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.
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.
“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.”
Kalamazoo College’s 2017 Commencement will take place at 1 p.m. Sunday, June 11, on the campus Quad. A total of 418 members of the class of 2017 will receive Bachelor of Arts degrees. A livestream will be available.
Stryker Corporation Chairman and CEO Kevin Lobo will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree and serve as the 2017 Commencement keynote speaker.
Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez will welcome graduates – along with about 2,500 family members and friends, faculty, staff, trustees, alumni and community members – in what will be his first commencement as president. This year’s class includes:
263 Michiganders;
students from 33 states and 14 countries; and
116 double majors and three triple majors.
The College departments graduating the most students are biology, business, chemistry and psychology.
Stryker Corporation Chairman and CEO Kevin Lobo, the 2017 Commencement keynote speaker, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.
Lobo joined Stryker in April 2011 and was named its chief executive officer Oct. 1, 2012. He was appointed chairman of the board July 22, 2014, and serves on the Board of Directors for Parker Hannifin Corp., a global leader in motion and control technologies. He is also a board member of the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), the Business Leaders for Michigan and United Way for Kalamazoo/Battle Creek regions, and is a member of the Business Roundtable.
Lobo has a broad business career that includes executive positions in general management and finance with organizations such as KPMG, Unilever and Kraft Canada. He spent eight years with Rhone-Poulenc, with roles based in Europe as worldwide corporate controller of the chemical spin-out Rhodia and general manager of Specialty Phosphates EMEA. He then spent eight years at Johnson & Johnson, where he was the chief financial officer of McNeil Consumer Healthcare and Ortho Women’s Health & Urology, the president of J&J Medical Products Canada and president of Ethicon Endo Surgery.
Kalamazoo College 2017 Student Commencement speaker Mireya Guzmán-Ortíz.
Graduating senior Mireya Guzmán-Ortíz, of Salem, Ore., will receive a B.A. degree in critical ethnic studies and serve as the student speaker. While at Kalamazoo College, Guzmán-Ortíz served as an Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership student fellow and served other students in the College’s Writing Center.
Graduating seniors Melissa Erikson, Alyse Guenther and Chido Chigwedere will speak at Baccalaureate at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 10, at Stetson Chapel. The Baccalaureate is a nondenominational service with student and faculty speakers and musical performances.
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.
The Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College will present “In the Heights,” its final production of the academic year, from May 11-14 at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse, 129 Thompson St., in Kalamazoo. The musical, written by “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, maintains the season’s theme, “Broadway Firsts: Stories of ‘Outsider’ Cultural Landmarks in American Theatre.”
The cast of “In The Heights” celebrates as they sing “Carnaval Del Barrio.”
The Broadway show premiered in 2008, exploring three days in the lives of several characters from the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights in New York City. The score features hip-hop, Latin, salsa, merengue and soul music.
Bodega owner Usnavi is dating Vanessa, who works in a beauty salon. He dreams of opening a bar in his home country, the Dominican Republic. He soon realizes he sold a winning lottery ticket worth $96,000, prompting others in the neighborhood to discuss how Usnavi and Claudia, who raised Usnavi after the death of his parents, would spend the money.
Nina loves Benny, a shy, young African-American man who worked for Nina’s parents for years. Nina’s father opposes their relationship because he wants Nina to finish her education at Stanford University. She doesn’t want her father to bankrupt himself paying for her education, but her father is prepared to sell his car-service business for her sake.
The shows start at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 11-Saturday, May 13, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 14. Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff are admitted free with their school ID. The general public may purchase tickets online or call the Playhouse box office at 269-337-7333 for more information. Reservations are encouraged.
Twelve top executives, entrepreneurs and thought leaders from high-tech, venture capitalism, and health care related fields came to Kalamazoo College on April 7 and 8 for the College’s inaugural Career Summit. They interacted with about 120 students, while challenging the students to find their calling.
The event included receptions, a dinner, breakout sessions and panel experiences. Some presenters were alumni and others were friends and business connections of alumni. They were:
Jeanne Blondia ’87: Vice president of finance and treasurer, Stryker Corp.;
Val Cole ’83: Retired senior executive, Apple Inc.; consultant and philanthropist;
Amy Courter ’83: National president, Women in Defense; chief operating officer, inerTRAIN;
Ed Hortelano ’83: Global vice president for research and development, Loparex;
Terri Kline ’80: President and chief executive officer, Health Alliance Plan of Michigan; executive vice president, Henry Ford Health System;
Om Malik: Partner, True Ventures; founder, Gigaom;
Michael McFall ’93: Co-president and chief executive officer, BIGGBY COFFEE;
Brad O’Neill ’93: Senior vice president of global sales and success, SurveyMonkey Inc.; creator, K to the Bay; serial entrepreneur and investor;
Hilmon Sorey: Co-founder and chief revenue officer, CareerSofia;
Elena Verna: Senior vice president of growth, SurveyMonkey Inc.; and
Jeff Wycoff: Co-founder and managing partner, Fort Point Capital Partners.
O’Neill was the visionary behind the two-day event. It served as yet another Kalamazoo College offering, building on an array of experiences targeting employment outcomes.
O’Neill also established K-Treks when, in 2014, he invited four students to San Francisco to learn first-hand about technology careers. Since then, K-Trek programs have grown and expanded to New York City and Chicago, providing students with hands-on, outside-the-classroom opportunities. As a result, the students learn to network and discover their prospective careers. The Career Summit was designed to provide similar experiences, except this time, the professionals came to the students.
Whoo hoo! The long /oo/ sound came through when a Kalamazoo College team won first place in the Google Games. Two K teams participated–“The Metros” included Timothy Rutledge ’19, David Gurrola ’19, Fabien Debies ’20 and Daniel Michelin ’18; “Graph Isomorphism Problem” (which happened to win the friendly competition involving some 20 teams from K, the Illinois Institute of Technology, DePaul University, Western Michigan University, the University of Illinois-Chicago, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the University of Notre Dame) featured the line-up of Jennifer Cho ’19, Abhay Goel ’18, Jacob Naranjo ’18 and Dahwi Kim ’19. The emphasis was definitely on fun, not finish, and all teams enjoyed in a day-long event of coding, puzzles and word association games with a theme of “Top Secret Mission.” Teams could solve puzzles by hand or by writing code. Congratulations to all!
Team “Graph Isomorphism Problem” included (l-r) Jennifer Cho ’19, Abhay Goel ’18, Jacob Naranjo ’18 and Dahwi Kim ’19.
Jeremy Sabella (middle), who was a visiting professor at K last fall, will participate in a public discussion about Reinhold Niebuhr on May 4 during the annual Thompson Lecture at Light Fine Arts. Sabella wrote the companion piece to the PBS documentary, “An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story.”
Niebuhr was the author of the “Serenity Prayer.” He rose from a small Midwest church pulpit to become the nation’s moral voice. Niebuhr’s writings provided guidance and inspiration for presidents, politicians, theologians and others. He first was a pacifist and socialist, but later served as a consultant to the State Department during the Cold War.
The documentary includes interviews with former President Jimmy Carter, Civil Rights leader Andrew Young, New York Times writer David Brooks, scholar Susannah Heschel, Union Theological Seminary Professor Emeritus Cornel West and many well-recognized historians and theologians.
Jeremy Sabella and Gary Dorrien will lead a discussion after the documentary screening. Sabella is the author of the companion book to the film. Dorrien was a film participant and is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University.
A gift from the sons and daughters-in-law of Paul Lamont and Ruth Peel Thompson established the Paul Lamont Thompson Memorial Lecture. A committee of alumni and friends of Kalamazoo College worked diligently to build the fund with gifts from the many students whose lives were enriched by Thompson’s leadership.
Thompson was president of Kalamazoo College from 1938 to 1949. He founded the Annual Fund at K, helping ensure the College’s financial integrity. The campus added several facilities during his tenure including Harmon Hall, Stowe Tennis Stadium, Angell Field and Welles Dining Hall. He also served as president of the Association of Church-Related Colleges. Thompson was known as an excellent speaker whose wit, wisdom and gentle, patient manner helped nurture generations of K students.
Kalamazoo College recently appointed four faculty as endowed professors. Endowed professorships are positions funded by the annual earnings from an endowed gift or gifts to the College; therefore they are a direct reflection of 1) the value donors attribute to the excellent teaching and mentorship that occurs at K, and 2) the desire of donors to ensure the continuation of that excellence. Currently at K there are 26 endowed faculty positions, including the four recently announced.
Hannah Apps is the Thomas K. Kreilick Professor of Economics;
John Dugas is the Margaret and Roger Scholten Associate Professor of International Studies;
Kyla Day Fletcher is the Lucinda H. Stone Assistant Professor of Psychology; and
Sarah Lindley is the Arcus Social Justice Leadership Professor of Art.
Hannah Apps
Hannah Apps earned a B.A. degree, cum laude, from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984. She began her career at K in 1989, teaching a wide range of courses from principles of economics to public sector and urban economics to econometrics. She served one term as mayor of the city of Kalamazoo and seven terms as vice mayor (1997 through 2014), community service that well aligns with her scholarly focus on community and economic development. Her body of scholarship is impressive–two monographs; more than a dozen papers, articles and reports; numerous invited presentations; and a number of consultancies, typically with local governments and public agencies. Apps was selected as a Woman of Achievement by the Kalamazoo YWCA in 2004. At K she has been department chair, chair of the Faculty Hearing Committee, and (currently) member of the Faculty Personnel Committee.
John Dugas
John Dugas earned his B.A., magna cum laude, from Louisiana State University. He completed his Ph.D. (political science) from Indiana University. He began his career at K in 1995 and teaches a range of courses in international politics and Latin American politics. His early research focused on issues of political reform in Colombia, including decentralization, constitutional reform, and political party reform. In more recent years, he has written about U.S. foreign policy toward Colombia as well as on human rights in the northern Andes. His current research explores the concept of “political genocide” in relation to the systematic killing of members of the Unión Patriótica, a Colombian political movement that was decimated in the 1980s and 1990s. He is the co-author of one book and the editor of another, both published in Spanish in Colombia. His scholarship also includes nine book chapters, three articles in refereed journals, and numerous book reviews and conference papers. Dugas is the recipient of two Fulbright Grants, one for teaching and research in Bogotá, Colombia (1999) and another for research in Quito, Ecuador (2010-2011). At K Dugas has served as chair of the political science department and is currently the director of International and Area Studies major. He is also the faculty advisor for the Model United Nations student organization.
Kyla Fletcher
Kyla Day Fletcher earned a B.S. degree, summa cum laude, from Howard University. She earned a Ph.D. (developmental psychology) from the University of Michigan. She has worked at K since 2012, teaching general psychology, adolescent development, psychology of the African-American experience, research methods, and psychology of sexuality. She has published five peer-reviewed journal articles since 2014 and is currently the principal investigator of a study titled “Substance Use and Partner Characteristics in Daily HIV Risk in African Americans.” That study is sponsored by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health). Fletcher has been an active contributor to the psychology department and the College, most recently serving as a representative on the presidential search committee.
Sarah Lindley
Sarah Lindley earned her Bachelor of Fine Art degree, magna cum laude, from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. She earned a M.F.A. (ceramics) from the University of Washington. Since 2001 she has taught a wide range of ceramics and sculpture courses, and she has managed and maintained K’s ceramics, sculpture and woodshop studios and equipment. Lindley served as an Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Faculty Fellow in 2010-2011, and in that capacity she helped found the Community Studio in downtown Kalamazoo’s Park Trades Center. The Community Studio provides space for advanced art students to do and show work in close proximity to and collaboration with professional artists and community advocates for the arts and social justice. In 2014 Lindley won the Michigan Campus Compact Outstanding Faculty Award for her civic engagement pedagogy. She has had numerous solo, two-person and group exhibitions regionally, nationally, and internationally. In 2015 she won honorable mention in the 8th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale in Korea.
“Professors Apps, Dugas, Fletcher and Lindley are extraordinary teachers,” said Provost Mickey McDonald. “And each has a deep commitment to scholarship and service, to the art and science of learning, and to the achievement of educational outcomes students can long apply to successful living.”
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.
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.
The Peace Corps announced today that Kalamazoo College ranks No. 13 among small schools on the agency’s 2017 Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges and Universities list. There are 10 Hornets currently volunteering worldwide. In 2016, Kalamazoo College ranked No. 14.
Britta Seifert ’12 (left) volunteered with the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan for 27 months.
“Peace Corps service is an unparalleled leadership opportunity that enables college and university alumni to use the creative-thinking skills they developed in school to make an impact in communities around the world,” Acting Peace Corps Director Sheila Crowley said. “Many college graduates view the Peace Corps as a launching pad for their careers because volunteers return home with the cultural competency and entrepreneurial spirit sought after in most fields.”
Since the Peace Corps’ founding in 1961, 247 Kalamazoo College alumni have traveled abroad to serve as volunteers. Three Michigan schools rank as Top Colleges this year, making Michigan among 11 states and the District of Columbia with at least three ranked schools.
Service in the Peace Corps is a life-defining, hands-on experience that offers volunteers the opportunity to travel to a community overseas and make a lasting difference in the lives of others.
Joy Campbell’s experience at Kalamazoo College motivated her to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco.
Volunteers develop sustainable solutions to address challenges in education, health, economic development, agriculture, environment and youth development. Through their experience, volunteers gain a cultural understanding and a lifelong commitment to service that positions them to succeed in today’s global economy.
The Peace Corps ranks its top volunteer-producing colleges and universities annually according to the size of the student body. View the complete 2017 rankings of the top 25 schools in each category and find an interactive map that shows where alumni from each college and university are serving.
Since President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961, more than 225,000 Americans of all ages have served in 141 countries worldwide. For more information, visit peacecorps.gov.
