Contact: Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 414/832-6590 For Immediate Release September 10, 1996 Lawrence University Commemorates 150th Anniversary with Year-Long Celebration APPLETON, WIS. -- There still will be armfuls of books to read, research papers to write and final exams to cram for, but the 1996-97 school year promises more than its usual share of excitement for this year's Lawrence University students. After all, how often do 150th birthday parties come along? In honor of the historic milestone anniversary of its founding, Lawrence is planning a year-long celebration -- "150 years of making a difference"-- featuring special events, publications and programs to recall and commemorate its past, present and future role as one of America's leaders in undergraduate education. "Anniversaries, inevitably, are retrospective to a degree, harkening back to some starting point and reflecting on the conditions and circumstances of the intervening years," said Lawrence President Richard Warch, who begins his 18th year as the college's president this fall, the second-longest tenure among Lawrence's 14 presidents. "The Lawrence sesquicentennial will respect that feature of our 150th year. But our sesquicentennial also will provide opportunities for us to project Lawrence toward the new millennium and into its next 150 years." Before there was a state of Wisconsin, before there was a city of Appleton, there was Lawrence. On January 15, 1847, a year before statehood for Wisconsin and 10 years before Appleton was incorporated, the Wisconsin territorial assembly granted a charter to a new school to be known as Lawrence University. The Rev. William Sampson, with the backing of a $10,000 pledge from Boston merchant Amos Lawrence, paddled up the Fox River in a dugout canoe and selected a wooded bluff as the site for the new frontier school. Originally located where the Appleton YMCA stands today, Lawrence opened its doors in November, 1849 to 35 students, among them 13 Oneida Indians, who were taught by five teachers, and in the process, became one of the country's first coeducational institutions. Of the approximately 900 colleges founded in the United States prior to the Civil War, Lawrence is one of fewer than 200 still in existence. Based on its consolidation with Milwaukee-Downer College in 1964, Lawrence is arguably one of three surviving institutions: Lawrence (1847); Milwaukee Female College (1851); and Wisconsin Female College (1855), which became Downer College in 1889 and merged with Milwaukee Female College in 1895. "Our sesquicentennial is an opportunity to celebrate the college today, its purposes, its people and its programs," said Warch "and to lend voice and spirit to a memorable moment in the college's history." Beginning with the start of classes (Thursday, Sept. 26) and running through the college's annual Reunion Weekend next June, sesquicentennial-related activities are scheduled both on the Appleton campus and in the college's regional alumni clubs around the country. Highlights of the year's celebration include: * a plaque ceremony in October at the grave of Sampson, Lawrence's co-founder and first principal, who is buried in Appleton's Riverside cemetery * induction of 15 charter members into the new Lawrence Athletic Hall of Fame * a year-long list of distinguished guest speakers, among them poet Maya Angelou and composer Gunther Schuller * a coordinated volunteer effort among 13 Lawrence alumni clubs around the country in conjunction with a National Service Day in October * a series of art exhibits featuring works from Lawrence's permanent collection, works by Lawrence art faculty members and selections from alumni collections * a symposium on women's education next spring * an alumni "reunion" via the Internet from the Cyberspace Cafe in New York * tours by the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra and the Lawrence Jazz Trio 1847 -- WHAT ELSE WAS HAPPENING WHEN LAWRENCE WAS FOUNDED? * Abraham Lincoln takes his seat in the 30th Congress. * The U.S. is at war with Mexico. General Zachary Taylor defeats General Santa Anna in the Battle of Buena Vista. * John Deere builds a factory in Moline, Ill., to produce his self-polishing steel plow. * Nearly 15,000 Mormons, led by Brigham Young, arrive on the shore of the Great Salt Lake. * A recipe given to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., restauranteur James Smith results in the creation of Smith Brothers Cough Drops. * The first adhesive U.S. postage stamps are produced. Benjamin Franklin appears on the five-cent stamp, George Washington on the dime stamp. * Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero discovers nitroglycerin and ether is introduced as an anesthetic in surgery and obstetrics. * Paris jeweler Louis Cartier opens for business. John Labatt begins brewing beer in Canada. Englishmen John and Benjamin Cadbury start tempting sweet tooths everywhere with their candy. * Charlotte Bront writes "Jane Eyre." Her sister, Emily, writes "Wuthering Heights." Escaped slave Frederick Douglass begins publishing the abolitionist newspaper, "North Star." * Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Joseph Pulitzer and the James brothers, Frank and Jesse, are born.