The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that four Kalamazoo College alumni have been awarded 2016 Graduate Research Fellowships. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. GRFP fellows are pursuing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.
The four K alums are Amanda Mancini ’14, Jared Grimmer ’15, Patricia Garay ’11 and Monika Egerer ’13. Mancini, Grimmer and Egerer majored in biology at K, Garay majored in chemistry. For the 2016 competition, NSF received close to 17,000 applications, and made 2,000 award offers. Mancini will focus her research in biological anthropology, Grimmer and Egerer work in the area of ecology, and Garay conducts her explorations in the neurosciences. All four studied abroad at K and in different countries–Mancini in Ecuador, Grimmer in Spain, Garay in Costa Rica, and Egerer in Thailand. Congratulations, Hornet science graduate students!
National Science Foundation 2016 fellowship grants will support the graduate school research of four K alumni in ecology, neurosciences and biological anthropology.
Kalamazoo College ranks 14th among small colleges and universities nationwide in terms of the number of graduates who volunteer to serve in the Peace Corps. Since the agency was created in 1961, 288 K graduates have served overseas. Currently, nine K alumni are serving worldwide. One of them is William Schlaack ’12, who has served in Mongolia as an education volunteer since 2014 (see interview below). William majored in German and religion. He participated in the Farms 2K student organization, worked for K’s library and studied abroad in Erlangen, Germany.
Two other Michigan school received recognition on the large school list. University of Michigan ranked sixth (48 volunteers) and Michigan State University ranks 22nd (33 volunteers).
Kalamazoo College is no stranger to the Peace Corps. In 2006, it ranked as the eighth top volunteer-producing school among small universities and colleges. One of the most moving stories about the Peace Corps experience is shared by alumnus David Easterbrook ’69. You can hear him tell it (“When You See Rose Kennedy in the Market“) on Story Zoo.
What are your main volunteer projects and secondary projects?
(William Schlaack) I teach at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology in Darkhan aimag (province). Most of my time is spent co-teaching, lesson and curriculum building and leading extracurricular activities such as English club, teacher’s club and hiking club.
For secondary projects, I’ve been working with local non-governmental organizations and schools on regional Special Olympics competitions. So far two regions have held their first ever events. One other project I have been working on is life skills classes at the regional prison, so far I’ve been able to give workshops on anger and stress management that have been highly rewarding.
Outside of planned projects I think one of the best aspects of Peace Corps is the daily cultural exchange that takes place between volunteers and host country nationals. These interactions go beyond projects and really build great friendships and foster understanding between cultures.
How did your alma mater help prepare you for international service, or lead you to Peace Corps?
(WS) Kalamazoo provides wonderful study abroad and service learning opportunities that really help shape a global perspective that’s oriented toward service on a local and global scale.
What/who inspired me to serve in the Peace Corps?
(WS) I became inspired to serve in the Peace Corps as a result of volunteering with Books to Prisoners (a program that provides free books to Illinois inmates and also helps operate two jail libraries in the Urbana-Champaign area) and Project READ (an adult ESL program run out of Parkland Community College in Champaign, Illinois). I wanted to take some time off after earning my master’s degree to participate in some sort of national service that would combine international experience and allow me to leave a positive impact on a new community.
What are your career aspirations?
(WS) After Peace Corps I plan on working in a library, but also continuing my volunteer work in whatever local community I wind up in. Peace Corps has strengthened my project management skills and given me unique problem solving experiences that I hope to bring to my future workplace and community.
What’s been your favorite part of service?
My favorite part of service has been serving and growing in a community so rich with tradition and culture which has given me the opportunity to experience so many amazing encounters and find common interests and passions. Day-to-day life is often so surprising and hardly a day goes by that I don’t learn more about myself and my community.
Becky Tonietto ’05, Ph.D., on a bee search. (Photo by Robin Carlson)
K alumna and bee expert Rebecca Tonietto ’05 is interviewed in the Huffington Post on the ways humans can help address colony collapse among bee populations. Tonietto is a postdoctoral David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow exploring urban bee communities, pollination and conservation through the Society for Conservation Biology at Saint Louis University.
The interview is fascinating. Did you know there are over 20,000 species of bees, more than all species of mammals, reptiles and amphibians combined. That may be a very good thing given the pressure on honeybee populations from herbicides and the loss of plant diversity to agricultural expansion. Enter wild pollinators and, yes, urban environments. Turns out the patchy habitat of urban settings–with a little help from human friends–can, from a bee’s perspective, look at lot like the norm in meadows and prairies. As cities shrink, more green space is added. Humans help with flower boxes, landscaping, by leaving a limb or log about and holding back on some of the mulch, and allowing those dandelions and clover to keep on dotting the lawns.
Cities are a respite from agricultural pesticides and plant monoculture, and natural pollinators need and love that. And bees benefit city dwellers in many ways beyond pollination of food and flowers. Bee habitat is beautiful, says Tonietto, making urban areas more aesthetically pleasing. “And there is a measurable psychological benefit from urban biodiversity,” she adds. “Just the bees being there is a benefit in and of itself.” Yes! Tonietto earned her B.A. at K in biology.
Jax Sanders’ installation work for the LIGO project (photo by Corey Gray, LIGO Hanford)
Jaclyn (Jax) Sanders ’09 is one member of a large team of scientists who today announced experimental confirmation of gravitational waves. Proof came by way of sound (sort of), making the LIGO scientific team a group of astronomers with an ear (rather than an eye) turned to space. Again, sort of. “We didn’t literally hear the waves,” explains Jax. “Sound is only an extended analogy–we observed shifts in the relative time of flight of two laser paths, which happened at frequencies between 50-350 Hz. If you translated those frequencies to sound, that would be about the range of a tuba.” Sight or sound (“We’re very sure that this signal is good,” says Jax), the observation work was for the purpose of detecting ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by the collision of two black holes a billion light-years away. The New York Times ran an in depth article on the magnitude of the discovery and its implications.
The waves (or ripples) were predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago when he developed his general theory relativity, which recast human perception of the universe from a Newtonian fixed and static framework to a more accurate model of flux deriving from a mathematically predictable dance of matter and energy and disturbances to both. If the general theory of relativity is indeed the key to the universe’s origin, shape and (perhaps) its eventual demise, then actual observation of gravitational waves would be one more empirical confirmation. They should exist, despite being invisible to the eye. And today, after decades of effort, it was announced that the waves have indeed been observed.
Jax’s personal involvement was as part of the commissioning team at LIGO Hanford (LIGO is the acronym for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory). “I focused on the alignment and control system for the interferometer arms–solving the problem of how you keep two mirrors two and a half miles away from each other very still and pointing directly at each other, all without being able to physically touch them.”
“We’ve been watching the press conference here in the physics department,” said Professor of Physics Tom Askew. “It all looks great, a big day for physics. It’s nice for K that Jax started her work on gravitational wave research as a Senior Individualized Project eight years ago.” Jax explains: “I did my SIP research at LIGO Hanford, where I worked on a prototype system for synchronizing the outputs of two lasers located far away from each other using fiber optics. Although this system wasn’t necessary for use in the arm control system I worked on as a graduate student, I learned many of the basic skills I use to this day–radio frequency electronics, laser experimental skills, and signal analysis.”
Jax Sanders (photo by Amy Manley, Syracuse University
Jax earned her B.A. at K in physics and studied abroad in Budapest, Hungary. In December she received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan, and she is currently working as a postdoc at Syracuse University. “Coming from a school like K gave me the opportunity to diversify my intellectual experience,” she says, “giving me a rich background to draw from when constructing public talks and scientific analogies, and giving me the freedom to learn about new and exciting fields through independent studies.” She appreciates her undergraduate professors as well. “Dr. Askew definitely encouraged me to continue working in experimental hardware, and I appreciate all the support I received as an undergraduate.”
Long ago Einstein wrote that the driving force of interrogations of nature at the edge of understanding was “the longing to behold a pre-existing harmony.” Nice to have a liberal arts educated K alumna working at that far boundary.”I’m thrilled to be a part of this discovery,” says Jax, “and can only hope to report back on more exciting research soon!”
Morowa Yejidé ’92 reads from her work at 7 p.m. Tue., Feb. 16 in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
The Kalamazoo College Department of English will host a reading and discussion with author Morowa Yejidé ’92 at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16 in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, 205 Monroe Street, on the K campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Yejidé’s novel “Time of the Locust” was a 2012 finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize. Her short stories have appeared in Adirondack Review, Istanbul Review, and other literary publications. Her short story “Tokyo Chocolate” was a 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee that was also anthologized by Britain’s “Best of the Willesden Herald Series” and praised by the Japan Times. Yejidé was also a 2015 NAACP Image Award nominee and is currently a PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools author.
Time of the Locust, her debut novel, is described as a deeply imaginative journey into the heart and mind of seven-year-old Sephiri, an autistic boy who can draw scientifically accurate renderings of prehistoric locusts but never speaks, makes eye contact, or smiles. The book explores the themes of a mother’s devotion, a father’s punishment, and the power of love.
Morowa Yejidé (pronounced: Moe-roe-wah Yay-gee-day) earned her B.A. degree from Kalamazoo College in international area studies and her M.F.A. degree in creative writing from Wilkes University, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She is a research faculty member at Georgia Institute of Technology and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and three sons.
During her visit to K, Morowa will also meet with students in the African American Literature class taught by Professor of English Bruce Mills, Ph.D., and the Intermediate Fiction Workshop taught by Professor of English Andy Mozina, Ph.D.
Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan, a one-hour documentary film written, executive produced, and directed by Kalamazoo College alumnus John Davies ’75, will have its world premiere Tuesday February 16, at 7:00 p.m., in Dalton Theatre, Light Fine Arts Building (1140 Academy St.), on the K campus.
The film is free and open to the public through a partnership between Kalamazoo College, the Kalamazoo Film Society (www.kalfilmsociety.net), and the Air Zoo (www.airzoo.org) in Kalamazoo.
Heroes on Deck tells the story of a little known chapter of United States involvement in World War II that took place on Lake Michigan, not far from Kalamazoo. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy was desperate for pilots who could take off from aircraft carriers, strike the enemy, navigate their way back to the ship, and land safely – no easy task in the vast Pacific. With only seven carriers left in the entire U.S. fleet, none could be spared for training. In order to train thousands of young aviators, two old passenger ships were stripped of their upper decks and converted to “flattops,” Navy slang for aircraft carriers.
Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan has it’s world premiere Tuesday Feb. 16, 7pm in Dalton Theatre, Light Fine Arts Building, on the K campus.
Filmmaker John Davies ’75 will meet with K students and show his new film, Heroes on Deck, before taking the film to premieres in London, Washington, New York and other cities.
Between 1942 and the end of the war more than 15,000 pilots, including 41st President of the United States George H.W. Bush, practiced landings and takeoffs on the pitching decks of these “freshwater carriers” as they steamed up and down Lake Michigan. Eight successful takeoffs and landings, usually completed in a single day, were enough to guarantee a young pilot a trip to the Pacific.
Crashes, navigational errors, and “water landings” often led to serious injuries and occasionally death. As a result, more than 100 classic WWII fighters and dive-bombers sank to the bottom of the lake. For more than 30 years, with the U.S. Navy’s blessing, a team of skilled professionals has been identifying and recovering these forgotten warbirds, using deep-water divers, side-scan sonar, and Remote Operating Vehicles. More than 40 aircraft have been brought to the surface and a few have been restored to flying condition. Most are on display in museums and airports under the supervision of the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.
One of these airplanes – a Grumman Wildcat – has been fully restored and is on display at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, while another is currently undergoing restoration there. Artifacts from these planes will be on display at the February 16 film premiere at K. Filmmaker John Davies and Air Zoo restoration experts will be present to answer questions.
Narrated by legendary newsman Bill Kurtis, Heroes on Deck uses interviews with surviving pilots and crew members, declassified film and stills, underwater recovery footage, and computer generated recreations that bring to life this vital chapter of American history.
The Kalamazoo College premiere is the first of 10 special viewings that are planned before Memorial Day weekend in May when Heroes on Deck will premiere nationally on Public Television. After K, Davies takes the film to premieres in London (The Royal Aeronautical Society); Cardiff, Wales; Pensacola, Fla. (National Naval Aviation Museum); Chicago, Ill. (Navy Pier); Washington, D.C. (Navy Memorial); Palm Springs, Calif.; and New York City.
John Davies is an Emmy Award-winning Producer/Director who spent the first decade of his career at WTTW-PBS Chicago helping to create documentaries and national series (including Sneak Previews with renowned film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert). Moving to Los Angeles in the 1990s, John created series and specials for networks and cable channels including NBC, ABC, FOX, AMC, TRU-TV, VH-1, BRAVO, and Comedy Central. He’s also produced episodes of Biography for A&E, Intimate Portrait for LIFETIME and documentary specials for Showtime, COURT TV, and ESPN. His reality series, Run’s House, was an MTV hit and his feature length documentary, Phunny Business, (about Chicago’s first black owned comedy club) was hailed as “one of the best documentaries of 2012” by film critic Roger Ebert. John’s recent documentary, The 25,000 Mile Love Story, has won film festivals around the world and premiered on Public Television in fall 2015. He is currently developing Carson the Magnificent, a mini-series about the life of Johnny Carson.
Heroes on Deck tells a little known story of heroism performed on Lake Michigan off the coast of Chicago during World War II.
This is the third time Davies has returned to campus in recent years to show one of his films and meet with K students and faculty in documentary film, media arts, and theater arts classes.
Hornet volleyball alumna Bridgett Blough’s Tom Pesto Melt, with the Organic Gypsy truck in the background
Bees and their honey have nothing over this Hornet and her spud.
Bridgett Blough ’08 grew up in a farming community in rural Coloma Township in Michigan eating potatoes with most every meal. Good locally-grown food was a staple on her mama’s table.
On January 12, Blough took her love of potatoes to the Spud Nation Throwdown at the Potato Expo 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she won the prize for the best potato recipe by a food truck chef. Blough is the owner of The Organic Gypsy, a food truck and catering business in Kalamazoo and Portage. She also teaches yoga at K.
When Blough began her education at Kalamazoo College, she was drawn to a first-year seminar taught by Amelia Katanski, associate professor of English. The seminar was called “Commitments,” and it was there that she says she learned about the commitment farmers make to their land and to the people who eat their produce.
“That first-year seminar tied it all together for me,” Blough says.
In the Spud Nation Throwdown, Blough prepared her entry on stage with two other finalists—Heather Banter, chef at Circle City Spuds in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Daniel McCarthy, chef at Tato Heads in Columbus, Ohio. Each contestant prepared his or her most creative and flavorful potato recipe. For Blough, that was her Green Tahini Potato Soup. She used Southwest Michigan-grown organic potatoes, onions, and garlic.
“This is about our local food system and how people like me are working with farmers to create healthy food, improving the local economy with each meal and working toward eliminating food waste,” Blough says.
Blough first prepared her special soup recipe for members of her SOUPer Club last fall. The SOUPer Club is a CSA (community supported agriculture) offered through The Organic Gypsy to a membership that includes faculty and staff at Kalamazoo College. Members receive a quart of homemade organic soup each week for six weeks for $65.
This week Sara Stack ’15 will break from her study of insects (she is working on a master’s degree in entomology at Purdue University) to travel to San Francisco and present a classics paper at the 2016 annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA). From insects to classics!? Therein hangs a liberal arts tale, vintage Kalamazoo College.
Stack’s paper–“Princess, Prisoner, Queen: Searching for Identity and Agency in the Life of Kleopatra Selene”–is one of only four undergraduate research projects selected for presentation at the AIA meeting.
Selection was nation wide and very competitive,” said Senior Instructor in Classics Anne Haeckl. Stack wrote the paper for Professor Haeckl’s Junior Classics Seminar, which provided, said Stack, “an amazing opportunity to explore Selene’s life through the lens of intersectional feminism.”
Kleopatra Selene is one of history’s forgotten women, mentioned only marginally (if at all) in the history- and world-changing story of her famous parents, the Roman general Mark Antony and the last queen of Egypt, Kleopatra VII. Theirs was a story that crowded the stage of the entire Mediterranean world of their time, a story that has inspired countless historical and literary interpretations from Plutarch to Shakespeare to a recent bestseller biography by Stacy Schiff.
“I’ve always been very interested in history, particularly dynamic historical women,” said Stack, who majored in biology and religion. “Kleopatra VII has been a particular favorite of mine since childhood; my favorite book is a 1000-page novel called The Memoirs of Cleopatra. Because I’m so familiar with her mother, I’ve been aware of Selene for a long time, but I started to wonder about her as a historical figure in her own right.
“The most interesting part of my research was how strongly Selene’s political agenda and identity were influenced by the events of her childhood.”
After her parents’ defeat by Octavian (later the Roman emperor Augustus), Selene became Augustus’ prisoner and political pawn. He marched the 10-year-old girl in his Egyptian triumph through the streets of Rome as a symbol of her fallen dynasty and conquered nation. He gave her to his sister to raise and later arranged her marriage to Juba, king of Mauretania (today’s Algeria). “As the queen of Mauretania she very clearly identified herself as a Ptolemy (her mother’s royal house) and a Hellenized Egyptian queen,” said Stack. “She commissioned coins in her own right, not just in conjunction with her husband, and portrayed herself with the imagery and titles of her mother, Kleopatra VII. To me this indicates that she never forgot her heritage or her family, and used her power to maintain their legacy.”
Haeckl had equal praise for Stack’s research paper and for the liberal arts ethos from which it took wing. “At K we value the breadth and depth of academic course work and the Senior Individualized Project. It’s hard to find a more dynamic example of that than Sara, with her curiosity and hard work in biology, religion and classics.”
Stack’s biology SIP studied the effect of the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that kills ash trees, on the biodiversity of a family of beetles known as Carabidae. “I really enjoyed my SIP research, and it was ultimately what made me fall in love with entomology and got me into graduate school,” said Stack.
She obviously also enjoyed her classical research. “She unified and analyzed through a feminist lens the scattered corpus of ancient material culture and texts relating to Selene,” praised Haeckl, work that yielded a new and original understanding of Selene’s “increasingly empowered agency and self-identification as a North African queen.”
Haeckl also presented research at the AIA annual meeting. Her work posits a specific identity (the Emperor Caracella) of a painted limestone statuette depicting a falcon-headed human figure in the armor of a Roman imperator. Haeckl’s paper, “Caracalla as Birdman? Proposing an Imperial Identity for the British Museum’s ’Horus in Roman Military Costume,” explicates the iconography of the statue (Horus was the Egyptian falcon-god) in terms of both the public image Caracalla cultivated (as an ordinary Roman soldier and latter day Alexander the Great) and a specific visit Caracalla made to Alexandria in 215.
Theresa Tejada ’10 won the episode of the television show JEOPARDY! that aired on Tuesday, December 22. Her one-day winnings totaled $21,599. She defended her champion status, albeit unsuccessfully, the following day. Two episodes of Jeopardy seems a fitting tribute to a liberal arts education. On her championship day Theresa’s major in classics came in handy for the Final Jeopardy category: “The Ancient World.” The Final Jeopardy answer: “Dedicated to a female, it’s among the few of the seven ancient wonders whose ruins you can visit.” Theresa got the question: “What is the Temple of Artemis?” She even provided the location, Ephesus, the ancient Greek city that is today a part of Turkey. Perhaps Theresa’s study abroad in Athens came into play with that extra information. Theresa’s liberal arts breadth was on display and indispensable. In Double Jeopardy Theresa found the second Daily Double on the board in the category “Arts and Culture” under the $1,600 clue. At the time, she led the returning champion by $1,800. She bet $2,000 and won! The answer: “Because it has six units called iambs, the poetic line ’Thou art unseen but yet I hear thy shrill delight’ is in iambic this.” Theresa’s correct question: “What is hexameter?” Perhaps she had a literature class at K. Among other categories rewarding a liberal arts background on the day she won: Geographic Features, 8-Letter Words, Double Up On Your Countries, Oscar Nominations, and Christmas Songs and Singers.
Turns out Associate Professor of Classics Elizabeth Manwell managed to watch both shows. “Two really wonderful moments for me,” wrote Elizabeth. “Theresa won the game her first night on the show, in part by answering a final jeopardy question about the seven wonders of the ancient world—a topic she worked on for her Senior Individualized Project in the classics department. The other occurred the second night—-Theresa spoke of an influential Latin teacher, Steve Rosenquist, who taught her at Cranbrook, and who also taught for us for a couple of years. He died recently—-and hers was such a lovely tribute to him. She’s a super young woman!”
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has chosen Harvey Hollins III ’87 to coordinate the state’s response to the Flint water crisis. Hollins directs the Office of Urban and Metropolitan Initiatives, which was formed in 2012.
The problem with the city of Flint’s water supply began when the city switched water sources to the Flint River in April 2014. The city was under state emergency management when that switch was made. After the switch complaints soon arose about the smell and taste of the water. The city and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality initially insisted the water was safe, but by September 2014, doctors had already detected a spike in the amount of lead seen in blood samples drawn from Flint children. Tests showed that water leaving Flint’s treatment plant was lead-free but picking up lead from aging pipes in the system. The city’s previous water supplier had corrected that problem by adding corrosion control chemicals, but the City of Flint wasn’t adding them.
The appointment of Hollins resulted from a task force recommendation that a single person lead the follow-up to the water crisis. Follow-up responses will come from several state departments, and Hollins will coordinate those and keep the task force up to date on progress. Responses include additional water and blood tests, expedited improvements to the city’s water system, increased education about lead and transparent reporting on goals, timelines and assignments. At K Hollins earned his bachelor’s degree in health sciences. He played basketball and football and in his senior year earned the Catherine A. Smith Award for Human Rights. He earned his master’s degree at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He spent several years working as a fiscal analysts for the Michigan House of Representatives and then eight years as the Michigan government affairs representative for the AARP. In 2004 he was appointed vice president for government and community affairs at Wayne State University. He served in that post until Snyder tapped him to serve as director of urban initiatives.
