Category: Institutional Announcements

Kalamazoo College Included in ‘Fiske Guide to Colleges’ for 2018

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The publisher Sourcebooks announced Tuesday that Kalamazoo College again is included in the annual “Fiske Guide to Colleges,” a useful resource for high school students and their families when they research prospective colleges.

Fiske Guide to Colleges logo
Kalamazoo College again will be one of more than 300 schools featured in the 2018 version in the “Fiske Guide to Colleges”

The 2018 publication, compiled by former New York Times Education Editor Edward B. Fiske, is a selective, subjective and systematic look at more than 300 colleges and universities in the United States, Canada and the UK.

The “Fiske Guide to Colleges” is available as a paperback book, as an iPad app on iTunes, and as a Web program on CollegeCountdown.com. The guide’s readers discover the personality of a college based on a broad range of subjects throughout the text including the student body, academics, social life, financial aid, campus setting, housing, food and extracurricular activities.

Kalamazoo College “aims to prepare students for real life by helping them synthesize the liberal arts education they receive on campus with their experiences abroad,” the publication says, adding that K students are passionate and determined to make a difference. The guide also discusses the K-Plan, Kalamazoo College’s four-part, integrated approach to an excellent education in the liberal arts and sciences. K-Plan tenets include:

  • rigorous academics. The flexibility and rigor of K’s curriculum provides students with a customized academic experience;
  • experiential education. Students connect classroom learning with real-world experience by completing career development internships or externships, participating in civic engagement and service-learning projects, and getting involved in social justice leadership work;
  • international and intercultural experience. Students choose from 42 study abroad programs in 24 countries across six continents; and
  • independent scholarship. As the culmination of their learning, students explore a subject of their choice, resulting in an in-depth, graduate-level research thesis, performance or creative work known as a Senior Individualized Project.

 

Mellon Foundation Grant Supports K Presidential Initiatives

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The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Kalamazoo College a three-year, $100,000 grant to support presidential initiatives including its institutional strategic planning process.

Mellon Foundation Grant Supports K in Five
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Kalamazoo College a three-year, $100,000 grant to support presidential initiatives including the College’s strategic planning process.

Kalamazoo College, under President Jorge G. Gonzalez, has begun a strategic planning process that will address some of the greatest challenges and opportunities facing the institution. Referred to as K in Five, the process is coordinated by a planning committee appointed in March 2017. The committee includes faculty members, students, alumni, administrators and staff. The committee has begun gathering input through a number of on-campus forums as well as electronic surveys.

The committee, supported by The Clarion Group, will synthesize these results with an objective of producing a strategic plan to be vetted by a number of stakeholders before being offered to the College’s Board of Trustees for approval in March 2018.

Previous Mellon grants to Kalamazoo College have supported curricular initiatives such as the Shared Passages seminar program and the development of a critical ethnic studies major.

“The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is an invaluable strategic partner to liberal arts colleges such as K,” Gonzalez said. “Their support and guidance enables us to better engage across our institution in responding to issues including the macroeconomic forces impacting liberal arts colleges, fostering greater diversity and collaboration within our faculty ranks, and supporting effective teaching and scholarly communication.”

K Receives $255,000 Grant From The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation

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Kalamazoo College students and researchers soon will have more effective opportunities for chemical analysis thanks to a $255,000 grant from The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation. The grant allows K to replace an aging nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer, allowing students to analyze and identify chemical compounds and structures with state-of-the-art equipment.

Foundation president Macauley Whiting Jr. said of this charitable commitment, “The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation is deeply committed to science education as a means of vitalizing our entire region. Our history and our mission are linked to the type of innovative thinking that helps drive society forward. This grant invests in students who will lead scientific discovery in the years to come. These experiences will help prepare them for productive careers across a number of scientific fields. It would be our hope that they will choose to be part of Michigan’s future.”

NMR, like the more familiar magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedures used in medicine to diagnose injuries and diseases, applies a magnetic field and radio frequencies to a patient or a small chemical sample to give observable signals. These signals are like jigsaw pieces that assemble to provide a picture of what’s present. Kalamazoo College Chemistry Professor Greg Slough said nearly everything people eat, wear or consume at one point was studied with an NMR spectrometer, making the purchase central to teaching students how scientists analyze molecules. Such research helps K students gain valuable experience in their career paths and see how research applies to the real world.

“Pretty much every principle from quantum physics can now be applied in an NMR experiment and used to analyze structure,” Slough said. “When our current (spectrometer) was built around 1995, computer networking was just being implemented on a large scale. Twenty years later, scientists and students have come to demand more versatility.” With this new instrument, K students will study and collaborate with other students and research associates on campus and at their study abroad sites around the world.

Slough said essentially all biology and chemistry majors will have opportunities to use this new spectrometer. “K, in particular, emphasizes hands-on experiential learning, and this instrument will greatly enhance this in the chemical sciences,” he said.

The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation was established for religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes for the public benefaction of the inhabitants of the City of Midland and of the people of the State of Michigan. K’s Dow Science Center, completed in 1992, is named in recognition of a generous grant from The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.

 

Travel Site Names K Michigan’s Most Beautiful Campus

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Travel + Leisure Magazine  — a Time Inc. publication offering tips, news and information about destinations around the world — has named Kalamazoo College the most beautiful campus among colleges and universities in Michigan.

Most Beautiful Campus in Michigan
Travel + Leisure Magazine has named Kalamazoo College the most beautiful campus in Michigan thanks in part to its “understated but attractive red-brick buildings” such as Hodge House.

The article describes college campuses in each state as picturesque resources appreciated by nearly everyone in each college town, and not just residents, students, faculty, staff and alumni. They’re also worthwhile destinations for travelers.

“Kalamazoo College is probably best described as pleasant,” its article says of K. “Understated but attractive red-brick buildings make up the majority of campus structures: Hodge House, the president’s residence, is a good example.”

K is located about 140 miles from Chicago and Detroit. The Kalamazoo-Portage metropolitan area has 335,000 people, making Kalamazoo feel like a large city with the intimacy of a small town.

If you’d like to see our campus for yourself, find your opportunities for visiting Kalamazoo College or take a virtual tour today. You can also find directions to campus and information on lodging and dining nearby.

Love of Excellence

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Kalamazoo College alumnus Tom Kreilick
Tom Kreilick ’60 in June 2016, when he was honored with a Citation of Merit Award

At Kalamazoo College the bridge between love and excellence is often a planned gift. Within the past two weeks, K has received two such gifts—one that supports excellence in the faculty; the other excellence among students. In both cases the donor made careful plans for the gift some twenty years ago.

Thomas Kreilick ’60 made arrangements for a charitable remainder trust during the College’s campaign, Enlightened Leadership, which occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Mr. Kreilick, a successful businessman who served in several top-level executive positions during his career, died in July of 2016. The trust he established will fund the Thomas K. Kreilick Chair in Economics, a testament to his commitment to the excellence of K faculty.

In 1997, the year her husband died, Virginia Harlow made plans for several charitable gift annuities that would, upon her death, enhance  a scholarship named for her husband–alumnus and emeritus board member (and board chair) I. Frank Harlow ’39, who served as a vice president and general counsel at Dow Chemical Company. Her intent was to honor his love of K by helping ensure that great students would enjoy and contribute to the excellence of the learning experience there. Virginia Harlow died recently, but her gift and its intent live through the I. Frank Harlow Scholarship.

“Planned gifts such as these are votes of confidence in the excellence of faculty and students at Kalamazoo College,” says Vice President of Advancement Al DeSimone. “Mr. Kreilick and Mrs. Harlow worked with K years ago to carefully plan these important contributions. The results will help sustain excellence at K in perpetuity.”

Persons interested in exploring planned gift options at Kalamazoo College should contact Matt Brosco, senior associate director of planned giving (Matthew.Brosco@kzoo.edu or 269.337.7288).

Two-hour delay for Dec. 12

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Due to the clean up from the severe weather, the opening of Kalamazoo College will be delayed until 10 a.m., today, Monday December 12, 2016. Only weather emergency designated employees should report to work at their scheduled time. All other employees should remain away from campus until 10 a.m.; by doing so they assist the College’s response to the weather conditions. If you are unsure if you need to arrive at your regular time, please contact your supervisor.

Hourly employees may use “break day” hours on their time sheets.

Kalamazoo College Inaugurates its 18th President

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Kalamazoo College President Jorge Gonzalez
Kalamazoo College President Jorge Gonzalez emphasized technological change, globalization, diversity and urbanization as important new drivers for a liberal arts education. Gonzalez was inaugurated Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, at Stetson Chapel.

Kalamazoo College inaugurated its 18th president, Jorge G. Gonzalez, in a celebration Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, at Stetson Chapel. Dozens of colleges and universities from across the country sent representatives to the ceremony to join college trustees, alumni, students, faculty, staff, family and friends in the festivities.

“My grandfather and father could never have imagined a Mexican would have a chance to be a president somewhere such as K,” Gonzalez said during his inaugural address.  A native of Monterrey, Mexico, Gonzalez earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in economics at Michigan State. His wife, Suzie, is a 1983 Kalamazoo College alumna. “It is an honor and a privilege to lead an institution that has a 183-year history.”

Charlotte Hall, the chair of the college’s Board of Trustees, said one of the board’s most important roles is to select the right leader at the right time. “We looked at his long and distinguished career as an economics scholar, brilliant teacher and inspired leader,” she said. “I know his visionary leadership will make K stronger and better, more exciting, more humane, more true to our mission.”

Gonzalez said immersion in the liberal arts at a school like Kalamazoo College is the most powerful and life-enriching form of undergraduate education, especially when students have opportunities to apply their academic work. He emphasized technological change, globalization, diversity and urbanization as important new drivers for such an education.

“What you need to learn is not today’s reality; you need to learn how to learn, and this is exactly what a liberal arts education at K can provide,” Gonzalez said. “It will teach you to look at problems from a variety of perspectives, and deal with uncertainty and complexity.”

Gonzalez began his presidency at Kalamazoo College on July 1, 2016. He succeeded Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, who announced her retirement in April 2015. Gonzalez arrived from Occidental College, where he served as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college, and created and supported experiential learning programs, allowing students to engage the world in ways that draw upon their liberal arts education. He also has worked at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where he served as a professor of economics and special assistant to the president.

Kalamazoo College, founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences college. It created the K-Plan, which 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.

K to Dedicate Fitness and Wellness Center

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Fitness and Wellness Center at Kalamazoo College
The $8.7 million Fitness and Wellness Center at Kalamazoo College will include a weight and cardio fitness area to meet the needs of students, faculty and staff.

Kalamazoo College will dedicate a new 30,000-square-foot Fitness and Wellness Center at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 28, at Academy and Catherine streets in Kalamazoo.

The $8.7 million structure was funded entirely by donors including alumni, parents, friends of the college and several foundations, who contributed to the Campaign for Kalamazoo College, the most successful campaign in the college’s history. The facility will include:

  • a weight and cardio fitness area to meet the needs of students, faculty and staff
  • three flexible-use multi-purpose rooms
  • two racquetball courts and a squash court
  • a dance studio
  • expanded lockers for the Kalamazoo College tennis teams and for general use
  • an office and health assessment room for the campus fitness and wellness director
  • space for the George Acker Tennis Hall of Champions

“For years to come, this building will represent energy efficiency, sustainability, educational innovation and hands-on learning, as well as health and wellness,” Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez said.

In lieu of LEED certification, Kalamazoo College students Michelle Sugimoto ’17 and Ogden Wright ’16 provided LEED-like auditing in the design, energy and sustainability criteria that inform LEED certification. The students are members of the Kalamazoo College Climate Action Network, a student-organized group that advocates for sustainable and effective measures to address climate change.

Sugimoto and Wright were chosen from about a dozen student applicants to work on the project after the college’s Sustainability Committee recommended diverting the estimated $50,000 cost of formal LEED certification toward a student audit, training students in the project design, energy and sustainability criteria that inform LEED.

The students collaborated with the project’s design and construction teams — TMP Architecture and Owen, Ames, Kimball respectively — to assess factors such as water and energy efficiency, proximity to public transportation and air quality.

The actual cost of their training was a fraction of the cost of LEED certification, allowing K to invest in a 12 kilowatt solar panel array installation on campus and offset 5 percent of the new fitness center’s energy costs.

“It’s a case of the administration sharing a challenge with students and saying, ‘Join us,’ ” Associate Vice President for Facilities Paul Manstrom said. “Buildings constitute a large part of the amount of waste produced in the United States each year. Putting the money up front saves the college money in the long run, while at the same time giving these students an incredible learning experience.”

Gonzalez, Sugimoto, Wright, Manstrom, Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell, Kalamazoo College Trustee Amy Upjohn and Director of Fitness and Wellness Jen Bailey will participate in ribbon-cutting ceremonies.