2007

APPLETON, WIS. — James Hughes examines the current and future methods for improving human intelligence and controlling emotional states in the opening address of Lawrence University’s annual Edward F. Mielke Lecture Series in Biomedical Ethics.

Hughes, the executive director and co-founder of the Connecticut-based Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), presents “We Can be Smarter and Happier: The Future of Cognitive Enhancement” Friday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

From psychopharmacology and genetic engineering to nanotechnology, Hughes will discuss several converging technologies, their impact on accelerating human intelligence and the ethical and political questions posed by those technologies.

He teaches health policy as a visiting lecturer at Trinity College and is the author of the 2004 book “Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future.” He also produces Changesurfer Radio, a syndicated weekly program. Elected a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004, Hughes earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.

Hughes’ appearance is supported by the Edward F. Mielke Lectureship in Ethics in Medicine, Science and Society. The lectureship was established in 1985 by the Mielke Family Foundation in memory of Dr. Edward F. Mielke, a leading member of the Appleton medical community and the founder of the Appleton Medical Center.

APPLETON, WIS. — A Wisconsin woman whose harrowing 27-hour ordeal of spousal abuse generated national media attention on the issue of domestic violence shares her amazing story of survival Thursday, Oct. 11 in a presentation at Lawrence University as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Teri Jendusa-Nicolai recounts her experience and discusses the warning signs of domestic abuse at 8 p.m. in Riverview Lounge of the Lawrence Memorial Union. The event is free and open to the public.

Jendusa-Nicolai was five months pregnant in January 2004 when she went to pick up her two children from her ex-husband’s house in Wind Lake, Wis. Lured inside, she was beaten by her ex-husband with a baseball bat, bound with duct tape, stuffed into a plastic garbage container packed with snow and loaded on to the flatbed of a pick-up truck.

With her two young daughters sitting on the front seat of the vehicle, Jendusa-Nicolai’s ex-husband drove to an unheated storage unit in Wheeling, Ill., where he dumped the container, leaving his ex-wife for dead.

She was discovered the next day — alive — but she lost her all of her toes due to frostbite and her injuries resulted in a miscarriage. Her nightmare experience of abuse and attempted murder was recounted in a segment on ABC’s “20/20” program and helped raise the national consciousness on the issue of domestic violence.

She has since remarried and earlier this year gave birth to her third child, a son. She serves on the board of a Racine women’s shelter and her efforts in speaking out about domestic violence and encouraging women to seek help earned her a Courage Award from the Governor’s Council on Domestic Abuse in Wisconsin.

Jendusa-Nicolai’s appearance is sponsored by the Lawrence University Diversity Center and the Student Organization for University Programming.

APPLETON, WIS. — Every spring since 2002, Lawrence University students have spent a weekend in May turning the Main Hall green into a temporary shantytown. Teams of students would construct makeshift living quarters from salvaged and donated materials and spend the night sleeping in them.

Sponsored by the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity, the annual “Shack-a-thon” program was designed to raise awareness about homelessness and issues of affordable housing as well as funds to support the Fox Cities chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

Six Shack-a-thons, and more than $20,000 later, those efforts are being rewarded in a very meaningful and tangible way. Led by student members of the campus chapter of Habitat, Lawrence is partnering with J.J. Keller in co-sponsoring the construction of a Habitat for Humanity home on the northeast side of Appleton. Work on the four-bedroom ranch house located two miles from campus began in early October. It is scheduled to be completed Dec. 8.

Since the Lawrence chapter of Habitat was founded in 1999, student members have worked on a variety of projects across the country, including a record 45 students who participated in Habitat’s 2007 Collegiate Challenge project in New Orleans. The chapter is planning a trip to Latin America during 2008’s spring break. Kristin Morgan, student president of the campus Habitat chapter, says the organization is excited about getting involved on a local project of their own.

“Appleton hosts Lawrence students, faculty and staff from across the globe every year, providing unique opportunities for linking the lessons of the classroom with the greater community,” said Morgan. “The Lawrence co-sponsored home is hopefully one way for the university to say ‘thank you’ to Appleton and continue Habitat’s mission of strengthening communities by helping families own safe and secure homes, including one right here in Lawrence’s own backyard.”

Work on the house, under the supervision of Fox Cities Area Habitat for Humanity officials, is scheduled on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. A lunch is provided on-site. According to Morgan, J.J. Keller, as co-sponsor of the build, has permitted Lawrence to take the lead on all of the project’s volunteer opportunities in support of Youth Leadership.

“The Lawrence campus has helped raise the financial foundation for the home and J.J. Keller has generously allowed all the volunteer hours to be filled by Lawrentians,” said Morgan. “As a campus community, Lawrence contains an array of diverse talents and together those talents have limitless possibilities. The ‘Lawrence Built’ home marks the potential of a promising future led by civic-minded and actively engaged Lawrentians. The Habitat home is an exciting opportunity to highlight the positive possibilities of youth’s influence in community development.”

Each work session on the house will feature specific projects for the day, covering the full range of construction, including the installation of support beams and sill plates, building stud walls, insulating, roof work, siding, installing windows and doors, hanging cabinets and final landscaping.

Sign-up sheets are posted in the entrance of Downer Commons and all student groups and organizations, as well as individual students, faculty and staff members are encouraged to help with this worthy project. To enable as many volunteers as possible to participate, work schedules have been broken down into two half-day sessions: 8 a.m. -noon and noon – 4 p.m. No experience is necessary to participate and rides from campus to the work site will be provided for anyone who needs one. Questions regarding the project can be directed to habitat.humanity@lawrence.edu.

Check out the project and see the work that has been completed so far.

APPLETON, WIS. — London-based AandBC Theater Company brings its unique version of “The Tempest” to the Lawrence University Wriston Art Center amphitheatre Friday, Oct. 5 as part of the 2007 Shakespeare on the Fox program.

The two-and-one-half hour outdoor performance begins at 6:30 p.m. General admission tickets are available at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in downtown Appleton (920-730-3760). Tickets also will be sold on site the night of the performance.

Prior to the show, members of AandBC Theater Company will present a pre-performance lecture on “non-traditional theatre” at 5 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Combining improvised staging and direct audience contact, AandBC Theater Company’s production of Shakespeare’s popular tale of revenge and forgiveness takes place beneath a large, illuminated helium balloon that casts a moon-like island of light that defines the performance space. Audience members become part of the set by sitting on padded oil drums within the lighted circle.

Founded in 1989, AandBC Theater Company has performed at the Edinburgh Festival and the Bath Shakespeare Festival, among others. During an international tour that has taken the production to the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Romania, Russia and Trinidad, AandBC has performed “The Tempest” at castles, courtyards, churches, public parks, the middle of a rain forest and on a riverbank.

The Lawrence performance is one of 11 scheduled throughout the Fox Valley by AandBC Theater Company during a two-week residency in the area.

Lawrence is one of eight participating members in the Shakespeare on the Fox partnership, a coalition working to enrich and enliven the communities of the Fox Valley through a series of performances, workshops, demonstrations and other interactive programs designed to make Shakespeare accessible to everyone.

For a complete list of activities associated with the 2007 Shakespeare on the Fox program, visit http://www.shakespeareonthefox.uwosh.edu/schedule.php.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University will join nearly 600 other private colleges and universities around the country Wednesday, Sept. 26 in the launch of a new web-based tool designed to assist families in their college searches.

U-CAN — the University and College Accountability Network — was developed by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) in Washington, D.C., to help meet the challenge and responsibility of educating students, as well as their families, even before they decide which college to attend.

The first national consumer information tool developed by either private or public colleges, the U-CAN web site — www.ucan-network.org — will be operational Sept. 26.

U-CAN’s goal is to provide detailed information on individual institutions to objectively assist high school students in selecting a college or university that best fits their intellectual, professional and extracurricular interests, their values and personality and their financial circumstances.

The web site’s content and design are completely driven by consumer comments drawn from focus groups conducted in cities across the nation with prospective students and parents from all backgrounds who indicated what they most need to make an informed college choice.

“Lawrence University is delighted to participate in and contribute to U-CAN,” said President Jill Beck. “As an institution devoted to helping individuals realize their full potential, we especially appreciate how this new tool can help students find schools that best suit their own unique sets of interests and abilities.”

U-CAN consists of hundreds of institutional profiles presented in a concise, consumer-friendly common format. Each profile includes comparable data and targeted links to that institution’s own web site for more detailed information on specific aspects of the institution.

The development of U-CAN grew out of a growing concern among American families, members of Congress and the U.S. Department of Education about the need for better and more transparent college consumer information.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University President Jill Beck officially opens the college’s 158th academic year and kicks off the 2007-08 convocation series Thursday, Sept. 27 by examining the importance of an educated electorate and the value of student engagement in the political process in her annual matriculation address.

Beck presents “Educating Citizens, Supporting Students’ Political Engagement and Getting out the Vote” at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The address is free and open to the public.

Since becoming Lawrence’s 15th — and first woman — president in July 2004, Beck has focused on strengthening Lawrence’s commitment to individualized instruction, increasing collaborative and complementary activities between the fine and performing arts and the traditional liberal arts and sciences and encouraging more active community engagement by Lawrence and its students.

Under her leadership, Lawrence established an innovative postdoctoral teaching fellowship program in 2005 that has since brought 19 recent Ph.D.s to campus for mentoring, teaching opportunities and research collaborations. Beck also organized an international conference on tutorial education earlier this year and established a partnership with the Posse Foundation in 2006 that will bring 10 “Posse Scholars” from New York City to campus each year beginning this fall.

In 1996, while at the University of California, Irvine, Beck founded ArtsBridge America, an outreach program that offers hands-on experiences in the arts by placing university students in K-12 classrooms as instructors and mentors. Lawrence, which now serves as national headquarters for ArtsBridge, is the only private institution to join the program, which includes 22 participating institutions in 13 states and Northern Ireland.

A native of Worcester, Mass., Beck earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and art history from Clark University, a master’s degree in history and music from McGill University, and a Ph.D. in theatre history and criticism from the City University of New York. She served on the faculties of City College of the City of New York and The Juilliard School and has written extensively in the fields of dance history, theory, repertory, and technique, as well as choreographing and directing ballet and modern dance repertory.

From 1995 to 2003, Beck served as the dean of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California, Irvine, where she established the da Vinci Research Center for Learning Through the Arts, an interdisciplinary center for research focused on learning across disciplines.

Joining Beck on the 2007-08 convocation series are:

• Oct. 2 — David Mulford, U.S. Ambassador to India. A 1959 Lawrence graduate, Mulford has served as Ambassador to India since January, 2004. He spent the previous 11 years as chairman international of London-based Credit Suisse First Boston. From 1984-92, Mulford was the Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury for International Affairs, serving as senior international economic policy advisor. Prior to his public service, Mulford was a managing director and head of international finance at White, Weld & Co. Inc., where he coordinated efforts with Credit Suisse on international business. From 1974-83, he served as senior investment advisor to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, managing the investment of Saudi oil revenues.

• Nov. 6 — Paul Hawken, author, environmentalist and entrepeneur. Since the age of 20, Hawken has dedicated his life to sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. He is the author of seven books, including “The Ecology of Commerce,” “Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution,” which President Clinton called one of the five most important books in the world today and 2007’s “Blessed Unrest,” which examines the history of the environmental and social justice movement. He has founded and run numerous ecological businesses, including Smith & Hawken, the garden and catalog retailer and several of the country’s first natural food companies that relied solely on sustainable agricultural methods.

• Feb. 5 — Andrew Sullivan, senior editor of The Atlantic and columnist for the Sunday Times of London. Considered one of today’s most provocative political and social commentators, Sullivan was among the first journalists to experiment with blogging. His blunt observations about issues and people in the news are read by millions in his blog “The Daily Dish.” A native of Great Britain, Sullivan wrote essays for Time magazine before joining The Atlantic. He began his journalism career as a summer intern at The New Republic, where he rose to become the youngest editor in the magazine’s history, earning Adweek’s “Editor of the Year” award in 1991. Sullivan also has written four books, including 2006’s “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back.”

• May 22 — Terry Moran, broadcast journalist and co-anchor of ABC’s “Nightline.” A 1982 Lawrence graduate, Moran has served as co-anchor of “Nightline” since Ted Koppel’s last broadcast in November, 2005. Prior to “Nightline,” Moran spent six years as ABC News’ chief White House correspondent and often served as weekend anchor for the Sunday broadcast of “World News Tonight.” He joined ABC as the network’s legal correspondent, covering the trials of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski. He began his broadcast career as a correspondent and anchor for Court TV, where he received critical attention for his coverage of the murder trials of O.J. Simpson and Erik and Lyle Menendez.

APPLETON, WIS. — Greg Peterson is hoping his new Lawrence University classmates and professors will understand if he occasionally answers their queries in the form of a question. Old habits are hard to break.

One of 376 new students Lawrence officials will welcome Wednesday, Sept. 19 for move-in day and the start of orientation activities, Peterson placed second in the 2007 Jeopardy! Teen Tournament, which aired on national television at the end of July. Leading after the first day of the two-day finals, he wound up with a total of $38,600, finishing a mere one dollar short of the title on the popular game show known for its answers-in-the-form-of-a-question format.

After years of practice, the self-described “quiz show nut” from Park Ridge, Ill., says “it just becomes so natural to say ‘who is’ or ‘what is’ at the start of every sentence.”

Peterson, who arrives at Lawrence after also applying to Northwestern, Princeton, Stanford and Yale universities, is planning on auditioning for “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” next summer. In the meantime, he hopes to restart a campus quiz bowl team after he settles in. In 1965, a team of Lawrence students retired as five-time champions on the GE College Bowl, a quiz show that aired on CBS.

Whether or not he finds similar success, Peterson already has helped make school history as a member of Lawrence’s largest-ever applicant pool. For the third consecutive year, Lawrence enjoyed a record-setting number of applications, jumping more than 12 percent to 2,599 over last year’s total of 2,315.

“Lawrence’s visibility on the national scale is rising and there are a lot more students seeking us out,” said Ken Anselment, director of admissions. “We’re increasingly enrolling more high impact, highly involved students and that has a ripple effect at high schools. When underclassmen at these schools see these student leaders heading off to Lawrence, that gets them thinking Lawrence is someplace they should be seriously considering as well.”

Anselment also credits Lawrence’s inclusion in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” with boosting interest in the college. The book, written by former New York Times education editor Loren Pope, profiles 40 schools “that will change the way you think about college.”

Since 1998, as a follow-up to the book, Lawrence has participated in a special college fair tour that focuses solely on the 40 profiled colleges. In 2006, the tour made more than two dozen stops in major cities around the country and nine stops in Latin America.

“That’s been huge for us,” said Anselment. “People are coming out in droves on the tour, in part because they want a different perspective on what constitutes quality in higher education.”

The increasing applicant pool coupled with the university’s enrollment cap of 1,400 has enabled Lawrence to increase its selectivity. Lawrence admitted just under 56 percent of this year’s applicants. Two years ago, the acceptance rate was 68 percent.

“It seems counter-intuitive, but when a school starts getting more selective, it builds student interest and that in turn fuels additional application growth,” Anselment explained. “We’re still the high-quality place we’ve always been, but now there are a lot more students interested in us.”

Beginning in 2006, Lawrence became the first Wisconsin college, and one of a growing number nationally, to go “test optional,” eliminating the requirement of standardized test scores (SAT, ACT) for admission, instead allowing students to choose whether they want the admissions committee to consider their scores. This year, the program’s second, actually saw a small increase in the number of students opting to submit test results, 77 percent, up from 75 percent the first year.

“That was a little surprising, but not shocking,” said Anselment. “Going into the test optional phase, we weren’t sure just how many students would take us up on the offer. This year’s bump shows that our rise in applications cannot be attributed solely to our going test-optional.”

Two hundred seventy-five different high schools are represented by this year’s 361 freshmen, who hail from 37 states and 21 countries. While Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota again account for a little more than half of all incoming freshmen, New York surprisingly sent the fourth most number of students (17), with California, Massachusetts, Oregon and China also ranked among the top 10 home areas of new freshmen. Slightly more than 10 percent (37) of the incoming freshmen are international students.

“It’s a strikingly geographically diverse group,” said Anselment.

The academic profile of the incoming freshmen remains as strong as ever, with new students boasting an average high school grade point average of 3.6 on a 4.0 scale, while the average ACT score reached an all-time of 28.9. Twenty percent of incoming freshmen ranked in the top five percent of their high school graduating class, including 10 valedictorians, while 71 percent graduated in the top 25 percent of their class.

“We are thrilled with the quality and energy of this class and with the steady increase in applications. All of this will help us to continue attracting and enrolling the most broadly talented and engaged students we possibly can,” said Anselment.

More than 90 percent of the first-year students received financial assistance from Lawrence. The average need-based financial aid package exceeded $25,000.

“Lawrence continues to surprise people with the strength of our financial aid packages and remains accessible to families from a broad range of financial backgrounds,” Anselment said.

Classes for Lawrence’s 158th academic year begin Wednesday, Sept. 26.

APPLETON, WIS. — Abstract paintings, the intersection of fashion and art and manuscript illuminations will be featured in the latest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries. The exhibition runs Sept. 22 – Oct. 28.

Chicago painter Todd Chilton, whose abstract images will be displayed in the Kohler Gallery, will be the exhibition’s featured speaker Friday, Sept. 28 at 6 p.m. A reception with the artist will follow the address, which is free and open to the public.

Chilton’s work often focuses on simple, layered geometric patterns that reveal a subtle sense of humor while also creating a visual tension between openness and resistance. His work was featured last year in solo exhibitions at The Suburban in Oak Park, Ill., and the Contemporary Art Workshop in Chicago. He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Brigham Young University in 2002 and a MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005.

“Turn of the Century Art and Fashion” will be featured in the Hoffmaster Gallery. Pairing garments from the Lawrence theatre department with images from the Wriston galleries’ permanent collection, the show explores the influence of fashion on art. It focuses on fashion trends of the late 19th through the early 20th centuries.

Late medieval and early Renaissance manuscript illuminations will be featured in the Leech Gallery exhibition “The Illuminated Book.” The exhibition was organized and researched by Lawrence students in the art history course of the same name.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. For more information, call 920-832-6621 or visit http://www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston/.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University has been recognized again for its outstanding undergraduate education by The Princeton Review in its 2008 edition of the annual book “The Best 366 Colleges,” which was released today (8/20).

Only about 15% of the four-year colleges and universities in America, as well as two Canadian universities, are included in the book, which features student survey based ranking lists of top 20 colleges in more than 60 categories, ranging from best professors, administration and campus food to student body political leanings, interest in sports and other aspects of campus life. The Princeton Review does not rank the colleges in the book 1 to 366 in any single category.

“We chose schools for this book primarily for their outstanding academics,” says Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s vice president of publishing. “We evaluated them based on institutional data we collect about the schools, feedback from students attending them and our visits to schools over the years. We also consider the opinions of independent college counselors, students and parents we hear from year-long.”

In its profile of the college, The Princeton Review said Lawrence “attracts bright, motivated, overachievers who are also creative and innovative.” The profile also quotes extensively from students surveyed for the book, who describe Lawrence as a “very tough school academically…but Lawrence teaches you the skills to communicate effectively with the world.” Others lauded Lawrence professors as “amazing, and that’s an understatement….each is excited about his or her field in a way that inspires you to go above and beyond the class assignments.”

Lawrence was cited among the top 20 institutions in the nation in two of the book’s student-survey categories: 17th in how popular college theatre productions are on campus and 17th in how accepting the campus is to the gay community.

The various ranking lists in the 2008 edition of “The Best 366 Colleges” are based on The Princeton Review’s survey of 120,000 students — approximately 325 per campus on average — attending the 366 colleges profiled in the book.

A college’s appearance on one of the 60 lists is a result of a high consensus among the surveyed students about that subject. The 80-question survey asked students to rate their schools on several topics and report on their campus experiences at them.