Lawrence, Volume 95, Number 1, Spring 2014 Lawrence University

Lawrence University Lux Alumni Magazines Communications Spring 2014 Lawrence, Volume 95, Number 1, Spring 2014 Lawrence University Follow this and additional works at: http://lux.lawrence.edu/alumni_magazines Part of the Liberal Studies Commons © Copyright is owned by the author of this document. Recommended Citation Lawrence University, "Lawrence, Volume 95, Number 1, Spring 2014" (2014). Alumni Magazines. Book 10. http://lux.lawrence.edu/alumni_magazines/10 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Communications at Lux. It has been accepted for inclusion in Alumni Magazines by an authorized administrator of Lux. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SPRING 2014 LAWRENCE LEARNING FOR A LIFETIME L U APPLETON, WISCONSIN L U APPLETON, WISCONSIN LAWRENCE CONTENTS SPRING 2014 VOL. 95, NUMBER 1 1 From the President 2 Life-Changing Learning ART DIRECTORS 6 Posse and the Path to Lifelong Learning Liz Boutelle, Monique Rogers, Tammy Wagner 8 Focusing on Their Futures ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS Craig Gagnon ’76 9 The Lawrence Difference EDITOR 10 The Promise Between the Pages Marti Gillespie 12 A Lifelong Connection to Lawrence VICE PRESIDENT FOR ALUMNI, DEVELOPMENT and COMMUNICATIONS 14 The Power of “I” in a Safe Space Cal Husmann 16 Family Ties PHOTOGRAPHY Liz Boutelle, Ken Cobb Photography, Rachel Crowl, 18 Discovering a Place and a Purpose Craig Gagnon ’76, Tom Gill, Marti Gillespie, Ruth Kmak, Will Melnick ’14, Rick Peterson, Thompson Photo Imagery 22 The Road to the Rhodes WRITERS 30 Chicago Turns Out for Lawrence Jamie Cartwright ’14, Dominic Fumusa ’91, Craig Gagnon ’76, Marti Gillespie, Mei Xian Gong ’11, Kristen Olson Lahner ’73, 31 Meet Mark! Mary Ottoson ’68, Rick Peterson, Jerald Podair, Inside Lawrence Bruce Pourciau, Jismy Raju ’11, Cathy Statz ’96, 32 Janet Steiner Stevens ’82, Joe Vanden Acker, Laura Zuege ’02 36 Faculty Achievements FOR CHANGE OF ADDRESS 40 Alumni Authors Lawrence University Alumni and Constituency Engagement 42 News From the LUAA 711 E Boldt Way Appleton WI 54911-5690 44 Globe-trotting Grads 920-832-6549 [email protected] 46 2014 Hall of Fame 50 Locker Room Notes TO SUBMIT IDEAS Lawrence University 56 Distinguished Alumni Communications 711 E Boldt Way 60 Class Notes Appleton WI 54911-5690 920-832-6593 72 The Big Picture [email protected] Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily represent Lawrence University policy. Read Lawrence magazine on your Apple Ipad. Go to the App Store, search for Lawrence alumni magazine (USPS 012-683) is published “Lawrence University Magazine” three times a year by the Lawrence University Office of then download the free app. Communications. Non-profit postage paid at Appleton, Enjoy bonus content including Wis., and additional mailing offices. videos and additional photos. POSTMASTER Send address changes to: Lawrence University 711 E Boldt Way A RESPONSIBLE CHOICE Appleton, WI 54911-5690 Being a good steward of the environment is the responsibility of all Lawrentians, including the Office of Communications. This issue ofLawrence Alumni Magazine was printed on FSC®-certified paper. The Forest Stewardship Council™ guarantees that the trees used to manufacture the paper were harvested from responsibly managed forests. Our printing partner, Royle, Sun Prairie, Wis., is an FSC-certified ON THE COVER: Jismy Raju ’11 in downtown Chicago. printer, adhering to the highest social and environmental standards in the industry. You can do your part to help the environment too, by recycling this magazine when you are through reading it. FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear Lawrentians, Throughout our lives we have experiences that open our eyes to new perspectives and alter our trajectories. The cumulative effect can be life-changing. When Thomas Steitz ’62 won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, he described how his Lawrence education changed the path of his life. As a chemistry major, Steitz took courses in anthropology, philosophy and religion, a wide-ranging experience that transformed the way he thought about the world. “It gave me an appreciation about how to think about answering questions,” he said, “because that’s what I was taught how to do, how to put things together, how to integrate information.” Steitz credited the critical thinking skills learned at Lawrence for providing a broad and solid foundation for his future research and teaching. Steitz’s statement certainly describes the Lawrence experience, where our students immerse themselves in a rigorous liberal arts curriculum presented in an environment that nurtures creativity, individuality and exploration. In the short time that I have been president, I have quickly learned how accurately Steitz described the opportunity we offer. Since October I have enjoyed traveling throughout the country to meet with Lawrence alumni, parents and friends of the college at 10 regional events. While these gatherings provided an opportunity for more than 800 attendees to learn a bit more about me, they also allowed me to hear their Lawrence stories and learn more about their Lawrence experiences. I can easily say that no matter which city I was in, there was a recurring theme in my conversations: a Lawrence education is transformational. For some Lawrentians that metamorphosis happened during their freshman year, while others didn’t realize how profoundly Lawrence had impacted their lives until after graduation. Regardless of the timing of these revelations, being at Lawrence clearly made the days after Lawrence rewarding in many meaningful, yet often unexpected, ways. This issue of Lawrence magazine is filled with diverse examples of the transformative nature of a Lawrence education: participating in off-campus study experiences that opened doors to faraway places, finding a warm welcome from a community of learners while hundreds of miles from home, gaining the courage to pursue what once seemed to be impossible dreams, and sustaining the joy that comes from having lifelong connections to professors, classmates, the campus and our retreat at Björklunden. Lawrence’s distinctive features are many. An ability to provide life-changing experiences to its students, however, is clearly one of the core strengths that makes us relevant in this changing world of ours. I look forward to meeting more of you at Reunion and in the months ahead, and to hearing your Lawrence stories. Best wishes, Mark Burstein LAWRENCE 1 CM14-117 LT Spring Front.indd 1 4/4/14 2:40 PM Life-changing Learning By Jerald Podair, professor of history and Robert S. French Professor of American Studies When I speak with prospective students about Lawrence, job. Then I described our Lawrentian receiving a cryptic, I invariably mention the phrase “life changing.” Lawrence, vaguely worded assignment from his Google boss that I say, will change your life. It will create opportunities, would leave most employees flummoxed. Our Lawrence open possibilities and build success. Lawrence students, alumnus, however, would again use those invaluable I say, acquire the skills that will lead them to challenging, critical skills to “figure it out.” interesting and often quite remunerative careers. So far, so good. But then I tell them that Lawrence serves All of this would lead to raises, promotions, material also as an introduction to the life of the mind, which is security and perhaps substantial wealth. All good, of priceless on its own terms and for its own sake. You course. But I also argued that, even if it brings them may not make a penny from the mind’s life, I say, but no material wealth at all, Lawrence’s life of the mind it is the most precious gift Lawrence offers. That’s would make students rich. I quoted the words of Niccolo when I see the wheels start spinning in the prospective Machiavelli, who five centuries ago wrote of entering his student’s head. “Wait, he said that Lawrence graduates study, donning “garments regal and courtly,” and feasting are successful and make money … but then he said for hours at a time on the great minds of the past. There, something about ‘the mind,’ and how it won’t earn me he wrote, “I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, a cent. And how that doesn’t matter. What is he talking I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over about? Which is it?” Well, both, of course. Lawrence to them.” I told the students at the convocation that their combines opportunities for both material and intellectual task was to seek out “what will transcend ‘the hours’ wealth. You will learn and earn. and serve for ‘all time’” and make these the subjects of a lifetime’s worth of learning. I told them that we were But getting that point across isn’t easy. It isn’t self- leaving the greatest minds, souls and ideas in their evident. In fact, it bears some resemblance to the hands, and that it was up to them to carry them forward. argument in our Freshman Studies perennial, The Republic, that a just life is not only intrinsically valuable A Lawrence education, then, is life changing in a but also good for you in a practical sense. So how do multitude of ways. I hope I made that point during my we make the point that Lawrence will be a life-changing convocation. But how to bring this message home in experience in both senses? I got my chance to do so a more concrete way? There is an old saying that an when I was asked to deliver Lawrence’s 2012 Honors author’s job is to show, not tell. I can tell a prospective Convocation on the theme of “The Life of the Mind.” In student that Lawrence changes lives. I can tell current it I argued that a liberal education offered some rewards Lawrence students the same thing.

Load more