One of the loudest, proudest and most frequent “thank yous” I hear when I’m out in the community these days is “Thank you for the involvement of your UW Oshkosh students in the community.”
Chancellor Andy Leavitt
Since UWO’s beginning, one of its hallmarks has been building strong relationships and collaborations in the communities and region it calls home. As stewards of the University, we have always pushed ourselves to lower barriers so that classrooms and learning laboratories could exist on and off campuses. There are so many examples; here are just a few.
Teacher-education is in our DNA, and, as the history books note, UWO became the birthplace of kindergarten practice schools.
Our Cooperative Academic Partnership Program, or CAPP, is nearly a half-century old and remains the UW System’s largest dual-enrollment program for high school students to earn college credits. For almost as long as there has been a UW System, CAPP has annually prepared thousands of students and their high school teachers throughout Wisconsin (and now northern Illinois) to deliver and earn affordable college-level course credits where they are.
And UWO’s general education program, the now decade-old University Studies Program, has been a game-changer. Last semester, it involved 11 Quest III sophomore-year courses that sent 521 students into the region, working alongside 18 community partners, from local shelters and food pantries to K-12 schools and even regional farms.
It’s exciting to see this symbiosis between University and community continue. Within the last year, we’ve seen the genesis of new UWO centers helping marshal and deploy community volunteers and examine good governance on the local level. You’ll learn more about them in this edition of Titan.
These deep connections within UWO’s region are mission-centric. And they are transformative for students. They are built ground up upon a scaffolding of high-impact practices that prepare Titans to excel in academic disciplines and professions and also to thrive as civically engaged volunteers, neighbors and leaders after graduation. We provide an education that makes graduates adaptable and durable—inoculates them against the unknown, the unpredictable.
We thank the many communities and community partners that rise to co-educate students, instilling in them the creativity, empathy, gusto and resilience necessary for life-long success.
All the best to you in 2022!
—Chancellor Andy Leavitt
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