madison area technical college newsletter, spring 2011

UPSTA

ND

for MADISON COLLEGE

Alumni and friends news

There is something about springtime that makes us want to get our hands dirty and our houses clean. Madison College’s version of spring cleaning is analyzing every system for ultimate efficiency and letting in every fresh idea for cost-savings. We are also growing and finding cost-effective measures to get our students everything they need to suc-ceed in their careers. Cultivating employable students has always been our mission.

During these difficult economic times, we could not do this without the support of our faculty, support staff and administrators who have made personal sacrifices to help Madison College. These actions by our colleagues ensure that service levels for our students will be maintained throughout the district.

Our full-time faculty union and our support workers’ union opened their contracts and agreed to pay part of their retirement costs, which amounts to about a 6 percent pay cut. They also accepted much smaller pay increases than those previously bargained. Administrators will also pay part of their retirement costs and know raises in the near future will be slim or nonexistent. Some of our veteran part-time faculty also agreed to pay the retirement cost.

I am very proud that we are clearly united at Madison College in a commitment to student success. These recent agreements show that

Spring 2011

As Madison College prepares for its second 100 years of worker training, students, alumni and friends are asking

their neighbors to “stand up” for student needs in new and important ways!

Jake Weigandt, Student Senate president, said students need to see that their community stands up for working people.

“Many of us who’ve had life-changing training at the College are showing our support for students. We’re the ones who will lead the Madison area into an exciting future of green jobs, health careers, public safety roles, revolutionary manufacturing innovations and high tech business growth,” Weigandt said.

Student success is the vision that drove the new building plan approved by voters in November. Now we must keep the vision strong and that means asking our alumni and friends to stand up for Madison College.

Weigandt announced the College started a “Stand Up” campaign to ask our community to become informed, to get engaged and to stay involved by sharing emails of fellow alumni with the Foundation, making gifts to honor programs or favorite teachers — and even just attending College events.

“Wisconsin can’t be open for business if we aren’t open to train people for jobs,” said President Bettsey Barhorst, referring to Gov. Scott Walker’s goal to create 250,000 new jobs in the next four years. “Our new facilities will spur job creation in unprecedented ways. We are energized and focused on our next 100 years,” said Barhorst.

“ Wisconsin can’t

be open for

business if we

aren’t open to

train people for

their jobs.” — President Bettsey Barhorst

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continued on page 2 >

By Madison College Foundation Staff

Stand Up for Madison College on Facebook at facebook.com/madisoncollegefriends.

Donate securely online at madisoncollegealumni.org/donations

Bettsey Barhorst, Madison College President

Sign up for e-news by clicking “Join my list” on the Facebook page.

Faculty, staff buoy College

facebook.com/madisoncollegefriends 608.246.6441

It’s easy to support Madison College


Madison Area Technical College Foundation

our instructors, staff and administrators will give up personal benefits to make sure that our worker training and college transfer programs continue with the same rigor and student-centric instruction the College has offered for almost 100 years.

We are reaching out to you to underscore that the unions and administrators have taken measures that are not sustainable for an institution that runs a lean operation even in the best of economic times. The proposed state budget, as yet unapproved at press time, sets the College’s budget amounts to 1980s spending levels at the very time that enrollments at the College have surged 22 percent during the previous five years.

Against this back drop of commitment from our colleagues, the College will move forward with our Smart Future Building plan and we anticipate we will have shovels in the ground by late summer. I am so grateful for your support of this Plan, through last fall’s referendum. I want to assure you that we will make the improvements and upgrades necessary to train students for 21st century jobs.

For now we are focusing all of our efforts on maintaining instructional access and service levels across the entire district. We are sharpening our efforts to increase student retention and completion of certificates and degrees. We know this is the fastest way to jobs for our students and the best way we can support our local economy.

Please review the Madison College website at madisoncollege.org to see how we will build for our future while undergoing these significant budget cuts. Look for the hard hat icon on our website to view our progress!

I assure you that student success will remain at the core of every measure we take and we will live up to our mission of providing accessible, high quality learning experiences that serve the community. Happy spring!

Bettsey L. Barhorst, Ph. D. President

“We are so grateful to our district for the chance to help secure family-supporting jobs in this challenging time.”

Buoyed by the landslide support for the College’s building plans in the 2010 referendum, Barhorst led teams of faculty, students and staff in thoughtful plans for cutting edge facilities at the nine sites that serve about 40,000 students each year. (See story about the new Health Education building on page 3.)

While the campuses busily prepare blueprints and get needed building permits, the College is focusing on the work of the Madison College Foundation to build an ever stronger community of supporters.

“The need for scholarships for students who are taking full course loads has exploded,” said Robert Dinndorf, executive director of the Foundation. “At the same time, we need the support of alumni and friends to ensure our new facilities will be well-equipped.”

Dinndorf encourages donors to celebrate the Centennial theme in a program designed to count our alumni and friends “by the hundreds.” College supporters can put their

STAnD UP for MADISon College< continued from page 1

< Barhorst, continued from page 1

Scholarships fuel economic recovery

Economists look to small business owners to jump start the economic

recovery, but without a Madison College Foundation scholarship, Maria Kovach would not have been able to help.

Kovach, 44, who is a part-time interior design student at the College, a veteran of the United States Air Force and Air National Guard and a mother of four, received a Lussier Family scholarship when she returned to college to pursue her dream of becoming an interior designer. After her first year in the program, Kovach started her own business, Belsö Design, which specializes in remodeling and revitalizing existing spaces. Her clients describe her as professional, creative and enthusiastic. Kovach graduates in May, 2011, and is looking forward to running her local business full time.

Each year the Foundation awards hundreds of scholarships to students like

Maria but it is not enough. This semester the College has nearly 300 students who are on a waiting list for a scholarship.

Please consider making an investment in our community’s future by donating to the Madison College

Foundation’s Forward Fund that provides scholarships to new and continuing students.

Visit us online at madisoncollegealumni.org/donations, call 608.246.6441 or mail your gift to the Madison College Founda-tion, 3550 Anderson St., Madison, WI 53704.

To apply for a Foundation scholarship, visit us online at madisoncollege.org/scholarships. The deadline for the Fall 2011 Continuing Student Scholarship is May 31.

Kovach

By Tricia Weisheipl, Madison College Foundation

stamp on the new facilities with many options for naming rights, by honoring those who have helped them, by becoming involved in College activities or even by offering planned gifts for the future of the College. “By the hundreds” is open to interpretation: 100 involved alumni, $100 gifts, 100 scholarships…we invite you to share your ideas with us…by the hundreds!

So, help us count you in! Stand up for working people. Stand up for the workers in our future community. Stand up by the hundreds with a gift of time or money.

If you are willing to “Stand Up” for Madison College, simply join the Alumni and Friends’ Facebook page at facebook.com/madisoncollegefriends.

2


As Madison College leaders plan to break ground in the next few months

on a Health Education building, they offer alumni and friends new opportunities to help the innovative facilities improvement plan.

Donors can sponsor spaces, structures and even entire buildings. These facilities will carry the names of donors or they can be dedicated to a family member or as a memorial.

“For almost 100 years, the College has trained workers for family-supporting jobs,” said President Bettsey Barhorst. “We want to honor for the next 100 years those who will spearhead the 2011 re-invention of Madison College with the naming of our facilities for those generous souls.”

Plans for the $134-million first phase of a comprehensive improvement plan at all nine sites of the College began in 2005 when students urged changes to then new-ly hired President Barhorst. In late March, 2011, Barhorst’s vision for 21st century facilities to train workers for the economic recovery began to take form with approval of initial projects from the Wisconsin State Technical College System Board (WTCS).

Dubbed the Smart Future Building Plan, the estimated $350 million plan for the next 15 years starts with the Health Education building, a $43-million building to be locat-ed at the northwest corner of Anderson and Wright streets on Truax campus. In addition to classroom and lab space, the building also may host a dental and health clinic.

A job is the greatest form of philan-thropy, according to famed Minnesota

philanthropist Marilyn Carlson. It’s a phi-losophy that Madison College Foundation donors have embraced with their gifts.

The Foundation works to support the College mission of providing access to high-quality learning experiences for all in our community. Scholarships expand ac-cess to learning. Endowed scholarships do so permanently.

In May 2010, National Guardian Life Insurance Company commemorated its Centennial with a generous gift of $100,000 to the College’s Foundation, establishing

Draft rendering of proposed Health education building

By Madison College Foundation Staff

By Robert Dinndorf, Madison College Foundation

Students will learn with updated classrooms and state-of-the-art equipment now unavailable in the crowded facilities, particularly on the third floor of Truax.

“The many years of planning yielded an environmentally friendly building that will set a new standard for instruction and facilities at our College,” Barhorst said. “We give thanks to our district for this gift to our students and to the economic recovery that worker training will spur.”

District voters approved a $134 million referendum in November, 2010, to start the building plan.

Facilities managers said they hope in May the WTCS will approve the College’s proposal for a Protective Services Center where firefighters, law enforcement and other related workers will be trained. Also on tap is the construction of a Gateway entrance and Student Achievement Center at Truax.

Plans for regional campus improve-ments also are on the drawing board.

Collaborative teams of faculty, students and staff continue to work on concepts

for improvements to the advanced manufacturing programs. Using the working title of “The Ingenuity Center,” the College plans to create manufacturing facilities that most accurately simulate 2011 manufacturing plants and also spark innovation in that field.

The Health Education building still needs approvals from the city of Madison and several other governmental agencies, said Roger Price, vice president of infrastructure services.

Bob Dinndorf, executive director of the Madison College Foundation, said donors can be remembered with nameplates or plaques permanently placed on the walls of the new buildings and the College is seeking major gifts from those who would like to name a building.

To become one of these special donors, visit the Foundation at madisoncollege alumni.org/donations or call 608.246.6441. Gifts can be mailed to the Madison College Foundation, 3550 Anderson St., Madison, WI 53704.

an endowed scholarship fund. Long a part-ner in education with the College, National Guardian Life began funding scholarships in 1991.

An endowment, established by an outright or planned gift, is a long-term, reliable source of financial support for stu-dents who are in need of job training and/or who seek additional undergraduate edu-cation. Because nearly all of the College’s graduates live and work in Wisconsin, it adds great value to the workforce.

Donors can contact the Foundation office at 608.246.6441 or email FoundationAlumni @madisoncollege.org to learn more.

Support new workers with gift to College

Donors get new tools to help building plan

Mark l. Solverud and John larson of national guardian life Insurance Company

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PAIDMADISon WI

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StatS&FactS

Wisconsin’s economy receives a $4return for every $1invested in technicalcolleges

We serve about 40,000

students per year

29

of graduates find jobs within six months

About

87%

Madison College will turn in

201

2

100 get insider informationand chances for show-case giveaways like Madison College Salon services and gourmet dining experiences.

Stand Up for Madison College on Facebook at facebook.com/madisoncollegefriends

of our graduates work in WisconsinSo

me96%

The average age of a Madison

College student is

Nearly 98% of employers say they are SATISfIED or vEry SATISfIED with the training our graduates have received

Madison Area Technical College

Alumni and Foundation office3550 Anderson Street

Madison, WI 53704


madison area technical college newsletter, spring 2011

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