alumni

Holiday Greetings from Kalamazoo College

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Kalamazoo College logo and workmark against a snowy quadStudents walking near a snow-covered Stetson Chapel

Dear Friends:

Happy holidays and warm wishes for 2015. This is a very exciting time at K. We welcomed an outstanding class of 2018: 362 students from 30 states and 17 countries. The class is one of the most diverse in the College’s history. Thirty-two percent of its members identify themselves as domestic students of color. Ten percent are four-year degree-seeking international students. Many are the first in their families to attend college.

In September we dedicated the beautiful piece of architecture that houses our Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, and one week later the center convened its first biennial conference, gathering our learning community with social justice scholars and activists from across the globe. The purpose of the center folds beautifully into the goals of a liberal arts education at Kalamazoo College, one of which-as articulated by President Allan Hoben in the 1920s-is for each of us to identify a “charter of service” for humankind. To engage in that important pursuit, we study widely and with rigor. We cultivate the courage it requires to ask big questions and act upon the answers even if they differ from conventional wisdom. What a vibrant environment in which to live and work!

Kalamazoo College is in the final seven months of the most ambitious fund-raising campaign in its long and storied history. We are seeking to raise $125 million to support the priorities that will help ensure that the Kalamazoo College of tomorrow is every bit as strong, every bit as vibrant, and every bit as willing to grapple with the big questions, as we are today. This holiday season is a perfect time to give thanks for the incredible support we have received from alumni and friends.

I am grateful to all of you for what you do on behalf of K. You are making a difference in the lives of our students; helping them to learn and to act on their inclination to make the world a better place.

I hope you enjoy this holiday greeting. Its original music was composed by alumnus Robert Severinac ’85 as part of his Senior Individualized Project. Today, he is a renowned plastic surgeon and entrepreneur who does pro bono work with families of children with cleft palates. And he continues to enjoy and make music! The roots of such breadth and service lie in the power of the liberal arts at K.

President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran

120 In Six

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Olivia GainesNo way Olivia Gaines ’18 will be bored this break!

She’s created an innovative and fun project to connect with alumni during the next six weeks called #Winter120. She’s reaching out (first come, first served!) for book recommendations—specifically books that have been influential to alumni and perhaps have been on their shelves since their very own K years.

She will be reading passages from the submitted books over the break and plans on reading all 120 during the school year. Gaines will collect 120 ‘thoughts’ from the books, 120 answers to questions she will pose (one to each person who makes a recommendation), and a black-and-white head shot of all (hopefully) 120 participants. She plans on making an e-book of the final product and would love to make a printed version if her project proves successful.

The idea came to her during a visit to the Center for career and Professional Development. Gaines does not have an internship for the winter break, but still wanted to connect with alumni. Gaines said, “One thing I learned during my gap year was that you can connect with people you wouldn’t have thought you could connect with. How could I connect with alumni? Books. Everyone has books!”

For her the project represents a different way to connect with alumni, more personal than business. Gaines hopes to feel “the pulse” of who these 120 alumni really are.

And she’s gearing up for the challenge: a reading pace of 20 books a week over six consecutive weeks. Wow!) Gaines says that her project is “big enough to matter, small enough to win”.

If you are a K grad and you would like to participate in #Winter120, you can register here.

Text by Mallory Zink ’15; photo by Olivia Gaines ’18

Gaining Understanding and Seeing Beauty

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Kalamazoo College alumna Britta SeifertNot long ago the editor of Pink Pangea called our attention to an article the blog published by alumna Britta Seifert ’12 when she was a K student. Pink Pangea is designed for and dedicated to women who love to travel. Britta’s piece is titled “My Experience as a Woman in Varanasi, India,” and it’s quite timeless. In it she describes a 12-week period of adjustment during which a sense of being overwhelmed often had her questioning the wisdom of her study abroad program choice. But that period didn’t last, and she was soon convinced that Varanasi was the best of all her options–“I can say without a doubt that I’m glad to be here and wouldn’t have picked anywhere else to spend my college study abroad,” she wrote. What accounts for the change? According to Britta, growth in understanding and perception: “I’ve come to understand the order in the disorder, and see a beauty in the chaos.” Hard to put a value on that kind of outcome.

Britta’s article also chronicles a growing awareness of gender that is both difficult and empowering. The awareness derives from daily living where “the men I encounter don’t really respect me – don’t necessarily consider my opinion valid or my requests legitimate.” Britta responds with a self-assuredness and confidence, evident in actions, that becomes “one of the greatest things I gain from my time here.” Though four years old, the piece is good reading, especially as many sophomores use the current winter break to prepare their study abroad applications. Britta earned her Bachelor’s degree in anthropology and sociology and current serves as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kyrgyzstan.

How Detroit Was Reborn—With the Help of Jerry Rosen ’73

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Kalamazoo College alumnus Gerald Rosen
Gerald Rosen ’73 (photo by Eric Seals, Detroit Free Press)

U.S. District Chief Judge Gerald “Jerry” Rosen ’73 is being credited with playing a key role in Detroit’s historic bankruptcy case, settled Nov. 7, when U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes approved the city’s restructuring plan. Rosen was appointed in 2013 as the federal mediator in the case and helped broker an “$816 million deal that has come to be known as ‘the grand bargain,’ an improbable arrangement hashed out in many months of behind-the-scenes negotiations with foundations, the State of Michigan and the Detroit Institute of Arts,” according to one Detroit Free Press article.

Challenge and Imagination: Working Science at K

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Kalamazoo College alumnus Parker de Waal
Parker de Waal ’13

Parker de Waal ’13 had a wish: he wanted to work on a computational chemistry project.

Laura Furge, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry, had a challenge: she needed models of the variants of an important human enzyme. (Some background: The aforementioned enzyme, found in the liver, helps the body process medicines, but it’s not exactly the same–hence, variants–in all individuals. Such variability means some people react differently (including adversely) to important medicines. That’s a serious health problem, and part of Furge’s current grant from the National Institutes of Health calls for the study of these variants. And for such study a model of the variants’ structures would certainly be useful!)

In spring 2013, wish met challenge, and, one year later, the two researchers (along with co-author Kyle Sunden ’16) have published a paper in PLoS ONE, the online journal of the Public Library of Science.

That culminating publication traces back to a laboratory question: Could de Waal (a student in Furge’s “Advanced Biochemistry” class) make computational models of the variants? “I suggested some different ways to approach the problem,” says Furge, “and those approaches took Parker all of about two days!” It was at that point that de Waal suggested to Furge some different, more powerful computational approaches–specifically, molecular dynamics using more sophisticated software. “I said, ’Let’s go for it!’” says Furge. “And we both started on the journey to learn more about Molecular Dynamics approaches.”

The journey included consulting with other scientists around the country and the world (Germany, the Czech Republic) both by email and in person at various scientific conferences. Furge and de Waal used a supercomputer at the University of Texas for the computational work. Analysis of the resulting structures was completed by Furge and Sunden during the winter and spring terms of 2014. “The project is a beautiful example of how research and teaching go together at K,” says Furge. The work has been presented at two major medical meetings.

The paper includes 21 figures and tables. Parker de Waal performed all the experiments that led to the figures; Sunden did the experiments and analyses for two of the figures. Furge did the majority of the analysis. In true liberal arts fashion, the cross-disciplinary work combines computer science and biochemistry. Furge taught Sunden, a chemistry and computer science double major, the relevant biochemistry as they progressed with the project. Sunden hopes to continue the work for his Senior Individualized Project after he returns from study abroad in Australia. The work may one day contribute to personalized solutions for people who have adverse drug reactions to important medicines. The paper has had more than 300 views in the six weeks since it’s been published.

Great academics, cross-disciplinary collaboration, research at the edge, and science that matters! Science education at Kalamazoo College: a double helix of challenge and imagination.

Advancing Civic Engagement

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Kalamazoo College alulmna Jillian McLaughlinLike many Kalamazoo College alumni, Jillian McLaughlin ’10 is as creative as she is passionate (in her case, about important public policy issues). This fall the public policy graduate student (she attends the John Fitzgerald Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) collaborated with photographer Peter Rausse to create the “Unsexy Policy Project.”

The project’s goal is to get people, especially people aged 18 to 29, to think about, and act on, policy issues that, stuffy as they may seem, affect millions of people. McLaughlin’s tactic: bring back the “unsexy!” or, put another way, articulate a matter’s gravitas and hitch it to a metaphor generally recognized as “sexy.” In application, this meant combining cheese- or beef-cake photos of some dozen current or former students of the Kennedy School with short, lay-language summaries of a particular issue, such as voter ID laws, tax reform, telecommunication competition, among others. The project took three days to complete and rolled out before the November mid-term elections. McLaughlin and Rausse made a calendar out of the photos and will donate proceeds from sales to an organization selected by the project’s Facebook fans.

Before she started her graduate program, McLaughlin worked as a researcher for the National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy organization dedicated to improving the economic security of low-income individuals and families. At K she majored in political science and was an outstanding cross-country runner. We love her title at the Unsexy Policy Project: “Co-Founder and Chief Mischief Maker.” Very K-like.
Try and Keep Up - The federal minimum wage should rise with inflationMan lying on desk with four folders

A “Big World” K Story

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K graduates Idah Chungu and Charles Holmes
Fellow K graduates Idah Chungu (left) and Charles Holmes, M.D., M.P.H., in Lusaka, Zambia

Conventional wisdom holds that it’s a small world, but really it’s a big world with a lot of K in it. “A young woman came by my office to introduce herself,” wrote Charles Holmes ’93, M.D., M.P.H., the director and chief executive officer of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research (CIDRZ) in Zambia (Lusaka).

Charles was writing to his old biology professor, Paul Sotherland, the former professor of biology who now serves as the College’s coordinator of educational effectiveness. CIDRZ is a non-governmental organization that improves access to quality healthcare in Zambia through capacity development and implementation of sustainable public health programs. And the young woman who stopped by Charles’s office was Idah Chungu ’13, who earned her degree at K (economics) as an international student. She matriculated to K from Zambia.

Charles told Paul the rest of the story. “In a funny coincidence, my parents were biking through Kalamazoo a few months ago and my dad was wearing the Zambian soccer jersey that I gave him. Idah noticed the jersey and ran over to them to introduce herself and find out what he was doing wearing a Zambian soccer jersey in the middle of Michigan. He recommended that she stop by our offices once she was back in Lusaka, which led to yesterday’s meeting.”

Charles majored in biology at K (hence his strong connection to Paul). He completed medical school at Wayne State University, and internal medicine and infectious disease training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Prior to his position in Lusaka, he was deeply involved in the global response against HIV disease and AIDS. He loves Zambia and its people. “I highly recommend a trip,” he wrote to Paul, ever the naturalist. “We saw African wild dogs and a pennant winged nightjar in Kafue National Park last weekend!”

Zambia is located in south eastern Africa, bordered by Angola on its west, and Zimbabwe and Mozambique on its east. Both far from and near to the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa (Sierra Leone and Liberia). “We’re integrating some Ebola sensitization into our community work,” Charles wrote. “And we’re trying to put a team together to go west to help. It’s challenging because we’re always stretched thin simply running our own projects.”

After graduating from K, Idah worked for the College’s advancement division and for the Center for International Programs. She is currently looking for a job in Lusaka. Who knows, perhaps she and Charles will one day become colleagues. It is, after all, a big world with a lot of K in it.

Rolling Through…Time?

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Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan’s latest blogProfessor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan’s latest blog–“Rolling Through Time“–reunites her with former K student John Baxa in a conversation about an animated short feature John helped create. That short is titled “Ball” and is about time. Or is it memory (its power and limitations)? Or aging? Play or death?  All this in a three-minute animated short? Of course, suggests Siu-Lan and John. It’s a matter of layers (certainly a part of What Shapes Film) as well as all that a viewer brings to the experience (the story is in the eye of the beholder). Enjoy your own encounter, to which you bring…what?

Three or four viewings evoked for me two poems, one by Wislawa Szymborska and the other by K’s own Con Hilberry. The poems are related to each other and to the animated short, though the three differ, especially in the feeling of their endings. The poems are shared below.

John graduated from K in 2009. He majored in psychology and earned a concentration in media studies. He recently completed a Master’s degree in entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon. His short has no speech or text. Layers of image and music are everything. The music, somewhat ironically, is titled “Words.”

Still Life With a Balloon
(by Wislawa Szymborska, from Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, Harcourt, Inc., 1998)

Returning memories?
No, at the time of death
I’d like to see lost objects
return instead.

Avalanches of gloves,
coats, suitcases, umbrellas—
come, and I’ll say at last:
What good’s all this?

Safety pins, two odd combs,
a paper rose, a knife,
some string—come, and I’ll say
at last: I haven’t missed you.

Please turn up, key, come out,
wherever you’ve been hiding,
in time for me to say:
You’ve gotten rusty friend!

Downpours of affidavits,
permits and questionnaires,
rain down and I will say:
I see the sun behind you.

My watch, dropped in a river,
bob up and let me seize you—
then, face to face, I’ll say:
Your so-called time is up.

And lastly, toy balloon
once kidnapped by the wind—
come home, and I will say:
There are no children here.

Fly out the open window
and into the wide world;
let someone else should “Look!”
and I will cry.

Memory
(by Conrad Hilberry, from Until the Full Moon Has Its Say, Wayne State University Press, 2014)

Everything that was—touch
football in the street, Peggy

McKay in the hay wagon,
Miss LaBatt’s geometry, the second

floor in Madison, where
one daughter slept in a closet.

Is any of this true? Nightgowns,
glances, griefs existing nowhere

but in this sieve of memory.
Newspaper files, bank accounts,

court records—nothing there.
It’s gone, except for these scratchy

words—blackbird on a branch,
long story caught in his throat.

Vitamin K Part of Liberal Arts Power

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Collage advertising the Council of Independent CollegesThe Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) recently launched its public website, Power of Liberal Arts. It is the most recent initiative of CIC’s public information campaign, Securing America’s Future: The Power of Liberal Arts Education. It complements the @SmartColleges Twitter Feed (which has more than 2,600 followers) as well as the SmartColleges Facebook page and LiberalArtsPower YouTube channel.

The new website, which includes the list of CIC member institutions, is aimed at high school students, their parents, and high school guidance counselors. The content corrects myths and misconceptions about the liberal arts and private colleges and universities and will help high school students and those who influence them to make more informed decisions about where they should apply and ultimately decide to attend college.

And the new website as a K presence. Two distinguished K grads — Steven Yeun and Julie Mehretu — describe in their own works the power of the liberal arts experience at K.

Ebola Responders

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Greg Raczniak at the Sierra Leone Kailahun District Medical Clinic
Greg Raczniak at the Sierra Leone Kailahun District Medical Clinic

Greg Raczniak ’96 is working in Sierra Leone as part of the Ebola response team of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The U.S. Navy veteran serves as a preventive medicine resident at CDC. His work in Sierra Leone involves contact tracing (finding and monitoring people who have come in contact with persons displaying symptoms) a key tactic in controlling infectious disease epidemics. An article on Greg appeared in Task & Purpose, a news site for veterans, by veterans. Greg majored in biology at K and studied abroad in Muenster, Germany. He was a standout swimmer on the Hornet Men’s swim team. After graduation her earned his medical degree at Eastern Virginia Medical School and a doctorate in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University. He entered an internship program at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, followed by a tour at the Navy’s research station in Ghana. During his service with the Navy, Greg obtained certification in tropical disease and traveler’s health, and decided to complete training in undersea and submarine medicine. Greg is completing a master’s in public health at Tulane University as part of his medical residency in preventive medicine. Nor is he the only K graduate working in Africa to help contain the Ebola epidemic. Paloma Clohossey ’11 is in Monrovia, Liberia, part of the U.S. government’s Ebola Disaster Response Team in that country. Paloma works for the United States Agency for International Development and has lived and worked in Africa often, beginning with her study abroad experience in Nairobi, Kenya. Liberia and Sierra Leone are the two countries where the outbreak of the virus has hit the hardest.