Ann Wallace is an alumna of the UW-Madison, and she spent 40 years of her 42-year career at her alma mater. She began in the Department of Sociology working with a variety of research projects and training programs. In 1980 she moved to the School of Education Dean’s Office and worked there until she retired in 2005. Her charge at the beginning of her employment in the School of Education was to become the School’s expert on academic staff matters. She put that expertise to use when academic staff were granted governance rights in the mid-1980’s, and she became a charter member and long-time chair of the Personnel Policies and Procedures Committee of the Academic Staff Assembly. The PPPC is responsible for drafting changes to Academic Staff Policies and Procedures and taking them to the Assembly for adoption. Ann also represented her district in the Assembly for 16 years. When she recognized the importance of academic staff involvement in governance and contemplated how she might “give something back” to the University, she endowed the excellence award that bears her name.
Ann represented her district in the Academic Staff Assembly from 1989 to 2005 and also served on the Madison Academic Staff Association advisory committee; the Area Review Committee for Administration/Student Services/Library, which evaluated dossiers for indefinite status; and the Equity and Diversity Resource Centers Advisory Committee. She served on the Academic Staff Mentoring Committee, which organized a new mentoring program for academic staff across campus, and she mentored a new member of the academic staff each year from the beginning of the program until she retired. She served on many search committees and other ad hoc committees across the campus. Within the School of Education she served on the Equity and Diversity Committee and as a charter member of the first Committee on Academic Staff Issues on campus, which she helped to organize. Ann frequently observed that her work in governance enhanced the performance of her job duties in the School of Education.
Partly as a result of her visibility as chair of the PPPC, Ann made presentations around campus on such topics as academic staff job security, promotions, and new employee orientation. Among her awards is the Chancellors Award for Excellence in Service to the University, granted in 2000. Understanding the importance of such awards, she endowed a new Academic Staff Excellence Award called the Ann Wallace Career Achievement Award, first awarded in 2003.