Lawrence
Today magazine, Summer 2007
A $2.5 million gift from a long-time benefactor of the college to establish an endowed professorship in environmental studies is the largest gift given toward an endowed professorship in Lawrence’s 160-year history.
Marcia Bjørnerud, professor of geology, will be the first holder of the new Walter Schober Professorship in Environmental Studies, effective July 1. Appointments to endowed professorships are made in recognition of academic distinction through teaching excellence and scholarly achievement.
“Professor Bjørnerud demonstrates passionate dedication equally to her scholarly discipline and to her students and their intellectual development,” said President Jill Beck in announcing the appointment. “The international relevance of her research in earth science is evident through the translation of her published work into several languages.”
Walter Schober’s motivation in establishing the professorship grew out of his concern for the future of the planet and the need to educate young people about the importance of environmental stewardship.
“Man cannot continue to exploit the finite resources of this Earth without affecting his own well-being and that of other species on this planet,” said Schober, a retired resident of Pentwater, Mich. “We must respect all forms of life or consider the probability of widespread extinctions.”
Schober, whose only connection to Lawrence is a niece, Amanda Schober ’01, first became interested in the college after a visit that left him impressed with the campus community.
“The type of undergraduate scholarship practiced at Lawrence is consistent with my concept of a great liberal arts school,” Schober says. “May it always be so!”
The donation for the endowed professorship is the third major gift Schober has made to Lawrence in the past six years. He gave $1.3 million in 2001 to renovate the first floor of Seeley G. Mudd Library and, two years later, donated $300,000 for a digital database for the library.
Bjørnerud, a structural geologist who studies mountain-building processes, joined the Lawrence faculty in 1995 after six years with the geology department at Miami University in Ohio. She has served as chair of the Lawrence geology department since 1998 and helped establish the college’s environmental studies program as a major in 2000, serving as its director through 2006.
Elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2003, she is the author of The Blue Planet: A Laboratory Manual in Earth System Science and Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth, which was published in 2005.
A storyteller’s history of the Earth and the toll human activity is exacting on the planet, Reading the Rocks draws upon field research on exposed rock complexes that Bjørnerud conducted in 2000 as a Fulbright Scholar on the island of Holsnøy in western Norway. The book has since been reprinted in French, Dutch, and Japanese, with a Chinese edition for Taiwan slated for publication later this year.
In collaboration with six students, she also recently produced “Building Stones of Downtown Appleton,” an illustrated guide to the geological and historical context of the rocks used in the construction of a dozen buildings.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in geophysics at the University of Minnesota, Bjørnerud earned master’s and doctorate degrees in geology at the University of Wisconsin.
