Learn more about the UW System at "UW Day at the State Fair"

The UW System invites families, students and others to learn more about the state's public university at this year's Wisconsin State Fair!

Fairgoers will learn about the UW campuses and enjoy activities, info and entertainment planned for "UW Day at the State Fair," Friday, Aug. 2, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds.

Staff from the UW System Higher Education Location Program (HELP) will be available to answer questions about admissions, courses and programs, careers, transfers and financial aid. Visitors will also have a chance to learn how UW-Extension enhances communities around Wisconsin.

Hands-on exhibits, insightful discussions and musical entertainment with UW faculty and staff will highlight the system's 13 four-year universities and 13 freshman-sophomore campuses at the UW Main Stage.

UW athletics coaches will be on hand to help kids sharpen their sports skills, and university mascots will pose for pictures and meet the fans!

Visit the UW at the State Fair website

UW System to host third economic summit

Building on the successes of its first two economic summits, the UW System will host its third statewide economic summit Oct. 14-16 in Milwaukee.

While the first two summits explored the challenges and opportunities of Wisconsin's changing economy, Economic Summit III will focus on specific steps needed to improve the state's economic climate. The summit will be held again at the Midwest Express Center.

The dates for Summit III are a bit earlier than the past two years, with the hope that Wisconsin's gubernatorial candidates will be able to share their plans to strengthen the state economy.

To assist in planning the agenda for Summit III, the UW System is surveying several hundred business and labor leaders, government officials and economic development experts.

Welcoming a New Chancellor President Katharine Lyall greets UW System's newest campus leader at UW-La Crosse's inauguration ceremony for Chancellor Doug Hastad April 12. (UW-La Crosse)

Institute name honors Gaylord Nelson

Gaylord Nelson (UW-Madison)

Thirty-two years after he founded Earth Day to raise public awareness about environmental issues, Wisconsin native Gaylord Nelson is still a resolute voice for the earth. His legacy is now permanently honored at UW-Madison.

Gov. Scott McCallum in April signed into law a bill directing the Board of Regents to rename the Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison after the former Wisconsin governor and three-term U.S. senator. The interdisciplinary unit, established in 1970 just two months before the first Earth Day, will be known as the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

The regents formally approved the name change at their May meeting.

Institute director Thomas Yuill said the new name "will give us an image and a tradition that we will try very hard to meet."

As a Wisconsin state senator and governor, Nelson called attention to issues of land protection, wildlife habitat, and environmental quality. In the U.S. Senate, he championed landmark laws including the Wilderness Act, National Trails Act, and National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. He also introduced bills to mandate fuel efficiency standards in cars, control strip mining, ban phosphates from detergents, and prohibit use of the pesticide DDT and the defoliant 2,4,5-T.

Nelson, 85, is perhaps best known as the founder of Earth Day, first observed on April 22, 1970, and now an annual event nationwide. Since leaving the Senate in 1981, he has campaigned for environmental stewardship as a counselor for The Wilderness Society. In 1995 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor.

UW-Eau Claire's "Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence" Campaign
	David and Marilyn Karlgaard of Fairfax, Va., have committed a lead gift of $4.5 million to UW-Eau Claire's Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence campaign. The Karlgaards' gift and other leadership gifts, as well as the overall goal to raise $35 million by July 2005, were announced April 26 during the campaign kickoff event. So far, contributors have committed nearly $18.3 million to the campaign.

Oshkosh chancellor to serve on NCAA council

Richard H. Wells

UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard H. Wells has been named to the NCAA Division III Presidents Council, a national policy-setting body of 15 chief executive officers of Division III colleges and universities.

Wells has taught, conducted research and written articles on sport as a sociology professor and served on several committees dealing with athletics as an administrator at NCAA Division I, II and III schools.

He was also a 1968 NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) All-American in football at William Penn College.

"At Division III schools, sports can be one vehicle to build character in students," Wells said. "It can help young men and women learn to work better with others, teaching them something that is fundamental about being a human being."

UW System's dot.edu named Sun Microsystems Center of Excellence

The UW System's e-learning infrastructure provider, dot.edu, has been named a Sun Microsystems Center of Excellence. The award puts dot.edu, housed at UW-Milwaukee, in a class with only 25 other Sun Centers worldwide.

Through Sun's Global Education and Research unit, the Centers of Excellence program is helping to advance the future of information technology through partnerships with leading educational institutions.

Digital Online Technology.Educational Design Utility, or dot.edu, is the only Sun Center of Excellence specializing in e-learning in the United States. In partnership with software companies Blackboard, Inc. and Prometheus, dot.edu will research innovations in e-learning using technological products made by Sun.

dot.edu provides instructional design and software training and hosting services for online course development. More importantly, it assists institutions in identifying and coordinating the multitude of support services necessary for successful implementation of online program delivery.

Services are provided to all UW System campuses as well as other institutions of higher education and PK-12 school districts. In all, dot.edu services nearly 60 institutions, providing a seamless PK-16 experience. The department began offering services in

1999 and since then has helped put nearly 7,000 courses online.

Each Center of Excellence has distinguished itself for advanced use of information technology and focuses on a particular use - from high-performance computing and computational biology to digital libraries and, now, e-learning innovations.

"We are pleased to be honored by Sun for our expertise in e-learning development," said Charlene Douglas, director of dot.edu. "By teaming up with Sun, Blackboard and Prometheus, we intend to develop new methods of keeping pace with educational needs in the 21st Century."

As a Center for Excellence, dot.edu will have access to a Web-based community of institutions doing work in similar areas, further enhancing communication between institutions. It also may be eligible for discounted pricing on Sun products used in the Center.

dot.edu subcontracts all its facilities management and Help Desk support to UWM, which reflects positively on UWM's Information & Media Technology division, Douglas added.

Regents elect board officers

Guy A. Gottschalk

Toby E. Marcovich

The UW System Board of Regents elected new leaders at its June meeting, selecting Guy A. Gottschalk of Wisconsin Rapids as president and Toby E. Marcovich of Superior as vice president.

Gottschalk, chair of the Regents' Business and Finance Committee and member of the Regents' Executive Committee, succeeds Jay L. Smith as president of the board. Gottschalk began his seven-year term as a UW regent in 1998.

As chair of the Business and Finance Committee, Gottschalk has helped direct the effort to build the UW System's resource base. He is president of Gottschalk Cranberry, Inc., and Biron Cranberry Co.

He is a UW System alumnus, having earned a bachelor's degree in horticulture from UW-Madison. Gottschalk also serves on the University of Wisconsin Foundation board of directors and the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences board of visitors.

Marcovich, chair of the Regents' Personnel Review Committee, succeeds Gerald A. Randall, Jr., as Regent vice president. Marcovich begin his service as a UW regent in 1997 and previously served as chair of the Regents' Business and Finance Committee.

A partner in the Marcovich, Chochrane & Milliken law firm in Superior, Marcovich is a current member of the Lawyer Pilots Bar Association and the American Academy of Trial Lawyers. A UW System alumnus, Marcovich earned his bachelor's degree in economics and law degree from UW-Madison.

Gottschalk and Marcovich were elected to one-year terms as president and vice-president.

UW-Marshfield/Wood County professor receives Fulbright Scholarship

Jeff Kleiman (UW Colleges)

For the second year in a row, a UW-Marshfield/Wood County professor has been named a U.S. Fulbright Scholar.

Jeff Kleiman, associate professor of history, has received a Fulbright Scholar grant for the 2002-2003 academic year.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Kleiman will teach undergraduate and graduate classes in American history at the Institute for International Studies of the University of Lodz in Lodz, Poland. His classes will include a historical survey of America since 1939, the history of American business, and the history of minority groups in America. He will also supervise master's degree candidates at the university.

As part of a one-year sabbatical granted by the UW Colleges that will be concurrent with his Fulbright grant, Kleiman will develop connections for travel and educational opportunities in Poland for UW students. He also will study archives in Poland and Germany to continue his scholarly research on the Holocaust and post-World War II Europe.

Kleiman has taught at UW-Marshfield/Wood County since 1988.

In 2001, Julie Tharp, associate professor of English at UW-Marshfield/Wood County, received a Fulbright Scholar grant to teach at the National University in Singapore. That year, Tharp was one of only 8 Fulbright recipients from all 26 UW campuses and the only Fulbright Scholar from a two-year UW campus.

Each year, approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals receive Fulbright grants to lecture or conduct research in 140 countries worldwide. A similar number of visiting scholars receive awards to come to the U.S. primarily as researchers.

The Fulbright Scholar Program, founded in 1946, is sponsored by the U.S. State Department, with additional funding from participating governments and host institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

UW-Madison partners with Menominee college

Some associate degree holders from the College of the Menominee Nation will be able to transfer to bachelor's degree programs at UW-Madison under a pilot program signed earlier this year.

The agreement applies to graduates of CMN's Sustainable Development Program, which provides the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in the fields of conservation, alternative energy, environmental science and resource management.

UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley says the program will provide immeasurable benefit to the UW-Madison campus.

"It has long been our mission to promote understanding and universal respect for other cultures by increasing the diversity of our students, faculty and staff," Wiley says. "A more diverse campus leads to a greater appreciation for a variety of cultures and backgrounds."

A support network is being set up at UW-Madison to help ease the transition for the transfer students, many of whom are expected to be older students and parents. Several students are expected to take part in the pilot program for the first time this fall.

CMN was created in 1993 and joined UW-Madison and the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College as a land grant institution in 1994. It currently enrolls about 600 students.

WARF signs stem cell license agreements

WiCell Institute lab manager Leann Crandall (L) explains advances in human embryonic stem cell research being done at the institute to a visiting group of senior staff from the National Institutes of Health. (Jeff Miller/UW-Madison [2])

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has signed two licensing agreements allowing a company and another university to distribute human embryonic stem cells in research.

ES Cell International, with offices in Singapore and Melbourne, Australia, will be allowed to distribute human embryonic stem cells worldwide for use in research. This is the first license agreement WARF has signed with a commercial provider listed on the National Institutes of Health Stem Cell Registry.

In a separate agreement, the University of California-San Francisco will be able to distribute human embryonic stem cells worldwide for use in research. This is the first license agreement WARF has signed with an academic provider listed on the NIH registry.

"It is WARF's goal to enable scientists' access to a wide variety of cells to move embryonic stem cell discovery forward as fast as possible," says Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of WARF. "Only by increasing the number of scientists working in this field will these researchers bring the tomorrow of medicine closer to today."

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson lauded both agreements during a news conference on the UW-Madison campus in April.

Tommy Thompson (UW Madison)

"This announcement is further vindication of the U.S. government's approach to human embryonic stem cell research," Thompson says. "The full potential of embryonic stem cell research, and ultimately the development of therapeutic products, will only be achieved through cooperative efforts by academic institutions."

Embryonic stem cell lines were first successfully established late in 1998 by a team of scientists headed by developmental biologist James Thomson. The work was supported in large part by Geron Corp., but the patents that govern the technology and use of the cells are held by WARF.

More than 100 academic researchers and numerous companies have approached WARF about licensing stem cell technology in the past two years.

Embryonic stem cells are of great interest to medicine and science because of their ability to develop into virtually any other cell made by the human body. The first potential applications of human embryonic stem cell technology may be in the area of drug discovery. In addition, the ability to grow human tissue of all kinds opens the door to treating a range of cell-based diseases and to growing medically important tissues that can be used for transplantation purposes.

NCUR 2002 draws researchers to Wisconsin

UW-Whitewater Chancellor Jack Miller, UW System President Katharine Lyall and Newsweek editor Evan Thomas discuss the merits of undergraduate research at press conference during NCUR 2002. (UW-Whitewater)

Undergraduate research took center stage this spring at UW-Whitewater, as the university hosted the 16th annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in April.

It was the first time a UW System school has been the site for the well-attended conference. About 3,000 students and their mentors from 307 universities in 48 states participated.

UW System President Katharine Lyall spoke to media prior to the opening plenary session. She said it was an honor for UW-Whitewater and the UW System to host the conference, which took three years to plan.

"NCUR 2002 is a catalyst for an exciting exchange of ideas and a unique opportunity to experience the diversity within the undergraduate research network," Lyall said. She said the UW System is a leader in helping undergraduates participate in the research process.

UW-Whitewater Chancellor Jack Miller said that "active learning" is what the undergraduate experience is all about.

"It's like reading about a place you have been versus reading about a place you have never seen. Learning becomes more real," Miller said. "Undergraduate research motivates students to learn by doing."

The mission of NCUR is to promote undergraduate research scholarship and creative activity in partnership with faculty and other mentors as a vital component of higher learning. Integrating research into the curriculum is a growing practice in American universities and is being further supported financially by federal research agencies.

UW-Richland professor publishes history of UW Colleges

Jerry L. Bower (UW Colleges)

As a historian, participant and observer, UW-Richland's Jerry L. Bower knows Wisconsin's freshman-sophomore campuses.

The story of this important Wisconsin institution is now more accessible thanks to Bower's 12-year project researching, writing and publishing of his history of Wisconsin's two-year colleges.

"The University of Wisconsin Colleges: The Wisconsin Idea at Work," a 10-chapter, 300-page book, provides an overview from the Depression era of the 1930s that saw the emergence of the campus-in-the-community concept; through the ups-and-downs of the 1940s and '50s; the creation of the Center System in the '60s; the merger of the early '70s; and the changes of recent decades. Included, as well, are campus photos from throughout the decades.

Bower, a history professor, notes in the preface to his book, "The history of the UW Centers (now the UW Colleges) is intricately entwined with state politics, University of Wisconsin versus Wisconsin State University politics and budgetary politics."

In spite of frequent challenges, Bower writes that the campuses have survived because they are "the epitome of the Wisconsin Idea," providing live-at-home, low-cost opportunities to students and "more personal attention to students than it is possible to provide at a larger institution."

The book is based on extensive research in the UW Archives, in the files of the UW Colleges Central Offices, and in the newspaper files of the Legislative Reference Bureau in Madison.

The most startling phenomenon Bower uncovered was how intricately the history of the two-year campuses is woven into the state's budgetary politics. The state's recent budget crisis and how its resolution affects the university is simply the latest episode of a long-running saga, he said. Because of his acquaintance with the historical record, Bower is confident that the state and university will both survive.

The author's acquaintance with his subject began in 1956 when he started his college education at the Marathon County Extension Center, as the two-year campuses were then called.

He began his career as a history professor in 1967, a charter faculty member at the Richland Branch Campus of the Wisconsin State University at Platteville (as UW-Richland was then called). During his 35 years of service at the Richland Center UW campus, he served for 20 years and twice chaired the UW Centers Senate. Thousands of students have seen history come to life in his classrooms, his outstanding performance recognized in 1992 with a UW System Underkofler Excellence in Teaching Award.

For more information about the book, contact UW-Richland at (608) 647-6186.

Last member of founding UW-Waukesha faculty retires

Sara Toenes (UW Colleges)

For as long as there has been a UW-Waukesha, Sara Toenes has taught at the school.

She missed her morning class that first day in September 1966 because she was taking the last of her doctoral preliminary exams, but she drove in from Madison to teach French in the afternoon at the freshman/sophomore campus. She retired in June but expects to return as a volunteer.

As devoted and conscientious as she has been, Toenes had been reluctant to accept the position in the first place. A persistent Joseph Palmeri, who was chair of French and Italian for the UW Center System, as it was called at that time, swayed her.

"I was sitting in the Union cafeteria, and Mr. Palmeri came up to me and said, 'You need a job,'" Toenes recalled.

She was planning to continue work toward her Ph.D. and had felt no such need. Despite Palmeri's continued pressure and his prediction that Waukesha would be the largest campus in the Center System, she was not looking for a job and sent a letter to the department office refusing it. Yet Palmeri insisted, and Toenes finally acquiesced.

"Virtual" UW nursing students graduate

Two UW-Green Bay students planned to visit their campus for the first time in May-to receive their diplomas.

Paulette Vrem of St. Paul, Minn., and Rafal Banek of Des Plaines, Ill., each received a bachelor's degree in nursing from UWGB on May 25. However, unlike their commencement counterparts who attended classes on the UWGB campus, these two nurses completed their education by using computers at work and at home, miles from Wisconsin and the nearest UW campus.

Vrem and Banek are the first national graduates of the BSN-LINC program, an interactive, online nursing degree completion program established through collaboration among the five UW Schools of Nursing (led by UWGB), UW Learning Innovations and NursingCenter.com.

Delivered almost entirely online, the program allows a registered nurse with a diploma or an associate degree in nursing to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. The online environment allows for multiple opportunities to network with classmates while at the same time it provides a personalized, asynchronous learning experience.

Both Vrem and Banek started taking courses in Fall 2000. Enrolled in a full-time program on the University of Illinois campus, Banek realized he would face difficulties trying to balance his school program and his full-time job, so he decided to explore the online BSN-LINC program. Likewise, Vrem, who has a family and also works full-time, found the online degree program to be very convenient.

BSN-LINC students receive individualized, Internet-based instruction from UW nursing faculty. They progress through their studies from home or at work. Focusing on cooperative learning and team-based problem solving, the online program has course requirements and class assignments with deadlines and specific expectations just like any other college course.

UW System to co-sponsor Educational Technology Conference

Education professionals from across the state will meet in Madison this fall to learn more about expanding the use of technology in Wisconsin classrooms.

The Governor's Wisconsin Educational Technology Conference (GWETC) 2002 will be the 10th annual gathering of more than 1,500 faculty, staff and administrators from PK-16 schools, technical colleges and public and private higher education. Policymakers from state agencies, library administrators and training directors from related businesses and industries also attend the showcase.

The UW System is a co-sponsor of this year's event. GWETC will be held Oct. 8-10, 2002, at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.

GWETC helps to improve learning by providing a forum where educators can learn how to access and apply technology to teaching practices. The nationally recognized conference includes sessions, interactive workshops and labs, keynote addresses and vendor exhibits that feature the latest in educational technology and services.

State educators are invited to attend the conference. Learn more at www.gwetc.org.