LU News

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University has been named one of 15 national winners of a $60,000 Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program grant. The program is sponsored by the Merck Institute for Science Education (MISE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The grants were announced during the AAAS’s annual meeting (Feb. 15-19) in San Francisco.

The grant, paid out over a three-year period, will support student-faculty research focused on collaborations between biology and chemistry. It is the second time in five years (2002) that Lawrence has been recognized with a USRP award.

“The intersection of biology and chemistry is one of the most vital areas of science education,” said David Burrows, Lawrence provost and dean of the faculty. “It is critical that we continue to provide high quality educational and collaborative research opportunities in this area for our students or risk falling behind the curve. Support from the Merck/AAAS program has been an integral component in helping Lawrence provide these kind of opportunities and fostering a productive interdisciplinary environment.”

Launched in 2000 as a national competition, the goal of the program is to advance undergraduate research training and enhance education through research experiences that emphasize the interrelationship between chemistry and biology sciences.

The 10-year, $9 million initiative is funded by MISE, a private foundation established in 1993 to improve science education and is administered by AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society and the publisher of the journal Science.

Joining Lawrence as 2007 USRP recipients were Augustana College, Calvin College, Davidson College, Pomona College, Rhodes College, St. Lawrence University, The College of New Jersey, Truman State University, University of Dayton, University of Evansville, University of Richmond, University of St. Thomas, UW-Oshkosh and Wellesley College.

APPLETON, WIS. — The Lawrence University “Performing Arts at Lawrence” Artist Series continues Saturday, March 3 with cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han. The duo takes the stage of the Lawrence Memorial Chapel at 8:00 p.m.

Finckel leads a multifaceted career as a concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur. He is the co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, teaches during the summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and has served as a regular faculty member of the Issac Stern Chamber Music Workshops in New York, Jerusalem, Paris, and Japan.

Born into a family of cellists, Finckel began his music studies with his father. At the age of 15, he made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra and at 17 he played for Mstislav Rostropovich, and soon after became the great cellist’s first American pupil. Finckel has been hailed as a “world class soloist” by the Denver Post and “one of the top 10, if not top five, cellist in the world today” by the Nordwest Zeitung in Germany. Recent engagements include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Chamber Music Northwest. He has played throughout the world, including in Mexico, Canada, the Far East, Scandinavia, and continental Europe. As cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, Finckel has won six Grammy Awards including two unprecedented honors for Best Classical Album, three Gramophone magazine awards, and the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize.

Han has performed at many of the world’s most prestigious venues including Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the 92nd Street Y in New York. She has given performances in England, Germany, Austria, Spain, Denmark, Japan, and Taiwan, along with engagements in the United States. Han maintains an active teaching schedule at the Aspen Music Festival and has been a regular faculty member of the Isaac Stern International Chamber Music Workshops at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center.

In August 2003, Finckel and Han launched Music@Menlo, a new chamber music festival at Silicon Valley that has attracted widespread attention and international acclaim. Han and Finckel’s wide-ranging musical activities also include the founding of ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company.

Tickets for this concert are $22 and $20 for adults, $19 and $17 for senior citizens, and $17 and $15 for students. Tickets are on sale at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, or by phone at 920-832-6749. Tickets, if available, will be sold beginning one hour before the concert at the box office.

The final concert of the 2006-07 Artist Series takes place at 8:00 p.m. Saturday, April 21 with Lawrence alum Peter Kolkay ’98, on bassoon. For more information on this concert, visit: www.lawrence.edu/news/performingartsseries

APPLETON, WIS. — One-time leftist ideologue turned conservative political activist David Horowitz discusses student rights and the importance of intellectual diversity on college campuses in an address at Lawrence University.

Horowitz presents “Academic Freedom and the War on Terror,” Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. The event is free and open to the public.

An outspoken opponent of censorship and racial preferences, Horowitz was one of the founders of the “New Left” in the 1960s and served as the editor of “Ramparts,” the movement’s largest magazine. Disillusionment with the leftist movement led Horowitz to embrace a conservative philosophy.

In 1988, he created the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, renamed the David Horowitz Freedom Center last July. The center promotes the principles of individual freedom, limited government and academic freedom in American schools. It also publishes “FrontPageMagazine.com,” an online journal featuring conservative columnists Ann Coulter and Andrew Sullivan and libertarian talk show host Larry Elder.

Four years ago, Horowitz turned his attention to American college campuses, founding Students for Academic Freedom (SAF), which has grown to 200 college chapters nationwide, He also wrote a piece of model legislation he called the “Academic Bill of Rights,” which outlined ways to protect students from partisan politics and broaden academic freedom in the classroom.” In July, 2006, Temple University became the country’s first university to adopt a policy ensuring students with academic freedom rights.

Horowitz has written more than a dozen books, including his 1997 autobiography “Radical Son,” which chronicles his own political journey from “red-diaper baby” to conservative activist, “Uncivil Wars,” which explores intolerance and racial McCarthyism on college campuses and “The Art of Political War” in 2000, which Republican political strategist Karl Rove hailed as “the perfect guide to winning on the political battlefield.”

Earlier in his career, Howowitz teamed with Peter Collier to write a series of best-selling biographies on several iconic American families, including the Rockefellers, Kennedys, Fords and Roosevelts. Horowitz and Collier also co-wrote the 1989 book “Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties.”

A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1978, Horowitz was recognized by President Reagan in 1990 with the Teach Freedom Award.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Columbia University and a master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Horowitz appearance is sponsored by the student organization Viking Conservatives and the Young America’s Foundation.

APPLETON, WIS. –The Lawrence Conservatory of Music and Theatre Department are staging two of Puccini’s one-act operas, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, at 8:00 p.m. Thursday and Friday, March 1 and 2 and at 3:00 p.m. Sunday, March 4 in Stansbury Theatre, located in the Music-Drama Center. Tickets for the opera are $10 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and students. Tickets are available beginning Monday, February 19 at the box office, located in the Music-Drama Center, or by phone at 920-832-6749. If tickets remain, they will be on sale beginning one hour before each performance at the box office.

Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi are two of the three one-act operas featured in Puccini’s Il Trittico. Written as an operatic answer to Dante’s Divine Comedy, Il Trittico features the tales of three separate lives, each headed either towards heaven, hell, or purgatory.

Suor Angelica is a tale of loss and repentance. After bearing an illegitimate child in late 17th century Italy, Angelica is sent to a convent by her family, where she stays for seven years before learning the news that her child has died. Devastated, she sings the lament, “Senza mamma” (“Without mamma”), mixes poison, and resolves to kill herself. After taking her deadly drink, Sister Angelica realizes that her suicide is a mortal sin, and therefore she will not go to heaven. As she dies, Sister Angelica prays for forgiveness, and in her last moments, has a vision of the Virgin Mary bringing her lost child to her. The Lawrence production of Suor Angelica will be sung in Italian, a first for the Lawrence Conservatory Opera, according to director Timothy X. Troy, associate professor of theatre arts. “The music in Suor is so soaring and soulful, we hope that retaining the original language will help the students have a good experience with Italian, and that the audience will get a first-hand ‘view’ of the opera,” Troy said. This production will include supertitles in English.

Gianni Schicchi’s setting is originally in Florence, Italy in 1299, however, for the Lawrence production, it is set in a 1980s New Jersey suburb of New York City. “We’ve decided to change the setting and era for this production (Gianni Schicchi). We are singing it in English and setting it in a way that we imagine the action taking place in about 1980 in a New Jersey suburb of New York City. What would happen if the Donait family were low-level mobsters, and Schicchi tricked them in order to take over their ‘action’,” muses Troy. “None of this, of course, changes the beauty and drive of Puccini’s score.”

Conducting the orchestra for the opera is David Becker, professor of music and the vocal coach is Bonnie Koestner, associate professor of music. Playing the part of Sister Angelica is Cami Bowers ’07, and playing Gianni Schicchi is Aram Monisoff ’07.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University has the distinct privilege and honor to host the United States Navy Band live in concert on Tuesday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Free tickets are required and can be obtained beginning Monday, February 19 at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, or by phone at 920-832-6749.

The United States Navy Band has been the Navy’s premier musical organization since 1925. Directed by Capt. Ralph M. Gambone, the band features some of the nation’s top musicians performing a wide variety of music ranging from classical orchestral works to original arrangements of current popular favorites, as well as traditional marches and patriotic fare.

The band has played for a variety of events stateside, including in the Washington and New York parades honoring “Operation Desert Storm” troops in 1991 and at the arrival ceremonies honoring Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. They performed in 1981 for the 52 American hostages returning to Andrews Air Force Base following captivity in Iran; during the State Funeral of President Ronald W. Reagan in 2004; and for the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial Service. Internationally they have performed at such events as the 300th Anniversary of the Russian Fleet in St. Petersburg and at the Baltic International Festival of the Fleets in Kaliningrad, Russia.

Gambone, the 11th officer to hold the position of director, has been leading the Navy Band since August 1998. A native of Annapolis, Md., Gambone, has served in the Navy since 1969. He received a bachelor’s degree in music from Towson State College in Maryland and a master’s degree in music from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. In April 2001, he was inducted into the prestigious American Bandmasters Association, the professional association of master conductors and musicians.

APPLETON, WIS. — Eric Seidel, a 2003 Lawrence graduate and a former software engineer for Apple Computer, shares insights on how a liberal arts and science degree helped him launch his own web-based company in a Science Hall Colloquium.

Seidel presents “Entrepreneurship: The Calculus of Starting Your Own Company after Lawrence,” Thursday, Feb. 15 at 4:15 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 202. The event is free and open to the public.

After earning his bachelor’s degree cum laude in mathematics, Seidel spent three years working for Apple Computer before launching his own start-up company, Shoutfit.com, last May. The fashion-focused, Internet-based company allows users from around the world to discuss fashion and share fashion photographs.

In his address, Seidel will discuss the importance of problem-solving skills in starting a company, how software development differs for start-up companies, the challenges of raising necessary capital to start a new company and the process of delivering a product to the marketplace.

Shoutfit.com received venture capital funding from the Boston, Mass., firm Y-Combinator and is currently in the process of raising additional capital. The company opened to the public in January, 2007

APPLETON, WIS. — Joseph Sebarenzi knows too well the horrors of genocide, having lost both parents, seven brothers and many members of his extended family during the violence that engulfed Rwanda in 1994, when Hutu extremists slaughtered more than 800,000 Tutsis.

The former speaker of the Rwanda parliament, who sought asylum in the United States, shares his dramatic story and discusses the role of forgiveness as a moral response to injustice in the second installment of Lawrence University’s Povolny International Studies Lecture Series “Africa Today: Problems and Solutions.”

Sebarenzi presents “A Message of Peace and Reconciliation” Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Growing up as a Tutsi in Rwanda, Sebarenzi witnessed glimpses of the tribal violence that later would plunge his country into chaos. He and his immediate family were safely out of the country when the Hutus went on their killing spree, which claimed the lives of many members of his extended family.

After returning to Rwanda, Sebarenzi entered politics and rose through the ranks of the parliament. In 1997, he became Speaker of the National Assembly, where he spoke out against government corruption and worked for legislative autonomy.

In December, 1999, Sebarenzi was poised to be elected president of Rwanda’s Liberal Party, but the vote was postponed, preventing him from improving his status as a contender for the Rwanda presidency.

A month later, amid charges brought by the National Assembly majority members of misconduct and other offenses, including organizing the survivors of genocide against the government, Sebarenzi was forced to resign his post as parliament speaker. Fearing assassination, he fled to Uganda before finding exile in the United States.

A frequent guest on BBC and Voice of America broadcasts to Africa, Sebarenzi is one of 12 peacebuilding associates of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding in Amherst, Mass., where he helps in the develop programs to address ethnic, religious and political conflicts around the world.

Sebarenzi also teaches conflict transformation at the School for International Training (SIT) in Vermont, where he earned master’s degree in international and intercultural management in 2002. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the department of peace studies at the University of Bradford in England.

Remaining speakers in the series include:

• April 3, Michael Fosdal, a specialist on British politics, “Britain’s Role in Aid and Development.”
• April 10, Jacqueline Klopp, assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, “Violence, Land and Dispossession: The Problems of Internal Displacement in Africa.”
• May 14, John Roome, operations director with the World Bank, “The World Bank’s Role in Development.”

The “Africa Today: Problems and Solutions” 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.

APPLETON, WIS. — A national touring exhibition of photographs documenting the devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita as well as the cleanup and rebuilding efforts taking place along the Gulf Coast will make a two-week stop at Lawrence University beginning Friday, Feb. 16.

Members of Lawrence’s student chapter of Habitat for Humanity will host a reception to open the exhibition, “Operation Home Delivery: Habitat for Humanity Responds to the Gulf Coast Hurricanes,” at 7 p.m. on Feb. 16 in Science Hall atrium. The reception will include refreshments, a silent auction and brief remarks by senior Kristi Sandven, president of the Lawrence chapter of HFH, and Steve Syverson, president of the Great Fox Cities HFH affiliate. The event is free and open to the public.

The exhibition, featuring a series of large, color images shot by professional Habitat staff photographers, will be on display in the atrium until March 2.

“As other issues capture our attention, it is easy to forget that people affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita are still struggling to recover,” said Syverson. “This exhibit is a vivid and compelling reminder, not only of the terrible loss, but of the amazing resilience of those affected and the incredible work of Habitat for Humanity volunteers to rebuild.

Lawrence is one of 10 stops at college and high school chapters of Habitat for Humanity on the exhibition’s tour, which began last December and runs through May.

Lawrence’s chapter of HFH will be sponsoring its annual volunteer mission during spring break (March 17-25) this year to New Orleans to assist with on-going reconstructive efforts.

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University’s traditionally talented and diverse student body will grow even more so this September when the college welcomes its first “posse” to campus.

Ten “Posse Scholars” recently were selected for admission from an applicant pool of more than 2,000 students developed by the Posse Foundation. The scholars — three men and seven women, all from New York City — were chosen following an in-person visit by a six-member committee of Lawrence faculty and staff. Plans call to enroll 10 additional scholars each of the next three years for a total of 40 Posse students by the fall of 2010.

Founded in 1989, the New York-based Posse Foundation identifies, assesses and develops students who have demonstrated the strongest leadership skills in small group activities and those who are able to offer creative solutions to a variety of problems. Students selected as scholars form multicultural cohorts of 10 called “posses.” These 10-member cohorts are then prepared, through an intensive eight-month pre-collegiate training program, for enrollment at top-tier universities nationwide to pursue their academics and to contribute to the enrichment of campus cultural perspectives.

Each posse acts as a traveling support system to ensure that each individual Posse Scholar succeeds and graduates. Posse Scholars receive four-year, full-tuition leadership scholarships from their posse-partner college or university.

Lawrence formed a partnership with the Posse Foundation in 2006, joining an elite group of 26 colleges and universities around the country associated with the program. Lawrence is the first private institution in Wisconsin to partner with the Posse Foundation. UW-Madison is also affiliated with it. Other notable partner institutions include Carleton, Dickinson, Grinnell, Hamilton, Middlebury and Pomona colleges.

“Although we enroll students from virtually every state, we typically have not had many from New York, where our first posse will come from, so in addition to adding to the ethnic and cultural diversity on campus, this program also will increase our geographical diversity,” said Steve Syverson, dean of admission and financial aid at Lawrence.

Michael Kim, associate professor of music, was a member of the delegation that traveled to New York to meet with potential members of Lawrence’s first posse. He called the experience “enlightening.”

“I was immediately struck by the enormous dedication and commitment of the Posse staff to help these students succeed and realize their dreams of attending college,” said Kim. “I was moved by the adversity and circumstances they had overcome in their lives. Their personal stories varied from having spent most of their life in different homeless shelters, to having family members overdose on heroin to working nights as a waitress to help pay their family’s rent.

“They are all very driven, determined and hungry to succeed in their chosen academic environments,” Kim added. “These students truly appreciated the opportunities that Posse and Lawrence offered them.”

Once on campus, the posse students are expected not only to provide support for each other, but also engage the campus community and assume leadership roles individually in the classroom and in campus groups and organizations.

One aspect of the program Syverson finds particularly attractive is the Posse Plus Retreat, in which Posse Scholars plan a weekend retreat around a particular theme — often focused on campus diversity issues — that involves about 80 other members of the campus community. Lawrence will hold its retreat at Bjorklunden in Door County.

“Through the retreat process, the impact of the Posse students becomes far greater than simply having a multiethnic group of 10 students from New York City on campus,” said Syverson.

“Our first Posse will bring a significant added dimension of racial and socioeconomic diversity to Lawrence,” Kim added. “These are charismatic student leaders who will help facilitate increased interaction and exchange of ideas between the student and administrative bodies, especially with regard to complex social issues relevant to a multicultural society. And they will serve as a catalyst for increased individual and community engagement through the formation of student organizations and volunteer work.”

In addition to New York City, the Posse Foundation maintains student programs in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Since its inception, the Posse Foundation has placed more than 1,500 students who have been awarded more than $142 million in scholarships from partner universities. Posse Scholars have a four-year graduation rate of 90 percent, which ranks well above the national average of 35% for all institutions and 50% for private colleges and universities.

Beyond participation in the Posse program, Lawrence will undertake a research study on the program’s impact on the campus culture broadly.

APPLETON, WIS. — The Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble (LUJE) and Jazz Band present “Miles Ahead: 50th Anniversary Celebration” at 8:00 p.m. Friday, March 2 in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.

Under the direction of Fred Sturm, director of jazz and improvisational music at Lawrence, the Jazz Ensemble recreates the historic 1957 Miles Davis recording Miles Ahead: Miles + 19, regaled as one of the landmark large ensemble recordings of the 20th century. Lawrence trumpet professor John Daniel appears as guest soloist and performs the Davis solo role on the 10 selections from the album. Nick Keelan, associate professor of music at Lawrence, conducts the Jazz Band’s opening set of six renowned Davis compositions.

“Jazz historians point to three great collaborations between jazz and popular music artists and arrangers: Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Frank Sinatra and Nelson Riddle, and Miles Davis and Gil Evans,” Sturm noted. “Between 1957 and 1960, trumpeter Davis and arranger Evans collaborated in the creation of three remarkable jazz recordings, and Miles Ahead is the finest.”

“Evans was Davis’ closest friend and musical mentor, and Davis was the ideal artistic interpreter of Evans’ finest works,” said Sturm. “Though Ellington had composed works to feature specific soloists, Miles Ahead was the first concept album developed around the sound and character of the soloist, not the composer.”

“The colors in this music are extraordinary,” Sturm explained. “In contrast to the five-saxophone front line of the swing era big band, Evans employed a mixture of flute, clarinet, and bass clarinet in the reed section. Two French horns and tuba were added to the brass section. The two-piece rhythm section of drums and bass eliminated piano and guitar from the arrangements. New York’s finest jazz studio players were engaged to record the original sessions, providing us with great performance models.”

“I’ve conducted Miles Ahead with pro bands in New York, Germany, and Denmark,” said Sturm, “and every occasion has generated new discoveries in these magnificent scores. Miles Ahead represents the pinnacle in the art of jazz composition and arranging.”

The two-set performance is free and open to the public.