1998-Spring ’19 Class Letter
Class Agents: Leilani Kupo
Sarah Eng
Spring 2019
Greetings from your ’98 Class Agents!
As winter continues move throughout country, we hope you all are staying warm and safe! A big thank you to those who shared their updates! We always like to hear updates from you! See below for campus and class news.
Best,
Sarah, Leilani
Campus News
President Messitte on Sabbatical
President Messitte is on sabbatical this spring, and Ed Wingenbach,
Vice President and Dean of Faculty will be serving as Acting President in his place. That shift in Vice President Wingenbach’s responsibilities means some changes in the Dean of Faculty’s office. Three people will share the duties of four positions: President, Vice President and Dean of Faculty, Associate Dean for Faculty Development, and Special Assistant to the President and Liaison to the Board of Trustees. Professor Andrea Young and Professor Rebecca Matzke will join Vice President Wingenbach to ensure all of these responsibilities are covered, with Professor Young serving as Acting Vice President and Dean of Faculty and Professor Matzke serving as Dean of Faculty Development.
College Consensus ranks Ripon College on its Top 50 list of Most Innovative Colleges. Ripon is recognized for its 20-credit applied innovation Catalyst Curriculum and its dedication to bringing Career and Professional Development resources into all four years of a student’s time on campus. Ripon is just one of three schools in Wisconsin to make the list.
Ripon receives National Science Foundation grant to study quantitative reasoning
A team of Ripon College faculty has received a National Science Foundation grant of $297,715 for the project “Building Capacity for Interdisciplinary Quantitative Reasoning Instruction.” The grant award, number DUE-1822414, is funded through the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources solicitation. The grant will provide support for faculty to develop expertise in quantitative reasoning and to study how the College’s approach to quantitative reasoning instruction affects student attitudes and learning gains.
Class Notes
WILLIAM DEPPIESSE ’98 of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, was promoted to a Senior Business Banking Officer at the start of 2019.
KRISTIN DODDS ’98 of Greendale, Wisconsin started a new position in August 2018 with Komatsu Mining Corporation in Milwaukee as a Senior EHS Specialist. She also re-enlisted for 6 more years with the US Army Reserves and is currently a Staff Sergeant with the 432nd Civil Affairs Battalion in Green Bay.
SHANNON MCKINNEY-FREEMAN ’98 lives in Germantown, Tennessee with her husband, Kevin, and four children (ages 4-13). Shannon was recently appointed interim Director of Experimental Hematology in the Department of Hematology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis, TN) and Chair of Admissions in the new St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, where she also co-leads the Developmental Biology course. Shannon was also awarded a Scholar Award by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and a large grant by the National Institutes of Health to study the basic science of the blood-forming stem cells of the bone marrow. In other news, her 13 year-old daughter recently discovered K-pop, which has taken over the household, her 10-year old’s Calico Critters collection continues to grow, her 6-year is excited to be an independent reader and her 4-year old loves practicing Taekwondo on his brother.
JOSH SATZER ’98 of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin has entered his 20th year in the financial services industry with Prudential Advisors. He also enjoys coaching his 9 year-old daughter’s winter league basketball team through the Sun Prairie YMCA.