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.
An illustration by Elayna Snyder ’09 from her upcoming book, Temple by Temple, which is based on her experience doing Japan’s 88 Temple Pilgrimage.
Elayna Snyder ’09 is gearing up to again bicycle an ancient pilgrimage route to 88 temples in Shikoku, Japan. The 900-mile route takes a circular path around Shikoku. Snyder is one-half of a writer-illustrator team that is working on Temple by Temple, an illustrated book about a girl’s journey to the temples with her cat.
Snyder does the art. Chelsea Reidy does the words. They both lived in Shikoku, Japan, for three years near the pilgrimage route where ohenro (pilgrims) are seen against the landscape of green mountains and blue seas. Before returning to the United States last November, Snyder and Reidy (along with Snyder’s sister, Alyse) completed the pilgrimage route on bicycles. The illustrations in the book are all based on photographs taken while they were traveling the 88 temple path.
Now they are planning to embark on the 88 temple journey a second time. Along with translating the book into Japanese, they will collect the materials needed to make 88 hand-bound copies of their book. Snyder is seeking to gain funds through Kickstarter, a web-based crowd-sourcing platform where creative entrepreneurs pitch their ideas.
The pilgrimage in Japan commemorates a Buddhist saint, Kobo Daishi. Many believe that his spirit still roams Shikoku, traveling with all pilgrims who do the journey. Although the route is Buddhist in nature, people of all faiths set off on the path for various reasons—to explore rural Japan, to pray for good fortune or for ill loved ones, and to seek adventure. Temple by Temple explores all the different aspects of the pilgrimage and pays homage to Daishi by including him in all the illustrations. He is hidden in the illustration above
Graduating seniors of the Class of 2013 completed an anonymous survey titled “First Destination.” As the name implies most of the questions look forward. But at least one looked back: “What was your most meaningful or transformative experience at K?”
The majority of the 2013 graduating students reported that study abroad was the most meaningful experience at K. One student responded, “My time abroad was transformative. It opened my eyes to the wider world around me and taught me that apart from our cultural differences, all people have the same general needs and wants. All people want to be respected, and all need health care, shelter, and food.”
That study aboard was valued so highly by seniors is no surprise. The College offers 41 programs in 21 countries on six continents, differing in length and academic emphasis. In the past four years K has had a student participation rate between 80 and 85. The Institute of International Education has ranked Kalamazoo College 10th among colleges and universities for study abroad participation.
Many students cited professors and classes as the most meaningful experience. Again, not surprising given that K has a 12-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio. In addition, academics is integrated with service-learning and social justice, and students mention the importance of both. One students response: “The personalized, experiential education I was able to pursue at K made my learning not some stilted academic experience, but rather four years of intense personal growth and developing relationships with others that helped me both better understand my future path and inspired me to continue on it.”
Students also lauded the importance of co-curricular activities, including sports teams and campus student organizations. K has more than 60 active student organizations that focus on various areas, such as culture, athletics, music, politics, publishing, and spirituality.
A few students said working on campus was meaningful to them. Their jobs here opened up new opportunities and allowed them to give back to the K community.
A small amount of students cited their Senior Individualized Project as the most transformative part of their time at K. “My SIP year gave me the tools and confidence that will carry on into my life after K,” said one student.
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.
Britta Seifert ’12 knows she can do this, because she already has.
Britta Seifert ’12 is headed to the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan for a 27-month assignment with the Peace Corps. She has no idea where she’ll be living or what she’ll be doing, but she couldn’t be happier.
“There’s something intriguing about going to a part of the world people here know absolutely nothing about,” she recently told a Battle Creek Enquirer reporter.
Britta, from Marshall, Michigan, said her best preparation for this trip was her Kalamazoo College study abroad experience in India.
“It will be a great help knowing that if I’m completely overwhelmed, I can push through to the point where I can enjoy it. I know I can do this.”
Read more about Britta and her next big adventure in this Battle Creek Enquirer article.
Sarah Allexan ’11 is the lead author of a research paper published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics that looks into the cause of blindness in Mary Ingalls, older sister of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the popular “Little House” book series.
Ingalls Wilder wrote that Scarlet Fever caused her sister to lose her eyesight. Allexan and her research team determined otherwise. Their findings have attracted a lot of news media attention, including an article in USA Today and an article in the New York Times. Sarah also participated in an interview with WMUK radio (102.1 FM), the NPR affiliate at Western Michigan University.
Originally from Englewood, Colo., while at K, Sarah majored in biology, studied abroad in Ecuador, ran on the Hornet cross country team, and sang in the Limelights student a cappella group. She also served as a bi-lingual tutor for first-graders at a Kalamazoo Public School, and completed both an internship at the Seattle Aquarium and an externship at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital.
Shortly after her K commencement, she took a job as a research assistant at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. While there, she became involved in the Ingalls research project.
“It was fun tracing Laura’s journey and playing medical detective,” Sarah said. “This was my first real exposure to lineal reasoning and prepared me well for medical school.”
Sarah is now enrolled at University of Colorado School of Medicine. “But I bleed ‘Orange and Black!’” she said.
