Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 414/832-6590
For Immediate Release						April 9, 1997

Making History:  Two Lawrence Students Awarded $180,000 in Scholarships 
 

	APPLETON, WIS. Ñ Neither senior Charlie Holst nor junior Cassie Dunham
are history majors at Lawrence University, but both made history this spring by
earning prestigious post-graduate scholarships.

	Holst was awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral 
Fellowship in Biological Sciences while Dunham was selected as a Truman
Scholar, becoming the first students in Lawrence history to receive either of
the national prizes.

	A biology major from Monument, Colo., Holst was one of 80 students in
the country awarded a Hughes Fellowship, which provides $30,000 of
post-graduate support for three years, with the possibility of two additional
years for a total award of $150,000.  He plans to purse a doctoral degree in
molecular biology at either the University of California at Berkeley or UC-San
Francisco.  

	"It gave me a great sense of accomplishment," said Holst, who wrote a
research proposal on the way mutations are induced in the DNA of microscopic
worms as part of his application.  "It's a nice reward for a lot of hard work
at Lawrence.  It's certainly going to help make attending graduate school a
little easier."    

	Beth DeStasio, assistant professor of biology and Holst's academic
adviser, said he possessed "incredible intellect."

	"He's very deserving of the fellowship," said De Stasio.  "He's able to
think through research problems, notice things that are different and then
follow through on those differences.  As a scientist, he can go as far as he
wants to." 

	Dunham, a Spanish major from Ames, Iowa, was one of 69 national winners
of the $30,000 Truman Scholarship, selected from among 717 candidates nominated
by 369 colleges and universities.  She was the only student from a Wisconsin
college and one of only 10 students from a liberal arts college named a Truman
Scholar.  The majority of the recipients were from Ivy League institutions or
large research universities.  

	The scholarship provides $3,000 for Dunham's senior year at Lawrence
and $27,000 for two or three years of graduate study.  She intends to pursue a
career in research education, focusing on gender equity education issues.

	"I'm interested in making education serve all students equally well and
provide equal outcomes for all students," said Dunham, who plans on getting
some first-hand classroom experience as a teacher for several years before
attending graduate school.	

	Dunham will participate in a week-long leadership development program
at William Jewel College in Missouri at the end of May and will receive her
award in a special ceremony at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence,
Mo., on June 1.  

	Established in 1975 as a federal memorial to the nation's 33rd
president, the Truman Scholarship Foundation selects scholars on the basis of
leadership potential, intellectual ability and the likelihood of "making a
difference."