When she studied home economics education at Stout State College, Sharon Balius learned about a variety of professions — health, nutrition, economics, apparel design, art, child development and more. She began to see the world in a whole new way.
Balius also worked part time her senior year at the campus library, further expanding her curiosity about the world around her. It changed her career path. After graduating in 1962, she earned a master’s degree in library science in 1972 from the University of Michigan and worked for 35 years in the vast University Libraries system.
“I feel very strongly that, when I look back at Stout, I had a wonderful experience,” Sharon said. “I realize how much I learned and am very grateful for it.”
Now retired, Sharon Hafeman Balius and her husband, Lou Balius, of Ann Arbor, Mich., have made a $1.5 million estate gift to University of Wisconsin-Stout to spark curiosity and cross-disciplinary learning in new generations of college students and to support faculty.
“I feel very strongly that, when I look back at Stout, I had a wonderful experience,” Sharon said. “I realize how much I learned and am very grateful for it.”
Their gift, through Stout University Foundation, will create the Sharon Hafeman Balius and Louis Balius Distinguished Co-Professor in Cross-Disciplinary Applied Learning. Professors from two disciplines will apply for funding to co-teach a class designed to solve a real-world problem for an industry partner. The class, one or two semesters, also would foster entrepreneurial learning.
At Michigan, Sharon’s experience in the Engineering Libraries provided an opportunity to work with the earliest IBM and Apple personal computers available to schools. That quickly led to collaborations between engineering and library science students, and engineering and medical students.
When an engineering professor became dean of the School of Library Science, he pursued collaboration on many levels. The school is now the School of Information “I began to see this type of collaboration is very productive,” she said.
She also learned, like at Stout, to synthesize information from multiple sources to do her job.
Lou earned degrees in disparate fields — engineering, finance and law — but said he used them simultaneously in his career.
With their educational and professional experiences, Sharon and Lou value UW-Stout’s hands-on, polytechnic approach to education and want to see that reinforced through the professorship.
“Stout enforced in my life the ability to think creatively, problem-solve and be efficient in what I did. All the classes were designed that way,” Sharon said. “Those skills were the fundamentals of my career.”
By including a real-world student project in the co-professorship, Sharon and Lou want to leverage UW-Stout’s strong connections to business and industry. In 2021-22, for example, a co-taught class involving packaging and graphic design students was built around developing product prototypes for Great Northern Corp.
At Stout, Sharon had a student-teaching experience. At Michigan, Lou had a Buick-sponsored co-op at the General Motors Institute.
Along with enhancing students’ education, the co-professorship is designed to energize experienced faculty with a new challenge. “The bones of a college are the faculty. Faculty need to be refreshed. Everything is moving so fast,” Sharon said.
Katharine Reed, vice chancellor for University Advancement and Alumni Relations, thanked Sharon and Lou.
