Category: Events

Festival Playhouse Stages ‘Intimate Apparel’

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Intimate Apparel
Actors rehearse for “Intimate Apparel,” which runs through Sunday at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse, 129 Thompson St. The play is set in a New York boardinghouse in the early 1900s.
Intimate Apparel
“Intimate Apparel,” which runs through Sunday at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse, 129 Thompson St., won the 2004 New York Drama Circle and Outer Critic Circle awards.

The Kalamazoo College Festival Playhouse will present its final production of the academic year, “Intimate Apparel,” May 17-20 at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse, 129 Thompson St.

The play – which addresses race, love and dreams – is set in a New York City boardinghouse in the early 1900s. It concerns Esther, a young African-American woman who pursues her ambition of becoming a seamstress. Esther falls in love with Mr. Marks, a white Jewish fabric seller, although she agrees to marry George, a Caribbean man with whom she corresponds under false pretenses. The play will be directed by Karen Berthel.

“Intimate Apparel” is written by Lynn Nottage, an associate professor of theatre at Columbia University, whose plays often discuss the lives of women of African descent. She is acclaimed as one of the most poetic and honored of contemporary American playwrights, and “Intimate Apparel” – the winner of the 2004 New York Drama Circle and Outer Critic Circle awards – is widely considered to be her most moving and thoughtful play.

Intimate Apparel
“Intimate Apparel” – the winner of the 2004 New York Drama Circle and Outer Critic Circle awards – is widely considered to be Lynn Nottage’s most moving and thoughtful play.
Intimate Apparel
“Intimate Apparel” focuses on Esther, who falls in love with Mr. Marks, a Jewish fabric seller, although she agrees to marry George, a Caribbean man with whom she corresponds under false pretenses.

Tickets, all of which are general admission, are free with a Kalamazoo College ID. Other student tickets are $5, senior tickets are $10 and adult tickets are $15. The May 17-19 shows will be at 7:30 p.m. The May 20 show will be at 2 p.m. A talkback with cast members will take place after the May 17 performance.

Call 269-337-7333 or visit festivalplayhouse.ludus.com to reserve tickets today. Tickets also will be available at the door one hour before each show.

Journalist to Deliver Hilberry Symposium Keynote

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The Kalamazoo College English Department will conduct its annual Hilberry Symposium, which honors English majors and their Senior Individualized Projects, this Friday and Saturday.

Hilberry Symposium Keynote Speaker Lauren Trager
Lauren Trager ’07, an investigative journalist for KMOV-TV in St. Louis, will kick off the annual Hilberry Symposium with a keynote at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the Olmsted Room.

Lauren Trager ’07, an investigative journalist for KMOV-TV in St. Louis, will kick off the event with a keynote at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the Olmsted Room. Trager has spent most of her career as a reporter and anchor through the newspaper, radio and television industries, and has also worked in government. She worked as an anchor and reporter at KARK-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas, before arriving in St. Louis in 2013.

SIP presentation panels will run concurrently from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday after an opening session at 1 p.m. at 103 Dewing Hall. A reception at the Arcus Center will follow.

The Hilberry Symposium was named for late Professor Emeritus Conrad Hilberry, who was the founder of the creative writing program at K. The event resembles a professional conference, where scholars and writers share their work and acknowledge each other’s achievements. Alumni, nominated through English Department faculty, have served as keynote speakers for the event since 2001.

Since the first Hilberry Symposium in 2000, the event has been an important collective experience for the graduating class as a ritual of remembrance and celebration. With English Department faculty members, family and friends also attending, English majors have developed a community through the symposium that has evolved over time, with the love of language as its enduring center.

Visit its website for more information on the English Department and the Hilberry Symposium.

Student Music Experiences on Display in Free Concerts

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Two free concerts this week in the Dalton Theater at the Light Fine Arts Building will demonstrate the breadth of student music experiences at Kalamazoo College. Both concerts feature groups directed by Music Professor Thomas Evans.

Student Music Experiences Spring Concerts
The Kalamazoo College Jazz Band will be one of two groups performing in free concerts this week that will demonstrate the breadth of student music experiences on campus.

The Academy Street Winds, formerly known as the Kalamazoo College Symphonic Band, will perform from 8 to 10 p.m. Friday. The group is a beloved creative outlet for woodwind, brass and percussion students. Community musicians joined the ensemble in winter 2016 to expand the group’s sound and capabilities.

The group performs one concert each term, playing exciting arrays of challenging band music. The band is a great favorite for its members and its audiences as the programs are coordinated around diverse themes, which allow for performances of much-loved pieces, both classic and new. The theme for this concert is “Channel Surfing.”

Then, enjoy K’s Jazz Band from 8 to 10 p.m. Saturday. The group is known for its eclectic collections of contemporary and classic jazz arrangements that provide the students participating and the audience members an electric experience. The concert is titled “Everything in its Right Place.”

For more information, contact Susan Lawrence in the Music Department at 269-337-7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.

Events Offer Students Opportunities in the Sciences

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Two Kalamazoo College events coming soon will give students new experiences and learning opportunities in the sciences.

First, Brendan Bohannan – a professor of environmental studies and biology at the University of Oregon – will present a keynote address titled “Host-Microbe Systems: a Rediscovered Frontier in the Life Sciences” in the annual Diebold Symposium from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday at 226 Dow Science Center.

Sciences JA Scott Kelso
J.A. Scott Kelso will provide the Tourtellotte Lecture at 5:30 p.m. May 7 in 103 Dewing Hall.

The Diebold Symposium offers senior biology majors a chance to present their Senior Individualized Projects (SIP), regardless of their SIP discipline. The event is dedicated to the memory of Frances “Dieb” Diebold, who was a member of the Kalamazoo College Biology Department for 44 years.

Bohannon focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of microbial biodiversity.  He began his research career studying microbes in non-host environments such as soil, water, air and built environments. However, over the past 12 years, his group has focused more on the microbiomes of humans and other animals including fish, birds and primates.

Then, the Kalamazoo College Physics Department will welcome J.A. Scott Kelso, of the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at Florida Atlantic University and the Intelligent Systems Research Centre at Ulster University in Northern Ireland, for the Tourtellotte Lecture at 5:30 p.m. May 7 in 103 Dewing Hall.

The lecture will explain some fundamental governing laws behind the behavior of complex physical, biological and social systems.

For most of his scientific career, Kelso has studied human beings and human brains, individually and together, and how they coordinate their behavior from cells to cognition to social settings.

Since the late 1970s, his approach has been grounded in the concepts, methods and tools of self-organizing dynamical systems tailored to living things, a theoretical and empirical framework called Coordination Dynamics.

From 1978 to 1985 Kelso was the senior research scientist at Yale University’s Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. Since then, he has held the Glenwood and Martha Creech Eminent Scholar Chair in Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida, where he founded The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.

Kelso has held visiting appointments in Moscow, Stuttgart, Lyons and Marseille, and is an emeritus professor of computational neuroscience at Ulster University in Northern Ireland.

Historian Specializing in France, Algeria to Deliver Moritz Lecture

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A historian whose work focuses on how France’s colonialism has affected its more recent history will deliver the 2018 Edward Moritz Lecture in History on Thursday, April 26, at Kalamazoo College.

Moritz Lecture
Todd Shepard, the Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor at Johns Hopkins University, will deliver the 2018 Edward Moritz Lecture on Thursday in 103 Dewing Hall at Kalamazoo College.

Todd Shepard, the Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor at Johns Hopkins University, will speak on “Decolonization and the Sexual Revolution.” His 2017 monograph, “Sex, France and Arab Men 1962-1979,” addressed how in France, questions surrounding discussion about subjects including gay rights, sexual libertinism, sodomy and rape differed from those elsewhere during that period because of the central roles that invocations of Arab men and the former French African colony of Algeria played in them. Mass immigration of Algerians to France began after the colony gained its independence in 1962, and a 2011 census counted almost a half-million French residents of Algerian birth.

Shepard’s writings also include two books, “The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France,” published in 2006, and “Voices of Decolonization: A Brief History with Documents,” published in 2014. He is currently completing “Affirmative Action and the End of Empires: ‘Integration’ in France (1956-1962) and the Race Question in the Cold War World.”  He has also published papers in numerous historical journals.

His honors include the Council of European Studies 2008 Book Prize and the American Historical Association’s J. Russell Major Prize for best work in English on any aspect of French history. He was also named one of the top young historians in North American by the History News Network in 2017.

The annual Edward Moritz Lecture, to be delivered at 7 p.m. in 103 Dewing Hall, pays tribute to the late professor Edward Moritz, who taught British and European history at Kalamazoo College from 1955 to 1988 and served for many years as the history department chair.

Cirque du K Performs Friday and Saturday

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Cirque du K, the official circus club for students at Kalamazoo College, will conduct its annual spring performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Dalton Theater at Light Fine Arts.

The organization launched in 2006 as a few friends playing together with circus equipment and has grown and evolved each year along with the new and improving skill sets of each member. Cirque du K aims to:

  • educate students in a distinctive art form, providing a practical outlet where participants learn and develop skills in a safe environment;
  • entertain, enrich, and engage communities on and off campus with a multitude of interesting skills and techniques;
  • aid students who want to continue pursuing circus arts through education, outreach and fund raising.

Both performances are free to attend and the public is welcome.

Students and prospective students may find information on more than 70 student organizations available at Kalamazoo College, including Cirque du K, through the Office of Student Involvement.

Free Concerts Slated for Tuesday, Thursday

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The general public is invited to two free concerts this week at Kalamazoo College.

The Grand Valley String Trio — consisting of Megan Crawford, violin; Pablo Mahave-Veglia, cello; and Paul Swantek, viola — will perform Beethoven’s Serenade, Op. 8 and the Intermezzo by Kodaly at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Recital Hall at Light Fine Arts.

Guitarist Xavier Jara performs free concerts
Guitarist Xavier Jara will perform in one of two free concerts this week at Kalamazoo College.

The trio was formed in 2009 as a cultural and educational outreach of Grand Valley State University’s Music Department and orchestra program. The ensemble performs a variety of pieces for trios and enjoys coaching high school string ensembles.

At 7 p.m. Thursday, Guitar Foundation of America International Competition winner Xavier Jara will perform in Dalton Theater at Light Fine Arts. Students also will participate in a masterclass with Jara at a time and date to be determined.

Jara, an American classical guitarist and Minnesota native, was studying guitar at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis in 2011 when he moved to Paris.

He studied in Paris for six years, during which time he completed his bachelor’s degree at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. His other international honors have included first-place finishes in the Viseu International Competition (2014), the Boston Guitarfest (2014), the Gargnano, Italy Competition (2015), the Ciudad de Coria Competition (2015), and the Tokyo International Competition (2016).

For more information on these free concerts, contact Susan Lawrence in the Music Department at 269-337-7070.

Library Week Spotlights Rare Book Room Holdings

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It’s National Library Week and Kalamazoo College is celebrating with a look at some of the treasures and oddities in the A.M. Todd Rare Book Room at Upjohn Library Commons.

During National Library Week, you can see:

Rare Books National Library Week cMUMMA

  • a postage stamp-sized New Testament (above left) presented to Augusta Todd, wife of Rare Book Room namesake Albert M. Todd, sometime in the early 20th century. Records indicate the book was one of five that was produced in Vienna by the famed Zaehnsdorf book bindery. Copies also were given to British Queens Alexandra and Mary;
  • the “Bird Book,” (above right) a quirky California production about which little is known;

Rare Books National Library Week 2 cMUMMA

  • this 14th century illuminated psalter, or Book of Psalms, written on uterine vellum, the cured skin of an unborn calf;

Rare Books National Library Week 3 cMUMMA

  • an original 20-volume edition of Charles Dickens’ novel “Little Dorrit,” printed in pamphlet form as it was sold on the streets of 1850s London. Replete with illustrations and ads, this serialization was sold on the streets of London at a price of 1 shilling for each monthly edition from 1855 to 1857. The Rare Book Room also has a similar edition of Dickens’ “Bleak House;”

Rare Books National Library Week 4 cMUMMA

  • this incunabulum, or early printed book, of Livy’s history of Rome, dating from 1470, when the Gutenberg press was a relatively new innovation;

Rare Books National Library Week 5 cMUMMA

  • a manuscript leaf of an undetermined age from a Quran that appears to be hundreds of years old;

Rare Books National Library Week 6 cMUMMA

  • this reproduction of the Chinese New Year picture scroll, or nihua, “Welcome Spring,” was a gift to Kalamazoo College by the parents of Mengyang Chen ’11 upon her graduation;

Rare Book Room at Kalamazoo College

  • this leaf from a Latin Bible produced in France in 1240 that might be the oldest item in the collection; and

Rare Books National Library Week 8 cMUMMA

  • this parchment Antiphony of the Common of the Saints was designed to allow an entire choir to see it simultaneously. Bearing the stamp of a library in Rome, its date is unknown. It is the largest book in the Rare Book Room collection.

Hours for the Rare Book Room, 326 ULC, are currently 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday, 8:30 a.m. to noon Wednesday and 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday. To access the collection, or to get your own tour of its holdings, contact Rare Book Room manager Mallory Heslinger at 269-337-5762 or mallory.heslinger@kzoo.edu. And keep an eye out for an upcoming spring display at the library, curated by College Archivist Lisa Murphy ’99. Titled “Murderous Plots and Rivalries During the time of Mary Queen of Scots,” it promises to be a “Game of Thrones”-like exhibition of Gothic illustrations and artifacts, drawn from the Rare Book Room collection.

Grateful for K Day Slated for Wednesday

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Students, faculty, staff and alumni will celebrate a day honoring Kalamazoo College’s philanthropic donors from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Hicks Student Center.

Grateful for K Day
Students participate in Grateful for K Day by writing thank-you notes showing appreciation to Kalamazoo College donors.

Sponsored by the Kalamazoo College Fund, Grateful for K Day – conducted twice a year – calls on students to honor the importance of philanthropy in sustaining and enhancing Kalamazoo College by writing personalized notes to thank donors for their support. Donations help about 98 percent of K students receive scholarships or some other form of financial aid.

All students are welcome to participate. Coffee and cookies will be served.

If you’re a donor, please share your “Why I Give” stories on our website or Facebook page, where you can also learn more about Grateful for K Day.

Remember to Register for Career Summit 2018

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Registration for Career Summit 2018 is now closed. Students who are interested in attending but have not registered are welcome to stop by the registration table in the Hicks Student Center atrium before the session they would like to attend. Walk-ins will be accepted as space permits, especially on Saturday. See the Career Summit schedule online by clicking on ‘Agenda.’

The April 6 and 7 event, featuring 12 current or former representatives of organizations such as Google and Rock the Vote, will help students prepare for Life after K through interactive break-out sessions, themed panel discussions and networking opportunities.

Register for Career Summit 2018
Register today for Career Summit 2018 scheduled for April 6 and 7. Students of all majors will gain priceless information about the global job market, although registration is required in advance.

Read more about the speakers scheduled through the links below including:

Students of all majors will gain priceless information about the global job market, although registration is required in advance. To register, download Whova from the App Store for Apple/iOS mobile devices or Google Play for Android devices. Then:

  • Open the app and search for Kalamazoo College.
  • Sign in with your Kalamazoo College email address and a password of your choosing.
  • If the event itself asks for a password, use carzi.

After you register, be sure to add the specific events you want to attend to your individual agenda.

Students without a mobile device can preview the Career Summit and its agenda. Then, email Center for Career and Professional Development Director Joan Hawxhurst. Please include in your email which sessions in the agenda you would like to attend.