uwm alumni magazine spring 2014

Magazine of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Spring 2014

Vol. 16, No. 1

Incentive grants fundNEW FRONTIERSNURS ING • AQUACULTURE • WATER RESEARCH • CHEMISTRY

1 From the Interim Chancellor

2 Quotable & Notable

4 New @ UWM

6 Satya shakes up the Twittersphere

8 Funding new frontiers UWM shares in more than half of UW System Incentive Grants

13 KIRC reaches a milestone

14 Museum Studies Program has national reach Alums can be found from coast to coast

20 Panthers’ success captivates campus, community “Work, work, don’t stop.”

22 Panther Athletics

23 Class notes

24 Wrong major, right choices

26 A parking story for the ages

28 Journeys end in lovers meeting

33 Directed to a life in art

35 Show your Panther Pride

36 New Panther cubs on the prowl

On the cover: UWM is one of four University of Wisconsin System nursing programs offering new fellowship and loan forgiveness programs to encourage nurses to pursue doctoral degrees or postdoctoral training. The Nurses for Wisconsin Initiative is focused on addressing the shortage of nursing faculty. It is one of four innovative programs being funded through UW System Economic Development Incentive Grants.

Pictured from left are Clinical Assistant Professor of Nursing Kim Williams-White, alumnae Sarah Fox and Kacey Koerten, and PhD candidate Blessing Lee.

Photography by Troye Fox

S P R I N G 2 01 4 VO L . 1 6 , N O. 1

Chancellor: Michael R. Lovell

Vice Chancellor for University Relations and Communications: Tom Luljak (’95)

Vice Chancellor for Development and Alumni Relations: Patricia Borger

Associate Vice Chancellor for Alumni Relations: Adrienne Bass

Assistant Vice Chancellor of Integrated Marketing & Communications: Laura Porfilio Glawe (’89)

Editor: Nancy A. Mack (’71) Associate Editor: Angela McManaman (’00, ’08) Assistant Editor: Laura L. Hunt

Design: Gina Johnson (‘04)

Photography: UWM Photo Services

UWM Alumni is published two times a year for alumni and other friends of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Send correspondence and address changes to: UWM Alumni Association P.O. Box 413 Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413

Phone: address changes 414-906-4667 all other inquiries 414-229-4290

ISSN: 1550-9583

Not printed at taxpayer expense

Alumni

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A L U M N I . U W M . E D U

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Table of CONTENTS

Newly appointed UWM Interim Chancellor Mark Mone addresses the campus community flanked by university and UW System leadership.

Moving Forward TogetherAfter spending 25 years in a wide

variety of roles at UWM, I thought maybe I’d seen it all. Then I was asked whether I’d be willing to serve as interim chancel-lor after Mike Lovell announced he was leaving – and quickly found out I hadn’t seen it all.

I’m honored and more than a little humbled to be selected for this role. One emotion I’m not feeling, however, is overwhelmed. One very large benefit of serving UWM for 25 years is that I’ve grown to appreciate the thousands of people who make this university operate successfully.

The leader of this university is supported by excellent vice chancellors, academic deans, division and department chairpersons, and the faculty, academic staff and classified staff. I know the chancellor also gets a great deal of input and support from students and alumni – and I look forward to those insights.

On the day I was to be announced as interim chancellor, I thought it important to offer people my perspective on the university, where it stands and what’s ahead. As I considered what to say, it became clear that UWM is today at a crossroads. Looking to our future, I decided I wanted to discuss a clear direction; a platform. There are four key thrusts of this platform, all falling under the title of Moving Forward Together.

First, we need to complete and implement our strategic plan. At its heart, we have the central objective of creating an engaged, top-tier research university. Our vision and mission call for this, and hundreds of people have worked diligently for the last two years on the academic plans and strategic elements that will move UWM forward. This is no time for the status quo, for that will actually move us backward.

Second, we must stabilize student enrollments and continue to enhance the quality of our educational experience. We exist for students: their education, their livelihoods and their futures. In turn, our budget and our ability to realize our vision and mission depend on tuition generated by substantial student enrollments.

Third, we must engage further our com-munities through research, education and service activities. UWM’s faculty research has global impact – and that is one large community! More locally, you can see the work of each of our schools and colleges as we engage in local, regional and broader endeavors. If we are going to make a

greater difference – to realize our mission of research and access – we will further embrace and focus in diverse areas to make a difference.

Finally, underlying these three areas is the need for us to work together to identify and obtain – creatively – new resources for these efforts. It’s also critical that I work toward base budget and general purpose revenue increases from the state for us to accomplish our objectives, because our future – and the future of Milwaukee and Wisconsin overall – depends so much on the future that we can create, particularly by working together.

It’s also important that we continue to press forward with Vision 20/20, our fundraising campaign, given that it is intended to support students, faculty and the knowledge creation we all value.

We will succeed in these four areas by Moving Forward Together. We have so many remarkable people doing so many impressive things every day: Thousands of faculty, staff and students working hard to educate, re-search and work with each other in powerful and important developmental ways.

All of these items, the strategic opportu-nities and the sobering challenges we face, require a unified front. I have asked faculty, staff and students to join me in collective ownership of our destiny, and I extend that request to you, too.

I look forward to getting to know you better as we engage in Moving Forward Together.

Mark A. MoneInterim Chancellor

Chancellor Lovell resigns to become Marquette president

Chancellor Michael R. Lovell on March 26 announced he was leaving the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to become the first lay president of Marquette University.

“My decision to step down as chancellor of UW-Milwaukee has been the most difficult one of my profession-al career,” he wrote in a message to faculty, staff and students on that day. He said some might find his announcement surprising; “Those closest to me, however, know how important my Catholic faith is in my life, and having the ability to integrate my religious life with my professional life is something that I always wanted to do in my career.”

In April, Lubar School of Business Professor Mark Mone, who was also serving as the chancellor’s designee for strategic planning and campus climate, was named interim chancellor by UW System President Ray Cross. The leadership transition from Lovell to Mone is scheduled to take place in the second half of May.

Since being named chancellor in May 2011, Lovell has maintained a sharp focus on strengthening partnerships with area corporations and nonprofit organizations.

He has continued to push forward major capital development projects, including the Zilber School of Public Health building, School of Freshwater Sciences building, Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Complex and acquisition and development at Innovation Campus in Wauwatosa.

He also has championed internal initiatives for UWM strategic planning and academic planning, creation of a new budget model and Best Place to Work, an organizational climate initiative.

With collaborators from throughout Southeastern Wisconsin, he fostered a new sense of entrepreneurship and innovation at the university and in the greater Milwaukee community. Campus programs include the UWM Student Startup Challenge and Mobile Innovation Lab (also known as the App Brewery). Community initiatives in which UWM is closely involved include Scale Up Milwaukee and MiKE (Innovation in Milwaukee).

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QUOTABLE@NOTABLE

Internet pioneer plugged in at UWM

The Internet of the early 1990s would be unrecognizable to Internet users today.

No Google, no Yahoo, not even an Alta Vista.

But there was the Yanoff List, a pre-pre-cursor to the search engines of today, created by Scott Yanoff (’93 BS Computer Science).

“I had my own personal list of items and I thought I should share them,” Yanoff says. “The minute I shared [the list], I had people getting back to me saying, ‘Hey, here’s a site you can share.’”

The Yanoff List resulted in book deals, television appearances and, ultimately, jobs for its young creator. “I started that not long after I started at UWM,” Yanoff says. “And if you can picture life in the early 1990s, there were no websites.”

The List was a place for early adopters to find links to sports scores, news and other subjects listed by topic. The Internet, at that point, was sort of a Wild West, although in Yanoff’s experience it was a much friendlier place than the original Wild West. He remembers it as “kind of a hippie, granola-

sharing culture. And that’s sort of been my culture for the rest of my life.”

As the List took off, Yanoff walked into his “15 minutes of fame.”

“I started getting speaking engagements across the Midwest. I was on a public television show that aired out of Houston in 1993,” he says, appearing with Ed Krol, author of an early book about the Internet.

Yanoff wrote his own book, “The World Wide Web Administrator’s Survival Guide,” for Internet users to make and maintain their own websites. He eventually sold the List to his employer, Spectracom on Water Street (in Milwaukee), just as it was about to be surpassed by more advanced services.

Yanoff works as an application support manager at Northwestern Mutual in Milwaukee and is a board member of Shorewood Supporters of Excellence in Educational Development (SEED). “I work on their website, I work on their bulk emails and I’ve introduced them to the world of social media,” Yanoff says.

He’s also been working on a side project called iTunesStats that keeps track of detailed iTunes listening stats – and keeps Yanoff sharp. “It keeps me technically proficient,” he says. “I’ve moved away from being a programmer, and I can’t keep my hands out of the dirt. I want to do something technical.”

A long Trek home

Bekaah Schultz (’10 BS Global Studies Management) knew early that her

personal borders extended well beyond the United States.

After studying in Spain during high school, Schultz sought schools at which she could follow her passion. UWM’s focus on cultivating cultural relationships sealed the deal. “I actually picked UWM based on their Global Studies program,” Schultz says. “A lot of schools have international business programs, but they’re heavy on the business aspect.”

After graduating, Schultz worked for a tech start-up in Omaha, Neb., and spent time in India managing the company’s call center. Pairing that experience with an internship in Barcelona while abroad through UWM, Schultz realized the necessity of cultural awareness.

“Relationships are very different across countries,” Schultz says. “In India, it’s very business oriented.” In Spain, business relationships tend to be personal and casual.

Today, Schultz is an international logistics specialist for Trek Bicycle Corporation in Waterloo, Wis., working specifically with imports and exports in Mexico. Schultz finds the way business is conducted in Mexico is similar to the personal, informal style of Spain.

Schultz grew up in Delafield, Wis., and says Trek provided a perfect way for her to return to Wisconsin. “Not everybody cycles, but most people take an interest in it, at least leisurely,” she says. “It’s great to work at a place that’s so fitness oriented.”

Schultz was the president of the UWM club tennis team. After graduating and moving to Nebraska, she looked for ways to keep fit. She chose triathlons. “I run and I bike, and I dabble in swimming,” she says. “It comes with the sport.” She completed her first Half Ironman in 2013.

Although Schultz’s job at Trek involves more duty management than traveling, she would like to get back to her traveling ways. “I think that building those relationships is important, and that face time is really important no matter who you’re working with.”

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Building a better drone

G rowing up near Racine, Wis., Jon Salton (’90 BS Mechanical Engineering, ’92 MS Mechanical

Engineering) wanted to be an astronaut and dreamed of working for NASA. Unfortunately, UWM didn’t – and doesn’t – offer a “space travel” major.

But space travel can take you places you haven’t dreamed of yet. Today, Salton is with Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, where he works on cross-terrain, robotic vehicle concepts, including the Urban Hopper.

Salton says he still had good reason to choose UWM in the late 1980s. “When I was at the [College of Engineering & Applied Science], we had some really topnotch people,” Salton says. “Always had, but we were able to get a six-year accreditation.”

After working in Kansas City after graduate school, Salton eventually made his way to Houston to work with NASA. “Actually, Lockheed Martin,” Salton says, “but at the Johnson Space Center.”

Eventually, the nature of NASA’s work at the Johnson Space Center began to change. “When things were transitioning from a design point of view to production on the space station, I started looking around,” Salton says. During a mountain-biking trip, Salton met a senior scientist from the Sandia National Laboratories.

“He told me that if I was in Albuquerque, he would at least have lunch with me,” Salton says. “So I wrote up a paper about all the work I had done, and a week later called him up and said, ‘I just happened to be in Albuquerque this week.’”

Sandia’s Urban Hopper, a project on which Salton was the principal investigator, is about the size of a shoebox and can hop onto or over obsta-cles. “When I say hop,” Salton says, “it can hop 20 feet in the air.”

The Urban Hopper was specifically built for the military and has a number of possible uses, includ-ing delivering supplies and scouting. Salton and the Sandia lab have other vehicles they’re working on that can glide, swim and drive, but those aren’t as far along in production as the Urban Hopper.

This is the kind of science Salton says he hoped for after graduating from UWM: “Applied science and things that can make a difference and not just sit on a shelf. Some of the things I worked on with NASA are still being used on spacewalks today.”

Mural brings the outdoors inside

When UWM acquired the neighboring Columbia Hospital complex, there was

excitement at the prospect of additional space – and challenges in adapting it.

“We received many comments about the ‘institutional’ look, including references to bad memories – e.g., ‘My father died in a room just down the hall….’ There also is a need to improve way-finding in the building,” says Geoffrey Hurtado, associate vice chancellor for facilities planning and management.

Alumna Brooklyn Henke (’13 MFA Painting) was commissioned to help bring life to the renamed Northwest Quadrant. Her solution is a lush, green forest mural featuring native Wisconsin plants and animals.

The 6-by-27-foot mural encourages people to move from the parking ramp and Newport Avenue entrance toward

the quadrant’s Grind coffee shop.

Henke, who has created murals for clients ranging from the Milwaukee Public Museum to Hotel Metro to Horny Goat Brewery, cites

the university’s collaborative faculty and staff for their support of the project. “When there are a number of people involved, there can be stumbling blocks. That wasn’t the case here.

“You do your best work as an artist when the process goes well.”

Inspirations for the mural include Downer Woods and locations stretching from Milwaukee’s Grant Park to Door County. Careful observers will spot white trillium and the monarch butterfly – examples of the mural’s 30 “reference points” created from “reference photos.”

“Ordinarily, I project the final design on the wall,” Henke says, “but this hallway was too narrow for the projector.” She used a grid to apply the design.

The final step is painting: “Where I leave my fingerprint on a mural.”

Jon Salton (left) and colleague Steve Buerger put the Urban Hopper through its paces.

Alumna Brooklyn Henke created a new mural in UWM’s Northwest Quad building.


Embark on a ‘Freshwater Odyssey’

September marks the opening celebration for the $53 million addition to the School of Freshwater Sciences,

UWM’s harbor campus.

The two-day grand opening, called “Freshwater Odyssey,” will kick off on Friday, Sept. 12, with a Friends of Freshwater reception from 4-9 p.m. Come view the new 100,000-square-foot addition and its labs, and enjoy food and cocktails. Tickets are $50 and available at freshwater.uwm.edu/freshwaterodyssey.

On Saturday, Sept. 13, the school opens its doors to the public for a free event that offers tours, science demonstrations, food and entertainment between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

The addition has been integrated with the original building, which was a former clay tile factory that has been the home of UWM’s Great Lakes WATER Institute since 1973. The new wing will house research-support facilities, laboratories, and teaching and collaboration spaces.

Unique in the U.S., the School of Freshwater Sciences offers research and education programs in four major areas: freshwater system dynamics; human and ecosystem health; freshwater technology; and freshwater economics and policy.

New greenhouse enhances research, education

In the cold of December 2013, UWM’s Department of Biological Sciences opened its new greenhouse, among the

best collegiate facilities nationwide. With indoor and outdoor growing areas featuring extensive light, temperature and humidity control, it will facilitate pioneering research and innovative educational opportunities.

The 9,200-square-foot greenhouse is subdivided into 11 rooms, which can each host a distinct environment. Customization allows faculty and students to design the best environment for their research, rather than modifying research to fit a generic space. The result is happier, healthier plants and expedited research.

The greenhouse will host approximately 1,700 students annually, with abundant examples of plant physiology, biodiversity and evolution providing an ideal learning environment for classes at all levels.

Planetarium director suits up with NASAJean Creighton, director of UWM’s

Manfred Olson Planetarium, suited up with NASA to fly into the stratosphere for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity onboard the largest moving observatory in the world.

Creighton and teammate Kathy Gustavson of Nicolet High School were two of four Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors selected to fly aboard the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) at the end of March.

SOFIA is a Boeing 747 retrofitted to carry a 100-inch infrared telescope that is being used to explore the chemistry of star-forming regions in space and how that connects to planet formation.

Creighton is planning a special program on her mission that will run at the planetarium June 20-July 18. For details on the show and other planetarium programs, visit planetarium.uwm.edu.

NEW@UWM

Jean Creighton (right) and Kathy Gustavson pose in front of SOFIA.


2014 Research Report now online

UWM is moving forward brilliant ideas. Working together, our faculty, staff, students and partners are helping a new kind

of education to evolve. It’s focused on academic needs, research horizons, business requirements and nonprofit goals. It’s really a new world, and you are invited to explore it through stories and video at researchreport.uwm.edu.

‘Zuckerberg Files’ attract instant interest

A digital archive of “all public utterances” by Facebook founder and CEO Mark

Zuckerberg – “The Zuckerberg Files” – should prove invaluable to information policy researchers, as well as good reading.

Created by a UWM research team led by assistant professor and director of the UWM Center for Information Policy Research Michael Zimmer, the Files includes transcripts and bibliographic data of all publicly available content since 2004.

Anna Jeffries, a sophomore majoring in global studies and Japanese, said she found Zuckerberg’s views on Facebook and privacy “amazing and a little scary.”

Learn more at Zuckerbergfiles.org.

Nostalgia, excitement intertwine in Children’s Center move

Current and past students, parents and staff celebrated the UWM Children’s Learning Center’s new home in November 2013 with

the Wrecking Ball Memory Tour - recalling decades of fond memories and laughter in its former home.

In January, the UWM Children’s Learning Center moved from its 40-year location in the Kunkle Building to its new quarters in the Northwest Quadrant.

The new facility features spaces that fit the center’s philosophy, enhance a sense of community, and encourage learning in the most modern ways. The environment is filled with light, plants and an amazing tree house.

At the Wrecking Ball Memory Tour – a farewell event for the Kunkle Building – one former student wrote: “This is the happiest place on earth.” With its many extraordinary features, the new Children’s Learning Center is destined to continue that legacy.

ReseaRch RepoRt 2014

Brilliance Begins

with an idea

From left: Michael Zimmer, director of the Center for Information Policy Research, doctoral student Jeremy Mauger and first-year student Sam Goerke were part of the Zuckerberg Files team.


atyashakes up the Twittersphere

#PANTHERPROUD

By now, most of you know that UWM alumnus Satya Nadella (’90 MS Computer Science) was named CEO of Microsoft Corporation in February. He is only the third chief executive officer in the famed company’s history, and is already credited with moving Microsoft in new directions.

A native of Hyderabad, in south-central India, Nadella is remembered at UWM as an extremely talented graduate student who was one of scores of students from India attracted to UWM’s strong Computer Science program. He returned to his alma mater last year to accept the Chancellor’s Innovation Award and speak with students and faculty. The award recognizes a visionary whose professional achievements show entrepreneurial drive; creative, intelligent risk-taking; transformative thinking;

effective change management; and a passion for lifelong learning.

No sooner had the Microsoft announcement been made than the UWM Twittersphere erupted with praise – and pride.

Here are a few of our favorite tweets (all used with permission).

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#UWM #ALUM #PANTHERPROUD


UWM shares in more than half of UW System Incentive Grant awards

B Y L A U R A L . H U N T

FUNDING new

FRONTIERS

How does a region grow new jobs and provide the skilled workforce to fill them? It could attract business from other places, offer intriguing new ideas for start-up companies or join hands with existing industry to improve the bottom line.

That’s the idea behind the Economic Development Incentive Grants, a total of $22.5 million parceled out in the next two years for research and training projects that bring together UW campuses with industry.

The one-time funding was built into the state’s 2013-15 budget with surplus money from the UW System.

UWM is sharing in more than half of the available funds – $11.7 million, more than any other institution in the state.

“These investments signify the quality of work being conducted on our campus, and how others view UWM’s importance to the future prosperity of Milwaukee, the state and the nation,” said UWM Chancellor Michael R. Lovell.


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Predictions are that Wisconsin could see a shortage of 20,000 nurses by 2035, but a shortage of nurse educators limits enrollment. Pictured here is UWM nursing faculty member Tracy Schweitzer working with nursing senior Brent Schwartz.

50-80% of qualified undergraduate

students who applied to nursing

schools at the four institutions

were denied admission.


Nurses for Wisconsin InitiativeWith an aging population and an increased

emphasis on preventive health care, Wisconsin is facing a nursing shortage that will only worsen in the years ahead.

But in order to admit more students to college nursing programs, UW campuses must first increase the number of doctoral-level nursing faculty.

That is the purpose of the Nurses for Wisconsin Initiative, a $3.2 million incentive grant led by UW-Eau Claire and including UWM, UW-Madison and UW-La Crosse. These are the UW System campuses that offer either a doctor of philosophy (PhD) degree in nursing and/or a doctor of nursing practice (DNP) degree.

The regulations governing nursing education provide a ratio of one teacher for every eight to ten students in a clinical setting, says Rachel Schiffman, associate dean for research in the UWM College of Nursing.

That is a major limitation in accepting additional students into nursing programs. In 2012-13, between 50 and 80 percent of qualified undergraduate students who applied to nursing schools at the four institutions were denied admission.

Couple that with a rising average age of faculty in the state and “we’re really talking about going beyond just keeping up with the pace of retirements,” says Schiffman about faculty recruitment.

The initiative provides incentives to nurses enrolling in doctoral programs through predoctoral fellowships that offer mentoring in the nurse-educator role. Tuition, fees and stipends are included in the fellowships in exchange for a three-year commitment to teach at a UW System nursing school.

“The predoctoral support is given in order to help students complete their doctoral degree faster,” says Schiffman. “This is important at UWM because many of these students need the financial support to engage in full-time study, since most work full or nearly full time.”

Postdoctoral fellowships are intended to allow those with PhDs and DNPs to advance nursing research and evidence-based practice, and receive a stipend and benefits for one year.

To attract qualified nurses who have recently completed a doctoral degree, the four campuses are

also offering a student loan forgiveness program up to $50,000. Like the predoctoral support, loan forgiveness is offered to those who agree to teach in a UW System nursing program for at least three years.

The DNP is geared toward practice and teaching in a clinical setting, while the PhD is rooted in research-based academic science. UWM and UW-Madison offer both doctoral-level degrees.

Research and Training Center for Commercialization of Intensive Aquaculture and Aquaponics

There’s money to be made in fish farming, and UWM Senior Scientist Fred Binkowski believes aquaculture and aquaponics – the integration of fish and vegetable farming – can be done on a large-scale smack in the middle of the city.

He should know. Binkowski’s laboratory at the School of Freshwater Sciences (SFS) was the first in the world to find an all-natural method of getting yellow perch to spawn year round, making it possible to supply the demand for fish throughout the year.

The commercial potential is great, he says, especially with high-quality fish like yellow perch, which sell for around $17 per pound on the retail market. And where’s there a market, there will be jobs.

The next steps are to move the techniques they’ve developed out of the lab and into the hands of entrepreneurs, provide industry-specific training at the college level and advance the research to make urban fish farming more profitable.

The $2.4 million grant provides the necessary ingredients to launch intensive urban aquaculture as an industry and position

Southeastern Wisconsin as the primary source of technology, expertise and talent to support production.

A specialized certificate program in aquaculture and training labs for aquaculture and aquaponics will be offered later this year through the SFS. These programs will turn out a workforce ready to immediately fill jobs in the industry. The certificate program is open to both undergraduate and graduate students, who take them as an addition to their degree programs.

“I believe the largest urban commercial perch fish farm in North America will spring up right here in Milwaukee because of the available expertise,” Binkowski says.

The Institute for Water Business at UW-Whitewater is developing marketing and commercialization programs to promote the state’s assets and identify markets for the industry.

Discoveries from the research will lead to new commercial technologies and intellectual property, says SFS Dean David Garman.

Policy is another aspect of study covered by the incentive grant, and it is being

addressed by the UWM Center for Water Policy. Growth of aquaculture will be an opportunity to identify safe practices in areas like food handling and food security.

“We will also assess the incentives and constraints on agricultural production,

including urban aquaponics, in the interest of restructuring agriculture in the U.S. to improve water efficiency,” says center director Jenny Kehl.

“I believe the largest urban commercial

perch fish farm

in North America will spring up right here in

Milwaukee…”

Fred Binkowski (right), senior scientist at the School of Freshwater Sciences, and a research assistant catch female yellow perch raised in the lab to collect eggs for fertilization.

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Peter Jakubowski ’07

Water Accelerator Supporting Wisconsin’s Water Industry

Speeding new companies and ideas to the marketplace is central to the Water Technology Accelerator (WaTa), a $3 million project. Through the accelerator, researchers will develop a portfolio of intellectual property aimed at increasing Milwaukee’s share of a market worth billions.

The ultimate goal is to jump-start several new start-up companies, products and processes, and spur at least $50 million in additional investment in the state’s water sector through collaborative research with the Milwaukee Water Council and eight private industries.

“What this money does is provide an extra link in the bridge between research and technological application that will ultimately strengthen the region’s water cluster,” says David Garman, dean of the School of Freshwater Sciences (SFS).

The work is on a strict timetable of only 15 months.

Research proposals were solicited at the end of last year and just awarded on the basis of their relevance to existing industry, probability of success and likelihood of producing deliverables in the allotted time.

Among the research projects are various filters for water cleaning, control of a particular bacterium in aquaculture systems, sensors for quick detection of E. coli and heavy metals in water, and novel membranes that resist accumulation of organic matter that leads to fouling.

Industry partners include A.O. Smith, Badger Meter, Kohler, Rockwell Automation, IBM, Rexnord, Veolia Water and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.

Working with the UWM Research Foundation, researchers hope to stimulate more funding for start-up companies through the Wisconsin Economic Development Council, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants and angel investment.

Some of the funding will be used to outfit research labs in the Global Water Center and at the SFS with equipment necessary to expand research with industries, says Garman, which will help attract companies to Milwaukee.

UWM also is offering workforce training to industries participating in research that leads to new technology, he adds.

Two important pieces of the project involve the Institute for Water Business at UW-Whitewater (UWW) and the Center for Water Policy at UWM. UWW is conducting market research to help support the viability of each newly developed technology or process, and UWM is conducting a policy and economics assessment of each.

The ultimate goal is to jump-start several new start-up companies, products and processes, and spur at least

$50 million in additional investment in the state’s water sector...

Shangping Xu, associate professor of geosciences, loads a prototype of a more effective sand filter for removing contaminants from water. Xu is working on the project with Sandra McLellan, professor of freshwater sciences.


Southeast Wisconsin Applied Chemistry Center of Excellence

More than 96 percent of all manufactured goods use technologies involving chemistry.

The Southeast Wisconsin Applied Chemistry Center of Excellence will take better advantage of chemistry’s pervasiveness by creating more opportunities to enhance the workforce and increase the linkages with industry on research.

“This program really hits on hot themes that the UW System and the legislature are looking for with the incentive grants,” says Doug Stafford, director of the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery at UWM.

Because of the center’s relevance, it didn’t take long to leverage additional investment from industry.

After it was awarded almost $3 million through the incentive grant, the center received an additional $1.13 million grant from Shimadzu Scientific Instruments, headquartered in Japan, which will help equip a world-class laboratory within the center. The laboratory will enable collaborative research in analytical chemistry that has

application in a wide variety of basic science and commercial projects.

“Immediately, the UW System funds received over a 30 percent return on investment,” says Stafford, who also serves as the lab’s executive director. “It helps accomplish what we want, which is for industry partners to come right to our campus to use the facilities and work with our faculty.”

The lab’s instrumentation builds on mass spectroscopy, a technique used to separate and identify molecules in a sample according to their mass.

“There’s enough flexibility in the uses of the instruments that it will be valuable to a range of industries, whether it’s drug discovery, environmental or food testing, fermentation or water technology,” says Stafford.

The incentive grant also supports eight to ten collaborative, translational research projects, which will be chosen according to their economic impact and how closely faculty expertise matches the scientific needs of industry.

Temporarily located in renovated labs in the Chemistry building, the analytical chemistry laboratory will move to its

permanent home in the Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Center (KIRC) when that building is completed in 2015.

The UW System grant also allows the center to offer up to 50 students a chance to land a paid, top-tier internship with industry while also receiving tuition scholarships for course credit earned during the internship.

“ Immediately, the UW System funds received over a

30% return on investment.”

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Chemistry Department Chair Peter Geissinger (left) and Doug Stafford, director of the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery at UWM, display some of the new equipment provided by Shimadzu Scientific Instruments. Based on mass spectroscopy, the equipment is useful to a variety of industries, such as drug discovery and environmental and food safety testing.

KIRC reaches a milestone

The last beam was placed in the six-story Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Complex (KIRC) at a public event Feb. 13. Dignitaries present on the snowy day included Leonard Parker, emeritus professor of physics, for whom the complex’s Center for Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics will be named; Daniel J. Bader, president and CEO of the Helen Bader Foundation, whose father, Alfred Bader, was a major donor to the project; Milwaukee Alderman Nik Kovac; Jon Jenson from the State Department of Administration; and Rick Schmidt, president of CG Schmidt, the contractor.

When it opens in May next year, the 144,000-square-foot KIRC will provide academic and research space for disciplines in science, engineering and mathematics. It will be the new home for the Department of Physics and also house new labs for the Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health.

L&S Dean Rodney Swain (left) and Mark Schwartz, distinguished professor of geography, were among the snow-covered celebrants.

Outgoing Chancellor Michael R. Lovell, Milwaukee Alderman Nik Kovac and Zilber School Dean Magda Peck sign KIRC’s final beam.

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A small tree rides the final beam to the top of the six-story KIRC. The tree – and signing the last beam, which is painted white – are part of the traditional builders’ “topping out” ceremony.


I f you’ve visited the Milwaukee Public Museum, or the Milwaukee Museum of Art, or Milwaukee’s Pabst Mansion – or even the Smithsonian Institution –

you’ve benefited from UWM’s Museum Studies Program (MSP).

This graduate-level certificate program has been training students for careers in museums, galleries, archives and historical societies since 1963. W. Warner (Bill) Wood, associate professor of anthropology, calls it the university’s “gem” – small but valuable.

“This is a 50-year-old program that’s well-regarded in the profession. And it’s a perfect example of how UWM supports the community,” says Wood, who is coordinator of the MSP along with Dawn Scher Thomae.

Each semester, 20 or so students enter the two-year program. Many come from the UWM Anthropology Department, but even that is changing. In rigorous courses taught entirely at the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) – the university’s partner in the program – they learn the history, theory and very practical applications of museum work.

Museum Studies

Program has national

reach

B Y A L E X V A G E L A T O S


Additional internships are offered at MPM and at other area institutions, where students often end up on staff, bringing their knowledge and enthusiasm to a range of nonprofit community organizations.

The preponderance of students from anthropology is understandable, considering the program is administered through that department, and has been since the beginning.

But students also come from a variety of disciplines, including art history, botany, education, geology, history, library science and zoology. All are expected to be proficient in their academic majors and to have a love of museums, even if that’s a bit shaky to begin with.

“When I ask why students are here, I always hear, ‘I love museums!’ But what do you love about museums? Some students are drawn to being marketable, to a more applied use of their knowledge, and to the ability to translate what they learned in their graduate studies to the workplace,” says Scher Thomae, also a senior lecturer in UWM’s Anthropology Department.

Scher Thomae has been chair of the MSP’s coordinating committee for 18 years and helps graduates from the program find jobs through an extensive network of UWM alumni in the field. She holds a master’s degree in anthropology from UWM, and a certificate in museum studies from UW-Beloit, a “smaller version.”

To reach her office, a visitor must pass a polar bear (stuffed) and tables covered with artifacts (ancient) being studied by UWM students.

The MSP is known throughout the United States because of its emphasis on applied knowledge, rather than just the theoretical. Students come from as far as California and New York to study at UWM.

“The museum field now wants people who can do things, who can walk in and get things done,” Scher Thomae says.

Jaclyn Kelly was one of those history majors drawn to Museum Studies in 2009, with her specialization in public history. She is now a part-time Educator 1 at MPM, which often involves very young children in the museum’s education program, and lots of

animal skins.

“All of the programs I teach are designed for early learners, and I might talk about animals that live in the arctic. As a museum we have lots of furs, and each child passes them around to touch. Seal is their favorite, because it’s so soft,” Kelly says.

At the opposite end of the alumni scale from Kelly is Carter Lupton, the museum’s head of anthropology and history, who graduated from the MSP in 1972, when it was only a one-year program. His comfortably cluttered office resembles something of an archaeological site itself.

“People in Milwaukee tend to take the museum for granted, but people from

around the world say this is one of the greatest museums they’ve ever been

in. We don’t have the rarest collection in the world, but the way we present

it to the public is what always impresses people.”

“When I ask why students are here,

I always hear, ‘I love museums!’

But what do you love about museums?”

UWM alums at the Milwaukee Public Museum include (from left)

Jaclyn Kelly, Carter Lupton and Dawn Scher Thomae.

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Dennis Kois is coming home to become president and CEO of the Milwaukee Public Museum.

“...he has a deep understanding that MPM’s collections, history of scholarship and community stature are important assets.”

Alum Kois to head MPM

Another UWM alumnus has joined the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Dennis Kois (‘95) became the MPM’s president and CEO on May 1.

Kois was most recently executive director of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Boston. He has a record of leadership and experience at some of the country’s premier museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C.

A Whitefish Bay native, Kois holds a bachelor’s degree from UWM; he was a Committee Interdisciplinary major in which he worked with faculty members to create his own major around the theme of museum design. He has a master’s degree in museum studies from New York University.

While at UWM, Kois was an exhibition and graphic designer with the UWM Art Museum.

Jay Williams, chair of the MPM Board of Directors, who will step down as MPM president, says of Kois: “Some of his first elementary school field trips were to the Milwaukee Public Museum, and he has a deep understanding that MPM’s collections, history of scholarship and community stature are important assets.

“His local roots, combined with a leadership style and museum philosophy honed at some of the nation’s top institutions, will help ensure that the MPM continues

to play an increasingly important role in our diverse community.”

Prior to his work in Boston, Kois was executive director of the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas. He has also served as assistant chief designer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and as chief designer and head of publications and digital media at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

He was an adjunct professor in the graduate

program in museum studies at George Washington University. He and his wife, Stacey Schmidt, have two young children.

“There’s a great deal we can do to build on the good work of Jay Williams, the board and the talented MPM team to advance MPM as an example of how American museums can be even more central to our civic life and citizens,” Kois says. “I love Milwaukee and MPM, and I’m excited to be coming home.”

Museum alums from coast to coastHere is a short list of where UWM alumni work in Wisconsin…

• John Michael Kohler Arts Center

• S.C. Johnson Archives

• Wisconsin Historical Museum

• The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research

• Milwaukee School of Engineering, Eckhart G. Grohmann Collection

• Wisconsin Veterans Museum

• Civil War Museum, Kenosha

• UW-Madison Zoology Museum

• Museum of Wisconsin Art

And a short list beyond Wisconsin…

• Department of Defense, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

• U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

• New York State Museum

• National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.

• Colorado Historical Society

• Historic Charleston Foundation, South Carolina

• Conservation Assessment Program, Heritage Preservation, Washington, D.C.

• Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University

• Saint Louis Zoo, Missouri

• Field Museum, Chicago

• Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

• National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

• Museum of Elfreth’s Alley and the National Museum of American Jewish History, Pennsylvania


New UWM Scholarship O F F E R E D T O C H I L D R E N O F I N M AT E S

B Y C A R O L Y N B U C I O R

All current and accepted UWM students who have an incarcerated or paroled parent or legal guardian are eligible for a new scholarship administered by the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare (HBSSW).

HBSSW has partnered with Creative Corrections Education Foundation to create the Creative Corrections Education Foundation Fund. The initial investment is $10,000. “The plan is to grow this with contributions from the community,” says Richard Kessler, HBSSW development director.

The hope is obvious: for inmates’ children not to follow a life of crime. “We’re trying to break the cycle by supporting the education of prisoners’ children,” says Stan Stojkovic, HBSSW dean. According to the American Correctional Association, up to

50 percent of incarcerated juveniles have an incarcerated parent.

No preference will be given to criminal justice or social work students. “The idea is to help any student going to UWM,” Stojkovic says.

To be eligible, a student must meet the following criteria:

• Have a parent or legal guardian who is currently incarcerated or on parole.

• Be a current UWM student in good standing, accepted UWM freshman, or a transfer student.

The initial application can be found at the Creative Corrections Education Foundation website. CCEF will refer UWM students to the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare for final consideration for a scholarship.

Creative Corrections Education Foundation is a Texas-based nonprofit organization founded by Boscobel, Wis., native Percy Pitzer, a retired warden at the Federal Correctional Institution, Oxford (Wis.). The foundation’s mission is to support equal opportunities for students whose parent or guardian is incarcerated or paroled, and stop second-generation crime.

Education has a research-proven, powerful effect on crime prevention, Stojkovic says. “People with college educations are less likely to commit crimes, from murder to theft. Every year of education makes a difference.” Even small amounts of education can reduce the number of our city’s serious, violent crimes, he says.

Contribute to the scholarship:

Online: givetouwm.uwmfdn.org

Mail: UWM Foundation, Creative Corrections Educational Foundation Fund, 1440 E. North Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53202

Gathered at the announcement of the Creative Corrections Education Foundation Fund were (from left) Stan Stojkovic, dean, HBSSW; Percy Pitzer, founder, Creative Corrections Education Foundation; Chris Abele, Milwaukee County executive; Mike Hafemann, superintendent, Milwaukee House of Correction.

“People with college educations are less likely to commit crimes, from murder to theft.

Every year of education makes a difference.”


REASONSTO

Tear out this booklet and save

WE WELCOME YOUR FEEDBACK AND PARTICIPATION

alumni.uwm.eduNew Look, New Opportunities

Don’t see an event in your area?

Or, perhaps you have a great idea.

TO EXCITING EVENTS & ALUMNI OPPORTUNITIES

Where would you be without your UWM degree? Alumni involvement is a great way to show your pride for UWM. When you get involved with the Alumni Association, you promote UWM in your community and pay it forward to future alumni.

Many college rankings, such as the U.S. News & World Report’s, are influenced by alumni participation and engagement. When you engage with the Alumni Association you can impact UWM’s ranking. The higher UWM is ranked, the more valuable a UWM degree becomes.

Whether you are years—or even decades—removed from your student days, you can still be a part of UWM and its future. The UWM Alumni Association provides many forums locally and throughout the country for you to share your opinions about UWM’s direction.

PANTHERS’ SUCCESS CAPTIVATES CAMPUS, COMMUNITY

An auspicious season began with a dire prediction. Critics picked the Milwaukee Panthers to finish last in the Horizon League in 2014. The team balked, assembling an exhilarating string of late-season victories over league leaders like Green Bay and Wright State. March 11, the Panthers improbably claimed the Horizon League Trophy to earn a 15-seed berth in the 2014 NCAA Championships.

Nine days later, the Panthers squared off against second-seeded Villanova at Buffalo’s First Niagara Center. Five Panthers reached double figures, but Villanova broke open a close game over the final eight minutes of the contest en route to a 73-53 win.

Hours later, the emotional, exhausted and grateful team was back home in Milwaukee.

“I couldn’t be more proud of my teammates for what they’ve done this season,” senior and Horizon League Tournament MVP Jordan Aaron said. “We fought through everything possible we could this season to get to this point. We went through a lot of ups and downs together, and I will never forget this moment and this team.”

“This experience was unbelievable,” sophomore Austin Arians agreed. “Every guy on this team has stepped up at some point during the year. Everybody had their moments and had a great time doing what we accomplished this year. It was awesome.”

A cadre of the team’s top performers will be back in the gold and black next season under head coach Rob Jeter.

Thanks for a great season, Panthers. “Work, work, don’t stop.”


Photo by Michael McLoone

PANTHER Athletics

BY TIM PRAHL

Four years ago, Emily McClellan didn’t know if she wanted to

swim collegiately.

Now, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee senior caps her career as a four-time All-American and one of the fastest collegiate swimmers ever in the sport.

McClellan wrapped up her outstanding four-year Panther career March 22 at the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships in Minneapolis, where she twice earned First-Team All-American honors as one of the top swimmers in her events.

In the 100 breaststroke, McClellan had the entire crowd on its feet and roaring as she posted the fastest time in prelims by nearly half a second. Then, in finals, the UWM phenom posted the third-fastest time ever in the history of the event in a blazing 57.76 seconds for second place in the country, finishing behind only U.S. Olympic gold medalist Breeja Larson.

McClellan then earned her second First-Team All-American award in her final collegiate swim, taking seventh overall in the 200 breaststroke with an outstanding time of 2:06.98.

“It was a good ending,” Milwaukee head coach Kyle Clements said. “It was a good finish to a great career.”

Added McClellan, “This is awesome. The cherry on top.”

Milwaukee – which only had the one swimmer – finished the NCAA Championships with 29 points for 26th place. That is higher than 27 other universities that scored at the national meet – including the likes of traditional powers Ohio State, Missouri and Michigan – and numerous others that did not factor in the final scoring. It is also the highest point total of any Horizon League individual or team (men or women) ever at the national meet.

This caps an outstanding four-year career at Milwaukee for McClellan. She finishes her career having broken the 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke and 200 individual medley school and league records a combined 23 times and is the most decorated swimmer in Horizon League history.

McClellan will graduate this month with a degree in Exceptional Education–American Sign Language.

fastest in the world One of the

Emily McClellan with her second-place award at the NCAA Championships.


1960sWarren Gerds (’67 BA Mass Communication) released the book, “Real, Honest Sailing With a Captain on the Great Lakes,” with Capt. Gary W. Schmidt. Gerds is critic at large for WFRV-TV, Green Bay, and previously worked at the Green Bay Press-Gazette for 45 years. His previous books are the nonfiction “Tales of a Newspaperman: Ice Bowl and Lombardi Through Time,” and “My Father Lives in the Drawer,” and the historical fiction “The Legend of Taylor Rapids,” set in 1914-15 during the lumbering and railroad era in northern Wisconsin.

Cathy L. Manske (’68 Clinical Laboratory Sciences) is the author of “A Guide to Technical Consulting for the Clinical Laboratory.” She worked for 30 years as a medical technologist in hematology, microbiology, and as a generalist before becoming a consultant. She currently works with more than 20 physician office laboratories, assisting clients in understanding and applying federal regulations and compliance standards.

Roy Staab (’69 BFA Art) had four exhibits last year: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” Paramount Theatre in Peekskill, NY; Farm Project 2013, “Collaborative Concepts @Saunders Farm,” Garrison, NY; “Where Arts Belongs in Nature: Roy Staab,” Alfons Gallery, Milwaukee; and “Wisconsin Artists,” Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend.

1970sBrian Felder (’71 BS Political Science, ’75 MLIS), a 45-year veteran of the American poetry scene, had his poem, “Tenured Professors All,” published in the January-February 2014 issue of The Humanist, the first of two poems to be published this year in the magazine.

Judith Hall (’72 BS Nursing), a retired M.D., worked for a free clinic after graduating from nursing school and then as a nurse practitioner in an inner-city hypertension clinic. Following medical school, she opened a solo rural family practice. After completing a second residency in psychiatry, she worked with a community support program for “revolving door” patients and did volunteer work with the homeless.

Ron Kurtz (’72 BS Health Sciences) was inducted into the Wisconsin Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame to commemorate his 41 years of coaching excellence. He is also a member of the UWM Athletic Hall of Fame (2007). He is married to Kris Kurtz (’71 BS Education).

Adolphus Ward (’74 BA, ’75 MS Administrative Leadership), a former UWM faculty member, portrayed Juror Nine in “Twelve Angry Men” at The Pasadena (CA) Playhouse.

CLASSNOTES

Cathy L. Manske (’68 BS)

Warren Gerds (’67 BA)

Housemates reunite for 50-year reunionThe ladies of Kenwood Hall (then a dorm and now the UWM Alumni House) returned to campus last fall to celebrate their 50-year reunion. The event kicked off with afternoon tea and a tour of their previous living quarters, followed by a tour of campus. The full weekend of reminiscing was capped off with a tailgate and Brewers game during UWM Day at Miller Park. Shown at the stadium with the Klement’s Famous Racing Sausages are Class of 1963 members (from left) Carol Beckius, Barbara Felder, Iva Gundrum, Marjorie Olsen, Beatrice Reak, Joyce Polson, Margaret Mary Harris, Barbara Mattes and Patty Cerny.


W R O N G M A J O R , Right C H O I C E S

B Y N I C O L E S W E E N E Y E T T E R

Beth Pritchard earned her UWM degree in International Relations (’69 BA) with a dream of working for the U.S. Department of State. “I wanted to work in the diplomatic corps, but 40-plus years ago, the State Department was not hiring women. So I was recruited by the CIA,” she says.

She was being trained to lead a team in the Dominican Republic and Cuba as part of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, but decided to quit after just a year. “Not many men in the CIA wanted to follow a woman, either,” she says, “and I decided I really didn’t want to work for the government; I wanted to work in business.”

And it was in business that Pritchard’s career really took off, beginning at Schlitz Brewing Co. and eventually leading her to serve as the first woman vice president at S.C. Johnson. Subsequently, she oversaw 35,000 employees as president and CEO of Bath & Body Works and became a player on the international retail stage as the North American adviser to Alshaya, a multibillion-dollar global franchise corporation operating in the Middle East, Russia, Africa and Europe.

Last fall, UWM honored Pritchard with the Chancellor’s Innovation Award. In 2002, she received a UWM Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Pritchard left the CIA to join Schlitz’s new product development team. Then Schlitz decided to concentrate on its core business of beer and Pritchard was laid off. “It was very traumatic, but looking back it was the best thing that could’ve happened to me,” she says.

Proving herselfThe layoff inspired Pritchard to start

working on her MBA at Marquette University and to join S.C. Johnson in Racine, Wis.,

where she climbed the ranks to manage brands such as Raid and OFF! bug sprays. “I was just thrilled to be promoted to vice president, taking over what I saw as a very exciting division. Frankly, it didn’t occur to me until much later that I was the first woman vice president there,” she says. “The only way to get ahead is to say, ‘I’m not going to recognize that there’s a glass ceiling.’ You have to prove yourself, and I did.”

She proved herself again in 1991 when she joined Limited Brands Inc. in Columbus, Ohio, to build a new bath, body care and beauty company: Bath & Body Works.

“I’m most proud of building Bath & Body Works from 13 employees and two little alcoves in Express stores to a brand that changed the direction of personal care, that grew to 1,600 stores, 35,000 employees and over $2 billion in sales,” she says. “I think the greatest part of that was all the careers and positions we created that are still filled today with men and women who enjoy their work…that’s what gives me the most pride.”

Pritchard felt that the Bath & Body Works brand had to be focused on the customers and the stores, which is where the brand would find success or failure. She required everyone in the corporate office, herself included, to work two days a month in Bath & Body Works stores, stocking shelves and assisting customers. Then as a group they would meet and discuss the following Monday what they learned and what had to change to enhance the customer experience.

Breaking the rulesConstant innovation was the crux of Bath

& Body Works’ success, Pritchard says. To keep customers from getting bored, Pritchard insisted that 30 percent of the chain’s

products be new every year – breaking the rules of the industry.

“If we had gone down the track of just emulating what the competition is doing, we wouldn’t have been nearly as successful,” she says. “Since Bath & Body Works was born in the Limited Brands, which was all about fashion, we followed what fashion does. We’re going to select the colors of shower gels based on the hottest-selling sweaters.

“That was not a rule that was taught when I got my MBA,” she adds with a laugh.

After nearly 12 years at Bath & Body Works, Pritchard became CEO of Dean & Deluca and vice chairman of Crabtree & Evelyn. Today she stays busy as principal of Sunrise Beauty, a company that creates third-party fragrance and beauty products for brands such as American Eagle and Ulta.

She also serves on the board of directors of several companies, including Cabela’s and the Vitamin Shoppe, and advises Alshaya, a Kuwait-based franchise operator with more than 2,500 stores in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. “It’s been a really incredible experience learning and understanding the Middle East,” she says. “I personify my life as, ‘What’s the next adventure in learning,’ and that’s been a tremendous one.”

Though Pritchard now wishes she’d majored in business administration from the start, she appreciates her UWM liberal arts education. “I came out of UWM with the wrong major,” she says, “but I had developed the ability to think, know how to problem solve and do things differently.”

And the ROI on those skills has been terrific.


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“ I’m most proud of building Bath & Body Works from 13 employees and two little alcoves in Express stores to a brand that changed the direction of personal care…”

-Beth Pritchard


Sandy Brehl (’75 MS Exceptional Education) has published “Odin’s Promise” (Crispin Books), a historical novel for middle grades depicting the first year of the German occupation of Norway as experienced by a young girl and her elkhound. Brehl is an educator and active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. www.SandyBrehl.com.

Jeff Lang (’75 BA) was a music executive for 23 years, concluding his career with Warner Music Group. He is with the real estate group The Sound Advice Team in Gig Harbor, WA. He was recently inducted as an Honorary Commander with the USAF, and has been a celebrity judge at seven Miss USA state pageants, including the Miss Wisconsin USA Pageant in 2012.

Stephen Verderber (’75 BS Architectural Studies, ’77 MARCH) joined the faculty as full professor in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, and the Dala Lana School of Public Health, at the University of Toronto. He recently received the Distinguished Professor Medal from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) for his interdisciplinary courses, research and community service that link architecture, urbanism, health-care facility research and public health.

William Curran (’77 BFA, MS), who works as an artist under the name Billy X. Curmano, appeared at Boswell Book Company in 2013 for the release of his art/adventure book, “Futurism’s Bastard Son.” The former Milwaukeean is an award-winning artist and Vietnam veteran who was instrumental in organizing exhibitions at Milwaukee’s Broadway Galleries and forming the Wisconsin Art Guild that brought alternative art festivals to Milwaukee, Madison and Manitowoc. His writings, live art and other works have been exhibited and collected extensively, from the III Vienna Graphikbiennale to New York’s Museum of Modern Art Library.

Roy Domenico (’77 BA International Studies) has been teaching at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania since 1997, where he is chair of the Department of History. The American Catholic Historical Association awarded him its Distinguished Teaching Award at the American Historical Association meeting in Washington in 2014.

Jeff Lang (’75 BA)

Stephen Verderber (’75 BS, ‘77 MARCH)

Sandy Brehl (’75 BS, MS )

A parking story for the agesStories about parking at UWM arelegion – here’s one for the ages.

In 1963, while home on leave from the Air Force, John Pearson (’70 BBA) purchased a sporty 1959 Triumph TR-3A from a dealer in Thiensville, Wis. He then left to finish his enlistment and in late 1965, under the GI Bill, he enrolled at UWM. The car came to campus with him. The boys were back in town.

“As far back as I can remember, I have been interested in cars and racing,” Pearson says. “It looked like the previous owner did some Sports Car Club of America events at the Wisconsin State Fair Park.”

In 1967, Pearson married his wife, Virginia (’92 MA), or – to put it another way – the same school year he purchased UWM parking sticker No. 4474 and placed it on the rear left bumper. Where it remains, crinkled, battered, defiant. The Pearsons remain happily married, too.

The car and its vintage parking sticker have been around the block a few times, and John Pearson began an extensive rehab in 1995, at his Baton Rouge, La., home.

Last fall, the Pearsons and their restored TR-3A returned to UWM. As usual, a crowd gathered and wanted to talk about the car. The stories it – and its parking sticker – could tell.

The 1966-67 UWM parking sticker, still in place on the rear bumper.

John Pearson brought his restored Triumph back to campus last fall.

CLASSNOTES


Louis Iannuzzi (’78 BS Zoology) earned his PhD in Physical Therapy and serves as a clinical assistant professor at New York University’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program. He has a clinical practice specializing in wound care, diabetes and leprosy at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Alison Keenan (’78 BS Nursing) is an RN case manager for United Health Care. She had previously done medical missionary work in Guatemala.

Scott F. Georgeson (’79 BS Architectural Studies) of Workshop Architects was asked by the Colombian Ministry of Culture to serve as its representative for the Teatro de Cristobal Colon-Bogota International Design Competition jury. The two-stage Colon Theatre Competition is a joint effort between the Colombia Ministry of Culture and the Colombian Association of Architects. With more than 150 theater projects in his portfolio, Georgeson, FAIA, NCARB, LEED AP, has focused his practice on performing-arts architecture.

Dolores (Doe) Hentschel (’79 PhD Urban Education) has been inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame. Known for her pioneering and internationally acclaimed outreach programs to diverse populations, she has worked with a wide range of organizations and institutions, and served as dean of extended and continuing education at the University of Connecticut from 1986 to 1995.

Barbara Rutkowski (’79 MS Administrative Leadership) was featured on the Wisconsin Historical Society’s website in 2013 in a section on members who demonstrated exemplary involvement with the society. She is retired from the Milwaukee Public Schools’ Recreation Division.

Scott F. Georgeson (‘79 BS – back row, in white shirt) and fellow jury members.

A world for the wiseUWM’s Osher Lifelong Learning

Institute offers adults over age 50 a variety of opportunities to learn – without tests or grades. Currently, more than 900 members are active in the institute, based in the UWM School of Continuing Education.

Participating in Osher programs and activities is an excellent way to get involved, keep your mind fresh and make new friends. Members can choose from a variety of offerings, including:• Short Courses are two to six-week

sessions covering changing topics in the arts, literature, ethics, science, politics, religion and history.

• Go Explore excursions are one-time, docent-led outings to places of interest in the Milwaukee area such as museums, theaters and planetariums.

• Special Interest Groups meet regularly for study and discussion. They are offered in such fields as languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish and Thai), history, ecology and reading.

• Educational Travel & Tours, offered by the School of Continuing Education, provide experiences of a lifetime. Travel to remarkable locations around the world on tours led by noted UWM faculty and staff,

and take full advantage of the discount available to Osher members.

The institute at UWM is one of 116 around the United States – from Maine to Hawaii – and the only Osher program in Wisconsin. It receives major funding from the Bernard Osher Foundation of California.

Although most members are retired, you do not have to be a retiree to join, nor do you have to be associated with UWM. People of all educational backgrounds are welcome. Membership is $45 a year for individuals; $80 for couples or two people at the same mailing address.

For more information, visit sce-osher.uwm.edu, or call 414-227-3321 Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Osher members enjoying a Go Explore excursion.


Journeys end in

meeting “ Journeys end in lovers meeting

Every wise man’s son doth know.” —William Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night”

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, we invited alumni to share their UWM Love Stories. These are just a few of the many responses. At UWM, we are a romantic bunch.

On the big day itself, 45 alumni and friends attended the Alumni Association’s I ♥ UWM event on campus. There was dinner, champagne and – dare we say – romance in the air. Lucky couples won date night packages, including dinner and overnight lodging.

The Valentine’s Day event was co-chaired by Lisa Misky (’94, ’97) and Dave Misky (’92 – Alumni Association Board president), and Karl Fiasca (’78) and Chris Fiasca (’80 – UWM Foundation Board chair).

Says Adrienne Bass, associate vice chancellor for alumni relations, “Hearing our alumni share their stories – from first date to 70th anniversary – warmed us all.”

Alicia and Justin Groeschel “I met my husband at a Bible Talk meeting. I noticed that he hung out in the Union at the same time every day. I would make my way to the Union so I could ‘bump into him.’ After a few months, we both knew we were meant for each other. We were both in school when we married, so we didn’t have an official honeymoon. However, we were able to spend a lot of quality time on campus, going back to ‘our spot’ in the Union every day to remember where we met.”

Richard and Louise Wilde“Dick and I met at MSTC [Milwaukee State Teachers College, a UWM predecessor institution] in 1939, were college sweethearts, married in 1943 at an air base, and will celebrate our 70th wedding anniversary on Dec. 21. That chance meeting at the teacher’s college when Dick was a sophomore and I was a freshman led to a long and happy marriage, four children, and seven grandchildren.”

Kelly and Kathy Clark“It’s been said that if you can remember the ’60s, you weren’t really there. I remember a lot about the ’60s. I was with the UWM Post. I’ll never forget a concert by Spanky & Our Gang in 1968. That’s when I met Kathy, student publicity coordinator for the Union Activities Board. Kathy was a business major, and I pondered what sort of match could come about from that. Journalism and business?”

Brian and Laurel Bear“Laurel and I met the first week of freshman year – this beautiful redhead across the plaza with hair down to her waist. We started dating and never looked back. We married during our senior year in medical school and have been married for 30 years. UWM holds a special place in our hearts. The Target MD program gave us a great start to our careers; it is where our relationship began. We are extremely grateful for both.”

B Y A L E X V A G E L A T O S


Nancy (Duemmel) Stern and Gerald Stern“My story begins in 1949, when, as a junior at Milwaukee State Teachers College, now UWM, I met my true love, my ‘husband to be.’ It was easy to meet at that time, since there were only three buildings: Mitchell, Quonset hut “Commons” and Baker Fieldhouse…. I graduated in 1950 and he followed, having served in the Navy in WWII. We married, raised three children and continued in the education field. I retired as a longtime teacher in Milwaukee Public Schools, and my husband as principal at Brookfield East High School. We now are proud grandparents of two teachers. Recently we celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary, are life members of the UWMAA and continue to support the university.”

Danielle and Andy Ochs“My husband and I met at UWM in Sociology 101. We found each other on Facebook and saw we had so many of the same interests. A week or two into the class we were spending time together and by the end of March we were in a relationship. We have so many great memories together at UWM: the Panther Prowl and many hours in the library studying and drinking coffee from the Grind.”

Alex and Ellery Hui “A course in ballroom dance fit into my schedule and I decided to give it a shot. I did not get paired with my wife-to-be, Ellery. I didn’t see Ellery until the following semester. The time we spent together expanded to study sessions and shared meals and the lakefront in the evening. We joyously married on a beautiful autumn day in 2008 just across the street from campus and minutes from where we first waltzed into each other’s lives.”

Ryan Mleziva and Lian Horbinski“I ran track and was dealing with a knee injury. Lian was admitted to the Athletic Training Program, and spent a lot of time working with the athletes. I remember thinking she was too gorgeous and out of my league. A few months went by and we were both at the same party. I definitely made a horrible first impression, but it was enough to convince her to dance with me. Lian was assigned to be the student athletic trainer for my team. Falling in love was inevitable. We’re engaged to be married and fall in love a little more every day.”

Robin and Dylan Page “I met my true love and now husband freshman year of 2000. I played on the volleyball team and he played on the basketball team. We would sometimes have practice at the same time. I would catch him checking me out in my spandex. Then one night he helped me figure out how to sign up for AOL instant messenger. From that moment we were inseparable. We got married in 2007, and are still as happy as ever and very much in love.”

Brent Reistad and Brianna Hicks “I met Brianna in the fall of 2007, our first year. Her suitemate ended up being my roommate’s cousin. They introduced us and we fell in love after sharing many dates at the Gasthaus and working out at the Klotsche Center. One of our favorite things was playing air hockey at the Union. We had many late nights studying at the library. We have had wonderful years together.”


Maytee Aspuro (’82 BBA, ‘91 MS)

Mary Ellen Kohn-Buday (’82 BA, ’85 MA)

Alexander Rassogianis (’82 MA)

1980sMichael Koren (’80 BS Curriculum & Instruction, ’85 MS Education, ’86 MS Curriculum & Instruction) received the Mel Miller Award from the National Social Studies Supervisors Association, given annually to an individual who exemplifies outstanding leadership in the Social Studies field. Koren, who was named Wisconsin and National Council for the Social Studies Outstanding Middle Level Teacher of the Year in 2010 and a Herb Kohl Scholar in 2008, teaches seventh- and eighth-grade social studies in suburban Milwaukee. He also is the executive director of internal affairs and treasurer of the Wisconsin Council of the Social Studies and served six years on the Board of Directors of the National Council for the Social Studies.

Jeff Otto (’80 BBA Marketing), a native of Milwaukee, was named one of the Best Teachers in Minnesota for 2013-14 by Golf Digest magazine. Otto is the director of instruction at Olympic Hills Golf Club in Eden Prairie, MN.

Maytee Aspuro (’82 BBA Marketing, ’91 MS Management) retired after working 30 years for the State of Wisconsin. She left her position as the chief information officer/information technology director for the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families in 2013.

Mary Ellen Kohn-Buday (’82 BA, ’85 MA) received Mount Mary University’s 2013 Excellence in Teaching award. Kohn-Buday is an associate professor of foreign languages/Spanish and chairperson of the World Languages Department at the university. Nominating students identified Kohn-Buday as a teacher who “loves what she is teaching and who is eager to get into the classroom and see her students do well.”

Alexander Rassogianis (’82 MA History) paid tribute to his childhood and Greek heritage in his memoir, “Return to Glenlord: Memories of Michigan Summers” (published by iUniverse), an homage to his family and friends who shared their summers together. He taught history in Chicago for more than 15 years and served as a compliance officer for the U.S. government. Rassogianis has also published “The Growth of Greek Owned Businesses in Chicago, Illinois: 1900-1930.”

Debbie (Vento) Seeger (’82 BS Communication) is the co-founder and senior vice president of Patina Solutions, which is on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing companies.

Richard A. Bowen (’83 BA English) is the author of “A Sixties Survivor’s Handbook: Expanding Consciousness and Coming of Age in the 1960’s” (Ariadne Publishers, 2013), a nonfiction account of one person’s journey during those turbulent times of social, cultural, economic and artistic change.

Mary M. Olson (’83 MS Curriculum & Instruction) was awarded the UW-Parkside Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award in May 2013.

James Hennick (’84 BBA Accounting) joined Reilly, Penner & Benton as a senior tax accountant. Hennick is responsible for individual, corporate, partnership, fiduciary, exempt organizations and estate taxes at the Wisconsin CPA firm.

Jennifer Rude Klett (’84 BA Mass Communication-Journalism) is the author of “Alamo Doughboy: Marching into the Heart of Kaiser’s Germany During World War I” (Branden Books, 2014). Klett spent eight years researching the stories of five ancestors – her grandfather, his two brothers and two cousins – who fought in Germany during World War I. A former newspaper reporter and now a freelance nonfiction writer, Klett lives in Delafield, Wis. She writes that William “Wild Bill” Renzi (History Department) was her favorite professor: “I even interviewed him once for the UWM Post.” “Alamo Doughboy” is available online through amazon.com and brandenbooks.com.

Henry Klimowicz (’84 BFA Art) received a Critics Pick in the January issue of ArtNews magazine for his much-admired work creating sculptures from cardboard. Klimowicz moved to a studio in upstate New York shortly after his graduation from UWM.

Stephen Lesavich (’86 MS Computer Science) co-authored “The Plastic Effect, How Urban Legends Influence the Use and Misuse of Credit Cards,” available on amazon.com. The book was awarded a gold medal in the Independent Publisher 2013 Living Now Book Awards as the best new book in the finance/budgeting category.

Mary Olson (’83 MS)

Henry Klimowicz (’84 BFA)

Jennifer Rude Klett (’84 BA)

CLASSNOTES


Terry Grigg (’87 BBA)

Terry Grigg (’87 BBA Marketing) was promoted by Assurant Health to vice president–claims. An 11-year veteran of Milwaukee-based Assurant Health, Grigg has served in a variety of manager and director roles.

Tim Dunn (’88 BBA Marketing) was named area vice president at PTC. He also wrote his first novel, “Monomania – The Autobiography of Tom Dory,” a fictional thriller that received honorable mention awards at the London, Paris and San Francisco book festivals. It is available at amazon.com.

Patrick F. Mensah (’88 BS Mechanical Engineering, ’91 MS Engineering), a Formosa Endowed Professor at Southern University and A&M College, and a member of the American Society for Engineering Education, was named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The fellow grade is the highest elected grade of membership in ASME. Fellowship is conferred upon a member with at least 10 years of active engineering practice who has made significant contributions to the profession. Mensah lives in Baton Rouge, La.

Earl Bracy (’89 BA Clinical Psychology) is the author of three books, including “The Making of a Psychologist” and “Too Young to Die: Inner City Adolescent Homicides,” available online at rosedogbookstore.com. He operates the Bracy Psychological Services and Stress Management Institute in Milwaukee, and is the founder of the Wrap Around Program, which gives area youth the means and courage to overcome obstacles in order to lead healthy, productive lives.

1990sJon Salton (’90 BSE Mechanical Engineering, ’92 MS Engineering) was quoted in Wired magazine talking about the Multi-Modal Vehicle Concept, a proposed military vehicle that would travel land, sea and air by transforming itself to accommodate different terrains. This vehicle was conceived by the Intelligent Systems, Robotics and Cybernetics unit at Sandia National Laboratories, where Salton works an as engineer. “[Multi-Modal Vehicle] should at least be able to substantially enhance the capabilities of Special Ops,” Salton was quoted as saying about the vehicle. (Salton is profiled on page 3 of this issue.)

Mary Rieder (’91 MLIS) has joined Marquette University’s Raynor Memorial Libraries’ Resource Management team as coordinator of acquisition and discovery services. Rieder is the former director of Library Support Services for the University of Wisconsin Colleges.

Ellen Engseth (’92 BA History, ’97 MA History, ’97 MLIS) was appointed curator of the Immigration History Research Center Archives at University of Minnesota Libraries. She was previously archivist and senior academic librarian at the UWM Libraries.

Lori Rosenthal (’92 MS Engineering) has been appointed Milwaukee Facilities Group leader at GRAEF, a Wisconsin-based engineering and consulting firm. She joined GRAEF in 1994.

Jennifer Clippert (’95 BFA) teaches flute at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts. She has performed throughout Chicago with groups such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Grant Park Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Chicago Opera Theater and the Chicago Symphony’s MUSICNOW series, among others.

Jaime Houghton (’95 MS Clinical Laboratory Sciences) joined Packaging Coordinators Inc.’s North American Clinical Services team at the company’s packaging and distribution site in Rockford, Ill. Houghton has extensive background in clinical development with several health-care firms, including Hollister Incorporated. Previously, he spent 20 years in various leadership positions around clinical study and laboratory development with Baxter Healthcare Corporation.

Jamaal Abdul-Alim (’96 BA Mass Communication-Journalism) won a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University, where he was also named Chess Journalist of the Year for 2013 by the Chess Journalists of America.

Scott Fischer (’96 BBA Accounting, ’02 MS Taxation) joined The Marcus Corporation as director of tax. Previously, Fischer was director of tax for Stark Investments for seven years. He began his career as a tax analyst for Firstar Corporation in 1996 and served as manager of domestic tax for Sensient Technologies Corporation from 1999 to 2006. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Tax Executives Institute.

Jennifer Hartlaub (’96 MS Nursing), a nurse practitioner for Aurora Health Care, is chair of the APRN/PA Leadership Council’s Steering Committee – Primary Care Redesign and co-leader of the Advanced Practice Provider Model of Care Project.

Sharon McQueen (’97 BA Theatre, ’99 MLIS) received the 2014 ALISE/LMC Paper Award for her biography of childhood education legend May Hill Arbuthnot. This annual award is sponsored by Linworth/Libraries Unlimited and is bestowed by the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE).

Scott Fischer (’96 BBA, ‘02 MS)

Jaime Houghton (’95 MS)

Sharen McQueen (’97 BA, ‘99 MLIS)


Career help for alums UWM alumni who are changing jobs – or who are seeking new professional pursuits – are eligible for a 20 percent discount that applies to all programs offered by the Career Transition Center (CTC) at UWM’s School of Continuing Education.

Courses include: Career Coaching – Hourly; Career Coaching Package; MBTI & Strong Interest Combo Package; Myers Briggs Type Indicator; Personal Career Marketing and Social Media Review; Resume Review & Feedback Session; Strong Interest Inventory.

The only exception is the Career Intake Session, an initial half-hour consultation that

provides participants with clarity and focus on what they need to move their careers

forward. Because understanding career transition challenges while prioritizing tasks is

essential, Career Transition Coaches develop a plan specific to each individual. The $25

fee for the Career Intake Session may be applied to the cost of other CTC programs.

For more information or to register, visit sce-ctc.uwm.edu.

Angie Schmidt (’97 BA Music Certification) is in her 15th year as the director of orchestras at Lake Mills Area Schools and is the cellist for Far Corner, a chamber rock ensemble. She is writing “101 Violin Tips,” a follow-up to her earlier “101 Cello Tips.” She founded the school’s mentor program in 2008 and Chamber Strings in 2010.

Elisabeth Lyman (’98 BA Linguistics, ’04 MA Foreign Languages and Literature) has translated Armand Chauvel’s novel “The Green and the Red,” a story set in France that offers a combination of humor, romance and a closer look at how our food choices impact us, the animals and the environment (Ashland Creek Press, May 2014). Lyman currently lives in Paris, France, where she works as a freelance translator. ashlandcreekpress.com/books/greenandred.html.

Julia Rodemeier (’98 MA Art History) has joined the staff at Lakeland College in Sheboygan as one of two associate deans for academic affairs. Rodemeier will support the delivery of the general education curriculum in the college’s Evening, Weekend and Online (EWO) program, in addition to overseeing academic support services at the main campus.

2000sJames N. Law (’01 BA Mass Communication-Journalism) joined Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C. as an associate in the firm’s litigation practice. Following law school at Marquette University, Law completed a judicial clerkship for William C. Griesbach of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District, in Green Bay. During law school, he interned for Rudolph T. Randa, U.S. District Court, Eastern District, in Milwaukee, and John L. Coffey, Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Lisa Schiller (’01 BA Communication) received a national Investigative Award (first place) through the Better Business Bureau (BBB) system in the United States and Canada. She is the chief investigator and handles all media/public relations for the BBB serving Wisconsin. She expects to receive a BS in Criminal Justice from UWM this year.

Julia Rodemeier (’98 MA)

Elisabeth Lynan (’98 BA, ‘04 MA)

James Law (’01 BA)

CLASSNOTES


Directed to a life in art

BY ANGELA MCMANAMAN

If she had completed the home economics degree she began in the

’60s, maybe Evelyn Patricia Terry (BFA ’70, MA ’73) would be the kind of woman who could turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

“My mother said I should go to college and learn to cook and sew, so I could get a job,” the 68-year-old Terry reveals in stately, slowly unfolding sentences.

Two years at MATC did little to cure the North Division High School graduate’s deep shyness and uncertainty. After transferring to UWM to major in home economics, Terry received life-changing news. She was in class. She remembers working with colored tissue paper.

“The professor, looking at my artwork, told me she thought I should be an artist and directed me to Mitchell Hall.”

Spoiler alert: That teacher was correct. Just this spring, the Milwaukee Arts

Board named Terry its 2014 Milwaukee Artist of the Year, citing her 45-year career as a printmaker, painter, collector and arts patron. More than 400 collections worldwide now claim an original Terry print, pastel, mixed media or painting. Mitchell International Airport and the Wisconsin Center have commissioned Terry’s public art, which highlights her multidisciplinary collaborations with other artists.

A steely practicality girds Terry now, and may have sustained her as an emerging artist in the heady, sometimes-hostile late ’60s and early ’70s. At MATC and UWM, she noticed the absence of African American history.

She was undaunted because her worldview cracked open, wide, when she first entered UWM’s Mitchell Hall – longtime home of the university’s visual arts programs.

“I saw a man working on a printing press, etching, and I thought ‘This is it. I am supposed to be here.’ I feel like my life opened up that day. I don’t know how else it would have happened if not at UWM.”

Her new major fit her well. Her art challenged her peers.

“I would draw black people, and people would say to me: ‘Why do you draw black people?’ I remember I said that’s because everybody draws what they know.

“People would ask: ‘How do you draw black people?,’” Terry continues. “How? Because you can draw a car or a house. Look at the subject in front of you.”

If asked to divide her adult life in two, Terry might draw the line at 1980. Working her way through and out of a difficult marriage and into new directions with her career – plus a 1985 MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago – she began studying spiritual self-empowerment at a Milwaukee church. Words like “grateful” and “proactive” became her touchstones.

Myriad exhibitions from Chicago to Russia, awards,

proposals, gallery sales and speaking invitations have filled her time since then. A couple decades ago, Terry says, she might have thought of her seventh decade as a time for retirement.

Now that she’s nearly 70 she thinks differently. “My health is great…I’m always looking for a new direction.”

This includes “Play the Race Card,” a body of 52 mixed-media pieces in four 13-piece suits, publication of her book “Permission to Paint, Please! African American Artists Connected to Wisconsin” and an upcoming public art venture for the Creational Trails project aimed toward reviving Downtown Milwaukee.

There’s more to say. Some controversies along the way. They’re easy to find online. But this active artist and mother of two would prefer that you look up “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, with Henry Louis Gates Jr.,” the Peabody-winning PBS series that her daughter Talleah Bridges McMahon co-produced. One of Terry’s closest collaborators is son Fondé Bridges. He provides “healthy words” as the textual component in Terry’s public-art pieces.

This Fondé phrase may be her favorite: “Life is like school lessons, strive to get an ‘A’ every day.”

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Evelyn Patricia Terry

“Flames Moving the Real,” 2000

Bus shelter, “Kindred Tie,” 2011


CLASSNOTES

Danielle Bergner (’02 BA)

Joseph Sinnett (’03 BS)

Christopher Menden (’03 BA)

Melissa Case (’04 MBA)

Danielle (Snyder) Bergner (’02 BA Economics) was appointed deputy city attorney for the City of Milwaukee. She is responsible for managing the legal aspects of the city’s foreclosure, housing and neighborhood revitalization initiatives.

Christopher Menden (’03 BA Economics) joined Prairie Financial Group, a division of Waukesha State Bank, as the director of market strategy and development. Menden is on the board of the Waukesha County Estate Planning Council and served on the Franklin Educational Foundation board of directors. He also is an adviser in the UWM Economics Mentor Program, and a youth baseball coach.

Joseph A. Sinnett (’03 BS Architectural Studies) has joined architecture and experience design firm Kahler Slater as a member of the Business Environments and Hospitality team in the firm’s Milwaukee office. Sinnett will focus on hospitality and multi-family projects, as well as mixed-use developments.

Katie Blank (’04 BA History, MLIS) joined the Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University Library as electronic records manager. She previously was the associate special librarian and Archival Studies Program assistant at the UWM School of Information Studies.

Melissa Case (’04 MBA) was named CFO of Annex Wealth Management, a leading independent investment advisory firm based in Elm Grove, Ill. She previously served as controller for R.A. Smith National. Case lives in Hartland, Wis., and is a volunteer member of the Hartland Athletic Advancement Association.

Rebekah (Nyenhuis) Mueller (’04 BFA Music Education) is a school band director in Oostburg, Wis. At graduation in 2004, she and her husband (UWM School of Architecture & Urban Planning alumnus Nick Mueller) met onstage by chance when their names were called at the same time.

UWM educates nearly 28,000 students annually with proven results.

Your estate gift will help prepare and inspire the next generation.

Remembering the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in your estate

plans is an investment in our future.

LIFT UP THE NEXT GENERATION

Get started: giftplanning.uwm.edu

or contact Gretchen Miller at 414-229-3067

UWM educates nearly 28,000 students annually with proven results.

Your estate gift will help prepare and inspire the next generation.

Remembering the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in your estate

plans is an investment in our future.

LIFT UP THE NEXT GENERATION

Get started: giftplanning.uwm.edu

or contact Gretchen Miller at 414-229-3067

Benjamin Schultz (’05 BFA Instrumental Music) is assistant director at the UW-Madison School of Music.

Ethan Skeels (’06 BS Architectural Studies) has joined architecture and experience design firm Kahler Slater as a member of the Business Environments and Hospitality team in the firm’s Milwaukee office. His focus will be corporate facilities. Skeels was UWM’s 2011 recipient of the AIA Henry Adams Medal, which honors the top-ranking graduating student in each architecture program accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board.

Ryan Gutsch (’07 BFA Music Education) recently accepted the position of band director at Owen-Withee School District after four years at Turtle Lake (Wis.) School District.

Jessica Spooner (’07 BS) is an account executive at Trefoil Group, where she is responsible for strategic planning, development and execution of marketing initiatives and day-to-day project management for clients in manufacturing and professional services.

Natalie (Day) Baertschy (’08 MM Music) is the music content specialist and choir director at New Berlin Eisenhower Middle/High School.

Michelle Caswell (’08 MLIS) is the author of “Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia” (University of Wisconsin Press, April 2014). The book traces the social history of the mug shots of prisoners at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where thousands of “enemies of the state” were tortured before being sent to the Killing Fields. Caswell is assistant professor of archival studies in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she is also an affiliated faculty member with the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

Amy Jorn (’08 BFA Music Education) has taken a position as elementary music specialist at Elmbrook Schools, teaching K-5 general music for students at three elementary schools. She previously taught at Muskego-Norway Schools for five years.

Ethan Skeels (’06 BS)

Jessica Spooner (’07 BS)

Sharing their Panther Pride during a trip to Iceland are Richard Minga (’69 BA Education, ’70 MS Curriculum and Instruction, ’73 Educational Administration and Supervision) and Shirley Minga (’69 BA Education, ’82 MS Curriculum and Instruction). Both are retired educators – he as principal of West Milwaukee Middle School; she as a teacher at Rufus King School for the College Bound. They met at UWM, and “UWM is still home to us,” Shirley says. They are season ticket holders for Panthers basketball and members of UWM’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (see page 27).

Alumni Ryan T. Duce (’05 BBA) and Keri L. (Smith) Duce (’07 MS Education) celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary with Panther Pride in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, last January. Keri is the assistant director of student success

at UWM; Ryan is with Custom Design Lean Manufacturing Systems in Greendale.

They attended UWM through the Y2K crisis that wasn’t, witnessed the revival of Panthers basketball, closed the Landmark once, twice (or 20?) times, and still found time to graduate and use their UWM degrees for good. Longtime UWM friends (clockwise from top right) Nicole Boettcher (’00 BS Nursing), Edit Shalom (’00 BS Nursing), Jessica Emerson (’97 BSW), Angela McManaman (’08 MA Media Studies, ’00 BA Journalism) and Sharifah Qureshi (’00 BS Nursing) flaunted their Panther Pride during a reunion weekend in Austin, Tex., last spring. The one-time Milwaukeeans now reside in Seattle, Calgary and San Diego – and, yes, one’s still at UWM.

SHOW YOUR PANTHER PRIDE


Share your stories. We love bragging about you.Won an award? Started a business? Had an adventure? Welcomed a baby? We’d like to hear about it. Email your class notes to [email protected] or write to UWM Alumni Association, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee WI 53201.

Please be sure to include your full name (including maiden name, if applicable), address, year(s) of graduation, degree(s) and major(s). Photos are welcome!

On June 20, 2013, UWM alumni and staff members Alexandra Trumbull-Holper (’07 MS Anthropology), program manager for the Department of Music, Peck School of the Arts, and Randall Trumbull-Holper (’07 BFA

Technical Theatre), director of facilities for the Peck School, welcomed their first child into the world. Emerson James comes from a long line of Panthers, including his Aunt Lisel Holper (currently pursuing an MS in Occupational Therapy), Grandfather J. Frederick Holper (’70 BA Journalism) and Great Aunt Margaret Bussone (’66 BS Education, ’68 MA French). “Ems” has been sighted on campus a number of times, and looks forward to spending much more time here in the years to come!

UWM Alumni Associate Editor Angela McManaman (‘08 MA Media Studies, ‘00 BA Journalism) took a pass on Black Friday deals last Thanksgiving weekend due to a pressing personal deadline: the arrival of her fourth Panther cub, Solomon Rolihlahla Sachin Chheda. Born at 11:11 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2013, the sixish-pounder was welcomed by dad Sachin Chheda. Mom and dad met as UWM students in the late ’90s, and claim as their most embarrassing UWM memory a halftime center court rib-eating contest in the Klotsche Arena in 1998. Sachin won.

Mary (Rinzel) Baylor (’04 BA Journalism and Mass Communication) and Chris Baylor welcomed their first child, Christian Achilles, on Aug. 28, 2013. Both Mary and Chris are videographers with UWM’s Department of Integrated Marketing and Communications. Beware of proud parents with cameras. For Christian’s debut in UWM Alumni, “I took about

112 photos,” Chris reports. He and Mary narrowed it down to two. Here is our favorite.

NEW PANTHER CUBS ON THE PROWL

CLASSNOTES

2010s Wesley Couch (’10 BFA) recently began a new job as director of bands at Denmark High School. He and his wife, Amanda Couch, are the parents of a new son, Aiden Brody. Welsey was also an instrumentalist for seven years in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Stephanie Fidlin (’10 BS Nursing) recently accepted a promotion to nursing supervisor of the Inpatient Unit at Midwest Orthopedic Specialty Hospital in Franklin, Wis. Fidlin has been a registered nurse working in orthopedics for three years, and resides in Milwaukee with her husband and two children.

Daniel M. LaFrenz (’12 MS Management) joined the Milwaukee-based law firm Michael Best & Friedrich’s Transactional Practice Group, specializing in tax matters. Previously, LaFrenz worked as a tax consultant for Deloitte Tax LLP. While in Marquette University Law School, LaFrenz was a legal intern for the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee and a legal intern for the IRS Office of Chief Counsel.

Bernadine Trimberger (’13 BA JAMS) is an account coordinator with Trefoil Group, a Milwaukee-based strategic marketing communications firm. Trimberger is responsible for assisting with the planning, development and execution of initiatives for clients in manufacturing and professional services. Prior to joining Trefoil Group, Trimberger was a sales and marketing intern at Entercom Milwaukee.


AMBASSADORUWM’SAMBASSADORAlumni

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BECOME A PART OF

Your enthusiasm for UWM and your personal experience can make a difference for students exploring their college options.

By volunteering to be part of the UWM Alumni Ambassador Program you will have the opportunity to help expand the university’s presence locally and nationally by providing a valuable, genuine connection with future generations of Panthers.

SIGN UP TODAY!alumni.uwm.edu/pantherUWM Alumni [email protected]

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New Look, New Opportunities

The UWM Alumni Association offers more than ever before.

See inside this issue for your Events Guidebook and visit us online

for networking, chapters, volunteer opportunites, and so much more.

NOW is the time to get involved.

alumni.uwm.edu

uwm alumni magazine spring 2014

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