ENHANCING ACCESS TO EDUCATION

MAKING THE LIBERAL ARTS ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

Aliberal arts education can spur a monumental shift in the course of one’s life.

But for many seeking a college education, there are significant barriers to that dream: family finances, lack of family background in higher education, ethnicity and identity, and physical and learning disabilities.

Ripon College has long focused on removing those barriers — granting financial assistance to 100% of our students; graduating a higher-than-average number of first-generation students, meaning neither of their parents have earned a four-year degree; and providing access to undergraduate research and collaboration with professors.

The current first-year class has 22% ethnic diversity, 39% are first-generation and 35% are Pell Grant-eligible, for those from lowerincome households.

Recent national conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education make this attention even more critical. Ripon is re-thinking and enhancing access to ensure a liberal arts education is achievable for the best and brightest students who would benefit the most from our personalized education. Each student should succeed, not only at Ripon College, but also in their careers and in life.

Amari Poe ’25 of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is receiving assistance through the recently established Richard V. and Frances S. Dietrich Trust Scholarship, established in the names of the parents of Professor Emeritus of Music Kurt Dietrich and his siblings.

Ripon helps students fund their liberal arts education

“Paying for college is definitely a concern for the families that we work with in the recruitment process,” says Jennifer Machacek, vice president for enrollment. “Students and parents not only want to find the ‘best fit’ for their final college decision but they also want to make sure they have selected an affordable option.

“Affordability is a top priority for the College, and we strive to have competitive scholarships and aggressive financial aid packages to offer our families. We also strongly promote our four-year graduate guarantee which seems to resonate well with students.”

Ripon offers a variety of need-based and non-need-based aid as well as self-help aid such as work study and loans. For the 2021-2022 academic year, degree-seeking, enrolled Ripon students were awarded more than $37 million including state, federal, institutional and private aid.

Currently, more than 780 students receive aid, with some students receiving aid from more than one source:

•Merit: 681 unduplicated students awarded more than $17.4 million

•140 endowed funds: 504 duplicated students awarded more than $1.9 million

•22 funds in institutional grants, matching funds, tuition remission, military benefits, Local Commitment

Award: 975 duplicated students awarded more than $6 million

•15 Continuing Student Scholarships: 85 students awarded more than $262,000 • Unlimited number of outside scholarships, tuition remission benefits, military benefits: more than 200 possibly duplicated students awarded more than $1.39 million

•Seven state grants: 407 duplicated students, awarded more than $1.2 million

In addition, during the past academic year about 330 students earned more than $450,000 in work-study jobs on campus to help pay for expenses associated with their cost of attendance.

“The Office of Financial Aid is committed to providing our students with high-quality service and robust financial assistance,” says Linda Kinzinger, director of financial aid. “We strive to ensure high economic and educational value per every dollar spent by and for our students. We work with our students and their families to understand their needs, their backgrounds and their goals so that we can help make their education affordable.

“We work tirelessly on our students’ behalf and advocate for additional resources both within the institution as well as within the state and federal systems so that we can provide additional funding. We understand how important it is for students to be able to afford their education. We are thankful for all of the outside help that is given for scholarships for our students as we see daily how important the financial constraints on students can be.”

Laneah Curtis ’25 of Kenosha, Wisconsin, has benefited from the Conforti and Chemerow Scholarship, recently established by Doreen Conforti Chemerow ’73 and her husband, David I. Chemerow.

Maricarmen Dorantes ’25 of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, received a scholarship to attend Ripon through the Franzen/Cristo Rey Endowed Scholarship, established by Mark Franzen ’83 and Janice Heinz Franzen ’83.

Bailey Zanck ’22 of New Berlin, Wisconsin, explains artifacts on display in the historic Pedrick House in Ripon. Zanck helped curate an exhibit during an internship with the Ripon Historical Society.

Natalie Davies ’24 of Cedar Grove, Wisconsin, worked with Professor of Biology Memuna Khan to band and study American bluebirds on the Bluebird Trail Project in and around Ripon.

Dean of Faculty John Sisko at the SOAR picnic.

Students SOAR with new research opportunities

For decades, Ripon has held a rich tradition of collaborative undergraduate research with professors that encourages students to consider professional career trajectories and prepare them for graduate and professional education.

This has been particularly strong in the sciences such as biology and chemistry, which have dedicated funding and earned grants to support this type of work.

To expand these opportunities to students in all disciplines, Ripon launched the Summer Opportunity for Advanced Research (SOAR) program in the summer of 2021. Thirty-six students and 20 faculty members participated. Twelve academic disciplines were represented, including areas outside of the natural sciences such as political science, philosophy, museum studies, art and computer science.

Many SOAR participants were supported by funds that generous donors established for student research in a variety of fields. In 2021, these funds included the Franzen Student Summer Research Endowment, the Scott Endowed Student/Faculty Research Fund, the Kirkland Faculty/Student Research Endowment, the Biology Field Study Fund, the Oyster Scholarship and Research Fund, the Nieder Research Fund for Physics, and the Kohnen Chemistry Research Fund.

“SOAR provides opportunities for students to engage in collaborative research and creative activities together with Ripon College faculty scholars,” says John Sisko, vice president and dean of faculty. “One of Ripon’s goals is to advance knowledge in all realms, so we need to open summer research to include all disciplines. It plays into what is important about the kind of school Ripon is.”

Sisko says there are many advantages to students engaging in undergraduate research. He says it inspires students to think about their own life plans and possibilities they may not have considered, as well as determining whether an interest area is something they really want to pursue long term.

It also gives students an advantage when applying to graduate school. Faculty coordinators Christina Othon, associate professor of physics, and Patrick Willoughby, associate professor of chemistry, set up workshops including résumé writing and applying to graduate school. They also coordinated a community engagement project, and hosted social engagement activities for the research scholars.

The project resulted in two public showcases at the Ripon Historical Society, a community outreach project with the Green Lake Association to help protect the Green Lake watershed and a research showcase for the Ripon College community.

The student and faculty participants were overwhelmingly positive about the experience. “Common themes that appeared among both sets of participants was that the summer experience is exceptionally valuable for student development and support of faculty scholarship,” the coordinators said in a final report.

“Sixty percent of respondents had no prior research experience; almost 70% aspire to

Warren Januskiewicz ’24 of Durban, South Africa, conducts research related to rotifers with faculty mentor Robert Wallace, professor emeritus of biology.

Several students designed and painted decorative murals around storm sewer catch basins in downtown Green Lake in partnership with the Green Lake Association.

For talented first-generation students, Momentum provides a bridge into college life

postgraduate education; 100% found that the SOAR program met or exceeded their expectations. …

“The faculty impressions were overwhelmingly positive, and most find student participation helps motivate and focus their scholarly work, while others engage in student-faculty collaborative work to benefit their students and provide in depth opportunities that cannot be explored in a traditional classroom setting.”

One faculty participant said, “I thought the SOAR program was great. Having faculty and students doing research together is one of the most unique experiences we can provide to our student body.”

Sisko says the strong response to SOAR ensures that the program will continue in future years.

Nicholas Eastman, assistant professor of educational studies and Momentum coordinator, leads a session.

Even for motivated and high-achieving first-generation students, entering the unfamiliar landscape of college as the first in their families to do so can be daunting.

Ripon has always been nurturing toward first-generation students and those of under-served groups of students. Now, the Momentum Leadership Fellows Program, launched in summer 2021, is helping to put highly qualified students from historically underrepresented and first-generation populations into a more equitable position to succeed.

Momentum is partially supported by a $275,000 three-year grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation which will give Momentum a firm footing at Ripon College. Ripon’s grant application asserts that bright students from poor high schools, even if admitted to schools of higher education, “rarely have access to the special opportunities monopolized by wealthy peers, such as honors programs, study abroad and summer research. Reconceiving how liberal arts colleges define merit can address this injustice, directing high-impact opportunities to these students.

“Ripon College is well-suited to successfully introduce an honors program for underserved students. ... We are among a tiny handful of national liberal arts colleges that consistently enroll and successfully graduate large numbers of low-income students; not only do we significantly outperform the graduation rates predicted by this profile, our Pell-eligible students graduate at higher levels than their campus peers.”

Twenty-six incoming first-years participated in the inaugural Momentum session. They formed an intimate and supportive learning community that began three weeks before the start of their first semester at Ripon. Nicholas Eastman, assistant professor of educational studies and Momentum coordinator, says Momentum activities will cultivate academic and campus community leadership, advance diversity, inclusion and support for underserved constituencies at Ripon, and promote more equitable models for student excellence.

While increasing the number of these targeted students that Ripon enrolls and graduates, this specialized attention also will generate leaders who will act as agents of change; encourage participants to engage in undergraduate research and other forms of student/faculty intellectual inquiry; and prepare students for graduate school and competitive national scholarships.

Student Support Services offers abundant avenues to help students succeed

Access to new opportunities for Ripon students who are first-generation, low income or who are physically or learning disabled is part of the mission of Ripon College’s Student Support Services (SSS). And for decades, SSS has sought out those opportunities and made them available to more than 160 students each year.

Opportunities range from academic and life guidance to cultural enhancement events, help with preparing for graduate school and paper and résumé writing assistance. Among the skills development efforts are financial literacy and intelligence workshops directed at helping students plan for their financial future. SSS also offers a system of peer contacts trained to assist eligible first-year students with academic and social transition from high school to college.

More than 1,000 colleges, universities, community colleges and agencies now offer SSS TRIO Programs in the United States, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands, including 15 in Wisconsin. TRIO funds are distributed to institutions through competitive grants by the U.S. Department of Education. Ripon College last received a five-year grant for $1.4 million in 2020.

Dan Krhin, who has been with SSS for 36 years — 34 of them as director — says the overall goal of SSS is to increase the retention and graduation of its students. Its offering are broad, used well by students and have been successful by the sheer numbers alone, he says.

FINANCIAL LITERACY

Ripon is required to offer programs that support “financial literacy which builds personal financial understanding and responsibility,” Krhin says. For 11 years, SSS has offered four-week sessions which focus on understanding aspects of investing in the stock and bond markets. or income background,” Khrin says.

“We want our SSS students to ‘be in the conversation’ with other students.”

The sessions are open to all Ripon students, not just those involved with SSS. About 25 participate annually, the majority of whom are first-generation students.

With the help of a supplemental grant, the financial literacy offering recently helped 18 students open and fund a Roth IRA with a small “seed” investment, Krhin says. “We more than talked about investing but actually opened up retirement accounts with the students,” he adds.

PEER CONTACT PROGRAM

In 2021, 11 Ripon students were employed to “help our eligible students make a smooth transition to Ripon by communicating with incoming students before they first come to campus, and helping out with SSS-sponsored programs which further assist in the transition process,” Krhin says. Peer Contacts meet with students individually and in small groups during their first semester, providing information about Ripon, how to take advantage of campus offerings and things they should know about campus life, he says.

Assistant SSS Director Myra Gilreath leads the Peer Contacts program and helps facilitate larger program activities. Ripon is unique, Krhin says, in that it has offered the Peer Contact program for 38 years. Part of the success may be that all of the peer contacts are “strong academic students who role model good student behavior of a successful student.”

CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL ENRICHMENT EXPERIENCES

Outings are planned to expose SSS students to events that, most likely, they haven’t attended before — like a live theatre production or a museum exhibit. These events “are viable and important activities for all people, regardless of social economic

GRADUATE SCHOOL, SUMMER RESEARCH

SSS offers activities designed to assist students in applying to and gaining enrollment in graduate school. SSS identifies summer research programs that may appeal to Ripon students and helps them apply, which in turn helps with acceptance to graduate school.

This effort has paid off. Based on helping many prior SSS students enter graduate school and summer research programs over the last 10 to 15 years, Ripon College has received two, five-year McNair Scholars grants specifically to assist 50 firstgeneration and racially underrepresented students enter graduate school in master’s and Ph.D. programs at more than 35 institutions across the country. While not required by the grant to place students in graduate schools and summer research programs, SSS continues to do so because of the level of success alumni have achieved, Krhin says. Also, he adds, “data shows that first-generation students do not typically consider graduate school unless they are informed, encouraged and exposed to the idea of post-college work.”

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Lisa Zeman, associate director of SSS, facilitates meetings with students to discuss their challenges and works with Ripon College faculty in arranging testing and room accommodations to take exams based on disability provisions and documentation.

Zeman also manages technology that assists students with reading and writing challenges and assists students with physical or mobility disabilities to receive

accommodations. Currently, more than 40 academic titles are being offered to students in an accessible format. Last spring, Zeman arranged for 177 exam accommodations and in the fall 2021 semester she arranged for room accommodations for 200 exams before finals began.

SUPPLEMENTAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

This year, SSS received supplemental funding of $15,000 that allows it to give out grants to students who actively use both SSS and Ripon’s tutoring services. SSS provided a $5,000 match. The supplemental funding has been awarded to 17 students in $1,177 increments. The grants assist students with their college expenses and serve as a reward of sorts for being significantly involved in both services from SSS and college tutoring which is coordinated at the Franzen Center for Academic Success in Lane Library.

LOREN BOONE

FORMER DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE RELATIONS

left Myra Gilreath, assistant director of Student Support Services, works with a team of peer contacts, including, from left, Katie Gramit ’22 of West Chicago, Illinois; Logan Meyer ’23 of Rosendale, Wisconsin; and Kara Vande Brink ’23 of Dalton, Wisconsin.

below Lisa Zeman, associate director of Student Support Services, helps Bryson Lyons ’25, center, of Monroe, Wisconsin, and Aaron Winkel ’24 of Kiel, Wisconsin, with a banking app that allows them to deposit their checks, manage their money and track their investments.

bottom Dan Krhin, director of Student Support Services, discusses graduate school options with senior Lupita Aviles of Wichita Falls, Texas.

Mary Hatlen, director of the Center for Career and Professional Development, left, helps Warren Januszkiewicz ’24 of Durban, South Africa, develop a career plan, including possible internship opportunities.

Internships give foothold into real-life working world

Internships provide work experience that helps students put their education into practice. Internships also may enhance students’ leadership skills and give them a competitive advantage as they pursue a permanent position.

Mary Hatlen, director of the Center for Career and Professional Development, says internships also help students narrow and, ultimately, determine a career path. Hatlen assists students in internship exploration and connects students with employers. She also reaches out to specific employers on a student’s behalf. In on-campus “Employer Spotlights,” employers meet informally with students regarding internships and job and volunteer opportunities.

To best prepare students for internships, Ripon offers workshops for all students, Hatlen says. The workshops address questions such as what an internship is, how one is secured, their purpose and the expectations involved. Students also to students successfully completing the onthe-job experiences. “Remote internships are a great way for students to explore opportunities that otherwise would not have been attainable,” Hatlen says.

The greatest value of internships, Hatlen says, is that students get to experience in “real life what a career entails — the good, the bad and the grind.” This allows a student to make an informed decision whether this type of job would be the right fit for them.

“There is no downside to an internship,” Hatlen says. Even if students didn’t particularly like their internship, “the students have always learned something about themselves, or a hard skill, after we discuss take-aways from the experience,” she adds.

may set up a one-on-one appointment for individualized assistance.

Hatlen says the fit between a student’s interest and a company’s need “is a duality: what are the learning objectives the student is seeking?” These objectives can range from tactical, on-the-job skills to trying to determine if this is the right career fit for that students.

For the employer, Hatlen says, the match entails providing an opportunity to mentor and coach a student intern and receiving assistance from the intern with a project. Employers also get to work with young talent who they might want to retain for permanent employment.

While internships declined during the height of the pandemic, a large number of internships were completed during the summer of 2021. Many of those internships had been adjusted to being held remotely, which helped remove some of the barriers

LOREN BOONE

FORMER DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE RELATIONS

Undergraduate research leads to new discoveries in chemistry

Ground-breaking research resulted from a collaboration among 17 students, Professor of Chemistry Joe Scanlon and Associate Professor of Chemistry Patrick Willoughby over a period of several years.

An article based on the research was published in the summer of 2021 in the Journal of Organic Chemistry and can be viewed at ripon.edu/chemistry-research. It outlines the discovery of a new chemical reaction, the aryne-Abramov reaction. It also details how Scanlon, Willoughby and the 17 student researchers/authors used this process to prepare numerous molecules that had not previously existed; supercomputer calculations to understand how the reaction proceeds; and the first report of how solvents can be used to change the products formed in a reaction with benzyne intermediates, which is “fundamentally significant,” Willoughby says.

“The publication actually includes numerous discoveries. The first one was made by Amber Haugen ’18 in July 2017 when she and I were exploring new reactions of benzyne intermediates. One of the most recent discoveries was made when Brianna Bembenek ’22, Joe Scanlon and I were reviewing the theoretical data.

“This was a major project that required more than three years to complete, so there was ample opportunity for student contributions,” Willoughby says. Funding was made possible by the American Chemical Society, National Science Foundation and Ripon College’s Oyster and Knop funds.

Student involvement in research projects benefits both the work that professors do and the education of the students involved, Willoughby says. “All research projects are designed with the intention that students will conduct the studies. The phrase ‘many hands make light work’ describes only a part of the benefits for having a large group of students involved. Students were more than helpers — they were collaborators, offering numerous insights to advance the projects.”

He says that research is an extension of the classroom, and the high-impact benefits of undergraduate research are some of the most valuable for aspiring scientists. “Undergraduate research allows the participating students to perform laboratory procedures far more advanced than things we do in a typical teaching lab,” Willoughby says. “Furthermore, after they conduct the experiment, they get to study their new compounds using all of the analytical instruments. On the theoretical side, students were executing computations using supercomputers to gain fundamental insight into the chemical events happening inside the test tubes. Not only were student researchers handling the reagents, using the instrumentation and executing the computations, but students were designing experiments, making adjustments to protocols, and recording important details. Undergraduate research is a great place to really get involved as a scientist,” he adds.

PARTICIPATING STUDENTS

• Brianna M. Bembenek ’22 of Campbellsport,

Wisconsin

• Maya M. S. Petersen ’20 of Emerald, Wisconsin

• Julia A. Lilly ’20 of Bloomington, Indiana

• Amber L. Haugen ’18 of St. Cloud, Minnesota

• Naomi J. Jiter ’19 of Kenosha, Wisconsin

• Andrew J. Johnson ’20 of Milwaukee,

Wisconsin

• Ethan E. Ripp ’21 of Black Earth, Wisconsin

• Shelby A. Winchell ’18 of Janesville, Wisconsin

• Alisha N. Harvat ’21 of Sheboygan, Wisconsin

• Caitlin McNulty ’21 of Neenah, Wisconsin

• Sierra A. Thein ’22 of Oostburg, Wisconsin

• Abbigail M. Grieger ’22 of Fargo, North Dakota

• Brandon J. Lyle ’23 of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin

• Gabriella L. Mraz ’20 of Wind Lake, Wisconsin

• Abigail M. Stitgen ’22 of Lodi, Wisconsin

• Sam Foss ’20 of Third Lake, Illinois

• Merranda L. Schmid ’18 of Ripon, Wisconsin, now an adjunct instructor of chemistry at

Ripon.

Associate Professor of Chemistry Patrick Willoughby, left, goes over data with Abbigail M. Grieger ’22 of Fargo, North Dakota; Ethan E. Ripp ’21 of Black Earth, Wisconsin; and Sierra A. Thein ’22 of Oostburg, Wisconsin.