Warm ovation and Chancellor’s Award for Hinckleys
Dr. James and Patricia Hinckley received a warm welcome when they were invited up on the platform near the beginning of UW-Green Bay commencement ceremonies May 12 at the Kress Events Center.
The Green Bay couple was recognized with the institution’s highest community honor, the Chancellor’s Award. Their relationship with the University dates to the late 1970s and includes substantial involvement with, and support of, the University’s academic mission, the fine arts and Phoenix Athletics.
Chancellor Thomas K. Harden, in honoring the Hinckleys, called them “perfect teammates for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and its students.”
He noted that Dr. Hinckley has been a familiar figure on the bench at soccer and basketball games both home and away for more than 30 years, volunteering his time as Phoenix team physician. (The Chancellor elicited smiles when he added, “He sometimes volunteered his advice to the referees, as well, but we won’t get into that today.”)
Dr. Jim Hinckley is a member of the UW-Green Bay Athletics Hall of Fame. The training and sports medicine area at the Kress is named the James Hinckley Sports Medicine Center in his honor.
Patricia Hinckley is a former teacher and gifted and talented coordinator for Ashwaubenon High School. She supplemented her master’s degree preparation with secondary education certification at UW-Green Bay. In 2008 the Hinckleys endowed a UW-Green Bay scholarship fund — one of the University’s largest — in Patricia’s name, with preference to women student athletes pursuing careers related to mathematics, science or education.
The couple’s philanthropy on behalf of the University began in 1981 with generous annual contributions to the Founders Association for student scholarships and academic enhancements. They later became active supporters of the Phoenix Fund for athletics, and the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts.
(Jim Hinckley poses, below, before the ceremony with friends and former UW-Green Bay Phoenix Athletics administrators Dan Spielmann and Jeanne Stangel.)
