New UW faculty get a warm Wisconsin Welcome

At a picnic Wednesday at Olin House, new UW-Madison faculty members and their families got their own chance to connect.

Beer brats and gardenburgers were on the menu, but the main treat at the annual New Faculty Picnic on Wednesday was the chance for some 120 guests to experience a warm Wisconsin welcome.

"I remember coming to this event as a new faculty member many years ago, in 1996," said University of Wisconsin-Madison interim Chancellor Eric Wilcots in brief remarks he made to open the get-together. "For those of you who have brought your kids - thank you," he said. "I appreciate you bringing your family out, because being a faculty member is a family affair, as we all know."

Arriving on foot, by bike or with strollers, several dozen new UW-Madison faculty and their guests joined Wilcots and other UW-Madison leadership on the lawn of historic Olin House, traditionally the home of the university's chancellor, on what turned out to be a sparkling summer evening. A buffet spread of pasta, grilled chicken and more was set out alongside rows of picnic tables draped in red-and-white checkered tablecloths, while baskets of children's books, toys and lawn games dotted the grass nearby.

New School of Human Ecology (SOHE) colleagues Kimberly Fuentes Carrillo and Margaret Echelbarger, along with their guests Rogelio Ramires and Gabriel Torres, chatted at a table about their backgrounds and research. Fuentes Carrillo, who moved to UW-Madison from Los Angeles, is an assistant professor of civil society and community, while Echelbarger, most recently at Stony Brook University in New York, is assistant professor of consumer science. Both were hired as part of the Wisconsin RISE-THRIVE Initiative, a program designed to attract top scholars with interdisciplinary perspectives for solving deeply complex problems.

Like other new faculty, they had just completed two full days of orientations, workshops and discussions about the university's structure, its reach and its groundbreaking work.

"I'm lucky, because I'm coming in with four other new hires" at SOHE, including Fuentes Carrillo, Echelbarger said. "That's not always the case. We've already decided we're going to be a cohesive group and remain connected and celebrate and elevate each other. But it's also really nice to learn about what other people are doing (outside of SOHE). At a university this big, there are going to be parts of campus we never see - but at least now I have a sense of the breadth of research done on this campus, and that's really exciting."

The next picnic table over, new UW-Madison Associate Professor of Kinesiology Jon Hakun and Professor of Rehabilitation Psychology Allison Fleming, along with their two young sons Jacob and Jude, talked about how they have explored Madison since coming to Wisconsin from Penn State. So far, they've visited the Terrace at Memorial Union and taken some long bike rides, and are looking forward to an upcoming boat ride on Lake Mendota.

In his welcome remarks, Wilcots also noted a few local must-sees for faculty newcomers, such as Madison's many parks and bike paths, the Dane County Farmers Market, and the omnipresent plastic pink flamingo, which he noted is an official city symbol today but originated as a UW student prank close to 50 years ago.

"It's a great city; it's a great university," Wilcots told the gathering. "We are so broad. We do a lot of things very, very well."

Not to be outdone, Bucky Badger also made a picnic appearance. After dropping in for a few selfies with guests outside Olin House, the mascot plopped on the lawn to play "Peek-A-Boo" with some of the youngest guests.

The New Faculty Picnic plays an important role in creating community and a sense of connection, said Secretary of the Faculty Heather Daniels. The picnic is always held after the in-depth New Faculty Welcome, "so it's kind of the culmination, the capstone of that series of events," she said.

"I think starting a new faculty position is a really daunting task," said Daniels. "Having these kinds of events helps connect the faculty new to campus in a place they can find each other. The new philosophy professor who works in the Humanities building might not cross paths with a person from the School of Medicine and Public Health, but here they could."