The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s Whitburn Center for Governance and Policy Research will host a new monthly event series featuring discussions on a variety of pressing issues from a wide range of viewpoints. Called Whitburn Wednesdays, the events will be held on a Wednesday of each month during the academic year and can be attended both in person and online.
The Whitburn Center, which launched in 2021, was created to produce annual reports, research briefs, fee-for-service consulting projects and leadership training related to state and local government. Its goal is to reinvigorate Wisconsin’s “good government” tradition by embodying the public service ideals of its founding benefactor, Gerald Whitburn ’66.
Samantha Larson
“In developing our vision for the Whitburn Center, one of our key goals is to build local government, nonprofit and community capacity to promote the common good,” said Samantha Larson, assistant professor of public administration at UW Oshkosh and the center’s deputy director. “We want to bring people together across ideological divides to discover nonpartisan solutions to issues we are facing. That means more than just conduction and publishing research.
“In my past experience, one of the most meaningful, effective ways to accomplish a shared community goal is to bring people with diverse perspectives together to talk, listen and learn from each other. It’s a vital step toward real solutions.”
Here is the Whitburn Wednesday schedule for the spring semester:
- Feb. 23: Responding to the Opioid Epidemic in Wisconsin
- March 9: Women in Government: A Next Generation Initiative
- April 13: Reimagining Social Welfare: Past, Present and Future
- May 11: COVID-19: Lessons Learned for Leading Communities Forward
The Feb. 23 event, set for 5 to 7 p.m. in Ballroom A of the Culver Family Welcome Center on the Oshkosh campus, will include Stephanie Gyldenvand ’02 and ’21 MPA, who completed a capstone project on opioid use in Wisconsin; Allyson Ford, a nurse practitioner with Aurora Health Care specializing in addiction medicine and primary care for adults and geriatrics; Trevor Fenrich, executive director of Solutions Recovery; and Kurt Leibold, UWO police chief and member of the Winnebago County Overdose Fatality Review Team.
Through the spring, panels will include UWO faculty and staff members, students and alumni.
“We see this as a way to bring the Wisconsin Idea to life,” Larson said. “Many of our panel events will include UWO researchers and folks working in the community who have practical expertise in these areas. Our mantra is to ‘connect research with practice,’ so we want to invite people beyond campus who have interest and stake in the same issues.”
For more information, visit uwo.sh/whitburn-events.
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