{"id":5581,"date":"2020-09-23T09:15:16","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T14:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=5581"},"modified":"2020-09-23T09:20:52","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T14:20:52","slug":"uw-milwaukee-student-finding-his-voice-in-push-for-racial-justice","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-milwaukee-student-finding-his-voice-in-push-for-racial-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Milwaukee student finding his voice in push for racial justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Noah Wolfe attends a racial justice rally this summer in Milwaukee. (Photo courtesy of MTEA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Noah Wolfe, a senior in education who is in an accelerated master\u2019s degree program, is already thinking about how he can help and support his future students in urban schools.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one reason why he\u2019s become involved as an ally in Black Lives Matter protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout my time and at UWM, I\u2019ve always been passionate about some of the things that we\u2019re protesting now\u2014more money for public schools, funding for more teachers and counselors,\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cI\u2019d never been out protesting before, but I\u2019ve always been pretty active in sharing that message and being passionate about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A tipping point<\/h3>\n

For him, the tipping point came when he was involved in a protest in Shorewood this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cA white man came up screaming, saying he supported the protest, but why were we interrupting his daily life,\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cA 14-year-old Black girl went up to him and started defending not only herself, but the protest. I\u2019d never been involved in a protest before, but after seeing that happen right next to me, hearing those Black voices, I wanted to be more involved with everything that was going on. It was kind of a wakeup call.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early June, he posted an event to Facebook reaching out to his suburban friends and neighbors. He expected the event, \u201cNorth Shore Justice for George Floyd Peaceful Protest,\u201d which he co-organized with Black activists from Shorewood High, to get a couple hundred people. More than 1,500 people showed up in Shorewood\u2019s Atwater Park to listen to speakers, and then marched around the North Shore. Estimates were that about 5,000 people were involved overall. Wolfe is quick to say that he\u2019s been working closely with Black students from his alma mater, Shorewood High School, and his role is to help amplify the message, not be the voice of the movement.<\/p>\n

Inspired by teacher<\/h3>\n

Wolfe, who plans on going into exceptional education and will be working with diverse students, had been doing some reading about social justice and schools in the black community on his own, but said he was especially\u00a0 inspired by Amy Gutowski, who taught his Intro to Teaching course.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn class he was always very\u00a0present, paying attention and asking interesting questions, and he never shied away from discussing difficult topics (was always up for some courageous conversation),\u201d said Gutowski. \u201cHe cares about his work and his students (especially for populations who have been marginalized and oppressed). I could tell he was a fellow change-agent. I\u2019m very proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfe\u2019s involvement in social justice has carried over into his work life as well. He has been working at Stone Creek Coffee while in school. Eric Resch, managing director and founder of Stone Creek Coffee,\u00a0 tapped him this summer to help lead a new company initiative, Brewing Change, that supports employee efforts involving social justice, environmental change, racial equity and improving the community. \u201cThat\u2019s a job that\u2019s in social justice and is going to help make some change,\u201d said Wolfe.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrewing Change is a manifestation of\u00a0Stone\u00a0Creek\u2019s mission, which is social responsibility,\u201d said Jessica Sheridan, director of coffee for the company (and also a UWM alum). \u201cThanks to the efforts of Noah and others via Brewing Change,\u00a0Stone\u00a0Creek\u00a0is able to use our business as a force for good and support its local community of Milwaukee and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honored for research<\/h3>\n

The Stone Creek job ended at the end of summer, but during the school year Wolfe will be balancing academics, research and teaching.<\/p>\n

For the past three years, he\u2019s been working with as a student researcher with Chris Lawson, associate professor in educational psychology, researching inductive reasoning in school-age children \u2013 how they use specific facts to arrive at general conclusions. During his senior year, Wolfe is hoping to focus on students with special needs and compare their results with those found in earlier research. Wolfe was one of seven undergraduate researchers honored in the 2020 Senior Excellence in Research Awards.<\/p>\n

Wolfe \u00a0is also the first student in a new accelerated master\u2019s degree program in special education that combines undergraduate and graduate studies and includes teacher certification. Through that program, he\u2019ll be eligible to teach under a special license for much-needed exceptional education teachers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noah Wolfe, a senior in education who is in an accelerated master\u2019s degree program, is already thinking about how he can help and support his future students in urban schools. That\u2019s one reason why he\u2019s become involved as an ally in Black Lives Matter protests. \u201cThroughout my time and at UWM, I\u2019ve always been passionate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[107],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-5581","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-milwaukee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/5581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=5581"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=5581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}