faculty

Faculty Honors in Art and Science

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Peter Erdi, Physics and Complex Systems Studies, has been selected to deliver the “Ignite” talk at the Science of Success symposium (June 17, 2013) at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.). The title of his address is “Prediction of Emerging Technologies.”

In other recognition of faculty work, the artwork “Kohler Pile”–a collaborative piece that Associate Professor of Art Sarah Lindley and her husband Norwood Viviano created during their Arts-Industry Residency at John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, Wis.)–was accepted for publication in New Glass Review 2013. Their project was one of 100 selected from a pool of 2,973 submissions by 1010 artists/designers from 48 countries. New Glass Review is an annual survey of glass in contemporary art, architecture, craft, and design created in the previous year by emerging and established artists, as well as students. The works are chosen by a changing jury of curators, artists, designers, art dealers, and critics. The book/journal will come out in July.

Building A Community Course

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Creators and members of the capstone course "Engaged Community Membership"
Creators and members of the capstone course “Engaged Community Membership” included (l-r): front row–Dan Kilburn and Alex Armstrong; back row–Jensen Sprowl, Marissa Rossman, Kiran Cunningham, Sara Haverkamp, Kami Cross, and Nicole Allman. Not pictured are Chris Cain and Ellen Conner. Cunningham is a member of the Class of 1983. Everyone else is a member of the Class of 2013.

The seniors taking the class, “Engaged Community Membership” (see photo), can build more than a good retaining wall in the College’s Grove area. They also can build a valuable course. And they did–their own capstone course.

In the winter quarter some 50 interested seniors met to begin to plan a “Senior capstone” course, one that would reflect the best thinking of seniors about a course that  structures reflection on their previous three and two-thirds years of academic and experiential rigor. The result of this winter planning was the spring quarter pass-fail class: “Engaged Community Membership.” The notion of community became the theme, according to class member and anthropology-sociology major Nicole Allman ’13.

The class eventually attracted nine seniors representing some 10 majors and Professor of Anthropology Kiran Cunningham ’83.

“We determined the course goals, set projects, and created the syllabus,” said Allman. “We focused on skill-based, concrete ideas surrounding the concept of community,” she added. Two projects in particular became the core of the course–a senior class recipe and cook book, tapping the experience of the Class of 2013 both on- and off-campus, including extending families throughout the world; and a landscaping and retaining wall project in the College’s Grove area.

Allman loved the class for both its hands-on and reflective qualities. “It was a valuable capstone experience that drew out and extended what we’d learned in the classroom and out over the past three years,” she said. “For me it clarified what it means to build a community and provided a blueprint for doing so that I can use to become a part of new communities.” The cookbook, she added, will be published (electronically) and shared with classmates and wider audiences.

More information access the project will be shared in the future.

K at Michigan Academy of Science Arts and Letters

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The 2013 Michigan Academy of Science Arts and Letters annual conference featured some 450 participants presenting in 33 academic sections on a wide range of topics. Seven of those presenters were Kalamazoo College students: Alex Armstrong ’13, Ryan Berry ’13, Ian Flanagan ’13, Alexander Numbers ’13, Jonathan Romero ’13, Hayden Uihlein ’14, and Jennifer Wendel ’14. These students were sponsored by Charlene Boyer Lewis, associate professor of history, and Chris Latiolais, associate professor of philosophy.

Strong K Presence at National Science Meeting

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Six students presented research work at the annual ASBMB meeting
Six students presented research work at the annual ASBMB meeting. From left: Josh Abbott, Erran Briggs, Amanda Bolles, Mara Livezey, Michael Hicks, and Nic Sweda. Hicks is a biology major; the other five are majoring in chemistry.

Six Kalamazoo College students joined two of their chemistry professors and mentors (Regina Stevens-Truss and Laura Lowe Furge) at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology National Meeting in Boston, Mass. The students–Nicholas Sweda ’13, Mara Livezey ’13, Michael Hicks ’13, Josh Abbott ’13, Amanda Bolles ’14, and Erran Briggs ’14–presented results of their summer and academic year research experiences (Senior Individualized Projects in the cases of Nick and Josh). Nearly 300 posters from colleges across the country were part of the 17th Annual Undergraduate Student Research Poster Competition and Professional Development Workshop. Professor Furge was a judge in the competition.

The lab of Professor Paul Hollenberg at the University of Michigan was the site of Abbott’s SIP research on the role of CYP2B6 metabolism of the chemotherapeutic drug cyclophosphamide. The other five posters were based on research done at Kalamazoo College. Sweda presented ongoing studies from Professor Stevens-Truss’s lab on suramin selective inhibition of nitric oxide synthases. This work is the basis of a manuscript in preparation with Sweda and Alyssa McNamara ’11 as co-authors. Livezey, Hicks, Bolles, and Briggs each presented individual posters with results of three projects from Professor Furge’s lab on the interactions of inhibitors with human cytochrome P450 enzymes. The work presented by Bolles and Briggs is currently being prepared in a manuscript for publication with both students as co-authors along with Livezey. The posters presented by Hicks and Livezey are the basis of current NIH-funded studies in the Furge lab. In addition to the poster sessions, students attended talks, award lectures, and exhibits. Students also met with graduate school recruiters.

During the meeting, Professor Stevens-Truss directed her third annual teaching workshop for middle school and high school science teachers in the Boston area. The workshop attracted more than 70 teacher-participants from the Boston area, a record number for these ASBMB associated events. Professor Stevens-Truss’s efforts in structuring the workshops have provided a new platform for scientists to collaborate and mentor the nation’s secondary school science teachers. Scientists from across the country helped make the workshop a meaningful experience for school teachers. It was funded by a National Science Foundation grant to Stevens-Truss. Next year’s meeting will be in San Diego, Calif., and K expects to be there.

Celebrating the Life of Charles Goodsell Sr.

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A memorial service celebrating the life Charles True Goodsell Sr. has been arranged by his son, Charles T. Goodsell Jr., a member of the Kalamazoo College Class of 1954. The event will occur on Saturday, May 11, at 11 A.M. in the Blacksburg (Virginia) Presbyterian Church (701 Church Street). The senior Goodsell was a professor in the K history department from 1928 until his sudden death while speaking in Stetson Chapel on November 25, 1951. Goodsell also served as the acting president of Kalamazoo College in 1935-36. Stories will be told by his son prior to the placement of his ashes in the Church Columbarium. (The ashes were discovered unclaimed at Langeland Funeral Home in Kalamazoo last November.) A lunch will follow the memorial service. Charles Jr. sent word of the service because some alumni who knew his father may still be alive and interested in knowing about the event. All are invited to the service. Persons interested in joining the family for lunch should RSVP at 540.552.9032 or goodsell@vt.edu.

K Professor Takes Second Place in Fiction Contest

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Professor of English Andy Mozina took second place in the fiction category of the Summer Literary Seminars Unified Literary Contest. There were some 1,200 entrants in the contest. The fiction category as judged by Mary Gaitskill. Mozina’s fine finish continues a K tradition: Last year Writer-in-Residence Di Seuss ’84 won first place in the contest’s poetry category. For Mozina, the prize includes publication and free tuition for a two-week conference in either Lithuania or Kenya.

Improv Festival in Downtown Kalamazoo

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Professor of Theatre Arts Ed Menta, who also directs Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College, gives a shout-out to the 5th Annual Kalamazoo Improv Festival. Festival activities take place on May 10 and 11. Friday, May 10, features four shows (6PM, 8PM, 10PM, and 11:30 PM). Saturday offers two workshops (1PM and 4PM) and two shows (8PM and 10PM). All shows and workshops will be at Farmers Alley Theatre. More information and ticket reservation are available online, for call the Farmers Alley box office at 269.343.2727.

K Team Presents at Food Justice Meeting

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A Kalamazoo College (and Kalamazoo-area) food justice partnership coordinated by the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (formerly the Institute for Service-Learning) came together as a plenary session team and presented at Michigan State University’s First Annual Workshop on Food Justice & Peace. Team members included Alison Geist, director of the Center for Civic Engagement; Associate Professor of English Amelia Katanski; K students Shoshana Schultz ’13 and Charlotte Steele ’14; Ben Brown of the People’s Food Co-op; and Guillermo Martinez of the Van Buren Intermediate School District. Martinez also works with the College’s Hispanic Health and Disease class (Spanish 205). Steele is a former Civic Engagement Scholar of the organization Farms to K. Most of the MSU conference presenters discussed theoretical aspects of food justice and peace. The K team discussed how theory has translated into action in the Kalamazoo area. According to Schultz, the K team demonstrated the “ecology of food justice work in Kalamazoo,” how the parts work together in a manner that integrates theory and practice. Said Schultz: “People were blown away and very impressed by the collaboration that takes place in Kalamazoo.

Kalamazoo College Announces Finalists for $25,000 Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership

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Kalamazoo College is pleased to announce the finalists for its inaugural $25,000 Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership.

Fifteen finalist projects are collaboratively led by scholars and activists from eight U.S. cities (Columbus, Ohio; Detroit; Los Angeles; New York; Oakland, Cal.; Olympia, Wash.; South Bend, Ind.; and Urbana, Ill.; and ten nations including Germany, Honduras, Hungary, India, Malawi, Palestine, Rwanda, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. One of these projects will earn the $25,000 Global Prize.

Three finalists—two from Kalamazoo and one from Marshall—are eligible for a $5,000 Regional Prize for a project that originates in Southwest Michigan.

All finalists will present their work May 9-11 in Dalton Theatre on the K campus to jurors and attendees who will discuss and deliberate over the course of a three-day “Prize Weekend.” Global and Regional Prize winners will be announced by Kalamazoo College President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran, on Saturday, May 11 at 7:15 in Dalton.

“The Kalamazoo College Global Prize creates an opportunity for our students, faculty, and the local community to interact with scholars and activists who are at the leading edge of collaborative social justice leadership practices around the country and around the world,” Wilson-Oyelaran said.

“The Global Prize also matches up with K’s mission to prepare its graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world,” she said.

Visit https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/clprize/finalists  to see a brief description of each finalist and link to its video entry. Facebook users may also view each video and “Like” their favorites (https://www.facebook.com/GlobalPrizeFinalists).

Each Global Prize applicant submitted a video (8-10 minutes) describing a social justice project, its innovative approach, and its collaborative leadership structure. A total of 188 entries were received from 23 countries and 25 U.S. states (including 14 from Southwest Michigan) by the March 8 deadline.

“The Global Prize undertaking truly presents an excellent opportunity for K students and the entire community to see social justice theory in action and to reflect on what we see as promising practices in the pursuit of a more just world,” said Lisa Brock, academic director of Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, which is administering the Global Prize competition.

According to Brock, a wide variety of social justice issues are addressed among the finalists, including: education access and equity, environmental sustainability, food sovereignty, health inequities, human rights violations against prisoners and LGBTQI people, immigration, international development, racism, workers’ rights, and more.

“Several finalists involve projects and partners that cross state and international borders,” Brock said. “One project from India, for example, includes partners in Columbus, Ohio and South Bend, Indiana. And the project from South Africa includes collaborators in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.”

More than 50 people, including K students, faculty, and staff members, as well as social justice advocates in Kalamazoo and elsewhere, juried the semifinal round of the competition and selected the 18 finalists. Jurors included: author, political activist, and University of California-Santa Cruz scholar Angela Y. Davis; former Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission Cary Alan Johnson; and shea howell, Detroit-based author, educator, columnist, and board member of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership.

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership was launched in 2009 with support from the Arcus Foundation (www.arcusfoundation.org), including a $23 million endowment grant in January 2012. Supporting Kalamazoo College’s mission to prepare its graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world, the ACSJL will develop new leaders and sustain existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.

K’s David Barclay is a Peripatetic Scholar

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In recent months David Barclay (Margaret and Roger Scholten Professor of International Studies, Department of History) has made a variety of presentations in several different venues. In November 2012 he spoke on “Music and Cold War Politics in West Berlin” at the Max Kade Center for German and European Studies at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee). While at Vanderbilt Barclay was able to talk with Professor Edward Friedman, one of the world’s most distinguished Cervantes scholars, who taught at K in the 1970s. He also talked with Peter Collins, son of the late Professor David Collins, who taught French at K for many years. Later that month Barclay presented a paper on “Preussen in amerikanischer und europaeischer Sicht” (“European and American Views of Prussia”) at a conference of the Otto von Bismarck Foundation in Potsdam, Germany. In February 2013, in Fort Worth, Texas, he delivered a banquet address on “Myth, Memory, and the Legacies of 1813” at the 42nd annual conference of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era. In early May he will address the Southwest Michigan Association of Phi Beta Kappa by asking “’Why on Earth Do You Study German History?’ How I Try to Answer That Question.” Barclay also recently signed a contract with Princeton University Press to publish his next book, Cold War City: West Berlin 1948-1994, in 2017.

Barclay recently published an article (“A ’Complicated Contrivance’: West Berlin behind the Wall, 1971-1989”) in a volume titled Walls, Borders, Boundaries: Spatial and Cultural Practices in Europe edited by Marc Silberman, Karen Till, and Janet Ward. It’s just been reviewed in the journal Society and Space — Environment and Planning. The reviewer wrote: “In chapter 6 (’A complicated contrivance’) David Barclay draws together Berlin’s material histories with its alternative aesthetic potentialities. His account revisits Berlin behind the wall as a site of drama and epic personalities–the epicentre of the Cold War–together with the gradual demographic hollowing and cultures of experimentation fostered by the Allied occupation. The ‘oddly dialectical relationship’ between the Allies’ presence and the emergent, ’curious’ socio-political cultures of West Berlin (page 125) hinge upon the immense shadow of the Wall, which, all the same, formed an increasingly invisible backdrop like another ’piece of furniture’ (page 122). Perhaps more than any other chapter Barclay’s essay illuminates how the maintenance of ordinary life can have enduring and unpredictable effects. Against the backdrop of the wall, politically alternative cultures have survived in Berlin like perhaps nowhere else in Europe. These include new kinds of tactical subversion such as squatting and anarchist direct action. Subversion and the reproduction of walls are shown to inflect one another.”