A sampling of media clippings about Lawrence University, its faculty, students, and alumni from Fall 2002 and Winter 2003. For more clippings, check out the Lawrence in the News index page.
The Grand Rapids Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan
March 23, 2003
Headline: "Plaid" to the bone. Quartet knows musical inside and out
Byline: Sue Merrell
Excerpt: "Forever Plaid" is the story of a dead musical group that comes back to life to perform the perfect show. So it seems only appropriate that a "Forever Plaid" production developed two years ago should come back to life this spring in East Grand Rapids. Written by Stuart Ross in 1990, "Forever Plaid" is the story of a musical group along the lines of the Four Lads or the Four Freshmen. The young men, fresh from picking up their plaid tuxes, are on their way to their first big concert in 1964 when they are killed in an auto accident. Through some cosmic quirk, they find themselves transported to the current day to sing such '50s and '60s hits as "Chain Gang," "Three Coins in a Fountain" and "Love is a Many Splendored Thing." "This is really the third incarnation of this show," said Ned Connors, who portrays Jinx, the shy member of the quartet. A 1999 graduate of East Grand Rapids High School, Connors was part of the cast when the show was presented in 2001 at Petoskey's Bay View Association. Last summer, PEP Productions revived the show for cabaret performances at Bay View and for a dozen shows in Petoskey's Crooked Tree Center for the Arts. Two of the original quartet dropped out. Connors' roommate at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, Gabe Lewis-O'Connor, was one replacement. Connors, who selected Lawrence University for its voice program, has appeared in the chorus for Opera Grand Rapids. "I always thought of myself as a singer," he said, "but I'm just starting to think of myself as an actor." A junior at Lawrence majoring in history, Connors now rooms with two of his castmates, Marshall-Rashid and Lewis-O'Connor.
The Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas
March 22, 2003
Headline: Actress or actor? Gender-based distinction is hard to avoid
Byline: Tom Maurstad
Excerpt: What becomes an actress most? In Hollywood these days, it's not being called an actress. When the winner steps up to accept this year's award for best actress or best supporting actress, it will be in the face of a trend within Hollywood's community of big-screen performers to drop the actor/actress distinction and refer to all performers as actors. Often we eliminate such problems by avoiding them. Where once we had waiters and witresses, now we have food servers. Stewards and stewardesses became flight attendants. Faced with the actor/actress conundrum, we lacked a convenient alternative. Dramatist? Too stuffy. Performer? Too general. So Hollywood has taken the next best tack -- women are actors, just like men. "It's surprising that film has held out this long. Theater went through this back in the late '80s and early '90s, and now it's an accepted thing that both men and women are referred to and refer to themselves as actors," says Tim Troy, a theater director and [Lawrence University] drama professor living in Milwaukee. The Screen Actors Guild, an organization run by and for actors, has already dealt with and resolved this tradition-bound conflict. The SAG acting awards are categorized as "male actor" and "female actor." Of course, as a solution "female actor" leaves a lot to be desired -- it's clunky and counterintuitive. "Female actor?" Isn't that why we had the word actress in the first place? But maybe the problem isn't in the proper naming of the two acting-award categories; maybe it's in having two acting-award categories. If one accepts the argument implicit in calling both men and women actors, then why distinguish between the two when it comes to awards? Why not just have one category and two awards -- best actor and best supporting actor? There's no best male and female director or screenwriter. It sounds nice, but then comes the back-to-earth point when high-minded theory collides with practical reality. "That would be cutting off our nose to spite our face," says Mr. Troy. "It's absolutely demonstrable that there are more male roles than female -- in theater or film. So the result would be that women would have fewer changes to win. The simple fact is, we're not a gender-blind society."
Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico
March 6, 2003
Headline: Student attends seminar in Wis.
Byline: Journal Staff reports
Excerpt: Lindsay Hampton, a senior at Cibola High School, was among 21 students nationally who participated in a recent weekend physics workshop at Wisconsin's Lawrence University. The workshop explored laser, computational, surface and plasma physics using more than $1.5 million in state-of-the-art equipment.
She was selected for the workshop based on her performance in high school physics, chemistry and mathematics.
National Public Radio
March 4, 2003
Show: Tavis Smiley
Headline: Pioneer African-American composer William Grant Still
Anchor: Tavis Smiley
Reporters: Roy Hurst
Excerpt:
Smily: When it comes to the contributions that African-Americans have
made in music, jazz and blues most often come to mind. But composers
like William Grant Still use those art forms to make a lasting
impression in the world of European classical music as well. Producer
Roy Hurst has this profile.
Roy Hurst reporting: He was rooted in the blues, but his lasting legacy is found in a European art form. In 1930, William Grant Still's "Afro-American Symphony" successfully brought the folk element of black America into the realm of classical music.
Professor Dominique de Lerma : This work is the climax of the Harlem Renaissance.
Hurst: Dominique de Lerma is professor of music at Lawrence University in Wisconsin and was an acquaintance of William Grant Still.
de Lerma: What Still did was actually idealize the blues in this symphony. The first movement, from the time of Mozart or Haydn, contains two contrasting themes. There's no reason, Still felt, that those themes could not be honest-to-goodness, authentic 12-bar blues, and they are, brilliantly orchestrated. (Soundbite of music)
Hurst: It's not certain how early Still had become consumed with the idea of bringing the blues to classical music, but he was exposed to both forms early on. Still was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. His mother, a teacher, having a mind to groom him for the finer things of life, exposed him to a large collection of opera recordings. Still was fascinated, but the magnetic pull of ragtime and the music of the man known as the father of the blues, W.C. Handy, took him in another direction. He worked for Handy for several years, and under his influence gained his chops as a composer and arranger. He began studying classical music under vanguard composer Edgar Varese who'd been searching for an African-American protege.
de Lerma: It didn't actually serve the purpose that I think Varese would have liked because Still knew that he was being led in a stylistic direction that was not what he was after. He really wanted to capture the folkloric element of his heritage with the composition of operas, symphonies, chamber works, vocal music. So he rather quickly abandoned that influence.
Hurst: Still went back into popular music, gaining a strong reputation as an arranger for jazz ensembles. And by the end of the 1920s, he considered himself relatively successful.
de Lerma: All through this time he kept thinking about that idea of writing a symphony which would have reflected the black experience.
Hurst: That idea became the "Afro-American Symphony." Still went on to write four more symphonies and several operas. By the end of his life, in 1978, he was regarded as the dean of African-American composers.
de Lerma: When I first began working in black music research in the '60s, I really believed that no composer was represented in the catalog, excepting Still. Now there are over 400. And all of these have a great deal of respect and homage to pay to William Grant Still for having opened so many doors. (Soundbite of music)
Herald and News, Klamath Falls, Oregon
February 24, 2003
Headline: Former KU grad participates in archeological tour of China
Excerpt: A former Klamath Union High School student joined five faculty members and 19 other students from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., on an archeological study tour of China during term break this winter. Phred Beattie, who graduated from Klamath Union in 1999, logged nearly 18,000 miles during the eight-day, university-sponsored trip touring both educational and historic sites in the capital city of Beijing, the ancient provincial capital of Xian, and the world-class commerce center of Shanghai. Among the trip's highlights were tours of Beijing's historic Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square; Xian's Banpo Museum, site of a 5,000-year-old neolithic village; the tomb of Qin shi Huang, China's first emperor; the famed Terracotta Warriors; the Great Goose Pagoda; an active Buddhist monastery dating to the eighth century; the spectacular Tang Daming Palace and the world-class Shanghai Museum. Beattie, a Lawrence University senior, is majoring in East Asian languages and cultures.
Fond du Lac Reporter, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
Febuary 20, 2003
Headline: Area colleges await impact of state cuts
Byline: Sharon Roznik
Excerpt: Wisconsin's private colleges are breathing a sigh of relief
after hearing that Gov. Jim Doyle's proposed budget plan does not
include cuts to the Wisconsin Tuition Grant, a program that allows many
low-income students to attend the state's smaller, post-secondary schools.
The state's 20 private colleges and universities use $22 million in
direct tuition grants to students. "It makes a huge difference," Rolf
Wegenke, president of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges
and Universities, said of the tuition grants. "Of our most recent
freshman class, over 90 percent are receiving financial aid (of some
kind)." Private colleges in Wisconsin enroll about 54,000 students a
year. Nearly 22 percent demonstrate enough financial need, with family
incomes as low as $20,000 a year, to get a state tuition grant averaging
about $1,800 per student, Wegenke said. At Lawrence University in
Appleton, more than 300 students out of 1,350 enrolled are receiving
$800,000 in financial assistance, said Dean Brian Rosenberg. What many
of them get from state tuition grants may make the difference whether or
not they go to college. "Wisconsin has always supported a very strong
and large public education system. But the number of increases in
students enrolling in college makes it important to preserve the private
college system," he said. "We, like others, are at capacity." Graduates
of private colleges are assets to the state, Rosenberg said, noting that
Wisconsin has an unusually small number of private colleges for its
size. "A higher percentage of our students go on to graduate schools and
become leaders in the state. We also bring people from others states
into Wisconsin because of the quality of education we offer," he said.
Wisconsin's private colleges provide more than $166 million in privately
supported grants to their students each year, compared to about $59
million in grants provided by the state and federal government, Wegenke
said. Part of Doyle's plan to save money includes consolidating the
administrative responsibility for all Wisconsin's college students
through the UW System and doing away with the state's education aid
board.
Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine
February 19, 2003
Headline: Maskers' "Resident Alien" chases away midwinter blues
Byline: Judy Harrison
Excerpt: There's a new alien in Belfast. Not the kind who sneaks in to buy American gas. This one's curious, cuddly, gregarious and green. He's the star of "Resident Alien," a comic fable that kicks off the Belfast Maskers' 2003 season. Written by Stuart Spencer, the play contrasts one Earthling's desire for refinement against the alien's hunger for pop culture. Spencer, now a teacher at Sarah Lawrence College and New York University, grew up in small-town Wisconsin and earned his bachelor's degree from Lawrence University in Wisconsin. He began winning prizes for his work while still an undergraduate. "Resident Alien" premiered at the 1998 Humana Festival of New American Plays. The Maskers' production, which opened last weekend, chases away frigid winter woes and leaves the audience warm from laughing at its own foibles. Performed on a bare stage with a few essential set pieces, director Robert Hitt focuses Spencer's play on five quirky characters that dominate the story, rather than special effects. The playwright has said that Michael, the main character, and the alien are the two conflicted halves of himself - one reads the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard while the other watches a "Friends" episode marathon on cable TV. The play's humor is deeply rooted in that clash.
San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, California
February 13, 2003
Headline: Pitch made for baseball as history
Byline: Dennis Rockstroh
Excerpt: Somewhere in the library at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at Cooperstown, N.Y., is Henry F. Reichman's syllabus for History 3575. "Baseball in America." It was submitted at their request. At Cal State-Hayward, baseball is history. Every other year for the past decade, Reichman has taught the course aligning American history with that of baseball. "Baseball: A Mirror on American History," "America's Game: Baseball and the National Experience," and "Baseball and American Society, 1840-present" have been taught at Texas Tech, the University of Kentucky and Harvard over the years. These courses have been a lot more than visions of spring, the crack of the bat, smell of cut grass, stats, heroes and myths. This is real history. Study American baseball and you are also studying national values, humor and language--how we have become what we are. Baseball is so American, writes Daniel J. Taylor, that "Only our president throws out the first pitch." Taylor, chairman of Classics at Lawrence University, wrote that baseball has left indelible marks on the way we talk. "Who of us has not 'struck out' with a member of the opposite sex?" he wrote. "Business persons have to play 'hard ball' and must be alert lest the opposition 'throw a curve.' In our jobs some of us are 'clutch hitters,' others are 'rookies,' and we may have to 'pinch hit' for the boss." Baseball is part of American culture, and you can keep track of history with it.
Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio
February 10, 2003
Headline: Showing her boss the ropes
Byline: Jim Bebbington
Excerpt: As chief of staff to a member of Congress, Stacy Palmer Barton
is breaking new ground. Palmer Barton is a working mother, a Christian
and a black woman serving as chief of staff to a Republican member of
Congress. While she is not the first black woman to be chief of staff to
a congressman -- two Democrats, including Palmer Barton's former boss,
District of Columbia delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, have black women
chiefs of staff -- it is rare. "For a white Republican, that is very
unique," said Christian Grose, assistant professor at Lawrence
University who has surveyed the racial makeup of congressional
staffs. Members of Congress, white and black, typically have one black
staffer who serves as a liaison to the black residents in the district,
Grose said. "The reason we wrote the paper is because people do advocate
about it," Grose said. "The idea is that the more black staff you're
hiring, (the more) you're trying to identify with a different set of
constituents." Palmer Barton, though, is Turner's liaison to a different
kind of community: Capitol Hill. As a freshman member of Congress, he is
relying on Palmer Barton to run his office, know the ropes in Congress
and help guide him through his early years there. "I think it's a
significant opportunity for me to participate in fairly high levels of
discussions in the Republican ranks," she said. Palmer Barton provides
immediate know-how about the workings of Capitol Hill, something Turner
is only now learning. As a lobbyist, she worked with different agencies
and other congressional staffs repeatedly to keep tabs on spending bills
important to her clients. Raised in Maryland, Palmer Barton was a fellow
for the Congressional Black Caucus, which assigned her to work for
Holmes Norton. In the late 1990s, she started her own small lobbying
firm, taking Dayton and Gary, Ind., among her clients and focusing on
the legislative needs of Midwestern, urban cities. She said she is now a
registered Independent. Two weeks ago, Ohio Secretary of State J.
Kenneth Blackwell went to Washington to lobby House Speaker Dennis
Hastert, R-Ill., and other Republican leaders to add black staffers on
Republican congressional staffs. House Republicans set a goal of hiring
200 during the next year, Blackwell said.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
February 9, 2003
Headline: Funding's new heavy-hitter: Argosy chief hopes to be next
big thing in Milwaukee philanthropy
Byline: Alan J. Borsuk
Excerpt: The rise of the Argosy Foundation, which is expected in coming years
to have assets of well over $1 billion, is already sending waves through the
realms of philanthropy and, particularly, the arts in Milwaukee.
And Argosy leader Chris Abele, 36, is clearly just getting started.
Abele (pronounced Ay-bi-lee) said in the fall that he wanted to best the
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the largest foundation in Wisconsin
since 1985, not only in size, but in influence, creating a force from the
liberal side of the spectrum of even more significance than the Bradley
Foundation has been on the conservative side. Argosy is being built on the
wealth of Abele's father, John, who founded Boston Scientific Corp., which
has become a leading supplier of medical equipment. The foundation has a value,
in effect, of about $450 million, Chris Abele said, but he said the plan is
that in coming years, as more stock is put behind the foundation, its value
could rise to about $2 billion. Argosy has been based in Boston for a decade,
but Chris Abele has become the one within the family who is taking the lead
role in working on the foundation. The family has decided to base the effort
in Milwaukee, where Abele, who went to Lawrence University in Appleton,
has lived for nine years. Abele said there is no firm timetable to switch the
foundation's base officially to Milwaukee, but he expects the move to evolve
over the course of this year. Abele has some specific priorities he wants to
promote as a donor and activist, particularly for arts organizations.
He said he wants to see stronger bonds built between the Milwaukee Art
Museum and the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. He wants to see the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's theater program return to the level of
excellence it had several years ago, when it was considered one of the 10
best programs in the United States. He'd like to see Marquette University
develop a theater program that is just as good. And, he added, "I have big
plans for the Shakespeare company," referring to a favorite project of his,
the Milwaukee Shakespeare Company.
Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico
February 9, 2003
Headline: Research challenges idea Anasazi were female-based
Byline: John Fleck
Excerpt: When a couple gets married, whom do they move in with? Her parents? His? Or do they stike out on their own? The answer helps define any culture. For the Anasazi of Chaco Canyon, most archaeologists think the answer was "her parents," creating a community built around daughters' bonds to their moms. The idea led to the suggestion that female-based family groups formed stable agricultural communities at Chaco while men hunted and traded across the region. But the fundamental assumption might be wrong. New research by Michael Schillaci and colleague Christopher Stojanowski questions the scientific belief that Chaco was a matrilienal culture. Using the most detailed analysis of its kind ever conducted of the two largest burial areas at Chaco, the scientists found no evidence that the women buried together tended to be closely related. The best explanation, the scientists write in the latest edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is that Chaco was a mix -- some young couples moved in with his parents, and some with hers. The scientists have won praise for their methods, but not necessarily converts to their conclusion. "I'm not convinced by it," said Peter Peregrine, an archaeologist at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. In 2001, Peregrine published a detailed analysis of the Chaco culture based, in large part, on the premise that family structure was built around women. Caveats offered by Schillaci and Stojanowski, and the problems raised by their critics, point out how difficult a science archaeology can be. Its practitioners struggle to understand ancient cultures with just fragmentary physical evidence. One technique to overcome this problem is to look at modern pueblos -- the descendants of the Anasazi. Because many pueblos are matrilocal, especially the Zuni and Hopi, scientists inferred Chaco was as well. Over the years, scientists have looked for other evidence as well, Most recently, Peregrine argued in his 2001 paper in the journal American Antiquity that the size of homes could be used to tell whether Chaco was matrilocal. Evidence from cultures around the world shows that matrilocal cultures tend to have larger homes, which is seen in Cacho, according to Peregrine.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
February 7, 2003
Headline: Tharp's Vikings have grown up in a hurry
Byline: Jeff Potrykus
Excerpt: John Tharp's mini-rebuilding project at Lawrence
University is ahead of schedule. The Vikings finished in seventh
place in the 10-team Midwest Conference last season with a 7-9 mark and
were picked to finish somewhere near the middle of the pack this season.
Yet after completing a sweep of pre-season favorite Ripon with a 78-72
victory Tuesday, Lawrence (15-3 overall, 9-2 Midwest) enjoys a 11/2-game
cushion over second-place Grinnell (12-5, 7-3). Why the dramatic
turnaround? Several reasons, beginning with experience. "We had a whole
slew of kids who played last year that were freshmen," said Tharp, whose
team plays at Lake Forest (5-12, 4-6) at 7:30 tonight. "Now that they
are a year older they are more confident. The ups and downs of your
freshman year . . . they don't have anymore." Nor do a pair of current
freshmen, Chris Braier from Wauwatosa East and Kyle MacGillis from
Milwaukee Pius. Braier, a 6-foot-5 forward, leads the team in scoring
(14.6 per game) and rebounding (10.9 per game) and leads the starters in
shooting (53.7%). MacGillis, a 6-4 guard-forward, leads the team in
steals (2.0 per game), has made 50% of his shots (28 of 56) and is
averaging 5.1 points per game. The return of junior point guard Rob
Nenahlo, who missed almost all of last season with a back injury, has
given the team leadership and toughness. Nenahlo averages 9.1 points,
3.0 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.3 steals per game. He made two key free
throws with 5 seconds left Tuesday to secure the victory over Ripon and
finished with a team-high 21 points. "He really makes a difference for
us," Tharp said. "He is a very strong kid who really defends well."
Defending Lawrence has proved to be problematic for everyone in the
conference. Tharp has 10 players averaging at least 12 minutes per game.
Eight players average at least 4.5 points per game, with three in double
figures. "We are playing 10 or 11 guys deep," Tharp said. "The greatest
thing I can say about our team so far is that it has been different guys
on different nights. That has been the gift of this team, our depth."
And did we mention Lawrence has no seniors and only four juniors?
Barring injury, Lawrence could be the league favorite next season and
the season after that.
CNNfn
Show: Market Call
January 31, 2003
Headline: Tough call: Should foreign airlines be allowed to buy U.S. carriers?
Byline: Rhonda Schaffler
Excerpt:
Rhonda Schaffler, CNNfn Anchor, Market Call: In a world without
regulation, a healthy airline, like Lufthansa, could fly in to rescue
UAL from bankruptcy. Except that can't happen. U.S. law prohibits foreign
companies from owning more than a 25 percent stake in a U.S. carrier.
But what would happen if that law was to change? Should the U.S. bow to
European pressure and open its skies to foreign competition? Joining me
now for our "Tough Call" today is Dan Alger, associate professor of
economics in Lawrence University in Wisconsin and Captain Duane Woerth,
president of the Airline Pilots Association.
Schaffler: Dan, let me start with you. Outline for us, sort of backtracking, why do we have this law? And why, in today's times, when we keep hearing that more competition is good, would we still have a law like this on the books -- when we're looking at an industry that's very much struggling?
Alger: Well, there's always a tendency to try and protect different industries. Those people that find it easy to organize usually end up with more influence than people that are harder to organize. The consumers are a group that would be hard to organize. The firms, themselves, would be easier. Countries tend to protect those industries. It isn't necessarily the best thing for the country as a whole, but it's certainly the politically right thing to do.
Schaffler: Captain Worth, you would not favor foreign competition being opened up here in the U.S., why is that?
Woerth: Well, it isn't going to be approved by this Congress. With the mess that our industry's in already, no serious participant in this Congress is ever going to propose such a change. Any foreign investment will have to be balanced very carefully with the issue of control. General Tommy Franks doesn't want to have to negotiate with Air France or Lufthansa to get the airplanes back to ship troops and supplies over to Iraq. In our Gulf War we had 5,000 missions, over 5,000 missions flown by U.S. airline pilots with U.S. aircraft. The national defense concerns with foreign ownership are very real.
Schaffler: Maybe we don't have to sell everything, but Dan, what about allowing increased ownership? Would that make any sort of difference?
Alger: Increased ownership or allowing foreign airlines to fly into our airports -- and from one domestic airport to another domestic airport -- would definitely be a good thing. It isn't unusual for any economist to say that competition is a good thing. Consumers would come out ahead. They would come out ahead by more than the airlines -- and certain suppliers, like the airline pilots, would lose in something like this with the extra competition.
Schaffler: Let me ask Dan, before we wrap things up. The airline industry as we know it today, how different could it possibly be five, 10 years from now?
Alger: I think if there was some more competition, you would find lower prices to some airports that have relatively little competition now. One point that should be made, however, is that you wouldn't have these big losses without unusual circumstances. Even monopolists can have experience hard times when unusual circumstances come up. Certainly 9/11 was one of those unusual circumstances. The responses to that, and to Homeland Security, have further aggrevated people's uncertainty about whether to fly, and that definitely makes a difference.
Time Magazine On Line Edition
January 22, 2003
Headline: Taxpayers: Come home. All Is forgiven
Byline: Jessica Reaves
Excerpt: What are state legislatures to do, afraid to raise taxes and
reluctant to cut programs but facing mounting budget deficits and
getting no help from the feds? One half-a-loaf answer: Get what you can
from those who haven't been giving what they should. More and more
states (as well as libraries and police departments) are offering
amnesty programs in order to collect at least something from taxpayers
who haven't paid their fair share. In the last three months, New York,
Massachusetts, South Carolina, Virginia, Missouri and Kentucky have
offered their recalcitrant taxpayers some kind of break, and several
more states are considering similar measures. Pay now, the message goes,
and we'll just pretend you paid us on time. It's not just states that
are in a forgiving mood. Many cities, including Detroit and Chicago,
have raised as much as $4 million by eliminating fees and fines for
people paying back parking tickets. Tempting as they may be, tax
amnesty programs aren't necessarily a great idea, says Daniel Alger,
associate professor of economics at Lawrence University.
"Unless you're planning to change the way you go after lawbreakers, tax
amnesty or any kind of amnesty is not a good idea," he says. "People
just figure there's going to be an amnesty whenever times get tough, so
what's the point of paying up on time?" Tough economic times, he says,
shouldn't provide an excuse to back off implementation of fines and
fees, but rather an opportunity for stricter enforcement. There is one
condition that would make amnesty worthwhile, he adds: if a new
administration comes in with a plan for more energetic collection of
fines, it might first offer amnesty in order to clear out any backlog of
cases. Still, unlike the feds, states have to balance their budgets
every year. And since they're running an aggregate deficit that's
expected to reach $68 billion by June 30, some creative collecting is in
order. Will it be enough to pay the bills without raising taxes? Stay
tuned.
Lincoln Journal Star, Lincoln, Nebraska
January 19, 2003
Headline: Getting by with a little help from his friends
Byline: Jeff Korbelik
Excerpt: Anton Miller hopes to have a special treat ready Tuesday for
his Lincoln Symphony Orchestra audience. The LSO concertmaster plans to
follow his performance of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto as if that's not
enough with short pieces originally written by Brahms for two-hand
piano. The work was arranged by close friend Clark McAllister, a
conductor and composer who lives in Florida. "It's not a done deal yet,"
Miller said Wednesday in a phone interview from Appleton, Wis., where he
teaches at Lawrence University. Since giving his Carnegie Hall
concerto debut with the New Chamber Orchestra of New York, Miller has
appeared as soloist with many orchestras throughout the United States.
Miller is in his 16th season as LSO's concertmaster. His last solo with
the orchestra was Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Concerto in D Major for
Violin and Orchestra in January 2000. He will revisit the Tchaikovsky
concerto for the first time in 10 years, since he toured it in Brazil
with the renowned Orchestra Sinfonica de Campinas. "It's an old friend,"
he said.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
January 18, 2003
Headline: College tuition plan learns a lesson. New way to prepay education
shielded from market whims
Byline: Avrum D. Lank
Excerpt: Parents uncomfortable with risking their children's education
fund to the whims of the market will soon have a new option -- prepaying
tuition through a consortium of several hundred private colleges,
including at least three in Wisconsin. The so-called Independent 529
Plan will operate under the same federal tax laws as EdVest and other
state-sponsored college saving plans. That means that when the money
actually is used to pay tuition, no taxes will be due on any interest it
has earned in the interim. Unlike EdVest and other state-sponsored
plans, however, participants in the independent plan will not have to
worry about investment return. Instead, they will buy tuition units
accepted by the participating colleges. Here is how the independent
plan will work: When an investment is made, it will buy a percentage of
the annual tuition at each participating school some time in the future.
The higher the school's tuition, the lower the percentage the money
buys, while the younger the child for whom the investment is being made,
the higher the percentage it purchases. The most that can be invested is
the cost of five years of tuition at the most expensive school in the
plan. Investments can be made by parents and grandparents, and at
several different times. When the child is ready to enter college, the
units will be accepted for whatever percentage of tuition they represent
at the institution he or she attends. Lakeland College in Sheboygan
intends to participate in the independent plan when it becomes available
later this year. Two other independent colleges in Wisconsin also have
signed on -- Lawrence University in Appleton and Ripon College. A
spokesman for Marquette University in Milwaukee said it was evaluating
the plan. Overall, about 300 colleges have agreed to participate.
Wisconsin State Journal, Madison
January 9, 2003
Headline: Appointee targets better jobs
Byline: Melissa Trujillo, Associated Press
Excerpt: Gov. Jim Doyle chose as his Department of Commerce secretary Wednesday an attorney who says he will focus on bringing high-paying jobs to Wisconsin.
To do that, Cory Nettles said he wants to expand Wisconsin's technology and
biotechnology industries, increase training in those fields and work closely
with the University of Wisconsin System. Doyle said the state must stop competing with Mexico and China for low-wage jobs. Doyle said the state must instead work to encourage workers such as Nettles to develop their businesses here. Nettles grew up in Milwaukee and graduated from Lawrence University in Appleton and the UW-Madison Law School. At 32, Nettles is the youngest member of Doyle's cabinet. He said his appointment shows Doyle's commitment to ending Wisconsin's "brain drain." Nettles specializes in product liability and commercial litigation as an attorney at the Quarles & Brady law firm in Milwaukee. He is also a member of the law firm's hiring and diversity committees. Nettles' first task as secretary will be cutting his department's budget. Doyle had ordered his cabinet secretaries to submit new budget proposals
slashing the amount of money their agencies had requested. "We don't assume that more money and larger budgets in state government are necessarily going to be in correlation to increasing and expanding and creating opportunities in our state," Nettles said. "We will have a leaner, meaner government but we think it will be every bit, if not much more, effective."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
January 9, 2003
Headline: Nettles tapped to head Commerce. Milwaukee lawyer's first priority will be to slice budget
Byline: Joel Dresang
Excerpt: Gov. Jim Doyle has chosen Milwaukee corporate attorney Cory Nettles as commerce secretary, touting him as the sort of bright young citizen Wisconsin needs more of. Doyle also identified the Commerce Department as one area where his administration will look to slash costs as the state faces a deficit that he says could reach $4.3 billion by 2005. Nettles, a 32-year-old Milwaukee native, is a graduate of Lawrence University in Appleton and the University of Wisconsin Law School. At the firm of Quarles & Brady, he has represented corporations in product liability and commercial litigation. He also has represented small businesses, non-profit groups and community churches.
"The good news for Cory is he's being named the secretary of a department," Doyle said Wednesday at a Milwaukee news conference that included Nettles' wife, sister, mother and grandmother. "The bad news is that he's going to be told to go into that department and significantly cut the budget of the department, which is what all the cabinet secretaries are having to do." At the announcement, in a basement conference room of the state office building downtown, Nettles appeared undaunted by the prospect. "We think a lean, fit government that works closely with business and our many state constituencies will do a good job to get this economy back on the right track," Nettles said.
Doyle campaigned asserting that the state had to concentrate its economic development efforts. On Wednesday, he said his administration has counted at least 15 separate groups aimed at development. "I believe we can be, in this area, much much more effective by reducing the number of boards and commissions and agencies, and getting much more focused on what we want to do," Doyle said. He added, "Cory is stepping into a world where less really can mean more."
"Cory and I share a vision for the real economic growth of this state," Doyle said. "I believe that Wisconsin really needs to compete at the high end for jobs. If we compete forever at the low end - for low-wage jobs - with Mexico and China, we will lose that competition, and we will drive the economy of this state down."
Daily Herald, Arlington Heights, Illinois
January 7, 2003
Headline: Sportsmen illustrated. The story behind the highly decorated (in tattoos,that is) Chicago Bulls
Byline: Joel Reese
Excerpt: Chicago Bull Marcus Fizer is a towering, hulking figure; a 6-foot 8-inch monolith whose massive arms seem as thick as redwoods. Yet Fizer's size usually isn't the first thing many people notice when they see him. Instead, it's the 22 tattoos that adorn his immense frame. Almost every other Bulls player - from Jalen Rose to Jamal Crawford to rookie Jay Williams - has tattoos, as well. A 1998 Associated Press study found nearly 35 percent of NBA players wore a tattoo, and that number has almost certainly risen. This tattoo proliferation didn't just happen overnight - it has a history, and Chicago plays an important role. The tattoos themselves have a history, too. Understanding this trend might be easier once you know the story behind the player's tattoos. To some of the Bulls, tattoos aren't just skin deep, nor are they indicative
of some menacing mindset. In reality, they're deeply felt homages to friends
and family. Scoop Jackson, editorial consigliere for Hoop and Inside Stuff magazines, theorizes that tattoos are more popular these days for a simple reason: They're better than they used to be. Shields theorizes that NBA players get tattoos as a way to "reclaim their bodies while also having their own signatures." Agrees tattoo researcher Judith Sarnecki, an associate professor of French at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.: "By tattooing themselves and calling attention to their bodies, it's a way of rebelling against the
expectations they carry. By marking their bodies, they do - in a sense - reclaim them." Tattoos were fairly rare in the league until former Bull Dennis Rodman
covered his body in ink. And, as we can all undoubtedly remember, Rodman was
treated like a god in Chicago. Other players were quick to follow Rodman's lead, but experts note that the NBA's tattoo trend has been largely one-sided, breaking down along racial lines.
The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland
December 27, 2002
Headline: Michigan administrator named new leader of Oldfields School
Byline: Linda Linley
Excerpt: George S. Swope Jr., an educator from Michigan, has been named head of
Oldfields School in Glencoe, effective July 1. Swope, 52, head of the upper school at Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, will replace Kathleen Jameson, who announced in March that she would leave at the end of the 2002-2003 school year. "Baltimore has a strong history and tradition of independent schools," Swope said yesterday. "I will have the opportunity to build on that tradition,
helping with the total educational experience for the girls at Oldfields."
He was among four finalists from a pool of 80 candidates considered by the
nine-member school search committee at Oldfields. A native of Lake Forest, Ill., Swope has 23 years of experience in independent schools as an educator, administrator and head of school. He has been head of the upper school at Cranbrook since 1997. Before that, he was head of The Colorado Springs School in Colorado and at Thomas Academy in Kent, Wash. He received a bachelor of arts degree in Slavic studies from Lawrence University in Wisconsin, a master of arts in Slavic languages and literature from Northwestern University and a master of business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. He also is a graduate of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.
Swope said that he is looking forward to returning to a smaller school
environment. Cranbrook has 1,600 students in grades pre- kindergarten
through 12. About 260 of the 764 upper school students are boarders.
Oldfields, founded in 1867, is Maryland's oldest girls' boarding school. It
has 185 students in grades 8 through 12. About 80 percent are boarders, and
the rest are day students.
St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, Florida
December 24, 2002
Headline: Side Show: Every time a bell rings, the next drink order is
ready
Byline: Sharon Fink
Excerpt: A four-piece set of miniature buildings from It's a Wonderful Life is new from the Walgreens drugstore chain, and sales have done "exceptionally well," hitting about $2-million, the Baltimore Sun reports. Buildings are also available through the Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, Pa. One request the museum received was from a New Jersey woman who was desperate for a Martini's bar. Aren't we all this time of year. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Today, when more Americans live in suburbs than in either rural or urban areas and the film that defines us best should be American Beauty, Wonderful Life is more popular than ever." -- Jerald E. Podair, American history professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.
The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland
December 22, 2002
Headline: Greetings from a very small town. With tiny Bedford Falls, it's an even more wonderful little life
Byline: Stephanie Shapiro
Excerpt: I own a piece of Bedford Falls -- 320 Sycamore, to be precise. Here, George Bailey, his wife and four kids lived a wonderful life, although he didn't realize it until it nearly slipped through his grasp. Now, I must decide whether this purchase was a wise investment -- or a boondoggle prompted by my subconscious response to Sept. 11. Besides, the place needs work. The Bailey home and three other buildings synonymous with the 1946 classic film starring Jimmy Stewart are available from Walgreens, the nation's largest drugstore chain, as part of its first It's a Wonderful Life illuminated village series.
So far, the four-piece set has brought in more than $1 million in sales.
If you consider the film to be a Rorschach test for the American psyche, it all makes sense. You may believe small-town America exists today; you may think it is a myth or an unobtainable ideal. You may think that George Bailey should have left home and never looked back or that the sinister, George Bailey-free Potterville is a lot more fun than Bedford Falls. But you can't deny that the film, on a manageable, miniature village scale, raises all kinds of questions about what it means to be an American. Naturally, Sept. 11 has added yet another perspective to the film, whether it makes sense or not. "The ongoing aura of this film continues to amaze me," says Jerald E. Podair, an American history professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. "It was not a major hit upon its release in the late 1940s, but as the innocent small-town life it portrayed slipped into historical memory, it became a cultural phenomenon: a film that resonated with Americans not because it described reality, but because it described what they wanted to believe was reality." "Today, when more Americans live in suburbs than in either rural or urban areas, and the film that defines us best should be American Beauty, Wonderful Life is more popular than ever. And now, God help us, the illuminated village." With tongue in cheek, Podair suggests that the film plays right into the hands of the country's current leadership: "With Saddam Hussein a modern-day version of (Bailey's nemesis) Mr. Potter, we may need George Bush, er, Bailey, more than ever." And yet, Podair confesses that at the film's climax, when Bedford Falls citizens rescue Bailey from ruin, he must leave the room, otherwise he "gets all misty and everything." In spite of its loaded message, It's a Wonderful Life wreaks emotional havoc with even the most skeptical of viewers.
Peoria Journal Star, Peoria, Illinois
December 21, 2002
Headline: The twelve days of Christmas. Area clergy embrace tradition associated with popular song
Byline: Matt Buedel
Excerpt: Type "The Twelve Days of Christmas" into almost any Internet search engine and the results will no doubt include a Web site that details the origin of the famous song. Followed soon after will probably be another site refuting the contents of the previous one as a hoax, possibly with an explanation of its inaccuracy. But regardless of the song's birth place and time and its intended meaning, at least two area clergy members welcome the tune's popularity as a lasting remnant of a traditional Christian celebration nearly lost in their opinions to the commercialization of the Christmas holiday. "I'm indebted to (the song)," said Bishop Keith Ackerman, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy. "It may be the only thing left in the culture that reminds us of the 12 days of Christmas." Traditionally, each of the 12 days was celebrated, and "virtually every single day had a festivity related to it," he added. The 12-day Christmas liturgical season ends with Epiphany on Jan. 6, the feast which, among other events, celebrates the visit of the wise men to the young Jesus, symbolically representing the world's recognition of the son of
God. One interpretation of the song, and the version with which the Rev. Chris
Layden is familiar, compares the lyrics to those of underground railroad
songs - apparently innocent words intended to impart a hidden message. The song supposedly held hidden meaning for Catholics persecuted in England
at a time when openly practicing their faith was a violation of the law, and
could result in penalties as stiff as death. According to that theory, the
lyrics served as a memory aid for children learning the tenets of their
faith. The "true love" sung at the beginning of each verse referred to God, and
each gift given to "me" is given to every baptized person. Other interpretations of the song classify it as a parlor game, a playful way to test a child's memory that has nothing to do with the Catholic faith. Those findings claim the lyrics first appeared in "Mirth Without Mischief," a book published in the late 18th century in France. The point of the song was for a leader to recite a verse. A child would then say the subsequent verse, until someone made a mistake and had to pay a penalty, be it a kiss or a piece of candy. According to Rick Peterson, associate director of public affairs at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., the song made its way to the United States via Emily Frances Brown, a professor at Milwaukee-Downer College specializing in Anglo-Saxon and Middle English literature. Milwaukee-Downer College was an all-women college that merged with Lawrence College in 1964. Milwaukee-Downer's campus is now part of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Peterson said Brown, who was known as "the official spirit of Christmas" for the annual Yuletide celebration at the college, found a yellowed manuscript containing the song in a book store in Oxford, England. "The Twelve Days of Christmas" made its American debut in the dining hall of Milwaukee-Downer College in December 1910, and launched an American tradition, Peterson said. The meaning of the song is, at best, murky, and the historical accounts are varied, lending it a mythical status. But the purpose of the song, at least for Ackerman and Layden, is definite. "For us, this song is nostalgic. We may not really know the meaning," Layden said. "It has to do with ritual, and ritual is how we celebrate our faith."
USA Today, Arlington, Virginia
December 17, 2002
Headline: Let foreign airlines fly inside USA
Byline: Christopher Elliott, National Geographic Traveler's ombudsman and a member of USA Today's board of contributors
Excerpt: Whenever business takes him overseas, Seung Oh prefers to fly on carriers such as Korean Air or Singapore Airlines. "The service is much better than you find on an American airline," says Oh, the vice president for a
technology investment company in Fairfield, Conn. "Too bad they don't fly domestic routes." Well, why not? The short answer: The government won't let them. Under current rules, the right of a foreign airline to carry passengers from one point to another within the United States is usually entirely denied or severely limited. The restrictions are meant to protect our transportation infrastructure and keep us safe. Maybe the time has come to rethink these laws.
On Dec. 9, United Airlines made the largest bankruptcy filing in aviation history. It joined US Airways, which also is flying under Chapter 11 protection.
Overall, the airline industry will lose billions of dollars this year. The U.S. airline industry's massive losses are forcing carriers to cut costs deeply, which will affect workers, routes, service -- and maybe even safety. Given these cutbacks, allowing foreign carriers into the domestic market could improve life for American travelers. "The foreign carriers would almost certainly make the incumbents -- the U.S. airlines -- offer better service, lower prices and, most important, they would behave better," said Dan Alger, an associate professor of economics and an expert on deregulation at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. The U.S. government, however, insists on fighting a losing battle: Congress last year allocated $15 billion in loans and grants to the domestic airline industry in an effort to jump-start the business. Rather than relax foreign airline restrictions, the government is rigorously enforcing them. That's definitely a move in the wrong direction. If the U.S. government really wants a customer-friendly, competitive airline industry in this country, it
should overhaul the protectionist laws that promote mediocrity and stifle true competition among all carriers.
Wisconsin State Journal, Madison
December 15, 2002
Headline: Book spots Wisconsin's 'stars' in Hollywood
Byline: Tom Alesia
Excerpt: If ever a book seemed destined to be short, even pamphlet
length, it would be "Famous Wisconsin Film Stars." The state produces
great ice fishermen, beer drinkers, accordion players and cheesemakers.
Film stars? Go ahead, try naming five -- or three. Let's see. The late
Chris Farley counts. So does Fred MacMurray of Beaver Dam, the star of
Billy Wilder's classic "Double Indemnity," even if he's best known as
the dad on TV's "My Three Sons." And Willem Dafoe kicked around Appleton
as a kid. But, behold, Badger Books' recent release, "Famous Wisconsin
Film Stars" by Monona's Kristin Gilpatrick, runs a whopping 353 pages.
Gilpatrick uncovers 34 Badger film stars -- the description is used
quite broadly -- whose families, in some cases, left Wisconsin before
the future performers could recite the alphabet. Unless you've been
going to theaters since the silent-film era, though, there will be a few
names that will puzzle you. Carole Landis, anyone? But "Famous Wisconsin
Film Stars" contains as many tasty tidbits as a multiplex candy counter.
Culled from Gilpatrick's exhaustive research, we present you Wisconsin
Film Stars 101: Least likely Orson Welles comment to be used as
Kenosha's slogan: Welles spent one year at age 11 in Madison. Before
that, he lived in Kenosha, where his disturbed grandmother severely
frightened him. As a result, Welles left with mean-spirited memories.
"I'm not ashamed of being from Wisconsin," Welles said as an adult,
"just being from Kenosha. It's a terrible place." Most films: Rice Lake
native Stanley Blystone appeared in 367 movies from 1914 to 1956. He
performed in supporting roles or brief appearances, many as a cowboy or
villain. In 1935, he appeared in 38 films, with titles ranging from
"Saddle Aces" to "Trail's End." Biggest contribution from Whitewater to
film: Tom Hulce, an Oscar nominee at age 31 for his work in "Amadeus,"
was born in Whitewater. His family moved to Michigan when Hulce was a
toddler. John Belushi attended UW-Whitewater in 1967 and 1968. The
latter year, Belushi performed in the school's spring theatrical
production. Belushi starred in 1978's "Animal House" and Hulce had a
role in the film as one of the wild fraternity's pledges. Best film
rebel while in Wisconsin: Willem Dafoe. He got booted from Appleton East
High School for making a film that was allegedly pornographic. He
finished high school by taking a class at nearby Lawrence
University. Dafoe also told an oft-repeated joke about his hometown,
which also was Harry Houdini's, on a national talk show in 1992. "You
know what Harry Houdini's greatest escape was? Leaving Appleton."
The Telegram, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
December 8, 2002
Sunday Final Edition
Headline: Man on a mission: Newfoundlander finds satisfaction and adventure
in humanitarian corps
Byline: Brian Callahan
Excerpt: Dan Hurley was picking his way through a messy swath of cracked branches and severed trees when he suddenly realized he was walking on more than just the muddy, uneven earth. He was teetering on the remnants of someone's home. Hurley, 22, of St. Philip's, recently joined the AmeriCorps National
Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) in Charleston, S.C. The organization assists
the American Red Cross with all aspects of disaster relief.
On Nov. 20, Hurley and his 10-member team were dispatched to Lowndes County,
Miss., after tornadoes plowed through the region days earlier, leaving
hundreds of families homeless and dozens killed or injured. His first
mission left a lasting and disturbing impression. "We were going in there with volunteer firefighters," Hurley recalled from his team's southeast campus on a closed naval base in Charleston. "They would go in with the chainsaws and cut up the wood and fallen trees. Then we'd go in and haul it away, to be picked up by the town." He came upon "one big pile of trees" that appeared ready for removal. "At one point, I moved this one big branch and there was a microwave, or what was left of it. "I was like, 'What the heck is this? And then it dawned on me that this was actually a trailer that was completely crushed. It was probably 10 or 12 feet tall before. But now it was less than a foot high ... completely demolished. "There was a row of about eight trailers all just like that. It's amazing I couldn't even see them until I moved some branches." Hurley moved to the United States four years ago after graduating from Prince of Wales Collegiate. Anxious to see the world, he chose Lawrence University to continue his education, a small liberal arts college in Appleton, Wis. "I decided to go to the U.S. because I thought it would be good for me -- a growing experience. I wanted a kind of smaller school and yet an all-encompassing educational opportunity." In June, Hurley graduated from Lawrence University with degrees in neuroscience and psychology. Dan applied to join AmeriCorps after a presentation on the organization and the Peace Corps at Lawrence University last year. "I was actually thinking of doing Peace Corps, going overseas and doing that for two years," said the outgoing Hurley, who turns 23 on Jan. 7. "But during the presentation, a Peace Corps volunteer who had graduated from Lawrence said if you're not really ready for it ... "I wasn't sure I was. So she said you could do AmeriCorps to start ... a domestic program, so there's no travel outside the continent." After spending the summer at home in Newfoundland, Hurley returned to Charleston Sept. 24 to begin his stint with AmeriCorps. The first project was with the United Methodist Relief Centre in Charleston, where they renovated donated housing. The homes were then passed on to the rural poor. They were working on that project when the tornadoes hit and they were called upon for disaster relief. Hurley's team spent 10 days helping the region return to normal. They're now working on preparation for an environmental project in Nashville, Tenn. Hurley notes the work is rewarding in many ways, even financially. Each member must complete at least 1,700 hours of service during the program. In exchange, they receive $4,725 toward college or schools loans. "It's just for 18- to 24-year-olds. So if you haven't gone to college yet, you can use the money for that," said Hurley. "I'm probably going to pay off some of the student loans I have." He's also considering a future stint with the Peace Corps. But that's likely on hold for a few years yet.
That's because Hurley recently won a scholarship toward post-graduate work
which must be used by August 2005. "That has put Peace Corps on the back burner for now. Maybe after I get my PhD. But it's still on the horizon. I'm still in my young years and I want to see more of the world, so Peace Corps is an attractive proposition." Adds Hurley of his present status: "I wouldn't have traded this for the world."
Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas
November 30, 2002
Headline: Media churn through celebrities like they're going out of style
Byline: Tom Maurstad
Excerpt: Today's media have become a star-making microwave, with an endless procession of celebrities and entertainment-as-news stories. Consider the celebrity flashes filling broadcasts and newsstands in recent weeks: Michael Jackson's baby-dangling controversy, Winona Ryder and her shoplifting trial, the engagement of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, the divorce of Nicholas Cage and Lisa-Marie Presley, the legal tribulations of Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston, and the ongoing spectacle of Anna Nicole Smith. As the celebrities flash and fade, as their scandals surge and recede, it's as if society is suffering from a pop culture version of attention deficit disorder, flitting from story to story in a restless search for the next sensation. With celebrities being heated up and wolfed down like convenience-store sandwiches, there's a constant need for more. It's a far cry from simpler times, where celebrities were known as stars and, like stars, were sources of far-off and mysterious light that burned on and on. "The '20s are the decade when we really started to have celebrities, because that's when a national media culture took shape," says Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. "The result was that news became a part of the entertainment industry. But back then there were all sorts of buffers between the public and the celebrities. Their glamour was protected by the movie studios and media companies. There weren't that many celebrities, and we didn't know that much about them." But in an era of exploring media and reality entertainment, when 15 minutes of fame has become all but a birthright, celebrities are everywhere and we seem to know everything about them.
American Psychological Society Observer
November 2002
Headline: Presidential Column: Isolation, interdisciplinarity, inspiration. Research in the liberal arts college setting
Byline: Peter Glick, Guest Columnist
Editors note by Susan Fiske, APS President: Peter Glick is approaching his 18th year of teaching at Lawrence University, an undergraduate-only liberal arts college of about 1,400 students. In this guest column, he reflects on doing research in that setting, drawing in part on how the setting necessitates bridges between areas in psychology and even to other social sciences and the humanities. This column is the third in a continuing series about psychological science across areas and disciplines.
Excerpt: The virtues of the liberal arts college are usually expressed in terms of the teaching, not the scholarly, mission of these institutions. But there are advantages to the liberal arts college setting that can deepen a faculty member's research contribution. One of the most important is an intellectual climate that fosters knowledge of other disciplines and intellectual breadth. Specifically, three forces promote interdisciplinary awareness: colleagues, students, and the structure of the curriculum. Interdisciplinarity need not weaken commitment to one's own field (though this is a potential danger); rather, it can encourage fresh approaches to enduring topics, leading to innovative research and theoretical advances. Teaching undergraduates and doing research need not be competing obligations; they can be mutually reinforcing. In psychology, as in other empirical fields, undergraduate research meshes perfectly with the liberal arts mission. Undergraduate students are capable of participating in high quality research (they have served as co-authors on many of my own publications) and involving them in research is one of the surest ways to foster their intellectual development. Looking at the curriculum, the liberal arts college demands that faculty teach a wider range and a greater number of courses compared to our colleagues at research institutions. There are advantages to taking a wider focus. Teaching more broadly within psychology diminishes the tunnel vision that can develop in graduate school, and thus can enhance one's creativity as a researcher. The development of courses in an interdisciplinary program entails exposure to alternative approaches to shared questions. Teaching outside of psychology entirely is a daunting experience, but can be an intellectually energizing chance to relive being an undergraduate, but with a set of skills you did not have back then.
Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago, Illinois
November 20, 2002
Headline: Magazine cites Baxter executive for his authenticity, honesty
Byline: Sandra Guy
Excerpt: Fast Company magazine's November issue looks past the now-familiar scene of corporate honchos being led away in handcuffs to find the few who show what it calls the new face of leadership. One Chicago area leader makes the nine-person list of "Who's Fast 2003." Harry M. Jansen Kraemer Jr., CEO of medical products and services giant Baxter International Inc. in north suburban Deerfield, gets kudos for "fessing up" after the company admitted that defects in kidney dialysis filters manufactured by its now-shuttered Althin Medical AB subsidiary might have led to the deaths of 53 people in the United States and six other countries. Admittedly, the news media in Croatia had reported that the government blamed Baxter for 23 deaths at dialysis clinics throughout that country before Baxter conceded. To this day, no one knows exactly what happened with the filters. Here is how Fast Company defines the key difference in the way Baxter handled the tragedy: "Baxter could have ducked the blame. It could have pulled the filters ever so quietly from the market--and since the line accounted for less than $20 million in revenue, it's likely that few would have noticed. With some justification, it could have blamed Althin's former owner, since Baxter had only recently taken over the business. It could have blamed 3M, which made a solution that was injected into the 10 percent of filters that leaked when they were tested during the production process. It could have faulted the lack of cooperation from authorities in Croatia and in Valencia, Spain, where patients died. Too often, that is how it works in business." Instead, Kraemer took responsibility for the situation and asked the board of directors to reduce his bonus. Baxter took a $189 million charge because it reached settlements with the victims' families and closed the Althin unit, including factories in Florida and Sweden. Kraemer visited New York to personally apologize to the president of Croatia. Kraemer's personal traits appear to separate him from other CEOs. The 47-year-old devout Catholic took his wife's maiden name--Jansen--as his middle name, and signs his name that way. He and his wife, Julie, met at Lawrence University, a liberal arts college in Appleton, Wis., where he majored in math and economics, and she in English. The couple then earned MBAs at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. They had their fifth child six months ago. Yet what Fast Company cites as the traits that really separate Kraemer from most CEOs are his authenticity and his willingness to tell the truth and act on his beliefs. In an interview, Kraemer said his credo is that Baxter will do the right thing, regardless of the circumstances.
Fast Company credits Kraemer with changing the way Baxter thinks. In 1993, Baxter pleaded guilty to cooperating illegally with an Arab boycott of Israel and, in a separate case, was temporarily banned from selling to Veterans Affairs hospitals based on allegations that Baxter had fraudulently oversold products to the government. At that time, the company issued a set of shared values: respect, responsiveness, and results. "The response would have seemed like typical corporate window- dressing, a predictable, shallow response to public scrutiny, but for the guy who directed the effort," according to the article, titled "Harry Kraemer's Moment of Truth." Kraemer, then the newly appointed chief financial officer, was in charge of the cultural turnaround. "A good leader is not always trying to be right," Kraemer told the Sun-Times. "You're trying to do the right thing." The belief system extends throughout the chain of command, he said.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
November 17, 2002
Headline: Don't call him Mr. Nice Guy
Byline: Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News
Excerpt: A press release for the film "Roger Dodger" explains that the story allows Campbell Scott to shed his nice-guy image. This comes as something of a
surprise to Scott, who wasn't aware he had a nice- guy image to shed. "I know every part I've ever played, and half of 'em ain't nice guys," the
gregarious actor said. "Even the nice guys I've played aren't that nice.
Even the guy in 'Spanish Prisoner' isn't that nice. "I think I often play the guy who things happen to, and after that people say, 'Yeah, that's the white guy who falls in love and ends up as the victim of something.' But I certainly don't try to be that." Come to think of it, that's exactly who he played in the two films that put him on the map: the AIDS film "Longtime Companion" (1990) and the cancer movie "Dying Young" (1991). But he's also tried a number of jerks and
average Joes on for size, and the 41- year-old actor has played drama's most
troubled character -- Hamlet - - twice on stage and once on film. Now he's the title character in "Roger Dodger," a promising debut from
writer-director Dylan Kidd that opened in theaters Friday. And no one's
gonna call this guy anything close to nice. Roger is a verbally dexterous womanizer showing his teen nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) around the meat-market watering holes of New York. He has everyone's number but his own, and Nick eventually realizes that his uncle's methods of meeting insecure women are anathema to the smart ones. "I like to see how audiences react to it," said Scott, who studied acting at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. "Some people hate it. Some women really hate it, perhaps quite rightfully. They just don't like the guy, or they know the guy and don't want to watch him."
[The story originated with the Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas]
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington, D.C.
November 15, 2002
Headline: Deconstruct this: Political martyrs. What does a sudden death
mean?
Excerpt: The death of Sen. Paul Wellstone last month prompted
an unusual outpouring of public grief, culminating in an emotional
memorial service attended by more than 20,000 people. Why do the deaths
of certain political leaders evoke such strong feelings, and how do some
become "martyrs"? We asked several experts for their analysis. Jerald
Podair, assistant professor of history at Lawrence University and
author of "The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the
Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis" (Yale University Press, 2002): There is
something about a particular person that makes him into a martyr in
America. I thought of it almost in terms of a scientific formula. The
first thing you need is a premature end, preferably a violent one. Plane
crashes, assassinations -- a sudden death is really what you need. The
second thing you need is a certain kind of personality, and Wellstone
had that personality. He was a fist-pumper, he was an arm-waver, he was
emotional, he was always comfortable in the spotlight and with taking
sometimes very controversial stands. And finally, the third element,
which is probably the most controversial, is that you should probably
have some connection to the political left if you're going to be a
martyr in our country. That may say something about our politics, but it
struck me that I could not think of a right-wing or even conservative
martyr in our nation's history. In other words, however you define right
and left, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, to
some extent even Franklin Roosevelt, and now someone like Paul Wellstone
were all figures on the political left. You just don't see anyone on the
right accorded that kind of honor of martyrdom. Lee Atwater died
tragically young, but he was a conservative crusader -- some would say
even a conservative zealot -- but no one ever viewed him outside a tight
little narrow conservative circle as any sort of martyr. So it struck me
that you really do have to be connected to the left to get true American
martyrdom.
Wisconsin State Journal, Madison
November 13, 2002
Headline: Republicans, Doyle vow cooperation and civility. Gard to lead assembly GOP. Foti keeps his post after charge
Byline: Phil Brinkman
Excerpt: Assembly Democrats elected Jim Kreuser, D-Kenosha, as Assembly
minority leader. The lifelong Kenosha resident had previously been the
top assistant to Assembly Minority Leader Spencer Black, D-Madison, who
resigned the post. Assembly Democrats also elected Jon Richards, D-Milwaukee, as assistant minority leader. He narrowly beat Black for the No. 2 post after a
second vote was needed because of a tie. Robert Turner, D- Racine, was
elected caucus chairman, meaning he will run Assembly Democratic
meetings.
Assembly assistant minority leader Jon Richards -- Age: 39. Address: Milwaukee. Job: Legislator and attorney; former business newspaper reporter as well as English teacher in Japan. Political experience: Elected to Assembly in 1998. Education: Bachelor's degree from Lawrence University and law degree from UW-Madison; attended Keio University in Tokyo.
The Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa
November 12, 2002
Headline: Congress likely to move at snail's pace on Iowa bills
Byline: Jane Norman
Excerpt: Legislation important to Iowans probably will remain on hold through a lame-duck session of Congress that begins today. During the past 11 months, Iowans have been holding out hope for action on ethanol subsidies, increased Medicare reimbursements and a host of appropriation bills that include Iowa projects. Lame-duck sessions traditionally are unproductive and unpredictable, and usually are planned to take care of housekeeping rather than launch initiatives, said Christian Grose, a political scientist at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. However, President Bush said he wants the Senate to come to a quick agreement on sweeping homeland security legislation that has been held up, Grose said. The pace of progress on that and other issues depends on the attitude members bring back to the Capitol after an election in which Senate Democrats, accused of holding up legislative action, suffered losses. Budget bills need attention but have been mired in political division that would be difficult to resolve in just a week. Only two of the 13 spending bills for the federal budget year that started Oct. 1 have been approved. The current temporary measure expires Nov. 22. Grose held out some hope for progress. "It will look bad for both Republicans and Democrats if they get in a fight over what they do in a lame-duck session," Grose said. "You are not going to see Democrats holding up lots and lots of bills."
South Bend Tribune, South Bend, Indiana
November 8, 2002
Headline: Peacock's pop style is thoughtful, and from the heart
Byline: Andrew S. Hughes, Tribune Staff Writer
Excerpt: Alice Peacock says she makes pop music, and, with that
classification, she sees an immediate problem in perception.
"People have an adverse reaction to the word pop," she says. "I grew up
on the radio, and I think I write songs that have a catchy melody and
that stick in your head, which is why I classify it as pop." Songs such
as "Alabama Boy" and "I'll Be the One" from her second album, "Alice
Peacock," do possess the sleek accessibility of mainstream pop-rock in
the vein of Sheryl Crow and Joan Osborne, while, like Crow and Osborne,
suggesting and sometimes reaching something grittier and more soulful.
Her part-acoustic, part-electric arrangements tap into the roots flavor
of Heartland Rock and should fit right in with the music of John
Mellencamp, for whom Peacock opens today at the University of Notre
Dame's Joyce Center. Peacock grew up in White Bear Lake, Minn., and
studied acting at Lawrence University. In 1999, she self-released her
first album, "Real Day." The September release of "Alice Peacock" on
Columbia means Peacock now has the promotional push of a major label
behind her. For "Real Day," Peacock hit the road with just her acoustic
guitar for support. On this tour with Mellencamp, she has a band behind
her onstage.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
November 7, 2002
Headline: Waukesha schools leave Latin behind. District to remove language
offering from course guide
Byline: Amy Hetzner
Excerpt: Latin is officially dead in the Waukesha School District.
Several years after the district's last Latin teacher left, the district
is finally moving to remove the language offering from its student
course selection guide starting in the 2003-'04 school year. In addition
to a decline in student interest, the district also had difficulty
finding a Latin teacher to replace one who retired several years ago.
Without a Latin teacher, there hasn't been anyone to really advocate for
the program. Latin has been slowly fading from Wisconsin's public school
curricula for years. Today, only 17 of the state's 426 public school
districts offer Latin as a language. Two of those -- Elmbrook and New
Berlin - - are in Waukesha County, according to the DPI. Nationwide,
there has been a recent resurgence in demand by schools for Latin
instruction, particularly in southern and northeastern states, according
to news reports. "Latin is undergoing a tremendous renaissance across
the nation, and we literally cannot turn out enough Latin teachers,"
said Daniel Taylor, Hiram Jones professor and chairman of the classics
department at Lawrence University in Appleton. Latin forms the
root of about two-thirds of the words in the English language, and
studying it helps improve verbal skills, he said. Some Wisconsin schools
are bringing back Latin instruction, too. Taylor noted that Wayland
Academy in Beaver Dam is starting Latin classes again, after years of
not offering the course. And Brookfield Academy, which has required
Latin for sixth- and seventh-graders for years, this year started
teaching Latin to fifth- graders, said Joyce Cupertino, the academy's
Latin teacher.
The New York Sun, New York, New York
November 5, 2002
Headline: Wild card is dealt to Congress by Gov. Ventura the spoiler.
A slew of "what-if" scenarios are created
Byline: Timothy Starks
Excerpt: Minnesota's governor, Jesse Ventura, can't resist playing spoiler. He
did it again yesterday by appointing an Independence Party ally to serve in
a Senate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, throwing a wild
card into a lame-duck session of Congress expected to focus on the nation's
budget and creation of a homeland security department. Mr. Ventura's slap at
the traditional major parties creates a slew of "what if" scenarios that could
determine control of the Senate in the short run. The man Mr. Ventura tapped to
serve in place of the deceased senator Paul Wellstone, Dean Barkley, is giving no hint of which side he will huddle with when senators return November 12 for a lame duck session. And even if Mr. Barkley does not disrupt the status quo and sides with Democrats who currently control the Senate, the outcome of the Senate race in Missouri could throw control of the Senate to Republicans for the lame duck session. "If he could learn how to use the filibuster, he could definitely hold things up," a professor of political science at Wisconsin's Lawrence
University, Christian Grose, said. "On the other hand, he may do nothing. He
may just be a media darling for a couple weeks and then go back to
Minnesota." Mr. Barkley may disrupt Senate control this November. So might the
Missouri Senate race, where the special election required this year as a
result of the death of 2000 candidate Mel Carnahan also mandates that the
winner of the 2002 race begin serving immediately. But the nation may have to
wait weeks, even months, to find out the results of Senate elections across the country. A potential runoff in Louisiana could drag out the wait until mid-December. In Georgia, new election equipment could confuse voters and poll workers as it did in the Florida primary this year. As of now, the Senate is home to 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and one independent who sides with Democrats for organizational purposes. If Mr. Barkley chose to caucus with Republicans, they could take control of the Senate for the lame duck session and try to push through the agenda of President Bush. But without a 60-vote majority, they would be hardpressed to accomplish much, Mr. Grose said.
Billboard magazine, Los Angeles, California
November 2, 2002
Headline: The classical score. Diva fever
Byline: Steve Smith
Excerpt: One glance at the Billboard charts is all it takes to determine
that vocal recitals reign supreme in today's classical marketplace:
Cecilia Bartoli, RenEe Fleming, and Salvatore Licitra are all currently
riding high on the Top Classical chart, while Russell Watson, Mario
Frangoulis, and the unstoppable juggernaut that is Andrea Bocelli
dominate the Top Classical Crossover chart. Of course, all of the
artists mentioned are on major labels that boast the resources necessary
to transform a singer into a household name. Given a solid concept,
however, independent labels are equally capable of offering compelling
vocal recitals. Case in point: "Divas of Mozart's Day," a
delightful and illuminating disc by soprano Patrice Michaels, newly
issued on the always adventurous Chicago-based label Cedille. A
professor of voice and opera at Lawrence University in Appleton,
Wis., Michaels is a familiar name to Cedille enthusiasts. She has
participated in 11 recordings in as many years of association with the
label, which is distributed by Long Island City, N.Y.-based Qualiton.
Michaels' recorded repertoire has ranged from Vivaldi and Lully to
Menotti and Argento; "Songs of the Classical Age," issued in 1999,
demonstrated her affinity with the music of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven,
and their contemporaries. A serendipitous academic appointment led to
the concept for the even more ambitious Divas. "Dorothea Link, who was
our historian on the project, happened to be hired into the institution
where I teach," Michaels explains. Link, a Canadian musicologist, made
headlines worldwide in 1999 for positively identifying a previously
unattributed recitative as being the work of Mozart. Michaels soon
learned that Link had a particular passion for the singers of the
Viennese Imperial Court Opera of Emperor Joseph II, the company for
which Mozart composed his greatest works. Michaels says, "When I saw the
breadth of information that she had -- along with a collection of scores on
microfilm -- I thought, 'This is the project I've been waiting for.'" Once
the repertoire was selected, Cedille's James Ginsburg stepped in to help
meet the project's extensive demands. "We realized that with all this
completely unknown repertoire, the only way to get the rehearsal time
needed to make it work would be to schedule a performance," Ginsburg
says. He timed a public concert and recording sessions to coincide with
a Chicago Opera Theater production of Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte," making
use of the same orchestra and collaborating with Northwestern University
to mount and promote the concert. The strategy paid off handsomely:
"Even though it was held on a bitterly cold day in February, the start
of the concert had to be delayed for 20 minutes because the walk-up line
for tickets was so long!" Happily, thanks to Ginsburg's efforts,
listeners can now appreciate Michaels' winning performance without
braving those Chicago winds.
Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota
November 1, 2002
Headline: Absentee rules eased, but voters have little time
Byline: Conrad deFiebre and David Peterson
Excerpt: Minnesotans who already selected Paul Wellstone on absentee
ballots for U.S. Senate will get another chance to vote by mail. But
they need to act quickly. And for some, it may already be too late. In a
move to resolve electoral confusion following Wellstone's death in a
plane crash last Friday, the Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday ordered
that new absentee ballots be sent to voters who request one. The ruling
means that those who voted absentee for Wellstone, or any other
candidate, can get new ballots bearing the name of the Democratic
replacement, former Vice President Walter Mondale. The new ballots will
supersede those previously submitted, the court said. But with only four
days until Tuesday's election, it is unclear how many replacement
ballots can be returned in time. They must be dropped off at local
election offices by 5 p.m. Monday or arrive by the last mail delivery
Tuesday. While the court gave no explanation for its order, some
justices at the hearing questioned whether it would be constitutional to
deny voters new ballots. Some legal experts said the court did its best
under the circumstances. "It really is one of those things where there
is no good legal or political answer," said Christian Grose, a professor
of government at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., many of
whose students are voting absentee in the Minnesota election. Even so,
Grose added, the ruling is an advantage to Republican U.S. Senate
candidate Norm Coleman because not all of the absentee Wellstone voters
will get a chance to vote again. "If the election is close, this might
swing it," he said.
ABCNEWS.COM, New York, New York
October 31, 2002
Headline: Night of the living dead. How ancient Celtic Samhain
evolved into "Velcro" holiday Halloween
Byline: Andra Varin
Excerpt: Halloween, as every young pumpkin-carver knows, is a corruption
of All Hallow's Eve -- the night before the Christian feast of All
Saints' Day. But long before the birth of Christianity, Celts were
celebrating Samhain ‹ the holiday marking the end of the harvest and the
start of the Celtic new year. Samhain (pronounced SOW-in in Irish Gaelic
and SAHV-in in Scottish) was a "highly ambivalent time," says Edmund
Kern, a history professor at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.
"It was a good time for prognostication, a good time for telling the
future," he says. "But it was also a good time for the dead to settle a
score." When St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland in the fifth
century, he wasn't too keen on the pagan holiday. Eventually, the Church
came up with the idea of fixing a feast day to revere all the Christian
saints on Nov. 1 -- and the eve of the feast coincided with Samhain. "It
might be reasonable to speculate that the feast of All Saints' was
established to redirect pagan festivities," says Kern. But some of the
Samhain practices carried over to the celebration of All Hallows' Eve.
For instance, fire was very important in the celebration of Samhain. The
ancient Celts didn't go trick-or-treating, but they did leave out
appetizing morsels for the spirits. The playful, prankster aspect of
Halloween is also a long-standing tradition. In Scotland, bands of
"guisers" -- teenage boys and young men in odd costumes -- would go door
to door, threatening more respectable folks with mischief. Kern, the
Lawrence University professor, points to the similar practice of
mumming, which allowed youths to dress up in costumes and indulge in
pranks if they weren't somehow paid off. "These mummers, usually male
youths, threatened the more established citizens of the community with
mischief. They'd dress up in outrageous costumes and demand payment."
And in conjunction with the observance of All Saints' Day on Nov. 1 and
All Souls' Day on Nov. 2, "almost everyone would make sweet 'soul
cakes,'" says Kern. "You'd distribute these to family members as well as
poor neighbors in exchange for their prayers for the dead." Halloween
customs were brought to the United States and Canada by immigrants from
England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and soon took on a life of their
own. And the holiday eventually moved from being an excuse for adults
and teenagers to let off steam to a more kid-friendly event.
Trick-or-treating really only became popular after World War II, says
Kern.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
October 30, 2002
Headline: Bayley left journalism for public service. Former reporter worked for
governor, president
Byline: Amy Rabideau Silvers
Excerpt: Edwin R. Bayley's career in journalism included challenging
Sen. Joseph McCarthy while a political reporter for The Milwaukee
Journal and later serving as founding dean of the Graduate School of
Journalism at the University of California. In between, it included public service working for Gov. Gaylord Nelson and President Kennedy, and with the National Educational Television network, the forerunner of PBS. Bayley distinguished himself in journalism and public service, perhaps because he considered the former to be an important and honorable form of the latter. Bayley was born in Chicago and raised in Madison, Milwaukee
and Appleton. He graduated from Lawrence College, now Lawrence University, in Appleton. He landed his first real journalism job in 1941, working for the Green Bay Press-Gazette as a general reporter, feature writer
and telegraph desk editor. In 1961, Bayley became director of public information for the developing Peace Corps in Washington, D.C. Bayley next served with the presidential press secretary's office in the development of special projects, sometimes writing speeches for and traveling with Kennedy. By 1964, he began working for National Educational Television, the predecessor for the Public Broadcasting Service, later promoted to vice president for administration. He again switched careers in 1969, becoming a professor and dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley. He retired in 1985. Bayley published a book, "Joe McCarthy and the Press," in 1981 to critical acclaim.
New York Times, New York, New York
October 29, 2002
Headline: Edwin Bayley, 84. Led Berkeley Journalism School
Byline: Eric Pace
Excerpt: Edwin R. Bayley, the founding dean of the Graduate School of
Journalism at the University of California, died on Sunday in Green Bay,
Wis. He was 84 and lived in Carmel, Calif., and Door County, Wis., in
recent years. His writings include "Joe McCarthy and the Press"
(1981), which won a George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer
Prize and a National Book Award. The book attacked what Mr. Bayley saw
as timidity on the part of the press in failing to call McCarthy to
account for demagoguery in his anti-Communist crusades. Further, he
argued, television networks let McCarthy bully them into giving him free
air time. In 1969, Mr. Bayley, who was then an executive for the
National Educational Television network, became the first dean of the
new journalism school at California. He held the post until he retired
in 1985. He was also a journalism professor while he was dean. A Chicago
native, Edwin Richard Bayley received a bachelor's degree from Lawrence
College, now Lawrence University, in Appleton, Wis., and did graduate
work in English at Yale. From 1946 to 1959 he worked at The Milwaukee
Journal, mostly as its chief political reporter. From 1959 to 1961 he
was chief of staff and executive secretary to Gov. Gaylord Nelson of
Wisconsin. In 1961 and 1962 Mr. Bayley was a special assistant to
President John F. Kennedy, serving in the office of the press secretary
in Washington.
The Charleston Gazette, Charleston, West Virginia
October 28, 2002
Headline: Halloween traditions have both pagan, Catholic roots
Byline: Martha Irvine
Excerpt: It's almost Halloween, a holiday when millions of Americans,
young and old, dress up in costumes. Many carve pumpkins to leave on
their doorsteps with lit candles inside. And children go door-to-door
asking for candy and other treats. But where did all these traditions come from?
In searching for answers about the origins of Halloween, The Associated
Press turned to Edmund Kern, an associate professor of history at
Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and Chris Riddle, creative
director and Halloween expert at American Greetings in Cleveland.
Q: How did Halloween get its start? Has it changed a lot over the years?
A: Halloween gets its name from "All Hallows' Eve," as Oct. 31 was called in England centuries ago. It was a night when people prayed for the dead to prepare for All Saints Day, a celebration of Roman Catholic saints, on Nov. 1. But many people believe Halloween traditions started much earlier, in ancient festivals after the harvest. As the cold of winter was arriving, many thought boundaries between the living and the spirit world disappeared. The festival most commonly tied to Halloween is Samhain (pronounced "SOW-en"), a pagan celebration started by the Celtic people in Ireland and Scotland on their New Year's eve, Oct. 31. According to Celtic folklore, the spirits of those who had died in the past year returned to possess the bodies of the living before traveling to the afterlife. In the 20th century, word about Halloween and how to celebrate it spread to the mainstream, in large part through national magazines and radio.
Q: Where did the tradition of pumpkin carving come from?
A: On All Hallows' Eve, the Irish and some other Europeans carved turnips and placed candles in them to represent the souls of people waiting to get into heaven. The term jack-o'-lantern comes from an Irish folk tale about a night watchman named Jack who was too selfish to get into heaven, and too much of a trickster for the devil. So, according to the tale, the devil sent Jack wandering the earth with a single ember inside a carved turnip -- Jack's lantern.
Q: How did trick-or-treating get started?
A: It started with two early European customs called "mumming" and "souling," which merged into the lighthearted practice we know today. "Mummers" were mischievous revelers who dressed in outlandish costumes and demanded payment to restrain themselves. During the same time of year, families baked sweet cakes, or "soul cakes," and gave them to family members and neighbors in exchange for prayers for relatives who had died. Later, in Ireland, farmers went door-to-door asking for items for a village feast. Those who gave were promised prosperity. Those who didn't got warnings of bad luck. Modern-day trick-or-treating caught on in this country after World War II.
[The Associated Press story appeared in 122 newspapers and newspaper websites nation-wide, plus 15 other (radio, television, Internet news) media websites. Total circulation coverage for the article was 8.4 million. Among the other media outlets carrying the story were the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the Austin (Texas) Statesman, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), the Washington Post, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the New York Post, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the St. Petersburg Times, CNN Interactive, KCBS-Radio 74 AM and KPIX-TV Channel 5 (San Francisco), KHOU-TV (Houston), KING-TV Channel 3 and KIRO-Channel 7 (Seattle), WCBS-TV (New York), WPIX-TV (Pittsburgh), WTOP-Radio 1500 AM (Washington, DC), and Yahoo! News.]
The Spokesman Review, Spokane, Washington
October 27, 2002
Headline: Invasion of the holiday snatchers. Grown-ups taking
over Halloween
Byline: Winston Ross, Staff Writer
Excerpt: A message for adults across America: Give Halloween back. We've
swiped it, like Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks. Like Enron ripped off
retirement savings. Like, well, taking candy from a baby. The business
of Halloween is just fine - thanks to adults plunking paychecks into
costumes, candy and decorations. In 1995, according to the National
Retail Federation, Americans spent about $2.5 billion on such things.
This year, the total is estimated to lurch toward $6.9 billion, or about
$44 a household -- $69 for homes of 18- to 34-year-olds. Old fogies spend
hundreds on Halloween costumes now. They throw bashes that make the prom
look like a night in a dive bar. Businesses make money on candy and
costumes, props and decorations. "Halloween has become a manifestation
of our consumer culture," says Edmund Kern, an associate professor of
history at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. Kern is an expert on
the history of witchcraft and witch hunting, an authority on Halloween's
roots. "It's big business to sell trick- or-treat candy, to sell or rent
Halloween costumes. Halloween is a time when people can engage in
breaking the boundaries, the norms that regulate everyday life."
Actually, Kern points out, Halloween isn't so much being stolen from the
children as it is being returned to its rightful owner. The holiday's
roots are in the Christian vigils of the Feast of All Saints or All
Hallow's Eve, held on Oct. 31 in England. And there are roots in the
ancient pagan festival Samhain (pronounced "sow-in"). Samhain marked the
end of summer with festivals of fire, which often led to a general
descent into craziness. Boundaries between the material and supernatural
world broke down. People talked with the dead. But Samhain and All
Hallow's Eve were adult-driven activities, usually played out in two
formats. One was called "mumming," a term to describe dressing up and
engaging in mischief. People would demand payment in exchange for
behaving themselves. Sound familiar? Another common Halloween activity
was known as "soulling," because people in the British Isles baked soul
cakes and delivered them to family members and neighbors in exchange for
prayers for the dead, Kern says. Know any elementary school children who
bake cakes? Start bonfires? These were adult activities -- mostly young,
rowdy adults. Then Halloween came to the United States, and as Americans
have done with Old World tradition after Old World tradition, we bent
the rules. Gradually, the holiday swept across the country, from the
neighborhoods of Irish and Scottish immigrants mostly. It became
secular. In the 20th century, Halloween became more and more a holiday
of dressing up, Halloween parties -- and children. Trick-or-treating
exploded after World War II. Kern says Halloween's popularity has
revived with adults because of parties. With exceptions, like New
Orleans and New Year's Eve, America doesn't really have a party season.
Halloween is increasingly filling the void.
Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Florida
October 22, 2002
Headline: Neo-romantic piano suite lifts tribute to composer
Byline: Sharon McDaniel, Palm Beach Post Music Writer
Excerpt: New music and new poetry are of like minds. The poem speaks of
the personal and the universal. It can rely on a familiar vocabulary,
even widely held views. Still, its enduring qualities are often its
fresh voice, surprising perspective and unnerving insight. Similarly,
composer Allen Gimbel builds a distinctive soundscape with organic logic
and sweeping vitality into his works. His engaging "Suite for Piano"
(1988) opens and ends with pealing bells and exhilarating, all-embracing
waves of sound, like a gale-force west wind that sweeps across vast
plains. Shades of Philip Glass, Debussy and Stravinsky thread through
the 20-minute, neo-Romantic work, performed Saturday afternoon by Mayron
Tsong, piano chairman of the University of Lethbridge in Alberta,
Canada. Her exceptional performance was the highlight of a concert in
Palm Beach Atlantic University's Persson Recital Hall. Gimbel, a
pianist, earned composition degrees from Eastman School of Music and the
Juilliard School, with teachers Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner and
Vincent Persichetti. He has won numerous awards and has published
articles in major music journals and reviews for American Record Guide.
His music is published by Seesaw. The Gimbel celebration began as a
thank-you from two of his former students. But with most of the hall's
160 seats filled, it turned into a warm, wholehearted welcome for the
notable artist and Palm Beach Gardens newcomer. Gimbel, 46, coached the
rehearsals and acknowledged the frequent ovations. Organizers Brooke
Joyce and Jeffery Meyer studied theory and composition with Gimbel in
the 1990s at Wisconsin's Lawrence University Conservatory of Music. They
earned bachelor's degrees shortly before Gimbel retired in 1998 because
of multiple sclerosis. The 29-year-old pianists showed their
appreciation by giving six of their mentor's songs and chamber music
works their Florida premiere.
Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minnesota
October 20, 2002
Headline: Head of Lawrence University retiring
Excerpt: Lawrence University President Richard Warch will retire in June 2004, after what will be 25 years as the university's president, the board of trustees said at a meeting Friday. The 63-year-old Warch began his tenure in September 1979 and is the second-longest serving president in Lawrence's history. Board Chairman Jeffrey Riester said Warch is giving the school enough time for a thorough search for a new president. Warch, from Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., got his bachelor's degree in history at Williams College in 1961. He later studied theology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and earned a bachelor of divinity degree and a doctorate in American studies from Yale. He is an ordained minister in the United Presbyterian Church.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
October 19, 2002
Headline: Lawrence University president to retire
Excerpt: The longtime president of Lawrence University will retire in
2004, the college's board of trustees announced Friday. By the time of
his retirement, Richard Warch, 63, will have served as president for 25
years, the second-longest tenure in Lawrence's 154-year history.
Wisconsin State Journal, Madison
October 19, 2002
Headline: Lawrence president to retire in 2004
Excerpt: Lawrence University President Richard Warch will retire
in June 2004, after what will be 25 years as the university's president,
the board of trustees said at a meeting Friday. The 63-year-old Warch
began his tenure in September 1979 and is the second-longest serving
president in Lawrence's history. Board Chairman Jeffrey Riester said
Warch is giving the school enough time for a thorough search for a new
president. "As trustees, we've known for some time that (his) remarkable
tenure would end before long even as we hoped Lawrence could benefit
from his exceptional leadership for as many years as possible," Riester
said in a statement. Warch, from Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., got his bachelor's
degree in history at Williams College in 1961. He later studied theology
at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and earned a bachelor of
divinity degree and a doctorate in American studies from Yale. He is an
ordained minister in the United Presbyterian Church.
Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Florida
October 18, 2002
Headline: Classical music. No mere apple for the teacher
Byline: Sharon McDaniel, Palm Beach Post Music Writer
Excerpt: Multiple sclerosis and a recent move to South Florida have
isolated 46-year-old composer Allen Gimbel. But the community can still
get to know him and hear his music at 3 p.m. Saturday. The concert of
his chamber works is a generous thank-you gesture from two of his former
students at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wis. Among the local artists
are clarinetist Michael Forte, bassist Mik Groninger, violinist Rafael
Elvira and from Miami, harpist Ana Maria Bolivar. It's sponsored by the
Tampa Bay Composers Forum, in the Helen K. Persson Hall at Palm Beach
Atlantic University.
Sacramento Bee, Sacramento, California
October 17, 2002
Headline: Literature scholar whose work linked Chinese and Western culture dies
Excerpt: Wu-chi Liu, a scholar whose work helped familiarize American readers with Chinese literature, has died. He was 95. Liu published more than 25 books, including the anthology, "Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry," which was often used as a text in schools. After attending university in Beijing, he came to the United States in 1927 and earned his bachelor's degree at Lawrence University and his doctorate of English literature at Yale University. Liu did postdoctoral work at the London School of Economics, then returned to China. After World War II, Liu came back to the United States, where he taught literature, philosophy and drama at Yale, Rollins College, the University of Pittsburgh and Indiana University, where he helped establish and chair the East Asia Language and Literature Department.
[The Associated Press story also ran in Bay Area.com (California), the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, Boston.com, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Contra Costa (California) Times, CNNMoney (New York), the Huron (Michigan) Daily Tribune, KPIX-TV Channel 5 (San Francisco, California), KCBS-Radio 74 AM (San Francisco, California), the Los Angeles Times, the Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, the Modesto (California) Bee, the Mobile (Alabama) Press Register, the Newark (New Jersey) Star-Ledger, the San Francisco (California) Chronicle, the Syracuse Post-Standard (New York), and the Washington Post (DC).]
Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Florida
October 17, 2002
Headline: An unstoppable teaching force
Byline: Sharon McDaniel, Palm Beach Post Music Writer
Excerpt: Most of us can recall a special teacher to whom we owe a debt
of gratitude. But how far would many of us go to repay the debt?
Two former students of composer-pianist Allen Gimbel were determined to
do something meaningful -- and didn't think they had much time.
Multiple sclerosis has gradually disabled their teacher over 14 years,
forcing him to retire and live with his parents in Palm Beach Gardens.
He is confined to a wheelchair, moving it through a device he
manipulates with his chin. "I'm trying to do everything possible to be
as independent as I can," says the 46-year-old Gimbel.
Still, his two former students at Lawrence University in Wisconsin --
Brooke Joyce and Jeffery Meyer -- could tell Gimbel's spirits were low.
"When I heard from him in the spring . . . he wasn't even able to hold a
pen and compose," says Joyce, a 29-year-old composer earning his Ph.D.
at Princeton University. "I knew this would be the time (to do
something) and get his mind occupied on other things.
The two college friends decided to say thank-you by way of a concert at
3 p.m. Saturday at Palm Beach Atlantic University.
The program consists of six of the Juilliard-trained Gimbel's works --
chamber music and songs for soprano -- composed as early as 1974 and
spanning 25 years. As excellent pianists, Joyce and Meyer will perform,
as will Meyer's girlfriend, Mayron Tsong, who's flying in from Alberta,
Canada. They'll be joined by seven local musicians, including familiar names
from the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra and Florida Philharmonic Orchestra.
"He was such a formative teacher; he definitely had a large impact on
us," says Meyer, 29, the new University Symphony Orchestra conductor at
University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. "He's a very, very strong-willed
man, a staunch intellectual and deep-feeling person. And you know, as a
teacher, he was hard!" Yet as undergraduates at Lawrence in Appleton, Wisc. --
Meyer from 1991-96; Joyce from 1991-95 -- the two composition majors signed up for every class Gimbel taught: private composition lessons, counterpoint,
theory and analysis, at times they had Gimbel classes back-to-back.
Born and raised in New York City, Gimbel earned his bachelor's degree
from Eastman School of Music, then his masters and doctoral degrees at
the Juilliard School, all in composition. Gimbel began teaching at
Lawrence's School of Music in 1987 and won the Young Teacher of the Year
Award in 1990 -- the same year that multiple sclerosis, diagnosed two
years earlier, made the first encroachments on his mobility.
Gimbel continued composing at Lawrence when he had time and he wrote
scholarly articles on Mahler and Elgar for major music journals. But his
students were his priority. He had risen to the rank of associate professor of
music by 1998 when he could no longer work in the classroom.
Joyce began the daunting task of organizing the concert tribute in June.
He faced planning an event in a town in Florida he'd never been to,
while he was at Princeton and his friend and co-planner was in Oshkosh,
then on fellowship in Berlin. They managed, says Meyer, because people's
response to their idea was "very supportive and very heartwarming." Nearly 160
Gimbel students and friends, plus 40 professional colleagues, donated a total
of $3,500 to cover local performers' fees and publicity -- their names will be listed in the printed program.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
October 19, 2002
Headline: Wisconsin news briefs: Lawrence University president to retire
Excerpt: The longtime president of Lawrence University will retire in 2004, the college's board of trustees announced Friday. By the time of his retirement, Richard Warch, 63, will have served as president for 25 years, the second-longest tenure in Lawrence's 154-year history. The college's board plans to form a committee to search for a new president.
Daily Herald, Arlington Heights, Illinois
October 15, 2002
Headline: Adkins, Petran receive Hall of Fame status for college
performances
Byline: Bob Frisk
Excerpt: The cheering never stopped for Tony Adkins and Jim Petran after
successful high school careers. Adkins (Conant) and Petran (Forest View)
made the most out of the college sports experience, and their two
schools now have decided to do something in return. Adkins was recently
inducted into the Augustana College (Sioux Falls, S.D.) Athletic Hall of
Fame. Petran has been named to the Lawrence University
Intercollegiate Athletic Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wis. Petran, a Daily
Herald All-Area quarterback for coach Fred Lussow at Forest View in
1974, starred in football and baseball at Lawrence, and the teams he
played on won four Midwest Conference championships and made two NCAA
Division III tournament appearances. Petran was 24-4 in three seasons as
the starting Lawrence quarterback. The team topped the nation in total
offense in 1978 as Petran passed for 2,102 yards and 19 touchdowns. He
still holds game, season and career records at Lawrence for passing and
total offense. Petran was an all-conference shortstop in baseball for
four years at Lawrence with occasional work as a pitcher.
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio
October 13, 2002
Headline: Sniper fits the American heritage
Byline: Tom Brazaitis, senior editor in the Plain Dealer's Washington
bureau
Excerpt: When it comes to the threat of random violence, I don't scare easily. Whether we're talking about the chance of being killed in an airplane crash, a suitcase bomb explosion or a drive-by shooting, I like my odds. Nevertheless, I must admit I felt queasy the other night when I stopped at a neighborhood bank's ATM to make a deposit. A "serial sniper" has been stalking victims in and around Washington, D.C., lately. As of this writing, he has shot 10 people at long range, killing eight of them. All were doing everyday things, like pumping gas,
loading groceries in a car or operating an ATM. These two weeks of terror remind me of the time I spent in war-torn Lebanon in the early 1980s, where the prospect of being gunned down intentionally or accidentally at any moment was quite real. But this is America. This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen in America. Not true, says Jerald Podair, an assistant professor of history at
Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. In an e-mail exchange with me,
Podair quoted '60s black militant H. Rap Brown saying, "Violence is as
American as cherry pie." "And he was correct," Podair said.
"As befits a nation steeped in violence, America's history has been
replete with acts of seemingly random violence which, while not
'terror' in the commonly accepted sense, certainly set the scene for
the events of Sept. 11." Among several examples Podair cited were the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in Kansas by two drifters, immortalized in Truman
Capote's 'In Cold Blood'; and the 1966 Texas Tower shootings, in which
a crazed former Boy Scout mowed down passers-by on the University of
Texas campus. "These incidents were representative of the American culture of random violence," he said. "In this sense, the Washington shootings may well
be horrifying, but they are not unprecedented - or even 'un-American.'"
Random violence is our heritage. The pioneers risked death daily at
the hands of Indian warriors, even as the Native Americans braced
themselves against surprise attacks by marauding settlers. Beneath the
face of modernity, 21st-century America remains a savage place.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington, D.C.
October 11, 2002
Headline: Letters to the Editor: If black college students do poorly,
there's plenty of blame to go around
Byline: Clinton Foster, Jr., Assistant Director of Admissions for Multicultural
Recruitment, Lawrence University, Appleton, Wis.
Excerpt: Often, in the attempt to rectify perceived wrongs, we gravitate toward
other extremes of action that may not really address our original grievances.
Such seems to be the case in the essay by Phillip Richards of Colgate University. Professor Richards proposes that colleges like Colgate should focus on recruiting "black students who have already succeeded in the integrated social and academic worlds of prep schools or elite suburban high schools." In other words, let's create diverse institutions by recruiting students who have had the same experience and to a degree possess the same socioeconomic backgrounds as others, but who just happen to have a different skin color. Race is a very small part of what constitutes diversity...diversity of thought, perspective, and understanding is the key to a rich and vital college community. Yes, one aspect of diversity is our disparate cultural and socioeconomic upbringings. An ability to understand each other and ourselves will gain strength only through practice, and that will not come if we develop cookie-cutter models for the types of students we want at institutions of higher learning.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington, D.C.
October 7, 2002
Headline: Baking my way on the job market
Byline: Karin Sconzert [Lawrence University Class of 1987]
Excerpt: "Non-scholarly pursuits." Destructive as they can be, we all
have them, and we all seem to need them. One of mine,
fortunately, is biscotti. During my third year of graduate school,
when I should have been writing an 80-page literature review that was
part of my qualifying exams, I taught myself how to bake biscotti.
No, I have not started a biscotti business in
lieu of an academic career. And yes, I eventually did finish
that Ph.D., and I am now an assistant professor of education.
But I still make an awful lot of biscotti. I use biscotti as
part of my job-search strategy. Call it cookie conditioning.
The first year I was on the job market, 2000-1, I was
finishing up my dissertation. I decided to send a batch of
biscotti to the people who were writing my recommendation
letters to thank them for their efforts. It was a way of
simultaneously expressing my gratitude and getting in some
much-needed therapeutic baking for myself.
A strategy was born, and it was simple: Send some
recommendation letters for me, get some biscotti. I knew my
letter-writers would send letters anyway, simply because I
asked them, but I wanted them to be in a positive frame of
mind about it. I wanted them to look forward to sending my
letters. So, dozens more batches of twice-baked cookies were
mailed to my mentors as I applied to jobs all over the
continent. Cookie conditioning proved helpful in other ways during the
job search. I made biscotti for my downstairs neighbor who
cared for my cats while I traveled to interviews and
conferences. Biscotti were distributed to the people at my job
to thank them for picking up the slack during my absences. I
even served biscotti at my dissertation defense.
The best part -- it worked! I landed four interviews in three
time zones and two countries, and was finally offered one
fantastic job (albeit not on the tenure track but with a
five-year contract, an increasingly common approach in
education schools). And, it turns out biscotti can be an
effective tool on the job as well as on the job market. This
past year, I made biscotti for my new colleagues, as a "bribe"
to get them to serve on committees for my graduate students.
It worked extraordinarily well, not just in breaking the ice
and persuading them to help, but in giving me a feeling of
competence at something while I floundered through my first
year as a professor. Baking biscotti boosts the ego.
Karin Sconzert, an assistant professor of education at Loyola University Chicago, is searching for a tenure-track position this year.
The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colorado
October 6, 2002
Headline: Senate rivals pay little attention to economy
Byline: Ed Sealover
Excerpt: While the economy hangs over every citizen's head like a
dark cloud waiting to burst, the focus of the Senate race often
seems to shift away from it. The candidates hammer each other on
the environment, their links to big corporations and, most recently,
funding for food inspections. Although it may seem Democrats could
gain votes by blaming the recession on President Bush, they are
fearful of hurting other incumbents in their party who also could
be tied to the nation's problems, said Christian Grose, an assistant
professor of government at Lawrence University in Appleton,
Wis. The other thing that has been noticeably absent from the economic
discussions is the vicious attacks on each other the men made at
each other on most other issues. Allard rebuts Strickland's assertion
that upper-class tax breaks aren't needed but doesn't really take aim
at any other aspects of his economic policy. Strickland, when asked if
Allard is to blame for the economic downfall, said only just that he
thinks stronger leadership is needed for Colorado. Grose, the Wisconsin
assistant professor following several national races, said neither party
has a lot to gain from overt bashing on the economy. Parties that have
controlled both chambers of Congress have been hurt in past elections
because voters associate them with downturns, he said. But with
Democrats controlling the Senate and Republicans running the House,
no culprit sticks out this time. What Grose sees more often is Democrats
going after Republicans for things such as supporting partial
privatization of Social Security, couching the criticism in subtle
economic terms. Strickland has used that tactic. Voters, therefore,
shouldn't expect calls for job creation or economic turnaround from
candidates in Colorado or elsewhere in the nation, Grose said. That
doesn't mean subtle, nuanced ideas and attacks won't play a big role
in determining which man leaves for Washington, D.C., in January.
"I still think the economy will play a pretty big part in the decision,"
he said. "People who study politics demonstrate over and over that the
economy is still very big in someone's decisions."
Beliefnet.com
October 2, 2002
Headline: Superstitions 'R' Us. A historian explains that they're
a human response to living in a disorderly universe
Byline: Wendy Schuman
Excerpt: Dr. Edmund Kern is an Associate Professor of History at Lawrence
University in Appleton, Wisconsin, specializing in European
religious culture and witchcraft trials. He is currently finishing
a book on the witch trials of Styria, 1546-1746, and is working on
a book about morality in the "Harry Potter" series. He spoke with
Beliefnet producer Wendy Schuman on the intersection of
superstition and religion.
Schuman: Are superstitions found in every culture?
Kern: I do think that superstitions are a universal or a near-universal phenomenon. However, ultimately superstition is in the eye of the beholder. In some cultures around the world we find practices we would label superstitious, but those practices would not be understood as such in those cultures. The notion of superstition is dependent on certain understandings of rationality.
Schuman: So if you make a certain gesture to make something happen, you don't call it superstition--you call it religion?
Kern: Yes, or something else: ritual. Superstitions are in a sense all ritual activities.
Schuman: Have you come across any common characteristics of superstitions?
Kern: There are five categories or types of superstitions that I've come up with. You might find other historians or folklorists dividing things differently. The most common [form] is ritualized custom or habit. For example, people who throw a pinch of salt over their left shoulder when they spill salt are probably doing that because of their upbringing rather than any conscious decision on their part. They became familiar with it because their parents did it, or their grandparents, so they formed habitual actions that are in origin superstitious even if they don't perceive them that way. Another quite common form is the observance of taboos or omens, a whole host of do's and don'ts which have to be followed, or a series of signs that might portend something of importance.
Kern: Another form that superstitions can take is the observance of sympathetic powers, the idea that certain times or certain objects or certain elements found within nature have with in them a kind of power. And if you use the object or observe the times, you can take advantage of that power inherent in the object.
Schuman: Is that the kind of ritual Tom and Huck were engaged in? When the moon was full they were swinging a dead cat around...
Kern: Yes, exactly. By the way, I think the concept of sympathetic powers is one of the explanations for why people are so superstitious around cats. I think that cats remind us of our own humanity and our own animality. We recognize the intelligence of a predator and that reminds us of ourselves and our origins in the animal world. Cats can at times appea