Fall 2009

So you're a senior...now what?!

Check out these tips for your senior year from some current UWEC tour guides and insights on the application process from our Admissions Director!

Jamie (Public Relations Major) - "Enjoy your final year of high school, but don't forget to keep up your academics!  Your last year is important too!"

Pang Kou (Organizational Communications Major) - "I think it's important for seniors to know that it's okay to be nervous, scared, or anxious. You should really take in the experience of being in high school and not stress too much about college. Really enjoy your last year because you're going to miss it, I know I did for awhile!"

Zach (Advertising Major) - "Start thinking about the opportunities available to you when you get to campus! Check out the football and hockey games but most importantly, get involved with tons of organizations! It is a great way to meet lots of new people and help college feel like your home."

Kris (Admissions Director - and former English major!) -

For those of you who are high school seniors, you are beginning a new chapter in your life: beginning/continuing your college search and application process. I know in a couple weeks our office is going to be flooded with applicatioins, and we're going to do our best to get answers to you quickly. You can help us out by having these 4 things ready:

1. Use the electronic application. There's a link off our website for it (and on the right hand side of this page). Make sure to fill it out completely and don't rush it. Taking the extra few minutes to double check things can really help us get an answer to you quickly.

2. Pay your application fee with a credit card while you're doing the app. It's safe and secure.

3. Have your high school send an official transcript. That means you ask your school counselor to send it right to us at UWEC Admissions.

4. Send your test scores. Either ACT or SAT will do. If you send them right from ACT, for example, that's best. Go to http://www.actstudent.org/ to do it.

That's it! For most of you, that will do it, and we won't need anything else. If we do, we'll let you know. We use email a lot, so make sure to check whichever email you put down on the
application.

Make sure to check out the other deadlines to remember before and after you've been admitted!

More than just a summer job

Learning practical, technical skills

More than 150 University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire students are engaged in experiential learning this summer, guided by faculty mentors from almost every department in the university.

According to Dr. Jim Phillips, professor and chair of UW-Eau Claire's chemistry department, the students are not only learning practical, technical skills, but also the kind of critical thinking skills that will benefit them in their future educational endeavors and make them leaders in their fields and in the communities where they choose to live and work.

Dollars in students' pockets

"These are high-impact learning experiences that also put dollars in students' pockets," Phillips said.

"Some people seem to think that research is all about the faculty members and their interests, but they're mistaken. At this point in my career, I don't care that much about whether I publish another scientific paper, but I do care whether my students publish scientific papers, because it can make all the difference in getting them into graduate schools and giving them strong starts in their careers."

Dr. Teresa Sanislo of the history department agrees that the summer research experience has many benefits. One of her students, junior Garrett Vander Grinten, a Blugold scholar from Green Bay, has been working for two years under her guidance on "Commemorating the Marburg Uprising: Locality, Nationality, and the Memory of the Napoleonic Wars in Hessen." This summer he worked with her in libraries and archives in Marburg, Germany, after his study-abroad program in Marburg ended in late June.

"I think it's important to stress that this project not only gave Garrett an opportunity to do creative, active, hands-on research on primary source documents, it tied a research experience to study abroad, enhancing the study-abroad experience and putting experiential learning into a global context," Sanislo said. "It also built upon and strengthened his foreign language skills and helped him see the connection between the past and present and the relevance of historical knowledge and research for everyday life."

What are they doing?

Following are examples of just some of the other projects under way this summer at UW-Eau Claire.

• In the geology department, five students are working with Dr. Brian Mahoney, Dr. Geoff Pignotta and Canadian geologists performing field mapping that involves looking for economic mineral potential in remote parts of British Columbia. They are using boat access along the northern coast and helicopters to reach the Coast Range Mountains. The students' names will appear on the published maps and records.
  
  

• Sophomore Catherine Emmanuelle, Eau Claire, is conducting the first phase of a women's studies research project on Mamie Till Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, the African American boy from Chicago who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 for flirting with a white woman. Working under the guidance of Dr. Katherine Rhoades, interim director of the women's studies program, Emmanuelle is looking specifically at the links between personal devastation, resiliency and political activism. The two traveled to Chicago for five days at the end of July to continue the research.
  
  
• Dr. Wendy Makoons Genuisz, director of American Indian studies at UW-Eau Claire, is leading four undergraduates in a project to design a course, "Ojibwe Language Camps," which will be taught next summer. The researchers are investigating how best to serve future students of the course, which will examine the language camp movement — an effort to save various endangered indigenous languages — and how to teach short elementary Ojibwe language lessons at these camps. Genuisz and the students will visit two of these language camps this summer as part of their research.
  
  
• Christopher Maierhofer, Eau Claire, is conducting research through the Department of Foreign Languages on "Sustainability and Organic Farming in Japan" with assistant professor Dr. Tomomi Kakegawa.
  

  UW-Eau Claire sends approximately 150 students each year to professional conferences to present their research!

  
  
• Dr. Nancy Rasmussen, a management lecturer, is working with Kerry Samples, a management student from Owatonna, Minn., to investigate employment practices pertaining to workers with limited English proficiency in western Wisconsin. They hope to investigate what area employers see as barriers to hiring non-English-speaking workers and inform them about support services available and current best practices in working with these employees.
  
  
• Dr. Bruce Lo, professor of information systems, is working with Tidie Rizanoor, an IS and accounting student from Jakarta, Indonesia, on a project titled "Globalization in Cyberspace: An Investigation of the E-Business Browsing Preferences of a Disperse Cultural Group." They are collecting Web site traffic and ranking data and performing analyses that involve categorization, computation of correlation coefficients, discordance index and associated scatter and polar graphs.
  

Featured Faculty and Students in our Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Majors!

Did you know that there's a new UWEC website specifically about our STEM programs?! STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and UW-Eau claire offers many opportunities for you to get involved with these programs!

Check out the new site, and read the snippets below from the new STEM featured faculty and spotlight student pages!

Joseph Hupy - assistant professor of geography: Can you share some memorable experiences you’ve had with students? Recently on a field trip for my Military Geography Course, I took my students to play paintball to apply what we had learned in class to a project they would work on based on the paintball game. Each team had 1 sq mile of land to analyze before and after the game.  They used spatial information and navigation techniques and worked on team projects afterwards. The day was a lot of fun for both me and my students, and I hope they got something out of doing hands on learning.

James - Physics major: What have been some of your favorite experiences in your classes? Shooting pop bottle rockets with Dr. Pierson (physics). Making a hologram in Optics lab (physics). Writing a program to simulate natural selection in CS163 (computer science)

Todd Wellnitz - assistant professor of biology: Do you get to do anything fun or special in your work? 
I get to travel for my research that involves fieldwork, and for field classes.  I have gone to the Bahamas, Costa Rica, and the Boundary Waters to teach, and Switzerland, Italy, and Colorado to do research. 

Daniel Ernst - assistant professor of computer science: Best advice for students? 
Engage yourself in whatever you choose to study – the students that have the greatest success are those who truly throw themselves into what they do wholeheartedly! 

Audrey - Geology student: What other exciting places has your major taken you? Recently I returned from completing researchin Brazil! Again, I got paid to spend time outdoors and work with amazing people who really know their stuff. In Brazil we mapped Late Paleozoic glacial deposits and compared them to much younger glacial deposits in Minnesota.  We spent our days hiking through the beautiful countryside, discovering new outcrops and perfecting our field skills. In the evenings, we absorbed the local culture and even learned how to samba!

Behind the Scenes: Blugold Marching Band!

Did you know that UW-Eau Claire has the largest Divison III marching band in the country? With over 270 students from almost every department on campus, the Blugold Marching Band has become one of the most active bands in the upper midwest!

Their season routinely includes Blugold home football games, 3 contest exhibitions, and other selected performances.  Recent performances have also included: NFL and Blugold away games, festivals, and stage shows.  In 07-08 the BMB performed in 8 cities and 4 countries for combined audiences of 150,000+.  The season concluded with special performances at the New Year's Day Papal Blessing in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City and stage shows in Florence, Italy and Athens, Greece.  Another European tour to Paris, London, and Venice is planned for '09 - '10!

These students move into the residence halls early and start practicing for multiple hours a day, so when the school year starts, they are ready to hit the field! Take a look at this slideshow to get a behind the scenes look at life for these dedicated students!

Visit their website if you want to learn more about the BMB, including how to join or where you can see them perform next!