The Digest
What’s Happening at KVCC
What’s below in this edition
Poet Jack Ridl (Pages 1/2)Poems about ‘facts (Page 11)
Sax great (Pages 2/3)Today’s Japan (Page 12)
Diversity in focus (Pages 4/5) Piano in a day (Page 12)
Scholarship fete (Page 5)Scholarship aid (Pages 12/13)
‘An Inconvenient Truth’ (Pages 5/6)Aroma therapy (Page 13)
Speaking Spanish (Pages 6/7)Hard to work with (Page 12)
Project Challenge (Pages 7-9)‘West Side Story’ (Pages 13-15)
12th in size (Page 9)Reading Together (Pages 15-17)
Fret fest (Pages 9/10)Magic at museum (Page 17)
Building a team (Page 10)Link to history (Page 18)
Camera basics (Page 11) And finally (Pages18/19)
☻☻☻☻☻☻
‘Riddle me this’ Tuesday, poet Jack Ridl
Poet Jack Ridl, a Hope College faculty member for the best part of four decades, will launch the college’s About Writing series for the winter semester.
According to organizer Rob Haight, Ridl will talk about his craft at 10 a.m. on Tuesday (Feb. 20) in the Student Commons Forum.
He will read from his latest book of poetry, “Broken Symmetry,” at 2 p.m. in the Commons Theater.
Following Ridl on Thursday, April 5, will be writer Ander Monson, a poet, essayist and fiction writer. He will talk about writing at 10 a.m. in the Forum and read from his latest fiction collection, “Other Electricities,” at 2 p.m. in the Commons Theater.
All of the About Writing sessions are free and open to the public.
Ridl, who taught at Hope for 36 years before retiring, established Hope’s Visiting Writers Series in 1985 with his wife, Julie. He’s published more than 300 poems in 60-plus literary magazines.
In 1996, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching named Ridl "Michigan Professor of the Year." Hewas selected the Hope student body's "Favorite Professor" in 2003, and has twice been asked by the students to deliver the college's commencement address. Some 40 of Ridl's former students have gone on to master’s degrees in fine arts and to publishing their work nationally.
Ridl grew up in both the world of basketball, where his father was a well-known head coach at Westminster College and the University of Pittsburgh, and in the world of the circus inherited from his mother's family. Some of his poems spring from both heritages.
Ridl lives along a creek that winds into Lake Michigan with his wife, two dogs and two cats.
Commented one reviewer: “Jack Ridl writes with complete generosity and full-hearted wisdom and care. His deeply intelligent, funny and gracious poems are packed with the music of genuine voices, woven with history, people and movement, the whole, delicious sweet fabric of days. They befriend a reader so completely and warmly we might all have the revelation that our lives are rich poems, too.”
Ridl joined the Hope faculty in 1971 as an English instructor after earning his bachelor’s and master’s in education at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa. His father coached basketball there in the 1950s and 1960s.
In 2001 his collection "Against Elegies" was chosen by U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins as the winner of the "Letterpress Chapbook Competition" sponsored by the Center for Book Arts of New York City. "Broken Symmetry" was published by Wayne State University Press in 2006. He’s also co-authored two textbooks.
Said Kalamazoo College poet Conrad Hilberry about Ridl’s work: "One group of poems is unmatched, I believe, anywhere in American poetry. I mean the sports poems. These bring to the world of midwestern high school basketball the sort of authority, the sure nuance and detail, that the movie ‘Bull Durham’ brings to minor league baseball. They are so compelling, so varied, so familiar to anyone who knows high school and sports that they may well introduce a new genre."
More information is available by contacting Haight at extension 4452.
Saxist Chris Potter in concert Wednesday
Regarded as the best saxophonist of his generation, jazz stylist Chris Potter will perform for an Artists Forum audience on Wednesday (Feb. 21) at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. concert in the Dale Lake Auditorium on the Texas Township Campus are available -- $15 for general admission, $10 for students.
In effect, the 36-year-old devotee of the likes of Miles Davis, Paul Desmond and Dave Brubeck will be following in the footsteps of Marian McPartland, who is the jazz pianist credited with discovering him and who has performed for Kalamazoo audiences several times.
The college’s Artists Forum series each academic year is co-sponsored by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation.
Born in Chicago but raised in Columbia, S. C., Potter began strumming a guitar and playing that “clink-clink jazz” on the piano as a 3 year old.
By the age of 10, his choice of instrument had switched to an alto sax and he played his first gig three years later.
His parents’ extensive record collection broadened Potter’s musical education from Bach to the Beatles, but the legends of jazz attracted his keenest interest.
When McPartland first heard Potter’s style as a 15 year old, she advised his father that the youth was ready for the road with a unit as celebratory as Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd.
But finishing high school remained the priority and by the time the diploma was hanging on the wall, Potter’s stable of instruments included alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, the bass clarinet and alto flute.
Potter’s 18th birthday found him enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music in New York City where he formed a lasting friendship with one of his professors, pianist Kenny Werner, and re-connected with Red Rodney, with whom he had played at a jazz festival in Columbia.
Over the next four years, Potter honed his skills at the side of the bebop heavyweight in a quintet until Rodney died in 1994.
Graduating from Manhattan in 1993, Potter began a long series of sideman activities with top jazz performers, including guesting with McPartland on one of her albums.
By the mid-1990s, Potters was cutting his own albums as a combo leader. One was cited as the year’s top CD by both Jazziz and The New York Times.
He also performed on Steely Dan’s Grammy-nominated, gold album “Two Against Nature.”
Potter earned his own Grammy nomination for “best instrumental jazz solo” for his work on Joanne Brackeen’s “Pink Elephant Magic.”
He’s the youngest recipient ever to receive the annual Danish Jazzpar Prize.
Potter has performed with his own groups since early 2001 in Paris, London, Florence, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and other jazz-happy urban centers. He has been a featured performer at the Monterey Jazz Festival and has sided for Dave Holland.
The multi-reedman and composer Chris Potter is cited by critics and peers as the finest saxophonist of his generation for two reasons – his own style and for being well-schooled in the masters who have blazed the trail in the musical genre.
“I want my music to have that kind of emotional impact,” Potter said. “What I learned from them in terms of phrasing, sound, and approach to rhythm will never be outdated.
“I would like to basically use the same aesthetic sensibility with more contemporary harmonic and rhythmic concepts,” he said, “while being influenced by classical, world music, funk, rock, rap, country, whatever -- digesting new ideas, new influences to keep the freshness alive.
“Each band leader, each great musician I’ve had the chance to work with,” Potter said, “has inspired me in a certain way. Without all those experiences I don’t think I’d be ready to be doing this now.
“I want people to dance if they can, to feel the music and not think of it as something complicated and forbidding,” he said. “I want to be communicating something. You can do that and not sacrifice anything artistically.”
Potter has been able to accomplish all of this despite a bout with Meniere’s disease, a recurring condition that eroded much of the hearing in one ear.
Tickets for Potter’s Artists Forum concert can be purchased at the KVCC Bookstore on the Texas Township Campus and at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.
Diversity conference has full slate
Tolerance for religious differences, discrimination and misconceptions involving the elderly, and the “squeezing” of the middle class toward levels of poverty are among the topics to be addressed by KVCC’s yearly Diversity Conference.
The fourth annual gathering, which is free and open to the public, is slated for Friday, March, 16, in the Dale Lake Auditorium on the Texas Township Campus.
Webster’s dictionary defines diversity as “a point or respect in which things differ.” This year’s theme is “Diversity: Tag, You’re It,” meaning that people of any and all ilks contribute to the diversity in a community. Following each of the three main presentations, panelists will explore the individual topic more thoroughly
Opening remarks at 8:20 a.m. will be delivered by Christian Weller, a senior fellow for the Washington-based Center for American Progress, which describes itself as a“think-tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action.”
In “The Slippery Slope from Middle Class to Working Poor,” Weller will share his research on the “squeezing” of the middle class and the ever-shrinking resources available to U. S. working families.
Nehad Heilel, a faculty member at the University of Alexandria in Egypt and a visiting professor in the Western Michigan University Department of Foreign Languages, and Gulhar Husain, a Muslim-American of Pakistani heritages living in Kalamazoo who is executive vice president of the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music, will talk about “Women in Islam: Debunking the Myth” at 10:35 a.m. That will be followed by a 11:35 a.m. panel discussion on “Building Religious Tolerance.”
The third segment, “Bridging the Ages,” will be illustrated at 1:45 p.m. by Giant Dreams Studio Puppet Theater using skits, songs and dance to tell the tale of what the elderly face in their daily existence. The spin-off panel discussion starts at 2:45 p.m.
Weller will explore how “middle class” once evoked visions of a good job, a nice house, security, stability and a comfortable lifestyle. Because of changing national and global economic conditions, reaching middle-class status is becoming harder and harder, while those who have enjoyed that level of prosperity are facing ever-shrinking resources.
Weller will be among the panelists who examine “the slippery slope.” He will be joined by: Robert Doud, vice president of public affairs and development for Bronson Methodist Hospital; Jean Kimmel, associate professor of economics at Western Michigan University; and Roger Miller, KVCC’s director of financial aid.
The “Building Religious Tolerance” panel will include: Mustafa Mughazy, assistant professor of Arabic and linguistics at WMU: Daniel Cunningham, founder of the Greater Faith Empowerment Center in Kalamazoo and a KVCC math instructor; and Michael Rocklin, site director for Siena Heights University in the Kalamazoo area.
Representing the Islam, Christian and Jewish faiths, the panelists will offer their perspectives on such issues as the impact of television and the Internet on organized religions, in what ways religion has become big business, the dynamics between the genders in religion, and how religious institutions gain or lose effectiveness when they assimilate the beliefs of other cultures.
The “Bridging the Ages” speakers will be: Marie Stoline, a registered nurse for Gerontology Nursing Services; Janice Livesay, owner of Unfinished Business and a certified adviser for the elderly; Amber Markley, a KVCC psychology major and college employee; and Chad VanderKlok, the community policing officer in the Milwood neighborhood and nine-year veteran of the Kalamazoo Department of Safety.
Prior to his current duties at the Center for American Progress where he specializes in Social Security, retirement income, macroeconomics, the Federal Reserve and international finance, Weller was affiliated with the Economic Policy Institute, the Center for European Integration Studies at the University of Bonn in Germany, and the AFL-CIO in Washington. Used frequently as a commentator on network news broadcasts, he has a doctorate in economics from the University of Massachusetts.
“The topic strikes at the heart of some of my most recent findings,” Weller said. “Specifically, the figures have shown how hard it has become, even for white men, to maintain their labor-market position. Minorities, especially African-American men, are struggling even more, making it often impossible for them to attain or maintain a middle-class lifestyle. This is particularly reflected in recent home-ownership rates.”
The conference begins with check-in starting at 7:30 a.m. and welcoming comments from President Marilyn Schlack set for 8:15. It concludes with closing remarks by 4 p.m. Pre-registration is required.
For more information and to register, go to and click on the diversity box at the bottom of the page, or go directly to the conference webpage at
Participation is limited to 350.
Students may attend the full conference or drop in at various sessions.
Haenicke’s humor part of fund-raiser
Circle Wednesday, May 23, on your social calendar.
That’s the date of the KVCC Foundation’s third annual Opportunities for Education event to raise scholarship dollars.
The guest speaker will be Diether Haenicke, the acting president of Western Michigan University who in his earlier retirement evolved into a thought-provoking, humorous and satirical columnist for The Kalamazoo Gazette.
The dinner and speech in the Grand Ballroom of the Radisson Plaza Hotel & Suites will begin at 6 p.m. Individual tickets will be $95.
More details will be forthcoming, but reservations can be made by contacting Diane Kurtz at extension 4200.
Gore’s ‘Truth’ has Thursday showing
Free showings of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Academy Award-nominated documentary about global warming featuring former Vice President Al Gore, have been booked for Kalamazoo Valley Community College in February.
Part of the college’s ongoing series, “Eye on Ethics and Civility,” the showings come on the heels of a new report by the 113-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that concludes it is “very likely” global warming, as dramatically evidenced by the growing shrinkage of glaciers and polar ice caps, is primarily caused by human activity.
Based on Gore’s best-selling book of the same title, “An Inconvenient Truth” will be show in the Student Commons Theater on the Texas Township Campus:
Thursday (Feb. 22) at 2 p.m.
Monday, Feb. 26, at 6:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Feb. 28, at 12:30 p.m.
All are open to the public, while faculty are encouraged to send their students as part of components in their courses. Several instructors are using the book as a text during the semester.
The 90-minute film was directed by Davis Guggenheim. It is based largely on a multimedia presentation that Gore developed over many years as part of an educational campaign on global warming. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and, fueled by glamorous openings in New York City and Los Angeles, has become the third-highest-grossing documentary in film history.
Gore’s book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” reached No. 1 on the New York Times’ best-seller list in July and August of 2006, Gore said he became intrigued by global warming when he enrolled in a course at Harvard taught by Roger Revelle, one of the first scientists to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
When Gore was first elected to U. S. House of Representatives, he initiated the first congressional hearings on the topic. That eventually led to his first book, “Earth in the Balance,” in 1992 that broached a number of environmental topics. As a political figure, he began incurring the wrath of conservatives and scientific nay-sayers.
As vice president, Gore pushed for the implementation of a carbon tax to modify incentives to reduce fossil-fuel consumptions and decrease the emission of greenhouse gases. He helped broker the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty designed to curb the production of carbon dioxide. The United States never ratified the agreement and Gore again became the target of diatribes.
All of this comes into play as background in Guggenheim’s film that is more of a personal account in a moral context than an array of facts and statistics. In the wake of the 2000 presidential election, Gore comes to grips with his life’s purpose and rededicates himself to the struggle against global warming.
He creates “a slide show” for worldwide consumption in which he reviews the scientific evidence of the new millennium, discusses the political and economic consequences of global warming, and prognosticates on the serious impact that climate change could produce if human-generated greenhouse gases are not significantly reduced in the relative near future.
Expanding your Spanish beyond ‘si’
Businesses that want to cater to the nation’s growing Hispanic population and lifelong learners who want to expand their cultural awareness can enroll in an eight-session course in conversational Spanish that begins this week.