ALUMNI

Girls on the Run: Alumna at helm of growing nonprofit

IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT SOMEONE looks at a job description and decides it’s a perfect fit.

But that’s what happened to Tina Jones, who earned her MS from the School of Education’s Administrative Leadership program, when a friend of a friend told her about a staff position at an organization called Girls on the Run.

“When I read through what the program was, it was kind of like my ‘aha’ moment, finally feeling this is what I want to do with my life,” says Jones.

Jones has been with Girls on the Run since 2012, helping the organization expand from 200 girls to more than 2,000 in southeastern Wisconsin. She is now executive director.

At the time she heard about the position, she was the mother of three, an active volunteer in her children’s schools and a dedicated runner herself. A former All-American gymnast and triathlete, she’d taken up running to continue her athletic involvement.

Jones had worked with her school’s PTO to create the Cupcake Run, a 5K event, as a way to bring the community together to promote health and wellness. “I had planned runs, but I had never been truly in the nonprofit world and I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so there was really a big learning curve,” she says.

The mission of Girls on the Run is empowering young girls from third through eighth grades through life lessons to become “joyful, healthy and confident.”

The girls take part in 20 sessions. “What I love about this organization is that we are there to build strong girls and look at the whole girl,” Jones says. “It’s not just the physical component of things, it’s the emotional component and the social component.”

The first lessons focus on helping the girls see themselves as special and unique, and helping them understand peer pressure and bullying and how to talk about and deal with those issues. “Once the girls have talked about themselves and why they’re special, then the talk moves into why you need to be kind and appreciate the uniqueness of others,” says Jones.

And yes, she adds, there is running, but the organization – despite the name – is more about the journey and working hard toward an end goal.

Although the sessions end with a joyful 5K run to celebrate

their accomplishments, “they don’t have to be star runners to be in the program. The run at the end teaches the girls about setting goals and having to put in hard work to reach their goals, but we want them to understand that physical activity should be part of their everyday life. It’s about the whole picture, health and wellness.”

Her 2005 master’s degree in administrative leadership has provided a foundation for what she is doing now, says Jones. Her day-to-day work involves managing a growing organization, working with companies, foundations and other nonprofits to help build awareness of issues in the youth development arena, and working on ways to collaborate and connect in the community, engage volunteers and raise funds to help build strong girls.

“What I love about this organization is that we are there to build strong girls and look at the whole girl.”

“I really had a great experience at UWM. It was one of those things that I didn’t know exactly at the time what all I was going to do with it, but to have those building blocks and the support from the professors was great. It was a great learning environment, and the leadership skills I learned as well as the understanding about how to create a strong and positive environment in the workplace has helped me grow Girls on the Run of Southeastern Wisconsin into the growing nonprofit it is today."

Once a high school dropout, grad inspires MPS students to achieve

JAMES SOKOLOWSKI WORKS HARD TO get more students to go to college. It’s a role he embraces more than two decades after he dropped out of high school at age 16.

Sokolowski manages the M3 Early College program, which allows Milwaukee Public Schools high school students to earn college credit at UWM and Milwaukee Area Technical College. M3 (pronounced M-cubed) is a multifaceted collaboration of those three organizations, and among its many goals are boosting student achievement and closing the equity gap in educational attainment.

Sokolowski’s story has the power to motivate students. He returned to school to get a GED diploma and eventually graduated magna cum laude from UWM in 2007 with bachelor’s degrees in Africology as well as educational policy and community studies. He earned a master’s degree in sociology from UWM two years later.

Along the way, he fought to overcome financial hardship and wrestled with personal issues. He’s open about such struggles with his students because so many of them are experiencing similar things.

“If I wouldn’t have gone the path that I went,” he says, “I couldn’t connect to students in the way that I do.”

Sokolowski benefited from UWM’s McNair Program, which is designed to increase the number of students from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds in graduate studies.

“That program really changed my life,” Sokolowski says. “I was a good student, but that program really put me on a trajectory to be a scholar.”

He’s worked at MPS since 2012, with a particular focus on promoting college awareness and readiness, making him a natural fit for the M3 Early College program. And sometimes, students get a glimpse of the former hip-hop musician’s other talents.

At a May 2019 celebration for the program’s inaugural 32 graduates— attended by UWM Chancellor Mark Mone, MPS Superintendent Keith Posley and MATC President Vicki Martin—Sokolowski closed the ceremony by performing a spoken-word piece titled “GED to Graduate Degrees.” Both he and his students earned rousing ovations.

Sokolowski shared his story to motivate students he works with.

Called to be a teacher: From corporate world to classroom

WHEN HE WAS EARNING HIS undergraduate degree in business and working in the corporate world, Jeff Stempniewski sometimes thought about finding work that was more meaningful to him.

The chance to find a new career came disguised as bad news—he lost his job. His wife went back to work full time while he became the stay-at-home parent for six and a half years, raising their three children, now 13, 11 and 10.

With the encouragement of their church the Stempniewskis had been fostering children, and had adopted their two younger children from the Milwaukee County foster care system.

As he stayed home with the children, “I realized what I wanted to do with my life,” says Stempniewski. “As I was making a difference parenting my own children, I wanted to make a difference in other children’s lives.”

In working with his own children and volunteering as a camp counselor for foster children, he began to recognize the special needs of children who are misunderstood and having a hard time in school, and determined to do more to help those who were struggling. In 2014, he became a substitute teacher and paraprofessional in MPS, working in special education. At the same time, he was coaching his own children’s and other teams, and he found himself talking to many students about concerns beyond sports.

“As I was making a difference parenting my own children, I wanted to make a difference in other children’s lives.”

“I really thought I was called to do this,” he says of his decision to come to UWM to earn his master’s degree in special

education, focusing on students in the middle childhood/early adolescence age group.

“It’s really all about training our kids to be successful,” he says. Many of the students he’s worked with over the years at both the foster camp and in classrooms really need someone to mentor them and encourage them. At the Royal Family Kids camp where he volunteers, for example, he feels he and the other counselors and leaders are really making a difference in children’s lives. “It’s amazing to see what a positive impact we can make in a child’s life for only one week.”

The decision to complete the degree was a challenging one financially for the family, especially after his wife left her teaching job. Since his work helping run the camp is volunteer, he couldn’t count on income from a summer job.

Then in 2018, Stempniewski received the second Love Kindness award. That, along with other scholarships, helped him complete his degree and continue his commitment to helping others. “Sometimes students need help in envisioning a future that really focuses on their fullest potential.”

Mike Robertson, an ordained minister, founded the Love Kindness award in 2017 as a way of honoring and supporting students who were making a difference in the community.

The name Love Kindness comes from a passage in the Bible’s Book of Micah, which advises that what the Lord requires of people is to “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly.”

After graduating and receiving his master’s degree in December 2019, Stempniewski became a middle school special education teacher at St. Augustine Preparatory Academy on Milwaukee’s south side and continues his focus on helping struggling students succeed.

“I feel I’m called to be a teacher, and I’m here because of Mike Robertson and other donors like him.”

Award winning teacher has a passion for science

AMY ZIENTEK, A UWM ALUM who teaches science at Greendale High School, was honored with the 2019 Celebrate Teachers and Teaching Award in October 2019. This year’s award focused on “Fostering 21st Century Learning.” Teachers were judged on their ability to be forward thinking, embrace change and facilitate innovative learning that integrates the use of technology.

This is the seventh year for the awards, which are sponsored by the Education Deans of Greater Milwaukee (EDGM).

Zientek earned her bachelor’s degree from UWM in biology and chemistry in 2003; her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction in 2007; and her doctorate in curriculum and instruction in 2014.

“Amy has developed into a world-class teacher as she has a never-ending thirst for exploring better ways to teach,” said Craig Berg, professor of science teacher education. He has known Zientek since she first enrolled in the UWM MACSTEP science education program. “She has a zest to engage in continued growth by locating and enrolling in many professional development projects, then incorporating innovative teaching strategies in her classroom,” he added. “She is a teacher, scholar and intrepid explorer in the field of education – a top one-percenter in my mind, a quiet humble force who is so deserving of this recognition.”

Zientek has developed ongoing partnerships with local colleges and universities, including UWM, to bring new experiences and scientists into her classrooms. Among them is the WInSTEP program and a for-credit teacher education class.

“The WInSTEP program has just been phenomenal in helping the students get real-life experience,” she said. “We’ve had some really great outreach. I have worked with some really great teams both at the university and high school level.”

WInSTEP (Wisconsin InquiryBased Scientist-Teacher Education Partnership) creates partnerships among researchers, teachers, schools, museums, science centers and others. The focus is getting more students involved in doing classroom research with an environmental health focus. This year, for example, Zientek’s AP bio classes have joined up with UWM and Concordia University Wisconsin to study zebrafish embryos, looking at the impact of drugs on the developing embryos.

She has also teamed up with UWM’s School of Education to help students interested in teaching earn college credit. Similar programs are available for core

content area, she said. “Why couldn’t students earn credit for a career path if they’re passionate about it?”

Working with Berg, she designed a course that helped students who wanted to be teachers earn credit. Last year, 10 students took part and two are now in UWM’s School of Education. “He was instrumental in forming a partnership that allowed students at Greendale to participate in a virtual classroom experience.”

Zientek is a believer in lifelong learning. Although she’s busy with three daughters of her own, she tries to take advantage of professional development opportunities offered through local universities.

“What I took away from them — outside of content knowledge to share with my students — was kids really have to be doing things. You can’t talk to them; you have to let them experience. Like with the WInSTEP program, let them actually see what happens to these embryos and draw their own conclusions.” With her aspiring teachers, she makes sure they get a chance to design lesson plans and go into classrooms and teach. “I can talk about environmental health awareness and talk about what it’s like to be a teacher, but until you’re in it, you really don’t appreciate the passion that can grow from it.”

Schuyler Ramsey at a playground in the center of the neighborhood.

Student working to make a difference in his neighborhood

SCHUYLER RAMSEY, WHO EARNED HIS bachelor’s degree in community engagement and education from UWM, is taking what he learned in the classroom back to his neighborhood.

For the second straight year, Ramsey, 28, who started on a master’s degree in community education this fall, organized a neighborhood cleanup and block party in September in the area around Benjamin Franklin School on West Nash Street on Milwaukee’s north side. He’s planning to do it again this coming fall.

“My goal is to bring what I learn back to my community,” said Ramsey, who works part time in UWM’s TRIO & Pre-College programs office as an administrative program assistant. Through that office, he’s been able to go to a number of conferences, including a 2018 national service learning conference.

In 2018, when he was first inspired to do a neighborhood project, he asked people in the area what issues they would like to see addressed. In the 53206 ZIP code, there were many, including reckless driving, drugs and poverty.

Ramsey decided to start with something focused and doable. “I had a few issues to choose from, but I kind of wanted to start small, and that’s where the community cleanup idea came from.”

Drawing on what he’d learned in his UWM community education classes about organizing, he went door to door around West Capitol Drive, North 27th Street and West Keefe Avenue telling people about the project and inviting them to join in.

The 2018 “Sweep the Streets” community cleanup and block party attracted several hundred mostly local residents, who worked with volunteers from MPS and others to fill a dumpster full of trash.

In 2019, with backing from BLOC (Black Leaders Organizing for Change), the event expanded and continued, with a theme of mental health.

“I named it a cleanup and block party,” said Ramsey. “However, I definitely want to educate the community. I kind of like catching them by surprise with all the educational stuff.”

Before he came to UWM, Ramsey’s original career goal was to become a firefighter. He earned his associate degree from MATC in firefighting, but when he finished, the fire department wasn’t hiring.

April Holland, executive director of the TRIO & Pre-College programs where Ramsey has worked for five years in the Future Success program, describes him as a “phenomenal asset” to the program.

“Schuyler inspires each of us daily through his words of encouragement and positive attitude. He displays a strong belief that education is important, an education is priceless, and demonstrates daily for our students that no matter what the obstacles we encounter each day, an education is your

key to living a successful life.”

Agnes Williams, a senior lecturer in Educational Policy and Community Studies, was Ramsey’s advisor during some of his undergraduate years and stays in touch with him.

“For the past five years, Schuyler Ramsey has shared not only his passion of becoming a community change agent, but also his actual community engagement activities (rehabbing urban houses, church involvements) to improve the living conditions of urban residents,” she said. “Schuyler believes that community organizing allows residents to reclaim their living spaces and produce positive change.”

Ramsey knows the value of education. He chose the date for the 2019 event because it is his own little brother’s birthday. Stephan, who died two years ago, was the one who encouraged Ramsey to continue his education. Another inspiration, he said, was Jacarrie Carr, a student in community education who founded Jacarrie’s Kicks for Kids while still an undergraduate.

Ramsey grew up in the neighborhood and still lives there. While the media focuses on poverty and crime, he sees hope. “Growing up in 53206 psyched me in a way because you see the good and the bad. I definitely know what’s going on….it doesn’t shock me. It makes me more eager to help make improvements. A lot of people want to move away, but I love it here. My goal is one little thing at a time.”

Ramsey has just started a tutoring and mentoring business, is thinking about organizing a forensics club, and eventually plans to go into politics. He’s encouraging the young people he knows to get involved and vote. “I’m young and I’m still learning, but I know I can make a change.”

Reconnecting with UWM

ANDY MEYER FOUND OUT THAT a little flexibility can go a long way in building a career.

He came to UWM to study German, and ended up with a degree in secondary education, focusing on English as a second language (ESL).

“I had four years of high school German and decided I wanted to do some German courses at UWM,” says Meyer. He had some great professors in the German Department but had always been interested in education, he adds. “I’ve had a fascination with English grammar, and then I ran into people who were here for ESL. I took a look at the program and decided this is what I should be doing.”

Meyer, who has returned to Milwaukee after a long career in Maryland as a community college administrator, now serves on the School of Education’s Board of Visitors. But UWM laid the foundation for his future, he says. UWM’s flexibility came into play when Meyer decided he wanted to do his ESL student teaching in Germany. “UWM at the time didn’t have the mechanism in place to do the placement in Germany.” The late Don Newman, then department chair, told him: “You know, Andy, you’re asking for something that doesn’t exist.”

“To me, it really didn’t make sense to deny someone the opportunity to do student teaching abroad,” recalls Meyer. With the help of the associate dean of education, the chance to study abroad was worked out.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in secondary education from UWM and was certified as an ESL teacher (Wisconsin was one of the first states to offer this certification). He moved to Baltimore to teach in an English as a Second Language program. About that time, the University of Maryland, College Park began offering a master’s program in ESL, and Meyer decided to take advantage of it. Faculty there were impressed with the background he already had from UWM, he recalls. “They told me, ‘basically you’ve already had many of the courses we offer at the undergraduate level.’”

At the community college he enjoyed teaching ESL classes with adult students from all over the world, and later supervising the teachers and coordinating programs as an administrator. He also wrote extensively about community colleges and workforce development.

Meyer eventually earned another master’s degree and a doctorate in adult education from Teachers College at Columbia University. He spent much of his career as a senior administrator at Anne Arundel Community College in Annapolis. From 2012 to 2014, he served on the implementation team of the American Association of Community Colleges’ 21st Century Initiatives. From 2012 to 2019, he served as vice president of workforce development at the League for Innovation in the Community College based in Phoenix.

In March 2020, he received the ETS O’Banion Prize at the League for Innovation in the Community College’s Innovations conference.

Although he is still connected to Anne Arundel as vice president for learning emeritus, he semi-retired and returned to his hometown a few years ago.

“I’m a native and I have seven brothers and a sister here, and I was the only one not living here for all those years.”

He enjoys spending time with his nieces and nephews, and does some consulting and volunteer work. Those interests led him full circle back to UWM to join the School of Education’s Board of Visitors.

“It’s been so wonderful to reconnect with the UWM; I feel like I’m giving back.”