K professors Dennis Frost, history; Yue Hong, Chinese; and Noriko Sugimori, Japanese.

K Documentarian Dhera Strauss Cooks Up New “Kitchen Conversation”

Posted on
Kalamazoo College Video Specialist and Instructor Dhera Strauss
Dhera Strauss

Kalamazoo College Video Specialist and Instructor Dhera Strauss will show a new cut of her documentary “Kitchen Conversations” this Sunday Nov. 4 at 4 PM and 7 PM at WMU’s Little Theater, located on the corner of Oakland Dr. and Oliver Lane. “Kitchen Conversations” includes 13 separate segments, each profiling a Kalamazoo-area woman in her kitchen preparing a recipe that reminds her of her family. The documentary features several women with connections to K, including Professor of Sociology and Anthropology (Emerita) Marigene Arnold, Professor of German Language and Literature (Emerita) Margo Light, Library Acquisitions Technician Renata Schnelker, Professor of Romance Languages and Literature Jan Solberg, and President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran. Sunday’s screening of Strauss’s documentary, which debuted in 2010, includes an additional 20 minutes that focuses on local baker Judy Sarkozy. The screening is a fundraiser for Sarkozy’s effort to reopen her business destroyed by a fire earlier this year. There will be a suggested donation of $10, but all contributions are welcomed.

Arcus Center Names 2012-13 Visiting Fellows

Posted on

 

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership has announced Sonia Baez-Hernandez, MFA, and Karika Phillips, MA, as Visiting Fellows for the 2012-2013 academic year. Baez-Hernandez is a visual artist, filmmaker, scholar, human rights advocate and most recent artist-in-residence for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from Miami, FL. She most recently produced an award-winning film, “Territories of the Breast,” that courageously explores difficult questions about human rights and healthcare. Phillips is a National Health Equity Leadership Institute Scholar, community organizer, and Ph.D. student at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. She will be on leave from the Kalamazoo County Health and Community Services Department where she serves as the Director for the Center for Health Equity (CHE) and Supervisor of the Community Action Agency. Read more about these leaders at https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/fellowships/visiting/current.

Once Upon a Book, Now on Video

Posted on

 

Book cover for 'Once Upon a River'
K’s Summer Common Reading program joins new students, faculty, and staff in a conversation about a novel they’ve read during the summer. The author of the chosen novel visits campus during orientation each fall to join the conversation. It’s an important first step for new K students and part of the College’s nationally recognized First-Year Experience. Summer Common Reading 2012 author Bonnie Jo Campbell spoke about and read from her novel “Once Upon a River” in Stetson Chapel on Sept. 6. Campbell’s short story collection “American Salvage” was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in Fiction. Watch Campbell’s SCR address to students in this YouTube video.

K Economics Professor Publishes Third Edition of Textbook

Posted on

Professor of Economics Ahmed Hussen has published the third edition of his textbook–Principles of Environmental Economics and Sustainability: An Integrated Economic and Ecological Approach (Routledge, September 20, 2012).

New chapters in the book cover the economics of climate change, the economics of biodiversity and ecosystem services, “green” accounting and alternative economic and social indicators of sustainability, the business case for environmental sustainability, and an appendix that provides an historical account of the development of ecological economics.

College Congratulates K-Connected “Geniuses”

Posted on

Coincidence? Most certainly, but it is nevertheless fun to count the times a Kalamazoo College campus visit coincides with a subsequent “genius award,” a.k.a. the MacArthur Fellowship.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently announced the MacArthur Fellowships for 2012. On that list were Junot Diaz and David Finkel. Both were featured authors in K’s Summer Common Reading (SCR) program—Diaz in 2007 for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Finkel in 2011 for his nonfiction work The Good Soldiers.

Past MacArthur Fellows with a K connection include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (SCR author—Purple Hibiscus—in 2004, MacArthur Fellow in 2008); Aleksandar Hemon (SCR author—Nowhere Man—in 2004, and named a MacArthur Fellow the following month); and architect Jeanne Gang, who received a MacArthur Fellowship not long after her firm designed the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.

“Is it cause and effect?” quipped Amy Smith, associate professor of English and associate provost. “Show up at K, get a genius award,” she smiled, no doubt aware that the timeline works in reverse as well. Edward P. Jones won the MacArthur in 2005 and was the Kalamazoo College SCR author (The Known World) two years later; Colson Whitehead got a MacArthur in 2002 and came to K in 2010 when his novel Sag Harbor was the SCR selection.

What is certain is that the SCR selection committee is very good at assessing major writing talent. The committee includes or has included Marin Heinritz, assistant professor of journalism; Andy Mozina, professor of English; Zaide Pixley, dean of the first-year and advising; and Diane Seuss, writer in residence.