Kofi Awoonor, Ghanaian Poet, Diplomat, and K Visiting Professor Killed in Nairobi Mall Attack on Sept. 21

Kofi Awoonor in his last public appearance
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.

Second Generation Peace Corps

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.

Bike Pilgrimage Becomes Book Basis

An illustration by Elayna Snyder
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

Last Look Back

2013 Graduates on study abroad in Spain
2013 Graduates on study abroad in Spain.

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.

K Students Earn International Language Scholarships

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.

From Kalamazoo to Kyrgyzstan

Kalamazoo College alumna Britta Seifert
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.

Photo by John Grap, The Enquirer.

K alumna is both medical student and medical detective

Medical student Sarah Allexan
Medical student and sleuth, Sarah Allexan ’11

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.

 

K Again Rates High for Study Abroad

Four Kalamazoo College students in Beijing
Kalamazoo College students in Beijing, China

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (Nov. 12, 2012) – Kalamazoo College has again been recognized as a leader in study abroad programs for U.S. college students. According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), Kalamazoo ranks #10 among U.S. colleges that offer baccalaureate degrees based solely on the percentage of its graduates that studied abroad during the 2010-11 academic year.

IIE reports that 87.9 percent (261 out of 297) of Kalamazoo graduates in 2011 had studied abroad during their K experience. Last year’s IIE report ranked Kalamazoo #12.

“At Kalamazoo College, international/intercultural engagement is an integral part of the K-Plan for undergraduate liberal arts education, and study abroad plays a big role in helping students to achieve that engagement,” said Associate Provost for International Programs Joe Brockington. “The College is a recognized national leader in education abroad and continues to be a model for other colleges and universities.”

Kalamazoo operates 48 programs in 24 countries on six continents. During the past four years, an average of 51 percent of K students traveled to Europe, 22 percent to Austral-Asia, 16 percent to Latin America and the Caribbean, and 11 percent to Africa and the Middle East. Popular programs are in China, Ecuador, Scotland, and Thailand.

Kalamazoo’s program is distinctive, said Brockington, “because in addition to being integral (i.e. part of the K curriculum), it is intentional (i.e. supported by learning outcomes that are assessed regularly), and integrative (i.e. striving to connect our students with local communities abroad).”

He said Kalamazoo stands out from other institutions because K students engage in long-term study abroad programs that last from one 11-week term to a full academic year. Many schools that send a high percentage of students abroad (including schools on the IIE list) only do so for three to four weeks in the summer or during a January short-term break. Kalamazoo students in all majors participate in study abroad, including a majority of student athletes even if it means they miss all or part of a competitive season. Many K students continue their major course of study while abroad, including science and math majors.

Most students take advantage of the Fall-Winter program and reside with host families. An Integrative Cultural Research Project, or ICRP, is a required component of selected programs. Bearing an academic credit, ICRP projects place great emphasis on participation, informed by observation and more traditional research activities.

“Study abroad remains a signature element of the K-Plan, said Brockington. “And it will for years to come.”

Read more about Kalamazoo College’s study abroad program, including blogs by K students currently studying abroad, at www.kzoo.edu/cip.

IIE is the leading not-for-profit educational and cultural exchange organization in the United States. Its annual census is based on a survey of approximately 3,000 accredited U.S. institutions and draws support from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Calvin College (27) and Alma College (35) are the only other baccalaureate institutions in Michigan included on the 2012 IIE report.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, learning by practice, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years, so students can do more in a lifetime.

K Grad (and Fulbright alumna) Sends Letter to Fulbright Applicants

Julia Anderle de Sylor ’09 has posted a letter to Fulbright applicants that offers encouragement, advice, and an assessment of the value of the rigorous application process, regardless of whether one is ultimately accepted. Julia received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant fellowship in Germany after she graduated from K, and she writes how it changed her life. At K she majored in German and studied abroad in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Post-Grad Public Service

Arnold Campbell, Martha Campbell, Alex Werder, Aubry McIntyre and Amanda Stitt
Left to Right: Arnold Campbell, Martha Campbell, Alex Werder, Aubry McIntyre, and Amanda Stitt.

“Politics and Public Service: K-Plans and Career Paths” was the theme of the Week Six (Oct. 19) Community Reflection in Stetson Chapel. Co-sponsored by the Center for Career and Professional Development and Alumni Relations, the reflection hosted a panel of Kalamazoo College alumni working in the areas of politics or public service.

College Republicans Co-Leader Aubry McIntyre ’15 and College Democrats President Alex Werder ’15 began the Reflection with a mock political debate. They sparred over the issues central to this year’s presidential election, modeling “civilized political discourse” for the audience of students and alumni present for Homecoming weekend.

Arnold Campbell ’72 spoke about his meandering path from study abroad at K to the United States Foreign Service, where he currently serves as Officer and Chargé d’Affaires for the U.S. Embassy in Malta. After studying abroad in Germany, he said he found his calling. “I no longer wanted to be a tourist in the world; I wanted to be participating in those other cultures, and that was because of what I’d experienced here.” His wife, Martha Campbell ’72, also held office in the Foreign Service after K, most recently as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Marshall Islands. She said her K education prepared her for a rigorous, demanding, and exciting job.

Lastly, Amanda Stitt ’02 read from an essay chronicling her journey in Michigan politics rooted in a few influential K classes. She founded K’s chapter of the College Democrats and opted to leave school during her junior fall to help with the 2000 election. Stitt served as former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s political director, ran a statewide nonprofit, and now works with the UAW. She said her K-Plan helped her develop the communication, networking, and leadership skills she would later need in the political world.

Community Reflection offers a unique forum for discussion, worship, performance, and community expression each Friday at 10:50 AM in Stetson Chapel. The campus community and general public are invited. [Story and photo by Elaine Ezekiel ’13]