Communications

LaunchLU, Lawrence’s student-run entrepreneurial pitch contest, will take place in the Wriston Auditorium on Saturday, April 15th!

Present your business idea and have the opportunity to win a monetary prize to help you with your plan!  If you are interested, click here to access the online registration form.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!