Leticia E. Peña and Dayr Reis

By Leticia E. Peña
When I joined the Management Department at UWL, I had the honor of meeting and collaborating with Professor Dayr Reis. He was my colleague and best friend. We were married in La Crosse in August 1995. Shortly thereafter, Dayr was elected Chair of the Management Department for approximately 10 years. Looking back at our collective 30+ years of service within the College of Business Administration (CBA), one coherent vision stands out of our time together there. Among our greatest satisfactions and sense of accomplishments were the activities related to the then Office of International Education (OIE). This office was headed by the competent leadership of Jay Lokken.

Dayr and I drew on the summer months to either fulfill the writing requirements for full-time faculty members or to go abroad. One summer we took 18 students and 4 peer faculty members to Mexico. We visited and interacted with professors and students at two universities, sang and danced at every opportunity, expanded our taste of Mexican food, and also climbed the pyramids of Teotihuacan near Mexico City.

Another summer I got to spend one month in Brussels, studying the European Union and visiting the Mondragon region of Spain to bring back first-hand materials for my International Human Resource courses. On three occasions, Dayr and I went separately to Dubna, Russia, to help in the Russian efforts of considering alternative endeavors for its 1000 physicists. One trip was dedicated to assisting in the establishment of Dubna University. I will never forget the following experiences: canoeing down the Volga River at sunset with our host family or gathering “griby” (which are mushrooms) or witnessing a most beautiful concert for 25 cents. The concert had to stop when one of the violin cords broke and there was no replacement.

Another summer I collaborated with Jay Lokken and about a dozen other UWL professors in recruiting students from several universities in various parts of China and Hong Kong. Here we marveled at the huge parking spaces filled with countless bicycles and speed of construction everywhere we went. We were also royally hosted by our Chinese peers, frequently having to toast our hosts along with singing a cappella before sitting for dinner.

Then one fall, after presenting at a Management Conference, a professor of Management Information Systems from the University of Montana informed me of an upcoming trip to New Zealand and Australia focused on Sustainable Business Practices during the Winter Break. This was an intensive 23-day study abroad program. Enthusiasm for this opportunity was substantial. With the masterful assistance of OIE, 14 CBA students and I joined the Montana group and celebrated two New Year holidays (the New Zealand and the American) in Wellington as our eyes were opened to one of the most well-protected areas of the world.

The most memorable event for me, however, happened in Summer 2004. As part of my “Service to the Community,” I was invited to teach Comparative Management Systems to MBA students in France for a second time at the Institute D’Administration des Enterprises (IAE) at the University of Caen. Earlier that year I had participated in a raffle organized to raise funds for charitable organizations in La Crosse. To my surprise, I won a one-week stay to visit the home of Louis and Bernadette Couturier in France, parents of Laurence Couturier who was also living in La Crosse. I invited Chancellor Judith Kuipers to come to spend 10 days with me after I finished teaching in Caen. We rented a car and spent a delightful week in the Loire Valley with the Couturier’s taking us to see gorgeous castles and the French countryside covered with blooming multicolored poppies. Then we drove around to admire prized gems such as the Cathedral at Chartres, eventually reaching Paris. Our favorite memory was hearing jazz at the Maurice Hotel while toasting with a glass of champagne to a beautiful friendship.