English Archives - News and Events

K Welcomes New Faculty for 2025

Posted on October 3, 2025October 3, 2025

Kalamazoo College is pleased to welcome the following faculty members to campus this fall:

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Bonnie Ebendick

Ebendick arrived at K after earning her Ph.D. in biological sciences in August from Western Michigan University (WMU). She previously earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology/biotechnology, with a specialization in microbiology, from Michigan State University.

Before attending WMU, Ebendick worked as a research scientist at Michigan State, the University of Toledo and Iontox, LLC, beginning in 1999. Her teaching experience includes positions as a lecture teaching assistant and recitation teaching assistant at both Michigan State and WMU.

Visiting Assistant Professor Bonnie Ebendick — Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Bonnie Ebendick joins the Kalamazoo College faculty.

Visiting Assistant Professor of English Kevin Fitton

Fitton recently earned his Ph.D. in English creative writing from WMU. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Hope College, a master’s degree in New Testament from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a Master of Fine Arts from Bennington College.

Before arriving at K, he taught first-year writing, children’s literature and creative writing workshops as a graduate assistant at WMU; courses in creativity and literature at Grand Valley State University; and academic writing at Olivet University.

Visiting Assistant Professor of English Kevin Fitton joins the Kalamazoo College faculty.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry
and Biochemistry Andrew Jensen

Jensen arrived at K from the University of Michigan, where he was a postdoctoral researcher, a mentor for graduate and undergraduate researchers, and a guest lecturer for courses in chemical analysis, physical properties of analysis, environmental chemistry and mass spectrometry. He previously served as a graduate research assistant at the University of Colorado, Boulder and an undergraduate research assistant at Davidson College in North Carolina.

Jensen earned a Ph.D. in analytical, environmental and atmospheric chemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Davidson College.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Andrew Jensen joins the Kalamazoo College faculty.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics and Business Matthew Schultz

Schultz has prior teaching experience at Kellogg Community College, where he was an adjunct instructor for business courses specializing in economics; Lakeview School District, Climax-Scotts Community Schools and Battle Creek Central High School, where he taught marketing, accounting, entrepreneurship, business law, finance, business management, career preparation and computer science; and with the MiSTEM Network/Code.org, where he facilitated teacher training for the AP Computer Science Principles curriculum.

Schultz received a Ph.D. in education from Indiana Wesleyan University, a master’s degree in career and technical education from WMU, and both a Master of Business Administration and a bachelor’s degree in business management from Cornerstone University.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics and Business Matthew Schultz, new faculty, 2025 — Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics and Business Matthew Schultz joins the Kalamazoo College faculty.

Assistant Professor of Spanish Language and Literature Brayan Serratos García

Serratos García recently earned a Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature from Vanderbilt University, where he also completed a master’s degree in the same field. He holds a bachelor’s degree in World Languages and Cultures with an emphasis in Spanish from Iowa State University. His research explores transoceanic connections among Europe, Asia, and the Americas during the Early Modern period, with particular emphasis on the contributions of Indigenous and local knowledge-producers.

Serratos García has held teaching positions as instructor, adjunct faculty, teaching assistant, and course coordinator at Vanderbilt University and Fisk University, as well as a teaching appointment at Beijing Normal University. He has taught a wide range of courses from introductory language classes to advanced seminars on Spanish and Portuguese literature and culture. In addition to Spanish and Portuguese, he speaks Chinese and Italian and has lived, studied, and conducted research across Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Assistant Professor of Spanish Language and Literature Brayan Serratos García, new faculty 2025 — Assistant Professor of Spanish Language and Literature Brayan Serratos García

Student Earns Headline-Worthy New York Times Mentorship

Posted on September 30, 2025October 2, 2025

For Kalamazoo College student Sarah Guerrero Gorostieta ’28, a passion for writing has opened doors all the way to the New York Times.

Guerrero learned in August that she’s been selected for the New York Times Corps, a program for college students who could benefit from mentorship and career guidance. The Corps connects participants with veteran journalists and provides professional training before the students visit the Times newsroom. Although she won’t be writing for the Times, the program represents an extraordinary opportunity.

“I’m grateful for this because practicing skills in journalism will help me learn to be curious and how to ask questions,” she said.

Guerrero attended a student conference through the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in April, later attending the association’s full conference in July thanks to the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Fund at K. When the association posted about the Times’ mentorship program on LinkedIn, she felt earning a spot might be difficult with her limited experience—she only had two writing classes and no previous freelance work. Yet the post suggested the Times was looking for students just like her.

With that thought and some encouragement from Professor of English Marin Heinritz, she decided to apply. Today, Guerrero is paired with Motoko Rich, the Times’ Rome bureau chief. She will receive guidance from Times journalists and attend training sessions with her cohort for the next three years.

Guerrero—who enjoys studying English, political science and Spanish—began her journalism journey in high school outside Chicago. She pursued independent writing and joined her school newspaper during the pandemic to stay connected with classmates. Although K does not offer a journalism major, she has discovered that courses and opportunities at K are helping her prepare to become an independent journalist.

“Dr. Heinritz was a philosophy major, and she told me that you don’t need to major in English or journalism to become a journalism professional,” Guerrero said. “You just have to be curious. You just have to push yourself to learn. Motoko Rich, my mentor, told me that it’s important to learn a little bit about a lot of things. That’s why I think K, with our open curriculum, is so good for me. I can take a little bit of everything while also learning how to be good at one niche thing.”

Taking the introduction to journalism course with Heinritz further piqued her interest in the profession. One assignment for the class pushed her to interview strangers around campus and she learned to write stories on tight deadlines.

“It was nerve-wracking, but it also made me excited,” she said. “It was a way to orient myself as a first-year student and Dr. Heinritz encouraged me to keep going, even when it was difficult.”

Since then, Guerrero has leaned into every opportunity to develop her craft as she writes for K’s student newspaper, the Index, contributing campus stories, and freelances for NowKalamazoo, a nonprofit newsroom known for in-depth local reporting. Her first published story profiled a Nigerian food truck in downtown Kalamazoo.

“It was intimidating, writing for a broader audience I didn’t know,” she said. “But I realized I don’t have to wait until after graduation to do the real work. I can do it now.”

Those experiences complement her national opportunities, giving her both mentorship at the highest level and practical reporting experience in her community. Guerrero is especially drawn to solutions journalism, which highlights how communities address challenges. She also feels a strong responsibility to represent voices at K that might otherwise go unheard.

“We have a lot of students of color here, and their stories need to be shared,” she said. “I want to help build a bigger, more diverse staff at the Index.”

Guerrero’s long-term vision is to mentor younger student writers, expand the paper’s reach and ensure that it reflects the full K community.

Alumni of the Times Corps often go on to fellowships, freelance opportunities and newsroom careers. Guerrero hopes to one day pitch stories to the Times, perhaps even for its Modern Love section, which she has followed since high school. For now, she balances classes, reporting and her growing network of mentors. She admits she still gets nervous before interviews, but she sees that as a good thing.

“Journalists should be a little nervous,” she said. “It means the questions we’re asking matter.”

As she looks ahead to study abroad, internships and more bylines, Guerrero remains motivated by the same curiosity that brought her to the field in the first place.

“The future of journalism belongs to people who ask good questions and believe in the freedom of the press,” she said. “That’s the kind of journalist I want to be.”

New York Times Corps Member Sarah Guerrero Gorostieta stands next to a fountain that has NAHJ projected onto it — Sarah Guerrero Gorostieta ’28 attended a student conference through the National Association of Hispanic Journalists before the association’s full conference thanks to the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Fund.

New York Times Corps member Sarah Guerrero Gorostieta holds her NAHJ conference name tag — Guerrero applied for the New York Times Corps mentorship after attending two journalism conferences.

Portrait of New York Times Corps member Sarah Guerrero — Guerrero writes for K’s student newspaper, the Index, while freelancing for NowKalamazoo, a local nonprofit newsroom.

Poetry Class Fills a Modern Blank Space with Taylor Swift

Posted on April 16, 2025April 16, 2025

The music of a modern-day pop star helped a Kalamazoo College class discover last term that poetry, despite its history and ancient beginnings, still shapes how we as humans can sort through our emotions and define our identities. As a result, if you feel a need to be expressive in April, which serves as National Poetry Month, don’t just shake it off. Learn instead from Visiting Assistant Professor Monique McDade and the students who took Reading the World and Identities: Taylor Swift and Other Tortured Poets.

Swift could aptly be described as a tortured poet, sharing her intense emotional conflicts, acute sensitivities and tendencies to dwell on life’s darker aspects through her music, just as many great creatives have throughout history. Modern music itself is a form of poetry, characterized by its expressive language, rhythm, rhyme and ability to evoke emotions and tell stories, often in a way that resonates with a broad audience, particularly through song lyrics. These poetic elements make Swift a strong choice of performers to study alongside writers from Angelou to Wordsworth.

“It’s been an interesting class for me as a teacher because I’ve been a Swifty since I was 15, which was about the same age she was at the time,” McDade said. “Now, I have the chance to talk about her and teach her to a new generation.”

McDade was surprised to learn how few of the students going into the class would’ve counted themselves among Swifties, who self-identify as big Taylor Swift fans. She said out of 19 students in the class, only four said they were among the die-hard followers. That presented an opportunity.

“I was scared going in that we would’ve just been geeking out with no critical capacity,” McDade said. “Instead, I’ve heard, ‘I’m skeptical of this or that,’ and it’s been really fun to watch them soften to her. When we think about her as a poet rather than a pop artist, I think students get a different perspective, so those that are maybe not considering themselves fans walk away with a different respect for what she’s doing, even if it’s not their taste.”

Students pursued course assignments that consisted of readings about poets, a podcast and weekly reflections—pondering how they themselves might be considered tortured poets.

“Every week we had a prompt related to the course content, where I asked them to write a poem,” McDade said. “Some of them hated it, some of them loved it and some of them have grown to love it, but it’s been really beautiful. They were reading Taylor Swift or another poet, and they wrote a poem in reference to it or responded to it in some way. It’s showing how being an artist is about relating to other people. It’s OK if what they write seems to be insignificant or unimportant to the rest of the world, because Taylor has built an entire empire off of it.”

The podcast project grouped students together to create four episodes and a complementary blog that explored how different influences can shape the identity of an artist like Swift.

“In our contemporary age, nothing is more influential than the internet,” McDade said. “I wanted students to think about engaging ethically in online conversations about someone like Taylor Swift. We live in an age where people like to say a lot of things online that they wouldn’t say in person to someone.”

McDade’s favorite podcast title was “The Asylum I Grew up in.” The group included Grace Barber ’28.

“We decided on the title for our podcast because we wanted to have some fun playing on a Taylor Swift lyric, but also we wanted to capture some of the seriousness of the topic we were discussing,” Barber said. “‘The asylum where they raised me’ is a lyric from a song our group loves, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me, and hints at the brutal nature of the media we were talking about.”

Taylor Swift poetry class students make their final presentations — Students make their final presentations in the winter 2025 session of Reading the World and Identities: Taylor Swift and Other Tortured Poets.

Taylor Swift poetry class students make final presentations — Students in Reading the World and Identities: Taylor Swift and Other Tortured Poets pursued course assignments that consisted of readings about poets, a podcast and weekly reflections.

The podcast examined different so-called asylums that Swift faced during her formative years, such as the media spotlight or being a female in the music industry.

“Speaking for myself, looking at Taylor Swift as a poet throughout this project and course really expanded what I define as a poet,” Barber said. “Exploring the identity of being a ‘tortured poet’ and applying it to anyone, not just historic poets and artists, really connected listening to Taylor Swift’s music with many common experiences of girlhood, womanhood and growth through hardship. Literature and poetry can encompass a lot more things than I had previously thought of with English class, and I had so much fun in this course listening to music and poetry in a new way.”

National Poetry Month was launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 to highlight the importance of poetry and poets in culture while encouraging the reading, writing and appreciation of poetry.

“A big thing with this course, as with National Poetry Month, has been that we wanted to make a case for the importance of poetry,” McDade said. “On my syllabus, we pull a quote from author Julia Kristeva about poetic language as a destabilizing force to social norms or to power structures. In some ways, this gets interpreted as madness, so the students have been able to think about the things that torture them. Here on campus, a lot of them will talk about feeling not good enough, and because that resonates with Taylor, a lot of her lyrics talk about that, too. It’s been fun to think about poetry not as something elitist or highbrow, but as something all of us can practice. Maybe we’re not all going to make careers off of it, but we all certainly can practice it.”

Five Faculty Receive Tenure

Posted on March 19, 2025March 20, 2025

Five Kalamazoo College faculty members have been awarded tenure and promotion to associate professor, recognizing their excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. This milestone also signifies the College’s confidence in the contributions these faculty will make throughout their careers. The Board of Trustees-approved tenure recipients are:

Anne Marie Butler, Art History
and Women, Gender and Sexuality

Butler specializes in contemporary Tunisian art within contexts of global contemporary art, contemporary global surrealism studies, Southwest Asia North Africa studies, gender and sexuality studies, and queer theory. At K, she teaches courses such as Art and Gender, Queer Aesthetics, Performance Art and core WGS classes. She has supervised 13 Senior Integrated Projects (SIPs).

Outside the classroom, Butler has co-edited the book Queer Contemporary Art of Southwest Asia North Africa (Intellect Press, 2024) and published four articles, as well as a book chapter. She is a recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant and of a research grant from American Institute of Maghrib Studies. She is the current Junior Faculty Fellow at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, has served on the Sherbin Fellowship Post-Baccalaureate Research Award committee, and is co-convener of the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s WGS Collective. She is also a volunteer assistant K swimming and diving team coach, and volunteers at the YWCA and at Kalamazoo Animal Rescue.

Butler holds a Ph.D. in global gender and sexuality studies from the State University of New York-Buffalo, an M.A. in arts politics from New York University, and a B.A. in art history and French from Scripps College.

Marilyn Evans, Classics

Evans specializes in the archaeology of Roman urbanism, exploring the origins and early development of communities in central Italy. She has excavated sites across the Mediterranean, and for the past 15 years in the ancient Latin city of Gabii. At K, Evans teaches courses across the Classics curriculum, covering ancient language, literature, history and archaeology. She also has effectively integrated community engagement into her Neighborhoods in Ancient Cities course by working collaboratively with the Center for Civic Engagement and the Building Blocks community housing group.

Evans has supervised four SIP students, including two during summer research at archaeological digs in Gabii, Italy, outside of Rome. Her published work includes four peer-reviewed articles and two book chapters. She has served on K’s Educational Policies Committee, as regional vice president for the Classical Association of the Midwest and South, and on the editorial board of Rhea Classical Reviews.

Evans earned her Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of California, Berkeley, her M.A. in Classical Languages from the University of Georgia and her B.A. in Classical Studies and Anthropology, from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Benjamin Naka-Hasebe Kingsley, English

Kingsley’s specialty is poetry and he also has published works of fiction and nonfiction. His teaching centers on the poetry sequence within the English department: Introduction to Creative Writing, Intermediate Poetry Workshop, and Advanced Poetry Workshop.

Kingsley is the author of three books which have won over a dozen national awards, including the Association for Asian American Studies Award for Outstanding Achievement, the Library of Virginia Literary Award, and the American Fiction Award. He has published poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction in more than 100 journals and/or anthologies, including Poetry, Poets.org, Tin House, Boston Review, The Georgia Review, New England Review, The Southern Review and Oxford American. His collections are Dēmos: An American Multitude (Milkweed Editions, 2021), Colonize Me (Saturnalia Books, 2019) and Not Your Mama’s Melting Pot (University of Nebraska Press, 2018).

At K, Kingsley has twice been named a Most Valuable Professor, once by basketball student-athletes and once in football. He has also twice been named an Alpha Lamda Delta Inspiring Professor in back-to-back years.

Kingsley earned an M.F.A. from the University of Miami and an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Assistant Professor of English Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley — Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley

Rochelle Rojas, History

Rojas specializes in the early modern Western world and the transatlantic history of the early Spanish empire while focusing on the lived experiences of a wide range of people. She has supervised 11 SIPs, written two peer-reviewed articles, and authored a book, Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain 1525-1675, which was released this month by Cornell University Press. She has been awarded an American Association of University Women Short-Term Research Grant and an American Historical Association Albert J. Beveridge Grant.

Rojas has served as a member of K’s Academic Standards Committee and the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She has been a member of search committees for the vice president of finance and administration; director of grants, fellowships and research; and faculty searches in biology and chemistry. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Florida, and a master’s degree along with a Ph.D. in history from Duke University.

Tenure recipient Rochelle Rojas — Rochelle Rojas

Blakely Tresca, Chemistry

Tresca teaches organic chemistry at K while striving to bring research into the classroom. He has mentored more than 30 research students and supervised 14 SIPs with more than 50% of his research mentees attending graduate programs at institutions such as the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin and Washington University in St. Louis.

Tresca has had five published articles and recently received a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF funds will help his students develop a lab partnership with some of their counterparts at the University of Toronto while performing research with peptoid nanomaterials.

At K, Tresca has served on the Educational Policies Committee (EPC), where he participated in revising SIP guidelines and last year’s teacher’s assistant policy. Beyond EPC, he has been an advisor to K’s student chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS) while working with the local ACS professional chapter. He’s also been the Michigan representative to the Midwest Association of Chemistry Teachers at Liberal Arts Colleges Board.

Tresca holds a bachelor’s degree from Trinity University along with a master’s degree and a doctorate from the University of Oregon.

Tenure recipient Blakely Tresca — Blakely Tresca

K Welcomes New Faculty for 2024

Posted on October 1, 2024October 1, 2024

Kalamazoo College is pleased to welcome the following faculty members to campus this fall:

Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Kelsey Aldrich

Aldrich arrives at K from Duquesne University, where she earned a Ph.D. and served as a graduate teaching assistant in biochemistry. Her educational background also includes a Bachelor of Science in chemistry with American Chemical Society (ACS) certification from Grove City College, where she was an undergraduate teaching assistant in organic, analytical and general chemistry.

Aldrich will teach a Shared Passages Seminar course this fall titled Cultured: The History and Science of Fermented Foods. In winter spring terms, she will teach classes in general chemistry and biochemistry. Her professional affiliations include membership in the ACS and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB).

New Faculty Member Kelsey Aldrich — Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Kelsey Aldrich

Visiting Assistant Professor of English Erika Carbonara

Carbonara recently earned her Ph.D. in English from Wayne State University. She additionally holds a master’s degree from Oakland University and a bachelor’s degree with university honors from Wayne State.

She specializes in early modern literature with an emphasis on gender, sexuality, and kink studies. In her previous teaching positions, she has taught a wide range of courses from introductory composition to literature classes focused on Renaissance literature, children’s literature, and women’s literature. This term she will lead a course on social justice from a literary perspective with a focus on issues, events, movements and historical moments while emphasizing areas of power difference such as race and ethnicity, disabilities, class, gender and sexuality.

New faculty member Erika Carbonara — Visiting Assistant Professor of English Erika Carbonara

Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rachel Chaiser

Chaiser’s educational background includes a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a bachelor’s degree with honors in mathematics from the University of Puget Sound.

In Boulder, she served as a part-time graduate instructor in linear algebra for non-math majors and calculus courses, a graduate teaching assistant in precalculus and an advanced undergraduate research mentor. At K this fall, she will teach calculus with lessons in algebra, precalculus and analytic geometry.

New faculty member Rachel Chaiser — Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rachel Chaiser

Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Sharon Colvin

Colvin has teaching experience with the University of Pittsburgh School of Education as an instructor, leading students with research methods and applied research; and the University of Maryland First-Year Innovation and Research Experience (FIRE) as an assistant clinical professor. Before getting her PhD., she was a youth services librarian for 10 years. At K, Colvin will teach educational psychology in fall, which applies the principles of psychology to the practice of teaching.

Colvin holds a Ph.D. in learning sciences and policy from the University of Pittsburgh School of Education, Health and Human Development; a master’s degree in library science from the Simmons University Graduate School of Library and Information Science; a master’s degree in mind, brain and education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education; and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wellesley College.

New faculty member Sharon Colvin — Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Sharon Colvin

Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Caitlin Coplan

Coplan arrives at K from Northwestern University, where they recently earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. They also hold a bachelor’s degree with honors in physical and educational chemistry from the University of Utah.

Coplan has prior professional and teaching experience as an instructor as a part of the Arch program for incoming first-year students, and a teaching assistant for general chemistry and nanomaterials courses at Northwestern. They have also served as an interim undergraduate chemistry advisor, College of Science student ambassador, and teaching assistant in general chemistry at the University of Utah. At K, they will teach analytical chemistry this fall.

New faculty member Caitlin Coplan — Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Caitlin Coplan

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Mahar Fatima

For the past seven years, Fatima has served the University of Michigan, first as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a research laboratory specialist. Her research interests include studies of the sensory neural circuits under physiological or pathological conditions, the molecular mechanisms required to interpret sensory information, and how relations between neural and non-neuronal systems contribute to chronic pain, chronic itch, and pulmonary disorders. This fall, Fatima will teach neurobiology at K, addressing the structure and function of the nervous system with topics including the cell biology of neurons, electrophysiology, sensory and motor systems, brain development, and nervous system dysfunction.

Fatima earned a Ph.D. from the National Brain Research Centre in India along with master’s and bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry and life sciences respectively from the University of Allahabad.

New faculty member Mahar Fatima — Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Mahar Fatima

Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion Shelby King

King holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) along with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Texas State University, San Marcos.

Her teaching areas include the history of religion in America, religion and popular culture, religion and American politics, theories and methods in religion, and theories of genders and sexualities. Her professional memberships include the American Academy of Religion, and the UCSB Center for Cold War Studies and International History.

New faculty member Shelby King — Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion Shelby King

Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Cemile Kurkoglu

Kurkoglu comes to K from Denison University, where she had been a visiting assistant professor, teaching undergraduate mathematics and statistics courses since 2021.

Kurkoglu holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Indiana University Bloomington, where she served as an associate instructor for algebra, calculus and finite mathematics courses and she assisted for graduate mathematics courses. She also has a master’s degree from Bilkent University and a bachelor’s degree from Hacettepe University. Her graduate-level coursework included abstract and commutative algebra, number and representation theory, and ordinary and partial differential equations, real and complex analysis, and topology.

New faculty member Cemile Kurkoglu — Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Cemile Kurkoglu

Visiting Assistant Professor of History Josh Morris

Morris is arriving at K from Wayne State University, where he has been a visiting assistant professor at Grand Valley State University since 2021. Elsewhere, he has served St. Clair County Community College, the University of Toledo and Wayne State University as an adjunct faculty member; a graduate teaching assistant at Wayne State and Cal State University Pomona; and a lecturer for the Los Angeles Workers’ Center and the University of California, Irvine.

Morris holds a Ph.D. from Wayne State, a master’s degree from CSU Pomona, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, all in history. His professional memberships include the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Historical Materialism Society for Critical Research in Marxism, the Labor and Working-Class Historical Association and the Historians of American Communism.

New faculty member Joshua Morris — Visiting Assistant Professor of History Joshua Morris

Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Koffi Nomedji

Nomedji holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Duke University, a master’s degree in economics from Oklahoma State University, and bachelor’s degrees in sociology and economics from the University of Lomé, Togo, West Africa. At Duke, Nomedji taught courses in introductory cultural anthropology, the digital revolution, the anthropology of money, and development and Africa.

New faculty member Koffi Nomedji — Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Koffi Nomedji

Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science Nick Polanco

While recently earning a Ph.D. in computer science at Michigan State University, Polanco conducted research in automotive cybersecurity specific to autonomous vehicles. He also was a teaching assistant in artificial intelligence, computer organization and architecture, software engineering, computer systems, discrete structures, mobile applications and development, and database systems.

At K, Polanco will teach courses in introductory computing and programming basics for JavaScript and web development this fall.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science Nick Polanco

Director of African Studies and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Dominique Somda

Somda has arrived at K from the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where she was a research fellow. She also has past appointments as traveling faculty with the International Honors Program (IHP) at study abroad and world learning sites in the U.S., Spain, Jordan, India, Nepal, Senegal, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and Chile; as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Reed College and the Department of Anthropology and Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; as a visiting scholar in anthropology at the London School of Economics; as a postdoctoral fellow at the Université Paris Nanterre in France; and as a teaching and research fellow at the University of Paris Nanterre.

Somda has a Ph.D. and two master’s degrees in ethnology and comparative sociology from the University of Paris Nanterre, and a master’s and bachelor’s in philosophy from the University Clermont Auvergne.

Somda will lead a course this fall at K titled On Being Human in Africa. The course will examine the experiences of Africans through racialized and gendered existences, their affective relations, their ways of relating to and caring for each other and the land; and explore what it means to think and write about Africa with representations and discourses including fiction, academic writing and social media.

Director of African Studies and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Dominique Somda

Assistant Professor of Biology Clara Stuligross

Stuligross was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Riverside prior to K. She holds Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California, Davis, and a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Earlham College.

Stuligross studies the impacts of environmental stressors on native bee ecology and recently received a federal grant to study the effects of climate change on bees. She also has professional experience as a museum educator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, where she taught science outreach programs and developed hands-on climate change education lessons. At K this fall, she will teach Biology Explorations.

Assistant Professor of Biology Clara Stuligross

Visiting Instructor of Chinese Ruyuan Yang

Yang has a master’s degree in teaching Chinese to non-native speakers from the Beijing Language and Culture University, and a bachelor’s degree in teaching Chinese as a second language from Yunnan Normal University in Kunming, China.

Yang previously has taught college-level courses in beginning, intermediate and advanced Chinese at K; basic and intermediate Chinese, and Chinese dance and culture at Western Michigan University; and integrated Chinese and Chinese listening and speaking courses at Beijing Language and Culture University. Yang’s courses this fall include beginning and intermediate Chinese.

Visiting Instructor of Chinese Ruyuan Yang

Thailand Lessons Influence Student, Kalamazoo’s First Read Along

Posted on September 26, 2024May 15, 2025

Emerson Wesselhoff working at a table with a city of Kalamazoo table cloth, ready to lead city's first read along — *Emerson Wesselhoff ’25 is working in an internship with the city of Kalamazoo, where she is leading the city’s first Imagine* *Kalamazoo Reads effort through the book* “Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design” *by journalist Charles Montgomery about urban design and happiness.*

Emerson Wesselhoff with a host family and a fellow student in Thailand — Wesselhoff (left) sits with one of her host families and a fellow student in the Maetha agricultural co-op village. The younger Thai woman is Pi Pui, the expert seed saver for the village. The older Thai woman is her mom, Mae Sawn.

Wesselhoff works with elementary school students she led in a read along — Wesselhoff works with elementary school students during her internship in Thailand with Kiaow Suay Hom, which translates to Green, Beautiful and Fragrant in English.

A study-abroad experience, a passion for sustainability and a love for her city have helped a Kalamazoo College Heyl scholar leave her mark on Imagine Kalamazoo 2035, the city’s newly launched master plan.

Emerson Wesselhoff ’25 is an outreach and engagement intern working with City Planner Christina Anderson ’98. She was among the officials at an open house September 19 when the city shared some of its successes from the previous master plan and discussed with residents what they can expect over the next year with the new plan.

Now, as a part of Imagine Kalamazoo 2035, Wesselhoff will lead the city’s first Imagine Kalamazoo Reads effort, a community read along and discussion with clubs, community groups and residents. Together, they will have meaningful conversations about Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, a book by award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery beginning Monday, September 30. The book combines urban design and an emerging science of happiness that will help participants analyze some of the world’s most dynamic cities, while brainstorming what residents want in Kalamazoo.

“I first read the book at K through a class I took sophomore year,” Wesselhoff said, speaking of a seminar led by Anderson, City of Kalamazoo Chief Operating Officer Laura Lam ’99 and then-Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement Director Alison Geist. “We want Individual citizens, book clubs, organizations, boards, shops and institutions to read it, and every month we will host a community-led discussion of the book. I’ve put together a big toolkit that provides summaries, links to the author’s TED talk, and discussion questions to guide thoughts and processes. We want to get people thinking about how the city makes us happy and what happiness means in our lives.”

Wesselhoff’s opportunity is a relatable follow-up to a reading-focused experience she led when she studied abroad in Thailand last year. She concluded her time overseas with a six-week climate engagement internship through a non-government organization called Kiaow Suay Hom, which translates to Green, Beautiful and Fragrant in English. There, she studied the benefits of green spaces in fighting pollution and particulate matter (PM 2.5) as smoke and smog cause health risks such as heart attacks, cancer and respiratory issues in Thailand. The organization had created a children’s book about PM 2.5 that was central to the outreach Wessselhoff performed as part of her internship.

How to Participate
in the Read Along

Let Wesselhoff know if you or a group will join the read along and whether you would like resources by emailing her at wesselhoffe@kalamazoocity.org.
Happy City is available at a discount at Bookbug and This is a Bookstore (3019 Oakland Drive), in person and online. Use the discount code KALAMAZOO if you buy the book online. You may also read an online version of the book or get it from the Kalamazoo Public Library as an eBook or audio book via Hoopla.
Public read along discussions start Monday, September 30, with a gathering at Bookbug and This is a Bookstore. A second discussion will take place Wednesday, October 23, at Jerico, 1501 Fulford St. Free reservations are available online for the September 30 event and the October 23 event.
A Happy City toolkit is available online to guide independent reads and discussions.
Share your read along results by completing a brief online form, sending an email to hello@kalamazoocity.org with your responses typed, or attaching a scan of any written notes to an email. Return a paper copy by mail or in person to Community Planning and Economic Development, 245 N. Rose St. in Kalamazoo, during business hours.

Emerson Wesselhoff with other students in Thailand — During her internship in Thailand, Wesselhoff volunteered at a local farm with her fellow NGO interns to help the farmers prepare for a big harvesting event.

Emerson Wesselhoff discusses sustainability with elementary school students she led in a read along — Wesselhoff told elementary school students about what they can be do with green space and pollution-filtering plants to fight health risks that are common in Thailand.

Wesselhoff makes a presentation to a group of NGO's in Thailand — At the end of her Thailand internship, Wesselhoff presented information on her work to Chiang Mai’s Breath Council, a larger council of NGOs dedicated to helping fight PM 2.5 pollution.

“Having more green space, carbon-sequestering and pollution-filtering plants is a great way to combat PM 2.5,” Wesselhoff said. “Creating those green spaces starts with awareness and I learned the importance of youth education. A huge component of my internship was going around to local elementary schools in In the Mae Hia subdistrict of Chiang Mai, Thailand, and showing how sustainability connects to local culture, children’s lives, and how to keep them and their friends and family safe. I learned how to engage with kids and break down a heavily scientific and scary topic, while connecting it to their culture and their lives at home. It made them feel empowered to make choices that are healthier for their community.”

She hopes Happy City read along conversations will have similar success and spark some ideas regarding potential local sustainability efforts.

“I’m trying to help bring awareness to how the city impacts our sense of happiness and our sense of self in where we live,” she said. “That’s a big piece of environmental engagement work—knowing where you live, knowing its shortcomings, and advocating for the things that make it great, and sustainability planning is a huge part of that. I look at my study abroad experience, which was so centered on putting my assumptions on the back burner and learning from local people through their lived experiences. I’m trying to bring that same practice back here. I think we often turn to academics, politicians or big systems to figure out how to make progress. What I learned from local communities in Thailand is to focus instead on making space for our relationship to land, first and foremost. Community awareness and respect will follow close behind.”

Wesselhoff was abroad for a total of six months, spending her time first with the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute—a hands-on, fieldwork learning center based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, focused on sustainability.

With ISDSI, Wesselhoff and 13 other students from around the world, including two other K students, took one monthlong class at a time with courses including culture, ecology and community; sustainable food systems; political ecology and ocean ecology. The first week of each class consisted of lectures before the students stayed three weeks with host families, mostly in indigenous communities, and performed field or volunteer work in the community.

In the sustainable food systems course, Wesselhoff and her peers spent two weeks living in an organic co-op village called Maetha, staying with a seed saver and learning about organic agriculture. The third week she lived on an organic coffee farm called Nine One Coffee near a jungle and learned about the organic bean-to-cup process.

With the forestry course, Wesselhoff traveled to Mae Hong Son, the northernmost province in Thailand, near the Myanmar border, and backpacked between six villages, starting at low elevation and proceeding higher with each stop. Along the way, she lived with six indigenous host families who graciously taught the students about livelihoods and land rights in their highland communities.

During the ocean ecology course, Wesselhoff and her group went south to learn about mudflats and mangroves while living on a coastal farm, before spending about a week and a half in the Adang archipelago near the Malaysian border to kayak through more trading routes and learn about coral reef ecosystems. When the classes ended, students from other colleges returned home and the K students began working internships. Wesselhoff’s experience now feeds her desire to improve life in Kalamazoo.

Wesselhoff with a baby elephant — Wesselhoff greeted a baby elephant during an excursion with the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute.

Emerson Wesselhoff in Thailand — Wesselhoff participated in a field expedition to Wiang Khum Kam, an ancient archeological site south of Chiang Mai.

At home, the Loy Norrix High School graduate is a biology major with a concentration in environmental studies and minors in English and anthropology-sociology. She also serves K as a Climate Action Plan Committee student representative and intern, advocating for the College’s efforts in being carbon neutral by 2050. The committee maintains the College’s Climate Action Plan in association with the President’s Climate Leadership Commitment, which K joined in 2010, while establishing goals, monitoring progress, conducting annual reporting and providing guidance on projects and initiatives to support the plan. Plus, Wesselhoff writes blog post updates addressing news on climate efforts at K, and all her work excites her to extend her work into the city.

“The more time I spend in Kalamazoo, the more I realize just how much people care about this place,” Wesselhoff said. “I think I’m lucky because I’m not just here as a four-year college student. I have roots here and that gives me a distinct advantage. I’m in a college environment most of the time with the connections I build in the K community, but I also work with folks in the city, getting to talk to stakeholders and community members, going to places like the farmers market or events downtown like Art Hop and Lunchtime Live. Even if people have a complaint to voice, it’s because they care about where they live. The city of Kalamazoo is headed in a unique direction, with bountiful opportunities to make the city a more connected, livable, and sustainable place. I feel very fortunate to be here in a time of my life where I can learn all about those things.”

Three New K Grads to Teach in Spain

Posted on September 6, 2024October 2, 2024

Three recent Kalamazoo College grads have earned opportunities to work as English language teaching assistants and cultural ambassadors in Spain starting this fall.

Ali Randel, Andre Walker Jr. and Maggie Zorn, all from the class of 2024, have been selected for the North American Language and Culture Assistants Program (NALCAP) through the Education Office of the Embassy of Spain. They will work under the supervision of teachers in Spain to help Spanish students improve their English skills and understand American culture.

NALCAP recipients receive a monthly stipend and medical insurance for 14–16 hours of assistant teaching per week. They make their own housing arrangements and are encouraged to immerse themselves in the language and culture of Spain while sharing the language and culture of the United States with the students they teach. The program runs from October 1 to May 31, and participants can choose to apply for a renewal.

Ali Randel

Randel double majored in English and Spanish at K; completed a journalism Senior Integrated Project (SIP) about health and wellness resources on campus; was a student participant, wellness intern and president her senior year with Hillel at K; and studied abroad in Cáceres, Spain. On study abroad, she met several NALCAP participants, including a K alum, which first piqued her interest in the program. She knew she wanted to return to Spain after graduation, and Director of Grants, Fellowships and Research Jessica Fowle helped her consider options and apply to programs including NALCAP.

During her time in Spain, Randel hopes to continue improving her Spanish speaking skills, travel throughout Europe, and spend time with her host family from Cáceres.

“When I was on study abroad, my speaking improved a lot, and I’m hoping that I can continue to improve that and also learn more about Spanish culture,” Randel said. “I loved it in Spain so much when I studied abroad, and I can’t wait to get back and experience it through a different lens, with high school students, in a professional role and in a different city.”

Randel is placed at a high school in Bedmar y Garcíez, a small town in the southern Spanish province of Jaén.

Ali Randel in Spain — Ali Randel ’24 has been selected for the North American Language and Culture Assistants Program (NALCAP) through the Education Office of the Embassy of Spain. She will be at a high school in Bedmar y Garcíez, a small town in the southern Spanish province of Jaén.

Andre Walker Jr.

A psychology and Spanish double major, Walker incorporated both fields of study into his SIP by studying possible reasons bilingual people have been found to be more creative. During his time at K, Walker participated in the Black Student Organization, the Latinx Student Organization, Students for Justice in Palestine, and the volleyball club. He also studied abroad in Chile.

While applying to NALCAP, Walker was finishing his SIP and reading about how other countries prioritize learning a second language, especially English.

“In Spain, they start as early as primary, which I think is amazing, because the earlier you start, the more proficient you can become at a second language,” Walker said. “I want to see what the bilingual experience is outside of the United States, see how different and how beneficial it really is, and use that as a force to encourage more bilingual education here.”

Walker will teach primary students in the city of Santiago de Compostela in the northwestern region of Galicia. He hopes to improve his Spanish, learn some of a regional language called Galego (closely related to Portuguese), travel, and possibly extend the research of his SIP.

“I’m using this as a driving force of my long-term goals of wanting to use Spanish in the workplace,” Walker said. “I want to be able to advocate for the importance of hiring more bilingual people and the success they can bring for the overall work environment and spread the importance of bilingual education.”

Andre Walker Jr. ’24 ill teach primary students in the city of Santiago de Compostela in the northwestern region of Galicia through NALCAP.

Maggie Zorn

Zorn studied business and Spanish at K, was a swimming and diving student-athlete and studied abroad in Cáceres. Zorn also volunteered for the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement in Swim for Success, which offers swimming lessons to disadvantaged local children in a partnership with the City of Kalamazoo Parks and Recreation Department.

Zorn has been placed in Almonte, a town in the southwestern Spanish province of Huelva in the region of Andalucía, with high school-age students.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to revisit Spain, as I went to Cáceres as a junior for study abroad,” Zorn said. “I am incredibly passionate about teaching, and as a Spanish major, I see this as a way to combine my interests; long term, I am hoping to potentially turn teaching into a career. I am most looking forward to learning more about the culture and enjoying the natural spaces.”

Maggie Zorn ’24 has been placed in Almonte, a town in the southwestern Spanish province of Huelva in the region of Andalucía, through NALCAP.

Professor Emerita Earns Poetry Accolades

Posted on July 24, 2024July 24, 2024

Kalamazoo College Professor Emerita Gail Griffin—who taught in the Department of English from 1977 to 2013 and was key to founding what developed into the College’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality program—has recently earned three accolades for her poetry projects.

Among her recent awards:

Griffin earned a Pushcart Prize for the poem “The End of Wildness,” which she published in a recent collection titled Omena Bay Testament. The award is an American literary prize presented by the Pushcart Press to honor the best poetry, short fiction, essays and “literary whatnot” published in the small presses over the previous year.
Headlight Review at Kennesaw State University in Georgia is recognizing Peripheral Visions— Griffin’s chapbook about her diminished eyesight as a result of macular degeneration—with its Poetry Chapbook Prize. The honoree was chosen by another poet, guest judge Valerie A. Smith. Headlight Review provided a cash prize and will publish the chapbook later this year.
Griffin is co-winner of the poetry contest at New Ohio Review, judged by esteemed poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Griffin’s poem titled “Covenant,” for which she will share a cash prize, will be printed in the Review’s issue 35 this fall. Both “Covenant” and a separate poem, “It Comes Down,” are about the author’s brother, who died in December.

At K, Griffin twice was selected by students as the recipient of the Frances Diebold Award for faculty involvement in student life. She received the Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching, in 1989–90, and the Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Creative Work, Research or Publication, in 1998–99.

In 1995, Griffin was selected Michigan Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She received the 2010 Lux Esto Award of Excellence for exemplifying the spirit of Kalamazoo College through excellent leadership, selfless dedication and goodwill. In 2017, she received the Weimer K. Hicks Award for long-term support to the College beyond the call of duty and excellent service in the performance of her job. Her previous books include “The Events of October”: Murder-Suicide on a Small Campus and Grief’s Country: A Memoir in Pieces.

Griffin credits a local poetry group, first started by the late Professor Emeritus Conrad Hilberry, that she participates in for inspiring her to continue writing, leading to her recent success.

“I’m quite surprised to be having this little late career as a poet, since my first four books were nonfiction,” Griffin said. “I’m delighted that writing is at the center of my life now that I’m retired. One of my reasons for retiring at age 62 was to make sure that I could do this. Writing can be a very solitary act, but writing is also about community, and I think this community has really encouraged my poetry.”

Portrait of Professor Emerita and poet Gail Griffin, who is earning poetry accolades — Professor Emerita Gail Griffin

Silent Film Festival Spotlights K Student’s Creativity

Posted on May 22, 2024July 29, 2024

Ryan Muschler '25 (from left), Audrey Schulz '25 and Josie Checkett '25 act in a scene from "A Deadly Affair." — Ryan Muschler ’25 (from left), Audrey Schulz ’25 and Josie Checkett ’25 act in a scene from “A Deadly Affair,” an award-winning film by Grace Cancro ’25. Watch the film.

The title screen for "A Deadly Affair" — Cancro’s film “A Deadly Affair” was screened at the Redford Theatre in Suburban Detroit during the International Youth Silent Film Festival.

Fade in. Night. New York City. A handsome man bearing a striking resemblance to Humphrey Bogart wears a fedora and trench coat. He wanders through a foggy Central Park, pondering the recent film successes of Kalamazoo College student Grace Cancro ’25. He realizes that she won her age group at the International Youth Silent Film Festival’s Detroit regional and received an honorable mention in the Kazoo 48 competition. He also recognizes her potential as a screenwriter, playwriter, producer and director, which could make hers a household name.

He smiles and says, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

OK, so that script was never written, and the line belongs to a movie made more than 80 years ago. But Cancro has had an interest in classic movies—starring actors like Bogart—her entire life and her recent competitive success, starting with a family influence, is undeniable.

“I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ respective houses and watched Turner Classic Movies for hours with my grandpa,” Cancro said. “I’ve also done theatre my whole life.”

With her love for the theatrical, the Redford Theatre—an art deco-decorated site in suburban Detroit that shows classic movies and plays, commonly featuring an organ that rises from the floor—is a significant place for her. Cancro notes that it’s where she saw Singin’ in the Rain for the first time. Plus, she and Audrey Schulz ’25 tried out there to be extras—by cheering during a boxing match—for a film that ultimately was shelved.

Now the Redford marks the spot where her own film, A Deadly Affair, was chosen as one of 20 finalists at the Detroit regional competition for the International Youth Silent Film Festival. It ultimately won the category for 19- to 22-year-old entrants, beating out filmmakers from most of the eastern half of the country. Cancro earned a cash prize, a plaque, a certificate, and a chance to compete June 9 in Portland, Oregon, at the festival’s next level.

“My mom and I are going to fly out to Portland together. There will be a parade and a dinner, and the contest is a really big thing for me,” Cancro said.

International Youth Silent Film Festival organizers provided entrants with three minutes of organ music across a variety of genres. Cancro—a theatre arts and English double major with a film and media studies concentration—chose film noir for her silent film. She then assembled some excited friends and shot A Deadly Affair near her residence, in downtown Kalamazoo near the walking mall, and in Bronson Park. Ian Burr ’24 served as the director of photography, also called a cinematographer. Schulz portrayed a wife betrayed by her on-screen husband, Ryan Muschler ’25. Schulz’s character meets up with her husband’s mistress, played by Josie Checkett ’25. Together, they decide to kill the husband.

After the screening, Cancro awaited word of her placement.

“They had the awards at the end and I was super nervous,” Cancro said. “I held my friends’ hands and I apologized if I squeezed so hard that I crushed a bone. Then, they called my name. It was the coolest experience, because six years after we tried out as extras, we were seeing Audrey’s name and mine while watching her face on the screen.”

Since the Detroit competition, she also has participated in the Kazoo 48, a film festival that challenges entrants to take an assigned genre, prop, character quirk, location and line of dialogue, and create a short film in just 48 hours. Her film-making team included Burr, Muschler, Schulz, James Hauke ’26, Aidan Baas ’23, Michael Robertson ’25, Abby Nelson ’24, Jakob Hubert ’25 and Mabel Bowdle ’25.

“Our genre was fantasy, so Michael Robertson’s character got super high and thought he was in a fantasy quest to build a stop sign,” Cancro said. “It was shot at Ian’s house, on the street and at Lowe’s. Michael went to Lowe’s to buy a shovel to put his stop sign in the ground. We had to go to Lowe’s with everyone in full fantasy gear. We wrote it on Friday night, shot it Saturday, edited it Saturday night and Sunday, and turned it in around 5:55 on Sunday when it was due at 6.”

The team was forced to enter the professional category because a couple of its members had earned money for film productions in the past, so in the end they couldn’t beat out film-production companies to win the contest. However, they were awarded with Best Use of Character for Hubert’s role as a character who gave advice in rhyme.

Cancro appreciates the opportunities she’s had at K that have developed her passion and skill at filmmaking. Her sophomore year, she participated in the New York Arts study away program, and she studied abroad in London her junior year. A playwriting class led by Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas performed part of her self-written play—Sincerely, Scott—two years ago, leading her to create a 10-minute play festival for students, featuring the full play. Based partly on Cancro’s own life, the piece pondered what a man recovering from alcoholism might say in a letter to a daughter he’s never known before the two agree to meet. That festival will continue in its second year on June 1 with additional plays, comedy sketches and puppetry.

Now, armed with all these experiences, Cancro wants to return to New York, a place where she feels at home with many professional contacts, to film a mental-health themed Senior Integrated Project this summer. She plans to move there after graduation, hoping to mix in grad school while working in the film industry, perhaps with the nonprofit Women Make Movies (WMM), which distributes artistically significant films to audiences with a focus on uplifting the voices of the underrepresented.

Cancro has already worked with Women Make Movies in two internships with the first arranged through the New York Arts Program thanks in part to her software design experience in work study through K’s theater department. She then lived in a K graduate’s apartment last summer to work in a second internship with WMM. But whether it be through individual projects or a permanent job, Cancro recognizes the power of film, her talents and interests, and how they might combine to benefit society.

“Theater and film have the power to make people feel things and feel seen and that’s what it’s done for me,” Cancro said. “There’s merit in the adventure films that have CGI and explosions and all that. But I like to focus on the stuff that’s closer to the human experience, whether that be just my experience that I’m putting into a character on the screen or someone else’s experience. I want to put that into my art and have people watch it, think about it for long after, and feel it.”

Grace Cancro receives a plaque at the International Youth Silent Film Festival in Detroit — Cancro received a plaque for winning the Detroit regional of the International Youth Silent Film Festival in her age group.

Filmmaker Grace Cancro '25 works with Josie Checkett '25 — Filmmaker Grace Cancro ’25 works with Audrey Schulz ’25 for Cancro’s award-winning film, “A Deadly Affair.”

Poet, Tutor, Critic: Alumna Explores ‘Musicality of Language’

Posted on April 3, 2024June 23, 2025

National Poetry Month in April encourages a focus on the importance of poets and poetry in society. In recognition of this literary celebration, Kalamazoo College spoke with Zakia Carpenter-Hall ’06 about her roles as poet, teacher and critic, and the way each of those relationships with poetry feeds the others.

One of the earliest memories Zakia Carpenter-Hall ’06 holds of the “musicality of language” that eventually drew her to poetry involves family, cultural heritage and growing up in Pentecostal churches. Her grandfather and uncle both served as pastors.

“There was a musicality and cadence in the way that they presented stories,” Carpenter-Hall said. “I remember being very young and wanting to listen to sermons for those reasons and for the story within a story. I loved that there were layers to the parables they told, and that I could get something out of it, even at an early age. For me, though, that didn’t translate into storytelling; it translated into wanting to write poetry.”

By the age of 13, Carpenter-Hall was writing her own poetry. Yet at 19, she still found it difficult to absorb the words of Diane Seuss ’78, writer in residence and a professor of English at Kalamazoo College at the time. Seuss was the first person to tell Carpenter-Hall she could pursue poetry professionally if she wanted to do so.

“I didn’t personally know anybody who was a Black writer, a Black poet, who was actually doing that as a career,” Carpenter-Hall said. “I didn’t know if it was really possible.”

In fact, Carpenter-Hall left K feeling like she could not continue writing or furthering her education. After a couple years with AmeriCorps, an opportunity arose to move to the United Kingdom, where she initially pursued teaching at the elementary level. When she decided that wasn’t the right fit, her family and friends encouraged her to write. She gave herself a year to pursue it full time, “and then I just never went back. I got other jobs, writing-adjacent jobs, and I just kept going.”

“I had to change my relationship to writing and education. I learned how to have my own connection to writing, research and scholarship outside of an institution and away from the motivators of external gratification and grades. I had to learn how to enjoy writing again, like I did when I was a child.”

With the help of Black poets she met in England who became friends and mentors, Carpenter-Hall forged a new relationship to poetry that opened the door for her to return to school. She earned a Master of Fine Arts with distinction and is a fully funded researcher seeking a Ph.D. She also is writing, teaching and reviewing poetry.

“I really, really like having such a variety of things that I’m doing,” Carpenter-Hall said. “It all feeds into my writing.”

She teaches classes at a variety of places, including for the Poetry School.

“Teaching is like a laboratory of being able to explore whatever I’m thinking about at the time,” she said. “I’ve been able to teach classes on topics like myth, the body in poetry, and composition through a lens of collage. I love seeing how students work and develop over time, and how they interact with different texts. I will think I’m asking them to do one thing, and they will give me something I never would have expected. Students are wonderful in that way; you just cannot pinpoint, when you put an assignment together, how people are going to respond to it. As a teacher, you have to grow and continue to adapt your own perceptions, and I love the challenge in that.”

Her poetry reviews and poems have been published in Poetry Wales, The Poetry Review, Wild Court and Magma, and she has written multiple reviews for Poetry London.

“Reviewing poetry helps me incorporate other techniques and ways of presenting experiences and ideas,” Carpenter-Hall said. “It trickles into my own work, especially the things I find intriguing when I see other people doing them. Thinking about those things critically, and the way I have to read in order to review a collection, helps me to absorb what those different writers are doing, which then ends up coming out in my own idiosyncratic way in my work.”

When writing poems, she gravitates toward prose poems, sequences and long poems (“I like the challenge of holding the reader’s attention and seeing how long I can keep something of interest to me hovering in the air before gravity causes it to hit the ground,” she said).

“I am interested in whatever suits the content of what I’m writing,” Carpenter-Hall said. “I think about how I want the poem to be read, and I never think about form first. I usually write my early drafts in prose, and then I think about form in terms of what the poem wants to be, what the poem is trying to do. Once I have a sense of that, I break the lines and try different things until I hit on something that releases the poem. It’s a marriage of form and content for me.”

Prose poetry balances the lyricism of poetry with hints of the narrative of fiction, Carpenter-Hall said, without the beginning, middle and end readers would expect from a story. “Reading one is the experience of being dropped in the middle of something strange and unexpected.”

Her least favorite part of writing is getting words down on paper—or on the back of an envelope, typed at a computer, entered into a mobile app or whatever happens to be handy. With two young children who are both already interested in writing in their own ways, Carpenter-Hall can’t afford to be picky and will use any available medium.

“Sometimes an idea will be resonant enough to where I need to put it down on paper or I hear lines in my head, but usually I trick myself into writing something by taking a class or agreeing to a deadline that forces me to go through that process,” she said. “Once I feel like I have something here that can be molded, like clay for a sculpture, then that’s the fun part for me. It’s like a puzzle. I get to shape things; I get to move things around; I get to say, ‘Ooh, is this the beginning or is the beginning at the end? What about this line? Can I move this over here? What does that do to the poem?’ I’m looking for that feeling when you put a puzzle together, and it’s like, ‘Ah, it’s complete’—except with poetry, I don’t know what that finished thing is going to look like when I start.”

In addition to many published poems, Carpenter-Hall’s debut poetry collection, Into the Same Sound Twice, was published in April 2023 by Seren Books.

“My poetry is like a universe in the palm of your hand,” Carpenter-Hall said. “It’s vast, in the condensed space of a book, and it’s felt, it’s experienced through the senses. I have to ground the ideas and lived experiences in the physical world, so you have the vastness, but you also have intimacy.”

Key motifs in Carpenter-Hall’s poems include water, hair and gold. Many of her poems explore themes including science, the environment, human relationships and interactions with each other and the natural world, intergenerational familial relationships, motherhood and mothers, music, the speculative and surreal, expansiveness, the universe and space beyond, permeable borders, and visual art.

“What I would like people to know about my poetry is that it is both complex and accessible,” Carpenter-Hall said. “People who may not read poetry regularly might think, ‘Oh, if there’s a poem with a mother, it’s your mother, and if it seems like a story from your life, that’s it.’ I want people to know that, at least for my own poetry, it has a bit of allegory, it has myths embedded in it. I don’t see it as facts we can know; I’m not led by the specifics of what happened on a certain occasion. There’s more of an emotional truth and other meaning I’m trying to uncover. I’m always looking for the layers beneath an experience, for what I don’t understand about this thing that happened. I’m trying to explore the edge of what I know and go beyond that.”

A collage including poetry and a picture of Zakia Carpenter-Hall at one of her poetry readings — A poet, teacher and critic, Zakia Carpenter-Hall ’06 explores science, relationships and the edge of the unknown in her poetry.

“I think one of the things people get wrong about poetry is that they tend to think it’s not for them if they don’t have an immediate connection to it or they didn’t forge a connection to it in school,” Carpenter-Hall said. “For me, it’s like music; everybody has a kind of music that they like; I think everybody can have a kind of poetry that they appreciate reading or hearing. It’s different from other genres, because it doesn’t have to be narrative and it’s not always about literal sense, so you’re using a different way of thinking and feeling, as with music. It’s about how this makes you feel—the relationship between you and the poem —and I think if people opened themselves up and tried different kinds of poetry and mediums, they can find some that they enjoy.”

A poet reading from a collection of poems — With the help of Black poets she met in England who became friends and mentors, Carpenter-Hall forged a new relationship to poetry that opened the door for her to seek advanced degrees.

The Pitch

By Zakia Carpenter-Hall ’06

Instead of words, rocaille beads pour from my mouth and all the garments I’ve presented have been held together with a glue gun applied to the seams. Ms. Fashion Exec says, How do you plan to make money?, as the carpet begins to unspool because that too was somehow made by me, flecks of paint peel off the walls and swirl around the room. I am as silent as snowfall, but I show them diamonds made of paper, shoes constructed solely in felt. One interviewer asks whether or not this is a joke. This is not a business, the panel says, as the room fills up with my attempts—like the enchanted broom in Fantasia which kept going back to bring forth buckets of water long past there being a need—drawings I drew, dance choreography. It’s too much, they say, all this longing and striving. A gale comes in of the same force that’s beating against my lungs, as if someone’s opened windows on the 100th floor of a skyscraper, this ledge of fashion, and this gust eats at the panel’s notes. The judges still try to get their questions to me by courier, their clothes billow away from their bodies. What would you do if you had the money?, they ask. I tell them there would be more of me, and I would be gesticulating like a conductor in the centre of it all. Waves of sound and light crash at my feet. Building works commence next door and it sounds as though the workers are trying to break into the room with chisels. The panel take out their Louis Vuitton hard hats and persist, like this is just another wardrobe malfunction. And the room begins to glow white-hot.

Into the Same Sound Twice (Seren, 2023)

Carpenter-Hall’s Work

Visit Zakia Carpenter-Hall’s website for more about her life and work.

Purchase Carpenter-Hall’s first collection of poetry, Into the Same Sound Twice.

This summer, Carpenter-Hall will teach an online course titled Zig Zag Motifs: Lyric Invitation, Immersion and Criticism Masterclass through the Poetry School. Learn more and enroll.

Carpenter-Hall will be one of the contributing editors for the winter 2024 issue of Poetry Wales. To submit work for consideration, watch for the submission window to open here.