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.
The next time you see Sarah Kleppe ’19 around the Kalamazoo College campus, you might want to come to attention and deliver a sharp salute. The Spanish major from Colorado is now a cadet colonel in the Civil Air Patrol after a ceremony at the CAP Michigan Wing’s 2018 Conference in Bay City.
Sarah Kleppe ’19, a cadet colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, shakes hands with Maj. Gen. Leonard Isabelle, commander of the Michigan Air National Guard, as she receives the Gen. Carl A. Spaatz Award, the Civil Air Patrol’s highest youth honor. Also on hand for the awards ceremony in Bay City, Michigan, was Maj. Gen. Amy Courter ’83, former national commander of CAP and a Kalamazoo College trustee.
Kleppe is among the highest fliers in the CAP cadet corps — one of the fewer than 1 percent who manage to earn the Gen. Carl A. Spaatz Award, the organization’s highest youth honor. Recognizing excellence in leadership, character, fitness and aerospace education, it brings with it the cadet colonel rank, indicated by a three-diamond uniform insignia.
To achieve the rank, the already busy K student had to take two rigorous closed-book exams on all the material she’s learned in her six years as a cadet, pass a physical test based on U.S. Air Force standards and write an essay.
Like a typical K student, however, she says the work and study, along with years of weekly meetings, summer camps and other activities, are her idea of fun.
“It’s been a lot of work but it’s definitely a worthwhile program,” she says.
She was thrilled to receive the Spaatz Award, named for the first Air Force chief of staff, from Maj. Gen. Leonard Isabelle, commander of the Michigan Air National Guard. Also on hand was Maj. Gen. Amy Courter ’83, former national commander of the Civil Air Patrol and a member of the College’s Board of Trustees.
The Spaatz Award was established in 1964, and the first recipient was Douglas C. Roach of Michigan, who went on to serve as a pilot with the Air Force Thunderbirds aerobatic team. Kleppe is still working on her pilot’s license, and while she’s not aiming to fly fighter jets, she hasn’t ruled out joining the Air Force after graduation.
Sarah Kleppe ’19, a cadet colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, is the recipient of the Gen. Carl A. Spaatz Award, the Civil Air Patrol’s highest youth honor.
One thing is for sure: She will continue to be active in the Civil Air Patrol. She just turned 21 and is transitioning into the adult side of the organization, becoming cadet commander of Kalamazoo Composite Squadron. She also hopes to fill what she considers a gap in her cadet experience: participating in CAP “SAREXes,” or search-and-rescue exercises. As a civilian adjunct to the Air Force, helping find downed planes and rescue missing hikers is one of chief functions of the organization.
Despite whatever she might have missed along the way, however, Kleppe says she gained invaluable skills and experiences. She credits the Civil Air Patrol with teaching her everything from how to write a resume and cover letter to the fundamentals of leadership.
“It’s given me confidence in myself and taught me a lot,” she says. “I would be a completely different person had I not gone through the program.”
And besides, she says, from her very first cadet meeting in high school, “I had a blast.”
Every year since 2008, Kalamazoo College students have won grants from the Davis Projects for Peace program to carry out efforts to address the root causes of conflict. Still, this year’s winner stands out for her anti-violence project. Aisat (pronounced I-ee-sha) Oladokun’s grant marks the first time that a first-year student at K has received the award.
Aisat Oladokun will get $10,000 from Davis Projects for Peace for her anti-violence project, “Thoughts for Peace,” this summer in her hometown of Chicago.
She will get $10,000 for her project, “Thoughts for Peace,” this summer in her hometown of Chicago. Her aim is to educate 30 youths, ages 9-15, about resilience during a summer camp in the Chicago neighborhoods most affected by violence.
She will partner with One Solution, a multinational social action group that works in Chicago, Israel and Sweden to end violence. In Chicago, the group says its goal is to provide “an educational intervention to raise the mental immune system of Chicago by catalyzing new thinking.”
Despite her youth, Oladokun, who attended the Perspectives Leadership Academy, a college prep charter school in Chicago, has long been involved in global issues and exchanges. She has been the recipient of scholarships and invitations for travel to Panama, Singapore, Australia and Japan for programs that included a robotics competition and the Yale Global Scholars.
Headquartered at Middlebury College in Vermont, The Davis Projects for Peace is an initiative for undergraduates at participating Davis United World College Scholars Program partner schools, including K, that says it aims to “design grassroots projects … which promote peace and address the root causes of conflict among parties.” It was created in 2007 with funding from Kathryn W. Davis, a scholar, author, world traveler and philanthropist who endowed the grants as a way of celebrating her 100th birthday. Davis, who died at age 106 in 2013, was the mother of Shelby M.C. Davis, whose family funds the Davis Scholars Program.
Other Kalamazoo College student initiatives funded through the program have included “Nets for Prevention and Peace,” which in 2007 distributed anti-malaria mosquito nets in Myanmar where internal displacement of people along the Thai border had sparked violence; “Umeed Ki Kiran” a literacy promotion project in Pakistan in 2014; “Humans Beyond Boxes,” a 2015 effort to help former prisoners in Kalamazoo shed the stigma of incarceration; and “Back to the Source: A Hip-Hop Inspired Agricultural Revolution” that in 2017 borrowed the community orientation of hip-hop music pioneers to establish a sustainable farm for young people in Uganda and market their produce.
Alpha Lambda Delta, the National Honor Society for top first-year students, is awarding Kalamazoo College’s Guillermo Dominguez-Garcia ’18 a Dr. Helen Clarke Graduate Fellowship to continue his studies next school year.
Guillermo Dominguez-Garcia is receiving one of 26 Alpha Lambda Delta Graduate Fellowships awarded annually for graduate study.
The $3,000 grant will help defray Dominguez-Garcia’s expenses as he seeks an advanced degree in public policy. Admitted to Alpha Lambda Delta in 2015, he is studying philosophy and economics at K.
His many activities at K have included playing on the men’s tennis team, K to the Big Apple, Launch into Leadership and serving as a consultant at the College’s Writing Center and as a class agent for the Class of 2018. Born in Madrid, Spain, he grew up in China, Thailand and South Africa, and now calls Bethesda, Maryland, home. He is fluent in Mandarin, French, Spanish and English.
The grant he is receiving is one of 26 awarded annually for graduate study. It is named for the 10th national president of Alpha Lambda Theta, who served from 1979 to 1982.
Founded in 1924, Alpha Lambda Delta has a presence on over 275 campuses nationwide.
Students, faculty, staff and alumni will celebrate a day honoring Kalamazoo College’s philanthropic donors from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Hicks Student Center.
Students participate in Grateful for K Day by writing thank-you notes showing appreciation to Kalamazoo College donors.
Sponsored by the Kalamazoo College Fund, Grateful for K Day – conducted twice a year – calls on students to honor the importance of philanthropy in sustaining and enhancing Kalamazoo College by writing personalized notes to thank donors for their support. Donations help about 98 percent of K students receive scholarships or some other form of financial aid.
All students are welcome to participate. Coffee and cookies will be served.
If you’re a donor, please share your “Why I Give” stories on our website or Facebook page, where you can also learn more about Grateful for K Day.
Registration for Career Summit 2018 is now closed. Students who are interested in attending but have not registered are welcome to stop by the registration table in the Hicks Student Center atrium before the session they would like to attend. Walk-ins will be accepted as space permits, especially on Saturday. See the Career Summit schedule online by clicking on ‘Agenda.’
The April 6 and 7 event, featuring 12 current or former representatives of organizations such as Google and Rock the Vote, will help students prepare for Life after K through interactive break-out sessions, themed panel discussions and networking opportunities.
Register today for Career Summit 2018 scheduled for April 6 and 7. Students of all majors will gain priceless information about the global job market, although registration is required in advance.
Read more about the speakers scheduled through the links below including:
Students of all majors will gain priceless information about the global job market, although registration is required in advance. To register, download Whova from the App Store for Apple/iOS mobile devices or Google Play for Android devices. Then:
Open the app and search for Kalamazoo College.
Sign in with your Kalamazoo College email address and a password of your choosing.
If the event itself asks for a password, use carzi.
After you register, be sure to add the specific events you want to attend to your individual agenda.
Students without a mobile device can preview the Career Summit and its agenda. Then, email Center for Career and Professional Development Director Joan Hawxhurst. Please include in your email which sessions in the agenda you would like to attend.
Two Kalamazoo College juniors have won a scholarship for their innovative plan to use a business approach to address an economic inequity. The issue, called pay to play, is a growing concern as low- and even middle-income families find they can’t afford the sometimes hefty fees required for their children to participate in youth athletic leagues.
R.J. Goodloe ’19 says he learned about pay to play while in high school in relatively affluent Laguna Hills, California. He says his father, president of a youth basketball league there, often had to deal with requests for forbearance or help on fees.
Zach VanFaussien (left) and R.J. Goodloe, both ’19, are recipients of the Michigan Colleges Alliance Independent Innovators Network Scholarship for their plan to create a business that would help address the problem of inequities in youth sports participation caused by “pay to play.” Each will get $2,500, while Senior Economics Instructor Chuck Stull, who advised them, will receive $500.
In a city where median family income tops $100,000, Goodloe, a 3/2 engineering major who played football in his first year at Kalamazoo College, says learning that families couldn’t afford the cost of having their children play organized sports “kind of blew me away.”
“Somewhere along the way we introduced this idea of pay to play in youth sports,” says Goodloe. “It was not accessible to all. A lot of my character came from playing youth sports. I didn’t like the idea that someone might not get that opportunity because they couldn’t afford it.”
So during the fall 2017 term, he teamed with close friend and roommate Zachary VanFaussien ’19, a business and economics major and a Hornets quarterback, to draw up a business plan for a nonprofit that would address the problem. As VanFaussien describes it, the company “would be a sustainable crowd-funding site for youth sports to eliminate pay-to-play.”
Responding to a message from K’s Center for Career and Professional Development, they submitted their plan to the Michigan Colleges Alliance Independent Innovators Network Scholarships program and were awarded a scholarship worth $2,500 apiece. Chuck Stull, senior instructor of economics and business, who advised them on the plan, will receive $500.
Though Goodloe says he had been thinking about the issue for several years, it was at K that he and VanFaussien developed the skills to address a social justice initiative to a solid business plan, the sort of “out-of-the-box” thinking, in Goodloe’s words, that characterizes K’s approach to the liberal arts.
“Going to a smaller, private school, you get a lot of faculty attention that you wouldn’t normally get at a larger college or university,” he says. “I think having personal relationships with faculty is a key to my success.”
“Being named an Independent Innovator confirms that I made the right decision in choosing a college,” says VanFaussien. “It truly shows the importance of innovation and following your own path.”
His and Goodloe’s entry was one of six to net the scholarships. Any student attending one of the 14 member colleges and universities of the Michigan Colleges Alliance, including K, can apply.
MCA board members, scholarship donors, and representatives from partner entrepreneurial organizations across the state — including Steelcase, Ford Motor Co., PVS Chemicals and ASG Renaissance — reviewed the entries.
“This is our third round for the scholarships,” says MCA President Robert Bartlett. “We’ve seen a lot of ideas around sports, but Zachary and Robert applied this strategy to a real need in many communities. It has great potential.”
Goodloe says that while the scholarship is earmarked for his and VanFaussien’s tuition, he hopes they can apply the money they save to making their plan a reality.
The pair aren’t the first K students to win the scholarship. In fall 2017, Mansi Dahal ’20 won for her plan to open a small clothing manufacturing business that employs women who have been physically, verbally and sexually abused.
For more information on the Michigan Colleges Alliance and the scholarships it offers, visit michigancolleges.org.
Kalamazoo College has been recognized as a top producer of Fulbright students for the 2017-2018 academic year — among them Dejah Crystal ’17. Here’s a closer look at Crystal, the work she’s doing in the Fulbright program and the role her K experience played.
Dejah Crystal, one of Kalamazoo College’s Fulbright students, is an English teacher at Jheng Yi Elementary School on the tiny island of Kinmen in the Republic of China (Taiwan.)
What are you doing as a Fulbright student?
I live on the tiny island of Kinmen in the Republic of China (Taiwan), and I work as an English teacher/teacher’s assistant at Jheng Yi Elementary School. Every week I solo-teach six classes (grades two to six) and I co-teach eight classes with two local English teachers (grades three to six). On Fridays, I work at an English language learning center called English Village. There, we teach fifth- and sixth-graders from across the island in a full day of hands-on English language learning activities. I also spend time volunteering at the local university, NQU, participating in writing workshops called “The A to Z Collective.” We work with college students who are interested in improving their English writing skills. Outside of the classroom I love exploring the island with my friends and driving around on my moped scooter when the weather is nice.
How did K help you prepare to be a Fulbright student?
While at K I majored in East Asian studies and studied abroad in Beijing. Those experiences led me to discover my passion for studying Mandarin and later led me to find the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program in Taiwan. I have always loved teaching, so this opportunity ended up being a wonderful fit.
What do you have planned next?
I hope to continue teaching in Taiwan, and continue to grow both academically in my study of Mandarin and professionally in my role as an English teacher.
Kevin McCarty ’20 has ambitions of being a doctor. For now, though, the title “newspaper editor” will do. You also could call him a teacher. Or, as Teresa Denton, associate director of the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement, describes him, “really dedicated.” McCarty is quick to say he’s not seeking any credit for himself. Instead, he says, his goal is to combat a persistent problem at some Kalamazoo public schools: lagging student achievement in literacy skills.
Kevin McCarty ’20 has ambitions of being a doctor. For now, though, the title “newspaper editor” will do as he seeks to help Woodward Elementary students develop literacy skills.
Back home, as a high school student in suburban Detroit, McCarty, a chemistry and Spanish major at K, worked with a program call Kids Standard that sought to improve student literacy skills by helping elementary school children publish a school magazine. After he got to K, he wanted to carry on the work, but the distance was too great to make it practical. So this school year he applied to become, and was accepted as, a civic engagement scholar through the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), and received a grant from the CCE’s Linda Primavera Fund, created by Primavera ’77, a longtime advocate of civic engagement.
He is working at Woodward School for Technology and Research in the Stuart neighborhood, just a few blocks from the College. Woodward is a Michigan Priority School, which means its elementary-aged students’ achievement and growth is in the bottom 5 percent for the state. Their reading and writing scores on standardized tests, on average, lag far below grade levels.
Empowered by CCE to launch his own literacy skills program to address that issue, and working with Communities in Schools, a Kalamazoo nonprofit that seeks to bolster student achievement, McCarty mapped out a strategy.
First, he served as an editor at The Index to get the skills he needed to design a newspaper. Then he spent his winter break drawing up a lesson plan. It called for forming an after-school club where students, mainly fourth- and fifth-graders, would receive several weeks of training in conceiving and composing stories, then write them for a publication to be called The Woodward Weekly.
“I went back and talked to teachers in my hometown and with Maggie Razdar,” who runs Kids Standard, “and we highlighted areas I should touch on and where I should put the most emphasis,” he says. “I outlined very general areas I needed to talk about, like what is an introduction, what is the body of the story, what is a complete sentence, the parts of speech, when to use commas, because I realized that as I was doing it, how actually complex it is. It made me go back and think of the questions I would have asked as a student and break it down into pieces.”
He used his proposal to secure a $500 grant for printing the paper. Then, twice a week in the winter term, he led the students through creative exercises that targeted literacy skills including having them cut out printed words from local publications and rearrange them to tell their own stories. The capstone was choosing subjects for the Woodward Weekly and researching and writing the stories for the first edition, which debuted this month.
McCarty says he exercised a light touch in the editorial process, letting students pursue their own ideas and express them as they preferred. The results include an “Opinion” page with three stories on the subject of slime and two recipes for making it. Fourth-grader Krysty’anna Craft writes about how she became interested in slime by watching YouTube videos (a common theme in the Weekly), while Kieara Virgil, another fourth-grader and apparently a budding chemist, explains that it is “a unique play material composed of a cross-linked polymer … made by combining polyvinyl alcohol solutions with borate ions.”
“I don’t plan out what they do.” McCarty says. “I want to make the idea of writing and self-expression something that’s completely up to them and their choice. It was anything from poetry to fiction and nonfiction.”
Stories completed and photos gathered, he then faced the hardest part: assembling the newspaper, something he had never done on his own before. It was a lot of extra work, but he says he knew the result — a professional-looking, eight-page newsletter divided into departments and complete with bylines for each writer — was worth it when he saw how excited the students were.
“I don’t know what they were expecting but they were really impressed with the way it turned out,” he says. “When they saw it looked like a real newspaper, they said, ‘I’m famous now!’ ”
More important, he says, they gained an understanding of their own literacy skills and experienced writing as a way to communicate ideas they care about, not as a daunting chore. Tasked with collecting metrics for the program, he could point to measurable success.
“They saw writing as a joyful thing rather than an assignment,” he says. “And they walk away with a better understanding of the process.”
As for the editor, “It was pretty fulfilling,” he says. Other schools in Kalamazoo are now interested in launching similar programs, he says, and he has left copies of the Weekly around K so fellow students can see what’s possible through CCE.
Community engagement scholars conduct a weekly reflection session on their goals and experiences, and McCarty says many of those discussions this winter focused on educational inequality. Given the size and seeming intractability of that problem, running the club and publishing the Weekly “wasn’t a big thing to do,” he says. “But it’s something we can do.”
Applications are open through April 20 for the next round of Civic Engagement Scholarships. The paid positions give students the opportunity to engage in projects like McCarty’s while also providing student leadership for the CCE.
