Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release		        November 12, 1998


Experience Lawrence:  Workshop Exposes Native American Students to Science

     APPLETON, WIS. -- In an effort to excite and energize one of the
country's most overlooked minorities on career opportunities as scientists,
Lawrence University is conducting a biology immersion weekend Nov. 20-21 for
15 Native American high school students.
     With the support of a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical
Undergraduate Education Incentive, Lawrence is initiating "Experience
Lawrence: Biology" a two-day on-campus program designed exclusively for
11th- and 12th-grade Native American students.
     "The goal of the program is to give these students an opportunity to
experience biology from a college perspective and expose them, at least in a
small way, to what a career in the sciences, and biology in particular,
could be all about," said Nancy Wall, assistant professor of biology, who's
directing the curriculum aspects of the workshop.
     The students will arrive Friday afternoon and stay overnight on campus
with a current Lawrence biology major.  On Saturday, the students will focus
on topics related to the field of  developmental biology through a
smorgasbord of instruction ÑÊlecture, group discussion, laboratory work with
live frog and chick embryos and computer modeling.
     Currently one of the premier areas of biomedical research,
developmental biology deals with the study of how single-cell, fertilized
eggs becomes adult organisms.  During the workshop, the students will
confront such questions as when does an embryo develop a brain, a heart or a
face?; how does caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol affect embryonic
development?; or what can animal embryos tell us about human development?	
     "As a group, Native Americans are very underrepresented in the
scientific community," Wall said. "There is growing sentiment that we would
all benefit from a greater presence of Native Americans in the sciences as a
result of the different perspective they bring.  Because of their rich
cultural heritage, they provide different ways to approach questions and a
different way of determining which questions are important. It is
incredibly important to have people with diverse perspectives involved in
the discourse that guides the direction of scientific inquiry.
     "ThereÕs been an emphasis on minority programs for African Americans,
Hispanics and Asian Americans, but Native Americans often have been
overlooked.  We're fortunate to be in a position to help correct that
oversight and to establish a program that would be unique to colleges in
this area."
     Participating in the "Experience Lawrence" program are students from
Oneida Nations High School, Green Bay West High School, Milwaukee School of
the Arts, Milwaukee Tech and Riverside University, Juneau and Pulaski high
schools in Milwaukee.  The program will be held twice each year -- fall and
spring -- with the topics of studying changing for each workshop.