Tag: Appleton

Reason #72 Why We Love Lawrence: The Visitor List

I poked my head outside my office just as our lunch hosts were preparing to take a gaggle (I think that’s the term) of prospective students over to the Warch Campus Center for lunch. As is the usual custom, our students introduce themselves and where they’re from. (This particular group included Lawrentians from Milwaukee, Madison, the Twin Cities, Orange County, and Cameroon.) They then ask the prospective students clustered around our visitor lobby (pictured below)  to introduce themselves and where they’re from.

View of the lobby just after our visitors trekked off to lunch.

Today’s visitors for lunch (note: this doesn’t include the other 25 people who visited at other times today):

Sacramento, California (2 students)
Minocqua, Wisconsin
Highland Park, Illinois
St. Paul, Minnesota
Hong Kong

That’s right: 12,000 miles’ worth of traveling right here to Appleton, Wisconsin. (And we’re thrilled they’re here on such a nice day.)

Sorry we couldn't have had a nicer day for you today...

Another presidential candidate visits Lawrence University

Appleton rests in the heart of the swing area of a swing state, which may be one of the reasons Mitt Romney chose to pay it a visit today. By making a campaign address at Lawrence University, Romney joins a long list of candidates—Democrats and Republicans—who’ve made whistle stops at our campus, including John Kerry, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, and William Howard Taft.

In a piece that appeared in today’s Boston Globe, “Mitt Romney’s Wisconsin campaign swing takes him to ‘Harvard of the Midwest,” Globe staff writer, Glen Johnson, writes a letter to the candidate, opening with:

Dear Governor Romney:

We’ve traveled many miles together over the course of two presidential campaigns, though less this cycle than last.

Nonetheless, there’s one trip that would have been fun to make with you: your stop today at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.

It’s my alma mater, and we Lawrentians don’t get many chances to showcase our small-but-overachieving school to the rest of the country. Not that it doesn’t deserve it…

His article is as much a letter of instruction to Mitt Romney as it is a love letter to Lawrence, covering everything from famous LU alumni, to his favorite professors, to some of Lawrence football glory days. It’s a good, short read that encapsulates some of the magic of Lawrence.

While Lawrence University does not endorse presidential candidates, we wholeheartedly endorse the article.

(However, truth be told, we’ve always been under the impression that Harvard was the Lawrence of New England.)

Look up in downtown Appleton

Went downtown to Starbucks to get a Grande French Roast with a shot of espresso (admissions folks generally caffeinate aggressively at this time of year). I was reminded what a treat walking in downtown Appleton can be if you look up and check out the details above the upper floors of the College Avenue storefronts:

One of downtown Appleton's architectural layer cakes: Starbucks first level; yoga studio second level; with a cornice cherry on top.
Shops, restaurants, and groovy boutiques line College Avenue just west of campus.

So next time you’re in Appleton, remember: when you’re looking around, also look up.

Boulder, Honolulu, Ann Arbor… Appleton?

Those of us who live in Appleton weren’t surprised by the news, but those outside this magical land might be. Lawrence University’s hometown was recently named in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index as one of the top ten cities in the country for health and well-being. Not too shabby, when you consider the composition of the top ten:

  1. Lancaster, Pennsylvania
  2. Charlottesville, Virginia
  3. Ann Arbor, Michigan
  4. Provo-Orem, Utah
  5. Boulder, Colorado
  6. Honolulu, Hawaii
  7. Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta, California
  8. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California
  9. Fort Collins-Loveland, Colorado
  10. Appleton, Wisconsin (woot!)

By the way, if you’re good at detecting patterns, you should be able to guess what these metro areas all have in common, besides sharing space on the list. (If you’re good at detecting shameless invitations to post comments on a blog site, you’ll recognize the previous statement for what it is.)

Sunset reflection

Another great shot from the gallery of Rachel Crowl, Lawrence’s gifted photographer,

catching the sunset reflecting off the windows of the Warch Campus Center through the branches of a much-loved tree on campus. (Note: there’s way less snow on the ground now than when this photo was taken.)