After much deliberation, Chancellor Richard Telfer was chosen to be the 15th and newest chancellor at UW-Whitewater and will be inaugurated on Friday.
While it goes without saying Telfer is academically fit for the position, students may not know much about Telfer and his life outside UW-Whitewater.
Although Telfer's job demands much of his time and energy, he still tries to have a life beyond his office. Some of his extracurricular activities include tennis, reading and crossword puzzles.
"I used to run, but I don't run much now because I get out of work too late," Chancellor Telfer said. "A lot of what I do is university related."
Telfer was born in Dowagiac, Mich., and lived in other cities in the state for much of his youth.
"I lived (in Dowagiac) for about six weeks, so I don't remember anything," Telfer said. "Then we moved to Mount Pleasant, Mich., which is where Central Michigan (University) is, and we lived there until I graduated from college."
It should come as no surprise Telfer is a good fit as an academic professional given both of his parents were teachers as well. His father was a college professor and his mother taught English at Mount Pleasant High School. Telfer is the middle child of five children, and his two older siblings are twins.
Some of Telfer's early childhood memories include playing outside in his yard.
"We had about five acres around the house so we'd go out and play bow and arrow and baseball," Telfer said. "I think my mother didn't like us in the house."
Like many young children, Telfer looked up to many TV stars and super heroes.
"I looked up to TV stars like the Lone Ranger," Telfer said. "You kind of wanted to be the Lone Ranger or Superman."
Telfer was active in many different types of activities at Mount Pleasant High School.
"I was involved in student council, debate and a little bit of forensics," he said. "I went to all the games, but I wasn't on any of the athletic teams."
Telfer had an interesting experience his junior year of high school because his days ended at noon. The local junior high's roof had construction issues, so the junior high students and the high school students had to share the same space at the high school.
"From about midway through my junior year, our high school went from seven in the morning until noon, and the junior high people came at 1 p.m. and went from one until six in the afternoon," Telfer said. "So unlike a lot of high schools where you can hang out after school, we really were supposed to be out of the building by one."
College is a time for meeting new people and experiencing new things, and Telfer said his college experience was memorable because he was able to interact with new people and the time period provided many historic memories.
"Even though (college) was in the same town I was in, just getting to meet new people and having an opportunity to interact with people from other communities," Telfer said. "I was in college during the 60s, so there were a lot of the things associated with what you read about with the 60s, including protests over the war.
"Also, early on in college and high school there were civil rights kinds of protests about what was happening in southern Alabama. I don't know if they were fond memories, but they were significant kinds of events."
Telfer majored in speech at Central Michigan University. It was in the discussion section of his Speech 101 class where he met his wife, Roni.
Telfer and Roni have two children, Rachel and Gavin. Both are married and live out of state.
"The older is Rachel and she lives in Yakima, Wash.," Telfer said. "Her husband is Sean, and we have a granddaughter, Allison, who is about eleven months old."
"Gavin is married to Sara, and they live in Manchester, N.H.," Telfer said. "So we're bi-coastal."
Like many people, Telfer had a number of different jobs throughout the years. He has delivered newspapers, worked construction, delivered pizzas, stocked shelves at a bookstore and loaded and unloaded trucks at United Parcel.
"In high school I didn't do a lot of extra work, but I used to trim Christmas trees," Telfer said.
When Telfer began teaching, he worked on roofs in the summer as extra work on the side.
"I'm not real good with heights, although I did some roofing work," Telfer said. "That's something people might not know about me is that I did some carpentry work when I first started teaching."
Telfer and his family moved to Whitewater in 1985 when he started teaching at UW-Whitewater.
"It's a comfortable community," Telfer said. "I think the university adds a lot to that because there's a lot of excitement with the university."
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