Kalamazoo College alumna Becky Gray ’81 is the only student from K or Western Michigan University ever to receive a Rhodes Scholarship. In a Nov.15, 2012 Kalamazoo Gazette article, she offered some words of advice for Rhodes Scholarship finalist Mitch Zajac, a WMU graduate student and former football player.
Congrats to the Black Hornets (Jiakan Wang ’13, Renjie Song ’13, Tibin John ’15) and the Orange Hornets (Chris Clerville ’13, Will Reichle 14’, Kyle Sunden ’14) on their success at the regional Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, or “Battle of the Brains,” this past Saturday. Both Kalamazoo College teams finished in the top half of the teams in their region.
The Black Hornets solved two out of nine problems, finished in 39th place in the region (out of 131 teams), and earned the Extreme Programmers award for solving problem B in 25 minutes! The Orange Hornets solved one out of nine problems and finished 53rd in the region.
“Our region is one of the most competitive in the country, including multiple teams from such schools as Carnegie Mellon, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, University of Michigan, and Notre Dame,” said Associate Professor of Computer Science Pam Cutter, Ph.D. “I’m proud of both teams for solving at least one problem. There were 54 teams in our region that did not solve any of the problems!”
According to Cutter, the “Battle of the Brains” consists of a five-hour, real-world, problem-solving challenge that is equivalent to an entire semester’s worth of computer programming. Teams of three from colleges and universities in 90 countries and six continents use skills based upon open technology and advanced computing methods to compete for a coveted spot on the World Finals held in summer 2013 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Full standings and results from the recent regional, and problem sets with judges solutions can be found at http://acm.ashland.edu.
Black and Orange! Orange and Black!
“Honors Day Convocation” was the Week 7 (Oct. 26) Community Reflection in Stetson Chapel. The event is a time to present special awards to Kalamazoo College students for their accomplishments. Most awards are based on outstanding performance in a particular area during the previous academic year.
Chaplain Liz Candido ’00 greeted the audience of more than 200 K professors, staff members, students and their families present for Parents Weekend. Jenna Hunt ’13 sang “Love Went A-Riding” accompanied by piano before Provost Mickey McDonald delivered opening remarks. “These times of celebration are important to any community,” he said. “It is a time to learn more about each other, to recognize the outstanding contributions being made by those in our community, and to honor those making these contributions.”
Accompanied by Vice President for Student Development and Dean of Students Sarah Westfall and Dean of the First Year and Advising Zaide Pixley, McDonald awarded about 60 students with 31 honors across Fine Arts, Foreign Languages, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Physical Education. He also announced non-departmental awards and recognized students and athletes who received various honors in scholarship last year, such as the Posse Scholars of 2016 and 122 Hornets who qualified for the MIAA Academic Honor Roll.
View a complete list of those awarded.
To close the ceremony, the audience joined in singing the Kalamazoo Alma Mater.
Community Reflection offers a unique forum for discussion, worship, performance, and community expression each Friday at 10:50 AM in Stetson Chapel. The entire campus community and general public are invited. The Week 8 (Nov 2) Reflection will be “Unmasking the Sting of Micro-aggressions in Everyday Life.” This service, Co-sponsored by the Counseling Center, will reflect on the hurtfulness of micro-aggressions, and encourage audience members to think about the impact of daily interactions that may be perceived negatively. [Story and photo by Elaine Ezekiel ’13]
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.
Claire Riggs ’11 received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation, a prestigious award that allows her to continue research on killifish embryos as she works on her doctorate at Portland State University. Her research was the subject of an article (“Life in the Extreme”) by Maya Seaman that appeared in the publication, Vanguard. Killifish embryos can survive pretty tough conditions–in extreme heat, without water, and, believe it or not, without oxygen. Riggs studies the role of the fish embryos’ microDNA in their ability to go dormant and survive in anoxic environments. For killifish embryos, such dormancy is characterized by a reduction of metabolism, inhibition of cell development, and stoppage of the heart beat … up to 90 days … without harm! Clues to how this process works, should it ever prove applicable to humans, could eventually have important potential for cancer therapy and treatment of heart attack and stroke.
Dan Blustein, Joel Haas, and Tess Killpack have a great deal in common. They’re classmates (2006); they’re working on their doctorates; and they’re finalists in a video contest! “Dan entered us in an NSF fellows video contest (of course he did…),” wrote Tess to Professor of Biology Paul Sotherland, “and we made it to the finals.” The contest celebrates the 60th anniversary of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Dan, Joel, and Tess share that too; each is an NSF GRF. The title of their video is “Sharing Our NSF GRF Skills With the World.” “We took a little different approach from most of the other entries and did a collaborative entry filming on our own and working over the Internet,” said Dan. “Judges pick winners, and there is one People’s Choice award determined by online votes.” There’s great variety in their research work and geographic dispersion—robot lobsters, cellular energy balance, and avian immune system development, in Boston, San Francisco, and Madison (Wis.) for Dan, Joel, and Tess, respectively. In true K fashion, they do much more than their research. Each works on issues important to science and society, including effective teaching, diversity in the sciences, and scientific policy. Congratulations, Dan, Joel, and Tess. And good luck in the finals.
Genevieve Leet ’11 is the winner of the poetry category in the 3rd Annual Terrain.org Contests in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction. Her poem set was titled “[when I died they found a nest of snakes in my intestines, their backs]” and “Somewhere beyond the curve of the earth, there is a ceremonial bamboo boat.”
The poet Suzanne Frischkorn served as the contest judge and wrote about the poems’ “terrible beauty;” their complex layers of sound, language, and meaning; and the slow and sequential opening of the poems so deeply rewarding to the reader.
Leet wrote to her friends and mentors at K, “I am so proud and excited! Thank you to all of you who have supported my poetry journey with your kind words, by coming to readings, and by giving critiques.” The poems will be published in January at Terrain.org.
Coincidence? Most certainly, but it is nevertheless fun to count the times a Kalamazoo College campus visit coincides with a subsequent “genius award,” a.k.a. the MacArthur Fellowship.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently announced the MacArthur Fellowships for 2012. On that list were Junot Diaz and David Finkel. Both were featured authors in K’s Summer Common Reading (SCR) program—Diaz in 2007 for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Finkel in 2011 for his nonfiction work The Good Soldiers.
Past MacArthur Fellows with a K connection include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (SCR author—Purple Hibiscus—in 2004, MacArthur Fellow in 2008); Aleksandar Hemon (SCR author—Nowhere Man—in 2004, and named a MacArthur Fellow the following month); and architect Jeanne Gang, who received a MacArthur Fellowship not long after her firm designed the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
“Is it cause and effect?” quipped Amy Smith, associate professor of English and associate provost. “Show up at K, get a genius award,” she smiled, no doubt aware that the timeline works in reverse as well. Edward P. Jones won the MacArthur in 2005 and was the Kalamazoo College SCR author (The Known World) two years later; Colson Whitehead got a MacArthur in 2002 and came to K in 2010 when his novel Sag Harbor was the SCR selection.
What is certain is that the SCR selection committee is very good at assessing major writing talent. The committee includes or has included Marin Heinritz, assistant professor of journalism; Andy Mozina, professor of English; Zaide Pixley, dean of the first-year and advising; and Diane Seuss, writer in residence.
Visiting Professor of English Rachel Swearingen, Ph.D., has received a 2012 Rona Jaffe Award, the prestigious writing award given annually by the Rona Jaffe Foundation to six women “who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their career.” It’s the only national award dedicated to women writers. She will pick up her $30,000 award at a New York City awards ceremony on Sept. 20. Congrats, Professor!
“If you were to build your own liberal arts college, you’d look closely at Kalamazoo College for ideas about how to do it. That’s because other colleges offer some of the same distinctive features you’ll find at Kalamazoo, but few integrate all of them so thoughtfully to create life-changing experiences.”
So begins the chapter on Kalamazoo College in the 2013-14 edition of “Colleges that Change Lives: 40 Schools that Will Change the Way You Think about College.”
Colleges That Change Lives (Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143122302 On-Sale Date: August 28, 2012; 352 pages; $17.00) was first published in 1996 by Loren Pope, former education editor of the New York Times. Pope was also the founder of the College Placement Bureau, a college administrator, and the author of “Looking Beyond the Ivy League.”
Pope published updates to his book in 2000 and 2006. He died in 2008.
The fourth and most recent edition has been updated by Hilary Masell Oswald a journalist who writes about education, architecture and design, and public policy. Her work has appeared in Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, Edutopia, and other publications and websites.
She anticipates the questions that prospective students and their parents will have and provides the answers. Topics include:
• The look and feel of the campus
• Quality of dining hall food
• Percentage of students who study abroad
• Percentage of students who go to grad school
• Average SAT/ACT scores
• What professors have to say about their schools
“We are thrilled to be included once again in Colleges That Change Lives,” said Kalamazoo College Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Eric Staab. “Prospective students and their parents have more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States to choose from. This book helps them cut through the clutter and move beyond the ratings and rankings to find a college that is a good, affordable fit.”
Kalamazoo College has been included in each of the book’s four editions. Other colleges in the fourth edition include Allegheny (Pa.), Beloit (Wis.), Clark (Mass.), Hendrix (Ark.), Rhodes (Tenn.), Southwestern University (Texas), and University of Puget Sound (Wash.). Hope College and, for the first time, Hillsdale, are the only other Michigan schools included.
Oswald, as did Pope before her, visited K’s campus to conduct extensive interviews with students, faculty and staff.
She cites characteristics of the K-Plan —the College’s multilayered academic program—as a key to K’s success. These include a solid liberal arts curriculum, study abroad, experiential learning opportunities such as service-learning and leadership development, and a Senior Individualized Project.
“The K-Plan makes so much sense,” says Professor of Biology Binney Girdler in the book. “The first two years are the students’ foundation. The third year, they go far. The fourth year, they go deep. By the end of their time here, we’re willing to coauthor papers with them. That transformation—I’ll never get tired of it.”
According to Oswald, “What happens to students here is remarkable,” and K faculty members are a big reason why. “Over and over again,” she says, “students rave about their teachers, even as they complain about the amount of work. That’s a sign of good teaching.”
As proof a value for a Kalamazoo College education, Oswald cites Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) test results. CLA tests freshmen and seniors for their critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving, and written communications skills.
“CLA examiners compare results across a variety of four-year colleges to answer the question: Are student really learning anything?” writes Oswald. “At Kalamazoo they are. CLA said the students performed well above expected.”
Dean of Students Sarah Westfall describes the K student body: “We have a student body of individuals. There’s very little herd mentality. They feel a call to activism and learning, but they’re also garden variety kids—some from small towns, working-class families, and a good number are first-generation college kids.”
Oswald concludes her chapter on Kalamazoo College with her own observation about its students by saying they are “enthusiast about their learning and thoughtful about their responsibilities to their community. A few conversations with current students will convince you that Kalamazoo’s component parts are remarkable, but if ever there were a place where the effect is greater than the sum of its parts, that place in Kalamazoo College.”
K is a proud partner of CTCL Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement and support of a student-centered college search process. Separate from the book, CTCL Inc. works to dispel publicly held myths about college choice by hosting information sessions nationwide and coordinating outreach efforts with high school counselors and college counseling agencies.
Founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu) is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, learning by practice, leadership development, and both international and intercultural engagement. Its 1,400 students hail from 30 states and 24 countries. Kalamazoo College does more in four years, so students can do more in a lifetime.
