K Announces Lucasse, Ambrose Recipients

Kalamazoo College announced today that one faculty member and one staff member have earned two of the highest awards the College bestows on its employees. Rosemary K. Brown Professor of Computer Science Alyce Brady received the 2023–24 Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching, and Custodian Laura Weber was named the recipient of the W. Haydn Ambrose Prize for Extraordinary Service to Kalamazoo College.

Brady, a co-chair of the computer science department, has served K for nearly 30 years. She teaches a variety of courses from introductory classes to advanced classes on programming languages, data structure, dynamic Internet apps and software development in a global context. Her research interests have included the application of computer science to social justice while serving as the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Faculty Fellow from 2013–2015.

Over the past decade, Brady has supervised 72 Senior Integrated Projects and is currently guiding five more. She is also credited with championing student reflection through growth journals, applying a flipped-classroom format that started even before the pandemic, and receiving previous recognition through the Outstanding First-Year Advocate award.

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

Nominators credited Weber, a 10-year staff member in Facilities Management, for volunteering at student events such as Monte Carlo and Cafsgiving. She also hosts international students and refers to her former visitors as her “children,” while former students refer to her as their “mum.” One nominator wrote, “Her love language is inclusion.” Another said, “she treats everyone like family.”

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, Weber 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 of the honorees.

Lucasse Award - Alyce Brady 1
Rosemary K. Brown Professor of Computer Science Alyce Brady was awarded the 2023–24 Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching.
Ambrose Prize Recipient Laura Weber
Laura Weber, a 10-year staff member in Facilities Management, received the Ambrose Prize, named after W. Haydn Ambrose.

Here’s the Scoop: Admission Staffer Targets Favorite Chef Title

When she’s not helping Kalamazoo College’s Admission Office recruit the next batch of first-year students to campus, Operations Manager Teresa Fiocchi is often cooking up something special in her kitchen. In fact, she is an award-winning chef with her own website, who is slicing through the competition in the Favorite Chef contest, presented by author, TV personality and chef Carla Hall.

Fiocchi has collected praise in the past as the Cook of the Week in the Daily Herald newspaper’s Chopped competition. She also won the SpartanNash Souper Competition in Grand Rapids in 2018, providing a $2,500 prize, an additional $2,500 for the South Michigan Food Bank in Battle Creek, and a chance to make her dish on TV.

Yet Favorite Chef provides bigger fish to fry.

By reaching the competition’s quarterfinals, Fiocchi’s already in the top 1% of the thousands of nationwide entrants. Plus, with your vote before 10 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, she might keep alive her hope for the whole enchilada: a $25,000 grand prize, a two-page spread in Taste of Home Magazine, and a chance to cook in person with Hall, a chef known in part for her appearances on Top Chef and co-hosting The Chew.

 “Food is my love language and feeding people brings me joy,” she said. “People express how they feel about each other differently, but I always say that if I like you, I cook for you. Food should bring people together; whether it’s surrounded by family at the kitchen table, standing at the counter drinking wine and talking about what’s for dinner, or cookies in the breakroom at K—the ultimate goal is finding common ground and time to be together. I think food does that. Food is how I express that I’ve taken the time to think through what would bring you joy.”

Fiocchi loves collecting hundreds of cookbooks and trying new recipes, but family recipes are always favorites. The chef added that she has many happy memories of cooking, especially with family. “Making mom’s potato salad, or Nonni’s tortellini is my way of honoring their lives and the food memories we’ve inherited from them.” She’s the proud owner of a vintage Pillsbury cookbook from 1913; as well as a signed copy of Sister Pie by K alumna Lisa Ludwinski ’06. Yet if she doesn’t love a cookbook, she doesn’t keep it because she knows someone else will fall in love with it.

Perhaps that love could be passed to a K colleague, the folks who make working at the College enjoyable for her.

“I love everything about K,” she said. “I love the institution, but the people are really what makes K so special. We moved to Michigan in 2017 after 50 years in the Chicagoland area and I found my extended family at K in 2018 when I started working in the Admission office. I’m grateful to work with people who are my friends in and out of the office, and that they are all so willing to be my taste testers.”

Favorite Chef Contestant Teresa Fiocchi Cooking in Her Kitchen
Office of Admission Operations Manager Teresa Fiocchi has reached the quarterfinals of the Favorite Chef competition.

How to Vote for K’s Favorite Chef

To support Teresa Fiocchi in the Favorite Chef contest, visit her quarterfinalist page and click “Free Daily Vote.” Voters may choose “Verify with Facebook” or “Verify by Card.” Voters who select “Verify by Card” are charged $1 that is immediately refunded. The process ensures that voters select their favorite chef no more than once per day.

Forbes Ranks K Among Best Small Employers

If you’re job hunting and small employers are appealing to you, Forbes says Kalamazoo College should be on your radar.

The global media company that focuses on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership and lifestyle released its inaugural list of America’s Best Small Employers this week. After crunching data from more than 10,000 employers nationwide that have between 200 and 1,000 workers, Forbes shows K at No. 253 of the top 300.

To assemble the list, Forbes teamed up with Statista, a market research firm, to examine anonymous surveys of employees using targeted panels and open participation from the public; job-related websites that gauge employer reputation, engagement, retention and benefits; and social listening text analysis through websites, blogs, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and YouTube.

Small colleges and private schools scored particularly well in general, comprising 20% of the list. Plus, K prepares its graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world—a mission that resonates with its dedicated faculty and staff. If you’re interested in working for K, visit our “Careers at K” web pages. 

Dedicated faculty and staff such as Kalamazoo College Fund Director Laurel Palmer have helped K reach Forbes’ first list of America’s Best Small Employers.

Honors, Philanthropy Prompt College’s Top 10 Stories

In 2022, national publications continued to recognize Kalamazoo College as an outstanding institution of higher education. That reputation was furthered through the achievements of faculty, staff and academic departments, and donors funding K’s strategic plan, Advancing Kalamazoo College: A Strategic Vision for 2023. Here are the institution’s top 10 stories this year as determined by your clicks. Find the top stories from our students, faculty and staff, and alumni.

10. K Confers Lucasse, Ambrose Honors

K awarded one faculty member and one staff member with two of the highest awards it bestows on its employees with Professor of Psychology Bob Batsell earning the Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship, and Student Health and Counseling Centers Office Coordinator Jen Combes granted the W. Haydn Ambrose Prize.

Lucasse Recipient Robert Batsell in class_fb
Professor of Psychology Bob Batsell
Ambrose Award Recipient Jen Combes
Student Health and Counseling Centers Office Coordinator Jen Combes receives the Ambrose Prize from Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez.

9. Gift Benefits History Projects, Honors Emeriti Professors

Thanks to a lead anonymous gift, and the philanthropy of other donors, a new endowed fund is supporting exemplary seniors and their Senior Integrated Projects in the Department of History while honoring two of the department’s emeriti professors, David Strauss and John Wickstrom.

Emeriti Professors Barclay, Strauss and WickstromEmeriti History Professors John Wickstrom, David Barclay and David Strauss
Emeriti History Professors John Wickstrom, David Barclay and David Strauss

8. Money Magazine Credits K for Quality, Affordability, Outcomes

K is gaining global repute among some of the top institutions in higher education with Money magazine ranking K 19th among the country’s liberal arts and sciences colleges and 50th in the Midwest regardless of public or private status.

Money Magazine_fb

7. German Studies Program Receives National Honor

K’s Department of German Studies was one of just three programs in the country this year honored by the American Association of Teachers of German with a German Center of Excellence award. The designation is presented to well-established and growing programs with demonstrated excellence in instruction, and strong support from administration, professional colleagues, alumni and students.

The faculty members in K’s German department include Co-Chair and Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Assistant Professor of German Kathryn Sederberg, Co-Chair and Professor of Classics Elizabeth Manwell, Instructor of German Stefania Malacrida and Assistant Professor of German Petra Watzke.

Kathryn Sederberg teaching a course in German
Kathryn Sederberg is the Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Assistant Professor of German and co-chair of the Department of German Studies.
Petra Watzke
Assistant Professor of German Petra Watzke

6. K Announces $250,000 Gift to Support Faculty-Led Student Research, Creative Works

Students participating in faculty-advised research or creative projects now have access to dedicated funding thanks to a $250,000 gift from a couple who previously served as members of the K’s faculty and administration.

The Richard J. Cook and Teresa M. Lahti Endowment for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity was established to facilitate faculty-student collaborative work. The fund provides stipends, materials and essential project-related travel assistance to students engaged in such research or creative activity.

Faculty-Student Research and Creative Works Endowment
Richard J. Cook and Teresa M. Lahti

5. Princeton Review: K Offers Value, a Chance to Make an Impact

An independent study from the Princeton Review shows that K provides one of the most outstanding returns on investment in higher education. The education-services company profiles and recommends K in the 2022 edition of The Best Value Colleges, an annual guide to undergraduate schools, and again in The Best 388 Colleges.

The Princeton Review doesn’t rank the Best Value Colleges. However, K received a separate honor in The Best Value Colleges guide as the College was ranked No. 18 on a list of the Top 20 Private Colleges Where Students Are Making an Impact. This means K students said through surveys that their student-government opportunities, the College’s sustainability efforts and K’s on-campus student engagement are providing students with opportunities to make a difference in their community.

Stetson Chapel in Fall for Best Value Colleges
The Princeton Review examined more than 650 institutions for this year’s list.

4. Fulbright Again Honors K as a Top Producer of Scholarship Recipients

K had six representatives from the class of 2021 in Fulbright’s U.S. Student Program, leading to the College receiving top producer status for the fourth time in five years.

K’s representatives in 2021-22 and their host countries were Helen Pelak ’21, Australia; Katherine Miller-Purrenhage ’21, Germany; Sophia Goebel ’21, Spain; Molly Roberts ’21, France; Margaret Totten ’21, Thailand; Nina Szalkiewicz ’21, Austria; and Evelyn Rosero ’13, South Korea.

Katherine Miller-Purrenhage in Germany
Katherine Miller-Purrenhage ’21

3. Forbes Praises K for Successful Student Outcomes

If you’re a student who wants an excellent education at a great price, K will provide it, according to Forbes magazine. Forbes also says choosing K means you’ll follow in the footsteps of successful entrepreneurs and countless influential leaders in their fields.

The magazine chose K as the top private college in Michigan, ranking it third in the state overall and No. 183 in the country among its picks of the top 500 schools in the U.S.

Students Sitting in a Circle on the Lower Quad for Forbes Rankings

2. K Parents Geoffrey and Kathleen Fieger Create Endowed Scholarship

A generous $1 million gift from Geoffrey N. Fieger and Kathleen J. Fieger will support current and future students by funding the Keenie and Julian Fieger Endowed Scholarship, named for Kathleen and the couple’s son Julian.

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Geoffrey N. Fieger and Kathleen J. Fieger

1. City Approves 2022 Campus Master Plan

K received approval from the city’s commissioners in October to move forward with a master plan that focuses on enhancing and expanding the on-campus living experience while strengthening the connection between K’s campus and the surrounding community.

Kalamazoo College Campus Master Plan
City commissioners have approved Kalamazoo College’s 2022 Campus Master Plan.

An Opportunity to Express Gratitude

Gratitude Grateful for K
Students take advantage of “Grateful for K Day” to share their gratitude in handwritten thank-you notes to K donors

Kalamazoo College invites students, faculty, staff, alumni and others to celebrate “Grateful for K Day” on Wednesday, April 5, 2017.

Sponsored by the Kalamazoo College Fund, and formerly called “Tuition Freedom Day,” the April 5 event educates students about the important role philanthropy plays in sustaining and enhancing Kalamazoo College and (hopefully) inspires them to express their gratitude for the alumni, parents, faculty, staff and friends who generously support the College each year.

On Grateful for K Day students write hundreds of thank-you notes to express appreciation for the generosity shown through philanthropic support of Kalamazoo College. More than 98 percent of K students receive scholarships and/or some form of financial aid. This day acknowledges K donors and helps to educate students on the impact philanthropy has on their education and K experience.

What can you do on Wednesday to honor generosity and express gratitude? If you’re a student, please visit the Hicks Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. to write a thank-you note or two to our donors. After you’ve written your notes, grab a cookie and hot chocolate!

If your a donor, please share your “Why I Give” and “Why I am Grateful” stories on our website or Facebook page, where you can also learn more about Grateful for K Day.

Thanks for helping to put the K in thanKs!

Greening Away Violence

Green Dot-Trained Faculty and Staff at KThis spring Kalamazoo College is beginning to turn green from Green Dot, and that “greening” will create a campus where the likelihood of dating and domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault decreases significantly because everybody does their part.

Just last week some 29 K faculty, staff and administrators completed four days of Green Dot “College Curriculum” training.

Green Dot is a violence prevention program with origins in college and university settings. It is also being implemented across the entire U.S. Air Force, on installations across all other branches of the military, and in communities and organizations in all 50 states and internationally.

The program is designed to enlist entire communities in order to spread the work and the joy that comes with it. And it works! In a five-year longitudinal study, Green Dot was shown to reduce violence perpetration by up to 50 percent in Kentucky high schools. Other studies found a 17 percent reduction in colleges, and additional research is being funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the effect of Green Dot in communities and additional colleges.

The 29 trainers will contribute to the planning and implementation of bystander education sessions for students (the first is set for late April) and Green Dot overview sessions for faculty, staff, administrators and students. Bystanders are trained to safely use words and actions to address or prevent “red dots.” In the program’s iconography, a red dot is any person’s choice to harm another person with words or actions. In any environment, or map, enough red dots create a norm where violence is tolerated. Green dots are small actions to intervene when a red dot is occurring or to prevent the likelihood of red dots at all. Small as they may be, Green Dot words and actions draw their power from the large numbers of people who commit to speak or do them. Together, enough Green Dots can change “worlds,” small and large.

Small acts and everyone doing their part is the key to the program’s success. Last week’s faculty and staff training included an array of work lives and “spheres of influence” that nearly covers the campus map, so the Green Dot greening of K is off to a broad and excellent start.

Early participants and Green Dot educators included (l-r)–front row (seated): Ellen Lassiter Collier, Gender Equity; Liz Smith ’73, Library, Katie Miller, Athletics (Women’s Basketball); Leslie Burke, Library; Miasha Wilson, Business Office; Kenlana Ferguson, Counseling Center, Erika Driver, Counseling Center; Laura Livingstone-McNelis ’89, Theatre Arts; Brittany Liu, Psychology; back row (standing): Jessica Ward, Registrar’s Office, Morgan Mahdavi ’14, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership; Jeanne Hess, Physical Education (Volleyball); Josh Moon, Educational Technology; Narda McClendon, Center for International Programs; Andrew Grayson ’10, Admission; Elizabeth Manwell, Classics; Bryan Goyings ’04, Athletics (Women’s Soccer); Jax Gardner, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership; Heather Dannison, Counseling Center; Jason Lintjer, Athletics (Men’s and Women’s Swimming); Marcie Weathers, Facilities Management; Franki Hand, Media Services; Jay Daniels ’13, Athletics (Men’s and Women’s Swimming); Dan Kibby ’90, Computer Programming; Tim Young, Security, Karen Joshua Wathel, Student Development, Heather Garcia, Center for International Programs; Melissa Emmal, Green Dot, Washington, D.C.; Sirajah Raheem, Green Dot, Atlanta, Georgia. Not pictured are Stacy Nowicki, Library, and Jim VanSweden ’73, College Communication.

Funding for Kalamazoo College’s Green Dot efforts comes from the State of Michigan Campus Sexual Assault Grant Program.

A New “Lost” Adventure

Kalamazoo College Alumna Laura Livingston-McNellisOne great outcome of the K-Plan is an aptitude for adventure–one that lasts a lifetime, with a concomitant fearlessness of failure. Take Laura Livingstone-McNelis, class of 1989. The English major, theatre arts minor, LandSea participant (who studied abroad in the United Kingdom) has taught in the public schools, owned and administered a bed & breakfast business and, for the past four years, served as the company manager for the College’s Department of Theatre Arts and Festival Playhouse Productions. Next month you can add to that résumé the title: Playwright.

Laura’s one-act play, “Lost in the Shuffle,” has been accepted by and will be performed during the Seventh Annual New Play Festival at the Epic Center in downtown Kalamazoo. Her play will stage on Saturday, February 4, at 2 p.m.

Laura cites three reasons for her adventure into playwrighting.

“I was intrigued by the New Play Festival’s call for plays and thought, ‘Why not try?'” she says. Actually, the genesis of “Lost” dates back several months before that call. As a member of the Lake Effect Writers Guild, Laura remembers a particular meeting the previous winter. “The assignment was to write something with a ‘bit of dialogue.’ I thought, ‘Here’s my chance,’ and began the first draft of ‘Lost’ in January 2016.” So the metamorphosis of “Here’s my chance!” to “Why not try?” constitutes one of three motives driving our nascent playwright.

The second had to do with the seminal event that inspired the play. Laura explains: “The play is about Alzheimer’s disease and its effect on the patient and the family, especially family caregivers. My stepfather eventually died of the disease. I recall during a visit to my mom and stepfather’s house finding in a desk a box with a harmonica. I was familiar with the harmonica because years earlier my kids had given it to my mom and inscribed on the box ‘Grandma.’ But when I saw the box that day the word ‘Grandma’ had been carefully crossed out, and in the painstaking handwriting of my stepfather was  written instead the word ‘harmonica.’

“Often you cannot see the devastation of Alzheimer’s until its late stages. Those early effects can be hidden. And yet already the disease had stolen from his mind–at least intermittently–the concept of possession. In his mind, the box did not contain a grandma; it contained a harmonica, so he fixed it.”

The hiddenness and drama of that discovery in the desk relates to the third reason Laura wrote her play. “Theatre is a community of inclusion, able to inspire empathy and be an agent for change,” she says. “Theatre brings light to issues hidden beneath our inattentiveness, and the effects of Alzheimer’s disease require more light,” she adds.

Her script development continues through the rehearsal process and in collaboration with the play’s director and actors. “I’ve done five rewrites during rehearsals,” says Laura, “and learned a great deal in the revisions.” In her play, Laura is writing movement as much as dialogue. For example, her staging of “shuffling” acquires multiple layers of meaning in this poignant work, as much poem as performance. Launching an adventure takes teamwork, and Laura is deeply grateful to the producers of the New Play Festival, Kevin Dodd and Steve Feffer, for providing the opportunity for playwrights like her to develop their work. Ed Menta has served as her mentor since her college days. “And my family and friends have enthusiastically encouraged my writing,” she adds.

“Lost” may be just the beginning of her writing career. “I have things to say,” she smiles, “and I’m no longer too intimidated to try.” She’s at work on a family book about the power of love. “It’s meant to be read by parents to children, and it focuses on the extraordinary relationship between my mom and my daughter.” The working title is “A Kiss Across the Miles.”

Who knows, though, its genre may morph to a play. As might her second work-in-progress, a memoir based on a nightly diary Laura has kept for 41 years (seriously!)…every night, with no more than a couple dozen exceptions, since she was NINE YEARS OLD.

“I don’t have a working title for the memoir,” says Laura. “It’s shaping into the arc of a young woman growing up with a set of expectations and then having to manage a life direction that diverges quite radically from those expectations.”

Add to this oeuvre a second version of “Lost.” February’s performance (version one) takes about 12 minutes. Laura will expand that to a one-act play of standard length (40 to 45 minutes). Who knows, maybe one day she’ll make it a full-length play.

In the meantime, Rave on, Laura. And thank you for the courage.

Flat Iron at the Ledyard

Russell Cooper's 2015 ArtPrize entryMore than 1,500 works of art at 160+ venues across three square miles. Yep, we’re talking ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, and one of those works was created by Russell Cooper ’89, Help Desk administrator at Kalamazoo College.

ArtPrize is a radically open international art competition decided by public vote and expert jury that takes place each fall in Grand Rapids. The 2015 competition began September 23 and continues through October 11.

Russell’s entry is titled “Flat Iron at the Ledyard” and features a singular location made to look like a collage of viewpoints (just the opposite of 2014’s ArtPrize piece “For Your Amusement”, a collage of multiple locations made to look like one imaginary and fantastical place). It is an old-school method of cutting and pasting real prints, with little or no Photoshop involved. The subject location is at Ottawa and Monroe Center in the heart of Grand Rapids, site of the Flat Iron Building on the Ledyard Block. Originally constructed in 1860, it’s one of three of the oldest historical buildings in downtown GR, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “Flat Iron at the Ledyard” is photographed over several months, with many times of day, many kinds of weather, and many types of pedestrian and automobile traffic patterns. If a picture is worth a “thousand” words, how about one made up of a “thousand” pictures? You can see Russell’s piece at Palatte Coffee & Art (150 Fulton Street East), and you can vote for it online.

Some Dust and Then a Pony!

Enlarged graphic shows Campus Drive behind the Hicks Student Center
Effective August 24, Campus Drive behind Hicks Center will be one-way west, allowing a gain of 20 new angle parking spaces.

A stall full of horse manure is a litmus test for optimism. One person may see only a thankless chore; but a second rejoices in the likelihood of a pony.

Well, pardon our dust,and then get ready for a metaphorical pony.

From midnight on Thursday, August 20, until midnight on Sunday, August 23, two parking lots (Crissey-Severn and Upper Fine Arts) and Campus Drive behind the Hicks Student Center will be closed for resealing and striping. we apologize for that inconvenience. Here comes the pony part.

When Campus Drive reopens (August 24), the street will be one way (west only) from the east end of the Hicks Center to Lovell Street. Drivers will no longer be able to enter Campus Drive from Lovell Street. Campus Drive will continue to be accessed from Academy Street and will remain two-way from Academy Street to the east end of the Hicks Center. The new configuration will provide space for at least 20 new parking places, six of which will be reserved for alternative fuel vehicles. And the one-way traffic flow behind Hicks Center will also increase safety for pedestrians and ease congestion.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience the repaving and striping may cause, and we sure look forward to additional parking spaces on campus. This project takes its place among others–the library and Hicks Center renovations, the athletic fields complex, the social justice center building, the fitness and wellness center–wherein a temporary inconvenience is followed by a permanent improvement.

I Can Garden and You Can Too!

Master Gardener Jane Hoinville at the Jolly Garden
Master Gardener Jane Hoinville

Turns out I can weed a garden just as well as the next person! Who would have thought! Jolly Garden is located at 1324 Academy Street and needs volunteers just like you!

The College offers garden classes in the fall and spring and is maintained in the summer by Kalamazoo College students, faculty, staff members, and friends. Leading the efforts is Master Gardener Jane Hoinville, who “by day” works as a prospect research analyst in the College’s development unit. The garden first began in 2010 and is named after Seema Jolly ’07, the first instructor of the gardening course and a strong force behind the garden’s success.

Jane is also presenting master gardener information on vegetable gardening on July 30th at noon. Mark it on your calendar and see you at the Jolly Garden, where Jane can also answer any questions you may have about your own garden!

The garden is open for volunteer work on Tuesdays at noon and Thursdays at 5 p.m. throughout the summer.

Text and photos by Mallory Zink ’15