Please note – the Library turnaround will be closed March 9th and 10th for the installation of the new cooling towers. If you have any questions please contact facility services.
Category: Audience – Readers
Mindfulness program on March 7
Mindfulness program on March 7th
The results of last fall’s PHA program found that many of us are interested in finding ways to better manage stress. Consider attending a presentation on mindfulness on Tuesday, March 7. Offered at both 10 a.m. and noon at the Cinema in the Warch Campus Center, this 30-minute program will cover the topic of mindfulness, address how it helps to relieve stress and include a short exercise that you can immediately start using in your daily life. Presented by Laurie Ehlers, RN CDE.
Whiteness and understanding race study group
Join us for a study group on whiteness, racism and strategies for developing an anti-racist identity. Event details are as follows:
Thursday, March 9
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Nathan Marsh Pusey Room, Warch Campus Center
Please RSVP to michelle.l.lasecki-jahnke@lawrence.edu by Tuesday, March 7.
Multiple employer visits March 6–9
Peace Corps info session: Monday, March 6
Peace Corps regional recruiter Jason Lemburg will host an info session for students who would like to learn more about opportunities with the Peace Corps, including combining graduate school and Peace Corps service through the Master’s International program. Current student Melissa Rooney ’17 has just joined the Peace Corps and will be on hand to talk about the application/interview process at noon in Schumann 126. Register on LUWorks. Sign up for 1:1 chats in Career Services following the info session.
Fox Cities Magazine info session: Tuesday, March 7
Hear firsthand about Fox Cities Magazine‘s editorial internships available for this summer from senior editor Amelia Compton Wolff. Gain magazine publishing, writing, web and social media experience while getting an inside look at the workings of a monthly publication at 11 a.m. in Kraemer 308. Registration in LUworks for this event is appreciated. 1:1 chats in Career Services will follow the info session.
Epic Systems info session: Thursday, March 9
Andrea Singletary ‘04, technical services at Epic Systems Corporation, will be on campus to answer questions about technical and non-technical positions with Epic, a global company that builds software for the health care industry at 11 a.m. in Career Services (Chapman Hall Room 202). Please register via LUworks as pizza will be provided! Sign up for 1:1 chats later that afternoon.
Upcoming internship deadlines
See the latest Career Services newsletter for upcoming application deadlines for internships, several being offered by Lawrence alumni and friends.
New hires and job changes: March 2
The following colleagues have been hired, rehired or have a new position within the last two weeks. If you see them on campus, please welcome them to Lawrence or congratulate them on their new position!
- Karen Brennan, administrative assistant (Spiritual and Religious Life)
- Cassie Curry, director of major and planned giving (Development)
- Lauren Erlandson, director of digital communications (Communications)
- Shane Mikkelson, technology specialist (Information Technology)
Laurie’s March wellness tip
Stress: We all experience it.
Stress comes from a variety of sources—work commitments, family obligations, personal expectations. It may be the culmination of several events or commitments occurring at the same time that heightens our stress level. Even events that bring great joy to our lives—the birth of a child, a wedding, a job promotion—can bring about a significant increase in the stress we experience.
For some of us, stress can be a motivator. It revs us up and helps us set priorities. For others it’s exhausting and can be incredibly overwhelming.
Stress can make things feel “out of our control.” Stress is often what keeps us awake at night, makes it difficult to concentrate and has been shown to impact both our memory and mental functioning. Long-term exposure to high levels of stress can negatively impact our health in dramatic ways.
In order to optimize wellness, we need to find ways to manage stress effectively in our daily lives. Fortunately, here at Lawrence we have a number of stress relieving options available:
- Exercise has long been touted as a great stress reliever. Whether you work up a sweat on your lunch hour at the Buchanan Kiewit Wellness Center or take a more leisurely walk around campus grounds, both form of exercise will help to relax you and reduce stress levels.
- The Mind Spa at the Buchanan Kiewit Wellness Center. Take time to make use of this great service, which offers guided meditation, light therapy and biofeedback.
- The Center for Spiritual and Religious Life is located in Sabin House and offers the opportunity for both quiet personal reflection and engaging conversation. Open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then accessible by your ID until midnight, they welcome drop-in usage for rocking chair sitting, tea sipping, poetry or silence. Also, consider joining the weekly meditation session (Fridays 3:30–4 p.m.), or stopping in for “4th Friday Soup and Salad,” a monthly lunch and discussion for LU employees. A library of resources is available for your personal use as well.
- Consider using the Employee Assistance Program. This free benefit allows you to receive professional, confidential counseling to help manage stress or address other issues that may be impacting your health and wellness.
Lastly, feel free to contact me directly at laurie.ehlers@lawrence.edu to set up a personal appointment if you’d like to discuss stress or any health-related issue you may be experiencing.
—Laurie Ehlers, RN educator
Cultural Competency Lecture Series: Intercultural Competence
Cecile Despres-Berry, Leah McSorley, and Laura Zuege, will present Intercultural Competence on March 3 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Esch Hurvis Room.
Lawrence is home to over 200 students with global backgrounds, nearly 200 students that have studied in another country and faculty and staff with a wide range of international professional and personal experiences. Because these varied backgrounds, perspectives and experiences make up our community, the skill of global/intercultural competence can help us interact effectively across cultures.
The Cultural Competency Lecture Series at Lawrence features our faculty, students and staff sharing their expertise related to the knowledge and skills necessary to take a culturally competent, equity-minded approach to the work and learning in which they are engaged at Lawrence. Bring your lunch and learn!
Please join us by sending a RSVP to michelle.l.lasecki-jahnke@lawrence.edu by March 2.
Cloudflare “Cloudbleed” Information Disclosure
Technology Services is closely monitoring an unfolding and wide-reaching security disclosure from the internet content delivery company Cloudflare. The underlying incident — dubbed “Cloudbleed” — potentially exposed sensitive information from internet sites that used Cloudflare during the period of September 22, 2016 through February 20, 2017.
Lawrence does not use Cloudflare, so Cloudbleed affects none of the university’s sites and services like the Lawrence website or Voyager. We are not aware of any impact on third-party service providers who work with Lawrence at this point.
Because Cloudflare serves over 2 million websites, it is possible that you will receive notification from sites and services you use if those services determine that any private information leaked because of Cloudbleed. Compared to other breaches, bugs, and vulnerabilities over the past year, Cloudbleed appears to be a mostly low risk to individual users. Fully understanding the coverage from media outlets can be difficult, but security researcher Ryan Lacky provides good advice for individuals who are concerned about what Cloudbleed means for them:
From an individual perspective, this is straightforward —the most effective mitigation is to change your passwords. While this might not be necessary (it is unlikely your passwords were exposed in this incident), it will absolutely improve your security from both this potential compromise and many other, far more likely security issues. Cloudflare is behind many of the largest consumer web services (Uber, Fitbit, OKCupid, …), so rather than trying to identify which services are on Cloudflare, it’s probably most prudent to use this as an opportunity to rotate ALL passwords on all of your sites. Best practice is to use a long random string for each password, unique for each site, and to manage that collection using a “password manager”, such as 1Password, LastPass, or the built-in password managers in modern web browsers. Users should also log out and log in to their mobile applications after this update. While you’re at it, if it’s possible to use 2FA or 2SV with sites you consider important (using something like TOTP/Google Authenticator or U2F), that’s a meaningful security upgrade, too.
(from the article Cloudbleed: How to deal with it — https://medium.com/@octal/cloudbleed-how-to-deal-with-it-150e907fd165#.7mysif5j1).
Technology Services will continue to track the Cloudbleed incident and will provide further recommendations if necessary.
For those interested, more information is available at the following locations:
In memoriam: Michael LaMarca
Michael LaMarca, the Raymond H. Herzog Professor of Science and professor emeritus of biology, died Feb. 9 of complications from a stroke in Rochester, Minn. He was 85.
A specialist in reproduction and developmental biology, LaMarca joined the Lawrence faculty in 1965 and taught with distinction until his retirement in 1995. His career as a scientist and teacher was distinguished by his legendary commitment to the disciplined study of the living world. He was recognized with Lawrence’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 1983.
From the study of amphibians to the exploration of human reproduction, LaMarca guided students for 30 years in both the technical and ethical investigation of biological science. His enthusiastic teaching style impacted thousands of students, especially those he mentored through independent study, many of whom went on to distinguished careers of their own as doctors, researchers and educators.
He served as the scientific director of the in vitro fertilization program at Appleton Medical Center from 1985 to 1995 and his guidance was critical to the impressive successes of northeast Wisconsin’s first such program. Under LaMarca’s tutelage, numerous Lawrence students were able to begin their own research careers there.
LaMarca’s own research earned him a place of influence and honor in the scientific community and took him to laboratories and research centers around the country, including Argonne National Laboratory, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Harvard University School of Medicine, among others.
A native of Jamestown, N.Y., LaMarca was the first member of his family to attend college, earning a degree in biology from the State University of New York at Albany. He spent four years in the Air Force during the Korean War, serving active duty stateside as a meteorological officer while achieving the rank of lieutenant. He went on to earn his Ph.D in zoology at Cornell University and spent two years teaching at Rutgers University before joining the Lawrence faculty.
He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Joan LaMarca, daughters Cathy Stroebel, Rochester, Minn., and Nancy Gordon, Eden Prairie, Minn., and four grandchildren: Ben, Hannah and Andy Stroebel; and Zach Gordon. He was preceded in death by his oldest daughter, Mary LaMarca.
The family has requested memorials be directed to the National Science Teachers Association or the National Academy of Sciences.
LUX: New name, slightly new program for admitted students
On Thursday night, Feb. 23 and Friday, Feb. 24, we will welcome dozens of applied and accepted students to Lawrence for our first admitted student open house of the year. We have renamed the program LUX, where we will be shining a light on the Lawrence University experience. (We trust families will not confuse this with our library friends’ search tool of the same name.)
This February program is an addition to our programming this year. We will still offer our two programs in April (9–10 and 23–24). For students who applied and were admitted through one of our Early Action rounds, we are offering this program to capitalize on peak interest at the right time, rather than making them wait till April for “the good stuff.”
For more about the program, please visit the LUX page.
Note to faculty and coaches: In previous open houses, we have encouraged your attendance at lunch to meet and mingle with families. We have changed up the programming, inviting local alumni to mix and mingle at lunch, so you need not feel obliged to attend lunch. (We will not turn you away, however, if you do choose to attend.)