Beyond the Bricks

Joanna Balza, a 2005 graduate of Wisconsin Lutheran College, is a great example of servant leadership in action. As a Peace Corps volunteer, she helped coordinate the trip of a lifetime for 50 students in South Africa this week.

Balza and fellow Peace Corps volunteer Haley McDonough took the students on bus ride to see a U.S. men’s national soccer team practice in Pretoria West as the team prepared for World Cup competition.

Balza said, “It was really exciting for [the students] to meet the players; but for most of these kids, just getting to go on a bus to Pretoria and be given lunch is a huge deal.”

The Appleton, Wisconsin, native is the sister of WLC professor Dr. Robert Balza.

For a complete article on the trip, visit the Peace Corps website or see photos on Facebook.

Past Present, a juried alumni art exhibition, opened last night at Wisconsin Lutheran College in the Schlueter Art Gallery. The artwork of the college’s art alumni will be on display until March 18.

Two visitors at the exhibit's opening reception admire the first-place artwork, "Flight."

The first-place woodcut and monoprint artwork is by Lindsay (Patt) Carr ‘07.

Sculptures "Encode/Decode" and "Neural Sculpting" by Anne Wendland '06 are part of the exhibition.

Several special events are coming up at Wisconsin Lutheran College. We hope to see you on campus!

The college will celebrate Founders’ Day on January 29. We’re serving up cake and photo displays in the Warrior Underground between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Also on Friday, the Door Stop Campus Shop holds its grand opening in the space formerly occupied by the bookstore.

Winterfest is Saturday, January 30, featuring a basketball doubleheader versus Lakeland College. The women’s tip-off is at 1 p.m., followed by the men’s at 3:15 p.m. The first 500 fans at the women’s game will receive a free Once A Warrior, Always A Warrior long-sleeved T-shirt. Then cheer on a high-flying dunk show by the Milwaukee Bucks Rim Rockers, including WLC alumnus Josh Schedler ‘06, during halftime of the men’s contest.

Next week, make plans to attend an open house of the new Nursing Lab on February 3.

Finally, at 6 p.m. on February 5 you are invited to the opening reception for the alumni art exhibition in the Schlueter Art Gallery.

See you soon!

Wisconsin Lutheran College is pleased to announce its newly redesigned Web site, wlc.edu, a project that gives the college’s Web site a fresh and dynamic design.
 
The goal of the new look is to offer a vastly improved browsing experience for prospective students, as well as for current students, parents, alumni, friends, faculty, and staff. The site also reflects the vibrant visual appeal of the college’s print publications, and its improved streamlined navigation means users will always be just a click or two away from key information.

The project was completed entirely in-house by a collaboration of campus offices that headed by Vicki Hartig, associate vice president of marketing & communication, and included Chad Lindemann, professor of art, Olya Finnegan, web developer, and Eva McGillivray, web & marketing coordinator. During the redesign development, the site was pre-screened by an on-campus group of students, faculty, and staff, as well as by industry professionals.

“We wanted to create a more current and polished design created through clarity of proportional organization, typography, images, and colors,” says Lindemann. “From early reviews, it appears we’ve accomplished that to a large degree.”
 
The relaunch of wlc.edu comes within a year of other recent Web site launches for WLC including the my.wlc.edu portal and the admissions microsite, www.beawlcwarrior.com. The last redesign of the Web site was in 2005.
 
The entire conversion process will be accomplished by the end of February 2010. Visitors are welcome to post comments regarding the redesign here on the Beyond the Bricks blog.

The calendar has turned to October and that means leaves turning colors and time for some FOOTBALL! Wisconsin Lutheran College celebrated its annual Homecoming week September 28-October 3.

Campus-wide events included a mind-blowing show from mentalist Christopher Carter at the Pep Rally Monday night.

The week continued with the always-popular corn roast and Homecoming T-shirt tie-die on Wednesday. 

Saturday finally arrived as the alumni football game started the day at Raabe Stadium. 

A packed crowd and the Warriors were ready for a battle against Concordia Chicago.

And after a 27-16 win over the Cougars, Dominique Johnson and the Warriors took time to sign autographs for some young fans. 

Winterfest 2009 at Wisconsin Lutheran College was a huge success as the Warriors men’s and women’s basketball teams defeated Maranatha Baptist Bible College in a Northern Athletics Conference doubleheader. The teams weren’t the only ones getting into the action. Fans enjoyed a high-flying dunk show by the Milwaukee Bucks Rim Rockers, including WLC alums Josh Schedler ’06 and Chris Walls ’05, while Bango, the Bucks mascot, entertained the crowd.

Trick or Treat in the Halls, a fun annual event for alumni, students and friends of Wisconsin Lutheran College, took place tonight. It’s a great chance for alums to re-connect with old friends and bring their families back to campus.

The students put a lot of hard work into decorating their floors. Tonight we saw Nemo, SpongeBob, Dora the Explorer and many more creative characters taking over the residence hall lounges.