Black Arts Fest MKE Welcomes the UW-Milwaukee Educational Experience

Black Arts Fest MKE Welcomes the UW-Milwaukee Educational Experience

Black Arts Fest MKE and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) are pleased to announce a partnership that will provide educational exposure for festival attendees. Black Arts Fest MKE will be held on Saturday, August 4 and is open from noon until midnight. The festival is at Henry Maier Festival Park (Summerfest grounds).

Black Arts Fest MKE recognizes the importance and benefits of higher education. As the inaugural educational sponsor, the UWM Educational Experience tent will feature opportunities to engage with several departments, schools and colleges, as well as academic advisors that will be ready to interact with and assist festival goers with their higher education needs.

The tent will be located just south of the mid gate entrance. It will feature opportunities for attendees to engage with the University’s Trio and Pre-College programs, the Office of Admissions, the Office of Financial Aid and other departments that will be onsite to help the community navigate campus life.

UWM’s Trio and Pre-College Programs is home to more than eight different programs specifically designed to meet the needs of pre-college young people, from middle school through high school. These award-winning programs offer opportunities for year-round and summer programming exposure to higher educational and career-planning activities.

The UWM Office of Admissions will be present to work with the public to design customized academic experiences for prospective students that includes information regarding admissions, college visits, financial support and activities that promote student support. Representatives from several academic areas such as the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, the College of Nursing, and the School of Information Sciences will also be present.

“The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is thrilled and honored to be the Educational Sponsor for the inaugural Black Arts Fest MKE,” said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Vice Chancellor for Global Inclusion and Engagement, Dr. Joan Prince. “Our commitment to diversity, inclusion, and academic excellence sparks our desire to have the community share in the Educational Experience that will be encountered when they visit our exhibit area.”

“Education is vital for individual growth and that of the community,” said Black Arts Fest MKE Executive Director Patrice Harris. “UWM is one of the most inclusive and diverse colleges in Wisconsin and we are happy to have them complement the cultural experience of the festival with the UW-Milwaukee Educational Experience.”

UWM has always believed that education empowers and inspires future generations to achieve positive personal and social growth.

WISCONSIN — UWM Prof Makes a Difference by Mentoring Students

WISCONSIN — UWM Prof Makes a Difference by Mentoring Students

In addition to her teaching and research, UWM Professor Wilkistar Otieno devotes significant time to mentoring students, in particular women and students from underrepresented backgrounds interested in engineering.

[/media-credit] In addition to her teaching and research, UWM Professor Wilkistar Otieno devotes significant time to mentoring students, in particular women and students from underrepresented backgrounds interested in engineering.

MILWAUKEE COURIER — The University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee’s Wilkistar Otieno knows firsthand that young women, especially young women of color, need strong mentors and role models. She knows that need is magnified in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math – STEM for short. So she’s committed to making a difference. A professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering, she advises UWM’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. And through the UWM STEM-Inspire Program, she mentors women and students of Latino, African- American and other backgrounds, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college. It’s all part of enhancing their experience at UWM, one of the nation’s top research universities.

“What I have seen,” Otieno says, “is that these students may not pursue engineering because of a lack of access to STEM opportunities in their prior educational experiences. Or, they may face a lack of role models.”

Women account for less than 15 percent of the engineers working today, and less than 20 percent of college engineering majors are women. The desire to grow those numbers is part of what drives Otieno’s call to mentorship, which also includes her participation in the UWM National Science Foundation Engineering and Computer Science Scholars Program and K-12 STEM outreach projects.

She wears many other hats. In addition to teaching and designing graduate and undergraduate courses in engineering, she conducts long-term research projects with top Wisconsin companies like Rockwell Automation and Harley-Davidson. All the while, she works so her mentees can follow similar paths in their chosen fields.

UWM’s STEM-Inspire group pairs every participating STEM major with a faculty mentor, peer mentor and a tutor. Partially funded by the Wisconsin Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, or WiscAMP, it provides opportunities like internships, STEM lectures, workshops, research opportunities and library study nights. This school year, the program has 18 participants, and you can learn more about the program at uwm. edu/steminspire.

Stem-INSPIRE mentors like Otieno seek to build a community among those students, whose majors cam range from mechanical or computer engineering to biological sciences or architecture. Doing so cultivates a sense of belonging, which maximizes their chances for academic and professional success.

It’s the kind of community that Otieno sought 20 years ago at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. She was one of only three women studying mechanical and production engineering there – out of 40 total students – during her undergraduate years. She worked closely with a small group of other underrepresented students, eager to fulfill her dream of becoming an engineer and educator.

“I had to work a lot harder than I needed to just to make the point that I belonged in mechanical engineering,” she says. She took seven to eight courses per semester, sleeping five to six hours a night.

Today, she participates in corporate research and training programs with industry partners who rely on UWM as a major educator of science and technology professionals. Her graduate students are involved in this research, enhancing their skillset as future engineers and educators.

That’s the path Priyanka Pillai is on. In May 2017, she earned her master’s degree from UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science, and Otieno’s mentorship played a key role in that success.

English is Pillai’s second language, and she worried her English writing skills would hinder work on her master’s thesis. Otieno stepped in as a writing coach, giving Pillai additional articles to read and reviewing early drafts of her writing.

“Dr. Otieno made me a better writer,” Pillai says, “because she is always giving her students the push to try something different.”

It worked. Today, Pillai is a supplier quality engineer and thinking about pursing her own doctoral degree in engineering.