Category: Events

Happy Birthday, Center for Civic Engagement

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Center for Civic Engagement turns 15 this yearThe Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) turns 15 this year, and its hard to imagine better origins. It began as a joint brainstorming effort between students, faculty and several community partners with the intent on redefining what a liberal arts education was all about. Students were not just de facto city residents while they studied at K; they were community assets as well. Annually, about 600 K students participate in service-learning in some way with the CCE.

From work on sustainability issues to girl’s and women’s empowerment to health and economic equality to food justice, CCE programming engages students in work that promotes social justice, further pushing the College’s mission to create lifelong learners.

“For some of our students, it’s the first time they’ve witnessed first-hand a variety of ‘isms,’” says Alison Geist, CCE’s director. “We put students on the front lines of many societal issues in a way that sitting in a lecture or classroom just can’t.”

Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) turns 15 this yearSusmitha Daggubati ’16 mentors a second-grader at Woodward Elementary School in Kalamazoo’s Stuart Neighborhood, adjacent to K’s campus. Daggubati, a senior majoring in chemistry and earning a concentration in biochemistry and molecular biology, is in her second year at Woodward and serves as a Civic Engagement Scholar, a kind of on-site leader who mentors other K students working at sites across the community, scheduling their shifts and organizing meetings to brainstorm programming ideas.

Daggubati moved with her family to the Kalamazoo area from their native India ten years ago. Still very much tied to her Indian roots, her time in service-learning has also given her a greater understanding of the complex social issues at play in American society “In many classes, we learn the theories about the roots of so many social problems,” she says. “But I am able to make those connections to the real world when I’m involved. It keeps me rooted in the realities of the world, and it has given me a greater understanding of American culture.”

Tom Thornburg is the managing attorney at Farmworker Legal Services, a non-profit agency based in Bangor, Mich., a small community about 25 miles west of Kalamazoo, in an agricultural area where hundreds of migrant workers flock each year to work in fields and orchards. His agency assists these workers – overwhelmingly Hispanic – with everything from language services to information on their legal rights to informing them of resources available to them. He’s been working with the CCE for almost a decade, and the K students who’ve come through his doors have become an invaluable resource.

“The students from K are some of the brightest, best-equipped and most professional volunteers we get,” Thornburg says. “They come here with a sense of enthusiasm to help, a sense of what to do, an autonomy. They’re excellent, right up there in many ways with the law students we have working here.”

Over the years, hundreds of the nearly 2,000 students Associate Professor of Psychology Karyn Boatwright has taught have participated in service-learning programs, in a diverse group of local agencies, from the Kalamazoo Public Schools to Planned Parenthood to Goodwill Industries.

Through more than 30 different courses at the College designed with community partners, faculty at K have engaged thousands of students, community residents and leaders to create opportunities for experiential learning and impact derived organically and intentionally from service-learning work.

Says Boatwright, “The CCE and their students consistently impress upon us the need for reflection to ensure that we are not only connecting the proverbial dots, but understanding the political and social connections between success and social factors. Civic engagement experiences improve the quality of learning for our students and strengthen our community.”

The College’s solid commitment to developing the next generation of leaders who are observant, lifelong learners intent on crafting solutions to problems plaguing a suffering world is stronger now than ever. Concludes Geist: “The founders of K were always interested in social justice, and our programming is a manifestation of that. It’s the idea that we should be creating a fellowship of learning, not just working in ivory towers tucked away from society.”

(Text by Chris Killian; photo by Keith Mumma)

Pro Voice: “You are not in her shoes.”

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Throughout Winter Quarter 2016, students in the Kalamazoo College “Feminist Psychology of Women” course have interviewed a range of individuals associated with Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan. “ProVoice: The Abortion Monologues — You Are Not in Her Shoes,” a presentation in Dewing 103, Thursday March 3 at 7:00 p.m., is the result.

Directed by Lindsay Worthington ’17, ProVoice features K students presenting monologues based on their interviews with Planned Parenthood patients, advocates, and health care professionals. A “talk back” panel discussion will follow the presentation and feature K students, plus representatives from K faculty and Planned Parenthood. A reception follows the panel discussion.

The event is held in partnership with the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement, Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, and the Kalamazoo College departments of Psychology, English, and Women, Gender and Sexuality.

Colloquium About Blackness to Occur at Kalamazoo College

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Colloquium About Blackness at KKalamazoo College will present the Physics of Blackness Colloquium on March 31 and April 1. March 31 features a lecture (7 p.m. in Dalton Theatre) by Michelle M. Wright, Professor of African American Studies and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University, and author of The Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology. Wright’s lecture is titled “Blackness by Other Names: Beyond Linear Histories.” On the next day (April 1, 5 p.m. in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership) will follow an interactive event developed by the Beyond the Middle Passage Organizers. That group includes Justin Berry, assistant professor of political science; Nakeya Boyles ’16; Quincy Crosby ’17; Reid Gómez, the Mellon visiting assistant professor of ethnic studies; Allia Howard ’17; Bruce Mills, professor of English; and Shanna Salinas, assistant professor of English. “Wright looks at the argument of race, particularly Blackness, and the ways that argument plays out in economic, political and physically embodied ways,” says Gómez. “Her work will help us look at differences within difference and move beyond thinking in categories.”

According to Gómez, the colloquium will stress three themes, all of which relate to one another: horizontal connections instead of vertical frameworks; the inability of temporally linear progress narratives (which often structure the notion of Blackness) alone to realize the broad and complicated truth and meaningfulness of Blackness; and a “See Me-Hear Me” approach during the colloquium that will ask participants to enter each others’ lives in meaningful ways. Wright’s book uses concepts from physics to expand thinking and discussion beyond linearity that makes “it difficult to understand or accept people, places, or event that do not easily fit inside a single narrative,” explains Gómez. Toward that end Gómez has helped facilitate “The Physics of Blackness at Kalamazoo College,” a blog in the form of a mosaic that makes approaching the subject of Blackness nonlinear and dynamic.

Nonlinearity is the true nature of the physical universe, wrote Gómez in a summary of Wright’s book. Such nonlinearity doesn’t preclude all cause and effect, but instead complicates it. Gómez writes that Wright “cautions against cause and effect laws that make history solely the consequence of oppression, where Blackness only appears in terms of resistance to, or the direct result of, that oppression.” The ability to think and discuss freed from such overly narrow restrictions allows us to “reimagine choice and agency in relationship to Blackness,” says Gómez, “the choice to ’notice and wonder’ at what is left out of linear progress narratives, and to conceive of self outside those terms.”

The Beyond the Middle Passage Organizers group invites colloquium participants to help one another prepare for the event by sharing talking points, images and points of entry into Wright’s theory via Instagram _bmp._ and Twitter @_bmpo_.

Festival Playhouse Presents Joshua Harmon’s “Bad Jews”

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Festival Playhouse Presents Joshua Harmon’s "Bad Jews"
Rehearsal for the Festival Playhouse production of Bad Jews. (left to right) Aidan Johnson ’17, Kate Kreiss ’19, Lauren Landman ’18, Kyle Lampar ’17. (Photo by Emily Salswedel ’17)

Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College presents the contemporary comedy Bad Jews, a play that explores what it means to be Jewish in contemporary American society. Written by Joshua Harmon, the play will have four performances in the Dungeon Theatre (Light Fine Arts Building) on Thursday through Sunday (Feb. 25-28). It is part of Festival Playhouse’s 2015-16 season “Theatre and Belonging: Stories of Ethnicity and Racial Identity.”

Staged in the round, with production design by Lanny Potts (professor of theatre arts) and costumes by Elaine Kauffman, the story takes place in an apartment in New York City shortly after the death of the family patriarch, the grandfather of Liam, his younger brother Jonah, and their cousin, Daphna.

Liam is Jewish in name only and chooses to pursue everything that has nothing to do with his heritage. Daphna intentionally embraces all things Jewish. Like Melody, Liam’s shiksa girlfriend, Jonah often seems caught in the middle between the extremes of his cousins. It is not until the end of the play we learn where he stands on the question, “How Jewish are you?”  The New York Times praised the play as the best comedy of the season, characterized by ”delectably savage humor.” The subject matter and language are for mature audiences.

K’s production is a collaboration between director Ed Menta (the James A. B. Stone College Professor of Theatre Arts) and Jeffrey Haus (associate professor of history and religion and director of the College’s Jewish Studies Program). Menta and Haus invited Dr. Jonathan Freedman, Jewish studies scholar from the University of Michigan, to speak about the play and its themes on Wednesday, February 24, in the Olmsted Room at 7 p.m.. Freedman and Haus will also lead a talkback following the Thursday performance of the play.

The play opens Thursday, February 25, at 7:30 p.m. Additional evening performances occur Friday and Saturday, February 26 and 27, at 8 p.m., and a matinee concludes the run on Sunday, February 27, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5 for students, $10 for senior citizens, and $15 for other adults. For reservations call 269.337.7333. For more information, visit the Festival Playhouse website.

Religious “Nones” On The Rise In U.S, Reports Pew Center Researcher and Thompson Lecturer at Kalamazoo College

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FROM WMUK RADIO (102.1 FM) http://wmuk.org/topic/westsouthwest Feb 15, 2016:

Jessica Hamar Martinez, Pew Center senior researcher and 2016 Thompson Lecturer at Kalamazoo College.
Jessica Hamar Martinez, Pew Center senior researcher and 2016 Thompson Lecturer at Kalamazoo College.

The Pew Research Center finds that more people in the United States don’t have any religious affiliation. Pew Center Senior Researcher Jessica Hamar Martinez will discuss those findings at Kalamazoo College.

Her address is called Nones on the Rise, One in Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation. It begins at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday [Feb. 16] in the Olmsted Room at K’s Mandell Hall.

Martinez says the “nones” are people who say they are atheist, agnostic or don’t identify with any particular religion. She says that group has grown significantly since Pew’s last Religious Landscape study seven years earlier. Martinez says that is driven largely by the millennial generation.

Some highlights.

  • The increase in atheists and agnostics is small, but there is also a decline in the certainty of people who say they believe in God.
  • People who do identify with a religious group have grown more observant. Martinez says that includes more scripture reading, participation in things like prayer groups and sharing their faith with others.
  • The older “millennials” have not moved in the direction of becoming more religious. Martinez says it’s still a short period of time. But so far, the lack of religious affiliation appears to be an ongoing trend.

Martinez says views on religion tend to align with social and political issues. She says there has been an increase in the religiously unaffiliated among Democratic voters, and a smaller increase of the “nones” among Republicans.

Listen to an extended interview with Jessica Hamar Martinez on WMUK’s WestSouthwest program with Gordon Evans: http://wmuk.org/topic/westsouthwest.

Bring Some Friends With Curious Minds

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William Weber Lecture in Government and SocietyAssistant Professor of Political Science Justin Berry (and members of his “Voting, Campaigns and Elections” class) knew that the 2016 William Weber Lecture in Government and Society was too big an opportunity not to share widely. The late January event featured Martin Gilens, author and professor of politics at Princeton University, speaking on the subject “Economic Inequality and Political Power in America.” Dr. Berry reached out to the one high school student who attends his class and he, in turn, gathered many of his high school classmates to attend the lecture. After the event, he wrote to Dr. Berry: “I have to say, I really do appreciate your willingness to let a mob of high school kids participate in the event. We spent the next day in class having a heated discussion regarding the topics that were covered within Dr. Gilens’ speech. I believe that I speak for all that attended when I say that it was a very informative and memorable event. Our government teacher was disappointed that he couldn’t attend, but he had prior obligations. I do know that for next year he will try to bring back some of his students to have them sit in on the lecture, making it an annual event.” Well done, Dr. Berry! The photo shows Professor Gilens (third from right) with some of the high school attendees. The William Weber Lecture in Government and Society was founded by Bill Weber, a 1939 graduate of K, and it is administered by the Department of Political Science. Past lecturers have included David Broder, E.J. Dionne, Frances Fox Piven, Van Jones and Joan Mandelle, among others.

Performance Features Work of K Senior Student Playwright

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Festival Playhouse Cast of Family Crimes
The cast of the Festival Playhouse production of FAMILY CRIMES (photo by Emily Salswedel ‘16)

Playwright and director Belinda McCauley ’16 presents her one-act play, Family Crimes, in the Dungeon Theatre on Thursday, February 11, through Sunday, February 14. The four performances are part of Kalamazoo College’s Senior Performance Series.

The play centers on a family of three generations of Latina women who have made enormous sacrifices in their pasts, resulting in long held secrets. “Each must decide what she values and what family means to her as these secrets are revealed to the audience and each other,” says McCauley.

Cast member Johanna Keller Flores ’18 (Marta) stresses the role of race in the story: “The play is a depiction of a family battling its demons like any other, but recognizes the damage racism, machismo and prejudice can inflict on relationships and actions.”

The result, according to actress Aliera Morasch ’16 (Estela), is a complex and deeply layered story. “I am honored to be part of a production that recognizes my body and my family’s story through developed, flawed, and multi-dimensional characters,” says Morasch. “Family Crimes challenges me to think about identity, family dynamics, and family histories in a new and complex way. Its blend of secrets, race, abandonment, love, sexuality and morality makes for dynamic storytelling that is simultaneously haunting and uplifting.”

Tickets are free for Kalamazoo College community members (students, faculty and staff) and five dollars for general admission. Thursday’s show begins at 7:30 p.m.; curtain rises at 8 p.m for Friday and Saturday’s performances and at 2 p.m. for Sunday’s concluding production. Call 269.337.7333 for reservations. Tickets also may be purchased at the door one hour before performance. The Dungeon Theatre is located in the Light Fine Arts Building on Kalamazoo College’s campus.

Kalamazoo College will host world premiere of WWII documentary by K alumnus John Davies ’75

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Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan, a one-hour documentary film written, executive produced, and directed by Kalamazoo College alumnus John Davies ’75, will have its world premiere Tuesday February 16, at 7:00 p.m., in Dalton Theatre, Light Fine Arts Building (1140 Academy St.), on the K campus.

The film is free and open to the public through a partnership between Kalamazoo College, the Kalamazoo Film Society (www.kalfilmsociety.net), and the Air Zoo (www.airzoo.org) in Kalamazoo.

Heroes on Deck tells the story of a little known chapter of United States involvement in World War II that took place on Lake Michigan, not far from Kalamazoo. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy was desperate for pilots who could take off from aircraft carriers, strike the enemy, navigate their way back to the ship, and land safely – no easy task in the vast Pacific. With only seven carriers left in the entire U.S. fleet, none could be spared for training. In order to train thousands of young aviators, two old passenger ships were stripped of their upper decks and converted to “flattops,” Navy slang for aircraft carriers.

ill Murphy plane handler aboard USS Wolverine
Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan has it’s world premiere Tuesday Feb. 16, 7pm in Dalton Theatre, Light Fine Arts Building, on the K campus.
John Davies ’’75 is writer, director and executive producer of Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan.
Filmmaker John Davies ’75 will meet with K students and show his new film, Heroes on Deck, before taking the film to premieres in London, Washington, New York and other cities.

Between 1942 and the end of the war more than 15,000 pilots, including 41st President of the United States George H.W. Bush, practiced landings and takeoffs on the pitching decks of these “freshwater carriers” as they steamed up and down Lake Michigan. Eight successful takeoffs and landings, usually completed in a single day, were enough to guarantee a young pilot a trip to the Pacific.

Crashes, navigational errors, and “water landings” often led to serious injuries and occasionally death. As a result, more than 100 classic WWII fighters and dive-bombers sank to the bottom of the lake. For more than 30 years, with the U.S. Navy’s blessing, a team of skilled professionals has been identifying and recovering these forgotten warbirds, using deep-water divers, side-scan sonar, and Remote Operating Vehicles. More than 40 aircraft have been brought to the surface and a few have been restored to flying condition. Most are on display in museums and airports under the supervision of the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.

One of these airplanes – a Grumman Wildcat – has been fully restored and is on display at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, while another is currently undergoing restoration there. Artifacts from these planes will be on display at the February 16 film premiere at K. Filmmaker John Davies and Air Zoo restoration experts will be present to answer questions.

Narrated by legendary newsman Bill Kurtis, Heroes on Deck uses interviews with surviving pilots and crew members, declassified film and stills, underwater recovery footage, and computer generated recreations that bring to life this vital chapter of American history.

The Kalamazoo College premiere is the first of 10 special viewings that are planned before Memorial Day weekend in May when Heroes on Deck will premiere nationally on Public Television. After K, Davies takes the film to premieres in London (The Royal Aeronautical Society); Cardiff, Wales; Pensacola, Fla. (National Naval Aviation Museum); Chicago, Ill. (Navy Pier); Washington, D.C. (Navy Memorial); Palm Springs, Calif.; and New York City.

John Davies is an Emmy Award-winning Producer/Director who spent the first decade of his career at WTTW-PBS Chicago helping to create documentaries and national series (including Sneak Previews with renowned film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert). Moving to Los Angeles in the 1990s, John created series and specials for networks and cable channels including NBC, ABC, FOX, AMC, TRU-TV, VH-1, BRAVO, and Comedy Central. He’s also produced episodes of Biography for A&E, Intimate Portrait for LIFETIME and documentary specials for Showtime, COURT TV, and ESPN. His reality series, Run’s House, was an MTV hit and his feature length documentary, Phunny Business, (about Chicago’s first black owned comedy club) was hailed as “one of the best documentaries of 2012” by film critic Roger Ebert. John’s recent documentary, The 25,000 Mile Love Story, has won film festivals around the world and premiered on Public Television in fall 2015. He is currently developing Carson the Magnificent, a mini-series about the life of Johnny Carson.

Heroes on Deck spotlights a little known story of heroism performed on Lake Michigan off the coast of Chicago.
Heroes on Deck tells a little known story of heroism performed on Lake Michigan off the coast of Chicago during World War II.

This is the third time Davies has returned to campus in recent years to show one of his films and meet with K students and faculty in documentary film, media arts, and theater arts classes.

Economic Inequality and Political Power in America

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Martin Gilens
Martin Gilens

Martin Gilens will deliver the 2016 William Weber Lecture in Government and Society on January 25 at 8 p.m. in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room on the Kalamazoo College campus. The event is free and open to the public. Gilens is professor of politics at Princeton University, and the title of his lecture is “Economic Inequality and Political Power in America.” It is based on his recent book titled Affluence and Influence. Dr. Gilen’s research examines representation, public opinion and mass media as they relate to inequality and public policy. His work has been extensively reported in the media. “While his finding that the wealthiest minority in this country are the only ones who impact policy outcomes is not novel,” said Justin Berry, assistant professor of American politics at K, “the empirical evidence he provides for this common perception is overwhelming.” Gilens has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and the Russell Sage Foundation. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he taught at Yale University and UCLA prior to joining the faculty at Princeton. He also wrote the book Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. The William Weber Lecture in Government and Society was founded by alumnus William Weber, class of 1939. Past lecturers in the series have included David Broder, E.J. Dionne, Frances Fox Piven, Spencer Overton, Van Jones and Joan Mandelle, among others.

“Autism in Love” a First of Four

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"Autism in Love"
A scene from “Autism in Love”

Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) will partner with Media Arts Academy of Kalamazoo to host free community sneak previews and discussions of films to be aired on the award-winning weekly PBS series Independent Lens, beginning with “Autism in Love” on Wednesday, November 11, at 5:30 p.m. at the Center (205 Monroe Street).

Formerly known as Community Cinema, the national screening series was recently re-launched as Indie Lens Pop-Up, a title that better underscores the relationship between the project and its sponsor, Independent Lens. “Indie Lens Pop-Up creates a warm, welcoming and enjoyable space for people of all ages and backgrounds to come together and develop a deeper understanding of issues that face our community,” said Mia Henry, executive director of ACSJL. “The powerful line up of films will focus on the history and context of issues in which struggle for social justice continues.” Kalamazoo is one of 75 U.S. cities where the program will occur. During the past decade, screenings of Independent Lens films have brought more than 331,000 participants together at more than 5,700 events to discuss issues that affect local communities. Kalamazoo screenings will include dinner and will be followed by a discussion led by youth participants from the Media Arts Academy and event co-sponsors. Events are free; please RSVP to acsjl@kzoo.edu.

“Autism in Love” (by Matt Fuller) follows four adults at different places on the autism spectrum who open up their personal lives as they navigate dating and romantic relationships. The first-person portrayals show that love finds a way in spite of the challenges faced by persons with autism.

Three other films are planned for the 2015-16 academic year. “In Football We Trust” (by Tony Vainuku and Erika Cohn, Tuesday, January 26, 5:30 p.m. at the ACSJL, 205 Monroe Street) follows four Polynesian high school football players in Utah struggling to overcome gang violence, family pressures and poverty as they enter the high stakes world of college recruiting and the promise of pro sports.

“The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” (by Stanley Nelson, Thursday, February 11, 2016, 5:30 p.m., venue to be determined) tells the story (and suggests the emerging current-day relevance) of a group of people that helped lead the new revolutionary culture that emerged in the turbulent 1960s.

“Peace Officer” (by Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber, Tuesday, April 26, 2016, 5:30 p.m., venue to be determined) explores the increasingly tense relationship between law enforcement and the public through the eyes of someone who’s been on both sides–a former sheriff who established Utah’s first SWAT team, a unit that 30 years later killed his son-in-law in a controversial standoff.