Outlook Magazine - Fall 2023

Message from Vice Chancellor for Advancement & Alumni Relations Katharine Reed

Scholarships founded in a culture of caring

am confident we can impact even more students next year. My first goal for this academic year is to grow the Stout Prom ise Scholarships. I encourage you to not only maintain your support but expand your impact by supporting a fund that touches all students regardless of their major or level of need. Whether you join me in supporting the Stout Promise Scholarship Fund or any other area where you want to make a difference for UW Stout students, your help will remove the financial obstacles to ensure current and future students have access to the best campus, laboratories, research facilities and polytechnic edu cation available. Your support changes a student’s future. With Stout Pride,

It was with joy and great excitement that I joined the UW-Stout community in March 2023. Returning to the Midwest where I spent my childhood has made the journey back even sweeter. I am fortunate to be the daughter of three generations of public educators, and I have inherited my fami ly’s commitment to affordable education. Joining the second polytechnic university of my career has also been an honor. UW-Stout is like no other university with its innovative, career-focused, technol ogy-driven programs based in applied learning and research and its partnerships across extensive business and industry networks. In my short time on campus, I have been impressed by its students’ and alums’ academic, career and life stories, as well as their commitment to UW-Stout. As the Chancellor mentioned in her open ing letter, since I arrived at Stout, the Stout University Foundation exceeded our annual scholarship fundraising goals. Your support will fund 541 scholarships during the 2023-24 academic year, and I Scholarship donors and recipients gath ered to celebrate and recognize each other at the Stout University Foundation’s annual Scholarship Reception, scheduled this year on Sept. 14 in the Memorial Stu dent Center Great Hall. With the support of alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the university, the Foun dation awarded 540 students with schol arships totaling $1.2 million, equaling last year’s record-setting amount, which supported 531 students. Of the 410 scholarships awarded, there were 26 new scholarships, also equal ing last year’s new gifts created by the Foundation.

Alum Jim and Nancy Naylor, who spent careers in education, support future teachers

Jim (’65) and Nancy Perkins Naylor (’65) spent their careers working in education in northern Illinois. With their passion for helping students, even after retiring in 2007, the Naylors continue to provide encouragement and support to stu dents through scholarships. Through their most recent annual gift, the James and Nancy Perkins Naylor Student Teaching Award, they will support three School of Educa tion students during their student teaching. The $1,000 award will support its first student this fall and two more in the spring. A culture lives on Nancy’s first home economics experience was in eighth grade, designing skirts in a clothing class. One day, with her teacher absent and no substi tute assigned to the class, her leadership instincts emerged. “I just kind of took over and directed my classmates in our assignment. I thought, ‘I could do this,’” she said, and teaching home eco nomics in junior high became her career. Nancy’s parents were able to put her through college. “I was fortunate. It was easy for me,” she said. “But as life goes on, you see the real world. As a teacher, you realize that there are more and more students that need help. We help where we can.” Jim admitted he was not very serious in high school, but his industrial arts teacher, Russell Hayes (’43, ’53) , saw more and took him under his wing. “He recognized my potential. He gave me responsibilities helping with classes. I felt, ‘This is what I have to do. I have to go to Stout and become a teacher,’” Jim said. “When I graduated from Stout, there was no ques tion in my mind that one of my responsibilities as a teacher was to try to get my students to go to Stout to become teachers,” Jim said. Jim taught industrial arts and other vocational areas before becoming a high school principal and superintendent. Later, as an associate pro fessor of student teaching at Eastern Illinois

University, he supervised more than 350 student teachers over 12 years. “There were so many great students, and I saw so many different circumstances and struggles – many of them financial,” he said. As a member of the Stout University Foundation Board of Directors for several years, Jim saw the impact of scholarships firsthand. He would visit classrooms and was amazed to see that the same culture of caring he experienced as a student was perpetuated by current professors in the School of Education. “We feel we both got an extraordinary educa tion at Stout,” Jim said. “Stout is always near and dear to our hearts. I have my master’s and doctoral degrees from other universities, but the bottom line is that Stout’s the one I’m going to give my greatest support to because it provided me with a foundation to succeed in the future.” In addition to the James and Nancy Perkins Naylor Student Teaching Award, Jim and Nancy support two additional scholarships: the Naylor Family Annual Scholarship for incoming first year education students and the Naylor Family Endowed Scholarship, awarded to technology education or family and consumer sciences edu cation majors.

Stout is always near and dear to our hearts. I have my master’s and doctoral degrees from other universities, but the bottom line is that Stout’s the one I’m going to give my greatest support to because it provided me with a foundation to succeed in the future.

Supporting the foundation of future graduates

One donor, Phil McGuirk (’78) , a retired professor, began teaching hospitality courses at UW-Stout in 1979. He has founded three scholarships for students in the hotel, restaurant and tourism man agement program, supporting incoming first-year students to seniors. When the Foundation began its first schol arship fundraising campaign in 1962, two $100 scholarships were awarded. Since then, 12,390 students have received scholarships.

Jim Naylor ('65)

(Above) Naylors meet with recipients of their scholarships

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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-STOUT

OUTLOOK 2023