Maccolades for September 2021: Mac at the UN, a new textbook, and students recognized for caring

Maccolades is a monthly round-up of the most recent accolades and accomplishments earned by members of the Macalester community. Below are highlights from September 2021. 

Angling for mentorship

 Alexander Thomas ’22 earned the National Organization of Minority Architects Foundation Fellowship, which aims to provide professional experience to underrepresented students. One of 24 architecture students selected for the summer 2021 cohort, Thomas received a $2,560 stipend to work with FXCollaborative, a NYC architecture firm. As part of a team tasked with renovating a Times Square building, Thomas worked on everything from floor plans to 3D models. The eight-week fellowship included professional mentorship opportunities with established architects of color. “Talking with them allows me to get a better sense of my own path and perspectives on architecture, and helps grow my personal and professional network,” said Thomas. The $1,000 stipend for obtaining an architecture license “goes a long way toward making the profession accessible,” he added. 

Paving the way to citizenship

Katherine McCarthy ’22 received an Honorable Mention for the Literacy Minnesota 2021 Outstanding Volunteer Award. As a volunteer teacher with the English Learning Center in Minneapolis, McCarthy supports adult immigrants and refugees seeking to increase their English literacy. Now in her fourth year, she helps lead the Citizenship Program, updating the material to reflect new citizenship test information and making the curriculum more accessible and intuitive for online learning. “It was so flattering to feel seen and appreciated in a community I love,” said McCarthy.

Getting psyched for sustainability

Dr. Christie Manning, director of Sustainability and a faculty member in Environmental Studies, co-authored a new book called Psychology for Sustainability. This college-level textbook applies psychological science to so-called environmental problems that manifest when human behavior disrupts and degrades natural systems. “I am excited about the engaging tone of the book and the new content in this updated edition: A focus on collective action and a strong environmental justice theme woven through many of the chapters,” said Dr. Manning. Timely topics include climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental racism, Indigenous perspectives, social media, and COVID-19 and other pandemics. 

Far from home in Minnesota

Paul Cosme ’22 published a first-person essay in the new book called This Was 2020: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year. “My contribution to the book highlights my experience as a Filipino citizen stuck in the Twin Cities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests,” said Cosme. “These circumstances forced me to think about my experiences as a Filipino dissenter and critic against the violence of my own government and its parallels to what I experienced in Minnesota.” The book is a finalist for the 2021 Minnesota Author Project: Communities Create contest, an award highlighting independently published authors in the state.  

Let’s talk about liberal thought and inequality

Political Science Professor David Blaney co-authored a new book with Ithaca College Professor Naeem Inayatullah entitled Within, Against, and Beyond Liberalism: A Critique of Liberal IPE and Global Capitalism. Geared toward scholars and graduate students, the book grew out of a “long concern with inequality, especially global inequality and the way variants of liberal thought sanctify inequality,” said Dr. Blaney. The book also emerged from years of teaching the courses “Global Political Economy” and “Work, Wealth, and Well-Being” at Macalester.

Well-versed on book awards 

English Professor Michael Prior received the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes’ Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, earning $3,000 for his book of poems, Burning Province. “It’s a particularly meaningful honor for me because I’m from British Columbia, where my family still lives, and because Burning Province explores questions of intergenerational memory and cultural trauma related to the province’s history,” said Prof. Prior. The collection was inspired by the wildfires that scorched British Columbia in 2015 and 2017 and his grandparents’ experiences of Japanese-Canadian internment during the Second World War. Praised by the publisher as “acerbic, moving, and formally astonishing,” Prof. Prior’s collection has already won the Canada-Japan Literary Award and is shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. 

Appetite for change at the UN

Geography Professor Bill Moseley was reappointed to a United Nations advisory committee on food security and nutrition. The 15-member High Level Panel of Experts on food security and nutrition consists of world-renowned scientists who provide high-quality, independent, and impartial scientific evidence to the UN Committee on World Food Security. A rare appointment for a liberal arts college professor, Dr. Moseley was appointed to the Steering Committee in 2019 and has been renewed for another two-year term. 

Keeping peers on track  

Kalid Ali ’25 received the 2021 AchieveMpls Excellence Award. As the strategic nonprofit partner of Minneapolis Public Schools, AchieveMpls helps prepare students for college and careers. The Excellence Award recognizes people who have gone above and beyond to further that mission. Ali was nominated by the Como Park High School Career Pathway Center (CPC) coordinator for his work supporting fellow Como students. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ali became concerned that many of his classmates and soccer teammates were failing classes or didn’t have a post-graduation plan. “After talking with my CPC coordinator and my soccer coach, we started working together to get students into the CPC for personalized and expert support in exploring career and college options, applying for postsecondary programs, and securing financial aid,” said Ali. 

Mac turns up the heat on sustainability

Sierra magazine recently named Macalester a Cool School in its annual ranking, applauding Macalester’s commitment to protect the planet through campus energy use, transportation, and fossil fuel divestment. Out of 328 participants, the College was ranked #52.