Leadership Council
Amy Ambrose, Executive Director, Milwaukee Aging Consortium
Anne Basting, Director, Center on Age and Community
Ricardo Cisneros, Associate Executive Director - Human Services and Elderly Programs; United Community Center/Centro de la Comunidad Unida
Gwen Jackson, Chairman Emeritus, Milwaukee Chapter of the Red Cross
Christine Kovach, Professor, School of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Sally Lundeen, Professor and Dean, UWM College of Nursing
Robin Mayrl (Officer), Vice President, Program Development Helen Bader Foundation
Beth Meyer-Arnold, (Officer) Director Luther Manor Adult Day Services
Rhonda Montgomery (Officer), Professor, Helen Bader Endowed Chair in Applied Gerontology
Joan Prince, Assistant Chancellor for Partnerships and Innovations
Jeanne Prochnow, Director of QI/Program Development, Community Care for the Elderly
Marie Y. Savundranayagam, Assistant Professor, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare
Stephanie Stein, Director, Milwaukee County Department on Aging
Stan Stojkovic (Lead Dean), Dean and Professor, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, Department of Criminal Justice
Scott Strath, Assistant Professor, Department of Human Movement Sciences, College of Health Sciences
Jerry Weisman, (Officer) Professor, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Past Leadership Council Members
Amy Ambrose, Executive Director, Milwaukee Aging Consortium
Amy comes to the Milwaukee Aging Consortium with a breadth of skills in non-profit administration and eight years of experience in community work. A journalism graduate of Marquette University in 1993, Amy first became involved in helping others as a student volunteer. During six years with Literacy Services of Wisconsin, her role included public relations, fund raising, financial management, board relations, strategic planning and teaching adults to read. Amy is also the co-founder of a successful small business. She most recently held the position of Development Director for a small community center serving Milwaukee's near West side.
Anne Basting, Director, Center on Age and Community
Anne Basting (Ph.D.) is the Director of the Center on Age & Community and an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at the Peck School of the Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches storytelling and playwriting. Basting has written extensively on issues of aging and representation, including her book The Stages of Age: Performing Age in Contemporary American Culture. Her numerous articles and essays have been published across multiple disciplines including journals such as The Drama Review, American Theatre, and Journal of Aging Studies, and anthologies Figuring Age, Mental Wellness in Aging, the Handbook for the Humanities and Aging, and Aging and the Meaning of Time. Basting is the recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship, a Brookdale National Fellowship, and numerous major grants for her scholarly and creative endeavors. Her creative work includes nearly a dozen plays and public performances, including The Frida Kahlo Retrospective, All the Live Long Day, Persuasion (co-written with Ping Chong), the Last Dinosaur, and Time Slips. Basting received her Ph.D. in Theatre Arts and Dance from the University of Minnesota in 1995. Basting continues to direct the TimeSlips Creative Storytelling Project, which she founded in 1998. She is currently at work on a new book, Forget Memory: Imagining a Better LIfe for People with Dementia. Basting makes numerous presentations creativity and aging across the United States.
Ricardo Cisneros, Associate Executive Director - Human Services and Elderly Programs; United Community Center/Centro de la Comunidad Unida
Ricardo Cisneros serves as the Associate Executive Director - Human Services and Elderly Programs at the United Community Center/Centro de la Comunidad Unida. He manages the human services department and elderly programs for this community-based organization offering a variety of cultural, educational and recreational services to Milwaukee's Hispanic community. Human services programs include AODA screening unit, residential, day treatment, outpatient, case management and mental health services. The Senior Center at UCC serves 135 seniors daily. The Center also offers Adult Day Care specialized services for frail elders in day treatment. The Family Care Unit is contracted with Milwaukee County to manage the health care needs of 100 seniors. UCC also offers senior living with apartments for 20 families.
Gwen Jackson, Chairman Emeritus, Milwaukee Chapter of the Red Cross
Gwen Jackson is very well known in our community as the consummate volunteer. Her life long commitment to civic involvement includes the following leadership roles: Chairman of the Women's Fund of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Chapter Chair of the Emeritus Red Cross of Greater Milwaukee, Village Adult Services (chair), National Women's Funding Network (co-chair), Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy (chair), YWCA, United Way of Greater Milwaukee, Family Service of Milwaukee, Alliance for Children and Family, Alzheimer's Association, Milwaukee County Department on Aging, Wisconsin Council of Senior Citizens, African American Women's Project among others. She has been recognized locally and nationally and has received numerous awards for her work in the community. Ms. Jackson was vice-president of human resources for Brill, Inc. (retired). She is married and has two children.
Chris Kovach (Officer), Professor, College of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Christine R. Kovach, PhD, RN has done extensive clinical work and research with people who have Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. She examines practice problems from new perspectives and develops and researches innovative approaches to dementia care. Specifically, she has been responsible for: 1) opening and researching some of the first hospice households designed to care for people with late-stage dementia; 2) opening Special Care Units for midstage dementia and researching specific programmatic, environmental, and behavioral aspects of the SCU model; and c) developing theory, the "Model of Imbalance in Sensoristasis," to guide research and practice on activity pacing of people with dementia. She has over 30 publications in scientific journals and was recently funded through the RO1 mechanism for $1.1 million by the National Institute for Nursing Research for a randomized double-blinded experiment testing the effectiveness of a nursing protocol in decreasing pain in people with dementia. She also received funding from the Helen Bader Foundation to support a double-blinded randomized experiment testing the effectiveness of an activity pacing intervention in decreasing agitation of people with dementia. Her current funded studies include a study of factors associated with successfully implementing changes in pain management in nine nursing homes (awarded to the Training Research Institute by the Administration on Aging) and factors associated with creating and sustaining culture change from the Jewish Foundation and Care Center.
Dr. Kovach is a section editor for the Journal of Gerontological Nursing and serves as an Editorial Board Member for the journals Research in Nursing & Health and the American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias. She has served as a proposal reviewer for the National Institute for Nursing Research, the Alzheimer's Association, Extendicare Foundation and the Israel Science Foundation. Her book Late-Stage Dementia Care: A Basic Guide is published by Taylor & Francis Publishing. She is a fellow in the Gerontological Society of America and serves as a mentor for the Clinical Medicine section of this organization. She will be inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in fall of 2006.
Sally P. Lundeen, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor and Dean, College of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
lundeen@uwm.edu, 414-229-4189
Dr. Lundeen has focused her entire professional career on the implementation and evaluation of community based nursing practice models in vulnerable urban communities. She has undertaken this work in both academic and practice settings in Illinois and Wisconsin. As Executive Director of the Erie Family Health Center (1977-1985) she expanded a part-time "free clinic" in a Hispanic community in Chicago to a multiple site federally funded community health center which continues to flourish today.
Her appointment as a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee moved this work into the academic nursing center arena. At UWM, she has founded and supervised the development of four community nursing centers and was the Founder and first director of the UWM Institute for Urban Health Partnerships. She also served as the Associate Dean for Practice and Interim Dean before her appointment in 2001 as Dean of the School of Nursing.
Dr. Lundeen's research and publications have focused on community nursing centers, computerized clinical documentation for community nursing practice, transformational leadership, and health policy. She is passionate about professional nursing and improving the health status of vulnerable urban populations. Dr. Lundeen has been the recipient of numerous awards from consumer groups as well as professional organizations, including a Primary Care Public Policy Fellowship from HRSA, the NLN Lavinia Dock Award, the Wisconsin Governor's Primary Health Care Educator Award, the 2000 Milwaukee Business Journal Woman of Influence Award, the MDNA 2002 Service Award for Excellence in Nursing Management and Administration, and the NNCC 2004 Champion Award for her pioneering leadership of the nurse-managed health center movement. She was most recently elected first Board Chair of the recently-established Wisconsin Center for Nursing.
Robin Mayrl (Officer), Vice President, Program Development Helen Bader Foundation
Robin Bieger Mayrl is vice president of program development at the Helen Bader Foundation, where she has worked since 1992. Her responsibilities include managing the Foundation's Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia program area, which awards $1.6 million annually to projects that help improve the quality of life for Wisconsin's older adults and their families. The Foundation supports programs related to community-based programming, applied research, training, and public policy education.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Bieger Mayrl had been director of the Milwaukee County Department on Aging. She holds a Bachelors degree in sociology from Daemen College in Buffalo, N.Y., and a Masters of Social Work from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Beth Meyer-Arnold, Director Luther Manor Adult Day Services
Beth Meyer-Arnold received her BSN from Marquette University and her MS in Nursing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, focusing on Gerontology and Community. Beth currently is Director of Luther Manor Adult Day Services in Milwaukee, WI. Luther Manor has two adult day centers; 1) an adult day health center, that includes a separate Alzheimer's dementia program, at an urban site serving 55 participants a day; and 2) a unique new health ministry program in a rural county that has blended care for cognitive and physically disabled adults of all ages, and a parish nurse program provided for two Lutheran congregations. Ms. Meyer-Arnold has presented extensively on program development, elderly health service delivery, dementia care services and clinical interventions for care of persons with dementia. Beth has completed research in the area of independence in activities of daily living in institutionalized elderly, bathing experiences of persons with dementia, caregiver use of overnight respite and it's relationship to caregiver burden, and the effects of benevolent touch with persons with dementia. Beth has also authored and received grants totaling more than $600,000.
Rhonda Montgomery, Professor, Helen Bader Endowed Chair in Applied Gerontology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Rhonda J.V. Montgomery, an internationally known scholar in aging, is the first person to occupy the new chair in gerontology at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee endowed by The Helen Bader Foundation. The chair is within the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare. At UWM, Montgomery holds faculty appointments both in that school and in the Sociology Department of the College of Letters and Science. Montgomery comes to UWM from the University of Kansas, where she was chair of the Ph.D. in Gerontology program and director of the Gerontology Center at the university. During the last 20 years, Montgomery has conducted scores of regional and national studies focusing on public policy and the role of the family in providing long-term care. For 11 years, she has evaluated demonstration projects in 33 states that are operating through grants from The Administration on Aging. The funding allows states to try new ways to provide training and support to caregivers who deal with people with dementia. Montgomery, who has worked with several UWM faculty in the past, looks forward to continuing her cross-disciplinary approach at the university. She also sees Milwaukee as an ideal location to continue her community-based research.
She can also be reached through her Helen Bader School Of Social Sciences Homepage.
Dr. Joan M. Prince, Ph.D. Vice Chancellor for Partnerships and Innovation
Dr. Joan M. Prince, Vice Chancellor for Partnerships and Innovation at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee is a long time community activist and has been a prominent figure in advocating for change through service and action oriented methods. Through her work with numerous community based organizations, corporations, community non-profits, health care organizations, and K-20 educational institutions, she has been in the forefront for over 30+ years in setting community agenda and policy.
The Office of Partnerships and Innovation exists to foster an innovative vision, implementation and maintenance of campus-community connections, through a deepened commitment and mutual respect between and among our internal and external partners.
She can also be reached through her Partnerships and Innovation homepage.
Jeanne Prochnow, Director, Quality Improvement Community Care Organization
Jeanne Prochnow received her BSN and MS in Nursing from University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee School of Nursing. Jeanne has been an employee of Community Care Organization (CCO) since 1991 and was instrumental in the development and implementation of the PACE (Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) and Wisconsin Partnership Programs (WPP) programs for the agency. CCO has 5 adult day health centers in Milwaukee County and one in Racine County serving over 800 low income, NH eligible older adults in the PACE and WPP programs. Jeanne is currently the Director of Quality Improvement for the PACE and WPP programs and is overseeing development of the Layton Blvd. Neighborhood component for the Milwaukee County Connecting Caring Communities Project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's national Community Partnerships for Older Adults program. Jeanne has given numerous presentations on community-based care for older adults, provided leadership within the National Pace Association regarding new program development for PACE programs and completed research on quality initiatives and caregiver supprt with local academic partners.
Marie Savundranayagam, Assistant Professor, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Marie Savundranayagam is an Assistant Professor in the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is also a scientist in UWM's Training Research Institute and is involved in evaluating training programs for family and professional caregivers.
She completed her bachelor's degree from the Combined Honours Program in Arts & Science and Psychology at McMaster University in Canada. She earned her Masters and Ph.D. in Gerontology, with a concentration in Health Care Outcomes Management and Research, at the University of Kansas. She also completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Western Ontario in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders.
Her research interests maintain an aging and health outcomes perspective. Specifically, her research focuses on dementia-related stressors, including communication problems, and their effect on burden for family caregivers. Her research is also on professional caregivers and the impact of communication enhancing strategies, including personhood, on perceptions of long-term care staff and residents. Her most recent completed research investigated the impact of spousal and caregiver roles on multidimensional aspects of burden. Marie was the recipient of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Aging 'Age Plus' Award for her work on communication problems and caregiver burden. She was recently selected as a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholar, an award that is aimed at improving the lives of older adults by supporting faculty in research, teaching and leadership in geriatric social work. Marie currently teaches courses on lifespan family development and social gerontology.
Stephanie Stein, Director, Milwaukee County Department on Aging
In 1993, Stephanie Sue Stein was appointed to direct the Milwaukee County Department on Aging. Her 26 years of service to elders is exemplified by advocacy and collaboration-building. As Director of the Department, she oversees 190 staff and works with the 16-member Commission on Aging, the County Executive, and the County Board of Supervisors to ensure that the lives of elders are the best that they can be. Stephanie serves on two national boards and speaks, writes, and lectures on aging issues.
Stan Stojkovic, Dean and Professor, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Stan Stojkovic is Dean and Professor of Criminal Justice in the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). He received his Associate of Arts degree in Police Science from the Milwaukee Area Technical College in 1975, a Bachelor's of Science degree in criminal justice from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 1977, a Master's of Science degree in criminal justice from Michigan State University in 1981, and a Ph.D in Social Science, with cognates in criminal justice and criminology, public administration, and philosophy from Michigan State University in 1984. He has been on the criminal justice faculty at UWM since the fall, 1983.
He is author, co-author and co-editor of six books on various topics in the criminal justice field (Criminal Justice Organizations: Administration and Management, with David Kalinich and John Klofas, third edition, published by Thomson Publishing Company; The Administration and Management of Criminal Justice Organizations: A Book of Readings, edited with John Klofas and David Kalinich, fourth edition, published by Waveland Press; Corrections: An Introduction, with Rick Lovell, second edition, published by Anderson Publishing Company; Crime and Justice in the Year 2010, edited with John Klofas, published by West/Wadsworth Publishing Company; and Correctional Leadership: A Cultural Perspective, with Mary Ann Farkas, published by Thomson Publishing Company). All of these books are widely used across the country in colleges and universities. He is also working on a sixth book entitled Managing Special Populations in Jails and Prisons with the Civic Research Institute.
In addition, Professor Stojkovic is author or co-author of over 40 academic publications, book chapters, monographs, and other publications. He is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, has made numerous television appearances concerning crime related issues, and has served as a consultant to many police agencies and correctional organizations. For the past sixteen years, he has been a trainer for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. He has co-coordinated the California Leadership Institute for the California Department of Corrections for the past ten years. The institute is composed of a six-week curriculum for upper level correctional administrators. As of fall, 2003, the institute has graduated over 325 participants. The institute is the only one of its kind in the country within the field of corrections.
In the fall of 1999, Professor Stojkovic was appointed as a Commissioner on the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Accreditation Group (WILEAG), an affiliate of the national Commission on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). This group is working toward the development of performance standards for the law enforcement community within the state of Wisconsin. In the spring of 2004, he was chosen as one of three finalists, through the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, to be a panelist for a conference sponsored by the United Nations to assist war torn countries in the development of criminal justice systems to be held in Bangkok, Thailand in the spring of 2005.
Scott Strath, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Human Movement Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
sstrath@uwm.edu; 414-229-3666
Dr. Scott Strath is a new addition to the faculty of the Department of Human Movement Sciences at UWM. Strath, who comes from the University of Michigan, Medical School, is an expert in the area of physical activity and public health. In conjunction with his appointment, he is also the new director of the Older Adult Fitness program, which is a joint venture between the Milwaukee County Department of Aging and the Department of Human Movement Sciences.
The overall aim of Strath's fellowship is to determine whether providing free access to exercise facilities and trainers in local senior centers is effective in encouraging local community members to improve their health and psychological well being by increasing overall daily physical activity. He will also trace whether having free exercise equipment in senior centers is effective in making seniors more aware of the need to stay active. For example, does exercising in a group make seniors more apt to be more physically active throughout the day, increase health, functional status and decrease depression?
Strath's initial investigation will hopefully lend support to the need for free exercise facilities located within community senior centers - in addition to highlighting the importance of being physically active for the overall health and well-being of older adults.
He can also be reached through his College of Health Sciences Homepage.
Gerald Weisman, Professor, Department of Architecture
Education
University of Michigan: Ph.D. in Psychology & Architecture 1979
University of Michigan: M.Arch. 1970
Carnegie-Mellon University: B.Arch. 1969
Teaching Area
General Design Studio, Environments for Older Persons, Environmental Cognition, Philosophical Bases of Environmental Design Research
Memberships
Steering Committee: AIA Design for Aging Center
Vice President: Society for Advancement of Gerontological Environments (SAGE)
Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA)
Gerontological Society of America
Academic and Professional Honors
Research Award, UWM Graduate School/UWM Foundation
Citation, Progressive Architecture Awards Program Award from AIA International Design Book Fair Competition
Teaching Experience
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: 1983-present
Pennsylvania State University: 1978-1983
Kansas State University: 1975-1978
Professional Experience
National consultations on projects for the elderly and cognitively impaired.
Research Interests
Programming, design, and evaluation of environments for the elderly and cognitively impaired. Along with the UW-M colleague Uriel Cohen, he co-directs the Instiitute on Aging & Environment. With support from the national office of the Alzheimer's Association, the Retirement Research Foundation, and the Helen Bader Foundation, the Institute on Aging & Environment conducts programming and evaluation studies and provides technical assistance to dementia care providers engaged in the design of innovative new facilities or renovations. Weisman previously served as environmental consultant to a major research initiative on specialized facilities for people with dementia sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. He is a member of the Steering committee of the American Institute of Architects' newly established Design for Aging Center and Vice President of SAGE (Society for advancement of Gerontological Environments), a national organization committed to reform of regulations for nursing home design. He most recently served as Principle Investigator for a project, funded by the Helen Bader Foundation of Milwaukee, to develop planning and design guidelines for dementia day care facilities.
Publications (Selected)
Weisman, G. (2001). The place of people in architectural design. In A. Pressman (Ed.), The architect's portable design handbook: A guide to best practices. New York: McGraw Hill.
Weisman, G.,Chaudhury, H. & Diaz Moore, K. (2000). "Theory and Practice of place: Toward an integrative model". In R. Rubenstein, M. Moss, & M. Kleban (Eds.), The many dimensions of aging:
Essays in honor of M. Powell Lawton. New York: Springer
Norris-Baker, L., Wiesman, G., Lawton, M.P., Sloane, P. (2000). Assessing special care units for dementia: The professional environmental assessment protocol. In S. Danforth & E. Steinfeld (Eds.), Measuring enabling environments. New York: Plenum.
Weisman, G (1997). Environments for older persons with cognitive impairments: Toward an integration of research and practice. In G. Moore & R. Marans (Eds.), Advances in environment, behavior, and design: V.4.. New York: Plenum.
Lawton, M. P., Weisman, G., Sloane, P. & Calkins, M. (1997). Assessing environments for older people with chronic illness. In J. Teresi, et al. (Eds.), Measurement in elderly chronic care populations. New York: Springer.
Kovach, C., Weisman, G., Chaudhury, H, & Calkins, M. (1997). Impacts of a therapeutic environment for dementia care. Journal of Alzheimer's Care & Research, May/June. Pp. 99-110.
Lawton, M.P., Weisman, G., Chaudhury, H & Calkins, M. (1997). "Assessing environments for older people with chronic illness". In J. Teresi, M. P. Lawton, D. Holmes & M Ory (Eds.), Measurement in elderly chronic care populations (pp. 193-209). New York: Springer.
Weisman, G., Calkins, M. & Slaone, P. (1994). The environmental context of special care. Alzheimer's disease & associatec disorders: An international journal. V. 8: Supplement 1, 308-320.
Cohen, U & Weisman, G (1991). Holding on to home: Designing environments for people with dementia. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins
Research and Creative Activities
Along with Institute on Aging & Environment colleagues, Weisman has, over the past ten years, been involved in over 70 consulting projects in the U.S. and Canada including a new replacement campus for the Philadelphia Geriatric Center and the Helen Bader Center at the Milwaukee Jewish Home.
Service
Co-Director, Institute on Aging & Environment
Member, Leadership Council, UWM Design for Aging Center
Member of the Departmental Executive Committee; Steering Committee of the AIA Design for Aging Center; Reviewer of manuscripts for Journal of Architecture & Planning Research and the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) Board of Directors
