Reed retires from Continuing Studies

Learning and words grace most of Judy Reed’s career.

Reed, who is retiring Feb. 2 as director of the Division of Continuing Studies program information office, has spent many of her working hours writing and promoting learning opportunities.

Beginning in 1970, she worked as editor of Extension News, writing pieces about correspondence study courses and getting them published in newspapers around the state.

“I interviewed people who took correspondence study classes, like Frank Zeidler, the former mayor of Milwaukee, and a woman who drove trucks and did her studying while out on the road,” Reed says. “The courses she took gave her the confidence to go to college — and she eventually got a degree at UW–Madison.”

After first working with UW-Extension, Reed then joined UW–Madison’s Division of University Outreach. For the past nine years, she has worked with the Division of Continuing Studies. A reception in her honor will be held Thursday, Jan. 29, from 4-5:30 p.m. in the Main Lounge of Lowell Center.

Reed wrote five to six stories a week for the Educational Teleconference Network in the 1970s. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she wrote profiles of faculty, staff and students for Wisconsin Week.

Reed coordinated the “Updating the Wisconsin Idea” series of periodicals published 1997-2001. Later collected into the book “The Wisconsin Idea in Action,” these stories highlighted how faculty and staff worked with community groups.

“The project made us realize how many ways faculty and staff are involved in community partnerships and yet seldom get to tell their story to a broad audience,” Reed says.

Reed says she will miss people — including coworkers and her lunchtime walking partners — the most.

And, while she has not done as much writing in her nine years as Continuing Studies director, she will miss that, too.

“I enjoyed telling the stories of people who struggle to get an education — and then succeed beyond their dreams,” Reed says. “All their stories helped me see what a wonderful place UW–Madison is for so many different people.”