Award recipients balance learning with family, work, service

Two UW–Madison students recently were honored with Outstanding Undergraduate Returning Adult Student Awards.

Magda Kmiecik graduates this spring years after first enrolling at UW–Madison. In 2003 Kmiecik left a career in finance to return to UW–Madison as a social work major; this fall she enters the master of science in social work program as a second-year graduate student. Kmiecik currently is a student social worker in the Third Street Program at the YWCA.

Maya Acker will graduate in August with a bachelor’s degree in education and hopes to teach science in middle or high school.

Acker dropped out of college at age 19, became a certified child-care provider at 24 and returned to college at age 26. For the past six years she has attended UW–Madison full time while also running her child-care business and raising her sons.

Acker is an assistant in the Homework and Learning Program (HeLP) at Glacier Creek Middle School in the Middleton-Cross Plains District.