Greetings and welcome to our UW-Barron County website. On behalf of our students, faculty, and staff, I extend an invitation to follow up your virtual visit with a visit in person. We think you’ll like what you see. We offer you the best of two academic worlds: the small classes and personal attention you would expect at a private liberal arts college and the connection to the resources of a world-class university system.
Here you can pursue an Associate of Arts and Science degree while building a strong academic foundation for continuing your undergraduate work at a four-year institution. Our rigorous curriculum of liberal studies and pre-professional courses will prepare you for further study or for entry or reentry into the workforce. Our graduates have proven highly competitive in the universities they have attended after completing their work here, and they are working in rewarding careers throughout the state and the nation. I am continually impressed that so many of the people I meet in our region started their educational careers at UW-BC.
What makes us so good at what we do? At UW-BC, you have the advantage of a supportive, student-focused environment. Our faculty members are highly effective instructors, and teaching is their first professional purpose. In small classes and one-on-one interactions, they engage students in developing the facility for life-long learning. We want our students to succeed, and we work with them to help make it happen. The important thing is that we define success by how well we prepare students for their work after transfer and for when they get out into the world.
So, let us work with you so you can get “the best start for the life you want!”
Paul Chase
Dr. Paul W. Chase has been Dean and Campus Executive Officer of the University of Wisconsin-Barron County in Rice Lake since August 1997. Prior to coming to the Rice Lake area, Dr. Chase had a 19 year career in administration at the State University of New York at Stony Brook including positions as Assistant to the President, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, Dean of Students, Assistant Provost and Director of Academic Advising.
Born and raised in Ashland, Dr. Chase spent the junior year of his college career studying at Heidelberg University in southern Germany. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history and German from Northland College and a master’s degree in modern European history from UW-Madison. In 1972, he entered the State University of New York to work on his doctorate. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and spent 1 ½ years (1975 – 76) at the Free University in Berlin, Germany. As a student at SUNY-Stony Brook, he began working in the President’s Office in 1978 and completed his doctoral thesis on modern German history in 1992.
Since becoming Dean at UW-Barron County, Dr. Chase has been involved in numerous local activities. He has been vestryman and Senior Warden at Grace Episcopal Church, President of the Rice Lake Kiwanis, Treasurer and President of Barron County Restorative Justice Programs, and Chair of the Business and Industry Committee of the Rice Lake Chamber of Commerce. He has recently joined the boards of the Rice Lake Rotary Club and the Marshfield Clinic Rice Lake Center/Lakeview Medical Center. He also currently serves on the United Way and Rice Lake Library boards.
