students

An Opportunity to Express Gratitude

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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

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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.

Why Neibuhr? Why Now?

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Students Work with Former K Visiting Professor Jeremy SabellaSeveral students from Visiting Instructor of Art Danny Kim‘s videography classes had the opportunity to interview Jeremy Sabella, author of the companion book  of the new documentary, “An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story.”

The K students asked the questions and did all of the sound and camera work required for the interview. They focused on the reasons the filmmakers chose to tell Neibuhr’s story. Their interview will be featured on the film’s website in coming weeks. The documentary film is currently screening in select locations this spring and will air on PBS later this year. It features interviews with many internationally recognized historians and scholars, including former Kalamazoo College professor Gary Dorrien, the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University.

Neibuhr was one of America’s most prominent 20th-century theologians and political thinkers, noted for his unrelenting advocacy for justice and for the incisive clarity of his thinking and writing. Presidents from Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter have credited his impact on their thinking, as well as John McCain, countless historians, theologians, political thinkers, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who cited Niebuhr in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.

Niebuhr’s books, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), The Nature and Destiny of Man (1941–43) and The Irony of American History (1952), continue to influence theological and political thinking. His insights into human nature and its relationship to political movements and social justice propelled him to speak openly, and often critically, to an America consumed by moral certainty. The documentary includes interviews with many prominent

The K “Sabella Interview” production crew included (l-r): Christine Cho, Kalkidan Amare, Mackenzie Landman, author Jeremy Sabella, Madeline Lauver, Ximena Davis and Blair Garner. Sabella is married to Sarah Koenig, visiting assistant professor in K’s religion department.

First-Year Student Wins Entrepreneurship Grant

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Kalamazoo College Student Mansi DahalMansi Dahal ’20 has a vision so impressive that the Michigan Colleges Alliance (MCA) has awarded her one of its Independent Innovators Network Scholarships. The scholarships recognize entrepreneurial concepts submitted by students from the 15 MCA schools. Mansi will receive a $5,000 scholarship in spring. The overall top entrepreneurial concept will be selected by MCA in the coming weeks.

Her goal after graduation in 2020 is to open a small clothing manufacturing business that employs women who have been physically, verbally and sexually abused. She envisions an operation–small at first–that incorporates design, production, marketing and advertising and sales. She plans to begin her business in Nepal, the home from which she matriculated to Kalamazoo College.

In addition to training and employment, her operation would provide housing and food for those employees who need it. The growth of her business will help ameliorate an important social issue. “Women who have undergone such trauma are often left jobless and without support,” wrote Mansi. With training, new skills and employment opportunities the women can regain power in their lives. Improvement in the lives of women has been a cause important to Mansi since her adolescence. At that time her first careers yearnings leaned toward medicine. And undergraduate study in the United States was not part of her plan. “Nothing happens according to my plans,” she says, “and I’ve been delighted by that.” When she first arrived at K, she was considering a major in economics. However, her first-year creative writing class has her thinking about a possible major in English.

She has a year before declaring a major (which happens in the sophomore winter term), plenty of time and opportunity to exercise her liberal arts spirit. Whatever her major ends up being, it will apply to the business idea she’s determined to bring to fruition–a business she hopes to expand to countries outside of Nepal. And the profits from that business Mansi plans to invest in its growth and to donate to organizations that promote sustainable hygiene and health for girls worldwide.

Wilderness Leaders

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Wilderness Leadership ConferenceTwenty-four K students attended the Midwest Outdoor Leadership Conference recently, hosted by Central Michigan University and Mystic Lake YMCA Camp. Six K seniors presented four different workshops at the conference. Workshops and presenters included: Wilderness Solitude as a Rite of Passage for Emerging Adults (William Bartz, adapted from his Senior Individualized Project work), Meaningful Program Elements of Kalamazoo College’s LandSea Outdoor Orientation Program (Sharayu Salvi, adapted from Sharayu’s SIP work), Title IX and Outdoor Education (Emily Kowey and Danielle Gin, adapted from Emily’s SIP work), and Building Top Rope Climbing Anchors (Josh Cho and Siwook Hwang).

Senior Leaders

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Senior Leadership Award, Class of 2017, Kalamazoo College.Thirty-five Kalamazoo College seniors (class of 2017) were honored with the institution’s prestigious Senior Leadership Award. These remarkable individuals include teaching assistants, peer instruction leaders, resident assistants, team captains, all-conference and academic all-American selections, Dean’s List honorees, student ambassadors for the president of Kalamazoo College, departmental student advisors, Center for Career and Professional Development career associates, and interfaith student leaders. One has even served as the mascot, Buzz the Hornet.

They lead or participate in groups that include, among others, Sisters in Science, Frelon Dance Troupe, College Singers, Young Men of Color, Black Student Organization, Coalition for Reproductive Justice, Hillel, Swim for Success, the Cauldron, Health Professions Society, and the Athletic Leadership Council. Some have distinguished themselves as Hornet athletes in golf, soccer, softball, baseball, tennis, basketball and swimming; as performers in theatre and music; and as persons committed to thinking, listening and acting in collaboration on behalf of civic engagement and social justice.

Above all, these 35 individuals are, as one nominator wrote, “exemplary human beings.” Congratulations, seniors. Pictured are (l-r): front row–Moises Hernandez (holding his son Gael), Emily Levy, Marlon Gonzalez, Lauren Perlaki, Elizabeth Clevenger, Jacob Scott, Dana DeVito, Colleen Orwin; second row–Thaddeus Buttrey, Grace Smith, Kathleen Sorensen, Allie Brodsky, Suma Alzouhayli; third row–Allia Howard, Sarah Bragg, Kayla Dziadzio, Suzanne Miller, Sabrina Dass, Gabrielle Holme-Miller, Emily Kowey; fourth row–Melissa Erikson, Anh-Tu Vu, Riley Boyd, Ellie Goldman, Erin DuRoss; back row–Nate Donovan, Eric DeWitt, Douglas Robinett, David Smith, and Sidney Wall. Not pictured are Sarah Glass, Chenxi Lu, Leland Merrill, Branden Metzler, and Lindsay Worthington.

Photo by Anthony Dugal

A Distinguished Dozen

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Kalamazoo College 2017 Class Agents
Class agents (and their majors) for the class of 2017 are (l-r) front row–Kamal Kamalaldin (computer science), Bianca Delgado (political science), Kriti Singh (economics), Emma Franzel (theatre arts), Brooke Travis (anthropology and sociology); middle row–Emerson Brown (economics), Emily Levy (anthropology and sociology), Emily Finch (English and history), Chris Francis (economics); back row–Alivia DuQuet (political science and women, gender and sexuality studies) and Eric DeWitt (economics). Not pictured is Amanda Johnson (economics).

The class of 2017 has its agents, a dozen as distinguished as they are diverse. Alivia DuQuet, Amanda Johnson, Bianca Delgado, Brooke Travis, Chris Francis, Emerson Brown, Emily Finch, Emily Levy, Emma Franzel, Eric DeWitt, Kamal Kamalaldin and Kriti Singh come from four states and three countries and represent eight different majors, five different study abroad programs on four continents, one study away program and a K-Trek (K to the Big Apple). Seven will enter the work force after graduation (several with jobs already lined up), two will go to graduate school, two will take a gap year then proceed with their graduate educations, and one will do Teach for America before beginning grad school. Senior Individualized Projects ranged widely, and topics included, among others, state sexual education policies, climate adaption strategies, cultural institutions in Palestine, corporate venture capital investments, the Dodd-Frank Act, parental attitudes regarding corporal punishment, feminism performance theory and the U.S. primary care industry.

All of the class agents were asked why they wanted to take on this lifetime role. Their answers, understandably, varied and yet shared some common themes: an appreciation of the K learning experience, a desire to remain connected to classmates and the College and to pay forward the benefits of a K education. “Throughout my time at K,” said Singh, “I have realized the importance of financial support and support from alumni. I would love to be actively involved because a lot of students (unknowingly) benefit from the support from the people who have been giving back.” Kamalaldin agrees: “I want to be able to improve Kalamazoo College and stay connected to its mission. I want to give back the tremendous support and educational opportunity that Kalamazoo College gave me.”

Photo courtesy of Tony Dugal

MLK and “Our Moment”

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Danez Smith
Danez Smith

What does the annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.–his achievements and his ideas–mean for the present moment, what K students’ might term “our moment?” How should his spirit apply–in imagination, in word, in action–to their now and their future?

These are questions posed by and to students by and to the College’s Intercultural Center. The answers to those questions (both continually developing) will inform Kalamazoo College’s 2017 Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation on January 16, 2017.

As in the past, K’s activities will be part of various city events on that day. The 2017 MLK celebration Kalamazoo-wide theme is “The Transformative Power of a Unified Dream.”

Director of Intercultural Student Life (ISL) Natalia Carvalho-Pinto and students worked together to shape a celebration that creates opportunities to “consider what transformative power and resistance mean for new generations,” says Carvalho-Pinto. The ISL theme for this year’s K events is “Transformative Power and Resistance in the New Century: What Does ‘The Dream’ Look like Today?”

The day will feature four events, beginning with a convocation address by poet Danez Smith (10:50 a.m. in Stetson Chapel). The title of his talk is the same as the theme for K’s events, and it is free and open to the public.

Smith is the award-winning author of [insert] Boy (YesYes Books, 2014) and hands on ya knees (Penmanship Books, 2013), and he is a founding member of the multi-genre, multicultural Dark Noise Collective. His writing has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Kinfolks, among others.

His poems focus on intersecting matters of race, class, sexuality, faith and social justice, and it is characterized by a power, rhythm and imagery that invites and demands a reimagining of the world.

Smith then will lead a poetry workshop (12:30 p.m. Hicks Banquet Room, lunch provided) that is open to K students only. The workshop–titled “Future Tense: Poetry as Blueprint”–will explore the use of poetry to imagine realistic utopias in the not so distant future, and how those futures can allow us to reverse engineer the steps we would need to take to make them. “By looking at speculative worlds of some of today’s young poets of color,” says Carvalho-Pinto, “the workshop will inspire us toward change, possibility, action, dreaming and building the worlds we deserve.”

At 4 p.m. (gathering at Red Square) K students, faculty and staff will join their counterparts from Western Michigan University to walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Park in downtown Kalamazoo. Transportation back to K’s campus will be provided.

The afternoon’s poetry workshop will culminate at 6:30 p.m. with a reading in the Intercultural Center (Hicks). Students will share relevant writings and reflections–their own and that of others, some perhaps written that day during the workshop–about the day’s theme and celebrations. “The potential power of this event is extraordinary,” says Carvalho-Pinto. “We did this at Ferris [State University], and it was one of my favorite events.” The reading is open to the entire Kalamazoo College community, as is the film that will follow at 7:30 p.m. ISL has tentatively scheduled a screening of The Rosa Parks Story (starring Angela Bassett).

“We’re very excited about this year’s events,” says Carvalho-Pinto, “especially their potential to get us thinking about how what we celebrate on this day should infuse our present and future. And I’m particularly thrilled that Danez Smith will be a part.”

***
if you press your ear to the dirt
you can hear it hum, not like it’s filled

with beetles & other low gods
but like a mouth rot with gospel

& other glories. listen to the dirt
crescendo a boy back.

come. celebrate. this
is everyday. every day

holy. everyday high
holiday. everyday new

year. every year, days get longer.
time clogged with boys. the boys

O the boys. they still come
in droves. the old world

keeps choking them. our new one
can’t stop spitting them out.

-from “summer, somewhere,” by Danez Smith, Poetry, January 2016

Social Justice Fellows Named

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Kama Tai Mitchell (left) and Lillie Wolff
Kama Tai Mitchell (left) and Lillie Wolff

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) has announced the 2016-17 Regional Fellows. The program helps leaders in Kalamazoo County clarify the core values they want their work to exemplify, increase their effectiveness, and bring a stronger social justice focus to their work.  Fellows will engage often with the ACSJL for eight months, attending training and coaching sessions while laying the groundwork for their projects.

Names of the fellows and a brief description of their projects follow.

Jesselyn Leach is the creator of #Gang4Change, an initiative explores how art and social justice can work together. The project will work with Kalamazoo teens and young people, providing them the opportunity to connect with their artistic selves in music, spoken word poetry, slam poetry, cyphering, and other creative genres.

BlackOut, a project of Maxwell T. Isaac and Lexington Everson Fate, is designed to lay the foundations of greater visibility and sovereignty for the Black community of Kalamazoo. BlackOut is comprised of parts: the Living Narrative and the Living Action. The former will increase the visibility of Black stories as told by their authors, sharing their experiences with injustice in Kalamazoo. The latter will fortify leadership and community ties through community awareness events and trainings.

Movement for the Movement is a collaboration created by Kama Tai Mitchell and Lillie Wolff ’04. It will examine and address the systemic barriers that impede people with marginalized identities from accessing and benefitting from healing arts spaces and resources. When shared equitably and accountably, healing arts practices, such as yoga, can aid in transforming the harmful and dehumanizing effects of oppression and privilege.

Remi Harrington‘s project is called City Schools and BMFA (balancing motherhood for the future of America). Her work will promote parental engagement and community integrated education for the purpose of dismantling the cradle to the prison pipeline. The work will create intercultural spaces in neighborhoods to support academic mastery through industry centered, project based learning. These spaces will also develop employable skill sets and will build an infrastructure for a sustainable community.

Chris Wahmhoff is a creator of the Edison Ducks in a Row, a project that began in April of 2015 after two ducks were adopted and Edison neighborhood kids began to take interest. The program helps educated kids and young adults about farm animals and basic urban farming techniques. The eventual goal is to transition public school food sources to local farming in the Edison neighborhood.