Strategic Plan and Annual Report 2011-2012

A catalyst in the community

reinecka — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 22:25:00 +0000

Cities thrive when community partners identify problems, band together and find solutions. There may be no better example of it than in the teamwork demonstrated by the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation, the University of Oshkosh Foundation, two regional hoteliers and the Oshkosh Common Council and its city taxpayers, who got behind the shared effort and investment to resurrect their downtown’s struggling riverfront hotel.

Just two blocks from the UW Oshkosh campus, the hotel’s revitalization immediately created dozens of construction jobs. Its completion will reenergize Oshkosh Convention Center business, support more UW Oshkosh conferences and events and strengthen a resurgent retail and arts scene in downtown Oshkosh.

Mayor on hotel effort, Collaboration Award: Proof of a ‘healthy city’

If cities, like thriving neighborhoods, are going to make it, they require “neighbors banding together” and investments that “make economic sense” and “increase the financial and social equity.”

So, according to the city’s mayor, Oshkosh got it right when partners including the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation, the University of Oshkosh Foundation, two regional hoteliers and the city council and taxpayers got behind the shared effort and investment to resurrect their downtown’s struggling riverfront hotel.

“What we had was people banding together to deal with the problem,” said city of Oshkosh Mayor Burk Tower, after accepting the UW Oshkosh Foundation’s Collaboration in Action Award at its 7th Annual Report to the Community Breakfast on Sept. 18.

Downtown Oshkosh hotel officially under new ownership

Oshkosh’s City Center Hotel is under new ownership, and the local partnership holding the keys is reenergizing revitalization plans.

The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Foundation and local hoteliers Richard Batley of RB Hospitality in Neenah and John Pfefferle of Pfefferle Companies, Inc. in Appleton announced their new ownership of the hotel, finalized Feb. 14. The partners have officially closed on the sale of the property, purchasing it from Nashco Hospitality Group LLC, which owned it since 2009. They plan to transform the 179-room waterfront property into a full-service, state-of-the-art business hotel, anchoring the city’s downtown and serving as an economic catalyst for the entire community.

UWO Foundation, partners, habitat team up for hotel empty-out

The sale and planned revitalization of downtown Oshkosh’s City Center Hotel is benefitting yet another important community partner: Habitat for Humanity.

The hotel’s new owners — the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Foundation and regional hoteliers Rich Batley and John Pfefferle — have teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to empty out the 20-year-old property over the course of the next week. Furniture, TVs and other items from the property’s more than 170 rooms will be donated for resale at Habitat’s ReStores throughout northeastern Wisconsin, including Oshkosh, Appleton, Green Bay and Door County locations.

The partners remain dedicated to the hotel vision originally proposed last fall: A renovated, state-of-the-art, full-service downtown business hotel with a new restaurant, reopened in early 2013. The hotel will complement the revitalized, attached Oshkosh Convention Center and enhance nearby UW Oshkosh’s vibrant academic conference business. It will also bring new downtown jobs and economic energy to Oshkosh retail storefronts, cafes, performance venues and other businesses aligned with the city’s ongoing redevelopment efforts.

EPA grants UWO another $1 million to make beaches safer

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced seven Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) grants – including two for the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh – totaling more than $2.6 million, to improve water quality at Great Lakes beaches in Michigan and Wisconsin.

UW Oshkosh was awarded $1 million (two grants of $500,000 each) to redesign eight Wisconsin beaches to reduce bacteria levels, resulting in fewer swimming bans and beach closures. The beaches include: Samuel Myers Park, Racine; Red Arrow Park Beach, Marinette; Crescent Beach, Algoma; Red Arrow Park Beach, Manitowoc; Thompson West End Park, Washburn; Grant Park, South Milwaukee; and Simmons Island and Eichelman Parks, Kenosha.

A national leader in sustainability

reinecka — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 22:31:25 +0000

Solar energy is sustaining several campus buildings, including our newest, award-winning academic center. Food waste from dining halls is captured and reused by student scientists researching how to maximize biogas production while generating campus heat and electricity. Sustainability is even a pillar of the new University Studies Program, our ground-up redesign of general education for every student, launching in fall 2013.

All this work, from every student, staff and faculty member at UW Oshkosh, is earning us distinction as a national leader in sustainability.

New Energy Team’s hunt for campus conservation, savings is on

When you think “energy consumption” on a major University campus, your mind logically drifts to computer labs or large residence halls.

But it may come as a surprise to many that the biggest energy-eater at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh is Halsey Science Center – home to a fleet of electricity-gulping scientific instruments and refrigeration units. Blackhawk Commons, the campus’s main student dining hall, ranks second on the list.

More efficient refrigerators are a top priority for the University’s new “Energy Team.” It is just one of the projects and potential cost-cutting solutions the group is going to investigate.

Can’t clean your plate? No problem: UWO, Sanimax help community feed the Biodigester

There’s a new opportunity for regional businesses, schools, nonprofits and other organizations to help produce renewable energy at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s groundbreaking “Biodigester” facility.

Dozens of restaurants, grocers, K-12 schools, hospitals and senior living communities are being recruited as partners in a new, community-based, food-waste-to-energy collaboration led by UW Oshkosh and Sanimax, a North American recycling pioneer since 1881 with 15 locations in Canada, the U.S and Mexico, specializing in byproduct collection services and transformation into high quality products.

Since 2011, UW Oshkosh’s state-of-the-art Biodigester, developed in partnership with the UW Oshkosh Foundation and BIOFerm Energy Systems of Madison, has been using campus food waste, sourced agricultural plant waste and city of Oshkosh grass clippings in the production of biogas. The large indoor composting and energy production facility in Oshkosh houses the waste in airless fermentation chambers after it is mixed in a large bay.

UWO one of 21 on Princeton Review’s ‘Green Honor Roll’

UW Oshkosh is among 21 colleges and universities from around the United States to earn a spot on The Princeton Review’s 2013 Green Honor Roll – the highest such accomplishment for the state’s third-largest university since it began sharing data with and demonstrating its sustainability progress to the company in the last decade.

The publisher and education services provider revealed the 2013 list Monday, Aug. 20. Both UW Oshkosh and UW-Stevens Point made its prestigious 2013 Green Honor Roll tally, reserved for institutions that score the highest-possible score of 99.

“This is another accomplishment our faculty, staff, students and state can be extremely proud of,” UW Oshkosh Chancellor Richard Wells said.

Sierra ranks UWO 14th nationally for sustainability efforts

The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh is again being nationally recognized and applauded for its strong commitment to environmental sustainability.

The Sierra Club and Sierra Magazine released its annual “Coolest Schools” ranking, based on the “greenness” of participating universities; UW Oshkosh was ranked 14th in the nation, the highest ranking for UW Oshkosh to date and the highest ranking in the state.

UW Oshkosh strikes ‘Gold’ with latest sustainability achievement

Chalk it up as one more milestone on the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s journey toward sustainability.

The University has become only the 25^th institution to date in North America and the first in Wisconsin to earn the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE’s) Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) “Gold” rating.

Designers of a high-quality education

reinecka — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:32:52 +0000

Our groundbreaking University Studies Program, a redesigned general education program launching in fall 2013, prescribes small learning communities, student peer-and-alumni mentors and an array of high-impact courses and community experiences that dovetail with the signature questions and topics a 21st Century student must explore in sustainability, cultural awareness and civic engagement.

Grade-point average is but one measure of students’ success. This new program is built upon better teaching, better learning and the expectation that students demonstrate and document their mastery and application of essential learning outcomes in “ePortfolios.” They will question, explore and connect. They will chronicle how they have applied their general education to think analytically and strategically, to examine, dissect and confront the issues of the day and to solve problems.

Through required community experiences, or Quests, students will support after school programs, food pantries, shelter providers and other agencies, organizations and initiatives sustaining communities. As their education and experience strengthens, so will our state’s future.

UW System grant helps move University Studies Program forward

Lori Carrell knows first-hand the amount of intellectual and creative effort that has gone into reinventing general education requirements at the university level.

The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh communication studies professor and director for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning is co-leading the development of the innovative redesign of general education requirements – the University Studies Program (USP).

The USP is innovative and aimed at being high-value and high-impact for students. And come fall 2013, students coming into and graduating from UW Oshkosh will benefit from a different kind of general education. This summer, UW Oshkosh’s landmark USP earned another tremendous endorsement when it was awarded a three-year, more-than $400,000 UW System institutional grant – “Promoting Student Success through Curricular Reform.” It will help support USP development and implementation over the next three years.

Landmark ‘University Studies Program’ earns key Faculty Senate nod

Pardon the pun, but there is little to nothing “old school” about the “University Studies Program” (USP).

The sweeping and innovative redesign of how the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh offers a high-value, high-impact general education is designed to take student learning to a new plateau. And it is going to become reality in fall 2013.

The groundbreaking USP proposal earned the nearly-unanimous approval of UW Oshkosh’s Faculty Senate on March 13. It is the culmination of months of collaborative work by the members of the institution’s academic community, who developed a landmark framework for general education at the University, following general guidelines set forth by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). With Faculty Senate approval, the USP framework’s big ideas, concepts and questions now segue into a roughly year-and-a-half long implementation process. Faculty and staff training, course selections and student and community education are all necessary for the program to hit the ground running in fall 2013.

A source of student, staff and faculty excellence

reinecka — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:53:18 +0000

Irma Burgos, UW Oshkosh director of the Center for Academic Support and Diversity, is committed to the educational success of students of diversity attending the state’s third largest university. She received the UW System Regents Individual Diversity Award in 2012 for her leadership and commitment, which spans more than two decades at UW Oshkosh.

Burgos: Award ‘a tribute to system’s pursuit of diversity, equity, inclusivity’

Irma Burgos, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh director of the Center for Academic Support and Diversity, received the UW System Regents Individual Diversity Award on Feb. 10, 2012.

The awards program was established by the Board of Regents to recognize and support individuals and programs in the UW System that foster access and success in university life for historically underrepresented populations.

Burgos’ commitment to the educational success of students of color attending UW Oshkosh spans more than two decades. In that time, she has held numerous positions (adviser, counselor, career planner, tutor coordinator, and program manager) and carried out responsibilities aimed at increasing the retention and graduation rates of students of color. The Multicultural Retention Programs Tracker initiative, which Burgos developed, is an early warning system to alert campus staff, faculty, and administrators when students of color are struggling academically or socially. Burgos previously received the TRIO Achievers Award, the UW System Women of Color Award and the 2011 College of Letters and Science Diversity Award.

In STEP with Admissions

High school students have a lot of decisions to make before they graduate, with one of the most important rooted in a question: “Where should I attend college?”

Lucky for students who have their sights set on – or interest piqued by – the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Here a talented team of students, faculty and staff in the admissions office helps to showcase all UW Oshkosh has to offer, helping make the decision to attend the state’s third largest public institution an easier one.