Not long ago the editor of Pink Pangea called our attention to an article the blog published by alumna Britta Seifert ’12 when she was a K student. Pink Pangea is designed for and dedicated to women who love to travel. Britta’s piece is titled “My Experience as a Woman in Varanasi, India,” and it’s quite timeless. In it she describes a 12-week period of adjustment during which a sense of being overwhelmed often had her questioning the wisdom of her study abroad program choice. But that period didn’t last, and she was soon convinced that Varanasi was the best of all her options–“I can say without a doubt that I’m glad to be here and wouldn’t have picked anywhere else to spend my college study abroad,” she wrote. What accounts for the change? According to Britta, growth in understanding and perception: “I’ve come to understand the order in the disorder, and see a beauty in the chaos.” Hard to put a value on that kind of outcome.
Britta’s article also chronicles a growing awareness of gender that is both difficult and empowering. The awareness derives from daily living where “the men I encounter don’t really respect me – don’t necessarily consider my opinion valid or my requests legitimate.” Britta responds with a self-assuredness and confidence, evident in actions, that becomes “one of the greatest things I gain from my time here.” Though four years old, the piece is good reading, especially as many sophomores use the current winter break to prepare their study abroad applications. Britta earned her Bachelor’s degree in anthropology and sociology and current serves as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kyrgyzstan.
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.
Lor “Sana” Vang ’14 received a Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to pursue advanced language study in China this past summer. She studied at Zhejiang University of Technology in Hang Zhou, China for ten weeks.
She is one of approximately 550 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who received the scholarship this year. The CLS Program is part of a U.S. Department of State’s effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages, specifically Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, or Urdu. CLS Program participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.
Before Sana departed for China, we asked her to participate in a Q&A on her K career and her upcoming CLS summer.
Your hometown? I am from St. Paul, Minnesota. I was born in Thailand and raised in the U.S. I am Hmong-American.
Major, Minor? I majored in East Asian studies with minors in Japanese and economics.
Where did you study abroad? I studied in China during my junior year 2012-13, spending six months in Beijing and three months in Harbin.
Did you complete an Integrative Cultural Project (ICRP) during study abroad? Yes. My ICRP focused on traditional music and I learned how to play a Pipa, a four-string plucked lute. I took Pipa lessons with a graduate student at the Conservatory of Music in Beijing. I attended a music workshop and concerts, and also interviewed music students to learn why they decided to learn traditional versus western instruments.
How did your K study abroad experience affect your life? My K study abroad experience affected my life in many ways. China was an eye-opening experience that allowed me to see things in a different perspective. I studied the history of Beijing, improved my Chinese, and learned about music. In Harbin, I saw the influences of Western cultures and studied about Chinese myths and fairy tales. I also took a course in business that led me to understand more about China’s economic developments and how people are affected by the policies that are being implemented. I traveled and saw many historic sites, and got engaged in the community. I have many good friends from study abroad who will be with me throughout my life.
Describe your Senior Individualized Project? My SIP focused on the clashes of American culture and Hmong culture. Hmong are a diaspora group of people, and Hmong-Americans especially find it’s hard to keep the balance between being both Hmong and American. My SIP talked about finding a new identity of bi-culturalism, some of the struggles within our modern society, and understanding how history has become a big part of who Hmong are today.
Have you been involved in K student organizations? I served as the president of the Badminton Club in my sophomore year and was vice-president my senior year. I also was a member of the Asian Pacific-Islander Student Association.
Campus jobs? I worked for political science department and at the New Media Center.
What do you expect to experience and learn during your CLS summer in China? I want to learn more about the food culture and how to make authentic Chinese food. I also am interested in seeing the differences between living in the south of China and the north. I also expect to improve my Chinese language and learn more about the dialects.
What strengths and learning experiences from your nearly four years at K will help you during your CLS summer? I think my study abroad experience during my junior year will definitely help me during the CLS Summer. Studying abroad helped me become more independent, as well as understand more about myself, and the adaptation process that we all experience while moving to a different place. I learned that exploring cities and having conversations with others can also be beneficial in that you can get to know a place, the people, and become part of that ecosystem.
What are some of your longer-term academic and career goals beyond this summer? Beyond this summer I hope to either find a job or continue my studies in graduate school studying international relations and business. Critical Language Scholars are encouraged to study our targeted language and incorporate it into our future career. I hope to become fluent in Chinese and work in U.S.-China related jobs. Some activities that I might be engaged in are international relations related jobs and programs.
What would you like people to know about you and your K experience as you head toward Commencement and into the ranks of K alumni? Kalamazoo College’s slogan—More in Four. More in a Lifetime.—is, I believe, my Kalamazoo experience. I have met many inspiring people, become great friends with other K students, and have had an amazing four years that I will not forget. K is indeed life changing.
Some of the K students interning in Washington, D.C. this summer are (l-r): Katie Clark ’16, Noah Arbit ’17, Skylar Young ’15, Kylah Simmons ’17, Natalie Cherne ’15, and Fatima Hanne ’15. Amber Whittington ’08 (far right) is Director of Operations at the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Amber invited the K interns to the recent Senate ice cream social.
Just as many newly minted Kalamazoo College graduates are heading into the work world, rising K sophomores, juniors, and seniors are venturing into their own workplace adventures. Steeped in a historical commitment to experiential education, the Career and Professional Development component of the K-Plan is now identified with summer “externships” and internships administered by the College’s Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD).
During summer 2014, 50 rising K sophomores and juniors will explore new career paths as “externs” through the CCPD’s unique Discovery Extern Program that allows students to both live and work with active professionals, including K alumni, for one to four weeks.
Summer 2014 Discovery Externs spend their days alongside professionals in hospitals and health centers, law offices, schools, libraries, businesses, nature centers, and farms, and then they’ll head home together for wide-ranging “porch time” conversations.
CCPD Program Administrator Pam Sotherland has helped nurture hundreds of new connections through the program that began as a pilot in 2001.
“The value of the Discovery Externship Program lies in the opportunity for a student to live and work with an alum and through that experience forge what many participants have said will be a lifelong relationship,” said Pam.
Additionally, the CCPD’s Field Experience Program (FEP) has scores of students enrolled in internships during summer 2014. Whether students identify internships through the CCPD or on their own, all FEP interns learn about a possible career, hone transferrable skills, and build professional networks.
Ogden Wright ’16, from Jamaica, is headed to Pennsylvania to intern at the Delaware County Planning Department with alumnus Justin Dula ’99. Ogden, who plans a career in civil engineering, said he hopes “to learn, from a public sector perspective, how urban planning is organized and implemented, and to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue a career in a governmental organization.”
It’s a big year for K student interns in Washington, D.C.
After working on several political campaigns, Natalie Cherne ’15, from Minnesota, hopes her summer internship in Minnesota Senator Al Franken’s Washington, D.C. office will hone her policy-writing skills.
“By applying my learning from political science classes to writing policy memoranda, taking notes at hearings, and conducting research, I will contribute to making the policies I referred to when talking with voters about issues,” she said.
Noah Arbit ’17, from West Bloomfield, Michigan is interning at the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry, a nongovernmental organization working to ensure the safety and nondiscrimination of Jews in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (especially topical given unfolding events in Ukraine).
As soon as Alex Werder ’15 finishes up at his study abroad program in China, he will return to the U.S. to intern in the Washington, D.C. office of New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt.
“Rush is my congressman from New Jersey’s 12th District and I have wanted to work for him since I was old enough to know what politics was all about,” said Alex. “I could not be more thrilled to be going on this adventure this summer.”
The U.S. News & World Report has rated Kalamazoo College #6 in the number of students (per capita) who study abroad as undergraduates. The publication’s “10 Institutions Where Most Students Study Outside the U.S.” placed K in the sixth position based on 81 percent of its 2012 graduating seniors having studied outside the United States during their undergraduate days at the College.
Kalamazoo College President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran visited K students on study abroad in Thailand during Winter Quarter 2014.
“We are proud of our position in the field of international education,” said Associate Director of the Center for International Programs Margaret Wiedenhoeft.
“We think we have a culture of international education at K,” added Wiedenhoeft. “We want to make sure study abroad remains accessible to our students. Are our programs relevant? Are they accessible financially?”
For more than 50 years, K has been the gold standard of collegiate undergraduate study abroad programs, and it remains a signature element of the College’s vaunted K-Plan. During the recently completed 2013-14 academic year, K students studied abroad for three, six, nine months and longer at nearly 50 programs on six continents. K is also known as a destination for study abroad. Members of the Class of 2014 hailed from 25 countries outside the U.S.
Read more about study abroad at Kalamazoo College here.
John Evans (left) and Aaron Thornburg during their Hornet soccer days
During their K days, Aaron Thornburg ’02 and John Evans ’02 were often together. After all, both majored in psychology, and both played on the Hornet men’s soccer team, where they shared MIAA championships (three) and team MVP honors. This year they are teaming up again.
In their junior year, 2001, John and Aaron spent a summer together in Guatemala City to train for their upcoming K soccer season and to conduct research for their Senior Individualized Projects. Thirteen years later they will be back in Guatemala City together, this time collaborating on a different scholarly initiative.
In June, the two Hornets will lead a group of some 20 Seattle University students on a Central American study abroad experience, part of a course Aaron developed called Cultural Intelligence and Global Business Communication. The project seeks to improve international leadership abilities among graduate and undergraduate students, so they may better facilitate constructive outcomes and effective cross-cultural interactions in global business.
Aaron’s interest in cultural intelligence dates to his first experience in international living—his K study abroad experience in Strasbourg, France. “The quarter in France opened my eyes to a world with a rich diversity of cultures. Because crossing borders will continue to grow in both frequency and importance, we all need to better understand how to function as leaders across cultural boundaries. Cultural intelligence is a crucial skill and aptitude in the world of business. But more importantly, it helps us understand and relate better to people with backgrounds different than our own. And that enables people to connect on a personal and empathetic level, which I believe is the foundation to a better world.”
After graduating from K, Aaron, an Okemos (Mich.) native, earned his J.D. and M.B.A. from Michigan State University. He then lived and worked in Asia, South America, and Europe. Currently, he resides in Seattle, Wash., where he teaches international business at Seattle University’s Albers School of Business and Economics.
Aaron’s résumé includes work at Instituto de Empresa (IE) (Madrid, Spain), a top-ranked international business school. One of his colleagues there was fellow classmate Justin Swinsick ’02, who served as the school’s executive director of international programs. Aaron’s time at IE also coincided with those of Lisa Emami ’02 and Nathan Burns ’03—a tribute to how international the K study body truly is!
John Evans’ international experience began before he even arrived at K. He grew up living part-time in Petoskey, Michigan, and part-time in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
After K, John earned his master’s degree in counseling psychology from Western Michigan University (2007). He worked one year as an admission counselor at K, and then attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he completed his doctorate in sport and exercise psychology. In North Carolina he worked with athletes with skill levels ranging from developmental to Olympic-class. Today John lives in Columbia, S.C. He works for the United States Army Training Center at Fort Jackson in the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness program, sharing sport and performance psychology skills with soldiers and family members.
Buena suerte to both men this June. You can follow their Guatemala study abroad experience @GuateAbroad on Twitter and Instagram. Article by Ross Bower ’03
Kalamazoo College has joined more than 150 other U.S. colleges and universities in the Institute of International Education’s Generation Study Abroad initiative that aims to double the number of U.S. college students who study abroad by 2020. Generation Study Abroad reflects the U.S. Department of Education’s international strategy that aims to provide all U.S. students with a “world-class education” and seeks “global competencies for all students.”
In IIE’s latest Open Doors publication that documents both the outbound study abroad and the inbound international student activity for U.S. colleges and universities, Kalamazoo College was ranked 15th among baccalaureate institutions for its 2011-2012 outbound study abroad participation of 80.8 percent. Additionally, the number of international students coming to K now approaches ten percent.
In the current academic year, 2013-2014, Kalamazoo College students have studied or will study abroad on programs ranging from ten to 30 weeks. The College offers its students 44 study abroad programs in 28 countries on six continents, pre-approved for transfer of credit. Approximately 20 K students will also engage in international internships or research during summer 2014. Numerous students also take advantage of the College’s U.S.-based “study away” opportunities throughout the year.
Students participating in Kalamazoo College sponsored study abroad programs of 18-30 weeks duration, typically engage in a cultural project in addition to taking classes at the partner institution. These cultural projects allow K students to work alongside local people, use the local language, and achieve locally set goals. These cultural projects help students achieve the learning outcomes the College expects from a K study abroad experience. These outcomes include:
understand, through study and experience, the cultures of several parts of the world
be sensitive to and respectful of personal and cultural differences
engage with global issues and cultural diversity
be proficient in at least one second language and display cultural competence in a variety of contexts
act effectively and responsibly as a citizen, both locally and globally, and thereby enhance intercultural understanding.
Kalamazoo College students have embarked on study abroad experiences since 1958, making the College a pioneer in sending students abroad for immersive cultural, language, and study experiences. More information about the study abroad program at K is available at the Center for International Programs website: www.kzoo.edu/cip.
Associate Provost Paul Sotherland is an expert on K outcomes in the Collegiate Learning Assessment.
A Wall Street Journal article (“College Uses Test Data to Show Value,” by Douglas Belkin, February 20, 2014) describes K’s efforts to measure (and market) the gains its students experience in critical thinking and problem solving skills because of the K undergraduate learning experience.
The article notes that K leads a growing trend of colleges and universities becoming more transparent about sharing test data and other metrics to show the learning outcomes of a higher education. For his story Belkin interviewed Dean of Admission Eric Staab and Associate Provost Paul Sotherland as well students and their parents for his article. The piece notes that K (Sotherland) shares data that documents the effect and value of a K education with parents and prospective students during campus visits.
Much of that data originates from the Collegiate Learning Assessment, currently the most reliable direct measure of students’ gains in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, writing, and problem solving as a result of particular undergraduate learning experiences. What distinguishes the CLA from other assessments is its focus on direct measures of learning rather than an aggregate of surrogate markers that include, for example (in some rankings), the size of an institution’s endowment or the number of alumni that provide annual gifts.
Kofi Awoonor, in his last public appearance, a poetry master class, in Nairobi, on Sept. 20, 2013. Photograph: Storymoja Hay Festival/Msingi Sasis.
Shortly after the first news reports of an attack by armed assailants on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya on Saturday Sept. 21, Kalamazoo College administrators received word from the resident director of the K study abroad program at The University of Nairobi that all eight K students in the program were safe and had been instructed to shelter in place with their host families. The students had been in Nairobi for about five weeks at that time.
Two days later, as the mall attack continued, the College offered its students three options: continue the program in Kenya, as scheduled; return to the U.S. immediately and enroll in winter quarter classes at K in January; or return to Kalamazoo immediately and enroll in classes for the fall quarter that had begun Sept. 16. Three students chose to return to K and are now enrolled in fall courses. Five students chose to remain in Nairobi and continue with the program.
K currently has two visiting international students from Kenya on campus for one year. With help from the College, these students were able to contact their immediate family members and learn they were safe and unharmed. K’s longtime resident program director in Nairobi, Lillian Owitti, reported that her family was also safe. She and the visiting students from Kenya, however, have extended family members and friends that were killed, injured, or lost their livelihoods when the mall burned and collapsed.
This senseless and violent attack on innocent civilians has thus far claimed the lives of nearly 70 people, and the livelihoods of countless more. The entire Kalamazoo College community mourns this tragic loss.
The K community also mourns the death of Kofi Awoonor, Ph.D., a lecturer and visiting professor at K in the early 1970s, who was killed during the opening moments of the mall attack.
A teacher, poet, author, and former Ghanaian diplomat, Awoonor was attending the Storymoja Hay literary festival in Nairobi when he visited the Westgate Mall with his son, Afetsi, shortly before the attacks. Afetsi was wounded, but is recovering.
“Kofi Awoonor was a statesman, a poet, and a man of great courage,” said Kalamazoo College President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran who became familiar with Awoonor and his work in 1970 when she studied at the University of Ghana in Legon where Awoonor taught.
“African poetry has lost an elder statesman, a role model and mentor to so many.” Wilson-Oyelaran read an excerpt from Seamus Heaney’s poem “The Cure at Troy” in Awoonor’s honor at the all-faculty meeting on the K campus two days after his death.
Awoonor visited Kalamazoo several times in the early 1970s, lecturing and teaching at both Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College. He taught a course on African literature at K.
“That course changed my life,” Gail Raiman ’73 said recently, upon learning of Awoonor’s death. “It was rich with strange and scintillating imagery and a profoundly different approach to writing and to life.”
Awoonor’s book of poems Night of My Blood and his novel This Earth, My Brother (both published in 1971) were especially memorable, according to Raiman.
“None of us previously had this informed and incredible access to African literature, nor the benefit of having one of Africa’s top literary figures as our teacher. We had no idea how lucky we were.”
Raiman said she followed Awoonor’s career after he returned to Ghana, where he was imprisoned by the country’s military government and, after his release, became a diplomat, continuing to write and inspire.
“It was with profound sadness that I learned of his death,” she said. “May we continue to be challenged and inspired by his many gifts.”
Two other writers with strong connections to Kalamazoo College were also in Nairobi attending the same Storymoja Hay Festival during the attacks.
Writer and photographer Teju Cole ’96 wrote in a Sept. 26 blog post for The New Yorker that he was on stage at the festival taking questions from the audience during the first hour of the mall siege, unaware of what was taking place about a mile away. Two days later, Cole attended an impromptu memorial for Awoonor and read Awoonor’s short poem, The Journey Beyond.
“The most resonant moment of the evening was the least anticipated,” wrote Cole about the memorial. “Someone had made an audio recording from the master class that Awoonor had given at the Festival on Friday.” Cole wrote that the audience listened to Awoonor talking “with both levity and seriousness” about death and dying.
“At seventy-nine, you must know—unless you’re an idiot—that very soon, you should be moving on. An ancient poet from my tradition said, ‘I have something to say. I will say it before death comes. And if I don’t say it, let no one say it for me. I will be the one who will say it.’”
Also attending both the Storymoja Hay festival and the memorial gathering for Kofi Awoonor was Ghanaian born Jamaican poet and writer Kwame Dawes. Dawes was a cousin to Awoonor and series editor of the African Poetry Book Fund which is set to publish Awoonor’s latest collection, Promises of Hope: New and Selected Poems in 2014.
Like Awoonor in the early 1970s, Kwame Dawes was a visiting lecturer at both WMU and K, in 2008.
He filed his report on Awoonor’s life and death on the Wall Street Journal website on Sept. 22, the day after Awoonor’s death. In it, he wrote:
“Those who will carry the heaviness of loss will be his immediate family beginning with his son who was shot and wounded in the Mall and who had traveled to Kenya to be with his father and to support him. There are other siblings, other cousins, other extended families, thousands of past students, and a Ghanaian nation that will mourn his death deeply.”
Kofi Awoonor earned a B.A. from University College of Ghana, an M.A. from University College, London, and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from State University of New York at Stony Brook. His books of poetry also include Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964), Ride Me, Memory (1973), The House by the Sea (1978), The Latin American and Caribbean Notebook (1992), and Until the Morning After (1987).
Drawing on his Ewe heritage, Awoonor translated Ewe poetry in a critical study titled Guardians of the Sacred Word and Ewe Poetry (1974). Other works of literary criticism include The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara (1975).
In addition to teaching at Kalamazoo College in the early 1970s, Awoonor served as chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at SUNY Stony Book. After returning to Ghana in 1975 to teach at University College of Cape Coast, he was imprisoned without trial for his suspected involvement in a coup d’état. After his release, he wrote about his time in jail in The House by the Sea and resumed teaching.
Awoonor went on to serve as Ghana’s ambassador to Brazil and Cuba during the 1980s, and as ambassador to the United Nations from 1990 to 1994. He published Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times in 1990 and Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa in 1992.
Anna Williams ’10 is a Peace Corps volunteer who began her two-year commitment this past June. Her title is Education Volunteer, and she will live and work in a community in the West African country of Togo to encourage critical thinking in the classroom, and integrate issues like health education and environmental awareness into English classes. Her story appears in an article (“Piece by Peace: The Peace Corps Volunteers of Tomorrow”), which credits her dream of serving in the Peace Corps in part to her K study abroad experience in Dakar, Senegal. The fact that she’s a second generation Peace Corps volunteer no doubt was an influence as well. She shares a Peace Corps experience with her father and her mother, who both served as volunteers in Tunisia. She shares a K experience with her father, Bill Williams, a member of the Kalamazoo College Class of 1971.
Not long ago the editor of Pink Pangea called our attention to an article the blog published by alumna Britta Seifert ’12 when she was a K student. Pink Pangea is designed for and dedicated to women who love to travel. Britta’s piece is titled “My Experience as a Woman in Varanasi, India,” and it’s quite timeless. In it she describes a 12-week period of adjustment during which a sense of being overwhelmed often had her questioning the wisdom of her study abroad program choice. But that period didn’t last, and she was soon convinced that Varanasi was the best of all her options–“I can say without a doubt that I’m glad to be here and wouldn’t have picked anywhere else to spend my college study abroad,” she wrote. What accounts for the change? According to Britta, growth in understanding and perception: “I’ve come to understand the order in the disorder, and see a beauty in the chaos.” Hard to put a value on that kind of outcome.
