Press Releases

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University senior Amanda Gessler was named first alternate at the East Central Division of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Young Artists Piano Competition held Saturday, January 27 at Central Michigan University.

Gessler of Harshaw, was this year’s Wisconsin state winner of the MTNA competition and therefore advanced to the recent East Central Division competition. As a first alternate, she will advance to the national finals if the winner is unable to participate.

Gessler is the sixth Lawrence pianist to win the Wisconsin state competition during the past eight years and she placed higher than any previous Wisconsin state representative in this event during the past 10 years. The East Central Division of the MTNA consists of graduate and undergraduate pianists who are state winners from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. This year’s division winner was a graduate student from Indiana University.

The jury for this year’s competition included professors Louis Nagle from the University of Michigan and David Abbott from Albion College.

APPLETON, WIS. — Two Minnesota natives, freshman Sarah Lick of Hopkins and sophomore Leslie Sinak of Rochester return to their home state to perform as part of Lawrence University’s Cantala during a tour of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. The tour is part of Lawrence University’s Focus On: Minneapolis/St. Paul 2007 events, which include a variety of activities throughout the year.

Cantala, Lawrence University’s women’s choir, is made up of 43 students along with a student accompanist. Founded in the fall of 2000, the choir performs a wide range of unique and challenging literature that includes traditional women’s literature, world folk literature, and contemporary works under the direction of Phillip Swan, assistant professor of music at Lawrence University.

Cantala performs three times while in Minnesota including a performance at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 8 at Stillwater High School, 5701 Stillwater Blvd. North, Stillwater. This performance includes the Cantala with Fanfare Brass, a student brass ensemble, in conjunction with Stillwater High School ensembles.

Selections for the performance includes selections from “Ceremony of Carols,” “Regnum Mundi” by Jacob Handl (Gallus), “Kadosh/Benedictius” by Lee R. Kesselman, “Sing a New Song to the Lord” by Paul Basler, “Tantum Ergo” by Corin Overland, and more. This concert features Lawrence students, Andrew Stoll and Ryan Olsen on trumpet, Anna Suechting, horn, Katie Daugherty, trombone, Beth Wiese, tuba, Melody Ng, piano, Nick Anderson, bass, and Kyle Traska, percussion.

On Saturday, February 10, Cantala, Fanfare Brass, and Kathrine Handford, Lawrence University organist perform a concert at 7:30 p.m. at Central Presbyterian Church, 500 Cedar St., St. Paul. The group also performs at the 10:30 a.m. worship service at Central Presbyterian Church on Sunday, February 11.

All concerts are free and open to the public. There are no tickets required.

In addition to the concerts, Cantala gives two private performances for students at Stillwater High School and holds music clinics at Edina High School and Armstrong High School while in Minnesota.

For more information on Focus On events, visit www.lawrence.edu/news/focus_on.

APPLETON, WIS. — During times of crisis throughout America’s history, in order to protect its citizens the government has had to weigh the benefits of national security against the potential harms to liberty, including the use of coercion in interrogation and extended detention. Since the global war on terror was launched following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that “balancing debate” between security and freedom has taken on heightened importance.

Juliette Kayyem, an expert on national security strategy, will provide a historical and legal context to that debate and suggest ways to think about how American democracy might enhance both security and liberty in the years to come Tuesday, Feb. 6 in a Lawrence University convocation.

Kayyem presents “Preserving Liberty in an Age of Terror” at 11:10 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. She also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in Riverview Lounge of the Lawrence Memorial Union. Both events are free and open to the public.

The only Arab-American to hold a state-level homeland security position and one of the few women in the national security world, Kayyem was appointed Massachusetts’ Undersecretary of Homeland Security Jan. 10 by Gov. Deval Patrick. She assumed her duties Jan. 22 in the newly created position, where she will be responsible for coordinating all aspects of Massachusetts’ Statewide Homeland Security Strategy.

Prior to her state appointment, Kayyem had served as a resident scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she taught courses on law, homeland security and national security.

A specialist in the intersection of democracy and counter-terrorism policies, Kayyem was the only woman to serve on the National Commission on Terrorism, a congressionally mandated review of how the government could better prepare for the growing terrorist threat. Chaired by L. Paul Bremer, the commission warned in 2000 that the terrorist threat was real and likely to succeed in America.

She is the co-author of the 2005 book, “Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror,” which examines some of the most difficult legal and ethical challenges posed by the fight against terrorism. In the book, Kayyem stresses the need for clear rules to be drawn so that government conduct both protects the innocent from unreasonable government intrusion and prevents government agents from being made scapegoats after the fact if things go wrong.

Kayyem also served as co-editor of the book “First to Arrive: State and Local Response to Terrorism,” a 2003 collection of essays from first responders, political scientists and historians. The essays examine the operational needs of state and local governments in an age of terrorism and offer practical solutions to the challenges of local and state domestic preparedness.

A contributor to the pages of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post on issues of counterterrorism law and domestic preparedness, Kayyem has appeared as a national security expert for several major news organizations, including National Public Radio, CNN and MSNBC.

Before serving on the National Commission on Terrorism, Kayyem worked as a legal advisor to then Attorney General Janet Reno, assisting with a variety of national security and terrorism cases, including overseeing the government’s review of its classification procedures regarding secret evidence.

She began her legal career as a civil rights trial attorney, litigating cases on behalf of the U.S. Justice Department and also worked on death penalty appeals cases on behalf of Alabama death row inmates. Before going to law school, Kayyem worked as a journalist in South Africa.

A 1995 graduate of Harvard Law School, Kayyem was named a “Hero for our Times” in 2002 by the Boston Phoenix.

APPLETON, WIS. — The Bank of Kaukauna: This One Goes to 11 ran its winning streak to seven straight, easily winning the off-campus title over the weekend in Lawrence University’s 42nd Great Midwest Trivia Contest. Bucky’s Banastitudinal Brevity extended its on-campus dominance, capturing its fifth consecutive title.

The Bank of Kaukauna, which has won nine of the last 11 contests, racked up 1,380 points, finishing comfortably ahead of runner-up The InDeciders (1,295 points) and third-place finishing Six Feet Under (1,190 points). For its winning effort, The Bank was awarded a cardboard box filled with breakable items, which, by tradition, were then broken at the awards ceremony on the steps of the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.

Bucky’s again dominated the on-campus competition, piling up 1,318 points, while Coalition of the Awexome for a Drug-free America was a distant second with 1,184 points and Brokeman O’Heitt, the Irish Mistress of the West Side finished third with 1,054. Bucky’s received a can of Red Bull stuffed with artificial flowers each signed by one of the trivia masters.

A total of 366 questions were asked during the 50-hour contest that ended at midnight Sunday. Twelve on-campus and 66 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 War of 1812 Museum’s Jean and Lillian Hofmeister building, six caricatures are framed on the wall of the children’s interactive learning room. What are their listed names?” The answer was Francis Scott Key, Mary Pickersgill, Major Armistead, Rebecca Young, Carolyn Pickersgill and Neighborhood Cat.

APPLETON, WIS. — Ungoogleable. That’s not a verb, it’s a goal.

Where some dream of fame and fortune, the student master minds behind Lawrence University’s annual Great Midwest Trivia Contest aspire to writing questions to which even the smarty pants Internet can’t provide answers.

That playful push-pull to the obscure and offbeat resumes Friday, Jan. 26 for the 42nd edition of the nation’s longest-running trivia contest, a 50-hour mental marathon dedicated to the most difficult — and least important — questions imaginable.

“The term ‘trivia contest’ is, unfortunately, a hopelessly inadequate label for the kind of madness that emanates from Lawrence University every January,” said James Hall, a senior from Omaha, Neb., who is entrusted with this year’s esteemed title of Grand Trivia Master. “To call this event a trivia contest is like calling the Super Bowl a football game, or calling Elvis Presley a singer, or calling a 1961 Lafite-Rothschild a wine. While technically correct, that description captures none of the mystique, excitement or significance of the weekend.”

Or perhaps more accurately, insignificance. Mix funky music with mountains of minutia, serious sleep deprivation and first-place prizes such as a bathroom scale covered in orange shag carpeting or a big o’ bag of human hair and it becomes obvious the Lawrence trivia contest is anything but a dull weekend.

Beginning at its usual inconsequential start time of 10:00.37 p.m. Friday evening, the first of some 325 weird and wacky questions will be webcast via www.lawrence.edu/sorg/trivia to dozens of on-campus and off-campus teams near and far. Last year 11 on-campus and 62 off-campus teams squared off and hunkered down for the contest. Teams have three minutes to phone in answers worth varying degrees of point values to the WLFM studio phone bank.

Following trivia tradition, Lawrence President Jill Beck will start the insanity by asking the contest’s first question, which, also by tradition, is always the final question of the previous year.

Since its debut in 1966, Lawrence’s Great Midwest Trivia Contest has seen 12 presidents (eight in the White House, four at Lawrence). It has weathered the evolution from reference books and almanacs to the Internet world of information-at-a-computer-mouse click. And it even withstood the loss of its broadcast license (it was sold) when the campus radio station, from where the contest originates, was converted from an over-the-air medium to an all Web-based broadcast format in late 2005.

Despite the sweeping changes, the contest has remained true to its credo for more than four decades

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University has received a $1 million gift from the S & R Pieper Family Foundation in Mequon, Wis., to establish an endowed professorship that will foster and promote the concept of altruistic leadership at the college.

In conjunction with the gift, Lawrence President Jill Beck announced the appointment of Alan Parks, professor of mathematics, as the first holder of the Pieper Family Servant-Leader Professorship, effective July 1, 2007. Parks will have major responsibilities for enhancing Lawrence’s involvement in courses that feature community-based learning.

In appointing Parks to the Pieper Professorship, Beck stated that “Professor Parks will bring energy, thoughtfulness, and wisdom to the important goal of helping our students develop as citizen-leaders. His experience as a respected member of Lawrence’s faculty combined with his deep commitment to the ideals of community engagement makes him uniquely qualified for this position. He will help our students connect their learning in the classroom, laboratory, and studio with a commitment to use that learning effectively and responsibly in the contemporary world.”

The Pieper gift also will provide funding for an extensive assessment plan, including the collection of baseline data, longitudinal assessment and comparison with peer institutions on measures of character, attitudes and behavior related to servant-leadership, altruism, and community service. Parks will coordinate the assessment in conjunction with Bill Skinner, Lawrence’s director of research administration.

The principles behind servant-leadership were articulated by Robert K. Greenleaf (1904-90), a former AT&T executive, teacher, consultant, and essayist. Greenleaf endorsed a practical philosophy that encourages collaboration in decision making, promotes trust and ethical use of power and empowerment, and emphasizes a holistic approach to work and human relations.

In awarding the gift, Richard Pieper, founder and executive director of the foundation, cited Lawrence’s student honor code, a system overseen entirely by students to ensure academic integrity, as a great building block in not only educating honorable individuals, but also for molding citizens capable of honorable conduct in broader society.

The goal of the new Pieper Family Servant-Leader Professorship will be to support and expand existing courses as well as aid in the development of new courses with an integrated academic and community approach to learning.

Parks has taught mathematics and computer science at Lawrence since 1985. He has written text material for three upper-level courses. A member of the American Mathematical Society, Parks’ research interests in applied mathematics include dynamical systems, differential equations, and error correcting codes. He also is interested in the theory of computation and the analysis of computer algorithms.

Parks was recognized in 1987 with Lawrence’s Outstanding Young Teacher award. He earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

APPLETON, WIS. — Wisconsin Reserve Judge Charles B. Schudson will spend part of Winter Term as a Scholar-in-Residence in Lawrence University’s government department, leading a three-part lecture/seminar series and a two-part discussion series for students who are considering attending law school.

Schudson will present three separate lectures under the title “Law and Society — Confrontations in America’s Courts.” The schedule for all three sessions is as follows: a reception at 5:30 p.m. in the Science Hall atrium, a lecture and question-and-answer session from 6:30-7:50 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102 and a movie and post-film discussion led by Schudson in the Wriston Art Center auditorium beginning at 8 p.m.

The first seminar will be held Wednesday, Jan. 24 and will feature the 2001 movie “Bartleby the Scrivener,” a modern adaptation of Herman Melville’s short story of the same name. The discussion following the movie will focus on the topic “The Deviant and the Law: From Scriveners to Sex Predators — Criminals Confront Civil Liberties in America’s Courts.”

Part two of the series on Wednesday, Jan. 31 will feature the film “Absence of Malice,” the critically acclaimed legal drama about investigative reporting and libel. Schudson’s discussion topic afterward will be “The Journalist and the Law: From Lincoln Steffens to Judith Miller — the First Amendment Confronts National Security in America’s Courts.”

The seminar series concludes Wednesday, Feb. 7 with a showing of the 1980 Oscar-nominated short film “A Jury of Her Peers,” which explores issues of women’s victimization and justifiable homicide. Schudson’s follow-up discussion is entitled “The Vulnerable and the Law: From Suffragists to Assault Victims — Women and Children Confront the Good Ol’ Boys in America’s Courts.”

Also during his residency, Schudson will conduct two discussion/luncheon sessions for students interested in attending law school. The first, “So You’re Thinking about Law School: The Study and Practice of Law — the Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” will be held Thursday, Jan. 25 at 11 a.m. in Colman Hall. The second, “So You’re Still Thinking about Law School — Choosing and Applying,” will be conducted Thursday, Feb. 1 at 11 a.m. in the Barber Room.

A Wisconsin native born in Milwaukee, Schudson spent seven years as a state and federal prosecutor (1975-82) before joining the state judiciary. He served as a Wisconsin Circuit Court judge from 1982-92 and the following 12 years as a judge for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. He currently is senior counsel for the Wisconsin law firm von Briesen & Roper, s.c., and teaches trial advocacy as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He also has taught two Lawrence University Bjorklunden seminars.

An advocate for the rights of children, women and the elderly, Schudson is the author of the book “On Trial: America’s Courts and Their Treatment of Sexually Abused Children.” His work on the bench has been recognized with numerous honors, including the U.S. Justice Department’s Award for Superior Performance for his precedent-setting prosecutions of nursing home patient abuses and Medicaid fraud, the Wisconsin Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse Certificate of Special Achievement, the 1998 National Human Rights Leadership Award and the 2000 Foundation for Improvement of Justice Award.

He has served as keynote speaker for conferences throughout the world and has provided expert testimony at congressional committee hearings on child sexual abuse, battered women and the impact of unemployment on children and families. He has been a featured guest on numerous radio and television shows, among them NPR’s “All Things Considered,” PBS’s “The McNeil-Lehrer Report” and “Oprah.”

Schudson earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and a law degree from the UW Law School, where he was on Law Review.

APPLETON, WIS. — Ted Peters, an ordained minister, and Martinez Hewlett, a biochemist-turned-philosopher, examine the scientific and theological aspects of the question “Can You Believe in God and Evolution?” Thursday, Jan. 25 in an address at Lawrence University. The presentation, at 11:10 a.m. in Stansbury Theatre in Lawrence’s Music-Drama Center, is free and open to the public.

Peters and Hewlett are the co-authors of two books on the subject: “Evolution from Creation to New Creation” in 2003 and “Can You Believe in God and Evolution? A Guide for the Perplexed,” which was published in July, 2006.

The power-point presentation will examine the basic science of biological evolution, the social and philosophical “shrink wrapping” that was placed over the science more than 100 years ago as well as the societal responses to both the science and the overlay.

Peters and Hewlett contend that the science is not a challenge to belief. They support theistic evolution in which they take the science of evolution seriously but with an understanding their religious faith is enriched, not challenged, by the advances of science.

A pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Peters has taught systematic theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary since 1978 and served as PLTS’ interim president from mid-2003 until early 2005. He is also a faculty member at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., and is affiliated with the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences as a research scholar.

In addition to his collaborations with Hewlett, Peters also has addressed issues related to science and religion in several other books, including “Science, Theology and Ethics” and “Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom.”

Hewlett, a Roman Catholic, spent 27 years on the faculty at the University of Arizona as a molecular biologist. After retiring in 2003, he closed his research laboratory and turned his attention to teaching and creative writing, focusing on the philosophical aspects of science. He is the author of “Sangre de Cristo: A Novel of Science and Faith,” which has been republished as “Divine Blood.”

His interest in the spiritual aspects of existence led Hewlett to become a lay member of the Dominicans and he currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union.

Peters’ and Hewlett’s appearance is sponsored by the student organization Lawrence Christian Fellowship.

APPLETON, WIS. — Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr discusses the role of the Second Amendment as a core foundation of the Bill of Rights and the importance of self-reliance in preserving one’s life and property against attack from criminals, foreign powers or even a malevolent government in an address at Lawrence University.

Barr presents “The Second Amendment is About More Than Just Guns” Jan. 23 at 7 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public.

The address will examine the current relevance of the right to keep and bear arms as established by the framers of the Constitution and the importance of not turning this responsibility solely over to the government.

A member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 -2003, Barr was dubbed “Mr. Privacy” by New York Times columnist William Safire in recognition of his leadership in privacy matters. While in Congress, Barr served as a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and as vice-chairman of the Government Reform Committee.

Since leaving Congress, Barr has occupied the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the Virginia-based American Conservative Union. He is a board member of the National Rifle Association and serves as the chairman of the organization Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances.

He also works with the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Va., and is a member of The Constitution Project’s Initiative on Liberty and Security, based at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute. From 2003-05, Barr served as a member of the Long Term Strategy Project for Preserving Security and Democratic Norms in the War on Terrorism at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

A former official with the CIA (1971-78), he was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia by President Reagan in 1986 and served as president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation from 1990-91.

Barr is a frequent guest on network and cable news programs and writes a column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He is the author of the 2004 book “The Meaning of Is: The Squandered Impeachment and Wasted Legacy of William Jefferson Clinton,” in which he offers a sharply contrasting perspective on the Clinton administration than the one touted in Clinton’s own memoir.

His appearance is sponsored by the Lawrence University Sportsman’s Club.

APPLETON, WIS. — The theme for the sixth annual Celebration of Black Heritage at Lawrence University is “Legends in the Making…From Black Face to My Face.” The event, which is sponsored by the Black Organization of Students, is set for 6:00 p.m. February 3 in the Buchanan Kiewit Recreation Center gymnasium.

This event replaces Lawrence’s celebration of Kwanzaa. It commemorates African-American history and culture through a dinner and program. The program begins with a welcome by the current president of the Black Organization of Students who will explain what the organization is and what it stands for. The introduction will be followed by several acts including singing, poetry, theatrical duets, dancing, and more.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under. Tickets can be purchased at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, or by phone at 920-832-6749.