English

Student and Mentor Receive Pierce Cedar Creek Institute for Environmental Education’s Nature in Words Fellowship

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Kate Belew ’15 and Di Seuss, English, have received the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute for Environmental Education’s Nature in Words Fellowship for the summer of 2012.

Following Fellowship guidelines, students apply with a mentor from one of the consortium institutions.  Kate proposed that she will write a collection of poems inspired by Professor Emeritus of English Conrad Hilberry’s object poems in his chapbook The Fingernail of Luck. (Hilberry was a formative influence on the poetic career of Seuss, whom he first encountered as a high schooler in Niles, Michigan, and who graduated from “K” in 1978.)  In Kate’s poems, she will observe objects in the natural world, do research on their origins and characteristics, and then write in their voices, finding the intersection between the natural world and her own emotional and spiritual evolution.

She will be provided with housing at the Institute and will be given a stipend to support her work.  Di will meet with Kate throughout the summer to mentor her through the experience, and Di also have the opportunity to work on my own writing project at Pierce Cedar Creek. Said Di, “Many students from the region apply for this fellowship.  It is a significant achievement that Kate has been selected.”

“K” Student and Alumni Earn Alpha Lamda Delta Honor Society Fellowships

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Two Kalamazoo College alumni and one current student have combined to earn three of the 23 national fellowships awarded this year by Alpha Lambda Delta honor society for outstanding students who are working towards a graduate or professional degree.

Emma Perry ’08, pursing a graduate degree in English at Boston University, received a $5,000 award. Amel Omari ’09, in the master’s of public health program at the University of Michigan, received a $3,000 award. Matthew DuWaldt ’12 earned a $3,000 award and will attend law school at a yet to be determined institution in the fall. Founded in 1924, Alpha Lambda Delta recognizes students who have succeeded in maintaining a 3.5 or higher GPA and are in the top 20 percent of their class.

Teju Cole Wins 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

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Teju Cole
Author Teju Cole. Photo Credit: AP

Obayemi Onafuwa ’96, who writes under the pen name Teju Cole, has won the 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction for Open City. Cole will receive a $10,000 prize from the Hemingway Foundation and PEN New England, as well as a residency in The Distinguished Visiting Writers Series at the University of Idaho’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.

The Hemingway award was founded in 1976 by Mary Hemingway, widow of Nobel Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway. Patrick Hemingway, the writer’s son, will present the prestigious literary award to Cole on April 1 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Past recipients of the award include Edward P. Jones, who received an honorary degree from Kalamazoo College in 2011.

Cole is a writer, art historian, and street photographer. Born in the United States to Nigerian parents, he was raised in Nigeria and currently lives in Brooklyn. He received his B.A. in studio art and art history from Kalamazoo College; his M.A. in African art history from the University of London; and his M.Phil. in 16th-century northern European visual culture from Columbia University, where he is working on his Ph.D.

Alum Takes Appellate Judge Seat for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals

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Corinne Beckwith ’85 was sworn in as an appellate judge for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals during ceremonies in Washington, D.C. She was nominated last spring by President Obama, earned Senate confirmation in November, and has been serving in the post since December.

Cori earned a B.A. degree in English from Kalamazoo and while here served a student internship at the Holland (Mich.) Sentinel newspaper. She earned a master’s degree in journalism from University of Illinois and later worked as a reporter at the Midland Daily News.

She earned her law degree in 1992 from the University of Michigan Law School. Since 1999, she’s worked as an attorney representing the rights of indigent criminal defendants on appeal in the Appellate Division of the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., and was appointed a supervisor in that office in 2009.

English Alum Receives “Outstanding Faculty” Award

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Amelia Katanski ’92, English, received the Outstanding Faculty award from Michigan Campus Compact (www.micampuscompact.org) at the Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Conference on January 30 in East Lansing.

Nominated by President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran and the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, Katanski was honored for her commitments to local food, food justice, and sustainability and her dedication to engaged, student-centered learning.

She has been teaching a first-year seminar, “Cultivating Community” as a service-learning course since 2006. She is also faculty advisor to “Farms to K,” which she co-founded with students, staff, and community partners.

“Farms to K” advocates for a local purchasing policy at Kalamazoo College and works closely with other student-led Service-Learning programs, including community gardening initiatives and Migrant Rights Action.