It’s summer. And the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh has about 9,500 guests coming over.
That’s the approximate tally of visitors, conference-goers, K-12 student athletes and coaches and other guests UW Oshkosh’s Gruenhagen Conference Center expects it will have hosted between mid-May and late August, before the start of the fall 2013 academic semester.
Par for the course, for Gruenhagen, led by UW Oshkosh’s Marc Nylen and a team of both full-time and student staff.
“The privilege to welcome our guests to our campus and the honor to serve them is great,” Nylen said.
“The broad diversity of these camp and conference groups reflects a long and storied history of Gruenhagen Conference Center’s welcoming guests to our campus to partake of the outstanding resources we have to offer,” he said.
With Gruenhagen’s team leading the way and providing quality service and support, UW Oshkosh has, for years, been the leading academic conference and event host in the UW System. It is one more way the campus is contributing to the tourism and convention economy of Wisconsin’s Event City.
This summer, like most, the lineup of groups and guests is tremendously diverse.
UW Oshkosh and the Gruenhagen team will host everything from youth soccer training camps to a visit by representatives of the Seoul (South Korea) English Education Center. Basketball, football and other athletic campus are underway. Local, regional, state, national and international groups are part of the lineup ahead. On June 17, UW Oshkosh once again was home to approximately 800 Badger Girls State campers – a week-long, interactive introduction-to-government experience and immersion for high school students now in its 70th year, sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary.
Gruenhagen will, this summer, house approximately 80 separate groups connected to campus-hosted camps, conferences or other events according to the conference center’s calendar. While most of those groups number in the 20-to-50-guest range, Badger Girls State is far from the largest.
The conference center team always goes the extra mile when the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture 2013 fly-in convention and air-show week buzzes into Oshkosh. The experience also provides the staff — particularly students — a unique hospitality management experience. Some students working at Gruenhagen will eventually pursue careers in commercial hospitality or higher education residence life and student affairs.
Once again, the event is expected to bring approximately 5,000 guests to Gruenhagen and UW Oshkosh.
“It is always a pleasure to welcome groups such as Badger Girls State, UW Oshkosh athletic camps, Nike swim camps, participants in the NEWAHEC Fox Valley Health Careers Seminar, EAA AirVenture, the University of Nizwa Cultural Exchange and many, many others. We look forward to it year after year,” Nylen said.
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