Jan. 8, 2007

The DigestWhat’s Happening at KVCC

What’s below in this edition

Student Success Center (Pages 1-3) KAFI deadline (Pages 10/11) ‘Citizen King’ (Page 3) Ticket to Ireland (Pages 11/12) Artists Forum (Pages 4/5) BRAIN ending (Pages 12-14) Link to history (Page 5) Digital art (Page 14) Nice touch (Page 5) Mgt. accounting (Pages 14/15) Mileage (Page 5) Mime time (Pages 15/16) Music at museum (Page 6) Reading Together (Pages 16/17) Welcome back (Page 6) Eye on autism (Pages 17/18) Kalamazoo’s ‘asylum’ (Pages 6/7) Project management (Page 18) Bridges’ play (Pages 7/8) Blood clinic (Page 18) Film series (Pages 8-10) And finally (Pages 18/19)

☻☻☻☻☻☻New student-retention era begins

KVCC’s latest initiative to retain the vast majority of students who come through the doors and to help them reach their goals will be ready for action at the start of the winter semester on Monday (Jan. 8).

Temporarily based in The Gallery on the Texas Township Campus, the “Student Success Center” will feature an intensive, hands-on, one-on-one interaction with some 500 students.

There will also be a satellite operation based in the college’s Anna Whitten Hall in downtown Kalamazoo.

“KVCC’s retention rate of students has not been good enough,” said President Marilyn Schlack who organized a cadre of student-services staff members into a planning team about midway through 2006. “Like Hallmark cards – even though we cared enough to try our very best, the results were still not good enough. Too many were falling through the cracks.”

The pilot project will be funded for $608,000 over a three-year period by one of the college’s “Innovative Thinking” grants.

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“If we retain only 10 percent of those who drop out,” Schlack said, “that revenue will pay for the center’s operation. If we define graduation as retention, we will always have a poor percentage. The secret is to track a student’s goals, whatever those goals are, and use that measuring stick as retention.”

The concept was fashioned by: Diane Vandenberg, college recruiter and student-admissions specialist; Lois Baldwin, special-services counselor; Colleen Olson, director of prior-learning assessment; Laura Cosby, director of career and assessment services; Lois Brinson, coordinator of apprenticeships, internships and student employment; Jackie Cantrell, director of learning services at the Arcadia Commons Campus; Bonita Bates, director of the college’s Focus Program and supervisor of the Brother2Brother Program; Heidi Stevens-Ratti, Arcadia Commons Campus counselor; and Gail Fredericks, director of learning services.

All will be actively involved in Student Success Center activities, services and functions, as well as four newly hired, part-time “success advocates” who be interacting with the pilot group of students on a regular basis during each week of the winter semester.

The pilot group of students will be invited to take part as determined by their performance on KVCC’s battery of college-ready tests, by whether they are undecided on a field of study to pursue, and by their choice of seeking certificates or degrees in technical programs.

“After orientation and career-assessment measurements,” Baldwin said, “students will be linked to one of the four ‘success advocates’ who will help monitor their academic progress right from the start. As needed, they will also be connected to any of the other student-support services offered by KVCC that can assist in their success in reaching their chosen goal.

“It’s been shown that students who don’t stay in school,” Vandenberg said, “are not exposed to the student services that are available to help them stay in school. Some may need daily attention at first -- some twice a week or more – but there will be a regular schedule of connections.”

“The Student Success Center will regularly monitor the progress in whatever each student needs to achieve,” Baldwin said. “We are kind of calling it ‘intrusive intervention.’ It will be intensive, one-on-one, personal, and full of follow-ups.”

“If some of it or all of it doesn’t work,” Schlack said, “components will be changed as the project continues.

“The objective will be to catch them earlier in the process and channel them toward their interests and toward a goal that can be reached,” Schlack said. “We want to catch them up front in the college process. One alternative could be that these students audit courses at first instead of going after credits and a grade.”

In addition to determining by specific assessments each student’s particular needs – such as a weakness in determining percentages, the array of services will cover employment opportunities, the use of technology and its aspects to provide feedback and assistance with the participants provided the best, top-of-the-line technology to bridge the “Digital Divide.”

The “success advocates” will assess motivation and why students are not all that enthused about what they are doing. Tutoring, counseling, career guidance, advising and supplemental instructions will also be involved.

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The multicultural aspects that thwart retention will be addressed, along with “lots of monitoring and one-on-one tracking,” Vandenberg said.

“The game plan is to go after the students right away and not wait for them to come for assistance when it might be too late,” Schlack said. “This will be a more proactive approach to students. The center will be charged with assisting students enrolled in college to stay here until they earn their basic degree or reach their personal goal.”

The KVCC Board of Trustees approved the project’s concept and its budget at the governing body’s December meeting.

At the college’s Dec. 21 commencement ceremony, KVCC board chairman Chris Schauer told the fall-semester graduates that “if all goes as planned for our college, there will be more of you -- sitting out there in graduation gowns -- at future evenings such as these.

“KVCC has always prided itself as a place that cares, that takes the extra step to help students reach their goals,” Schauer said. “Beginning in January, we intend to try even harder, to take even more steps to make certain that those who walk through our doors get what they come for.”

He believes the intensive one-on-one services will intercept problems before they happen, will help chart career and educational paths, will provide mentoring and tutoring that will short-circuit the drop-out rate, and will engage in “any other kind of appropriate in effect -- hand-holding -- that will aid in their retention.”

In other words, Schauer said, “students are going to have to work hard at not succeeding, at not staying the course. They will have to make a concentrated effort at failing. That’s why, because of the Student Success Center, we intend to see a lot more smiling faces at future graduation celebrations.”

‘Citizen King’ at museum“Citizen King,” the installment of PBS’s “American Experience” series that

traces the final five years of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., will be shown in the Kalamazoo Valley Museum's Mary Jane Stryker Theater as part of the college's observance of the federal holiday saluting the slain civil-rights leader.

The 1 p.m. showing on Monday, Jan. 15, at 1:30 p.m. is free and open to the public.

"Citizen King” follows King's efforts to recast himself by embracing causes beyond the Civil Rights Movement by becoming a champion of the poor and an outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam.

The museum is open from 1 to 5 p.m. on the King holiday.For more information, contact, Jay Gavan, the museum’s special-events

coordinator at extension 7972 or jgavan@kvcc.edu

Sax jazz virtuoso is Artists Forum bookingRegarded 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 will go on sale Jan. 21 -- $15 for general admission, $10 for students.

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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

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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.

Our own C-SPAN and Book TV?KVCC’s libraries have started subscribing to a new American history database,

“Issues and Controversies in American History,” according to Jim Ratliff.The link that will get KVCC’ers in if they are using an on-campus computer to

access the Internet is: http://www.2facts.com Ratliff reports that the link will soon be added to the library system’s database

page that will make it available off campus.

She’s ‘Decorating Rita’Rita Fox, a part-time math instructor for the past few academic years, is also a

full-time, impromptu interior decorator.She has taken it upon herself to decorate the faculty lounge on the Texas

Township Campus as the time of year, season, holiday, or whatever dictates. Meaning, that the lounge will probably be full of hearts and flowers when Valentine’s Day rolls around.

Fox has provided tablecloths, wreaths, centerpieces, figurines, and any other kind of item that will add to the décor and make the lounge an even nicer respite when going for a cup of coffee or a friendly chat.

For example, last summer she brought in a full-sized raft and a set of oars, along with sand pails and sand shovels – but no eardrum-busting portable radios and certainly no coolers full of social beverages that frequently find their way to the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Another different-kind of treat comes in the form of jigsaw puzzles that Lynne Morrison provides.

Both add up to nice touches.

Mileage changeThe re-imbursement rate for auto mileage accumulated on college business has

changed now that the calendar has turned to 2007.Effective the first of the year, the payback rate will be 48.5 cents a mile, an

increase from the 44.5 cents that had been in effect.

Thursday concerts start at museum

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If you like concerts where the performers are up close and personal, then the Kalamazoo Valley Museum is the place to go on four Thursday nights through the end of the winter semester

Booked for its “Music at the Museum” series in the 84-seat, surround-sound Mary Jane Stryker Theater are combos and individual performers who are close enough to reach out and touch, as opposed to a Rolling Stones concert in which there is a good chance to be seated in the next time zone or area code.

Tickets for each 7:30 p.m. performance don’t require taking out a second mortgage either. Admission is $5, and here is who you will get to enjoy:

♫ The folk and country music of The McClains – Jan. 11.♫ Singer/songwriters Mark Duval and Traci Seuss – Feb. 8.♫ The jazz-cajun-old time music combo of Steppin’ In It – March 15.♫ Folk singer Rachel Davis accompanied by Bret Hartenbach – April 12.♫ And one of the most famous acts across the planet, “To Be Announced.”The McClains are a family group from Mattawan who plays a mix of old-time

American songs and originals in a bluegrassy style. "Songs for the Path" is the name of the group’s latest CD.

Welcome-Back funAs part of the start of the winter-spring semester on Monday (Jan. 8), the Student

Commons will be hosting a mini-Welcome Back event for students.From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., there will be give-a-ways, games, caricature drawings,

and other fun activities in the Commons that are open to students, faculty and staff.

Kalamazoo asylum kicks off 2007 series A third presentation of “The History of the Kalamazoo Insane Asylum” on Jan. 7

kicks off the winter installment of the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s “Sunday Series” that highlights the history of Southwest Michigan.

Curator Tom Dietz will flash back to the institution’s establishment, the operation over the years, its heyday, and contemporary times at 1:30 p.m. in the Mary Jane Stryker Theater. All programs in the series are free.

The first two were standing-room-only attractions at the Stryker Theater. Dietz traces the community’s mental-health legacy to Aug. 29, 1859, when the

Michigan Asylum for the Insane, as it was first known, opened in Kalamazoo. The Michigan Legislature had authorized the facility a decade earlier but

lawmakers failed to provide sufficient funds for its construction. The asylum was a response to efforts by reformers such as Dorothea Dix, who advocated more humane treatment of the mentally ill.

According to Dietz’s research, in 1848, Gov. Epaphroditus Ransom of Kalamazoo appointed a panel that proposed Michigan establish an asylum. When local citizens donated $1,500 and 10 acres of land for the project, the committee, which included Ransom’s law partner, Charles E. Stuart, recommended the hospital be built in Kalamazoo.

The original site was on land north of Main Street between Elm Street and Stuart Avenue. Many felt this was too close to town so the decision was made to sell that property and buy land in what was then the country along Asylum Avenue, now Oakland Drive.

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Dr. John Gray of New York was the first superintendent but he was unable to persuade the legislature to pay for the construction of the asylum. When he resigned in 1856, his assistant, Dr. Edwin H. Van Deusen, was appointed his replacement. Dr. Van Deusen oversaw the construction and the formal opening of the hospital.

The main building, designed for 300 patients, was not fully completed until 1869. That would later house female patients when a new facility for men was completed in 1874. Although the two buildings were designed to accommodate 550 patients, they housed more than 700 by 1880, Dietz learned.

Over its first century, the hospital continued to expand. By 1960, it was virtually a city within a city. There were more than 40 buildings, including a chapel, power plant, water system, bakery, laundry, cannery, kitchen, garage, greenhouse, and various shops. At its peak in the early 1950s, there were more than 3,500 patient and nearly 900 employees. In 1969, the former state tuberculosis sanitarium on Blakeslee Street was acquired to care for elderly patients with dementia.

The hospital featured two architectural jewels, both of which still stand. In 1880, a gatehouse for a resident gatekeeper was built at the north end of the campus.

Dietz reports there is no evidence it was ever used for that purpose and by 1885 the house, built in the “carpenter gothic” style, was used as a residence for a dozen female patients.

In 1895, noted architect B. F. Stratton designed a 175-foot, 15,000-gallon water tower to supply the hospital’s needs. The tower dominated the Kalamazoo skyline. As a local landmark, it was visible evidence of the asylum’s significance in the community.

In the 1970s, when the tower was threatened with demolition, local citizens raised preservation funds and it was subsequently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

As new theories and treatment options developed in the latter half of the 20th century, the number of patients declined significantly. Many of the buildings were demolished and by 2000, most of the hospital property had been turned over to Western Michigan University.

Today only a small number of patients remain at a facility that marked Michigan’s efforts to provide humane treatment for those suffering with mental illnesses.

Upcoming “Sunday Series” topics are: ● “Bankers and Banking in 19th Century Kalamazoo” on Jan. 28.● “The Things of History II: More Artifacts, More Stories” on Feb. 11.

. ● “Friends of Poetry: Poetry Artifactory IV” on Feb. 25.● “Economic Development in 19th Century Kalamazoo” on March 18.● “Play Ball! Baseball in Kalamazoo” on April 1.● “The Kalamazoo River and the Settlement of Kalamazoo” on April 22.● “Horse Racing and Race Horses in Kalamazoo” on May 6.For further information, contact Dietz at extension 7984.

‘Abraham, Frederick and John’ continues“Has anybody hear seen my old friend Abraham?”`Well, you can see him, along with John, as in John Wilkes Booth, and Frederick,

as in Frederick Douglass – but no Martin – at the remaining performances of KVCC language instructor Rick Bridges’ play on the Texas Township Campus.

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What would Abraham Lincoln, Booth and Douglass say to if they crossed paths in an ethereal setting? The imagined dialogue is the focal point of “Abraham, Frederick and John” that Bridges’ Rockhill Free Theatre Players are performing.

Co-directed by Anna Barnhart, the play centers on Lincoln and his assassin both trapped as souls in Purgatory. Shacked together on opposite ends of a long chain, they have no idea why they are in such a situation and what they should do about it. Enter the legendary abolitionist activist Douglass to offer them insights and to “set them free.”

The remaining performances, free and open to the public, are booked for the weekends of Jan. 12-13, and Jan. 19-20. in the Student Commons Theater. All start at 7:30 p.m.

Cast in the roles of Douglass, Lincoln and Booth, respectively, are Bryce Watson, Brent Seifferlein and Jesse Rios. Other cast members include Benjamin Frank, Bridges, Cecilia Mayberry, Barnhart, and J’Nail Garrett.

Film openers are ‘familia’-orientedOne of the most highly decorated Canadian films of recent vintage and the ever-

popular “The Sound of Music” are the year-opening billings in the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s movie series.

“Familia,” which won the Toronto Film Festival’s top award in 2005 and the equivalent of that nation’s Oscar as best movie that same year, will be shown the weekend of Jan. 20-21 while next on the marquee on Jan. 27-28 will be the classic story of the singing Von Trapp family and the growing Nazi terror that entertained millions on both the Broadway stage and the screen.

Through spring, the museum will be showing classic motion pictures, legendary silent films, movies targeted for family audiences, and five-star, independent productions from the international scene.

They are shown on weekends in the Mary Jane Stryker Theater. Tickets are $3. The Hollywood classics, the silents, and the independent productions are booked

for Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. The matinees for families are set for 1 p.m. on Saturdays. “The Sound of Music” will be shown at all three times on its weekend.

The storyline of “Familia” involves a divorced aerobics instructor with a gambling addiction who loses her job and seeks refuge with a childhood friend. The married friend lives in a seemingly comfortable, middle-class, suburban neighborhood. She supposedly has career, marital, social and economic stability while living life as a control freak.

Their teen daughters, one rebellious and the other shy and reserved, become friends. Grandparents also come into play, leading to unforeseen tensions that force the three generations to reassess their values. “Familia” explores the question of how value systems are passed on from mother to daughter and asks: Is it possible to avoid passing on to our children those traits that we despise in our parents?

Steering well clear of soap opera, according to one reviewer, the film offers a slice of life that women will surely recognize and men would no doubt benefit from seeing.

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When the two daughters start to behave as adolescents will, the two women react in ways not dissimilar from how their own mothers respond when they turn to them for help.

The storyline, which spins off into a variety of subplots, is held together by a neat, if cruel, act of vengeance and there is much biting wit along the way as the drama explores whether women must be like their mothers. The two unrelated women also discover common ground despite differences in class, temperament and experience.

The film's conclusion, while far from upbeat, is more about compassion than despair.

Julie Andrews followed up her Oscar-winning performance in “Mary Poppins” with another nomination for best actress as Maria Von Trapp in 1965’s “The Sound of Music.” Both are regarded as her version of revenge when she was denied the female lead in “My Fair Lady,” in which she starred on Broadway in the role she was born to play.

She sings and acts with such vitality that her performance overshadows any sugary excesses in the 174-minute film that is complemented by gorgeous scenery and a wonderful music score by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein Co-starring Christopher Plummer as a hard-nosed authoritarian widowed father of seven, the film chronicles how Maria straightens out the children and wins the heart of the head of the household.

“The Sound of Music” won the Academy Award as best picture while Robert Wise took home the Oscar for best director. Fellow Englishwoman Julie Christie deprived Andrews of a second consecutive academy award as best actress. Christie was honored for her role in “Darling.” Here are the Stryker Theater attractions through next spring:

♦ “The Jazz Singer” (1927) – Feb. 10-11.♦ “West Side Story” (1961) – Feb. 17-18.♦ “Who’s Camus Anyway?” (Japan, 2005) – Feb. 24-25.♦ “Blazing Saddles” (1974) – March 3-4.♦ “Safety Last!” (1925) – March 10-11.♦ “Monster Thursday” (Norway, 2004) – March 31-April 1.♦ “Faust” (Germany, 1926) – April 14-15.♦ “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) – April 21-22.♦ “Be With Me” (Singapore, 2005) – April 28-29.♦ “The Graduate” (1967) – May 5-6.♦ “Something Like Happiness” (The Czech Republic, 2006) – May 26-27.Four of these films – “The Sound of Music,” “West Side Story,” “Safety Last!”

and “A Hard Day’s Night” – will also be shown a third time as family matinees on Saturday at 1 p.m. on those weekends.

A special event is slated for Saturday, April 7, when the musical group Blue Dahlia performs its original score as part of a pair of showings of Buster Keaton’s silent 1924 comedy, “The Navigator.” The showings are set for 1 and 4 p.m.

Continuing its recent programming initiative of showing award-winning documentaries, the museum has scheduled HBO’s “Band of Brothers” and the equally honored PBS series, “New York City.”

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The 10-episode “Band of Brothers” is the attraction on Sundays at 1:30 p.m. from Jan. 21 through May 27. “New York City,” the story of “The City That Never Sleeps” from the early 1600s through the dawning of the new millennium, is booked for the Stryker Theater on Saturdays at 4 p.m. from Jan. 20 through May 26. There is no admission charge.

Deadline for animation entries is Jan. 30 Professional, independent and student animators have until Jan. 30 to submit

entries for the 2007 Kalamazoo Animation Festival International (KAFI) that will be staged over four days next May in downtown Kalamazoo.

The four-day festival of competitions, screenings, professional development, and networking interaction between today’s and tomorrow’s animators is booked for KVCC’s Arcadia Commons Campus May 17-20.

Festival attendees will be treated to screenings of animated films created by major studios, independents and aspiring animators. At least four shows will feature finalists in the KAFI competitions with $15,000 in prize money on the table. The call-for-entries opened Nov. 1.

Nuts-and-bolts information and updates about all KAFI activities -- dates, times, location, tickets, and entry information-- is available at this webpage -- http://kafi.kvcc.edu -- or by calling Maggie Noteboom at the festival office at extension 7883.

Ellen Besen, a 30-year veteran as an animation professional and professor, has been appointed KAFI’s creative director. Besen spent more than 10 years on the faculty of the Sheridan College School of Animation in Oakville, Ontario, between 1987 and 2002 and has directed award-winning animated films shown around the world.

Besen’s workshops on film analysis and storytelling first brought her to Kalamazoo in 2002 to take part in the first of what will soon be four KAFIs, which have been sponsored by KVCC and the Center for New Media.

In recent years, she has served as director and head mentor of The Zachary Schwartz Institute for Animation Filmmaking, a school specializing in writing and storytelling for animation.

"As creative director," Besen said, "I will be working with the existing KAFI planning team at KVCC to develop programming, arrange for guest speakers, and set the schedule of workshops and retrospective screenings for both the KAFI Educators Conference (scheduled for Thursday of KAFI week) and the festival itself.

"This year," she said, "we plan to broaden our scope with even a greater variety of programming and new faces mixed in with already popular speakers from previous years such as John Fountain (a Hollywood-based cartoonist who is a graduate of Western Michigan University)."

Besen will also play a key role in curating and overseeing the jury process for the competition screenings.

"Competition screenings sit at the heart of the festival," she said. "People want to see new films and that’s what we are all about. But KAFI also has the potential to be a gathering place for animators, educators, studio reps, software reps, students and the general public."

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There will be three days of professional-development seminars led by animators who are knee-deep in the industry’s technology age, training sessions for students, workshops that explore animation as a career, and portfolio reviews. Students can learn what it takes to get into the animation business and the state of the industry,

Presenters from past festivals have come from Walt Disney Productions, DreamWorks SKG, PIXAR, Sony Pictures Imageworks, the Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and those who helped create the Warner Brothers’ stable of cartoon characters. Animators involved in such superhits as "The Polar Express," "South Park," and the "Shrek" and "Spiderman" series have spoken at the Kalamazoo event, which has attracted entries that went on to win Academy Awards.

One of the festival’s unique attractions, "The Cartoon Challenge," selects 10 teams from animation programs spanning North America who engage in a "24/7" cartoon-creating competition prior to the convening of the festival.

The teams selected to compete arrive at the Center for New Media on the Sunday preceding festival week and bivouac there. Over a four-day period, their objective is to conceive, script, design and produce up to a 30-second, animated public-service announcement on a topic chosen by the event’s sponsor. The winning school receives scholarship funds for animation students.

As a result of past challenges and their under-the-gun, beat-the-clock experiences, one participant earned an internship at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in California, an appointment that led to a full-time position. Another was immediately hired to be part of the team assigned to create "Shrek 3."

Kalamazoo’s Irving S. Gilmore Foundation has joined the college in being the major underwriter of all four festivals. All of the activities and events will be held in the Center for New Media, KVCC’s Anna Whitten Hall, and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum with the major screenings booked for the State Theater.

In the 2005 edition of KAFI, nearly 500 student, independent and professional animators from 20 nations entered the juried festival. About 130 entries were selected as finalists and compiled into shows held at the historic State Theatre.

KAFI is now a biennial event, sharing the every-other-year format with the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival that brings world-famous performers to downtown Kalamazoo for two weeks in May of even-numbered years.

Exploring Ireland Through the eyes of an artist, there is more to Ireland than green, KVCC students

will again learn this spring.Instructor Linda Rzoska, program coordinator at the Center for New Media, will

be guiding her seventh study trip to Ireland, which for the second time will be under the auspices of the KVCC-based Midwest Institute for International/Intercultural Education.

From June 1 through June 23, a KVCC contingent will be based at Burren on central Ireland’s west coast overlooking Galway Bay, an area that for centuries has been a source of inspiration for all genre of artists — poets, novelists, painters, sculptors, musicians and playwrights.

The three-credit sociology class, “Irish Life and Culture,” will give students the opportunity to experience the culture and history of this fabled land. The Burren College of Art, which is on the grounds of a 16th-century castle, will serve as the headquarters for

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the course as students explore the geography, history, flora, fauna and culture of this part of Ireland.

Known as “The Stony Place,” Burren is home to a wealth of archeological and monuments that includes megalithic tombs, medieval castles and abandoned abbeys.

The KVCC students will delve into past and present Irish life, ancient and medieval times, legends, poetry, mythology, religion, dance and music. They will learn to understand the landscape, history and mythology of this historic and mystical area that has been an important part of Ireland’s legend for artistic creativity.

The students will receive a certificate from both the Midwest Institute and Burren College designating they have completed the three-credit course.

Eight field trips will take students to ancient monuments that chronicle the history of an Irish culture dating back more than 7,000 years. They will experience an abbey built in 1194, a 9th-century ring fort built of stone, a 6,000-year-old tomb, cliffs that plunge 700 feet to the Atlantic, and the coastal limestone region known as Black Head.

Rzoska said the estimated cost will range from $1,900 to $2050, not including airfare to Shannon, Ireland. Those interested can contact her at extension 7923 or lrzoska@kvcc.edu. The deadline to apply is Feb. 2 and a $150 deposit is required.

‘BRAIN’ shuts down SaturdayIt’s about the size of a blue-ribbon head of cauliflower and looks like that

vegetable, but it’s the V-8 juice and garden salad of human organs. It’s the human brain, and what it is, how it works, what keeps it healthy, and the

disorders that affect are all explored in an exhibit at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.“BRAIN: The World Inside Your Head,” sponsored by Pfizer Inc and designed

by Evergreen Exhibitions (formerly Clear Channel Exhibitions) in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, is a free, interactive exhibition. It will complete its downtown-Kalamazoo run on Saturday (Jan. 7).

“BRAIN” made its debut at the Smithsonian Institution in July 2001. After its five-month stay in Washington, the exhibition was booked by museums in Portland, Atlanta, Cleveland, Indianapolis, New York City, Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City, Boston, Dallas, Memphis, Raleigh and Mexico City. Next stops are Houston and then Honolulu.

The 5,000-square-foot display in the museum’s third-floor Havirmill Special Exhibition Gallery provides a hands-on, look at the human body's most essential and fascinating organ by exploring its development, functions and malfunctions.

Since more than 44 million adult Americans suffer from diagnosable brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and anxiety each year and two-thirds of them receive no treatment, one of the exhibition’s prime objectives is to de-stigmatize these conditions through education.

Using virtual reality, video games, optical illusions and other interactive features at its score of stations, the exposition introduces visitors to some amazing facts:

● The brain is regarded as one of the most complex structures in the universe.● It contains as many neurons as there are stars in the Milky Way, which is

viewable in one of the museum’s planetarium shows.● The computer between each person’s ears never turns off or even rests in its

lifetime.

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● By age 4, a person’s “thinking cap” is full size.● While it is only 2 percent of a human’s weight, it consumes 20 percent of the

body’s fuel.● The brain doesn’t feel any pain.In addition to viewing the brains of humans and animals, visitors can “walk

through” a brain complete with neurons flying about and can explore a 19th-century lab when researchers began more intensive and extensive studies of the complex organ.

The “interactives” include launching an electrical signal down a neuron tunnel, stimulating memories through the sense of smell, deciphering optical illusions, “conducting” brain surgery, and playing a game filled with facts that boost one’s brainpower.

One of the objects in the exhibit is a replica of a human skull from around 1300 A.D. found in Cinco Cerros, Peru, with signs of cranial surgery. Another, on loan from the Smithsonian, is an epoxy cast of a triceratops’ brain cavity from an animal that lived around 70 million years ago.

In addition to outlining what is coming next in brain research, the exhibition sheds light on the realm of conditions from manic depression to bipolar disorder to schizophrenia, on the power of brain chemicals, and the organ’s role in dreaming and language development.

The interactives include:● “Synapse Pop” that shows how a synapse makes the connection between

neurons, the brain’s electrical-relay system. ● “Back and Forth,” a three-station platform that demonstrates how the brain

controls reflexes, autonomic functions and balance. ● “Neuron Sightings,” a microscopic view of real neurons from a variety of

species.● “Nightshift” is a video game showing how sleep "recharges" the human battery.

While the body sleeps, the brain is doing memory, repair and growth work.● “Wired” illustrates how an infant will not recognize himself/herself in a mirror

until he/she is between 18 and 24 months old. This station also offers the chance to take apart a brain model and put it back together, bringing to light the five stages of brain development.

● “Brain Live!” uses electrodes to see real-time EEG measurements and simulated imaging of corresponding brain activity.

● “Unhinge-a-Brain” charts the evolution of the human brain and reveals many of its components, including the cortex, the site of thinking that helps to set humans apart from other animals.

● “Yesterday” is an encounter that shows, with the help of popcorn, grass and fire, how different senses produce different intensities of memory.

● In “Virtual Reality,” visitors can experience the "phantom limb syndrome," the sensation of feeling in an amputated or nonexistent limb.

● “Be a Brain Surgeon” offers the chance to wield a gamma-knife simulator to excise a brain tumor.

● “Hills or Craters” is an exercise showing how the brain interprets the world according to built-in biases.

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● “A Hole in the Head” is the story of Phineas Gage, the iron rod that rocketed through his skull, and how he lived to tell about it.

Digital artwork in spotlight The Center for New Media in downtown Kalamazoo is hosting KVCC’s ninth

annual Electronic Art & Design Showcase through Jan. 19.On display are the juried creations of students enrolled in KVCC’s Center for

New Media courses. The exhibit is divided into eight categories: fine art, graphic design for print, illustration, digital photography, 2-D (character) animation, 3-D animation, motion graphics, and web design. Fifty pieces are displayed throughout the center while the Arcus Gallery is hosting the showing of animated shorts on its six large plasma-screen television sets.

The juror for the ninth annual showcase was Joe VanDerBos, who has worked with corporate, advertising and editorial clients for 15 years in the Austin, Chicago and San Francisco markets. During that time, he provided clients around the world with illustrations, icons, logo development, custom typography, and specially designed typefaces. He has served the technology, health-care, financial, travel and publishing industries.

VanDerBos, a graduate in graphic design from Western Michigan University, is currently employed as a designer for Kingscott Associates Inc. in Kalamazoo.

For more information, contact Valerie Eisenberg at extension 7883 or veisenberg@kvcc.edu.

M-TEC offers certification in management accountingCertification in management accounting, which could lead to career advancement

and an increase in earning potential, is being offered through a continuing partnership with the University of Indiana and the KVCC M-TEC.

Targeted for those already in accounting, finance and business-management positions, the four-part, year-long, distance-learning series is offered under the auspices of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and its program in certified management accounting.

The four courses can be completed in any sequence with the exception that No. 4 must be the last in the series.

First up is “Business Analysis,” which will be held on eight Wednesdays at the M-TEC from 6 to 9 p.m. beginning Jan. 10 and ending Feb. 28. The fee is $650 for IMA members; $695 for nonmembers. The lead instructor will be Ron Adelsman of the Krannert Graduate School of Management at Purdue University.

This segment will explore business economics, global business, internal controls, quantitative methods, and financial-statement analysis.

The eight-week “Management Accounting and Reporting” will begin in late spring, “Strategic Management” is booked for the fall of 2007 and run for eight weeks, and the required final, four-week segment, “Business Applications,” will follow. Registrations are being taken only for the first segment.

Each combines classroom instruction in management accounting and finance with textbooks and online, interactive testing components that prepare enrollees for certification exams.

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The series is designed for management accountants, finance professionals, certified public accountants and other certified personnel who are seeking continuing-education credits, who want to enhance their business-skills set, and who want to position themselves for advancement in their fields.

According to a recent salary survey, a professional certified in management accounting earns 89 percent more than a non-certified person and 19 percent more than the average CPA.

For more information, contact the M-TEC’s Trish Schroeder at extension 1253 or at pschroeder@kvcc.edu. Potential participants can also register online via the M-TEC webpage.

Mime-juggler to entertain families, pre-schoolersA mime who has trained with Marcel Marceau is launching the Kalamazoo

Valley Museum’s 2007 series of specialty concerts and programs for families and pre-schoolers.

Rob Reider, who is based in Grand Rapids and who is an accomplished juggler as well, will perform for a pre-school audience at 10 a.m. on Saturday (Jan. 6) and come back at 1 p.m. that day for a family show. The former program is free, while there is a

$3 admission charge for the second performance. Both will be held in the Mary Jane Stryker Theater.

In addition to Marceau, Reider has studied under such other classic mimes as Thomas Leabhart, Tony Montanaro, and Yen Hoa Lee. Complementing his being able to convert silence into screams of laughter, Reider’s repertoire also includes fashioning balloon animals and improvisation.

A performer for more than 25 years, Reider said he has “dedicated my shows and workshops to high-quality, clean family entertainment using time-honored techniques offering universal understanding.”

He said he offers his “talents to uplift humanity and allow barriers of culture and society to dissolve into laughter and true entertainment.”

His "Juggling Made Easy” scenario uses simple scarf techniques to get participants to learn the skills of juggling "slowed-down" and get past the "I-can't" syndrome. “This simple lesson is very empowering, encouraging, and teaches coordination with a very high success rate,” Reider said.

Upcoming bookings in this Saturday series for young children and families are:

● An adaptation of “The Sword in the Stone” featuring the puppets of Greg Lester – Feb. 3.

● Magician John Dudley – March 3.● Entertainer Carolyn Koebel – April 7.Limited seating in the Stryker Theater is on a first-come, first-served basis for

these free presentations.

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A maximum of four tickets per household or group can be reserved the day before each performance by calling (269) 373-7990 or (800) 772-3370.

Seats that are not occupied by 10 minutes before show time will be released to other guests.

Novel with autistic hero is Reading Together choiceKVCC will again be taking part in the Kalamazoo Public Library’s “Reading

Together” initiative in 2007 and the college’s liaison to the project, Arcadia Commons Campus librarian Jim Ratliff, is seeking colleagues to participate.

The chosen book for community events next February and March is Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” a fictional, first-person account of a 15-year-old boy with autism who overcomes obstacles to solve a mystery surrounding the death of a neighbor’s dog.

The college’s book-discussion group is getting a jumpstart on the initiative. On Thursday, Jan. 18, “Curious Incident” will be the topic of conversation.

The group gathers at Pete Patel’s Saffron restaurant at the top of West Main Hill beginning at 5:30 p.m.

The spotlight will be on “The Power of One” by Bryce Courtenay on Thursday, March 15. The discussions are open to all KVCC personnel.

In “Curious,” the boy can perform complex mathematics functions in his head and admires the logic of Sherlock Holmes, but the emotional complexities of social interactions are a mystery to him. His investigation into how the dog died leads him down unexpected paths.

“Set in England,” Ratliff said, “the book's combination of an unusual storytelling style, insights to the mind of a child with autism, illustrations, family conflict, mathematics, humor, literary allusions and compelling characters opens the door to discussion. The book is an accessible, quick read that should spark conversations about what it means to be different in our community.”

Copies of the book will be available in KVCC's libraries, at the KVCC Bookstore and at all the area's public libraries. The project’s website, www.readingtogether.us will soon include a calendar of events.

The New York Times described “Curious” as “stark, funny and original. It eschews most of the furnishings of high-literary enterprise as well as the conventions of genre, disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect.

Joan Hawxhurst, who coordinates Reading Together for the library, said the committee of 35 community members who selected the novel represented high schools, colleges, libraries, bookstores, book clubs, civic and social-service organizations, news-media outlets, and various religious denominations.

The members wanted something that could appeal to both adult and young readers, that could generate community dialogue on an important topic.

“There was a sense to provide space for people who are perceived and treated as different to open up and tell their stories,” she said, reflecting on what happened when Vietnam War veterans came forward because of the 2006 selection of Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.”

“This book should spark discussion because of its portrayal of an autistic person’s point of view,” Hawxhurst said. “It is written in a style that gets into your head.

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“The teachers on the committee said their students absolutely loved the book, that it’s really meaningful,” Hawxhurst said. “Parents on the committee talked about having extended family members who were in similar situations, folks who had been diagnosed with autism.”

Ratliff reports that the Kalamazoo Valley Museum will be screening the film "Refrigerator Mothers,” a documentary on mothers of the 1950s and 1960s who had children with autism, on March 18 at 3 p.m.

Ratliff wants KVCC instructors to provide some feedback to him:♦ Whether they are planning on using the book in association with their classes

during the 2007 winter semester? If so, which classes and how many?♦ Would there be a KVCC program or event they would like to lead or attend

with their students? Joining Ratliff in planning and promoting Reading Together are English

instructor Jackie Justice-Brown and Donna Odom of the Kalamazoo Valley Museum and president of the Southwest Michigan Black Heritage Society.

For more information, contact Ratliff at extension 7867 or jratliff@kvcc.edu.

Church hosts discussions on book about autismTo prep the community for the 2007 edition of the Reading Together program,

the First United Methodist Church of Kalamazoo will host a six-part discussion series on “Understanding Differences and Developing Community” that begins Saturday (Jan. 7).

The chosen book for the Kalamazoo Public Library’s annual Reading Together venture is Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” a fictional, first-person account of a 15-year-old boy with a form of autism who overcomes obstacles to solve a mystery surrounding the death of a neighbor’s dog.

KVCC, through librarian Jim Ratliff’s membership on the program’s planning committee, is a partner in the venture.

The presentations at the church, located at 211 S. Park St., are all free and open to the public. Each Sunday session in the church parlor will run from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.

Here’s the schedule of topics and speakers. Jan. 7: “A Different Way of Knowing: What is Autism and How Does It

Affect One’s Reality” with Angela Telfer, principal of the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency’s Croydon Avenue School and administer of K-RESA’s autism program.

Jan. 14: Bruce Mills, a member of the Kalamazoo College Department of English and the father of a 14-year-old son with autism, will talk about “Family Stress and Family Joys: Parenting a Child with Autism.”

Jan 21: “Challenges and Rewards in Meeting the Educational and Social Needs of Children with Autism” with Julie Wilson, a teacher-consultant for autism spectrum disorders at the Croydon Avenue School.

Jan. 28: Adam Parmenter, who authors the Aspie’s Inc. blog, will talk on “Learning How to Create Our Visions and Our Stories: Hearing the Voices of People with Autism.”

Feb. 4: Vicki Stewart, who teaches English literature and creative writing at Western Michigan University, will discuss Haddon’s book.

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Feb. 11: “Welcoming People with Disabilities into the Life of Our Church and Community: How Can We Become Advocates for Social Change to Create an Inclusive Community?” is the topic for Jerry Albertson, director of community relations for the Disability Resource Center of Southwest Michigan.

For more information about the church’s series, contact Lois Schmidt at 353-5332 or by e-mail at mylo82@chartermi.net.

Project management is workshop topic at M-TECEffectively managing projects to a successful completion will be the learning

objective for a two-part workshop this month at the KVCC M-TEC.“Managing Projects” will be presented on successive Tuesdays – Jan. 23 and Jan.

30 – from 8 to 11 a.m. in the M-TEC headquarters in The Groves, KVCC’s business-education-technology park along U. S. 131. The fee is $225.

“Managing Projects” will provide participants with a working knowledge of the fundamental concepts of effective project planning and management. Unlike programs that primarily emphasize methods for managing project tasks or project teams, this seminar integrates both approaches by showing how to simultaneously coordinate managing the people with planning and managing the work.

More information about the seminar and the presenter is available by calling the M-TEC at extension 1253 or by visiting the center’s website at www.mteckvicc.com. Participants can also register via the web.A successful blood drive, and another on the horizon

The blood drive on the Texas Township Campus on Halloween netted 69 pints, according to the Kalamazoo County Chapter of the American Red Cross.

In all, some 84 prospective donors stepped forward in an attempt to reach the 65-pint goal.

The date for the next blood drive at KVCC in the spring will be announced shortly.

And finally. . . The Washington Post routinely asks it readers to take any word from the

dictionary, alter it byadding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are some submissions:Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize

it was your money to start with.Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas

from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future, especially in the Washington, D. C., area.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person

who doesn't get it.Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

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Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes and it's a serious bummer.

Decafalon: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic fit: The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug: Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor: The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Cashtration: The act of buying a house or a car, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

The Post also publishes submissions to its contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

Coffee -- the person upon whom one coughs.Flabbergasted -- appalled by discovering how much weight one has

gained.Abdicate -- to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.Esplanade -- to attempt an explanation while intoxicated.Negligent -- absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a

nightgown.Lymph -- to walk with a lisp.Gargoyle -- olive-flavored mouthwash.Flatulence – an emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been

run over by a steamroller.Balderdash -- a rapidly receding hairline.Testicle -- a humorous question on an exam.Frisbeetarianism -- the belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the

roof and gets stuck there.

☻☻☻☻☻☻

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