Member Spotlight: Jay Winkler

JAY WINKLER

Ann Arbor, Bentley Library

Archivist for Athletics

What is your area of specialty?

Archivist for Athletics

What are you proud of as a lecturer?

I’m proud that I’ve been able to build a career at Michigan. Prior to joining the Bentley Library I was at the ICPSR for five years, and both places have given me the support to grow in directions that align with my interests and goals. Including grad student positions while at UMSI, I’ve been at the library, the Clements, the ICPSR, and the Bentley, all really unique places. It was always my goal to stay after grad school and I’m proud I’ve been able to make my way around the campus.

What might others not know about you?

I am currently a contestant on The Floor, a trivia game show on Fox. We filmed in Ireland last August and it premiered after the Super Bowl. It's been one of the coolest experiences of my life.

What is something that you are proud of outside your role as a lecturer?

While in grad school I was the director of Camp Kennedy, a small rustic summer camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, one of the camps in the Tamarack Camps system. It’s an outdoors and community building camp for Jewish teens going into high school. I spent a lot of my life working up towards Director and held the position for three years. I’ve been lucky enough to spend significant time at summer camps on both sides of Lake Superior and I continue to find excuses to make it up there as an adult.

Camp Kennedy is built around an old hunting lodge owned by Michigan Governor Fred Green in the late 1920’s, named after a friend of Green’s; it was donated to Tamarack a couple owners later, but the name remained. The Bentley Library holds Governor Green’s papers, and I was excited to find a few letters on Camp Kennedy letterhead.