The College Singers will be among four ensembles performing in the coming days.
Four music concerts coming to Kalamazoo College will put student and community ensembles center stage for public audiences November 11 through 15.
The International Percussion Ensemble brings together musicians from K, nearby institutions and the greater Kalamazoo community to perform steel pan, African and Taiko drumming. The Bayati Ensemble explores the music of the broader Middle East, including Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Persian and neighboring traditions. Together, the ensembles will present a free concert blending soothing melodies with dynamic percussion at 7 p.m. November 11 in Dalton Theatre at the Light Fine Arts Building.
The College Singers mix soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices to perform a diverse array of choral music on campus and around the Midwest. The group promises a night of uplifting songs in Upturn, a concert scheduled for 7:30 p.m. November 12 at Stetson Chapel. Tickets are $15 and available at the door. K students are free.
K’s Jazz Band pulls together an expansive collection of contemporary and classic jazz arrangements to provide the students participating and audience members with an enjoyable experience. Its musicians will salute creatures great and small in a free concert titled the Wild World of Jazz at 7:30 p.m. November 13 in Dalton Theatre at Light Fine Arts.
The Kalamazoo Philharmonia brings together students, faculty, and amateur and professional musicians of all ages to perform great music. Its performers will examine composers throughout history who have been deeply inspired by natural elements or stories in which the elements play a major role. The Four Elements Trilogy (volume 1) will begin at 3 p.m. November 15 in the Dalton Theatre at Light Fine Arts. Tickets are $7 for general admission and $3 for students. K students are admitted free.
For more information on any of these performances, contact Susan Lawrence in the Department of Music at susan.lawrence@kzoo.edu.
For Alison Settles ’27, weeding the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership’s native prairie garden often felt circular. Working spot by spot for a couple of hours each day, she would move through one section only to cycle back by week’s end and find that the first patch had grown wild again, though not always with the same weeds.
That cycle taught Settles something that now sits at the heart of her Senior Integrated Project (SIP): reviving a native garden requires more than removing weeds. Open ground must be replanted, new plants must be watered and protected until they are established, and future caretakers need the knowledge and structure to continue the work.
Hands in the Dirt
Settles, a biology major from Nashville, Tennessee, has spent much of her SIP improving the garden by pulling aggressive invasives, transplanting wanted plants into more pleasing arrangements and, most recently, putting about 200 new native plants in the ground.
The garden was in rough shape when she started. Crown vetch and Queen Anne’s lace, both aggressive and invasive, had taken hold across much of the space, crowding out the native species the garden was meant to showcase. At some point, Settles said, you just have to go scorched earth, as the overgrowth becomes too extreme for one person to remove by hand.
Her main goal was to make the garden presentable and keep the most prevalent invasives in check. But weed removal alone leaves bare soil where new weeds can quickly take hold. Progress requires removing invasive plants, replacing them with natives, and maintaining the new plantings long enough for them to take hold. A recent community workday advanced that process, but it did not complete it.
Choosing the right plants took careful research. Drawing on guidance from native plant nurseries and resources online about which local native species survive in which conditions, Settles prioritized wildflowers that fit their spots without becoming aggressive. She also planned for a mix of colors, a range of heights, and staggered bloom times, so something is flowering through as much of the season as possible.
Alison Settles ’27
A Plan that Outlasts a Single Student
But the largest challenge, according to Settles, is continuity. Native gardens, unlike conventional gardens, cannot simply be weeded and mulched. They require horticultural knowledge, and past caretakers have come and gone without leaving records of what was done or how long it took. Without documentation, it becomes difficult to hire and train workers or estimate the time and money needed to care for the gardens. “All these spaces have been living in a sort of state of limbo,” Settles said.
Settles’ solution is a set of guides and educational materials for the students and facilities workers who come after her. The resources will identify common invasive species, explain which native plants fit different areas, and outline a process for replacing weeds before they reclaim newly opened ground. She hopes the framework can support collaboration, with facilities staff handling some of the more strenuous physical work and a student worker or intern making horticulturally informed planting decisions. She envisions the garden as a living learning lab modeled on her own internship experience, self-directed but supported by resources, structure, goals and accountability, with minimal demand on a faculty or staff member’s time.
“It’s something you want to share with other people,” Settles said about her introduction to native gardening. “I always was thinking, how can I get this to more people?”
Settles didn’t arrive at the project as a novice. The summer after her sophomore year, she completed an internship at the Dow Science Center wildflower sanctuary, another native garden on campus, working alongside Paul Sotherland, professor emeritus of biology.
She knew little about native plants when she started, but Sotherland’s passion was contagious, she said.
“He just has a lot of energy and drive,” Settles said. “It made me very passionate about it.”
Yet the internship left her with a question she couldn’t answer in a single summer. How could more students and community members get involved? Her SIP is her answer.
Growing a Community of Caretakers
As a result, outreach became a central part of the project at the Arcus Center. Settles organized community workdays that taught volunteers to care for the garden with little instruction. The first was hectic, she said, so she trained friends to become skilled garden workers who could lead teams. By her estimate, that increased efficiency tenfold.
One of the greatest parts of the project, Settles said, was the collaboration with all the amazing people who supported her achieving in her goals—she says that fostering community, connections, and togetherness was an extremely essential tool in her successes. Local native planting experts in the Kalamazoo area specifically were indispensable to her project.
“Everyone you meet with has such a huge amount of passion for this sort of work,” Settles says about collaborating with local enthusiasts. “And they really want to see you succeed.”
Settles notes that during the most recent workday, Quyen Edwards, president of Kalamazoo Area Wild Ones, even donated and planted some native species from her own personal nursery, The Painted Lady Greenhouse.
Additionally, Settles was proud that community members seemed to not only do a great job, but they had a great time doing it!
“Everybody at the end of the day was like, ‘Hey, that was actually pretty fun,” she said.
Students and community members even expressed interest in returning for more weeding events and garden open hours, and local parents asked Settles about a lesson and volunteer workday for children studying biodiversity through a robotics project. She counts the workdays among the achievements she is proudest of, and they changed how she thinks about conservation.
“Science education is doable and anyone can do it,” Settles said. “It just takes time, effort and organization.”
Visitors have reported seeing hummingbirds, pollinators and other birdlife at the garden, but Settles cautions that those observations are anecdotal and likely reflect the plant diversity that already existed rather than the early results of her work. Even in rough conditions, she said, the garden supports far more biodiversity than conventional landscaping around it, and meaningful changes may take years to observe.
Settles doesn’t necessarily expect a career in native plantings, but she plans to keep doing this work in her own life. The project, she said, taught her to take complex scientific information and make it simple enough for anyone to act on. She says this is the key to making real progress in conservation efforts.
“Change requires community involvement, and community involvement requires educating the community,” Settles said.
Her SIP has moved the Arcus Center prairie garden forward, with about 200 new native plants in the ground and a road map for future caretakers. But roughly 800 square feet of bare earth still needs to be planted, and the newest plants must be watered and protected for a full year before those that survive can be considered established. Settles estimates that a full restoration could take five or six years. This year’s plantings are a trial run, she said, showing that with time, organization, knowledge and collaboration, the garden can make slow but steady progress.
The arboretum stewardship practicum physical education class installed new maps at the Lillian Anderson Arboretum this fall.
After learning geographic information systems (GIS) in a Kalamazoo College senior seminar led by Professor of Biology Binney Girdler, Eva Hannibal ’26 and Nat Ward ’26 put their skills to work last spring and summer, creating updated trail maps for the College’s Lillian Anderson Arboretum. The maps, now posted at the arboretum, help visitors navigate its changing trail system and identify features along the way.
Sara Stockwood, director of the Larry J. Bell ’80 Environmental Stewardship Center and the Lillian Anderson Arboretum, approached the students about updating the previous map, which dated to 2017. Since then, some trails had closed, others were missing from the map, and visitors needed information about features such as a bypass around a flooded section. The project allowed Hannibal and Ward to apply their newly acquired skills to a practical need.
“We both feel proud of learning GIS in one semester and then using it right after,” Hannibal said. “The maps are a cool way to use the skills we gained in class and actually get paid for it, too.”
However, updating the maps—funded by a grant from Rotary of Kalamazoo and installed by the Arboretum Stewardship Practicum PE class—required more than transferring existing information into new software. The students first tracked down the data layers used to create the previous map. Although some were available, they had to reconstruct other sections using satellite imagery and firsthand observations.
Over several days, Hannibal and Ward walked the trails with their phones while using Strava, an app that helps runners track their workouts, to record geographic coordinates they could import into QGIS, the mapping software they learned in class. They estimated they walked about five miles, sometimes retracing their steps to verify their recordings.
Hannibal and Ward divided the work and revised the maps through several rounds of feedback. Ward focused largely on icons and other details, while Hannibal concentrated on tracing and refining the trails. Girdler and Stockwood helped them identify inaccuracies and improve the map’s clarity.
A close-up look at the new Lillian Anderson Arboretum trail maps.
One trail demonstrated why firsthand observations mattered. The students initially traced a path along a major power line using Google Earth. Girdler pointed out that the trail was not as straight as their draft suggested. When the students returned to the site, they found that the path had more curves and turns than their original drawing showed. The correction underscored the importance of verifying digital maps through firsthand observations.
Accuracy, though, was only part of the challenge. The students also had to consider how someone unfamiliar with the arboretum would use the finished map. The new map identifies trail names and types, marks amenities such as benches, and indicates which trails are barrier-free.
“It’s a lot of transferring it over and making sure that it’s accessible to the public,” Ward said. “You have to make it look a lot more pleasing and ensure that the information is easy to understand.”
Design choices matter, too. Clear icons, readable trail names and distinctions between routes help visitors understand the map and navigate the property.
Mapping the arboretum also gave the students a closer look at its ecological diversity. Ward, a biology graduate interested in environmental science, was struck by the variety of ecosystems within the property, including a pond, marshland, grassland and forests.
“Just how complex it is, even for a relatively small plot of land, was striking,” Ward said.
Ward especially appreciates the arboretum’s southwestern side, near its old-growth forests, where previous biology research using trail cameras introduced them to white-tailed deer, raccoons and flying squirrels. Hannibal, who spent three years working at the arboretum, favors the Wetland Boardwalk, where they have observed frogs and praying mantises.
Hannibal and Ward hope the maps will do more than help visitors navigate the arboretum. They also want the maps to encourage people to explore its diverse habitats and develop a stronger connection to the natural environment.
“When we better understand the environment that’s around us, we foster a deeper level of respect for it,” Ward said. A greater understanding of the natural world, they added, can encourage conservation while giving people a chance to step away from the stresses of classes, work and daily life.
Hannibal and Ward continued refining the maps through the summer, adjusting logos, graphics and formatting. They also identified possible future improvements, including color-coded routes and topographic information. With the maps now posted at the arboretum, Hannibal said the clearest measure of the project’s success is also the simplest.
“Definitely just people using it,” Hannibal said. “It’s already up in the arb, which is cool. That felt like success.”
Hannah Haines ’27 (left) portrays Barbara Grant and Sofia Gross ’29 plays Norma Baxter in Perfect Arrangement. Photos by Andy Krieger.
A secret arrangement. Two seemingly ordinary marriages. Four people trying to protect their identities while working for the very government determined to expose them.
That’s the premise of Perfect Arrangement, the comedy-drama scheduled for Thursday through Sunday at Kalamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse. Set in spring 1950 at the precipice of the Korean War, the play explores the Lavender Scare, a lesser-known chapter of American history in which the federal government targeted gay and lesbian employees and forced many from their jobs because of their sexual orientation.
The story follows two same-sex couples who enter opposite-sex marriages to protect their careers and reputations. Their carefully constructed arrangement begins to unravel when two of them are assigned to a government task force charged with identifying and removing people like themselves from federal service.
For the student cast and crew, staging the play has meant balancing its humor with the responsibility of portraying a painful and often overlooked period of American history.
Hannah Haines ’27 plays Barbara Grant, a highly educated translator for the U.S. Department of State whose strength and complexity extend beyond her carefully maintained public image.
“I think she’s one of my favorite characters that I’ve ever played,” said Haines, an English major from Grand Rapids who has extensive theatre experience in high school and at K. “She definitely has faults, like everyone else, but she’s very strong and proud in her identity.”
Although the story takes place more than 70 years ago, Haines sees plenty of reasons for contemporary audiences to connect with its themes.
“It’s written well, and there’s a lot of relevant content to it, even though it’s a historical play,” she said. “I think we’re all proud to be in a play that is highlighting serious stuff that happened through a comedic and enjoyable lens.”
A History Worth Remembering
“When I mention the Lavender Scare, most people haven’t really heard of it before,” Haines said. “I think it’s going to be good for a lot of people to see it.”
That unfamiliarity gives the production its urgency. The Lavender Scare unfolded alongside the more widely recognized Red Scare, the Cold War-era campaign to identify and remove suspected communists from American government and society.
Beginning in the late 1940s, federal officials increasingly treated gay and lesbian employees as security threats. The prevailing justification was that their sexual orientation made them vulnerable to blackmail and therefore unsuitable for positions of public trust. Those claims fueled investigations, interrogations and a widespread effort to remove LGBTQ+ people from government service.
Thousands of federal employees were fired or pressured to resign because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation. The U.S. Civil Service Commission ended its ban on gay employees in the federal civil service in 1975, and the State Department ended its Foreign Service ban in 1977.
The historical setting also brings responsibilities for the cast and production team. Stage manager Gracie Burnham ’27 said the subject matter requires an intentional approach, especially when the script uses language that reflects the prejudice and discrimination of the era.
“There is quite a bit of language that is harder to use, and you have to be careful and intentional about working that in,” Burnham said. “We always need to be aware of how everyone’s feeling in general, especially with the content.”
Bringing the Story to the Stage
Guest director Miriam Thomas, associate curator of adult programs at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, leads the production. Haines praised Thomas’ ability to balance constructive feedback and direction with encouragement.
Ellie Gross ’29 and Jack Dewey ’27 (back) rehearse for Perfect Arrangement with Ellie O’Connor ’30 and Owen Ellis ’27. Their characters are Millie Martindale, Bob Martindale, Norma Baxter and Jim Baxter respectively.
Cooper Dahl ’28 (middle) plays Theodore Sunderson in Perfect Arrangement.
Tickets Available
The Festival Playhouse will stage Perfect Arrangement at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, November 5–Saturday, November 7, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, November 8, at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse, 129 Thompson St. Thursday’s show will include a cast talkback after the performance. Sunday’s performance will feature American Sign Language interpretation, made possible by The Jim Gilmore Jr. Foundation in conjunction with Theatre Kalamazoo. Tickets are available at festivalplayhouse.ludus.com and cost $25 for adults, $20 for seniors, $15 for non-K students and $5 for children 12 and younger. K students, faculty, staff and theatre alumni are admitted free.
Burnham, an English and theatre arts double major with a minor in history, discovered stage management after arriving at K. Earlier this term, she led the stage management team for Face Off Theatre Company’s production of Harlem Duet at the Festival Playhouse. She hopes to pursue additional theatrical opportunities after K.
“I wasn’t planning on studying theatre when I came to K,” Burnham said. “I then had two classes in my first term at K with Dr. Quincy Thomas, who is now my advisor, and I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to stay away. The rest of my life is still very much up in the air, but I know theatre will always be a part of it.”
Audiences rarely see a stage manager’s work, but every performance depends on it. From the booth, Burnham calls lighting, sound and scene-change cues while coordinating with the backstage crew. The production’s emotional demands add another responsibility as she checks in regularly with cast members throughout rehearsals.
For Burnham, the willingness to take on challenging material makes Perfect Arrangement a strong fit for the Festival Playhouse.
“One of the best things about K is how willing we are as a campus and as a community to address those stories that sometimes can be a lot more daunting because they can be a lot more intense to work on in general,” Burnham said. “But that’s what makes them stories that matter so much.”
Through its combination of comedy, tension and history, the production offers audiences a chance to encounter a significant period in American history while experiencing the humanity of live theatre. Haines also hopes audiences recognize the work that goes into telling a story like this. The cast and crew have spent hours rehearsing and preparing, investing considerable time and energy in emotionally demanding material. But the result, she said, is a production that offers more than a history lesson.
“It’s a great opportunity to learn about that time period through a fun story,” Haines said.
Swim for Success, which offers affordable swimming lessons to Kalamazoo children on Kalamazoo College’s campus, has served nearly twice as many young swimmers in the past year, prompting increased support from the donor who helped launch it in 2012.
Marc Schupan, the former CEO and current chairman of Schupan Inc., a family-owned sustainable materials and scrap-metal recycling company headquartered in Kalamazoo, increased his support this year in honor of former K President Jorge G. Gonzalez, who retired in June. Swim for Success is a partnership between the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement and the City of Kalamazoo Parks and Recreation Department. The program offers swimming lessons at K’s natatorium two evenings a week to children ages 5 to 14. About 25 K students serve as coaches and program leaders.
Schupan’s connection to the program began years ago with a newspaper story about two Black teenagers who drowned in the Kalamazoo River. Neither knew how to swim.
“I thought, ‘This should never be,’” Schupan said.
He provided seed money to the city, establishing Swim for Success in 2012, and continued contributing as the program developed into a partnership with K.
Schupan might never know whether the lessons have prevented a drowning, but he sees the potential for their impact to extend across generations.
“Have we saved, or will we save, a life? I don’t know, but it’s certainly worth trying,” he said.
Civic Engagement Scholar Isaac Duncan IV ’27 said Swim for Success offers more than swimming lessons. It also gives children young role models.
“The kids will joke that K students are all about 40 years old,” he said. “But it’s good for them, whether they believe it or not, to have people closer to their age than their parents. We’re teaching them that they can do something they once thought was difficult.”
For some children, progress means learning a stroke or venturing into the deep end. For others, it begins with feeling safe enough to enter the pool. Duncan recalled a young participant who was terrified of the water. For two or three weeks, her coach sat with her on the bleachers, talked with her and gradually earned her trust. Eventually, she decided to get in.
“The rapport and the trust that comes is the biggest thing,” Duncan said. “We’re showing them it’s safe and that they’re going to be fine.”
Fellow Civic Engagement Scholar Briza Leyva-Regalet ’27 sees the value of the program in the connections it creates with their families, as well. On her first night with Swim for Success, Leyva-Regalet met a Spanish-speaking parent who was excited to find someone she could talk with while watching her children in the pool.
“I could just tell the happiness on her face, seeing her kids in the water and taking pictures,” Leyva-Regalet said. “The parents are grateful for this program because their kids have the opportunity to learn how to swim.”
Swim for Success coach Maya Arau ’27 said some of the program’s most memorable moments have occurred outside of formal swimming instruction. Arau recalled working with a child who learned when her birthday was and surprised her with a handmade card featuring a drawing of Steve from the Minecraft video game and movie series.
“With experiences like that, there’s never been a time when I’ve considered not coaching,” she said.
The work has connected her not only with children, but with the broader Kalamazoo community.
“There are some kids that I have seen every term,” Arau said. “It’s so cool to think, ‘I met that girl three years ago,’ and now I’ve seen this part of her childhood two days a week for three years. I love getting to be a part of these families’ lives.”
Briza Leyva-Regalet ’27 and Isaac Duncan IV ’27 serve the Swim for Success program as Civic Engagement Scholars.
As a prospective student, Swim for Success coach Maya Arau ’27 joked with her dad that her little toy squirrel would help her decide where to attend college. When it went missing for a short time at K, Arau took that as a sign. “K is the only school where anything weird happened with him, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, he chose K. He wanted to stay here!’ So that’s the joking answer I have for why I chose K.”
The experience also helps K students develop skills of their own. Coaches learn to communicate with children of different ages, personalities and ability levels. Civic Engagement Scholars, who serve the community through partnerships with Kalamazoo Public Schools, youth leadership and arts organizations, food justice initiatives, health and legal advocacy groups and government entities, lead the program, recruiting participants and coaches, coordinating schedules, leading orientations and organizing the many people needed to run Swim for Success.
These student leaders also facilitate structured reflection sessions that encourage their peers to explore the structural inequities that contribute to disparities in swimming access. K students leave the program having built meaningful relationships with young swimmers and their families, while gaining a deeper understanding of structural inequities and their role in addressing them.
Duncan said overseeing that work has shown him how much he enjoys management, communication and bringing people together for a shared purpose.
Schupan has been impressed by the K students’ commitment and abilities. He said Swim for Success provides children with a chance to spend time on a college campus with students invested in their safety, education and future, giving Swim for Success a special place in his heart.
“A lot of people judge success by what kind of car, what kind of house or how much money you have,” Schupan said. “But significance is, ‘Do you make a difference in anyone else’s life?’
“When you have a vision of what you could do that will make your community a better place or other people’s lives better, and you see it come to fruition, that’s rewarding,” he said. “I’m hoping this program continues long after I am gone.”
Three children immediately ran up to Micahaia Reynolds ’27 during one of her first experiences with Community Advocates for Parents and Students (CAPS).
“I want you to be my tutor,” they told her.
For Reynolds, a psychology major from Detroit, the moment felt like coming home. She had connected with Kalamazoo College’s Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) during her first year on campus as a work-study student. She eventually became a Civic Engagement Scholar with CAPS, a community organization that provides tutoring opportunities for Kalamazoo Public Schools students living at Interfaith Homes.
“I had never met these children, and they didn’t know who I was,” Reynolds said. “But it made me think, ‘OK, I can do this.’ I’ve been doing it ever since.”
That commitment to children and community grew this summer through an eight-week Community Building Internship at the Douglass Community Association. There, Reynolds helped launch Crowned with Confidence, an initiative developed by Executive Director Stacey Ledbetter, built around a fully functioning beauty salon inside the community center. The program combines free hairstyling services for girls with literacy-based activities.
“She wanted to encourage young ladies in the community to feel confident in themselves by providing free hairstyling services,” Reynolds said of Ledbetter. “In exchange, they would participate in a literacy-based activity with conversations about subjects like math and science and lessons in responsibility.”
The CCE develops Community Building Internships with its community partners exclusively for K students. These immersive, paid roles support students while also contributing to the work of local organizations. At Douglass, Reynolds worked with children ages 5 to 14.
In addition to providing styling support, she helped collect data through surveys conducted before and after the program.
The surveys measured possible connections among the participants’ feelings about their appearance, their self-confidence and their motivation to attend school.
“I think seeing the befores and afters, it really was appropriately named Crowned with Confidence,” Reynolds said. “We weren’t just looking into beautification. We were collecting data to track changes over time.”
The internship felt like a natural extension of Reynolds’ work with CAPS because many of the children she met through Douglass came from the same neighborhood. It also aligned with what she describes as her personal mission: glorifying God through her work, particularly by supporting children experiencing difficult home situations.
During the internship, Reynolds also learned about the humility, sacrifice and day-to-day challenges involved in nonprofit work.
“So many nonprofits are functioning on the bare minimum, and they’re constantly asking for more funding,” she said.
Yet Reynolds saw how leadership could shape the experience of working in a resource-strapped organization. Ledbetter held staff meetings twice a week and regularly sought feedback. Reynolds said those practices helped the organization feel like a family.
One story from Reynolds’ summer captured the deeper purpose she saw in the community association’s work. A staff member known as Mr. Tony began hosting weekly community breakfasts years ago after children came to the center and said they were hungry. For Reynolds, his response reflected the same sense of care and dignity at the heart of Crowned with Confidence.
“You don’t just matter enough for us to help keep you alive,” she said. “You matter enough for us to add value to your life, to remind you that you are important, that you are human with dignity and that you deserve respect.”
The internship also helped Reynolds clarify her path forward. Although she had once envisioned a broader career in nonprofit work, her summer at Douglass pointed her toward working with people on a more individualized level. She is applying to graduate programs in counseling with the goal of working with families affected by mental health challenges.
Reflecting on her time with the CCE, Reynolds encourages other students to get involved.
“It provides an opportunity for us to learn what we’re committed to, learn what’s worth sacrificing for, and learn more about not just who we are, but what we’re called to do,” she said. “And at the very least, if you’re feeling homesick, go there. They not only have good snacks, but they also have amazing opportunities for people to feel less alone.”
Micahaia Reynolds ’27 served an internship with the Douglass Community Association.
Q-and-A with Stacey Ledbetter
Question: At what point did you decide that Micahaia would be a good fit for the Douglass Community Association and Crowned with Confidence?
Answer: I knew from the beginning that Micahaia should be our intern. Shout out to [Center for Civic Engagement Executive Director] Sashae [Mitchell] for having quality relationships with both students and community partners, because she sensed in advance that this connection would be perfect, and she was right. In addition, in our first conversation, along with a great initial vibe and impressions, Micahaia and I discovered that we attended the same high school in Detroit: Cass Tech!
Q: What were Micahaia’s strongest qualities when she worked with you and the kids?
A: Micahaia is dependable, astute, passionate about her faith and serving the community, loved our specific focus with Crowned with Confidence, was patient with the young people we served, and she fit in with our Douglass family like she had been with us for years. We all miss her! She was absolutely successful as an intern, for the aforementioned, and so much more. She also has a great sense of humor!
Q: If Micahaia were in Kalamazoo another year, would you want her to contribute to Crowned with Confidence again next year?
A: We would have Micahaia return in a heartbeat, she is going to be successful in whatever path she chooses and she represents K College with excellence!
How You Can Contribute
The Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) engages students, faculty, and community members in sustained partnerships that foster collaborative learning and civic participation in a diverse, democratic society. The work of staff and students, like Micahaia, is funded through the generosity of donors and organizational funders. Support the student experience and experiential excellence by making a gift at kzoo.edu/onlinegiving.
Even when classes and jobs limited the time Sarah Guerrero Gorostieta ’28 could devote to reporting, she continued working toward a larger goal: becoming a journalist who strengthens the news industry, protects those who report the truth and supports the democracy their work serves.
The Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for Public Service is now giving her more of the resources she needs to pursue freelance reporting and professional experience in Kalamazoo. Guerrero, an English major and political science minor from Bensenville, Illinois, is the first K student selected for the prestigious national scholarship. The program supports students who have demonstrated a commitment to public service and seek to make a lasting impact in their communities and beyond.
For Guerrero, that public service begins with journalism. A member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and The New York Times Corps, she has developed a strong interest in the role independent journalism plays in democratic societies. She hopes to strengthen protections for journalists and preserve freedom of the press in places such as Latin America, where independent media outlets face significant challenges.
Guerrero, a first-generation college student, said the scholarship is more than a dream come true.
“Attending college and pursuing my passion for literature, writing and politics was already incredibly fulfilling, but when I arrived at K, the peers and professors I surrounded myself with constantly pushed me to work harder, set more ambitious goals, and be curious and open-minded about what a career in public service could look like,” she said.” This scholarship will allow me to devote more energy to my studies during my junior and senior years, and it will help me confidently step into the news industry post-graduation.”
Obama Voyager Sarah Guerrero ’28
Guerrero joins the 2026–28 cohort of 100 Voyagers, representing 39 states and territories and 68 colleges and universities. The Voyagers will meet during a December summit at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, where they will share their approaches to public service in fields including education, healthcare, government policy and technology.
“I actually plan to return home from my study abroad program early in order to attend the orientation,” she said. “I don’t want to miss out! I live relatively close to the Obama Presidential Center, and there was a lot of local excitement regarding its opening this summer. I’m honored that my first visit will be as a Voyager. More importantly, I’m very excited to meet the fellow changemakers in my cohort and in the Obama Leadership Network. Simply from reading other Voyagers’ bios and briefly chatting with them, I can tell they are passionate, innovative, brave and inspiring public servants. I can’t wait to network with them, learn from their individual journeys, and grow alongside one another over the next two years.”
As part of the two-year program, Guerrero will participate in a Summer Voyage, an immersive work-and-travel experience designed to help students explore public service careers. She will also receive support and mentorship through The Obama Foundation’s network of leaders, practitioners and changemakers.
“I hope that, in the future, I can confidently say that I did not take this opportunity for granted,” she said. “My goal is for this scholarship award to translate into tangible impact through my public service work supporting independent journalists and strengthening press freedom.”
“While the news industry is undoubtedly facing many challenges, that doesn’t mean my generation should give up on journalism,” Guerrero added. “Instead, it means we must pursue and defend it fearlessly. This scholarship has empowered me to do exactly that.”
The Voyager Scholarship was created by former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky to help shape young leaders. The founders share the belief that learning about new places and experiences generates understanding, empathy and cooperation, which equips the next generation to create meaningful change.
The two-year scholarship program is open to students entering their junior year of college at an accredited four-year college or university in the U.S. who have demonstrated financial need and are U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, permanent residents or DACA recipients.
The scholarship supports Voyagers with:
Up to $50,000 in financial aid over two years.
A $10,000 stipend and free Airbnb housing to pursue a summer work-and-travel experience between the junior and senior years of college.
A $2,000 Airbnb travel credit every year for 10 years post-graduation.
A fall summit designed to help Voyagers define and inspire their public service.
A network of leaders that provides information about new areas of service and innovations in the scholars’ fields. After graduation, Voyagers join the Obama Foundation’s global community.
During her summer internship with the Detroit Police Athletic League, commonly known as Detroit PAL, Savannah Chapie ’27 stepped onto soccer fields with middle school players and into a role outside her comfort zone.
A standout on the Kalamazoo College volleyball team, Chapie knew how to coach the sport she had played for years. Soccer was different. Rather than trying to lead as an expert, she encouraged players, participated in activities and became a dependable adult presence.
That willingness to try an unfamiliar role became central to Chapie’s work with Detroit PAL, a nonprofit organization that uses athletics and other programming to serve young people in the Detroit area.
A business major and psychology minor from Lake Orion, Michigan, Chapie entered the internship knowing she enjoyed athletics, working with children and giving back to her community. She was also interested in business and marketing, but she had not decided how those interests might come together in a career.
Detroit PAL allowed her to explore those connections through youth sports, coaching, event planning and nonprofit operations. The experience will also inform a reflection paper for her Senior Integrated Project, giving her another opportunity to consider what she learned and how it might shape her next steps.
“I think it’s ultra important that I try out different jobs and career paths as much as I can,” Chapie said.
From Volleyball to Soccer and Back
Chapie discovered Detroit PAL while searching for internships. She was initially interested in sports-related opportunities at Rocket Mortgage, but as she explored other possibilities, she found herself drawn to nonprofit work and PAL’s athletics and programming internship.
Her summer days rarely looked the same. She spent mornings at PAL’s office, where she and three other interns worked on individual projects. Each intern developed a presentation proposing an idea that could benefit the organization, giving Chapie a chance to look beyond daily programming and consider PAL from a broader perspective.
Two of the other interns were from Detroit. Chapie appreciated learning from their knowledge of the city and gaining perspectives she missed growing up in Lake Orion.
She also worked at three Detroit-area middle schools, helping with a summer soccer league. Because she knew less about soccer than volleyball, the assignment challenged her to reconsider what she could offer.
Volleyball allowed her to contribute more comfortably. Chapie coached 13- and 17-year-old girls in PAL’s recreational league, drawing on her experience as a college athlete. Coaching helped her see athletics from another perspective: not as the player on the court but as the person responsible for helping create a positive experience for others.
“I was able to learn a lot about what goes into being a coach, especially the thought processes I’d want if I were coaching my own team,” Chapie said.
The internship also extended beyond youth sports. Chapie worked at events including the Rocket Mortgage Classic and participated in corporate events involving PAL sponsors. Balancing those responsibilities became one of her biggest challenges.
“I was able to do so many things,” she said. “I just had to make sure that everything was aligned.”
Showing Up for Young People
Of all her responsibilities, Chapie’s work with young people left the strongest impression. She worked with students from elementary school through high school, including many Spanish-speaking students. Although she speaks only basic Spanish, she enjoyed watching students move comfortably between Spanish and English.
More importantly, she came to understand that her role was not simply to teach a sport.
PAL’s mission helped shape the way she approached her work. The organization aims to make sports accessible and affordable while giving young people opportunities to develop skills and relationships.
“Sports should be an outlet, especially for kids,” Chapie said. “You should always be able to rely on sports and the amount of things that sports can bring you.”
Those benefits can include physical and life skills, she said, along with relationships and a chance to have fun. Sometimes, Chapie learned, the most important thing an adult can do is show up.
“I think it’s really cool how much you’re able to influence a kid,” Chapie said. “I feel like it’s important to give them all the love that you can.”
She remembers children wanting hugs at the end of the day.
“You never know what’s going on at home, but I know that I can personally show up for them,” she said.
The relationships also changed Chapie.
“A lot of people say that the kids benefit from you, but I really benefited from being with the kids,” she said.
Discovering Another Direction
By the end of the summer, Chapie had not settled on one plan for life after K. Instead, she had added possibilities to the list.
The internship reinforced her interest in athletics and working with young people. It also introduced philanthropy as a potential career path, an area she had not previously considered.
“I know a few other businesses have large philanthropy programs that I could look into,” she said. “And if it has to do with athletics, I think that would be something awesome as well.”
The experience broadened her understanding of Detroit, nonprofit work, athletics and the people who make youth programming possible. It also built on her experiences at K, which have helped her identify connections among interests that might initially seem unrelated.
For Chapie, finding the bigger picture does not require choosing one path immediately. It means paying attention to the experiences that energize her and remaining willing to try something new.
“K offers a lot of different classes that have presented me with a variety of paths,” Chapie said. “It’s helped me understand what I enjoy doing and consider some careers that I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of had I gone somewhere else. I’m a huge K advocate.”
Savannah Chapie (second from right) with some of her fellow coaches during her Detroit Police Athletic League (PAL) internship.
Chapie (middle) during her Police Athletic League internship.
PAL’s mission helped shape the way Chapie approached her work. The organization aims to make sports accessible and affordable while giving young people opportunities to develop skills and relationships.
Chapie coached 13- and 17-year-old girls in PAL’s recreational league, drawing on her experience as a college athlete.
The Stone Flower, also known as Kameni Cvijet, is a concrete memorial monument designed by architect and sculptor Bogdan Bogdanović. Completed in 1966, the monument is located at the site of the former Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia. All photos by Noah Peters ’27.
A chance encounter at a Croatian memorial inspired Noah Peters ’27 to investigate how societies remember, reinterpret and preserve the past.
Peters stopped in the small Croatian village of Jasenovac after a massive stone flower caught his attention. He lifted his camera in a place still scarred by fighting between Croatian forces and a Yugoslav Army/Bosnian Serb paramilitary coalition.
At the time, Peters didn’t understand what the monument commemorated or how much the unplanned stop would change his journey. It was early in a 10-week solo backpacking trip through Europe, immediately after a study abroad experience in Aberdeen, Scotland.
He had few plans beyond seeing new places, taking photographs and eventually returning to Kalamazoo College. But the structure drew him into a history he had never studied—one that stayed with him throughout his travels and reshaped his academic plans.
Called Kameni Cvijet, or The Stone Flower, the monument commemorates victims of Jasenovac, a World War II concentration camp established by the fascist Ustaše regime in what was then the Independent State of Croatia. Serbs, Jews, Roma, political opponents and others were imprisoned and killed there.
After visiting, he began reading about the site and realized, in his words, that it represented “a theatre of the Second World War and of the Holocaust that is not particularly known or paid attention to in the West.”
A self-taught photographer and history and political science double major, Peters already had an interest in Eastern Europe and the former Yugoslavia. His visit to Jasenovac gave those interests a new focus and pushed him to turn his curiosity into a formal research project.
Peters came to K from Grand Rapids, Michigan, partly because of study abroad and the pre-orientation program LandSea. He was drawn to opportunities for adventure and exploration, but he never expected those interests to become part of his academic work. As he continued through Eastern Europe, visiting concentration camps and memorial sites in Hungary and Poland, he began comparing what the sites commemorated, how they presented their histories and what they asked visitors to understand.
From Backpacking to Research
Peters’ questions soon grew beyond a single monument: Why do Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina tell different stories about World War II? How had the dissolution of Yugoslavia reshaped memories of the conflict? What could the monuments themselves reveal about those changing interpretations?
The resulting Senior Integrated Project (SIP) combined historical research with photojournalism, drawing on both of his majors while allowing him to investigate how political forces continue to shape public memory. As he explored the subject, he discovered it was far bigger than a single project could hold.
“I’ve thought about this project every single day since, and it has been endless refining of a topic and an area of research that a career could be dedicated to,” he said.
Competing Memories
In Yugoslavia, World War II involved Nazi occupation, domestic fascist regimes, competing resistance movements, ethnic conflict and genocide. Peters explained that socialist Yugoslavia developed an account of the conflict that emphasized partisan resistance and liberation after the war.
After Yugoslavia dissolved in the 1990s, governments and communities increasingly commemorated the war through competing national frameworks. Even the death toll at Jasenovac is difficult to establish, in part because records were destroyed or inaccessible and postwar accounts were shaped by political and ethnic conflict.
Peters examined how those differences appeared at the sites themselves, including which monuments were maintained and which were damaged as an inadvertent consequence of war, while others were deliberately vandalized and destroyed. Their condition, he said, can indicate which histories governments and communities choose to recognize.
“You can’t really destroy them, demolish them or take them down because that would be very overt revisionism,” he said. “But you can leave them and allow them to be overgrown without nationally recognizing them anymore.”
Peters stands near Necropolis for the Victims of Fascism in Novi Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a World War II memorial site on Čamića Brdo hill. Opened in 1975 and designed by architect Bogdan Bogdanović, it commemorates about 700 civilians massacred there by Ustaše forces in August 1941.
The Monument to the Revolution at Mrakovica in Kozara National Park, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a 33-meter tall cylindrical sculpture made of concrete fins and embedded metal plates. It commemorates the Yugoslav Partisans and civilians who fought and died during the 1942 Kozara Offensive in World War II.
Peters stands inside the ruined interior of the abandoned Hotel Igman on Mount Igman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, originally built for the 1984 Winter Olympics.
The Spomen Vlak (Memorial Train) at the Jasenovac memorial, featuring a Yugoslavian Railways class 20 steam locomotive and red freight cars.
Seeing History Through a Camera
Photography gave Peters a way to document and compare those differences. What began as a personal interest became central to examining how monuments communicate through their design, condition and surroundings, even before a visitor reads a plaque or understands the historical context.
“Many Western viewers of these monuments don’t know the context in which they were built,” he said. “Just like I did at one point, they gravitate toward these sites because they look cool. But while they are fascinating, they still represent how easy it is to impose different narratives on historical sites.”
By placing the monuments within a shared visual record, Peters could consider how public memory is preserved, altered or allowed to fade. His photographs invite viewers to ask who built the structures, what they were intended to commemorate and how their meanings have changed.
Bringing the Research Home
Peters presented his work at K’s summer research symposium in August. Surrounded largely by STEM projects, he used his photographs to draw visitors to his poster and introduce them to a history many had not encountered.
The experience reinforced his hope of bringing greater attention to Jasenovac and its contested history, particularly among English-speaking audiences in the United States. Support from the College through the Cook-Lahti Award for Undergraduate Research or Creative Activity provided Peters with the resources to pursue his questions thousands of miles from campus after his initial study abroad experience.
Peters is quick to name the mentors who supported his project. Christina Carroll, associate professor of history, and Jessica Fowle, director of health careers, fellowships, and undergraduate research helped turn his initial curiosity into a research agenda, encouraging him to pursue the topic more deeply and seek the funding that made his return trip to Europe possible.
“Dr. Carroll has been this consistent, driving force for me. She has pushed me to make the most of my time here at K and on this topic,” he said. “Jessica helped me apply for the grant, refine my research proposal and get a clear idea of what I wanted to do, both for myself and to present to the grant committee.”
It became the kind of opportunity he hopes other K humanities students will seek out.
“Be ambitious with what you want to research,” he said. “Be ambitious with how far you want those grants to take you, and where those funds can take you. The grounds for creating opportunities for yourself are here for anyone. It’s not easy, but all it takes is persistent work.”
Looking Beyond the Monument
Peters now plans to pursue graduate study and continue investigating public memory in the former Yugoslavia, particularly at Jasenovac. Photojournalism also remains a possibility.
The Stone Flower first taught Peters to look beyond a monument’s appearance. His research has since taught him to examine what public memorials preserve, what they leave unspoken and who has the power to shape their meaning.
A close-up of The Stone Flower with an upward view through the petals. The monument is near Lonjsko Polje Nature Park, a large wetlands preserve that causes many white storks (one is visible) to nest near the monument.
Peters stands near the Monument to the Uprising of the People of Kordun and Banija, which is located on the Petrova Gora mountain range in Croatia. The abstract structure is a prominent example of Yugoslav World War II memorial architecture called Spomenik, which means monument in Serbo-Croat. The monument was vandalized, with many of its steel panels being stolen, during Operation Storm in the War of Croatian Independence in 1995.
On most fall mornings, Mallory Gentry ’28 and Simran Magnan ’29 can be found at swim practice or lifting weights. This summer, however, they’re in a chemistry lab at Kalamazoo College, working alongside Daniela Arias-Rotondo, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Endowed Chair in Natural Science, on research into manganese-based coordination complexes that could one day help improve solar energy technology.
Gentry, a swimmer from Pendleton, Indiana, and Magnan, a soccer player from Northville, Michigan, are both members of Arias-Rotondo’s lab, where they’re working to synthesize new compounds that absorb visible light.
According to Arias-Rotondo, the goal is to make new manganese compounds that might prove useful for capturing sunlight—compounds no one has made before.
Magnan, who was on crutches recovering from surgery, started her summer away from the lab bench, instead digging through research articles to help chart the lab’s next steps.
“I’m more so on the computer looking at research articles, trying to figure out next steps and what different types of ligands that we could use for these new molecules,” she said.
Both students say the extended, uninterrupted stretch of summer research, compared with the single weekly session they typically manage during the school year, has let them dig deeper into their projects.
“It gives me the time to actually do more things and be able to look into it,” Gentry said.
For Magnan, the structure of summer research keeps her connected to chemistry through the offseason. “It keeps me engaged and focused to slide right back into chemistry in the fall,” she said.
Both students found their way to Arias-Rotondo’s lab well before this summer. She was the first chemistry instructor at K for both, and both say their working relationship grew out of office hours conversations that started as early as freshman year.
“I really enjoy working with Dr. DAR,” Gentry said, referring to how students affectionately address Arias-Rotondo. “She’s very good at explaining things and open to questions. She’s very easy to talk to.”
Magnan agreed.
“The way that she teaches really works well for me,” Magnan said. “She gives us a couple first steps and then has us try it on our own. Later, we’ll come back to her and ask questions because she’s always available for questions, without giving away how to do something.”
For Arias-Rotondo, having student-athletes in her lab isn’t a scheduling accommodation, it’s an asset.
“Having student-athletes in the lab is awesome because they know how to fail and recover from failure, which is so important in research,” she said.
With a research success rate she estimates at around 20 percent, resilience matters, Arias-Rotondo said.
“They already have that resilience, that willingness to just pick yourself back up and try something again,” she said, adding that athletes also tend to bring strong time-management skills to the lab. “They already have some incredible qualities that they’ve learned through sports that can translate.”
Both students see the connection clearly in their own experience. Magnan described a similar overlap between soccer and chemistry.
“Coming at it from a soccer angle versus coming at it from a chemistry angle just provides more opportunities and strategies for me to approach problems,” she said. “That skill building is probably what I’m going to remember more than the chemistry or the soccer combined.”
Arias-Rotondo said she thinks carefully about lab chemistry of a different kind: how her students work together.
“I think the lab is more like the swim team, where in most cases they have their own events, but they are still rooting for each other,” she said. “A win for one of them is a win for all of us.”
She praised both students’ work ethic and problem-solving under pressure, noting that when experiments don’t go as planned, they think about their next step and how something can work the next time.
Both students say K’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and its emphasis on undergraduate research, played a role in their decision to enroll at K. Their advice to fellow students weighing whether to pursue summer research: do it.
“It gives you time to fully focus on what you’re doing and learn, and also gives you a community in the science,” Gentry said.
Magnan echoed the sentiment: “You get to go so much more in depth and get much more individualized learning. There’s just so much growth possible.”
For Magnan, the summer has also offered an unexpected benefit beyond the science.
“Being here has been so much better mentally for me than being at home, just on the couch,” she said of recovering from her surgery in the lab rather than away from campus. “It really gives my brain something else to focus on.”
