{"id":9195,"date":"2023-03-10T07:03:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T13:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=9195"},"modified":"2023-03-10T07:03:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T13:03:15","slug":"breaking-the-ice-uwl-police-international-students-build-bonds-through-ice-fishing","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/breaking-the-ice-uwl-police-international-students-build-bonds-through-ice-fishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the ice: UWL police, international students build bonds through ice fishing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Photo<\/a>
UW-La Crosse international students joined campus police and others for a day of ice fishing at Pettibone Park. The second-annual event was started as a way to build mutual trust and understanding, and to introduce international students to the Wisconsin wintertime tradition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A wintertime tradition has brought UW-La Crosse police officers and international students closer together.<\/p>\n

The two groups recently met for a day of ice fishing at La Crosse\u2019s Pettibone Park \u2014 a chance to build mutual trust and understanding, and for international students to experience a staple of Midwestern culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ice fishing program is a great way to introduce international students to a very popular Wisconsin activity,\u201d says\u00a0Miranda Panzer, an international student and scholar advisor<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0UWL International Education & Engagement<\/a>. \u201cIt is also a great opportunity to break the stereotypes of what international students may assume campus police are like based on the movies and TV shows they see prior to attending UWL. We enjoy helping build bridges between the international students and the greater La Crosse community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campus police had plenty of help introducing students to the art of ice fishing. Members from the UWL Fishing Club were on hand to teach students the basics, while\u00a0Senior Executive Chef Robb Hanson<\/a>, from the university\u2019s food service, prepared a classic Wisconsin fish fry for those in attendance.<\/p>\n

Rene Faun, a junior biomedical science major from Malaysia, says she had never experienced anything quite like ice fishing. She described it as \u201c10\/10.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I came to La Crosse, ice fishing was listed first on my bucket list. So I was elated we could have this opportunity with the UWL campus police,\u201d Faun notes. \u201cOther than learning how to utilize the fishing equipment, my favorite part of it all was obviously the fishing itself. The joy of catching a fish at Pettibone Park was contagious and relatively easy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Senior Executive Chef Robb Hanson, from the university\u2019s food service, prepared a classic Wisconsin fish fry for those in attendance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was the second-consecutive year\u00a0UWL police<\/a>\u00a0and international students met to ice fish at Pettibone Park.<\/p>\n

In 2022, organizers had little time to organize and promote the event, and just two students attended.<\/p>\n

But those students enjoyed themselves so much,\u00a0Officer Dave Pehl<\/a>\u00a0says, that it was clear they were onto something.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two had so much fun,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWe caught a bunch of fish, and by the end, we had to physically take the fishing poles out of their hands and tell them we were done fishing for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several international students attended this year\u2019s event, along with four police officers, five fishing club members, and a handful of friends and family members.<\/p>\n

Pehl, who had dreamed about starting an event like this for years, says it can only be described as a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that I loved was how everyone came together to enjoy our time on the ice,\u201d he explains. \u201cEven though we didn\u2019t catch many fish, it didn\u2019t matter. What mattered was that people were having fun, talking to each other, fishing, laughing and just enjoying themselves and the experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to show them that they have nothing to fear and can trust us to be there to help whenever they need it. This was about building friendships, and I think we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by University Communications, UW-La Crosse<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwlax.edu\/news\/posts\/breaking-the-ice\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wintertime tradition has brought UW-La Crosse police officers and international students closer together. The two groups recently met for a day of ice fishing at La Crosse\u2019s Pettibone Park \u2014 a chance to build mutual trust and understanding, and for international students to experience a staple of Midwestern culture. \u201cThe ice fishing program is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":9200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[104],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-9195","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-la-crosse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/9195","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=9195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=9195"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=9195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}