The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has approved a four-year $500,000 grant to Kalamazoo College to support faculty development and curricular enhancements within the College’s Shared Passages Seminars, a program that helps students focus on critical thinking and writing skills, delve deeply into cultural issues, integrate their K experiences, and prepare for life after graduation.

Shared Passages Seminars are a unifying arc through K’s more open liberal arts curriculum introduced in 2009, and serve as both preparation for and integration of all of the K-Plan components: depth and breadth in the liberal arts; learning through experience; intercultural and international engagement, especially through study abroad; and independent scholarship, culminating in the Senior Individualized Project.

Seminars are required in each year except the junior year at K when more than 80 percent of students complete a study abroad or study away experience lasting an average of six months.

“This grant will afford faculty the opportunity to individually and collectively explore innovative and effective pedagogies, and develop new and revised course offerings in the seminar program,” said Kalamazoo College Provost Mickey McDonald.