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Searchable PDF (5.041Mb) DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS &ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES KALAMAZOO COLLEGE DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS & ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES CEREMONY Friday, October 12, 2007 Welcome David Easterbrook '69 Alumni Association President Presentation of Awards Distinguished Achievement Award Julie Mehretu '92 presented by Tom Rice Distinguished Service Award John W. Lundeen '69 presented by Harry Gaggos '04 Weimer K. Hicks Award Dr. Paul D. Olexia and Dr. Sally L. Olexia presented by Chris Bussert '78 Athletic Hall of Fame Linda (Topolsky) Simpson '86 presented by Tish Loveless Kory R. Kramer '99 presented by David Dimcheff, accepted by Andy Strickler MaryJane E. Valade '01 presented by Kristen Smith Nicholas Duda '02 presented by Bob Kent The 1940 Men's Tennis Team presented by George Acker, accepted by Eric Pratt '42 The 1949 Men's Tennis Team presented by George Acker, accepted by Gordon Dolbee '50 The 1962 Football Team presented by Rolla Anderson, accepted by Raymond Comeau '63 and E. James Harkema '64 The 1969 Women's Tennis Team presented by Tish Loveless, accepted by Patricia (Miller) Hodgman '72 and Kathleen (Dombos) Schlukebir '72 Closing Remarks Dr. Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran President, Kalamazoo College Julie Hehretu '92 Today, using a variety of artistic mediums, she creates large, beautifully layered paintings that combine abstract forms with the familiar, such as the Roman Coliseum and floor plans from international airports. Her work incorporates the dynamic visual vocabulary of maps, urban-plan­ ning grids, and architectural forms as it alternates between historical narratives and fictional landscapes. She often combines a personal lan­ guage of signs and symbols with architectural imagery to create her elab­ orate semi-abstractions, and she also draws inspiration from photo­ graphs, newspapers, tattoos, calligraphy, graffiti, and comic books. Simultaneously engaged with the formal concerns of color and line and the social concerns of power, history, globalism, and personal narrative, Julie is interested in "the multifaceted layers of place, space, and time that impact the formation of personal and communal identity." The underlying structure of her work consists of socially charged public spaces drawn in the form of maps and diagrams. She inscribes her own narrative into these decontextualized, highly controlled spaces through the layering of personal markings, creating perfect metaphors for the increasingly interconnected and complex character of the 21st century. Julie's widely celebrated work has been shown throughout the United States and throughout the world, with solo exhibitions in Canada, Germany, Spain, and England, and group exhibitions in Spain, Austria, South Africa, England, Brazil, Germany, France, Japan, Turkey, the For j ulie Mehretu '92, her biography reads a bit like an Czech Republic, Greece, Australia, Switzerland, Lithuania, Korea, atlas. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1970,Julie moved Belgium, and Mexico. She has been in the Whitney Biennial and had a with her family to East Lansing, Michigan, as a young solo show at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, one of the best child after her father accepted a teaching position at cotemporary art institutions in the country. Her work also hangs in the Michigan State University. An artist from the very begin­ Museum of Modern Art in New York, and this fall she will help cele­ ning, she came to Kalamazoo College in the fall of 1988, brate the opening of the new Detroit Institute of Arts with the installa­ where she immersed herself as an Art major and honed tion of her acclaimed City Sittings exhibition. She has been the recipient her skills as a painter. She completed her SIP, with a 6 of numerous grants, including the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, month residency in Ann Arbor. Julie completed her study and served as Artist-in-Residency at the at the Walker Art Center; abroad at the University Cheik Anta Diop in Dakar, Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California; The Core Senegal, and, after graduating in 1992, headed to New Program in Houston, TX, and was recently a fellow at The American York to find her footing in the art world. Academy in Berlin, Germany. Three years in New York of waiting tables and of painting, Julie currently lives in New York City with her partner, Australian artist as she puts it, "mushy abstractions with tons of paint and Jessica Rankin, and their 2Vz year old son, Cade Elias Mehretu-Rankin. tons of marks," led her to the Rhode Island School of Design, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in 1997. John W. Lundeen '69 high distinction, finally") and teaching certification. Jack then married and went to Australia, where he taught the Queen's English and Australian History for 2 1/2 years before enrolling in law school at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. After graduation Jack hung out his shingle as a sole practitioner in the Portland suburb of Lake Oswego, where he continues to practice in a suite he manages with 14 other sole practitioners, focusing his practice on family law. Along with former director Richard Berman and the dedicated, student minded staff at the College's Center for Career Development, Jack is most notably known within the "K" com­ munity as the creative brainchild behind the nationally recog­ nized Discovery Extemship Program. In a unique version of a modem-day apprenticeship, Kalamazoo College students stay in the homes of and work alongside "K" alumni for 1 to 4 weeks. Over the past 5 summers, Jack has hosted almost 30 "K" stu­ dents in his Lake Oswego home and law practice. In 2004 the Discovery Extemship Program was recognized with the peer­ Born in California in 1947,John W. "Jack" Lundeen '69 selected Experiential Education Program of the Year award. In moved to Midland, Michigan in the early '60s where he 2006 it was honored again to U.S. News and World Report's graduated from high school. After an eye-opening senior "programs that really work." By its third year of full operation, summer working as a houseboy at the Grand Hotel and as the Discovery Extemship Program has created a catalog con­ a fudgemaker at Selma's on Mackinac Island, Jack arrived taining 75 opportunities for "K" students to consider, and in at Kalamazoo College in the fall of 1965. Jack had a great the summer of 2007 it placed 70 undergraduates in alumni pro­ time participating in all night hearts and bridge games in fessional offices and homes. Hoben and Harmon until he took the spring term of 1967 off to "get his head together," as was done in the '60s. During his 27 year career Jack has, as he puts it, "failed at mar­ While doing that, Jack got his body drafted, but "volun­ riage, but succeeded in raising two outstanding daughters from teered" and spent 3 years, 8 months and 11 days as a two households." His daughter Erika is an accountant with radioman in the Navy instead of being prime 2nd Lt. Price Waterhouse, recently posted to Amsterdam for two years, Material for two years in the Army or Corps. and daughter Kirsten is the alumni director for the College of General Studies at Boston University. Janice "Jan" Blakeslee Disillusioned upon discharge, as many of his peers were, has been Jack's close partner for over 20 years. Beyond Jack's Jack returned to Michigan, but, as he puts it, "was consid­ office life and service to Kalamazoo College, he has coached ered not a good fit to return to 'K' College (23, grumpy, .. high school mock trial, taught at local community colleges, and 1.67 GPA; go figure)." Jack then enrolled at the served on a variety of non-profit boards, currently including the University of Michigan, where he achieved a BGS ("with Oregon Academy of Family Law Practitioners, St. Andrew Legal Clinic and the Senior Citizen's Council of Clackamas County. Dr. Paul D. Olexia, Dr. Sally L. Olexia retirement he has devoted much of his time to the Wild Ones, promoting the use of native plants in area landscaping, as well as to the Michigan Nature Association. He continues to spend every Wednesday morning from March to October volunteering with the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, and he also maintains the over 300 individual plants repre­ senting more than 50 species of native prairie plants growing near "K's" Dow Science Center. Sally earned her B.S. in Biology from Kent State University in 1959 and went on to earn an M.A. in Biology at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1965 and a Ph.D. in Biology from the same institution in 1969. For Drs. Paul and Sally Olexia, retiring from Kalamazoo Sally joined Paul in Kalamazoo and began teaching at "K" as a Visiting College never meant leaving the institution behind. Having Assistant Professor of Biology in 1970. In 1973 she took on the role of both spent more than 30 years working in various capacities Director for the College's Health Sciences Program, which included teach­ at "K," Sally and Paul fondly recall the impact the College has ing the Senior Seminar in Health Sciences, and she stayed in that role until had on their lives and the students they have met and contin­ her retirement. Sally also served as the Dean of Academic Advising from ue to meet. And the students whose lives they touched 1984-1994, Director of the Supplemental Instruction Program from 1994- throughout the years still fondly recall them, too. 1996, and she was the Director of the Heyl Scholarship Fund from 1996- 2001. Her committee assignments at "K" included the Committee on Paul earned his B.A in Zoology from Wabash College in 1961 Goals for Ethnic Diversity, the Career Development Review Committee, and went on to earn an M.A.
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