Kalamazoo College Civic Engagement Scholars (CES) are continuing to rack up honors as Alexandrea “Lexi” Ambs ’18 receives one of the Kalamazoo YWCA’s Young Women of Achievement Awards.
Alexandrea “Lexi” Ambs has been honored as one of the Kalamazoo YWCA’s Young Women of Achievement.
In her CES role, Ambs, a member of the Kalamazoo College women’s swimming and diving team, has been a leader in a partnership between the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement and the City of Kalamazoo Department of Parks and Recreation, which provides tutoring and low-cost swimming lessons for youth in Kalamazoo.
She is responsible for recruiting, training and supervising 20 of her fellow K students who are coaches and tutors in the program.
The Young Women of Achievement Award citation noted that while maintaining a challenging schedule as a collegiate athlete and in her community service role, Ambs, a biology major with a psychology minor, twice has been named to the MIAA academic honor roll. She also serves on K’s Athletic Leadership Council.
Participants in the CES program recruit, train, orient, supervise and evaluate their peers, coordinating complex service-learning programming with local agencies, public schools, health clinics and initiatives. Recently, seven other Civic Engagement Scholars received Champs awards from Communities in Schools Kalamazoo, a group that seeks to help meet the needs of students in some of the city’s most challenged schools.
Ambs says she plans to pursue post-graduate studies leading to a career as a physical therapist. The CES program is just one example of how Kalamazoo College’s signature K-Plan makes it possible for students to gain invaluable experiential learning that helps prepare them for a wide variety of careers.
Being a student at Kalamazoo College means discovering new opportunities to get involved everywhere you look on campus, even where you eat.
Baker Sarah Ross (right) talks with student Lezlie Lull as she points toward examples of the vegan banana cake and vegan/gluten-free black bean brownies students created May 10 during the vegan desserts event at Hicks Student Center.
Kalamazoo College Dining Services on Thursday offered students hands-on fun with a vegan desserts class taught by Sarah Ross, a Dining Services baker with 20 years of experience in the food-preparation industry.
Although Ross admitted she sometimes indulges in Greek yogurt or certain cheeses, she strives to maintain a vegan diet, occasionally finding baking or cooking ideas through family recipes and on the Internet. From there it’s a matter of increasing the ingredients in the right balances to find many of the dishes she serves to students.
Lezlie Lull, Rigel Bobadilla, Miranda Flores-Tirado and Shannon Carley participated in the class, learning to bake vegan banana cake and vegan/gluten-free black bean brownies from scratch. The desserts are easy enough to concoct at any off-campus apartment or on campus with the right supplies and tools. The students stirred, mixed, poured, folded, whisked, blended and processed until their delectable creations were complete.
Students used ingredients such as black beans, salt, sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla to prepare vegan desserts.
Dining Services regularly offers engaging activities such as Random Acts of Yum, which provides students with free treats such as root beer floats; special Chef’s Table dinners featuring locally sourced and sustainable foods; and an emergency coffee truck during finals week. This, however, was an opportunity to get hands on.
“We’ve done contests and events in the past, which have been fun, but not much that has involved teaching skills,” Dining Services Marketing Coordinator Tabitha Skornia said, adding more opportunities like the vegan desserts class are in the works. The next class will be a cheese class May 24. Plus, Dining Services is looking for suggestions on what else it might offer.
“What students like changes over time,” Skornia said. “We’d like to keep these varied, so students can keep walking away with different skills.”
Miranda Flores-Tirado prepares ingredients for vegan/gluten-free black bean brownies during the vegan desserts event May 10 at Hicks Student Center.Shannon Carley blends ingredients for vegan/gluten-free black bean brownies during the vegan desserts event.
If you have ideas for food-inspired, hands-on opportunities, Dining Services wants to hear from you. Skornia is reachable by email at Tabitha.Skornia@kzoo.edu. In the meantime, feel free to try the vegan banana cake or the vegan/gluten-free black bean brownies yourself with the recipes below.
Vegan Banana Cake
3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup oil
3 cup banana puree
2 tsp vanilla extract * Can also use applesauce, mango puree and pear puree.
Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk sugar, oil, fruit puree and vanilla.
Fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gently.
Pour into desired pan and bake at 325 degrees until a toothpick comes out clean.
Vegan/Gluten-Free Black Bean Brownies
3 cups black beans drained and rinsed
4 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 cup quick oats
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup maple syrup or agave
½ cup sugar
½ cup oil
1 tbsp. vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
* Optional: 1 cup vegan chocolate chips
Blend all ingredients except chips in a food processor until very smooth.
Fold in chips and pour into a greased 8-by-8 pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 22 minutes and allow to cool completely.
Sarafina Milianti (left) and Valentina Cordero were among the Civic Engagement Scholars honored with a Champs award May 9.David Vanderkloot (from left), Delaney Fordell and Kevin McCarty were among the Civic Engagement Scholars attending the Champs award ceremony May 9. Vanderkloot says being a Civic Engagement Scholar has been a formative experience.
Each year, the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement trains and supports more than 20 Civic Engagement Scholars. They are paid student leaders who work with a variety of community organizations, including Communities in Schools (CIS).
CIS works with some of Kalamazoo’s most challenged public elementary schools, providing students and families the resources they need to get a good start on their education. Those resources include over 200 K students who work with Kalamazoo Public School students as mentors, classroom assistants, playground helpers and club leaders for lunch and after-school programs.
Among the seven Civic Engagement Scholars receiving the Champs award is David Vanderkloot ’18, who has spent all four of his school years at K mentoring a student at Woodward School for Technology and Research and leading over 50 of his peers who also work there.
Vanderkloot said getting to know the student he mentors and providing her with academic assistance and social and emotional support has been “transformational” for him.
“I came from a school that was well-off and high-performing, so going to Woodward, which was labeled a failing school and in threat of closing, a lot of times for things outside their control, gave me insight into why there are disparities in our education system and motivated me to keep trying to improve it in whatever way I could,” he said.
Kalli Hale is one of Kalamazoo College’s Civic Engagement Scholars honored by Communities in Schools of Kalamazoo with a Champs award.Marlyn Sanchez represents the Kalamazoo College Civic Engagement Scholars at the Champs award ceremony.
He said he arrived at K wanting to major in English, but with little idea where it would lead. Being a Civic Engagement Scholar
“helped me gain a real focus,” he said. “It was a formative experience.”
He said he learned that while he doesn’t want to be a teacher, he does want a career in the nonprofit sector that allows him to continue working in the youth development field.
Moises Hernandez ’17, a former Civic Engagement Scholar and now a post-baccalaureate fellow at the Center for Civic Engagement, said the College reinforces the educational experience for the scholars by holding weekly workshops where they learn more about the social issues the programs address. Civic Engagement Scholars also hold periodic reflections where they talk about their work, what they’re learning from it and how it fits into their K-Plans, he said.
Vanderkloot said reflection is a key component of the service learning process.
“It led me to ask more questions and think more in depth about the disparities in education and how there are a lot of interesting issues that create those disparities,” he said.
Opportunities like the CES program are expected to grow as the College makes connecting classroom learning to real-world experiences a key element of its new strategic plan.
The plan, “Advancing Kalamazoo College: A Strategic Vision for 2023,” calls for K to become “the definitive leader in integrating academic rigor with life-changing experiential education in a values-driven community.” And a process is underway to identify other potential opportunities locally and in conjunction with study abroad and study away programs.
The CCE partnership with Kalamazoo Public Schools provides a glimpse of what is likely to come, said Teresa Denton, associate director of the Center for Civic Engagement. It has been around in one form or another for two decades—long enough that K students have graduated and gone on to work with CIS. Among the CIS staffers who K students currently work with are Woodward’s CIS site coordinator, Jen DeWaele ’97, and El Sol Elementary School’s CIS after-school coordinator, Viridiana Carvajal ’15, a former Civic Engagement Scholar.
Such long-term relationships are mutually beneficial to the College and its partners, and give students perspective on the importance of their work to the communities they’re a part of.
“This is only possible because of the reciprocal partnerships we’ve been able to build and sustain with groups like CIS,” said Denton. “We consider both our students and our community partners as our colleagues in bringing K students and community members together to learn from one another.”
In addition to Vanderkloot, Civic Engagement Scholars receiving the Champs award are Delaney Fordell ’18, Kalli Hale ’20, Kevin McCarty ’20, Marlyn Sanchez ’20, Sarafina Milianti ’18 and Valentina Cordero ’20.
Connor Grant ’18 and Kelsey Corless had known each other since seventh grade in Lake Orion, Michigan. They were high school sweethearts. And though he went to Kalamazoo College while she attended Grand Valley State University, they remained committed to one another.
Connor Grant ’18 gave Kelsey Corless a surprise proposal last weekend during a Senior Day doubleheader at Kalamazoo College’s Woodworth Field.
“We talked about it and she knew something like this was coming,” Grant, a first baseman for Kalamazoo College’s baseball team, said of his engagement to Corless.
The inevitable, however, didn’t have to be predictable. Grant wanted to make sure his proposal was a special — and very memorable — moment.
So before last weekend’s Senior Day doubleheader at K’s Woodworth Field, he went to Head Baseball Coach Michael Ott and asked for permission to carry out a secret plan. It was crafted to make sure that when he made his proposal, not only Corless but both their families would be there and that she would have no clue as to what was about to happen.
Grant’s plan revolved around the Senior Day ceremony, which takes place during the break between games. The graduating players line up along the third base line, then are called one by one with their families and friends to home plate, where they receive a bat engraved with their name and position. Grant, the team captain, deliberately asked to be called last so as not to overshadow his fellow senior players and he made sure he had their assent.
He also arranged it so that when his roommate, catcher Alex Fultz ’18, presented him with the bat, he would slip him the ring, as well. The announcer would then set up the moment, saying, “This is more than a Senior Day …”
Grant’s proposal to get hitched went without a hitch, and the appropriately stunned bride-to-be said yes. And both of their families got to witness the engagement, as planned.
“I had a nervous day leading up to it,” Grant said. “But other than that, it went perfect.”
For the crowd, one of the biggest of the season, it was an unexpected treat.
“Their reaction was amazing,” Grant said. “People were ecstatic for us. All the seniors’ families were there and got to be a part of it.”
“I think there were some people wiping away tears,” said Ott, adding that the opposing team joined in the cheers and applause.
The wedding date has yet to be set, but Grant said he expects it to occur sometime next summer, after he and Corless get settled in to post-college life. Corless last month received her degree from Grand Valley in management information systems, and Grant, a business and economics major who graduates June 17, is set to start work this summer as a mortgage banker with Quicken Loans in Detroit.
Ott said the proposal “was a really cool moment” for the baseball program, and “definitely a first.”
It capped a weekend when the Hornets finished their season with a sweep of Olivet College, making it even better. And despite his nervousness, Ott said, Grant drove in four runs in the afternoon’s first game.
For Grant and Corless, Ott said, “I’m sure it’s something they’re going to remember.”
He said it was also a reminder for Grant’s graduating teammates that, although their collegiate athletic careers are coming to an end, their lives—like Grant and Corless’ together—are just getting started.
“I think it was a moment that was a little bit bigger than baseball,” Ott said. “It provided some perspective about what’s really important.”
He said he was proud to have been able to make the surprise proposal possible for Grant, who is fourth on the list of Hornets baseball players for most games played.
“I just love the kid,” he said.
Grant said being at a school like K allowed him to forge a strong relationship with his coaches and fellow players so he could share his big moment with them.
Two free concerts this week in the Dalton Theater at the Light Fine Arts Building will demonstrate the breadth of student music experiences at Kalamazoo College. Both concerts feature groups directed by Music Professor Thomas Evans.
The Kalamazoo College Jazz Band will be one of two groups performing in free concerts this week that will demonstrate the breadth of student music experiences on campus.
The Academy Street Winds, formerly known as the Kalamazoo College Symphonic Band, will perform from 8 to 10 p.m. Friday. The group is a beloved creative outlet for woodwind, brass and percussion students. Community musicians joined the ensemble in winter 2016 to expand the group’s sound and capabilities.
The group performs one concert each term, playing exciting arrays of challenging band music. The band is a great favorite for its members and its audiences as the programs are coordinated around diverse themes, which allow for performances of much-loved pieces, both classic and new. The theme for this concert is “Channel Surfing.”
Then, enjoy K’s Jazz Band from 8 to 10 p.m. Saturday. The group is known for its eclectic collections of contemporary and classic jazz arrangements that provide the students participating and the audience members an electric experience. The concert is titled “Everything in its Right Place.”
Two Kalamazoo College events coming soon will give students new experiences and learning opportunities in the sciences.
First, Brendan Bohannan – a professor of environmental studies and biology at the University of Oregon – will present a keynote address titled “Host-Microbe Systems: a Rediscovered Frontier in the Life Sciences” in the annual Diebold Symposium from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday at 226 Dow Science Center.
J.A. Scott Kelso will provide the Tourtellotte Lecture at 5:30 p.m. May 7 in 103 Dewing Hall.
The Diebold Symposium offers senior biology majors a chance to present their Senior Individualized Projects (SIP), regardless of their SIP discipline. The event is dedicated to the memory of Frances “Dieb” Diebold, who was a member of the Kalamazoo College Biology Department for 44 years.
Bohannon focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of microbial biodiversity. He began his research career studying microbes in non-host environments such as soil, water, air and built environments. However, over the past 12 years, his group has focused more on the microbiomes of humans and other animals including fish, birds and primates.
Then, the Kalamazoo College Physics Department will welcome J.A. Scott Kelso, of the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at Florida Atlantic University and the Intelligent Systems Research Centre at Ulster University in Northern Ireland, for the Tourtellotte Lecture at 5:30 p.m. May 7 in 103 Dewing Hall.
The lecture will explain some fundamental governing laws behind the behavior of complex physical, biological and social systems.
For most of his scientific career, Kelso has studied human beings and human brains, individually and together, and how they coordinate their behavior from cells to cognition to social settings.
Since the late 1970s, his approach has been grounded in the concepts, methods and tools of self-organizing dynamical systems tailored to living things, a theoretical and empirical framework called Coordination Dynamics.
From 1978 to 1985 Kelso was the senior research scientist at Yale University’s Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. Since then, he has held the Glenwood and Martha Creech Eminent Scholar Chair in Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida, where he founded The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.
Kelso has held visiting appointments in Moscow, Stuttgart, Lyons and Marseille, and is an emeritus professor of computational neuroscience at Ulster University in Northern Ireland.
Congratulations to the Kalamazoo College students who qualified for the winter 2018 dean’s list.
Congratulations to the following Kalamazoo College students, who achieved a grade point average of 3.5 or better for a full-time course load of at least three units, without failing or withdrawing from any course, during the winter 2018 academic term. Students who elect to take a letter-graded course on a credit/no credit basis (CR/NC) are not eligible for Dean’s List consideration during that term. Nor are students who receive an F, NC or W grade for that particular term. Students with incomplete (I) or in-progress (IP) grades will be considered for Dean’s List upon receipt of the final grades. Dean’s List recognition is posted on students’ transcripts. Kudos to the entire group of nearly 500 students, and good luck to the rising sophomores, juniors and seniors in spring term 2018.
Jayde Agnew
Michelle Alba
Jazzmyn Albarran
Allegra Allgeier
Max Ambs
Georgie Andrews
Hunter Angileri
Lukia Artemakis
George-Joseph Asher
Avani Ashtekar
Max Aulbach
Juan Avila
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Bailey Baas
Hannah Bacchus
Julia Bachmann
Andrew Backer
Nicki Bailey
Heather Banet
Maya Banks
Marios Bantis
Angel Banuelos
Cecilia Barkume
Julia Bartlett
Lilly Baumann
Quentin Baur
Harley Bean
Logan Beck
Ben Behrens
Matt Benedettini
Sage Benner
Hannah Berger
Brigette Berke
Dominic Bertollini
Brad Bez
Kevin Bhimani
Abhi Bhullar
Maya Bieszki
Rigel Kyla Bobadilla
Elliott Boinais
Lydia Bontrager
Louison Boussard-Turbet
Rachel Bovey
Sydney Brown
Jane Bunch
Bri Burnell
Erin Butler
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Nathalie Cabral
Alex Cadigan
Madeleine Camilli
Hannah Campbell
Kalyn Campbell
Madison Campbell
Paloma Campillo
Yuridia Campuzano
Emily Canas
Christopher Cao
Angel Caranna
Cate Carlberg
Shannon Carley
Charlie Carson
Marissa Castellana
James Castleberry
Amy Cazier
Claire Cebelak
Kit Charlton
Deana Chavarria
Sherry Chen
Tapiwa Chikungwa
Liza Chinchilakashvili
Nutsa Chinchilakashvili
Belinda Chipayi
Justin Christopher-Moody
Yoensuk Chung
Paige Chung
Isabelle Clark
Nyima Coleman
MaryClare Colombo
Carmen Compton
Thomas Cook
Noah Coplan
Valentina Cordero
Natalia Cortes
Austin Cramer
Marvel Cross
Cameron Crothers
Karli Crouch
Alex Cruz
Ethan Cuka
Cara Cunningham
Conall Curran
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Wentao Dai
Sela Damer-Daigle
Addie Dancer
Shayaan Dar
Amelia Davis
Steven Davis
Ximena Davis
Adam Decker
Gina DeGraaf
Ricardo DelOlmo-Parrado
Katia Dermott
Christy Diaz
Abby Dickstein
Tuan Do
Julia Dobry
Guillermo Dominguez Garcia
Will Duffield
Alexa Dulmage
Thao Duong
Alex Dupree
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Maddy Earl
Noah Ellinger
Jenna Ellis
Vivian Enriquez
Lia Evangelista
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Natalie Fisher
Randi Fisher
Emily Fletcher
Matthew Flotemersch
Delaney Fordell
Ben Forhan
Mone’t Foster
Talea Fournier
Maria Franco
Spencer Freeman
Ian Freshwater
Maria Fujii
Alex Fultz
Erik Funke
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Anna Gambetta
Andre’ Gard
Amanda Gardner
Camden Gardner
Brendan Gausselin
Fox Gawa
Cory Gensterblum
Sarah George
Bill Georgopoulos
Sarah Gerendasy
Camille Giacobone
Josh Gibson
Jake Gilhaus
Hannah Ginsberg
Anthony Giovanni
Rachel Girard
Beau Godkin
Sophia Goebel
Abhay Goel
Emily Good
R.J. Goodloe
Monica Gorgas
Connor Grant
Keenan Grant
Jordan Gray
Lydia Green
Stanton Greenstone
Jena Groshek
Preston Grossling
Ellie Grossman
Garrett Guglielmetti
Katie Guo
Maya Gurfinkel
Gus Guthrie
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Kalli Hale
Bekah Halley
Emily Hamel
Griffin Hamel
Kelly Hansen
Martin Hansknecht
Maverick Hanson-Meier
Val Harding
Haley Harris
Kaylee Henderson
Maeve Hening
Mei Mei Hensler
Kaiya Herman-Hilker
Maya Hernandez
Jesse Herrera
Sophia Hill
Hunter Himelhoch
Brett Hines
Sam Hoehle
Megan Hoinville
Mathew Holmes-Hackerd
Audrey Honig
Roger Hood
Shelby Hopper
Josephine Hosner
Annabelle Houghton
Matt Howrey
Ellie Hughes
Briana Huisken
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Shannon Irvine
Bradley Iseri
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Denise Jackson
Sam Jacobsen
Danielle Janowicz
Alejandro Jaramillo
Mathu Jennings
Tyler Jett
Hanna Jeung
Jade Jiang
Katie Johnson
Taylor Johnson
Lisa Johnston
Jackson Jones
Madeline Jump
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Liza Kahn
Claire Kalina
Sharat Kamath
Kendall Kaptur
Grace Karrip
Maria Katrantzi
Greg Kearns
Johanna Keller
Joe Keller
Christian Kelley
Christina Keramidas
Hannah Kerns
Jasmine Khin
Gyeongho Kim
Min Soo Kim
Savannah Kinchen
Nick Klepser
Ethan Krasman
Matthew Krinock
Charlie Krone
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Megan Lacombe
Neelam Lal
Lauren Landman
Zoe Larson
Zach LeBlanc
Sabrina Leddy
Alison Lilla
Joy Lim
Kate Liska
Lucy Liu
Rosella LoChirco
Molly Logsdon
Nick Ludka
Emily Lulkin
Lezlie Lull
Jillian Lynk
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Sam Maddox
Alicia Madgwick
Zoey Mark
Natalie Markech
Kathryn Martin
CJ Martonchik
Sam Matthews
Maximo Mazeiro
Eliza McCall
Kevin McCarty
Miles McDowall
Maygan McGuire
Isabel McLaughlin
Keelin McManus
Aidan Merritt
Ben Meschke
Tytus Metzler
Sam Meyers
Danny Michelin
Sara Milianti
Namfon Miller
Josh Miller
Jacqueline Mills
Ethel Mogilevsky
Faizan Mohammed
Jennifer Montemayor Bautista
Elayna Moreau
Cesareo Moreno
Tamara Morrison
Daniel Mota-Villegas
Ryan Mulder
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Yukiko Nakano
Jacob Naranjo
Laetitia Ndiaye
Sara Nelson
Kyle Neuner
Joseph Ney-Jun
Vicky Nguyen
Viet Nguyen
Kelly Nickelson
Niko Nickson
Sara Nixon
Lionel Niyongabire
Rosie Nocita
Carmen Nogueron
Jonathan Nord
Ian Nostrant
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Joab Odero
Maddie Odom
Evan O’Donnell
Abigail O’Keefe
Eli Orenstein
Ryan Orr
Michael Orwin
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Dylan Padget
Karina Pantoja
Jimmy Paprocki
Khusbu Patel
Cayla Patterson
Caleb Patton
Meera Patwardhan
Calder Pellerin
Jessica Penny
Kelson Perez
Allie Periman
Erin Perkins
Sean Peterkin
Emma Peters
Nhi Phan
Joe Piet
Julia Plomer
Priya Pokorzynski
Julio Portillo
Tulan Pryor
Zach Prystash
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Daniel Qin
Yilan Qiu
Abdullah Qureshi
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Erin Radermacher
Andrea Ramirez
Mona Ramirez Quinones
Sam Ramsay
Shivani Rana
Sam Ratliff
Steph Rauhoff
Zack Ray
Farzad Razi
Mili Renuart
Dulce Reyes Martinez
Gabe Rice
Merrick Richardson
Julia Riddle
Tish Riley
Sage Ringsmuth
Skylar Rizzolo
Madeleine Roberts
Scott Roberts
Brynn Rohde
Anna Roodbergen
Danielle Roof
Justin Roop
Peter Rossi
Avery Rothrock
Maelle Rouquet
Orly Rubinfeld
Angela Ruiz
Tim Rutledge
Conor Ryan
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Shiva Sah
Rumsha Sajid
Amber Salome
Tanush Samson
Danielle Sarafian
Fumiyasu Satoyama
Maggie Schaefer
Dana Schau
Anselm Scheck
Maison Scheuer
Faruq Schieber
Kim Schmidt
Raechel Schmidt
Emma Schneider
Hannah Scholten
Aleksander Scott
JD Seablom
Sivhaun Sera
Kaitlyn Shafer
Sharif Shaker
Yasi Shaker
Reagan Shapton
Lily Shearer
Elena Shen
Jenna Sherman
Gabrielle Shimko
Hannah Shiner
Arun Shrestha
Sharon Situ
Jordan Skidmore
Asia Smith
Logan Smith
Michael Smith
Adam Snider
Meagan Soffin
Youngtae Song
Shannon South
Mariam Souweidane
Sophie Spencer
Simona Stalev
Kalista Stanger
Katelyn Steele
Grant Stille
Sarah Sui
Fiona Summers
Shelby Suseland
Garrett Swanson
Quentin Sweeney
Savannah Sweeney
Nina Szalkiewicz
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Reshay Tanasse
Maia Taylor
Stina Taylor
Hanna Teasley
Subi Thakali
Kathryn Thamann
Emma Theiss
Audrey Thomas
Savanna Thomas
Natalie Thompson
Emma Toomey
Margaret Totten
Lupe Tovar
Caitlin Tremewan
Uyen Trinh
Sydney Troost
Elyse Tuennerman
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Lexi Ugelow
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Mick Valatkas
Clara Valenti
Cynthia Valentin
Madison Vallan
Adriana Vance
David Vanderkloot
Zach VanFaussien
Ashley Ver Beek
Carter Vespi
Vanessa Vigier
Liam VosWilliams
Evan Voyles
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Erika Waalkes
Gabby Walton Schwartz
Bei Wang
Hedy Wang
Claire Ward
Madeline Ward
Mary Warner
Jake Wasko
Rachel Wasserman
Leah Wathen
Mike Watson
Maija Weaver
Connor Webb
Zhi Nee Wee
Haley Wentz
Alex White
Ehren White
Annarosa Whitman
Nora Wichmann
Jessica Wile
Jordan Wiley
Clay Wilms
Meg Wilson
Ryan Witczak
Hannah Wolfe
Madeline Woods
That’s the phrase Kalamazoo city government officials and Kalamazoo College faculty and staff frequently use to describe a burgeoning partnership in which K students are gaining invaluable hands-on experience conducting research that is providing the city much-needed data to focus unprecedented community improvement efforts.
Sharmeen Chauhdry ’20 has gained experience conducting research for programs such as Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo, an antipoverty initiative coordinated by Kevin Ford. Chauhdry, seen here with Ford at the city planning office, will continue her experiential education with a summer internship through the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement.
Though having students work with the city is not a new idea, it’s getting fresh attention because of a strategic confluence. The K Board of Trustees has adopted a new strategic plan for the College that calls for strengthening the K-Plan in part by finding more effective ways to link classroom learning to real-world experiences. And the city, with tens of millions of dollars in philanthropic support, is implementing its own strategic vision, Imagine Kalamazoo, with new initiatives such as Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo that provide just those sorts of opportunities.
“From its perspective as an institution and a brain trust and a shaper of young lives, the College benefits,” says Kevin Ford, coordinator of the innovative antipoverty program. “And from the city perspective, we have that relationship with an influential local institution and we can tap into that brain trust and the opportunity to do research—things we don’t have.”
“I think it’s a real opportunity,” says K Anthropology Professor Kiran Cunningham ’83, long an advocate of such programs.
“It just a win-win all around,” says Laura Lam ’99, Kalamazoo’s assistant city manager in charge of Imagine Kalamazoo, who credits an early K-city learning partnership for launching her career.
Alison Geist, director of K’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), says the new partnership is far larger than anything that preceded it. A model for how it will work is Cunningham’s winter term 2018 Social Research for Social Change class. Students not only read and discussed how to do research, they joined Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo to conduct it, interviewing residents about their needs.
The student-researchers, advised by Cunningham and Ford, focused on the means low-income residents have devised on their own for dealing with barriers to employment, such as costly child care and limited public transportation. Among those strategies: pooling resources to look after one another’s children during working hours and creating a sort of informal Uber to ensure jobs are accessible even when bus routes aren’t.
As the culmination of their classwork, the students wrote a report and recommendations documenting those solutions and the residents’ suggestions for how to make them more effective and broadly available. Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo is using the data in partnership with community members to devise new initiatives.
The city is in a position to carry out this work because of a burst of philanthropy intended to narrow the gap between what has been described as Kalamazoo’s two divergent cultures—one characterized by an uncommon cultural and educational resources, and the other plagued by persistent poverty and inequity. Underpinning the initiative, William D. Johnston, husband of former K Trustee Ronda Stryker, and William Parfet, brother of K Trustee Donald Parfet, joined forces to donate $70.3 million, creating the City of Kalamazoo Foundation for Excellence.
The city’s growing need for data to carry out its ambitious plans, and the College’s push to provide students opportunities to apply their learning, are coming together at just the right time, says Geist. She says the CCE is dedicating nearly half of its upcoming internships to Kalamazoo city programs, working with City Planner Christina Anderson ‘98.
“This is such an amazing opportunity,” Geist says. “It’s a real city with real city assets. It faces so many of the challenges faced by Rust Belt cities elsewhere but it has so many resources to address those issues.”
One of Cunningham’s students in the winter term research class, Sharmeen Chauhdry ’20, says being part of Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo brought home lessons about how ground-level community research can pave the way for meaningful change.
“We got to see what the real experts, the people in these situations, say about what works and what doesn’t, and what they need,” she says.
The anthropology-sociology major says she now sees government as a potential career choice, and will continue her work with the city this summer in one of the CCE internships.
Even for those who don’t choose such a career path, the benefits of experiential learning with the city government can have a lifelong effect, Geist says.
“It creates opportunities for our students so they can learn what it means to be a citizen,” she says.
Cirque du K, the official circus club for students at Kalamazoo College, will conduct its annual spring performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Dalton Theater at Light Fine Arts.
The organization launched in 2006 as a few friends playing together with circus equipment and has grown and evolved each year along with the new and improving skill sets of each member. Cirque du K aims to:
educate students in a distinctive art form, providing a practical outlet where participants learn and develop skills in a safe environment;
entertain, enrich, and engage communities on and off campus with a multitude of interesting skills and techniques;
aid students who want to continue pursuing circus arts through education, outreach and fund raising.
Both performances are free to attend and the public is welcome.
It’s a high achievement to receive a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. Just 16 percent of those who submitted proposals this year were chosen for the prestigious program.
Megan Hoinville ’18 (right), discusses her research with Physics Professor Tom Askew and Biology Professor Amanda Wollenberg. The two have mentored Hoinville, a double major who has received a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to continue her studies at the University of Chicago.
Megan Hoinville ’18 is part of an even more exclusive group. Though Kalamazoo College alumni are regular recipients of the fellowship, she is the first K student to receive one as an undergraduate since 1997.
Her proposal focused on how the conformational flexibility of proteins can be used in drug-discovery efforts for proteins that are implicated in cancer.
The fellowship provides a three-year stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 allowance for tuition and fees. The NSF says the fellowship, awarded for almost 60 years, is the oldest of its kind and that its reputation “follows recipients and often helps them become lifelong leaders” who “contribute significantly to both scientific innovation and teaching.” Among past recipients: former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and “Freakonomics” co-author Steven Levitt.
After her graduation in June, Hoinville will enter the biophysical sciences Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. She says she plans on using biophysical techniques to study topics in immunology, and wants to help pioneer more effective treatments for autoimmune diseases.
In the long term, she hopes to become a research scientist.
“I have had wonderful physics and biology professors who were incredibly supportive and fostered my love of science,” she says.
Although her fellowship proposal was based on research she conducted at the University of Michigan for her K Senior Individualized Project, she started doing research as a first-year student under Kalamazoo College Biology Professor Amanda Wollenberg, and since has been a co-author on two peer-reviewed publications.
She says she would not have gotten such extensive research experiences at many other colleges, and that played a large part in her decision to attend K.
“The size of Kalamazoo College lets you have this kind of opportunity,” she says. “You get to really know your professors, and have a relationship with them.”
Another K advantage was that she could double-major in biology and physics, a combination that isn’t allowed at many schools because of the intense demands both place on a student. Physics Professor Tom Askew pushed her to apply for the fellowship and write the required proposal.
Both Askew and Wollenberg say Hoinville’s interdisciplinary background was likely irresistible for the NSF. Apparently, it had big appeal for graduate schools, as well. The University of Chicago, Cornell University and University of Michigan “were fighting over her,” Askew says.
Wollenberg says she has high expectations for Hoinville in graduate school, and is sure they will be fulfilled.
“She’s going to contribute great things to whatever field she chooses to pursue,” she says.
The emphasis that Kalamazoo College places on individual scholarship and scientific research has not only been instrumental in Hoinville’s academic career, but also in that of her uncle, Jay Hoinville ’86, who received a postdoctoral National Science Foundation fellowship to pursue studies in magnetic recording. He now is an entrepreneur and works at Western Michigan University.
