A traveling museum coming to Kalamazoo College will spotlight Henrietta Lacks whose cells have led to multiple medical breakthroughs.
A traveling museum and lecture dedicated to the history and legacy of a Black woman who has been key to multiple medical breakthroughs is coming to Kalamazoo College on Thursday, February 17.
Jermaine Jackson, Henrietta Lacks’ great-nephew and a Kalamazoo resident, will provide a lecture and question-and-answer session exhibiting the Henrietta Lacks Traveling Museum from 6–8 p.m. at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
Johns Hopkins Hospital was treating Lacks for cervical cancer in 1951 when her cells were sent to a nearby tissue lab without her consent. At that lab, doctors found her cells to be unlike anyone’s they had ever seen. Instead of dying, her cells—later called HeLa cells—doubled every 20 to 24 hours.
Although Lacks died of cancer on October 4, 1951, at age 31, her cells continue to benefit the world. HeLa cells are used to study the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses on the growth of cancer cells without experimenting on humans. They’ve also been used to test the effects of radiation and poisons, to study the human genome and learn more about how viruses work, playing a crucial role in the development of the polio and COVID-19 vaccines.
Lacks’ story speaks to issues such as global health, scientific research, bioethics, patient rights and equity. The event is free and open to the public.
A major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will provide new learning opportunities for Kalamazoo College students and faculty seeking solutions to societal problems and promote the critical role of the humanities in social justice work.
The $1.297 million three-year grant will provide funding for the College’s Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL) project, which is building student coursework rooted in K’s commitment to experiential learning and social justice to address issues such as racism, border policing, economic inequities, homelessness and global warming, while examining history, how humans share land, and the dislocations that bring people to a communal space.
The project was envisioned by Associate Professor of English Shanna Salinas (Co-PI), Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Assistant Professor of Sociology Francisco Villegas (Co-PI) and Professor of English Bruce Mills. HILL will invite K faculty to build curricula that foreground how power structures produce destabilizing dynamics and the collective response(s) of affected communities through the development of course materials, collaborative faculty-student research and community engagement, the development of program assessments and the sharing of oral histories tied to partnering projects and organizations.
Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Assistant Professor of Sociology Francisco Villegas
Each class within the curriculum will fit into one of two cluster programs: the first focuses on hubs outside of Kalamazoo such as New Orleans, St. Louis and San Diego; the second looks within Kalamazoo with themes relevant to the city such as prison reform and abolition, and migrants and refugees. Both cluster programs will contribute to a digital humanities initiative for publishing, archiving and assessing coursework and partnerships. Each will provide opportunities for immersing students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities and experiences.
Salinas and Villegas will co-direct the HILL initiative. The three sites outside Kalamazoo—New Orleans, St. Louis and San Diego—were chosen for their current or historical dispersion of people from their homeland, as well as dislocated communities with strong histories of social justice movements. About 15 to 20 students at a time will go to those cities to further their experiential learning. Salinas added that faculty and students will first put in research and legwork related to their collaborative partnerships with a year of concentrated work. Then, by about December 2022, they will be ready to conduct in-person learning, first in New Orleans.
Professor of English Bruce Mills
In addition to co-directing the project, Salinas will also serve as the curriculum coordinator for New Orleans. “We hope that students will develop an understanding of place as a living entity with a storied history and people who are a part of that location,” Salinas said. “We want students to learn what it means to be a part of a particular place. We want them to contend with histories, and meet the residents and people who inhabit the spaces we study with a real sense of generosity and purpose. We want to change students’ understanding about how they approach space and operate within it.”
Villegas plans to build on his strong connections within Kalamazoo County in leading the cluster focused on issues inside Kalamazoo. As a member of an exploratory taskforce (and now advisory board chair), he helped Kalamazoo County launch a community ID program in 2018, allowing residents, including those otherwise unable to get a state ID, to obtain a county ID.
“I think the grant speaks to the Mellon Foundation seeing promise in the kind of work we are imagining,” Villegas said. “It’s encouraging that they are willing to invest so greatly in such a project. They’re also recognizing the ethics of the project. They’re trusting that we’re going to engage with cities, including our home city, with a sense of respect and with a recognition of furthering community agendas already in place rather than imposing our understandings to other spaces. Most importantly, we’re invested in thinking about how students can consider the humanities in these projects as a way of producing nuanced understandings toward addressing very big problems.”
Mills will lead the digital humanities portion of the initiative. He noted that one measure of success for participating faculty will be how HILL shows the enduring dimensions of its partnerships with the digital project playing a large role.
“When you create classes, writing projects, oral histories or collaborate on community projects, these efforts often get lost when they just go into a file or a paper or are not passed along in local memory,” Mills said. “The digital humanities hub is an essential part of this initiative because faculty, students and city partners will have a site for a collective work to be published or presented. Community members will have access to it. That means the work being done will not disappear.”
Associate Professor of Music Beau Bothwell
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Espelencia Baptiste
Professor of Art and Art History Christine Hahn
In addition to Salinas, Villegas and Mills, Associate Professor of Music Beau Bothwell and Professor of Art and Art History Christine Hahn will be curriculum coordinators for St. Louis and San Diego respectively. The first four courses that will be offered in the HILL project are Advanced Literary Studies (Salinas, English); Missionaries to Pilgrims: Diasporic Returns (Associate Professor Espelencia Baptiste, Anthropology and Sociology); The World Through New Orleans (Bothwell, Music); and Architecture Urbanism Identity (Hahn, Art and Art History).
The Mellon Foundation’s grant to K is one of 12 being issued to liberal arts colleges as a part of the organization’s Humanities for All Times initiative, which was created to support curriculum that demonstrates real-world applications to social justice pursuits and objectives.
“Kalamazoo College’s commitment to social justice is most profoundly realized through students’ opportunities to connect the theoretical with hands-on work happening in our communities,” Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez said. “We’re grateful for the Mellon Foundation’s generous support, which will enable us to build on our foundation of experiential education and demonstrate to our students how the humanities have a practical role in fostering positive social change.”
The Mellon Foundation notes that humanities thought and scholarship efforts influence developments in the social world. However, there’s been a sharp decline in undergraduate humanities study and degree recipients nationwide over the past decade despite students’ marked interest in social justice issues. The initiative targets higher student participation in the humanities and social justice while building their skills in diagnosing cultural conditions that impede a just and equitable society.
“The Humanities for All Times initiative underscores that it’s not only critical to show students that the humanities improve the quality of their everyday lives, but also that they are a crucial tool in efforts to bring about meaningful progressive change in the world,” said Phillip Brian Harper, the Mellon Foundation’s higher learning program director. “We are thrilled to support this work at liberal arts colleges across the country. Given their unequivocal commitment to humanities-based knowledge, and their close ties to the local communities in which such knowledge can be put to immediate productive use, we know that these schools are perfectly positioned to take on this important work.”
Zoe Barnes ’18, now a graduate student at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville (SIUE), has received the 2021 Student Leader Champion Award for her efforts in advancing social justice throughout her university, in the community and through her chosen profession.
“I’m very excited because it’s a wonderful honor,” Barnes said. “Social justice is a buzzword to some, but it’s a constant, ongoing process of challenging what we know and checking our own biases. In school psychology, social justice is important because if you look at a school and see who the teachers and staff are, you will often see groups dominated by white staff members. They don’t reflect the increasing diversity of students, especially in public schools. Social justice can help us challenge the status quo.”
Several students at SIUE, including Barnes, expressed their interest in social justice to faculty last summer. The professors sensed an opportunity to connect them all, leading to the formation of the Graduate Students for Social Justice, a group that talked about injustices on campus and developed ideas for addressing social justice within their respective programs.
Barnes is a member of that group and also recently served as the social justice chair of the Graduate Organization for Child and Adolescent Psychology Students (GOCAPS) at SIUE. Her service led a faculty member to nominate Barnes for the NASP honors.
Barnes said the K community helped her develop an interest in diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice after she arrived from a predominantly white community in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At that point, Barnes started seeing more peers who looked like her. Students of color provided an energizing space where she could discuss the discrimination and microaggressions she experienced on campus with others who could relate.
“Being at K, and just being surrounded by people who look like me and had similar experiences really helped me,” Barnes said. “Talking helped put a name to the discomfort.”
Barnes double majored in Spanish and psychology and minored in anthropology-sociology at K. After a gap year, Barnes looked for help in determining her career path. At that point, she talked with Suzie Gonzalez ’83, spouse of K President Jorge G. Gonzalez.
“I went down this route to school psychology because of Suzie Gonzalez,” Barnes said. “I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life when I met up with her. She was a school psychologist and she definitely inspired me.”
Barnes earned her master’s degree through SIUE in December and now is seeking a clinical child and school psychology specialist degree with an expected graduation date of May 2022. She will be honored at NASP’s 2022 annual convention in February.
“I would love to make an impact however I can as a school psychologist,” Barnes said. “When I picture my career, I want to be firmly planted in a school district. I want to walk down the halls and recognize all the students and know their educational history. Early intervention is a huge part of school psychology and I would love to support them from the very beginning.”
A world-renowned expert on social justice and its role in international sports will visit Stetson Chapel at Kalamazoo College on Monday, Nov. 4.
Social justice and international sports expert Richard Lapchick will visit Kalamazoo College on Monday, Nov. 4.
Richard Lapchick, the endowed chair and director of the DeVos Sports Business Management Program at the University of Central Florida and the president of the Institute for Sport and Social Justice (ISSJ), will conduct a conversation about sports, justice and activism with Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Director Lisa Brock. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. before the event, “Just Sport: A Conversation on Sports, Justice and Activism with Dr. Richard Lapchick,” begins at 7:30 p.m.
Lapchick founded the Center for the Study of Sport in Society in 1984 at Northeastern University. He served as its director for 17 years and is now its director emeritus. The center has attracted national attention to its efforts ensuring the education of athletes from junior high school through the professional ranks. The center’s Project TEAMWORK was called “America’s most successful violence prevention program” by public opinion analyst Lou Harris. The project won the Peter F. Drucker Foundation Award as the nation’s most innovative nonprofit program and was named by the Clinton Administration as a model for violence prevention.
Lapchick also helped form the National Consortium for Academics and Sport, which is now the ISSJ, in 1985. Nationally, ISSJ athletes have worked with nearly 19.9 million young people in the school-outreach and community-service program, which focused on teaching youths how to improve race relations, develop conflict-resolution skills, prevent gender violence and avoid drug and alcohol abuse. They collectively donated more than 22 million hours of service while member colleges donated more than $300 million in tuition assistance.
Lapchick has authored 17 books, received 10 honorary doctorates, and is a regular columnist for ESPN.com and The Sports Business Journal. He has written more than 600 articles, has given more than 2,900 public speeches, and has appeared several times on Good Morning America, Face the Nation, The Today Show, ABC World News, NBC Nightly News, The CBS Evening News, CNN and ESPN. From the sports boycott against apartheid to exposing the connection between sports and human trafficking, he has spoken before Congress, and at the United Nations, the European Parliament and the Vatican.
For more information on the event, please call 269.337.7398 or visit the Arcus Center on Facebook.
ARTifact, fueled through K students serving as civic-engagement scholars, is a weekly studio-workshop series for high school students interested in visual art and social justice, while otherwise having limited access to art instruction. The culmination of the ARTifact workshops for the academic year came in an exhibit at the June 7 Art Hop.
When artists create, they express a piece of themselves. Art, therefore, can provide an outlet for underrepresented people to communicate their feelings, struggles and realities with those who will listen. That makes ARTifact, a program offered through Kalamazoo College’s Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), an empowering resource.
ARTifact, fueled through K students serving as civic-engagement scholars, is a weekly studio-workshop series for high school students interested in visual art and social justice, while otherwise having limited access to art instruction. The program creates a space in which participants communicate about complex social issues and express their identities through art.
The program, including the cost of materials, is offered at no cost to participants thanks to the CCE. Since its founding, the CCE has provided service-learning courses, research opportunities, internships, and student-led programs, engaging more than 10,000 K students in partnerships that foster academic learning, critical problem-solving and a lifetime of civic engagement. Through the CCE, students, faculty and staff have worked with thousands of community residents, more than 50 organizations, and in more than 30 community-based courses across K’s academic disciplines.
The CCE employs 25 civic-engagement scholars including Angela Pastor ’21 who are student leaders facilitating programs with community partners in which they and their peers learn from communities. The scholars are supported by generous endowments and grants.
The culmination of the ARTifact workshops for the academic year came in an exhibit at the June 7 Art Hop, a fun evening of art exhibits and events in and around Kalamazoo, sponsored by Arts Council Kalamazoo, that takes place during the first weekend of every month. ARTifact’s exhibit during Art Hop was stationed at the Park Trades Center, a former manufacturing facility on West Kalamazoo Avenue that houses a creative community of more than 100 designers, entrepreneurs and small business representatives.
The ARTifact workshops gathered participants for three hours every Saturday, where they created art, physically crafted their displays and created advertising posters before spreading word of its Art Hop show.
“It’s an honor to be able to provide this experience,” said Pastor ’21 of Los Angeles, a Posse student at K who also benefited from participating in a similar experience as a high school student. “When I went through it, it taught me a lot about what I could create. I know high school is a time for questioning for a lot of people. Art, I think, is a way to figure out yourself.”
Pastor said she enjoyed ARTifact week to week, although long term success would mean expanding the program to more high school students by getting more K students to volunteer. That would also mean realizing ARTifact’s full potential.
“I know some of the high school students explore their identity through sexuality or mental health,” Pastor said. “It’s a way to use art as a tool that educates and helps students explore their identity. It can be used to support their social justice issues and anything they’re passionate about. There was one workshop where we used only recycled materials. We also talked about what makes art worthy of being exhibited and we questioned what art is and what it can be. It makes me feel proud (the high school students) were able to learn about art and have all these experiences.”
A leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement and one of Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders is the 2018 William Weber Lecture speaker.
DeRay Mckesson, a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement, will be the speaker Oct. 24 at the 2018 William Weber Lecture.
Civil-rights activist DeRay Mckesson will deliver his talk, titled “On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope,” at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, at Stetson Chapel. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. and seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Mckesson will conduct a short book-signing event after the lecture. Some copies of his book will be available for sale in the lobby before and after the lecture.
As a civil-rights activist, Mckesson focuses on issues of innovation, equity and justice. He has advocated for issues related to children and families since he was a teenager. He is a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement and the co-founder of Campaign Zero and OurStates.org.
Mckesson has become a key voice in the effort to confront systems and structures of justice since the death of Mike Brown and the subsequent protests in Ferguson, Missouri. He is also the host of Pod Save the People, a weekly podcast focused on activism and social justice.
Mckesson was named as one of the World’s Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine in 2015 and one of the 30 Most Important People on the Internet by Time Magazine in 2016. Mckesson, a Baltimore native, graduated from Bowdoin College and has an honorary doctorate from The New School.
The William Weber Lecture in Government and Society was founded by Bill Weber, a 1939 graduate of Kalamazoo College. Weber also founded the William Weber Chair in Political Science at the College. Past lecturers in this series have included David Broder, Frances Moore Lappé, E. J. Dionne, Jeane Bethke Elshtain, William Greider, Ernesto Cortes Jr., John Esposito, Benjamin Ginsberg, Frances Fox Piven, Spencer Overton, Tamara Draut, Van Jones and Joan Mandle.
The public is invited to join the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership for two events related to its With/Out-¿Borders? gathering, which is scheduled for Oct. 8-15.
The opening ceremony is slated for 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, 205 Monroe St. A community breakfast is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 11, in the Hornet Suite at K’s Athletic Fields Complex, 1600 W. Michigan Ave. Register for either event through email at acsjl@kzoo.edu.
Sunni Patterson, Denenge Akpem and Shannon Haupt participate in a ritual performance of release and healing during the 2016 With/Out – ¿Borders? Afrofuturism breakout session “Breaking the Legacy, Conjuring Futures.”
The third With/Out-¿Borders? invitational gathering will bring together land activists who approach social movement work in small grassroots organizations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, South Africa, Canada, Colombia, Mexico and the Pacific Islands. They will discuss how land is essential to indigenous sovereignty movements, contested through forced dislocation, and an asset for strength and nurturance.
“The activists coming to Kalamazoo in October are engaged in some of the most effective and forward-thinking work around land sovereignty and protection in the world,” Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Executive Director Mia Henry said. “We are honored to have the opportunity to use our resources to uplift and strengthen the work of each of our guests, living into our mission of capacity building on a global level.”
The purpose of the With/Out-¿Borders? gathering is to:
unite global grassroots activists who envision a world free from oppression while actively working toward that vision;
create an environment where activists can learn from and support each other; and
develop deep and meaningful relationships between the Kalamazoo College community, these activists and their work.
The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College develops and sustains leaders in human rights and social justice through education and capacity building. Kalamazoo College, founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan, which emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, independent research and international and intercultural engagement.
For more information on the With/Out-¿Borders? gathering or either of its public events, contact Bailey Mead at 269-337-7398 or bailey.mead@kzoo.edu.
Kalamazoo College is receiving nearly $300,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice through a shared grant to proactively prevent domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking on campus.
K is the only Michigan institution and one of just a few small private schools among 60 colleges and universities nationwide to receive part of the $18 million being distributed. K’s portion, totaling $298,698, will:
create a Campus Coordinated Community Response Team;
expand training for campus safety officers and Title IX investigators;
expand victim services;
hire a full-time project coordinator who will focus on culturally relevant prevention efforts;
further enhance the College’s focus on student safety; and
support a K partnership with the Kalamazoo YWCA and the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety. The partnership will bring a victim advocate to campus for 20 hours a week and formalize response to incidents that involve students in the city.
“This grant is very competitive, so we’re excited to have this additional funding and support,” said Ellen Lassiter Collier, K’s Title IX coordinator and director of gender equity. She added documented endorsements of existing efforts from students, faculty and staff likely were determining factors for the Department of Justice in securing the shared grant.
“This kind of grant traditionally goes to public schools,” Lassiter Collier said. “That speaks to the work the College is already doing and the support we receive from across campus.”
K’s existing efforts include programs such as Green Dot, which offers bystander training that statistically reduces the likelihood of dating and domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault. Green Dot at K is funded through the State of Michigan Campus Sexual Assault Grant Program, which gave the College about $18,600 in 2016 and $41,800 in 2017.
The Department of Justice grant, though, will enhance such efforts and others, including the creation of targeted online training programs for students, to ensure the programs and training materials are culturally competent considering K’s diversity, and relevant to its student experiences such as study abroad.
With study abroad, for example, “We want students to know that the College is still a source of support and potential investigation should something happen abroad,” Lassiter Collier said.
For more information on the grant from the Department of Justice, visit its website.
Kalamazoo College is included in the newly published 2019 edition of “The Best 384 Colleges,” the annual college guide of the Princeton Review.
Kalamazoo College is included in the newly published 2019 edition of “The Best 384 Colleges,” the annual college guide of the Princeton Review.
The guide says K “brings a personalized approach to education through a flexible, open curriculum featuring real-world experience, service learning, study abroad, and an independent senior year project.” Among praise from students quoted in the guide’s Kalamazoo College entry: K “allows students to really develop personal relationships with their peers and professors” and is “a campus run by and for the students.”
Students also tell the Princeton Review that K:
“Will try as hard as possible to get you to graduate in four years.”
Enables students, through its open curriculum, to “have more time to explore exactly what they want to learn, rather than being required to take classes in which they have no interest.”
Has “a huge culture” among alumni “of giving back to the school and being there for each other” and for current students.
Has professors who “view students as equals and peers, and are open to listening to everyone’s ideas in classes.”
Provides “good food and fun activities” for students and a wide array of clubs and athletics that are open to everyone.
Attracts students “who show creativity, ambition and motivation.” “You will never find any two students who are the same here,” one student says.
“Our students in the Princeton Review say it in their own words: Kalamazoo College provides a distinctive liberal arts education that is among the best available anywhere,” said Eric Staab, Kalamazoo College dean of admission and financial aid. “It’s a real testament to the enduring value of the K-Plan and the K experience.”
The Princeton Review says the college rankings are based on surveys of 138,000 students at 384 top colleges that includes a wide representation by region, size, selectivity and character.
Examining a patch of Oriental bittersweet, an invasive plant, Mathew Holmes-Hackerd ’20 makes use of Kalamazoo College’s Lillian Anderson Arboretum as part of a research project. A $250,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations will help the College spread environmental education and sustainability throughout its curriculum and make wider use of the Arboretum via the Center for Environmental Stewardship.
The center’s goals are to:
Increase sustainability and environmental stewardship across the curriculum.
Enable more students to incorporate sustainability and environmental education into their work.
Build on existing assets to expand the College’s capacity for responsible resource management and sustainable development.
Increase the effectiveness of College’s Lillian Anderson Arboretum as a learning lab for the campus and community.
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations are a major supporter of private colleges and universities like K, based on their conviction that “an educated society strengthens democracy through principled, thoughtful and compassionate leadership.” The Center for Environmental Stewardship is consistent with Kalamazoo College’s strategic vision of integrating academic rigor with life-changing experiential education in a values-driven community.
Biology Department Chair Binney Girdler says the grant will allow the hiring of a dedicated director for the Center for Environmental Stewardship, a key element of launching a program with the breadth and depth envisioned.
Girdler, whose duties include serving as faculty director of the arboretum, says environmental studies are nothing new at K — the subject has been an interdisciplinary minor for about 30 years, and both biology and chemistry classes make heavy use of the arboretum for those and other courses. She also says the College has a record of sustainability initiatives dating back at least to the launching of a recycling effort in the 1990s.
“So we’ve had these bubbles of passion around the campus, but no one person to get their arms around the whole thing and to really center it, and enrich it, and expand it,” Girdler says.
The director, whose position will be half-time, “will be able to really do some connecting the dots and cultivating collaborations among” faculty in their classes, the College’s facilities staff, student organizations, the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership and the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement, she says.
“It will be more than the sum of the parts,” she adds.
Working with the director, she says, will be a student Environmental Leadership Corps, with paid positions dedicated to sustainability initiatives both on campus and involving the wider Kalamazoo community. She says those students will engage Kalamazoo-area residents “from pre-K to gray” through activities such as leading interpretive hikes at the arboretum, a 140-acre expanse of woods, meadows and marshes six miles from the College in Oshtemo Township.
“We’ll be cultivating a corps of students who themselves have gained from their connections with the natural world and their understanding of sustainability, and having them lead others to the understanding that we’re all in this together,” Girdler says.
Ultimately she expects efforts to acquaint students with environmental education and sustainability issues, and the related use of the arboretum, to spread far beyond science courses like the ones she teaches. She cites a music class that held a session at the arboretum, where it coaxed sound and rhythms from sticks, stones and other natural materials, and a philosophy class that used the forest to explore environmental themes.
“Our poets should go out, our musicians should go out, to experience the complexity of nature,” she says. “You have to see all those interactions, you have to feel it, you have to smell it. There’s no substitute for being outdoors.”
Grants will be available to faculty members across the College to help them design instructional modules that make use of the arboretum.
Mathew Holmes-Hackerd ’20, a biology major, shares Girdler’s enthusiasm for the arboretum’s possibilities. He will be conducting a survey there this fall of the invasive species colonizing the former farmland, a 1982 gift to the College by the late Lillian Anderson ’26.
“We’re really fortunate to have this,” he says as he searches along the Arboretum’s Meadow Run Trail for patches of Oriental bittersweet, an invasive vine that can overwhelm and damage native trees. “It’s going to be really amazing.”