News in brief
LEADERSHIP
 Chávez |
Dean of students named
Alicia Fedelina Chávez of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, has been named dean of students. Chávez, an assistant professor in Miami University’s department of educational leadership, replaces Mary Rouse, now an assistant vice chancellor in charge of strengthening and expanding programs that connect classroom and service learning.
A native of Taos, N.M., with a Hispanic and Native American background, Chávez says she was drawn to the dean of students position in part because of the university’s dedication to multiculturalism. “UW-Madison is leading the way nationally in moving toward a more integrated kind of educational system, one that seeks to create a more multicultural way of being,” Chávez says.
Chávez, who will report to Paul Barrows, vice chancellor of student affairs, will play a leadership role in fostering and maintaining a multicultural and diverse institution that addresses the concerns of students of all backgrounds.
Chávez has a long history of working in higher education. She brings to UW–Madison extensive experience in student affairs, business affairs, diversity issues and academic research, both in student affairs practices and higher education.
Chávez’s appointment is effective July 1. She will hold an adjunct faculty position as assistant professor of educational administration in the School of Education. Her annual salary will be $108,000.
COMMUNITY
Enrollment plan preserves access
A comprehensive strategy that balances UW System enrollments and resources to best serve students and the state has been presented to the Board of Regents.
“The plan allows us to maintain quality, ensure continued high access rates for Wisconsin high school graduates and expand service to adult students,” says UW System President Katharine C. Lyall. “It also makes use of our new management flexibility, which allows institutions to be innovative in providing services that meet the state’s economic development needs.”
The UW System began managing its enrollments in the mid-1980s to sustain educational quality in the face of significant budget shortfalls. Under the new plan, the system would increase by about 2,900 students. Campuses in Milwaukee, River Falls and Platteville and UW Colleges each would increase 9 to 16 percent. Green Bay and La Crosse would cut enrollment, and other campuses would stay about the same.
Arboretum work begins
Work officially began May 10 on a $3.1 million addition and remodeling project for the Arboretum visitor center and a new Native Wisconsin Garden.
 Students in the Institute for Environmental Studies seminar “Greening the Campus” plant a red oak tree across Observatory Drive from Helen C. White Library. Photo by: Stephanie Judge
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The project includes a 16,200-square-foot addition to the visitor center, including a 250-seat auditorium, and installation of a four-acre Wisconsin Native Plant Garden surrounding the building. Other features include exhibit space, a library and gift shop.
Planning for the project began in 1994, when landscape planners, Arboretum staff members and representatives from the university and community formulated a blueprint for the future development of the Arboretum. The project will be funded completely through private sources, and contributions are still being sought.
“The auditorium will allow us to improve and expand our programs for university, public and professional audiences,” says Greg Armstrong, Arboretum director. “It will serve many more people than we can now with our existing classroom space.”
Taliesin Architects of Madison is the project architect. Darrel Morrison of Athens, Ga., is the landscape architect for the Wisconsin Native Plant Garden.
Jaunt to cafe pays off
Every Sunday, Mary and Dan Caulfield regularly meet with a group of friends at Picnic Point, then either walk or ski along the lakeshore path to Memorial Union for breakfast at Lakefront Cafe.
A few weeks ago at breakfast, the couple entered the “Gotta Get Away” promotional contest at Lakefront. Now, they are planning when they are going to use their first-prize tickets to visit England, compliments of STA Travel.
Other winners in the contest include: Sara Steien, a student who won tickets to see baritone Simon Estes at the Wisconsin Union Theater; Lillian Kuo, a student who won two tickets to see musician Meredith Monk at the Wisconsin Union Theater; and Barb Trapp, a Lakefront Cafe patron who won a Hoofer Sailing Adventure and two Coca-Cola windbreakers.
NOTABLE
Sea Grant receives $1.8 million
The National Sea Grant College Program has awarded the Sea Grant Institute $1.8 million to support the first year of its federally approved 2000-2002 program.
Coupled with $1.5 million in matching funds from state and private sources, the federal grant will support more than two dozen Great Lakes-related research, outreach and education projects involving more than 170 faculty, staff and students at seven UW System campuses including Madison.
“We’re giving special attention in this funding cycle to sustainable fisheries. We’re also renewing our emphasis on the cycling of contaminants in Great Lakes systems, and expanding it to include pathogens,” says director Anders W. Andren.
Other Sea Grant research areas include fostering freshwater aquaculture; understanding the developmental and reproductive effects of endocrine disrupters; developing Great Lakes applications of cutting-edge biotechnology; advancing knowledge about Lake Superior’s food webs, trout populations, and local economies; enhancing safety for recreational scuba divers; and probing the complex land-water interactions that characterize coastal regions.
Humanities workshops planned
The Center for the Humanities has been awarded $50,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to set up “Workshops in the Humanities,” says center director and professor of philosophy Steven Nadler.
The grant will help establish five interdisciplinary workshops in the humanities each year over the next two academic years, says Nadler. “This award will allow us to pursue an important component of the center’s mission: the fostering of collaborative study and teaching in the humanities.”
The Center for the Humanities, part of the College of Letters and Science, was established in January to coordinate and sponsor interdisciplinary activities and events in the humanities. “Early success in obtaining extramural support demonstrates not only the creativity of the center leadership, but also the compelling attractiveness of its mission,” says Dean Phil Certain.
MILESTONES
Continuing ed programs cited for exemplary service
The Division of Continuing Studies took home three top awards from a national continuing education association conference. Two Department of Professional Development and Applied Studies programs were named “exemplary programs” by the national University Continuing Education Association.
The Assembly Staff Leadership Development Program, offered in cooperation with the Office of Speaker of the Assembly Scott Jensen and UW-Milwaukee, provided management and policy analysis skills to 26 Assembly staffers. Professor Susan Paddock coordinated the program, which will be repeated this summer.
“Apple Pie in Action: How Communities Help Kids Thrive” attracted more than 1,300 people to 68 “community conversations” across the state. The satellite video program was coordinated by Rick Brooks and Reghan Walsh.
In addition, the School of the Arts at Rhinelander, now in its 37th year and offered by Liberal Studies and the Arts, won UCEA’s Phillip Frandson Award for Sustained Excellence in Programming.
Seven receive Lilly Awards
New or revised courses in literature, women’s studies, popular culture, language acquisition and theater education will be options for students soon, under Lilly Awards for 2000.
At the moment, the classes are starting development as Lilly Award projects. Seven untenured faculty, already distinguished scholars and teachers, have been named Lilly Teaching Fellows.
The program, established nationwide by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. in 1974 and now funded by the College of Letters and Science, offers one-year grants to promising assistant professors so that they can either develop a new undergraduate course or redesign an existing one. Each fellow receives a small stipend for supplies and course-release time.
The new Lilly Fellows are Mark Csikszentmihalyi, East Asian languages and literature and religious studies; David S. Danaher, Slavic languages; Dionne Espinoza, women’s studies and Chicana/o studies; Julia Evans, communicative disorders; Nicole Huang, East Asian languages and literature; Sabine Moedersheim, German; Manon van de Water, theatre and drama and curriculum and instruction.
Details about the specific course proposals will be published in Wisconsin Week in August.
Nelson legacy honored
The Institute for Environmental Studies is working to give Gaylord Nelson, the former Wisconsin governor and congressman and national founder of Earth Day, a symbolic place on the faculty.
A new initiative hopes to raise $2 million toward the creation of the Gaylord Nelson Endowed Chair in Environmental Policy, a position that would serve as a state resource in forging sound, scientific policy on the environment. To that same end, a Gaylord Nelson Graduate Fellowship in Environmental Studies is being created and is nearing its fund-raising goal of $500,000.
Director Thomas Yuill says the endowments will give the IES a much-needed focus on environmental problem-solving, while recognizing the man who put environmental issues on the map.
ON CAMPUS
Commencement ceremonies set
Three of five honorary-degree recipients will deliver the “Charge to the Graduates” at university commencement ceremonies this weekend.
Tony Award-winning actress Uta Hagen will speak to Letters and Science bachelor’s and master’s candidates at the 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. ceremonies Saturday, May 20.
Harvey K. Littleton, who founded the studio glass movement while on the faculty, will address bachelor’s and master’s candidates in agricultural and life sciences, education, human ecology, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and the Institute for Environmental Studies Sunday, May 21, at 10 a.m.
Ernest S. Micek, who helped transform the Cargill Corp. from a commodities producer to a global distributor of processed food, will speak to bachelor’s and master’s candidates in business and engineering Sunday, May 21, at 2 p.m.
Honorary degrees will be awarded at the ceremony for Ph.D., professional and master of fine arts degree candidates Friday, May 19, at 5:30 p.m. In addition to Hagen, Littleton and Micek, international economic development leader Ali Ahmed Attiga (Ph.D. ’59) and surgeon-cartographer Seymour Schwartz (B.A. ’47) also will receive honorary degrees.