Leaders

▶︎ The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Alumni Association board of directors elected six new members, including Justine Braun ’15, of Green Bay; Martine D’Amour ’07, of Leesburg, Virginia; John Erickson ‘09, of West Hollywood, California; Angela Femali ‘94, of Berlin; Jeffrey Herzig ‘06, of Greenville; and Timothy Ward ‘70, of Milwaukee.

▶︎ Jeremiah Hoffmann ’16, took over as UWO’s sixth head women’s golf coach in the program’s 26-year history in July. Hoffman started as a student on the Fond du Lac campus and earned a liberal studies bachelor’s degree from UWO in 2016 and a master’s from Ohio University in 2021.

▶︎ UWO recently received funding for two speaker grants and one research grant totaling more than $85,000 from the Tommy Thompson Center for Public Leadership at UW-Madison. Speaker grants were awarded to Alicia Johnson, UWO Women’s Center director, for a women in cybersecurity speaker series; and James Krueger, associate professor and chair of the political science department, for an American Democracy Project spring policy lecture about criminal justice reform in the United States. Economics faculty members Chad Cotti, Oshkosh Corp. endowed professor; and David Fuller, associate professor, were awarded the research grant to evaluate recent unemployment insurance reforms made in Wisconsin. The researchers will analyze the effects of these recent changes that may help lawmakers develop future policies.

▶︎ The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a $417,830 grant to UW Oshkosh to keep litter and trash out of the bay of Green Bay and Lake Michigan. The EPA provided the Trash-Free Waters Grant under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which allows UWO to purchase a trash skimmer boat to target several key waterways that drain into Green Bay and Lake Michigan.

▶︎ UW Oshkosh Assistant Chancellor of Athletics Darryl Sims has been named to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Constitution Committee, which will identify the core principles that define college sports and propose a new governance model that allows for quicker change without sacrificing broader values.

▶︎ UW System Interim President Tommy Thompson helped the UWO community celebrate its sesquicentennial year when he made a special appearance at the Opening Day convocation Sept. 7 at the Culver Family Welcome Center on theOshkosh campus. Thompson thanked the University community for its success over the past 150 years and its excellence in education, which he called “second to none.”

Researchers

▶︎ For her doctor of nursing practice (DNP) scholarly project, alumna Olivia (Leuck) Cassiday focused on developing telehealth curriculum for advance practice registered nursing students, which resulted in publication of the paper, Exploring Telehealth in the Graduate Curriculum in the Nurse Educator Journal in 2020. Cassiday graduated with her DNP in 2021 and now works as a nurse practitioner at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa.

▶︎ A UW Oshkosh project funded by a WiSys Ignite grant for applied research is focused on understanding public perceptions of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in Lake Winnebago and associated waterways. Seven UWO faculty and staff members (Kevin Crawford, chemistry; Shannon Davis-Foust, biology and environmental studies; Marcel Dijkstra, environmental engineering and technology; Jim Feldman, history and environmental studies; Heidi Nicholls, anthropology; Stephanie Spehar, anthropology and Sustainable Institute for Regional Transformations; and Bob Stelzer, biology) are collaborating to develop a comprehensive picture of what the public thinks about HABs and what influences their perception.

▶︎ As part of a prestigious UW System fellowship, UWO English professor Douglas Haynes spent the fall semester developing a new book, Learning in the Age of Loneliness: Reimaging Education for the Anthropocene, about the inequality and the ecological crisis, particularly in marginalized communities.

▶︎ Eleven UW Oshkosh McNair Scholars shared their summer research findings from a variety of disciplines at a showcase in September. The McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program empowers first-generation college students to realize their potential by preparing them for graduate school.

▶︎ The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a $6,000 summer stipend to UWO radio TV film professor Caryn Murphy to support her work on a book about television in the 1960s. She spent two months writing and doing archival research on how producers and writers balanced the need to appeal to a huge audience with the desire to experiment creatively.

▶︎ UW Oshkosh graduate student Sarah Woody, a Sacramento, California, native pursuing a master’s degree in biology, spent the summer looking at heavy metal concentrations in sediment, plant and muskrat tissue at Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Mayville. Woody and her faculty mentor Misty McPhee, an associate professor of environmental studies, were awarded a UWO Graduate Collaborative Research Grant for the project.

Champions

▶︎ UWO alumnus Nate Hinze, who earned a master’s in educational leadership and policy from UWO in 2016, won a bronze and two gold medals in three trips to the Paralympic Games in 12 years. He is in his second year as the athletic director and assistant principal at Port Washington High School. Learn more

▶︎ UWO physics professor Mark Lattery received the David Hestenes Award for Exceptional Contributions to Modeling Instruction at the 2021 American Modeling Teachers Association annual meeting. Lattery, who joined the UWO faculty in 1997, has created multiple engaging, research-based continuing education course experiences for current physics teachers in which they can see modeling instruction in action and learn how it can be used in their classrooms.

▶︎ UWO’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program recently was recognized as one of the top pre-licensure nursing programs in the state for 2021 by Nursing Schools Almanac. The BSN programs offered within Wisconsin were evaluated by Nursing Schools Almanac based on a calculation of each program’s National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN) first-time pass rate from 2011 to 2020 and ranked accordingly.

▶︎ A new study by SmartAsset confirms what we already know: Oshkosh is a top-notch place to live. The home of UW Oshkosh landed at No. 3 on the list of “the most livable college towns” in America published by the online financial advice resource.

Learn more:

• Titan magazine: Winter 2022