Kalamazoo College and the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) are receiving more honors from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge for efforts that boost voter participation on campus.
K is one of 192 institutions from around the country receiving the Highly Established Action Plan Seal, which salutes campuses for developing a standout nonpartisan action plan for democratic engagement ahead of the 2024 election. The seal is based on a rubric that calculates points within categories such as civic engagement and learning, voter registration and education, and democratic engagement and participation.
K scored 33.7 points out of a possible 36 with K Votes—the CCE’s nonpartisan, student-led coalition that informs the College’s students, faculty and staff members about voting and civic engagement—being the primary driver of K’s efforts in powering voter participation. K Votes provides resources, reflection spaces and opportunities for civic participation while striving to help all students develop their individual politic, understand American political systems, and feel comfortable and confident exercising their political rights. It also helped fuel the College’s impressive voter turnout rate of 83.7% in 2020 during the last presidential election, a figure nearly 14% higher than the college campus national average, according to the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) at the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University.
The ALL IN mission is to foster civic culture and institutionalize democratic engagement activities and programs at colleges and universities, making them a defining feature of campus life. For more information on ALL IN, visit its website at allinchallenge.org.
Kalamazoo College and the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) have earned the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge’s Highly Established Action Plan Seal. The award recognizes the College’s efforts in developing a standout nonpartisan action plan for voter engagement ahead of the November election.
A Kalamazoo College student is being honored by a national nonprofit organization for his work as a K Votes Civic Engagement Scholar.
Nik Krupka ’24, a philosophy and political science double major, is one of 137 students from across the country to reach the Student Voting Honor Roll through the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, an initiative of Civic Nation.
The challenge is celebrating advocates such as Krupka, who advance on-campus, nonpartisan efforts to achieve excellence in democratic engagement while improving civic learning and voter participation. Civic Nation works to build a more inclusive country by bringing together individuals, grassroots organizers, industry leaders and influencers to tackle social challenges.
“It is an honor to be recognized among the other students from around the country for the work we have done here at K,” Krupka said. “I feel humbled to be among so many others since it shows the extent to which these projects are collaborative. Fostering an engaged community is a job much larger than a single person, and it was inspiring to see that, in fact, far more than just one person has taken up this task. I hope that K continues to see its students honored in similar ways as the years go on, and I know it will be so.”
Nik Krupka ’24 (left) is one of 137 students from across the country to reach the Student Voting Honor Roll through the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, thanks to his work as a K Votes Civic Engagement Scholar. He is pictured with Brynna Garden ’24.
Krupka helped his peers at K register to vote, learn about the issues at stake, and find information on critical ballot measures in local and state races in 2023 through K Votes, the non-partisan coalition that informs K students, faculty and staff members about voting and civic engagement through the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE). He said he initially found out about K Votes through a friend he met in a Constitutional and Race Law class taught by Associate Professor of Political Science Justin Berry last year.
“Before then, I had never really engaged with the program,” Krupka said. “My friend was graduating at the time, and I was looking for a way to get out of my shell since I tend to keep to myself, so I was excited to meet the folks at the CCE when he connected us. Over that summer, I met with the CCE several times to talk more about my interests—particularly in the institutional dynamics of social change—and how they fit into the overarching vision for K Votes. I was over the moon when everyone at the CCE put their trust in me, especially inasmuch as this would be an amazing way to further develop those interests. That said, it was also a chance for me to expand my comfort zone and orient my efforts toward service more broadly. I’m proud to do work that I can stand behind that gets people critically thinking about their roles in this sometimes-confusing political system.”
The CCE aims to provide everyone—from first-time voters to those who have voted for years—information on the voting process, registration and knowledge regarding what their vote means. It has worked with dozens of faculty and staff for more than 15 years to support student-voter engagement. In recent years, CCE post-baccalaureate fellows and paid student Civic Engagement Scholars have built community connections and campus structures through K Votes. Those efforts have helped hundreds of students through quarterly voter education events, democratic advocacy and activism, and the countless individual efforts by students to get their votes cast.
“It’s important for every community to vote and make themselves heard,” Krupka said. “Kalamazoo College students, staff and faculty are no exception to that. What can be said about K in particular, is that its community takes to heart many of the things a liberal arts education seeks to imbue its students with. We gladly take up the research, critical thinking, teamwork and communication needed for productive political thought, and that should inspire us with the confidence to go out and push for the changes we want to see in the world. To this end, it is important to reject the notion that what we do here is of purely instrumental value. We don’t—or shouldn’t—come here just because it is a stepping stone to a job or graduate education later on. To really embrace the value of what we do here, K’s community needs to get involved, whether that means voting or something else. K Votes has shown me how small a part of our learning takes place in the classroom alone. The world is bigger than what is in our books.”
ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge Executive Director Jennifer Domagal-Goldman said students have a powerful role to play in fostering active and engaged campuses and getting their peers to participate in democracy regardless of whether it’s a presidential election year or one with critical state and local races on the ballot.
“These honorees hosted candidate information sessions, created guides on polling location accessibility, registered their peers to vote and so much more,” she said. “We know these students will continue to make a difference in our democracy.”
For more information on the CCE, K Votes and Civic Engagement Scholars, visit the CCE website.
Lina Alalami holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in foreign languages with a minor in journalism from the University of Jordan.
Alalami (left) and Kenia Coronel Gonzalez were two of the students representing K at the Michigan Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (MiTESOL) conference.
A visiting international student with experience teaching English to youths was among a Kalamazoo College contingent that recently returned from presenting at a statewide teaching conference.
On October 14, Lina Alalami—from Aman, Jordan—was joined by Learning Support Specialist and ESL Coordinator Candance B. Combs, and students Paola Guzman Jimenez and Kenia Coronel Gonzalez at the Michigan Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (MiTESOL) conference. Together, they spoke on “Engaging College Students as Teachers’ Assistants in Kalamazoo Public Schools.”
Alalami holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in foreign languages (German, Italian and English literature) with a minor in journalism from the University of Jordan. Influenced by diverse communities in Aman, Alalami developed an eagerness to learn new foreign languages and gain insights regarding different cultures. In addition, she wants to pursue a career where she can work to bring understanding between cultural groups around the world, especially in the Middle East.
One of the reasons why she decided to join K as a visiting international student is its great reputation with the K-Plan on an international level. She said K has a unique academic environment that cares about on- and off-campus communities.
At K, Alalami works closely with Combs in the academic course LANG295: One in a Billion, a class where K students each week visit newcomer classrooms in some of the Kalamazoo Public Schools to provide academic support to children and teens from Afghanistan, Rwanda, Syria and Central America. Through a collaboration with the Kalamazoo Teaching Volunteers, a Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement student-led program, Alalami also works as an assistant tutor at Maple Street Middle School, where she teaches Arabic to non-Arabic students. Additionally, she teaches English to ESL students and refugees as an assistant tutor at Millwood Middle School.
At the MiTESOL conference, Alalami discussed the Kalamazoo Teaching Volunteers, her student engagement and the Newcomers Newsletter produced by students in Combs’ classes.
“I always tend to be proactive and I want to give back to the community,” Alalami said. “I have been volunteering since the age of 13. My sense of altruism is something that drives my enthusiasm and commitment to support the newcomers.”In her on-campus involvement, she is part of the Arabic Student Union and actively contributes by supporting the events that help students learn more about Arabic culture. As an international student from a different cultural background, she feels a responsibility to step out of her comfort zone and counter stereotypes that students may have heard in the broader world. Similarly, she enjoys connecting with and learning from others.
“Being active on campus gives me an opportunity to meet and connect with a lot of K students,” Alalami said. “I have the chance to meet people with a wide range of different interests and passions. It makes me happy to learn something new every day about our college and student activism. I also saw at K-Fest that we have a diverse set of student organizations that contribute to our campus community. Kalamazoo College is a student-centric college that makes every student a proactive citizen.”
Editor’s note: This story was written by Blagoja Naskovski ’24. He serves as a social media ambassador for the College Marketing and Communications team.
Through a collaboration with the Kalamazoo Teaching Volunteers, Alalami works as an assistant tutor at Maple Street Middle School, where she teaches Arabic to non-Arabic students.
Kalamazoo College students are not only known for their high academic accomplishments, but also their pro-active engagement in the local communities outside campus. One of those students is Rojina Timsina ’24, who has been civically engaged in her local communities since high school. Rojina’s earliest civic engagement experience included volunteering with the Refugee Educational Center in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Once she arrived in Kalamazoo, her sophomore year of college, she was drawn to the work that the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) did in the Kalamazoo community. Through the CCE, she worked as a classroom aide at El Sol Elementary School, where she assisted the teacher in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms. Additionally, she worked as a monitor and tutor with the Homework Champions Tutoring program (HCT). Students who work with HTC join a partnership through the CCE that includes Kalamazoo Public Schools, the Refugee Outreach Collective and Western Michigan University to provide educational, emotional and holistic support to recently settled refugee students and their families in the Kalamazoo area.
This year, Rojina is one of the three Civic Engagement Scholars (CES) for the HCT program. As a CES, Rojina’s roles include recruiting K students for the program, facilitating orientations and reflection sessions, working toward expanding the program, and serving as a liaison between the K students and the community partners. “I was very drawn to the mission of HCT, and the group of very dedicated, aware and intentional people that were making this program happen,” Rojina said.
Rojina has also been involved in the public policy and non-profit sector during the past two summers. Through the CCE’s Community Building Internship program, she interned at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) (2022). As a public policy intern, she was working with coalitions around Michigan that were attempting to gain momentum on policies that would serve the communities they represented. Rojina’s favorite policy was the Drive Michigan Forward act that allowed Michigan residents to obtain a driver’s license regardless of their immigration status. Also through the CBI program, in 2023 Rojina interned at the Kalamazoo Youth Development Network, where she explored how the values of identity, belonging and agency are incorporated within the BIPOC youth programs. While studying abroad in Jordan, Rojina worked with a global organization called Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB). TBB connects refugees to international job opportunities, opening labor mobility as a complementary solution to traditional refugee resettlement. As an intern, she helped with the process of finding professional jobs overseas for refugees in Jordan and assisting them with the preparation process after they received the job.
Rojina is a senior working on her psychology major with an English minor. She enjoys the diversity of classes, viewpoints and ideas in both the psychology and English departments. “I have absolutely loved every class I have been in,” she said. “I have taken unique memories, knowledge, perspective, and ah-ha moments from every class. My First-Year Seminar, Culture of Slang, with Candace Combs challenged me to appreciate the uniqueness of my identity and find a community that I can fall back on to this day. One of my most beloved assignments has been a five-hour life history with a K student for my Narrative Analysis class with Dr. Gary Gregg. Some of my most significant memories this past year can be traced back to my beginning Arabic classes with Professor Anna Swank. The Arabic program at K really challenged me to step out of my comfort zone and paved a path for me to go abroad and live life in another language.”
Editor’s note: This story was written by Blagoja Naskovski, a senior at K, majoring economics with a minor in art history. Currently he serves as a social media ambassador for the College Marketing and Communications team.
Rojina Timsina ’24, seen here on study abroad in Jordan, is a Civic Engagement Scholar in the Homework Champions Tutoring program through the Center for Civic Engagement at Kalamazoo College.Rojina Timsina ’24 has been civically engaged in her local communities since high school.
Kalamazoo College is one of the nation’s best colleges for students seeking a great education with excellent career preparation at a relatively affordable price, according to the Princeton Review.
The education services company Tuesday named K as one of its Best Value Colleges for 2023 and ranked the College No. 16 among the Top 20 Private Colleges for Making an Impact. That ranking is up two spots from No. 18 last year.
“It’s not surprising that Kalamazoo College continues to receive these honors from the Princeton Review,” Dean of Admission Suzanne Lepley said. “The K-Plan—our unique approach to the liberal arts and sciences—provides a broad-based education, as well as the communication, decision-making, and problem-solving skills students will need as professionals, continuing students and citizens. A K education empowers their outcomes as they help build a better world.”
The Princeton Review chose 209 schools for the 2023 list based on data from its surveys of administrators at more than 650 colleges in 2022-23. Topics covered everything from academics, cost and financial aid to graduation rates and student debt. The company also factored in data from its surveys of students attending the schools as well as data from PayScale.com’s surveys of alumni about their starting and mid-career salaries and job satisfaction.
The Princeton Review has named Kalamazoo College one of its Best Value Colleges for 2023 and ranked K No. 16 among the Top 20 Private Colleges for Making an Impact.
In all, the Princeton Review crunched more than 40 data points to tally return-on-investment ratings of the colleges that were Best Value Colleges school selections.
While the Princeton Review does not rank the Best Value Colleges hierarchically from 1 to 209, Kalamazoo College is one of just four Michigan institutions, private or public, to be honored this year. It’s also the only private institution in the state recognized as a top place where students can make an impact.
“The schools we chose as our Best Value Colleges for 2023 are a select group: they comprise only about 8% of the nation’s four-year undergraduate institutions,” said Rob Franek, editor-in-chief of the Princeton Review. “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/or for their comparatively low cost of attendance.”
The Princeton Review is also known for its other college rankings in dozens of categories, many of which are reported in its annual book, The Best 388 Colleges, published in August, which again included K in 2023.
After the 2020 federal election, Kalamazoo College earned platinum status in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge with 83.7% of eligible students casting their ballots, nearly 20% higher than the national average. Now, thanks to the organizing efforts of the Center for Civic Engagement team (CCE), K Votes Civic Engagement Scholars and volunteers, and allied faculty, K also has been certified as a Voter Friendly Campus with the national Campus Vote Project for the first time. This places Kalamazoo College among 258 other campuses in 38 states.
Campus Vote Project is a part of the Fair Elections Center, a national nonpartisan voting-rights and election-reform organization. Campus Vote Project works with universities, community colleges, faculty, students and election officials to reduce the barriers of student voting. It works across 41 states with more than 3.4 million students. The Voter Friendly Campus designation, a collaboration between Campus Vote Project and NASPA, was created “to help institutions develop democratic engagement action plans that coordinate administrators, faculty and student organizations in civic and electoral engagement.”
To be designated a Voter Friendly Campus, the college must submit a plan outlining what actions they plan to take during the election cycle to increase voter engagement. They then submit a report after the election that assesses how successful they were in their efforts and how they can improve in the next election cycle. This report is reviewed and scored by members of Campus Vote Project to determine whether the efforts warrant the designation.
“I see this as an important accomplishment,” Civic Engagement Scholar Thomas Lichtenberg said. “For years, K has been building a coalition of staff, faculty and students to ensure that every eligible student has the resources and opportunity to vote. I am overjoyed by the results of our efforts, and this is a perfect opportunity for us to continue to grow and improve.”
Lichtenberg added that this is just one of the initiatives that K Votes has planned for spring term.
“It’s important to remember that there’s always an election happening somewhere,” he said. “Kalamazoo has a special election on May 2. It might seem minor compared to the flashier elections, but we want to remain consistently engaged and make sure that the other elections do not go ignored.”
This commitment to election engagement will be layered with several on-campus activities and events in which students can participate to see firsthand what it means to be politically active between elections.
Over more than 15 years, dozens of faculty and staff have contributed volunteer time and resources to support student-voter engagement. In recent years, CCE post-baccalaureate fellows and paid student Civic Engagement Scholars have built community connections and campus structures to connect students to nonpartisan voter education and prepare them for lifelong civic engagement. These efforts have helped hundreds of students through quarterly voter education events, democratic advocacy and activism, and the countless individual efforts by students to get their votes cast. Congratulations, K voters!
Thanks to the organizing efforts of the Center for Civic Engagement team (CCE), K Votes Civic Engagement Scholars and volunteers, and allied faculty and staff, Kalamazoo College has been certified as a Voter Friendly Campus with the national Campus Vote Project.Civic Engagement Scholar Thomas Lichtenberg ’23 and Eleanor Carr ’23 were two of the integral people working with K Votes to support student voting by organizing shuttles to the polls for the 2022 Midterm Election.
When Kalamazoo College’s Department of German Studies was one of just three in the country to earn a German Center of Excellence award last year, the department’s community outreach was cited as one reason why.
Some of that community outreach was put into motion when Assistant Professor of German Petra Watzke secured a La Plante Grant in summer 2021 for K’s introductory German students to plan workshops for fourth graders in Ms. Snow’s class at Woodward Elementary School in Kalamazoo. That fall and in fall 2022, in a partnership with the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Community Engagement (CCE), K students collaborated to provide children with early lessons in the foreign language.
The outreach struck such a positive chord with parents, teachers, children and the K students, that the program expanded during the winter term to include Ms. Longhon’s kindergarten class at the school. In its most expansive effort to date, teaching assistants Alex Nam ’25 and Ben Flotemersch ’23 tested their new language skills by preparing lessons and materials for both grades, introducing lessons, and supporting students in the classroom.
“I went on one or two trips to Woodward in the fall, and then I was asked by Professor Watzke if I would want to help lead these trips as a TA,” Nam said. “I immediately said, ‘Oh, yes, I’d love to join in.’ Chances are not all of them will remember every word we teach them for the rest of their lives. We just want to instill within the kids an open-mindedness that leads to learning new languages. We want them to understand that different languages may sound a little weird and some may sound really similar to English. That sense of progress is something I’ve definitely seen with the kids through their willingness to step into the discomfort of learning a new language.”
In return, K representatives such as Flotemersch experienced a valuable way to make deeper connections within the community by visiting Woodward.
“I hadn’t really felt in touch with the Kalamazoo until now,” Flotemersch said. “My first year, we had 20 weeks on campus, and then COVID hit. Then, I was isolated sophomore year. This is just my fourth term on campus, and for the first time, I feel I’ve left campus and I’ve had a great time.”
Nam and Flotemersch both worked in close contact with Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Associate Professor of German Kathryn Sederberg and Watzke, who helped them build syllabuses and curriculums.
“It’s rewarding to go into the elementary schools and interact with these kids,” Nam said. “But on a deeper level, it allows me to contextualize how I learned German because I began these trips last year as a 101 student when I barely knew any German myself. To put myself in the role of a teacher instead of a student for a concept that’s still very fresh provides me with a much greater appreciation for German education, as well as the German language, because I’ve been able to see both perspectives of student and teacher.”
It was an experience that Flotemersch hopes will touch more K students while benefiting Woodward students in the future.
“I think we all had this experience, when we were kindergarteners or fourth graders, of an adult who showed up as a special guest,” Flotemersch said. “Those are highlights of our school experiences. When someone comes and they’re teaching you German, that’s amazing, and I think more people should volunteer in similar ways.”
Flotemersch and Nam gained experiences through volunteering at Woodward that might improve their chances of earning the Fulbright scholarships they seek. Through its U.S. Student Program, Fulbright helps graduating seniors, graduate students, young professionals and artists to teach English, perform research or study abroad for one academic year.
Kalamazoo College introductory German students have been volunteering and planning workshops at Woodward Elementary School in Kalamazoo since fall 2021.Alex Nam ’25 (second from left) tested his German skills by preparing lessons and materials for kindergartners and fourth graders at Woodward Elementary School.Nam (right) and Ben Flotemersch ’23 (second from right) experienced a valuable way to make deeper connections within the community by visiting Woodward Elementary School this winter to teach kindergartners and fourth graders basic German words and phrases.
For Flotemersch, that would mean following in the footsteps of his brother, K alumnus Matthew Flotemersch ’20, who now serves Fulbright’s U.S. Teaching Assistant Program in Austria. The elder brother also previously earned a Fulbright through the U.S. Student Program to teach in Germany. But for now, the younger brother is relishing his opportunity to instill a love of foreign languages locally.
“We can’t expect every kid to be engaged all the time,” Flotemersch said. “One kid might be kind of sleepy one day, and the next week, they’re super engaged. We just keep using different teaching strategies, and hopefully, we reach as many kids as we can. Emotionally, reaching students makes the teaching really rewarding.”
Civic Engagement Scholar Thomas Lichtenberg ’23 and Eleanor Carr ’23 were two of the integral people working with K Votes to support student voting by organizing shuttles to the polls for the 2022 Midterm Election.
A nonpartisan and nonprofit initiative is saluting Kalamazoo College today as one of 394 U.S. institutions doing the most in higher education to encourage student voting.
K is being recognized as a 2022 All-In Most-Engaged Campuses honoree, meaning that the College:
Reported its 2020 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 2022 voter-engagement action plan.
Signed on to a national list of institutional presidents committing their colleges to efforts that increase student turnout at the polls.
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 K’s efforts in increasing voter participation. In 2020, K eclipsed national averages for voter turnout as 83.7 percent of the student body cast ballots in the presidential election. That rate was the highest among all campuses in Michigan and put K in the top 4 percent of colleges and universities nationally that reported their data to the IDHE.
K Votes representatives work in partnership with their student peers, the local League of Women Voters and the national Rock the Vote organization—which is led by Executive Director Caroline DeWitt ’04, a K alumna—to register new voters, mail absentee ballots, provide rides to the polls, and distribute candidate information with maps to local polling places.
Those endeavors are the hallmarks of a robust get-out-the-vote effort, currently led by CCE Program Associate Riley Gabriel ’20 and K Votes Civic Engagement Scholar Thomas Lichtenberg ’23, along with students, faculty, emeriti faculty and staff.
“In addition to CCE staff, we could not have done any of this without the rest of the K staff and faculty who were eager to help with driving, helping register voters, and just getting the word out,” Lichtenberg said. “We appreciated the contributions of students Eleanor Carr, Lyrica Gee and Abby Stump, who worked closely with the CCE’s Students for Reproductive Freedom, and we collaborated with the NAACP and League of Women Voters of the Kalamazoo Area, registering voters at the Women’s March and assisting with their candidate forums, led by the LWVKA’s MerriKay Oleen-Burkey and Denise Hartsough.”
“Young people are shaping our future in myriad ways, and their informed engagement in elections is vital,” CCE Director Alison Geist said. “The CCE is grateful to our student leaders and all of the people in our community, both on and off campus, who energetically encouraged and enabled students to vote, many for the first time. Voting isn’t a panacea for social change, but it helps.”
Anna Canales ’23 helped plan and run the EASEL arts and science experiential learning summer program for grades 1–5 at Eastside Youth Strong
An art history major who wants to teach art before becoming a child advocacy lawyer, Anna Canales ’23 wrapped up her Community Building Internship with Eastside Youth Strong’s summer arts and sciences program by writing a children’s book about her experiences.
Anna Canales ’23
For Anna Canales ’23, a desire to help in the community has often been constrained by the need to work in order to remain financially stable, while also taking classes full time.
This summer, a Community Building Internship (CBI) through the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) made it possible for Canales to serve in her community and experience a potential future path. Each year, the CCE and the Center for Career and Professional Development offer K students the opportunity to apply for CBIs at a wide variety of local organizations. The positions usually last six to eight weeks, and interns are on the job for 30 to 40 hours a week while earning a stipend.
Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, near the border with Mexico, Canales saw many families separated due to immigration cases and other reasons. She herself spent time in foster care as a child and was adopted at age 13. Those experiences have shaped both her desire to volunteer and her plans for her future.
Canales has been heavily involved with the CCE, where Assistant Director Moises Hernandez ’17 has served as a mentor for her, and many of its partner organizations. She has worked with Kalamazoo dual-language elementary school El Sol, Latino community foundation El Concilio, and foster care organizations.
Majoring in art history, she plans to teach art for a few years before going to law school to become a child advocacy attorney.
For her CBI, Canales helped plan and run the EASEL arts and science experiential learning summer program for grades 1–5 at Eastside Youth Strong. The organization aims to help young people in the Eastside neighborhood in Kalamazoo graduate and develop social and emotional strength.
“When I read the mission statement of Eastside Youth Strong, I was really emotional about it,” Canales said. “I cried during my interview, and she told me, ‘It’s OK. It’s good that you’re passionate about children coming from low economic backgrounds and diverse backgrounds.’ Being with kids outside of the traditional school environment was important to me.”
Through the CBI, Canales was able to observe different teaching styles and also practice advocating for children.
“There were two different teachers in the program and they had such completely opposite teaching styles and ways of interacting with the kids,” Canales said. “I could pick and choose what I thought was working and what I thought wasn’t that great of a strategy for me personally. It was almost like shadowing in a classroom; it was a lot of input in how I would like to run my own classroom.”
In addition to helping with lesson planning, Canales was responsible for ensuring the students’ physical, social and emotional needs were being met.
“A lot of it was making sure everybody felt comfortable, everybody was respectful, everybody was having fun while learning,” Canales said. “While the teachers were teaching, my job was to make sure the kids felt like they were being heard, they were being seen. If they needed anything, I was the one to make those calls to parents, like, ‘Hey, does your kid need shoes? We can get them shoes.’ Or, ‘Your kid said they can’t eat XYZ, we’re going to work to get them a lunch provided that they can eat with their dietary or religious needs.’ Making sure the kids felt supported was my role.”
While Canales was initially intimidated by that role, by the end of the program she found herself feeling connected to the families and pleased that she made a difference. Many parents expressed appreciation for her efforts, and some asked her to babysit or tutor their children.
Watching kids who started the program shy and reserved blossom in confidence was Canales’ favorite part of the internship.
“It was so special seeing them grow and be more confident in themselves,” Canales said.
Canales learned a lot about supporting students’ social and emotional growth through the CBI.
“A lot of what I was learning was about the social emotional stages the kids are in, never getting upset or showing that you’re upset about something, no matter how stressful the kids’ behaviors could be,” she said. “I was always trying to find a solution and be the one in control of the tone, the mood, everything, and understand where these kids are coming from.”
Canales hopes to stay involved with Eastside Youth Strong in the future.
“I really appreciate that a lot of the people are women or people of color and that they do programs all year round,” she said. “You can really tell that they care about where these kids are coming from and where they’re going.”
In addition to the CCE, Canales has been heavily involved at K with the Pre-Law Society, Women of Color Alliance, Anime Club and K Desi, and this year she will serve as an interfaith leader. She has worked in the library, where Collection Services Librarian Leslie Burke and Digital Services Librarian Ethan Cutler particularly mentored her with helpful conversations about life after college. Professor of Art and Art History Christine Hahn and Assistant Professor of Japanese Brian White have also been mentors for Canales.
“I feel like so many people at K have impacted me,” Canales said.
She is grateful for the opportunity to pay that forward to the young students on the east side.
“As a full-time student who has to work, I don’t always have time for everything I want to do,” Canales said. “But I do my best to help when I can.”
Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez presented the Lux Esto Award of Excellence to Instrument Technician Tom Massura at the Founders Day celebration Friday at Stetson Chapel.
Tom Massura, an instrument technician in both the physics department and chemistry and biochemistry department at Kalamazoo College, is this year’s recipient of the Lux Esto Award of Excellence. The award, announced Friday to celebrate Founders Day, marking the College’s 189th year, recognizes an employee who has served the institution for at least 26 years and has a record of stewardship and innovation.
The recipient—chosen by a committee with student, faculty and staff representatives—is an employee who exemplifies the spirit of K through excellent leadership, selfless dedication and goodwill. Massura started at the College in 1987. Today, he maintains more than 50 machines used exclusively in the College’s Science Division while managing general science instrumentation and setting up physics labs.
Massura’s “kindness, patience, quick wit and positive attitude brighten the days of everyone he interacts with,” Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez said in presenting the award. “Nominators noted how helpful, dedicated and easy to work with he is with a sense of humor that helps days move along even when they’re challenging. His considerable technical expertise has helped generations of science students.”
In accordance with Founders Day traditions, two other employees received individual awards. Assistant Professor of Music Chris Ludwa was given the Outstanding Advisor Award and Associate Professor of Chemistry Jennifer Furchak received the First-Year Advocate Award.
State Rep. Julie Rogers presents a certificate honoring the Center for Civic Engagement for its 20th anniversary.
Assistant Professor of Music Chris Ludwa was presented with the Outstanding Advisor Award at Founders Day on Friday.
Ludwa is the director of K’s College Singers, the Lux Esto Chamber Choir and the Kalamazoo Bach Festival. Before arriving at K, he served as the director of music at the Federated Church Cleveland, where he led four ensembles, presented an annual concert series and maintained a voice studio for exceptional singers enrolled in performing arts academies and high schools.
Student soloist Julia Ghazal ’22
Student soloist Sophia Merchant ’25
Certificate presented by State Rep. Julie Rogers to the Center for Civic Engagement.
Nominators for the award said Ludwa is always a thoughtful and kind source of advice and encouragement, and Gonzalez added Ludwa is being honored for his “caring commitment and dedication to the growth and well-being of our students.”
Furchak teaches courses in chemical composition and structure, analytical chemistry and instrumental analysis. Her research interests are in analytical separations and spectroscopy.
Furchak has, through her first-year seminar, “not only illustrated how scientific work needed to evolve into a more equitable and inclusive form, but how our own work will contribute to this institutional shift and real, tangible benefits,” Gonzalez said. “Her instruction illustrates the importance of being one’s authentic self while pursuing one’s aspirations, scientific or not.”
Student soloists Julia Ghazal and Sophia Merchant also performed and, in a special appearance, State Rep. Julie Rogers attended Founders Day to present an honorary certificate to the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement to recognize its 20th anniversary. The certificate was signed by all the state representatives and state senators from Kalamazoo County, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist.
“In looking back over 20 years of the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement’s history, it’s clear that the hard work of the faculty and students has impacted many,” the certificate says. “Through thoughtful and ethical engagement, students gain skills, knowledge and critical perspectives that prepare them for meaningful careers and a lifelong commitment to the public good.”
