Annette Crowder Graduated from Madison College in May 2025: The Triumph of Resilience (Part 1 of 2)
Annette Crowder was one of the commencement speakers at Madison College’s Spring 2025 Graduation Ceremony
by Jonathan Gramling
Editor’s Note – Annette Crowder graduated from Madison College in May 2025. Her story had been archived until now.
***
Listening to Annette Crowder tell the story of her life, it’s amazing that she is here at all. Conventional wisdom would say that Annette Crowder should be homeless, eating at food kitchens and doing odd jobs here and there in order to survive.
But Crowder became the commencement speaker at Madison College’s spring graduation at the Alliant Energy Coliseum in 2025 and enrolled in graduate school. Hers is a story of the triumph of resilience.
Growing up, Crowder’s life was the definition of instability and chaos.
“I was born in Alabama,” Crowder said. “I’m a military brat. My mom was in the Army. I think at some point, I just got kind of sick moving around. And then ended up being with my dad — he was actually my brother’s dad — and then my mom got us back and she was difficult. She was in Wisconsin. We were in Boston, Massachusetts at the time. And then we came to Wisconsin. My high school years were in Wisconsin, pretty much in Madison.
Crowder got into some trouble. She didn’t like anyone telling her what she could and couldn’t do. She was a fighter. And so, she ended up being sent to Lincoln Hills Correctional Facility. It was a turning point in her life.
“I earned my GED at Lincoln Hills Correctional Facility, the same teacher was so encouraging, and she was a woman,” Crowder said. “Her name escapes me now, but I’ll never forget her presence and she urged me not to stop there.”
While Crowder got out of Lincoln Hills, she was still under supervision and remained in the system.
They sent me to a group home in Madison that was basically an adult type of program,” Crowder recalled. “It was a group home for people who had substance abuse issues. And so I requested to go back to Lincoln Hills because I didn’t have substance abuse issues. I had anger-people issues. And I felt that it wasn’t an appropriate match. That’s how I ended up in a group home in Stevens Point. They didn’t necessarily have a program that matched me, but the person who was in charge of the group home was willing to work on a component to help someone to get living skills and begin to look forward in their life. That’s what I needed more, living skills. Talking more and fighting less. I completed my HSED at Stevens Point Alternative School. They helped me see my life through a new lens, made me believe I was worth the effort, and pushed me to keep climbing.”
Instead of being the problem, Crowder soon got the opportunity to become part of the solution.
“Sometime when I got back to Madison, I ran into a gentleman,” Crowder said. “Whoever I was working with, the teacher I was working with at Lincoln Hills was looking for someone to serve on the Governor’s Juvenile Justice Commission. My name must have come up. John Rath reached out to me. At that time, he was in charge of the Juvenile Correctional Systems as far as I recall. He kind of became my mentor. He helped me get to meetings and stuff. I learned about things like grants. I didn’t quite understand what was all going on. But my job was to advocate for youth or people within the correctional system. I would give feedback if I saw flaws from a possible participant standpoint. I did that for a long time. I was on that commission. I think Governor Doyle and Tommy Thompson were in place.”
It took Crowder three times to get through Madison College. A hard life just kept interfering.
“I started in a marketing program there,” Crowder said. “Overall school was going kind of fine. But then things were blowing up in my life. My mom had PTSD and didn’t know what PTSD was at the time. She was very secretive about her health. So there was a lot of running around, getting extra jobs in order to get everything to work out. I had my own place. My mom also needed help. And it wasn’t like I could just leave my apartment and not have to pay for it. I found out the hard way when I was in Stevens Point and I had an apartment for a little while. But my roommate claimed her rights and that is actually how I ended up back in Madison when I found out we were getting evicted. At least it didn’t come back to haunt me and I didn’t have an eviction on my record. Along the way, at some point, I was just working and working a lot. And then I found a pretty decent job that paid well. And I ended up screwing up what I had going on at school because I didn’t drop my classes appropriately. It really dropped my GPA down. So when I went back to school — live and learn as I like to call it — I had a low GPA.”
Crowder also had to make some hard decisions when it came to her own needs versus those of family members.
“At some point, I started raising my cousins,” Crowder said. “They were living with my mom. My aunt had addictions with drugs and alcohol. I had moved up to Baraboo with my boyfriend or fiance. I think we had gotten married at some point. And my sister — we had a 12-year gap between the two of us — she and my little cousins were living with my mom and came to live with me when my mom was in the hospital receiving medical care, psychological care. And so my sister went back and the twins stayed, so I became a mom without giving birth as I like to call it. It was probably one of the coolest things that ever happened to me because not having children on the radar, I didn’t know how it would be, so I was really scared.”
Taking care of her cousins began to point the way for Crowder’s future career, helping others.
“The twins are grown now,” Crowder said. “They each have a daughter of their own. I helped them get through college. They both went to UW-Baraboo and got an associate’s degree. And then one got a degree in teaching and the other one is working on a sports medicine degree and decided she really didn’t like it and enjoyed being a chiropractor’s assistant. Our next door neighbor owns a chiropractor clinic, so she interned with him. She works there to this day.”
During one of her stints on going to Madison College, mental health issues caught up with Crowder.
“I pushed through one of my toughest semesters in English class 1 (writing 5/6 included offering extra support), where I had my first severe anxiety attack at school and unknowingly began to show signs of prolonged grief disorder,” Crowder said. “I’ll never forget Suzanne Gittlemen, the instructor who didn’t look at me like I was broken. She calmed, saw, and connected me with therapy through Madison College. That’s how I began counseling at Anesis Therapy, which was fully funded by the college then. I had never been to treatment before. Another time, I had one in the RISE office, maybe two. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember.
The therapy at Anesis was game changing for Crowder.
“That was my first time in therapy ever,” Crowder said. “My therapist, Lisa Jackson, was once a school social worker who later pursued therapy. Her approach was gentle, whole-person-centered, and completely life-changing. I believe she helped plant the seed that led me to social work. I didn’t just want to heal; I wanted to help others heal, too. She was another positive source of strength in my path because of Madison and some funding from donors and/or grants.”
