CALS Connection | Commencement photos, new CALS leaders, double your gift

Make a Gift | Grow Magazine | WALSAA | WAA

June 2018

Congratulations Class of 2018!

On Saturday, May 12, the CALS Class of 2018 joined the alumni ranks. On the morning of the commencement ceremony, a reception was hosted in Allen Centennial Garden by deans, staff, and members of WALSAA. Graduates and their families enjoyed coffee and conversation before walking together to Camp Randall Stadium. View photos of the event.

Congratulations and best wishes to our graduates!


Blazek and Wassarman

New Leadership for CALS Academic Affairs, FISC

Two new leaders have joined CALS in recent weeks.

Jennifer Blazek MS'10 has been named the new director of the college's Farm and Industry Short Course (FISC), a 16-week educational program that prepares students for careers in agriculture and related fields. Blazek comes to CALS from UW Cooperative Extension, where she has worked as an agricultural educator since 2011, first in Polk County and then in Dane County.

Karen Wassarman has been appointed associate dean for academic affairs. In this role, she will be in charge of guiding and overseeing the college's student services and academic programs, including undergraduate majors, FISC, continuing education, and international student activities. Wassarman is a professor in the Department of Bacteriology, where she has beena member of the faculty for more than 16 years.

UW CALS Spin-Off Company Expands

Ab E Discovery, co-founded by its CEO, Chris Salm BS'75, and CTO, Jordan Sand PhD'10, broke ground on a new 25,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Waterloo, Wisconsin, on May 10. Dean Kate VandenBosch was in attendance.

The company, which stems from a game-changing discovery made in the lab of the late Mark Cook, partners with entrepreneurial scientists to commercialize their functional feed technologies.

Double Your Impact on CALS

$20=$40 | $50=$100 | $150=$300

Give to the CALS Fund today and your gift will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $50,000, by a generous, anonymous donor. That means your generosity will have twice the positive impact on students this fall.

CALS depends on private support to be successful. Your gift, large or small, helps the college remain strong. Now is the perfect time to double your support -- it's what Badgers do. Please don't miss this opportunity.

Give Today

Boundless Together: Top-Shelf Cheesemaker

Fourth-generation cheesemaker Chris Roelli teamed up with UW -Madison's Center for Dairy Research to make Little Mountain a big winner.

Roelli, co-owner of the Roelli Cheese Haus in Shullsburg, Wisconsin, worked with the center's experts, including John Jaeggi and Mark Johnson, to perfect Little Mountain, a hard, Alpine-style cheese similar to Appenzeller Swiss. It acquires some of its flavor from washes of brine and bacteria as it ages for at least seven months.

"I had this idea of a flavor profile and style, but I really didn't know how to put all the pieces together to get to the end product," Roelli says. "The center's help was invaluable. Without its help, it would have taken years and years to get the product out."