Past Region 5 News

Past Region 5 News

From the June-August 2011 issue of ACCED-I Connections:

Now that the grand opening for new Union South is over http://www.union.wisc.edu/visit-unionsouth.htm and the academic school year is done – major conferences has geared up for us. Like Minnesota, we are surrounded with construction all around the City of Madison and campus. I now understand that saying “In Wisconsin we only have two seasons - winter and construction”. Nancy Kujak-Ford has been named the director of campus event services office for The Wisconsin Union at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has served as the interim director since last summer. The University of Wisconsin-Madison hosted the National Science Olympiad Conference on the UW Campus May 18-22, 2011. Registration and coordination was major for a small team of three people.

The University finished off the academic year on a good note by having some great events and speakers on campus in the month of May such as Vice President Mondale, former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, and the Dalai Lama. We are very excited about our BIG upcoming events this July. Drum Corp International will be back on campus and will be bringing 25 of the top Drum Corps in the nation to TCF Bank Stadium on July 16th and then on July 23rd--TCF Bank Stadium will be home Bono and company as U2 has their concert on campus. We are expecting 60,000 in TCF Bank Stadium and 10,000 spectators outside TCF. We are definitely hoping for good weather these weekends.

This summer will be like no other here on the TC's campus--as we have MASSIVE construction happening everywhere on campus. Our main street that runs down the middle of campus is closed for good to make way for the Light Rail that will come through campus fall of 2014. Not only do we have street construction happening on both sides of campus--we also have construction happening that brings over 800 construction workers to campus everyday.

So to say the least--we will be challenged and busy this summer, but as well all know--WE WILL SURVIVE!!Have a great summer!

From Marc Nylen, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

We hosted the 32nd Annual Oshkosh Placement Exchange (www.theope.org) on the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Campus, sponsored by the Department of Residence Life and Gruenhagen Conference Center. Our placement exchange welcomed 1,200 guests to campus from 40 states, and the event was a great success! We are already looking forward to hosting the 33rd Annual OPE which will take place March 1 - 4, 2012.
We also hosted the Badger Girls State Convention on the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh campus for the 9th consecutive year. This event brought 800 delegates and 60 staff members to our campus from June 19 - 24, 2011.
We will host 4,000 lodging guests on the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh campus who are attending the annual Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture Fly In, which is hosted by the Experimental Aircraft Association whose world headquarters are in Oshkosh, WI. Lodging guests will come from all 50 states and many other countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, New Zealand, and South Africa, just to name a few! We will host the 5th Annual University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Showcase event, which is an ice cream sundae social and campus welcome to all EAA AirVenture guests.

Gerald Becker, CCEP, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Gerry Becker has retired after 34 years with UW-Milwaukee on June 30, 2011. Thank you to Gerry for all of your hard work representing Region 5 for ACCED-I over the years!

Save the date for the Region 5 Fall Summit at University of Wisconsin-Platteville in Platteville, WI on November 3 - 4, 2011. More information coming in early fall.

Submitted by Kim Araya:

I would like to thank everyone who has been supportive over the past two years of me being the Region 5 director. Our region has had some ups and downs--but I think we are well on our way to becoming a much more strong and solid Region. Please help Ruthi Duval, your new Director and Chris Baxter, your new director-elect with a great 2011-2012. I look forward to a great regional summit in November. If you want to help with the conference--please contact Chris Baxter at Macalester. Thank you again! Kim

Macalester College hosted a tax seminar for those conference and event planners in Minnesota on April 21st in Saint Paul, MN. Region 5 sponsored this event by providing $300.00 in funds to offset the lunch.

Region 5 director-elect, Chris Baxter won the inaugural Macalester College Student Affairs Chili Cook-Off earlier this semester. His chili verde inspired Green & White chili beat out a field of 12 entries to claim the department's chili crown. If you'd like to try his award winning recipe, you can download it here: http://www.macalester.edu/campuscenter/documents/chilirecipie.pdf . Bon Appetit!

We had a great time in Orlando at the Annual Conference--saw some old friends and met some new friends in the region--it was a good time to be had by all that attended.

Region 5 was represented with three different large baskets to bid on for the Act of Caring. ACCED-I was able to donate $4,600.00 to Give Kids the World.

Here are some stats from our regional meeting that took place on Sunday night:
Regional demographics
State Rep=WI-43, MN-28, ND-0, SD-1, SK-4, MB-0, = total members76; Institutions= 34; Corporations=4.

Region 5 has had a steady climb in enrollment in 2010-2011. Despite the economy we increased by 11 members and 6 new institutions.

Region 5 has a new Board of Directors liasion, Lisa Salazar, CCEP, from Lewis College. She is now on board with Region 5 as we say good-bye to Gerry Becker, CCEP, as he finished off his term as ACCED-I immediate past president.

The Region 5 Fall Summit will be held at UW Plattville Nov 3-4, 2011, tentatively scheduled for Winona State University in 2012. We will be talking about 2013 and 2014 at our regional meeting. We also discussed having some scholarships for students and prostaff to attend the regional meeting. Stay tuned as Chris and Ruthi will be sending you updates as we move along with the Fall 2011 Summit.

Once again--if you want to work on the conference or the scholarship committee for Region 5--please let Chris or Ruthi know. It would be a great opportunity for you to get involved with ACCED-I.

Leaving his post as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Stony Brook University, Prof. Eric W. Kaler will become the University of Minnesota's 16th president. Prof. Kaler completed his undergraduate degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1978 and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1982. He has served as a faculty member at the University of Washington and Delaware. He was one of the first to receive a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation in 1984 and was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering. His transition into the position will begin in June, with his official start being July 1st.

Northern Illinois coach Jerry Kill has been selected to fill the position of football head coach at the University of Minnesota. While not the headliner name most fans and boosters were hoping for, Coach Kill has a record of turning losing teams into winning ones. Minnesota fans are eager for him to continue that streak after another disappointing season under Tim Brewster ended with his termination in October. Prior to his three years at Northern Illinois, Kill was head coach at Southern Illinois for five years, Emporia State for two, and Saginaw Valley State for five seasons.

TCF Bank Stadium hosted Monday Night Football on December 17^th. The Minnesota Vikings hosted the Chicago Bears in their first outdoor home game in nearly 30 years. Following Minnesota's fifth largest blizzard in recorded history, the Metrodome experienced a catastrophic failure of its teflon inflatable roof on Sunday, December 12th. As dome officials and consultants surveyed the damage over the next two days, the Vikings, the NFL, and the University of Minnesota agreed that the University would host the Vikings last home game of 2010 at TCF Bank Stadium. Crews worked hard preparing the stadium for the game by removing snow, and working out all the logistics that come with bringing an NFL game to campus.

Region 5 held their summit November 4-5 at the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, MN. It was a great summit filled with lots of conversation (lots of political talking as both of our states changed political parties on national and state level) as well as education and learning from each other.

Our hosts at Saint Benedict Kim Poganski and her staff were great -- and took care of our every need. On Friday, they took us on a tour of their lovely campus and showed us their new student/conference center as well as very unique places to host events.

In conjunction with St. Benedict, Ginger Delles from Saint John's University took us on a tour of their monastary and the room where the infamous Saint John's Bible is held. The Saint John's Bible is the first illuminated, hand-written Bible of monumental size to be commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in more than 500 years. What a magnificient treat that was to see how the the beautiful piece of art is done.

We had 2 great keynote speakers from the University of Minnesota Student Unions to talk with us about Student Employment Development Outcomes. We all know in this day of economic unrest -- we are all relying more and more on student help -- so we need to understand how to make this a win-win for all. We also wrapped up a presentation by one of our members Marc Nylen from UW OshKosh who talked about the benefits of placement exchanges.

We had a great business meeting--confirmed 2011 Summit at UW Plattville, 2012 at Winona State University and 2013 at UW OshKosh. We will be finalizing the Region 5 director-elect elections by the end of November.

After months of construction, the University of Wisconsin-Extension Conference Centers if proud to announce the opening of its new guestrooms at The Lowell Center this spring. 57 new guestrooms, including seven extended stay rooms, have been added to serve our clients conveniently from one campus location.

This project was completed as part of the UW-Madison campus master plan. That plan called for the closing in 2008 of The Friedrick Center, a conference and lodging facility on the west end of campus that has been returned to UW housing. When Friedrick closed, UWECC lost those 71 guestrooms, so this latest project returns our total number of guestrooms at UWECC to 137. This latest phase supports our mission of ensuring that first-rate technology and learning opportunities, excellent hospitality and the promise of the Wisconsin Idea will continue far into the future.

All the new rooms feature Amish-built furniture, 32-inch flat screen TVs, in-room thermostats, refrigerators, am/fm radios with iPod docking stations, Keurig coffee makers, and Bath & Body Works toiletries. The 80 existing guestrooms are being upgraded to include these new amenities as well as new soft goods. Many of the guestrooms include stunning lake or Capitol views. A pool and sauna are

also available to all guests. On-site parking is available for just $8 per day, and off-site complimentary parking (three blocks away) is also available.

UW-Extension Conference Centers are available to use by any government or university staff, professor or to individuals attending classes. Blocks of rooms may be reserved for special events.

Things were crazy around here this summer---BONO-U2 had to reschedule until July 2011--so we plan to get geared up for this 58,000+ concert again.

We hosted Drum Corps International on July 16, 2010 and what a great sight it was to have 25 of the best Drum Corps in the Nation converge onto the Twin Cities campus for great entertainment. We promised them no tornadoes next summer. Yes, tornadoes about 5 miles from TCF Bank Stadium---well it helped us plan for a real evacuation--which we are hoping won't happen when DCI or U2 return for summer of 2011.

Submitted by Marc Nylen, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh:

UW-Oshkosh hosted 5,000 guests for the annual Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture 2010, and it was a great week! The weather leading up the event was very wet, but during the nine days we hosted, awesome weather.

We had our first Sales Symposium this summer on Thursday, July 29^th for the new Union South which is scheduled to be open in April of 2011. Here is the website for people who might be interested in this new venue for conferences http://newunion.wisc.edu/. I have taken on the challenge of a new role as outreach & sales coordinator for both Unions.

Nancy Kujak-Ford is the new acting director of our Central Reservations and Conference Services department of The Wisconsin Union. We both started our new positions as of August 1, 2010.

Updates in and around campus:
Many of the Schools in the Twin Cities will be finding it easier to get from the airport in Bloomington, MN to the campuses in and around Minneapolis and Saint Paul. It was approved last month that the Light Rail system will now run from Downtown Minneapolis to Saint Paul. Currently there is a light rail that runs from the Mall of America and Airport to Downtown Minneapolis. This has been long over due for many in the Twin Cities area - particularly the University of Minnesota. The new Central Corridor Light Rail Transit - will have three stops at the UofMN before it takes off for Saint Paul. The completion for the Light Rail will be sometime in 2014. This is exciting for the folks at the university, but also means lots of traffic changes for the students and guests over the next 4 years. "CHANGE IS GOOD!"

We missed you all at the conference and wished you all could have attended as we had a great time reconnecting and networking with the other regions. Region 5 was represented by MN, WI, and SK along with vendors from our region--SICO, Event Pro, PC Nametag, and BBJ Fine Linens.

We said good-bye to our President Gerry Becker, CCEP, and we "THANK" him for the great work he did with ACCED-I over the past year. We look forward to him continuing to be our Region 5 board liaision and the ACCED-I past president.

Ruthi Duval, director-elect, and I met on April 9th to begin working on some ideas to strengthen our membership which stands at 65 members--28 institutions and 4 vendors and will be talking about the regional conference that will be held November 4-5, 2010 at the College of Saint Benedict.Here are some pictures from the Sunday night social and regional dinner, where there was LOTS of basketball on mutliple TV's, bowling, games, and great conversation with others from various regions.

I know all of you are getting geared up for graduations, events and the opening of summer!! I wish you much luck in all of the preparation and planning for the upcoming months.

Region 5 held their fall meeting last November at Ripon College in Ripon, WI. We were very excited to have half of our regional members participate in the meeting.

The theme of the meeting was "These Times are a Changin’”. Our guest speaker, Carlo Cuesta talked about how our next generation of clients are changing the way we market and promote our colleges/universities.

We also had various round tables and presentations on marketing in a down economy and how to stimulate our Association by encouraging the new generation of college graduates to be a part of our profession. Our region even had registration scholarships set-up for current Region 5 college students to attend the conference. The staff at Ripon College was fantastic and we could have not asked for better hospitality from our host!

It was a great time to share and get caught up with our Region 5 colleagues. We elected a new director-elect—Ruthi Duval from University of Wisonsin-Madison and made a schedule of meetings for the next three years. We look forward to our next regional meetings to be held at the College of Saint Benedict in 2010, University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 2011 and Winona State University in 2012.

We missed those who weren't able to attend, but hope to see some of you in Louisville this coming March for ACCED-I Annual Conference.

For those who could attend--here are some snapshots of the fun we had!

Other Regional News:

Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN opened up a new building this fall that was the first higher ed building in Minnesota to receive LEED Platinum certification. Please click on the link for further information http://www.macalester.edu/whatshappening/press/2010/September22LeedCertification.html.

The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities will be welcoming the band U2 to the new TCF Bank Stadium June 27, 2010. It was noted U2 was very interested in playing in TCF Bank Stadium because of the LEED Certification it received as a stadium and their commitment to the environment.

THE GOLDEN GOPHERS ARE BACK ON CAMPUS!!
For the first time in 28 years, the University of Minnesota was able to celebrate Homecoming back on campus from the Metrodome, and a true homecoming it was. Starting Sunday, October 4th, Students, Alumni, and Minnesotans from all corners of the state were able to tour the brand new stadium in a once in a lifetime event: TCF Bank Stadium Tours and Open House. Throughout the week there was a plethora of events on campus, from lip-synch and cheer competitions to showcases of student research and public engagement and a parade down the main stretch of campus to stadium for the first UofM Homecoming Pep Fest in TCF Bank Stadium with record attendance for a student focused event. The festivities were capped off by a Golden Gopher win over Purdue and the Ultimate Volunteer Experience. It is great to be home!

Region 5 fall meeting
November 12-13, 2009
Ripon College in Ripon, WI

Begins with registration 11:00 a.m. on November 12, and concludes with lunch at 12:30 p.m. on November 13

Hotel: Comfort Suites, 2 Westgate Dr., Ripon, WI
Phone: (920)748-5500 (please mention that you are at Ripon with the ACCED-I Conference)
Room Rate: $69.90 per night

Fun Facts About University of Minnesota New Football Stadium Opening Fall 2009

TCF Bank Stadium is the new home for Big Ten Football! The stadium is not just a home for Golden Gopher Football and the University of Minnesota Marching Band; it is the home of college football tradition for all the residents of Minnesota. In honor of the support provided by the State of Minnesota and its residents, the TCF Bank Stadium promenade is lined with 87 plaques representing the 87 counties of Minnesota. This stadium was also constructed with the support of the students of the University of Minnesota - "Hats Off to Thee!".

Thanks to the generosity of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the exterior plaza on the west end of the stadium is a dedication to all 11 of Minnesota’s Tribal Nations. This tribute, running from the native prairie scene on the south plaza along the 11 tribal sky markers to the water feature on the north end – will serve as a welcome and hospitality plaza on game days and non-game days for all who visit TCF Bank Stadium.

The Videoboard in the east end zone is the third-largest videoboard in all of college football; the videoboard is 48 feet high by 108 feet wide. TCF Bank Stadium is the first Big Ten Stadium constructed since 1960. TCF Bank Stadium was designed as an open-air, horseshoe-shaped bowl with a collegiate look and feel. The stadium is oriented to take advantage of the views of downtown Minneapolis. The brick façade and arches resemble that of Minnesota’s previous on-campus football venue, Memorial Stadium, which hosted its final game on Nov. 21, 1981. We welcome any of our colleagues to stop by if visiting the Twin Cities and see the beautiful stadium. The first game is September 12th against Air Force. GO GOPHERS!! For more information please go to Gophersports.com

For some of Region 5--Summer is already here!! The University of Minnesota started their summer conferences May 18th. They welcomed and hosted the first Native American and Indigenous Studies Conference on campus. Turn out was great and the conference organizers were very pleased when their conference made the Chronicle of Higher Education. They had over 20 different countries represented at this conference, not to mention many of the 50 states.
As many of you are preparing for new staff to arrive and prepping your campus for the summer guests do you feel an excitement in the air? Summer is such a beautiful time of the year to showcase our campuses to our many visitors.

As for the regional meeting in November, we are still looking for a host site. Please call Kim Araya at (612)624-0656 if you are interested in hosting. We have a preference for a college or university in Wisconsin. Kim will be sending out information via email to all current members in the beginning of June to have a more detailed discussion about the November Regional Meeting such as place, participation, topics, etc... If you are interested in assisting with the planning of the conference, please give Kim a call as well.

Also, remember, when you renew your ACCED-I membership and you choose the Institutional membership, please note that one student is part of the Institutional membership. What a great way to begin mentoring our students, by having them as part of ACCED-I. We will be talking more in the upcoming months about how to strengthen our Region 5 membership enrollment. What can we all do to get more people/institutions involved with ACCED-I?

Hello Region 5 members! Let me introduce myself again, Kim Araya from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities--I am your newly elected regional director. I will be holding this post for the next two years and look forward to networking with you both on the regional and national level.

We had a great time in Boston and did quite a bit of networking as you can see from the pics posted. Since we were smaller this year--we decided to have our regional dinner with our neighbors below in Region 6. This was great fun! We also decided to get together with various regions after the exciting event at the Boston Aquarium. WOW--didn't know penguins could be so fun to watch. We did wish you were all in Boston to say "thank you" to our out-going director Donna Wells, I am hoping you all will be able to attend the Fall Regional Meeting (which is still to TBD) and give her your "thanks" for her dedication to Region 5 for the past two years. We also are very excited that our very own Gerry Becker, CCEP, was placed into office as president of ACCED-I at the conference, and Benjamin Franklin, yes old Ben came by to see our new president of ACCED-I accept the gavel.

Below are some pics of the conference and will keep you updated on the regional meeting that will be held first half of November in Wisconsin--somewhere. It is still not too late to submit your RFP to host the meeting on your campus. The costs is little to nothing for the campus, just some time to assist me with the planning. If we do not get any bids for the conference to host, due to campuses budget and HR constraints, we did suggest that we may hold the conference at the WIS. DELLS. Please call me (612)624-0656 or email me araya001@umn.edu if you would like to host the Region 5 Regional Meeting in November.

I would also love to know what is happening on your campuses. Please send me information for the ACCED-I Connections Regional News.

Stay tuned for more information on the ACCED-I membership drive for 2012 in 2012!! Summer will be here before we know it!