Drawing from a pool of applicants that soared nearly 300 percent from its initial year in 2005, Lawrence University has appointed five more recent Ph.D. or terminal graduate degree recipients to its Lawrence Fellows in the Liberal Arts and Sciences program for the 2006-2007 academic year.
The five new appointments — representing an acceptance rate of less than one percent from among this year’s 616 applicants — brings the number of program fellows in residence at Lawrence University this coming fall to 12. Seven fellows who received two-year appointments last summer in the first year of the postdoctoral fellowship program will return for their second year.
“After a highly successful start-up year, we are eager to take the Lawrence Fellows program to the next level,” said Lawrence University President Jill Beck. “By substantially increasing the number of fellows and expanding our institutional commitment to the program, we hope to further extend its impact at Lawrence as well as beyond our campus.”
This year’s applicants, who represented many of the top-ranked graduate schools and research institutions in the United States and abroad, accounted for nearly a three-fold increase in the number of candidates applying for positions over the program’s first year.
“The dramatic increase in applicants for this program is both gratifying and reaffirming,” said Beck. “In creating the fellowship program, we were convinced that Lawrence University was the perfect place for recent Ph.D.s to gain valuable experience in strong undergraduate teaching. With a firm commitment to traditional liberal education and our unusually high level of individualized instruction, Lawrence is an ideal setting to help launch the next generation of outstanding college professors. The intense competition for these limited appointments certainly suggests that both the candidates and their doctoral advisors are quickly coming to that same realization.”
The scholarly interests of the new Lawrence Fellows reflect a wide breadth of disciplines in the liberal arts and sciences, including economics, psychology, religious studies, anthropology, and studio art. They join existing fellows in biology, music composition, English and women’s studies, philosophy, music history and theory, physics, and theatre arts.
Created in January 2005, the Lawrence Fellows in the Liberal Arts and Sciences program is designed to help bridge the divide between doctoral research at prestigious universities — which is often narrowly focused — and the breadth of perspective that is characteristic of successful undergraduate liberal education. The program provides recent Ph.D. recipients with mentoring relationships, teaching opportunities, and research collaborations to better prepare them for professorial careers at selective liberal arts colleges.
Lawrence Fellows receive two-year appointments with reduced teaching assignments so that they may engage in tutorials and research projects with undergraduate students. Mentoring relationships with senior Lawrence faculty and among the fellows themselves are actively encouraged, as are opportunities for teaching and research collaboration.
In December 2005, Lawrence University was awarded a $100,000 grant by the New York City-based Teagle Foundation to support an assessment study of its new postdoctoral fellows teaching program. Lawrence was one of only five institutions nationally the Teagle Foundation recognized with a grant through its Working Groups in Liberal Education Program, which supports projects designed to generate fresh thinking about how to strengthen liberal education.
Lawrence University, located in Appleton, Wisconsin, is a highly selective undergraduate college of the liberal arts and sciences with a conservatory of music. Founded in 1847 and committed to providing an undergraduate education in the liberal tradition, Lawrence has an enrollment of 1,400 students from 47 states and 51 countries.
New Two-Year Lawrence Fellow Appointments For 2006-2007
Adam Galambos
Ph.D. Economics, University of Minnesota
M.S., Mathematics, University of Minnesota
B.A., Economics and German Language, University of Northern Iowa
Interests: Microeconomic theory; game theory; social choice theory
Placement: Department of Economics
Joshua Hart
Ph.D., Psychology, University of California-Davis
M.A., Psychology, University of California-Davis
B.A., Psychology, Skidmore College
Interests: Mortality anxiety; denial of death; attachment theory
Placement: Department of Psychology
Karen Park Koenig
Ph.D., History of Christianity, University of Chicago
M.A., Religious Studies, University of Chicago
B.A., English, Lawrence University
Interests: The Reformation; early modern Christianity
Placement: Department of Religious Studies
Amy R. Speier
Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh
B.A., Anthropology and English, University of California-Berkeley
Interests: Medical anthropology; health tourism; social anthropology
Placement: Department of Anthropology
Valerie Zimany
MFA, Ceramics, Kanazawa College of Art
BFA, Ceramics, The University of the Arts
Interests: Ceramics; Japanese art
Placement: Department of Art and Art History
Returning Lawrence Fellows (Appointed For 2005-2006)
Daniel G. Barolsky
Ph.D., Music History and Theory, University of Chicago
Interests: Musicology; the relationship between performance and the history and aesthetics of music; music criticism and analysis
Placement: Conservatory of Music
Melanie Boyd
Ph.D., English and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan
Interests: Theories of gender, race, and sexuality; literary criticism; representations of violence and political identity
Placement: Gender Studies Program
Deanna G. Pranke Byrnes
Ph.D., Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Interests: Evolution and speciation of vertebrates; island and tropical ecology; the use of molecular tools in the study of ecology and evolution
Placement: Department of Biology
Jennifer Fitzgerald
Ph.D., Music Composition, Duke University
Interests: Music composition; women and music; discourses of race in music; multimedia collaborations
Placement: Conservatory of Music
Jennifer J. Keefe
Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Aberdeen
Interests: History of philosophy, especially 18th and 19th century; British Idealism; Scottish Philosophy; the relationship between Realism and Idealism
Placement: Department of Philosophy
Joan Marler
Ph.D., Physics, University of California-San Diego
Interests: Low-energy positron atomic physics; ionization of noble gas atoms
Placement: Department of Physics
Annette Thornton
Ph.D., Theatre, University of Colorado-Boulder
Interests: Mime and movement; musical theatre and opera; women’s studies and history
Placement: Department of Theatre Arts
