Appleton

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Summer Seminar Focuses on Public Art

Taking a page from its popular Bjorklunden Summer Seminar Series offered in Door County, Lawrence University will sponsor a two-and-one-half-day seminar on public art July 19-21 on its Appleton campus.

“Public Art: Process and History” will feature three classes led by members of the Lawrence art and art history department. The classes will start at 8:30 a.m. each day in the Warch Campus Center.

Sculptor Rob Neilson, associate professor of art, opens the seminar with the class “Contemporary Public Art: Purpose, Process, Product and People.” The class will include a trip to the Appleton Art Center and a stop at a local downtown establishment for wine and conversation.

Elizabeth Carlson, assistant professor of art history, presents “Public Art in the 20th Century.” The class will include an afternoon field trip to the Paine Art Center and Gardens in Oshkosh.

Michael Orr, professor of art history, concludes the seminar with the half-day class “Public Art in Renaissance Florence.”

Participants can attend either as commuters or as residents, with housing provided in Lawrence’s Hiett Hall. A light breakfast and a lunch are provided each day. Seminar cost is $200, with an additional charge for housing if needed. The fee includes transportation and admission passes to the two art centers.

Class size is limited with a registration deadline of July 9. To register or for more information, contact Lori Vosters, 800-283-8320, ext. 7019 or lori.a.vosters@lawrence.edu.

Senior Alicia Bones Discusses Class of 2010 in Livestream Interview Today

Lawrence University student Alicia Bones will be the featured guest of The Post-Crescent’s weekly “Newsmaker” livestream interview Thursday, June 10 at 1:30 p.m.

Bones, a senior from Omaha, Neb., will talk about the class of 2010 and what it envisions for its future. Bones was chosen as the student representative to deliver a charge to the senior class at Sunday’s commencement ceremonies.

Christina Blomberg Awarded Fulbright Scholarship for Teaching Assistantship in Turkey

After spending a year in Vienna, Austria on a study-abroad program, Lawrence University senior Christina Blomberg returned home with more than just a love of Viennese culture. She also discovered a desire to explore other cultures she experienced in the city, especially that of Turkey, which has a large immigrant presence in the Austrian capital.

Blomberg, a psychology major from Fleetwood, Pa., soon will immerse herself in Turkish culture after being awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship to Turkey. Beginning in September, she will spend 10 months as an English teaching assistant, with her specific destination still to be determined by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

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Christina Blomberg

Blomberg is the second Lawrence student awarded a Fulbright scholarship this spring, joining Sara Wallsworth who earlier was awarded a scholarship to teach in Germany. She is among more than 1,500 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2010-2011 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

Since 2001, 15 Lawrence students have been awarded Fulbright Scholarships.

“I applied for my scholarship in Turkey in part because it’s very different from the Western, Germanic background that I’m most familiar with,” said Blomberg, who will graduate June 13 with a minor in German and music. “I’m looking forward to personally challenging myself by living in a culture way outside my comfort zone.”

Blomberg will arrive in Turkey with considerable teaching experience. She spent four summers (2005-08) teaching German to 8-18 year olds at the Concordia College Language Villages program in Minnesota, taught English to elementary students during her year in Vienna and held a nine-hour-a-week internship last fall at Appleton’s Johnston Montessori School, where she taught botany classes for 4th-6th graders. In Turkey, Blomberg will be teaching in a university setting.

While awaiting word of her ultimate destination, she is keeping an open mind.

“I’d love to wind up in a bigger city, but I’m confident I’ll have a wonderful experience in a smaller town with a slower lifestyle, too. I’m open to embracing whatever this fellowship offers,” said Blomberg, a member of the campus organization Greenfire who hopes to investigate some of the environmental challenges facing Turkish citizens on a daily basis during her time abroad.

“And as a lover of improvised music, I’m also excited about exploring Turkey’s rich music culture,” added Blomberg, who plays the tenor saxophone in an eight-member student jazz combo and the Improvisational Group at Lawrence University (IGLU).

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The Program operates in over 155 countries worldwide.

Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. Forty Fulbright alumni have been awarded the Nobel Prize and 75 alumni have received Pulitzer Prizes.

Student Work Featured in Annual Senior Art Exhibition in Wriston Galleries

The work of 14 Lawrence University art majors will be featured in the annual Senior Art Exhibit in the Wriston Art Center galleries.

The exhibition, in the Leech, Hoffmaster and Kohler galleries, opens Friday, May 28 at 6 p.m. with a reception with the student artists and runs through August 1.

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"Raisins" by Lynn Gilge

The exhibition includes works of ceramic, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and video.

The students whose work will be featured are Fariha Ali, Sylvie Armstrong, Chris Dorn, Evan Farnum, Alexandria Gaass, Jennifer Gabriele, Lynn Gilge, Yexue Li, Elyse Lucas, Caroline Parry, Benjamin Salm, Lauren Shorofsky, Allison Slowiak and Nick Michael Stahl.

The Wriston Art Center galleries are free and open to the public Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays.

Theatre Dept. Brings Psychological Thriller “Murder in Green Meadows” to Cloak Theatre

The twists and turns of contemporary playwright Douglas Post’s psychological thriller “Murder in Green Meadows” will be recreated in three performances by the Lawrence University theatre department. The play will be staged Friday, May 28 at 10:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 29 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. in Cloak Theatre of the Music-Drama Center.

Tickets, at $10 for adults and $5 for seniors and students, are available through the Lawrence Box Office, 920-832-6749. The production contains adult themes and language.

Set in the serene suburban town of Green Meadows, the fast-paced plot thrusts deceit, adultery and murder into the average American home as it explores the seemingly idyllic relationship between new neighbors Joan and Thomas Devereaux and Carolyn and Jeff Symons. Their perfect households unravel, however, as secrets from the Devereaux’s past are uncovered and Joan pursues an affair with Jeff. Manipulative deceptions, threats and duplicity of character combine to keep the audience in suspense until the very end.

Originally written as a broadcast for Chicago’s WMAQ-TV, Post turned the story into a full-length theatre production. The television broadcast earned six Emmy Award nominations.

Professor of Theatre Arts Timothy X. Troy, who is directing the production, calls it “an especially well-crafted modern melodrama, which is a form we don’t often explore in our productions. A good melodrama works on an audience’s expectations about what makes theatre lively and exciting.”

Lawrence juniors Katie Cravens and Kyle Brauer portray Joan and Thomas Devereaux, while juniors Nate Peterson and Erika Thiede are cast as Mr. and Mrs. Symons.

Troy produced the show in collaboration with student Yexue Li, who developed the set and costume design as her senior project in theatre arts.

SLUG Featured on Wisconsin Public Television’s “The Wisconsin Gardener”

A profile of Lawrence University’s student-run, on-campus sustainable garden and its role in providing fresh vegetables to the college’s food service program will be included in an upcoming episode of “The Wisconsin Gardener” on Wisconsin Public Television. Hosted by Shelley Ryan, the program will air Thursday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 29 at 10:30 a.m. on WPNE.

Lawrence Honors Banquet Recognizes 180 Students and Faculty Members

The annual honors celebration on Tuesday, May 18 recognized students and faculty for their outstanding achievements at Lawrence. Recipients of honors awards and prizes have shown excellence in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences, languages and music. Some have demonstrated excellence in athletics, in writing or in service to others both in the campus community and within the larger community we share. Students elected to honor societies also were recognized.

Read more about those who were cited for their achievements during the 2009-10 academic year.

Lawrence Scholars in Business Advised to “Be Flexible”

Lawrence alumni working in the entertainment industry visited campus Saturday to share their advice on pursuing careers in Hollywood. Alumni panelists working as actors, writers, directors,  producers, and agents said Lawrence’s liberal arts education provides a solid foundation for successful careers in business – even “show business.” Read more.

Megan Brown Awarded U.S. State Dept. Critical Language Scholarship

Lawrence University student Megan Brown has been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study Arabic this summer at the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan.

A senior linguistics major from Saginaw, Mich., Brown was among 575 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students awarded one of the state department’s critical language scholarships. She was selected from among nearly 5,300 applications.

Beginning June 13, Brown will spend 10 weeks in Jordan in a personalized, intensive language curriculum as well as various cultural activities. The scholarship covers all expenses during the 10-week program and includes a $1,000 stipend.

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Megan Brown

Brown, who has studied Chinese and French in addition to one year of Arabic at Lawrence, says “accurate communication is more essential than ever before due to the growing globalization of the world and the growth of the information industry.” She hopes to eventually work for the U.S. Department of State as a foreign service officer and work “for more integrated international relations.”

The CLS program was launched in 2006 to increase opportunities for American students to study critical-need languages overseas and expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical-need languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian Japanese, Korean, Persian, Russian, Indic (Bangla/Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu) and Turkic (Turkish and Azerbaijani).