Director of Jewish Studies Jeff Haus speaking with students
On Wednesday, October 29, at 7:30 p.m., the Jewish Studies program at Kalamazoo College will host a panel discussion titled, “Boycott Divestment Sanctions: Alternative Narratives.” The discussion will take place in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room and is free and open to the public. This program will add to the campus discussion of the issue of boycotts and divestment targeting Israeli companies and academics by placing the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians into a broader political and historical context. The panel will also consider the implications of some of the rhetoric surrounding the BDS movement.
Participants include historian Kenneth Waltzer and political scientist Yael Aronoff, both members of the Jewish Studies program at Michigan State University (Aronoff is the present director of the program, and Waltzer is her immediate predecessor), and political scientist Amy Elman, the Weber Professor in Social Science at Kalamazoo College. Both Waltzer and Aronoff will consider the issue of Jewish self-determination (which is often left out of BDS discussions), and provide a critical assessment of BDS and its implications. Elman’s presentation will discuss her recent research on the European Union and its policies toward Israel and Jews, and the inherent contradictions contained therein. Jeffrey Haus, director of Jewish Studies at Kalamazoo College, will moderate the program, which will also include a question and answer period for the audience.
For a moment, it was hard to distinguish reality from performance.
Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Michèle Ceballos Michot walk through a door in a wall of windows and onto a concrete porch at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Gómez-Peña lights a cigarette. Michot lifts a pickaxe and places the handle behind her neck, begins a series of stretches, then eases the pick down her neck, the point of it pressing a line into her skin.
It turns out it was just a pre-performance warm-up. But with an international reputation for performance art that precedes them both by miles, it’s easy to believe otherwise – or at least want to. A short while later, the plenary “Art and Borders,” began, one of several sessions on the first full day of the “With/Out Borders” conference hosted by the Arcus Center.
Michot begins a dance routine, a stand of tall trees glowing in afternoon sunlight framed in the glass wall behind her. She powders herself, then grabs a handful of powder and lets it sift through her fingers and into her mouth. After tip-toeing around the stage area, and sprawling out on her stomach, gasping, she enters the crowd, climbing over chairs and falling into the arms of a man whose face turns pink with blushing, places her behind in another man’s lap, reaching down to pick up his Starbucks drink, and takes a sip.
Art & Borders became the first theatrical performance at K’s new Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
No one is off limits. All of the 100 or so in attendance are living props, it seems, characters in this improvised dance. There are no borders.
Meanwhile, Gómez-Peña, dressed in all black, eyes behind sunglasses, a black line drawn across his face, reads from a poem, the moving prose deriding the treatment of immigrants (“We shape your desire while we contract our services to postpone the real expulsion”) recognize the borders we put around ourselves (“We are equally scared of one another”) and realize the healing, paradigm shifting, immense power of art to break down those borders (“You just can’t take our art away).”
Later, Gómez-Peña and Adriana Garriga-Lopez, K’s Arcus Center chair and assistant professor of anthropology, participate in a question and answer session, the format of which, again, breaks through the borders of what is considered normal.
Gómez-Peña wears a dog collar attached to a chain that Garriga-Lopez is holding. She queries him on his motivations for performance art and what he hopes it achieves.
“How do you view the body?” Garriga-Lopez asks.
“The performance artist sees the body as a landscape, a map, an architectural artifact, mythological creature, text,” Gómez-Peña says.
“Do you see yourself as a poet, or a dancer, or a performance artist, or an activist? Or are all those things the same thing?” Garriga-Lopez asks.
She tugs at the chain.
“Are you choking me?” Gómez-Peña says. “I am this and that and everything in between.”
“What are you like in your personal life?” Garriga-Lopez asks.
“When I’m on stage, I’m more warrior-like, more Indian shaman, a little more queer, more deliberate and outrageous. And off-stage, I am just another perplexed mediocre human being.”
Perhaps. But like the start of his performance, it’s hard to tell.
Learn more about Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Michèle Ceballos Michot at www.pochanostra.com.
Kalamazoo 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Kalamazoo College’s Ethnic Studies program is collaborating with the student organization, Sexual Safety and Support Alliance, and the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) to present “Working Together to End Violence.” The event will occur on Friday, September 26, at 2:35 p.m. in the ACSJL building on K’s campus, and it will feature a viewing and discussion of the film Hearing Radmilla. The film was produced and edited by Angela Webb and documents the turbulent reign of Radmilla Cody, Miss Navajo Nation 1997-98, and the first biracial person to hold that title. The film chronicles her development as the goodwill and cultural ambassador of the Navajo Nation and her success as an award-winning vocal artist. Later Cody was sentenced to 21 months in a federal corrections facility for misprision of a felony, essentially concealing knowledge of a crime. The extenuating circumstances included an abusive boyfriend involved in marijuana trafficking. When Cody was released in 2004 she became a passionate activist against domestic violence. Both Webb and Cody will attend and participate in the discussion, which is part of the social justice leadership center’s With/Out ¿Borders? Conference.
The film offers an unparalleled treatment of race and gender in the U.S., according to Reid Gomez, who directs the College’s Ethnic Studies program and will serve as the moderator of the event. “No other film crosses the firm racial boundaries that police the categories of Black and Indian. Significantly, the film also addresses the epidemic of domestic violence and the singular position of women in prison.”
The issue of domestic violence has been prominent recently as a result of developments in the case of former Baltimore Raven Ray Rice and his wife Janay Palmer Rice. But the issue is longstanding and particularly acute for indigenous women. “According to a U.N. report, indigenous women are eight times more likely to be murdered that non-indigenous women,” said Gomez. “The violence against Black and Indian/indigenous women has largely been ignored, disavowed, and rendered invisible.”
Gomez has high praise for the film. “Webb was able to tell Cody’s complex story (of colonialism, racism, and domestic violence) without resorting to any grotesque display or to the erotics of terror.”
The 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.
From 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.
Amidst the controversy surrounding the nearly 60,000 undocumented and unaccompanied youth who have migrated to the United States in recent months, primarily from Central America, international experts on immigrant and undocumented youth will convene at Kalamazoo College. Their gathering is part of the With/Out – ¿Borders? conference hosted by the Kalamazoo College Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (September 25 through 28). Conference events related to this timely topic include:
* Roundtables exploring migration and identity on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, as well as the nature and impact of relations at that border both locally and globally.
* A daylong Think Tank on networks and support for undocumented youth and those working with them, held in collaboration with Kalamazoo’s Hispanic American Council. And,
* A workshop and performance by acclaimed performance artist and MacArthur “Genius” Guillermo Gómez-Peña, whose eclectic “Chicano cyberpunk” pieces often focus on the intercultural experience of Mexicans in the US.
Participants also will include James Roberts (University of Maryland School of Social Work and Johns Hopkins), Rudy Lozano (Chicago immigrant rights activist), and Lulú Martínez (undocumented student at the University of Illinois at Chicago and one of the Dream Nine). Local participants include Lucy Guevara-Vélez of Western Michigan University, Jill Hermann-Wilmarth and Simona Moti of Kalamazoo College, and Lori Mercedes and Adam Poole of the Hispanic American Council.
All activists, artists, students, researchers, and others interested in immigration and social justice are invited to attend the With/Out – ¿Borders? conference. Registration is on a sliding scale from $35 – $125, and group rates are available. Space is limited, and interested persons are urged to register as soon as possible. The four-day conference features discussion, workshops, a film festival and performances on important hot-button issues, including immigration and migration, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, activism and art, and urban revolt and renewal.
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.
Kalamazoo 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.
Mia Henry is the new executive director for Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
(KALAMAZOO, Mich.) July 14, 2014 – After a national search, Kalamazoo College has named Mia Henry as executive director of its Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. She will begin her duties in Kalamazoo on August 11.
Since 1998, Henry has worked as a nonprofit administrator, education program developer, public school and university instructor, and social justice leader at the local and national level.
She will join the Arcus Center—established by Kalamazoo College in 2009 with generous support from the Arcus Foundation—just as it plans to move into its much anticipated new building on the K campus, and just weeks before its With/Out Borders Conference, scheduled for Sept. 25-28.
Henry replaces Jaime Grant who announced her intention to leave the Center last year.
“We are thrilled to welcome Mia Henry to Kalamazoo College,” said K President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran. “She is a strategic, thoughtful leader with wide experience in social justice, education, and leadership development. She’s served as an executive, educator, entrepreneur, and supervisor. I’m convinced she will help us build on the multifaceted collaborative efforts that have helped shape K’s social justice leadership center into the first of its kind in higher education.”
“Mia will build upon the excellent work of ACSJL inaugural director Jaime Grant who led the Center for four years and helped launch the Kalamazoo College Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership, among many other stellar programs,” said Wilson-Oyelaran.
Henry said what excites her most about the prospect of leading the Center is that “I will have the chance to share my passion for social justice advocacy with K students, faculty, and staff, as well as with people in the Greater Kalamazoo community and across the country who are at the forefront of campaigns addressing today’s most pressing issues.
“Kalamazoo College’s commitment to connecting academia to the study and practice of social justice aligns with my own professional mission and personal values. I look forward to helping the Arcus Center continue to embrace practices that support collaboration, transparency, and bold programming.”
Her duties at K—in collaboration with Arcus Center Academic Director Lisa Brock—will include maintaining and augmenting the vision for the Center; developing programming and partnerships with local, national, and international organizations; raising the profile of the Center and the College nationally and internationally; and working with K faculty, staff, and students on innovative projects and practices in social justice leadership.
For the past four years, Henry has served on the national leadership team for Black Space, an initiative of Safe Places for the Advancement of Community and Equity (SPACEs) that supports intergenerational groups of community leaders working for racial equity across the United States.
She currently serves on the boards of directors for the Community Justice for Youth Institute and the Worker’s Center for Racial Justice, both in Chicago, and has been a consultant with the Chicago History Museum, Chicago Public Schools, the University of Chicago Hospital, and the University of Chicago Oriental Institute.
She founded Reclaiming South Shore for All, a diverse grassroots group of residents committed to mobilizing Chicago’s South Shore community by institutionalizing systems that promote peace, youth leadership, and political accountability. She also owns and operates Freedom Lifted, a small business dedicated to providing civil rights tours for people of all ages.
From 2007 to 2012, Henry served as the founding director of the Chicago Freedom School, overseeing most aspects of the nonprofit school dedicated to developing students aged 14 to 21 to be leaders in their schools and communities and to training adults to support youth-led social change.
She previously served as associate director of Mikva Challenge, a Chicago-based nonprofit that engages high school students in the political process, working with more than 50 Chicago-area high schools to design and implement curricula for teaching “Action Civics” and addressing racial segregation.
Henry was a senior program consultant in youth development at the University of Chicago, a visiting lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she taught courses to students pursuing a master’s degree in youth development, and a program coordinator for City University of New York where she monitored college performance in the areas of enrollment and student achievement and developed centralized parent outreach initiates.
From 1998 to 2003, Henry was a social studies teacher and International Baccalaureate Middle-Years program coordinator at Roald Amundsen High School in Chicago.
An Alabama native, Henry earned a B.S. degree in sociology/criminal justice from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and a M.S. Ed. degree in secondary education from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
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.
Seniors Roxann Lawrence and Raven Fisher have integrated community service into their undergraduate academic learning in ways that are unmatched by most college students in the state of Michigan. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Roxann and Raven are co-recipients of the Outstanding Community Impact Award, given annually by the Michigan Campus Compact (MiCC). Only six such awards are given in the state (and some 600 students were nominated). In addition to honoring Roxann and Raven (both of whom will address the 18th Annual Outstanding Student Service Awards Celebration on April 12 in East Lansing, Michigan), MiCC will also bestow its Heart and Soul Award to 14 other Kalamazoo College students. They are Dana Allswede, Zoe Beaudry, Ebony Brown, Jordan Earnest, Amy Jimenez, Sherin John, Komal Khan, Colin Lauderdale, Katherine Mattison, Ayesha Popper, Chelsey Shannon, Eren Sipahi, Sarah Sullivan, and Madeline Vermeulen. The Heart and Soul Award recognizes students for their time, effort, and personal commitment to communities through service.
Roxann and Raven have been involved with Community Advocates for Parents and Students (CAPS), an advocacy and tutoring initiative founded in 2005 in response to the Kalamazoo Promise, which provides college tuition for Kalamazoo public schools graduates to any Michigan public university, college, or junior college. CAPS believes that all children, despite their economic circumstances, can learn and successfully take advantage of the Kalamazoo Promise College Scholarship Program. The program has made a difference for some 400 socioeconomically disadvantaged children.
Raven Fisher (left) and a CAPS student
Roxann and Raven were CAPS tutors during their first year at K. As sophomores they took a leadership role as Civic Engagement Scholars (CES) in the CAPS program. The CES program is part of the College’s Center for Civic Engagement. They are serving as co-directors of all K tutors in the program during their senior year. Both women are active in other campus organizations. Raven is president of K’s Black Student Organization; Roxann is president of the Caribbean Society. Roxann’s Senior Individualized Project focused on LGBT issues in her native Jamaica. Raven’s SIP involved working with Kalamazoo Public Schools on a program to introduce and measure the effect of a culturally relevant math curriculum for middle school students.
Michigan Campus Compact is a coalition of college and university presidents who are committed to fulfilling the public purpose of higher education. MiCC promotes the education and commitment of Michigan college students to be engaged citizens. Roxann and Raven were nominated for the Outstanding Community Impact Award by Teresa Denton, associate director of K’s Center for Civic Engagement.
