social justice Archives - Page 5 of 17

2016 With/Out ¿Borders? conference at Kalamazoo College continues registration, and announces participants, performances and community partners

Posted on July 7, 2016April 10, 2023

Kalamazoo College officials announced today applications remain open to attend the 2016 With/Out ¿Borders? Conference hosted by the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) on the K campus in Kalamazoo, Mich., Oct. 20-23.

With/Out ¿Borders? features a panel of distinguished participants, including actor and writer Daniel Beaty, American studies scholar and social movements historian Christina Heatherton, journalist and author Naomi Klein, and New Orleans poet and singer Sunni Patterson.

Naomi Klein [photo credit Kourosh Keshiri]

“This conference brings together people whose work envisions an imaginative, robust and just future,” said ACSJL Academic Director Lisa Brock. “We invite conversations across disciplines from American and international academics, writers, artists and activists on the front lines of climate change, peace, food justice, human rights and more.”

According to Brock, Naomi Klein will deliver a conference keynote presentation and participate in panel discussions. Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Published worldwide in 2007, Shock has more than a million copies in print in 30 languages. Her critically acclaimed new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, was a 2014 instant bestseller now being translated into more than 20 languages. A documentary film based on the book will be shown during the conference.

Also during the Conference, Sunni Patterson will perform a spoken word/poetry piece, Christina Heatherton will discuss and sign copies of her new book, Policing the Planet, and Daniel Beaty will stage his play Emergency. In the play, Beaty performs 40 different characters who respond to the unexpected phenomenon of a slave ship emerging in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Through characters’ individual responses to the ship and their varied testimonies on identity and personal freedom, Emergency weaves a stirring commentary on what it is to be human and the longing to be free.

Community partners for the With/Out ¿Borders? Conference include Alamo Drafthouse Cinema; Case Western Reserve University Social Justice Institute; Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at University of Chicago; ERAACE; Hispanic American Council of Kalamazoo; Kalamazoo Public Library; People’s Food Co-op of Kalamazoo; University of Illinois-Chicago Social Justice Initiative; and YWCA of Kalamazoo.

According to Brock, other confirmed With/Out ¿Borders? Conference participants thus far include:

• Simon Akindess – UNESCO Coordinator of Pan-African Schools
• Jaafar Aksikas – President of the Cultural Studies Association
• Blair Anderson – Detroit-based activist and former Black Panther
• Peter Bratsis – Scholar of EU polices, Greece and Brexit
• Adrienne Brown – Detroit-based science fiction writer, social justice activist and performer
• Prudence Browne – Scholar of charter schools as colonial education
• Dara Cooper – Black farmers and food justice advocate
• Sean Estelle – National divestment campaigner for Energy Action Coalition
• Nicholas Estes – Scholar of indigenous intellectual history in the U.S.
• Bill Fletcher, Jr. – Author and racial justice and labor activist
• Shreena Gandhi – MSU scholar of religion in the Americas
• Lewis Gordon – Philosopher and expert on Frantz Fanon
• Alex Lubin – Scholar of African-American/Arab solidarities
• Shaya Plaut – Human rights journalist and educator
• Erin Polley – Peacebuilding program coordinator at American Friends Service Committee
• Shante Paradigm Smalls – Hip Hop scholar, artist and writer
• Valerie Thomas – Scholar of Afro-Futurisms
• Cynthia Young – Scholar of third-world solidarities
• Alice Kim – Coordinator of the Chicago Torture Survivors justice movement

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (www.kzoo.edu/arcuscenter) is an initiative of Kalamazoo College. Its mission is to develop and sustain leaders in human rights and social justice through education and capacity-building. The ACSJL envisions a campus and world where every person’s life is equally valued, the inherent dignity of all people is recognized, the opportunity to develop one’s full potential is available to every person, and systematic discrimination and structural inequities have been eradicated.

Kalamazoo College, 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.

Life’s Imperative: Social Justice in Science

Posted on May 9, 2016December 6, 2023

A seed—call it science-and-social-justice—has been germinating in the mind of Regina Stevens-Truss since December of 2009. In truth, Stevens-Truss (the Kurt D. Kaufman Associate Professor of Chemistry) has been thinking on that matter long before then. But the occasion of that December seven years ago—a faculty workshop sponsored by the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) on the topic of incorporating social justice into the undergraduate curriculum—and a conversation at the event with Harvard University professor Jonathan Beckwith (well known for uniting social justice and science in his science courses) gave Stevens-Truss a language for her thinking.

That small seed has come to fruition in several ways over the years, most recently (in a very big way) with the April 2016 Science and Social Justice Think Tank (SSJTT), which gathered from across the country some 60 experts and advocates for social justice consideration in the conduct of research and science education.

The SSJTT, like so many previous fruitions, was sponsored by the ACSJL. “It is so vital to have the social justice center here,” says Stevens-Truss. On the issue of science and social justice, as with so many others, the center provides “a language, a name, if you will, a platform for what needs to be done, and the national reach to do it,” says Stevens-Truss. Language, platform, reach. “The social justice center is indispensable.”

According to Stevens-Truss, in recent years scientists and science educators have improved in the area of science and ethics. Both groups have become better at considering and carefully answering questions like: am I doing research (or teaching research protocols) in a way that respects the human rights of research subjects as well as the integrity of the scientific process? Comparatively, science has been less effective in its consideration of social justice matters.

“We must become better at framing and answering social justice questions,” says Steven-Truss. Is the research we are considering good for society? Who will benefit? Will different communities benefit disproportionately? Will there be adverse burdens to bear and, if so, who or what communities are most likely to bear those burdens?

A similar battery of social justice questions for science educators certainly includes this one: What course content is required to ensure that students from various backgrounds see themselves as stakeholders in science to a degree that is sufficient to keep them involved in the discipline?

That last question inspired at least one living ancestor of April’s SSJTT. In 2011 Stevens-Truss, Beckwith and Lisa Brock, academic director of ACSJL and associate professor of history, began collecting the syllabi of science courses that integrate social justice. Two K undergraduate students and a Harvard graduate student searched colleges and universities across the country and compiled the various ways science professors fit social justice into the academic content of their courses. The trio made these ideas available as a resource to all on science and social justice website, part of ACSJL’s Praxis project.

Work on the SSJTT soon followed. Eliza Jane Reilly, deputy executive director of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement; Karen Winkfield, radiation oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, and Anne Dueweke, director of faculty grants and institutional research at K, joined Stevens-Truss, Beckwith and Brock to form a planning committee. Senior Shannon Haupt, an environmental activist and anthropology and sociology major, served as project assistant.

“We wanted to gather professors, scholars, scientists, public health and environmental leaders working where science and social justice intersect,” says Brock. “We also sought experts on diversity in the STEM fields and people thinking about changes underway in society and science.”

SSJTT participants engaged with three questions: What benefits will accrue when social justice is included in undergraduate, graduate and medical school science courses? What are specific strategies for integrating social justice issues into scientific research? What disciplinary and institution reforms will most effectively advance social-justice-in-science nationally?

“We need to train the next generation in a way that these questions are second nature,” says Stevens-Truss. Particularly gratifying for her was the liberal arts diversity of the SSJTT’s presenters and participants. Attendees included researchers, science professors, policy makers, lawyers, journalists, writers and philanthropists.

“Our evening keynote speakers were a writer [and English professor Debra Marquart, “Owning Our Future: A Poet’s Response to Extraction”] and a visual artist [Mary Beth Heffernan, “Ebola, Culture and Social Justice Through the Lens of a Photographer”],” says Stevens-Truss.

Such diversity matters a great deal, she added, because social justice connects to art, poetry, the social sciences and the hard sciences, a fact with “deep implications for how we teach and practice science.” The committee is currently tackling how to extend the SSJTT’s momentum. The Praxis Center will help. And the language, platform and reach of the ACSJL will be critical.

Stevens-Truss has long been an activist, albeit (perhaps) without the sobriquet. Her work on campus with Sukuma, locally with Sisters in Science, and nationally in a program that connects practicing scientists and middle school teachers comprise distinct expressions of her preoccupation with matters of social justice and science. And now, through the Praxis Center and programs like the SSJTT, the cause and (yes!) its activists have a growing magnitude and unity.

“As scientists and educators we must help each other see our impact on people,” says Stevens-Truss, “and on communities. Especially the marginalized people and communities who often are the most adversely affected by our choices in boardrooms, laboratories, classrooms and scientific funding committees.”

Intercultural Conference and Hip Hop Collective

Posted on April 22, 2016March 23, 2022

Kalamazoo College’s Intercultural Student Life group presents the “Intercultural Conference and Hip Hop Collective,” a two-day event on April 29 and 30 featuring guest speakers, the Black History 101 Mobile Museum, panels, discussions and a performance featuring five Hip Hop artists. The event’s venues include the Hicks Banquet Hall and Hicks Center.

Among the event’s goals are building relationships and learning about the intercultural ethos of K. “My student advisory board and I decided to focus our first event on Hip Hop because Hip Hop has a way to cross over cultural boundaries and speak to multiple groups,” said Natalia Carvalho-Pinto, director for intercultural student life.

The museum exhibit is open both days of the conference and is a powerful experience. “Khalid El-Hakim, the museum’s curator, travels with about 1,000 exhibit pieces,” says Carvalho-Pinto, “ranging from the slavery era through Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement up to Hip Hop and the modern era.” El-Hakim will deliver the keynote address Saturday, talking about the museum and the importance on continuity in social justice work.

The Conference also features Ernie Pannicioli, a photographer who has documented Hip Hop from its birth through modern days and photographed every celebrity in Hip Hop,” according to Carvalho-Pinto. She adds, “He published a book titled Who Shot Ya, and he speaks about ’the other side of Hip Hop,’ the movement building and struggles that few discuss.” Carvalho-Pinto also is excited about the presence of OLMECA at the conference. “He is a very unique artist,” she says, “and his keynote address will focus on his experiences in the Zapatista movement and Hip Hop in Latin America.”

A Hip Hop panel occurs Saturday afternoon with Miz Korona, Mu, Supa Emcee and Kenny Muhammed THE HUMAN ORCHESTRA. Five Hip Hop artists will perform Saturday night for the “Zoo After Dark” activity.

“Our speakers, panelists and performers are really great people,” says Carvalho-Pinto. I would love to see as many students, staff and faculty as possible attend some or all the conference. My hope is that the event opens more opportunities for dialogue and serves as a place of empowerment for our students of color on campus.”

Participants Announced, Applications Open for 2016 With/Out ¿Borders? Conference at Kalamazoo College

Posted on April 20, 2016April 10, 2023

Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) is accepting applications to attend the 2016 WITH/OUT ¿BORDERS? Conference scheduled for Oct. 20-23 on the K campus in Kalamazoo, Mich. Journalist and author Naomi Klein will be among a panel of distinguished conference participants. She will deliver the keynote address on the evening of Oct. 21.

“This conference aims to confront and provoke the notion that the current nadir of austerity, violence and ascent of the global one-percent is normal and the best we humans can do,” said Brock. “We intend to bring together people whose work envisions an imaginative, robust, plentiful and just future.”

According to Brock, confirmed conference participants thus far include:

– Political scientist Simon Akindes;
– Actor, singer, writer and composer Daniel Beatty;
– Author and political scientist Peter Bratsis;
– Science fiction writer, social justice activist and performer Adrienne Brown;
– Educator Prudence Browne;
– Food justice activist Dara Cooper;
– Divestment activist Sean Estelle;
– Indigenous historian Nick Estes;
– Author and racial justice and labor activist Bill Fletcher, Jr.;
– Afro-Jewish philosopher, educator and musician Lewis Gordon;
– American studies scholar and anti-racist social movements historian Christina Heatherton;
– Educator Alice Kim;
– Journalist, columnist and author Naomi Klein;
– New Orleans poet, singer and activist Sunni Patterson; and
– Ethnomusicologist Stephanie Shonekan.

Topics of discussion will include Afrofuturism and post-oppression desires, decolonizing knowledge and liberatory education, sustainable futures, and next systems and new economic possibilities.

Brock said this will be a “conference/unconference” featuring modules that will include panel discussions, breakout sessions, and performances “designed to prompt us to collectively conjure, theorize, decolonize, and map a future we can all thrive in.”

Conference modules will take place at the ACSJL (205 Monroe Street) and other venues on the K campus.

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (www.kzoo.edu/arcuscenter) is an initiative of Kalamazoo College. Its mission is to develop and sustain leaders in human rights and social justice through education and capacity-building. We envision a campus and world where: every person’s life is equally valued, the inherent dignity of all people is recognized, the opportunity to develop one’s full potential is available to every person, and systematic discrimination and structural inequities have been eradicated.

War Crimes Trial Anniversary Occasion for Human Rights Workshop

Posted on April 11, 2016March 23, 2022

A workshop on human rights (April 14-16) at Kalamazoo College will offer the opportunity for some of the world’s leading scholars to discuss their work among themselves and an audience that includes students, faculty and the general public. The workshop is titled “Seventy Years After Nuremberg: Genocide and Human Rights in Comparative Perspective.”

“Seventy years after the end of the Second World War and the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of 1945-46 is a particularly appropriate time to reflect on genocide and responses to genocide in the 20th and 21st centuries,” said workshop organizer David Barclay, the Margaret and Roger Scholten Professor of International Studies. “Although the study of genocide, the Holocaust, international human right and related issues has become an essential component of academic scholarship and civic education, the current anniversary of the first war-crimes trials after World War II offers important opportunities to reflect comparatively, and in a focused way, on these vital matters.”

The workshop begins on Thursday evening, April 14, with a keynote address by Daniel Chirot (University of Washington) titled “No End in Sight: Why Mass Political Murder Continues to Occur.” Friday morning’s session focuses on genocide prior to the Second World War (and before the invention of the word), locating the phenomenon of genocide in the larger context of global history from the 19th to the 21st centuries. The session includes new scholarship concerning the Armenian genocide and new work detailing colonialism and genocide in Africa. Friday afternoon features two sessions on recent discussions of the Holocaust.

The workshop will conclude on Saturday morning with a consideration of other examples of 20th-century genocide, responses to genocide, and genocide and the protection of international human rights. Public participation and discussion will be encouraged. The event occurs in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room and is free to the public. In addition to Chirot and Barclay, among the other scholars featured are Joseph Bangura, Kalamazoo College; Carter Dougherty ’92, Bloomberg News; John Dugas, Kalamazoo College; Hilary Earl, Nipissing University, Canada; Amy Elman, Kalamazoo College; Geoffrey J. Giles, University of Florida; Lesley Klaff Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom; Paul Gordon Lauren, University of Montana; Wendy Lower, Claremont McKenna College; Samuel Moyn, Harvard Law School; James Nafziger, Willamette University and American Society of Comparative Law; Raffael Scheck, Colby College; and Ronald Suny, University of Michigan.
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The Rosemary K. Brown Professor Chosen

Posted on April 4, 2016August 2, 2023

Kalamazoo College today named Alyce Brady, Ph.D., the Rosemary K. Brown Professor in Mathematics and Computer Science. Alyce has taught in those departments at Kalamazoo College for 22 years. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College and her master’s degree and Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She teaches a variety of courses in computer science from introductory classes to advanced courses on programming languages, data structure, dynamic Internet apps and software development in a global context. Her research interests include the application of computer science to social justice (Alyce served as the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Faculty Fellow from 2013-2015), the development of more effective computer science education exercises and opportunities for students, software design, academic computing applications and human-computer interfaces. In 2007 she co-authored a seminal article in computer science education, “A 2007 model curriculum for a liberal arts degree in computer science,” and in 2010 she co-wrote the article “Case studies of liberal arts computer science programs.”

The professorship was established with an endowed gift by Rosemary Kopel Brown and John Wilford Brown in 2001 as part of the College’s campaign, Enlightened Leadership in the 21st Century. The endowment was strengthened by another gift from the Browns during the recently completed Campaign for Kalamazoo College. Endowed professorships help ensure the presence of great faculty at K, and the faculty-student relationship is the cornerstone of the excellence of the K learning experience. The Rosemary K. Brown professorship funds “the position of an established teacher/scholar with demonstrated achievement and the promise of continued exceptional performance.” Rosemary and John have a deep and enduring connection with Kalamazoo College and Kalamazoo. Both served as trustees of the College. Rosemary is a lifelong mathematics educator who worked in several Kalamazoo Schools. John is the retired president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Stryker Corporation in Kalamazoo.

Endowed professorships do great and indispensable things for K. They confer a prestige that helps attract and retain the best faculty. The gifts that are their financial foundation free operational funds that an institution can use for other educational opportunities. And they provide the wherewithal for a great teacher to extend the power of his or her pedagogy and scholarly work. Case in point is the former Rosemary K. Brown Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, John Fink, who retired in 2015. John used the endowed fund in many ways, to the benefit of students in the United States and abroad. He attended critical workshops and served in the Michigan Section of the Mathematical Association of America; he attended and accompanied students to meetings that allowed students to experience the culture of professional mathematics, he helped develop a middle school math outreach program in Kalamazoo and, with student involvement, sowed the seeds for a similar program in Ecuador. All these efforts, and more, were made possible the endowed professorship. Of K’s work in Ecuador John said, “It’s remarkable! The fewest crumbs of possibility inspire a feast of dreams.” The Rosemary K. Brown professorship allows great teachers to conceive and implement such possibilities and dreams.

Like John, Alyce is committed to projects that foster computer science and social justice together. As the ACSJL faculty fellow she helped launch and maintain a collaborative, social justice project to computerize academic

Kalamazoo College Professor Alyce Brady with colleagues and students — © Chris McGuire Photography.

records for two partner higher educational institutions in Sierra Leone. And she found ways to involve her students in that project. See photo, picturing (l-r): front row–Justin Leatherwood ’13; Jonas Redwood-Sawyerr, vice chancellor and principal, University of Sierra Leone; Alyce Brady;Abu Sesay, vice chancellor and principal Njala University; Ashton Galloway ’13; back row–Chris Clerville ’13; Tendai Mudyiwa ’14; Kayan Hales ’’14; Chirs Cain ’13; and Keaton Adams ’14.

The appointment, announced today, becomes effective September. The College congratulates Alyce Brady, its second Rosemary K. Brown Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, and the College is honored to have Rosemary’s name associated with Kalamazoo College in perpetuity.

Behind Closed Doors

Posted on March 31, 2016March 23, 2022

I want to talk about being uncomfortable—or, rather, being comfortable with what is uncomfortable—in order to learn and progress as an individual in a progressive society. Maybe this means I want to talk about art, or education, or both.

How important is disquiet to learning? How comfortable must I become with discomfort in order to progress as an educated citizen? I have been thinking about these questions a great deal lately, based on my experience with the recent art exhibit at K, “Behind Closed Doors.” The exhibit was sponsored by Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) and appeared in various locations around campus during winter term (Dow Science Center, Mandelle Hall, Anderson Athletic Center, Dalton Theatre, ACSJL, Hicks Center, among others)
The exhibit featured a comment box open to anyone—faculty, staff and students of K as well as members of the general community. The exhibit’s purpose was to get people to have a conversation that they might not normally have about segregation and racism in our country.

Artist and Kalamazoo native J.D. Brink took two old doors, scarred them with bullet holes and shattered their windows. Perhaps the most violent stroke employed by the artist was affixing two original signs, one on each door: “Whites Only” and “Colored Only: No Whites Allowed”. The art exhibit was first displayed in Balch Playhouse on the opening night of The Mountaintop, a dramatic depiction of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s last night alive, set in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on the eve of his assassination on April 4,1968.

The comment box offered people the chance to engage with Brink’s artwork and become part of a silent conversation with the campus community. A forum was held on February 26 in the social justice center to converse about the significance of the exhibit. Arcus Center Fellows Kiavanni Williams ‘18 and Erin Butler ‘18 revealed the comments from the box for reflection and discussion.

Unfortunately the event was poorly attended. I shared the nearly empty room with Kiavanni and Erin. The comments were neatly taped to the backs of smooth wooden doors like paintings in a gallery. The three of us read each comment to ourselves. Some comments provided personal anecdotes of racism experienced in the U.S., others questioned the purpose of the exhibit and seemed to resent the discomfort it inspired. Some were hauntingly irreverent about racism in the present day, and too many showed a troubling ignorance of the history of Black people in America (a group that includes persons of various backgrounds: African-American, Afro-Caribbean, Caribbean, Afro-Latino, African, and a number of mixed raced individuals). Twenty-six people commented, all anonymously, and, sadly, the comments ranged from overt racism to a disturbing obliviousness to the issue of racial discrimination in America as a present day issue.

I was most struck by what each comment shared: a sense of deep and brooding discomfort. It is indeed jarring to see, in 2016, a “Whites Only” and “Coloreds Only” sign, and several commenters wanted the exhibit removed. As a Black woman I have made a habit out of ignoring stares and holding my tongue when I hear people appropriate aspects of my culture for pleasure. I have felt the stiffness of a classroom where I am one of just a few Black students. I have endured jokes that stab instead of tickle. My freshman year I felt #unsafeatK and that sensation still lingers. My African-American peers as well as other students of color on this campus have also experienced the discomfort that those dilapidated doors with Jim Crow signs seemed to inspire in every building they stood.

To me, those doors are too familiar; I’d seen them before in the eyes of some who judged me entirely by my skin, in the eyes of politicians and teachers throughout my life. The duration of that discomfort has no doubt made a callus over once vulnerable parts of myself and my soul. But it has also made me aware, made me tolerant to the wiles of ignorance, and made me strong. It is through discomfort that we can truly discover the purest elements of our humanity. Hopefully struggle and education will guide us to a greater understanding of what needs to occur for all to live in peace.

K Awarded Top Civic Engagement Honor

Posted on March 31, 2016March 23, 2022

Kalamazoo College is Michigan’s 2016 Engaged Campus of the Year! Michigan Campus Compact (MiCC) recently announced K’s selection for the honor by a team of national reviewers at MiCC’s Awards Gala, held at Michigan State University’s Kellogg Center in East Lansing.

K students, faculty, staff and community partners represent the College — K students, faculty, administrators and community partners represented the College at the 2016 Michigan Campus Compact awards ceremony in Lansing.

The Engaged Campus of the Year Award recognizes an institution of higher education for exemplary commitment to the education of students for civic and social responsibility; genuine and sustained investment in community relationships; and a commitment to service learning and civic engagement opportunities for students across all disciplines.

In particular, the award is a tribute to the work of the College’s Center for Civic Engagement. Through service-learning courses and student-led programs, the CCE has engaged more than 5,500 K students in long-term, reciprocal partnerships to foster academic learning, critical problem-solving, and a lifetime of civic engagement while strengthening the community. “The students have worked with thousands of community residents, some 50 different organizations, and in more than 30 different community-based courses,” says CCE director Alison Geist.

Mallory McClure Innovations in Community Impact — K senior Mallory McClure ’16 accepted the Innovations in Community Impact award for K’s Swim for Success program.

Kalamazoo College also earned an MiCC Innovations in Community Impact award for its program Swim for Success (SFS). The Innovations Award recognizes creative and measurably effective approaches to community problem solving. SFS is a swimming program for local children that takes place on K’s campus three evenings a week. It is a partnership between K and the City of Kalamazoo led by Civic Engagement Scholars Kevin Ewing and Mallory McClure. More than 20 K students are involved as tutors or swim coaches in the program. Kevin and Mallory are both members of the college swim team and are also coaches in the SFS program. K students also provide tutoring onsite one hour before swimming lessons begin.

In addition, Susmitha Daggubati ’16 received MiCC’s 2016 Commitment to Service Award for students. The Commitment to Service Award recognizes outstanding students for their commitment to service. Students are chosen specifically for either the breadth or depth of their community involvement or their service experience(s) and the demonstration of meaningful reflection of those experiences.

Susmitha Daggubati Commitment To Service — K senior Susmitha Daggubati ’16 received the MCC’s 2016 “Commitment to Service” award.

Michigan Campus Compact is a coalition of college and university presidents who are committed to fulfilling the public purpose of higher education. The organization promotes the education and commitment of Michigan college students to be engaged citizens.

Call for Response to Zika in Puerto Rico

Posted on March 17, 2016March 23, 2022

Associate Professor of Anthropology Adriana Garriga-López is a member of a group of experts that co-authored an essay and call to action titled “Public Statement on Zika Virus in Puerto Rico.” The essay appeared in Savage Minds (15 March 2016) with the Spanish language version forthcoming in a few days. The authors are members of the Society for Medical Anthropology’s Zika Interest Group. Among other courses at K, Garriga-López teaches “Medicine and Society.” She is an expert on the intersection of politics, societies, social justice, disease and epidemics and completed her doctoral work on the confluence of these forces in the HIV epidemic in Puerto Rico.

The essay on the Zika virus notes the influence of water and waste management, church proscriptions, the corporate use and development of experimental insecticides, and U.S. Congressional policy on the advent and future course of the epidemic in Puerto Rico. Zika is a public health emergency, and the essay calls for Zika prevention actions to benefit the people of Puerto Rico. Those actions include: “provide and install window screens in homes and businesses, assist in water systems management, and distribute vector surveillance and control strategies In particular, public health authorities can assist with disposing of any waste that might collect water in order to minimize mosquito populations.

“The CDC has a Dengue station headquarters in San Juan, PR and should use that station as a base to conduct Zika prevention and mosquito mitigation campaigns. All prevention and research activities on the island should follow the principles of open access and collaboration appropriate for a public health emergency. Furthermore, given the strongly suspected association between Zika, microcephaly, and Guillain-Barré syndrome, the CDC should be on high alert for these cases in Puerto Rico and prepared to deal with these diseases as they arise.

“Finally, care and support must be provided to pregnant women and their families who have or will experience Zika infection. Puerto Rico birth outcomes have been worsening since the advent of the economic crisis. The infant mortality rate climbed to 9.5 per 1000 live births for 2012. This burden is exacerbated by the large number of health professionals that have recently emigrated from the island.

“It is imperative that the Medicaid cap be removed for the island and resources mobilized immediately to fight this public health emergency, particularly in terms of prenatal and reproductive health care. Prevention of transmission, expanded medical care, reproductive rights, and long term sustainability of the water infrastructure should be the priorities, beyond the tourist and hotel areas. We call for assistance to local initiatives and support for already existing community structures, and affirm Puerto Rico’s right to defend the health of its population.”

Happy Birthday, Center for Civic Engagement

Posted on March 8, 2016March 23, 2022

The Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) turns 15 this year, and its hard to imagine better origins. It began as a joint brainstorming effort between students, faculty and several community partners with the intent on redefining what a liberal arts education was all about. Students were not just de facto city residents while they studied at K; they were community assets as well. Annually, about 600 K students participate in service-learning in some way with the CCE.

From work on sustainability issues to girl’s and women’s empowerment to health and economic equality to food justice, CCE programming engages students in work that promotes social justice, further pushing the College’s mission to create lifelong learners.

“For some of our students, it’s the first time they’ve witnessed first-hand a variety of ‘isms,’” says Alison Geist, CCE’s director. “We put students on the front lines of many societal issues in a way that sitting in a lecture or classroom just can’t.”

Susmitha Daggubati ’16 mentors a second-grader at Woodward Elementary School in Kalamazoo’s Stuart Neighborhood, adjacent to K’s campus. Daggubati, a senior majoring in chemistry and earning a concentration in biochemistry and molecular biology, is in her second year at Woodward and serves as a Civic Engagement Scholar, a kind of on-site leader who mentors other K students working at sites across the community, scheduling their shifts and organizing meetings to brainstorm programming ideas.

Daggubati moved with her family to the Kalamazoo area from their native India ten years ago. Still very much tied to her Indian roots, her time in service-learning has also given her a greater understanding of the complex social issues at play in American society “In many classes, we learn the theories about the roots of so many social problems,” she says. “But I am able to make those connections to the real world when I’m involved. It keeps me rooted in the realities of the world, and it has given me a greater understanding of American culture.”

Tom Thornburg is the managing attorney at Farmworker Legal Services, a non-profit agency based in Bangor, Mich., a small community about 25 miles west of Kalamazoo, in an agricultural area where hundreds of migrant workers flock each year to work in fields and orchards. His agency assists these workers – overwhelmingly Hispanic – with everything from language services to information on their legal rights to informing them of resources available to them. He’s been working with the CCE for almost a decade, and the K students who’ve come through his doors have become an invaluable resource.

“The students from K are some of the brightest, best-equipped and most professional volunteers we get,” Thornburg says. “They come here with a sense of enthusiasm to help, a sense of what to do, an autonomy. They’re excellent, right up there in many ways with the law students we have working here.”

Over the years, hundreds of the nearly 2,000 students Associate Professor of Psychology Karyn Boatwright has taught have participated in service-learning programs, in a diverse group of local agencies, from the Kalamazoo Public Schools to Planned Parenthood to Goodwill Industries.

Through more than 30 different courses at the College designed with community partners, faculty at K have engaged thousands of students, community residents and leaders to create opportunities for experiential learning and impact derived organically and intentionally from service-learning work.

Says Boatwright, “The CCE and their students consistently impress upon us the need for reflection to ensure that we are not only connecting the proverbial dots, but understanding the political and social connections between success and social factors. Civic engagement experiences improve the quality of learning for our students and strengthen our community.”

The College’s solid commitment to developing the next generation of leaders who are observant, lifelong learners intent on crafting solutions to problems plaguing a suffering world is stronger now than ever. Concludes Geist: “The founders of K were always interested in social justice, and our programming is a manifestation of that. It’s the idea that we should be creating a fellowship of learning, not just working in ivory towers tucked away from society.”

(Text by Chris Killian; photo by Keith Mumma)