After a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sept. 19, the new Candy Cane Park in New Glarus welcomed children of all abilities to enjoy slides, swings, and climbing equipment.
This inclusive park – the first of its kind in the village – was an expressed need from the community that University of Wisconsin–Madison students heard when they partnered with New Glarus on its comprehensive outdoor recreation plan in 2019 through a partnership with UniverCity Alliance.
Now, with major investment from the village and community members, children and families are enjoying the park.
“As a small municipality, we don’t often have the capacity or resources to take on planning projects like this. The UniverCity students taking on the bulk of the legwork was super helpful,” Village Administrator Lauren Freeman said. “In partnership with our local non-profit New Glarus Cares, we decided to replace the playground at Candy Cane Park with an inclusive playground, which was identified in this plan as a priority.”
This park is not only an example of New Glarus rallying around a shared priority, but also of how partnership between UW–Madison students and local government can lead to local successes.
Just days before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, UW–Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin visited Candy Cane Park and met with Green County public health staff during a day-long visit to Green County on Sept. 16. She highlighted the university’s commitment to experiential learning through initiatives like UniverCity Alliance, which is a part of the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities – Network that supports community-university partnerships across the nation and globe.
“This is good for America, good for higher (education), it’s good for communities. It’s another form of the Wisconsin Idea,” Mnookin said. “We want to do this in Wisconsin, but we also want to help other universities learn from what we’ve done, and vice versa.”
Through UniverCity’s model, Wisconsin local governments can partner with the university over three years to work on locally-identified projects.
“Our mission is to listen to local leaders and find the best match on campus for their community’s needs,” UniverCity Alliance Managing Director Gavin Luter said.
During UniverCity’s partnership with Green County, community partners completed 50 projects that ranged in topic from communications, community development, and health to parks, sustainability, and transportation.
Cara Carper, who was at the time the executive director of Green County Development Corporation, pursued the partnership, championing the possibilities, and recruiting the county’s municipalities – including Monroe, Brodhead, Belleville, Browntown, New Glarus, Monticello, and Juda – to participate.
“Bringing university students into our communities was delightful,” Carper said. “To be able to see the firepower that the university brought to Green County was incredible.”
The partnership engaged 288 students and 27 instructors in 25 courses across 15 UW–Madison departments and nine schools and colleges.
When students are engaged in community-based projects and other experiential learning opportunities, Mnookin said they gain a better understanding of the world outside of the classroom and that their work is meaningful.
“We’re looking at experiential learning for our students. We do think it’s a really important piece of education,” Mnookin said. “We’d like to be both helping a little more and getting more university students a chance.”
Creating capacity
Of the 50 projects, 14 directly addressed public health topics. Mnookin also met with members of the Green County Healthy Community Coalition during her visit to the county.
For Green County Human Services Department AODA Supervisor Bob Gibson, the partnership created extra capacity for the department to pursue research projects while also continuing to meet day-to-day demands.
“You know when you’re in the field that the research is changing, but when you’re working with people in their lives, you don’t always have the time to take that into a 40-hour week,” Gibson said. “This was really an opportunity to partner with folks who are in a position to do that research and use it to benefit not just my employees, not just the people that we’re working with, but the entire county.”
As a result of the UniverCity projects, Gibson said the department created a substance recovery and mental health wellness navigator position that improves connections to community services. This position is the “frontline person” for community members seeking help and provide a warm handoff to the resources that are needed.
“That’s going to really make (community members) feel comfortable. That’s really going to make them feel like somebody cares and that the answers that they’re seeking are on the horizon now,” Gibson said.
In another project, students created a communications plan to address breastfeeding rates in Green County that would promote resources. Public Health Nurse Jaime Batz reported that breastfeeding rates at one month postpartum have increased from 73% in 2017 to 89% in 2023, surpassing the department’s goal of 75%.
That project also inspired the department to create a Public Health Educator position to implement a communications plan and strategies around public health goals.
“The project was successful to help us get the word out to our community about breastfeeding resources and the ripple effect took us in another direction to identify that this position was needed to enhance communication with the public,” Batz said of the position.
Additional outcomes of the partnership include Green County:
- Receiving a $17,000 grant to develop an opioid use data dashboard
- Training and equipping staff to use Narcan to treat community members
- Improving use of a program called Teen Intervene, which aims to reduce and prevent substance use among adolescents, through a student-created video and promotional materials
- Creating a community-powered kitchen
—Abigail Becker