WAA News
Building a Better Homecoming
Student committee leaders raise the roof on Badger spirit.
For Annie Wright x’06 and Ashley Lienhardt x’06, Homecoming is more than a football game. It’s a calling.
The two co-chairs have been involved with the UW Homecoming Committee since their freshman year, and they have spent countless hours at the Below Alumni Center. Since last fall, Wright and Lienhardt have poured their hearts into planning this year’s festivities and leading the student group that organizes, promotes, and coordinates them.
“I feel like for most people on the committee, the [alumni center] becomes a home away from home,” says Wright. “I probably spend more time there than I do at my apartment.”
Homecoming is unique because it’s the one time when alumni, students, and the Madison community come together to celebrate being a Badger. This year, the co-chairs wanted to bring more campus organizations on board. So the committee reached out to a diverse array of student groups that had little previous connection to Homecoming Week celebrations, such as the Multicultural Student Center, the Greater University Tutoring Service, and the SAFEwalk program.
“We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to get involved,” says Lienhardt, “and that’s what we’re working toward.”
For Annie Wright x’06 and Ashley Lienhardt x’06, Homecoming is more than a football game. It’s a calling.
The two co-chairs have been involved with the UW Homecoming Committee since their freshman year, and they have spent countless hours at the Below Alumni Center. Since last fall, Wright and Lienhardt have poured their hearts into planning this year’s festivities and leading the student group that organizes, promotes, and coordinates them.
“I feel like for most people on the committee, the [alumni center] becomes a home away from home,” says Wright. “I probably spend more time there than I do at my apartment.”
Homecoming is unique because it’s the one time when alumni, students, and the Madison community come together to celebrate being a Badger. This year, the co-chairs wanted to bring more campus organizations on board. So the committee reached out to a diverse array of student groups that had little previous connection to Homecoming Week celebrations, such as the Multicultural Student Center, the Greater University Tutoring Service, and the SAFEwalk program.
“We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to get involved,” says Lienhardt, “and that’s what we’re working toward.”
Students have been in charge of celebrating school spirit since the very first Homecoming Committee convened in 1911. Each year, sixty dedicated students volunteer their time to plan Homecoming Week festivities, such as the annual parade, pep rally, and fireworks display. The UW Homecoming Committee is sponsored by the Wisconsin Alumni Association, and proceeds raised during the week benefit the Dean of Students Crisis Fund and student scholarships. The UW Homecoming Committee also opens doors — both personally and professionally. Wright, who is pursuing a double major in family and consumer communications and women’s studies, wants to work in student affairs after she graduates. “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” she says.
Lienhardt plans to go on for physician’s assistant training, but she’ll always remember her time with the Homecoming Committee. “For me,” she says, “it’s just kind of shaped who I am.”
— Erin Hueffner ’00
Lienhardt plans to go on for physician’s assistant training, but she’ll always remember her time with the Homecoming Committee. “For me,” she says, “it’s just kind of shaped who I am.”
— Erin Hueffner ’00
A Small Event with a Big Future
Chippewa Valley event showcases nanotechnology.
The “IQ Corridor,” a sort of mental highway that parallels the four hundred miles along Interstate 90/94 between Minnesota’s Twin Cities and Chicago, lies largely in Wisconsin. The “IQ” portion of the name refers to an area rich in ideas and intellectual property, especially in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and the life sciences. In Wisconsin, biotechnology is a $4.9 billion industry, with almost two hundred companies employing 28,000 residents. The Chippewa Valley sits right on the route — and on the cutting edge.
In September, WAA helped take engineering professor Francesco Cerrina, who directs UW-Madison’s Center for Nanotechnology, and visiting chemistry professor S. Michael Condren to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for a daylong program centered on nanotech and its future in the state. Part of the UW-Madison On the Road program, the event was also sponsored by UW-Eau Claire, the Chippewa Valley Technical College, and UW-Stout, and it brought together top nanotechnology experts for face-to-face discussions with their colleagues and the Chippewa Valley community.
Cerrina began the day at Eau Claire’s Silicon Graphics, a company providing nanotech solutions for a wide range of applications, such as finding creative ways to study global climate change or to share medical images as an aid in brain surgery. Cerrina and Silicon Graphics engineers discussed the “bottom-up” approach, where ultra-tiny nanostructures could be built using common algae (diatoms) whose DNA has been specially reprogrammed.
The “IQ Corridor,” a sort of mental highway that parallels the four hundred miles along Interstate 90/94 between Minnesota’s Twin Cities and Chicago, lies largely in Wisconsin. The “IQ” portion of the name refers to an area rich in ideas and intellectual property, especially in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and the life sciences. In Wisconsin, biotechnology is a $4.9 billion industry, with almost two hundred companies employing 28,000 residents. The Chippewa Valley sits right on the route — and on the cutting edge.
In September, WAA helped take engineering professor Francesco Cerrina, who directs UW-Madison’s Center for Nanotechnology, and visiting chemistry professor S. Michael Condren to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for a daylong program centered on nanotech and its future in the state. Part of the UW-Madison On the Road program, the event was also sponsored by UW-Eau Claire, the Chippewa Valley Technical College, and UW-Stout, and it brought together top nanotechnology experts for face-to-face discussions with their colleagues and the Chippewa Valley community.
Cerrina began the day at Eau Claire’s Silicon Graphics, a company providing nanotech solutions for a wide range of applications, such as finding creative ways to study global climate change or to share medical images as an aid in brain surgery. Cerrina and Silicon Graphics engineers discussed the “bottom-up” approach, where ultra-tiny nanostructures could be built using common algae (diatoms) whose DNA has been specially reprogrammed.
During the afternoon, Condren led an Eau Claire Memorial High School class in hands-on nanoscience experiments, while Cerrina toured the Chippewa Valley Technical College’s NanoRite Center, a home for entrepreneurial research and business startups in nanotechnology, microfabrication, and biomedical ventures.
A public evening session titled “Thinking Small: Nanotechnology and the American Dream” presented an audience ranging in age from twelve to retirement with the emerging field’s newest innovations and research. During the event, Cerrina, UW-Eau Claire associate professor of physics and astronomy Douglas Dunham, Chippewa Valley Technical College nanoscience instructor Hans Mikelson, and Forrest Schultz PhD’97, chair of the Department of Chemistry at UW-Stout, discussed the study opportunities available in Wisconsin’s institutes of higher learning.
“We hope this day will lead to future collaborative efforts among all the UW System campuses, the technical college system, local businesses, and our alumni and friends,” says Mike Fahey ’89, director of state relations for the Wisconsin Alumni Association.
— Candice Gaukel Andrews ’77
A public evening session titled “Thinking Small: Nanotechnology and the American Dream” presented an audience ranging in age from twelve to retirement with the emerging field’s newest innovations and research. During the event, Cerrina, UW-Eau Claire associate professor of physics and astronomy Douglas Dunham, Chippewa Valley Technical College nanoscience instructor Hans Mikelson, and Forrest Schultz PhD’97, chair of the Department of Chemistry at UW-Stout, discussed the study opportunities available in Wisconsin’s institutes of higher learning.
“We hope this day will lead to future collaborative efforts among all the UW System campuses, the technical college system, local businesses, and our alumni and friends,” says Mike Fahey ’89, director of state relations for the Wisconsin Alumni Association.
— Candice Gaukel Andrews ’77
Friendly Extension
During the last few years, WAA has launched a variety of new programs to extend UW-Madison’s reach among alumni and friends. In response, UW-Extension granted WAA its Friend of Extension Award for 2006.
“It’s a terrific tribute to the synergy between our organizations,” says Paula Bonner, WAA’s president and CEO. “Like Extension, WAA’s goal is to spread the university’s reach across the state and around the country. We feel deeply honored to receive this recognition from our colleagues.”
UW-Extension works through twenty-six campuses and seventy-two offices around the state, as well as Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television, to spread the benefits of university research, knowledge, and resources. The Friend of Extension Award celebrates those individuals and organizations that have given substantial support to UW-Extension as it pursues its outreach mission at the local, state, and national levels.
In honoring WAA, UW-Extension noted the variety of collaborations between the two organizations, including working together on lifelong learning efforts such as Grandparents’ University, which brings grandparents and grandchildren together for classroom experiences, and Wednesday Nite @ the Lab, which allows alumni and retirees to explore current scientific topics such as stem cell research and robotics.
“It’s a terrific tribute to the synergy between our organizations,” says Paula Bonner, WAA’s president and CEO. “Like Extension, WAA’s goal is to spread the university’s reach across the state and around the country. We feel deeply honored to receive this recognition from our colleagues.”
UW-Extension works through twenty-six campuses and seventy-two offices around the state, as well as Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television, to spread the benefits of university research, knowledge, and resources. The Friend of Extension Award celebrates those individuals and organizations that have given substantial support to UW-Extension as it pursues its outreach mission at the local, state, and national levels.
In honoring WAA, UW-Extension noted the variety of collaborations between the two organizations, including working together on lifelong learning efforts such as Grandparents’ University, which brings grandparents and grandchildren together for classroom experiences, and Wednesday Nite @ the Lab, which allows alumni and retirees to explore current scientific topics such as stem cell research and robotics.
