awards

“K” Rates High for Study Abroad

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Kalamazoo College has again been recognized as a leader in study abroad programs for U.S. college students. According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), Kalamazoo ranks #12 among U.S. colleges that offer baccalaureate degrees in terms of the percentage of its graduates that studied abroad. IIE reports that 83.2 percent (238 out of 311) Kalamazoo graduates in 2010 had studied abroad during their “K” experience. Last year’s IIE report ranked Kalamazoo #16.

“Kalamazoo College is a pioneer in providing quality education abroad programs for students,” said Associate Provost for International Programs Joe Brockington. “We’ve been doing it for more than 50 years and continue to be a model for other colleges and universities.”

Kalamazoo operates 48 programs in 24 countries on six continents. During the past four years, an average of 51 percent of “K” students traveled to Europe, 22 percent to Austral-Asia, 16 percent to Latin America and the Caribbean, and 11 percent to Africa and the Middle East. Popular programs are in China, Ecuador, Scotland, and Thailand.

Kalamazoo’s program is distinctive, said Brockington, “because it’s integral (i.e. part of the ‘K’ curriculum), intentional (i.e. supported by learning outcomes that are assessed regularly), and integrative (i.e. striving to connect our students with local communities abroad).”

He said Kalamazoo stands out even from other institutions because “K” students engage in long-term study abroad programs that last from one quarter to a full academic year. Many schools that send a high percentage of students abroad (including schools on the IIE list) only do so for three to four weeks in the summer.

Kalamazoo students in all majors participate on study abroad, including a majority of student athletes even if it means they miss all or part of a competitive season. Many “K” students continue their major course of study while abroad, including science and math majors.

Most students take advantage of the Fall-Winter program and reside with host families. An Integrative Cultural Research Project, or ICRP, is a required component of selected programs. Bearing an academic credit, ICRP projects place great emphasis on participation, informed by observation and more traditional research activities.

“Study abroad remains a signature element of the K-Plan, said Brockington. “And it will for years to come.”

Read more about Kalamazoo College’s study abroad program, including blogs by “K” students currently studying abroad, at www.kzoo.edu/international.

IIE is the leading not-for-profit educational and cultural exchange organization in the United States. Its annual census is based on a survey of approximately 3,000 accredited U.S. institutions and draws support from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Calvin College (28) and Alma College (35) are the only other baccalaureate institutions in Michigan included on the 2011 IIE report.

Happy Birthday, K!

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Zaide Pixley and Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran
Zaide Pixley, Dean of the First Year and Advising at Kalamazoo College, receives the Lux Esto Award of Excellence. College President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran presented the award. Photo Credit: Anthony Dugal.

By Elaine Ezekiel ’13

“Founders Day 2012” was the theme of the Week 4 (April 20) Community Reflection in Stetson Chapel. Sponsored by the Founders Day Committee, the event celebrated 179 years of community at Kalamazoo College by honoring members of its faculty and staff. After a welcome by Student Commission President Meredith L. Quinlan ’12, President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran gave a brief history of K’s early founders. Kate Fodor ’12 and Rachel Horness ’13 sang a beautiful interpretation of Leo Delibes’ Dome epais (Lakme), accompanied by Jack Brooks on piano.

Dean of Advising Zaide Pixley (pictured at right, with President Wilson-Oyelaran) read from her essay “Celebrating 179 Years of Community.”

“Kalamazoo College is a place where we can ask hard questions, questions that don’t have easy answers, questions that can’t be reduced to sound bites, slogans and attacks,” she said.

After reciting the names of K employees celebrating five, ten, 15, 20 and 25 years of service, Wilson-Oyelaran announced recipients of three key annual employee honors. Professor of English Bruce Mills received the Outstanding Advisor Award.  Gail Griffin, the Ann V. and Donald R. Parfet Distinguished Professor of English, received the Outstanding First-Year Advocate Award, and Zaide Pixley was awarded the Lux Esto Award of Excellence which honors an employee of 25 or more years of service for a superlative record of stewardship and innovation.

This year marked the first of an “Honorable Mention” category of the Lux Esto Award of Excellence. Honorable mention for their years of dedicated service to the College was made of nine of the eligible members of K’s Facilities Management and Custodial Staff (John Charlier, Kolden Heldart, Doug Hilton, James Modderman, James Ringler, Michael Sawyer, Jeff Sherman, Jerry Vincent, and Ken Wielinga).

Community Reflection offers a unique forum for discussion, worship, performance, and community expression each Friday at 10:50 AM (refreshments at 10:30) in Stetson Chapel. The entire campus community and general public are invited. The Week 5 (April 27) Reflection will be “Yom HaShoah—Remembering the Holocaust Through Varied Perspectives,” during which members of the Jewish Student Organization will reflect on the Holocaust and invite the community to consider how we can make the sacrifices of the past mean something for the future.

Tan Earns Lucasse Lectureship

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Kalamazoo College Psychology Professor Siu-Lan Tan holds her book in front of a blackboard
Photo Credit: Rachel Leider ’15

By Rachel Leider ’15

Siu-Lan Tan, associate professor of psychology, has earned Kalamazoo College’s highest annual honor for classroom teaching, the Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching.

The “Lucasse,” was established in 1979 in honor of Florence J. Lucasse, Class of 1910, in response to the major unrestricted endowment gift she bequeathed to the College in her will. In addition to the Lectureship, a Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship is also awarded. Andrew Mozina, associate professor of English, holds the current Lucasse Fellowship.

Tan was taken aback by her award: “I think the world of my colleagues and students, and knowing that they nominated and supported me for this was overwhelming. I immediately teared up, as I felt it deeply.”

President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran expressed her admiration for Tan as she presented the award during the fall quarter all-campus gathering in Dalton Theatre on Sept. 20. “Professor Tan often extends students’ experiences beyond the classroom, and these service-learning experiences transform their learning, making concepts that may have once seemed dissonant in class become consonant in practice.”

Born in Indonesia, Tan grew up in Hong Kong where she taught music. After moving to California, she earned a B.A. degree in music at Pacific Union College and taught music for several years. Later, she became interested in psychology and earned both Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in psychology at Georgetown University.

Teaching at Kalamazoo College since 1998, Tan offers courses in developmental psychology, creativity, and the psychology of music. In 2010, she co-authored the textbook The Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance.

Per Lucasse tradition, Tan will speak to students, faculty, staff, and quests about her work at a spring 2012 lecture.

Congratulations, Dr. Tan!

Two Earn Luce Scholarships

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Luce Scholarship winners Lauren Wierenga and Erica DominicClass of 2013 members Lauren Wierenga (left) and Erica Dominic have been selected to receive prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Scholarships for Women in Science and Engineering. The scholarships will cover tuition for each quarter they are enrolled on campus during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.

Erica Dominic, from Farmington Hills, Mich., is pursuing a double major in mathematics and English. She is a teaching assistant for a calculus class and works at the College’s Math and Physics Academic Resource Center as a math peer consultant. Through the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, she tutors elementary and middle school students in math. During summer 2010, Erica participated in a math Research Experience for Undergraduates at Michigan State University. During the upcoming fall and winter terms, she’ll study at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland.

Lauren Wierenga, from Grand Rapids, is pursuing a biology major and math minor with a concentration in biophysics. She is co-leader of Kalamazoo’s student organization Sisters in Science, and is a member of the Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team. During summer 2010, she interned at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md. This summer, she will intern for nine weeks in the Princeton University molecular biology department. In the fall, she will attend Kalamazoo’s Budapest Semester in Cognitive Science at Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary. Eötvös is Hungary’s premier science and liberal arts university.

The Clare Boothe Luce (CBL) program is funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Since its first grants in 1989, CBL has become the single most significant source of private support for women in science, mathematics and engineering. Thus far, the program has supported more than 1,500 women.

Clare Boothe Luce was a playwright, journalist, U.S. Ambassador to Italy, and the first woman elected to Congress from Connecticut. In her bequest establishing this program, she sought “to encourage women to enter, study, graduate, and teach” in science, mathematics and engineering.

Kalamazoo College was invited to apply by the Henry Luce Foundation, and was selected to receive the scholarships based on evidence of its strength in science and engineering, and of its commitment to Mrs. Luce’s vision of increasing the representation of women in these areas. Three Kalamazoo students received CBL scholarships in 2002, and three more in 2003. Additionally, Associate Professor of Mathematics Michele Intermont received a Clare Boothe Luce scholarship during her graduate school days at University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, Ind.

Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss Receives Accolades for Outstanding Poetry

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Kalamazoo College’s Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss ’78 continues to receive accolades for her outstanding work in the world of poetry. A sample of a few recent honors follow–honors that help put Kalamazoo College, on Di’s coattails, on the literary map!

First, she will be teaching the “Advanced Seminar,” with poets Patrick Donnelly and Reginald Dwayne Betts, at the Frost Place this summer, located at Robert Frost’s homestead in Franconia, New Hampshire. In the fall, she has been invited to be the McLean Distinguished Visiting Writer at Colorado College.  That position has been held by many distinguished writers, including Ghanaian poet and cultural activist Kofi Anyidoho, feminist film theorist Tania Modelski, Canadian novelist Nino Ricci, and Irish poet Eamon Grennan.

At Colorado College, Di will be teaching the Advanced Seminar in Poetry. In addition, Di was named the winner of the Summer Literary Seminars contest in poetry because of three of her poems, which will appear in Black Warrior Review later in the year.  The contest winner also receives airfare, tuition, and housing for one of the Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania or Kenya.  Di will go to Kenya. And, most recently, Di learned that her poem “Either everything is sexual, or nothing is. Take this flock of poppies,” has been selected for reprint in Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses. The Pushcart Prize honors the best poetry, short fiction, and short nonfiction published in literary magazines in the previous year.

Congratulations, Di!

Student and Mentor Receive Pierce Cedar Creek Institute for Environmental Education’s Nature in Words Fellowship

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Kate Belew ’15 and Di Seuss, English, have received the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute for Environmental Education’s Nature in Words Fellowship for the summer of 2012.

Following Fellowship guidelines, students apply with a mentor from one of the consortium institutions.  Kate proposed that she will write a collection of poems inspired by Professor Emeritus of English Conrad Hilberry’s object poems in his chapbook The Fingernail of Luck. (Hilberry was a formative influence on the poetic career of Seuss, whom he first encountered as a high schooler in Niles, Michigan, and who graduated from “K” in 1978.)  In Kate’s poems, she will observe objects in the natural world, do research on their origins and characteristics, and then write in their voices, finding the intersection between the natural world and her own emotional and spiritual evolution.

She will be provided with housing at the Institute and will be given a stipend to support her work.  Di will meet with Kate throughout the summer to mentor her through the experience, and Di also have the opportunity to work on my own writing project at Pierce Cedar Creek. Said Di, “Many students from the region apply for this fellowship.  It is a significant achievement that Kate has been selected.”

“K” Student and Alumni Earn Alpha Lamda Delta Honor Society Fellowships

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Two Kalamazoo College alumni and one current student have combined to earn three of the 23 national fellowships awarded this year by Alpha Lambda Delta honor society for outstanding students who are working towards a graduate or professional degree.

Emma Perry ’08, pursing a graduate degree in English at Boston University, received a $5,000 award. Amel Omari ’09, in the master’s of public health program at the University of Michigan, received a $3,000 award. Matthew DuWaldt ’12 earned a $3,000 award and will attend law school at a yet to be determined institution in the fall. Founded in 1924, Alpha Lambda Delta recognizes students who have succeeded in maintaining a 3.5 or higher GPA and are in the top 20 percent of their class.

Professor Baker Named to Athletic Hall of Fame

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Ed Baker, former Kalamazoo College football coach and physical education professor, has been named to the Athletic Hall of Fame at Haverford High School in Havertown, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia.

He was athletic director at Haverford from 1959 to 1967 and head football coach from 1958 to 1966. He won three league titles as football coach, leading the 1961 and 1965 teams to undefeated Inter-Ac Championship seasons and an 18-game win streak from 1964 to 1966.

Ed was named Philadelphia Coach of the Year in 1961. During his coaching tenure, 21 players made First Team All Inter-Ac; four achieved All-City status. He is credited with starting the lacrosse program at Haverford School, and coached the team to an overall record of 39-21-1. During his tenure as athletic director, the “Fords” had 28 Inter-Ac championship teams.

Coach Baker was appointed head football coach and head track coach at Kalamazoo College in 1967. In his final football game in 1989, he led the Hornets to its first victory over Hope College in 20 years!

Coach Acker Named to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame

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George Acker, longtime Kalamazoo College coach and physical education professor who died in July 2011, has been named to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. Coach Acker served at K for 35 years (1958-93), coaching men’s tennis teams to seven NCAA Division III championships while winning 35 consecutive MIAA championships. His tennis teams were 537-231 overall and an incredible 209-1 in the MIAA conference. He was inducted into the Kalamazoo College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998.

Teju Cole Wins 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

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Teju Cole
Author Teju Cole. Photo Credit: AP

Obayemi Onafuwa ’96, who writes under the pen name Teju Cole, has won the 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction for Open City. Cole will receive a $10,000 prize from the Hemingway Foundation and PEN New England, as well as a residency in The Distinguished Visiting Writers Series at the University of Idaho’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.

The Hemingway award was founded in 1976 by Mary Hemingway, widow of Nobel Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway. Patrick Hemingway, the writer’s son, will present the prestigious literary award to Cole on April 1 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Past recipients of the award include Edward P. Jones, who received an honorary degree from Kalamazoo College in 2011.

Cole is a writer, art historian, and street photographer. Born in the United States to Nigerian parents, he was raised in Nigeria and currently lives in Brooklyn. He received his B.A. in studio art and art history from Kalamazoo College; his M.A. in African art history from the University of London; and his M.Phil. in 16th-century northern European visual culture from Columbia University, where he is working on his Ph.D.