Ania Kotecki (MS’21) feels that balance first-hand as a Multilingual Language Learning teacher at Frank Lloyd Wright Intermediate School in West Allis. As an early career teacher, she understands how valuable the first few years on the job can be when it comes to retention rates. That’s what drew her to the Early Career Teaching Institute (ECTI), and why she’s returned to the program for the past few years.

The UW–Madison School of Education invites alumni of its teacher preparation programs back to Madison every summer to take part in ECTI. The four-day institute provides professional development opportunities and supports teachers through their first five years in the classroom.

ECTI participants learn a range of new skills, hear from nationally renowned keynote speakers, and build important relationships with faculty, staff, and fellow alumni so they can thrive in the teaching profession.

Thanks to the program, Kotecki has found not only a supportive place to learn new skills but also comradery with her fellow teachers.

“I feel like ECTI was something vital to create sustainability for me in the teaching profession,” she says.

Registration is open now for this summer’s gathering, which will take place in late July.

It’s a nod to Straub’s fond feelings toward her alma mater, the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Straub earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from the UW–Madison School of Education in 2021. She now teaches in the same school district — and in the same school building — where she once attended third grade.

It’s a full-circle moment for Straub, one of many for the second-generation Door County resident. Her daily life abounds with the kinds of deep connections forged in small towns across the state.

Community members swooped in to support Straub when, at age 13, she lost her father, Gary, the owner of a local clothing store. His death, from esophageal cancer, upended the family’s financial situation. Affording college became questionable for Straub, but as she approached the end of her senior year of high school, UW–Madison unveiled an initiative intended to help students just like her.

When announced in 2018, Bucky’s Tuition Promise pledged to cover four years of tuition and segregated fees for any incoming freshman from Wisconsin whose family’s annual household adjusted gross income was $56,000 or less. The figure has since been raised to $65,000 — roughly the state’s median family income, meaning half of all Wisconsin families qualify.

Transfer students who are Wisconsin residents and who meet the same income criteria receive two years of free tuition and segregated fees.

“When my husband died, our future changed dramatically,” says Carol Straub, Mackenzie’s mother, adding that they had to close the family business when he became too ill to work. “We no longer had his income. Bucky’s Tuition Promise was a huge stress relief. We’ll forever be grateful for it.”

Bringing success back to communities

UW–Madison now has three major financial aid initiatives that benefit Wisconsin residents. Bucky’s Pell Pathway, added in 2023, is an even more robust complement to Bucky’s Tuition Promise. Designed to assist Badgers from low-income Wisconsin households who qualify for Federal Pell Grants, it pledges to meet the full financial need without loans for incoming first-year students for four consecutive years and for transfer students for two consecutive years. In most cases, it covers tuition and fees, housing expenses, food, required course material, travel and other miscellaneous costs.

The Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise Program, announced by Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin in 2023, offers financial support to cover the full cost of pursuing an undergraduate degree for state residents who are enrolled members of federally-recognized Wisconsin Indian tribes.

Together, these three initiatives have benefitted more than 8,000 students from Wisconsin over the past seven years.

“All of these financial aid initiatives embody the Wisconsin Idea,” says Derek Kindle, UW–Madison’s vice provost for enrollment management. “They show that when our talented Wisconsin students get the chance to succeed at UW–Madison, they do. And after graduation, many of them bring that success back to their communities.”

The programs are supported by private donations and other institutional resources, not taxpayer funds.

The cycle of opportunity

“Don’t forget to turn in your homework,” Straub tells her 10 students as they arrive on a recent February morning. (Two are out sick — it’s the cold and flu season.)

Unprompted, third-grader Luca Torcivia tells a classroom visitor that Straub is the best teacher ever. “She’s super nice. At the start of the year, she gave us candy.”

Straub says it was always her goal to return to her hometown.

“I love this place so much,” she says. “It’s great to be able to run into my students when I’m out in the community — at the grocery store or at sports events. When you live in a community like this, you just know everybody.” Straub’s first-grade teacher, Jodi Hoyerman, still teaches in the district — her classroom is just across from Straub’s. Principal Lauren Ward, who will start a PhD program at UW–Madison this fall, taught high school English to Straub. Straub’s mother, a substitute teacher in the district, often works near her daughter.

Straub and her husband are expecting their first child in April. A future Badger? Possibly, Straub says. Bucky’s Tuition Promise already has given her unborn daughter a gift, she says.

“I’m able to start saving for her college education.”

“There are days when the choices aren’t always good, and you’re making the least bad choice,” he says. “But we’ve survived well. I’m proud of what we do here.”

For decades, Diercks’s family and farmers across the state have worked closely with vegetable researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison to ensure a healthy harvest, from the initial seed supply to disease prevention and management.

Amanda Gevens, a UW–Madison Extension specialist and the department chair of plant pathology, knows all too well the high stakes for Wisconsin farms. She arrived at UW in July 2009 — the same month that a late blight epidemic hit the state for the first time in nearly a decade. Gevens had to learn how to relay critical information to farmers in a timely, useful manner so that they could take action against the debilitating plant disease.

“The intervention that you recommend can save the return for that crop,” she says. “And for very large acreage, that can be in the millions of dollars.”

Tackling the disease triangle

UW researchers are tackling the entire “disease triangle”: the environment (tracked by Blitecast), the pathogen (diagnosed and managed through testing), and the host — that is, the health of the seed. Since 1913, UW–Madison has overseen the Wisconsin Seed Potato Certification Program. The university maintains the state’s potato tissue culture, storing the tiny plantlets of potatoes that seed future commercial production. The year-long inspection process covers the entire growing cycle and even involves shipping seed potatoes to Hawaii during the winter months to continue to observe their health and quality.

‘It’s a great relationship’

Diercks, who graduated from UW in 1993 with a degree in agricultural engineering, operates Coloma Farms alongside his father, Steve. The farm spans 2,700 acres and is a supplier to McCain Foods, the world’s largest manufacturer of frozen potato products. The Diercks family has long collaborated with UW researchers to implement more productive and sustainable practices, and they routinely return the favor by opening their farm to the university for education and research projects.

“They’re not afraid to ask us to change, and we don’t have any problem asking why they’re trying to get us to make some of the changes,” Diercks says. “It’s a great relationship. It’s frankly one of the main reasons I’ve stayed in the farm.”

The close partnership between UW researchers and Wisconsin farmers is also leading to promising innovations. Gevens’s lab is developing a tool that uses aerial imaging from aircraft and satellites to evaluate the health of crops in the ground.

“We’ve developed some models that tell us when the crop has late blight or early blight. We can identify disease in the plant before it’s showing symptoms. We’ve never before been able to do that,” Gevens says. “We think it will help give better information to the farmers in advance of disease.”

Her team is also testing the use of UV light — “almost like dosing using a chemical,” she says — to treat disease while potatoes are in long-term storage.

Gevens grew up working on a small vegetable farm in New York and interacting with agents from the Cornell Cooperative Extension. So it’s no wonder that she feels right at home in her current career and alongside dedicated farmers like Diercks.

“The research team — they’re just really good people,” Diercks says. “We know them socially. They have beers with us at the end of the day. They’re friends. And they’re willing to get out of Madison and grab samples, walk around in the field, get their feet and hands dirty.”

That commitment, he adds, makes them “the best potato research team in the country. And we’re really proud of that.”

“I liked that it was a job that has a meaning. You show up every day and you know you’re here for a purpose,” Trueblood says.

And still, with an economics background, he was skeptical. “Teacher pay isn’t always great,” he says. And compounding that, he thought that going back to school to get a teaching degree would mean taking on more debt.

But then he learned about the UW–Madison School of Education’s Wisconsin Teacher Pledge. Its premise is simple but transformational: If you pledge to stay, we pledge to pay. If a student commits to teaching at a PK–12 school in Wisconsin for at least three to four years after graduation, the university will cover the full cost of in-state tuition and licensing fees.

Now, after earning his master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, Trueblood is finishing his second year as a math teacher at Dodgeville High School. He teaches algebra and geometry, and he’s already seeing his returning students “grow as individuals and get interested and excited about math.” Trueblood’s Teacher Pledge will be fulfilled after next year, but he intends to stay in the job even longer.

Helping teachers succeed in Wisconsin

Training quality educators like Trueblood and keeping them in Wisconsin are critical to addressing the state’s teacher shortage. A recent Department of Public Instruction report concluded that “Wisconsin’s education workforce is in crisis,” with nearly 40 percent of new teachers leaving the state or profession after just six years. Three out of four school districts report being unable to fill positions, which has led the state to triple the number of emergency teaching licenses it’s issued (to allow schools to hire unlicensed educators) over the last decade.

Currently supported by donor funds, UW–Madison’s Teacher Pledge has been specifically designed to recruit new people to the profession, to encourage them to teach in Wisconsin, and to set them up to succeed and stay long term.

“It’s our belief, backed up by research, that if teachers do make it past those first few years in the profession, then they’re much more likely to persist,” says Tom Owenby, associate dean for teacher education at UW–Madison. “The Teacher Pledge makes it so someone doesn’t have to be a superhuman to teach. It’s allowing them to start their teaching career with minimal to no debt so they can think about saving for retirement or a down payment for a home. And once you start to develop a life somewhere, you’re less likely to uproot.”

Support beyond the classroom

To boost the retention effort, the School of Education also offers the Early Career Teaching Institute. The intensive, weeklong summer program provides professional development and creates a community of support among new educators, including Teacher Pledge recipients.

“We’re already seeing teachers who’ve been to the Early Career Teaching Institute come back and lead sessions and start to take a leadership and mentorship role,” Owenby says.

The Teacher Pledge, the first program of its kind in the country, could serve as a statewide model to address the teacher shortage. Campus researchers are studying the program, which is currently funded by private donors, to see how it can be financially sustained at UW–Madison and then scaled to other universities across the state.

Nearly 1,000 UW–Madison students have joined Reed Trueblood in taking the Teacher Pledge since its launch in fall 2020, and its effects are already being felt in more than 120 schools around the state, including Dodgeville High School.

“If you think of the ripple effect of teaching 120 students per day, the legacy becomes massive fairly quickly,” Owenby says. “And then it’s not just Reed — in all these different parts of the state, the Teacher Pledge is having a profound impact on individual students that can help shift the trajectory of their lives.”

For the first time, the university has topped $1.7 billion in research expenditures, according to the NSF Higher Education Research and Development (HERD), released today, Nov. 25, 2024.

“UW-Madison has been a research powerhouse for generations,” says UW–Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin. “This latest increase in both our research expenditures and our HERD ranking is further evidence of our deep commitment to bringing incredible UW-Madison expertise across disciplines to the grand challenges of our time and to translating our discoveries to improve lives at home in Wisconsin and beyond.”

The NSF’s data show a 13.7% increase in research expenditures at UW–Madison over the previous fiscal year, an increase of more than $208 million for the period covering July 2022 through June 2023.  Nearly half of UW–Madison’s $1.7 billion in total research expenditures comes from federal awards, from agencies such as NSF, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.

Chancellor Mnookin and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research have prioritized improvements to the university’s annual research expenditures.

“UW–Madison’s research success, as evidenced by the HERD Survey, includes collaborative efforts to connect faculty to more funding opportunities,” says Vice Chancellor for Research Dorota Brzezinska. “We are increasing campus engagement with our partners and fostering an entrepreneurial environment that supports our commitment to advancing scientific discovery and facilitates researchers moving their innovations from lab to marketplace. We are seeing increased support for research into Alzheimer’s, childhood asthma, combating the fentanyl crisis, and traumatic brain injuries. We are combining data-driven diagnostics and innovative technologies to develop highly targeted cancer treatments with investments in areas such as precision medicine.”

For instance:

• A $29 million award from the National Institutes of Health will study and treat diseases known to cause blindness.
• A $19 million, 4-year award from the USDA is allowing UW–Madison’s Dairy Research Center to pursue innovations to help Wisconsin’s dairy industry to grow and thrive.
• A $15 million award from the U.S. Office of Naval Research to a research group in the College of Engineering is funding pioneering efforts to understand, detect and prevent traumatic brain injuries.
• A $22.3 million, 3-year award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is allowing the Population Health Institute in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to expand its work on community health.

Additionally, UW–Madison research is improving the economics of fusion energy systems while supporting communities affected by the technology and is leading to the expansion of a statewide network of approximately 90 weather and environmental monitoring stations across the state to aid farmers and others.

While academic research funding at UW–Madison comes primarily from federal government and institutional support, the university also relies on state and local government, industry, non-profit and foundation support. The two most significant non-profit contributors of research funding at UW–Madison are the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the UW Foundation.

In 2025, WARF’s support for UW–Madison research will total $159.8 million. WARF has also committed $15 million over the next three years to extend UW–Madison’s strength in artificial intelligence research and education by supporting the university’s Research, Innovation and Scholarly Excellence Initiative focus on AI, called RISE-AI.

RISE is a multifaceted effort Chancellor Mnookin announced in February 2024 to build upon the university’s strengths in researching and addressing complex challenges of importance to Wisconsin and the world. The initiative is focused on strategic faculty hiring, enhancing research infrastructure, improving interdisciplinary collaboration and increasing student and educational opportunities.

In addition to a focus on AI, in 2024 Chancellor Mnookin also announced RISE-EARTH (Environment: Adaptation, Resilience, Technology, and Humanity), to address challenges and opportunities related to the environment, and an effort focused on health, called RISE-THRIVE (Transforming Healthspan through Research, Innovation, and Education), which is prioritizing investments into research to improve the human health span, including new treatments for diseases ranging from Parkinson’s to cancer.

UW–Madison research is making a significant impact on Wisconsin communities, according to data from the Wisconsin Idea Database project. The project highlights connections between UW–Madison and the state of Wisconsin, including community partnerships and projects, financial relationships and more. UW–Madison partners with more than 3,000 state businesses and organizations yearly, spending at least $360 million on goods, services and grants.

Additional UW–Madison gains in fiscal year 2023:

• Federal research expenditures grew 10% to $816 million.
• Institutionally funded research expenditures grew 17% to $543 million.
• Non-profit support was up 20% to $153 million.
• State and local government spending was up 14% to $126 million.
• Industry-sponsored research expenditures were up 14% to $46 million.
• Several interdisciplinary centers at UW–Madison received federal funding renewals in fiscal year 2023, including the Space Science Engineering Center, the Institute on Aging, and the Wisconsin Energy Institute.

More about HERD

The annual survey is the primary source of research expenditure data at American universities and colleges and is just one way to measure academic research activity. Each year, it collects information on expenditures by research field and funding sources among institutions that spend at least $150,000 on separately budgeted research and development in a fiscal year.  The survey also compiles information on the types of research expenses and the number of research and development personnel at each institution.

“My friends are always fascinated by these stories,” she says.

Riley loved growing up in a small town in Wisconsin — she’s from Rockland, a village of about 750 people in eastern La Crosse County. She also loves attending a Big Ten university with more than 50,000 students. She melds these two worlds as a rural peer adviser for UW–Madison’s “College for Rural Wisconsin.”

The relatively new effort through the Division of Enrollment Management works to increase college access for rural, farm and small-town students in Wisconsin, regardless of whether they ultimately choose to apply to UW–Madison or elsewhere. The university is part of the nationwide Small Town and Rural Students (STARS) College Network.

“We’re really about looking at the state holistically and saying, Who needs to be served? Who are the students that don’t get a lot of access to higher education or outreach from higher education institutions?” says Jennifer Blazek, program director for the College for Rural Wisconsin. “It’s about building the capacity in the state around college-going for our rural and small-town students.”

Traditionally, many universities and colleges invite prospective students to come to them, which might not be financially or logistically feasible for some rural and small-town students, says Blazek, who raised dairy cows in high school on her family’s farm near Bangor, Wisconsin.

“We’ve essentially flipped the script,” she says. “While we can’t bring the whole campus to rural students, we can bring a lot of the materials and the mentoring and the support to them. That way, instead of thinking they need to visit five or 10 campuses, they can perhaps make better-informed decisions on where to utilize their resources and time.”

Rural peer advisers are current college students who fan out to rural schools and communities to answer questions, provide information, and share first-person insights with students, parents and high school counselors. The College for Rural Wisconsin will employ four rural peer advisers from UW–Madison this academic year and one each from UW–River Falls and Mid-State Technical College, which has multiple campuses in Wisconsin.

McKenna Riley, Avery Simpson and Jack Taylor all served last year as inaugural rural peer advisers. All three UW–Madison students are returning to the role this year. Here’s a little more about each of them:

A beekeeping future teacher

Senior Avery Simpson says she was “always a little bit of a weird kid” growing up, with a fondness for bugs and insects. As a freshman in high school, she turned that interest into a flourishing hobby, purchasing a beehive with her dad for the family’s rural residence near Brooklyn, Wisconsin, a village of 1,500 people in Dane and Green counties. She bottles the result as “Avery’s American Raw Honey.” At one point, she managed 10 hives and thousands of bees.

Though Simpson grew up just 30 minutes from Madison, she says city life was largely foreign to her before college. Her small-town background helps her understand the concerns of rural students in a way that perhaps only another rural kid could.

“As strange as it seems, I really worried about crossing the streets,” she says, “and I had never been on a city bus.”

Simpson found that some small-town habits die hard. Soon after arriving on campus, she remembers driving around with a friend and having the friend tell her, “Stop waving at every car we go by. They don’t know you.”

Simpson is majoring in elementary education and hopes to teach middle school students one day, ideally in a rural district in Wisconsin. Getting to talk to so many rural students as a peer adviser has been meaningful and given her insights into their challenges, she says.

“We get a lot of questions about finances — How can I make college affordable? Also, they want to know if college is really worth it. I think it is really impactful for them to get to sit down with someone face to face who is already in college and talk about that.”

“I do feel that rural students often get left out of the higher-ed conversation,” Simpson adds. “I think it’s wonderful that they are getting a little bit of a spotlight put on them.”

Zooming in from a cornfield

When she can’t be on campus for a meeting, senior McKenna Riley sometimes logs in from a cornfield just outside of Madison. She can often be found there as part of her job as a student researcher with Professor Jean-Michel Ané’s corn lab. The work isn’t related to her career goals — she aspires to be a pediatric oncologist — but it’s important to her, nonetheless.

“All I remember growing up were cornfields,” Riley says. “Being a corn researcher is a little way I can give back to my community.”

Riley’s hometown of Rockland “has one stop sign and the classic essentials — a bar, a gas station, and a tiny park,” she says. “And, as the name implies, there is a single big rock.” (A “monument to nature,” according to the village’s history.)

Growing up, Riley says she knew of only one person who attended UW–Madison. That’s part of the appeal of being a rural peer adviser.

“I hope to be able to give the sort of help to students and families that I wish I had got as a kid,” she says. “I didn’t know a whole lot of people who went to big colleges, so I’m eager to share what I’ve learned about going to college to anyone who wants to listen.”

Her rural bona fides include a love of classic country music, especially T.G. Sheppard and Johnny Cash, two of her grandfather’s favorite singers and mainstays on her homework soundtrack.

“I’ll open up Spotify, hit play and go to work. It just reminds me of home.”

A ‘Jack’ of all trades

The joke about junior Jack Taylor among his fellow peer advisers is that he has so many varied interests, he can find a way to make a personal connection with almost any high school student anywhere. He gladly accepts the challenge.

“I hope that in talking about my interests, I’m able to show kids that no matter where you come from, you don’t have to let it define you,” says Taylor, who grew up in Princeton, a city of about 1,200 people in central Wisconsin.

Taylor is vice president of the university’s anthropology student organization and a member of the Young Progressives group on campus. Last year, he also participated in ceramics club, served as poetry editor for Illumination Journal, a student publication, and volunteered for hunger and homelessness causes. (“Quite frankly, I overbooked,” he says.)

Taylor attended a high school so small, his graduating class had just 20 students. For higher-level courses, he drove to Ripon College.

“That’s something I talk about when I’m on panels,” says Taylor, who is pursuing a double major in anthropology and landscape and urban studies. “Small high schools are wonderful in a lot of ways, but they can leave you feeling a little unprepared for college if you don’t have access to a lot of AP courses. I talk with rural students about how they can fill those gaps.”

There’s a lot of potential in a rural background, Taylor says, and he wants rural students to know that and be proud of that.

“I also want them to know that just because you come from a certain place, it doesn’t mean you have to be a certain way. You get to decide what your background means to you.”

Field had selected Daly and 25 other CS majors to participate in this pilot experiential learning class, pairing companies with self-selected teams of students to work on real-world problems.

Daly found himself on a team working with Capital One, based in McLean, Virginia. He admits that, not knowing how technically advanced the company was at the time, “it wasn’t a company that was necessarily on my radar as a place to work.” As a graduating senior, however, he paid close attention to his Capital One mentors, who “had nothing but praise for the company and then generously offered to act as a referral for my application. I ended up applying and I got the offer, and the rest is history.”

Now, Daly, who continues as a Senior Associate Software Engineer at Capital One, serves as a mentor for current CS capstone students. “The fact that the university is offering what is essentially an internship to these students is great,” says Daly.

Experiential learning at UW–Madison, whether a practicum, an internship, or a capstone course, is more than a classroom concept. It’s a transformative approach that prepares students for the professional world and provides employers with fresh insights. Hands-on learning experiences found in nearly every discipline on campus set up students and partner companies for success.

Here are two examples, from UW–Madison’s School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences (CDIS) and the Wisconsin School of Business (WSB).

Computer Sciences Capstone

Field, who now teaches the Computer Sciences capstone course twice a year, has been a software engineer and manager for her entire career at companies including IBM, Capital One, and National Geographic, and most recently as vice-president of software development at Singlewire Software.

The capstone has grown to about 100 students per semester. They work in groups directly with partner companies, from start-ups to well-known industry leaders.

A UW–Madison CS alumna herself, Field launched the class to help students prepare for the work world by building skills that employers most needed—in her case, agile software development skills.

Rohan Ayyagari, a Computer Sciences major from San Ramon, California, who took the capstone course in spring 2024, says, “With a class like this, you know right from the get-go this is how companies do it. And I’m hearing from people in the field that I should know this in the future.”

Field structures the class to replicate the work environment as closely as possible. “We welcome into the class product management MBA students and UX Master’s students as well,” she says. These students allow the teams to be cross-functional and create better final products.

Each partner company provides a unique experience based on its own needs. Daly, of Capital One, participates in part to help ensure students learn marketable skills that they might not learn elsewhere.

“There was a moment probably three or four months into my job at Capital One where something just clicked for me,” recalls Daly. “All of a sudden, you see the vision and realize, ‘Oh, this makes sense now.’ And after I had that moment, I thought to myself, ‘If this is such a critical part of being a software engineer, why did I not learn it in school?’”

Daly adds, “For me, what I want most is for the students to have that moment click before they’re a full-time employee at a company.”

Working with Daly and Capital One, Ayyagari and his fellow students created a full stack banking application. He was attracted to the project because it would allow him to learn about the entire software development process, including front-end and back-end programming and cloud deployment.

“None of us had ever built a web app from scratch,” Ayyagari said. “It helped me understand how these apps not just come to be, but the whole process that comes with it.”

Building the application, paired with lectures on the agile development process from experienced guest speakers, gave Ayyagari “a good insight into how businesses actually work.”

Madison-based Last Lock, another capstone partner, has deep origins at UW–Madison and a commitment to experiential learning that reflects the company’s nature as a startup.

“We give students projects, resources and mentors and then just let them just try to get it done as fast as possible without getting in their way,” says Last Lock founder and CEO Jack Ryan, a UW–Madison electrical engineering and economics alumnus originally from Minnesota.

Students who work with Last Lock focus on projects that have a realistic chance to become part of the company’s product roadmap. This rare opportunity, which is highly attractive to many students in the course, illustrates the win-win nature of experiential learning. “Mentors provide a great deal of value to students through their knowledge and real-world experience,” says Ryan, “while companies have the opportunity to evaluate them as potential employees.”

Last Lock has found CS capstone students a great match for their needs—both before and after graduation. “They’ve been hiring several students pretty much every semester,” notes Field. “Not all students will get a job offer from the course, but I love it when we have students that go directly from the course to one of our partners.”

Master’s in Business Analytics Consulting Practicum

This past spring, 18 companies worked with 23 teams of Master of Science in Business Analytics students from the Wisconsin School of Business. This one-year master’s degree program attracts students from a wide variety of backgrounds, in part because it’s focused on key skills employers need.

MSBA students start their consulting practicum, which is a required course, in a three-week “consulting boot camp” led by faculty with decades of consulting experience.

Halley Jones, manager of corporate outreach for master’s programs at WSB, notes that employers “come in understanding that their role is to be a project guide and a mentor, but very quickly realize that these students have skills that are unique.”

The more than 100 students in the 2023-24 MSBA program had at least 20 distinct undergraduate backgrounds, ranging from finance and economics to computer sciences and neuroscience.

Robert Behnke, co-founder and president of Madison-based organic clothing company Fair Indigo, worked with a team of MSBA students this spring. He notes, “The project flow, the team members, the final output exceeded my expectations by a not immaterial factor.” He was impressed with their ability to “present data lingo to a non-data person” like himself, an especially useful skill in a smaller company where leaders might have varied roles and responsibilities.

Jay Page, director of experiential learning for WSB’s master’s programs, emphasizes that MSBA students bring not only technical expertise, but also essential “soft skills,” including “working effectively in teams, confidently expressing their viewpoints, becoming increasingly comfortable with presentations, and creating effective slide decks.”

Spring 2024 MSBA graduate Luqman Godil worked on a team with Madison-based Fetch. Fetch (formerly Fetch Rewards) wanted to understand why Spanish-speaking users used their app differently than English-speaking users. Given access to data and a wide degree of latitude, Godil’s team, in his words, “solved a very big problem for them… getting those insights [into] what exactly is happening, and then presenting it in a form that is helpful for them to take action, and then constantly getting feedback from them.”

Godil appreciated being presented with “real challenges that you would face in the workplace,” he said. He also valued the networking opportunity, as did Fetch; in fact, Godil recently started there as a permanent employee.

Why does it work so well?

Justin Hines is director of corporate relations at the School of Computer, Data, and Information Sciences (CDIS), home of the Computer Sciences department. He reminds employers, “We’re not just solving your problems and walking away.”

The best partners, according to Hines, are those that understand “the product that they get at the end isn’t necessarily going to solve the future of their organization, but it is going to give them new insights, provide real-world experience to the students and help them start to identify if these students are hirable.”

Industry partners across the board are happy at the end of the semester after working closely with students, Field says.

“Here you’ve got almost four months, longer than a regular internship over the summer to evaluate various students,” giving employers far more information about the students’ potential as employees, Field says.

She adds that she’s “always impressed by the quality work that the students put out at the end…. They care deeply about doing something meaningful for their partners.”

The experience is invaluable for students. MSBA alumnus Godil says, “These kinds of projects are really helpful because they get you that opportunity to showcase your ability and then it gives you the confidence that, OK, you have it in you” to be successful.

Ayyagari’s experience convinced him that “anyone who wants to go into CS should take the [capstone] class.”

What’s next?

The future of experiential learning is bright. According to Jones, WSB Dean Vallabh Sambamurthy has said that by 2028, all business undergraduates will complete at least one experiential learning experience as part of their education.

Field says regarding the CS capstone, “I am actively trying to scale this course and eventually would like every single comp sci major to be able to take it.”

“It really does not matter whether they [the partner] are in person or not,” adds Field. “We make it work for both.” Capital One has always participated remotely, as have companies such as Schneider in the Green Bay area, GE HealthCare in the Milwaukee area, and startups in California and elsewhere.

More Information

Find out about current opportunities for experiential learning from UW–Madison’s Office of Business Engagement (OBE).

Under the program, students in UW–Madison’s teacher education programs receive the equivalent of in-state tuition and fees, testing, and licensing costs in exchange for pledging to teach in any public or private school in Wisconsin for at least four years — or three years in high-need subject areas or school districts.

That kind of support was what made both Silva-Singh, a single mom and non-traditional student originally from Peru, and Rauls, a Wisconsinite who set her sights on teaching as an undergraduate, able to pursue their dreams.

“The last thing you want if you are going to become a teacher is to worry about getting into a lot of debt,” says Silva-Singh. “The Teacher Pledge was huge and gave me the peace of mind to pursue becoming a teacher.”

Silva-Singh, who grew up speaking Spanish, is pursuing certification that will allow her to teach kindergarten through ninth grade, and English as a second language (ESL) in grades K-12. She plans to graduate in the fall of 2025.

Silva-Singh says she is excited to be in a position to help bilingual students realize their potential in the education system. “As an immigrant who is Hispanic, I’ll be in a position to help others with similar backgrounds overcome their hardships and follow their dreams,” she says. “The financial support from the Teacher Pledge program is really helping make all of this possible.”

“When I first heard about the Teacher Pledge I thought, ‘This is doable!’,” Silva-Singh recalls. “I want to inspire my students. I hope to one day share a message with my students that you can truly achieve what you want if you get the right support. You just need to find the right people and the right institutions, and I have that here at UW–Madison.”

Rauls worked as a daycare provider when she started school, hoping to keep the tide of student loans at bay. When she learned about the Teacher Pledge, she felt like a burden was lifted.

“Before the Teacher Pledge came around, I was really worried about how much debt I was going to have to take on to finish school,” she says. “Taking the Teacher Pledge was a no-brainer. It was a huge relief.”

Rauls is thrilled to finally be teaching in her own classroom.

A fourth grade teacher at Arboretum Elementary in Waunakee, Rauls says she “dove right in” as a new educator.

“I’m so grateful to be doing something I love every day, working with awesome students and other amazing educators,” she says.

As of spring 2024, 773 students have taken the Teacher Pledge. Of those, 354 are already teaching in 88 public school districts and 14 private schools across Wisconsin.

Generous donors make Teacher Pledge extension possible

The entirely donor-funded Teacher Pledge launched — at the nation’s No. 1-ranked school of education — in the fall of 2020. The program is dedicated to strengthening Wisconsin’s educator workforce by incentivizing more students to enroll in UW–Madison’s Teacher Education programs, increasing the number of graduates who stay in Wisconsin to teach, and providing supports so graduates stay with teaching longer, among other goals.

The Teacher Pledge was originally scheduled to run for five years. In March 2022, it was extended one year. In March 2023, a generous gift from Susan and James Patterson extended the initiative through 2026-27. The latest extension, thanks to major support from Mary and Ted Kellner, takes the program through the 2028-29 academic year.

As of April 2024, $33.3 million in private funds have been given to support the Teacher Pledge.

This work is vital at a time when a nationwide teacher shortage continues to generate headlines and frustrate policymakers in search of solutions. A new report released in April by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction found Wisconsin educators continue to leave the state’s workforce “at an alarming rate” and that the retention of teachers is a “significant issue that needs to be addressed.”

UW–Madison Professor Nick Hillman, who directs the university’s Student Success Through Applied Research (SSTAR) Lab, is leading efforts to evaluate and research the Teacher Pledge. Hillman and his team are working to see if the program can aid efforts around Wisconsin and across the nation to build a stronger teacher workforce.

So far, students who take the Teacher Pledge are reporting benefits that include a reduced need for outside work so they can focus on full-time student teaching, less student debt, and improved mental health due to decreased financial stress.

“We’re working hard to support educators and the teaching profession,” says former School of Education Dean Diana Hess. “We’ve been developing a proof of concept with the Teacher Pledge program — and hopefully what we learn from these efforts here in Wisconsin has the potential to be a model for the entire state and beyond.”

The root of her anxiety is the seemingly simple task of getting behind the wheel.

“Getting into a car seems like a mindless activity, but for me, it’s a big challenge,” says Collins, a 57-year-old resident of Waunakee, who lives with multiple sclerosis that limits her ability to lift her right leg higher than 3 inches off the ground. “I really have to hold onto the car with both hands and launch myself into the driver seat.”

A team of first-year engineering students at the University of Wisconsin­­–Madison is creating a device to alleviate that worry for Collins. The students’ project is part of INTEREGR 170, an interdisciplinary, introductory design course that’s open to first-year students in the College of Engineering. Each semester, groups of students develop prototypes to address challenges for real clients, often local community members like Collins contending with health challenges.

Biomedical engineering majors Luke Schmeling of Holmen, Ilia Mikhailenko of Mequon, Sydney Smith of Sheboygan, Lauren Piper of Eagle River and Lucas Cramer of Rochester, Minn., have fashioned a removable traction pulley system that attaches to Collins’ car and helps her lift her right foot high enough to enter the vehicle smoothly and safely.

“I think we all came in with the preconceived notion that we wouldn’t be doing anything real-world until maybe our junior or senior year,” says Schmeling. “This makes the engineering feel a lot more real, a lot faster.”

Collins connected with Assistant Teaching Professor Tracy Puccinelli, who created the course, through her neurologist, Dr. Chris Luzzio.

Luzzio, a professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health, has also taught several engineering courses throughout his time at UW–Madison and has referred a handful of clients to Puccinelli’s course over the years.

In the course, students set about exploring solutions and incorporating advice and feedback from professional engineers who volunteer their time. The group working with Collins received advice from alumnus Scott Schulz, a lead system designer at GE Healthcare. They met virtually with Collins, using communication skills that Puccinelli is keen to instill in them, along with teamwork, self-awareness and technical acumen, to better understand their client’s problem. The team then created a decision matrix to weigh competing factors like ease of entry, cost and safety, before presenting three ideas to Collins in mid-October.

She was wowed.

“It’s hard to believe that these students are only freshmen,” says Collins, a two-time UW­–Madison graduate. “I would have expected this from seniors. But they really make me feel like they’re doing this for me, not a grade!”

In the end, the students, with Collins’ endorsement, opted for the simplest and most adaptable design. Their pulley system consists of a foot loop, rope, pulley and carabiner. It won out over a collapsible seat that would slide toward the driver’s seat — à la a rowing machine — and a pneumatic balloon.

Collins, who was diagnosed with MS at age 31 during a pregnancy, is hopeful the design could be a prototype for a broader-reaching solution for older adults and others with medical conditions that affect mobility. She’s planning to refer a friend to Puccinelli for a future project — giving another set of budding engineers a chance to build their skills while helping someone in the process.

“It’s not just for our grade — it’s actually going to help somebody with their life,” says Mikhailenko. “It’s additional incentive to make it as good as we possibly can.”

“I wanted to get into UW–Madison so badly that it inspired me all through high school in everything I did,” says Popp, of Coloma, Wisconsin. “I just kept pushing.”

That hard work has paid off. Today, Popp is a freshman at his dream school. He’s also one of 977 students new to campus this fall — 829 freshmen and 148 transfer students — benefitting from Bucky’s Pell Pathway, the university’s newest financial aid initiative.

Bucky’s Pell Pathway is designed to guarantee Wisconsin residents financial support — after other scholarships and grants — to cover not only tuition and fees but also housing, food, books and most other educational expenses. Eligibility is based on whether a student qualifies for federal Pell Grants, which play a crucial role in expanding college opportunity for students in low-income households.

“We’re thrilled to be able to offer this pathway to a debt-free bachelor’s degree to talented Wisconsinites,” says Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin, who announced the initiative in February. “Many Wisconsin residents have the misapprehension that UW–Madison will be financially out of reach. Bucky’s Pell Pathway makes sure that if Pell-eligible students do the hard work to get accepted here, we will meet their full financial need.”

Stellar students

Popp is among the exceptional students in this first class of Bucky’s Pell Pathway recipients.

He graduated in the top 10 of his class at Westfield High School, where he was a member of the National Honor Society. He excelled in the music program and took on numerous student leadership roles, including president of the school’s drama club. Just like his fifth-grade self, he still wants to be a veterinarian.

“When I learned I’d receive Bucky’s Pell Pathway, I thought, ‘OK, wow, this is going to cover pretty much everything,’” says Popp. “It is such a relief. I wanted to go to a school that matches my academic needs and not have to worry about working all the time or taking out a lot of loans.”

The financial boost has freed up time for Popp to enjoy more of the opportunities offered at UW–Madison. He auditioned for and was selected as a member of the Wisconsin Singers, the university’s Broadway-caliber pop music ensemble — a significant accomplishment for a freshman.

Statewide representation

This year’s Bucky’s Pell Pathway recipients hail from 65 of the state’s 72 counties — and from big cities and small towns.

Nick Kaska set his sights on UW–Madison in fourth grade when he saw a video of the UW Marching Band. He grew up in Kennan, a village of 135 people in Price County in northern Wisconsin.

“Since a young age, I’ve always wanted to go to college,” says Kaska, who is interested in political science. “Growing up in a small town, I’ve always had this dream of living in a big city like Madison. I can hardly believe I’m here, and Bucky’s Pell Pathway is a big reason why it happened.”

Eagle Scout Noah Buendia hails from Milwaukee, where he spent considerable time these past few years volunteering all over his hometown and giving back to his community. He collected 42 bins of hygiene supplies and clothes for a men’s shelter and helped nearly 100 young people register to vote. He was named the Milwaukee Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year for his high school.

He was accepted to five other universities but chose UW–Madison in part because of the excellence of its environmental engineering program, his major.

“It’s one of the top 10 public universities in the country and has one of the best engineering departments in the country,” Buendia says. “And I love the culture and the social life here. You get to meet new people every single day. It’s amazing.”

‘I’ve worked so hard for this’

Mattie Place, a freshman pre-business major from Platteville, was class president all four years at her high school, played flute in band, worked on the yearbook staff and participated in numerous clubs, including Future Business Leaders of America and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

“I’ve worked so hard for this,” she says of her college dreams. “It’s been quite a journey, but I’ve always put my education first.”

Her family’s finances haven’t always been stable, Place says. Bucky’s Pell Pathway was an unexpected gift.

“When I initially saw it, I was in complete shock,” Place says. “I remember telling my mom, ‘This is huge!’ It allows me to take a deep breath and enjoy my college experience a lot more.”

Aaliyah Golden-Whitehead, a freshman botany major from Kenosha, says COVID-19 hit her family’s finances hard. She worked as a pharmacy technician to save money for college while maintaining a tight focus on her schoolwork and extracurricular activities. A double-bass player, she received her school’s National School Orchestra Award.

“It makes me so happy that Bucky’s Pell Pathway is available because there are so many students like me who need to focus on helping their families financially,” Golden-Whitehead says. “They might not even think of attending college because they know what a burden it could be.”

Wisconsin focus

Bucky’s Pell Pathway expands on Bucky’s Tuition Promise, now in its sixth year. Bucky’s Tuition Promise guarantees scholarships and grants to pay for tuition and segregated fees for Wisconsin residents with household adjusted gross incomes of $65,000 or less. That’s about half of the state’s households. There are 884 new students on campus (737 freshmen; 147 transfer students) receiving Bucky’s Tuition Promise this year.

While Bucky’s Tuition Promise and Bucky’s Pell Pathway have different eligibility criteria, there is significant overlap among program recipients, with some students qualifying for one of the two programs and many students qualifying for both.

“Together, almost one in four Wisconsin residents new to campus this fall will be covered by either Bucky’s Tuition Promise or the new Bucky’s Pell Pathway,” says Derek Kindle, vice provost for enrollment management. “Our emphasis on providing access to a top-notch educational experience is helping to retain and support some of the state’s most impressive students. We feel very fortunate that these students have chosen UW–Madison to continue their education.”