Diversity

Tag: Diversity

Lawrence adds expertise in the legal, investment, academic and development fields to its Board of Trustees

Four new members have been elected to Lawrence University’s Board of Trustees, including two with previous board service. Each joins the board effective July 1.

Attorney William Hochkammer, University of California, San Diego alumni director Tamika Franklin, Columbia University political scientist John Huber and equity fund founder Cory Nettles were named to the board at its recently concluded May meeting.

They will replace two retiring members of the board: John Ellerman, a 1958 Lawrence graduate who has served on the board since 1983; and David Knapp, a 1989 Lawrence graduate who joined the board in 2002.

“On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am pleased to welcome back former trustees Bill Hochkammer and Cory Nettles,” said board chair Susie Stillman Kane ’72. “Bill provided outstanding leadership during his tenure as chair of the board and co-chair of the “More Light” campaign a decade ago. Cory’s more recent contributions as a member of the President’s Advisory Council have been invaluable. We look forward to the insights he will bring to the board.

“With John’s expertise in academia and the liberal arts and Tamika’s in development and alumni relations, their additions will enhance even further the multi-generational makeup and perspective of our board,” Kane added.

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Willilam Hochkammer

William Hochkammer ’66, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
A partner at the Detroit law firm of Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn, L.L.P., Hochkammer rejoins the board having previously served as a member from 1993-2015, including as chair of the board from 2005-07. He is the first trustee in Lawrence history to complete his term limit and be invited to rejoin the board.

As co-chair of the Capital Campaign Steering Committee, Hochkammer was instrumental in the success of the $160 million “More Light!” campaign, the most ambitious fundraising effort in Lawrence’s history, that ended in 2011.

He served on the Presidential Search Committee that appointed Jill Beck as the university’s 15th president and currently serves as a member of the leadership team for Lawrence’s $75 million “Full Speed to Full Need” endowed scholarship campaign.

A 1966 Lawrence graduate, Hochkammer joined Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn in 1972 and was the founding chair of the firm’s health care and insurance departments. He served as the firm’s chair from 1991-98 and as its CEO from 1993-98.

Hochkammer has been included on the annual “Best Lawyers in America” list every year since 1991 in the areas of health care law and insurance law. He was recognized as the Detroit Insurance Lawyer of the Year in 2011 and the Detroit Health Care Law Lawyer of the Year in 2014 by “Best Lawyers.”

In addition to a bachelor’s degree in economics from Lawrence, Hochkammer earned a law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was a writer and editor for the Journal of Criminal Law.

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Tamika Franklin

Tamika Franklin ’05, San Diego, Calif.
Franklin is the board’s third Recent Graduate Trustee, a position established in 2014 exclusively for Lawrence alumni within 2-10 years of their graduation. She will serve one three-year term.

An advancement professional, Franklin has served as UC-San Diego’s director of alumni affairs within the development and alumni relations office for the division of physical sciences since May 2013. She played a leading role in developing UCSD’s Black Alumni Council and an Asian Pacific Islander Alumni Council and serves as a staff liaison for both. UCSD honored Franklin with its Diversity Award in 2014.

Prior to joining UCSD, Franklin spent four years at San Diego State University working with the vice president of university relations and development.

A native of Jamaica, Franklin earned a bachelor’s degree in government and philosophy from Lawrence in 2005.

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John Huber

John Huber ’84, New York, N.Y.
An accomplished and nationally recognized scholar, Huber joined the political science department at Columbia University in 1998 after faculty appointments at Ohio State and the University of Michigan. He was promoted to full professor in 2002 and has served as chair of the department six of the past 10 years.

At Columbia, he has been engaged in institutional issues related to admissions, financial aid and global education.

A specialist in the comparative study of democratic processes, Huber’s current research interests focus on ethnic politics, inequality and the politics of redistribution.

He is the author of the books “Rationalizing Parliament” and “Deliberate Discretion? Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy,” which received numerous awards, including the William Riker Prize. It was named 2002’s best book in comparative politics by the American Political Science Association.

Huber was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013 and spent 10 years as the editor of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science. He also has served on the editorial boards of several publications, including the Journal of Politics, French Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly and the American Journal of Political Science.

A 1984 cum laude graduate of Lawrence with a degree in government, Huber earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Rochester.

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Cory Nettles

Cory Nettles ’92, Bayside, Wis.
An attorney, Nettles begins his second as a board member, having previously served from 2005-10. He is the former co-chair of the President’s Advisory Council.

Nettles is the founder and managing director of Generation Growth Capital, Inc., a Milwaukee-based private equity fund that provides growth capital to lower middle-market companies in the Midwest. The company is committed to working in low to moderate income communities, investing and creating jobs in distressed communities and supporting ethnic minority entrepreneurs.

He serves of counsel with Quarles and Brady LLP in the law firm’s corporate services and government relations groups. His experience ranges from mergers and acquisitions to tax incremental financing and diversity-related matters.

Nettles served as the secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Commerce from 2003-05 under Governor Jim Doyle before joining the corporate world. As secretary, he managed one of the state’s largest agencies, with 450 employees and an annual budget in excess of $225M. He was a principal architect of Governor Doyle’s “Grow Wisconsin” plan, a comprehensive strategy for investing more than $1 billion in Wisconsin’s economy.

In 2015, he was one of five African-American executives who formed Partners for Community Impact LLC to become minority investors in the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team.

Besides Lawrence, Nettles serves as a board member numerous businesses and organizations, among them Associated Bank, the United Way of Greater Milwaukee. Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, Teach For America, the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin Foundation.

He was inducted into the Milwaukee Business Journal’s “40 Under 40 Hall of Fame” in 2015 and was named one of the “Most Influential African Americans in Wisconsin” by Madison 365 that same year.

After graduating magna cum laude from Lawrence in 1992 with a degree in government, Nettles earned a law degree from the University of Wisconsin.

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 book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College” and Fiske’s Guide to Colleges 2016. 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.

Expressions of Acceptance: Micro-opera event celebrates community unity

As part of his first production at Lawrence University last spring, Copeland Woodruff, the college’s new director of opera studies, surveyed his audience, asking them to share instances of feeling unwelcomed or as an outsider.

He was so moved by the outpouring of responses he received, he knew he had to do something to further address some of the experiences that were shared.

Micro-opera_newsblogThat “something” became the  collaborative project “Expressions of Acceptance” that will feature more than 40 Lawrence student singers, including 30 from the Improvisational Group of Lawrence University (IGLU), and instrumentalists simultaneously performing 13 “micro-operas” — each about 5-8 minutes in length — in the lobby of the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in downtown Appleton. Every nook and cranny of the four-story lobby will be utilized for performances, including stairwells, seating areas, the bars and even the elevator.

The performance, Monday, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m., will be preceded by a walk through downtown Appleton by organizers and community partners starting at 7 p.m. in front of the Lawrence Memorial Chapel and ending at the PAC. Anyone is welcome to participate in the walk, which is designed to embrace community and celebrate Appleton.

Following the performances, the audience will meet the cast and creative team and spend time together digesting the experience with community leaders in the Kimberly-Clark theatre.

“I was so excited and inspired by the audiences’ need to reach out and tell their stories last spring, that I knew that we had to continue the dialogue,” said Woodruff, director of opera studies and associate professor of music. “We are all strangers, even to ourselves sometimes. When we recognize that, it gives us courage to reach out to another soul, who is also a stranger.”

“Expressions of Acceptance” grew out of Woodruff’s production of Aaron Copland’s “The Tender Land” last February, an opera written during the Senator Joseph McCarthy trials that explores themes of “the stranger among us” as well as “the stranger within.”

“I hope through this event we can find ways to reach out and connect with others regardless
of any perceived difference, either in others or ourselves and be open
to the miraculous, healing qualities that each of us possesses.”
— Copeland Woodruff

A collaboration between Lawrence’s student organization GLOW and Celebrate Diversity Fox Cities (CDFC), Riverview Gardens and COTS, the campus and local organizations hosted pre-show and post-show events. Each audience member was asked to complete a four-question survey that asked them to describe a time in their life when they felt like an outsider, why it’s common for people to be wary of strangers or newcomers, what can be done to help people feel welcome and accepted and what obstacles do newcomers to Lawrence or the Fox Cities face that might prevent them from enjoying all that the community can offer.

“I would like for us not only to celebrate our differences, but to find the common threads we all share: we all want to love, be loved, be accepted for who we are, and be allowed to grow with regard to our varied experiences,” said Woodruff. “I hope through this event we can find ways to reach out and connect with others regardless of any perceived difference, either in others or ourselves and be open to the miraculous, healing qualities that each of us possesses. We are so much more than what appears at first glance, or second glance, or one-thousandth glance.”

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Copeland Woodruff

While Copeland has produced and directed walk-through events before coming to Lawrence, “the level of integrated involvement with so many different community and university organizations is a first for me.”

The Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region is a co-sponsor of the “Expressions of Acceptance” project, supporting it with a $2,500 grant.

In addition to the partners who worked with Woodruff on “The Tender Land,” additional community collaborators assisting with the “Expressions of Acceptance” production are Kathy Flores, the diversity and inclusion coordinator for the city of Appleton, African Heritage, Inc., INCLUDE, Casa Hispana, E.S.T.H.E.R., Goodwill, and CODA.

“It has been a life-changing experience for me working together with Matt Turner, Margaret Paek and the IGLU students,” said Woodruff, who earned first-place honors in the prestigious National Opera Association’s Best Opera Production Competition, Division V last year for the  fifth time in the past eight years. “Many of the students didn’t know each other until this project and to see them learn from each other is mind-blowing. Watching them work together, reaching across many performance-practice boundaries to swim in the scary deep end of the improvisation and post-modern theatre pool has been a landmark in my career as an artist and an educator.”

“Getting out and working with the community has helped this outsider feel more a part of the conversation in Appleton and the surrounding area,” Woodruff added. “Finding similar and differing opinions and points of view, learning and growing from them, that’s what the human experience is for me.”

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 book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College” and Fiske’s Guide to Colleges 2016. 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.

Fulfilling the Dream of Opportunity: Annual Community Celebration Honors Life, Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Author and educator Gloria Ladson-Billings will draw parallels between the current youth activism that has emerged across the country and the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. to confront injustice Monday, Jan. 19 at 6:30 p.m in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel as part of the 24th annual community celebration of the American civil rights leader. The event is free and open to the public. A sign language interpreter will be present and a reception follows the program.

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UW-Madison professor Gloria Ladson-Billings will deliver the keynote address at the 24th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration.

As this year’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration keynote speaker, Ladson-Billings, the Kellner Family Chair of Urban Education at UW-Madison, presents “More than a Dreamer: Restoring the Radical Tradition of Martin Luther King Jr.”

The event’s program includes music by Lawrence senior Brienne Colston and the Kimberly High School Choir. Four area students will read their winning submissions from the annual Martin Luther King essay contest. The theme for this year’s celebration is “Fulfilling the Dream of Opportunity.”

The annual commemoration of Dr. King’s life and legacy is jointly presented by Lawrence and the organization Celebrate Diversity Fox Cities (formerly known as Toward Community: Unity in Diversity), with the support of The Post-Crescent, numerous Fox Valley organizations, churches and individuals.

Ladson-Billings says society too often sanitizes and romanticizes its heroes.

“In the case of Martin Luther King Jr., we have fallen in love with the notion of him as a dreamer,” she said. “But King was a man of action and recognized the need to confront injustice not merely dream about its eradication someday.”

A scholar on the pedagogical practices of teachers who work successfully with African American students, Ladson-Billings also conducts research on Critical Race Theory applications to education. She is the author of the books “The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children” and “Crossing Over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms.”

A long-standing member of the NAACP and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Ladson-Billlings’ work as an educator has been recognized with numerous awards, including election to the National Academy of Education, the American Anthropological Association’s George and Louise Spindler Award for ongoing contributions in educational anthropology and an honorary degree from Sweden’s Umeå University.

“Reflecting on this year’s theme, fulfilling the dream of opportunity, I can’t help but wonder if this dream will ever be fulfilled,” said Pa Lee Moua, Lawrence’s assistant dean of students for multicultural affairs. “Unfortunately even today, opportunities are not equal for everyone. Individually, and as a society, we all play a part. In the words of Dr. King, ‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’ Change will only happen if we step up, speak up and move forward together. There is no ‘Us’ and ‘Them.’ We complete our communities.”

“…King was a man of action and recognized the need to confront
injustice not merely dream about its eradication someday.”
— Gloria Ladson-Billings

“During these trying times, we must remember the dream of Dr. King is far from complete,” said Kathy Flores, chair of the MLK Planning Committee and diversity coordinator for the city of Appleton. “We must continue to remember his legacy by not only honoring him, but continuing the work amidst the struggle for many. As we sing ‘Lift Every Voice,’ the Black National Anthem at this year’s celebration, I hope everyone is moved by the words ‘Let us march on till victory is won.’”

The celebration will recognize three community members.

• Nicholas Hoffman, chief curator at the History Museum at the Castle, will receive the annual Jane LaChapelle McCarty-MLK Community Leader Award, which honors an individual who has brought different people in the community together in the spirit of Dr. King. Hoffmann has curated exhibitions on those forgotten in history, including immigrants in “Food: Who We Are, What We Eat,” minorities in “Progressive Appleton” and most recently the history of local African Americans in “Stone of Hope: Black Experiences in the Fox Cities.”

Part of the “Stone of Hope” exhibition will be on display in Shattuck Hall 163 following the program.

•  Amy Xiong, English Language Learner teacher at Kaukauna High School and co-advisor of the KHS Diversity Club, will be the first recipient of the newly established Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educator Award, which honors individuals who educate people in the spirit of Dr. King. Xiong was chosen for her dedication in going above and beyond her assigned duties to ensure all students are given equal, and a wide range of diverse, educational opportunities.

• Rev. Roger Bertschausen, senior minister at Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and founder of the annual MLK Celebration, will be recognized for his 25 years of service with a special legacy award. Bertschausen is relocating to St. Louis later this year.

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.

A Window to the World: Lawrence International Hosts 33rd Annual Cabaret

APPLETON, WIS. — More than 80 students from around the world are scheduled to perform when Lawrence International presents its 33rd annual Cabaret — “A Window to the World” — Sunday, April 19 at 3 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. A buffet dinner featuring delectable international dishes will be served in Colman Hall following the performance.

Tickets, at $10 for the show and $15 for the show and dinner, are available through the Lawrence Box Office, 920-832-6749. Children 6 and under are free.

“Cabaret is a vibrant celebration of life through music, song, dance and cuisine from around the world,” said Tim Schmidt, Lawrence International advisor. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for Lawrence’s international students to share a part of their own culture and heritage with other members of the campus as well as the greater Fox Valley community.”

This year’s schedule of 17 separate performances include a hip-hop dance-off, a vocal performance from Sudan, a Chinese instrumental performance and native dances from Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Japan, India, Latin America, Ukraine and Vietnam, among others.

Diversity Scholar Discusses Tolerance, Racial Constructs in Two Lawrence University Presentations

APPLETON, WIS. — John Quincy Adams, professor of educational and interdisciplinary studies at Western Illinois University, will deliver a pair of talks Monday, February 16 in conjunction with Lawrence University’s celebration of Black History Month.

Against a backdrop of global economies and an increasingly diverse national population, Adams will discuss the importance of understanding cultural differences and the steps needed to increase cultural sensitivity in the address “Tolerance – Respecting Diversity” at 12:30 p.m. in the Barber Room of Downer Commons.

In his second address, “Race – A Social or Biological Construct?” at 6:45 p.m., in the Wriston Art Center auditorium, Adams examines the social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States, exploring questions such as why is Barrack Obama Black, and what are the consequences of continuing to maintain this belief system. He also will discuss the implications of new research projects, including National Geographic’s genographic study.

Adams is a five-time recipient of Western Illinois’ Faculty Excellence Award and the 2002 recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois’ College of Education.

A scholar of African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic populations in public schools, Adams contributed the entry on multiculturalism to the “Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society.” He is the author of the 2005 book “Multicultural Films: A Reference Guide” and the videotape series “Effective Strategies For Learning and Teaching About Diversity in the U.S.A.”