Lawrence University News

Works of Unheralded Civil War Poets Discussed in Lawrence University Address

Lawrence University scholar Faith Barrett examines the diverse cross-section of American poetry produced during the American Civil War and the role that poetry played in defining new versions of American identity in the aftermath of the war in an address at Lawrence.

Barrett, an assistant professor of English at Lawrence, presents “Drums Off the Phantom Battlement: American Poets and the Civil War,” Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 4 p.m.in the Wriston Art Center auditorium on the Lawrence campus.

The address is the third and final in the lecture series held in conjunction with the traveling national exhibition, “Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation,” which is on display in the Lawrence library until March 5. Both the lecture and the exhibition are free and open to the public.

While Civil War-era poetry has been largely neglected by most American literature scholars who have traditionally limited their focus to a few select poets such as Walt Whitman or Herman Melville, writers who explicitly addressed the war in some of their work, Barrett argues the Civil War produced an extraordinarily rich and interesting body of poetry, including works by women, African Americans and poets who chose not to publish.

In her address, Barrett will discuss and share works from some of the less well-known writers of that era, including Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt, a Kentucky-born poet who moved North at the start of the war, George Moses Horton, an African American poet who published two volumes of poems while he was a slave in North Carolina and Obadiah Ethelbert Baker, who wrote several volumes of journals and poetry while serving in the Second Iowa Cavalry. She will examine both the political differences that divided these writers and the ways in which poetry served as a vital political function of the day.

Barrett, who joined the Lawrence English department in 2003, is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology “To Fight Aloud, Is Very Brave: American Poetry of the Civil War” (University of Massachusetts Press). The author of the 2001 poetry chapbook, “Invisible Axis,” Barrett earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the University of California-Berkeley.

Celebrated! Lawrence University’s Annual Spring Festival Ending

For the first time in nearly 30 years, Lawrence University will not host its annual Celebrate! spring festival of the arts.

Citing a growing student interest in other campus events in the spring along with the increasing difficulty in recruiting Lawrence students to serve as volunteers to plan and work the festival, the student committee charged with organizing Celebrate! has decided to cancel the event. Diminishing attendance in recent years was also a factor in the decision.

“We’re extremely proud of the fact we’ve been able to host a community-wide event of this scope and quality for all these years,” said Paul Shrode, associate dean of students for activities at Lawrence. “But for a variety of reasons, students have gradually shifted their attention away from Celebrate! in recent years and have put their energies and interests into other activities. From its inception, Celebrate! has been a student-initiated and student-organized campus event and we respect their decision to focus on other activities that they believe better serve the current interests of the student body.”

Celebrate! planning committee chair Sandra Marks, a Lawrence junior, observed that while the festival has undergone many changes through its history, “The past few years have been particularly challenging with the advent of the mid-term reading period (an academic period that coincides with Celebrate! designed to allow students concentrated time to focus on their coursework), poor weather, the increase and growth in other campus spring events and competition from other area festivals and fairs.”

“Planning for Celebrate! 2004 began in the fall of 2003, with meetings centered around changing the festival to meet the interests voiced by students through a survey,” added Marks. “Unfortunately, with limited student involvement, lost revenues and in the face of declining community support, it proved difficult if not impossible to continue the event.”

Celebrate! began in 1975 as a successor to the Renaissance Fair, a campus event that featured students dressed in Elizabethan costume. Traditionally held on the Saturday before Mother’s Day each May, Celebrate! offered a variety of live musical entertainment, dozens of arts and crafts booths, activities for children and an assortment of food vendors. At its peak, as many as 25,000 people and more would roam the Lawrence campus during the day-long festival, but in recent years attendance had fallen to about 7,500.

In recent years other student-organized spring events, including the Earth Day festival, which has taken on a broader family-oriented theme, and Shack-a-thon, a fund-raising event that seeks to raise awareness of the plight of the homeless with proceeds going to the local Habitat for Humanity chapter, have grown in scope and student interest.

“While it is regrettable in many ways, Celebrate! is a campus tradition that has simply run its course,” said Shrode. “While Celebrate! is no longer, I want to reassure the Fox Valley community that Lawrence will continue its involvement in other local events that utilize the campus such as Art-off-the-Park and Octoberfest.”

Lawrence University V-Day to perform Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues

V-Day Lawrence University, now in its third year, is pleased to announce that Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues will be performed again this year, on Friday and Saturday, February 13th and 14th, 2004 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, February 15th at 5:30 p.m. in Harper Hall, a theatre in the university’s Music-Drama Center (420 E. College Avenue). Tickets are $5.00 for students, $8.00 for adults and may be purchased in advance through the Lawrence University Box Office (920-832-6749) or at the door. Through the production, V-Day hopes to generate awareness, raise funds to end violence against women, as well as provide a night of entertainment.

Sophomore Alissa Melczer, originally from Evanston, IL, makes her directing debut at Lawrence University with this year’s Vagina Monologues production. “I want to make the show a more universal representation of femininity,” says Melczer. In addition to the work of the actresses, this year’s show will incorporate a variety of pieces of art by members of the Lawrence community.

Proceeds from the production will go to several charities, around the Fox Cities, the United States, and the world. The primary recipient this year will be the Fox Valley Sexual Assault Crisis Center, with additional proceeds going to Men Can Stop Rape and the community of Juarez, Mexico, where over three hundred women have been abducted, abused or murdered over the past few years. “Violence against women is a widespread problem,” Lawrence V-Day President Sadie Weber states. “We hope that our efforts will not only increase awareness among the Lawrence community, but in the Fox Valley area as well.”

Lawrence University Theatre to present Goldini’s Il Campiello

The Lawrence University Theatre Arts Department is pleased to announce its presentation of Carlo Goldini’s 18th Century comedy, Il Campiello. The performances will take place on February 19-21 at 8:00 p.m. and February 22nd at 3:00 p.m. All four performances will take place in Cloak Theatre, a black box theatre in the university’s Music-Drama Center (420 E. College Avenue). Tickets are $10.00 for adults and $5.00 for students and seniors, and may be purchased through the Lawrence University Box Office at 920-832-6749.

Set in Venice, Il Campiello, which may be translated as “little square,” tells the story of three young women along with two of their mothers who wish to marry. The play follows a commedia dell’arte form, using primarily stock characters, and was originally an improvised performance based on an outline of action. Lawrence University Conservatory of Music student Ben Klein, originally from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, composed the music for the production.

Lawrence University Main Hall Forum Discusses Issues of National Identity in Latin America

Lawrence University associate professor of Spanish and Italian Patricia Vilches examines issues of national and cultural identity in a Lawrence Main Hall Forum.

Vilches presents “Is it Your Border or Mine,” Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall, Room 201. The event is free and open to the public.

Vilches will discuss examples of modern Latin American cinema and literature that deal with physical as well as metaphysical border issues and the cultural identity issues that can ensue. Included in her discussion will be a look at “borders” that result when people return to a country after many years away, such as Chileans who lived in the United States during General Augusto Pinochet’s regime then returned to Chile after the dictatorship ended. Among the works Vilches will examine are the films “El jardin del Eden” by Maria Novaro and “El Norte” by Gregory Navas and the book “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez.

A specialist in Latin American culture and literature, Vilches joined the Lawrence faculty in 2000. She earned her doctorate in romance languages and literatures at the University of Chicago.

“Keys to Prosperity,” Lawrence University celebrates Black Heritage

Lawrence University commemorates African-American History and Culture with its 3rd Annual program entitled “Keys to Prosperity.” The event, which replaced Lawrence’s celebration of Kwanzaa, will be held on Saturday, February 7, 2004 in the Buchanan Kiewitt Recreation Center on the Lawrence campus. Doors open at 5:00 pm with dinner and the program starting at 5:30. Tickets are available from the Lawrence University Box Office (920-832-6749) for $10 for adults and $4 for children under 12, and $12.00 for adults at the door.

This year’s program will feature a meat or vegetarian entrée and will feature student presentations of dramatic scenes and special guest speaker Mr. James Harris, a motivational and cultural speaker from Milwaukee, WI. Rod Bradley, Assistant Dean of Students for Multicultural Affairs and advisor to Lawrence’s Black Organization of Students says, “The program will be based on some of the ‘keys’ that have helped black culture achieve various levels of prosperity.”

Lawrence University Names Jill Beck College’s 15th President

Jill Beck, former dean of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California, Irvine and current director of the da Vinci Research Center for Learning Through the Arts at UCI, Friday (1/23/04) was named the 15th president of Lawrence University.

Beck will succeed Richard Warch, who is retiring June 30. Warch is completing a 25-year tenure, the second-longest presidency in Lawrence history. He is currently the longest-serving college president in Wisconsin and, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, one of only 20 sitting presidents in the country who have achieved the 25-year mark or beyond. Beck, 54, will assume office July 1 as the first woman president in Lawrence’s 158-year history.

“I am delighted and honored for the opportunity to carry on Lawrence University’s well-earned reputation as one of the country’s finest liberal arts colleges,” said Beck. “Lawrence is unique in having achieved excellence in both the performing arts and the liberal arts and sciences, and in finding a way to properly balance each.

“Former Lawrence president Henry Wriston noted that ‘Only when the intellect and the emotions work together can a satisfactory result be achieved.’ It will be a privilege to offer leadership to the Lawrence community in working toward that goal, of providing learning experiences that develop all of our human capabilities.”

Jeffrey D. Riester, chair of the Lawrence University Board of Trustees, cited Beck’s breadth of academic, administrative and fundraising leadership as well as her passionate commitment to the liberal arts among the attributes that made her a compelling candidate.

“We set out to find the best person in the country to lead Lawrence University into its future and we had the extraordinary good fortune to discover Jill Beck,” said Riester, a 1970 Lawrence graduate.

Robert Buchanan, who served as chair of a 15-person committee consisting of trustees, faculty members, representatives of the student body, alumni and administrative staff which conducted an extensive national search, said Beck was the unanimous recommendation of the search committee.

“Dr. Beck has compiled an impressive record of academic excellence. She has a demonstrated track record of finding creative management solutions to complex issues and an inclusive style of problem-solving that superbly qualifies her to be an outstanding president of Lawrence University,” said Buchanan, a 1962 Lawrence graduate. “Add to this an articulate, warm, engaging personality and it becomes clear we have found an exceptional leader for Lawrence.”

Classicist Daniel Taylor, who also served on the search committee, said Beck stood out among a strong field of candidates early in the process.

“Jill Beck emerged immediately as a candidate in whom we were obviously going to be seriously interested. The more we learned about her, the more interested we became,” said Taylor, Hiram A. Jones Professor of Classics and a 1963 Lawrence graduate. “She’s a genuine renaissance woman as her lengthy career accomplishments attest.

“Moreover, she’s a born leader,” Taylor added. “She seems to be surrounded by an aura of creativity and what is most impressive, she inspires creative thinking in those around her. She describes her own undergraduate liberal arts education as life transforming and that’s exactly what a Lawrence education is intended to be. What I like best about her vision of the academic world, however, is that she deems what we do in the liberal arts as noble.”

An award-winning administrator and a nationally recognized arts innovator, Beck founded the ArtsBridge America program in 1996 and established the da Vinci Research Center for Learning Through the Arts in 2001 during her tenure (1995-2003) as UCI’s dean of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts. She currently serves as director of both programs and holds the rank of full professor in UCI’s department of dance.

Beck has earned numerous honors for her leadership of ArtsBridge America, a national model for the advancement of educational arts partnerships between universities and K-12 communities. Under her direction, the outreach program has grown from just seven students in 1996 to nearly 1,000 university students at 17 institutions in California and eight other states, providing experientially-based arts instruction to school children in urban and low-income areas.

In 1998 the ArtsBridge America program was recognized with a national dissemination award from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and has received several other awards for its work with schools and communities.

During her eight years as dean of the School of the Arts, Beck also established four $1,000,000 endowed professorships, directed a $22 million capital campaign, increased undergraduate applications to the arts department by 70% over a four-year period and created ArtsWeek, an annual visual and performing arts festival that showcases the research and creative work of faculty and students.

In 2002, Beck was awarded the UCI Medal, the university’s highest honor, in recognition of her “visionary leadership in building community.” She received the Disney Corporation’s Jack Linquist Award for Innovation in 2000 for her work with ArtsBridge and its creative approach to social problems and the American Red Cross’ Clara Barton Award for humanitarian service in the arts that same year. The Orange County Department of Education honored Beck last year with its Outstanding Contributions to Education Award.

A native of Worcester, Mass., Beck earned a bachelor of arts degree cum laude in philosophy and art history at Clark University in 1970 and a master of arts degree in history and music from McGill University in 1976. She earned her doctorate in theatre history and criticism in 1984 from City University of New York.

A passionate advocate of interdisciplinary arts education, Beck has written broadly on issues of arts education, as well as directed ballet and modern dance repertory extensively. Fluent in French, Beck has lived in Canada, France and Australia and traveled broadly throughout Europe and Asia.

During her career, Beck has been the assistant director of the dance division at The Julliard School and was the chair of the dance department at City College of New York, Connecticut College and Southern Methodist University before being appointed dean at UCI. Irvine is the fourth-largest campus of the University of California system with 23,000 students and 1,300 faculty members. UCI was ranked among the top 50 best national universities by U.S. News & World Report in its 2004 “America’s Best College’s” guide.

Beck is married to Robert Beck, a professor of education at UCI.

Noted Bioethicst Discusses Lifestyle Impact of Genetic Information in Lawrence University Address

Glenn McGee, one of the country’s best-known and most often-quoted bioethicists, examines the ways genetic information may soon be used in radically new ways at home, at work and at leisure in a Edward F. Mielke Lecture Series in Biomedical Ethics address at Lawrence University.

McGee, the associate director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, presents “The User’s Guide to Having a Genome: Why Genetics Will Change Who You Marry, What Kind of Life You Have, or How You Make Most of Your Decisions,” Wednesday, Jan 28 at 7 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium on the Lawrence campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The author of the 2003 book, “Beyond Genetics: Putting the Power of DNA to Work in Your Life,” McGee envisions a world in the not-too-distant future where individuals will be able to do genetic testing at home with a device no bigger than a palm pilot and genetic manipulation will permit the creation of custom wonder drugs, engineered foods and even designer babies.

McGee cautions, however, that many important questions — who will own the knowledge gained from our genes, who will help us interpret the information and, perhaps the most basic of all, are these new genetic advances even desireable — need to be addressed before that technology is unleashed.

A specialist in ethical, legal, economic and social issues in biotechnology and biomedical sciences, especially reproductive genetics, stem cells and genomics, McGee is also the author of the 1997 book, “The Perfect Baby: Parenthood in the New World of Cloning and Genetics,” which has become the country’s best-selling book on genetics on parenthood. He also edited the book, “The Human Cloning Debate,” which offers arguments for and against cloning from scientific, philosophical and religious perspectives.

McGee, who earned his Ph.D. in 1994 from Vanderbilt University, where he served as the coordinator of the program in ethics and genetics. He joined the Bioethics Center at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995.

Lawrence University Trivia Contest: The Mount Everest of Useless Information

Who would ever have guessed something so silly would have such staying power?

Since 1966, the Lawrence University Midwest Trivia Contest has been turning thousands of minutia mavens into guessers — intelligent and otherwise — with its annual 50-hour salute to the obscure and inconsequential.

Lawrence’s 39th edition of its test of useless knowledge hits the airwaves of WLFM (91.1 FM) at 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 23 and runs through midnight, Jan. 25. In addition to being broadcast on WLFM, the entire contest will also be webcast at www.lawrence.edu/sorg/wlfm. Untold hundreds — thousands??? — representing more than 50 off-campus teams and a half-dozen or more on-campus squads will match wits over questions ranging from the Minnesota state muffin (blueberry) to which U.S. president once played Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello (Ulysses S. Grant). All in the name of fun.

Bill Martin, an “adolescent fortysomething” will be competing in his 30th trivia contest this year. He’ll throw out the welcome to his Appleton home for upwards of 40 friends and relatives who will arrive from as far away as Chicago and Dubuque, Iowa, to spend all or at least parts of the weekend engaged in matters of unimportance.

“It’s a real pain in the butt to get ready for every year and you wonder why you do it, but afterwards, when it’s all done, you say, ‘that’s why you do it,'” said Martin. “It’s really an excuse to get together with people you haven’t seen much in the past year and have a great time.”

While Martin can boast of a being a one-time trivia champion — his 1976 team, “Hungry Chuck Biscuit” earned the first-place prize, a salt block — he says these days it is more about camaraderie than it is competition.

“Play trivia…have fun, that’s our philosophy,” Martin said. “Playing the trivia contest is like climbing Mount Everest. You play because it’s there.”

Martin’s contest history includes a mix of tradition and not. He always cooks a turkey the weekend before the contest and turns it into turkey soup — “trivia fuel” as he proudly calls it — to keep his teammates nourished. And “really, really, really cheap beer” is a contest staple. But where some teams are beholden to a team name or slight variation thereof, Martin relies on last minute brainstorming to produce a calling card, the likes of which have included “Mental Floss,” “Bored of the Rings” and “Dumber than Ditch Carp.”

Much like Martin, John Brogan’s trivia baptism started out innocently enough in the mid-1990s, gradually evolving into a great excuse for a party.

“When our team started, most of us were sophomores in college,” said Kaukauna native Brogan, now a law clerk for the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. “But as we’ve all started to assume, or avoid in some cases, the responsibilities of getting older, our chances to get together have become fewer and fewer. Trivia is one of the few times a year that I can convince all of my eclectic friends, and their friends, to spend some time together.”

Don’t be fooled, though. Brogan’s collective Bank of Kaukauna braintrust isn’t sitting around waxing nostalgic all weekend. He’s assembled the equivalent of a cyborg trivia terminator, winning three straight off-campus titles and five of the past seven. And it doesn’t appear they will be surrendering their crown without a fight anytime soon.

In turning his parents’ home into trivia headquarters for the weekend, Brogan is expecting some 50 team members from eight states armed with 30 computers, seven land lines and more than 25 cell phones poised to defend their 2003 title.

“Our real strength is the people on this team, which includes four doctoral candidates in a variety of fields, computer gurus, opera singers, medical students, economists, philosophers, photographers, psychologists, bakers, junior high students and more lawyers than you can shake a stick at,” said Brogan.

The Lawrence trivia contest has produced more than its share of unexpected events and memorable moments over the years, including an on-air wedding proposal by one of the contest’s male trivia master’s (she said “yes” and they were married in 2002). This year’s grand trivia master, senior Phred Beattie of Klamath Falls, Ore., said that is what makes the contest so much fun.

“Everything we don’t plan, usually happens,” said Beattie.

What kind of zaniness will occur over the course of this year’s contest is a tougher question to answer than any actually asked during its 50 hours. One certainty, though, will be Lawrence President Rik Warch upholding tradition by once again kick-starting the fun. He’ll ask the first question — which is always the last question of the previous year’s contest — at exactly 37 seconds past 10 o’clock Friday night.

No one was able to answer last year’s 100-point “Super Garruda” in the allotted time (although Brogan’s Bank team did come up with it 15 second after time expired!). But come Friday night, nearly everyone will know that “No Picnic. Why? No Woods. Prevent Forest Fires” was the saying on the entry Frank Zappa designed in the ninth grade to win a fire prevention week poster contest.

Award-Winning Actress Explores Connection between the Arts and the Human Spirit in Two Lawrence University Events

Award-winning actress and Lawrence University graduate Megan Cole shares her passion for communication, empathy and the connection between healthcare, the arts and the human spirit in a pair of programs during a visit to her alma mater.

Cole, who has appeared in more than 100 lead roles in theatre productions across the country, presents “Illness, Stigma and Being Female” Thursday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Reading excerpts from their own writings, Cole will deliver first-person voices of five women who have suffered from stigmatizing illnesses that are particular to the condition of being female. Illustrated with accompanying slides, the program confronts the feeling of being seen as “different” while showing that the gap between the “self” and the “other” is largely illusory.

On Friday, Jan. 23, Cole performs the one-woman show “The Wisdom of Wit, an adaptation of Margaret Edson’s ‘Wit'” at 8 p.m. in Stansbury Theatre of the Music Drama Center. Ticket prices, at $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, are available through the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749. Tickets also will be on sale in the Stansbury Theatre Box Office one hour before the start of the show that evening.

Cole originated the lead role of distinguished English professor Vivian Bearing, later played by Judith Light, among others, in “Wit’s” premiere in 1995 at South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, Calif. She later performed the role in productions in Seattle, Houston and Austin.

Awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for drama, “Wit” follows the journey of Bearing’s profound and humorous reassessment of her life after being diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer and her treatment in an experimental chemotherapy program at a major teaching hospital.

Cole’s work in the theatre has been recognized with two Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Awards and three Los Angeles Drama-Logue Awards. In addition to her stage work, she has made numerous television guest appearances, including roles on “ER,” “Seinfeld,” “The Practice,” “Judging Amy,” and “Star Trek,” among others.

Working in “Wit,” and hearing others’ tales of their own experiences with illness and death, inspired Cole to design an education course entitled “The Craft of Empathy” to show doctors-in-training how to use actors’ techniques to empathize with their patients. The course eventually led Cole to an appointment as a visiting professor of health and society at the University of Texas – Houston, where she continues to conduct workshops for health care students and professionals on the importance of empathic communication between caregivers and patients.

Active with the educational outreach wing of the Compassion in Dying Federation, Cole gives frequent public talks on the human face of health care and recently co-led the conference “Living Well and Dying Well” at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. She is presently working with the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston on a series of educational tapes of oncologists relating to the personal aspects of cancer care.

A native of Waukegan, Ill., Cole earned a bachelor of arts degree magna cum laude in English from Lawrence in 1963. She makes her home today in Nehalem, Ore.

Cole’s appearance is sponsored by Lawrence’s biomedical ethics, gender studies and theatre arts departments.