Lawrence Today magazine, Spring 2004
1979
Richard Warch, vice president for academic affairs at Lawrence University,
becomes the college’s 14th president. A formal installation takes place
on November 29, with University of Chicago President Hanna Holborn Gray,
L.H.D. ’74, as the principal speaker.
The $1.4 million renovation of Main Hall is completed, and the building
is re-dedicated.
1980
The inaugural year of Björklunden Summer Seminars is
judged a success, with 48 participants ranging in age from 25 to 80 taking
part in week-long
seminars on topics ranging from Viking sagas to jazz in the ’70s.
1981
The Alumni Association creates local
clubs in nine areas: Milwaukee,
Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., New York,
Boston, and the Fox Valley.
1982
Commencement 1982 marks the beginning of a new Lawrence tradition. Instead
of a single main speaker, recipients of honorary degrees are each asked
to give brief “charges” to the graduates.
1986
The Buchanan Kiewit Recreation Center is dedicated.
1987
President Warch is elected to the board of directors of the National Association
of Independent Colleges and Universities and also is named one of the 100
most effective college
presidents in a study funded by the Exxon Education Foundation. His proposal
to eliminate
financial incentives associated with college athletics draws national media
attention. The Lawrence Ahead fund-raising campaign is declared
successfully concluded, exceeding its original five-year $35 million goal
by more than
$7 million.
1989
The faculty approves creation of a new academic department and major
in East Asian languages and cultures. The
new art center is dedicated to former president Henry Merritt Wriston and
his wife, Ruth Bigelow Wriston. Dedicatory ceremonies include unveiling
of the La Vera Pohl Collection of German Expressionist Art.
1990
McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor to Presidents Kennedy and
Johnson, is Lawrence’s first Stephen
Edward Scarff Memorial Visiting Professor. President Warch travels
to Prague to confer the honorary degree Doctor of Laws on President Václav
Havel of the Czech Republic. President George H. W. Bush names Lawrence
At-Risk Youth
(LARY) the 312th of his 1,000 points of light.
1991
The Ruth Harwood Shattuck Hall of Music is dedicated. The 40,000-square-foot
building connects the Music-Drama Center to Memorial Chapel.
1992
President Warch takes a one-term sabbatical, during which Professor
Mojmir Povolny serves as acting president.
1993
Takakazu Kuriyama, Japanese ambassador
to the United States, who attended Lawrence during the 1954-55 academic year,
receives the honorary
degree
Doctor of Laws during a special convocation. A fire seriously damages
the Björklunden lodge, central building
on Lawrence’s
northern campus in Door County.
1994
Professor Emeritus of History Charles Breunig’s book, A
Great and Good Work: A History of Lawrence University, 1847 to 1964, is
published.
1995
The first comprehensive showing of the Ottilia
Buerger [’38] Collection
of Ancient and Byzantine Coins is held. The collection, widely utilized
by faculty and students in art history,
classics, and other disciplines, comes to the college as a bequest
following Miss Buerger’s death in 2001. Opus
33, a 41-stop mechanical-action organ built by John Brombaugh
of Eugene, Oregon, is installed in Memorial Chapel.
1996
A new 17,000-square-foot main building is completed
at Björklunden,
replacing the lodge that was destroyed by fire in 1993. The summer
series of Björklunden Seminars resumes, and a new program of weekend
student seminars is inaugurated.
1997
The Class of 1997, 150 days before its graduation, sponsors
a campus-wide sesquicentennial gala, and Wisconsin Governor Tommy
G.
Thompson speaks
at a special convocation, declaring January 15, 1997, to be Lawrence
University Sesquicentennial Day. William
A. Chaney, the
George McKendree Steele Professor of History, becomes the longest-serving
full-time member of the Lawrence faculty,
having joined
its ranks in 1952. Lawrence 150: A Campaign for the New Century is
completed on schedule, after raising $6.3 million more than its $60 million
goal. Lucia R. Briggs Hall of Mathematics
and the Social Sciences, a $7.7
million, 55,400-square-foot academic building overlooking the Fox
River, is completed
in the sesquicentennial year.
1998
The Board of Trustees initiates “a broad review of residential life
at Lawrence,” to be carried out
by a task force of trustees, alumni, students, and faculty.
1999
President Warch is appointed to the executive committee of the Annapolis
Group, an association of 110 of America’s leading liberal arts colleges.
2000
The faculty approves new General Education Requirements, the
first major revision since 1985. Dedication ceremonies are held
in October for Science Hall, a 78,000-square-foot facility built on
the site of the former Stephenson Hall.
2001
Youngchild Hall
of Science, now linked to Science Hall by
a glass atrium, re-opens after a year-long total renovation. Alumnae
of Milwaukee-Downer College gather for a Sesquicentennial
Reunion Weekend that includes dedication of a Milwaukee-Downer
Room in the
Seeley G. Mudd Library.
2002
Tokyo’s Waseda University selects Lawrence as the site
of a new program that will bring Japanese students to the college
each year for a liberal arts experience. President Warch joins the presidents
and chancellors of 26 other Wisconsin public, private, and technical colleges
as a founding
member of the
newly formed Wisconsin Campus Compact.
2003
Upperclass students move into Hiett Hall, a new $15.5 million,
79,000-square-foot residence located south of Ormsby Hall
Sidebar: From disco to J. Lo