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Gift a tribute to gifted teacher: Throns honor Brickley’s memory | |||||||
 Profs. Emeriti Michael and Joan Thron have endowed a scholarship fund to assist UW-Green Bay students for generations to come. The fund is named for their dear friend, longtime English department colleague and founding faculty member, Julie Brickley. |
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Joan and Michael Thron
first met Julie Brickley in 1967, when the brand-new University of Wisconsin-Green
Bay was assembling a top-notch English faculty. Brickley,
the Throns and others soon observed, was a gifted instructor whose passion
for good writing had the capacity to inspire even previously indifferent
composition students.She would be the first woman chosen to receive UW-Green Bay’s Founders Award for teaching excellence. She would champion the University’s writing-across-the-curriculum initiative, and earn widespread admiration for her warmth, sincerity and rapport with students both inside and outside the classroom. “Julie believed passionately that language lived at the heart of learning in every discipline,” the Throns say today. “She brought its joy and beauty to her daily teaching.”  To
honor their longtime friend and colleague, Joan and Michael have made a
five-figure commitment to create the Julie Brickley Memorial Scholarship.The permanent endowment will make available at least $500 in scholarship assistance, annually, to a continuing student or students at UW-Green Bay. In tribute to Brickley, the Throns have designated that recipients be chosen by the Composition Program. Applicants may come from any academic major, not just English. The foremost criterion is “significant interest in writing as a way of learning and of sharing knowledge, in any discipline.” Brickley, who passed away at her home in Sturgeon Bay in 1998, at age 72, enjoyed a distinguished, 25-year academic career at UW-Green Bay. In addition  to
her teaching honors, she was a faculty leader — speaker of the Faculty
Senate and general-education director — and active participant in
campus and community life.Having started pursuit of her own academic career at mid-life, she was an advocate for both returning adult students and the causes of equal pay and wider career opportunities for women. She was founder and chairperson of the Women’s Studies Program at UW-Green Bay. Julie is survived by a son Michael, who lives in Sturgeon Bay, and a daughter, Kate, who resides in Petaluma, Calif. Her granddaughter Lily lives in San Anselmo, Calif. The lives and work of all three have been deeply informed by Julie's passion for language, Kate reports. Kate says her family is “deeply appreciative” of the Throns’ generous gesture, and notes that Joan and Michael Thron “were dear friends of our mother who shared her love of language and are incredible teachers in their own right.” Each of the Throns holds emeritus status — Joan “retired” in 2005 and Michael a few years earlier — but their home address, like the University’s, remains Nicolet Drive in Green Bay. They each maintain an office and make the short trip to campus with regularity, teaching the occasional non-credit course, working with students or participating in special projects. Joan Thron says she is reminded often of Julie Brickley and her influence on the lives of her students. By coincidence, a recent occurrence came within days of announcing the scholarship gift. “Our daughter called from Minneapolis to say she had been in a (continuing education) class that day and met another woman, who happened to be a UWGB graduate. They got to talking and comparing notes, that Prof. Brickley was a close friend of our family, and the other student shared that Julie had been a tremendous influence on her career. “Well, this woman had never heard about Julie’s passing. Our daughter told her, and they both got very emotional. It had been many years, obviously, but as a teacher and person Julie had remained a very important presence in their lives. And always will.” |
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The Throns |
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| Brickley's daughter, Kate,
on the scholarship honor. . . 'We are deeply appreciative of this generous gesture on the part of Mike and Joan Thron. They were dear friends of our mother who shared her love of language and are incredible teachers in their own right. Julie loved her work with students at UWGB and this scholarship will help carry it forward.' |
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| Campaign benefits students This Web site highlights the generous UW-Green Bay donors who have created more than a dozen new scholarship endowments in the past year alone. Expanding student scholarship offerings is a focus of The Campaign for UW-Green Bay, the institution's comprehensive $25 million capital campaign. Interested in learning more? Click here for details. |
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