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Category: Press Releases

Appleton library hosts screening of documentary film on experiences of African-American students at Lawrence

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Zach Ben-Amots ’16

A documentary film by Lawrence University student Zach Ben-Amots that explores the experiences of African-American students at Lawrence will be shown Thursday, June 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Appleton Public Library. The event is free and open to the public.

The film, “Forgotten History,” grew out of Lawrence’s Civic Life Project, a documentary film class taught by award-winning documentary filmmaker Catherine Tatge ’72, who is serving as an artist-in-residence at Lawrence.

The Civic Life Project was developed by Tatge and her husband, Dominique Lasseur, as an innovative educational tool to challenge each student to learn about civics and democracy in a unique way, discover more about the community in which they reside and find their own individual voice through the creation of a documentary video.

Ben-Amots, a junior from Colorado Springs, Colo., was inspired to make the film after seeing a presentation by former Appleton educator Ron Dunlap, who discussed the needs of African-American students in the Fox Cities.

Ben-Amots decided to focus his film on the experiences of black students at Lawrence, which dates to 1859 when the first black student arrived on campus. The film features interviews with nine African-American alumni who attended Lawrence between 1969 and  2008.

Wanting to learn more about the relationship between Lawrence and the city of Appleton as regards to diversity led Ben-Amots to the Lawrence archives and the Appleton Public Library, where he spent hours poring over microfilm of past Post-Crescent stories.

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African-American students attending Lawrence gathered for a group photo in the 1970s.

The story that emerged from his research was one of students of color living in a predominately white community that is not always as welcoming as it could be to minorities. His interviews with the alumni revealed a wealth of experiences, as well as many of the same hardships.

Following the screening, Amy Ongiri, director of film studies at Lawrence, will facilitate a conversation on the experience of being black at Lawrence and in Appleton.

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Three faculty members honored for teaching, scholarship excellence at Lawrence commencement

Three members of the Lawrence University faculty were recognized for teaching and scholarship excellence Sunday, June 14 at the college’s 166th Commencement.

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Dane Richeson

Dane Richeson, professor of music, received the Award for Excellence in Teaching, which recognizes outstanding performance in the teaching process, including the quest to ensure students reach their full development as individuals, human beings and future leaders of society.

Director of percussion studies, Richeson has established himself as a mentor conversant in the demanding intricacies of both Western classical and world music traditions.

Under this direction, the Lawrence University Percussion Ensemble was recognized with the 2014 Percussive Arts Society’s award for the best World Music Ensemble and was a featured performer at the PAS international convention in Indianapolis last November. In May, Tambo Toké, Lawrence’s Afro-Cuban percussion group, was cited for outstanding performance DownBeat magazine’s annual Student Music Awards competition in the college undergraduate Latin Jazz Ensemble category.

In presenting the award, Provost and Dean of the Faculty David Burrows cited Richeson for his ability “to see in each student the potential for excellence, no matter how undeveloped that potential at first.

“Through encouragement and insistence on high standards, you make that potential grow, and the result is the emergence of an outstanding performer,” said Burrows. “Whether teaching a Bernstein symphony, Brazilian samba, Cuban son or Ewe drumming and dancing, you are clearly an inspiration to us all.”

A versatile percussion virtuoso, Richeson has performed across the United States, Europe and Asia in roles as diverse as solo marimbist, jazz drummer, contemporary chamber and ethnic percussionist. He has played with renowned artists Bobby McFerrin, Gunther Schuller, Lionel Hampton and Dianne Reeves, among others.

“Whether teaching a Bernstein symphony, Brazilian samba, Cuban son or Ewe drumming and dancing, you are clearly an inspiration to us all.”
— Provost David Burrows on Dane Richeson

He has spent time living in Ghana, studying the music and dance of the Ewe people, Matanzas, Cuba, where he studied with the musical director of Los Munequitos de Matanzas, and Salvador, Brazil, studying Bahia drumming traditions.

A member of the Lawrence faculty since 1984, Richeson earned a bachelor of music degree from Ohio State University and a master’s degree from Ithaca College.

Arnold Shober, associate professor of government, received the award for Excellence in Scholarship. Established in 2006, the award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated sustained scholarly excellence for a number of years and whose work exemplifies the ideals of the teacher-scholar.

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Arnold Shober

A specialist in public policy, particularly higher education and K-12 education, as well as local and state government and American political development, Shober joined the faculty in 2006. He is the author of two books, 2010’s “Splintered Accountability: State Governance and Education Reform,” and 2012’s “The Democratic Dilemma of American Education: Out of the Many, One?,” which was praised as a “wonderful and broad overview of the forces shaping American education policy.” He is currently completing a third book that examines the policies and politics surrounding Common Core.

Burrows credited Shober with the ability “to engage in extensive, careful scholarship at an impressive rate that shows every sign of continuing for many decades” in presenting him his award.

“Your focus on education policy is of extreme importance to Lawrence, to the future of the academy and to society in general,” said Burrows. “We all look forward to important contributions for many years to come.”

Shober’s political expertise is called upon frequently by the media. He is a frequent guest on Wisconsin Public Radio and has served as an election night analyst multiple times on one of the local television stations.

“Your focus on education policy is of extreme importance to Lawrence, to the future of the academy and to society in general,” said Burrows. “We all look forward to important contributions for many years to come.”
— Provost David Burrows on Arnold Shober

He earned a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in political science and history from Bradley University and his master’s and doctorate degrees in political science from UW-Madison.

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Sara Ceballos

Sara Ceballos, assistant professor of music, received the Young Teacher Award in recognition of demonstrated excellence in the classroom and the promise of continued growth.

A musicologist whose scholarship focuses on 17th– and 18th-century keyboard music, Ceballos joined the Lawrence faculty in 2008.

In honoring her, Burrows praised Ceballos as “a passionate, knowledgeable and inspiring teacher.”

“You set high standards for the quality of your students’ work and they appreciate the substantial improvements in their abilities that result from your insistence on excellence,” said Burrows. “You have been an effective contributor to Lawrence’s Freshman Studies program, where you have adopted creative techniques for enhancing students’ ability to write. You encourage each student to develop as an individual, creating ideas that are unique and following a distinctive, personal path to scholarship and understanding.”

“You set high standards for the quality of your students’ work and they appreciate the substantial improvements in their abilities that result from your insistence on excellence.”
Provost David Burrows on Sara Ceballos

Ceballos, who teaches classes as diverse as “National Identity and the American Musical,” “Spanish Sacred Music of the Golden Age” and “Music and Power Under the Sun King,” graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Colby College with a bachelor’s degree in music. She also earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in musicology at UCLA.

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Retiring Chinese professor Jane Parish Yang honored for 24 years of service

As a scholar of Chinese language and literature, Jane Parish Yang was instrumental in expanding Lawrence University’s foreign language curriculum when she joined the faculty in 1991.

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Chinese Professor Jane Parish Yang will be honored as a retiring member of the faculty with an honorary master’s degree at Lawrence’s 166th commencement.

But it was her involvement with the long-standing hallmark of a Lawrence education that she considers a highlight of her teaching career.

“I really enjoyed teaching Freshman Studies because you’re working with your colleagues. And the training we do for it is wonderful,” said Yang, who is retiring this month after a 34-year teaching career, including the last 24 years at Lawrence. She will be recognized Sunday, June 14 with professor emeritus status and awarded an honorary master of arts degree, ad eundem, as part of Lawrence’s 166th Commencement Ceremonies on Main Hall green, which will be available via livestream.

“Teaching Einstein dampened my enthusiasm somewhat,” Yang added with a smile of her Freshman Studies experience, “but I loved teaching Shakespeare. We also taught ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ for several years and then had the conservatory perform the opera, which was wonderful. I taught Freshman Studies a total of 10 years and I’m so glad I did it.”

Yang came by her career in Chinese in part by serendipity. After graduating from Grinnell College with a degree in American Studies — she grew up a half block from the Iowa campus, which is also the alma mater of both of her parents, her grandfather and a daughter — Yang participated in a “5th year abroad” program thanks to some left over funds from a long-since discontinued program in China that Grinnell once ran.

“I went to Hong Kong, which was completely by chance,” said Yang. “And then I traveled in India and Europe and when I came back I decided to start studying Chinese.”

She began an intensive Chinese language class at the University of Iowa while pursuing a master’s degree.

“Unfortunately you can’t really learn Chinese in the middle of Iowa, so I went to Taiwan,” said Yang.

After studying Mandarin at Fu Jen Catholic University and Stanford University’s Chinese center, she returned to the states to complete her master’s in Asian Studies at Iowa and earn a Ph.D. in Chinese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Yang split the ensuing decade among teaching appointments at National Taiwan University, Colby and Oberlin colleges and UW-Milwaukee before arriving at Lawrence to help launch its fledgling program in Chinese.Jane-Yang-with-student_newsblog

In addition to sharing her language expertise — Chinese is a four on the four-level scale of difficulty of foreign languages —Yang played a critical role in helping the upstart program gain traction by successfully writing more than $2.1 million in grant proposals. The subsequent funding she helped generate opened up opportunities for students and faculty alike for internships and study trips tours to China and other East Asian countries.

“Directing some of these programs and providing opportunities for field experiences to students as well as faculty was certainly a high point for me,” said Yang, who has led at least 10 student and/or faculty trips to Asia during her tenure at Lawrence and counts Xi’an, China as her favorite destination. “When I came, we were not very internationalized, but I think that’s changed a lot now.”

Yang, who co-founded the Wisconsin Chinese Language Association of Secondary Schools while at Lawrence, points with particular pride to a $1.5 million grant from the Freeman Foundation that supported more than a dozen separate trips abroad between 2001-2005, impacting the campus beyond just the Chinese and Japanese department.

“We were able to take so many people on those trips. I think we took half of the faculty who were here at the time,” said Yang. “The various groupings of students and faculty who went on all those different trips represented so many areas of the college, including the conservatory of music. Our expectations were not that you came back as an expert, but perhaps you could add something about East Asia to a course as some sort of comparison or reference. On that front I think we succeeded.”

“Directing some of these programs and providing opportunities for field experiences to students as well as faculty was certainly a high point for me. When I came, we were not very internationalized, but I think that’s changed a lot now.”
— Jane Yang

With the emergence of China as a world superpower, Yang believes it is imperative Americans understand the role that region of the world will play in the future.

“I don’t think everybody needs to start learning Chinese, but I think everybody should be aware of the importance of East Asia,” said Yang. “We’re going to be dealing with China and all of its relationships with its neighbors for years to come. We need to have a good understanding of Chinese culture.”

An opera lover and an avid swimmer  — she’s less than 80 miles shy of earning her 750-mile t-shirt through the YMCA’s Y Miler program — retirement won’t mean an end to teaching entirely for Yang, who is about to become a bicontinental resident of the planet.  Her husband is the founder of an institute for philosophy for children in Taipei. For the past two years, Yang has split time between Appleton and their home in Taiwan, where she’s been leading an adult reading group, exploring children’s and young adult literature written in English at the institute.

“I’ve been taking the reading group more in the direction of my interests lately, looking at memoirs,” said Yang, who spends spring and summer and part of the fall here, but escapes in the winter to the family retreat in the mountains in Taiwan. “This past winter I did ‘A Room of One’s Own.’ Sometimes we do a bilingual class where we look at the original text but also the Chinese translation. I’ll be there for five weeks later this summer and we’ll study ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ along with the Chinese translation. It’s fun for me because I get to do a little bit of teaching.”

Regarding her formal recognition at this year’s commencement, Yang says she’s looking forward to receiving her new attire, trading her University of Wisconsin regalia for her Lawrence academic hood.

“It has been a privilege to be a faculty member at Lawrence for this long,” she said.

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Lawrence awarding honorary degree to civil rights Freedom Rider James Zwerg

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James Zwerg

Forged by a family-like bond they formed through shared courage, they still often greet each other as “Brother John” and “Brother Jim.”

Appleton native James Zwerg and Congressman John Lewis, who met each other in Nashville, Tenn., as college students and shared a seat on the front of Greyhound bus in 1961 as Freedom Riders, will be reunited Sunday, June 14 at Lawrence University’s 166th Commencement which will be available via livestream.

Lewis and Zwerg, both of whom exhibited extraordinary bravery in the civil rights movement, will be awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree by Lawrence as part of the university’s commencement exercise, which begins at 10:30 a.m. on Main Hall green. Lewis will deliver the 2015 Commencement address.

As a frontline eyewitness to one of the most volatile  chapters in the country’s history of race relations, Zwerg, 75, is concerned with what he sees today as a regression in dealing with today’s race issues.

“I still believe that nonviolence is the answer, but I’m terribly disappointed in seeing the violence and the looting,” said Zwerg in a recent phone interview regarding episodes in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md. “I find that so many youth today are not aware of the sacrifice that their grandparents, and maybe parents, made to make life better. That bond we had within the movement wasn’t based on color. We respected everyone. Each person has a personal worth and should be respected for that. Diversity should be celebrated and it’s not happening today.”

Born in Appleton at a time the 1940 city census listed just one person as “Negro,” the 1958 graduate of Appleton High School (the only public high school in Appleton at the time) became engaged in the civil rights movement as a 21-year-old student. While attending Beloit College, where he had an African-American roommate his freshman year, Zwerg participated in an exchange program that took him to Nashville’s Fisk University, a historically black university.

Shortly after his arrival, he met Lewis and soon became involved with demonstrations against segregation, participating in lunch counter sit-ins and movie theater stand-ins while subjecting himself to repeated verbal abuse and physical assaults. As one of the few white men involved in the peaceful protests, Zwerg often drew targeted abuse as a “n****r lover.”

Zwerg credits Lewis’ own steely resolve for motivating him to get involved.

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A stop in Montgomery, Ala., on a Freedom Ride in 1961 left both John Lewis (left) and James Zwerg bloodied and battered.

“You could see this deep commitment he had to nonviolence,” Zwerg said of his initial contact with John Lewis in a recent interview. “His face was extremely strong. He didn’t talk a lot, but when John spoke, everybody listened. There was just this quiet strength about him.”

In May, 1961, Zwerg was one of 10 student Freedom Riders — and the only white male — to board a bus in Nashville bound for New Orleans. For part of the ride, he shared a seat with Lewis.

On the way, Zwerg was among several students arrested in Birmingham, Ala., where he spent two and a half days in jail. In Montgomery, the Freedom Riders were met at the bus station by an angry mob, armed with bricks, pipes, hammers and chains. One man carried a pitchfork.

“When I volunteered to go, I realized that if anybody was going to get killed, it would probably be me,” Zwerg recalled. “Because they hated the white n****r lover. You were a disgrace to the white race. I had already experienced that in Nashville. I was the traitor. I fully knew and accepted the possibility of my death.”

Zwerg wasn’t killed, but was beaten so badly — a severe concussion, a broken nose, a broken thumb, half his teeth were broken, three cracked vertebrae, numerous cuts and bruises — he spent five days in a hospital.

Photos of a beaten Zwerg ran in national magazines as well as newspapers around the world. His mother, who graduated from Lawrence in 1928, had a nervous breakdown and his father, who attended Lawrence in the 1920s, suffered a heart attack after hearing the news reports of their son’s beating.

“Segregation must be stopped. It must be broke down,” Zwerg said in an interview from his Montgomery hospital bed that was broadcast on the national news. “We’re going on to New Orleans no matter what. We’re dedicated to this. We’ll take hitting. We’ll take beating. We’re willing to accept death.”

“When I volunteered to go, I realized that if anybody was going to get killed, it would probably be me. I was the traitor. I fully knew and accepted the possibility of my death.”
— James Zwerg

The statement galvanized the country, sending participants of all colors and persuasions to the segregated South, ending the Freedom Rides by the end of 1962.

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The bond forged between John Lewis and James Zwerg in the 1960s during the civil rights movement remains strong more than 50 years later. Photo courtesy Greyhound Lines, Inc.

“Spiritually, I was never so alive as I was during that time of the movement,” Zwerg recalled of his experiences in Montgomery. “I bowed my head and prayed. I asked God to be with me, to help me remain nonviolent and to forgive them. I had the most incredible religious experience of my life because I felt a presence. I felt surrounded by love. I was at peace and I knew with certainty that whether I lived or whether I died, it was going to be ok.”

While Zwerg won’t be addressing the graduates at commencement, he says it is important young people get involved with with an issue that resonates with them.

“I don’t think I can say what they should be focused on, that’s up to the individual,” said Zwerg. “Unfortunately a lot of the kids seem to think you have to be involved in something of national scope. It doesn’t have to be a big earth-shattering thing. I don’t care what the issue is, if it’s something you deeply believe in, look around and see if there are others that feel the same way. You could organize or act on your own. Don’t accept that dirty joke, don’t accept that racial slur.”

Zwerg went on to graduate from Beloit College in 1962 and later earned a degree in theology at Garret Theological Seminary. Ordained a minister in the United Church of Christ, he served churches in Wisconsin until 1970 when he moved to Tucson, Ariz., to become minister of the Casas Adobes United Church of Christ.

He left the active pastorate in 1975 and spent the rest of his career in a variety of non-profit community relations positions in Tuscon and in management with IBM.

Today he lives in retirement near the small town of Ramah in northwest New Mexico.

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Civil rights icon John Lewis to deliver Lawrence commencement address June 14

He met Rosa Parks when he was 17 years old. He met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he was 18.

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Congressman John Lewis

He spoke at the 1963 March on Washington when King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

He was beaten as he marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., on the day in 1965 that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

He organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tenn., as a college student and was among the Freedom Riders who helped pave the way for the passage of the historic Voting Rights Act.

He has described himself as “a soldier in a nonviolent army.”

Congressman John Lewis, a genuine American historic figure and living legend in civil rights activism, has spent nearly all of his 75 years of life getting in the way — what he calls “good trouble” — on behalf of social justice.

In the 50th anniversary year of the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Lewis will deliver Lawrence University’s 166th Commencement address Sunday, June 14. He will be joined on stage by another instrumental figure in the  civil rights movement, Appleton native James Zwerg, one of the courageous Freedom Riders of the early 1960s. Both men will be recognized with an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

Commencement exercises begin at 10:30 a.m. on Main Hall green. A live webcast of the commencement ceremony will be available at http://www.livestream.com/lawrenceuniversity.

“Becoming an engaged citizen is one of the central tenets of a liberal arts education and so we are proud to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the passage of The Voting Rights Act of 1965 at this year’s commencement, which provided a path to an essential right for many people in this country,” said President Mark Burstein. “We look forward to welcoming Congressman Lewis back to campus and having Mr. Zwerg represent local participation in the events that led up to the legislative passage of The Act.”

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Congressman Lewis has visited Lawrence twice previously, including 2005, when he delivered the university convocation “Get in the Way.”

This will be the third visit to Lawrence by the son of an Alabama sharecropper who has represented Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District since 1986. Lewis’ first trip to Lawrence came in April 1964 as head field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to speak at a campus-sponsored “Civil Rights Week” event. He returned to campus in February, 2005 to deliver the university convocation “Get in the Way.”

While still in his early 20s, Lewis, whose forehead still bears a scar from Bloody Sunday, already had established himself as a nationally recognized leader in the civil rights movement. His engagement with the  movement included three years (1963-66) as the chair of the SNCC. He later served as the director of the Voter Education Project, helping to add nearly four million minorities to the voter rolls. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Lewis head of ACTION, the federal volunteer agency.

Lewis’ efforts and contributions toward building what he as calls “the beloved community” in America have been recognized with dozens of prestigious awards, among them the 2010 Medal of Freedom, the Martin Luther King Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, the National Education Association’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award and the John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage Award” for lifetime achievement.

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Former Freedom Rider James Zwerg (left) and civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis will be recognized with honorary degrees June 14 at Lawrence’s 166th commencement. Photo courtesy of Beloit College.

A graduate of Fisk University and the American Baptist Theological Seminary, Lewis is the author of “Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change,” which received the 2012 NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Work-Biography and the graphic novel memoir trilogy “March.”

The first volume of “March” reached no. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list and was included on lists of the best books of 2013 by the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The Horn Book Review, Booklist and others.

The trilogy’s second installment, which examines Lewis’ days as a Freedom Rider, was released in January.

Burstein will preside over his second commencement as president. Lawrence is expected to award bachelor degrees to 281 students from 28 states and seven countries during Commencement.

Retiring faculty member, Jane Parish Yang, associate professor, department of Chinese and Japanese, will be recognized for her 24 years of teaching with an honorary master of arts degrees, ad eundem, as part of the graduation ceremonies.

In addition to Lewis, Burstein, Lawrence Board of Trustees Chair Susan Stillman Kane ’72 and senior Mallory Speck from St. Charles, Ill., also will address the graduates.

Prior to Commencement, Lawrence will hold a baccalaureate service Saturday, June 13 at 11 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Julie McQuinn, associate professor of music, presents “Cinderellas and Cyborgs: Ritual, Imagination and Transformation.” The baccalaureate service and commencement exercise are both free and open to the public.

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Outgoing Lawrence University board chair receives surprise honor: $1M scholarship fund named in his honor

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Terry Franke ’68

As parting gifts go, Terry Franke could not have asked for a more meaningful one.

Franke, the outgoing chair of Lawrence University’s Board of Trustees, received a surprise going away present at the board’s recent Spring meeting: The establishment of the Terry and Mary Franke Scholarship Fund, courtesy of a $1 million gift from an anonymous donor given “in recognition of the amazing job he has done in the past four and a half years as the chairman of the Lawrence board.”

The $1 million gift will go toward Lawrence’s focused student scholarship campaign —  “Full Speed to Full Need” — launched last September with a gift of $25 million, the largest in school history. Lawrence alumni and friends since have contributed an additional $21.5 million in matching gifts for a total of $46.5 million toward a goal of $50 million. The funds will be used exclusively for endowed scholarships to help meet students’ demonstrated financial need.

“Terry Franke has led the Lawrence Board of Trustees during a time of immense growth and significant change for the university. I cannot think of a better way to acknowledge his service to his alma mater than this wonderful gift to establish the Terry and Mary Franke Scholarship fund,” said Mark Burstein, university president.

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Susan Stillman Kane ’72

Franke, a 1968 Lawrence graduate, has served on Lawrence’s Board of Trustees for 16 years, including as chair since January, 2011. He spent most of his career at Hewitt Associates, where he was a senior partner. More recently he has served as a senior consultant for Productive Strategies, Inc., a management and marketing consulting firm based in Northfield, Ill.

The end of Franke’s term as chair brings new leadership to the board. Susan Stillman Kane, an Oshkosh native who graduated from Lawrence in 1972, succeeds Franke as chair of the board. She has been a member of the board since 2002. During her tenure she has served in numerous leadership positions. Kane’s mother, Elizabeth Stillman, was a 1933 graduate of Milwaukee-Downer College, which merged with Lawrence College in 1964.

“It is a testament to the strength of the Lawrence community that after Terry’s incredibly successful tenure that the Board is fortunate to have someone as talented as Susie Stillman Kane to assume its leadership as the incoming chair,” said Burstein.

Kane, who resides in Swampscott, Mass., is a long-time dedicated community volunteer.  She spent 23 years on the board, including several years as board president, of the Citizens’ Scholarship Foundation of Marblehead, Inc., which provides scholarships for high school seniors and college students from the community. She also has served as an elected town meeting member in Swampscott.

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Winner by a nose: Lawrence video wins CASE Grand Gold award

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Shea Love ’14 reads her spoken word piece “The Rabbit’s Nose.”

An in-house produced video earned Lawrence University Grand Gold honors — one of only 17 such designations from among a record 3,227 entries — in the 2015 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Circle of Excellence competition.

Lawrence earned the top award in the general information video category for “The Rabbit’s Nose,” a spoken-word piece written and performed by Shea Love ’14 before last year’s commencement for her classmates.

“The Rabbit’s Nose” summarizes Love’s four-year experience at Lawrence, combining video footage, animation, photography and music with video of Love reading her personal, emotional and evocative piece.

Created and edited by Rachel Crowl, web content and new media coordinator at Lawrence, the video provides an authentic glimpse of what it means to be a student and a soon-to-be graduate of Lawrence.

According to the judge’s report, one arbiter said they were “transfixed by the look and sound” of the video.

“Our judging panel unanimously applauded this wonderfully creative offering. That this was an in-house production, with its tiny budget used only for buying the rights to some footage, that impressed us a lot. We saw some big budgets for videos that did not achieve what this did. Kudos!”

Among some of the other institutions in the video category, Lawrence earned top honors over Brown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, University of Southern California and Williams College.

rabbit-nose_newsblogThe international competition honors outstanding work in advancement services, alumni relations, communications, fundraising and marketing at colleges, universities, independent schools and affiliated nonprofits.

This year’s competition featured entries in nearly 100 categories from more than 720 higher education institutions, independent schools and affiliated organizations located worldwide. Winners were selected by peer professionals as well as professionals from outside of education.

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Trailblazer: App leads Lawrence students to finals of national entrepreneurship competition

If Joe Bazydlo has his way, visitors trekking through any of the U.S. National Parks one day soon will have instant access to fascinating information about the park at their fingertips.

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Joe Bazydlo ’16

Thanks to a smartphone app he helped develop — “Trailblazer” — hikers and other trail users will be able to magically add entries to their digital field journal via GPS technology. Each GPS point, or Trailblazer Beacon, once hiked through will unlock preloaded information about the hiker’s immediate environment provided by the people that know the most, the park’s rangers.

“It’s sort of a scavenger hunt,” said Bazydlo, who has spent time as an interpretive ranger at Hawaii’s Haleakala National Park.

Hikers will find themselves on a park-wide scavenger hunt to pass through all Trailblazer Beacons in the park trails and complete all entries in their field journals.

“The whole app works via GPS technology rather than using cell service, so it will work in even the most remote locations.”

The app is designed to be interactive.

“People could also create their own entries. A botanist, for instance, could go to a park, find a colony of a certain plant, save the GPS point on their phone, write a description about it that could be sent to park officials who then could approve or decline the entry,” Bazydlo explained. “Essentially, we want to use Trailblazer to crowd-source every park in the nation. We want to provide a platform for everyone to contribute their unique perspective on the parks.”

With help from Eddie Elizondo and Alex Shabazi, Bazydlo developed “Trailblazer” in Lawrence University’s “In Pursuit of Innovation” course last fall and took the idea all the way to the finals of the 2015 Tiger Launch Competition at Princeton University.

Bazydlo and Elizondo were among 20 finalists from an original pool of more than 250 teams from around the country that submitted 90-second video pitches for the first round of the competition when it began last November.

Bazydlo delivered the team’s four-minute presentation in front of three venture capitalists who served as the competition’s judges. The annual competition is sponsored by Princeton’s Entrepreneurship Club.

Lawrence was one of the only liberal arts college invited to the finals, which included teams from Princeton, Duke, Cal Tech, Clemson and Johns Hopkins universities, among others.

“It was an unbelievable experience…it certainly proved Lawrence students can run with the best of the them.”
— Joe Bazydlo

“I was a kind of shocked, but we certainly were honored to make it that far,” said Bayzdlo, a junior anthropology and Chinese major from Rocky River, Ohio. “There were some student presenters who were completing their MBAs and some who were working full time on their projects.”

The first- and second-place presenters as determined by the judges received funding awards of $10,000 and $5,000, respectively. Although he didn’t get any financial support for Trailblazer, Bazydlo felt the opportunity was priceless.

“It was an unbelievable experience, a great learning experience,” said Bazydlo, who was still tweaking the presentation on the train ride from Newark’s Liberty International Airport to Princeton. “It certainly proved Lawrence students can run with the best of the them. Without a business school, we had to learn everything from the ground up to even go into the project while still being full-time students.”

Adam Galambos, associate professor of economics and one of the drivers behind Lawrence’s innovation and entrepreneurship program, expressed pride in the Trailblazer team’s success.

“Joe and Eddie combined their expertise and worked very hard to pursue an idea they are both passionate about and we’re certainly proud of their success in this year’s Tiger Launch competition,” said Galambos. “I hope their success inspires others to pursue their own innovative and entrepreneurial ideas, whether they are in the realm of social enterprise, commercial ventures or innovation in any field. Our I&E program is here to support those initiatives through relevant courses and events such as LaunchLU, as well as the new I&E club coming this fall.”

The journey from Briggs Hall to the Princeton campus was a major triumph in itself considering the challenges the team encountered along the way, starting with the initial 90-second video pitch.

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Joe Bazydlo hopes his phone app will enhance users visits to the country’s national parks by providing additional information about their immediate environment.

“We shot it at three in the morning the day we were leaving for the end-of-term holiday break,” recalled Bazydlo. “It was not good.”

So “take two” was shot in Bazydlo’s living room back home in Ohio.

“I just propped up my iPad on the fireplace mantle and starting giving our pitch. It was a very awkward video, but we submitted it thinking it’s all about the idea, not the quality of the video.”

The team lived in limbo for nearly three months before finding out on Valentine’s Day weekend they had made the second round.

“Suddenly we realized we were running with the big dogs. We had made the semifinals,” said Bazydlo.

To earn a ticket to Princeton, the team had to survive a Skype interview, conducted by a business school professor from UC-Berkeley. With Elizondo in Chicago on an off-campus study program for the term, that required a three-way conversation.

“That went terrible,” Bazydlo said bluntly. “It was just a slaughterhouse. He was ripping apart every aspect of our plan.”

Despite their own poor self-assessment of the interview, to their complete surprise two weeks later they learned they made the top 20 and should start packing for a paid trip to Princeton.

“We were probably the most unusual team there, a combination of a computer science major and an anthropology major, neither with any business background,” said Bazydlo. “We had no idea we’d make it to be among the top 20.”

As for the next step for Trailblazer, Bazydlo says some additional tweaking is in the works.

“Right now we are still trying to perfect the app so that we can create a positive and impactful change in the way young people interact with our national parks. It will take a lot of outside learning, but we are so grateful to have the support of everyone at Lawrence and we are excited to see where Trailblazer will take us.”

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Ben Meunier awarded Gilman International Scholarship to study Arabic in Jordan

Sophomore Ben Meunier has been awarded a prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

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Ben Meunier ’17

Meunier, an anthropology major from Marshall, was one of 850 undergraduates nationally selected for the scholarship from among 2,700 applicants. The award will support studies abroad this fall (Aug. 23-Dec. 17) on the Middle East and Arabic Language Studies program in Amman, Jordan.

Administered by the Associated Colleges of the Midwest in partnership with AMIDEAST, the program immerses students in Arabic as well as the history and culture of the region.

Meunier, who his completing his first year of studying Arabic at Lawrence, sees the language skills as critical to his future plans.

“I expect to journey to the Middle East regularly during my professional career,” said Meunier, whose older brother Zechariah, a senior at Lawrence, received a Gilman International Scholarship in 2013. “I aspire to be a biblical archaeologist and learning Arabic is a necessary step if I hope to attain the fullest understanding of the region. Arabic, like Hebrew, is a Semitic language and this connection will only further help me study the Hebrew peoples.”

Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000 to apply towards their study abroad program costs. The program’s mission is to diversify the students who study abroad and the countries and regions where they go.

Lawrence Anthropology Professor Peter Peregrine said the Gilman Scholarship provides a perfect opportunity for Meunier to combine his Christian faith with his broader interests in the Abrahamic religions.

“Ben’s planned work in Jordan will allow him to develop his Arabic language skills while pursuing a greater understanding of Islam,” said Peregrine, Meunier’s academic advisor. “I have developed a great respect for Ben. He has not allowed his deep Christian beliefs to keep him from trying to understand and appreciate other faiths. He has used his interest in the Abrahamic religions to strengthen his understanding of his own Christian beliefs.”

Amman-Jorda_newsblogGilman Scholars have opportunities to gain a better understanding of other cultures, countries, languages and economies, which prepares them to be leaders in an increasingly global economy and interconnected world.

“I am looking forward to the whole experience,” said Meunier, who will live with a host family while on the program. “I am very excited about the homestay because I will be directly immersed in the culture of the Middle East. I am also looking forward to meeting my fellow classmates and living as a Middle Eastern college student.

“As an anthropology major, this program will be ideal, providing me firsthand experience in the field,” he added. “I also will be able explore some of my personal interests in religion, and the influx of refugees from Syria and other neighboring countries has created an anthropological research topic of great interest. Jordan truly is the perfect location for me.”

Administered by the Institute of International Education, the program is named in honor of Benjamin Gilman, who represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1973-2003. According to Gilman, a strong advocate of studying abroad programs, the scholarship “provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Michael Mizrahi and NOW Ensemble release third album, “Dreamfall”

NOW Ensemble, an eclectic chamber ensemble co-founded by Lawrence University Professor of Music and pianist Michael Mizrahi, released its latest album, “Dreamfall,” May 27 on New Amsterdam Records.

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NOW Ensemble features electric guitarist Mark Dancigers, flutist Alexandra Sopp, bassist Logan Coale, clarinetist Sara Budde and pianist Michael Mizrahi.

The ensemble’s third full-length album in the past 10 years, “Dreamfall” explores vibrant new sonic possibilities while featuring several new commissioned works by some of today’s leading young composers, including Andrea Mazzariello, Scott Smallwood and John Supko.

Mizrahi launched NOW Ensemble in 2004 with a vision of creating new chamber music for the 21st century. With its unique instrumentation — flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass and piano — the ensemble provides a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, reflecting the musical influences and diverse backgrounds of its members.

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.” Engaged learning, the development of multiple interests and community outreach are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.