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Communications

Category: Communications

The Pitch presented by The Fox Connection for Creative Entrepreneurship

The Fox Connection is a collaboration of the premier academic institutions in northeast Wisconsin to enhance entrepreneurial education and opportunity for area students. Member institutions include Lawrence University, St. Norbert College, UW-Green Bay, and UW-Oshkosh.

On May 3, 2017, finalists from each school will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges and to an audience of area students, community members, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors.

For details and to register to attend The Pitch, visit The Fox Connection website.

Fox Cities Stadium • 2400 North Casaloma Drive • Appleton, WI
May 3rd, 2017  • Pitches begin at 12:30pm

 

Introducing … Resonance Communications Fellowship

Do you know or work with any talented, multi-interested students? Of course you do! Or are you a student who’s interested in a career in marketing, journalism, public relations, photography or graphic design? The Office of Communications is seeking freshmen, sophomores and juniors to apply for a new fellowship opportunity in our office.

This selective internship, which we’ve named the Resonance Communications Fellowship, will allow students the opportunity to work in several communications disciplines in support of the college’s reputation enhancement and related communications activities. They will be assigned a lead mentor and will have the opportunity to work with several staff members over the course of their fellowship. Fellows will be expected to make substantive contributions to the work of the department, with particular emphasis on storytelling—in a variety of forms—from the student perspective. Fellows will be assigned projects ranging from but not limited to: stories in Lawrence magazine, photo portraits, video editing, student blogs, social media campaigns, building/editing of the lawrence.edu website, admissions materials and promotional print materials for other offices.

Expectations of fellows will be similar to those of salaried staff, including regular, prompt attendance and the preparation of regular progress reports. Since much is expected of them, fellows will receive a salary above that of paid student workers.

If you know of a student who would be a great fit for this new opportunity, feel free to email Resonance coordinator Kasey Corrado at kasey.r.corrado@lawrence.edu and/or refer the student to the position posting on LUWorks.

Presto! and Inside Lawrence: The Conservatory hits the road

This academic year marks the launch of a three-year pilot program titled Presto! The Concert Tour Reimagined, and the continuation of the successful Inside Lawrence events due to a generous grant from the Caerus Foundation.

Both projects provide the Conservatory the opportunity to reconnect with alumni, grow our applicant pool and engage students and faculty in exemplifying 21st-century musicianship through preparation and execution of these tours.

Planning for both Presto! and Inside Lawrence began last October. The Conservatory selected the Lawrence University Wind Ensemble to tour in Minneapolis and the brass faculty to visit Chicago. From March 22 to 24, 57 wind ensemble students, under the direction of Andrew Mast and Matthew Arau, will engage in school visits, outreach and a final public concert. Central High School in St. Paul, Maple Grove High School and Eden Prairie High School band students will work with Lawrence wind ensemble students by watching them perform and participating in question-and-answer sessions. These students will learn more about Lawrence firsthand and what it takes to be a college/university musician.

The wind ensemble’s outreach efforts also focus on those who face mental illness in the Minneapolis area. Chamber ensembles will perform for homeless shelter meals and also serve meals at one of the shelters. Wind ensemble students will also work directly with students at Karner Blue Education Center, a school devoted to addressing the specific needs of students with autism, emotional and behavioral disorders, and cognitive disabilities.

The entire tour will culminate in a free public concert at Trinity Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minn., on Friday, March 24 at 7:30 p.m. Alumni, students interested in Lawrence, the Stillwater community and Minnesota’s concert-going public will form the audience as the ensemble celebrates its successful tour.

The Lawrence brass faculty kick off the continuation of the Inside Lawrence program by visiting the Merit School of Music in Chicago on Saturday, April 8. John Daniel, Jeffrey Stannard, James DeCorsey, Tim Albright and Marty Erickson will work with brass students in the Alice S. Pfaelzer Conservatory, a tuition-free music school, through workshops, sectionals, chamber music coaching and ensemble work.

In addition to working directly with students, Lawrence alumni from the Chicago area and all Pfaelzer Conservatory students will witness a mid-day performance by the Lawrence brass faculty as part of Merit School’s Live From Gottlieb series. Conservatory faculty are looking forward to continuing to work with Merit School students who will hopefully one day be future Lawrentians. We are thrilled to witness the excitement and support from our students, faculty and the entire campus as we prepare to take the Conservatory on the road to make a difference in these metropolitan communities through ways only Lawrentians know how.

—Aleeh Schwoerer
Conservatory of Music

LU staffers, alums honored in Future 15

Four area young professionals with Lawrence ties are among this year’s Future 15 winners. Pulse Young Professionals Network and the Appleton Post-Crescent announced the 2017 class, which includes:

  • Paris Wicker ’08, associate dean of students for campus programs
  • Elyse Lucas ’10, lecturer of education and art teacher in the Appleton Area School District
  • Fanny Lau ’14, a field organizer with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin
  • Oliver Zornow ’10, community engagement manager for the Building for Kids Children’s Museum and the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra

The winners will be honored March 2 at the Hortonville Opera House.

LU staffers Wicker, Lucas among Future 15 nominees

Paris Wicker ’08, associate dean of students for campus programs, and Elyse Lucas ’10, lecturer of education, are two of 25 nominees for the 2017 edition of Future 15, an annual list of exceptional young professionals in the Fox Cities sponsored by the Appleton Post-Crescent and Pulse Young Professionals.

In addition to Wicker and Lucas, two other Lawrence graduates are nominees: Fanny Lau ’14 and Oliver Zornow ’10. Visit the Post-Crescent’s website to vote.

Voting runs through Feb. 2. The 15 honorees will be feted March 2 at the Hortonville Opera House.

Note: An earlier version of this post neglected to note that, in addition to being a Lawrence graduate, Elyse Lucas is also a current employee.

Next Thursday’s Convocation: Andrew Solomon

Andrew Solomon, a writer, lecturer and activist in psychology, LGBT rights and the arts, will speak at Lawrence’s next Convocation on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 11:10 a.m. in Memorial Chapel.

Solomon’s talk is titled Far From the Tree: How Difference Unites Us.

Solomon won the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (2001), a book that received much acclaim and was also a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. A second edition was published in 2015. More recently, Solomon’s Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity (2012) was also an acclaimed best-seller, winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. He has contributed to the New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker in the past.

His latest book, Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change, came out last April and, per his website, includes “essays about places in dramatic transition.” View a trailer for Far and Away on Vimeo.

Solomon received a bachelor’s degree in English from Yale University and a master’s degree in English from Jesus College, Cambridge. He earned a Ph.D. degree in psychology from Jesus College, Cambridge. President of PEN American Center, he is currently a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center and a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill-Cornell Medical College.

Spiritual and religious life series: Embodying Your Faith

The Rev. Linda Morgan-Clement, the Julie Esch Hurvis Dean of Spiritual and Religious Life, invites all members of the campus community to sign up for a four-week series called “Embodying Your Faith” beginning Feb. 8.

Sessions will begin between 4:30 and 4:45 p.m. and end by 6 p.m.

Email Linda Morgan-Clement at linda.morgan-clement@lawrence.edu to indicate your interest or ask any questions, and see the image below for more details.

 

Reminder: Convocation on Friday night

What do Assistant Professor José Encarnación, current student Irene Durbak ’17, alumna Carolyn Armstrong Desrosiers ’10, former non-degree-seeking student Christopher Ducasse, journalist Fritz Valescot, LUCE (Lawrence University Cello Ensemble) and the Lawrence University Symphony Orchestra all have in common?

Find out Friday, Jan. 6 at 7 p.m. in Memorial Chapel when Janet Anthony, George and Marjorie Olsen Chandler Professor of Music, speaks about her 20 years of music-making and cross-cultural exchange in Haiti.

There will be performances of Haitian music, including two works composed by non-degree seeking students at Lawrence, short film clips from Kenbe La directed by Armstrong Desrosiers and Stephan Anunson, and reflections on the transformative power of music.

We hope to see you there!

The road to the Washington Post (and other national publications), and the multiplier effect

Last term, back in November, I had the good fortune to see the Washington Post run a piece I had written which shared my views about how parents can avoid predatory practices in college admission.

I’m writing this piece to the Lawrence community to encourage those of you with a compelling, interesting and/or insider’s view to share on a topic to share that view.

(Encouragement—and the help of others—is necessary, as I learned when I went through this process myself.)

As you might know, to help get the Lawrence story “out there,” we lean on the expertise and connections of others, which is why we work with a public relations firm, Morrison & Tyson (which recently married another firm, Dick Jones, and gave up its name in the arrangement). Our contact there, Maggy Ralbovsky, has many contacts in the media world and knows how to help place articles written by members of the Lawrence faculty or staff, which she has done for colleagues like Jason Brozek, Tim Troy, Peter Glick and Dena Skran. She is the one who helped my article see the light of day.

… but it took more than two months of darkness before it actually saw that light.

I wrote the piece back in late August, right as the school year was starting at Appleton North, and right after my wife and I received a letter trying to manipulate our hopes and fears about the college admission process for our son into financial gain for its sender.

I originally intended to submit it to the Post-Crescent, but first sent it to Craig Gagnon and Rick Peterson in our communication office, to get their feedback on it. (As our media relations expert, Rick is particularly adept at helping shape pieces I and others have written so that they are in a form and have a view that is likely to gain traction with a newspaper. He has pitched thousands of stories himself, so he knows what might work and what might not. Tom Ziemer, our editor, has considerable experience with journalism himself and is another great asset we have on the communication team.)

Craig and Rick then shared my piece with Maggy to see whether she thought it might have a chance at a national audience. (She did.) She read it, made a handful of edit suggestions, some of which I accepted, others of which I rejected, because—at least in my mind—they would have obscured my voice.

Maggy then sent the piece out to her network of cascading options. She thought it might get some traction with the Washington Post, so she started there. If it didn’t catch, we would go with plan B, and plan C, and plan D. (She had at least that many plans.)

After about a week, Maggy contacted us to let us know that Valerie Strauss of the Post had, in fact, expressed an interest, and that she was planning to run the piece within the week.

So we waited a week.

No article.

And another week.

Still no article.

Maggy told us she hadn’t heard anything back from Valerie for a couple of weeks, but that we should sit tight, that it would be worth it.

So we waited another couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Maggy had tried a couple more times with Valerie Strauss, to no avail.

We asked Maggy if we should go with Plan B. She advised that it would be my call (like any author’s call) to pull and move to Plan B, but gently suggested that we wait a little longer, that these things take time.

Another month went by.

And then—poof!—it appeared on Tuesday, November 1, 2016.*

As Craig Gagnon has pointed out to me, this was definitely worth the wait, because the “multiplier effect” of the piece—and others written by members of the Lawrence University community—can be significant as we not only raise the visibility of Lawrence, but also inform people’s views of how we think and work here. (Such efforts matter as we strive to make more people in the world aware of this special place through earned media, in addition to bought media.)

Start with the Washington Post, which runs the piece in print and online, including its social media channels. Their readers, viewers and followers refer, repost or retweet it, and it spreads from there. (If Lawrence grad and ABC Chief Foreign Correspondent, Terry Moran, retweets it, his 1.2 million followers will see it.)

News aggregators, like UBDaily (Undergraduate Business), may pick it up a few days later and re-run it.

Kasey Corrado, Lawrence’s social media director, will also post pieces where Lawrence is mentioned or where a member of the community publishes a view that may be of interest to our followers. She promotes the pieces through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat … how she keeps up with all of the channels, let alone manages them as strategically as she does, is remarkable. (Like Rick, Kasey provides sound advice on what may gain traction and has excellent ideas on how to frame a piece for social media.)

As my mother will often say, “To make a long story short” (usually when she is in the process of making a long story longer), if you’re thinking about writing a piece for a national audience, please write it.

And know that the route from your mind and fingertips to the minds and eyes of general readers far beyond Lawrence may be of indeterminate length and windiness but that your piece will find its way there.

Thank you to all of you who have submitted pieces like this that have appeared in national and regional publications.

And thank you to those of you who have yet to do so, but will.

Your work matters.

 

*It should be noted that this is but one example to illustrate the value of patience. Many/most submissions do not take as long to see the light of day once an editor indicates an interest. (CG)

Winter Wriston Art Gallery exhibitions open Jan. 13

Join us to celebrate the winter 2017 exhibitions in the Wriston Art Galleries!

Opening reception: Friday, Jan. 13 at 6 p.m.
Performance by We Go From Where We Know* at 8 p.m.

Dreams of the Floating World: 15 Views of Tokugawa Japan
Curated by the students in Brigid Vance’s HIST 388: Early Modern Japan
Leech Gallery

The Fine Print: Women Artists in the Dr. Robert Dickens ’63 Collection of Contemporary Art
Hoffmaster Gallery

Lawrence University Studio Art Faculty Exhibition
Tony Conrad, lecturer of art
Rob Neilson, Frederick R. Layton Professor of Art and associate professor of art
Benjamin Rinehart, associate professor of art
John Shimon, associate professor of art
Meghan C. Sullivan, Uihlein Fellow of Studio Art
Kohler Gallery

*We Go From Where We Know’s performance will feature the following LU faculty and staff members and alumni:

Julia Blair ’11, voice, viola
Loren Dempster, cello
John Gates, voice, percussion
Brian Pertl, didgeridoo
Leila Ramagopal Pertl, harp
John Shimon, guitar