10 Lawrentians we met in 2023: Creative, dedicated, and passionate

One of the joys of working in Communications is the opportunity to get to know and write about amazing Lawrentians—alumni, faculty, staff, and students. As 2023 draws to a close, we are celebrating 10 stories from the year that showcase the work, vision, creativity, and passion of the people who make up this community.

We selected 10, but there are many more to be found on the news site at lawrence.edu.

More from Lawrence in 2023: A gallery of photographer's 20 favorite images and 5 favorite videos of the year.

Bonnie Alger ’06: We caught up with Alger shortly after she made a bit of history, being named Officer-in-Charge of The United States Army Chorus, one of the military’s elite performance groups. She became the first woman to lead the unit in its 66-year history.

Alger had been on campus in the summer of 2022, taking part in Reunion festivities and celebrating her ongoing bonds with Lawrence. She credits faculty in the Conservatory with fueling her journey.

“In some cases, I’m not sure how they knew I’d be good at certain things because as a 20-year-old, I wasn’t sure I’d be good at it,” she said. “I wasn’t first chair; I wasn’t singing all the solos in choir; but I was actively engaged, and they all saw something and pulled that out of me.”

Natalie Fordwor ’12: We connected with Fordwor from her office in Accra, Ghana, where she runs WonderspacED, a business she founded to bring an interdisciplinary approach to elementary education, heavy on lessons of Ghanaian history, geography, and culture. She hosts a children’s television show, The Wonderspaced Show, that airs across Ghana, Nigeria, and beyond.

“The interdisciplinary approach totally informs what I do,” said Fordwor, who also works as an adjunct lecturer at Ashesi University in Accra. “I know the experience at Lawrence was definitely influential in all this. I was tired of seeing science on one side, arts on another side. That tends to happen in our curriculum in Ghana. Not just Ghana, but lots of places. Seeing the liberal arts at work at Lawrence, I knew it could be better here.”

Adam Galambos: The Dwight and Marjorie Peterson Professor of Innovation and associate professor of economics at Lawrence has been busy. In addition to his teaching, he played a key role in launching the business and entrepreneurship major and leading the planning for experiential learning spaces in the Fox Commons development project. We featured Galambos in our On Main Hall Green With … series, which showcases Lawrence’s brilliant faculty. We’ve featured 57 faculty in the series to date, with more on tap beginning in Winter Term.

“I made a deliberate choice to come to teach at a liberal arts college because I believe in the philosophy of education that we embrace here,” Galambos said. “Learning at a liberal arts college is a community experience that happens through engaging with each other’s ideas, perspectives, and opinions. So, first and foremost, I am looking for intellectual engagement, thinking, questioning, and dialogue in my classes.”

Estelí Gomez and Catherine Walby: We caught up with these two Conservatory faculty members when they launched a new one-unit course focused on the art of practice. Gomez, a voice professor, and Walby, a teacher of piano and lecturer of music, recruited professors and coaches from across the Lawrence landscape to lend their expertise to the How to Practice conversation. The course drew rave reviews.

“I find that the Con and LU Athletics have so many similarities that don’t always get recognition,” said men’s hockey coach Brett Wall, who joined José L. Encarnación, director of jazz studies, as guest lecturers in a session on practicing as a team. “The only difference is the Con calls it a rehearsal and a performance and Athletics calls it a practice and a game.”

Added Gomez: “Every single visiting lecturer has provided an ‘aha’ moment to take into the practice week. For me as a practicing musician, and also as someone who practices teaching, I couldn’t be more grateful for the chance to organize for and be a part of this collective of people who are committed to their practice at Lawrence.” 

Hannah Jeané Jones ’22: Months after graduating from Lawrence with a Bachelor of Music degree, Jones found herself on national television as a cohort member of opera legend Denyce Graves’ Shared Voices program. A graduate student at Manhattan School of Music in New York City, Jones was invited into the Shared Voices program, which brings together students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), several major conservatories, and the Metropolitan Opera. The program was featured on ABC’s Good Morning America.

“This bridge between HBCUs and conservatories creates the opportunity to gain immeasurable and priceless knowledge of classical music—more specifically the indelible imprint of Black artists in classical music—through each institution whether it be the extensive libraries at Howard University or ethnomusicologists at Juilliard,” Jones said. “All in all, Denyce Graves is breaking ground with this program, and I believe she has created something that will last for generations to come.”

Josh Sawyer ’98: Early in 2023, we featured Sawyer’s innovative work as a video game designer at Obsidian Entertainment, an Xbox Game Studios subsidiary. That work included the development of the award-winning Pentiment, a historical role-playing game. Sawyer sought out his former history professor at Lawrence, Edmund Kern, to serve as a consultant to maintain accuracy in the world-building of a game centered on 16th century Bavaria.

Pentiment won Best Narrative in the 2023 Game Developers Choice Awards and earned multiple other nominations, including game-of-the-year.

“In Pentiment, my actual specific education has been very valuable, but the thing when I talk to younger designers who are getting started in the gaming industry, the thing I tell them is the most valuable skill they can have is the ability to make good decisions, and that requires critical-thinking skills,” Sawyer said. “I think my Lawrence education more than anything gave me that foundation.”

Rosa Tapia: The professor of Spanish at Lawrence has long been involved in working with the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) Spanish Language & Culture program. In 2023, she took that involvement to a new level, beginning a four-year term as the national chief academic consultant for AP Spanish—affectionately known as the “chief reader.” The work elevates Tapia and Lawrence in a program that connects with hundreds of thousands of high school students and more than 2,600 colleges and universities.

“For many, the AP Spanish program serves as a gateway to other AP classes, a strong incentive to pursue a college education, and a reliable predictor of future academic success and degree completion,” Tapia said. “Through my role, I aim to contribute to increased access to higher education for underrepresented communities.”

Bohdan Tataryn ’26: Tataryn, a talented piano student from Ukraine, was midway through his first year at Lawrence when he talked with us about his experiences. Russia’s attack on Ukraine had upended his college plans. Connections his mother had in Wisconsin eventually led him to Lawrence. Getting from there to here was a journey all its own.

“During those months of preparing to come here, I kept saying, ‘What have I done?’” Tataryn said. “At first, I couldn’t even understand, oh my God, I’m going to the U.S. to a university. I thought I was dreaming. It couldn’t be like that. It all happened very quickly.”

Lawrence welcomed him with open arms: “Everyone was, and still is, very nice to me,” Tataryn said. “I don’t know if it is because of my accent or if people here are just nice. It was not difficult to get used to life here.”

Charlie Wetzel ’23: A studio art major from Madison, Wetzel became the 78th Lawrentian to receive a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship over the past 53 years. She was one of 42 graduating college seniors selected as part of the 2023 Watson class. Wetzel’s year-long wanderjahr of independent travel and exploration, supported by the $40,000 fellowship, takes her to Iceland, India, Thailand, Mexico, The Netherlands, and Germany, pursuing “The Art of the Transgender Life,” where she explores the intersections between art, gender, national identity, and public policy.

“My art practice is the single most important thing to me,” Wetzel said. “I spend all my free time making art, and when I am not able to be in the Wriston Art Center or the Makerspace physically working on a project, I am reading, talking, learning, and thinking about art. I am totally obsessed. All my work centers around trans ontology—it is all about how and why trans people exist, and it celebrates the beauty of trans life.”