2010

Year: 2010

LU Panel Discussion Follows Screening of Disney Documentary

A panel of three Lawrence University faculty members and a Sudanese student will lead a discussion of the award-winning documentary film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” Wednesday, Jan. 20 immediately following an 8 p.m. screening of the movie in the Warch Campus Center cinema. Both events are free and open to the public.

Claudena Skran, associate professor of government and Edwin and Ruth West Professor of Economics and Social Science, will moderate the discussion. Joining Skran on the panel will be Judith Sarnecki, professor of French, Alison Guenther Pal, post-doctoral fellow of German and film studies and sophomore Nidal Kram, who grew up in Sudan.

Produced by Abigail Disney, the film chronicles the inspirational story of the courageous women of Liberia, whose efforts played a critical role in bringing an end to a long and bloody civil war (1989-96) and restored peace to the country. The end of the war eventually led to the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as Liberia’s president, the first democratically elected female head of state in Africa.

“Pray the Devil Back to Hell” has collected more than 15 awards since its 2008 release, including the Best Documentary Award at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival and the Social Justice Award for Documentary Film at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Lawrence will recognize Disney with an honorary degree on Thursday, Jan. 28 in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Following the degree presentation, Disney will deliver the convocation “Peace is Loud.”

LU Students Turning Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service into a Day On, Not a Day Off

More than 100 Lawrence University students are expected to take advantage of a day free of classes by participating in various community projects Monday, Jan. 18 as part of 2010’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

Coordinated by Lawrence’s Volunteer and Community Service Center (VCSC), students will volunteer several hours of their time Monday (12:30-3:30 p.m.) with nearly a dozen different programs and agencies in the Fox Cities.

MLK-Day-of-Service-logo-web.gifSome of the volunteer projects include working with Rebuilding Together Fox Valley to paint and clean at Holy Spirit School in Kimberly, helping prepare a meal at the Emergency Shelter of the Fox Valley and assisting the Appleton Housing Authority renovate a duplex.

As many as 30 students will be involved in a diversity activity with students at Appleton’s Richmond Elementary School.

Kristi Hill, Lawrence’s coordinator of internships and volunteer programs said it takes dedicated student leaders and collaborative community agencies to make the MLK Day of Service possible.

“This year we have created strong relationships with 12 community agencies that are hosting a Lawrence AmeriCorps member serving in a volunteer liaison capacity,” said Hill. “This partnership has resulted in some well-planned community projects. Both the Lawrence Volunteer and Community Service Center and the Day of Service are entirely student-led, which speaks volumes of the passion our students have for the Fox Valley community.”

Sophomore Brenda Zuleger, the VCSC’s events coordinator, said the MLK Day of Service “provides a great opportunity for both Lawrence students and the Appleton community to connect and serve the needs of others.”

“Lawrence students learn a little bit more about the service organizations throughout Appleton on their day off from classes while making a difference in someone else’s life. That is truly a phenomenal feeling.”

The Day of Service also includes a volunteer fair coordinated by the VCSC from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center featuring representatives from 40 area agencies and several Lawrence student organizations with a service focus.

A presentation on VCSC summer volunteer opportunity grants will be conducted in the Warch Center’s Kraemer Conference Room from 4-5 p.m. Lawrence seniors J.B. Sivanich, who taught English to academically talented children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds in Bangalore, India; Rebecca Bohl, who served as an intern for the Guatemala Human Rights Commission in Washington D.C.; Sylvie Armstrong, who worked as a dog adoption coordinator for Saving Paws Animal Rescue near Appleton; and Zachary Becker, who worked on the Ramchander Nath Foundation’s prisoner art project in New Delhi, India, will discuss their experiences as 2009 summer volunteer opportunity grant recipients.

The day’s events conclude with the 19th annual community-wide Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel at 6:30 p.m. Rev. Wanda Washington, pastor of Grace United Church of Christ in Milwaukee, will serve as the celebration’s keynote speaker.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service was founded in 1994 to transform the federal holiday honoring King into a national day of community service grounded in the civil rights leader’s teachings of nonviolence and social justice.

The Power of Hope: Milwaukee UCC Pastor Keynote Speaker for 19th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration

Rev. Wanda J. Washington, the first African-American female member of the United Church of Christ to start a new church in Wisconsin, will deliver the keynote address at the 19th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Monday, Jan. 18 at 6:30 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 510 E. College Ave.

The celebration, presented by Lawrence University and Toward Community: Unity in Diversity with the support of numerous organizations, individuals and churches throughout the Fox Valley, is free and open to the public. The Post-Crescent and WFRV-TV CBS 5 are media partners for the event.

The theme for this year’s celebration — “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that” — is drawn from King’s 1963 book “Strength to Love,” a collection of some of his classic sermons on social justice and non-violence.

“Those are more than just words Dr. King delivered, they resonate with me as the true essence of Dr. King and his life’s work,” said Kathy Flores, the chair of the MLK Committee and the intercultural relations coordinator for the city of Appleton. “Dr. King may have died by an act of violence, but he lived by acts of love and light. We hope that Fox Valley residents will join us for the celebration to hear Rev. Washington’s message of love conquering hate as we celebrate Dr. King’s life and are reminded that his legacy lives on through us.”

Pa Lee Moua, Lawrence’s assistant dean of students for multicultural affairs, said King’s message remains vitally relevant today.

“Although history reflects what has been done in the past, it’s still very much a part of our future,” said Moua. “Dr. King’s mission has and will continue to shape our nation and the lives of our children for many generations to come. Individually, it is our responsibility to continue his legacy by serving our community and striving for equality and social justice for all. As a community we need to stand together, lead by example and inspire others to make a difference.”

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Washington, who spent 20 years as a special education teacher working with deaf and blind students in Glen Ellyn, Ill., before pursuing a master’s of divinity degree, will speak on the power of hope, the many positive changes King hoped would occur in the country and the importance of people remaining hopeful in the face of adversity.

After graduating from the Chicago Theological Seminary, Washington served as associate pastor at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ for more than 10 years. In 2006, she moved to Wisconsin and started Grace United Church of Christ in Milwaukee. The church now serves more than 200 members.

Highlighting the evening’s celebration will be the annual presentation by Toward Community of the organization’s Jane LaChapelle McCarty Unity in Diversity Award, which recognizes an area individual who has made great strides in bringing different people in the community together.

The celebration also will feature area students reading their winning essays focused on King’s theme of love triumphing over hate as well as musical performances by the Menasha High School Marching Band and singer Sirgourney Tanner, a Lawrence senior.

A sign language interpreter will be present for the program and a reception for all in attendance will be held following the event.

Tournées Film Festival Returns with Diverse Mix of French Cinema

The annual Tournées Film Festival brings a diverse mix of French cinema to the Lawrence University campus during a month-long screening of five films. The festival is made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture.

Each film — in French with English subtitles — will be shown three times (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) at 7 p.m. in Lawrence’s Warch Campus Center cinema. Admission is $5 at the door. An informal discussion session led by a faculty member of the Lawrence French department follows each Saturday evening screening.

Launched in 1995 by the French-American Cultural Exchange and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the Tournées festival provides colleges and universities access to new French films that are normally only distributed in major cities. This is the fourth straight year Lawrence was awarded a grant to serve as a Tournées film series host institution.

The films and dates are as follows:

• Jan. 14-16 — “The Class” (“Entre les Murs”), 2008, 128 min., Rated PG-13

Based on the best-selling book by real-life teacher François Bégaudeau, the film follows Bégaudeau’s attempts to teach French to a class of multi-ethnic students at a diverse Parisian junior high school. Bégaudeau wrote the screenplay and stars as himself in this unsparing, unsentimental film about a teacher and his students.

• Jan. 21-23 — “A Christmas Tale” (“Un conte de Noël”), 2008, 152 minutes, Not Rated

When mother Junon discovers she has leukemia, the family’s Christmas gathering is spent discussing who will be the most compatible marrow donor. Set in a small city in northern France, this film follows the Vuillard family in an expert depiction of the volatility of family dynamics.

• Jan. 28-30 — “The Secret of the Grain” (“Le graine et le mullet”), 2007, 151 minutes, Not Rated

After Slimane, the patriarch of a large, vivacious North African family, loses his job, he decides to restore an old boat in the harbor into a floating couscous restaurant, relying on the help of his entire family. But the powerful white townspeople hold the bureaucratic keys needed to make Slimane’s dream a reality.

• Feb. 4-6 — “Fear(s) of the Dark” (“Peur(s) du noir”), 2008, 80 minutes, Not Rated (some sexual content and violence)

Six leading graphic artists and cartoonists turn their personal terrors into reality in this nightmarish animated anthology. Narrated by well-known French comedians, the six interlocking stories bring to life fears of the dark, injections, pursuit and more as reality crosses over into the unknown.

• Feb. 11-13 — “Blame it on Fidel!” (“La faute á Fidel!”), 2006, 99 minutes, Not Rated

Nine-year old Anna’s stable life goes awry when her uncle is killed and her parents suddenly become left-wing revolutionaries. Anna struggles to hold on to the comfort she is used to in the midst of these changes, while attempting to make sense of the larger political events that have shaken her life.

International Lecture Series Opens with Examination of Germany 20 Years After Fall of Berlin Wall

Jon Greenwald, a former U.S. foreign service officer and witness to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, opens Lawrence University’s annual Povolny Lecture Series in International Studies Thursday, Jan. 14 with the address “The Unification of Germany: A 20th Anniversary Retrospective.”

The presentation, at 7 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium, is free and open to the public.

Jon-Greenwald_web.jpgStill active in foreign affairs, Greenwald is vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based International Crisis Group, the world’s leading conflict prevention non-governmental organization. He served as head of the U.S. Embassy’s (East) Berlin political section throughout the tumultuous period of the fall of the Wall and Germany’s reunification. He is the author of the 1993 book “Berlin Witness: An American Diplomat’s Chronicle of East Germany’s Revolution.”

In his presentation, Greenwald will share an eyewitness perspective on how and why the Wall fell, explore what Germany is 20 years later and discuss what role it may play today on such issues of concern to the United States as the building of the European Union, the war in Afghanistan and the nuclear crisis with Iran.

The address brings Greenwald back to the Lawrence campus, where he held the college’s Scarff Professorship for the 1998-99 academic year.

During a distinguished diplomatic career Greenwald held embassy and consular posts in Belgrade, Budapest and Madrid in addition to East Berlin, where he supervised the incarceration of Nazi leader Rudolf Hess. In the early 1990s, he served in the Department of State’s Office of Counter-Terrorism, where he devised diplomatic strategies for dealing with Libya, negotiated U.N. sanctions against Mu’ammar Qadhafi for the Pam-Am 103 bombing and led a State Department/CIA/Special Forces response team on a classified counter-terrorism mission during the Gulf War.

The 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.

Lawrence Molecular Biologist Named to Genetics Society of America Board of Directors

Beth De Stasio, professor of biology and Raymond H. Herzog Professor of Science, has been elected to a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the Genetics Society of America.

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In announcing her appointment, the GSA cited De Stasio’s commitment to “training undergraduate students — both majors and non-majors in science — to become more conversant and comfortable in understanding recent advances in biology.”

A 1983 graduate of Lawrence, De Stasio joined the Lawrence faculty in 1992 under the auspices of a $700,000 grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to establish the college’s first program in molecular biology. Her research interests focus on muscle function and the maintenance of nerve function during aging. She was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Fellowship in 2009 to conduct research at the Karolinska Institutet near Stockholm, Sweden.

Founded in 1931, the Genetics Society of America is the professional membership organization for geneticists and science educators. With more than 4,000 members, the GSA works to advance knowledge in the basic mechanisms of inheritance, from the molecular to the population level. It promotes research in genetics and facilitates communication among geneticists worldwide on current and cutting-edge topics in genetics research.

“Mary & Max” Opens Lawrence University Term II Independent Film Series

Lawrence University continues its independent film series with 10-movie line-up during Winter Term. All films are shown at 8 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema, 711 E. Boldt Way, Appleton. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call 920-832-6837.

• January 6 — “Mary & Max” (2009): A claymated tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia and Max, a 44-year old, severely obese man living in New York City.

• January 13 — “Paper Heart” (2009): Charlyne Yi embarks on a quest across America to make a documentary about the one subject she doesn’t fully understand: love.

• January 20 — “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” (2008): Award-winning documentary that chronicles the inspirational story of courageous women of Liberia, whose efforts played a critical role in bringing an end to a long and bloody civil war and restored peace to their shattered country. A panel of Lawrence faculty and students will lead a discussion of some of the issues raised in the film following the screening.

• January 27 — “It Might Get Loud” (2009): A documentary on the electric guitar from the point of view of three significant rock musicians: the Edge (U2), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) and Jack White.

• February 3 — “Food Inc.” (2008): Robert Kenner uncovers the large corporation-controlled underbelly of our nation’s food industry and the effect it has on our country.

• February 10 — “No Impact Man” (2009): A man attempts to eliminate his personal impact on the environment for one year — all while living in Manhattan with his wife and two-year old daughter.

• February 17 — “Fuel” (2008): An award-winning journey through a history and drama of America’s oil use and abuse and the potential of other wide-ranging energy solutions.

• February 24 — “The Cove” (2009): The amazing true story of a covert mission to penetrate a hidden cove in Taiji, Japan, revealing a dark and deadly secret.

• March 3 — “Taking Woodstock” (2009): Interior designer Elliot Tibner moves back home to help save his parents’ hotel and inadvertently plays a role in making the Woodstock music festival the huge event it was.

• March 10 — “Precious Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (2009): Set in 1987 Harlem, the story follows Clareece “Precious” Jones, a 16-year-old overweight, illiterate African-American teen pregnant for the second time by her absent father, who is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes her life can head in a new direction.

Memorial Service Celebrates the Life of Lawrence Professor Bertrand Goldgar

A celebration of the life of Professor of English and John N. Bergstrom Professor of Humanities Bertrand A. Goldgar will be held Jan. 9 at 2 p.m in Stansbury Theatre, 420 E. College Ave., Appleton. Everyone is welcome and a reception will follow in the Music-Drama Center lobby.

Professor Goldgar, the longest-serving full-time member of the faculty in Lawrence history (1957-2009), passed away Oct. 14, 2009 at the age of 81.

Lawrence University Mourns the Passing of Professor Emeritus Richard Long

I write to share with you today the sad news of the death of Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Richard Long. Professor Long passed away Dec. 21, 2009 in Sun City, Ariz., after a lengthy illness. He was 78 years old.

Richard-Long_web.jpg Professor Long joined the Lawrence faculty in 1969 and taught in the mathematics department until his retirement in 1993. Described by colleagues as a quiet, gentle, generous, unassuming person, he was one of the founding fathers of Lawrence’s computer science program, was among the first to teach Lawrence’s statistics course, and was particularly encouraging of mathematics students in the actuarial sciences.

He was respected for his extraordinary patience, support, and nurturing of students as well as his innovative efforts to introduce the application of mathematics across the curriculum. In the 1970s, he established math workshops for Lawrentians and worked with minority students in summer enrichment programs. He was well-known for his extraordinary ability to connect with diverse personalities and nontraditional learners.

Prior to joining the Lawrence faculty, Professor Long taught mathematics for eight years at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and later spent four years in a variety of leadership roles with the Math Association of America, where he oversaw the production of a number of mathematics films.

A native of Dallas, Iowa, he attended Grand View Junior College in Des Moines, Iowa before earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Reed College and his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Washington.

In retirement, he split his time between a cottage on Lake Superior in Marquette, Mich., and Sun City, Ariz., pursuing his many and varied interests, among them bow hunting, golf, genealogy, gem cutting, pottery, and woodworking.

He is survived by his wife, Gretchen; sons Christopher, Albuquerque, N.M., and Timothy, ’83 Appleton; daughters Gillian Phelps, Albuquerque, and Hillary Long Villa, Thousands Oaks, Calif.; and stepchildren Tim Lutey, Christine Lutey, and Phil Lutey, all of Marquette, Mich.

Contributions in Professor Long’s memory can be made to the Hospice of the Valley, 10323 W. Olive Ave., Peoria, AZ 85345.

Sincerely,

David Burrows

LU’s Boyd Featured Guest on SistersTalk Radio Program

Helen-Boyd_web_II.jpgHelen Boyd, lecturer in Lawrence’s gender studies program, will be a guest of Genia Stevens on SistersTalk Radio Wednesday , Jan. 6 at 7 p.m. SistersTalk Radio is an online radio show that focuses on LGBT issues. Boyd is the author of the books “My Husband Betty” and “She’s Not the Man I Married.” Listen to a podcast of the 30-minute interview here.