Lawrence Today magazine, Spring 2002
In most people's memories, the year 1968 carries some very heavy baggage: the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, civic disorder and civil disobedience, racial unrest, war, and resistance to war.
The people who graduated from Lawrence University in 1968 remember all these things, but they also remember their college years as a time of idealism, altruism, and concern for social and political issues. They remember being part of a student generation motivated by the conviction that people of good will, armed with knowledge, understanding, and tolerance, could bring about positive change.
During their 25th-anniversary reunion in 1993, in remembrance of the lifelong impact of their experiences at Lawrence, members of the class established the Class of 1968 Peace and Social Activism Fund, which supports individual or collaborative projects by students and faculty that address topics such as the prevention of conflict, non-aggression, race, gender, ethnic identity, religious tolerance, and the environment. One of the requirements for projects receiving assistance is that they include a presentation to the campus community.
"Although it is not a requirement," says J. Terrence Franke, '68, "we hope that the project will also include some presentation to the local community, as a way of lowering barriers between town and gown." Franke, currently a Lawrence trustee, was one of 15 class members who offered classmates a dollar-for-dollar matching challenge to encourage gifts to the 25th-Reunion class gift.
In the academic year 2000-01, the Fund awarded three grants:
Cameron Kramlich, '02, arranged to bring to campus William Wresch, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and author of A Teacher's Guide to the Information Highway, for a lecture on the gap between the technological haves and have nots and the failure of new technologies to benefit the poor.
Sarah Garding, '03, organized a lecture by human rights activist Anuradha Mittal, co-director of Food First, The Institute for Food and Development Policy, speaking on the issue of food as a basic human right and how globalization perpetuates poverty and hunger by exploiting the cheap labor of women and girls.
Yasmine Rainford, '04, designed a curriculum and taught a course for at-risk youth in her hometown of Kingston, Jamaica. Called "The Peace Project," her program included conflict-resolution workshops and discussion groups conducted by a cadre of Lawrence students who accompanied her to Jamaica in the summer of 2001. The need for the program is demonstrated by the fact that Rainford recalls hearing gunfire nearby while teaching the class.
"It is very satisfying," Franke says, "to be able to assist people who can make a difference. We are pleased with the contributions made by the student and faculty recipients so far."
Proposals, due early in the Winter Term each year, are reviewed by a committee comprised of six members of the Class of 1968. Typically, grants awarded in one year total around $1,500. The total endowment of the fund now stands at around $30,000; only the interest from that amount is expended each year.
The program is an on-going source of pride to the donors who support it, says Jacob Stockinger, '68, class secretary, noting that "the fund is open to anyone, not just members of the Class of 1968, who takes these causes to heart and wishes to donate."
Stockinger, culture editor of The Capital Times in Madison, was a founder of the program, along with Appleton physician Charles McKee, '68, who serves as university physician at Lawrence.
In addition to perpetuating some of the best parts of the spirit of the 1960s, Stockinger says, the program "builds bridges across the so-called Generation Gap: bridges between students and alumni, bridges between college and community, and even bridges to Jamaica."