Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts was selected from a field of six nominees as the winner of a 2019 Wilde Award in the Best Lighting Design Category for his work in a 2018 Farmers Alley Theatre production of Bridges of Madison County in Kalamazoo.
EncoreMichigan.com, a web-based publication focusing on Michigan’s professional theater industry, highlights the top productions, actors, artists, designers, writers and technicians in the state through its annual Wilde Awards.
This year, the spotlight shone on Kalamazoo College Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts, who was selected from a field of six nominees as the winner of a 2019 Wilde Award in the Best Lighting Design Category.
Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts was selected from a field of six nominees as the winner of a 2019 Wilde Award in the Best Lighting Design Category.
The honor is a result of Potts’ work in a 2018 Farmers Alley Theatre production of Bridges of Madison County in Kalamazoo. The musical, a 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Score and Orchestrations, tells a story of a love affair between a lonely housewife and a rugged photographer, examining the roads people travel, the doors they open and the bridges they cross.
Potts has won the same award twice previously through Farmers Alley Theatre, once in 2013 for his lighting design work in The Light in the Piazza, and again in 2018 for Gypsy.
To be eligible in their categories, Wilde Award nominees need at least four performances conducted through a professional theater company with paid actors between June 1, 2018, and May 31, 2019.
Potts is a professional designer and consultant whose work has included international lighting and production design; national tour designs for opera and dance; and regional designs for opera, modern dance, ballet, drama and corporate events.
Potts has presented portfolios of his work at regional conferences, worked at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and received many professional awards including a Michigan Governor’s Commendation, a design commendation from the John F. Kennedy Center (Fun Home) and Atlanta Critic’s Choice awards for his design work for the Atlanta premier of A Few Good Men.
Jeff Bartz, K’s Kurt D. Kaufman professor of chemistry, will receive the 2020 Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching.
Kalamazoo College announced today that one faculty member and one staff member have earned two of the highest awards the College bestows on its employees.
Jeff Bartz, K’s Kurt D. Kaufman professor of chemistry, will receive the 2020 Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching, and Bruce Stack, an electrician in facilities management, will receive the inaugural W. Haydn Ambrose Prize for Extraordinary Service.
Bartz joined the K Chemistry Department as an assistant professor in 1997 and became a full professor in 2011. He teaches courses in physical and general chemistry, chemical composition and structure, and chemical reactivity. He also works with K students in the research laboratory in the area of chemical dynamics.
Bruce Stack, an electrician in facilities management, will receive the inaugural W. Haydn Ambrose Prize for Extraordinary Service.
Bartz earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in mathematics from Southwest Minnesota State University in 1985. He earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992.
The Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship (for outstanding classroom teaching) and Fellowship (for outstanding achievement in creative work, research or publication) at Kalamazoo College were established in 1979, and Bartz is the 31st recipient of the lectureship. The awards were created to honor Florence J. Lucasse, a 1910 alumna, in recognition of her long and distinguished career and in response to the major unrestricted endowment gift given to the College in her will.
The W. Haydn Ambrose Prize was established to recognize a K staff member for outstanding service to the Kalamazoo College community.
The award is named after W. Haydn Ambrose, who served K for more than 20 years in a variety of roles, including assistant to the president for church relations, dean of admission and financial aid, and vice president for development. Ambrose was thoughtful in the projects that he took on, committed to the jobs that he agreed to do, and he treated people with respect.
In addition to a financial award, Stack has earned:
An invitation to sit on the award’s selection committee for two years
Stack has worked at the College for more than 28 years. His colleagues note that his extensive experience, troubleshooting abilities, and proven analytical skills have made him invaluable in addressing physical plant needs in emergency and day-to-day maintenance.
Two Kalamazoo College faculty members are celebrating accomplishments outside the classroom including Assistant Professor of English Oliver Baez Bendorf who has released a new collection of poetry titled Advantages of Being Evergreen.
As the academic year begins, two Kalamazoo College faculty members are celebrating accomplishments outside the classroom: Assistant Professor of English Oliver Baez Bendorf released a new collection of poetry titled Advantages of Being Evergreen, and Documentary Film Instructor Danny Kim was nominated for Best Michigan Short Film for A Day in the Life of Kik Pool at the Royal Starr Film Festival in Royal Oak.
“I started this collection right after the 2016 election and it felt necessary to build a world in poems where all of my self and communities and dreams could be present,” Baez Bendorf said. “It’s such a privilege and pleasure to have the book published through Cleveland State University Poetry Center. I often tell my students to write the poems they need to read, and to trust that in doing so, there will be readers who need them also. I wrote this book because I needed to read it and it feels great to be hearing feedback from others that these poems are resonating with them.”
Advantages of Being Evergreen was the winner of Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s 2018 Open Book Poetry Competition. Baez Bendorf was previously published through a poetry collection titled The Spectral Wilderness. A chapbook, titled The Gospel According to X, is in the works. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, and elsewhere.
Two Kalamazoo College faculty members are celebrating accomplishments outside the classroom including Documentary Film Instructor Danny Kim, who was nominated for Best Michigan Short Film at the Royal Oak Film Festival for A Day in the Life of Kik Pool.
Kim’s film reflects how a public pool often provides a place for the community to gather, exercise, learn an important skill and simply have fun. As the film progresses, the pool evolves into more, taking on a life of its own as it shifts and changes with the people who use it.
Kim has been involved with Masters swimming, which involves a special class of competition for swimmers at least 18 years of age, offering him a chance to work on something personal through the film.
“From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to tell the story from the perspective of the pool,” Kim said. “The challenge was how to best illustrate the character of the pool for each of the groups who use it. Before dawn, when the Kalamazoo Masters practice, the pool is quiet and contemplative. When the age-group swimmers hit the water, the pool reflects their energy and youth. Swimming-lesson time is childlike and simple, while lap swim is ephemeral and other-worldly. So from the outset, each section was shot and edited in a way that would best convey these characteristics.”
Kim credited two of his former students for their assistance in making the film special to him.
“Ximena Davis ’19 filmed and assisted with production. One of my favorite shots in the film is hers,” Kim said. “Savannah Kinchen ’18 gave me some valuable notes in post-production. One of her comments in particular led me to change the opening of the film.”
Kim’s previous work includes the feature-length documentary The Stories They Tell, which was selected for the inaugural Royal Starr Film festival in 2016 and was screened at film festivals across the Midwest.
A Kalamazoo College art professor will receive international attention while combating fossil-fuel dependence and climate change as a recipient of a Fulbright award in the 2019-20 academic year.
On Thursday, Sept. 12, Art Professor Tom Rice will discuss his drawings and installations of the past five years, along with what inspires him to explore environmental issues such as fossil-fuel dependence through art, in a forum at the University of Alberta.
Tom Rice, K’s Robert and Jo-Ann Stewart professor of art in the Art and Art History Department, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award in visual arts, allowing him to research the realities of fossil-fuel extraction and create mixed-media art at the University of Alberta in Canada.
His art installation, titled “Shifting Uncertainties: The Land We Live On,” is on display through Sept. 20 at the university’s Fine Arts Building. The display depicts Rice’s concern for the environment, fossil-fuel dependence and the growing global crisis related to climate change. On Sept. 12, Rice will discuss his drawings and installations of the past five years, along with what inspires him to explore environmental issues through art, in a forum at the university.
Rice notes the key question with his work is how we retreat from an industry that is enmeshed into our lives and comprises the foundation of our economy.
“The award is important to me because I will have the chance to exchange ideas with leading artists and scholars doing work on climate justice and petroculture,” Rice said. “K’s focus on social-justice leadership includes climate justice and the implications for humans and non-human species alike.”
Rice is one of more than 800 U.S. citizens who will teach, conduct research or provide expertise abroad for the 2019-20 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Fulbright recipients 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.
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.
Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 59 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 84 who have received Pulitzer Prizes, and 37 who have served as a head of state or government.
Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez applauded International Joint Conference on Neural Networks Honorary Chairman Peter Erdi when Erdi presented his Lucasse Lecture this spring.
Peter Erdi, the Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies at Kalamazoo College, served as the honorary chairman of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks in July. The conference, with 850 participants in Budapest, Hungary, aimed to build bridges between theories of biological and artificial neural networks, sometimes referred to as natural and computational intelligence respectively.
Artificial neural networks are a set of algorithms, inspired by functions found in the human brain, that recognize patterns. Such systems learn to perform tasks by considering examples, through processes such as image recognition, for example. The networks might learn about those images to identify similar images, then label them and organize them.
The conference featured plenary talks from world-renowned speakers in neural network theory and applications, computational neuroscience, and robotics and distributed intelligence. Along with poster presentations, the conference included special sessions, competitions, tutorials and workshops.
“The conference was a big success in many respects,” Erdi said, noting commendations he received from colleagues applauding the conference, the city of Budapest and the organizers.
Erdi received the 2018 Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship. It is the highest award bestowed by the Kalamazoo College faculty, and it honors the recipient’s contributions in creative work, research and publication. His Lucasse Lecture was titled “Ranking: The Hidden Rules of the Social Game We All Play” after a nonfiction book he has in production. The book examines how and why humans rank certain aspects of our lives and how those rankings are viewed.
Erdi has been a prolific researcher with more than 40 publications and two books published since joining Kalamazoo College. In that time, he has given more than 60 invited lectures across the world. He is also serving as the editor-in-chief of Cognitive Systems Research and as a vice president of the International Neural Network Society.
Support for Erdi’s research program has come from varied sources such as collaborative National Science Foundation awards, NASA, the Hungarian National Research Council, Pharmacia, Pfizer and the European Integrated Project grant program. He has also helped to establish a popular study abroad program in his native homeland of Budapest, Hungary, where he holds a research professor position at the Wigner Research Centre for Physics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Moth enthusiasts from around the world are likely to try blacklighting during National Moth Week.
If you ever see Kalamazoo College students hanging sheets by clotheslines suspended between trees on the Quad, they’re not doing laundry. They’re rounding up moths for their entomology class collections in a practice called “blacklighting.”
The process emits a black light into the UV spectrum to attract moths, and it’s one of many ways that citizen scientists are likely to celebrate National Moth Week, which is ongoing through Friday.
According to its website, National Moth Week celebrates the beauty, lifecycles and habitats of moths as the public is encouraged to learn about, observe and document moths in backyards, parks and neighborhoods. And don’t let the word “national” fool you. Since its founding in 2012, National Moth Week has gone global by expanding to all 50 states and 80 countries worldwide.
Luna moths, known for their green wings, long tails and transparent eyespots, are common in southwest Michigan.
Although the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon likely is the more celebrated science-related event this week, moths are interesting to study because they make a “giant leap” of their own through metamorphosis. The process completely changes their bodies from wormlike caterpillars into winged adults during the cocoon stage. This abrupt change in body plan during development is found in only one-third of all insect groups, Kalamazoo College Biology Professor Ann Fraser said, but these groups account for the vast majority of insect species, suggesting this life cycle innovation was a highly successful one.
Furthermore, “many caterpillars of moths are a very important food source in the food chain,” and “some scientists use moths as indicators of bigger things going on in the environment,” Fraser said. “It’s easy to see trends with declines in their numbers as indicators of climate change or habitat loss.”
Moths definitively are insects because they have six legs and, as adults, they have three body regions consisting of the head, the thorax and the abdomen, Fraser said. Plus, they’re among the most diverse living creatures on Earth with more than 150,000 species including their day-roaming brethren: butterflies.
Hawk moths hover around plants and flowers so they commonly are mistaken for hummingbirds.
Some of the more eye-catching varieties of moths in southwest Michigan include hawk moths, which can be mistaken for hummingbirds because they’re about the same size as hummingbirds and hover around plants and flowers, Fraser said. Others include the luna moth known for its green wings, long tails and transparent eyespots. Plainer and more problematic varieties include gypsy moths, which are known as exfoliator pests because they strip trees and plants of their leaves.
“You can actually spot their poop on the sidewalk,” Fraser said of gypsy moth caterpillars. “Frass is the technical term for it. You see it on the ground, so you know something in the tree is feeding on the tree.”
Regardless, many hobbyists find collecting moths such as these and others to be fascinating and as easy as leaving a porch light on after dark. Fraser, for example, still remembers collecting a big moth for the first time when she was about 10 years old.
“It’s an experience that always stuck with me,” said Fraser, who curates the college’s insect collection that includes cases of pinned moths raised or collected by herself and her predecessor, Professor David Evans. “It’s always exciting to find the big colorful ones.”
The milestone recognizes excellence in teaching, scholarship and service to Kalamazoo College, and signifies the College’s confidence in the contributions these professors will make throughout their careers.
The following faculty members were approved by the Board of Trustees for tenure and promotion to associate professor:
Menelik Geremew, Stephen B. Monroe Assistant Professor of Money and Banking
Brittany LiuMenelik Geremew
Geremew earned a Ph.D. in economics from Texas Tech University in 2013. His professional experiences have included visiting scholar and research consultant appointments at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He teaches courses in intermediate macroeconomics, international finance, money and banking, and principles of economics.
Brittany Liu, assistant professor of psychology
Liu earned a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California, Irvine in 2013. Her research and classes at K include subjects such as social psychology, political and moral psychology, research methodology, and psychology and law.
Amanda Wollenberg, Herbert H. and Grace A. DowAssistant Professor of Biology
Michael WollenbergAmanda Wollenberg
Wollenberg earned a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2011-2013. At K, she teaches immunology and human health, cell and molecular biology and symbiosis. She is currently the recipient of a 2018-2022 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. Previous awards include graduate fellowships and research exchange visits from the NSF and the NIH (National Institute of Health).
Michael Wollenberg, assistant professor of biology
Wollenberg earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology in 2011. At K, he teaches courses in evolution and genetics, symbiosis, computer use for biologists and microbiology. Currently, he is the recipient of a 2018-2022 National Science Foundation grant. His previous grants have included NIH and NSF training fellowships.
The opportunity to present to and learn from pharmaceutical professionals is normally reserved for graduate students, professional scientists and postdoctoral fellows. For Kalamazoo College chemistry students in Dorothy H. Heyl Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge’s lab, attending the Great Lakes Drug Metabolism and Disposition Discussion Group annual meeting as undergrads is a tradition that opens doors and underscores their passion for science.
Three chemistry students attended the Great Lakes Drug Metabolism and Disposition Discussion Group on May 9 and 10 in Ann Arbor with Dorothy H. Heyl Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge (second from right). The students are Kevin McCarty ’20 (left), Cydney Martell ’19 (second from left) and Michael Orwin ’20 (right).
Three students attended the spring meeting on May 9 and 10 in Ann Arbor. Furge’s students, known for their research excellence, have had several opportunities in recent years to show off their work regarding the P450 enzyme, which catalyzes drug-metabolism reactions, with implications toward drug discovery.
This year’s K representatives included Cydney Martell ’19 of Gull Lake, Michigan; Kevin McCarty ’20 of Clarkston, Michigan; and Michael Orwin ’20 of Portage, Michigan.
“I feel I was really fortunate to get into (Furge’s) lab,” said Martell, whose connection with Furge also helped her secure an internship last year with Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis and committed to discovering medicines for people around the world. “The most rewarding thing about the conference is our ability to network with individuals and build important relationships. It’s nice to be able to have that connection and be on equal ground. It’s a love of science that facilitates our ability to work across experience levels.”
Martell will seek a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Northwestern University beginning this fall.
The poster presentation McCarty made from his research in Furge’s lab will evolve into his Senior Individualized Project this summer, he said, which is a testament to Furge’s guidance.
“Instead of telling you how to do things, she’ll ask you questions, engaging you in the work,” McCarty said. “She gives you the freedom to do every part of the research you can by yourself, which helps you understand and take away what’s important.”
In fact, McCarty has been so happy with his experiences in the chemistry program at K, the drug-metabolism conference and in Furge’s lab, he’d tell prospective students considering K to also major in chemistry.
“I would tell them, ‘you’d be surprised by all the opportunities you’ll have,’” McCarty said. “When I first considered K, I heard all about our small class sizes and the faculty. What they didn’t tell me is how many opportunities there would be to work with faculty members like Dr. Furge or in a lab like hers.”
Orwin echoed his peers’ excitement for attending the conference and appreciation of Furge’s leadership in their lab at K.
“I really loved attending the conference and it was a great undergraduate experience being able to present my work to industry professionals,” Orwin said. “Overall, I find the most exciting part of research is the ability to contribute to our collective knowledge alongside being able to share one’s passion with others. I find myself very fortunate for being able to have this experience.”
Druanna Darling ’19 said she had not considered attending Kalamazoo College until the Kalamazoo Promise was extended to Michigan Colleges Alliance schools in 2015. Photo by Catalina Gonzalez.
When students in the Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS) receive their diplomas, 92 percent of them are eligible for an outstanding graduation gift: a tuition-free post-secondary education thanks to the Kalamazoo Promise.
KPS graduates who have lived in the district and have been students for at least four years can have as much as 100 percent of their in-state tuition and fees paid for thanks to the Promise, a program funded by anonymous donors. The program is applicable to community colleges, public universities, and since 2015, to 15 private institutions in the Michigan Colleges Alliance, including Kalamazoo College.
Fortunately for Druanna Darling ’19, this promise was made at just the right time.
“I remember there being a press conference during the summer before my senior year (in high school) and my mom was the one who showed me the Promise was being extended” to private schools, said Darling, whose family moved to Arizona when she was 6, only to return because of what the Promise offered her. “We had heard a lot of great things about Kalamazoo College and it was a part of our community, but it never seemed accessible to me. K wasn’t even on my radar.”
A chance to attend K with smaller class sizes and one-on-one opportunities to work with professors was extraordinarily appealing. The opportunity to have her tuition covered convinced her to visit campus. Two campus tours and an overnight stay later, Darling was sure she had found her second home.
“It felt like the students were more of a priority at K,” she said. “Elsewhere, the colleges accepted a huge group of students and the students paid their tuition. At K, faculty and staff were more personal and invested in students. I felt accepted immediately.”
Darling, a psychology major and Loy Norrix alumna, applied to the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Western Michigan University. Ultimately, she decided K was the only place she wanted to experience college. That college experience will culminate Sunday, June 16, when she will be one of eight KPS graduates to graduate from K, representing the College’s first class of Promise-eligible students.
Promise-eligible students have added a perspective of their own to K’s student body, Director of Admission Suzanne Lepley said. They are smart, well-prepared for college and know the community well, although most just start to learn of K’s distinctive offerings—including the K-Plan, the College’s approach to the liberal arts and sciences—shortly before applying.
“They have been educated in the richly diverse KPS system and that learning perspective transfers to the community at K,” Lepley said. “Despite being raised in the city, many spend little, if any time on our campus before attending. They tend to experience the College in a special way as they explore a part of the community they might not have known.”
Darling said she will graduate with a very limited amount of debt that she feels won’t be a burden thanks to the Kalamazoo Promise. And four years after first falling in love with K, her passion for K hasn’t changed.
“I keep thinking I might want to declare a second major and stay for a fifth year,” she joked. “I don’t think my view of it has changed at all. As an entering student, I was overjoyed. The environment is so warming. I have felt supported every day.”
Much of that support has come directly from the faculty. Darling worked with Assistant Professor of Psychology Brittany Liu in Liu’s research lab, and she has received assistance from professors in applying for jobs and graduate school as she hopes to one day work with autistic children.
“Personally, I know a lot of individuals who went to big universities,” Darling said. “There are a lot of things their education has lacked such as an opportunity to learn about social justice issues. At other universities, you might learn about physics or writing a good paper. But at K you learn about how to be a better citizen.”
Think of it as a mark of teaching excellence and a sign of educational quality in which all Kalamazoo College students and faculty can take pride.
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and Course Hero have extended a 2019 Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching grant to Dwight Williams, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Assistant Professor of Chemistry at K.
Williams, an endowed chair at K, is one of four tenure-track professors and eight professors overall from around the country to receive the fellowship, which in his case will provide $30,000 to give students supplies, research opportunities and travel funds for professional conferences. The grant honors how Williams and K faculty like him who have found new ways to build student confidence and mastery of a subject, encourage critical thinking, and prepare students for lifelong learning.
Williams submitted a statement on his teaching philosophy and research inside and outside the Chemistry Department at K when applying for the grant. In the teaching statement, he addressed his adoption of mastery-based learning at K, which indicates a shift away from traditional exams and labs, and a move towards activities that provide students with various avenues for learning and understanding their course material. This new approach gives students multiple opportunities to learn from the things that went wrong, while also learning what works.
“We’ve turned the teaching labs from traditional, step-by-step experiments with predetermined outcomes into mini research projects with unknown outcomes,” Williams said. “From this, students see that science doesn’t always work how you expect it to. We hope this helps students retain information for the long term and transfer this knowledge across disciplines.
“I think learning from your mistakes is a critical part of the educational process and one that is sometimes overlooked. This approach allows us to better take advantage of this step in the learning process.”
Williams added he hopes students and prospective students will see the honor as external validation of the learning that takes place at K and the strides faculty will take to engage students in their education.
“This should help students see what faculty do to engage them in learning no matter the subject, and we, the faculty, think really hard about learning, because we are also lifelong learners,” Williams said. “We hope this will help prospective students see how much we care about helping students learn through evidence-based pedagogies.”
