Federal grants to COEHS total more than $104,000

Joseph Morin	Karen Horan

UW-Eau Claire's College of Education and Human Sciences recently received two grants totaling more than $104,000 from the U.S. Department of Education through the Wisconsin Improving Teacher Quality Grant Program. Both grants — just two of 20 funded throughout the UW System — are intended to increase the academic achievement of students in core subjects by enhancing the content knowledge and teaching skills of classroom teachers, particularly in rural school districts.

Dr. Joseph Morin, associate professor of special education, is the principal investigator for "M-zone: Enhancing Teachers of Mathematics' Ability to Accommodate Students with Language-based Disabilities," which was funded for $39,538. Morin wrote the grant with emeritus professor of special education Dr. David Franks and Dr. Robert Hollon, a professor of curriculum and instruction and co-director of the Center for Collaborative Leadership in Education at UW-Eau Claire.

Karen Horan, a UW-Eau Claire professor emerita of art and curriculum and instruction, is the project director for "The Visual Journal/Book Arts Project: Teaching Language Arts Across the Curriculum," which was funded for $68,814. Horan wrote the grant in collaboration with Mary Kuzma, a UW-Eau Claire alumna and former student of Horan's who worked with the Gear-Up Program at the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation for six years. Full story.

Regents approve 6.8 percent tuition increase
The UW System Board of Regents on June 8 approved system's 2006-07 operating budget, which includes a 6.8 percent tuition increase for resident undergraduate students. The increase will equate to $191 per semester at UW-Madison, $187 at UW-Milwaukee, and $145 at the comprehensive universities and the UW Colleges.

Nearly half of the tuition increase follows a biennial budget provision that stipulates the UW System must use tuition instead of state support to pay for utility costs. The additional tuition will cover $19.8 million of these increased utility costs, as well as a portion of an employee pay plan and student technology initiatives.

State general purpose revenue will pay for less than 25 percent of the $4.1 billion 2006-07 budget. Tuition dollars will now comprise 21 percent of the budget, while gifts, grant funds, federal dollars, and other private sources comprise more than half of the UW System's total budget. The 2005-07 state budget included more than $44 million in student financial aid.

During its June meeting at UW-Milwaukee, the Board of Regents also affirmed that the UW System's Growth Agenda and student financial aid will be the focus of the regents' request for state reinvestment in the university in the 2007-09 biennium.

Read the Day 1 and Day 2 news summaries for complete details on the regents' June meeting. Also read a related article from the Wisconsin State Journal.

Karen Havholm to continue as interim assistant vice chancellor; national search to resume in fall

Karen Havholm

Dr. Karen Havholm, professor of geology, will continue to serve as interim assistant vice chancellor and director of UW-Eau Claire's Center of Excellence for Faculty/Student Research Collaboration, said Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor Steve Tallant.

Havholm, who joined UW-Eau Claire in 1993, was appointed to her current position following an internal search and screen process and succeeded Dr. Christopher Lind upon his retirement in February 2006.

“Karen Havholm has proven to be an energetic and effective leader and we are delighted she has agreed to continue serving in her current capacity,” Tallant said.

Tallant said Havholm will remain in her interim position until a new national search to select a permanent assistant vice chancellor and director of the Center of Excellence for Faculty/Student Research Collaboration is successfully completed.

The recently concluded national search did not result in the selection of any of the four finalists who visited UW-Eau Claire, according to Tallant.

“The search and screen committee conducted a thorough and professional search and I commend the committee members and chair Dr. Brian Mahoney for their good work,” Tallant said.

“I have spoken with the search and screen committee and we are in agreement that it is in the best interests of the university to continue with our current interim leadership and to conduct another national search beginning in the fall,” Tallant said.

Jazz at Noon, Music on the Mall begin today

Howard "Guitar" Luedtke

Outdoor concerts today at noon by the Ben Herpel-Dobay Group and at 7 p.m. by Howard "Guitar" Luedtke and Blue Max will kick off an eight-week series of free Summer Session Programs at UW-Eau Claire.

The Ben Herpel-Dobay Group will give Jazz at Noon performances through Friday from noon to 1 p.m. on the Central Campus Mall. A variety of grilled lunch items will be sold. Jazz at Noon concerts by UW-Eau Claire student groups will be presented every weekday in June. The rain site for Jazz at Noon concerts is The Cabin in Davies Center.

Howard "Guitar" Luedtke and Blue Max will present the first of seven weekly Music on the Mall concerts from 7 to 9 p.m. on the Central Campus Mall. Refreshments will be sold. Audience members are invited to bring blankets or folding chairs for lawn seating. The rain site for Music on the Mall concerts will be Schofield Auditorium or The Cabin. Full story.

New scholarships honor recent alumni
The families of two UW-Eau Claire alumni recently established scholarships through the UW-Eau Claire Foundation. The gifts in support of the scholarships are recognized as contributions to Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence, the Foundation's ongoing comprehensive campaign to benefit UW-Eau Claire's people and programs:

• David and Nancy Prechel, Hillsboro, have established the Ryan Prechel Scholarship to honor their son's exceptional academic career and leadership activities at UW-Eau Claire. Ryan Prechel was a UW-Eau Claire honors student who graduated in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in computer science. Recipients of the scholarship will receive a $1,000 award and an additional $250 that they may direct to an organization, department or campus or program of their choice as a gift recognizing the work of these entities. Recipients of the Ryan Prechel Scholarship must be members of UW-Eau Claire's Honors Program and involved in campus, community or civic activities or organizations. Full story.
• The family of Brian Stricklin, a UW-Eau Claire alumnus and honor student from Waukesha who died in August 2004, has established the Brian Stricklin Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship will provide a $1,000 award each year to an outstanding student from Waukesha County planning to attend UW-Eau Claire. Brian Stricklin, a 2004 UW-Eau Claire business graduate, was an avid gamer and was an active member and officer of the Eau Claire Gamers Guild. He also studied abroad for a semester at Southern Cross University in Australia. Preference will be given to scholarship applicants planning on majoring in business and/or who have an interest in gaming, environmental protection or study abroad opportunities. Full story.

Senior German major is one of 15 in nation
chosen for Grad School Experience

Erin House

UW-Eau Claire senior Erin House, a German major from Eau Claire, is among 15 students nationwide to be invited to participate in a fully paid German literature and culture Grad School Experience at the University of Pennsylvania this summer. The fellowships are for gifted rising seniors majoring in German.

The weeklong program focuses on the "trope of travel in German literature and culture," House said. Professors will lead a series of seminars — just as they do for graduate students — in which the participants analyze a variety of films, short stories, poems, travel accounts, short novels, music, painting and sculptures, she said.

"Admission to this program was a shock and an honor, as this was a national competition," House said. "I've always loved the German language and culture, and am so pleased to have this opportunity to see what studying 'Germanistik' (German studies) at a graduate institution entails." Full story.

Award-winning heating plant upgrade helps campus save energy
Last fall a new system to control the boilers that produce steam to heat UW-Eau Claire's 28 buildings and its private heating customers was completed.

Recently OMNNI Associates, the consulting engineering firm that worked on the project with UW-Eau Claire's Heating Plant crew, received two awards for the university's innovative boiler controls system: an Excellence in Engineering Design Award from the state of Wisconsin and a 2006 State Finalist Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Wisconsin.

Heating Plant Superintendent Jim Franklin said UW-Eau Claire is the first state facility to change over to a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) system to replace aging single-loop boiler controls.

"The new system gives us tremendous flexibility and helps us save energy. The longer we can stay up and use clean-burning, high-BTU, low-sulphur coal, the better," Franklin said.

The Power Plant is operated and maintained 24 hours a day, seven days a week by Jim Brun, Greg Buros, Greg Falkenberg, Gary Grundman, Bob Kawell, Bob Thill, Dennis Watton and Jim Weber. Terry Hartman is the assistant plant superintendent. Full story.

UW-Eau Claire hosts summer math workshop
"Inverse Problems and Applications" is the focus of the 2006 mathematics summer workshop to be held June 19-20 at UW-Eau Claire. Because inverse problems have many applications in sciences and engineering, the workshop will be of interest to faculty members and students from across the sciences, including mathematics, physics, biology, computer science and chemistry, as well as to engineering professionals from area industries, said Mohamed Elgindi, professor of mathematics and one of the event's organizers.

Presenters at the workshop will include faculty members with backgrounds in mathematics, computer engineering, physics and statistics from the University of Central Florida, the University of Minnesota, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Barron County and UW-Madison. Also, five UW-Eau Claire students will present their summer mathematics research projects. More information is available on the mathematics department Web site.

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. Thursday 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.