Overtime Is Quality Time

MARK POLLARD

Dawn Wieking and her husband, Kim, have logged thousands of miles following their sons, (left to right) Braden, Brett, Bryant and Blake, to athletic events.

Over the course of a weekend in the late ’90s, the four Wieking boys played sports in four different cities spanning several states: Des Moines, Kansas City, Minneapolis and somewhere else their mother can’t remember.

“It’s a blur, to be honest,” says Dawn (Te Brink ’80) Wieking on the early years raising star athletes who are six years apart. “There were times we had supper in the van three nights in a row.”

In this traveling diner and a house-turned-locker room in Sioux Falls, S.D., Wieking and her husband, Kim ’80, clocked quality family overtime with their sons. Brett ’06, Blake ’08 and Bryant ’10 all played soccer at Northwestern; the youngest, Braden, is a kicker for the archrival University of Sioux Falls football team.

“We always taught our boys to respect their opponents,” she says. “In life, too. I’m not very athletic myself, but I can appreciate the lessons they’ve learned through sports.”

Wieking serves as president of the National Alumni Board, a role she defines as listening to young people and meeting their needs. Those skills, honed en route to hundreds of games, now serve scholarship students and others on campus, making this mother a Northwestern champ both on and off the field.

by Amy Scheer

Math Notes

AARON PACKARD

Dan Van Peursem uses music to help his students at the University of South Dakota learn math.

Standing outside a college math classroom, probably the last thing you expect to hear is music—certainly not rapping, for example, or lyrical chanting. But the oddity of such practice hasn’t stopped Dr. Dan Van Peursem ’89 from getting his groove on.

Chair of the math department at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, Van Peursem incorporates many diverse teaching methods, including mnemonic devices and getting his students to chant, stomp their feet and sing.

There’s the playful—but effective—“Derivative Song”: “One d two plus two d one, that’s the way we get ’er done,” sung to the familiar tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” And Van Peursem describes “The Quotient Rule” as a rap that requires the whole class to “do some b-bop in the background” while they chant “low d high minus high d low, you draw that line and square below.”

Van Peursem says that while the exercises are highly entertaining, they also engage the students in learning. He admits his students may be less likely to remember him as someone passionate about math than “the crazy, excitable person in front of the room who will do virtually anything to get his students to learn.”

by David Gutsche ’11

Law Practice

When Laura Jacobson graduated from William & Mary School of Law this past spring, several Hispanic families threw a party to express their appreciation for her service to their community.

For the average law student, course work alone can sap every second of free time, so there’s little left for interacting with the community or giving back.

Laura Jacobson ’08, the 2011 recipient of the William & Mary School of Law’s prestigious Thurgood Marshall Award for public service, isn’t average.

“I went to law school because I wanted to do public service after graduation,” she says, “so it seemed obvious to serve while I was there.”

Through her work with a local church’s Hispanic ministry, Jacobson discovered a need for legal information among the immigrant population of Williamsburg, Va.  

“People had problems with landlords, or bosses not paying them, or even domestic issues like child custody, and they had very little idea how the system worked,” she says.

Jacobson started a program to connect students with immigrants, calling it De Vecino a Vecino (From Neighbor to Neighbor) to highlight the focus on partnership.

“We’ve been able to provide immigrants with a caring and trustworthy resource in issues that produce a lot of confusion and anxiety,” she says. In turn, students get valuable legal experience and the opportunity to serve.

Jacobson has since graduated, but she’s confident the seed she planted will continue to grow in the community, with both students and immigrants reaping the rewards.

by Sarah Asp Olson ’03