Genghis Khan (born Temujin, 1162-1227) was a world-famous conqueror. His armies captured vast expanses of territory, reaching as far as Korea in the east and Germany in the west. He and his sons unified different civilizations in Eurasia, creating a common sphere for trade, intellectual exchange, and postal communication. And one of his coins ended up in Wisconsin.

To explore the famous coin of Genghis Khan and various other treasures from Central Asia, seven UW-Platteville students travelled to the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison on April 16, 2026. The field trip was organized by Prof. Andrey Ivanov, as a part of his HIST 4130 Central Asia class. The visit to the Chazen Museum was graciously organized by Mieke Miller, Chazen’s academic coordinator, who made the artefacts available to the class.

Several students, faculty, and alumni from the College of Liberal Arts and Education at UW-Platteville received student research awards, attended, or presented at the 2026 WGSC Spring Conference, “Rooted in Justice: Fifty Years of Feminist Scholarship and Community Engagement,” held in Madison on April 9-10. The conference was co-convened by the Universities of Wisconsin Women’s & Gender Studies Consortium and the Office of the Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian.

Students from the University of Wisconsin–Platteville and University of Wisconsin–Platteville Baraboo Sauk County presented their research projects at the Research in the Rotunda on Wednesday at the Wisconsin State Capitol, joining undergraduate researchers from across the Universities of Wisconsin.

The annual event highlights outstanding undergraduate research and gives students the opportunity to share their work with state legislators, university leaders and the public. Representing UW–Platteville and UW–Platteville Baraboo Sauk County, students presented projects spanning agriculture, psychology, biology and engineering.

Research in the Rotunda provides undergraduate students with a platform to highlight how their work contributes to solving real-world challenges and advancing knowledge across disciplines. Participation in the event reflects UW–Platteville’s continued commitment to hands-on learning and student research opportunities.

On Tuesday, March 24th, 2026, UW-Platteville will be hosting Indigenous, New York Times bestselling author Angeline Boulley for a reading and discussion. The event will take place in Nohr Gallery from 7:00-8:00 pm and will focus on Boulley’s famous 2021 novel, Firekeeper’s Daughter. Students, staff, and community members are encouraged to attend.   

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s Helios Program is redefining what a first-year experience can be. Since 2022, Helios has become a cornerstone of academic and community life on campus. Participants engage in a mix of classroom and co-curricular activities, including cultural programs, lectures, social events, project-based learning and independent research. It offers students deeper learning through the humanities and transformative experiences that promote connection, creativity and purpose. And the program is doing it one fort at a time.  

September is shaping up to be one of the most exciting months yet for Helios, The University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s College of Liberal Arts and Education’s signature humanities initiative. With creativity, community-building and even post-apocalyptic fort-building on the agenda, students are diving into a month-long celebration inspired by “Station Eleven,” the award-winning novel and HBO miniseries. 

At the heart of the excitement is a special campus visit from acclaimed author Emily St. John Mandel, set to speak on Tuesday, Sept. 30 at Velzy Commons. Her visit is the culminating event in a series of immersive experiences that includes a fort-building project on campus, a community read discussion and a film screening at the Avalon Cinema. 

At convocation each year, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville honors faculty and staff with UW-Platteville and Universities of Wisconsin awards, recognizing their excellence and dedication. In this year’s articles about the recipients, we are spotlighting their journeys, passions and the paths that brought them here. 

Dr. Kara Candito, a professor of English in the Department of Humanities, was selected to receive the Nimocks Family Faculty Appreciation Award. The award recognizes outstanding faculty at UW-Platteville who teach effectively, teach the value of diversity, teach the ability to argue sensitive issues with competence and civility, create opportunities for students to engage in high-impact practices and teach the importance of a liberal arts education.

Each year at Convocation, The University of Wisconsin-Platteville celebrates outstanding faculty and staff through a series of prestigious awards. These honors recognize exceptional contributions in teaching, service, leadership and engagement. This year, we're taking a more personal approach—spotlighting the individuals behind the accolades and the stories that drive their impact. 

UW-Platteville has awarded Michael Lambert, lecturer in the Humanities Department, with the Academic Staff Award for Excellence. This award is presented to an instructional or non-instructional academic staff member with a minimum of 12 consecutive months of employment at UW-Platteville who has provided essential services to the university while demonstrating excellence of performance, personal interaction, initiative and creativity.  

At Convocation each year, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville honors faculty and staff with UW-Platteville and Universities of Wisconsin awards, recognizing their excellence and dedication. In this year’s articles about the recipients, we are spotlighting their journeys, passions and the paths that brought them here. 

Dr. Dale Murray, professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville Baraboo Sauk County, was selected as one of the recipients of the 2025 Alliant Energy James R. Underkofler Excellence in Teaching Awards. This award is funded by an endowment from the Alliant Energy Foundation, Inc. to recognize and reward extraordinary undergraduate teachers at Universities of Wisconsin schools within Alliant Energy’s service area.

Every year during Convocation, UW-Platteville highlights the excellence of its faculty and staff through UW-Platteville and Universities of Wisconsin awards. These honors recognize those who exemplify dedication in their work. This year, we’re going beyond titles and achievements, bringing forward the personal stories of those who shape our campus and community.  

Thomas Pitcher, senior lecturer with the Department of Humanities, has been selected as a Wisconsin Teaching Fellow. The Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars (WTFS) program offers UW faculty and teaching academic staff a unique opportunity to collaborate with other exceptional teachers from across the Universities of Wisconsin and from various disciplines. 

Each year at Convocation, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville recognizes recipients of UW-Platteville and Universities of Wisconsin awards, highlighting the excellence and dedication within the university community. These awards honor faculty and staff who have made exceptional contributions through teaching, service, leadership and engagement. This year, we’re shifting focus – instead of just highlighting their achievements and what they do for the university, we’ll be sharing the personal stories behind the people who make such a difference. 

UW-Platteville has awarded Sara Koeller, administrative assistant for the Department of Humanities, with the University Staff Award for Excellence. The award recognizes staff members who provide essential services to the university while demonstrating excellence of performance, personal interaction and initiative and creativity.

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s annual literary magazine, Spirit Lake Review (SLR), will be hosting a launch party celebrating the release of its 2025 issue on Wednesday, May 7, from 5:15-7:30 p.m. in the Nohr Art Gallery. SLR is a literary magazine published every spring semester and is edited and designed by Dr. Kara Candito’s class, Literary Magazines. The publication is student-led, setting it apart in the literary magazine landscape. SLR has been running for more than twenty years and originated as a project at UW-Platteville’s Baraboo-Sauk campus.

“Spirit Lake Review is completely different from most other classes I've taken at UW-Platteville,” said Editor-in-Chief Matty Olson. “Everything we do has a purpose—and that purpose is to create a literary magazine. I love it.”

The Helios Program for Integrated Liberal Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville hosted the inaugural writing awards in the Nohr Gallery. The awards were created by Dr. Amanda Tucker and Dr. Katie Kalish, professors of English and co-directors of the Helios Program.

“We created the Helios Awards to celebrate the outstanding work being done by students in the program,” said Tucker. “We established two award categories: one for the Helios Gateway, which includes first-year courses built around a shared reading list, and one for the Helios Pathway, which encompasses upper-level courses organized around broad themes such as Law and Conflict Resolution, Global Citizenship and Environment and Sustainability. Our goal was to recognize the distinct types of work that emerge from these two different parts of the curriculum.”

Livia Winch will be serving in the Peace Corps as an English teacher in Querétaro, Mexico later this year. Winch, a senior from Dodgeville, Wisconsin, is double majoring in business management and Spanish. She will graduate this May.

Winch is the first University of Wisconsin-Platteville student in more than a decade to be accepted into the Peace Corps before graduation. She hopes to use this prestigious opportunity to further her education and career goals.

"I want to gain more experience before I go back to school for my master's degree, and the Peace Corps is a route many people take to get into the U.S. State Department, which is what I would eventually like to do," said Winch. "I can continue teaching English, work directly to make a positive influence and use my Spanish!"

Winch credits UW-Platteville’s Spanish faculty as being crucial to her development as a teacher and Spanish speaker. 

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville is offering a Professional Writing Certificate. The certificate, designed to complement a broad range of majors, provides students with professional writing, editing and communication skills needed to excel in many careers.

Dr. Amanda Tucker, professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, was honored with the 2024 Outstanding Faculty Advising Award from UW-Platteville and the 2024 Faculty Advisor Excellence Award from the Wisconsin Academic Advising Association.

“Dr. Tucker demonstrates a holistic approach to academic advising that demonstrates excellence in all facets of the advising process, from reaching out to students in an encouraging and proactive way to sharing her in-depth knowledge of general education institutional regulations, policies and procedures and even assisting other faculty in her department,” said Dr. Katie Kalish, professor of English at UW-Platteville who nominated Tucker for the award.

Designed to create shared intellectual experiences for first year students, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s groundbreaking Helios Program has succeeded in generating impressive community and academic enrichment in only two years.

Thanks to the collaboration between the University of Wisconsin-Platteville's College of Liberal Arts and Education and the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Science, students have the opportunity to study Chinese.

Offered this spring, Elementary Chinese includes the study of the Chinese pronunciation system, initials and finals, writing structures, basic patterns of Chinese grammar, and application of foundational words, phrases, and sentences in daily communication and interpersonal interactions. Students will develop basic Chinese language skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing and comprehension. Students also explore the culture of China and its 5,000 years of history.

The 2023-24 College of Liberal Arts and Education Faculty Forum Series will continue on Thursday, Dec. 7 with “The Breach that Closes a College.” Dr. Dale Murray, professor of philosophy, will present a case study that explores ethical considerations for how to handle ransomware attacks on a college campus. Tony Hayes, UW-Platteville’s chief information officer, will provide the response.

“As this case study is meant as a pedagogical tool, I will present arguments for and against paying ransoms demanded by cyber criminals who have breached institutional data networks,” said Murray. “This will hopefully generate a stimulating discussion about what morally permissible responses could look like.”

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville recently hosted New York Times bestselling memoirist Ashley C. Ford as the 2023 Helios Program for Integrated Liberal Arts first-year speaker. More than 500 students attended the event to listen to Ford’s personal story of overcoming challenges growing up and attending college.

Ford’s memoir, “Somebody’s Daughter,” was published by Flatiron Books in June 2021. Ford is the current host of “Into the Mix,” a Ben & Jerry’s + Vox Creative podcast, and former host of “The Chronicles of Now podcast” and The HBO companion podcast “Lovecraft Country Radio.”

Carrie Van Hallgren, assistant dean of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s College of Liberal Arts and Education, was recently appointed by Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers to the board of Wisconsin Humanities.

“I am honored to be appointed to the board and eager to represent UW-Platteville and the Driftless region in the company of such esteemed colleagues from around the state,” said Van Hallgren, who will serve a three-year term. 

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the literary magazine Spirit Lake Review, with a launch party on Wednesday, May 3, from 5-8 p.m. in Nohr Gallery, Ullsvik Hall, on the UW-Platteville campus. The event is open to the public and will feature contributor readings, live music and visual art displays.

Spirit Lake Review was founded by now retired UW-Platteville Baraboo Sauk County professor Kelly Dwyer in 2003. The annual student-run literary magazine was named after Baraboo’s popular landmark, Devil’s Lake State Park, which was known as “Spirit Lake” by the Ho-Chunk. For two decades, it has served as a significant creative outlet for the region, as well as an important learning tool for students, who produce the publication as part of the Literary Magazines class.

Dr. David Gillota, associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, explores the overlap of horror and humor in American film in his forthcoming book, “Dead Funny: The Humor of American Horror.” Published by Rutgers University Press, the book is scheduled for release in July.

Gillota has been a scholar of American humor for a long time, previously publishing “Ethnic Humor in Multiethnic America” with Rutgers University Press in 2013. Earlier this year, he was named editor of the “Studies in American Humor,” a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. His new book’s focus on humor in horror films originated from his interest in the 2017 film “Get Out,” written and directed by Jordan Peele, an actor and comedian.

This LAE Faculty Forum was originally scheduled for December and was postponed, due to unforeseen circumstances. The forum will now take place on Thursday, April 13 at its original time and location of 5-6:30 p.m. in Room 136, Doudna Hall.

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville College of Liberal Arts and Education Faculty Forum Series will conclude with a presentation by Dr. Michael Sharkey titled “What does knowledge have to do with Nazism?”

Sharkey, professor of Philosophy, publishes work in criticism of 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who was a Nazi. Sharkey believes that Heidegger has been enormously influential.

“Many books have been written about Heidegger’s Nazism, but I do not think any of them get at its root cause, viz. his doctrine of cognition,” said Sharkey. “In my presentation, I will detail Heidegger’s involvement with the Nazis, rehearse the standard explanations for it and then give my own.”

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville College of Liberal Arts and Education 2022-2023 Faculty Forum Series will continue on Thursday, March 2 with a presentation by Dr. Chris Schulenburg and Dr. Alyssa Holan, titled “Business as Usual? Black Bodies Empowered in Nuestra Señora De La Noche.”

Schulenburg’s presentation will focus on the literary bodily image of Isabel Luberza, a famous Puerto Rican madame of the twentieth century. “I will speak about her depiction in the Puerto Rican novelist Mayra Santos-Febres’ 2006 novel ‘Nuestra Señora De La Noche’ and the ways in which this bodily representation challenges cultural conceptions of control and power in the Caribbean,” said Schulenburg, professor of Spanish.

Schulenburg will also have a more general conversation about novelistic manipulations of the female body in Latin America, as a whole, to provide context for Santos-Febres’ novel.

Dr. Phillip Gordon, associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, has helped facilitate the release of a new edition of a 1948 novel, “The Welcome,” by Hubert Creekmore. The novel, which has been out of print for more than 50 years, is being re-issued by the University Press of Mississippi this week and includes an introduction by Gordon.

Dr. David Gillota, associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, has been named editor of the “Studies in American Humor” (StAH), a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. For the past seven years, Gillota has worked on the journal in the roles of book review editor and as the associate editor. StAH is the official journal of the American Humor Studies Association.

“I’ve been part of a community of scholars who work in American humor for a long time now, so it’s nice to have the trust of that community to run the journal moving forward,” said Gillota. “It’s exciting to be able to play an active role in the direction of the field.”

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville College of Liberal Arts and Education opens the 2022-23 season of the LAE Faculty Forum Series on Thursday, Oct. 6 with Dr. Adam Stanley’s presentation of “How the Undead Came Alive: The Vampire in European Culture” with Dr. David Gillota, associate professor in the English department, as the respondent.

“European folklore has long included myriad tales of various monsters and evil creatures, but the vampire as a particular phenomenon has arisen and gained wide currency only in the past few centuries,” said Stanley, professor and chair of the Department of History at UW-Platteville. “This presentation will be a historical examination of the emergence of the vampire image in European culture, culminating with the publication of Bram Stoker's ‘Dracula’ in 1897.”

Dr. Chris Schulenburg, professor of Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, is one of four recipients across the UW System receiving the 2022 Alliant Energy James R. Underkofler Teaching Excellence Award. The award is funded by an endowment from the Alliant Energy Foundation, Inc. to recognize and reward extraordinary undergraduate teachers at UW System universities within Alliant Energy’s service area.

“The colleagues I know at the university who have received this award are respected people who have been at UW-Platteville for a long time,” said Schulenburg. “It means a lot to be considered amongst those people.”

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville will host a symposium, “Caregiving, Race, and Gender: COVID-19 Impacts on Women in Wisconsin,” on Tuesday, March 22 and Wednesday, March 23. The symposium, open to the public, is funded in part by a grant from Wisconsin Humanities, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.  

The symposium will explore the impacts of COVID-19 on communities across Wisconsin. Keynote speakers and panelists will offer intersectional frameworks for understanding the disparate impacts of COVID-19 through the lens of health equity, caregiving, race and gender in higher education and local communities in Wisconsin. The symposium will trace how the pandemic exacerbated pre-existing inequities and also provided templates for addressing and improving those same disparities. 

Dr. Amanda Tucker, professor of English and director of General Education at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and Dr. Katie Kalish, professor of English at UW-Platteville Baraboo Sauk County, and director of First-Year Writing, were awarded a planning grant from the Teagle Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities to develop an integrated liberal arts certificate. The role of the grant is to revitalize humanities and to expose students to different areas of liberal arts by creating purposeful pathways of study within the general education program. The first version of the certificate will go through faculty governance this month, with the hope of it becoming a program students can opt into in the fall of 2022.

University of Wisconsin-Platteville Assistant Professor of art Dr. Tyler Ostergaard is grateful for the opportunity to participate in the 2021-22 Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars Program after being postponed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ostergaard is one of three UW-Platteville faculty members chosen as teaching fellows. The program supports outstanding educators from across the UW System in pursuing teaching and learning questions emerging from the classroom.

One local company is partnering with the University of Wisconsin-Platteville to help bridge the communication gap between their English and non-English speaking employees. Allisa Cardella is the training and development generalist at Lactalis American Group, Inc. – a U.S. subsidiary of the world’s largest dairy organization with operations in Belmont, Wisconsin, and completed her Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) certificate in May from UW-Platteville. Cardella is developing an English as a Second Language (ESL) course at Lactalis. During the spring semester, Cardella was a practicum student of Dr. Yuanyuan Hu, professor of English/TESOL. Two other TESOL practicum students, Kyla Sprain and Dominick Perry, served as teaching assistants.

The work of Dr. Chris Schulenburg, University of Wisconsin-Platteville professor of Spanish, will be published in the forthcoming issue of the journal, Studies in the 20th & 21st Century Literature. His article, "Inés del alma mía or How to Retrain the Chronicle," uses Chilean novelist Isabel Allende's book "Inés del alma mía" to create a new model for the Latin American chronicle. 

Allende’s novel strays from the traditional Latin American chronicle, which is typically a first-person, European male’s version of the conquest of Latin America. The novelist retells Inés Suárez's part in the invasion and occupation of Chile with Pedro de Valdivia. Schulenburg’s essay investigates how Allende questions traditional figures of heroes as well as the unflattering Euro-centric perspective of Indigenous civilizations in Latin America. 

“I love the energy of my students. I enjoy sharing with them the excitement of learning a new language and exploring new cultures.” – Dr. Alyssa Holan, assistant professor of Spanish, UW-Platteville

Dr. Alyssa Holan, assistant professor of Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, has taught Spanish language courses and Peninsular literature and culture courses at the university since fall 2018.

Originally from the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, Holan completed her undergraduate studies at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, then earned a master’s degree at Loyola University in Chicago and a Ph.D. at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

On Thursday, March 5, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s College of Liberal Arts and Education will host a faculty forum, “Talking Bones: The Writing of Assassination in Colombia,” in Room 136 Doudna Hall from 5-6:30 p.m.                                                            

Dr. Chris Schulenburg, professor of Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, co-authored “It Hurts So Good: Resuscitating Female Slave Narratives in Fe en disfraz,” a scholarly article recently published in Arizona State University’s “Chasqui,” an academic journal devoted to Latin American literature.

The essay deals with a 21st-century reconsideration of Caribbean slave narratives that were often never heard, focusing on the legacy of slavery in Latin America as experienced in its testimonies and novels.