Spring 2008 Volume 109, Number 1 WISCONSIN

Reluctant Star 18 The UW scientist who first brought stem cells into the scientific spotlight — a discovery that sparked a volatile debate of political and medical ethics — doesn’t seek fame for himself. So when you are the go-to guy for everybody who wants access to James Thomson, a man who’d much rather be in the lab than in the media’s glare, you learn to say no more often than you’d like. By Terry Devitt ’78, MA’85

Seriously Funny 22 Some thought that Ben Karlin ’93 was walking away from success when he left his job as executive producer for TV’s The Daily 18 Show and The Colbert Report. But, as he explains in this conversation with On Wisconsin, he was simply charting a comedic path that includes a new book and his own production company. By Jenny Price ’96

Can of Worms 28 Graduate students have more to worry about than grades — there’s also research, funding, and, as the students working in one lab discovered, their mentor’s ethics. While PhD candidate Amy Hubert x’08 aims to overcome scandal and put the finishing touches on her degree, the UW struggles to protect the students who will create the future of science. 22

By John Allen INSIDE Campus on $5 a Day LETTERS 4 34 If a bill featuring Abe’s face is burning a hole in your pocket, SIFTING & WINNOWING 9 you’d be amazed to learn what it can buy on campus. Don some comfort- DISPATCHES 10 able shoes and discover what you can eat, see, and do at bargain prices. CLASSROOM 16 By Gwen Evans ’79 SCENE 44 SPORTS 46 WAA NEWS 48 On Her Own Terms 34 UPFRONT 50 40 She’s been compared to Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, and Maria ALUMNI NEWS 51 Muldaur. She founded a band called Mother Earth. She dated Steve PHILANTHROPY 58 Miller x’67. So why haven’t you ever heard of Tracy Nelson x’67? MAIN EVENTS 64 FLASHBACK 66 By David McKay Wilson

Cover: James Thomson, the UW-Madison professor of anatomy who first coaxed stem cells from human embryos in 1998, is shown here with UW molecular biologist Junying Yu. A study led by Yu in Thomson’s lab, announced in November 2007, achieved genetic reprogramming of human skin cells to create cells indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells. “It’s going to completely change the field,” Thomson predicted of the latest finding. Photo by Bryce Richter FLASHBACK COURTESY OF UW-MADISON ARCHIVES

The Devil and Dean Middleton

Ben Karlin ’93 may be the latest Badger to make it big in comedy (see story on page 22), but he certainly wasn’t the first to engage in funny business. As this picture proves, even the UW’s doctors-in-training spent time operat- ing on the funny bone, perhaps investigating whether laughter is, indeed, the best medicine. The natty looking fellow in the straw boater is William Middleton, who was on the faculty of the UW medical school from 1912 to 1955 and was its dean for the last twenty of those years, making him perhaps the most influential doctor in university history. His “fellow tormentors,” according to the caption that ran along- side the photo in the 1952 Badger yearbook, are med students Eugene Sullivan ’50, MD’53 (as St. Peter), Harry Watson Jr. ’50, MD’53 (as the devil), and James Fitzsimmons MD’53 (whose smock, for some reason, reads “Palmer School of Chiropractic, 1903”). It isn’t clear exactly what’s going on here, but it seems to conflict with the reputation Middleton left behind of a top-notch clinician with an imposing personality and strict attention to propriety — he’d been known to bawl out student nurses if their caps were on crooked or their stocking seams weren’t straight. Middleton was the medical school’s second dean, following founder Charles Bardeen, who served from 1907 to 1935. The school has had ten deans in the five decades since Middleton’s retirement. Now known as the School of Medicine and Public Health, the institution began celebrating its hundredth anniversary last fall. To find out more about the school’s centennial, visit 100years.med.wisc.edu. — John Allen

66 ON WISCONSIN MAIN EVENTS

Undergraduate performance of Tennessee Wil- workshop will give you the the picturesque Björklunden 16 Symposium — This liams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning skills and confidence you need Center in Baileys Harbor, annual, free event highlights play. Enjoy a pre-performance for successful cross-cultural Wisconsin, plus meals, recep- the achievements of UW- talk by director and associ- interactions. You’ll learn tions, and area tours. Call (608) Madison undergraduates in ate professor of theatre and about Italian culture and basic 890-1191 for reservations or research, service learning, and drama Norma Saldivar. See phrases with Janet Wood, an more details. the arts. Visit www.learning. uwalumni.com/learning. experienced instructor of Ital- wisc.edu/ugsymposium for ian for adults, who has lived, details. studied, and traveled through- july may out Italy. Visit uwalumni.com/ UW Varsity learning for details. 17–19 Band also July 21–22 Concerts — Join music lovers UW Art Faculty Studio 17–18 and July 24–25 at the Kohl Center for a live 3 Tour — Visit the personal june Grandparents University® performance by the Badger studios of Tom Loeser, Nancy Come to campus this summer band. This three-night extrava- Mladenoff, and other UW art for the eighth annual Grand- ganza, complete with profes- faculty as you view their collec- Alumni College: parents University. This award- sional staging, lighting, sound, tions and learn about each 6–8 The Unique His- winning program brings and pyrotechnics, annually artist’s unique vision. This tory and Landscapes of grandparents and grandchil- draws more than twenty-five event includes bus transporta- Door County — Learn about dren together for two days of thousand Badger fans. Call tion and lunch in the company this area’s natural and cul- hands-on activities and talks (608) 265-4120 for tickets. of fellow art-loving Badgers. tural landscapes with Profes- by top UW faculty in a major See uwalumni.com/learning sor Emeritus Wiliam Tishler, of your choosing, as well as a All-Campus for details. author of Door County’s chance to stay in a residence 19–27 Party 2008 Emerald Treasure: A History hall. Call (608) 890-1191 for Students will celebrate the Commence- of Peninsula State Park. The details or visit uwalumni.com/ onset of spring and the ending 16–18 ment — A weekend includes lodging at grandparents. of a school year with a week new class of UW alumni will of free, alcohol-alternative walk across the stage at the events sponsored by WAA and Kohl Center and celebrate the Wisconsin Alumni Student the start of their careers. Go ALUMNI WEEKEND May 8–11, 2008 Board. Visit allcampusparty. to www.secfac.wisc.edu/com- com for details. mence for the spring com- mencement schedule. The Wisconsin Alumni Association invites all grads back A Streetcar Named 25 Desire — University and 22 — Passport to campus for a memorable weekend among friends. Theatre’s season comes to a 20 Series: Italian Hear from UW faculty, celebrate with classmates, meet climactic end with a special Language — This two-part distinguished alumni, and learn what’s new at your alma mater on exclusive campus tours. For more infor- mation, visit uwalumni.com/alumniweekend or contact WAA’s Rebecca Fichtner toll free at (888) 947-2586.

Alumni across the country will hear from top UW faculty, catch CLASS OF 1958 REUNION up with fellow Badgers, and raise money for scholarships at these events celebrating the founding of the university. Visit The Class of 1958 will celebrate its fiftieth reunion with several uwalumni.com/foundersday for more information. special events. On Friday, classmates will enjoy a dessert recep- tion and program at the Madison Museum of Contemporary APRIL 23 Chippewa Valley, Art. The Half Century Club luncheon will take place on Satur- 1 Antigo Wisconsin day at the Memorial Union, and the reunion wraps up with a 1 Sauk/Columbia Counties, 23 Southwest Wisconsin Wisconsin 24 Connecticut class dinner. 1 Wisconsin Dells 28 Fox Valley, Wisconsin 3 Los Angeles 28 Manitowoc, Wisconsin DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS CEREMONY 3 Washington, D.C. 30 Northwoods, Wisconsin (Thursday, May 8) 4 Atlanta, Georgia 30 River Falls, Wisconsin 5 Orange County, California 30 Triangle Area, North Help honor this year’s award winners at the Distinguished Alumni 8 Sacramento, California Carolina Awards ceremony in the Wisconsin Union Theater. Honorees 13 Nashville, Tennessee 30 Washington County, include Joanne Disch ’68, Truman Lowe MFA’73, Sheldon ’51 and Wisconsin 14 Denver, Colorado Marianne Lubar, and Linnea Smith ’81, MD’84. The Distinguished MAY 15 East Central Illinois Young Alumni Award recipients are Shihoko Fujiwara ’03 and 1 Chicago 16 La Crosse, Wisconsin Steven Turner ’91. The evening will continue with a reception 16 Southwest Wisconsin 1 Wausau, Wisconsin and gala dinner at the Memorial Union’s Great Hall. 17 Portland, Oregon 2 Kansas City, Missouri 17 Waukesha, Wisconsin 3 Twin Cities, Minnesota 19 Kokomo, Indiana 8 Door County, Wisconsin DAY ON CAMPUS (Friday, May 9 ) 21 Marshfield, Wisconsin 8 Rochester, Minnesota Share your love of learning and the UW with alumni and friends 10 Louisville, Kentucky 22 Sheboygan, Wisconsin of all ages at Day on Campus. The afternoon features lectures by 21 Hawaii top faculty on a variety of topics.

SPRING 2008 65 MAIN EVENTS

Campus BRYCE RICHTER Resources

Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) (608) 262-2551 Fax (608) 262-3332 Toll-free (888) 947-2586 (888-WIS-ALUM) [email protected] uwalumni.com

Alumni Address Changes (608) 262-2551 or Toll-free (888) 947-2586 www.uwalumni.com/directory [email protected]

Alumni Death Notices (608) 262-2551 or Toll-free (888) 947-2586 [email protected]

Visitor and Information Programs (608) 263-2400 [email protected] www.visit.wisc.edu

UW Foundation Spring may be on the way, but winter provided the student thrills this year. Darby Boese x’09 spent an (608) 263-4545 afternoon in December traying down Observatory Hill in a time-honored university tradition. [email protected] www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu ongoing select Petrovich lectures, four-day event takes place in UW-Madison sharing their take on Russia’s several downtown and campus complex history. theaters, and features new www.wisc.edu Wednesday Nite @ the Lab American independent, dra- — Explore science at Wednes- Call WAA toll free at A Deeper Look at Prince matic and documentary films, day Nite @ the Lab, a free Caspian — Take an in-depth (888) WIS-ALUM for more world cinema, animation, weekly program on the UW look at C.S. Lewis’s Prince experimental pictures, restora- details about these events. campus where UW research- Caspian, the second book in tions, and revivals. More than ers share their latest work in Visit uwalumni.com/calen- the Chronicles of Narnia series, 150 movies each year and an the life, earth, and social sci- with UW professor David dar to see our online event attendance of nearly thirty ences. No science background Werther. The course will run thousand make this a can’t- listing. is necessary — just bring your from May 27 to July 1. miss event. Visit www.wifilm- curiosity. For a list of upcoming fest.org for details. topics and speakers, see Wisconsin’s Natural and Cultural Landscapes: A uwalumni.com/wednitelab. Countdown to Sense of Place — June 16 to Commencement July 25. This online course will 8–9 WAA helps make the transi- allow you to virtually explore tion from student to alum a bit the state’s diverse landscapes, online smoother at this semiannual as well as the people and event. To learn more, see industries that have left iconic To register for the follow- uwalumni.com/countdown. imprints, with UW Professor ing online events, visit Emeritus William Tishler. uwalumni.com/learning. UW Symphony Free 10 Concert — 7 p.m. The Russian Civilization: UW Symphony invites Milwau- Imperial Russia — April 21 to kee-area high school students May 29. We’ll explore the arts, april and their families to a free culture, society, and politics of concert at the Wilson Center Russia’s Imperial Age in this Wisconsin Film for the Arts in Brookfield, popular course featuring 3–6 Festival — Join Wisconsin. Please contact the material from famed history Madison residents and visitors Wilson Center’s box office professor Michael Petrovich. alike at the tenth annual at (262) 781-9520 to request Current faculty will introduce Wisconsin Film Festival. This tickets.

64 ON WISCONSIN Can of Worms Irwin Goldman’s CALS plan a universi- In 2000, about one in Continued from page 33 ty-wide policy, Bill Mellon realizes that every three applica- breeding. And it must pay for everyone it will need more than morality. It will who works in Anderson’s lab — his one need money. tions for a grant from assistant and three graduate students, “We’ll probably have to set up some either NSF or NIH was covering their salaries and tuition reim- sort of misconduct relief fund,” he says. successful. By 2007, bursements, and their own research, “Fortunately, this sort of thing is very which will aid Anderson’s, but will also rare. But we’ll have to be prepared.” that fraction had serve as the basis for the dissertations Such preparation is necessary, dropped to one in five. and other publications that will launch because the pressure to win extramural “For the most part, their academic careers. funding is so strong. Anderson believes those are good scien- Should Anderson’s grant application that Goodwin is hardly the only scientist fail, his salary will continue, but every- guilty of exaggerating to win a grant. tists,” says Anderson. thing in the lab will shut down — the “We’re all guilty of marketing our- “They want to expand students and assistant will be laid off, selves, of casting our research in the knowledge, and for the research halted, the worms dis- light that makes it seem the most certain carded. and revolutionary,” he says. “But the most of them, there’s “All of these things are paid for from cardinal sin of science is misrepresenting only one source of outside sources,” he says. “In a way, the one’s data. Openness, honesty, and fidel- funding — the federal university is sort of like a big mall, and ity to our data — those are what make we’re all independent shops. We’ve got science work.” government. When to come up with our own funding if we they’re turned down, want to keep operating.” there’s no place else But the competition is fierce and get- Forward ting fiercer. There is a continual stream to go.” of new researchers — UW-Madison wo years after Elizabeth graduated 648 PhDs in 2005–06 alone Goodwin’s resignation, her — many of whom will seek funding for lab is still empty. It produces studies, and, as Anderson says, “you no income for the university, don’t get money for filling in the gaps; norT any research or educational benefits. you have to be a pioneer” to be certain Phil Anderson is still waiting to hear of winning a grant. from the National Institutes of Health In 2000, about one in every three as to whether they’ll confirm his grant. applications for a grant from either NSF His students’ futures — not to men- defends her dissertation, she will walk or NIH was successful. By 2007, that tion his own career advancement, and across the stage and trade her nematodes fraction had dropped to one in five. “For his research into nematode genetics — for a sheepskin. According to Allen, the most part, those are good scientists,” depend on the NIH’s answer. Hubert is “a natural teacher,” and so she says Anderson. “They want to expand Irwin Goldman’s graduate student plans to take her career out of Madison knowledge, and for most of them, there’s protection plan is likely to become and into someplace with less emphasis only one source of funding — the federal university-wide policy this spring. “Mor- on lab results. government. When they’re turned down, ally, no one has any objections to it,” “I’m hoping to get a position at a there’s no place else to go.” Bill Mellon says. “There may be a few small college, where I can focus on And that’s where the difficulty tweaks here and there, but I expect it to teaching more than research,” Hubert comes in for protecting graduate student pass this March.” says. “I’d still like to have my own lab, whistle-blowers. It’s one thing for the At the same time, Mellon, who must but I want to spend my time teaching university to guarantee that their fund- shepherd the policy through approval and actually being in a lab, rather than ing won’t be eliminated should their by the faculty senate, has had his own holed up in an office writing grants. I professor be guilty of malpractice; it’s grants to renew — his application for don’t want that to be my whole job.” another to find the dollars to replace that funding to study hormone action and funding once it’s lost. vitamin D was due in February. As he looks at pushing to make And once Amy Hubert successfully John Allen is senior editor for On Wisconsin.

SPRING 2008 63 On Her Own Terms mother, Faye, the former proprietor of a life close to the earth. On a Novem- Continued from page 43 Nelson’s Books and Stationery in Shore- ber afternoon, her voice lights up when account of her career, clips of her music, wood Hills, who still lives in Madison. she sees yellow finches at her backyard and an online forum, which Nelson occa- Nelson’s latest recording project follows feeder. With her single brown braid dan- sionally joins. The site also sells a 1973 the release last July of her twenty-third gling halfway down her back, she tends documentary, Tracy Nelson and Mother record, You’ll Never Be a Stranger at My chili on the stove made with her garden’s Earth, shot by Yale film student Michael Door. It’s an exploration of country creole tomatoes and habanero peppers. Dee, which includes concert footage, and music tunes and brings her full circle to After the sun sets, she pulls out a interviews with Nelson with her dogs and an early Nashville recording made in bottle of Jack Daniels and pours a glass, cats at her country log cabin. 1969, Mother Earth Presents Tracy Nelson straight up. As she lights the candles for a Nelson’s last extended tours were Country. The new album includes a lilting home-cooked lasagna dinner, she recalls the Chicago Blues Reunions in 2005 and western swing tune, “Cow Cow Boogie,” that her grandmother played with her 2006, with guitarists Harvey Mandel and several country classics, and a song she senior citizens orchestra until she was Nick Gravenites. But she certainly hasn’t wrote called “Salt of the Earth,” an elegy eighty-seven. She feels like there’s many stopped performing and recording. In to three old-timers who were Nelson’s more years of song left in her. September, she traveled to Nova Scotia to neighbors near her log cabin. “When I’m singing, I am very aware sing at a benefit for a wildlife rehabilita- The soothing album of country of my voice as an instrument,” she says. tion center. In October, she was recording tunes represents a change in direction “I can hold a note, and have ten tonalities. at guitar legend Scotty Moore’s studio in for the tenor renowned in blues circles I don’t have all the high notes I once had, Nashville, singing gospel tunes popular- for her ability to belt out songs from the but I have more low notes. That country ized by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1930s. depths of her soul. She’s now considering record showed that I can still sing pretty. In early November, Nelson hit the recording jazz standards. And so far, I’m still happy.” road again, traveling 650 miles east for a “Jazz singing is very restrained and live performance on West Virginia Pub- subtle,” she says. “It’s more than a little lic Broadcasting’s Mountain Stage radio hard to change styles. But it’s not boring.” David McKay Wilson is a New York-based freelance show. Then it was 700 miles west to Wis- As Nelson considers yet another journalist. He writes on public affairs and the arts for The New York Times. consin to visit her ninety-one-year-old musical direction, she continues to live

62 ON WISCONSIN    

   
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Remember when going downhill was a good thing?

Sometimes simple things offer the most enjoyment and create the most lasting memories. A planned gift is a simple way to guarantee that the University of Wisconsin-Madison will benefit from your generosity. You may designate your gift for student scholarships and fellowships, for programs in your school or college or for projects of personal interest. Your gift will make a real difference. Our planned giving professionals are happy to discuss your gift with no obligation.

Visit our Web site or contact us for additional information on how to plan for your future as well as the future of your University. Office of Planned Giving 608-263-4545

www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu

1848 University Ave. l P.O. Box 8860 l Madison, WI 53708-8860 BRUCE FRITZ

SPRING 2008 61 Today’s Support Leads to Tomorrow’s Success

2008

Each year the UW Athletic Department faces the challenge of supporting nearly 800 student-athletes in 23 varsity sports. The ongoing generosity of over 15,000 friends and fans is vital to funding the scholar- ships and facilities needed for tomorrow’s success.

INVEST IN EXCELLENCE

Contribute to Wisconsin Athletics. Contact the Badger Fund at 608.262.1000 or visit uwbadgers.com. PHILANTHROPY

Passing the Torch ‘All Those Gifts From one champion to another ... and another ... and another. Add Up’

You hear it so often, you High up on the Camp Randall ship recipient was junior Jaev- vide football scholarships, with might think it’s a cliché. Stadium façade, since 2006, red ery McFadden. another portion allocated to But scholarships really do letters on a permanent white Endowments are powerful keep the fund growing. Today, change lives. Just ask Luis banner have read simply, “80 and enduring. During just the the annual spendable income Marrero Jr. ’91. Schreiner.” They honor Dave past fifteen years, the Schrein- is just over $18,000, or nearly “I never really thought Schreiner — a Lancaster, Wis- er-Hoskins Scholarship Fund twice the amount that origi- about going to college when consin, native; two-time Badger — so named in 1990 by the sur- nally established the fund. I was young,” says Marrero, All-American; and Detroit Lion viving family members — has Prudent investing and who grew up in Waukesha, NFL draft choice. His name and awarded more than $200,000 spending will ensure that the Wisconsin. “My parents number now stand watch over in scholarships and has grown Badgers of tomorrow will get didn’t have extensive educa- raucous football games and to nearly $500,000. A portion their turn to continue the tions; neither one finished hushed tranquility. of the investment income from legacy of a true champion. high school. I figured I was Some fans may know of the fund will continue to pro- — Merry Anderson going to be a forklift driver Schreiner’s record-setting three at the foundry like my dad.” touchdown catches in one quar- A different future ter as a member of the famed UW SPORTS INFORMATION (4) opened up for Marrero when 1942 Badgers. Others may know he was chosen for a Chancel- that Lieutenant David Nathan lor’s Scholarship to UW- Schreiner ’43 was killed in Madison. After earning his June 1945 on Okinawa in the bachelor’s degree in mechan- closing days of World War II. ical engineering, he went on Very few people know, to receive an MBA from the however, that for the past sixty University of Chicago. years, the Schreiner family has Marrero, who has helped more than fifty student worked for Rockwell Auto- athletes attend UW-Madison. mation/Allen Bradley in Even more important, there are Milwaukee for sixteen years, Badgers not yet born who will is now the firm’s director have the same opportunity to of macroview planning. experience the thrill of playing “Attending the UW enabled on the Camp Randall turf and me to be somebody I never the same privilege to earn a thought I would be,” he UW-Madison education. The says. “My perspectives were opportunities are made possi- broadened. I met people I ble by the Schreiner Scholarship never would have.” Fund, an endowed scholarship Knowing that others established in 1947 in Schrein- made the gifts to establish er’s memory by his parents, his scholarship, Marrero Anna and Herbert Schreiner, is a donor as well. “You with just $10,000. read about individuals and The first Schreiner scholar- families donating millions of ship was awarded in 1948 to dollars to the university, and Tom Bennett ’49, MS’56. you think, ‘My contribution “Things were tough in those won’t matter.’ But it will. All days. It really helped,” says Ben- those gifts add up,” he says. nett, who went on to become “It’s an honor for me to do a UW-Madison track, golf, and what I can to make sure that freshman football coach, as well programs like the Chancel- as an assistant professor. He was lor’s Scholarship continue inducted into the UW Athletic to change the lives of young Hall of Fame in 1998. people from all walks of life.” Other past recipients — Chris DuPré Erasmus James x’05, include Named in remembrance of Dave Schreiner, at top, a member of the famed John Stocco ’06, and Ron 1942 Badger football team, a scholarship fund in recent years has helped Dayne x’03. The 2007 scholar- players including Ron Dayne, Erasmus James, and John Stocco.

SPRING 2008 59 PHILANTHROPY

All in the Family Stieber Scholarship honors pharmacy legacy, ties to community.

For the Stieber family, working together to create a healthy COURTESY OF STIEBER FAMILY community has become a way of life. Jerome Stieber ’54 was a junior in high school when he landed a job building the morning furnace fire and doing odd jobs at Irvin Simon- son’s pharmacy in Marathon — population then 923 — just west of Wausau, Wisconsin. With encouragement from Simonson, Stieber developed an interest in pharmacy. After Philanthropic investment graduating from high school, in UW-Madison promises to he enrolled at UW-Marathon County for pre-pharmacy stud- provide a tremendous return ies, then transferred to the UW- as the university applies its Madison School of Pharmacy Mary and Jerome Stieber (at left), pictured with son Brian and daughter for his bachelor’s degree. He Beth, consider themselves a “pharmacy family.” They established a fund resources to bring greater financed his own education to help PharmD students who are working their way through school. understanding of our world and worked during the summer alongside pharmacist preceptor “We feel that when you Scholar was Jaclyn Stelter of and to find answers to society’s Ovid Halmstad, who had pur- work, you organize your time Mukwonago, Wisconsin. “Jacki’s better and are more apt to professional involvement has most critical problems. For more chased the Marathon pharmacy from Simonson. remain in college,” says Mary been in the pharmacy fraternity, information about the University Stieber began building a Stieber. “The profession used Kappa Psi, the same fraternity to be learned by children work- my father was active in as a of Wisconsin Foundation, family legacy in health care when he met and married Mary ing with their parents, but you pharmacy student, and she call (608) 263-4545. Brunner of Shawano, Wiscon- don’t find many families with has been working a significant sin, who had graduated as a pharmacies anymore.” number of hours to support her- registered nurse from St. Mary’s The Stiebers are delighted self through pharmacy school, Nursing School in Wausau in that all five children have another thing she has in com- 1955. They returned to Mara- degrees from the University mon with my father,” says Mar- thon to be close to Stieber’s of Wisconsin System — one in tin. “Because of her personal ailing father and purchased food science, two in nursing, and professional values, she was Halmstad’s pharmacy, renam- and two in pharmacy. a great fit for the first Stieber ing it Stieber Drugs. In time, “When I was informed that Family Scholarship award.” the Stiebers had five children, my parents were considering In turn, Stelter says, “I am all of whom were expected to making this gift, I was abso- extremely honored to have been help in the store. It was there lutely thrilled,” says their son chosen as the first recipient of that they learned the value of Brian Stieber ’81. “It’s a great this scholarship. Getting through taking care of each other and way to provide an ongoing pharmacy school has not been their community. remembrance for what the pro- easy, and with school work and The Stiebers consider fession of pharmacy has meant working to help pay the bills, themselves a “pharmacy fam- to our family, and for the tre- this scholarship will allow me to ily,” and their philanthropic mendous education we received focus more on my fourth-year focus is on supporting stu- at [the School of Pharmacy].” clerkship experiences.” dents. They have established The Stiebers’ daughter Beth “Student support is a top the Stieber Family Scholarship Martin ’90, MS’03, PhD’06 priority,” says Jeanette Roberts, Fund to benefit PharmD is an assistant professor at the the school’s dean. “We are grate- students who are working UW School of Pharmacy. Martin ful that pharmacy families like their way through school, says she’s pleased that the first the Stiebers are leading the way.” just as Jerome Stieber did. student named as a Stieber — Sue Zyhowski

58 ON WISCONSIN ALUMNI NEWS

of philosophy and senior re- Milton, Florida. The curriculum tor, and Weis is the producer, searcher in the Technology and included landing on and taking of this coming-of-age story that Bookmark Society Research Group at Bos- off from an aircraft carrier. How Lundt hopes to show at the ton’s Northeastern University. many of us can do that? 2008 Wisconsin Film Festival. A shared class in Music Hall Brian Brodell ’05 played led — eventually — to the July golf throughout his UW years, wedding of Joie Stolt ’00, and now he’s back as our new obituaries MS’06 and Eric Goodman assistant golf coach. A big part MS’05. They now live in Holly- of his job is recruitment, and Lee Sherman Dreyfus, Sr. ’49, wood, Florida, where Stolt is a Brodell is confident that the MA’52, PhD’58 — Wisconsin’s field botanist at Fairchild Tropi- program has a lot to offer, “red-vest governor” from 1979 cal Botanic Garden, and Good- thanks to the coaching staff, until 1983 — died in Waukesha, man is a transportation planner Wisconsin’s other winning Wisconsin, in January. A 1975 The timeless and universal for the South Florida Regional sports, and the university itself. trip to China convinced him that themes of coming-of-age Transportation Authority. Kathryn Brown ’05 has Wisconsin politics needed shak- tales help us to recall that Mike Smiley ’01 is a U.S. joined the Peace Corps. She ing up, so the former UW-Madi- whatever our differences may Navy flight surgeon for a P-3 left for Namibia in October son speech professor and former be, we also have a lot in com- squadron based out of Bruns- to begin her acclimation and UW-Stevens Point chancellor mon. A new book by Kristen wick, Maine, that’s currently training, and in January, her joined the Republican party, Laine MA’85 does just that. deployed to the Far East. And two-year stint teaching sci- took his “Let the People Decide” In American Band: Music, who flies along with Smiley? ence to students in secondary campaign on the road, eschewed Dreams, and Coming of Age in It’s Bucky Badger — in the schools began in earnest. polling, rejected large donations the Heartland (Gotham Books, form of a patch on his flight Jake Wood ’05 is a former — and won. Dreyfus was a spon- www.americanbandbook. suit. Smiley says, “It’s amazing Badger football player who’s taneous and open leader who com), she offers a narrative, how something [that] simple now a U.S. Marine corporal. headed a most unconventional nonfiction account of one elevates the moods of people. You can read his very candid administration. He chose not to season in the life of the state- … It’s a compliment to the UW blog about life in Iraq — some- run for re-election, and became, champion Concord Commu- and to the state of Wisconsin.” times funny, sometimes deadly instead, president of Sentry nity High School Marching The new director of annual serious — at www.badgerjake. Insurance. Wisconsin Governor Minutemen of Elkhart, giving in the development blogspot.com. Jim Doyle ’67 said, “He led us, Indiana — a town that “lives office at the Rose-Hulman Anna Bargren ’07 is still educated us, and entertained us, and breathes band,” and was Institute of Technology in Terre making waves: she’s been all at the same time.” once called the band-instru- Haute, Indiana, is Erica Martin named to the First Team of the Angie Brooks-Randolph ment capital of the world. Altuve ’03. She held the same 2007 Inter-Collegiate Sailing LLB’52, MS’52, the first and Laine’s book offers position previously at the Association’s All Academic Sail- only African woman to be intimate stories about small- University of Memphis, and ing Team. A four-year under- elected president of the United town America during a time began her development career grad sailor, she was a skipper in Nations General Assembly, died of national uncertainty, at the UW Foundation. 2007 when the women’s team in Houston in September. The explores the lives of individ- When Mike Reneau ’04 took eleventh place at nation- Liberian-born Brooks-Randolph ual students, and chronicles chose the Marathon/Distance als — its best finish in recent was that nation’s first woman the final year of directing by Training course on a whim memory. Paul Bargren JD’94 lawyer, and served as an assis- the legendary Max Jones, his senior year, Professor Ron shared this news and adds that tant attorney general, assistant whose glorious record Carda PhD’90 was frank about Anna is now a first-year medi- secretary of state, associate spanned nearly four decades. his beginner status: Reneau cal student at the UW School of Supreme Court justice, and in The author is an award- had a lot of work to do. Fast- Medicine and Public Health. many other positions. She winning journalist and a forward to New York City on The Wisconsin towns of presided over the twenty-fourth commentator for Vermont November 3, though, and you Monroe and Shawano hosted session of the UN General Public Radio who lives in find an utterly transformed Madison-based indie filmmak- Assembly in 1969. Liberian Presi- Canaan, New Hampshire, Reneau competing for the ers Tim Lundt ’07 and Dustin dent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf called but her UW ties run deep. U.S. Olympic Team Trials — Weis ’07 in August when they Brooks-Randolph a pioneer, an Her grandfather Virgil and finishing an admirable shot scenes there for their new icon, and “a woman of unprece- Herrick was a longtime thirty-second out of about 150 “dramatic comedy,” Your Signs. dented courage and determina- education professor and qualifiers. He trains with the Weis’s father, Chris Weis ’92 tion.” Funeral services were held one of the UW’s first Vilas Hanson-Brooks Distance Project of Monroe, and Eric Planten- in Houston, with a state funeral professors. As a Vilas fellow in Rochester Hills, Michigan. berg ’96 of Madison appear in following in Liberia. herself, Laine appreciated the Marine Corps first lieuten- the film along with Lundt, who connection to Herrick and ant Ryan Schaaf ’04 earned his wrote and edited the semi-auto- WAA’s alumni news editor, Paula the long line of other family naval aviator designation this biographical script — with input Wagner Apfelbach ’83, would like members who “discovered fall while serving with Helicop- from Dustin Weis — throughout to think that she’s smarter than the their passions at Wisconsin.” ter Training Squadron Eight in college. Lundt is now the direc- average bear.

SPRING 2008 57 ALUMNI NEWS

The book has now expanded Life in a mental hospital Adam Rosh ’98, MS’00 Bookmark to include an online social net- is pretty dismal at first for is chief resident of emergency work (www.redthebook.com), sixteen-year-old Anna Bloom medicine at NYU/Bellevue Hos- a MySpace page, a soundtrack, in Get Well Soon (Feiwel and pital Center in New York City, and a fashion collaboration Friends), the debut novel of and he recently co-published an with Pepper+Pistol. Julie Halpern ’96. Then things exam-review book for McGraw- The science staff at the start looking up, as Anna finds Hill Medical’s PreTest series New York Botanical Garden humor and love in an unlikely called Emergency Medicine. is richer for the addition of place. The author, a suburban- Madison attorney Ben Kenneth Karol ’92 as assistant Chicago middle-school librar- Manski ’99, JD’05 is the curator in the Cullman Program ian, draws on her own teen executive director of the Lib- for Molecular Systematics Stud- experiences with depression erty Tree Foundation for the The memoir that New ies. He researches the evolution to address the issue of mental Democratic Revolution, and he Yorker Rosanne Klass ’50 of freshwater green algae, health in America’s youth. married Sarah Turner Manski published in 1964 — about thought to be the closest living You knew it was deep, but ’02 in August. She’s worked as her years as the first woman relatives of all land plants. now UWC-Waukesha assistant a radio reporter and producer, to teach in a school for boys Prior to grad school, professor of philosophy Dean and is now pursuing a PhD in from remote villages in 1950s Peter Rothstein MFA’92 of Kowalski MA’96, PhD’00 has life-science communications. Afghanistan — drew praise Minneapolis had never directed proven it with The Philosophy The proud spouse of Amber from the New Yorker and the a play, but now he can claim of The X-Files (University Press Gahagan Singh ’99 let us know New York Times when it first more than one hundred of Kentucky). Kowalski edited that she’s the first person in appeared, but it was never directorial credits in many and contributed to this first col- her family to earn an advanced produced in paperback. genres, including his acclaimed lection of philosophical essays degree, graduating from Atlan- Then, when Odyssey Publi- summer production of Private devoted exclusively to the pop- ta’s Emory University with a PhD cations’ publisher discovered Lives, which played at the city’s ular TV series. It even includes in clinical psychology. She’s now it recently, he knew he’d Guthrie Theater. Rothstein is a foreword by the Cigarette- accepted a research fellowship at found a classic and printed it also a co-founder of an innova- Smoking Man himself. Indiana University. in soft cover this fall. tive musical-theater company Laura Vailas PhD’07 Now that the once-little- called Theater Latte Da. writes that she was honored known country has become Congratulations to Ken- to “assume the duties of ‘first 2000s so familiar to Americans, neth Broderick ’95, who’s lady’” when her spouse, for- it may be an excellent time returned to Madison and has mer UW faculty member Art Congratulations to Madisonian to read this new edition of opened the Broderick Law Vailas, was inaugurated in Jill Makovec ’00, MS’02 on Klass’s “lyrical memoir,” Land Office. He’s spent the last few September as the twelfth presi- being crowned the sixtieth of the High Flags: Afghanistan years in New York as an assis- dent of Idaho State University Alice in Dairyland. During her When the Going Was Good. tant corporation counsel with in Pocatello. Laura has also one-year reign, she plans to log It includes a new introduc- the city’s law department and as worked for the UW medical more than forty thousand miles tion and an afterword, an associate in a law firm there. school and adds, “I’m proud of and make nearly three hundred written from the author’s Carleen Wild ’95 is back my degree from UW-Madison.” appearances as Wisconsin’s current perspective as a on the Madison TV news scene! The Nazi Ancestral Proof: “agricultural ambassador.” She policy observer. Already a familiar face from Genealogy, Racial Science, and was previously the manager of Klass continued to her work at the city’s CBS affili- the Final Solution (Indiana Uni- education and information at travel widely in the 1960s ate, she joined WMTV, the NBC versity Press), by Eric Ehrenre- AgSource Cooperative. and returned to Kabul as a affiliate, in October and began ich MA’98, PhD’04, is the first Tessa Michaelson ’00, New York Times journalist, anchoring and co-anchoring its detailed study of the method MA’05 of Madison is the first reporting on the first Com- NBC15 News programs. Wild by which “racial acceptability” American to be elected presi- munist riots. She founded recently took a break from was “proven” in Nazi Germany. dent of the Brittingham Viking the Afghanistan Relief Com- TV news to work as the UW A former postdoc fellow at the Organization, an exchange mittee in 1980, following Foundation’s director of devel- U.S. Holocaust Museum’s Center and scholarship program that the Soviet invasion that she opment for the Carbone Com- for Advanced Holocaust Studies, has benefited hundreds of had predicted; and directed prehensive Cancer Center. the author now practices law in UW-Madison and Scandinavian the Afghanistan Informa- Memorial Union hosted Washington, D.C. students since Thomas Britting- tion Center in New York, a the August nuptials of Natalie The new president-elect of ham, Jr. established it in 1953. source of information for the Monarch Baumgartner ’96 the Wisconsin Veterinary Medi- Character and Environ- international press. She has and Kurt Baumgartner ’96. cal Association is Doug Kratt ment: A Virtue-Oriented also co-authored and edited They now live in Boulder, Colo- DVM’98. He and his spouse, Approach to Environmental Afghanistan: The Great Game rado, where Natalie is a busi- Kim Kratt DVM’00, are com- Ethics (Columbia University Revisited, a standard reference ness psychologist for Somerville panion-animal practitioners and Press) is a new work by Ronald on the Soviet-Afghan war. Partners, and Kurt is the chief the owners of Central Animal Sandler MA’00, PhD’01. threat analyst for PC Tools. Hospital in Onalaska, Wisconsin. He’s an assistant professor

56 ON WISCONSIN ALUMNI NEWS

Steve Pogorzelski ’83, Winnebago Counties. Adventure (Hampton Press). Brintlinger MA’91, PhD’94 Monster’s group president/ Three Badgers are new And Breunig knows her stuff: has completed an introduction international, is responsible for assistant professors at the she’s an assistant professor in and translation of the work in operations in thirty-six countries Medical College of Wisconsin the Department of Recreation English titled Derzhavin: across Europe and Asia. and new to the staff of the and Leisure at Brock University A Biography by Vladislav The Oregon Department Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, in St. Catharines, Ontario. Khodasevich (University of of Energy’s Nuclear Safety and both in Milwaukee. Pediatric Image Entertainment — Wisconsin Press). Brintlinger is Energy Siting Division in Salem critical-care specialist Scott a Chatsworth, California-based an associate professor of Slavic is the new professional home Hagen MD’87 previously producer of home entertain- languages and literatures at of John (Messera) Gear ’84, taught at the UW, practiced ment programming — has a Ohio State. who also recently passed the at the UW Children’s Hospital, new senior VP of marketing in Last year was an eventful Oregon bar exam. He helps to and is a former U.S. Air Force Steven (Splitgerber) DeMi- one for Elizabeth Hoffman clean up the badly contami- lieutenant colonel. Pediatric lle ’90. He began his career in ’91, MS’95, JD’98, PhD’01. nated Hanford Nuclear Reserva- oncologist Richard Tower II New York with Fox Lorber/New In April, she was promoted to tion and processes siting-permit ’97, MD’01 began his new posi- Video Group, then co-founded associate professor and granted applications for energy facilities tions after fellowships at the A-Pix Entertainment, and then tenure at Purdue University, such as wind farms. University of Minnesota School moved to L.A. in 2001 to join where her spouse, Robert Noll Allergies affect some 50 of Public Health, and psychia- First Look Home Entertainment. PhD’94, had been promoted million Americans — a situation trist Jennifer Derenne MD’01 Marquis Jet founder and earlier to associate research that caused UW science histo- most recently taught psychiatry CEO Kenny Dichter ’90 scientist. Then in July, they rian Gregg Mitman MA’84, at Harvard Medical School. “talked shop” as part of the welcomed their first child, PhD’88 to research its greater Todd Kelsey ’87, MS’89 CIT: Behind the Business web- Emily Anne. implications for his new book, has been promoted to senior cast series in August. His com- Queering Reproduction: Breathing Space: How Allergies VP of global customer services pany pioneered a new segment Achieving Pregnancy in the Age Shape Our Lives and Landscapes at Plexus, an electronic manu- of the private-aviation market of Technoscience (Duke Uni- (Yale University Press). Publish- facturing services company in 2001 by offering Marquis Jet versity Press), by Laura Mamo ers Weekly says the work is “as headquartered in Neenah, Card members increments of ’91, shows how “social move- much about twentieth-century Wisconsin. Dean Foate ’82 is private-jet time to eliminate the ments, emotions, consumerism, American consumerism as it is the company’s CEO. need to own their own crafts. and biomedical technologies about allergies.” Lynn Tuttle Gunney ’88 Dichter lives in Livingston, collide with the search for Daniel Lord Smail ’84 couldn’t find a book about New Jersey. belonging to produce brave asks the questions of when the historical Jesus for her When Madison’s new new families.” Mamo teaches history begins and what char- two young children at Christ- American Family Children’s sociology, women’s studies, and acterizes it in his new book, mastime, so she wrote Meet Hospital opened this fall, lesbian and gay studies at the On Deep History and the Brain Jesus: The Life and Lessons of Brian Krenke ’90 and Debbie University of Maryland. (University of California Press). a Beloved Teacher (Skinner Breunig EMBA’01 could David Aron ’92 of Wash- The author, Harvard professor House Books), which, she says, take pride in it: some of the ington, D.C., can’t tell us too of history, contends that it’s focuses on Jesus’ humanity products that they’ve devel- much about his new job, but time to join the deep past with rather than divinity. Gunney is oped for KI — a Green Bay, he can say that his role as a the recent past and abandon the principal of Gunney Orches- Wisconsin, furniture and wall- licensing analyst with the U.S. the notion of prehistory. trated Marketing Communica- system manufacturer — are State Department’s Bureau of In its October issue, Worth tions in Pleasanton, California. part of the facility. Krenke is Political-Military Affairs involves magazine named Christopher Who’s the new vice presi- KI’s VP of sales, and Breunig reviewing defense-related Didier ’86 one of its Top 100 dent of business operations for is VP of marketing for the products. He last worked with Wealth Advisers. He’s the BET Networks’ entertainment healthcare market. McNeil Technologies, which spe- managing director and a senior division in Los Angeles? It’s Jeffrey Schwartz ’90 cializes in historical document investment consultant at the Shaun Williams ’88, who was earned his MBA in marketing analysis and declassification. Baird asset-management firm’s previously a VP of finance at from Regis University in August While working at New York Milwaukee office, and has 20th Century Fox. — with a 4.0 GPA, no less — and Seventeen magazines, been honored four times for his and is now a vice president Amy Goldwasser ’92 had the exemplary client service. at Neoptx, a manufacturer idea to introduce a city-girl Mitch Metropulos MA’86, 90s of optical instruments and column written by a teen- JD’86 was recently appointed lenses. He lives in Highlands aged girl. The response to her Branch III circuit court judge in Mary Breunig ’90 has delved Ranch, Colorado. request for essays was amazing, Wisconsin’s Outagamie County into two book projects recently The life of Russian poet, so the New York City author by Governor Jim Doyle ’67. as a co-author of Outdoor soldier, and statesman Gavriil took a sabbatical to create Red: Metropulos, of Appleton, spent Leadership: Theory and Derzhavin made for a fascinat- The Next Generation of Ameri- the previous twenty-one years Practice (Human Kinetics) and a ing biography by fellow Rus- can Writers — Teenage Girls as a prosecuting attorney serv- co-editor of The Outdoor Class- sian man of letters Vladislav — on What Fires up Their Lives ing Chippewa, Outagamie, and room: Integrating Learning and Khodasevich. Now Angela Today (Hudson Street Press).

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their late mother, a south- central Wisconsin landscape Diving into an Olympic Challenge artist, and to bring arts and Thirty years after springing Wert credits a UW the community together. Ras- into the spotlight as one of PAUL SHERMAN professor with steering him mussen is an American Sign America’s top divers, Larry toward the first step on his Language educator and admin- Wert ’78 is making a splash journey from journalism stu- istrator in Orlando, Florida. supporting a new generation dent to media executive. “Don The Daub family is earn- of stars: the former co-captain Stoffels, who led the Advertis- ing accolades: Margaret of UW-Madison’s swim team ing Club, saw my drawings Daub PhD’79 was one of four is serving on the panel that’s and encouraged me to consider North Carolina State University spearheading Chicago’s bid to being an account executive professors to receive a 2007 host the 2016 Olympics. Wert’s instead of a creative artist,” William Neal Professorship assignment is chair of the PR he says. “I took his advice, — the highest faculty distinc- and Communications Council. and that’s how my career tion — for her plant pathology After being chosen by the began at Leo Burnett.” research on Cercospora fungi. U.S. Olympic Committee as Wert believes that the In addition, Margaret’s brother the nation’s representative bid, education he received from Eric Daub ’82 has earned the Chicago is now vying with six UW athletics has helped him, Baenziger Professorship in global sites for the coveted Larry Wert wants Chicago to too. “My diving coach, Jerry host the 2016 Olympics. Music at Texas Lutheran Uni- opportunity. The International Darda, taught us that every- versity in Seguin, Texas. Thanks Olympic Committee (IOC) one hundred local Emmy one has shortcomings, but not to their father — Madisonian will announce the Host City awards during his ten years. everyone outperforms them. Edward Daub ’45, MS’47, in October 2009. Managing change has been He pushed us to do that — PhD’66, a UW professor emeri- “We remain humble, a hallmark of Wert’s decade- in diving and in life.” tus of engineering professional optimistic, and excited about long tenure. In 2002, as part The impact of his professors development — for telling us. our chances,” Wert says. of a collaboration between and coaches aside, Wert says While the Windy City NBC5 and Telemundo his most memorable UW awaits the IOC announcement, Chicago, he unveiled the experience took place else- 80s Wert is busy with his day country’s first bilingual news where. “I met Julie Arneson job. As president and general operation to be located in the [’78, MS’82] at an Alpha Phi Petroleum Geo Services, a manager of NBC5 Chicago, same newsroom. A year later, sorority party,” he recalls. Norwegian oil-field services he’s focused on leading the TV he shepherded the launch “I asked her out a week later.” company, has welcomed industry’s challenging transi- of Studio 5 — the city’s first Now Arneson is Julia Wert, Daniel Piette ’80 to its board tion into newer digital media streetside television studio, and the couple has four kids — of directors. He’s the president and takes pride in his team’s which allows passersby to including daughter Sara, who and CEO of OpenSpirit Cor- achievements — his station watch the live broadcast may become a Badger next year. poration in Stafford, Texas, a and staff have earned nearly through a window. — Greg Forbes Siegman middleware company special- izing in data integration. We’ve heard a lot about Al for Environmental Studies, was Timothy Boehmer ’82 has Kelly Garnsey Hubbell + Lass. Gore receiving the Nobel Peace also a lead author of the IPCC been appointed to the Wiscon- Our apology to Sheri Prize in October, but the group report, as well as a lead author sin Pharmacy Examining Board Lunde Albers ’83, whose that shared it with him includes of its 1995 and 2001 reports. by Governor Jim Doyle ’67. degree year was omitted (Cheryl) Lynn Kauffman John Magnuson served as a Boehmer is the pharmacist clini- in our Fall 2007 cover story, Price ’80, MS’82. That body lead author in those earlier cal coordinator for St. Elizabeth “Getting In: The Not-So-Secret — the Intergovernmental Panel reports as well. He’s a UW Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Admissions Process.” She’s a on Climate Change (IPCC) — is professor emeritus of zoology, Care Unit in Appleton, as well UW-Madison undergraduate a network of two thousand and director emeritus of the as the immediate past president admissions adviser and serves scientists that’s considered to campus’s Center for Limnology. of the Wisconsin Association on the New Counselor Institute be the world’s leading author- Jay Suhr ’80 — a senior for Perinatal Care, and its first committee of the Wisconsin ity on climate change, and Price VP of creative services and pharmacist president. Thanks to Association of College Admis- was a lead author of its Fourth account planning at market- his spouse, Kim Saxe Boehmer sions Counselors. Assessment Report. She’s also ing agency T3 (The Think Tank) ’83, for letting us know. For the first time, the a research scientist at the Law- — is shining brightly as one of Who’s the new city attor- Maynard, Massachusetts-based rence Berkeley National Labo- three creative Online All Stars ney in Denver? It’s David Fine Monster is sharing its exclusive ratory in Berkeley, California. chosen by OMMA magazine. ’82. Prior to this appointment, employee-recruitment system Jonathan Patz, a professor in Suhr works in the firm’s Aus- he specialized in civil and in Finding Keepers: The Monster the Center for Sustainability tin, Texas, office, but we hear employment litigation, as Guide to Hiring and Holding and the Global Environment that he praises his alma mater well as constitutional and the World’s Best Employees in the UW’s Nelson Institute whenever he gets the chance. election law as a partner at (McGraw-Hill). Co-author

54 ON WISCONSIN ALUMNI NEWS

A Steady Diet of Bubbles and Cheesecake If you’ve ever had the theme willisville.com, an evolving MARYANNE BILHAM from TV’s Friends going prototype for the first social through your head (“I’ll be network, and Willis went on there for you, ’cause you’re to consult for the likes of Intel, there for me, too”) you can Microsoft, AOL, and Disney. thank Allee (Alta) Willis She also collaborated with ’69. The Emmy- and Tony- Lily Tomlin on lilytomlin.com, nominated composer won a which is based on the actress’s Grammy for the Beverly Hills life, characters, and Tony- Cop soundtrack, and her songs winning play The Search for include the Pointer Sisters’ Signs of Intelligent Life in the “Neutron Dance” and collabo- Universe, in which the character ration on the Broadway show Kate is based on Allee Willis. The Color Purple. Willis also throws inspired Shortly after The Color parties and events-as-perfor- Purple, seven of Willis’s classic mance-art, many of them at hits for Earth, Wind & Fire her historic North Hollywood went into the EW&F-themed Allee Willis (right) and Holly Palmer are livin’ — and lovin’ — home — a Streamline Mod- la vida loca. musical Hot Feet, which made erne structure that was built as her the first woman (and only Palmer — a solo artist and Woman Thang” video has also MGM’s party house in 1937 the fifth person ever) to have former vocalist with the Gnarls launched on YouTube. and is said to hold one of the written music for two shows Barkley band — and their Underlying this parallel world’s largest assemblages of opening on Broadway in the very real alter egos, Bubbles virtual universe is Willis’s kitsch. (How fitting!) same season. the artist and Cheesecake, technological knowledge and And Willis — as her alter In 2006, her songs were respectively. vision: she’s a cyber pioneer ego Bubbles — is a visual art- featured in three of the year’s Now the two women are who, in the early 1990s, con- ist whose paintings, ceramics, top-grossing films: Happy Feet, like a funky quartet in which ceived Internet realms and motorized sculptures, and Night at the Museum, and Babel. all four personalities revel advocated for them before the furniture are widely collected, She’s collaborated with Bob in creative self-expression term new media even existed. and whose talent stretches to Dylan, James Brown, Herbie through their “soul-kitsch In 1991 — ancient times, really set design and animation. No Hancock, and many others. fusion” of music, video, art, — her home was one of L.A.’s wonder she and her funky aes- But Willis is also a multime- blogs, stories, games, anima- first fully wired, networked thetic have been the subject of dia artist and, as her Web site tion, and social networking locations (and today it’s one of one of the ultimate pop-culture puts it, a “one-woman creative called the Soul of Bubbles and the first all-fiber homes). tributes: a feature in People think tank.” She has teamed up Cheesecake (www.bubblesand- Willis and her then-partner magazine. with singer-songwriter Holly cheesecake.com). Their “It’s a Prudence Fenton developed — P.A. president, CEO, and owner of and work together, how does to help control blood pressure chism in Fin-de-Siècle France: Spectrum Diversified Designs that … well, work? You could in African-American patients, Painting, Politics, and Land- — a manufacturer of storage ask Christine and Jon Seidman who are at greater risk. Rocky scape (Ashgate Publishing). and organizational products in PhD’75, because as the co- (Franklin) LaDien ’77, a district Lorna Gruen Nagler ’78 Streetsboro, Ohio. directors of Harvard Medical pharmacy supervisor for the Wal- has moved up the career ladder Leaving the bench this School’s Seidman Laboratory green Company in Milwaukee, once again, this time stepping summer opened the door to a (she has an MD in cardiology; writes that he’s glad to have into the president and CEO new private practice for former he has a PhD in genetics), they contracted with his former pro- roles with the Minneapolis- La Crosse County [Wisconsin] complement each other in fessor — principal investigator based women’s clothing retailer circuit judge Roger LeGrand their research into the causes and pharmacy professor emerita Christopher & Banks Corpora- JD’75: LeGrand Law, Media- of hereditary heart diseases. Bonnie Svarstad MA’67, tion, which operates stores in tion, and Conflict Resolution. In June, they also received the PhD’74 — for this “great com- forty-five states. Nagler was He believes that “doing conflict 2007 Grand Prix de la Fonda- munity service.” most recently the president of resolution peacefully under the tion Lefoulon-Delalande at the Robyn Roslak ’77, MA’78 Lane Bryant. law is really the cutting edge Institut de France in Paris. has combined her PhD studies Alysse Lemery Rasmus- of where the law profession is Courtesy of a $2.3 million in art history at UCLA and her sen ’78 and her sisters have going.” Thanks to his spouse, grant from the National Heart, work as an assistant professor set up the nonprofit Lulu G. Sondra Altomare LeGrand Lung, and Blood Institute, UW of art history at the University Lemery Foundation for Arts & ’74, for letting us know. School of Pharmacy researchers of Minnesota-Duluth to write Expression (www.lemery.org) When couples live together are evaluating a new initiative Neo-Impressionism and Anar- in Oregon, Wisconsin, to honor

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Dunes Residential Services in Groupwork with Special-Needs maker’s past PBS work includes Bookmark Overland Park, Kansas. Zachary Children: The Evolving Process films on Little League baseball Abeles ’97, an attorney (Charles C. Thomas). Goodman and social class in America. at Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan is director of music therapy at A “contemplative, Suelthaus in Clayton, Missouri, Montclair State University in compelling book that explores has received a 2007 Grosberg Upper Montclair, New Jersey. the links between golf and life Young Leadership Award from After thirty-four years in by way of art and literature, the St. Louis federation. television weather broadcasting, philosophy, and psychology”? Robert Smith ’67, JD’74 Don Noe ’73 has retired to the That’s one way to describe is a construction attorney and Florida Keys to do a little fish- The Poetics of Golf (University shareholder in the Madison ing and relaxing. He began his of Nebraska Press) by Andy office of Akerman Senter- career in Green Bay, Wisconsin; Brumer ’74 of Alhambra, fitt Wickwire Gavin who’s moved on to Portland, Oregon; California. He’s also a freelance Allison Hantschel Sansone been honored twice recently: and had been the chief meteor- writer and the former editor ’96 was among the handful of he’s been inducted into the ologist at WPLG-TV in Miami for of Golf Tips magazine and people who saved the Daily National Academy of Construc- the last twenty-eight years. Petersen’s Golfing. Cardinal from extinction in tion, and elected secretary The September issue of The International Facili- the mid-1990s, and she’s of the American College of Madison Magazine praised ties Management Association’s been writing the newspaper’s Construction Lawyers. several local “eco-heroines” for 2007 Educator of the Year is comprehensive history just “The land of perpetual making a positive environmental Suzanne (Suzi) Long Ken- about ever since. It’s called Saturdays” is where Joan difference in our world. Carla nedy ’74, MS’77. She’s been It Doesn’t End with Us: The Gammell Bahn ’68 now Wright ’73 works with the the primary faculty member Story of the Daily Cardinal: resides — at least according to DNR’s Green Tier program, which and program coordinator for How a College Newspaper’s Fight her spouse, Mike — now that rewards businesses for achieving the facilities planning and for Freedom Changed Its Uni- she’s retired after almost forty superior environmental perfor- management program at versity, Challenged Journalism, years of nursing practice. Joan’s mance. Sonya Newenhouse Boston’s Wentworth Institute and Influenced Hundreds of Lives career began at Madison’s Uni- MS’92, PhD’97 heads the Madi- of Technology since 1990. (Heritage Books). versity Hospital and concluded son Environmental Group, which This fall, the UW’s Chazen In part, the book is about in Olympia, Washington, where has kicked off such eco-initiatives Museum of Art hosted a sober- the lives and times that the the Bahns actually live. as the Community Car concept ing photographic exhibit by paper has chronicled in its Tom Kennedy ’68, MS’73, in Madison, Full Circle Furniture, Madisonian Michael Kienitz 115-year history, but it’s PhD’75 is the new president and Casa Kit Homes. And Molly ’74 titled Small Arms: Children also about the human side of of the World Association for Jahn, dean of the UW’s College of Conflict. The seed for the such an endeavor. Sansone the Advancement of Veterinary of Agricultural and Life Sciences, collection was planted when interviewed more than one Parasitology and has served on has helped to land a $125 million he traveled to Nicaragua in the hundred Cardinal alumni its executive board since 2001. award from the Department of late 1970s, and then to many to learn their stories: days He’s also senior VP of research Energy to build the Great Lakes other conflict-ridden spots on filled with writing stories on and development for Central Bioenergy Research Center. freelance assignment over the deadline between classes, and Life Services in Phoenix. Marquette University’s next decade — and was contin- nights filled with the flurry of School of Dentistry has given ually moved by the determina- eleventh-hour changes that its 2007 Outstanding Dental tion and playfulness of children go into putting the issue to 70s Service Award to Steven amid destruction and grief. bed. Such an environment Albright ’74 of Seattle, who’s Two-time Emmy winner produces the kinds of bonds John Gottcent PhD’71 volunteered with humanitar- Jeff Cesario ’75 of L.A. made that last a lifetime and the describes his first novel, The ian teams working in troubled his first Madison stand-up skills that have formed the Autobiography of Jesus of areas around the globe. In comedy appearance in foundation for many stellar Nazareth: A Novel (Pub- addition to his private practice, October, but he’s no stranger careers in journalism. lishAmerica), as an “imagina- Albright is also on the faculty to performing. Cesario has Sansone is an Oak Park, tive attempt to examine the of the University of Washing- made the late-night talk show Illinois-based freelance human dimensions of one of ton dentistry school and has rounds with his stand-up rou- writer, columnist, blog- the world’s great religious lead- been active in WAA’s Rain City tines; written and produced for ger (www.first-draft.com), ers, and to explore what the Badgers alumni chapter. Dennis Miller, Larry Sanders, and the political editor of world might have looked like A recent entry in the PBS and Spike Feresten; written for Sirens magazine. Her spouse through his eyes.” Gottcent is series America at a Crossroads and acted in feature films; and is Anthony Sansone ’94, a professor emeritus of English — called “The Anti-Americans: spoofs sports on his satirical site another Cardinal savior and at the University of Southern A Hate/Love Relationship,” www.Sportalicious.com. the founder of the Daily Indiana in Evansville. about European attitudes New to the board of the Cardinal Alumni Association From Karen Goodman toward Americans — was co- International Housewares (www.dailycardinal.net). ’72 comes a new primary ref- produced by Louis Alvarez Association is Sheldon Good- erence called Music Therapy ’74. The New York City film- man MBA’75, the founder,

52 ON WISCONSIN ALUMNI NEWS

Who’s News? Compiled by Paula Wagner High gathered in College Academy of Sciences [in 2006] Apfelbach ’83 Park, Maryland, this fall to warrants mention.” We think Perhaps you are! Please send honor Purvis “Doc” Williams so! Kutzbach, a UW professor PhD’47 — their former prin- emeritus, is researching climate us the news of your recent early years cipal — on his one-hundredth change at the UW’s Center for achievements, transitions, and birthday. They reminisced Climatic Research, where he’s other significant life happenings. “He is effervescing with knowl- about his disciplined school, also the associate director. edge, memories, and adamant the mutual respect that he Raising Hell for Justice: The You may e-mail the opinions” was how an August fostered, and his insistence Washington Battles of a Heart- (brief, please) details to article in the Oconomowoc that the predominantly Afri- land Progressive (University of [Wisconsin] Focus summed can-American school receive Wisconsin Press) is the memoir [email protected]; up Arthur Wetzel ’26 on the needed materials. A larger of the longest-serving member mail them to Alumni News, occasion of his one-hundred- community celebration fol- of the U.S. Congress in Wiscon- Wisconsin Alumni Association, and-fourth birthday. He lowed a few days later. sin history and the current chair spent his career in his family’s The Journal of Mathemati- of the Appropriations Commit- 650 North Lake Street, Milwaukee business, Wetzel cal Analysis and Applications tee: David Obey ’60, MA’68 Madison, WI 53706-1476; or Brothers Printing Company, (Elsevier) recently honored (D-Wausau). His commitment to and was at the helm during its William Ames ’49, MS’50 on economic and social justice was fax them to (608) 265-8771. one-hundredth anniversary in his eightieth birthday with a recognized in 2007 with the Space limitations prevent us 1985. Wetzel was one of the publisher’s announcement and American Political Science Asso- from publishing every item first people to obtain a Social tribute. A longtime member ciation’s Hubert H. Humphrey Security card, has traveled of the journal’s editorial board Career Award for notable pub- we receive, but we love to the world, and owns a 2006 and its co-editor-in-chief from lic service by a political scientist. hear from you anyway. Rolls-Royce. 1991 until his 2006 retirement, Ron Kurtus ’62 has been Reading about the he’s currently an emeritus quoted as a resource in ten Please e-mail death notices and September death of Frederick professor of mathematics at books, with titles as diverse Burkhardt — a retired Ben- the Georgia Institute of Tech- as Global Leadership: The Next all address, name, telephone, nington [Vermont] College pres- nology. Ames, of Atlanta, con- Generation; The Kid: Biography and e-mail updates to ident — led Richard May ’39 cludes, “It’s been a great career of Baseball Great Ted Williams; [email protected]; of Nyack, New York, to share — I owe Wisconsin a big debt.” and Canine and Feline Geri- some memories. Burkhardt, who When UW-Oshkosh atric Oncology. Kurtus owns mail them to Alumni Changes, was his UW adviser and later philosophy professor and the online-education provider Wisconsin Alumni Association, his good friend, helped him to department chair John Burr School for Champions and lives find his way from philosophy ’55 recently received the in the Lake Oswego, Oregon, 650 North Lake Street, to urban planning, which May school’s Sniffen Faculty Gover- artists’ colony. Madison, WI 53706-1476; studied at Columbia University nance Service Award — which James Dueholm ’64 of fax them to (608) 262-3332; or and the London School of honors those with exceptional Washington, D.C., has written Economics, and parlayed into university-service records — what he describes as a “critique call them in to (608) 262-9648 an esteemed career. the reason was clear. UW-O’s of liberal constitutional juris- or toll free to (888) 947-2586. provost noted that “even a prudence” called Say What? cursory review of Burr’s service The Manhandling of the Most obituary listings of 40s–50s … reveals a virtually unprec- Constitution (PublishAmerica). edented level of commitment.” Author Robert Winkler WAA members and friends Harold Ristow ’40 celebrated MS’65, PhD’71 provides plenty appear in the Badger his ninetieth birthday in to consider on either side of a 60s Insider, WAA’s member October with extended-family home transaction in Buying or members Corey Rindner ’73, Selling a Home? Read This First publication, which is now Elizabeth Ristow Robson New Rochelle, New York — the (Infinity Publishing.com). Win- published quarterly and mailed MA’79, David Peterschmidt hometown of Earl Hill ’60 — kler has been selling residential ’86, and Emily Koelbl ’01. inducted him in November as real estate in Colorado for the independently of Ristow stays active with a blog, the newest star in its sports hall last decade, but was once an On Wisconsin. political e-mails, and frequent of fame. Hill is a senior lecturer administrator at UW-Madison. letters to the editor of the at Emory University’s Goizueta The Jewish Federations of x-planation: An x preceding newspaper in his home com- Business School in Atlanta. Greater Kansas City and St. Louis John Kutzbach a degree year indicates that the munity of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Writes have honored two Badgers: Ristow’s brothers Walter ’31 ’60, MS’61, PhD’66, “I enjoy Ward Katz ’66 is the new fed- individual did not complete, and Robert ’39 both died in On Wisconsin Magazine and eration president in Kansas City or has not yet completed, that April 2006. have not contributed to Alumni and will preside over its seventy- A group of 1950s and ’60s News since graduation. Perhaps fifth anniversary celebration. degree at UW-Madison. graduates of Spingarn Senior my election to the National He’s the president and CEO of

SPRING 2008 51 UPFRONT

Chewing the Fat By Matt Hagengruber ’03

The two years I spent as a Peace ulcers, keeps you regular, and believe it helps. These kinds of Corps volunteer taught me a lot even boosts your libido. Rub it home brews go back thousands about medicine. Before shipping on your feet, drink it with honey of years, he says, so it really off to my site in western Ukraine and milk, wash it down with can’t hurt. in 2004, the Peace Corps doctors black currant jam. I’m still a non-believer until in Kiev gave me a giant medi- “We also use it for muscle someone can show me how it cal kit containing horse pills to pain and circulation problems,” works. But even though I lack fall back on when doctors were says Leonid Galin, a doctor in my medical proof, I am tempted to many hours away. city of Uzhgorod. “If you have try it the next time I start cough- Turns out I didn’t need any bronchitis, rub it on your chest. ing. And if it works, who knows? of those pills. The further I dove It’s the substance for many medi- Maybe I’ll try some other Ukrai- into Ukrainian culture, the more cines in Ukraine.” nian folk remedies. However, home remedies I discovered. So how does it work? The I had second thoughts when Slather sour cream over yourself company, lacking any sort of one doctor gave me a sobering if you’re sun burnt. Smoke a FDA-like agency to verify its warning. garlic stalk to fight a cold. Rub claims, just says that badger fat is “We tell people not to drink an onion on a bee sting and helpful because it keeps badgers their own urine, and they not walk around until the smell goes alive during hibernation. It’s rich only drink it but they rub it on away. A vodka-soaked towel in vitamins, acids, and other stuff themselves,” says Misha Devh- helps a sore throat. (Well, vodka I’ve never heard of. It regulates anych, another Uzhgorod doc- is like penicillin to Ukrainians. your system. tor. “That, and village women People even say it reduces radia- Although none of the doc- put cabbage leaves on their tion left over from Chernobyl. At tors I’ve talked to in Uzhgorod breasts” to relieve the pain and least it helps people forget.) can tell me exactly how it works, swelling of nursing. But it can After three years in After three years in Ukraine, they all swear that it does. But be dangerous to rely solely on I’ve discovered that all the how is the substance inside home remedies without seeing Ukraine, I’ve discovered medicine I need can be found in Bucky’s love handles different a doctor, he says. that all the medicine I one little bottle for sale in any from, say, a chunk of salo, the Still, with flu season loom- need can be found in one Ukrainian pharmacy. It’s called raw pig fat [shown in photo] ing, I decided to try a tentative little bottle for sale in any borsuchy zheer. Badger fat. that is Ukraine’s national dish? taste of badger fat, just so I’d Yeah, “Bottled Bucky.” At “I’ve heard of a daily spoon- know what to expect. Ukrainian pharmacy. It’s first, I chalked it up as a bad ful of skunk fat [on a call-in radio And, it tasted like … well, it called borsuchy zheer. translation, but then I looked show], but never badger fat,” reminded me of something bet- Badger fat. closely at the little brown says Bruce Barrett after a burst ter left to the taxidermist’s drain. bottle and saw a badger on of laughter. Barrett is a doctor I think I’ll settle for a shot of the label. In Ukraine, it turns out and assistant professor in the vodka instead. that badgers are good for more Department of Family Medicine than just doing pushups after a at UW-Madison. “Those kinds Matt Hagengruber ’03, a former Peace touchdown. of claims — the belief can be Corps volunteer in Uzhgorod, Ukraine, I ended up marrying a girl extremely strong, and I try not is now a reporter at the Billings from the town where I worked. to argue with people too much. Gazette in Billings, Montana. She swallows a tablespoon of … I imagine that if I looked hard borsuchy zheer a day when she enough, I could come up with a If you’re a UW-Madison alumna has the flu. Her mom prom- theoretical structure that would or alumnus and you’d like the ises me that it cleans out the support its use,” he says. editors to consider an essay for lungs. The company that makes Although Barrett can’t use in On Wisconsin, please the stuff promises even more: explain why badger fat might send it to WAA@uwalumnicom. it fights tuberculosis, cleans work, he says it can still have a wounds, calms asthma, soothes positive effect for people who

50 ON WISCONSIN WAA NEWS

Jung’s Legacy Alumni keep a friend’s memory alive through scholarships.

The legacy of John Jung ’01 “This was our way to deal 2007–08 recipient, Eileen Mal- floods campus every April. Jung with losing [Jung],” says Matt loy-Wolzberg x’11. “My dad was a member of the Wisconsin Kopac ’01, who helped create faced alcoholism issues and died Alumni Student Board (WASB), the foundation. “We want to when I was six months old,” she a WAA student affiliate group, identify and support people says. “He’d been working to get where he was the animating who would impact the world in over it, just like John, but in the spirit behind All-Campus Party, the way John would have.” end was unable to. So I felt a a series of free, alcohol-alterna- Jung’s death followed a connection with John and with tive events to help students cel- long battle with substance this program.” ebrate spring. First held in 2001, abuse, and that struggle factors According to Kopac, WAA’s the party has since become an into the way the foundation support has been important to annual tradition. assesses scholarship applicants. the foundation because of the But Jung’s friends hope to “Our scholarship program important place WASB held in create a more profound cam- fosters the education of young Jung’s life. pus legacy for Jung, who died adults who have the same pas- “When word went around in 2006. They hope to make his sion, the same excitement for that John had passed away,” name synonymous with a new life, and the desire to make the Kopac says, “the individuals generation of student leaders. people around them happier, [at WAA] were so helpful and The John W. Jung Scholar- just as John did,” says Melissa willing to do what was needed. ship Foundation offers a semes- Wollering ’03, another mem- They pushed us forward and ter’s tuition — approximately ber of the foundation. “[Appli- helped us get larger, institu- $3,400 — to a Wisconsin high cants] don’t have to be perfect, tional support.” school graduate who attends and many of them have over- The Jung Foundation will UW-Madison and shows leader- come major struggles with alco- select the 2008–09 scholarship ship and initiative. Created by a hol abuse in their families or recipient this summer. For more group of Jung’s friends, includ- physical challenges or academic information about the founda- ing former members of WASB challenges.” tion and its scholarship, or to and Homecoming, the founda- The connection to substance contribute, visit its Web site, tion granted its first scholarship abuse is one of the things that www.johnwjungmemorial.org. this academic year. caught the attention of the — John Allen BOB RASHID Russian Defector When Benjamin Lang x’11 enrolled in a WAA online course last spring, he learned about more than Russian history — he learned about himself. Lang was so moved by Russian Civilization: The Revolutionary Movement to the Cold War and the archived lectures of UW historian Michael Petrovich, that he changed the course of his academic career. At the time, Lang was carving out an academic path that included his two passions: music and Russian culture. He was also taking two courses and working as a research assistant for a music historian at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was responsible for searching through Soviet newspapers at the time of Stalin’s death in the mid-1950s. “My eyes were opened to political and social dialogue through musical composition,” he says. “Music does not have to be segregated from other academic areas.” Lang transferred to UW-Madison and plans to enroll in the School of Music. His primary instrument is the bayan, a Russian instrument that looks like an accordion. Eventually, he’d like to go to Moscow for graduate studies at the Gnesin State Musical College. WAA president and CEO Paula Bonner (center left) and Bucky hand A new resident of Adams Hall, Lang believes that online slices of cake to students in Gordon Commons during Founders’ Day in courses can create deeper learning than traditional classes. “The February. For the second straight year, WAA helped students celebrate course influenced my raison d’être,” he says. “And that type of the university’s birthday by serving a special dessert in the residence change simply cannot be evaluated by a grading scale.” hall dining facilities. — Karen Roach ’82

SPRING 2008 49 WAA NEWS

Paying It Forward New award and publication honor outstanding young alumni.

They are innovators in business, UÊ José Lerma MA’01, champions for education, and MFA’02, Brooklyn, New York dedicated international vol- — internationally recognized unteers — and they’re not yet artist and professor of art. forty years old. UÊ Marc Lewis ’94, Boston — In recognition of their middle-school teacher who remarkable work, twenty-three provides training for staff and young University of Wisconsin- students in school districts Madison graduates have been throughout Massachusetts honored with the new “Forward on GLBT and other diversity Seeking the under 40” Award from the issues. Wisconsin Alumni Association. Successful Timothy Miller ’06, Milton, These outstanding graduates, UÊ Wisconsin — former teacher WAA is seeking nominations according to Paula Bonner of physics for girls in Rwanda, for its highest honor, the MS’78, WAA president and CEO, college students to brainstorm Africa; he will return to the UW Distinguished Alumni Award. “live the Wisconsin Idea” — the innovative ideas for companies. for graduate school this fall. Presented each May, the 104-year-old guiding philosophy award recognizes those UW- behind UW outreach efforts UÊ Ryan Christianson ’96, UÊ Janet Olson ’92, New Brigh- Madison graduates who have to aid people in Wisconsin and Edgar, Wisconsin — associ- ton, Minnesota — veterinarian made outstanding contribu- throughout the world. ate principal of Lincoln High and founder of Basic Animal tions to their profession, their “These young Badgers are School, and co-creator of Rescue Training (BART) to communities, or in support of among the world’s best and Digital Time Travelers, a tech- provide first-response care for the university. To nominate brightest innovators and citi- based learning tool. companion animals. someone for a 2009 Distin- zens,” Bonner says. “They have UÊ Kenny Dichter ’90, Livings- UÊ Neil Peters-Michaud ’93, guished Alumni Award, see quickly used what they learned ton, New Jersey — founder and Madison — founder, president, uwalumni.com/awards. at UW-Madison to make broad, CEO of MarquisJet in New York. and CEO of Cascade Asset Man- positive contributions for people UÊ Leslie Goldman ’98, agement, a computer-recycling and communities here in Wis- Chicago — author and speaker firm. consin and around the world.” about women and body image UÊ Amanda Rockman ’01, The award winners are issues. JD’05, Black River Falls, Wiscon- featured in Forward under 40, sin — associate trial judge for a publication distributed in UÊ Claire Herrick MD’07, San the Ho Chunk Nation. March 2008 to more than one Francisco — health advocate in hundred thousand UW-Madi- Tanzania and areas affected by UÊ Mary Rohlich ’03 and Les- son alumni. Interactive profiles Hurricane Katrina. ley Feinstein ’03, Los Angeles of the award winners are avail- UÊ Adam ’00 and Chrissy ’99 — founders of the Hollywood able at forwardunder40.com. Jeske, KwaZulu-Natal, South Badgers, which helps alumni The 2008 recipients are: Africa — international develop- living in the L.A. area and UW students get a start in the UÊ Josh Bycel ’93, Los Ange- ment volunteers, writers, and entertainment industry. les — president of OneKid teachers. OneWorld, an international UÊ Ben-Tzion Karsh ’93, UÊ Ben Schumaker ’03, education and sports-based MS’96, PhD’99, Madison — MA’06, Madison — founder grassroots organization. associate professor of industrial of The Memory Project, a UÊ Lisa Peyton-Caire ’96, engineering at UW-Madison, nonprofit program that has MA’99, and Kaleem Caire where his research focuses on provided more than fifteen ’00, Bowie, Maryland — found- preventing medical errors. thousand hand-painted por- ers, Next Generation Education UÊ James Kass ’91, San Fran- traits for orphaned children Foundation, a nonprofit com- cisco — founder of Youth around the world. mitted to increasing school par- Speaks, the nation’s leading UÊ Eric Wilson ’98, Addis ticipation by adolescent males presenter of spoken-word per- Ababa, Ethiopia — administra- of color. formance. tive officer for the Peace Corps, UÊ Anand Chhatpar ’05, UÊ Paula Kluth ’92, PhD’98, training volunteers to provide Madison — CEO and founder Chicago — author and inde- HIV/AIDS relief in rural villages. of BrainReactions, a company pendent consultant in the field — Kate Dixon ’01, MA’07 that taps into the creativity of of autism education. and Karen Roach ’82

48 ON WISCONSIN SPORTS

For those who spend more state (1,131 are members of with free videos and interviews In the wake of the release of the time online than with cell the Wisconsin Network), other with athletics personnel. Mitchell Report on steroid use in phones, alerts are also available “friends” live in Minneapolis, “We also have an incredible Major League Baseball, Norman by e-mail through BuckyMail, Chicago, and other cities. historical section that contains Fost, UW professor of pediatrics another customizable tool that For fans who can’t live moments that many fans have and bioethics, sounded a contrar- allows people to sign up for without their iPods, UW Ath- never seen,” says Tam Flarup, ian call. In a debate sponsored sports updates or such services letics offers sports content via director of Web site services for by National Public Radio and in as the daily “Badger Basketball downloadable podcasts. Going a profile in the Chicago Tribune, Insider,” which provides the directly from the field into Fost argued for allowing profes- inside scoop on the basketball fans’ headphones, sional athletes to use steroids program. the podcasts pro- under a physician’s guidance. “Depending on your needs vide an insider The health threat from steroids, and your thirst for Badger athlet- he argues, is highly exaggerated. ics, you can get all different kinds “More people have died playing of information,” Ahearn says. 12 basketball than have died of UW Athletics is also using steroid use,” he said. Facebook, the social networking site that draws in students who The Big Ten Network is already are eager for all kinds of infor- paying dividends to the univer- mation and gossip. By creating sity, say Chancellor John D. Wiley a Facebook profile, the athletic MS’65, PhD’68 and athletic direc- department has joined a world tor Barry Alvarez. The network of “friends” who share interests has provided some $6.1 million in music, books, and — most to UW-Madison, which will aid importantly — sports teams. need-based scholarships, library Students who become friends maintenance, and the athletic with the Badgers can receive department. ticketing and promotional BARRY ROAL CARLSEN updates that appear on their University Ridge Golf Course’s Facebook home and events Ryan Wieme ’01 was named the pages. A link on uwbadgers.com Assistant Golf Professional allows students with a Facebook of the Year by the Wisconsin profile to “friend” the Badgers Professional Golfers’ Association. with a simple click of the mouse. Wieme has worked at University “The way students are com- Ridge since 2001. municating on campus amongst themselves is changing, so we Ready to bring it on? Bucky and have to adapt the way that we the dance team were. At the Col- communicate,” says Ahearn. lege Cheerleading and Dance “On staff here, we have nine Team National Tournament in students that work in our mar- account of games and practices, the athletic department. “It’s Orlando, Florida, Bucky took sec- keting office, and they were and feature the sounds of cleats incredibly interactive.” ond place in the mascot competi- sort of the impetus behind using on the field or the musings of For the Badger fan who still tion — behind the University of [Facebook]. They are the ones football coach Bret Bielema can’t get enough, the Web site Tennessee’s Smokey, a blue tick who maintain and update the after a long day of practice. features funny activities and a coonhound in an orange tuxedo profile.” And if you’ve ever won- trivia section to entertain kids — and the dance team finished The Facebook profile lets dered what it’s like to pump and adults alike — perhaps the in third place, behind Minnesota fans know that UW Athletics iron alongside the football perfect thing to spice up a dull and (again in first) Tennessee. has recently updated its favor- team or what players eat for day at the office or a gathering ite music to “anything played dinner at the Fetzer Center, the to watch a game. It seems that everybody loves the by the UW Marching Band,” UW Athletics Web site has the “We have tons of games UW women’s hockey team. In and one of its top interests is answers — and wants you to that you can play, like dress-up January, the squad set an NCAA “attending every Badger home see for yourself. The site’s audio Bucky and paper doll Bucky and attendance record when 5,377 game.” While existing “friends” and video section includes an Bucky’s trivia,” says Flarup, who fans saw them beat St. Cloud of UW Athletics hail most com- up-close-and-very-personal view warns, “It’s addictive!” State 4-0. monly from the Badgers’ home of sports facilities and practices, — Vanessa de Bruijn x’08

SPRING 2008 47 SPORTS

All Badgers, All the Time Computers, cell phones, and podcasts bring the action to eager fans.

The office water cooler — that them salivate: game stories, in- But Badger Nation is hardly gathering spot for the most depth analysis, Badger recruiting the only way to follow the Bad- Team Player fanatical of sports fans — has updates, interviews with players, gers’ every move online. The Victor Diaz relocated to the digital world. audio clips, picture galleries, UW athletic department has Five things you should know “You used to have to wait and more. The site, which has a also jumped on the digital band- about UW soccer player for the morning paper or the companion print magazine, is wagon. To better cater to their Victor Diaz x’08: local [TV] sports to find the essentially a one-stop shop for tech-savvy fans, the official Bad- UÊ ÊÀœÜˆ˜}ÊÕ«Ê results of a game, but now all things Wisconsin-related. gers Web site (uwbadgers.com) in Toledo, there are Web sites with “We have video, audio, has gradually become a portal Spain, Diaz text alerts and twenty- interactive rosters — all of the to a host of digital tools. played soc- four-hour television sports things you would normally have One of the newest efforts is cer com- networks,” says Benjamin to search several sites for — just BuckyText, a service that enables petitively Worgull ’07, editor-in- one click away on our site,” says subscribers to receive text mes- for Real chief and publisher of Worgull. “We’ve worked very sages on their cell phones or Madrid and Badger Nation, an online hard to make sure our members handheld PDA devices. The several other sports community. “ESPN has get everything they want or messages include season ticket private clubs even gone so far as to develop need to stay involved with their news, individual game ticket before coming to [its] own phone service designed favorite team.” offers and promotions, event the United States. specifically for sports fans that And the site provides plenty notices, and special alerts. UÊ Ê >Žˆ˜}ÊÌ iʍՓ«ÊvÀœ“Ê gives them mobile alerts with of juicy water cooler action — “There are a couple of high school to the profes- scores, breaking news, and even albeit virtually. By logging on to things that are improved over sional ranks may be the the ability to check their fantasy Badger Nation’s Badger Maniac the way we used to commu- dream of many young sports teams.” forum, fans enter a world where nicate, and the biggest thing athletes, but not for Diaz. Badger Nation (wisconsin. everyone loves sports, and no is that these programs are Offered the chance to scout.com) is one of a group of one is shy about sharing an customizable — the fans get play professionally, he Web sites owned by Scout.com, opinion. Users chat about topics what they want,” says Adam instead chose to make which operates sites for some ranging from which recruits the Ahearn ’00, assistant director education a priority. two hundred colleges and every UW will go after next to their of marketing and promotions UÊ Ê ˆ>âÊV œÃiÊ7ˆÃVœ˜Ãˆ˜Ê professional football team. Each own “dream playoff scenarios” for the athletic department. over several other Ameri- college and team site contains for a college football champi- “The second thing that’s nice can universities after a diverse content designed for onship. Many members don’t is that [content] is extremely meeting with head coach diverse audiences. live in the Madison area, so the easy to put together and turn Jeff Rohrman, who, he Catering to an audience of forum provides immediate grati- around, so if there is that notes, showed a lot of sports nuts who simply can’t get fication, connecting them with breaking news story, we can interest in him both as a enough of the Badgers, Worgull others who understand their send it out as soon as possible, player and as a person. runs a site that aims to quickly intense — some might say over- instead of using other tools UÊ Ê ˆ>âÊVÀi`ˆÌÃÊ>ÊÃÕVViÃÃvÕÊ deliver information to make the-top — love of Badger sports. that might take more time.” 2007 junior season, in which he led the squad in IN SEASON

assists and points and was UW SPORTS INFORMATION (2) a first-team All-Big Ten Women’s Tennis selection, to a personal Circle the dates: From April 24 to 27, the Badgers will compete motto: “Anytime I play in the Big Ten Championships in West Lafayette, Indiana. The soccer,” he says, “I want NCAA Regionals will follow from May 9 to 11. to enjoy soccer. Last sea- son I was more creative Keep an eye on: Emese Kardhordo x’11. This freshman from and productive because Budapest was a member of Hungary’s under-eighteen national of that mentality.” team and was part of the squad that captured that country’s divi- UÊ Ê"˜iʜvÊvœÕÀÊÃi˜ˆœÀÃʜ˜Ê sion I national championship in 2006. In the United States, she’s the Badger squad, Diaz ranked thirty-sixth nationally in singles and fourteenth in doubles. plans on graduating in December and hopes his Think about this: The Badgers have a new head coach, Brian family will be able to Fleishman, who led the Wake Forest team from 1999 to 2005 make the trip from Spain to see him play this fall. and took them to six NCAA tournament appearances during those seven years.

46 ON WISCONSIN Free tables are plentiful on Union Pier, as waves crash on a chilly, windy day in November. This scene was captured before the Union had a chance to cache its furniture for the winter, but it’s a good thing the tables and chairs were eventually tucked away. The winter of 2007–08 has been particularly stormy, setting a record for snowfall. The previous record (76.1 inches, set in 1978–79) went by the boards on February 12. The meteorology department maintains that summer will come again, but a weather-weary campus isn’t so sure. Photo by Jeff Miller SCENE Immediate Seating that It’s no surprise JEFF FRAZIER Nelson quickly tired of the San Francisco scene of drugs, sex, and rock ’n’ roll. “It had become unpleas- ant, with heroin and cocaine seeping into the scene,” she says. “San Francisco had lost its allure. I wasn’t a good flower child — I’d gone there to make a living. I knew it was a good place to get a record deal.” That year, she took her band to Nashville to record the second Mother Earth album. They rented a farm in the country, and Nelson liked the area so much that she decided to stay. Yet Nashville was home to the nation’s country music industry, so it wasn’t the When Nelson took her band to Nashville to record Mother Earth’s second album, they rented a farm out in the best place for Nelson to make country, and Nelson liked the area so much that she’s lived there ever since. To reach her home, you take the her name in the blues scene. Music Highway, appropriately enough, from Nashville and drive 40 miles west into the hills. She didn’t much care. She liked living out in the woods, where television advertising campaign. The song Rhinebeck, New York, has come to terms on a full moon, you could hear coyotes aired once on the NPR show Car Talk, with Nelson’s decision to march to the howling down in the hollow. She felt but she’s yet to find interest among ad beat of her own drum. Spencer remem- connected to her grandfather, Vern, who agency executives. bers her as a quiet student around cam- homesteaded on the North Dakota plains “I’d love it if they used my song for a pus with a huge voice and a keen focus in the early twentieth century. jingle,” she says. “But that’s very hard to on becoming a professional musician. “To me, the amazing thing is that she continues to make such wonderful “[San Francisco] had become unpleasant, with heroin records,” says Spencer, the author of End- and cocaine seeping into the scene.... I wasn’t a good flower less Love and several best-selling novels, who buys Nelson’s albums and comes to child — I’d gone there to make a living.” see her perform at the Towne Crier in Pawling, New York. “It used to be puz- zling to me that Tracy didn’t attract the “I’ve successfully avoided major do. It’s like breaking into show business adulation that fans had for Janis Joplin, stardom, and that’s absolutely okay with — you have to be in the right place at the or even Bonnie Raitt, or Maria Muldaur. me,” she says. “I like to play. I like to right time.” All those women came up through the sing and the sound of my own voice. The Her talent, though, has brought her blues tradition — and Tracy has the best experience of playing with good musi- two Grammy nominations — in 1974 for voice, the largest range, and the most cians on stage is wonderful. But I don’t a duet with Willie Nelson, and another in musical smarts. But she wasn’t interested have the drive, and I don’t have any need 1998 for her collaboration with her idol, in a big-time career.” whatsoever for huge numbers of people singer Irma Thomas, and Marcia Ball. to validate me. If I’d had a big mortgage, She didn’t record through the 1980s, became a big I probably couldn’t have afforded to be in but in the early 1990s, she signed with While she never star, she kept on singing and adapting the music business.” Rounder Records for several albums that with the times. She now sells her albums Still, Nelson wouldn’t mind if a major brought her back into the spotlight. at TracyNelson.com, which features an automaker used her engaging tune, “Got Her far-flung coterie of fans, which a New Truck,” for a lucrative national includes novelist Scott Spencer ’69 of Continued on page 62

SPRING 2008 43 which the dem- flat-footed and delivers.” onstrators argued When she wasn’t performing at frat that it was unfair parties, Nelson would drive three hours for students to to Chicago to see then-boyfriend Charlie avoid military Musselwhite and immerse herself in the JIM MARSHALL service simply South Side’s vibrant blues community, because they had catching shows by guitarists such as the money to Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. There, attend college. she recorded her first LP, Deep Are the “There’s a great Roots, which featured blues standards picture of me in such as “House of the Rising Sun” and The Capital Times, “Motherless Child.” with my guitar, By the end of her sophomore year, leading the stu- Nelson found herself spending more dents who were time in Chicago than in her social-work singing ‘We Shall classes. She’d also run afoul of university Overcome,’ ” she rules by staying out all night from her recalls. dorm. She was called before the Nelson J Board — a student-run disciplin- arrived at the ary panel — that grounded her for two Madison cam weekends. Nelson vowed never to serve pus intending out her sentence. She dropped out and to study social headed west to San Francisco, which at work, but music the time was the epicenter for the 1960s was her true call- counterculture and a thriving rock scene ing. The Madison headlined by the Grateful Dead, Jimi music scene was Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. really happening, Though she wasn’t crazy about the with future rock psychedelic rock that was so popular in stars Miller and the Bay Area, the band’s sound appealed Boz Scaggs x’67 to promoter Bill Graham, who booked and jazz pianist Mother Earth regularly at the Fillmore. Ben Sidran ’66 Nelson formed the band Mother Earth with singer/songwriter Powell St. Stored in envelopes in Nelson’s living John, right, who wrote the song “Livin’ with the Animals.” learning the licks room are original posters announcing that would lay her shows — the Fillmore show with As a teen, Nelson respected her par- the foundation for careers that continue Eric Burdon and the Animals, a Won- ents’ insistence upon church attendance to this day. Nelson played the raucous derland gig headlined by Donovan, and by joining the choir at Grace Episcopal, fraternity circuit with the Fabulous Imi- the outdoor festival in Golden Gate Park where the music director led the singers tations, a rhythm and blues band led by in challenging works by such composers Sidran that featured two keyboards, a full with guitarist John Mayall. as Francis Poulenc and Gabriel Fauré. horn section, and three singers. With her strong voice and a hanker- By the time she entered the University With all that musical firepower, ing for the blues, Nelson struck industry of Wisconsin in 1963, she was teaching there was no need for Nelson to play the insiders as the next Janis Joplin. Her guitar to Madison youths, playing folk guitar, so she stood in front of that wall brother, Tim, a labor lawyer and retired songs at hootenannies, and getting paid of sound and belted out hits popularized administrative law judge at the National to play gigs at the Avant Garde Coffee- by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Labor Relations Board who lives in the house in Milwaukee. Otis Redding. Bay Area, recalls how his sister bristled at It was also a time of great political “Tracy is a great natural singer,” says the way some music producers wanted to ferment in Madison. Nelson got involved Sidran, a Madison resident who played mold her. with left-leaning organizations such as with Nelson at the opening of the city’s “Tracy was being typed as a psyche- the Students for a Democratic Society Overture Hall in 2004. “For Tracy, it’s delic singer, and she didn’t like those com- and the W.E.B. DuBois Club. She recalls not about pyrotechnics or theatrics; it’s parisons,” he says. “She had to do it her one protest against draft deferments at about the song and her voice. She stands way. No other way it was going to happen.”

42 ON WISCONSIN By David McKay Wilson 1968, she wrote the lyrics to her first song. and Dysinger share the 1910 farmhouse She called it “Down So Low,” and it told with four dogs, four cats, and, until the story of a heartbroken woman who recently, a pigeon called Miss Penny In the late 1960s, when the coun- was trying to pretend that she was only that roosted in the towering maple by terculture and psychedelic rock distraught because she couldn’t find a man the vegetable gardens that Nelson tends. flourished in San Francisco, Madi- to replace the guy who left her so all alone. The words to what would become son transplants Tracy Nelson and Nelson’s signature song spilled out in half Steve Miller fell in love. an hour. She later wrote the melody, with Nelson sings the same way that Nelson x’67, a blues singer, and Miller two time changes and three key changes. she’s lived her life — on her own terms. x’67, a rock guitarist, had both been a She recorded it on her first album, Living She’s a natural talent who never studied part of Madison’s vibrant music scene, with the Animals, and three more times, voice. While some singers spend hours a and they naturally gravitated toward each including for her 2003 album, Live from week practicing, she doesn’t, because it other when they ended up on the West Cell Block D, recorded at the West Tennes- would make singing seem too much like Coast in the Age of Aquarius. see Detention Center. work. When Nelson records, she usually But though their music caught the “At first, I didn’t think it was very does so without a rehearsal. She learns attention of concert promoters and good,” she says. “It took me a long time the lyrics, picks a key, and meets the recording industry moguls, their romance before I would play it. I was embarrassed musicians in the studio, where they then disintegrated after six months, Nelson because it was so personal.” The lyr- make music to be recorded for posterity. says, when Miller suggested she focus on ics begin: “The pain you left behind has “It’s spontaneous — that’s how you supporting his band instead of striking off become part of me, and it’s burned out get the best stuff,” she says. “It’s like you on her own. The good-looking Miller was also a bit too popular with the Bay Area gals, she says. Nelson made those recordings outside the popular music “He offered to have me sit in with his mainstream, refusing to bend to the wishes of industry moguls band, but that didn’t work,” she recalls one fall afternoon at her home in Burns, Ten- who wanted her to sing the songs they wanted her to sing, nessee, about forty miles west of Nashville. the way they wanted her to sing them. “The men in San Francisco back then hated the idea of women in bands. They wanted the women to take care of them. I a hole where my love used to be. But it’s are playing live. I think that if you do wanted my own blues band.” not losing you that’s got me down so low more than two takes, you are beating the She got her band. She called it — I just can’t find another man to take song to death.” Mother Earth, taken from a tune writ- your place.” Nelson’s digs in rural Tennessee pro- ten by blues legend Memphis Slim. (She Today, Nelson regularly belts out vide a comfortable setting for the sixty- performed the song at his funeral many “Down So Low” when she’s out on the two-year-old singer recently dubbed “the years later.) Mother Earth recorded road, singing at blues festivals, benefit queen of Americana music” by a Sacra- several albums, toured extensively, and concerts, and intimate clubs. She got over mento Bee critic. That’s the broad genre launched a solo career for Nelson that Steve Miller long ago, but the product of that includes folk, blues, gospel, and has spawned two dozen albums. And her late ’60s anguish has paid many bills. country music. Nelson, who is most well Nelson made those recordings outside “That song literally bought the farm,” known on the blues circuit, likes to call it the popular music mainstream, refusing she says. “roots music.” to bend to the wishes of industry moguls In 1976, Linda Ronstadt recorded It was American roots music that who wanted her to sing the songs they a cover version of it, providing Nelson Nelson learned in her family’s living wanted her to sing, the way they wanted with a royalty check big enough to buy room in Madison’s Shorewood Hills. Her her to sing them. a $14,700, eighty-acre Tennessee spread father, Donald, a jeweler, sang bass while “I love the music,” says Nelson, who with a log cabin, where she settled and her older brother, Timothy ’65, JD’67, is working on a novel about the recording developed her career without the pres- sang tenor. Her mother, a soprano, industry. “But I hate everything about sures of stardom. accompanied them on piano, and Tracy the music business.” Nelson no longer lives there. These played the autoharp and sang tradi- Her breakup with Miller turned out days, she has settled in with her long- tional tunes such as “Beautiful, Beautiful to be one of the defining moments in her time beau and record producer, Mike Brown Eyes.” career. While at her uncle’s home in Wal- Dysinger, on his family farm on eight “I love singing harmony,” says Nel- nut Creek, California, one afternoon in acres in nearby Burns. There, Nelson son. “In my family, that’s what we did.”

SPRING 2008 41 JEFF FRAZIER

On Her Own Terms Blues singer Tracy Nelson x’67 finds a home outside the music industry in the hills of Middle Tennessee.

40 ON WISCONSIN the Carol Ren- with travel films, promise nebohm Audito- to thrill. Concert tickets rium, a 380-seat start at about $20. Visit theater lovingly www.uniontheater.wisc.edu renovated in 1985. for a schedule. Tickets are $18. So you think you If you want can dance? In 1926, UW- thrills, for $15, Madison became the first you can’t beat university in the country the 180-voice to offer a degree in dance. Performances by faculty, students, and guest artists are competition with a wholesome round of held throughout the year in Ping-Pong or pool ($5.75 per hour) or Lathrop Hall. Tickets are $10 bowling ($3.20 per person per game). to $15. Visit www.dance.wisc. We’ve only just begun to explore edu for details. campus here; there’s no limit to the things If the play’s the thing for you, head to see and do. But my editors are as tight to Vilas Communication Hall for a per- with a word count as they are with a formance in the Ronald E. Mitchell or quarter. And for heaven’s sake, if you get Gilbert V. Hemsley theaters. Tickets are lost in your wanderings, please ask direc- $14 to $20. Visit www.theatre.wisc.edu tions. You’ll find the same open friendli- for more information. ness you remember from when you were You joined the Wisconsin Union when a student. Even if you don’t get lost, start you graduated, right? No? It’s not too late. a conversation with a stranger. The most Choral Union in performance with the Union membership entitles you to dis- memorable parts of a journey are often UW Orchestra in Mills Hall at the Mosse counts, admission to events, use of rooms, the people you meet along the way. Humanities Building. and you can even rent a canoe ($8.50 an The greats have been on stage at the hour, $25.50 for the day). Head to the Gwen Evans, a senior university relations IHE OSE ROTHBART FORSTER MICHAEL Wisconsin Union Theater since 1939. Union South Games Room to improve specialist for University Communications, is author of Madison Restaurant Guide and Madison: The Classical, jazz, and world music, along your hand-eye coordination in friendly Guide. This is her first story for On Wisconsin.

In my ploy to earn money to fund our campus travels, I graduate student, demanding an end to the sham. I watch signed up to participate in a study. After completing a brief reality TV. I know of puppet masters. online survey, I was invited to play a decision-making game No need. The nice student told me they had over- with others at the Psychology Building on campus. Why, this booked “players,” that those coming in had already sounds like fun. A party, really. I’ll dress up. completed the forms, and that they’d pay me for The reality was a stark room of computer terminals. I my time. I left with $15 after being answered endless questions about my willingness to give told that some people money to strangers, if I cried at sad movies, if I took criticism took two hours to com- well, and if I was happy with how my life had turned out. plete the forms. Ha! I (Not at the moment, thank you!) This went on for an hour win! Then I wondered, and a half while I watched others come in and leave (with “Are we paid by the money!) after twenty minutes. I was the first to arrive and hour or by the piece?” was now the last one still there. Am I that remedial? Why is Would I have made this taking so long? I’m not the best test-taker, but I do have more money had I street smarts. been slower? I then began to wonder if the whole thing was an Some street elaborate twisted psychology sting operation to see how smarts. long I’d go before I had a hissy fit with the innocent — G.E.

SPRING 2008 39 brats, burgers, chicken sandwiches, and Show Me the Money hot dogs. The Rathskeller offers a breakfast We’ve done an excellent job of living

JEFF MILLER (5) special for less than $5 daily from 7:00 to within our means, don’t you think? But 10:30 a.m., and hot sandwiches for lunch a few extra five spots would put us in and dinner, also Trump territory. My editors didn’t say I less than $5. The couldn’t earn extra money to put toward Red Oak Grill at our adventures. Bwa ha ha! But, how to Union South has pick up some cash, fast? substantial sand- If you’re not shy and can play an wiches in our price instrument, sing, tell jokes, or juggle, give range as well. it a whirl on State Street. Review those Dining in the Gordon Lightfoot lyrics and open up residence halls the guitar case. Put in a few starter bills. is not just for Look soulful. Take requests and watch Food, students, and the money stack up. Or, become a research subject for Glorious it’s a bargain hunter’s dream a study on campus (see sidebar). For Food come true with example, a recent study at the Laboratory It’s true there is no such thing as a free the Cafeteria Cash Meal Deal, which for Affective Neuroscience caught my lunch, but keeping your engine stoked for features a daily menu item for breakfast, eye: “We are interested in how different $5 can be done — if you order specials. lunch, and dinner, all in the $3 to $7 people make different economic deci- One of the best deals is found at the delis range. The deals are available in the sions. ... You will be asked to complete run by the Wisconsin Union. For $4.75, dining halls in Liz Waters, Gordon forms and play simple decision-making you get a sandwich and three sides. Find Commons, Chadbourne Hall, and games over the Internet with other peo- the delis wherever your wanderings take Frank’s Place in Holt Commons. ple. ... [You] will have an opportunity to you: both unions, the Health Sciences Save room (and money) for dessert. make between $5 and $100.” Learning Center, Engineering Hall, Actually, skip lunch if you must. A slice Veterinary Medicine, Medical Sciences, of famous fudge bottom pie is $1.28 MICHAEL FORSTER ROTHBART Microbial Sciences, and Ingraham Hall. plus tax at a residence hall dining room. For something hot, the Memorial Two scoops of ice cream at the Babcock Union’s Lakefront on Langdon offers a Dairy Store will set you back about $3; slice of pizza, salad bar, and a soda for a large sundae is about $4. $4.95. Union South’s food court offers For coffee, choose among coffee a hot lunch special, small salad bar, and shops in residence halls or head to the beverage for $4.95; or choose a wrap Open Book Café in College Library, combo for the same price. which also offers bakery items, sand- wiches, soup, salads, and —

believe it or not — sushi. In the MICHAEL FORSTER ROTHBART FORSTER MICHAEL library. I never. And while not officially on Really? Where do I sign up? After campus, the fruit stand on Library spending time in front of a computer, I Mall in front of the University walked away with $15 in my sweaty little Book Store provides fruits, trail paw. Feeling flush, I offer the following mixes, nuts, and some of the most entertainments that exceed our $5, but cheerful service anywhere. Here not by much. you’ll easily get your daily servings For a mere $11, you can attend one of fruit and have money to spend of the selections in the Faculty Concert on ice cream. Series at the School of Music. Our world- Or beer. It’s a popular reason class faculty perform for a pittance of for joining the Wisconsin Union: what you’d pay elsewhere. Even more economical fare can be only members may buy beer. The selec- Music Hall, where performing arts found during the warm months, when tion includes national brands and micro- began on campus, is home to University the brat stand at the Union Terrace sells brews and is priced accordingly. Opera. Performances are held in

38 ON WISCONSIN campus calendar (www.today.wisc.edu). is a winner. From dinosaurs to dolomite, There you’ll find an astounding listing the museum will captivate. You can of free lectures, brown bag discussions, touch rocks from a time when there were symposia, forums, and activities. Past volcanoes in Wisconsin and stand under presentations have included “Malicious the tusks of a mastodon while imagining or Maligned? Using Psychology to Inter- yourself in the Ice Age. pret Snakes,” “Uzbek Steppe Embroi- dery: How Women Preserve Cultural Identity,” “The Honey Bee Colony as a Superorganism,” and “Cells Prefer Bumpy Beds: Nanoscale Topographic Cues Modulate Vascular Endothelial Cell Behaviors.” Snakes, embroidery, bees, and itty-bitty cells — and that’s just on a Thursday. Make a note of Wednesday Nite Leckrone4), and you’ll see how demand- @ the Lab, a free weekly ing it is to be a band member. They work discussion on the latest in it. Hard. science from UW-Madison The Kohl Center is home to Badger researchers. Visit science. basketball and hockey, as well as events wisc.edu for details. ranging from a Cher concert to a con- The student-run Dis- versation with the Dalai Lama. Groups tinguished Lecture Series of up to sixty people may make a reser- Committee brings nation- vation for a free tour Mondays through ally known public figures Fridays between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to the Union Theater. Past Tours take about forty-five minutes, and participants have included you’ll see the seating bowl, the Chihuly5 writer Molly Ivins, politi- glass sculpture, a suite, the coaches’ cal scientist Howard Zinn, offices, and the Nicholas-Johnson Pavil- author Sarah Vowell, envi- ion. Walk-in tours begin ronmentalist David Children will also enjoy the Dairy at noon on Tuesdays and Suzuki, and Sister Cattle Instruction and Research Center, Thursdays. To schedule Helen Prejean of where they can watch the university’s a tour, call (608) 263- Dead Man Walking dairy herd being milked from 3:30 to 5:00 KOHL (5645). fame. The first batch p.m. daily. of tickets is reserved Maybe we can’t go home again, but Go to the Head for students, faculty, we can go back to school. If your visit to staff, and Union campus will last through a semester, here of the Class members, but any is a chance to really get to know your old Although we are perfect remaining tickets are stomping grounds by auditing a class. just the way we are, it’s available to the pub- Coordinated by Continuing Studies, the always fun to improve lic at no charge the program’s qualifications and restrictions oneself by learning some- Thursday before each are simple. Wisconsin residents sixty thing new (or re-learning lecture. Visit www. and older may audit certain classes for something you mastered union.wisc.edu/DLS free. You fill out some forms, then seek years ago and have since for details. permission from the instructor to attend, forgotten). There is no If you have chil- providing space is available. You won’t better way to get a feel dren to entertain, a actively participate, write papers, or take for the UW’s rich intel- stop at the Geology exams (phew!), although regular atten- lectual offerings than to read the daily Museum in Weeks Hall (free admission) dance is expected.

3 Built during the 1960s, the structure is an example of the Brutalist style of architecture, with blockish, geometric, and repetitive shapes and unadorned poured concrete. The feng shui there is off-the-chart bad. 4 The true band fanatic will want to save up and buy a Mike Leckrone bobblehead doll ($10). Call (608) 890-0324 or order online at www.badgerband.com/store. 5 The Mendota Wall was created by Seattle glass master Dale Chihuly MS’67 and features more than one thousand handblown pieces of vibrantly hued glass.

SPRING 2008 37 wetlands to explore, along with an embracing all manner of music, dance, the- the thrill of victory, and the agony of astounding collection of trees, shrubs, ater, and film, and most of them are free. you-know-what don’t have to have a big and pre-settlement plants. The McKay For music, head to the George L. price tag. Tickets to men’s and women’s Visitor Center should be your first stop. Mosse Humanities Building3 to find Mills soccer; women’s hockey, volleyball, and Madison Metro routes 4 and 19 will get Concert Hall and the Morphy and East- softball; and men’s wrestling are only $5. you within a few blocks of the Arboretum man recital halls for performances by Seniors (fifty-five and older) get in for entrance for $1.50 (seniors sixty-five and students, faculty, and guest artists. From $2, leaving change for snacks. And let older ride for $.75), but it’s a good mile symphony and ensemble to solo perfor- me remind you that the women’s hockey from there to the visitor center. The walk mances, there is always something won- team claimed back-to-back NCAA is lovely, so enjoy the scenery. derful going on. Call the Concert Line at championships in 2006 and 2007. Take (608) 263-9485 or visit www.wisc.edu/ that, Minnesota! In the Eye of the Beholder music for listings. Better yet, plenty of Badger sports At the top of Bascom Hill, the ivy- are free. Choose among cross-country, All that bracing fresh air and wild nature covered Memorial Carillon Tower in golf, rowing, tennis, swimming, and makes one yearn for civilization and front of the William H. Sewell Social track. Schedules and more information indoor pleasures — a stroll in a gallery, Sciences Building offers music of another are available at www.uwbadgers.com. perhaps? sort. The largest of the carillon’s fifty-six bells weighs 6,800 pounds; the smallest, a Strike Up the Band mere 15. Carillonneur Lyle Anderson ’68, MMusic’77 performs Sundays at 3:00 Just because you can’t pony up for a p.m. during the academic year, as well as football ticket doesn’t mean you need be several times each week. Ever the joker, deprived of the UW Marching Band. he has been known to serenade students How do you think they get so good? during finals week with funeral

dirges as they trudge to exams. JEFF MILLER (7) Although the days of robust film societies on campus are long gone — the victim of VCRs and DVDs — there’s no substitute for the big-screen, communal film-viewing experience, and it The Chazen Museum of Art lives on at UW-Madison. The (formerly known as the Elvehjem) has Fredric March Play Circle in something for everyone: paintings, prints, Memorial Union presents free sculpture, and photography from many films — usually newer releases time periods. Drop-in tours with a docent — on Friday and Saturday are held Sundays at 2:00 p.m. and Thurs- nights; visit www.union.wisc. days at 12:30 p.m. Admission is free, so edu/film for details. Admission is also head to the museum shop with your mad free at Cinematheque, which offers money and pick up a souvenir of your international, silent, and classic films in visit. 4070 Vilas Hall on Friday and Satur- Memorial Union’s four galleries day nights during the academic year, showcase more than 1,300 works by with special summer programming on some five hundred student and profes- Thursday and Friday nights. Call sional artists, including Aaron Bohrod, (608) 262-3627 or visit cinema.wisc. Dale Chihuly MS’67, Warrington Cole- edu for details. scott, Joan Miró, and Diego Rivera. Head west to the School of Human Ecology to see the Gallery of Design U Rah Rah Practice. During football season, the exhibitions — such as the art of camou- Sadly, as Badger sports teams have band rehearses on Tuesdays though Fri- flage and disposable dresses from improved, some tickets have got- days, 3:45 to 5:30 p.m., on the field west the 1960s. ten scarce and too dear for my thrifty of the Natatorium. The mood is quite fes- The university also hosts more than editors. But never fear. Athletic and tive. There’s lots of shouting and laughing 1,500 performing arts events each year, physical achievement, sportsmanship, (from the field and from conductor Mike

36 ON WISCONSIN JEFF MILLER (3)

(608) 263-2400. Tours leave from the At sunset, head to the Observatory Campus Information Center. Drive overlook, from which you can see the contours of Picnic Point, the stone bluffs Take a Walk on of Maple Bluff to the east, and across Lake Mendota all the way to Waunakee’s water the Wild Side tower eight miles north. And on a clear day, Few universities are as lovely as you’ll want to burst into song. Release your UW-Madison, with its 325 acres inner Barbra Streisand. of natural areas, nearly three miles of Lake Mendota shoreline, and legendary Picnic Point. A must-do is Getting Started a ramble on the Howard Temin Lake- The frugal explorer does not part with shore Path, named in 1998 as a tribute money when reliable information can be to the late UW-Madison professor had for free. The Welcome Center at 21 of oncology and Nobel Prize winner. North Park Street or the Campus Infor- Temin often walked and bicycled the mation Center at the Red Gym should path, finding opportunities for quiet be your first stop.1 Both locations feature reflection and contemplation. Begin at cheerful and knowledgeable student staff- the Memorial Union and head west. ers who dispense maps, ideas, and advice. You’ll pass the Lakeshore Residence Leave your car at home or at the Halls and the swanky new Porter Boat- hotel. Parking is in short supply, and house. Along the way, you’ll see wildlife feeding the meter will quickly bust the and Indian burial mounds. Now don’t clutch your pearls, people. bank. The best way to get your bearings Continue on and take the classic Elizabeth Waters Hall, next to the Obser- is to hop a free campus bus. The Route Picnic Point walk, stopping to have an vatory Drive vista and the last women- 80 bus travels west from the Memorial epiphany or two. And pucker up: A only residence hall on campus, went co-ed Union, past Picnic Point to the Eagle Florida newspaper rated the location one in 2006. The second floor of Cole Hall is Heights Apartments, and back again in of the world’s best places to kiss. After now a women-only residence. about an hour. The Route 85 bus circles pitching all that woo, a post-smooch drink If you prefer nature all tidy and nicely between the Memorial Union and Union at the water pump/bubbler is a must. arranged, a visit to the Allen Centennial South, and conveniently stops in Gardens is for you. The 2.5-acre site front of the Welcome Center. Both at the intersection of Observatory and routes have the bus chugging up RICHTER BRYCE Babcock Drives is decked out with the switchback turn on Bascom twenty-two types of gardens, includ- Hill, with the driver violating the ing daylily, exotic shrub, and edible. All lane lines something fierce. Feel are anchored by an imposing Victorian free to hop on and off a bus as Gothic house that was once the residence you please — they come by about of the agricultural dean. The gardens are every seven minutes while classes popular for wedding ceremonies, with are in session. slots booking up years in advance. Next, prevent deep-vein Other campus nature sites to con- thrombosis with a free, guided sider visiting include the Botanical campus walking tour. The tours Garden near Birge Hall, the green- take about one hundred minutes and house inside Birge, and the D.C. are led by student tour guides who love Smith Greenhouse across the street hearing stories from alumni. Really! from Babcock Hall.2 Tours are offered at 3:00 p.m., Monday The largest campus natural area through Friday, and at noon on Satur- is the UW Arboretum, located sev- day and Sunday throughout the year, eral miles south of campus on the except on football Saturdays, holidays, shores of Lake Wingra — and it’s and when classes are not in session. worth the trip. It offers 1,260 acres Reservations are recommended; call of restored prairies, forests, and 1 For exact locations or directions to any of the spots in this story, check out the cool interactive campus map at www.vip.wisc.edu/map.html. 2 By the way, if you decide to trek up Bascom Hill, just know that it’s not a calorie-killing walk. A 150-pound person expends a measly twenty-eight calories climbing the hill.

SPRING 2008 35 Campus on JEFF MILLER, PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY ROAL CARLSEN $5a Day

By Gwen Evans ’79

Think it’s impossible to eat something yummy, learn something new, find something beautiful, or see something amazing on campus without paying a hefty price? We sent our intrepid reporter to discover if there are bargains worth hunting.

hen Arthur Frommer ethic lives on, at least in the minds of — and have memorable campus experi- published Europe on $5 a Day my tightwad On Wisconsin editors, who ences that would make Frommer proud. Wfifty years ago, he had no idea believe that dinner and a show doesn’t Before we begin our adventures, his book would become a travel guide cost more than $5. Um, hello? It’s not some ground rules: I assume you have a classic. Surprise: his book soon had the 1963, people. My assignment was to place to stay and you will start out with continent crawling with frugal-minded explore and experience the UW-Madison a full tummy. For $5, you’ll get off the globetrotters. campus, spending no more than $5 a day. beaten path and have a more authentic Over the years, inflation ramped up I tried reasoning with them. I begged and time. I promise, though, that bathing in the costs of travel, and subsequent edi- whined. But they were resolute. So, not the fountain on Library Mall or at lake’s tions were titled Europe on $5 and $10 a Day being a coward, but with foolishness to edge behind the Union, panhandling, or and, eventually, Europe from $95 a Day. spare, I agreed to the challenge. Dumpster diving are not necessary. Stick Frommer couldn’t bear to break the I’m happy to report that with proper with me, kiddo, and you just might have $100 mark, so he called it quits on the planning and an open mind, it is quite pos- change left over from your $5. dollars-a-day approach. However, his sible to play tourist for little or no charge Trust me.

34 ON WISCONSIN want to attract and keep them, we have to other ways that a professor might depart “We have almost a care about them and their vulnerability.” — death, for example, or by taking a thousand graduate So Goldman convinced his colleagues position at another university or in gov- students in this col- within CALS to guarantee that Good- ernment or industry. In those cases, the win’s students would receive funding students are still left to scramble. lege alone,” Goldman for at least the remainder of the semes- “It’s depressing,” says Goldman, says. “We try to get the ter, and he began looking for avenues “and perhaps it’s a flaw in the university best students to want through which they could continue system that’s developed over the last hun- their studies. For Hubert, who was far dred and fifty years. But we’re doing our to spend five or more advanced in her work, he found a home best to protect these students, because years here. And if we in the lab of Phil Anderson. Another they’re the future of science.” want to attract and student, Jacqueline Baca, who was nearer the beginning of her work, was keep them, we have to also placed in a different lab. But the Competition at the Mall care about them and others, facing the realization that they their vulnerability.” would have to start over, left the UW. he root of all science may be, Allen left Madison to study worms under as that plaque outside Bascom Tom Blumenthal at the University of Hall suggests, the spirit of Colorado-Boulder; Ly and La Martina untrammeled inquiry, but the found laboratory jobs in other states; and fundamentalT basis of research in today’s Padilla departed for law school. world is money — in particular, grant “We can’t give [students] back the money. This is what creates the tempta- time that they lose,” says Bill Mellon, tion toward misconduct, and what makes “but we can try to protect them from protecting graduate students so difficult. financial disaster.” Phil Anderson knows this well. In That’s what Goldman set out to do. November 2007, he was going through According to the National Science After Goodwin resigned, he began work the renewal application process for the Foundation (NSF), UW-Madison is now drafting a policy for CALS that would one grant that keeps his lab running — a the American university with the second- protect graduate students in the event process that had consumed nearly all his highest total of extramural research grant of scientific misconduct by their men- time for more than two and a half months. money — $905 million a year, when it’s tors. It demands that the college “use its The good news, he says, is that the appli- all added up from every school, college, best effort to secure funding for CALS cation was finished; the bad news is that and department. That’s an average of graduate students, including Research it was two weeks late, which, fortunately, $440,000 per faculty member, with some Assistants, Fellows, and Trainees, and the reviewers at the National Institutes of 90 percent of that money in the science research associates whose positions and Health didn’t hold against him. and engineering fields. funding may be jeopardized by his/her A committee of perhaps thirty NIH While that may seem like a lot of good faith disclosure of scientific miscon- scientists will judge that application, money, a great many things depend duct.” Adopted last year, the policy “is though it’s likely that only a couple will upon those grants, and the pressure to the only one I know of in the country,” examine it closely. Though the commit- get them is severe. Take, for example, says Goldman, and it’s since become a tee members are competent researchers Anderson’s lab. The grant he’s apply- model for a university-wide attempt to in their own right, the highly special- ing for, an extension of the one that has improve the grad-student safety net. ized nature of modern studies makes it funded his research for the last fourteen “If there’s a hero in all this, it’s unlikely that any of them will be as well years, is worth $1.8 million during a four- Irwin,” says Anderson. “He not only did versed in Anderson’s area of research as year span. The university takes a share of everything he could to do right by Betsy’s he is. That’s what creates the opportunity this — some 48.5 percent — as overhead, students, but he also pushed the rest of us to falsify data on an application. what it calls facilities and administrative to try to do right by them.” “I’ve thought about Betsy a lot (F&A) costs. The rest, then, must pay for Still, there’s only so much that a col- through this process,” he says. “What she supplies: computers and microscopes and lege can do to protect its students from did, I believe, happened because of the slides, not to mention C. elegans worms faculty upheaval. The policy only cov- extreme pressure we’re all under to find and the means to keep them alive and ers scientific misconduct, not any of the funding.” Continued on page 63

SPRING 2008 33 As the situation “We met with the students and with “Once the report was delivered, I progressed, the the professor, and we looked at the grant think it was clear that we’d been in the proposal and the data provided by the right,” Hubert says. students felt increas- students, and it seemed clear that there But if they were vindicated, they ingly betrayed and was some attempt at deception,” says were hardly safe. In reporting their isolated. “It’s like Goldman. “Betsy was giving one set of mentor’s misconduct, they’d endan- numbers to NIH [National Institutes of gered their own careers as well. there were two Health] and another to the students. This Betsys,” says Hubert. was clearly not a frivolous accusation.” “The one who was While Goldman and DeLuca were Heroes gathering information, the lab environ- my friend and who ment was deteriorating. “We didn’t really or Irwin Goldman, the key was so helpful, and know what was going on,” says Hubert. to the Goodwin affair isn’t then the one who had “We had spoken with the investigators, ultimately what happens to done this thing on her but were asked not to speak about Betsy Goodwin, but rather what to anyone else. At the same time, she was Fhappens to her former students. Hubert application. I couldn’t free to defend herself, and we had the and her colleagues, he says, “displayed believe they were feeling that she was bad-mouthing us professional heroism. They put their the same person. around the department, saying that we careers at great personal risk for the sake were making mountains out of molehills of scientific integrity. That’s exactly the I still can’t.” and that we were out to get her. For a kind of people we want to attract into the while, we got the feeling that we were sciences. These students risked a lot for the ones who were in the wrong.” the truth. They didn’t deserve to suffer As the situation progressed, the for the actions of their mentor.” students felt increasingly betrayed and And yet when the students decided to isolated. “It’s like there were two Bet- come forward, it seemed likely that they sys,” says Hubert. “The one who was my would be punished nearly as severely friend and who was so helpful, and then as Goodwin. When she resigned and the one who had done this thing on her the university forfeited her funding, her application. I couldn’t believe they were lab closed down. That meant the stu- “We had a lot of discussion about the same person. I still can’t.” dents were out of work — no salaries, what to do,” says Allen. “A lot of discus- Goldman and DeLuca issued their no tuition reimbursement, and perhaps sion. We were grappling with a big deci- recommendation to Mellon, reporting worst of all, no research. That would sion, and some people were afraid that their opinion that the students’ charges mean no progress on their degrees, and they’d have to start over.” had merit. Mellon then referred the mat- possibly starting over. That, Goldman Eventually, however, the students ter to a formal investigative committee. feels, is a poor reward for honesty. came to a unanimous decision. “When And just as they began their work, Good- Unlike undergrads, graduate students we looked at it, though, there wasn’t win resigned. The committee finished are often more like apprentice academ- really a choice,” says Hubert. “We its work a month later, concluding in a ics, breaking into careers in science and wanted to believe [Goodwin]. We felt report to the Office of the Chancellor that research. Many parts of the university, she was trying to do good for the lab. Goodwin was guilty of the charges the including the College of Agricultural and But we had to report it.” students had leveled. The UW submitted Life Sciences, where Goldman works, are In December, they informed Mike its report to the Department of Health dependent upon them for carrying out Culbertson, chair of the genetics depart- and Human Services, which oversees research. Protecting these students from ment. He reported the allegations to NIH, and returned what remained of her dishonest faculty isn’t just an issue of Mellon, and Mellon asked Irwin Gold- grant money. justice, he maintains; it’s a matter of the man from CALS and Paul DeLuca, an Within a few weeks, news about the UW’s self-interest. associate dean of the School of Medicine misconduct spread through both the local “We have almost a thousand gradu- and Public Health, to begin an informal and the scientific community, as major ate students in this college alone,” he says. inquiry to determine if there was any stories appeared in the Wisconsin State “We try to get the best students to want to merit to the students’ allegations. Journal and in the journal Science. spend five or more years here. And if we

32 ON WISCONSIN JEFF MILLER

Amy Hubert (above) is “a real geneticist,” says colleague Mary Allen, noting that she spent up to twelve hours a day in the lab, even on weekends. Hubert’s thorough research — and financial support from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences — helped her find a home in the lab of Phil Anderson after Goodwin’s lab shut down. Six months later, she made her breakthrough in identifying the laf-1 gene.

SPRING 2008 31 “At first all we saw foresight — almost from when she first of fraud — “she used the federal money was that the data were joined the lab — she had the good sense to run the experiments she said she was to challenge Betsy on this. She went going to run,” he says — and so far, no wrong in one figure back to the tried-and-true methods of one has challenged the validity of the on one of the grants. mapping the DNA. Because of that, she articles Goodwin has published. But the After Garett talked to was able to survive Betsy’s departure. university had to report its findings to That’s why she was able to make her the federal government, and it hasn’t yet Betsy about it, she told breakthrough.” heard what the government’s Office of him it was just a mis- Research Integrity has to say about the take, that the data had Goodwin case. Trying to Do Good Still, if the process has been difficult been placeholders. But for the university, it’s been even harder the more we looked, he Goodwin affair became on Goodwin’s former students. the more we saw that public on February 23, At the time of the allegations, Good- 2006, when Goodwin win’s lab employed six graduate students seemed wrong.” resigned from the UW, — Hubert, Allen, Garett Padilla MS’06, bringing to a close three Chantal Ly MS’06, Sarah La Martina monthsT of tension and quiet recrimina- ’00, MS’06, and Jacqueline Baca — and tions that had infected the members of one research specialist, Maya Fuerstenau her lab. She slipped quietly out of town ’04. In November 2005, Padilla discov- and hasn’t spoken publicly about the ered a discrepancy in the data that Good- allegations since, leaving her lawyers to win was reporting in her grant renewal respond to the charges. But her departure application. The application made it didn’t bring the affair to a close. In many appear that the lab was producing favor- ways, the difficulties were just beginning. able results, when in fact the data were MS’06. “She was willing to take a long The misconduct allegations leveled incomplete, inconclusive, or worse. time and go back through the laf-1 work against Goodwin were, according to Bill He brought this to the attention of his from the beginning, redoing the experi- Mellon, associate dean of the graduate colleagues and to Goodwin. ments and looking for inconsistencies. school and head of the UW’s research “At first, all we saw was that the She was willing to go through the tedious compliance, among the most serious he’s data were wrong in one figure on one of process of looking at each generation heard in his twenty-nine years at UW- the grants,” says Hubert. “After Garett of worms to see the phenotypes. I can Madison, and certainly the most serious talked to Betsy about it, she told him it remember her spending up to twelve involving a tenure-track faculty member. was just a mistake, that the data had been hours in the lab, even on Saturdays. It But the university couldn’t just drop the placeholders. But the more we looked, was a lot of hard work, and a lot of time, issue upon Goodwin’s departure. the more we saw that seemed wrong. She but it paid off for her.” “We had an obligation to investigate was saying some experiments had been It was this difference of opinion that the charges,” says Mellon. “There were done that hadn’t been, and the figures that ultimately saved Hubert’s career at the at least two federal grant applications were being used to illustrate her results UW. When the Goodwin affair blew up involved, a renewal and an application weren’t the correct figures. The conclu- at the beginning of 2006, Hubert’s col- for new funding, and we have to show sions she gave, in some cases, weren’t cor- leagues, whose work had all been inter- the government that we’re serious about rect. Things had been relabeled, and we twined with Goodwin’s search for small our honesty and the honesty of our sci- concluded that it couldn’t have just been a RNA, saw their years of labor vanish. entists. So we had to carry out a long mistake. It had to be deliberate.” “The project that Betsy was so com- and detailed process — and I must say, The graduate students then faced a mitted to turned out to be a phantom,” Professor Goodwin’s absence made the difficult decision — whether to report says Anderson. “Laf-1 does not encode process all the more difficult.” Goodwin to the university, knowing small RNA. And because that was a Without Goodwin to answer the that, if they were wrong, it would ruin phantom, it wasn’t producing results, charges or explain her actions, inves- their relationship with their mentor and and it never would. The students who tigators have struggled to determine boss, and if they were right, it would were chasing this phantom, they weren’t just how far the damage goes. Mellon destroy the research they’d been con- making any progress. Amy had the is confident that Goodwin wasn’t guilty ducting for years.

30 ON WISCONSIN The chief evidence against Goodwin working on C. elegans, cross-referencing Wholly dependent came from Hubert and her graduate mentors to protégés. Sydney Brenner, upon their faculty student colleagues, and the aftermath of for instance, is listed as WB (WormBase) the scandal has taken nearly as heavy a Person77. He was the mentor for David mentors for educa- toll on them as it did on Goodwin. Of Hirsh, WBPerson259, a professor at tional, financial, and the seven people working in her lab — Columbia who mentored Judith Kimble, career support, grad six graduate students and one research WBPerson320. A biochemistry professor specialist — five are no longer at UW- at UW-Madison, Kimble supervised students lead a per- Madison. Hubert hopes to complete her Elizabeth Goodwin, WBPerson213, ilous life. And the doctorate soon, which would make her when she was a postdoctoral fellow. increasingly competi- the first member of the lab to do so. And Goodwin was the mentor to tive struggle among Her success may illustrate her aca- WBPerson3474, Amy Hubert. demic skill, but the fact that she’s the only Hubert came to UW-Madison in professors to win one from that team nearing graduation 2001 from the north-central Kansas town research grants only to date shows something else: the vulner- of Concordia. Like many graduate stu- makes that peril more able position in which graduate students dents, she’d earned her previous degree find themselves in the modern scientific elsewhere — a bachelor’s at the Univer- acute. world of grant-based research. Wholly sity of Kansas. She’d been attracted to dependent upon their faculty mentors for the UW by its reputation as a leader in educational, financial, and career sup- genetics, but she didn’t join Goodwin’s port, grad students lead a perilous life. lab until spring 2002. And the increasingly competitive struggle “I liked Betsy [Goodwin] as an among professors to win research grants adviser,” Hubert says. “She was very only makes that peril more acute. friendly, very hands-on, always checking in with us about how our work was going.” Chasing Phantoms Goodwin was then one of the rising stars of the UW’s genetics department. become very fashionable in research. . elegans is a model organ- “She was an extremely good citizen,” There’s been a lot of exciting progress ism, one of a handful of says Phil Anderson, another C. elegans around small RNAs, and there’s a lot of species that scientists study expert (WBPerson21) and a professor mystery there.” closely to learn about gen- of genetics. “She did more than her fair But Hubert quickly lost conviction eral biological principles. share of committee work, and she was that Goodwin’s small RNA hypothesis ThereC are a few others: several bacteria very involved socially. She entertained was the right track. “When I first joined and yeasts, Arabidopsis plants, fruit flies, prospective graduate students and helped the lab,” she says, “I was getting the same zebra fish, rats, and mice. Nematodes recruit new faculty. She brought a genu- results that Betsy and the others were. are useful as a model organism because ine sense of joy to working here.” But I began to see that the laf-1 mutants they’re among the simplest creatures to Goodwin’s lab was then one of only weren’t all matching the prediction. Some possess a nervous system, they can be two or three in the world that were doing of the results were just — well, they frozen and thawed without damaging such advanced research into sex determi- weren’t all that strong.” their viability, and they reproduce rap- nation among nematodes, aiming to shed While Goodwin continued to pursue idly — even more quickly than fruit flies. light on the importance of sexual repro- the small RNA hypothesis, Hubert turned Nobel Prize-winner Sydney Brenner pio- duction in evolution. She was developing to more traditional approaches. She neered studies of C. elegans in the 1970s, a hypothesis that laf-1 affected sex deter- decided to revisit the question of laf-1’s making it a relatively recent entry into the mination in C. elegans because it encoded identity by continuing to map its location roster of model species. As a result, says a strand of “small RNA” — ribonucleic in the C. elegans genome. “And the more CALS associate dean Irwin Goldman acid — instead of a conventional protein, mapping I did, the more it showed me that PhD’91, “the C. elegans community is still which most genes encode. Such a discov- laf-1 was in a different spot from where relatively small and tight-knit.” ery would have been a major coup, had everyone else [in the lab] was looking.” That closeness is highlighted at she been able to prove it. “Amy’s a real geneticist, while the rest WormBase, an online database that “Within the last five or ten years,” of us were molecular biologists,” says one keeps records of the researchers who are says Anderson, “small RNAs have of her former lab partners, Mary Allen

SPRING 2008 29 CAN OF worms The UW’s worst scientific scandal in decades exposes the ways that external funding has increased the vulnerability of two of the university’s most valuable assets — its integrity and its graduate students. n September 20, 2006, Irwin Goldman received an e-mail with good news — “exceptional news,” he wrote at the time — he’d never expected to hear, at least not from anyone By John Allen at UW-Madison. Graduate student Amy Hubert PhDx’08O had made a breakthrough in her research, successfully identifying the piece of DNA in the nem- atode worm Caenorhabditis elegans that corresponds with a gene called laf-1. Laf-1 is important in sex determination among nematodes, which are typically hermaphroditic. Those that have a single laf-1 gene mutation develop as females. Those that have two die — thus “laf,” which stands for “lethal and feminizing.” No one ever said a worm’s life is easy. But, then, neither is a graduate student’s, and Amy Hubert’s has been harder than most. Seven months earlier, she was working and studying in the lab of Elizabeth Goodwin, then a leading researcher in C. elegans genetics, when Good- win was accused of scientific misconduct — essen- tially of misrepresenting her work in an application for federal funding. It was one of the most serious scandals in UW science, and even today, those con- nected to it are reluctant to talk about it. The univer- sity launched an investigation, and Goodwin soon resigned. UW-Madison had to give up thousands of grant dollars and still faces the possibility of sanction by the federal government.

28 ON WISCONSIN BK: Totally. Absolutely. Listen, the The spring of 1991, my junior year, they only see, “Why would you leave a fact is something like The Daily Show or was an exciting time. I had a dorm job if you didn’t have to?” … Colbert, those shows are done at a frac- room to myself. I was drawing a A lot of people do [stay in the same tion of the cost of Saturday Night Live or well-regarded daily comic strip for job] — people do out of fear. People do Leno or Letterman or Conan, because my school paper, and Our Troops had because they’re afraid that they might not they’re using a basic cable model and just finished kicking Saddam’s ass in get something better, or they don’t want they compete on the same playing field. the first Gulf War, setting the stage to be unemployed. Those are all valid So it’s already been proven that you can for the peace in the Middle East we reasons. I just have never, never made a do work, especially in comedy, that holds enjoy to this day. decision — and that’s been partly arro- up against much bigger-budget things. … — Dan Vebber ’92, former editor of The Onion gance on my part, I admit it — I’ve never We can do a company like that. … That’s who has written for shows including Futurama made a decision based on, “Well, I’m and American Dad, from Things I’ve Learned From like the producer part of me, just trying Women Who‘ve Dumped Me afraid that if I do this, I won’t be success- to figure out a way to actually do things. ful.” I’ve never made a decision like that. Because the worst thing about being a hotels, and I’m getting paid to do it. And, I will bet on myself. writer, especially in television or film, is I mean, that was two consecutive weeks that an overwhelming amount of the work of, “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do OW: I feel like a lot of people must ask that you do never actually lives in the way this.” Just absolutely pinching myself. you, “How do I get your job?” or “How do that it’s intended. You write a movie, and I get started doing what you’re doing?” that doesn’t mean the movie’s going to get OW: It seemed like stuff I read about BK: The hardest thing about having a made. [Out of] the overwhelming number when it came out — oh, you’re not going career in the arts is that there isn’t really of scripts people write, a fraction — a tiny, to executive produce [The Daily Show] an official path. … It’s this really weird tiny decimal fraction — get made, so it’s anymore and you’re starting your own combination of you have to have talent, and really frustrating, it’s very isolating and thing. … The tendency is that people are then you have to have a certain ambition, frankly depressing if you’re just constantly always looking for conflict in those situa- and then you have to be willing to kind working on things that never really exist. tions. It didn’t really seem like there was of develop your skills. … There is some … [With our model] maybe you get to one. Were your reasons just [that it was] luck involved or, not necessarily luck, but shoot a scene from your script, and to me time to do something new? that’s more gratifying than having a closet recognizing when an opportunity is a good BK: When someone’s looking at it from the full of scripts that I really love, but will opportunity and what it means. … outside, they can’t imagine why someone never get made. It’s so hard because, again, it’s not would leave a good job that pays a lot of like I set out a path when I was in col- money and is prestigious and all those types OW: lege and said in twelve years I’m going You won an Emmy, which is obvi- of external things. But the bottom line is, to be sitting down, hopefully, being ously cool, but I’m wondering if there’s you have to go to work every day, and you interviewed by On Wisconsin Magazine. anything else that’s meant more to you. realize at a certain point that the most valu- … You know that ten-year question or … When you’re working and you’re able resource that you have and the most five-year question everybody always asks doing what you like to do, sometimes it’s precious thing is time. The time that you you — “Where do you see yourself?” the experiences that mean more, and I’m spend doing something is, by definition, I’ve never had an answer for that at all curious what those have been for you. time taken away from other things. … because, it’s like, I don’t want to know. … BK: As far as one singular, thrilling We had achieved a tremendous amount If you have an impulse, if you have a moment, there hasn’t really been one. at that show, and I’m sure that it will con- desire, if you have a passion — especially There’s been a bunch of moments where tinue to achieve and be impressive, but for if you’re young — take the time to at least you step outside exactly what you’re me personally, there wasn’t more for me to explore it and figure out how it can apply doing and being like, “Oh, wow, this is do there. … I also spoke about that hon- to your life. … If you have an opportunity, pretty cool. I can’t believe this is my life.” estly and openly with Jon [Stewart]. It just you can live cheaply. There’s a way that I just had an experience like that felt like the reasons why I would stay would you can kind of explore your passions where I was asked to consult on this book not be the right reasons. … and your interests, and I think you at least project that is happening in Spain. … I I have zero regrets, zero misgivings. owe it to yourself to try. … That way, you got to go to Spain for a few weeks, and I It was definitely the right move, there’s don’t become the type of person who has was with some really interesting people no hesitation about that. And so there a career and then goes up to people and … and we’re traveling in incredibly beau- really wasn’t a conflict in the sense of a says, “I wish I had your life.” tiful places in Galicia in northern Spain, battle or something like that. … I feel like and we’re eating the best food and drink- it’s such a simple thing, but people have a Jenny Price ’96 is a writer for On Wisconsin. She is ing the best wine and staying in the nicest really hard time understanding, because an avid consumer of real and fake news.

SPRING 2008 27 My junior year, I had gone abroad The grudge is a way to show you care, funny or the irony or absurdity in, a lot of and got this great gig at the Summer a way to stay connected. It would times, stories that had a really long tail. Olympics in Barcelona, and I was a have been an insult to let what we stringer for UPI, and I just basically fell had be downgraded to a mere polite OW: Something like Iraq, in particular? out of love with sports writing. I was like, acquaintanceship or even worse, this is not what I want to do, these are nothing. The grudge required embar- BK: Exactly. … It was such an organic not the people I want to be spending my rassing, accusatory letters. It required evolution from “what kind of stuff does life with. … I’m going to contact someone sending blank e-mails. It required The Daily Show do material about?” And at The Onion and submit some ideas. every meeting we had to be ambigu- then, okay, we’ll do it about this, and if ous and tense. It meant feeling sick we do it about this, here’s how we’ll do OW: So do you remember what when I saw girls who looked like her. it. So by the time Iraq came around, we you submitted? — Andy Selsberg ’94, former staff writer at The kind of had a system in place for how to Onion who teaches English at City University of New deal with something like a war. … A war BK: The way they did it at the beginning York, from Things I’ve Learned From Women Who‘ve is not necessarily something like a plane is they had you submit a list of ideas, a Dumped Me crash, which is pure tragedy and just, you list of Onion headline ideas. And if they away with some information or a take on know, no humor to be found in a plane liked it, they probably have you do something they may not have considered, crash. But a war, you know the parts of another round, and if they liked it, they but I would hardly call that a primary the war that are tragic: innocent loss of invite you to a meeting. … And at first, resource. … I know exactly why people life and corruption. … That’s not your you just got invited to the ideas meet- want to say that to be the case, but it just instinct to tell jokes about. But the hubris ing, you contributed ideas, and if you can’t be. It’s not. of a person saying something you know kind of proved yourself, then you would not to be true, and there’s this kind of get invited to take one of your ideas OW: propaganda element, all that stuff, okay, and write an article about it. And I’m I also saw where you talked about it wasn’t difficult in that way. sure if I looked back at that … all the having this experience of the “real” work- ideas probably suck, but they were good ing journalists coming up to you and say- enough at the time. Your comedic stan- ing, “Oh, I wish I could do what you do.” OW: Let me jump ahead to where we dards completely change. But that first … What did you think about that? are now. … I just want to get a sense of article I did — I remember very well — BK: Well, it’s weird for a couple reasons. Superego Industries … I’m just curious was this terrible article. ... It was called ... Implicit in it is this idea that they are what you can say that these cards [on “Bill Payment,” and it was an editorial forbidden from speaking the truth, and your office wall] may involve. arguing that because the Buffalo Bills that we somehow are allowed or unfet- BK: The idea behind this company was lost the Super Bowl, the city of Buffalo tered. Well, you’re a journalist, [isn’t] can you do a production company that should be destroyed. part of your job to figure out how you develops material in a more interesting can make sure that you feel very good way than the traditional development OW: and comfortable and proud of the news So for a long time, it just seemed like process, which has been: you pitch an that you’re reporting? the trend story on The Daily Show was, idea, they commission you to write a “Oh, this is where people under a certain script, you write a script, they give you OW: age get their news,” and I’m wondering One of the things I had always notes, they either don’t like the script what you thought of that. thought about when watching The Daily or like the script, and maybe you make BK: It’s definitely a type of thing that — Show was I just wondered if there were something and the whole thing takes a if it were true — would be like a fantastic some days when it gets so hard to find the year or six months or whatever. The idea little irony, that type of irony that the joke, because there’s just so much horrible behind this company was — can we set news media loves more than anything stuff that seems to continue going on … up a company that is going to be able to to kind of advance. The sad reality is BK: The worst thing, really, was the rep- do movie, TV, Internet stuff. It’s going to that it would be virtually impossible to etition. I think that trying to find nuance be able to make things on a small scale, get a true understanding of news and and new takes on stories that were ever- kind of show our work in a way that it is current events by watching a show like present got very difficult, because the a little faster and a little more interesting The Daily Show. You have to have some first challenge is to entertain ourselves. than the kind of traditional, linear devel- other context, otherwise you’re a reac- If we’re entertained, then other people opment process. tion without the action, so then you have will be entertained. … The hardest thing to figure it out. … I have no doubt that was not necessarily finding stories, but OW: Did you pitch yourself [to HBO] in people who watch the show may walk making sure that we found the joy or the that kind of economical fashion?

26 ON WISCONSIN BK: The goal was to write a book from Whenever a girl would dump my son dorm and went right to the University the male point of view that has — I don’t — and he had his share of heartbreak Hospital — where I found out I had know whether you’d call it male humor as a boy — I would always say the mono — on the first day of my freshman — but just … is written by male humor- same thing to him, “Those girls are all year. But in spite of that very inauspi- ists that, at the same time, does provide fools and idiots. They don’t know what cious beginning, I pretty much from day some kind of window into men’s pro- they’re missing.” He would always say, one loved the school. cesses and how they respond to things “You’re just saying that because you’re that would be interesting or informative my mom.” He had me there. OW: Did you have a sense of what you for a curious woman. — Barbara Karlin, Ben’s mother, from the wanted to do? … Was comedy in the foreword to Things I’ve Learned From Women equation at all at that point? Who‘ve Dumped Me OW: You’re pretty newly married, right? BK: Comedy was actually integral to said, “That’s the story you gotta write. almost everything I did, in terms of when BK: Yeah. I mean, you can’t put out a book with I wrote papers for classes, they were not that title and not do that story.” always appreciated by the professor — OW: Did your wife have any involvement but they always had a comedic bent to in this book? OW: I’m wondering how you decided them. My writing, the way I lived, was BK: Not really. The funniest thing is I originally to come to Madison for school. more disposed that way, but I never didn’t know if it would be appropriate to BK: I wish there was some kind of great, articulated it in terms of “I want to be a dedicate [the book] to her, so I think it’s apocryphal-seeming story, but the truth comedy writer. I want to be a comedian,” good you always have an out when you is I really wanted to go to the University or “I want to be an actor.” I never articu- do a comedy book. ... You can always do of Michigan. … When I started looking lated a specific goal for myself at all. It a comedic dedication. [In this case, “This into colleges, I realized that I needed to was always much more massive, existen- one’s for the ladies.”] apply to more than one college, so upon tial, like I want to be happy and I want to The original piece I wrote was actu- doing research, Madison kept on coming do things that I’m proud of. … I thought ally about a woman I dated in Madison. back as a place that if you’re interested I wanted to be a sports writer, and I … I started writing a story that wasn’t in Michigan, you should really look at wrote sports for The Daily Cardinal … as intensely heartfelt, and it was more Madison. … And I got into Wisconsin. I OW: just a funny situation. It was called didn’t get into Michigan. ... In the Morton Years, no less … “If You Lie, You Get Caught.” … My I was on Cape Cod for the summer, BK: Exactly. … I lived through the Mor- co-editor, Andy Selsberg, who is also a working and just partying like crazy. … ton and the Yoder years, okay? ... So a lot Madison alum, he said, “If this is your By the time I arrived in Madison for ori- of people from the Cardinal migrated over book, you can’t do that” because he entation, the week before classes started, to The Onion, and I had always wanted to knew the story I ended up going with, I was really run down and feeling ter- write for The Onion, but it was this kind he knew the details of that, and [he] rible. So we dropped off my bags at the of, it was like this mysterious thing. ... MICHAEL APPLETON

SPRING 2008 25 On Wisconsin: I really enjoyed [the The point, however, is that upon leav- do you have it be funny and have people book]. … I was curious where you got ing our college town — I’ll call it Eden be laughing, but also, when they finish an the idea and how you recruited people, to protect its identity from future essay or finish a piece — not necessarily and if you gave them a specific “charge” pilgrims who may flock there to trace every time — but [they] feel like, “Oh, going into it. the origin of this very story — mis- wow, I just got a little window into that takes were made. Some were mistakes person’s life or that experience,” or “Yeah, Ben Karlin: One year I was going to do of vanity. Others of youth. Still others I felt that way”? … That’s what we tried to a pilot for NBC, and I didn’t want to do of the vanity of youth. Eventually, do on The Daily Show, really, is kind of con- a traditional, half-hour type of sitcom- these mistakes would pile up and their nect to what people care about, but not be type show. So one idea I had was for weight would become too much for over the top in terms of [being] so broad this show ... where every week’s epi- any one man, or relationship, to bear. that there’s no substance to the humor, or sode was a failed relationship in the life — Ben Karlin, from Things I’ve Learned From Women so serious that there’s no humor. of this guy who was learning a life’s Who‘ve Dumped Me worth of lessons. … They did not care ally like, and let the quality of the book OW: for that. I thought it was a good idea. Was there a lot of editing, then, be the quality of the book, and if it sells … I ended up doing something about a because of that, with some people? Did x amount less because it doesn’t have ski town, I believe. they go too far over the edge? Bill Clinton on the cover, I can live with I had the anthology idea and, for- BK: No. … The hardest part about it from it, because at least I’ll be happier with tunately, the last eight years or so, I’ve an editing standpoint was just reminding the book. worked with a ton of really talented, people that in some way the pieces had funny people — a lot of my friends and to be lessons. … There had to be some OW: people I know and friends of friends. So I I was really impressed with how kind of takeaway that the author, either just kind of built the list organically from open everybody was. I mean, they’re really ironically or seriously, learned from this people who I liked and thought were frank about their anxieties and insecurities experience. … All I cared about was that funny. I started out much more ambi- and heartbreak — even yourself. it was something real and that, when you tious, thinking wouldn’t it be cool if I got BK: That’s what I wanted. To me, the finished reading the piece, you felt that Bill Clinton, you know? And wouldn’t hard thing to do here is to not have it be that was a true enough experience. it be cool if I got Michael Jordan? And something that was sappy or treacle or then the reality of getting those people … feel-good, but also not be something that OW: When I first heard about the book, at a certain point, I just said let me focus was just cold and clinical and funny, but I thought, “Oh, this is going to be a ‘guy’ my energy on finding people who I actu- had no soul. So the challenge was, how book.” But from when I read the open- ing essay, it really seemed to suggest that Ben Karlin, working in his Brooklyn office (at left below), signed a deal with HBO last year to women have a lot to learn, too, and as a develop film, TV, and Internet projects. “You know that ten-year question or five-year question everybody always asks you — ‘Where do you see yourself?’ I’ve never had an answer for that female reader, I got a lot more out of it at all because,” he says, “it’s like, I don’t want to know.” than I had anticipated.

24 ON WISCONSIN MICHAEL APPLETON

FunnySERIOUSLY

For Ben Karlin, walking away from success at Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report was the logical next step in a career that’s been anything but cautious. What’s he up to now?

BY JENNY PRICE ’96

Enter the loft office on the third floor of a former Brooklyn factory, and before too long, your ears catch the subway noise that intermittently vibrates off the nearby Manhattan Bridge. Very quickly, your eyes go to the colorful index cards tacked to bulletin boards on wheels. “Creepy Guy Project,” “Bode Miller,” “Asshole Guys Who Look Like Jesus,” and “Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me” are among the titles written on the cards in black marker. Those ideas are the core of why Ben Karlin ’93 decided to walk away from a job many consider to be the pin- nacle of television comedy. It would have been easy to stay put. But Karlin had too many projects brewing that he didn’t have time to pursue while also keeping his eye on the ball as executive producer for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Karlin left the two cable shows in December 2006 and launched his own production company — dubbed Superego Industries — in September 2007. With a freshly inked HBO production deal, he’s forging a new career path developing ideas for television, movies, and the Internet that don’t involve riffing on the headlines. Big ambitions? Yes. Super ego? Not at all. He offers to grab coffee for us and mostly ignores his cell phone — even though it chirps at a regular clip. That unpretentious attitude is refreshing, given that he’s been part of not one, but two, of the most influential forces in comedy in the last decade. Karlin served as writer and editor for The Onion, the satirical newspaper born in Madison, before making the leap to Hollywood. From there, he became head writer and then executive producer for The Daily Show, Comedy Central’s nightly recap of current events that succeeds at making you think and laugh at the same time. He also co-wrote the bestselling America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, as well as helping craft Daily Show anchor Jon Stewart’s material when he hosted the Academy Awards in 2006. “Basically, if you’ve laughed in the last ten years,” New York Magazine wrote, “Ben Karlin was responsible.” This spring, Karlin has a new book out, Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me, which includes contribu- tions from Nick Hornby, Stephen Colbert, and Andy Richter, as well as a foreword by Karlin’s mother (see excerpts). The anthology is a collection of essays that makes you laugh, but also manages to teach you a thing or two about relationships. Karlin, who is also in his first year as a new father, sat down with On Wisconsin to talk about the book and life before, during, and after the fake news. The conversation, edited for length, follows.

“We had achieved a tremendous amount ... but for me personally, there wasn’t more for me to do there,” Ben Karlin says about his decision to leave Comedy Central. The home base for his new production company is a Brooklyn neighborhood called DUMBO — shorthand for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. SPRING 2008 23 MICHAEL APPLETON am a reluctant gatekeeper. I hate Weiss, “Jamie’s one-word answers until the work is replicated. Or until it’s to decline a reporter’s request as seem to come from an honest-to- published. Or until he understands the I much as Thomson hates to grant it. goodness humility, a trait so rare that results better. It is infuriating!” After all, my job is to keep Wisconsin’s research profile high, and managing At a practical level, if espite the politics that hamstring discovery rather than exploiting it to the embryonic stem cell research and fullest is a different kind of challenge, Thomson were to grant D the rush to capitalize on Thom- although in the case of Jamie Thomson son’s discoveries in places far removed and stem cells, it’s a necessary one. every interview request, from Madison, Wisconsin remains a Thomson’s reticence, I believe, his career in one of biol- leading center of stem cell science, due is rooted in cultural, personal, and in large measure to Thomson’s influen- practical considerations. Science, for ogy’s most competitive tial work. As many as forty groups at the most part, does not put a lot of UW-Madison do some kind of stem value on visibility in popular media. fields would be over, cell research, and a number of labs are At a practical level, if Thomson were dedicated completely to unraveling the to grant every interview request, his as there would be little mysteries of the all-purpose stem cell. career in one of biology’s most com- time remaining to write Years of work remain before the petitive fields would be over, as there promise of the science is realized. would be little time remaining to write grant proposals and In the meantime, stem cells will grant proposals and papers, maintain continue to be controversial and make a lab, and do research. And I think papers, maintain a lab, news, my phone will ring, and maybe what Thomson most wants to be is a and do research. — maybe — I’ll be able to help. But successful, productive scientist. chances are I can’t. At a personal level, humility is prob- ably at play as well. “While Washington it leaves reporters like me a little flum- Writer Terry Devitt has covered basic science at sources will often withhold details in moxed. I’ll ask a question three ways UW-Madison for twenty-four years. He spends order to be coy or to build interest or just to get him to say the obvious, and his days bothering researchers and telling stories of discovery in an effort to demystify science and suspense,” says the Washington Post’s he just will not do it. He wants to wait its process.

For nearly a decade, UW scientists have been at the forefront of discovery and promise in stem cell research

January 2005 April 2005 October 2005 January 2006 May 2007 September 2007 November 2007 UW scientists UW-Madison The National Insti- Scientists at the UW-Madison The National Insti- A new study led report that they establishes a tutes of Health WiCell Research establishes a Stem tutes of Health by UW scientist have coaxed regenerative medi- names the WiCell Institute announce Cell and Regen- awards a $7.2 Junying Yu and human embry- cine program and Research Institute that they have erative Medicine million grant to conducted in onic stem cells to an interdisciplinary the federal gov- developed a stem Center to serve as UW researchers Thomson’s lab become spinal postdoctoral train- ernment’s first cell culture system a focal point for to explore the achieves genetic motor neurons, ing program that National Stem that is free of ani- the university’s potential of stem reprogramming critical nervous will advance stem Cell Bank. mal cells — thus stem cell research. cells and natural of human skin system pathways cell research across avoiding viruses growth factors to cells to create cells that relay mes- the university. and other del- treat amyotrophic indistinguishable sages from the eterious agents — lateral sclerosis, from embryonic brain to the rest and have used it also known as Lou stem cells. of the body. to derive two new Gehrig’s disease. human embryonic stem cell lines. UW-MADISON NEWS PHOTOS

SPRING 2008 21 out and his voicemail greeting directs Thomson is also a killjoy for TV ers, who were hoping to interview the reporters to me — didn’t stop ringing for reporters. He does not own a television. reluctant Thomson on camera. As I three weeks. During my decade working with him, write this, at the behest of Nova execu- Most recently, when Thomson and I’ve managed to arrange two television tive producer Paula Apsell — an indi- colleague Junying Yu reprogrammed vidual who does not typically call lowly adult skin cells to revert to an embryon- press officers — I hope to convince ic-like state, another media frenzy was “I think of Jamie as the Thomson to open the lab door a crack, set in motion. Less than a week before Chuck Yeager of biology and 60 Minutes is trolling for seconds. this most recent paper was published, I am not optimistic. Thomson e-mailed me. “Do you have — working at the very A primary consideration for Thom- time to come over this afternoon?” he son is time. When you publish ground- asked. “I’m going to take up a consider- edge of the envelope, and breaking science and add controversy able amount of your time next week.” to the mix, it is irresistible news. And Understatement is a character trait yet curiously, almost mad- good reporters must go to the source. of Wisconsin’s most famous biologist. deningly, laconic when The catch is there isn’t enough source It drives reporters crazy. “I think of to go around. And Thomson is equally Jamie as the Chuck Yeager of biology — pressed to talk about what protective of his lab and the time of working at the very edge of the envelope, his colleagues. Among my instructions and yet curiously, almost maddeningly, he has done or plans to regarding the most recent feat from his laconic when pressed to talk about what do next.” lab was a request to guard the time of he has done or plans to do next,” laments Yu, the young molecular biologist who Rick Weiss, science reporter for the performed much of the heavy lifting to Washington Post. “The guy seems to have interviews, PBS’s News Hour and CBS’s identify the genes that could spin ordi- made it a personal challenge to understate 60 Minutes. Most recently, I’ve turned nary skin cells into induced pluripotent his accomplishments, killing every effort away Nightline, BBC documentarians, stem cells — cells that seem to have all to get a dramatic quote or a jazzy sense CNN, and a flock of others, including the golden qualities of embryonic stem of where the science is going.” exasperated local television report- cells without the baggage.

Path of Progress

November 1995 November 1998 October 1999 September 2001 December 2001 February 2003 September 2003 Work by Wiscon- Wisconsin biolo- The Wisconsin A UW team UW scientists Scientists in The WiCell sin scientists with gist James Thom- Alumni Research reports that it report that they Thomson’s lab Research Institute rhesus macaques son reports the Foundation estab- has developed have guided report methods is named one shows that it is first-ever isolation lishes the private, methods to coax human embry- for recombining of three Explor- possible to derive and culturing of nonprofit WiCell human embry- onic stem cells to segments of DNA atory Centers for embryonic stem human embryonic Research Institute onic stem cells to become precur- within stem cells, Human Embryonic cells from pri- stem cells. to distribute stem become primitive sor neural cells. giving researchers Stem Cell Research mates, holding cells for research. blood cells that Implanted into the ability to study in the nation. out the possibility later develop into baby mice, the gene function. that the cells could more mature cells, cells develop into be derived from including red and healthy, function- humans. white blood cells ing neural cells. and platelets.

20 ON WISCONSIN Who doesn’t know about stem cells? of the world’s great concentrations willing to explain his motivations and If you have a disease such as of stem cell research. It has a stable how he came to terms with the ethical diabetes or Parkinson’s, you might see of terrific researchers, including the dilemma of using human embryos for the all-purpose cells as a glimmer of hope world’s most famous stem cell scientist, research. He speaks very quickly, but for treating a horrible affliction. If you James A. Thomson. almost everything he says is meaningful. believe life begins at conception, even if The rub, of course, is that every- “Two minutes on the phone with sperm and egg were united in a dish and one wants to interview Thomson. And him is worth hours with anybody else in will never see a womb, using stem cells Thomson — or Jamie, as friends and the field,” says Associated Press medical derived from days-old embryos, which acquaintances know him — would writer Marilynn Marchione. “He doesn’t are destroyed in the process, is akin to rather be interviewed by no one. make it easy. You have to do your home- taking a human life. If you are a biologist, work, but any insight he lends is well embryonic stem cells are a window to the y introduction to stem cells and worth whatever effort you have to put untold story of early human development. to Thomson occurred in the in to prepare.” This knowledge could one day rival even Msummer of 1998. It was months the heralded wonders of the übercells as a before his landmark paper describing or a science press officer, the limitless source of customized material of the first cultured human embryonic everyday problem is getting report- all kinds for transplant. stem cells would be published in the F ers to pay attention. At a research Stem cells, of course, are all these journal Science, but there was much to university such as UW-Madison, there things and more. They are in the politi- do, including overcoming my ignorance is no shortage of good science, and I cal arena, with President George W. of stem cells and their potential for bio- tend to take the view that it is all impor- Bush refusing to fund most research medical science and controversy. For tant. But in a hypercompetitive news on the controversial cells, thus yielding his part, Thomson would have to endure environment, with ever-shrinking news biomedical initiative to states including a crash course in what to expect from holes and coverage of research viewed California and governments in Asia and journalists and he would have to submit by most news organizations as a luxury, Europe. They are a business opportu- to the camera, which was no small getting science into the public eye can be nity, prized as a means to test the safety concession. a hard and frustrating job. That’s never of new drugs or even to transform been the case with Jamie Thomson’s the cells themselves into microscopic Stem cells are also media work. factories for producing novel medicines. Even before his 1998 study made And for all the reasons above, stem darlings. Since November international headlines, Thomson was cells are also media darlings. Since an inadvertent newsmaker: his deriva- November 1998, when the world’s 1998, when the world’s tion of the world’s first non-human pri- first human embryonic stem cell lines first human embryonic mate embryonic stem cells from rhesus burst from the obscurity of a small macaques in 1995 was disclosed over a UW-Madison laboratory, hardly a day stem cell lines burst from cocktail by a colleague to an ever-vigi- passes without someone asking me lant science reporter. A story about that about stem cells — a reporter seeking an the obscurity of a small unpublished study was on the news wire authoritative source, an art director in UW-Madison laboratory, the next day. need of a picture, a student working on But when Thomson established the a term paper, a moralist ready to debate, hardly a day passes with- world’s first human embryonic stem cell or, most disquieting, someone who is lines in 1998, the world’s press made a terribly ill and looking for hope. out someone asking me virtual mad dash for Wisconsin. Occupy- For the sick and those with ethi- ing an office next to mine in Bascom Hall cal objections, I have no good answers. about stem cells. for about a week and a half, Thomson did Because of where they come from, nothing but interviews. Scores of inter- embryonic stem cells will always be views. From the New York Times and the controversial. And for all of their For a man who dreads the media Washington Post, to National Public Radio potential, the all-purpose cells remain spotlight, Thomson gives a tantalizing and the BBC, to key Wisconsin news an unfulfilled promise. Even well-funded interview. He is articulate and to the organizations such as the Milwaukee Jour- science takes decades to move from lab point, and he can describe his work and nal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal, bench to bedside. its implications in comprehensible terms. Thomson patiently answered the same But if you are a reporter, I might be He does not overstate. He is sincere and questions over and over and over. My able to help. UW-Madison boasts one thoughtful in his convictions, and he is phone — Thomson’s number is not given

SPRING 2008 19 Reluctant

STAR UW-MADISON NEWS PHOTO

With UW-Madison’s stem cell research making news around the globe, the man behind the breakthrough discoveries would just as soon stay out of the media’s glare.

BY TERRY DEVITT ’78, MA’85

18 ON WISCONSIN CLASSROOM

that this way of thinking isn’t scientific. “We don’t know the actual mass but only the BRYCE RICHTER (2) measured mass,” he says. “It’s a scientific statement.” The response earns praise from Mathieu. “The number may be close to the number in a textbook or to some professor’s measurement, but you should never think it’s the actual any- thing,” he says. “There’s only one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty in this class, and that’s that these numbers aren’t the actual mass of Jupi- ter. A scientific answer isn’t the value you come up with. It’s a range within which you claim the truth lies.” When the review is finished, Mathieu has the students form groups to experiment with lenses. The goal is to study the optical principles on which tele- scopes are based, and the osten- sible task is to align the lenses to bring into focus a pair of bright lights set up across the room. At the same time, through trial and Logan Woods (above) looks through lenses to discover how telescopes error, the students challenge work. With the guidance of Professor Robert Mathieu (standing, left), he and his classmates help each other discover astronomical principles. each other’s assumptions about how telescopes work. This is how Woods came to try interpreting the world as Class Note Students also share stories by photo blog- flat. When looking through the Worldly Words ging, creating online profiles, and posting lenses to find their focal point, English 332: The Global Spread of English videos to a community Web site, all of which he found that thinking of the can become course material. Zuengler’s class problem a little differently gave English is a global language, but some varieties explores dynamic issues surrounding who him a more satisfactory result. used around the world are unrecognizable to “owns” English, what happens to local lan- He then tries to communi- native speakers from the West. guages as more people learn it, and what is cate that to his classmates, and “What many Americans and British con- considered standard or correct usage. this leads the group to lengthy sider ‘their’ language has been moving steadily In many countries, hip-hop artists mix English arguments about what they’re around the world, being taken up and shaped with local languages to create their songs, and seeing and how to precisely and used in ways quite different from the Eng- students view some examples of the cultural mash Jane measure it. The arguments grow lish with which they are familiar,” says up on YouTube. Students also study more formal Zuengler, until another student, Holly a UW-Madison professor of English. efforts, such as in Singapore, where the govern- Brillowski x’09, jokes that they Zuengler gives her students a firsthand view ment’s “Speak Good English” campaign strongly might as well chalk up their of that phenomenon through a pilot course she encourages citizens to reduce their use of Singlish Hassan Belhiah MA’98, answers to witchcraft. Then is developing with — a local variety of English that includes words PhD’05, they finally settle into serious a professor at Al Akhawayn Univer- from Chinese, Malay, and Indian dialects. measurement. sity in Morocco. Videoconferencing melds two “The questions we address in the course “[That’s] collaborative learn- classrooms — more than four thousand miles are ones with a global scope that many students ing,” says Mathieu. “It could be apart — into one, with help from UW Learning tell me they have never considered before,” magic.” Support Services and funding from a UW Faculty Zuengler says. — John Allen Development Grant. — Jenny Price ’96

SPRING 2008 17 CLASSROOM

Star Students Astronomy classmates learn to think like scientists.

As Logan Woods x’09 gazes and the universe, which can be as part of an overhaul of his through a series of lenses at a taken concurrently. Students department’s 100-level classes distant point of light, he utters aren’t expected to be expert to incorporate more lab work. a line that would mortify most physicists before signing up, and “When I first began teaching astronomy professors: “I think freshmen are welcome. But how- introductory astronomy, I used the key is to interpret the ever little science students have a traditional, didactic lecture,” world as flat.” experienced before taking the he says. “But switching to an inquiry-based lab format includ- ing extensive collaborative learning broke the mold for me. It started to show me how learning really happens.” As students calculate the mass of Jupiter or the distance of a particular star from Earth, they learn to rely on their own thinking, rather than merely memorizing information by rote from a textbook. Working in small teams, the students are expected to help each other learn, then to defend their answers to both Mathieu and the rest of the class. “Watching the students teach each other is such a blast,” says Mathieu. “I usually just walk around and reflect their questions back to them. It’s such an easy course to teach, because But Robert Mathieu isn’t class, Mathieu expects them all the students really do all the like most astronomy professors, to leave thinking like scientists. teaching themselves.” and in his class, Woods’s obser- Students aren’t told the dis- Of course, they don’t always vation is satisfactory. It means tance to various planets or stars, teach each other by standard he’s working to internalize the but rather are shown how to methods. On a night in October, lesson of the course: that real measure those distances — and the lab met for a lesson in optics scientists don’t take any answers re-measure them, and re-mea- and an exercise in building tele- as absolute. sure them again. They learn that scopes. But before the students Mathieu teaches Astronomy scientific knowledge is built on can examine the series of lenses, 113: Hands on the Universe, repetition, combined with the Mathieu has them take out where students learn about calculation of margins of error their notebooks to go over the planets and stars, but the and standard deviations. previous week’s work — mea- answers they come up with are “I want my students to learn surement of the mass of Jupiter. less important than the ques- that, in science, we don’t know The discussion isn’t so much tions they learn to ask. “The the true answers,” Mathieu says. about the numbers the students basic course goal is to show stu- “We measure and compare the came up with as it is about their dents the heart of the scientific results that we come up with to understanding of what those way of knowing,” says Mathieu. those that others came up with, numbers mean. “And that means teaching them in hope that consensus brings On an overhead projector, uncertainty, about knowing well us closer to truth. Even so, what Mathieu shows examples from how wrong they might be.” we think are the right answers several student papers and asks Hands on the Universe is today will certainly change in the class members if they can one of the UW’s introductory the future, as we find ways to find flaws. When one answer is astronomy courses, and the only measure more accurately.” justified as being “not far from prerequisite is Astronomy 103, Mathieu designed this the actual mass of Jupiter,” a lecture class on stars, galaxies, course more than a decade ago Adam Peters x’09 points out

16 ON WISCONSIN DISPATCHES

Under the Sea Scientists drill deep to study earthquakes.

Clues to the world’s most pow- Got meat? If not, the UW’s erful earthquakes — including HAROLD TOBIN JAMSTEC/IODP (2) Meat Science and Muscle those that trigger tsunamis Biology Lab can help. In July, — lie buried below the ocean the Campus Drive facility began floor in deep-sea faults. Thanks selling meat retail, a change in to the deep drilling capabilities its decades-old mission. Since of a new Japanese vessel, these 1931, the lab has been conduct- remote faults may finally be ing research on meat-processing accessible. techniques and training students “Earthquakes don’t hap- for careers in the meat industry. pen at the surface; they hap- But last summer, it opened a pen miles deep in the earth,” shop to sell beef, lamb, pork, explains UW geophysicist and more. Harold Tobin. “The drilling is unique because it allows Think today’s negative politi- us to access the deep faults, cal ads are strangling the where the earthquakes nation’s democratic process? actually originate.” Then UW political science pro- Last fall, Tobin and a fessor Kenneth Goldstein has team of scientists drilled four some good news. In his new boreholes, each thousands of book, Campaign Advertising feet deep, into the seafloor and American Democracy, near the Nankai Trough off he argues that negative ads the coast of Japan, one of the are actually good for political most active earthquake zones discourse. “Contrary to conven- on the planet. Using monitor- tional wisdom,” he says, “the ing instruments embedded more that people are exposed within the drill pipe, the Harold Tobin (lower left) wants to know what’s shakin’. He and other to negative advertising, the researchers discovered unex- scientists on the Japanese drilling vessel Chikyu (top) are digging into more they know, the more pected differences in the physi- deep-sea faults. engaged they are, and the cal stresses of the rock layers more likely they are to vote.” overlying active and inactive extend the holes even deeper generating zone in order to parts of the fault — early hints into the fault zone. “The fun- understand the basic mechanics After years of declining enroll- at quake production. damental goal is to sample and of faulting,” Tobin says. ment, the Dairy Science depart- Additional expeditions will monitor this major earthquake- — Jill Sakai PhD’06 ment is experiencing a sudden surge in student numbers. In fall 2007, some twenty-nine Number of Kids with Kidney Stones on the Rise students signed on in the Most people think of kidney stones as a painful malady that afflicts men department, triple the size of over age fifty. Bruce Slaughenhoupt, a pediatric urologist at the UW’s its incoming class just three American Family Children’s Hospital, sees it a little differently. About every years ago. ten days, he and his colleagues treat a child suffering from a kidney stone. SPENCER WALTS And about every ten days, they face the same reaction. With a mighty crash, an ice “Many parents are quite surprised,” says Slaughenhoupt, who recently quake shook campus along co-founded the UW Health Pediatric Kidney Stone Clinic. “They tell me, the shore of Lake Mendota at ‘I didn’t know that kids could get kidney stones.’ ” the end of January. Caused They can, and urologists and nephrologists across the country are by large shifts in lake ice, ice noticing that children are getting them with increasing — and alarming — quakes aren’t uncommon, but frequency. The culprit is believed to be the same as that fueling the national obesity epidemic: a diet high the January event — which in processed foods and sodium. Most kidney stones consist of calcium oxalate, a substance that can form in occurred shortly before 1:00 in the kidneys when the body consumes too much sodium. Common types of processed food — think French the afternoon, when campus fries and soda — often contain high amounts of the substance. was busy — was strong enough In most adults, a kidney stone will pass in about forty days. With children, the waiting game doesn’t to register on seismometers work as well. “Parents never give me the option of waiting forty days,” Slaughenhoupt says. “They want in the geology department at their child’s stone dealt with now.” Weeks Hall. — Aaron Conklin MA’93

SPRING 2008 15 DISPATCHES

The Parent Rap Childbirth policy offers promise for UW chem researchers.

Babies and the beginnings four women. The under- pregnancy — for example, of academic careers are now representation of female fac- considering alternatives to a better mix in the UW ulty in the physical sciences is lab work or taking the paid chemistry department. a nationwide issue. leave on a part-time basis. A policy approved in 2007 Several years ago, a Grant guidelines may prohibit provides a twelve-week paid graduate student working paying research assistants if maternity leave, with the with Hamers became preg- they are out of the lab for a hope that more women nant. “Obviously, she needed few months, so the new policy will complete their PhD or some time off, but all of my must be funded entirely postdoctoral research and research funding was from from unrestricted gifts to advance to the faculty federal grants,” he says. “It the chemistry department. level. put me in a compromised Wisconsin joins only a “There’s a percep- position — I felt morally obli- handful of universities with tion among gated to help this student get similar policies, including graduate through the pregnancy and Stanford and the University students that her PhD. This policy alleviates of California-Berkeley. Since the profes- that concern and levels the establishing the policy, the

SPENCER WALTS soriate is not playing field.” UW chemistry department a friendly Chemistry labs aren’t the has not yet had a graduate place for safest place for a pregnant student become pregnant. women,” woman and her unborn child, “If you really want to says depart- who risk unnecessary expo- change the number of women ment chair sure to chemicals that could at the assistant professor level, Robert adversely affect their health. they need to feel supported Hamers ’80, A maternity leave option gives as graduate students,” says who over- a pregnant student and her research associate Emily Eng- sees a forty- research adviser some flex- lish PhD’07. “If this was uni- member ibility in looking for safe and versally accepted, it could have faculty that healthy ways to continue a a big impact on my plans.” includes just chemistry education during — Karen Roach ’82

Virtual Hunting

For students who are about to graduate, the x’08. “Also, because of the language barrier, digital revolution has changed more than it’s much easier to communicate by e-mail.” how they will keep in touch with friends. It’s The lengthy process of compiling a portfolio revamped the way they find jobs. of recommendation letters, transcripts, clips, and Gone are the days when a prospective so on has also been digitized. For a small fee, employee would march into an office, resume students can upload these documents into an in hand, ready to meet a potential boss. Instead, online folder that can be accessed any time, and students can upload their resumes online and instantly send them to grad schools or potential prospective employers can browse for the best employers. candidates. Though job searching may increasingly be “Everything is electronic now, so students done online, the next step remains an in-person can sit at their desks, or in their apartments, or at interview, and technology is helping students home over break, and they can be applying for prepare for that, too. Along with attending tra- jobs,” says Steve Schroeder ’98, MS’99, assis- ditional resume workshops and mock interviews, tant dean and director of the Business Career students can download podcasts that tackle Center. The center’s e-recruitment Web site is subjects such as what to wear to an interview. just one of hundreds of online job databases that “We do set up video conferencing here for students can tap into. recruiters,” says Schroeder. “But you can tell a “I plan on moving to Denmark after I gradu- lot about a person from their handshake. We still ate, so if I couldn’t search for jobs online, I don’t think it is important to be able to meet in person.” know what I would do,” says Mary Sandberg — Vanessa de Bruijn x’08

14 ON WISCONSIN DISPATCHES

Compound Interest Alumni take unprecedented steps to preserve their school’s name.

Mike Knetter found most important concepts UW anthropologist John Hawks people willing to give him SPENCER WALTS we teach our students in says that humans are evolving millions of dollars almost business are option value, at a rate far faster than previ- everywhere he turned for a brand equity, and team- ously suspected. In the Decem- few crazy days last October. work. It’s nice to practice ber issue of the Proceedings of Last-minute offers came in what you teach.” the National Academy of Sci- phone calls, an unexpected One of the donors, ences, Hawks published an anal- two-line e-mail, and even at Albert Nicholas ’52, ysis of international genetic data a Badger football game. MBA’55, says the donor and found that, in the last 5,000 After initially discuss- partnership was impressed years, the human genetic code ing a conventional naming with business students’ ear- changed 100 times faster than it gift with several prospects, lier support for differential had in any previous period. “We the dean of the Wiscon- tuition to help support the are more different genetically sin School of Business school. “They have shown from people living 5,000 years adopted an unprecedented that they are willing to ago than they were from Nean- approach — one that could pay for quality. And so are derthals,” he says. Hawks posits set a national trend. Instead we,” he says. “We hope that evolution is being speeded of naming the school for this naming gift inspires by population growth and the an individual donor in per- an even broader group of spread of agriculture. petuity, Knetter thought, alumni to give back.” why not build a team of Just hours after In addition to rising tuition and supporters to preserve the announcing an $80 mil- fees, students face increasing school’s name for the next lion gift on Homecoming financial pressure from the cost twenty years? morning, Knetter ran into of textbooks, according to a His reasoning was came in, totaling $85 million. Milwaukee businessman study conducted for the UW compelling: If the school sold Of that amount, $70 million Sheldon Lubar ’51, LLB’53 System board of regents. In a naming rights in perpetuity, is unrestricted in its use, an in a suite at Camp Randall Sta- report presented in December, it would forfeit the option of unusual feature in a gift to a dium. Lubar said he wanted to the study found that a first- selling those rights later, for a public university and a crucial add a $5 million contribution. year UW-Madison student’s better price. And a renaming feature in times of declining “There are moments when books typically cost more than of the school for a single indi- state support. a school can make a major leap $700 — an expense that many vidual would send the school “It became apparent that forward in terms of quality, students fail to anticipate. The scrambling to build a new a naming gift could actually scale, and national visibility,” study recommended several brand. destroy value … and promote Knetter says. “We believe that steps the university could take His results were impressive: egoism over teamwork,” time has arrived.” to ameliorate book costs, includ- All told, thirteen generous gifts Knetter says. “Three of the — Dennis Chaptman ’80 ing launching a swap program, supporting book donations, and encouraging professors to rely State Budget Reverses Downward Trend more on online sources.

It didn’t look good at first. The Big Ten Network’s sports The marathon state budget process kicked off with some out-there proposals — cutting off fund- programming has been getting ing to the Law School, for one — and it appeared that UW-Madison might fare even worse in this year’s a lot of attention, but it supplies state budget than in past go-rounds. But in the end, the UW emerged as one of the winners from the more than video of athletes in final compromise that legislators and Governor Jim Doyle negotiated last fall, which reverses a six-year action. UW-Madison offerings trend of significant reductions in state support. The 2007–09 biennial budget has more money for student include Wisconsin Reflec- financial aid, faculty recruitment and retention, and the university’s capital budget, including replacing tions, a talk show that features Union South. Badger celebrities ranging from It also provides tuition assistance to veterans and creates a new program guaranteeing some financial CBS news correspondent Kelly assistance for higher education to Wisconsin students who graduate from high school with a B average. Cobiella ’93 to jazz great Ben But the budget might be as notable for what didn’t make it in as for what did. Gone was the much- Sidran ’67. For those who don’t maligned Law School idea, along with Doyle’s proposal to provide domestic-partner benefits to state get the Big Ten Network, seg- employees. And a member of the UW System board of regents resigned over another omission: ments of Wisconsin Reflections Jesus Salas MA’85 was upset that there was no provision to allow illegal immigrants who graduate are available online at www. from Wisconsin high schools to pay in-state tuition. wisconsinreflections.wisc.edu. — Jenny Price ’96

SPRING 2008 13 DISPATCHES

The Art of Protest Collection captures intensity of Vietnam War era on campus.

As though he’s dealing cards the Midwest epicenter for right in our faces at the UW. At for a quick hand of gin rummy, protests against the war. the time of the Vietnam War, James Huberty ’71, MS’74 “It’s been very challenging 42 percent of students thought spreads history on a conference for me to select the pieces,” there was a revolution coming room table. Huberty said in December as he — and I believed that.” In a multicolored jumble of prepared for the show, noting Campus appearances by names, places, and events, he that each carries a memory and some of the most famous activ- shares posters from one of UW- the power to instantly trans- ists — Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Madison’s most storied eras — port him back some forty years. the Black Panthers, Jerry Rubin, the Vietnam War years of the “I don’t think a time like that Benjamin Spock, and more — late sixties and early seventies. will ever be repeated. The black along with posters urging atten- The three dozen or so posters, power movement, civil rights, dance at demonstrations and once tacked to campus kiosks free speech, the women’s marches are preserved and hallway bulletin boards, movement, American Indian forever in the collection. are original copies in pristine rights, the anti-war movement, In recent years, Huberty condition, and they represent government repression, and has taken both samples and a just a sliver of Huberty’s full col- police brutality — all of these heartfelt message to Madison lection of anti-war materials. A things were bubbling up at area high schools. He typically sampling of posters, along with once,” he says. spends part of a day displaying leaflets, photographs, alterna- Although Huberty actively the materials, then two or three tive newspapers, and other participated in the protests, talking to students and trying memorabilia, have been part of as a political science major, to breathe life into the pages of an exhibit, Revolution’s Wall- he took a broader view and their history textbooks. “I try to paper, on display at Memorial knew that what was going on get students to connect — read- Union in recent weeks. all around him held special ing about it in books just isn’t significance. the same,” he says. And something He’s careful to take a bal- compelled him anced stance when discussing to carefully the war, the draft, and other COURTESY OF JAMES HUBERTY save what most issues, guiding the discussion others tossed to “issues of dissent, decision- into the trash making, and the role of critical bin without a thinking. I tell them about the second thought. draft, then ask, ‘What would He describes a you do if you were drafted?’ I love of current respect those who served [dur- events that ing the Vietnam War]. I’m not started when there to criticize or judge — just he had a paper to make them think. It’s history, route as a boy and history is meant to provoke growing up in awareness and discussion.” small-town east- Huberty knows, of course, ern Wisconsin, that many of the students have became more additional sources for informa- focused during tion about this intense time in the Cuban mis- America’s — and the univer- sile crisis, and sity’s — past. “I tell them to was first articu- talk to their parents,” he says. Posters from James Huberty’s extensive Vietnam War-era collection provide a glimpse into a campus at war about a war. lated during “That’s how history lives on, his high school and I am drawn to oral histories In a time long before e-mail debate and forensics activities. as an important part of the and cell phones, the sometimes “When Martin Luther King learning.” hastily drawn and printed Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were A slideshow featuring parts announcements offered the killed, I wondered, what’s of the collection can be viewed best way to promote events on next?” he recalls. “They were at www.news.wisc.edu/huberty. a campus that was considered very turbulent years, and it was — Cindy Foss

12 ON WISCONSIN DISPATCHES

Learning Legacy $175 million gift offers college access to low-income students.

With a sweeping gift of $175 year UW System institutions or million, John ’55 and Tashia any of the Wisconsin Technical ’55 Morgridge have endowed College System schools. DAVID NEVALA PHOTOGRAPHY one of the largest scholarship “The Fund for Wisconsin programs in Wisconsin history. Scholars will provide access for The Fund for Wisconsin Scholars low-income Wisconsin residents will pay need-based grants to to a higher education in a Wisconsin students who attend meaningful and solid way,” says one of the state’s public institu- Susan Fischer ’73, ’79, UW- tions of higher education. Madison’s director of financial Announced in December aid. “As an alumna and staff 2007, the fund will give its first member at UW-Madison, I hope scholarships in the 2008–09 we can encourage as many stu- Tashia and John Morgridge announce their $175 million gift to Wisconsin’s public school students. academic year, with as many as dents as possible to access this two thousand students receiving grant and attend our university.” achievement and behavior. between $1,000 and $5,000. In John Morgridge is a for- “We believe that the fund subsequent years, the fund will mer chair of Cisco Systems, and will grow substantially as oth- pay out more than three thou- Tashia is a former teacher. Both ers are inspired to join us in this sand scholarships annually. grew up in Wauwatosa, Wiscon- effort,” John Morgridge says. “We really want these schol- sin, though they currently live in UW officials responded arships to make a difference the Palo Alto, California, area. enthusiastically to the gift, which in students’ lives,” says Mary In announcing the creation of Chancellor John Wiley called Gulbrandsen MS’74, MS’98, the fund, they said they were “nothing short of magnificent. who serves as the fund’s execu- inspired in part by the Bill and “Supporting need-based tive director. “We want to make Melinda Gates Foundation’s scholarships at this level will college possible for people who education initiatives and by make the dream of a college couldn’t otherwise afford to go.” Governor Jim Doyle’s Wisconsin degree a solid reality for thou- The fund is expected to Covenant program, which prom- sands of Wisconsin families, provide approximately $7.5 mil- ises to provide a place in one of while also sending a powerful lion each year. All graduates of the state’s colleges, universities, message that access to higher Wisconsin public schools will be or technical schools for every education is a statewide prior- eligible to apply, providing they Wisconsin high school graduate ity,” he said. attend one of the two- or four- who meets certain standards for — John Allen

COLLECTION home for this part Spartacus Goes Digital of my life.” WISCONSIN CENTER FOR FILM AND THEATER RESEARCH The center Kirk Douglas wasn’t just a force on the big screen. put the Douglas He also was a major behind-the-scenes player collection online in Hollywood who started his own independent as its first effort to production company. Douglas made eighteen digitize some of films and worked with heavyweights such as Lau- the key pieces of rence Olivier, Stanley Kubrick, and John Huston. its vast collection. The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Stephen Jar- Research has mined the actor and producer’s chow ’74, MS’76, personal letters, photos, and documents — from JD’76, chair of the sixty boxes he donated to the UW in the 1960s — board of Regent to tell the story of his career via a new Web site. Entertainment and This candid photo shows UW-Madison “is the first university, as far as founder and CEO Kirk Douglas taking his son Peter for a haircut. I know, to see the significance of such collections of Here! Networks, in tracing the historical development of film- donated $20,000 to help the center post other making as one of the most important modern collections on the Web. art forms,” Douglas wrote in a letter explaining To see the Kirk Douglas collection, visit his reasons for choosing Wisconsin to house his www.wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/. papers. “I am relieved that there will be a proper — J.P.

SPRING 2008 11 DISPATCHES

Man with a Mission Wiley has overseen tremendous change during his tenure as chancellor.

When John D. Wiley MS’65, the state’s economy.” difficult fiscal problems,” Wiley PhD’68 interviewed in 2000 for Since Wiley took the helm in says. “To the extent that we the position of UW-Madison’s 2001, UW-Madison has become were able to do that with mini- chancellor, he told the search one of the most prolific research mal adverse effect on academic committee members that, if they universities in the world, winning programs, I’m very proud of were looking for someone to significant grants and private that,” he adds. “Our faculty and bring about big change, he was funding to foster landmark staff have worked through some the wrong person for the job. scientific achievements in stem difficult times because of those But seven years later, as cell research. The UW has also fiscal constraints, and that’s a Wiley plans to leave his post as become a focal point for bio- tribute to their dedication to the university’s chief executive, a energy research after receiving a our mission.” look around campus finds him at $125 million, five-year grant from In his final months as chan- the forefront of major change, the U.S. Department of Energy to cellor, Wiley is devoting special leading UW-Madison through support the Great Lakes Bioen- attention to raising money for a period of unprecedented ergy Research Center. the East Campus redevelopment growth in areas ranging from Fund raising also soared project. The plan includes an infrastructure to research to during Wiley’s tenure. The uni- expanded Chazen Museum of fund raising. versity, through the UW Founda- Art, a music performance center, tion, raised more money during and replacing the Humanities the past six years than during its Building with two new classroom entire history up to that point. buildings along a pedestrian cor- Those gifts fueled a campus- ridor stretching from the Memo- wide infrastructure boom that rial Union Terrace to just north has included new research labs, of Regent Street. JEFF MILLER classrooms, and residence halls, UW officials plan to move and completion of Microbial swiftly on a national search to Sciences, the largest academic appoint Wiley’s successor. A building on campus. A unique search committee with faculty, state and private partnership is staff, student, and community now developing the Wisconsin representation — appointed Institutes for Discovery, which in January — will recommend will serve as a hub for interdisci- finalists to a five-member UW plinary research. System board of regents selec- Wiley has also focused on tion committee. In conjunction keeping the university accessible with UW System President Kevin John D. Wiley, whose long-standing ties to the UW campus began as and affordable for students, by Reilly, that group will make a a student, is stepping down as chancellor in September. pushing for more need-based final recommendation to the full Wiley is stepping down financial aid and providing more board, which votes to appoint in September after spending paths to a UW-Madison degree. the new chancellor. Wiley says more than thirty years at the Governor Jim Doyle ’67 the university’s new leader will UW as a student, researcher, says Wiley’s work made UW- face challenges, particularly professor, and administrator. He Madison the envy of the nation. with declining state support for announced his plans in Decem- “A world-leading research higher education. ber 2007, noting that the timing institution that drives our eco- “As a public university, we would allow a new leader to par- nomic growth, highly educated have a mission to serve the state ticipate in the university’s reac- graduates ready for the jobs of and serve the public,” he says. creditation process and the next the future — this is John Wiley’s “We have to figure out how we two-year state budget cycle. legacy,” he says. can continue to be focused on “It has been both a chal- But while Wiley worked to the public mission of providing lenge and a privilege to lead this make the UW a leading research research and high-quality teach- university during an important institution, he also clashed with ing and outreach to the public time in its history,” Wiley says. state legislators over the univer- when the public — directly “The university has never been sity’s share of the state budget, through the taxpayers — is pro- better poised to improve the resulting in some strained rela- viding less and less of the base lives of Wisconsin residents and tionships. “It’s been a period of budget that keeps it all going.” take a leading role in reshaping cut after cut, as the state faced — Jenny Price ’96

10 ON WISCONSIN SIFTING & WINNOWING

Contemplations ON Spring 2008 on Leadership WISCONSIN I grew up in the Low Country of South Carolina. I moved to Madison in 1976 for graduate school and fell in love with the city, the university, and everything here. Yes, that means I do love the weather. More specifically, Publisher Wisconsin Alumni Association I relish the four distinct seasons. 650 North Lake Street, Madison, WI 53706 It is February 6 as I write this column — one day after the 6œˆVi\Ê­Èän®ÊÓÈӇÓxx£ÊUÊ/œ‡vÀii\ campus celebration of the university’s 159th birthday, also known ­nnn®Ê7-‡
1 ÊUÊ>Ý\Ê­Èän®ÊÓÈx‡nÇÇ£ as Founders’ Day. The alumni association offices are closed E-mail: [email protected] Web site: uwalumni.com/onwisconsin because we are experiencing yet another massive snowfall — providing a rare moment to stop and contemplate. Co-Editors As I reflect on recent campus events, I’m struck by several Niki Denison, Wisconsin Alumni Association Cindy Foss, University Communications outstanding examples of leadership. The first is Chancellor John D. Wiley, who announced in Senior Editor December that he will step down as UW-Madison’s twenty- John Allen, Wisconsin Alumni Association seventh chief executive in September (see page 10). When he Writer shared this news, I found myself immediately thinking of the Jenny Price ’96, University Communications many large and small actions of leadership that John exhibited Editorial Associates during his tenure as chancellor, as well as provost, dean, depart- Paula Apfelbach ’83 and Ben Wischnewski ’05, ment chair, and faculty member. Hundreds of alumni had the Wisconsin Alumni Association same reaction, and you can read their good wishes and memories Art Director of how the chancellor has touched their lives at uwalumni.com/ Earl J. Madden MFA’82, wiley. And, yes, there were half a dozen differences of opinion on vari- University Communications ous issues that arose during the chancellor’s tenure, but in the great I’m grateful to those Production Editor tradition of sifting and winnowing at our university, we welcome both who built this univer- Eileen Fitzgerald ’79, criticism and praise. The site also sparked discussion about which attri- sity from the ground University Communications butes and skills will be most important for John’s successor. up, and I’m grateful to Design, Layout, and Production Other examples of leadership that came together during these win- Barry Carlsen MFA’83, Toni Good ’76, ter months are the compelling stories of UW graduates under the age of all of the alumni since MA’89, Kent Hamele ’78, Christine Knorr ’99, forty who were honored with WAA’s first Forward Under 40 Award (see then whose stories this Nancy Rinehart, University Communications page 48). We recognize these twenty-three graduates who are making a magazine conveys. Editorial Intern unique difference around the world in our new, limited-edition publica- Vanessa de Bruijn x’08 tion, Forward Under 40. Some of you have received this publication with Campus Advisers your magazine, and others can read about these inspiring young alums Paula Bonner MS’78, President and CEO, at forwardunder40.com. and Mary DeNiro, Vice President of Yet another example of crucial leadership was the announcement, Marketing and Communications, Wisconsin also in December, about the establishment of The Fund for Wisconsin
Õ“˜ˆÊ
ÃÜVˆ>̈œ˜ÊUÊ
LiÀÌÊÀˆi`“>˜]Ê Scholars (see page 11). This fund will provide financial assistance to Associate Director, and Amy E. Toburen ½nä]Ê ˆÀiV̜À]Ê1˜ˆÛiÀÈÌÞÊ œ““Õ˜ˆV>̈œ˜ÃÊUÊ students graduating from Wisconsin public high schools so that they can Lynne Johnson, Senior Director of External continue their studies at the state’s public technical, two-year, or four-year Relations, University of Wisconsin Foundation colleges. This initiative is a gift of hope and a brighter future for the youth of this state, and therefore, it’s a gift of hope for all of us. It was made by Advertising Representative Madison Magazine: (608) 270-3600 philanthropic and civic leaders Tashia ‘55 and John ’55 Morgridge. As I watch the snowflakes’ relentless accumulation outside my win- Alumni Name, Address, Phone, and E-Mail dow, I’m grateful to those pioneers of higher education who built this >˜}iÃÊUÊ i>Ì Ê œÌˆVià Madison area: (608) 262-9648 university from the ground up, beginning with that first class on Febru- Toll-free: (888) 947-2586 ary 5, 1849. I’m grateful to all those alumni since then whose stories this E-mail: [email protected] magazine conveys. And I’m especially grateful to the leaders mentioned The Wisconsin Alumni Association® (WAA) above. Whether through agile administration, precocious achievement, encourages diversity, inclusivity, non- or generous scholarship support, they’ve ensured the futures of many discrimination, and participation by all leaders to come. alumni, students, and friends of the UW in its activities. Paula Bonner MS’78 President and CEO Production of On Wisconsin Magazine is Wisconsin Alumni Association supported by a UW Foundation grant. © 2008 Wisconsin Alumni Association Pictured above: Kawase Hasui, Snow on a Clear Day at Miyajima, color woodcut, 1921, Chazen Museum of Art, Van Vleck Collection Printed on recycled paper.

SPRING 2008 9 Today, nurses treat kids like kids. A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor taught them how. BOB RASHID

In the 1950s, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing attract an outstanding teacher School of Nursing Professor Florence Blake intro- and researcher to carry on Florence Blake’s legacy and duced the revolutionary idea that sick children have to advance professional nursing care for all children. special needs and deserve comforting, nurturing, At the UW-Madison, private gifts are at work for family-centered care. Her pioneering work became public good. the standard for pediatric nursing around the world. In 2008, thanks to private support, the goal of endowing the Florence Blake Professorship has For further information, please call 608-263-4545 nearly been met. This professorship will help the or E-mail [email protected].

University of Wisconsin Foundation l 1848 University Avenue l P.O. Box 8860 l Madison, Wisconsin 53708-8860 l 608-263-4545 l [email protected] l www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu

8 ON WISCONSIN Which UW–Madison alum has helped cure global disease and alleviate human suffering for more than 80 years?

WARF, the nonprofit organization founded by UW alumni that supports the university’s world-class research, and patents and licenses UW–Madison discoveries that improve lives around the world. In 1925, nine visionary UW alumni created the world’s first university technology transfer organization, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Since then, WARF has helped support and advance some of the most important scientific and medical breakthroughs of the past century. Nearly a century ago, WARF founder, UW alumnus and professor, Harry Steenbock, pioneered the use of Vitamin D that wiped out the childhood disease of rickets. WARF has continued to support major new Vitamin D research and has helped UW–Madison scientists lead the search for treatments and cures for other diseases, such as juvenile diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and heart disease. Learn more about the 1,800 UW patents, 1,500 UW licensed technologies and $915 million WARF has provided UW–Madison to support research, programs and initiatives www.warf.org at www.warf.org.

SPRING 2008 7    
    
 
   SStunning views. Striking lakefront location. Water Crest. The only brand new condominium on the lake. Arriving 2008. Experience the life at WaterCrestOnTheLake.com. Or call (608) 204-0606.

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6 ON WISCONSIN Cruise with the Coaches February 9–14, 2009

Coach Bret Bielema and his staff invite Badger fans to join them on this one-of-a-kind, five-night Royal Caribbean cruise. Get to know the coaches at private on- board receptions while enjoying stops in Cozumel and Belize. Call today to reserve your spot. (888) WAA-TRAV uwalumni.com/footballcruise Photo: Jeff Miller/UW-Madison University Communications

SPRING 2008 5 LETTERS

On Wisconsin Magazine welcomes letters I also liked the article on the It was also tear-gassed during a riot and reserves the right to edit them for University Club [“Keepers of the Club”], — a consequence of its location in the length or clarity. E-mail comments where I lived in the summer of 1956. heart of the campus. I can’t imagine how to [email protected]; mail to Chuck Jones all those wizened old retired professors On Wisconsin, 650 North Lake Street, Roseland, Virginia who lived there coped with that! Madison, WI 53706; or fax them to Ellen Kozak JD’69 (608) 265-8771. We regret that we don’t The Perils of Predicting Milwaukee, Wisconsin have room to publish all the letters we The “Time Travel” article [Winter 2007] receive, but we do appeciate hearing was very interesting and well done. It High-Flying Readers from you. should help people become more aware Just thought you might like to know of the ubiquity of forecasts in modern that people are bringing On Wisconsin E-Mail on E-lectorate life and the techniques and limitations of Magazine on the plane with them. I flew At the beginning of her article, “e-lector- forecasting. Based on my thirty-five-year home from Newport News, Virginia, ate,” [Winter 2007 On Wisconsin], author career making predictions in the public to Boston, and there was your alumni Jenny Price asks, “Will the Web sites, and private sectors, I offer two thoughts magazine. As a fellow alumni magazine video debates, blogs, twittering, or any about the business of forecasting. editor, I enjoyed reading your publica- other media tools get the vote out?” First, no forecaster should be taken tion. I guess we never know where an Well, it may or it may not. One seriously unless the forecast methodol- alumni magazine will end up. thing that these media tools will not do ogy is adequately described and forecast Melissa Pinard is counteract the nefarious effect of the skill is verified using objective, con- Editor, William & Mary voter ID laws that have been enacted in sistent, and relevant metrics, and the Alumni Magazine several states. These laws, while prevent- results are published. Williamsburg, Virginia ing the infinitesimally small instances Second, even though a correct, of voter fraud, will have the same effect timely forecast is provided to a decision- More Applause for Admissions Article as the poll tax; they will disenfranchise maker, it may be ignored or distorted I enjoyed your article “Getting In: The many among the poor and minorities. due to an aggressive disbelief arising Not-So-Secret Admissions Process” That, and the use of electronic from political pressures, lack of trust, in the Fall 2007 On Wisconsin. As one voting machines, which are vulnerable or simple incompetence on the part of who has been teaching in higher educa- to manipulation and hacking, is what the user. tion for years, I applaud your staff for worries me. The public should have a healthy explaining the process at Madison. I William Bunge skepticism about forecasts until fully wish some other universities would do New Berlin, Wisconsin informed of the above factors. the same in outlining their admission Peter Havanac MS’70 (Meteorology) procedures. I think such explanations This is a bit of fan mail for writer Minneapolis, Minnesota would alleviate some of the confusion Jenny Price from Chuck Jones among parents and high school students. (MS’56, PhD’60, and UW-Madison U Club Memories The author is to be commended for his Hawkins Professor of Political Science, Thanks for the great piece on the research and writing. 1988–1997). What a fine feature article University Club [“Keepers of the Club,” Lamar Bridges MS’63 on e-campaigning. Were I still teaching, Winter 2007]. Commerce, Texas I would definitely use it in the Presi- During my senior year in law school dency course I taught. The piece was (1968–1969), I dated a guy who lived Please Update Your Address informative, balanced, and full of there. If I came to pick him up (I had a UW-Madison wants to stay in touch references. car; he didn’t), they chased me out of the with you. To update your contact infor- I also loved the quote from your cen- main reading room and made me wait mation, which is maintained by the tral character, Katie Harbath: “I don’t in the Ladies’ Lounge — but I didn’t UW Foundation, please visit www. know what my next job will be, because really mind, because they had copies of uwfoundation.wisc.edu/survey. To log I don’t think it exists yet.” That state- House and Garden magazine (which, alas, in, use the identification number above ment so beautifully projects the dynamic has just ceased publication), which was your name on the magazine label. This quality of the whole enterprise. My only full of rooms furnished in a manner that information is shared selectively with problem in teaching from the article an impoverished student could barely other campus units and the Wiscon- would be my own ignorance of the dream of. By the way, the University sin Alumni Association to ensure that range of techniques and fumble-fingered Club served the best Yankee pot roast alumni information is consistent and approach to the e-world. I’ve ever eaten. accurate. Thank you!

4 ON WISCONSIN