Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release                                           
August 29, 2000

Lawrence University Welcomes Award-winning Author, Nationally-Acclaimed
Physicist, Philosopher and Sociologist for 2000-2001 Convocation Series  


     APPLETON, WIS. -- Breaking the strangle hold of poverty, the
importance of moral philosophy and one of the newest theories on what
the universe is really made of will be among the eclectic topics
discussed during Lawrence University's 2000-2001 convocation series.  
     Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish author Frank McCourt joins
best-selling Harvard physicist Brian Greene, nationally acclaimed
philosopher Martha Nussbaum and influential sociologist William Julius
Wilson as speakers in the upcoming series.
     Lawrence President Richard Warch opens this year's series Thursday,
Sept. 28 at 11:10 a.m. with his annual matriculation address.  All
convocations are held in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel at 11:10 a.m. and
are free and open to the public.
     McCourt, whose best-selling memoir, "Angela's Ashes," earned him a
Pulitzer Prize in 1997, visits the campus Thursday, Oct. 26.  Born in
Brooklyn, but raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland, McCourt returned
to the U.S. at the age of 19.  He spent 45 years as an English teacher
in New York City before chronicling his life growing up amidst abject
poverty and abandonment.  After its release in 1996, the critically
acclaimed memoir of McCourt's youth became an international hit,
spending 52 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list.  "Tis: A
Memoir," McCourt's sequel to "Angela's Ashes," was released in 1999.    
     Greene, who will speak on Jan. 11, 2001, is a leading proponent of
the hot, but equally controversial, idea known as the "superstring
theory," which says the universe is made up of tiny vibrating strings.
A professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, Greene
received national attention for his 1999 book, "The Elegant Universe:
Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory."
In his book, Greene tries to reconcile the mutually exclusive theories
of quantum mechanics and general relativity.  "The Elegant Universe"
became a surprise best seller, earning Greene accolades for his ability
to explain extremely arcane material in a manner accessible to lay
readers.
     Nussbaum, hailed by The New York Times as "America's most prominent
woman philosopher," comes to Lawrence on April 19, 2001.  The Ernst
Freund Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago,
Nussbaum has also been a member of the faculty at Harvard and Oxford
universities.  As a scholar, she has made significant contributions to
such diverse fields as contemporary feminism and international
development and believes philosophers should serve public roles as
"lawyers for humanity."  She is the author of numerous books, among them
1999's "Sex and Social Justice" and "Cultivating Humanity: A Classical
Defense of Reform in Liberal Education," published in 1997.  
     Wilson, named one of America's "25 most influential people" by Time
magazine in 1996, will address the community on May 22, 2001.  After a
distinguished 24-year career at the University of Chicago, Wilson joined
the faculty at Harvard in 1996, where he holds the rank of University
Professor, one of only 17 faculty members currently accorded Harvard's
highest professional distinction.  He has championed the fight of "new
urban poverty," arguing in three books and numerous other publications
that class and economics are more important factors than race in the
plight of the black urban poor.  His 1978 book, "The Declining
Significance of Race" was honored for excellence by the American
Sociological Association and "When Work Disappears: The World of the New
Urban Poor," was named one of 1996's most notable books by the editors
of the New York Times Book Review.