Category: Accomplishments
Photo by Richard Hurd
WPS Charitable Foundation awards scholarships for 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
DeAnne Boegli
Vice President of Communications
608-512-5754
deanne.boegli@wpsic.com
WPS Charitable Foundation awards scholarships for 2023
Funds help support education for children of WPS Health Solutions employees
MADISON, Wis.—Oct 16, 2023—The WPS Charitable Foundation has awarded scholarships to 16 students across the country. They are the 2023 recipients of the Ray Koenig Memorial Scholarship, benefiting children of employees of WPS Health Solutions or one of its wholly owned subsidiaries. Each student received a one-year scholarship valued at $1,250.
Wisconsin
- Caitlin Drevs, UW-Milwaukee
- Lindsay Gilge, UW-Madison
- Sydney Kanable, UW-Whitewater
- Spencer Kanable, UW-Whitewater
- Dom Lobner, UW-Madison
- Elijah Moua, Madison College
- Sam Piontek, UW-Eau Claire
- Catherine Rault, Loyola University Chicago
- Paige Schuttemeier, Madison College
- Makaila Weddle, Concordia University
Illinois
- Hailey Bryan, Murray State University
- Sydney Harbison, Beloit College
- August Skinner, John A. Logan College Foundation
Missouri
- Elizabeth Skoff, Missouri State University
Nebraska
- Sam Mullin, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
North Carolina
- Kamille Stevenson, Clark Atlanta University
About the WPS Charitable Foundation
The WPS Charitable Foundation was formed in 1986 to honor WPS’ first president, Ray Koenig. The Foundation is a nonprofit charitable organization that focuses on enhancing the communities we call home by supporting organizations focused on health and wellness, especially of women and children, seniors, military and veterans, and underserved populations. The Foundation also funds the Ray Koenig Memorial Scholarship program. Each year, the program makes educational opportunities available through scholarship awards to children of employees of WPS Health Solutions and its subsidiaries.
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Photo by Richard Hurd
Victoria Thayer, CPA from Novii CPA Selected to Attend AICPA’s 2023 Leadership Academy
Victoria Thayer, CPA was one of only 36 CPAs honored by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) as a member of the Leadership Academy’s 15th graduating class. Victoria was selected based on her exceptional leadership skills and professional experience for the four-day Leadership Academy program, which will be held December 11th – 14th.
Victoria is the founder of Novii CPA, a local downtown Madison firm, that currently has 5 employees and continues to grow in the Madison Community. Victoria was the recipient of the 2023 WICPA Young Professional Excellence Award for her professional achievements. She is a board member of Madison Reading Project, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Dane County’s Finance Committee and part of the Advisory Committee for WWBIC.
The AICPA Leadership Academy was designed to strengthen and expand the leadership skills of promising young professionals while they network with a peer group of talented and motivated CPAs.
The Leadership Academy features career-development workshops and sessions with some of the accounting profession’s most prominent influencers. Participants were selected from public accounting firms of all sizes, business and industry, government, and consulting firms.
The 2023 Leadership Academy attendees were recommended by their employers, state CPA societies, and/or volunteer organizations. Candidates submitted resumes and a statement explaining how participating in the Leadership Academy would impact them personally and professionally.
To date, more than 480 CPAs have participated in the AICPA Leadership Academy, many of whom have gone on to take on leadership positions in their firms, businesses, and volunteer organizations.
For more information about the AICPA Leadership Academy, visit AICPA.org/Leadership.
Photo by Richard Hurd
StartingBlock wins 2023 SBA Growth Accelerator Fund Competition Phase 2
StartingBlock + 7 Partners are winners of the Phase 2 2023 SBA Growth Accelerator Fund Competition. You can read the official announcement from SBA here.
Why this matters:
- SBA recognizes the entrepreneurial strengths of the Madison region.
- The prize money allows us to align our programming with regional strengths.
- We will be able to expand our programmatic reach across the state.
- We are bringing Federal dollars to Wisconsin to support local startups.
What’s next:
- We will launch the Wisconsin HardTech accelerator next spring.
- We will be focusing on Advanced Manufacturing and on Food, Bev and Ag.
Our Ecosystem Partners include:
Photo by Richard Hurd
One City Schools to Open Child Care Center for its Staff
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For comments or more information, contact:
Kaleem Caire
Founder and CEO
Email: kcaire@onecityschools.org
Mobile Phone: (202) 997-3198
Gail Wiseman
Chief Operating Officer/External Relations
Email: gwiseman@onecityschools.org
Mobile Phone: (608) 514-6119
One City Schools to Open Child Care Center for its Staff
The center will offer affordable childcare for infants and toddlers for One City Staff
Madison, WI (Thursday, September 14, 2023) – Today, One City Schools announced that it will begin offering affordable on-site child care for children of its employees beginning in October 2023. One City will pilot its new staff-only center this school year at its Pleasant T. Rowland Leadership Campus located at 1707 W. Broadway in Monona, Wisconsin. The new Gail and Gordon Derzon Early Care Center will enroll children ages 6 months to one year old. Children who are two, three and four years old with parents that work for One City can already enroll in One City’s preschool which serves children from across Dane County. The project is made possible through a $100,000 grant from the Roots & Wings Foundation, a leading funder of child and family wellbeing in Dane County.
One City founder and CEO, Kaleem Caire, shared his organization’s reasons for offering expanded child care specifically focused on its staff. “Each year, we have team members who bring beautiful new children into the world but are unable to find available and/or affordable care for their infants and toddlers. We operate a highly sought-after 5-star preschool with an outstanding, stable and experienced staff. We decided it would benefit our staff, their children, our three schools and the 400 children we teach to offer on-site child care for infants and toddlers. Doing so will enable teachers and staff to keep working and teaching with us while also giving them peace of mind that their children are being well cared for.”
Caire added, “We are deeply grateful for the tremendous and timely support of the Roots & Wings Foundation. We appreciate what they are doing to expand access to high quality early learning opportunities in Wisconsin. It also feels great that we are able to extend child care opportunities to our staff, and provide it at a rate they can afford.”
Bryce Pickett, One City’s Executive Director of Early Education, said One City will open its center next month with one lead teacher, an assistant teacher and six infants and toddlers. The funding provided by Roots & Wings will enable One City to hire staff and purchase equipment and materials to set up the center. One City currently offers all staff a 25% discount on tuition at its preschool for their first child and 10% for their second child. With the 25% discount, One City staff will pay $255 per week for infant care and $240 per week for one-year-olds. Tuition payments, along with the Roots & Wings investment, will cover the full cost of operating the new center.
Pickett said, “As with everything we do at One City Schools, we hope to be an example for other employers and educational institutions who would like to offer the same benefit for their employees. We share everything that we do at One City so others can learn with us and from us. We look forward to sharing how this works with our colleagues and other schools across the country.”
One City’s new infant and toddler center is named after Gail and Gordon Derzon, two longtime and strong supporters of One City Schools. Both are lifelong supporters of early childhood and K-12 education, college access, and health equity in Wisconsin and internationally. Gordon Derzon served for 26 notable years as the president and CEO of the University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics. Mr. Derzon has also served on the Board of Directors of One City Schools since 2016.
Click here to download a copy of this press release.
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Photo by Richard Hurd
UW-Madison Division of the Arts Celebrates 25th Year of Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program, Opens “IARP at 25” Call for Proposals for 2024–2025 Academic Year
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 12, 2023
Media Contact: residency@arts.wisc.edu
URL: artsresidency.wisc.edu/propose/
Link to article: https://artsdivision.wisc.edu/2023/09/12/iarp-at-25-call/
Division of the Arts Celebrates 25th Year of Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program, Opens “IARP at 25” Call for Proposals for 2024–2025 Academic Year
Madison, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts has opened the call for proposals for the 2024–25 cycle of its Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program (IARP), commemorating its 25th year. Since 1999, when the Division of the Arts (then Arts Institute) welcomed artist Nick Cave to Madison, the Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program has hosted 51 residencies involving 55 artists-in-residence and more than140 guest artists from 20 different countries, engaging over 50 university units and over 40 community organizations.
The IARP at 25 call for proposals asks artists, faculty, and staff to envision the full potential of an interdisciplinary arts residency by expanding artistic and academic inquiry, cultivating new partnerships with campus and community arts entities, and engaging innovative and diverse visiting artists. The call for proposals is open for semester-long and one academic year-long residencies.
IARP at 25 commemorates the diversity of artists and the expertise they have brought to the university — from curators to choreographers, costume designers to cartoonists, environmental filmmakers to experimental theatre artists, architects to activists — that has opened opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations and strengthened programmatic ties among individual departments, programs and other campus and community arts entities.
IARP provides students with extended, intimate and high-impact learning experiences with a working artist, including options to earn course credit. In 25 years, interdisciplinary artists-in-residence, including notable artists Rhodessa Jones (2014), Marc Bamuthi Joseph (2007) and Pauline Oliveros (2001), have taught 53 interdisciplinary courses, enrolling 429 students. The diversity of course offerings facilitates scholarship and knowledge-building in interdisciplinary practices and in understanding alternative perspectives.
All residencies center on interdisciplinary arts, recognizing that interdisciplinarity can break down barriers and silos, advance intellectual artistic diversity and give opportunities to people who do not fit into the traditional modes of inquiry and practice. Residencies often extend connections with faculty, the university and the Madison community. For example, artists-in-residence Faisal Abdu’Allah (2013) and Lynda Barry (2012) now hold faculty appointments at UW–Madison.
The 2024–25 academic year will also culminate with the final year of the “Arts for Everyone, Everywhere” Interdisciplinary Arts Outreach Initiative, a three-year project of the Division of the Arts. Funded by the Baldwin Idea Grant,the project builds on the legacy of the Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program and its potential reach and impact across the state of Wisconsin.
Complete and share your proposal for IARP at 25 by Monday, November 20, 2023 at noon CT.
Visit artsresidency.wisc.edu/propose for more information on the proposal process.
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About the Presenter:
The Division of the Arts’ Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program brings innovative, world-class artists to the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus, providing students with extended learning experiences with a working artist, increasing diversity of teaching staff on campus and strengthening programmatic ties among individual departments, programs and other campus and community arts entities. Since 1999, the program has hosted 51 residencies involving 55 artists-in-residence and more than 140 guest artists from 20 different countries, engaging over 50 university units and more than 40 community organizations. All residencies center interdisciplinary arts, recognizing that interdisciplinarity can break down barriers and silos, advance intellectual artistic diversity and give opportunities to people who do not fit into the traditional modes of inquiry and practice (see the Division of the Arts’ guiding principle of The Arts for Everyone, Everywhere). The program often brings together artists, faculty, staff and students from various disciplines across the arts, sciences and humanities, sustaining the Division of the Arts’ mission tounify and catalyze the arts at UW–Madison.