Lawrence University News

Senior Art Major Exhibition Opens May 26 at Wriston Art Center Galleries

Lawrence University senior art majors will showcase their work during an exhibition titled “The Fluid Self: 2006 Senior Art Major Exhibition.” The show will run from May 26 through August 6 in the Leech, Hoffmaster and Kohler galleries of the Wriston Art Center. An opening reception, which is free and open to the public, will be held from 6-8 p.m. May 26 in the Wriston Art Center.

Works in mixed media sculptures and installations, paintings, photography, and prints by Danielle Dahlke, J Forte, Dan Harvey, Maddy Kaudy, Arhia Kohlmoos, Veronica Krysiak, Emily Lambert, Victoria Miller, Randy Mitty, Shelby Peterson, Justine Reimnitz, Cora Schroeder, and Sandi Schwert will be featured.

The Wriston Art Center galleries are open Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays. The galleries are free and open to the public. For more information on the exhibition, please visit www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston or call 920-832-6621.

Minister-Turned-Atheist Discusses Journey to Deconversion in Lawrence University Address

A former minister and Protestant missionary who publicly announced his atheism nine years after his ordination discusses his journey to deconversion and offers a critical analysis of Christianity in an address at Lawrence University.

Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, presents “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist” Wednesday, May 17 at 8 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

The presentation is based on Barker’s 1992 autobiographical book of the same name. His began his ministry as a 15-year old evangelist and he was ordained in 1975. Barker went on to serve as an associate pastor at three different churches and later spent two years in Mexico as a Protestant missionary.

An accomplished pianist, arranger, songwriter and long-time record producer for popular Christian singer Manuel Bonilla, Barker maintained his own touring musical ministry for 17 years. But in 1984, after five years of soul-searching, Barker “lost faith in faith” and openly declared his atheism. He joined the staff of the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation in 1987 and was elected the organization’s co-president in 2004.

Barker has been a frequent talk-show guest, having appeared on “Good Morning, America,” “Oprah” and “Hannity and Colmes,” among others, and speaks regularly at Freethought concerts around the country. In additional to “Losing Faith in Faith,” he has written four other books, including “Just Pretend: A Freethought Book For Children” and “Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide For Young Skeptics.”

Barker’s appearance is sponsored by the student organization LU Forum for Freethought, which promotes critical discussions of contemporary religion, superstition and pseudoscience and their place in and effects on society from scientific, philosophical, historical and governmental perspectives.

ISU Psychologist Explores Reactions to Stigmas in Lawrence University Sci Hall Colloquium

The origins of people’s psychological reactions to social stigmas, once defined by noted sociologist Erving Goffman as “a discrediting difference,” will be the focus of a Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium.

John Pryor, professor of psychology at Illinois State University, shares the latest research on the topic in the address “A Social Cognition Perspective of Stigma” Thursday, May 18 at 4:15 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public.

While traditional social reactions to stigmas — drug abuse, cancer, HIV disease, mental illness, obesity and paraplegia, among others — have typically centered around avoidance of the “bearer of the mark,” research has shown people often hold ambivalent feelings about many stigmas, feeling both sympathy and repulsion. Pryor will discuss social cognition research methods that examine how both negative and positive psychological reactions to stigmas can unfold over a matter of just a few seconds. He also will examine implications for anti-stigma interventions.

A Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society, Pryor spent six years on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame before joining the psychology department at Illinois State in 1985.

He has published numerous scientific studies regarding stigma in the last 20 years and his research related to HIV disease has been funded by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Ford Foundation. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Texas, and a master’s and doctorate degree in psychology from Princeton University.

Nationally Recognized Astronomer Discusses the Big Bang, Dark Energy in Two Lawrence University Talks

Christopher Impey, a Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecturer with the American Astronomical Society, discusses the cosmos in pair of presentations at Lawrence University.

A University Distinguished Professor at the University of Arizona and the deputy head of UA’s astronomy department, Impey traces the journey from a small amount of ultra-dense mass and energy into a universe of 50 billion galaxies in “Cosmic Evolution: From Big Bang to Biology,” Monday, May 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. Featuring music and video, the presentation will include a dozen amazing facts about the universe.

In his second address, Impey will discuss the mysterious forces of “dark energy,” the most abundant substance in the universe — accounting for 70% of its makeup by some estimates — and how it can be studied by using supernovae as “light bulbs” to trace the universe’s changing rate of expansion. His talk “Probing Dark Energy with Quasars” will be held Tuesday, May 16 at 11:10 a.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 115. Both presentations are free and open to the public.

A member of the UA Steward Observatory and astronomy department since 1986, Impey has written two astronomy textbooks, “The Universe Revealed” in 2000 and “Astronomy: The Cosmic Journey” in 1995. He also has authored more than 160 research papers on extragalactic astronomy and cosmology.

Impey served as the associate director of the NASA Arizona Space Grant Program for five years and has had 21 projects approved with the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2002, he was recognized by the National Science Foundation with its Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, the organization’s highest honor for excellence in both teaching and research.

In addition, he has been the recipient of 10 UA teaching awards and grants and was the youngest faculty member there to be named University Distinguished Professor, the university’s highest teaching honor.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of London and holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Edinburgh.

Vegetarian Advocate Speaks at Lawrence University

Pamela Rice, founder and president of the New York City-based VivaVegie Society, discusses reasons for adopting a meatless diet in an address at Lawrence University.

Rice presents “101 Reasons I’m a Vegetarian” Saturday, May 13 at 4 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 202. The event is free and open to the public.

The address is based on Rice’s 2005 book of the same name, in which she details arguments against eating meat from a variety of human health, animal welfare, economic and environmental perspectives. The topics she covers range from animal conditions on factory farms to high incidences of colon cancer and other diseases.

Rice’s book is an expanded version of a self-published pamphlet she began producing and distributing on New York City streets in 1991. The pamphlet has been updated six times since its first printing, with estimates of nearly 200,000 copies in circulation. In addition to directing the VivaVegie Society, Rice is the editor of the organization’s newsletter, The VivaVine, and oversees the Vegetarian Center, a first-of its-kind clearinghouse for information on the vegetarian lifestyle.

Rice’s appearance is sponsored by the LU Vegetarians and Vegans, a student organization that promotes campus awareness and understanding of the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle for moral, environmental, ethical and health reasons.

LU Author Discusses Life of Missionary Doctor in Lawrence University Main Hall Forum

The life and work of Dr. Asahel Grant, among the first Americans to live in the Middle East, will be the focus of a Lawrence University Main Hall Forum.

Author Gordon Taylor, a 1965 Lawrence graduate, presents the slide-illustrated lecture “Dr. Grant and the Christian Tribes of Kurdistan, 1835-44” Wednesday, May 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall, Room 201. The event is free and open to the public.

Taylor will discuss the extraordinary life of Dr. Grant, his mountain milieu and the Kurds and Nestorian Christians among whom he labored. The presentation will include slides of period engravings, contemporary satellite images as well as Gordon’s own photographs of the area.

Grant, a country doctor from upstate New York, and his wife, Judith, set sail from Boston in 1835 to “heal the sick and save the world.” They wound up in Urmia, a town in northwest Iran, where they spent the next eight years among the Nestorian Christians who lived there and in the mountains of Hakkari, across the border in Turkish Kurdistan.

During his stay, Grant experienced a danger-filled life, traversing deserts and glaciers, tending the sick and breaking bread with thieves and murderers. On numerous occasions he narrowly escaped death from drowning, disease and assassination. Within five years he had lost his wife and two daughters to disease. When he died in 1844 at the age of 36, Grant had become a local legend among Muslims, Christians and Jews, who still spoke of him with reverence decades after his death. He is buried in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Taylor, who earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Lawrence, taught English in Turkey following his graduation. His experiences in Hakkari, the remotest province of southeast Turkey, eventually lead him to write a book about the life of Dr. Grant. The result, “Fever and Thirst: A Missionary Doctor Amid the Christian Tribes of Kurdistan” was published last November.

In the course of conducting research for the book, Taylor discovered Grant’s great-great granddaughter, Phoebe Grant, is a 1977 Lawrence graduate.

Singer Ben Kweller Performs May 14 at Lawrence University

Lawrence University’s Student Organization for University Programming (SOUP) welcomes singer and songwriter Ben Kweller to campus on May 14. The concert, which features opening sets by the Lawrence student group Denes and another act to be announced, will take place at 7 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.

Kweller, originally the front man for the band Radish, self-released “Freak Out, It’s Ben Kweller” in 2000. He followed that collection with his 5-track ATO Records debut, “E.P. Phone Home” in 2001.

In 2002, “Sha Sha” was released, which included the very radio-friendly and popular single “Wasted and Ready.” Encompassing anti-folkadelica, indie-punkpop, and soaring ballads, Kweller’s warm, whimsical wordplay, and unstoppable power-pop hooks are in full effect on “Sha Sha.” Recorded in New York City during the summer of 2001, “Sha Sha” sees Kweller backed by, among others, bassist Josh Lattanzi and old friend and drummer from Radish, John Kent. The album pops with the same infectious energy of Kweller’s acoustic performances and home recordings, through fleshed out to feature a more fully realized sonic approach.

The much-anticipated follow-up to “Sha Sha” is Kweller’s “On My Way.” While “On My Way” offers a more consistent sonic vision than its gleefully genre-hopping predecessor, Kweller’s inexorable knack for music diversity continues unabated. Recorded in just three weeks at Sear Sound in New York City, “On My Way” sees Kweller backed by bassist Josh Lattanzi, guitarist Mike Stroud, and drummers Fred Eltringham and John Kent.

Kweller and his band have toured international and throughout the United States, both as headliners and alongside such bands as the Strokes, Kings of Leon, Dave Matthews Band, Dashboard Confessional, Adam Green, and Brendan Benson.

Tickets for Kweller’s concert are $10 for the public and are on sale at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, 420 E. College Ave., Appleton, or by phone at 920-832-6749.

Our Country’s Good to be staged at Lawrence University

The Lawrence University Theatre Arts Department will stage Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker at 8:00 p.m. May 11-13 and at 3:00 p.m. May 14 in Stansbury Theatre, located in the Music-Drama Center, 420 E. College Ave., Appleton.

Late in the 1780s the first fleet of British prison ships, under the command of Arthur Phillip, arrived at Botany Bay, in New South Wales, Australia, and soon settled up the coast at Port Jackson, the site of current-day Sydney. Many of the prisoners had been convicted of minor theft and many of their wardens were military men who fought and lost against the American colonies.

Our Country’s Good begins at the end of the voyage. It traces one of the more remarkable and unusual events of the new settlement, the staging of George Farquhar’s play, The Recruiting Officer, using an all-convict cast. The decision to stage the play is met with opposition and ridicule from various sides, but ends up profoundly changing the lives of all those involved. In acting in Farquhar’s play, the convicts gain a sense of self-worth and community, and discover the redemptive power of art.

Timothy X. Troy, associate professor of theatre arts and J. Thomas and Julie Esch Hurvis Professor of Theatre and Drama, directs this production.

Tickets for Our Country’s Good are $10 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and students. Tickets can be purchased at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, or by phone at 920-832-6749.

Former Death Row Inmate Discusses the U.S. Justice System at Lawrence University

One-time death-row inmate Ron Keine discusses the death penalty and the American justice system in an address at Lawrence University.

Keine presents “A Question of Justice” Thursday, April 27 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

In 1973, while on a motorcycle trip from California to Michigan, Keine and three companions were arrested in Oklahoma for a robbery and charged with the murder of a University of New Mexico student. The body of 26-year-old William Velten was discovered in the foothills outside Albuqurque. He had been shot in the head through his mouth and his chest was slashed with a knife.

Keine and his companions were later convicted largely based on the testimony of a maid from an Albuquerque motel who told police that she saw the bikers torture and kill Velten in a room at the motel. By state law, an automatic death penalty for first-degree murder was imposed. That law was later found to be unconstitutional.

Keine spent 22 months in a 6-by-9-foot cell on death row before another person, Kerry Rodney Lee, who had undergone a religious conversion, came forward and confessed to the Velten murder in 1975, leading police to the murder weapon.

Now in his late 50s, Keine is the only one of the four men wrongfully convicted who is still alive. After being released from prison, Keine returned to his home state of Michigan, got involved in business and at one point served as chairman of the local Republican Party.

Keine’s appearance is sponsored by Students for Leftist Action.

Lawrence University Art Historian Named 2006 Guggenheim Fellow

For the past 10 years, Lawrence University art historian Carol Lawton has been carefully studying the Greek and Roman votive reliefs of lesser-known gods and heroes unearthed in excavations of the Greek Agora, the civic, commercial and religious center of ancient Athens.

Starting this September, Lawton will be able to devote a year’s worth of undivided attention to her ongoing research as a 2006 Guggenheim Fellow.

Professor of art history and holder of the Ottilia Buerger Professorship in Classical Studies, Lawton recently was named one of 187 national recipients of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship by the New York-based foundation. She is the second member of the Lawrence art department in the past 10 years to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Sculptor Todd McGrain was named a recipient in 1996.

Lawton was selected for the $38,000 grant from among nearly 3,000 artists, scholars and scientists who applied. The fellowship will enable her to complete work on her book “Popular Greek Religion and the Votive Reliefs from the Athenian Agora.”

Since undertaking her research, Lawton has studied more than 400 marble reliefs that have been discovered among the excavations of the Agora. Her research focuses on understanding the function and role of sculptural art in ancient Athens.

“These reliefs are dedications created by individuals in request of, or in thanks for, help from deities and heroes,” said Lawton, who spends most of her summers in Greece working on the project. “They are of interest primarily for what they tell us about Athenian popular religion. They were dedicated not so much to the more familiar Olympian deities such as Athena and Apollo, but rather to gods and heroes who were more immediately important and accessible to the people. They tend to honor healing and fertility gods or the heroes and gods who were thought to ensure prosperity.

“I am certainly thrilled as well as very grateful to have been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship,” she added. “This grant will give me the opportunity to dedicate an entire year of uninterrupted work on my project and as any researcher will tell you, that is invaluable.”

Lawton joined the Lawrence art department in 1980 and serves as curator of Lawrence’s Ottilia Buerger Collection of ancient and Byzantine coins. She has previously received research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the J. Paul Getty Trust and is the author of the 1995 book “Attic Document Reliefs of the Classical and Hellenistic Periods” (Oxford University Press).

In 2004, Lawton was recognized with Lawrence’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, becoming the only faculty member to earn all three of the college’s major teaching awards. She was the recipient of the college’s Young Teacher Award in 1982 and the Freshman Studies Teaching Award in 1998. She earned her Ph.D. in art history from Princeton University.

Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded “to men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability” across a wide range of interests, from the natural sciences to the creative arts. Fellow selections are based on the recommendations from hundreds of expert advisors.

Since its founding in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has awarded more than $247 million in fellowships to more than 16,000 individuals, among them Ansel Adams, Martha Graham, Linus Pauling, Aaron Copland and Langston Hughes.