For the third year in a row, Kalamazoo College has been selected as a Hidden Gem by College Raptor, a planning platform that helps students and families find college matches driven by algorithms to find their best-fit schools at the best price.
This selection for 2026 places K among the top eight institutions in the Great Lakes Region of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. It further recognizes the College as one of the best in the country based on a combination of factors including retention rates, graduation rates, student-to-faculty ratio, endowment per student, selectivity and other key metrics as reported through the National Center for Education Statistics.
“For today’s students, expanding the definition of ‘dream school’ to include attainable options that align with family income, grades and additional factors can help more students arrive at college with confidence,” College Raptor co-founder William Staib said. “That’s what our Hidden Gems list and College Match tool aim to do.”
Kalamazoo College has retained its status as a College Raptor Hidden Gem for 2026.
College Raptor also ranks K among 25 Hidden Gems for Division III athletics. To qualify for either list, an institution must receive fewer than 5,000 applications per year, have fewer than 7,000 undergraduate students, offer at least five unique majors and have an acceptance rate of at least 10%.
College Raptor’s full methodology is outlined on its website.
Kalamazoo College today honored one faculty member and one staff member with two of the highest awards the College bestows on employees. Professor of Mathematics Eric Barth received the 2025–26 Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching, and Campus Safety Officer Adam Kaur was named the recipient of the W. Haydn Ambrose Prize for Extraordinary Service.
Barth has served K for more than 28 years as a department chair, assistant provost, first-year class dean and director of the dual-degree engineering program. He has held his professor title since 1997. During the pandemic, he was a leader in providing resources to faculty about effective online teaching.
Barth was granted K’s Outstanding Advisor Award in 2019. He also was a College leader in developing a partial-unit course to help struggling students develop the skills for academic success through a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) grant awarded to K in 2018.
Nominators said Barth’s teaching exemplifies a holistic commitment to student learning and success. Through course feedback, students have described him as being passionate, encouraging, supportive and engaging while he strives to get the best out of every student. A ceremony to confer the Lucasse Fellowship traditionally occurs in the spring term, during which the honored faculty member speaks about their work.
Kaur has worked at K since 2021. Nominators said his varied background—including a degree in education and a previous career in hospitality—gives him a broad range of skills. He’s also kind, helpful and thoughtful with tremendous foresight and an empathetic ear as he handles emergent situations calmly, efficiently and expertly with optimism in challenging circumstances. His presence sets a positive tone for students to interact with Campus Safety while making K a better place to live, work and learn.
Kaur’s interests extend beyond his work to the campus community. He regularly attends Hornet athletic contests, and he is something of a legend for his remarkable rapport with K’s squirrel population.
The Ambrose Prize is named after W. Haydn Ambrose, who served K for more than 20 years in a variety of roles, including assistant to the president for church relations, dean of admission and financial aid, and vice president for development. Ambrose was known for being thoughtful in the projects he addressed and treating people with respect. In addition to a financial award, Kaur has earned a crystal award to commemorate the achievement and an invitation to sit on the Prize’s selection committee for two years.
Congratulations to both of the honorees.
Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez (left) congratulates Professor of Mathematics Eric Barth on earning the 2025–26 Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching.
Campus Safety Officer Adam Kaur receives the 2025 W. Haydn Ambrose Prize for Extraordinary Service from President Gonzalez.
A nonprofit organization honored Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez this weekend with an award that recognizes his efforts to support and create greater opportunities for students in Kalamazoo.
El Concilio, established in 1981, serves the local Latinx community by providing culturally sensitive social services, advocacy and programs that foster self-sufficiency, preserve cultural heritage and support the community’s economic well-being. Gonzalez received its Nezahualcoyotl Award, an annual honor granted to a Latinx professional leader, at the Nuestras Raices Gala on Saturday at the Radisson Plaza Hotel of Kalamazoo.
In a letter to Gonzalez, El Concilio Chief Executive Officer Adrian Vazquez-Alatorre noted that as president of K, Gonzalez has worked to create a path for many generations of students to walk and achieve their dreams. He also cited the College’s partnership with El Concilio through the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement, which works to build experiential education opportunities to help students develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills of social responsibility, intercultural understanding, lifelong learning and leadership.
“In collaboration with Kalamazoo College, we had over 50 student volunteers and interns in the last few years,” Vazquez-Alatorre said. “Thank you for all you have done for the Latinx students inside and outside of Kalamazoo College.”
“I am deeply honored to receive the Nezahualcoyotl Award from El Concilio, an award named after leader, poet and visionary whose legacy still echoes through centuries,” Gonzalez said. “This recognition reflects the shared commitment between Kalamazoo College and our community partners to empower students through education, opportunity and cultural pride. Receiving the Netzahualcoyotl Award reminds me of his timeless words: ‘Let us leave at least flowers, let us leave at least songs.’ As I prepare to retire from Kalamazoo College, I hope that our work leaves behind something beautiful—something that uplifts not only individuals, but entire generations and echoes beyond today.”
Suzie Gonzalez ’83 (from left), President Jorge G. Gonzalez and El Concilio CEO Adrian Vazquez-Alatorre were among the people attending El Concilio’s Nuestras Raices Gala on Saturday where President Gonzalez received the Nezahualcoyotl Award.
When prospective families weigh the return on investment of a college education, they can rest assured that Kalamazoo College provides one of the best values in the U.S., according to the Princeton Review.
For the fourth consecutive year, the education services company has included K on its Best Value Colleges list, placing the institution among the top 209 in the country for 2025 regardless of size, location or private/public status. K is one of just five Michigan institutions overall and two privates to receive the honor.
Although schools are not ranked individually, K was selected as a best value based on 40 data points that calculate ratings based on academic offerings, costs, financial aid, career services, graduation rates and student debt. The Princeton Review also considers student surveys and PayScale.com reviews of alumni salaries. K received an overall ROI score of 90 out of 99 with additional high marks for its accessible faculty at 92, interesting professors at 92 and financial aid at 91.
K’s profile at the Princeton Review website features student surveys that describe building “personal relationships with their peers and professors” at “a campus run by and for the students.” The flexible curriculum encourages students “to explore exactly what they want to learn,” while K’s alumni are easy to contact and have a strong culture of support for current students.
For the fourth year in a row, Kalamazoo College has been rated among the nation’s best values by the Princeton Review, an education services company.
“The schools on our Best Value Colleges list this year are truly exceptional,” Princeton Review Editor-in-Chief Rob Franek said. “They offer outstanding academics and excellent career services. They also demonstrate extraordinary commitments to affordability via generous financial aid and/or comparatively low sticker prices. We commend them for all that they do to help students afford to attend them and we recommend them highly to college applicants.”
For more information on the Princeton Review’s methodology, visit its website.
Maxwell Rhames ’25 and Daniela Arias-Rotondo, Kalamazoo College’s Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Endowed Chair in Natural Science, are receiving national recognition for their three years of work together that culminated in Rhames’ Senior Integrated Project (SIP).
Arias-Rotondo’s synthetic inorganic chemistry lab works to find ways of converting light into energy. In Rhames’ SIP, that meant examining what alternative metals could possibly be used to make things like solar panels less expensive, one day assisting a global shift toward renewable energy.
“When you have some sort of inorganic complex that absorbs light, that light can get transformed into chemical energy in the form of electricity,” Rhames said. “A common example is with solar panels, but the metals that they use in them are rare, and as a result, incredibly expensive. We were looking at taking some cheaper metals that you could find anywhere in a much more sustainable way and asking whether they can work.”
For their efforts, the two have received an honorable mention in the 2024 Division of Inorganic Chemistry Award for Undergraduate Research, which recognizes research that students and faculty perform in tandem. The award, given through the American Chemical Society, has three divisions between national labs, research universities and institutions that primarily consist of undergraduates. Rhames and Arias-Rotondo were honored in the primarily-undergraduates category, which covers scientists from hundreds of schools across the country.
“The traditional photoactive metals are iridium and ruthenium, and we’re looking at manganese, which is the third-most abundant transition metal on Earth,” Rhames said. “In the state we use it in, it’s stable and nontoxic, so it’s a great alternative. We’re looking at how we can bridge the gap between saying, ‘this could be really cool,’ and actually getting it to where we could apply it in some of these areas.”
Arias-Rotondo said she and Rhames use spectroscopy to understand what kind of light the compounds they create absorb and what happens after they absorb it.
Maxwell Rhames ’25 and Daniela Arias-Rotondo, Kalamazoo College’s Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Endowed Chair in Natural Science, have received national recognition with an honorable mention in the 2024 Division of Inorganic Chemistry Award for Undergraduate Research, which recognizes research that students and faculty perform in tandem.
“One of the problems that we’re finding is that once our compounds absorb light and get to what we call an excited state, that excited state doesn’t last long enough yet for them to be useful,” she said. “But Max’s work has been instrumental because he was the first one in the group to make these kinds of compounds. Now that we’ve been able to understand their properties and investigate some of them, other students in our lab can understand how to make them better. We are making a name for ourselves by laying the groundwork for making these compounds.”
Rhames has discussed his SIP at the Inter-American Photochemical Society and American Chemical Society conferences, where his fellow scientists were enthused about his work on a national scale.
“That’s been the coolest thing, because when you put something out there, you don’t know what people are going to think of it,” he said. “And generally, their reactions have been super rewarding. I enjoy doing the work myself, but it’s even cooler to know that other people find it equally exciting. It’s an added bonus.”
Rhames won’t be the first or the last in his family to graduate from K when he walks the stage at Commencement in June. Both of his parents, Frank ’92 and Jody ’92, are alumni, and his sister, Claire ’27, is a current student. However, he’s clearly found his own path having performed research in Arias-Rotondo’s lab ever since his first year on campus. In addition, he will start a Ph.D. program at the University of Delaware in fall, and he hopes to one day serve as a faculty member at an institution like K.
“K is small, so you get to make a lot of good connections with your professors,” Rhames said. “I was three or four weeks into my first term as a college student, and all of a sudden, I’m in a lab doing the work with the research. There are no post-docs or graduate students. It is just the undergraduates and the faculty doing all of the work. That would’ve been a lot harder to do had I not gone to K.”
A nonpartisan and nonprofit initiative is saluting Kalamazoo College today as one of 471 U.S. institutions doing the most in higher education to increase student voter participation.
K is just one of two private institutions in Michigan being recognized as a 2024 ALL IN Most-Engaged Campus for College Student Voting, meaning that the College:
Reported its 2022 student voting data to the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE), which is run through the Institute of Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts University.
Shared that data with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, an effort that strives to improve and increase democratic engagement activities on college campuses.
Developed and submitted to the ALL IN challenge a 2024 voter-engagement action plan.
Received support from the College’s president through ALL IN’s Higher Education President’s Commitment to Full Student Voter Participation.
K Votes volunteers, including Oakley Gabriel ’21 (center), offered students rides to the polls on Election Day to drive campus voter participation.
K Votes—the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement’s (CCE) nonpartisan coalition to inform the College’s students, faculty and staff members about voting and civic engagement—is the primary driver of the institution’s efforts in increasing voter participation. K Votes representatives work in partnership with students to register new voters, mail absentee ballots, provide rides to the polls, and distribute candidate information with maps to local polling places.
CCE Program Associate Oakley Gabriel ’21 leads K Votes, along with students, faculty and staff.
“The relationships and momentum built among community organizations and our campus were critical to implementing our robust action plan as supported by a grant from Students Learn Students Vote Coalition,” Gabriel said. “We expanded voter registration initiatives, increased capacity for voter education and elections support, and made connections with hundreds of students. More than 200 K students are newly registered voters thanks to our K Votes Coalition. The Center for Civic Engagement took on a massive undertaking, and the campus and Kalamazoo communities showed up with us, and I’m very proud of what we achieved.”
For the second year in a row, Kalamazoo College has been selected as a Hidden Gem by College Raptor, a planning platform that helps students and families find college matches driven by algorithms to find their best-fit schools at the best price.
This selection—which places K among the top 15 institutions in the Great Lakes Region of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana—recognizes the College as one of the best in the country based on a combination of factors including retention rates, graduation rates, student-to-faculty ratio, endowment per student, selectivity and other key metrics as reported through the National Center for Education Statistics.
“For students seeking the enriching experience of a smaller college with exceptional programs, institutions like K emerge as prime options, and we are honored to spotlight them with the recognition they genuinely deserve,” College Raptor co-founder and CEO William Staib said.
College Raptor also ranks K 11th in the country among 25 Hidden Gems for Division III athletics. To qualify for either list, an institution must receive fewer than 5,000 applications per year, have fewer than 7,000 undergraduate students, offer at least five unique majors and have an acceptance rate of at least 10%.
College Raptor’s full methodology is outlined on its website.
College Raptor places Kalamazoo College among the top 15 institutions overall in the Great Lakes Region of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, and rates K 11th nationally for opportunities in Division III athletics.
The Princeton Review has once again placed Kalamazoo College among the top 15 percent of America’s four-year colleges and universities by featuring K in the 2025 edition of its annual guide, The Best 390 Colleges.
The education services company selects its list from the nation’s 2,600 four-year institutions based on data it collects from administrators about their academic offerings and surveys of students who rate and report on their experiences.
Students lauded K through surveys as a place where they develop personal relationships with their peers and faculty at a campus run by and for the students. In addition, students can quickly find their niche upon arriving thanks to a small-school environment where “everyone is always engaged in some kind of work they truly care about,” the book says.
The Best 390 Colleges does not provide individual rankings for the schools featured, but compliments K for its offerings.
The Princeton Review is rating Kalamazoo College among the best in the country in the book “The Best 390 Colleges.”
“We salute Kalamazoo College for its outstanding academics, and many other impressive offerings,” said Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s Editor-in-Chief and lead author of The Best 390 Colleges. “We recommend it as an ideal choice for students searching for their ‘best-fit’ college.”
The College is also listed among Princeton Review’s Best Midwest Colleges and Best Value Colleges.
The printed publication is now available through the Penguin Random House website. K’s profile is available for free online along with the list of the 390 top schools.
For the third year in a row, the Princeton Review—an education services organization and rankings resource—has named Kalamazoo College one of the nation’s best institutions for students seeking a top-notch education at an affordable price.
For its annual Best Value Colleges list, the Princeton Review evaluated 650 public and private institutions across the country through their academic offerings, costs, financial aid, career services, graduation rates and student debt while examining student surveys and PayScale.com reviews of alumni salaries. Although schools are not ranked individually, K was chosen among the top 209 for value based on 40 data points that calculate return on investment (ROI) ratings. The Princeton Review gave K an ROI score of 90 out of 99 for 2024, making the College just one of four Michigan schools recognized as a best value.
In K’s profile, the Princeton Review says the College brings a personalized approach to education through a flexible, open curriculum featuring real-world experience, service learning, study abroad and an independent senior-year project. Student surveys noted that the alumni network is easy to contact and willing to help, providing a culture of giving back to the school and supporting each other. Another student added that the College’s small-school environment helps everyone find a chance to get involved in issues they care about and the community.
The Princeton Review evaluated 650 public and private institutions from across the country and named 209 of them, including Kalamazoo College, to its Best Value Colleges list.
“The schools we chose as our Best Value Colleges for 2024 are a select group: they comprise only about 8% of the nation’s four-year undergraduate institutions,” Princeton Review Editor-in-Chief Rob Franek said. “We commend their administrators, faculties, staff and alumni for all they are doing to educate their students and guide them to success in their careers. These colleges are also exceptional for the generous amount of financial aid they award to students with need and their comparatively low cost of attendance.”
Kalamazoo College’s Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa welcomed 38 new members on June 12, 2024, recognizing their exceptional scholastic achievements across a wide range of disciplines.
Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society, boasting 17 U.S. Presidents, 42 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and more than 150 Nobel Laureates among their ranks. The society’s mission is “to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences, to recognize academic excellence, and to foster freedom of thought and expression.” The Delta of Michigan chapter was founded in 1958.
Acceptance into Phi Beta Kappa is considered one of the highest academic honors a student can receive. The society is known for its rigorous selection process that evaluates students’ achievements across the arts, natural sciences, humanities and social sciences.
As these talented seniors embark on the next chapter of their educational and professional journeys, their Phi Beta Kappa membership will serve as a symbol of their exceptional accomplishments and dedication to the pursuit of knowledge.
Please join us in congratulating the following students:
Kelley Akerley of Hancock, New Hampshire; biochemistry and German majors
Shahriar Akhavan Tafti of Tehran, Iran; computer science major, minors in psychology and German, neuroscience concentration
Liz Ballinger of Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan; psychology and French majors, studio art minor
Jenna Beach of Vicksburg, Michigan; biochemistry major, psychology minor
Jonah Beurkens of Byron Center, Michigan; physics and computer science/math majors
Katherine Black of Grass Lake, Michigan; biology major, Spanish minor, neuroscience concentration
Madeleine Coffman of Portage, Michigan; biochemistry major, psychology minor
Ryan Drew of Niles, Michigan; Women, Gender and Sexuality major, psychology minor
Andreas Fathalla of Troy, Michigan; business major, Chinese minor
Morgan Fischer of St. Michael, Minnesota; psychology and Spanish majors
Nikhil Gandikota of Cary, North Carolina; economics major
Aliza Garcia of Kalamazoo, Michigan; Spanish, German and computer science majors
Sophie Haas of Traverse City, Michigan; biology major, psychology minor, community and global health and neuroscience concentrations
Emma Hahn of Farmington, Michigan; economics major
Emily Haigh of Kalamazoo, Michigan; biology and computer science majors, mathematics minor
Lukas Hultberg of Kalamazoo, Michigan; economics and mathematics majors
Madeline Hurley of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan; biochemistry major
Ella Kelly of Grand Rapids, Michigan; chemistry and French majors, mathematics minor
Mahum Khan of Kalamazoo, Michigan; biology major, community and global health concentration
Rhys Koellmann of Midland, Michigan; biochemistry major, anthropology and sociology minor, and biological physics concentration
Teresa Lucas of Mattawan, Michigan; German and psychology majors
Lina Moghrabi of Kalamazoo, Michigan; philosophy and psychology majors
Anna Murphy of Royal Oak, Michigan; biology major, psychology minor
Blagoja Naskovski of Skopje, North Macedonia; quantitative economics major
Matthew Nelson of Kalamazoo, Michigan; mathematics and physics majors
Elizabeth Nestle of St. Joseph, Michigan; psychology major, Chinese minor
Sydney Pickell of Thompsonville, Michigan; business major, psychology minor
Megan Ploucha of Commerce Township, Michigan; biochemistry and Spanish majors
Roman Ramos of San Diego, California; biochemistry major
Hannah Schurman of Rochester Hills, Michigan; biology major, studio art minor
Steven Shelton of South Lyon, Michigan; chemistry major
Xavier Silva of Portage, Michigan; mathematics and computer science majors
Allison Sokacz of Macomb, Michigan; biology major, Spanish minor
Camran Stack of Ithaca, Michigan; political science and German majors
Danielle Treyger of West Bloomfield, Michigan; business and Spanish majors
Maria Tripodis of Cleveland, Ohio; studio art major, art and psychology minors
Ifeoma Uwaje of Saginaw, Michigan; biochemistry major
Jordyn Wilson of Kalamazoo, Michigan; biochemistry major
