Giving back is part of Cymone Jones’ character. And it’s the focus of her education at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. But there was a point at which she didn’t think college would be an option.

“I come from a family where you were lucky if you graduated from high school. I had people telling me I wasn’t smart enough or I would never have the money for college,” Jones said.

But with the help and encouragement of her school counselor, she came to realize she could get to college and succeed. “I had good grades. I just didn’t think they were good enough,” she said.

Out of this experience was born a desire to become a school counselor. “I want to work with kids who don’t believe they have the chances. I want to get in there and help them realize that they do have a chance to succeed,” Jones said.

Last spring, Jones got a taste of her dream through an internship at South Park Middle School in Oshkosh, with school counselor and UWO alumna Katie Kessen-Checki ’03, who majored in human services leadership.

During the internship, Jones worked with a student who was struggling with anxiety, depression and self-image issues— all things Jones said she struggled with at that age—and was refusing to participate in a lot of classes.

Jones and the student talked about the situation, and together they made a plan. Things improved really quickly for the student.

“The internship has really brought a lot of self-confidence. I can do this (as a profession) and it’s really making me happy,” Jones said.

After her midyear graduation in December 2013, Jones plans to earn a master’s in counseling.

After high school, Warnke attended the Oshkosh Technical Institute (now Fox Valley Technical College). He left college one class short of earning an associate degree in marketing when he received his draft notice in 1967. He joined the Navy—putting his education on hold.

“There were a lot of things I wanted to do in life, but I had to take care of my family first,” Warnke said. “I came back from the war, got married and started a family.”

After 37 years at the Leach Company, dabbling in the Laundromat business with his brother and buying properties to rent out, Warnke spent 15 years as a realtor before retiring and attending UW Oshkosh.

“I had a drive in me and said this is what I want to do (get adegree) come hell or high water,” Warnke said. “It’s been tough, but I got through it.”

Setting his sights on earning his bachelor’s degree, Warnke accomplished that goal in May 2013. He earned a bachelor’s in leadership and organizational studies.

“He didn’t get a degree—he earned it,” Debbie Harris, a Lifelong Learning and Community Engagement adviser said.“He could communicate with his younger classmates, he stayed current with technology and he never questioned why he had to take a particular class—he understood it was part of being an educated person.”

Warnke attributes his recent academic success to his drive and commitment to reach this lifelong goal.

“I don’t define success in a monetary form,” Warnke said. “I define success by family, honesty and living a good life, playing by the rules.”

View photos from the May 2013 commencement ceremonies and watch the morning commencement speech.

The ARTgarage—located in a 100-year-old former cannery—brings together artists of all types, ages and abilities in a creative community that also serves to revitalize the city’s downtown as part of the Olde Main Redevelopment District.

“It’s a garage,” said Van Sistine, who studied elementary education and art at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh in the mid-1960s. “We wanted to keep it rugged and messy and keep that feeling of the funky studio space.”

The ARTgarage began seven years ago when two local art students who were graduating from UW–Green Bay wanted to find a studio where they could continue to make art. Because the community was “thirsting” for such a space, the idea soon expanded to include events and art education programs.

With a strong background in advertising and marketing, Van Sistine worked to establish a board and obtain nonprofit status. She also served as the first non-paid site director. “There were nights I slept here,” she recalled.

Early on, the ARTgarage community had the opportunity to give back to their founder. Just as they were set to open the doors in 2006, Van Sistine found out she had cancer. “The artists said they would cover for me, and we became such a family,” she said.

These days, with two part-time staff members and a 21-member board, Van Sistine no longer runs the day-to-day operations and has more time for her own pursuits. She even took her oil painting supplies along on a recent trip to Mexico, where she got to make a little of her own art while enjoying time with her daughter and grandchildren.

Read more alumni and student profiles.

Jake White doesn’t drink.

And he considers that plenty of reason to throw a party. So far, as he and his business partner projected, hundreds of his University of Wisconsin Oshkosh peers are on the exact same page. That’s proving the entrepreneurial point that drives UW Oshkosh senior White’s and senior marketing major Steven Vanevenhoven‘s mission for Party.0. want to be an alcohol prevention speaker upon graduation and thought it would be easier to show people that you can have fun sober instead of just telling them, White said. Last summer, I approached my business partner, and we started planning right away.

And, as the saying goes, these days, BOOM.

On the first weekend of the 2012 fall semester, White helped stage the first Party.0 sober party off campus. For the record, it’s pronounced “party-point-o” and its slogan is “Bringing it B.A.C.,” as White and Vanevenhoven “wanted to hint that we provide dry parties but in a cool way.” About 80 people came out to enjoy the first evening of free food and drinks, music, dancing and games. By the end of 2012, Party.0 had run its sixth party and averaged about 150 people per event, with 180 representing the apex. New events were scheduled and staged into the New Year.

Party.0 is no student experiment. White and his business partner surveyed more than 100 UWO students and found many had equally strong reservations about drinking. After identifying surefire “customers,” they sought out sponsors.

Presto. Campus-area Papa John’s, Subway and Monster Energy Drink outlets and vendors stepped up and sponsored the events and supplied food and alcohol-free beverages. The Fox Valley DJ Association lent the musical talent. People came. Money was made. The business model–also a demonstration of the kind of harmony students and community neighbors can share while still having a blast–even won $750 as second place in the local Creating a Stronger Community Contest.

We want to provide a place for that 30 percent of students who don’t drink to find each other,” White said. “It’s important to us that people are comfortable in their own skin and that they don’t feel dependent on alcohol to have a great time. We don’t want to tell people what to do or not to do, just provide the opportunity to have fun and see firsthand that you don’t have to drink alcohol to fit in.”

Check out photos from a Party.O party.
Read more alumni and student profiles.

Access–to food and opportunities–is something very important to Kat McCard.

With that, McCard doesn’t sit around and wait for opportunities–to do, change, create and grow things–to come to her. Instead, she puts herself out there and makes it happen, which is exactly how she got an internship for the spring semester.

McCard is a nontraditional student at UW Oshkosh; she’s a 27-year-old mother of two who let her passion drive an internship with Growing Oshkosh, a startup, nonprofit urban farm located in downtown Oshkosh.

“Access to quality food is a real problem for low-income families,” McCard said. “So, I got involved with Growing Oshkosh.”

Plus, McCard  said, it means a lot to her to be involved with an organization founded by a group of women. Growing Oshkosh was started by UW Oshkosh alumna Dani Stolley ’97 with strong support from three other founding females, who also are board members.

Through her internship, McCard works on many aspects of Growing Oshkosh. She’s at the forefront of organizing volunteers, website content development, social networking initiatives, traditional outreach and more.

“Kat has had an immediate impact on our growing organization. Before the semester even started, she began making connections to the Women’s Studies program, as well as with the Veterans Resource Center on campus. She’s an amazing asset to Growing Oshkosh, and her connection to campus programs and resources is invaluable.” Stolley said.

McCard, a veteran herself, also is deeply involved with the Veterans Resource Center at UW Oshkosh; she’s also the secretary of the Student Veterans Association on campus. Still, she finds time to put in about 15 hours per week with Growing Oshkosh.

“I want to be able to show other women, other moms, that healthy food doesn’t have to be expensive or out of reach,” McCard said. “Low cost and local food exists, you just have to know where to find it.”

Growing Oshkosh, still in the beginning phases of sowing and food production, currently offers a limited selection of vegetables and herbs. This summer, a booth at the Oshkosh Farmers Market will offer a larger selection to the community at reasonable prices.

Read more alumni and student profiles.

As her May 2013 graduation from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh approaches, Sonia Singh is counting on her experience with three psychology studies to help her land either a research position or a spot in one of 12 doctoral programs she has applied to across the country.

“My goal is to become a cognitive science researcher,” she said. “UW Oshkosh is a modest but very friendly place to start.”

Singh has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology and personnel management, both from the University of Pune, India.

One of eight psychology graduate students at UWO, Singh’s master’s thesis work is supervised by UWO associate professor James Koch. For her thesis, she is conducting a cognitive neuroscience study that looks at the effects of training on attention.

As a graduate research assistant, Singh also is helping Koch with his study of the effects of social networking on emotions. This work involves collecting and analyzing data with an electroencephalogram. She also assisted with the literature review and content analysis for the study.

Last summer, Singh had an internship at Duke University in North Carolina, where she also had the opportunity to visit her extended family.

“I worked on an ongoing project examining the effects of fear on time perception,” she explained. “As part of the project, we used a shock stimulus to simulate threat and collected galvanic skin response or sweat gland activity along with heart rate variability. It was super exciting.”

Vanessa King has felt a calling to help others since a young age.

The passion has followed her to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where she was recently accepted into the College of Nursing.

Whether it’s been teaching English in Japan, leading an alternative spring break trip to Guatemala or volunteering at countless events, King has proven that she is serious about serving others.

Her calling is even what led her to choose nursing over her previous passion for playing basketball. She is now a pharmacy technician at Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh and said one day she would like to provide healthcare to children abroad.

“Everybody needs somebody in their lives to care for them and to show them love and compassion,” King said. “So I decided that nursing was a field where I could get trained in something that I could take to any country – no matter what the language barrier is.”

During summer 2012, King headed to North Myrtle Beach, S.C. with other students from Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU) to reach out to the community and share her story with other people.

“A lot of people have the misconception that they can’t have a relationship with God because they’ve done so many things wrong,” King said. “So I’ll share my story about how I lost my parents and I don’t really have any other family, but I still have something else to hang on to, and it keeps me going every day.”

Read more Beyond the Classroom stories.

Without Kevin Kropp, many home-bound senior citizens in the area would not get the food assistance they rely on each month.

Kropp, a University of Wisconsin Oshkosh senior, is part of the team that volunteers for the Oshkosh Area Community Pantry’s home delivery program. Each month, Kropp shows up to sort and deliver food to designated assisted-living facilities in Winnebago County.

“It’s important because it’s a reoccurring activity and it allows us to see how much of a contribution we can make over a longer period of time,” said Kropp, who has been involved with the program for two years.

Mike Lueder, program adviser for volunteerism at UW Oshkosh, feels a certain sense of pride over the time and energy Kropp spends focusing on helping others—both at the food pantry and through his involvement in other initiatives on campus.

“Kevin is an outstanding young man,” said Lueder, who nominated Kropp as 2012 Volunteer of the Year.

Kropp earned the honor in April at the Student Leadership Involvement Awards, but that isn’t where his story of doing good for others and his community starts or ends.

“He not only serves as a student leader, but also as a volunteer who makes a major impact locally and globally,” Lueder said.

Kropp became interested in volunteerism early in his college career at UW Oshkosh through Greek life. He went on to become co-chair of the UW Oshkosh Titan Volunteers program, a student leader for a Washington D.C. alternative spring break trip and a planning team member for Hands on Oshkosh.

“I find the idea of self-improvement to be very important,” Kropp said. “I try really hard to do good work and take the opportunities that are presented to me.”

Read more Beyond the Classroom stories.

When the 2010 earthquake hit just west of Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince, Lindstrom wanted to serve. But despite her six years of experience as a full-time humanitarian, she was denied access to Haiti because only doctors and nurses were allowed.

That’s when Lindstrom decided to return to UW Oshkosh and earn a degree in nursing.

“I chose to come back to UW Oshkosh because it has a such a good nursing program. In all the places I had worked, I saw this huge need for medically trained personnel,” Lindstrom said. “There weren’t enough doctors, nurses, anybody to help, so I said, ‘I can do something about that.’”

Lindstrom first graduated from UW Oshkosh in 1993 with degrees in Spanish and business administration. This time around, she said, she’s got an unwavering determination founded on her need to help others.

“It’s really different to be 40 and going to college. Now I know what I want to do, as opposed to when I was 17 and wasn’t sure,” Lindstrom said. “I love my classes, and I love learning. My teachers have become supporters.”

At 17, Lindstrom said she did not have the confidence to approach her professors for help, but now she realizes her professors are such assets.

“My professors are people I turn to and say, ‘How do I do this? Where do I get this information? What do I do next?” Lindstrom said.

While she is waiting to be accepted into the Accelerated Nursing Program, Lindstrom is taking classes on campus, though her heart is with the children she left in India when she returned to Oshkosh in 2010.

“There are people dying every day in the places that I am going to work,” Lindstrom said. “As much as I love learning, I also know the need hasn’t changed out in the world.”

While Lindstrom values her education, she said her real focus is on other people.

“They’re waiting. They’re dying waiting for me,” Lindstrom said. “Everyone should travel to a Third World country and experience what it’s like, because our lives are so sheltered and we don’t understand what it’s like.”

Lindstrom continues to help others here in Oshkosh. She works with foreign exchange students who live on the UW Oshkosh campus and attend local schools.

“I tutor 10-18-year-olds from Korea,” Lindstrom said. “I’m like a parent to them—it’s more than tutoring. It’s sitting down and doing homework with them to answering questions about life.”

Lindstrom’s passion for humanitarian work also shines in her classes.

“In my Introduction to Nursing class we had to give presentations on what field of nursing we want to get into, so I was able to share with the class what kind of work in Third World countries I am already doing,” Lindstrom said. “From that presentation, students saw things they hadn’t seen before or thought about, and some even said it was something they would be interested in doing.”

Because Lindstrom is coming back to UW Oshkosh after already completing two majors, she said she has some idea of what to expect. But what really gives her the confidence to finish her nursing degree is her experience in Third World countries.

“I always wanted to work in the medical field, but I never dreamed I was smart enough,” Lindstrom said. “This time around, I know I can do anything.”

Contributed by Kayde Kempen

After overcoming many obstacles early on in life, he said he has found a way to achieve more success than he ever thought was possible.

Vu was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1969, and he came to America as a refugee in 1975 with his family after the Vietnam War. He said he remembers a lot about living in the war-torn country, but as a child it was just part of his everyday life.

“You go to school, you come home, you be with your family,” Vu said. “But intertwined into all that you knew that there was a war going on. As a young child I would hear people talking about the war, and I would hear artillery in the city and surroundings, but it was just part of life.”

After spending time in various refugee camps throughout the Pacific and in Arkansas, Vu and his family were able to relocate to Minnesota after being sponsored by a church in St. Paul. His family started their new life in Golden Valley, a suburb of Minneapolis, where Vu attended middle and high school.

“I didn’t know English at all, so it was tough trying to communicate,” Vu said. “Just like any other young kid, you get teased if you’re different. This was no exception. It was tough, but I was determined to try to fit in and learn the language and customs and work hard.”

Vu graduated from high school in 1987 and then began studying at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. He went on to finish both an undergraduate and graduate degree in microbiology from the University.

It wasn’t until he was nearly completed with his graduate program that Vu’s interest in dentistry developed. With the encouragement of a friend in the microbiology graduate program, Vu enrolled in the dentistry program at Marquette University.

“I didn’t know much about dentistry, but I liked science and working with my hands,” he said. “My friend encouraged me to look into dentistry because it was what I was describing that I wanted to do. So I applied and decided to give it a year to see if I liked it or not, and it turned out to be a really fortunate thing for me.”

When he took this next step in his education, Vu was already married and had his first child. The four years of dental school proved to be challenging, as he would spend his weekends with his family in Oshkosh and his weekdays studying in his studio apartment in Milwaukee.

However, his hard work and the endless support from his wife paid off, and he found work at a dental office in Neenah shortly after graduation. Two years later, Vu opened his own office in Oshkosh, where he is currently practicing dentistry.

“I worked very hard, and nothing was just given to me,” Vu said. “But it all paid off, and it really worked out well. I have a lot to be thankful for.”

Vu and his wife now have three children, and he said all of his spare time goes toward spending time with them.

“It’s all about the kids now,” Vu said. “I’ve accomplished the things I wanted to accomplish and more so than I ever imagined. So now I want to support them and give them the opportunities and experiences so they can become successful in whatever they want to do.”

Contributed by Danielle Beyer ’12