People in the News

This past weekend the Board of Trustees met and granted tenure and promotion to associate professor to the following faculty: Jennifer Einspahr, Ph.D., Political Science; Elizabeth Manwell, Ph.D., Classics; and Timothy Moffit, D.B.A., M.B.A., Economics and Business. "Please join me in congratulating these faculty on this important achievement," said Provost Mickey McDonald. "Their service to our students, the College, and the academy are to be commended." A feature article on their teaching philosophy and commitment to the liberal arts will appear in the November issue of LuxEsto.

Nothing is more foundational to American education than tolerance, according to Adam Kotsko, Religion. "In fact, in my experience my students' commitment to keeping an open mind and valuing others' opinions is so strong that it's often difficult to convince them to express straightforward disagreement with each other," he wrote for Inside Higher Ed in a column advocating a theological approach to teaching Christianity. "We all of course want to avoid the nightmare scenario of a professor who grades on the basis of agreement and attempts to 'indoctrinate' students on that basis, but even such a person would most likely wind up doing a disservice to his cause by definitively turning students off to Christianity due to their very healthy aversion to close-mindedness." He blogs at An und für sich

The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board has selected John Dugas, Political Science, for a Fulbright award to Ecuador. Dugas will spend nine months to a year in Ecuador reseaching the country's Human Rights Ombudsman Office, specifically its effectiveness protecting citizens from the state. Fulbright grantees establish open communication and long-term cooperative relationships, and thus enrich the educational, political, social and cultural lives of countries around the world. More than 300,000 persons have participated in the program since its inception more than 60 years ago.

Kalamazoo College bestowed the 2010 Senior Leadership Recognition Award on 28 students. They serve as student organization leaders, athletic team captains, student housing resident assistants, peer leaders, departmental student advisors, literacy tutors, civic engagement scholars, teaching assistants, career advisors in the Center for Career and Professional Development, and peer advisors in the Center for International Programs. Their leadership has benefited fellow students and members of the Kalamazoo Community, and their work has amplified the achievements of organizations like Kaleidoscope, K-Crew, Student Commission, Sisters in Science, Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty International, Community Advocates for Parents and Students, Helping Youth through Personal Empowerment, and many more. The senior leaders are (l-r): front row—Emilia LaPenta, Rebecca Aulph, Brianne Wood, Emily Kuehn, Catherine Mocny, Dana Schmitt; second row—Anne Weir, Phillip Chinzi, K’tanaw Schiff;  third row—Sara Locke, Emily Meloche, Karah Boodt, Ajka Suljevic, Lisa Phillips; fourth row—Ann Schimon, Andrew Grayson, Katja Samati, Joseph Unger, Jillian Belstler; back row—Eric Aiken, Brian Barkley, Catherine Skirving, and Robert Cooper. Not pictured are Andrew Dozier, Natalia Holtzman, Brandon Luczak, Jacqueline Postelnic, and Travis Smith.

Karyn Boatwright, Psychology, has published and presented recent work. She is co-author of “The influence of adult attachment styles on workers’ preferences for relational leadership behaviors,” published in the Psychologist Manager Journal (13, 1-14). “K” alumna Abbie VanderWege ’04 was also a co-author. Boatwright also presented a paper titled “Connectedness needs as a predictor of gender differences in student responses to feminist pedagogical strategies” during a symposium at the Association of Women in Psychology National Conference. Three current students contributed to that work—Kelly Bauer ’10, Katharine Keegan ’10, and Caitlin Finan ’11.

Laurie Russell '77 is the owner of Nature Connection, a Kalamazoo gift shop that provides nature-related gifts and educational items, many made in Michigan and the United States. She was featured in a recent article that appeared in the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Jillian McLaughlin '10 has been named a U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association 2009 Division III Cross Country All Academic Honoree.

Rob Oakleaf '01 will assume the role of executive director of Ministry with Community, a shelter for the homeless in Kalamazoo. Oakleaf, who is currently MwC’s deputy director, joined the organization in 2008 as a finance and technical coordinator. Prior to that, he ran his own freelance graphic and web design firm and, before that, taught web design and improvisational comedy classes at The Henry Ford Academy in Dearborn. As a child, Oakleaf served the underserved as a member of the First United Methodist Church in Kalamazoo through food drives and work with Habitat for Humanity. As the president of Loy Norrix High School’s National Honor Society, he helped to coordinate blood drives and other charitable events. As a “K” student, Rob tutored struggling students and gave homework assistance to area youth. Rob was recently featured in the Kalamazoo Gazette.

The essay "Sleeping With Jacob," by Bruce Mills, English, received special mention for the Pushcart Prize in nonfiction. Published in the New England Review (Winter 2009), the piece was one of six works (among all genres) nominated for a Pushcart by the editors of the literary magazine. Mills also has had another essay published in Gravity Pulls You In: Perspectives on Parenting Children on the Autism Spectrum (Woodbine Press). Both essays address the early years with his autistic son. Mills is co-editing a collection of essays by siblings of those on the autism spectrum. The book is currently set to be published by Jessica Kingsley Press in the fall.

Breigh Montgomery, Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, received the Michigan Campus Compact Faculty/Staff Community Service-Learning Award, the highest honor MCC bestows on faculty and staff in the state of Michigan. Montgomery recruits, trains, and supports of cadre of 25 to 30 of the Institute's Civic Engagement Scholars. These leaders, in turn, engage more than 250 "K" students who work in more than 20 different year-round ongoing community partnerships that promote a more just, equitable, and sustainabile community. A former Civic Engagement Scholar herself, Montgomery worked at Woodward Elementary during her four undergraduate years at "K". She receives her award during a special MCC ceremony in Traverse City, Mich.

Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, President, has been elected to the board of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "I am honored to represent Kalamazoo College and the liberal arts college sector on the NAICU board," she said. "Public policy in the higher education arena has never been more important as we try to address the issues of quality, access, and affordability."

It’s not often a guest soloist at a musical concert isn’t heard at all! But such was the case when Kalamazoo Concert Band (KCB) conductor Tom Evans (an associate professor of music at Kalamazoo College) conducted a KCO program titled “Clowning Around With the KCB.” Guest soloist was Plainwell (Mich.) native Dave Coverly, the cartoonist responsible for the Speed Bump series and a recent winner of the highest prize for cartooning: the Reuben Award. While Evans conducted and the KCB played (“Powerhouse," by R. Scott), Coverly cartooned. You can see the process—and result—here.

Olga Bonfiglio, Education, has written a number of essays and speeches. “Delicious in Detroit,” an article about that city’s use of vacant lots to build urban gardens, appeared in Planning Magazine, a trade journal for urban planners. She also wrote a speech commemorating the 8th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan for the Kalamazoo Nonviolent Opponents of War. Two of her speeches were presented at Winona State University: “Gardening as Peacemaking” and “Detroit’s Urban Gardens.” Since April of 2009 Bonfiglio has been working at Dancing Turtle Organic Farm and Goat Dairy with a number of persons interested in local foods, including Matt Shockey, husband of Elizabeth Manwell, the Sally Appleton Kirkpatrick Assistant Professor of Classical Studies. Bonfiglio wrote, “We grew a vegetable garden last summer on a half-acre, and this winter we are growing vegetables in a hoop house. I’ve also been learning how to tend LaMancha goats. That includes milking, barn cleaning, hoof trimming, pasture walking during their pregnancy, and birthing. Last week I made my first ‘catch’ of three kids.”

Kiran Cunningham, Anthropology and Sociology, and Hannah McKinney, Economics and Business, led a seminar titled “Navigating the Way Toward Prosperity in the New Normal.” The seminar was a National League of Cities Leadership Training Institute and took place Florida. The “New Normal” refers to the struggle of local governments to balance budgets in light of falling property values, reduced sales and income tax revenue, and increasing demand for public and social services. Transformative thinking is required to meet such challenges. Cunningham and McKinney provided attendees strategies for achieveing such thinking..

Kalamazoo College senior Jamie Sturm found no fortune cookies in China during 2008-2009 study abroad. He did, however, accumulate a fortune of rich and bizarre experiences that have changed how he views the world and relates to anyone from Asia. In a series of three articles that will appear in The State Journal’s Travel section, he recounts these experiences and paints a picture of one of the most complex and rapidly developing countries in the modern world.

You might not be a fan of lists, but Associate Professor of English Andy Mozina’s short story about Santa Claus playing baseball (singlehandedly) against the Chicago Cubs is incentive to learn about this one: Time Magazine’s “2009 Top 10 iPhone Apps. Number 7 on that list is the independent publisher McSweeney’s “The Small Chair,” an app that delivers new content—short films, readings, interviews, art, and stories like Mozina’s—directly to the iPhone. You won’t find these treasures on the Internet, and Mozina’s piece (“No Joy in Santa’s Village”) alone is worth the subscription fee ($5.99 for six months). The story’s first line: “It was the bottom of the ninth and Santa was down 43-1.” It comes out December 22.

Amy Elman, Political Science, presented work on sex discrimination in the European Union at an international conference on "Diversity and European Integration." The conference was sponsored by the Miami European Union Center for Excellence at Florida International University. The scholarly work on which her presentation was based also came out recently as an article titled "Intersectionality, Inequality, and EU Law" in Diversity and the European Union, edited by Elisabeth Prugl and Markus Theil, New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2009.

By day, Victor Garcia ’97, Facilities Management, beautifies the Kalamazoo College campus. By night, he makes beautiful music. Witness the former in the many garden plots on campus that he has landscaped and tended. Witness the latter in A Christmas Caravan, Victor’s collection of eight traditional carols and two original works that he says “blend musical idioms and flavors from all over the world to create a new and refreshing musical Christmas kaleidoscope.” Victor graduated from “K” with a B.A. degree in music. During his undergrad years, he worked as a groundskeeper for Facilities Management. He stayed on with “FacMan” after graduation and is now known on campus as an accomplished landscaper. But his true love (after his wife, Heather Garcia, who works in the Center for International Programs at the College) is playing, composing, and teaching music. He also sings with the Bach Chorus. You can listen to Victor’s music and purchase the entire mp3-only album. Contact Victor for more info on A Christmas Caravan and his other music.

Nicole Ritchie '07, former art student of Associate Professor of Art Sarah Lindley, is one of several resident artists with work featured in "One More Than Five," an exhibition in the Jane Hartsook Gallery, part of Greenwich House in New York City. The exhibition runs from December 3 through December 20.

Diane Seuss, Writer-in-Residence, and Gail Griffin, English, are becoming renowned for their poety. Parthenon West Review nominated Seuss's poem "I met a moon-faced man" for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry. Poemeleon nominated "Baby goodbye" for inclusion in the 2010 Best of the Web Anthology. "Song in my heart" was published in the December issue ofPoetry magazine. And her new book, Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open, winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry, comes out in April. Griffin's fine poem, "Lupercale," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. It recently appeared in the journal Measure, which specializes in formal poetry. "Lupercale" is part of a series Griffin is evolving, written from interesting or weird news stories. We share the poem below:

Lupercale

“Italian archaeologists last month unveiled an underground grotto
that they believe ancient Romans revered as the place where a wolf
nursed Rome’s legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.
A few feet from the grotto, or ‘Lupercale,’ the Emperor Constantine
built the Basilica of St. Anastasia, where some believe Christmas
was first celebrated on December 25 . . . to coincide with the Roman
festival celebrating the birth of the sun god . . . . ”
                                                                                                Kalamazoo Gazette

He’s seen the new light, our emperor has.
And by this light he does his winnowing
and transplanting. It simplifies, this light.
It clarifies and orders. Its radiance
searches out our chaos, the brawl and surge
we make our way in, we children of wolves.

It’s said that all roads lead here. That’s some kind
of order, it would seem, but if you arrive
to find a thousand random, randy gods
translated from the Greek, seized from Egypt,
purloined from Abyssinia or Persia,
all occupied in ancient gripes and grudges,
all raving for somebody’s wife or daughter,
or wine or beeves or other tasty bits
to feed their pride, what order have you got?
Or so our emperor sees it, I’m quite sure.

Myself, I’ll miss our messy pantheon.
Exasperating, yes—I’ll grant you that,
but at the least, one never lacked for stories                                                  
when nights got long or children couldn’t sleep.
One story only, says the emperor,
is real. And so our hungry little mouths
are plucked from pointed, pendant lupine dugs
and fastened to a smooth and blue-veined marble
virgin breast, and we’re good as new.
No further tribute to the fierce, the furry,
the yellow-eyed and snaggle-toothed. Instead
a quiet winter rite to sanctify
the sun’s birth, which is now miraculous.

The light returns to us this time each year.
The sun keeps faith, whatever name we choose
to give it, more reliable than gods
or emperors. This day, as I was walking
out in the western hills beyond the city,
I watched it slip away. Along a ridge,
stark black against the dying orange light,
a long-limbed shadow paced.

Richard Koenig, Art, will have his photography featured in two upcoming one-person shows, each with the same name: Photographic Prevarications. The first occurs January 18 through February 19 at Wabash College (reception and gallery talk at 3 PM on January 19). The second show occurs May 7 through June 25 at the Lansing Art Gallery. Two of Koenig's works were chosen for a nationally juried exhibit (Lucid Directions - Photographic Surrealism) at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Western Michigan University, February 24 through March 19.

David Barclay, History, had a busy summer and fall.  In June and August he worked for two weeks at the National Archives in Washington and the National Archives in London on his current research project, a planned book on the history of West Berlin.  At the end of August he was interviewed in Berlin for several hours as part of a documentary film project with which he has been involved; the film, about the life of Berlin Mayor Ernst Reuter, will be shown on German TV in 2010.  In late August Barclay also took part in the annual board meeting of the Allied Museum Berlin, which this year took place in London, and he participated with a number of British Foreign Office veterans in a two-day seminar titled “Berlin: The British Perspective 1945-1990.”  The latter meeting took place at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park, outside of London.   Back in the United States, Barclay – who is executive director of the German Studies Association (GSA) – coordinated and directed the that organization's annual meeting in Washington in early October. It attracted 1,303 participants, including 166 from Germany, and included 310 sessions and three keynote speakers.  (Barclay was ably assisted at the meeting by Charles Fulton '05, and Liz Fulton '05.)  While in Washington, Barclay also spoke at a reception at the Austrian Embassy and at a dinner sponsored by the German Embassy. In November he attended the semiannual meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies in Portland, Oregon (he belongs to the executive committee of the ACLS Conference of Administrative Officers).  He returned to Washington to attend the annual meeting of the Friends of the German Historical Institut. Barclay continues to serve as vice chair of that body, and as a member of its executive committee.  Back in Kalamazoo, Barclay spoke in October at The Fountains at Bronson Place about the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift; in November he gave a talk at the College on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (that event was sponsored by the German Department).  He spoke on the same subject at the Trinity Reformed Church in Kalamazoo. Barclay also published three articles this summer and fall.  The first, on “Ernst Reuters Tätigkeit als Sowjetkommissar im Wolgagebiet” (“Ernst Reuter’s Activity as Soviet Commissar in the Volga Region”), appeared in Ernst Reuter: Kommunalpolitiker und Gesellschaftsreformer (Ernst Reuter: Municipal Politician and Social Reformer), edited by Heinz Reif of the Technical University of Berlin.  The second, titled “Westberlin,” appeared in Erinnerungsorte der DDR (Sites of Memory in the German Democratic Republic), edited by Martin Sabrow of the Center for Contemporary History Research in Potsdam.  The third, “On the Back Burner: Die USA und West-Berlin 1948-1994,” was published in Deutschland aus internationaler Sicht (Germany Viewed Internationally), edited by Tilman Mayer of the University of Bonn.   Barclay also edited and published the German Studies Association newsletter, which he does twice a year.  He currently has two more articles in press, and is writing a third.

Kate Leishman, Student Development, has received the New Professional’s Award from the Association of College Unions International, Region 7. Founded in 1914, ACUI is a nonprofit educational organization that brings together college union and student activities professionals from hundreds of schools in seven countries to build campus community. Its members work on urban and rural campuses, in two-year and four-year institutions, and at large and small schools. Region 7 represents members at colleges in Ohio, lower Michigan, and western Ontario. The New Professional Award is presented annually to an individual who demonstrates the potential and commitment for excellence in the field of college unions and student activities. It was named in honor of Bob Rodda, Director of the Lowry Center at The College of Wooster, for his efforts in mentoring young professionals. Bob was Kate’s mentor when she worked at Wooster before coming to Kalamazoo. “Kate has made a significant contribution to campus life at Kalamazoo College,” said Vice President of Student Development and Dean of Students Sarah Westfall. “She demonstrates commitment to her field, is viewed by colleagues as an educator, and displays genuine support and regard for students. We are delighted that she has earned this award.” Congratulations, Kate!

Four Kalamazoo College students placed well at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Michigan state auditions. They are: Jenna Hunt, first place, Freshmen Women; Erin Donnevan, first place, musical theatre; Rachel Jeffrey, second place, Junior Women; and Brianna Scales, third place, Senior Women.

Former "K" art major Samantha Barnum '99 is an artist and high school art teacher in Athens, Georgia. She's definitely "liberal arts" in her choice of medium: she tries them all. Barnum was featured in a recent article in the Athens Banner-Herald.