Stephen Swensen

At College

" ...the class voted to continue using slide rules instead of the new-fangled, four-function HP calculators."

In fact, all six Swensen siblings attended and graduated from UW-River Falls. “Our parents wanted the best for us, so they sent us to River Falls,” recalls Steve.

His college days in the mid-1970s were life changing in a variety of ways. The experience reinforced his love for learning. He remembers outstanding professors like Dr. Pitchiah in calculus, Clarke Garry in biology, and Virgil Nylander, whose course in physiological psychology still reverberates in Steve’s mind with its fascinating connections between biology and behavior. He remembers Lee Zaborowski’s chemistry course when the class voted to continue using slide rules instead of the new-fangled, four-function HP calculators. “One of the beauties of River Falls was that faculty weren’t only teachers, they were friends and role models,” says Steve. “We had direct access to outstanding professors.”

Even more momentous was freshman calculus. During that first quarter, Steve figures he spent more time looking at the blond in the second row than he spent scanning the blackboard. But that paid off as well. Steve married Lynn during their senior year at UW-River Falls. Twenty-one years into their marriage they adopted two infants from South Korea and have spent the past seven years discovering the joys and challenges of parenthood.