WNA entry for Ripon Commonwealth Press: Reporting on Local Education

Thursday, July 16, 2015 - Page 1

INSIDE

Our Views

Big-league funRipon Youth Baseball and Softball players are wrapping up their season with some fun in the sun on the diamonds at Murray Park.

See page 21

All kinds of AsianSoon, China One will be serving much more than just Chinese cuisine as it expands its horizons one country east.

See page 14

Sports

Business

MergedIf two heads are better than one, what happens when you get the braintrusts of two Green Lake groups into one organization? Hopefully, a lot.

See page 4

A splash Play area nearsRipon Noon Kiwanis held a picnic and a ground-breaking for the proposed splash pad at Riggs County Park.

See page 7

Single copy — $1Thursday, July 16, 2015 Ripon, WI 54971

Ripon Commonwealth Press Issue No. 29www.RiponPress.com Serving the Ripon community since 1864

Wisconsin Weekly Newspaper of the Year 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014

MajorChanges

Tough decisions became necessary as Ripon College seeks to stay strong for years to come

by Ian [email protected]

As news began to break among Ripon College alumni about changes being made, college President Zach Messitte started to receive phone messages from graduates who were less than happy.

“People were concerned,” he said of the college’s future.Some staff and professor positions were eliminated.Majors and minors were cut.What is going on? many asked. Is the college failing?“I got emails ... from people who were unhappy, who were

hearing from their professors here and from others, and that’s a tough situation. One where you have to be sympathetic with,” Messitte said. “But I am a believer that, at the end of the day [the college] is a business-like institution. At the end of the day, your revenues still have to match your expenditures and the college wasn’t doing that.

“And the college is starting to do that — or at least pretty well down the path to doing it. And that’s important.”

This spring, Ripon College trimmed about $1 million from its budget, between eliminating positions and altering its curriculum.

This also comes a year after another $1 million in cuts last year.“We’ve done it, and it’s been tough,” Messitte said.It’s not done yet. This next school year likely will see additional

alterations to the school’s curriculum.Messitte, though, views the changes as part of a painful but

necessary step toward putting Ripon College on a path toward financial success.

“You never want to say ‘never’ on anything, but the majority

District denies hints of favoritism

of the work that needed to be done in order to make sure we were being fiscally responsible has been done,” Messitte said, “and that I don’t foresee this becoming something that happens every June.”

Cuts after successful fund drive underscore seriousness of school’s structural deficit


Some may find it ironic, or worse, that Ripon College is cutting another million from its operating budget as it com-pletes its most successful capi-tal campaign in school history.

All told, when the college announces this fall how much was raised between 2010 and 2015, the figure is expected

to exceed even the college’s expanded goal of $60 million.

Ripon College President Zach Messitte, though, might argue that the fact the college had to cut its budget anyway only underscores the serious-ness of the school’s structural deficit in recent years.

As he noted, the college was spending an inordinate amount

Revamped vision set for school district

RIPON COLLEGE PRESIDENT Zach Messitte stands outside Harwood Memorial Union at Ripon College. Ian Stepleton photo

See MAJOR/ page 17

See CUTS/ page 17

See VISION/ page 18

Says decisions aimed to protect rights of students

by Tim [email protected]

In choosing to search two Ripon Middle School students’ lock-ers while not a third used by a School Board member’s son, the Ripon Area School District denies it was playing favorites.

What it was doing, however, was protecting the rights of all

Mary Whitrock

District points to several reasons why its actions were justified:

‰ The district needed to protect the rights of the students involved

‰ The alleged drug sale occurred off school property, not on it (as previous article stated)

‰ Students cannot be disciplined by district for actions that occur off district property

three students, according to a two-page memo emailed to parents last week Friday afternoon.

The unsigned note — writ-ten on behalf of “the collective leadership of the Ripon Area School District” — responded to a story in the July 9 Ripon

Commonwealth Press headlined “Did district hinder investigation into a board member’s child? Two

lockers were searched . . . but school said ‘no’ for School Board mem-ber’s child’s locker.”

“The collec-tive leadership of the Ripon Area School District, many of whom have children and grandchildren that are district students, regrets the implication made in the recent local news article regarding the investigation and eventual expul-sion of two students involved in a sale of marijuana on the school

grounds and unfounded insinua-tion that a third student received preferential treatment during the investigation,” the memo notes.

The Commonwealth story stat-ed that district officials may have hampered a police investigation

into alleged pot possession and sale on school grounds by refus-ing to search the locker of one of the three students involved in the matter. That stu-dent’s parent is a School Board member.

DISTRICT PROTECTS STUDENT’S RIGHTS

What the Commonwealth story failed to recognize, the memo said, is the district’s obligation to protect

3 For a publisher’s note related to this story, see

“Reason for no locker search strains credulity,” page 16.

by Aaron [email protected]

Even as Ripon students enjoy the summer off, school officials have been working to craft new sets of guiding principles for the next several years.

This includes a new mission statement, vision statement and belief statements approved at last month’s School Board meeting, and a set of core strategies and strategic objectives going before the board next week.

Basically, it’s a new-and-im-proved roadmap for the direction of the school district.

“The purpose is really to guide our work,” Superintendent Mary Whitrock said. “The ‘mission’ is our core purpose, why we exist. The ‘vision’ is our preferred real-ity. And the ‘belief statements’ are really our creed of, ‘This is how we’re going to go about accom-plishing the work.’”

For the past 10 years, the vi-sion statement has been, “As one of Wisconsin’s outstanding school districts, we are a vibrant, engaged community of lifelong learners that challenges and inspires stu-dents to reach their full potential, achieve success and contribute to the local and world community throughout their lives.”

Now it’s concise: “One of Wis-consin’s finest school districts, fostering excellence for all through innovation.”

To accompany this, the board also has approved a new mission statement (“Inspiring learners, en-gaging community, enriching the world”) and a 12-point set of belief statements that include broad state-ments such as “Quality instruction is best supported through relevant, challenging and innovative cur-riculum,” and “Partnerships in the community provide opportunities for growth and support.”

It had been a decade since the district reviewed these guiding principles.

“It was time,” Whitrock said. “... It was actually something we talked about even before we launched into all the facility work, about knowing our direction, our mission, our vision, as we looked to develop the facility and our curriculum instructional program-ming around that direction.”

Work is underway on a multi-million-dollar project to combine the high school and middle school at the high school site.

Shortly after that project was approved via referendum, work got underway through a Strategic Planning Committee to review the school district’s foundational principles.

“March through May, we had seven sessions,” Whitrock said.

See DISTRICT/ page 16

Thursday, July 16, 2015 - Page 17

News


When can embezzling actually help the organization that lost the money?

When all the stars align to return hundreds of thousands of dollars at once.

While Ripon College President Zach Messitte doesn’t see former IT director Ron Haefner’s years of embezzling from the college’s technology budget as a positive turn of events, he does see a glass-half-full scenario.

Thanks to an easy conviction, an insurance payment and restitu-tion paid by Haefner to his former employer, Ripon College found itself the recipient of a windfall this spring.

“We were repaid everything this guy took from us, and then some, because ... in order to perhaps miti-gate his sentencing, he made addi-tional restitution to the college for other benefits he received from the college while he was here: tuition remission [etc.],” Messitte said.

So, while the college has need-ed to pinch pennies elsewhere, while trimming $1 million from its budget this year, the school’s tech-nology fund has never been better.

“The college got a huge chunk of change that came in all at once that we plowed right back into technology because it had been money that had been taken out of technology,” Messitte said. “So we were able to do things we otherwise might not have been able to do.”

This past winter, that meant a massive upgrade to the college’s WiFi, which Messitte describes as having “not been good until four, five months ago.”

Now?“Our WiFi is as good if not

better than WiFi anywhere, and it’s universal. You can get it in the classroom, you can get it in the dorms, you can get it in Storzer,” Messitte said, noting the college opted for “the full package” to pro-vide maximum benefit to students. “Students will now, if in class, will need to download documents that are uploaded, they don’t have to print them. All sorts of benefits.”

Doing the project, he explained, was “a six-figure deal. Well, we used some of the settlement money to do that.”

Another pricey addition to the college is implementing a “one-card” system, as the college an-nounced earlier this spring.


Though Ripon College has had to cut back in some areas financially this summer, such budget trimming has not dampened the administration’s support of an expected renovation and addition to the Storzer Athletic Center.

In fact, it may be more important than ever to complete, Ripon College President Zach Messitte explained.

Students who choose not to attend Ripon College are asked, “Why not?”

Their responses have been telling to college officials.

“The first reason they say is, ‘You need an upgrade to some of your fa-cilities, and in particular your athletic facility is behind the times, because,’ they say, ‘my high school gym is bet-ter than this,’” Messitte said. “You can argue that, but the fact of the matter is our gym was built in 1967; it was built before Title IX; it was built for men’s athletics; and it looks like a gym from the 1960s.”

If the college wishes to attract more students, which then helps bal-ance the college’s books, it needed to update the athletic facility, he explained.

“The way that people have changed in terms of exercise and health and fitness is radical in the last

30 years ...,” he said. “We’re address-ing that.”

Thus far, the fund-raising cam-paign for the project is doing well, Messitte noted.

“In pledges, we’re over $4 million now. We’re literally in the final stages of working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on a rural development loan, and [we are doing] a public-private partnership [for a loan]. This is a multi-step process ... It all looks good ...,” he said. “So at the end of the day, what we hope is that we will have a loan secured by the fall, and we have to continue to fund-raise aggressively.

“There is a hope that all these things line up ... We can then, in the fall, order construction documents, which is a significant cost ... may approach $1 million even. As soon as that’s done, we’re ready to move forward with actually moving dirt around.”

It’s not clear when this will occur.“These things have ways of slip-

ping, but our trustees are fully com-mitted to this and, assuming that these loans come through, the real question will be, ‘What’s the scope of the project? What feasibly can we do? Will this be a $22 million project? A $15 million project? What do those permutations mean?’” Messitte said.

Such questions will be answered in the coming days.

CUTS/ continued from page 1

A STRUCTURAL DEFICITBack-to-back years of million-

dollar budget cuts are painful, Mes-sitte admits, but necessary given the budget reality he faced when he came to Ripon College about three years ago.

“I inherited a structural deficit that was pretty significant. The col-lege was living beyond its means, using rainy-day funds in order to balance its budget,” he said. “We had done this $23 million project [refer-ring to construction on campus], but we hadn’t raised any money for it, so we were paying for the entire debt load on it.”

It was not a sustainable position.“I saw this the first year we came

in,” he said. “We [also] hired a new CFO who said, ‘You’ve got to fix this.’ Our trustees demanded it [as well] ...

“I knew [cuts would be neces-sary] in the sense that, it would be tough, unless we brought in 275 to 300 students to offset [the deficit], we were going to have to find a way to balance our books,” he said.

TOO MANY TEACHERSMeanwhile, the college found

itself with fewer students, not more.It was staffed for its high-water

mark of 1,028 students, which it reached in 2008-2009, with 80 FTE positions.

In 2008-’09, 80 FTE equals about a 13-to-1 student-to-professor ratio. This is within its desired range of 12-to-1 to 15-to-1.

In 2014-’15, the college enrolled just 817, meaning the ratio had swung to 10-to-1.

By next school year, when enroll-ment is expected to drop to about 772, it’s even tighter.

“A 10-to-1 ratio is fabulous at one level, very expensive at another,” Messitte said.

That’s with less tuition coming in to fund those positions as well.

That’s not to say the college is displeased with next year’s freshman class coming in.

“The class ... is larger than last year’s class. In the four years I’ve been involved in this, it’s No. 2 in the size of the class right now. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re completely happy that’s the number that came in,” Messitte said. “[It’s] about 220 plus 13 transfers, but we’d like it to be a little larger. We were hoping ... that it would be closer to 240 ...

“We had a record number of applications, a record number of people admitted, but deposits went up only slightly. That’s something we’re kind of watching.”

A MATH PROBLEMRegardless, college officials were

left with a simple math problem.More dollars were going out than

were coming in, and they needed to balance that equation.

That’s what led to trimming a net of about $1 million from the college’s budget, “combining reduc-tions in faculty, reductions in staff,

but also there are a whole series of other things that we have done that will increase new revenues, revenue streams, into the college to reach that.”

That meant, in part, reducing the number of faculty and staff members on the payroll.

For the staff, it meant cutting positions.

“We ... made some reductions as well among our staff, most of which, almost all of which, were done by attrition, positions that were open ...,” Messitte said.

For faculty, the process has been a little trickier.

“During the year, there were several resignations; there were contracts ... that also were up. So, the faculty themselves decided how best to reorient their curriculum based on all those factors, which also includes a budget that had to be reduced as well,” Messitte said. “They put all those factors together — curriculum, resignations, contract employees vs. tenured employees, and the need to have some reduction in expenditures [into a proposal].”

CURRICULUM CHANGESThis is what seemed to upset

alumni most: eliminating some ma-jors and minors, while reorganizing some other departments.

“I, a year ago, charged the faculty to start looking at the curriculum, figuring it would be a multi-year process,” Messitte said.

This year, the college chose to:‰ Discontinue German and

Latin courses‰ Put “on hold” the anthropol-

ogy major and minor, computer science major and minor, the French major and minor, and the museum studies minor; each is described as having a “proposal for a new course(s) of study forthcoming;”

‰ Create a new department, Global Studies, to include faculty from the anthropology, Romance and classical languages departments, as well as the former global studies department.

Meanwhile, it added several new

minors: American studies, ancient, Renaissance and Medieval studies, applied communication and crimi-nal justice.

“One of the things this new dean of faculty is looking at, is, ‘Are we organized correctly?’ We have a lot of majors with faculty of one or two. Is this the best way to organize or have super-majors, sort-of larger majors?” Messitte said.

These changes, Messitte ex-plained, came after a year-long study of the school’s curriculum, by its own faculty.

“I think what the faculty had to do is look at this and say, ‘Look, we have some majors where we don’t have enough seats to teach people because they’re so popular, and we have other majors where we have very few students interested. How do we start to re-balance this in a way that works for everybody?’” Messitte said. “That’s why they’re looking at the curriculum, and that’s why we had to make some ... very, very difficult choices this year.”

The revisions may have been overdue, he added.

“Part of this is, the college hadn’t done any kind of major curricular overhaul in 20 years. So, things change,” he said.

It’s likely that additional, maybe even greater, changes are to come.

“The faculty will be continuing their curriculum review this fall, and the new dean, I know, is anxious to start working with faculty on this,” Messitte said. “My sense is he’s putting everything on the table, in terms of what we could do, in terms of reorganizing our curriculum, our department structure, our academic calendar. All of those things are go-ing to be discussed, not necessarily changed ...

“Just because we’ve always done it this way, does it mean it’s the best way to do it? I think he’s trying to take a look at the curriculum with fresh eyes, which I think is very exciting.”

APPEASING ALUMNIOne challenge of this transforma-

of money on debt, until recently.Meanwhile, the student-to-

professor ratio had become too low to sustain, so changes had to be made.

Nevertheless, where did the money go from the $60 million campaign, if not toward the bud-get?

Much of it is deferred.“A lot of that money is still to

come in. It’s estates ... that will come in over the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years in some cases,” Messitte said. “There’s a portion of that money has come in or pledged in cash to come in, but a good chunk of it — probably close to half of it ... — will come in when people pass away and their estates are realized.”

What about the other half?Some of it provided budget

relief in the form of endowed professor positions that will be funded by the endowment, rather than budget dollars.

“You create four of these, all of a sudden you’ve created space, or you’re helping your budget, so instead of spending that money on faculty salaries, you’re spend-ing it [on other things],” Messitte said, noting that’s a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

“Then, close to three dozen new scholarships at various levels for students and faculty research, for students just to come here [were created,” he said, noting most students receive aid from the college. “Then there have been some other gifts that have gone toward some facility reconstruc-tion on campus, some individual rooms that have been recon-structed, and then right now we’re at about $4.5 million, which has been counted into the campaign, for the budget for Storzer (see sidebar for more on this).”

Another $11 million went toward the college’s annual fund, which pays for about 9 percent of the school’s annual operating revenues.

Other dollars then funded various new initiatives, Messitte explained, such as “the career discovery trips we do in the spring and the fall, the Center for Social Responsibility — these are all things that came in, in the last five years, during the campaign.”

Plus, the college’s endowment increased during that five-year period from $52 million in 2010 to $85 million this year.

Because 5 percent of that to-tal, in interest payments, can be used to fund operating revenues, these dollars did help cover costs as well.

tion has been to explain it to former students, who haven’t always been receptive to the changes.

“You talk to alumni, and they talk how great it was they took Russian back during the Cold War — well, yeah. Russian was needed [then]. Less so today,” Messitte said.

He added he’s received calls and emails from displeased alumni, seeking an explanation.

“These decisions are hard. You talk to alumni who are anguished about this and you feel their pain,” Messitte said.

To help them understand why such changes were necessary, Ripon College put together a 16-page color mailer.

The brochure is frank about the challenges the college is facing, provides specific figures about where the college is and where it’s going, and offers a call-to-action to invite financial gifts to offset such concerns.

“The wide majority of our alumni get what we are doing, where we are going, but I think ... people are starting to understand what the im-portance of an endowment means — having an $85 million endowment is great ... and it really helps us. But when you tell people, ‘Hey, do you know what the size of Grinnell’s endowment is? ... It’s $1.6 billion dollars. And do you know what the size of Macalester’s endowment is? Well, it’s $900 million,” Messitte said. “Then you say, ‘Do you know what that means?’ So, Ripon’s 5 percent of $85 million a year means we can take $4.2 million and use that one time every year.

“Well, Grinnell can take $90 mil-lion once a year, every year. They can take $85 million [more than we can] every year out of their endow-ment to spend on scholarships, on buildings, on trips ...”

EXIT POLLSThe college isn’t listening to

concerns of alumni only, Messitte added.

Students who are accepted to the college, but don’t enroll, are asked

why they chose to go elsewhere.High school seniors’ concerns

fall into three basic categories.First, many see the college’s

facility, and specifically its athletic facility, lacking.

For more on how the college is addressing this concern, see the story at the top of this page.

“Second, they say, your academic program ... isn’t what I’m looking for. And some of these people you can’t get. You want to be a nurse? I’m not sure you’re at the right place. You want to go to pharmaceutical school? We don’t really do that,” Messitte said. “... Others are saying, ‘We would like to see a more dynamic program that incorporates more of the majors I’m interested in.’”

This, he explained, is a big reason why the college is revamping its curriculum.

“The third thing they talk about ... is they say, ‘Hey, we’d like more options in the town of Ripon. We don’t like the way the middle of downtown looks,’” Messitte said, noting he knows efforts are being made downtown to improve it. “... So when I look at this, I think we’re addressing the three main issues head-on,” he said.

Meanwhile, the college is trying to create a greater sense of pride of place through visual cues on campus.

“We’ve made a really conscious effort to increase the level of spirit and pride ...,” said Melissa Anderson, communication director and interim vice president for advancement at Ripon College. “... Throughout up-per campus here, when we walk into academic buildings, you’re going to see ‘Ripon Red,’ you’re going to see the logo, you’re going to see faculty, alumni stories kind of out front.

“We’re going to do some more badging of campus with beautiful banners that remind people of the overall experience.”

Messitte also noted the campus is reinvesting in some academic areas by renovating two of the largest classrooms on campus: the “Little Theater” in East Hall, which hasn’t been significantly changed in a gen-eration, and Todd Wehr 104.

Thirty-year-old desks also are being upgraded for a better student experience.

The bottom line is, Messitte ex-plained, he hopes such changes, and the message the college is sending to the college community, is that the changes it’s undergoing are difficult, but necessary — and that the college should be stronger as a result.

“At the end of the day ... our fac-ulty really led the way ... and there were intense discussions about it. Hopefully we’re moving forward and reshaping the college in a way that works for our size and our budget,” he said. “... I hope [alumni understand]. I hope people read [the brochure we’re sending out]. We’ve tried to respond personally as much as we can ... but at the end of the day, you can only do as much as you can do.”

UPGRADES WERE MADE to the MLK Lounge at Ripon College. This was one of several areas the college improved as it sought to create a better experience for students and visitors. Ian Stepleton photo

MAJOR/Messitte: Structural deficit was inherited when he took office continued from page 1

College: Embezzlement hurt, but tech budget thriving after dollars repaid

“A lot of col-leges do it, but it’s not a cheap thing to insti-tute,” Messitte s a i d . “ E a c h student gets a card and it pays for printing and laundry and maybe eventu-ally food down-

town, vending, security going into your building — all on this one card. We’re going to institute that later in the summer. “

Again, he noted, it wouldn’t have been financially feasible to do this had it not been for the money returned after the embezzlement.

“[This is] a major chunk of technology money that we oth-erwise would not have been able to [use] because we never would have had this big chunk of money to spend at once ... to solve some really pressing technology prob-lems at the college,” Messitte said. “In an odd way, this is the gift that comes back to us: the ability to do a couple things that really needed to be done. An institution like Ripon has to have WiFi. That’s non-negotiable ... but at the time we didn’t have the money to be

able to put into that. “ ... That said, I wouldn’t do this

all over again if I could design it, but the slightly happy ending to it is the money came in, we were compensated for what we lost and were able to put it back into the system where it was taken from. And I know our students already can see the difference.”

Nevertheless, the college doesn’t wish to relive the experi-ence.

“We’ve put in some other struc-tures into our accounting system and our signing-off system that weren’t there a year and a half ago, and maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that had to happen,” Mes-sitte said. “Was it an unfortunate incident? It sure was, but when it’s all said and done, I think the college has come out of this a bet-ter place.”

And, he said, it doesn’t appear to have damaged giving to the college.

“If you take alumni response in terms of annual giving ... our annual giving is better than ever,” Messitte said. “This year it could be, all told including pledges, could be a year where $10 million comes into the college, which is incredible.”

Ronald Haefner

Plan to enhance athletic center still moving forward

Thursday, June 4, 2015 - Page 1

INSIDE

Area

Hitting their strideTwo Tigers proved last week they are among the best runners in the state. Now, they can see if they’re on top.

See page 15

Au revoir!Murray Park/Quest students bid adieu to their new French friends last week after a long stay in Ripon.

See page 10

Sports

Education

Later, LakersGreen Lake High School seniors said goodbye to their school-age years Sunday at a graduation ceremony.

See page 7

Rain, rain A little too muchA strong spring storm rolled through the Ripon area last week Friday, dumping much of the 2 inches the city would see over the weekend, quickly.

See page 3

Single copy — $1Thursday, June 4, 2015 Ripon, WI 54971


Wisconsin Weekly Newspaper of the Year 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014

Endofthe R AD

Despite pleas,

ConAgra firm on closure


Prospects for Ripon to hold on to the main cookie factory that’s been in Ripon for generations look grim.

Since news broke two weeks ago that ConAgra planned to close the “west” cookie production facility, several local organizations have spo-ken with ConAgra officials.

The news has been consistent: the factory will close by the end of the year, and 300 people will lose their jobs.

“It is moving forward ... It has nothing to do with the community or the workforce; it’s a business deci-sion,” said Steve Jenkins, president of Fond du Lac County Econom-ic Development Corp. (FCEDC). “They’ve seen a market diminish for that product line, so I can totally understand that. I just hate to see 300 people laid off; our No. 1 goal is to make sure they’re taken care of.”

Alex Gillis, representative for Workers United — whose Local 91 represents many employees at the Ripon plant — has been in talks with ConAgra, but has been given the same message from the company.

“We are right now trying to fig-ure out if there is any way to keep it open,” he said. “The company has been stating their position ... that it was a business decision, with a de-cline in the cookie industry ... We are trying to see if that is the right output from that information or if we can come up with a different conclusion.”

The union remains in communica-tion with ConAgra, and “as soon as we digest the information, we will meet with them,” Gillis said.

Dan Hare, director of commu-


Should Mayor Gary Will and former City Administrator Steve Barg be targets of a counter-claim being levied against the city of Ripon by former downtown devel-oper Boca Grande Capital LLC?

That’s a key issue being consid-ered right now as the second of two law firms representing the city of Ripon works through depositions on a counter-claim Boca issued.

Boca’s counter-claim — techni-cally called a “Notice of Claim” — gives it the legal standing to later file a full lawsuit, which in this case could find Boca seeking an $11.01 million judgement against the city.

In its filing last July, Boca alleged that Will and Barg con-tacted Badgerland Financial, a Baraboo, Wis.-based lender with whom Boca had hoped to secure $9 million in financing to assist its development projects.

Both denied the accusation. “I’ve never, ever, ever called

Badgerland to talk about any-thing,” Will said.

Barg said his contacts were lim-ited to updates on Boca’s efforts to secure primary financing.

Boca alleges that after receiving

RICK MORTENSON SNAPS a photo of teacher Betty Mortenson with student Addyson Johnson.Ian Stepleton photo

City lawyers still working through Boca counter-claim

Ripon: The true land of Lincoln?THE MAN CREDITED to be America’s greatest president made multiple appearances in Ripon last week. The fact that these visits came 150 years after his untimely passing didn’t seem to slow Abraham Lincoln down, though. First, he appeared in two different incarnations last week Thursday at the Ripon Middle School choir concert, which centered around the theme of the American Civil War. Singing Lincolns include Kelly Kalupa, left, and Dylan Schattschneider, right. Then, last week Saturday, a more mature Lincoln reappeared at the Little White Schoolhouse to speak to about 30 people. During his talk, the Lincoln impersonator, Fritz Klein, read from his first and second inaugural addresses, as well as offered a review of the Republican Party. For more photos from the Ripon Middle School choir concert, see page 11. Jonathan Bailey and Tim Lyke photos

See CONAGRA/ back page See BIKE/ back page

See BOCA/ back page

After decade of delivering

books by bike to students,

Mortenson is retiringby Ian Stepleton

[email protected]

Memories of that first year visiting students atop her bi-cycle remain crisp for first-grade teacher Betty Mortenson.

“We’re coming on the back [road], and you can see for about a half mile: there’s this little guy, riding around, and around, on his driveway waiting for Mrs. Mortenson,” Betty said, carrying a book in her bike’s saddlebag for the enthusiastic little boy. “I turn around and said to my husband, ‘I’m hooked. I’ve got to do this every year.’”

For 10 years, the educator has challenged her students to collectively read 300 books in three weeks. Every year, they’ve responded by reaching the goal.

So, each spring she and her husband reward every student by jumping atop their matching blue Treks and peddling.

Over the course of two weekends in May, they navigate the highways leading from their home in Rosendale to reach her students, where ever each lives.

Unless a strong spring storm

Page 22 - Thursday, June 4, 2015

Available at St. Agnes Hospital, Ripon Medical Center and Waupun Memorial Hospital.

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blows in, they’ve braved the ele-ments to bring each child a surprise and a smile.

“Over the last 10 years, I have visited at least 200 students,” she estimated. “My husband, Rick, and I pedal at least 120 miles each year to visit all the families. It’s worth every mile to see the bright smiling faces of my students!”

Sometimes, it’s as close as rural Ripon; other times, it’s as far away as Princeton.

To the naked eye, it seems she’s carrying little more than a bottle of water and a handful of bound books for the kids to keep.

In reality, she’s delivering so much more.

A joy of reading. A model of lifelong exercise. A chance to con-nect multiple disciplines of educa-tion in one simple package.

Teacher Betty’s dream, though, may have hit the end of the road.

After 19 years teaching, and a decade of peddling to students’ homes, she’s retiring.

“It will be difficult,” she said. “It was probably one of the hardest decisions to make, to retire. I love what I do; it’s a passion of mine ... This is a job that I love. I’ve had it for 19 years and it’s a dream job come true, so that part will be hard.”

BOOKS AND BIKESBetty’s path into combining her

passions — cycling and teaching students — wasn’t direct.

“My husband had a liver trans-plant 20 years ago ... in June,” she said, noting he actually had two because his body rejected the first. “After he had his second transplant, the doctors said you have to do some-thing to keep active, and I already enjoyed bicycling. [So] we got one that fitted one him well; we started doing some biking locally, building up our endurance. Maybe four miles, then 40.

“The first time we did 40 I remem-ber getting off my bike and kissing the ground because I had the wrong bicycle seat.”

For her first-graders, Betty’s love of cycling was no secret.

“When I’m teaching, I always try to involve a little bit about myself to the students,” she said. “So during the year, I would give examples of writing stories. Mrs. Mortenson would tell stories of adventures we would go on, on our bikes ...”

Students ate it up. Hearing that a teacher has a life outside the class-room? It’s almost unfathomable for a child.

Then, one spring, a proverbial light bulb went off for the long-time teacher.

“In the spring of the year, students start getting a little restless you know, don’t want to do their homework ...,” Betty said, explain-ing she was searching for a way to motivate them during those last weeks of school. “So I said, ‘You know, Mrs. Mortenson likes to ride

bikes.’ I began to challenge the students. I said, ‘I challenged you to do a Read-a-Thon. If you can read 300 books outside of school as a whole class, Mrs. Mortenson will ride from her house in Rosendale to your home.

“So they’re like, ‘Ohh!’ Fired [them] up.”

Every year, it’s worked.“I try to give them a three-week

span ... at the end of April, going into May,” she said. “If you have 20 students in the class ... it’s doable. I wanted to make it doable, but still a challenge.”

Now that she had the first-grad-ers’ attention, she challenged them further.

“We tried to involve math; we’d graph it, how many books they’d read. Then we’d involve math skills: ‘You live here, and directions on how to get there,’” Betty said.

Year after year, it’s been a suc-cess.

THE VISITThe best part, though, always

comes at the end — both for stu-dent and cyclist/teacher.

Early each morning, Betty and her husband climb aboard their Treks, and start the hour-long ride to Ripon.

Then, about 10 minutes out, she’ll pause long enough to give the first parent a heads-up that they’ll be arriving soon. It’s the signal for the child to go wait outside for Mrs. Mortenson.

So, as she coasts the last 100 yards down the street, the eyes of each child begins to sparkle with excitement.

My teacher is coming!“It’s just amazing. I can still re-

member one boy literally jumping up and down: ‘It’s Mrs. Morten-son!’” she said. “I got him a book about trucks; that’s when he started jumping up and down.”

The visits follow a bit of a formula. The teacher chats with the student and introduces him to her bike. She then reaches into her bag,

and slowly withdraws a book that’s sure to be treasured.

Parents, teacher and student then visit for another 10 minutes, giving her a moment to connect with the family (and catch her breath).

“You get glasses of lemonade, water, treats; parents are always welcoming ... I encourage them that, if the children want to ride their bicycle, they can on the side-walk or on the driveway with me. They look forward to it,” Betty said. “... Sometimes you’ll visit some-body’s home, and they’ll bring out their puppy to show. Or I’ve visited home already and they’ll have an older sibling who’s had me [come out to visit].

“I love making that personal connection with a child outside of school and making that personal connection with a family. [The whole experience] spurns on that love of reading.”

PARENTS AGREEBetty isn’t the only one who has

believed in the benefits of biking with books.

Parents of students agree: it’s been a wonderful gift to her classes these past 10 years.

“The bike visits she makes, the thoughtfulness, time and effort it takes her to travel to every child’s home, really speaks to the type of teacher she is,” said Jessi Johnson, a fellow teacher — as well as mother of Addisyn, whom Betty visited two weekends ago. “First grade is such a critical year in reading de-velopment for all students, and her students were very lucky to have her as their educational guide.

“Her passion and dedication to her students and the profession will be missed as she enters retirement. She has a genuine heart and has left a lasting impression on all of the students she has taught.”

Jane Bradley, whose daughter, Ashley, is in Betty’s class, felt much the same way.

“Every year, the students in Mrs. Mortenson’s class become her children,” she said. “She goes above and beyond to motivate, inspire and care for them. We were blessed enough to have her teach our older two children and our only regret is that she is retiring before she could have had our younger three.”

Further amazing Jane was just how hard Betty works to ensure stu-dents get to enjoy this special treat.

“[Two] weekends [ago], she biked 62 miles in one day to visit six of her students,” Jane said. “And this weekend, she battled the wind, pouring rain and cold temperatures to accomplish the same but said it was all worth it to see how excited they were to see their teacher biking up the street to their house for a special visit.”

“Addisyn was so excited to have Mrs. Mortenson visit her at our house,” Jessi added. “She couldn’t wait to see what special book Mrs. Mortenson had picked out for her. Addisyn knows how much Mrs. Mortenson loves cycling, and she was so impressed that she was rid-ing from Rosendale to Ripon, Pick-ett, Green Lake and even Princeton to make special book deliveries.”

ONTO A NEW JOURNEYBut, this past weekend, Betty

made her final visit to students.Knowing one of her favorite

rites of spring were coming to a close was difficult for Betty.

“It’s bittersweet,” she said. “Even as I was planning this, I was thinking, ‘Oh, this is the last time I’m doing this!’

“I’ll still be active after I retire, do a lot of volunteer work in schools. So, it’s not a farewell, but it certainly will be different.”

It’s also far from the last time anyone will see this avid cyclist atop her bike. She and her husband are looking forward to planning a lengthy group ride, maybe down the East Coast in the fall, if it works out. Or, maybe through the South this winter, when the temperatures moderate down there.

“My goal is to ride in every state; we’ve peddled in 31 states [so far],” she said. “We do a lot of bicycle trips in large groups; a lot of them have been fund-raisers. Nothing [is planned] quite yet this summer ... Maybe something this fall ...

“There are a lot of roads I still could peddle on ... It’s just a great way to see the countryside ... [I can’t wait to] get out and see God’s country.”

Perhaps a student can deliver to Mrs. Mortenson’s house a book about national bike trails.

nication and external relations for ConAgra, confirmed with the Com-monwealth Monday evening that the company’s plans remain firm.

“The information we shared with employees two weeks ago is still ac-curate,” he said, explaining that while ConAgra is speaking with Local 91, it’s not a discussion about possibly keeping the plant. “We have had pro-ductive discussions with the unions representing Ripon West employees and we look forward to having open communication with employees once the details are finalized.”

Few others, however, have had direct contact with ConAgra.

Only Margaret Soda, head of hu-man resources for the Ripon plant, has been around to meet with local groups, representatives of those or-ganizations have said.

“Just our initial visit from ConAgra,” City Administrator Lori Rich said. “It was the HR person; she had stopped over at the chamber and here. It was on Wednesday, the 20th. [She told us] basically what they had told the employees; there was nothing new.”

“We have not heard anything further from ConAgra regarding the situation,” said Jason Mansmith, executive director of the Ripon Area Chamber of Commerce. “[Soda] just explained the situation and [what] the timeline was going to be as well.”

He added the future of Ripon’s cookie-themed festival that depends heavily on the cookie factory, Cookie Daze, is still being considered.

“I do have a cookie daze meeting coming up later this week,” he said. “They have committed to the 2015 Cookie Daze, but we’ll have further discussion coming up this week concerning this year and the future as well.”

FCEDC, meanwhile, is the only community organization that has had substantive talks with ConAgra since news broke of the planned closure of the west plant two weeks ago.

And the message Jenkins has re-ceived is consistent with everything that has come from ConAgra thus far.

“The closure had nothing to do with the facility or the community; it was a market-driven decision. Some

calls from city officials, Badger-land went from seeming to support financing the project to denying the loan.

Jason P. Gehring, an attorney with Milwaukee-based Kasdorf, Lewis & Swietlik, is working on responding to Boca’s counter-claim, while John Van Lieshout of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, Milwaukee, focuses on the city’s case against Boca Grande for not fulfilling its contracted rehabilita-tion plan downtown.

“It’s in the discovery phase of the case, which means both par-ties have the opportunity to work on sifting through the facts, and part of that is depositions,” said Lud Wurtz, Ripon’s city attorney who is acting as a liaison between the city and the firms working on the Boca cases. “They’re in the process of scheduling it and de-positions to parties to the action.” A deposition is an out-of-court interview with a witness.

Asked to characterize who is being deposed, Wurtz answered, “city employees ... and other re-lated parties.”

He added that Gehring “rep-resents the city because of the counter-claim, which is against Gary Will and Steve Barg.”

Gehring, according to his on-line biography, is a native of Heidelberg, Germany, who “is a shareholder in the Milwaukee office. His area of practice is civil litigation, with a focus on insur-ance defense, insurance coverage, municipal law and school law.”

“He is in the process of evalu-ating how to move forward [with the counter-claim], specifically whether Mr. Will and Mr. Barg should be in it at all,” Wurtz said.

Asked about a rumored 1,000 page document that is a part of Boca’s counter-claim, Wurtz ac-knowledged its existence, noting, “That’s related to the discovery. Part of what’s being looked at is all written and all other com-munication and other forms of communication that may have a bearing on the case.”

For now, Wurtz noted, the focus is on the counter-claim and the discovery phase for it.

“Both sides are working on gaining new information about their case; specifically Boca has scheduled a number of deposi-tions that are almost complete,” he said. “... The discovery phase is very important and I think will help both sides better evaluate the merits of their claims.”

ASHLEY BRADLEY, LEFT, peeks in a bag for the book teacher Betty Mortenson brought her. Ian Stepleton photo

ADDISYN JOHNSON rides just ahead of her teacher, Betty Mortenson, near the student’s home in Ripon. Andrew Stepleton photo

ADDISYN JOHNSON, RIGHT, grins up at her teacher, Betty Mortenson, as she’s invited to go for a bike ride. Ian Stepleton photo

of the factors in it, quite frankly, was the wave of healthy eating across America, and they’re eating less of the product,” he said. “They were going to have to invest some money into the facility to meet their food production standards, and with the declining market, which had dropped 50 percent for that product and the pending improvements ... it was a business decision to close that facility and relocate to another facility that already is producing that product.

“I can understand that; it’s a cost decision, a market decision. It’s happening more and more across America across different sectors. Our goal now is how to place another ten-ant into that facility.”

Since that conversation, that’s been FCEDC’s focus.

“One of the things we’re working on right now with the state is to try to identify some training funds to help those workers move into other [busi-nesses],” Jenkins said. “Some may be suitable to go into Alliance [Laundry Systems in Ripon, which has been hiring], but they would have to be re-trained ... Going to something that is much more demanding in terms of skills. We’re looking to see if we can find some training money to help that transition.

“Some, unfortunately, will prob-ably find employment opportuni-ties outside Ripon or Fond du lac County.”

He added it’s too soon to consider what might happen to the cookie facility after ConAgra leaves in December.

“They’re not prepared to start entertaining questions about who would be interested in the facility ...,” Jenkins said, noting a suitor likely would have to come from the food-production industry because of the nature of the factory. “It’s got some unique characteristics that may not meet everyone’s needs.”

Union officials, meanwhile, keep hoping the situation can be changed.

“The union has more hope the amount of support we can get from the area [could help] keep the factory open,” Gillis said. “We just started conversations, so everything is open right now. We are talking about it.”

CONAGRA/Future Cookie Daze decision near continued from page 1

BOCA/Sides busy with de-positions for case continued from page 1

BIKE/Teacher looks forward to more cycling continued from page 1

Thursday, March 5, 2015 - Page 1

Single copy — $1Thursday, February 26, 2015 Ripon, WI 54971


2011Wisconsin WeeklyNewspaperof theYear

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INSIDE

Our Views

Within reachWhat did the Tigers do in the first round of regionals Tuesday night? Exorcised a few demons at an opponent’s expense.

See page 14

BottleneckedThere’s a plan in place to improve the pick-up situation at Murray Park school, but will it work for the busses?

See page 10

Sports

Business

Time to learnAll of us can use the bumpy hiring process for the football coach as a learning opportunity.

See page 4

Stolen Shanties takenSeveral fishing shanties around the area have been reported stolen, with a suspect vehicle now being sought.

See page 3

‘Welcome to the team!’Recycling bin deal may mean move to single-stream

Ripon College’s

Changing FaCeRC administrators tell merchants:

Students are changing; we must adaptby Ian Stepleton

[email protected]

The student body at Ripon Col-lege likely will look a little different in years to come. Ensuring this more diverse group of students can enjoy its experience here will require a team approach between the college com-munity and local businesses.

That’s one of the messages two Ripon College administrators sent last week Thursday evening at the Ripon Chamber of Commerce/Ripon Main Street annual dinner.

Chris Ogle, vice president and dean of students, and Jen Machacek, vice president for enrollment, were

the keynote speakers for the program. Each touched on how important

it is that the business community and the college work hand-in-glove with each other, and the added significance that will take as the student body evolves in the coming years.

It’s a relationship the college and students already value, Ogle said, offer-ing a story about an international stu-dent from China whom he spoke with after her first days on campus last fall.

“[I asked her], ‘How’s it going so far?’ ... She’s got a smile on her face and says, ‘Let me tell you. I had some free time so I went downtown, and

Coaching kerfuffle doesn’t derail hiring of Hubanksby Ian Stepleton

[email protected]

The Tiger football team got its man last week Friday.

After two meetings and an unusu-ally dramatic hiring process, Ronell Hubanks was hired that afternoon to fill the head coaching post vacated last fall by Ripon High School teacher Mike Yoder.

At the special School Board meet-ing, six board members voted unani-mously, and with nearly no comment, to hire the Omro man.

“I’m sorry this process went the way it did,” School Board member Andy Lyke said, offering the only

comments from the board. “We ap-preciate the work the committee did to have a great candidate, and I’m glad we can move forward today to finalize this.”

A commu-nity member, Chris Kropp, spoke up at the meeting as well.

“I wanted to thank the board for acting on this so quickly after what happened, and I wanted thank the interview committee for coming up with a wonderful candidate,” he said.

“And I want to thank our candi-date for his patience,” Superintendent Mary Whitrock added.

After the unanimous vote, Hu-banks received a strong round of applause, as well as a few parting gifts from Ripo-nite Todd Elliott.

“Of course, ‘Coach’ needs a football T-shirt to go home and

start working out and get ready for Ripon,” he said in giving him a shirt, hat and Tiger memorabilia for his family.

Despite the bumpy hiring process, Hubanks was gracious about being given the opportunity to join the Tiger team.

“It’s been a long process ...,” he said. “This is where God wanted me to be. I appreciate all the support; I appreciate everybody contacting me. I’m eager to get started and start working with these young men.

“I’m not just teaching them foot-ball, but about life lessons in general. I always tell people, I grew up rough, and I want to show them how to live life the right way. You don’t have to struggle, whether it be on the field


Bottled water became the drink du jour in the village of Brandon for four days this past week after a water main break led to concerns of contamination in the water system.

But, when testing revealed the water to be safe, the boil order required by the Wisconsin DNR – which had been in place since last week Thursday morning – was lifted Sunday morning.

Boil order lifted in Brandon following water main break

“We got out of the boil notice this morning at about 9:30,” said Vance Henning, head of the village’s department of public works.

According to Henning, tests were done at 10 different points around Brandon Saturday and Sunday, with none of the tests coming back posi-tive for cloriform bacteria.

“Because of the drop in pressure ... it was just a precaution,” Henning said. “You do it because you want to protect the people.”

When water pressure drops too

low, it’s possible for contamination to seep into the pipes. Last week, the water main break at the corners of Prairie and Bowen streets led to a dramatic drop in the level of the village’s water tower.

“We had a huge water main break, and the pressure in our system dropped below DNR standards so the DNR is putting us on a water boil advisory,” said Brandon Police Chief Tom Dornbrook, who was

CLAPPING AS NEW coach Ronell Hubanks shakes hands with Vice Principal Rick Bunge, right, are, from left, Todd Elliott, Rob Finley and Bob Button. Ian Stepleton photo

“This is where God want-ed me to be ... I’m eager

to get started and start working with these young men.”

Coach Ronell Hubanks

VILLAGE OF BRANDON public works crews tear up the road around the corner of Bowen and Prairie streets after a serious water main break in the community last week. Jonathan Bailey photo


Ald. Annette Klein feels strong-ly Ripon should switch to single-stream recycling.

That’s the recycling program in which residents would throw all recyclables — plastic, paper, metal and glass — into a single bin without sorting.

“I would like to do something for our citizens and for the envi-ronment,” she said at Monday’s Common Council meeting. “... I think it would be very beneficial.”

How important is this idea to Klein?

She’d pay out of her own pocket to make it happen.

“If we were to move forward with this, I would give my entire [aldermanic] pay to the project,” Klein said.

That might not be necessary.An overabundance of 65-gal-

lon, upright recycling bins up north could mean Ripon might receive an entire city’s worth of bins for almost nothing.

“We can have those for the cost of shipping them from Green Bay, which they estimated [would cost] $500 to $600, and then have city workers apply the Advanced Disposal stickers on them … and distribute them,” City Engineer Travis Drake said. “... There’s about 2,500 cans – that’s what it takes to get one to everybody in the city.”

This would be a deal for the city of Ripon. Obtaining new contain-ers could cost the city more than $100,000 otherwise – a cost that would either need to be picked up by the city budget or be passed along to taxpayers.

Under the single-stream sys-

See BIN/ page 13

See COLLEGE/ page 13

See COACHING/ back page

See BREAK/ back pageJEN MACHACEK AND Chris Ogle, administrators at Ripon College, speak to members of the chamber. Ian Stepleton photo

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tem, residents would be required to put all recyclables into the single container, which then would be dumped by an automated system by Advanced Disposal. Currently, Ad-vanced Disposal manually dumps Ripon’s green totes into the truck; single-stream recycling would mean the truck would need just one person to run it, as opposed to two now.

“[The single-stream bins] are about 15 inches square and about 3 foot high; I’m sure you’ve seen them out in other communities,” Drake said.

“It’s a bigger container … A bigger container is a no-brainer for a four, five person family,” City At-torney Lud Wurtz said.

Ald. Joel Brockman, though, questioned whether it will be big enough.

“ I put out three or four bins out by the street … Could you get a larger bin?” he asked.

“[I told] Advanced Disposal, some people are putting out sev-eral containers; that would still fill those [65-gallon bins],” Drake said. “He said, ‘Well, we can always get more.’”

The question remains,though, whether residents would use the new bins.

“The guy who runs the gar-bage truck gets really put off by how many recy-clables are going into that hopper, and you don’t see them until the can is dump-ing. And it’s been getting worse a n d w o r s e ,” Drake said. “I think sometimes they’ll put out a couple bins and then they get full and, ‘Oh well, there’s no room left’ and it goes in the garbage. Sometimes it’s they just don’t want to put out the effort, and single-stream won’t make a difference with that.”

City Attorney Lud Wurtz, though, noted the city does have the ability to penalize residents who are not complying with recycling regulations.

“There is available to the city options to penalize by citation anyone who violates the recycling ordinance …,” he said. “I think it’s important everybody understands the next step if we don’t have com-pliance would be citations.”

If the city opts to obtain the bins from Green Bay, a little extra effort on the city’s part may be necessary as the containers would need to be shipped in, and then someone would need to apply new stickers to them to mark them as being “Advanced Disposal” bins.

Aldermen suggested that, if the city goes forward with the plan, lo-cal service groups might be asked to help with some of the effort.

Given the cost savings of this option, aldermen appeared to be leaning toward accepting Advanced

Disposal’s offer, though Ald. Al Schraeder cautioned the city make sure the switch wouldn’t cause any unforeseen problems.

“Personally, I’m not prepared to act. I think we need to look at what the cost to truck these things is actually going to be …,” he said, adding the bins will need to be stored somewhere in Ripon before they can be distributed. “If you’ve got 2,500 65-gallon [containers] you’re going to need somewhere to put them ... I understand that under the graciousness of Green Bay there may be other offers out there, so we are going to have to move on this pretty quickly, but it would be interesting to see what an estimate of those costs would be for the entire project.”

Brockman agreed that “Moving quickly might be our best option, so I ask that this be an action item at our next meeting.”

City leaders also noted Monday recycling could become less lucra-tive than it has been in the past for the community.

“There’s been a rumor in the governor’s budget that there’s going to be significant reductions in the re-cycling funds coming to municipali-ties for recycling programs; have we heard if that’s picking up any steam

or what impact that’s going to have?” Schraed-er said. “Will that impact the single-stream re-cycling program that we currently have?”

“Three years ago, I believe, we were getting about $40,000 in aid from the recycling grant, and that’s based on meeting the state’s require-ment for how much we are re-quired to recycle and a few other things,” Drake said. “At that time it was cut

back by a third; these days, the maximum we can get is $26,000 to $28,000. The rumor I heard is 50 percent, so you’re talking a loss of potentially $14,000 and you will still be required to meet the tonnage per citizen.”

The council will discuss the concept again at its first meeting in March, with any cost likely com-ing out of the city’s undesignated funds — unless, of course, Klein says otherwise.

“This is wonderful news, and I will pay the $500, if that is what it is, to ship them down here … I fig-ure that’s the least I can do because I really believe in this,” she said Monday, eliciting a good-natured barb from Brockman.

“What,” he said. “Are you the lady who didn’t collect the lottery winnings?”

one of the business owners down-town took me in, helped me out and said if I ever need anything just stop by, and gave me a big hug,” Ogle said. “And she smiled and looked around the room and said, ‘I just love Ripon’ ... It really speaks to the importance of the community and the college need-ing to be on the same page.”

That kind of warm relationship will be key, he and Machacek ex-plained, as the student body becomes more diverse.

“The challenge in the admissions world right now is demographics have shifted dramatically, especially in the upper Midwest, which is our bread and butter,” Machacek said. “... In the past, the Fox Valley was a huge hub for us. We still get great kids from the Fox Valley, just not as many of them because there are not that many available to us ...

“That means we spend a lot more time in bigger cities ... We spend a lot of time in Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Denver and so forth. These populations: they’ve really shifted ethnicity-wise. So you’re seeing high populations of Hispanic students, African American students.”

That makes a difference both in how the college and community caters to the students, as well as en-suring they’re treated in an equitable fashion, Machacek explained.

“What they value is a little differ-ent than what our Caucasian students value ...,” she said. “... Sometimes it’s just a little harder to attract those students to a small, rural area.”

Ogle noted current, non-Cauca-sian students sometimes have felt extra scrutiny due to the color of their skin.

“Sometimes, but not often, I do hear in particular from our African American students that they feel a little bit uncomfortable sometimes,” Ogle said. “Perhaps they are being watched a little more, followed a little more in our businesses. They feel re-ally uncomfortable about that ... They want to feel just as much a part of the community as everyone else.”

That, however, isn’t the only challenge Ripon College’s admis-sions office is facing when it comes to marketing the Ripon community,

Machacek added.Being a small town, Ripon does

not offer as diverse a business selec-tion as some other, larger communi-ties do.

“Students ... are not buying into a campus but into an entire envi-ronment and what they are looking for,” Machacek said, explaining off-campus opportunities are a selling point for students as they commit to a community for four years.

And, sometimes, Ripon falls short by this yardstick, she explained.

“They don’t see [the Ripon com-munity] as being as vibrant as they do with other, competitor schools they’re looking at,” Machacek said. “So, sometimes they see stores that are sitting vacant — and I know, we’re working on all those things right now. Or maybe it’s not as big of a night life as other schools, and you know college students: it’s all about the nightlife and they don’t start moving until 11 o’clock at night.”

“Students told me recently that, and I know this is difficult, but stu-dents get going a lot of times about

the time businesses downtown shut down ...,” Ogle said. “I hear that every year, ‘I wish there were more places open later at night when we have more free time.’”

“And, of course, their parents are also saying, ‘We also want to make sure you are very employable, so what kind of work experience and internships do you have as well?’” Machacek added. “So those kinds of partnerships between the college and the city are so important to us.”

That being said, both she and Ogle noted there may be ways to bring town and gown closer beyond just providing a welcoming atmosphere or offering later hours.

“We currently are in negotiations ... to be going to a more sophisticated [student ID card] system that’s called a ‘OneCard’ system that’s going to allow students to use it on vending machines [and other places],” Ogle said. “There are other colleges that have had great success partnering with businesses in the community that ... where this card then can be

used to make purchases in the com-munity.”

In this scenario, parents would load the card with cash that then could be used at downtown mer-chants.

Both he and Machacek also strongly encouraged merchants to utilize social media — a tool students utilize heavily — to communicate to the young adults.

“The thing that our students said the most is, make sure the people at this meeting understand that we com-municate in a different way than they used to, and it’s through social media ...,” Ogle said.

Regardless, both administrators emphasized how important it is for the college and community to con-tinue having a strong bond going forward.

“We really value the relationships we can have with you, how we can work better to not only market the college but the city itself,” Machacek said.

BIN/Decision likely will be made in March continued from page 1

RIPON COLLEGE PROFESSOR Mary Avery, right, encourages business owners to take advantage of college students as interns in their businesses. Ian Stepleton photo

COLLEGE/Students plead for more social media continued from page 1

RECYCLE BINS, similar to the one shown in the foreground, could be used in Ripon in the near future for single-stream recycling. Advanced Disposal image

Documents

WNA entry for Ripon Commonwealth Press: Reporting on Local Education