Featured Articles

Summer LEAP clinic hopes to raise expectations of students and teachers

Twelve UW-Eau Claire students now studying in Thailand

Riverbank project moves forward

Flutist Peter Phippen to perform outdoor concert Monday

UW-Eau Claire Children's Center receives national accreditation

A look back at history

Summer LEAP clinic hopes to raise expectations of students and teachers

Stephanie Hitchcock, student teacher (front), and Sue Henneman, alumni coach, work with a group of LEAP clinic participants at Roosevelt Elementary School. Alumni coaches are UW-Eau Claire graduates and area teachers who are proficient in the use of Direct Instruction and can help the student teachers learn and use it more consistently.

Sixty-seven Eau Claire area students are attending this year's Learning Enhancement and Progression clinic, a collaborative program of the UW-Eau Claire special education department and the Eau Claire Area School District. For more than 20 years, the six-week LEAP clinic has provided instruction in reading, mathematics, written expression, spelling, study skills and social skills to K-12 students who need extra assistance.

"Overall, I feel the LEAP clinic is a wonderful learning experience for both the teachers and students." Aimee Hintz, special education graduate student and LEAP teacher (Photos by Rick Mickelson, TLTDC)

Special Education Professor Vicki Snider, who is co-directing the LEAP clinic with Laura O'Keefe, a special education lecturer, said that while one of their goals is to produce an immediate, noticeable increase in the reading level and overall academic achievement of the students, another one of their goals can have even more lasting, long-term consequences — "We really want to increase everyone's expectations concerning what these students and their teachers can achieve," said Snider.

Snider believes that when students don't perform well in their traditional classrooms because of learning disabilities or other problems, the most problematic result can be the diminishing expectations of both the students and their teachers. In other words, success can breed more success, while failure tends to breed more failure.

The 25 UW-Eau Claire graduate and undergraduate students teaching at the clinic are using several techniques to help raise everyone's expectations. Full story.

Twelve UW-Eau Claire students now studying in Thailand

In addition to two classroom courses, the Thailand study abroad program includes visits to Hmong villages, special lectures and the opportunity to ride an elephant through a tropical forest. (Contributed photo)

Seventeen students from UW System schools, including 12 from UW-Eau Claire, are currently in Thailand, taking part in another new summer study abroad program that will help prepare students to live and work in a global society.

Payap University, located in Chiang Mai, an international city of 250,000 in Northern Thailand, is hosting the visiting students. Two summer courses offer a mix of classroom instruction, field excursions and lectures by local activists, scholars and representatives of various issue-oriented organizations.

Thai students are acting as mentors and cultural guides for evening and weekend activities when the students are in Chiang Mai. But several UW-Eau Claire students, writing from Thailand, have already cited the academic field excursions outside the city as among the most rewarding of their experiences.

Senior Kathryn Wineke said in the past weeks she's done things she never expected to do, including spending a week in a mountain village and riding an elephant in a tropical forest. Full story.

Riverbank project moves forward
The campus hill connecting lower and upper campus at UW-Eau Claire will be closed starting the week of July 12 to minimize traffic on Garfield Avenue during the Chippewa Riverbank stabilization construction project, said Terry Classen, director of facilities planning and management.

Portions of one lane of Garfield Avenue on lower campus and the Putnam parking lot at the base of the campus hill also will be closed to vehicular traffic for approximately five weeks, Classen said.

"We know it will be difficult for some people to get around parts of lower campus for a period of time but we have no choice," Classen said. "We must limit traffic as the riverbank project continues."

In January, trees and other vegetation were cleared from the project site, which includes 1,200 feet of riverbank along Garfield Avenue from the pedestrian bridge to the Putnam parking lot. Removing the vegetation in the winter strengthened the riverbank in preparation for the next phase of the project. Full story.

Flutist Peter Phippen to perform free outdoor concert Monday
Ethnic flutist Peter Phippen will present a free outdoor concert on the UW-Eau Claire Campus Mall at 7 p.m. Monday, July 12.

A professional musician for the past 25 years, Phippen spent his early career days as a bass guitarist and recording artist. But in 1987 his first flute — a 25-cent bamboo whistle — found its way into his hands, and wooden flutes became his solo instrument of choice. Full story.

Also plan to attend "Fargo" (1996), a Coen brothers film playing Tuesday and Thursday at noon and 7 p.m. in Davies Theatre.

Summer Session Programs continue through Aug. 5. A complete schedule of events is available online.

UW-Eau Claire Children's Center receives national accreditation

Nancy Ryba, a teacher at the UW-Eau Claire Children's Center, plays an important role in the lives of many children who attend the center.

The Children's Center was recently granted accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a designation the program has held since 1987.

This recognition has been achieved by about only 8,000 early childhood programs nationwide and just four programs in Eau Claire.

"We are pleased to again receive accreditation, which is a thorough, voluntary process where early childhood programs need to demonstrate that they meet national standards of excellence," said Becky Wurzer, director of UW-Eau Claire Children's Center, adding that the center is committed to ongoing evaluation and improvement. Full story.

A look back at history
Altoona Middle School teachers Terri Hanson (left) and Barb Nelson collaborate as they learn about the uses of an old farm hand tool during a recent session of the "Learning by Doing" public history program.

Last week, a representative from the U.S. Department of Education presented a $1 million grant to UW-Eau Claire, CESA 10 and 11 and the Chippewa Valley Museum. The grant will fund an innovative UW-Eau Claire program that will help more than 200 elementary and secondary teachers from 39 Wisconsin school districts learn new ways to teach American history. Go to the In The News section for media coverage of the grant presentation. (Photo by Rick Mickelson, TLTDC)

Summer Bulletin
Published weekly during the summer session 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 Liz Wolf Green at greenew@uwec.edu are encouraged. Faculty/staff news items are published on a space-available basis.