Alumni

Distinguished Alumni Awards

Carthage College presented awards to two distinguished alumni May 20, 2011, during the New Alumni Convocation. Each year Carthage alumni are asked to submit their nominations for the Distinguished Alumni Awards. Winners are selected by the Alumni Council.

Gina Madrigrano-Friebus, '76, Pleasant Prairie, Wis., received a Distinguished Alumni Service Award. Dr. Pamela D. Sherer, '71, Providence, R.I., received a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.

Gina Madrigrano-Friebus, '76

Gina Madrigrano-Friebus, '76, Pleasant Prairie, Wis., received a Distinguished Alumni Service Award.

Mrs. Madrigrano-Friebus is a Kenosha native who served as vice president of WOW Distributing Co., one of Wisconsin's largest beverage distributors, from 1993 to 2009, when she retired after the firm was sold. Since then, she has devoted herself to philanthropic efforts full-time.

While at WOW, she was one of the founders of the Professional Women’s Development Network, a group of female business owners, managers and professionals in Waukesha County, Wis. She is now board president of the recently-established Kenosha chapter of Tempo International, Inc., a women’s networking organization of female business professionals.

Mrs. Madrigrano-Friebus's other community activities include membership on the Kenosha Public Library Foundation board.

Before joining WOW, Mrs. Madrigrano-Friebus was a vice president of 7Up Bottling Co./Kemmerer Bottling Group, Racine, and director of office administration at Jockey International.

At Carthage, she majored in business administration and was a member of Kappa Chi Omega, until that sorority became affiliated with the national sorority Chi Omega. She was part of the first Carthage class of Chi Omega sisters. She earned a master's degree in business management from Cardinal Stritch University in 1983. She has served as an Alumni Ambassador.

She is a member of the Kenosha Junior Women's Club, National Association of Female Executives, and the American Association of University Women.

After Aldo Madrigrano, Gina's father, died in 1986, the Thomasina and Aldo Madrigrano Family Scholarship began at Carthage, thanks to the generosity of Thomasina, Aldo's widow, and her children Gina, Thomas, Katherine Madrigrano-Comi, '81, and Aldo Madrigrano, '85. The scholarship supports students from Kenosha majoring in business, who are of Italian descent with senior standing. In the past year Gina, Thomas and Kathy decided to make an additional donation so this scholarship now provides full tuition to a deserving student.

They also have supported a scholarship in her parents' names at St. Joseph High School in Kenosha, where she graduated.

Dr. Pamela D. Sherer, '71

Dr. Pamela D. Sherer, '71, Providence, R.I., received a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.

Prof. Sherer is an educator, author and specialist in pedagogy and faculty development in higher education. Since 1991 she has taught at Providence College in Providence, R.I., where she is a professor of management and was the founding director of the Center for Teaching Excellence. She is a well-known speaker at national and international business and academic conferences and has served as a consultant to colleges and universities throughout the United States and abroad.

She has written numerous articles and lectured on the scholarship of teaching, most recently focusing on the challenges of incorporating technologies into instructional design both in the workplace and the academy. She also has made major contributions to the study of diversity in the classroom and workplace.

Prof. Sherer is a native of Zion, Ill., who followed her sister, Gael (Sherer) Butcher, '70, to the College. At Carthage, she was a resident advisor and a member of Kappa Chi Omega, and participated in the Semester at Sea program. She graduated with a major in sociology.

In 1973, Prof. Sherer received an M.S. in higher education from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ill. She served as an assistant dean of students at Quincy College, from 1973 to 1975, and held the same position at Worcester Polytechnic Institute from 1975 to 1980. In 1980, she earned an M.B.A. from Clark University in Worcester, Mass. She earned a Ph.D. from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass., in 1986.

During her four-decade career, she has been a professor at six universities, and has served as a management consultant to many business organizations and not-for-profit institutions. She has worked, lived, and studied abroad, traveling to six continents and more than 40 countries.

Prof. Sherer received three awards for teaching excellence at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, where she served as an assistant professor from 1986-1991. In 1995, she received Providence College’s John McMahon Award for Exemplary Teaching, Service and Dedication. She has served on the boards of several professional organizations, including the New England Faculty Development Consortium.

She and her husband, Leon Graubard, reside in Providence.

Distinguished Alumni
Award Recipients

Contact Us

As always, you may contact the
Alumni Office by e-mail at alumnioffice@carthage.edu;
by phone at (800) 551-1518; by mail: Office of Alumni Relations, 2001 Alford Park Drive, Kenosha, WI 53140; or by stopping in to see us in Lentz Hall 414.