April 7, 2023  |  News & Events, Provost's Updates, Timely Announcements

Good afternoon, colleagues. Here is this week’s update from Academic Affairs.
2030 Feature of the Week
Please see the UWM Report article on DEI efforts.
Enrollment Management Feature of the Week
UWM awards more than $23 million in student scholarships annually. The Office of Student Scholarships (OSS), within the Division of Enrollment Management, was created in 2021 to provide institution-wide leadership with the knowledge, authority, and focus to develop and spearhead the implementation of strategic goals and standard best practices regarding student scholarships. Scholarships can and should be used to promote the recruitment, retention, and academic success of students, and OSS provides centralized coordination and resources for key functions for student scholarships at UWM, including training, technology, assessment, community-building, policy, and communication. OSS serves as the enterprise system administrator for the Panther Scholarship Portal, UWM’s universal student scholarship platform, showcasing more than 950 scholarship opportunities at UWM. Additional information can be found at scholarships.uwm.edu.
Kudos
Mohammed Adjieteh (dissertator, Mathematical Sciences) has attained the highly coveted designation of Associate of the Society of Actuaries (SOA). To attain the designation, a candidate must pass numerous professional exams, e-learning courses, and complete several validations of educational experiences outside the SOA Education system and a professionalism seminar. Congratulations, Mohammed!
Owen Klatte’s (Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres) film, “Of Wood,” will screen in the Cream City Cinema section of the Milwaukee Film Festival and has won one of the three Golden Badger awards at the Wisconsin Film Festival in Madison. Overall, “Of Wood” has now shown in more than 70 festivals on six continents and has won 18 awards and honorable mentions. Well done, Owen!
Jennifer Kibicho (Nursing) was awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program to travel to Kenya to work with the Cooperative University of Kenya (CUK) on a collaboration project with Professor Isaac Nyamongo and Dr. Monica Nederitu. Read more about this project. Congratulations, Jennifer!
Big Kudos to WUWM, which was recently recognized with a number of awards from the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association, including First Place for Lake Effect in the Talk/Public Affairs Category, and five Awards of Merit for their work and reporting in Talk/Public Affairs, Social Media, Soft Feature, Sports Reporting, and Team Multimedia Storytelling – News for their 2022 Voter Guide.
Additionally, WUWM’s 2023 Spring Election coverage garnered six segments on national NPR shows and web properties, including Morning Edition (Lina Tran and Chuck Quirmbach), Here and Now (Chuck Quirmbach), and The Takeaway (Maayan Silver). Congratulations, all!
In the News
PSOA student Jovanny Hernandez Carabello (Art BFA: Photography) is the first artist to be featured in CREATING MILWAUKEE, a mini-documentary series produced by Nō Studios and presented by The American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact. Jovanny is a Milwaukee community artist and photographer whose work explores themes of his cultural heritage and identity as a first generation American and descendant of Mixtecs. The series launches with a live broadcast on WISN 12 News on April 12 at 11:45 a.m.
Milwaukee Athletics
The Milwaukee Athletic Department has announced basketball ticket prices for the 2023-24 season.
The Week in Retrospect
On Sunday evening, I had a chance to attend the Student Association Senate meeting and discuss some topics with them from the Board of Regents meeting, including the tuition increase and the panel on accessibility in the System. I started Tuesday with updates at the Tech Ed Frontiers quarterly meeting and the Connected Systems Institute quarterly executive briefing. I also met with the University Committee to discuss several issues, including the upcoming report from the Washington County Higher Education Task Force. At the Wednesday Deans meeting, we had presentations from Dev Venugopalan on the upcoming visit of the Higher Learning Commission’s accreditation review team next month and from Phyllis King about the Moon Shot for Equity initiative (see the latest quarterly report in the announcements below). I provided updates, including a summary of the Board of Regents meeting, to the APBC on Thursday morning and then provided opening remarks at the Connected Systems Institute Industry Steering Committee’s spring meeting. Today, I am catching up with members of the Academic Affairs team.
Announcements

  • Moon Shot for Equity
    The Moon Shot for Equity Quarterly Report is now available. Phyllis King is the Executive Director of the initiative and the goal is to eliminate gaps in first-year freshmen retention and four- and six-year graduation rates between underrepresented minority students and those outside this group at UWM. All three of these Key Performance Indicators improved over the past year (freshmen retention gap, 4-year graduation gap, and 6-year graduation gap), countering covid set-backs in some cases. Moon Shot for Equity is on the right track and the interventions are working.
  • Suicide Prevention
    The Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Mental Health is completing a review of UWM’s current suicide prevention training and exploring additional options. Obtaining feedback from faculty and instructional staff is essential in ensuring that effective and accessible training is being provided to the campus community. Time required to participate in the review process is limited to 45 minutes to two hours, depending on the number of programs reviewed. All content is available digitally and the process will be completed during the month of April. If interested, please contact Lori Bokowy (labokowy@uwm.edu) by April 14.
  • Biometric Screening
    UWM’s Department of Human Resources is partnering with Well Wisconsin to bring health screenings for employees to the UWM Student Union. A biometric screening is a great way to get a snapshot of your current health status. The screenings are free with employees’ State Group Health Insurance. Register at webmd.health.com/wellwisconsin. Search by ZIP code to find a screening event. Email benefits@uwm.edu with questions.
  • Waived or Reduced Fees
    The UWM Libraries wish to remind faculty and staff authors that publishing fees in PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine will be waived or reduced under an agreement that ends on December 31, 2023. More information.
  • 2024 Alumni Awards Nominations
    Do you know an exceptional UWM alum? Nominate them to be honored at the 2024 Alumni Awards Evening. With seven categories of awards that recognize alumni and university partners, we are sure you have a great nominee to submit. Nominations will be accepted online through Monday, July 31.

Campus Events

  • Pots and Pans Donation Drive
    The students in NUTR 305: Hunger at Home, are collaborating with the UWM Food Pantry and the MATC Food Pantry to host a Pots and Pans Donation drive during April. If you have gently used pots, pans, cooking utensils, can openers, or peelers – consider donating them to the Pots and Pans donation drive. These items will go directly to students utilizing the UWM Food Pantry and the MATC Downtown Campus Food Pantry. Drop off donations from April 1 – 30 in the UWM Union, Room E153 (UWM Community Engagement and Experiential Learning (CEEL) office, across from the Panther Shop). Questions? Email us at hungerathomeuwm@gmail.com.
  • Career Cartography Webinar
    Jennifer Doering (Nursing) will present a career development webinar on Tuesday, April 11 at 11 a.m. Career Cartography is a systematic and iterative method for exploring the scientific impact and communicating the outcomes of science at any career stage. Career map examples will be provided, and participants will be encouraged to begin their own mapping. An in-person follow-up workshop will be available for those who want to further develop their career maps. Webinar Teams link.
  • Artists Now! Guest Lecture Series
    The virtual Artists Now! Lecture Series welcomes Lyndsay Rice (BFA ’06), an accomplished jewelry and metalsmithing artist and educator, on Wednesday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m. Information.
  • Technical Training
    Join UWM TechTraining on Thursday, April 13 at 10 a.m. for a Teams live event training session entitled, “File Storage & Sharing: OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint.” No registration necessary; click here to join.
  • Jazz Concert
    The UWM Jazz Ensemble welcomes trumpeter, composer, and educator Eric Jacobson for the world premiere of four arrangements of Eric’s original compositions. Tenor saxophonist Sam Fettig has arranged four of Eric’s original compositions for jazz ensemble. These compositions appear on Eric’s highly acclaimed recording, Discover, on Origin records. The concert takes place on Thursday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m. in the Helene Zelazo Center Room 250.
  • Latin American Film Series
    The 44th annual Latin American Film Series, running April 13 – 20, features recent narrative and documentary films. The series is free and open to the public and includes both in-person and virtual screenings.
  • Online Program Council
    The OPC meets on Friday, April 14 from 10:30 a.m. – noon via Teams. Agenda items include AI and online education, academic integrity, and brainstorming topics for the 23-24 OPC meetings. If you haven’t attended an OPC meeting in the past, please email Laura Pedrick (lpedrick@uwm.edu) for a meeting invitation.
  • Arboreal Humanities: A Roundtable Discussion
    Join C21 for a conversation about trees and their significance in art, philosophy, and community engagement in an exploration of Arboreal Humanities on Friday, April 14 at 3:30 p.m. in Curtin 175, followed by a reception and participatory art project in C21. Information and registration.
  • Faculty Recital
    The faculty recital of Nathan Nokes features live electronic and multimedia works and improvisations. Works feature spatialized audio, live projection, and lighting, making this an immersive experience you won’t want to miss. The concert will be held on Friday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. in PSOA Room B60 and is free and open to the public.
  • 150 Years of the QWERTY Keyboard
    To celebrate the anniversary of the QWERTY keyboard, arguably Milwaukee’s most famous export to the world, Jason Puskar (English) will discuss, “150 Years of QWERTY,” at the Milwaukee Public Museum on Saturday, April 15 at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. in the Ground Floor Garden Galleries. Drop-in programming to follow at a special exhibit of prototypes of early keyboards on the first floor.
  • Asia in Conversation
    The second Asia in Conversation for spring 2023 will take place on Friday, April 21 at 2 p.m. via Zoom. Max Yela, Head of Special Collections, UWM Libraries will be in conversation with Nimal Raja, independent artist and curator in Milwaukee, and Jingwei Zeng, graduate student in UWM’s Department of Art History. The topic of the conversation will be, “Making Objects Speak: Asian-related Materials in UWM’s Special Collections.”
  • Reproductive Justice
    The C21 Reproductive Justice Collaboratory is hosting a community networking event to bring together community partners, faculty, and students from the Milwaukee area who are interested in or engaging in storytelling projects that address reproductive health. A series of reproductive justice storytelling projects will be exhibited, and a panel of community experts will offer insight on how stories impact community action on reproductive justice. The event will be held on Monday, April 24 at 5 p.m. in the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center and is free and open to the public.
  • Unconditional: A Journey of Selfless Love
    The Student Gerontology Association and Helen Bader Office of Applied Gerontology invite you to attend a multidisciplinary event on the topic of aging on Friday, April 28 from 4:30 – 7:30 p.m. in the Union Alumni Fireside Lounge. Photo exhibit at 4:30; film screening at 6 p.m., with panel discussion to follow.

Something Different
It was 57 years ago today that a missing hydrogen bomb was recovered, based on a search by the deep-sea research submarine, Alvin.
Take care,
Scott

Scott Gronert
Interim Provost