How easy was it for you to connect with seminar participants during the first few summer sessions?

From the very beginning it has been easy to connect with seminar participants.�� They are warm, curious, and enthusiastic about learning.�� For me, the real challenge was figuring out how much we can really do in one week.�� My first seminar was on Dostoevsky.�� I called our session��The Idiot, for the novel we were reading.�� We all had name tags.�� Mine read “Peter Thomas,��The Idiot.”�� That was fitting because I assigned a 600-page novel of material that is not��exactly beach reading.�� I’ve since learned to better gauge the reading I ask participants to do before our session and during the week.��

I think my sessions have a reputation for being rather hard-core; people show up having read everything I asked or even suggested. Our seminars are very much discussion-based, so anyone who wants to spend a week talking about Russian culture is welcome. We do a lot of reading aloud during the week.�� That has been an evolving part of my seminars.�� I’m really excited about how much fun it is and how much more we get out of the texts.

How would you compare older lifelong learners with your on-campus students?

University students have reasonable concerns about grades and their prospects for the future.�� In many cases, I have to teach them basic study and time-management skills that have nothing to do with the materials, but if I don’t teach them those things, they will learn much less. These students have relatively little experience in life, and for the most part their experiences are similar to each other’s. A big part of what I have to teach them is that: life and the world are much, much bigger and more complicated than they suspect.�� That is enjoyable, so long as the student (and family) are on board. With summer participants, I am the inexperienced one in the room.�� I am fairly certain that I learn as much each summer as they do. Participants bring such a wide range of skills, talents, and experiences to our sessions that my job is to just facilitate a conversation around whatever we are working on at the time.�� When I have done my job in choosing a good topic, the course takes on a life of its own. And I don’t have to grade anything or anyone.

Was it challenging to get us to refrain from discussing current political events all the time?

Russian politics is always a part of the discussion, and that is to be expected. Conversations about politics in the US tend to be a part of conversations over meals, but not always.�� The materials we work on have a lot to say about how people treat each other and the world we share.�� I am careful not to let the conversation derail for political reasons. That is much easier to do with seminar participants than with university students.��

Do you cover political history? Why or why not?

I have taught two seminars on political history in Russia. I would certainly do so again.�� Speaking honestly, for many years now I have left the topic of the next year’s seminar to the participants in the current one.�� I trust them to choose topics that will attract new participants.����

Do you wish participants had better geographical background?

No. Figuring out how to capture the topography, flora, fauna, and meteorology of whatever region we are working on is a part of the fun. I do wish that I had a strong geographical background.�� Some of my regular participants are incredibly well-travelled and have been to places I have only seen online.

What seminar topic have you enjoyed presenting the most?

I have never had a seminar that didn’t feel like my favorite while I was teaching it. I love teaching “The Russian Short Story.” I’ve taught Pushkin’s��Eugene Onegin and Tolstoy’s��Anna Karenina��twice, and each time was a revelation for me. The sessions on Gogol, Bulgakov, Nabokov, Aleksievich, and Putin were challenging and invigorating.�� Last summer’s class on film and literature was so much fun that it felt like I was a student, not the teacher. This summer, in response to a story and film from last summer, we are reading Chekhov, one of my favorite authors.�� I cannot wait to prepare that class.

Plans are being created to do a “Great Books” program during the 2027 summer featuring three Freshman Studies books taught over the years and you have been asked to participate. Can you share some of the preliminary plans?��

This is a team-taught course called “The Long Novel” that Professor Dominica Chang of French, Professor Tim Spurgin of English, and I have taught at �������ý��Ƶ four times now.�� The central problem of the class is thinking about how the different traditions in European literature of the nineteenth century represent the challenges of modernity. The first three times we taught the course, we read Charles Dickens’��David Copperfield, Gustave Flaubert’s��Sentimental Education, and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s��The Brothers Karamazov. We are just completing our first run through a new version that features Flaubert’s��Madame Bovary, Lev Tolstoy’s��Anna Karenina, and Thomas Hardy’s��Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The key to this class is that all three of us are at every discussion, and we each take one session as lead instructor for the books that are outside of our own field. The other key is that these are��long and complicated novels. We are talking about how we would create a two-week class with the same or similar authors and the same topics, but with fewer than 1700 pages of reading. A challenge!

The remainder of �������ý��Ƶ students will move into residence halls and other residential spaces over the weekend of Sept. 13-14. Welcome Week leads directly into the start of the fall trimester, with classes beginning on Monday, Sept. 15.��

This year’s incoming students include 309 first-year students and 39 transfer students, who come from across the United States and around the world to study at �������ý��Ƶ. The top home states are Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, California, Colorado, and New York. International students are represented by 16 different countries around the globe, with a strong presence from Japan, Canada, and South Korea. �������ý��Ƶ isn’t just a campus in Wisconsin; it’s a community with roots around the globe. ��

“My move-in experience was really good,” said Kylie Hatch, an incoming freshman and neuroscience and psychology major. “My roommate was actually already here for international move-in, so she helped me. It was super easy and everyone was super helpful.”

Welcome Week marks the beginning of a new chapter for students as they embark on their journey of higher education and find their place in a community of critical thinkers.��

“I moved into Colman, and it was really nice because everybody was very friendly,” said first-year student and psychology major, Vivianne Affatato. “Everybody was really excited and supportive. It was like, friends immediately.”

Angela Vanden Elzen, associate professor and reference and learning technology librarian, emphasized the joy of Welcome Week and the energy that incoming freshmen bring to campus.��

��“Welcome Week is always so fun; seeing all the students excited about starting something new really brings a lot of energy back to campus.”��

New students to �������ý��Ƶ lined the sidewalk between the newly opened West Campus building and Main Hall Green for the traditional walk through the Welcome Arch. Faculty, staff, alumni, and students all cheered and welcomed the incoming Class of 2029 to campus. The �������ý��Ƶ school spirit rang loudly and highlighted its tight-knit community.����

Natalie Reathaford, a first-year student and neuroscience and biology major, relished taking part in one of �������ý��Ƶ’s favorite traditions of welcoming students to campus through the Welcome Arch.��

“Walking through the arch, it was exciting to see our upperclassmen come and cheer us on and support everyone coming to �������ý��Ƶ. It was a great experience.”��

Reathaford said she selected �������ý��Ƶ because of its small but vibrant community. She wanted a tight-knit community but didn’t want to be left in the middle of nowhere. The city of Appleton and the surrounding Fox Cities offer students a unique environment because it has a small-town feel with metropolitan-style benefits.��

“I was looking for a place that was small but also not just cornfields, so I think having this as a small campus, having a tight-knit, close community of professors and students, as well as a great soccer team that I wanted to be on, it was just perfect. And then the thing that really sealed the deal was the placement of where �������ý��Ƶ was and how close everything was. There’s an airport nearby, there’s tons of food, there’s coffee shops—just everything nearby that I could ever want.”

George Taylor, a first-year tuba major from Hayward, Wisconsin, said he chose �������ý��Ƶ because of its renowned Conservatory of Music. Taylor has been playing tuba for over eight years. In addition to his studies, he looks forward to playing linebacker for the Vikings football team.��

“The activities at �������ý��Ƶ really involve you. They make it easy to meet a lot of new people and make friends.”��

After hearing President Laurie Carter’s annual address to new students, Taylor said, “It just made me feel like I really belong here.”��

Matriculation Convocation is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 19, at 12:30 p.m. in �������ý��Ƶ’s Memorial Chapel. President Laurie A. Carter will welcome all students and make remarks to start the new academic year.��

The Music Education Team (MET)—including �������ý��Ƶ Conservatory faculty, students, and alumni—presented 40 hands-on music-making workshops during the festival for people of all ages. Participants were able to experience everything��from bachata dance to Irish fiddle music, the blues harmonica to the didjeridu.

The �������ý��Ƶ Chamber Music Festival returned this year, allowing advanced instrumentalists the opportunity to collaborate and perform alongside Mile of Music artists. This year, there were 43 students from 20 U.S. state, plus international students, working with �������ý��Ƶ faculty and several guest artists. The four Mile of Music collaborators—BODHI, Natural Satellite, PEGASIS, and Whitney Mongé—represented several musical genres and geographic regions.

�������ý��Ƶ venues drew thousands of festival-goers to campus for performances on the �������ý��Ƶ Lawn Main Stage—located in front of Ormsby Hall—Memorial Chapel, and Harper Hall.��

�������ý��Ƶ alumni Michael Murphy ‘23 and Kate Stenson ‘24 were among the festival performers. Murphy played two sets, accompanied by �������ý��Ƶ alumnus Ryan Erdmann ‘22. Stenson performed two sets alongside Jennifer Harlee, a member of her band Wine on Fridays (W.O.F.).��

�������ý��Ƶ photographers captured the music-making in action. See a sampling above and . More photos will be added soon!��

Smith is the author of Unshuttered��(2023), Incendiary Art��(2017), Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah��(2012), and Blood Dazzler��(2008), among other acclaimed books. She has been a leading voice in poetry and spoken word performance for more than three decades.

“We are so lucky to have this amazing poet and performing artist here on our campus,” said Catherine Kautsky, the George and Marjorie Olsen Chandler Professor of Music and co-chair of the faculty committee leading the 2024-25 convocations. “She not only writes greatpoetry, but she speaks it with an intensity and fire that makes one feel as if poetry is the most potent language the world has to offer.”

Students of �������ý��Ƶ’s First-Year Studies course will be familiar with Smith, her Blood Dazzler being among the works studied this year. The book of poetry was a finalist for the National Book Foundation’s National Book Awards in 2008, with judges hailing it for chronicling the human, physical, and emotional toll exacted by Hurricane Katrina.

“Out of the maelstrom of the Slam, Patricia Smith conjures a harsh and elegant poetry in��Blood Dazzler,” the judges wrote. “Readers suspicious of her performance pedigree will note the formal ingenuity, whether sonnet, tanka, or collage. At the same time, the audience who prefers the live mic will be seized by the power of her voices, including that of Katrina ‘in full tantrum.’ From a confluence of poetic sensibilities, in a hot political wind, Smith rises above mere topicality to address timeless concerns.”

Smith has continued to build an audience and collect major honors in the years since Blood Dazzler. She is a Guggenheim fellow, a Civitellian, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, a finalist for the Neustadt Prize, a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry (for Incendiary Art),��and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history. She is a professor in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, a former Distinguished Professor for the City University of New York, an Academy of American Poets Chancellor, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Several �������ý��Ƶ faculty members hosted a Jan. 16 forum in Main Hall in which Smith’s works were discussed, a prelude to the much-anticipated Convocation.

The Winter Term convocation, known as University Convocation, is the second of . It annually features an invited guest speaker to share ideas and insight on contemporary issues. The first convocation of the year, the Matriculation Convocation, held in September, features a welcoming address from the university president to kick off a new academic year. And the Spring Term convocation, known as the Honors Convocation, celebrates student and faculty achievements and includes an address from a selected member of the faculty. It will be held at 12:30 p.m. May 30 in Memorial Chapel, with Allison Fleshman, associate professor of chemistry, delivering the address.

The convocations are free and open to the public.

Homecoming weekend also saw men’s soccer and football in play at Banta Bowl. And the swimming and diving teams hosted an intrasquad and alumni meet.

The��. They represent the most successful stretch of basketball in �������ý��Ƶ history—NCAA DIII tournament appearances, a run to the Elite 8, and a No. 1 national ranking. The teams also were saluted at halftime of Saturday’s football game at Banta Bowl.

Among other highlights of Homecoming weekend: Working, the Fall Term musical, was presented in Stansbury Theater; 150th Crescendo: Convergence – New Music Concert, featuring �������ý��Ƶ flute and trombone ensembles, was performed in Memorial Chapel; a homecoming dance was held in Warch Campus Center; and a Vikings Tailgate preceded the football game at Banta Bowl.

. Look for more photos to be added.

Leila Ramagopal Pertl ’87, a music education instructor at �������ý��Ƶ, once again led the Music Education Team (MET) in presenting more than 40 hands-on music-making events over the course of the festival. The team included �������ý��Ƶ Conservatory faculty, students, and alumni.

The inaugural���������ý��Ƶ Chamber Music Festival, designed for advanced instrumentalists ages 18 and over, spent the second of its two weeks in collaboration with Mile of Music artists. That work resulted in Mile of Music performances with four of the festival’s artists.

�������ý��Ƶ venues, meanwhile, drew thousands of festival-goers to campus for performances—the �������ý��Ƶ Lawn Main Stage, located on Main Hall Green in front of Ormsby Hall, again served as one of the festival’s marquee outdoor spaces; Memorial Chapel and Harper Hall saw a steady flow of festival performances all four days; and the green space outside of the Music-Drama Center and the nearby Mursell House hosted numerous Music Education workshops.

�������ý��Ƶ alumni Julia Blair ’11 and Michael Murphy ’23 were among the festival performers.

Photos from Danny Damiani captured all the fun. See a sampling above. .