Prof. Michael Orr and Prof. Alan Parks have recently been granted promotions to full professors this year. Orr, who has been teaching in the Art History department here at Lawrence since 1989, specializes in art from the medieval period as well as illuminated manuscripts. His knowledge in Renaissance and Medieval art as well as art in religion warrants his listing as faculty expert in these areas. Since coming to Lawrence Orr has received two research grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as receiving the 1992 Lawrence’s Outstanding Young Teacher award. Orr attended University College in London for his undergraduate work and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.Parks, a professor of mathematics and computer science, has been teaching here at Lawrence since 1985. During his years here he has been involved not only with curricular activities but also with Lawrence Christian Fellowship. He is a member of the American Mathematical Society and is listed as faculty expert on finite group theory, probability and statistics, computers and mathematics education and many other topics. Parks also received Lawrence’s Outstanding Young Teacher’s award in 1987. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and while there received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.
As well as promoting Orr and Parks, the Board of Trustees also promoted four other professors to the rank of associate professor and granted them tenured appointments. Jerald Podair, who teaches history specializing in race relations and joined the faculty in 1998, was one of these professors. Early in his time here he was awarded the Allan Nevin prize by the Society of American Historians for his Ph.D. dissertation. Recently he published a book titled “The Strike That Changed New York”
Matthew Stoneking has been a recent topic of discussion because of his $37,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a new vacuum chamber plasma physics laboratory. He has been teaching here in the physics department since 1997.
Timothy Troy, who graduated from Lawrence in 1985 and returned here to teach in the theater department. He is actively involved in directing dramatic and musical productions here as well as being an artist in residence with the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.
Dirck Vorenkamp has been teaching Religious studies here since 1997. He specializes in east Asian religions especially Buddhism. He is widely published in journals and received the Lawrence University Freshman Studies Teaching Award in 2000.