Big 10 Conference at Wisconsin
UWC at the Big Ten Conference in Madison - June 2009
A conference of Big Ten women’s organizations differs from a sports event, yet it includes a bit of good-natured competition. Mainly, there is lots of sharing. Fun, too.
Every two years one of the eleven member universities hosts the conference, not a minor—or inexpensive—undertaking. This time the University League, Inc. of the University of Wisconsin-Madison put out the welcome mat, and UWC members Antoinette Beynen, Sue Clark, Barbara Herzog and I attended. We came back with ideas we’d like to share with all UWC members.
Membership
At dinner one night, someone mentioned successfully expanding their membership by inviting house directors from around campus to join. At OSU that might include fraternity/sorority housemothers, dorm directors and others.
While the majority of conference clubs remain women-only, for some of them discussion about including men is ongoing and spirited. Several clubs are gender-neutral: male faculty, spouses, staff and community members can join. For those clubs, traditional teas become wine and cheese “par-tees.”
There is yet another approach. The women’s club
itself belongs under a larger umbrella that, for example, includes the
university’s faculty club.
Each club retains its own board, but there are joint activities and
facilities used in common.
Interest Groups
A calico teddy bear and a kangaroo duo made their Wisconsin debut representing Toymakers. Buckeye Bargains remains the only thrift store among the clubs.
Webmaster Barbara Bouton has links to all Big Ten clubs and their interest groups on our home page, www.uwc-osu.org. These links show that some clubs choose to develop foreign language and writing groups, gardening and outdoor ventures or multiple service opportunities.
Among interest groups mentioned at the conference, the following might deserve a closer look. Ideas for possible adaptations are in brackets:
- Mentors [Possibly for OSU Service Learning students or nearby Metro High School. Other programs that could use our skills and talents might be the Center for Writing, Women’s Place programs, departmental and library programs.]
- Acquaintance Group [This could be a one-year or two-year membership for new members and a few (rotating) relatively new members. The objective would be assimilation of new members into the larger group and a short-term leadership role for recent members.]
Program ideas
We are free to “borrow” luncheon program topics from materials we were given, from reports presented and from the ten club websites. Among those mentioned:
- Costume Party: Dress for the Decade You Joined
- International Fashions w/music
- Holiday Party: wrapped gifts (age identified) for shelter/settlement house
- Rhodes Scholarship women
Club organization
Several clubs offered food-for-thought, including these tidbits:
- Co-presidents and co-chairs work together; someone is always in town.
-
The local university foundation works with an Endowed Scholarship
Committee of the club. The committee then helps members establish
memorial and named scholarships that may start on a “lay-away” plan.
Conference 2015 ideas
What did we learn—and what have we already done—to get ready to host the conference in 2015? Dianne McKenzie heads a planning committee, and Juanita Harrison agreed to join her. Our intrepid President Sue Clark got a planeside commitment from OSU’s Gordon Gee, who was on our flight home from Chicago. President Gee offered a reception and said, “You don’t have to lobby me.” With a subsequent exchange of letters, this is a done deal, according to Sue.
Questions we need to ask, with an eye to the bottom line:
- Would any UWC members offer housing during the conference?
- What speakers and entertainment can we provide at reasonable—or no—cost?
- Venues? Menus?
Sue has asked for the Wisconsin planners’ details.
Scholarships
The University League at Wisconsin-Madison presented $52,567 in general, endowed and memorial scholarships during 2007-2008. Some of the money came from named scholarships created by individual club members with direction from the University of Wisconsin Foundation. In 2008-09, the League and community in Madison took advantage of the foundation’s one-year matching funds program to add funds to needs-based scholarships.
Speakers’ Topics:
Fund Raising and Philanthropy
The League’s keen focus on fund raising and philanthropy carried over to their choice of Saturday speakers, non-profit consultant Boris Frank and nationally known women-in- philanthropy expert and author Martha Taylor (www.philwomen.com).
Boris Frank singled out Barbara Herzog’s presentation on Buckeye Bargains. He said that seeing the scholarship recipients face-to-face and hearing them talk about how they felt, as Barb reported, sent a powerful message to supporters of our scholarship program. Additional points from Boris on non-profits:
- Ask potential supporters [our 2015 conference supporters, too] to “consider” doing a finite task that doesn’t require them to commit lots of time: “Would you consider being an endorser or a consultant?”
- Every Board Member should donate to the organization’s programs, know details of its non-profit status and have access to the records.
Martha Taylor, Vice President of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, talked about the impressive history of women in philanthropy. Among her points for clubs to consider today:
- There is a need for focused, strategic philanthropy in the 21st Century.
- Giving more helps the economy.
- Like Boris, she discussed “good language”: relationships, partnerships.
- Face-to-face requests get a 50% response.
- A personal telephone call nets a 25% response.
- Special events often get a 0% return on original investment, but they build important relationships and sponsorships that equal face-to-face responses.
Martha asked each of us to ask ourselves:
- What institutions have had the most impact on our own life?
- What are the major needs of society?
- What are the barriers to our giving? Find a way to get rid of them, including lay-away endowed scholarships or pooled-giving scholarships. (Antoinette cites our Music group's scholarship as an example of pooled giving.)
The four of us came home from Madison with ideas to think about, share and rework to suit the needs of our club. We had an opportunity to observe what it will take to pull together an enjoyable, informative weekend for our conference guests in 2015. Thanks for sending us. And, please, add your ideas to what we’ve learned.
---Marba Wojcicki
My thanks for input from UWC members Sue Clark, Antoinette Beynen and Barbara Herzog and from Janice Golay and Kathy Sandefur in Madison.