President Warch Ushers in Lawrence University's 155th Year with Traditional Matriculation Address

APPLETON, WIS. -- Lawrence University President Richard Warch officially opens the college's 155th academic year -- and his 23rd as president -- Thursday, Sept. 27 with his annual matriculation convocation. Classes begin Wednesday, Sept. 26.

Warch presents "The Better Angels of Our Nature" at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

The second-longest serving president in the college's history, Warch became Lawrence's 14th president on September 1, 1979. Prior to that, he spent two years as vice president for academic affairs and professor of history at Lawrence. From 1968 to 1977, Warch was a member of the Yale University faculty in the history and American studies departments and spent his final year there as associate dean.

In June, 1999, Warch was named to the Executive Committee of the Annapolis Group, an association of more than 100 of America's leading liberal arts colleges. In the 1987 study, "The Effective College President," a two-year project funded by the Exxon Education Foundation, Warch was named one of the nation's top 100 college presidents.

A native of Hackensack, N.J., Warch earned his bachelor of arts degree from Williams College in 1961, his bachelor of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School in 1964 and his Ph.D. in American studies from Yale University in 1968.

He is the author of the book "School of the Prophets: Yale College, 1710-1740", co-edited "John Brown" in the Prentice-Hall Great Lives Observed Series and has addressed a wide variety of issues facing higher education in numerous published articles, reviews and commentaries.