Six talented, engaged alums to receive Lawrence's 2023 Alumni Awards

Six Lawrence University and Milwaukee-Downer College alumni have been named recipients of Lawrence University’s 2023 Alumni Awards.

The recipients include:

Louis B. Butler ’73, Lucia Russell Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award;

Louis S. Cornelius ’68, Gertrude Breithaupt Jupp M-D'18 Outstanding Service Award;

Regina Cornish Morales ’17, Nathan M. Pusey Young Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award;

Nebal A. Maysaud ’17, Nathan M. Pusey Young Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award;

Gail Page Cordry M-D’58, Gertrude Breithaupt Jupp M-D'18 Outstanding Service Award;

John M. Wiesman ’83, George B. Walter ’36 Service to Society Award.

The awards will be presented during Reunion Weekend, to be held on campus June 15-18.

Meet the recipients:

Louis B. Butler ’73

Butler became the first African American to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2004. Now retired, he is a permanent member of the faculty of the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, where judges from around the world take continuing judicial education classes. In 2020, he received the designation of Distinguished Faculty from NJC. Butler previously served as a senior visiting lecturer at the University of Wisconsin Law School, and he was nominated by President Barack Obama to be a United States District Court Judge for the Western District of Wisconsin.

Butler has remained actively engaged with Lawrence, serving multiple times on the Reunion Committee, volunteering on Giving Day, and being part of the leadership of the Lawrence University Black Alumni Network.

Louis S. Cornelius ’68

Retired from a career as a policy director for the State of Wisconsin, Cornelius has been an active volunteer at Lawrence. He has been a member of the Lawrence University Alumni Association (LUAA) Board and Awards Committee, serving for two years as the committee co-chair and leading extensive research that assisted the board.

Cornelius also has been actively involved on Reunion committees and the Class Leadership Team, served as captain of the Athletics Crowdfund, served on a recent guiding coalition, and has been a game changer and volunteer for Giving Day.

Regina Cornish Morales ’17

Morales has worked in the development sector coordinating and implementing projects to promote public policy for the past eight years. Her focus has been in socioeconomic development with a climate and gender focus. She is currently the Climate Change Director at Pronatura Mexico, an NGO leading in the conservation of natural resources. Previously to this, Morales worked at the British Embassy, the Mexican Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the World Trade Organization. She has represented Mexico in various forums, including the World Youth Forum in Egypt, UNCTAD 14 in Kenya, and various UN meetings in New York. 

Morales has a Master in Human Rights from la Universidad Panamericana and graduated as a government and psychology major from Lawrence University. While at Lawrence, she participated in: KidsGive, LUCC, LU Model UN, Sailing team and GlobeMed— she has stayed connected to the university since graduating.

Nebal A. Maysaud ’17

Maysaud is an award-winning queer Lebanese Druze composer based in Philadelphia. A recipient of the first Kluge Young Composer’s Competition and the James Ming Prize in Composition at Lawrence, Maysaud blends Western and Middle Eastern classical music styles to explore questions of faith, identity, and power.

Their music has been performed by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, Juventas New Music Ensemble, and Lawrence University Wind Ensemble and Opera Theater program. They have contributed articles about diversity and classical music to NewMusicBox and convened community music workshops at YallaPunk 2019.

Gail Page Cordry M-D’58

An alumna of Milwaukee-Downer College and a retired language arts teacher, Cordry has been an active volunteer with Lawrence through the years. She was actively involved with her 50th Reunion Committee and served for multiple years on the LUAA Development Committee, as a class agent and later on the Class Leadership Team. Through her work with the Admissions office, she represented Lawrence at college fairs and conducted interviews with prospective students. A few recent Lawrence graduates she recruited include her great nephew Nicholas Barrett ’14, granddaughter Dana Cordry ’19, and Shelby Siebers ’20.

A longtime teacher at Southwest High School in Green Bay, Cordry now resides in Atlanta.

John M. Wiesman ’83

A professor and director of the Doctoral Program in Health Leadership at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wiesman has been a national leader in the field of public health. He recently served as the State of Washington’s secretary of health and led the response to the first known case of COVID-19 in the United States. He was appointed by the Trump Administration to co-chair the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and was reappointed by the Biden Administration.

He also served on the scientific advisory group of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief as well as the president of both the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the National Association of County and City Health Officials.