Naturalist and organizational leader Roma Lenehan, C’85, learned how to learn at Sewanee. Now she gives generously of her time, talent, and treasure to conservation work in Wisconsin and as a generous supporter of the Sewanee Fund.
The Big Life
In the early 1980s, as a prospective college student, Roma Lenehan, C’85, visited campus during spring break because her mother’s first cousin, the Rev. James Frensley, T’61, suggested it would be a good fit. “The tour guide was exceptionally nice and the birds on campus were great,” Lenehan remembers. She also noticed that Sewanee was warmer than her native Wisconsin.
As a teenager, Lenehan was already an avid birder, and as a student at Sewanee, her interest in bird watching grew, and she had the opportunity to meet local and regional birders. Since then, she has traveled all over the United States and all over the world for birding.
Lenehan is a stalwart of the conservation community in her native Wisconsin, and a founding member of the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, where she is active in both management of a successful nonprofit organization and an expert on bird identification, invasive species abatement, and habitat restoration.
For Lenehan, a Sewanee education launched her adult life by “making me a good writer and helping me learn how to learn almost any subject.” She notes that while she never took a life science class at Sewanee, nor a business class, her life after Sewanee included achievement in both those realms. She used critical thinking and learning skills when she returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and took two years of undergraduate courses to get into the Genetics Department, where she earned a master’s degree in genetics in 1994. Having finished one graduate degree, she then returned to Wisconsin’s School of Business and received a master’s degree in finance, investment and banking (M.B.A. 1999).
“Sewanee (along with my mother) gave me confidence that I could learn almost anything and do almost anything,” she says. “The problem was I never decided what I wanted to do.”
Those protests notwithstanding, Lenehan’s work as a conservation leader in Madison involves a broad array of skills and knowledge, from an acute awareness of the natural world to a shrewd understanding of how organizations work and what they need to thrive. Lenehan was a founding member of the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, which fosters research, citizen science, restoration of natural areas, education of the public and other community service. As a Lakeshore Nature Preserve volunteer steward, she developed and maintains a Preserve bird list and conducts breeding bird inventories that track which species are nesting in the area. She is also heavily involved in restoration of natural areas on the preserve, which includes eradicating invasive species and replanting native vegetation. In addition to her work with the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, Lenehan lives out a commitment to community service through her involvement in the University League of Madison, the Village of Shorewood Hills, where she wrote the village’s parks master plan in 2003.
Just as Lenehan gives generously of her time and treasure to causes related to conservation and community development, she also honors her relationship with Sewanee, where some of those activities were nurtured. “I give to Sewanee to give back, to help other students, and to help Sewanee to be the wonderful place I experienced,” she says.
Why does Lenehan give to the Sewanee Fund? The answer is clear. “Sewanee changed my life,” she says. “I had the opportunity to learn. It broadened and enriched my interest to include the world and most of the liberal arts, provided me with a basic set of knowledge to build upon throughout my life and the curiosity to enlarge this knowledge base, taught me critical thinking and writing skills that I use continually, and expanded my commitment to service.” And those modes of living are in clear evidence in how she lives her life today.
