|
WAUKESHA – When her youngest child was in
kindergarten in 1973, Bonnie Birk found the University of
Wisconsin-Waukesha a convenient and welcoming place to resume
her own education. Now, 34 years later, she has been chosen the
campus’s 2007 Outstanding Alumna. She will be honored at the
Sweet Rewards reception September 21, at which scholarship
recipients and donors have the chance to meet and converse.
Since 1983, the Friends & Alumni of
UW-Waukesha has presented the award to an alumna/us with at
least ten years distance from the campus and outstanding
personal, professional, or volunteer accomplishments.
“It was hard to go back,” she admits,
having only spent one semester at Carroll College before leaving
school for family duties. “I was filled with trepidation,” but,
in addition to craving something more, she also knew she had to
keep up with her three older children, whose mental edge was on
the verge of leapfrogging her own.
“The campus was close; it was geared toward
returning adult students, and tuition was reasonable,” she said.
“It had a good reputation – even though it was new – and some of
my friends had attended.”
Re-awakened to the excitement of learning
by UW-Waukesha professors she describes as “wonderful,” she
flourished. In 1976 she left to finish her degree at Carroll
College, graduating with a BS in psychology in 1979, and then
completed an MS in guidance and counseling at UW-Whitewater in
1982. She returned again to school and earned a Ph.D. in
religious studies from Marquette University in 2004.
Yet she maintained a continuous connection
with the UW-Waukesha campus. For many years she served on the
Friends & Alumni (F&A) Board and as a member of several of its
committees, including the outstanding alum selection,
scholarship, Sweet Rewards, and Festival of Trees committees.
She also acted as liaison with the Foundation.
More recently she has been involved in
writing a proposal to reconfigure the Friends & Alumni group.
The expanded, more loosely organized association will provide
opportunities for a variety of interesting activities for those
who would like to maintain a connection to UW-Waukesha yet not
be obligated to attend monthly board meetings.
She spreads her enthusiastic volunteering
more widely and last May with her husband, Dave Helling,
received the 2007 Celebration of Giving Award from the Waukesha
County Community Foundation. Most of her community efforts have
focused on The Women’s Center of Waukesha, which provides
services to women and families affected by domestic violence and
sexual assault and abuse. They co-chaired the successful 2003
campaign to raise $3.5 million for a new facility for the
Center. In addition, she used her research abilities to gather
pictures and information for a book being written by former
UW-Waukesha history professor Ellen Langill to commemorate the
30-year history of the Center.
She’s actively volunteered at her church
for more than 20 years as well, serving as music director and
guitarist, and has sat on the boards of the Mental Health
Association Foundation, the Caring Place, and the Waukesha
Education Foundation.
An occasional college teacher, Birk also
published a re-working of her dissertation as a book,
Christine de Pizan and Biblical Wisdom: A Feminist-Theological
Point of View (Marquette University Press, 2005), which went
to a second printing in 2006.
Birk, who lives with her husband in
Waukesha, enjoys having her four daughters and nine
grandchildren living also in the Waukesha area and is especially
pleased that one of her grandsons is now a student at
UW-Waukesha.
UW-Waukesha has the largest enrollment
among the 13 freshman-sophomore University of Wisconsin Colleges
campuses. For information about UW-Waukesha
admission, financial aid, programs, or policies, contact the
Student Services office 888 2UW-WAUK (289-9285) or visit the Web
at waukesha.uwc.edu.
### |
