Kalama-Raptors

Thinking Coach

Vicky Minderhout ’72, a professor of chemistry at Seattle University, was named the State of Washington’s “Professor of the Year” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She was one of 27 state-level winners in 2011; four others were national-level winners. Minderhout was cited for her innovations in teaching, particularly biochemistry. “Her research in Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning as applied to biochemistry has been a national model for many years now,” said Associate Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge. “I have met Vicky many times,” she added, “and always introduce my students to her when we see her at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology meetings.” ASBMB’s newsletter, ASBMB Today, published an interview with Minderhout in which she was questioned about teachers who influenced her classroom methods. In her answer she describes a quantum mechanics class that was taught by Associate Professor of Chemistry Ralph Deal. She also cites the enthusiasm that characterized Professor of Chemistry Kurt Kaufman’s interactive lectures. King TV in Seattle did a feature story on Minderhout’s Socratic style that includes the voices of many of her students.

Monsters of the Math Way

The results are in! And Kalamazoo College took second place in the 2011 Michigan Autumn Take Home Challenge (MATH Challenge). "K" finished 11 points behind Connecticut College and nine points ahead of third-place Calvin College. "This year we fielded six teams, the most we've ever entered," said John Fink, the Rosemary K. Brown Professor in Mathematics and Computer Science. Four of those teams finished in the top 10 of the 66 teams that participated. "K" results follow: 2nd place--Trung Huong, Hang Nguyen, Jiakan Wang; 5th place--Jake Arnett, Aidan Klobuchar, Jake Price; 7th place (tie with University of Detroit Mercy)--Jinyhuan Huang, Greg Toprak, Umang Varma; 9th place--Tibin John and Fayang Pan; 22nd place--Utsav Adhikari, Mojtaba Akhavantafti, Dan Esman; and 36th place--Mehmet Kolgolu, Sajan Silwal, Sina Yakhshitafti.

Piranesi and Piranesi

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) and his son Francesco Piranesi (1758-1810) were champions of Rome, publishing more than a thousand etchings depicting the 18th Century city and ancient Roman monuments. Numerous etchings by father and son—including a study of the Trajan column in Rome studied here by Professor Emeritus of Philosophy David Scarrow—will be on display in the A.M. Todd Rare Book Room on the third-floor of Upjohn Library Commons. The Todd Rare Book Room is open from 1:00 to 3:00 pm every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday during the academic year (September through June), and other times by appointment. The Rare Book Room will host the Kalamazoo Art Hop on Friday January 6, from 5 PM to 7 PM. [photo by Russell Cooper]

Social Justice and International Partnerships

Kiran Cunningham, Anthropology and Sociology, and Joe Brockington, Center for International Programs, are among five co-authors of a chapter in a new book released today. The book is Developing Strategic International Partnerships: Models for Initiating and Sustaining Innovative Institutional Linkages, and the chapter is titled “Social Justice and Capacity Building: A New Model for Strategic International Partnerships at Liberal Arts Colleges.” The new book is the sixth in a series of Global Education Research Reports published through a partnership between the Institute of International Education and the American Institute for Foreign Study Foundation.

SIP Work Shared

“K” Rates High for Study Abroad

Kalamazoo College has again been recognized as a leader in study abroad programs for U.S. college students. According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), Kalamazoo ranks #12 among U.S. colleges that offer baccalaureate degrees in terms of the percentage of its graduates that studied abroad. IIE reports that 83.2 percent (238 out of 311) Kalamazoo graduates in 2010 had studied abroad during their “K” experience. Last year’s IIE report ranked Kalamazoo #16.
      “Kalamazoo College is a pioneer in providing quality education abroad programs for students,” said Associate Provost for International Programs Joe Brockington. “We’ve been doing it for more than 50 years and continue to be a model for other colleges and universities.”
      Kalamazoo operates 48 programs in 24 countries on six continents. During the past four years, an average of 51 percent of “K” students traveled to Europe, 22 percent to Austral-Asia, 16 percent to Latin America and the Caribbean, and 11 percent to Africa and the Middle East. Popular programs are in China, Ecuador, Scotland, and Thailand.
      Kalamazoo’s program is distinctive, said Brockington, “because it’s integral (i.e. part of the ‘K’ curriculum), intentional (i.e. supported by learning outcomes that are assessed regularly), and integrative (i.e. striving to connect our students with local communities abroad).”
      He said Kalamazoo stands out even from other institutions because “K” students engage in long-term study abroad programs that last from one quarter to a full academic year. Many schools that send a high percentage of students abroad (including schools on the IIE list) only do so for three to four weeks in the summer.
      Kalamazoo students in all majors participate on study abroad, including a majority of student athletes even if it means they miss all or part of a competitive season. Many “K” students continue their major course of study while abroad, including science and math majors.
      Most students take advantage of the Fall-Winter program and reside with host families. An Integrative Cultural Research Project, or ICRP, is a required component of selected programs. Bearing an academic credit, ICRP projects place great emphasis on participation, informed by observation and more traditional research activities.
      “Study abroad remains a signature element of the K-Plan, said Brockington. “And it will for years to come.”
      Read more about Kalamazoo College’s study abroad program, including blogs by “K” students currently studying abroad, at www.kzoo.edu/international.
      IIE is the leading not-for-profit educational and cultural exchange organization in the United States. Its annual census is based on a survey of approximately 3,000 accredited U.S. institutions and draws support from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
      Calvin College (28) and Alma College (35) are the only other baccalaureate institutions in Michigan included on the 2011 IIE report.

Student of Color Leadership Conference

Twenty-seven “K” students (see photo) joined Associate Dean of Students Karen Joshua-Wathel and traveled to the 2011 GLCA Student of Color Leadership Conference at Allegheny College (Meadville, Pennsylvania). The group shared a ride with students attending the conference from Hope College. “A diverse group of keynote speakers provided insights across a range of topics and interests,” said Joshua-Wathel, including recent research and development on matters of access, justice, leadership, and sustainability. Workshop sessions also focused on experiences, strategies, observations, and practical actions that, together, said Joshua-Wathel, “will help students better understand the world they will inherit as future business leaders, community activists, scholars, healthcare and legal professionals, artists, politicians, and servants to society.”

Biochemistry Beats Biceps

Students Connect to Lampreys

Kalamazoo Kicks Byte

Nobel Connections

Big Bang Guest

Tan Earns Lucasse Lectureship

Siu-Lan Tan, associate professor of psychology, has earned Kalamazoo College’s highest annual honor for classroom teaching, the Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching.
      The “Lucasse,” was established in 1979 in honor of Florence J. Lucasse, Class of 1910, in response to the major unrestricted endowment gift she bequeathed to the College in her will. In addition to the Lectureship, a Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship is also awarded. Andrew Mozina, associate professor of English, holds the current Lucasse Fellowship.
      Tan was taken aback by her award: “I think the world of my colleagues and students, and knowing that they nominated and supported me for this was overwhelming. I immediately teared up, as I felt it deeply,”
      President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran expressed her admiration for Tan as she presented the award during the fall quarter all-campus gathering in Dalton Theatre on Sept. 20. “Professor Tan often extends students’ experiences beyond the classroom, and these service-learning experiences transform their learning, making concepts that may have once seemed dissonant in class become consonant in practice.”
      Born in Indonesia, Tan grew up in Hong Kong where she taught music. After moving to California, she earned a B.A. degree in music at Pacific Union College and taught music for several years. Later, she became interested in psychology and earned both Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in psychology at Georgetown University.
      Teaching at Kalamazoo College since 1998, Tan offers courses in developmental psychology, creativity, and the psychology of music. In 2010, she co-authored the textbook The Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance.
      Per Lucasse tradition, Tan will speak to students, faculty, staff, and quests about her work at a spring 2012 lecture.
      Congratulations, Dr. Tan!
(Story and photo by Rachel Leider ’15)

Engaged Citizens

“We Were Googled!”

Or—alternate headline: “How to Ruin a Spring Break.” Though Professor of Chemistry Jeff Bartz quickly notes that the ruination was sweet indeed, given that it led to the publication of a paper in the The Journal of Chemical Physics (September 7, 2011) on which he and two students—Nic West ’12 and Kelly Usakoski ’14—are co-authors. The story begins last spring break when Bartz was getting ready for the start of a new term. Scientists in the department of chemistry at Texas A&M wanted to do an experiment on molecular imaging, and to start they did a literature search seeking similar experiments. In that search they discovered an abstract of experimental work West had presented in June 2010 at the 65th International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy at the Ohio State University. They contacted Kalamazoo College—“We’d been Googled!” laughs Bartz. Thus began a research collaboration on further imaging experimentation that culminated in this month’s publication of “A method for the determination of speed-dependent semi-classical vector correlations form sliced image anisotropies.” The paper involves work that Usakoski performed in Bartz’ lab during spring quarter 2011. In addition to his on-campus contributions to the partnership last spring, West also traveled in the summer to A&M’s College Station campus and conducted related work that is the basis of his Senior Individualized Project. And Bartz “lost” a spring break to the start-up of the “K” and A&M research collaboration. “It was well worth it,” he says. Pictured are the study’s three Kalamazoo College co-authors (l-r): Kelly Usakoski, who is considering declaring her major in either chemistry or physics this year; Jeff Bartz; and Nic West, a chemistry and physics double major.

Welcome, Class of 2015

What is Orange and Black and Green All Over?

Sierra Club magazine ranks Kalamazoo College as the 58th “greenest” institution of higher learning in the United States in its annual “America’s Coolest Schools” rankings. The ranking is based on a 12-page questionnaire sent to 940 four-year undergraduate colleges and universities. Questions center on environmental goals and achievements. Ten categories include energy supply, efficiency, food, academics, purchasing, transportation, waste management, administration, financial investments, and a catch-all called “other initiatives.” Kalamazoo College is also included in the Princeton Review’s 2011 Guide to 311 Green Colleges, developed in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council. Kalamazoo also received a solid “B” on the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card from the Sustainable Endowments Institute.

Science Grant Benefits Breast Cancer Research

Great Teachers in the Making

The inaugural class of the W.K Kellogg Foundation’s Woodrow Wilson Michigan Teaching Fellows includes two “K” students and two “K” graduates. Sarah Jenzen ’11 of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, is scheduled to graduate in June with degrees in math and psychology, Sarah has been a peer consultant in the College’s Math and Physics Center, a math mentor, an elementary math tutor, and a swim teacher/coach for children ages 3 to 12. She will attend Western Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo. Her classmate Harold Hermanson '11 (North Muskegon, Michigan) is a computer science major and mathematics minor. He has been a teaching assistant both at "K" and WMU, a departmental student advisor for the"K" Computer Science department, and a varsity basketball player for four years. His Senior Individualized Project focused on best teaching techiques for math/computer science students. He will attend Indiana University and Purdue University in Indianapolis. Travis Smith ’10 [pictured with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder at the Lansing announcement] is from Greensboro, N.C. A math major who is fluent in Spanish, Travis was an assistant high school math teacher in Ecuador, an algebra camp counselor, and a pre-calculus tutor for high-need students. He will attend WMU. Nick Wasmer ’07 (Farmington Hills, Mich.) is a biology major and economics minor will attend University of Michigan. He has been co-chair of the Farmington Hills Beautification Commission, co-owner/manager of a family landscaping business, a tutor for Hispanic high school students, and a volunteer biology teacher in Ecuador. The Battle Creek, Mich.-based W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) launched the statewide fellowship program in 2009. Sterling Speirn, WKKF president and CEO, joined Gov. Rick Snyder and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation President Arthur Levine in announcing the inaugural class of fellows. The fellows were selected from a highly competitive pool of 1,500 applicants hailing from a variety of experiences and former careers in math- and science-related fields. Fellows, who will begin their studies in the coming weeks, make a three-year commitment to teach in one of Michigan's high-need districts as part of the fellowship program. The first cohort of fellows will seek teaching positions for fall 2012 employment. Through the fellowship program and during their first three years of teaching, they will receive intensive support and mentoring to encourage them to continue their professional development and work with Michigan youth.

Voice of Peace

Paloma Clohossey ’11 recently received very good news: Davis Projects for Peace approved her $10,000 grant proposal titled “Sauti ya Amani,” or “The Voice of Peace.” The grant will allow her to visit and aid a struggling Kenyan school during the summer of 2011. She is among 105 students across the country this year—and the fourth “K” student in five years—selected to carryout “their own grassroots projects anywhere in the world that promote peace and address the root causes of conflict among parties,” according to the initiative’s website.
            Clohossey’s passion for Kenya developed during her junior year study abroad in Nairobi when she helped her host mother develop an organization to aid children. “I got to know these six kids that had come from abusive situations,” she said. “I knew from the moment I met the kids that I can commit to caring for them for the rest of my life.”
            After four months, her host mother ran out of funding, and was almost forced to send the children back to their abusers. Clohossey, a native of Menlo Park, California, contacted family and friends back in the United States, and gathered enough funds to send the children to a boarding school in Ngecha, Kenya. With help from the Beeler and Collins Grants secured through the College’s Center for International Programs, she traveled back to the boarding school in summer 2010 to conduct her Senior Individualized Project about the transference of cultural values through education.
            This summer, Clohossey will use her Davis Peace Project money to build a multi-purpose computer lab in the Ngecha school and hire technicians to train the staff in basic computer skills. She will also spend one month running music workshops at the school.
            Next fall, Clohossey will matriculate to Johns Hopkins University to earn a master’s degree in public policy. “The reason I’m doing my master’s,” said Clohossey, “is because I want to go back and work in Nairobi.”
            Read Paloma Clohossey’s project application at: www.davisprojectsforpeace.org/media/view/1659/original. The Davis Projects for Peace are named for international philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis, who chose to celebrate her 100th birthday by committing $1 million to 100 Projects for Peace annually. Now in its fourth year, the Davis Projects for Peace continue to support and encourage today's motivated youth to create and tryout their own ideas for building peace. [Story by Elaine Ezekiel ’13]

Six Senior Psych SIPS

Six senior psychology majors presented their Senior Individualized Project research at the 24th annual Michigan Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference in April.  Kamille La Rosa delivered the talk “Examining Tonal Stability in Children’s Production of Conventional Songs.”  Caitlin Finan presented the poster “Gender, Visual-Motor Skill, Self-Regulation, and Letter Knowledge as Predictors of Preschoolers’ Name-Writing Skills.”  Christina Violante presented the poster “Developmental Differences in Spatial Clustering as a Function of Object Relatedness.”  Alexis Irons presented the poster “Doctor’s Communication of Trust in Recurrent Cancer.”  Andrea Potthoff presented the poster “Interpersonal Behavior Differences during Conflict Discussions in Couples with Depression.”  Jack Cleary presented the poster “Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Risk Assessment in Delinquent Female Youth.”  These students were accompanied by Kalamazoo College psychology faculty members Autumn Hostetter, Ph.D., and Robert Batsell, Ph.D. Pictured are (l-r): Hostetter, La Rosa, Finan, Potthoff, Irons, Cleary, and Violante. The conference was hosted by Calvin College.

Science Strength

Kalamazoo College enjoyed a strong scientific presence at the Washington, D.C. meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Associate Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge served as a judge in the 15th Annual Undergraduate Poster Competition, in which five “K” students competed against more than 200 other undergraduates from throughout the country. Laura Diffenderfer ’11 presented a poster titled “Autodock as a method for predicting binding for substrates and inhibitors of human cytochrome P450 2D6,” based on a sliver of the research she’s conducted for the past two years in Furge’s lab. Diffenderfer plans to attend Wayne State Medical School this fall. Alyssa McNamara '11, a four-year denizen in the lab of chemistry professor Regina Stevens-Truss, presented “Suramin discriminates between the calmodulin-binding sites of neuronal and inducible nitric oxide synthase.” She will work for the Schuler Family Foundation in Chicago before she enrolls in medical school in 2012. Leslie Nagy ’09 and Diffenderfer presented “Mechanism-based inhibition of human cytochrome P450 2D6 by Schering 66712,” work recently accepted for publication in Drug Metabolism and Disposition. Nagy is completing a two-year appointment as a laboratory research associate in Furge’s lab. Tanav Popli ’11 presented a poster based on his SIP work at University of California-San Francisco. His poster was titled “Tmtc4 interacts with C3G, Wntless, and Zfhx4: a yeast two-hybrid trap for proteins associated with development of the corpus callosum.” Tanov plans to work in a laboratory after graduation and then apply for an M.D./Ph.D. program. Emily Parson '11 presented a poster titled “Characterization of a real time PCR assay for the detection and quanitification of Plasmodium malariae parasites.” She did her SIP, which was based in part on her study abroad experience in Kenya, at the Walter Reed U.S. Army Medical Research Unit in Washington, D.C. After she graduates this spring, Emily will return to Walter Reed to continue research in related areas. “Attendance at a national meeting is a tremendous opportunity for students to hear and meet leading scientists, to see how scientists share ideas with each other, and to see how scientific research accumulates and allows for the formation of new hypotheses,” said Furge. And it’s an opportunity that depends on philanthropy. Student travel to this meeting was supported by a grant to “K” from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. And Popli received a travel award from the Undergraduate Affiliation Network of Kalamazoo College headed by Stevens-Truss. Stevens-Truss organized the first annual ASBMB workshop titled: "Fostering Partnerships Between Colleges/Universities and Junior High School Teachers," and she noted that it got off the ground despite her absence due to and airline grounding. "I was disappointed to miss the workshopt when my flight was grounded in Kalamazoo," said Stevens-Truss. "But I'm glad the idea is now a successful reality." The second offering of the workshop will occur next April in San Diego. (Photo caption, l-r: Popli, Nagy, Diffenderfer, Parson, and McNamara)

Social Justice Academic Director Named

Kalamazoo College has appointed Lisa Brock, Ph.D., its inaugural Academic Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. In that position, Brock will help build the Center into the foremost educational organization engaged in the study and practice of social justice leadership. Brock believes in the integrity of intellectual rigor and its rightful union with social purpose. “The decisions I have made about my career and research have been determined by a desire to do work that informs or inspires positive social change,” Brock said, “and by a desire to be in an academic environment where such work is respected.” Brock is currently Chair of the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago, and Associate Professor of African History and Diaspora Studies. She begins her duties at “K” in September.

Brock earned a Ph.D. in African history (Northwestern University) and was soon drawn into the emergent transnational black studies field. Her scholarship offers fresh approaches to the collective study of peoples of African descent and has made significant contributions in the area of Black Atlantic/African Diaspora/Black Transnational Studies. Her articles have appeared in many journals and books. She co-edited Between Race and Empire, a book about African-American and Cuban relations before the Cuban Revolution, and she is currently at work on another book project called Black in Two Americas.She is often sought as a lecturer and has given papers at the Latin American Studies Association, American Historical Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, among other groups and organizations. She serves on the editorial collective of the respected journal Radical History Review.

Brock has long been a social justice activist, working on behalf of girls rights in junior high school and for her high school’s first African-American history course. This fundamental element of her character dates back even further. “My mother always claimed that the first full sentence I uttered was ‘That’s not fair.’ Even as a child I had a deeply felt empathy for people, animals, and the earth.” More recently she has developed and taken students on study abroad courses to South Africa and Cuba and has set up international exchanges in London, Mexico, and Shanghai. Brock also founded the Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement Archives.   

Research Reality

Kalamazoo College offers students the educational opportunity of real research in the classroom. An example? The paper, “Substituted Imidazole of 5-Fluoro-2-[4-[(2-phenyl-1h-imidazol-5-yl)methyl]-1-piperazinyl]pyrimidine Inactivates Cytochrome P450 2D6 by Protein Adduction,” was accepted for publication by Drug Metabolism and Disposition (DMD), a highly regarded, high impact international journal published by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. The senior and corresponding author on the paper is Laura Furge, Associate Professor of Chemistry. Seven student co-authors include: Leslie Nagy ’09, Catherine Mocny ’10, Laura Diffenderfer ’11, David Hsi ’10, Brendan Butler ’07, Evan Arthur ’09, and Kyle Fletke ’07. “We’ve been working on this for the past five years,” said Furge, “and students have presented parts of the preliminary data at national meetings since 2007.” The final version of the work will be presented in April at the national meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology by Nagy and Diffenderfer. That meeting will occur in Washington, D.C. The fast-forward edition of the article was published online March 21.

Furge said that the DMD paper includes 20 figures, and that “K” undergraduates performed the experiments that led to all but one of those figures. “The other figure came from work by researchers at Schering-Plough,” explained Furge, “which gave us the compound in 2001.” All experiments other than the one at Schering-Plough were done on the campus at Kalamazoo College. “We had all the equipment here needed to complete these studies, and we have already started full swing on another set of experiments for a future publication,” added Furge. “Students in this quarter’s ‘Advanced Biochemistry’ class will work on some aspects of this next research project in my lab,” she says. “This brings real research experiences to the classroom!”

As one would expect from a medicinal researcher, Furge chooses adjectives precisely. So the claim that DMD is a “high impact” international journal refers to a specific measure: that is how frequently manuscripts are referenced by other authors based on how many articles are in the journal.

The research described in this paper contributes to the understanding of how some drugs can “put the brakes on” the activity of an enzyme. “In this case,” says Furge, “the enzyme inhibited is one that is important for processing drugs used to treat heart conditions and depression, among others.”

The research also adds valuable understanding to the way drugs interact. “Many people take multiple medicines daily,” Furge explains. “This can lead to unwanted side effects, some of which are caused when some drugs inhibit the activity of enzymes responsible for processing or clearing of other drugs. Adverse side effects caused by drug interactions are the number one cause of hospitalization in America. This paper helps uncover how certain classes of drugs contribute to these medical events,” she concludes, “and hopefully will help lead to better prevention of such events in the future.”

Grants and gifts are the lifeblood of this research and the undergraduate learning opportunities it provides. Furge secured an NIH grant to fund the research. A Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to the College paid some student stipends and contributed to the purchase of the mass spectrometer essential for the completion of the experiments. The Hutchcroft Fund and the Kaufmann Fund—two chemistry department endowments created and sustained by gifts from Kalamazoo College community members—provided stipends for students. [Photo - Laura Furge, left, and Laura Diffenderfer--and to their right the mass spectrometer that was crucial to their research]

Academically Anchored

A new book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, is an urgent call for U.S. colleges and universities to raise the bar for learning in undergraduate education.  The book and an accompanying report (Improving Undergraduate Learning) combine longitudinal results from the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) and NSSE-like (National Survey of Student Engagement) data on students’ behaviors and experiences in college.   Using these measures, the authors conclude that, on average (even though there is variation among and, particularly, within individual institutions), U.S. undergraduates are learning far less than they could and should be and are under-developing vital 21st skills such as critical thinking, analytical reasoning, written communication, and problem solving.

Longitudinal Lightning

Just how good is a Kalamazoo College education? Want to know for sure? Then directly test students before and after they’ve completed the K learning experience. Test them for their gains in these abilities: to think critically, to reason analytically, to write well, and to solve problems. After all, those skills will come in handy for life after college. And gains in those abilities are the reasons we go to college in the first place and the outcome we seek from the experience.
                Measure directly! If you wanted to know how a medicine (or a diet or an exercise regimen) affected a person’s blood pressure, you wouldn’t just ask him how he felt afterwards, or make conclusions based solely on the way he looked. Instead, you’d use a monitor to read the person’s blood pressure. Direct measures require the courage to face real results. So kudos to K for its continued engagement with the Collegiate Learning Assessment (not all colleges have the guts).
                The CLA is a rigorous test that directly measures gains in the four abilities listed above. No multiple choice involved here! Instead students complete a “performance task” in which they are asked to solve a real-world problem using evidence from a document library. They also write two essays, one in which they make an argument and another in which they critique an argument.  The CLA factors for variations in individuals’ innate abilities in order to isolate and measure a single variable: the effect of a particular college educational experience on student gains in the ability to think, to reason, to write, and to solve.
                In 2005 Kalamazoo College administered the CLA to two groups (or cohorts)—its freshman (class of 2009) and seniors (class of 2005). Results showed that a Kalamazoo College education provides gains far greater than expected in those four endpoints.  Compared to other CLA participating institutions (all blinded, because self improvement, more than comparison, is the purpose of the CLA) K results were among the best—“nearly peerless” (the 99th percentile) according to Professor of Biology Paul Sotherland.
                The College corroborated these results in a second separate-cohort (or “cross-sectional”) study. Excellent results—supported by additional studies—were great news. But the College never rested on any laurels. Rather, it carefully studied its CLA data to determine if the robust results occurred broadly among all majors and, if not, what curricular changes might be most effective to ensure outstanding gains for all K students. In other words, even though direct outcome measures show “K” to be nearly peerless, how can it continue to improve on what it already does well?
                Now come the first longitudinal data—testing the same group of students as freshmen and as seniors. And the results confirm those of the cross-sectional studies: gains far above expected in all four abilities. According to Sotherland, “about two times greater than average gains at the other 25 institutions reporting longitudinal data.” Once again, he says, K is “peerless.” And, as before, the College continues to ask itself tough questions, relentlessly working to improve. Kudos K!

7 P.M. Life After "K" Event, Hicks Center Banquet Hall, LAC

9 A.M. Kalamazoo Bach Festival Annual High School Choral Festival, all-day choral workshop with clinician Jerry Blackstone, University of Michigan, Dalton Theatre

9 A.M. Kalamazoo Bach Festival Annual High School Choral Festival, all-day choral workshop with clinician Jerry Blackstone, University of Michigan, Dalton Theatre

11 A.M. Community Reflection: Why We Play, stories of student-athletes, sponsored by the Athletic Department, Stetson Chapel

1 P.M. Women's Basketball v. Adrian College, Anderson Athletic Center

3 P.M. Men's Basketball v. Albion College, Anderson Athletic Center