faculty

Distinguished K Professor and Administrator Dies

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Former Kalamazoo College professor of economics and business Sherrill ClelandFormer Kalamazoo College professor of economics and business Sherrill Cleland died of natural causes at the age of 91 on October 26, 2015, in Sarasota, Florida. He was an outstanding teacher and educator, a leader and innovator in higher education, and an accomplished economist.

Professor Cleland was born in 1924 in Galion, Ohio, to Fred and Doris Cleland. He was a decorated World War II veteran with a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He earned his degrees in economics from Oberlin College (BA) and Princeton College (MA and Ph.D).

He joined the faculty at Kalamazoo College in 1956 as an assistant professor of economics and business and chair of that department. Within three years he had achieved the rank of full professor and served in that role until 1973. He also served as dean of academic affairs (1965-1967) and vice president (1966-67). Among other subjects, he was an expert in Middle East studies and on the integration of courses on consumerism into college curricula.

Professor Cleland was known for his optimism, encouragement, curious mind, and his interest in others and in the world. He was widely admired for his creativity, his commitment to mentoring others, and for promoting equal rights and opportunities for women.

He left Kalamazoo College in 1973 to serve as President of Marietta College (Marietta, Ohio), a position he held until 1989.

Professor Cleland’s acumen as an economist was recognized near and far. In 1962 former Governor John Swainson named Cleland to a five-person advisory committee on the Michigan economy. Internationally, through the Ford Foundation, Professor Cleland worked as an economic advisor to Jordan, and he helped create the country’s first infrastructure development plan in Amman (1963-64). Later he led the creation of the world’s first masters program in Development Economics at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon (1967-69). In 1965 the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the U.s. State Department appointed Professor Cleland to a team of educators who visited various colleges and universities in six African nations to study possibilities of faculty and student exchanges.

His civic engagement while a resident of Kalamazoo was exemplary. He served as chairman of the Kalamazoo Employment Advisory Council and president of the Kalamazoo County Chapter of the United Nations Association and the Kalamazoo Chapter of the American Association of University Professors. He also worked as the Democratic civil rights coordinator for Kalamazoo County.

Professor Cleland remained active in retirement, serving as Chairman of the Student Loan Funding Corporation and on the Board of Directors of KnowledgeWorks, Tuition Exchange, and AMIDEAST.

He is survived by his wife of 27 years, Diana Drake Cleland, and his children Ann Feldmeier, Doug Cleland, Sarah Allen, Scott Cleland, Cynthia Rush, Allison Abizaid, Linda Wiener, Carol Abizaid, Amanda Abizaid Plonsky, and Richard Abizaid. He is also survived by 19 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren. Professor Cleland was widowed by his first wife of 39 years, Betty Chorpenning Cleland.

Sherill Cleland loved Kalamazoo College, and that love was a legacy he passed to his family. His daughter Ann and son Scott are graduates (1972 and 1982, respectively) as is his granddaughter Amy Houtrow (1996).

Finding Strengths

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Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of Psychology Kyla Fletcher
Assistant Professor of Psychology Kyla Fletcher

Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of Psychology Kyla Fletcher has been awarded a grant by the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities (part of the NIH) to study African-American partner relationships and share “what goes right” in terms of daily HIV risk reduction behavior.

The three-year grant ($438,000, making it the largest single-investigator award ever received at Kalamazoo College) is titled “Substance Use and Partner Characteristics in Daily HIV Risk in African Americans.” Fletcher hopes to enroll 200 participants in the community-based study. Participants will complete daily surveys for a month (a study approach called “daily diary” that provides more reliable data than do retrospective approaches). Participants also will do confidential in-person interviews in the lab Fletcher has set up in Olds-Upton.

The study will empirically consider the role of partners, specifically relative to managing (one’s own and one’s partner’s) substance use and condom use, and negotiating the knowledge of a partner’s HIV status through testing–all behaviors that can be associated with HIV prevention.

“There are relationships where partners talk about these behaviors and negotiate them successfully,” says Fletcher. “The study will help us learn how they accomplish that, which may suggest strategies to encourage such engagement and behaviors more widely among intimate partnerships in specific populations.”

In addition to setting up the interview lab and a website for the study, Fletcher is working with her newly hired Research Associate (hailing from the greater Kalamazoo area) and her team of six Kalamazoo College students to begin the recruitment phase of the study. “I had an enthusiastic pool of K students,” smiles Fletcher. “There is great interest in human sexuality and the influences of community on relationships and the influence of partners in relationships.

“The K students, which include members of every class, bring a diverse set of experiences and new ideas to the study team,” adds Fletcher. In return, the students will learn how to think analytically and how to initiate (and collect and analyze data from) a ’daily diary’ research protocol, knowledge that would be relevant for graduate study or employment in the field of psychology, according to Fletcher.

She is particularly excited that the work will be community-based. “The grant allows us to build a cohort that is diverse in multiple ways and more reflective of the reality of the community,” she explains. “It also obligates us to disseminate the results back to the community and to seek their input on how to communicate those results most effectively.”

Fletcher has already enlisted community representatives as advisers. And, she notes, the community-based character of the research is an opportunity for the K students to get off campus and interact with people from whom they differ in a variety of ways and with whom they also share fundamental similarities. The discovery and exploration of distinctions and commonalities can be a valuable learning experience.

This academic year is Fletcher’s fourth at Kalamazoo College. She teaches courses in general psychology, adolescent development, research methods, the psychology of the African-American experience, and the psychology of sexuality.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from Howard University (Washington, D.C.) and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. In grad school she focused on developmental psychology with an emphasis on sexual socialization, and she did post-doctoral work at U of M’s Substance Abuse Research Center.

“It’s in the nature of human relationship development that partners tend to meld into one another, adopt each other’s interests and give greater consideration of a partner’s desires,” says Fletcher. “How partners influence behaviors related to substance use, sexual risk and HIV prevention is a key question of this study. What strengths in relationships work toward healthy outcomes, and can these strengths be applied more widely?”

“It’s exciting work,” concludes Fletcher, “and could be part of a cultural shift—a needed shift, in my opinion—from a deficit-based view to a strength-based view of sexuality and health.”

K Expert on Anti-Semitism and the EU Addresses Colloquium in England

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Amy Elman, the Weber Professor in Social Science, traveled to Bristol, England, in September as an invited speaker at an international colloquium on contemporary anti-Semitism. Her talked was titled “The Enduring Significance of an Abandoned Definition: the EU’s Working Definition of Anti-Semitism and its Foreign Policy Ambition,” and it focused on the the past year’s developments in the European Union. The paper builds on Amy’s recently released book The European Union, Anti-Semitism and the Politics of Denial (University of Nebraska Press, 2014). Amy also wrote the chapter “The EU’s Responses to Contemporary Anti-Semitism: A Shell Game,” which appears in the book Deciphering the New Anti-Semitism, edited by Alvin Rosenfeld (Indiana University Press, 2015)

Does Good Need Memorable?

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Psychology Professor Siu-Lan Tan outdoors
Kalamazoo College Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan

BuzzFeed’s Reggie Ugwu wrote an explication of a new vocal phenomenon he calls “Indie Pop Voice” (“Selena Gomez’s ’Good for You’ and the Rise of the ’Indie Pop Voice’”). The trend refers to many singers’ creative reshaping of vowel sounds. But why do that?

To arrive at a more comprehensive answer to that question, Reggie turned to Kalamazoo College’s Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan, who also posts a blog (“What Shapes Film”) for Psychology Today online. Siu-Lan expands on Reggie’s question in her “Six Reasons Pop Singers Pronounce Some Lyrics in Odd Ways: ’Secret Asian Man’ and Other Mysteries of Song.” The reasons range from the more prosaic “making a song one’s own” to the wonderfully poetic “tightening or relaxing one’s lips or throat to change the tone color of your voice.” How cool is the fact that a voice has tone colors!

According to Siu-Lan it’s vowels that make the song, so those might be re-shaped in any number of ways for any number of reasons. Consonants, on the other hand, are flow-stoppers and are therefore emphasized…or omitted entirely…depending on the effect a singer desires. (That’s why Siu-Lan for some time thought Johnny Rivers was singing about a secret Asian man rather than a “Secret Agent Man”). Both Reggie and Siu-Lan cite the desire to be more interesting or catchy—“good” needs “memorable,” according to Reggie. Okay, agrees Siu-Lan, but be careful. Too much “capital-M Memorable” via pronunciation deviation carries some risk—such as a feeling of contrived affectation or garbled words. You especially don’t want the latter if the lyric’s magic.

Here’s another question Reggie or some other inquirer might one day ask: Why’s a top notch psychology professor weighing in on independent pop music? “Although as an academic I spend most of my time on scholarly works, I think bringing what we do to the public is also important,” says Siu-Lan. “Technical aspects of singing include articulators and resonators and formants. But when applied to Selena Gomez and Top 40 pop singers, we can make the basic ideas relevant to the general public—and perhaps make them aware of some more nuances involved in singing.”

College Breaks Ground on New Wellness Center

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Rendering of Fitness and Wellness CenterKalamazoo College celebrated with a groundbreaking ceremony the beginning of construction of its new fitness and wellness center. The ceremony took place at the building site at 4 p.m. (September 24). The approximately $9 million project is funded by gifts made to K’s recently completed fundraising drive, The Campaign for Kalamazoo College.

President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran said that the center is germane to the College’s liberal arts mission. “We focus on the whole student; we focus on the balance of mind, spirit and body.” The center, she added, would be “a common space in which the entire campus community–faculty, staff, students and retirees–can develop healthy life styles through participation in fitness and wellness programs.”

Grace Smith at a podium
Grace Smith ’17 explains what the fitness and wellness center will mean to students.

The 30,000 square foot, two-story center will house the following:

– a weight room and cardio fitness area of sufficient capacity to meet the needs of all students and employees;

– five multi-purpose rooms, as flexible in function as the liberal arts to which they are dedicated;

– two racquetball courts;

– expanded lockers for both the Hornet tennis teams and for general use;

– an office and health assessment room for the campus wellness director; and

– space for the George Acker Tennis Hall of Champions.

The building provides an example of excellence in sustainability. “Our building is designed and will be constructed to the high standards of energy efficiency and resource conservation explicit in a LEED silver rating,” said Wilson-Oyelaran. “And our efforts in this area will be audited by two students who have been hired and trained in LEED certification.”

(Photo by Jessie Fales ’18)

Successful Campaign Closes and Exceeds Expectations!

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Participants in the Campaign for Kalamazoo College hold up signs indicating $129,140,336 was raised
The Campaign for Kalamazoo College raised $129,140,336!

Kalamazoo College made history today.

At a special celebratory gathering of students, faculty and staff, the College announced the completion of The Campaign for Kalamazoo College, which surpassed its $125 million goal by raising more than $129 million and, in so doing, became the most successful fundraising campaign in K’s history, generating more financial resources than the last two campaigns combined.

“We are grateful to the thousands of alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and friends who made contributions and volunteered time and talent to make this campaign a success,” said President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran.

“We also celebrate the deeper meaning of this campaign,” she added, “that a liberal arts education is the best education to enrich a life, in the fullest sense of that word, and the best education to provide lessons that go beyond just employment. There are centuries of evidence to support that notion and now a successful Kalamazoo College campaign to affirm it. And, by the way, a liberal arts education also happens to be the best education not for one job but for multiple jobs, which is likely to be the future for current students.”

President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran gives two thumbs up
President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran

Campaign participation was widespread. More than 17,000 donors have made gifts and pledges. Twelve donors committed to gifts of $1 million or more. Sixty-three percent of faculty and staff participated in the campaign.

The ultimate beneficiaries are K students, current and future, who do more in four years so they can do more in a lifetime. The campaign funded five capital projects and seven new endowed faculty positions. Capital projects include the renovations of the Weimar K. Hicks Center and the athletic fields complex and the construction of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership building. Ground has been broken on the new fitness and wellness center, and fundraising will continue for the planned renovation of the College’s natatorium.

The campaign created 30 new funds to support Senior Individualized Project research opportunities for students (the SIP is a graduation requirement at K) and created 35 new permanently funded student scholarships.

“This campaign is about much more than numbers,” said Wilson-Oyelaran. “This campaign is an affirmation of the liberal arts. This campaign is about alumni, parents, and friends who continue to give to Kalamazoo College so that others can benefit from the way that K practices the liberal arts.”

Photos courtesy of Jessie Fales ’18

Living Legend

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Letitia (Tish) Loveless on a tennis court
Tish on the playing surface where her teams won 23 conference titles

On Saturday, September 12, Kalamazoo College will pause in its busy orientation week to honor a living legend: Professor Emerita, Coach Emerita, and Women’s Athletic Director Emerita Letitia (Tish) Loveless, Ph.D.

On that day the College will dedicate the “Tish Loveless Court” in the Anderson Athletic Center. A continental breakfast reception and court dedication will occur at 10 a.m. The volleyball match between K and Trine University will follow at 11 a.m.

Tish is considered the pioneer of women’s athletics at Kalamazoo College. She is the most successful coach of women’s teams in the history of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the oldest athletic conference in the country.

Tish’s teams won 28 league championships–23 in tennis, four in archery, and one in field hockey. Her 1986 women’s tennis squad finished third in the nation.

Tish came to Kalamazoo College in 1953 as an instructor of physical education. She rose through the ranks and was named professor of physical education in 1974. When she arrived, there was not intercollegiate schedule for women. By 1978, women competed in seven varsity sports. Tish served as director of women’s athletics from 1953 to 1986. On October 30, 1992, Kalamazoo College inducted Tish into its Athletic Hall of Fame.

Letitia (Tish) Loveless participates in a field hockey practice
Tish was a hands-on coach, shown here participating in a Hornet field hockey practice

Tish believed in the benefits of competition for all persons, regardless of skill level, and she worked tirelessly to ensure an opportunity to compete for all. She added new sports and classes, and not just those that reflected her own particular interests. She paid attention to what students wanted, and she learned and taught fencing, modern dance, folk dance, social dance, and swimming. On several occasions (basketball is an example), at the urging of passionately committed students, Tish would take on the head coaching role (educating herself on the fly) in the sport’s transition phase from club sport to varsity sport. She also served as a leader in the LandSea program and, true to the liberal arts marrow of the institution to which she dedicated her career, she sang in Bach Festival chorus and participated in the Faculty Readers’ Theatre.

Tish was a trusted counselor and source of support for students and colleagues alike. Her tenure at K made a difference in the lives of countless Hornet athletes and PE students. In 2008, Elaine Hutchcroft ’63 and her late husband Alan Hutchcroft ’63 established the Tish Loveless Women’s Athletic Endowment. Both Elaine and Alan competed as Hornet athletes, and both admired Coach Loveless.

Tish Loveless is the teacher/coach/administrator/human being with whom you could place your daughter, at any age, and be absolutely certain she would receive all the right messages about her worth!

Convocation 2015

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Kalamazoo College faculty participate in ConvocationKalamazoo College kicks off the 2015-16 academic year on Wednesday Sept. 9 at 3:00 p.m. with its annual opening convocation ceremony for new students.

The ceremony will take place on the campus Quad and be available via live streaming. In case of rain, the ceremony will move into Stetson Chapel.

President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, Provost Michael McDonald, Dean of Students Sarah Westfall, Chaplain Elizabeth Candido ’00, faculty, staff, and student leaders will welcome new students and their families. Nike Foundation Partnerships and Communications Manager Tieneke vanLonkhuyzen ’06, from Portland, Oregon, will deliver the keynote address.

K will welcome 367 first-year students (including 30 matriculating international students), 18 transfer students, and 28 visiting international students. New students come from 29 states within the United States of America including Oregon, Florida, Maine and Texas, and from 23 countries including, Japan, Ecuador, Greece, Vietnam, and Sierra Leone. Students of color from the U.S. make up more than 25 percent of the incoming class.

Eleven members of the incoming class of 2019 are the first “Kalamazoo Promise Eligible” students to attend K. Through a partnership announced in June 2014 by The Kalamazoo Promise and the 15-member Michigan Colleges Alliance (MCA), eligible Kalamazoo Public School (KPS) graduates enrolling at an MCA member institution will receive free tuition and fees. The Kalamazoo Promise, now in its tenth year, was established by anonymous donors who pledged to provide free college tuition and fees for KPS graduates attending 43 state universities and community colleges in Michigan. With the addition of the 15 MCA liberal arts college members, Michigan 58 institutions are now Kalamazoo Promise eligible.

 

Some Dust and Then a Pony!

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Enlarged graphic shows Campus Drive behind the Hicks Student Center
Effective August 24, Campus Drive behind Hicks Center will be one-way west, allowing a gain of 20 new angle parking spaces.

A stall full of horse manure is a litmus test for optimism. One person may see only a thankless chore; but a second rejoices in the likelihood of a pony.

Well, pardon our dust,and then get ready for a metaphorical pony.

From midnight on Thursday, August 20, until midnight on Sunday, August 23, two parking lots (Crissey-Severn and Upper Fine Arts) and Campus Drive behind the Hicks Student Center will be closed for resealing and striping. we apologize for that inconvenience. Here comes the pony part.

When Campus Drive reopens (August 24), the street will be one way (west only) from the east end of the Hicks Center to Lovell Street. Drivers will no longer be able to enter Campus Drive from Lovell Street. Campus Drive will continue to be accessed from Academy Street and will remain two-way from Academy Street to the east end of the Hicks Center. The new configuration will provide space for at least 20 new parking places, six of which will be reserved for alternative fuel vehicles. And the one-way traffic flow behind Hicks Center will also increase safety for pedestrians and ease congestion.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience the repaving and striping may cause, and we sure look forward to additional parking spaces on campus. This project takes its place among others–the library and Hicks Center renovations, the athletic fields complex, the social justice center building, the fitness and wellness center–wherein a temporary inconvenience is followed by a permanent improvement.

WE Instead of THEY

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Former Associate Provost for International Programs Joe Brockington in commencement attireJoe Brockington, Ph.D., associate provost for international programs at Kalamazoo College, died on August 10, 2015. In addition to his post in the Center for International Programs, Brockington also served as professor of German language and literature. [NOTE: The memorial service for Joe Brockington will occur Monday, August 17, at 2 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Saugatuck (296 Hoffman Street). The College will take one bus and two vans to the service. Faculty, staff and students interested in attending may register by emailing Renee Boelcke at Renee.Boelcke@kzoo.edu. Those taking the College transportation will meet on Academy Street, outside of Anderson Athletic Center at noon on Monday, August 17. The bus and vans will return to campus at the conclusion of the memorial service.]

Brockington earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D degrees from Michigan State University, and began his career at Kalamazoo College in 1979 as an instructor in German language and literature. During his 35-year career at K, Brockington served in several roles in the Center for International Programs before being named associate provost in 2000. He was recognized internationally as a safety and risk management expert in study abroad programming. During his career he served in various positions of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, including chair of the Section on U.S. Students Abroad and member of the International Education Leadership Knowledge Committee. He also served as a member of the founding board of the Forum on Education Abroad, the Association of International Education Administrators. Brockington published and presented numerous papers on modern German literature as well as a variety of study abroad topics, including orientation and re-entry, international programs administration, and campus internationalization. He led best practices workshops in legal and risk management issues and co-edited the third edition of NAFSA’s Guide to Education Abroad for Advisers and Administrators.

“Joe interacted with generations of K students,” said President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, “and increased their opportunities for independent research and service learning abroad. He was a faithful advocate for international students at K, working with colleagues to ensure a full and productive K educational experience. Joe significantly expanded K’s reputation as a leader in study abroad and international programming. He will be missed by many in the K family and throughout the world.”

In the fall of 2008 Kalamazoo College celebrated its 50th anniversary of sending students abroad. Brockington devoted his career to that important educational tradition. Some 80 percent of K students have studied in programs ranging from China and Japan to India and Israel; from Kenya and Senegal in Africa to Ecuador, Costa Rica, Chile, and Mexico in South and Central America. Their options have included European programs in Greece, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, and England as well as the opportunities that have continued (since the program’s origins) in France, Spain, and Germany. Most students study in a foreign language and live with host families. And most participate in an Individualized Cultural Research Project that requires them to get out into a community, participate in a service project, and write a report about the experience. All of that is part of the legacy of Joe Brockington. “The goal,” he once said, “is to help the student look at other cultures, other peoples, and say ’we’ instead of ’they.’”

Dr. Brockington is survived by his wife, Catherine, and their three sons (and K alumni): Andrew ’04, David ’99, and Samuel ’01. Visitation will occur Sunday, August 16, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Dykstra Funeral Home in Holland, Michigan (188 32nd Street). A memorial service will take place Monday, August 17, at 2 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Saugatuck (296 Hoffman Street). The College will take one bus and two vans to the service. Faculty, staff and students interested in attending may register by emailing Renee Boelcke at Renee.Boelcke@kzoo.edu. Those taking the College transportation will meet on Academy Street, outside of Anderson Athletic Center at noon on Monday, August 17. The bus and vans will return to campus at the conclusion of the memorial service.