Posted 9:10 a.m. Monday, May 20, 2024
UWL experience redefines what Noelle Hackenmueller wanted in a college
Back in high school, Noelle Hackenmueller had some specific requirements for her future college.
She wanted to attend a private Christian college surrounded by mountains, far away from her Minnesota hometown. And she didn’t want a school with a Division III track and field program.
UW-La Crosse was surrounded by bluffs, not mountains, and located only about three and a half hours from her home. Not only that, UWL Women’s Track and Field team competed in Division III.
But as Hackenmueller walked the campus with her tour guide Nickolas Davis, the UWL Women’s Head Track and Field Coach, she knew UWL would be the perfect fit anyway. Now embarking on her third year this September, she couldn’t be happier.
“Even though UWL did not have a single one of my requirements, I love it here,” she says. “I found a good community on campus with Cru and also with the track team, and I don’t get swallowed up in a mass of other students”
“And the bluffs are so beautiful. I count them as mountains,” she adds.
Discovering the La Crosse experience
Hackenmueller learned more about what she wanted in a college after coming to UWL. “I’m advocate for Division III schools now. I’ve seen the growth in my teammates and myself through our time on the track team,” she says.
The team has earned some significant titles to demonstrate it, including winning its 12th straight Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Championship this May. They’ve also become a tightly woven community. Hackenmueller calls them “The best family … The best gift ever.”
Outside of sports, Hackenmueller has been introduced to academic opportunities at UWL that she had never considered in high school. She started in the Eagle Apprentice program her first year, which provided an opportunity to conduct undergraduate research with a faculty mentor for a stipend. Apart from the program, she also earned two Undergraduate Research & Creativity grants totaling $2,000 to further support her research endeavors. “It made it feel more official – doing research that is funded by the university,” she says.
Hackenmueller says she got lucky in finding her UWL Advisor Kimberly Morris, associate professor of Global Cultures & Languages, who opened her eyes to the additional research grant opportunities. She conducted research with Morris as an incoming student in 2022 and continued developing her own research project with Morris as a mentor her sophomore year.
A Spanish and TESOL Education major, Hackenmueller wondered which factors influence a college student’s desire to study a foreign language, particularly at a time when schools are seeing declines in foreign language enrollment.
Hackenmueller says conducting research has not only led to some interesting findings, but has also allowed for a lot of personal and professional growth. She is more confident in her ideas, having conceptualized her project and written research grants with her advisor. She has learned dedication and perseverance, such as having to switch plans mid-year on how to survey students and getting proper approvals from UWL’s Institutional Research Board.
UWL is unique in affording students the opportunity to develop independent projects like this, explains Nicholas Bakken, UWL’s Student Research & Experiential Learning coordinator.
“So many schools will fund students to work with professors on their projects, but the students don’t have the flexibility to develop their own research projects,” he says. “At UWL, our program allows students to conceptualize their own research or creative projects based on their own interests. This can involve working on a professor’s project, but in most cases the students are coming up with their own research ideas. To my knowledge, this isn’t the norm at many universities.”
Although her Eagle Apprentice program ends at the end of her sophomore year, Hackenmueller plans on continuing to conduct research with Morris into her junior and senior year. She also plans on conducting research while studying abroad at the University of Alcalá in Spain during the following summer. She is interested in expanding the same research in other parts of Wisconsin to see whether the patterns remain the same or change based on demographics. She also wants to investigate the differences cross culturally, comparing methods and experiences from the U.S. and Spain.
Overall, she says UWL has opened her eyes to not only what she wants in a university, but also the difference that she can make through pursuing the questions that spark her curiosity.
“I’ve learning that research isn’t just something done by elite academics wearing white lab coats,” she says. “I can participate in this too, and it is just as valid.”