FOR UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MADISON ALUMNAE AND FRIENDS SUMMER 2019

Our Monumental Women How Badger alumnae shape the world Vision Next-generation Badger stars? Inspired young fans greet the UW women’s hockey team on its return from winning the national championship in March. It was the team’s fifth title since 2006. Photo by Bryce Richter On Wisconsin 3

Contents Volume 120, Number 2

UW women’s basketball was popular from the get-go. See page 32. UW ARCHIVES 24/2/2, 48441-C 24/2/2, ARCHIVES UW DEPARTMENTS

2 Vision 7 Communications 9 First Person Women’s Issue

OnCampus

11 News FEATURES 13 Bygone Ladies’ Halls 14 Calculation Women in 22 A Pioneer’s Perseverance Leadership Born in war-torn Hong Kong to a prominent but absent father 17 Conversation #MeToo in and his sixth concubine, UW physicist Sau Lan Wu has over- Science come stunning obstacles on her path to three major scientific 18 Exhibition Swoon discoveries. By Preston Schmitt ’14 20 C ontender Terry Gawlik on Title IX 28 Leaving Madison in a Model T An adventurous summer road trip turned the UW’s first female engineering grad, Emily Hahn ’26, into one of America’s most storied travel writers. By Sandra Knisely Barnidge ’09, MA’13 OnAlumni 32 The Women and the Goat Soon after basketball was invented, women at the UW picked 49 News up the sport — even before the men. Intramural teams quickly 50 Tradition Women’s Studies grew in popularity and competed for an unusual (and some- 51 Class Notes times bleating) trophy. By Tim Brady ’79 59 Diversions 60 Conversation Steadfast Activist 36 A Driving Force 61 Exhibition Southern Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi PhD’03 believes that if efforts to Exposures control nuclear fusion pay off, it will provide unlimited energy JEFF MILLER 62 Honor Roll Florence Bascom that will change the world. By Stephanie Awe ’15 66 Destinati on Helen C. White Hall 40 You Can’t Judge a Book by Its AMBER DAY/ILLUSTRATIONWEB Coveter When graduate student Jenny Morrill MA1905 left campus for the summer, librarians found evidence of “a most awful crime” that she blamed on her morphine addiction. By Travis McDade After a decade away, Lady Liberty (this time in inflat- 42 Dance, Dance Revolutionary able form) returned to Lake Mary Hinkson ’46, MS’47 was born to dance, but as a black Mendota in February — just woman at the UW, she found Madison far from welcoming. in time to inspire our cover Rather than give up, she became one of the nation’s leading illustration for this special performers. By Harvey Long MA’16 women’s issue. See page 9. Traversing America in a Model T. See page 28. 46 One of Us As a nationally renowned sex reassignment surgeon, Marci Cover Bowers ’80 — a transgender woman herself — is helping her Illustration by patients to live more confidently and happily.By Andrew Faught Barry Carlsen MFA’83

On Wisconsin 5 MORE: of Wisconsin–Madison Mayes/University Aaron Photo: UNSCHEDULED REUNIONS

You may have left Wisconsin, but hopefully it hasn’t left you. The geography, the values and the people that make this a great place to live are all still here. And now, thanks to a booming economy, abundant career opportunities and low cost of living, there’s never been a better time to come back and make a new life in the place you once called home. Wisconsin. It’s more you.

THINK MAKE HAPPEN IN WISCONSIN® InWisconsin.com/Alumni 6 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 Communications UW WOMEN AT 150 SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

Throughout the academic year, campus celebrated the 150th anniversary of women receiving degrees from the university. The UW Women at 150 website, wisc. edu/women, featured stories on these UW trailblazers: Aaron Williams ’01 of Madison writes that his five-year-old has confirmed that it is • Gloria Ladson-Billings indeed a continuous line on the “Room for Debate” graphic in the Spring 2019 issue. (pictured above), a UW The editors have been debating that since they first saw this whimsical drawing. professor emerita known for research examining racial In Praise of Debate A Wall Street Gem disparities in education Thanks to Louisa Kamps for As a longtime Wall Street Jour- • Signe Skott Cooper ’48, a exploring a topic that’s been nal subscriber, I was wonder- festering far too long [“Room for ing when Jason Gay [“A Good World War II veteran and Debate”]. She’d resonate with the Sport,” Spring 2019] would grace nursing pioneer at the UW little book Conversation, written your pages. For the influential • Ada Deer ’57, a Native Amer- some 20 years ago by Theodore WSJ readership, Mr. Gay has ican activist and the UW’s Zeldin. He writes, “I particularly significantly raised the profile of first Elder-in-Residence value conversations which are the UW and uniquely captured • Thelma Estrin ’48, MS’49, meetings on the borderline of what the Badger spirit in a humorous, PhD ’52, a computer scientist I understand and what I don’t, down-to-earth manner. Bravo! who introduced technology with people who are different Peter Struck ’73, MBA’74, to medical research from myself.” It’s good to know PhD’80 • Lorraine Hansberry x’50, the that “many at UW–Madison are Mercer Island, Washington first black female playwright actively seeking, encouraging, to have a show on Broadway and developing the ability to dis- Proud Fans (A Raisin in the Sun) cuss difficult topics fruitfully.” Thank you for having the courage • Grace Wahba, the first Jac La Tour ’78 to publish “Walking Away from Brea, California Football” [about Chris Borland female faculty member in the and CTE] in the Winter 2018 UW Department of Statistics Space Junk On Wisconsin and to Preston • Mabel Watson Raimey 1918, [RE: “Lost in Space,” Spring Schmitt for writing with such believed to be the first black 2019]: Ever since I was little, I clarity. I reread this article and woman to graduate from the remember my dad, Jon Leider shared it with my husband. We UW and the first to practice ’66, telling me how he and his agreed that it’s important for you law in Wisconsin friends found the fallen piece of to know that we are so proud of Sputnik in the street in Manito- you for publishing it. The UW has also established a woc in 1962. They noticed the Ginny Moore Kruse MA’76 giving fund called In Her Honor. object because it still had a red- Madison Contributors can recognize hot glow and was visibly steam- special women in their lives ing. They went right to the police Correction by making a gift to the UW and station to report it. The police In Diversions in the Spring 2019 officers have always received issue, the item for the book sharing a story about the hon- credit for the find — not them. I Border Country: The Northwoods oree. Names will be featured on just wanted to add that extra bit Canoe Journals of Howard an honor roll in Memorial Union, to the story, since it was a UW Greene, 1906–1916 should have and gifts ($150 minimum) will student who found it! indicated that Howard Greene support campus programs that Lisa Rupe ’92 graduated from the UW in 1886, promote gender equity. Learn Niantic, Connecticut not 1915. more at wisc.edu/women.

On Wisconsin 7 Enjoy the Nature of Great Retirement

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8 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 First Person JEFF MILLER Summer 2019

COEDITORS Niki Denison, Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA) Preston Schmitt ’14, University Marketing (interim) CONSULTING EDITOR Cindy Foss, University Communications PUBLISHER Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association 1848 University Avenue Madison, WI 53726-4090 608-263-4545 Email: [email protected] Web: onwisconsin.uwalumni.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER John Allen, WFAA

ART DIRECTOR At the 2018 Nancy Rinehart, University Marketing “The University, in all its departments and Homecoming DESIGNER colleges, shall be open alike to male and Parade, stu- Danielle Lawry, University Marketing female students.” In Wisconsin’s reorganiza- dents marched PRODUCTION EDITOR in celebration Eileen Fitzgerald ’79, University Marketing tion act of 1866, the state legislature declared of 150 years of that the UW should serve all of its citizens, coeducation at CLASS NOTES/DIVERSIONS EDITOR the UW. Stephanie Awe ’15, WFAA not merely the half who wore neckties. The PHOTOGRAPHERS UW, however, was not entirely keen to obey, particularly Jeff Miller and Bryce Richter, University Communications because the person it hoped would be its next president, Paul DESIGN, LAYOUT, AND PRODUCTION Chadbourne, felt that coeducation would “cause a great deal Toni Good ’76, MA’89, Kent Hamele ’78, Kate Price ’09: University Marketing; of trouble.” But after some wrangling, women were added Nicole Heiman, Chelsea Schlecht ’13, Erin Sprague ’94: WFAA to campus in 1867, and so was Chadbourne. EDITORIAL INTERN There had, in fact, been women at the UW prior to this. Nina Bertelsen ’19 The Normal Department, which taught teachers, had female ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Madison Magazine: 608-270-3600 students since 1863. But this was not the same as full access ADDRESS CHANGES AND to the university. In 1869 — 150 years ago — the UW grad- DEATH NOTICES uated its first baccalaureate alumnae: Clara Bewick Colby, 888-947-2586 Email: [email protected] Anna Headen Erskine, Elizabeth Spencer Haseltine, Jane Quarterly production of On Wisconsin is Nagle Henderson, Helen Noble Peck, and Ellen Turner supported by financial gifts from alumni and friends. To make a gift to UW–Madison, Pierce. The next year, Chadbourne left, but women stayed. please visit supportuw.org. This year, the UW is celebrating that 150th anniversary. In The Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA) is open to all alumni, students, and friends of the this issue, you’ll read about just a few of the amazing women university. WFAA encourages diversity, inclusivity, and participation by all of these groups in its activities and (and one who’s less-than-admirable — see page 40) who have does not discriminate on any basis. passed through campus in the last century and a half. We Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle this magazine. Please read it first. know we’ve missed a lot of influential Badger women; we plead lack of space. You can see more articles at onwisconsin. uwalumni.com. On, alumnae! ON WISCONSIN’S EDITORS

On Wisconsin 9 WHEN ENTOMOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE WORK TOGETHER, WE ARE BOUNDLESS.

WISC.EDU | #ONWISCONSIN 10 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OnCampusNews from UW–Madison State of the UW Flexibility, accessibility, research, and

faculty: Blank lays out her priorities. PUBLIC TELEVISION WISCONSIN

One thing was clear in Chancellor Rebecca Blank’s February address to the UW Board of Regents: the landscape of higher education is chang- ing rapidly, and UW–Madison must keep up to maintain its status as a top public research institution. Blank outlined several key goals and investments for the university. One is to build on educational outcomes by offering greater flexibility for students. An increase in online courses is helping students meet credit requirements while they’re studying abroad or doing an intern- ship. The UW is exploring all-online degree programs for nontradi- tional students, with the hope of developing at least one undergraduate program by 2020. It’s expanding early-start programs, which allow incoming freshmen to earn credits during the summer, and rolling out gap-year programs, which will accommodate those who earn admission A CAPITOL IDEA but wish to delay full enrollment so they can travel, work, or volunteer. History can be challenging, A second priority is accessibility. The UW established Bucky’s remembering so many names, Tuition Promise last year to reduce the financial burden on low- and dates, and places. But the video middle-income families. Four years of tuition is now covered for any game Jo Wilder and the Capitol incoming Wisconsin student whose family’s household income is below Case, created by UW–Madison’s the state median of $58,000. Noting that the university has tripled its Field Day Lab and Wisconsin investment in scholarships over the past 10 years, Blank said that it 18.4 Public Television (WPT), makes still faces shrinking state and federal aid. “I want every student who percent of all new Wisconsin history “really can qualify for admission to UW–Madison to be able to afford to come,” in-state students cool” — at least according to she said. in the 2018–19 fourth-graders like Camren Blank identified research as an area of concern, with the UW’s class benefited Hokanson from Elmwood, expenditures lagging behind its peers over the past decade. Despite from Bucky’s Wisconsin. Tuition Promise an 11 percent increase in research dollars during the past two years, The game commemorates the UW has dropped to sixth in national research expenditures, fol- the centennial of Wisconsin’s lowing decades among the top five universities. To address the trend, $154,807 state capitol and is available for Difference in the UW is increasing stipends to attract top graduate students and dollars spent on free on WPT’s website. The story establishing industry partnerships with the likes of GE Healthcare, research between line revolves around a young girl Johnson Controls, and Foxconn. sixth place (the (Jo Wilder) and her adventures Above all, the quality of the university “rests on its faculty,” Blank UW’s spot) and as she solves mysteries behind said. A cluster-hire program, which recruits cross-disciplinary faculty fifth (the Univer- several historical state artifacts. members with aligned interest in high-demand research areas, will sity of Washing- “Even kids who had a hard hire more than 50 faculty members over five years. Another program ton) in 2017 time reading loved interacting is giving departments new tools and financial support to recruit faculty with [the game],” says David members from underrepresented groups in their respective fields. The Gagnon ’04, MS’10 of Field Day biggest barrier remains the lack of competitive pay. “We’re number 14 Lab. “All the principles of the of the 14 Big Ten schools,” Blank said, noting that UW professors earn, game — how you track down on average, 10.4 percent less than those at peer institutions. “That does evidence, how you corroborate not reflect our reputation and our strength.” evidence, how you find experts All of these key areas, Blank said, require reinvestment from the to interview, how you find pri- university as well as a renewed commitment by the state. She concluded mary sources — we want those by quoting former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “If you want things to transfer into how kids to create a great city” — and a great state, she added — “first create a interact with their own neighbor- great university, and then wait 100 years.” hoods and communities.” PRESTON SCHMITT ’14 LYNN ARMITAGE

On Wisconsin 11 OnCampus Stars of Financial Aid JEFF MILLER

HANDBAG BLING HELEN LOUISE ALLEN TEXTILE COLLECTION This elegant purse was one piece in the original bequest of Profes- sor Helen Louise Allen to form the textile teaching collection that — 50 years on — still bears her name and continues to inform students, researchers, and historians today. This piece has become a talisman for the collection’s golden anniver- sary, which the School of Human Ecology is celebrating this year. The purse is an example of an ancient The first brainchild of the UW’s new Student Success Mackenzie art called zardozi, a distinctive Through Applied Research (SSTAR) Lab, Bucky’s Tuition Straub x’22 (pic- metallic embroidery associated Promise, has provided financial relief to nearly one-quarter tured) was one with India and the Middle East. of the Wisconsin-resident students in the 2018–19 incoming of 796 incoming students during Taken from the Persian words for class. the 2018–19 gold (zar) and embroidery (dozi), By identifying a sustainable way to simplify the finan- academic year zardozi is usually formed around cial aid process for in-state undergraduates — covering receiving free natural motifs wrought in silver, four years of tuition and segregated fees for freshmen tuition through gold, and copper wire or metallic meeting income-level criteria — the SSTAR Lab created a Bucky’s Tuition threads accented with sequins, solution to help the Office of Student Financial Aid (OSFA) Promise. beads, pearls, semi-precious provide more student support. stones, and jewels. And it aims to do more. Although the lab began research on Bucky’s Tui- DAVID NEWELL AND tion Promise more than a year and a half ago, SSTAR celebrated its grand MARINA MOSKOWITZ opening — with a new office and classroom space tucked into OSFA — earlier this year. “We as financial aid practitioners really were looking for ways to be more Mueller Report creative and innovative with how we do business and how we award funds The April release of special counsel to students,” says Derek Kindle, the UW’s director of student financial aid. Robert Mueller’s report on Russian As a result, OSFA decided to bring in Nicholas Hillman — an associate interference in the 2016 presidential professor in the School of Education who studies higher-education finance election came with a UW surprise. On and policy research — to provide his expertise and to direct the SSTAR Lab. page 27, footnote 71, it cited a study With nationwide concerns about college affordability, the SSTAR Lab, by researchers at the UW School of which also employs graduate students, aims to conduct financial-aid research Journalism and Mass Communica- that leads to practical and lasting solutions. Its direct partnership with the tion. Early last year, they found that financial aid office is a rare one in the field — to Hillman’s knowledge, it’s the most major media outlets had inad- only lab of its type at a university. vertently used tweets from Russian “There’s just a big gap between what we do as academics and what prac- troll accounts to demonstrate opin- titioners need to solve problems in real time,” he says. “I think people are ions in news stories. “Journalists doing a lot of really innovative work with financial aid, but nothing in this are [now] taking this issue really format where we’re working in partnership with practitioners to help solve seriously,” says Josephine Lukito problems.” PhDx’20, a lead author of the study. STEPHANIE AWE ’15

12 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 Bygone Ladies’ Halls UW ARCHIVES 2018S00424 ARCHIVES UW

By 2005, Elizabeth Waters Res- entirely because of its high costs. No men allowed: Only a housemother had access idence Hall was the last stand- The earliest residents of a group of 1960s to the building’s keys, so resi- ing gender-segregated dorm on Ladies Hall needed permission female students dents needed permission to be campus. For many alumni of that to leave the dorm outside of usual relaxes in the gone overnight or to stay out past time, it was a familiar arrange- class hours, and they were only Elizabeth Waters curfew. Late-night studying at the Residence Hall ment. For many students, it was allowed to see visitors during courtyard. The library? Too bad. Freshmen could antiquated — weird, even. Wrote scheduled receptions in common dorm would be request a key for curfew extension one in the Badger Herald: “The areas. The hall’s principal also the last on cam- until 12:30 a.m. once per semes- time has come for UW to end this advised the women on their habits pus to remain ter, while seniors earned the wretched, backward invocation of and how to comport themselves in segregated by luxury of requesting a key twice sexism and mindless promotion of public. gender. per week. Exceptions were made prudery.” A year later, it became a Many strict housing rules for university-sanctioned events coed dorm, ending a long era. continued into the latter half of and for Daily Cardinal staffers. The UW’s first-ever pur- the 20th century. Between the For many years, men could pose-built dorm was also its first ’40s and ’70s, parents received a only enter women’s dorms during women’s dorm. Ladies Hall was letter from the university before certain evening hours and were constructed in 1871 and was later the start of each academic year never allowed to stay overnight. renamed Chadbourne Hall after informing them that female stu- The board of regents approved former chancellor Paul Chad- dents under the age of 21 were coed housing, separated by floor bourne, partly in retribution for required to live in university- (and later by wing), for select UW his stubborn opposition to coed- approved housing or provide a residence halls in 1972. All halls ucation. The paradoxical naming guardian’s written permission to are now coed, and most floors and streak continued for the second live unsupervised off campus. wings stopped being separated by women’s dorm (and oldest func- Curfews were commonplace. gender in 2011. Students are free tioning dorm on campus today), According to a 1949 housing docu- to come and go as they please. We Barnard Hall — after former ment, women who tried to return suspect they wouldn’t accept any- chancellor Henry Barnard, to their dorms after 10:30 p.m. on thing less. who opposed university housing weeknights would be locked out. NINA BERTELSEN ’19

On Wisconsin 13 Calculation Women in Leadership PHOTOS BY JEFF MILLER; ILLUSTRATION BY N. B. RINEHART

14 OF THE PAST 31 YEARS (45%): WOMEN SERVING AS UW CHANCELLOR AN ERA OF FEMALE FIRSTS

–1993 1988 Donna Shalala Chancellor Donna 1988 Shalala T N 1 E 9 S 9 E 3 – R 2 P 0 – 0 Mary Rouse 3 Rebecca 1 1 0 David Dean of Students 2 Blank Ward 1988

2 David 0 1 Melany Newby 1 – Ward 2 Vice Chancellor 0 John 1 3 1989 Biddy Wiley Martin 2 00 8– 08 20 –20 11 001 2 Sue Riseling Campus Police Chief SALARY COMPARISON 1991 $95,000 $582,617 Shalala (1988) Blank (2019)

An Uphill Climb When Donna Shalala entered position of vice chancellor for During this era, ership positions — provost, top Bascom Hall at 6 a.m. for her first legal and executive affairs and women also led administrators for research and day on the job in 1988, a security selected Melany Newby, the the way at the student affairs, deans of various guard told her, “You must have a UW’s first female vice chan- Wisconsin Alumni schools and colleges — have also tough boss.” As it turned out, she cellor and top lawyer. In 1991, Association been held by women in recent (WAA) and the UW was the boss — making history as Sue Riseling was hired as the System. Gayle years. the first woman to serve as UW– director of police and security, Langer ’83 was Progress, however, can feel Madison’s chief executive and becoming the first female campus named executive slow. A year after Shalala arrived, one of only a few to lead a major police chief in the Big Ten and one director of WAA students criticized her for hiring research university. of just a handful in the country. in 1989, and three men to fill dean and vice “I’m sure she’s going to “I’m a manager who brings about Katharine Lyall chancellor vacancies. (The only shake the place up,” Robert change,” Riseling told the State became presi- female dean at the time was Clodius, a former UW acting Journal at the time. dent of the UW the School of Nursing’s Vivian System in 1992. president, prophetically told the Now, a woman entering high Littlefield.) Shalala defended the Wisconsin State Journal after office in Bascom Hall is a famil- moves and insisted that the UW she was hired. iar sight. Between Shalala, was still committed to diversify- Just as Shalala arrived on Biddy Martin PhD’85, and ing leadership. “The proof is what campus as chancellor, Mary Rebecca Blank, women have the UW will look like in three Rouse became the first woman to been in charge of the university years,” she told the Capital Times. hold the title of dean of students. for almost half of the past three “Come back and take a look then.” A year later, Shalala created the decades. Many other central lead- PRESTON SCHMITT ’14

14 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OnCampus FRANK FENNEMA “Women should get to choose which practices are best for them without having to contend with anybody else’s expectations. That, not an uncovered head, is what liberation looks like.” — UW LAW PROFESSOR ASIFA QURAISHI-LANDES IN A COAUTHORED OP/ED IN THE WASHINGTON POST, “FIVE Why You Don’t Want to Eat Hagfish MYTHS ABOUT HIJAB” Hundreds of meters deep in the dark of the ocean, a shark glides toward what seems like a meal. It’s kind of ugly, eel-like, and not particularly meaty, but to a shark, everything is probably food. So the shark strikes — and finds its dinner interrupted by a cloud of protective slime that A DAY AT THE FAIR appeared out of nowhere around an otherwise placid hagfish. A prototype Mars rover. A phenomenally UW math professor Jean-Luc Thiffeault and other researchers impractical but captivating watch based on have modeled the hagfish’s gag-inducing defense mechanism mathemati- obsolete technology. An infrared surgical cally, publishing their work in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. pen. UW engineering students showed off The ocean-dwelling hagfish is unique for all the strangest reasons. It their inventive skills to each other and to rep- has a skull but no spine or jaw. Its skin hangs loose on its body, attached resentatives of eight Wisconsin companies at only along the back. Its teeth and fins are primitive. But it can produce a “reverse” career fair on campus in January. many times its own body’s volume in slime. The goop is so thick and The event also showcased Makerspace, a fibrous, predators have little choice but to spit out the hagfish and try two-year-old paradise for inventors in Wendt to clear their mouths. Engineering Library. With a broad range of “The mouth of the shark is immediately chock-full of this gel,” Thif- equipment and tools, Makerspace is “the hub feault says. “In fact, it often kills them, because it clogs their gills.” for rapid prototyping on campus,” says Taylor The slime modelers set out to see if math could tell them whether Waddell x’20, a mechanical engineering stu- the forces of the turbulent water of a bite-and-shake attack were enough dent who coordinated the event. to unspool the skeins of slime, or if another mechanism — like a chem- He dubbed the event a reverse career ical reaction — was required. What they found indicates that strands fair because it inverts the usual relationship. of slime get stuck to various surfaces (a predator’s mouth, its fins, its “Typically, at a career fair you just hand out flippers, or other slime strands) and then become a giant mess. your résumé,” Waddell says. “If you bring your “Think of it as a roll of tape,” says Thiffeault. “To start pulling tape prototype here, and show it to the company from a new roll, you may have to hunt for the end and pick it loose with reps, that’s a little more personal — it will your fingernail. But if there’s already a free end, it’s easy to catch it with create a better relationship,” which could something and get going.” lead to internships or job offers. CHRIS BARNCARD DAVID TENENBAUM MA’86

news feed

Welcome, Corey The UW was UW researchers Swimmer Beata Pompey! We hope you number one among discovered a protein Nelson x’20 won three know “Varsity.” In April, universities in — p53 — which, when national championship the UW announced that sending grads into mutated, appears to races in three days in Pompey will replace the Peace Corps for lead to the onset of March, setting records Mike Leckrone as direc- the third consecu- many different kinds in the 100-yard and tor of athletic bands. tive year. There are of cancer. Researchers 200-yard backstroke. Pompey was previously currently 75 Badgers Richard Anderson Her third crown came at the University of serving as Peace and Vincent Cryns in the 200-yard indi-

ALEXANDRA BUSH; BRYCE RICHTER BRYCE BUSH; ALEXANDRA Nevada–Reno. Corps volunteers. led the study. vidual medley. OnCampus

IRENE DUCH-LATORRE INTERVIEWS GONE AWRY Perhaps you have heard others’ stories of unpleasant job interviews — or maybe you have a story of your own. Kristopher Olds, a pro- fessor in the UW’s Depart- ment of Geography, is no exception. He took to Twit- ter in December to share a memory of an unexpected interview during his final year as a doctoral student, asking his 17,000 followers to share their academic job interview stories. His tweet has gathered nearly 600 responses that run the gamut from dining mishaps THAT’S COOLThe UW announced the winners of this year’s Cool Science Image to giving an impromptu contest in April: 10 photos and two videos, including this shot of pygmy marmosets lecture. Yikes! submitted by Irene Duch-Latorre PhDx’20. “Pygmy marmosets are the smallest mon- “One surprise for me keys in the world,” she wrote. “While their pocket-friendly size makes them cute, it was everybody knows now also makes them desirable exotic pets, and [they are] frequently trafficked far from you shouldn’t be asking their home range in the Amazon River basin.” See other winners at news.wisc.edu/ questions about marital the-winners-cool-science-images-2019. status, whether people have children, stuff like that. But people can’t resist it based The amount of the United on the comments I got,” Olds States cheese surplus, by told the Wisconsin State Journal in January. “Things weight. Americans ate 37 billion get run really well [at the pounds of cheese in 2017, but UW], better than anywhere else I’ve been, so I’ve sort of they left 1.4 billion pounds more normalized that. But then in storage. A cheese tray would the tweet goes out and peo- ple start talking about these have to hold about 900,000 experiences, and it’s just cubic yards to serve it all. bizarre.” news feed

What’s the best way Professor emeritus Jim Leary Some 18 Badger students for cities to fight global was nominated for a Grammy received Fulbright fellowships

warming? Add trees! for Best Album Notes. He this year, tied for 14th-most JEFF MILLER; COLBY SHARP According to a paper wrote a 60-page booklet among American universities. authored by Carly Ziter that accompanied Alpine The Fulbright funds interna- PhD’18 and UW professor Dreaming, a compilation tional study for high-achiev- Monica Turner, tree cover of Swiss immigrant songs ing American students, and can lower urban summer recorded in the 1920s. It was it’s one of the nation’s most temperatures by as much Leary’s second Grammy prestigious and competitive as 10 degrees. nomination. academic honors.

16 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 Conversation #MeToo in Science

The #MeToo movement reaches We might spend a lot of time How can the sciences far beyond Hollywood and Cap- in the lab after hours or in the 53.1% combat this issue? of female grad- itol Hill. The sciences are also field in remote areas with a We need to have real, profes- uate students at grappling with how to address small number of people. Some- sional consequences. Even the UW have been sexual harassment. This past times those work–life boundar- when accused faculty are victims of sexual year, the American Geophys- ies are blurred in science. encouraged to resign, they’ll harassment ical Union adopted a policy often get hired by another (2015 AAU survey) that added sexual harassment How does it compromise the university with a higher salary. as a form of scientific miscon- research? It’s really important for funding duct, saying that it willfully The way we treat people is agencies to say, “We’re not compromises the integrity of affecting their quality of data. going to give you a $1 million research just as plagiarism Some people are afraid to go to grant if you keep harassing stu- and other misdeeds do. Erika the lab and collect data. I can’t dents,” and for a professional Marín-Spiotta, a UW asso- imagine being out in the field society to say, “We’re not going ciate professor of geography, and thinking, “I don’t want to to bestow honors or awards holds a $1.1 million grant from go over there, because then I’m on you.” But we’re trying to the National Science Founda- going to be with this person, make [faculty members] realize tion to address the issue. and I’m afraid of what they’re that it is their responsibility to going to do to me.” How is that intervene and check colleagues’ How widespread is harass- not affecting the science? I inappropriate comments, ment inacademia? always tell my students: don’t because that’s how a lot of On average, 50 percent of do important tasks in the lab harassment starts. women faculty [in science] when you’re tired, because your have experienced sexual brain is not thinking clearly. Interview conducted, edited, and harassment. Between 30 and It’s easy to make a mistake. condensed by Nina Bertelsen ’19 50 percent of [all] undergrad- Similarly, [harassment] is going uate women have experienced to affect the decisions you’re Photo by Bryce Richter sexual harassment, [according making. to recent studies].

Why is harassment so common? [Sexual harassment] is about abuse of power. And in science, you have very strong power dif- ferentials between the primary investigator, who has access to the grant funding, and stu- dents. There’s also a very tight mentoring model. A graduate student is dependent on one person for research funding, which [becomes] tuition; a sti- pend, which is rent; and access to specialized instrumentation, field sites, and letters of recommendation.

On Wisconsin 17 Exhibition Tandem Press Visiting Artists SONAPASTEL-DANESHGAR (4)

Every few weeks, another one arrives: a visiting artist During her time to create a new work at Tandem Press, UW–Madison’s as visiting artist fine-art print shop. Tandem is affiliated with the art at Tandem Press department in the School of Education, and since this past winter, 1987, it has brought nearly 100 artists to campus — mixed-media to experiment, to create something new, and to work artist Swoon made several with graduate students. One of this spring’s notable prints. From top visitors was Swoon, who made the mixed-media to bottom, these works shown here. are Girl with Swoon, born Caledonia Curry, came to fame as Dappled Sunlight, a street artist. In recent years she’s been featured in Sonia, and an as- museum exhibits from New York to California and as yet untitled work far afield as Paris, London, and Tokyo. At Tandem, she created while on created several prints, the most notable being the one campus. shown at bottom right, which Tandem director Paula Panczenko describes as a multilayered print — it involves lithography, screen printing, hand painting, and gold leaf. The visiting-artist program has been one of Tan- dem’s pride points. Each artist creates one or more prints with the press. Sales of these limited editions (usually fewer than 30 prints) support the press. Prices for Swoon’s previous works range from hundreds to more than $20,000. Tandem works hang in museums around the country, but one print of each visiting-artist project remains at the UW, joining the collection of the Chazen Museum. JOHN ALLEN

18 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OnCampus UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF OCEANOGRAPHY

WYE NOT? The “wye,” a Y-shaped connec- tor to the tube placed inside an infant’s airway during surgery, is a medical device that today com- bines unfortunate characteris- tics: it’s awkward, rigid, flimsy, and heavy. The design hinders the delicate process of perform- ing surgeries on babies to repair Probing Monsoon Mysteries life-threatening conditions such A UW–developed portable weather lab journeyed for two months and 22,000 as heart and lung defects. miles to the Philippine Sea and back during the heart of monsoon season. But two UW–Madison under- The lab, known as SPARCLET, traveled aboard the research vessel Thomas grads think they can improve on G. Thompson to learn more about how pollutants and turbulent conditions in the wye. In December 2018, Sara the western Pacific affect the region and influence global weather. An interna- Jorgensen x’20 and Margaret tional crew captured oceanographic measurements and detailed atmospheric Edman x’20 filed a provisional observations. patent application for a lighter, SPARCLET is the smaller of two mobile labs developed by the UW’s Space tighter, more adjustable wye, Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), and SPARC stands for SSEC Portable something they created as part Atmospheric Research Center. (“LET” is a diminutive.) In the Philippine Sea, of a biomedical engineering SPARCLET took atmospheric measurements of aerosols, which are found in design sequence. high concentrations there and are thought to affect weather patterns. They are getting encourage- The experiment ran from August to October 2018 and was designed to ment and expert advice from the observe conditions during the Asian summer monsoon. As the crew members UW’s American Family Children’s collected data over several hundred nautical miles, they were twice rerouted Hospital, where doctors perform when tropical cyclones passed nearby. hundreds of neonatal surgeries “The resulting ocean churning from the storm gave us a chance to observe per year, taking care of patients the air and sea conditions in its wake,” says Coda Phillips ’16, MSx’20, who from Wisconsin, Illinois, and was part of the deck crew for one month of the journey. The project is a part of Iowa. a larger NASA mission, which will include ground-based instruments, weather “One of the biggest chal- satellites, and high-altitude aircraft. lenges to getting taken seriously “This project offers a great chance to bridge science and applications into is that we’re two girls in college,” hardware development,” says SSEC scientist Bob Holz ’98, MS’02, PhD’05. says Jorgensen. But having a “The development of this instrument took years to complete and expertise patent application — even if from different fields, but we’re excited to take part in this campaign.” provisional — does help. ERIC VERBETEN ’10, MA’11 DAVID TENENBAUM MA’86

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In February, the UW’s Pro The Go Big Read selection Say farewell to Nails’ Arte Quartet gave the world for 2019–20 is out: The Tales, the sculpture that premiere of a new sonata by Poison Squad by Deborah has stood outside Camp renowned classical composer Blum MA’82. Go Big Read is Randall since 2005. A John Harbison. He has won a the UW’s community read- new plan released in Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur ing project — the entire March indicates that “genius” grant for his musical campus is encouraged to the 50-foot-tall obelisk work. Pro Arte has been the read and discuss the same created by Donald Lipski UW’s resident string quartet book. Blum was on the UW will not remain at the since 1941. faculty from 1997 to 2015. stadium. STEVE APPS/MADISON NEWSPAPERS APPS/MADISON STEVE KATIV/ISTOCK Contender Terry Gawlik on Title IX

Terry Gawlik remembers the day when Title IX became federal law in 1972. She was a success- ful multisport athlete at her Texas middle school, where her coach broke the news: “This is a great day for women’s sports.” It would be hard for her to forget. As a UW senior asso- ciate athletic director, Gawlik oversees 10 sports programs and is in charge of the athletics department’s ongoing compli- ance with Title IX — the sweep- ing statute that prohibits sex

20 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 discrimination in any educa- The success of helped to develop various plans exponential growth in women’s tional program that receives the women’s for compliance while meeting sports. Before arriving at the federal funding. Although there volleyball team financial concerns. The uni- UW, Gawlik coached collegiate were efforts early on to exempt at the Wisconsin versity and OCR went back and women’s basketball, volley- athletics, the mandate is now Field House is a forth for 12 years. “They told us, ball, tennis, and track. Her highlight of Gaw- fully entrenched in intercol- ‘You better be spot on,’ ” Gawlik introduction was in the early lik’s tenure as a legiate competition: men and top UW athletics says, referring to the propor- 1980s at the University of Mary women must have equal oppor- administrator. tionality numbers. Hardin–Baylor in Texas, where tunities. By 2001, the UW had insti- she coached two sports while The stacks of reports tuted strict roster management earning her master’s degree. sprawled on Gawlik’s desk — calculating target partici- “I didn’t have any assistants. serve as a tangible reminder pation numbers for each team I also taught classes, half the of her task. To comply with — and had added women’s time I was the trainer, I always Title IX, athletics departments lightweight rowing, softball, drove the van, and I was doing must provide equitable access and ice hockey. Women made all the recruiting and film,” to sports offerings, athletic up 52.6 percent of the UW’s Gawlik recalls, laughing. scholarships, and all other student-athletes, effectively Since Title IX, there’s been program areas, such as equip- matching the 53.3 percent of a 260 percent increase in the ment, travel, facilities, and total enrollment. OCR then number of female athletes at coaching. The first criterion dropped the complaint. the UW. The women’s sports can be met in several ways. The The right mix of sports and budget has grown to $24.5 UW applies the proportionality roster sizes is delicate. Rosters million, more than 50 coaches rule — demonstrating that its fluctuate, and even a practice are on staff, and the 12 teams sports opportunities for men player counts as a participant. have more than a dozen national and women are “substantially Gawlik tracks the numbers championships combined proportionate” to its respective closely — not only participa- (including ice hockey earlier this enrollment numbers. Enroll- tion, but also practice times, year). When asked where ment by gender is roughly equal, support services, and expenses women’s athletics would be but it fluctuates each year. for travel, recruiting, and today without Title IX, Gawlik “People have a misconcep- equipment. takes a moment to ponder. tion that Title IX tells you to drop There is no plan to add or “Unfortunately, there’d be a sports,” Gawlik says, noting that subtract sports. “Right now, lot of women and young girls out the UW’s baseball team was our numbers match up,” she there not having the opportunity terminated in 1991 only because says. “We’re offering the sports to play,” she says. “But I also of a department-wide budget that we would like to offer.” She think that we would have found crisis. “No, it doesn’t. It tells you references assistant women’s a way. Maybe not at this type of to be in compliance.” rowing coach Monica White- level. But women are compet- The UW added women’s house ’14, who walked on to the itors — we don’t like to sit the athletics, which had existed as UW rowing team her freshman bench.” club teams, to its intercollegiate year and then represented Team PRESTON SCHMITT ’14 program in 1974. Although the USA at the 2016 World Rowing PHOTO BY BRYCE RICHTER budget grew from $118,000 to Championships. “That, to me, is $1.1 million by 1989, a complaint what participation opportunity was filed with the regional is,” Gawlik says. Office of Civil Rights (OCR) As the highest-ranking against the athletics depart- female administrator in the ment, citing slow implemen- athletics department, Gawlik tation — one of the first such has had a front-row seat to the measures in the nation. Gawlik, who arrived at the UW in 1994,

On Wisconsin 21 UW physicist Sau A PIONEER’S Lan Wu rose from daunting circum- PERSEVERANCE stances to excel in BY PRESTON SCHMITT ’14 a field she loves.

22 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 VASSAR COLLEGE/JOHN ABBOTT

On Wisconsin 23 Using her life I first heard of Sau Lan Wu last summer, when Wu was born in Hong Kong in the early 1940s, as experiences as Quanta Magazine suggested that, in a different World War II began to rage. Her father, Tat Chee evidence, Wu world, her work could have won the Nobel Prize in U, was a prominent businessman; her mother, Ying told Vassar College’s 2014 physics. Over the past year, I’ve learned much more Lai, was the last of his six concubines — secondary graduating about her life. It could be a Hollywood film. spouses with inferior status, fewer rights, and no class (previ- The UW–Madison Vilas Professor’s story is a inheritance. (The practice, dating back 3,000 years, ous spread): lesson in dichotomy. She grew up in dire poverty was legal in Hong Kong until 1971.) “With [higher] on the streets of Hong Kong as her wealthy father Lai was in her teens when her cousin brought education, and traveled the globe as the Ginger King, so named for her from a poor village in southeast China to Hong with fierce per- severance and his success in the preserved-ginger industry. She Kong. As was customary, she was not allowed to determination, had $40 to her name when she arrived in the United go to school and grew up illiterate. She took a low- success will be States — 10 years later, she had a PhD from Harvard. level job at a factory, where she met the successful your destiny.” And then she devoted her life to a rarely reciprocal and much older U — the eventual Ginger King, as a field dominated by men. 1951 New Yorker article referred to him. “Mr. U is a Wu has played a core role in three major discov- short, friendly, authoritative man with liquid brown eries in particle physics, advancing what we know eyes, a slight stoop, and an excellent command of about the tiniest parts of matter — and therefore, the English,” the article read, noting that his name, fit- world around us. Along the way, she’s advised more tingly, means “object — to be prosperous.” He went than 60 UW graduate students and 40 postdoctoral on to own 11 factories, amassing control of a grow- researchers. “On track record alone, both with sci- ing industry and bringing successful commerce to entific output and with students, she’s unique,” says the area. Britain’s Queen Mary once invited him to Steven Ritz MS’82, PhD’88, a professor of physics at London for a personal visit. Even today, a street in the University of California–Santa Cruz and one of downtown Hong Kong bears his name. Wu’s first graduate students. U’s prosperity scarcely trickled down to his sixth As I ask Wu about the many obstacles and injus- concubine and her children, particularly during war- tices she’s overcome, I expect an air of bitterness in torn times. When Lai became pregnant, she lived her responses. Instead, I get lighthearted shrugs and with U despite his primary wife’s protestations. She her signature soft laugh: Well, that’s life. Eventually was tasked with menial housework and “treated like I learn why. To understand Wu is to view the world a servant,” Wu says. Just before Wu was born, Lai through the unwavering lens of her values: hard was cast out of the house to live in a slum on a meager work, practicality, and perseverance. allowance. During the Japanese invasion in 1941, Lai ran COURTESY OF SAU LAN WU “We stayed very in and out of bomb shelters with the newborn Wu close together wrapped in her arms. Wu’s younger sister, Yu Lan, [throughout life],” Wu says of was born about a year later. The name Yu Lan means her relationship moon orchid; Sau Lan means graceful orchid. They with her mother were tied together by birth name only. Unsettled by and brother, war, U insisted that the younger sister be given away, pictured here and a family caretaker took her to a nearby village. with her (at left, The unwilling mother cried every day. around age 11) in Hong Kong. “Life was very difficult at the time,” Wu says. Some years later, Wu and her mother traveled to the village to try to locate Yu Lan. But the village of wooden shacks had burned down earlier, and they never found her. “I regret very much that I didn’t make [more] effort to look for her,” Wu says, adding that she would have liked having a sister.

Wu’s later childhood was less marked by tragedy, yet still difficult. Her brother, Ming Lun, was born when she was five. The family couldn’t afford ade- quate living space. Wu’s mother and brother slept in a small rented bedroom while she slept in the corri- dor of a local rice shop. Her school in the slums was overcrowded, though she felt grateful to be there. When the education department came for inspection, she knew to hide to skew the head count. Her father moved the family to a better region and a larger apartment when Wu was 12, and her mother

24 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 ULRICH KÖTZ; COURTESY OF SAU LAN WU

International collaboration has been central to Wu’s work. Late Norwegian physicist Bjørn Wiik, pictured with Wu in 1978 in Hamburg, Germany, sup- ported her in the discovery of the gluon particle. enrolled her and her brother in respected missionary ask a man for support,” she says. schools. “She was a very smart woman,” Wu says. She knew from an early age that her path to inde- “She always wanted to learn and felt very [deprived] pendence was education. After she graduated from that she could not read newspapers or write letters. high school in 1959, her father expected her to work She was extremely, extremely conscientious to make and contribute to the family. Instead, she went to a sure my brother and I were well educated.” library and pulled out a thick book with the names Wu excelled in school — particularly in math. of U.S. universities and colleges. She selected 50 on She could multiply three-digit numbers in her head. a whim and secretly applied, asking for admission Prior to enrolling, she had rarely seen her father, but and financial aid to cover tuition and living expenses. now he visited for two hours each week and became All but four universities rejected her outright, saying invested in her academic success. Wu remembers the they did not have full scholarships available. Only first time she impressed him: as he was leaving her one — Vassar College, a top all-women’s school in family’s apartment, he quizzed her on why it was wet New York — sent a telegram accepting her. “So, you below all the cars except his. Because, she explained, can see that I [paged through] from A to Z — Vassar he had arrived before it rained. is V,” Wu says, laughing. Her mother remained the steady, supportive pres- Her mother and brother accompanied her to the ence. “Her life consisted of cooking for us and encour- dock as she prepared to board a ship to America. She aging us to study,” Wu says. “She in fact had a very wouldn’t see them for nine years. Her father came simple life. She felt very insecure — she often cried to say goodbye under the cloak of the early morn- because she felt totally dependent on other people.” ing, avoiding detection. He bought her ticket to San Wu’s pull to practicality is most evident when she Francisco and gave her $40. They stayed in touch by reflects on her father, someone she continued to love letter, but his health declined, and he died in 1969, a and respect despite the complex circumstances of year before she earned her PhD. He had planned to her upbringing. He was “basically a decent person,” attend the graduation ceremony at Harvard. Wu says, noting that he resisted pressure from his other spouses to abandon her mother completely. “He It took Wu nearly a month to travel by ship and was a very capable person. He worked very hard. train to New York. She spent most of the time con- He was just very successful professionally. After all, versing with passengers, determined to better her my father actually gave me a better life. … I admired fledgling English. She barely ate, weighing just 90 my father, and in a way, he is my role model because pounds and worrying about every cent. When she he was very driven. [But] I love my mother, as she first arrived in New York, she stayed with a Vassar was really behind everything that gave me a chance alumna in an apartment near Central Park. “For the to succeed.” first time, I saw how the rich people live,” she says. When school administrators found out that she By the time she was 19, Wu knew only one thing had only a few dollars to her name, they covered her for certain: she would live financially independent books and school supplies. Her student adviser took of men. “I saw how my mother suffered. I could not her shopping, paying for basic necessities, while Wu live in a life where I would need to open my palm and frequented a donation closet on campus for clothes.

On Wisconsin 25 She fell in love with American breakfast foods — never been allowed to join the celebration and steak, eggs, toast, and orange juice — and ate as leaving her in tears. much as she could at the cafeteria. In wider society, Wu faced two 1960 Americas: Hard work is a given in the field of particle physics a land of opportunity, but also one of inequity. — “A lot of people work hard,” Wu says — but the She remembers her first direct experience with real challenge is the ability to sift through the clut- racial discrimination: during a visit with friends to ter of infinite possibilities to know what to pursue, Virginia’s supreme court building, she went to the and how. restroom and saw signs for “white” and “colored,” “She has a wonderful intuition for what’s going and wondered which applied to her. Later on the trip, to be important,” says Steven Ritz, the Santa Cruz she faced the same dilemma on a segregated city bus. physics professor and her former student, who Wu found comfort in her coursework. To avoid has served as chair of the Particle Physics Project distractions, she spent most of her time buried in the Prioritization Panel (P5), a national advisory body. basement of Vassar’s library. She aced her physics “You look at what she’s worked on over her career, and math courses, but was less enamored with the and they’re among the things that in hindsight humanities, taking four months to read The Scarlet mattered the most.” Letter. A summer internship at the Department of After receiving her PhD in physics from Harvard Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, in 1970, Wu was hired by MIT as a research asso- New York, sparked her lifelong passion for discov- ciate, working again at the Brookhaven lab. There ery and particle physics. She also met her future she participated in the first major discovery of her husband: Tai Tsun Wu, a visiting physicist from career: the charm quark, which resulted in a Nobel Harvard. Prize for her supervisor, Samuel Ting. A quark is an Sau Lan graduated from Vassar in three years elementary particle that makes up larger particles, with the highest distinction. Once again against her such as protons and neutrons, and leads to matter. father’s wishes, she applied to the most prestigious Physicists knew of only three “flavors” of quark at graduate schools, selecting Harvard over offers from the time — up, down, and strange. The charm quark Berkeley, Columbia, and Yale. Princeton rejected her became the fourth and opened up new possibilities because it only accepted women who were married in the field. to male faculty members; Caltech wrote that it didn’t In 1977, Wu was hired as an assistant professor at have a women’s dormitory and only accepted “excep- UW–Madison, becoming one of the first two female tional” women. professors in the century-old physics department. When Wu arrived at Harvard, she quickly real- Within two years on the faculty, she played a lead- ized she was the only woman in the physics depart- ing role in the discovery of the gluon, a particle that ment’s first-year graduate class. Her cohorts often binds — or “glues” — quarks together to form pro- studied together, but because women were not tons and neutrons. That discovery put her on the fast allowed in the men’s dormitory, she worked long track to a full professorship in 1983, though her com- hours alone in the physics library. The librarian took pensation lagged in comparison to other research- notice of her work ethic and encouraged her to go ers with her level of federal funding. Donna Shalala, on a date with Tai Tsun. “She said, ‘He’s a good guy,’ the UW’s first female chancellor (see page 14), later and ‘[You’re] working very hard in the library,’ ” Wu advocated for her and realigned her salary. recounts, laughing. The two quickly bonded, find- Wu spent much of the interim — 32 years, to ing compatibility in their love of physics and their be exact — chasing the Higgs boson, which was homogeneity of work and life. They married in 1967. hypothesized to give mass to elementary particles “We talk about physics a lot,” Wu says. “He’s a (and therefore all matter in the universe). “Looking theorist; I’m an experimentalist. I consult him a lot back, I’d say that most of us thought it was 50–50 that because I feel that theorists have … a broader picture the Higgs particle really exists,” says Ritz, who did than experimentalists — or me, anyway.” research related to the Higgs under Wu in the ’80s. Wu made a concerted effort to stand on her own. Over the years, thousands of physicists col- “My thesis adviser always introduced me as T. T. laborated at the European Organization for Wu’s wife,” Wu says. “Nobody wanted to know my Nuclear Research (known as CERN) in Geneva, name.” She insisted that they no longer attend con- Switzerland, where Wu spends most of her time ferences together. “After a while, people didn’t even today. The breakthrough in concrete evidence know that he was my husband — but that’s what I finally happened in July 2012, when Wu’s group wanted. I don’t want to be known as his wife and not was one of the first at CERN to see an experimental myself.” sign of the Higgs. Wu appeared with four other key Wu received her master’s degree in 1964, physicists on the front page of the New York Times, the first year that Harvard awarded graduate and Science journal named it the biggest scientific degrees to women. A guard kicked her out of the discovery of the year. commencement lunch, telling her that women had “I was never alone in this long and difficult

26 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 struggle,” Wu says of her pursuit. She credits the Through all the success, Wu has viewed her steady confidence of UW chancellors Shalala, John mother as the most inspirational person in her life Wiley MS’65, PhD’68, and David Ward MS’62, — someone who selflessly put her children before PhD’63; deans Terry Millar, Martin Cadwallader, herself. After her father died, Wu moved her mother Phillip Certain PhD’69, and Gary Sandefur; provost to Europe to live with her until her brother settled Paul DeLuca; colleagues Wesley Smith and Francis into a successful career in applied physics in the U.S. Halzen; and computer scientist Miron Livny, who Her mother died in 2014 at age 94. helped to develop the technology infrastructure that That same year, Wu returned to Vassar to give enabled the Higgs discovery. the college’s 150th commencement address. She left the graduating class with words that only a story like It’s not hyperbole to say that Wu has devoted her hers could transform from cliché to awe-inspiring. life to science. “I made the resolution to devote my life to science “I would say that she’s so dedicated that she and to make a significant contribution to humanity,” doesn’t have much life outside of physics,” says she said. “Since then, I have experienced the joy of Haichen Wang PhD’13, an assistant professor at discoveries, in life as in science. The search may be Berkeley, who was a key contributor at CERN during long or difficult. Oftentimes, it is long and difficult. the Higgs discovery. “She usually came to the office But when obstacles strike, you fall down, and you get in the late morning and stayed there until the early back up. You believe in yourself. You hold true to your morning the next day.” determination. And you will do something great.” • Wu rarely talks about her upbringing with her colleagues and students. “In some sense, I’m not sur- Preston Schmitt ’14 is a staff writer and interim coeditor prised — that was before science entered her life,” says Ritz. for On Wisconsin. Such singular devotion hasn’t been without sacrifice. Until recently, she’d lived apart from her husband for most of their 50-year marriage. While she’s conducted research at collaborative centers in Europe, he’s taught several time zones away at Helen Dickie ’35, MD’37 Harvard. They once considered having children, When Helen Dickie joined the UW medical but they feared that it would jeopardize her track to school faculty in 1943, tuberculosis was still a tenure. “In those days, that was a reality,” she says, threat. Dickie worked tirelessly to detect and adding that while she has no regrets from her career, treat the disease until it was largely eradicated she does envy parenthood. on campus. She also led efforts to treat TB Wu considers her students and postdocs at CERN throughout Wisconsin. her extended family. She proudly lists all of them on Dickie grew up on a Wisconsin farm and her website: 61 students have received their PhDs graduated first in her UW medical school class under her supervision, and 36 former students and in 1937. During her four decades on the faculty, postdocs are now professors at universities around she became nationally known for her work on the world. “I don’t know anybody who’s had as many pulmonary diseases and headed the school’s students as she’s had,” says Ritz, noting that two of pulmonary unit for 10 years. his current colleagues were former advisees. “She She helped identify a disease among has quite a legacy.” Wisconsin farmers dubbed “farmer’s lung,” Wu connects her students to as many profession- which she and colleague John Rankin eventu- als as she can and helps focus their research. “The ally learned was caused by exposure to moldy, most important thing that she does as a mentor is to fermented hay. They devised a method to pre- point out the right direction and create a platform for vent the condition. her students to perform,” Wang says. As one of the medical school’s only tenured But science is human, too. Discrimination has female members, Dickie was outspoken about persisted, though Wu has seen substantial progress the need to hire more women. In 1974, she was since entering the field. A passage she read in Life named a master of the American College of magazine has stuck with her throughout her career: Physicians, and in 1983 she became one of the if you are a man, people assume you are competent first two women to receive the UW’s Medical until you prove that you are not; if you are a woman, Alumni Citation. In honor of her work, the people assume you are not competent until you prove Wisconsin chapter of the American College of that you are. Physicians created the Helen Dickie Woman of “I took it as a part of life,” Wu says. “I noticed the Year award. what happened, and I just had to either fight it or In 1983, Dickie retired to her Madison tolerate it and move on. If you move on, eventually home with her twin sister, Ruth, a former pro- you’ll be successful. That’s what I believe.” fessor and UW Hospital food services director.

On Wisconsin 27 Leaving Madison in a Model T Emily Hahn ’26 opened readers’ minds by writing about her journeys across Africa and Asia. But her first adventure began with her college roommate, an old Ford, and 2,000 miles of uneven road. EMILY HAHN ESTATE

SANDRA KNISELY BARNIDGE ’09, MA’13

Today, the Great American Road Trip is a common Emily Hahn science department and noticed this tidbit: Emily rite of passage for college students and graduates. set out on a Hahn, first female graduate, 1926. But in 1924, before there was an Interstate Highway cross-country No one else in my office had heard of Hahn, and System, interstate automobile travel was a rare summer drive I set about investigating her. What I found aston- with her room- adventure. That year, two Badgers undertook a mate at a time ished me. Starting in the 1920s, Hahn traveled the special cross-country drive that made headlines when road trips world and worked for more than six decades as a and history — and forever altered the trajectories were still unusual correspondent for the New Yorker. In 1931, she hid of both travelers’ lives. for Americans, herself in a crate to sneak across borders into the But first, let’s back up a bit. and especially Belgian Congo, and she spent most of World War II in Emily “Mickey” Hahn ’26 was one of the most for women. Japanese-occupied Shanghai. She split her later life prolific and adventurous writers to graduate from between New York and London, and she wrote more the University of Wisconsin, yet she’s also one of the than 50 novels, memoirs, and biographies, many of least remembered. I first came across her name by which are still in print. accident during my final weeks as a science writer I was leaving the College of Engineering to go at the College of Engineering in 2011. I stumbled on a across campus and obtain a master’s degree in timeline buried deep in the website of the materials journalism, and yet here was Hahn, who’d built

28 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 AMBER DAY/ILLUSTRATIONWEB sounded masculine enough for an engineer — and Hahn used it for the rest of her life. Discrimination wasn’t limited to the classroom. During her sophomore year, Hahn watched with dismay as, one by one, her classmates were offered summer internships and fieldwork opportunities that were considered inappropriate for women. It was her roommate, Dorothy Raper (later Miller) ’27, who unrolled a map of the world and pointed to a solution: Lake Kivu in the Belgian Congo seemed as good a place as any for a summer adventure. But before embarking for the Congo, the room- mates decided to take a practice trip to Albuquerque. Miller suggested they drive south, stay with her uncle for a while, and then finish the trip with a quick jaunt over to California to see the Pacific Ocean. Hahn’s biographer, Ken Cuthbertson, describes Miller as “outgoing, energetic, and athletic; she was a compet- itive swimmer,” and Hahn also called her “enterpris- ing.” The only daughter of a newspaper columnist in Cleveland, Miller didn’t hesitate to petition her parents for $290 to purchase a Model T Ford. Miller then spent the spring teaching Hahn how to drive in the “gentle, glaciated hills of the [Wisconsin] coun- tryside, past grazing cows and farmhouses.” However, not everyone was supportive. “Why do you talk all the time about getting away?” a date asked Hahn not long before the trip. “Isn’t Madison a substantial writing career after earning, of all A multiseason good enough for you?” things, the first engineering degree ever awarded to series on Hahn’s “Madison’s all right, I guess, but no one place is a female UW student. “I don’t know that name,” the life is in devel- good enough,” she replied. “I want to get around. I late UW journalism professor James Baughman told opment with want to see things.” me when I suggested that he make a mention of Hahn the entertain- ment company YZ in his long-running Literary Journalism course. Both Cinedigm (release of us were genuinely surprised that she’d never made date unspecified). In 1903, Horatio Nelson Jackson and Sewall Crocker it onto the journalism school’s radar. Creators of the took 63 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes to complete Hahn’s experience at the UW wasn’t something series, which the first-ever American cross-country car trip, that past generations of university storytellers were will be filmed in driving from San Francisco to New York. Twenty especially keen to promote. A Saint Louis native, she Shanghai and years later, most travelers were still unaccustomed originally enrolled at the UW as an art major, and on Hong Kong, hope to moving long distances by car. Most American a whim, she attempted to enroll in a geological chem- to help modern roads were still unpaved, highways were not yet audiences redis- istry course in the engineering college. She wrote cover this literary numbered, and the country’s first “motor hotels” later that the department chair blocked her enroll- free spirit. wouldn’t open until 1925. ment and told her, “The female mind is incapable of Yet the concept of Hahn and Miller’s driving trip grasping mechanics or higher mathematics or any of wasn’t quite as radical or treacherous as it seemed the fundamentals of mining taught in this course.” to Hahn’s sophomore date. Before the roommates’ Indignant, Hahn immediately switched her major to quest, Luella Bates had already gained a modicum mining engineering and survived the department’s of fame in Wisconsin as the “first girl truck driver” appeal to the state legislature to remove her from after she was hired by the Four Wheel Drive Auto the program. Company in Clintonville. And Jazz Age Americans Hahn’s engineering classmates and instructors were far more captivated by airplanes than auto- frequently tested her resolve. “I trained myself to mobiles, anyway; female pilots like Bessie Coleman keep very quiet and to maintain a poker face when- and Lillian Boyer were barrel-rolling their biplanes ever I was in the college,” she wrote in Times and and walking on the wings (literally) when Hahn and Places, a collection of essays that was first published Miller let their boyfriends haul the last of their lug- in 1970 and was recently rereleased under the title gage into the Model T. However, none of this is to say No Hurry to Get Home. Over time, though, Hahn did that what Hahn and Miller did in 1924 was simple manage to make a few engineering friends, who took or easy. In fact, what interests me most about their to calling her “Mickey,” a childhood nickname that adventure is that it was encouraged and financially

On Wisconsin 29 supported by their parents — and yet was still con- house where he could keep an eye on them. In the sidered audacious enough to attract newspaper cov- morning, Hahn and Miller woke up with a crowd of erage in the Albuquerque Morning Journal. locals staring at them. The roommates departed Madison on June 19, They pressed on, navigating bumpy roads and 1924, and made their way first to Chicago and then regularly quieting the Model T’s hissing radiator Saint Louis to see their families. They’d converted with buckets of water. The roommates named the the back of the Model T into a fold-down bed — com- Model T “O-O” in honor of all the times the car made plete with a mosquito net — and as they tried to sleep an odd noise and prompted them to exclaim, “Oh-oh!” in a relative’s yard, Hahn’s young cousins kept peek- After negotiating a mountain pass and testing the ing in through the windows to spy on them. Finally, limits of O-O’s radiator and brakes, Miller and Hahn the women broke free of their required visits and got finally arrived in New Mexico on July 6 in mixed out on the open road and headed south. spirits. “I must be wrong to recall the tour as long,” “On our way, on our own, on the road,” Hahn 68 Hahn wrote. “Even in 1924 it was not a matter of years as a recounted saying to Miller as they skidded along globe-trotting months to drive to Albuquerque from Saint Louis. rain-soaked country lanes, taking more than a few New Yorker writer Nevertheless, that is the impression I have kept.” curves too fast through rural Missouri. When they After six days in Albuquerque, the roommates didn’t sleep in the car, they stayed at “tourist camps,” pressed onward to Los Angeles to briefly glimpse the which were just gated fields with outhouses. Once, ocean as planned, driving through the desert mostly a local sheriff tapped on their car window as they 54 by night. But the trip finale was anticlimactic, wrote books on a wide slept and insisted they relocate in front of his own variety of topics, Hahn. By then, Miller was homesick and O-O was along with hun- developing mechanical problems. “Might as well dreds of other start back to Albuquerque,” Hahn recounted Miller works, including saying as they watched blue-green waves crash articles, short sto- against the rocky shore. “We’ve seen the Pacific.” ries, and poems Mary Kenneth Keller PhD’65 YZ In 1965, Sister Mary Kenneth Keller became the The drive west was the first but far from the last time nation’s first woman to earn a PhD in com- 500 that Hahn garnered public attention for her travels. puter science. She came close to being the first miles walked When the roommates set out for New Mexico, they person ever, but the first man to earn the degree during a cross- were almost certainly aware of some of the famous country trek accepted his diploma at Washington University American women who’d trail-blazed before them, across East in Saint Louis earlier the very same day. Africa, marking such as Wisconsin-born explorer and museum cura- Keller entered the Sisters of Charity of the the first such tor Delia Denning Akeley, along with others who cir- Blessed Virgin Mary in 1932 and went on to journey for a cled the globe and then made money giving public earn her bachelor’s in math and her master’s non-native lectures about their adventures. in math and physics from DePaul University. woman Later in life, the “lady traveler” persona became a She also did graduate studies in computer devil’s bargain for Hahn, and she chronically strug- sciences at Purdue, the University of Michigan, gled to get New York critics to take her work seri- and Dartmouth College. Dartmouth made an ously. Her first major book, Congo Solo, originally exception to the no-women rule in its computer exposed the polygamous lifestyle and cruelty of a lab, and once there, Keller helped develop the prominent American medical missionary, but her computer language BASIC, which revolution- publisher was wary of a lawsuit and edited the book ized programming by making it accessible to to instead emphasize Hahn’s challenges as a woman non-scientists. traveling in Africa. Reviewers dismissed the result After graduation, Keller started a computer when it was published in 1933. Kirkus Reviews called science program at Clarke College in Iowa, a it “utterly unconvincing in so far as the human equa- women’s institution founded by her order, and tion is concerned.” ran it for 20 years. She was a strong advocate Some 54 books and hundreds of articles and for women in computer science and for working short stories followed, covering diverse topics women, encouraging adult students to bring ranging from biographies to natural history, from their babies to class. the diamond trade to zoos, cookery, and communi- Keller proved prophetic about the impact of cation with animals. But even her 1997 obituary in computers, predicting that this new tool would the New York Times was headlined “Emily Hahn, make the information explosion accessible to Chronicler of Her Own Exploits, Dies at 92,” which all, that it would become instrumental in teach- strikes me as unfair. It does little justice to Hahn’s ing students, and that it would facilitate AI: extensive bibliography or her serious reporting on “For the first time, we can now mechanically international politics on three continents. But her simulate the cognitive process,” she said. “We legacy does reflect that Hahn eventually recognized can make studies in artificial intelligence.” that to sell her work, she had to play up her more

30 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 INDIANA (2); KURT HUTTON/PICTURE POST/GETTY IMAGES COURTESY OF LILLY LIBRARY, INDIANA UNIVERSITY, BLOOMINGTON,

audacious angles. For example, her most lasting suc- Hahn poses with After returning to Madison, Hahn completed her cess, China to Me, highlighted her years as an opium her pet gibbon, mining engineering degree and landed a job with addict in Shanghai and her romance during World Mr. Mills, in a petroleum company in Saint Louis, which she War II with a married British spy, who later became Shanghai; with appeared to accept with a sense of resignation rather her two daugh- the father of Hahn’s two daughters. ters, Amanda than pride. Though she did successfully become an But long before Africa and China, there were and Carola; and engineer, she didn’t stay one for long. One night after Albuquerque and California. And that’s where the at a 1954 lunch work, she heard that fellow UW engineering student UW roommates’ paths began to diverge. In her later with British Charles Lindbergh x’24 was attempting to fly across writings about the trip, Hahn was quick to juxtapose magazine pub- the Atlantic. She made a bet with herself that if he her own New Woman persona with Miller’s more lisher Edward made it, she’d quit her job and become a writer. When Hulton. traditional outlook. In particular, Hahn was critical The Spirit of Saint Louis landed in Paris the next day, of Miller’s boyfriend, who sent letters for Miller to she did just that and bought a ticket to New Mexico. pick up at every town along their planned route. Hahn wanted to say hello to her old friend before “Letters in general were an intrusion, I felt, on embarking on her next adventure. this otherwise wonderful existence, reminding me that I had not always been free, that I would someday YZ have to go back to my past,” Hahn wrote. She added I carried Hahn’s name with me through graduate that Miller’s “life wasn’t affected by the trip in any school and into another campus writing job, this serious way, though no doubt it altered a few details time at the Wisconsin Alumni Association. There, I for her … She married an Albuquerque man instead introduced her to my editor, who put her on the list of [her college boyfriend], but what’s the difference of names to be included in the new Alumni Park. really? If that’s the way you’re going to be, that’s it. You’ll now find Hahn’s words laser-cut into one of the Why, by the time I actually got there — to Lake Kivu metal benches along the east side of the park: “Let’s [in 1931] — [Miller] already had two children.” not spend money on anything else, except books.” It’s easy to buy into the myth of Miller and Hahn Personally, my favorite Hahn quip is what she’d as opposites, to make the practical Miller a duller foil say in response to those who asked why she often to the risk-loving, adventuresome Hahn. Yet there’s chose the roads less traveled: “Nobody said not to no question the road trip was originally Miller’s go.” Those words became my mantra when I, too, idea, and so perhaps she knew what she was doing finally left Madison. In 2016, I moved to Europe and all along. After all, Miller effectively harnessed her traveled across a few borders myself — though never plucky roommate’s energy to get exactly where she while hidden in a crate. I continue to be inspired by wanted to go: New Mexico, where she began to lay Hahn’s fearlessness, along with her prolific work as the groundwork for a new life. Miller fell in love with a writer. And I hope that the Badgers who happen Albuquerque during the trip, and after finishing her across her words in Alumni Park will now know the UW degree, she spent the rest of her life there. answer to the question I first asked almost a decade The drive was also an important moment for ago: Who was she? • Hahn’s budding sense of herself as an adventurer. “My first trip West was a tremendous affair,” Hahn Sandra Knisely Barnidge ’09, MA’13 writes about travel, wrote. “I don’t think I ever got so steamed up again, history, and culture for a variety of publications. She’s not even when I went to Africa or China.” currently based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

On Wisconsin 31 UW ARCHIVES (2) 24/2/3, 1332-B; PHOTOS COLORIZED BY N. B. RINEHART (4)

Jump around! Basketball orig- inally called for a jump ball after every made shot, as shown here at the UW in the 1930s.

Until the 1970s, female players were confined to certain sections of the court (as shown top right at Lathrop Hall in 1916), and dribbling, block- ing, and stealing were all limited.

32 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 The Women and the Goat At the UW, female students were the first to play the newly invented game of basketball — and their sidelines featured a live mascot.

BY TIM BRADY ’79

ames Naismith, a physical education teacher Who needs challenged by the expectations of the era: compet- Jlooking for a winter sport to entertain his ram- Bucky Badger? ing enthusiastically, yet maintaining a “ladylike” bunctious students in December 1891, hung a pair Women’s basket- demeanor (which resulted in slower-paced, less- of peach baskets at the level of 10 feet on opposite ball teams at the aggressive rules for many years to come). ends of an indoor court in a YMCA in Springfield, UW once fought The women’s sport became so popular that the for the glory of a Massachusetts. live — and even- tournament drew hundreds of spectators for the two He then organized the first game of what he tually stuffed- or three weekends when it took place. After a foray called basket ball — a nine-on-nine affair in which animal — goat. into arranging games with area high schools and the players scored by tossing a soccer ball into the Milwaukee State Normal School, a faculty commit- opposing team’s basket. Players didn’t dribble, and tee put an end to outside competition around 1900. a jump ball was held after every goal. At the UW, women’s basketball preceded the Naismith tossed the ball in the air, and the game beginning of men’s basketball by four years. The men was on. played their first game in Milwaukee in January Just three years later, a group of young 1899, and by 1902, they had an all-away- women at the University of Wisconsin joined games schedule. But through its early a handful of other schools, including Smith years, the women’s team remained the and Mount Holyoke Colleges, by playing an most popular women’s spectator sport organized game of basketball. Their court on campus. was inside Ladies Hall, later to be renamed When the cramped facilities of Chadbourne Hall (see page 13). Chadbourne Hall were replaced by the spa- By 1896, with enough women participating in the ciousness of the newly built Lathrop Hall sport, an interclass league was formed, and a cham- SADDAKO/ISTOCK in 1910, the game and the tournament pionship team emerged from four groups during a gained even more fans. Lathrop was tournament held in winter 1897. That event would be viewed as a luxurious and much-needed scheduled at the university for the next four decades, addition to campus when it first opened, although during the early years, the players were and it quickly became a home away from

On Wisconsin 33 home for many of the 1,059 women then enrolled. alumna who had played on a couple of the women’s The facility featured a cafeteria, reading rooms, a championship squads took over as coach. swimming pool, a bowling alley, and a gymnasium. Then came a Friday night at Lathrop Hall in The formation of the UW Women’s Athletic winter 1913. The last game of a tournament was Association in 1902 helped to further organize bas- about to start, matching a surprisingly good — and ketball. Other women’s sports teams emerged from confident — group of freshmen against the seniors. the physical education programs, including hockey, The gymnasium was packed with excited student tennis, bowling, and baseball. Letters and pins were and faculty spectators who were ringing the hard- offered to outstanding members, and points were wood floor and hanging over the railings on the gal- given for both athletic endeavors and traits such lery level. Fans were seated in chairs placed at the as good posture, perfect attendance, and beneficial very edge of the court, which was divided into three training habits. well-delineated sections: a midcourt stretching in A notice published in the Daily Cardinal prior to equal distance on both sides of the center line and the naming of the 1916 women’s basketball squads two areas beneath the closed-bottom baskets. suggests just how seriously training was viewed. By this stage in the evolution of the game, wom- Rules required “eight consecutive hours of sleep en’s teams had been pared down to six — two for- every night; only one dance a week; no eating wards, two centers, and two guards. Positions were between meals except for fruit, milk, soup, graham A far fashion cry relegated to areas marked on the court. The soccer and white crackers, plain ice cream, and frozen ices; from the sleeve- ball had long since been replaced by a larger leather no pie crust ... [and] only one piece of cake at a meal; less jerseys and ball. Players retrieved successful shots by yanking no tea, coffee, or candy at any time.” shorts of today, on chains attached to the baskets, which no longer Blanche Trilling 1917 arrived from Chicago bloomers and were peach buckets, but still had closed bottoms. Normal School in 1912 to head the UW’s physical blouses dominat- Dribbling still was not done. ed early women’s education department for women, a position she held basketball, as A procession marked the opening of the final until her retirement in 1946. Although men coached modeled by the game. The three upper-class teams marched out the first women’s basketball players, in 1911, a recent 1897 UW team. onto the court outfitted in serge bloomers, black UW ARCHIVES S15945

34 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 UW ARCHIVES CH05072202

Trilling warned The goat continued to be passed among tri- in 1927 of the umphant captains well into the 1950s. Efforts to “evils of com- steal and hide the goat became energetic, wrote mercialization Trilling, with “daylong rides with the goat in taxi and exploitation of outstanding cabs when pursuers were hot on the trail; scram- girl athletes,” bles and hair-pulling matches when no holds were believing, like barred.” She and others in the department stepped most of her peers in and ruled that all such foolishness be confined of that time, that to Lathrop Hall. women could While the men’s game had grown into a burgeon- not handle the emotional and ing national pastime, by midcentury, women’s bas- physical tolls ketball seemed more than a little archaic — confined, of intense like the stuffed goat, to its Lathrop Hall roots. But a competition. revolution in how women’s athletics was organized, played, and funded was brewing, and in March 1974, the campus’s athletic board approved a 12-sport women’s program with a budget of $118,000. •

Tim Brady ’79 is a freelance writer based in Saint Paul, cotton stockings, white blouses, and neckerchiefs Minnesota. fashioned in class colors. Hair was typically pulled up, swirled, and piled in layers on top of the head. Shoes had recently become high-topped, with canvas uppers and rubber soles. (The Converse Rubber Shoe Kit Saunders-Nordeen MS’66, PhD’77 Company did not introduce the All-Star high-top until 1917, and it didn’t hire Chuck Taylor until 1921.) As the first UW women’s athletic director As the first teams began a parade around the (1974 to 1990), Kit Saunders-Nordeen helped court, they were joined by the freshmen, who arrived open the door for women to participate in at the game “leading an adorable goat,” according intercollegiate athletics. to a history that Trilling wrote 40 years later. She She began her administrative career as the recalled her fears about what the goat might do to coordinator of the UW’s Women’s Recreation Lathrop’s hardwood floors, but noted, “We held our Association. When Title IX was enacted in breath as he made the round of the gymnasium, but 1972 (see page 20), Saunders-Nordeen became he was a well-behaved goat that evening.” the focal point of meetings where advocates for The goat’s appearance became an almost-instant women’s sports and dissenters often clashed. campus legend. Ten years after its arrival, during the It was not an easy position, but her quiet, tena- 1922–23 women’s interclass championship, a second cious leadership won others to the cause. goat appeared — this time as a stuffed animal con- When the UW Athletic Board approved structed by one of the players using a bedsheet. varsity status for women’s sports in 1974, In Trilling’s history, Florence Hupprich ’23, Saunders-Nordeen became the first athletic MA’26 tells the story of what happened next: “As director for women. Supervising the 12-sport captain of the team, I became custodian of the goat. program, she oversaw the transition of I left it in my closet at home to reside peacefully until Wisconsin women’s athletics from the recre- the next championship game. Much to my surprise ation level to intercollegiate status. In 1983, on the day of the game, no goat could be found. I she was named an associate athletic direc- accused my sister [Mabel Hupprich ’26, MS’30], but tor for men and women, and she earned the my words fell on deaf ears. All the freshman majors, Lifetime Achievement Award presented by however, looked mighty guilty. Later I learned that the National Association of College Women they had had the goat for weeks and wondered when Athletic Administrators in 2006. I would miss it.” “In the beginning,” Saunders-Nordeen has During the game, the freshman team revealed reflected, “the major obstacle for incorporating that it had indeed swiped the goat. “A big scramble women’s athletics was a question of educating ensued, with the result that some of us came out of people and their attitudes — letting them know the heap with a leg or the tail or an ear,” Hupprich and really believe that we were serious, and recalled. “I have often wondered why Miss Rice [the that we were here to stay. Then later on, the referee] did not foul us for leaving the court.” most serious obstacle was competing for scarce As the winning captain, Hupprich took the resources. … But the most significant thing for bedraggled goat home and mended it. women’s athletics to happen ever was Title IX.”

On Wisconsin 35 A DRIVING FORCE

Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi PhD’03 pursues CREDIT her passion with relentless energy to help discover unlimited power for all.

BY STEPHANIE AWE ’15 JULIE BROWN HARWOOD BROWN JULIE 36 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 atima Ebrahimi PhD’03 is determined to unravel Fatima Ebrahimi forms of the hydrogen atom — join. In some reactors, F one of today’s most pressing needs. PhD’03 (left) scientists apply extreme heat to these hydrogen Ebrahimi is a principal research physicist in stands in front atoms to form plasma. The plasma is then controlled of a stellarator, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s Theory a three-dimen- using magnetic confinement, allowing for the fusion Department and an affiliated research scholar in sional magnetic of atoms. Princeton University’s Department of Astrophysical coil system, at As opposed to some of today’s energy sources, Sciences. She strives to fully understand what many the Princeton fuels for fusion reactors could be extracted from believe could be the answer to unlimited, clean, and Plasma Physics water and would not emit carbon dioxide. Ebrahimi reliable energy: nuclear fusion. She mirrors the very Laboratory. It is also says fusion would not produce radioactive expected to be subject she studies, driven by seemingly limitless a configuration waste, and that it would be reliable — unlike the energy to help direct the future of the field. used for future unpredictability of weather-related factors needed Although nuclear fusion — a means by which the controlled fusion to power solar panels and wind turbines. Together, sun produces its own energy — has been achieved experiments. these factors help make nuclear fusion a coveted in laboratory settings, current strategies are neither candidate for a new energy source. efficient nor reliable for producing energy on a large scale. Researchers, including Ebrahimi, are working brahimi grew up in Tehran, Iran, during the tur- to better understand and control fusion on Earth to Ebulent times of the Iran–Iraq War. develop a sustainable method that produces more “I was able to continue my education. But it energy than it uses. affects [you], you have these memories,” she says, “It will be fantastic. The whole world will noting that everyone living in Tehran faced scar- change,” Ebrahimi says of the day when this method city of “almost everything” — from foreign goods becomes a reality. to food. “I also have memories of being wakened by In her pursuit to understand the mechanics of air-raid sirens and running for shelter, and some- nuclear fusion, Ebrahimi stands out for her desire times temporarily [evacuating].” to discover why things work the way they do. In In high school, Ebrahimi first discovered her addition to collaborating with fellow physicists, curiosity about physics. She naturally excelled at it she takes walks and pulls late nights to think and found herself wanting to understand the physical through problems alone. In her day-to-day research, laws that determine how matter and energy interact. Ebrahimi also explores unconventional approaches She wondered if there was a unified law that could to fusion and calculates the physics behind her explain it all. computer simulations. “I think that was the thing for me,” she says. “The “[Ebrahimi] has very good physical insight into universality was something I was looking for.” the physics problems, and she complements the She went on to earn her bachelor’s and master’s computer calculations with … calculations on pencil degrees in physics at the Polytechnic University of and paper to try to benchmark and understand the Tehran. During these years, she explored several output from the large computer codes,” says Stewart areas of the subject — including plasma physics — Prager, who was Ebrahimi’s doctoral adviser at the and wanted to understand how they worked together UW and is now a professor at Princeton. “This to govern the universe. But she found herself grav- capability, plus her appreciation for experiments, I itating more and more toward plasma physics. believe distinguishes her from many other compu- Although an area less focused on a universal law, tational physicists.” it’s one in which several branches of physics overlap. As a part of understanding the physics she com- Ebrahimi then moved to Sweden to begin a doc- putes, Ebrahimi fuses her work in laboratory physics toral program at the Royal Institute of Technology, with astrophysics. In one of her recent studies, she where she started specializing in plasma physics examined the behaviors of plasma (a hot, ionized gas and fusion. After a year, however, she decided she present in fusion) and how they may affect studies wanted to continue her research in the United States. about both Earth and space. “Something was missing [in Sweden],” Ebrahimi For one of these behaviors — magnetic reconnec- recalls, adding that research there lacked a multidis- tion, a process believed to be related to solar flares ciplinary approach. Researchers from the U.S. also — she found that it has the potential to degrade the had visited — including some from the UW, where performance of a fusion reactor. Gaining a foun- a world-leading fusion experiment was located. dational knowledge about this process helps solar “There was something special about the research physicists and astrophysicists understand the nature environment in the U.S. It was clear from the scien- of solar flares; understanding flares has become tists that I wanted to be there, and I wanted to work important for researchers to further study how to with them.” control fusion. Shortly after, Ebrahimi applied to a doctoral pro- gram at the UW. “I applied for other places, too, but uclear fusion is a process that releases energy I think I just felt that this was the right place for me N when lightweight atomic nuclei — such as to go to do my PhD,” she says.

On Wisconsin 37 t UW–Madison, Ebrahimi saw opportunities Ebrahimi’s work postdoc studies and research at the UW. They A to learn within a plasma physics program that utilizes the Na- worked together through the UW’s former Center for offered a wide breadth of fusion experiments located tional Spherical Magnetic Self-Organization (CMSO), which joined on campus — important features that were difficult Torus Experi- the studies of phenomena seen in both astrophysics ment Upgrade to find elsewhere. (pictured above) and plasma physics. While completing her doctorate at the UW, she at the Princeton Although mainly focused on laboratory plasma continued to study a fusion method she’d begun in Plasma Physics research, Ebrahimi gained exposure to astrophysics Sweden. She worked with the Madison Symmetric Laboratory. by working at CMSO and with her adviser Stewart Torus located in Chamberlin Hall, conducting sim- It’s one of the Prager, Zweibel, and a mentor whom she’d met ulations to understand how to efficiently sustain a most powerful in Sweden, the late Dalton Schnack of the UW’s experiments of steady, controlled plasma current for an extended its type. Department of Physics. period of time — something that physicists today This cross-disciplinary approach taught her to are continuing to study, as it will be necessary to think of problems differently, applying knowledge harness if we are to use fusion for energy. from her fusion research in the laboratory to astro- Ebrahimi collaborated with others in the lab physics and vice versa. to put her computational results into practice, “It is a strength of Fatima’s that she is able to ... hoping to understand the physics behind these walk over and collaborate with experimenters and help simulations. This effort to validate computational them understand what they’re seeing in the experi- research against a laboratory experiment is import- ment,” Prager says. “She also has had collaborations ant because it helps provide more confidence in the with astrophysicists who don’t study plasmas in the results, says Ellen Zweibel, a professor in the UW’s laboratory at all, and she’s able to bridge that gap and Departments of Astronomy and Physics. apply her work to both laboratory and astrophysics.” Ebrahimi met Zweibel while conducting her Zweibel notes that she and Ebrahimi were the

38 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 ELLE STARKMAN

A tokamak (in the center of the image at left) is one type of fusion reactor: a doughnut-shaped device. In a conventional tokamak, plasma currents are typically started through a solenoid — a spiral electromagnet — that is located at the center of the device. An electrical current pulses through the solenoid to create a plas- ma current in the reactor and get nuclear fusion. However, solenoids are often large, and because their elec- trical currents cannot run continuously, they are inefficient. At Princeton, Ebrahimi works with the NSTX-U (pictured at left), containing a compact, spherical tokamak that does not have space for a solenoid. Instead, she utilizes an innovative method — coaxial helicity injection — to insert a plasma current in the device.

only senior women involved in CMSO while it was comprehensive understanding of fusion. This multitude still on campus. Since that time, Zweibel has noticed of projects is expensive but necessary, Ebrahimi says. that the number of women in astronomy remains The payoff, though, is expected to be well worth it. consistently higher than the number of women in “It’s unlimited [energy] for mankind,” she says. plasma physics. “It’s not for one generation. It’s for many, many gen- Despite the numbers and her hopes for more erations to come.” • women to follow, Ebrahimi focuses on what she can control — pursuing her passion to solve the puzzle Stephanie Awe ’15 is a staff writer for On Wisconsin. of nuclear fusion. “You find a problem that you’re excited about, and you work on it. That’s it,” she says. “Women are underrepresented in the U.S. fusion community, especially in senior positions,” she adds. She also recalls an experience when, for nearly a Frances Hamerstrom MS’40 year, she faced delays in obtaining a visa to return Frances (Fran — pronounced “Fron”) to the United States for her postdoc at the UW — Hamerstrom was a pioneering wildlife ecolo- all while she continued to pay rent for her Madison gist. She and her husband, Frederick, came to apartment until her UW colleagues helped store the UW to study under Aldo Leopold, and Fran her belongings. “In my case, being an immigrant became the first woman to earn a master’s was even harder, and until I became a U.S. citizen, degree in the new field of wildlife management. several times it stalled my career.” Leopold encouraged the couple to help save the endangered greater prairie chicken, a spe- t the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, cies known for its bright orange air sacs and A Ebrahimi works with the National Spherical ritual mating call. The Hamerstroms dedicated Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U) — one of the years to research and to the effort to provide most powerful experiments of its type. habitat, and they are credited with stabilizing Some of her research builds from where her the birds’ population in Wisconsin. doctoral work left off, but it focuses on a different Early in her career, administrators would innovative method. She models her research using hire Frederick and restrict Fran to volun- the NSTX-U — which is more compact than conven- teer positions. As women found more accep- tional fusion devices used by some researchers — to tance in the field, Fran became the second understand how to efficiently create a lasting, steady woman employed as a wildlife professional plasma current. in Wisconsin, working for the Wisconsin “You want to think out of the box,” Ebrahimi Department of Natural Resources for decades. says, and — by taking on compact, non-boxlike She then researched raptors (hawks, approaches (a torus, after all, is more of a dough- eagles, and owls) and directed the Raptor nut shape) — she does just that. “I think that’s what Research Foundation. A licensed falconer, she fusion also needs.” banded thousands of raptors during her career. By studying innovative methods, such as using Over the years, the Hamerstroms hosted some compact devices, she says researchers may be get- 7,000 wildlife apprentices and birders at their ting closer to finding a sustainable, controllable solu- antebellum-era home in Plainfield, Wisconsin, tion — the ticket to using fusion as an energy source. which lacked running water and central heat- Although researchers have made large strides ing, but did house a couple of live owls. Fran’s in the past few decades, Ebrahimi says that it’s dif- passion for studying wildlife led to a host of ficult to predict when we will use nuclear fusion as awards during her 60-year career. a source of energy. Fran wrote prolifically about her research “Fusion is hard,” she says. It takes a global team: and also authored a cookbook for game, which a variety of fusion projects are happening around revealed that her secret to a perfect piecrust the world, all of which help physicists gain a more was lard made from bear fat.

On Wisconsin 39 More than a century You Can’t Judge a ago, a charming Southern student Book by Its Coveter hid a dark secret. BY TRAVIS MCDADE

JENNY MORRILL MA1905 was a student in the subject was Jenny Morrill. Thwaites went to of history — both her own and that of her her lodgings to seek an explanation. beloved South. She was a Daughter of the He first spoke with her roommate, who, it turned American Revolution and, more immedi- out, was also missing some books. She told Thwaites ately, the daughter of a Confederate naval that Morrill was out of town and, just as importantly, officer. Born in Pensacola, Florida, and where she left her belongings. Thwaites went to raised in three southern states, she had a Sumner & Morris. lifelong dream to study her region’s past. What he found there startled him — all the miss- To that end, she attended the University of ing books, and then some. In addition to those taken Tennessee, graduating in 1904 with honors, from the UW, he also found volumes stolen from before continuing her studies in Madison. Morrill’s roommate and several dozen taken from The University of Wisconsin housed the Draper the University of Tennessee. Worse yet, Morrill had Collection — a lovingly curated gathering of manu- mutilated many of the books, cutting out any identi- script material related to the Revolutionary War–era fication stamps — often by ripping out the title page. South. It also had Frederick Jackson Turner 1884, She also wrote her name inside their covers along MA1888, who became her thesis adviser. Morrill’s with “bought at auction.” Later surveys showed aim was to complete graduate school and return home that even with books Morrill left on the library to teach. shelves, she very often cut out valuable maps and She returned with much more. illustrations. Morrill was, according to a local newspaper, “a Thwaites wrote to Morrill — not so much asking typical Southern girl, with dark hair and eyes, olive for an explanation as to inform her that he had dis- complexion, and a lithe, graceful figure. Her charm covered her crime and that “the matter of crimi- of manner was so great that she was a social favor- nal prosecution is being taken under advisement.” ite.” And while she was broadly popular, she was Morrill pleaded for mercy, excusing her behavior on particularly friendly with members of the library account of morphine addiction and asking Thwaites staff. She counted librarian Mary Foster among her to keep this from becoming public to protect her closest friends and had on many occasions dined family. But it was too late for that. Local newspapers with the family of Reuben Gold Thwaites, librarian had gotten the story from the sheriff. and director of the Historical Society. Thwaites noted to Morrill how inadequate her After Morrill’s first year, the annual library explanation was. For one thing, her thefts (count- survey showed some valuable books missing, but ing the ones from the University of Tennessee) had too few to matter. Moderate book loss is a standard taken place at least as far back as three years ear- hazard year to year, and in this case, there was little lier, “which argues a steady, persistent purpose, far to suggest a pattern. Morrill completed her master’s removed from [morphine] hysteria.” thesis — “The Settlement of Alabama, 1820–1880” For practical reasons, she was never charged; — under Turner. In the summer of 1906, she headed there seemed to be little appetite on behalf of pros- south to spend time with family before returning ecutors to bring her back to Madison. In the end, to campus to continue working toward her doctor- she agreed to pay for as many replacement books as ate. Like many out-of-town students, she left behind could be found. Using this “Morrill Fund,” Thwaites several boxes of personal material for storage at the spent the next several years trying to do just that. warehouse of Sumner & Morris. Morrill, for her part, remained in Florida, where Around the same time, the library survey again she became a teacher of civics and history at Daytona showed missing books. The Southern history collec- High School. She taught for several decades before tion, in particular, had lost more than 250 volumes. retiring — to become a librarian. • A conference of librarians and faculty was convened, led by Thwaites. The consensus was that the only Travis McDade has written four books on rare book theft, person who had access and a demonstrated interest the most recent of which is Torn from Their Bindings.

40 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, SERIES 934, BOX 23

On Wisconsin 41 Hinkson dances in the Union Theater. Her experience with Margaret H’Dou- bler brought her to the attention of major dance troupes.

SURVEYOR BOLD CAP BYLINE Surveyor bold italic subhead

42 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 Dance, Dance Revolutionary Before she became one of the world’s leading dancers, Mary Hinkson ’46, MS’47 learned to thrive in a segregated Madison.

BY HARVEY LONG MA’16

“There are times when I believe ‘Bunny’ was born to unwritten but widely acknowledged policy excluded dance,” said Cordelia Chew Hinkson of her daughter African Americans from dormitories and most room- in a 1952 interview. ing houses. A 1942 survey conducted by the Daily A year earlier, Bunny — as Mary Hinkson ’46, Cardinal revealed that 95 percent of housemothers MS’47 was known to her family and close friends on the university’s list of approved rooming houses — had broken through the almost exclusively white preferred not to rent rooms to black students. “Many world of modern dance when she earned a lead role Negro, and to a lesser degree Chinese and Jewish, with the Martha Graham Dance Company. students have been denied rooms that are vacant But if she was born to dance, she also learned and have been forced into outlying districts or have — through her own effort and through her study been forced away from the university altogether,” at the UW. Between her youth and her debut with the study noted. America’s leading modern dance troupe, Hinkson Hinkson made arrangements to live off campus. came to Madison, where she discovered the science Discriminatory housing policies coupled with the of movement as well as some of the complicated real- wartime economy — students were often displaced ities of what it means to be black in America. to accommodate military trainees — made secur- ing campus housing nearly impossible. During her inkson was born to a storied African undergraduate years, Hinkson lived in the Groves American family in Philadelphia on March Women’s Cooperative at 150 Langdon Street, where H 16, 1925. Her mother had been a public- she shared a room with fellow dancer Matt Turney school teacher, and her father, DeHaven Hinkson, ’47. The interracial boarding house named for noted was a prominent physician and the first African agricultural economics professor Harold Groves American to head a U.S. Army hospital. Hinkson’s 1919, MA1920, PhD1927 brought together women aunt, Mary Saunders Patterson, was famed contralto from all over the world. Groves was Madison’s first Marian Anderson’s first music teacher. women’s cooperative house, and it opened the year A 17-year-old Hinkson arrived at the University Hinkson arrived. Already well traveled, Hinkson of Wisconsin in February 1943. She chose the UW, likely thrived in the multicultural co-op, which in part, because it offered an extensive curriculum provided vivid evidence that blacks could live with

UW ARCHIVES S16295 in physical education — the subject she aspired whites. Members worked together as part of a single to teach. But Madison was far different from household, cleaning floors and scrubbing toilets. Philadelphia, and the transition wasn’t easy. Hinkson washed dishes and swept floors to defray Although African Americans had matriculated the cost of lodging. at the UW since 1862, they were often excluded from “World War II and its immediate aftermath led white social events and faced ardent racism. An mid-century Americans to reconsider the nation’s

On Wisconsin 43 democratic principles and the backdrop of unprec- In 1951, Martha Graham asked Hinkson to per- edented political, social, economic, and ideological form a “demonstration” — a combination recital and changes,” Groves later recalled. audition. Graham then asked Hinkson to join her UW Dean of Women Louise Greeley wrote to company, and by 1953, Hinkson held the title of prin- President Clarence Dykstra in 1943: “We believe … cipal dancer, starring in a production of Bluebeard’s that if a group of Negroes, Jews, and Gentiles such Castle in New York. For 20 years, Hinkson was one of as this ... can demonstrate ability to live successfully Graham’s leading dancers, and she also taught at the together, it will be worth trying.” Juilliard School and at the Dance Theater of Harlem. While at the university, Hinkson succeeded Hinkson may have found a challenging envi- academically, earning mostly As and Bs, and she ronment at the UW, but she left prepared for a key reveled in Madison’s robust dance scene, joining role in the world of dance. When she passed away Orchesis, the UW’s modern dance troupe that had on November 26, 2014, her obituary lauded her as been founded in 1918. She studied English, French, “an influential teacher both in the United States history, zoology, and PE, and she impressed phys- and abroad,” “highly versatile,” and “one of Martha ical education professor Katherine Cronin with Graham’s most important leading dancers.” • her “good mind and sincere attitude toward her work.” Hinkson soon changed her major to dance During his library-science studies, Harvey Long MA’16 after taking a course with Margaret H’Doubler 1910, looked into the history of African American students on the MA1924, and when she told her father of the change, UW campus. He now lives in Alabama. he was reluctant but supportive. “If that’s what you want, go to it,” he said. And so she went: in 1945, she appeared in Orchesis’s production of Orpheus and Eurydice. The Baltimore Afro-American newspaper covered the performance, describing Hinkson and Turney as the group’s first “colored dancers.” Larzette Hale-Wilson MPh’43, PhD’55 “[Mary] was in heaven,” her sister commented Larzette Hale-Wilson was the first female some years later. African American CPA to earn a PhD in Hinkson would long remember the remarkable accounting. Orphaned at age 11, she overcame teachers in the physical education department and many obstacles to rise to the top of her field. courses with H’Doubler, a pioneer educator who had She encountered a steady stream of racism — created the nation’s first academic program for the for instance, when she sat for the CPA exam in study of dance. 1951, Hale-Wilson was told to sit in the back of the room and was not allowed to use the lunch- hough campus could be unwelcoming, room — but she didn’t let it get in her way. Madison did attract African American art- After completing her master’s degree, she T ists and thinkers in the 1940s: anthropolo- taught at Clark College in Atlanta. One of her gist and choreographer Katherine Dunham and her former UW accounting professors encouraged dancers performed Tropical Revue at the Parkway her to return to Wisconsin for her doctorate, Theater in 1944; Alain Locke was appointed visiting and with her degree in hand, Hale-Wilson professor of philosophy in 1946; Pearl Primus and established her own CPA firm in Atlanta. her “primitive modern dancers” appeared in 1948; Hale-Wilson later served as a professor and actor Paul Robeson was a regular feature at of accounting for nearly 20 years at Utah the Union Theater. State University and head of its School of And Madison offered opportunities: it was at the Accountancy for 13 years. Utah’s governor UW that Hinkson was introduced to the Martha appointed her to the State Committee on Graham Dance Company, which performed at Cultural Awareness, and she served on the the Union Theater in March 1946. H’Doubler had Utah Board of Regents. Hale-Wilson was the required her dance students to attend the show, and national president for the American Woman’s Hinkson said she was “completely blown away.” Society of CPAs and also for the honor soci- Hinkson graduated in 1946 but continued with ety for accounting and finance students, Beta graduate courses. After a year of studies and writ- Alpha Psi. She initiated a series of booklets ing a thesis, she earned a master’s degree and then called the Heritage Series to recognize the became an instructor in the Department of Physical accomplishments of contemporary African Education for Women — one of the first black women American women. to teach at any majority-white university. Hinkson Hale-Wilson accepted frequent speaking and three other students then formed the Wisconsin engagements to inspire younger accounting Dance Group, touring Toronto and across the professionals, and in 1993, the Wisconsin Midwest in a 1933 Buick. The group included Turney, School of Business honored her as a Disting- Miriam Cole ’46, and Sage Fuller Cowles ’47. uished Accounting Alumna.

44 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 Hinkson per- formed with Scott Douglas in Ricercare in 1966. After leaving the UW, she became one of the nation’s leading dancers. JACK MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES MITCHELL/GETTY JACK

On Wisconsin 45 ONE of US Surgeon Marci Bowers ’80 brings a personal point of view to her transgender patients.

BY ANDREW FAUGHT

t’s late January, and Marci Bowers ’80 has respondents were facing serious psychological dis- completed sex reassignment surgeries on two tress from mistreatment or harassment; 30 percent I patients at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in were living in poverty, double the rate of the general Burlingame, California. A visiting plastic surgeon population; another 30 percent had suffered recent from Seattle is shadowing the procedures, gleaning discrimination in the workplace or in public; and tips from one of the undisputed experts in the field. 40 percent had attempted suicide in their lifetimes, Bowers is in high demand for her skill: she’s nine times the rate of the general population. performed more than 2,300 sex reassignment sur- Bowers believes in the powers of visibility and geries during her career, 90 percent of them male-to- education. After starting a transgender surgical female procedures. But she also has a deeply per- Bowers became program at Denver Health in Colorado, she’s now sonal connection to her work: she is a transgender the second trans- helping to create a transgender fellowship for plas- woman herself, one of just three transgender doctors gender woman tic surgeons at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. in the country performing the surgery. to perform sex The University of Toronto recently gave Bowers an reassignment Treatment for gender dysphoria — the conflict surgery. “Where honorary teaching position, and she hopes to launch between one’s assigned sex at birth based on external there is diversity, a program in gender confirmation surgery at its med- anatomy and the gender with which one identifies there is hope,” ical school. She also started a surgical program in internally — is medically necessary, according to the she says. Tel Aviv, Israel. American Medical Association. It can involve physi- “An activist is someone who speaks and stands cal changes to the body, such as hormone treatment up for what they believe, and that’s what I’m doing,” or sex reassignment surgery. Surgery is a personal Bowers says. decision for transgender people: some pursue it for their fulfillment, while others decide against it or n this winter day in Burlingame, Bowers can’t afford it during their transition. processes the latest headline. Less than With increasing societal acceptance and medical O24 hours earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court recognition, some transgender people are starting to revived the Trump administration’s ban on trans- gain better access to sex reassignment — also known gender people serving in the military. She summons as gender confirmation — surgery. Surgical costs the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “The arc of the can exceed $100,000, and until recent years, private moral universe bends in the direction of justice,” she insurance companies have been reluctant to cover says optimistically. them. Yet Bowers has accrued a four-year waiting But she’s clearly upset. The ban, she says, is born list for her services. of “the fear of a few not-very-enlightened people, For her patients, she’s worth the wait. Ariana and unfortunately, that’s who we put on the Supreme Palacios, a 28-year-old flight attendant, consulted Court sometimes. with a couple of surgeons before she met Bowers. “The truth,” she continues, “is [that being] trans- While she did not feel at ease with others, she found gender is an important part of the world, and it’s not that Bowers projects a special feeling of friendship going away.” and comfort. “To me, she’s an artist and a genius,” Transitioning is an unfolding process. It varies says Palacios, who traveled from her home in from person to person and can involve any combi- Washington, DC, to California to have the surgery. nation of personal, medical, and legal steps — self- Bowers is helping her patients to live authenti- acceptance, external expression, coming out to cally. “Today, I’m free, I’m confident, and, of course, others, updating one’s name and sex on legal docu- I’m happy,” adds Palacios, one of an estimated ments, having hormone therapy, and electing surgery. 1.4 million transgender Americans. By age four, Bowers knew she was different. But Boosting happiness is a big deal. Transgender her journey would be decades long. people remain among the most vulnerable citizens She was born Mark Bowers 61 years ago in Oak in society, facing staggering rates of harassment, Park, Illinois, at the same hospital that gave the discrimination, and violence. Results from the 2015 world Ernest Hemingway. She was the target of U.S. Transgender Survey are alarming: 39 percent of bullies in high school — “because I was so slight

46 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 DREW BIRD

On Wisconsin 47 and feminine appearing,” she says. birth of their third child, “there was a lot of angst,” The oldest of four siblings, Bowers spent a mostly she recalls. “I just couldn’t go on without making [the happy childhood in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, the transition] happen. I was trying to live this false life, child of a stay-at-home mom and a furniture-sales- being a family man. I was living for others and being man father. When Bowers transitioned at age 37 — who I wasn’t.” while married and with three children — it cast a At that point, Bowers was a mid-career ob-gyn years-long chill on her relationship with her parents. Sex in Seattle, having delivered some 1,300 babies. In It wasn’t until Bowers’s father was dying of cancer The classification 2003, she relocated to the hinterlands of Trinidad, that they reconciled. of a person as Colorado, which had been known since the 1970s as At 19, Bowers hitchhiked to San Diego in hopes male or female. At “The Sex Change Capital of the World” because of of transitioning and expressing herself as a woman. birth, infants are the prolific surgeon Stanley Biber. She learned sur- Instead, she got caught up in the Unification Church assigned a sex, gical techniques under the tutelage of the late Biber, usually based on (whose followers are known as “Moonies”) — a cult, the appearance considered one of the earliest and foremost practi- she says, that she later escaped. of their external tioners of sex reassignment surgery. She eventually “I had no prospect for paying for anything, let anatomy. took over his practice in the small town of fewer than alone surgeries,” Bowers recalls. “I decided I would 10,000 residents until she moved to California. go back to Wisconsin. Next thing you know, I’m in Gender Identity At 5-foot-4, Biber was a stubby figure, “but he college, I’m in medical school, and I’m married. I was A person’s inter- stood absolutely upright,” Bowers recalls. “He was a pretty classic case [of denial], I’d say.” nal, deeply held very vertical, very proud. He had a swagger.” To In Madison, the science-minded Bowers earned a sense of gender. Bowers, Biber looked remarkably like her own father. For transgender degree in medical microbiology. It was “a really solid people, it does She projects some of her mentor’s toughness to this educational foundation” for her later work, she says. not match the sex day. Bowers remains married to her wife. After the that they were Bowers’s national profile rose this past year with assigned at birth. her appearance on TLC’s I Am Jazz, a popular reality show in which she operates on transgender teen Jazz Most people have Jennings. Reflecting on her own journey, Bowers a gender identity says, “I don’t identify as a transgender woman. I’m of man or woman. a woman who has a transgender history.” Kate Hamilton Pier LLB1887 Some people’s gender identity In addition to sex reassignment surgeries, Bowers Kate Hamilton Pier was a successful real (nonbinary or has performed more than 500 clitoral restoration estate saleswoman in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, genderqueer) procedures for victims of female genital mutilation. when she decided to get a law degree. Her does not fit into She’s performed operations on immigrant victims at daughter, also named Kate, was headed for law one of those two her practice, and in March, she partnered with the school. Pier did not think her daughter should classifications. San Francisco–based nonprofit Clitoraid to travel to go to campus unaccompanied, so they both Kenya and offer her services to victims there while earned their law degrees in 1887. Definitions from also training other surgeons. GLAAD.org Kate Hamilton Pier became the first woman “This is a seismic event in a continent that is in the United States to be granted a judicial beginning to deal honestly with the centuries-old cul- appointment when she was named commis- tural practice of female genital mutilation,” Bowers sioner of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court says, noting that it was her third trip to Africa. in 1891. That same year, daughter Kate became “These women have been mutilated in such an the first woman to argue — and win — a case intimate part of their body, and Dr. Bowers is so very before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. sensitive to that,” adds Nadine Gary, the interna- Pier’s two younger daughters, Caroline and tional director for Clitoraid. “She’s sensitive to how Harriet, soon followed her path to the UW Law they feel and what they are trying to achieve.” School. In 1891, Caroline and Harriet were Bowers’s office administrator, Robin Lassiter, has admitted to the bar, meaning that the mother held her position for 13 years. She’s typically the first and daughters made up four of the eight female point of contact for people inquiring about sex reas- lawyers in Wisconsin at the time. signment surgery, receiving calls from all 50 states The women then worked in the family law and from countries around the world. They’re look- firm, practicing first in Fond du Lac and then, ing, she says, for clarity on the pathway to hormone in 1888, in Milwaukee. The firm was instru- therapy or potential surgery. And, ultimately, they’re mental in the passage of two Wisconsin laws, looking for greater happiness. one enabling women to act as legal assignees, “Marci is an incredible human being,” Lassiter and another enabling female attorneys to be says. “She has a very clear vision and focus, and she’s court commissioners. an incredibly skilled surgeon. That’s why people wait Kate Hamilton Pier was also the first for her. That’s why she’s worth waiting for.” • woman to cast a vote in Fond du Lac County, years before the suffrage act passed. Andrew Faught is a freelance writer based in California.

48 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OnAlumniAlumni News at Home and Abroad

Katie Vaughn COURTESYOF J. J.WATT ’03, a senior uni- versity relations specialist for the

JOELLE STEWART STEWART JOELLE College of Letters & Science, shares her spirit during April’s Day of the Badger.

5,000+ gifts made, from THANK YOU, all 50 states, 14 72 PODCAST countries, and The Wisconsin Alumni Associ- four continents ation (WAA) has created a new First-Ever podcast series featuring out- standing Badgers with Wisconsin Day of the Badger Rocks 16,660+ roots. Former Wisconsin Gover- Badgers shared The university celebrated its inaugural spring day of giving on April 9, their pride via so- nor Tommy Thompson ’63, JD’66 as the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA) encour- cial media using and filmmakerGillian Laub ’97 aged alumni and friends to go online and make gifts to the school, col- #dayofthebadger (see page 61) were among the lege, or UW cause of their choice. Billed as Day of the Badger, the event first subjects. Coming soon: featured 1,848 minutes of pure fun, spirit, and generosity summed up in NFL star J. J. Watt x’12 and the call to “give back, wear red, and stay connected.” (The 1848 figure $1.8+ news commentator Greta Van is a nod to the year of the university’s founding.) Susteren ’76. You can listen to “People from all across the globe used this day to get connected million these stories of alumni from raised in support to the UW,” says John Grice, WFAA’s director of annual giving. He of UW–Madison Wisconsin’s 72 counties at added that donors could choose from more than 140 areas, academic thankyou72.org. departments, and causes, such as preventing student food insecurity and enhancing scholarships. The day generated lots of positive energy, as well as: • more than 5,000 gifts ONE ON ONE AT • more than $1.8 million ONE ALUMNI PLACE • upward of $369,000 in matching gifts Want an inside view of campus? • gifts from every state, more than 14 countries, Check out WAA’s One on One and four continents conversations between Sarah Many campus units shared their excitement as they watched totals Schutt, WAA’s chief alumni grow online in real time, providing friendly competition as momen- officer and executive director, tum built. And more than 16,660 social media engagements using and campus luminaries such as the hashtag #dayofthebadger demonstrated alumni pride, including Chancellor Rebecca Blank, pro- messages from former student-athletes Michael Finley ’14, Carey fessors John Hawks and Cata- Lohrenz ’90, Mark Tauscher ’99, MS’03, and Melvin Gordon lina Toma, and Derek Kindle x’14. Gordon tweeted: “Blessed to have been able to go to the best from the Office of Student university in the country!!! So so so proud to be able to call myself a Financial Aid. You’ll find them badger.” at uwalumni.com/news-stories/. Donors posted thank-yous to academic departments for opening doors, to the vet school for saving pets’ lives, and to retiring band direc- tor Mike Leckrone. Other comments were more general, such as “I can’t believe I got to go to school here!” and “Thanks so much for helping all of us Badgers pay it forward.” See dayofthebadger.org for more information.

On Wisconsin 49 Tradition Women’s Studies UW ARCHIVES S17032

Before the 1970s, to study the Strength in the certificate or degree program. groups of female faculty con- history of the world was largely numbers: a The department offers some 25 nected demands for fair pay and to learn of men fighting wars. women-led UW courses per semester, with 100 hiring with a desire for a central- Modern literature meant reading faculty group more cross-listed with other ized women’s studies program. the best male authors. Insert any meets in 1975 for departments. Fifteen faculty Following an effort across the the formation of academic discipline, and a wom- what has become members and nearly 50 affiliated UW System, a UW–Madison com- an’s experience or perspective the Department instructors teach courses in a mittee appointed by Chancellor was scarcely to be found. of Gender and wide range of fields: from biology Edwin Young MA’42, PhD’50 “Teachers told me about a Women’s Studies. and psychology to law and poli- established a framework for what world in which ostensibly one- tics; from literature and languages would officially become the Wom- half the human race is doing to history and religious studies. en’s Studies Program in 1975. everything significant, and the Increasingly, courses are explor- The program began with less other half doesn’t exist,” said the ing the intersections of gender than a handful of courses and late Gerda Lerner, a UW–Madi- identity, sexuality, race, and dis- faculty members who held joint son historian and women’s studies ability. appointments on campus. In pioneer. “We’ve always been strongly 2008, the program became a full For nearly a half century, interdisciplinary across the academic department, with the the UW–Madison Department humanities, the social sciences, ability to hire faculty of its own of Gender and Women’s Studies and even the biological sciences,” and independently offer tenure. has set out to shift that tradi- says Janet Hyde, a professor of It’s currently in the process of tional paradigm in education and psychology and gender and wom- establishing a PhD program, research. It’s grown into one of en’s studies, whose research has which would finish rounding out the most respected and robust debunked myths of biological dif- its academic offerings and no programs in the nation, confer- ferences between men and women doubt please the foremothers of ring an undergraduate major and related to personality and cogni- women’s studies. certificate, an LGBTQ+ studies tive ability. “I want women’s history to be certificate, a master’s degree, and The field of women’s studies legitimate,” Lerner once wrote. a doctoral minor. rose alongside the larger wom- “To be part of every curriculum Today, more than 400 under- en’s movement in the late ’60s and on every level.” graduates are enrolled in either early ’70s. On the UW campus, PRESTON SCHMITT ’14

50 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OnAlumni Class Notes

40s former tuba player in the UW brief as a model for new and “I hope this bit of personal Marching Band, Porter received improving appellate lawyers. memory might be of some a send-off complete with an The Giesens both work at Giesen interest to the younger alums of appearance from current band Law Offices in Madison, which today,” writes Angela Bewick members. Congratulations to focuses on criminal defense and Wyse ’45, MM’46 of Evans- you, Professor Porter! civil litigation. ville, Wisconsin. She’s just a Kenneth Voigt ’66, a senior Gregor Trinkaus-Ran- few years older than Memorial traffic engineer based in Wauke- dall ’68, MA’73, MA’80, Union, and she worked — and sha, Wisconsin, was selected for BOOK NEWS? preservation specialist at the met her husband, the late John the 2018 Burton W. Marsh Award See page 59. Massachusetts Board of Library Wyse ’46 — there as a student. for Distinguished Service for Commissioners, has announced Angela waitressed for the Geor- his leadership to the Institute of CLASS NOTES his retirement. He has served gian Grill and says the catering Transportation Engineers (ITE) SUBMISSIONS for more than 30 years in the servers, which included her hus- and to the profession. Voigt served uwalumni.com/ state’s libraries and cultural go/alumninotes • band, worked with “the preci- as ITE’s international president in Class Notes, institutions, and he has been sion of a marching band.” When 2009 and has continued to take on Wisconsin Alumni internationally recognized men went to war, she became key responsibilities. Association, for his work in preservation the catering captain. An applied Radiant Solutions, a company 1848 University and disaster preparedness. music major, she continues her providing geospatial data collec- Avenue, Madison, Trinkaus-Randall’s latest proj- tunes today. tion and analytic capabilities, has WI 53726 ect, “Finding Common Ground: appointed Douglas Way ’67 as Collaborative Training for the its chief scientist. A resident of DEATH NOTICES • Cultural Heritage and Emer- 50s NAME, ADDRESS, Mick (Milton) Neshek ’52, Hobe Sound, Florida, Way com- TELEPHONE, AND gency Response Communities,” LLB’55 of Walworth, Wisconsin, mutes to the Washington, DC, EMAIL UPDATES was funded by the National has earned the Order of the Rising region each month to support alumnichanges@ Endowment for the Humanities. Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, for his his team members and clients, uwalumni.com • From 2011 to 2012, he served contributions to U.S.–Japanese who apply geospatial modeling to Alumni Changes, as president of the Society of relations. The order, conferred issues of national security. Wisconsin Alumni American Archivists. by the emperor of Japan, honors Susan Davis ’68, chair of Association, 650 Neshek’s work with Japanese Susan Davis International, has N. Lake Street, Madison, WI 70s manufacturer Kikkoman Foods — been awarded the Gold Stevie 53706 • 608-308- Last September, Jean Gas- with which Neshek first became Award for Lifetime Achievement 5420 or 888-947- pardo ’70, affectionally known involved in the 1970s — and for in business and the Bronze Stevie 2586 as “Dean Jean” by the more his dedication to the Midwest Award for Woman of the Year in than 10,000 students she served, U.S.–Japan Association. advertising, marketing, and pub- To submit an retired from her post as assis- Last year, Ronald McCord lic relations. The Stevie Awards obituary, please tant dean for student affairs ’59 was recognized by the for Women in Business honor see page 55. at Loyola University Chicago National Association of Real- female leaders and the companies School of Law. She also received tors with the status of realtor they run around the world. Davis the Catholic Lawyers Guild of emeritus, an honor that has is the board chair for Razia’s Chicago’s Lifetime Achievement been presented for more than Ray of Hope Foundation, which Award. Thank you, Arlene 40 years to active realtors who supports the education of girls in Gaspardo Martell ’65 — conduct a variety of activities rural Afghanistan; board chair self-proclaimed “proud sister” and efforts — such as leadership emeritus of Vital Voices Global — for sharing this news. roles and participation in edu- Partnership, which empowers Costume historian Edward cational, community, and social emerging female leaders in Maeder ’71 of Greenfield, Mas- events — on behalf of the asso- 144 countries; and founder of sachusetts, has recently curated ciation. McCord is a certified the International Women’s Day shoe designer Stuart Weitzman’s hotel broker and administrator Forum, for which she served as personal historic-footwear with Milmark Hotel/Motel the first international president. collection for Walk This Way, an Investments and a member of Father-daughter duo exhibit by the New York Histor- the Commercial Association of Charles Giesen ’68, JD’73 and ical Society that will travel to Realtors of Wisconsin. Jessica Giesen ’06 won the select states in 2019 and 2020. State Bar of Wisconsin Appellate In his career spanning 30-plus 60s Practice Section’s 2018 Best Brief years, Maeder has written Professor Emeritus Warren award for their defense filed in several books, curated multiple Porter ’61 recently retired the Wisconsin Supreme Court in fashion exhibits, and served on from UW–Madison’s Depart- State v. Stietz. The award honors university faculties. “Fashion is ment of Integrative Biology. A their writing and identifies their symbiotic to everything else in

On Wisconsin 51 Recognition Nancy Spelsberg RENEE MEILLER your life,” he told the Greenfield Recorder last October. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia has inducted Steven Present ’71 as a fellow. Present is an associate professor at Temple University’s Kornberg School of Dentistry, and he also has his own private practice. Sharon Kilfoy ’72, MA’80, executive director of Dane Arts Mural Arts, has recently retired. Her tenure leaves more than 80 pieces of public art in Dane County, and her work also can be found across the nation and in Madison’s sister city, Tepati- tlán, Mexico. KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ Rick (Richard) Miller ’73 Nancy Spelsberg ’99, MBA’06 will gladly nudge students toward indus- has retired from the University trial engineering. And it’s not just because she’s a graduate of the UW of Texas Health Science Center Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) and a member in Houston, where he served of its advisory board. for more than 30 years. As UT “You can go into business, you can go into engineering directly, or you Health’s vice president and chief could do just about anything,” she says. information officer for its IT Spelsberg is living proof of those words. Never in her wildest dreams department, he was responsible would the president and part owner of BCP Transportation have imag- for supporting the center’s tech- ined herself running a trucking company. Spelsberg worked her way up nology initiatives. Miller previ- at Alliant Energy during a decade-long tenure, but she had dreamed of ously worked for General Homes owning a small business since high school — an ambition she traces to Corp., KPMG, and Schlumberger childhood visits to her uncle’s road construction operation and lime- Well Services. stone mine in West Virginia. Captain Thomas Blumen- Her experience in the evening MBA program in the Wisconsin School berg ’74, a retired member of of Business only strengthened her resolve. The trick? Finding the right the U.S. Public Health Service, opportunity. Spelsberg sent letters to some 75 small manufacturers was awarded a Quilt of Valor at across south-central Wisconsin to inquire about buying them out. Most a Veterans Day program in Hay- didn’t reply; Badger Custom Pallet did. When the pallet manufacturer ward, Wisconsin, last Novem- decided to revisit operating its own trucking company in 2011, it asked ber. The quilts were presented Spelsberg to run the Deerfield, Wisconsin–based business. to veterans to thank and honor “It was an opportunity to start something from scratch,” she says. “I them for their service to country kind of thought, ‘If I don’t do it now, I’ll always look back and wish I would and community. Blumenberg have tried it.’ ” was recognized for his efforts BCP has grown from four trucks and fewer than 10 employees to in conducting interviews for the more than 100 trucks and a team of 140, while also adding warehousing Veterans History Project, part and an equipment maintenance and service shop. The company hauls of the American Folklife Center freight all over the lower 48 states, even delivering the UW football at the Library of Congress. team’s equipment for road games. After retiring from a career Spelsberg has introduced a number of sustainable strategies to in finance and financial commu- reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions. All of BCP’s trailers are out- nications, Stanley Ginsberg fitted with side skirts to reduce aerodynamic drag, and the company PhD’74 of San Diego pursued has installed auxiliary power units in its trucks to provide electricity, a skill he’s enjoyed since child- heating, and cooling without idling overnight. hood: baking bread. He was She’s also turned to UW–Madison ISyE students to find operational recently elected as the chair efficiencies through the department’s senior design course. Those team of the Bread Bakers Guild of projects hone the kind of continuous improvement mentality that she America; is the proprietor of an gained from her own engineering education. online business, the New York “There’s always something that could be done better or more Bakers; and previously authored efficiently,” she says. The Rye Baker: Classic Breads TOM ZIEMER ’07 from Europe to America and

52 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OnAlumni Class Notes coauthored the award-win- began at the Daily Jefferson associate general counsel of the ning Inside the Jewish Bakery: County Union, where his late Peace Corps at its headquarters Recipes and Memories from the father, Robert Angus ’43 in Washington, DC. Prior to this Golden Age of Jewish Baking. — who also was previously role, he served as the senior Bloomberg cited Scott inducted into the hall of fame — director of environmental regu- Petruska ’74 as the most was managing editor. latory affairs for BP America. consistently accurate currency Joining the Institute for James Korom JD’82, a forecaster in 2018. Petruska is a Defense Analyses (IDA) as a shareholder in the government career banker based in Boston, research staff member in its sys- law group at von Briesen and and he works as an adviser tem evaluation division is James Roper in Milwaukee, has earned for Silicon Valley (California) Gilmore MS’78, PhD’80. IDA, the George Tipler Award for Bank. He provides forecasts and a not-for-profit corporation, Distinguished Service in School advice to e-commerce compa- operates three federally funded Law, which was established by nies in New York City, including research and development cen- the Wisconsin School Attorneys BuzzFeed, Etsy, and Kickstarter. ters in the public interest, and Association’s board of directors. Richard Scheller ’74 has it provides analyses of national Each year, the award honors a been named an independent security issues and related member of the legal profession director at Alector, a privately national challenges. with a career dedicated to help- held biotechnology company. ing Wisconsin schools. Scheller, a neuroscientist and “I hope this bit of personal mem- Founder of the Sewing drug-development leader, is Machine Project Margaret the chief scientific officer of ory might be of some interest to Jankowski ’83 of Monona, 23andMe. He was previously the younger alums of today.” Wisconsin, has shared the executive vice president and group’s success in 2018. Among head of Genentech Research and Angela Bewick Wyse ’45, MM’46 other accomplishments, the Early Development and a profes- project distributed more sewing sor at Stanford University. Daniel Langer ’78 has been machines than any other year Photographer Bud (Rob- named the assistant vice chan- so far; increased its local class ert) Glick ’75 of Teaneck, New cellor for business services and offerings; revisited individuals Jersey, recently had some of his controller at the UW’s Division in Houston, who received work on display at the Museum of Business Services. He has sewing machines in 2017 after of Chinese in America as part worked for UW–Madison since Hurricane Harvey; and shipped of an exhibition, Interior Lives: 2010, when he became associate two pallets of sewing machines Photographs of Chinese Ameri- dean and chief budget officer in to Puerto Rico to help with cans in the 1980s. The exhibition the Wisconsin School of Busi- recovery efforts. ended in March and showcased ness. Prior to his time at the The CEO of BioForward Wis- moments from the New York Chi- UW, Langer worked for KPMG consin, Lisa Leemon Johnson natown History Project, which and Bristol-Myers Squibb. ’83, has earned a 2018 Women of was cofounded by NYU associate After 17 years with Bemis Industry award from In Business professor Jack (John) Tchen Company in Oshkosh, Wis- Madison. Among her accomplish- ’73. From January 1981 to March consin, and 40 years after ments, she has helped BioForward 1984, Glick used more than graduating from the UW, John launch Women in Biohealth–Mad- 460 rolls of film for the project. Siebers ’78 has retired. In ison, which provides support to “The history project was really retirement, he is now the pres- women in the field — especially focused on capturing Chinatown ident of the Wisconsin Alumni those in leadership positions. … at a time when there was a Association: Fox Valley Chapter. “That was important to me,” major change happening,” Glick John Kita MBA’79 has Johnson told In Business Madi- told DailyMail.com in January. retired from his position as son. “It was about paying it back. Scott Angus ’78 was chief financial officer at A. O. We don’t have enough women among four inductees to the Smith Corp., a manufacturer of in leadership roles, and we need Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of water-heating equipment as well more diversity in our workforce.” Fame last November. Prior to as water-treatment and air- Derrick Mancini MS’83, retiring in 2015, Angus worked purification products. He first MS’85 asserts that he wasn’t for 36 years at the Janesville joined the company as assistant sure what would follow after Gazette — including 25 years as treasurer in 1988. retiring from his 20-year editor, and in 2005, he became career as a physicist at Argonne the vice president of news for 80s National Laboratory. Now, five the owner of the paper, Bliss David van Hoogstraten years later, he has released his Communications. His career JD’80 has taken the helm as whiskeys for distribution in

On Wisconsin 53 Recognition Melvina Young

JASON TRACY select states across the nation after starting Quincy Street Distillery in Riverside, Illinois, a few years ago. Vincent Lyles ’84, JD’87 is the new vice president of community relations at the Mil- waukee-based Advocate Aurora Health Care. Lyles previously served as the president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. With more than 20 years of experience monetizing digital content globally, Jeff Siegel ’84 has been named the senior vice president of distribution at Group Nine Media — the parent company to digital brands such as Thrillist, The WRITING A KINDER WORLD Dodo, Seeker, and NowThis. If you’ve been to a wedding, baby shower, funeral, or birthday party in Based in Group Nine Media’s the last 13 years, you’ve probably crossed paths with Melvina Young New York headquarters, he is ’90, MS’92, PhDx’07. She’s a quiet party presence — she usually arrives responsible for driving both hidden in an envelope — but Young’s voice always leaves a heartfelt sales and strategy around the impression on the guests of honor. “digital-first” media company’s Young is a senior creative writer at Hallmark, where she says she library across global platforms. writes much more than greeting cards. “I write emotion across formats Joining Chicago-based Oil-Dri that have deep, authentic resonance for people,” she says. “I write gift Corporation of America as its and children’s books, internet content, keepsake copy, women’s empow- CFO is Susan Jenstead Kreh erment editorial, and for Hallmark’s community-support efforts. I ’85. Kreh arrives from Johnson believe in the company’s mission to touch every life in a meaningful way.” Controls International, PLC, Young’s work is infused with a sincere sense of compassion for peo- where she also held the role of ple who are experiencing major milestones. She writes regularly for Hall- CFO. She now oversees Oil-Dri’s mark’s Mahogany collection, aimed at African American consumers, and accounting, finance, and infor- credits her ability to craft personal messages that resonate with diverse mation technology functions. The communities to both her personal background and her academic company manufactures absorbent training. Young grew up in rural Lepanto, Arkansas, during segregation, products for business-to-business and she enrolled at the UW in the late 1980s, an era when campus was and consumer markets. roiling from a series of racial incidents. She participated in the student Attorney Daniel Welytok movement that resulted in a new Multicultural Student Center and an JD’86 of Bayside, Wisconsin, ethnic studies requirement for all undergraduates, among other diver- has been appointed to serve on sity and inclusion initiatives. the Internal Revenue Service “I went to campus and found a language for things that explained my (IRS) Advisory Committee on lived experience and helped me formulate an identity built in strength,” Tax Exempt and Government she says. “Everything you encounter is what makes you.” Entities (ACT). ACT members, Young also found faculty mentors at the UW who encouraged her to who are selected by the commis- transition from activist to academic, and she earned a master’s degree sioner of the IRS and appointed in African American studies and completed PhD coursework in wom- by the U.S. Department of the en’s history and U.S. history. She then left Madison to become a college Treasury, serve three-year terms. instructor and eventually landed in Kansas City, Missouri, where she Master Gunnery Sgt. John decided to apply her skills in a different industry. Cradler ’87 of Fairfax, Vir- “In my scholarship and teaching, I focused on relationships from a ginia, played tuba as a member broad socio-historical perspective because I felt if you could under- of “The President’s Own” United stand the root causes of certain injustices and relationships, then States Marine Chamber Orches- you could build connections and coalitions that would actually effect tra at the late President George change,” she says. “I discovered at Hallmark, I could actually achieve a H. W. Bush’s funeral service. similar goal through words that touch people emotionally one to one.” He also participated in the SANDRA KNISELY BARNIDGE ’09, MA’13 funeral procession for the late

54 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OnAlumni Class Notes

President Ronald Reagan in a leader at New Horizon California State University– 2004 as a member of the United Academy, a child care and Northridge. “In order to move States Marine Band. early education center, and is the college, I plan on actively Badger high-fives go to the an active supporter of several listening,” he told CSUN Today alumni who made the lineup in charitable causes. last year. Madison Magazine’s “Best of Last October, Susan If you had to climb a cliff for Madison Business 2019: Lead- Skibba Brnovich ’90, MS’94, two hours to reach your hotel, ers with 20/20.” Included on JD’94 was confirmed by the would you? Darlene Fisher the list are Elizabeth Rog- U.S. Senate to serve on the U.S. Willis ’92 of San Antonio, gensack Donley ’87, JD’94, WELCOME, ALL! District Court in Phoenix. She Texas, did just that while on a MS’04, cofounder and CEO of The Wisconsin served as a Maricopa County trip to Peru. She stayed at the Stemina Biomarker Discovery Alumni Asso- (Arizona) Court commissioner Skylodge — comprising three (cofounded by Gabriela Cezar ciation (WAA) from 2003 to 2009 and had been glass sleeping pods and a dining ); and business partners encourages a judge at the court since 2009. pod all built into the side of a PhD’02 diversity, inclusiv- Troy Vosseller ’06, MBA’09, ity, nondiscrimi- Christopher Richardson mountain. To return her feet JD’10 and Joseph Kirgues nation, and par- ’90, MS’93, a faculty member to the ground, she took six JD’08, who founded gener8tor, ticipation by all of Lesley University in Cam- ziplines. We commend her for a startup accelerator. alumni, students, bridge, Massachusetts, has her bravery! Laura Schumacher JD’88 and friends of been awarded a grant to study Former UW football player has been named vice chair of UW–Madison in white-nose syndrome in little Troy Vincent x’92 of Pur- external affairs and chief legal its activities. brown myotis bats. His research cellville, Virginia, was a 2019 officer at AbbVie, a research- will address how the disease — inductee of the East-West based global biopharmaceutical OBITUARIES which has devasted many bat Shrine Game Hall of Fame. Vin- company headquartered in Brief death populations in eastern North cent is executive vice president North Chicago, Illinois. She will notices for America — affects energy use, of NFL football operations. A be responsible for legal, ethics Wisconsin Alumni immune response, and repro- first-round pick of the Miami and compliance, and corporate Association duction. He hopes the work will Dolphins in 1992, he played governance functions. (WAA) members lead to more opportunities to in the NFL for 15 seasons. He The College of the Holy and friends help in the recovery of the bat was nominated to the NFL Pro Cross in Worcester, Massa- appear in Badger population. Football Hall of Fame and was chusetts, has promoted Insider, WAA’s New to the president’s office inducted into the Halls of Fame Amy magazine for its Singleton Adams MA’89, members. You at Hilltop Securities in Dallas is of the Philadelphia Eagles, the PhD’94 to full professor. also may submit (Martin) Bradley Winges ’90. State of Pennsylvania, Penns- Adams, a member of the full-length obit- He brings 30 years of experi- bury High School, and the UW. Russian program in the mod- uaries (with one ence to the president and CEO Navamedic ASA, a pharma- ern languages and literatures photo each) for position. He previously worked ceuticals and medical technology department, has been on the online posting at for Piper Jaffray and the Chicago company in Norway, has named faculty since 1993. Her research uwalumni.com/ Mercantile Exchange, where he Kathrine Gamborg Andre- focuses on aspects of Russian go/alumninotes. was one of the youngest futures assen MS’93 its new CEO. She culture and society expressed and licensed-seat exchange trad- previously served as chair of the symbolically in art, icons, and ers in the United States. board and was the CEO of Weifa literature. Maria Yamat ’91 was ASA. In addition, she is the Renee Orlowski Kaufer recognized by Crain’s Chicago co-owner and chair of the board ’89 has been named the vice Business, where she was listed at pharmaceutical company president of operations for the as one of Chicago’s Notable Novicus Pharma AS. Northwest Center at Amazon, a Women in Commercial Banking Bringing decades of expe- social enterprise with all reve- in 2018. She joined Fifth Third rience — including in the U.S. nue supporting the advancement Bank in 2010 to lead the bond House, Senate, and White of equal opportunities for indi- capital markets team, and in House — to the American viduals with disabilities. Kaufer eight years, she has increased Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) previously worked for the Bill the unit’s revenue from $4 mil- in Washington, DC, is Joyce and Melinda Gates Foundation lion to more than $40 million. Yamat Meyer ’93. Formerly for 11 years. Previously the associate the White House’s deputy assis- dean in the School of Health and tant to the president, serving 90s Human Services at Southern under President Trump, and In 2018, the Minneapolis/St. Connecticut State University, deputy director of the Office Paul Business Journal recog- Yan Searcy MS’92 is now of Legislative Affairs, Meyer is nized Penny (Pamela) Allen dean of the College of Social now executive vice president of ’90 as a CFO of the Year. She is and Behavioral Sciences at government relations at ACLI.

On Wisconsin 55 Contribution Patterson Family Gift

COURTESY OF SUSAN PATTERSON The association advocates on behalf of its member companies, which provide services in sup- port of consumers’ retirement and financial security. Michael Galaty MA’94, PhD’98 has taken the reins as director of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthro- pological Archaeology. Galaty is also curator of European and Mediterranean archaeology and a professor of anthropology and classical studies. He recently published Memory and Nation Building: From Ancient Times to the Islamic State, a book that addresses collective memory — BOOSTING SCHOLARSHIPS a concept that he explains was This past fall, Susan Solie Patterson ’79, MFA’82 and her husband, first described by a sociologist best-selling author James Patterson (pictured above with son Jack), in the early 20th century. announced a $3 million gift to support UW scholarships. The Patterson CANbridge Pharmaceutical, a Family Scholarship Legacy Match aims not only to increase student aid, China-based biopharmaceutical but also to encourage others to make estate gifts to UW–Madison. company that develops drugs to Although James did not attend the UW, he has joined Susan in treat underserved medical condi- making her alma mater a priority. The couple had previously established tions, has appointed Jeff (Nam) several scholarships, particularly in support of students in nursing, Lau ’95 as vice president of education, and athletics. finance and as controller. Lau has “I guess all my years of cheering for the Badgers got under Jim’s skin,” more than two decades of expe- Susan says. “He has the basketball schedules and football schedules, rience in pharmaceutical finance players, stats, and rankings memorized. He’s now as big a fan as I am.” management and operations — Both of Susan’s parents graduated from the UW: mother Lorraine most recently at Sanofi China. Ormson Solie ’46 studied nursing and father Orville Solie ’50, MA’51 Kristofor Brye MS’97, studied art and English. But it was James who first suggested creating PhD’99, a professor of applied scholarship funds at the UW. soil physics and pedology at the “My parents were deeply moved by this gesture, and it was a great University of Arkansas, has way for us to honor their devotion and love for Wisconsin,” Susan says. been nominated as a fellow — “It was Jim’s idea, and I love that.” the highest possible recognition Scholarships are particularly vital at the UW today. In 2017 Chancellor — of two professional societies: Rebecca Blank initiated Bucky’s Tuition Promise, a guarantee to meet the the American Society of Agron- full tuition need of any Wisconsin student from a family that earns the omy and the Soil Science Soci- state’s median household income or less. Funds like the ones supported ety of America. A member of by the Pattersons will help make that promise a reality. And Susan and several local, state, and national James have seen the effects that these funds have on students’ lives. committees, he has authored “It’s been wonderfully touching to read the letters we’ve received or coauthored more than 185 from the UW scholarship students over the years,” she says. “And it was peer-reviewed publications and a very rewarding experience … to meet them, listen to their goals and is a registered professional soil dreams, and feel their appreciation firsthand. It was moving, and I was classifier. Brye also is a faculty so impressed.” member in Arkansas’s Dale Susan and James’s devotion to education goes beyond scholar- Bumpers College of Agricul- ships. In August, they released a follow-up to last year’s New York Times tural, Food, and Life Sciences. best-selling picture book, Big Words for Little Geniuses. Their newest Kenneth Fitzsimmons creation is titled Cuddly Critters for Little Geniuses, which teaches small ’97, MBA’10 served as artis- children about different animals. James’s latest series, the Max Einstein tic director for a multimedia books, is targeted at middle-school girls and seeks to inspire an interest musical production that was in science. The first book,Max Einstein and the Genius Experiment, performed in Madison last fall. came out in October 2018. The second book, Max Einstein: Rebels with a The live rock-and-roll history Cause, is scheduled for release this September. show, The Greatest War: World ADAPTED FROM DIVIDENDS War One, Wisconsin, and Why

56 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OnAlumni Class Notes

It Still Matters, reflected upon name on the library bookshelf, the state senator for Wiscon- the 100th anniversary of the Jonathan Etter MA’98 has sin’s first State Senate District. war and Wisconsin residents at published his debut novel, A Among other recognitions, he that time. Fitzsimmons is the Dreadful Fairy Book, after more earned the Wisconsin Indepen- frontman of a 20-year-old Madi- than 20 years as a high school dent Living Network’s Relentless son Irish rock band, the Kissers, English teacher in Wiscon- Badger award for his work help- that performed during the show. sin. The comedy-fantasy, for ing individuals with disabilities. Lieutenant Colonel Paul readers ages 8 to 12, is the first Kersti Niebruegge ’03 Snyder ’97 serves the United of a trilogy, tagging along with has worked for Late Night with Nations as a military liaison a grumpy, bookish fairy who Seth Meyers, Conan, and BBC officer for the Africa division at reluctantly ventures to discover Worldwide, and now she has the Department of Peacekeeping a hard-to-find library. released her third novel: That Operations. “Bringing profes- Summer We Stole Our Perma- sionals together from different 00s nent Records, a middle-grade countries with various back- Five graduates were listed on book about an adventure among grounds and experiences chal- BRAVA magazine’s “2019 Women a group of friends who are near- lenges my preconceived notions to Watch” list, including Alison ing the end of fifth grade in 1993. and opinions, which has allowed Helland ’01, an attorney at She is also author of The Zonder- me to grow tremendously as an Boardman and Clark; Colleen ling and Mistake, Wisconsin. individual, a peacekeeper, and Blomgren Johnson MS’05, After a 13-year career at an American,” he told the United a director of development and the Northwestern University Nations Foundation in January. community partnerships for Pritzker School of Law in both Snyder has deployed to Afghan- the UW Odyssey Project; Ellen finance and development roles, istan, Iraq, and most recently, Merker ’09, MS’12, founder Alan Paberzs ’04, MPA’05 Mali — totaling more than 20 of Heart Consulting; Emily has been hired as the new exec- years of military service. Erwin-Frank ’10, MSW’18, utive director of development at creator of UpStage Stigma; and the DePaul University College of “Fashion is symbiotic to Doua Kha ’15, a UW gradu- Law in Chicago. ate student who helps student Arthur Mohagen III everything else in your life.” teachers mentor young people of MA’05, MFA’06 is the new Edward Maeder ’71 diverse identities. chief art preparator at the Mil- Nimesh Patel ’01 now waukee Art Museum, where he In 2018, journalist Luke serves as chief technology offi- coordinates the installation and Timmerman ’97 climbed cer and COO at Cresset Capital maintenance of the museum’s Mount Everest for a Climb to Management in Chicago. For exhibition and collection galler- Fight Cancer campaign that nearly 20 years, he has used ies. Mohagen joined the staff in raised funds to support the Fred his technological expertise to 2014 and has helped the insti- Hutchinson Cancer Research develop platforms that facilitate tution through a museum-wide Center in Seattle. He plans to product innovation and organi- renovation and reinstallation. climb Mount Kilimanjaro next, zational expansion. Alexander Meyer ’06, with a goal of raising $1 million. Jason Crow ’02 was ’09, a manufacturing engineer- Former Wisconsin men’s recently sworn into office as a ing manager at Caterpillar, Inc., basketball player Booker Cole- member of the U.S. House of in South Milwaukee, has been man Jr. ’98 has been appointed Representatives, where he rep- selected for a 2019 Outstanding to the Investigative Division of resents the sixth district of Colo- Young Manufacturing Engineer the Chicago Bar Association’s rado. A Madison native, Crow is Award by a committee at SME, Judicial Evaluation Committee, a former lawyer who also served a firm that promotes the manu- which evaluates candidates for in Iraq and Afghanistan. facturing industry. judicial offices as well as sitting Wisconsin State Represen- Eric Frailing ’07 of Sun judges who seek retention within tative André Jacque ’03 of De Prairie, Wisconsin, a trans- Cook County, Illinois. Coleman Pere, Wisconsin, was named a portation project engineer at works as an adviser and liti- 2017–18 Legislator of the Year MSA Professional Services, gator at Ulmer and Berne LLP, by both the Wisconsin Profes- has received the 2018 Wiscon- where he focuses on business sional Police Association and sin Young Professional Award and financial services litigation. the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police from the Wisconsin Institute of He has experience practicing in Association. Jacque, who had Transportation Engineers. The state and federal court. represented Wisconsin’s second award recognizes the achieve- In pursuit of his longtime State Assembly District since ments of transportation profes- dream to one day see his 2011, was recently elected as sionals who are younger than

On Wisconsin 57 35 years old. Frailing, a certified 10s Scott Gibbel MBA’16 has professional traffic operations Sara Schoenborn ’10 is now been hired as vice president of engineer, was selected for his the director of marketing and Brennan Investment Group, a demonstrated passion and public relations for the Wiscon- Chicago-based private real-es- enthusiasm, as well as for his sin Agri-Business Association tate investment firm. Gibbel will knowledge related to the field. and the communications director lead a team that oversees the Minnesota Wild hockey for the Wisconsin Corn Program. agency’s leasing efforts in the player Ryan Suter x’07 She also has been named to the Midwest. He joins Brennan after reached a career milestone last Easter Seals Wisconsin board of working for real-estate company fall: playing in 1,000 NHL games. directors. Easter Seals Wiscon- Prologis. “I never dreamed about playing sin programs assist individuals If we could assign creativity in the NHL,” he told the Pioneer with disabilities across the state. points, we’d give Sam Alhadeff Press in October. “My goal was Tanner Marshall ’12, ’17, MIPA’18 a 10 out of 10. In to play college hockey and play MS’13 of Baltimore, Mary- an article by the Washingtonian at the University of Wisconsin land, has become the creative titled “We Ranked the Most like my dad (Bob) and my two director at osmosis.org, a Millennial Moments of 2018,” uncles (John and Gary).” Having medical education platform used Alhadeff was recognized for reached this goal, he now has his by more than 850,000 current creating and posting online a eyes on the Stanley Cup. and future health professionals housing résumé in his efforts to The founder of Strategic and patients. Marshall created find a place to live in Washing- Partners Marketing in Madison, osmosis.org’s YouTube channel, ton, DC. On the résumé were Amber Swenor ’07, was the and the company offers more “roommate perks,” including first woman from the U.S. to than 1,000 educational videos. taking calls from his mother take part in VV Grow — Marshall previously worked for into another room. This story a yearlong global business- Khan Academy, another educa- has a happy ending: he found a accelerator program for female tional organization. home! entrepreneurs. From a pool Kristian Iliev ’17 of of nearly 700 applicants, a “We don’t have enough women in Racine, Wisconsin, is an cohort of 39 business owners individual of many talents. was chosen to participate in leadership roles, and we need more He recently released his first the program, which partners diversity in our workforce.” poetry book, Glyphs from with female leaders who use Lisa Leemon Johnson ’83 the Apparatus, and he leads business growth to improve an alternative rock band, the both their communities and Former Wisconsin men’s Racing Pulses. The band’s debut the world. basketball player Jordan album, Nothing to Write Home Matthew Gonnering Taylor ’12 has committed About, ranked at number 43 on EMBA’09 — CEO of Widen to join the Limoges (France) Billboard’s Independent Albums Enterprises in Madison — was Cercle Saint-Pierre basketball chart in July 2017, which also recognized this year as an Exec- club. He previously played for included artists such as the utive of the Year by In Business Galatasaray basketball team Lumineers, blink–182, and Madison for his focus on profes- based in Turkey. Kelsea Ballerini. sional development and culture. Jennifer Hoege MBA’14 Taking flight after graduation He has created positions for of Waunakee, Wisconsin, has is Emily Jewell ’18, who has individuals with developmental been hired as the new COO at received a 20 Twenties Award disabilities, who make up 5 per- SVA Consulting LLC. “I became a for 2019 from the Aviation Week cent of the company’s work- COO because I really enjoy work- Network in collaboration with the force. “For the Madison business ing with people, processes, and American Institute of Aeronau- community, I wish for increases technology. Those three things tics and Astronautics. The award in employment opportunities together really make an organi- recognizes students earning for people with developmental zation successful,” she said. STEM degrees who are nominated disabilities,” he told In Business Ben Brouillette ’16 co- by their universities for their Madison in December. Other produced a crime drama, academic performance, civic con- honorees included Ralph Mid- Unlawful Justice, that recently tributions, and research or design dlecamp ’74, national presi- earned grand prize for best project. Jewell is pursuing gradu- dent of the U.S. Society of St. feature from the Marina del Rey ate degrees in aerospace engineer- Vincent de Paul based in Saint Film Festival. The film, copro- ing at Stanford University. Louis; and Paul Hager ’06, duced, written, and directed by CEO of Information Technology Chris Baxter, was in a category Class Notes/Diversions editor Stephanie Professionals based in Madison. with 14 films. Awe ’15 encourages you to seize the day.

58 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 Diversions

Submit your book news at uwalumni.com/go/bookshelf and see more about works by Badger alumni and faculty at goodreads.com/wisalumni.

Journalist and Pulit- Emmy Award–winner zer Prize–winner Stacey Reiss ’92 of Eric Newhouse ’67 Brooklyn, New York, of Charleston, West has produced The Virginia, has released Perfection, a thriller Faces of Recovery: film that was released Treatments that Help on Netflix in May and PTSD, TBI, and Moral premiered at Fantastic Injury. He gives a close Fest in Austin, Texas, look at soldiers who last year. When cello broke their moral code prodigies Charlotte to fight, laying out (Allison Williams) actions to help veterans and Elizabeth (Logan reacclimate to society. Browning) unite, their journeys take a Recognizing a need to sinister turn. “The less preserve the stories you know about The of African American Perfection going in, settlers in the Midwest, the better off you are,” Muriel Simms ’68, Vulture said in April. MS’75, PhD’02 has collected the oral histo- Gregory Jaczko ries of 25 subjects from PhD’99 of Wash- THE GLASS FOREST Madison — whose fam- ington, DC, offers New York Times and USA ilies arrived, survived, reflection on his time Today best-selling author and thrived in the late as chair of the U.S. Cynthia Fisher Swanson 19th and early 20th Nuclear Regulatory ’87 of Denver has published centuries — in Settlin’: Commission in her second book, The Glass Stories of Madison’s Confessions of a Rogue Forest. The literary sus- Early African Ameri- Nuclear Regulator. pense novel takes place in can Families. Simms is Originally a scientist the 1960s, when 21-year-old a longtime educator in in favor of nuclear GLENDA CEBRIAN PHOTOGRAPHY CEBRIAN GLENDA Angie Glass is living a pictur- the Madison Metropoli- power, Jaczko — who esque life in her Wisconsin tan School District. was chair during the hometown with her husband, nuclear disaster at Paul, and their newborn son. In the memoir She Fukushima in Japan Then Angie answers a phone call from Paul’s Wants It: Desire, Power, — describes the events niece Ruby: Ruby’s father has reportedly killed and Toppling the Patri- that changed his mind. himself and her mother is missing. Angie, Paul, archy, Jill Soloway and their son travel to be with Ruby, but as events ’87 of Los Angeles — Littler Women: A Mod- unfold, Angie learns more about her husband’s creator of and producer/ ern Retelling by Laura complex family, putting her marriage into question. writer for television Schaefer ’01 of A story of love, secrets, and betrayal is unveiled as shows Transparent and Windermere, Florida, the ominous truths of the Glass family are brought Six Feet Under, respec- provides young readers to light. tively — sheds light on with a new version of “Swanson uses exquisitely rendered characters a personal journey from Little Women by Lou- and an intricately woven plot to explore the cultural a straight mother of two isa May Alcott. In the and political fallout of WWII, as well as the chang- to identifying as queer book, the March sisters ing role and limited rights of women in the mid– and gender nonbinary, — Meg, Jo, Beth, and 20th century,” says a Publishers Weekly review. as well as Soloway’s Amy — encounter new “This intoxicating slow burn builds to a conclusion parent’s journey of com- friends, challenges, rife with shocking reveals.” ing out as transgender. and school dances. In addition, Swanson’s debut novel, The Book- The book was recently Each chapter concludes seller, is expected to soon become a film starring featured in the New with a craft project or Julia Roberts. York Times. a recipe.

On Wisconsin 59 Conversation Steadfast Activist

Cora Weiss ’56 has long been “Wisconsin is You attended the UW at the at peacemaking tables for the on the front lines of the inter- where I cut my height of the McCarthy era. prevention of violent con- national women’s and peace political teeth,” How did that affect you? flict and for the protection of movements. She has been Weiss says. “It’s McCarthyism choked off free women and girls during violent nominated for the Nobel Peace the best political speech at the university — or conflict. It’s the threeP s. [It’s school I’ve been Prize four times for her tireless to. We had to in- tried to. When I wanted to true to] the purpose of the UN. activism, including efforts vent everything.” invite [folk singer and social In the charter it says, “We the to abolish nuclear weapons, activist] Pete Seeger to come peoples determined to save end the Vietnam War, and rid and sing, the university succeeding generations from South Africa of apartheid. But wouldn’t let me have a room on the scourge of war.” her lasting legacy may be her campus, and we had to go to role in the drafting of a United the street. When Leroy Gore, What are the important Nations Security Council reso- who was the editor of the Sauk lessons from your work? lution ensuring that women get City newspaper and a Repub- I think people have to work a permanent seat at all peace- lican, started the campaign together. We have to bring making tables. to recall Senator McCarthy, I organizations together. We tried to run a Madison office have to bring issues together. and drove around the state Both nuclear weapons and collecting signatures. My car climate change end with the was pelted with tomatoes same consequence — apoca- and potatoes and corn lypse. One does it instantly in husks, and I couldn’t minutes or hours or a day, and understand quite why, the other takes a long time. until one day I walked But, both climate change and around my car and nuclear weapons mean the end realized I had New of life as we know it. So, why York license plates. aren’t we marching together? That was my first les- And the other lesson is that son in politics: don’t without women at the table, bring your home- the table is not legitimate. No state plates with you women, no peace. when you’re working in another state. What advice would you give today’s students? In 2000, you helped Do something that responds to draft UN Security to your feelings, your values, Council Resolution 1325, your passions — and don’t be which became inter- afraid. Look at what young national law. Why is it people have done since [the important? Parkland, Florida, school We saw the need for the shooting]. Those kids went participation of women at around the country helping all levels of governance and people understand why they had to work against small arms. I don’t think I have to tell kids what to do. I think they’re going to know what to do. I have a lot of faith in young people.

Interview conducted by Catherine Thompson ’09; edited and condensed by On Wisconsin staff Photo by Chris Nicholson

60 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 Exhibition Southern Exposures GILLIAN LAUB, AMBER AND REGGIE, MOUNT VERNON, GEORGIA, 2011, INKJET PRINT, © GILLIAN LAUB, COURTESY OF BENRUBI GALLERY

In 2002, Gillian Laub ’97 made what would be the This photo, This isn’t the first time Laub’s lens has candidly first of many trips to Mount Vernon, Georgia, to pho- titled Amber and captured and chronicled individuals’ courage while tograph the lives of teenagers in the South. What she Reggie, was part simultaneously investigating cultural conflicts. discovered was an idyllic yet racially divided town of the Chazen’s Her exhibit Common Ground (Israelis and Pal- struggling to confront longstanding issues of race Southern Rites estinians) explored the shared yet divided worlds of exhibition, which and inequality. documented seg- these two peoples, while her installation An Ameri- For the next decade, Laub visually documented regated proms can Life documented the intimacy and pain that can Mount Vernon and the surrounding Montgomery in Montgomery define family — in this case, Laub’s own family. And County. Her photographs of the region’s longstand- County, Georgia. just recently, in 2018, the photographer captured ing segregated proms were published in the New York Stacey Abrams’s run for Georgia governor — a race Times Magazine in 2009. The photo essay, which that garnered national attention. sparked national outrage, led to integrated dances Laub also returned to Mount Vernon one year in the area. after the town merged its segregated proms and Those photos and more, collectively titled South- directed and produced a documentary, also titled ern Rites, were on exhibit at the UW’s Chazen Southern Rites, along with John Legend and Lisa Museum of Art this past semester. Laub says that it Heller ’90. The film, which explores racial tensions, took many months to curate and organize the exhi- premiered in Madison at Union South in April. bition. “The photographs, captions, and case objects While Laub didn’t study photography at the UW, are meant to take [audiences] on a decade-long jour- she says that taking art history and English litera- ney,” she explains. “Unfortunately, this story is not ture classes had a “huge impact” on her future work. an anomaly in this one town. There is segregation “I learned I wasn’t good at writing, but my love and racism all over our country. So I hope viewers of narrative storytelling influenced my visual art- can also reflect on what is going on in their own making,” she says. communities.” ADDIE MORFOOT ’02

On Wisconsin 61 Honor Roll Florence Bascom FLORENCE BASCOM PAPERS, SMITH COLLEGE There’s an apocryphal story about what set Florence Bascom 1882, 1884, MS1887 on her rocky path to a career in geology. The story goes that her father, John Bascom, took her to Mam- moth Cave in south-central Ken- tucky, and the trip made such a deep impression on Bascom that she was determined to pursue sci- ence from then on. But not all historians agree that the trip ever happened, much less during her child- hood. Instead, Bascom was initially drawn to other fields of study, obtaining an arts and letters degree from the UW shortly after her father took over as uni- versity president in 1874 (and pushed for full coedu- cational status for women). After graduating, Bascom spent a year in Madison “engaged Florence Bascom in social activities” before her shows off a tool father encouraged her to return of her trade: a to school and pick a more lasting Brunton compass. direction for her interests. (They During her work with the U.S. may also have visited “a cave” Geological Sur- around this time.) She returned vey, she placed to the UW for a second bache- benchmarks like lor’s degree, this time in science, the one shown followed by a master’s in geol- here, which ogy. She became a protégée of denoted a site’s Charles Van Hise 1879, 1880, exact elevation. MS1882, PhD1892, then an assistant professor. Bascom’s next step wasn’t easy. After a couple of years teaching in Rockford, Illinois, she applied to the PhD program at Johns Hop- kins University, which until then and character are brought into fessional associations. did not admit female students. play and are absorbed in the task,” However, Bascom’s biggest Through her father’s connections, Bascom wrote. “One feels oneself influence was in the classroom. a special exception was made for in contact with something that is Recruited to the prestigious wom- Bascom, though she had to sit infinite, and one finds a joy that is en’s college Bryn Mawr in 1895, behind a screen in classes to avoid beyond expression in ‘sounding the she spent the rest of her career “distracting” her male classmates. abyss of science’ and the secrets of establishing — and protecting — Ultimately, in 1893, she was the the infinite mind.” a geology department that gradu- first woman to earn a doctorate Bascom went on to become ated a small but dedicated number from that institution. Her influen- an expert on crystalline rocks in of female geologists. When the tial dissertation was on metamor- the Piedmont area of the Appa- college president threatened to phosed lava flows. lachian Mountains, and some of shutter the department due to low “The fascination of any search her surveys are still in use by enrollment in the early 1900s, Bas- after truth lies not in the attain- geologists today. She balanced com’s students raised a substantial ment, which at best is found to be academic posts at various insti- amount of money to save it. very relative, but in the pursuit, tutions with positions at the U.S. SANDRA KNISELY where all the powers of the mind Geological Survey and other pro- BARNIDGE ’09, MA’13

62 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 OUR UW

WE WANT OUR LEGACY TO REFLECT WHAT WE CARE ABOUT MOST.

The Global Health Institute responds to conditions we’ve seen in our travels. The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection reflects Sandy’s lifelong interests. The Foundation helped us focus our legacy on the things that match our interests.

Jack Winder ’62, MBA’69 Sandy Winder ’61

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Photo: Joe Leute Experience the new landmark on the lake. Between Memorial Union and the Red Gym

SUMMER PROGRAMS Drop-In Tours Saturdays, 2 p.m. Alumni Park Yoga Tuesdays, 12:15–1 p.m. WAA Member Fridays Fridays, 11 a.m.–3 p.m.

SPECIAL EVENTS FOR DETAILS AND Make Music Madison MORE EVENTS, VISIT in Alumni Park Friday, June 21, 11 a.m.–3 p.m. ALUMNIPARK.COM/GO/SUMMER WAA Birthday Celebration Friday, June 28, 11 a.m.–3 p.m. Ask Abe Trivia Night with Flamingle Staff Wednesday, July 31, 6–8 p.m. Downtown Discover Madison’s premier retirement Madison. living today. At your feet. 608-283-2046 retirement.org/Madison

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Capitol Lakes is a Pacifi c Retirement Services community and an equal housing opportunity.

On Wisconsin 65 Destination Helen C. White Hall CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JEFF MILLER (2); BRYCE RICHTER; UW ARCHIVES 2018S00427

Helen C. White Hall opened in 1971 with “135,000 books, a view, and a chance to be alone,” the alum- ni magazine stat- ed at the time. The three-story section used for undergraduate The building was named in honor In addition to College Library, the studying and the Located at 600 N. Park Street by of English professor Helen C. hall is home to classrooms and book collection is Memorial Union, College Library White PhD’24, who died in 1967 academic departments, including known today as lies near the shores of Lake Men- after 48 years of teaching at the English, Afro-American studies, College Library, dota. Finding an open table — let UW. White was the first woman and philosophy. The English as a which stays open alone a scenic window seat — can to earn a full professorship within Second Language program (above) 24 hours on be especially difficult during a the College of Letters & Science. is also housed within the space. weekdays. crowded finals week.

66 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2019 First Day First Day First Day Of College On The Job Of Retirement

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