|
|||||
 | |||||
|
Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 9/26/07 |
|
|
In
the News Archive - Year:
Reprinted from: Green Bay Press-Gazette June 7, 2007 Innovation defined Weidner Former chancellor a pioneer in education, community By Tony Walter
"He probably would have succeeded faster in a more compatible environment," said Paul Davis, who was assistant chancellor at UWGB from 1968 to 1980. "Ed was way ahead of the community in that regard, but his drive to achieve his dream was his main characteristic, no matter what it took to achieve it."
Weidner, who died Wednesday at 85, built a university curriculum centered on the environment, interdisciplinary education and problem solving that became a model for future campuses.
"He was way ahead of his time in supporting women's athletics," said Carol Hammerle, who in 1973 became UWGB's first women's basketball coach. She kept that job until 1997.
"Every year, he'd say to me 'What do you need?', and then he'd come up with it."
Weidner came to Green Bay from the University of Kentucky, where he was a professor of political science and director of the Center for Developmental Change. Before that, he headed innovative programs at the University of Hawaii and Michigan State University.
But Green Bay had only a two-year campus on Deckner Avenue on the city's east side when Weidner was chosen by UW System president Fred Harrington to create and lead a curriculum for a new four-year university on Green Bay's far northeast side.
"A lot of people today know about all the wonderful things that Ed did as chancellor emeritus," said Bill Kuepper, who was interim dean of the Deckner campus when Weidner arrived and retired as UWGB vice chancellor in 1995. "But a lot of people don't know what an incredibly creative guy he was. He brought a lot of newer ideas to higher education in our region."
Kuepper said it was Weidner's idea to incorporate interdisciplinary education into the UWGB curriculum, and to initiate liberal education seminars that Kuepper called "one of the most creative liberal education programs I've ever seen."
Betty Brown was one of the first people Weidner hired when she became coordinator of information in 1968.
"He was interested in building the institution and he was single-minded about it," Brown said. "It was always the welfare of the institution that he had in mind. He was also interested in acquiring land, and that's why we have the wonderful trails at the university now."
The first buildings on the new UWGB campus opened in the fall of 1969 at a time that Weidner first used the term "communiversity" as he worked to acquire more community involvement in UWGB.
Key dates for Edward Weidner
July 7, 1921: Born in Minneapolis
1942, 1943, 1946: Bachelor's, master's, doctoral degrees, University of Minnesota; (1943-1945, post-graduate studies, University of Wisconsin)
March 23, 1944: Marries Jean Blomquist
1950-62: faculty member, Michigan State University
1955-57: coordinator, chief adviser, Vietnam Project
1965-67: director, center for development change, University of Kentucky
1966-86: chancellor, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
1993: Weidner Center for the Performing Arts opens
April 1997: Jean Weidner dies
June 6, 1998: marries Marjorie Fermanich
June 6, 2007: Edward W. Weidner dies
| |
