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66-564: Lawrence's first president, William Harkness Sampson, founded the school with Henry R. Colman , using $ 10,000 provided by philanthropist Amos Adams Lawrence , and matched by the Methodist church. Both founders were ordained Methodist ministers , but Lawrence was Episcopalian . The school was originally named Lawrence Institute of Wisconsin in its 1847 charter from the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature, but

132-524: A DJ booth.This tradition was skipped in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic . The Great Midwest Trivia Contest , claimed to be the longest-running college bowl trivia competition, is hosted by a group of Trivia Masters composed of current Lawrence students every January. Alumni and independent teams from around the world are also able to compete, with the contest broadcast previously over radio and currently on Twitch . During spring term, Lawrence hosts

198-400: A double degree possible. Lawrence offers a number of cooperative degree programs in areas such as engineering , health sciences and environmental studies . All students are required to take First-Year Studies during their first two trimesters, which introduces students to broad areas of study and provides a common academic experience for the college. Known as Freshman Studies until 2021,

264-465: A "sense of the whole pattern, of form and function as a unity", an "integral idea of structure and configuration". This has happened in painting (with cubism ), physics, poetry, communication and educational theory . According to Marshall McLuhan , this paradigm shift was due to the passage from an era shaped by mechanization , which brought sequentiality, to the era shaped by the instant speed of electricity, which brought simultaneity. An article in

330-579: A Bachelor of Musical Arts, primarily—but not exclusively—for students whose interest is in other than Western Classical Music; students take 3/4 of their classes in Music, and 1/4 in other subjects. Lawrence is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest , an academic consortium of 14 liberal arts colleges in the Midwest and Colorado that coordinates several off-campus study programs in

396-402: A commitment to interdisciplinary research will increase the risk of being denied tenure. Interdisciplinary programs may also fail if they are not given sufficient autonomy. For example, interdisciplinary faculty are usually recruited to a joint appointment , with responsibilities in both an interdisciplinary program (such as women's studies ) and a traditional discipline (such as history ). If

462-465: A crowd of cases, as seventeenth-century Leibniz's task to create a system of universal justice, which required linguistics, economics, management, ethics, law philosophy, politics, and even sinology. Interdisciplinary programs sometimes arise from a shared conviction that the traditional disciplines are unable or unwilling to address an important problem. For example, social science disciplines such as anthropology and sociology paid little attention to

528-588: A five-year double degree option that grants both a BM degree from the Conservatory and a BA degree from the College. Approximately 25% of the Lawrence student body, or 350 students, is in the Conservatory. The Conservatory has three choirs, two bands, two jazz ensembles, a symphony orchestra, an improvisation collective, five world music ensembles, and numerous chamber music groups. The Conservatory offers also

594-726: A large number of countries as its primary activity. Lawrence University is also part of the Oberlin Group , a consortium of liberal arts college libraries. In the 2025 U.S. News & World Report college rankings, Lawrence University was ranked 69th (tied) of 211 liberal arts colleges nationwide. Lawrence was ranked 85th in the national liberal arts colleges and 12th in Pell Grant performance in Washington Monthly ' s rankings in 2024. Lawrence enrolls about 1,500 students. The total enrollment in academic year 2010–11

660-730: A music festival, LU-aroo (a play on words on the popular music festival Bonnaroo ). Held on the quad, the festival features many talented student bands, both from the college and the conservatory. In 2016, the musician The Tallest Man on Earth played at the festival. An on-campus bar , the Viking Room (VR), serves as a beloved campus lounge within the basement of the Memorial Hall classroom building. Professors and other senior university personnel frequently serve as guest bartenders , and "VR tokens" are commonly distributed during campus events or when bartering to exchange for drinks at

726-540: A research area deals with problems requiring analysis and synthesis across economic, social and environmental spheres; often an integration of multiple social and natural science disciplines. Interdisciplinary research is also key to the study of health sciences, for example in studying optimal solutions to diseases. Some institutions of higher education offer accredited degree programs in Interdisciplinary Studies. At another level, interdisciplinarity

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792-435: A single disciplinary perspective (for example, women's studies or medieval studies ). More rarely, and at a more advanced level, interdisciplinarity may itself become the focus of study, in a critique of institutionalized disciplines' ways of segmenting knowledge. In contrast, studies of interdisciplinarity raise to self-consciousness questions about how interdisciplinarity works, the nature and history of disciplinarity, and

858-551: A single program of instruction. Interdisciplinary theory takes interdisciplinary knowledge, research, or education as its main objects of study. In turn, interdisciplinary richness of any two instances of knowledge, research, or education can be ranked by weighing four variables: number of disciplines involved, the "distance" between them, the novelty of any particular combination, and their extent of integration. Interdisciplinary knowledge and research are important because: "The modern mind divides, specializes, thinks in categories:

924-488: A trustee of Lawrence University for 60 years. He became a minister in 1831. In 1840, he and his family moved to Wisconsin where he was a missionary among the Oneida tribe near Green Bay , and later near Fond du Lac . He was a Methodist minister and one of the first settlers of the area that would become known as Appleton. He was commissioned by Amos Adams Lawrence to establish a frontier school and raise funds to build

990-442: Is a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with all the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line." "It is the custom among those who are called 'practical' men to condemn any man capable of a wide survey as a visionary: no man is thought worthy of a voice in politics unless he ignores or does not know nine-tenths of

1056-529: Is best seen as bringing together distinctive components of two or more disciplines. In academic discourse, interdisciplinarity typically applies to four realms: knowledge, research, education, and theory. Interdisciplinary knowledge involves familiarity with components of two or more disciplines. Interdisciplinary research combines components of two or more disciplines in the search or creation of new knowledge, operations, or artistic expressions. Interdisciplinary education merges components of two or more disciplines in

1122-594: Is given back to the various disciplines involved. Therefore, both disciplinarians and interdisciplinarians may be seen in complementary relation to one another. Because most participants in interdisciplinary ventures were trained in traditional disciplines, they must learn to appreciate differences of perspectives and methods. For example, a discipline that places more emphasis on quantitative rigor may produce practitioners who are more scientific in their training than others; in turn, colleagues in "softer" disciplines who may associate quantitative approaches with difficulty grasp

1188-426: Is related to an interdiscipline or an interdisciplinary field, which is an organizational unit that crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought , as new needs and professions emerge. Large engineering teams are usually interdisciplinary, as a power station or mobile phone or other project requires the melding of several specialties. However, the term "interdisciplinary"

1254-607: Is seen as a remedy to the harmful effects of excessive specialization and isolation in information silos . On some views, however, interdisciplinarity is entirely indebted to those who specialize in one field of study—that is, without specialists, interdisciplinarians would have no information and no leading experts to consult. Others place the focus of interdisciplinarity on the need to transcend disciplines, viewing excessive specialization as problematic both epistemologically and politically. When interdisciplinary collaboration or research results in new solutions to problems, much information

1320-594: Is situated on the Fox River on the site of the former Hulburt House. The Warch Campus Center includes a cinema, campus dining services, campus mailboxes, and various meeting and event spaces. The building has earned a LEED certification. The student/faculty ratio at Lawrence is 9:1. The college offers majors in most of the liberal arts . The school also offers the option of interdisciplinary areas of study and allows students to design their own majors. Lawrence grants Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees, with

1386-544: Is sometimes called 'field philosophy'. Perhaps the most common complaint regarding interdisciplinary programs, by supporters and detractors alike, is the lack of synthesis—that is, students are provided with multiple disciplinary perspectives but are not given effective guidance in resolving the conflicts and achieving a coherent view of the subject. Others have argued that the very idea of synthesis or integration of disciplines presupposes questionable politico-epistemic commitments. Critics of interdisciplinary programs feel that

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1452-459: Is sometimes confined to academic settings. The term interdisciplinary is applied within education and training pedagogies to describe studies that use methods and insights of several established disciplines or traditional fields of study. Interdisciplinarity involves researchers, students, and teachers in the goals of connecting and integrating several academic schools of thought, professions, or technologies—along with their specific perspectives—in

1518-530: The Fox River . The academic campus is on the north shore of the river, and the major athletic facilities (including the 5,000-seat Banta Bowl) are on the southeast shore. Lawrence also has a 425-acre (1.7 km) northern estate called Björklunden (full name: Björklunden vid sjön), which serves as a site for retreats, seminars, concerts, and theatrical performances. It contains a chapel for weddings. Donald and Winifred Boynton of Highland Park, Illinois , donated

1584-710: The Minnesota Vikings . In 2022, the Vikings debuted a new mascot, an antelope named Blu. Henry R. Colman Henry R. Colman (October 9, 1800 – February 7, 1895) was a Wisconsin pioneer and co-founder of Lawrence University , in Appleton, Wisconsin . Rev. Henry Root Colman was born October 9, 1800, in Northampton, New York . He was the father of four children: Charles, born 1826, Henry, born 1834, Elihu , born 1841, and Julia . His son Henry served as

1650-553: The Social Science Journal attempts to provide a simple, common-sense, definition of interdisciplinarity, bypassing the difficulties of defining that concept and obviating the need for such related concepts as transdisciplinarity , pluridisciplinarity, and multidisciplinary: To begin with, a discipline can be conveniently defined as any comparatively self-contained and isolated domain of human experience which possesses its own community of experts. Interdisciplinarity

1716-671: The Vikings since 1926, compete in the Midwest Conference in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III . Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, fencing, football, golf, ice hockey, soccer, swimming & diving, tennis, and track & field; women's sports include basketball, cross country, fencing, golf, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field, and volleyball. In 2005–06,

1782-462: The periodic table of the elements . Readings are replaced every few years, with the exception of Plato 's Republic , which has been included on the list since 1945. The Lawrence University Conservatory of Music was founded in 1874 and has been a part of Lawrence University ever since. The Conservatory offers Bachelor of Music degrees in Performance, Theory/Composition, Music Education, and

1848-775: The Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (founded in 1979), two international organizations, the International Network of Inter- and Transdisciplinarity (founded in 2010) and the Philosophy of/as Interdisciplinarity Network (founded in 2009). The US's research institute devoted to the theory and practice of interdisciplinarity, the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity at the University of North Texas,

1914-823: The Boyer Commission to Carnegie's President Vartan Gregorian to Alan I. Leshner , CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science have advocated for interdisciplinary rather than disciplinary approaches to problem-solving in the 21st century. This has been echoed by federal funding agencies, particularly the National Institutes of Health under the direction of Elias Zerhouni , who has advocated that grant proposals be framed more as interdisciplinary collaborative projects than single-researcher, single-discipline ones. At

1980-458: The Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Appalachian State University , and George Mason University 's New Century College , have been cut back. Stuart Henry has seen this trend as part of the hegemony of the disciplines in their attempt to recolonize the experimental knowledge production of otherwise marginalized fields of inquiry. This is due to threat perceptions seemingly based on

2046-619: The Greek instinct was the opposite, to take the widest view, to see things as an organic whole [...]. The Olympic games were designed to test the arete of the whole man, not a merely specialized skill [...]. The great event was the pentathlon , if you won this, you were a man. Needless to say, the Marathon race was never heard of until modern times: the Greeks would have regarded it as a monstrosity." "Previously, men could be divided simply into

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2112-477: The Midwest Conference championships for the first time since 1985, beating Grinnell College and ending its 14-year winning streak. In 2021, Lawrence unveiled a new athletics logo, featuring a Viking ship incorporating the antelope from the crest on the Lawrence coat of arms . This replaced the longstanding previous Viking logo with variations utilized by many other organizations, notably including

2178-478: The adaptability needed in an increasingly interconnected world. For example, the subject of land use may appear differently when examined by different disciplines, for instance, biology , chemistry , economics , geography , and politics . Although "interdisciplinary" and "interdisciplinarity" are frequently viewed as twentieth century terms, the concept has historical antecedents, most notably Greek philosophy . Julie Thompson Klein attests that "the roots of

2244-500: The ambition is simply unrealistic, given the knowledge and intellectual maturity of all but the exceptional undergraduate; some defenders concede the difficulty, but insist that cultivating interdisciplinarity as a habit of mind, even at that level, is both possible and essential to the education of informed and engaged citizens and leaders capable of analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information from multiple sources in order to render reasoned decisions. While much has been written on

2310-408: The ascendancy of interdisciplinary studies against traditional academia. There are many examples of when a particular idea, almost in the same period, arises in different disciplines. One case is the shift from the approach of focusing on "specialized segments of attention" (adopting one particular perspective), to the idea of "instant sensory awareness of the whole", an attention to the "total field",

2376-551: The bar. Students of drinking age customize a numbered tankard that is stored in the VR and is reused by the individual each time they order a drink. Upon graduation, students take their mug with them as a reminder of the many great times spent in the VR. The student newspaper, The Lawrentian , has been published for over a century. Lawrence had a radio station, WLFM, from 1955 (broadcasting beginning in 1956) through 2005. Lawrence University's intercollegiate athletic teams, known as

2442-587: The beginning of every academic year in September, incoming freshmen arrive a week before returning students to partake in Welcome Week. During Welcome Week, various activities are planned in order to help the incoming class get to know one another and to help them acclimate to college life. During the first night of Welcome Week, students and their parents attend the President's Welcome, which concludes with

2508-558: The broader dimensions of a problem and lower rigor in theoretical and qualitative argumentation. An interdisciplinary program may not succeed if its members remain stuck in their disciplines (and in disciplinary attitudes). Those who lack experience in interdisciplinary collaborations may also not fully appreciate the intellectual contribution of colleagues from those disciplines. From the disciplinary perspective, however, much interdisciplinary work may be seen as "soft", lacking in rigor, or ideologically motivated; these beliefs place barriers in

2574-479: The career paths of those who choose interdisciplinary work. For example, interdisciplinary grant applications are often refereed by peer reviewers drawn from established disciplines ; interdisciplinary researchers may experience difficulty getting funding for their research. In addition, untenured researchers know that, when they seek promotion and tenure , it is likely that some of the evaluators will lack commitment to interdisciplinarity. They may fear that making

2640-578: The concepts lie in a number of ideas that resonate through modern discourse—the ideas of a unified science, general knowledge, synthesis and the integration of knowledge", while Giles Gunn says that Greek historians and dramatists took elements from other realms of knowledge (such as medicine or philosophy ) to further understand their own material. The building of Roman roads required men who understood surveying , material science , logistics and several other disciplines. Any broadminded humanist project involves interdisciplinarity, and history shows

2706-404: The disciplines, it becomes difficult to account for a given scholar or teacher's salary and time. During periods of budgetary contraction, the natural tendency to serve the primary constituency (i.e., students majoring in the traditional discipline) makes resources scarce for teaching and research comparatively far from the center of the discipline as traditionally understood. For these same reasons,

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2772-423: The future of knowledge in post-industrial society . Researchers at the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity have made the distinction between philosophy 'of' and 'as' interdisciplinarity, the former identifying a new, discrete area within philosophy that raises epistemological and metaphysical questions about the status of interdisciplinary thinking, with the latter pointing toward a philosophical practice that

2838-404: The introduction of new interdisciplinary programs is often resisted because it is perceived as a competition for diminishing funds. Due to these and other barriers, interdisciplinary research areas are strongly motivated to become disciplines themselves. If they succeed, they can establish their own research funding programs and make their own tenure and promotion decisions. In so doing, they lower

2904-410: The learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other. But your specialist cannot be brought in under either of these two categories. He is not learned, for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his specialty; but neither is he ignorant, because he is 'a scientist,' and 'knows' very well his own tiny portion of the universe. We shall have to say that he

2970-480: The list varying from year to year. President Nathan M. Pusey is credited with initiating the program in 1945, although Professor Waples chaired the Freshman Studies Committee and was responsible for implementing the program. The program continues to this day, despite being temporarily suspended in 1975. The 84-acre (34 ha) campus is located in downtown Appleton, divided into two parts by

3036-528: The men's basketball team was ranked first in Division III for much of the season, after starting the season unranked. The Vikings were the only undefeated team in all divisions of college basketball for the last six weeks of the season, ending with a record of 25–1. Star forward Chris Braier won the Josten's Award as the top player in the country for both playing ability and community service. Coach John Tharp

3102-540: The name was changed to Lawrence University before classes began in November 1849. Its oldest extant building, Main Hall , was built in 1853. Lawrence University was the second coeducational institution in the country. Lawrence's first period of major growth came during the thirty-year tenure (1894―1924) of alumnus Samuel G. Plantz as president, when the student body quadrupled, from 200 to 800. From 1913 until 1964, it

3168-491: The past two decades can be divided into "professional", "organizational", and "cultural" obstacles. An initial distinction should be made between interdisciplinary studies, which can be found spread across the academy today, and the study of interdisciplinarity, which involves a much smaller group of researchers. The former is instantiated in thousands of research centers across the US and the world. The latter has one US organization,

3234-687: The perspectives of two or more fields. The adjective interdisciplinary is most often used in educational circles when researchers from two or more disciplines pool their approaches and modify them so that they are better suited to the problem at hand, including the case of the team-taught course where students are required to understand a given subject in terms of multiple traditional disciplines. Interdisciplinary education fosters cognitive flexibility and prepares students to tackle complex, real-world problems by integrating knowledge from multiple fields. This approach emphasizes active learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, equipping students with

3300-486: The philosophy and promise of interdisciplinarity in academic programs and professional practice, social scientists are increasingly interrogating academic discourses on interdisciplinarity, as well as how interdisciplinarity actually works—and does not—in practice. Some have shown, for example, that some interdisciplinary enterprises that aim to serve society can produce deleterious outcomes for which no one can be held to account. Since 1998, there has been an ascendancy in

3366-423: The program was established in 1945, and aside from a brief interruption in the mid-1970s it has remained a consistent fixture of the school's liberal arts curriculum. Lawrence's First-Year Studies program focuses on a mixture of Great Books and more contemporary, influential works, which include non-fiction books, fiction books, and various other types of works, such as paintings, photographs, musical recordings, and

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3432-672: The property in Door County, Wisconsin to Lawrence in 1963. In the mid-1980s, the Physics Department built a $ 330,000 small laser laboratory which includes 800 5 mW small lasers and more than 500 mirrors. In 2009, Lawrence opened the Richard and Margot Warch Campus Center, a gathering place for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and guests from the Fox Cities community. The 107,000-square-foot (9,900 m) building

3498-490: The pursuit of a common task. The epidemiology of HIV/AIDS or global warming requires understanding of diverse disciplines to solve complex problems. Interdisciplinary may be applied where the subject is felt to have been neglected or even misrepresented in the traditional disciplinary structure of research institutions, for example, women's studies or ethnic area studies. Interdisciplinarity can likewise be applied to complex subjects that can only be understood by combining

3564-630: The recommendation of the Faculty of Lawrence and Downer Colleges" and the university by-laws still make the distinction. The traditions and heritage of Milwaukee-Downer are woven into the Appleton campus, from the grove of hawthorn trees (called Hawthornden) between Brokaw and Colman halls, to the sundial on the back of Main Hall , to the bestowing upon each class a class color and banner. The Lawrence Conservatory of Music, usually referred to as "the Con",

3630-678: The risk of entry. Examples of former interdisciplinary research areas that have become disciplines, many of them named for their parent disciplines, include neuroscience , cybernetics , biochemistry and biomedical engineering . These new fields are occasionally referred to as "interdisciplines". On the other hand, even though interdisciplinary activities are now a focus of attention for institutions promoting learning and teaching, as well as organizational and social entities concerned with education, they are practically facing complex barriers, serious challenges and criticism. The most important obstacles and challenges faced by interdisciplinary activities in

3696-533: The same time, many thriving longstanding bachelor's in interdisciplinary studies programs in existence for 30 or more years, have been closed down, in spite of healthy enrollment. Examples include Arizona International (formerly part of the University of Arizona ), the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University , and the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Wayne State University ; others such as

3762-569: The school that would be known as Lawrence University . He also assisted in writing the charter of the university and was one of the first trustees of the university. Colman died February 7, 1895, in Fond du Lac, aged 94. Interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, etc. It

3828-652: The social analysis of technology throughout most of the twentieth century. As a result, many social scientists with interests in technology have joined science, technology and society programs, which are typically staffed by scholars drawn from numerous disciplines. They may also arise from new research developments, such as nanotechnology , which cannot be addressed without combining the approaches of two or more disciplines. Examples include quantum information processing , an amalgamation of quantum physics and computer science , and bioinformatics , combining molecular biology with computer science. Sustainable development as

3894-439: The traditional discipline makes the tenure decisions, new interdisciplinary faculty will be hesitant to commit themselves fully to interdisciplinary work. Other barriers include the generally disciplinary orientation of most scholarly journals, leading to the perception, if not the fact, that interdisciplinary research is hard to publish. In addition, since traditional budgetary practices at most universities channel resources through

3960-420: The traditional matriculation handshake, where every member of the incoming class shakes hands and exchanges words with the university's president. During the fall term, the on-campus fraternity Beta Theta Pi hosts the annual Beach Bash. For this event, the brothers of ΒθΠ shovel approximately 14 tons of sand into the fraternity house basement, and install a boardwalk and a lifeguard station that doubles as

4026-478: The value of interdisciplinary research and teaching and a growth in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded at U.S. universities classified as multi- or interdisciplinary studies. The number of interdisciplinary bachelor's degrees awarded annually rose from 7,000 in 1973 to 30,000 a year by 2005 according to data from the National Center of Educational Statistics (NECS). In addition, educational leaders from

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4092-593: Was 1,566 students, the largest student body in Lawrence University's history. Over 75% of the students identify as white, about 12% are international students , and about 25% of students study in the conservatory of music. In the fall of 2014, a quarter of the incoming class were domestic students of color. Lawrence students have been named Rhodes Scholars seven times. Since 1976, 57 students and nine faculty have received Fulbright Scholarships . Since 1969, 73 students have been named Watson Fellows . At

4158-426: Was founded in 1874. Lawrence offers three degrees: a Bachelor of Arts , a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Musical Arts . It also offers a five-year dual degree program, where students can receive both B.A. and B.Mus. degrees. First-year Studies (formerly named Freshman Studies) at Lawrence is a mandatory two-term class, in which all students study the same selected 11 classic works of literature, art, and music,

4224-484: Was founded in 2008 but is closed as of 1 September 2014, the result of administrative decisions at the University of North Texas. An interdisciplinary study is an academic program or process seeking to synthesize broad perspectives , knowledge, skills, interconnections, and epistemology in an educational setting. Interdisciplinary programs may be founded in order to facilitate the study of subjects which have some coherence, but which cannot be adequately understood from

4290-594: Was named Lawrence College , to emphasize its small size and liberal arts education focus. The name returned to Lawrence University when it merged with Milwaukee-Downer College . The state of Wisconsin then purchased the Milwaukee-Downer property and buildings to expand the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee . Initially, the university designated two entities: Lawrence College for Men and Downer College for Women. This separation has not lasted in any material form, though degrees are still conferred "on

4356-555: Was named Division III Midwest Coach of the Year. Beginning in 2004 , Lawrence qualified for the Division III national tournament in five of the next six years (2004, 2005 , 2006 , 2008 , 2009 ). Their best result was in 2004, advancing to the quarterfinals (Elite 8), but fell to eventual national champion Wisconsin–Stevens Point by a point in overtime at Tacoma, Washington . In 2011, Lawrence's men's cross country team won

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