Category: Faculty & Staff

Center Court Dedicated to Kalamazoo College Legend

Posted on
Gigi Acker, Nancy Acker and Judy Acker-Smith at George Acker Court
Pictured on the George Acker Court are (l-r): Gigi Acker, Nancy Acker, and Judy Acker-Smith.

On Saturday, August 2, Kalamazoo College named center court of Stowe Stadium “George Acker Court,” dedicating it to the memory of the legendary coach and teacher who touched the lives of so many K students and Kalamazoo community members. President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran delivered a moving address, which is published below.

“Tonight we are pleased to honor the late Coach George Acker, a teacher and mentor who believed in the potential of others, and had a profound influence on the lives of many.

“George was dedicated to Kalamazoo College for more than five decades (1958-2011). His legendary 35-year career ranks him as the most successful men’s tennis coach in NCAA Division III history. In the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA), he is ranked first among coaches for all sports (men’s and women’s) with the most conference championships. Coach Acker’s tennis teams won seven national championships and 35 MIAA championships. He was twice named NCAA Division III Tennis Coach of the Year and was also named NCAA Division III Tennis Coach of the Decade for the 1980s. Coach Acker ranks fourth in the nation among all Division I, II, and III tennis coaches with the most NCAA titles.

“Coach Acker had a far-reaching presence on the campus of Kalamazoo College. Although tonight we are focusing on his tennis accomplishments, it is important to acknowledge that George also taught physical education classes and coached football, wrestling, and cross-country. He coached and mentored more than 600 student-athletes on 65 different teams during his storied career at K. He earned respect and admiration because he was hardworking, humble and honest, and, he valued everyone equally.

“It is fitting that we should honor Coach Acker at the opening night of the USTA Boy’s 18s and 16s National Tournament. Coach Acker played an integral role in this tournament, serving for more than fifty-one years (1959-2010) in a variety of roles including: referee, athletic trainer and umpire, tournament official, and tournament administrator. In 1983 his contributions were recognized when he was awarded a Green Jacket. In 1993, he was declared Honorary Referee. Always available to provide wise counsel and an historic perspective, Coach Acker was an active member of the Kalamazoo USTA Advisory Board from 1998-2011, a total of 13 years. Coaches, players and the tennis community all recognize that the NATS at the Zoo is the best junior tennis tournament there is. There are many reasons for this, and one of those reasons is the commitment of George Acker.

“Tonight we honor this coaching legend and say ’thank you’ for his many contributions to the sport of tennis. We are delighted to have several members of the Acker family with us tonight, including Nancy Acker, affectionately known as ’Mrs. Coach,’ and daughters Gigi Acker and Judy Acker-Smith. We also have more than 175 former players and friends of the family with us this evening. Your attendance tonight speaks volumes about the profound impact George had on the lives of so many.

“And now, it is my distinct honor to announce to all of you that from this day forward center court at Stowe Stadium will be known as the George Acker Court.”

A Pipeline to Talent: An Update with some Monroe-Brown Interns

Posted on
Taylor Brown and Doug Phillips
Taylor Brown ’15 (left) with Doug Phillips, director of client relations at AVB

Recent Kalamazoo College graduates sometimes assume there are no opportunities in Kalamazoo for job growth, and so they move to bigger cities. This perception is often a misconception, and to help set the record straight, Joan Hawxhurst, director of the Center for Career and Professional Development, highlights an exclusive local internship opportunity.

“The Monroe-Brown Internships serve as a pipeline for thriving local businesses to access local student talent,” she said.

The program began in 2005 and is administered by the economic development organization Southwest Michigan First. Its aims are two-fold: to help companies find talented young students and to help young people pursue meaningful careers. “It’s an investment that goes both ways,” said Hawxhurst.

This year 32 students from K applied for Monroe-Brown Internships and four were selected, a robust representation for K. They are: Taylor Brown ’15 with AVB, Drew Hopper ’15 at Eaton Corporation, William Cagney ’15 at Imperial Beverage, and Stephen Oliphant ’15 at Schupan & Sons, Inc.

Hopper is a Global Product Strategy Intern at Eaton. He recently returned from studying abroad at the London School of Economics, and he finds his internship an excellent proving ground to apply and develop skills in marketing, engineering, and program management.

“Eaton stresses employee development, and everyone is open to providing outlets for personal improvement, particularly with the interns.” He has participated in presentations, meetings, research projects, and analysis-based discussions.

Brown works for Portage-based construction firm AVB. Last year she worked behind-the-scenes with the construction management company, Skanska. She finds the Monroe-Brown internship with AVB “much more hands-on,” she says. “A great deal of my work is on display, because I am responsible for writing, designing, and distributing newsletters and press-releases via print and e-mail.”

She created a slideshow presentation that plays in AVB’s foyer. And she frequently meets with the company’s Chief Operating Officer and other top executives. Like Hopper, she said she has developed confidence in presenting herself in the business world.

There are many opportunities for professional growth in Kalamazoo; just ask K’s Monroe-Brown interns.

 

 

Dense, Disconcerting Bite

Posted on

Faded portrait of Diane SeussThat I could have written it shorter had I only more time has been attributed to great writers from Montaigne to Mark Twain. Those multiple attributions may be the best testament to the statement’s truth. It is hard to write “good short.” Unless you’re Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss ’78, winner of Indiana Review’s 2013 1/2K Prize for her prose poem “Wal-Mart Parking Lot,” which was published in IR’s Summer 2014 issue.

More good news: IR editor Peter Kispert interviewed Di about various prize-related matters, including which actual Wal-Mart inspired her, how she approached making her poem, and the challenges and triumphs of the compressed form. You can read that interview online. In the 1/2K, word count cannot exceed 500 and all genres are open–albeit constrained. Di is spending part of the summer at Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. Hedgebrook is a retreat for women writers. “If you receive the residency you get your own little cottage (overlooking Mt. Rainier and the Sound), solitude, and meals out of their organic garden,” wrote Di. “I’m not sure how to receive such a gift, but I’m working on it.”

In other news, The Missouri Review published Di’s poem “Still-Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (after Rembrandt),” one of a series that arose from Di’s interest in still life painting. “What I discovered about still lives is that they are not still,” Di said, “or their stillness draws out our projections like a poultice lures poison.”

My Cheated Eyes

Posted on

Kalamazoo College Psychology Professor Siu-Lan Tan in her officeBelieving is not seeing–especially at the movies. Siu-Lan Tan, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Kalamazoo College and a very popular blogger for Psychology Today and Oxford University Press (What Shapes Film: Elements of the Cinematic Experience and More), recently wrote two interesting pieces on perception … or rather, perhaps, misperception. The most fundamental illusion of the movies is obvious (except this reader never realized it until he read Siu-Lan’s blog), and that is the illusion of motion. Pictures don’t move even though things seem to move in the movies that I watch. From that revelation the blog moves (no pun intended) to differences in perception among different animals (an outcome of natural selection driven by survival). Take birds. Their perception has evolved to be much more sensitive to moving stimuli (compared to humans). Good for snatching prey, good for avoiding becoming prey, and good for safe high-speed landings into small nests. Not so good for a summer flick date night. That explains why Siu-Lan titled that blog: Why You Can’t Take a Pigeon to the Movies: A bird’s eye view of film. Not long after she wrote that mind-bending delight, Siu-Lan posted a second blog on the subject of perception–this one focused on a viral music video by the band OK Go. The title of that piece: Is the Writing on the Wall? A musical tribute to Gestalt psychologists. Turns out the writing was NOT on the wall (though you could have–and did–fool me). Siu-Lan skillfully connects the video’s visuals with the song’s words (I needed someone to do that because I was too busy following the moving–but, remember not really moving–pictures to even register the lyrics. Siu-Lan writes: “The music is not just an accompaniment to the collage of optical illusions and paradoxes, but an integral part of the work. The song is about miscommunication that can go on in a relationship. (Or is the idea of two people really ‘getting each other’ merely an illusion?)” Hmmmm. Anyway, check out both posts. You gotta see the OK Go video. Of course, you won’t be seeing what you’re seeing.

K Instructor Dhera Strauss Awarded Community Medal of Arts

Posted on
Kalamazoo College video instructor Dhera Strauss
Dhera Strauss, K video instructor and 2014 Community Medal of Arts recipient.

K Media Producer and Instructor Dhera Strauss has been awarded the 2014 Community Medal of Arts from the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo. Dhera is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and producer, in addition to her duties as an instructor in the K Department of Art and Art History, where she instructs students through her skills and by example.

“I love teaching,” she told a Kalamazoo Gazette reporter in 2010. “The kids have this energy and motivation, and I get to impart my love of filmmaking.”

Many people in Kalamazoo and beyond also know Dhera from her award-winning documentaries including Kitchen Conversations (a group of professional women in Kalamazoo invite viewers into their kitchens, where each prepares a recipe that reminds her of her family) and Donut Day: 24 Hours at Sweetwater’s (the character and characters of a 24-hour Kalamazoo doughnut shop).

And many know her as the wife of Kalamazoo College Professor of History, Emeritus David Strauss.

Congrats, Dhera!

Kalamazoo College Selects Mia Henry as Executive Director for Its Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership

Posted on
Kalamazoo College Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Executive Director Mia Henry
Mia Henry is the new executive director for Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.

(KALAMAZOO, Mich.) July 14, 2014 – After a national search, Kalamazoo College has named Mia Henry as executive director of its Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. She will begin her duties in Kalamazoo on August 11.

Since 1998, Henry has worked as a nonprofit administrator, education program developer, public school and university instructor, and social justice leader at the local and national level.

She will join the Arcus Center—established by Kalamazoo College in 2009 with generous support from the Arcus Foundation—just as it plans to move into its much anticipated new building on the K campus, and just weeks before its With/Out Borders Conference, scheduled for Sept. 25-28.

Henry replaces Jaime Grant who announced her intention to leave the Center last year.

“We are thrilled to welcome Mia Henry to Kalamazoo College,” said K President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran. “She is a strategic, thoughtful leader with wide experience in social justice, education, and leadership development. She’s served as an executive, educator, entrepreneur, and supervisor. I’m convinced she will help us build on the multifaceted collaborative efforts that have helped shape K’s social justice leadership center into the first of its kind in higher education.”

“Mia will build upon the excellent work of ACSJL inaugural director Jaime Grant who led the Center for four years and helped launch the Kalamazoo College Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership, among many other stellar programs,” said Wilson-Oyelaran.

Henry said what excites her most about the prospect of leading the Center is that “I will have the chance to share my passion for social justice advocacy with K students, faculty, and staff, as well as with people in the Greater Kalamazoo community and across the country who are at the forefront of campaigns addressing today’s most pressing issues.

“Kalamazoo College’s commitment to connecting academia to the study and practice of social justice aligns with my own professional mission and personal values. I look forward to helping the Arcus Center continue to embrace practices that support collaboration, transparency, and bold programming.”

Her duties at K—in collaboration with Arcus Center Academic Director Lisa Brock—will include maintaining and augmenting the vision for the Center; developing programming and partnerships with local, national, and international organizations; raising the profile of the Center and the College nationally and internationally; and working with K faculty, staff, and students on innovative projects and practices in social justice leadership.

For the past four years, Henry has served on the national leadership team for Black Space, an initiative of Safe Places for the Advancement of Community and Equity (SPACEs) that supports intergenerational groups of community leaders working for racial equity across the United States.

She currently serves on the boards of directors for the Community Justice for Youth Institute and the Worker’s Center for Racial Justice, both in Chicago, and has been a consultant with the Chicago History Museum, Chicago Public Schools, the University of Chicago Hospital, and the University of Chicago Oriental Institute.

She founded Reclaiming South Shore for All, a diverse grassroots group of residents committed to mobilizing Chicago’s South Shore community by institutionalizing systems that promote peace, youth leadership, and political accountability. She also owns and operates Freedom Lifted, a small business dedicated to providing civil rights tours for people of all ages.

From 2007 to 2012, Henry served as the founding director of the Chicago Freedom School, overseeing most aspects of the nonprofit school dedicated to developing students aged 14 to 21 to be leaders in their schools and communities and to training adults to support youth-led social change.

She previously served as associate director of Mikva Challenge, a Chicago-based nonprofit that engages high school students in the political process, working with more than 50 Chicago-area high schools to design and implement curricula for teaching “Action Civics” and addressing racial segregation.

Henry was a senior program consultant in youth development at the University of Chicago, a visiting lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she taught courses to students pursuing a master’s degree in youth development, and a program coordinator for City University of New York where she monitored college performance in the areas of enrollment and student achievement and developed centralized parent outreach initiates.

From 1998 to 2003, Henry was a social studies teacher and International Baccalaureate Middle-Years program coordinator at Roald Amundsen High School in Chicago.

An Alabama native, Henry earned a B.S. degree in sociology/criminal justice from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and a M.S. Ed. degree in secondary education from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is to support the pursuit of human rights and social justice by developing emerging leaders and sustaining existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice, creating a pivotal role for liberal arts education in engendering a more just world.

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

###

Time is of the Essence

Posted on

baseball with seems missingProfessor Emerita of English Gail Griffin has been particularly prolific recently, publishing a number of essays in a variety of journals. A short list and description of those essays will appear in the Fall issue of LuxEsto, but we couldn’t wait that long to share one that will let you know that Gail is now a published baseball writer! Her essay “Night, Briggs Stadium, 1960” describes her 10th birthday present–a Tiger’s night game! It appears in the new book A DETROIT ANTHOLOGY, a collection of some 60 stories about what it was (and is) like to live in the city of Detroit. Gail gave an interview about the piece on WMUK radio station. Consider the following short excerpt a first-inning triple topped by a steal of home:

“A rectangle of night sky opens ahead. Brilliant banks of lights against the black. The low crowd hum, rising, like a sea sound. Then acres of green seats and then, below it all, the blazing diamond, emerald they should call it, nothing has ever been so green.

Left field, Maxwell. Right, Colavito, the outrageous Cleveland trade, who points his bat at pitchers like a gun.

Humidity haloes the lights. Men yelp HOTdogs, HOTdogs, PROgram. I am transfixed…”

So are we.

Long Table; Close Community

Posted on
Chef James Chantanasombut (far right) assembles soybean and cabbage cake
Chef James Chantanasombut (far right) assembles soybean and cabbage cakes topped by a canopy of salad

A five-course dinner helped strengthen the connective fiber of a community when Fair Food Matters hosted a fundraiser at the Kalamazoo Farmers Market one Thursday evening in late June. General manager of Kalamazoo College Dining Services James Chantanasombut and Chelsea Wallace ’14 were some of the featured chefs, and other K folk attended the event.

Fair Food Matters is a nonprofit organization as interested in healthy communities as it is in healthy food. FFM empowers and connects people in Kalamazoo through projects and programs, and a few of these include: the Woodward School Garden, the Douglass Farmers’ Market that serves residents of the city’s Northside neighborhood, and the region’s only licensed “incubator kitchen” called Can-Do Kitchen—a shared space where local entrepreneurs can use FFM resources to start a business.

At the recent fundraiser people young and old filled each seat of a 150-foot table while local chefs prepared dishes ranging from bean salads to roasted chicken from a local farm. The meal was fit for kings and queens—or for a very extended family.

And the evening felt like a family gathering, even when people didn’t know each other. Sharing food brought people together. They mingled as they sampled appetizers like the chicken liver pâté, or grabbed beers, courtesy of Arcadia Brewing Co. As local band Graham Parsons and the Go Rounds played twangy rock songs, the patrons sat at the long table, made new friends, and shared artisan bread or kale salad.

Graham Parsonsof the local rock band The Go Rounds
Graham Parsons, lead singer and songwriter of the local rock band The Go Rounds

The Kalamazoo Farmers Market can function as a gateway into the local community for students and staff. K art professor and media producer Dhera Strauss said, “The Farmers Market is my life off of campus.” Student Michelle Bustamente ’15 is interning with the Farmers Market this summer, and she said the Market gives her a greater sense of community.

Wallace and Chantanasombut prepared an appetizer and one course of the dinner: curry dusted rice chips with black walnut and sesame leaf pesto, and an Asian-inspired soy bean and cabbage cake, respectively.

They made the cake from produce at Bonomego Farms, and the ingredients included onions, green onions, Korean Bok Choy flakes and paste. Because they were given the challenge to make a gluten-free dish, they used flax seed mill, a healthier and tasty substitute for egg. Topping the cake were ingredients from Understory Farm (Bangor, Michigan), burdock root, fiddlehead fern relish, pickled ginger, baby kale, pickled bok choy, and garlic scapes. The entire gastric ensemble was dressed with citrus miso vinaigrette.

The chefs only used local ingredients. Wallace said, “Where you get your food from, how it is grown, and the science behind it determines taste.” The Jamaican born biology major would know. She was a member of the student organization Farms to K, and she started baking scones for the College’s dining services operation during winter term of her senior year. That experience has influenced her career aspirations.

“I want to cook professionally,” she said, “and I want to learn the ropes.” This summer she has shadowed or will shadow the kitchen staff at two popular local restaurants: Bravo! and Food Dance.

Strauss and Bustamente, Chantanasombut and Wallace experience food as a way to connect K with the local community. Chantanasombut said, “It’s great to be part of the community and to know local farmers, chefs, and organizations like Fair Food Matters.”

Everyone at the Fair Food Matters fundraiser seemed to feel the same way: strangers no longer. Eating local food together makes strong communities.

Dylan Polycn '15 helped serve the kale salad at the Fair Food Matters fundraiser
Dylan Polycn ’15 attended the Fair Food Matters fundraiser and helped serve the kale salad.

Summertime: No Day at the Beach for these Kalamazoo College Students

Posted on
K students interning in Washington, D.C.
Some of the K students interning in Washington, D.C. this summer are (l-r): Katie Clark ’16, Noah Arbit ’17, Skylar Young ’15, Kylah Simmons ’17, Natalie Cherne ’15, and Fatima Hanne ’15. Amber Whittington ’08 (far right) is Director of Operations at the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Amber invited the K interns to the recent Senate ice cream social.

Just as many newly minted Kalamazoo College graduates are heading into the work world, rising K sophomores, juniors, and seniors are venturing into their own workplace adventures. Steeped in a historical commitment to experiential education, the Career and Professional Development component of the K-Plan is now identified with summer “externships” and internships administered by the College’s Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD).

During summer 2014, 50 rising K sophomores and juniors will explore new career paths as “externs” through the CCPD’s unique Discovery Extern Program that allows students to both live and work with active professionals, including K alumni, for one to four weeks.

Summer 2014 Discovery Externs spend their days alongside professionals in hospitals and health centers, law offices, schools, libraries, businesses, nature centers, and farms, and then they’ll head home together for wide-ranging “porch time” conversations.

CCPD Program Administrator Pam Sotherland has helped nurture hundreds of new connections through the program that began as a pilot in 2001.

“The value of the Discovery Externship Program lies in the opportunity for a student to live and work with an alum and through that experience forge what many participants have said will be a lifelong relationship,” said Pam.

Additionally, the CCPD’s Field Experience Program (FEP) has scores of students enrolled in internships during summer 2014. Whether students identify internships through the CCPD or on their own, all FEP interns learn about a possible career, hone transferrable skills, and build professional networks.

Ogden Wright ’16, from Jamaica, is headed to Pennsylvania to intern at the Delaware County Planning Department with alumnus Justin Dula ’99. Ogden, who plans a career in civil engineering, said he hopes “to learn, from a public sector perspective, how urban planning is organized and implemented, and to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue a career in a governmental organization.”

It’s a big year for K student interns in Washington, D.C.

After working on several political campaigns, Natalie Cherne ’15, from Minnesota, hopes her summer internship in Minnesota Senator Al Franken’s Washington, D.C. office will hone her policy-writing skills.

“By applying my learning from political science classes to writing policy memoranda, taking notes at hearings, and conducting research, I will contribute to making the policies I referred to when talking with voters about issues,” she said.

Noah Arbit ’17, from West Bloomfield, Michigan is interning at the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry, a nongovernmental organization working to ensure the safety and nondiscrimination of Jews in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (especially topical given unfolding events in Ukraine).

As soon as Alex Werder ’15 finishes up at his study abroad program in China, he will return to the U.S. to intern in the Washington, D.C. office of New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt.

“Rush is my congressman from New Jersey’s 12th District and I have wanted to work for him since I was old enough to know what politics was all about,” said Alex. “I could not be more thrilled to be going on this adventure this summer.”

Employers, alumni, parents, and friends of the College who would like to learn more about hosting a K intern or extern should contact the Center for Career and Professional Development at 269.337.7183 or career@kzoo.edu.

Story and photo by Joan Hawxhurst, CCPD.

Hong Kong Professors Visit K for Civic Engagement

Posted on

A group of Lingnan University and Kalamazoo College representativesThough the two institutions are 8,000 miles apart, Hong Kong’s only liberal arts school, Lingnan University, might not be all that different from Kalamazoo College. President Leonard Cheng said Lingnan aims to create students who can tackle human issues from a global perspective and gain both a breadth and depth of vision.

On June 4, 17 Lingnan faculty members visited K to learn about liberal arts education in general, and civic engagement in particular. They spent a full day with small panels of K faculty and administrators, including Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement Director Alison Geist and Provost Mickey McDonald.

All sessions revolved around civic engagement, peer-to-peer mentorship, and finding research opportunities for students.

McDonald said Lingnan University “is looking to make civic engagement more ubiquitous.” While these professors visited various schools in the Great Lakes College Association during their 11 days in the United States, both Michigan State University and K hold a more prominent history in civic engagement.

Geist emphasized that K focuses on social justice leadership rather than volunteer service. “The focus is on social change, not charity,” Geist said, noting that the College’s philosophy rests on “students as colleagues” and giving students leadership positions to tackle complex tasks.

Despite the distance, the goals of both K and Lingnan are not so different after all. Lingnan’s motto is “Education for Service,” and President Cheng said “an education promotes a capacity to build a better world by engaging with society and those in need.” After visiting K, Lingnan aims to better connect experience with education and leadership with civics. Article by Colin Smith ’15