Academics

Category: Academics

Lawrence Receives $2.5 Million Gift to Endow Elementary Education Program

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John and Sally Mielke

The Mielke family’s dedication to improving education in the Fox Cities is legendary.

Three generations of Mielkes have contributed time, talent, passion, vision and philanthropy to growing and sustaining educational programs and organizations that are almost too numerous to count.

Mielkes have taught — and still do — in public schools, trained future nurses and led education policy through extensive school board service. Dr. John and Sally Mielke helped create the Brain to Five initiative, an education series focused on early childhood development, and are among the driving forces behind the collaborative Community Early Learning Center that will launch later this year.

Their legacy grows with a $2.5 million gift from the Mielke Family Foundation in partnership with John, Sally and the Mielke family, to expand Lawrence University’s current teacher education program to include elementary teacher education beginning in the fall of 2015.

In honor of the family’s extraordinary investment in education studies and teacher training, the education program at Lawrence will be named the Mielke Family Department of Education.

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President Mark Burstein

“Lawrence is honored to join the Mielke Family Foundation in this venture,” said Lawrence University president Mark Burstein. “This extraordinary investment will create an innovative educational path for excellent elementary teachers, open new doors for Lawrence students, and underscore the Fox Cities’ reputation as a family-friendly community where education is a shared priority. We are deeply thankful for the Mielke’s continued support of Lawrence.”

“Our family is privileged to call Appleton our hometown, where children are treasured and education is valued, starting at birth,” said John Mielke. “We thank Lawrence for what it adds to the educational community in Appleton.”

Lawrence’s education program currently offers teacher certification in grades 5-12 in computer science, English, math, social studies, and theatre arts and K-12 certification in art, music, foreign language and English as a Second Language. Approximately 10-12 percent of Lawrence graduates complete teacher certification. The teacher education program also is open to graduates of other colleges and universities.

“This extraordinary investment will create an innovative educational path for excellent elementary teachers, open new doors for Lawrence students, and underscore the Fox Cities’ reputation as a family-friendly community where education is a shared priority.”
   — President Mark Burstein

The new offerings in elementary education will increase the reach of Lawrence’s existing teacher education program, whose graduates are highly regarded by the principals in whose schools they work and by the parents of the students they teach. The expansion will feature a distinctive apprenticeship-based program of pre-K-6 teacher preparation.

Based on an emerging best-practice model, students pursuing teacher certification for pre-K-through grade 6 will spend an entire academic year in a local host school under the guidance of a cooperating teacher. As apprentice teachers, the Lawrence students will receive weekly, on-site, subject-specific methods instruction from master teachers.

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Stewart Purkey

“We believe this will become not only a signature program for Lawrence, but also a lighthouse program for Wisconsin,” said Stewart Purkey, the Bee Connell Mielke Professor of Education at Lawrence. “We are exceptionally pleased and proud that the Appleton Area School District has agreed to work with us as a partner in establishing it and we look forward to working closely with the district elementary teachers who will guide and shepherd our students.

“Not only is this wonderful news for Lawrence and our students, many of whom have expressed great interest in teaching elementary school but were not able to do so through our current program, but we think this is also good news for the elementary schools in which our graduates will teach,” Purkey added. “We believe Lawrence’s liberal arts based approach to teacher education is exactly the sort of background that will produce outstanding and effective elementary school teachers.”

Graduates of Lawrence’s present teacher education program have an in-depth major in an academic discipline, the breadth of knowledge gained from taking courses across the liberal arts and sciences and the focused professional knowledge in the art and craft of teaching. This will also be the case for Lawrence students in the elementary education program.

The Mielke Family Department of Education is the latest of numerous educational collaborations between Lawrence and the Mielke Family Foundation. Previously, the foundation has supported:
• the establishment of the Bee Connell Mielke Professor of Education in 1996, the first endowed professorship in the college’s education department.

• the establishment of the Edward F. Mielke Professorship in Ethics, Medicine Science and Society in 1987.

• the Mielke Summer Institute in the Liberal Arts, an initiative launched in 1996 that brings 25 area teachers to Bjorkunden, Lawrence’s northern campus in Door County, for a week-long, for-credit professional development program.

The Mielke Family Foundation was established in 1963 by the late Dr. Edward Mielke and Bee Mielke and later supplemented through bequests from his sisters, Ruth Mielke and Sarah Mielke, 1914 and 1916 Lawrence graduates, respectively.

The foundation received the inaugural Lawrence University Collaboration in Action award in 2010.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2015 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Senior Elizabeth Perry Awarded Fulbright Commission Teaching Appointment in Austria

Hiking boots may seem a bit nontraditional as a college graduation present, but Elizabeth Perry can’t imagine anything she’d appreciate more.

The Lawrence University senior voice performance major from Portage, Mich., will spend the coming year in the midst of the hike-friendly Austrian Alps as the recipient of a United States Teaching Assistantship through the Fulbright Commission in Austria.

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Elizabeth Perry ’14

Beginning in October, Perry will begin an eight-month appointment as an English teaching assistant at two secondary schools in Reutte, a small town in the Tirol region of western Austria.

“I plan to spend plenty of time outdoors in the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived,” said Perry. “My parents have already told me they bought me a pair of hiking boots for graduation. I’ll be completely surrounded by mountains and I’m from the flatlands of the United States, so I plan to put those boots to good use.”

Perry’s teaching appointment will send her back to Austria. She spent the fall term of 2012 in Vienna on an off-campus study program there.

“I went specifically because Vienna’s such a fantastic city for music, art, culture and especially opera, which is what I study,” said Perry, who performed in Lawrence’s 2012 production of Henry Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen.”  “I sort of came back with German. I went in for music and I came back and changed my whole degree to fit German in somehow.”

Although a bit late in her college career, Perry decided to add a minor in German, the official language of Austria, in her fourth year at Lawrence.

“It was the last addition to my degree and the first of it that I completed,” she says proudly.

Perry is no stranger to traveling abroad. She went to Italy for a summer voice program, participated in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland and spent time before her off-campus study program in Vienna began as an au pair in Switzerland.

With no prior formal teaching experience, she sees her appointment as an ideal launching pad to what she hopes will be a career in music education.

“I’ve done a lot of one-on-one teaching and am currently working with three Lawrence students. They don’t study voice, they are just interested in singing. But this will actually be my first official classroom teaching experience,” said Perry, who has sung with one of Lawrence’s three different choirs — concert choir, Cantala women’s choir and Viking Chorale — each of the past five years.

“I definitely model my pedagogy on what I’ve learned from my professors here, and I’d love to teach within a liberal arts environment.”
— Elizabeth Perry

Joanne Bozeman, Perry’s vocal teacher and academic advisor, calls her “a remarkably well-rounded singer.”

“She is truly immersed in the liberal arts with two minors (German and English) in addition to her voice performance degree and interest in singing pedagogy,” said Bozeman.

“With her previous sojourns in Vienna, Italy and Switzerland, she is primed to be an effective English teacher through the Fulbright program.”

The news of her acceptance in the program did put on Perry’s original post-graduation plans on hold. She had been admitted to the vocal pedagogy program at Ohio State University.

“I’ve worked it out and have deferred my admission so that when I return to the United States I’ll study at OSU in the fall of 2015,” said Perry, who will receive her bachelor of music degree Sunday, June 15 at Lawrence’s 165th commencement.

“Someday I would love to teach at Lawrence or a school like Lawrence. I definitely model my pedagogy on what I’ve learned from my professors here. I’d love to teach within a liberal arts environment. I have a feeling I won’t be able to help myself but to bring a little bit of my liberal arts experience into the classroom next year. It’s a tradition I hope to continue throughout my teaching.”

Perry is one of approximately 140 college graduates from the United States selected to  teach in Austria under the auspices of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Women’s Affairs Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship Program, which brings talented young people from abroad into the classrooms of secondary schools in communities large and small throughout Austria.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Pianist Catherine Kautsky Closes 2013-14 Convocation Series

Lawrence University Professor of Music Catherine Kautsky explores the ways composers speak through their music in the college’s annual Honors Convocation.

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Professor of Music Catherine Kautsky

Kautsky presents “Whispered Doubts and Shouted Convictions: What are These Composers Saying?” Thursday, May 29 at 11:10 a.m in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel in the final address of the 2013-14 convocation series. The event is free and open to the public.

The convocation also will be live streamed.

Playing music ranging from John Phillip Sousa’s patriotic “Stars and Stripes Forever” to works filled with question marks, Kautsky will discuss what composers can tell us about their personal convictions, struggles and fallibilities and how they use keys, harmonies and rhythms to convey world views.

The Honors Convocation publicly recognizes students and faculty recipients of awards and prizes for excellence in the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, languages and music as well as demonstrated excellence in athletics and service to others. Students elected to honor societies also will be recognized.

An accomplished pianist, Kautsky was chosen to speak as the recipient of Lawrence’s annual Faculty Convocation Award, which honors a faculty member for distinguished professional work. She is the fifth faculty member so honored.

Chair of Lawrence’s keyboard department, Kautsky has performed throughout the United States and abroad as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra and chamber musician, appearing in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall in New York and Boston’s Jordan Hall to the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Cultural Center in Chicago.

She has traveled widely, performing frequently in France and England and recently has presented concerts and classes in China, Korea, Brazil and South Africa.

She has soloed with the St. Louis Symphony, Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra; performed chamber music at the Aspen, Tanglewood and Grand Teton summer music festivals; and appeared frequently on the radio in Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Madison.

Many of her recent performances have centered around social or literary themes, locating musical masterpieces in their historical moment. She has presented lecture-recitals on the music of the Holocaust, French music and World War I, and Schumann and the writings of ETA Hoffmann. Her repertoire runs the gamut from Bach to Rzewski and Crumb, with a special emphasis on French music and the music of the first Viennese school.

Kautsky, who taught in the Lawrence conservatory of music from 1987-2002 and then returned to the faculty in 2008, holds a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory, a master’s degree from the Juilliard School and a doctoral degree in performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Fulbright Fellows: Four Lawrence Students Awarded Teaching, Research Fellowships

For only the second time in school history, Lawrence University has been awarded four student Fulbright Fellowships in the same year.

Katie Blackburn and Helen Titchener have received fellowships as English teaching assistants in Taiwan and Germany, respectively, while Inanna Craig-Morse and Abigail Wagner received research fellowships in India and Austria, respectively.

Operating in more than 155 countries, the Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.

Since 2008, 21 Lawrence seniors have been named Fulbright Fellows, including four in 2009, the only other time the college has earned that many in one year.

The four Fulbright awards brings to six the number of national awards Lawrence students have received this spring. Anthony Capparelli was awarded a $28,000 Watson Fellowship in March, while junior Zechariah Meunier was named one of 50 national recipients of a $5,000 Udall Scholarship in April.

Katie Blackburn — “Enthusiastic, Intellectually Curious”

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Katie Blackburn ’14

Fluent in Mandarin, Blackburn she will spend 11 months beginning in August as an English teacher working with Taiwanese seventh and eight graders on the island of Kinmen.

This will be her third trip to the Far East for the senior from Brookfield. A linguistics and Chinese language & literature double major, Blackburn spent the 2012 fall term in Beijing on a study-abroad program. She returned to China for seven weeks last year as the recipient of a U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Scholarship for the 2013 Associated Colleges in China Summer Field Studies Program, which provided a peek at China’s education system by working with teachers and students in rural areas.

“I’m looking forward to interacting with the people and learning about this different culture,” Blackburn said of her first visit to Taiwan. “I’m excited about getting to know these people and hopefully make some connections in ways I wasn’t able to on my previous trips to China. This time I’ll have a full year to get to know people.

“On my earlier trips, people would get excited to see people who weren’t Chinese,” Blackburn added. “I’m hoping I can get past the whole ‘You’re white, I want to be friends with you,’ scenario. I’d like to make friends because they actually want to get to know me personally, rather than just because I’m some foreigner.”

Ruth Lunt, associate professor of German and Blackburn’s linguistics advisor, called her “an enthusiastic, intellectually curious student.”

“With her background in linguistics, her passion for Chinese language and culture and her desire to teach Chinese and English as a second language in the future, this Fulbright teaching position in Taiwan is a perfect fit for Katie.”

Helen Titchener  — “Motivated, Intelligent, Mature”

Teaching English as a second language has long been a career interest of Titchener’s. She sees her Fulbright fellowship as the perfect opportunity to give it a test drive.

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Helen Titchener ’14

“I applied for the Fulbright to give myself a chance to see if that’s what I want to do before pursuing graduate school for it,” said Titchener, a German and English double major from Concord, Mass.

Beginning in September, Titchener will spend the 2014-15 academic year as an English language teaching assistant in a “secondary school” (middle and high school) in Berlin, Germany. She previously visited Berlin in the fall of 2012 as part of a study-abroad program.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Titchener also will have a chance to further explore her other passion — opera directing.

“I’ve had a little experience with the opera world through some internships. Germany has some really great opera houses, and you can get really cheap tickets, so I’m hoping to take advantage of that. By the end of my fellowship, I should know if I want to pursue ESL or opera.”

Assistant Professor of German Alison Guenther-Pal hailed Titchener as “simply one of the most motivated, intelligent and mature students I have had in nearly 15 years of university teaching.”

“I am thrilled that Helen has been given the opportunity to participate in the Fulbright Program in Berlin,” said Guenther-Pal. “She will be an outstanding representative both of Lawrence University and the U.S.”

Inanna Craig-Morse — “A Global Citizen”

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Inanna Craig-Morse ’14

Craig-Morse came to admire the women involved in politics she met while in India on an off-campus study program in 2012.

That admiration sparked a research project that will send the senior from Sebastopol, Calif., back to the world’s largest democracy. In addition to her Fulbright research fellowship, she also received a Critical Language Enhancement Award (CLEA).

Beginning in August, she will embark on a nine-month project to expand on previous research she conducted on Indian women’s political efficacy and their power to effectively lead others. Working in Mumbai, much of her research will entail interviewing area leaders, including women in political positions, NGO officials and law enforcement authorities. She also will spend part of her stay studying Marathi, the region’s most widely-spoken language.

“The impetus for this project is why so many of the cultural factors we expect to contribute to women’s political ambitions don’t seem to be present in India,” explained Craig-Morse, a government major. “I want to look at what factors enable women to enter politics and their belief that they have the capacity to lead others. The hope is to better enumerate what factors can promote more women to get involved in politics in the region and beyond.”

This will be Craig-Morse’s third trip to India. As part of a study abroad program in Pune two years ago, she conducted a series of interviews with women in high-profile political positions. She returned last fall for six weeks on a Mellon Foundation-supported Lawrence Senior Experience grant, conducting interviews with members of a women’s Communist Party.

Lawrence government professor Claudena Skran praised Craig-Morse for her “deep commitment to understanding global issues, especially those concerning women in developing societies.”

“Inanna has specialized in comparative politics and international relations,” said Skran. “Her work both on the Lawrence campus and abroad demonstrates her drive and quest for understanding as well as her cultural awareness and role as a global citizen.”

Abigail Wagner — “Stellar Student”

Ever since Wagner spent the fall of 2011 in Vienna on an off-campus study program, she has been determined to return to Austria.

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Abigail Wagner ’14

Beginning in September, the classically trained violist from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., will spend a year in Vienna teaching English and conducting research on Austrian folk music.

“Finding out that I actually get to go back, do research, teach and spend more time with people I’ve come to respect and appreciate, I just can’t describe that feeling,” said Wagner, who earned a bachelor’s degree in viola performance and general/instrumental music education in January.

Wagner will hold an assistant English teacher position at a private school in Vienna that fast tracks students into the business world through a university preparatory-type program.

She also will reconnect with Austrian ethnomusicologist Rudolf Pietsch, who she met on  her study abroad program. When she began her Fulbright application process, she contacted Pietsch to see if they might collaborate on a research project. They came up with a proposal to compare the music of Austrians living in Austria with the folk music of Austrians now living in the United States.

“He has lots of field recordings and some interviews from when he had done some of his doctoral research in the U.S.,” said Wagner. “He has all this material he hasn’t even looked at yet. He thought it would be really helpful and a good project for me to listen to the field recordings and compare them to modern-day Austrian folk music or Austrian folk music of the past and see if there are any similarities.

Professor of Music Matthew Michelic, Wagner’s academic advisor, said her Fulbright fellowship is well-deserved.

“Abby has been a stellar student in both her performing and academic pursuits since day one at Lawrence,” said Michelic. “Her term of study in Vienna opened new avenues of thought and inquiry and I am thrilled this Fulbright grant will allow her to combine her many areas of developing expertise in a unique path of discovery.”

Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, education, and athletics. Forty Fulbright alumni have been awarded the Nobel Prize and 75 alumni have received Pulitzer Prizes.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Senior Brynley Nadziejka’s Research Recognized by Geology Institute

Brynley Nadziejka’s study of metamorphosed igneous rocks relevant to understanding earthquake risk in tectonically active regions earned honorable mention recognition in the student research paper competition at the annual Institute on Lake Superior Geology (ILSG) conference.

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Senior Brynley Nadziejka earned honorable mention recognition at the annual Institute on Lake Superior Geology conference’s student research paper competition.

A senior from Kentwood, Mich., Nadziejka was recognized for her research at the Institute’s recent annual meeting held in Hibbing, Minn. This was the second year in a row Nadziejka was honored by the ILSG. She won the best student poster award in 2013. This was the fourth consecutive year a Lawrence geology student has been recognized at the ILSG’s annual meeting.

Nadziejka was among 33 student presenters from around the country at the annual conference. Amanda van Lankvelt, a 2010 Lawrence graduate currently pursuing a Ph.D. in geology at the University of Massachusetts, won the best paper award this year.

Nadziejka’s research focused on metamorphosed igneous rocks in Wisconsin’s Marinette County. The rocks represent the deep interior of the 1.8 billion-year-old Penokee Mountains, which formed in a tectonic collision when Wisconsin was at the edge of the ancient North American continent.

Micro-scale features on the rocks indicate slow ductile deformation at elevated temperatures and pressures, corresponding to depths of 7-9 miles in the crust. The rocks also contain pseudotachylyte, a glassy-type rock that is formed only by frictional melting during large earthquakes. The evidence reveals that as the mountains were growing, large earthquake ruptures sometimes propagated downward to depths where rocks are typically too warm to fracture.

The ILSG is a non-profit professional society that provides a forum for the exchange of geological ideas and scientific data and promoting better understanding of the geology of the Lake Superior region, whose rocks record more than 2.5 billion years of geologic time, more than half of Earth’s entire history.

The annual meeting draws American and Canadian geologists from academe, industry and state and provincial agencies for four days of presentations and field trips.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Spring Theatre Production Celebrates the Absurd

Lawrence University’s theatre arts department celebrates the theater of the absurd with four performances of its spring production “‘B’Srd Shrts,” a program of four short plays May 15-17 in Stansbury Theatre of the Music-Drama Center.

Performances are 8 p.m. each night with an additional 3 p.m. matinee Saturday, May 17. Tickets, at $10 for adults and $5 for students/seniors, are available through the Lawrence box office, 920-832-6749 or boxoffice@lawrence.edu.

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Freshman Kara Taft, senior Shallion Dixon and sophomore Aiden Campbell rehearse a scene from the Samuel Becket’s “What Where,” one of four tributes to the theater of the absurd in Lawrence’s production “‘B’Srd Shrts.”

The production is an artistic attempt to exploit the world of the absurd through relatively unknown works. Each play, 10-15 minutes long, represents a different era of the theatre of the absurd, a dramatic genre that employs disjointed, repetitious and meaningless dialogue, confusing situations and plots that lack logical development.

Each of the plots are unforgettable: Antonin Artaud’s 1925 “Jet of Blood,” calls for severed limbs to rain from the ceiling. “What Where,” Samuel Beckett’s final play, explores concepts of torture and interrogation. Caryl Churchill’s “This is a Chair” includes politically charged titles  — “The War in Bosnia,” “Genetic Engineering” — to each scene while the action is entirely unrelated to the titles. The fourth play, Johnny Meyer’s “Cryptomnesia,” was specially commissioned by Lawrence as an example of current perspective on absurdist theatre.

Timothy Troy and Kathy Privatt, professor and associate professor of theatre arts, respectively, share directing duties for the production, each overseeing two of the plays.

The inclusion of “Cryptomnesia” in “‘B’Srd Shrts” grew out of a meeting between Troy and Meyer at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. The Austin-based playwright’s “rigorous and playful writing” impressed Troy enough to extend an offer.

“It seemed natural to ask Johnny to write a piece so we could include a current perspective on the century-old absurdist impulse in theatre,” said Troy. Prior to launching a career as a playwright and actor, Meyer served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The production’s unique title was a deliberate choice on the part of the production team. Trying to simplify the complex ideas found within works of absurdist theatre, is “an impossible task” according to senior Ciara Stephenson, the production’s dramaturg.

“How do you simplify the ideas of plays that are simply not capable of being defined?,” said Stephenson. “These playwrights do not intend for the plays to be understood by our definitions of intellectual understanding. The ideas are about discovering self and human instinct.”

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Lawrence Film Festival Showcases Student Projects

From a woman’s struggle within an abusive relationship to a comical personification of a cat, the creative results of 13 budding Lawrence University student filmmakers will be showcased Saturday, April 26 at 4:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema in the second annual Lawrence Student Film Festival. The event is free and open to the public.

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A scene from Peter Emery’s “Dinner for Two.”

The festival features 15 films ranging from as short as one minute to a nine-minute documentary. The festival line-up includes:

• “Dinner for Two” (Peter Emery ’15, 2:00), a woman’s struggle within an abusive relationship.

• “Egg” (Pat Commins ’15, 2:20), a documentary on the not-for-profit organization One Egg Rwanda, which provides small children one egg every day to combat the effects of protein malnutrition.

•  “Nollywood in Sierra Leone” (Kate Siakpere ’14, 9:00), a documentary on Nigerian cinema, the second largest film industry in the world affecting smaller, neighboring African countries.

•  “Cat Man” (Brooks Eaton ’14, 1:00) a comical advertisement about a personification of a cat.

• “I am Not Jeffrey Collins” (Alex Babbitt ’15, 6:29), a post-MySpace existential comedy.

•  “Rabbits – Behind the Scenes” (Peter Emery ’15 4:00), a mockumentary about a director’s attempt to keep his job in a struggling video series.

• “Do the Squirrel: Making ‘Long Live the Squirrels’” (Nathan Lawrence ’15, 6:00), a documentary on the process of creating “Long Live the Squirrels,” a feature-length film shot on the Lawrence campus last fall and scheduled for release later this year.

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A scene from Brooks Eaton’s “Awake in Art.”

• “Awake in Art” (Brooks Eaton ’14, 1:00), a touching, proof-of-concept film made for Mofilm, an advertising competition, about a mother discovering one of her daughter’s talents.

• “Back to Home” (Maisha Rahman ’14, 5:20), a profile of Lawrence Professor of Government Claudena Skran and her commitment to helping foreign students at Lawrence.

• “The Theft” (Reed Robertson ’17, 4:20; Jamie DeMotts ’16, 2:10). Two versions of a crime film assembled from the same raw footage.

The festival also will include the final project films of  Anna Johnson Ryndová’s “Principles of Editing” class, in which students had to make a creative “how to” video,  the idea of which was to describe a particular process in a visually compelling way, using as little dialogue or narration as possible. Each student conceived, directed, shot and edited all the material themselves.

• How To Put On Red Lipstick (Katerina Kimoundri ’15, 2:35)

• How To Bury a Dead Body (Kate Siakpere ’14, 4:00)

• Toast (Alexcia Jellum ’16, 4:10)

• How To Build A Snowskate Obstacle (Evan Flack ’14, 5:00)

• The Dinner (Htee Moo ’15 ,3:40)

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A scene from Evan Flack’s “How To Build A Snowskate Obstacle.”

The films were produced in Lawrence’s film studies program with the assistance of award-winning PBS filmmaker Catherine Tatge, a 1972 Lawrence graduate who is serving as an artist-in-residence, and Ryndová, lecturer of film studies and video editor.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Third Annual Lawrence University Latin America Film Fest Celebrates Contemporary Cinema

Eight award-winning films from the 2013-2014 international festival season, including appearances by directors Juan Andres Arango and Adrián Saba, highlight Lawrence University’s third Latin American and Spanish Film Festival April 9-12.

Latin-Film-Fest-Logo_newsblogEach film, shown in Spanish with English subtitles in the Warch Campus Center cinema, is free and open to the public.

A reception to open the festival will be held Wednesday, April 9 at 7 p.m. and a closing reception will conclude the festival Saturday, April 12 at 7 p.m. Both events will be held in the Mead Witter Room of the Warch Campus Center.

Prior to the film screening on Friday, April 11, a panel discussion with artist-in-residence and award-winning filmmaker Catherine Tatge and student filmmakers will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the cinema.

“I was intent on bringing some of the best and most sought-after films of the year,” said Rosa Tapia, associate professor of Spanish and organizer of the festival. “Most are regional premieres, which means we beat Madison, Milwaukee and even Chicago in many cases. Our audience will be able to enjoy five films Chicagoans will have to wait until the International Film Fest in October to see.”

Tapia noted the two filmmakers who will be visiting the festival directed their countries’ respective entries for the Academy Awards nominations in the Best Foreign Film category.

“I think our audience will be thrilled to meet these two talented artists, as they tell us about their successful films and their craft,” said Tapia.

The festival line-up:
• Wednesday, April 9, 5 p.m., “After Lucia” (Mexico, 2012)
“After Lucia” follows a man’s relationship with his 17-year-old daughter after his wife’s death. Based on a mixture of several real cases, the film was the 2012 winner of the Prize of Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.

German Doctor news blog
A scene from “Wakolda.”

• Wednesday, April 9, 8:30 p.m., “Wakolda (The German Doctor)” (Argentina, 2013)
A family unknowingly lives with a Nazi war criminal. The film was Argentina’s entry for the 2014 Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

• Thursday, April 10, 5 p.m., “La Playa D.C.” (Colombia, 2012)
Tomas, after fleeing Colombia’s Pacific coast during the war, must search for his younger brother after he disappears. The film was Colombia’s entry for the 2014 Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. A Q & A with the film’s director,  Juan Andrés Arango, follows the screening at 6:30 p.m.

• Thursday, April 10, 8:30 p.m. “So Much Water” (Uruguay, 2013)
A divorced Uruguayan man tries to keep his two rebellious children entertained during a rain-sodden vacation. The directorial debut of Ana Guevara, it was awarded Best Debut Film at the 2013 Miami International Film Festival.       

• Friday, April 11, 5 p.m. , “The Cleaner” (Peru, 2012)
A forensic cleaner becomes accountable for an 8-year-old orphan who has been left behind in the middle of an epidemic crisis in Lima. The film was Peru’s entry for the 2014 Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. A Q & A with the film’s director, Adrián Saba, follows the screening at 6:30 p.m.

White Elephant news blog
A scene from “White Elephant.”

• Friday, April 11, 8:30 p.m., “White Elephant” (Argentina, 2012)
Two priests face a variety of problems as they work in a Buenos Aires slum. The film was nominated for Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

• Saturday, April 12, 5 p.m. “Gloria” (Chile, 2013)
Gloria, a free-spirited older woman, faces the realities of her whirlwind relationship with a former naval officer whom she meets out in the clubs. The film was Chile’s entry for the 2014 Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Paulina Garcia won a best actress Golden Bear Award at Berlin’s International Film Festival.

• Saturday, April 12, 8:30 p.m., “Cannibal” (Spain, 2013)
Carlos, a tailor and murderer, only starts to feel remorse and love after meeting Nina. The film won Best Movie, Best Director and Best Script awards at Premios del Cine Andaluz and was nominated for eight Goya Awards, Spain’s version of the Academy Awards.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Multimillion Dollar Gifts Enable Lawrence University to Establish Two New Endowed Professorships

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Amy Abugo Ongiri

Deep-seated appreciation for film and opera has led a pair of Lawrence University alumni and an anonymous donor to establish new endowed professorships at the college. Lawrence requires a minimum of $2.5 million to establish an endowed professorship.

Tom Hurvis, and his wife, Julie, 1960 and 1961 Lawrence graduates, respectively, and the Caerus Foundation, Inc., have established the Jill Beck Professorship in Film Studies in recognition of Lawrence’s 15th president, her service to Lawrence, their love of film and their conviction that student participation in film studies has an important role in a liberal arts education.

In 2011, a $5 million gift from the Hurvises enabled Lawrence to establish the Hurvis Center for Interdisciplinary Film Studies, a facility dedicated to the integration of film production into the Lawrence curriculum.

Motivated by a desire to encourage participation in music and arts at Lawrence, an anonymous donor made a gift to enhance the college’s capacity to provide learning and performance opportunities for students in opera studies while increasing multifaceted collaboration within the curriculum by establishing the endowed director of opera studies position. The Lawrence conservatory, with the support of the theatre arts department, has annually staged an opera production since 1961.

In conjunction with the newly created professorships, Lawrence President Mark Burstein announced the appointment of Amy Abugo Ongiri, currently an associate professor of English at the University of Florida, as the Jill Beck Professor and Director of Film Studies and J. Copeland Woodruff, assistant professor and co-director of opera studies at the University of Memphis, as Director of Opera Studies.

Both Ongri and Woodruff join the faculty with the rank of associate professor. Ongiri’s appointment includes tenure.

“One of the many strengths that a Lawrence education develops is the ability to link a student’s own talent and creativity with performance and presentation, a skill one needs to succeed in the world today,” said Burstein in announcing the appointments. “The addition of Amy Abugo Ongiri and J. Copeland Woodruff significantly enhances our capability in this area both for students interested in film studies and in the conservatory and also in the larger Lawrence student body.

“I want to thank Julie and Tom Hurvis and anonymous members of the Lawrence community for making these two important appointments to our faculty possible,” Burstein added.

Award-winning Educator

Ongiri joined the University of Florida faculty in 2003 after four years at the University of California-Riverside. In 2006, she was recognized with both UF’s Teacher  of the Year Award and  College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teacher of the Year Award.

Her scholarship interests focus on African American literature and culture, film studies, cultural studies, and gender and sexuality studies. She is the author of nearly 20 published journal articles, three dozen conference papers and the 2009 book, “Spectacular Blackness: The Cultural Politics of the Black Power Movement and the Search for a Black Aesthetic.” She spent 2005 in Dakar, Senegal on a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar in African film.

She is a member of the editorial board of the journals American Literature and Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies and serves as a reviewer for the Journal  of African American History and the Journal of American History.

At Florida, Ongiri has taught courses ranging from the history of film and African cinema in a world cinema context to an introduction to Asian American film and video.

Ongiri earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Bryn Mawr College, a master’s degree from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. from Cornell University.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have Amy Ongiri as the first director of film studies,” said Brent Peterson, professor of German, chair of Lawrence’s film studies program and a member of the search committee. “She is an accomplished scholar and dedicated teacher; someone who is there for every last one of her students at a large public university. She will be a terrific asset for Lawrence students. She is also exactly the right person to put together an expanded curriculum for film studies and to shape the program in film making.”

“Amazingly Creative, Innovative”

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J. Copeland Woodruff

Woodruff has taught at the University of Memphis since 2008. He previously has held teaching appointments at The Julliard School, Oberlin College, Temple and Yale universities as well as the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and Germany’s Universität Bamberg. He also has served as a guest instructor with La Musica Lirica in Italy, the Festival of International Opera of the Americas in Brazil and at Bejing University.

He has directed more than 90 opera productions, including the 2013 world premiere of “Raise the Red Lantern” at the Tianqiao Theatre in Bejing, one of three productions in China he has directed. Since 2006, Woodruff has earned four first-place National Opera Association Best Opera Production Awards and was recognized in 2013 with the University of Memphis’ Dean’s Creative Achievement Award.

Woodruff has enjoyed an extended relationship with Boston’s Guerilla Opera, serving as stage director of a new production of “Heart of a Dog” and earning Second Prize in the 2012 American Prize in Opera Performance competition, professional division.

“It is with great excitement that we welcome Copeland Woodruff to Lawrence,” said Brian Pertl, dean of the conservatory of music. “Besides being an amazingly creative, innovative and well-respected opera director and educator, he is also passionate about  the liberal arts and cross-disciplinary collaboration. In short, he will absolutely flourish at Lawrence. We are entering an exciting new era for opera studies at Lawrence and I can’t wait to see how all the possibilities unfold.”

Woodruff attended the University of South Carolina, where he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in vocal performance and also completed extensive master’s level coursework in theatrical design. He earned a master’s degree in stage directing for opera from Indiana University.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

New Wriston Art Center Galleries Exhibition Features “Cosmogony 2.0,” Pop-up Books and Masculine Archetypes

Carol Emmons‘ “Cosmogony 2.0,” a large-scale, site-specific and participatory installation in the Kohler Gallery, is among three new works in the latest Lawrence University Wriston Art Center galleries exhibition opening Friday, March 28. The exhibition runs through May 4.

Shawn-Sheehy_Snapdragon_newsblog
Shawn Sheehy’s “Snapdragon” from “Beyond the 6th Extinction: A Fifth Millennium Bestiary”, 2007. Handmade paper, construction, letterpress printing.

A professor of communication and the arts at UW-Green Bay, Emmons discusses her work in a free presentation Friday, April 4 at 6 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium. A reception with Emmons follows her talk.

“Cosmogony 2.0” highlights Emmons’ interest in how humans negotiate their relation to the world, particularly at the intersections of dualities, including the individual and collective, private and public, past, present and future.

The Hoffmaster Gallery features Chicago-based book artist Shawn Sheehy‘s work “2D. 3D. 4D. 5D?” A specialist in pop-up books with intricate movable parts, handmade paper and handset text, Sheehy draws upon biology, ecology and environmental studies in his art. His books include “Welcome to the NeighborWood: A Pop-Up Book of Animal Architecture,” “A Pop-Up Field Guide to North American Wildflowers” and “Counting on the Marsh.” Sheehy discusses his work in an April 10 lecture at 4:30 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium.

“Man Up! Masculine Archetypes in Visual Art” will be displayed in the Leech Gallery. The exhibition examines archetypes of masculinity as represented in the Wriston Art Gallery’s permanent collection and is presented in conjunction with the Lawrence history course “Reel Men: Masculinity in American Film, 1945-2000.”

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday noon – 4 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays. 920-832-6621 for more information.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.