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Five Lawrence University Musicians Earn Top Honors in State Music Competition

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University student musicians accounted for three of the six winners at the 14th annual Neale-Silva Young Artists competition conducted March 22 in Madison.

The percussion trio of Felicia Behm, David Ranscht and Stacey Stoltz, along with bass-baritone Derrell Acon and pianist Leonard Hayes shared top honors with clarinetist Ching-Chieh Hsu and violinist Elias Goldstein, both from the UW-Madison and saxophonist Phillip Dobernig of Mukwonago High School in the state competition sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio. Each received $400 for their winning performances.

Lawrence students have won or shared top honors in the Neale-Silva event four years in a row and nine of the past 11.

The competition is open to instrumentalists and vocal performers 17-26 years of age who are either from Wisconsin or attend a Wisconsin college. This year’s competition attracted a total of 23 soloists and ensembles, 14 of which advanced to the finals. In addition to the three winners, Lawrence had two other finalists: pianist Dario LaPoma and the piano trio of Laura Hauer, Anna Henke and Megan Karls.

Acon, Hayes, and the members of the percussion trio will reprise their winning performances Sunday, April 26 at 12:30 p.m. in the Wisconsin Union Theater in Madison. The concert will be broadcast live statewide on the NPR News and Classical Music Network of WPR.

For the April 30 concert, Behm, a senior from Monument, Colo., Ranscht, a junior from La Crosse, and Stoltz, a sophomore from Aurora, Ill., will share a single marimba in a highly visual performance of Mark Ford’s “Stubernic” and an arrangement of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” written by Behm. All three study in the percussion studio of Dane Richeson.

Acon, a junior from St. Louis, Mo., will sing “Il lacerato spirito” by Giuseppe Verdi, Howard Swanson’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “All the Little Horses” by Aaron Copland and “Amiamo” by Gaetano Donizetti. He studies in the voice studio of Patrice Michaels.

Hayes, a sophomore from Dallas, Texas, will play “Piano Sonata Op. 7 in E- flat Major,” by Beethoven and Olivier Messiaen’s Noel from “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus.” Hayes, who studies in the piano studio of Catherine Kautsky, also will perform as accompanist for Acon.

The Neale-Silva Young Artists’ Competition was established to recognize young Wisconsin performers of classical music who demonstrate an exceptionally high level of artistry. It is supported by a grant from the estate of the late University of Wisconsin Madison professor Eduardo Neale-Silva, a classical music enthusiast who was born in Talca, Chile and came to the United States in 1925.

Lawrence University Organists Earn First, Second Place Honors in Regional Organ Competition

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University first-year student Daniel O’Connor didn’t need to go anywhere but back home to have an exciting spring break.

O’Connor returned to his hometown of Dallas, Texas, during the recent spring recess and earned first-place honors March 28 in the chapter division of the Regional Competition for Young Organists. He received $250 for his winning performance.

Sponsored by the American Guild of Organists, the RYOC is considered the country’s most prestigious competition for emerging organists. Conducted every other year, the RCOY is open to participants under the age of 23.

Susanna Valleau, a junior from Andover, Mass., took second place in the RYOC held in Boston the same day. Both are students of university organist Katherine Handford.

With his winning performance, O’Connor advances to an AGO regional competition June 28-July 1 in Albuquerque, N.M., one of seven held around the country. A first-place performance there earns O’Connor designation as a “Rising Star” and an invitation to perform in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2010.

O’Connor’s 30-minute competition program in Dallas included J.S. Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue in A minor,” “Clair de Lune” by Louis Vierne, “Blithely Breezing Along” by Stephen Paulus and the German hymn “Lasst uns erfreuen.”

O’Connor, who is considering a double degree with majors in organ performance and economics, began playing the organ five years ago. While in high school, he studied with 1974 Lawrence graduate Thomas Froehlich.

Founded in 1896, the American Guild of Organists is the national professional association serving the organ and choral music fields. The Guild serves approximately 20,000 members in 330 chapters throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Lawrence University’s Hainze Named Fulbright Scholar, Will Teach English in Venezuela

APPLETON, WIS. — A study-abroad program in Argentina in 2007 provided Anna Hainze a taste of South American culture, but the Lawrence University senior from Whitefish Bay was looking for an opportunity to return and experience more.

Hainze

That opportunity arrived in the mail recently when Hainze was named a Fulbright Scholar and awarded one of only three fellowships available in Venezuela. Beginning in September, Hainze will embark on a 10-month stay as a secondary school English teacher in either the capital city of Caracas, Maricaibo or Merida. Her city assignment will be finalized in late April.

“I had a positive experience in Argentina and when I investigated the Fulbright program, South America really appealed to me as a destination,” said Hainze, who will graduate in June with a major in Spanish and minors in Latin American studies, history and music. “I really enjoy teaching and thought this would be a great opportunity to see if that’s a career path I want to pursue.

“The fact that I’ve never been to Venezuela before makes this all the more exciting,” Hainze added. “It’s new territory for me. While I know what to expect and am looking forward to it, part of me is still a bit anxious.”

Hainze has served as a writing and Spanish tutor for the past three years in Lawrence’s Center for Teaching and Learning and volunteered as an after-school mentor for elementary-age students at Bruce Guadelupe School in Milwaukee while still in high school.

Unlike many Fulbright Scholar recipients who serve as language assistants, Hainze’s appointment will be a full-fledged teaching assignment with her own classroom.

“This will be much more of a teaching opportunity than some of the other Fulbright positions,” said Hainze. “I’m looking forward to seeing where this takes me. Hopefully, this experience will help show me where I want to go with my life.”

Hainze is the 10th Lawrence student since 2001 selected as a Fulbright Scholar.

Created by Congress in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges, the Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s premier scholarship program. Since its founding, it has supported opportunities for nearly 300,000 American students, scholars and other professionals in more than 150 countries. Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, CEOs, university presidents, professors and teachers. Thirty-seven Fulbright alumni have earned Nobel Prizes.

U.S.-European Relations Expert Named Lawrence University Scarff Professor for 2009 Spring Term

APPLETON, WIS. — Robert (Todd) Becker, a former U.S. foreign service officer and deputy head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Croatia, will spend Spring Term as Lawrence University’s Distinguished Visiting Scarff Professor. He joins the Lawrence government department, where he will teach the upper level seminar “The United States and Europe in the 21st Century.”

A specialist on Germany, Central Europe and the Balkans, Becker enjoyed a 34-year career with the U.S. State Department that included two assignments in Greece spanning five years during crises in the Aegean and southern Balkans, as well positions in Germany and Brussels.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Becker established the first U.S. Consulate General — the first in a former Warsaw Pact country — in Leipzig in the former German Democratic Republic. He also was instrumental in establishing a strong U.S. commercial and political presence in the regions of Saxony and Thuringia.

From 1997-2000, Becker directed the political affairs unit in the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels, where he was responsible for developing closer political and security relations with the EU.

Earlier in his career, he directed the Political Officers’ Training Division of the Foreign Service Institute and served as a foreign affairs and security advisor to U.S. Congressman Dick Cheney (R-Wyoming) and Senator Gary Hart (D-Colorado).

In 2000, Becker joined the OSCE, an inter-governmental organization that traces its roots to the 1975 Helsinki Accord and established under the charter of the United Nations. The 56-member body, which Becker describes as “the least known yet one of the more effective security organizations in the world,” includes all European countries, including Russia, as well as the United States and Canada.

He served as OCSE’s Deputy Head and Ambassador to the Mission in Croatia for seven years, an assignment that was originally scheduled to last nine months. During his tenure, he saw Croatia transition from a post-Communist and authoritarian regime into a struggling democracy seeking NATO and EU membership. At the end of his assignment in Croatia, Becker was recognized with the Croatian Helsinki Committee Human Rights Award, the first foreigner to receive the honor.

Prior to coming to Lawrence, Becker spent a year in Kiev, Ukraine, as an OSCE senior project manager.

A native of Washington, D.C., who grew up in Falls Church, Va., Becker earned a bachelor’s degree in German from Carleton College and a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota, where he also has completed all the course work for his Ph.D.

He joins a long list of distinguished scholars and notable public servants who have previously held the Scarff professorship, among them McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser to presidents Kennedy and Johnson, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., former chaplain at Yale University, noted civil rights advocate and peace activist and Takakazu Kuriyama, former Japanese ambassador to the U.S.

The Scarff Memorial Visiting Professorship was established in 1989 by Edward and Nancy Scarff in memory of their son, Stephen, a member of the Lawrence class of 1975, who died in an automobile accident in 1984. It was designed to bring civic leaders and scholars to Lawrence to provide broad perspectives on the central issues of the day.

Björklunden Seminars Provide Life-Long Learning Opportunities

APPLETON, WIS. — Academy Award-winning filmmaker Eric Simonson ’80 and pianist/composer Allen Bonde ’58 headline a roster of more than three dozen distinguished instructors who will lead the 2009 Björklunden summer seminars sponsored by Lawrence University.

Registrations are being accepted for this year’s series of 35 week-long, non-credit seminars, which begin June 14. With their emphasis on life-long learning, the seminars provide “vacations with a focus.” Class instruction is conducted on Lawrence’s picturesque 425-acre Björklunden estate, located just south of Baileys Harbor in Door County.

The eclectic mix of seminar topics cover art, culture, film, history, music, nature, politics, religion and more. The seminars are open to both commuters and residents, who are housed in the estate’s modern and distinctly Norwegian 37,000 square-foot lodge.

“For more than 25 years, our annual seminars have focused on providing stimulating, life-long learning opportunities in a unique and relaxed atmosphere that fosters camaraderie,” said Mark Breseman, director of Björklunden. “The breadth of topics offered is matched by a stellar line-up of instructors that include noted college professors, professional writers, accomplished artists and musicians as well as others distinguished in their field.”

Simonson, who earned a 2006 Academy Award in the documentary short category, is one of only a handful of directors who has received Tony, Emmy and Oscar nominations. He will team-teach the seminar “Behind the Scenes: The Evolution of a Theatrical Production.”

Bonde, a professor of music at Mount Holyoke College who has enjoyed an award-winning career that has included performances at Carnegie Hall, will lead direct a musical journey in the seminar “Beethoven Smphonies: Finding the Humor.”

Included among this year’s topics are seminars on the military, economic and political challenges posed by China taught by University of Notre Dame political scientist Michael Desch, the organizational, physical, psychological and weather challenges of Alaska’s Iditarod dog-sled race led by innovative educator Steve Landfried ’66, an insider’s look at the clandestine operations of American intelligence directed by former CIA special operations officer John Herms, bird ecology of Door County, Norse mythology, digital photography, watercolor painting and the road narratives of adventurer Richard Halliburton.

All seminars, which include meals prepared by Björklunden’s resident chef, begin Sunday evening and end Friday afternoon. Classes meet weekday mornings and some evenings with remaining time available to enjoy Björklunden’s mile-long, Lake Michigan shoreline and wooded walking trails or to explore Door County’s many cultural and recreational opportunities.

Complete seminar information, including dates, course descriptions and instructors, can be found at http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/bjork/ or by calling 920-839-2216. Questions can also be directed via email to mark.d.breseman@lawrence.edu.

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.