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What is a Life Worth? “Rational” Rationing of Health Care Examined in Lawrence University Biomedical Ethics Series Address

The notion of rationing health care may be a frightening concept, but is it necessarily wrong?

Northwestern University Professor David Dranove explores the question of what is a life worth and offers insights on why “rational” rationing of health care resources is becoming increasingly embraced in the third installment of a Lawrence University’s 2004-05 Edward F. Mielke Lecture Series in Biomedical Ethics.

Dranove, the Walter McNerney Distinguished Professor of Health Industry Management at Northwestern, presents “Putting a Price on Life” Wednesday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Drawing on Oregon’s 12-year old Medicaid initiative in which more than 700 medical interventions have been ranked from most cost effective to least and the British National Health System’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), which examines the cost-effectiveness of expensive treatments and recommends against paying for the least cost-ineffective technologies, Dranove will discuss the growing acceptance of rational rationing and outline the promises and pitfalls associated with a rationing approach to health care.

An essential element of rational rationing is attempting to quantify the seemingly unanswerable question: what is a life worth? When health care is rationed, a threshold for cost-effectiveness is established and coverage is denied for treatment that falls below that threshold. In England, NICE routinely denies coverage for interventions that cost more than $93,500 per year of life saved. Other systems use similar valuations.

Dranove argues that if the value of a life is based on the best available evidence, then the threshold used by NICE and others is much too low. Properly implemented, Dranove believes rational rationing could lead to more health spending, not less, but with the promise that the money is spent wisely on something of unsurpassed value.

A specialist in medical economics and cost-benefit analysis, Dranove joined the Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 1991 after spending eight years teaching at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is the author of three books, including 2000’s “The Economic Evolution of American Health Care” and is in the process of completing a fourth, “Pricing Your Life.” Dranove earned a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

Hitting a High Note: Lawrence Freshman Alisa Jordheim Wins National Arts Program Award

Missing an entire week of school left Lawrence University freshman Alisa Jordheim so far behind on her school work, she had precious little time to spend worrying about what the judges thought of her performance.

Jordheim spent a week in Miami, Fla., in mid-January as a national finalist in the Arts Recognition and Talent Search (ARTS) program, but rather than finding out the results at the end of the program, participants are notified how they did by mail. Snail mail. After a week of waiting, Jordheim learned she could add the title of 2005 ARTS winner to her growing list of achievements.

A soprano, Jordheim was named one of four “Level I” national winners in the ARTS voice category following a week-long program of master classes, interviews, performances and enrichment activities in nine different disciplines. She received a first-place prize of $3,000 for her winning efforts and becomes eligible for a $10,000 ARTS Gold Award, which will be announced later this year.

“I’ve learned if you dwell too much on the end results, you run the risk of being disappointed,” said Jordheim, a 2004 graduate of Appleton North High School. “You go in expecting nothing, and then if the results are good, that’s icing on the cake.”

Jordheim was one of 130 finalists selected from an initial pool of nearly 6,500 students from 33 states, Canada and The Netherlands who applied for the program. She was one of 10 voice students invited to Miami from 943 applicants in the category. Finalists in the ARTS Week program do not compete head-to-head, but are judged individually against a standard of excellence established for each discipline.

William Banchs, president of the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, which sponsors the ARTS Week program, called the students who are selected as finalists “the best of the best. They are our country’s artistic future.”

At the still tender age of 18, Jordheim, who has studied in the voice studio of Lawrence Associate Professor of Music Patrice Michaels the last eight years, has already compiled an impressive resume of musical accomplishments, including three consecutive first-place finishes in the National Association of Teachers of Singing competition. She said the ARTS Week program was unlike anything else she had ever experienced.

“We kept a very hectic schedule – 7 a.m. to at least midnight every night — and the entire week was filled with performances and activities. Each discipline had a showcase performance in which every artist performed as a soloist or displayed their works for all the participants, staff and the public,” said Jordheim, who along with Marcos Ortega, a senior at Wauwatosa East High School, were the only two students from Wisconsin to earn a finalist invitation to Florida. “As a vocalist, I sang in as many as four master classes and ‘coachings’ a day in addition to my showcase performance and audition, which were the two main factors of judging.

“I felt truly honored to be invited as a finalist to Miami and I am so thankful to have met all the genuinely talented artists who were there with me,” she added.

Among many highlights in her young career, Jordheim has performed with pianist Christopher O’Riley at the International Young Artists Music Festival, sang as a soloist at the Xian Conservatory of Music in China, performed on Public Radio International’s “From the Top,” singing duets with Bobby McFerrin and been featured in McGraw/Hill’s latest 8th-grade music textbook.

First conducted in 1981, the ARTS Week program is open to high school seniors and other 17- and 18-year old artists. Student vocalists, actors, dancers, filmmakers, classical and jazz musicians, photographers, writers and visual artists vie for individual cash awards ranging from $100 to $3,000, as well as the opportunity to share in a $3 million college scholarship package.

Organic Farming Focus of Lawrence University Address in Sustainable Agriculture Series

Jerry DeWitt, coordinator of the sustainable agriculture extension program at Iowa State University, discusses family farming operations of all sizes that have made significant changes in their operations and moved successfully towards sustainability in the third installment of Lawrence University’s environmental studies lecture series on sustainable agriculture.

DeWitt, professor of entomology in ISU’s agronomy department, presents “Organic Farming in the Midwest” Thursday, Feb. 17 at 4:45 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102 on the Lawrence campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Focusing on diversification, entrepreneurial activities and creative production and management approaches, DeWitt will discuss ways farmers and ranchers have improved their operations through the use of specialty crops, organic agriculture, local networking and value-added strategies, among others.

A member of the ISU faculty since 1972, DeWitt grew up on a small family farm in Illinois and earned his Ph.D. in entomology at the University of Illinois-Champaign. In addition to his service with the ISU extension program, DeWitt works with the U.S.Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program in Washington, D.C. An avid photographer, he has chronicled the traditional American farm and farm families with pictures for the books “People Sustaining the Land” (2001) and “Renewing the Countryside: Iowa” (2003).

The lecture series is sponsored by the Spoerl Lectureship in Science in Society. Established in 1999 by Milwaukee-Downer College graduate Barbara Gray Spoerl, and her husband, Edward, the lectureship promotes interest and discussion on the role of science and technology in societies worldwide.

Homelessness Issues Examined in Lawrence University Panel Presentation

Homelessness in America has been called “one of the most misunderstood and least documented social policy issues of our time” by Political Science Quarterly.

Today, an estimated 3.5 million people experience homelessness annually in this country and 1.35 million of those are children. More than half of all homeless families have been homeless for six months or longer. According to the Institute for Children and Poverty, the average age of a homeless person in the United States is nine. Across the nation, experts estimate that in any given community, one percent of the population is “at risk” of becoming homeless.

Lawrence University will examine the issue of homelessness and the ways people can make a difference toward solving the problem in the panel presentation “Homelessness Today, Housing Tomorrow” Wednesday, Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Underground Coffeehouse of the Lawrence Memorial Union. The program and is free and open to the public.

Sharing their perspectives on the issue will be Debra Cronmiller, director of the Fox Valley Emergency Shelter in Appleton, who will discuss the extent of the homelessness situation locally and the efforts being made to address the situation in the Fox Valley area; Ed Shurna, the executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, who will outline the coalition’s work and the importance of community efforts to combat homelessness; Larry Hamilton, a former homeless person himself who is now an activist in Chicago working on behalf of rights for the homeless; and Jeff Newton, a volunteer for the Chicago Coalition who is currently homeless and who will offer a first-person account of the challenges facing a homeless person and just how susceptible many people are to falling into that lifestyle.

The program is sponsored by the Lawrence University Volunteer and Community Service Center with support from the Class of 1965 Student Activity Fund.

Civil Rights Legend John Lewis Speaks at Lawrence University Convocation

U.S. Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, a leading figure on the front lines of this nation’s civil rights movement, speaks on the importance of student activism and involvement in the protection of human rights and civil liberties in America Tuesday, Feb. 8 in the third installment of Lawrence University’s 2004-05 convocation series.

Hailed as “a genuine American hero” for his courage in the face of discrimination and human injustice, Lewis delivers the address “Get in the Way” at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence University Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

The son of Alabama sharecroppers, Lewis, 64, grew up in the segregated South of the 1940s and ’50s, a time when signs for “Whites” and “Colored” were commonplace. Inspired by radio news broadcasts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.and his message of peaceful reform, Lewis committed himself at an early age to human rights activism.

While attending Fisk University, Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville and participated in the famed “Freedom Rides” of the early 1960s, occupying bus seats reserved for whites only. At the age of 23, he became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, helping organize student activism and earning recognition as one of the “Big Six” leaders of the civil rights movement, joining King, Whitney Young, A. Phillip Randolph, James Farmer and Roy Wilkins.

As SNCC chairman, Lewis was a principal architect of, and a keynote speaker at, the March on Washington in August, 1963, in which King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Two years later, Lewis led a march for voters’ rights in Alabama that ended in violence when marchers were attacked by state troopers in a brutal confrontation that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” News accounts of the event helped speed the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that same year.

Lewis entered public politics in 1981 with his election to the Atlanta City Council. He joined the U.S. Congress in 1986 and has represented Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District in Washington the past 19 years.

Profiled in a 1975 Time magazine article entitled “Saints Among Us,” Lewis’ efforts on behalf of human rights and civil liberties have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, the John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage Award” for lifetime achievement, the NAACP Spingarn Medal for outstanding achievement and the National Education Association Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award.

Lewis earned a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy from Fisk University and is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition, he has been recognized with nearly a dozen honorary degrees from Duke, Harvard and Princeton universities, among others.

His biography, “Walking With The Wind: A Memoir of the Movement,” was published in 1998.

Environmental Sociologist Discusses “Sense of Place” in Lawrence University Environmental Studies Series Address

The importance of maintaining one’s “sense of place” and the need to create human connections to physical spaces will be the focus of the second installment of Lawrence University’s environmental studies lecture series on sustainable agriculture.

Gregory Peter, assistant professor of sociology at UW-Fox Valley, presents “Who Grew Your Supper? Sustainability, Sense of Place and the Legacy of the Land” Thursday, Feb. 3 at 4:45 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102 on the Lawrence campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Peter will examine the generational connections farmers have traditionally maintained with the land and how those relationships are becoming increasingly jeopardized. In an age of growing industrial agriculture — a go-big-or-go-home environment — there are fewer farms, fewer farmers and consequently, an ever-diminishing sense of connection to the land. He will offer suggestions on how community members, in their role as every day consumers, can help promote and support sustainable agriculture.

Peter joined the UW-Fox Valley faculty in 2003 after spending three years teaching in the sociology department at James Madison University. He has written widely on issues of sustainable agriculture, including co-authoring the 2004 book “Farming for Us All: Postmodern Agriculture and the Cultivation of Sustainability.” He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his Ph.D. in sociology at Iowa State University.

The lecture series is sponsored by the Spoerl Lectureship in Science in Society. Established in 1999 by Milwaukee-Downer College graduate Barbara Gray Spoerl, and her husband, Edward, the lectureship promotes interest and discussion on the role of science and technology in societies worldwide.

Lawrence University Names Hiram College Development Chief Associate Vice President

William Johnson, vice president and chief development officer at Hiram College in Ohio, has been named associate vice president for development and alumni relations at Lawrence University. He begins his new duties at Lawrence March 1.

Johnson brings more than 20 years of fund-raising and management experience to Lawrence, where he will be responsible for managing the college’s major and planned giving programs, corporate and foundation relations, annual giving, donor relations, information and systems support as well as alumni relations.

“Willie Johnson is not only a seasoned and accomplished advancement professional, but he also has a firm understanding of and commitment to liberal education,” said Greg Volk, Lawrence executive vice president. “I am confident that his enthusiasm and leadership skills will be of great value to Lawrence in bolstering an already strong and multifaceted development and alumni relations program.”

As Hiram’s vice president and chief development officer, a position he has held since March 1, 2003, Johnson oversees all of Hiram’s development operations, including the direction of a $53.5 million capital campaign currently in progress.

Prior to Hiram, Johnson spent nine years as the associate vice president for major gifts at Carthage College in Kenosha where he was responsible for the cultivation and solicitation of gifts of $5,000 and more.

During his career, Johnson also has served as the director of corporate relations at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and spent three years as the director of development and public relations for the Iowa Special Olympics. He became his fund-raising career in 1982 as the assistant director of development at Wartburg College.

A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and social work at Wartburg and his master’s degree in business administration from Duke University.

Johnson and his wife, Sandy, have two children, a son Evan, 14, and a daughter, Chelsea, 13.

“Black Mountain Poet” Robert Creeley Gives Reading at Lawrence University

Robert Creeley, whose unique style featuring concise and emotionally powerful verse has inspired generations of poets, shares his work in a reading at Lawrence University.

Creeley will give a reading of some of his poems Thursday, Jan, 27 at 7:30 p.m. in Harper Hall in the Lawrence Music-Drama Center. A reception and book signing will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

Raised on a farm in West Acton, Mass., Creeley, 78, has produced an impressive body of work, including nearly 60 published volumes of his poems, a novel and numerous short stories and essays. His first published poem, “Le Fou,” appeared in 1952, but it was 1962’s “For Love: Poems 1950-1960,” a collection of verse in which he explored human relationships and common day events, themes that would become his hallmark, that earned him widespread acclaim.

Among his most recent works is a collection of poems entitled “If I Were Writing This,” (2003) “Just in Time” (2001) and “Life and Death” (2000), in which he examines his own mortality.

Early in his career, Creeley was best known for his association with the “Black Mountain Poets”” The talented group of writers — Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Ed Dorn and Denise Levertov among them — all had some connection with the experimental North Carolina institution Black Mountain College, which attracted some of the most innovative writers and artists of the 1950s. It was during this period Creeley developed the tenet “form is never more than an extension of content” that would remain central to much of his work throughout his career.

“Creeley is the kind of poet that everyone in the highly-factionalized world of poets and poetry magazines appreciates,” said Faith Barrett, assistant professor of English at Lawrence, who is coordinating Creeley’s visit. “His work appeals to both experimental and mainstream writers and is widely read in university classes. It is a real coup for us to get a poet of his stature to come and share his work.”

Creeley attended Harvard University, but his education was interrupted by World War II. He left school to serve as an ambulance driver in Burma for the American Field Service. After the war, he returned to Harvard, but dropped out during the last semester of his senior year. He eventually earned his bachelor’s degree at Black Mountain College, where he also later taught and served as editor of the literary journal “The Black Mountain Review.”

Creeley’s work has earned him numerous prestigious awards, including two Guggenheim fellowships, both the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal and the Shelley Memorial Award and Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize. In 1987 he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and served as New York State Poet from 1989-91.

After teaching stints at the University of New Mexico, the University of British Columbia and San Francisco State University, Creeley joined the English department at the State University of New York – Buffalo in 1967, where he taught until 2003. He currently serves as a distinguished professor in English for the graduate program in creative writing at Brown University.

Creeley’s appearance is supported by the Mia T. Paul Poetry Fund. Established in 1998, the endowed fund brings distinguished poets to campus for public readings and to work with students on writing poetry and verse.

Lawrence University Saxophonist Qualifies for National Music Competition

Lawrence University saxophonist Jesse Dochnahl earned a trip to the national finals of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Young Artist competition with a winning performance Saturday, Jan. 15 in the collegiate woodwind division of the five-state East Central regional competition.

A senior music education and performance major from Ennis, Mont., Dochnahl was one of five state champions competing in the regional audition held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He qualified for the regional competition after winning the state title last November.

Dochnahl, 21, who studies in the saxophone studio of professor of music Steven Jordheim, will join six other regional winners in Seattle, Wash., on April 4 for the national competition, where music division winners receive a $3,000 first-place prize and second-place finishers are awarded $1,500.

“Jesse’s success in the MTNA competition is an important achievement, both for Jesse and for Lawrence,” said Jordheim. “The East Central Region includes many strong university and conservatory programs in music performance and since students from graduate and artist diploma programs participate in this competition, the level of performance is very high.  Jesse’s strong showing in the competition is an affirmation of his fine talent and dedication to developing his skills to the highest level.”

The MTNA Young Artist competition is open to students 19-26 years of age. Participants in both the regional and national competition are required to play 40 minutes of music featuring contrasting pieces from two different time periods.

Playing alto saxophone, Dochnahl performed four works : Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “In Friendship”; “Flute Sonata in A minor” by C.P.E. Bach; “Scaramouche” by Darius Milhaud; and “The Nature of this Whirling Wheel,” a 1997 composition by former Lawrence music professor Rodney Rogers.

Sustainable Agriculture Focus of Lawrence University Environmental Studies Lecture Series

Fred Kirschenmann, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, opens a four-part Lawrence University environmental studies lecture series that will examine issues related to sustainable agriculture.

Kirschenmann presents “Challenges and Opportunities Facing Agriculture in the 21st Century” Thursday, Jan. 20 at 4:45 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102 on the Lawrence campus. The event is free and open to the public.

In the address, Kirschenmann will discuss the impending end of the current “neocaloric” state of agriculture and its heavy dependence on fossil fuels and other natural resources, suggest possibilities as to what agriculture will look like in the future and explore how these inevitable changes are likely to affect the way we relate to the world around us.

Appointed director of ISU’s Leopold Center in 2000, Kirschenmann is a national leader of the organic/sustainable agriculture movement and president of Kirschenmann Family Farms, a 3,500-acre certified organic farm in Windsor, North Dakota. He recently completed a five-year term on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Standards Board and has chaired the administrative council for the USDA’s North Central Region’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program.

Other talks in the series will include Gregory Peter, assistant professor of sociology at UW-Fox Valley discussing cultural connections to physical places and the future of farm land use (Feb.3); Jerry DeWitt, a University of Iowa extension coordinator addressing organic farming in the Midwest (Feb. 17); and Amy Kremen, a graduate student in the College of Argriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland, speaking on federal legislation related to organic farming and food labeling (Feb. 24).

The lecture series is sponsored by the Spoerl Lectureship in Science in Society. Established in 1999 by Milwaukee-Downer College graduate Barbara Gray Spoerl, and her husband, Edward, the lectureship promotes interest and discussion on the role of science and technology in societies worldwide.