A sampling of media clippings about Lawrence University, its faculty, students, and alumni from Fall 1999 and Winter 2000. For more clippings, check out the Lawrence in the News index page.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
March 4, 2000
Headline: Appleton professor wins $21,000 Fulbright grant
Excerpt: A Lawrence University geologist specializing in mountain
building processes has been awarded a $21,000 grant by the Fulbright Scholar
Program to conduct field research in Norway. Beginning in July, Marcia Bjornerud, associate professor of geology at Lawrence, will investigate the role fluids play in fault zones at different crustal levels and their impact on earthquakes and the formation of mountains.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
February 29, 2000
Headline: Musicians share award
Excerpt: Two Lawrence University musicians, faculty pianist Anthony Padilla and bass-baritone and 1996 graduate Mark Uhlemann, shared top honors at
the 2000 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Padilla and Uhlemann, were named co-recipients of the Nathan Wedeen Award as the top performers among 12 finalists in the competition, held Feb. 20 at New York's Merkin Concert Hall. The CAG competition, which is not instrument specific, attracted an
original pool of 305 international musicians. Padilla also was awarded the Cascade Festival Prize, which includes a concerto performance at the 2001 Cascade Festival of Music in Bend, Oregon. After graduating from Lawrence, Uhlemann won the 1997 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and made his Met debut last fall in a production of "Otello."
Star Tribune, Minneapolis
February 26, 2000
Headline: Baptism in a new land. A Russian immigrant brings her new baby into the faith she had at home through baptism at a small Russian Orthodox Church in Minneapolis
Byline: Nolan Zavoral
Excerpt: Three times the infant was lifted, naked, feet first, into the metal font. Twelve times he issued sharp cries that pierced the solemnity attending his baptism at St. Panteleimon Russian Orthodox Church in Minneapolis. Following tradition, Slava's godmother, Olga Leszunov, a family friend, held him through most of the ceremony. His parents stood a pace behind. Jeff Campbell, 24, and wife, Olga, 31, had met in a French class at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. She came from Kurgan, Russia, a city of 361,000 in the shadow of the Ural Mountains, and a city that had an exchange program with Appleton. They were married on Sept. 2, 1997, in a courthouse in Oshkosh, Wis., and Slava was born on Nov. 10, 1999, the couple's first child. Olga's mother arrived to help after the delivery, and before she returned to Russia last month, she asked that Slava be baptized in the Russian Orthodox church. After the Nicene Creed and prayers and the baptism, the priest, Father Grushetsky, proceeded to the final sacrament, confirmation, commonly paired with baptism in Orthodox churches. Then Grushetsky snipped a few hairs from Slava's head, "as a peaceful sacrifice to God - a sign of obedience from the boy to the master," the priest said later. "It is an old ritual. A master in ancient times did that to his slaves. What we are saying is now we are the slaves of God."
The Sheridan Press, Sheridan, Wyoming
February 21, 2000
Headline: Summit award follow-up. Sarkissian thrives at college
Excerpt: Angela Sarkissian won a Summit Award from Academics for All in the winter of 1998. She was Sheridan High School valedictorian that year, and went to Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., in the fall of 1998. Now in her sophomore year, Sarkissian is a pre-med major taking courses in chemistry, morphology of the vertebrates, international politics, and orchestra. Her favorite course so far has been cell physiology. She describes the academic life of Lawrence as being what brought her to that university. "The faculty are devoted to excellence, as are the students. While the academics can often be overwhelming, it's what makes Lawrence stand out," she says. The diversity at this 1,200-student institution adds an important dimension to its social/cultural life. She says, "If you have an interest in anything--from sports to music to religion--there are a number of student groups to choose from. The diversity of values and ideas of the students here is especially amazing for someone who's lived in Wyoming all her life." She adds, "There's always something going on--concerts, plays, student and faculty recitals, lectures, movies, and organization activities." "I would recommend it (Lawrence University) to any student who truly wants to advance themselves through hard work and new experiences. This college is a liberal arts school that provides every opportunity for excellence whether you're a writer, a scientist, a musician, or all three."
Arlington Morning News, Arlington, Texas
February 20, 2000
Headline: Adorning flesh. Tattoos help some people cope with physical, emotional scars
Byline: Paula Felps
Excerpt: Matt Shaver of Custom Tattoos in Arlington says he is seeing more patrons looking for ways to disguise scars. "It's a way of feeling better about themselves," Mr. Shaver says. Tattoos, once considered symbols of defiance, have become therapeutic for people who have experienced a traumatic bodily injury, either through surgical procedures or accidents. "Some people who have incurred bodily trauma mark their bodies on the very site of that trauma as if to repeat it in some new, creative setting that will allow for a different, life-affirming demarcation of the event, while still bearing witness to it," explains Judith Sarnecki, a researcher at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. The associate professor of French has been studying the subject of tattoos and their significance for about three years. She's discovered that the process of redesigning a scar is a powerful tool for healing. Among the most common examples she found linking tattoos and recovery are women who use body art to cover their mastectomy scars.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
February 19, 2000
Headline: Employers consider vouchers to fight cost of insurance
Byline: Joe Manning
Excerpt: One major benefit to employers under a voucher system is that they have no legal liability should employees select health care plans that result in malpractice suits. Many businesses fear that under pending federal patients' rights legislation, they could be held liable for the care provided through health insurers they select for their employees. Some day soon your employer may make a decision that will change how you pay for health insurance. Your place of business will give you a chunk of money - and say do it yourself. Such programs -- known as health care "vouchers" -- are a trendy topic these days as employers and employees alike deal with skyrocketing health care costs. There is a lot of money at stake. According to a Lawrence University economist who tracks health care issues, Milwaukee area employers, on average, paid
$4,172 per employee last year for employees enrolled in HMOs. "Employers don't want to be in the health care business," says Merton Finkler,
an associate professor of economics at Lawrence University, Appleton. "As a business, you want to focus on your core competencies, and health
care is not a core competency."
[The story also ran on CNNfn.com on February 22]
WMMM FM Radio, Madison
February 18, 2000
Show: The Triple M Morning Show
Co-Hosts: Kitty Dunn, Jonathan Suttin
Excerpt:
Suttin: Joining us on the phone right now is Judy
Sarnecki, who is a professor of French at Lawrence University in
Appleton, Wis. Tell us a little bit about the study of tattoos and what
kind of connections you think tattoos have to healing.
Sarnecki:
When I first began looking at tattoos, I discovered that some women
tattooists talk about acting as shamans and of leading other women on
various journeys. I found out that some people get tattoos over scars,
over mastectomy scars, for example, as a way to creatively transform
their traumatic experience into a healing experience.
Suttin: To
kind of work in the scar as part of the art?
Sarnecki: Well that
has been the case for some women. There are actually women who have
been through a double-mastectomy and have sought tattoos, for example.
Also, people who lose loved ones sometimes get actual portraits of the
loved ones tattooed somewhere on their body.
Dunn: What's the most
bizarre or interesting story that you can think of connected with
tattoos?
Sarnecki: Well, I also look at the way tattoos are
presented in films and other media. I think the most interesting story
was one I found on-line by a psychiatrist who claims that the way that
tattoos got associated in medical texts with psychopathology was because
of a 1955 film that Robert Mitchum starred in called "Night of the
Hunter." Mitchum played this psychotic minister who had "Love" tattooed
on one hand and "Hate" on the other. From this portrayal, tattoos, as
presented in medical books in the 1950s and 60s, were then looked at
strictly as psychopathology. So if you saw a tattooed person you'd
think, "What? Psycho...sociopath!"
Chicago Tribune, Chicago
February 16, 2000
Headline: Tattoo researcher seems to be missing the big picture
Byline: John Kass, columnist
Excerpt: There it was on my desk, in the first paragraph of a news
release from the tiny but elite Lawrence University in Appleton,
Wis.: "The tattoo, long the artistic expression of choice for societal
'outsiders'--psychotics, criminals, lesbians, punk rockers,
gangbangers--serves an important role as a medium for emotional healing
and survival, according to a Lawrence University researcher. The
researcher is Judith Sarnecki, the chairman of the French Department at
the liberal arts school. Sarnecki believes she has found a connection
between the increase in tattoos in modern society and the need to use
tattoos to deal with traumatic or life-threatening experiences. Tattoos
are about (her word) "empowerment." Tattoos are about a personal
awakening, a marking of a journey and a passage along a spiritual
plateau and all that other New Age stuff. There's another way to
consider the narrative of tattoos and the empowerment suggested by the
intricate patterns of dye on skin. A friend of mine had her back
decorated with a tattoo of an octopus. She did it when she was young and
fit and her skin was tight. It was an expression of youth and mystery.
Years later, say when she's 60 and she's soaking her aching feet in a
pan of warm water in the kitchen, it won't be an expression of youth and
mystery. It'll just be a tattoo of a sagging octopus on the back of a
wrinkling middle-age lady. Her kids will beg her to have surgery to
remove it.
Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia
February 13, 2000
Headline: Liturgy of the hours, a ceaseless "cascade" of devotion
Byline: Mary Beth McCauley
Excerpt: One recent Friday morning, the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison, Jr., Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, sat in his study and toyed with the enticing availability of 10 acres of fine land in the suburbs. He pondered the future of his church in the city, where parishes are many but Episcopalians few. He wrestled with the implications of blessing same-sex unions where tradition-minded populations balk. The bishop's road map through the thoroughly modern terrain that day was an ancient form of prayer called the Holy Office, sometimes referred to as the Liturgy of the Hours. He and fellow Episcopalians refer to their church's Book of Common Prayer for the rites and readings of the day. "It gives us a common language with which we can talk, theologically, about our life in community," said the bishop, whose diocese includes 162 churches and 80,000 members. While some clergy adapt the Book of Common Prayer to a form they prefer, he said, he finds the standard rite "as natural as eating." The bishop himself began attending public morning and evening prayer as a freshman at Wisconsin's Lawrence College in 1961.
Times-Picayune, New Orleans
February 6, 2000
Headline: People shaping the metro economy
Excerpt: Thomas A. Oreck has been elected president and chief executive officer of the company (Oreck Corporation), which manufactures and sells vacuum cleaners. Oreck, the son of David Oreck, chairman of the board of directors of the Oreck Corp., has worked in the appliance industry for more than 25 years. He is a graduate of Lawrence University and the management program of the Harvard Business School.
Orlando Times, Orlando, Florida
February 3, 2000
Headline: Dr. Maya Angelou will speak
Excerpt: One of the great voices of contemporary literature and a remarkable Renaissance woman, Dr. Maya Angelou is the keynote speaker at Hearts of Gold ... An Evening of Hope at 7:30 p.m., Friday, February 25, at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center. Dr. Angelou's awards and honors are unlimited in virtually every field. She has been awarded more than 30 honorary Doctorate degrees from schools such as Smith College and Lawrence University. Random House has published ten best sellers by Dr. Angelou including: Why Don't You Sing?; All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes and Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die.
Wisconsin State Journal, Madison
February 1, 2000
Headline: Alumni Update
Excerpt: Adam LaVoy (Oregon), a junior on the Lawrence University
men's basketball team, fell four points shy of the single-game school
scoring record with his 41-point performance in a 129-114 victory
Saturday over Grinnell (Iowa) College. LaVoy was 18-for-22 from the
field and 5-for-9 from the foul line against the Pioneers, who average
107 points per game and were coming off a 137-126 loss Friday to St.
Norbert College.
National Post, Don Mills, Ontario
January 31, 2000
National edition/front page
Headline: Academics take aim at 'racist science.' Outrage over Rushton
Byline: Andy Lamey
Excerpt: J. Philippe Rushton, the University of Western Ontario
psychologist frequently branded a bigot for his theories of racial
hierarchies, is provoking controversy after sending out what has been
described as a "really disgusting piece of racist science" to academics
across Canada and the United States. Prof. Rushton's work places
characteristics such as brain size, intelligence, crime rates, sexual
frequency and penis size along a racial continuum. " On average,
Orientals are ... less sexually active, have larger brains and higher IQ
scores. Blacks are at the opposite end in each of these areas. Whites
fall in the middle, often close to Orientals," Prof. Rushton writes in a
summary of his views on Amazon.com. Not just environment, but genes and
evolution are the cause of this, he believes. Peter N. Peregrine, an
anthropologist at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., said he
was somewhat disappointed by colleagues who responded to Prof. Rushton's
mailing with anger. The best approach was to calmly point out the
illogical and unsupported nature of Prof. Rushton's claims, he said.
Prof. Peregrine said if Prof. Rushton's premise of three distinct racial
groups having evolved 40,000 years ago was true, "then the sexual and
social behavior of all the people in the Americas should be the same.
That is, Mayans and Eskimos should have the same sexual behavior... and
that's just ludicrous." Prof. Peregrine says he will use Prof. Rushton's
booklet in class as an example of "ideas that just don't work."
HealthScout.com
January 28, 2000
Headline: Tattoos not just skin deep. Professor finds more than meets the
eye
Byline: Liz Lynch
Excerpt: To some, a tattoo is something you discover on yourself after a
particularly lively night on the town. But to Judith Sarnecki, a tattoo
is a snapshot of the inner self that happens to be on the outer self.
"Perhaps one thing that [people with tattoos] seem to share is the
desire to be an individual," says Sarnecki, a professor of French at
Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. "The desire to somehow
express their uniqueness or to stand out in some way." Sarnecki has
spent more than two years studying tattoos, their wearers and their
creators. At first, she just thought she'd hear some good stories about
how the tattoos got there. Then she interviewed a roofer who had a
gallery of tattoos -- and a crippling stutter. "This made me wonder if
tattoos were a way to speak out for people who didn't have much of a
voice in the culture," she says. Certain reasons for tattooing tend to
emerge more often than others, including the need to assert authority
over something, even if it's only your own bicep. Sarnecki thinks it's
no accident that tattoos have traditionally flourished outside society's
mainstream -- on gang members and punk rockers, for instance. Also,
there is youthful rebellion, which seems to be fueling a surge in tattoo
popularity among teens and twentysomethings. Finally, a new tendency to
use tattoos to cope with traumatic experiences. Sarnecki has interviewed
people who wear a tattoo of a deceased loved one. And she has seen women
who have tattooed over their mastectomy scars. In many cases, the tattoo
"is used to signal a life change," she says.
Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington, D.C.
January 14, 2000
Headline: Hot type
Excerpt: In 1995, when the psychologist J. Phillippe Rushton published a book on racial differences in intelligence, a New York Times reviewer called it "incendiary." Mr. Rushton, a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario, argues that races differ in intelligence and reproductive behavior, and that those differences have evolutionary origins. In the next issue of Anthropology News, Peter N. Peregrine, an associate professor of anthropology at Lawrence University, writes that he plans to use the Rushton booklet in his introductory class in biological anthropology as a teaching tool, "to demonstrate the flaws in logic, theory, and substance upon which his work is based."
The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore
January 9, 2000
Headline: Allowing the soloist to shine. Accompanist Robert McDonald may sit in the background, but his talents are very much in evidence
Byline: Holly Selby
Excerpt: Violinist Midori stood on the stage at Peabody's Friedberg Concert Hall, slender, youthful and completely focused on the music she was creating. Just behind her, Robert McDonald sat at a grand piano. Accompanying -- musical collaboration -- is an intimate and nuanced art. One must have technical expertise, expressiveness, and the ability to intuit where your partner is heading musically, and sometimes to get there first. McDonald, who is accompanist to both Midori and Isaac Stern, describes the art of collaborating as "a little like the aural equivalent of having eyes in the back of your head." He is considered one of the finest pianists of his generation and is much sought after as a collaborating artist. A New York resident, McDonald is a member of the piano faculties of both Peabody Institute and Juilliard. A 1983 gold medalist at the F. Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano, Italy, he also has performed with a range of artists including violinists Elmar Oliveira, Joshua Bell, Martin Beaver and as a soloist. McDonald attended Lawrence University, then Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music.
Press-Telegram, Long Beach, California
January 5, 2000
Headline: New job. Veteran staffer Bill Hillburg to head office
Byline: Will Shuck
Excerpt: For 20 years, Bill Hillburg has covered Long Beach for the
Press-Telegram. Starting this month, he'll cover Washington, D.C., for
readers all across Southern California. Hillburg has been named
Washington bureau chief and correspondent for the Los Angeles Newspaper
Group--parent company of the Press-Telegram and a string of other
newspapers throughout the region. Hillburg joined the Press-Telegram in
1979. Over the years he has served as a copy editor, business editor,
news editor and executive news editor. Since 1987, he has worked as a
columnist and special projects reporter, covering numerous issues under
the signature, "The Hillburg Report." An Illinois native, Hillburg
attended Lawrence University, in Wisconsin, and Florida State
University. Other papers in the Los Angeles Newspaper Group are the
Daily News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News, Whittier
Daily News, San Bernardino County Sun, Redlands Daily Facts, Inland
Valley Daily Bulletin and Lompoc Record.
Wilmington News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware
December 31, 1999
Headline: A Jazz great's lasting legacy
Byline: Gary Soulsman
Excerpt: He flashed through the world of recorded jazz in four short years, but Wilmington trumpeter Clifford Brown left an impressive collection of be-bop music that wowed the likes of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the 1950s. Even today, jazz trumpeters and scholars consider Brown, who died in a 1956 car crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike at age 25, to be one of the greatest jazz trumpeters ever. Though not well known by the general American public, partly because of his brief career, Brown's gifts were immense. Ken Schaphorst, director of Jazz Studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., said Brown was, in many ways, the ideal trumpet player: "beautiful sound, phenomenal technique, effortless delivery, swing, lyricism and, above all, an unflagging, earnest and unaffected attempt to communicate joy through music." "His early death was one of the great tragedies in the history of jazz," Schaphorst said. "I can't think of another case where so much potential
and promise was lost so suddenly -- and unfairly."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
December 27, 1999
Headline: MU, UWM to stage Midwest theater festival
Byline: Damien Jaques
Excerpt: About 1,300 students and faculty from the Midwest are expected to attend a regional meeting of the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival in Milwaukee Jan. 5 to 9. Students will attend workshops on topics ranging from acting techniques for the camera to backstage technical skills, and some of the students will compete for national acting scholarships. Eight schools were invited to bring entire productions to Milwaukee for single performances at either the Pabst Theater or the Helfaer Theatre. The performance schedule, and producing schools, are ... "Translations," Lawrence University, 1 p.m. Jan. 7, Pabst Theatre.
WNYC, New York
December 15 & 17, 2000
Program title: A house divided: exploring the roots of black-white conflict in New York
Excerpt:
WNYC: A city divided. In 1968 black and white New Yorkers fought a bitter battle for control of the public schools in Brooklyn's Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood. Today, more than 30 years later many believe the scars from that fight still have not healed.
Professor Jerald Podair (Lawrence University): In New York City, that was the equivalent of Watts, of the Detroit civil disturbance, of the Boston busing crisis. It was a racial flash point that divided the city between blacks and whites, and which basically continues to divide the city.
WNYC: On this program WNYC opens up its audio tape archives to bring you back to the 1960s--the Civil Rights movement and the Ocean Hill--Brownsville crisis-events that helped shape New York Today.
WNYC: "A system designed to fail," "A potential for union busting," "Who has the power to decide our children's education," "Community control," "Decentralization," "Divide and conquer." Three decades ago these words and phrases sent New Yorkers to the barricades--teacher against teacher, union against community, black against white. It was a power struggle, and it was a collision of ideas...about education, community, race and class. How did it happen, and why? And what part of that confrontation lives on in the city today?
WNYC: Jerald Podair is a historian who studies racial conflicts in New York in the 1960s.
Podair: By the mid-1960s, many in the New York City black community were focusing on the schools. They could see that white kids were getting out, they were going to college, even though their parents may have worked with picks and shovels or had been laborers. The black kids weren't graduating from high school, never mind college, and they were being marginalized. So they began to focus on the educational system that was not doing a good job of educating black school children. And that's where the impulse for community control
started.
WNYC: The impulse grew into a movement. Among those supporting community control were many blacks, Puerto Ricans and liberal whites who believed that minority communities should have the power to run their own affairs, including their neighborhood schools.
Podair: Now, just by saying that, "Blacks should control their own schools," that's a recipe for a lot of conflict in New York City, obviously, because most of the New York City school teachers and most of the New York City school administrators are white.
WNYC: During the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis many people began talking about the conflict between two groups in particular--blacks and Jews. It was a tortured conversation. It didn't help that all of the teachers reassigned by the Ocean Hill-Brownsville governing board were Jewish. Nor did it help that the teachers union fanned the flames of Jewish fear. The union secretary made copies of anti-Semitic leaflets distributed in Ocean Hill-Brownsville and made sure that every teacher in the city got one.
WNYC: To many New Yorkers who lived through the era, the battle over community control did mark a shift in black-Jewish relations. Historican Jerald Podair says one tangible example of that shift was a change in how Jews exercised their political muscle.
Podair: Between the 1930s and the 1960s, many liberal Jews didn't even know whether they wanted to be white. In other words, they knew they weren't black, although they had an affinity in their own minds for the black population of New York City, but they didn't know whether they wanted to be white in the sense that their Christian neighbors were white. Ocean Hill-Brownsville, I think, changed that. It drove Jews into an alliance, a very unlikely alliance, I would add, with white Catholics in New York City, and they formed a very powerful voting bloc that elected mayors like Ed Koch and Rudolph Giuliani.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
December 7, 1999
Headline: Butler announces he will run for state's high court. Municipal judge makes bid to be state's first black Supreme Court justice
Byline: Jesse Garza
Excerpt: Milwaukee Municipal Judge Louis Butler Monday formally announced he will run for the state Supreme Court this spring in a bid to become the first black justice in the court's history. Butler, 47, will seek the seat on the court currently held by Justice Diane S. Sykes. Sykes was a Milwaukee County circuit judge when she was appointed by Gov. Tommy G. Thompson in September to replace retiring Justice Donald Steinmetz, whose 10-year term expires next year. Butler graduated from Lawrence University with a bachelor's degree in government in 1973 and from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School in 1977. His professional experience includes nine years of appellate practice and 4 1/2 years as a trial attorney. He has been a municipal judge in Milwaukee since 1992.
Wisconsin State Journal, Madison
December 7, 1999
Headline: `Knowledge economy' is way of future
Byline: Rolf Wegenke, president of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
Excerpt: We are now in the midst of the transformation to a knowledge-based economy. The essential natural resource required for Wisconsin to succeed in the knowledge economy is brain workers. Ironically, there is a lack of knowledge about the kind of "brain workers" needed by the knowledge economy. Of the jobs this fall's freshmen will hold when they graduate in four years, 50 percent do not yet exist. M&I DatavCorp., Milwaukee, has paid tuition for students to study computer science at Marquette University, and companies such as Kimberly-Clark Corp. pay for Chinese-language majors from Lawrence University to intern in their companies. It is ineffective and inefficient to mandate choices between computer science and Chinese. Individual students and employers need to make those choices. Better, then, is a public policy that invests in students, not in majors or in institutions or in areas of specialization. In short, if government invests in the supply of "brain workers," Wisconsin will be well positioned for the knowledge economy.
Wisconsin Trails magazine, Madison
December, 1999
Headline: Jazz blows into Appleton
Excerpt: It might be a toss-up as to who benefits more, young jazz musicians or adult jazz fans, when Lawrence University swings into its annual Jazz Festival weekend. This year, Kevin Mahogany brings his cool voice and Arturo Sandoval his hot horn to headline the evening concerts. High school and college students attend jazz clinics Saturday, topped off by the big-name performances. Mahogany, a baritone who ranges easily from scat to ballad, was named best male vocalist in 1998 by readers of Down Beat and Jazziz magazines.
Stein Online, Los Angeles
A major daily live audio Internet talk/interview show heard on CompuServe Interactive Radio and Yahoo Broadcast.com
November 30, 1999
Host: Eliot Stein
Guests: John Marks/Jon Greenwald
Topic: The fall of the Berlin Wall
Abstract: It is ten years since the Berlin Wall came down. What went on behind-the-scenes to make this happen? Two experts join us. John Marks is the former Berlin bureau chief for US News and World Report and author of "The Wall," an historical fiction thriller. Jon Greenwald was the Political Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in East Berlin from 1987-1990 and is the author of "Berlin Witness: An American Diplomat's Chronicle of East Germany's Revolution." Run time: 90 minutes.
Excerpt:
Stein: A last question from an audience member, who asks, metaphorically, are we going to see any other walls coming down?
Greenwald: Well, the wall that most matters in Germany today is what many people refer to when they say that the most difficult wall is the wall in our minds, between eastern and western Germany. And that goes to the forty-plus years of different experiences they have had under different systems. Still, ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there are great differences that have to be bridged to complete the unification process. It will be completed successfully; it simply turned out to be much more difficult than we expected. Elsewhere in the world, I'm sure we'll see the same kind of spirit that animated the East German revolution in difficult circumstances, coming out in different ways, with the same result. People who are determined to have a better life, determined to achieve freedom, will find ways to accomplish that and I think that that (Berlin) will happen elsewhere. Last year, after leaving the Foreign Service, I had the pleasure of teaching at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, and I attempted to relive the Berlin experience by teaching a course on the diplomacy of the 1989 revolution, entitled "Revolution and Diplomacy." Trying to see if I could understand what happened in East Germany any better with the perspective of nine years, than as I did when it was happening and the whirlwind was passing around me. I still am amazed, nine, now ten, years later. It does leave one with a feeling of awe for the human spirit, that in certain times can rise up and produce remarkable results. It's certainly a remarkable result that I witnessed and had a chance to play a very small part in in East Berlin.
Washington Journal, Washington, D.C.
November 26, 1999
Picture caption: Maestro Heinz Fricke, der Musikdirektor des Kennedy Center Opernhauses, wurde mit dem "Dr.h.c." in Fine Arts von der Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, am 2. November besonders geehrt. Dirigent Fricke leitete vorher das Lawrence University Symphony Orchestra mit Wagners "Ride of the Valkyries".
Capital Times, Madison
November 15, 1999
Column: The talk
Byline: Doug Moe
Excerpt: Dominic Fumusa is a 1987 McFarland High School grad who is beginning to make a national name for himself as an actor. After attending Lawrence University, he worked for a time with the Milwaukee Rep before moving first to Chicago, then New York. In 1997 Fumusa appeared in "All My Children" and then in 1998 landed a great part on Broadway--opposite Academy Award-winner Marisa Tomei and "Pulp Fiction" director Quentin Tarantino in the suspense drama "Wait Until Dark." Now Fumusa will appear on an episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," tentatively set for Nov. 22. He's currently doing an Arthur Miller play at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, which allowed Fumusa to meet the famed playwright.
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
November 12, 1999
Headline: Findings: HIV finds hiding places. Unreachable by drugs
Excerpt: Scientists had more bad news for HIV patients yesterday, saying they found that, within days of infecting someone, the virus manages to find hiding places that no drug currently in use is able to reach. Microbiologist Ashley Haase [Lawrence University Class of 1961] of the University of Minnesota and colleagues said that within three days of getting into the body, the virus sneaks into cells known as resting T-cells. These cells are good hiding places because they are inactive and thus not noticed by the immune system. Nor can they be targeted by drugs, which need some kind of activity by the virus or the cells it infects in order to work.
Star Tribune, Minneapolis
November 12, 1999
Headline: AIDS virus can "hide" and elude treatment. A "U" study that
helps explain why the virus is so hard to beat also raises challenges for researchers
Byline: Maura Lerner, Josephine Marcotty; Staff Writers
Excerpt: Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered that the AIDS virus can multiply in cells that may be beyond the reach of current treatments and potential vaccines. The finding may explain why the disease has been impossible to cure so far, said Dr. Ashley Haase, [Lawrence University Class of 1961] head of microbiology at the university. Haase was one of the principal scientists in the study, which is reported in today's issue of the journal Science. The most surprising finding, the researchers said, is that the virus can reproduce itself in inactive immune cells known as T cells. The cells are thought to be ignored by AIDS drugs. Most scientists had thought that the virus couldn't reproduce such cells and had focused their weapons elsewhere. Yet doctors had been puzzled by the fact that, no matter how effective drugs appear to be, the AIDS virus always seemed to pop back once the medications were stopped. Haase said those dormant cells are like slow-ticking time bombs that can later spread the virus throughout the body. What this means for patients is that they'll probably have to take AIDS drugs for life, even if tests show that they have little if any virus in their systems, he said. The research was conducted at the university and seven medical centers in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.
The Toronto Star, Toronto, Canada
November 12, 1999
Headline: AIDS virus hides quickly in body, new report says
Byline: Reuters
Excerpt: Scientists had more bad news for HIV patients yesterday, saying they found that, within days of infecting someone, the virus manages to find hiding places that no drug currently in use is able to reach. The finding is another setback to doctors who had hoped that perhaps HIV could be stopped early, either with quick drug treatment or by somehow stimulating the body's immune system. Microbiologist Ashley Haase [Lawrence University Class of 1961] of the University of Minnesota and colleagues said that, within three days of getting into the body, the virus sneaks into cells known as resting T-cells. "These cells fly below the radar screen of the immune system," Haase, who reported his team's work in the journal Science, said in a statement. "They also live a long time and won't be affected by our current combinations of anti-AIDS drugs."
Chicago Tribune, Chicago
November 12, 1999
Headline: HIV study reveals disease quickly forms a drug-resistant
infection
Byline: Associated Press
Excerpt: A short time after it invades the body, the virus that causes AIDS creates a reservoir of silent infection that cannot be stamped out by current anti-viral drugs and may resist vaccines, a study suggests. The study, published today in the journal Science, sheds new light on how quickly HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is able to establish a chronic, drug-resistant infection. Earlier studies have shown that HIV establishes a reservoir of silent infection. The new research shows that this disease pool is created almost immediately after the virus is transmitted. "These chronically infected cells are important because they allow the virus to persist below the radar screen of the immune system, particularly at the time of the transmission," said Dr. Ashley T. Haase, [Lawrence University Class of 1961] an HIV researcher at the University of Minnesota and the senior author of the study. This is bad news for vaccines because it makes it more difficult to inoculate the body against HIV infection, said Dr. Tony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
[The article also appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Sacramento Bee, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Detroit News, Fresno Bee, Virginian-Pilot, Tallahassee Democrat, Arizona Republic, The Record (Hackensack, NJ), and San Antonio Express-News, among other newspapers across the country.]
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
November 10, 1999
Headline: Lawrence University singer draws powerful listener to concert in Cuba
Byline: Kris Radish
Excerpt: Patrice Michaels Bedi is a well-known classical opera singer, but when she recently shook the hand of dictator Fidel Castro, she pushed her fame into a whole new arena. Bedi is an assistant professor in the Conservatory of Music at Lawrence University and has made a dozen recordings with major studios. It was her performing skills with a Chicago-based group, Trio Chicago and Friends, that gave her the chance to travel to Cuba with an Illinois delegation of politicians and artists. According to Bedi, when Illinois Gov. George Ryan was working on plans for a cultural and humanitarian trip to Cuba, he heard about the trio's trip to China in 1997. Bedi left Chicago on Oct. 23 with the politicians and a plane carrying about $1 million worth of medical and other supplies. The day her group performed for the public, Bedi said, Castro showed up to watch the performance. She said Ryan also spoke about freedom. When the speech and performance ended, Castro stood and greeted each performer as they left.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
November 7, 1999
Headline: Lawrence professor gets Fulbright appointment
Excerpt: Lawrence Longley, professor of government at Lawrence
University, has been awarded the Fulbright Scholar Program's Thomas
Jefferson Distinguished Chair in the Netherlands for the fall 2000
semester. At Nijmegen University, Longley will teach a course on U.S. government
and political institutions for advance students. During his Fulbright
appointment, Longley also will lecture at universities throughout the
Netherlands. A national authority on the electoral college and presidential
elections, Longley is the author or co-author of more than 100 books and
studies of politics and political institutions, including "The Electoral
College Primer 2000," released in October by Yale University Press.
The Sunday Republican, Waterbury, Connecticut
November 7, 1999
Headline: Searching and finding stress. Teens look for college perfection
Byline: Mark Azzara
Excerpt: As they search for the right college, families have embarked on what could be the biggest and most expensive shopping spree of their lives. Mike Poulton and his parents are nowhere near close to a decision. Their shopping trips have taken them to Skidmore, Bates, Alfred, Union, Hamilton, Swarthmore, Middlebury and Rensselaer Polytechnic in the Northeast. Next stop: Carleton, Macalester and Lawrence in the Midwest and maybe Pomona in California if they can swing it. For Mike Poulton, the stress is in picking the right college, not getting into it. The colleges that Poulton has researched are so close together that it's a tough choice on paper, so he has to visit them to see the facilities and meet the students and faculty.
The Associated Press State & Local Wire, Milwaukee
November 6, 1999
Headline: Wisconsin vocalist meets Castro
Excerpt: A vocalist from Lawrence University says her goodwill visit to Cuba included getting kissed by dictator Fidel Castro. "He gave me a kiss on both cheeks," Patrice Michaels Bedi said. "European-style." She was among about 50 people who participated last week in a five-day Cuban tour led by Illinois Gov. George Ryan. "This was likely to be the groundwork for future steps in friendlier relations on both sides," Bedi said. "The Cuban people were obviously anxious to establish a personal relationship as well as a more formal one with the U.S." Approved by the Clinton administration, the delegation delivered $1 million in food, medicine and other supplies. Bedi, 43, a voice instructor at Lawrence, traveled with her "Trio Chicago and Friends" bandmates: a pianist, violinist and flutist. Performing for ambassadors and dignitaries, Bedi was nervous about her plan to sing compositions by jazz legend Duke Ellington with Gramatage Harold in the audience. She described Harold as "the grandfather of classical composition." "He is very much revered by his classical colleagues. I knew the bias was going to be toward classical music," she said. "So I started out with classical but then I wondered if they thought I was incapable of letting my hair down and wailing. So I stuck with my original plan and let loose and he was the first to embrace me after the performance."
Capital Times, Madison
November 3, 1999
Headline: Area athlete earns badminton recognition
Excerpt: Erin Pryor Ackerman, who graduated from Edgewood High School
last spring, earned 1999 USA High School Badminton All-American honors.
Only four athletes nationwide earned this award from USA Badminton.
Recipients of the honor were chosen based on titles held in badminton,
academic achievements, extracurricular activities and a coaches'
recommendation. Pryor Ackerman, who has played badminton for four years,
finished in the A's or top B's flight of five adult Midwest tournaments
last year. She medaled at the Miller Place Eastern Juniors, New England
Junior Open and both the 1998 and 1999 Junior Nationals. Pryor Ackerman
graduated from Edgewood with a 3.75 GPA. She was a member of the
National Honor Society and received Presidential Scholarship awards.
Pryor Ackerman is currently a freshman at Lawrence University in
Appleton.
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
October 30, 1999
Headline: Tricksters and treats: In Alexandra's Old Town,
playing host to ghosts
Byline: Ann O'Hanlon
Excerpt: To live in Old Town is to believe in ghosts. "I think there's a ghost on every block in Old Town," says Ruth Lincoln Kaye, the author of "Legends and Folk Tales of Old Alexandria, Virginia." The book wasn't meant to be a ghost book, Kaye says, but that's what she kept running into while researching it. On and on the stories go, all because people "have experiences that can't be explained according to current science," says Edmund M. Kern, a history professor at Lawrence University in Wisconsin whose specialty is early European religious culture, a euphemism for witchcraft. "We could attribute those experiences to auditory, visual or olfactory hallucinations," says the self-proclaimed skeptic. Then he confessed. "Scholars who study witchcraft often speak over coffee or drinks about their own experiences with supernatural or superstitious occurrences that they can't really explain," he says. "It's kind of a dirty little secret of the academic world." If ghosts do exist, why should Old Town hold such a concentration of them? For a few reasons, offered Miller, the city historian. Alexandria was home to more than 30 hospitals during the Civil War, including one on the site that is now McVay's house. Secondly, people routinely buried their dead in their yards rather than in cemeteries. And finally, the neighborhood is largely intact, with many homes built 150 or 200 years ago.
The New Republic
October 25, 1999
Headline: Irrational exuberance. When did political science forget about politics?
Byline: Jonathan Cohn
Excerpt: Today, the ascendancy of rational choice is evident in its domination of professional journals, in the increasingly mathematical curriculum standards for graduate students, and in the respect rational choice scholars command in faculty hiring. Whether this is good for the discipline depends in part on whether rational choice scholarship really succeeds on its own terms--whether it really helps us understand the elements of political behavior it purports to explain. Rational choicers talk with reverence about their movement's founder, the late William Riker. During the 1940s, Riker was just another Ph.D. candidate at Harvard exploring American politics the old-fashioned way. He continued on that intellectual path at Lawrence College in Wisconsin, where he landed his first job. During the 1950s, a group of economists and political scientists from the new RAND Corporation were experimenting with using mathematics to explain social phenomena. Few political scholars noticed it at the time. Riker did. Having become increasingly frustrated with the inherently subjective character of political science, he began using the RAND material in his own courses and developing it further. Riker's work attracted the attention of administrators at the University of Rochester. Long known for its strong programs in math and the hard sciences, Rochester was eager to develop world-class social science departments, too, and turned its politics department over to Riker--who set about building a department that would train a generation of scholars to conduct the kind of inquiry he believed constituted the only true form of political science. In 1974, Riker became one of the first political scientists elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences followed shortly thereafter. Such recognition was crucial not only because it impressed fellow political scientists but also because it gave the Rochester School broad credibility with other disciplines closer to the hard sciences.
Lafayette Leader, Lafayette, Indiana
October 22, 1999
Headline: Jim Smyth: Quiet, effective, committed leader of United Way
Byline: Lillian Price
Excerpt: At the time of his graduation from college, the war in Vietnam was at its height. While his classmates were either going into the service or graduate school, Jim Smyth, the executive director of United Way of Greater Lafayette, decided to apply to the Peace Corps. Jim was assigned to the Palau Islands, which lie about 600 miles southwest of Guam. Says Mr. Smyth as he looks back at those years, "It turned me toward the 'do-gooder' career I've been in since." Preparing himself for a medical career, Jim enrolled at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., a liberal arts school considered a good pre-med foundation. Says Mr. Smyth, "I learned to think there." But a tough organic chemistry course came along, and changed the potential physician into a psychology major, much to the chagrin of his parents. Within a few months of graduation, however, he was flying over the ocean to his Pacific island home. Besides teaching school to the village children, Jim also worked with a community development agency. He eventually won a grant to build a Head Start program, and carried it to several other islands in the vicinity. He later received a scholarship from United Way of America, which allowed him to attend graduate school in social welfare administration at Washington University in St. Louis. He had no idea then that it would become his life's work.
The Boston Herald, Boston
October 17, 1999
Headline: Rivalry is nourished by identity, enduring myth. Boston-N.Y. feud dates back centuries
Excerpt: Hatfields-McCoys. Crips-Bloods. Sox-Yanks. Clinton-Starr. Americans love a good feud. The older the rivalry, the deeper the bloodlust. Feuds are only fascinating if they are very even or very uneven. That keeps the intrigue and interest high. "The Sox are the dream, the Yankees are the reality," said Ed Daly of Boston, a lifelong Sox fan, which is to say a lifelong dreamer in the thrall of reality. Or, as Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University, puts it, "The Sox' chase of the Yankees is a modern version of Melville's 'Moby Dick.' Ahab never lands the great white whale, but his futile attempts produced great art. The Sox are great art and bad baseball. The Yankees are great baseball and bad art."
Chicago Daily Herald, Chicago
October 8, 1999
Headline: McNamara earns spot in Lawrence's Hall of Fame
Byline: Patricia Babcock, McGraw Daily Herald Sports Writer
Excerpt: Hats off to Stevenson assistant coach Bill McNamara. This weekend, he will journey up to his old stomping grounds at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. to be inducted into the school's Hall of Fame. McNamara, the quarterbacks coach at Stevenson, was a Division III all-American quarterback at Lawrence.
Managed Care Quarterly, Chicago
October-December 1999
Headline: A hitchhiker's guide to competitive managed care
Byline: Merton Finkler
Excerpt: Competition among managed care plans features the dynamic interaction among three primary forces: delivery system integration, managed care health plan risk sharing, and purchaser activism. To evaluate the cost containment potential for a particular market, decision makers need to understand the character of provider integration, the role of managed care insurance plans, and the extent of purchaser activism in contracting with health care providers. Competition among managed care plans can lead to cost-effective care only if purchasers respond to differences in cost, for given quality, by switching from high-priced plans to lower-priced ones.
Merton Finkler, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Economics at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, and Principal, Innovative Health Associates, Menasha, Wisconsin. He has been a Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in Health Care Finance and served on health care advisory boards at both state and federal levels.
Discovery Channel Online
September 14, 1999
Headline: Long-lost Mozart music found?
Byline: Jennifer Viegas
Excerpt: Five pages of long-lost music and text believed to have been
composed by Wolfang Amadeus Mozart were recently discovered at a Vienna
library. The music is only one of a handful of works by Mozart found
after the composerıs death in 1791. Dorothea Link, professor of music at
Lawrence University, came across the rare piece by accident as
she was researching an opera entitled "The Surly Benefactor" at the
Austrian National Library. According to Link, the newly discovered music
is a recitative that precedes the famous Mozart aria, "Vado, ma dove?,"
meaning "I shall go, but where?," from the Soler opera. Recitatives,
such as the forty-measure one discovered by Link, consist of lyrical
dialogue spoken to a musical accompaniment. Link's findings will be
published in a report in the November issue of the Cambridge Opera
Journal.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
September 5, 1999
Sunday Edition
Headline: Former head of FTC named to professorship
Excerpt: A former chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission has been named the Stephen Edward Scarff Memorial visiting professor at Lawrence University. Janet Steiger is the first woman and the first Lawrence graduate to hold the endowed professorship in the programıs 11-year history. Steiger was named chairwoman of the FTC in 1989 by former President Bush and directed the 900-person agency that oversees consumer protection until April 1996. She remained a FTC commissioner until September 1997. The Scarff professorship is designed to bring public servants, professional leaders and scholars to Lawrence to provide broad perspectives on the central issues of the day.
National Public Radio, Washington, D.C.
September 3, 1999
Morning Edition
Headline: Professor Dorothea Link describes how she came to discover a new piece of music written by Mozart
Anchor: Renee Montagne
Excerpt: A Canadian musicologist has discovered what appears to be a long-lost work by Mozart, a brief work, known as a recitative. Dorothea Link came across the passage, scored for strings and soprano, in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The 35 bars by the composer precede the Mozart aria "Vado, ma dove?" The new material is not in Mozart's own hand, but experts say it is almost certain he is the author.
Montagne: Now with the recitative that you found, how important is it?
Prof. Link: What is the significance of this? Well, first of all, it's exciting to know that there is still Mozart to be discovered. The other thing is simply if we sing this aria, it is so much more effective to precede it with this accompanied recitative. I think all sopranos will be grateful.
Montagne: Dorothea Link is a professor of music at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Men's Health Magazine
September, 1999
Headline: Where the germs are
Byline: Tom Zoellner
Excerpt: Whether we're talking about germs on our shoes or on Scruffy's tongue, most of us have little idea of which ones are good and which ones make us sick. We live in peace with roughly 99 percent of these microbes; only a scant few, such as the rhinovirus and certain strains of E. coli, can get nasty. Not worth worrying about are some common daily occurrences, such as germs on the bottom of your shoe; you may think they are brimming with disease-carrying germs, but they're not. "Common soil bacteria tend to be harmless," says William Perreault, Ph.D., a biologist at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.