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.
students
Strong K Presence at National Science Meeting
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.
Golden Opening
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.
Kalamazoo College Senior Faiza Fayyaz Is a YWCA Young Woman of Achievement
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.
Kalamazoo Senior Ashleigh Holden Earns a STAR
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.
Sustainability Goes Fourth at Kalamazoo College
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 Reflects on Boston Bombings
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.
Dean’s List Winter 2013
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. …
Winter 2013
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T V W Y Z | ||
| 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 Francisco Cabrera Susmitha Daggubati Erin Eagan Abram Farley Aileen Gallagher |
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 Thomas Jackson Margaret Kane Rory Landis Lucy MacArthur Jr. Brendan Nagler Moses Odhiambo |
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 Jacob Ragen Kira Sandiford Tyler Tabenske Trevor Vader Chelsea Wallace Sina Yakhshi Tafti Jose Zacarias Jr. |
Home is where the art is
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)
Washington March Culminates in Campus Event
Kalamazoo College sophomore Mariah Hennen, a member of MiRA, an advocacy program of the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, organized 13 Kalamazoo College students to attend the National March for Immigration Reform on April 10. Those 13 students will be part of a special campus event called “What is Immigration Reform?” That event features a keynote address by Susan Reed. Reed has practiced immigration and immigrant rights law since 2003. She has also served as a staff attorney at Farmworker Legal Services of Michigan and as a regional attorney for Justice for Our Neighbors, the immigration legal services program of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Her particular interests include the intersection of family and immigration law, the rights of unaccompanied immigrant children, immigrant eligibility for public benefits and programs, and civil rights matters. Reed is Secretary of the Steering Committee for the Michigan Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and co-chairs the Advocacy Committee of the Michigan Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She has served as an adviser to several State Bar of Michigan committees and initiatives. Her research and commentary has been published in Clearinghouse Review among other publications. “What is Immigration Reform?” will occur Wednesday, April 17, at 4 PM in Dewing Hall Room 103.