The winter term (2015) “Feminist Psychology of Women” class will present an event called “Pro Voice: Stories of Reproductive Justice” on Thursday, March 5, at 7 p.m. in Dewing Hall Room 103. The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited so tickets must be reserved in advance (contact Brenda Westra at 337.7331). Event co-sponsors include Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Michigan, Kalamazoo College’s Office of Student Involvement, and the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement. Through theatrical performance students will give voice to stories of reproductive justice and challenges to that justice in the Southwest Michigan community. “Through interviews with community members we explored the meaning of reproductive justice,” said Allison Bloomfield, a junior biology major who is taking the feminist psychology class this term. “The experiences that were shared in the interviews will be dramatized by student actors in monologues about abortion, and these will be followed by a talk-back panel discussion.” Reproductive Justice is the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, and economic well-being of women and girls, based on the full achievement and protection of women’s human rights.
students
Jane and Grace
Seniors Jane Huffman and Grace Gilmore are collaborating on the Festival Playhouse at Kalamazoo College’s production of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Good Night Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).
Jane is the assistant director of Good Night Desdemona…, a different–or, perhaps more accurately–an “expanded” directing experience than the one she enjoyed previously this term when her own play, Where the Bee Sucks, was performed at the New Play House Festival in downtown Kalamazoo. “To go from a one act play with three actors to a two act play with six actors has been illuminating,” says Jane. “I’ve learned a great deal from Karen Berthel [director of Good Night Desdemona… and an associate professor of theatre arts] about how to work in a bigger space, with a bigger company.”
Jane also finds this term’s work good preparation for the spring term, when she will direct the play, Nine Parts of Desire. Jane is earning majors in theatre arts and in English, and she has published quite a few of her poems. “I’ve learned that getting published is about 90 percent submitting and 10 percent writing.” Next year she plans to begin work on an MFA in poetry.
Grace Gilmore plays the lead role of Constance in Good Night Desdemona…. “At times I feel really connected with Constance but other times so far away from her. Her views and opinions come from second-wave feminism, which is difficult for me to relate to.” Fall term Grace performed her Senior Individualized Project, the one-woman show “2.5 Minute Ride” by Kalamazoo College alumna (and Tony Award nominee) Lisa Kron ’83. Grace also won the Irene Ryan Award for Performance for Region 3 of the American College Theatre Festival. Grace competed against 274 other contestants from Region 3, ACTF’s largest, which includes Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana. She and the seven winners from the other ACTF regions will take part in a national program at the John F. Kennedy Center this summer. Grace will work with national directors, perform at various venues in New York, and participate in a final showcase performance at the Kennedy Center. In the meantime, we can enjoy the work of these two talented seniors at Festival Playhouse this coming weekend. —Text and Photo by Mallory Zink ’15
Kalamazoo College Senior Leaders
This year’s senior leadership award winners are characterized by their service to communities and people and their ability to encourage the development of leadership in others. Thirty-five seniors were selected from more than 60 applicants, and both of those numbers set records in the 11 years of the Senior Leadership Recognition Award. Members of the 2015 class of extraordinary leaders include (l-r): front row–Jane Huffman, Jasmine An, Olivia Bouchard, Alexandra Gothard, Adriana Jarquin, Jenna Sexton; second row–Mary (Rosie) Tobin, Hannah Bogard, Natalie Melnick, Mele Makalo, Asia Morales, Bronte Payne, third row–Caroline Barnett, Haley Cartwright, Hannah Maness, Roxanna Menchaca, Elizabeth Cabrera, Shang Sun, David DeSimone; fourth row–Emily Lindsay, Scott Devine, Vageesha Liyana Gunawardana, Colin Smith, Philip Mulder; back row–Carl Ghafari, Samuel Rood, Adam Peters, Luke Winship, Stephen Oliphant, Mojtaba Akhavantafti, Ben Baker, and Scott Manski. Not pictured are Cheyenne Harvey, Allison Kennedy, and Hannah Olsen.
NATURAL LIFE Screens on Kalamazoo College Campus
The documentary film “Natural Life” will be shown on Monday, February 16, at Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL). The film focuses on juveniles who are serving life terms in prison without the possibility of parole. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with sponsor introductions; screening of the film follows at 7 p.m. The sponsoring organizations are seeking legislative action to eliminate juvenile life sentences also for youths convicted before 2012. In addition to the ACSJL, sponsors include Amnesty International USA Group 29, Kalamazoo Metropolitan Branch NAACP, Southwest Michigan American Civil Liberties Union, and the Kalamazoo College Amnesty International Group.
In Michigan some 350 prisoners were convicted as perpetrators or accessories to capital crimes committed when they were juveniles. They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2012 the United States Supreme Court banned such sentences as unconstitutional; nevertheless, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has held that the ruling does not apply retroactively to Michigan youths sentenced before the Supreme Court decision. The ACSJL is located at the corner of Monroe and Academy streets. The event is free and open to the public.
Kalamazoo College Presents Juliet and Desdemona…Together?!
Juliet and Desdemona, somewhat askew their famous contexts, come together when Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College presents Goodnight Desdemona {Good Morning Juliet} by Ann-Marie MacDonald in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse. The play opens Thursday, February 26, at 7:30 p.m. Additional evening performances occur Friday and Saturday, February 27-28, at 8 p.m., and a matinee (2 p.m.) concludes the run on Sunday, March 1. Tickets are $5 for students, $10 for seniors, and $15 for other adults. For reservations call 269.337.7333. For more information visit the website.
The characters from the tragedies Othello and Romeo and Juliet appear with unexpected outcomes, thanks to the scholarship of MacDonald’s character Constance. Goodnight Desdemona {Good Morning Juliet} explores the borderlands between imagination, scholarship, and literature. Constance, a stumbling academic, embarks on a quest to find the holy grail of comparative literature: the true source of Shakespeare’s often-contested texts. She falls down the Elizabethan rabbit hole and finds herself immersed in the tomfoolery, betrayal, swordplay and wit of Shakespeare’s iconic worlds. As Constance journeys closer to proving her thesis true, she discovers that the answer is within herself, and returns to the real world with confidence. We are presented with the age-old dichotomy of the unfit hero—the underdog—who must come to terms with her own life before she can save another’s. Constance challenges us to find solace—and truth—in imagination.
The play is playful. MacDonald riffs on Shakespeare’s verse and meter, and exacerbates his characterizations to an extent that is gut-wrenchingly funny. Desdemona is a ruthless and bloodthirsty warrior, Iago is conniving for the sake of being conniving, and Romeo and Juliet fall in love with anything that moves. Constance must come face to face (and sometimes hand to hand, lip to lip) with these characters in order to navigate through their worlds. She seeks to find the “missing fool”—a character absent from Shakespeare’s tragedies who should have interrupted the narratives and made them comedic. But what Constance discovers is that she, in her stumbling but brilliant ignorance, is the missing link. Even though Constance’s path—riddled with deception, drag, and cans of Coors Light—bites its thumb at the traditional hero’s journey, she does find her way home again, the wiser for the way.
Dean’s List for Fall Term 2014
Congratulations to the following Kalamazoo College students, who achieved a grade point average of 3.5 or better for a full-time course load of at least three units, without failing or withdrawing from any course, during the Fall 2014 academic term. Kudos to the entire group of some 300 students, and good luck in Winter term, 2015.
Fall 2014
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | ||
AMelissa Acosta B Hannah Bacchus CRobert Calco DSusmitha Daggubati EDaniel Eberhart FRachel Fadler GOlivia Gaines |
HMarie Hallinen IPinar Inanli JJordan Jabara KKamalaldin Kamalaldin LAnh Lam MCorinne MacInnes NOlivia Nalugya OAnna Opshinsky |
PJane Packer Q
RJustin Rabidoux SRumsha Sajid TKathe Tallmadge UElizabeth Uribe VKaela Van Til WErika Waalkes XAnja Xheka YBrent Yelton ZMatthew Zhiss |
Directors Debut
Liberal arts in theatre arts means a chance for multiple roles—as in actor, crew member, and director. Kalamazoo College’s Senior Performance Series provides senior students a chance to do the latter. This winter’s SPS features The Gas Heart, directed by Joseph Westerfield ’15, and Wooed and Viewed, directed by Arik Mendelevitz ’15. The performances will occur Thursday through Sunday, February 12-15, in Kalamazoo College’s Dungeon Theatre (Light Fine Arts Building). Tickets are $5. Thursday’s performance begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday shows begin at 8 p.m. Sunday’s matinee begins at 2 p.m.
The Gas Heart was written by Tristan Tzara, who, according to director Westerfield, described his piece as “the only and greatest three act hoax of the century; it will satisfy only industrialized imbeciles who believe in the existence of men of genius.” Westerfield explained that his production of the play “questions the conventions of normative theatre and invites the audience to participate in their emancipation as a spectator.”
Wooed and Viewed is a French farce (by playwright Georges Feydau) that, like The Gas Heart, defies societal expectations. The character of Emma (played by sophomore Emma Franzel) defies the traditional role of passivity when she orders a stranger to make love to her in order to provoke her husband’s jealousy. Emma has “made herself an other but not the other she is told to be,” says director Mendelevitz. “Women, especially when it comes to sex, exist in a marginalized place in our society where they are told that their role is to put themselves on display for men to come by and window shop,” he added. Mendelevitz has chosen to present the play using a deconstructionist approach in order “to explore new possibilities that would be impossible…on the firm, familiar ground, Art exists in relation to our world, yet simultaneously steps outside of it.” Mendelevitz has written a philosophy treatise about the play which he will present at the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters at Andrews University (Berrien Springs, Mich.) in March.
For more information about SPS, which is part of the 51st season of Festival Playhouse visit the website or call 269.337.7333
120 In Six
No way Olivia Gaines ’18 will be bored this break!
She’s created an innovative and fun project to connect with alumni during the next six weeks called #Winter120. She’s reaching out (first come, first served!) for book recommendations—specifically books that have been influential to alumni and perhaps have been on their shelves since their very own K years.
She will be reading passages from the submitted books over the break and plans on reading all 120 during the school year. Gaines will collect 120 ‘thoughts’ from the books, 120 answers to questions she will pose (one to each person who makes a recommendation), and a black-and-white head shot of all (hopefully) 120 participants. She plans on making an e-book of the final product and would love to make a printed version if her project proves successful.
The idea came to her during a visit to the Center for career and Professional Development. Gaines does not have an internship for the winter break, but still wanted to connect with alumni. Gaines said, “One thing I learned during my gap year was that you can connect with people you wouldn’t have thought you could connect with. How could I connect with alumni? Books. Everyone has books!”
For her the project represents a different way to connect with alumni, more personal than business. Gaines hopes to feel “the pulse” of who these 120 alumni really are.
And she’s gearing up for the challenge: a reading pace of 20 books a week over six consecutive weeks. Wow!) Gaines says that her project is “big enough to matter, small enough to win”.
If you are a K grad and you would like to participate in #Winter120, you can register here.
Text by Mallory Zink ’15; photo by Olivia Gaines ’18
K on the Art Hop this Friday, Nov. 7
Even if you don’t know much about art, there will be plenty to like this Friday, Nov. 7, 5-8 p.m., when K students, faculty, and the campus itself participate in the monthly Art Hop in downtown Kalamazoo.
“John Gould’s Glories” features beautiful images from the College’s permanent collection by this renowned 19th English ornithologist and artist. Aided by his wife, Elizabeth, Gould published numerous monographs and illustrations of birds from around the world. His famous “Darwin’s finches” played a key role in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
5-8 p.m. – A.M. Todd Rare Book Room, Upjohn Library (third floor), 150 Thompson St., Kalamazoo College
The Miller-Johnson Art Scholarship and Exhibition for K students concludes in the Park Trades Center. Earlier this year, a jury of K art faculty selected artwork by K students Donna Aguilar ’15, Zoe Beaudry ’14, Lauren Gaunt ’15, and Gabe Montesanti ’15 to be displayed in the lobby of Miller-Johnson Attorneys and Counselors in downtown Kalamazoo. Each student also received $150 from Miller-Johnson. This Friday, the public may vote on their favorite among the four, with the top vote-getter receiving an additional $400! THANK YOU, MILLER-JOHNSON, for supporting Kalamazoo College student artists!
5-8 p.m. – K Community Art Studio, Room 312 (third floor), Park Trades Center, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave.
More K faculty and student art will be on display from 5-8 p.m. in the Park Trades Center (326 W. Kalamazoo Ave.), including:
- An exhibit of artwork from the current K Advanced Studio class: Room 312
- An installation by studio art major Cheyenne Harvey ’15 that explores the individual and social demarcations of “in/out” through use of video and mixed media sculpture: Room 411B
- An exhibition of K student artwork of all levels organized by the College’s “Arts in the Community Living Learning House”: Room 209L
- Artwork by Department of Art faculty Tom Rice and Sarah Lindley in the K Faculty Studio: Room 405A.
Mara Richman ’14: Have Research, Will Travel
Mara Richman ’14 recently cut classes for an entire week. But the senior psychology major wasn’t goofing off. Rather, she attended the International Borderline Personality and Allied Disorders annual conference in Rome—at their invitation—to deliver her research paper “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test in Major Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder: A Meta-Analysis”
She was the conference’s youngest oral presenter.
“There were researchers from all over the world on this topic and I presented before a huge audience,” said Mara.
“I have a passion for meta-analysis and this is one of several that I have done on my own. This one looked at differences in mental state decoding between borderline personality disorder and major depressed patients.”
The National Institute of Mental Health defines borderline personality disorder (BPD) as a serious mental illness marked by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships. Most people with BPD suffer from problems with regulating emotions and thoughts, impulsive and reckless behavior, and unstable relationships with other people.
Mara’s paper was based on independent research she conducted while on study abroad at Kalamazoo College’s Budapest Semester in Cognitive Science, under the mentorship of Zsolt Unoka, M.D., Ph.D. She visited with Dr. Unoka during the Rome conference.
One of her K professors, Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies Peter Erdi, Ph.D., helped her arrange the research project. Help with funding for her Rome trip came from K’s Office of the Provost, Department of Psychology, and Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
“The conference truly shaped me and it was great to network with people in the field to learn more about the BPD,” said Mara.
Mara completed her SIP this past summer at Harvard University where she moved forward her BPD research by studying identity disturbance. She currently has 12 peer-reviewed journal articles in review or awaiting publication. Previously, she received an award from the American Psychological Association for outstanding research.
“My K advisor, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Jennifer Perry, Ph.D., has been a huge help in guiding me and helping me make these decisions.”
Mara, who came to K from Tampa, Fla., completed all of her graduation requirements early and will leave campus at the end of this fall quarter. She hopes to land fulltime work in a clinical facility in order to gain more clinical experience before pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a focus on BPD.