UW-Green Bay creates ‘Community Partnership Award in Business’
Recognizing and encouraging campus-community collaboration is the aim of a newly created awards program open to students, faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Beginning in 2016, the Chancellor’s Community Partnership Award in Business will annually present a $5,000 scholarship to a selected undergraduate or graduate student and a $5,000 cash award to a faculty or staff member whose efforts are viewed as best exemplifying the University’s commitment to regional growth and development.
Made possible through private donations, the program will be coordinated by the Cofrin School of Business.
Tim Weyenberg, longtime CEO and current executive board chairman of the Foth Companies, is funding the program’s launch. Weyenberg serves as the Cofrin School’s first-ever Executive in Residence.
“This is another way to further connect the Cofrin School of Business to the regional business community, and to highlight the collaboration already taking place,” he says. “Those partnerships can take place in a variety of ways. The plan here is to honor that work and, additionally, incentivize even more partnerships in the future.”
The presentation of the first Chancellor’s Community Partnership Award in Business to a UW-Green Bay faculty or staff member will most likely take place at the annual campus-community Business Week reception, scheduled this year for the last week in March. A committee with both campus and community representation will review nominations and applications to choose the recipient.
The student scholarship award will be earmarked for an outstanding student with a demonstrated record of achievement or potential in business leadership. Specific criteria and details of the application process will be finalized later in 2016, with the first award to be made during the 2016-17 academic year.
Weyenberg notes that although he and UW-Green Bay Chancellor Gary L. Miller see the awards program having a natural home in the Cofrin School of Business, the selection committees will also invite nominations and applications from individuals outside the Business and Accounting programs and Master’s in Management track.
Miller says creation of the Chancellor’s Community Partnership Award in Business is in keeping with UW-Green Bay’s commitment to the powers of Place, Innovation and Transformation.
“This University is poised to pursue even more value-adding partnerships involving business, government and the nonprofit sector,” Miller says. “We need to anticipate the changing economy and support entrepreneurism and commerce.
“We also need to build more opportunities for students and faculty, and take a direct role in developing the talent for that innovation economy. The new Community Partnership Award highlights that work and also encourages and rewards those at UW-Green Bay who lead those efforts.”
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