faculty

Kits Allow Lighting Students to Shine on

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After assembling, shipping and delivering several large kits, Kalamazoo College Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts can say, “Let there be light.”

Normally, Potts’ lighting design course, conducted each fall, would use a light lab filled with hundreds of lights and pieces of lighting equipment to guide his students. This term, though, required some quick thinking for their three projects when classes were moved online.

“We couldn’t bring the students to the light lab, so we were going to bring the light lab to the students,” Potts said.

Two students assemble lighting kits with a blue filter
Student workers helped Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts assemble 15 kits for his lighting design class this fall.

It took four weeks and many assistants to pack all the materials, yet he sent 15 kits containing items including seven lightbulbs, several feet of wiring, dimmers and a professional mannequin head. You can watch a video of Potts and  student workers assembling the materials through YouTube. FedEx delivered one kit to Texas and five throughout the Midwest. He personally delivered the other nine to students living locally.

“Lighting design is very unique,” Potts said. “It’s an ephemeral art form. It’s there and when the light changes, it’s gone. That’s a challenging thing to learn in isolation.” However, it’s beneficial for students to study lighting regardless of their major and where they’re doing it from, especially in the liberal arts.

“Lighting is always about problem solving,” Potts said. “I can’t think of a better thing to engage in than doing live event production or lighting design. I always end up doing something I’ve never tried before. Sometimes you ask, ‘What are the tools you have in your tool box?’ You then try some things and see what works.”

In the first project, students find an image of a painting and reproduce it at the size of a postcard. The second project involves taking 30 to 60 seconds of music without lyrics and making a video that includes light cues to that music. Finally, students use their lights to help them re-create a scene from a play through a lighting plot, similar to an architectural blueprint. In all these projects, the intensity, color, angle and distribution of light are important.

“It’s been fun,” Potts said. “I do know that by receiving these lighting kits, the students will be able to do everything we do here. They won’t have access to the hundreds of lights we have, but they will all be able to show all the things a light does.”

Potts, a professional lighting designer and consultant, has worked in international lighting and production design; national tour designs for opera and dance; and regional designs for opera, modern dance, ballet, drama and corporate events. He also earned his third Best in Lighting Design Wilde Award from EncoreMichigan.com in 2019 for his work in a 2018 Farmers Alley Theatre production of Bridges of Madison County in Kalamazoo.

“I absolutely love light,” he said. “How lucky am I to do something I love to do? Most of my students aren’t going to be professional lighting designers. But I feel when you learn a lot about light, it teaches you to be a keen, critical observer. And being a great observer of things around you, that’s a great life skill.”

K Recognizes Two with Lucasse, Ambrose Honors

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Lucasse Honoree James Lewis
Professor of History James E. Lewis Jr. was named the recipient of the 2020-21 Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship, honoring his contributions in creative work, research and publication.

Kalamazoo College today awarded one faculty member and one staff member with two of the highest awards the College bestows on its employees.

Professor of History James E. Lewis Jr. was named the recipient of the 2020-21 Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship, honoring his contributions in creative work, research and publication; and Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics Office Coordinator Kristen Eldred was granted the W. Haydn Ambrose Prize, recognizing her outstanding service to the Kalamazoo College community.

Lewis’ scholarly record includes published essays and book reviews in addition to four authored books:

  • The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire (1998, University of North Carolina Press), which was recognized as a Choice Outstanding Book for 1999.
  • John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union (2001, Rowan and Littlefield).
  • Kristen Eldred
    The Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics departments cited Kristen Eldred’s cheerful attitude, strong work ethic and creative community building in nominating her for the Ambrose Prize.

    The Louisiana Purchase: Jefferson’s Noble Bargain (2003, Thomas Jefferson Foundation), which was commissioned by the Jefferson Foundation based on Lewis’ previously published work.

  • The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis (2017, Princeton University Press), which was recognized as a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize and long-listed for the Cundill History Prize.

Lewis has taught courses in U.S. history, Native American history, American environmental history, Revolutionary America, the American frontier and Western history, and more at K. He also is a professional member of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.

A ceremony to confer the Lucasse Fellowship traditionally occurs in the spring term, where the honored faculty member speaks regarding their work.

The faculty across the Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics departments cited Eldred’s cheerful attitude, strong work ethic and creative community building in her nomination for the Ambrose Prize. She works to support the Sukuma group, an organization for underrepresented students in the sciences, and Green Dot, a campus movement to stop power-based personal violence. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, she also organized a weekly teatime for faculty and students, where students and faculty could informally have non-academic discussions.

The Ambrose Prize is named after W. Haydn Ambrose, who served K for more than 20 years in a variety of roles, including assistant to the president for church relations, dean of admission and financial aid, and vice president for development. Ambrose was known for being thoughtful in the projects he addressed and treating people with respect. In addition to a financial award, Eldred has earned a crystal award to commemorate the achievement and an invitation to sit on the Prize’s selection committee for two years.

Congratulations to both the honorees.

Fellowship Assures a Unique Look at Spanish Witch Trials

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Rochelle Rojas Discusses Spanish Witch Trials
Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of History Rochelle Rojas, with help from an American Fellowship through the American Association of University Women, will finish writing a book over the next year titled Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witchcraft in Early Modern Spain about Spanish witch trials that were conducted in Northern Spain during the Inquisition.

In standing up to inquisitors, a local court from Pamplona in the Basque region of Northern Spain smuggled more than 150 people accused of witchcraft away from the Spanish Inquisition for the sake of conducting 30 independent trials in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Left behind was one of the richest records of witch trials in Spain, said Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of History Rochelle Rojas, with more than 3,000 pages of accounts from townspeople, prostitutes, net makers, priests, fathers, children and others, setting the stage for Rojas’ latest research project.

“About 500 years ago, these people told the Spanish Inquisition that they could go pound sand,” Rojas said. “So my project is amazing in that it’s the first and only one dealing with witchcraft in Spain that isn’t based on Inquisition sources. This brings to life those voices of people, mostly women, who had to endure terror and execution due to being labeled a witch by others.”

The voices will help Rojas write a book over the next year titled Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witchcraft in Early Modern Spain. She has written three chapters and plans to complete two more chapters before traveling to Spain next spring to finish it. The excursion will be funded by an American Fellowship she earned from the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

The first six chapters of her book, she said, will be a straight-forward look into the history of these Spanish witch trials. Examples of people discussed in these sources, such as Graciana Belza—meaning Graciana Black—will help Rojas argue in the epilogue that there are similarities between the treatment of the accused witches, and how some groups, such as immigrants and other marginalized citizens, are treated in the modern-day United States.

“In 1569, she was poor, and the entire village blamed her for everything,” Rojas said of Belza. “Someone’s kerchief was missing from the drying rack; it was blamed on her. Someone’s daughter died; it must’ve been her fault. A man became impotent; it must’ve been because of her. Everybody blamed her.”

Belza, in fact, was tortured and her jailers broke both her arms while the court demanded that she leave town within 10 days after her trial. However, with two broken arms, she was unable to transport her belongings. That led to her being jailed again, and ultimately dying from untreated torture wounds.

“It’s interesting in this case to see how people had a preconceived notion that she was a bad person and how she was treated very unfairly; just as someone today who might not speak English or someone who’s Black,” Rojas said.

Labels such as witch were invented, predicated on fear.

“They didn’t have the labels that we use now to label our undesirables, so they invented them,” Rojas said. “And the word then literally was witch or bruja.”

Stories like Belza’s will be at Rojas’ fingertips when she visits Spain thanks to the fellowship she received. The AAUW American Fellowship, started in 1888, is the oldest non-institutional source of graduate funding for women in the United States. It supports women scholars with up to $6,000 when they pursue full-time study to complete dissertations, conduct postdoctoral research full time or prepare research for publication.

Thousands of women in academia from across the country apply for the fellowship and only about 200 were awarded it this year. The fellowship panel considers applicants like Rojas based on factors such as scholarly excellence, the quality of their project design, their mentoring of other women and teaching experience.

“Sometimes It’s hard to pitch the importance of something having to do with witches from 500 years ago in a tiny village, so I was happy that the AAUW was able to understand my vision of why this topic is relevant,” Rojas said “This was the first post-graduation grant I applied to and it’s a pretty hard one to get. That makes me feel really good, especially when people who support K can see that we as professors are actively engaged in trying to earn larger recognition for the College.”

Religion Chair’s Book Offers ‘Glimmers of Hope’ for LGBTQ Mormons

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Religion Department Chairman's Book Tabernacles of Clay
Kalamazoo College Religion Department Chair Taylor Petrey wrote Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism as a history of gender identity in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Religion Department Chair Taylor Petrey
Religion Department Chair Taylor Petrey has authored his second book, Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism.

An often-forgotten member of the religious right and its views on gender identity are the subjects of a historical book released this month by Kalamazoo College Religion Department Chair Taylor Petrey.

Petrey said the post-World War II views of Evangelicals and conservative Catholics are well-documented, as they traditionally reflect political opposition to feminism, same-sex relationships and trans identities. But what about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as Mormons? That record has been incomplete if not completely non-existent until the release of Petrey’s book Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism, published by the University of North Carolina Press.

“I’m trying to situate Latter-day Saints in a broader conversation about the nature of gender and sexuality,” Petrey said. “I’m showing what’s most surprising is that even conservative religious groups think not that gender and sexuality are fixed and predetermined or divinely ordained categories, but rather they rely on social constructions of gender to make sense of conservative teachings.”

The LDS Church’s leadership and older generations of church members have steadfastly maintained conservative views related to gender identity despite experiencing some discrimination themselves from other denominations.

“Latter-day Saints have often felt that sting of being excluded from the broader culture of Christianity,” Petrey said. “But one of the strategies they’ve used to integrate themselves into the broader culture of Christianity has been to adopt these conservative values and create social and political alliances with the religious right. That made a lot of sense after World War II. It created a kind of alliance or shared identity to say, ‘We’re Christians just like you.’”

However, younger generations of Latter-day Saints in congregations nationwide have commonly aligned themselves with more progressive views.

“At a local level, you might find a diverse range of views on these topics with a generational divide,” Petrey said. “Younger members tend to be much more liberal. They might not be as liberal as generational peers, but much more than their own older generations.”

The book doesn’t push for change toward more progressive views as a result of this trend. Yet the historical record shows how the church’s teachings have shifted somewhat, prompting some optimistic outlooks for Mormons in the LGBTQ community, for example.

“The popular story that most people know or believe is that the church has never changed its teachings,” Petrey said. “It’s a common way that many churches express themselves. ‘We’ve always taught this.’ What the book shows, actually, is the church has changed its teachings quite a bit in the last 70 years. And for many people, that gives some glimmers of hope that it may continue to change.”

Petrey’s first book, Resurrecting Parts: Early Christians on Desire, Reproduction and Sexual Difference, was released in 2015. He also edited Re-Making the World Christianity and Categories: Essays in Honor of Karen L. King in 2019 and the just-published co-edited volume The Routledge Handbook on Mormonism and Gender in 2020. In 2018, Petrey was prominently interviewed in Church and State, a documentary about the toppling of Utah’s gay marriage ban, and he currently is the editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Plus, his latest work, available online and at bookstores, has generated public enthusiasm since the first advance copies were distributed about six weeks ago and Petrey is looking forward to receiving more feedback.

“I have been overwhelmed by the positive response,” Petrey said. “Immediately, the most eager readers were other Latter-day Saints, especially gay Latter-day Saints, and I’ve been incredibly happy with the first reviews that have come out online and the buzz about the book so far.”

Three Faculty Members Earn Tenure

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Three Kalamazoo College faculty members from the English, music and political science departments have been awarded tenure.

The tenure milestone recognizes excellence in teaching, scholarship and service to the College, and signifies its confidence in the contributions these professors will make throughout their careers.

The following faculty members were approved by the Board of Trustees for tenure and promotion to associate professor:

Shanna Salinas tenure 2
Shanna Salinas

Arcus Social Justice Leadership Assistant Professor of English and Co-Director of Critical Ethnic Studies Shanna Salinas

Salinas teaches 19th, 20th and 21st century American literary and cultural studies with an emphasis on American race and ethnicity. She received her bachelor’s degree in American literature and culture with a minor in Chicana/o Studies from UCLA; and her master’s degree and doctorate in English from UC Santa Barbara.

Her published work includes “Raced Bodies, Corporeal Texts: Narratives of Home and Self in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street;” Critical Insights: Virginia Woolf and 20th Century Women Writers, 2015; “Coloring the U.S.-Mexico Border: Geographical Othering and Postbellum Nation Building in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (Studies in American Fiction 41.1, Spring 2018); and “For the Pleasure of the Chicanx Poet: Spatialized Embodied Poetics in Ana Castillo’s My Father Was a Toltec,” New Transnational Latinx Perspectives on Ana Castillo, ed. Karen Roybal and Bernadine Hernández (forthcoming, Pittsburgh University Press).

Beau Bothwell tenure
Beau Bothwell

Assistant Professor of Music Beau Bothwell

Bothwell has taught courses in ethnomusicology, music theory and music history since completing his Ph.D. in musicology at Columbia University in 2013. He received B.A.s in music history and ethnomusicology/jazz studies from UCLA, and previously taught at Columbia, the Juilliard School, the American University in Beirut, and the New School.

Beau’s research addresses the music, media and politics of the Arabophone Middle East and the U.S. He has published in a range of venues, and co-translated (with Lama Zein) Ali Kisserwan’s two-volume analysis, the Compositions of Mohammad ʿAbdel Wahab for Umm Kulthum. He is also co-chair of the Society for Arabic Music Research, President of the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music, and founding co-director (with Ahmed Tofiq) of the Kalamazoo College Middle Eastern Orchestra, the Bayati Ensemble.

Justin Berry tenure
Justin Berry

Assistant Professor of Political Science Justin Berry

Berry teaches Introduction to American Government; Race, Law and U.S. Politics; Constitutional Law; the Presidency and Congress; and Voting, Campaigns and Elections. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Villanova University, master’s degrees in education and educational leadership from Loyola Marymount University and Fielding Graduate Institute respectively; and a doctorate in political science and international relations from the University of Southern California.

Plan Bee: Cut Insecticides, Preserve Habitat

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Niko Nickson World Bee Day
The Kalamazoo Valley Museum was abuzz with bee exhibits last June during Art Hop. Niko Nickson ’21 was a Kalamazoo College representative presenting displays on native bees. Nickson now is a student behind the Southwest Michigan Bee Watch, still actively recruiting citizen scientists on World Bee Day.

There’s been a buzz in the national news as Asian hornets, also called murder hornets, have appeared for the first time in the northwestern U.S. The two-inch-long invasive insects have frightening stinging power and are significant predators of honeybees.

As the world marks World Bee Day on May 20, Kalamazoo College Biology Professor Ann Fraser said she doesn’t expect Asian hornets to arrive in Michigan any time soon but they could be a threat to local honeybees if they arrive.

“I got to see some of these Asian hornets when we were in India in December,” Fraser said. “Some people were fighting them off with sticks or even cricket bats. But can they survive in this climate with Michigan’s winter? I’m not sure of their range in terms of temperature tolerance. And are they going to decimate the honeybee population? Probably not, but they’ll certainly take out some hives.”

Nonetheless, climate change, habitat loss and pesticides are already threatening bees worldwide and have been for years. That makes World Bee Day—which marks the 1734 birthday of Slovenia-born Anton Janša, a pioneer in modern-day beekeeping—essential for preservation. The international affair, established in 2018 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, recognizes the world’s 20,000 species of bees, including about 465 in Michigan. A number of these are in decline, including some of our bumblebees. Fraser said habitat loss and pesticides are of particular concern as food sources are disappearing for bees, and neonicotinoids, which are pesticides chemically similar to nicotine, are deadly for them.

World Bee Day Purple Flowers
World Bee Day recognizes the world’s 20,000 species of bees, including about 465 in Michigan. Bumblebees like this one can be found at the Lillian Anderson Arboretum.

To work against the declines caused by these threats, swarms of World Bee Day events will be conducted virtually this year, and Fraser recommends acting locally. For example:

  • Fraser is recruiting citizen scientists from nine counties in Southwest Michigan for the Southwest Michigan Bee Watch. She and her students, including Niko Nickson ’21, are tracking bumblebee diversity and measuring local restoration efforts. Residents from Allegan, Barry, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren counties are invited to participate. Learn more about volunteering at the organization’s website.
  • Fraser and Nickson recently participated in a virtual Lunch and Learn through Pierce Cedar Creek Institute, discussing general bee facts and the Southwest Michigan Bee Watch. You can watch the recorded event on YouTube.
  • You can take the sting out of habitat loss for bees by planting a diverse array of native wildflowers that provide food for pollinators. Minimize your use of insecticides and shelter bees by providing bare ground, limiting mulch in flower beds or providing a stem nest. A stem nest typically is a wood block with drilled holes in various sizes and hollow plant stems or paper tubes. Varieties are available at many hardware stories, gardening stores and retail centers.

To bee or not to bee is not the question: bees are vital to humans. And when it comes to World Bee Day, Fraser says, “Anything that puts the spotlight on them can help them thrive.”

Technology Empowers Art in Distance Learning

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Padlet for Mold Made in Distance Learning
Padlet is a colorful online system of boards, documents and web pages, which has been convenient for art classes in distance learning.

In examining how Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff have adjusted to distance learning this spring, it’s easy to see the community’s ingenuity in shifting from in-person instruction.

For example, if it’s true that art imitates life, what is an art professor to do when distance learning forces a college’s classes online? If you’re Sarah Lindley, the Arcus Center of Social Justice Leadership Professor of Art, you paint plans that provide students with the personal interaction they expect, sculpt activities they can do at home with common household materials, and craft an environment that stimulates creativity in technology.

World Pottery in Distance Learning
Padlet has been a convenient tool in distance learning for World Pottery, a class that introduces a variety of clay-forming techniques and historical perspectives.

Lindley this term is teaching World Pottery, a sophomore seminar ceramics class, and Mold Processes, an intermediate sculpture class for juniors. The first requires student research and reflection in a class that introduces a variety of clay-forming techniques and historical perspectives. The intermediate class uses mixed media casting processes to develop the more advanced body of work expected of art majors.

The sophomore seminar’s technology is Padlet, a colorful and easy-to-populate online system of boards, documents and web pages that looks a lot like many social media platforms, especially Pinterest. The format allows an asynchronous course model where students view instructions through mediums such as video and submit their projects before meeting individually with Lindley.

Art in Distance Learning_fb
Arcus Center of Social Justice Leadership Professor of Art Sarah Lindley provided video through Padlet of how to create a pinch pot at home when a special guest made a cameo appearance.

Their first project involved creating pinch pots with paper and egg whites in an activity like papier-mâché. A second assignment asked students to stack objects from around the house, look at their curves and see how they might emulate pottery.

The juniors also utilize virtual classroom technology, including the use of Microsoft Teams, a collaborative platform that combines chat, video meetings, file storage and more to allow for regular face-to-face exchanges. Lindley wants her advanced students to build confidence for creating art under any circumstances and learn they can start a project from nothing. Lindley added creating something from nothing can feel like one of the hardest things to do and developing that skill will help her students for the rest of their lives.

“A lot of what we are doing this term is creative problem solving,” Lindley said. “Course planning is creative problem solving. This is just a more extreme version than we are used to. I’m also hearing from a lot of students that they really appreciate a curriculum that acknowledges different learning styles.”

So, given the term in distance learning, how does Lindley measure the success of her teaching methods this term?

“I look for indications of depth of learning in lots of little ways—an unanswered question someone raises in a reflection paper, a connection to contemporary pop culture in a presentation on historical objects from a distant past, or an “aha” exclamation in a one on one virtual chat,” Lindley said.

“My goal would be for everyone to participate in each activity this term,” she added. “The students still have rubrics, but students would have to persistently not respond to assignment prompts and feedback not to pass. So far the quality of work has been pretty good to great.”

Day of Light Helps Spotlight Laser Lab, K Professor

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With Kalamazoo College’s motto being Lux Esto, or Be Light, it makes sense that the International Day of Light, celebrated each year on May 16, is significant for some in the K community.

Day of Light Laser Lab
The International Day of Light, every May 16, helps Kalamazoo College spotlight Kurt D. Kaufman Professor of Chemistry Jeff Bartz and the College’s laser lab, which has supported dozens of students in their Senior Individualized Projects.

The date marks the anniversary of the first successful operation of a laser in 1960 by physicist and engineer Theodore Maiman, and calls on the general population to support scientific partnerships and their potential to foster peace and sustainable development.

Organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Day of Light recognizes the role light plays in science, culture, art, education and sustainable development, within professional fields as diverse as medicine, communications and energy. The broad theme allows many sectors of society to participate in activities that show how technology and culture can help achieve education, equality and peace.

On such a day, it feels natural for K to spotlight Kurt D. Kaufman Professor of Chemistry Jeff Bartz, a physical chemist, who guides the research performed by students at K’s laser lab, an uncommon research tool at liberal arts colleges and institutions of K’s size. Lasers play common roles in everyday life such as in supermarket barcode scanners, laser surgeries, and industrial cutting and fabrication. But Bartz and his students test theories in photodissociation, the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of light. Such research is fundamental in examining how molecules hold together or fall apart in Earth’s atmosphere.

Founded at K in 2001 with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the laser lab has supported dozens of students in their Senior Individualized Projects. Recently, students in the laser lab have researched the photochemistry of nitrous acid, an important source of hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere. The presence of hydroxyl radicals affects the concentrations and distribution of greenhouse gases and pollutants in the atmosphere. When light dissociates nitrous acid, the products are the hydroxyl radical, symbolized with OH, and nitric oxide, symbolized with NO.

“Usually, people performing research will pick one to study [OH or NO] and try to infer what the other product is doing,” Bartz said. “But our lab now has the technology to have one student studying one product [OH or NO] and one student studying the other. We plan to have a full picture by studying both products directly. So this is a nice opportunity for our students. We always try to do something no one else has been doing, but we’re jumping out a little farther with this research.”

When asked what the greatest thing to come out of the laser lab has been, Bartz didn’t hesitate with his answer.

“That’s the students,” he said. “They’ve gone on to do some amazing things. Because of their work, the College is able to receive money from organizations like the NSF. These grants mean students can present their research at regional and national meetings, and I’ve been invited to give talks around the country. That’s a result of their hard work.”

Founders Day Marks K’s 187th Year, Honors Three Employees

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Kim Aldrich with four Alumni Engagement employees.
Kim Aldrich (middle) pictured with Alumni Engagement colleagues at Homecoming in 2018, was recognized Friday as the recipient of the Lux Esto Award of Excellence. The honor is awarded annually as Kalamazoo College marks Founders Day.

YouTube video: President Gonzalez surprises honorees with news of their awards

Kim Aldrich ’80, Kalamazoo College’s director of alumni engagement, is this year’s recipient of the Lux Esto Award of Excellence. The award, announced Friday to celebrate Founders Day marking the College’s 187th 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 Kalamazoo College through excellent leadership, selfless dedication and goodwill.

President Jorge G. Gonzalez credited Aldrich for her wide-reaching collaborations in the K community, her networking skills and being an embodiment of the guidelines for the award. He also noted that nominees said Aldrich “brings general brightness and passion to her work, both in her everyday interactions on campus as well as with our alumni and friends of the College.”

Founders Day Kenlana Ferguson
Counseling Center Director Kenlana Ferguson
Brittany Liu
Associate Professor of Psychology Brittany Liu

In accordance with Founders Day traditions, two other employees also received individual awards. Associate Professor of Psychology Brittany Liu was given the Outstanding Advisor Award, and Counseling Center Director Kenlana Ferguson was named the Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate Award honoree.

Gonzalez complimented Liu as an empathic listener who easily builds relationships with students while building on advisees’ successes and their opportunities for improvement.

He said Liu “takes time to learn of her advisees’ passions, interests and goals, and understands that those often evolve with the student throughout their time at K.”

In honoring Ferguson, Gonzalez recognized her work in first-year forums, the JED Set-to-Go program for students transitioning from high school to college, and the Steve Fund crisis text line that supports students of color.

“The confidential nature of her work allows some of her impact with individual students to fly under the radar,” Gonzalez said. “Even so, we have witnessed many occasions when first-year students turned the corner due to her involvement in their lives.”

Professor’s Creative Trailer Motivates Biology Students

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Santiago Salinas trailer
Assistant Professor of Biology Santiago Salinas prepares dissection materials that will be sent to students participating in distance learning this term.

When Assistant Professor of Biology Santiago Salinas learned that Kalamazoo College would be transitioning to distance learning for the spring semester, he knew how he felt. “I was bummed,” said Salinas. Without meeting face-to-face in a classroom or lab, how would his students connect? How would they grasp the hands-on skills they would traditionally experience in a face-to-face classroom, like animal dissection and model work?

“I needed to pump myself up for the quarter,” Salinas said. Internet research yielded inspiration, and soon Salinas had created a movie trailer for his vertebrate biology class — complete with atmospheric soundtrack and compelling narrative voiceover.

Salinas sent the trailer to his class. “I was honest with them, as I usually am in class anyway, and I told them I was having a hard time concentrating,” Salinas said. “I explained that I was bummed out that we wouldn’t be meeting face to face.” His students responded positively, sharing that the trailer had motivated them and made them laugh. When Salinas posted the trailer to Twitter, the outside world responded similarly. That feedback and connection re-energized Salinas as he moved forward with further classroom innovations.

“Twitter has been great for ideas,” Salinas said, describing how his search for inspiration and distance learning materials caused him to reframe his approach. He now sees himself as a curator. “There’s a lot of stuff out there — videos that are so much better than anything that I could put together, supplementing my slides and narration,” Salinas said.

Now, Salinas has high hopes for his vertebrate biology class. “This is forcing me to think about how I do things, and how I decide to prioritize content. Sometimes it’s good to be shocked because you start to reassess things,” Salinas said. “For the students, my hope is that they realize that they are not at K for the grades. I hope they recognize that they are driven intrinsically by what they are interested in, because they are, and that they do biology because they enjoy it.”

Salinas said that he has intentionally encouraged his students to provide feedback regarding biology-specific skills they would like to learn. When most of his students expressed interest in improving their grasp of scientific writing, Salinas quickly adjusted his assignments accordingly. “Maybe this wasn’t something we would cover in a normal quarter,” Salinas said, “But I think it’s going to make for a better course, and a better course for next year.”

As for Salinas’ earlier worries about dissection? “Well, I just finished packaging frogs, sharks, pigeons, and other critters. I will be mailing them out to our young biologists and we’ll do the dissections remotely!” Salinas said.