An informal gathering of remembrance will be held Monday, Dec. 16, at 5:30 p.m. in Barnes Hall. A memorial service is being planned for the spring.
When Lawler joined the Cornell faculty in 1965, dance classes were offered through Physical Education or as a club activity. Lawler restructured Cornell's dance offerings into a program of study, offering courses such as dance composition, dance improvisation, dance history and physical analysis of movement, and in doing so convinced others that dance needed to be offered as an academic subject by the Department of Theatre Arts. Dance became a major at Cornell in the early '70s.
"Through her tireless work and her commitment to the art of dance, Peggy was able to gain a great deal of respect for her belief that dance was a serious discipline," said Joyce Morgenroth, associate professor and Dance Program coordinator, who studied under Lawler at Cornell and joined the faculty in 1977.
Lawler was a devoted teacher and friend to her students. It was not unheard of for her to take students to New York City for a dance performance in the evening and drive through the night back to Cornell in time for morning classes. She also created opportunities for her students to perform away from campus in nearby states. She received recognition for her pedagogy in 1970 by being awarded a Clark Distinguished Teaching Award.
In 1981 Lawler took her "Solo Cycle" of dances on a barnstorming tour of the United States, playing small rural towns and hamlets, often introducing professional dance to her audiences. Outside of her Cornell commitments, Lawler found time in 1972 to establish the Ithaca Dancemakers, a local dance company, for which she also served as choreographer, dancer and teacher. Among her credits is the choreography of Cornell Professor Emeritus Karel Husa's Trojan Women.
Lawler also taught dance at San Jose State University, from 1958 to 1964, and taught two semesters of dance at Deep Springs College.
Prior to joining Cornell, Lawler spent more than 15 years dancing professionally; during some of that time she toured the United States with Harriette Ann Gray's dance company.
Contributions in Lawler's memory may be made to Cornell and sent to the Peggy Lawler Fund for Dance, Center for Theatre Arts, 430 College Avenue, Ithaca, NY 14850.
John George Matthysse, 78, Cornell professor emeritus of entomology, well
known for his research on controlling pests of
livestock, died in Kirkland, Wash., on Nov. 8.
His earlier studies were on insects affecting woody ornamentals, but by the 1950s Matthysse had turned his interest toward livestock.
After receiving his bachelor's degree from Iowa State University in 1940, Matthysse went on to earn his doctorate from Cornell in 1943. Cornell's entomology department hired him as an assistant professor in 1947 and he later became an associate professor and then a full professor. He retired in 1974 and became a professor emeritus.
Prior to joining Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Matthysse worked as a researcher for two insecticide companies.
His studies carried him not only around New York state, but around the world researching how to control livestock pests. In 1952 Matthysse went to northern Rhodesia, where he focused on researching ways to control ticks and tick-borne diseases of livestock. He also had an appointment with the University of the Philippines, where he advised the entomology department on research and teaching methods.
Matthysse worked with the United Fruit Company in Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama on insect problems of banana plantations. During the 1960s, he was a member of a U.S. Department of Agriculture and a U.S. AID (Agency for International Development) team that explored tick-borne diseases of livestock in Africa.
Among his many published journal articles, Matthysse wrote a book with Murray H. Colbo, The Ixodid Ticks of Uganda, published in 1987, by the Entomological Society of America.
He is predeceased by his wife, Elizabeth, and by his daughter, Kathryn; he is survived by his sons, Michael and John, and six grandchildren.