UW-Waukesha Alum Serves on UW Board of Regents

WAUKESHA – Still a student but also much more, Jessica Schwalenberg, Delafield, who received her associate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha in May, has been chosen by Governor Jim Doyle to represent non-traditional UW students on the UW System Board of Regents for 2010-12. This is the first time a student from one of the 13 two-year University of Wisconsin Colleges campuses has been selected for the Board.

Before late spring, the idea of serving as a Regent was far from Schwalenberg’s mind. UW-Waukesha’s Assistant Dean for Student Services, Barb Kauth, suggested to Schwalenberg that she would be a good candidate for Student Regent. Until then, she had been planning to transfer to Carroll University and had applied for a scholarship to make that possible. Due to an error in processing her application, she was not considered for the aid. Instead, Schwalenberg focused on attending a UW campus, which kept her eligible to be a Regent.

“Pieces started falling into place,” she said. She scrambled to get the application materials submitted by the deadline, and, by April 21, she was sitting in the Capitol talking with members of the governor’s appointments committee. One of three finalists, she received a call back the next day and was back in Madison within the week. During the committee’s three-week deliberation, Schwalenberg concentrated on the semester’s final exams. On May 13 she received word of her appointment to the Board of Regents. Later that day, UW System President Kevin Reilly telephoned to welcome Schwalenberg to the Board. She recalls that “It was quite difficult to concentrate on my remaining three finals, because I was both very excited, and nervous about this new role.”

At her first meeting, held in June, Schwalenberg discovered the information poured in fast and furiously, “like taking a drink from a fire hose.” The other regents were welcoming, friendly, helpful, and respectful, but the work is fraught with details and countering perspectives, she said.

The operating budget, including tuition, headlined this first meeting. “These are challenging times, and it’s a very complicated budget,” she noted. “There were picketers at the meeting, and I knew some of them.” She felt pressure to vote against tuition hikes, but she weighed that against a responsibility to consider the possible deterioration in the quality of a UW education. She sees financial cutbacks as threats to the educational value that UW students deserve. Both faculty and staff compensation and resources have suffered, she noted. Important tools are becoming unaffordable, and the best people are being courted by other institutions.

As part of her concern with the budget and the retention of programs that work and the talent that moves them, she is interested in achieving greater diversity and in increasing the number of college graduates in Wisconsin. As the state moves away from the industrial base that provided work to so many, it needs to enfold a wider swath of its citizens in its educational system, she says. She cited a program currently in place, called Inclusive Excellence, that aims to make diversity everybody’s business because it is everybody’s strength. Having helped prepare the new Diversity Center at UW-Waukesha last summer, she was pleased to see the attention being given to this System-wide initiative.

In fall, Schwalenberg, who had spent seven years as a Certified Nurse’s Assistant, will attend UW-Milwaukee, pursuing a degree in psychology and, she hopes, a career in writing inspirational books and conducting workshops that help people cope with life’s arrows.

Schwalenberg grew up in Milwaukee and graduated from Riverside High School, but 10 years ago she moved to Waukesha County. When she decided to go back to school, she picked UW-Waukesha because the campus was close to where she was living, and she wanted a liberal arts degree. As a student she became quite involved in student leadership, serving as a Student Ambassador, a mentor, helping with the Pre-College program, an Orientation Leader, and Tutor. Also, as the president of the Ecology Club, and a member of both Phi Theta Kappa, national honor society for two-year colleges, and Philosophy Council; she practiced expressing her own critical thoughts publicly while pondering those espoused by others. She says she believes this experience made her stand out among the candidates for Student Regent.

It may make her a better inspirational writer/speaker as well.

Schwalenberg lives in Delafield with her son, Elliot, 5.