2007

APPLETON, WIS. — Fred Sturm’s latest composition, “Migrations,” is about to receive a high-profile, international premiere.

The commissioned work, which showcases 23 indigenous songs from 21 countries worldwide, will be performed for the first time Thursday, Aug. 30 by 10-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist Bobby McFerrin and the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) Big Band at the 22nd annual Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Hamburg, Germany.

Sturm, director of jazz and improvisational music at Lawrence University as well as guest composer/conductor for numerous professional ensembles in the United States and Europe, has served as McFerrin’s arranger and conductor on three previous occasions.

“It’s the realization of a dream for me,” Sturm said. “Bobby is the most diversely talented artist I’ve met during my career and I’m honored to be collaborating with him.”

Sturm will spend a week rehearsing with HDR Big Band in Hamburg and then conduct the first performance of “Migrations” with McFerrin at Salzau Castle Konzertscheune. The 13th-century castle is the regional cultural center in Salzau.

The 18-piece NDR Big Band serves public radio for Northern Germany and is regarded as one of the world’s finest professional jazz ensembles. The group has performed and recorded the music of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa, among others.

Sturm had been compiling ideas for a world music project for several years. Collaborating with a former student of his, 1986 Lawrence graduate Brian Pertl, an ethnomusicologist and manager of Microsoft’s Media Acquisitions Group, Sturm researched recordings from around the globe.

“We knew we had some great raw material to work with and we were simply waiting for the ideal opportunity to develop and showcase it,” Sturm explained.

That opportunity presented itself last fall when McFerrin’s management engaged Sturm as the composer for the Hamburg performance with the NDR Big Band.

“When we discussed repertoire for the program, I suggested the ‘Migrations’ concept, never expecting them to bite on it. They bit — enthusiastically,” said Sturm.

“When I hung up the phone, I blocked out November to August on my calendar and wrote ‘No social life for you!,'” he added with a laugh.

Sturm and Pertl eventually winnowed more than 2,000 indigenous recordings down to the final list of 23 source recordings. Sturm then transcribed, arranged, orchestrated and “re-composed” the material to create a two-hour concert showcase for McFerrin.

“The music we selected for ‘Migrations’ is typically centuries old,” Sturm said. “It’s pure, innocent, beautiful and powerful. Though the character and styles are as varied as the world’s people who created this music, there is a prevalent common linkage between the selections. Bobby’s improvisations and interpretations of the material I’ve scored are intended to illustrate the musical unity of the world’s people.”

Among the pieces in the work is an aboriginal chant from Australia, a Mbuti Pygmy tribal song from the Ituri rain forest region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and an Inuit chant from Greenland.

During the creation of “Migrations,” Sturm would send McFerrin a score and a computer realization as he finished each segment. After receiving the 23rd and final score, McFerrin told Sturm the work was “absolutely brilliant.”

“Bobby has two hours of new music to prepare for this premiere concert and he’s studying this new material all the while he’s continuing to perform complete programs of music with symphony orchestras, choirs and jazz artists around the world,” said Sturm. “He’s incredible!”

Perhaps best known for his infectious 1989 Grammy Award-winning hit “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” the first a capella song ever to reach no. 1 on the U.S. pop singles chart, McFerrin has appeared around the world as a jazz vocalist, composer and orchestral conductor. He has collaborated on recordings with musical legends Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and cellist Yo-Yo Ma and has served as conductor/creative chair of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra since 1994. He has scored several films and is the recipient of numerous vocal jazz performance awards.

Sturm’s conservatory of music colleague, Professor of Music Dane Richeson, served as ethnic percussion consultant for the project and will appear as drummer/percussionist at the premiere.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University’s academic excellence earned it a spot among the top quarter of the nation’s best liberal arts colleges for the ninth consective year in U.S. News & World Report’s 2008 “America’s Best Colleges” report released Friday (8/17).

Lawrence was ranked 56th among 248 national colleges and universities in U.S. News’ “Best Liberal Arts Colleges” category in the magazine’s annual guide. Lawrence was the top-ranked institution in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan in the national category. For the first time, the U.S. service academies were included in the rankings. Two of them, the U.S. Naval Academy (no. 20) at Annapolis, Md., and the U.S. Military Academy (no. 22) at West Point, N.Y., were included in the national liberal arts category.

Among the factors used in determining the rankings, Lawrence showed improvement from last year’s rankings in more than half of them, among them graduation rate, acceptance rate, percent of classes with less than 20 students and alumni giving rate.

“We obviously are pleased to have the overall strength of our academic program recognized among the top quartile of a very distinguished group of colleges,” said Steve Syverson, vice president of enrollment management at Lawrence. “At the same time, we continue to encourage students as they search for an appropriate college to focus on the best personal match for themselves. The statistical information collected by U.S. News can be of value, but students should determine which pieces of it are of most importance to them in identifying colleges that will best suit their needs.”

The top three ranked institutions in the national liberal arts college category remained unchanged from the previous year, with Williams College earning the no. 1 designation for the fifth consecutive year, followed by Amherst College and Swarthmore College.

In compiling its annual “America’s Best Colleges”guide, U.S. News & World Report evaluates nearly 1,400 of the nation’s public and private four-year schools, using data from 15 separate indicators of academic excellence such as peer assessment, selectivity, graduation rates, student retention, faculty resources and alumni satisfaction. Each factor is assigned a “weight” that reflects the magazine editor’s judgment as to how much that measure matters. Each school’s composite weighted score is then compared to peer institutions to determine final rankings.

Institutions are divided into several distinct categories. In addition to the best liberal arts college category that measures national institutions like Lawrence, other rankings are based on universities that grant master and doctorate degrees and colleges that are considered “regional” institutions.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University musician Bethany Wiese earned second-place honors Monday, Aug. 13 in the finals of the Tuba Artist Division of the 22nd annual Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival held at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Mich.

A senior from Davenport, Iowa, and a student in the tuba studio of Marty Erickson, Wiese was one of 150 musicians from around the world participating in the competition. She was selected from among 10 semifinalists for the finals, where she performed French composer Eugene Bozza’s “Sonatina for Tuba and Wind Ensemble.” Wiese received $900 for her silver medal performance.

Earlier this year, Wiese won Lawrence’s wind ensemble concerto competition and performed as featured soloist at the ensemble’s May concert. In June, 2006, Wiese was selected by national audition to perform with the American Wind Symphony Orchestra during a month-long summer concert tour. She was the only tuba player in the 40-member AWSO during last year’s performances.

Founded in 1986, the festival honors the legacy of long-time Michigan State University music teacher and band director Leonard Falcone (1899-1985). The festival is considered one of the premiere international euphonium and tuba competitions in the country and is the only annual festival of its kind.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University’s venerable Memorial Chapel is slated for a month-long technical “makeover.”

The 89-year old venue will undergo a total renovation of its existing sound system and receive an upgraded lighting system. The project is scheduled to begin this week (8/6) and be completed in early September.

A new $125,000 sound system will replace the current equipment with a fully digital 40-channel audio distribution system capable of splitting all signals and sending them to the house mix position, stage monitor system and the recording studio control room.

Each split will be totally independent, allowing for simultaneous live sound mixing, stage monitoring and recording. The system will be precisely tuned for the chapel’s acoustics, reducing the need to hire outside sound companies to provide amplification for the larger Artist and Jazz Series concerts.

“The sound system renovation is a project that should yield significant improvement for the audience in terms of audio quality for musical performances and better speech intelligibility for speaking events,” said Larry Darling, director of recording at Lawrence. “When the upgrade is complete, the sound will be more evenly distributed throughout the hall. There also will be balcony sound reinforcement on the sides and the rear.”

The speaker cabinets will be painted to match the existing colors and preserve the chapel’s interior aesthetics.

The enhanced lighting system will feature more fixtures to better illuminate the stage area. In addition to providing more “even” lighting, the new fixtures will be more energy efficient and generate less ambient heat.

“The new lights will eliminate some of the ‘dark pockets’ we had on stage and do a much better job of illuminating the performance area,” said Darling.

Arrow Audio Inc. of Kimberly is overseeing the sound upgrade while the $70,000 lighting system is being installed by Lighthouse Productions of Green Bay.

APPLETON, WIS. — “And the Oscar goes to….”

Lawrence University student Garth Neustadter got a taste of the film industry awards scene — and perhaps a preview of things to come some day — during a recent three-day visit to Hollywood as one of five finalists in the 8th annual Young Film Composers Competition sponsored by the cable television network Turner Classic Movies.

A junior from Manitowoc, Neustadter was awarded first-prize honors (second place behind the grand prize winner) in the international film scoring competition when the results were announced July 25 at the Skirball Center in Hollywood in a gala ceremony featuring 250 guests, including many prominent composers and executives from the film music business.

The TCM film scoring competition is open to composers 18-35 years of age. This year’s competition drew more than 800 participants from throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Spain. Each finalist had to score a 90-second clip from the 1924 silent movie classic “Beau Brummel.”

At 21 years old, Neustadter was easily the youngest of the five finalists, all of whom were post-graduate composition majors. He was awarded a MacBook Pro 17″ laptop computer and Logic Pro software worth approximately $4,000 for his second-place finish. James Schafer from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., was named the competition’s grand-prize winner.

Acclaimed composer Hans Zimmer, whose credits include seven Academy and Golden Globe award nominations for his work on nearly 20 films, including “The Lion King,” “Gladiator,” “The Da Vinci Code” and two installments of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, served as judging chair for the competition.

“It was the experience of a lifetime to spend three days in Los Angeles, being treated like royalty, riding around in a limousine, surrounded by some of the biggest names in the film scoring business,” said Neustadter, a voice and violin performance major at Lawrence. “I had the opportunity to visit the archives at Warner Brothers Studios and was able to freely handle and examine all of the original hand-written music scores for classics such as ‘Gone with the Wind’ and ‘Casablanca.’ What a thrill.

“One of the trip highlights was meeting Hans Zimmer. He took time out of his busy schedule to show us around his personal studio and candidly talked with us one-on-one, answering all of our questions. Being from Germany, Zimmer told me he had to give the other competition judges a lesson in how to correctly pronounce my last name!”

Neustadter, who won a Downbeat magazine award in 2005 for best high school jazz composition, took his first crack at film composing for last year’s TCM competition after seeing a poster for the contest on campus. His entry earned him a spot in the top 20.

For the initial round of this year’s competition, Neustadter wrote and submitted a 60-second score in March for one of four available scenes from “Beau Brummel.” He was notified in late May he had been selected one of the five finalists. In early June, he received the 90-second film clip in the mail all the finalists had to score and was given three weeks to return a finished recording.

“After the initial shock of learning I was one of the finalists, I became very nervous and anxious waiting for the clip to arrive,” said Neustadter, who is currently in Boston taking classes at Berklee College of Music. “After receiving and watching the clip, I felt that the material was something that I could work with. It was suited toward my compositional tastes.

“It can be a bit intimidating starting out, though, because you know that you have three weeks to go from staring at a blank page to delivering a finished product. They give you a relatively short amount of time because they want to test your writing chops. Silent films present an additional challenge because, without any dialogue to support the story-line, you’re left with the task of communicating the plot entirely with music.”

The clip the five finalists had to work with turned out to be the final 90 seconds of “Beau Brummel,” in which the senile and ill title character is confined to a mental infirmary. As he reminisces over his long lost love, Margery, he envisions her presence and with his last breath toasts her and dies. As his loyal companion mourns his death, Brummel emerges from his deathbed as a young man, finally claiming the hand of his beloved Margery.

“The challenge of the clip was having to convey such a variety of contrasting emotions in such a short amount of time,” Neustadter explained. “I felt that I had effectively composed music that mirrored the emotional content of the characters on screen as they moved from delusion to despair, and finally from wonderment to ecstatic joy.

“Ninety seconds may seem like a relatively short amount of time for which to write music, but after deciding which musical cues will correspond to actions on screen, composing, orchestrating and recording, I had invested close to 100 hours in the project,” he added.

While some of the other composers relied on computer-generated music for their submissions, Neustadter had the luxury of using live musicians — including himself — to produce his film score. He solicited the talents of several Lawrence faculty members, classmates and other musical colleagues to produce a full orchestra sound.

Combining the acoustics and recording facilities of the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, Neustadter brought musicians in on an individual basis to record their parts. He replicated a full strings section solely himself by recording his own violin playing 40 separate times from different spots throughout the orchestra stage.

“I was fortunate to have so many talented musicians willing to help me record my score,” said Neustadter. “Very few composers have the chance to hear their compositions realized at such a high level by wonderful musicians like I did.

“It was truly exhilarating to have my clip played over a big screen for so many people the night of the ceremony,” he added. “All in all, the competition was an amazing experience and helped me to establish a lot of great connections.”

In addition to his moment in the spotlight as well as leaving Los Angeles with a job offer from a Nashville producer, Neustadter also experienced another side of celebrity. While staying at the swanky Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, he was unhappily awakened in the middle of the night one evening to police sirens and flashing emergency lights handling a commotion in the parking lot across the street from his room. It wasn’t until the next morning that he discovered he had been a sleepy witness to Lindsay Lohan’s latest encounter with law enforcement.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University President Jill Beck has announced the appointment of four members of the faculty to endowed professorships.

Patrick Boleyn-Fitzgerald, associate professor of philosophy, was named to the Edward F. Mielke Professorship in Ethics in Medicine, Science and Society. Merton Finkler, professor of economics, was named to the John R. Kimberly Distinguished Professorship in the American Economic System. Peter Glick, professor of psychology, was named to the Henry Merritt Wriston Professorship in the Social Sciences. Claudena Skran, associate professor of government, was named to the Edwin N. and Ruth Z. West Professorship in Economics and Social Science.

Appointments to endowed professorships recognize academic distinction through teaching excellence and/or scholarly achievement.

Boleyn-Fitzgerald, a specialist in bioethics and political philosophy, joined the Lawrence philosophy department in 2001 after six years on the faculty at Louisiana State University. His research interests include the relationship between health care professionals and the philosophical virtues of gratitude, forgiveness and compassion.

A member of President Clinton’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments in 1994, he currently serves as a consultant to Appleton Medical Center and Affinity Health System on issues of confidentiality, competency and end-of-life treatment decisions. Since coming to Lawrence, he has coordinated the college’s annual Edward R. Mielke Lecture Series in Biomedical Ethics.

Boleyn-Fitzgerald earned his bachelor’s degree from Miami University and his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.

The Mielke Professorship was established in 1982 in memory of Dr. Edward Mielke, a leading member of the Fox Valley medical community and founder of the Appleton Medical Center.

Finkler, a member of the faculty since 1979, is a specialist in health care economics. His recent research efforts have focused on the role of competition in medical-care markets.

A former Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in Health Care Finance, Finkler spent a year in the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in California. Amid the national debate on health-care reform in the early 1990s, he co-chaired two Lawrence conferences on health policy guidelines for policy makers and made presentations before both the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate health committees.

Co-founder of the consulting firm Innovative Health Associates, Finkler has served on several state panels, including the Wisconsin Governor’s Task Force on Funding of Academic Medical Centers and the Turning Point project on the transformation of public health services.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the University of California-San Diego, a master’s degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science and his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Minnesota.

The Kimberly Professorship was established in 1977 by the Kimberly-Clark Corporation in honor of John Kimberly, the former chairman of the board of the company. John Kimberly also served as a Lawrence trustee from 1949-1971.

Glick, a scholar on gender stereotyping and prejudice, has taught at Lawrence since 1985. His research focuses on the subtle and the overt ways in which prejudices and stereotypes foster social inequality. He co-authored research that introduced the concept of “ambivalent sexism,” asserting that not just hostile, but subjectively benevolent views of women as pure, but fragile, reinforce gender inequality and reward women for conforming to conventional gender roles while also creating hostile attitudes toward women who fail to do so. His 2005 research paper, “Evaluations of sexy women in high and low status jobs” published in Psychology of Women Quarterly attracted national media attention.

He was the recipient of the 1995 Gordon W. Allport Prize for the best paper on intergroup relations and was elected a fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society in 2004. The APA and the APS are the two largest and most prominent professional organizations in the field of psychology.

Glick earned a bachelor’s degree at Oberlin College and his Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Minnesota.

The Wriston Professorship was established 1959 in honor of Lawrence’s eighth president (1925-37) by Lester and Gertrude Slocum. Mrs. Slocum served as a Lawrence trustee from 1933-61.

Skran, whose research interests focus on international relations, especially refugee issues, joined the Lawrence faculty in 1990. She is the author of the 1995 book “Refugees in Interwar Europe: The Emergence of a Regime” in which she analyzed the major players in the early days of the international refugee arena, including private volunteer agencies, the forerunners to today’s non-government organizations (NGOs).

In 2005, Skran was awarded a Fulbright Scholars grant to study the role of NGOs in refugee resettlement in post-civil war Sierra Leone, where she spent six months. She also has conducted field research in Central America, studying displaced people in El Salvador and refugee issues in Mexico and Belize.

A 1983 Rhodes Scholar, Skran earned a bachelor’s degree in social science from Michigan State University and her master’s and doctorate degrees in international relations at Oxford University.

The West Professorship was established in 1989. Edwin West, an attorney and business leader, served as a Lawrence trustee from 1941-57 and 1971-84.

APPLETON, WIS. — Career achievements, contributions to the betterment of society and volunteer service to Lawrence University will be publicly recognized as part of the college’s annual Reunion Weekend Celebration June 15-17.

More than 900 alumni and guests from 42 states and seven countries, including Australia, China and Indonesia, are expected to return to campus to participate in the weekend-long festivities. Two alumni will be recognized with distinguished achievement awards and eight will be honored with service awards Saturday, June 15 during the annual Reunion Convocation at 10:30 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.

Virginia Danielson, Watertown, Mass., will receive the Lucia R. Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award. Named in honor of the second president of Milwaukee-Downer College, the Briggs award recognizes alumni of more than 15 years for outstanding contributions to, and achievements in, a career field.

A 1971 Lawrence graduate, Danielson has established herself as a world-class ethnomusicologist and library administrator. Regarded as a leading expert in sound-preservation technologies, Danielson is the curator of the Archive of World Music and the Richard F. French Librarian at Harvard University’s Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, a position she has held since 1999.

After earning a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of Illinois, Danielson began her career as an archivist in the UI ethnomusicology archives and a cataloging assistant in the music library. She joined the library staff at Harvard in 1987 as a catalog assistant in the Widener Library and was appointed caretaker of the Isham Memorial Library, a special collection of rare books, microforms and manuscripts in 1994.

Pursuing her scholarly interests in music of the Middle East, Danielson spent three years in the mid-1980s living in the Egyptian city of Al-Minya. She later chronicled the life and influence of singer Umm Kulthum, regarded as the Arab world’s most celebrated musical performer of the 20th century, in the 1998 biography, “The Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song, and Modern Egyptian Society,” which won the Alan Merriam Prize of the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Jennifer Baumgardner, a 1992 Lawrence graduate, will receive the Nathan M. Pusey Young Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, which recognizes Lawrence alumni of 15 years or less for significant contributions to, and achievements in, a career field. The award honors the 10th and youngest president of Lawrence and an exemplary figure in higher education in the 20th century.

A resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., Baumgardner is one of the nation’s prominent voices in the “third wave of feminism.” Shortly after graduation, she began a five-year stint as the youngest editor at Ms. magazine and has since produced a remarkable body of work. She has co-authored two books, “Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future” in 2000 and “Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism” in 2004. Her latest book, “Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics,” published in February, explores the intersection of bisexuality and feminism.

In addition to her books, Baumgardner has written for many of the nation’s premiere women’s magazines, including Jane, Glamour, Marie Claire, and Elle and also edited a series of feminist classics, beginning with Germaine Greer’s “The Female Eunuch.” She has served on the board of the New York Abortion Access Fund, worked with Planned Parenthood and was the creator of the “I Had an Abortion” t-shirt, which was part of a larger campaign, that included a film of the same name that she produced, to encourage women to talk about their experiences.

The Commonwealth Club of California named Baumgardner one of six “Visionaries for the 21st Century,” noting she had “permanently changed the way people think about feminism.”

Five alumni each will receive the George B. Walter Service to Society Award. Named in honor of Walter, a 1936 graduate, beloved former faculty member and dean of men at Lawrence who believed strongly that every individual can and should make a positive difference in the world, the award recognizes alumni who best exemplify the ideals of a liberal education through socially useful service in their community, the nation or the world.

Since 1993, Duffie Adelson, has served as the executive director of the Merit School of Music in Chicago. Founded in 1979 in response to the elimination of music instruction in Chicago’s elementary schools, Merit brings music education to over 6,500 students of all ages and abilities each year. A music education major at Lawrence who earned her B.M. in 1973, Adelson spent 12 years as a music teacher in three states before joining the Merit School as a part-time instructor in 1982.

In 1986, Adelson stepped in to help the founding director, whose only staff member had just left, and was invited to stay on. Under her leadership, Merit has become a nationally recognized community arts school, known for its innovative partnerships with other organizations, its high-quality, comprehensive music curriculum and its commitment to serving economically disadvantaged students. Adelson has presided over a $19.6 million capital campaign to acquire and renovate the Joy Faith Knapp Music Center, which opened in 2005 and has more than doubled the school’s instructional and performance space.

Her work at Merit has earned Adelson numerous honors, among them the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago Outstanding Achievement Award in the Arts, the Oprah Winfrey Angel Network “Use Your Life” Award, which was presented on national television and a Distinguished Alumna Award from Michigan’s Interlochen Center for the Arts. Today’s Chicago Woman magazine named Adelson one of its “100 Women Making a Difference.”

She serves on the board of advisors to “Midori and Friends,” a foundation that provides children in underserved New York City public schools with music-education programs, and is a trustee of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.

Over the course of the past 50 years, 1957 Lawrence graduate Martin Deppe has played a role in some of the most important movements and moments of recent U.S. history. A United Methodist pastor who served six Chicago-area congregations from 1961 until his retirement in 1999, Deppe’s dedication and devotion to human and civil rights as well as worldwide peace and justice issues echo an early vision of his denomination: “to reform the nation, particularly the Church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”

In 1967, he stood behind Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the signing of a covenant between the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Operation Breadbasket and the Jewel Tea Company. Having helped negotiate the agreement, Deppe was “midwife” to an event that led a major Chicago chain store move from 4 percent to 12 percent black employment in only three years.

As a member of Clergy and Laity Concerned about the Vietnam War, an organization co-founded by former Lawrence Scarff Professor Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Deppe was part of a delegation that traveled to Paris in 1971 to meet with the North Vietnamese representatives to the peace talks. As the head of the Alliance to End Repression, he led a successful effort that resulted in a federal district court ruling that eliminated the Chicago Police Department’s Subversive Activities Unit.

Active in the Reconciling Congregation Movement, a grass-roots effort for change on lesbian and gay issues in the United Methodist Church, Deppe also served on the strategy team for the election in 1980 of the first woman bishop in any denomination. He has extended his leadership and passion to dozens of organizations seeking social and economic justice, among them the AIDS Pastoral Care Network, the Chicago Leadership Network for the Common Good and the Justice Coalition of Greater Chicago.

Margarita (“Peg”) Thompson Oliver of Pharr, Texas, who earned a bachelor’s degree in drama from Lawrence in 1942, has been described as a “powerful whirlwind” for her work as director, lead teacher and guiding spirit of the Coalition of Literacy Services, Inc., a county-wide, non-governmental program she founded in Hidalgo County, Texas in 1984.

Operating in one of the nation’s poorest counties, where more than 100,000 adults over age 25 — roughly 30 percent of the population — were identified as needing some form of adult education, Oliver’s creation provides adult basic education, literacy and public information. The program is exceptionally noteworthy for its openness and self-paced curriculum: anyone can walk in and each student works at his or her own pace. For much of her 21-year tenure at CLS, Oliver single-handedly taught an estimated 1,000 people per year, often leading as many as ten classes a week.

A Texas transplant who spent nearly 40 years living in Appleton, Oliver was among the first volunteers to work with Hmong refugees on literacy issues when they began arriving in the Fox Valley in the mid-1970s. After relocating to the Rio Grande Valley in 1984, she quickly discovered a dire need for her education, motivation and time and shorting thereafter, the CLS was born. Since retiring in 2005, she has remained in touch with many of her former students, continuing to offer her support. She currently is working with the Bipartisan Education Compromise to help turn poor communities into educated communities.

Thomas Oreck may not be as familiar to the general public as his father, David, the founder and advertising “face” of the family-named company best known for its vacuum cleaners. But as president and chief executive officer of the New Orleans-based Oreck Corporation, the 1973 Lawrence graduate earned national praise for his compassionate response to his employees’ needs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

When Katrina hit, Oreck’s manufacturing facility in Long Beach, Miss., was severely damaged and the homes of many of its 600 employees were destroyed. Tom Oreck immediately announced that the company would make sure the employees were safe and cared for. He also reassured them they still had jobs and a paycheck. The company provided its employees with housing in mobile units, food, water, generators, fuel and other supplies. Oreck also brought in medical trauma specialists and advisors to help employees with insurance and FEMA claims.

Despite the devastation wrought by Katrina on both of its locations, the Oreck Corporation was the first company to reopen a national headquarters in New Orleans and a plant on the Gulf Coast.

The company set up the Oreck Employees Relief Fund, seeding it with a $500,000 corporate contribution and launched a national donation drive through its Oreck Clean Home Centers across the country. In addition, it donated 1,000 vacuum cleaners to the Salvation Army for distribution to those affected by the storm. The company’s response earned the Oreck family a “Heroes of Katrina” designation by CNN’s “American Morning” program.

Tom Oreck, who became company president in 2000, serves on the board of the Isadore Newman School and the Make-A-Wish Foundation and is a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight. He is a vice-chair of the New Orleans Business Council, an organization made up of the CEOs of the largest local companies and joined with other residents to form Citizens for 1 Great New Orleans, a group active in recovery efforts.

Nancy Rigg is the human embodiment of the adage “out of tragedy came some good.” Through sheer determination and unwavering perseverance, she turned a tragic episode in her own life into a pioneering effort to save the lives of others.

In 1980, Rigg and her fiance, Earl Higgins, were walking near the flood-swollen Los Angeles River when they noticed a child in the turbulent waters. Higgins waded into the torrent to attempt a rescue but was swept downstream along with the child. While the child somehow survived, Higgins disappeared. His remains were recovered nine months later.

In the aftermath, Rigg discovered that 11 different agencies shared jurisdiction over a 30-mile stretch of the river. They could not communicate with each other, the river had never been mapped for rescue locations and none of the area’s first-responders were trained in rescue techniques specific to fast-flowing rivers.

A writer and filmmaker, Rigg unleashed her talents on bringing the issue of river safety to the attention of the public and civic authorities. She wrote op-ed pieces, produced an educational video, “No Way Out,” and even wrote an episode of the popular television show “Baywatch” about swiftwater-rescue techniques. After years of advocacy, her efforts were rewarded in 1992 with the creation of the Multi-Jurisdictional Joint-Agency River Rescue Task Force.

Today, as a direct result of Rigg’s efforts, flood zones in Los Angeles have been mapped, rescue operations are centrally coordinated and the death toll has been reduced from an average of 12-18 per torrential storm to an average of 1-2. Individuals who are swept away now have a fighting chance to be rescued and rescue personnel have the training, equipment, planning and communications capability to effectively coordinate rescue operations and also protect themselves.

Hailed as “the mother of swiftwater rescue,” the 1972 Lawrence graduate and current resident of Camarillo, Calif., has taken her fight far beyond her backyard. In 2000, the day before the 20th anniversary of her fiancé’s death, she testified in Washington, D.C., in front of the first-ever House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on flood-water rescue.

While changes at the federal level have been slow in coming, Rigg claims one small victory. After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, all eight urban search and rescue teams with swiftwater rescue components from California were deployed by FEMA.

Rigg continues to write for professional fire and rescue journals and hosts an online newsgroup for rescue personnel as well as an online grief-support group.

Ryan Tarpley of Beverly Hills, Calif., will receive The Marshall B. Hulbert Young Alumni Service Award, which recognizes a Lawrence alumnus or alumna of 15 years or less, who has provided significant service to the college. This award honors Hulbert, a 1926 Lawrence graduate known as “Mr. Lawrence,” who served the university in many significant capacities for 54 years.

A 1993 graduate, Tarpley has been active in almost every facet of the Lawrence community, serving as a member of the steering committee for his 10th reunion, and the class gift committee for his 15th cluster reunion in 2007, an admissions volunteer, an Ambassador peer solicitor, a member of the Lawrence University Alumni Association (LUAA) Board of Directors and its executive committee, a member of the Los Angeles regional program committee and the host/coordinator for two Los Angeles alumni activities, including a “Meet Jill Beck” event.

Mary L. Carlson-Mason of Manchester, Mich., and Richard Weber, Cecil, will be presented the Gertrude B. Jupp Outstanding Service Award. The award honors Jupp, a 1918 graduate of Milwaukee-Downer College, who was named M-D Alumna of the Year in 1964 for her long volunteer service to the college. It recognizes Lawrence and Milwaukee-Downer alumni of more than 15 years who have provided outstanding service to the college.

Carlson-Mason, a 1972 Lawrence graduate, has served as steering committee chair and leader of the past two cluster reunions for the Classes of 1971-1973, inspiring the highest attendance at any 30th Reunion in 2002. She also served as chair of the LUAA Communications Committee from 2001-03, helping create and name the online alumni newsletter Lawrence E-News (LENs). She organized friends to attend President Jill Beck’s inauguration in 2005 and regularly hosts other informal gatherings of Lawrentians in her area.

Weber, a 1957 graduate, assumed a leadership role with his 40th and 50th reunion gift committees. In 1997, Lawrence’s Sesquicentennial year, Weber’s class set what was at that time a 40th Reunion alumni participation record of 69.3 percent. Since then he has been at the forefront of efforts to organize another substantial campaign for his class’s 50th reunion gift, facilitating innumerable meetings and conference calls, reaching out to classmates and engaging in behind-the-scenes work whenever needed.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University geologist Marcia Bjornerud, choral director Rick Bjella and music historian Julie McQuinn were honored Sunday, June 10 at the college’s 158th commencement for excellence in teaching and scholarship.

Bjornerud, professor of geology, was the second recipient of the college’s Excellence in Scholarship or Creative Activity Award, which was established in 2006. The award recognizes the importance of excellence in scholarly and creative work for advancing the mission of Lawrence, with preference given to a faculty member who has demonstrated sustained programs of excellent work for a number of years and whose work exemplifies the ideals of the teacher-scholar.

A structural geologist specializing in mountain building processes, Bjornerud was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of American in 2003 and is the author of two books, the 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 to rave reviews.

“Reading the Rocks,” a history of the Earth and the toll human activity is exacting on the planet, draws upon Bjornerud’s field research conducted as a Fulbright Scholar on exposed rock complexes on the island of Holsnøy in western Norway. Since its initial release, the book has been reprinted in French, Dutch and Japanese, with a Chinese edition for Taiwan slated for publication later this year.

“You have impressed your colleagues with both the quality and quantity of your scholarly research,” President Jill Beck said in presenting Bjornerud her award. “Your interest in how ‘rocks behave,’ to use your words, has contributed important ideas to our understanding of tectonic plates and earthquakes.”

In April, Bjornerud was appointed the first holder of the new Walter Schober Professorship in Environmental Studies, established by a $2.5 million gift from Schober.

She 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.

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.

Bjella, professor of music and director of the Lawrence concert choir and Viking chorale, received Lawrence’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, given annually for outstanding performance in the teaching process, including the quest to ensure students reach their full development as individuals, human beings and future leaders of society.

Since joining the faculty in 1984, Bjella has conducted in concert halls around the world, including Paris, Prague, London and Lucerne. He also has guest conducted more than 350 festivals and workshops in 25 states.

Beck cited Bjella’s “skill, dedication and sense of joy” in presenting him his award.

“As a teacher, you are described as passionate, inspiring, energetic, spirited and knowledgeable,” said Beck. “The work you demand from your students is accepted with the grace of those who know the final result will be worth every bit of expended energy. Those who have watched you work with choir groups have described your effect as magical.”

Bjella’s ensembles have been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio and in the Green Bay Packer video “Legend of Lambeau Field.” His concert choir was the first to record “Songs of Children” by Robert Convery, a cantata of nine poems written by children interned at Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp.

In 2006, Bjella received the Hanns Kretzschmar Award for Excellence in the Arts for his 20 years of service as artistic director of the community-based White Heron Chorale.

A member of the Washington High School Fine Arts Hall of Fame in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bjella earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell College and a master’s degree from the University of Iowa.

McQuinn, assistant professor of music, received the Lawrence’s Young Teacher Award in recognition of demonstrated excellence in the classroom and the promise of continued growth.

A musicologist, McQuinn joined the faculty of the Conservatory of Music in 2003, where she has taught courses on the history of music, music and gender, opera and “borrowed music” in the movies. She also has delivered several pre-concert lectures for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In presenting the award, Beck praised McQuinn’s “legendary” ability to engage students and create excitement for learning.

“When you teach, your enthusiasm makes the material leap off the pages of books and scores and into the hearts and minds of your students,” said Beck. “You have enriched the lives of many Lawrence students and given them the power to grow in their love for music of all kinds and all eras.”

Prior to coming to Lawrence, McQuinn taught at Northwestern University and Elmhurst College. She earned a bachelor of music degree in voice performance and a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics from Oberlin College. She also holds a master’s degree in voice performance from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and earned her Ph.D. in musicology from Northwestern University.

APPLETON, WIS. — Two Lawrence University graduates will be recognized for their professional achievements and civic contributions by their alma mater with honorary degrees Sunday, June 10, at the college’s 158th commencement. Graduation exercises begin at 10:30 a.m. on the Main Hall green.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler of Milwaukee will be awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters and former journalist and research center director Margaret Carroll of Appleton will be awarded an honorary doctorate of education.

In addition, Lawrence will confer 316 bachelor of arts and/or music degrees to 305 seniors from 37 states and 18 foreign countries. That is the highest number of degrees awarded by Lawrence since 1976 (322).

A baccalaureate service featuring David Cook, professor of physics and Philetus E. Sawyer Professor of Science, will be held Saturday, June 9 at 11 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The baccalaureate service and commencement ceremony are free and open to the public.

Both honorary degree recipients, along with President Jill Beck, Lawrence Board of Trustees Chair William O. Hochkammer and student representative Micha Jackson, a senior from Brighton, Ontario, will address the graduates during commencement.

Since earning a bachelor’s degree in government from Lawrence in 1973, Butler has earned several notable “firsts” during a 30-year career dedicated to public service.

He is the first African-American in state history to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He also holds the distinction of being the first attorney from the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court.

Gov. Jim Doyle appointed Butler to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in August, 2004 to fill the position vacated by Justice Diane Sykes, who left for the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. After 13 years with the State Public Defender’s Office, Butler began his judicial career as a Milwaukee Municipal Court judge in 1992. He was appointed a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge in 2002.

His work as a jurist has been recognized with numerous awards, among them the 2006 Humanitarian of the Year by the American Federation of Teachers, Local 212, the 2005 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Foot Soldiers’ Award and the Outstanding Citizen’s Award from the Wisconsin Council of Deliberations, Prince Hall Masons.

A former adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School, Butler is a member of the faculty at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nev., which provides continuing education for judges around the nation. He also serves as a member of the bench at the Moot Court Competition at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

Outside the courtroom Butler has been actively engaged with a host of state and national organizations, serving as a member of the board of directors for the NAACP, Legal Action of Wisconsin and the Criminal Law Section of the State Bar. He also has worked with the Criminal Justice Reforms Task Force and the Urban Initiative Task Force on Public Education.

A native of Chicago, Butler earned his law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1977.

Carroll, a 1961 Lawrence graduate who, like Butler, earned a bachelor’s degree in government, enjoyed a 35-year career in journalism and research center administration.

In 1972, Carroll helped establish the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) in Washington, D.C., which provided impartial research and analysis of business and public policy issues that affect decision making by institutional investors and major corporations. Carroll spent 23 years with IRRC, including 20 as its executive director, before she retired in 1996. IRRC provided research and analysis as well as proxy voting services to more than 500 institutional investors, corporations, law firms, foundations, colleges and other organizations.

Shortly after she graduated from Lawrence, Carroll began her journalism career at the Congressional Quarterly, a Washington, D.C.-based weekly journal that covers Congress and the federal government, working her way up from researcher to associate editor. She had worked as an intern at CQ for two summers while a student at Lawrence.

Amid the civil unrest that was sweeping the country in the late 1960s, Carroll joined the staff at the National Urban Coalition in 1968 as director of publications, overseeing the production of substantive reports and a newsletter directed at local urban coalitions. The following year, she and several former colleagues from Congressional Quarterly joined forces to establish National Journal, a weekly publication that focuses primarily on key actions and personnel in federal departments and agencies. She served as the publication’s congressional editor and later associate editor.

Before helping found the IRRC, Carroll spent two years in the early 1970s as an independent editorial consultant with a diverse client portfolio. She edited and wrote much of a book on “Women in Policing” and edited a widely circulated guide to the 1972 elections. She also served as acting director of communications for the National Urban Coalition. After she retired from IRRC, she also edited a variety of publications.

A long-time member of the Lawrence Board of Trustees, Carroll served as a trustee for all but two years from 1974 to 2006, including two years (1993-95) as the chair of the board. She was elected trustee emerita of the college last fall. In addition, she served the college as a member of the Presidential Search Committee that found Jill Beck, president of the Founders Club, an admissions volunteer, a career consultant and a class agent. She now represents Lawrence on Appleton’s College Avenue Design Committee.

A native of New York City, Carroll has lived in Appleton since 2002.