Rick Peterson

Author: Rick Peterson

Lawrence Welcomes Author and Cultural Critic William Deresiewicz for University Convocation

Provocative essayist, cultural critic and author William Deresiewicz presents “Through the Vale of Soul-Making: The Journey of the Liberal Arts” Thursday, April 19 at 11:10 a.m. in a Lawrence University convocation. The presentation, in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, will be followed by a question-and-answer session at 2:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema. Both events are free and open to the public.

Focusing on higher education, social media and other culture issues, Deresiewicz is a contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor for The New Republic. His weekly “All Points” blog on culture and society appears in The American Scholar.

A three-time National Magazine Award nominee (2008, ’09, ’11), his essays include “Generation Sell” (the business plan as art form of our age), “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education” (what the Ivy League won’t teach you) and “Faux Friendship” (about Facebook).

“Solitude and Leadership,” an essay that encourages the practice of introspection, concentration and nonconformity he delivered as an address to the plebe class at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2009, has been used as a teaching tool across the U.S. military, the corporate world, schools of business and at the Aspen Institute.

Deresiewicz spent 10 years (1998-2008) as an English professor at Yale University before embarking on a full-time writing career. He chronicled the chronicled the transformative effect literature has had on his life in the 2011 novel “A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter.”

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a world-class conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. Ranked among America’s best colleges by Forbes, it was selected for inclusion in the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,445 students from 44 states and 35 countries. Follow us on Facebook.

Extreme Ice Survey Project Focus of Lawrence Presentation

Acclaimed photographer James Balog, who has chronicled the natural environment for three decades for National Geographic, discusses his climate change project “The Extreme Ice Survey” Tuesday, April 17 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence University’s Warch Campus Center.

Combining art and science, Balog creates innovative, dynamic and sometimes shocking interpretations of the world’s fast-changing landscapes, plants and animals. In 2005, Balog founded the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) to document the impact of global climate change.

The most wide-ranging, ground-based, photographic study of glaciers ever conducted, the EIS employed 27 time-lapse cameras at remote sites in Greenland, Iceland, Nepal, Alaska, and the Rocky Mountains, recording nearly one million photographs that reveal the extraordinary ongoing retreat of glaciers and ice sheets, and providing visual evidence vital to scientists studying glacier dynamics.

National Geographic showcased this work in the June 2007 and June 2010 issues and the EIS project was the focus of the 2009 NOVA documentary “Extreme Ice.” It also was the subject of the feature-length documentary, “Chasing Ice,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of this year.

Balog’s appearance is co-sponsored by Green Roots, the Fox Cities Book Festival, and Renewegy.

Thomas Baer ’74 Receives Leadership Award from The Optical Society

Thomas Baer, a 1974 Lawrence graduate and executive director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center at Stanford University, was recently recognized by The Optical Society (OSA) with its Robert E. Hopkins Leadership Award.

Baer was honored for his initiation of the idea of LaserFest and his leadership in making LaserFest an extremely successful worldwide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first demonstration of the laser.

“OSA is proud to honor Tom for his leadership in the field of optics and photonics,” said OSA President Tony Heinz. “Tom has made major contributions to advancing the science and technology of light. His accomplishments and commitment serve to inspire the next generation of optics researchers and educators.”

The Robert E. Hopkins Award recognizes an individual or group who has had a significant impact on the global optics and photonics community, or an individual or group from the optics and photonics community who has had a significant impact on society as a whole stemming from non-research-oriented activities.

The award seeks to recognize achievements that would not be eligible for a traditional OSA award or medal. The review process for each of these awards is rigorous as each nominee is carefully evaluated by a selection committee. The OSA Board of Directors appoints a committee to oversee each award or medal selection process. The committee is then responsible for the evaluation of nominees and recommends the recipient to the OSA Awards Committee of the Board of Directors and the full Board of Directors for approval.

Recognized in 1994 with Lawrence’s Lucia Russell Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award, Baer has been awarded more than 60 patents. He is a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science and The Optical Society of America, an organization he served as president of in 2009.

Annual Cabaret Celebrates International Culture, Cuisine

More than 150 Lawrence University students from around the globe will perform during the 36^th annual Lawrence International Cabaret, a musical celebration of world culture.

Under the theme “A Light to the World,” this year’s cabaret will be staged in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel Sunday, April 15 at 3 p.m. A buffet dinner featuring international dishes will be served in the Warch Campus Center following the performance.

Tickets, at $10 for the performance only and $20 for the show and dinner, are available at the Warch Campus Center information desk, 920-832-7000. Tickets for children ages 5-12 are $5 for performance only and $12 for performance and dinner. Children four and under are free.

The event is sponsored by Lawrence International, a student organization for international students with members representing 50 countries.

Cabaret features a wide variety of entertainment from Afghanistan, China, Ethiopia, Peru, Poland and Sudan, among others.

Among the nearly 20 scheduled acts are:

• a fashion show displaying traditional dress from represented countries

• a Balinese gamelan performance

• a Bollywood dance routine to a medley of songs from popular Indian musical films

• an Afro-Caribbean fusion dance

• traditional Middle Eastern belly dancing

• a musical number from central Sudan featuring household objects as instruments

Next Stop Carnegie Hall: Academy of Music Girl Choir Sings in National Program

Cantabile, the middle school component (grades 7-10) of the Lawrence Academy of Music Girl Choir program, will perform Sunday, April 15 at New York City’s Carnegie Hall as an invited participant in the 2012 National Children’s School Choir.

The 42-member choir will sing under the direction of Henry Leck, an icon in the children’s choir world, in Carnegie Hall’s main venue, the Isaac Stern Auditorium, in front of what is expected to be a sold-out audience.

The Lawrence Academy of Music Cantibile Girl Choir performs April 15 at Carnegie Hall in New York City..

“It is a deep honor for the Academy of Music Girl Choir to represent both Lawrence and the greater Fox Valley in this prestigious festival,” said Karen Bruno, LAM director and artistic coordinator of the Girl Choir program. “Our girls are excited about the opportunity to make new friends, work with acclaimed conductor Henry Leck, and to sing in Carnegie Hall.”

Cantibile was selected for the 2012 National Children’s School Choir concert via a competitive, national audition process. They will be joined on Sunday by four other ensembles.

This is the third time Cantibile has been invited to perform at Carnegie Hall as part of the National Children’s School Choir following performances in 2001 and 2005.

Sunday’s concert, which also will include performances by the National Christian Schools Youth Choir, will include works by Mozart, Philip Stopford, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Darla Eshelman, Rene Clausen, Schütz, Haydn, Tom Fettke, Hastings, Craig Courtney, David Lantz III as well as traditional songs from Brazil and Ireland.

Members of Cantibile will chronicle their musical adventure to New York City in a special blog. Follow their journey as they post daily updates.

Lawrence Welcomes Authors for 5th Annual Fox Cities Book Festival

Lawrence University will host visits by two authors this week as part of the 5^th annual Fox Cities Book Festival, which begins today and runs through April 18.

Author Adam Davis will lead a reading and discussion of “The Civically Engaged Reader” and his latest book “Taking Action” Wednesday, April 11 at 4 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema.

Author Thomas Lynch conducts a reading Thursday April 12 at 7 p.m. in Esch Hurvis Room in the Warch Campus Center.

Three other book festival events at Lawrence include:

• A “Tunes and Tales” benefit concert, featuring Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons, with special guest Ellen Kort and the poetry, rhythm and blues of Obvious Dog and Cathryn Cofell, will be performed Friday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased by calling 920-750-5033.

• The 2nd annual Paper Fox Printmaking Workshop and Benefit Sale will be held Saturday, April 14 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center. The workshop will feature print sales and subscriptions available for purchase, printing and paper making demonstrations, on-going workshops, a visual presentation of participating artists, and other printed ephemera.

• National Geographic photographer James Balog presents “The Extreme Ice Survey” Tuesday, April 17 at 7 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center’s Somerset Room.

Chanticleer — “The Orchestra of Voices” — Performs April 13 at Lawrence Memorial Chapel

It will be a homecoming of sorts for Mike Axtell when the 12-member, all-male vocal ensemble Chanticleer takes the Lawrence Memorial Chapel stage Friday, April 13 at 8 p.m. for its 2011-12 Lawrence University Artist Series concert.

Tickets, at $30 for adults and seniors and $15 for students, are available through the Lawrence Box Office in the Music-Drama Center, 920-832-6749.

A 2009 Lawrence graduate, Axtell is in his second season with Chanticleer. The ensemble is widely known as “The Orchestra of Voices,” in part for a repertoire that spans 10 centuries, from Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony and Romantic art song to contemporary music, jazz, spirituals and world music.

Now in its 34th season, San Francisco-based Chanticleer has long earned critics’ praises. The New Yorker magazine has hailed the ensemble as “the world’s reigning male chorus.” Winners of four Grammy Awards, including two for their world-premiere recording of Sir John Tavener’s “Lamentations and Praises,” Chanticleer was named the “Ensemble of the Year” in 2008 by Musical America and became the first vocal ensemble ever inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame that same year.

“We’re incredibly excited to have Chanticleer on campus,” said Stephen Sieck, co-director of choral studies at Lawrence. “They combine the tight-knit blend of a four- or five-voice ensemble like the Hilliard Ensemble or The King’s Singers with the vocal prowess and flexibility of a much larger ensemble. Their ability to switch from Renaissance to Broadway and everything in between is exceptional.

“As professional men’s vocal ensembles go, this is like having the Berlin Philharmonic come to the Lawrence Memorial Chapel,” Sieck added.

A bass-baritone, Axtell studied in the voice studio of Associate Professor Karen Leigh-Post while at Lawrence, where he earned a degree in B.M. degree in vocal performance and a B.A. degree in theatre. As a student, he sang in the concert choir and performed in numerous theater productions, including the role of the prince in Lawrence’s production of “Cinderella.”

Axtell is the second Lawrence graduate to perform with Chanticleer, joining former member Gabriel Lewis-O’Connor ’04.

Beyond an exhausting performance schedule, which includes more than 100 performances around the world during the 2011-12 season, Chanticleer is dedicated to music education and outreach. For more than 20 years, the ensemble has offered master classes, lecture recitals and residencies to high school and college students. During their visit to Lawrence, members of the ensemble will hold a master class and work with the concert choir.

Since Chanticleer made its debut in June, 1978, more than 100 men have sung in the ensemble.

U.S. Senate Candidate Tammy Baldwin Holding Listening Session with Students Tuesday, April 10

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, a 2012 candidate for Wisconsin’s open U.S. Senate seat, will conduct a discussion with students Tuesday, April 10 from 2-3 p.m. in the Kraemer Room of the Warch Campus Center. Baldwin is visiting campus at the invitation of the College Democrats.

Limited seating for the event is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Students interested in attending are encouraged to reserve a seat by contacting Mara Kunin at kunint@lawrence.edu.

Baldwin has represented Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District since 1999, becoming the first woman elected to Congress from Wisconsin. During her tenure in Congress, she has advocated for universal health care, veteran’s benefits, clean energy technology, renewable fuels, civil rights and equality issues, including LGBT equality and environmental protections, among others.

Baldwin is currently the only Democratic candidate running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Senator Herb Kohl, D-Milwaukee, who is retiring after serving four terms.

Gov. Mitt Romney to Speak at Lawrence University

Gov. Mitt Romney, the current GOP presidential nominee frontrunner, will deliver a major policy announcement Friday, March 30 at 2 p.m. in Stansbury Theatre in the Lawrence University Music-Drama Center.

A limited number of seats will be available to the Lawrence community. Overflow seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis for a live video feed in Harper Hall, adjacent to Stansbury Theatre.

“While Lawrence is very careful not to endorse candidates for political office, we do encourage our students to learn about the political process and to be involved in making informed decisions about candidates. As such, the governor’s appearance is an excellent educational opportunity for Lawrence students to experience first-hand the political process in the midst of an important election cycle,” said David Burrows, provost and dean of the faculty. “One of the founding traditions of a liberal arts college is the education and creation of good citizens and good citizenship includes understanding the issues in any election. This should offer a great teaching moment for the entire Lawrence community.”

Lawrence was selected for the announcement based on its standing as the state’s top-ranked liberal arts institution. Last week before the Illinois primary, Romney issued a policy statement at the University of Chicago.

Romney’s visit is only the latest example of Lawrence’s engagement in the national political arena. Earlier this year, Lawrence launched an Internet tool to help voters intelligently search for their own individual “best candidate.”

MyElectionDecision.org allows voters to see which candidate’s positions best match their own on a variety of important national issues.

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports’ look at the Wisconsin Republican primary race, Romney holds a double-digit lead over Sen. Rick Santorum. Based on statewide telephone survey, 46 percent of likely Republican primary voters in Wisconsin favor Romney, while 33 percent prefer Santorum.

“Mitt Romney’s stop at Lawrence shows that he knows Wisconsin elections are decided here. Fox Valley voters are key both to the GOP nomination and to the state’s electoral vote in November,” said Arnold Shober, professor of government at Lawrence. “Despite the move to an April primary, Wisconsin is still a key piece of any candidate’s election strategy.”

Social Justice Issues Examined in Student Film Festival

Issues ranging from homelessness to racial diversity will be explored in a series of short, student-produced films in Lawrence University’s first Human Rights Student Film Festival Wednesday, March 28 from 5-7 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema. The festival is free and open to the public.

The films are the culminating assignment of the English department class “Literature and Human Rights,” in which each student researched a human rights or social justice topic of individual interest and then produced a short film that either advocated or analyzed that topic. Seven of the 17 films created for the class will be screened for the festival. Each film is between four and five and one-half minutes in length.

Lena Khor, assistant professor of English, team-taught the course with artist-in-residence and award-winning documentary filmmaker Catherine Tatge.

The goal of the project, according to Khor, was three-fold: invite students to experience first-hand the aesthetic and ethical dilemmas of representing human rights and their violations; provide opportunities to creatively tell a story or make an argument in a multimedia format; and encourage engagement with various communities — Lawrence, Appleton and beyond.

“The students produced some wonderful films on important topics,” said Khor. “They impressed me with the passion, thought and energy with which they approached this project. Considering most of them had never made a film before, they all should really be proud of their accomplishments.

“This film festival is not just a way to showcase the excellent work the students have done in this class,” Khor added. “It’s also intended to generate discussion on and off campus about social justice issues that are relevant to our everyday lives here and elsewhere.”

Lawrence’s video editor Anna Johnson Ryndova served as a technical consultant to the students on the project.

The festival films scheduled to be shown and their student producers are:

• “People in Need, Changing the Face of Homeless (Austin Rohaly ’15). This film attempts to change the way in which people in need are stereotyped and offer help to organizations in need of volunteers within the Appleton area.

• “FacebΘΘk” (Fanny Lau ’14). An exploration of Facebook’s violation of privacy and how users can protect themselves.

• “There and Back Again” (Matthew Lowe ’14). An examination of the human rights violations that occur as a result of a globalized economic system that seeks to minimize costs and maximize profits. As consumers, however, we have the power to vote with our money and our voice to make effective change.

• “Speak to Me” (Conor Beaulieu ’15). ‪A look into America’s crippling lack of language diversity.

• “‪Ethical Considerations in Art Spiegelman’s ‘Maus’” (Sam Neufeld ’15). An exploration of the ethical issues associated with Art Spiegelman’s decision to portray the Holocaust in a comic book format and the importance of form in human rights literature.

• “Let’s Talk About Race” (Tammy Tran ’14). Racial diversity on the Lawrence campus is examined while addressing the need to recognize, appreciate, and celebrate differences in the student body on a deeper level.

• “Human Rights: The Next Big Thing? (Heather Carr ‘15). This film examines the fad-like quality of human rights advocacy through the lens of the organization Invisible Children.

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