Kip Jacobs ’74 Named Commencement 2025 Speaker

Kip Jacobs ’74, longtime University School of Milwaukee teacher, administrator, coach, and outdoor education leader, has been named the school's Commencement 2025 speaker. The event will be held on Saturday, May 31.   

Jacobs’ connection to USM dates back to 1961, when he attended Milwaukee Country Day School as a 5-year-old kindergartener. After graduating from USM in 1974, he attended Denison University where his plan was to major in biology and pursue medicine. However, after spending a summer as a counselor at Red Arrow Camp in northern Wisconsin, his career path changed. “I realized that summer that I love to work with kids,” he said. “When I went back to Denison in the fall, I walked directly into the education office and signed up for the teacher certification program.”

After graduating from Denison, Jacobs taught at two independent schools before coming back to USM in 1987, where he’s remained ever since, although in a wide variety of roles. He served as a teacher and coach in both Upper School and Middle School, and has held administrative roles, including dean of students in the Upper School and director of athletics. Teaching always remained his true passion, however, so in 2000 he dedicated himself to teaching 7th grade science. “I always enjoyed Middle School because I’m kind of a middle school kid myself, and I just understood them. No two days were ever the same. I loved it.”

As he approached the end of his 44th year of teaching (35th at USM) in 2022, he realized he wanted to make a change. Starting in the fall of 2023, he began serving as USM’s first-ever outdoor education coordinator. “I had been doing experiential education involving the outdoors for years, so this was a natural fit for me,” he said. In this role, he works with teachers in all three divisions to help them incorporate the outdoors into their curriculum. “Whether working with Preschool kids on animal habitats, studying honeybees, or helping Upper School students research global issues involving the environment, I try to help out as much as I can.”

Jacobs has been instrumental in transforming USM’s surrounding landscape, directly involving students whenever possible. When USM’s campus was being overrun by buckthorn and other invasive species, Jacobs played a major part in their removal, often empowering students to take the lead. When the school’s Outdoor Education program needed a shed to store tools and materials, Jacobs monitored the 7th grade students who constructed the building. When Caroline Harkless ’21 wanted to spearhead an Arbor Day celebration, Jacobs was there to help gain the necessary approvals, identify trees that would grow best, and assist with the planting of hundreds of trees. When Caleb Webb ’22 wanted to learn about the school’s system for composting food waste from its dining rooms, Jacobs was there to teach him—and then help him and others grow fruit and vegetables in Karen’s Garden on campus to be distributed to local organizations and people in need. 

In 2024, Jacobs received the Alumni Service Award in grateful recognition of his achievements in working toward the betterment of USM and the community which it serves. 

“I’ve seen first-hand the changes that have impacted education during my four decades as a teacher, and USM has done a wonderful job of making sure that we stay on the cutting edge of academics and technology. But we’re also dedicating ourselves to the revitalization of our 125-acre campus by removing invasive plant species and creating outdoor habitats to study and research. I can’t wait to see what the future will bring.”