Lawrence University News

APPLETON, WIS. -- One of the nation's best. Again.

For the third time, the Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble (LUJE) has been honored by DownBeat magazine with the "Outstanding Performance Award" in the college big band category. The outstanding performance award, part of the magazine's 30th annual student music awards competition, will be announced in DownBeat's upcoming June edition.

Under the direction of Fred Sturm, director of jazz studies and improvisational music at Lawrence, LUJE was one of three university jazz ensembles in the United States and Canada recognized by DownBeat. Lawrence was joined by the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Miami as outstanding performance award recipients in the big-band category.

LUJE's performance award was based on the seven-track CD "Witnesses," which featured compositions and arrangements written exclusively by Lawrence students. The disk was recorded over the course of two days in May, 2006 by Lawrence recording engineer Larry Darling.

"It's always a thrill to be recognized with an award like this, but what I'm most proud of is the fact that we accomplished this as an undergraduate institution," said Sturm, who returned in 2002 to the Lawrence jazz studies department he helped found after leaving for the Eastman School of Music in 1991.

"We have no master of music or doctoral candidates in our bands like many of the schools we compete against.  Every aspect of the recordings we submitted for the award is home grown.  All of the music was composed and arranged by current Lawrence students, performed by Lawrence students and recorded by Lawrence engineer Larry Darling.  Very few collegiate ensembles submit student works for these kinds of competitions because those pieces typically pale in comparison to professionally published compositions and arrangements.

"We won seven of these awards during the 11 years I was in New York," Sturm added, "and while I appreciated every citation, none of those were as sweet as the one the students have brought home to Lawrence this year."

In addition to LUJE, 2006 Lawrence graduate Doug Detrick was named the winner of the "Outstanding Jazz Arrangement Award" in the magazine's college jazz arranging category. Detrick, currently a teaching assistant in jazz studies at the University of Oregon, was cited for his award-winning arrangement of Duke Ellington's "Single Petal of a Rose," which he scored for combined symphony orchestra and jazz ensemble. The work was performed and recorded by the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra and LUJE under the direction of David Becker last June.

Known as "DBs" and presented in 14 categories in four separate divisions (junior high, high school, performing high school and college) the DownBeat awards are considered among the highest music honors in the field of jazz education.

LUJE was the first ensemble or individual at Lawrence to be recognized by DownBeat, earning the first of its three outstanding performance awards in 1985.  LUJE also was honored in 2000.  Lawrence students have earned 15 DBs since the competition's inception, including six in the last seven years.

This year's DownBeat competition drew a total of 865 ensemble and individual entries for all categories in all four divisions.

APPLETON, WIS. -- The multiple roles played by members of a large Irish family, where frustrations and conflicts are tempered by genuine love and generosity, are examined in Lawrence University's production of Lennox Robinson's joyous comedy "The Whiteheaded Boy.

Performances are scheduled May 10-12 at 8 p.m. and May 13 at 3 p.m. in Stansbury Theatre of the Lawrence Music-Drama Center, 420 E. College Ave., Appleton. Tickets for "The Whiteheaded Boy," at $10 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens, are available through the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749.

Robinson, the author of more than two dozen plays, was among the founding members of The Abbey Theatre, the national theatre of Ireland, where "The Whiteheaded Boy" was first presented in 1916. The story centers on the twists and turns of how each member of the Geoghegan family struggles to keep Denis, the family's "whiteheaded boy" -- the traditional Irish designation for the spoiled son who can do no wrong -- from failing medical school classes (again!) while his sisters wait patiently to marry and get on with their lives.

Associate Professor of Theatre Arts Timothy X. Troy, who will direct the production, spent time as a visiting professor at the Samuel Beckett School of Drama at Trinity College in Dublin in 2005. While there, the Abbey Theatre presented a well-received revival of Robinson's play, "Drama at Inish," which sent Troy searching for other Robinson plays that might be appropriate for a Lawrence production.

"'The Whiteheaded Boy' was a good match for our students," said Troy. "This play includes a variety of themes that are close to the heart of any college student, including the desire for independence and the struggle to live up to family expectations while away at university."

Chad Bay, a freshman from Sun Prairie, makes his Lawrence theatre department debut as the production's title character.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Thirty-one members of the Lawrence University Academy of Music Cantabile Girl Choir will lend their voices to one of the country's biggest musical events of the year -- the 400th anniversary celebration May 11-13 of the founding of the Jamestown colony in Virginia.

The Cantabile Choir has the distinction of being Wisconsin's lone representative for the three-day-long "America's Anniversary Weekend," the centerpiece of an 18-month international commemoration of the 400th anniversary observance of the 1607 founding of Jamestown as America's first permanent English settlement. The Anniversary Weekend will reintroduce the world to Jamestown, helping visitors discover how the settlement made democracy, free enterprise and cultural diversity defining characteristics of American society.

The Girl Choir's 7th-9th grade singers will be among several dozen choirs representing nearly every state in the union who will combine to form a 1,607-voice choir Sunday, May 13 for a performance in the historic weekend's grand finale event. The mega-choir will be backed by a 400-member orchestra selected from musicians from orchestras all around the country.

"We are certainly honored to have been selected to join other top-notch children's, high school and even adult choirs from across the country for an event of this magnitude," said Karen Bruno, director of the Academy of Music's Cantabile Choir. "It's a special thrill to represent the state of Wisconsin in this historic celebration and the girls are taking that honor very seriously.

"It's always fun to go on tour, see new places, meet other talented musicians and perform for new audiences," added Bruno, a 1993 Lawrence graduate. "I suspect the audience for this concert will have a few more dignitaries than we're used to, including perhaps even her majesty the queen."

Queen Elizabeth II of England is expected to visit Jamestown for part of the anniversary ceremonies.

The Sunday evening concert culminating the weekend celebration will include a live historical interpretative production told with music, dialogue, color and movement that recounts the key historical events of Jamestown in the years 1607-1619. A finale fireworks display timed and choreographed to the 400-member orchestra and the 1,607-voice choir closes the program.

In addition to their participation in the anniversary's grand finale concert, Cantibile will be featured in a solo performance Friday afternoon (3:50 p.m.) as part of the weekend's activities on the festival grounds. They will sing their own combination of American music, including Native American, Hawaiian and colonial-era works.

The choir was selected for the Jamestown celebration by audition tapes submitted from performances of the group during the last three years. Previous trips have taken the Cantibile Choir to New York's Carnegie Hall and the Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder. The choir also was invited to perform at the 2003 international children's choir festival in Toronto.

Other anniversary weekend events include a Friday performance of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, both separately and then combined for the first time ever, to premiere several new works written especially for the commemoration. Saturday's highlights include performances by three-time Grammy winner Bruce Hornsby & The Noise Makers, legendary funk and R&B artist Chaka Khan, and progressive bluegrass master Ricky Skaggs and his band Kentucky Thunder.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Drawing upon his extensive experience in regional development throughout the world, a World Bank director examines the agency's role in reducing poverty in the world's poorest countries in the final installment of Lawrence University's Povolny International Studies Lecture Series "Africa Today: Problems and Solutions."

John Roome, operations director in the South Asia region of the World Bank, presents "The World Bank's Role in Development" Monday, May 14 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence's Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Roome's address will focus on the strategies the World Bank has employed in tackling poverty, its achievements and the organization's future role in an environment of changing patterns of aid and financing. He also will discuss the growing role of China in Africa and the emergence of private funding sources such as the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which was created in January, 2002 by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation jump started the Global Fund with an initial $100 million donation and a pledge of an additional $500 million last year.

Since joining the World Bank in 1989, Roome has worked extensively in Africa, focusing on infrastructure issues, including leading the Bank's support for large roads programs in Tanzania and post-war Mozambique, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, restructuring of the Southern African airline industry and reforming South Africa's water pricing and allocation policies.

A native of South Africa, Roome earned a bachelor's degree in statistics/actuarial science from the University of Cape Town and holds master's degrees in econometrics and management studies from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

The "Africa Today: Problems and Solutions" lecture series is sponsored by the Mojmir Povolny Lectureship in International Studies. Named in honor of long-time Lawrence government professor Mojmir Povolny, the lectureship promotes interest and discussion on issues of moral significance and ethical dimensions.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Poet Elizabeth Robinson, a three-time recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative American Poetry, conducts a reading of her works Tuesday, May 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Lawrence University's Wriston Art Center auditorium. A book signing and reception with the author will follow the reading.

Prior to the reading, Robinson will field questions in an open forum at 4:30 p.m. in Lawrence's Main Hall, Room 104. Both events are free and open to the public.

The author of eight collections of poems, Robinson's most recent work, "Under That Silky Roof" (2006), explores the interplay of domestic life, focusing on topics such as companionship, its fecundity and its losses. Robinson also ventures into the manifestations of the abstract, what she calls "the brick floor from which the kingdom of God extends or could extend."

Two of her more recent titles, "Apprehend" (2003) and "Pure Descent" (2003), were recognized with the Fence Modern Poetry Series award and the National Poetry Series award, respectively.

Her works have appeared in the Colorado Review, the Denver Quarterly and New American Quarterly, among others. Her writing also has been featured in numerous anthologies including Writing from the New Coast, Poetes Americains and American Poetry: The Next Generation. In addition to writing, Robinson serves as co-editor of 26, a magazine of poetry and poetics and EtherDome Press, which publishes chapbooks by emerging women poets.

Robinson earned a bachelor's degree from Bard College, a master's degree in creative writing from Brown University, a master's degree in religious studies and a master's degree in ethics, both from the Pacific School of Religion.

She has taught at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University and is currently an assistant professor of English at the University of Colorado.

Robinson's appearance is sponsored by the Mia T. Paul Poetry Fund. Established in 1998, the endowed fund brings distinguished poets to campus for public readings and to work with students on writing poetry and verse.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Ashlan Falletta-Cowden isn't looking forward to having to take her final exams a week earlier than her Lawrence University classmates. But such is the price for a six-week summer fellowship to conduct field research in Cyprus.

Cowden was one of 10 students nationally recently awarded a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) scholarship to Davidson College's Archaeology Field School in Cyprus.

The scholarship, worth up to $6,100, will support Falletta-Cowden's work with the Athienou Archaeological Project, a multidisciplinary project in south-central Cyprus focusing on the site of Athienou-Malloura and the surrounding valley. The site was used for nearly 2,500 years and encompasses the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Frankish, Venetian and Ottoman periods in the island's history.

Falletta-Cowden, a sophomore from Petaluma, Calif., pursuing a double major in art history and anthropology, leaves June 2 for Cyprus, where she will assist with an excavation of an ancient temple site in the archaeologically rich Malloura valley. In addition to learning research methods through her fieldwork, Falletta-Cowden will design her own individualized research project as part of the program.

"This will certainly be a unique experience," said Falletta-Cowden, whose mother is an archaeologist. "Cyprus is such a fascinating, diverse place, with many different influences."

Working in teams of four or five students with a supervisor, daily field excavations will start at 6:30 in the morning and run until mid-afternoon. Beyond the field exercise, Falletta-Cowden will attend lectures by specialists on such topics as archaeological reconnaissance, topographical surveying and dating methods. The program also includes a comprehensive survey of Cypriote history, art and archaeology from the Neolithic period to the Modern era as well as visits to other archaeological sites and museums.

"This should be such a powerful experience," Falletta-Cowden said. "It fuses my majors so beautifully. It will be a great way to explore my interests in both art history and archaeology. I'm looking forward to working with the specialists and actually handling artifacts that haven't been touched since ancient times."

The Athienou Archaeological Project was established by Davidson College in 1990. Since its founding, more than 300 undergraduate and graduate students as well as specialists or professional archaeologists representing more than 45 North American and European institutions, have participated in the project as trainees or staff members.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Five years after launching a volunteer project to raise awareness about homelessness and support the local Fox Cities chapter of Habitat for Humanity, Lawrence University students will see their original dream realized later this year.

Thanks to Shack-a-thon, an annual event held each May since 2002, Lawrence students finally reached their goal last spring of raising $20,000, the threshold necessary to partner with other area organizations to sponsor the construction of an area Habitat for Humanity home.

But that doesn't mean the work is finished. Once again nearly 20 teams of Lawrence students representing a cross section of campus organizations will put their creative engineering acumen to the test Saturday, May 12, turning the Main Hall Green into a weekend shantytown for the sixth edition of Shack-a-thon.

"The objective of this year's Shack-a-thon is to really return to the roots of how it began," said senior Emily Palmer, events coordinator at the Lawrence Volunteer and Community Service Center and past president of the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

"Shack-a-thon's original goal was to co-sponsor a local Habitat for Humanity house. Now that we've reached our goal, it is time to remember why we set it in the first place. This year's event focuses on the current local situation in the Fox Cities. Poverty is not some far away problem in some poor country in Africa. It is right here, in our own town and we have the power and resources to do something about it."

Palmer said organizers of this year's Shack-a-thon have set a goal of raising $4,000, which will be donated to the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity to be used at its discretion wherever the need is most warranted.

Beginning early Saturday (5/12)afternoon, students will construct makeshift shelters out of donated and salvaged materials while competing for the title of "Best Shack." The shacks will remain up until mid-morning Sunday with at least one member of each team required to remain overnight in the shack. Funds are raised through pledges students collect for participating in the event. A panel of Lawrence faculty will serve as judges to determine the winner of this year's "best shack" contest.

In keeping with this year's theme of returning to Shack-a-thon's roots, John Weyenberg, executive director of the Fox Cites chapter of Habitat for Humanity, will discuss at 4:30 p.m. local Habitat activities, the housing needs facing Appleton and the Fox Cities and how Habitat is working to alleviate those needs.

Live music will be performed throughout the afternoon by several Lawrence student bands and the Will Smith movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" will be shown outside beginning at 9 p.m. In the event of inclement weather, the movie will be shown in Riverview Loung of the Lawrence Memorial Union.

A candlelight vigil will be held on the Main Hall Green following the movie to commemorate all those who are living with inadequate housing.

APPLETON, WIS. -- A $2.5 million gift from a long-time benefactor of Lawrence University to establish an endowed professorship in environmental studies has been announced by Lawrence President Jill Beck. It is the largest gift given toward an endowed professorship in Lawrence's 160-year history.

Marcia Bjornerud, professor of geology, will be the first holder of the new Walter Schober Professorship in Environmental Studies, effective July 1, according to Beck.

Appointments to endowed professorships are made in recognition of academic distinction through teaching excellence and/or scholarly achievement.

"Professor Bjornerud demonstrates passionate dedication equally to her scholarly discipline and to her students and their intellectual development," Beck said in announcing the appointment. "The international relevance of her research in earth science and the evidence of global climate change over time is evident through the translation of her published work into several languages.

"Lawrence is extremely fortunate to have Marcia Bjornerud on our faculty and to be able to recognize her contributions through Mr. Schober's generosity."

Schober's motivation in establishing the professorship grew out of his own concern for the future of the planet and the need to educate young people about the importance of environmental stewardship.

"Man cannot continue to exploit the finite resources of this Earth without affecting his own well-being and that of other species on this planet," said Schober, a retired resident of Pentwater, Mich. "We must respect all forms of life or consider the probability of widespread extinctions."

Schober, whose only connection to Lawrence is a niece, Amanda Schober, who graduated in 2001, first became interested in Lawrence after a campus visit that left him impressed with the campus community. He made the gift out of admiration for Lawrence's educational mission as articulated by former and current presidents Richard Warch and Beck.

"The type of undergraduate scholarship practiced at Lawrence is consistent with my concept of a great liberal arts school," said Schober. "May it always be so!"

The donation for the endowed professorship is the third major gift Schober has made to Lawrence in the past six years. He previously made a gift of $1.3 million in 2001 to renovate the first floor of Seeley G. Mudd Library. Two years later he donated $300,000 for a digital database for the library.

Bjornerud, a structural geologist who studies mountain building processes, joined the Lawrence faculty in 1995 after six years with the geology department at Miami University in Ohio. She has served as the chair of the Lawrence geology department since 1998 and helped establish the college's environmental studies program as a major in 2000, serving as its director through 2006.

Elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2003, Bjornerud is the author of two books, the science textbook "The Blue Planet: A Laboratory Manual in Earth System Science" and "Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth," which was published in 2005.

A storyteller's history of the Earth and the toll human activity is exacting on the planet, "Reading the Rocks" draws upon field research Bjornerud conducted in 2000 as a Fulbright Scholar on exposed rock complexes on the island of Holsnøy in western Norway. The book has since been reprinted in French, Dutch and Japanese, with a Chinese edition for Taiwan slated for publication later this year.

In collaboration with six students, she also recently produced the pamphlet "Building Stones of Downtown Appleton," an illustrated layman's guide to the geological and historical context of the rocks used in the construction of a dozen downtown buildings, including the Zuelke Building and the Outagamie County Museum.

After earning a bachelor's degree in geophysics at the University of Minnesota, Bjornerud earned master's and doctorate degrees in geology at the University of Wisconsin.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Was it commonality of values or a non-conscious fear aroused by reminders of the events of September 11, 2001 that fueled George W. Bush's re-election as president in 2004?

Sheldon Solomon, professor of psychology at Skidmore College, discusses the role subtle reminders of death may play in voting patterns in the Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium "Fatal Attraction: Fear of Death and Political Preference" Thursday, May 17 at 4:30 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. The event is free and open to the public.

While many pollsters, pundits and Republican Party officials felt Americans voted for Bush because he shared their moral and traditional values or were comfortable with Bush's approach to the war on terror, Solomon argues in favor of John Kerry's assertion that the terrorist attack on 9/11 was the "deciding" issue of the presidential election.

Solomon will present research demonstrating that reminders of death or the events of 9/11 increased Americans' support for President Bush and his policies in Iraq. The research is based on the idea that reminders of death "increase the need for psychological security and the appeal for leaders who emphasize the greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil."
He also will examine recent studies that document the psychological commonalities between conservative Americans and Islamic fundamentalists and discuss the implications these findings have for democratic political institutions.

Co-author of the 2002 book "In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror," Solomon was one of three psychologists who developed the Terror Management Theory in the late 1980s, which held that people deal with death through two distinct modes of defense: direct and rational, which reduce an individual's perception of his or her vulnerability to life-threatening conditions; or symbolic and cultural, which embed an individual as a valuable part of an eternal conception of reality that is bigger, stronger and more enduring than any single individual.

The Courtney and Steven Ross Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore, Solomon earned a bachelor's degree from Franklin and Marshall College and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Monica Felix has never ventured outside the friendly confines of the United States, but she is about to get an extended education on living abroad courtesy of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

The Lawrence University senior from Thiensville has been named a 2007-08 Fulbright Scholar and awarded a fellowship that will send her to Germany for 10 months. Beginning this September, Felix will work as an English teaching assistant at a school equivalent to an American high school in the western state of Hessen.

This is the second straight year a Lawrence student has received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach English in Germany. Felix is the sixth Lawrence student named a Fulbright Scholar since 2001.

Felix admits to experiencing a momentary state of "utter disbelief" when she was informed she had been selected for the program.

"I never expected anything like this would happen to me," said Felix, who will graduate in June with a double major in German and linguistics. "I actually didn't believe it until I received the second letter of confirmation."

In addition to honing her language skills, Felix says she is excited about the invaluable opportunity to spread her cultural wings during her time abroad.

"All I've known and been exposed to are American customs. I'm really looking forward to discovering the day-to-day differences between German culture and ours," said Felix.

Felix said she has always found language fascinating. She is fluent in Spanish as well as German and "as a hobby," taught herself Russian to the point she's now proficient reading and speaking it. She began dabbling in German as a seventh grader because she wanted to learn something outside the Romance languages.

"After my initial exposure, I discovered I really liked it and just stuck with it."

This spring, Felix completed an honors project in German on 19th-century author Theodor Fontane, in which she analyzed the speech of characters from six of his novels. Her project examined the way the characters in the novels talked about women and expressed their expectations of women and then compared that to actual historical representations of 19th-century women to see how well they matched.

"While my research for this project has given me a better insight into German literature and cultural norms of the time, I'm looking forward to seeing what present day German culture is like."

While her immediate plans are focused on coping by herself for the first time in a foreign country, Felix says her long-range goals include graduate school to pursue studies in German literature or possibly linguistics.

"There's a lot of exciting things being done with discourse analysis," said Felix.

The Fulbright Program was created by Congress in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright, who sponsored the legislation, saw it as a step toward building an alternative to armed conflict.

Since its founding, the Fulbright Program has become the U.S. government's premier scholarship program. Coordinated by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright Program has supported nearly 280,000 American students, artists and other professionals opportunities for study, research and international competence in more than 150 countries. Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, CEOs, university presidents, professors and teachers. Thirty-six Fulbright alumni have earned Nobel Prizes.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and social commentator Susan Faludi, whose examinations of modern gender stereotypes earned her national acclaim, explores America's psychological response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks Tuesday, May 22, in Lawrence University's annual Honors Day convocation.

Faludi presents "Sexual Politics and the Tragedy of 9/11" at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. She also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in Riverview Lounge of the Lawrence Memorial Union. Both events are free and open to the public.

Based on her forthcoming book, "The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America," which is scheduled for release this fall, Faludi's address will explore the reasons American culture responded to an assault on U.S. global dominance by calling for a return to "traditional manhood, marriage and maternity." She will share her insights on why she feels Americans reacted as if the hijackers had attacked the family home and nursery, rather than symbols of the country's commercial and military might.

Faludi rose to national prominence following the release of her first book, 1991's "Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women," which won the National Critic's Circle Award and spent nearly nine months on the best-seller lists.

From plastic surgery advertisements to male harassment of female co-workers to Hollywood films that often depicted single career women as "desperate and crazed," "Backlash" examined the societal attacks Faludi observed on feminism and the progress women had made on social, economic and political fronts. The book landed Faludi on the cover of Time magazine, which said her writing "set off firecrackers across the political landscape."

In 1999, Faludi released a follow-up to "Backlash" that proved to be equally controversial. "Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man" explored the cultural forces that were shaping men's lives and attitudes. According to Faludi, men's hostile response to feminism was part of a larger social problem within a "consumer-driven, celebrity saturated culture" where civic engagement is undervalued.

A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she was the managing editor of the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, Faludi began her professional career as a copy clerk at the New York Times. She also worked as a reporter at the Miami Herald, Atlanta Constitution, San Jose Mercury News and the Wall Street Journal, earning a reputation as a "superb crusading journalist."

Her expose on the leveraged buyout of the Safeway supermarkets as an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal earned Faludi a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1991.

A native of Queens, New York, Faludi, whose father was a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and her mother a journalist, today makes her home in San Francisco.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Author K.C. Frederick, winner of the 2007 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, reads from his latest novel, "Inland," Monday, May 21 at 4:30 p.m. in Lawrence University's Main Hall, Room 201. A book signing and reception with the author will follow the reading. The event is free and open to the public.

Frederick's fourth novel, "Inland" is set on a small Midwestern state college campus in the fall of 1959. It follows graduate student and freshman English teacher Ted Riley as he navigates love, loss, family and new relationships during the Cold War.

In April, Frederick, a resident of suburban Boston, received the L.L. Winship/ PEN New England Award for fiction for "Inland." Established by The Boston Globe in 1975 to honor long-time Globe editor Laurence L. Winship, the award is presented annually to a New England author or a book with a New England setting. Previous recipients have included E.B. White, Susan Cheever, Anita Shreve, Stanley Kunitz and Leo Damrosch, among others.

In addition to his other three novels -- "Accomplices (2003), "The Fourteenth Day," (2000) and "Country of Memory," (1998) -- Fredericks has written nearly 50 short stories, several of which have been selected as "distinctive stories" for inclusion in the annual "Best American Short Stories" series. He was included in the "Outstanding Writers" Pushcart Prize in 1986 for "Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart." His short stories also have appeared in numerous periodicals, including Epoch, Shenandoah, Kansas Quarterly, Ascent and Ohio Review.

The recipient of a 1993 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Frederick has taught creative writing as a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

His appearance is sponsored by the Marguerite Schumann '44 Lectureship Fund.

APPLETON, WIS. -- The five original members of Madison's I Voted for Kodos will play their final concert together Saturday, May 19 as one of the headliners of Skappleton 2007, Lawrence University's annual salute to ska.

I Voted for Kodos and Bomb the Music Industry! will close a 12-hour "skavaganza" featuring 15 bands on two stages in Lawrence's Buchanan Kiewit Recreation Center. Doors open at 11 a.m. and music begins at 12 noon. Tickets for Skappleton, at $15 each, can be purchased at the door the day of the event.

Winners of the 2005 purevolume.com Bamboozle on-line voting competition, I Voted for Kodos has earned a national following with its catchy hooks and tight harmonies. The band has completed five national tours and shared the stage with such notables as Fall Out Boy, Reel Big Fish, Bowling For Soup and Mustard Plug. But following Saturday's concert, the band mates will go their separate ways.

Under the direction of producer and lead songwriter Jeff Rosenstock, Bomb the Music Industry! has counted more than 15 different musicians as band members since its founding. BtMI is known to offer fans a chance to perform on stage if they learn a song and bring their instrument to the show.

Their discography includes four albums and their first CD, "Get Warmer," will be released on Asian Man Records this summer.

Other bands on the 2007 Skappleton line-up include: Reaching Scarlet, Catch of the Day, Chicken Poodle Soup, Hired Geeks, T.U.G.G., Car Full of Midgets, Offend Your Friends, 4th and Michigan, The Skamikazes, The Invaders, Piper Club, Small Kitchen Appliances and Sajak.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers bring their unique blend of classic folk-rock tradition and fun-loving showmanship to Lawrence University Tuesday, May 22 for a performance in Stansbury Theatre. The Minneapolis-based quartet Dropping Daylight will open the concert at 7 p.m.

Tickets, at $3 for Lawrence students, $7 for general admission, are available through the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749.

Kellogg, who began as a solo performer before adding his three-member band that, beyond the standard guitars, bass, and drums incorporate kazoos, accordions and even the keytar into their sound, has sold out East Coast venues with a juxtaposition of heartfelt songs delivered with unabashed flair.

The band's live show features a heavy doze of what Kellogg calls "shenanigans," acts of goofy band humor that provide a more festive flavor to the performance than is typically found in the more staid environs of the singer/songwriter world. They've been known to add full replications of Napoleon Dynamite's infamous dance or Patrick Swayze's quasi-risque lift of Jennifer Grey from "Dirty Dancing" into their performances, which usually include a fair number of covers as well.

Frontman Kellogg released the first of his three solo albums in 2002 and has since released three more with the Sixers, including the breakthrough disk "Bulletproof Heart" in 2004 and their 2005 self-titled CD, which has been described as "a rock album that replaces attitude with sincerity."

Founded originally as Sue Generis in 2001, Dropping Daylight, with its piano tinged sound, has been compared to alternative rock favorites like Ben Folds Five, the Eels and the New Radicals.

Dropping Daylight was part of the 2006 Vans Warped Tour and also has toured with Breaking Benjamin, Monty Are I, and Jason Mraz. Their first full-length disk, "Brace Yourself," which featured the track "Tell Me," was released in the spring of 2006.

The concert is sponsored by Lawrence's Student Organization for University Programming (S.O.U.P.).

APPLETON, WIS. -- Eight Lawrence University senior art majors will showcase their work developed while students at Lawrence in the "Senior Art Major Exhibition 2007" in the Leech, Hoffmaster and Kohler galleries of Lawrence's Wriston Art Center, 613 E. College Ave., Appleton.

The exhibition, featuring painting, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography and lamp-worked glass, runs May 25 to August 5. A free exhibition-opening reception with refreshments will be held Friday May 25 from 6 - 8:30 p.m.

The students participating in the show are Blair Allen, Arlington Heights, Ill., Daniel Knowles Butler III, Philadelphia, Pa., Alissa Karnaky, Charleston, S.C., Allison Lara Manasse, Chicago, Ill., Kate Ostler, St. Charles, Ill., Gabrielle Prouty, Mineral Point, Clare Raccuglia, Chicago, Ill., and Chelsea Wagner, Mendota Heights, Minn.

The Wriston Art Center galleries are free and open to the public Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday from noon - 4 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays. For more information on the exhibition, call 920-832-6621 or visit www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Lawrence University musicians Helen Kashap and Daniel Schenk earned first- and second-place honors, respectively, at the annual Wisconsin Music Teachers Association Badger Collegiate Piano Competition held May 19 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Both are students in the piano studio of Associate Professor of Music Anthony Padilla.

Kashap, a freshman double major in piano performance and history from Saskatoon, Canada, played two movements from Beethoven's "The Tempest Sonata," Chopin's "Nocturne," and "Danzas Agentinas" by Alberto Ginastera. She received a first-place prize of $200 for her winning performance. This summer, Kashap will spend a month studying at the Orford Arts Academy in Montreal. Students are selected for the program by audition.

Schenk, a junior double major in piano performance and biology from Royal Oak, Mich., performed works by J. S. Bach, Beethoven, and Scriabin in the competition.

Participants in the WMTA competition, which is open to students attending any college or university in Wisconsin, are required to play a solo recital of between 20 and 30 minutes in length. The program must include at least three selections from one of five historical periods: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic and Contemporary.

APPLETON, WIS. -- Internationally renowned jazz composer and conductor Maria Schneider will be featured in the final concert of the 2006-07 Lawrence University Jazz Series Friday, June 1 at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Schneider will conduct the award-winning Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble (LUJE) and showcase Lawrence jazz faculty soloist Lee Tomboulian.

Tickets, at $22 and $20 for adults, $19 and $17 for senior citizens and $17 and $15 for students, are available through the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749.

The concert program will include LUJE performances of Schneider's compositions "Hang Gliding" and "Three Romances," along with two works from her forthcoming CD "Sky Blue," which is slated for release June 14. Her recent composition "Aires de Lando" will feature Tomboulian as accordion soloist.

A native of Minnesota, Schneider settled in New York City in 1985 after studying at the University of Minnesota, the University of Miami and the Eastman School of Music. She studied composition with jazz giant Bob Brookmeyer and became an assistant to legendary composer/arranger Gil Evans, preparing Evans' music for the 1987 Gil Evans/Sting tour.

In 1993, she formed the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, which performed weekly at Visiones in Greenwich Village for a stretch of five years. Since then, her orchestra has performed around the world, earning 2005's "Large Jazz Ensemble of the Year" award from the Jazz Journalists Association.

Her first three recordings -- "Evanescence," "Coming About" and "Allégresse" -- all were nominated for Grammy Awards, while "Allégresse" was selected by both Time and Billboard magazines for their list of "Top Ten Recordings of 2000," which included all genres of music.

Schneider's "Concert in the Garden" CD, which was released only through her website, won the 2005 Grammy Award for "best jazz recording," becoming the first CD to earn that honor through Internet-only sales. The CD also was named 2005's "Jazz Album of the Year" in the DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalist Awards. Both organizations recognized Schneider as "Composer of the Year" and "Arranger of the Year."

"Watching Maria's ascent to international jazz recognition has been a personal joy for me," said Fred Sturm, director of jazz studies and improvisational music at Lawrence, who has been a friend of Schneider's since the early 1980s and collaborated with her in the creation of "Maria Schneider: Evanescence," a 1995 Universal Edition text featuring her original scores. He also co-conducted a concert of Schneider works with her in New York in 2001.

"I count Maria among the finest large ensemble composers in jazz history. And she is peerless as a conductor of jazz music," Sturm added. "Our jazz students, faculty and audience will no doubt be inspired by Maria's artistry, warmth and sincerity."

Schneider's extensive list of commissions includes new works by the Danish Radio Orchestra, Metropole Orchestra, Stuttgart Jazz Orchestra, Orchestre National de Jazz, Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, Monterey Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center and Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. She also received the Doris Duke award to compose a dance work for the Connecticut-based Pilobolus Dance Theatre and her orchestra at the American Dance Festival and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Tomboulian, who joined the Lawrence jazz faculty in 2005 as assistant professor of jazz improvisation, jazz small group performance and applied jazz piano, has performed with noted jazz artists Airto, Nat Adderly, Doc Cheatham, Larry Coryell, Jack DeJohnette and Bucky Pizzarelli. He is a founding member of the Brazilian and Uruguayan ensemble Circo.

Earlier this month, LUJE was named the recipient of DownBeat magazine's 2007 "Outstanding Performance Award" in the college big band category of its annual student music awards competition. It was the second time in seven years LUJE had earned the prestigious award and the third time overall. The group was cited for the seven-track CD "Witnesses," which featured compositions and arrangements written exclusively by Lawrence students.

APPLETON, WIS. -- As graduation presents go, Mike Truesdell might be hard pressed to find a better one.

While on a study abroad program last fall in Amsterdam, Truesdell attended a concert performed by the world-renowned Ensemble Intercontemporain, regarded by many as the world's premiere contemporary classical ensemble. He left the concert hall awe-struck.

"I remember saying to myself, 'I want to do that,'" Truesdell recalled.

As fate would have it, this summer he will have an opportunity to do so.

The Lawrence University senior from Verona will return to Europe later this summer as a percussionist with the prestigious Lucerne Festival Academy, in Lucerne, Switzerland. Founded in 2004, the festival academy, an elite "training orchestra" for aspiring professional musicians under the age of 28, is an offshoot of the internationally acclaimed Lucerne Festival.

During its more than 60-year history, the Lucerne Festival has earned a reputation as one of the world's exclusive musical venues, attracting guest conductors such as Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan and Paul Sacher as well as orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Musicians are selected from around the world by audition tape. And serving as coaches for this year's festival academy are members of the same awe-inspiring Ensemble Intercontemporain.

"Elated" best describes Truesdell's state of mind when he found out he had beaten the odds and was one of 140 musicians worldwide selected for the festival academy, which focuses on the study and performance of groundbreaking compositions from the 20th- and 21st-centuries. One of seven percussionists chosen, Truesdell will spend three, all-expenses-paid weeks in Lucerne, from August 18 to September 6, during which he will study under the tutelage of famed French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez.

Highlighting Truesdell's stay will be three concert performances in Lucerne in early September followed by an eight-day concert tour that will take him to Essen, Germany and Tokyo, Japan. While in Lucerne, Truesdell will get a crash course in Swiss culture by living with a host family.

"This is such an amazing opportunity. I couldn't even dream about doing something like this," said Truesdell, whose specialty is the marimba. "This is going to be a great springboard for things to come musically for me. To work with the renowned conductors and coaches of this festival can only improve me as a musician and as a citizen of the world."

Professor of Music Dane Richeson, director of percussion studies at Lawrence, isn't surprised one of the most talented students he's ever had earned a spot in one of the world's pre-eminent concert festivals.

"Mike has a rare musical gift for understanding how to make the vast array of percussion instruments, with all the individual techniques they require, communicate true emotion to the listener," said Richeson, who has taught percussion at Lawrence since 1984. "Sometimes this might only be a simple rhythm on a triangle. Yet, Mike is passionate and determined enough to make something so simple and one dimensional into a language that can sound multi-dimensional.

"Mike's opportunity to study and perform in Lucerne is a wonderful and well-deserved reward for an exceptional musician," Richeson added.

It was a friend of Truesdell's from the Boston Conservatory who accompanied him to that Amsterdam concert and first told him about the Lucerne Festival Academy, encouraging him to audition for it. Inspired by what he had just witnessed on stage, he recorded the festival's required repertoire last November and December in Amsterdam, crossed his fingers and sent it off.

"It was absolutely the most difficult piece of music I had ever seen in my life," said Truesdell, who earned first-place honors at the 2006 Wisconsin Public Radio-sponsored Neale-Silva Young Artists competition.

A member of the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra (LSO) the past four years, Truesdell received his musical baptism on the violin at the age of four and took up piano in middle school. His percussion evolution continued with a stint with bells, from which he "graduated" to snare drum. He dabbled with marimba throughout high school and now considers keyboard percussion his primary instruments of choice. In addition to playing with the LSO, Truesdell also performs with Vale Todo, an Appleton-based salsa band steeped in traditional Cuban music.

With dreams of pursuing a career in contemporary music and eventually commissioning pieces himself, Truesdell is confident the Lucerne Festival Academy will provide him a "fantastic foot in the door of that world."

"We only have solo repertoire for percussion from the past 50 years or so, while piano has repertoire from the 17th century," said Truesdell, whose personal marimba back home takes up half of his bedroom. "I want to support new music as much as I possibly can."

As he wraps up the final weeks of his life as an undergraduate and awaits his college graduation as a percussion performance major on June 10, Truesdell says he's looking forward to discovering the impact this festival academy will have on his life.

"I had such an amazing experience my last time in Europe and came back such a different person, that I can only image the potential for change in store for me this time. Working with the caliber of musicians I will be exposed to, it's anyone's guess how great this will be."

Middle and high school students near Truesdell's hometown will be the immediate beneficiaries of his experiences in Lucerne. When he returns to Wisconsin this fall, Truesdell plans on teaching private music lessons for a year before pursuing graduate school studies.