Lt. Governor Lawton partnered with UW-System President Kevin Reilly to convene leaders from higher education in the state, along with business executives and the press at a conference at Wingspread to design Wisconsin’s pilot program. The goal: connect high achievement with Wisconsin’s ambition for its future; define high achievement in its fullest sense – economic, civic and personal; and make investment in liberal learning a regional advantage and a public good.

The Wingspread team is now building the statewide campaign model, even as UW System incorporates LEAP’s “essential learning outcomes” into the first eleven steps of the Growth Agenda. Wisconsin Campus Compact’s member college and university presidents and chancellors have indicated their plan to participate.

A liberal education does not refer to a discrete set of disciplines, as limited by the traditional definition of the liberal arts and sciences, but rather what today’s college graduates need to know and be able to do to function successfully. Liberal education draws on the strengths of both the liberal arts and sciences and the professional fields.

A liberal education prepares students for the reality they will encounter and meets the needs of employers and, with its grounding in ethics and social responsibility, prepares them for the world we want and deepens the nation’s talent pool for innovation.

Using the Wisconsin Idea to Fuel the Green Economy

The Wisconsin Idea – the notion that the university should serve as a laboratory of ideas to inform public policy and that the boundaries of the university are those of the state – informed the design of Lt. Governor Lawton’s Global Climate Change Summit at UW-Stevens Point in December 2008 and underwrote the idea for the UW to provide a seminar in Green Entrepreneurship.

The summit brought together teams from every region of the state, teams composed of local elected officials as well as private and non-profit sector leaders and members of the local press. They heard national experts speak, but most importantly the teams worked with academics from the UW System in a unique double dynamic: professors provided the latest information on meeting the demands of adaptation to climate change and mitigation of carbon emissions to local leaders; they, in return, provided direction for the kind of research that will be helpful to drive better decisions in this critical area.

The 1-credit hour class, “Sustainability Meets Entrepreneurship,” was developed by the Business, Environment and Social Responsibility (BESR) Program at the UW-Madison School of Business. The class provided UW students and members of the community access to experts on clean technology and alternative energy.  

New Career and Job Matching Service to Build Wisconsin Workforce

Lt. Governor Lawton announced the launch of a new career and job “matchmaking” service in an effort to promote Wisconsin job opportunities to young people and build the state’s information technology (IT) workforce.

The new online resource allows companies and organizations with technology internship opportunities to easily submit them to the ITAWi, and for students looking for exciting career opportunities to find them with information technology internships.

“This innovative initiative is designed to connect Wisconsin-trained students with jobs right here at home. It directly addresses pressing issues for Wisconsin by putting people to work in great jobs, letting young people know we want them to imagine their future right here and building a workforce to attract 21st century businesses and drive economic growth,” said Lt. Governor Lawton.

At the outset, companies had listings posted for 80 available internships across the state including Miller/Coors in Milwaukee, Sentry Insurance in Stevens Point, Nielsen in Green Bay and American Family Insurance in Madison. These opportunities have continued to grow.

You can visit the website here: http://www.itawi.org. Click on “College Intern Opportunities.”

Building Partnerships in China: Student Exchange Agreement and Global Manufacturing Institute

Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton announced the formal signing of a student exchange agreement between the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) and Tsinghua University in Beijing, China following her trade and cultural exchange mission to China in 2008. The agreement allows for the exchange of undergraduate students for semester and year-long programs of study beginning this year. Tsinghua is widely known as China’s top university.

While at Tsinghua University, Lt. Governor Lawton also reached an agreement for UW-Madison and Tsinghua University to form an exploratory commission to create a Global Manufacturing Institute. http://www.international.wisc.edu/UW-Madison, the University of Warwick in England and Tsinghua University in China would partner in the project. The objective of the Global Manufacturing Institute is to advance fundamental manufacturing research by coordinating international research and education projects involving sustainable manufacturing, digital manufacturing management, engineering and business management, manufacturing systems engineering and supply and logistics management.

International Education Leadership

International Education Resolution. Lt. Governor Lawton co-sponsored the National Lieutenant Governors Association (NLGA) resolution to encourage the establishment of an International Education Policy dedicated to enhancing international education at the state level via increased study abroad by U.S. students and increased international student enrollment at colleges and universities. Read the resolution by clicking this link.

Citizen Diplomacy Recommendations. Lt. Governor Lawton’s leadership in international education led to an invitation from the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy to participate in their Leadership Forum on Citizen Diplomacy at the SC Johnson Foundation's Wingspread Conference Center in Racine where they developed recommendations to significantly increase the nation’s commitment to citizen engagement in international relations.

At the Leadership Forum on Citizen Diplomacy, Lt. Governor Lawton joined a diverse group of more than 40 U.S. leaders from prominent organizations in international affairs. The collective knowledge and expertise of those participants, their experiences engaging with thousands of counterparts around the world and the long histories of their organizations in international relations and multicultural relationship building formed the basis for the Initiative. You can read their recommendations by clicking here.

The Elements of Smart Power: Over the weekend of January 30 – February 1, 2009, over 70 individuals representing principal stakeholders in the successful restoration of public diplomacy as a vital tool of U.S. foreign policy and national security, gathered at The Howard Gilman Foundation’s White Oak conference center in northern Florida to discuss The Elements of Smart Power: Re-Inventing Public Diplomacy.

Participants included former and current public diplomacy practitioners and former and current foreign policy thought leaders from the State and Defense departments, the National Security Council, the White House, the intelligence community, foreign assistance, the arts, academe, business, Capitol Hill, state government, the traditional and new media (including print, broadcast and Internet), think tanks and institutes, NGOs and national private sector citizen diplomacy groups.

Lt. Governor Lawton helped craft public diplomacy recommendations at this policy roundtable and later authored and led an NLGA resolution, Smart Power Public Diplomacy: Using Citizen Diplomacy to Strengthen U.S. World Standing, based on the recommendations.