MILWAUKEE_The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is honoring Allen B. Caucutt, a resident of Shorehaven in Oconomowoc and a long-time resident of the Mequon-Thiensville area, with the 2020 Ernest Spaights Plaza award at a virtual ceremony Oct. 22, 2020. The Spaights award, which is commemorated with an engraved plaque on the plaza near the UWM Union, is given in recognition of significant and long-lasting contributions to the university and the community. 
Caucutt is an artist, educator, donor and proud alumnus of UWM.

He was part of the first class to graduate from the newly formed UWM in 1957, earning his BS in art education and then an MS in 1963. He taught art in the Milwaukee Public Schools and Maple Dale Elementary in Fox Point. While at Maple Dale, he created an award-winning curriculum that received the Rockefeller Fund Exemplary Arts Education grant in 1982 — at that time it was the only middle school in the U.S. to earn this award.

After retiring, he taught art education to future teachers as a senior lecturer at UWM starting in 1999. He retired in 2012. He also has mentored more than 160 student teachers, many from UWM.  Among his many awards, he was honored as a UWM Distinguished Alumnus and received the Outstanding Service to the Arts Award from the Peck School of the Arts.  He is an emeritus board member of the UWM Alumni Association.

Caucutt met Susan, his wife of more than 60 years, when they were undergraduates at UWM, and both were active supporters of UWM. She died in February 2020.  Allen Caucutt continues to be active as an artist with  major art works in more than 75 public venues and more than 1,500 works in private collections.  He is a featured artist at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts’ Continuum Alumni Exhibition in fall 2020.