Lawrence University

Tag: Lawrence University

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.

Lawrence University Percussionist, Saxophonist Earn Top Honors in State Music Competition

Lawrence University senior Michael Truesdell and 2005 Lawrence graduate Sara Kind shared top honors at the 12th annual Neale-Silva Young Artists competition held Sunday, March 19 in Madison.

Truesdell, a percussionist from Verona, and Kind, a saxophonist from Oshkosh, were named two of the five winners in the Wisconsin Public Radio-sponsored competition. It was the sixth time in the past nine years that Lawrence music students have won or shared top honors in the Neale-Silva.

The competition is open to instrumentalists and vocal performers 17-26 years of age who are either from Wisconsin or attend a Wisconsin college. This year’s competition attracted 49 musicians, including three quintets, two quartets and a trio. Fourteen musicians were invited to perform as finalists.

Lawrence and UW-Madison accounted for all of this year’s competition winners. In addition to Truesdell and Kind, UW pianist Kayme Henkel, violinist Jeannette Jang and a piano quintet also received first-place honors.

Truesdell performed on the marimba for the competition, playing “Three Movements for a Solo Dancer” by Eckhard Kopetzki, “Mirage for Marimba” by Japanense composer Yasuo Sueyoski and Federico Chueca’s “Los Paraguas.” He is a student of Associate Professor of Music Dane Richeson.

Kind, who also earned first-place honors in the 2004 Neale-Silva competition as a member of the Lawrence University saxophone quartet, performed “Fantasia” by Heitor Villa-Lobos. She is currently studying with Professor Steven Jordheim through the Lawrence Academy of Music.

Truesdell and Kind will reprise their winning performances Sunday, April 2 in WPR’s Neale-Silva Concert of Young Musicians at Madison’s Chazen Museum. The concert also will be broadcast live statewide as a special edition of “Sunday Afternoon Live from the Chazen” from 12:30 – 2 p.m. on the NPR News and Classical Music stations of WPR. In addition, Truesdell and Kind both will receive $300 for their winning performances.

The Neale-Silva Young Artists’ Competition was established to recognize young Wisconsin performers of classical music who demonstrate an exceptionally high level of artistry and is supported by a grant from the estate of the late University of Wisconsin Madison professor Eduardo Neale-Silva, a classical music enthusiast who was born in Talca, Chile and came to the United States in 1925.

Lawrence University’s Leila Sahar Earns “Outstanding Witness” Award at Mock Trial National Tournament

Sophomore Leila Sahar registered a perfect score en route to earning an “outstanding witness” award for Lawrence University’s mock trial team at the national tournament held March 17-19 at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.

Sahar, who portrayed Jordan Nathanson, a criminal profiler for the FBI, shared top point honors in the outstanding witness competition with Alex Durst of the University of Cincinnati.

She was one of six students representing Lawrence at the American Mock Trial Association’s 48-team national tournament. Lawrence, in just its second year of mock trial competition, qualified for the national tournament after placing seventh among 20 teams at the regional tournament at Marquette University in mid-February.

Lawrence competed against the University of Cincinnati, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Western Michigan University and Iowa State University at the national tournament, finishing with 2.5 points out of a maximum of eight.

The 48-team field was divided into two divisions, with Penn State University winning Lawrence’s division and the University of Alabama-Birmingham finishing first in the other. The top three teams in each division advance to the national championship tournament April 7-9 in Des Moines, Iowa. A second 48-team national tournament was held at Stetson University in Florida.

“In mock trial competition, teams aren’t divided by school size, so Lawrence is almost always competing against much larger universities,” said John Peterson, an Appleton attorney who serves as the team’s trial coach. “The teams competing at the national tournament tend to be schools with long-standing programs which are frequently part of the academic curriculum. Lawrence really caught everyone’s attention by reaching the national tournament in just its second year of competition.

“And Leila selection for the outstanding witness award was a terrific and well-deserved individual honor for her as well,” Peterson added.

The tournament is divided into four rounds of trials with teams competing head to-head either as the prosecution or as the defense before a pair of judges. All trials are based on the same case — State of Midlands v. Tyler Perry — in which Perry is charged with kidnapping his employer’s child and chaining the child to a water pipe. The child is found three days later in good health before the requested ransom of $300,000 is paid.

Each team is responsible for presenting opening statements, examination and cross-examination of witnesses and closing statements in each round. The judges award each team points based on their courtroom decorum, which side presented a more compelling case as well as other courtroom events.

Also competing for Lawrence were senior Tim Ruberton, who portrayed a defense attorney and witness Donny Walsh, an investigator for the sheriff’s department; junior Candice Gangle, who portrayed the defendant, Tyler Perry and Ryan Reynolds, the mother of the kidnapped victim; junior Maggie Helms and senior Serene Sahar, both of whom served as prosecuting attorneys and defense lawyers; and sophomore Valerie Raedy, who played witness Frankie Gustavo, a liquor store owner. Marti Hemwall, dean of student academic services, serves as the team’s faculty advisor.

Lawrence University Freshman Invited to Dedicate New Piano at Clinton Library

Krystle Maczka has a first-time visit to the new William J. Clinton Presidential Center in her home state of Arkansas on her spring break itinerary. The Lawrence University freshman’s visit won’t be merely as a curious tourist or interested history buff, though, but rather as an invited guest of honor.

Maczka will be one of two featured performers for a by-invitation-only event Wednesday, March 22 in the Great Hall of the Clinton Center in downtown Little Rock. The piano performance major from El Dorado, Ark., will have the honor of officially dedicating a new seven-foot Steinway Grand Piano, a gift to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton’s presidential library opened in November, 2004.

A student in the studio of Associate Professor of Music Michael Kim, Maczka will entertain an audience of Arkansas A-List guests with a recital featuring Brahms “Intermezzo in A Major, op. 118, no. 2” and Beethoven’s “Variations on ‘God Save the Queen.’” Lawrence Hamilton, a member of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, will also perform at the dedication event.

The honor came unexpectedly to Maczka. A friend of her father who works for the presidential library, knew she played the piano and extended an invitation to her to be the first to publicly perform on the new Steinway. The Clinton Foundation is covering all expenses for Maczka’s trip to Little Rock and is providing rooms for her and her parents at the Peabody Hotel for the occasion.

Ocean Drilling Research at Great Australian Bight Subject of LU Science Hall Lecture

University of South Florida paleo-oceanographer Albert Hine will discuss his research with the Ocean Drilling Program along the continental margins of southern Australia in a Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium.

Hine, associate dean of research at USF’s College of Marine Science, presents “Big Waves, Extreme Aridity, Strange Reefs and Poisonous Gas All Seen in the Cool-Water Carbonate Sediments of the Great Australian Bight” Wednesday, March 29 at 4:15 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public.

Hine will discuss the findings of ocean drilling conducted on carbonate rocks deposits such as limestone and dolostone in the Great Australian Bight, the largest area in the world for these types of sediments. Observations from this drilling expedition provide clues to how carbonate systems respond to climate change and may shed light on the environmental conditions represented by the sedimentary bedrock of the upper Midwest.

A specialist in coastal geology and the geologic processes of shallow marine sedimentary environments, Hine has conducted scientific ocean drilling research around the world. In addition to his work as co-chief scientist at the Great Australian Bight drilling, Hine has studied the geologic history of margin environments off the coasts of Iceland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, western Canada as well as the Nicaraguan Rise in the Caribbean Sea and the Marion Plateau in the Coral Sea.

Hine joined the USF College of Marine Science faculty in 1979. He earned his bachelor’s degree in geology from Dartmouth College and his Ph.D. in geology at the University of South Carolina.

Oshkosh Painter Jeff Lipschutz, Ancient Coins Featured in Wriston Art Center Galleries Exhibition

A retrospective of Oshkosh painter Jeff Lipschutz’s expressionist style landscapes and a display of ancient Roman coins will be featured in the newest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries. The exhibition opens March 31 and runs through May 14.

Lipschutz, professor of painting and drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and director of UWO’s Allen Priebe Art Gallery, presents “Desert,” a collection of images primarily of the modern American West, in the Hoffmaster and Kohler galleries. Lispschutz opens the exhibition with a discussion of his work Friday, March 31 at 6 p.m. The address, followed by a reception with the artist, is free and open to the public.

Lipschutz draws inspiration for his paintings from his childhood home of tiny Eagle Mountain, Calif., an isolated iron-ore mining town on one of the most barren stretches of the Mojave Desert. Lipschutz says his paintings “tap into the desert’s dream life as a natural extension of my own; into the Mojave’s unconscious; its antediluvian beginnings, science fiction futures and contradictory presents.” While his depictions of arid wastelands share a bond with that of land use artists and conceptualists, his work “also has distinct philosophical underpinnings.”

The Leech Gallery will feature the show “The Women of the Augusti: Coins from the Ottilia Buerger Collection of Lawrence University.” The exhibit was curated by Lawrence student Jennifer Nummerdor, a senior art history major from Appleton, as part of her senior honors project.

The exhibit focuses on Imperial Roman coins featuring important women — wives, daughters, sisters and mothers — and why they earned the distinct honor of being cast on a coin in a world dominated by men. The exhibit details the background of these women as well as the culture and tradition surrounding imagery of women on coins in Ancient Rome.

The exhibit is drawn from the Ottilia Buerger Collection of Ancient and Byzantine Coins. The collection of more than 300 rare, ancient coins dating from the 6th-century B.C. to the mid-1400s, is widely regarded as one of the finest in the United States. It was assembled by Ottilia M. Buerger, a 1938 Lawrence graduate, who bequeathed the collection to the college in 2001.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. For more information, call 920-832-6621 or visit http://www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston/.

Lawrence University Musical Production presents You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Lawrence University Musical Production (LUMP) presents You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown at 8:00 p.m. April 13-14 and at 3:00 p.m. April 15 in Cloak Theatre of the Lawrence Music-Drama Center, 420 E. College Ave., Appleton.

Based on Charles Schultz’ popular comic strip, the show is made up of little moments picked from the life of everyone’s favorite “Peanuts” character, Charlie Brown, from Valentine’s Day to the baseball season, from wild optimism to utter despair, from bright uncertain morning to hopeful starlit evening.

The original off-Broadway production, with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, opened on March 7, 1967, and ran for 1,597 performances. In 1971, it moved to Broadway where it played for only 32 performances. In 1999, the show was revived on Broadway and included one new character, two new songs, and completely new orchestrations with piano, violin, viola, saxophone, clarinet, flute, bass, and percussion.

According to director, Jacob Allen, ’03, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown has been produced several times at Lawrence, although this is the first time the revised edition will be performed. Rebecca Young, ’07 choreographs the performance, and Bonnie Alger, ‘06, provides musical assistance. Starring as Charlie Brown is Mike Axtell, ‘08. Other characters include Siri Hellerman, ’06, as Lucy; Brad Grimmer, ’06, as Schroeder; Peter Welch, ’09, as Linus; Meghan Phillip, ’06, as Sally; and Stephen Christensen, ’08, as Snoopy.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and students and are available at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, or by phone at 920-832-6749, beginning March 27.