UW-Green Bay commencement ceremony is Dec. 20
GREEN BAY — A fall semester record of 358 students are expected to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay at the 39th December Commencement at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 20, in the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts.
The previous fall commencement record for number of graduates was in 2002, with 344 diplomas awarded.
Of the 358 expected graduates, 20 are from the Adult Degree Program, nearing a record for December graduates.
The fall 2008 ceremony also includes the conferring of the University’s first degree in the new Arts Management major.* (see Editor’s note below)
A mother and daughter tandem, Nancy J. Young and Michelle Young from Kimberly, will graduate together.
Brown County Executive Tom Hinz will turn his tassel and receive a Bachelor of Applied Studies degree in Interdisciplinary Studies.
Former Green Bay Packers President Bob Harlan is receiving a Chancellor’s Award and UW-Green Bay alumna Laura Hollingsworth, president and publisher of The Des Moines Register and group president of Gannett Company’s west division, is the commencement speaker.
Doors to the Weidner Center will open at 10 a.m. with the main seating area opening at 10:30 a.m.
It’s a mother, daughter thing
Nancy Young, 48, and her daughter, Michelle, 22, will share the stage as both will graduate with UW-Green Bay degrees. Nancy, an Adult Degree student, will receive a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, and Michelle, a traditional student, in Communication with public relations and electronic media as areas of emphasis.
This will be only the second known time in school history that a parent and child have graduated at the same time.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” Michelle said. “I know some people would have found it awkward, but I found it really amusing. We’ve shared textbooks on two occasions. I even helped her out with the same classes that she’s taken after me.”
As if going to college together weren’t enough, both landed jobs as customer care representatives for Humana Insurance. But there is some separation. Nancy will work out of the De Pere office and Michelle in a Green Bay office.
“It’s a scary time with the economy, but we’ve both been blessed enough to get great jobs,” Michelle said. “We’re excited about it and looking forward to it.”
Brown County executive gets ‘degree’ of satisfaction
The highest-ranking elected official in Brown County, Executive Tom Hinz, will earn a Bachelor of Applied Studies degree in Interdisciplinary Studies through UW-Green Bay’s Adult Degree Program.
Hinz started taking classes at UW-Green Bay in 1991 when his schedule would allow. He had to take time off when his duties as Brown County sheriff kept him too busy. But Hinz stayed true to himself, remained persistent and came back to finish following his retirement in 2003.
“One of the reasons I decided to finally finish my bachelor’s degree journey was for my own personal reasons, but mainly to show younger people that if this old guy can go back to school and get his degree, you can to,” he said.
“I have enjoyed being in the Adult Degree Program and my advisers have been terrific,” he adds. “I feel I’m getting so much more out of my education today than if I had gone on to college right out of high school. My parents never finished high school, so college wasn’t ever talked about in my family.
“What I’ve learned in the past several years at UW-Green Bay has been very beneficial in my present job as county executive. There are things I have taken from every class I’ve had that I can use either at work, in teaching or in my personal life. I feel college keeps one’s thinking contemporary.”
Hinz will cross the stage and receive his diploma wearing the distinguished Chancellor’s Medallion, presented to a select group of students who have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement and extraordinary leadership.
Retired Packers President Harlan honored
Former Green Bay Packers President Bob Harlan will receive a Chancellor’s Award, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s highest community honor, for his extraordinary success as chief executive of the NFL’s only fan-owned franchise, his commitment to making his community a better place, and his support of the University and its Phoenix Athletics program.
The Chancellor’s Award shines a spotlight on Harlan’s role in helping UW-Green Bay move up to NCAA Division I status in the 1980s. As Packers president, he worked actively to form the Phoenix Fund, the fundraising arm of Phoenix Athletics. He provided momentum by agreeing to serve as the organization’s first chairperson.
In the years since, Harlan and the Packers have co-sponsored the annual Packers/Phoenix steak fry and hosted the fundraiser at Lambeau Field and the new atrium.
Harlan and team personnel have been loyal friends of the program, sharing motivational talks before big games, and making themselves available for tours and meetings as an aid in recruiting.
Hollingsworth has a way with words
UW-Green Bay alumna and Commencement speaker Laura (Busby) Hollingsworth, a 1989 graduate, has used her degree to make The Des Moines Register one of America’s most distinguished regional newspapers.
Hollingsworth has made a priority of accelerating The Register’s transformation from traditional newspaper to a multimedia enterprise serving a range of audiences. While the print edition holds the No. 1 ranking nationally for newspaper market penetration, the DesMoinesRegister.com website has expanded to attract 2.1 million unique users per month. Hollingsworth has ultimate responsibility for all aspects of the business – news, advertising, distribution and production – and for establishing priorities and standards.
Because of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, the publisher’s role in guiding coverage and shaping endorsements draws national attention. This year, The New York Times reported on The Register’s sizeable influence and also noted a milestone involving Hollingsworth and her two top editors. For the first time in the paper’s 150-year history, women fill the top three spots on the paper’s editorial board.
This summer, Hollingsworth was named Gannett Company’s group president of its west division, overseeing 16 markets west of the Mississippi River.
Hollingsworth graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Communication Processes and first joined the staff of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, before holding positions as an advertising executive for newspapers in Olympia, Wash.; Rockford, Ill.; and Lansing, Mich. She was named vice president of advertising at The Des Moines Register in 2002 and general manager in 2005.
About the Outstanding Student Award Recipient
Stacey Frey of Medford is the December 2008 recipient of the Outstanding Student Award as selected by the UW-Green Bay Alumni Association.
Frey—who will graduate with cum laude honors and a bachelor of science degree in Psychology with a minor in Human Development—has excelled as a student researcher in the area of human behavior.
This fall, she served as an assistant to Prof. Denise Bartell on a major research project promoting awareness of healthy romantic relationships. The project was to result in creation of an online resource for college students at UW System campuses statewide.
Frey assisted another faculty member, Prof. Kathleen Burns, by helping collect and code data for a study of stereotyping and emotion. She also worked as a student tutor in psychology, and as a teaching assistant for Prof. Dennis Lorenz, helping with exams, student study sessions and even lecture presentation.
For an independent study project, Frey analyzed data to evaluate the effectiveness of a local elementary school’s drug intervention program. Her senior honors project, under the supervision of Prof. Kristin Vespia, addressed academic dishonesty and the factors that might shape a student’s attitude about cheating.
Her concern for at-risk children and the development of young people is evidenced by an long list of community activities. Since 2006, she has worked a staff member with the YMCA’s Learning After School Program in Green Bay and, during a semester exchange program in Columbia, S.C. She assisted with her local YMCA’s Girls Night Out Program, leading weekly activities for sixth-grade girls to promote healthy self-esteem and decision making.
This year she was waterfront director and lifeguard supervisor for Camp U-Nah-Li-Ya in Oconto County.
A mentor to a 10-year-old girl through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, Frey is also proud to be a multi-year participant in UW-Green Bay’s Phuture Phoenix Program. The program matches local fifth-graders with college students who encourage the children to value education, to plan to graduate from high school and consider higher education.
Frey plans to pursue a master’s degree in Social Work and a career working with at-risk children and adolescents.
About the Student Speaker
Jenna Neumann, of Merrill, is an award-winning artist and photographer who will receive her bachelor’s degree with cum laude honors and twin majors in Art and in Social Change and Development.
Neumann won accolades for her “100 Faces of Green Bay” project in which she applied anthropology and photography to document diversity in the city and region.
She used photos, statistics and personal interviews to capture the various roles people play in this community, the age distribution of the population, gender, the range of languages, literacy, educational attainment, use of technology, and transportation networks.
She was chosen to co-present, with Fritz Erickson, UW-Green Bay’s Dean of the College of Graduate and Professional Studies, at a major state conference on global education, and at another on social studies and international education.
Neumann has extensive professional credits as a freelance photographer, and she completed academic internships with the UW-Green Bay office of marketing and communications, and with a local gallery and art education center.
Her work has been included in community shows and in juried exhibitions on campus. She has twice been selected to exhibit at the University’s annual Academic Excellence Symposium, and in March 2008, she was among a select group of Wisconsin undergraduates asked to exhibit at the Posters in the Rotunda showcase in Madison at the state Capitol.
(Editor’s Note: UW-Green Bay has had five students graduate with Arts Management as an area of emphasis under the Communication and the Arts major. One student, in 2006, developed an Arts Management major as an individualized major. The new Arts Management major was approved as a stand-alone major by the Board of Regents in June.)
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