Lawrence Today magazine, Spring 2006
Richard Amankwah, ’06, and Benjamin Glover, ’08, were among 20
students honored in December by Appleton’s African Heritage, Inc., with
scholarships recognizing their academic achievements and community service.
African Heritage, a nonprofit organization, promotes cross-cultural education
and understanding within the community.
One of Lawrence’s two student computer programming teams finished sixth
in the annual North Central Regional Intercollegiate Programming Competition.
The team of Kendrick Boyd, ’07, Amanda Burton, ’06, and Nitin
Tolani, ’06, successfully completed five out of nine problems in five hours, the best showing
ever by a Lawrence team.
Saxophonist Jesse Dochnahl, ’06, and pianist Jesse
Pieper, ’09, were co-winners of the 12th Annual Lawrence Symphony Orchestra concerto competition
and have each performed as soloists in LSO concerts this year. The concerto
competition was started in 1994 to give students the opportunity to perform
a full-length work with the orchestra.
LeRoy Frahm, electronics technician for the past 30 years in Youngchild Hall,
where he maintains, repairs, and calibrates scientific instruments, was recognized
for a distinguished 35-year career in the Air Force Reserve during an October
honor retirement ceremony in Milwaukee. Frahm was called to active duty for
Operation Iraqi Freedom in November 2003 and spent 14 months away from the
campus, including six months at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait.
Mark Frazier, assistant professor of government and Luce Assistant Professor
of East Asian Political Economy, has been named to the 2005-07 Public Intellectuals
Program of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. He is one
of 20 national China scholars selected for the program. Designed to nurture
a new generation of China specialists who have the interest and potential to
play significant roles as public intellectuals, the program looks to upgrade
the quality of American public understanding of China by strengthening links
among U.S. academics, policymakers, and opinion leaders.
With her fourth consecutive state title, Alisa Jordheim, ’08, was one
of seven Lawrence students who earned first-place honors at the 2005 Wisconsin
chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition
in November. Lawrentians dominated the annual state competition, winning seven
of 11 divisions with 21 students advancing to the finals. Patrick Ireland, ’05,
earned his third NATS title, winning the men’s upper college musical
theatre division, while Matthew Vitti, ’06, a 2003 NATS winner, won the
senior men’s division. Other first-place Lawrence finishers included
Lacey Benter, ’09, in the freshman women’s division; Alex
Tyink, ’09, in the freshman men’s division; Andrew
Lovato, ’08, in the sophomore
men’s division; and Rebecca Young, ’06, in the senior women’s
division.
Several compositions by Assistant Professor of Music Joanne Metcalf are featured
on the CD “Rihm, Metcalf, Moody, Sciarrino,” performed by the German
ensemble Singer Pur, which won the 2005 Echo-klassik Prize for best vocal ensemble
performance from the German Recording Academy. Metcalf’s work as a composer
has been widely recognized. She earned first-prize honors in 1993 from the
International League of Women Composers, was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship
for study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague that same year, and
earned the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland Heritage Association in 2000.
In October, the piano duo of Anthony Padilla, associate professor of music,
and Sooyeon Kwon-Padilla, lecturer in music, performed and answered questions
from more than 450
students at the Island Center for the Performing Arts in St. Croix, Virgin
Islands. The Padillas began performing as a piano duo in 1993 and, since 1997,
have been appearing regularly at the Bay View Music Festival in Michigan and
in concert series throughout the United States.
Robert M. Rosenberg, professor emeritus of chemistry, is the
author of an article titled “Why Is Ice Slippery?” in the December
2005 issue of Physics
Today magazine. Professor Rosenberg, who retired from the Lawrence faculty
in 1991, is a visiting scholar at Northwestern University.
Jodi Sedlock, assistant professor of biology, delivered the C.N. Divinagracia
Lecture on Biodiversity at Camarines Sur State Agricultural College in the
Philippines in August. Her talk, “Bat Diversity in an Agriculture Forest
Mosaic on Mt. Isarog,” reported on a study in which she and her students
collected and identified 24 species of bats, a study that Professor
Sedlock believes is far from over, as she expects to find yet more species in other
areas of the Mt. Isarog Natural Park.
Stephanie Smith, a student at the Lawrence Academy of Music, and Joe
Loehnis, ’06, placed second and third, respectively, at the Wisconsin Cello Society competition
in November. This year’s event, the Society’s first, featured 11
cellists from around the state, each of whom performed 15-20 minutes of music
of their own choosing.