University Marketing and Communications

Windy Veker

Windy Veker

Contact

  • College Marketing and Communications Manager, University Marketing and Communications

Biography

Windy is a former regional television news journalist who started her career here in the western UP. She shared stories of local perseverance following the 2018 Father’s Day Flood with footage that reached national broadcast. A writer above all else, her focus is giving narrative shape to Huskies’ vibrant experiences through articles, blogs, feature stories, and social media for the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science and the College of Sciences and Arts. When not on campus, her creativity finds form in speculative fiction and tabletop role playing games with her chosen family.

About Windy

  • Windy uses engaging writing and marketing strategies to elevate the stories of students, faculty and staff in both the College of Sciences and Arts and the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science with effective, on-brand content and communications.
  • Her professional background includes copy editing for the Daily Mining Gazette and broadcast journalism experiences as a TV6 bureau reporter.
  • She enjoys watching campy horror movies, listening to podcasts and playing table top roleplaying games with her family and friends.

Recent Stories 

Allyson McQuiston and five co-workers laughing together in a potato field.

Ecology Graduate Digs Into Soil Conservation from Coast to Coast, Unearths USDA Career

McQuiston, an applied ecology and environmental science major, graduates this month with a career firmly in place as a soil conservationist thanks to her internship journey. After spending two summers interning with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, she received a full-time job offer from the USDA NRCS late last year, and will begin her position this fall. She was drawn to the intern position, she said, because she is "really into soil" and wanted to get her foot in the USDA's door. Read More

A row of glass jars filled with maple sap and syrup ranging in a gradient from clear, in the distance, to much darker closer to the camera, sit on a table in the Nara Family Maple Center. A wisp of steam rises from the two closest jars.

CFRES Students Tap into Spring’s Sweet Reward

Maple syrup making is an Upper Peninsula tradition, and students at Michigan Technological University are taking part. Many Huskies have tapped into Michigan Tech's forests over the decades in search of one of the region's most prized delicacies of spring. Forest health expert Tara Bal, assistant professor in Tech's College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, began teaching her Maple Syrup Management and Culture class in 2015 at Tech's Ford Center and Forest. Students collected sap from the Ford Research Forest and the village of Alberta, where Bal's class used both a wood-fire evaporator and the traditional Native American method: bringing sap to a boil with fire-heated rocks in a hollowed-out maple log. The class started as an independent study with 19 students its first year and has been full with 40 students every year it has been held since then. Read More

A couple people walking through a field with some grave markers with mountains in the distance.

MTU Music Professor's Research Honors Hawaiian Ancestors, Leads to First Composition

Researchers often pursue topics they are connected to. In the case of longtime conductor and first-time composer Joel Neves, inspiration struck a deeply personal chord, bound by a sacred promise. Neves, a professor of music in Michigan Technological University's Department of Visual and Performing Arts, spent more than 25 years researching his family's genealogy and discovering the fate of his Hawaiian ancestors. The painful truth he uncovered is the inspiration for his tone poem "Kalaupapa," which he recently conducted with the University of Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra at Kennedy Theatre in Honolulu, Hawaii. Read More

Person wearing an Event Staff shirt walking through a dark area with shelves covered in fake spiders and webs.

Dare to be Scared: Michigan Tech Theatre Brings Fears and Phobias to the Haunted Hoist

The faculty and students of Michigan Technological University's Department of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) theatre program have experimented with multiple locations and themes over the years because variety is essential to the learning and skills that come from producing the event. This year, students chose their approach to fit the location and their selected theme: Fears and Phobias. Read More