Madison Memorial High School’s plans for a security desk in the main lobby sparked a new campus-community collaboration opportunity for the UW-Madison Art Education program.
"Security is coming to every school but I don't think it should be a dominant feature," said Art Education Professor Doug Marschalek, who has been collaborating on design and education projects with regional schools, community centers and museums for many years.
This opportunity was closer to home – his three children graduated from Memorial and all five art teachers at the school graduated from the Art Education program. The teachers refer to themselves – and anyone else closely associated with Marschalek – as “Dougites.” 
They apply this term out of respect and admiration for his ability to educate and inspire both in and beyond the classroom, and especially in the area of design.
Art teacher Melissa Winker (BS 1997, MA 2001) took a lead role in organizing a team of staff, students and parents tasked with forming a proposal to improve the look and feel of the school’s main entrance as a more welcoming environment than simply installing a security desk.
Winker recruited Marschalek to help lead the project because of his design process expertise. "He's wonderful at exploring potential,” she said.
Marschalek and two of his current students spent three days in August facilitating a team in a charrette to create a redesign proposal for the school administration.
“His vested interest kept the team on track and working more efficiently,” said art teacher Joe Frontier (BS 1998). “He pushes us to continue learning and evolving what we do.”
Marschalek constantly visits area schools as part of his job training future teachers, often perceiving design problems and solutions that schools face. He brings these challenges back to the classroom each year for his students to solve. School security is an increasingly important challenge for all schools that Marschalek wants to help them solve in a wholistic way.
“I really care about how environment influences how students want or don't want to be in school, how it influences how teachers work, and the way schools showcase themselves and communicate to the community,” he said. "Security is coming to every school but I don't think it should be a dominant feature.”
Marschalek took on the project at Memorial not only because of his connection to the school and interest in educational environments, but because of the hands-on experience it gave to his students, who may soon find themselves in similar situations.
“Art teachers are often brought into the construction and development phase so this was truly helpful for me because I want to be involved in that kind of process (in the future),” said Art education student Rachael Larsen.
Larsen participated in the charrette because it gave her additional hands-on experience for applying what she learned in Marschalek’s design class.
“It was something I was really drawn into,” she said. “It takes you into a different mindset of art: in design you’re really trying to hash through the design process before you even get started.”
Now that she’s begun her practicum year at Yahara Elementary in De Forest and then West High School in Madison, Larsen said she realized that the charrette at Memorial is more relevant than she had first thought.
drawing photo courtesy Doug Marschalek