Jan. 11, 2010

The DigestWhat’s Happening at KVCC

What’s below in this edition

Gifts for troops (Page 1) SSC events (Pages 11/12) ‘Windfall’ (Pages 1-4) Trip to Mars (Pages 12/13) Zumba time (Page 4) Intern$hip$ (Page 13) Telling our stories. . . (Pages 4/5) Family fun (Page 14) . . .Keeping them fresh (Page 5) Tech course a go (Page 14) About Writing (Pages 5-8) ‘The Paper City’ (Pages 15-17) Assessment (Page 8) Obama’s rise (Pages 17/18) MLK events (Page 8) Gym-shoes update (Pages 18/19) Irish jigs (Pages 9/10) Cool Teacher (Page 19) ‘Genome’ closing (Pages 10/11) And Finally (Pages 19/20)

☻☻☻☻☻☻Post-holidays Care packages planned for U. S. troops

The KVCC Veterans Club is orchestrating the sending of gifts for U. S. military personnel serving away from their homes.

Instead of the normal push to collect the goodies in time for Christmas, the new wrinkle is to arrange for the collections to be shipped after the first of the year, once the yuletide is over, as a way to extend the holiday spirit.

"The Veterans Club endorses the idea of boxes to troops serving overseas," said Kate Ferraro, a sociology instructor and one of the organization’s faculty advisers, "but has opted to start the winter semester with boxes so the troops get some after all the holiday boxes run out.

“We'll be deciding on appropriate inclusions for the boxes at the first club meeting of the year and will spread the word,” she said.

Wind Academy gets $550,000 boost from fedsKVCC’s one-of-its-kind Wind Turbine Technician Academy will be able to

increase its capacity for training the next workforce generation in this emerging alternative source of energy as a result of a $550,000 appropriation in the latest federal budget.

Allocated through the U. S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), the funds will be used to purchase specialized

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training equipment for the academy, which is based in the M-TEC and is still taking applications internationally for the second 26-week edition slated to start May 17.

The funding request was sponsored by Michigan’s two Democratic senators, Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, and by Republican Congressman Fred Upton in the House of Representatives. The jointly passed budget bill was signed by President Barack Obama in late December.

The academy, which will graduate its first technicians on April 9, is certified by Bildungszentrum fur Erneuerebare Energien (BZEE). Its English equivalent is “Renewable Energy Education Center.”

Located in Husum, Germany, and founded in 2000, BZEE was created and supported by major wind-turbine manufacturers, component makers, and enterprises that provide operation and maintenance services. As wind-energy production increased throughout Europe, the need for high-quality, industry-driven, international standards emerged. BZEE has become the leading trainer for wind-turbine technicians across Europe and now in Asia.

“Kalamazoo Valley Community College (KVCC) is proud to lead the way as the country’s first national training resource certified by BZEE,” said President Marilyn Schlack. “We are excited by the federal government’s support for our efforts to train the technicians that will be needed to maintain and repair the giant turbines that populate wind-energy farms across the world.”

“By producing a highly skilled, wind-energy workforce,” said James DeHaven, vice president for economic and business development, “the academy serves as an incentive for manufacturing and renewable-energy development in Michigan, the Midwest and beyond.

“The KVCC academy is training the technicians that will be needed,” DeHaven said. “It’s up to the state and federal governments and agencies to make Michigan the Wind Energy State. This could restore and rebuild our manufacturing base.”

And that has already started. Energetx Components in Holland has received a $3.5 million clean-energy state/federal grant, along with tax incentives, to ramp up its capacity to manufacture components for wind turbines and for alternative-energy vehicles. A company spokesman projects that Energetz will employ 300 people when production kicks into full gear in 2011.

“This investment by the federal government in what KVCC is attempting to accomplish in wind energy will assure the training of a technically trained, wind-energy workforce at an affordable price,” said Cindy Buckley, executive director of training at the M-TEC of KVCC. “By building capacity in this program, that’s a win for our community, our state and our nation, and it surely is a win for our students.”

The academy can be completed in six months, making the program viable for retraining workers and for the training of the next-generation workforce. The program provides graduates with multi-craft credentials that are highly sought after by the wind-power industry for the construction, operation and maintenance of utility-size wind turbines.

“Companies are already calling us to find out how they can meet our graduates who will earn individual certification through the BZEE and become a part of an international labor pool,” Buckley said. “The projection is that between 1,500 and 2,400

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new technicians are needed annually to support the growing wind-energy industry. Starting wages range from $14 to $21 per hour.”

A study by the U. S. Department of Energy identified the feasibility and potential rewards the United States would gain by pursuing the goal to generate 20 percent of the nation’s energy through wind by the year 2030. This speaks to employment opportunities as well -- especially in this part of the United States with Michigan’s unique positioning in regards to the Great Lakes basin.

Sailors have long known the power of the offshore winds. More formal studies have confirmed those winds are consistent and powerful – enough to produce as much as 322,000 megawatts of electricity from wind turbines. That’s 12 times more than the state’s entire peak demand.

The prospects are that wind power could greatly reduce the $24 billion that state residents and businesses pay each year in fossil-fuel imports.

Most – if not all of this – is within reach. The Great Lakes Wind Council reports that about 20 percent of Michigan’s 38,000 square miles of Great Lakes bottomlands are in less than 100 feet of water. Some of the locations would be definitely off-limits while others are considered conditional.

But, according to the council, almost 550 square miles of that 20 percent are in relatively shallow areas with plenty of wind many miles off shore. Those would be perfect sites for wind farms to produce energy that is unlimited, natural and impact-neutral.

Scheduled to graduate this spring, the academy’s pioneer class of 16 ranges in age from late teens to early 50s. They hail from throughout Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Illinois, as well as Puerto Rico and Great Britain.

They brought with them degrees in marketing, law, business, science, and architecture, as well as entrepreneurial experiences in several businesses, knowledge of other languages, military service, extensive travel, and electrical, computer, artistic, and technical/mechanical skills.

The first step to gain access into the next academy is to complete the written application, which can be downloaded at this web site – www.kvcc.edu/training. Applications can be mailed or faxed to the M-TEC, or dropped off personally.

A math test is also part of the screening process, along with the results of a medical examination and documented work experience in technical fields.

The last step in the application process is a screening for an ability to function in tight quarters and work at great heights.

Those applicants who were not accepted into the first session are being carried over to the waiting list for the second. The fee is $12,000.

While still to be determined, the federal funds could be used to construct a training tower that could range from 80 to 150 feet tall to acclimate future technicians to working at heights and in tight spots.

“Because Michigan is the only state completely inside the Great Lakes Water Basin and virtually surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes,” Schlack said, “it is poised to be a national leader as the United States moves toward a comprehensive, alternative-energy portfolio.

“The winds of change are blowing stronger and stronger in this energy-producing field,” she said, “and Kalamazoo Valley -- with its one-year certificate for training wind

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technicians, the Wind Energy Center’s international academy to produce workers for the giant wind farms around the world, and a new eight-credit course in which students will design, fabricate and assemble a wind turbine -- is also emerging as a player on the state and national scene.”

Are you ready for some zumba?Enlivened by the addition of a little South-of-the-border style of workout, the

Wellness and Fitness Center’s line-up of free, drop-in activities to promote vitality and good health among KVCC employees will be operational through April 30.

It’s your proactive chance to pare off a few pounds before the need arrives to slim down for spring apparel.

And to help you do it, welcome to zumba, a workout routine that has been added to the Tuesday schedule.

For the exercise-knowledge challenged, zumba is an aerobic fitness program created by Miami-based dancer and choreographer Beto Perez and two entrepreneurs. It originated in Colombia in the 1990s and as of 2009 is taught by some 20,000 instructors in 35 countries. Classes use music based on salsa, meringue, cumbia, and reggae.

“Zumba incorporates fast-paced music with cardio exercise,” says Blake Glass, manager of the KVCC Wellness and Fitness Center. “”The Latin-style music gets you in the mood and the instructor leads you through various multi-muscle movements that will have you sweating and burning calories while having a lot of fun.”

Here is the lineup for faculty, staff and enrolled students:Monday – swimming from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; total body conditioning, 1 to

1:55 p.m.; and dancing from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.Tuesday – swimming from 7 to 8:30 a.m. and zumba from noon to 12:55.Wednesday – swimming from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; and total body conditioning

from 1 to 1:55 p.m.Thursday – swimming from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.Friday – swimming from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and fitness cycling from 1 to 1;55

p.m.Saturday -- swimming from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.Except for the obvious site for swimming, these exercise opportunities will be

based in Room 6040 in the Student Commons. Zumba replaced yoga in the exercise activities.

Spreading the word about KVCC initiativesOK, your new program, project, activity, community service or happening has

been given the green light by the powers-that-be. Or, you have been selected to make a presentation at a statewide or national

conference. Your next telephone call or e-mail should be to Tom Thinnes (extension 7899, tthinnes@kvcc.edu) to begin spreading the word both around the college and around the community. Don’t - REPEAT - don’t wait around until the week before to contact those whose duties include public relations, promotions, marketing, communication and dealing with the news media.

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What’s important to remember is that members of the news media and other vehicles of communications don’t sit on their hands waiting for calls giving them clues on what to do. As with all of us at KVCC, they have schedules, full platters and agendas, and plenty to do. They appreciate as much advance notice as the rest of us so that they can properly apply their resources and their responses. The same modus operandi applies to those who organize and present annual and repeating events. They, too, are often just as newsworthy and require as much advance notice in order to generate the public exposure many of them deserve. Helpful Hint No. 2 - There is no such animal as making a contact too early.

Helpful Hint No. 3 – If something in the program, project, activity, community service or happening

changes or is eliminated, make another contact - and quickly -- so that the material/news release can be revised or updated.

Members of the news media appreciate being alerted so that they get the facts straight.

Also, if something changes days or even weeks later after the news story has been distributed and printed, still contact Tom Thinnes (see above) because the college’s news-and-information website is constantly edited, updated and refreshed. Many of these distributed news reports have extended shelf lives.

‘About Writing’ books two wordsmiths for winterThe KVCC alumnus, whose volume of essays about the natural bounty of

Southwest Michigan was designated as a Michigan Notable Book of 2009, is the next attraction in the college’s “About Writing” series for the 2009-10 academic year.

Tom Springer, author of “Looking for Hickories: The Forgotten Wildness of the Rural Midwest” and a senior editor/program officer for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, will be on the Texas Township Campus on Wednesday, Feb. 17.

All of the “About Writing” presentations in the Student Commons are free and open to the public. Each will feature a 10 a.m. session about the craft of writing and a 2:15 p.m. reading.        

“About Writing” will wrap up its academic year on March 22-23 with poet Thomas Lynch, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Times of London. Lynch teaches creative writing program at the University of Michigan, lives in Milford, and has been a funeral director for a quarter of a century.

Springer holds a master's degree in environmental journalism from Michigan State University after beginning his writing career at KVCC.

Looking out of his rural abode near Three Rivers and into his nearby woodlot, Springer might be fashioning his next tribute to the wonders, miracles and encyclopedic knowledge of nature.

The KVCC graduate’s latest bit of wordsmithing is a Midwest version of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” although it is much more a tome about the wisps and wisdom of southern Michigan nature as opposed to a philosophical treatise about contemporary times. “Looking for Hickories” is in its third printing,

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Beekeeping, which he has started with a pair of hives home to 30,000 to 40,000 of the honey-makers, or stargazing might be his next topics, either of which could be enhanced by the daily journal that he now keeps and fills with whatever he’s interested in at the time.

Springer, 50, is now a program manager for The Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek. A former senior writer and editor, he is now involved in the grant phase of the philanthropic organization. One of his latest projects is near to his heart – exploring the concept of children spending more time in the outdoors as a way to develop their learning and developmental skills.

Springer says he is drawing inspiration from Aldo Leopold, a 20th-century American naturalist, conservationist, and philosopher important to the environmental movement.

A pioneer in the application of environmental principles to wildlife management, Leopold is best known as the father of the national forest wilderness system and author of “A Sand County Almanac,” the 1949 bible of environmental activists in the 1960s and 1970s.

As the Midwest’s version of West Coast naturalists Wallace Stegner and John Muir, he shaped the concept of ecology even before Rachel Carson’s “A Silent Spring.”Leopold grew up in Iowa watching the Midwest’s tall grass prairies and white pine forests disappear, which impressed him with the vulnerability of nature.

“A Sand County Almanac” popularized his personal land ethic, which holds that each person must become a steward of the land. In it he argued that humans need to integrate themselves into the pyramid of life, rather than attempt to control it, and personal ethics should extend to the natural world. The irony is that Leopold died while fighting a prairie-grass fire.

In this regard, Springer says, “it is fun to be an outdoors amateur. That’s when you can pursue learning for the sake of the learning. The outdoors is a great place to do that.”

“Looking for Hickories” is described as Springer’s ode to the natural beauty and lore of southern Michigan, containing equal parts of Robert Frost, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bill Bryson as well as a bit of Thoreau-ism. Springer’s southern Michigan is “a place where bustling communities sit alongside a mosaic of woods, fertile grassland and miles of farmland. “My goal is to connect everyday people to the power they have in regards to nature’s future,” he said. “I’m not a scientist. I’m an amateur naturalist who believes that we can learn a lot from the woods.”

Springer’s anecdotes and essays capture the essence of nature and highlight the unique character and spirit of the Upper Midwest. Themes include barn building, the preservation of land for the common good, and the fate of the sassafras tree, now considered a weed but once looked upon as having powerful healing capabilities for a variety of human illnesses. It’s not just about plants and animals. It’s about the human connection as well.

Like Frost’s poetry, Springer’s essays often begin with delight and end in wisdom. They combine a generosity of spirit and child-like pleasure of first discovery with the grown-up sense of a time and a place – if not lost, then in danger of disappearing. They should be treasured and preserved for today and tomorrow.

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Active in the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, Springer has written about nature and outdoor travel for newspapers and magazines. His commentaries have been aired on National Public Radio.

Years ago, Springer thought his work days in Michigan would be spent keeping people hot in the winter and cold in the summer.

Already working in the trade, he was one course shy of receiving a two-year degree in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning at KVCC.

Then he walked into Raelyn Joyce’s writing course and a whole new world opened up, one that spanned climates and continents in his duties for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

Wordsmithing as a profession seemed about as far away as the moon when Springer “barely” graduated from Three Rivers High School in 1977 with an academic average on the wrong side of a “two-point.”

“No doubt about it,” he said, “I was a terrible student. I had no discipline and poor study habits. I loved to read, but only what I wanted to. I would read the novels assigned for a class and then not do the assignments related to them. If I wasn’t interested, I didn’t apply myself.”

His father, a factory worker who had shifted to barbering, advised he pursue some kind of a trade. Springer tried asphalt paving and other “menial jobs” before he settled on an apprenticeship in HVAC. But what really gave him some bearings to quit “muddling around” was a 1981 decision to join the Michigan Army National Guard.

By the mid-1980s, he was at KVCC pursuing that “trade.” In his path was a writing course, one of the requirements for his degree. “Yuk,” he thought, “here I go again. Another nuisance class.” Not quite.

“Raelyn’s course was an eye-opener,” said Springer, who, prior to his retirement from the National Guard, covered its military deployments as a journalist in Panama, Honduras, Italy, Germany, Latvia and Lithuania. “She had us writing personal expressions about personal experiences, which is something I still enjoy to this day. For the first time, school was relevant and interesting. I had some ownership in what I was doing.”

Springer was doing well in his HVAC program, but life in that profession had lost its zing. His heart was now in writing.

“I had no idea you could write for a living,” he said, “and that there were all kinds of careers for people who enjoyed writing.” Next came a technical writing class at KVCC from John Holmes, and he was hooked.

“I saw the power of writing,” said Springer, who has been with the Kellogg Foundation for more than 20 years. “The ability to describe and capture the world excited me. What Raelyn and John taught me, I use on the job.”

Whether his pursued trade was a dead end to his creativity or the fact that his employer was planning a layoff, Springer snipped the HVAC umbilical cord. He enrolled at Western Michigan University as a communications major, graduating in 1988. That included an internship and later a temporary position at the Borgess Medical Center where he crafted a newsletter.

“Borgess was a great training ground,’ he said. “It is a little city packed with human-interest stories. If you can’t find one, you’re not looking hard enough.”

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His military commitment took him to an intensive 10-week course in basic journalism from the U.S. Defense Department’s Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana. He was drilled in the basics of grammar, the Associated Press style, “just-the-facts” reporting, and meeting deadlines.

All of which put him in great position when the Kellogg Foundation spread the word that it needed a “communications associate” in March of 1989. Since then, his passports have been stamped with destinations in South America, Latin America and southern Africa. Springer went on to earn a master’s in environmental journalism from Michigan State University.

That’s what one would call “a whole new world opening up.”KVCC English instructor Rob Haight is the coordinator and organizer of the

series. He can be contacted at extension 4452 or rhaight@kvcc.edu.‘Assessment techniques’ topic of Faculty Success Center

“Classroom Assessment Techniques” is the January topic slated to be covered in the ongoing series of presentations organized by the Faculty Success Center.

The new initiative is operating under the auspices of Grant Chandler, dean of the Arcadia Commons Campus, to assist the college community in focusing time, energy, and conversations on high-quality teaching and learning.

This month’s presentations are slated for Tuesday, Jan. 19, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., on Wednesday, Jan. 20, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., and Saturday, Jan. 23, from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

All sessions are held in the lower level of the Center for New Media. Those who wish to attend can e-mail facultysuccesscenter@kvcc.edu. Refreshments will be provided.

Chandler can be contacted by extension 7849 or gchandler@kvcc.edu Here’s the rest of the “Talking About Teaching” line-up through the end of the

2009-10 academic year: February: “Dealing with and Preventing Classroom Incivility” March: “The Appropriate and Inappropriate Use of Instructional

Technology” April: “Designing Appropriate Learning Activities and Lesson Planning.”

Serving on the new center’s advisory team are Chandler, fellow co-chair Cynthia Schauer, Lynne Morrison, Bill deDie, Philipp Jonas, Fran Kubicek, Jan White, Kevin Dockerty, Al Moss, Ron Cipcic, Theo Sypris, and Joe Brady.King’s legacy to be honored Jan. 14, Jan. 18

Martin Luther King’s career and leadership in the Civil Rights Movement will be showcased with a showing of “In Remembrance of Martin” on Monday, Jan. 18, in the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s Mary Jane Stryker Theater. 

The 2 p.m. presentation is free.

            Among those providing words and memories are his wife Coretta, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, President Jimmy Carter, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, U. S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, Congressman John Lewis, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Andrew Young.

On the Texas Township Campus on Thursday (Jan. 14), dramatic readings, poetry and other creative expressions about King will be provided by faculty, staff and students.

Also free and open to the public, it will be staged in the Student Commons Lyceum from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

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Belfast Gin’s Irish tunes, skating flick are museum bookingsThe Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s kick-off-the-weekend series of programming

continues on Jan. 8 with the Celtic and folk-rock music of Belfast Gin in the Mary Jane Stryker Theater.

Tickets for the 6:30 p.m. concert are $5.The next “Friday Night Highlights” billing in the Stryker Theater on Jan. 15 is the

1992 skating-centered movie, “Cutting Edge.” The curtain goes up at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $3.

Each of the "Friday Night Highlights" attractions is actually a doubleheader because also planned for each evening is an 8:30 p.m. showing of the planetarium show featuring the music of U2. That has a $3 admission fee.

With a laser-light show in full color streaming across the planetarium's 50-foot dome, the 35-minute production will feature the classic hits of the Dublin, Ireland, combo that has earned 22 Grammys, sold 146 million albums, and warranted induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility.

The Kalamazoo-based Belfast Gin has been the opening act at past Kalamazoo Irish Festivals with a repertoire that samples the genres of Celtic music, swing, bluegrass, classic rock and even disco. One of its CDs is titled “Ain’t Been Sober Yet.”

The seven-member combo describes itself as “Twisted Traditional” with a kit drum, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, congas, bones, bagpipes, viola, tin whistle, flute and “searing” vocals. The Belfast Gin-ers have included Laurie Laing, Alisa Dyer, Allen Giese, Rudy Callen, Richard, Karvey and Jennifer Koontz, Matt Doppel, Bill Collins and Geoff Stockton.

“Cutting Edge” is directed by Paul Michael Glaser, one of the co-stars of the TV police drama “Starsky and Hutch” that ran from 1975 to 1979.

The plot involves an American college hockey player whose career as a professional are fractured after being battered during a game against the Olympic team representing West Germany. The other story line involves a figure skater who falls while doing a lift in her program. Both believe their Olympic dreams of gold are shattered forever.

In preparing for the next Olympics, the temperamental skater is unsatisfied with skating partners who are given a tryout – until her coach recruits the injured hockey player who has no figure-skating experience.

Through the difficult training of 15 hours of skating a day, they prepare for a national championship that could lead to a berth in the Olympics. A romance is budding and their final show could bend or break them as they try to achieve their dreams.

The two are from totally different worlds and argue constantly, but his strong work ethic brings both her father and her coach around. The two enter competition trying out a new routine that is dangerous for each of them as their respect for each other finally begins to grow.

Her antagonism ebbs away while his appreciation of figure skating grows.Here is the “Friday Night Highlights” schedule of movies, concerts by local

combos, and special events through the first third of 2010: Jan. 22 and 29: The movies "Miracle," and “Cool Runnings,”

respectively. Feb. 5: Classical guitarist Jeff Dwarshuis.

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Feb. 12: “An Evening of Chocolate” featuring a chocolate demonstration and the film, “Chocolat.”

Feb. 19: One of the most popular groups ever, To Be Announced. Feb. 26: The 2007 blockbuster, “Transformers.” March 5: Fretboard Festival play-in competition. March 12: “Snow Falling on Cedars,” the film version of the book chosen

to be the 2010 Reading Together selection. March 19: Fretboard Festival kick-off concert. March 26: “Star Trek Generations.” April 2: “Terminator.” April 9: EMBARR in concert. April 16: The pop/rock music of We Know Jackson. April 23: Performer Rob Vischer. April 30: Concert by Waverland (topic/acoustic/alternative).

Genome’s secrets leaving town after Jan. 10What the naked eye can’t see is proving that all the humans who can be seen are

99 and 44/100ths percent the same, whether they are as white as Ivory Snow or dark as molasses.

And, because of an extra inventory of these units - called genes - humans are different - but not all that different -- from other warm-blooded species of all shapes and sizes that occupy planet Earth.

Southwest Michigan residents are able to see all of this for themselves because the nationally touring “GENOME: The Secret of How Life Works” is at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum through Jan. 10. Admission is free.

“Genome” is made possible by Pfizer Inc and was produced by Evergreen Exhibitions in collaboration with the National Human Research Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health, and the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research.

“Genome” explores how genes affect growth and aging, maps what might be in -store for humanity, and offers a look at what your future children might look like. All this became humanly possible once scientists mapped the human genome - a person’s entire set of genes. The exhibition, which debuted at the Smithsonian in 2003, investigates the mysteries of the human gene, why the genome is being mapped, and the potential benefits of gene research, such as: * Preventing and curing diseases * Living longer * Solving crimes * Producing better food and drugs The exhibit looks at the 200-year history of this science and the individuals who shaped it - from Gregor Mendel, the 19th-century monk who discovered the rules of inheritance by cultivating peas in a monastery garden, to Jim Watson and Francis Crick, who in the early 1950s unearthed the form and process of genetic replication, the famous DNA double helix. This Harvard University breakthrough is regarded as the most important biological discovery of the 20th century.

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“The understanding of the human genome opens up an entirely new frontier for health-science research,” said Dr. Tom Turi, a genomic scientist with Pfizer Inc, “and it is anticipated that it will lead to new therapies and cures for devastating diseases. However, many people are unaware of the genome or its potential to enhance our lives.” “Genome” uses interactive displays and family-friendly activities to help visitors understand the genome’s function and its role in daily life.

These include: An 8-by-25-foot display of DNA’s double helix structure that is enhanced by a

video. The opportunity in the Discovery Theater to meet scientists who were

instrumental in the discoveries leading up to the sequencing of the human genome. Another “show” discusses the genetic issues of the future.

A working slot machine that demonstrates the odds that children will inherit genes for certain characteristics.

Using the metaphor of a “Cookie Factory,” DNA, genes and proteins as the ingredients and recipes for “making” human beings can be understood.

Gaining access to a cell to discover the workings of its parts and processes. Computer simulations to design new gene therapies, replacing disease-causing

proteins with healthy new human genes. Visitors will enter the exhibit through a circular corridor, encountering graphic and mirror images of themselves in the initial stages of life and as a mature human, reflecting who they were and who they are today. Emanating from a mirror at the end of the tunnel is a swirling ribbon of genetic code, representing the genes that hold the secrets to where they came from, who they are and who they may become. The exhibit’s “The Secret of Life” section explains what a gene, DNA, protein and cell are, and how genes are involved in reproduction, growth and the maintenance of life. The role of this revolutionary branch of science and what it holds for the future comes alive by people with genetic conditions telling their stories.

How DNA testing is solving some of history’s mysteries and helping to identify people who committed crimes with almost 100-percent certainty are also exhibit attractions. “Genome” will be the second medical-science related exhibition brought to Kalamazoo under the auspices of Pfizer. “BRAIN: The World Inside Your Head” spent the fall and early winter of 2006 at the Museum.

Think about this the next time you peel a banana - that white fruit behind the yellow skin has 50 percent of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that you do.Student Success Center lines up events for new semester

After introducing themselves, taking roll, and detailing what the course is all about, instructors should alert their winter-semester enrollees about the upcoming events planned by the Student Success Center that are designed to energize academic accomplishments.

The Student Commons will be the site of a welcome-back, let’s-launch-a-new-semester-with-a-little-fun-and-games gathering on Monday (Jan. 11) the first day of classes.

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The Student Success Center itself will host a two-day open house on Jan. 19-20 (Tuesday and Wednesday) from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on both days. Students, faculty and staff can learn about what is available, get to know the program’s advocates and enjoy refreshments in the center located just inside the Tower Entrance on the Texas Township Campus.

Wednesday, Jan. 20, is also the date for the first “What It Takes to be Successful” presentation in the Student Commons Forum from 1 to 3 p.m. These examine classroom expectations for students, the effective management of time to promote student success, test-taking tips, the process for a smooth transfer to a four-year university, and job-searching suggestions. Four such sessions are booked for the winter semester.

The Student Commons Forum will also be the location for a goal-setting and time-management workshop for students on Thursday, Jan. 21, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Get up close and personal with MarsNone of us has experienced the stark, barren and not-completely-inert surface of

Mars. Until now.Welcome to the Digistar 4, the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s new, full-color, 109-

seat planetarium technology that is now open to the public and offering these three shows on a regular basis.

There is a $3 fee for planetarium shows, although admission to the museum and its exhibitions are free.

As with its predecessor Digistar II, which was among the attractions when the downtown-Kalamazoo museum opened its doors in February of 1996, the newest $1.3 million version is among the handful in operation around the world.

Beginning this month, “Invaders of Mars” makes it easier to accept that none of us will ever make it to that planet because, thanks to the Digistar 4 technology, we’ve already been there.

“’Invaders of Mars’ is the featured program through the end of March,” says planetarium coordinator Eric Schreur. “Mars will reach opposition in late January and, while it shines at its brightest, the planetarium show will reveal the discoveries made through telescopes and the space probes that have orbited and landed on the next planet out from the sun.”

“Invaders of Mars” will be shown daily at 3 p.m. It is a 25-minute program that offers up-close-and-personal looks at great chasms, canyons and volcanoes from orbiting spacecraft. The robotic landers explore the icy caps and dust storms that sweep across the Martian surface.

Schreur says the planetarium’s family program through the first three months of 2010 will be a converted version of a regular feature, “Sky Legends of the Three Fires.”

Southwest Michigan Native American storyteller Larry Plamondon explains how a coyote scattered the stars into the sky, how a turtle race resulted in the Milky Way, and how a bear hunt resulted in The Big Dipper.

This feature will be shown weekdays at 11 a.m., on Saturdays at 1 p.m. and on Sundays at 2 p.m.

With the U2 sky concert continuing at 8:30 p.m. on Fridays through the winter months, a program about finding constellations and planets in the winter nights will be

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shown on Saturdays at 2 p.m. This backyard-stargazing presentation is titled “Winter Nights.”

More information is available at the museum’s web site at www.kalamazoomuseum.org.

Students: Check on winter-semester internshipsThe college’s Community Partners Internship Program is arranging for winter-

semester placements to give students a leg up in future searches for employment.KVCC instructors are urged to continue directing students to the initiative that

was launched in January 2009 and for them to take advantage of a workforce-development experience that can be life-and-career changing for those who seize the opportunity.

Funded for a three-year period by the KVCC Foundation, the $100,000 project seeks to place at least 55 students over a three-year period with enterprises interested in a grow-your-own-workforce alliance.

The bulk of the grant funds is being used to pay up to 50 percent of the wages for each intern, with the companies they work for providing the balance. The program will last through December of 2011.

Salary terms are established on a case-by-case basis and agreed upon prior to the commencement of the internship. The pay can range from the minimum wage of $7.40 to $12 per hour.

An internship usually lasts 15 weeks, but students can apply at any time and be assigned year round.

Lois Brinson-Ropes, the internship coordinator for the center’s Student Employment Services unit, said the initiative is targeting enterprises involved in bio-medical services, alternative energy, and the digital arts, but companies involved in other sectors of the regional economy are also invited to take part.

“We see this internship program as the college’s wish to join forces with Southwest Michigan employers to produce and retain a highly talented and trained workforce,” she said.

For many enterprises -- and not just those in emerging businesses -- the No. 1 factor for achieving success is finding the right people to fit the right jobs. Internships are tried-and-true ways to “grow your own” and identify prospects with high potential.

Instructors should tell students that can apply when they have achieved the skills and education required by the company offering the internship, and when they have completed 50 percent of the course work in their respective majors.

They will also be required to complete pre-employment-skills training provided by the center’s Student Employment Services.

This training will include resume writing, effective cover letters, interviewing skills, professional attire, personal hygiene, promptness and dependability, communication skills, and non-verbal behavior.

Each company can request an intern based on the area of study, skills needed, duties expected, hours of work, and when the person is needed on the job. Each will select an intern based on the organization’s existing hiring methods and criteria.

Instructors can direct interested students to Brinson-Ropes in Room 1356 on the Texas Township Campus. She can be contacted at extension 4344 or lbrinsonrop@kvcc.edu.

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2 acts to entertain families at museumThe music of Gemini and the songs of Michigan environmental educator Joe

Reilly will be the entertainment targeted for families at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum this winter.

The duo of Gemini is booked for Saturday, Feb. 6, while Reilly will share his tunes about Michigan’s lakes and natural places on Saturday, March 6. That attraction, too, begins at 1 p.m.

Admission is $3 for the performances in the Mary Jane Stryker Theater.More information about events, attractions and tickets is available by checking the

museum’s web site at www.kalamazoomuseum.org or by calling 373-7990.

‘Discovering Technology’ course attracts 17 enrolleesSo you think you’d like a career in some kind of technical occupation?Seventeen students will find that out during the winter semester. They have

enrolled “Discovering Technology,” an overview course that stresses hands-on instructions in a laboratory environment.

The three-credit class will meet once a week on Fridays from 8 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. through the end of April.

“This is intended for students who are undecided about their career,” said Deborah Dawson, dean of business and advanced technology, “but ‘think’ they may be interested in the technical fields.”

Enrollees will be introduced to the college’s programs in automotive technology, drafting and design, electrical technology, machine tool, welding, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

Class sessions will feature presentations on such topics as machining, welding, robotic numerical control, computer-assisted design and manufacturing, fabrication methods, electrical applications, motor controls, alternative energy and fuels, and hybrid vehicles.

“They will spend a couple of weeks in each area,” Dawson said, “working mostly in our technical labs with hands-on lessons.”

Among the objectives will be learning how to:● identify major automotive systems and components● check key automotive-fluid levels● increase awareness about alternative fuels and evolving technologies that will

impact future modes of transportation ● create sketches of parts and interpret symbols used in technical drawings● identify commonly used building and manufacturing materials● understand common electrical terms● draw a schematic of an electrical circuit● understand the functioning of electrical motors and generators● safely use power tools● select the proper welding machines and equipment to perform various jobs. ● build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, and develop a teamwork

approach to employment.The college’s full-time instructors in the technical fields will team-teach the new

course.

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Kalamazoo’s ‘Paper City’ origins explored Jan. 10“The Making of the Paper City” is the Jan. 10 installment of the 2009-10 edition

of “Sunday Series” presentations at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.Curator Tom Dietz will dig into that part of the community’s past at 1:30 p.m. in

the Mary Jane Stryker Theater. All of the programs are free and open to the public. Remember the kids’ game of "Rock, Paper and Scissors?”On the count of three, each player shows a fist for rock, two outstretched fingers

for scissors, or a flat hand for paper. Paper covers rock. Rock smashes scissors. Scissors cuts paper. You won and lost just about each time.

For decades, “paper” never lost in Kalamazoo. It was always No. 1, and Dietz will be explaining how that all came about, along with the industrialists who led the way.

While its eventual designation as “The Paper City” can be traced to an 1847 newspaper editorial urging local capitalists in search of a profitable enterprise to establish a paper mill in the village, the origins go way beyond that - - to the age of the receding glaciers that shaped the network of waterways and forests in what became the state of Michigan.

The Kalamazoo River and its feeder streams offered what seemed like a limitless water resource for making paper, ample locations for dams to power the machinery, and for disposing of the wastes. Pollution? What was that? Who cared what was downriver? However, it wasn’t until nearly 20 years later, after the nation had slashed its way through the issues of states’ rights, slavery and the Civil War, that the industry began to take shape.

Not that the capitalists didn’t want to heed the journalist’s advice. There was plenty of pre-war “paper fever,” but the firing on Fort Sumter cooled the fervor.

Once business conditions started to improve, visions of profits returned and a core of Kalamazoo investors pooled $30,000 on Oct. 1, 1866, to build what became the Kalamazoo Paper Co. and what today is the Georgia-Pacific Corp.

While there were some setbacks and stumblings along the way, the local mill prospered and others started to spring up “downriver” in Plainwell and Otsego in the 1870s and ‘80s. Kalamazoo, however, did not attract its second mill until 1895 -- Bryant Paper Co. -- which is when paper began moving up the ladder as an economic force.

After rating “second banana” status to Kalamazoo’s manufacture of buggies, carts and carriages, paper started to flex its muscle fiber at the end of the 19th century and the dawning of the 20th. If it wasn’t yet king, it was starting to share regal prestige and marquee billing with celery and Kalamazoo stoves a few years before the community became a powerhouse for pills.

Kalamazoo’s rise to the status of being an important paper center in the United States can be credited to geography (halfway between the burgeoning markets of Chicago and Detroit) and to human resources because some able businessmen and technicians were associated with the industry.

Although the automobile caused a great deal of excitement during the early years of the 20th century and fabricated great changes in the life of the community, it was the paper industry during the first two decades that was the primary cause of growth in Kalamazoo. The paper industry was a dominant force in Kalamazoo for 75 years. At one time, there were 10 mills in operation. There were more mills inside the city of Kalamazoo

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than any community its size in any other part of the world. Known as being a leading manufacturing center for paper around the country, that also resulted in the establishment of all kinds of auxiliary enterprises.

A new thrust began to have a major impact in 1909 when a successful paper salesman, Jacob Kindleberger, recognized a market change and a demand for parchment papers. Local capital helped him establish the KVP (Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment) Co. One of the offshoots was the development of Southwest Michigan’s version of “a company town” under the watchful eye of Kindleberger, ever the entrepreneur. Today, via a series of mergers with local companies and take-over sales by papermaking giants, Kindleberger’s company today operates under the aegis of Graphic Packaging Corp.

The paper industry, as the backbone of Kalamazoo’s economy, grew lustily in the 1920s. The increase demand for paper in the nation, and especially the adoption of paper cartons and boxes for many types of merchandising, contributed greatly to the growth of the local plants.

The stability of the paper industry was one the factors that brought Kalamazoo through the Depression better than most cities. Relatively few were laid off, and usually at least four days of work per week was provided. Growth of the use of paper for packaging was a stimulus for several of the city’s paper industries.

With economic and workforce changes, Kalamazoo's proliferation of smaller mills began to stumble over each other in the 1950s. Large, integrated mills with faster and updated equipment ate into local profits. More and more mills were located near the source of raw materials, plus companies in the South entered the picture. Southern pine grows much faster, making pulp cheaper. The water-pollution measures there were minimal and manufacturers basically had a free hand in those days.

Another factor was that many of the mills started by local entrepreneurs did not produce second and third generations interested in carrying on. Local control passed to boards based elsewhere. What strings there were, were being yanked in some other city. Profits were never large enough to warrant the latest machinery that technology was developing. It was a self-defeating downward spiral.

Back in the early days when folks thought the word "ecology" was a poor speller's attempt at "economy," nobody voiced environmental concerns. Raw sewage was channeled into streams and creeks. The Kalamazoo River paid the price for the town's reputation as a paper producer. As the 1950s inched toward a new decade, the river often looked like a white milkshake meandering northwesterly through Allegan County on its way to Lake Michigan.

While still a part of the area’s economy, Kalamazoo’s paper industry has changed since its heyday. And so has the Kalamazoo River, still curving its way toward "The Big Lake," and looking much healthier than it did when papermaking was king.

Here are the “Sunday Series” programs through spring: “Welcome to the Hotel Kalamazoo: Kalamazoo’s Early Hospitality Industry”

– Jan. 24. “William G. Dewing: From Calcutta to Kalamazoo” – Feb. 14 “Poetry Artifactory VI” – Feb. 28 “Kalamazoo’s Argonauts: The Lure of California Gold in 1850” – March 14 “The Ladies Library Association” – March 28

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“Play Ball! – Baseball in Kalamazoo” – April 11 “Kalamazoo’s Musical Heritage” – April 25.For further information, contact Dietz at extension 7984.

County’s gathering spots come back to lifeA flashback to Kalamazoo County’s “center” communities is the January

installment of the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s TV show. Piggybacking on his December show that featured the various four-corner

settlements that popped up in the settlement era of Kalamazoo County, Tom Dietz, the curator of research at the museum, this time focuses on the early-day "Centers of Kalamazoo County" -- Alamo Center, Portage Center, and Ross Center. He also flashes back to some of the vanished towns such as Richland Junction (Phoenix) and Williams.

The episode will be aired by the Public Media Network (formerly the Community Access Center) on Channel 22 on the Charter cable system at 7 p.m. on Sundays, 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, 6:30 p.m. on Fridays, and 11 a.m. on Saturdays.

The making of a president – Barack ObamaIn 1856, Abraham Lincoln, then a relatively unknown former state lawmaker

from Illinois, came to Kalamazoo and gave a speech that captured the essence of his philosophies that would catapult him to the American presidency four years later.

Fast-forward to the 2004 convention of the Democratic Party when a little-known candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois stepped forward to tell his personal story and to call for a move beyond partisan politics. Four years later, Barack Obama would be president of the United States.

The meteoric rise of Obama to the No. 1 office in the land was chronicled in a PBS documentary that will be shown free on Saturday, Jan. 9, at 3 p.m. in the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s Mary Jane Stryker Theater.

In the wake of Obama’s speech that was televised across the nation, as opposed to Lincoln’s words that were heard by about 10,000 people in Bronson Park, Obama’s chief political adviser David Axelrod said: “All around were people with tears in their eyes, and I realized at that moment that his life would never be the same.”

The documentary examines the life experiences that made Obama uniquely suited to launch his successful campaign to become the country’s first African American president -- his community-organizing days in Chicago, his presidency of the Harvard Law Review, and his rise to the top of Illinois politics, in the course of which he learned how to navigate America’s complicated racial and political divides.

“Barack has had to deal with dueling identities all of his life,” adviser Cassandra Butts says. “He was nurtured by a white family, identifying with that family, but at the same time, ... when he goes out he’s identified as something else. And he has had to make sense of that duality his entire life.”

Just out of college, Obama went to Chicago, a city some call the “capital of black America,” to work as a community organizer and try to sort out his dual identities. Colleagues say that after a few years he had found peace with who he was, but had become frustrated by his inability to change the larger structural problems behind the poverty he saw in Chicago’s South Side.

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That frustration led him first to the Harvard Law School, where amidst the heated racial disputes of that time he became the middleman -- a conciliator. He then returned to Chicago and quickly found himself in the rough-and-tumble world of Illinois politics.

“I think the sort of icon-like image that Obama has attained in this country sometimes blinds us to the fact that he wasn’t born onstage in 2004, but had to rise through the ranks of machine politics in Chicago to get where he is,” New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza says.

During those early years in Chicago, Obama put down roots in the black community. He joined Trinity Church and was influenced by its minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He took on civil-rights cases, led a voter-registration drive, won a bitter battle for the Illinois Senate; and, perhaps most importantly, he married a young woman from the predominantly black South Side, Michelle Robinson.

“Her roots in Chicago went deeper than his roots in Chicago,” says the Rev. Jesse Jackson. “She went to public school, and she and my daughter were classmates and friends. And so, she would know people he did not know in places he would not know.”

Obama modeled his earliest political efforts after those of Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington. “Washington had to be perceived as somebody who was prepared to be mayor of all of the people of Chicago, not just a mayor for the black community,” Alderman Toni Preckwinkle says.

Obama would follow Washington’s strategy and build his own coalition of progressive whites, African Americans and Latinos -- a coalition that would eventually carry him to the U.S. Senate. “Obama comes along with a message that says: ‘We’re going to look beyond red and blue. I am going to transcend many of these traditional divisions, not only ideological and partisan but also racial,’” says author Ron Brownstein. “And he embodies his message in a unique way, and I think that, to me, is the core of his political strength.”

The documentary details how, after his election to the U.S. Senate, Obama and his advisers implemented a carefully crafted two-year plan that built the freshman senator’s reputation and led to his announcement in early 2007 that he would run for president.

2 boxes of gym shoes gone, 3rd being filled If those tennis/gym shoes you are wearing are due to be replaced soon, don’t junk

them.If there is any wear and tear left in them, some folks in the Dominican Republic

would certainly appreciate the chance to completely wear them out as they engage in their passion of baseball and other sports.

The KVCC Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) chapter has already shipped two boxes to the Caribbean nation, and a third box will follow as soon as 25 more pairs are donated, according to chapter adviser Dick Shilts

Shilts’ contact is Nancy Willmore, a former KVCC basketball player who runs the Willmore Christian Foundation there.

“She explained to me that most of the youngsters who love to play basketball at her foundation do some barefooted,” Shilts said. “After we discussed this at our FCA meeting, it was agreed that we would do whatever little bit we can to make some youngsters in the Dominican Republic enjoy the game a bit more.”

KVCC folks can dropped off their donations in Shilts’ office. Financial gifts are also being accepted to help defray shipping expenses that are about $135 a box.

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“The tennis shoes may be more than slightly worn,” Shilts said, “just so they are useable. We'll send whatever number of boxes we can come up whenever we fill one throughout the 2009-10 academic year.

“This small thing we have undertaken surely will not impact the world,” Shilts said, “but it will make a difference for each of those who will gratefully receive these shoes given from our abundance. Any help from the larger KVCC community is appreciated.”

Former student wins ‘Cool Teacher’ designationMichelle Commeret, a former KVCC student now teaching third-grade students at

Kalamazoo Christian Elementary School, is “cool.”At least that’s the opinion of one of her students who nominated Commeret as a

“Cool Teacher” in a promotion sponsored by WGVU-TV, West Michigan’s PBS outlet. Because the 26-year-old instructor was selected, her class won a pizza party. Commeret also received four Amtrak tickets for a trip to Chicago for her and the student.

The nomination involved Commeret’s ability to make the teaching of material -- that might be difficult for some students to comprehend, particularly math – fun and relevant.

One of the strategies is using different colored stability balls instead of chairs, which she believes improves concentration, posture, penmanship and wellness.

This is the PBS station’s 15th years of sponsoring its “Cool Teacher” contest.A spokeswoman for WGVU-TV said Commeret was chosen because of her stress

on academics and the way she helps her students understand such difficult subjects as economics.

And finally. . . Song parodies about what happens inside the Washington

beltway among the pols and bureaucrats are always good for a few laughs, such as:

“I’m So Indicted.”“What a Difference Delay Makes.”“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea.”“Papa’s Got a Brand New Baghdad.”“Between Iraq and a Hard Place.”“When Bush Comes to Shove.”“It’s Not Over ‘Til the First Lady Sings.”“Sixteen Scandals.”“All I Want for Christmas is a Tax Increase.”“Fools on the Hill.”“76 Bad Loans.”“Shiek, Rattle and Roll.”“Workin’ 9 to 10.”“We Arm the World.”“I’ve Grown a Culture in This Place.”“Hang Down Your Head, Tom Daschle.”“Want Kind of Fuel Am I?”“You’re So Vague.”

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“Hello, Dalai.”“The Great Defender.”“A Loan Again.”

Now try to get those melodies out of your head.☻☻☻☻☻☻

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