Wisconsin

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Pianists, Saxophonist Share Top Honors in State Music Competition

Lawrence University student musicians accounted for three of the five winners at the 15th annual Neale-Silva Young Artists competition held March 27 in Madison.

Pianists Marshall Cuffe and David Keep and saxophonist Sumner Truax shared top honors with trumpet player Ansel Norris, a senior at Madison East High School and clarinetist Matthew Griffith, a senior at Sheboygan North High School, in the state competition sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio.   Each received $400 for their winning performances.

This was the fifth straight year and 10th time in the past 12 years that Lawrence students have won or shared top honors in the Neale-Silva event.

The competition is open to instrumentalists and vocal performers 17-26 years of age who are either from Wisconsin or attend a Wisconsin college.  Lawrence musicians accounted for seven of the competition’s 13 finalists, who were selected from 15 entrants. In addition to the three winners, also advancing to the finals were pianists Laura Hauer, Dario LaPoma and Karly Stern, and oboist Cayden Milton.

Cuff, Keep and Truax will reprise their winning performances Sunday, April 11 at 12:30 p.m. in the Wisconsin Union Theater in Madison.  The concert will be broadcast live statewide on the Classical Music Network of WPR and can be heard locally at 89.3 FM.

For the April 11 concert, Cuffe, a sophomore from Salem, Ore., will perform Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy” and “Fantasy on Themes from Wizard of Oz” by William Hirtz while Keep, a junior from Traverse City, Mich., will play three movements from Alberto Ginastera’s“Sonata No. 1.” Both are students in the studio of Anthony Padilla.

Truax, a junior from Chicago, Ill., will perform “Buku”by Jacob Ter Veldhuis and “Tableaux De Provence I, II & III”by Paule Maurice.  He studies with Steven Jordheim and Sara Kind, a 2004 and 2006 Neale-Silva Young Artist winner herself.

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.

Chicago Painter Delivers Opening Address in New Wriston Art Center Exhibition

Chicago painter Karen Lebergott’s “The Last Ten Years” will be one of two shows in the latest exhibition opening Monday, March 29 at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries.  Lebergott’s work will featured in the Hoffmaster and Kohler galleries. “Art Out of Conflict,” featuring works from the Wriston’s permanent collection, will be shown in the Leech gallery.

Lebergott delivers the opening lecture of the  exhibition Friday, April 2 at 6 p.m.  A reception with the artist follows her address.  The exhibition runs through May 9.

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Cast-Off, oil on canvas (2005)

Lebergott’s work explores the parallels between the processes of mapping and mark-making, the practice of applying pencil strokes and paint to a surface.  She uses obscured layers of paint, thick-stenciled patterns and pentimenti – alterations in a painting showing how the artist changed his or her mind in process about the composition – to layer form and color as a record of the decision-making of each piece of art.  Tactile and rich in color, her works demand an archeology-like approach on the part of her viewers.

An associate professor of art at Lake Forest College, Lebergott specializes in 20th– and 21st-century art as well as art in Chicago.  Her work has been exhibited at national and international galleries in Chicago, New York City and Berlin, Germany.

“Art Out of Conflict,” showcases work that express and portray a variety of the conditions leading to World War II.  The social and political unrest that accompanied Hitler’s rise to power played a significant role in influencing the development of a new bold, expressive style that emerged.

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 on Mondays.  For more information, call 920-832-6621 or visit http://www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston/.

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Six-Time Oscar Winner Headlines Lawrence University Term III Independent Film Series

The gripping Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker,” winner of six 2010 Academy Awards, including best picture, headlines Lawrence University’s 10-week-long independent film series beginning March 31.

All films are shown on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema, 711 E. Boldt Way, Appleton.  Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call 920-832-6837.

The series schedule is as follows:

• March 31 — “500 Days of Summer” (2009): Nonlinear story of boy meets girl…boy falls in love…girl doesn’t.  Winner of two 2010 Golden Globe awards, including best picture.

• April 7 — “Amreeka” (2009):  Chronicles the adventures of Muna, a single mother who leaves the West Bank with her teenage son, Fadi, with dreams of an exciting future in the promised land of small-town Illinois.

• April 14 — “A Serious Man” (2009): A black comedy by the Coen brothers set in 1967 and centered on a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel when his wife prepares to leave him because his inept brother won’t move out of the house.

• April 21 — “Earth Days” (2009):  Traces the origins of the modern environmental movement through the eyes of nine Americans who propelled the movement from its beginnings in the 1950s to its moment of triumph in 1970 with the original Earth Day, and to its status as a major political force in America.

• April 28 — “The Hurt Locker” (2009) : An intense portrayal of elite U.S. soldiers in Iraq who perform one of the most dangerous jobs in the world:  disarming bombs in the heat of combat. Winner of six Oscars, including best picture and best director.

• May 5 — “Paranormal Activity” (2009): After a young couple moves into a suburban house, they become increasingly disturbed by a demonic presence that is active in the middle of the night – especially when they sleep – where the horrific presence is captured on their video camera.

• May 12 — “Blue Gold” (Documentary, 2008): Wars of the future will be fought over water as they are over oil today as the source of human survival enters the global marketplace and political arena.

• May 19 — “An Education” (2009): A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age.  Nominated for three Academy Awards in 2010, including best picture.

• May 26 — “Man on Wire” (Documentary, 2008): A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City’s World Trade Center’s twin towers in 1974, what some consider, “the artistic crime of the century.” Winner of 2009 Academy Award for best documentary.

• June 2 — “The Visitor”(2008): A college professor travels to New York for a conference where he discovers a Syrian musician and his Senegalese girlfriend living in his apartment.  The illegal immigrants have nowhere to go so he reluctantly allows them to stay with him.  Earned Oscar nomination for lead actor Richard Jenkins and Independent Spirit Award for best director.

Warch Campus Center Earns Facility Design Award of Excellence

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Warch Campus Center

The accolades for Lawrence University’s Warch Campus Center continue to roll in.

The most recent honor comes courtesy of the Association of College Unions International (ACUI ), which presented KSS Architects one of its 2010 Facility Design Awards of Excellence March 15 in New York City for its work on the Warch Campus Center.

The ACUI award recognizes excellence in design of college unions as well as other student-centered campus buildings.  Winners are selected on the basis of the facilities’ appearance as well as the process used to arrive at the building’s design and how the new or renovated facility affected the campus.

Nearly 20 years in the making, the $35 million, 107,000-square-foot Warch Campus Center opened last September.  It was awarded LEED-certified Gold status in November by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Greg Griffin, director of the Warch Campus Center, said the building “has greatly enhanced the overall experience” on campus.  With beautiful views of the adjacent Fox River, the building features several outdoor decks and patios, dining options on three of its four levels, student programming space, 24-hour student lounges and a 134-seat cinema with surround sound and state-of-the-art projection.

KSS Architects partner Pamela Lucas Rew said enhancing the campus experience was the goal of the project.

“We set out to create a project that would fulfill Lawrence’s mission and long-term and day-to-day expectations,” said Rew.  “From this, we developed architectural goals to knit together the campus, the site and the adjacent river into a building that communicates these ideas as well as serves the institution’s functional needs.  The ACUI Facility Design Award is about more than design.  It shows us that our client loves their building.”

The Warch Campus Center has been recognized previously with Appleton Downtown, Inc.’s Dreamers and Doers Award, a Top Project designation by Wisconsin Builder magazine and a Concrete Design Award from the Wisconsin Ready Mixed Concrete Association.  It was named winner in the 2009 “Best New Construction” category in FOX CITIES Magazine’s annual “Great Spaces Great Places” contest.

Other buildings cited by the ACUI for design excellence were the Student Success Center, Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville; Interactive Learning Center, Boise State University; The Commons, Bates College; Smith Campus Center, Pomona College; and the Joe Crowley Student Union, University of Nevada–Reno.

Lawrence University Pianist Qualifies for National Competition

Leonard Hayes, a junior from Dallas, Texas, qualified for the national finals of the 2010 National Association of Negro Musicians Scholarship Competition in Piano after winning the NANM regional competition March 20 at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock, Ark.

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Leonard Hayes

For winning the regional event, Hayes received an all-expense paid trip to the national competition July 25-28 in Colorado Springs, Colo. He will be of five regional winners competing in the national finals. Hayes advanced to the NANM regional as the winner of the local Dallas competition.

For both the local and regional auditions, Hayes performed movements from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 7, George Walker’s Piano Sonata No. 2 and Cesar Franck Poco’s Allegro and Fugue. He is a student in the piano studio of Catherine Kautsky.

Founded in 1919 and based in Chicago, the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. is the country’s oldest organization dedicated to the preservation, encouragement and advocacy of all genres of the music of African Americans. During its 90-year history, NANM has provided encouragement and support to thousands of African American musicians, many of whom have become widely respected figures in music and have contributed significantly to American culture and music history.

Appleton Downtown Inc. Honors Lawrence University for Warch Campus Center, College Ave. Median Project

Downtown Appleton, Inc. recognized Lawrence University March 18 with its 2010 Dreamers and Doers Award for the opening of the Warch Campus Center and the completion of the College Avenue median project.

The annual Dreamers and Doers Award, presented at ADI’s annual dinner at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel, recognizes a business, group or individual “who has significantly enhanced, for years to come, the physical and/or economic landscape of the downtown.”

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Warch Campus Center

Nearly 20 years in the making, the $35 million, 107,000-square-foot Warch Campus Center opened last September to rave reviews. In November, U.S. Green Building Council awarded the environmentally friendly building LEED-certified Gold status, the second highest designation on the green building four-level certification system.

The Dreamers and Doers Award is just the latest accolade for the Warch Campus Center. It previously was named one of Wisconsin Builder magazine’s 2009 Top Projects, earned a Concrete Design Award from the Wisconsin Ready Mixed Concrete Association and was named winner in the “Best New Construction” category in FOX CITIES Magazine’s annual “Great Spaces Great Places” contest.

The College Ave. median project between Drew and Lawe streets, was a joint undertaking between Lawrence, the City of Appleton and private donors in the historic neighborhood who funded the project.

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College Ave. Median Garden

The revamped median was turned into a natural garden with shrubs, trees and flowers, providing a beautiful entrance to downtown Appleton. Lighted Lawrence University signs on each end of the median remind motorists they are driving through the campus. The median also features two well-defined crosswalks to enhance safety for students crossing the busy boulevard.

$25,000 Watson Fellowship Sending Alex Winter to Asia for Video Game Culture Study

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Alex Winter

Alex Winter got his first taste of video gaming as a five-year old, playing “Sim City” at home in his father’s attic office with his dad. He’s been hooked ever since.

“Video games have been a part of my life my entire life,” said the Lawrence University senior, who soon will turn his life-long affection for gaming into a year-long study of the social phenomenon of the video game culture in East Asia.

Winter was one of 40 undergraduates nationally awarded a $25,000 fellowship from the Rhode Island-based Thomas J. Watson Foundation for a year of independent travel and exploration outside the United States on a topic of the student’s choosing. Winter, whose proposal —“Video Game Culture Studies in East Asia, Korea, China, Japan” — was selected from among 150 finalists representing 40 of the nation’s premier private liberal arts colleges and universities. More than 820 students applied for this year’s Watson Fellowship.

Interactive entertainment — gaming — has grown exponentially since the primitive days of “Pong.” According to Price Waterhouse Coopers, interactive entertainment earned $41.9 billion in 2007 and is anticipated to surpass music revenue by 2011.

As it has evolved, interactive entertainment has moved away from the one game/one player model toward entire communities of players who are brought together through the game itself, creating an international digital community with a unique subculture.

“Video gaming is creating its own, unique traditions every day,” said Winter, a biology major from Seattle, Wash. “Chief among them is a social, cultural network that circles the globe without regard for national boundaries or languages. The interactive entertainment industry is poised to change the world as profoundly as the Internet. We’re standing on the brink of a cultural revolution and now is the perfect time to study this infant culture.”

Winter will use his fellowship to visit China, Japan and South Korea, where the video game community holds mainstream positions much the same way Americans treat sports.

“I intend to spend time studying cyber athleticism, performance, economics and addiction in places where they are exceptionally visible, such as Internet cafes, gaming centers, arenas and conventions,” said Winter. “I want to immerse myself in the culture, performing observational studies and interviews whenever possible.”

Starting in mid-July, Winter will travel first to Hong Kong, the center of a unique economy in which real money is exchanged for goods that exist only inside the video game world. The next five months will be spent in Japan, home to three of the largest interactive entertainment publishers: Nintendo, Sony and Sega.

“The most accomplished players in Japan draw crowds of admirers, which is a fundamentally different style of video gaming than what is practiced here in the states,” said Winter. “Players compete against both the computer and the previous player in what might be called ‘video game performance art.’ I want to explore the motivations of those who perform and those who come to watch this unique style of entertainment.”

In January, Winter will travel to Beijing, home to the only state-sponsored video game addiction recovery center in the world. He plans to meet the doctors who treat the patients whose attachment to video games is near dependence levels and the video gamers themselves to explore how their addiction grew, how it affected their life and what led them to counseling.

During an ensuing five-month stay in South Korea, where competitions with prizes as high as $500,000 are nationally televised events, Winter will explore the country’s specialized Internet cafes and the phenomenon of cyber athletes.

“The possibilities for learning about and embracing my gamer self in a country that lauds its players are exciting and endless,” said Winter.

He will return to China in July 2011 to close his study in Shanghai, which boasts an exceptionally high number of gamers.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the interplay of traditional Chinese culture and interactive gaming in Shanghai,” said Winter.” “Of the three Chinese cities on my itinerary, Shanghai is the most traditional. Its collision and merger with state-of-the-art interactive entertainment will be a telling testament to the phenomenon of merging cultures.”

Brian Pertl, dean of the conservatory of music, served as Lawrence’s campus liaison to the Watson program this year. He said Winter will break “new ground” with his fellowship.

“His project is different. It’s exploring areas that haven’t been tackled by any previous Watson fellows,” said Pertl, a 1986 Watson Fellowship recipient himself as a student at Lawrence. “Alex’s passion for this topic as a scholar and as a participant in social gaming gives him the perfect background for this award. I’m confident he’ll come back with some deep insights and fantastic experiences.”

Winter sees his project not as a departure from his study of biology, but rather an extension of it.

“A background in biological science is fundamentally an education in methodical parsing of cause and effect,” said Winter. “Human culture can be examined as a complex system with confounding factors. My background in science gives me a scaffold on which to build this study and dig into the new sociological frontier presented by East Asian gaming.”

Winter 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.

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.

Lawrence University Jumps to No. 6 in National Recycling Competition

With less than three weeks remaining in the 2010 national RecycleMania competition, Lawrence University has moved up from 11th to 6th place in the per capita classic category according to the most recent standings. The category tracks the amount of acceptable materials recycled per person.

Lawrence had recycled an average of 21.99 pounds per person, up from 8.67 pounds at the beginning of the competition, which features 315 colleges and universities across the nation. Colorado College continues to lead the category at 34.58 pounds per person. Lawrence is first among 12 other Wisconsin schools in the per capita classic category.

RecycleMania is a friendly, 10-week-long competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. The challenge, which ends March 27, includes four primary competition categories:

• Grand Champion, which combines trash and core recyclable materials to determine a school’s recycling rate as a percentage of its overall waste generation.

• Per Capita Classic, in which schools compete to see which can collect the largest combined amount of paper, cardboard and bottles and cans per person.

• Waste Minimization, in which schools compete to see which produces the least amount of municipal solid waste (recyclables and trash) per person.

• Gorilla Prize, which recognizes schools that recycle the highest gross tonnage of combined paper, cardboard, bottles and cans during the 10-week competition, regardless of campus population.

First conducted in 2001 between Miami University and Ohio University, the 2010 RecycleMania competition features a record 607 colleges and universities across the United States, Canada and as far away as Qatar.

Lawrence University Delegation Recognized at Model United Nations Conference

Lawrence University students Angela Ting and Angela Wang earned the “Best Delegation” award as members of Lawrence’s Model United Nations team at the recent 50th annual Midwest Model United Nations Conference in St. Louis, Mo.

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Angela Wang (l.) and Angela Ting

Lawrence’s eight-member delegation represented El Salvador in the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. Ting, a junior from Malaysia, and Wang, a sophomore from Forest Hills, N.Y., represented the General Assembly Third Committee. They were awarded Best Delegation honors for their work debating the provision of humanitarian assistance to refugees and internally-displaced persons in conflict situations.

During the four-day conference, the Lawrence delegation also participated in debates regarding the role of the United Nations in promoting development in the context of globalization and interdependence, the impact of drugs on development and the U.N.’s role in combating transnational organized crime. The regional conference drew more than 900 students from nearly 80 colleges and universities throughout the Midwest.

Also representing Lawrence were sophomore Carrie Brown, Chicago, Ill., sophomore Gi’selle Jones, Kingston, Jamaica, sophomore Amanda Popp, Palmyra, junior Tasmia Rahman, Dhaka, Bangladesh, sophomore Ranga Wimalasuriya, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka, and freshman Mingxia Zhu, Guangzhou, China.

Founded in 1960, the Midwest Model United Nations is a collegiate organization devoted to broadening students’ awareness of world politics by promoting an interest and understanding of other nations in the world. At the conference, student delegations representing various nations work on pressing international issues to gain perspective on the world and the United Nations’ role in world politics.

Service Learning Efforts Earn Lawrence University National Honor Roll Recognition

For the fourth consecutive year, Lawrence University has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement.

Lawrence is one of only four Wisconsin institutions named to the Community Service Honor Roll every year since the program was launched in 2006. This year’s honor roll, announced by the Corporation for National and Community Service, recognized more than 700 colleges and universities for their impact on issues from poverty and homelessness to environmental justice in 2009.

“Preparing students for lives of responsible citizenship is a tenet of a Lawrence education and I am gratified that the dedicated efforts of our students here in our community and elsewhere once again have earned national recognition,” said Lawrence President Jill Beck. “I commend the students on their efforts to impact the greater community in a positive manner during their time here, as well as our Pieper Professor of Servant Leadership and the other faculty and staff members who assist them in those efforts.”

Honorees for the 2010 President’s Community Service Honor Roll were chosen on a series of factors, including scope and innovativeness of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

In the past year, more than 600 Lawrence students contributed more than 12,000 service hours to service-learning and volunteer programs. Among the initiatives for which Lawrence was recognized was the establishment of a partnership with the Pragati Foundation in Bangalore, India, for summer teaching opportunities with underprivileged middle school students; the Confidence and Determination in Youth (CADY) student organization which provides younger students an inspirational, college-like experience in learning; and the Lawrence Assistance Reaching Youth (LARY) Buddies, a mentoring program for at-risk elementary students.

“Our students are contributing literally thousands of hours of volunteer service on behalf of others in both our own Fox Valley community as well on the global stage, all within the confines of a rigorous academic program,” said Alan Parks, Lawrence’s Pieper Family Professor of Servant Leadership and director of the college’s Office for Engaged Learning. “We’re seeing annual increases in service hours by our students which makes it all the more gratifying that those efforts are being recognized nationally through the President’s Community Service Honor Roll.”

According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency, 3.16 million students performed more than 300 million hours of service in 2009. The Corporation’s Learn and Serve America program supports service-learning in schools, institutions of higher education and community-based organizations.

The President’s Community Service Honor Roll is compiled by the Corporation for National and Community Service in collaboration with the Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact, and the American Council on Education.