UW-Eau Claire awarded grants to train teachers

History department receives $1 million to train teachers
UW-Eau Claire's history department received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help 50 elementary and secondary teachers from 30 school districts in central and western Wisconsin learn new ways to teach American history. The grant is a collaborative effort with CESA 10 and the Chippewa Valley Museum.
     The "Learning by Doing: Public History in the Classroom" program will allow 50 teachers to receive certificates in public history, earn up to 15 graduate credits, and bring new skills and resources to students and colleagues in their districts.
     The "Learning by Doing" program is the first graduate public history certificate program in the United States designed for elementary and secondary education teachers, said Patricia Turner, associate professor of history and co-director of the program. Public history, a growing sub-discipline offered at more than 100 U.S. universities and colleges – including UW-Eau Claire – focuses on the public dissemination of historical knowledge. Public historians bring history to the general public, using venues such as museums or community displays and events.
     The grant will help the history department enhance its resource facilities, curricular offerings and extracurricular activities, Turner said. Specifically, it will allow the department to:

• Purchase $28,000 in equipment, which can be used by the 50 teacher fellows in the "Learning by Doing" program, as well as by other students with history majors or minors, and graduate students conducting historical research.
• Hire for the 2003-04 and 2004-05 academic years an instructional staff member with a doctorate in public history, who will teach introductory courses in public history. This will be the start of an undergraduate emphasis in public history.
• Bring to campus each semester a nationally renowned historian to give evening lectures for the campus and greater Eau Claire communities.
• Sponsor a conference on public history in the classroom, allowing teaching fellows and educators from throughout the country to discuss the goals and outcomes of the "Learning by Doing" program.

     Twenty-five teachers will be awarded fellowships and accepted into the new program in spring 2003, with another 25 joining in spring 2004. Teachers will organize study groups in their districts to educate other teachers, which means the program will reach nearly 225 teachers – or almost half the history teachers in CESA 10's 30-district region, Turner said.
     The two-year program will include content-based courses in American history as well as hands-on learning opportunities for the teachers, Turner said.
     "By helping teachers become skilled practitioners of public history, or professional historians, we will greatly improve American history education," Turner said.
     This is the second major grant the history department has received in the last six months for improving K-12 teaching of American history. Kate Lang, assistant professor of history, received a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the Center for History Teaching and Learning. The NEH grant is being used to train teachers in the Augusta school district in project-based teaching methods.
     "These grants are examples of UW-Eau Claire's commitment to providing educational opportunities that meet regional and state needs," said Provost Ronald Satz. "They also are testaments to the strong relationships that exist among the university, local schools and community."

$1.05 million awarded to train teachers of non-English speaking students
UW-Eau Claire has been selected to receive a $1.05 million federal grant to train teachers of non-English speaking students in the Eau Claire Area School District and surrounding districts.
     As a result of the four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education under the National Professional Development Program, the number of English as a Second Language trained personnel in the region will increase by nearly 700 percent.
     "This effort speaks clearly to the mission of UW-Eau Claire to provide education in a broad range of programs to meet identified regional and state needs," said Provost Ronald Satz. "It demonstrates the close partnership between the university and the local school district."
     The grant will satisfy a critical need for teacher development in the Eau Claire Area Schools, said Dr. William Klaus, school superintendent.
     "The district needs trained teachers in the areas of ESL instruction. We currently have one and parts of two other federal and state grant initiatives to help better instruct our non-native English-speaking students. These grants, however, do not fill the need of further preparation for in-service or pre-service content teachers," Klaus said.
     The project will help bridge the gap for mainstreaming ESL students by training content-area teachers to assess and teach these students and serve as experts in their schools.
     "There are 12 teachers with ESL training in the Eau Claire district now, and that number will increase to 260 under this project," said Dr. Kate Reynolds, project director and director of the university's Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages and English as a Second Language programs.
     The four-year grant is aimed at teachers with Hmong and Spanish speaking students in their classrooms. It will enable teachers to develop their knowledge base for instruction and mainstreaming of students with limited English abilities.
     "These teachers will learn ways they can modify their materials, instructional strategies and other educational practices to include best practices for English language learners," Reynolds said. "TESOL is just good teaching. It's an interactive, hands-on method of teaching and will improve the educational experience for all students in the classroom."
     Reynolds said there is limited support for ESL in Eau Claire because the district is considered a low-incident area for English language learners. The ratio of English language learners to certified ESL teachers in the Eau Claire school district is 51 to 1. Since the ratios are high and time is limited, there is an increased need for quickly and effectively mainstreaming these students.
     In many cases the gap between the students' abilities and the level of performance necessary in the regular classroom is too difficult to bridge without support, Reynolds said. Mainstream teachers often feel ill equipped to include these students into their classes because they have no training on how to modify their curriculum to help them.
     "Many of these students fall behind in coursework and when they are legally permitted, they drop out of school," Reynolds said. "Clearly there is a critical need for intervention through training, and that is what this project aims to provide."
     The grant will serve 20 in-service teachers in UW-Eau Claire's TESOL add-on license program and will reach an additional 140 in-service teachers through workshops. In addition, 100 pre-service teachers will complete the UW-Eau Claire content-based English as a Second Language methods course and participate in workshops to develop skills to teach students from diverse language and cultural backgrounds in their future classrooms.
     "They will be able to develop their skills to educate linguistically and culturally diverse learners in their classrooms, meet the State of Wisconsin's Public Instruction 34 Teacher Standards and to develop further their concept of best practice," Reynolds said.
     The TESOL add-on license program is a two-year, 32-credit program. The participants will be granted scholarships for all TESOL courses for tuition, fees and books as well as a small stipend for participation. The grant also includes funds to pay substitute teachers while in-service teachers are receiving workshop training during school hours.
     Reynolds wants to recruit 20 teachers, with 10 admitted to the program for the spring 2003 semester. The other 10 will start next fall.
     For more information, contact Reynolds at (715) 836-4067 or Reynolds@uwec.edu.
Gifts from area donors help bring UW-Eau Claire fund-raising total to $21.7 million
Donors have committed $21.7 million so far to UW-Eau Claire's ongoing fund-raising campaign, officials announced Friday, Oct. 11, at a meeting of the UW-Eau Claire Foundation board of directors.
     The campaign progress update was the first since the April 26 kickoff of the public phase of Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence, UW-Eau Claire's first comprehensive fund-raising campaign. In April, officials reported that $18,268,000 had been pledged since the campaign's quiet phase began in July 2000. The campaign seeks $35 million in private support for UW-Eau Claire's people and programs by July 2005.
     Recent gift commitments announced during the Foundation board meeting include $1.5 million from James and Anne Ramsey, Longwood, Fla.; $125,000 from Markquart Chevrolet, Markquart Motors and Markquart Toyota of Eau Claire; $120,000 from Kell Container Corp., Chippewa Falls; $75,000 from John and Helen Drawbert, Altoona; and $25,000 from Northwestern Bank, Chippewa Falls.

James and Anne Ramsey make $1.5 million gift to UW-Eau Claire
The Ramseys have made a planned gift to endow a UW-Eau Claire faculty position in the sciences. The gift will establish the Oliver Marion Ramsey Science Chair in memory of James Ramsey's brother, a 1933 UW-Eau Claire graduate who later graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II. He was killed in the Battle of Guadalcanal on Nov. 13, 1942.
     "I want this to be a permanent and fitting way of honoring his memory," James Ramsey said of the planned gift to the UW-Eau Claire Foundation.
     Carole Halberg, UW-Eau Claire Foundation president, said the Ramseys' gift is part of a "legacy of generosity."
     "Oliver Ramsey was generous in service to his country, and that is being memorialized by Jim and Anne Ramsey's generous support of a faculty position at UW-Eau Claire," Halberg said.
     The gift also is a fitting tribute to James and Oliver Ramsey's father, Robert, said Anne Ramsey. "Their father was such a strong proponent of education at a time when it was not customary for farm families to send their children to college," she said. "He never kept them home from school."

Markquart $125,000 gift to honor faculty and staff
The Markquart gift will establish the Lee and Mary Markquart Excellence Awards Endowment to underwrite UW-Eau Claire's annual awards to faculty and staff members for exemplary work in teaching, advising and research. The gift also will fund the annual cost of the awards for five years while the endowment builds. Each year the university and the Foundation present university medallions and $1,500 awards to the recipients of the Excellence in Teaching, Excellence in Advising and Excellence in Research awards.
     UW-Eau Claire's influence in the region and a belief in the university's mission were factors in the decision to make the gift, Lee Markquart said. He added that he and his wife agree that support for faculty and staff is important to the university and its students. "You have to have great teachers to attract great students," he said.
     For many years, support for the Excellence awards has come from the Foundation's Excellence Fund, a reserve of funds from undesignated gifts to the university. However, when the first Excellence in Teaching Award was presented in 1966, it was supported by the Johnson Foundation of Racine.
     "Through the Markquarts' generosity, we are returning to our roots of private support designated for the recognition of our outstanding faculty and staff," Halberg said. "This endowment not only ensures the future of these important awards, but it frees up unrestricted funds so we can take advantage of more opportunities to serve our students and our region."

Kell Container gift to assist football program
The Kell Container Corp. gift will establish the Kell Container Corporation Blugold Football Opportunity Endowment. The endowment will provide a stable source of annual funding to supplement UW-Eau Claire's existing football budget, Halberg said.
     The Blugold football program was a natural choice when determining where to direct Kell Container's support for Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence, said John Kell, co-owner and CEO of Kell Container and a 1973 UW-Eau Claire graduate. Tom Kell, John's brother and Kell Container president and co-owner, also noted that their father, who attended the University of Notre Dame on a football scholarship, likely would not have attended college or started the family business had he not excelled in football and received the scholarship.
     "From our beginning, football and athletics has played a big part in shaping Kell Container Corporation," John Kell said.
     Halberg noted that supplemental funding like the Kell Container gift is important to UW-Eau Claire because, as a Division III school, it cannot offer scholarships when recruiting players for its athletics programs.
     "Without the lure of scholarships, players deciding between two Division III schools often choose based on the intangibles that create a positive environment in which to play and study," Halberg said, adding that the Kell Container gift will allow the university to provide more of those intangibles, such as locker room improvements and equipment purchases.

Drawberts' gift to support a variety of university programs
The Drawberts' gift includes support for several university programs. John and Helen Drawbert each have specific areas of interest to which they've directed past support, John for athletics and Helen for single parent scholarships, so these were logical areas to support in their campaign gift as well, Helen Drawbert said.
     She added that their strong belief in philanthropy and giving back to their community were factors in their decision to support Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence.
     "The university is an incredible facility right here in our community, and being able to help individuals pursue their educational goals is of great importance to us," she said.
     The Drawberts' gift will support the high school sports medicine outreach program, an ongoing partnership between UW-Eau Claire's athletic-training program, Chippewa Valley Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, and area high schools. It also establishes the Drawbert Blugold Fellowship, which annually will provide tuition support and a stipend to a first- or second-year UW-Eau Claire student who will assist a faculty member in research that will impact the quality of life in the Chippewa Valley. The gift also includes support for Blugold athletics and the UW-Eau Claire Single Parent Scholarship Fund.
     "Through this gift, the Drawberts support several key programs here at the university and ensure that UW-Eau Claire will continue its outstanding service to students and to the region," Halberg said.

Northwestern Bank gift to provide scholarships to top high school graduates
The gift from Northwestern Bank will endow the Northwestern Bank Wisconsin Academic Excellence Scholarship. The scholarship is part of a state program in which the UW-Eau Claire Foundation, through sponsors like Northwestern Bank, supplements state funds to provide $2,250 scholarships to top graduating students from Wisconsin high schools who enroll at UW-Eau Claire. The scholarships are renewable for up to four years.
     Northwestern Bank's endowment ensures that its WAES scholarship, to which it has given regular annual support in the past, will be available in perpetuity.
     "With this endowed scholarship, we hope to help area students with their education, which in turn hopefully will help our community," said Joy Danielson, Northwestern Bank marketing officer.
     "Northwestern Bank's endowment of this scholarship helps ensure that UW-Eau Claire will continue furthering the goal of the WAES program, which is to keep Wisconsin's best and brightest students in our state, contributing to its healthy future," Halberg said.
     For more information about the Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence campaign, contact the UW-Eau Claire Foundation at (715) 836-5630, send e-mail to fdn@uwec.edu or view the Web site.

  
Focus on faculty and staff distinction
The articles below focus on the campaign objective of faculty and staff distinction — one of six key areas for investment by private contributors to Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence, UW-Eau Claire's five-year comprehensive campaign. The recent campaign gift featured below, from both the donors' and the recipients' perspectives, is an example of an investment to support and enhance the work of the university's music faculty.

Gift funds music composition fund
A recent gift from UW-Eau Claire alumni Mark and Susan McKenzie has established the Baker, Cunningham and Lunde Music Composition Fund at UW-Eau Claire.
     Mark McKenzie, a 1979 music theory and composition graduate, and Susan McKenzie, a 1978 music therapy graduate, established the fund to honor music and theatre arts professors David Baker (also the department chair), Michael Cunningham and Ivar Lunde, all of whom taught music composition when Mark McKenzie attended UW-Eau Claire.
     Mark McKenzie, now a well-respected Hollywood composer and orchestrator, also has agreed to compose a processional piece to be premiered by UW-Eau Claire music students and faculty directors. The piece, to be performed publicly for the first time at UW-Eau Claire's Holiday Concert this December, will be from the score of the movie "Blizzard," which McKenzie is now composing. "Blizzard," directed by LeVar Burton and including Whoopi Goldberg, Christopher Plummer and Kevin Pollak among its cast members, is a G-rated Christmas movie to be released in 2003.
     Other UW-Eau Claire graduates who are composers will be invited to make similar gifts of talent and treasure in the future, said Marcia Van Beek, the UW-Eau Claire Foundation's director of major gifts. Once the composition fund reaches the endowment level, its earnings will be used by music faculty to commission original compositions for performance by UW-Eau Claire music ensembles.
     "It is indeed a great honor and a surprise to be included in the title of this new fund," Lunde said. "It comes at a time when my wife and I looked in the credits of a recently enjoyed movie to discover Mark's name as the one responsible for the clever orchestration of the score. One could not help but feel proud."
     McKenzie's gift to establish the fund not only honors his professors, but it will directly support them and their colleagues in their work as music educators, Baker said.
     "The programming and performance of new music by our ensembles is an important goal of each faculty director," he said. "In a very significant way, Mark's gift provides a vehicle for realizing this goal."

Music alumni honor respected professors
If you went to the movies last summer, chances are you read Mark McKenzie's name when the credits rolled.
     McKenzie, who in 1979 was UW-Eau Claire's first music theory and composition graduate, most recently did the orchestrations for "Spider-Man," "The Sum of All Fears," "Lilo and Stitch" and "Stuart Little 2," all shown in theaters last summer. Having credits in four films during one season is a personal record for McKenzie, but equally impressive is the total number of films in which he's had orchestration credits (more than 75) or composition credits (11, soon to be 12) during his 17-year career. (Samples of McKenzie's music can be heard on his Web site, http://www.markmckenzie.org.)
     All of McKenzie's success in Hollywood, however, has apparently not clouded his memories of where it all began. Recently, McKenzie and his wife, Susan, honored three of McKenzie's former UW-Eau Claire music professors when they established the Baker, Cunningham and Lunde Music Composition Fund through the UW-Eau Claire Foundation.
     "I feel grateful for many of my UW-Eau Claire professors and particularly for these three fine composers," McKenzie said. "I studied music composition with each of them, and each made valuable contributions into who I've grown to become as an orchestrator and composer."
     McKenzie's intentions for the composition fund are twofold. First, he hopes the fund will provide inspiration for young composers, "causing new music to be written and enjoyed that might not otherwise exist."
     He also wants to honor three men whom he respects as committed music educators: "My wife and I would like to honor these men and their commitment to students, to quality education and to the craft of music composition."

  

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Updated: December 5, 2007