South Dakota Summer Surprise Among Highlights of Lawrence's Class of 2005

APPLETON, WIS. -- What are the odds?

That's the question South Dakota's Bryana Henderson has asked herself frequently the past month or so. Not only had she serendipitously bumped into a long lost friend, she discovered they'll soon have an opportunity to revive their dormant friendship -- as freshmen this fall at Lawrence University.

Growing up in the tiny town of Beresford, Henderson and Justine Reimnitz entered kindergarten together, forging a fast friendship through six more years as classmates at the local elementary school. But the dynamics of their friendship changed dramatically in the summer of 1995 when Henderson moved 30 miles up I-29 to Sioux Falls. They never saw or spoke to each other again. Until this summer.

"I really didn't keep in contact with anyone after I moved. Those were the days before email," said Henderson in explaining why the two had fallen out of touch with each other. "We weren't as technologically advanced at that time as we are now."

But a happenstance encounter in an exposition building at the Clay County Fair in Vermillion in late July not only reunited them, it produced the startling revelation that they'll soon be sharing similar addresses more than 400 miles from home.

"We were both kind of shocked when we saw each other the first time," said Henderson, who is leaning toward pursuing a degree in one of the natural sciences. "We both stood there with our mouths hanging open for a while."

"I recognized her right away," said Reimnitz, who moved from Beresford herself three years later, settling 25 miles south in Vermillion, upon spotting Henderson. "She always had these great curls and she still has them."

After their initial wave of reciprocating "oh-my-Gods" passed, the ubiquitous post-high school graduation question of "where are you going to college?" came up. Their match-game answers left both women stunned.

"I just couldn't believe it," said Henderson, who chose Lawrence over the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities from her final two choices of schools. "Lawrence is kind of a small school and it's so far away. What are the odds of that? We just couldn't believe it worked out that way."

"I kept saying, 'are you sure? Are we talking about the same Lawrence University?,'" said Reimnitz, who whittled Lawrence out of a stack of 30 colleges she was considering and is focusing on neuroscience as a major. "That was just too crazy. Out of all the liberal arts schools out there, we both picked the same one. When my mother found out, she said, 'I always thought you two were a lot alike.'"

While Reimnitz has already begun settling in at Lawrence -- she's a member of the women's tennis team and arrived earlier this month for the start of the season -- Henderson will arrive with the majority of the new students Sept. 20 to begin a week of new student orientation in anticipation of the first day of classes Sept. 26. Amidst the requisite orientation tasks of meeting her advisor, scoping out the best campus work-study jobs and finding the closest ATM, both say they'll add tracking down each other to their lengthy "to do" lists.

"I definitely want to hang out with her and talk more about 'the good old days,'" said Henderson, who was awarded a $10,000 Lawrence Trustee Scholarship for academic achievement, the highest honor given incoming students. "I'd really like to renew the friendship we had. Maybe we'll wind up in some classes together."

"When we saw each other at the fair, there was a sense of a new beginning," said Reimnitz, herself a $5,000 Alumni Scholarship recipient. "We both knew there was a chance to pick up where we had left off. Hopefully we can be good friends again."

Henderson and Reimnitz are among 364 new students -- 328 freshmen and 36 transfers -- Lawrence is welcoming to campus this fall. And just like a year ago, this year's new students were selected from the largest pool of applicants in Lawrence's history. Student applications reached a record 1,629 this year, a 37% jump from five years ago.

Continued favorable recognition by publications that compile national college rankings and the recent completion of improvements to Lawrence's academic facilities were cited by Steve Syverson, dean of admission and financial aid, as reasons for the increased interest in Lawrence.

"Certainly the fact that Lawrence has been included among the top tier of national liberal arts colleges by U.S. News & World Report three consecutive years and four of the last five and has been named one of the nation's best values eight years in a row has been a positive development for us. Most college administrators, myself included, tend to view these rankings cautiously, but there's no denying the fact students and their parents look to these rankings for affirmation of the quality of colleges they are considering.

"This summer Lawrence also completed a 12-year-long commitment to constructing and upgrading all of our major academic buildings," Syverson added. "Those improvements have been an attractive draw to prospective students as well, particularly those interested in the social and natural sciences."

In the past four years, Lawrence has opened the four-story, 55,400-square foot Lucia R. Briggs Hall of Mathematics and Social Sciences and the three-story, 78,000-square foot Science Hall dedicated to the molecular sciences. This fall, Youngchild Hall, home of the physics, geology and parts of the biology departments, will reopen after undergoing a year-long, $10 million renovation.

The larger applicant pool has enabled Lawrence to continue to enhance its selectivity when choosing its incoming classes. Of those applying this year, only two-thirds of them were offered admission, down from an 80% admit rate just two years ago.

"While we're grateful that the number of our applicants have increased, our goal is not to become substantially larger," said Syverson. "We want to continue shaping the incoming class with the brightest, most talented and most interesting students possible."

The profile of this year's new students maintains Lawrence's long-standing tradition of academic excellence. Collectively they boast an impressive 3.67 grade point average and 43% of them ranked in the top 10% of their graduating class. Ten percent of the incoming students graduated as valedictorians and one out of every nine freshmen was cited by the National Merit Scholarship competition.

Upholding its typical cosmopolitan nature, this year's new students hail from 32 states and 20 foreign countries, among them Nepal, Morocco, Ghana and Russia.

In addition to the new students, Lawrence also welcomes 22 new faculty members, including 10 tenure-track appointments. Charles Ahlgren, a former senior foreign service officer in the U.S. State Department, holds Lawrence's Stephen Edward Scarff Visiting Memorial Professionship for the coming academic year. The history of the Russian Empire, contemporary Spanish literature and environmental economics are among the scholarly and research interests of the new faculty members.