Press Releases

Category: Press Releases

Lawrence University Senior Awarded $28,000 Watson Fellowship to Find the Two “I”s in Indian

APPLETON, WIS. — Madhuri Vijay wants to violate the first rule of writing: write what you know.

Having spent the past four years as a student at Lawrence University, Vijay knows what it’s like to be an Indian living in the United States. But the senior from Bangalore, India, wants to explore what life is like for her countrymen living in other countries.

“I want to turn that rule on its head, travel the world and get to know the things I want to write about,” said Vijay. “I want to tell the stories of people like myself, people displaced from their native country, living in a vastly different one who are forging an identity that must inevitably come to terms with a double-history, a double life.”

Beginning in August, Vijay will embark on a year-long search for those stories as one of 40 national recipients of a $28,000 fellowship from the Rhode Island-based Thomas J. Watson Foundation. Vijay was selected for the fellowship from among 177 finalists. The Watson Fellowship supports a year of independent travel and exploration outside the United States on a topic of the student’s choosing. Vijay’s proposal was entitled “The Two ‘I’s in ‘Indian’: Writing the Stories of the Indian Diaspora.”

Nearly 1,000 students from 47 selective private liberal arts colleges and universities annually apply for the Watson Fellowship.

Vijay will use her fellowship to travel to Fiji, often referred to “Little India” because of its large Indian population, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which has had contact with India since the 15th century, Durban, South Africa, where Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi established the Phoenix Settlement for Indians who wanted to peacefully resist oppression, and finally Tanzania, which boasts two distinct Indian populations: one that was born and raised there and one that has recently arrived.

“In this ever-flattening world, Indians are found all over the world, but their stories have largely gone untold,” said Vijay, who will graduate in June with a degree in English and psychology. “As a writer and a social scientist, I have a fascination with people, cultures and identity. I would like to combine my two passions to produce a book of short stories about the lives of Indians around the world.”

Tim Spurgin, associate professor and Bonnie Glidden Buchanan Professor of English, who serves as Lawrence’s campus liaison to the Watson program, calls Vijay “a perfect choice” for a Watson Fellowship.

“Madhuri is bright, talented and basically fearless,” said Spurgin. “Not many college grads would attempt a project as ambitious as hers — and only a handful would be capable of pulling it off.”

During her global travels, Vijay will explore what Indian customs and traditions these people still cling to, what aspects of their new country they’ve embraced and how they balance the cultural line of being native Indian with being Tanzanian, Fijian or Malaysian.

“I realize that shared skin color and features are no longer enough to claim a kinship with Indians around the world,” said Vijay. “Writing stories of the people I’ll meet will allow me to understand the unique and multifaceted identities of the Indian diaspora. It will help me develop my own transcontinental identity as a woman from India, a student in America and a citizen of the world.”

In addition to helping define her own personal identity, Vijay sees her fellowship opportunity as a litmus test for her passionate, but largely unspoken, ambition of being a writer.

“I share the seed of self-doubt that plagues all aspiring writers: do I have stories worth telling? And do I have the words with which to tell them?,” said Vijay. “I believe that I do and I want to prove it. My fellowship will be nothing short of a journey of self-discovery, because at the end of it, I’ll know what my next step in life should be.”

If she wasn’t previously a believer in the axiom “first impressions are lasting impressions,” Vijay surely is now. The Watson selection committee started their interview process this year at Lawrence last November and Vijay was the very first of the 177 finalists to be screened.

Vijay is the 67th Lawrence student awarded a Watson Fellowship since the program’s inception in 1969. It was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, Sr., the founder of International Business Machines Corp., and his wife, Jeannette, to honor their parents’ long-standing interest in education and world affairs.

“The awards are long-term investments in people, not research,” said Cleveland Johnson, director of the Watson Fellowship Program. “We look for people likely to lead or innovate in the future and give them extraordinary independence in pursuing their interests. They must have passion, creativity and a feasible plan. The Watson Fellowship affords an unequalled opportunity for global experiential learning.”

Watson Fellows are selected on the basis of the nominee’s character, academic record, leadership potential, willingness to delve into another culture and the personal significance of the project proposal. Since its founding, nearly 2,600 fellowships have been awarded.

Boston, Milwaukee Artists Featured in New Lawrence University Exhibition

APPLETON, WIS. — Boston sculptor Julie Levesque opens the latest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries with her sculptural installation “Sift.” The exhibition runs through April 26.

Levesque will deliver the exhibition’s opening lecture Friday, March 13 at 6 p.m. A reception with Levesque follows the address, which is free and open to the public.

Working almost exclusively in white, Levesque focuses on motion and the fluid transformation of energy into inanimate objects. She describes “Sift” as “a time piece representing the physical embodiment of eternity and futility.” The installation features a woman crawling around a curricular track, leaving her mark behind her and weighed down by the movement and debris she picks up. It will be shown in the Kohler Gallery.

Jean Roberts Guequierre, a Milwaukee-based painter, presents “Carnival, Lent and Other Subjects” in the Hoffmaster Gallery. Her often humorous, small-scale oil paintings of Northern Renaissance-style figures explore such moral issues as temperance, prudence, faith, fortitude and justice. Guequierre will deliver an artist lecture on Friday, April 3.

The Leech Gallery will feature “Messages in Metal,” a selection of coins from Lawrence’s own Ottilia Buerger Collection of Ancient and Byzantine Coins. The exhibition was organized and researched by sophomore Frederick Breslow, senior Elizabeth Marshall, sophomore Margaret Pieper and Carol Lawton, professor of art history and Ottilia Buerger Professor of Classical Studies.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. The gallery is closed Mondays. For more information, call 920-832-6621 or visit http://www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston/.

Two Lawrence University Students Earn Outstanding Witness Awards at Mock Trial Tournament

APPLETON, WIS. — Two members of Lawrence University’s mock trial team made impressive debuts at a recent tournament in Milwaukee.

Sophomores Caitlin Fish and Karl Hailperin, neither of whom had any previous college mock trial experience, both earned outstanding witness awards March 1 for their performance at the 23-team American Mock Trial Association regional tournament hosted by Marquette University.

Fish and Hailperin were two of just 12 students recognized as outstanding witnesses from among nearly 100 students who participated in the tournament as witnesses. Fish portrayed defense witness Jan Patel, a star-crazed janitor, while Hailperin played Mickey McQuiggan, a crime scene investigator for the plaintiff.

Fish was ranked the top witness by 19 of 20 judges, placing her among the top four witnesses at the tournament. Hailperin earned top rankings from 17 of 20 judges.

The tournament “trial” was based on a libel lawsuit in which gubernatorial candidate Drew Walton sued the Blitz News Network (BNN) for reporting that Walton shot Lane Hamilton, a Midlands University Professor. Walton maintained that Hamilton committed suicide. Walton had to prove BNN published a false and defamatory statement of fact that damaged him, acting with reckless disregard of the truth in the process.

A total of 13 Lawrence students — 11 of whom had no previous mock trial experience — competed on two teams in the tournament, which included teams from the University of Chicago, Hamline University, Lake Forest College, the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University, among others.

Amy Risseeuw, an attorney with the Appleton law firm Peterson, Berk & Cross, is the coach of Lawrence’s mock trial team, while Assistant Professor of Government Steve Wulf serves as the team’s faculty advisor.

“I was very proud of the accomplishments of both of Lawrence’s teams,” said Risseeuw. “I was especially pleased with the work of Karl and Caitlin. Not only did they have an excellent command of their materials, they presented full-bodied witnesses with unique personalities. Their commitment to their characters allowed them to rise above the other competitors.”

Tribal Attorney Discusses Ojibwe Treaty Reserved Rights in Lawrence University Address

APPLETON, WIS. — Kekek Jason Stark, a tribal attorney and policy analyst for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, discusses the concepts and principles of treaty reserved rights and how those rights are being applied today in an address at Lawrence University.

Stark presents “Ojibwe Treaty Reserved Rights and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission” Tuesday, March 10 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the pubic.

Stark’s presentation will examine U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have upheld American Indian rights to their land based on the recognition of Anishinaabe title and Anishinaabe rights.

Under the theory of Anishinaabe title, also known as aboriginal Indian title, Indigenous Nations have legal rights in the territories that they occupied. From Anishinaabe title comes the concept of Anishinaabe rights, which entail the use of a specifically allocated area for traditional purposes. This long established rule of Federal Indian Law supports the implementation of the treaty reserved rights of the Ojibwe bands.

Stark’s work with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission focuses on the preservation, implementation and utilization of treaty rights for 11 Ojibwe bands living in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Commission regulates the harvest of treaty resources in cooperation with the states to ensure conservation.

A graduate of Hamline University School of Law and a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, Stark is a Turtle Mountain Ojibwe and a member of the Bizhiw (Lynx) Clan.

His appearance is sponsored by the Lawrence University Office of Multicultural Affairs, the history department and is supported by the Green Roots Committee.

Milwaukee Poets Conduct Reading, Q & A Session at Lawrence University

APPLETON, WIS. — Karl Gartung and Chuck Stebelton, the artistic director and literary program manager, respectively, at Milwaukee’s Woodland Pattern Book Center, will conduct a reading of their recent work Monday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Lawrence University’s Science Hall 102. A reception and book signing will follow the reading.

Prior to the reading, the pair also will hold a question-and-answer session at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall 105. Both events, free and open to the public, are sponsored by the Mia Paul Poetry Fund.

Gartung, a founding partner of Woodland Pattern in 1979, has had his work published in the literary journals Five Fingers Review, Gam and Poetry New York. His first full-length poetry collection, “Now That Memory Has Become So Important,” described as a book filled with “shapely poems” that “use line with restless invention and versatility,” was published in 2008.

Stebelton is the author of the 2005 poetry collection “Circulation Flowers” and the chapbooks “Precious,” “A Maximal Object” and “Flags and Banners.” His recent work can be seen in the literally journals Antennae, Jubilat and Verse.

Woodland Center is a nationally recognized cultural hub that specializes in new literature and writing through its bookstore of more than 25,000 small press titles.

Rolling Stones Classics Get Jazz Treatment in Lawrence University Concert

APPLETON, WIS. — Mick Jagger and Keith Richards may finally get that “satisfaction” they famously sought in song.

The music of the iconic rock band Rolling Stones gets a jazz makeover when Lawrence University presents the U.S. premiere of “The Rolling Stones Project,” a collection of 12 Stones’ classics arranged for large jazz ensemble by New York saxophonist Tim Ries and Los Angeles arranger Matt Harris.

The Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble and Lawrence Jazz Band, under the direction of Fred Sturm and Patty Darling, respectively, present “STONE AGE: Music of the Rolling Stones” March 12 and 13 at 8 p.m. in Stansbury Theatre. The concert is free, but due to limited seating, tickets are required and are available through the Lawrence box office, 920-832-6749.

“This program is going to be played all over the world in the next few years, and we’re thrilled to launch it here in the states,” said Sturm, director of jazz and improvisational music at Lawrence.

The concert will include such Jagger-Richards classics as “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Paint It Black,” “Ruby Tuesday,” and “Wild Horses,” among others.

“We won’t be imitating the Stones’ recordings like a ‘cover’ band would,” said Sturm. “Instead, we’ve re-casted them with fresh harmonies, unique rhythms and the power and colorful shadings of an 18-piece jazz ensemble. But fans of the Stones will still be able to recognize the tunes.”

The concert owes its genesis to Ries, a composer and saxophonist who played in the Rolling Stones’ horn section on their “No Security” tour in 1999. In a bout of experimentation, Ries decided to add a jazz arrangement to several Stones’ songs, resulting in the 2005 album “The Rolling Stones Project: Music Of The Rolling Stones.” A second follow-up disc, “Stones World,” was released last October.

Sturm and Ries crossed paths in 2003 after Sturm was named the recipient of the prestigious 2003 ASCAP/IAJE Commission in Honor of Quincy Jones. For the premiere of his work “Abstract Image” in New York City, Sturm assembled an all-star ensemble of jazz luminaries, including Ries, who appeared as the featured saxophonist.

Fast forward to 2008 when Ries collaborated with Sturm’s long-time friend and Eastman School of Music classmate, composer/arranger Matt Harris. Harris expanded Ries’ Rolling Stones projects into 12 orchestrations for large jazz ensemble. Ries first performed the Harris arrangements last October with Denmark’s Kluvers Big Band, one of Europe’s top professional jazz ensembles.

In preparing for the concert, Sturm and Darling exposed their students to recordings of the original Rolling Stones renditions, the Ries and Danish versions as well as treatments that were recorded by artists ranging from soul singers Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, pop star Britney Spears and jazz great Oscar Peterson.

“Performing and arranging classic and contemporary pop music is an important focus of the Lawrence jazz department,” said Darling. “Our students need the tools and vocabulary to explore the music of their own time. We’re examining process very closely, articulating how jazz players and composers can reconstitute any piece of music in their own voice.”

“Jazz musicians have been fascinated with standard tunes going back to Tin Pan Alley and the American Popular Songbook of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s,” Sturm added. “Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and other jazz greats have recorded their own treatments of the ‘New Standards’ in contemporary pop music. In that same creative spirit, we’ll be putting our own interpretive stamp upon these great Rolling Stones hits.”

Lawrence University Concert Choir Performing at National Choral Convention

APPLETON, WIS. — The Lawrence University Concert Choir, under the direction of Richard Bjella, will enjoy a pair of spotlight moments when it performs March 7 at the American Choral Directors’ Association national convention in Oklahoma City. With more than 20,000 members, the ACDA is the world’s largest choral organization and several thousand choral leaders of the nation’s best choirs will be attending the convention.

Lawrence was selected from nearly 300 performance applications from choirs around the country. Only 20 choirs were selected for performances during the convention and Lawrence was one of just four mixed college/university choirs chosen to perform. The concert choir will have the privilege of performing twice on the convention’s final day, singing both in the morning and again during the conference’s final performance slot.

The 56-member choir, which includes freshmen through seniors, music and non-music majors, will sing a diverse program at the convention, covering late 16th century to 21st century music that spans the globe from Argentina to Australia. Selections include “Les Voici!,” a chorus from Bizet’s “Carmen,” Stephen Leek’s “Knowee” which debuted in 2008, and Philippe Rogier’s “Laboravi in gemitu meo.” The performance will be held at the 2,600-seat Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall.

Lawrence was selected for the convention through a blind audition process. The audition CD had to include recordings from three consecutive years of performances, insuring a history of high-quality work from the auditioning choir. In 2006, the Concert Choir was chosen to perform at the North Central ACDA regional convention in Omaha, Neb.

Bjella, professor of music, has served as the director of choral studies at Lawrence since 1984. A former president of the Wisconsin Choral Directors’ Association, Bjella has conducted more than 350 festivals and workshops in 25 states throughout the country, including appearances as the conductor of All-State choirs in Wisconsin, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. He also has extensive international guest conducting experience, leading choirs in London, Lucerne, Paris, Prague, Seoul and in 2006 directed the professional choir Polifonija on a four-city tour in Lithuania.

Lawrence University Theatre Arts Presents Black Comedy “The Pillowman”

APPLETON, WIS. —The award-winning dark comedy “The Pillowman,” a tale of a writer whose grisly short stories seem to be mimicked in a series of real crimes, will be performed March 5-7 at Lawrence University.

The play will be staged March 5-6 at 8 p.m. and March 7 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. in Cloak Theatre of Lawrence’s Music-Drama Center, 420 E. College, Appleton. Tickets, at $10 for adults and $5 for students, are available through the Lawrence Box Office, 920-832-6749. Due to explicit language, violence, blood and dark subject matter, this production is not appropriate for children or the faint of heart.

Written in 2003 by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, “The Pillowman” follows Katurian K. Katurian, who writes bizarre and violent fictional stories. When real crimes involving several child murders eerily similar to his stories occur, Katurian is arrested. His conversations with police interrogators slowly shed light on his creative inspiration, drawn from his family’s own horrifying experiences. No answer or story is quite what it seems, however, and the lines between reality and storytelling are erased.

“The Pillowman” premiered in 2003 at the London Royal National Theatre, earning the 2004 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. It made its Broadway debut at the Booth Theatre in 2005 and Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre the following year. It won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Foreign Play in 2005.

The production is the joint senior theatre project of students Alex Bunke, Cait Davis, Allie-Marie McGuire and Peter Welch.

“It’s a difficult production, with complex text and even more complex relationships,” said Welch, who is directing the show’s 15-member cast. “We’ve brought Katurian’s dark fairy tales to life with puppets and special effects and weave them into a world where reality and fantasy are one in the same. Be prepared.”

Fiction Writer Scott Blackwood Conducts Reading at Lawrence University

APPLETON, WIS. — Award-winning fiction writer Scott Blackwood will conduct a reading of his work Thursday, March 5, at 7 p.m. in Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center gallery, 613 E. College Ave., Appleton. The event, sponsored by the Gordon R. Clapp Lectureship in American Studies, is free and open to the public.

A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Blackwood is the author of numerous short stories and two books. His latest novel, “We Agreed to Meet Just Here,” received an Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award in 2007. Texas Monthly hailed it as a showcase of Blackwood’s “talent for measuring and connecting the previously un-connectable in lived experience.”

“We Agreed to Meet Just Here,” set in suburban Austin, Texas, where Blackwood once lived, is a murder mystery with starkly drawn characters and a narrative that unfolds from all directions.

Over the past decade, Blackwood has earned critical acclaim for his writing. His short stories in the 2001 collection “In the Shadow of Our House” were described by The New York Times as being so honest “they capture the dapple of emotions and perceptions that cross the mind like sunlight and shadow on a river.”

Blackwood is an assistant professor of literature at Chicago’s Roosevelt University, where he directs the master’s degree program in creative writing.

Percussion Group Cincinnati Performs March 6 at Lawrence University

APPLETON, WIS. — Percussion Group Cincinnati brings its dynamic and imaginative musical virtuosity to the Lawrence University Memorial Chapel, 510 E. College Ave., Friday, March 6 for an 8 p.m. performance.

Tickets, at $20-22 for adults, $17-19 for seniors and $15-17 for students, are available through the Lawrence Box Office, 920-832-6749. The concert is part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the Lawrence Artist Series.

Formed in 1979, the trio of Allen Otte, James Culley, and Russell Burge, each a professor at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati, perform classic and experimental concert music with a theatrical flair. In addition to drums, cymbals, marimbas, gongs and bells, the Group often incorporates such unconventional “instruments” as amplified cactus needles, newspapers and garbage cans into their performances.

While much of their repertoire is devoted to young composers from around the world, the Group is perhaps best known for their expertise in the music of composer John Cage, who has written several pieces specifically for them.

“Percussion Group Cincinnati ranks among the top five contemporary percussion groups in the world,” said Dane Richeson, director of percussion studies at Lawrence. “For years they have dedicated themselves to the art of new music by commissioning new works along with producing innovative concerts and recordings that are truly inspiring and thought provoking. It’s a rare treat to have a percussion group of this caliber perform in Wisconsin, let alone the Fox Cities.”

During its 30-year performance career, the Group has attracted an international audience. Recent concert engagements include a world premiere with the Singapore Chinese Instrument Orchestra, a performance with the Shanghai International Spring Music Festival and a tour of Japan. In addition to appearances as concerto soloists with symphony orchestras around the country, the Group regularly conducts community concerts, workshops and masterclasses.

The Group’s discography includes their recording of John Luther Adams’ evening-length “Strange and Sacred Noise” and a 25-year retrospective multi-disc set that includes performances spanning the group’s entire history.