- Welcome to "In Wisconsin" in a brand new year.
I'm Patty Loew.
This week, what's old is new again in Manitowoc,
where vintage picture postcards make a comeback.
- This kind of cultural, this camera behavior,
this kind of posing, is in us.
- It's a new year, and time for a makeover,
an educational makeover.
- ...go back to school and get going on this dream.
It's a good dream.
- The recession is hard on industry,
but it can be good for education.
Plus, East meets West in an etiquette lesson
for Wisconsin corporations doing business in China.
- I tried to use chopsticks and I just can't use them.
(laughter)
- Those reports next on "In Wisconsin."
- Major funding for "In Wisconsin" is provided by:
the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable
and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, we're on for you.
And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists
of Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Minneapolis,
a veterinary team working with pet owners
and family veterinarians, providing care for oral disease
and dental problems of small companion animals.
- Six days into the new year,
and chances are you've had your picture taken.
In an age where digital cameras and cell phones are everywhere,
we take for granted that we'll have our picture taken lots of times.
But 100 years ago, when you paid for a studio portrait,
it was a special event.
Those portraits were sometimes turned into penny postcards.
And as "In Wisconsin" reporter Liz Koerner discovers,
that prospect intrigued two artists in Manitowoc.
- Some were young.
Some were old.
Some held their purse.
Some held their pets.
One even held a prosthetic arm.
They all had their photographs taken for an art project
by Julie Lindemann and John Shimon.
- The project involves photographing people
as they want to present themselves to our camera.
*
- The photographs are used to create real photo postcards
that look a lot like the ones that were popular a century ago.
- We identified that this genre of postcard portrait
that depicted a single person head to toe
was a fairly common Midwestern phenomena.
- Before cameras became user-friendly,
the photo postcard served a special purpose.
- It was a way to document one's self
and to show one's self to family far away.
Maybe this is the only photograph
the receiver was going to see of you.
- Since the studio portrait
was such a special event in the past,
people usually dressed in their best for the occasion.
- So we see a lot of people
in the old photo postcards wearing their coat.
So we've had a lot of questions about that.
Are they thinking this is the most beautiful,
most elaborate piece of clothing they own?
- For the contemporary photographs,
some people just happen to be visiting the artist.
Some came specifically to be a part of their art project.
The result is a range of outfits and objects,
from flip-flops... to funky... to formal attire.
- I tried to be me, today. This is who I am.
I really went with me.
So, I went skating for ten minutes
and showed up how I look.
- Since the subjects themselves chose what to wear,
it's somewhat surprising that their
outfits occasionally echo the past.
- This woman came with her husband
and she had this outfit all planned out.
And then we said, "Oh, that really reminds us
of this old postcard we have."
- The artists also noticed that their subjects
sometimes chose the same pose
as people in the old photo postcards.
- This is sort of a thing we're interested in,
this kind of cultural, this camera behavior,
this kind of posing, is in us.
- Yeah, then look right into the lens.
- Shimon and Lindemann re-create the look of the old postcards
with lighting that simulates daylight,
and by using orthochromatic film.
- It kind of exaggerates people's facial characteristics,
because not being sensitive to red,
anything that's red on somebody's skin
is rendered as black.
- They also used a very old camera.
- The camera that we're using is basically just,
you know, a box with a lens on the front,
and a place to insert film in the back.
We're not necessarily using a camera
that's 100 years old.
We're using parts of cameras that are 100 years old
and parts of whatever we can piece together.
So what we're doing here is we open up
the shutter and the aperture and actually view the image
projected on a piece of glass.
And then after everything is set up,
insert the film in the camera,
close the aperture and the shutter,
pull out the dark slide and make the exposure.
- They added another dimension to their project
by taking advantage of new technology, too.
They exhibit the images online and invite written comments
from the general public and from people
featured in the photographs.
- This person actually wrote, "I have a dual background
"in western classical music and ethnomusicology.
"I thought that combining the uniform of western classical music,
"the tux, with my termite-hollowed didgeridoo and ironwood clapsticks
"would be the perfect way to honor both of my interests,
while also recognizing the formality of early portraiture."
- And even though internet delivery is instant,
Lindemann says they don't consider the process complete
until they get one of their photo postcards
hand-delivered in the mail.
- So it comes through our mail slot with their handwriting
and all the scars and marks of the U. S. Postal Service
handling it as this tactile object.
*
- If you're interested in seeing more photo postcards,
just log onto our website at wpt.org
and then click on "In Wisconsin" for a link
showing dozens of these vintage style pictures.
A picture for a new student ID could be
in the works for those unemployed in Wisconsin.
A downturn in the economy has resulted in an up-tick
in enrollment at colleges and universities.
Newly-elected governor Scott Walker is also
pushing the jobs agenda.
This week reporter Andy Soth shows you
how an educational make-over could improve
your future job prospects in Wisconsin.
- What are you doing tonight, mom?
- Linda O'Malley is a busy woman.
- I'm working three jobs.
I feed three really hungry teenagers.
That's where the majority of my money goes... (chuckles)
to the grocery store. I'm only staying afloat.
- One of the three jobs keeping O'Malley afloat
is styling hair at a nursing home.
After years of making over clients...
- I am pretty!
- ...she's looking for a makeover of her own.
O'Malley wants to go back to school for a nursing degree.
- I really feel it's my calling.
- Just when she was contemplating going back to school...
- Do you need some direction in your life?
- ...O'Malley learned about a scholarship contest
at a local college.
- You can enter our extreme educational
make-over contest at the University of Wisconsin- Washington County.
- The promotion has been done at a number of UW colleges,
which are the two-year campuses of the UW system.
- A total value of over $2,600,
just submit a brief essay of how your life will be improved.
- The only thing holding me back now
is my financial limitations.
Please help me with an education makeover.
We are ready and the patients are waiting.
- The judges liked O'Malley's letter.
- Remember that contest?
- I remember. - I won! (laughter)
- That made it possible for her to start
her nursing education with a semester of free tuition
at UW-Washington County.
- It's a little start, but it's the start that I need.
- While the UW colleges can't make it free-for-all,
they have resisted raising tuition for the last three years.
- It is our particular mission in this state,
to make higher education available to people
whom otherwise might struggle.
- And in this down economy,
the UW colleges have set enrollment records.
In fact, enrollment is up across the UW system,
including four-year campuses, like UW-Platteville.
UW-Platteville, with its emphasis on engineering
and other professional tracks, is virtually bursting at the seams.
With a 50% enrollment increase over the last ten years.
- We happen to have those critical majors for the future,
in technology, in forensic investigations,
in engineering, in industrial technology.
- Platteville has a long engineering tradition,
but its recent growth comes from better marketing
of the program in the tri-state area it serves.
And from letting those students from Iowa
and northern Illinois pay in-state tuition.
- It's been a win for the students that are attending.
It's also been a win for the state of Wisconsin...
...because we're producing engineers.
- While emphasizing career outcomes
has been successful for Platteville,
being too focused on training for a particular type
of career comes with risks.
- The worst thing you can do is go with the fad.
A few years ago in the dot.com bubble,
it was computer science.
Everyone should go into computer science.
Well, the dot.com bubble burst.
Now it's biotechnology.
Everyone goes into biotechnology.
And that's a great field. It's a growing field.
But things change.
And if you have learned how to learn,
and have those communication skills,
you have those critical thinking skills,
you're going to be a success.
- It's private college week and Rolf Wegenke is taking his message to the air.
- We've been hearing all day on the news tuition
going up at the University of Wisconsin.
People talk about going to private college.
Well, private college is more expensive.
Well not always, because there are a lot of grants out there.
- A big part of the job is convincing people it's affordable.
- That is why we're having private college week.
- I'll apply, Ralph. - Good.
- Wegenke says the state's private school average
annual tuition looks high at $22,000,
but the average aid received totals $17,000,
for a net cost of $5,000,
comparable to UW System campuses.
- And we're committed to finding the aid,
finding the resources so you can pursue that dream
at the college of your choice.
- That dream seemed under threat for some at Beloit College
in the fall of 2008.
In nearby Janesville, the GM plant closing
sent enrollments soaring at Blackhawk Tech
and UW-Rock County.
At Beloit, the down economy contributed to
an unexpected enrollment drop.
The college made a number of staff layoffs.
- We, of course, got press in "Time" magazine and others,
and put it out there, not so much that the college was going under,
but the college was responding quickly.
- Today Beloit's enrollment is back up to a healthy level,
and the total enrollment for all of Wisconsin's private colleges has never been higher.
- Our piece of the pie attracts a specific type
of individual, a specific type of student,
a specific type of parent, and the demand and supply is almost inelastic.
In other words, they'll do almost anything to get here.
- ...multiplied by that small differential velocity...
- Like any vibrant marketplace,
there's something for everyone in the college market.
The challenge in tough economic times is making the sale.
At least for now, Linda O'Malley is a satisfied customer.
- I'm happy. I'm happy to win
and finally go back to school
and get going on this dream.
It's a good dream.
This is what I want to do with my life,
is to help people and help them to feel better.
I've been doing that and I feel a stronger desire to do something a little bit more.
It's a good thing.
- Linda O'Malley is still going strong in her goal
of becoming a nurse, continuing to take classes
while working as a nurse's aide and hairdresser.
UW-Fox Valley is the most recent college to offer
an educational makeover to a deserving student.
And, enrollment continues to set records
across all UW college campuses.
Training in Chinese etiquette now plays
a critical role in business.
For example, giving a Green Bay Packers hat
would actually be considered extremely rude.
We'll explain why in just a few minutes.
But first "In Wisconsin" reporter Frederica Freyberg
takes you to a dinner where they're
serving up Chinese etiquette in Middleton.
- Asian people are tiny, especially women are tiny.
So do not be too strong to squeeze me.
Please let me go!
- The big beefy handshake doesn't cut it in China.
- First the three, on the toast,
you should go back and up.
- And it's highly insulting to Chinese hosts
if visitors stay sober.
Heavy drinking is apparently a must at dinner.
- Are you comfortable with the chopsticks, with this one?
If you put it too close, it's very difficult to open it.
- There's so much for Americans to learn.
- I've tried to use chopsticks and I just can't use them.
- About doing business in China,
especially at the all-important business banquette.
- There are a lot of differences,
so there's a lot for me to learn.
And for many Westerners to learn.
- It is a little bit complicated.
Sometimes it's a little bit frustrating for foreigners.
It's, "Oh, I just want to have eats for five minutes
and then I want to go back to work."
But in China, you will eat two or three hours.
- Xiaojun Wang is a professor at a large university in China,
and came to UW-Platteville for a year
as part of its Confucius Institute.
She staged a training session
at a Madison area Asian restaurant
on navigating the Chinese business banquette.
- We eat drink together. We have fun together.
We eat food together. We share everything together.
It's much more important
than just a conference meeting room.
- So the diners learn that this type of business meeting
in China could last all day or all night.
- You say, "Thank you for coming," and drink.
- There are seemingly endless rounds of toasts
and endless platters of food.
- From the dinner table,
you will never think China is a developing country.
That is our hospitality.
- Because building personal relationships
comes before any business relationships can be forged.
- We need to get to know each other.
We need to have a relationship with each other.
We need to be closer and know each other,
and I trust you, so we can think about the business.
I'm the host here, and my honored guest will sit here.
- The seating arrangement is very precise and preordained.
The American way of just grabbing a chair would be taboo.
- Essentially watching the countries change,
I think it's very important
to understand the different cultures.
- At this program, dinner guests soak up
the cultural training, while also trying to get a bite in.
Chinese dinner tables do include spoons.
- I'm still wiping off the hot peppers
from the hot sour soup. (chuckles)
- If you only just say "ni hao",
to say "hello" in Chinese,
and use a little bit chopsticks, and enjoy the food,
drink with them, they will treat you
as their honorable and closest friend.
- And this relationship is key for Wisconsin
according to trade experts in attendance at the training.
- China for Wisconsin is extremely important.
Our third largest market is China.
- China is third only to Canada and Mexico for Wisconsin exports,
and accounts for a billion dollars in sales for the state.
- We are very strong at industrial machinery
and also medical imaging equipment.
- And so, when Wisconsin sales people travel to China
to broker a deal, it's best to be equipped
to navigate the business banquette,
the precursor to any deal.
- We are eager to help the people to understand us,
or accept us, or become friends with us.
- Just be sure to master the use of chopsticks
before the Chinese business dinner is served.
- As for the gift of a Packers hat
being an insult, here's why.
In China, a green hat marks a man
who's cheated on his wife.
Even mentioning a green hat,
much less giving one as a gift,
is cause for great humiliation
and almost certainly the end of any business deal.
Who knew?
Continuing coverage now on two water quality issues.
First, the Asian carp invasion that's threatening the region's
multi-billion dollar fishing industry.
Take a look and you can see why they're called flying fish.
The new federal plan of attack will spend $47 million
to prevent the Asian carp from spreading to the Great Lakes.
Eight Wisconsin locations will be monitored
and a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lab
will be added in La Crosse for testing.
But a study on how to keep them out won't be
completed now until 2015,
three years later than expected.
Last year, "In Wisconsin" also reported on the
ongoing efforts to remove cancer-causing PCBs
from the Fox River.
The city of Green Bay and Brown County have now
tentatively agreed to pay $350,000 each
toward PCB removal.
According to the DNR, the Fox River clean-up
is the largest PCB removal project in the world.
The environmental clean-up costs could hit $1 billion.
An eco-friendly approach to agriculture
is helping one Wisconsin farm
buck the trend in hard economic times.
The Crave Brothers Dairy is pioneering
a new way of farming,
as "In Wisconsin" reporter Art Hackett
discovered on their family farm near Waterloo.
- When the four Crave brothers began a major expansion,
their goal was building a better dairy farm.
- We thought this is an opportune time in our career
to take the equity we've had
and capitalize on that equity
to develop a farmstead that is better
than anything we've had in the past.
- In doing so, the Crave brothers also embraced a concept
known as value-added agriculture.
The Crave brothers make money by milking cows,
just like any other dairy farm.
What's different is they try and make money off of
virtually everything else that comes out of the cow.
Most dairy farms ship raw milk to a processor.
Not so here.
- We can take our milk stored in this milk silo,
out of this spigot and directly hook it to a pump,
which pumps that milk directly underground
to our cheese factory 100 yards away.
- The Crave brothers produce specialty European-style cheese
such as Le Frere and soft Mozzarella.
- Half or more of our milk is used in our cheese production.
So, being seasonal cheese, during fresh mozzarella season,
more of our milk is used.
- That's Charles' brother George scooping curds out of a vat.
The farm gains the added value of a finished product,
rather than selling milk as a bulk commodity.
- We're seeing some increased interest on farm process,
even some small farmers, but that is the largest.
They got a pretty good size cheese operation there.
- UW-Extension Ag economist Bob Cropp says
the cheese plant appears to be doing quite well.
The varieties the Craves produce compete with imports,
which are at a disadvantage because of the weak dollar.
But the cheese plant isn't the final stop for some of the milk.
Another pipeline returns whey
from the cheese plant to the farm.
It's mixed into the feed for the cows.
The nutritional value and profits
stay on the farm and in the family.
- If you make an investment eight, nine, ten years ago,
you'd like to start seeing it pay off after that length of time.
And fortunately for us, the cheese factory has
helped us through this last year.
- Crave says another investment is paying off,
but in an indirect way.
Each of the 1,000 cows produces about
115 pounds of manure a day.
The farm partnered with an independent electricity producer
to build a digester to generate power
from the methane bubbling from the composting manure.
- They generate enough electricity for their farm
and cheese plant, plus to sell some.
- Crave doesn't see himself as being in the electric business,
since he still has to pay a utility bill.
The value to the farm comes from the by-product
left over after the methane has been drawn off.
The dried compost is used for bedding for the cows.
- We're trying to keep down the amount of bedding
we would need to bring onto the farmstead.
Just a good, holistic,
natural approach, and it's very warm in the winter.
Today, if you were laying on sand for bedding, that wouldn't be so cozy.
The cows that are laying in here are nice and comfy.
- And there's more.
The liquid waste digested
is a uniform nitrogen-rich fertilizer
for the crops grown for cattle feed.
Crave admits all of this infrastructure was expensive.
- That was at a time when milk prices were pretty darn good.
- Yep, that's right, we knew they wouldn't be good forever.
Nobody anticipated they'd fall right off the table
like they did the last year, though.
We bled for a while. Not as bad as some folks.
- Economist Bob Cropp says investments can pay off
even when milk prices are low.
- You got to know what you're doing.
You've got to be good at the production size,
well-managed dairy herd.
It's another management tool you have to do.
You've got to manage some people.
You got to know how to market.
- There's probably been as many of these ventures
which have failed as which have succeeded
in the last decade.
So, before folks get too--
buy-in totally to that value-added on farm,
they have to realize if they have the physical and mental attributes
that can complement this type of business.
Are they willing to spend the rest of their lives at it?
- For the Craves, the improvements are paying off
during the dairy downturn.
- The Crave brothers practice their conservation
and sustainable practices on their
1700-acre farm in south central Wisconsin.
Our environmental reporting continues next week.
Here's a preview of what you'll see on "In Wisconsin."
- I'm Art Hackett near Arlington,
where researchers are looking for
the right combination of crops if Wisconsin's future climate
is different than the one today.
- I always joke that Wisconsin hasn't
necessarily been getting hotter.
We've been getting less cold.
- This is "In Wisconsin" reporter Frederica Freyberg.
The DNR is launching a multi- year study on whitetail deer.
- This is a way to involve hunters directly
in the field research alongside of us.
And, that's exactly what we want to do.
- Find out what's needed and how you can help.
- I'm Jo Garrett, and this is a pine marten.
- It's warm in there, huh?
It's a great opportunity to work with such,
you know, such a cool species.
- These researchers are investigating why pine martens
remain endangered in Wisconsin,
while they're thriving in nearby states.
- Those reports next Thursday at our new time, 7:30 pm,
right here on Wisconsin Public Television.
Finally this week, we salute a Wisconsin band
that traveled halfway around the world
to welcome in the new year.
112 members of the Middleton High School Marching Band
and their supporters worked for more than a year
to appear in the 25th anniversary
of London's New Year's Day Parade.
They performed before a half-million spectators
and a worldwide audience.
We leave you this week with their arrangement
of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face."
- Announcer: The Middleton High School Cardinal Marching Band.
*
- Major funding for "In Wisconsin" is provided by:
the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable
and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, we're on for you.
And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists
of Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Minneapolis,
a veterinary team working with pet owners
and family veterinarians, providing care for oral disease
and dental problems of small companion animals.