Paulis Lazda, UW-Eau Claire history professor since 1967 said he remembers a day 20 years ago when professors were forced to use trailers between Zorn Arena and Schofield Hall as offices.

This was because space was at a minimum due to a sudden growth of the campus.

Now, 20 years later Eau Claire is a mainstay as a top public midwest University according to U.S. News & World Report magazine. Thanks to what Chancellor James C. Schmidt said is excellence that our students and staff continue to embrace, and a growing campus.

This years edition of “America’s Best Colleges” ranks UW-Eau Claire No. 6 among the top regional public universities in the Midwest, and 33rd among all institutions public or private in the Midwest. U.S. News has ranked UW-Eau Claire among the top public institutions in the Midwest and in the top third of public and private Midwestern regional universities since 1995.

Schmidt said he thinks what UW-Eau Claire has is something that not many other schools can offer.

“Institutions do create unique cultures,” Schmidt said. “I think UW-Eau Claire’s culture is maybe not solely unique, but it is fairly rare in American higher education today.”

Lazda said that the main reason he came to Eau Claire in 1967, was because many colleagues in the area invited him to interview for a position in the history department. Despite the political turmoil going on with the Vietnam War at the time, he said nothing changed in Eau Claire.

“I came here not knowing much about the university other than a few colleagues that I knew,” Lazda said. “Every professor here was so open to ideas which makes the campus a much stronger place.”

However, not only does the staff receive recognition on campus but the students do as well. Freshman Trevor Cooper said that despite only being here for a few weeks he can already tell that Eau Claire has a strong student community.

“Everyone here is really friendly,” Cooper said. “It kind of seems like it’s own little community within a community and everyone is extremely nice with one another.”

Despite the success over the past twenty years, Schmidt stressed the phrase “continued excellence”, which he hopes to continue during a strategic plan the University has set up to be finished around 2016.

Schmidt said the plan includes working on better preparing students for timely graduation, and continuing to work with financial planning to keep loan debt down.

Along with working with students, the university is also planning to continue campus renovations by building a new event center in the coming years, fully renovating both towers dormitory buildings, and re-doing the riverfront along Garfield Avenue in order to attract students and staff to campus.

“Faculty are willing to come to Eau Claire even with the winters because of the students,” Schmidt said. “And frankly I think because we’ll have competitive facilities, it will help attract them.”

Lazda believes that one of the biggest reasons we continue to nationally be on the map as a top university is because of the increasing involvement of the campus with study abroad programs and immersion experiences which excites students and staff to come to Eau Claire.

“Being here since 1967 I can consider myself lucky,” Lazda said. “I am able to be a part of an extremely caliber university that is still only developing really.”