leadership

Arcus Center Building Dedication is Open to the Public, Friday Sept. 19, 4:00 p.m.

Posted on

Aerial depiction of the Arcus Center for Social Justice LeadershipKalamazoo College hosts a dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4 P.M., Friday Sept. 19, for the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership building at 205 Monroe St., at the corner of Academy St. in Kalamazoo, Mich. The 10,000 sq. ft. structure—the newest on the K campus—was constructed by Miller-Davis Company of Kalamazoo and designed by Studio Gang Architects of Chicago.

The dedication event is free and open to the public. Guests are encouraged to park in the K Athletics Fields parking lot, 1600 W. Michigan Ave., and take continuously operating shuttle vans to the ceremony.

Speakers will include Charlotte Hall ’66, chair, K board of trustees; Jon Stryker ’82, K trustee; Jeanne Gang, founder of Studio Gang Architects; Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, K president; and Cameron Goodall ’15, K student commission president.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony will include Carol Anderson, K professor of religion and chair of the Department of Religion; Lisa Brock, academic director of K’s Arcus Center; and Mia Henry, executive director of K’s Arcus Center.

Refreshments and an open house in the new building follow.

Artist's rendering of the Arcus Center for Social Justice LeadershipThe Arcus Center building features offices, work areas, and classroom/seminar spaces situated around a central hearth and kitchen area. Wooden benches around the central fireplace preserve and repurpose wood from the site’s trees. The building’s structural frame includes 680 pieces of steel—many curved, some in two planes, and no two alike.

The building’s three-sided form emphasizes academic learning, relationships with the natural world, and interdependency of communities. A predominance of curvature represents arms open to all to join in social justice work.

The exterior cordwood masonry construction—northern Michigan white cedar logs of varying diameter in 11- to 36-inch lengths—symbolizes the diversity of humanity. While cordwood construction is traditional to the upper Midwest, this is believed to be the first commercial or institutional structure in North America to employ this technique.

Arcus Center for Social Justice LeadershipThe College will seek Gold LEED certification for the new building. Its geothermal heating and cooling system (12 wells drilled to a depth of 400 feet) meets the College’s stringent energy efficiency standard. A radiant and forced convection heating system transforms the Center’s entire floor into a heat duct, with air movement undetectable to the senses. Onsite drainage and retention reduces storm water runoff.

K gratefully acknowledges Steelcase Inc. and Custer Workplace Interiors for their generosity in helping supply office furnishings for the new Arcus Center building.

The Arcus Center building and its $5 million construction cost is a gift to the College from Jon Stryker, a member of the K board of trustees and of the K class of 1982. Jon is founder and president of the Arcus Foundation (www.arcusfoundation.org), a private, global grant-making organization with offices in New York City, Kalamazoo, and Cambridge, U.K., that supports the advancement of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) human rights, and conservation of the world’s great apes. Jon is a founding board member of the Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy in Northern Kenya, Save the Chimps in Ft. Pierce, Fla., and Greenleaf Trust, a trust bank in Kalamazoo. He also serves on the board of the Friends of the Highline in New York City. Jon is a registered architect in the State of Michigan. He earned a B.A. degree in biology from K and a M.A. degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley.

MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang is the founder of Studio Gang Architects, a Chicago-based collective of architects, designers, and thinkers practicing internationally. Jeanne uses architecture as a medium of active response to contemporary issues and their impact on human experience. Each of her projects resonates with its specific site and culture while addressing larger global themes such as urbanization, climate, and sustainability. With this approach, Studio Gang has produced some of today’s most innovative and visually compelling architecture. The firm’s projects range from tall buildings like the Aqua Tower, whose façade encourages building community in the vertical dimension, to the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo, where 14 acres of biodiverse habitat are designed to double as storm water infrastructure and engaging public space.

Founded in 1909, Miller-Davis Company is headquartered in Kalamazoo, Mich., with an additional office in South Bend, Ind. It is a full-service construction company providing general contracting, construction management, design-build, and construction consulting services. Miller-Davis has served as the construction manager on numerous Kalamazoo College projects for more than 80 years. In addition to the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, these projects include Upjohn Library Commons, Hicks Student Center, the K Natatorium, Stetson Chapel, Mandelle Administration Building, Hoben Residence Hall, and Trowbridge Residence Hall.

The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (www.kzoo.edu/socialjustice) 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, creating a pivotal role for liberal arts education in engendering amore just world. The Arcus Center was established at Kalamazoo College in 2009 through generous funding from the Arcus Foundation. In 2012, the College received a $23 million grant from the Foundation to endow the Center’s activities.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences 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.

Cities in Revolt: Ferguson and Beyond — Conference at Kalamazoo College Will Explore Complex Threads of Racial Injustice, Reconciliation, and Healing

Posted on

Advertisement for the 2014 Without Borders ConferenceThe complex issues surrounding the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., are sure to be discussed and analyzed for years to come. The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College is making an early contribution to the discussion by convening leaders from many social justice fields—including some who have been on the ground at Ferguson and sites of other civil engagement—to explore policing, restorative justice, and resistance movements that are growing in American cities today.

Two major discussions are offered as part of the “With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference” hosted by the Arcus Center that will also explore other hot–button issues such as youth immigration and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

On Thursday, Sept. 25, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., a think tank titled “Policing, Racial Profiling, and Restorative Justice” will be held at the Douglass Community Association, 1200 W. Paterson St. in Kalamazoo. Discussion leaders include:

  • Frank Chapman, Chicago Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression
  • Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Cooperation Jackson
  • Patrisse Cullors, Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in LA Jails
  • Ria Fay-Berquist, Leadership from the Inside Out
  • Mia Henry, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
  • Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, co-executive director of Youth Safety and Violence Prevention, YMCA, Metro Chicago

On Saturday, Sept. 27, from 1:40 to 3:10 p.m., a plenary session titled “Cities in Revolt!” will look at a range of racial and urban concerns, including policing, racial vigilantism, privatization, and political and economic disenfranchisement. Participants include:

  • Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Cooperation Jackson
  • shea howell, Detroit activist, professor, and chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich.
  • David Stovall, education activist and associate professor of educational policy studies and African-American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago
  • Rhonda Williams (moderator), founding director of the Social Justice Institute and associate professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

“Borders are being questioned and, in some cases, challenged, everywhere,” said Lisa Brock, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Kalamazoo College and academic director of the Arcus Center. “Globalization and privatization are creating new borders between those who have access to education, food, clean water and those who do not.

“Do all citizens have equal right to participate without threat of a militaristic response?” she asks. “Scholars and grassroots activists working on these questions will address these and other issues facing cities today.”

All activists, artists, students, researchers, and others are invited to attend the “With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference.”

Preregistration is required to attend these events. Registration is on a sliding scale from $35 to $125 and registration closes Monday, Sept. 8. Space is limited, and interested persons are urged to register as soon as possible.

Accessibility and translation services can be made available upon request.

The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership 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, creating a pivotal role for liberal arts education in engendering a more just world.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences 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.

“Boycott, Divest, and Sanction” movement against Israel will be discussed at Kalamazoo College conference

Posted on

Logo for 2014 Without Borders ConferenceFrom the 1950s through the 1980s, global activists organized economic boycotts, academic boycotts, and divestment campaigns to pressure South Africa’s government into abandoning its official policy of racial segregation, known as apartheid.

Today, a growing movement uses similar tactics against Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as recent actions that have caused the death of more than 2,000 Palestinians and the injury and dislocation of many more.

Israel and its supporters say its actions are required for national security and the safety of its citizens, and that the so-called “Boycott, Divest, and Sanction” (BDS) movement is misguided.

The legitimacy, effectiveness, and future of the BDS movement will be among the issues explored by a plenary panel of leading activists and scholars at Kalamazoo College, as part of the With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference, September 25-28, hosted by the College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.

The event is titled “Critical Solidarities: The Palestinian Question” and will be held Saturday, September 27, at 9:30 am. Panelists include:

  • Activist and scholar Angela Davis, distinguished professor emerita in the departments of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Cruz.
  • Alex Lubin, professor and chair of the American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico, and a former director for the Center for American Studies and Research at the American University of Beirut.
  • Lynn Pollack, a long-time peace activist and board member of Jewish Voice for Peace.
  • Saree Makdisi, professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, and author of “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation” and other books.
  • Leena Odeh (moderator), a Chicago-based activist who has spent the past year in Beirut and has contributed eyewitness accounts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to ElectronicIntifada.net.

The event is offered as part of the With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference that will explore other hot-button issues including youth immigration and the prison-industrial complex.

With/Out – ¿Borders? is billed as both a conference and “un-conference,” according to Lisa Brock, academic director of K’s Arcus Center.

“In addition to formal presentations, there will be performances, films, and informal spaces where attendees may share learning, give impromptu demonstrations, begin public discussions, stage a performance, and more,” said Brock

All activists, artists, students, researchers, and others interested in international movements and social justice are invited to attend the With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference. Registration is on a sliding scale from $35 to $125, and group rates are available. Space is limited, and interested persons are urged to register as soon as possible.

Accessibility and translation services available upon request.

The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership 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, creating a pivotal role for liberal arts education in engendering a more just world.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences 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.

 

“Conference/Un-Conference” at Kalamazoo College To Examine Political, Ideological, Cultural, and Social Borders

Posted on

Advertisement for 2014 Without Borders ConferenceKalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is still accepting registrations to the “With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference” scheduled for September 25-28, 2014 at the College. Registration information and a conference schedule can be found at https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/withoutborders, or by contacting Lanna Lewis at slewis@kzoo.edu or 269-337-7398. More than 250 people have already registered toward a cap of 350.

“This will be a convergence of activists, scholars, and artists representing diverse issues, disciplines, generations, and locations,” said Arcus Center Academic Director Lisa Brock. “They will examine and question the many borders—political, ideological, cultural, social, and beyond—that make up our world.”

Key scholars, writers, and artists who will present or perform include civil rights icon Angela Davis, poet and National Book Award recipient Nikky Finney, South African Poet Laureate Willie Kgositsile, MacArthur Award recipient Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and filmmakers Gloria Rolando and Grace Lee.

Only conference registrants may attend conference events.

“With/Out – ¿Borders?” is billed as both a conference and ‘un-conference,’ according to Brock, “because in addition to formal presentations, there will be performances, films, and informal spaces where attendees may share learning, give impromptu demonstrations, begin public discussions, stage a performance, and more.”

Plenary sessions, roundtable discussions, and workshops will cover a range of topics including current activism around power structures within cities and schools in the United States, identity formation at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, LGBTQ refugees in Canada, the land conflict between Nigeria and Cameroon, and more. Presenters include activists and academics from across the U.S. and the world, as well from Kalamazoo, Detroit, and Chicago.

Conference co-sponsors include Kalamazoo College departments of Theatre Arts, Anthropology and Sociology, Music, Political Science, and Media Studies, along with Kalamazoo People’s Food Coop, YWCA of Kalamazoo, Douglass Community Association, Hispanic American Council, Kalamazoo County Public Arts Commission, Western Michigan University Center for the Humanities, Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership in Detroit, and other organizations.

The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership 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, creating a pivotal role for liberal arts education in engendering a more just world.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences 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.

The George Acker Endowed Scholarship

Posted on
Teacher and coach George Acker
George Acker, teacher and coach

On the occasion of its annual Founders Day ceremony (celebrating 181 years of operation) Kalamazoo College announced the George Acker Endowed Scholarship. The scholarship will support juniors or seniors who best exemplify the qualities and character of Coach Acker, including an exceptional work ethic, leadership, a commitment to involvement in campus activities, and a high standard of integrity. Preference will be given to students who are (like Coach Acker was) the first in his family to attend college.

Acker served as a coach and professor at Kalamazoo College for 35 years (1958-93) and was inducted into the Kalamazoo College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998. He coached men’s tennis teams to seven NCAA Division III championships while winning 35 consecutive MIAA championships. His tennis teams were 573-231 overall and an incredible 209-1 in conference play.

Acker was as true a “liberal arts coach” as they come. He served as head coach of the Hornet wrestling (1960-74) and cross-country (1985-88) teams. He also was line coach for the Hornet football team from 1959-69, helping guide Rolla Anderson’s squads to back-to-back MIAA championships in 1962 and 1963. He served as the College’s athletic trainer and director of the intramural sports program at different times during his career.

Most of all, he loved teaching. “Nothing has given me as much pleasure as teaching the students in my theory and activities classes,” said Acker in 1985, when he accepted the Florence J. Lucasse Award for Excellence in Teaching, the faculty’s highest honor. “Teaching and coaching are very similar, so that I feel that when I’m coaching a sport it is an extension of my teaching.” Many persons, including this author, knew “Coach” as “Teacher,” and as profoundly as the athletes he instructed, they, too, were touched by his compassion and his ability to bring out their best. Coach Acker died on July 20, 2011, of complications surrounding the stroke he suffered several days earlier.

Senior Leaders Honored

Posted on

Kalamazoo College Senior Leadership Award winnersThirty-two students–all members of the Class of 2014–earned the prestigious Kalamazoo College Senior Leadership Award. Each student was nominated by at least one faculty or staff member. They include founders and leaders of student organizations and programs, athletic team captains, residence assistants, peer leaders, civic engagement scholars, student commissioners and officers, teaching and laboratory assistants, and service-learning and social justice leaders. In terms of leadership, they are the best-of-the-best at an institution whose mission is to develop enlightened leaders. Pictured are (l-r): first row–Roxann Lawrence, Ayoki Levy, Sarah Sullivan, Yesenia Aguilar, Lori-Ann Williams, Anna Asbury, Emma Dolce, Nathalie Botezatu; second row–Hsu Tun, Geneci Marroquin, Ramon Rochester, Claire DeWitt, Sherin John, Brenda Guzman; third row–Erran Briggs, Marc Zughaib, Amanda Mancini, Umang Varma; fourth row–Lucas Kushner, Amy Jimenez, Ismael Carrasco, Amanda Bolles, Nicholas Beam, back row–Tendai Mudyiwa, Ian Good, Colin Lauderdale, Edward Carey, and Mark Ghafari. Not pictured are Keaton Adams, Raven Fisher, Michael Korn, and Kari Paine.

Kalamazoo College Launches “Praxis Center” Online Resource for Social Justice Scholars, Activists, and Artists

Posted on

Kalamazoo College today announced the launch of “Praxis Center,” an online resource for social justice practitioners hosted by the College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Accessible via www.kzoo.edu/praxis, Praxis Center contains scholarly articles, teaching resources, images, and links to videos, blogs, and other websites, as well as information on conferences, events, publications, research, and other items of interest to social justice scholars, activists, and artists.

“There are many single-issue resource sites available online, but few such as Praxis Center where multiple issues and resources intersect,” said Lisa Brock, Praxis Center senior editor and Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) academic director. “Praxis Center is a crossroads where social justice leaders can learn, share, and connect across disciplines and issues.”

Praxis Center is arranged around seven themed sections, each with a contributing editor: Science and Social Justice; Race, Class, and Immigration; Human Rights; Global Health; Genders and Sexualities; Environment, Food and Sustainability; and Art, Music, and Pop Culture.

Under each themed section are five action buttons: Posts (an archive of previously posted articles), Teach (where teachers can post social justice course syllabi and teaching tools), Read (a list of social justice bibliographies), Watch/Listen (videos and other audio visual materials), and Act (listings and links to upcoming social justice events, conferences, and other engagements.)

Praxis Center editors will update the site weekly, while encouraging comments and contributions from an engaged readership. Original artwork (changed monthly) that matches the themed sections is also featured.

“We envision Praxis Center to be a marketplace for the free and open exchange of information and ideas on all social justice issues,” said Brock. “From action research and radical scholarship to engaged teaching and grassroots activism, from community and cultural organizing to revelatory art practice, Praxis Center will make visible all the critical social justice work being done today across the country and around the globe.”

Iranian Cultural Center Graffiti Action 2009
Photo: “Iranian Cultural Center Graffiti Action 2009” by Naeem Mohaiemen, a writer and visual artist working in New York City and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Chicago-based educator, cultural organizer, activist, and writer Alice Kim serves as Praxis Center editor. ACSJL Program Coordinator Karla Aguilar is managing editor. Read all editors’ bios at www.kzoo.edu/praxis/about.

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.

Posse at K Turns Four; Nationally, 25

Posted on

Kalamazoo College graduated its first group of Posse students in June 2013, its four-year orange-and-black anniversary in a national program that, in November, celebrates its silver anniversary.

K was the first Michigan school to partner with the Posse Foundation (with the organization’s Los Angeles chapter). The program finds students with academic and leadership potential who might otherwise be overlooked by traditional admissions metrics, gives them several months of training, and sends them off to elite undergraduate institutions in groups of 10 to 12 other students from the same city. The program also provides support for the students once they are on campus. Seeing K’s first 10 Posse graduates and their parents—and their tears—at K’s 2013 commencement, says Jon Stryker ’82, was very moving. “It’s not often you can give a gift that changes a life.” Stryker made a gift to K to support the first five years of the program. Posse at K will persist beyond those five years, and support for the program is a focus of K’s fundraising effort, “The Campaign for Kalamazoo College.”

In late October, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article about the Posse Program’s 25th anniversary (“A Quarter-Century of ’’Posses’’ Underscores the Power of the Cohort,” by Libby Sander). The article quotes Kalamazoo College President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran.

Just Lead: K’s Jaime Grant Pens Huffington Post Op-Ed

Posted on

 

Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Executive Director Jaime Grant
Jaime Grant, Ph.D., Executive Director, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College.

Jaime Grant, executive director of K’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, wrote an op-ed piece entitled “Just Lead” that appears in the Dec 6, 2012 Huffington Post. In it, she praises “the power of community in motion; the power of innovative, just collaboration.” Grant’s piece coincides with the launch of the Kalamazoo College Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership, a biennial $25,000 prize that honors an innovative and collaborative leadership project in the pursuit of social justice and human rights anywhere in the world. 

Marquise Griffin ’15 Selected to Attend National Student Leadership Forum on Faith and Values

Posted on
Marquise Griffin
Marquise Griffin ’15

Marquise Griffin ’15 has been selected to attend the 2012 National Student Leadership Forum on Faith and Values in Washington, D.C., Nov. 2-4. Convened by members of Congress, the Forum brings together college students from the United States and abroad to interact with fellow students, recent graduates, young professionals, and established adults from the political, business, and social service sectors.

Marquise was nominated by Kalamazoo College Chaplain Liz Candido ’00. He’s a student chaplain at K and co-leader of the Christian Student Organization. Marquise is active in the K Black Student Organization, K-Crew, Caribbean Society, and Poetry Collective, and he’s working with other K students to create a student fitness organization on campus.

The St. Louis, Missouri-native also engages in service-learning as a tutor in the Community Advocates for Parents and Students (CAPS) program in Kalamazoo. He intends to declare a major in English during winter quarter 2013. A lifelong martial arts enthusiast, Marquise is on his way to meeting his goal to earn a “black belt” in at least seven martial arts categories. Martial arts allow him “to meld my spirituality, mental/intellectual abilities, and physical fitness into a lifelong journey of self improvement and service to others,” he said. “As a Christian, I view service to be a top priority. Christ taught us to serve others with love, because love is the greatest force.”