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Roger Fitzsimonds and his wife, Leona, pose in front of Chapman Hall with
recent nursing grad Taysheedra Allen.
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Roger Fitzsimonds and Taysheedra Allen are two of the people who help define UW–Milwaukee. You’ve met many others in the preceding pages, and you’ll meet many more in the pages that follow. Some are students, some are alumni, some are faculty, some are friends. All are supporters of the university.
by Kathy Quirk
Roger Fitzsimonds received his bachelor’s degree in business from UWM in 1960. He was part of the first class to spend all four years in the newly formed university.
Taysheedra Allen received her bachelor’s degree in nursing in December 2002. She is one of UWM’s newest graduates.
Though they represent opposite ends of UWM’s history, both share an enthusiasm about UWM and praise for the university’s influence on their lives.
“I admit I’m biased,” says Fitzsimonds. “I’m biased toward UWM.”
Fitzsimonds, retired chairman and CEO of Firstar Corporation (now USBank), has just made a $1.5 million gift to UWM’s School of Business Administration to establish the Roger L. Fitzsimonds Scholarly Achievement Fund. He wants to help others learn the business skills that were the foundation for his successful career, he says.
“Over the years, Roger has had a really unwavering loyalty to the School of Business Administration and UWM,” says Dean V. Kanti Prasad. “He brought the UWM message to the community and added credibility to all our efforts. As a member and as president of the School of Business Administration’s Advisory Council, he has played a central role in our growth and development, and in helping us achieve national visibility.
“We are profoundly grateful for Roger’s generous gift and for his continued advice, counsel and support.”
“Thank God for UWM,” Fitzsimonds says. Like many students, he had to balance college with job and family responsibilities. His father was ill when he entered UWM; he married and started a family while working on his undergraduate degree. After serving in the military, he joined First Wisconsin National Bank and returned to UWM for graduate work.
“I couldn’t afford to go to college full time for my master’s degree,” he says. “Again, thank God for UWM. It was friendly to students who had spouses, children and jobs.” He received his M.B.A. in finance in 1971.
Taysheedra Allen is now a nurse in the medical surgical unit at St. Luke’s Medical Center. “I love my career choice,” she says. “I made the right decisions in the years I was at UWM.”
“She has a passion and enthusiasm for nursing that is contagious,” says Susan Dean-Baar, associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Nursing.
Allen grew up in one of the few African American families in Oconomowoc
(her father
is a retired
Air Force major). Her background, and her work with multicultural groups at
UWM, has given her a special empathy for patients of diverse backgrounds.
“I work with people who speak Hmong or Spanish or Russian or Chinese,” says Allen. “That definitely makes care more difficult. It’s hard enough to be poked and prodded when you can understand what’s going on, but patients who don’t speak English are especially fearful and uncertain.”
She decided to become a nurse in sixth grade, after her family helped care for her grandfather through a long illness. “I knew I wanted to help people who were ill.”
Allen found the atmosphere at UWM very supportive, and speaks with special warmth about Donna Wier, her academic counselor in the nursing program. “She was my best friend and my mom away from home all rolled into one. I definitely hit some walls, but she was one of the reasons I stayed with it.”
Roger Fitzsimonds has remained an active UWM supporter throughout his career. In 1983 he received the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumnus Award, and in 1989 he received an honorary doctorate in Commercial Science from UWM. He served five years as chair of the UWM Foundation Board of Directors, and also was president of the School of Business Administration’s Advisory Council. He chaired the university’s first capital campaign, “Key to the Future” (1981-84), and co-chaired the next, “Second Century” (1986-89). He is a member of the Chancellor’s Council of Corporate Sponsors.
While Taysheedra Allen’s career is just starting, she’s already an active member of the UWM community. She started the UWM chapter of FBNA (Future Black Nurses of America), became involved in student government and served as director of the Student Association’s Multicultural Affairs Committee.
While she plans to continue working at St. Luke’s, where she started her career as a nurse intern, Allen is already thinking about the future. Eventually she’d like to get a degree in Spanish, a language she loves, and a master’s and doctorate in nursing.
Fitzsimonds is thinking about the future, too. He hopes his gift to the university will encourage others in the community to support UWM.
“There’s no question that UWM makes a significant contribution to the cultural and economic vitality of Milwaukee,” he says. “UWM graduates are leaders in the business and civic community. I think it’s important that we make sure today’s young people have the opportunities we had.”