English

Math Meets Poetry to Form Distinctive Senior Project

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A liberal arts education from Kalamazoo College gives students a chance to expand their academic interests with great opportunities to turn hobbies into academic involvement. A great instance of that practice is Lizzy Rottenberk ’24, who is double majoring in mathematics and English with a focus on poetry.

In high school, Rottenberk was sure that mathematics was her main academic focus, while she considered poetry to be her hobby. That changed after she took classes through the English department at the end of her first year at K.

“Personally, writing poems has always represented a good way to self-reflect,” Rottenberk said. “It’s a passion that allows me to see how I am feeling and learn more about myself.”

In fact, for her Senior Integrated Project (SIP), she is merging her two passions of math and poetry. Together, they form “Academic Tangents,” where Rottenberk integrates calculus theorems with poetry structures and contexts. The project consists of reflective poems related to academic struggles with five different math concepts represented: functions, limits, derivatives, sequences and series, and anti-derivatives.

All those collections of poems start with a definition of the theorems, followed by a free-verse poem that redefines the theorem in a poetic way. Finally, Rottenberk incorporates poems representing the theorem in the structure and context. The following is an excerpt from a poem titled Connected and Continuous in her SIP:

Editor’s note: This story was written by Blagoja Naskovski ’24. He serves as a social media ambassador for the College Marketing and Communications team. 

Lizzy Rottenberk Abroad
Lizzy Rottenberk ’24 is merging her two passions of math and poetry.

“Connected and Continuous” by Elizabeth Rottenberk

6:00 am
eyes widen
brain begins animation
embarking towards the serene kitchen
breakfast smells of sweet warmth and motivation
pecan almond syrup comforting slightly chewy waffles
leading to a freshly organized backpack filled with unlearned trig
to be explored when the sun peaks above tree lines through a wired window
the window that holds foreheads until listening and comprehension become equal
wielding a pencil like the sword of King Arthur as he is who you traveled to learn about
through the roughest of puddles, more ferocious of red lights but nevertheless, you arrived
to hear the educators chant the literary devices and warn us about math’s greatest complexities
and experience numerous “ah ha’s” that fuel flights into deeper TOK and AOK conversations
until exit from the essential castle known as the education system has been granted
headed home your mind becomes lured into a rooted nap as it shifts to autopilot
the time for learning discontinues as the sun hides behind the tree line
walking under the threshold to the kitchen where delicious
satisfying-smelling food needs your dining
fuel in the vessel that travels distances
to calculate and conquer problems
and write essays in MLA
eyes closed
6:00 am

Rottenberk is active not only in academics, but also in many on-campus and off-campus initiatives. She currently works as a consultant at the Math and Physics Center, where she provides academic peer support to K students for advanced math classes. Moreover, she is the captain for the softball team and president of the Hacky Sack student organization. She is also a First-Year Experience mentor, which allows her to guide students while they adapt to new academic environments.

Off-campus, Rottenberk is part of Sustainable Living Guide, an organization that provides educational support and resources for healthy and sustainable living. Her commitment to this organization includes organizing virtual classes for sustainability, writing for social media and a website, and conducting research on climate action, zero-waste lifestyle and other topics.

“Being proactive makes me feel better and more productive,” Rottenberk said. “While participating in many on-campus initiatives, I feel that that I am not only contributing to my personal and professional growth, but also to my community.”

Rottenberk said K’s liberal arts education has empowered her to push her boundaries while allowing her to apply creative thinking in her academics. Two of her most influential classes at K have been ENG210: Intermediate Poetry Workshop, where she expanded her knowledge of how to write poems, and MATH320: Real Analysis.

“I would encourage students to be independent with established critical thought,” she said. “More importantly, I strongly suggest students utilize every opportunity that K classes offer when it comes to critical thinking.”

Math and poetry expert Elizabeth Rottenberk in a Kalamazoo College softball uniform
Lizzy Rottenberk ’24 is a captain for K’s softball team.

‘Tandem’ Tussles with Hit-and-Run Cover-Up

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Kalamazoo College Professor of English Andy Mozina just couldn’t turn his attention away from a tragedy he first heard about seven years ago involving a drunken driving accident and the irreparable harm it caused a community through the loss of life.

 “It was this nexus of awfulness,” Mozina said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what that would be like for the relatives of the victims, and also for the perpetrator.”

Although the inescapable images were dreadful, they also seeded the plot that grew into Mozina’s latest work of fiction, Tandem, a novel due out this fall. It centers on Mike Kovacs, an economics professor from Kalamazoo living in the West Main Hill neighborhood, who kills two college-age tandem bicyclists in an inebriated hit-and-run at the parking lot of Saugatuck Dunes State Park.

The lead character goes to great lengths to cover up his crime while attempting to get over a bitter divorce and seeking a relationship with his estranged only child, a son at the University of Michigan.

“My mind thinks that he has given up the right to claim that he’s a good person, and he’s an economist, so he thinks in terms of debt and repayment,” Mozina said of the character. “He knows he’s in debt to humanity and that drives everything he does. He feels very guilty. Wherever he goes, whether he has any redeeming qualities, I want readers to think of him as a real person who did these things and is having these experiences. I want them to travel along with him and just imaginatively enter into the situation.”

During his internal struggles, Mike befriends a neighbor, Claire Boland, who is the mother of one of his victims. With her marriage suffering, Claire is racked with guilt over what she might have done differently as a parent to prevent her daughter’s death, while Mike deals with the shame he feels from committing his atrocity.

“I hope readers have a lot of sympathy for Claire,” Mozina said. “I wanted her to have good qualities without being a blameless victim. I think of her as a sympathetic and earnest person whose flaws are tied to how she wants to live right and learn everything she can from TED Talks, the New York Times and NPR, and apply it to her life.”

The driving force behind the book is that strange, troubled relationship between Mike and Claire, with the perpetrator hiding and thinking about surrendering. Mozina said he doesn’t expect everyone to read or appreciate Tandem given its subject matter and the moments of humor within it. However, early feedback from fellow authors has provided positive reviews.

“A glimmering masterpiece about the slippery nature of truth and redemption, Tandem is at once riveting and contemplative, moving and hilarious, devastating and tender,” said Erica Ferencik, the bestselling author of Girl in Ice, Into the Jungle and The River at Night. “It does what the best novels do: forever change how we see the world.”

Tandem, published by Tortoise Books, will be available beginning with a free launch party at 6:30 p.m. October 24 at This is a Bookstore and Bookbug, 3019 Oakland Drive in Kalamazoo. Attendees are encouraged to RSVP through the store’s Facebook event. Signed copies of Tandem may be reserved for $21. A second book-release event will be at 27th Letter Books in Detroit on October 25. Find more information at the store’s website.

About the Author of ‘Tandem’

Mozina studied economics at Northwestern University and attended Harvard Law School for a year before earning a master’s degree in creative writing from Boston University. He then completed a doctorate in English literature at Washington University in St. Louis, moving to Kalamazoo to teach literature and creative writing at K after graduation. His classes at K include an introductory course in creative writing, a first-year seminar titled Co-Authoring Your Life, and intermediate and advanced courses in fiction.

Professor of English Andy Mozina
Kalamazoo College Professor of English Andy Mozina has authored a new book titled “Tandem.”
Tandem Book Cover
“Tandem” centers on Mike Kovacs, an economics professor, who kills two bicyclists in an inebriated hit-and-run.

The author’s first novel, Contrary Motion, about a concert harpist taking a symphony audition, was published in 2016. He is also the author of a book of literary criticism titled Joseph Conrad and the Art of Sacrifice along with two short-story collections, The Women Were Leaving the Men, which won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award; and Quality Snacks, which was a finalist for The Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, including Tin House, Ecotone, Fence, The Southern Review, and The Missouri Review, and has received special citations in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and New Stories from the Midwest.

“I think fiction allows you to pick the struggles that show up diffusely throughout your life and be true to those problems,” Mozina said. “You can also heighten them in a way that creates interest for the reader by inventing and shaping a lot. It brings out meaning to complicate things and shine a light on them. There’s a certain soul work to reading and writing that I don’t find elsewhere, so I do it through fiction.”

Fulbright Enables Professor to Spend Year in Australia

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Professor of English Amelia Katanski ’92 has earned a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award that will send her to Australia during the 2023–24 academic year.

Katanski will be working with faculty at the University of Wollongong to develop curriculum that will better prepare K students for study abroad there. She previously undertook similar work after a visit to another K study abroad site—Curtin University, in Perth, Australia—and created a sophomore seminar titled World Indigenous Literatures to help students be more aware of Indigenous issues while on study abroad. This time the goal is to develop a curriculum in partnership with the host university and centered on land-based learning that addresses what international students need to know before going to Wollongong, with an emphasis on how K students impact Wollongong’s Indigenous faculty, staff and students.

“Like most universities in Australia, Wollongong has a lot of international students from all over the world, not just the U.S., which is very important to their functioning,” Katanski said. “The university is trying to be conscious about what it means for them to welcome these students onto Indigenous land through a program that teaches curriculum reconciliation, which looks at how to keep Indigenous issues at the forefront of all university operations. The international program would like to focus on their own curriculum reconciliation process, so I would be going through it with them or learning from their experiences, depending on timing.”

Fulbright recipient and Professor of English Amelia Katanski in her office with books in the background
Professor of English Amelia Katanski ’92 has earned a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award that will send her to the University of Wollongong in Australia in the 2023–24 academic year.

Katanski will spend her fall term preparing for the Fulbright trip and working on another piece of a sabbatical project before heading to Australia in January. She is one of about 800 U.S. citizens who will teach, conduct research or provide expertise abroad through Fulbright. Those citizens are selected based on their academic and professional achievement, as well as their record of service and demonstrated leadership. The awards are funded through the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s international education-exchange program designed to build connections between U.S. citizens and people from other countries. The program is funded through an annual Congressional appropriation made to the Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations around the world also support the program, which operates in more than 160 countries.

“We don’t get a lot of opportunities to be somewhere long enough that we get to know the people and their land while developing relationships with them,” Katanski said. “I’m really grateful for the chance to be in a place that is far from home with a distinctive landscape, while being supported in my learning.”

Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has given more than 390,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and professionals in a variety of backgrounds and fields opportunities to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute solutions to international problems.

Thousands of Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 61 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 89 who have received Pulitzer Prizes and 76 MacArthur Fellows. For more information about the Fulbright program, visit its website.

“There’s so much for me to learn and I’m grateful for this opportunity because I can sit at my computer and do some research or read literary, cultural or historical texts, but the important piece for me is helping our students who are learning from and on Indigenous land right now,” Katanski said. “This is also an opportunity to work in partnership with and learn from the University of Wollongong, which has clearly articulated institutional goals about reconciliation, and how Indigenous people and issues are centered within its work.”

Class Inspires Day of Fewer Cars with A Better Way to K

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Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff will take a step toward carbon neutrality while promoting healthier lifestyles and showing that sustainability matters to the campus community on Tuesday, May 16. The first A Better Way to K Day, planned through the Climate Action Plan Committee (CAP) and the Larry J. Bell ’80 Center for Environmental Stewardship, will invite anyone with business on campus to do anything other than drive on their own to K.

The idea for this event was initially brainstormed in the winter term as a “car-free day” in Professor of English Amelia Katanski’s Wheels of Change first-year seminar with input from City Planner and K alumna Christina Anderson ’98. The course explored how communities can build cycling infrastructure to better support residents.  

Carpooling, taking public transportation, walking, biking or running to get to the College all are encouraged for May 16, and participants who share social media posts with the hashtag #ABetterWaytoK will help spread awareness. Those with obstacles to these modes may still participate by spreading awareness of the day, reducing the number of car trips in a day or thinking critically about systems and what might need to change in our own lives, within K or within the community to make traveling without a car more accessible to everyone.  

“At the heart of the Kalamazoo College community is a commitment to sustainability, and our climate action plan is a commitment to achieving carbon neutrality,” Associate Vice President of Facilities Management and Chief Sustainability Officer Susan Lindemann said. “Finding alternative transportation to campus for A Better Way to K will impact both, while showing that a sustainable lifestyle is not only possible but valued and encouraged in our community.”  

climate
Professor of English Amelia Katanski’s Wheels of Change first-year seminar traveled for a week to Copenhagen, Denmark, to see how the city, one of the world’s best for cycling infrastructure, can provide examples from which Kalamazoo can learn. That class, along with City Planner Christina Anderson ’98, initiated the idea for a climate-targeted “car-free day” on campus. That idea became A Better Way to K Day, scheduled for Tuesday, May 16.

Commuters who want to learn how to use public transportation may contact Associate Bookstore Director Richard Amundson at Richard.Amundson@kzoo.edu for information on routes and tokens. Anyone looking to organize group walks or runs to campus may contact Director of News and Social Media Andy Brown at Andrew.Brown@kzoo.edu. Plus, students who live on campus may participate in A Better Way to K by spreading awareness and finding alternate ways to their off-campus jobs and sites around town. 

Sophomore Emerson Wesselhoff is spearheading student participation through CAP. 

“Initially, I was excited, but a bit confused by the idea of A Better Way to K,” Wesselhoff said. “I already live on campus and I don’t have a car. But I am going to participate by spreading awareness about the day and the reasons why it is so important. I will continue to walk to classes and make efforts to walk or bike to my off-campus job, the climbing gym and my other favorite Kalamazoo spots.” 

Based on recent car-count data from K’s Center for Environmental Stewardship, more than 500 cars are on campus every day. By decreasing that number even slightly, the K community can drastically decrease the carbon emitted from its passenger vehicles each year.  

One day, however, will only be the start of such community efforts that aid sustainability at K. CAP is asking those who participate in A Better Way to K Day—and those who don’t—to submit their reflections of the event along with what might have helped them or prevented them from participating to enable more efforts in the future. The short survey is available at the Sustainability at K website under Share Your Experience.  

“K can help students and our community make a difference in many global issues from across the street or around the world,” Lindemann said. “A Better Way to K will be a way to show we’re taking steps toward improving our climate and environment for everyone—now and for the future.” 

Poetry Month, K Alumna Build Optimism, Faith in Virginia

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A Kalamazoo College alumna has undertaken a position noteworthy of recognition in April, which serves as National Poetry Month.

National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. It has since become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers and poets celebrating poetry. And now, Dani Badra ’08 is the poet laureate of Fairfax, Virginia, a role she relishes given that she provides her fellow Fairfax residents with a way to pursue optimism and faith in life through the written word.

“Poetry helps provide a deeper meaning to both difficult and beautiful and beautifully difficult things,” Badra said. With the difficulties, for example, “I think of the poem Amanda Gorman read at President Biden’s inaugural address that people across the nation remember. She was reading a poem days after the insurrection right where it happened. At that moment, her poem provided some meaning, some deeper thought that gave people hope, and helped us reinterpret where we are as a nation.”

Badra appreciates the way that the poet laureate position speaks to her creative side. Fairfax established its poet laureate position in 2020 through ArtsFairfax, a nonprofit organization designated as the county’s local arts agency. Since then, a chosen community member has served as a literary arts ambassador, promoting poetry in the county, region and state. She was selected for the role last October and will serve until 2024.

Supported through funding from the county, Badra has established a Poetry in the Parks program. In April, as a part of Arab American Heritage Month, she is conducting a poetry reading followed by a ghazal workshop to create an awareness for the lyric poems, which are common in Middle Eastern culture. She will conduct more poetry readings in June for Pride Month, in August for a Poetry Beneath the Stars workshop outdoors, and in November for a guided poetry workshop conducted by a naturalist at a local wetland area.

Additionally, Badra is creating “poetry plaques” that she hopes will be used as a long-term resource. Plaques placed in nature often have information about flora and fauna, but these will have a poem related to the region or the area’s environment.

“They will include a poem, a bio of the poet, some writing prompts for people to engage in and a QR code where county residents can submit their own writing inspired by that location,” Badra said. “We’re creating not only some environmental engagement, but some creative products as well.”

After graduating from K, Badra earned a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from George Mason University, where she was the poetry editor of So to Speak, a feminist literary and arts journal, and an intern for Split This Rock, a national network of socially engaged poets witnessing injustice and provoking social change.

Her poems have appeared in publications such as the Cincinnati Review, Guesthouse, Mizna and Beltway Poetry Quarterly among others. She also has led writing workshops at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Split This Rock Poetry Festival, OutWrite DC and in high schools. She has been a featured reader for Split This Rock’s Sunday Kind of Love series, a judge for Brave New Voices in DC, and a participant in Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, a festival commemorating the 2007 bombing of a historic book market in Baghdad, Iraq.

Badra’s first chapbook, Dialogue with the Dead (Finishing Line Press, 2015), was largely inspired by her older sister, Rachal, who graduated from K herself in 2005, before passing from an undiagnosed genetic heart condition in 2012.

Poetry Month: Fairax County officials greet poet laureate Dani Badra at an ArtsFairfax event
Fairfax County Executive Bryan Hill (left) and Chairman Jeffrey McKay congratulate Danielle Badra ’08 on being named Fairfax’s poet laureate. Photo by A.E. Landes Photography.
Poetry Month: Nicole Tong standing with Dani Badra
Nicole Tong (left), who was the first poet laureate for Fairfax, Virginia, congratulates Kalamazoo College alumna Dani Badra ’08 on succeeding her. Photo by A.E. Landes Photography.
Poetry Month: Dani Badra portrait
Fairfax Poet Laureate and Kalamazoo College alumna Dani Badra ’08. Photo by Holly Mason.

“When she died, I found a folder of poems that I didn’t know she’d been writing,” Badra said. “When I found them, I knew I wanted to publish them somehow. They weren’t really in a publishable format, so through them, I created a much-needed dialogue with her.”

Much like the chap book, Badra’s manuscript, Like We Still Speak (University of Arkansas Press, 2021), was inspired by her sister. It earned the 2021 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. It was also named a semi-finalist for the Khayrallah Prize and listed in Entropy’s Best of 2020-2021: Poetry Books and Poetry Collections list.

“Like We Still Speak improves upon the ideas and polyvocal poetic forms behind Dialogue with the Dead and expands on them to include more voices, like my wife, and my mom and dad,” Badra said. K Professor Emerita “Di Seuss is in there, too.” She credits Seuss as playing a pivotal role in her development as a poet and expressed gratitude for the years at K she spent under her tutelage.

Badra works full-time as a technical writer and management analyst for Fairfax County Land Development Services, and she appreciates the opportunities that come with serving as a poet laureate.

“The poet laureate position appealed to me because it allows me the opportunity to pursue my heart’s passion,” Badra said. “In a way, I can also bring that same passion to other people in my community. I enjoy engaging with people as well as with these outdoor spaces. At the end of the day, people will take away from the programming what they do. I hope that I just inspire a group of people, however many that is, to want to walk around in nature and write about it.”

Search for Better, Safer Cycling Leads Class to Local Partners, Denmark

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Students take a break from cycling to take a scenic group picture in Copenhagen
To top off the Wheels of Change class, Professor of English Amelia Katanski and her students traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark.
Students from the Wheels of Change seminar visit Copenhagen, Denmark.
Copenhagen is said to have one of the world’s best cycling infrastructures.
Students take a break from cycling in Copenhagen
Although the seminar is finished, some of the students from Wheels of Change are keeping their projects in motion after visiting Copenhagen.

Cycling is more than recreation and enjoyable exercise when it’s viewed through the lenses of social and environmental justice in a new first-year seminar course at Kalamazoo College. 

Offered for the first time in fall through Professor of English Amelia Katanski, the class Wheels of Change worked closely with community partners, including the City of Kalamazoo, the Open Roads Bike Program and K’s own Outdoor Programs, to explore how communities can build cycling infrastructure to better support residents. 

In the classroom, students examined how bicycles empowered women and people of color during the late 19th century’s so-called cycling craze. It also looked at how bicycles today are sustainable tools in limiting climate change and supporting environmental health in ways that are capable of redressing racism, and gender- and ability-based discrimination. Katanski has taught community-based first-year seminar classes for more than 15 years. But the course in fall 2020 about food and farming justice in the time of COVID was unrepeatable with the pandemic winding down. She began to brainstorm ideas for new classes. 

“Cycling has always been a passion of mine, and I came across a book called Revolutions: How Women Changed the World on Wheels,” Katanski said. “I started reading it and thinking about the origins of cycling and how it was this space for women and people of color to experience freedom, mobility, independence and physicality that wasn’t easily available to them. It began to sound like this great idea for a first-year seminar.” 

Street view of Copenhagen
When students traveled to Copenhagen, they found a city with cycling infrastructure that tops what most cities typically have.
Students traveling through Copenhagen's cycling infrastructure
Thanks to Copenhagen’s cycling infrastructure and history, residents often travel by bicycle even through cold winters.
Street view of Copenhagen
The book “Revolutions: How Women Changed the World on Wheels,” inspired Katanski to create the Wheels of Change seminar.

Outside the classroom, students met every Friday to participate in guided bike rides that gave them a feel for Kalamazoo’s current cycling infrastructure and how they might help or hinder the cycling community. They also split into groups to work on projects on and off campus. Students worked alongside City Planner and K alumna Christina Anderson ’98 on a project examining the city’s infrastructure, as well as with Open Roads Executive Director Isaac Green on a project developing and implementing safe-cycling routes for Kalamazoo-area children. On campus, they joined forces with K Outdoor Programs Director Jory Horner and Assistant Director Jess Port, investigating ways to make college-owned bikes more accessible to students, while promoting and supporting cycling among students and developing a cycling culture on campus. To top off the class, Katanski and her students traveled for a week to Copenhagen, Denmark, to see how the city, one of the world’s best for cycling infrastructure, can provide examples from which Kalamazoo can learn. 

Signing up for the class was a no-brainer for Elliot Russell, a Kalamazoo native, and Lillian Deer, a student from Washington state. Russell, for example, visited Amsterdam last spring, a city he considers to be a cycling capital. 

“That trip was eye opening to me, to see there are other possibilities of what urban space can look like other than what our interface looks like in America,” he said. “Since that trip, I’ve vowed, even though I have a car and a driver’s license, that I’m going to start biking for transport because I enjoy it. It’s also more ethically sound than using a car.” 

Deer said she was already interested in environmental sustainability and social justice before the class began, but didn’t know that bicycling could combine those themes. She wasn’t an active cyclist at the time, although group rides through the class made her feel more confident, provoking her excitement to work in the group that assisted K Outdoor Programs in figuring out what the College could do to be more bike friendly. 

“We researched several schools and we realized we need to have some sort of bike share program,” Deer said. “And to do that, we need a place to put bikes because the lack of one is preventing people from bringing their bikes to campus, according to the student survey we did,” Deer said. “We would like to continue those group rides, too, perhaps with a bike club, and match that with the new infrastructure.” 

Students take a break from cycling to hear from an instructor
“We’ve all realized we could be riding more and driving less, and I hope our students think about what it means for how we continue to live in this community,” Katanski said.
Lillian Deer ’26 said she was already interested in environmental sustainability and social justice before the class began, but didn’t know that bicycling could combine those themes.
Elliot Russell ’26 said the trip to Copenhagen with his classmates was eye opening for the contrast it provided between the bike infrastructure there versus in Kalamazoo. 

Russell worked with the Open Roads group, examining biking infrastructure at Kalamazoo Public Schools. Open Roads traditionally works with youths to put bikes in their hands through bike workshops, making the organization a good partner in creating a comprehensive guide to helping the schools be more bike friendly.  

“We went to Maple Street Middle School and Linden Grove Middle School to count how many bikes are on campus,” he said. “We counted the bike racks, surveyed the neighborhood in the constituent districts to also see what the infrastructure was like there. It all gave us a better idea of what the problems are and what the solutions could be. We wanted to advocate for students to have safer routes to school.” 

Russell said the trip to Copenhagen with his classmates was eye opening for the contrast it provided between the bike infrastructure there versus in Kalamazoo.  Copenhagen has a much stronger ingrained cycling culture despite its cold winters. The city, for example, plows its bike lanes at the same time or earlier than its roads. 

While the seminar wrapped up at the end of fall term, some of the students from Wheels of Change are keeping their projects in motion this winter, putting their heads together with their community partners to see whether the City of Kalamazoo, Open Roads and Kalamazoo College can work independently or in cooperation to build better bike infrastructure. 

“We’ve all realized we could be riding more and driving less, and I hope our students think about what it means for how we continue to live in this community,” Katanski said. “This term we drew on our experiences in Copenhagen to continue to develop relationships with our community partners, support bike culture on campus, and plan for future work. We’ve met on Zoom with an alum, Dan Goodman, who is the Mid-Atlantic Planning Director for Toole Design about his career path working on bike and pedestrian transportation; and spoke with community partner and co-op consultant Chris Dilley about cooperative organizational structures. Students also presented their projects at the Midwest Outdoor Leadership Conference. We’re all looking forward to more riding and support of city bike infrastructure—and the launch of a K bike co-op—in the spring.” 

Humanities Courses Lead Students to New Orleans

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A major grant awarded to Kalamazoo College helped 17 students begin experiencing a new dimension of hands-on learning in their humanities coursework through a visit to New Orleans over winter break.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation granted $1.297 million in January 2022 to provide new learning opportunities through the College’s Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL) project. HILL builds student coursework rooted in the College’s commitment to experiential learning and social justice to address issues such as racism, economic inequities and homelessness, while examining history, how humans share land, and the dislocations that bring people to a communal space.

Within HILL, there are multiple academic departments represented with clusters of classes that emphasize collaborative learning within the humanities and humanistic social sciences:

  • The Beyond Kalamazoo course clusters focus on location or dislocation and emphasize place-based learning through an integrated travel component in New Orleans, St. Louis or San Diego.
  • The Within Kalamazoo cluster, which emphasizes a theme relevant to location or dislocation, where faculty directly collaborate on coursework that engages directly with social issues in the Kalamazoo community.
  • The digital humanities hub, which publishes, archives and assesses outcomes in relation to course work and partnerships beyond and within Kalamazoo.

New Orleans was the first site on which the Beyond Kalamazoo cluster focused. In fall, courses consisted of Lest We Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora in New Orleans, taught by Associate Professor of Anthropology Espelencia Baptiste; Public Art and its Publics led by Professor of Art and Art History Christine Hahn; NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy, led by Associate Professor of English Shanna Salinas; and The World Through New Orleans, led by Associate Professor of Music Beau Bothwell. Each course operated independently with discipline-specific instruction.

Students interested in doing place-based research in New Orleans applied for the Beyond Kalamazoo cluster, which included six weeks of preparation, instruction on research methodologies in the humanities, the seven-day research trip, and post-trip research and writing. Those students were put into research groups formed by research interest and a distribution of one member from each of the cluster courses, so every group had at least one representative from each of the four cluster courses.

The students’ pre-trip collaboration—based on their knowledge from their respective courses within the departments of English, art history, anthropology-sociology and music—helped them create a collaborative research project that would emphasize location or dislocation, problem solving and social justice in New Orleans.

Students and volunteers paint colorful signs
During a volunteer day, Jenna Paterob ’23 worked with her peers to create signs for Ms. Gloria’s Garden at People for Public Art in New Orleans.
Paintings and artwork on a wall
Community partners such as Lower Nine, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the long-term recovery of the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Ida and Rita, and the levee breaches of 2005; and People for Public Art, an organization of artists that funds, creates and documents works of public art for the City of New Orleans to reflect the stories of the people, were significant contributors to the experiences Kalamazoo College humanities students had.
People for Public Art facility during humanities trip to New Orleans
“Throughout the day, I discovered that we were seeing different types of public art, allowing us to feel like we were a part of the community,” said Jenna Paterob ’23 of her humanities experience at People for Public Art in New Orleans.
Colorful paintings and adornments on a building in New Orleans
Kalamazoo College students enrolled in Humanities Integrated Locational Learning classes this fall called their experience in New Orleans educational, eye-opening, fun and immersive.
Figurines of seven African powers in New Orleans
“There is a ton of history that none of us knew about before going there, even though we had all taken a class about the city,” said Josh Kuh ’23. “I thought it was valuable to have this structured opportunity that felt like doing more than observing for research.”
Students and volunteers painted signs for a garden in New Orleans
During a volunteer day, Jenna Paterob ’23 worked with her peers to create signs for Ms. Gloria’s Garden at People for Public Art in New Orleans.

Their subjects of interest for the projects included the city’s theatre scene, public transportation and historical ties to slavery with each student connecting their social justice interests with each of a variety of community partners. Students were encouraged to use onsite and digital archives at the Historical New Orleans Collection for their projects when applicable.

The community partners included Lower Nine, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the long-term recovery of the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Ida and Rita, and the levee breaches of 2005; and People for Public Art, an organization of artists that funds, creates and documents works of public art for the City of New Orleans to reflect the stories of the people. Students then worked with these partners during their on-site visit this winter.

Morgan Acord ’23, an English major with a passion for literature, found Salinas’ class to be fascinating because New Orleans has a literature culture all its own, she said. She appreciated that their trip also included cultural opportunities such as participating in a second-line parade, seeing the Oak Alley and Whitney plantations, and observing French and Spanish artifacts at the New Orleans Archive.

Yet for Acord, filling a need for social justice work through a nonprofit was the biggest benefit.

“We helped an 80-year-old woman and her husband who had been sleeping on an air mattress in their kitchen after Hurricane Ida,” Acord said. “They were living in a shotgun-style house and all of her belongings were in what I assumed was the living room. Overall, it showed how catastrophic those New Orleans hurricanes were. You see the footage on TV, but to see it firsthand and see how people live in houses still under repair is eye opening. It felt good on the surface to be able to help, but it was eye opening to know how privileged some of us are.”

Together, Acord and classmates including Josh Kuh ’23, an anthropology-sociology major from Seattle, tore a front wall out of the house that had been destroyed by termites, painted baseboards, and laid down flooring in what was to be the couple’s bedroom. Professor Mills along with Lower Nine representatives assisted in painting the ceiling and the dining room.

“There is a ton of history that none of us knew about before going there, even though we had all taken a class about the city,” Kuh said. “I thought it was valuable to have this structured opportunity that felt like doing more than observing for research. We provided a meaningful service to the organizations that we were working with. I think the biggest takeaways of mine involved seeing firsthand how extensive the hurricane damage was. I saw the disarray in this house and it hadn’t been fixed even though it had been almost 20 years since some of the damage happened.”

Jenna Paterob ’23, a business and psychology double major and art minor, took Professor Hahn’s class in fall because she often feels like she overlooks public art.

“Our experience in New Orleans was educational, eye-opening, fun and immersive,” she said. “It isn’t every day that we get to go into a new area of the country and interact with the community there. I feel like we were able to see bigger issues encapsulated in the city such as tourism, racism, white supremacy and classism. “I feel like when we stay in one place for a long period of time, we may become a little desensitized to the issues that surround us. Therefore, going to a new area, especially as someone who has never been out of the Midwest, was definitely an educational experience for me.”

Paterob had a social justice experience with People for Public Art in New Orleans. During the volunteer day, Paterob worked with her peers to create signs for Ms. Gloria’s Garden. The location offers opportunities for children to garden, cook, sew, make jewelry and music, and take yoga and meditation classes. The garden is managed by a nonprofit, Developing Young Entrepreneurs, which provides youths and young adults with entrepreneurial skills and a safe space for people to feel free to be themselves.

“When I first discovered that we were going to be making signs, I was confused about what that had to do with public art,” she said. “Throughout the day, I discovered that we were seeing different types of public art, allowing us to feel like we were a part of the community. Painting signs for plants in a garden may not be the first thing people think of when they think about public art, but we really did create some fun and beautiful pieces of art that communicate information and improve the garden. I liked that day because I was exposed to a whole new setting and sense of community. I also learned that the organization creates a bunch of impactful pieces, such as the memorial pieces they showed us. They took a tragic event that was minimized and silenced by certain people and allowed the community to come together to grieve. I learned a lot about New Orleans and how the residents interact with their community through learning about the public art there.”

Ally Noel ’24, an anthropology-sociology and English double major, had similar praise for her experience at People for Public Art.

“That day shifted my entire trajectory in terms of my research in New Orleans,” she said. “Going into New Orleans, I had this idea of what I thought I wanted to study but then after Monica (Kelly, representing People for Public Art) was telling the story of the lower mid-city and the inequities that exist there, I realized I wanted to do research on the closure of Charity Hospital after Hurricane Katrina hit. That was the day that everything clicked for me, and I realized, being in that space was important. A student can study a space from afar, but being there helps research in terms of learning and making meaning of the experience.”

Salinas is serving as the curriculum coordinator for integrated travel to New Orleans and a co-principal investigator for the HILL initiative as a whole.

“The primary vision of this initiative is collaboration, be that students sharing their knowledge with other members of their research group based on the cluster class they took, community partners holding space for students to learn about the work they do in New Orleans and the stakes of that work, and research groups working across disciplines in the humanities to develop a digital humanities research project that reflects both their academic knowledge and their experiences in the city,” Salinas said. “We asked students to commit to one eight-hour work day with two of our community partners. Students self-selected according to interest or research investment, frequently with research group members on different work sites. Afterward, students were able to come together and share those experiences with each other and discuss what they learned. It was these moments that enhanced their research and, ultimately, their collaborative projects. HILL’s curricular design relies on students being able to share their experiences, to talk to each other about what they learned, to root in in the type of instruction they received in their cluster classes, and to make those concrete connections back to things like community-building as a crucial element of the humanities.”

As they reflected on their experiences, the students praised the opportunity to go to New Orleans and said they would encourage their peers to seek HILL-focused, place-based learning classes as well.

Baptiste’s class, for example, set the table for students such as Maya Nathwani ’23, an anthropology-sociology and biology double major, to examine history away from campus when she missed a study abroad opportunity because of COVID-19. Lest We Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora in New Orleans provided Nathwani with a life-changing experience in her college years that she otherwise would’ve missed.

“The class emphasized understanding what history is and how it’s created and produced, along with who has the ability to share and pass on history, impacting how we remember the past,” Nathwani said. “Going to do research in a space where I’d never been was intimidating just because I’d never done it before. But I would encourage other students to try these classes, too, because the professors prepare you to be successful.”

From K to Kenya: Three Unite 8,000 Miles Away at UNICEF

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Three K Alumnae at in front of a UNICEF poster in Kenya
Annika Rigole ’04, visiting international program alumna Sharon Musee and Paloma Clohossey
‘11 are three with Kalamazoo College connections who all work about 8,000 miles from campus
at UNICEF in Kenya.

At Kalamazoo College, international immersion and study abroad offers students opportunities to delve deep into other cultures. Along the way, they develop knowledge and skills that parlay into future careers and often form meaningful personal relationships with others around the world.

Such is the case for Paloma Clohossey ‘11, visiting international program alumna Sharon Musee and Annika Rigole ’04. Although each of them had a distinctive road in finding their way to Kalamazoo College, all three have succeeded in journeys that have taken them professionally to UNICEF in Kenya. It might seem amazing that three alumnae from a small liberal arts and sciences institution such as K all ended up at the same employer nearly 8,000 miles away. However, it makes sense that UNICEF is a desirable destination when one considers the College’s connections with foreign study and service learning.

UNICEF, originally called the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund in full, is now the United Nations Children’s Fund, an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide.

The organization was established in 1946 in the aftermath of World War II to help children and young people whose lives were at risk no matter what role their country had played in the war. In cooperation with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector and others, UNICEF works to advance and protect children’s rights while providing health care, immunizations, nutrition, access to safe water and sanitation services, education, protection and emergency relief.

‘You’re the Best Female Student in Your Class’

Of the three with K connections, Musee is the only one originally from Kenya. She first attended the University of Nairobi when she began her higher education pursuits, a time that revealed her limited world experience, she said. She didn’t know there was such a thing as an exchange program that would allow her to study in the United States until she got a call from the university’s Registrar’s Office, requesting an appointment.

Musee was apprehensive about the meeting, yet her fears were soon quelled.

“It was within walking distance, so I walked over and they said, ‘do you know why we called you here?’” Musee said. “I said, ‘no, what did I do?’ They said, ‘Yes, you’ve done things, but they’re why we think you’re the best female student in your class.’”

Her recognition as an accomplished student meant Musee was empowered to attend college in the U.S. through an exchange program, and as luck would have it, the program brought her to K.

“I say it was lucky because it wasn’t something I was working for,” she said. “I was working hard to get good grades, but I was not expecting to go to K.”

Today, Musee is a partnerships and resources mobilizations officer who supports UNICEF in cultivating new public partnerships and managing its existing public partnerships.

“Being at K exposed me to a lot to multicultural settings, so I was meeting people that don’t have the same background as I do,” Musee said. “When I left K, I went back to the University of Nairobi, I graduated, and almost immediately got a job in the public sector. I kept traveling in the region. It was very easy for me to fit in if I went into Somalia or into South Sudan. If I went to speak to donors who would be people of a different race or a different culture of a different color, I would say it was very natural for me to fit in as opposed to before K. It came naturally for me as a result of K.”

‘They Immediately Bought My Plane Ticket for Me to Go Visit’

Clohossey, an English and psychology double major from California, first learned of K when her parents read about it in the book “Colleges That Change Lives” and encouraged her to visit as a result.

“When I say encouraged, I mean they immediately bought my plane ticket for me to go visit and I’m grateful to this day for all their support,” Clohossey said. “I thought there was no way I would go to college at a place called Kalamazoo. But as soon as I stepped foot on the campus, I remember having an intuitive feeling that it was going to be the place for me.”

Clohossey chose to study abroad in Africa and selected Kenya through a process of elimination. Her study abroad cohort’s visit at the University of Nairobi turned out to be when she would meet Musee—before Musee had ever arrived at K.

When Musee’s life path did curve toward K, the two became friends and they participated together in College Singers. In fact, Clohossey said their relationship makes them feel more like sisters and Musee agreed.

“We share a lot,” Musee said. “We go for random lunches. I know that if I need something quickly, I can reach out to Paloma offline—outside of the office or within the office—and I know that she’s got me. This is the sisterhood I feel knowing that we went to K.”

Clohossey says she splits her time between supporting regional program planning and regional knowledge management efforts for UNICEF.

“These functions involve things like supporting UNICEF’s annual work planning, monitoring and reporting, as well as ensuring that UNICEF is capturing, documenting, organizing and using knowledge to ensure we’re as effective as we can be as we pursue our goal of achieving results for children and protecting their rights,” Clohossey said.

The connections she has with colleagues like Musee is a big part of what makes the job special.

“Meeting again was like going back 10 years,” Clohossey said. “We were super happy to see each other.”

‘K Is Such a Special Place’

After her years as a mathematics and economics and business double major at K, Rigole—originally from Belgium and a Michigander since age 10—served in AmeriCorps where she helped nonprofits and government agencies in the southeastern U.S. alongside a team of about 10 people.

In starting her career, she embraced a passion for nurturing education. Through work with an international educational exchange organization, then grad school at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and subsequent work with NGOs in Malawi and Zambia, she helped improve access to quality education and skill-building opportunities, particularly for young girls.

“Education has always meant so much to me because I love learning and it has been so formative in my life,” Rigole said. “It was important to me that I could help others have similar opportunities.”

When she looked for a career shift toward the end of her time in Zambia, she found UNICEF. Rigole worked with UNICEF in New York for two years as a consultant strengthening monitoring, evaluation and research in education before applying for her position at the regional office in Kenya.

“As a regional office, we provide technical support to our country offices,” Rigole said. “In particular, I focus on strengthening data systems within education, and the use of data to inform decision making. It’s about having data and research speak to policy, for example so governments can better understand the differences between districts or provinces and how they’re doing in terms of equity and quality, or can learn from how some schools perform better than others.”

Rigole didn’t know Clohossey or Musee when she started at UNICEF, but that changed at a July 4 holiday barbecue.

“I didn’t know that many people yet, but I’d been invited by another colleague of ours,” Rigole said. “I was introduced to Paloma and she said she was from California. I said I was from Michigan. She said, ‘Oh, I went to college in Michigan.’ I said, ‘Oh, cool! Where?’ She said, ‘It’s a small liberal arts school.’ I said, ‘What’s the name?’ She said, ‘Kalamazoo College.’ I said, ‘I went to Kalamazoo College!’”

Rigole doesn’t work with Musee very often, although Clohossey has introduced them since. However, working with Clohossey has been special for Rigole since the moment they met.

“Immediately it felt good to have something in common with her,” Rigole said. “It’s not quite like family, but it gives you this bond because K is such a special place and shared experience.”

New Fellowship Provides Post-Grad Opportunity Abroad for K Students

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Bob Sherbin establishing fellowship abroad
Robert Sherbin ’79

A generous leadership gift from Kalamazoo College alumnus Robert Sherbin ’79 will open the door to independent exploration outside the United States for Kalamazoo College graduates.

Sherbin has established the Jerry Sherbin Fellowship, named in honor of his father, which each year will provide one K senior with a stipend to pursue an academic year post-graduation, independently exploring a subject of deep personal interest outside the United States. Applicants will be assessed based on their proposal’s creativity and personal significance, their passion for the subject, and how the work may shape their future plans. The first fellowship abroad will be awarded in spring 2023.

“The College’s K-Plan emphasizes international study and engagement, so this fellowship wonderfully complements a student’s K education,” said Provost Danette Ifert Johnson. “It provides yet another avenue for students to pursue a project of personal interest in a deep and meaningful way prior to starting their graduate study or career. We are grateful to Bob for creating this opportunity for current and future generations of students.”

While an English major at K, Sherbin studied abroad at the University of Nairobi, one of only six American undergrads—and the only K student—there at that time. As a senior, Sherbin applied for a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, an external grant through the Watson Foundation that provides the opportunity to design and execute a one-year project overseas. Before attending graduate school at Northwestern, Sherbin spent a year in Central and West Africa as a Watson Fellow, conducting a sociological study of long-distance truck drivers. This opportunity was transformative, helping guide Sherbin’s path to becoming an international journalist and later, a global corporate communications executive. Today he is the vice president of corporate communications at NVIDIA, a technology company based in Silicon Valley.

Sherbin said, “The Watson Fellowship was the most formative experience of my life. I’d not taken an intro to sociology class. My French was appalling. And I didn’t know a soul within thousands of miles, when aerograms were the WhatsApp of the age. But K had given me the tools to learn and sparked my passion to figure out the rest. It’s my hope that this fellowship will enable students to widen their perspectives, taking them from Dewaters to Danang, from the Upjohn Library steps to the Russian steppes and beyond, and discover ways to make a difference before they head into the rest of their lives.”

Alumna, Professor Emerita Earns Pulitzer Prize

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Pulitzer Prize recipient Diane Seuss
Kalamazoo College alumna and
Professor Emerita Diane Seuss has received
the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for “frank:
sonnets.” Photo by Gabrielle Montesanti
Book Cover for Frank:Sonnets by Diane Seuss
Diane Seuss ’78 published her fifth collection of
poetry, “frank: sonnets,” in 2021.

Kalamazoo College alumna, Professor Emerita and former writer-in-residence Diane Seuss ’78 is celebrating more recognition for her latest poetry collection, and this honor is the most prestigious yet. 

Seuss was granted a 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry on Monday for frank: sonnets, a collection of poems that discuss topics including addiction, disease, poverty and death. The collection previously received the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the LA Times Book Prize for poetry. 

The Pulitzer Prize committee described frank: sonnets as “a virtuosic collection that inventively expands the sonnet form to confront the messy contradictions of contemporary America, including the beauty and the difficulty of working-class life in the Rust Belt.” 

“This is nothing that I would ever, ever, ever have expected of life,” Seuss said of the honor in an MLive interview. “It’s hard to feel these things beyond kind of shock and awe.” 

In previous honors, Seuss received the John Updike Award in 2021 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The biennial award recognizes a mid-career writer who demonstrates consistent excellence. Seuss also joined a prestigious group of scholars and artists who have received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation as a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow. The fellowship helps honorees slate blocks of time during which they explore their creative freedom. The Foundation receives about 3,000 applications each year and awards about 175 fellowships.  

Seuss retired from K in 2016, the year she was a Pulitzer finalist for Four-Legged Girl (Greywolf Press, 2015), a poetry collection the Pulitzer committee described as “a richly improvisational poetry collection that leads readers through a gallery of incisive and beguiling portraits and landscapes.” Her other collections include Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Graywolf Press, 2018), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the LA Times Poetry Prize; Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), which received the Juniper Prize; and It Blows You Hollow (New Issues Press, 1999). 

“For me and others like me, people in the margins for whatever reason, such recognition is an encouragement,” Seuss said of her recent success in a Kalamazoo College news story last month. “It’s saying, your work has worth. It makes all the difference to be seen and heard and acknowledged.”