Police hear siren call of Great People effort

Top brass within the University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department had a problem. Luckily for Chief Susan Riseling and recently retired Assistant Chief Dale Burke, the dilemma wasn’t crime related, but it was an issue nonetheless. The two had pledged to match up to $1,000 in employee gifts to the Faculty Staff Great People Scholarship Initiative. Burke entered Riseling’s office. “Chief, I have some good news and I have bad news,” she recalled him saying. “The good news is an individual employee gave $1,000. The bad news is one employee gave $1,000.”

Burke laughed at the memory. “The chief and I, in an effort to get people within the department excited about the campaign, announced our match,” he said. “I guess they got excited.”

That’s not an unusual occurrence for the University Police.