Craig Simpson, Author at LuxEsto

Getting the scoop

In 2016, Aaron Elstein ’91 was hung up on during a phone call with one of the most famous people in the country: Donald Trump. Elstein was interviewing Trump for a story on how the business tycoon had qualified for a tax break meant for middle-class New Yorkers.

“He got very defensive,” said Elstein, a senior reporter at Crain’s New York Business. “Before he hung up on me, he said, ‘Take care of yourself.’”

The story that followed ran in Crain’s and was featured on New York Public Radio’s The Brian Lehrer Show. Shortly after, Trump asked the city to stop giving him the tax credit in question, Elstein later reported.

That phone call with the former president, whom Elstein had also interviewed back in the 1990s when Trump tried to acquire control of the Empire State Building, is just one of the many stories Elstein has written in his nearly three decades as a journalist. Originally from Okemos, Michigan, Elstein’s reporting has taken him from a local paper in Springfield, Illinois, to Wall Street, covering everything from bank mergers to the stock market to real estate. Along the way, his articles, columns and blogs have won numerous awards, including from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Alliance of Area Business Publications and the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award.

The same year Elstein was grilling a presidential candidate on his taxes, I was graduating from K, excited to pursue a career in journalism. I reached out to Elstein, eager to connect with a fellow K alum who knew the ins and the outs of the industry. Little did I know that grabbing that coffee with the Crain’s reporter in a small cafe near Times Square would lead me to pursue a master’s in journalism, intern at CNBC and Bloomberg News, and write for a wide range of business and finance publications. It’s thanks to that K connection that I met Elstein’s former editor—the director of the business and economics reporting program at what would become my graduate school—and got real insight into what it meant to be a business journalist covering a constantly evolving landscape.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I’m not bored,” Elstein told me when I reconnected with him recently—a sentiment he was echoing from our first conversation in Manhattan nearly seven years ago. “That’s what you need with any job.”

What about your time at K stands out to you?

I started in the fall of ’87. I took a couple of history classes and really liked them, so I decided I was going to be a history major. My favorite professors were Dr. David Barclay—I can still hear his voice ringing in my ears lo these many years; Dr. David Strauss, who was the American history professor; and Dr. John Wikstrom, the medieval history professor at the time. I went to Madrid for foreign study, and that was a tremendous experience. I knew I wanted to go back to Spain if I could find a way to do that, so I did for my SIP (Senior Integrated Project). I wrote about the medieval pilgrimage road in northern Spain, the Camino de Santiago, which has since become a big pop culture thing (they made a movie, The Way, about it with Martin Sheen). My only regret is I didn’t write a book based on my SIP because it didn’t occur to me to do that.

Elstein and Derek Stottlemyer ’91 on a study abroad trip in Madrid. — *Elstein on study abroad in Madrid with friend Derek Stottlemyer ’91.*

How did you go from being a K senior in Spain working on your SIP to reporting on real estate in New York City?

A few years after I graduated, I got a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois and that was the start of my career. I started with a newspaper in Springfield, Illinois, called Illinois Times where I learned a lot about downstate Illinois graft and corruption. After a year and a half in Springfield I didn’t care for Springfield, so I moved to New York City. I was looking through classified ads as one did back then and there was a help wanted ad for a paper called American Banker, a daily trade newspaper downtown. They put me on the mergers and acquisitions beat, which, it turned out, is basically listening to investment bankers gossip about deals they didn’t get. I got a scoop and The Wall Street Journal was very interested in stories like that, so I ended up getting a job there. The good thing about working at the Journal was that everyone would return your call, but the bad part was that they would have like 20 people covering four or five stories, so it was a constant battle for credit and attention. Eventually, I was laid off with others. A friend of mine was at Crain’s, and they had an opening. I started working there in April of 2003, and I’ve been there ever since.

What have you written about over the years at Crain’s?

I started out as a Wall Street reporter writing about Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns—those kinds of places. That prepared me very nicely for 2008, since I knew who all these places were before they blew up (during the 2007–08 financial crisis). I covered the aftermath of that until it started to get boring. I told Crain’s I wanted to be a features writer so I spent years writing magazine-length features about things like why diners are Greek, how scaffolds in the streets of New York are everywhere and ugly and never go away, and why New York water makes really great pizza (or, as it turns out actually, has nothing to do with great pizza). It was a lot of fun. Then they asked me to get on the real estate beat after the pandemic hit and upended office life and work life. So that’s what I’m doing now.

You’ve covered a lot. Has journalism changed over the years?

Yes. But in some ways, less than everybody thinks. People get very excited about the delivery mechanisms of news, like “oh, it’s digital now and it was print before.” Yes, that is true. But I can tell you that my job has not really changed that much. The work that goes into producing a story—however you receive it as the reader—isn’t really that different. What you have now that’s different is what I call “digital thirst.” Editors want a constant barrage of stories and a constantly refreshed website because that’s frankly the one thing they can control: quantity. Quality is harder to control. Is that the correct thinking? I’m not sure, because I don’t see the economics of the business really improving that much.

Aside from the struggles that come with keeping up with the “digital thirst,” what challenges do you face as a journalist?

Mike Finkler '91 on the Kalamazoo College Quad. — *On the Quad at K with Mike Finkler ’91.*

There’s always lots of competition. The challenge is to keep yourself interested, to not feel overwhelmed and to try to find things that interest you that interest other people as well. One of the things that’s difficult about media is how monoculture it’s gotten. If you really think about what’s happened in the last 20 years with the internet, the number of different outlets that people have for news has really shrunk. People used to have their local newspaper, their local radio and then they would watch the evening news for the national story. And now if you look at what people are doing, they’re not reading the newspaper and they’re not watching the local evening news very much. But they’re getting stories basically from MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and maybe things like The New York Times or Bloomberg. And people are exposed to this stuff constantly because it’s on their phones all the time. So presenting people with something else is hard to do because they’ve got so much of it already—some of which they’re paying for, most of which they’re not. Asking people to pay to read something is a hard proposition. That’s why you’re seeing what’s happening to the media, and everybody wrings their hands and talks about how terrible it is. But the truth is, this is a mass choice made by society and it will take some time to disentangle this problem—and it’s in everybody’s interest that we do that. Everybody seems to agree that more voices are better than fewer, but we have many fewer voices in the media now than we used to. You can see the results.

Still, you’ve had a long career writing about things that interest you. Which stories stick out to you the most?

One of my favorite stories was about mail chutes—those drop slots in buildings, especially older ones. It turns out these things get clogged all the time. So I found a building where there was a clog and they were gonna open it and I got permission to go in there and see what they unearthed. They found about a dozen letters, some of them quite old. And I said, “Can I have these? I want to contact the people who sent them and tell them their letter didn’t get to where they were going.” That turned into a fantastic story about mail chutes, how they were the latest technology back in the day and how they’ve survived. I also really like my story about why diners are Greek because I always wondered why and I found the answer… It is a cultural story in addition to being a business story, and those are the ones I like. I detailed how Greek immigrant John Vassilaros began selling coffee to restaurants in 1918 and went on to help fund countless diners run by Greek restaurateurs as aging Irish, Italian and Jewish owners were ready to sell their joints. I got to profile a ton of NYC diner owners and dissect the pop cultural relevance of this particular type of restaurant—think Seinfeld and the famous conversation between John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson’s characters in Pulp Fiction.

What would you say to a young person, like a K student, who wants to be a journalist?

I would say absolutely do it. We need you. When I started doing this, there were as many reporters in New York City as there were publicists. Now, there are half as many reporters and twice as many publicists. We need everybody who wants to tell some truth and tell stories that would be of interest and importance to the readers. I wouldn’t be scared about the economics of this business. They have been bad since I got here, and it can be done. Understand and accept that very few people start at the top of this profession. In fact, those who do tend not to last very long. Get whatever job you can anywhere, write some good clips and you will have a chance.

Mallika Mitra ’16 is a Chicago-based writer and editor. At K, she majored in English with an emphasis on creative nonfiction before attending the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied business and economics reporting and was a McGraw Scholar. Mitra’s work has been featured in CNBC, Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal’s Buy Side, Business Insider, Money Magazine and more. Her essays can be found in literary magazines such as Entropy and Punctuate, and she co-writes the newsletter Yes, We’re Still Watching about TV past and present.

The 1,000-Degree Fahrenheit question

Roberts operates a historic 1800s telescope used for astronomy education. — ***Roberts operates the dome for an 1800s telescope, which the Boston University astronomy department uses for some of the undergraduate non-STEM-major-course night labs.***

In the swirling upper atmosphere of Jupiter, temperatures soar to a scorching 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit—far hotter than scientific models predict. The discrepancy has puzzled and troubled scientists for decades and may hold critical clues for Earth’s climate crisis and humanity’s search for a second home among the stars.

Here on Earth, Kate Roberts ’22, a Ph.D. student at Boston University, is hard at work examining ground-based telescope observations of Jupiter and creating temperature maps to help solve what is known as the Giant Planet Energy Crisis.

“I enjoy the problem-solving aspect of research, and that’s a lot of what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis,” Roberts said. “I know what my end result should be and essentially what path I need to take, but the exact steps I take on that path aren’t always clear. I have to figure a lot out and backtrack and maybe redo something a little bit better later on.”

Along the way, Roberts, whose pronouns are they/them, leans on lessons learned as a deeply liberal arts double major at Kalamazoo College, with the scientific knowledge and complex thinking they gleaned from physics and the creativity they developed in studio art.

“The wider research field has models of the upper atmospheres of all of the giant planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus—and for a very long time, the models have under-predicted how hot the planets should be,” Roberts said. “That under-predicting is not a good thing, because that means we have a bunch of energy that we don’t know where it’s coming from. The goal of my research is to try and narrow down where all this extra energy is coming from. You would think we would know by now, but it’s been a running question in the field for about 50 years.”

Why does it matter? As we grapple with the future of our own warming planet, Roberts said, developing a broader understanding of how atmosphere and temperature function and develop on different planets could make or break our ability to predict and manage the course of climate change.

“By observing Jupiter and the other planets, we expand our repertoire in terms of understanding the upper atmospheres of other planets,” Roberts said. “If we look at a planet like Mars, we imagine that we can think back to a time where Mars may have been habitable and may have had a thick atmosphere where something could survive there. We look at Mars in the present day, and it has a very thin atmosphere, and as temperatures get higher and higher in the upper atmosphere, molecules that are in the atmosphere have a higher velocity, and they can escape the planet’s gravity entirely.”

The more scientists understand the factors that can power those higher temperatures—especially on a planet like Jupiter, that defies what we think we know—the better chance we have to keep Earth habitable.

“It’s unclear how significantly climate change is currently affecting our upper atmosphere, and it’s likely that there are other things at play that could change in the future, but things that could become more important on Earth may be present on Jupiter currently,” Roberts said. “Understanding upper atmospheres as a whole will help us understand Earth. It’s a small piece to a larger puzzle, and we hope to contribute to that puzzle of habitability.”

Grasping what happens in a planet’s atmosphere and why also aids in assessing planets outside our solar system.

“There is a big search in the field for exoplanets, or planets around other stars,” Roberts said. “The hope is to find another planet we could live on.”

Why is Jupiter so hot?

For a long time, Roberts said, we couldn’t even pinpoint the average temperature in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. Their research has shown that it’s around 800 Kelvin, which is 530 Celsius, or 980 Fahrenheit.

There are theories, of course, around the high temperatures. Roberts is considering two of them, which are likely both present, to assess whether one is dominant and how they both might play out.

One theory involves heating by the planet’s auroras.

“The region where the aurora is present is much hotter than everywhere else on the planet,” Roberts said. “It makes sense to think that the heat at the poles could escape and go toward the equator, but Jupiter rotates much faster than Earth, and Coriolis forces due to the rotation should hold that heat in place.”

The second theory focuses on an internal source of energy.

“Energy could get to such high regions in the atmosphere through waves that emanate from the middle of the planet,” Roberts said. “We’ve observed similar wave heating on Earth. If you have, say, wind passing over a mountain, you can see the effect of that change in wind direction emanate all the way into the upper atmosphere. Those waves can have an overall heating effect, but we don’t know how significant that heating could be, especially on a planet like Jupiter, where pretty much the entire thing is gas. There’s no real surface to the planet, so the waves must be created in a different way. We do see a lot of turbulence in the planet. In a high-quality image of Jupiter, you see that it has a lot of modeling and interesting textures and swirling and patterns on what we view as the surface. We know there are interactions, but we don’t know exactly what the result of them is.”

Here’s where the creativity and the working backward come in: Roberts is creating high-resolution temperature maps of the planet. If the auroras cause the heat, they expect to see smooth gradients of hot to cold moving from the auroras to the equator. If wave heating is present, the maps should show spots of heat.

So far, the maps seem to show auroral heating, although more research could show sporadic wave heating that has not yet coincided with observation data. Auroral heating begs the next question: How is the heat escaping the poles?

Roberts, third from left, with astronomy grad students on a trip to the Perkins telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona. — *Roberts, third from left, with other Boston University astronomy graduate students on an observing trip to the BU-owned Perkins telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona, in fall 2023.*

Collaboration with scientists who build models to tackle that question could be in Roberts’ future. They also are planning future research to dig deeper into temperatures on Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and to broaden data comparisons over the whole planet. Their next steps aren’t set in stone, but whatever direction they head, the research will be supported by a Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) grant Roberts won in 2023. FINESST awards are research grants for up to three years and up to $50K per year for graduate student-designed and performed research projects that contribute to the Science Mission Directorate’s science, technology and exploration goals.

Roberts and their dad posing under a Boston University Astronomy Department sign. — *Roberts and their dad under one of the Boston University Astronomy Department signs in summer 2023.*

The grant pays Roberts’ stipend, allowing them to focus on research and easing the way for their advisor, Luke Moore, research assistant professor of astronomy. It also affords them a travel budget for conferences, which they have used for a conference in San Antonio and a science meeting in Bern, Switzerland, for scientists engaged in related Jupiter research.

While the grant is a boon for Roberts now and in the near future, they have a broader perspective on the graduate student experience and have been on strike in solidarity with Boston University’s graduate workers’ union fighting for a living wage, child care subsidies, improved health care and increased stipends.

Roberts also continues to balance science with art. At K, they focused on ceramics. With more constraints on time, space and resources now, they recently started making stained glass. Roberts has created items including a lampshade with a series of birds, a piece inspired by the gold hexagonal mirror on the James Webb Space Telescope, and a glass panel with Jupiter in the middle.

“It’s another thing to do to keep me busy that isn’t too science-y,” Roberts said. “It’s good to be able to balance analytical, complex math with thinking creatively and working into new realms.”

Photo of a stained glass pieces inspired by astronomy, including Jupiter and James Webb Space Telescope. — A double major in physics and studio art, Kate Roberts ’22 focused on ceramics at K and recently started creating stained glass works. Some of their pieces incorporate their love for astronomy, including a Jupiter panel and an array of hexagons inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The Passing of the Gavel

The Kalamazoo College Board of Trustees elected Jody Clark ’80 chair of the Board effective July 1, 2024. She follows Si Johnson ’78 who has been a Board member since 1996 and served as chair since 2019.

*Si Johnson ’78 handing Jody Clark ’80 the gavel.*

A retired commercial real estate executive, Clark has been a member of the Kalamazoo College Board of Trustees since 2014 and previously served as vice chair. She has served on the Buildings and Grounds, Compensation, Finance, Investment, and Executive Committees in various leadership roles.

Her passion to serve the College stems from her own experience as a liberal arts graduate. While a student at K, Clark made the most of her K-Plan, participating in LandSea, Career Service, the Philadelphia Urban Semester, study abroad in Madrid and student teaching at Loy Norrix High School in Kalamazoo.

“But above all, the biggest impact on me was several professors who took a personal interest in me,” Clark said. “Dr. Larry Barrett knew just how best to help me grow as a student, Dr. Fred Strobel made economics so interesting I couldn’t miss a class, and Dr. Wen Chao Chen’s ‘City in History’ class was so captivating it led me to my career in real estate development. Dr. Chen also opened doors for me with connections to internship and job opportunities. Of course, there are so many other professors who made my experience at K amazing. They truly made all the difference in who I became as a person.”

These types of transformational experiences and personal connections are hallmarks of the Kalamazoo College education—and how to preserve that tradition, expand access to more students and adapt to a changing world has been a part of the College’s strategic plan over the past several years, and will be part of K’s next strategic plan, which builds upon the College’s previous iteration, Advancing Kalamazoo College: A Strategic Vision for 2023.

Clark said that keeping the College moving forward is among her top priorities as Board chair.

“Kalamazoo College’s legacy as a premier liberal arts institution is one to be cherished and nourished,” she said. “The Board has embraced this history while recognizing the necessity of growth and adaptation. The K-Plan, with its emphasis on study abroad and experiential learning, will continue to complement our excellent academic courses as we refine how best to prepare students for life after K. Our ongoing comprehensive campaign is on a successful track, allowing us to invest in the campus environment and provide enhanced opportunities for our students. By maintaining our commitment to innovation and excellence, we will ensure that Kalamazoo College remains a leader in liberal arts education.”

Even with a clear vision and strategy in place, Clark acknowledged that there are challenges in the coming years that will test K’s resilience and ability to adapt.

“We must navigate the evolving landscape of higher education, marked by shifting demographics, technological advancements, and changing student expectations,” she noted. “Financial sustainability will be a significant concern, requiring innovative approaches to funding and resource management. Additionally, we must address the increasing demand for inclusivity and diversity and ensure that our campus remains a welcoming environment for all. By proactively addressing these challenges, we can continue to provide a transformative education that prepares our students for the complexities of the modern world.”

Despite the challenges, Clark said she is profoundly optimistic about the future of K.

“Our rich history of over 190 years is a testament to our resilience and commitment to excellence in liberal arts education. We have achieved this long history of success by continuously evolving and adapting. The K-Plan provides a flexible structure that allows the institution to adapt its curriculum to meet the needs of students in a rapidly changing world. With the unwavering support of our faculty, staff, students and alumni, I am excited about Kalamazoo College’s future as a leading liberal arts institution.”

Outgoing Chair Si Johnson said the College’s strategic plan has served K well and continues to inform and drive actions taken by the College. He also expressed strong support for the Board of Trustees, noting, “They have great chemistry, they are passionate about Kalamazoo College, and they are steadfast in their support of the institution. We have also made excellent progress diversifying the Board across multiple dimensions.”

Reflecting on his time as chair, Johnson is particularly proud of the work the College did to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

“President Gonzalez and his team identified three critical goals at the outset of the pandemic: keep the community safe; continue to advance students toward their degrees; and maintain employment across administration, faculty and staff,” Johnson said. “The Board was in full support and Kalamazoo College never wavered from pursuing and achieving these goals, despite extraordinary uncertainty.”

He also highlights the success of the College’s Brighter Light Campaign, which is raising funds to provide endowed and annual support for students, faculty and staff, curricular and co-curricular activities, athletics and campus facilities.

“Comprehensive campaigns are critical components that help sustain K, and the Brighter Light Campaign has been a record-breaking success,” Johnson said. “The original goal was $150 million, then as a result of on-going achievement, the goal was revised upward to $190 million. I’m very confident the College will exceed this revised number when the campaign concludes this fall. The results of the Brighter Light Campaign are a clear indication that the many donors, alumni, friends and foundations support the topflight liberal arts education being afforded by K.”

As he passed the gavel on to Clark, both figuratively and literally, Johnson expressed his deep appreciation for the community that he has been a part of and served over these many decades.

“I have three overriding expressions of gratitude for President Gonzalez, the Board and the College’s faculty, staff and administration,” he said. “Thank you for the tireless application of your talents and caring for Kalamazoo College, thank you for helping me grow and thank you for helping me to increasingly appreciate how fortunate I was to attend Kalamazoo College.”

He said, “I have every expectation that Jody Clark will be a great board chair. She is passionate about her alma mater and clearly understands the strengths of and challenges for K. Jody is a quick study, creative thinker and experienced organization builder.”

As for Clark, she said, “Si has been on the Board of Trustees for 28 years. I am grateful for his enduring passion for ‘all things K’ and his steadfast leadership of the Board over the past five years. Under Si’s stewardship, the College faced numerous challenges and achieved significant milestones, including the successful launch and progress of our comprehensive campaign. Of particular note, his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic was exemplary. His vision and strategic guidance have positioned us well for continued success, and we are profoundly grateful for his many contributions.”

President’s Letter Fall 2024

In 2020, Congress passed a bipartisan law designed to make financial aid more accessible to students. The legislation required changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, which launched in 2023–24 amid many delays, errors and technical issues. These issues impacted students, families and higher education institutions nationwide. The number of high school students completing the FAFSA went down significantly. As colleges waited to receive student data from the Department of Education, students in turn waited for financial aid information from colleges, delaying their decision making. Our admission and financial aid team worked tirelessly to ensure that students and families felt supported during this frustrating time.

We prepared ourselves for the impact this might have on enrollment. As the numbers came in, however you sliced it—by region, state, or other demographic data—the number of moderately high- to high-need students who chose to come to K declined in 2024 after two consecutive years of increases, which seemed to point to the difficulties with this year’s FAFSA.

While the FAFSA situation was an unusual event, it underscores the fragility of the bridge between vulnerable student populations and their higher education goals. It is one of the reasons that we made support for student access and student success programs an important focus area of the Brighter Light Campaign. In the 2023–24 academic year, 29% of K’s first-year class were first-generation college students; 28% received Pell Grants. These talented, high-achieving students sometimes require specific support to navigate the complex higher education system or to overcome financial obstacles.

Our donors have stepped up, both through endowed funds and through contributions to the Kalamazoo College Fund. Some of you have mentioned your own experiences as first-generation students, or as students who attended K thanks to scholarships. You’ve talked about the ways your K education positively impacted not only your own lives, but the lives of your families, or the communities that you serve through your careers, your churches, your schools or your community organizations. The multiplier effect is amazing.

As we wrap up the Brighter Light Campaign, I want to thank you for your continued investments in K. Your generosity is already making a lasting difference in the lives of our students and helping to shape a stronger, brighter future for generations to come.

Saludos and lux esto,

Jorge G. Gonzalez
President