Connecting with Community
Students Complete the First Brooks Professional Series
Brooks Professional Series Awards and Recognition event was held on April 3 to honor the first cohort of students to earn the certificate for the Brooks Professional Series (BPS) program. To complete the certificate, students attended six events over the course of a year, four of which were part of the BPS core curriculum (professional workshops, networking events, and on-site visits to area companies). These students gained meaningful, professional development for post graduation opportunities, and after the program, they were able to articulate a more complete vision of who they are, what they want, and how they plan to get there.
The Professional Series kick-off event was held September 7 in the Russel H. Kirkhof Center and drew more than 80 people, including students from Traverse City, Muskegon, and Holland.
Brian Jbara, director of the Office of Integrative Learning and Advising, said the year-long series is designed to provide students with networking skills and the ability to articulate “what it means to be a Brooks College student.”
“Students in our college have a variety of unique, exciting interests, and we want to help them understand all of the opportunities that exist after graduation,” Jbara said.
Brooks College students who completed the program include: Jessica Cronkhite (LIB), Steve Langejans (LIB), Chandler Katkic (LIB), Laura Sample (LIB), Mackenzie Kibbe (WGS), Trudi Watson (LIB), Natalie Depyper (LIB), and Casey Overway (WGS). The Awards and Recognition event also provided the opportunity to network with Brooks College alumni and other area professionals. Alumnus Whitney Belprez (LIB) addressed the gathering, sharing her journey and pointing out that there are many pathways to take as a Liberal Studies graduate.
Moving forward, Integrative Learning and Advising hopes to create a BPS Executive Committee to help provide input on programs, reach out to alumni and employers, and plan events. They are seeking students, faculty members, and staff members who are interested in becoming more involved in the BPS program and making it sustainable long-term. Contact Brian Jbara at
(616) 331-8200, if you would like to be involved.
“The Brooks College as a whole and specifically the Brooks Professional Series has inspired and rekindled my desire to learn. This series has showed me my strengths and weaknesses and how to pursue my education and future goals with a passion. The enlightenment through opportunities has given me confidence I need to feel empowered and to listen to my heart. It has made education important and valuable.”
– Natalie DePyper, Liberal Studies
“The wisdom I have now gained from professionals will help me stay ahead of the competition, and get exactly what I want out of my degree. The series has opened up more doors than I could
have ever imagined and for that I am humbled and cannot say thank you enough for the opportunity to grow as a young professional.”
– Chandler Katkic, Liberal Studies
“The Brooks Professional Series has played a crucial role in the development of my professional and networking expertise. Not only have I learned techniques that will help me leave a great impression on professionals, but I have also had the opportunity to practice these skills in a networking setting. Ultimately, the experiences I have had as a BPS participant have increased
my confidence in talking about my skills and passions, and have given me the courage to be more proactive in my journey toward becoming a professional.”
– Mackenzie Kibbe, Women and Gender Studies
Grand Rapids Latin American Film Festival
Grand Valley State University co-sponsored the fifth annual Grand Rapids Latin American Film Festival alongside Aquinas College, Calvin College, Ferris State University, and Davenport University. The three-day event was held at the Wealthy Theatre in April, and more than a dozen films were screened. The film selections, which focused on a wide range of contemporary subjects and came from different geographic areas, invited the West Michigan community and students to interact with the modern Latin American culture.
Fifth Annual Roundtable Held by Kutsche Office of Local History
Ninety-nine people attended the Kutsche Office of Local History’s fifth annual Local History Roundtable on April 10 and 11, 2014 in Holland, Michigan. The focus this year was “Immigration and Civil Rights in West Michigan, Past and Present.” Melanie Shell-Weiss, director of the Kutsche Office, said “the roundtable created an important opportunity to explore our diverse pasts as well as examine the many ways that West Michigan is connected to larger regional, national, and international developments — and has been for well over a century.”
Bing Goei, director of the Michigan Office for New Americans, was the keynote speaker at the opening reception. This marked one of the first public speeches Director Goei had given since being appointed director by Governor Snyder in January 2014.
Nora Salas, who teaches at Michigan State University, was the keynote speaker at the roundtable. Salas was an activist and publicist for the United Farm Workers Union in the 1990s and has been active in Chicano and minority university politics at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Grand Valley. Other highlights of the day-long events included two panel discussions, “Immigrant Experiences” and “Civil Rights in Western Michigan,” as well as two 30-minute peer-to-peer networking sessions.
Next year’s roundtable will be held on March 26–27 in the Grand Rapids Public Library. The theme will be “Food, Farm, and Table.” The events will explore how the rich diversity of our local communities has shaped, and been shaped by, what we eat and how our food is grown, harvested, processed, and sold.
Writing Center Hosts Statewide Conference
On Saturday, October 12, the Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors and University Libraries cohosted 180 writing center peer tutors, directors, and faculty members for the Michigan Writing Centers Association’s (MWCA) annual Ideas Exchange conference.
Panels ran throughout the day and ranged in topic from assisting students with reading comprehension to better serving international students and English as Second Language (ESL) writers. Six writing consultants from Grand Valley gave presentations at the conference.
A highlight of the conference was showcasing the Knowledge Market, housed within the Mary Idema Pew Library and Learning Commons, with which the writing center is a key partner.
Lee Van Orsdel, dean of the University Libraries, gave the keynote address, sharing the vision for collaboration and peer tutoring that drove the creation of the Knowledge Market and many other spaces in the library. Approximately half of more than 60 writing consultants on staff at Grand Valley assisted in hosting the conference.
The MWCA conference is an opportunity for tutors throughout the state to learn from their peers about best practices, research findings, and new programming offered in writing centers across the state. As such, the conference is an opportunity for peer tutors of writing to make professional presentations, which they might further develop for presentations at regional, national, or international conferences. This kind of professional and academic opportunity, combined with careful mentoring, a credit-bearing tutor training course, and the opportunity to develop leadership and teaching skills, makes the writing consultant position a high-impact learning opportunity for Grand Valley students.
Chicago Bus Trip Honors Latino Civil Rights Leaders
In September, Grand Valley’s Kutsche Office of Local History sponsored a bus trip to the Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago to visit the birthplace of the Young Lords civil rights movement in 1968. The trip was on the 45th anniversary of the Young Lords founding as a civil and human rights organization. The founder of the Young Lords movement, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, is a GVSU alumnus, and he remains involved in documenting the oral history of the movement.
The 35 GVSU students on the bus trip also attended a memorial service to honor Reverend Bruce and Eugenia Johnson, who were murdered in 1969 for their work in supporting Lincoln Park residents who were displaced from their homes in the 1960s. This trip also drew 12 students from surrounding colleges and universities.
Kutsche Office of Local History Launches Youth Leadership Initiative
The Youth Leadership Initiative was launched in the fall of 2013 through collaboration between the Kutsche Office of Local History, the Grand Rapids Public Library, and Grandville Avenue Arts and Humanities. The Youth Leadership Initiative is an academic outreach program for young people (K–12) in low-income communities.
The initiative’s goal is to foster a deep appreciation in participants for their own identities and neighborhood history, develop leadership skills, and apply these skills within their own lives and communities. Grand Valley undergraduates serve as mentors for the participants throughout the scope of the program.
Participants engage in the program by collecting the oral histories of community members and their families, taking photographs, and doing historical research. The research collected will become part of the growing archive in the Grand Rapids Public Library about the experience of Latinos in Grand Rapids. The participants will also develop a film and exhibition that will premiere in the fall of 2015.
Sesame Street Cast Member Visits to Discuss Latino Heritage and Civil Rights
Known for three decades as “Maria” on PBS’s Sesame Street, Sonia Manzano gave two presentations in West Michigan that focus on how the civil rights movement impacted the Hispanic community. She spoke about the importance of education, literacy, and her experiences as a Latina writer, in addition to discussing family and heritage.
Manzano’s October visits to Grand Valley’s Allendale campus and to the Cook Library Center in Grand Rapids, each with a book signing, were sponsored by GVSU’s Kutsche Office of Local History, the Liberal Studies Department, and the Community Reading Project in partnership with the Grandville Avenue Arts and Humanities.
Manzano’s visit coincided with Hispanic Heritage Month. Her new book, The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, explores Latino heritage and civil rights in an accessible and historically poignant format.
One of the first Hispanic Americans to appear on television, Manzano has been honored by many organizations, including the Association of Hispanic Arts, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, and Hispanic Heritage Award for Education. In 2013, she was named among the “25 greatest Latino role models ever” by Latina Magazine.
