Inside Lawrence

Warch Campus Center: More Awards

Lawrence received one of Wisconsin’s most coveted construction honors when the Daily Reporter and Wisconsin Builder magazine named the Warch Campus Center “Best of Show” in its annual state-wide competition.

The project’s team members were praised for constructing a stunning building on a challenging site. The judges said the Warch Campus Center, built into a bluff over the Fox River, presented “every challenge regarding earth-retention, limited space and support systems.”

In addition, the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) presented KSS Architects with a 2010 Facility Design Award of Excellence for its work on the Warch Campus Center.

The ACUI award recognizes excellence in design of college unions as well as other student-centered campus buildings. Winners are selected on the basis of the facilities’ appearance as well as the process used to arrive at the building’s design and how the new or renovated facility affected the campus.

Downtown Appleton, Inc. recognized Lawrence with its 2010 Dreamers and Doers Award for the opening of the Warch Campus Center and the completion of the College Avenue median project.

The annual Dreamers and Doers Award recognizes a business, group or individual “who has significantly enhanced, for years to come, the physical and/or economic landscape of the downtown.”

Environmental Honor

Lawrence is included in “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges.”

Developed in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, the “Guide to 286 Green Colleges” is a comprehensive guidebook focused solely on institutions of higher education that have demonstrated an above average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives.

Lawrence was cited in the guide for its Green Roots program, the Warch Campus Center’s LEED Gold certification, the student-run sustainable garden that provides fresh produce to the dining hall, the composting of all food prep waste and the college’s vibrant environmental studies program.

RecyleMania!

Lawrence finished ninth among 346 schools in the 2010 national RecycleMania competition’s per capita classic division.

Lawrence was the division’s top finisher among 14 Wisconsin colleges with an average of 44.65 pounds of recyclables per person. The U.S. Coast Guard Academy won the category’s national title with an average of 81.75 pounds per person.

The 10-week-long competition is a benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities.

Brittany Oleson ’10, president of the student environmental organization Greenfire, said Lawrence’s efforts over the course of the contest helped divert nearly 115,000 pounds of recyclable materials from ending up in landfills.

Student Researcher visits Capitol Hill

Michael Schreiber ’10 presented his research on the mechanisms of common cold-induced asthma exacerbations at the 14th annual Posters on the Hill event at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Schreiber’s research investigates the function of compounds called G-proteins, which function as molecular switches in certain cells of the immune system. They play a role in turning on the inflammatory response to cold virus in the lungs.

Schreiber, a biochemistry and English major from West Allis, was one of only 75 undergraduate students from colleges and universities around the country chosen to share his research.

Riverwalk Opens

Visitors to campus now have a new place to walk and relax. Lawrence’s quarter-mile-long Riverwalk, located between the Warch Campus Center and the Fox River, features a crushed stone surface on its upper tract and a natural wood-chip surface on the lower trail next to the riverbank.

First proposed in 2006, the Riverwalk is the innovative idea of 12 Lawrence students who participated in an environmental studies symposium with Associate Professor of Geology Andrew Knudsen.

Highlighting the trail are two African sculptures created from serpentine stone by members of the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe. The two art works were part of a gift from Milwaukee art gallery owner David Barnett and his wife, Susan Friend Barnett ’81.

At the head of the trail is the Gilboy Ring, a fire pit surrounded by a stone floor and limestone benches. The Gilboy Ring was a gift from Steven ’62 and Joan Gilboy P’90. It will be dedicated in late August.

Music Students Shine

• Pianists Marshall Cuffe ’12 and David Keep ’11 and saxophonist Sumner Truax ’11 shared top honors in the 15th annual Neale- Silva Young Artists competition sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio.
• Leonard Hayes ’11, qualified for the national finals of the 2010 National Association of Negro Musicians Scholarship Competition in Piano after winning the NANM regional competition earlier this spring. Hayes will compete in the national finals in Dallas later this month.
• Daniel O’Connor ’11 and Susanna Valleau ’11 earned first-and second-place honors, respectively, at the recent Young Artists Organ Competition. The competition was co-sponsored by the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and the
Schubert Club of St. Paul.
• Derrell Acon ’10 took top honors in the student division of Chicago’s recent Bel Canto Foundation contest. Acon also shared
the Grand Prize from the competition’s young artists’ division with soprano Seihee Lee from the University of Illinois.
• Garth Neustadter ’09 was named one of 37 national winners of the 2010 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer
Awards. Neustadter submitted a 15-minute composition written for full orchestra and choir based on a Spanish text entitled “Oh
llama de amor viva.”
• Lawrence’s chapter of the National Association for Music Education (MENC) was recognized with two Collegiate Chapter of Excellence awards. Lawrence won in the music programs category and the professional development category.

DownBeat Honors Fatbook and Sturm

For the second straight year, DownBeat magazine named the student band Fatbook as the nation’s best college band in the blues/pop/rock category as part of its annual Student Music Awards. In 2009, Fatbook became Lawrence’s first non-curricular ensemble to earn a DownBeat award and this year’s “DB” is the first back-to-back award for Lawrence.

The band features Harjinder Bedi ’09, guitar and lead vocals; Jake Crowe ’10, saxophone; Ted Toussaint ’09, trumpet; Kyle Traska ’09, trap kit; Evan Jacobson ’08, trombone; Dario LaPoma ’10, keyboards and Nick Anderson ’09, bass.

Fatbook has a busy summer schedule of performance dates in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin and hopes to establish a base in Chicago in the fall. For more about Fatbook visit www.fatbookmusic.com.

DownBeat also named Fred Sturm ’73, Kimberly Clark Professor of Music and director of jazz and improvisational music, a recipient of its 2010 Jazz Education Achievement Award. The award honors jazz instructors who have made significant contributions toward the development of future jazz artists and positively impacted their school’s jazz programs through their commitment to jazz education. DownBeat editor Ed Enright said Sturm was recognized as “the perfect example of a teacher who goes the extra mile” for his students and ensembles.

For an in-depth interview with Sturm about his most recent honor and more, please see the Q & A section.

Students Win International Competition

Three Lawrence students claimed Outstanding Winner honors in the 12th annual Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) conducted by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP).

Lu Yu ’11, from Guangzhou, China and Fangzhou Qiu ’12 from Shanghai, China, and Jian Gong ’12, from Chengdu, China, co-authored a 10-page report analyzing the effects that the accumulation of plastic debris has on the Pacific Ocean. Working in teams of three, students had five days to research, analyze, model and communicate a solution to the problem.

The analysis written by Yu, Qiu and Gong will be published later this year in the UMAP Journal, along with commentaries from the problem author and contest judges.

Fred Gaines (1937-2010)

The Lawrence community remembers a teacher and mentor

A remarkable sign of the impact Lawrence faculty have on the lives of their students, and of their lifelong connections, arrived in Lawrence Today’s inbox in April. Upon learning of the death of Professor Emeritus of Theatre and Drama Fred Gaines, several former students and colleagues wrote to us wanting to share their memories. During his 23 years at Lawrence and after his retirement in 2000, Fred stayed in regular contact with many of his former students. With the blessing of his wife, Judy, we are publishing a few of their reflections.

From Kassandra Kuehl ’05
There will be no more lengthy conversations over coffee at Copper Rock, no more calls or e-mails in my inbox sent at odd hours of the night and day. There will be no more brilliant questions about my work, amusing anecdotes or gentle admonishments when I fail to take creative risks. I know that in the physical sense, I have lost my mentor and one of my dearest friends. Yet, the ways in which Fred has shaped and helped to define me only seem to magnify as the days pass … and it is in this reality that love does not allow us to be truly separated from those who go ahead.

From Rick Davis ’80
Fred Gaines inspired everyone around him to try to do better — not by exhortation but by example. And “better” not in some showy immediate way, but better for you, for the project, for the community, for the planet, for the long haul. He was the original organic gardener in theatrical academia — you might see a few weeds here and there in the patch, but the produce was healthy. Like a true mentor, he showed me — no, he got me to discover — what my next steps should be after college, and he remained in that role for more than 30 years. In fact he showed all of us what a life in the theater could mean, beyond the usual measures of success (and he had a long list of those), as a way of being that has the potential to transform.
From Joe Fournier ’85
Good stuff! That was Fred’s top-shelf accolade. It meant something was going right, something was real or inspired and he was tickled by it. An unassuming exclamation coming from a man of words, no? That’s what Fred was. Fred was good stuff!

From Amy Morton ’84
Fred Gaines was an everyone’s man — a playwright, a family man, a farmer. Fred was the first person I met at Lawrence and the only person I interviewed with as a matter of fact. I didn’t need to meet anyone else. After meeting Fred, I knew there was only one place I wanted to spend my next four years and I wasn’t even a theatre major. He and Judy had fabulous department parties at their home. It was the first time I had tabouli and still even after all these years I can’t make it as good as they did. Fred and Judy have become life long friends to me and my family.

From Campbell Scott ’83
For me, Fred’s greatest strengths as a teacher were the same as those he displayed as a writer — warmth, grit, and a stealthy determination to see his audience (and humanity) truthfully; to listen to them without judgement; and to represent them with an unwavering attention to detail. I imagine these traits are what made him such a good friend, father and husband as well.

For more reflections from alumni and faculty or to post your memories of Professor Gaines, visit www.lawrence.edu/go?pjll