The Digest
What’s Happening at KVCC
What’s below in this edition
How-to for leaders (Page 1)Keyboard films (Page 9)
Summer hours (Pages 1/2)Foreign movie (Page 10)
The Digest (Page 2)School candidates (Page 10)
Food services (Page 2)The White House (Pages 11/12)
Celtic music (Pages 2/3)Arndt is a STAR (Pages 12/13)
Alan Page (Pages 3-5)Punk rock (Pages 13/14)
Impressionism (Pages 5-7)Our want ads (Page 15)
‘Steel My Summer’ (Pages 7/8)Life sciences (Pages 15/16)
Fighting cancer (Pages 8/9) And Finally (Page 16)
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Leadership workshop planned for Friday
All KVCC students, particularly those who hold offices in campus and community organizations, are invited to take part in a leadership workshop under the auspices of the KVCC Phi Theta Kappa chapter.
Slated for 9 a.m. to noon on Friday (May 9) in the Student Commons Forum, the session will feature presentations by instructors Jenny Ott, Pat Conroy, Natatlie Patchell and Dawn Panteleo. Panteleo was recently named the “Faculty Adviser of the Year” for student chapters of the Association of Information Technology Professionals.
Among the topics will be “Your Leadership Skills and Styles,” “Dynamic Introductions,” “Running a Meeting Well,” “Working with Difficult Individuals,” and “Techno Etiquette.”
“This will be an informal and fun participatory event,” said Patchell, who can be contacted at for further information.
If they ask nicely, there may also be room at the workshop for interested faculty and staff who are involved in leadership roles with community organizations.
Are you ready for some. . .summer hours?
From May 5 through Aug. 22, KVCC will be operating under “summer hours.”
On Monday through Thursday, the work week will be from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a 30-minute break for lunch.
And on Fridays during that period, the college will shut down at noon. Work hours will be from 8 to noon with no lunch break.
Those operations of the colleges with special, evening and weekend hours - - facilities services, information technologies, the M-TEC, some offices, and the museum — will be adjusting their individual schedules to ensure coverage.
The KVCC Office of Human Resources reports that employees will be paid for 40 hours on the job even though the work week will be reduced to 36 hours during that 16-week period.
The KVCC Cabinet reviews the summer-work schedule annually to determine whether core hours will be adjusted.
Summer-hours publication schedule for The Digest
With the arrival of summer hours, The Digest will begin its off-season. (No applause, please.)
After the May 5 edition, it will no longer be published on a weekly basis, meaning the next installment will be dated May 19.
The collegewide publication will be in an every-other-week format through June and July, and into gear-up time for the fall semester in August.
Send all relevant (and irrelevant, for that matter) information to Tom Thinnes at or call him at extension 4280.
The Digest editions during this time will be distributed early Friday via the VIP Workplace.
The “news and information” postings on the KVCC website (under “Campus Life and Activities”) will be kept fresh and up to date regarding college events and activities that are open to the public.
Changes in the food hours as well
With the arrival of summer hours, things are a-changing for cafeteria and food-service hours.
Through Aug. 22, food will be available each week from Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The Friday schedule is 7:30 a.m. to noon. The cafeteria’s “Chef’s Station” will be in action on Tuesday and Thursdays.
Normalcy begins to return the week of Aug. 25-29 with hours from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on those five days.
Regarding the coffee shop in the Student Commons, it has shut off the pot and ground to a halt through Aug. 29.
How about a little Whiskey Before Breakfast
Whether one thinks that whiskey before breakfast is a good idea, the music of Whiskey Before Breakfast is a good idea any time of the day.
The Kalamazoo-based Celtic-music quartet will wrap up the Thursday-evening concert series at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum on May 15 with a performance that begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Mary Jane Stryker Theater.
Tickets are $5 and seating is limited in the Stryker Theater.
Cara Lieurance, Tim McCauley, Dave Marlatt and Jeff Sarnacki perform jigs, reels, hornpipes and all manner of toe-tapping Irish dance music.
On the local music scene since 1994, Whiskey Before Breakfast has become a staple attraction at the London Grill restaurants, Bell’s Brewery, the Cooper’s Glen Music Festival, the Kalamazoo Irish Festival, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Art Fair, the Kindleberger Park concert series, the Arts Council of Kalamazoo’s Concerts in the Park series, and the Kalamazoo Scottish Festival.
The group’s repertoire spans the spectrum of styles in Celtic music, blending the sounds of the masters with new interpretations by contemporary musicians.
Lieurance, a flute and whistle player, received a bachelor’s in music from Western Michigan University in 1992. An announcer and producer for WMUK, she has also performed with another Kalamazoo-based group, Blue Dahlia.
Fiddler Marlatt is the group’s musical historian. He is currently enrolled in the Violin Craftsmanship Institute program in violin building at the University of New Hampshire.
Sarnacki’s particular expertise is in folk songs and idioms. A guitarist, he also plays trombone in Yoroka, a local African-fusion dance band. With a degree from WMU in psychology, Sarnacki is a case worker for Kalamazoo Community AIDS Resource and Education Center(CARES).
More information about events, attractions and tickets is available by checking the museum’s web site at or by calling 373-7990.
NFL great speaks at scholarship fund-raiser
Alan Page, who used football at the college and professional levels as a vehicle to the law career he wanted, will keynote the KVCC Foundation’s fourth annual Opportunities for Education (OFE) fund-raiser on Monday, May 19.
The banquet, designed to raise scholarship dollars and underwritten by National City Bank, features the former All-American from Notre Dame and National Football League Hall of Famer. It will begin at 6 p.m. at the Radisson Plaza Hotel and Suites in downtown Kalamazoo.
In his remarks about “Challenges and Opportunities for the 21st Century Community,” the Minnesota Supreme Court justice will address the importance of adult mentoring and leadership in guiding the youth of today in the right direction toward education and success as a citizen.
Using events and situations in his life as signposts, Justice Page will highlight the win-win value of young people giving something back to their communities and why these communities should strive to make certain each and every child has a decent shot at educational success.
He wants all people to share his passion about America’s future riding in tandem with America’s commitment to properly educating and guiding the nation’s youth.
Page, 62, made the complete circuit as a football player. The 1964 graduate of Central Catholic High School in Canton, Ohio, went on to gridiron glory at Notre Dame, and then played defensive end for 15 years in the National Football League, primarily as a member of the Minnesota Vikings’ famous “Purple People Eaters.” He was inducted in 1988 to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is located in Canton.
Page, the father of four, majored in political science at Notre Dame from which he graduated in 1966. His Fighting Irish team won the national championship his senior year, which merited Page being the Vikings’ No. 1 draft pick that year.
As he carved out a career as one of the NFL’s greatest defensive players, Page continued his studies and earned a degree from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1978. After five years of private practice and during which he wrapped up his football career as a member of the Chicago Bears, Page became an assistant attorney general in Minnesota.
In 1992, Page was elected as an associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court. He was re-elected to six-year terms in 1998 and 2004. In the latter election, Page attracted the most votes of any candidate in the state’s history. Justice Byron White of the U. S. Supreme Court and Page, a nine-time All-Pro selection, share the distinction of being the only notable football players in the nation’s history to serve on high courts of the land.
Instead of using brute strength to overpower opponents that is generally the case these days, Page used his quickness and agility to beat blocks and make tackles. He registered nearly 150 “sacks” (tackling the quarterback attempting to pass) in his NFL career. In 1971, he was the second defensive player in league history to be named its Most Valuable Player
Page, who is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame located in South Bend, served as the Vikings’ representative for the National Football League Players Association. In 1999, he was No. 34 on The Sporting News’ list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.
An example of his athletic endurance is the fact that in 1979 Page became the first active NFL player to complete a marathon. His best time was 3 hours and 27 minutes. Because of his long-distance running, Page played the toughest position in professional football at 225 pounds.
Page and his wife, Diane, established the Page Education Foundation that assists minority students in their pursuits of a college education. He has expressed an interest to teach in a public school for a few years once he leaves the bench.
In speaking about the challenges facing children in the 21st century, Page flashes back to the paths he took to achieve success and the difficult decisions he had to make to stay on those paths when there were easier ways to travel.
Keenly interested in American youth, Page conveys a philosophy - one that he lives - that sports are not the end of the journey. They are the means to reach that end.
“Athletics can help you,” he says, “if they are used in the right way. If used in the right way, they can help in academic pursuits.”
The Pages use their foundation for their own version of “No Child Left Behind,” urging young people to be as passionate about their education as they are about sports. Because too many don’t understand that message, the foundation stresses mentoring roles. The foundation has awarded more than $5 million in scholarship assistance to 2,600 students.
Page thinks of football as a good chapter in his life, but a past chapter. “If I could choose a way to be remembered, it wouldn’t be my association with football. It is the past, and a good past, but I’d want to be remembered with children - my children and other children.”
The KVCC Foundation was formed in 1980 and has accumulated nearly $10 million in assets. Its mission is to enhance educational opportunities and the learning environment at the college by supporting the academic, literary and scientific activities of KVCC students and faculty. Its assists the college’s Honors Program, minority enrollees and non-traditional students through scholarships and awards grants that promote innovative approaches to learning.
“Because KVCC’s tuition is the lowest among the state’s 28 community colleges and fees are practically non-existent,” said Steve Doherty, executive director of the KVCC Foundation, “scholarship dollars take students a very, very long way toward their goals. We want to help even more in the coming years, now that state and federal sources of scholarships are either drying up or are in jeopardy because of budget cuts.”
In the fall semester of 2007, the foundation was able to assist 212 students. For the 2007-08 academic year, scholarship and grant assistance should reach nearly $350,000 for tuition, fees, books and supplies, as well as for the child-care and transportation costs that students face in pursuing a degree or a new career.
“That represents a minimal fraction of the dollar value of scholarships that are available through the KVCC Office of Financial Aid,” Doherty said. “That type of assistance has federal and state sources that carry restrictions. So do some of those scholarships established by organizations or individuals. And all of those are very important.
“Ours, however, are more open-ended, less restrictive, and available to a broader representation of students who choose to attend KVCC,” Doherty said. “They are what our ‘Opportunities for Education’ event is all about.”
While the unprecedented, nationally recognized gift to this community that is The Kalamazoo Promise is a blessing to families living in the Kalamazoo Public Schools district, Doherty said, during a typical semester no more than 15 percent of KVCC’s enrollment are Kalamazoo graduates. That means a large segment of the other 85 percent still need various levels of scholarship assistance.
Tickets for Opportunities for Education are $125 per person. A corporate sponsorship for a table of eight is available for $1,500.
For more information about Opportunities for Education, how far scholarship dollars go at KVCC, and tickets for spending an evening with one of the nation’s most respected citizens, contact Steve Doherty, executive director of the KVCC Foundation (), or Denise Baker () at (269) 488-4442.
Museum paintings part of Muskegon art show
Five paintings, which are part of the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s collection, have been loaned to the Muskegon Museum of Art as part of its current exhibition – “Sunlight in a Paintbrush: American Impressionism from Regional Collections.”
Open through Aug. 31, the 59-painting show is viewable at the Muskegon museum that is located at 296 W. Webster Ave.
Other lenders include the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, John Todd III of Kalamazoo, and the Ox-Bow School of Arts and Artists Residency in Saugatuck.
Here are the five that will be spending the next four months in The Port City:
“Spalato from San Stefano,” a 1912 work by Alson Skinner Clark (1876-1949)
“Cloudless Day,” 1926, by Franklin DeHaven (1856-1934)
“In the Berkshires,” 1927, by Michigan native George Glenn Newell (1870-1947)
“The Lily Pool,” 1920, by Charles Oppenheimer (1875-1961)
“The Joy of the Sea,” 1918, by Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927)
Impressionism is described as a 19th-century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists exhibiting their art publicly in the 1860s. The name is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work, which provoked a critic to coin the term in a satiric review that was published.
Among the characteristics of Impressionism painting are visible brushstrokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities often accentuating the effects of the passage of time, ordinary subject matter, and unusual visual angles.
Newell was born in Berrien County and grew up in Grand Rapids. He graduated from Albion Collegein 1890 and studied at the Teachers College of Columbia University. He received his art training at the National Academy.
Pastoral landscapes were his specialty. He raised dogs and cattle and used the animals as models for his paintings. His work is in the National Gallery in Washington,the Art Association of Dallas, and the Detroit Institute of Arts
Potthast was among the celebrated handful of artists from Cincinnati who became leading American Impressionists. He studied in his home city as well as abroad, notably in Munich where the German-American was drawn to the broad brushwork of artists in that nation.
After working as a lithographer back in Cincinnati, he moved to New York City where he established himself as a painter. He was known for his sun-drenched, richly colored and animated beach scenes.
Educated at the Chicago Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York, Clark also studied in Paris for two years. He moved to Pasadena, Calif., in about 1920. During World War I, he served as one of the first aerial photographers.
Clark took up mural painting shortly after his arrival in southern California, although he primarily considered himself a landscape painter. He taught at Occidental College and was director of the Stickney Memorial School of Art in Pasadena. He painted murals for the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, but the theater was demolished during the 1960s because it wasn't earthquake safe.
Born in Bluffton, Ind., DeHaven found himself in New York City in 1886 as a student of a landscape painter who favored Rocky Mountain, Florida, New England and Atlantic shoreline scenes. Much of De Haven's works were done in the New England area. His paintings are characterized by variety, excellent draftsmanship, and a thorough understanding of nature. Dramatic skies are almost always a major element.
A popular tonalist painter, he exhibited at the prestigious National Academy of Design for more than 50 years. Known as "Pop" to members of the prestigious Salmagundi Club, DeHaven is exhibited at the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution.