Kassidy Walters ’23 of Greenfield, Illinois, received the Youth Exemplar Award from the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership after being nominated by the Pieper Steering Committee at Ripon College. The award goes to a nominee who demonstrates exemplary servant leadership, a form of leadership that emphasizes leading through good character, focusing on the […]
During my doctoral program at Iowa State University, I specialized in agricultural economics, labor economics and applied econometrics. My research concerns the impact of transgenic cotton adoption on cotton production in sub-Saharan Africa. My former students at Iowa State and Drake University inspired me to explore the impact of mobile games in economic education on serious gamers. I enjoy ballroom dancing and art.
I recently retired as a computer science faculty member at the University of Maryland College Park where I had been since 1989. I moved back to Wisconsin to be closer to family and now live just outside Ripon with my mother, husband and son. With graduate degrees in both computer science and education, I focus on computer science curriculum, pedagogical methods and underrepresented populations in computing. For 15 years early in my career, I worked on State Department-funded projects building computing degree programs at universities in sub-Saharan Africa and Afghanistan. After that, I became the founding director of two centers (Iribe Initiative for Inclusion and Diversity in Computing (I4C) and Maryland Center for Women in Computing (MCWIC)) both of which emphasize improving diversity, equity and inclusion in the computing fields through K-12 outreach education, current student support and research.
I grew up in St. Germain, Wisconsin, and graduated from Ripon with a degree in chemistry in 2009. I earned my Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Oregon in Eugene in 2014. My dissertation research focused on the synthesis of tetraphosphine macrocycles and their corresponding coordination chemistry, mostly focused on iron. I taught general chemistry and organic chemistry at the university and classes at a community college and Oregon State University. In 2016, I started a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Rebecca Abergel at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, preparing sulfur-based analogs of the HOPO-type molecules that are well known to capture radionuclei. I then was an assistant professor in chemistry at the University of Minnesota Morris, before returning to teach at Ripon College. I enjoy golf, woodworking projects and being outside with my wife, daughter and pups.
Originally from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I am the music director of the Oshkosh Youth Symphony Orchestra Inc. I teach orchestra at Oshkosh North and West high schools, a position I began in 2007, and am department chair of the Oshkosh West High School Music Department. I began my violin studies at an early age and received a bachelor of music degree in violin performance from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. I hold a Master of Education degree in curriculum and instruction and completed my Wisconsin teaching certification at Lawrence University.
I have been a freelance percussionist in central Wisconsin for 25 years. My work includes orchestral performances with the Fox Valley Symphony, Wisconsin Philharmonic Orchestra, Weidner Philharmonic and more. I also have been the percussionist on the national tours of Broadway shows including runs of “Wicked,” “Newsies,” “Anastasia,” and “West Side Story.” I maintain a private studio and have been the clinician at high schools around the state.
I earned my Ph.D. in communication with an emphasis in rhetorical studies and media criticism from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. My areas of research include fandom, music and religious identity, and popular culture. I’ve published research on Christian heavy metal music, the political and public backlash against The Dixie Chicks, an overview of the culture wars, and the politics pertaining to comic book censorship. I enjoy media; collecting physical media such as DVDs and blu rays for my home film library; reading with favorite authors including Patrick Rothfuss, Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy and Jasper Fforde; and fishing. I spend my summer fishing for walleye, bass and pike in the Upper Peninsula with my wife’s family, and for salmon out of Algoma.
Red Hawks’ head football coach and defensive coordinator Ron Ernst has officially announced he will retire from Ripon College at the end of the 2022 season — his 32nd at the helm. During his head coaching career at Ripon, Ernst had led the Red Hawks to 184 wins and 113 losses, making him the winningest […]
Abi Quackenboss-Karpf ’15 of Hanover, Maryland, received a second-place prize in the 2021 Georgetown Entrepreneurship Bark Tank competition. Before a panel of judges and a live audience, she pitched a proposal for Chow, a social enterprise founded in 2020 that helps veterans and their spouses create successful careers in the culinary arts. The organization provides […]
Payton Rahn ’22 of Omro, Wisconsin, has received a $10,000 scholarship from the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Committee. The scholarship is a significant honor to both its recipients and their institutions. “The NCAA awards 21 scholarships to both men and women (42 total) each season (fall/winter/spring) across all NCAA divisions, so it’s a pretty big accomplishment […]
Vice President and Dean of Faculty John Sisko presented a paper, “On the Role of Nous in Anaxagoras’ Cosmogony,” at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, July 20, 2022. He presented at a two-day conference involving eight invited presenters, representing top international universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Humboldt and McGill. The papers presented at the conference will […]
Over the past decade, three Ripon College alumni, Sarah Anderson ’10, Garrison Anderson ’16 and Abby Korb ’20, have been placed into the Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF), a prestigious two-year program focused on developing the next generation of potential government leaders. Siblings Sarah Anderson and Garrison Anderson have completed the fellowship and each now work […]
Whitney Levash Meza ’09 of Ripon, Wisconsin, has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in Powersports by DealerNews magazine. In the summer of 2021, Meza rode Harley-Davidson Corp.’s 2021 Pan America Special bike across 48 states in eight days. She had partnered directly with Harley-Davidson for a 10-day challenge and completed her […]
A thesis chapter that Jordan Buhle Nutting ’15 wrote during her doctorate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was adapted into the Journal of Organic Chemistry, becoming one of the three most-read articles in the journal in 2021. Nutting’s thesis is concerned with the fields of organic synthesis and electrochemistry. She and her co-writers discovered […]
Lillian Brown, visiting professor of theatre, will present a solo performance of her original play “The OREO Complex” Friday, July 8. The performance will begin at 7 p.m. at The Heist, 114 Watson St. Brown is using the performance as a preview/workshop before she takes the show on the road. “The OREO Complex” is an […]
An article by Professor of Spanish Timothy Reed is published in the spring issue of Hispanic Journal. “Garden Imagery, Hauntology, and the Semiotic in Adelaida García Morales’ El Sur.” It addresses gender roles in Francoist Spain, feminism and trauma studies. The abstract reads: “In Adelaida García Morales’ 1985 novella El Sur, Adriana recounts various memories […]
The second edition of a career development and spiritual companion for those in a job, career or retirement transition has been released by Thomas Bachhuber ’71 of Wauconda, Illinois. TranSpirations: Guidance for the Head & Heart through Career and Beyond was inspired by Bachhuber’s personal and professional experiences, those of other career experts and spiritual […]
Brian Bockelman, professor of history and interim director of strategic initiatives, has been awarded a residential fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard-owned estate, museum and humanities research center in Washington, D.C., for the spring 2023 semester. The competitive national fellowship, which provides both a stipend and housing near the estate in Georgetown, will support his […]
Soren Hauge, professor of economics, spoke Thursday, June 16, for Spectrum News 1, a statewide news and information network. He discussed key interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve in an effort to tamp down inflation. He said these efforts will make things more expensive for people in the short run. “In the longer run, […]