Lawrence University News

Folk Singer Peter Siegel Performs at Lawrence University Earth Day Festival

Peter Siegel brings his unique brand of politically tinted folk music to the Lawrence University Wriston Art Center amphitheatre Saturday, April 22 with a 3 p.m. concert as part of the college’s eighth annual Earth Day Festival.

The day-long salute to all things environmental begins at 9 a.m. with a group trash clean-up of the north bank of the Fox River. All interested participants are asked to meet at the Wriston Art Center turnaround.

From 11 a.m. -2 p.m., the Main Hall Green will feature a variety of earth-friendly activity and information booths from student and community environmental organizations. A “Bring Your Own Plate & Cup” picnic lunch also be served with Lawrence student groups providing musical entertainment.

Siegel, whose eclectic performances that mix blues, swing and hip hop on the guitar, banjo and mandolin with traditional fiddle tunes have been dubbed “Space Age Vaudeville,” headlines the day’s celebration. In the event of inclement weather, Siegel will perform in Riverview Lounge inside the Lawrence Memorial Union.

A native of suburban New York City, Siegel credits the likes of Pete Seeger, Miles Davis, Run DMC and TV theme songs as musical influences. He first made a name for himself as a member of the Hudson River Valley’s Harmonious Hogchokers, singing original and traditional songs of political and environmental significance.

Siegel is a former grand prize winner of Massachusett’s WRSI singer-songwriter competition. He has performed at festivals and venues throughout the nation, including the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, the New England Folk Festival and the American Festival of Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Wash. During his career, he has opened for Peter Mulvey, Tim O’Brian and Tony Trishka and shared the stage with such performers as Pete Seeger, Tom Chapin and Paul Stookey.

Lawrence University’s Hane Awarded Fulbright Grant to Teach English in Germany

Ben Hane knows with virtual certainty what he will be doing five months from now. He just isn’t sure where he will be doing it.

The Lawrence University senior from East Dundee, Ill., has been named a 2006-07 Fulbright Scholar by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. The fellowship will provide Hane a 10-month opportunity to teach English at the high school and vocational school level somewhere in Germany beginning this September.

“Being a teaching assistant abroad will be great experience,” said Hane, who is expected to graduate in June with a major in both German and history. “I will have an opportunity to live in Germany for close to a year, improving my language skills all the time and getting to know the culture even more.”

While Hane knows he will be heading to Germany, the exact location and school are still to be determined. He indicated a preference to teach in the state of Saxony in the former East Germany, or somewhere in Hesse or Lower Saxony, but the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. State Department, which oversees the Fulbright programs, can assign him to a school anywhere in the country.

“As someone who hopes to pursue teaching as a career, the Fulbright fellowship will provide an incredible classroom experience teaching middle and high school-aged students,” said Hane.

“Having previously worked with several exchange students here at Lawrence, I can honestly say that I really enjoy helping people learn English and understand American culture. As a language assistant in Germany, I’m looking forward to working again with foreign students and hopefully learning much from them as well.”

No stranger to Europe, Hane spent the 2004 Fall Term on the Institute for the International Education of Students study-abroad program in Freiburg, Germany. In addition, he was one of seven students who spent last month’s spring break recess in Berlin, touring the city as part of the German department course “Berlin: Experiencing a Great City.”

The Fulbright Program was created by Congress in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright, who sponsored the legislation, saw it as a step toward building an alternative to armed conflict.

Since its founding, the Fulbright Program has become the U.S. government’s premier scholarship program. It has supported more than 265,000 American students, artists and other professionals opportunities for study, research and international competence in more than 150 countries. Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, CEOs, university presidents, professors and teachers. Thirty-five Fulbright recipients have gone on to earn Nobel Prizes.

Lawrence Symphony Orchestra and Choirs Present a Mozart/Shostakovich Birthday Celebration

The Lawrence University Conservatory of Music will celebrate the 100th birthday of Dmitri Shostakovich and the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in two concert performances on Saturday, April 22 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 23 at 3:00 p.m. The concerts will showcase the talents of the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of David Becker, and the Lawrence University Concert Choir, Women’s Choir, Chorale, and White Heron Chorale, conducted by Richard Bjella. Special guest will be soloist Daniel Cilli.

Titled “A Birthday Celebration,” the concert will feature Shostakovich’s Festive Overture, Op. 96, and The Execution of Stepan Razin, a poem for bass, chorus, and symphony orchestra, with introductory comments by Richard Yatzeck, professor of Russian at Lawrence University. In celebration of Mozart’s birthday, his Requiem, KV 626, will be performed and will include solos by conservatory faculty members Patrice Michaels, soprano, Karen Leigh-Post, mezzo-soprano, Steven Spears, tenor, and John Gates, bass.

Guest artist Daniel Cilli, baritone, has performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood, and with the Utah Symphony and Opera, West Bay Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Amarillo Opera, and Central City Opera. He studied lieder at the Franz Schubert Institute in 2001, and attained performance degrees from Stetson University and New England Conservatory of Music.

Both performances will take place in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Tickets are currently on sale at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, or by phone at 920-832-6749, and are $10 for adults, and $5 for senior citizens and students.

Terri Schiavo’s Brother Discusses his Sister’s Life, Death in Lawrence University Address

The younger brother of Terri Schiavo, whose medical condition launched a lengthy legal battle that captured national attention and generated congressional hearings, discusses his sister’s life in an address at Lawrence University.

Bobby Schindler presents “The Truth About Terri Schiavo: What the Media Didn’t Tell You” Tuesday, April 18 at 4:30 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. The event is free and open to the public.

Schindler will discuss his sister’s life, the struggle his family endured in their attempt to save her life, the secular media’s misrepresentations surrounding Schiavo’s life and death as well as the danger and the frequent misdiagnoses of persistent vegetative state. Schiavo, who suffered severe brain damage as the result of a heart attack in her Florida home in 1990, died at the age of 41 on March 31, 2005 after a feeding tube had been removed two weeks earlier.

Shortly after his sister’s death, Schindler began working full time for the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. The organization, initially founded to help save her life, now provides support to families and persons with disabilities in situations similar to Schiavo’s.

Following her heart attack, Schiavo spent 10 weeks in a coma and was later diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state with little chance of recovery. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, asked the courts in 1998 to remove a gastric feeding tube from his wife, touching off a long and contentious legal fight between Michael Schiavo and Terri’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler.

Both the state government of Florida and the U.S. Congress eventually became involved in the case. On four different occasions, the U.S. Supreme Court denied petitions to review it.

“Satanic Verses” Author Salman Rushdie Speaks at Lawrence University April 20

Celebrated British author Salman Rushdie, whose 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” generated a firestorm of controversy among Islamic fundamentalists, explores the freedom of expression, religion and their relationship to modern society Thursday, April 20 at Lawrence University as part of the college’s convocation series.

Rushdie presents ”A Morning with Salman Rushdie” at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 510 E. College Ave., Appleton. He also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. Both events are free and open to the public.

Rushdie, 58, has established himself as one of the most successful novelists of his generation in part for his thought-provoking examinations of the world’s changing sociopolitical landscape. Hailed as an “author to watch” by literary critic David Wilson after his first novel, 1975’s “Grimus,” Rushdie has written eight novels and a half dozen other works, including the award-wining children’s fairy tale “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” and a collection of short stories entitled “East, West.”

He is arguably best known for “The Satanic Verses,” a complex narrative that has been compared to “A Thousand and One Nights” for its multiple stories-within-a-story approach. Honored with the U.K.’s Whitbread Novel Award and named a finalist for the prestigious Booker McConnell Prize, “The Satanic Verses” was banned in Rushdie’s native India before it was published. It was subsequently deemed sacrilegious by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeni, who issued a “fatwa” — death sentence — against Rushdie in 1989. A reward of nearly $3 million was offered by fundamentalist Muslim groups to have Rushdie killed. The Iranian government eased the fatwa in 1998, although some Islamic groups claim that a fatwa cannot be canceled.

Rushdie’s 1995 novel, “The Moor’s Last Sigh,” another Booker McConnell Prize finalist, took a satirical look at the politics of India and earned a fate similar to “The Satanic Verses.” It, too, was banned by the Indian government.

His follow-up to “Grimus,” 1981’s “Midnight’s Children, won both the Booker McConnell Prize for fiction and the Union Literary Award. His more recent works include “Step Across This Line: Collected Non-Fiction, 1992-2002,” a series of essays, some of which explore his own reaction to the fatwa, as well as reactions of the media and various governments and the novel “Shalimar the Clown,” which was published by Random House last September.

Born in Mumbai (Bombay), India and educated at King’s College at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a degree in history, Rushdie has been recognized with numerous international literary awards. In addition to the Booker Award, the most prestigious award available to British novelists, he’s also been honored with France’s Prix du Leilleur Livre Etranger, the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature, Italy’s Natova Prize, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the London International Writers’ Award.

In 2004, Rushdie was the named the president of The PEN American Center in New York City, the largest of the 141 centers of International PEN, the world’s oldest human rights organization and the oldest international literary organization.

Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium Looks at Maximizing Robotic Planning

The latest research developments to enable robots and other “automated planning agents” to maximize their on-board computational powers will be the focus of a Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium.

Kurt Krebsbach, associate professor of computer science at Lawrence presents, “Planning to Plan: Deliberation Scheduling using GSMDPs,” Thursday, April 13 at 4:15 p.m. in Science Hall Room 102 The lecture is free and open to the public.

With limited computational resources such as time, memory and partial information, robots in realistic (over-constrained) situations are unable to produce the perfect sequence of actions because the “deliberation” required to do so is unavailable. The problem of deliberation is magnified when acting and planning occur concurrently because satisfactory plans must be constructed in time to be executed.

Just as people in the real world are forced to “think about what to think about” all the time, Krebsbach says researchers are turning to meta-planning, or “planning to plan,” to help robots determine which planning activities are worthwhile given the constraints of the situation at hand.

In his presentation, Krebsbach will discuss how the problem of deliberation scheduling is being addressed by “decision-theoretic approaches based on recent advances in Generalized Semi-Markov Decision Processes (GSMDPs).” This first-ever application of GSMDPs to the problem of deliberation scheduling will allow computer scientists to more accurately model domains in which planning and execution are concurrent, plan-improvement actions have uncertain outcomes and durations and events, such as threats, occur randomly.

A specialist in artificial intelligence and automated planning, Krebsbach joined the Lawrence faculty in 2002. A 1985 Lawrence graduate, he earned bachelor’s degrees in both music and mathematics/computer science. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Minnesota.

Utah Philosopher Discusses “Least Worst Death” in Lawrence University Biomedical Ethics Series Lecture

The often virulent arguments for and against the controversial subject of physician-assisted suicide and how each side is relevant to the question of what constitutes “the least worst death” will be examined in the final installment of Lawrence University’s 2005-06 Edward F. Mielke Lecture Series in Biomedical Ethics.

Margaret Battin, distinguished professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of internal medicine, division of medical ethics, at the University of Utah, presents “The Least Worst Death? The Disputes over Physician-Assisted Suicide,” Wednesday, April 12 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

In her address, Battin will challenge both the conventional arguments for physician-assisted suicide — people should have the freedom to do as they want, including dying when and how they wish with the help of a physician and people are entitled to avoid pain and suffering in the face of a terminal illness — as well as those arguments against legalization — that it is intrinsically wrong to kill, that physician-assisted suicide would threaten the integrity of the medical profession and the “slippery slope” notion that it would lead to abuse.

An award-winning writer, Battin is the author, editor or co-editor of 15 books, among them 2005’s “Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die.” She’s also written “The Least Worst Death: Essays in Bioethics on the End of Life,” and “Physician-Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate.” Her current writing projects include a historical sourcebook on ethical issues in suicide and a book on world population growth and reproductive rights.

A member of the University of Utah faculty since 1975, Battin has been recognized with the university’s Distinguished Research Award and the Rosenblatt Prize, Utah’s most prestigious award.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from of Bryn Mawr College and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction-writing and a doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine.

Battin’s appearance is supported by the Edward F. Mielke Lectureship in Ethics in Medicine, Science and Society. The lectureship was established in 1985 by the Mielke Family Foundation in memory of Dr. Edward F. Mielke, a leading member of the Appleton medical community and the founder of the Appleton Medical Center.

U.S. State Department Intelligence Officer Discusses North Korea in Lawrence University International Studies Address

Against a backdrop of rising tensions and distrust between the United States and North Korea, fueled largely by North Korea’s ongoing nuclear weapons program, a U.S. intelligence officer offers an analytical peek inside the strange and secretive East Asian country in the final installment of Lawrence University’s four-part international studies lecture series “Pariah States and Policy Responses.”

John Merrill, chief of the U.S. State Department’s Northeast Asia Division of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, presents “Reading North Korea” Tuesday, April 4 at 7 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

In his talk, Merrill will address the proposition that despite North Korea’s feisty, independent and highly nationalistic nature, the regime of Kim Jong-Il, in its own strange way, actually does want to establish a better relationship with the United States and pursue limited economic reform — so long as it believes it can do so without endangering its own social stability or national security.

Through an examination of North Korean’s history, culture and perceived national interests, Merrill will outline the complicated challenges the United States, others in the region and the international community as a whole face in dealing with North Korea and ending its nuclear program.

Merrill has written widely on foreign policy issues and is the author of numerous journal articles and three books, including 1989’s “Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War,” in which he examines the local backdrop of the war, including large-scale civil unrest, insurgency and border clashes before the North Korean attack in June, 1950.

Appointed chief of the State Department’s Northeast Asia Division, Bureau of Intelligence and Research in 2000, Merrill also holds a professorial lecturer position at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. In addition, he has taught or held research positions at Georgetown University, George Washington University, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Lafayette College, Korea University in Seoul and the University of Delaware.

Merrill has been the recipient of many awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship, the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States Dissertation Award and the Director of Central Intelligence Exceptional Analyst Award.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Boston University, a master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Delaware.

The “Pariah States and Policy Responses” lecture series is sponsored by the Mojmir Povolny Lectureship in International Studies. Named in honor of long-time Lawrence government professor Mojmir Povolny, the lectureship promotes interest and discussion on issues of moral significance and ethical dimensions.

Origins of Ancient Asia Minor Settlers Discussed in Archaeology Lecture at Lawrence University

Yasar Ersoy, assistant professor of archeaology at Turkey’s Bilkent University, will discuss the latest research regarding the origins of the 1st millenium B.C. Ionian settlements of western Asia Minor Monday, April 3 in an Archaeological Institute of America address at Lawrence University.

Ersoy presents the slide-illustrated lecture “Early Iron Age Archaeology and Culture of the Eastern Aegean” at 7:30 p.m. in Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public and includes an informal reception with the speaker following the address.

While previous scholarship suggested the settlements along the western coast of what is now modern Turkey were founded by people from the Athens area of southern Greece, Ersoy says new material evidence points to immigrants more likely arriving from central and northern Greece and even from Troy in northwest Asia Minor.

His presentation will focus on recent archeaological investigations in the ancient cities of Clazomenae, which is near the present-day city of Izmir, Turkey, Ephesos, an important commercial center on the mouth of the Cayster River, considered by scholars to be among the most beautiful cities of the ancient world and Troy, the legendary gateway between Europe and Asia that enjoyed a 4,000-year existence.

A specialist in the Aegean Bronze Age and Greek art and archaeology, Ersoy taught at Ege University in Izmir before joining the faculty at Bilkent in 1997. He is the assistant director of excavations at Clazomenae and is currently working on the stratigraphy and artifactual assemblages of industrial districts of Archaic Clazomenae.

He earned a master’s and doctorate degree in classical archaeology from Bryn Mawr College in 1993.

NYU Philosopher Examines the “Immaterial Soul” in Two Lawrence University Talks

Noted contemporary philosopher and New York University professor Peter Unger will discuss the concept of the immaterial soul in a pair of addresses during a two-day visit to Lawrence University.

Unger presents “Why We Really May Be Immaterial Souls” Wednesday, April 5 at 7 p.m. Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. On Thursday, April 6 Unger will deliver the address “How Immaterial Souls Can Have Free Will” at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall, Room 201. Both events are free and open to the public.

In his first address, Unger will challenge the position held by most contemporary philosophers who believe the concept of a soul is incoherent. He will present the argument that people are more than “just our bodies” and are, in fact, immaterial souls.

Unger’s second talk will address the question of whether people are really free to make choices in their daily lives or if outside forces such as genetic inheritance or environmental factors determine who they are. Building on his first address, Unger will make the case that as immaterial souls, people do have their own free will.

A scholar whose research interests encompass metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and philosophy of mind, Unger has written five books, including “Identity, Consciousness and Value” and “Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence.” His latest tome, “All the Power in the World,” published in December, 2005 by Oxford University Press, is a 670-page “philosophical journey into the nature of reality” that attempts to answer difficult human questions about people and the world.

Unger began his teaching career at the University of Wisconsin in 1965 and has taught in the philosophy department at NYU since 1971. He earned bachelor’s degree at Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. at Oxford University. He was named the recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973.

His appearances are sponsored by the Stevens Lectureship in the Humanities. Established in 1967 by 1906 Lawrence graduates David H. Stevens and his wife, Ruth Davis Stevens, the lectureship brings prominent speakers to campus for public talks in the humanities.