homecoming

K to Honor 1861 Alumnus with Distinguished Achievement Award

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A Kalamazoo College Homecoming and Reunion Weekend tradition will offer a twist this year by presenting a posthumous honor during the Alumni Association Awards and Athletic Hall of Fame Ceremony at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Dalton Theatre. 

K alumni and friends will recognize 1861 graduate Rufus Perry, who is believed to be the first Black person to attend the College, with the Distinguished Achievement Award, which celebrates graduates who have achieved distinction in their professional fields. 

Perry settled in Chatham, Michigan, after escaping enslavement at the Overton plantation in Tennessee. In Chatham, he might have met Martin Delaney, the father of Black nationalism, who was planning to emigrate to Africa. Perry became interested in emigrating as well, motivated by a desire to establish competition against the American South in the cotton industry.  

Perry enrolled at K in 1859 when the Reverend John Booth, intrigued by Perry’s Africa aspirations, sponsored his education. Soon after graduation, the African Civilization Society selected Perry to lead an expedition to Western Africa. As a member of the society, Perry had joined some of the most progressive members of the country’s Black elite.  

Perry’s plans changed after the Emancipation Proclamation. The African Civilization Society began working with freed people in the South and appointed Perry superintendent of its freedmen’s school in Washington, D.C. 

In the late 1860s, Perry moved to the Weeksville neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. As Judith Wellman writes in Brooklyn’s Promised Land, “national leaders such as Henry Highland Garnet, Rufus L. Perry, and Martin Delany consciously attempted to make Weeksville part of … the ‘golden age’ of black nationalism.” 

A portrait of 1861 alumnus and Distinguished Achievement Award recipient Rufus Perry
Alumni and friends will recognize 1861 graduate Rufus Perry, who is believed to be the first Black person to attend K, with the Distinguished Achievement Award, which celebrates graduates who have achieved distinction in their fields.

Perry later served as corresponding secretary for the Consolidated American Baptist Missionary Convention (CABMC), a national Black Baptist organization. He was co-editor of two publications for CABMC, The American Baptist and The National Monitor. During those years, he argued with the white-run American Baptist Home Mission Society, bristling at the idea that Black people couldn’t serve within the Baptist power structure. Perry also served as pastor for several churches including the Messiah Baptist Church, which he founded in Weeksville in 1887. 

Perry died in 1895 at the age of 61. The Brooklyn Eagle eulogized him as “one of the best-known colored clergymen in the country,” who “enjoyed a considerable reputation outside of Brooklyn. He was clear, concise and earnest in his speech, and wrote with ease and force.” 

Perry’s nomination for the Distinguished Service Award developed during a discussion between Tom Ticknor ’67, Donna Odom ’67 and Anne Dueweke ’84. At the time, Dueweke was performing research for her 2022 book, Reckoning: Kalamazoo College Uncovers its Racial and Colonial Past, when Perry’s record came to their attention. Their recommendations to the Emeriti Club Leadership Council and the Alumni Association Engagement Board (AAEB) secured the honor for Perry through both alumni groups. 

Perry’s great-great-grandson Freedom Williams will be on hand to accept the award on Perry’s behalf. Williams is the lead rapper for the popular group C+C Music Factory, which rose to fame in 1990 with their first album, Gonna Make You Sweat. He said the recognition for Perry is a prime honor for their family. 

“I have worked very hard to keep the Rufus Perry legacy alive and at times not hard enough,” Williams said. “To say that this is a daunting task to build a legacy from scratch and carry the name of a loved one several generations past is beyond difficult. Thanks to his grand schemes and painstaking work of love, he provided me and us with enough thrust to move the ball forward rather easily. Ancestral veneration is an undertaking lost on a lot of my people, considering the bondage and tribulation prescribed upon them in the hopes that they would forget. Regardless of the hardships and erasing of lineage, I firmly believe in it and its benefits as I believe all lovers of history do whether they believe so or not. Although we prescribe to move into the future, it is the memories and relationships of the past that shape and mold us. I am eternally indebted to Kalamazoo College because you allow us one more point of light we can use as a guide to clear the path forward for the sake of all humanity and its endless possibilities in a time where good humans and their stories of triumph are so needed to help blight the chaos and hopelessness so prevalent in our world today.” 

Others honored during the Alumni Association Awards and Athletic Hall of Fame Ceremony will include Don Schneider ’63 with the Distinguished Service Award, praising voluntary or elected leadership positions for the Alumni Association or College; Melanie Williams with the Weimer K. Hicks Award, saluting a current or retired employee of the College who has provided long-term support to programs or activities beyond the call of duty or excellent service in their job; and Darrin Camilleri ’14 with the Young Alumni Award, given to graduates within 15 years of their graduation on the basis of outstanding achievement, personal growth in their career or outstanding professional, civic and cultural service in ways that positively reflect K. Athletic Hall of Fame Awards will also be granted to Kelsey Hassevoort ’12, women’s tennis; Branden Metzler ’17, men’s tennis; Ryan Orr ’18, baseball; Colleen Orwin ’17, women’s swimming and diving; and the 1994 men’s tennis team. 

A livestream of the awards ceremony will be available through Vimeo. 

Homecoming 2019 Begins Oct. 18

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Kalamazoo College will welcome back alumni, families and friends for a fun-filled weekend as we celebrate Homecoming 2019 on Oct. 18-20.

Homecoming 2018 lo 0464 for Homecoming 2019
Alumni and guests will participate in events such as the 5K Run/Walk during Homecoming 2019.

Events begin at dawn Friday when alumni are invited to begin taking self-guided tours of the Lillian Anderson Arboretum. The “Roots in the Earth” first-year seminar created the tour in 2018, sponsored by the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement, with stop information available at the arboretum’s website. Visitors can enjoy acres of marsh, meadow and forest, and visit the Batts Pavillion, named for H. Lewis Batts Jr. ’43 and Jean M. Batts ’43.  Parking at the arboretum is available throughout the day in its main lot, with overflow parking offered at the Oshtemo Township Park, 7275 W. Main St., just east of the property.

Other Homecoming 2019 highlights will include:

  • Peter Rothstein ’14, the 2019 Young Alumni Award recipient, delivering a lecture titled From K to Tea at 4 p.m. Friday in Room 103 at Dewing Hall. Rothstein will talk about how he created a successful business after attending K. Rothstein, a 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree , established Dona Chai with his sister, Amy. The company crafts tea concentrates and sodas brewed with spices from around the world.
  • The Alumni Association Awards at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Dalton Theatre, honoring the Distinguished Achievement, Distinguished Service, Young Alumni, Weimer K. Hicks and Athletic Hall of Fame awards recipients.
  • Guided campus tours and opportunities to visit newer facilities including the Fitness and Wellness Center, the Intercultural Center, the Hornet Golf Lab and revamped weight room at Anderson Athletic Center, and the Admission Center. Consult our full Homecoming schedule for specific times.
  • An improvisation show with K’s improv troupe, Monkapult. Free tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis at the door at Connable Recital Hall in Light Fine Arts at 10 p.m. Friday.
  • The Homecoming 5K Run/Walk at 8 a.m. Saturday. Check in will begin at 7:30 a.m. The event, offering an opportunity to see the campus and neighborhood, is open to all ages and fitness levels. The first 300 registrants will receive commemorative T-shirts designed by Tanush Samson ’19.
  • The K Song Project at 1 p.m. Saturday. Guests can enjoy a high-energy performance from the College Singers featuring songs submitted by reunion classes.
  • Athletics events throughout the weekend including team reunions, a volleyball match at 5 p.m. Friday against North Park at Anderson Athletic Center, a women’s soccer match against St. Mary’s at noon Saturday at the Athletic Fields Complex, a men’s soccer match against Alma at 4:30 p.m. at the Athletic Fields Complex, and the Homecoming football game against Albion at 2 p.m. at Angell Field.

You can still join the festivities and renew connections with your classmates. Visit our homecoming website for a full schedule, details and registration information. And watch the College website, Facebook page, and Twitter (@kcollege) and Instagram @kalamazoocollege accounts for photos and updates throughout the weekend.

Inaugural K-Talk Shows Power of Alumni Ties

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[Hear more from Matt Thieleman in a TEDx Talk from Sept. 8, 2018.]

It’s an experience many Kalamazoo College alumni can relate to: spending four years working and learning with amazing and inspiring classmates, then going your separate ways, never to have the same sort of connection again.

Karman Kent and Matt Thieleman talk to the K community at the first K-Talk
Friday, Oct. 20, was the first event in a planned K-Talk series that Joan Hawxhurst, director of the College’s Center for Career and Professional Development, said will make it possible for alumni such as Karman Kent (left) and Matt Thieleman, both ’07, to share their ideas and experiences with the K community.

But for Karman Kent and Matt Thieleman, both ’07, a convergence of opportunity and expertise launched a post-college professional collaboration aimed at bringing the beneficial effects of mindfulness to stressed-out college students – an experience the two spoke about before an audience of students and fellow alumni in Dewing Hall on Homecoming Friday.

It was the first in a planned K-Talk series that Joan Hawxhurst, director of the College’s Center for Career and Professional Development, said will make it possible for alumni to share their ideas and experiences with the K community.

The project that renewed the ties between the two former classmates began after Kent joined Morehead-Cain, a foundation that provides full-ride merit scholarships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Now the foundation’s director of scholar selection, Kent found a community of high-achieving students, not unlike those at K, who were often severely stressed by the difficulties of meeting their own high expectations and those of others.

Thieleman, meanwhile, had launched a career in social media marketing, then discovered a passion for developing future leaders through training in mindfulness, the practice of focusing one’s attention on what is happening in the current moment. He launched a Nashville-based consultancy that, as he puts it, helps people recognize that actually “being present” in a situation is key to developing the ability to see the way forward in an increasingly noisy world.

Kent – seeking a way to get students to open up about their troubles – reached out to Thieleman, who brought his expertise to UNC for a seminar. He and Kent said they saw a surprising and “profound” transformation in the Morehead-Cain students who participated, with 95 percent recommending the program to others.

Thieleman continues to counsel students. And Kent said the foundation was so impressed with the results that it has hired a full-time adviser to coach its scholarship recipients in mindfulness techniques.

Hawxhurst said Kent and Thieleman’s experience points out the potential power of the K experience during and after college. Kent concurred.

“At Morehead-Cain … the alumni network is one of the biggest benefits to being in the program,” she said. “We have so many amazing alumni here at K. If we can have that kind of openness to working together, it can be transformative.”

Alumni Return for Homecoming 2017

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As many as 1,000 alumni from around the nation and world will gather on the Kalamazoo College campus Friday-Sunday for K’s annual Homecoming.

Topping the list Friday night will be the annual Distinguished Alumni Awards and Athletic Hall of Fame Inductions. And Hornet Pride will be on display at football, men’s soccer and women’s soccer games on Saturday, alumni volleyball, softball and baseball games on Friday and an alumni swim meet and 5k Run/Walk on Saturday.

Homecoming Welcomes Alumni Stetson Chapel
Kalamazoo College will conduct its annual Homecoming festivities Friday, Oct. 20-Sunday, Oct. 22.

Also among the Friday-Sunday events:

  • Reunions of the classes of 1967, 1972, 1977, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2012. There is also an informal gathering for the class of 2017.
  • Receptions and gatherings for groups including LandSea alumni, 1833 Society Young Alumni, Alumni of Color, the Emeriti Club, theatre arts alumni and athletics teams, plus a chance to socialize with faculty and staff in departmental receptions throughout the Weimer K. Hicks Student Center on Saturday morning.
  • Guided campus tours and opportunities to visit new facilities including the Fitness and Wellness Center, the Intercultural Center, the Hornet Golf Lab and revamped weight room at Anderson Athletic Center and the Batts Pavilion at the College’s Lilian Anderson Arboretum.
  • A student film festival, performances by Monkapult and Cirque du K.
  • A chance to sip hot chocolate and reminisce about campus experiences at Story Zoo around the Cavern Fire Circle next to Stetson Chapel.
  • Poetry readings honoring the late Conrad Hilberry, K’s former poet laureate.
  • Gatherings where alumni can offer advice and compare notes with current students.
  • Fun, games and treats with the Fresh Food Fairy.

You can still join the fun and renew connections with your classmates. Visit our homecoming website for a full schedule, details and registration information. And watch the College website, Facebook page and Twitter account (@kcollege) for photos and updates throughout the weekend.

 

Homecoming and Reunion Weekend

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Buzz the Hornet with a family of three at HomecomingWelcome back, Orange and Black, on October 18-20. Homecoming registration is open NOW! Please check out the schedule of events to view all of the opportunities to connect. Highlights from the weekend will include: reunion activities for the classes of 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008 (as well as special gatherings for the Class of 2013 and emeriti alumni); a student film festival featuring works created in K’s introductory and advanced documentary film production classes; family friendly activities on the Quad, featuring the Fresh Food Fairy, Cirque Du K, and the College’s three a cappella groups; the Hornet football game vs. the Albion Britons at the new Kalamazoo College Athletic Field Complex; and an opportunity to tell your K story or record a favorite memory at the Story Zoo booth in the library. There is so much to share, and alumni relations staff members are looking forward to seeing you and your family. Kalamazoo area hotels are filling up fast so please do not forget to book your hotel and mention “Kalamazoo College Homecoming” to receive a special rate. If you would like a registration form mailed to you or need assistance with online registration, please contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 269-337-7300 or aluminfo@kzoo.edu. All alumni, faculty, staff, students and K friends are invited.

Welcome Back, Orange-and-Black: Homecoming 2012

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Two young women alumni attend HomecomingHomecoming and Reunion Weekend is October 19-21. Join fellow Hornets on campus for the 8th annual 5K Run/Walk, departmental receptions with current and emeriti faculty, the K versus Hope College football game, and much much more! All alumni, students, faculty, staff, and K friends are invited.

Weekend highlights include:

– Reunion activities for the classes of 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and a special Emeritus Club celebration

– The 7th annual Farms to K Social

– A student film festival featuring seven documentaries produced in film production classes

– Lunch on the Quad while enjoying the band, Canasta, which boasts some strong K connections

– A special dedication and celebration of the Kalamazoo College Athletic Field Complex

Don’t miss out on K’s biggest event of the year. Check out the Homecoming site to register. If you would like a registration form mailed to you or need assistance with online registration, please contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 269.337.7300.

Kalamazoo College Readies for Homecoming 2010

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CONTACT: Jim VanSweden, 269.337.7291

(KALAMAZOO, Michigan) A record high 1,000 alumni and guests have registered to attend the 2010 Homecoming Weekend at Kalamazoo College, Oct. 15-17. All alumni are invited, and special reunion events are being planned for class years that end in 0 and 5. This year’s Homecoming Weekend will also include Emeritus Club reunions for the classes of 1940, 1945, 1950, 1955, and 1960.

A full schedule of events is available at www.kzoo.edu/homecoming. Reunion highlights include: a 5K run/walkthrough campus and surrounding neighborhoods; a Professional Development Institute that connects “K” alumni to current students in order to help students prepare for “life after ‘K’”; a “College Update” with President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran; a showcase of student documentary films; a poetry reading by professors Di Seuss and Gail Griffin; tours of the College’s 60-acre campus near downtown Kalamazoo, 140-acre Lillian Anderson Arboretum in Oshtemo Township, and A.M. Todd Rare Book Room in Upjohn Library Commons; countless alumni gatherings on campus and around Kalamazoo; receptions featuring current and former “K” faculty; alumni soccer and volleyball games; and, yes, a football game (Kalamazoo “Hornets” vs. Olivet, 1:00 Saturday at Angell Field).

The annual Alumni Association Awards Ceremony (Friday, 7:30 pm, Dalton Theatre, Light Fine Arts Building) honors several “K” alumni and employees for their distinguished achievement, service, athletic accomplishment, and contribution to the College. This year’s award recipients are:

Larry Bell ’80, recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award presented to alumni in recognition of their excellence and achievement in their professional field. Bell is president and founder of Bell’s Brewery, one of country’s oldest and most successful microbreweries, and a recognized leader in the craftbrewing industry. Beginning in 1983 with $200 as a birthday present from his mother, and investment funds and in-kind support from numerous individuals, Bell now presides over a company that sells more than 150,000 barrels of beer annually in 18 states—and is poised for even greater growth. Larry has also participated in a number of alumni panel discussions for students, hosted class reunions for his classmates, and provided significant funding for the Farms to K local foods initiative, and other College initiatives.

Jon Stryker ’82, recipient of the Distinguished Service Award presented to a person that has made exceptional personal contributions to the College and has performed effectively in leadership positions. Stryker is president and founder of the Arcus Foundation that works to achieve social justice that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity, and race, and to ensure conservation and respect of the great apes. An architect by training, his generous support has helped sustain many of the College’s most distinctive programs and highest priorities including study abroad and enrollment diversity. Most recently the Arcus Foundation has provided the funding and vision to establish the College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, whose mission is to support the pursuit of human rights and social justice by developing emerging leaders and sustaining existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice. Stryker also serves on the College’s board of trustees.

Kim Cummings, professor emeritus of sociology, recipient of the Weimer K. Hicks Award that honors current or retired employees who have provided significant long-term contribution to the College. Officially retired from Kalamazoo College in 2007, Cummings’ legacy as a teacher, mentor, and friend to generations of “K” students continues to this day. Having spent nearly four decades teaching sociology at Kalamazoo, Kim not only taught students the fundamentals of the subject, but through such classes at “Building Blocks” and “How to Change the World” he also introduced them to a world of citizen activism and service-learning beyond the confines of College’s Academy Street campus.

Athletic Hall of Fame inductees include several student athletes, coaches, and teams that have attained distinction at the College. These include: Harry Rapley ’38 (Football, Basketball, Track and Field), Hardy Fuchs ’68 (Soccer Coach),Dennis Kane ’75 (Football), Jim Hosner ’78 (Tennis), Emily Trahan ’03 (Volleyball), the 1976 and 1978 Men’s Tennis Teams, and the 1988 Men’s Soccer Team.

Jane (Hunter) Parker ’48, Tom Smith ’55 and Mary Lou (Schofield) Smith ’55, and Karen (Lake) De Vos ’59 each received a 2010 Emeritus Club Citation of Merit award by demonstrating their affection for Kalamazoo College through their loyalty, involvement, and service to the College; their continued financial support; and their civic, church, school, and community activities that reflect credit upon the College.

Founded in Kalamazoo in 1833, Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu) is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the “K-Plan” that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, learning by practice, and both international and intercultural engagement.

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