The Digest
What’s Happening at KVCC
What’s below in this edition
ü Going for No. 1 (Pages 1/2) ü First impressions (Page 9)
ü 110 and counting (Pages 2/3) ü Geronimo’s story (Pages 9-11)
ü Miller time (Pages 3/4) ü Vampires (Pages 11/12)
ü Reading Together (Pages 4-6) ü How-to for the arts (Page 12)
ü Our ‘Reading Together’ (Page 6) ü GVSU here (Pages 12/13)
ü Congrats to us (Pages 6/7) ü Alzheimer’s ‘doc’ (Page 13)
ü Meth’s perils (Page 7) ü Our TV star (Pages 13/14)
ü ‘Visit’ China (Page 8) ü 131 new PTK’ers (Pages 14/15)
ü Surplus food? (Page 8) ü Leonard Jordan (Pages 15/16)
ü Prep for the holidays (Pages 8/9) ü Sousa was here (Pages 16/17)
ü And Finally (Pages 17/18)
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Volleyball champs bid to win national title
A conference championship, a state title and a regional-tournament trophy all in the same season – that’s a first for the KVCC women's volleyball team
And is the handwriting on the wall? A first national championship?
That’s a possibility as the Cougar spikers and setters take their 36-6 record and head for the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wis., to compete in the National Junior College Athletic Association championship tourney Nov. 19-21. With them goes an eighth ranking nationally.
Here’s their competition and each team's record:
Kishwaukee College in Illinois (38-4), McHenry County College in Illinois (35-8), Iowa Lakes Community College (24-20), Des Moines Area Community College, (41-8), Columbus State Community College in Ohio (41-8), North Platte Community College in Nebraska (27-14), Hagerstown Community College in Maryland (31-7), Glendale Community College in Arizona (18-13), Illinois Central College (29-7), Parkland College in Illinois (38-5), Monroe College in New York (27-2), Cowley County Community College in Kansas (28-4), Johnson County Community College in Kansas. (25-7), East Central College in Missouri (24-13), and Catawba Valley Community College in North Carolina (23-4).
The Cougars are seeded eighth in the tourney with Illinois Central favored to win. KVCC’s opening match is set for 1 p.m. on Thursday against Hagerstown.
Coached by first-year mentor Chad Worthington, the Cougars punched their tickets for Wisconsin by winning the NJCAA regional tournament in Grand Rapids last weekend. They knocked out the host school in the opening round, polished off Ohio’s Edison Community College in the semifinals, and swept Jackson Community Colleges in three matches in the finals. They won nine matches in a row in marching to the title.
“What an amazing season we have had,” Worthington said. “The first day of practice started Aug. 1 with a three-mile run in less than 27 minutes, and it’s ending with a trip to the national tournament.
“This year has been defined by doing our best,” he said, and when the best has not been done, we have made corrections to do our best. This is the first team ever to be regularly seasoned ranked No. 8 in the nation, win a conference, state, and regional title in volleyball at Kalamazoo Valley.”
The team will be leaving on Tuesday (Nov. 17) at noon for Wisconsin Dells.
“We are preparing to face any of the other 15 teams,” Worthington said. “We are looking forward to great competition and an amazing experience.”
It was the second consecutive state title for KVCC. In Worthington's rookie season, the Cougars finished conference play with a perfect 14-zip record. When Worthington was the coach of Kellogg Community College in 2007, he also guided his team to a perfect mark in conference play.
Team members are:
· Kaila Hull of Hanover-Horton High School
· Cara Greeley of Kalamazoo Central
· Kristina Hawkes of Portage Central
· Laura and Madeline McDonnell of Portage Northern
· Danielle Abitz of Shoreland Lutheran High School
· Hannah Bock of Kalamazoo Central
· Kristin Agren of Cadillac High School
· Kaitlin Noverr of Portage Northern
· Kirby Batterson of Bronson High School
· Emily Kesterson of Jackson Western High School.
Callers still needed to remind students to pay tuition
Here's the chance to put the thinking behind the new .edyou brand into play -- the calling campaign to contact enrolled students who have not yet paid for winter-semester classes.
It's a creed to live and work by, and it's also a numbers game.
For the fall-semester effort, 6,335 calls were made -- by 72 people! Do the math. That's one heck of a burden to put on peers and colleagues, especially if you can help, and most of us at KVCC can help.
If all of us step forward, it will be possible to drastically reduce that burden -- to as low as one sheet of calls to make per person. That's about 22 for each of us as opposed to 200-plus for some of us.
And it works. It's a chance to help prospective students not lose their classes, and to help the college keep its healthy, vital, ever-growing enrollment. So there is a self-interest factor at play as well.
Those who have made the calls in past years report that students, their parents, and friends deeply appreciate the gentle reminder, and the college's caring environment.
A typical effort involves making around 6,000 calls with 80 percent resulting in students making their payments prior to batch cancellation the following week.
Once again, the calling-campaign organizer is Pat Pojeta, who can be contacted at extension 7880 or . The dates are Nov. 30 through Dec. 4.
Volunteers may make their calls during the workday at their work stations. They will have the full week to complete their calls.
Scripts will be provided with clear, easy-to-follow instructions on how to record information. These scripts will be delivered to each volunteer the morning of Nov. 30, if not before.
“Many a volunteer has remarked how fun it is speaking with our students,” Pojeta said. “They seem happy to hear from us.”
As of late Thursday, the number of volunteers had crested 100. Including many first-timers, here are the “callers” so far:
Lisa Peet, Amy Louallen, Laura Cosby, Gloria Barton-Beery, Sheila White, Lauren Beresford, Karen Visser, Dick Shilts, Jennie Huff, Gloria Norris, Steve Doherty, Steve Walman, Tarona Guy, Joyce Zweedyk, Patricia Pallett, Diane Finch, Candy Horton;
Helen Palleschi, Louise Wesseling, Lynne Morrison, Angie Case, Joyce Tamer, Judy Rose, Teresa Fornoff, Russell Panico, Sheila Eisenhauer, Rose Crawford, Carrol Targgart, Leona Coleman, Diane Lockwood, Jane Geschwendt, Lynn McLeod;
Nancy Young, LaJoyce Brooks, Sheila Rupert, Amy Triemstra, Jacob Johnson, Ebba Spyke, Diana Haggerty, Ray Andres, Catie West, Steven Meeks, Stephanie Strong, Laurie Dykstra, Marcia Shaneyfelt-Niles, Carolyn Brownell, Jim Tinsely, Amber Rees;
Jackie Cantrell, Ike Turner, Rosalie Novara, Chris Robbins, Denise Baker, Roxanne Bengelink, Carolyn Alford, Darryl Chapman, Patricia Wallace, Karen Phelps, Kristine Goolby, Nancy Taylor, Ruth Baker, Mary Johnson, Robyn Robinson;
Connie Edlund, Jill Storm, Jim Ratliff, Mark Sloan, Brenda Moncreif, Marie Rogers, Mike Collins, Gerri Jacobs, Susan Reynolds, Pamela Siegfried, Jackie Zito, Marylan Hightree, Bonita Bates, Heidi Stevens-Ratti, Janet Alm, Dan Maley;
Nicole Newman, John Holmes, Jack Bley, Jonnie Wilhite, Anora Ackerman, Lois Baldwin, Maria Buccill, Amanda Matthews, Martha McKay,, Cynthia Schauer, Bruce Kocher, Sheila Baiers, Bala Balachandran, Francis Granzotto, Harland Fish, Arleigh Smyrnios, Patrick Conroy, Jaime Robbins, Terry Hutchins, Sue Egan, Pat Pojeta and Tom Thinnes.
64th graduation is Dec. 20 at Miller
The college’s 64th commencement ceremony is set for Sunday, Dec. 20, in Miller Auditorium on the Western Michigan University campus.
Those who have been assigned specific roles for the event should report to the auditorium by 3 p.m., an hour before the program is to begin.
The faculty speaker will be instructor Deborah Bryant. Brittany Nielsen, an accounting major from Vicksburg, will speak for the graduates. Other faculty members involved include Kristin DeKam, Nancy Vendeville, Charissa Oliphant, and Sandy Barker.
The diploma-day celebration will be telecast live on the Public Media Network’s Channel 22 in the Charter lineup, and then rebroadcast three more times.
The dates and times will be announced later.
Also scheduled to make remarks is Jeff Patton, chairman of the KVCC Board of Trustees.
Providing the music from 3 to 3:50 p.m. will be the KVCC Campus Band with conductor Chris Garrett and Michelle Bauman’s KVCC Choir.
In addition to Marilyn Schlack and Bruce Kocher, also performing roles as part of the graduation ceremony will be Patricia Niewoonder, Delynne Andres, Carol Orr and Lois Baldwin.
‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ great Yule gift
Timed to coincide with a fall major exhibit on race booked for the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, one of the most acclaimed books about prejudice is the Kalamazoo Public Library’s 2010 Reading Together selection.
“Snow Falling on Cedars” by David Guterson was the winner of the 1995 PEN/-Faulkner Award for Fiction and the 1996 American Booksellers Association Book of the Year.
Those looking for a holiday gift that will keep giving months should think about purchasing a copy of “Snow Falling on Cedars.” It will prepare the reader for Guterson’s appearance in Kalamazoo in March and for scores of special events/programs preceding his local remarks.
“Cedars” is set against the backdrop of a courtroom drama in the Pacific Northwest when a Japanese-American man is charged with the murder of a local fisherman. It is steeped in the World War II forced internment of these citizens, an interracial love story, and post-war politics.
KVCC’s Jim Ratliff is a member of the communitywide committee that makes the choice of a Reading Together volume.
This year’s book selection was driven in part by a request from the Race Exhibit Initiative of Southwest Michigan, which asked the library to choose a book that could help foster discussions about race in advance of an October 2010 unveiling of the traveling exhibition “Race: Are We so Different?”
The exhibition features photographs, movies and interactive displays — all of which explore the history of race in America, the biology of race and experiences of living with race. It will be on display at the m museum from Oct. 2 to Jan. 2, 2011.
“David Guterson does a wonderful job of creating a sense of place in this book,” said Lisa Williams, the library’s coordinator of Reading Together that asks community members to read the same book in the fall and winter and participate in discussions and programs designed around the book’s themes during March and April.
“The writing is very atmospheric,” Williams said. “And he has this gentle way of building characters without telling you how to feel about them.”
As was the case with past Reading Together selections, Guterson will come to Kalamazoo for a presentation on March 17.
A novelist, short-story writer, poet, journalist, and essayist, Guterson earned his master’s from the University of Washington, where he studied under the writer Charles Johnson. After moving to Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound, Guterson taught English at the local high school and began writing for Sports Illustrated and Harper’s magazine.
“What I like about the book is that many people, when they talk about race, focus on black and white issues,” Zarinah El-Amin Naeem, coordinator of the Race Exhibit Initiative that is housed in Western Michigan University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, told The Kalamazoo Gazette. “Because this book brings in a segment of Asian-Americans, it helps to broaden the discussions by moving it outside of the discussions of black and white.”
Naeem said Kalamazoo will be the smallest community to host the exhibition, and organizers hope that it can “be a catalyst for social transformation in Kalamazoo and southwestern Michigan as a whole rather than an exhibit that just comes and goes.”
Williams said the 24-member Reading Together steering committee already has been discussing programming, which may include events about internment camps, World War II and Japanese culture. Naeem also noted there may be a showing of the 1999 film version of “Snow Falling on Cedars” that starred Ethan Hawke.
Williams said response has been positive. “People say, ‘Oh, I loved that book,’” she said. “People are looking forward to rereading it, especially with the idea that the author is going to be here and you can ask him questions and learn what he was thinking when he was writing this book.”
Previous “Reading Together” titles were: “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury in 2003; “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich in 2004; “The Color of Water” by James McBride in 2005; “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien in 2006; “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon in 2007: “Animal Dreams” by Barbara Kingsolver in 2008; and New York Times columnist Rick Bragg’s trio of memoirs this year.
Reading Together invites people of all ages from all walks of life to read and then discuss important issues raised by a selected book. Thousands of county residents have participated in seven previous Reading Together programs.
The Kalamazoo Public Library leads Reading Together with the collaboration of libraries, educational institutions, health and social service agencies, cultural, civic and religious organizations, businesses, the news media, and local governments throughout Kalamazoo County.
The Kalamazoo Community Foundation helped the library launch Reading Together with funding for the first three years with grants from it Better Together initiative. The library now provides major support for the program. Foundation grants, gifts and contributions from collaborating organizations make it possible to offer Reading Together to all of Kalamazoo County.
The book-selection process continues Reading Together’s tradition of democratic community participation. Community members consider dozens of titles gathered from last year’s evaluation process, suggested by library patrons, staff, and community leaders, and recommended by librarians and educators.
Committee members read and discuss the suggested titles with these guidelines in mind. A good Reading Together book features:
● an author who will come to Kalamazoo during the Reading Together period;
● availability in multiple formats such as large print, audio recording, Spanish;
● reading level, vocabulary, length, and subject matter that appeals to adults as well as high school and college students;
● treatment of social issues relevant to our community.