In the Spotlight

Dr. Bret Wagner, associate professor of management, with Renae and Fred Rauker at the tutoring center

honoring dallas rauker

The college opened a new tutoring center during fall semester, dedicated in memory of Dallas Rauker, an integrated supply management senior who passed away in 2015 during a mountain hiking accident in Norway.

The center, named for Rauker, provides students with tutoring for courses in integrated supply management, business analytics, quality management, computer-aided design, computer information systems and more. The center helps students perform better in these subjects by providing more opportunities to work with the material, something Rauker was always willing to do with his fellow classmates.

“We are so proud to have our son’s name here at the college and to see the students that will benefit from his tutoring space now and in the future,” says Renae Rauker, Dallas’s mother. Fred Rauker, Dallas’s father, echoes the statement. “I can’t say how proud and honored we are now that Dallas will live on at WMU.”

The center’s construction and launch was funded through donations from the Rauker family, the Ford Motor Company and the ISM program’s Bronco Force teams. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 131 recently donated a generous gift to support the educational initiatives associated with the tutoring center.

The space, housed on the third floor of Schneider Hall, helps keep Rauker’s spirit alive in the college. Rauker had a passion for life, adventure and learning. As a student, he interned at the Kellogg Company and completed multiple study abroad opportunities, including in Australia and the Netherlands.