UW–Madison alumna and Philadelphia-based artist Stacey Lee Webber was recently featured on CBS Sunday Morning, speaking about her work transforming spare change into valuable, coin-based art. For nearly two decades, Webber, who earned her MFA from the School of Education’s Art Department, has used reworked coins and bills into jewelry and sculptures made entirely of money. “I’ve …
An alumna of the UW–Madison School of Education has been awarded the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2026 Dissertation of the Year Award from the organization’s Rural Education Special Interest Group. Erin Gill, who graduated with her doctoral degree from the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in 2025, is now a postdoctoral researcher …
UW–Madison alumna Nicole Contreras-Garcia is the recipient of the Richard M. Romano Dissertation of the Year Award from the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC). Contreras-Garcia earned her PhD from the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in 2025 and is now an assistant professor of higher education leadership …
UW–Madison alumna Bethany Sansing-Helton has received an honorable mention for the 2025–26 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division J Dissertation of the Year Award. Sansing-Helton earned her PhD in 2025 from the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. Her dissertation, “Toward a New Theoretical and Empirical Understanding of Faculty Engagement with …
UW–Madison alumnus Andrew Lifson is the author of “Rogues in a Nation,” a new Wisconsin-based novel published by Little Creek Press in March 2026. Lifson earned his bachelor’s and master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the School of Education in 1983 and 1985. For more than three decades, he worked as an elementary school …
UW–Madison graduate student and alumnus Christian Bonner, a general music teacher at Kennedy Elementary School, has been awarded a 2026 Wisconsin Arts Celebration Grant from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the Wisconsin Arts Board. Created in 2023 to celebrate the Wisconsin Arts Board’s 50th anniversary, the Wisconsin Arts Celebration Project provides free music, lesson …
A new exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian celebrating the career of the late Truman Lowe was recently featured on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Wisconsin Today” program. “Water’s Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe” brings together nearly 50 sculptures, drawings and paintings spanning Lowe’s decades-long career. According to the exhibit website, …
UW–Madison alumna Tyanna J. Buie, who earned her MFA from the School of Education’s Art Department in 2010, has been commissioned to create a site-specific installation for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Buie is part of the most recent cohort of artists announced for the center’s 19-acre campus, along with Mark Bradford, Jay Heikes, …
By Maggie Ginsberg, Division of the Arts They come for the lakes, and those starburst chairs coloring the Terrace at Memorial Union in John Deere green, Allis Chalmers orange, and sunshine yellow. They come to participate in the Wisconsin Idea, drawing on a rich legacy of research, innovation, and collaboration to build a brighter future for all. They …
By Kari Dickinson “cullud wattah,” a powerful and award-winning play by UW–Madison alumna and First Wave graduate Erika Dickerson-Despenza, is the latest production from University Theatre, opening Feb. 26. Set in 2016, the play unfolds 936 days into the Flint, Michigan, water crisis. When third-generation General Motors employee Marion is on the verge of a …