A sampling of media clippings about Lawrence University, its faculty, students, and alumni from Fall 2007 and Winter 2008. For more clippings, see the Lawrence in the News index page.
The Chicago Tribune
March 16, 2008
Headline: The cost of superstition
Beware the Ides of March? Rue Friday the 13th? New research suggests that superstition can cost the economy millions — or boost it
Byline: Lisa Anderson
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-superstition-web,1,2083889.story
Excerpt: A word of warning to those who believe in lucky numbers, auspicious colors and star-crossed dates: Beware. The Ides of March are upon us.
Despite vast advances in knowledge and technology over the last 2,000 years, it turns out people today aren't so different from the ancients when it comes to superstition and the way it affects decision-making and the economy, according to research.
But as superstition may affect economics, so too is the reverse true.
"One of my favorite examples is the use of salt to dissipate the bad luck of spilling salt," said Edmund Kern, a professor of history at Wisconsin's Lawrence University, referring to the practice of throwing salt over one's shoulder.
"This superstition emerges only in the 18th Century and becomes prominent in the 19th century as the price of salt drops dramatically. As salt moves from being a luxury good to a commodity," he said, "people seem more willing to waste additional salt in order to undo the negative effects of spilling it in the first place. So, I think that's a good example of a superstition having an economic basis."
The National Post (Canada)
Feb. 13, 2008
Headline: Are you too sexy for that job?
Being good to look at is never a bad thing
Byline: Sarah Treleaven
Link: http://www.nationalpost.com/loveandsex/story.html?id=296088
Excerpt: In some workplaces, a pair of tight pants or a cleavage-inducing shirt will help you get ahead, usually in the form of bigger tips and slightly creepier attention. But can using sex appeal work to your advantage in a conventional office environment?
Peter Glick, a professor of psychology at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, published a study on those stereotypes in 2005. Study participants were shown a videotape of a provocatively dressed woman, and were told that she was either a receptionist or senior manager. When told that she was a senior manager, she was perceived as less competent.
"There are some roles where the stereotype is that a woman should be a bit sexualized, like receptionists and flight attendants," says Mr. Glick. "The problem is that you're probably going to be typed in a way that's not going to be conducive to getting out of that lower status position."
Mr. Glick believes women continue to receive messages that place pre-eminence on their looks, even in a professional context.
"For women, the cultural pressure is to attract men and be sexy. But for men, what's sexy is being successful, having high status and having money," he says. "For men, what makes you professionally successful also makes you romantically successful."
And, in addition to his conclusions about stereotypes, Mr. Glick says sexiness can be perceived as manipulative.
"You combine sexual power with some kind of status at work and that's particularly threatening for men," he says. "It's like in 'Basic Instinct' with Sharon Stone."
The Improper (New York City-based Web magazine)
February 1, 2008
Headline: Sex Appeal in the Workplace
Can good looks really get you ahead?
Byline: Samantha Chang
Link: http://www.theimproper.com/Template_Article.aspx?IssueId=3&ArticleId=1207
Excerpt: We live in a superficial society and there’s no question that looks matter a lot, from the bedroom to the boardroom. But to what extent does appearance affect our professional success, and can you really use sex appeal to further your career, or will it just hurt you in the end?
The image you project plays a key role in how far you rise professionally. For women who are serious about climbing the corporate ladder, dressing provocatively is a definite no-no.
Dressing sexy for work is considered inappropriate for all female employees, according to a recent study by Peter Glick, a professor at Lawrence University. But women managers who wear sexy clothes to the office are seen as less intelligent and less competent, according to the report. On the other hand, women in low-level positions who dressed provocatively aren’t viewed as less intelligent or less competent (of course, this makes you wonder how intelligent or competent people thought they were to begin with).
Boston Globe
January 30, 2008
Headline: Bush countdown spawns merchandise
Byline: Joseph B. Frazier/Associated Press Writer
Link: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/30/bush_countdown_spawns_merchandise/
Excerpt: "Bush's Last Day" digital keychains count down the time until noon on Jan. 20, 2009. "Final Countdown" hot sauce features a cartoonish portrait of the outgoing president. "Bush Biskits" dog treats are marketed with an impolite "crunch crunch, he's gone."
The countdown to the end of President Bush's second term has spawned an industry of sorts, with companies offering an assortment of celebratory items, from hats and wine glasses to bumper stickers and license plates.
The marketplace of merchandise counting down the final days of an American president is a new phenomenon, say some historians and academics.
"It is absolutely unprecedented in American presidential history and can be explained by a number of factors," said Jerold Podair, who teaches American studies and history at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.
Podair attributes the emergence of such entrepreneurs to "the level of visceral animus against Bush personally" and the ease of advertising and marketing merchandise on the Internet.
(This article also appeared in USA Today, Washington Post, Denver Post, Kansas City Star, Seattle Times, San Jose Mercury News, Miami Herald, Madison Capital Times, ABCNews.com and FoxNews.com.)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
January 20, 2008
Headline: Hospitals, doctors set pace
Study attributes charges as reason for area's higher health care costs
Byline: Guy Boulton
Link: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=708850
Excerpt: Don't blame insurance companies for health care costs being higher in southeastern Wisconsin than other Midwestern metro markets. A recent study found that the administrative costs and profits of health maintenance organizations in the Milwaukee area were roughly in line with those of other metropolitan areas in the Midwest.
The study, done for the Greater Milwaukee Business Foundation on Health, instead found a simpler explanation for the area's higher costs: Hospitals and doctors charge more for their services.
The Greater Milwaukee Business Foundation on Health did the study because hospitals and doctors questioned whether health plans' profits were a factor in the Milwaukee area's high costs.
"There's no question," said Merton Finkler, an economics professor at Lawrence University who conducted the study.
HMOs in the metro Milwaukee area had the highest premiums and medical expenses out of 10 markets, including Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio, Chicago and Detroit, according to the study. The differences can't be attributed to demographics, Finkler said. Cincinnati and Milwaukee have similar demographics, for example, but Cincinnati had lower costs.
The prices charged for health care - not insurers' profits - largely account for the Milwaukee area's high costs, Finkler said. And the result is that businesses in metro Milwaukee are less competitive.
"The high cost of health care in Milwaukee is like an excise tax that doesn't exist in Cincinnati and Kansas City," he said.
Houston Chronicle
January 11, 2008
Headline: This time she has a Blonde ambition
Last-minute Norina in '06 returns to HGO for Seraglio
Byline: Charles Ward
Excerpt: Bring on the cheeky ladies. Soprano Heidi Stober loves 'em.
While still a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Stober opened many ears and eyes with her very-last-minute, second-night appearance as the independent-minded Norina in HGO's 2006 production of Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale.
Now she's back for another feisty role, Blonde, or Blondchen, in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Turkish" comedy Die Entführung aus dem Serail, or, The Abduction From the Seraglio, opening HGO's winter repertory on Friday at the Wortham Theater Center.
Stober, 29, first saw the production in 2002 in Boston, where the Wisconsin-born singer lives with her husband, Carl Kantner, a doctoral student in counseling psychology and religion. He's also a singer but doesn't perform.
They met at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and then went to Boston, where Stober attended the New England Conservatory of Music. After a year in the young artists' program at the Utah Symphony and Opera in Salt Lake City, she won HGO's Eleanor McCollum vocal competition and spent two years, from 2004 to 2006, in the HGO Studio.
"It was beyond my wildest dreams," she says. "Houston Grand Opera's studio program was on a huge pedestal in my world and mind. It was wonderfully pleasant."
Current Magazine (College edition of Newsweek)
December 19, 2007
Headline: How We Rage: This is Not Your Parents' Protest
Byline: St. John Barned-Smith
Link: http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/current/archive/2007/12/19/this-is-not-your-parents-protest.aspx
Excerpt: It’s not that we don’t appreciate the ’60s. We still listen to Bob Dylan, rock shaggy hairstyles and practice free love (though not exactly by that name). In fact, we absorb stories of our parents’ wilder years with a sort of envy because the ’60s were cool, and that—shudder at the thought—actually makes our parents pretty cool.
Students forty years ago stood up in the name of change and progress in obvious, “out there” ways. They lashed out with protests, riots and, of course, transformations into head-banded, bearded, drug-snorting scofflaws. In an age where political involvement was a rebellion against the button-down status quo, even seemingly superficial choices carried political connotations, says Jerald Podair, a professor of history and American studies at Lawrence University. When looking at the ’60s, he says, “the personal is political.” An action as simple as liking rock and roll was more than a reflection of music taste, Podair says; it was a “rejection of previous music and aesthetics.”
St. Paul Pioneer Press
December 17, 2007
Headline: Students question admission guidance
Byline: Paul Tosto
Link: http://www.twincities.com/ci_7739292
Excerpt: College officials across the country report parents and students are increasingly skeptical about what admissions folks say.
"I think it's really easy for colleges to say that we parents just don't understand their process when, in reality ... they're not giving everyone the same fair opportunity," said Nancy Richter, a Maplewood parent who believes her children's college options were hurt by their average grades in Advanced Placement courses in high school.
Schools may talk about "holistic" policies that aren't purely about numbers, but the reality is they're still interested in higher grade point averages and college entrance exam scores, she said.
Counselors say the process is complicated and varies based on a school's size, whether it is public or private and, of course, the student. The honest answer - and the one most maddening to parents and students - is that each case is a little different.
"There isn't one thing you can say that's true at all colleges," said Steve Syverson, vice president for enrollment at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and a nationally known voice on admissions. "Most schools will respond with reasonable candor to whatever questions you might pose to them."
Part of the problem is that too many families and students start asking these kinds of questions in the senior year of high school, he added, and that's too late.
Inside Higher Education
November 30, 2007
Headline: Assessment From the Faculty Point of View
Byline: Elia Powers
Link: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/30/assessment
Excerpt: When you’re at a higher education meeting these days and the topic is assessment, it’s a safe bet that the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education factors prominently in the discussion.
But at a session Thursday of the American Anthropological Association, there was nary a mention of the federal panel that framed the debate on learning outcomes and value added during its run last year. Instead, there was plenty of griping about the university power structure, much skepticism about the assessment process and a consensus that faculty must take ownership when evaluation takes place.
The anthropology professors who gathered for the session said it’s time for a change. Peter N. Peregrine, a professor of anthropology at Lawrence University, said assessment works best when faculty members are involved and it’s not a top-down mandate. They need to be the ones asking questions of themselves, each other and their own students. It could be about the utility of an assignment, he noted, or broader questions about a program. Either way, the assessment questions thought up by professors are almost always different from the ones asked by administrators.
“They tend to be more specific, personal and much less generalizable than administrative ones,” Peregrine said. And the fact that administrators are the ones who most often end up setting the agenda explains why assessment tends to follow a “rather halting pattern,” he added.
USA Today
November 28, 2007
Headline: Most user-friendly college websites for potential applicants
Byline: Mary Beth Marklein
Excerpt: Everybody likes lists, so here's another one: the top 10 college websites for prospective students.
We’ll dispense with the suspense now: The top site belongs to Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.
But the more interesting finding is that college websites don't seem to be keeping pace with the expectations of prospective students. In the nine years since The National Research Center for College & University Admissions in Lee's Summit, Mos., has conducted its Enrollment Power Index, the level of student satisfaction has been declining. This year, fewer than a third of the more than 3,000 colleges that were graded received A or B scores.
What kept students interested: Interactivity, including online schedulers for campus visits, online applications and the ability to track the status of an application. The survey found also that a small but growing number of institutions are adding text message reminders, student blogs and chats into their admissions procedures.
The Boston Globe
November 9, 2007
Headline: Trumped by the Gender Card
Byline: Ellen Goodman
Excerpt: CAN ANYBODY tell me what a gender card is anyway and where you buy one? After last week, I'm beginning to think that none of us is playing with a full deck.
Let me review the long, winding, XY-rated aftermath of the Oct. 30 debate in which most candidates focused their, um, attention on the front-runner. The Clinton folks had the gall to put up a video called "The Politics of Pile-On." For revealing the hitherto unknown fact that Hillary Clinton's opponents were all men, the campaign was accused of saying that the boys had ganged up on the girl.
It's now official. A woman can be accused of taking unfair tactical advantage of her disadvantage. Who made the rules of this game?
Peter Glick, a Lawrence University psychology professor, calls this the contemporary version of sexism, if we are still allowed to use that word. Men who would never say that women don't belong in the workplace will say, "Women want it both ways. They want to be treated like a man but they can't take it. They cry foul or discrimination."
The New York Times
November 1, 2007
Headline: The Feminine Critique
Byline: Lisa Belkin
Excerpt: DON’T get angry. But do take charge. Be nice. But not too nice. Speak up. But don’t seem like you talk too much. Never, ever dress sexy.
Writing about life and work means receiving a steady stream of research on how women in the workplace are viewed differently from men. These are academic and professional studies, not whimsical online polls, and each time I read one I feel deflated. What are women supposed to do with this information? Transform overnight? And if so, into what? How are we supposed to be assertive, but not, at the same time?
“Some of what we are learning is directly helpful, and tells women that they are acting in ways they might not even be aware of, and that is harming them and they can change,” said Peter Glick, a psychology professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.
He is the author of one such study, in which he showed respondents a video of a woman wearing a sexy low-cut blouse with a tight skirt or a skirt and blouse that were conservatively cut. The woman recited the same lines in both, and the viewer was either told she was a secretary or an executive. Being more provocatively dressed had no effect on the perceived competence of the secretary, but it lowered the perceived competence of the executive dramatically.
But Professor Glick also concedes that much of this data — like his 2000 study showing that women were penalized more than men when not perceived as being nice or having social skills — gives women absolutely no way to “fight back.”
“Most of what we learn shows that the problem is with the perception, not with the woman,” he said, “and that it is not the problem of an individual, it’s a problem of a corporation.”
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
October 1, 2007
Headline: Quiet U.S. Support for Democracy Bears Fruit in Sierra Leone
Byline: Claudena Skran
Excerpt: One of the main goals of U.S. foreign policy is to spread democracy worldwide. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. has used military force as a way to achieve this goal. These high-profile efforts absorb the attention of top policy-makers and the dollars of American taxpayers. Less well known is the influence of U.S. foreign aid programs in promoting democracy and free elections in states such as Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone is best known as the source of "blood diamonds" that fueled a bloody civil war. This small West African country was once a tropical paradise before conflict killed 75,000 and forced millions to flee their homes. After more than a decade of fighting, a U.N. peacekeeping mission finally stabilized the country and people began to rebuild.
I first went to Sierra Leone in October 2005 as a Fulbright Scholar, sponsored by the U.S. State Department, to study returning refugees. As a representative of the U.S., I was able to travel throughout the country visiting both remote villages and crowded urban areas. Everywhere I went, I saw evidence of the physical destruction of the war, including burnt homes and demolished schools. In talking with people, young and old, I quickly learned that they were frustrated with the slow pace of reconstruction.
Claudena Skran is associate professor of government and coordinator of the international studies program at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. She spent 2005-06 in Sierra Leone as a Fulbright Scholar studying post-conflict development. Her e-mail address is claudena.skran@lawrence.edu.
The Columbian, Vancouver, Washington
September 14, 2007
Headline:
Reasons abound to take in opener
Byline: James Bash
Excerpt: Impressive work by guest trumpeter John Daniel.
Daniel has the chops to play Haydn's virtuosic work. The music features double tonguing, a technique that has nothing to do with French kissing, but everything to do with articulating a series of notes really fast.
"The concerto also extensively uses the upper register of the trumpet," says Daniel, "but mostly the challenge is to play every note pretty enough to be worthy of the piece."
Daniel played this concerto on a recital tour last year that included Juilliard, Eastman, and Yale. He teaches trumpet at Lawrence University and holds degrees from the universities of Michigan, Iowa and Ball State. He has served as principal trumpet with the San Angelo Symphony Orchestra and Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra.
The New York Times
September 3, 2007
Headline: What a Curious Feeling! Making a Big Idea Small
Byline: Steve Smith
Excerpt: Chamber music could be described as the art of expressing big ideas in small packages. Occasionally it also denotes the necessity of conveying big pieces with limited means. That definition came to mind on Saturday night at Maverick Concerts, a long-running summer series housed in a handsome, rough-hewn wooden shed here, set among stately trees.
For his orchestra Mr. Platt made do with a string quartet and double bass, one apiece on flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet and French horn, pairs of percussionists and pianists, and a harmonium part played on synthesizer. The saxophonist Rob Scheps did the work of two in the folk group, which also featured impressive contributions from the accordionist William Schimmel. Patrice Michaels (associate professor of music at Lawrence University) provided a vivid account of the high-flying vocal part, secure in pitch and with careful delineation of multiple characters.