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Family Concert at Riverview Gardens

Join us for Lawrence’s second annual Family Concert at Riverview Gardens in Appleton on Sunday, February 23rd!

Part of the Music For All series, and co-presented by the Mile of Music Music Education Team, this concert is designed for children of all ages, but especially geared toward elementary-aged children.

The event begins at 3 p.m. with experiential music-making stations around the building. A short, interactive concert in the Community Hall follows from 3:30-4:15 p.m.

Bring the young people in your life, along with your inner child, and get ready for magical, musical adventures! 

Riverview Gardens is located at 1101 S. Oneida St., Appleton.

The event is free and open to the public.

A reception sponsored by Stone Arch Brewpub follows the event.

Web Redesign Update

Dear LU Community, 

In October, the Communications and Web Development teams announced a redesign of the Lawrence University website. Since this announcement, our teams have been hard at work on the initial stages of this important and comprehensive project. Below is a quick refresher on the scope and goals of the project, an update on our work to date, a list of important upcoming deadlines (please at least read this section), and ways you can help us with the project. 

Project Overview 

We are currently undertaking a full redesign of the main Lawrence University website, including overall navigation and information architecture, to compete digitally with other schools, better represent the on-campus educational experience, and meet the needs of the internal community. We have allotted roughly a year to this project and plan to launch our new site in fall 2020. The goals of the redesign are to:

  • Encourage prospective students to apply and enroll. 
  • Encourage alumni, parents, and friends to support Lawrence.  
  • Make daily operations for faculty, staff and current students easier.  
  • Inform the community about operations and events. 
  • Inform and delight prospective employees.

To meet these goals, we will:

  • Reorganize content for improved discoverability, navigation, and user experience.
  • Review all content to ensure it is current, necessary, and compelling.
  • Optimize website architecture, technology, and content for improved visibility in search results (e.g., Google).
  • Focus the website experience on external constituents (prospective students/families, alumni/donors, campus visitors, prospective employees, news/media).
  • Provide a separate, dedicated web experience for Lawrentians (students, faculty, staff).
  • Improve data and insights to better inform future spends of time and money.
  • Plan for ongoing website maintenance, including potential investments in software and personnel. 

Work to Date

The Communications and Web Development teams have spent our first few months on the project focused on back-end content and development work. This work is not easily visible to those outside of the project but is highly important and time-intensive—it provides the foundation for our new website and its success. This work includes content review and organization, including discussions of site navigation, and foundational work on the website’s structure, design, and maintenance. We have established regular meetings of the Web Stakeholders Group (see list of names below), which is charged with representing the interests of primary university offices, departments, and constituent groups during the redesign process. We have also begun meeting with various university offices and departments to discuss content needs. The Stakeholders Group will continue to meet monthly until the redesign is complete, and members of the Communications team will reach out to other offices and departments regarding content in the coming weeks. 

Upcoming Deadlines & Items of Note 

Because content on our current website will need to be manually migrated to the new website, we are making plans now to ensure a smooth transition. This includes establishing a number of deadlines on content creation and maintenance that will allow us to fully account for all site content during the redesign process. Please note the following deadlines: 

  • December 21, 2019: web editors will no longer have permissions to create new pages; the process to update pages will continue as usual. Contact Communications if new pages are necessary to conduct university business.
  • May 01, 2020: only critical updates to existing pages; updates must be communicated to Communications.
  • August 01: no updates to existing content unless there’s an urgent reason; contact Communications to make changes or additions.

 We know and appreciate that the work of the university will continue through the redesign process and will work to ensure that these deadlines do not impede our work. We are also working closely with members of the Web Stakeholders Group to understand and account for how content needs intersect with these deadlines. Please contact us (communications@lawrence.edu) if you have any questions about the deadlines or need assistance on the website.  

How You Can Help

Even if you aren’t directly involved with the website, there are still ways that you can contribute to this important project! 

  • Help us understand how you use the current website and what resources you use most by taking this quick survey.
  • Volunteer for usability testing. We’re looking for users of all ages, interests, abilities, and levels of experience with technology to help us test ideas for the new site. If you’d be willing to spend 30-40 minutes trying our new concepts and giving us your thoughts, please email communications@lawrence.edu with the subject line “Usability Testing Volunteer.”
  • Stay tuned to the LU Insider and your inbox, as well as notifications from members of the Stakeholders Group. 

 Thank you in advance for your patience and assistance throughout this process. As always, please reach out to communications@lawrence.edu if you have any questions. 

Best,

Megan Scott

Associate Vice President of Communication

Web Stakeholders Group

Jaclyn Charais, ACE
Jay Dansand, IT 
Chris Fohlin, Consultant 
Jody Fraleigh, Student Life  
Jaime Gonzalez, Admissions & PCDA
Alison Gunther-Pal, Faculty 
Mackenzie Huber, Communications 
Kelly Landis, Communications 
Katie C. Mills-Erickson, Admissions 
Morgen Moraine, Conservatory 
Amber Nelson, Development 
Matt Schmeltzer, Communications
Claudena Skran, Faculty 
Megan Scott, Communications
James Sweetack, IT 

Inform the new website by taking this survey

The Lawrence community is currently working on a shiny new website and looking to make it more user-friendly for students, faculty, and staff. Help us understand how you use the current website and what resources you use most by taking this quick survey.

Take the survey

Want to be even more involved in the process?

Volunteer for new website usability testing

As we build the new site, we’ll be testing new ideas along the way with short, 1-on-1, task-based testing sessions one morning each month.

We’re looking for users of all ages, interests, abilities, and levels of experience with technology.

If you’d be willing to spend 20-30 minutes trying our new concepts and giving us your thoughts, please email communications@lawrence.edu with the subject line “Usability Testing Volunteer” and we will work to schedule a time.

Thanks for your help as we build a new site!

Worship-Yom Kippur and Taizé

Taizé

On Sunday, October 6, the Lawrence community is welcome to gather at All Saints Episcopal for an interfaith contemplative worship experience. Join with community, candles, silence, chant and prayer from the Christian tradition.
Light dinner to follow services.

Yom Kippur

On Tuesday and Wednesday, October 8-9, services for Yom Kippur will be held at Moses Montefiore and B’nai Israel. Lawrentians are welcome to meet at the Wriston turnaround for walking groups and shuttles.

Meet Tuesday, 10/8
at 5:15 to walk to Moses Montefiore
at 6:30pm for the shuttle to B’nai Israel

Meet Wednesday, 10/9
at 8:45am to walk to Moses Monetefiore
at 9am for the MORNING shuttle to B’Nai Israel.
at 1:30pm for the AFTERNOON shuttle to B’Nai Israel.

Contact the Office of Spiritual and Religious Life with additional questions.

On Afrotropic Art Histories: A Conversation

The Department of Art & Art History is pleased to present a conversation with Dr. Huey Copeland & Dr. Krista Thompson of Northwestern University. 

Thursday, September 19

5 PM – 6:30 p.m.

Wriston Art Center Auditorium

Link to Facebook event here 

Huey Copeland is Arthur Andersen Teaching and Research Professor, Associate Professor of Art History, and affiliated faculty in the Critical Theory Cluster, the Department of African American Studies, the Department of Art Theory & Practice, the Department of Performance Studies, and the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.

Krista Thompson is the Mary Jane Crowe Professor of Art History, and affiliated faculty in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of Performance Studies. She researches and teaches modern and contemporary art and visual culture of the Africa diaspora and the Caribbean, with an emphasis on photography. 

Sponsored by the Jordan Fund for the Arts.

“They Call Us Illegals”: A documentary film and virtual reality simulation

The Office of Diversity & Inclusion is pleased to be partnering with Lawrence’s Film Studies Program, the Diversity and Intercultural Center, ESTHER, and the Appleton Dignity & Respect Campaign to bring you two films in one event: Los Sueños de Anita and The Unafraid.

Los Sueños de Anita is a virtual reality experience that immerses viewers into the life of two undocumented parents as they raise their young daughter Anita and face struggles much too familiar to the community. It runs about 9 minutes and will be available for viewing between 3pm-4:15pm and 7pm-8pm.

The Unafraid follows the personal lives of three DACA students in Georgia as they take on activism in a state that has banned them from attending their top state universities and disqualifies them from receiving in-state tuition at any other public college. The screening (which will take place in the Warch cinema) starts at 4:30pm on September 26 with a Community Conversation and short survey afterward, and viewing the virtual reality piece will be available again until 8pm.

This event is free and open to the public.

New LU Insider Coming

Starting this Fall Term, the LU Insider newsletter will be getting a new look! In an effort to make it a more convenient and enjoyable communication, your friends in Communications will be working to provide more information about upcoming events, University news, accomplishments worth celebrating, and other fun and useful tidbits along with the usual announcements.

New Submission Guidelines

  • Deadline: All submissions for the Thursday morning LU Insider are due Wednesday at noon.
  • Submissions: Designated staff members from across campus can submit posts by logging in here. If you would like to submit a post but do not have access, contact Mackenzie.m.huber@lawrence.edu
  • Frequency: No announcement will be allowed to appear in consecutive LU Insider newsletters. Submit announcements strategically.
  • Events: To have an event listed in the “Events Next Week” section of the LU Insider newsletter, it must be on the Events Calendar. The Office of Communications reserves the right to curate the list for length. Recurring events will not appear in the section. Posts that are strictly public event announcements will no longer be included as LU Insider posts.
  • Headlines: Write headlines with a purpose so that people get the main idea of the announcement from the headline.
  • First Sentence(s): The first sentence or two of a post should mention all essential information and details.
  • Photos and Graphics: For the sake of accessibility, no graphics or photos with text will be allowed in LU Insider posts unless all the information is also written as text in the post. Photos are welcome at the end of posts as long as alt text is included.
  • Category and Audience: Always select the proper category for the post before submitting for approval. The LU Insider will no longer be separated into student and faculty/staff emails, so make sure content is appropriate for all audiences. Before submitting for approval, continue to select intended audience(s), as faculty/staff announcements will be denoted.
  • Contact: Mackenzie.m.huber@lawrence.edu

The Office of Communications reserves the right to curate the LU Insider posts that appear in the email summary.

Energy Audit of University Buildings

Lawrence has hired Johnson Controls to do an energy audit on campus.  The audit began on Tuesday, May 21, and will continue over the next few weeks. The following buildings are currently being audited:       

Academy of Music
Alex Gym
Briggs Hall
Brokaw Hall
Buchanan-Kiewit Wellness Center
Chapman Hall
Conservatory West 
Facility Services
Main Hall
Memorial Chapel
Memorial Hall
Music Drama
Seeley G. Mudd Library
Shattuck Hall 
Steitz Hall
Warch Campus Center
Wriston Art Center
Youngchild Hall

If you work in one of these 18 buildings, please note that you may see employees of Johnson Controls walking through hallways, rooms, and offices. The University has given them permission to check every room in buildings if needed, and they can be identified by their Johnson Controls lanyard.  While they do need to access every room, they understand and respect that class is still in session and the business of learning is our first priority; they will work around classes, labs, meetings, etc. and will make every effort to avoid disrupting our activities. 

Lighting data loggers (see image below) are also being installed in these buildings for 2-3 weeks. These loggers will be gathering baseline numbers on how and when our buildings are in use, for annual energy savings calculations. Please do not tamper with the loggers.

Data loggers being installed in 18 campus buildings. Please do not tamper with these loggers.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Facility Services.

LU: Get on the Move

I see many of you moving this week, but you haven’t logged in to record your movement since last month. If we all keep moving and log our points I know we can move into 10th place overall. This week’s winners are Liz Boutelle, Ty Collins, Jillian Johnson and Crystal Bailey.

Need more incentive? Pete Gilbert is in the lead. Can anyone catch him?