Vehicle accident overseas claims life of senior Andrea Sperka

Andrea Sperka, a University of Wisconsin–Madison senior who participated this summer in a study-abroad program at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa, was killed in a vehicle accident July 1 during a guided tour in Botswana.

Sperka’s spring semester-abroad program at UCT had been completed June 28, and she was traveling with a friend — a student from Tufts University — to the neighboring countries of Zambia and Botswana. The two had missed their tour bus on June 30, and the travel agency arranged for alternate transportation that evening. The accident occurred at about 3 a.m. on July 1, when the tour vehicle swerved to avoid a stalled truck in the roadway and rolled over. Sperka’s friend was hospitalized in the accident.

The visitation for Andrea will be on Monday, July 9, from 4-8 p.m. and on Tuesday, July 10, from 9-11a.m., with the service immediately following at 11 a.m.  Visitation and services will be held at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in West Allis, Wis, 11709 West Cleveland.  

Sperka, a double major in sociology and legal studies, was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society this year and was on course to graduate with honors from UW–Madison in December 2007. She was only 12 credits away from graduating and had been on the dean’s list every semester she attended UW–Madison. The West Allis native was also an active member of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Sociology Professor Franklin Wilson, Sperka’s senior honors thesis mentor, says he worked intensively with Andrea in fall 2006 and was deeply saddened by the news. Wilson, who is retiring and originally was not going to take on student mentors in his last year, was won over by Andrea’s energy and commitment to her work.

“I have mentored more than 40 students in my faculty career, and I’m fairly certain Andrea would have been in my top five in terms of her overall growth and success,” Franklin says. “She wasn’t just smart. She was engaging and committed and well-organized. She was also self-directed. It was a joy to interact with her.”

Sperka’s study-abroad trip to Cape Town was directly supporting her thesis project, Wilson says. She was doing a sophisticated comparative study of post-apartheid South Africa and the experiences of African-Americans in the U.S. after Jim Crow laws were lifted in the 1960s.

Andrea is survived by her mother and father, Mike and Carol Sperka; her sister, Emily; and her brother, David, who is a junior at UW–Madison.

The U.S. Embassy in Botswana is working with the Sperka family in returning Andrea to West Allis. The UW–Madison Dean of Students Office is reaching out to friends and classmates of Andrea and to the other 16 UW–Madison students who were studying abroad at UCT.

A Facebook site honoring Sperka has been created by friends.