At Kalamazoo College’s annual President’s Community Luncheon on Wednesday, President Karlyn Crowley invited local leaders to imagine what the College and the city could accomplish together, calling for deeper partnerships that expand opportunities for students while strengthening the place K calls home.

The event brought more than 80 elected officials, business and education leaders, nonprofit partners and friends of the College to campus for Crowley’s first community luncheon as K’s president.

“What problems are you trying to solve?” Crowley asked the audience. “We are a small college, but we can think big.”

Crowley, who became K’s 19th president in July, drew on her previous experience developing partnerships between higher education and industry. At St. Norbert College, she worked with Green Bay-based trucking company Schneider to develop programming aimed at building a workplace culture empowering women leaders and developing a college-corporate pipeline for local talent. At Ohio Wesleyan University, she helped build a more transfer-friendly model through a partnership with Columbus State Community College and worked with a local engineering firm to create a liberal arts-based engineering program designed to meet workforce needs.

Those experiences, she said, demonstrated what can happen when colleges bring their expertise, curiosity and capacity for innovation to the challenges facing their communities.

Since arriving at K, Crowley has met with leaders from organizations including Southwest Michigan First, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, the Kalamazoo Promise and Discover Kalamazoo. In those conversations and others across the community, she said, she has heard strong regard for K’s students, academics and reputation. She has also heard that the “College on the hill” can feel removed from the rest of Kalamazoo and must continue working to ensure everyone feels welcome and connected.

“The hill is part of our geography,” she said. “It should never be a barrier to belonging or to building something together.”

One possibility Crowley asked attendees to consider is a clearer pathway from Kalamazoo Valley Community College to K. She cited data from the Kalamazoo Promise showing that nearly 5,000 Promise scholars have enrolled at KVCC since the Promise began in 2005. A stronger pathway to K, she suggested, could give more students the opportunity to pursue a bachelor’s degree while encouraging talented graduates to build their lives in the Kalamazoo area.

“One of the reasons I was so drawn to this College and to this particular city is that I heard someone describe Kalamazoo as having a ‘college-going consciousness,’” she said. “We know that a college degree, in terms of economic uplift, is still a profound transformational marker for a person and a family.”

Students also played a central role in the luncheon, with President’s Student Ambassadors welcoming guests and senior Ryleigh Jaworski serving as the featured student speaker. Jaworski, a triple major in history, German studies and business who studied abroad in Erlangen, Germany, reflected on how K has given her room to take risks, change course and learn from mistakes with the support of those around her.

“Kalamazoo has truly become my second home, and not just on the campus,” she said, citing K’s rock-climbing class, offered through Climb Kalamazoo, as one experience that has connected her with the larger community.

Jaworski has applied for a Fulbright U.S. Student Program English Teaching Assistant Award in Germany after graduation. Whatever the outcome, she said K has taught her to embrace the possibilities.

“The version of me that walked onto campus the first day of freshman year would have been terrified by how many options are before me,” Jaworski said. “But now I feel excited about exploring the different paths my future might take. K has helped me become the person I am today, and I cannot wait to get out into the world and pay it forward.”

Crowley closed by inviting guests into “Curious About K,” the listening initiative she has been conducting with students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, community leaders and neighbors since arriving on campus. She asked attendees to share where they see room for collaboration, which local challenges the College could help address, and how K students and graduates could contribute to area businesses, organizations and government. Guests could respond on the spot by scanning QR codes at their tables.

The futures of the College and the city are intertwined, she said, and so are the questions ahead.

“How do we solve issues around housing, around economic disparities, questions of sustainability and job creation?” she asked. “How do we help the young people in the room stay and build lives here, so we continue to have a vibrant city over time? What could we build together that none of us could build alone?”