Featured Articles

Jill Pinkney Pastrana named Fulbright Scholar

Pulitzer Prize winner to speak at Devroy Forum

Alumna receives prestigious Milken Educator Award

UW-Eau Claire students picked for scholarships

Andrew Balas tribute planned for April 18

Eau Claire Big Read features 'The Maltese Falcon

Forum to feature research findings on health care concerns in region

African Children's Choir to perform
April 8

Students attend Nurses Day at the Capitol

Jill Pinkney Pastrana named Fulbright Scholar

Dr. Jill Pinkney Pastrana

Dr. Jill Pinkney Pastrana, UW-Eau Claire associate professor of foundations of education, has been named a 2008-09 Fulbright Scholar.

The research/lecture grant from the Fulbright program will allow Pastrana to work with colleagues at the Catholic University in Valparaiso in Chile on research concerning neo-liberal education reform in that country.

Chile was the first country in the world to implement neo-liberal education reforms, which are almost identical to the United States' current education reform of No Child Left Behind, Pastrana said. When she returns to UW-Eau Claire, Pastrana will integrate her research in Chile into her foundations of education classes. Full story.

Pulitzer Prize winner to speak at Devroy Forum

Dana Priest

Dana Priest, an investigative reporter who broke the Walter Reed Army Medical Center outpatient care scandal for The Washington Post in 2007, will be the featured speaker at the Ann Devroy Memorial Forum April 24 at UW-Eau Claire.

The 2008 Ann Devroy Memorial Forum is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Schofield Auditorium. The title of Priest's presentation is "Secrecy and the Media: A View from the Trenches."

Priest is a veteran reporter who has served 21 years at The Washington Post. In 2006 she won a Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting for her reporting on CIA secret prisons and counterterrorism operations overseas. Full story.

Alumna receives prestigious Milken Educator Award

Wendy McCarron received her Milken Educator Award March 30 from Milken Family Foundation co-founder Mike Milken at the foundation's 2008 National Education Conference in Los Angeles. (Milken Family Foundation photo)

Wendy McCarron, a 1992 UW-Eau Claire education graduate who now teaches mathematics at a high school in Georgia, recently won a national Milken Educator Award, which comes with a $25,000 award. McCarron, a teacher at Northview High School in Duluth, Ga., was among 75 outstanding educators from across the nation who received Milken Educator Awards during a gala March 30 in Los Angeles.

Dr. Dwight C. Watson, associate dean of the teacher education program in the College of Education and Human Sciences at UW-Eau Claire, describes the Milken Award as the "highest honor in education." Read more about McCarron's honor.

McCarron is the second UW-Eau Claire graduate to receive a Milken award in recent years. In 2003, James Doucette, a 1987 graduate of UW-Eau Claire, received the honor. He received a UW-Eau Claire Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award in 2004.

UW-Eau Claire students picked for scholarships
Various scholarships were awarded recently to UW-Eau Claire students:

• Corinne J. Schillings Foundation scholarships have been awarded to Audrey Rose Mohr, a junior public relations major from New Ulm, Minn., and Emily Paul, a sophomore communication sciences and disorders major from Milwaukee. The $1,000 study-abroad scholarships go to Girl Scouts who have received their Silver or Gold Awards. Full story.
• The first Martin Mogensen Education Scholarship has been awarded to Jeremy Clements, Stoddard, a senior kinesiology major with a physical education emphasis. The scholarship in memory of UW-Eau Claire alumnus Martin Mogensen is given to an undergraduate education major who has attained a high level of scholarship and who shows promise for becoming a successful career teacher. Full story.
• Heather Sommer, an English major from Eau Claire, has received a $2,000 Freeman Award for Study in Asia, which is enabling her to spend the 2008 spring semester studying at the Huawen Xueyuan campus extension of Jinan University at the College of Chinese Language and Culture in Guangzhou, China. Full story.     

Andrew Balas tribute planned for April 18

Dr. Andrew Balas

The mathematics department and the Math Club at UW-Eau Claire have planned a tribute to celebrate the life of Dr. Andrew Balas, a longtime faculty member who passed away last month. Balas taught mathematics at UW-Eau Claire for 24 years. He died March 19 after a yearlong battle with lymphoma.

The tribute will run from 3-5 p.m. April 18 in Davies Theatre, Davies Center. Faculty and staff who want to share a story or make a short presentation during the program should contact Dr. Alex Smith at smithaj@uwec.edu. Students who want to share a story should contact Dr. Simei Tong at tongs@uwec.edu.

The tribute is open to all members of the campus and greater Eau Claire communities.

Eau Claire Big Read features 'The Maltese Falcon'
Events are planned throughout April for the second annual Eau Claire Big Read, a communitywide event sponsored in part by UW-Eau Claire, in addition to support from the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest, as well as the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library, the Chippewa Valley Museum, the Eau Claire Area School District, Volume One, and WEAU TV-13.

"The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett was chosen by a committee of event organizers as this year's featured book. Traci Thomas-Card, UW-Eau Claire associate lecturer of English, and Christopher Cox, associate professor in the McIntyre Library, are co-coordinators of this year's Eau Claire Big Read. Full story.

Forum to feature research findings
on health care concerns in region
A majority of west central Wisconsin residents worry about health care costs and health care insurance, according to a recent survey by researchers at UW-Eau Claire.

Members of the research team will share their findings during a health care forum from 4:30-6 p.m. Tuesday, April 15, in Room 100 of Hibbard Hall. During the forum, Wisconsin state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout also will present information about health care and possible health care reform in Wisconsin.

Faculty researchers for the "A Descriptive Analysis of Health Care Coverage and Concerns in West Central Wisconsin" project were Dr. Eric Jamelske, assistant professor of economics; Dr. Jennifer Johs-Artisensi, assistant professor of management and marketing; Dr. Lois Taft, professor of nursing; and Katherine German, a graduate assistant in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Student researchers included Ian Hansen, a junior economics major from Eau Claire; Carleigh Nelson, a senior health care administration major from Edina, Minn.; and McKenzie Johnson, a junior health care administration major from Eau Claire. Full story.

African Children's Choir to perform April 8
The African Children's Choir will present an Artists Series performance titled "Journey of Hope" at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, in UW-Eau Claire's Zorn Arena. The family concert will include well-loved children's songs, traditional spirituals and contemporary tunes.

The African Children's Choir has performed at prestigious events throughout the world. The choir is made up of children, ages 7 through 11, from Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, the Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and South Africa — many of whom have lost one or both parents through the devastation of war, famine or disease. Full story.

Students attend Nurses Day at the Capitol

Among UW-Eau Claire nursing students who traveled to Madison for Nurses Day at the Capitol were (from left) Lindsay Schmidt, Nick Bray, Jessie McCarty, Anne Pastorius, Heidi Nikolai, Katie Divyak and Kate Fix. The group attended the Smoke Free Wisconsin Rally. Others attended a Wisconsin State Assembly committee hearing on the Health Care Quality Improvement Act or heard presentations on topics of interest to those in the nursing profession. (Photo by UW-Eau Claire student Morgan Kraut)

Nineteen UW-Eau Claire senior nursing students attended the Wisconsin Nurses Association's Nurses Day at the Capitol March 4 in Madison. Several of the students attended an Assembly Health and Health Care Reform Committee public hearing on AB 863, "Decriminalization for Unintentional Medical Errors — The Health Care Quality Improvement Act." Claire Johnson, senior nursing student, and Gail Hanson Brenner, clinical instructor, along with Gina Dennik-Champion, Wisconsin Nurses Association executive director, provided testimony in support of the bill. "It was very validating to have representatives listen to my perspective and points and have it influence their choices," Johnson said of her experience testifying before the committee. Other students attended the Smoke Free Wisconsin rally featuring Lance Armstrong held at the Monona Terrace or heard presentations at the Masonic Temple about Healthy Wisconsin (the plan that would provide health care coverage to all state residents and employees), the Wisconsin Center for Nursing, legislative models for safe staffing, and mandatory continuing education as a condition of nurse relicensure.

University Bulletin
Published weekly during the fall and spring semesters by the UW-Eau Claire News Bureau. News items and notices should be sent to the News Bureau, Schofield 201, by 10 a.m. Monday for publication in the following week’s issue. E-mail submissions to Julie Poquette at poquetjm@uwec.edu are encouraged. Faculty/staff news items are published on a space-available basis.