Campus Personalities:

Jane Rediske: 40 Years and Still Going Strong

Jane Rediske has always admired the teaching profession, but didn’t think her calling was to become a teacher.

“I decided I wanted to work for the university and work for teachers. I wanted to assist teachers and school administrators from behind the scenes.”

That’s exactly what Rediske, now Education Outreach program manager in the School of Education, has been doing for the last 40 years.

Working first for the UW-Extension, which later became the UWM School of Education, she has helped thousands of teachers and school administrators continue their own learning in credit and non-credit programs. Most of the courses are offered in off-campus locations, for the convenience of the adult students.

“I really didn’t think about how long I would be here,” she says with a laugh, as she recalls accepting the job shortly after completing an associate degree in business. She worked for four months as the receptionist for the late Fred Olson, Dean of UW-Extension, Milwaukee, before filling a position being vacated by another young woman who was leaving to have a baby. She and the woman she replaced, Rosalie Poupart, who now works for the School of Continuing Education, Business & Management, have remained friends ever since.

She’s seen name changes and consolidations, worked for ten deans and under eight chancellors. She still enjoys her work. “I wouldn’t have stayed here if I didn’t. I really enjoy serving the educators of southeast Wisconsin, and working with the people at UWM.

One of the programs she’s liked working on the most is the annual Lakeshore Leadership Conference, which gives educators and school leaders a chance to listen to experts and discuss issues they all face. She’s in the process of planning the 48th annual conference. Willard Brandt, the Assistant Dean of the Extension Education, who started the program, was her second boss of 15 years and a fine mentor, she says. His widow is still one of her friends.

Another program she’s taken particular interest in over the years is a practicum in the Department of Administrative Leadership, in which students work as a team to plan and offer an adult education conference. She serves as mentor and advisor to the class, drawing on her own years of experience.

It has been interesting to see the ebb and flow of interest in different types of outreach programs, she says. In earlier years, a number of programs brought teachers out into the community to learn about various industries where their students might make careers. Rediske actually met her husband, Leon, an airport owner and pilot (now retired) on a work-related “field trip” to the Air Force Academy for teachers to learn more about air force careers to pass along to their students.

These days, there is a lot of interest in environmental education and childcare administration classes. Many classes in these areas have been administered through Education Outreach. Some outreach programs grow out of mandates. For example, the state of Wisconsin passed legislation requiring that all teachers take five hours of classes in Wisconsin Indian culture and sovereignty rights. Education Outreach has been offering seminars to meet this need since 1997.

Other classes, first offered through Education Outreach, find their way into the regular curriculum in the School of Education. The American Sign Language program is one good example, says Rediske. The high demand for those classes eventually led to the School of Education’s Department of Exceptional Education adding the ASL program to their curriculum, a forerunner to the School’s Interpreter Program.

In her spare time, Rediske enjoys playing tennis, biking, church choir and corvette cruising. KB9SYI is her amateur radio call sign and she’s an active member in the Ozaukee Radio Club. She’s taken flight lessons and has soloed a Cessna 150 single engine plane. “Being a student pilot has helped me be a good ‘pinch hitter’ when I accompany Leon flying cross country in his twin Comanche.”

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