2008

APPLETON, WIS. — Author Helen Boyd discusses the evolution of her marriage to a transgendered husband and the legal and personal issues they have encountered in an address and book reading at Lawrence University.

Boyd, who is spending Winter Term as a visiting professor in Lawrence’s gender studies department, presents “Transgender Couples, Queer Heterosexuals and Marriage Rights,” Monday, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. in Science Hall, 102. A reception with the speaker prior to the address will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Science Hall atrium. Both events are free and open to the public.

The presentation will examine the murky intersection of state marriage laws, the difficulties they pose to transgender couples and the possibility of states having to legally define the terms “man” and “woman.”

In her 2004 book “My Husband Betty,” Boyd details her relationship with Betty Crow, who crossdressed occasionally. Over time, her husband began to be seen as more female than male and so contemplated living full time as a woman. Boyd and Crow were legally married in Brooklyn, N.Y., although they now appear as a couple who can’t be legally married in most places.

Boyd also will read excerpts from her 2007 book “She’s Not the Man I Married,” in which she confronts the nature of marriage, passion and love. She shares observations on the ways relationships are gendered and how one copes — or not — with the emotional and sexual pressures that gender roles can bring to marriages and relationships. “My Husband Betty” was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist in 2005 and “She’s Not the Man I Married” was recently nominated for this year’s Lambda Literary awards.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of The City College of New York with degrees in literature and writing, Boyd is teaching “Introduction to Gender Studies” and “Transgender Lives” during her term at Lawrence.

APPLETON, WIS. — Implementing a market system for water could improve the quality and quantity of one of the world’s most important resources says Terry Anderson, executive director of the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Mont.

The second of three events planned in Lawrence University’s year-long series on entrepreneurial thinking, Anderson presents “Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Sell” Monday, Feb. 18 at 4:30 p.m. in Science Hall 102. The event is free and open to the public.

A leading scholar of free market environmentalism, Anderson believes introducing the price mechanism into water policy could help alleviate the problem of water scarcity in areas of the United States by encouraging consumers to utilize the resource more carefully. The presentation will outline how water markets can work, examine the importance of clear and transferable water rights, provide evidence of current working water markets and suggest how water markets could be primed to do more, especially in the Great Lakes region.

A senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of the book “Water Markets: Priming the Invisible Pump,” Anderson has written extensively on economic and environmental topics. His work as co-author of the 1991 book “Free Market Environmentalism” was recognized with the Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award, which honors publications that have made the greatest contributions to the public understanding of the free society.

APPLETON, WIS. — For the second straight year, Lawrence University has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

“We are extremely pleased to be recognized for our community service efforts again this year and I continue to be amazed by the quality and depth of our work in the community not only by students, but by Lawrence faculty and staff,” said Jill Beck, Lawrence University president. “More and more often, community engagement is an extension of our classrooms and the result is a better learning experience and a better community.”

Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees for the award are chosen based on a series of selection factors including scope and innovativeness of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

In the past year, Lawrence, with an enrollment of 1,400, documented 6,000 service hours involving at least 650 students, including more than 50 students who performed at least 20 hours of service per week. Of that total, 1,430 service hours were devoted to the disadvantaged.

Among the initiatives for which Lawrence was recognized was ArtsBridge America, an arts-based outreach program that partners Lawrence students with area K-12 teachers to create unique interdisciplinary projects; the Lawrence Assistance Reaching Youth (LARY) Buddies, a mentoring program for at-risk elementary students; The Volunteers in Tutoring at Lawrence (VITAL) program, which matches students with Fox Valley K-12 students who need help in a wide variety of academic subjects, and the local chapter of A Better Chance program in which Lawrence students serve as tutors and mentors for high school boys who come out of difficult urban environments to live in Appleton and attend local schools.

“College students are tackling the toughest problems in America, demonstrating their compassion, commitment, and creativity by serving as mentors, tutors, health workers and even engineers,” said David Eisner, chief executive officer of CNCS. “They represent a renewed spirit of civic engagement fostered by outstanding leadership on caring campuses.”

“There is no question that the universities and colleges who have made an effort to participate and win the Honor Roll award are themselves being rewarded,” said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education. “Earning this distinction is not easy. But now each of these schools will be able to wear this award like a badge of honor.”

The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. The Corporation administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America, a program that supports service-learning in schools, institutions of higher education and community-based organizations.

APPLETON, WIS. — Patience and persistence will be keys to successfully navigating the mix of cooperative and competitive elements facing the U.S.-China relationship in the future says a scholar on Chinese foreign policy and East Asian security

In the second installment of Lawrence University’s 2008 Povolny International Studies Lecture Series, Phillip Saunders presents “Strategic Dimensions of U.S.-China Relations,” Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. in Science Hall, 102. The event is free and open to the public.

Saunders, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C., believes bilateral tensions between the United States and China are likely to increase significantly in the next few years. His presentation will examine several of the strategic challenges China poses to the United States, among them the potential for domestic crises, its nuclear modernization and the Taiwan situation.

According to Saunders, effective pursuit of U.S. interests in dealing with China are compromised by different priorities within the government as well as the trade offs faced between short-term policy goals and long-term strategies.

“Leadership, vision and patience will be necessary for the United States to take full advantage of the benefits that cooperation with China offers while successfully meeting the strategic challenges China poses to U.S. interests,” says Saunders.

Prior to joining the INSS, Saunders spent four years at the Monterey Institute of International Studies as the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program. He also has taught courses on Chinese politics and foreign policy and conducted research on East Asian security issues for the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and for the Pentagon while an officer in the United States Air Force.

Richard Bush, a 1969 Lawrence graduate and director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, will conclude the series Monday, Feb. 25 with the address “The Taiwan Strait Issue and U.S.-China Relations.”

The “U.S.-China Relations” 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. — One of the most complex, important and rapidly changing bilateral relationships of the 21st century — the United States and China — will be the focus of Lawrence University’s 2008 Povolny International Studies Lecture Series.

Peter Hays Gries, associate professor and director of the Newman Institute for U.S.-China Security at the University of Oklahoma, opens the three-part series Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. in Science Hall, 102 with the address “Chinese Nationalism and Anti-Japanese Sentiment.” All lectures in the series are free and open to the public.

Gries will examine the factors behind a growing Chinese hostility toward Japan despite expanding economic relations between the two countries. Emboldened by a quarter century of economic growth, most Chinese no longer fear Japan and long-suppressed anger for the Japanese has resurfaced.

According to Gries, the “victor narrative” of China championed by Mao Tse-tung from the 1950s through the 1980s, has been challenged by a new “victim narrative” focusing on Chinese suffering during the 20th century, much of it at the hands of the Japanese, including atrocities like the “Rape of Nanking” during World War II.

“The emergence of a deep-rooted and popular anti-Japanese enmity in China today does not bode well for 21st Century Sino-Japanese relations,” said Gries. “As a result, Japanese increasingly fear China’s rise and possible future retribution for Japan’s wartime aggressions. The possibility of a Sino-Japanese arms race is increasingly real.”

Gries’ scholarship focuses on nationalism, China’s domestic politics and foreign policy and the political psychology of international affairs. He is the author of the book “China’s New Nationalism” and co-edited “State and Society in 21st-Century China.” He was appointed the Harold J. & Ruth Newman Chair in U.S.-China Issues at the University of Oklahoma in 2006 after five years in the political science department at the University of Colorado.

Other scheduled speakers and topics for this year’s series are:

• Feb. 13 — “Strategic Dimensions of U.S.-China Relations,” Phillip Saunders, senior research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies

• Feb. 25 — “The Taiwan Strait Issue and U.S.-China Relations,” Richard Bush ’69, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.

The “U.S.-China Relations” 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. — British-born author, award-winning journalist and noted conservative political blogger Andrew Sullivan examines the U.S. political landscape Tuesday, Feb. 5 in a Lawrence University convocation.

Sullivan presents “American Politics: A View from Home and Abroad” at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 510 E. College Ave., Appleton. Sullivan also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in the Coffeehouse of the Lawrence Memorial Union. Both events are free and open to the public.

A senior editor at The Atlantic and a columnist for The Sunday Times of London, Sullivan was among the first mainstream journalists to experiment with blogging. Known for its insights on current events and people in the news, Sullivan’s blog, “The Daily Dish” on the homepage of The Atlantic.com, has become one of the country’s most widely read political blogs, helping establish Sullivan as one of America’s most influential intellectuals.

Sullivan has written three books, including “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back.” Published in 2006, it traces the shift in political conservatism from a narrowly defined political philosophy to a concept dominated by religious fundamentalism.

His first book, 1995’s “Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality,” examined gay rights from four perspectives — prohibitionist, liberationist, conservative and liberal. In his second book, “Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival,” Sullivan presented a series of essays on the deep connections between homosexuality and friendship.

Educated at Oxford and Harvard universities, Sullivan began his journalism career as an intern at The New Republic magazine while still a student. In 1987, he was appointed an associate editor at TNR, the youngest in the magazine’s history, and four years later was named its editor-in-chief.

Under Sullivan’s editorship, The New Republic earned a reputation as one of the nation’s most lively and controversial journals of opinion, addressing issues of race relations and gay rights. AdWeek recognized Sullivan with its Editor-of-the-Year Award in 1996.

During his career, Sullivan also has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine. He has appeared frequently on “The Chris Matthews Show” and NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” as well as many other public affairs programs, among them “Meet the Press,” “Nightline” and “Face the Nation.”

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University’s Black Organization of Students will host the seventh annual Celebration of Black Heritage dinner and program Saturday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. in the Buchanan Kiewit Recreation Center gymnasium. The theme for this year’s event is “Coming From Where I’m From: Celebrating the African Diaspora at Lawrence.”

The event includes an ethnic dinner, followed by a program featuring poetry readings, singing and traditional dances from Africa and Jamaica performed by students. Members of BOS also will share stories of their personal experiences.

Tickets, at $10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under, are available at the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749. Tickets also will be sold at the door for $12 the night of the event. For more information, contact the Lawrence University Diversity Center, 920-832-7051.

APPLETON, WIS. — The Bank of Kaukauna captured its eighth consecutive off-campus title over the weekend in Lawrence University’s 43rd Great Midwest Trivia Contest. With 1,325 points, The Bank finished comfortably ahead of runner-up Six Feet Under, which tallied 1,210 points. Subprime Iowans were third with 1,160 points. The win was the 10th in the past 12 years for the Kaukauna-based team, which received a broken telephone signed by all the trivia masters as a first-place prize.

Bucky’s made it six straight wins among on-campus student teams, edging Morgan Freeman and the North Side, 1,168-1,113. Finishing third on campus was 1972 Soviet Baskyetbol with 1,029 points. Bucky’s was awarded a Batman stocking for its win.

A total of 366 questions were asked during the 50-hour contest that ended at midnight Sunday, Jan. 27. Twelve on-campus and 72 off-campus teams participated during the weekend.

No team was able to answer this year’s “Super Garruda,” the contest’s final question, which asked: “In the ‘Citadel of Opportunity’ section of ‘An Invitation to the International Olympic Committee to celebrate the XIX Olympiad at Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.,’ there is a photograph of a girl wearing a sign around her neck. This sign bears the name of what notable figure?” The answer was Josephine Baker.

APPLETON, WIS. — Ladies and gentlemen, start your (search) engines.

Once again, copious amounts of insignificant knowledge and advanced Internet skills will be put to the test when the 43rd edition of Lawrence University’s annual Great Midwest Trivia Contest — the country’s longest-running salute to all things trivial — kicks off Friday, Jan. 25.

The 50-hour marathon of minutia that simultaneously challenges the brains and tickles the funny bones of hundreds of players on campus and around the country with its grab-bag of questions, eclectic music and off-beat humor, begins anew at precisely 10:00.37 p.m. and ends at midnight Sunday, Jan. 27. For the third year running, the contest will be webcast on WLFM, the Lawrence campus radio station, at www.lawrence.edu/sorg/trivia.

During the contest, questions of varying point values are asked in three-minute intervals via the Internet while teams call in their answers to the WLFM studios.

From its armadillo mascot to its first-place prizes unfit for even the cheesiest white elephant exchange, the trivia contest is steeped in tradition. Following one of the more time-honored ones, Lawrence President Jill Beck will open the weekend’s trivial pursuit by asking the contest’s first question, which, also by tradition, is always the final question of the previous year.

After two years as a participant and one year as a mere master, James Prichard carries the coveted mantle of “Grand Master” for this year’s contest.

“You’re the most important person on campus for 50 all-too-short hours,” said Prichard, a senior from Northfield, Minn. “President Beck gets to ask the first question, but then she has to abdicate to the trivia masters for the next 49 hours and 57 minutes.”

After some gentle tweaking, Prichard promises a 2008 contest that will run “smoother than ever. We’ve really worked on the logistics.”

Prichard is hoping to make more of a connection this year between current students playing on campus and the legions of trivia fans participating throughout the Fox Cities and beyond by offering some new “theme hours” during the weekend that focus on landmark events from previous year’s contests.

“I think some of the people who have been playing trivia for a long time will really appreciate it and enjoy it,” said Prichard. “And I hope current students get a little better sense of some of the long traditions of the contests.”

Two trivia teams have dominated the contest in recent years the way the Boston Celtics once ruled the NBA and UCLA owned college basketball. Amid whispers of retirement, the Bank of Kaukauna juggernaut, winners of seven straight off-campus titles, returns with its high-tech collection of computers with multiple direct connections and load balancing routers, a customized data management repository and even its own specialized score management system.

Employing a considerably less technological tack, the Yuai community has racked up five straight on-campus crowns. With a team typically numbering around 20 — both current students as well as past team members who make a late January trek back to campus — the Yuais approach to its trivia rivals is simple and straight forward according to team member Robby Sutton: destroy.

“Most of us take trivia very seriously,” said Sutton, a junior from Appleton. “My trivia needle is definitely on fanatical. That’s where it needs to be or else we lose.

“Remember,” Sutton added, “it’s all fun and games, unless it’s trivia. Then it’s war.”

The Lawrence trivia contest still serves as a mid-winter siren call to Appleton for many die-hard players, but the switch to a webcast format has turned the contest into a world-wide event. Last year answers to questions arrived from as far away as Europe and Japan.

The contest has undergone its share of changes, mostly technological, since making its debut in 1966 as an alternative for students who didn’t participate in an academic retreat with professors. But one thing that hasn’t changed over the past four-plus decades is the no. 1 rule of the entirely student-run contest: have fun.

“It’s a project that you can really get into,” said Prichard, explaining why he devotes so much of his time to planning and organizing the contest, as well as writing a fair number of its questions. “It’s easy to become consumed by it.

“If at the end of the weekend, everyone who played, everyone who just listened in for a while, all the volunteers who asked questions and answered phones can say they had a great time, then we’ll be able to say ‘mission accomplished.'”

While no team came up with the correct answer to last year’s final brain teaser — the traditional “Super Garruda” — any trivia team worth its clever name will pick up an easy 100 points when that same question reopens this year’s contest. Make a note: Francis Scott Key, Mary Pickersgill, Major Armistead, Rebecca Young, Carolyn Pickersgill, and Neighborhood Cat are the six caricatures framed on the wall of the children’s interactive learning room in the Jean and Lillian Hofmeister building of The War of 1812 Museum.