National Guardian Life Insurance Company’s Long Term Care Insurance Product, EssentialLTC, approved in Montana

National Guardian Life Insurance Company (NGL) announced that EssentialLTC, its Long Term Care (LTC) insurance product, is available in Montana, effective April 21, 2023. Headquartered in Madison, NGL’s LTC insurance product is now available in 49 states and the District of Columbia.

“We’re excited to offer the residents of Montana this affordable and comprehensive Long Term Care insurance option to help protect their financial needs,” said Joe Guyotte, National Sales Manager, Long Term Care at NGL. “With EssentialLTC clients are able to customize plans that best meet their needs. The NGL LTC policy is also very adaptable into the worksite and executive carve out with high quality features and benefits.”

Nearly 70 percent of Americans aged 65 and older will need some form of long term care, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Long term care needs can arise from a disabling accident, chronic illness or simply getting older and include daily activities such as bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, etc. Purchasing Long Term Care insurance can help cover future costs and provide families with peace of mind that the assets they have worked so hard to build are secure.

EssentialLTC features include a range of both affordable benefits and asset protection through flexible options, including lifetime benefits, joint policies and premiums, shared benefit amount rider with third pool benefits, 1035 Exchange eligible, and flexible premium payment options.

Specializing in a suite of innovative products for life’s journey, NGL prides itself on giving customers the financial stability, careful guidance and peace of mind to lead a life filled with confidence, dignity and grace.

To learn more about EssentialLTC go to: www.ngl-essentialltc.com.

About NGL

Established in 1909 National Guardian Life Insurance Company (NGL) is an insurance company headquartered in Madison, Wis. Licensed to do business in 49 states and the District of Columbia, NGL markets preneed and individual life and annuities, as well as group markets products. Information about NGL can be found at www.nglic.com; Facebook: Facebook.com/NGLIC and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/national-guardian-life-insurance-company.

National Guardian Life Insurance Company is not affiliated with The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America a/k/a The Guardian or Guardian Life.

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https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/what-lifetime-risk-needing-receiving-long-term-services-supports-0

Molly Rae Joins Oak Bank as Human Resources Manager

For Immediate Release

Contact: Karen Virnoche, 608.441.6000
kvirnoche@oak.bank

Molly Rae Joins Oak Bank as Human Resources Manager

Fitchburg, WI – Oak Bank, Fitchburg’s community bank since 2000, welcomes Molly Rae to the team as a Human Resources Manager.

Rae comes to Oak Bank with more than nine years of experience in human resources. In her role at Oak Bank, Rae’s responsibilities include recruiting and onboarding new associates, managing benefits and payroll programs, and helping ensure compliance with local, state, and federal employment regulations.

“Molly comes to Oak Bank with great enthusiasm and is a wonderful addition to our team,” said Terry Taylor, Oak Bank President.

“I hope to bring fresh ideas to Oak Bank to help our associates be successful in their roles and continue to build on the already incredible culture at Oak Bank,” said Rae. “What we do behind the scenes, if you will, creates the best possible banking experience for our clients.”

Rae lives in Madison and is a very active volunteer, leading a co-ed professional business fraternity supporting the Ronald McDonald House. Rae is thrilled to be one of the newest Packers season ticket holders after 25+ years on the waitlist.

About Oak Bank
Oak Bank has been deeply rooted in the Fitchburg community and Madison area for 23 years, meeting the financial needs of homeowners and businesses by offering top-notch service, quick answers, and creative solutions, all while supporting over 125 local nonprofits each year. Visit oak.bank to learn more.

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Fitchburg Chamber Visitor + Business Bureau Announces the “Bike the ‘Burg” Challenge for Summer 2023

Area cyclists of all ages and abilities are invited to participate in the Fitchburg Chamber Visitor + Business Bureau’s 2023 Bike The ‘Burg Challenge! Participants will be challenged to bike a total of 150 miles (or more) during the summer of 2023. Keep track of your miles in apps like Strava, in an excel file or however you prefer. Participants can register for free or register for $10.00 and receive a Bike The ‘Burg tee-shirt. Everyone registered will be entered into several drawings to win prizes from local businesses. The 2023 Bike The ‘Burg Challenge is sponsored by Fitchburg Family Pharmacy and SHINE Technologies.

“The ‘Burg is a wonderful place to ride and we are so fortunate to have this great infrastructure,” said Thad Schumacher, owner of Fitchburg Family Pharmacy. “We know the important role exercising plays for your health and since cycling is one of my passions, it is natural for us to sponsor the great event.” 

“SHINE is thrilled to be sponsoring the Bike the ‘Burg Challenge for the second year in a row. Our work revolves around creating a safer, healthier and cleaner world, and we’re proud to extend that mission out into the community by supporting events like this,” said Jess Giffey, SHINE’s Chief Operating Officer of Systems and Therapeutics. “Many of our Fitchburg-based employees are avid cyclists who take advantage of the scenic trails year-round. We look forward to hosting another community ride this year and to a safe and fun summer of cycling and celebrating all that Fitchburg has to offer.” 

Fitchburg has ideal access to some of Wisconsin’s finest bike trails and is home to three state trails and three local bike paths. The challenge encourages cyclists both new to the area, and those who are very familiar with biking in Dane County, to get on your bike and discover what makes Fitchburg a top destination for biking enthusiasts and now has BCycle stations throughout the city, with more planned for installation in 2023. 

For more information about the 2023 Bike The ‘Burg Challenge, please contact Angela Kinderman. 

WHO:  Fitchburg Chamber Visitor + Business Bureau

WHAT: 2023 Bike The ‘Burg Challenge  

WHEN: Summer 2023 (May-September)

WHERE:  Fitchburg and Dane County, Wisconsin 

MORE INFO:  www.biketheburg.org

Wisconsin Union: Limited-Edition Purple, Teal Mini Terrace Chair Purchases Will Support Suicide Prevention Efforts, Mental Health Resources at UW–Madison

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2023 

Contact Information:
Shauna Breneman, Communications Director
Email: sbreneman@wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 262-8862

READ RELEASE ONLINE: union.wisc.edu/about/news/2023-mini-chair

LIMITED-EDITION PURPLE, TEAL MINI TERRACE CHAIR PURCHASES WILL SUPPORT SUICIDE PREVENTION EFFORTS, MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES AT UW–MADISON

MADISON – The purchase of the Wisconsin Union’s limited-edition, mini, purple and teal version of an iconic symbol of summer in Madison, Wisconsin, called the Terrace chair, will support the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s suicide prevention efforts and mental health resources for students with a portion of each sale going to University Health Services’ (UHS’) Suicide Prevention Fund.

The Wisconsin Union team will place about 860 of the purple and teal mini chairs, measuring about 4 inches tall, on the shelves of the Badger Market at Memorial Union for sale on May 1, where they will remain on sale while supplies last. If some of the mini chairs remain on May 15, the team will also make them available in its online Terrace Store. The Union does not anticipate creating more of the purple and teal chairs.

The Wisco Industries team in Oregon, Wisconsin, crafted the chairs and painted them purple after which the Wisconsin Union, including UW–Madison students, hand-painted flecks of teal, making each chair completely unique. Design inspiration was drawn from purple and teal ribbons that are used to raise awareness and support of suicide prevention.

The UHS and the Wisconsin Union teams began discussing the creation of the limited-edition chair and how it could support suicide prevention and mental health promotion efforts for UW–Madison students in summer 2022.

“The Terrace chair is a symbol of joining together as a community, so it’s a fitting extension of its identity to support the well-being of UW–Madison students,” said Mark Guthier, associate vice chancellor for student affairs and executive director of the Wisconsin Union.

The Suicide Prevention Fund at UHS helps fund suicide prevention programs and mental health resources at UW–Madison, including population-level prevention efforts and clinical services and support for students.

“Supporting the mental health of UW–Madison students is central to our work at UHS,” said Jake Baggott, associate vice chancellor for student affairs and executive director of UHS. “All members and supporters of our Badger community can play a role in suicide prevention and contribute to a culture of care at UW–Madison.”

UHS offers confidential, no-cost mental health services to UW–Madison students, including daily drop-in counseling opportunities through Let’s Talk, individual counseling, group counseling, and psychiatric care.

UHS also offers a 24-hour mental health crisis line at (608) 265-5600 (option 9) for students and anyone concerned about a student’s well-being in addition to training and education on suicide prevention created for University team members and students. Additional suicide prevention resources are available at uhs.wisc.edu/prevention/suicide-prevention.

In addition to purchasing teal and purple mini chairs, those looking to support the University’s mental health and suicide prevention initiatives can make tax-deductible donations directly to the Suicide Prevention Fund here.

In recent years, the Wisconsin Union’s other limited-edition mini chairs have included a cow-print chair in 2019, which supported the UW School of Veterinary Medicine’s building expansion project, and a 2020 chair that featured a painting of the Earth and benefited the UW–Madison Green Fund. Patrons can still purchase a limited supply of cow-print mini chairs in the Union’s online Terrace Store and in the Union’s Badger Markets at Memorial Union and Union South. 

On an ongoing basis, customers can purchase mini red, green, yellow and orange Terrace chairs and tables in the Badger Markets at Memorial Union and Union South as well as in the online Terrace Store.

Patrons can purchase full-size red or white Terrace chairs and tables exclusively in the online Terrace Store.

Sales of the regularly available mini and full-size Terrace furniture help the nonprofit Wisconsin Union provide free and low-cost events, activities and services; its spaces; and Union student leadership opportunities, some of which provide academic stipends of up to 80% of students’ in-state tuition.

Yellow, orange and green Terrace chairs rose to fame with their presence at the Wisconsin Union’s outdoor dining and entertainment space, called the Memorial Union Terrace. The trademarked sunburst design of the chair purportedly first appeared with its current design in the 1960s at the Terrace. About 2,000 full-size Terrace chairs sit on the Memorial Union Terrace from early spring to late fall each year and have come to mark the start of summer in Madison and a time of outdoor gathering in the community.

To purchase the limited-edition, mini, purple and teal chairs, while supplies last, patrons can visit the Badger Market at Memorial Union beginning May 1 and, if supplies continue to be available, can also shop for the chairs in the online Terrace Store beginning May 15.

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About the Wisconsin Union

The Wisconsin Union enhances the lives of members and visitors through recreational, cultural, educational and social opportunities. Formed in 1907, the Wisconsin Union is a membership organization that blends study and leisure to create unique out-of-classroom opportunities. Learn more about the Union and its tradition of providing experiences for a lifetime: union.wisc.edu.

UW–Madison Division of the Arts to host Sri Vamsi Matta and Marlon F. Hall as 2023–24 Interdisciplinary Artists-in-Residence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 18, 2023

Media Contact: aryn kresol, Arts Residency Programs Coordinator at UW–Madison Division of the Arts, akresol@wisc.edu

URL: go.wisc.edu/Matta

Link to media assets: https://uwmadison.box.com/s/1c187t0l7tpdhunjhieqlfl8w0z6qj42 

Link to article: https://artsdivision.wisc.edu/2023/04/18/iarp-artists-2023-24-announcement/ 

UW–Madison Division of the Arts to host Sri Vamsi Matta and Marlon F. Hall as 2023–24 Interdisciplinary Artists-in-Residence

Madison, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts is excited to announce two artists selected for the Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program (IARP) for the 2023–24 academic year: Sri Vamsi Matta and Marlon F. Hall. Sri Vamsi Matta (Bengaluru, India)is the inaugural academic-year-long Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence. Marlon F. Hall (Tulsa, OK) is the Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence for the Spring 2024 semester.

While in residence, each artist will teach an interdisciplinary course and participate in public programming with campus and Madison communities. The Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program provides students with extended learning experiences with a working artist, increases diversity of teaching staff on campus and strengthens programmatic ties among individual departments, programs and other campus and community arts entities.

Beginning in August 2023, the Division of the Arts and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures will welcome Sri Vamsi Matta, a Bangalore-based theater and visual artist, to UW–Madison through May 2024. For the Fall 2023 semester, Vamsi’s residency will include teaching a 3-credit course, Whose Art Is It Anyway? Explorating Folk Performance from South Asia structured around central questions such as: What are some rules that govern performance culture globally? Who set these rules? Can they be broken? How? Throughout the course, students will examine the appropriation, weaponization, dilution or valuation of particular performance practices from historically marginalized South Asian and American artistic communities by dominant groups. The course will also juxtapose the history of these performance styles with models of contemporary artists in South Asia and the US who have subverted these “classical” forms for activism and political assertion. 

Vamsi’s residency will continue during the Spring 2024 semester with public programming with campus and Madison communities, and a residency-long engagement with a UW–Madison based theater and storytelling group, leading up to a final production entitled “BLUE.” An original musical written by residency lead Zara Chowdhary and Vamsi, “BLUE” will be devised in collaboration with First Wave Scholars, Indian and Indian American poets, Black, Brown and white musicians and artists. Dates for public programs are to be announced.

The residency is presented in partnership with the Division of the Arts and the Department Asian Languages and Cultures, with Jamal Jones, Assistant Professor, as lead faculty and Zara Chowdhary, Lecturer in Hindi, as residency lead. Co-sponsors for the residency are the Department of Theatre and Drama, Department of History, Center for Visual Cultures, Center for South Asia, Center for Humanities, International Learning Community, Center for Research on Gender and Women, and the Human Rights Program.

In January 2024, the Division of the Arts and the Art Department will welcome Marlon F. Hall as the Spring 2024 Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence, concurrently with Sri Vamsi Matta. Hall’s residency will include teaching a 3-credit course, The Olive Tree; Growing Community Engaged Storytelling from Irritation to Intrigue, centered in community art that nourishes social healing in Madison. The olive tree nourishes the soil it’s planted in just as much as the soil nourishes it. From social irritation to ethnographic intrigue to art-making innovation, the course will provoke questions like: What irritates you about society? How can we develop purposeful listening in the community? How can the responses to these questions become an art-making process? 

Throughout the course, students will explore topics such as the power of community meals, listening to community stories and creating ethnographic films, audio narratives and large-scale photography as community-based healing installations. The residency will also feature public programming with campus and Madison communities throughout the semester, including site-specific installations and film screenings to be exhibited in public spaces all over the city.  

The residency is presented in partnership with the Division of the Arts and the Art Department, with Faisal Abdu’Allah, Professor and Associate Dean of the Arts, as lead faculty.  

About the Artists

Sri Vamsi Matta, or simply Vamsi, is a Bangalore-based Theatre and Visual artist. His practice is influenced by his Dalit identity, experience and location. Dalit is the political identity of communities formerly known as “untouchable” and considered the lowest within the Hindu Caste System, and thus oppressed by its discriminatory scriptures, social structures and norms. The identity and histories of his community and family inform the questions, topics and mediums that Vamsi engages with through his work. As a student of science, Vamsi’s work is rooted in rigorous research. As the child of a writer, he has grown up around stories and finds that they are his route to not only entertain and educate but to organize people and challenge hegemonic and oppressive structures of power.

Marlon F. Hall is an artist and anthropologist whose work is rooted in social practice and grown from anthropological listening. Marlon integrates community engagement and storytelling as a process for cultivating healing in communities that have experienced political, cultural or systemic trauma. As a renowned art-making storyteller, he has served as a Lecturing Fellow for Duke Divinity Leadership Education, an Artist-in-Residence for the Princeton Theological Seminary and the Visual Anthropologist and Social Media Archivist for the Greenwood Art Project. He was recently named a Fulbright Specialist by the U.S. Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs and a 2021 Tulsa Artist Fellow. Currently, Marlon is engaged in Cultural Amnesia Therapy in Tulsa where he is working with local creatives and community advocates to help communities rebuild after the 1921 Race Massacre. His latest project features one of his carefully curated Amnesia Therapy Salon Dinners in partnership with The British Council and The Kenya Pavilion at the 2022  Venice Biennale. Through socially engaged art-installations, large-scale photography, ethnographic films shaped as visual poems and carefully designed salon dinners, his work focuses on revealing the resilient nature of the human spirit, using memory to inform imagination and helping communities reclaim their identity.

About the Presenters

The Division of the Arts’ Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program (IARP), originated through the Cluster Hiring Initiative of the Office of the Provost, brings innovative, world-class artists to the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. Since 1999, the program has hosted over 40 residencies involving more than 100 guest artists from 20 different countries, engaging over 60 university units and community organizations. All residencies center interdisciplinary arts, recognizing that interdisciplinarity can break down barriers and silos, advance intellectual artistic diversity and give opportunities to people who do not fit into the traditional modes of inquiry and practice (see the Division of the Arts’ guiding principle of The Arts for Everyone, Everywhere). The program often brings together artists, faculty, staff and students from various disciplines across the arts, sciences and humanities, sustaining the Division of the Arts’ mission tounify and catalyze the arts at UW–Madison.

Asian Languages and Cultures is home to nearly twenty faculty whose research and teaching specialities include the following: traditional medicine in India; the history of yoga; diversifying contemporary mindfulness practice with insights from Tibetan Buddhism; human rights in Thailand; Chinese ghost stories; traditional poetics and philology; sociolinguistics and discourse analysis of the Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian languages; analysis of classical Japanese tale fiction, early modern comedic narratives, manga, anime and Japanese counterculture.

The UW–Madison Art Department is a national leader in the cultivation and production of creative expression and the visual arts. The undergraduate and graduate degree programs set the practical, critical-thinking and collaborative foundation for students to excel in any area of artistic focus: painting, printmaking, graphic design, sculpture, ceramics, metalsmithing, glass, furniture-making, papermaking, photography, digital media, video, performance and more. For more than a century, the Art Department has set the standard for arts learning: established the first glass-blowing lab in the country; the printmaking programs are consistently ranked the best in the country; the art metals program is ranked among the top three; and it’s home to internationally acclaimed faculty members and visiting artists.

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