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 specialist in higher education administration and interior design has been chosen to
be the new head of the School of Home Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Mary Jo Czaplewski,
administrative assistant to the dean of the College of Home Economics at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis
since 1979, will assume her duties here this summer. Chancellor Philip R. Marshall announced her appointment Sunday
at an awards luncheon for home economics students at the Sky Club in Plover. In addition, he paid tribute to Agnes
Jones who is stepping down this summer after 25 years as head of the home economics program. Mrs. Jones, who has
reached mandatory retirement age of 65 for administrators, will remain on the faculty and on the staff of the
Academic Advising Center. Miss Czaplewski, 44, a native of Denver who was reared in Winona, Minn., holds a
bachelor's degree from Silver Lake College in Manitowoc, master of education in home economics education from St.
Louis University, and a Ph.D. in education administration and higher education from the University of Minnesota.
She served as president of the 600-member Educational Administration Student Organization at the University of
Minnesota, in 1979-80. While serving as chair of the home economics department at Hauser Junior High in Riverside,
Ill., she served as president and chief negotiator of the approximately 400-member teacher's association. Besides
her teaching stint from 1969 to 1975 at Riverside, she has served one year as a project coordinator for the Minnesota
Secondary Vocational Education Consumer Homemaking and Occupational Homemaking Curricula and 1975 to 1978 as chair of
home economics at Viterbo College in La Crosse. She also taught home economics and art at several other high
schools. Miss Czaplewski was recommended for her new assignment by a search and screen committee headed by Shirley
Randall of the home economics faculty. Arthur Fritschel, dean of the College of Professional Studies made the
appointment and said Miss Czaplewski has "breadth of professional preparation and experience, plus outstanding
abilities as a teacher and administrator." In making the appointment, Fritschel commended Mrs. Jones for her
achievements in steering home economics here into one of the major programs in the country. When she arrived here
in 1956, she filled a new position-the fourth-in a department that served about 100 students. Today, the faculty
numbers 20 and the enrollment more than 700. The curriculum has been expanded beyond home economics education to
additional undergraduate majors in early childhood education, fashion merchandising, housing and interiors,
dietetics, food and nutrition. Home economics instruction at UW-SP, which started in 1902, ranks among the older
programs in the country. However, its major national competitors also are located on Wisconsin campuses, at
UW-Stout which has the largest enrollment in the country in this area and at UW-Madison. Mrs. Jones said she never
was daunted by that competition, establishing what in some cases are duplicate programs here. One of the better
selling points she used to UW System administrators is UW-SP's strong liberal arts curriculum. To incorporate parts
of it into her program has been an advantage in developing "unique diversity depth." Mrs. Jones believes the future
holds promise for people who study home economics because there will be need for them to staff new programs being
developed to keep elderly people in their own homes instead of in institutions. She said a recent U.S. Department of
Agriculture report stated that more home economic graduates will be needed to "achieve progress in family and
individual stability, security and quality of life. We foresee an annual shortage of about 7,000 individuals
with home economics or home economics-related degrees," the report noted. Adult education, human services, consumer
education, public policy, and hospitality administration all will be growing fields, she believes. A special need,
Mrs. Jones suggests, will be for persons with doctoral degrees. Her recommendation is that UW-SP join with UW-Madison
and UW-Stout in cooperatively developing new programs at the Ph.D. level. There are minors in home economics and food
service management plus master of science and home economics education. In the "Jones" years, the program has been
upgraded from a department to a school within the College of Professional Studies; about $5 million in
federal-state-private grants were received to support the curriculum offerings; new facilities were built which gave
the program some of the finest laboratories of their kind in the country; student internships were started off campus
in industries, business and government agencies, including schools and hospitals; and the American Home Economics
Association chose the UW-SP program as the first institution in the state and the ninth in the country for its first
round of accreditation. Mrs. Jones said comments from area residents in recent years have made her efforts
worthwhile. People from vastly differing walks of life have begun telling her that "your program has made a
difference in this area." That reaction has come from owners of businesses involved in home decorating and furnishing
who say that they've added professional interior designers to their staffs as a result of UW-SP's influence, from
managers of institutional food programs who believe their service have been improved by hiring dietetic graduates
and from school administrators who like the preparation given to "home ec" teachers. Mrs. Jones is a native of
Owen-Withee and began her career in teaching 44 years ago at the Mauston High School. She had received her
undergraduate degree from UW-Madison and continued studying there part-time, in addition to holding down her
teaching jobs, for a master's degree. From 1943 to 1956, with the exception of one year at Northern Illinois
University, she served on the faculty at UW-Madison as a specialist in home economics education and as a librarian
in the agriculture and home economics sections. When she came to Stevens Point with a doctorate degree in 1956,
she was one of few women on the local faculty up to that time to ever have received a Ph.D. Only four years before
Mrs. Jones' arrival, the late Bessie May Allen had retired as head of the home economics program. The name of Allen
had become synonymous across the state with the field she helped pioneer. The same has been the case with the name
Jones. Together, the two women have a combined total of 64 years as administrators of the program which has a total
age of 79 years.
*Stevens Point Journal 5/4/1981
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