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Professor Emeritus Arthur Thrall Recognized with Lifetime Achievement Award

Professor Emeritus of Art and former Charles S. Farrar-Laura Norcross Marrs Professor of Fine Arts Arthur Thrall will be among six state artists recognized Sunday, May 22 by the Museum of Wisconsin Art with the Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award. The Milwaukee Institute Of Art & Design also will be honored.

Thrall joined the Lawrence art department in 1964 following the consolidation with Milwaukee Downer College, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1956.  He retired from Lawrence  in 1990, but has remained an active artist in retirement in Milwaukee.

A painter and printmaker with an international reputation, Thrall has been the recipient of more than 75 awards, including “Artist of the Year” honors in 1984 by the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship in Printmaking.

His works have appeared in more than 500 exhibitions as well as the White House and are included in the permanent collections of the British Museum, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Gallery in England, the Smithsonian Institute, the Library of Congress and the Chicago Art Institute, among others.

Founded in 2004, the WVALAA is essentially the state “Hall of Fame” for those who have supported the visual arts with distinction. The honor is presented to both individuals and organizations in recognition of extraordinary contributions to the creation, support and growth of visual arts in and of Wisconsin.

The awards ceremony, which is free and open to the public, begins at 1:30 p.m. and will be held at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.

The Rabbit Gallery: Lawrence University Student Entrepreneurial Initiative Offers New Venue for Local Artists

Sydney Pertl just wanted to help…her fellow student art majors, Fox Valley artists and the downtown Appleton business district. Becoming a budding entrepreneur in the process was just a side benefit.

After a year-long gestation and a fair share of sweat equity, the Lawrence University junior from Seattle, Wash., is looking forward to unveiling Appleton’s first “pop-up” art gallery in the gift shop half of the former Conkey’s Bookstore on College Ave.

Featuring paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and digital works of more than 25 community artists, including Lawrence students and faculty, the Rabbit Gallery holds its official opening Tuesday, May 17 from 4:30-8:30 p.m.

As a “pop-up” gallery, the Rabbit Gallery is by nature a temporary venue that will utilize empty storefronts in downtown Appleton that are for sale or lease. Its goal is twofold: market the vacant properties to potential buyers and provide professional space for local artists to showcase their work.

“No business district wants to see empty stores, so the gallery acts as a transitional storefront that we hope generates increased foot traffic downtown and eventually leads to a local business owner taking over the property,” said Pertl. “I hope the community takes advantage of the opportunity this presents.”

The Rabbit Gallery concept was conceived more than a year ago in the class “Entrepreneurship in the Arts and Society,” part of Lawrence’s new Innovation and Entrepreneurship program. Studio art major Krissy Rhyme, a senior from Green Bay, and junior Ranga Wimalasuriya, an economics major from Sri Lanka, were instrumental in bringing the project to fruition. Rhyme, one of the project’s founding members, oversaw the design of the gallery’s web site, while Wimalasuriya handled all of the project’s finances as its business manager.

The students were guided by an advisory board that includes three Lawrence faculty members, former Jansport CEO and community advocate Mike Cisler and representatives from Appleton Downtown Inc. and the Trout Museum of Art.

Adam Galambos, assistant professor of economics, said the Rabbit Gallery is breaking new ground in realizing one of the primary goals of the innovation and entrepreneurship program: to create student ventures that function as experiential learning labs.

“These students are using their unique skills and what they have learned at Lawrence to create something that has not existed in this community before,” said Galambos. “It is a great example of how liberal education can be translated into action to create positive change in the world.”

Jennifer Stephany, executive director of Appleton Downtown Inc., says the arts can be an economic driver in a city’s downtown district. She cited a 2007 plan adopted by the city of Appleton that called for maintaining the vitality of the arts and entertainment district as a key initiative by creating new venues for arts activities and pursuing opportunities to attract artists and arts-related businesses to the district.

She sees the Rabbit Gallery as “an exciting and progressive project that brings positive momentum to several economic development efforts surrounding the arts in downtown Appleton.

“By hosting the gallery in a vacant available space it will generate traffic to the central businesses district and bring awareness to opportunity for entrepreneurial business development,” said Stephany. “The Rabbit has brought synergy to the efforts of Appleton Downtown Inc., The Trout Museum of Art and Lawrence University to highlight downtown as the Fox Cities cultural core for the visual arts.”

One of Pertl’s strongest motivations in pursuing the gallery project was the potential benefit it has for her classmates.

“Networking is very important if you’re going to survive as an artist,” said Pertl. “Having the opportunity to showcase your work in a professional gallery while you’re still a student is invaluable. There is a lot to be gained by connecting Lawrence student artists with the working professional arts community in the Fox Valley. The Rabbit Gallery should help open doors for art students after they graduate.”

According to Pertl, the Rabbit Gallery will benefit local artists as well by charging a lower-than-normal commission for any sold artwork.

“Our gallery is designed to have the artists receive the majority of the value for their work.”

Following the grand opening, the gallery, which will be staffed by student and community volunteers, will be open May 20, 5-8 p.m., May 21-22 and May 27-28 noon to 5 p.m. and by appointment.

After May 28, the gallery will close for the summer, with plans to reopen next fall in a new downtown location.

Calling All Unwanted “Gadgets”: Electronic Recycling Drive Scheduled Friday at Warch Campus Center

Lawrence University students will conduct a community-wide electronics recycling drive Friday, May 20 from 10 a.m.- 2 p.m.  in front of the Warch Campus Center, 711 E. Boldt Way.

The electronics drive will collect and properly recycle broken, obsolete, or unwanted electronics. Among the items that will be accepted free of charge include televisions, MP3 players/iPods, cellular and hard wire phones, circuit boards, wire and cabling, laptops, printer/toner cartridges, copy and FAX machines, printers, DVD/VHS players, stereo equipment, CPUs, GPS units, keyboards, monitors and terminals.

Large items such as refrigerators, stoves, air conditioners and dehumidifiers will not be accepted. Lawrence students can recycling mini-fridges for free on a first-come, first-served basis.  Computer hard drives can be cleared for $10 fee.

All collected electronics will be responsibly recycled by 5R Processors of Ladysmith.

The electronics recycling drive grew out of a student-led environmental studies research project that determined Lawrence students have approximately 9,600 electronic devices on campus, an average of 6.4 electronic items per student. The results of the e-recycling event will be used to help determine student support for implementing a permanent electronics drop-off site on campus.

Medical Anthropologist Sara Quandt ’73 Examines U.S. Health Disparities in Honors Convocation

Sara Quandt, a professor in the department of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University’s School of Medicine, examines the health inequities and social justice challenges faced by rural and minority populations in Lawrence University’s final convocation of the 2010-11 academic year.

Sara Quandt '73

A 1973 Lawrence graduate, Quandt presents “It Takes a Community: Collaborating to Reduce Health Disparities in the U.S.” Tuesday, May 17 at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. She also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema. Both events are free and open to the public.

The annual honors convocation publicly recognizes students and faculty recipients of awards and prizes for excellence in the arts, athletics, humanities, sciences, social sciences, languages and music as well as service to others. Students elected to honor societies also will be recognized. Students and faculty members cited were presented their awards at a banquet May 12.

An applied medical anthropologist, Quandt works on programs to correct the health disparities experienced by rural and minority populations. Her research has focused on occupational health concerns of Latino immigrant farm workers and poultry processing workers, particularly pesticide exposure, green tobacco sickness and occupational injuries and illnesses. The findings have been used for education and policy change interventions to reduce health disparities.

Quandt also has investigated issues related to food and nutrition among older rural residents, including self-management of diabetes and the impact of oral health deficits on diet and social interaction.

She joined Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s department of public health in 1994 after spending 11 years on the faculty of the University of Kentucky.

Her efforts have been recognized with the National Rural Health Association’s  2007 Outstanding Rural Health Researcher Award, the National Occupational Research Agenda Innovative Research Award for Worker Health and Safety and the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists’  2003 Praxis Award.

Quandt earned a bachelor of arts degree summa cum laude in anthropology from Lawrence before completing her master’s and doctorate degrees in anthropology with a minor in human nutrition at Michigan State University. She conducted post-doctoral training at the National Science Foundation Summer Institute on Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Florida.

Lawrence University Earns Fifth Straight National Community Service Citation

More than 9,700 service hours to volunteer and service-learning programs provided by 786 students earned Lawrence University inclusion on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for the fifth consecutive year.

Lawrence is one of only two Wisconsin institutions named to the Community Service Honor Roll every year since the program was launched in 2006 to recognize commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement.

Announced by the Washington, D.C.-based Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a total of 641 colleges and universities were recognized for their impact on issues from literacy and neighborhood revitalization to supporting at-risk youth. A total of 851 institutions applied for the Honor Roll, a nine percent increase over last year.

“The goal of a great university should be to graduate altruistic citizens, young adults with generous hearts to complement their developed minds,” said Lawrence President Jill Beck. “Service is celebrated as a vital part of Lawrence’s culture and it is gratifying to have the dedicated efforts of our students acknowledged nationally.”

Honorees are chosen on the basis of several factors, including the scope and innovation of service projects, the extent to which service-learning is embedded in the curriculum, the school’s commitment to long-term campus-community partnerships and measurable community outcomes as a result of the service.

Among the initiatives for which Lawrence was cited was the Academy of Music’s Young Band Project, a band instruction program that mentored 139 fifth-graders at Appleton’s Lincoln Elementary School; Professor of Biology Bart De Stasio’s research on invasive species in the Fox River involving six student volunteers; and the Lawrence ArtsBridge Program, which creates hands-on experiences in the arts through partnerships between Lawrence student and K-12 supervising host teachers. Last year 192 area students were mentored through Arts Bridge projects.

“With nearly 10,000 service hours, Lawrence student volunteers are clearly sharing their time and talents with a wide variety of organizations around the Fox Cities as well as overseas,” said Monica Rico, Lawrence’s Pieper Family Professor of Servant Leadership and director of the college’s Office for Engaged Learning. “The federal government changed the application significantly for this year’s honor roll, requesting additional data along with evidence of a demonstrated positive impact on the community. I am proud that we met these new standards by providing ample proof of the ways in which Lawrence makes a positive difference.”

According to the CNCS, a federal agency, 3.2 million students performed more than 307 million hours of service across the country last year, service valued at $6.4 billion.

The President’s Community Service Honor Roll is compiled by the CNCS in collaboration with the Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact, and the American Council on Education.

Outstanding Student Research Showcased in Annual Harrison Symposium

Exceptional research conducted by Lawrence University students in the humanities and social sciences will be showcased Saturday, May 14 beginning at 9:15 a.m. in Main Hall during the 14th annual Richard A. Harrison Symposium.

Twenty-seven students will deliver presentations on research subjects ranging from black masculinity in contemporary American film, to Yan’an’s influence on the evolution of propaganda music in China to the importance of the potato in Peruvian society.  Each presentation will last approximately 20 minutes followed by a 10-minute question-and-answer session.

Two sessions of presentations are arranged into panels by topic or field and are moderated by a Lawrence faculty member. Student presenters are nominated by faculty and invited to submit abstracts of their research papers. Based on the abstracts, students are selected to present their work in the format used for professional meetings of scholars in the humanities and social sciences.

The symposium honors former Lawrence Dean of the Faculty Richard A. Harrison, who organized the first program in 1996. Harrison died unexpectedly the following year and the symposium was renamed after him to recognize his vision of highlighting excellence in student scholarship.

Shack-a-thon Celebrates 10th Anniversary of Raising Awareness, Support for Habitat for Humanity

Lawrence University’s Main Hall green will undergo an “extreme makeover” May 14-15 when 15 teams of students representing various campus organizations construct temporary homes as the college celebrates its 10th “Shack-a-thon.”

The annual event serves as a highly visible fund-raiser for the Greater Fox Cities Area Habitat for Humanity chapter, pitting the creative design and engineering skills of teams of Lawrence students against each other as they build makeshift shacks from donated and salvaged materials on 10-foot-by-10-foot plots near Main Hall.

Construction begins Saturday afternoon and the shacks will remain up until mid-morning Sunday. At least one member of each team will be required to spend the night in the shack. Monetary “votes” can be cast for favorite construction jobs by contributing to donation jars located by each shack.

Drawing on elements from the popular animated movie “Up,” the theme for this year’s Shack-a-thon is “UP, UP and AWAY!,” symbolizing a move away from poverty housing. Each shack will feature balloons as decorations. A screening of the movie “Up” will be shown on the Main Hall green at 10:30 p.m.

In conjunction with Shack-a-thon and in keeping with the theme, organizers also are sponsoring a raffle for a hot air balloon ride for two provided by Bums in Paradise in the Fox Valley. Tickets, at $5 each, 3 for $10, are available in the Warch Campus Center.

“Shack-a-thon is our biggest fundraiser of the year, but is also a great tool for promoting awareness and advocacy for a plight that includes many families right here in the Fox Valley,” said Meg Bonham, current co-president of Lawrence’s student chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

The first Shack-a-thon was held in 2002 and since then Lawrence students have raised more than $25,000 on behalf of the local Habitat for Humanity chapter. In October 2007, Lawrence partnered with J.J. Keller in co-sponsoring the construction of a four-bedroom Habitat for Humanity home on the northeast side of Appleton.

Mexican Perspective on U.S.-Mexico Relations Concludes International Lecture Series

The close and complex bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States gets examined from Mexico’s point of view in the final installment of Lawrence University’s 2011 Povolny Lecture Series in International Studies “Latin America: Past, Present and Future.”

Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, former governor of the Mexican state of Guanajuato, presents “U.S.-Mexican Relations: A Mexican Perspective” Wednesday, May 11 at 4:30 p.m. in Thomas Steitz Hall of Science, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public.

Juan Carlos Romero Hicks

Against a backdrop of neighbors and trading partners as well as demographic connections — more than one million U.S. citizens live in Mexico while Mexico is the largest source of immigrants to the United Sates — Romero Hicks will share the Mexican perspective on issues of commerce, migration and security between the two countries.

Romero Hicks served six years as governor of Mexico’s sixth-most populous state before being named general director of Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology in 2006.

Prior to entering politics, Romero Hicks enjoyed an extensive career in education. He joined the faculty of the University of Guanajuato in 1977 and served as the university’s president from 1991-99. He earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial relations from the University of Guanajuato, and a pair of master’s degrees — one in social sciences and one in business administration — from Southern Oregon State College.

The “Latin America: Past, Present and Future” 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.

Lawrence Alumna Discusses Impact of Mexican Immigration on U.S. Economy in International Series Address

Labor economist Sarah Bohn, a 1999 Lawrence graduate, discusses the economic winners and losers associated with the Mexican immigrant workforce in the United States in the fourth installment of Lawrence University’s 2011 Povolny Lecture Series in International Studies “Latin America: Past, Present and Future.”

Sarah Bohn

Bohn, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, presents “Mexican Immigrants and the U.S. Economy” Monday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

The roots of interdependence between Mexican workers and the U.S. economy can be traced to the railroad construction boom of the late 1800s. Those historic ties as well as political and economic developments along the way have created structural demand for Mexican immigrant labor in the U.S., producing winners and losers in the process.

With Mexican-born citizens accounting for nearly one-third of the U.S. immigrant population, Bohn will examine whether Mexican immigrants hurt the job prospects or decrease wages of American-born workers and whether employers really need immigrant workers. She also will address the impact of Mexican immigration on overall economic activity, on the prices we pay for goods and services and on social services like education and welfare.

Bohn joined the Public Policy Institute of California in 2007 after earning her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Maryland. As a PPIC research fellow, her expertise includes immigration and U.S. labor markets and labor market assimilation.

The “Latin America: Past, Present and Future” 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.

Lawrence Ensemble Hosts “Interactive” Evening of Baroque Music, Dance

The world of Jane Austen comes to the Warch Campus Center Friday, May 6 at 6:30 p.m. when the Lawrence Baroque Ensemble presents “An Evening of Baroque Dance: Pride & Prejudice Edition.”  The event, scheduled for the Esch-Hurvis Room, is free and open to the public.

The “interactive performance” will feature instruction in two English baroque dances led by Lawrence President Jill Beck and members of  the Meleé Dance Troupe, historical and literary notes by Lawrence English professor Timothy Spurgin and Lawrence music historian Sara Ceballos and musical selections performed by the ensemble. The audience will be invited to perform the dances taught by Beck and Melee members accompanied by the Lawrence Baroque Ensemble. A dessert reception will conclude the evening.

As a preview to Friday’s event, the 2005 film “Pride & Prejudice” starring Keira Knightley will be shown Wednesday, May 4 at 10:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema.

In conjunction with the evening of baroque music and dance, pianist Elizabeth Morgan will present the guest lecture-recital “Keyboard Works from the Musical Notebooks of Jane Austen” Tuesday May 10 at 8:15 p.m. in Harper Hall. Morgan, a specialist on keyboard and chamber music of the late 18th- and early 19th-centuries, will explore music in Austen’s life and works.

The Lawrence Baroque Ensemble was founded in 2010 by four students as part of the economics course “Entrepreneurship in the Arts & Society.” It seeks to study, rehearse and perform baroque music that enriches students’ liberal arts experience, inspires passion for period-instrument performance, preserves tradition and celebrates individual creativity. Lawrence Baroque connects audiences to history through unique concert experiences, community education, outreach and access for all.

The ensemble is supported in part by a Class of 1965 Student Activity Grant.