February 2007

On Campus

Leading Women Share Their Voices

Presentations by three award-winning women—an author, a ­composer, and an artist—highlighted the “Women Speak: Listening to Women’s Voices Within and Beyond the Academic Disciplines” symposium held in the Fine Arts Center in August.

The women’s studies department and the Wisconsin Humanities Council sponsored the event. The featured speakers were: Laurie Halse Anderson, the author of Speak, a book for young adults that was named a National Book Award Finalist and the School Library Journal’s Best Book of the Year; Libby Larsen, one of the country’s most prolific and most-performed living composers, who has received numerous accolades, including a Grammy Award; and Mary Merkel-Hess, an artist who combines sculpture and basket weaving whose work has been on exhibit at the metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“We were very fortunate to have three such talented and critically acclaimed women artists on campus at once,” said Apryl Denny, English, who coordinated the event.

Pictured: Author Laurie Halse Anderson, right, did a meet and greet with symposium audience members in the Fine Arts Center. Pictured with her is Apryl Denny.