THEWisconsin INDEPENDENT Fall 2007 Newsletter of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (WAICU) Vol. 39 No. 3 An IT collaboration WAICU members play key role “that will never on Campus Safety Task Force work” Editor's note: In lieu of our regular President’s Letter, we are featuring an article written by WAICU president Dr. Rolf Wegenke that appeared in the March 2007 issue of Business Officer, a publication of the National Assistance ce of Justice Association of College and University fi Business Officers (NACUBO). Reprinted with permission. The twenty private institutions of higher education comprising the Wisconsin Association of Independent Of Wisconsin Courtesy of Colleges and Universities (WAICU) are committed to an ambitious Governor Doyle convened the State Task Force on Campus Safety in June, following the tragic project to control college costs by events at Virginia Tech University last spring. The task force has just issued its interim report. performing their administrative Following the tragic mass shooting at Virginia Tech University in April, Governor functions on a collaborative basis. The Doyle launched a statewide Task Force on Campus Safety. Representatives from Congressional report, The College WAICU-member colleges and universities are playing a key role on the task force. Cost Crisis, has called WAICU’s At the task force’s kickoff meeting in June, Maggie Balistreri-Clarke, vice president efforts “transformative.” One of the for student development and dean of students at Edgewood College in Madison, top priorities was for the association represented WAICU on a three-sector panel that laid out the parameters and context for to help members select, purchase, the work to be done. Dr. Balistreri-Clarke emphasized the importance of developing implement, and maintain a common a comprehensive preventive approach to campus safety that goes beyond a law Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) enforcement model to focus on “prevention, intervention, response, and recovery.” The system. As we began the ERP selection nature of campus security issues and threats to individual safety are likely to reflect the process, I was invited to speak at a local community in which a college or university is located, and Dr. Balistreri-Clarke national meeting. When the meeting urged the task force to identify best practices that eliminate barriers to communication ran overtime, the moderator said, “In between campus and community resources. the interest of time, we are going to At an early August task force public summit in Eau Claire, WAICU members’ active skip Rolf’s presentation because we all involvement in task force issues was again apparent. The WAICU Counselors Group know this project will never work.” submitted a presentation alerting task force members to emerging trends in student Despite this negative prediction, mental health, including the need for campus counseling centers to work with outside we organized the WAICU Educational resources in making complex student mental health assessments; the increasingly Technology Consortium (WAICU challenging interaction between federal privacy laws, on the one hand, and disclosure of ETC) as an continued on page 7 continued on page 5 Alverno College • Beloit College • Cardinal Stritch University • Carroll College Carthage College • Concordia University • Edgewood College • Lakeland College Lawrence University • Marian College • Marquette University Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design • Milwaukee School of Engineering Mount Mary College • Northland College • Ripon College • St. Norbert College Silver Lake College • Viterbo University • Wisconsin Lutheran College THE Wisconsin INDEPENDENT • Fall 2007 Page 2 MSOE students work with NASA researchers Gifts and Grants yourself away from thinking about things that would work here on earth. We’re thinking about the conditions on Mount Mary College was awarded the moon, from the vacuum, to lower $10,000 from the Bradley Foundation temperature and gravity. It’s always for the college’s Midtown Campus thinking outside the box,” Tim added. Program. Mount Mary also received A self-sustaining power plant is $36,000 from the Corporation for necessary for a continuously inhabited National and Community Service lunar base to exist. Because a moon base (AmeriCorps) to provide stipends would likely be located at one of the for graduate students in the Urban lunar poles, the group explored using a Education Fellows Program. The heat engine to generate electrical power. Rose Monaghan Charitable Trust gave Before MSOE’s senior design show, Mike This technology would make the most of $33,000 to Mount Mary’s James L. McCambridge, Jeff Reiter, and Tim Swets the huge temperature variation between Monaghan Endowed Scholarship Fund, prepared their team’s prototype of a lunar self- and the Forest County Potawatomi sustaining power plant for display. the deep, perpetually shaded craters (such as Peary near the North Pole or Community Foundation granted “Coming out of high school, I never Shackleton in the south) and the rims, Mount Mary $5,000 to support the would have guessed that within four which receive direct sunlight. NEW Leadership Wisconsin Program years I would be invited to a NASA “With solar power you collect sunlight within the Women’s Leadership research facility,” said Tim Swets. and use an electrode reaction to generate Institute … St. Norbert College has But last spring Tim and six fellow electricity,” explained MSOE team received a $347,834 grant from the mechanical engineering students at member Jeff Reiter, a native of Austin, U.S. Department of Education to Milwaukee School of Engineering Texas. “Basically, what we’re doing continue its Upward Bound program (MSOE) met with engineers at Marshall is collecting and focusing the thermal helping high school students achieve Space Flight Center in Huntsville, energy from the sun to heat up a pipe a college education. St. Norbert has Alabama., after their group project filled with liquid to boil it.” also received a $500,000 grant from the caught the space agency’s attention. The main benefit is the efficiency; National Science Foundation supporting “When I was in high school, I would solar power yields only about 10-to- scholarships for math and computer have laughed at somebody who said that 15 percent of usable energy, while the science studies, $242,570 from the would be me in three or four years,” said thermal power system could yield more State of Wisconsin to fund a partnership Tim, who is from Walworth, Wisconsin. than 40 percent. supporting math instruction in Green Beyond the excitement of having met The team and their professor Bay area schools, and $100,000 NASA engineers, team member Chris collaborated throughout their senior year, from the William Randolph Hearst Edwards, from Mercer, Wisconsin, saw taking what they learned in the classroom Foundations to support scholarships the practical side of the trip as well. “It and labs and putting it into practice. for underserved and underrepresented gave us a chance to get our names into The final project included the prototype, populations … The Lynde & Harry the engineering community on a rather along with various descriptions of next Bradley Foundation has granted large-scale project.” steps and benefits of different liquids $300,000 to Marquette University Their project, a thermal power plant to heat, such as carbon monoxide and in support of the Institute for the that could help humans live on the moon, dioxide or propane. Transformation of Learning, and the was not without its share of challenges Tim summed up the experience: Marquette University Law School due to its uniqueness. “Five or ten years from now, if they’re has received a $30 million gift from “No one has ever done this before. putting this thing up there, we can all Joseph Zilber … MSOE’s Center for There is no base on the moon. There say, ‘I worked on that my senior year of BioMolecular Modeling received a is no power plant. You have to get college.’” $745,000, five-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to disseminate two high school programs The new WAICU nationally, and MSOE’s Upward Bound 2008 Guide to Note: In order to highlight all twenty program was re-funded for five years Admissions and of Wisconsin’s private colleges and by the U.S. Department of Education Financial Aid was universities, The Wisconsin Independent … Alverno College received $396,000 follows a regular rotation featuring six mailed in August. from the Joyce Foundation to nurture or seven colleges in each quarterly issue. Did you receive school leadership in the Milwaukee yours? If not, call Each college or university appears in every third issue. Public Schools. 1-800-4-DEGREE. THE Wisconsin INDEPENDENT • Fall 2007 Page 3 Marquette’s College of Engineering transforms future workforce • building a new facility, the Discov- disciplines to develop low-cost, effi cient ery Learning Complex, that will house and sustainable solutions to problems state-of-the-art labs, provide space for plaguing communities around the world. regional and national conferences, and “As we educate innovative engineers foster cutting-edge research. at Marquette, we want to produce lead- “We need to educate students for a ers who make a difference to mankind lifelong career in engineering,” says Jas- because of their work. It is our intent kolski. “What our engineers are trained that because of our discovery learning for today may be obsolete a few years focus, steeped in the ethics of moral and down the road…so they need to know social justice leadership, our contribution how to be adaptable and more entrepre- to industry is indeed leaders who make a neurial.” Today that means understand- difference,” says Jaskolski. Marquette engineering students learn to be ing that there are many answers to one Marquette’s College of Engineer- adaptable and entrepreneurial. problem. ing received a signifi cant boost toward In fi nding better ways to solve prob- realizing Jaskolski’s vision over the past Since arriving as dean in 2003, Dr.