Sophomores Luke Winship and Erin Eagan have been named Boren Scholars. The Boren is a national scholarship promoting the study of less commonly taught languages.
Luke will spend his junior year in China studying Mandarin; Erin will spend six months in Senegal studying Wolof.
Boren Scholarships are funded by the National Security Education Program (NSEP), which focuses on geographic areas, languages, and fields of study deemed critical to United States national security. Boren Scholars represent a variety of academic backgrounds, but all are interested in studying languages often considered roads less taken.
In April, sophomore Adam Eisenstein joined Assistant Professor of Japanese Noriko Sugimori to present “Not Lost in Translation: Preserving Japanese Culture in Anime” at the inaugural Michigan Japanese Heritage and Culture Conference at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Adam developed his conference paper extending his analysis of English translations of Osaka dialect in Japanese anime/manga, “Azumanga Daioh.” His work originated in a K class titled “Japanese Language in Society.” Senior Kathleen Reno contributed to the presentation but was unable to attend the conference.
Six students presented research work at the annual ASBMB meeting. From left: Josh Abbott, Erran Briggs, Amanda Bolles, Mara Livezey, Michael Hicks, and Nic Sweda. Hicks is a biology major; the other five are majoring in chemistry.
Six Kalamazoo College students joined two of their chemistry professors and mentors (Regina Stevens-Truss and Laura Lowe Furge) at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology National Meeting in Boston, Mass. The students–Nicholas Sweda ’13, Mara Livezey ’13, Michael Hicks ’13, Josh Abbott ’13, Amanda Bolles ’14, and Erran Briggs ’14–presented results of their summer and academic year research experiences (Senior Individualized Projects in the cases of Nick and Josh). Nearly 300 posters from colleges across the country were part of the 17th Annual Undergraduate Student Research Poster Competition and Professional Development Workshop. Professor Furge was a judge in the competition.
The lab of Professor Paul Hollenberg at the University of Michigan was the site of Abbott’s SIP research on the role of CYP2B6 metabolism of the chemotherapeutic drug cyclophosphamide. The other five posters were based on research done at Kalamazoo College. Sweda presented ongoing studies from Professor Stevens-Truss’s lab on suramin selective inhibition of nitric oxide synthases. This work is the basis of a manuscript in preparation with Sweda and Alyssa McNamara ’11 as co-authors. Livezey, Hicks, Bolles, and Briggs each presented individual posters with results of three projects from Professor Furge’s lab on the interactions of inhibitors with human cytochrome P450 enzymes. The work presented by Bolles and Briggs is currently being prepared in a manuscript for publication with both students as co-authors along with Livezey. The posters presented by Hicks and Livezey are the basis of current NIH-funded studies in the Furge lab. In addition to the poster sessions, students attended talks, award lectures, and exhibits. Students also met with graduate school recruiters.
During the meeting, Professor Stevens-Truss directed her third annual teaching workshop for middle school and high school science teachers in the Boston area. The workshop attracted more than 70 teacher-participants from the Boston area, a record number for these ASBMB associated events. Professor Stevens-Truss’s efforts in structuring the workshops have provided a new platform for scientists to collaborate and mentor the nation’s secondary school science teachers. Scientists from across the country helped make the workshop a meaningful experience for school teachers. It was funded by a National Science Foundation grant to Stevens-Truss. Next year’s meeting will be in San Diego, Calif., and K expects to be there.
INTO THE WOODS features costumes by Elaine Kauffman. Pictured are Rudi Goddard as Cinderella and Julia Smucker as Little Red Riding Hood
Kalamazoo College opens the 50th anniversary season of its celebrated Festival Playhouse theatre arts program, with Into the Woods, the groundbreaking musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, May 16-19. Performances occur in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse on Thursday May 16 (7:30 p.m.), Friday May 17 and Saturday May 18 (8 p.m.), and Sunday May 19 (2 p.m.) Tickets are $15/Adults, $10/seniors, and $5/students. Into the Woods features iconic characters such as Little Red Riding Hood (played by Julia Smucker ’13), Rapunzel (Corinne Taborn ’13), Cinderella (Rudi Goddard ’13), the eponymous character from Jack and Beanstalk (Brian Craig ’14), and one antagonistic witch (McKenna Kring ’15). The ensemble cast performs memorable songs such as “Giants in the Sky,” “Agony,” and “Children Will Listen.” Assistant director and K senior Megan Rosenberg calls Sondheim’s score “an elegant lullaby that stirs up the shadows of classic bedtime stories. Its intricate storyline and beautiful, if somewhat creepy, music lend themselves perfectly to bold directorial choices. “Without giving too much away, our production will break some rules,” added Rosenberg. K Professors of Music Tom Evans and James Turner serve as musical and vocal directors, respectively. Assistant Director of Student Involvement Kate Yancho serves as choreographer.“Audiences will be struck by both the darkness and vitality of this musical,” said Yancho about the Tony, Drama Critics Circle, and Drama Desk Award winning show that puts a new twist on a fusion of old Brothers Grim tales. “Adults will love how numerous fairy tales they knew as children are intertwined into one entirely new story, with vibrant song and dance,” said Yancho, who earned a B.A. degree in dance from Ohio University and teaches dance to K students.
Faiza Fayyaz ′13 with one of her students at KRESA Young Adult Program at West Campus school in Kalamazoo.
Kalamazoo College senior Faiza Fayyaz has received a 2013 YWCA Young Women of Achievement Award and will be honored at the 29th annual YWCA Women of Achievement Award Celebration, on Tuesday, May 21, 5:30 p.m. at the Radisson Plaza Hotel & Suites in Kalamazoo.
The YWCA Young Women of Achievement Awards are given to high school and college age women in the Kalamazoo community who have records of accomplishment in academic studies and extracurricular activities, have made significant contributions to their school and/or community, demonstrate leadership ability, and exemplify qualities of character and thought consistent with the mission and vision of the YWCA.
Faiza will soon earn her B.A. degree in biology with a minor in psychology and a concentration in health sciences. She has also been a biology research assistant at Western Michigan University. Outside the classroom, Faiza has been active in student organizations Active Minds (focusing on mental health issues among college students) and KDesi (working to preserve and promote South Asian cultures and religions on the K campus and in the surrounding community).
Through the College′s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service Learning, Faiza has also spent many hours engaged with students from the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency (KRESA) Young Adult Program at West Campus school, She has also been engaged in civic activities at Borgess Hospital and in a local physical therapy clinic.
Earlier this month, the YWCA announced that Kalamazoo College trustee Ronda Stryker is its recipient of the Lifetime Woman of Achievement Award.
K senior Ashleigh Holden (Photo by Matt Gade, MLive / Kalamazoo Gazette)
When K senior Ashleigh Holden isn′t studying chemistry or guiding prospective students around the campus for the K Admissions Office, she′s often at the Cheff Therapeutic Riding Center in Augusta, east of Kalamazoo. During the last year alone, Ashleigh has amassed more than 475 hours helping to deliver hippotherapy, a physical, occupational, and speech-language therapy that utilizes horses to provide aid to clients with a variety of special needs. For her efforts, Ashleigh has earned the 2013 College Volunteer STAR (Sharing Time and Resources) Award, a partnership between Volunteer Kalamazoo and MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette to honor outstanding volunteers in Southwest Michigan. Congrats, Ashleigh. You truly are one of K′s stars.
Kalamazoo College will host the fourth annual Sustainability SIP Symposium on Monday, April 29, 6-9 p.m., in 103 Dewing Hall on the K campus (1200 Academy St.), co-sponsored by the College’s Guilds and Environmental Studies Program. Free and open to the public, the event will feature student presentations of sustainability-related Senior Individualized Projects (SIPs) ranging in topic from English to Economics. Audience members will have time for questions following each presentation, and an opportunity to meet student researchers at the interactive poster session and reception beginning at 8 p.m. in Dewing Hall Commons. Refreshments will be provided by the People’s Food Co-Op.
Student presentations include:
Mysha Clarke: Energy Recovery in Landfills: A Jamaican Case Study
Monika Egerer: Ecosystem Services on the Mariana Islands: Implications of bird loss for a wild chili pepper species
Rebecca Rogstad: Zane, the Curious Little Zooxanthellate
Shoshana Schultz: Inverting the Atlas: Mapping Geographically Based Food Security in Kalamazoo
“The annual symposium recognizes the scholarship and research that many K seniors devote to their SIPs (a graduation requirement) and showcases the breadth and depth of sustainability-related work taking place at the College,” said Joan Hawxhurst, Director, Center for Career and Professional Development.
This year’s Symposium is the first since the reorganization and expansion of the Guilds to include seven career path clusters: Arts & Media, Business, Education, Health, Law, Nonprofit & Public Service, and Science & Technology. Sustainability infuses the conversations and collaborations in all seven Guilds, and the Sustainability SIP Symposium showcases how this value cuts across disciplines and departments and informs the work of all professionals.
K students and staff members gathered in Stetson Chapel at noon Wednesday for prayers, silence, music, poetry, and shared thoughts in order to remember all those affected by Monday′s bombing in Boston.
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 Winter 2013 academic term. …
A Ayaka Abe
Keaton Adams
Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti
Dana Allswede
Rasseil Alzouhayli
Brittany Amor
Abby Anderson
Katelyn Anderson
Giancarlo Anemone
Evan Angelos
Esprit AutenreithB
Gordon Backer
Madison Baxter
Abraham Bayha
Renee Beaudoin
Rebecca Beery
Tyler Benmark
Kathryn Bergh
Martin Bergstrom
Hilary Bick
Mara Birndorf
Reid Blanchett
Brita Bliss
Hannah Bogard
Nicholas Bolig
Amanda Bolles
Sean Bolourchi
Alice Bowe
Miss Grace Bowe
McKenna Bramble
Caitlin Braun
Travis Braun
Erica Breakey
Taylor Brown
Anh Bui
Aaron Bunker
Camille Burke
Megan Burns
Philip Bystrom
C
Francisco Cabrera
William Cagney
Xiaotang Cai Jr.
Christopher Cain
Willina Cain
Kathryn Callaghan
Sonia Camarena
Ellie Cannon
Elizabeth Caputo
Olivia Cares
Edward Carey
Elaine Carlin
Raymond Carpenter
Cody Carr
Alejandra Castillo
Brandon Casto
Colin Cepuran
Savanna Chambers
Natalie Cherne
Christine Chien
Kyoung Shin Cho
Philip Cho
Idah Chungu
Isabelle Ciaramitaro
Katherine Clark
Mysha Clarke
Gabrielle Clay
Taylor Clements
Annaliese Collier
Bridgett Colling
Anne Colonius
Natalie Coogan
Kacey Cook
Riley Cook
Holly Cooperrider
Philip Cromack
Brock Crystal
Rebecca Cummins-Lanter
Brian Cunningham-Rhoads
D
Susmitha Daggubati
Hannah Daly
Rachel Dandar
Callie Daniels-Howell
Charles Davis IV
Janelle Davis
Megan Davis
Parker de Waal
Francesca DeAnda
David DeSimone
Calee Dieleman
Miranda Doepker
Erica Dominic
Kelsey Donk
Samuel Doyle
Rachel Dranoff
Lauren Drew
E
Erin Eagan
Maya Edery
Taryn Edsall
Ian Edwards
Monika Egerer
Adam Eisenstein
Kristen Ellefson
Elinor Epperson
Michelle Escobar
Kelly Eubank
Samuel Evans-Golden
F
Abram Farley
Beth Farwell
Faiza Fayyaz
William Ferrara
Nathaniel Feuerstein
Caitlin Finan
Marie Fiori
Ian Flanagan
Joshua Foley
Samantha Foran
Mark Fortelka
James Frye
Rina Fujiwara
G
Aileen Gallagher
Bridget Gallagher
Keith Garber
Lauren Gaunt
Jared Georgakopoulos
Mark Ghafari
Cierra Gillard
Ian Good
Evan Gorgas
Kaitlin Gotcher
Alexandra Gothard
Anna Gough
Mary Goyings
David Graham
Joseph Granzotto
Hannah Gray
Kaitlyn Greiner
Jared Grimmer
Alexandra Groffsky
Hanna Groniger
Xueyun Gu
Andrea Gutierrez
Emily Guzman
H Zari Haggenmiller
Lynza Halberstadt
Marie Hallinen
Allison Hammerly
Elizabeth Hanley
Stephen Hanselman
Nora Harris
Emilie Harris-Makinen
Hadley Harrison
Shannon Haupt
Sara Haverkamp
Stephanie Heard
Mariah Hennen
Jordan Henning
Michelle Hernandez
Michael Hicks
Robert Hilliard
Frances Hoepfner
Ashleigh Holden
Jacob Holloway
Jenna Holmes
Jeffery Holton
Daniel Holtzman
Rachel Horness
Pornkamol Huang
Benjamin Hulbert
Julia Hulbert
Jenna Hunt
Katherine Hunter
Chaz HyattI
Sierra Imanse
Andrew Iraola
Craig Isser
J
Thomas Jackson
Jaehoon Jang
Morgan Jennings
Lara Job
Tibin John
Andrea Johnson
Samantha Jolly
Hannah Jones
K
Margaret Kane
Sukhvir Kaur
Jessica Kehoe
Grace Kelley
Spencer Kennedy
Michelle Keohane
Kelsey Kerbawy
Faiz Khaja
Daniel Kilburn
Siga Kisielius
Emily Kotz
Ruiqi Kou
Sarah Krafft
Matthew Kuntzman
L
Rory Landis
Bonnie Lathrop
Tessa Lathrop
Justin Leatherwood
Bo Gyoung Lee
Rachel Leider
Elizabeth Lenning
Jacob Lenning
Rebecca Lennington
Rachel LePage
Madeline LeVasseur
Jacob Lindquist
Emily Lindsay
Samuel Linstrom
Conrad Liu
Vageesha Liyana Gunawardana
Trenton Loos
Jordan Loredo
Paul Lovaas
Christopher Lueck
Riley Lundquist
M
Lucy MacArthur Jr.
Corinne MacInnes
Madeleine MacWilliams
Lucy Mailing
Megan Malish
Laura Manardo
Grace Mandry
Grace Manger
Sarah Manski
Scott Manski
Natalie Martell
Guy Martin
Megan Martinez
Jack Massion
Belinda McCauley
Mallory McClure
Indigo McCollum
Alaina McConnell
Quinn McCormick
Adam McDowell
Jessica McInchak
Molly Meddock
Jordan Meiller
Arik Mendelevitz
Bradley Merritt
Caroline Michniak
Emily Mickus
Matthew Mills
Alexander Minch
Sashae Mitchell
Gabrielle Montesanti
Jacob Montz
Tessa Moore
Aliera Morasch
Alexandra Morris
Chloe Mpinga
Tendai Mudyiwa
Philip Mulder
N
Brendan Nagler
Alissa Neff
Taylor Netherton
Maureen Newman
Hang Nguyen
Alexandra Norman
Jason Nosrati
Alexander Numbers
Kelsey Nuttall
O
Moses Odhiambo
Franco Ojimba
Stephen Oliphant
P Crestina Pacheco
Jane Packer
Fayang Pan
Yunpeng Pang
Jisung Park
Emma Patrash
Jamie Patton
Michael Paule-Carres
Bronte Payne
Regina Pell
Elizabeth Penix
David Personke
Laura Persons
Adam Peters
Alicia Pettys
Thanh Thanh Phan
Pavan Policherla
Alejandra Portillo Taylor
Beau Prey
Jung Eun PyeonQ
R
Jacob Ragen
Christopher Ralstrom
Katherine Rapin
Bianca Rasho
Anna Rayas
Margaux Reckard
Robert Relief
Lindsey Reppuhn
Natalie Reszka
Maria Rich
Alexander Rigney
Sophie Roberts
Rebecca Rogstad
Megan Rosenberg
Marissa Rossman
Michelle Rothenbach Stacey
Connor Rzeznik
S
Kira Sandiford
Andrea Satchwell
David Scasny
Kaitlyn Schneider
Alicia Schooley
Colleen Schuldeis
Cameron Schwartz
Lauren Seroka
Nicholas Shabino
Hannah Shaughnessy-Mogill
Dylan Shearer
Cameron Shegos
Adrian Shier
Geon-Ah Shin
Alexsandra Siems
Sajan Silwal
Samantha Simmons
Jyotika Singh
Alexandra Smith
Colin Smith
Hayley Smith
Julia Smucker
Renjie Song
Lauren Sprowl
Allison Starr
Ernest Stech
Alexandra Stephens
Nikki Stern
Katherine Stevenson
Shelby Stuart
Casey Sullivan
Sarah Sullivan
Muyang Sun
Shang Sun
Kyle Sunden
Mira Swearer
T
Tyler Tabenske
Emerson Talanda-Fisher
Kinza Tareen
Lilian Taylor
Yvonne Thoits
Brett Thomas
Allison Thompson
Mary Tobin
Nadia Torres
Alexander Townsend
Minhkhang Truong
Ken Tsuchiya
Elizabeth Tyburski
U
V
Trevor Vader
Matthew Vanderhoef
Rachael Vettese
Julia Villarreal
Elizabeth Vincensi
Samantha Voss
Austin Voydanoff
W
Chelsea Wallace
Sarah Wallace
Emily Walsh
William Warpinski
Cameron Wasko
Loren Weber
Jared Weeks
Natalie Weingartz
Clayton Weissenborn
Yuanyuan Wen
Alexander Werder
Scott Wharam
Connor Wheaton
Kieran Williams
Lori-Ann Williams
Luke Winship
Samantha Wolfe
Abby Wood
Nicholas Wood
Erika Worley
Emily Wright
Preston Wyckoff
Joseph Wyzgoski
Annie Belle ’13 installs her Senior Individualized Project
Senior Annie Belle’s art SIP can’t be displayed on a wall or a pedestal.
“Basically I’m knitting a house,” Belle said.
The house will be up through Friday, April 19 in the Light Fine Arts Building gallery space, with a reception on Thursday, April 18 from 4 to 5 p.m.
Belle, who learned to knit when she was 16 and was taught by her mother, designed all of the patterns for the cottage-style house and the knitted furniture that will go inside it.
“When you look at things, they all basically are geometric shapes, so I’m just knitting a bunch of rectangles or squares,” she said. “I’ve gone through multiple design ideas. I think I’ve unraveled everything that I’m working on at least once.”
Belle uses wool roving, a thick material that she described as somewhere between wool straight off a sheep’s back and finer spun yarn. It knits faster than thin yarn, she said.
Plastic piping gives structural support to furniture pieces.
Belle looked at floor plans for microhouses — very small and often portable homes — when creating her own designs.
“They’re kind of what I think of when I think of a house,” she said. “Nothing terribly sophisticated — someplace to sit, someplace to eat.”
Belle says she cannot remember how exactly she came up with the idea for the project. She reflected for a moment before saying that the concept of home has influenced her time at Kalamazoo College.
“Looking back, I feel I’ve been concerned with domestic spaces, gender roles, and private versus public sphere.” she said.
Belle financed the yarn with funding from the K Art Department, but the project scale was large enough that the money did not cover the full cost of materials. She recently launched an online fundraising campaign that has raised more than $1,600.
“I don’t feel like I’ve really done that much with my art on campus, and if I’m going to go out, I want to go out big,” she said.
After displaying the piece in Kalamazoo, Belle plans to submit it to Art Prize, a large juried art competition in Grand Rapids, Mich. She said the project may ultimately end up as stuffing for a mattress after she dismantles it.
“There’s only so much room in the world for a knitted house,” she said. (Story and photo by Maggie Kane ’13)
