FOR UNIVERSITY OF -MADISON ALUMNI AND FRIENDS WINTER 2015

Extended Family UW scientists explore an astonishing find. Page 24 Vision UW men’s coach Bo Ryan shares a secret with referee Gene Steratore during a game against the University of Iowa in January 2015. The winningest coach in UW history (357– 125 at the end of last season), Ryan announced that he plans to retire at the end of 2015–16. Photo by Bryce Richter On Wisconsin 3 Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin–Madison

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4 On Wisconsin 601 University Ave. Madison, WI 53715 facebook.com/flunocenter WINTER 2015 Contents Winter 2015, Volume 116, Number 4

UW professor John Hawks, who is studying the find of a lifetime. See page 22. JEFF MILLER DEPARTMENTS

2 Vision 7 Communications 9 Observation

OnCampus

11 News 13 Byg one Many Happy (and Chilly) Returns 14 Calculation The Job Equation 17 Conversation Shawn Peters FEATURES 18 Exhibition Chazen Mural- in-Progress 22 Chamber of Discovery 20 Contender Olive Sagapolu It captured the world’s attention when researchers 21 Sports — including UW scientists — revealed that they had found the remains of very early humans who had de- liberately been laid to rest. By Terry Devitt ’78, MA’85 30 The Good Guy OnAlumni Troy Vincent x’92 made his name in Badger football

and the pros, but now with the NFL front office, he’s PHILIP BRIGGS 52 News tackling something altogether different. 53 Tradition By Jenny Price ’96 Snowball Fights 54 Class Notes 34 Hunters No More 60 Diversions Two UW alumni are working closely with African 66 Destination Greenbush tribal warriors, teaching them how to protect — rather Bakery than kill — the majestic lions that roam their lands. By Meghan Lepisto ’03, MS’04 42 Chasing Abloh You’d be hard to pin down, too, if, like Virgil Abloh ’03, you were Kanye West’s creative director, had your own clothing line, had a career as a DJ, and were launching a restaurant. By Chelsea Schlecht ’13 44 Born to Swim Four decades and two hip replacements after his UW swimming career, the author joins fellow alumni for a Cover If the shoe fits: UW students call upon challenging channel race in Hawaii. The skeletal foot of their research skills to analyze a ledger By Andy Moore ’86 an ancient human recording 1750s wares, offering a ancestor is part of glimpse into early American life. See 50 All In on All Ways Forward a remarkable find page 19. In October, UW-Madison publicly kicked off a com- deep below the prehensive campaign aimed at meeting Chancellor ground in South ’s challenge to remain a top-ranked, Africa. Photo by world-class university. By John Allen John Hawks.

On Wisconsin 5 WHEN CIVIL ENGINEERING AND CIVIL SERVICE WORK TOGETHER, WE ARE BOUNDLESS.

WISC.EDU | #BOUNDLESSTOGETHER

WISC_141-40d_Currents_MECH_v2.indd 1 10/9/15 4:39 PM Communications TERRACE HIATUS Most of the Memorial Union Nice Work on Redesign tournament games dominated by Terrace closed on September 1, Just wanted to say that the teams with flashy talents. It not allowing the UW’s lakefront redesign of On Wisconsin looks only reaffirms the validity of living room to have its first fantastic. Nice work on photog- Ryan’s approach, once consid- significant upgrade in more raphy, story selection, fonts, new ered nonviable in the prevailing than two decades. The beloved pages, the use of on in headings, era of one and done. It enthralls hangout is scheduled to reopen and unspeakably delights Wis- and more. Congrats. next summer. Carla Blakeman ’05 consin alums everywhere watch- Sammamish, Washington ing Badgers competing in such high-profile collegiate playoffs. Let Bygones Be Gone Henry Tse ’76, MA’77, MS’79 Great article about the Red Rosemead, California Gym pool [Bygone, Fall 2015]. 143people favorited this Instagram @madi- On the memorable day [in 1973, Before MadHatters sondotcom post of a Wisconsin State mentioned in the article], I was Came Mixed Nuts Journal editorial cartoon by Phil Hands ’07. in the pool sans suit doing the I enjoyed reading the article on backstroke when I noticed a a cappella groups [Traditions, person with a very large suit Summer 2015]. I must, however, swimming in the next lane. take issue with the statement When I finished that length, I that a cappella singing “has was greeted by another woman been a campus staple since the (in a suit) with a friendly smile 1990s.” Law professor John and wave. I stopped and exited Kidwell founded the a cappella the pool shortly thereafter. As group Mixed Nuts, which soon you noted, the pool was soon changed its name to Sui Generis opened officially to (suited) [“of its own kind,” or, as we women and men. preferred, “peculiar”] in the Martin Dooley MS’74, PhD’77 early 1980s. I sang with them Dundas, Ontario, Canada during my law school days from 1983 to 1986. Bygone implies that the Natatori- Benbow Cheesman JD’86 um was coed when it was built West Allis, Wisconsin $ in 1961. I don’t know when the 5 Natatorium actually became Defending Atticus What the real Top Gun coed, but it was not until some Finch school fines staff time after 1969. I was a graduate In regard to “Rethinking Atticus members if they quote student in physical chemistry Finch” (On Campus, Fall 2015), from 1965 to 1969. During that I’d like to suggest that there’s no the movie, which was the entire time, the Natatorium was need to rethink this finely drawn final film that Lakeside open to women only on Friday character at all. Cinema showed the night evenings. Things have changed Yes, Harper Lee’s novel Go a great deal since then, but it Set a Watchman takes place before renovation work would be good to let readers twenty years after To Kill a began. know just how much access to Mockingbird, and in the new- athletic facilities was restricted ly published novel, Finch is for women during the 1960s. presented as an aging racist. But Mary Ruskai MA’69, PhD’69 Lee wrote Watchman first. It 2017 Arlington, Massachusetts was what Anne Lamott would When work — inside and out — call her “crappy first draft.” She on the lengthy Memorial Union Enthralling Badgers didn’t yet have the skills to move Reinvestment project is expect- beyond stereotypes. Everywhere ed to be done. [In response to the tweets about In the coming years, her Bo Ryan’s retirement, Communi- insights and vision matured. In cations, Fall 2015]: The impres- the end, she gave us an Atticus sive postseason performance of Finch who is one of the most Badger basketball the last two remarkable, and most admirable, years, under the disciplined, fun- characters in modern fiction. damentals-driven style of coach Margaret Savides Benbow ’73 Bo Ryan, really jolted NCAA Madison

On Wisconsin 7 8 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 Observation

Winter 2015 JEFF MILLER

PUBLISHER Wisconsin Alumni Association 650 North Lake Street, Madison, WI 53706 Voice: 608-262-2551 Toll-free: 888-WIS-ALUM Email: [email protected] Web: onwisconsin.uwalumni.com

CO-EDITORS Niki Denison, Wisconsin Alumni Association Cindy Foss, University Communications

SENIOR EDITOR John Allen, Wisconsin Alumni Association

SENIOR WRITER Jenny Price ’96, University Communications

ART DIRECTOR Nancy Rinehart, University Marketing

PRODUCTION EDITOR Eileen Fitzgerald ’79, University Marketing I was editor of my sixth-grade class newsletter. If Words and memory serves, we produced copies for our par- pictures make DESIGN, LAYOUT, AND PRODUCTION ents using a mimeograph machine and pink paper. powerful partners, Toni Good ’76, MA ’89, Kent Hamele ’78, and publishing Christine Knorr ’99, Danielle Lawry, We were very proud. So my love of words printed on paper goes photographs Preston Schmitt ’14, University Marketing — such as this way back. That infatuation has continued, because one captured by SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER words allow the creation of stories that educate us, Jeff Miller, University Communications my colleague Jeff enlighten us, humor us, touch us, and, ultimately, Miller — has giv- CLASS NOTES/DIVERSIONS EDITOR remind us that as much as we are different, we are en me great joy. Paula Apfelbach ’83, Wisconsin Alumni the same. Association When I came to the UW twenty-four years ago, I was swept into EDITORIAL INTERN an unimaginable bounty of stories. We could write about students or Daniel McKay x’16 their professors. We could write about literature or sports. We could write about politics or science. We could choose. And we could weave ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES those words with my second love: photographs that enhanced what we Madison Magazine: 608-270-3600 wrote. ALUMNI ADDRESS CHANGES AND I confess that I’ve edited so many stories for On Wisconsin over DEATH NOTICES time that I don’t remember them all. But I do have favorites ranging Madison area: 608-262-9648 from admissions policies to psychopaths, from beet research to the Toll-free: 888-947-2586 Email: [email protected] power of forgiveness, and from the democratic process to fudge-bot- tom pie. In truth, though, as fascinated as I’ve been by the subject mat- Quarterly production of On Wisconsin is ter and the craft of writing, these stories were special because of the supported by financial gifts from alumni people who brought them to life through interviews and photographs and friends. To make a gift to UW-Madison, and elegant design. It’s been an honor to create this magazine together. please visit supportuw.org. I wasn’t a Badger when I first arrived on campus, but you folks have Printed on recycled paper. convinced me to apply for dual citizenship. I’m retiring from my role at Please remember to recycle this magazine. On Wisconsin with this issue, but the melody of the song of that name? It will keep playing softly in my mind for a long time to come.

Cindy Foss Co-Editor

On Wisconsin 9 At Oakwood Village University Woods, you’ll find a community dedicated to enhancing and maintaining your well-being. From group fitness classes to healthy meals and life-enriching programs, University Woods offers myriad opportunities to improve wellness. You’ll also have peace of mind in knowing that, should your needs change, the caring, committed people you’ve already come to know and trust will be here for you every step of the way. Call today to schedule a personal appointment and meet some of the caring professionals dedicated to your well-being at Oakwood Village: 608-230-4266. Or visit us online at oakwoodvillage.net.

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Find us on Life’s explorations Facebook. continued.

10 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 OnCampusNews from UW-Madison

DON’T GO SURFIN’ NOW! Somber Survey There’s a new term in the man- agerial lexicon: cyberloafing. More than one-fourth of female undergrads Bosses worry that workers spend too much time checking Facebook report being sexually assaulted. or watching videos. Maria Triana, an associate A new survey confirms what officials already knew: sexual assault is a professor in the serious and pervasive problem at UW-Madison and other college cam- of Business, worked with faculty puses around the country. from Korea, Canada, and More than one in four female undergraduates at the UW — 27.6 to study cyberloafers, and they percent — reported being sexually assaulted, usually by a friend or Female under- estimate that some employees acquaintance, according to the survey the Association of American graduates sexually spend nearly a third of their day Universities conducted earlier this year. The national average was 23 assaulted: goofing off online. percent. How do employers prevent “Sexual assault concerns me deeply, not just as the leader of this 27.6 cyberloafing? Triana suggests university, but as the mother of a college sophomore,” Chancellor percent that they treat employees fairly. Rebecca Blank said when the survey results were released this at UW-Madison “Perceived organizational justice” fall. “The question on the mind of every parent dropping their son or is a predictor of loafing, she says. daughter off at college is always, ‘Will they be safe here?’ ” 23 “When justice is high, people Last year, the White House called on colleges and universities percent cyberloaf the least.” to address the alarming rates of sexual assault on campuses. One of nationally But she also notes that some the first steps was conducting the survey, which included more than online goof-off time is inevitable. 150,000 students. The UW was one of twenty-seven universities to vol- “When there’s an opportunity to untarily participate. cyberloaf,” she says, “the tempta- The survey confirms that sexual violence affects students of all tion is impossible to resist.” genders and sexual orientations, says Sarah Van Orman, executive director of University Health Services and chair of a task force manag- ing the survey. “Sexual assault affects the health and well-being of our Foul Play entire community,” she says. Video games are one way to The survey also shows that very few victims report assaults to the unwind after a stressful day, but police. “I understand and appreciate very much the courage that it players looking for an emotional takes and what a difficult step it is for a survivor to come forward and release are better off playing FIFA report to the police,” UW-Madison Police Chief Sue Riseling says. than Grand Theft Auto. That’s “It’s very important for us that more victims come forward and tell us the upshot of new research from what happened to them.” communication science graduate The prevalence of sexual violence on campus also threatens the students James Alex Bonus university’s academic mission, Blank says. More than half of the wom- MA’14, PhDx’16 and Alanna en who reported experiencing a sexual assault said they suffered Peebles PhDx’16, who wanted academically as well as personally. to discover if playing video games UW officials will use the survey results to enhance ongoing efforts can improve mood. Working with to prevent and respond to sexual assault and misconduct. Karyn Riddle, associate profes- UW-Madison has added a number of programs and resources for sor in the School of Journalism preventing sexual violence, supporting survivors, and ensuring fair in- and Mass Communication, the vestigations. Since fall 2014, all new undergraduate students have been Sarah Van Orman, students found playing games can required to participate in Tonight, a prevention program about sexual executive director help manage negative emotions. assault, consent, dating violence, and stalking. of University But there’s a cost to that short- A campus task force has issued a number of recommendations Health Services, term relief: players who highly says sexual to further enhance these efforts, including adding a “second dose” of assault affects enjoyed a violent game called Tonight later in the fall semester, incorporating bystander interven- the well-being Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage tion training into prevention programs, and increasing the availability of the entire UW tended to perceive the world in a of confidential victim-advocacy services. community. more hostile way than those who KÄRI KNUTSON BRYCE RICHTER played a nonviolent game.

On Wisconsin 11 OnCampus Bummer, Dudes It’s a generally assumed truth that women live longer than men. According to a demographic JEFF MILLER study by UW researcher Hiram Beltran-Sanchez, that phenomenon developed in the last one hundred years. Beltran-Sanchez — who left the UW for UCLA this fall — examined roughly two centuries’ worth of mortality data from thirteen nations across North America and Europe. He looked HERE COMES THE SUN at death rates for those who had A shared passion for renewable energy technology has brought reached at least forty years of together two professors with two very different areas of expertise. Marianne Fairbanks, an assistant professor of design stud- age — thus excluding fatalities ies in the UW’s School of Human Ecology, is an expert in fibers, fabrics, design, and dyes. Trisha Andrew, an assistant professor due to childhood disease or the of chemistry, uses chemistry, materials science, and electrical complications of childbirth, com- engineering to develop low-cost, lightweight solar cells. Together, they’re developing fabric capable of harnessing mon causes of death that have energy from the sun. been greatly reduced by modern “The idea of building solar cells on fabric is potentially trans- formative,” Andrew says. “If we take this technology and grow medicine. He found that both devices on material, then we could talk wearable technology, solar curtains, solar umbrellas, solar tents, or applications for men and women born in the early the military.” 1800s had about the same life “Science and art aren’t too different,” Fairbanks says of their project. “We’re all experimenting. To get to do it together is a expectancy. But in the twentieth dream come true.” Their collaboration is also unusual in attempting to overcome century, males were two to three the manufacturing challenge currently slowing the rollout of times as likely to die in their cheap, consumer-friendly solar cells — namely, that so many emerging technologies are not integrated with actual manufac- fifties and sixties than females. turing processes at any early stage of development. “About 40 percent of that Working side by side has already yielded compelling results. While Andrew’s previous solar-cell innovations consisted pri- difference is due to cardiovas- marily of layering the necessary components of a solar cell onto lightweight substrates such as paper, Fairbanks’ special exper- cular disease and stroke,” says tise led her to ask a totally different question: why not weave the Beltran-Sanchez. “This seems to solar textile from scratch? That new concept would involve creating a spool of thread for be due largely to higher rates of all four of the necessary components of a solar cell. Once woven smoking among men and diet. together, all of the textile’s woven junctions would be a functional solar cell, yielding a seamless and powerful new technology. Men seem to eat more saturated “I never would have thought of that,” says Andrew. “If we could literally weave together a solar cell? Mind-blowing.” fats.” KRISTA EASTMAN ’03

12 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 Bygone Many Happy (and Chilly) Returns UW-MADISON ARCHIVES S09929

Benjamin Franklin was right. covered by ocean. (Though they Now a profes- ca, and it continues to dig deep Taxation is an absolute certainty shared a family name, it’s unlikely sor emeritus holes in the southern ice. The in life — even life near the South that he claimed either the moun- of geology and university leads the IceCube Col- Pole. tain or the trench as dependents.) geophysics, laboration, which runs a vast ob- Charles Bentley Fifty years ago, UW geolo- Bentley knows ice sheets. He was already an servatory set up at the South Pole gy professor Charles Bentley has been to the Antarctic more Antarctic veteran to detect neutrinos. That detector found himself on the bottom of than a dozen times during a six- when he perused is made up of 5,160 modules em- the world when the time came decade span. He was part of the his 1964 federal bedded in a cubic kilometer of ice. to fill out his Form 1040 for the team that made the first overland income tax forms In September, IceCube’s prin- IRS. This couldn’t have been a traverse of Western Antarcti- on the southern cipal investigator, UW physics great surprise, because Bentley ca in 1957, and in the 2000s, he continent. professor Francis Halzen, won had spent several seasons on served as principal investigator a 2015 Balzan Prize for his work in the southern continent. Mount on an ice-core project that set the astroparticle physics. (It’s worth Bentley (in the Sentinel Range) record for the deepest core ever 1 million Swiss francs, which will is named in his honor, as is the drilled out of a glacier. almost certainly have an effect on Bentley Subglacial Trench, which The UW continues to have an his taxes.) is the lowest point on Earth not important presence in Antarcti- JOHN ALLEN

On Wisconsin 13 Calculation STEM Degrees BACKGROUND IMAGE, ANGELINAST/ISTOCK; PHOTOS, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION, DANIELLE LAWRY

STEM degrees awarded BACHELOR'S DEGREES SPRING 2013 BIOLOGY 8.3%

MATHEMATICS 2.4%

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 2.4%

NURSING 2.3%

BIOCHEMISTRY 2.1%

22.5% OTHER STEM MAJORS

STEM majors, including those geared toward health N e s professions, now account on re -STEM deg for about 40 percent of undergraduate degrees.

Source: Office of Academic Planning and Institutional Research

they look at possible career paths. The Job Equation “Nursing is a major where it’s The most popular major among peer universities, on average. easy to see, ‘If I come in as a nurs- UW-Madison freshmen may be Jobs in these fields were pro- ing major, I leave as a nurse,’” undecided, but as they move to- jected to grow at nearly twice she says. “The STEM fields lend ward graduation, growing num- the rate of other fields between Workers with themselves to that equation — bers of students are pursuing 2008 and 2018, and workers with STEM degrees earn major equals career — more so degrees in academic disciplines STEM degrees earn 26 percent than the humanities and some of known as STEM — science, tech- more than their counterparts, ac- the social sciences.” nology, engineering, and mathe- cording to a 2011 report from the The school now offers direct matics. U.S. Department of Commerce. 26 admission into the major for a se- STEM majors, including those At the UW’s School of Nurs- percent lect group of freshmen. This year, geared toward health professions, ing, undergraduate applications more than their 255 students applied for 25 slots. counterparts. now account for about 40 percent have increased 74 percent since The STEM boom doesn’t of undergraduate degrees and 2000, says Karen Mittelstadt, mean that some other majors ar- make up half of the top-ten list of the school’s assistant dean for en’t also on the rise at the UW. the most popular majors on cam- academic programs. The rate at The last decade saw big increases pus. (Biology ranks number one.) which nursing graduates land in students declaring majors in And the UW is graduating about jobs plays a role, she says, as stu- economics, international studies, one thousand more students with dents and their families weigh the and Spanish. such degrees each year than its cost of higher education when JENNY PRICE ’96

14 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 OnCampus UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUM; BRYCE RICHTER CHRISTIE'S IMAGES LTD 2015

ART FOR FRUIT’S SAKE Look closely at the watermelon in this painting by seventeenth-century Italian artist Giovanni Stanchi. Yes, that water- melon, in the lower right corner: with its light pink flesh and swirling seed pock- ets, it doesn’t look much like the melons you’ll find at the supermarket. But that’s what the fruit looked like 350 years ago. Aquatic Artist Horticulture professor James Scientific illustratorKandis Elliot Nienhuis PhD’82 uses paintings such ’70, MS’79 spent decades drawing as this to show his students how fruits plants and their anatomy for the and vegetables have changed over the UW’s botany department. Now re- centuries. He takes his World Vegetable tired, Elliot is on a mission to accu- Crops class to the to look at Renaissance still life rately document the inhabitants of paintings so that his students can see in the state’s more than 15,000 lakes, detail how people have bred character- rivers, and streams. Her efforts istics into and out of plants. include an epic 13-foot-by-44-inch “With grains, archaeologists can look poster that depicts all 183 species of at actual samples to learn what people Wisconsin fish in life-size scale. The ate,” says Nienhuis, “but then, grains are smallest is the one-inch least darter dry. Vegetables, by their nature, have a and the largest is the six-foot-long lot of moisture, so they’re delicate. They don’t last. But still life paintings show us lake sturgeon. “I insist on making them life-size. It’s visual information, a sense of what they looked like.” wonder, that you can’t get from just numbers,” says Elliot, who’s been working on Nienhuis says that, in spite of the the project for the past two years. Elliot uses a special wide-format printer pur- course’s official title, he calls it Vegeta- chased with her own money to create the posters. “The idea behind the posters is to bles: Works of Art You Can Eat. “That’s create a splash,” she says. “There is a wow factor. We want people, especially kids, what vegetables are like,” he says. to have an awareness of all our fishes, not just hook-and-line species.” Elliot’s series “They’re like rolling up a Monet like a of ten posters is being sold to support the University of Wisconsin Zoological Muse- taco and eating it.” um. ’s Shedd Aquarium was among the first buyers. JOHN ALLEN

news feed

UW-Madison virologist William C. Campbell The MacArthur Foundation Yoshihiro Kawaoka’s MA ’54, PhD ’57 won a share selected Matthew Desmond lab developed a new of the 2015 Nobel Prize in MS’04, PhD’10 (left) to re- method to produce flu Medicine for his key role in ceive a no-strings-attached vaccines more quickly the development of drugs $625,000 “genius grant” this and efficiently. The that dramatically lower the year. Desmond studies the finding occurred before incidence of the tropical causes and consequences the federal government diseases river blindness of eviction and the role of the put his research on hold in October 2014 to formulate regula- and lymphatic filariasis. housing market in inner-city

JEFF MILLER; JOHN D. & CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION MACARTHUR T. CATHERINE & D. JOHN MILLER; JEFF tions for how some viruses can be manipulated. neighborhoods.

On Wisconsin 15 OnCampus JEFF MILLER LA DOLCE VITA

Nothing tells a sto- ry like food. That’s the heart of Litera- ture in Translation 410, a course that has students digest novels that have recipes within their pages and cookbooks full of great yarns. Grazia Menechella, an associate profes- sor of Italian, has students shop for and cook Italian food, learn the history of pizza, explore the politics of gender and food, and study the im- pact of globaliza- tion on local food B r i d g e O u t There’s a new view on campus — or something missing from it — looking west down cultures and prod- University Avenue. The deteriorating pedestrian bridge that for more than four decades connected the ucts. Menech- George L. Mosse Humanities Building and Vilas Hall took its last bow in August. It was demolished — ella also cooks a closing the street to traffic overnight — due to disrepair and what UW officials say was a decline in use garden-to-table after installation of a traffic signal one block away at East Campus Mall. Many students, faculty, and dinner for the stu- dents at her home. staff who used the bridge to access Vilas Hall disagreed on the latter point. The course is part of a First-Year Interest Group, a Unequal Time campus learning ISTOCK States may not be getting the financial benefits that community that the $5 billion private prison industry advertises. links classes Anita Mukherjee, an assistant professor of actuarial together for about science, risk management, and insurance at the Wis- twenty students. 10 consin School of Business, conducted what is believed Along with this percent course, students of U.S. inmates to be the first study comparing public and private pris- take first-semes- are held in ons. Mukherjee reviewed data from private prisons in private prisons Mississippi and found that those inmates spend up to ter Italian and an introductory two to three more months behind bars than inmates in horticulture class public prisons, leading to an average additional cost connecting plant per prisoner of about $3,000. They are also equally cultivation to likely to commit more crimes after release. culinary uses.

news feed BRYCE RICHTER; TAKAHASHI SHINISHI UW-Madison’s royalties from Chemistry professor Song Juan de Marcos the sale of licensed mer- Jin has identified a cheap- González, a Gram- $3.8 chandise rose 10 percent in er way to split water into my Award winner million 2014–15. The royalties are split hydrogen and oxygen, a key and Afro-Cuban between Bucky Grants, a step in creating hydrogen All Stars founder, program that provides for fuel. His catalyst is a spent the fall need-based financial compound of phosphorus, semester as the aid to undergraduates, sulfur, and cobalt, a metal UW Arts Institute’s and the athletic that costs one thousand interdisciplinary department. times less than platinum. artist-in-residence.

16 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 Conversation with Shawn Peters

During nearly two decades Is it hard explaining these back questions, and go back on campus, Shawn Peters issues to those who haven’t and forth. It allows free-flowing PhD’07 has been a PhD stu- experienced them? We have conversation in a way that more dent, an undergraduate adviser, students who have grown up in traditional modes of communi- and a lecturer in English, histo- places like inner-city Baltimore cation don’t. ry, and religious studies. Now who can speak directly of their an instructor with the UW’s experiences. Then we have stu- Do students take the class Center for Educational Oppor- dents from various places where expecting it to be easy? The tunity, Peters teaches Integrat- life in The Wire isn’t the case typical response is, “That was ed Liberal Studies courses, at all. As a teacher, the best a lot of fun, but we did a lot of including Narratives of Justice moments are when stu- work.” To me, that’s when class and Equality in Multicultural dents are engaging with is really cool — when you’re America — better known as one another. Rather really thinking hard, but “The Wire course.” Peters wants than having your actually enjoying yourself, the HBO show, which highlights boring, middle-aged, your classmates, and the the struggles of a West Balti- white professor sense of community that more neighborhood, to help his wagging his finger, you all have together. students explore reality in a saying, “Read the That’s when it works. new and engaging way. book, and then you’ll understand,” Interview conducted, edited, and How did The Wire become I want a student condensed by Daniel McKay x’16. the main driver of your saying, “This is the Photo by Bryce Richter. course? The idea was to teach way I grew up. This less a theoretical social science is what it’s like.” course than a course about how those kinds of stories are told, How are you using and The Wire struck me as a Twitter in your text that tells a really profound classes? We’ve had story about justice and equality actors from The Wire in Baltimore in a way that’s also tweet at us, and engaging, that draws you in as a we’d tweet narrative.

Did growing up in Balti- more influence how you put the class together? For as long as I’ve been around Baltimore, it’s been a city with really serious problems, and it’s been struggling to make the best of the opportunities available to the citizens. Folks are disenfranchised, especially African American men, and they don’t really have the ability to go somewhere like UW-Madi- son. There are parts of the city that have become increasingly desperate over the last thirty years. And we saw that over the past six months, when the city exploded in protest over the death of Freddie Gray. You see it coming; it’s not like people just woke up one morning and decided, “We’re angry today.” Exhibition Chazen Mural-in-Progress

Japanese artist Manabu Ikeda sketches A major element out another small section of the mural he’s is a vast, crashing creating at UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum wave, recalling of Art. At ten feet by thirteen feet, it’s a mas- the tsunami sive work, but the overall size is only a small that devastated Japan’s Pacific part of the story. Every inch of the artwork coast. In the is packed with tiny details, all painstakingly wreckage of this rendered in pen and ink. Ikeda’s piece pres- wave, look for a ents a theme of hope springing from despair, billboard from the and it combines elements that will be famil- Wisconsin Dells. iar to Madisonians with images that resonate with a global audience. Ikeda has been work- ing on the mural since spring, drawing in the Chazen’s studio lab and trying to complete a section of about three square inches each day. On one slag heap As an artist-in-residence, he opened his studio of smashed cars four days a week through the fall so that visi- and buildings, a tors could watch him work and ask questions. bright red Motion Take a look at some of the detail pictures and W peeks from the see if you can spot anything that looks familiar. debris. JOHN ALLEN PHOTOS BY BRYCE RICHTER

18 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 OnCampus COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION (2) ANXIOUS GENES History Book Half of children who show ex- Professor Ann Smart Martin’s students have more than a final grade to show for treme anxiety develop stress- their semester in her class: they contributed to a permanent exhibit at the Smithso- related psychiatric disorders lat- nian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. er in life. Researchers from the Smithsonian curator Nancy Davis asked Martin, a professor of art history and UW psychiatry department and director of the material culture program, to use her research methods to analyze a the HealthEmotions Research 1750s ledger from the muse- Institute are making gains in pin- um’s archives. pointing how anxiety is inherited, “I always make the joke work that holds the promise of that account books are the developing better treatments. Rodney Dangerfield of ob- The group identified an overac- jects: they get no respect,” tive brain circuit associated with Martin says. “It’s all about anxious temperament — passed how you make them speak.” on from one generation to another William Ramsay’s — that helps to explain how genes nine-hundred-page ledger might affect brain function and account book had nev- lead to extreme childhood anxiety. er been analyzed. The The study’s senior author is record from the Scottish Ned Kalin, chair of psychiatry at tobacco merchant, who the UW School of Medicine and helped found Alexandria, Public Health. His team studied Virginia, included goods nearly six hundred young rhesus bought and sold to George monkeys from a large, multi-gen- Washington, then in his erational family. They subjected early twenties. The ledger the monkeys to a mildly threat- couldn’t be moved, so students in Martin’s spring 2013 course accessed a micro- ening situation — exposure to a film version from 850 miles away. The sixteen students, all interested in museum stranger who did not make eye careers, deciphered Ramsay’s spidery handwriting to build a database and develop a contact — and used brain-imag- list of items that could provide a glimpse of life in Alexandria. ing methods commonly used in Translation was required for some phrases, such as “yards of thunder and humans to identify systems re- lightning,” which turned out to be tightly woven wool that repels water. Martin and sponsible for the parent-to-child graduate students Monica Welke MA’14 and Shagun Raina MA’11, PhDx’13 transmission of anxiety-related traveled to Washington to examine objects Davis assembled from the Smithsonian’s behavior. collection to find materials representative of the kinds of wares Ramsay sold in his Kalin is launching a new study shop. The final exhibit includes a ceramic mug, a pair of shoes, a book, a ribbon, and of nine- to eleven-year-old girls, a handkerchief from India, alongside Ramsay’s desk, bookcase, and ledger. who are at greater risk for devel- Since the class ended in May 2013, Martin and two oping anxiety and depression as graduate students spent additional time working on the they approach adolescence. He interactive digital version. The Smithsonian’s Amer- will use brain imaging to try to ican Enterprise exhibit opened this summer, and understand why some children Ramsay’s ledger took its place among George with anxious temperaments de- Washington’s tea chest, Alexander Graham Bell’s velop more serious anxiety and telephone, Thomas Edison’s talking doll, and depression, while others get bet- more than six hundred other objects. ter as they grow up.

news feed

The nation’s largest brain bank, which Roy Lichtenstein’s Two Figures (left) is focuses on the study of traumatic head among the pieces of art that Jerome injury, headed by Boston Universi- ’48 and Simona Chazen included in a ty neuropathologist Ann McKee ’75 $28 million gift to the UW. Their pledge (featured in On Wisconsin, Winter 2010), includes $5 million for the Chazen reports that 87 out of 91 former NFL Museum of Art building and $3 million players have tested positive for CTE, to establish faculty chairs in art and art a degenerative brain disease widely education. believed to stem from repetitive

TRACY POWELL; COURTESY OF CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART OF MUSEUM CHAZEN OF COURTESY POWELL; TRACY trauma to the head.

On Wisconsin 19 Contender Olive Sagapolu

Not every player Olive Sagapolu Although he won’t be doing back- and see the other players, and I can do a standing backflip or (pronounced oh- flips at anytime see that they’re struggling and hold someone above his head LEE-vay SONG- soon, Sagapolu says he’s taking they’re tired. But as long as we uh-POE-loo) has with one hand, but freshman de- cheerleading lessons about trust push together and finish it, we’ll two uncles who fensive lineman Olive Sagapolu have played in and teamwork with him to the all achieve,” he says. x’19 is the exception. the National gridiron. Many players have their At 6'2" and 330 pounds, the Football League. “You’re holding someone in sights set beyond college, but Californian is well known in the air with one arm [and Sagapolu says he is heeding recruiting circles for viral videos asking yourself], are advice from Domata Peko, one showing these athletic feats. He you going to catch of two uncles who played in the learned the enviable skills by them or not? I apply NFL. “He’s been telling me just turning to a new challenge while that to football. I playing ball, representing and in high school: cheerleading. look left and right playing for your family, repre- He and his best friend at senting the Samoan culture — Mater Dei High School in Santa it’s something big,” he says. Ana decided to pursue the Sagapolu says he’s focusing sport with open minds. on the season at hand, recogniz- “We didn’t really care ing that the future is as far away what people thought as California can seem from Wis- of us, because it’s just consin. His real worry? Braving something different, the cold. “I really don’t know how something we wanted I’m going to deal with winter,” he to do for our senior says. “People say to layer up, so year. And it turned out that’s what I’m going to try to do.” great,” he says. DANIEL MCKAY X’16 Sagapolu’s exper- PHOTO BY JEFF MILLER iment helped Mater Dei snag third place in the National High School Cheerleading Championships and continue a streak of fifteen straight titles at the USA High School Spirit Nationals.

20 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 OnCampus Sports BRYCE RICHTER ticker

The Sporting News named Nigel Hayes x’17 to its preseason All-America team. The junior forward started all forty games for the men’s basketball team during the 2014–15 season, averaging 12.4 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. He also led the Badgers in steals, with 34 during last season. JEFF MILLER

We’re #1 — But Not in a Good Way Golfweek magazine named University Think the polls don’t show your team enough love? Ridge Golf Course the No. 3 campus course in the country for the second You’re right. straight year. Designed by Robert Trent Jones and opened in 1991, it’s the top Daniel Hawkins ’00 was a diehard ranked twentieth and moved up to tenth by Big Ten collegiate course on the list. “Bleacher Creature” at the UW Field the end, it would get a score of 10, indicating House when the men’s basketball team be- it was underrated. If the opposite occurred, Wisconsin had thirty-one former play- ers on training camp rosters during gan winning more than losing. Like many the team would get a score of –10, indicating the 2015–16 NHL preseason, the most fans, he thought the Badgers were con- it was overrated. Hawkins used the teams’ alumni of any NCAA team. Twenty-two sistently underrated as they steadily im- average scores across 25 seasons to develop former Badgers played in the league proved their record in the years following his own list of rankings. last season, tying the program record his graduation. The results: Wisconsin was the most for the most active NHL players. The list “I thought I was seeing a pattern, and underrated team, with Purdue, Cincinnati, includes New York Rangers forward I didn’t have any notion that it extended Ohio State, and Iowa State rounding out Derek Stepan, Minnesota Wild defen- beyond Wisconsin,” says Hawkins, who the top five in that group. UCLA emerged seman Ryan Suter, San Jose Sharks is now an associate professor of sociolo- as the most overrated team, followed by forward Joe Pavelski, and St. Louis Blues goalie Brian Elliott. gy at the University of Nebraska–Omaha North Carolina, Michigan State, Indiana, (UNO), where he specializes in family re- and Kentucky. UW decathlete Zach lationships and the sociology of sport. His Performance in the most recent NCAA Ziemek x’16 placed 15th work includes researching the nature of tournament is one factor linked to teams at the World Track and pro-wrestling fandom and the relationship being overrated — behavior that the re- Field Championships in between attitudes toward globalization searchers call “recency bias.” The Bad- Beijing, China. The junior and feelings about soccer. gers have not had many deep runs into the qualified for the national Hawkins recently collaborated with tournament, and Hawkins notes the team’s team by placing third at the USA PHOTOS COURTESY OF UW ATLETICS (2); U.S. ROWING Outdoor Championships with a score of colleagues at UNO, the University of Min- appearance in the championship game this 8,107, making him the second athlete in nesota, and Skidmore College to investi- year wouldn’t dramatically change the Big Ten Conference history to top 8,000 gate how preseason rankings underrate team’s underrated ranking. points in the event. or overrate teams relative to their actual And then there’s “star bias,” the ten- performance on the court. The results help dency to give favor to teams with highly Vicky Opitz ’11 won her explain why some college basketball teams rated recruiting classes, something the third consecutive gold are perennial favorites among sports jour- Badgers don’t usually have. “The national medal in the women’s nalists who vote in the annual poll while media doesn’t quite catch on that [players] eight World Rowing Championships this fall in other talented teams get overlooked. don’t all need to be five-star recruits to France. The boat qualified The study used the results of the Associ- make a really good basketball team,” Haw- for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil, and ated Press Top 25 Poll to examine 115 NCAA kins says. Opitz is among the U.S. team members men’s teams. If a team started the season JENNY PRICE ’96 working for a spot on crew.

On Wisconsin 21 BY TERRY DEVITT ’78, MA’85

PHOTOS BY JOHN HAWKS CHAMBER OF DISCOVERY An astounding find in South Africa adds a new branch to the human family tree.

BY TERRY DEVITT ’78, MA’85

PHOTOS BY JOHN HAWKS

What secrets lie below the surface? Amateur cavers, soon followed by scientists, found surprising, ancient secrets when they entered a network of limestone caves deep below the ground in South Africa. Descending from daylight into the so-called Rising Star cave (at left), they found these bones (above) and hundreds more that together tell a remarkable tale about our human ancestors.

On Wisconsin 23 The first clue was a skull spotted by amateur cavers as they descended deep beneath the ground of South Africa. Before long, an international team of sci- entists, including a UW paleoanthropolo- gist, undertook a remarkable task, bringing to light an unprecedented trove of fossils — more than fifteen hundred well-preserved bones and teeth that represent the largest, most complex set of such remains found to date on the continent. 15At least this They weren’t just any old bones. Writing in two many skeletons scientific papers published in September, the scien- — representing tists revealed that the discovery adds a new branch all ages — were to the human family tree, a creature they dubbed found within a chamber of the Homo naledi. limestone caves And there’s more: the fossils — first discov- near the Cradle of ered in 2013 in a barely accessible chamber, a lab- Humankind. yrinth one hundred feet underground not far from Johannesburg — could only have been deliberate- ly deposited, a behavior by these very early human ancestors that suggests culture. It’s a supposition akin to discovering similar activities among chim- 150 panzees, says John Hawks, a UW professor of an- The approxi- mate number of thropology and one of the team’s leaders. “It would countries with be that surprising,” he says. readers who When announced to the world, the discovery clicked to view a sparked international interest and was covered by UW website that National Geographic (the project’s main funder), launched when 60 Minutes, the Guardian, Slate, National Public the Homo naledi Radio, , the BBC, and many oth- story went public er news outlets. in September. So far, parts of at least fifteen skeletons repre- senting individuals of all ages have been found, and the researchers, led by paleoanthropologist Lee R. Berger of the University of Witwatersrand, believe many more fossils remain. The chamber is part of a complex of limestone caves near what is called the Cradle of Humankind, a World Heritage Site in Gauteng province well known for critical discover- ies of early humans, including the 1947 discovery of 2.3 million-year-old Australopithecus africanus. “We have a new species of Homo, with all of its interesting characteristics,” says Hawks, adding that the find is the “biggest discovery in Africa for hominins,” a subfamily of the taxonomic system that includes humans. Homo naledi — with a small head and brain, hunched shoulders, powerful hands, and thin limbs — was built for long-distance walking, says Hawks, an expert on early humans. Fully grown, it stood about five feet tall, was broad chested, walked up- right, and had a face that included a smile that was probably more human than apelike. The powerful hands imply that it was also a climber. The fossils have yet to be dated. The unmin- eralized condition of the bones and the geology of the cave have prevented an accurate estimate, says Hawks. “They could have been there 2 million years

24 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 As specially recruited cavers make their way through narrow passages to reach the underground chamber, a live video feed (above) shows scientists on the surface their progress — and, ultimately, what they are discovering. Alia Gurtov, a UW anthropology graduate student and one of the cavers, says that the number of pieces of bone they found on the floor of the chamber was “like pick-up sticks. You couldn’t get one thing out without excavating something else.” Huddled around project leader Lee Berger’s computer on site in South Africa (far left), the researchers intently watch via video. Skeletal fossils of a hand (left) — complete with a broad thumb — suggest that Homo naledi was an expert climber.

On Wisconsin 25 Prepping for travel, researchers carefully wrap the bones and pack them into plastic containers after removal from the cave’s wet sediment. Excavation followed forensic techniques (often using toothpicks) prescribed by paleontology. First collected in November 2013, the bones are now housed at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of Witwatersrand, where they are being carefully measured, documented, studied, and reconstructed.

Six scientists, all small in stature, were specially recruited for the expedition, which at first was thought to involve investigating a single hominin skull. “You’re in this initial chamber, and then you have to squeeze through a crevice that opens into [an- other] chamber. ... We knew there was a skull in there. We had no idea we were going to find more than that,” says Alia Gurtov, a UW anthropolo- gy graduate student, second from left.

26 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 ago or 100,000 years ago, possibly coexisting with modern humans. We don’t yet have a date, but we’re attempting it in every way we can. “We depend on the geology to help us date things, and here the geology isn’t much like other caves in South Africa,” he continues. “And the fossils don’t have anything within them that we can date. It’s a problem for us.” One hope, he says, is finding the remains of Nearly 30 early- an animal that may have been a contemporary of career scientists Homo naledi. The fossils are embedded in a matrix were recruited of soft sediment and there are layers that remain to participate unexcavated. in the project, The remains represent newborns to the aged. each selected for The researchers expect that many more bones are expertise in a par- ticular part of the yet to be exhumed from the chamber, which is acces- human anatomy. sible only after squeezing, clambering, and crawling They’ve analyzed six hundred feet to a large space where the brittle the fossils in a fossils cover the floor. workshop-like “We know about every part of the anatomy, and setting, gaining they are not at all like humans,” says Hawks, who both firsthand co-directed the analysis of the fossils. “We couldn’t knowledge and match them to anything that exists. It is clearly a an extraordinary experience. new species.” Naledi means star in Sesotho and refers to the Rising Star cave system that includes the Dinaledi Chamber, where the fossils were found. The circu- itous and difficult passage to the chamber narrows A skeleton begins to take shape in the vault at one point to a mere seven inches. The fossils were at the University of Witwatersrand in South retrieved by a group of paleoanthropologists who Africa. So far, more than 1,500 well-preserved were recruited in part for their diminutive size. bones and teeth have been excavated, repre- In addition to identifying an entirely new species senting the largest, most complex set of such in the genus Homo, the fossils, which bear no marks remains found on the continent to date. from predators or scavengers, are strong evidence that Homo naledi were deliberately interring their dead. “We think it is the first instance of deliberate and ritualized interment,” says Hawks. “The only plausible scenario is they deliberately put bodies in this place.” The cave, he says, was likely more accessible to Homo naledi than it is for modern humans. Geo- chemical tests, however, show that it was never open to the surface, raising intriguing questions about the behavior and technologies available to Homo naledi. “We know it was not a death trap,” Hawks says, re- ferring to natural features such as hidden sink holes that sometimes trap and doom creatures over long periods of time. “There are no bones from animals, aside from a few rodents. And there are no marks on the bones from predators or scavengers to suggest they were killed and dragged to the chamber. We can also rule out that it was a sudden mass death.” “None of this goes together the way we Instead, Hawks, Berger, and their colleagues expected,” says Caroline VanSickle (left), a believe that the chamber was a place where Homo UW postdoctoral fellow who is working with naledi routinely secreted their dead companions. colleagues to piece bones together into a The way the bodies are arranged and the complete- coherent whole. “Homo naledi has this weird ness of the skeletons suggest they were carried to combination of traits that we wouldn’t have the cave intact. “It seems probable that a group of expected to see together.” hominins was returning to this place over a period

On Wisconsin 27 Dawn breaks at the Rising Star Expedition campsite near Johannesburg, South Africa, as the project team readies for another day. The project was supported by the National Geographic Society, the South African National Research Foundation, and the Gauteng Provincial Government. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation also provided support, as did the Texas A&M College of Liberal Arts Seed Grant Program. of time and depositing bodies,” Hawks says. “The bodies were not intentionally covered, and we’re not talking about a religious ceremony, but something that was repeated and repeated in the same place. They clearly learned to do this and did it as a group over time. That’s cultural. Only humans and close relatives like Neandertals do anything like this.” The team has yet to find other organic materials or evidence of fire in the cave complex. Hawks says plans include calling upon many new technologies to analyze the fossils, helping to de- termine diet, rate of aging, and Homo naledi ’s home region. Years of work remain both on and off site. The researchers will continue to excavate new materials and carefully analyze the remarkable find, unlocking secrets of a long-ago human ancestor. . John Hawks, a UW professor of anthropology who is codi- Terry Devitt ’78, MA’85, UW-Madison’s director of research com- recting analysis of the fossils (right), works with Lee Berger, munications, notes that this discovery is among the most exciting a paleoanthropologist from a South African university who is he has reported during his long career. leading the Homo naledi project.

28 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 THE REWARDS OF BEING SMALL

The Homo naledi project leaders intend to publish A handwritten sign marks territory on a small their findings quickly, which will The Facebook query was exacting and cryptic: table where researchers are carefully making provide data and sense of the brittle bones found so far. Shar- access to other “We need perhaps three or four individuals ing the table are colleagues studying the tho- researchers so with excellent archaeological/paleontological rax, and nearby working spaces are dubbed that they might excavation skills. … The catch is this — the Hand Land and Tooth Booth. draw their own person must be skinny and preferably small. conclusions. They must not be claustrophobic, they must be fit, they should have some caving experience, climbing experience would be a bonus …” Alia Gurtov MS’13, a UW anthropology graduate student, fit the bill. “I just applied,” she recalls. “In a very bizarre email, I gave my dimensions and my CV.” Soon thereafter, the Wisconsin researcher was on a flight to South Africa. A bantam frame was needed because Gurtov and five other small scientists were about to enter a difficult and dangerous sub- terranean labyrinth. They would crawl, clam- ber, climb and, finally, drop into a chamber last visited hundreds of thousands — or perhaps millions — of years ago by a lost member of the tribe of humanity, a species dubbed Homo naledi. Traveling from daylight to the chamber was a grueling twenty- to twenty-five-minute com- mute. The scientists were forced to navigate several “squeezes,” including one fifteen-foot section called the “Superman Crawl,” where forward progress required wriggling on one’s belly with arms extended like the soaring Man of Steel. The final leg of the foray, “the worst choke point,” involved slithering down a twelve-foot, crag-studded chute in the dark. The scientists worked underground in six- Teeth are often the first thing examined at to eight-hour shifts for a month. the site of a hominin discovery because they Entering the chamber for the first time was are telltale and tend to preserve well. Here a solemn moment. “It had the feeling of a tiny casts of jawbone and dental fossils from cathedral,” Gurtov says. “It was just so still and comparative specimens are arrayed in the dynamic at the same time. There was a sense vault where the researchers are working. of ages.”

On Wisconsin 29 GETTY IMAGES/PETE MAROVICH IMAGES/PETE GETTY The Good Guy

30 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 The Good TROY VINCENT WAS A STANDOUT IN BADGER AND PRO FOOTBALL, Guy BUT THESE DAYS HE’S DETER- MINED TO REACH A DIFFERENT GOAL LINE FOR THE NFL — AND IT’S PERSONAL.

BY JENNY PRICE ’96

e lived the horror of domestic violence, see- ing the cast on his mother’s broken arm. He Hhid under his bed or huddled in the closet as her boyfriend beat her, trying to escape the screams coming from the other side of the bedroom wall. There were times he and his younger brother called 911, with their mother lying unconscious nearby. Choking back the painful memories, Troy Vincent x’92 told his story. A player in the (NFL) for fifteen years, he now serves as the league’s executive vice president of football opera- tions. Last year, Vincent appeared in Washington before a combative U.S. Senate committee during a hearing on domestic violence in professional sports. The video of running back Ray Rice punching his fiancée and dragging her from an elevator was fresh in the minds of senators who wanted to know what the NFL was doing to prevent similar crimes. “We have to break the culture of silence,” Vin- cent told them. His voice trembled and tears pooled in his eyes as the six-foot-one former defensive back and five- time Pro Bowler recounted the darkest days of his Emotions rose up as Troy Vincent childhood. “We saw how she struggled to seek help described his childhood during a U.S. and find the voice and courage to say, ‘No more.’ The Senate committee hearing on domestic sense of fear, powerlessness, and all the complexi- violence among professional athletes. ties that accompany this violence remain very real for me today,” Vincent told the committee.

On Wisconsin 31 The father of five has advocated against domes- Vincent received a he says. “That’s what Madison did for me.” tic violence for more than twenty years in his role Jefferson Award, As a UW student, Vincent volunteered at food as an NFL player, union leader, and now league known as the Nobel pantries and women’s shelters. He saw himself in executive. And UW-Madison was where he found Prize for public the young kids he met in those places: children of both his voice and a path to becoming a student, an service, in 2012. He single mothers working two or more jobs who often is also the only NFL athlete, and a survivor determined to find ways to player to receive had to take care of their younger siblings. help others. four major honors Halfway through Vincent’s college football expe- for character, rience, Barry Alvarez arrived to take over the losing he Badgers were not a good football team when leadership, and program. At that point, Vincent had begun to con- they recruited Vincent from the Pennsylvania community service: flate his abilities on the field with that of the team’s high school he attended to escape the drugs, 3–19 record during the previous two years. “Troy T Athletes in Action/ gangs, and violence that plagued his Trenton, New was really a gifted athlete but didn’t know it,” Alva- Jersey, neighborhood. Yet he and his mother, Alma, award, rez says. decided to visit Madison on an ideal fall weekend. It 2005 That changed for Vincent in a conversation with was sunny. He tasted a brat for the first time. The NFL Alvarez, when he compared him to Todd Lyght, a people were genuine, and — most important — it Man of the Year, defensive back he had coached the previous season just felt right. 2002 at Notre Dame. Lyght was the fifth overall pick in “Unlike what we see today, where many institu- the 1991 NFL draft — very impressive, but Alvarez tions are trying to sell something they’re not, Wis- NFLPA Byron told Vincent that he was bigger, faster, and more consin was trying to sell me the school’s core values Whizzer White physical than Lyght. “He’s the fifth guy taken. Not and the promise of a first-class education,” he says. Award, 2003 the fifth round. Fifth guy. That’s how I see you,” “Wisconsin was genuine, sincere, stressing tradition Alvarez told him. Sporting News No. and education, and that resonated with the family.” 1 Good Guy, 2003 Vincent’s subsequent performance on the He picked Wisconsin. field earned him accolades, including first-team During the season, Vincent’s relatives piled into All-American, runner-up for the Jim Thorpe an RV and traveled from the East Coast to attend Award as the nation’s top defensive back, and Big as many games as they could. In his office, Vincent Ten co-Defensive Player of the Year in 1991. He keeps a photo of himself from Senior Day at Camp also set the school record for career punt-return Randall, posing with his mother and grandfather, yards. who was wearing giant gloves and earmuffs. During the fall semester of Vincent’s senior “They hated that cold, but they did what they had year, agents called day and night, Piliavin recalls. to do,” he says. “We went home one day and found him in our bed On campus, Vincent struggled with shyness, re- asleep, because he had not been able to sleep the calls Jane Piliavin, a professor emerita of sociology night before because people kept calling him. But who met him during his freshman year, when they that, of course, made him realize, ‘I can be some- were paired in a mentoring program aimed at curb- thing. I can be somebody,’ ” says Piliavin, who ing the high dropout rate among students of color. attended the 1992 draft with her husband and One day he came to her office after arriving late for a class; he couldn’t get up the nerve to enter the lec- ture hall, even though he needed to speak with the HOW TO BE A PRO professor. A veteran NFL player could easily stand back and “We sat on the floor next to the [classroom] door, because I wanted to make sure that he actually did watch a rookie make mistakes. That wasn’t the case, talk to that professor,” she says. though, with John Offerdahl, a Wisconsin Rapids NCAA rules prohibited Piliavin from taking Vin- native who was a veteran linebacker with the Miami cent out to a restaurant for dinner, so he soon was Dolphins when the team drafted Troy Vincent in 1992. spending most Sundays at her home for brunch. Her late husband, Irv, a professor of social work, didn’t “He was one who came and tapped me on my shoul- cook, but he learned how to make omelets. Sausage, der,” Vincent recalls. “He said, ‘Hey, young fella, Coach bacon, and morning buns were plentiful, and Vin- [Don] Shula said that you have an opportunity to be cent usually brought three or four hungry friends a special player. Become a pro first.” Vincent says along with him. He says those Sunday conversations with the faculty couple, combined with his classes Offerdahl taught him key lessons for success in on campus, “stretched my mind in places that I never football and in life: “Always be on time for meetings. thought it could go,” and they guided his life in the Always sit up front. And never come into a meeting years that followed. room without your notebook. Respect every coach, “They shaped how I became a father. It shaped my relationship with my parents, my mom. It shaped because you never know where a coach is going to end what kind of teammate or leader I would become,” up. And respect this game. And you’ll be okay.”

32 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 The father of five has advocated against domestic violence for more than twenty years in his role as an NFL player, union leader, and now league executive. daughter, seeing Vincent selected seventh overall, Vincent’s connec- England Patriots quarterback detail- heading to the . tions to Wisconsin ing his suspension due to “,” allegations A photo of him in his Dolphins uniform hangs in still run deep. His that Brady was involved in tampering with the ball her Madison office, where she still teaches a sum- daughter, Desire, during last year’s AFC championship game. mer course on the sociology of sport. “He would attended the UW He is now working his way through an online and served as a not have told you this,” she says as she pulls a Badger football sports-management graduate-degree program. “I magazine from her file drawer. It’s the July 2003 recruiting assis- told my son I’ll have my MBA before he finishes col- edition of Sporting News, with Vincent gracing the tant. He visits lege,” he says. magazine’s cover as its No. 1 Good Guy. Piliavin dis- campus every Troy Jr. plays for North Caroli- cusses Vincent with her students at the conclusion year, contribut- na State University. Vincent’s son Taron is a high of a section on bad behavior by professional ath- ed to the Camp school sophomore who is already being recruited by letes, reminding them that they won’t hear about Randall Stadi- a number of colleges, including Wisconsin. Vincent the good things some of them do. um renovation, has seven concussions on the books, but he doesn’t and endowed a football scholar- hesitate to say he feels good about the safety of the hen Vincent was growing up, his grand- ship for Badger game today, especially when compared to his rookie father had the family make peanut-but- defensive backs. season in 1992. Wter-and-jelly sandwiches to pass out to hun- “We know more today,” he says. “There are gry people in their neighborhood. When he played natural risks associated with the sport itself, but for the , Vincent did the same we’re trying with all of our power, resources, and with his wife, Tommi, and their children. The family the right partners to [protect] players from unnec- also filled trucks with coats, hats, and gloves to give essary risk.” to those needing winter clothing. The couple formal- ized their charitable efforts in Trenton in the 1990s hen Vincent discussed growing up in the by founding Love Thy Neighbor, a nonprofit organi- shadow of domestic violence so publicly zation that has provided college scholarships, men- Won Capitol Hill, he did so with his moth- toring programs for fathers and college-bound stu- er’s blessing. “People don’t understand what a vic- dents, and school supplies for children in inner-city tim goes through or what that’s like,” he says. “It’s elementary schools, among many other initiatives important to me to be the voice for the voiceless.” over the years. The Vincents also helped to restore a The NFL established a mandatory education park in his old neighborhood where he once played program for five thousand league employees and is basketball, but insisted it be named for his grandfa- training critical-response teams to quickly react to ther, Jefferson Vincent. “He had gardens. He orga- family violence and sexual assault. Earlier this year, nized the community, made sure people got out and Vincent traveled to the Austin, Texas, headquarters voted,” Vincent says. “[He] was a difference-maker.” of the National Domestic Violence Hotline to visit Vincent was short the credits needed to graduate with staff and learn more about the services it pro- when he left Madison for Miami, but he took class- vides to victims. The league is giving the organiza- es at Temple University in Philadelphia while still tion $5 million a year during the next five years — playing in the NFL. He completed his undergraduate money that has allowed the hotline to add staff, seek degree at Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, larger office space, and open shop in Washington, before moving on to earn certificates from executive DC, to lobby lawmakers on key issues. education programs at several universities, includ- Most important, the staff can answer more calls. ing Harvard and Northwestern, and the Wharton Too many were going unanswered for those seeking School at the University of Pennsylvania. He served help, Vincent says. as president of the NFL Players Association for four “If you think of the calls as answered, someone years and then joined the NFL front office in 2010 is being advised properly. Someone’s hearing a voice to lead the league’s player engagement department, on the other end of the phone. That may be the voice which provides support programs for players and that saves their life,” he says. “This is so important, their families. because the difference we’re making is not in foot- These days, his top priority is preserving the in- ball, we’re making a difference now insociety .” . tegrity and the competitive fairness of the game, he says. It was his signature on the letter sent to New Jenny Price ’96 is senior writer for On Wisconsin.

On Wisconsin 33 34 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 Hunters No More A transformative program founded by two UW alumni is training African warriors to protect and honor the majestic animal they once killed.

BY MEGHAN LEPISTO ’03, MS’04

PHOTOS BY PHILIP BRIGGS

On Wisconsin 35 mah-sigh) and other tribal warriors who were once eela Hazzah sits in wait. Scanning the fac- a principal threat — hunting the animals as a source es of those who pass, she and an assistant of prestige and in retaliation for livestock attacks — search for a young man just released from Lion Guardians uses an innovative approach to help jail. His crime: a killing in the African sa- the people and lions of East Africa coexist. vannah. Founded by Hazzah MS’07, PhD’11 and Stepha- L “That’s him,” says the helper, as Kamunu pedals Africa’s lion nie Dolrenry PhD’13, the organization is based in the past on a bike. population has Amboseli ecosystem at the base of Mount Kiliman- Hazzah approaches, and a partnership begins. dwindled to fewer jaro, a critical corridor that connects Kenya’s larg- As they chat candidly about Kamunu’s offenses and than 30,000, down est remaining lion population, from Tsavo National past regrets, her vision of transforming killers into from half a million Park, with the lion populations of Tanzania. More protectors becomes even more concrete. in 1950. Previous than eighty warriors — employed as Lion Guardians spread: A Maasai The meeting helps guide an organization that, warrior stops to — monitor approximately 5,500 square kilometers, now in its eighth year, is making great strides in pro- log information or 1.3 million acres, of lion habitat in non-protect- tecting African lions, one of the planet’s most threat- about the lions he ed lands across the two countries. The ranches and ened species. By enlisting local Maasai (pronounced is tracking. rangelands of these regions support tens of thou-

36 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 sands of pastoralists and their cattle, sheep, and In a confluence goats, in addition to abundant wildlife, from wilde- of ancient and beests and giraffes to hyenas and cheetahs. modern, tribal For the Maasai, cattle represent survival and warriors are using livelihood, a symbol of wealth, status, and pastoral GPS technology to collect field identity, while lions evoke strength and courage. The data as they two have mostly coexisted for millennia, but conflict travel across the is inevitable where livestock and carnivores inter- woodlands and sect, and the herdsmen will kill to protect their ani- grass savannahs mals and to gain status in their community. on foot. “The Maasai have a love and hate relationship with lions,” Hazzah explains. “They hate them be- cause they eat their livestock — they jeopardize sage as Maasai men enter warriorhood, a cultural their livelihood — but they also revere them because coming of age that brings esteem and the admiration they’re powerful animals.” of women. The first warrior to spear a lion during a Lion hunting, though illegal, is also a rite of pas- hunt is given a new Maasai lion name, a sign of pres- tige he carries for the rest of his life. Between 2001 and 2011, Maasai killed more than two hundred lions in the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosys- tem, the equivalent of 40 percent of the population being eliminated each year. While lions kill fewer livestock than other carnivores in the region, they are disproportionately vulnerable to retaliation, and are the easiest to hunt by the traditional methods of tracking and spearing. The conflict increases as human numbers grow and wildlife habitat gives way to towns and pastures, depleting natural prey for li- ons and isolating their populations. During the last century, lions have lost an estimated 80 percent of their historic range.

A LION PRIMER “They’re so beautiful and so big and just cats — they’re just like a house cat,” says Stephanie Dolren- ry, Lion Guardians’ director of science. If your house cat adopted the appetite of an apex predator and could burst to speeds of fifty miles per hour, that is. More about Panthera leo, the African lion: • Largest of Africa’s carnivores; weighs up to 500 pounds • Only feline species found regularly in large social groups, called prides • Primarily nocturnal • Males guard the pride’s territory; females serve as hunters • Prey includes giraffes, wildebeest, and zebras • Roar can be heard up to five miles away • In the population monitored by Lion Guardians, few live past ten years of age • Listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species

On Wisconsin 37 Fewer than thirty thousand lions remain across Colorfully dressed Enrolled at UW-Madison in the Nelson Institute Africa, down from half a million in 1950. As a top in traditional for Environmental Studies, Hazzah began study- predator and the largest of Africa’s carnivores, lions’ clothing framed ing carnivore conservation with an eye toward the presence — or absence — affects all animals and against a dynamics within communities. She traveled to Ken- plants below them. cloudless sky, a ya as often as possible, using breaks from course- Maasai warrior With the threatened species in a tailspin, Hazzah uses 21st-century work to conduct field research. Based in a small and Dolrenry saw that something had to be done. technology to Maasai community, Hazzah worked to understand monitor the lions what drives these tribal pastoralists to kill lions and Perfect for the Job he is tracking. what could be done to stop the practice. Hazzah had been drawn to lions as a child, fascinat- An ailing Land Cruiser helped her along. But due ed by her father’s tales of listening to the majestic to her vehicle’s propensity to break down, Hazzah animals roar in the distance from the rooftop of walked long distances to reach communities, meet- their family home in Egypt. She longed to hear these ing many Maasai along the way. Days were spent same dramatic sounds, but her father explained why attending church services, helping women carry wa- she couldn’t: Egypt’s population of lions had since ter, herding livestock, sipping cups of chai tea over gone extinct. conversation, and observing community dynamics. She was determined to help save the species, and Her little home in the middle of nowhere, as she to one day hear them roar. describes it, didn’t have much by way of amenities, Years later, in the rangelands of East Africa, her but it did have one important feature. “Slowly, tradi- connection to lions grew stronger. Hazzah, who tional Maasai warriors started coming to my home speaks the native Swahili of Tanzania and Kenya, because I was the only place with a radio. That’s had traveled there to study elephant conservation. kind of how I attracted people,” Hazzah says. But before setting out on her own studies each day, As she built trust with the warriors, they told she would accompany a colleague on early morning stories about the lions they had killed. She listened excursions to search for lions. without judgment, and they opened up more and “I found myself infatuated,” she recalls. “Lions more. In all, while working on her master’s thesis, are such an elusive animal and [studying them] was Hazzah conducted more than one hundred inter- more of a challenge. I enjoy challenges.” views and numerous group conversations. The war-

38 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 riors spoke of their animosity toward not only lions, Long fascinated but also current wildlife conservation programs. by — and want- “They started telling me, ‘We feel it’s unfair, ing to protect because all of the jobs are going to educated, older — the majestic people, but we know the bush so well. We would be animals, Leela Hazzah (right) perfect,’ ” Hazzah recalls. “And I thought they were co-founded Lion right.” Guardians, an or- She began to offer the warriors literacy lessons, ganization based and as they learned to read and write, she saw their in the rangelands pride build. The wheels started to turn. What if, of Kenya. Hazzah thought, the Maasai warriors could use their traditional ecological knowledge to monitor and protect lions, instead of to hunt them? “It was what they wanted, and they had all of the skills to do the job,” she says. Hazzah had recognized early on that com- munity participation was absent in far too many conservation programs. For a program to be suc- cessful, she thought, it must involve and bene- fit the people who share the land with the ani- mals, and it must acknowledge cultural values. Building off her conversations with the Maasai and in consultation with other stakeholders, Haz- zah hatched a plan. She approached the Wildlife Conservation Society for funding and, with a grant secured, set the novel idea in motion. Merging a yin and yang of sociology and biology, in 2007 Hazzah teamed up with Dolrenry to launch a participatory conservation program. As the pair If a guardian finds fresh lion tracks, he reports to pursued their doctorates at the Nelson Institute, an base camp by mobile phone and follows the route. interdisciplinary curriculum dotted with wildlife The work merges the warriors’ traditional track- ecology, Swahili, and educational psychology helped ing techniques with twenty-first-century technolo- foster their approach. gies, providing unprecedented access to an elusive species. Guardians learn to use cell phones, track Conservation Instead of Killing radio-collared lions, and mark tracks and sightings The donor-supported organization began with five with a GPS point. young Maasai warriors employed as Lion Guardians The catch is that at the time of their hiring, in communities with the highest levels of lion-live- nearly all of the warriors are illiterate. More expe- stock conflict. Today, across their Kenya site alone, rienced guardians teach the new employees how forty guardians monitor more than one hundred to read, write, and communicate in Swahili, and to lions and have documented almost three hundred of collect and report accurate field data — skills that the animals. fill the guardians with pride. They also like to flaunt Each guardian lives and works in his home com- their tracking equipment; during stops in town, they munity, monitoring on foot different routes assigned sometimes act as if they’re tracking lions with a each week. The guardians travel broad expanses of radio receiver, even though none are nearby. woodlands and grass savannahs to record tracks of “You have to smile and encourage it, because the area’s primary predator and prey species: lion, that’s part of it,” says Dolrenry. “We want them to spotted hyena, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, plains take pride in the job so they can [say to] their peers, zebra, blue wildebeest, Maasai giraffe, and two types ‘I used to be a lion killer, but what did that get me? of antelope — common eland and lesser kudu. Now I’m cool.’ ” They report the number of species tracked, their ages and sex as interpreted from the tracks, and the Enemy Becomes Friend particular lion or lions believed to be present. (Lions Through their monitoring efforts, the guardians are are identified through a unique pattern of whisker able to warn herders when lions or other predators spots, plus other characteristics such as ear notch- are present and help steer livestock away. Guard- es or prominent scars.) Dolrenry, the organization’s ians also reinforce bomas, the thornbush corrals director of science, uses this information to analyze used to keep livestock overnight; demonstrate ways lion presence near communities and species’ fluctu- to better manage livestock to reduce attacks; and ations over time. help recover lost animals and herders — a growing

On Wisconsin 39 problem, as young, inexperienced children are sent UW CONSERVATIONISTS to herd livestock while school and urban job oppor- tunities draw older children away. Along with the Lion Guardians founders, many other “These are young, young children who if left successful wildlife conservationists have UW connec- alone at night could get attacked by hyenas,” Hazzah tions. Among them: says. The work goes toward a key tenet of Lion Guardians: George Archibald, who received an honorary UW degree preventing conflict before it occurs. By reducing the num- in 2004, fulfilled a longstanding dream by cofounding ber of livestock attacks, they lessen retaliatory killings, the International Crane Foundation build community tolerance, and prevent the development George Schaller MS’57, PhD’62, who, as a preeminent of livestock-raiding behaviors among lions and other predators. If livestock are killed and warriors are ready to field biologist, has dedicated more than half a centu- retaliate, guardians intervene, stopping dozens of hunts ry to searching for rare animals, describing them, and annually. finding ways to protect them “Because the majority of the guardians we’ve Amy Vedder MS’82, PhD’89 and her husband, Bill We- hired have killed lions in the past, they’re very im- portant in the eyes of their community — very ber MS’81, PhD’89, who worked with the Rwandan peo- respected,” Hazzah explains. ple to conserve mountain gorillas Still, stopping a hunt often requires a guard- ian to face twenty or more angry Maasai warriors. pened — these fierce warriors with kid lions,” Dol- “They stand in front of people with spears to stop renry says. “Now it’s like a soap opera. They want to them from killing lions. And they’re not doing that know who’s doing what, where their lions are, and because of their salary. They’re more invested in all by the lion’s name.” those lions,” she says. The guardians demonstrate that protecting lions In their daily lion monitoring, the guardians can preserve the warrior’s respected cultural role as admire the animals from afar and collect videos, defender of the community, bring prestige through photos, and stories to share with their communi- employment where opportunities are hard to find, ties. Guardians also name the lions in their area, and deliver a range of local benefits. In 2014, for a whimsical activity that deepens their bond, and example, the guardians improved 481 homesteads, they’re proud when lions under their watch bring recovered nearly 21,000 livestock, and found all of cubs into the world. the 21 lost children reported to them. “It’s something I never dreamed would have hap- The work has delivered results for lions, too. Since the program’s launch, lion killings have been Keeping detailed all but eliminated in regions with Lion Guard- species data is ians. And the guardians and biologists have docu- a hallmark of Lion Guardians, mented a tripling in lion density in the areas of the says Stephanie Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem they patrol — one of the Dolrenry (left), the few places in Africa where wild lion numbers are on organization’s di- the rise. A large percentage of cubs born in the re- rector of science, gion are now making it past their critical first two adding that her years; larger, multigenerational prides are growing graduate training in number; and new males are moving into the area, at the UW led to enhancing the gene pool. a commitment to that scientific mission. Science at Work The conservation solutions implemented by Lion Guardians are based on more than a decade of sci- entific monitoring. It is one of the few conservation organizations with detailed, long-term data on lions living in nonprotected, human-dominated lands. Dolrenry credits her graduate training at the UW with guiding the organization’s rigorous scientific mission. “Learning and understanding science and how to implement it has provided the entire backbone for Lion Guardians,” she says. “We base everything on studies, and we’re very systematic about it.” The group’s research shows that chronic live- stock-raiding lions — animals that few studies

40 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 example, recently traveled more than two hundred kilometers north to Nairobi National Park — a jour- ney that researchers believe hadn’t been document- ed for at least two decades, Dolrenry says. But not all lion travels end well: since the group’s inception, more than one hundred lions have been killed in surrounding areas outside its jurisdiction. Scaling Up By expanding its operations, building and strength- ening partnerships, and sharing its model, Lion Guardians is now working to promote the move- ment and protection of lions across important adja- cent habitats along the Kenya-Tanzania border and beyond. This is essential, Dolrenry says, because lions’ survival depends on genetic diversity, and few protected areas in Africa are large enough to sup- port sustainable populations. “If we can increase tolerance to allow lions to move through the landscape and breed, we’re keep- ing those populations viable for the long term,” she says. “That’s one of the most impactful things we can do as conservationists.” In 2014, the organization launched the Lion Guardians Training Program, with assistance from Victoria Shelley MS’10, to train new guardians and apply the organization’s model across other cultures, species, and locales. Built on land donat- ed by the Maasai leaders of Amboseli, the center’s construction was funded largely through the St. Andrews Prize for the Environment, one of several prestigious international awards the organization has received for its innovative approach. Hazzah was also named a Top 10 CNN Hero in 2014. Hazzah describes herself as tenacious, and Stan- ley Temple, the Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation, remembers her determination. “She was one of the students who right from the have previously examined — make up less than 20 More than 80 beginning stood out,” he recalls. “Her vision, her percent of the population in Amboseli but cause an warriors have passion, the fact that she was so single-minded about estimated 90 percent of attacks. Orphaned older now been trained what she wanted to do, that was pretty unique.” cubs are especially likely to turn to stock-raiding, to monitor lions For the lions of East Africa, thanks to Hazzah’s so the organization is targeting efforts to discourage across 1.3 million foresight and the compassion of Maasai warriors, acres in Kenya their bad behavior as they grow into adulthood. and Tanzania. the future looks less threatening. Kamunu, the Dolrenry also discovered that the home range warrior Hazzah met after his release from jail, was for lions in Lion Guardian territories averages thou- inspired to join Lion Guardians in 2009. He has sands of square kilometers — more than twenty to since been promoted to regional coordinator with forty times greater than the range of lions in nearby the organization, awarded for his eloquence and protected areas. By helping lions roam human-domi- leadership. nated landscapes, she realized, the organization pro- And Hazzah has achieved her childhood dream of vides connectivity between protected populations. experiencing lions in her midst, now many times over. “We’ve seen this over the years in areas where “When I hear lions roar, any doubt that I have, [I we work,” she explains. “Lions move out of neigh- think to myself], ‘We’re doing it, we’re actually mak- boring protected areas and maybe were hunted ing a difference,’ ” she says. “It’s a constant reminder [in the past], but now guardians and collaborators that we’re on the right path.” • stop the hunt, and those individuals can survive and breed. Then their offspring can disperse and may Meghan Lepisto ’03, MS’04 is marketing and communications reach another population.” coordinator for the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. A cub from a Lion Guardians’ monitored area, for For more about Lion Guardians, visit lionguardians.org.

On Wisconsin 41 Chasing Abloh

GETTY IMAGES, BRAD BARKET/OPPOSITE PAGE PHOTOS COURTESY VIRGIL ABLOH VIRGIL COURTESY PHOTOS PAGE BARKET/OPPOSITE BRAD IMAGES, GETTY The hunt for UW-Madison’s most elusive designer.

BY CHELSEA SCHLECHT ’13

Some months ago — never mind how long, exactly — having little to no expectations, and nothing in partic- ular to lose, I thought to do a story on Virgil Abloh. Haven’t heard of Abloh? You will. Since graduat- ing from UW-Madison in 2003, he has thrown caution and his engineering degree to the wind to build an em- pire of music, fashion, and celebrity connections. The music world knows him as DJ Flat White, famous for playing the hottest London dance clubs. Recently, he and French DJ Guillaume Berg formed a group under the Bromance record label called Paris, IL — which, if you haven’t heard, had an A-list crowd surfer during its set at the Coachella music festival. It was rapper and cultural icon Kanye West, who also showed up during Abloh’s set at the Bromance after-party. For more than a decade, Abloh has served as Kanye’s creative director, a role that he described to New York Magazine as “basically just [helping] him see his vision through.” Virgil Abloh shows his But more than his music career, and perhaps even Wisconsin colors more than working as Kanye’s “all-purpose cultur- at the Coach al guru,” as the New York Times called him, Abloh is show during New known for his clothing line, Off-White. York Fashion Week this past “OFF-WHITE c/o VIRGIL ABLOH is a fashion September. He’s label,” reads the brand’s website, “rooted in current wearing The Red culture at a taste-level particular to now.” Shirt ™, Limited The now is achieved by a “real-world, feet-on-the- Edition by Virgil GQ Abloh, a special ground type of design approach,” Abloh told . It’s T-shirt he created an approach that has earned him the honor of being to help raise the only American finalist for the prestigious Louis money for UW Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) Prize. This past May, scholarships. Abloh flew to Paris to present his collection, along The models at right are wearing with seven other designers. clothes from his So Abloh is a busy man. Trying to find a sliver Off-White Spring/ of time in his star-crossed schedule seemed nothing Summer 2014 short of impossible until, finally, a breakthrough. and 2015 collec- tions. Following a flurry of last-minute emails and several international text messages, Off-White’s PR manager said Abloh could spare an hour to meet with me in person. Less than twenty-four hours later, I jumped in

42 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 my car to make the 250-mile round-trip to Chicago. a week away, and Abloh is the type of man you drop My 2005 Pontiac Vibe clunks down North Green everything for. So I sit in an empty conference room, Street, which is lined with gastropubs and artisanal glancing at my phone, waiting for Abloh. At 12:50, the pizzerias. To my left is an alleyway lit with hanging phone rings. Amid a symphony of Manhattan traffic, Edison bulbs — the entrance to a restaurant special- Abloh’s tenor cuts through the phone. izing in smoked meats. To my right, slightly hidden He is a fan of long pauses and big words. He ex- by a line of discarded Lincoln MKTs awaiting their pounds on simple questions by instead answering valets, is our meeting spot: Soho House. others that you had never planned to ask — not unlike The interior of Soho House, Chicago’s newest Kanye, his mentor. Perhaps it’s a trait that’s rubbed members-only hotel/spa/club “for creative souls,” off in the thirteen years the two have spent work- looks like somebody raided a log cabin and your ing together. They were first introduced after Abloh grandmother’s house to furnish an old factory. And received his master’s in architecture from the Illinois yet, it’s easily the chicest place I’ve ever been. I perch Institute of Technology, which he completed immedi- on the edge of a pheasant-patterned beige-and-blue ately following his undergraduate education. couch and place my recorder on the gold rim of a At the UW, Abloh studied civil engineering at the glass table — moving in slow motion. The slightest advice of his father. Though he was “sort of irrever- dent could cost me the value of my aforementioned ent” toward the major, he doesn’t regret it. “Every- clunker. thing I did, in some way, made this result happen,” Abloh texts me: he’s running behind schedule. Abloh explains. In studying engineering, he learned That’s understandable, as the clock is ticking down on how to multitask and problem-solve — the basis of his LVMH presentation. He’ll let me know when he’s his career. “I have a philosophy on problem-solving, I twenty minutes away. guess,” he says. I review my notes. Abloh is from Chicago’s Lin- A pause. I ask what that philosophy is. coln Park, two neighborhoods north of the Fulton “There’s … remnants of juxtaposition,” Abloh pos- Market District and Soho House. But it’s in this area its. He expatiates on the idea that functionality and that he’ll launch his latest venture: a restaurant, modern humor are part of his approach to design, co-owned with several of his buddies. Perhaps he’s and that each solution should serve a purpose. “Sort following in the footsteps of New York City restau- of vague answers,” he concludes, “but that’s, like, a rateur Gabe Stulman ’03. The two were roommates vague question.” for five years while at UW-Madison and were known But then Abloh is vague, particularly when it for hosting sophisticated dinner parties rather than comes to discussing his upcoming LVMH presenta- throwing pre-game keggers. tion. “It’s a little bit theoretical,” he begins. Fashion As I read, a well-dressed young man places an critics have characterized Off-White as a high-mind- Afternoon Tea menu on the table in front of me. He ed streetwear line, but for Abloh, the term streetwear asks if I’d like to order a drink. “No, thank you,” I re- has yet to be formally defined. This lack of definition spond. “I’m waiting for someone.” is what his award presentation aims to rectify. “My Forty minutes later, he comes back. He compli- attempt is to add layers of sophistication to it and ments my necklace, stalling. “Sorry, I’m still waiting,” I explain. “Really, he should be here any second.” Through several rounds of awkward encounters, This past May, Abloh the waiter and I proceed from small talk to micro- scopic. He stops checking on me. I peruse the After- flew to Paris to present his noon Tea placard, glancing up each time a Porsche or Lincoln passes the floor-to-ceiling window. A tall collection along with seven blonde woman wordlessly swaps out the Afternoon Tea menu for the evening’s Small Plates offerings. I other designers. debate ordering the mini truffle grilled cheese for ten dollars, but decide against it. It would be rude to be bolster up the reason why it’s important for now,” eating when Abloh arrives. he says. (The LVMH Prize was ultimately awarded to One hundred and fifty minutes later, I get a call. Marques’Almeida, a British label.) Too many things have come up, and Abloh won’t be Focused on the now, he is reluctant to chart a plan able to make it. We agree to speak over the phone for his future. “I’ll just hopefully have a long career on Thursday — he’ll be en route to Manhattan in the doing what excites me,” he says. And as Abloh’s em- morning but will give me a call in the afternoon. I pire continues to grow — from music to fashion to shell out half a day’s paycheck in the parking ramp restaurants — I’m guessing he will. and head for home. When he finds the time.. Thursday passes into Friday. At 11:30 a.m., Off- White’s manager says Abloh could call me at 12:30, Chelsea Schlecht ’13 is a writer for On Wisconsin and is working for one hour only. The LVMH awards are less than on her vague questions.

On Wisconsin 43 44 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 Born to Swim

Decades after graduation, six alumni defy sharks, aging bodies, and ocean swells in a race across Hawaii’s Maui Channel.

BY ANDY MOORE ’86

PHOTOS BY JASON MOORE

On Wisconsin 45 the UW, I hopped on it. I figured I’d never have a reason to travel to Wisconsin again. I’d take Bucky’s free flight, party for a few days in the Big Ten, and then, on schedule, become an Auburn University War Eagle. “Where were you this weekend?” my mother asked. We were in my parents’ powder-blue Grand Prix at the Louisville airport upon my return from Madtown. I had just told her of my change in plans. “Wisconsin,” I said. Madison has a way of draw- ing you in. No one was more surprised than the Auburn coach, since his school had the number-one swim program in the country. On the other hand, let’s face it — in the mid-seventies, sports were not Bucky’s forte. But State Street? The campus? The capitol? The lakes? Have you ever been to Opelika, Alabama? It was a no-brainer. Previous spread: Ho’omaka’ana The Beginning In time, along with getting to know the Plaza Author Andy We had tossed through two nights of jet-lagged sleep Bar’s jukebox by heart, I achieved world ranking in Moore powers before the Royal Lahaina’s elevator doors opened at the 200 breaststroke, got a diploma, married a girl through the azure 5:30 a.m. to reveal four nearly naked, tattooed men from Milwaukee, raised three children, and sprinted waters of Ha- clutching tall-boy cans of Hawaiian beer. They had, into middle age. waii’s Maui Chan- as Hunter S. Thompson put it, “the fear of Lono” in So along with everything else swimming has nel (technically known as the their eyes: the kind of menacing, rum-soaked stare provoked in my life, it was only a matter of time Au’au Channel) that suggests good times could collapse into calami- before it also caused a reunion. In Hawaii. This past during his leg of ty at any second. September. Exactly forty years after my arrival at a nine-mile relay I could relate. Maui waters host more tiger-shark the UW. race. Above, from attacks than anywhere in the islands, and in three left, Doug Bosley, hours, I’d be swimming in the deepest part of the Ohana Family Moore, and nine-mile Au’au Channel between little Lanai and Competing on an NCAA Division I sports team is team captain Art Kaanapali Beach. Hell, at least shark attacks are like joining a fraternity, only without the annoying Luetke chat on the way to Lanai quick. Better that than the brutal southern rip that rituals and pastel shirts. Plus, you get to travel. The at sunrise for sweeps around Kahoolawe. That craven current has downside is that it’s like having a forty-hour-per- the start of the tossed swimmers seven miles north to Molokai — if week job while you’re in college. competition. they were lucky — and to the outer Pacific Basin, if But oh, man, the ohana. they weren’t. I was recruited to swim at the UW by Brad Horn- “Aloha,” I offered as the doors closed on the er ’77, MS’80, ’83, MBA’90, whose list of degrees is elevator dudes. They resumed their crazed ascent. nearly as long as his swim accomplishments. The Beazer and I, a.k.a. “The Lost Boys” (missing items Pan American butterfly medalist also recruited me between us so far: one phone charger, one set of to join the relay for the 2015 Maui Channel Swim, headphones, one swimsuit, one sunglasses case, one the oldest continuously running rough-water race in wristwatch), punched the down button. We were the world. The Grumpy Old Badgers, as we called running late for our ride to the Lahaina Pier, where ourselves, entered three six-person teams in the even now Captain Norm Ham was loading fresh channel swim. My team, the Silver Bullets, was a bananas into the cooler strapped to his 1999 fishing rogue’s gallery of UW alumni swimmers from be- boat, My Girl. fore, during, and after my time on campus. But wait. Before I tell you about the beginning of Minneapolis native Jim “The Beaze” Pohle ’76 is the day, I should tell you the start of the story. Badger swimming royalty. His father, the late Paul Pohle ’43, is a UW Swimming Hall of Fame back- Pu’iwa Surprise stroker. Beazer was a sprinter at the UW with a long No one told me froze. That would reach, which came in handy midway in the channel have been good to know. Had I known, this Ken- race. tucky boy would have readjusted his college choice As manager of the swim team when I was at from UW-Madison back to Auburn. Fact is, I’d Madison, Steve Katz ’77 of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, already given the Auburn swim coach a verbal com- can claim to have woken me up for morning practice mitment. In 1975, that was a good-as-gold promise. approximately seven hundred times. While I was on Still, when I got the call for a recruiting trip to Maui, Steve called to tell me I was late for a team

46 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 picture. Some things never change. Lanai. Luetke called for a warm-up and then a team If Katz woke me up seven hundred times, Silver meeting in the water. A cheer was sent up for the Bullets team captain Art Luetke ’68 shot a pistol at Grumpies. We patted Bosley for good luck and sent me seven hundred times. Well, not at me, but into him to shore. Hawaiian the air at Big Ten home meets. After his own impres- Back aboard the My Girl, the radio was tuned Islands sive swim career, Luetke became one of the confer- to the designated race channel. The receiver’s om- ence’s most respected deck officials. The Madison inous hiss was interrupted by a voice giving final real-estate developer swims like a seal at age six- ty-nine. In addition to his full-time work as an IT consul- tant, Racine native Doug Bosley ’85 is the election commissioner of Somerville, Massachusetts. The most serious masters swimmer among us, Bos- ley led us off from the beach at Lanai and plowed through the choppiest segment of the race in later legs. Australian Neil Rogers x’77 was a finalist in the 100 butterfly at both the ’72 Munich Olympics and the ’76 Montreal Games. To say he’s well known among Australian swimmers is a Down Under-state- ment. Whenever we passed an Aussie boat during the channel race (or it passed us), someone would yell across the water, “Hey, mate! Is Neil Rogers aboard?” Rogers now coaches the Bondi Icebergs Swim Club in Sydney.

Mana’olana Hope The Beaze and I strolled up to the Lahaina pier as instructions just before the 8 a.m. start. Team mem- Moore prepares the marina came awake. One by one, the Grumpy bers’ ages were added together to determine team to dive into the Old Badgers appeared on the deck. We stared off in categories. The Silver Bullets, 362 years old, quali- channel for the the direction of Lanai’s silhouette, wondering what fied for the Grand Makule division, along with seven first leg of his we had gotten ourselves into. other teams whose boats had to fly a green flag. swim. We climbed aboard the My Girl and Captain Green swim caps helped the Makule teams spot Norm steered her through the Lahaina Harbor. their lead-off swimmers, and when the starting flag Maui born, Hawaii proud, Norm was used to having dropped at 8:07, my stomach dropped with it. wealthy anglers on board. You know, people pull- ing things out of the water, not diving into it. We Eha’eha Pain explained our specific needs: keep the boat on our “Where’s Boz?” became our chant breathing side. Props in neutral as we come off and almost immediately. on. Watch for other swimmers. Help us read the The waters were a currents. confusing gumbo The Silver Bullets chatted above the thrum of of swimmers the diesel motors as we made the one-hour cross- and boats. ing to Lanai. I grabbed two bananas, savored their Experi- sweetness, and watched the sun slowly rise over enced the towering Mauna Kahalawai range of west Maui, growing more distant by the minute. Molokai

Kinohi Loa The Very Beginning Forty-three million years prior to our departure for Lanai, Maui was one big island. Volcanic erup- Au’au Channel tions split the mass into four smaller islands: Lanai, Molokai, tiny Kahoolawe, and Maui. The underwa- ter bowl that is the Au’au Channel, over which we Lanai swam, is a mere three hundred and fifty feet deep in Maui the center. In winter, it’s a protected hot tub for the humpback whales that swim in for a three-month- long orgy. We anchored one thousand yards offshore from

Kahoolawe On Wisconsin 47 swimmers can recognize a person in the water by me? And I have two fake hips? Yeah, that. the shape of his or her stroke. I dove off the bow of the My Girl after Rogers and Bosley has a high recovery, the crook of his Beazer finished their first legs. The adrenaline shot elbow framing his face when he breathes to the through me so hard that for a moment I didn’t notice left. After ten minutes of searching, we found him how warm the water was in the middle of the chan- — in the upper middle of the pack and with a swim- nel. After a summer of record Hawaiian heat and mer immediately behind him drafting on his toes. cross curls of hurricanes, it was hot. Too hot. But Against the rules! man, was it clear. Crossbeams of sunshine darted down, down, through the limitless, blue depth. The surface water was relatively calm. Just beneath was another story. That southern rip was pulling my suit off, dragging me toward Molokai — the wrong island. Twenty minutes in, my body burned from the inside out. While captains of other, much fancier boats had been watching their million-dollar electronics, Captain Norm had been watching the setting of the moon. Old school. His corrections, and a hell of a lot of yelling to our teammates, helped us maintain our position in the sleeves of currents. In Olympic competition, finishing in the top three is called medaling. At the Maui Channel Swim, it’s called toweling for the beautiful, customized beach towels awarded to the top three teams. We wanted those towels. That’s why we kept track of the green-flagged boats as we stroked our way to Maui. The old com- petitive juices boiled over. The Beaze swam the last leg to Maui, crashing home on a shore break in a glo- rious display of body surfing, then running up the beach to the finish line. The UW’s Silver Bullets placed third.

He wai e ola Water Water is to Hawaii what jazz is to New Orleans. A mainlander looks at a saltwater sea and says you can’t drink it. A Hawaiian says you can’t live without it. I thought about the blessing of water in my life as The Beaze and I rested on our hotel balcony after the race banquet, sipping our last cold beers of the night. We gazed out toward Lanai, where our day had begun — 4,127 miles from Bascom Hill. In the salty, still night air, voices arose from the hotel pool seven stories below. I looked. Even from that distance, there was no doubt in my mind that the father and son were local. They were in the midst of the small child’s first snorkeling lesson. Top: The author Each swimmer does a thirty-minute leg for one The boy got it. Head down, he wiggled across the loosens up in the rotation followed by ten-minute legs until the finish. surface like a water snake. Awash in pool lights and shallow waters Bosley got us well into the channel. Rogers was up against the black bottom, the long white sleeves of off Lanai before next. We started peppering him with encourage- their aqua shirts lit them up like they were an X-ray. the race. Above: ment. “Don’t get me too revved up, mate,” he said It may have been the fatigue, but the sight sparked Badger alums cel- ebrate their suc- as he strapped on his goggles. “I want my last fifteen within me a profound connection to them. cess with W hand minutes to be better than my first fifteen.” I was witnessing the first strokes of another boy signs and general As I soon found out, trying to pace ourselves was who was born to swim. . good cheer. Right: a tall order. You don’t train for months and travel for Moore is shown miles just to take your time about things. Still, an Andy Moore ’86 is senior news producer at Wisconsin Pub- from below unexpected calm came over me just before my first lic Television, an award-winning freelance writer, and a banjo mid-channel. leg. But did I tell you my left shoulder was killing player.

48 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 On Wisconsin 49 All In on All Ways Forward With pomp and passion, UW-Madison launches into its fourth comprehensive campaign.

BY JOHN ALLEN PHOTOS BY JEFF MILLER Colonel William F. Vilas is more than a century dead, but it’s a pretty safe bet that he’d be on board with All Ways Forward. It’s possible you aren’t familiar with All Ways Forward — not yet, anyway. This is the name for the comprehensive campaign for UW-Madison, publicly launched last month at an event in the Kohl Center. It’s certain that you should, at least in a small way, know who Colonel William F. Vilas 1858, MA1861 was. Most of you have been to Vilas Zoo (named for his son Henry). Many have spent time in Vilas Hall. (If you studied journalism or mass com- munication, you spent a lot of time there.) But Vilas was much more than the building and zoo that carry his name. He was a lawyer and a Civil War hero and a lumber baron. He served the UW as a professor and as a regent, and he served the nation as secretary of the interior, as postmaster general, and as a U.S. senator. Still, that’s not what makes us think he’d support All Ways Forward. The key piece of his legacy is what he did when he died: in 1908, Vilas left his entire es- tate, $1.8 million, in trust to the UW for the purpose of funding distinguished research professorships. Vilas was the first alumnus to put serious money behind enhancing UW teaching and research, and his gesture inspired followers (although the trust didn’t begin paying to the UW until after Vilas’s daughter died in 1960, so some of his followers’ gifts actually preceded his). Still, it was a slow-burning trend. Between Vilas’s death and November 2014, the UW built up 142 fully funded, endowed chairs and professorships: an average of 1.3 per year. That slow burn sparked to high flame last November, when John ’55 and Tashia ’55 Morgridge offered $100 million in matching funds to support faculty chairs and professorships. Over the next seven months, donors responded, and the Mor- gridges upped their offer to $125 million, so that the university will receive $250 million. That more than doubled the number of fully funded chairs and pro- fessorships, so the total tops 300. Vilas wanted to see the UW become a leading institution in perpetuity, and that’s what the cam- paign is about: creating large-scale change to ensure the university’s stature. All Ways Forward, notes UW-Madison Chancel- lor Rebecca Blank, is “only the fourth comprehen-

50 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 All In on All Ways Forward

sive fundraising campaign in our history — and by With a chorus of far the biggest,” with a goal of bringing in $3.2 bil- “Varsity,” Chan- lion by the end of the decade. cellor Rebecca Though the university has been through a rough Blank sent the year with Wisconsin’s legislature — swallowing a big new campaign into high gear at budget cut and changes to tenure that made faculty a launch party in more than a little unhappy — Blank insists that the October. Above campaign isn’t about patching holes in state support. (from left, flanked It’s about building on UW-Madison’s excellence. by members of “We are, and we intend to remain, a top-ranked, the UW Band) are world-class university,” she says. “There’s not a John Morgridge, single institution of higher education in the United Blank, Tashia States that doesn’t increasingly depend upon its Morgridge, and Mary Sue ’81 friends and alumni. Gift dollars don’t replace other the final goal. That includes the Morgridges’ gift, as and Mike ’80 funds, but they help us leverage them.” well as a $50 million matching gift for scholarships Shannon. The campaign’s public launch during Homecom- from Albert ’52, MBA’55 and Nancy ’55 Nicholas; Former Badger ing week in October was a moment of pomp and fan- two gifts from The Grainger Foundation, adding up football player fare. Blank announced the goal to a crowd of nearly a to $47 million, to support the College of Engineer- Mark Tauscher thousand students, faculty, staff, and members of the ing; and a $28 million gift of art and funds for art ed- ’99, MS’03 (left) Madison community. The event included presenta- ucation from Jerome ’48 and Simona x’49 Chazen. served as one tions that highlighted four strategic priorities: “These are the kinds of gifts that transform a of the event’s providing student support campus,” Blank says. “They strengthen our ability to emcees. Opposite • are scenes from • improving the student experience attract top-notch teachers and researchers, who in the evening, • maintaining faculty excellence turn make us more competitive for federal research which brought • supporting research and innovation dollars and help us to attract the best faculty, staff, together faculty, But though the launch was last month, the and students.” alumni, donors, campaign has actually been underway (in a “quiet And they’re the kinds of gifts that Colonel and students. phase”) for more than two years. Since July 1, 2013, William F. Vilas would understand. • the UW Foundation (which is UW-Madison’s offi- John Allen is senior editor of On Wisconsin. For more about cial fundraising and gift-receiving organization) has the campaign, see allwaysforward.org. received more than $1.2 billion, about 38 percent of

On Wisconsin 51 OnAlumniAlumni News at Home and Abroad

Geraldine Hines JD’71 2015 Hines, the Massachusetts Supreme Court associate justice, is the first African Distinguished American woman to serve on that state’s Supreme Court. After growing up in the Alumni Awards segregated south, she decided to become a civil rights lawyer. In nominating Hines Four alumni who to the court last year, Governor Deval make us proud Patrick said, “At both the Superior Court and the Appeals Court, she’s been a be- The Distinguished Alumni loved and respected colleague, praised by judges and lawyers alike for being smart, pre- Awards, which date back to 1936, pared, fair, tough, decisive, warm, thoughtful, and gentle. All at the same time.” are WAA’s highest honor and in- dicator of general awesomeness. Steve Levitan ’84 ART STREIBER The awards recognize alumni for The co-creator and executive producer exceptional professional achieve- for ABC TV’s Modern Family, Levitan ments, contributions to society, has ushered the family sitcom into the and support of the university. modern era. He has written and pro- For more on the award winners, duced series such as Wings, Frasier, see uwalumni.com/awards. The Stark Raving Mad, Greg the Bunny, Ol- deadline for 2016 nominations is iver Beene, Just Shoot Me!, and Back to December 1, 2015. You. His numerous honors include nine Emmys, five Writers Guild Awards, two While on campus, Geraldine Hines Humanitas Prizes, a Peabody Award, five Producers Guild Awards, a Comedy Writer of participated in the black student strike. the Year Award, four American Film Institute awards, two Television Critics Awards, and She learned how the law could be used a Directors Guild of America nomination. as a tool for racial and social justice, and she has taken on many civil rights Alice McPherson ’48, MD’51 cases throughout her career. McPherson is one of the foremost retinal specialists in the world. She founded the Last year, Steve Levitan participated retina service at Baylor College of Med- in a video for the UW (now on YouTube) that featured his advice for students. icine and the Retina Research Founda- tion in Houston, Texas, and her support McPherson House at the UW School of was critical in the establishment of the Medicine and Public Health is named to McPherson Eye Research Institute at recognize Alice McPherson’s contribu- UW-Madison. She has served on the UW tions, and her portrait and bronze bust Foundation board of directors for twelve also grace the medical school. years. McPherson founded the UW Ophthalmology Alumni Association and has been responsible for establishing endowed chairs and lectureships at the university. She was a The popular Goodspeed Family Pier on the Mendota lakefront is named in hon- UW-Madison commencement speaker in 1995 and received an honorary degree in 1997. or of the family of Michael Shannon’s wife, Mary Sue Goodspeed Shannon. Michael Shannon ’80 The founder of KSL Capital Partners, a $6.5 billion private equity firm that in- vests in the hospitality and real estate industries, Shannon is a director for the UW Foundation and has served on the Wisconsin School of Business dean’s advisory board. He and his wife, Mary Sue, have provided financial support to the School of Business, the Lakefront Gateway Project, and the School of Human Ecology. Shannon is also a recipient of the 2010 Wisconsin School of Business Distinguished Alumni Award and the 2012 Schaffner Award from ’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

52 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 Tradition Bascom Hill Snowball Fights OnAlumni JEFF MILLER

The University of Wiscon- WHAT’S YOUR fogged and askew. A man in a years, and one of only eight in sin-Madison has seen its share FAVORITE UW banana suit reached for a fallen history.) of civil wars. During the Ameri- TRADITION? comrade, who must have been The 2009 snowball fight saw can Civil War, more than 70,000 Tell On Wisconsin quite chilled, as he was clad only nearly four thousand combat- soldiers trained in what is now at onwisconsin@ in a Speedo. ants, just short of what was one of the greatest college uwalumni.com, The event had been or- needed to break the record. But and we’ll find out football stadiums in America if it’s just a fond ganized on Facebook several that didn’t dampen the flame: — Camp Randall. And then, memory or if it’s weeks earlier as an attempt to the Battle for Bascom continued nearly 150 years later, hoards still part of cam- break the unofficial record for to become a tradition. Sub- of students descended upon pus life today. the world’s largest snowball sequent fights took place on Bascom Hill for what came to be fight. A perfectly timed snow February 2, 2011; December 20, called the Battle for Bascom: an day was a happy accident ... 2012; and February 8, 2015. So epic snowball fight between the or was it? As snow blanketed far, Lakeshore is undefeated. Southeast and the Lakeshore Madison the evening of Decem- Though millenials may argue residence halls. ber 8, 2009, students took to otherwise, the very first Battle On December 9, 2009, Twitter to ask then-chancel- for Bascom actually took place troops from the Southeast lor Biddy Martin for the day many years ago, on a snowy day launched snowballs at the brave off. Then, at 7:45 p.m., Martin in 1923. Rather than residence Lakeshore residents on the front famously tweeted that campus hall communities drawing a line lines. The Lakeshore brigade would close. Just minutes later, in the sand (er, snow), UW law was unyielding, pushing forward residents of Sellery and Ogg and engineering students duked until it claimed Bascom. As the commenced a smaller skirmish it out. There was no document- battle fizzled, the carnage was across the impassable Dayton ed winner (but our money’s on clear: beards were crystallized Street. (This was the first full the engineers). with icicles, eyeglasses were campus closure in nearly twenty CHELSEA SCHLECHT ’13

On Wisconsin 53 OnAlumni Class Notes

40s–50s books (so far) about world gov- Clemente: The Passion and Grace The 2011 painting titled Crucial ernments, the latest of which is of Baseball’s Last Hero (Simon & Eye is the signature image for Governments from Hell: Govern- Schuster), with plans to develop the first collections exhibition ment-Sponsored Oppression and a feature-length biopic about held in the Berkeley [California] Terror (iUniverse). the late Pirates star Art Museum’s new building, BOOK NEWS Roberto Clemente. which opened this summer. It’s Please complete To say that Michael Perel- the work of author and artist and submit 60s man ’71 is eminent in his field Sylvia Fein (Scheuber) ’42 of the form at John Newhouse MS’60 cares is just plain understating it. He’s Martinez, California, who’s been uwalumni.com/ so deeply about his home com- a clinical professor emeritus of termed both a surrealist and a go/bookshelf. munity of Whitewater, Wiscon- psychology in psychiatry, repro- We then post magic realist. Many of Fein’s submissions to a sin, that he’s spent the last twen- ductive medicine, and urology at earliest paintings are in the Cha- Wisconsin-alumni ty years as a founding member Weill Cornell Medical College; zen Museum of Art collection on section of the of the board of the Whitewater a codirector of the Human the UW-Madison campus. book website Community Foundation, a group Sexuality Program at New York In March, Lucille Koehl Goodreads at that enhances the city’s quality Presbyterian Hospital; a private Wilcox ’47 celebrated turning goodreads.com/ of life and advances the educa- practitioner in New York City; ninety, and her husband of six- wisalumni. A tion of its young people. When the editor-in-chief of Current ty-seven years, handful of the the past principal of Whitewater Sexual Health Reports; and the Ralph Wilcox books posted x’48, reached eighty-nine. In there will also High School retired from the founder of the MAP Education August, the Onalaska, Wiscon- appear in each board this year, a Founders’ and Research Fund. sin, couple also toasted the one issue of the print Scholarship was created to hon- R. (Rajinder) Paul Singh hundredth anniversary of the magazine. or him and two other founders. MS’72 is the World Agriculture family farm in Darien, Wiscon- The career of Jagdish Prize laureate for 2015 — an sin. Lucille was president of the (Jack) Bhatt MS’63 of Wesley honor conferred in September UW’s chapter of Phi Beta and CLASS NOTES Chapel, Florida, includes re- by the Global Confederation for earned two additional degrees. SUBMISSIONS search; authoring fifteen books, Higher Education Associations Ralph was a navy pilot before classnotes@ the latest of which is Triumph for Agriculture and Life Sci- attending college. We thank uwalumni.com of the Bold: A Poetic Reality ences. On the UC-Davis facul- granddaughter Allison Arlt Class Notes, (CreateSpace); and teaching ty since 1975, Singh is now a Suchon ’03 of Madison for Wisconsin Alumni earth and marine sciences at distinguished professor emeritus sharing this news. Association, several colleges. Boasting eight who’s made an international Interspersed with her time 650 North Lake UW-alumni relatives who add name for himself in energy con- as an educator, Betty (Mary Street, Madison, to his family’s broad body of servation, freezing preservation, WI 53706-1476 Elizabeth) Risley ’50 of accomplishments, he concludes, post-harvest technology, and Wauconda, Illinois, spent many “Our respective career success mass transfer in food processing. years volunteering in Nigeria, began in the enlightened epicen- Crittenton Women’s Union, Cameroon, and American DEATH ter of UW-Madison.” a Boston-based nonprofit that NOTICES AND Samoa through Lay Mission- NAME, helps low-income women and Helpers — an international ADDRESS, their families to become eco- Catholic service organization TELEPHONE, 70s nomically self-sufficient, has — and became its first board AND EMAIL Every year, you’ll find photos by welcomed Mary Laymon Cole- president. Risley seems richly UPDATES Reggie Gauger ’70 among the man MA’76, PhD’90 as its new deserving of the group’s first an- alumnichanges@ finalists in theWisconsin’s Great chief operating officer. Along nual Ernst Ophuls Award, which uwalumni.com Lakes! calendar competition with her extensive research in she received in September. Alumni Changes, sponsored by the state’s Depart- rural poverty, Coleman’s thir- Charles Bingman ’52, Wisconsin Alumni ment of Natural Resources. In ty-plus years in higher education MBA’56 of Falls Church, Vir- Association, the 2014–15 edition, his photo include her most recent post as ginia, is on his fourth career. 650 North Lake of two bald eagles graced the No- dean of Lesley University’s Col- First: senior federal-government Street, Madison, vember 2014 page. Gauger has lege of Liberal Arts and Sciences, executive with the Office of WI 53706-1476 a great fan in fellow Sheboygan where she founded its Initiative Management and Budget, Feder- 608-262-9648 resident Jim Schultz ’63, who on Child Homelessness. al Transit Administration, and or toll free applauds the former longtime “An amazing, immersive NASA. Second: graduate-level 888-947-2586 UW employee’s devotion to fam- writing opportunity in Ireland”: educator at George Washington (WIS-ALUM) ily, community, and nature, and sounds enticing, yes? This and Johns Hopkins Universities. his uncommon skill at fishing. summer, John DeDakis ’77 Third: consultant for projects Legendary Pictures has ac- of Washington, DC — a writing in thirteen far-flung countries. quired the rights to Madisonian coach, University of Maryland– And fourth? He’s authored six David Maraniss x’71’s book College Park adjunct faculty

54 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 member, and former CNN senior Hossein Jadvar MS’84 counsel for Smart Sand, an copy editor for The Situation has taken the helm of the Soci- industrial-sand supplier. Room with Wolf Blitzer — joined ety of Nuclear Medicine and “These teachers are shaping Irish wordsmiths to lead work- Molecular Imaging as its 2015– America’s success through their shops at the Ireland Writing WHO ARE YOU, 16 president, and he’s recently passion for math and science,” Retreat in Gweedore, Donegal. ANYWAY? earned the Academy of Radiolo- said President Obama when he (Participants also played a wee There’s a lot of gy Research’s Distinguished In- named 108 educators as recipi- bit of golf.) DeDakis is at work confusion about vestigator Award as well. Jadvar ents of the Presidential Award on the fourth book in his Lark what graduates is a tenured associate professor for Excellence in Mathematics should call Chadwick mystery/suspense themselves. Let of radiology and of biomedical and Science Teaching. Among series, Bullet in the Chamber. us help! One engineering at the University them was Leif Carlson ’86, male graduate of Southern California’s Keck a middle-school math teacher at is an alumnus; School of Medicine in Los Ange- Jefferson Community School in 80s one female grad les. He also holds a second MS, Minneapolis. The honorees were Roughly 670 operators have is an alumna. a PhD, an MD, an MPH, and an lauded at a summer ceremony in driven the 92 Original Wiscon- Call an all-male executive MBA. Washington, and each received a sin Ducks — by far the nation’s group or a mixed The Acoustical Society $10,000 prize from the National group of male largest collection of World and female grads of America (ASA) has recog- Science Foundation. War II–era amphibious vehi- alumni, and refer nized Laurel Carney MS’85, Margaret German Mucha cles — during their 70 seasons to an all-female PhD’89 — a professor in the ’86 is the new global director of of operation in the Wisconsin graduate group as Departments of Biomedical regulatory affairs at Milwaukee’s Dells. More than half of those alumnae. Engineering, Neurobiology and Mortara Instrument, a developer drivers returned for a reunion in Anatomy, and Electrical and and manufacturer of diagnostic June — a glorious weekend for Computer Engineering at the cardiology and patient-monitor- Dan Gavinski ’80, who began University of Rochester [New ing technologies. She was most as a teenaged parking-lot atten- York] — with its Hartmann recently the director of regula- dant for the Ducks and is now Prize in Auditory Neurosci- tory affairs for GE Healthcare. its general manager and part ence for her research to better If you want to make a owner, and a guiding force in the understand the links between significant change to the land- amphibious duck–tour industry. auditory physiology and audito- scape of La Crosse, Wisconsin, “I was interviewed about ry perception or behavior. And, you’ll need to clear it with the being a world-class technology as the accreditation body for city’s new planning director, expert, attorney, entrepreneur, acoustics, vibration, and noise, Jason Gilman ’87. He’s also and award-winning author,” “Our ASA has tapped Christopher an adjunct professor of political writes Stephen Lesavich ’81, respective Struck ’85 as its new accred- science at Winona State Univer- JD’95 about a March 2015 itation standards director. He’s sity and UW-La Crosse, as well #WORLDCLASS magazine piece career the founder, CEO, and chief as a former planning director of called “On the Edge of Every- success scientist of CJS Labs, a San Winona County, Minnesota, and thing.” He’s the owner of a pub- began in the Francisco–based consulting firm Onalaska, Wisconsin. lishing company and heads the enlightened that specializes in audio and According to Human Lesavich High-Tech Law Group electroacoustics applications. Resource Executive magazine, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. epicenter We regret that we printed one of the Nation’s Top 100 Most Did you know that UW- of UW- Molly Gribb ’85’s name incor- Powerful Employment Attorneys Madison has one of the top Madison.” rectly in the Fall 2015 issue. of 2015 resides in our Badger construction engineering and Jagdish (Jack) By a unanimous vote in June, midst. Scott Beightol JD’88, management programs in the Bhatt MS’63 Madisonian Regina Millner a Milwaukee-based Michael Best nation? Tom Gunkel ’82 of JD’85, MS’91 became the UW & Friedrich partner, is the only Minnetonka, Minnesota — the System Board of Regents’ new Wisconsin lawyer on the annual CEO of Mortenson Construc- president, and John Behling list, and it’s his fourth consecu- tion and a UW-Madison adjunct JD’00 of Altoona, Wisconsin, tive appearance. faculty member — has shown joined her as vice president. As part of the 2015 Healthy tireless support of that program, Both have been regents since Iowa Awards program, Ann the College of Engineering, and 2012. Millner’s career as a Mansfield MS’88 has accepted its students — support that’s lawyer and commercial real the Visionary Leadership Award earned him a 2015 Lifetime estate consultant spans more on behalf of all of the partici- Achievement Award in the than thirty years, and she’s held pants in the Northeast Iowa Food Engineering and Construction many board-leadership roles. and Fitness Initiative: an eight- Industry from UW-Madison’s Behling is the executive VP of year, six-county, collaborative Construction Club. regulatory affairs and general effort to “create community

On Wisconsin 55 Recognition Michael Molnar PhD’71 COURTESY OF MICHAEL MOLNAR conditions where the healthy choice is the easy choice for children and their families.” Mansfield is Luther College’s coordinator for the initiative. The Rocky Mountain Student Media Corporation at Colorado State University in Fort Collins has chosen Pete Waack ’88 as its new president and CEO. Since 2001, he’s been the general manager of Syracuse Universi- ty’s award-winning Daily Orange independent student newspaper. “I believe I have an obliga- tion to serve students in liberal arts colleges so they can learn in STAR OF BETHLEHEM COMING INTO FOCUS the best possible ways and have Astronomers typically make their discoveries by pointing a telescope into opportunities in their lives to the night sky. But astronomer Michael Molnar PhD’71 discovered what contribute meaningfully to their he believes is the identity of the most famous star in history by studying communities,” says Marc Roy his coin collection. PhD’89 upon becoming the In astronomy classes that he taught at Rutgers University, students new provost and vice president often raised questions about the Star of Bethlehem at Christmastime. for academic affairs at Albion Molnar gave the conventional and inconclusive explanations that began [Michigan] College. He’d served with pioneering astronomer Johannes Kepler four hundred years ago. as provost and chief academic But then a Roman coin depicting a ram and a star led him into the officer at Baltimore’s Goucher ancient world of astrology and an unexpected key. “I’m an astronomer, College since 2007 and is the not an astrologer,” Molnar says. “I had to learn what astrologers of two board chair of the American thousand years ago would have looked for in the sky for the birth of the Conference of Academic Deans. king of the Jews.” His research suggested that a moon passing in front of Jupiter (an occultation in astronomical terms), while it was in the zodiacal territory 90s of Aries the Ram, would signal the birth of an important king of the Jews. Vel Phillips: Dream Big Dreams He calculated that such a rare occultation, with Jupiter as a morning star (Wisconsin Historical Society (“in the east”), occurred in 6 BC on April 17. “Then I knew I had the answer Press) is the first Wisconsin to the Star of Bethlehem,” he says. Public Television documentary It was a different, yet logical, approach. “Molnar deserves credit for from producer/director Robert his research into the astrological context,” says Peter Barthel, a professor Trondson ’90. First aired in of astrophysics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. February 2015, it chronicles In 2014, that university celebrated its four hundredth anniversary the inspiring life story of civil with a colloquium focusing on the Star of Bethlehem. “Molnar’s theory rights trailblazer and 2013 WAA was central in our meeting,” Barthel says. And while scholars quibbled, Distinguished Alumni Award it’s clear that Molnar had identified a phenomenon that had meaning for winner Vel (Velvalea) Rodger those who saw symbolism in celestial objects. Phillips LLB’51, who became “The nature of the Star of Bethlehem must be astrological, not astro- Wisconsin’s first African Amer- nomical,” says Louisiana State University astronomer Bradley Schaefer. ican judge and its first African “The scholarly community has largely been converted.” American female secretary of Molnar can claim to be living under a benevolent star of his own. state. The film’s producers hope While pursuing his PhD in astronomy in 1970, he worked long nights in that it will foster conversation Sterling Hall. Shortly after midnight on August 24, he became hungry and about equity and race relations. sought out a vending machine, which jammed and wouldn’t give him his The cover of the University money back. Frustrated, he left early. of Illinois–Chicago (UIC) alumni Three hours later, a bomb went off, killing researcher Robert magazine’s Summer 2015 issue Fassnacht and destroying part of Sterling Hall and the work of many welcomed UIC’s new chancellor, students, including that of Molnar. With the help of faculty and fellow Michael Amiridis PhD’91. students, however, he was able to complete his degree in 1971 and A native of Greece and a first- continue his career in astronomy. generation college student, GORDON GOVIER ’73 he was a longtime chemical

56 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 engineering faculty member, re- enteen U.S. patents as a result court ruled in her favor. searcher, and provost at the Uni- of his work for Battelle, which Have you ever toppled a tow- versity of South Carolina. Now operates PNNL for the U.S. er of folded clothes because you at UIC, Amiridis is characterized Department of Energy. Holladay wanted the item on the bottom? as a catalyst for change who’s was also named PNNL’s 2010 Joe Kuipers ’97 and Sami focusing on students above all, Inventor of the Year and is a (Samuel) Swift Kuipers ’97 the university’s distinction in “I believe leader in national biofuels and want to fix that problem with research, and its future expan- I have an bioproducts consortia. EZSTAX: a set of flat dividers sion in the health sciences. obligation Timpani Capital Management that interlock in the back and Congratulations to Laura — as in the kettle-shaped drums flip up individually so that any Nelson MD’91, the new vice to serve — is what Brandon Nelson item stored in the stack — from president and chief medical students in ’94, MS’96 called the Milwau- T-shirts to towels to paperwork officer for the northern division liberal arts kee boutique investment firm — can be pulled out smoothly. of Prevea Health. Now based in that he cofounded in 2008, just a A Kickstarter campaign worked Green Bay, Wisconsin, she spent colleges so few months before … well, we all marvelously to fund the No- the previous twenty-one years they can remember the Great Recession. komis, Florida, couple’s product. with Marshfield [Wisconsin] learn in “We started the firm with only $1 Which Badger made Scientif- Clinic, most recently as its chief the best million of assets under manage- ic American’s latest Worldview medical officer. possible ment,” he says, but despite the 100 list? He’s journalist Luke Kristine Ackerman timing, “[we] manage over $300 Timmerman ’97: among the Sperling ’92, JD’98 and ways and million today.” But where do the magazine’s picks for the one Daniel Sperling ’94 are the have oppor- drums come in? Nelson has been hundred most influential folks wife-and-husband founders of tunities in a percussionist since fifth grade in biotech. (Bill and Melinda Makes 3, which offers a line of and wailed on the snares for four Gates are in the list’s top ten, soaps and balms made with cer- their lives years in the UW Marching Band. so Timmerman’s in eminent tified organic ingredients — with to contrib- His experience culminated with company.) He’s the founder and lotions, hair-care products, home ute mean- the 1994 Rose Bowl. editor of the Timmerman Report aromas, and cleaning products ingfully to While he was an undergrad — a Seattle-based subscription on the way. The couple says that their com- researcher in the UW physics publication that provides in- their Santa Barbara, California– department, Kurt Retherford depth biotech news and analysis based company grew out of their munities.” ’94 began studying the moons — as well as a frequent speaker “journey from unconscious living Marc Roy PhD’89 of Jupiter. Now at the South- and Forbes contributor. He’s at and serious health concerns west Research Institute in San work on his first book,Hood: to an integrated and organic Antonio, Texas, he’s the lead Trailblazer of the Genomics Age. lifestyle that is built around scientist for one of the nine In 1998, William Belcher intentional and balanced choices instruments that NASA plans PhD’98 of Mililani, Hawaii, made to nurture our lives.” to include on its next mission to began working as a forensic An innovative project Jupiter’s moon Europa. Rether- anthropologist/archaeologist, that demonstrates the ability ford recently used the Hubble lab manager, and deputy lab of low-impact development X-PLANATION Space Telescope to codiscover director at the Defense POW/ practices to effectively handle An x preceding evidence of large water-vapor MIA Accounting Agency’s stormwater and flooding has a degree year plumes emitted from Europa’s Central Identification Labora- earned Brett Emmons MS’93 indicates that the icy surface that may connect to tory, which searches for and — CEO of the water-resources individual did not a habitable, subsurface ocean. identifies the remains of missing engineering firm Emmons & complete, or has Women argue between 11 and U.S. service members. He’s now not yet complet- Olivier Resources in Oakdale, ed, that degree at 16 percent of cases before the accepted a post as an archaeol- Minnesota — a National Grand UW-Madison. U.S. Supreme Court (depend- ogist and instructor at the Uni- Award from the American ing on whom you ask), and in versity of Hawaii–West Oahu. Council of Engineering Compa- that minority is where Wendy Is Wisconsin home to nies. His approach may serve as Miller Seffrood Ward ’96, majestic mansions and grand a national role model. JD’01 stood in April. She’s family retreats? You bet, and Among the Pacific Northwest a patent litigator and partner Michael Bridgeman MA’98 National Laboratory’s (PNNL) in the Madison office of the of Mazomanie tells about six of top innovators is Johnathan intellectual-property law firm its most beautiful and intriguing Holladay PhD’94 of Kenne- of Merchant & Gould, but she as the host of the documentary wick, Washington. The proof? stepped out of her usual arena Remarkable Homes of Wisconsin. In May, he was named one of to argue an excessive-force case Now available as a DVD through two 2014 Battelle Distinguished for a pro bono client in Kingsley the Wisconsin Historical Society Inventors for procuring sev- v. Hendrickson. In June, the Press, it’s full of video and photos

On Wisconsin 57 OnAlumni Class Notes of the homes and interviews with Congratulations to Brian group manager at R.A. Smith their owners. Jon Hornbacher Blackader ’03! Most recently National, a civil engineering and ’92 of Oregon produced the film the executive VP of strategic surveying firm based in Brook- for Wisconsin Public Television. accounts for Europe, the Middle field, Wisconsin. His proud wife, WISCONSIN East, and Africa for Teleperfor- ALUMNI Jenna Sachs Kastner ’07, mance Germany in Dortmund, ASSOCIATION shared this good news. 00s he’s now its CEO. The global firm (WAA) Would you prefer to shop for Quarles & Brady’s Madison provides multichannel custom- MEMBERSHIP groceries online rather than in office recently earned an award er-care services and experiences. If you’re already a store? Madisonian Jeremy from the Dane County Bar After completing his first a member of our Neren ’05 is betting that a lot Association for providing pro year as an assistant professor of merry band, thank of people in midsized markets bono aid to survivors of domes- law at the University of South you! If you’re not, would. That’s why he’s the tic violence. Carolina in Columbia, check out all the founder and CEO of GrocerKey, Emily Feinstein Bryant nifty reasons to JD’01, a partner in the law Walker Smith ’03 says that become one at which offers a free software firm’s litigation and dispute-res- his work on the legal and policy uwalumni.com/ platform through which retail- olution practice group, codirects aspects of self-driving cars has membership/ ers — such as Wisconsin chain a program to represent people received quite a bit of attention, benefits, and join Woodman’s — create their own seeking domestic-violence and including an interview that ap- the WAA commu- online, branded stores, and then harassment injunctions, as well peared in the June 2015 issue of nity at uwalumni. they prepare and deliver orders as a legal clinic for clients of Popular Science. As an expert on com/membership. to customers. Neren learned the Domestic Abuse Intervention legal issues related to emerging grocery ropes through Mad- Services. technologies, he shared his take town Munchies (later Munchie The highest accolade that on the newfangled cars’ pros, Delivery): an online, on-demand the Commonwealth of Kentucky cons, and future. campus food-delivery service awards is commission in the “I recently graduated with that he launched in 2006. Honorable Order of Kentucky my bachelor’s of science in Whom has Produce Business Colonels, and Anthony nursing,” began a note from Magazine fêted with one of its Lamanna MS’01, PhD’02 Jenny DiLegge Jackson ’04 40 Under 40 Awards for 2015? is now such a colonel. The — and it was summa cum laude “I’m so She’s Melissa Copas Sylte nonprofit organization honors with a 4.0 GPA, no less, from proud … ’05, the marketing manager at extraordinary accomplishments the University of Colorado. She RPE, a second-generation family and service by people from all now works in the high-risk labor but even farm in Bancroft, Wisconsin, walks, and its members do good and delivery unit at University prouder to that grows and ships potatoes works and serve as Kentucky’s of Colorado Hospital in Denver. continue and onions year-round. She’s goodwill ambassadors world- “I’m so proud,” she concludes, to rock my introduced several consumer wide. Lamanna is an assistant “but even prouder to continue to brands, helped RPE to develop professor of construction man- rock my red Reebok shoes that red Reebok strong internship and commu- agement at Eastern Kentucky I bought on State Street more shoes that nity-outreach programs, and University in Richmond and than a decade ago!” I bought on served as a leader within the the chief engineer of Lamanna You can belly up to the bar — State Street Wisconsin FFA [Future Farmers Engineering Consultants. or, rather, the barre — at either more than a of America] Alumni Association. Salmon rarely make an ap- of Betsy (Elizabeth) Wong Knowles Science Teaching pearance in Class Notes, so thank ’04, JD’09’s The Barre Code decade ago!” Foundation fellows are prom- you, Nic Mink ’02, PhD’10, fitness studios: in downtown Jenny DiLegge ising, early-career math and for this opportunity. While Milwaukee’s Third Ward or in Jackson ’04 science teachers who receive earning his PhD, Mink worked suburban Brookfield. She also stipends, professional develop- in community outreach in Sitka, tied the knot recently with An- ment, materials grants, a Alaska, where he envisioned a drew Williamson ’02. Thanks national support network, and way to deliver fish to Midwest to Chicagoan Aaron Werner the opportunity to lead and consumers — and in 2012, he ’04, JD’08 for letting us know. mentor in the future. Among founded and became president After earning the 2014 Wis- the thirty-four educators who of Sitka Salmon. His process in- consin Young Engineer of the make up the 2015 cohort of volves cleaning, vacuum-sealing, Year Award from the Milwaukee this five-year fellowship are deep-freezing, and shipping fresh Metro Chapter of the Wisconsin Meghan Mosher ’06, who fish by barge and then overland Society of Professional Engi- teaches biology in Louisville, to Galesburg, Illinois. The busi- neers, John Kastner ’05 went Colorado; Helen Dauer Yan ness has been expanding rapidly, on to claim the same prize state- MS’11, a chemistry instructor in thanks in large part to salmon- wide for 2014–15. He’s an MBA Madison; and Erin Oakley ’13, philes in Chicago and Madison. candidate at Marquette and a who’s helping students to tackle

58 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 Recognition Laura Neuman ’89, JD’93 CHRIS HALE math in Janesville, Minnesota. If you’re a fan of The Big One with Marques Pfaff — broadcast weekday afternoons on WSCO sports radio in Wisconsin’s Fox Cities area — that’s sports dev- otee and host Marques Pfaff ’06 you’re listening to. He was a Badger football walk-on, began his radio career in Madison and Milwaukee, and worked in sports PR in Las Vegas before joining WSCO. Thanks to proud sister Allison Pfaff ’09 of Onalaska, Wisconsin, for the heads-up. Sports have always been a big part of Annie Nelson Thomas ’07’s life. She began KEEPING WOMEN IN THE KNOW playing basketball in fifth grade, Journalists often get the credit for shining light into the dark corners continued tearing up the court of government. But Laura Neuman ’89, JD’93 (at right, with Cleotilde as a Badger star, provided radio Vasquez, the assistant secretary for the Presidential Secretariat for color analyses for Wisconsin Women in Guatemala) has a better idea: empower citizens to demand women’s basketball, and served transparency from their elected officials. She’s worked in nearly forty as an assistant coach for the countries, mostly in the developing world, to advance laws designed to Cleveland State University reduce corruption and promote human rights. women’s squad. While at the Neuman is the director of the Global Access to Information Program UW, she met Joe Thomas at the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based nonprofit founded by former x’09 — then a Badger football president . She’s especially focused on helping to improve player, and now her husband the access to government information for vulnerable populations — and an eight-time an interest that stems from her years as an advocate with Legal Action tackle for the Cleveland Browns. Wisconsin. Neuman regularly filed freedom-of-information cases to The Thomases recharge during better understand government policies and to make sure that her mostly the football off-season at their elderly, minority clients received their public benefits. She found that Wisconsin farm, and they’re white women often received benefits for longer periods than Latina or active in Cleveland causes that African American women. defend animals and children. Neuman was gradually inspired to shift her career toward public Here’s a most unusual health, and she happened to visit the Carter Center during a visit to boy-meets-girl scenario. Boy’s Atlanta. Shortly after, the center offered her a position. “There were only parents see impressive girl two things I understood when I came [to the Carter Center],” she says: representing UW-Madison “how to work the phone system and the value of access to information.” as a semifinalist in the 2008 On one trip to India, Neuman saw that value on display. She watched Jeopardy! College Champion- as poor, illiterate residents gathered to listen as an aid worker read their ship. Boy’s parents tell him he health care rights out loud. The residents were upset to learn that sixteen should emulate her. Four years government-purchased hospital beds had mysteriously gone missing. later, boy happens to meet girl “After the meeting, you could see a little parade of beds being brought at a wedding. Boy and girl hit it back,” she recalls. “Doctors and nurses had taken them.” off and begin a long-distance re- When Neuman started at the center in 1999, only a couple dozen lationship. Girl eventually meets countries had passed freedom-of-information laws. Now more than boy’s parents. Boy’s parents real- one hundred have implemented such laws, and Neuman’s team has ize she’s the one from Jeopardy! influenced many. Now physicians, the “girl” — Recently, former president Carter encouraged Neuman to conduct Suchita Shah Sata ’08 — and studies on women’s access to information in Liberia, Guatemala, and the “boy” — Siddharth Sata — Bangladesh. She found that women are less likely than men to ask for were married in May and began and receive information about a wide range of topics. Much of her work work in July at Duke University now centers on addressing this problem and others that she’s identified. Hospital in Durham, North “This isn’t an issue of one country or continent. It really is reflective of Carolina. She’s a hospitalist, the state of women around the world,” she says. “When you give people and he’s a fellow in regional and information, it can transform their lives.” ambulatory anesthesia. SANDRA KNISELY ’09, MA’13

On Wisconsin 59 Diversions

SALUTATIONS, BIBLIOPHILES! Check out the new UW-alumni section of Goodreads at goodreads.com/wisalumni for much more news about books by Badger alumni and faculty.

When Girl gets lost With deer season fast while playing hide- approaching, the timing and-seek, her heart is lousy for the sher- “thumped a … trem- iff of Beaver Rapids, below sound” that only Wisconsin, to be thrust very special friends into a quirky, dou- can hear — and Dragon ble-homicide investiga- did. Barbara Monnot tion in the deliciously Joosse ’71’s lyrical, dark, satirical Residue delightful-to-read-aloud (Red Hen Press). It’s Evermore Dragon (Can- the latest from cult dlewick Press) is soon author Jim Knipfel DON’T STOP BELIEVING to become a musical ’87 of , New Even people who don’t particularly care about through Milwaukee’s York, a long-time New basketball were — they had to admit — pretty First Stage children’s York Press staff writer darned excited last spring when the Badgers theater. She lives in whose column “Slack- made it to the Final Four and then to the national Cedarburg, Wisconsin. jaw” has appeared championship. widely since 1987. Patrick Herb ’01, the assistant director for The many lessons that athletic communications for Lisa (Elisabeth) Organic Struggle: UW-Madison men’s basketball, Wilde ’78 has learned The Movement for has chronicled the whole glorious during seventeen years Sustainable Agriculture adventure in Make ’Em Believe: as a teacher in a sec- in the United States The Inside Story of the Badgers’ ond-chance New York (MIT Press) analyzes Road to the 2015 Final Four (KCI City school have gone how organic farming Sports Publishing) — and just into Yo, Miss: A Graph- has grown from an in time to honor head coach Bo ic Look at High School obscure, countercul- Ryan’s final year with the team (Microcosm Publish- tural practice to a before retiring. ing). The debut graphic multi-billion-dollar in- Make ’Em Believe’s foreword comes from book that she’s written dustry — and how the National Player of the Year Frank (Francis III) and illustrated gives nation can build on its Kaminsky ’15, and Ryan provided the afterword. voice to her students achievements. Author The book gives Badger fans a behind-the-scenes and challenges mis- Brian Obach MS’94, look at one of the most successful basketball conceptions about who PhD’00 is a professor teams in UW history, playing in the university’s first they are and what they of sociology at the State NCAA national championship game since 1941. The need to graduate. University of New York players provided fans — and the nation — with so at New Paltz. many memorable moments that made them “Mid- Screenwriter and film- western nice” media darlings who have been talked maker Eric Williams How has Madison about long after March Madness ended. ’83 of Prairie du Chien, ascended as a culinary The book also comprises firsthand accounts Wisconsin, has written destination? Find out from the players and Ryan on key moments of the and directed the docu- in Madison Food: season, recaps of all of the tournament games, mentary Unforgettable: A History of Capital player and team features, extended coverage of the the Real-Life Adven- Cuisine (History Press), Final Four victory over Kentucky and the national tures of “the Human coauthored by librar- championship game against Duke, plus more than Google” about his ian Nichole Fromm one hundred full-color photos — including many brother, Brad Williams, MA’04 and Jon-Mi- never-published-before gems that Herb took. whose hyperthymesia chael Rasmus. Since To receive a 20 percent discount, purchase allows him to recall in 2004, the pair’s Eating the book at uwalumni.com/shop using promo great detail the events in Madison A to Z blog code UWALUM. of nearly every day of has chronicled their his life. Among Eric’s dining adventures other credits are Mad at nearly a thousand City and Lip Service. area restaurants.

60 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 OnAlumni Class Notes

It’s a long process to meet as Harvard. Intrinio has hired lowships on Nicholas Derr ’15. rigorous eligibility requirements Conor Farley ’10 as its direc- He’ll use it to earn a master’s in and then pass a comprehensive tor of business development, applied mathematics and theo- exam to become certified with and Rachel Carpenter’s big bro, retical physics during a one-year the American College of Micro- Andrew Carpenter ’10, is its intensive program at Cambridge biology’s National Registry of new strategic commander. With University (yes, we’d call that Certified Microbiologists — but all of these Badgers, “it’s hard intense), followed by a PhD in Sharon Altmann PhD’09 has for the one Penn State guy [on applied mathematics at Harvard. achieved it and acquired a new, staff],” says Andrew, “but I think “I learned Founded in 1897, Phi Kappa Phi impressive title as a certified we’ll keep him.” so much is the nation’s oldest and most Specialist Microbiologist in Bio- Can the moon provide selective collegiate honor soci- logical Safety Microbiology. She power for Earth? As a NASA about the ety for all academic disciplines. puts her new credential to work space technology research people of The Saint Andrew’s as a staff scientist at MRIGlobal fellow who’s affiliated with this beauti- Society of the City of Mil- in Frederick, Maryland. the Kennedy Space Center and ful country.” waukee — which is keeping While completing his mas- working through UW-Madison’s the love for Scotland alive in (Maria) Fernanda ter’s of geographic information Fusion Technology Institute, De La Torre ’15 America — has bestowed its science degree at the Univer- Aaron Olson ’12, MS’14 has 2015 scholarship on Aidanne sity of Minnesota–Twin Cities, been trying to figure that out. MacDonald-Milewski ’15. Devon Piernot ’09 competed He’s helping to build prototype She used it to attend the summer on a team that won the 2014 Esri equipment that can demonstrate archaeology field school at Ness Climate Resilience App Chal- the extraction of helium-3 and of Brodgar, a Neolithic village lenge with its Minnesota Solar other volatiles from the moon’s in Orkney, Scotland. This fall Suitability Analysis app. He now resource-rich soil to fuel nuclear she began attending the Cana- works for Esri as a platform con- fusion reactors on Earth. Ulti- dian College of Naturopathic figuration engineer. “Better yet,” mately, of course, the goal is to Medicine in Toronto and looked says proud papa and news bearer get the equipment to the lunar forward to becoming part of that Bill Piernot ’77 of New Berlin, surface and set it to work. city’s Scottish community. Wisconsin, “[Devon] married San Francisco–based prod- Sally Richie ’09, MSW’12.” uct designer Tom Rohlf ’12 This summer, Alex has created the Voting Game: OBITUARIES Obituary Wehrley ’09 returned to a an adult party card game that Badger Insider, As the madcap vice president of setting that no doubt held many “uncovers the hilarious truth be- the Wisconsin the Wisconsin Student Associ- memories. The former Miss hind your friendships” because Alumni Asso- ation in the late seventies and ciation’s (WAA) Wisconsin USA was tapped to in each round, players vote thrice-annual early eighties and a member of cohost the Miss USA pageant anonymously for the player they magazine for the Pail & Shovel Party — the just days before the live event believe is best described by the its members, wacky student-government on July 12 after the original question. It launched in Decem- is home to the group that institigated the plas- hosts dropped out following ber 2014 to great success, and great majority of tic flamingos on Bascom, Lady controversial remarks by pag- Rohlf began a Kickstarter cam- obituary listings Liberty on the lake, boom-box eant part-owner Donald Trump. paign in July to fund expansion of WAA members parades, and toga parties — Wehrley is a Venice, California– packs. Thanks to Taylor Luse and friends. former student Leon Varjian based actress and TV host. ’12 of L.A. for passing this on. made a permanent impression (Maria) Fernanda De La on the hearts and memories Torre ’15 barely had time to of UW alumni, Madison, and 10s return her commencement gown the nation. The free-spirited In St. Petersburg, Florida, in May before flying off to El kid-at-heart became a dearly Joseph French ’11, MAcc’12 Salvador. There, as the global beloved, unforgettable, and mul- and Rachel Carpenter ’12 are village coordinator for Habitat tiple-award-winning high school infusing the world of financial for Humanity’s UW-Madison math teacher who instilled data with Badger innovation as chapter, she and seven other civic awareness in his students the founders of Intrinio. The new women worked alongside local and was a tireless advocate for firm has developed a proprietary masons and family members people without homes. He died process that provides investors, who will live in the home near in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, in startups, and students with Ahuachapán. “I learned so much September. Thanks for the fun. the real-time data they need to about the people of this beauti- analyze publicly traded stocks, ful country,” De La Torre says. Class Notes/Diversions editor Paula and they assist Fortune 500 Phi Kappa Phi has bestowed Wagner Apfelbach ’83 did, in fact, just clients and universities such one of six $15,000 Urann Fel- fall off the turnip wagon. That hurt.

On Wisconsin 61 Your life, your plan.

You’ve made choices, and you’ve reaped the rewards. Being in charge of your own legacy is part of who you are. If there’s a plan, you’re going to be the one to make it.

To discuss your goals and ways to give back to the UW, contact Scott McKinney in the Office of Gift Planning at the University of Wisconsin Foundation: [email protected] or 608-263-4545 supportuw.org/gift-planning Student Loan Payments Made Easy

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OnWisc_8,375x10.875_October.indd 1 10/2/15 10:07 AM There goes Bo Ryan’s parking space.

Dear Coach Ryan, As avid UW alumni and Badger fans, we’re ecstatic to hear you are going to continue your incredible career. Unfortunately, we are unable to continue holding your penthouse apartment. Should you change your mind again, please do give us a call. We’re here when you’re ready.

Sincerely, Capitol Lakes

Want to know more? You + Madison. retirement.org/madison Capitol Lakes is an Equal Housing Opportunity On Wisconsin 65 Destination Greenbush Bakery BRYCERICHTER (4)

Students and alumni have flocked to the sweet oasis famous for fresh, kosher donuts since 1996, when Greenbush opened its doors at the corner of Regent and The bakery makes thousands Greenbush employs twenty Orchard Streets. Late-night customers get to of donuts each day, selling more people, including students. indulge, too. Greenbush stays than fifty varieties. The most Some invite owners Marv and open until 3 a.m. for those popular is one of the simplest: Barb Miller to their weddings. out after midnight on Fridays the glazed, sour cream old- The couple has considered and Saturdays. Donut-making fashioned. The giant apple expanding, but Barb says, starts at 6 a.m. and continues fritters are a close second. “Bigger is not always better.” throughout the day.

66 On Wisconsin WINTER 2015 Sharon Weber, MD My Promise Cancer Surgeon

“I do solemnly swear – to continue to fight cancer. To find it. To study it. To remove it. To ablate it. To eradicate it. To pummel it into submission. To make cancer afraid to ever rear its ugly head. This is my promise.”

With your help, the world-renowned physicians, researchers and health care professionals at the UW Carbone Cancer Center can find more treatments and cures for cancer. Go to carbonecures.org and donate what you can. Going farther, faster.

CC-43587-15

CC-43587 Our Promise On WI AD.indd 1 9/22/15 10:25 AM UW Foundation Address Correction Department 1848 University Avenue Madison, WI 53726-4090

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The University of Wisconsin–Madison is the land of boundless possibilities. And our amazing story will never be complete. We want to share all the incredible accomplishments and outcomes that are happening everywhere a Badger is working to advance the boundaries of possible. Because to continue our history of looking forward—we need to advance in all directions. We need everyone. We need you. Be part of our story at Because every story is another step forward. allwaysforward.org