Onwisconsin Spring 2011

For University of Wisconsin-Madison Alumni and Friends

Tenth Inning Baseball commissioner Bud Selig ’56 talks history and looks at what lies ahead.

SPRING 2011

New Badger Partnership The UW states its case for flexibility.

Digital Diaries It’s an incredibly shrinking world when faculty write blogs.

TV Triumph Steven Levitan ’84 puts a modern spin on family.

Fresh As Can Be The local-food movement takes root on campus. Invest in Great PEOPLE Ensure that the leaders of tomorrow can afford a world-class UW-Madison education today.

Cameron Jones wants to change the educational system in America. He wants to get an advanced degree in educational administration, and help students from all backgrounds succeed in school. But first he plans to join the Peace Corps and give back to the world at large.

While majoring in Sociology with a certificate in Criminal Justice, Cameron works on campus 25 hours a week. But he still cannot afford to attend UW-Madison by simply working more hours. Your gift to the Great People Scholarship creates a pool of financial resources for promising students like Cameron while ensuring the future of a strong public university. Make your gift now and the UW Foundation will boost its impact with a match.

Go to uwgreatpeople.org to learn more and to give online today. Great People Move Wisconsin Forward

OnWisconsin_InsideFrontCover_08-05-10_v01.indd 1 10/25/2010 3:34:10 PM SPRING 2011 contents VOLUME 112, NUMBER 1

Features

20 A Conversation with the Commish By John Allen For twenty years, Bud Selig ’56 has led Major League Baseball through crises and triumphs. Now he sits down with On Wisconsin to discuss where life will take him: beyond baseball and back to campus.

26 Brave New Blogs By Jenny Price ’96 UW faculty who cautiously entered the blogosphere are now embracing the chance to collaborate with colleagues — no 20 matter the distance across the country or around the world.

32 Home-Field Advantage By Jill Sakai PhD’06 Although logistics are daunting, locally grown fruits and veggies are popping up in campus dining facilities.

38 Bipartisan Partners By John Allen Wisconsin faces a deep budget hole, and all state agencies — including UW-Madison — will feel the financial pain. University leaders are proposing a new way forward, asking the legislature to grant the UW more flexibility instead of more money. 26 42 Family Man By Jenny Price ’96 “It just started by wanting to tell stories about family,” says Steven Levitan ’84 about his hit TV sitcom, Modern Family, but those stories are hitting close to home, making people laugh, and earning accolades.

Departments 5 Inside Story 6 Letters 8 Scene 10 News & Notes 32 16 Collection 17 Classroom 18 Sports 46 Traditions Cover 48 Gifts in Action “In all the things I do as commissioner, I look 49 Badger Connections back,” says Bud Selig during an interview 66 Flashback with On Wisconsin. Photo by Jeff Miller

SPRING 2011 3 Where others see only as far as the bend in the road, we focus on the borders of the state – and beyond.

A simple notion inspires everything we do. It’s called the Wisconsin Idea – that the work of the University of Wisconsin should improve lives beyond the classroom. From treating cancer and building safer roads to helping our children learn math, the Wisconsin Idea is working for us all.

Since 1848, people at the University of Wisconsin have fearlessly dreamed the ideas that transform the world. It’s not a question of if – only when and how – we will next move the world forward.

Keep on, Wisconsin. Keep on.

www.wisc.edu

4 ON WISCONSIN

Image Ads_2011.indd 3 2/4/11 4:24 PM insidestory

Where others see only as far as the bend in the road, we focus on the borders of the state – and beyond. JEFF MILLER

While I was sitting in A simple notion inspires everything we do. It’s called the Wisconsin Idea – the outer office at that the work of the University of Wisconsin should improve lives beyond On Wisconsin SPRING 2011 Allan H. “Bud” Selig ’56’s the classroom. From treating cancer and building safer roads to helping our Milwaukee headquarters, Publisher waiting to speak to the man children learn math, the Wisconsin Idea is working for us all. Wisconsin Alumni Association 650 North Lake Street, Madison, WI 53706 himself, I came to a conclu- Voice: (608) 262-2551 • Toll-free: Since 1848, people at the University of Wisconsin have fearlessly dreamed (888) WIS-ALUM • Fax: (608) 265-8771 sion: this would easily be the E-mail: [email protected] best bedroom a nine-year-old the ideas that transform the world. It’s not a question of if – only when and Website: onwisconsin.uwalumni.com boy could design. how – we will next move the world forward. Co-Editors Niki Denison, Wisconsin Alumni Association Selig is the ninth com- Cindy Foss, University Communications missioner of Major League Keep on, Wisconsin. Keep on. Senior Editor Baseball, and his office takes John Allen, Wisconsin Alumni Association up much of the thirtieth floor Senior Writer of the U.S. Bank building. The Jenny Price ’96, University Communications A bronze ballplayer swings for the fences in Bud Art Director view includes the shore of Selig’s collection of baseball-themed art and memorabilia. Earl J. Madden MFA’82, Lake Michigan and southern University Communications Milwaukee, but my hypothet- Production Editor Eileen Fitzgerald ’79, ical nine-year-old wouldn’t notice the windows. His attention would be focused University Communications on the walls, floors, and tables, which are crammed with photos, mementos, and Editorial Associates memorabilia from a lifetime spent deep in a baseball obsession. Paula Apfelbach ’83 and Ben Wischnewski ’05, Wisconsin Alumni Association On one wall is a Louisville Slugger bat with Selig’s signature burned into the Editorial Intern barrel. In Plexiglass cases are bases from All-Star games, still bearing the dirt Sam Oleson x’11 deposited when the leagues’ best players trod upon them. The floor is covered Design, Layout, and Production Barry Carlsen MFA’83; Toni Good ’76, MA’89; with a carpet decorated in a ball-and-bat motif, though the center of the room Kent Hamele ’78, University Communications features a circular area rug designed to look like an enormous baseball. Shelves Campus Advisers on two walls display thirty baseballs, each with the logo of a different team. Paula Bonner MS’78, President and CEO, and Mary DeNiro, Vice President of Marketing Framed photos show Henry Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, and other legends, and and Communications, Wisconsin Alumni against one wall stands a bench constructed from bats and balls, with bases for Association • Amy E. Toburen ’80, Director, University Communications • Lynne Johnson, cushions. (While striking in appearance, this did not, however, look like an inviting Senior Director of External Relations, place to sit.) University of Wisconsin Foundation This, I thought, is the office of a boy who never grew up, a person who daily Advertising Representative Madison Magazine: (608) 270-3600 lives out his childhood dream. Alumni Name, Address, Phone, When I finally sat down with Selig, one of the first questions I asked was about and E-Mail Changes • Death Notices the outer office. Did one or another of the items hold special meaning for him? Madison area: (608) 262-9648 Toll-free: (888) 947-2586 “H’m?” he asked. “Oh, I don’t know — you’d have to ask the person who E-mail: [email protected] designed it.” Quarterly production of On Wisconsin Magazine I guess sometimes a bat is just a bat. is supported by a UW Foundation grant. © 2011 Wisconsin Alumni Association John Allen Printed on recycled paper using soy inks. Please remember to recycle this magazine. www.wisc.edu

SPRING 2011 5

Image Ads_2011.indd 3 2/4/11 4:24 PM letters

For University of Wisconsin-Madison Alumni and Friends

been assigned to the White House during the When the Ssssssing started, he stepped Head Games Kennedy and Johnson administrations. back with a startled look on his face. When Ann McKee ’75 tackles the devastating effects of brain He had to record every public speech the he heard “Harry,” he was all smiles and said, injuries in athletes. president made. When President Johnson “Thank you, thank you.” was planning a trip to Australia, Harold real- Ernest Goodman ’52 ized that he would need portable, battery- Sherman Oaks, California powered recorders, so he ordered some Niagara machines. As always, there were Preferred by 9 out of 10 Infants budget restrictions, so he was required to get After reading the article about young kids Uher recorders, which were about half the being able to identify advertising brands price. When they arrived, Harold removed the [“Sales Job,” News & Notes, Winter 2010], erase mechanism so that someone could not I was not very surprised. It reminded me of accidentally erase something the president a trip I took with my son when he was one- had said. Later, the Niagara recorders were and-a-half years old. delivered to the White House, and Harold We were passing through Antigo stored the old Uher recorders in a closet. [Wisconsin] thirty-some years ago, and Long Live the Plaza After President Nixon decided he wanted my son was in his car seat when he sud- My husband and I so enjoyed your article all his discussions recorded, Harold’s succes- denly started smacking his lips and point- on Plazaburgers [Traditions, Winter 2010 On sor, with whom Harold maintained contact, ing. I looked down the length of his arm and Wisconsin]. As graduate students, we would decided to install these Uher recorders in vari- saw to my surprise that he was pointing at a frequent the Plaza several times a week and ous parts of the White House. When Congress McDonald’s golden arches! The child barely fell in love with Plazaburgers. After graduat- sought tapes at the time they were investigat- spoke in those days, yet he knew the symbol ing and moving to the Boston area, we spent ing the Nixon coverup, the media announced and readily picked it out. many hours in the kitchen trying to re-create that Rose Mary Woods had “accidentally” Ed Rappe MS’71 the famous sauce — to no avail. erased part of the recording when she was Manitowoc, Wisconsin Then our daughter had a boyfriend from Minneapolis who would make a pre-arranged nighttime stop in Madison to pick up a ship- “Everything was just the same as we remembered it — ment of Plaza sauce and bring it east. That worked until she moved to California, but then right down to the duct tape on the seats.” a fortuitous professional encounter led us to someone who knew someone still living in using one of the Uher recorders to transcribe Praise for Professor Guckel Madison who shipped another container out, from the tapes. Any erasure from those tapes I was delighted to see Dr. Henry Guckel’s and we had a big Plazaburger party. had to have been done deliberately on some contributions included in the list of “Seven Alas, all our sources dried up until we other tape recorder, as the White House Uher Wonders” [Winter 2010]. I was privileged to returned to Wisconsin for my husband’s forti- recorders could not erase. receive my master’s degree in 1980 with Dr. eth college reunion in Appleton. We couldn’t Philip Minter PhD’60 Guckel as my adviser. His lab was an excit- resist — we made a Madison run — and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ing place full of creativity and fellowship everything was just the same as we remem- among all his grad students, and he was an bered it — right down to the duct tape on the Whistle Stop Merits a Skyrocket Cheer inspiration and a friend to many of them. The seats. Who says you can’t go home again? Your article “Hail to the Chief” [News & Notes, University of Wisconsin has taken a huge step May the Plaza live on forever! Winter 2010] brought back memories of my to continue innovation with the opening of the (Barbara) Sue Phillips Snyder MA’66 freshman year at the UW. The October 1948 Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. This will and Dick Snyder MA’66 visit of President Truman was part of his provide students an experience in a creative, Southborough, Massachusetts famous “whistle stop” train trip across the innovative environment. country during his 1948 reelection campaign. Roy Ames ’78, MS’80 Nixing Erasures on Nixon Tapes I was there with thousands of others when the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma I was pleased to read that a UW historian, president stepped out onto the stage and we Stanley Kutler, had forced the release of burst out with “Ssssssss boom ahhh, Harry” Were Anti-War Protesters Anti-Soldier? the Nixon tapes [“Seven Wonders,” Winter [the traditional university “skyrocket” cheer To say that “veterans returning to campus 2010]. During the 1970s, I worked with an most commonly associated with economics from Vietnam ... were met with tear gas and audio engineer named Harold Hill who had professor “Wild Bill” Kiekhofer]. derision” [“The Tug of War,” Fall 2010] is to

6 ON WISCONSIN continue the myth that anti-war protesters Please Update Your Address From the Web were anti-soldier. UW-Madison wants to stay in touch with you. I am surprised that the discovery of Warfarin Neither the tear gas nor the derision were To update your contact information, which (Coumadin) by Karl Paul Link was not included aimed at soldiers or veterans. The tear gas is maintained by the UW Foundation, please in this account [“Seven Wonders,” Winter went one way, rocks the other way, and deri- visit www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu/survey. To 2010]. This was an important effort that still is sion went both ways, protesters against police log in, use the ID number above your name on of enormous value to those with certain heart and National Guard and vice versa, but the the magazine label. This information is shared abnormalities. protest was against the war and the war- selectively with other campus units and the Joseph Tufariello makers, not the soldiers caught in the mess. Wisconsin Alumni Association to ensure that True, Vets for Peace got the most respect, alumni information is consistent and accurate. and in the middle of a street mob, anything Hats off to the persistence of the Restorative Thank you! might be said in the heat, but the protest was Justice Program to continue its work primarily aimed at those sending the soldiers, [“Opening the Door to Forgiveness,” Winter not the ones who went. On Wisconsin welcomes letters related to 2010]. This story highlights the amazing ability I am glad to hear that the campus now magazine content, but reserves the right of the human heart to feel compassion. has better veterans’ services. If we had held to edit them for length and clarity. Mary Hoddy on to the active involvement with veterans E-mail: [email protected]; from the GI Bill era, we might have done mail: On Wisconsin, 650 North Lake Street, better in the Vietnam era. Soldiers do not Thanks for your thoughtful article [“Pain Madison, WI 53706; or fax: (608) 265-8771. deserve the periodic neglect we hand out. Relievers,” Winter 2010] — I hope it gets We regret that we don’t have space to publish Gundega Korsts MA’72 widely publicized and read. all the letters we receive, but we always Madison Dr. Ravi Ghooi appreciate hearing from you.

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mydowntownlife.com DINESINCORPORATED

SPRING 2011 7 scene

California Dreamin’ The Badger faithful made the Pacific Coast look like a red sea on December 30, turning out in force for a pre-Rose Bowl pep rally on Santa Monica Pier. Between 15,000 and 20,000 UW fans attended the event, which featured the team and Marching Band, as well as celebrities such as then-Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle ’67. Two days later, something happened at a nearby stadium — the details are hazy, but recollection suggests it involved a plague of frogs. Photo by Bryce Richter

To purchase this or other UW photos, visit www.replayphotos.com/wisconsinphotos/.

8 ON WISCONSIN FALL 2010 9 news ¬es

Top of Mind UW-Madison beats the competition when it comes to online buzz.

Everybody’s talking about And the online buzz had JEFF MILLER Badgers. nothing to do with football; the UW-Madison ranked first study’s authors corrected results among U.S. colleges and univer- after first taking their measure- sities in a new study examining ments in the week leading up to higher education “brand equity” the Badgers’ appearance in the on the Internet, beating some stiff Rose Bowl on January 1. competition. The UW no doubt gener- What does that mean? The ated online chatter when it gar- UW appeared more than any other nered two other notable rankings institution in electronic media, on earlier this year. It landed fourth blogs, and on social-networking on the U.S. News and World sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Report list of schools that pro- and YouTube. duce the most Fortune 500 CEOs The Global Language Monitor, — coming in behind Harvard, an Austin, Texas-based media Columbia, and the University analytics company, used its math- of Pennsylvania. And business ematical model to rank three hun- magazine Kiplinger’s Personal dred colleges and universities. The Finance rated the UW the ninth- University of Chicago, Harvard, best value among public univer- the Massachusetts Institute sities, up from last year’s ranking UW-Madison is the most-talked-about school online, and it’s not of Technology, and Columbia at number fourteen. just because Bucky Badger performed 573 pushups in one football rounded out the top five. Staff game to celebrate the team’s touchdowns.

quick takes

UW alum Jake Wood ’05 cation that enables users to keep After more than five years Stem cell pioneer Jamie received a shout-out from up on UW news, events, and ath- of construction, the IceCube Thomson was named co-recipi- First Lady Michelle Obama in letics, as well as providing a map Neutrino Observatory was com- ent of the King Faisal International September. The president’s and bus schedule. Mobile UW can pleted in Antarctica in December. Prize in Medicine. Thomson is the wife was highlighting the work be downloaded at the online Apple The UW coordinated the build- director of regenerative biology at of America’s military veterans in App Store at www.apple.com. ing of the project, which placed the UW’s Morgridge Institute for a speech to the Clinton Global 5,160 optical sensors deep in the Research. He shares the prize with Initiative, and she named Wood, The UW is aiming to aid Antarctic ice. Shinya Yamanaka, who is a stem a former marine, and his organi- business development in cell investigator at the Gladstone zation, Team Rubicon, which Wisconsin with the launch of A biomass boiler will no Institute of Cardiovascular Disease provides relief to areas hit by a second research park on longer be part of the UW’s at the University of California-San natural disasters. Team Rubicon Madison’s west side. University Charter Street Heating Plant, Francisco and professor at Kyoto had been aiding earthquake Research Park 2, which may as Wisconsin’s Department of University in Japan. victims in Haiti. In January 2011, begin construction in 2012, Administration scrapped plans Team Rubicon returned to Haiti will cover 270 acres with facili- to include biomass at the facility. UW provost Paul DeLuca will to deliver cholera medicine. ties that could support as many Instead, the Charter Street plant help gauge the cancer risk of as 10,000 workers. University will use only natural gas-fueled living near a nuclear power plant. Want to keep up on all things Research Park 1, which opened boilers. Administration Secretary DeLuca, a former professor in the UW? There’s an app for that. In in 1984, currently houses Mike Huebsch argues that the medical school, was appointed to December, UW-Madison released 126 companies with 3,500 biomass boiler would have cost a study committee for the Nuclear Mobile UW, a free iPhone appli- employees. $100 million. Regulatory Commission.

10 ON WISCONSIN Money Worries A new UW center is exploring what Americans need to know about their finances.

Millions of American homes have IISTOCK gone through foreclosure since the start of the financial melt- down, and nearly a quarter of all mortgage borrowers are under water — owing more than their houses are worth. As the dust settles, have we learned any lessons about money? And what do we still need to learn? Scholars with the UW-Madison Center for Financial Security are measuring our financial knowledge and pinpointing opportunities to educate people when they most need help. “Financial literacy as a term really hasn’t even been around for more than a decade,” says J. Michael Collins, an assistant professor of consumer science who serves as the center’s faculty director. But when sub- prime mortgages reached a crisis point and banks across the country failed, the level of interest in financial literacy surged. “Many choices we make early “Vulnerable populations Human Ecology found that rela- Some of the center’s on play out over the life course, aren’t just defined by income tively few teachers feel prepared research focuses on financial so it’s something that everyone’s and race, or by where you live,” to teach their students about milestones in life when there are worried about,” he says. Collins says. “You can be middle money management, credit and “teachable moments” — such as The UW’s center is one income and have a health crisis, debt, financial responsibility and the birth of a child or marriage — of three applied research cen- and you’re left quite vulnerable. decision-making, or saving and that are ripe for helping people ters nationally that receive fund- Or you could have a success- investing. make smarter decisions. ing from the Social Security ful work career and a good pen- And, Collins says, knowl- “When you’re seventeen, Administration as part of the sion, but you’re facing the choice edgeable teachers may not be maybe it’s about having your first Financial Literacy Research of receiving a lump-sum payment enough when it comes to cov- credit card or understanding that Consortium. The consortium’s versus an annuity or something ering some financial subjects, those student loans you’re about goal is to develop innovative pro- else, and you could bungle it. including mortgages, because to sign are going to stay with you grams to help Americans obtain There are lots of times in life when those financial products are for a long time,” Collins says. a secure retirement. An interdis- we’re financially vulnerable, and constantly changing. “For home buyers, maybe that’s a ciplinary team of professors and often we don’t know it.” “We have to think broader great time to think about financial graduate students in fields includ- In recent years, states have than just what happens at planning — are you going to put ing economics and education pushed for consumers to start schools,” he says. “We need all of your money into the house, largely focuses its research on learning about money early. to do a better job of integrating or are you going to start putting vulnerable populations, including About thirty states, including financial information and financial some money away for retirement the elderly and people with dis- Wisconsin, require financial edu- advice into decisions so consum- at the same time?” abilities. But that doesn’t mean cation in schools. But a recent ers have an opportunity to find There are opportunities to that other groups aren’t at risk for UW study by Karen Holden and unbiased, good advice when they promote financial literacy when money troubles. Wendy Way in the School of make big choices.” times are tough, too, via public

SPRING 2011 11 news ¬es

programs such as unemploy- can’t afford Internet service at findings to develop education and center’s work will reveal more ment assistance and food home can access bank, credit, training materials to help librar- about the roles of education, stamps, both of which have seen and retirement accounts online. ians become better resources peers, and technology in get- increased use due to the reces- Librarians, especially those serv- for financial information. “You’ve ting people to change behavior sion. “Those seem like opportu- ing low-income communities, got libraries in every community; related to finances. To date there nities to help people think about are now “on the front lines of it’s one of the delivery systems has been very little evidence of forming a budget once they financial education” during the that’s out there and ready to go,” what actually works. come out of their financial hard- economic downturn, fielding Collins says. “We all make mistakes. The ship, and not getting into a lot of questions about subjects that are Other studies include mea- key is to avoid having those mis- debt so they are better able to not part of their training, he says. suring how a person’s capacity to takes become lifelong penalties,” manage future financial shocks,” Catherine Arnott Smith make financial decisions declines Collins says. “If you’re going Collins says. and Kristin R. Eschenfelder, with age and determining why to make mistakes, make them In one of its current projects, from the UW’s School of Library women don’t save as much for small and make them early, not the center is looking into pub- and Information Studies, plan retirement as men do. Within a big and late.” lic libraries, where families that to use the center’s research few years, Collins expects, the Jenny Price ’96

En Français, S’il Vous Plaît A master’s program prepares students to use French in professions outside the classroom.

If students want jobs after grad- employability, to the liberal arts ISTOCK uation, what foreign language without losing those disciplines’ should they study? Arabic? focus on intellectual skills.” Chinese? Maybe Spanish? For This pragmatic approach to graduates of a one-of-a-kind UW graduate studies of foreign lan- program, the answer is French. guage is a convincing case for the Since 2000, the Professional relevance of the humanities. “It French Master’s Program has has upped the numbers of grad- prepared students who love the uate students in French at a time language — but don’t want to when nationally those numbers teach — to work in careers out- are in danger, and programs are side the classroom. Language closing in high schools and some study is combined with course- universities,” Deitz says. work in marketing, education, or Christopher Beaver other areas of interest, along with MFS’05 chose the UW’s pro- a required professional internship gram over traditional French that gets students off campus graduate paths that focus primar- to experience the world of work, ily on literature because the UW from business to tourism to wine- prepares students for life out- he met at a party with former that — in the face of massive making, as they complete final side academia. Beaver speaks classmates. budget cuts — the school plans master’s projects. French daily as an international “Students both learn to to suspend French, Italian, and “It’s student-centered, and customer service representa- be better communicators and Russian. Other institutions are it’s really based on the individ- tive, working primarily with dis- become more self-sufficient pro- contemplating phasing out for- ual,” says executive director Ritt tributors in northern Europe and fessionally,” Beaver writes in an eign language programs, too. Deitz MA’90, PhD’94. “And we southern Africa, for Trek Bicycle essay he contributed to Post- “Part of editing and pub- do it better than anybody in the Corporation, based in Waterloo, Francophile: Stories from the lishing this book was a gesture United States.” Wisconsin. His internship was at Professional French Master’s toward the profession at large, a The program has been fea- a government office in Bordeaux, Program. The book’s release friendly one,” Deitz says. “I think tured in U.S. News and World France, but after returning home coincided with an announce- [the UW program] is something Report, which lauded its goal “to he got the job, in part, by net- ment by the president of State that we all should be doing.” introduce practicality, or at least working with a Trek employee University of New York-Albany J.P.

12 ON WISCONSIN Sensory Overload Victims of sensory processing disorders Climate 101 find the everyday unbearable. Global warming isn’t our best subject, a survey finds.

Growing up can be difficult over the place to find them Would banning aerosol spray cans reduce global warming? for children. The stresses of socks that don’t itch them or Nearly 70 percent of Americans say yes — but that’s an fitting in, homework, and even bother them.” incorrect answer. A study co-authored by UW geography fel- the day-to-day monotony can be In her studies, Wilbarger low with researchers at the Yale Project on a challenge. But for those with attaches electrodes to patients Jennifer Marlon Climate Change Communication found sensory processing disorders, and monitors their reactions to ISTOCK daily life can be almost unbear- different types of stimuli as she that half of us would earn an F on able. The interactions and stimuli looks for the line that divides a test about climate change. can force them to overreact, trig- typical from atypical responses. Just 8 percent of us have gering something like a fight-or- One group she has stud- enough knowledge to flight response. ied is children who are adopted earn an A or B. Julia Wilbarger, an assis- internationally. Her subjects The nationally tant professor in the kinesiology included children who had been representative sur- department’s occupational ther- in an orphanage for a year or vey asked U.S. adults apy program, wants to find out more, as well as children who ages eighteen and why normal irritations drive peo- had been exclusively in foster older questions about ple with this disorder to such homes or adopted immediately. extraordinary actions. “[Adopted] children who how the climate sys- First recognized in the looked like they had less care- tem works, as well as 1960s, sensory processing taking, less social interaction, the causes, impacts, and disorders create an increased less physical interaction are the potential solutions related to physiological reaction to atypi- children with the highest risk,” global warming. You can give cal textures, smells, and sounds, she says. Americans credit for self-awareness, making sufferers respond as In the past year, Wilbarger though: only one person in ten says that he or she is “very though they’ve been put in has also been studying the rela- well informed” about climate change. danger. About 5 percent of the tionship between women with The survey’s authors say we have absorbed “unorganized population is affected by some fibromyalgia, a disorder that and sometimes contradictory fragments of information” from form of sensory processing causes chronic pain due to media and other sources. disorder. pressure, with people who are “These kids can struggle affected by heightened sen- in school, not because of their sory reactions. Her research has cognitive capacity, but because shown similarities between these Other survey results include: their capacity to have legible women and people with sensory 63 percent believe that global warming is happening handwriting, to [keep track of] processing disorders. She hopes 57 percent know that the greenhouse effect refers to their papers, to sit still, or to to use this as a model for her gases in the atmosphere that trap heat really pay attention when there research. is other competing noise in the “Because I am a clinician at 49 percent incorrectly believe that the space program environment is affected,” says heart, somewhere I want to start contributes to global warming Wilbarger. “I’ve worked with chil- looking at intervention studies,” 47 percent incorrectly say that fossil fuels are the fossil- dren who are almost unable to Wilbarger says. “Now that we go to school, children who can know it exists, we know some- ized remains of dinosaurs only wear one thing. They can thing about it, what can we do 42 percent incorrectly believe that since scientists can’t hardly wear one pair of socks, about it?” predict the weather more than a few days in advance, and their poor moms drive all Jeff Cartwright x’12 they can’t possibly predict the climate of the future J.P.

SPRING 2011 13 news ¬es

Tasty Invaders Students and professors find crayfish study to be rewarding — and delicious. GRETCHEN HANSEN Doing important research in the like, what do we do with these upper reaches of Wisconsin can things? We know they taste good really build up a person’s appe- … so maybe we should eat them. tite. Luckily for the UW-Madison “Our favorite recipe was cray- students who were studying ways fish étouffée,” she says. “We ate to eradicate the rusty crayfish that one a lot.” from Wisconsin lakes, they could There was plenty to eat, eat their findings. too, since roughly 90,000 rusty An invasive species intro- crayfish were caught during the duced into Wisconsin lakes and intensive trapping program at streams around 1960, rusty cray- Sparkling Lake. With thirty to forty fish wreak havoc on entire eco- students, teachers, and advisers systems due to their aggressive staying at the research station nature and opportunistic feeding during the summers, those din- habits — essentially clear-cutting ners were one of the many ways Research Cajun style: scientists and students turned an invasive all aquatic plants in their path. people could unwind, bond, and species from Sparkling Lake into a tasty rusty crayfish boil. Being opportunistic feeders in have fun socializing. their own right, the undergraduate “I describe it as summer “The native species are And while that’s great news and graduate students working on camp for college kids,” says increasing in the lake,” says for ecosystems throughout the this study since 2001 at the Trout Hansen. Stephen Carpenter MS’76, region, it’s bittersweet for those Lake Research Station in Boulder But the project meant more PhD’79, a UW professor of zool- who still work on the project and Junction, Wisconsin, quickly real- than meals and good times. It ogy. “So, if you’re a rusty crayfish, are craving Cajun. ized they were catching a main was also highly successful at your babies are very likely to be “We only have a crayfish boil ingredient in many Cajun meals. reducing the rusty crayfish pop- eaten by a native predatory fish.” now maybe once a summer,” “In the early years, we were ulation. In 2001, the average trap The experiment has been says Hansen. pulling out hundreds of cray- caught twenty-five of the crusta- important, says Carpenter, Brian Klatt fish every day,” says Gretchen ceans each day. Now, it takes because, “if it succeeds, it will Hansen ’03, PhDx’12, a UW ten traps, on average, to catch show that this obnoxious invader Visit onwisconsin.uwalumni.com zoology graduate student. “It was a single invader in a day. can be eliminated.” to find a crayfish étouffée recipe.

The Peace Corps at 50 91 UW alumni currently serving as Peace Corps volunteers Changing the world is a Wisconsin 2,942 Peace Corps volunteers from the UW since the program idea, so it makes sense that began, ranking number two on the all-time producer list, following UW-Madison alumni have stepped University of California-Berkeley up to serve in the Peace Corps ever Famous volunteers: Donna Shalala, former UW-Madison since 1961, when President John F. UW-MADISON ARCHIVES chancellor, served in Iran from 1962–64; former Wisconsin Governor Kennedy first challenged University Jim Doyle ’67 and his wife, Jessica Doyle ’67 MS’76, served of Michigan students to foster peace together in Tunisia from 1967–69. by living and working in developing countries. The UW’s connec- Family tradition: Judy Lamm Figi ’64 MMusic’68 met her hus- tion to the volunteer program runs deep, so much so that its current band when they were both Peace Corps volunteers in Sierra Leone. Their daughter, went on to serve on the director, Aaron Williams MBA’73, will return to campus in March Alison Figi Van Rens ’00, island of Yap in Micronesia. for a fiftieth anniversary celebration hosted by the African Studies Program and the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Madison. For more details about the March 24–26 events, Here are some facts about the UW’s ties to the Peace Corps: visit africa.wisc.edu/peacecorps

14 ON WISCONSIN Unhappy Hipsters Marketing professor takes on the hipster phenomenon.

Nothing, it seems, is so tragically istic consumption becomes pop- sibilities. They also form a network ongoing passion, as “it involves unhip as to be tagged with the ularized and commonplace, or, as of social relationships and gain sta- the majority of college students.” hipster label. Those who think that in the case of hipsters, it comes to tus within those networks. … They But he has no great desire to trendy iPods, ironic trucker caps, carry a social stigma. are making investments in acquir- delve deeper into hipsterism. and an encyclopedic knowledge “However,” he notes, “social ing social and cultural capital.” “That work,” he says, “is of independent film give them an identities may have more social Thompson enjoys studying more or less complete.” air of urban cool often discover stickiness than a conventional youth culture, which he says is an John Allen that they’re the butt of vicious fashion style.” jokes. Dozens of websites and Thompson and Arsel took a blogs now exist with the primary deep look at a group of individuals STUDENT WATCH purpose of mocking hipsters. whom many might tag as hipsters: And yet many young people twenty-one Madisonians between In the wake of great tragedy, one UW grad student sees still engage in hipster behavior — the ages of nineteen and thirty-five even greater potential. After a devastating earthquake listening to hipster music, talking who had a strong interest in inde- about hipster movies, and buying pendent music. These individuals in January 2010 left much of Haiti in shambles, Gergens hipster products. In the February persisted in doing things that gar- Polynice PhDx’12, a development studies PhD candi- 2011 issue of The Journal of ner a hipster label, even though it date, has been committed to making sure Haiti is rebuilt Consumer Research, marketing engages a negative stereotype. professor Craig Thompson and The reason for this, Thomp- the right way. his former student Zeynep Arsel son and Arsel determined, is in Polynice, a native of Haiti, has been a successful PhD’07 published a study that part because those so-called hip- American citizen for the past twenty years. He ran his looks at the “hipster phenome- sters didn’t set out to become hip- own IT firm and was making money that his fellow Hai- sters, but rather were labeled as tians could only dream about. Then he realized he had

ISTOCK such by others. a higher calling: helping those less fortunate than him, Instead, their specifically his countrymen. interests and Now, after returning to school, he’s studying ways to tastes tend to gravitate toward help transform Haiti from a country that’s the poorest in non-mainstream the Western Hemisphere to one that can sustain itself. music, film, and He believes that the earthquake offers a rare opportu- art — the kinds of culture that nity to accomplish that. Thompson calls “It’s a perfect way to start from scratch. I don’t think “indie.” This is they should restore Haiti; I think they should transform an area of cul- it,” Polynice says. non” as a marketplace myth — a ture that requires a great deal of means by which people use prod- investment — if not in money, then Whether it’s the development of clean energy (Haiti’s ucts to create an identity. in knowledge — to learn the cul- mountains would be ideal for wind energy), better roads “The standard thesis has tural references that will make and infrastructure, foreign investment and less depen- been that consumers gravi- them fit in with other members of dence on imports, or holding Haitians more accountable tate toward a social identity … the indie community. because it conveys desirable “When individuals embrace for what they do, Polynice believes that now is the time meanings and perhaps more a social identity, they are not just to change the course of the country’s history. importantly, provides a sense of brandishing a set of consumer And to kick-start the transformation, Polynice is distinction to the less-differen- goods,” Thompson says. “They are tiated mainstream,” Thompson becoming part of a taste culture, donating five acres of land (valued at about $30,000) that says. “The corollary assumption is and they have to acquire consid- he owns in Haiti. that consumers will abandon the erable … knowledge and cultivate Sam Oleson x’11 social identity once its character- particular aesthetic tastes and sen-

SPRING 2011 15 collection

Moving Mountains An exhibit shows that sparse information once led to cartographic creativity.

Take a close look at this 1719 map of the English empire in America. illustrates three hundred years of mapmaking in Wisconsin and the Notice something a little strange about the topography? Great Lakes region. The maps can be viewed at greatlakesmaps.org. English cartographer John Senex took some creative liberties The fantastical mountain range may not be entirely Senex’s fault: when he decided to insert an imaginary mountain range stretching from he based the map on information about the Great Lakes and Canada Michigan to Florida, connecting it to the Appalachians. It was the sort provided by various Jesuit and French sources. But the error persisted of tactic mapmakers of the time often employed when there was little or long after Senex died in 1740, showing up on maps well into the nine- no information available about an area. teenth century. They became valuable collector’s items, along with Senex’s map is included in Making Maps, Mapping History, an Senex-drawn maps that show California as an island. online exhibit organized in part by the UW’s Sea Grant Institute that Jenny Price ’96 UW SEA GRANT INSTITUTE

16 ON WISCONSIN classroom

Everybody Must Get Stone Students in lithography learn to print with limestone, oil, and ink.

Hunched over a block of Bavarian BRYCE RICHTER (3) limestone, Greg Luckeroth MFAx’12 is learning to add by subtracting. “Drawing” with an X-Acto knife — a razor- tipped tool shaped like a pen — he scrapes at the design on the block, shaving away bits of grease to refine the image that will be his final project. Luckeroth is a student in Art 316: Lithography. Taught by Professor Jack Damer, the course combines artistry, history, science, and technology to help students learn a printing process that seems ancient but is actually quite modern. “A lot of students are turned off by working with stone in the twenty-first century,” Damer says. “But the process was created in 1798, making it one of the newest forms of printmaking.” Lithography literally means and twenty students enrolling at a writing with stone, and it’s the time. And though ink isn’t expen- basis of today’s offset com- sive, blocks of lithograph lime- mercial printing. Metal plates stone are small treasures, and replaced stones long ago in the costs can run from $1,000 to commercial world, but traditional $4,000, depending on the size of lithography is still embraced by the block. artists. Damer teaches his stu- Damer, who says he’s dents to use both traditional always been interested in print- stone and metal plates. making, has been practicing In traditional lithography, an lithography for more than four artist creates imagery with grease- decades, though he admits the based material on the limestone demands of teaching limit his surface. He or she then wets the time to work as a print-maker. image and applies printing ink, “The process is simple,” he which sticks to the grease but says, “but it’s tricky, because not to the ungreased parts of the of the chemical nature. A lot of stone. The artist may then make my teaching is solving technical multiple prints of that image by problems for the students.” repeating the inking process. But for those who learn the When finished, he or she can intricacies of lithography, the prepare the stone for a different print form can become a passion. project by abrading it to create a “It’s kind of a magical process,” Alice O’Neill MFAx’12 (top) prints from a block of lithographic clean surface. Damer says. “People either dislike limestone. Lithography class involves teaching students a variety of skills, such as how to mix ink in preparation to print Damer’s class sizes are rel- it, or they get hooked on it.” (center) and how to create an image by applying, then scraping atively small, with between eight John Allen away, greasy materials (bottom).

SPRING 2011 17 sports

TEAM PLAYER Will Porter

Will Porter x’12 is a humble guy. Despite winning the New York State Rowing Championships three out of four years while in high school, being victorious in the high school division of the Head of the Charles race (one of the most prestigious regattas in all of competitive rowing), and posting an undefeated fall season as a UW senior, Porter says his strongest motivation has been the chance to contribute to the UW rowing team. “It’s one of the best in the nation,” says Porter, “so being a good player on this team would be a pretty good accomplishment.” He’s certainly had that chance. As a sophomore and junior, Porter was a member of the men’s heavyweight team that won the Eastern Sprints (the league championship in which the UW competes), and his boat — the men’s varsity four- plus — finished third in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association national championships in 2009. In addition, Porter has won about thirty-five shirts. In collegiate rowing, teams win these symbols of success when they defeat an opposing team and literally collect the shirts off the opponents’ backs, a tradition that combines good sportsmanship and innocent wagering between teams. Although Porter stands six-foot- three and has the build of a football player, he never played that or any other fall sport as a kid. The summer before his freshman year in high school, he took up rowing and eventually attended a rowing camp, sticking with the sport for the past eight years. His choice to come to Wisconsin — despite plenty of schools with rowing teams much nearer to his home on the East Coast — was an easy one, says Porter. When he visited Madison for the first time, he recalls, he immediately “fell in love with it.” To describe his UW rowing experience, Porter needs only a few words: “It’s been awesome.” Sam Oleson x’11

“It’s one of the best in the nation, so being a good player on this team would be a pretty good accomplishment.” JEFF MILLER

18 ON WISCONSIN BRYCE RICHTER

Hole in One Golf teams shoot for an indoor practice facility at University Ridge. When the first snowfall hits course that opened Madison each year, UW men’s in 1991. “When the and women’s golfers move weather’s nice, we’re indoors, and they stay there until as good as anyone,” the end of March. Exactly where Oehrlein says. “When indoors depends on the day. the weather turns, we Without a dedicated practice don’t have a home.” facility of their own, Badger golf- However, with ers rely on a number of campus lead gifts from a few buildings and public facilities to significant donors, a hone their game during the winter. vision has been estab- They practice on a small putting lished to change that. surface and hit into two nets in the Plans are under basement of the Kohl Center, and way to construct they travel to Cherokee Country a state-of-the-art, Fore! The Badger women’s golf team practices putting in the basement of the Club on Madison’s east side and indoor and outdoor Kohl Center. Due to Wisconsin’s climate, UW athletes have a limited season Vitense Golfland on the west side. practice facility at for outdoor play, and must do their best to find suitable facilities in winter. Occasionally, they practice pitch- University Ridge. ing and chipping in the McClain Currently in the design stage, “Being able to work on the Regardless of the new ameni- Center. the facility will provide a 3,000- short game during the winter will ties, Wisconsin golfers need time “Everything is piecemeal,” to 4,000-square-foot practice definitely help our games,” says to transition to playing on grass says Todd Oehrlein, head area that simulates different lies Lindsay Danielson x’13, a each spring. “We can focus on the coach of the women’s team. for chipping and putting, as well sophomore golfer from Osceola, fundamentals of the golf swing,” “But we’ve found ways to make as heated hitting bays (similar Wisconsin. Oehrlein says of practicing it work and keep our players to hitting out of a garage door) “Practicing in one location indoors. “Ideally, when our golfers developing.” that allow athletes to see the ball rather than moving around from get outside, they aren’t trying to In Wisconsin’s greener in full flight. The facility will also place to place will be so awe- develop technique — they’re try- months, the golfers practice and be equipped with video capabil- some, and being at University ing to develop their touch and feel compete at University Ridge, ity, which may be used for swing Ridge year round will be cool, of hitting shots off grass.” the UW’s award-winning golf analysis. too,” she says. Karen Graf Roach ’82

BADGER SPORTS TICKER When the football Badgers take Den Web site. The feature, which assists — double figures in three the field, they’ll do so without two can be found at www.uwathletics. different statistical categories. No of the starters who led them to com/for_kids/ includes sixteen Big Ten freshman has scored a this year’s Rose Bowl. Running different games users can play. triple-double since Earvin “Magic” back John Clay x’12 and defen- Johnson did so in 1977. In January, freshman Josh Gasser sive lineman J.J. Watt x’12 both accomplished something no other The women’s hockey team set decided to enter the NFL draft, Badger men’s basketball player a new NCAA indoor attendance ending their collegiate careers. had done before: he scored a record on January 29, when 10,668 Bucky continues to act as Badger triple double. In a game against fans packed the Kohl Center for ambassador in the digital world, Northwestern, the six-foot-three the squad’s “Fill the Bowl” event. spreading UW fun through the ath- guard scored ten points, collected The Badgers also hold the outdoor letic department’s Bucky’s Badger twelve rebounds, and made ten record, 8,263, set in February 2010.

SPRING 2011 19 a conversation with The Commish Bud Selig looks back on his career, and ahead to a return to Madison, considering it all through “the retrospect of history.”

20 ON WISCONSIN JEFF MILLER

In early November, after the San Francisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers in the World Series, Allan H. (Bud) Selig ’56 completed his eighteenth season leading Major League Baseball. He’s declared that when he finishes his twentieth — at the end of 2012 — he will hang up his spikes and retire … sort of.

Before moving forward on any change to the game of baseball, Commissioner Bud Selig likes to look back. “If [we] only learned as much from history as there is to be learned,” he says, “[we] wouldn’t be making the same mistakes over and over again.” The Commish

SPRING 2011 21 Instead of entering a life of peaceful JEFF MILLER contemplation, Selig will take up an In all the things I do as commissioner, I look office at the UW, and add an extra inning (or two or three) to a career that back. I do enormous research and have our has spanned auto sales, sports franchise people do it, and history has been a great ownership, and serving as grand poobah teacher for me. I never dreamed when I was of America’s national pastime. A week after the World Series’ final game, Selig young that I would own a baseball team. I sat down with On Wisconsin to discuss his thought I would be a professor of history. past and future.

On Wisconsin: Now that the season I often say to the clubs, and I’m going to The family business was auto sales, is over, I imagine this must be a slow say it again when I see them in Orlando, wasn’t it? time for you. if they only learned as much from his- Yeah, it was auto retail, leasing, real estate Selig: There is no slow time. Maybe tory as there is to be learned, they — it was a whole series of things. We the week between Christmas and New wouldn’t be making the same mistakes were the largest Ford dealer in the state Year’s, if I’m lucky and nobody gets in over and over again. of Wisconsin, the second largest leas- trouble. That’s about it. Today, in fact, ing company in America — automobile when you leave, I’ve got a ton of stuff to History is important to you. leasing, that is. My father was one of the do just to finish this day. And tomorrow, I was an American history and political founders, actually the second or third per- late in the day, I leave for Orlando [for science major, and you bet it helps. In all son in America who got into the automo- the annual team owners’ meeting]. … the things I do as commissioner, I look bile-leasing business. It took unbelievable I’m very busy. back. I do enormous research and have vision, and he was really proud of that. our people do it, and history has been a What will you be discussing? great teacher for me. Auto dealing is a long way from base- Nothing really critical. I’ll have all the I never dreamed [when I was young] ball — where does your love for the [teams’] general managers down. We’ll that I would own a baseball team. I sport come from? talk about labor, we’ll talk about eco- thought I would be a professor of history My mother, in particular, was a huge fan nomics. We’ll talk about various things. — American history, particularly from of the [Milwaukee] Braves, and before We’re talking about the expansion of … the Civil War to the present. that of the Cubs, actually. … I was a Cub instant replay. I have a special commit- fan and a Yankee fan because I was a Joe tee of four managers — Joe Torre, Mike Dimaggio fan from about 1945 to ’53. What stopped you? Scioscia, Jimmy Leyland, and Tony My father asked me to go into the fam- LaRussa, plus four general managers, And you translated that into an owner- ily business. He said to me at the time, four owners, [newspaper columnist] ship stake with the Milwaukee Braves. “Give me a year.” And I was very close George Will, and [former player and [When the Braves] went public in 1963, I to both my parents, and when your manager] Frank Robinson. It’s a very was the largest public shareholder. But I father asks you to give him a year, interesting group. didn’t control the fate of the Braves. I cer- you give it. And I did it with some tainly would have [kept them in Milwau- trepidation. Instant replay is a hot-button issue kee] if I could. It was a heartbreaking story. But I say my father did me a great for many fans — some see it as a way … I remember the last game [the Braves] favor, though I often wonder how it to improve the game through tech- played here — people were crying. would have been to be in Madison as a nology; others see it as trampling But my father, when I got into base- history professor — a lot different than on baseball’s traditions. How do you ball, always worried about what would the life I’m leading. decide when to make a change? happen to the family business.

22 ON WISCONSIN And then you bought the Brewers. San Diego. So it taught me a lot about What people sometimes fail to under- On the night of March 31, 1970, we tenacity, taught me a lot about being able stand is that a Major League team really bought a team out of bankruptcy court to stick to something, because I really serves as a great galvanizing force. … I in Seattle — the Seattle Pilots. And I believed it was the right thing. saw what happened here in ’82 [when remember that night; I couldn’t believe it the Brewers went to the World Series]. had happened, because the odds, I realize A college friend of yours owns the It was just unbelievable — the mail I got, now, the odds were really stacked against Oakland A’s, right? people telling me how much this meant us. Of all the things I’ve been through, I’ll Lew Wolff [’57] — he and I were to their family. So … yes, I believe there’s always be proudest of bringing baseball fraternity brothers. an economic return. We’ve had economic back to Milwaukee. And I think only in analyses done. But I’ve always said that the retrospect of history — one of my And Herb Kohl ’56, U.S. senator the sociological value of having a Major favorite phrases — do I realize that the and owner of the Milwaukee Bucks League team is more important. odds were really against us. basketball team — he’s a friend, too. We were kids together in Milwaukee. You were quite a young owner then — What did the Pilots cost? did you feel intimidated? Ten point eight million dollars — the Did you all know you’d end up owning The first meeting I ever went to, in April most expensive team at that point. major sports franchises? 1970, right after we got the team, [then- George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees Never dreamed of it — never talked commissioner] Bowie Kuhn called, and two years later and paid less. He used to about it once. he said come on in, and he put me right kid me about that for many years. between [Chicago Cubs owner] Phil So how did you end up with the Wrigley and [St. Louis Cardinals owner] Later, what did the Brewers sell for? Brewers? Gussie Busch. And that was pretty good I had become commissioner — acting It happened because the Braves left. We for a thirty-five-year-old kid. in ’92 and full time in ’98 — and it was were trying to buy a team. I could tell you $223 million. My father worried when each one. We failed on expansion. We What was the meeting about? we bought them we had paid too much had a group put together, a wonderful It was all about labor, and they were mad. money and it was terrible. But it all group. Some Madison people, by the way Gussie was slamming his cane on the worked out perfect. — Duane Bowman, Oscar Mayer. Oscar floor and said, “Not another dime for Mayer was a great partner of mine. He those SOBs,” and so on and so forth. You say the odds were against you — was a wonderful, wonderful human being how so? and a great man. Anyway, we tried to What did you learn from that? Baseball didn’t want to come back here buy the White Sox and thought that was Well, my mentor in life was my father — [after the Braves left]. It was really tough. done [but the other Major League owners and mother to a lesser extent, but both of [The Major Leagues] passed us on two blocked the sale]. Then all of a sudden, them. My mentor in baseball was a man expansions. … But we stuck to it, and we Seattle was in trouble — bad ballpark, named John Fetzer, who was the owner just kept trying. We tried to get a team bankrupt. After five and a half years, if of the Detroit Tigers for many, many from 1965 on, and I traveled all over the we didn’t buy the Seattle Pilots, it prob- years — a great man, a visionary. … And country, just a kid. ably ends right there. There was no other he took me under his wing in 1970. I must We tried first to get an American team for sale, and I was trying to keep the say, my affection for Mr. Fetzer, as you League expansion team, [but] Art Allen group together. Fortunately, it worked. can tell — to this day, I quote him in every [then owner of the White Sox], told me meeting. He taught me the basic lesson they had expanded to [California] and to Why not just buy into another team that so many in baseball and sports never Seattle. And then the National League, and leave it where it was? Why was it learn: the sport transcends all of us. The we thought we had that, and it was a real so important to you to bring a team only way you should ever decide anything fight. They expanded to Montreal and back to Milwaukee? is on what’s in the best interest of baseball.

SPRING 2011 23 One day, back in 1971 … he hadn’t In 1992, your predecessor, Fay Vin- Transcending — how so? voted in his club’s best interest. I don’t cent, resigned. At the time, you were Think about one thing: Jackie Robinson, remember what the issue was. … Here one of twenty-six owners. How did you April 15, 1947. Long before Brown v. was a man who had a great team — they’d end up the one selected to succeed? Board of Education, before Harry Truman been world champions. They had Al I was on the executive council, and the desegregated the United States Army, Kaline and Willie Horton and Norm day Fay Vincent resigned, we were going long before the Civil Rights movement, Cash and Bill Freehan and Mickey to St. Louis for meetings. But I was Jackie Robinson played in the big leagues. Lolich. And I said to him, “John, why shuttling back and forth, because Robin Anybody that year who was there will would you do that?” Yount was going for his three-thousandth never forget it. It became baseball’s And he said, “Buddy, I want you to hit, and I wasn’t going to miss that. I proudest, most powerful moment, hav- remember this. Now, you’re going to be started getting calls the night before from ing nothing to do with baseball. And it in this sport for a long time. You always members of the council, who said, “Bud, showed what sports can do. do what’s in the best interest of the game, you’ve got to take over. … And at first not what’s in the best interest of the I was sort of stunned. But I thought it You mentioned Kennesaw Mountain Detroit baseball club or the Milwaukee was a short two to four months. My wife Landis, baseball’s first commissioner. baseball club.” often reminds me of that, because I told Which of your predecessors do you And it’s a very tough lesson, but he her two to four months, and here we are look to for inspiration? was so right. And I would like to think twenty years later. So it was really the I have great admiration for all of them. I today that this sport has gone on to big- owners who asked me, and you’d have loved Bart Giamatti, who was only there ger and better things because that’s what to ask them [why]. I think Mr. Fetzer for five months. He passed away sud- we do — at least what most people do. had raised me properly, and I was deeply denly. He and I were extremely close. … involved in baseball at every level, and I I liked Peter Ueberroth. Bowie Kuhn and Which owners today are exemplary? guess they had confidence. I were very close. You know, I came into As commissioner, I don’t like to pick the business when he was commissioner out owners. There’s a lot of really good You’ll have served twenty years as … And I’ve studied Kennesaw Mountain owners, and they love baseball, [though] commissioner in 2012, and then Landis, too. sometimes people are cynical about that. you’re going to retire, right? They all had remarkably different But [Chicago White Sox owner] Jerry I am. Now, there are many people who [styles], but then life was different. [Lan- Reinsdorf and I, for instance, will play don’t believe that, including my wife dis] could be a dictator. They had no baseball trivia all the time. I can call him and family and most owners. They don’t union. There was no television. It was a up right now, and we can talk about the think I am, but I intend to spend a lot of whole different world. We’re living in a shortstop for the 1952 Dodgers — he my time in Madison. … I’ll have done much more complex world. was a Brooklyn kid, obviously — or who this job twenty years, and anybody who … I haven’t seen Fay Vincent now in played for the Giants, and it’s fun. understands this job [knows] that’s a long fifteen or eighteen years. … The owners time — other than Kennesaw Mountain voted no-confidence in him, and I don’t That was Peewee Reese, right? Landis, [I’ll have done it] longer than want to get in — I’ve never commented That’s Peewee Reese. Billy Cox was the anybody else. on Fay. third baseman, Jackie [Robinson] the second baseman, [Gil] Hodges the first base- What will you do in Madison? You mentioned Jackie Robinson com- man. [Roy] Campanella and [Carl] Furillo, I plan to write a book and teach — sports ing into the leagues, which happened [Duke] Snyder, and you can get into in modern society, maybe 1960 to the under Commissioner Happy Chand- [Gene] Shotgun Shuba or Gene Herman- present, from the time I’ve done it or even ler. What do you consider the greatest ski. I’m sorry — that’s the history major before. Sports have played a very dynamic legacies of your term? in me. I remember a lot of junk, none of it role in society, transcending just the sport Changing the economic structure of the very important, but I remember it anyway. itself, and that’s what I’d like to teach. sport. In the ’90s, with all the heartache

24 ON WISCONSIN JEFF MILLER

the worst economic downturn since the We’ve now had sixteen years of labor peace. Great Depression, and this sport continues to grow in a remarkable way. … Nobody at the time thought that was possible. It But there are a lot of business chal- may be the most important single reason why this lenges, too. We’re doing great, but sport is in its golden era, doing better than anybody we have a lot ahead of us. And a lot of competition — oh, a lot of competition. dreamed. … We did learn from our mistakes. Other sports — in this world we live in, there’s a lot of competition for the entertainment dollar. You bet. [But] I [of the 1994 players’ strike and canceled public, had gotten tired of people fight- don’t think anything threatens us. I think World Series], there wasn’t a nickel of ing. That’s all we did. That’s why the this sport is so woven into society and so revenue sharing. This year there’ll be sport was stuck in neutral. And somebody popular today that I’m not worried about $450 million. … When I took over, the had to study what had happened for three being threatened. I’m just worried about gross revenue of the sport was $1.2 bil- or four decades and say, we’ve got to continuing growth. I don’t think anything lion. This year it’s $7 billion. learn from this. That’s what I did. can threaten us, if we do our work. Labor peace played a role in that. … I had been chairman of the player relations Combating steroid abuse has also Will you miss the perks of your job? committee, and we had eight work stop- been a major issue during your tenure. Perks — my greatest nights are when I pages since I had come into baseball. … No question about it. But I tell you what can be at home on my satellite and watch And I said to myself after ’94, we’ve got I’m proudest of: steroids were not a all fifteen games [going on that day], and to quit doing what we’ve been doing and baseball problem; steroids were a soci- that’s great. I would say I went to four or making those mistakes. Don Fehr, the etal problem. We banned steroids. We five Brewer games this year, and I went head of the [players’] union, and I talked banned amphetamines. We’re a leader to Wrigley Field, and I go to some other about that a lot. We’ve now had sixteen in the search for [how to detect use of] places. But not much. I’m here all day. … years of labor peace. Nobody at the time human growth hormone. We have the Obviously I love the games, but let thought that was possible. It may be the toughest testing program in American me say this to you: for me, the thing that most important single reason why this sports. … You talk to every trainer, as I gives me the greatest satisfaction is to sport is in its golden era, doing better do, or team doctor, they tell you they’re think I was fortunate enough to be the than anybody dreamed, having revenues, stunned at how different it is. My minor custodian of the national pastime for my attendance, everything better than any- league program is about to enter its elev- generation. When I have tough days, body thought — because we did learn enth year, so every great young player that’s what I think about. n from our mistakes in history. we have in the sport, and we have a lot

of them, they’ve been tested their whole Interview condensed and edited by On Wis- What kinds of mistakes? career. This is a sport that never had a consin senior editor John Allen, who’s well Well, there were a lot of things. The drug-testing program before. Even in the aware that Gene Hermanski didn’t play for the Dodgers in 1952 — he’d been traded to the owners fought with the owners — I knew cocaine era of the ’80s, they couldn’t get a Chicago Cubs in 1951 for Andy Pafko. There’s I had to correct that. The owners fought drug-testing program. So I’m very proud no need to write and correct us on that point, with the commissioner. I hoped I could of the way we’ve handled this. Andy Pafko fans. [correct] that, and I have. The anger between the two parties was palpable at What issues will your successor face? UW Bragging Rights all points — the owners and the players’ We need to grow. The sport has tremen- Paul Quantrill ’92 was the last UW Badgers union. And I worked hard at that. … [It dous potential for international growth. varsity baseball player to play in the major was] painful for all of us, starting with And just to keep us moving in the direc- leagues, pitching for the Florida Marlins in 2005. me. All the clubs, everybody — look, the tion we’ve been moving in the last five Wisconsin Alumni Association: American public, and the Canadian years. When you think of the recession, celebrating alumni for 150 years.

SPRING 2011 25 BRAVE NEW Blogs aren’t just about trivial pursuits anymore. UW faculty are using these online diaries to share ideas and discoveries with colleagues around the world. BLOGS

ohn Hawks was doing everything an assistant professor must do to get tenure — applying for grants, conducting research, writing articles, and teaching students. But in 2004, the UW-Madison anthropologist decided to Jtry something rather unconventional in the academic world: write a blog. Hawks, now an associate professor of anthropology who studies the bones and genes of ancient humans, wanted to organize his notes and tell his students about observations that were not being covered by mainstream science news media. He turned to a blog, a term shortened from “web log” that represents an online journal of sorts. Within a few months, he was attract- ing two hundred readers a day, including some in other areas of the world. “I thought, ‘This is more than I By Jenny Price ’96 have in my classes,’ ” Hawks says.

26 ON WISCONSIN JOHN S. DYKES

SPRING 2011 27 “From that standpoint, it’s insane to people in the public who deny the fact “Neandertals Live!” spend a lot of time working on an out- that there’s evidence in my field.” I, for one, welcome my Neandertal reach project that isn’t directly affecting ancestry. … Beyond their genealogi- your research-grant output,” he says. But eborah Blum MA’82, who cal interest, Neandertal genes might anxiety turned to relief four months later. began her journalism career have made a big difference to our Others in Hawks’s department began on a typewriter at a small evolutionary potential. hearing about his blog from anthropol- newspaper in Georgia, In case you wonder what the ogy faculty at other universities, including heck I’m talking about, here’s the Dwent on to become a Pulitzer Prize– one who said, “It must be exciting to have story: Two new papers in Science winning science writer before joining the John Hawks in your department.” describe the full draft sequence of faculty at the UW School of Journalism Within a year of starting his blog, the Neandertal genome, and perform and Mass Communication. She started Nature magazine included Hawks on its additional analyses to understand blogging a year ago in tandem with the list of top science bloggers, and the effort the pattern of adaptive evolution in release of her latest book, The Poisoner’s the population ancestral to living led to research collaborations with col- Handbook, but she had another important people. … These scientists have leagues as far away as Denmark. aim: showing her students what it means given an immense gift to humanity. “I’m getting recognized for this in to be a working writer in the digital age. I’ve been comparing it to the mainstream science, and so — even if it’s “I don’t think you can really be an pictures of Earth that came back not academic research per se — it’s obvi- effective journalist today if you don’t from Apollo 8. The Neandertal ously valuable,” he says. have an online presence,” she says. genome gives us a picture of our- Hawks, along with high-profile con- selves, from the outside looking in. stitutional law professor Ann Althouse, Blum requires students in her maga- We can see, and now learn about, was at the forefront of a growing num- zine journalism course to maintain a the essential genetic changes that ber of UW professors who use blogs to blog and update it weekly during the make us human — the things that engage with the public and peers in a way course of the semester, based on their made our emergence as a global reporting within a specialty. It’s a way species possible. … Beyond that, their predecessors could never have imag- to start building a professional profile they’ve taken all of their data and ined. For many, blogs help spread their online. deposited it in a public database, expertise and ideas to a much wider audi- so that the rest of us can inspect ence than those who read academic jour- “One of the fun things about it is them, replicate results, and learn nals, and they certainly ease collaboration that you do get this instant sense of new things from them. High school and communication with colleagues, effect,” she says. “You get the comments. kids can download this stuff and do regardless of physical distance across the You know who’s paying attention. You science fair projects on Neandertal country or around the world. know how people are responding. So it genomics. Hawks’s blog garners seven to eight allows you to gauge … what really draws This is what anthropology ought thousand daily readers — many of an audience.” to be. whom are not scientists, but are drawn Becoming a blogger introduced John Hawks, in via links on news sites to posts such Blum to an entirely new group of jour- johnhawks.net/weblog as “Neandertals live!” “Ozzy Osbourne, nalists and allowed her to join an online archaic human,” and “Good grief, the community, which she views as one of Neandertal test kits have been sent.” the strong future directions of journal- Hawks’s readership continued to (See excerpt, this page.) ism. “Here I am at this stage of my grow, but none of the colleagues in his “It’s about getting people excited career, and there are all these fascinating department knew he was blogging. And about what we know,” says Hawks, who new frontiers and ways to tell stories. It Hawks wasn’t sure that he wanted them studies the processes affecting human makes me feel optimistic, not pessimistic to find out, in case they didn’t view it as genetic evolution during the last 6 mil- [about journalism],” she says. “I don’t time well spent. lion years. “I’m in a field where there are want to teach my past.”

28 ON WISCONSIN She also sees her blog, Speakeasy “That was a big motivator for us Science, as a tool to reach those who typi- — we wanted to deal with these things “The Trouble with cally don’t read about chemistry, since as they come,” Gray says. “That’s why Scientists” many of her postings are about mysteries we get so many people reading and Science writers, journalists, broad- that can be solved with science. She calls responding.” casters, and bloggers became it “subversive education.” (See excerpt, On his own blog, Gray wrote about the voice of science during a time this page.) watching every network TV pilot that during which too many scientists Science can gain more public under- premiered during last fall’s new season. simply refused to engage. Scientists standing, Blum believes, if more scien- And, yes, he even watched the ones he have ceded that position of power tists approach their work as Hawks does, knew would be really bad. The effort amazingly readily; ask yourselves engaging colleagues and the public alike tied into his study of how viewers are how many research associations offer awards to journalists for com- through his blog posts. influenced by the flood of information municating about science, but “Science journalists like myself about movies and television shows from none to their own members ... Ask spend a lot of time in the culture of print media, trailers, Internet discus- yourself how the culture of science science,” she says. “[But] most scientists sions, merchandising, and guerrilla mar- responds even today to research- don’t spend any time in the culture of keting — often before watching them. ers who become popular authors journalism.” “As academics, we so often just write or bloggers ... [or] whether young to ourselves, and we develop these spe- scientists are rewarded for spending cialized vocabularies, and it becomes time on public communication? And logging doesn’t mean the end really hard for us to make an impact,” ask yourself how hypocritical this is, of writing articles for academic Gray says. “One of the things I try to do to complain that the general public journals or presenting papers with the blog is try to write in a way that doesn’t understand science while to colleagues at conferences. non-academics can engage with, so the refusing to participate in changing that problem? ... The culture of the BBut it does give professors a way to ideas aren’t just going to the same audi- “real” scientist who exists somehow respond much more quickly to events ence.” (See excerpt, page 30.) separate from the rest of us has not and developments in their fields. The effort has led to media inter- been a boon for public understand- “Medieval history — if it takes three views on the topics he blogs about, and ing or appreciation of science. years [to publish something] — it’s not a law firm contacted him to serve as an going anywhere,” says Jonathan Gray, expert witness on satire for a court case Deborah Blum, an associate professor of media and cul- involving a newspaper column. Gray blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience tural studies in the UW’s Department of also did a series of posts for his personal Communication Arts. “But for me, if it blog on the ins and outs of searching for takes three years, it’s moot.” a faculty position, including a hilariously Gray writes his own blog, The excruciating account of the worst cam- “The census will be Extratextuals, and also contributes to pus job interview ever. wrong. We could fix it.” Antenna, a collaborative blog operated By failing to use the best statistical and edited by graduate students and techniques we have to enumerate faculty that analyzes and responds to ordan Ellenberg, a UW mathemat- the population accurately, we’re developments in television, film, music, ics associate professor, started his getting the answer wrong on pur- gaming, digital video, the Internet, blog, Quomodocumque, in 2007. pose in order to avoid getting it wrong by accident, and possibly print, and the media. The venue gave Topics sometimes include baseball J violating the Constitution as a result. Gray the chance to dissect the opening statistics (and his beloved Baltimore Ori- credits of The Simpsons in a post that oles), along with his take on how math is Jordan Ellenberg, appeared the morning after an episode represented in the media. He knows first- quomodocumque.wordpress.com of the show aired. hand about that topic, having once served

SPRING 2011 29 “Don’t Picket the More Voices in the Blogosphere Funeral: The Lost Finale and its Anti-Fans” Media Morals — Stephen J.A. Ward, director of the UW Center for Journalism Ethics, discusses media ethics at home and abroad. And with that, Lost is over. Predict- ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/mediamorals ably, my Twitter feed came alive last night as friends and colleagues Antenna — Media and cultural-studies graduate students and faculty offer tried to make sense of it. Equally thoughts about texts, news, and events in popular culture. predictably, the anti-fans were out blog.commarts.wisc.edu in full force. … But how pleasant it would be, though, if we could accept that fans need some time to Econbrowser — UW economics and public affairs professor Menzie Chinn decompress, to let go, and to savor examines current economic conditions and policy. the memory of their beloved show econbrowser.com once it’s gone. I’d pose that if, as an anti-fan, you’re unwilling to honor GlobalHigherEd — UW geography professor Kris Olds co-edits and writes that love in the small way of shutting posts exploring the changing global education landscape, and how and why up and letting the fans have a day or new knowledge and spaces are evolving. three, your anti-fandom has become insidehighered.com/blogs/globalhighered an ugly beast. It’s now first and foremost dependent on ruining oth- Improving Population Health — David Kindig, UW professor emeritus of ers’ experience, and it is supremely population health sciences, uses his blog as both a forum for discussion and untrusting that those others truly a call to action for making communities healthier. find something worth loving in the improvingpopulationhealth.org/blog first place. It is a radical narcissism. You know those jerks who picket Nanopublic — Dietram Scheufele MA’97, PhD’99, a professor in life funerals saying the deceased is sciences communication, looks at the dynamics of public opinion going to Hell? That’s what you’ve surrounding controversial science, with a focus on the interplay among become. … So how about a morato- media, political actors, and lay audiences. rium on Lost hate till tomorrow? nanopublic.blogspot.com

Jonathan Gray, extratextual.tv backpack. “It’s my system that I’ve had of people [blogging], but I think it’s been since grad school, but the truth is, it’s tremendously productive for disseminat- as a script consultant for the CBS drama kind of hard to find stuff in here.” ing ideas quickly.” Numb3rs, which featured a mathematical Blogging also led him to develop a When Ellenberg posts an idea or genius who helped his FBI-agent brother theorem with two colleagues at UCLA, theory that readers think is wrong, they solve crimes, and by writing occasional including Fields Medal-winning professor are quick to tell him so. And that’s just articles for the online magazine Slate and fellow math blogger Terry Tao. (See fine, he says, because it sends the right about math in everyday life. excerpt, page 29.) message to younger mathematicians. Ellenberg sees his blog as an “out- “We ended up writing a paper “If the process is made a little bit board brain,” where he can check back to together, a paper that really wouldn’t more open to the public … it’s a good remind himself of thoughts he has shared have existed had we not started doing the thing for younger people to see … previously on questions in his field. “I work in the comment sections of each because maybe they wouldn’t be so dis- keep everything in these quadrille note- other’s blogs,” Ellenberg says. “Within couraged when they work on something books,” he says, pulling one out of his mathematics, there’s not a huge number for a year and it doesn’t work,” he says.

30 ON WISCONSIN “If everything you try to do in mathemat- and assistant professors, in particular, ics works, it means you’re not trying to do wrote — and said how grateful they “Milk Madness” hard enough things.” were that I laid that out there, that it was These days I’m wearing more than a hard,” she says. “And not just that it was few hats. I’m an untenured assistant logging isn’t just a way to col- hard, but that [I included] details.” professor, a consultant, a blogger, a daughter, a mama, a sister, a wife, laborate with colleagues. It’s a granddaughter, a friend, a boss also a way to generate real- ray cautions about a dan- … and also a human being’s food time debates — something ger that future faculty may supply. … I resumed work when she Bthat can’t happen often in the pages of devote significant time to was just two weeks old. I resumed research journals, says Sara Goldrick- blogging and using social full-time work (e.g. at least 40 hours/ Rab, a UW assistant professor of educa- Gmedia tools such as Twitter, and end up week) when she was a month old. I tional policy studies and sociology. with regrets. began flying with her when she was “On the blog, we can get some dis- “In my field, I see some people who 4 weeks, and started traveling 1-2 cussions going, being very pointed with — it’s too much. I think they’re hurting nights away from her on trips when each other; these are really hard to get their chances,” Gray says. “Your words she reached 3 months. Yes, you going in the academic world,” she says. can work against you, so you need to heard right — I didn’t have a mater- Goldrick-Rab launched The Educa- think about what you’re writing.” nity leave. Sure, I was offered one: 12 weeks unpaid. I just wasn’t in a tion Optimists in 2008 with her husband, Professors who blog say they get financial position to do it. So, here Liam Goldrick, who also works in the questions from graduate students who I am — the pumping, productive field of education policy. The Washing- wonder if blogging will help their professor. ton Post named it one of the best educa- careers. But the answers aren’t obvious, tion blogs of 2010, and she was floored even to those who are veteran bloggers. Sara Goldrick-Rab, when she learned that some graduate Goldrick-Rab has taken a break from her eduoptimists.blogspot.com students decided to apply and enroll at blog to devote her time to earning ten- the UW after reading her blog. ure, but plans to resume in the future. “That’s now a big reason for doing “We don’t know how this will affect from deer — that blog readers have found, it — to reach people who aren’t in my me. We don’t know,” she says. “There’s as well as some e-mails he’ll never forget. classes here, who aren’t the people sit- still all this uncertainty around it.” “I’ve had about five of these [mes- ting in the same department or in the Hawks considered the same ques- sages] over the years that say, ‘You’re same university with me,” she says. tions when he began his blog: “Should going to think I’m crazy, but I think my Feedback from blog readers helped I do this? Is this going to be perceived husband is a Neandertal,’ ” he says. “It’s her revise a grant proposal after she as a waste of time? How successful does great. They describe hairy backs.” n shared the work in progress. She won it have to be before people think it’s the grant, which she is using to study worthwhile?” For him, blogging has Jenny Price is senior writer for On Wisconsin. how college students’ use of time, emo- generated more interest in his research tional experiences, and amounts of sleep and has enhanced his ability to tell peo- interact with financial aid and affect the ple why it matters. When he published chances of earning a degree. a study that found that humans are still UW Bragging Rights Goldrick-Rab has also blogged for evolving, and at a rapid rate, Hawks was The University of Wisconsin has been a the Chronicle of Higher Education, where poised to explain his results. “I knew pioneer in faculty expression since 1894, she posted about her research and her how to talk about it. I knew how it fit in when the board of regents approved the famed “sifting and winnowing” statement experiences as a “mommy professor” as a broader topic,” he says. in defense of economics professor Richard seeking tenure while parenting two very He’s clearly reaching an audience, Ely’s academic freedom. young children. (See excerpt, this page.) judging from what arrives in the mail. He Wisconsin Alumni Association: “Women wrote — graduate students has received boxes of bones — usually celebrating alumni for 150 years.

SPRING 2011 31 Home-Field Advantage

32 ON WISCONSIN BRYCE RICHTER WOLFGANG HOFFMANN

Whether produce is delivered from local farms to the Gordon Commons loading dock, above, or from the nearby Kitchen Garden at the Allen Centennial Gardens, left, it doesn’t have far to travel.

By Jill Sakai PhD’06

he minivan is dwarfed by the loading dock at Gordon Commons, so it pulls up several Tfeet short of where trailer trucks routinely make deliveries for the university’s main commissary. The driver, Kris Hansen, hops out with two waxed- cardboard produce boxes. Inside are a dozen heads of mixed lettuces and four pounds of loose arugula leaves — produce that will show up among the offer- ings at UW-Madison’s Liz Waters residence hall Despite the hurdles, later in the week. Hansen and his wife, Deb, distribute produce campus dining facilities and other products from several dozen Wisconsin Home-Field are incorporating family farms through their company, Simply Wiscon- sin. During the height of the growing season, they locally grown foods. make weekly deliveries to campus, bringing locally grown fruits and vegetables that dot the menus of dining facilities managed by University Housing. Unlike

SPRING 2011 33 WOLFGANG HOFFMANN most food prepared in the com- just 11 percent of its total food missary, which arrives from dis- budget, with much of that share tributors chopped, washed, and from dairy — including milk, ready to serve, Simply Wiscon- cheese, and ice cream produced sin’s food shows up whole and at the UW’s own dairy plant in unprocessed. It also comes in sig- Babcock Hall. Compared to the nificantly smaller batches, a point standard fare of pre-processed underscored when Hansen has to staples in industrial-sized pack- hustle back to move his van out ages, a few heads of fresh lettuce of the path of a Sysco semi that is can seem as out of scale as the pulling into the dock. minivan that delivered them. Surrounded by farmland Why isn’t it easier to be a loca- and the home of the well-known vore — a term coined to describe Dane County Farmers’ Market, those who are interested in eat- Madison is a hotbed of consumer ing local food — in UW-Mad- interest in foods such as those ison’s cafeterias? That paradox delivered by Simply Wisconsin. has drawn the interest of several Trendy restaurants proudly fea- researchers, teachers, and food- ture locally sourced ingredients, service managers on campus, and some grocery stores label and together they are beginning displays with the number of to understand the complexi- “food miles” items have traveled. ties involved in something that Community gardens abound, sounds as simple as eating local. and, through the Madison Area Locally grown foods, arriving whole and unprocessed, mean Community Supported Agri- a lot of washing and chopping — unlike the massive amounts culture Coalition, some twelve of pre-prepped ingredients used for the meals University Economies Housing serves in multiple campus locations every day. thousand area households own of Scale shares in nearby farms, entitling them to regular deliveries of produce year. The unit has partnered with the Walk through Housing’s vast commissary fresh from the field. student group Slow Food UW to offer at Gordon Commons, and you can begin It should be no surprise that the weekly meals featuring locally grown to understand some of the realities of an trend has reached UW-Madison — a foods at campus dining rooms and has operation that serves seventeen thousand campus with both close historical links even staged a Top Chef-style competition meals each day at multiple venues across to state agriculture and thousands of among its cooks using local ingredients. campus. This is not your grandmother’s mouths to feed each day. For a decade, “[Local food] has very strong ties to kitchen. The long, hangar-like space is University Housing’s Dining and Culi- this campus and what this campus stands designed more for mass production than nary Services and UW Hospital and for,” says Julie Luke, the associate direc- traditional cooking. An entire wall of Clinics have worked steadily to buy tor of Housing’s dining services. “Why ovens looms near a walk-in cooler brim- more locally grown foods and feature wouldn’t we try to reap the bounty of ming with racks of bagged and washed them in menus. Housing, for example, that?” vegetables, massive tubs of fruits, and vats spent close to $900,000 on foods pro- But despite ongoing efforts by Luke of condiments. A row of electric mixers, duced locally and another $2.3 million and others, local foods still represent a each several feet tall, lines the back wall. on locally manufactured items, such as modest bite of the overall institutional In such settings, unprocessed produce processed meats and pre-cut fruits and pie. Housing’s $900,000 in local food poses many challenges. For starters, the vegetables, during the 2009–10 academic expenditures for 2009–10 amounted to quantities of food that move through

34 ON WISCONSIN institutional kitchens are mind-boggling. goods into centralized distribution. Start- campus, it hasn’t necessarily meant high “We buy probably three tons of produce ing in 2008, Housing and the UW Hos- visibility. Luke says Housing’s buyers a week,” says John Hofman, who directs pital signed up with Badgerland Produce, have followed a low-risk strategy: instead food services for the UW Hospital and a nonprofit cooperative in Montello, of relying on locally grown food for fixed- Clinics. “I’m not exactly going down to Wisconsin, to buy produce from some menu items, they focus on salad bars and the farmers’ market and picking this out.” two hundred member-growers. In addi- special events, where items wouldn’t be Washing and chopping that much tion to hosting a central food auction, missed if an order fell through. They fresh food requires more time, space, and also have experimented with processing staff than most dining operations have. It “Local food has very strong homegrown vegetables for later use; in also creates a supply issue. With so much fall 2009, the staff devoted a considerable food to prepare on tight turnaround, ties to this campus and chunk of time to cleaning, chopping, and managers such as Hofman have to rely what this campus stands freezing locally grown sweet onions. on large suppliers who can predictably fill Luke hopes such efforts will help big orders. for. Why wouldn’t we try to Housing meet a goal of buying 15 per- “If you’re my poultry vendor, and reap the bounty of that?” cent of its food locally by the end of this I call up and say I need ten boxes of academic year. But she admits onions chicken breast, and you only have three, Badgerland offered fixed-price contracts won’t carry them over the threshold. then what do I do?” he asks. “How much for pre-harvest orders, allowing institu- They recently worked with a distributor time do I have to look for those chicken tional buyers such as Hofman and Luke to try to find in-state sources for all of the breasts? About an hour.” to budget their menus. shredded mozzarella cheese they use on Some local producers have attempted Although the contracts with Bad- pizza. “That should really up our percent- to address that problem by pooling their gerland did bring more local produce to age,” she says. “We serve a lot of pizza.” WOLFGANG HOFFMANN Regional Systems Have Potential However they are achieved, the percent- ages of local food served in campus eat- eries are of keen interest to people such as Michelle Miller ’83, MS’93, associate director of the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) in the Col- lege of Agricultural and Life Sciences. For local food to become a meaningful player in the overall food system — and not just the purview of farmers’ markets and niche restaurants — institutional markets have to buy in, she says. “Most people don’t get their food at farmers’ markets and farm stands,” Miller says. “If we’re really serious about feeding ourselves [with local food] at University Housing is steadily buying more locally produced foods and featuring them in least part of the year, then we need to menus served in its dining facilities and at special events. scale up — to increase production and

SPRING 2011 35 as Badgerland offer one way to handle those challenges, the authors say. But

WOLFGANG HOFFMANN Miller says local and state governments need to back up organizational efforts with policies that ease and encourage such distribution networks. One such measure — a bill introduced last year in the Wisconsin senate — would have required state entities with annual food expenditures greater than $25,000 to aim for spending at least 10 percent of that money on products grown, processed, packaged, and distributed in Wisconsin by 2020, with the target increasing to 20 percent thereafter. Although that bill failed, most observers expect the push for legislative support of local food sourcing to resurface. But policy debates are also likely to A bountiful table awaits diners, thanks to staff at University Housing’s Dining and Culinary Services who transformed locally grown fruits into luscious desserts. trigger lively discussions about exactly what it means to buy local. Clearly a dirt- redevelop the necessary infrastructure to Miller and other UW researchers grown tomato harvested by an Amish make our regional food system efficient.” are exploring what could help local and farmer near Montello, Wisconsin, and The potential is certainly there. regional food expand into those bigger driven to Madison in a Badgerland truck In Wisconsin, demand for locally markets. With a grant from the Ira is local, and clearly a hydroponic tomato produced goods consistently outstrips and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin grown in California and shipped two supply, and Miller maintains that thousand miles in a plastic clamshell expanding capacity would prove “Oftentimes, the issue of package is not. But what about a chicken profitable for the local economy. sourcing locally is presented raised out of state, but processed by a She cites a 2010 report, published by family-owned business fifty miles outside the Leopold Center for Sustainable as a very simple solution. Madison? Milk collected in Wisconsin, Agriculture at Iowa State University And it’s simply not.” shipped out of state for bottling, then in partnership with CIAS, which shipped back to sell? calculated that increasing local fruit Idea Endowment, CIAS and the “We have to come up with some and vegetable production to meet UW-Extension Agricultural Innovation criteria,” says Housing’s Julie Luke. the demand of regional metropolitan Center examined eleven organizations “What’s reasonable to label local — if it areas could add up to an estimated $72 across the country that are trying has one ingredient in it, or if it’s some million in farm sales and more than to move local foods into wholesale percent of the ingredients?” eight hundred jobs in Wisconsin. settings. Luke describes Housing’s guidelines “We’ve got our own markets here in Their report, released in Decem- as fairly conservative, counting as local Wisconsin, but Chicago is untapped,” ber 2009, concluded that the biggest only those items grown or produced in she says. “Chicago has huge potential as obstacles relate to product consistency Wisconsin. For now, they tally locally pro- a market for sustainably produced and — quality, quantity, and timing of avail- cessed goods such as meats and Wiscon- delivered food. It is not the market that is ability — largely due to absent infra- sin-prepped, out-of-state fruits and veggies missing; it is the infrastructure.” structure. Consolidation services such separately. But even these choices reveal

36 ON WISCONSIN gray areas about what fits the real spirit of salad bar, locally grown tomatoes may sit Housing, some of that burden can be the local-food movement. For some, the side-by-side with long-distance travelers, shared with diners because items are decision to eat local food is tied to the per- and no one may appreciate the difference. purchased a la carte. But that’s not the ceived environmental benefits of reducing The CIAS report cites this problem case for many schools and hospitals, food miles. For others, it’s about fostering of “losing the story” of local food as a where fixed food budgets offer less room a sense of community with growers and chief impediment to institutions deliver- to experiment. fellow eaters. Many say that it’s ultimately ing a rewarding experience for diners. “When you’re serving 2.5 million about taste and freshness. Housing has experimented with signs and meals a year, if your cost per meal goes up

“Oftentimes, the issue of sourcing BRYCE RICHTER 10 cents, that’s $250,000,” says Hofman. locally is presented as a very simple “The pennies are important.” solution,” says Monica Theis ’79, MS’88, The university’s local purchases a UW food science instructor. “And it’s took another unexpected hit when simply not.” Badgerland Produce closed last year, apparently due to sourcing issues. “It’s Losing the Story disappointing,” Luke says, “but it gets to the heart of the issue.” In a small plot of vegetables in Allen Meanwhile, Theis’s vegetable Centennial Gardens, Theis has been garden, like the larger campus initiatives exploring those complexities from the it symbolizes, has had its own successes ground up. With the help of Allen and challenges. When the usual staff director Ed Lyon MS’01, she planted members were temporarily unable to the garden in 2008 as a research and make it to the plot last summer, the educational tool for her students. It has lettuces weren’t harvested. become a modest demonstration of the Theis sees her overgrown greens as a joys and pitfalls of growing and serving reflection of the bigger issues facing insti- food close to home. For the past two tutional local foods. “I see myself as a very summers, food-service staff have carted optimistic person. But there are some Monica Theis, a UW food science instruc- greens, tomatoes, onions, and other tor, pulls carrots at a small plot in Allen pretty hard realities, especially in the pub- vegetables grown in the garden across a Centennial Gardens. The garden’s bounty lic sector,” she says. “I’m convinced there is truly “local food” — deliveries require a parking lot to be processed in Housing’s mere trip across a parking lot to University are steps we can take, but it’s not going to kitchens, earning the prize for the short- Housing’s kitchens. be a quick or simple revolution.” n est food-miles of any item on campus. “Being a university, we are well posi- themed meals that feature local foods, Jill Sakai, a writer for University Communica- tions at UW-Madison, enjoys being on a first- tioned to study and learn the practical but Luke says it’s still a challenge to show name basis with the farmers who grow most realities of sourcing locally,” says Theis. consumers what they’re buying. “We of her produce. “I hope, personally and professionally, need to do a better job,” she says. “That’s that we are able to address some of these one of our projects.” UW Bragging Rights challenges — like cost, access, volume, and But that is not the most immediate The cylindrical silo — now a staple on farms safety — that are not well understood.” barrier in UW cafeterias, where scaling around the globe — was invented by UW pro- One problem with locally grown up locally grown foods must be measured fessor Franklin King. Noting that animal feed food, for instance, is how to let consum- against budget realities. While many pro- often rotted in the corners of square buildings, he published his idea in the 1880s. The ers know where it came from. Cafeteria duce items are comparable or even less UW’s Dairy Barn, built in 1897, includes one of lines aren’t like farmers’ markets, where expensive when bought locally during King’s first silos. consumers can make a clear connection the growing season, others, especially Wisconsin Alumni Association: to the farmer who grew their food. In a meat, are considerably more costly. At celebrating alumni for 150 years.

SPRING 2011 37 BRYCE RICHTER JEFF MILLER

BIPARTISAN PARTNERS Chancellor Biddy Martin believes that UW-Madison can help Wisconsin on the road to financial stability. The best path, she says, lies in greater flexibility for the university. by John Allen

BIDDY MARTIN PhD’85 “The financial model for public dollars increased to $457 million, but research universities is broken,” she says, the amount supporting core mission has spent her entire career in and this “requires changes in the tradi- activities has declined. Further, the uni- higher education, and the expe- tional partnership” between state gov- versity’s budget has grown faster than rience has taught her to keep an ernments and the schools they sponsor. state contributions, and today the state’s This is true all over the United States, contribution is only about 18 percent of eye on her peer institutions. she believes, though her focus is on UW-Madison’s income. Because Wis- “The university,” she says, “is not just UW-Madison, where a decreasing share consin faces a looming budget deficit as another state agency.” of the budget derives from state funds. it tries to climb out of the recession, the Lately she’s been saying this often As recently as fifteen years ago, percentage of state funding is likely to — to alumni, faculty, students, donors, money from state tax revenue accounted decrease in the foreseeable future. and especially state politicians. She wants for some $333.9 million, more than And so Martin is proposing that the them to remember this message, because 30 percent of UW-Madison’s budget. UW and Wisconsin rewrite their rela- she senses change in the air. By 2009–10, the number of state tionship. Over the last few months, she

38 ON WISCONSIN has been talking about a new partnership Madison’s vice chancellor for univer- of the state budget’s general fund — the New Badger Partnership (NBP), sity relations. The group began work each year. as she calls it — in every forum she can nearly two years ago, as the depth of the Knowing that Wisconsin would face find: through articles and interviews; in recession was becoming clear and as the a sizable deficit, Sweeney, Bazzell, and speeches to students, faculty, and staff; political situation in the Capitol became others looked at what UW-Madison and in conversations with alumni, less stable. might want and need, and at ways that business leaders, and the leadership “This really began shortly after public universities in other states were of Wisconsin’s state government. Governor [Jim] Doyle [’67] announced dealing with their own legislatures and The essence of the partnership is he wasn’t running for re-election, back similar financial difficulties. (See chart, that the state and its flagship university in August of 2009,” says Sweeney. “We page 41.) They found that other states should work hand in glove to improve were responding to budget crises by try- the general wealth and welfare of the ing to operate more efficiently. Picking state and its citizens. To that end, NBP “We knew there the items they liked from among these would aim to make the university better state’s plans “almost à la carte,” accord- able to deal with reductions by offering would be no more ing to Sweeney, they found options that increased flexibility. It’s a partnership, could aid the UW. Martin believes, that would make people money coming from “We knew there would be no more happier at both ends of State Street. money coming from the legislature,” he the legislature, says, “so we figured the answer was to The New Badger Partnership ask for flexibility.” is centered on flexibility: to gain so we figured the Over the following months, they more control over its own revenue sought input from various parties — and expenses, the university would answer was to ask for students, faculty, donors, and legislative like to have greater ability to man- flexibility.” candidates. “They all seemed intrigued,” age its budget, especially in four areas: Sweeney says. tuition authority, governing personnel From December 2009 through and salaries, managing contracts for saw that this was an opportunity: for February 2010, as Wisconsin’s guber- construction and capital projects, and the first time in many years, we knew natorial race was heating up, Martin procuring supplies and equipment. But for certain that there would be a new met one-on-one with the three leading if the proposal is new, the four requests administration, whichever side won the candidates, Democrat Tom Barrett ’76, embedded in it aren’t; UW-Madison has [2010 gubernatorial] election. We knew JD’80, and Republicans Mark Neumann desired change in each of these areas for that we would have the chance to estab- and eventual winner Scott Walker, and decades. lish a new relationship with each candi- shared her vision. Throughout these “The New Badger Partnership date, and we knew that there would be conversations, Martin made sure to includes things the university has wanted a fight over the budget. We wanted to point out that the UW wants to cooper- for a long time,” says Darrell Bazzell prevent UW-Madison from being ate with the legislature — not obstruct ’84, UW-Madison’s vice chancellor for made into a political football during it — and that it can be an asset to administration and the person who over- the budget process.” Wisconsin’s economy, not a drain sees issues of personnel and budgeting. That budget process promises to for dollars. “But this is the first time we’ve made a be difficult. According to an analysis “I … emphasized the importance strong case for an integrated, compre- by Andrew Reschovsky, a professor in of UW-Madison’s economic role in hensive plan.” the UW’s La Follette School of Public the state, the fact that we are a thriv- Bazzell was part of the committee Affairs, Wisconsin faces a deficit that ing export business for Wisconsin, that conceived of NBP, a group that may be as large as $3 billion over the bringing in well over a billion dollars included Vince Sweeney ’78, UW- coming biennium, more than 10 percent a year from outside the state, creating

SPRING 2011 39 public- and private-sector jobs with our Flexibility, NBP backers argue, university took possession of Microbial research and discovery,” she says. She will enable the university to reap Sciences, it discovered that the work found a receptive audience and says that financial dividends. For example, notes done didn’t meet the needs of the Walker “seemed committed to bold Alan Fish MS’01, UW-Madison’s vice scientists whose labs were to be ideas about how to grow the state’s chancellor for facilities planning and located there. economy, create jobs, and take advan- management, consider the university’s “It took us fourteen months and tage of the asset that higher education Microbial Sciences building, which $1 million to fix the errors,” says Fish. represents.” opened in September 2007 to great He believes that NBP, by freeing the As Walker and his new Republican fanfare. Microbial Sciences is a $121.3 university from state rules on hiring majority approach the task of tackling a million, state-of-the-art facility for contractors, could avoid repeating such state budget for the 2011–13 biennium, conducting microbiology, immunology, mistakes. proponents of the New Badger Partner- and food safety research — and a key Still, the key to convincing Walker ship hope that they have opened the element in the state’s BioStar Initiative, and legislative leaders to support NBP door to negotiating a better relationship an effort launched more than a decade is making them see UW-Madison as between the state and university. ago by Governor Tommy Thompson Martin does: as not just another state “The idea was not to develop a plan ’63, JD’66 aimed at making Wisconsin agency. NBP proponents argue that a and put it on the table,” Sweeney says. a center for research in biology and more flexible university would not only “Rather, we wanted to put some ideas biotechnology. help ease the state’s budget woes; it out as a way of shaping the conversa- As with all state construction would also foster a higher-quality insti- tion. We wanted people to think about projects, regulations specified that the tution. The university faces forms of what we need to do to preserve and UW had to request separate bids from competition that the rest of state gov- protect the university as a world-class contractors for construction, electrical ernment doesn’t, and the UW wants to institution.” work, plumbing, and mechanical keep the student, faculty, and research As a result, NBP is far from a detailed systems, and then take the lowest bid talent that will let it thrive. program. Instead, it currently exists as a set for each job. The rules are designed “Think of the Department of of principles, to which Martin, Sweeney, to save state money by taking the least Natural Resources, for example,” says and the partnership’s supporters hope the expensive contractors, but in practice, Sweeney. “Wisconsin’s DNR isn’t com- new governor and his legislative allies will they sowed confusion and produced peting with Illinois’ DNR. But the UW respond favorably. a bureaucratic headache. When the Continued on page 62

A New Model UW-Madison needs a new funding and business model, says Michael student services, and financial aid. In tandem with MIU, the UW Knetter, president and CEO of the UW Foundation, the fundraising Foundation has launched the Great People Scholarship Campaign, arm for the university, noting that the traditional model is no longer an effort targeted to raising funds for undergraduate education and working. strengthening a partnership among students, alumni, friends, and the “Just when Wisconsin needs the UW most, the state is struggling to global society in which graduates will live and work. sustain it,” Knetter says. “And when higher education offers the greatest To aid the university in generating need-based aid, the foundation value to students and the regional economy, our strategic options for has increased its efforts to create scholarships through its Great People financing the UW are limited.” fund. Knetter believes that private gifts, along with the flexibility repre- The Madison Initiative for Undergraduates (MIU) is an initial step sented in the New Badger Partnership, will enable UW-Madison to meet toward a new model. First proposed by Chancellor Biddy Martin to today’s economic challenges. address need-based financial aid — one of her top priorities for the “A natural solution to preserve quality and value is to modify the campus — the initiative was approved in 2009. An incremental tuition financial model to account for new realities,” Knetter says. surcharge, MIU is designed to generate revenue to invest in faculty, Staff

40 ON WISCONSIN Altered States

The New Badger Partnership is as much a creation of its time as it is of backing, the University of Michigan is sort of a quasi-private institution. Chancellor Biddy Martin and UW administrators. In recent years, lead- Wisconsin isn’t like that, and we don’t want to be that.” ers at public universities around the United States have been looking But they did find much that they like among other states. For for ways to incorporate greater levels of autonomy and flexibility as instance, Martin notes, Virginia provides a strong model for Wisconsin. tax-based revenue diminishes. That state, she says, “has granted greater autonomy to its public Vince Sweeney, the UW’s vice chancellor for university relations, universities, differentiating among them based on their capacity to says university leaders explored arrangements at several other states assume responsibility.” as they were drawing up elements for NBP. Though each state has The chart below includes several states that have altered or are commonalities with Wisconsin, each is also unique, and Sweeney and considering altering relationships with their public universities while his colleagues tried to keep the UW’s particular needs in mind. “We’re dealing with struggling economies. not really trying to be like Michigan,” he says. “With its constitutional Staff

Legislative Tuition State (Resident/ Authority Institution Deficit Non-resident) or Proposal Freedoms Responsibilities University of $1.58 billion $12,590/$37,265 State constitution Full authority over procure- Members of institution’s Michigan (1963) ment, personnel, governing board are directly construction, and tuition accountable to the electorate

University of $1.8 billion $10,836/$33,782 2006 Higher Right to set tuition, flexibility Must prepare a six-year financial Virginia Education in hiring and salary, free from plan, maintain academic standards, Restructuring Act a cap on out-of-state students keep education affordable and accessible to all Virginia citizens

University of $175.5 million $8,511/$29,493 Flagship 2030 (uni- May raise tuition up to 9 per- Flagship 2030 calls for the Colorado-Boulder (could rise to $1 versity goals pro- cent without state approval; university to “develop a more entre- billion in 2011–12 posed to state) requests greater operational preneurial relationship with the state fiscal year) flexibility of Colorado”

University of $399 million sur- $12,203/$16,503 “Transforming Has authority over tuition, “Transforming the U” aims to make Minnesota plus (projected the U” initiative procurement, personnel, and Minnesota one of the top three $6.2 billion deficit launched in 2004 construction research universities in the world; by 2012) (university effort, includes defining a set of metrics not legislative) for success to gauge accountability

University of $25.4 billion $12,461.50/ State constitution University system has author- Must provide annual reports on per- California- $35,340.50 ity to set tuition, manage sal- formance in areas such as grad- Berkeley ary and personnel issues, and uation rates, number of degrees manage capital projects awarded, student-to-faculty ratio, outside research grant support, and technology transfer

University of $3.5 billion $8,190/$25,830 University presi- Seeks authority to set tuition, Offers to meet standards of Oregon dent proposed new buy property, govern capi- accountability in accessibility, partnership to leg- tal projects, set salaries, and affordability, diversity, economic islature in October issue bonds, with legisla- development, and service impact 2010 ture agreeing to a minimum level of tax-based support per student

UW-Madison $3 billion $8,987/$24,237 New Badger Seeks authority to set tuition Pledged to maintain quality, afford- Partnership pro- and manage capital projects, ability, and accessibility; open to posed in late 2010 procurement, and salary and measures to ensure accountability personnel issues outside of state regulations

Budget deficit estimates may vary considerably. Tuition figures are based on two semesters at fifteen credit hours per semester for an undergraduate at the equivalent of UW-Madison’s College of Letters & Science; includes fees.

SPRING 2011 41 2OTH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION

familyman Steven Levitan reaches new heights by writing what he knows.

By Jenny Price ’96 Steven Levitan has two Emmys for writing and producing successful television comedies, so it sounds like a joke when he reveals which course gave him the most trouble on the way to earning a communication arts degree at UW-Madison: screenwriting. “It nearly killed me, so that was interesting — that it ended up being my career,” says Levitan ’84, the co-creator of the Emmy-winning Modern Family, a show that is a breakout hit during an era when many have declared the family sitcom extinct.

42 ON WISCONSIN LUCY NICHOLSON/THOMSON REUTERS

After graduation, Levitan got a job as a local news reporter, but what he really wanted to do was write for the shows that aired during prime time before the evening news. He started writing what are known as “spec scripts,” hoping that they would be picked up by popular shows such as Cheers, Moonlighting, and The Wonder Years. And he didn’t let up after returning home to Chicago to work for advertising agency Leo Burnett, staying in at night to write scripts while his roommates went out. Less than two years after moving to Los Angeles, his work paid off when he landed a spot on the writing team for the show Wings, based on a freelance script he pitched to the show’s producers. He later went on to write and produce Frasier (winning an Emmy as co-executive producer) and The Larry Sanders Show, and to create Just Shoot Me. After the cancellation of Back to You Comedy taken seriously: Steven Levitan accepts the statue for best comedy series during — a show Levitan and writing partner the 2010 Primetime Emmy Awards. That evening, Modern Family went on to win awards for outstanding casting, editing, sound mixing, and writing. The cast’s Eric Stonestreet, in Christopher Lloyd created about a local photo on facing page with Levitan and Sofia Vergara, was named best supporting actor. television newscast — the two fathers found inspiration for Modern Family in Levitan talked about his comedic start his senior year at UW-Madison moon- conversations about their children and at the UW, how he mines his home life lighting as a news reporter for the local day-to-day family lives. for ideas, and what it’s like to have fans NBC station, where one of his journalism The show mirrors how the face of say the show has brought their families professors was the anchor. the American family has changed since together. “I would be in his class during the The Brady Bunch presented the first day, and then he’d be tossing it to me on blended family to TV audiences forty Campus was a the air at night,” he says. After gradua- years ago. Modern Family is the story of tion, he got an on-air job with Madison’s three branches of an extended subur- training ground ABC affiliate, where he covered stories ban family: Jay, the patriarch, his much “I got involved in so many different ranging from holiday parades to the younger Colombian wife, Gloria, and things in Madison,” says Levitan, who death of serial killer Ed Gein. her son; Jay’s daughter, Claire, a stay-at- came to the UW from suburban Chicago home mom, her husband, Phil, and their and found some comedy roots by partici- The truth resonates three children; and Jay’s son, Mitchell, pating each year in the annual Humorology his partner, Cameron, and their adopted variety show produced by members of with audiences daughter from Vietnam. campus fraternities and sororities. He also When Levitan accepted the Emmy last Most important, it’s really funny. took a TV directing course, produced fall for best comedy series for Modern In an interview with On Wisconsin, radio dramas for WHA, and spent part of Family, he said, “We are so thrilled

SPRING 2011 43 couple times where my daughters will notice me taking notice of something, or writing something down, and [they’ll say], ‘Don’t put this in the show,’ or ‘My

MATHEW IMAGING/GETTY friends will recognize this if you do this.’ But more often than not, I think they get a giant kick out of it, and I think their friends think it’s cool.”

Hitting the right notes Levitan knows about the tricky balance between comedy and emotion. He won acclaim for a 1996 episode of Frasier he wrote in which the title character’s father, Martin, a gruff former police officer, finally tells sons Frasier and Niles that he loves them. Many so- called family comedies are too harsh to seem real or too saccharine to stomach for very long. Reality check: Steven Levitan, center, and writing partner Christopher Lloyd, right, call Levitan and Lloyd wanted to find upon their own life experiences when crafting dialogue for actor Ty Burrell, left, and other the right balance for Modern Family. Modern Family cast members. “We knew that the show, just by the families are sitting down together to Levitan and the writers for Modern fact that there were kids in it, would watch a television show.” That’s an Family don’t have to go far to find inspi- feel a little bit sweet and sappy if we accomplishment in the increasingly frag- ration for the stories told on the show. didn’t balance it with a bit of edge,” mented media landscape of DVRs, niche Like Claire and Phil Dunphy, he and his Levitan says. That means keeping in cable channels, and Internet viewing. The wife, Krista, have two teenage daughters jokes that the network and viewers may show leaves viewers feeling as if its writers and a younger son. An episode in which consider less than politically correct to have eavesdropped on their families — Claire can’t figure out how to operate show that the characters are far from just watch the episode from season one the remote control was based on Levi- perfect. “Those are there to show that about Claire’s attempt to get the perfect tan’s wife having the same struggles. And this is not just syrupy sweet,” he says. family photo. “It just started by wanting Levitan once did exactly what Phil does An entire Twitter feed is devoted to to tell stories about family,” Levitan says. in the series pilot to punish his son for quotes from Modern Family (twitter.com/ But once the show aired, the response misusing an air BB gun: he used the gun modfamquotes) — a sign of how the from fans was immediate and strong, he to shoot the boy himself. experience of viewing a television show says: “They would come up and say to That doesn’t mean Levitan puts has changed for some members of its our actors, ‘I want to thank you because, everything on screen. “I once wanted audience. Levitan has his own Twitter because of your show, our family is actu- to use a boy’s name that I heard my account (@SteveLevitan), and he uses it ally doing something together again, daughter talking about, and she made to communicate with fans of the show, which we hadn’t in a long time. So you’ve me change it for fear that he would real- too. “When the show starts airing on the brought our family back together,’ which ize that she was talking about him at East Coast and it’s six o’clock our time is pretty amazing.” home,” he says. “And there have been a and we’re still working, we’ll take a little

44 ON WISCONSIN 2OTH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION break and … start watching the Twitter feed,” he says. “It’s almost like getting to listen to an audience laugh, because people, as soon as they hear a joke that they like … they’ll quote the joke, and they’ll go, ‘HAHAHA!’ or, ‘That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard,’ and you really get a sense of what jokes are landing or what really works.”

Success gets sweeter with time Levitan already had a successful career in television before Modern Family, with more hits than misses. Just Shoot Me, the first show he created, went into syndication. “I was very happy then, but I was also young, and I don’t think I fully realized how lucky I was familyfamiliarity at that moment that things had come Fans of Modern Family have come to expect both hilarious and touching — together there,” he says. but always believable — lines from the characters during each episode of the The show, which Levitan believes hit show. Here’s a sampling from the scripts. never got the respect it deserved from the network, aired in fourteen time Claire: “Your kids don’t need to know who you were before you had them; they slots in seven years. “I’m extremely need to know who you wish you were, and try to live up to that person. They’re proud of it, and I love that cast dearly, gonna fall short, but better they fall short of the fake you than the real you.” but somehow things have been much • easier on this show,” he says. “[Modern Cameron (to camera): “Every home-improvement project we’ve undertaken has Family] has been a dream situation, and been a near-death experience.” it’s hard to imagine anything getting Mitchell: “Oh, remember how much fun we had when we built that bookshelf better than this.” n together?” Jay (to camera): “That was my Vietnam. And I was in Vietnam.” Jenny Price ’96, senior writer for On Wiscon- • sin, has tried to take the perfect family picture, Phil: “Claire, I know you’ve got your methods, but so do I, and I’m sorry, but but decided she will settle for a funny one. I’m not a micro-manager. Trust me, I can provide Luke with the tools and guidance he needs without smothering him.” Claire: “You think I smother our children?” UW Bragging Rights Phil: “It’s not your fault honey. Mother is part of the word. You never hear of anyone being sfathered to death.” The ratings used to judge the success of television programs — Nielsen ratings — are • the creation of UW grad A. C. Nielsen, Sr. ’18. Mitchell: “Well, Mom, instead of dredging up the whole incident, maybe we Wisconsin Alumni Association: should just try and repress it like a normal family.” celebrating alumni for 150 years.

SPRING 2011 45 traditions

When it’s all over, one thing is clear: Match Day for medical students has more authentic drama, excitement, and emotion than any episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

Match Day JEFF MILLER Nervous may not come close to describing how one hundred and forty soon-to-be physicians feel as they await the answer to the question: what’s next? Their fates are sealed inside plain, white envelopes tucked in a box at the front of a standing-room-only auditorium at the UW’s School of Medicine and Public Health. A version of what’s about to happen there — at noon on the third Thursday of March each year — is taking place at medical schools all over the country. Students submitted their preferences for residency programs weeks ago; today they learn if their assignments match their dreams. “Let’s get started,” says Patrick McBride MD’80, associate dean for students, as he begins calling out names. Each student takes his or her envelope, puts $1 in a jar (with proceeds going to the poor soul whose name is called last), and stands before a microphone at the front of the room. Some take a deep breath before revealing the destination, making the moment last. For many, emotion takes over, and everyone in the room is swept along for the ride with their wide smiles and joyful tears. Pushpins stuck into a U.S. map show where the students are headed, with about 20 percent staying at the UW. Babies and wriggling toddlers — too young to remember this momentous day — wait as their moms or dads step up to the microphone. Some students walk to the front with their significant others, an acknowledgment of the sacrifices made. One young man hands the envelope to his wife to open, saying, “She worked harder to get through medical school than I did.” Some couples are matched with the same residency program, having met and fallen in love on their way to becoming doctors. Many wait to open the envelope until a partner’s name is called, then huddle to take in the news together before sharing it with the room. When it’s all over, one thing is clear: Match Day has more authentic drama, excitement, and emotion than any episode of Grey’s Anatomy. And for this cast of new doctors, their story is just beginning. Jenny Price ’96

What’s your favorite UW tradition? Tell On Wisconsin about it at [email protected], and we’ll find out if it’s just a fond memory — or if it’s still part of campus life today.

46 ON WISCONSIN SPRING 2011 47 gifts in action

Sports and Society Acknowledging his UW education, baseball commissioner Bud Selig endows a history chair. BRYCE RICHTER Allan H. “Bud” Selig ’56 often who has yet to be cho- talks about how history guides sen, will teach, conduct the decisions he makes as the research, and publish commissioner of Major League scholarship on the devel- Baseball. opment of American pro- It should come as no surprise fessional sports in their that he credits his UW–Madison larger national and social education for shaping that per- contexts, including race, spective. Selig, onetime owner of gender, labor relations, the Milwaukee Brewers, earned “mass culture,” and eco- his bachelor’s degrees in history nomic organization. and political science. Now he has “This is something made a major gift to endow the I’ve wanted to do for a Allan H. Selig Chair in History at long time,” Selig said. the university. “I’ve said that the best “The [baseball] clubs always part of my role — as kid me, because at least three or first the president of the four times in every major league Brewers and for the last meeting, I talk about … the retro- eighteen years as com- spect of history. Because I ana- missioner of baseball — lyze, and they trained me well is the sociological part As Chancellor Biddy Martin (left) listens during a news conference at back in those days, to view every- of it, the ability of a sport Miller Park in August, Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball, thing in the light of history,” he to do really constructive announces a major gift for an endowed history professorship. said during an August 27 news things in our society.” conference at Milwaukee’s Miller Selig has frequently said that Park. the most powerful and impor- New scholarships honor the Seligs The conference announced tant moment in baseball history Three Major League Baseball owners and Hall of Famer Hank the history chair and two schol- took place when Jackie Robinson Aaron’s foundation have created UW scholarships in honor of base- arships established in honor of came to the big leagues on April ball commissioner and his wife, Suzanne. Selig and his wife, Suzanne. 15, 1947. “Jackie was clearly one Allan H. “Bud” Selig The event capped a week of the most influential Americans Mark Attanasio, chairman and principal owner of the celebrating Selig’s legacy. On of the twentieth century,” he said. Milwaukee Brewers; Lew Wolff ’57, owner and managing part- August 24, a statue of Selig was Selig plans to share his ner of the Oakland A’s (and one of Selig’s fraternity brothers in dedicated at the park. papers with the Wisconsin Pi Lambda Phi); and Tom Werner, co-owner and chairman of the As commissioner, Selig has Historical Society and to return Boston Red Sox, have endowed the Suzanne and Allan “Bud” Selig overseen changes to the game — to campus upon his retirement Great People Scholarship.The scholarship’s first recipient is Maha the institution of three divisions in to work on his memoirs, among Baalbaki of Milwaukee, a junior majoring in sociology. each league, the wild-card play- other activities. “For the three of us, as Major League Baseball owners, to be off format, and interleague play Chancellor Biddy Martin able to support one of the most important institutions in Bud’s life — while keeping its essential PhD’85 said the Seligs’ gift will is an honor, recognizing his passion for Wisconsin and education, character intact. His cognizance help to expand the university’s and how the UW has helped forge the lives of so many of today’s of baseball’s place in shaping scholarship. “[It] will add an society helped him to craft his important new dimension to our leaders,” Attanasio said. vision for the history chair. history program, and help us see Aaron and his wife, Billye, have established the 4 for 4 The new faculty position in sports from varied and important Scholarship through their Chasing the Dream Foundation, with United States history will focus vantage points and understand the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. The inaugural recipient of the on the relationship between how sports help shape us and our scholarship is Marisa Aronson, a freshman from Milwaukee. sports and society from 1900 society,” she said. C.D. to the present. The scholar, Chris DuPré

48 ON WISCONSIN Badger connections BRYCE RICHTER

50 Alumni Association Sconnies in Coastie Country News Badger fans tried their hardest to make their team feel at home at this year’s Rose Bowl. Game-day estimates 53 Class Notes suggested that 60 percent of the people in the stadium were wearing Badger red and white, meaning that a full quarter of Pasadena’s population that day was 59 Calendar decked out to support Bucky. We have no idea how many were wearing pelts as a form of headdress. We 60 Bookshelf hope the number was much lower.

61 Sifting & Winnowing

SPRING 2011 49 alumni association news

WAA Honors Eight Grads Anniversary-year awards go to alumni with global impact.

n celebration of its 150th anniversary, the Wisconsin Alumni Association has Iselected eight honorees to receive its highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award. Four of the award winners will accept their accolades at an all-alumni reception on April 28, during Alumni Weekend. The other four will accept on July 28 during a four-day International Convocation on campus. All alumni are welcome to attend both events. For more information, see uwalumni.com.

Accepting their awards during Alumni Weekend are: Dennis Dimick, Aicardo Roa-Espinosa, Carol Toussaint, and David Walsh. Accepting during the International Convocation are: Krishna Ella, Dong-Soo Hur, Kamoltip Payakvichien, and Stephen Roach.

Dennis Dimick National Geographic magazine, the Missouri Photo Workshop, Dimick has earned awards and sponsored by the University of Dennis Dimick MS’74 could praise for publishing articles on Missouri School of Journalism. easily describe in words the envi- soil degradation, biofuels, Earth’s Dimick, who grew up on an ronmental challenges facing carbon cycle, sustainable agricul- Oregon farm, worked at newspa- ture, and many other topics. pers in Oregon, Washington, and MARK THIESSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC In his position, he works Kentucky before joining National to provide perspective and Geographic in 1980. put complex environmental problems into context, Krishna Ella which has made him a sought- after speaker. His presenta- A scientist turned entrepreneur, tion “Where Energy and Climate Krishna Ella PhD’93 is most Meet” has earned international notably a humanitarian, supply- acclaim by focusing on the ing affordable hepatitis vaccines nexus between climate change, to millions of people around energy choices, and a sustain- the globe. able economy. Dimick Ella, who grew up in a farm- has overseen maga- ing village in India, initially stud- zine projects on energy ied agriculture before turning to Undeterred, he and climate change that molecular biology. raised funds to launch have been cited by the After earning his PhD, he Bharat Biotech International, Overseas Press Club, the returned to India in 1996. While Ltd., a company that today Society of Environmental conducting research on a yeast has supplied 1.5 billion afford- Journalists, and Pictures gene, he began to conceptual- able vaccine doses to more than the planet, but he of the Year International. ize a hepatitis vaccine. In search sixty-five countries. has chosen to combine words Along with his work of funding to get his product to Bharat Biotech’s hepati- with the power of photogra- on the magazine, Dimick has market, he was met with sus- tis plant was the initial tenant in phy, graphics, and maps to more been picture editor for a dozen picion when he proposed a India’s first biotech park, pav- richly tell these stories. As execu- National Geographic books, price of $1 per vaccine when ing the way for hundreds of tive editor for the environment at and has served on the faculty of the going rate was $35 to $40. knowledge-based industries

50 ON WISCONSIN at Genome Valley in the city of 1978 and president in 1991. Colombia’s sugar industry before Hyderabad. With GS Caltex, Hur has saving enough money to move Ella has a strong belief in the been a tireless advocate of diver- to the United States in search of power of innovation and entre- sification and sustainability. While higher education in engineering. preneurship to solve societal the company is a dominant force He found it at UW-Madison, and problems, and he has also been in oil and petrochemicals, he has today he is considered the lead- instrumental in setting up three led it into the gas, fuel cell, and ing authority in the use of poly- other biotech centers in India. renewable power industries. mers in erosion control and water Outside of work, Hur pro- clarification. In the last decade, Dong-Soo Hur motes the play of Baduk, an his research has drawn the atten- ancient board game, and he was tion of the U.S. Marine Corps, Known as “Mr. Oil,” Dong-Soo elected head of Korea’s Baduk which tasked him with Hur MS’68, PhD’71 is the guid- Association. Under his watch, developing dust-con- ing hand behind GS Caltex, the GS Caltex fielded one of the trol methods for landing nation’s most successful wom- helicopters in the 2003 en’s volleyball teams, champi- Operation Iraqi Freedom ons of the Korean Super League campaign. each year from 1991 to 1999. To further apply his technology, he formed Kamoltip Career Center, where Soil Net, a company that Payakvichien she taught farmers mod- develops and supplies ern practices of processing crops polymer-based separation tech- Her friends know her as Au and commercializing products to nology for a number of different (pronounced “Ah-o”), while help improve their way of life. applications, including vegeta- everyone else who meets In 1998, Payakvichien joined Kamoltip Payakvichien MA’71 the Universal Peace Federation, knows her as some- Thailand Chapter, where she one who is driven to worked with government offi- make her home coun- cials and religious leaders to try of Thailand a better develop peaceful solutions to place. During her time at some of her country’s prob- UW-Madison, she estab- lems. Since 2000, she has lished the Thai Students also worked with the Paveena Association of Wisconsin, Foundation to help women who oldest private oil was one of the founders have been victims of rape and company in the Republic of the Wisconsin Alumni human trafficking. of Korea. As the firm’s chair- Association of Thailand, and was man and chief executive offi- a member of the committee that Aicardo cer, he heads a corporation that helped bring the Thai Pavilion — is a leading force in the Korean one of only four located outside Roa-Espinosa energy industry, with a 30 per- of Thailand — to Olbrich Gardens The American Dream is alive cent share of that nation’s petro- in Madison. and well. Doubters need look leum market. After graduating from the no further than Aicardo Roa- Hur grew up in Seoul and UW, Payakvichien returned Espinosa MS’85, PhD’89. A studied chemical engineering to Thailand to take a job with native of Colombia, he received ble-oil and biodie- at UW-Madison before return- a leading trading company, most of his elementary educa- sel refining, erosion ing to Korea as a research Loxley Public Company, Ltd., tion in the 1950s on the road control, waste separation and engineer with the American oil and in 1976, she joined Colgate from his father, a physician who transformation, and water company Chevron. In 1973, he Palmolive. From there, her entre- was forced to continually move clarification. joined Honam Oil, the prede- preneurial spirit took over. In due to political fears. A passionate advocate for cessor to GS Caltex, and rose 1993, she opened the Wangree Roa-Espinosa earned his UW-Madison, Roa-Espinosa is through the executive ranks, Resort hotel in Nakornnayok bachelor’s degree in agron- an honorary fellow of the College becoming vice president in Province and set up the Farmer omy engineering and worked in of Agricultural & Life Sciences

SPRING 2011 51 and supports student research in Russia. She serves on the board and macroeconomic policy. collaboration with his laboratory of the University Research Park A California native, Roach in Belleville, Wisconsin. and the College of Letters & discovered economics while a Science Pathways to Excellence student at UW-Madison, and he Carol Toussaint program, and she was a founding went on to earn a PhD from New member of the UW Foundation’s York University. He has spent the Carol Toussaint ’51 has Women’s Philanthropy Council. bulk of his career as chief econ- racked up so many professional She’s also served on the WAA omist at Morgan Stanley, and and volunteer accomplishments board and its Cabinet 99 wom- more recently as chairman of the en’s advocacy group, and she’s firm’s Asian businesses, includ- been very active with the League ing a three-year stint in Hong of Women Voters and with Mad- Kong. In addition to his senior ison’s Overture Center since its fellow position at Yale, he will inception. continue his twenty-eight-year ZANE WILLIAMS These activities and a host career with Morgan Stanley in of others have led to numerous Asia and other parts of the world. awards, including an honorary Roach’s research, opinions, degree from Edgewood College and writings on globalization, the and a Distinguished Alumni emergence of China, produc- terms as its presi- Award from the UW-Madison tivity, and the macroeconomic dent, is chairman of the board School of Journalism. impacts of information technol- of directors of the University of ogy have appeared in academic Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics journals, books, and congressio- Authority, and has advocated for Stephen Roach nal testimony, and have helped some of Wisconsin’s top compa- As one of Wall Street’s shape policy from Beijing to nies and economic development most influential econo- Washington. organizations. mists, Stephen Roach ’68 His latest book, The Next But his greatest cause is per- knows a thing or two about Asia, was named the 2009 Book sonal. Two of his four children good investments. He has of the Year by China Business are afflicted by Usher Syndrome, that even she gets recently put this knowledge News — China’s equivalent of a genetic condition that leads a bit overwhelmed when list- to good use with a teaching posi- the Wall Street Journal. to blindness and hearing loss. ing them all. She’s been a tire- tion at Yale University, where he Walsh personally raised more than $1.2 million for stem-cell less advocate for women, for is developing curricula on Asia David Walsh civic leadership, and for commu- retinal research, resulting in the nity service. An attorney with Foley & Lardner establishment of a UW research An independent consultant, LLP of Madison, David Walsh program that has now garnered she’s also had several stints in BBA’65 (JD’70, Harvard) extends an additional $4 million in grants. Wisconsin state government, his expertise to fields as var- including serving as secretary of ied as telecommunications law, the Department of Local Affairs sports law, and estate plan- and Development and as dep- ning, and authoritative publica- UW Bragging Rights uty director of the Wisconsin tions such as The Best Lawyers WAA has given awards to more Strategic Development Com- in America, Chambers USA, and than three hundred distinguished mission. Since 1988, she’s Wisconsin Super Lawyers have alumni since 1936, including such owned Vantage Point, a lecture often included him in their top notables as astronaut James business that promotes network- rankings. Lovell, Jr. x’50; actress Jane ing for Madison-area women. But Walsh may be even Kaczmarek ’79; environmental- Toussaint was the first better known for his dis- ist Gaylord Nelson ’42, journalist woman elected to the board of tinguished public service Anthony Shadid ’90; and Yahoo! Wisconsin Power and Light and to Madison, the state of CEO Carol Bartz ’71. the first woman president of the Wisconsin, and the univer- Madison Rotary, and she’s lent sity. He’s been a member Wisconsin Alumni her expertise to women’s advo- of the UW Board of Regents Association: celebrating cacy groups as far afield as since 2002 and served two alumni for 150 years

52 ON WISCONSIN classnotes

early years Becker, an air force B-17 naviga- lauded for his contributions from tor in both WWII and the Korean several careers, but mainly for his Send us your news! September 30 marked the ninety- War, said of his October trip, crucial role in the development of ninth birthday of a simply amazing “This was not just for us; this was the country’s banana exports. Please share with us the (brief, woman: author and photographer for the 16 million people who The Grove Medal, which please) details of your latest Ruth Gruber Rosner MA’31 served in World War II.” recognizes a lifetime of pioneer- achievements, transitions, and of New York City. At the age Writing memoirs about their ing work on fuel cells, has gone major life events by e-mail to of twenty, she was the world’s lives in the 1940s has been the to J. (Jan) Robert Selman [email protected]; by youngest PhD, and at twenty- recent avocation of both Richard MS’62. A research professor at mail to Class Notes, Wisconsin four, she was the first journalist to Whinfield ’49, MS’53, PhD’69 the Illinois Institute of Technology Alumni Association, 650 North explore the Soviet Arctic. Rosner and Len Kube MS’66. Whinfield, in Chicago, Selman holds six pat- Lake Street, Madison, WI 53706- later escorted Holocaust refugees of Ellington, Connecticut, doc- ents, among which are the basic 1476; or by fax to (608) 265-8771. to America in a secret, wartime umented his experiences in the patents for phase-change mate- We have the “good problem” of mission for FDR, and the photos South Pacific during WWII in rial in lithium-ion batteries. receiving many more submissions she took of them aboard the ship My War (Xlibris), and Kube, of The headline “Renowned than we can include, but we love Exodus 1947 became the con- San Diego, has written Lessons Corn Breeder Joins Seed to hear from you nonetheless. science of the world. She’s now Learned: How Family and Farm Consultants” tipped us off that the subject of a new documen- Life in the 1940s Provided a Dave (Devender) Nanda Please e-mail death notices tary, Ahead of Time. Guide to Success. PhD’64 is the new director of and all address, name, tele- A big Badger “Happy birth- At age seventy-nine, Don genetics and technology at Seed phone, and e-mail updates to day!” goes out to Dick Engholdt Hoeppner ’53 of Whitewater is a Consultants in Washington Court [email protected]; ’33 of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Senior Olympic Hall of House, Ohio. Having worked in mail them to Alumni Changes, who reached the century mark Famer with more athletic prowess India, Argentina, and Europe, he Wisconsin Alumni Association, in December. A member of the than many folks have at thirty. At takes a world of knowledge to the 650 North Lake Street, Madison, Triangle Fraternity and a former the state’s last Senior Olympics eastern Corn Belt. WI 53706-1476; fax them to (608) lieutenant in the army’s Signal alone, he racked up five gold Collaborative printmaking 262-3332; or call them in to (608) Corps, he’s a retired VP of Erie medals, four silvers, and three formed the beginning of a career 262-9648 or toll free to (888) Manufacturing Company. bronzes. Next up? Playing on for Richard Royce ’64, MS’65 947-2586. Wisconsin’s first eighty-plus bas- of McMinnville, Oregon. From ketball team — plus doubles ten- there he opened Atelier Royce 40s-50s Most obituary listings of WAA nis and volleyball — at the 2011 and spent a quarter-century mak- members and friends appear B-movie fans who attended the Senior Olympic National Games. ing prints and creating artworks in in the Badger Insider, WAA’s Wisconsin Film Festival this fall Daniel Pfannstiel PhD’59 etching and cast paper for other member publication. had a big treat — Mr. B.I.G., that of College Station, Texas, says artists. His own work appears is. For the uninitiated, he’s Bert that his best work over his forty- in seven museums and thirteen x-planation: An x preceding a I. Gordon x’44 (thus, B.I.G.), a two-year career with the Texas books as well, including the new degree year indicates that the master of making films featur- AgriLife Extension Service was sci-fi work The Last Wolves of individual did not complete, or ing large, mutated creatures: the Expanded Food and Nutrition Mars (Bank House Books). has not yet completed, the degree Earth vs. the Spider, Beginning of Program, which educated under- A five-year grant from the at UW–Madison. the End, The Food of the Gods, served people about better nutri- National Institute of Deafness and Empire of the Ants, The Amazing tion. Now a Texas A&M University Other Communication Disorders Colossal Man, and Satan’s director emeritus and professor that weighs in at more than ® Princess, among others. He was emeritus, he’s been named to the $1.4 million has gone to princi- The Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) encourages diversity, in Madison from California to International Adult and Continuing pal investigator Donald Caspary inclusivity, nondiscrimination, and present one of his favorite Education Hall of Fame for 2010. ’65, a research scientist and participation by all alumni, students, creations, The Magic Sword. professor of pharmacology at and friends of the UW in its activities. Ken Becker ’49 of Lodi, 60s Southern Illinois University School Wisconsin, is among those who of Medicine in Springfield. His have taken a Badger Honor Flight Marshall McGowan Hall studies of age-related hearing loss — a national effort to trans- PhD’61 was one of five people may aid in the development of port America’s veterans, free of to earn the Order of Jamaica drugs to treat the problem. charge, to Washington, D.C., at the 2010 Jamaican National In gratitude for his dedication where they visit memorials and Honours and Awards Ceremony to the UW’s School of Journalism are honored for their sacrifices. in October. Hall, of Kingston, was & Mass Communication, professor

SPRING 2011 53 classnotes

emeritus Jim Hoyt ’65, MS’67, PhD’70 of Middleton, Wisconsin, Madelon Rosenfeld ’71: Staying Sharp as a Fencing Champion now has a room to call his own. The school renovated Vilas Hall’s IRA BLOCK During her workday, Madelon Rosenfeld ’71 alternates room 2195, added a state-of-the- between hearing cases that come before the New York City art multi-media system, and dedi- Environmental Control Board and arbitrating for the Financial cated it to Hoyt in a fall ceremony. Industry Regulatory Authority. When she hangs up her judge’s He served as a professor from robes, the sixty-one-year-old puts on a white fencing jacket 1973 until 2002, and as director of and assumes the mantle of a national fencing champion. the J-School from 1981 until 1991. Rosenfeld has always been competitive, but her early Fred Barbash ’67 has focus was on academics and social justice. “In Madison, been called “one of Washington’s the only exercise I got was during anti-war marches,” she most experienced editors.” Once says. “I’ve gotten more physically active in the second half a national reporter, Supreme of my life.” Court correspondent, London When she moved to New York in 1986 to be with her bureau chief, national editor, future husband, National Geographic photographer Ira Block, and business editor for the she did some freelance writing, created a television produc- Washington Post, he’s also taught tion company, and worked to become a member of the New at Northwestern, written books, York State Bar Association. And once while Block was away and served as senior editor at on an eight-week photo shoot in Africa, Rosenfeld decided to Politico. And what now? He’s the join a gym. new deputy managing editor of That’s when she began to develop her inner athlete. CQ Weekly for CQ-Roll Call. “I started running. I learned to swim. I lift weights. I do yoga,” By day, Madelon Rosenfeld is a judge, and Felicitations to Russell she says. “Then somebody I worked with mentioned that by night, she’s a world-class fencer. Gordon MFA’67, MA’67, he’d started fencing at a club near where I lived. It sounded who writes that he was “cel- intriguing.” ebrated with a forty-year sur- But fencing did not come easily to Rosenfeld. “I have no sense of timing, but I refused to give up,” vey” of his artistic work this fall at she says. “I kept going and going and going.” She pushed herself hard and then found a coach trained in the Stewart Hall Center and the Kazakhstan who pushed her even harder. She now has two coaches: one for facing right-handed opponents McClure Art Gallery, both in his and one for lefties, who are harder to beat. home city of Montréal, Québec. The hard work has certainly paid off. Last summer, just a decade after her first fencing class, Rosenfeld For his accomplishments as won all three national tournaments in her category of women aged sixty to sixty-nine, and found herself the deputy principal investiga- fencing for the U.S.A. in Croatia, where she placed eighth in the world and first in America. tor of the Kepler space mission, “I had to remind myself that I’d trained hard, and I deserved this. My problem is that I start to feel bad David Koch ’67 has received for my opponent,” she says. “I was fencing a woman from France, and I was ahead 4 to 0. I felt bad that she NASA’s 2010 Exceptional didn’t have a point. As soon as I thought that, she got a point. That made me mad at myself, and I beat her Achievement Medal and is shar- 5 to 1. ing the American Astronomical “Fencing,” says Rosenfeld, “makes you sharper. You have to focus, or you’re going to get hit. I’ve had a Society’s first Lancelot M. finger broken and a couple of bruised ribs — guys in their forties who don’t want to be beaten by a woman Berkeley-New York Community can hit pretty hard.” Rosenfeld knows now that she can hit hard, too. She’s set her sights on the next world Trust Prize for Meritorious Work competition in Bulgaria, but she knows there is more to life than fencing. in Astronomy with principal “I would like to try ice hockey,” she says. “And somebody from Yahoo! called me. They want to investigator William Borucki feature me on their Second Act Web site [which features videos of people over forty who have reinvented ’60, MS’62. Thomson Reuters’ themselves], but I’m not ready for that. I feel like I’m still in the previews.” ScienceWatch has also deter- Denise Thornton ’82, MA’08 mined that Koch’s paper in the April 20, 2010, issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters has been the most cited in all catego- he’s currently at the helm of the approaches, Augsburg is suc- for Excellence this fall in the ries of emerging research fronts. Augsburg Fairview Academy in ceeding and changing lives. Philippines. As the first Filipino Bill Spira ’68, MS’72, Minneapolis, which focuses on William Torillo Torres to obtain a PhD in computer sci- PhD’74 has had a varied career students who feel disenfran- MS’68, PhD’71 was one of two ence from the UW, Torres co- in academia, the nonprofit arena, chised. Through Spira’s lead- people to receive the Outstanding founded and was president of and the corporate world, but ership and the school’s novel Oriental Negrense Award Mosaic Communications, the

54 ON WISCONSIN largest Internet service provider 70s When U.S. immigration judge Patrice Federspiel ’77, who Madelon Rosenfeld ’71: Staying Sharp as a Fencing Champion in the country. He’s known as the Paul Wickham Schmidt JD’73 first visited Hawaii in 2000, and “Father of the Philippine Internet.” If you tried to explain what received the Briggs Distinguished within five months, had moved to The Soil Science Society Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Alumni Achievement Award from Honolulu to paint full time. She of America’s Soil Science Know? radio program is really Lawrence University in June, his enjoyed her recent role as the Professional Service Award (say about, you might be tempted to citation lauded his dedication “signature artist” at the state’s that three times quickly) has say, “Not much” — just as the to “ensuring justice for individu- Haleiwa Art Festival. gone to Lee Sommers MS’69, audience responds to the punch als coming to the United States Craig Stanke ’77 of Coral PhD’71. Associate dean of the line that its Madison-based host, with the hope of experiencing Springs, Florida, wins the Brevity College of Agricultural Sciences Michael Feldman ’70, deliv- the American Dream.” Schmidt Award for this issue: his concise and director of the Agricultural ers at the start of each week’s serves in Arlington, Virginia. submission states that he’s Experiment Station at Colorado show. Nonetheless, his nearly 1 Katherine Arndt ’74’s deputy managing editor in charge State University in Fort Collins, million listeners nationwide love deep knowledge of Alaska’s of the writing staff at CBSSports. he’s served as the society’s the way that he riffs on the news, history has made her an excellent com, where he’s worked since president and co-chaired the quizzes audience members, and choice for her new roles as Alaska 1997. He spent the previous 2006 Soils World Congress. interviews guests, and they cele- and polar regions bibliographer, two decades at newspapers in Madisonian Robert brated the show’s silver anniver- curator of rare books, and assis- Wisconsin and Florida, and at the Townsend ’69 flew 175 sary in August. Whad’ya know?! tant professor at the University of Los Angeles Times. combat missions during the Wayne Nilsestuen MA’72, Alaska-Fairbanks. Wilmot James MS’78, Vietnam War, worked with MS’72 will bring more than thirty Cardiologist Richard PhD’82 is certainly making the National Security Agency, years of development experience Heuser MD’76 has been named his voice heard. He’s one of and served as deputy chief working in Asia, Africa, and Latin a Phoenix Business Journal South Africa’s most internation- of the Air Force Intelligence America to bear on his new role Health Care Hero, but that seems ally prominent sociologists, and Agency’s counter-deception as director of the U.S. Agency for like an understatement about a after just a couple of years as a directorate. But these are not International Development’s mis- man who co-developed the first Democratic Alliance member of the subjects of his novel, Spirit sion in Bolivia. His most recent catheter treatment for leakage parliament, he’s become the Falls (Smashwords). Instead, posts were as mission director in of the mitral valve, which is used party’s new federal chair. Townsend’s coming-of-age Guatemala and Paraguay. in a fifth of the angioplasty pro- And speaking of South story begins in 1959 in northern The Commodity Futures cedures performed globally. In Africa … Among the four solo- Wisconsin and tells a tale of Exchange Commission’s 1999, he was dubbed the top ists who performed at the major “childhood friendship … growing Technology Advisory Committee cardiologist in the Columbia HCA jazz festivals in Durban and into profound love.” is richer for the addition of (Jon) System — the largest hospital Johannesburg in October was a Two Badgers have been Michael Gorham MS’73, system worldwide. woman who’s “accepted around nominated by President PhD’76, who also served as the There must have been a giant the world as a top jazz pianist,” is Obama to fill administration commission’s first director of sigh of relief in California this fall a “composer of note,” and “can posts: Martha Wagner market oversight. Today he’s an when Hilda Yao MA’76, execu- swing as well”: Lynne Bernstein Weinberg MA’69 as a member industry professor and director of tive director of the Claire Giannini Arriale ’79 of Jacksonville of the National Council on the IIT Stuart Center for Financial Education Fund, pledged $1.3 Beach, Florida. In 1993, Arriale the Humanities, and Ted Markets at Chicago’s Illinois million from the fund to fulfill every won the International Great Beck MBA’76 as part of the Institute of Technology. request filed by one of the state’s American Jazz Piano Competition President’s Advisory Council University of Missouri- teachers through DonorsChoose. and began leading her own trio. on Financial Capability. St. Louis professor Kathleen org, a site that allows educators The roster of Badgers serving Weinberg is an author, former Butterly Nigro ’73 has earned to request classroom supplies as university presidents or chan- MIT political science professor, a Governor’s Humanities Award and project subsidies. There was cellors has gained a new mem- and consultant who lives in in Exemplary Community even $100,000 left over to help ber: Royce Engstrom PhD’79 Brookline, Massachusetts. Beck Achievement from the Missouri teachers in other states. Yao, of has stepped up from provost is the president and CEO of Humanities Council. It honors San Francisco, has also estab- to president of the University of the National Endowment for her work with cultural and liter- lished the Dorothy and Hsin-Nung Montana in Missoula. Financial Education in Denver ary events, but especially for co- Yao Fund in her parents’ names and a member of WAA’s board. founding ReadMOre, a statewide to honor outstanding educators in 80s He was previously the associate reading initiative. “The humani- the UW’s Department of History. dean of executive education and ties are the expressions of what “I paint with passion, live Daniel Finley ’80 is cred- corporate relations at the UW’s it means to be human,” Nigro without regrets, and move joyfully ited with turning around the Wisconsin School of Business. says. forward through life,” declares Milwaukee Public Museum as it

SPRING 2011 55 classnotes

faced the worst financial crisis in Mark Ehrmann ’82, JD’85, of professor of (yes) real estate. member of the Baird Foundation its history. Now he’s gone to Los the firm’s Madison office, has Among the Badgers who board and the Wisconsin Alumni Angeles to lead the Autry National been elected chair of Forward are doing good work — and Association’s national board. Center as its president and CEO Wisconsin, a nonprofit created good works — in Afghanistan To those who scoff at English in its “continuing commitment to to foster economic develop- are Colonel Darrel Feucht ’85, majors, scoff no more: former exploring the experiences and ment in the state; and Natalie who’s leading a team of agricul- English major Tim Gilbert ’88 perceptions of the diverse Kartes Remington ’00, of the ture experts from Wisconsin’s is the chair of iVideosongs — peoples of the American West.” Milwaukee office, is the new Army and Air National Guard a firm whose videos teach view- Profiles in Diversity Journal president-elect of the Association units to assist Afghan farmers ers how to play music — as well listed Ellen Becker Friedler ’80 for Women Lawyers. and contractors. Colonel Marty as the chief marketing officer in its ninth annual Women Worth Antonio Romanucci ’82 Leppert ’82 supports that effort, (CMO) and senior VP at Campus Watching special issue. She’s the — a principal and partner at the too, as the assistant to the direc- Management, a software com- chair of the commercial leasing Chicago law firm of Romanucci tor of the Army National Guard’s pany in Boca Raton, Florida. The practice group at the Neal, Gerber & Blandin — wore his tuxedo Afghan agribusiness devel- Chief Marketing Officer Institute & Eisenberg law firm in Chicago. a lot this fall. He chaired the opment program. And navy has also named Gilbert a 2010 In 1901, Everitt Ormsby Italian American Chamber of Commander Keith Stuessi CMO of the Year. So there. Hokes founded and devoted the Commerce’s gala and awards MD’92 is establishing sports- Marketing firm Hoffman York Hokes Archives to the “fabrica- dinner, received the Excellence medicine clinics in southern has tapped Michael Rivera ’88 tion and documentation of rare in Leadership Award from the Afghanistan to treat mild trauma as the new executive creative and unusual cultural artifacts.” Circuit Court of Cook County, and and concussions. director who will oversee cre- Overseeing its collections accepted the Moses Harrison II Three-time cancer survivor ative work in its Chicago office, today — including those in the Award from the Justinian Society Kathleen Mydlach Bero ’86 as well as interactive creative “creative zoology” arena — is of Lawyers for his dedication to of Watertown, Wisconsin, believes efforts agencywide. He most director Beauvais Lyons ’80, improving the Italian-American that eating the right foods has recently held the same title at who also has a serious side: he’s condition and community. been part of her recovery. Now Agency.com. a professor of art who specializes Ann Thoemke Wagner she’s working to cultivate that Dianne Soffa JD’88, in printmaking at the University of ’83’s creativity has bloomed into belief in others as the founder MFA’98 shares a tale about Tennessee in Knoxville. Recycling with Arnie and Bing of NuGenesis Farm, a prototype some MFA students who were CNBC senior correspondent (CreateSpace Publishers) — organic farm where she and her “reminded of the standards of Scott Cohn ’81 has earned a rhyming children’s book and volunteers will grow edibles with excellence that prevail everyone of the highest honors in corresponding curriculum about the strongest disease-prevention where at our alma mater and its business journalism: a 2010 a pickle jar and lemonade can that properties. Bero is also adding associated institutions” when Gerald Loeb Award for outstand- go through the real-world recy- an education center, demonstra- one of their family members ing coverage of a breaking cling process. Wagner lives tion kitchen, produce sales, and received care at the UW Hospital. business story — in Cohn’s case, in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. research efforts. Afterward, they wanted to give the Bernard Madoff scandal. Best wishes to navy Captain David Flatley MA’87, exec- back. Their method was creat- The awards are presented annu- Timothy Werre ’83, who’s utive director of Columbia College ing and selling tiny works of art at ally by UCLA’s Anderson School retired from active duty after Chicago’s Center for Community the Gallery Night and Day Benefit of Management. Cohn lives in thirty-three years of service. His Arts Partnerships, met Michelle at Milwaukee’s Safi Studios in Sleepy Hollow, New York. most recent post was at the Fort Obama during a White House cer- October, and then donating the Since 1980, Victor Barnett Schuyler Naval Reserve Education emony in October. That’s when proceeds to the UW’s Carbone ’82 and his Running Rebels Center in Bronx, New York. he accepted a 2010 National Arts Comprehensive Cancer Center. Community Organization have Elaine Worzala ’84, MS’85, and Humanities Youth Program Hearty congratulations to been dedicated to “developing PhD’92 can add CRE after her Award from her on behalf of his Richard Dahm ’89 of Brooklyn, Milwaukee’s youth mentally, name, now that she’s earned center’s Community Schools New York, who took home an physically, and spiritually.” He the Counselor of Real Estate Initiative. The center has also Emmy Award in August for began with no building, staff, or credential from the international been chosen as a best-practices outstanding writing in a variety, budget, but by 2007, a staff of Counselors of Real Estate. site for quality after-school arts. music, or comedy series for nearly ninety was reaching more She’s the director of Clemson We send a big “Way to go!” his work on Comedy Central’s than 1,500 at-risk youth through a [South Carolina] University’s to Milwaukeean Peter Kies ’87, Colbert Report. variety of programs. Barnett is Pennell Center for Real Estate MS’89. He’s the new co-head of Division of labor is such a a hero to us! Development, interim director the equity capital markets team good concept that Division of Two Quarles & Brady of its Master of Real Estate at Baird, an international asset- Labor is the name of the new, San attorneys are taking charge: Development program, and a management firm. Kies is also a Francisco-based “creative and

56 ON WISCONSIN need for one flat fee. Ben Weiner ’06 and Kelly Korevec ’06: Partnership in Motion Steve Moscarelli ’90 shared his enthusiasm for his SETH AFFOUMADO alma mater — he’s missed the When Ben Weiner ’06 and Kelly Korevec UW’s Homecoming festivities ’06 quit their jobs in October 2007 to become only twice in twenty-five years Web entrepreneurs, they arrived in Silicon (while living in Madrid) — as well Valley by way of suburban Milwaukee. as an update: he’s the VP of The Brookfield home of Korevec’s parents sales for the Americas for Tufin became the launching pad for dailymile Technologies of Ramat-Gan, (dailymile.com), a social-networking site for Israel, and is active in WAA’s runners, cyclists, and triathletes. With alumni chapter in his home Korevec’s folks away for the winter, the two community of Boston. men moved in and toiled through the Badger Speaking of WAA chap- State’s harshest season to develop the ters, Joseph Sholler ’90 is a big dot-com idea that they’d hatched during their cheese in New York City’s Big senior year. “We’d stay up working until four or Apple Badgers chapter, having five in the morning every night,” Korevec says. earned a 2010 WAA Sparkplug Three years later, Weiner and Korevec live Runners Kelly Korevec and Ben Weiner created Award for his work and dedica- in San Francisco and operate a rapidly grow- dailymile.com, a social networking site for athletes. tion. He’s also been appointed ing site that allows active types to share training president of the Wisconsin regimens, exchange tips, and motivate each other. The dailymile site has now reached nearly two hundred Eastern Alumni Scholarship Fund, thousand members and is adding some three thousand new members per week, according to its founders. which helps financially disadvan- “Every workout has a story behind it,” Weiner says. “Dailymile is all about sharing those stories.” taged minority students from New Korevec adds, “We see people get on the site and talk about doing their first 5K. A few months later, York to attend UW-Madison. they’re talking about doing their first marathon.” If you’ve never heard of litiga- Friends since their freshman year at the UW, Weiner and Korevec began running together as sopho- tion graphics, let Daniel Bender mores. They shared an apartment as seniors, when Weiner, a computer-science major, and Korevec, an art ’91 explain: they’re illustrations major, began collaborating on small Web projects and brainstorming larger possibilities. “We were really and animations that lawyers use excited about doing something together and starting a business,” Korevec says. “And we always had these during trials to support state- big ideas for things we could possibly do.” ments and testimony. Bender is Although Weiner says exposure to diverse ideas at Wisconsin encouraged the pair to explore the managing director of litiga- entrepreneurship, both felt pressure to get “real jobs” after graduating. But during their first year in the tion graphics and business devel- workforce — Weiner as a Chicago software developer and Korevec as a Salt Lake City illustrator — they opment at Digital Evidence Group revisited their senior-year aspirations. “We both found that [work] was less rewarding than we’d hoped and in Washington, D.C., and his arti- that we weren’t challenged,” Korevec says. “So we went back to those original ideas and said, ‘We should cle “The Art of Advocacy Design” do this. What do we have to lose?’ ” appeared in the Fall/Winter By keeping overhead low, living frugally, and working part-time consulting jobs, Weiner and Korevec 2010 issue of the American Bar have funded dailymile themselves, keeping the site free to users. Recent sponsorship deals have allowed Association’s Verdict. the duo to operate dailymile full time, and they hope to build a sustainable revenue model and hire a The National Council on support team. Disability has welcomed Aaron “I couldn’t have been happier making the decision to do this,” Weiner says. “And looking back, I know Bishop ’94, ’95, MS’00 of it was absolutely the right decision, even though it’s a little difficult to make that jump initially.” Silver Spring, Maryland, as its Mike Cullity new executive director. The agency advises the president, Congress, and federal officials strategic brand studio” that Josh 90s recession has progressed, more on policies affecting people Denberg ’89 has co-founded to people have turned to entrepre- with disabilities, and it furthers function as a collective: it will part- The Great Recession has, in neurial ventures — and to him for the goals of the Americans with ner with various professionals as fact, been kind of great for John legal advice. That led Gerber to Disabilities Act of 1990. A 2010 each project dictates. Denberg Gerber JD’90, a Philadelphia found UpstartLegal.com, a Web winner of WAA’s Forward under was most recently an executive attorney whose law firm, Gerber site designed to help entrepre- 40 award, Bishop was previously creative director at McCann San Growth, specializes in early-stage neurs help themselves with all an adviser to Senator Michael Francisco. and growing companies. As the of the legal documents that they Enzi (R-WY).

SPRING 2011 57 The Professional Engineers career honors for communica- to Nathaniel Altfeather ’03, its original Bop store in Madison. in Private Practice — a divi- tions scholars. MS’05. He’s the engineering Katherine Ball ’06 and Alec sion of the National Society of Which Badger is featured in manager of the Focus on Energy Neal, owners of the Sea Change Professional Engineers — has the book How They Did It: Billion- Industrial Program at R.W. Beck Gallery in Portland, Oregon, elected Mark Davy ’94 as its Dollar Insights from the Heart in Madison. began a bicycling odyssey in new chair. He’s vice president of of America (RedFlash Press)? An August New York Daily August that included filming a Davy Engineering, a consulting That would be Roland Green News story reasoned that documentary about innovative, engineering firm headquartered PhD’99, co-founder of Madison’s because Matthew Lenahan local solutions to climate change. in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Nimblegen. Author Robert Jordan ’03 has been surviving — and They completed their cycling in Rob Hershenson ’94 did interviewed the Midwest’s most even thriving — as a real estate Washington, D.C.; took a train it all during his UW student days: noteworthy company founders broker in the “cement jungle” of to Florida; and sailed to Cancún, he was a Bucky Badger mascot, and compiled their wisdom for New York City, he could probably Mexico, for the 2010 United served on WAA’s Homecoming the rest of us. survive as a contestant in the real Nations Climate Conference. Committee, and drove the Bucky Expectant mothers have a rea- jungle of Nicaragua during the Self-proclaimed tuba nerd Wagon. These days he lives in sonable number of fashion options, latest season of CBS’ Survivor. Joshua Cutchin ’07 of Athens, Stevenson Ranch, California, and but Erin Smith Rutman ’99 of He did very well, placing third. Georgia, formed the Half Dozen was recently promoted to VP of Highland Park, Illinois, believes that As a project coordinator Brass Band — a New Orleans- marketing operations and creative fathers should have a little pater- for the International Women’s style, “Dixie funk” brass band services at Universal Music Group nity wear, too. That’s why she’s Development Agency in Cam- — in 2008. Its first album, Easy Distribution. “given birth” to her BellyMan line of bodia, Kristen Rasmussen Street, includes an ode to Timothy Mantel ’94 vintage-inspired due-date T-shirts MIPA’03 is helping to prevent Madison (where Otis Redding was pleased to announce the for expectant dads. maiming and death caused by died) called “Where Otis Went.” following, and so are we: as a six- UW art department staffers the land mines that are still in the Quarterly magazines are teen-year employee of the Target Michael Velliquette MA’99, country. She’s empowered women rarely accused of being timely, Corporation in Minneapolis, he’s MFA’00 and Julie Ganser ’00, to become involved in mine-clear- so we think that it’s not too late been named president of Target MA’02, MFA’03 must have had ance planning and organized a to share that Chicagoan Adam Sourcing Services. In his new their hands full as the curators of rap-music competition to inform Hoge ’08 wrote for, edited, role, Mantel will lead more than the October here and NOW and young men about the dangers of published, and marketed a 128- two thousand employees around then juried exhibition of current unexploded ordnance. page football preview magazine the world who locate and respon- work by past UW art students: New Yorker Jason this past summer called Badger sibly import merchandise. a whopping 165 grads from five Schumacher ’03 is the man on Kickoff 2010 (Maple Street Press). With creations at “the inter- decades, worldwide, in a wide the flying trapeze — sort of — as His writing staff also included section between graphic design range of media submitted work a director for ZFX Flying Effects: Jon McNamara ’07, Benjamin and home textiles,” Madisonian for review. Part of Illuminate, he travels the world to devise Worgull ’07, Jake Harris ’09, Heather Lins ’95 launched an UW-Madison’s Year of the Arts flying choreography, set up stage Tom Lea ’09, and Michael eponymous home-textile line in 2010-11 celebration, the alumni rigging for theatrical flying effects, Bleach ’10. 2008. Now her “Science Project” exhibit was the first held in the and train performers to use the Badgers were well repre- pillow collection and an exclusive campus’s new Art Lofts Gallery. equipment. He landed the gig sented in the November New design were the cover subjects when his UW theater background, York City Marathon: Tim Nelson of the August/September issue of 2000s martial-arts training, and stunt ’08 of Portland, Oregon, placed Readymade magazine. and fight-direction capabilities thirteenth (and fourth among U.S. The winner of the 2010 Actor Ian Anthony Dale ’00 were noticed by ZFX at a work- finishers), while Matt Downin Krieghbaum Under-40 Award appeared this fall on NBC’s serial shop on flying and fighting. ’00 of Edina, Minnesota, placed from the Association for The Event as the character Simon “What Do Girls Want?” read eighteenth (and seventh among Education in Journalism and Lee, but it was hardly his first role. an August New York Times head- American finishers). Hopes were Mass Communication is Dietram Following film study at the UW, line, and what they want, it seems, high for Simon Bairu ’07 — a Scheufele MA’97, PhD’99. he worked on production crews is exactly what Kate Ciepluch Canadian national-record holder The UW professor of life sciences in L.A. and began landing roles ’04 and her buying team at in the 10,000 meters — but he communication also received the on TV and in films (Mr. 3000, The Shopbop know all about. She’s collapsed near mile 23 of the Young Scholar Award from the Bucket List, and The Hangover). the fashion director of the New 26.2 mile-course. International Communications The Association of Energy York-based online retailer, and you Tenor James Kryshak Association in 2004, making Engineers’ Region III 2010 Young might say that Ciepluch “heard it MMusic’09 has certainly made him only the second person to Energy Professional of the here first”: as a UW freshman, she the UW School of Music proud: earn both of the two major early- Year Award (whew!) has gone began working for the company in he reached the semi-final round

58 ON WISCONSIN of the Metropolitan Opera’s national auditions in February Calendar 2009, and now he’s joined the Lyric Opera of Chicago as an apprentice artist. Bravo! March New Yorker Abby Sears ’09 30–April 3 Wisconsin Film Festival is the new associate producer for Choose from a broad range of some two hundred independent American and international movies, the Fox News Channel program restorations, and revivals, as well as locally made pictures from Wisconsin filmmakers. • wifilmfest.org On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. She appeared on the show and met host Greta Van April while reporting for Susteren ’76 14–16 UW Engineering Expo the Daily Cardinal on the homicide This campus event brings together K–12 students, families, faculty, staff, students, and industry of Brittany Zimmermann x’09, representatives for a hands-on look at the world of engineering. • engineeringexpo.wisc.edu and an internship and production-assistant position ensued. In 14–16 UW Varsity Band Concerts the new post, Sears will handle all Join music lovers at the Kohl Center in Madison for a live performance by the Varsity Band, which is media requests for the program. celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. Shows include awe-inspiring pyrotechnics, nationally known guest artists, a salute to Motown melodies, and favorites from the hit TV show Glee. • badgerband.com 10s or (608) 265-4120 15–17 New Union South Grand Opening The goal of the nonprofit You’re invited to a special weekend of events as the new Union South opens its doors with giveaways, Admission Possible is to make free food, a night of music in Varsity Hall, and much more. • newunion.wisc.edu college admission and success possible for promising low- income students. Jarett Fields th Anniversary MA’10 has joined the effort as the first program coordinator in WAA150 Celebration Events its Milwaukee office, and his Throughout 2011, the Wisconsin Alumni Association will celebrate 150 years of alumni achieve- background working with the ments and service to the UW — and all alumni and friends are invited to join the festivities. UW’s PEOPLE and Posse programs has provided an excellent Founders’ Days foundation. Admission Possible Celebrate UW-Madison’s beginnings, honor your community’s Badger of the Year, hear from has also given Jordan Scheid celebrated faculty, and be part of a special WAA 150th anniversary commemoration at a Founders’ ’08 its Idealistic Leader of the Day event in your area. Year award for her work with the April 28–May 1 Alumni Weekend organization through AmeriCorps. Meet distinguished alumni, explore the Year of the Arts across campus, and enjoy a Friday night She’s now pursuing a master’s fish fry and an exclusive alumni party at WAA’s 150th anniversary Alumni Weekend celebration. degree at Florida State University in Tallahassee. June 23 WAA Birthday Celebration Fun, family-centered birthday parties in honor of WAA’s sesquicentennial are planned on campus and in chapters throughout the United States, featuring cake and WAA’s commemorative ice UW Bragging Rights cream, Mad Grad Medley, made specially by the Babcock Dairy. On Wisconsin (then called July 26–29 International Convocation Wisconsin Alumni Magazine) All alumni are invited to the International Convocation, a celebration of published its first Class Note UW-Madison’s leadership as a global university, at the new Wisconsin Institutes (then called Individual News) in for Discovery Town Center. October 1899. That first item noted that George Stoner x1857 October 14 Anniversary Gala had returned to Madison after a Make plans to attend a grand, festive campus event to coincide with Homecoming, which two-year stay in California. will be celebrating its centennial. Stay tuned for more details. Wisconsin Alumni For more information on these events, call (888) WIS-ALUM or visit uwalumni.com/150. Association: celebrating alumni for 150 years.

SPRING 2011 59 bookshelf

disability that diminished her prospects for what a personal DNA code is and how even independent living — until she began to a few differences in that long chain make compete, win, and bloom through Special each person an individual. Johnston is a Olympics. Hoffman, now retired, was a professor and chair of the Department of longtime policy advocate for the Wisconsin Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the Council on Developmental Disabilities; Kann University of Colorado School of Medicine is a storyteller, juggler, magician, and work- in Denver and editor-in-chief of Genetics. shop presenter. ■ Mary Clare O’Brian is an ordinary girl who ■ “It is a bold, struggles to understand God’s will in the ambitious book, midst of her large family’s troubles and the beautifully written and Vietnam War. She decides that becoming a ■ There certainly are some big, beautiful uncompromising in its saint — and having the ear of God — surely residences in our state, which Zane social-justice agenda.” couldn’t hurt. Her story is told in (Mary) Williams ’71 of Madison has masterfully This is just one of the Elizabeth Fixmer MS’78’s debut work photographed for Wisconsin’s Own: Twenty pieces of hefty praise of fiction for middle-graders, Saint Training Remarkable Homes (Wisconsin Historical for Radicalizing Learn- (Zonderkidz). Fixmer, of Madison, spent Society Press), by M. Caren Connolly and ing: Adult Education for twenty years as a child psychotherapist. Louis Wasserman. From 1,500 potential a Just World (Jossey- ■ You’ve got to check structures considered, the book tells the Bass), co-authored by out Chicagoan Patrick stories of the people behind the façades John Holst ’88. He’s an associate profes- Somerville ’01’s third of these architectural masterworks. sor in the Department of Leadership, Policy, book: The Universe in and Administration at the University of St. ■ For “everyone who’s Miniature in Miniature Thomas in Minneapolis. concerned with the (Featherproof Books). deeper issues of life, ■ Martha Taylor ’71 has captured her It’s a “genre-busting yet struggles with body of wisdom as a pioneer in women’s book of short stories” day-to-day time time- philanthropy in a book she’s co-authored, from this winner of the management needs,” Women and Philanthropy: Boldly Shaping a 21st Century Award Pamela Kristan ’68 Better World (Jossey-Bass). Taylor is a vice (for his 2009 novel, The has linked the spiritual president of the UW Foundation in Madison; Cradle). A limited- with the practical in a co-founder of the foundation’s Women’s edition cover even Awakening in Time: Philanthropy Council (the first women’s turns into a mobile of Somerville’s mini uni- Practical Time Management for Those on major-gift program at a coed university) and verse! Little, Brown and Company has also a Spiritual Path (Dog Ear Publishing). She’s the Women’s Philanthropy Institute; and the purchased his fourth book, Good Sense. a teacher and consultant in Jamaica Plain, first female VP in development in the Big Ten. ■ In Congressional Ambivalence: The Massachusetts. ■ Mission Expansion in Political Burdens of Constitutional Authority ■ From the photos, notes, and memories the Federal Home Loan (University Press of Kentucky), Jasmine that Neal Ulevich ’68 of Denver collected Bank System (SUNY Farrier ’92 demonstrates how Congress as a “diversion from the grim work of com- Press) is nothing if not both desires power and cedes it, and bat photographer and photo editor,” he’s relevant and timely, examines how this ambivalence affects created The Polaroid Portraits: Indochina and it’s the work of the legislative process. She’s an associate 1972–1975 (blurb.com). Ulevich spent Mark Cassell MA’92, professor of political science at the Univer- decades working for the Associated Press MA’94, PhD’98 and sity of Louisville. in Asia and won a 1977 Pulitzer Prize for his Susan Hoffmann ■ Danielle McGuire ’97, MA’99’s coverage of a violent political confrontation PhD’98. He’s an assis- first book has already received plenty of in Bangkok. tant professor of politi- prestigious press. It’s At the Dark End of cal science at Kent [Ohio] State University; ■ Madisonians Caroline Hoffman MA’71 the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resis- she’s a professor of political science at and Bob Kann ’75, PhD’82 have shared tance — A New History of the Civil Rights Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. the life of an inspirational activist with Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of young readers in Cindy Bentley: Spirit of ■ In Genetic Twists of Fate (MIT Press), co- Black Power (Knopf). The author is an a Champion (Wisconsin Historical Society author (Henry) Mark Johnston ’74 uses assistant professor of history at Detroit’s Press). Bentley was born with an intellectual an accessible and engaging style to explain Wayne State University.

60 ON WISCONSIN sifting &winnowing BARRY ROAL CARLSEN Changing Courses Carla Davidson ’62

In 1958, my freshman year, I arrived on campus after traveling from New York City to Chicago on the Twentieth-Century Limited, then catching the Milwaukee Road to Madison, about an eighteen- hour journey. My dorm, Hampton House, was on Langdon Street — fraternity and sorority row — and in that golden September light, I felt I had landed on a movie set. As I watched the clean-cut occupants of those houses greet one another after a summer’s absence, the college-themed musical Good News, starring June Allyson and Peter Lawford, came to mind. The scene was both enticingly alien and welcoming, and I could almost hear strains of “Varsity Drag.” I had been drawn to Madison because I wanted to leave New York, at least for a while; because I could start out in Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS); and because I could later major in what was then prosaically called speech (now theater and drama). The theater, and especially backstage life, had been my passion, helped along by the fact that my father was a tele- I eased into my new major in the most relaxed manner, never vision dramatist in what is now called the medium’s Golden Age. One having to focus on a particular period or place, as I studied pre- of his colleagues, Jerry McNeely MS’50, PhD’56, who divided his time Revolutionary Russia with Michael Petrovich, Reconstruction with between writing for some of the most popular shows and teaching in William Hesseltine, and European history with George Mosse. the university’s speech department, had agreed to It was all very agreeable — except for my looming anxiety about be my adviser. So I thought I was all set. And yet, one of the great what would happen next. I was tempted never to leave Madison and to benefits of sifting and winnowing — not just at Wisconsin, but at any continue on in graduate school. But, to throw some cold water into this good American college or university — is the opportunity one has to idyll, I had never had a female history instructor, not even a teaching change course. assistant. Although this lack of role models didn’t really strike me until First, I bid ILS a speedy good-bye. Since I had come from a high many years later, it had a subtle influence. My generation of undergrad- school graduating class of eighty, this two-year college within a col- uates moved in to change all that, but in any case, I suspected I wasn’t lege had seemed like a good way to keep from being overwhelmed by cut out to teach. I returned to New York somewhat depressed, know- a freshman class of 2,700. It turned out, though, that I liked being over- ing that the next step was a season at secretarial school, as I learned whelmed, and after a sequestered semester, I opted out. to become employable. That led me to the Letters & Science (L&S) catalogue of courses It was very hard to leave Madison, and in a sense I never have. listed for the second semester, and I pored over it with the delight of a My secretarial training, gloomily embarked upon, won me a job at prairie girl of the 1890s presented with the Sears & Roebuck catalogue. American Heritage magazine, and there I stayed until 2007, when That girl might have yearned for a gingham dress, but it was history Forbes, its owner, sold it. that caught my eye. During those forty-plus years, I was appointed picture editor, Years later, after my mother’s death, I discovered a four-page letter senior editor, travel editor, and founding editor of Heritage’s offspring from me in her desk that had mapped the new course of my life. American Legacy, an African-American history magazine. In effect, In it, I explained a radical change of heart. First, I listed the I became a perpetual graduate student after all, with a paycheck dreary required courses for a speech major: Application of Speech attached. Each of the hundreds of articles I worked on over the years Fundamentals, Psychology of Speech and Hearing, Argumentation and taught me something new, reminding me even now of nothing so much Debate, and on and on. Then I wrote, “I have just looked at the history as picking and choosing from the L&S course catalogue that a long- requirements, and they are delightful. I won’t even bother looking at ago eighteen-year-old found so delightful. poli sci, because history encompasses so much more (culture, government, foreign policy, etc.), so there is my choice.” Carla Davidson ’62 is a freelance writer living in New York.

SPRING 2011 61 Partnership “The UW has an important impact in to do more than tinker on the edges,” Continued from page 40 the state of Wisconsin, an economic she says. “The state needs bold thinking impact,” Sweeney says. “The $1 billion about how it can preserve the quality is in direct competition not only with in research funding we brought in last of UW-Madison, one of its primary the University of Illinois in Champaign, year — that’s money brought into the economic drivers.” n but with the best universities all over state, jobs that we’ve created. The point the world — for faculty, for students, of the New Badger Partnership is to try John Allen is senior editor for On Wisconsin. for federal dollars, and for private sec- to preserve that impact, because Madi- tor dollars. We’re in a very competitive son really is part of the solution.” marketplace. With the DNR, other Martin believes that the need for states aren’t trying to actively recruit change in Wisconsin’s relationship to UW Bragging Rights their leadership, but other institutions its flagship university is growing more As a land-grant university, the UW received around the world are trying to recruit acute. the proceeds from the sale of 240,000 acres ours. To maintain excellence, we have “Given the state’s budget deficit, of federal land. The grant (most of which was in Marathon and Polk Counties) was sold off to be able to better deal with that com- global economic changes, and the between 1866 and 1902 at an average price of petition for talent.” state’s consequent need for a world- around $1.25 an acre. And excellence is ultimately what class research university as it builds its Wisconsin Alumni Association: the university believes it offers the state. knowledge-based industries, it is time celebrating alumni for 150 years. Principled Principal

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62 ON WISCONSIN Private Residence Halls 3Private Residence Halls

BEST FIRST YEAR1 When your family begins exploring your student’s first-year housing options at UW-Madison, make sure you check out ALL of your options. Only Campus Connect Private Residence Halls offer handpicked roommate matching, individual attention, and tailored academic programming, in a tight-knit, friendly environment. Plus, our prices are some of the lowest you’ll find! Call 877-365-8259 or visit us online at www.sba-CampusConnect.com today!

Proud members of UW-Madison’s Private Housing Connections program.

Campus Connect is locally owned and managed by Steve Brown Apartments. We are not owned, operated, or inspected by the UW-Madison.

SPRING 2011 63 WISCONSIN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 150 YEARS

64 ON WISCONSIN You can have an impact on the University of Wisconsin-Madison through a planned gift. Your foresight now will benefit a campus program or area that you value far into the future. It also can pay off with tax advantages. To find out more, contact the UW Foundation’s Office of Planned Giving at 608.263.4545 or [email protected].

Your legacY is the universitY’s future.

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SPRING 2011 65 flashback UW-MADISON ARCHIVES UW-MADISON ARCHIVES

Foul Weather, Fair Ball

Wisconsin does not, perhaps, have the most felicitous climate for out- Unfortunately, an indoor practice facility wasn’t enough to make the door sports. Just ask the men’s and women’s golf teams how much UW’s baseball team very good. In nearly a century of Big Ten seasons they like to practice during the state’s long, cold winters. (See “Hole in between 1896 and 1991, the Badgers won only five conference titles, One,” page 19.) As you can see in the picture above, the weather prob- the last coming in 1950. The team’s sole appearance in the NCAA’s lem is hardly new — the UW’s athletic department has always had to College World Series occurred that year. The Badgers did not win. In think creatively when it comes to dealing with ice and snow. the following decades, the squad sank into mediocrity — and worse. This shot, circa 1960, shows the UW baseball team holding winter The UW finished last in the Big Ten in five of the program’s final eleven practice within a netted enclosure at the Camp Randall Memorial Shell. seasons. The Shell was built between 1954 and 1956 to give the athletic depart- After 1991, varsity baseball became a victim of a financial crunch ment an all-weather practice facility, and it took some 1,600 tons of at the athletic department and of Title IX gender-equity rules. But a concrete to make a roof that would protect Badger teams from the ele- non-scholarship, club team started in 1999 and continues to play on ments. The finished structure was big enough to enable the baseball, campus today. It holds its winter practices at the McClain Center. tennis, and track squads to practice simultaneously. John Allen

66 ON WISCONSIN Invest in Great PEOPLE Ensure that the leaders of tomorrow can afford a world-class UW-Madison education today.

Consumer Affairs major Kayla Kaiser wants to make a significant impact on the lives of people every day – citywide, statewide and nationally. She embraces the unlimited opportunities available to her at UW-Madison, and believes that a great public university will help her find her true potential.

UW-Madison’s tuition is among the lowest of its peers. Yet working students like Kayla cannot afford to attend the University without your help. Your gift to the Great People Scholarship creates a pool of financial resources for promising students while ensuring the future of a strong public university. Make your gift now and the UW Foundation will boost its impact with a match.

Go to uwgreatpeople.org to learn more and to give online today. Great People Move Wisconsin Forward

OnWisconsin_InsideBackCover_09-08-10_v01.indd 1 10/25/2010 3:34:54 PM On Wisconsin NONPROFIT Address Correction Department PRESORT Wisconsin Alumni Association STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE P.O. Box 8860 PAID Madison, WI 53708-8860 COLUMBUS, WI PERMIT 106 Change Service Requested

Scientist Turned Entrepreneur

After creating a hepatitis vaccine in 1995, Krishna Ella PhD’93 created a business to produce a $1 vaccine when the going rate was $40, enabling him to reach out to the 5.8 billion people of developing nations with a safe, affordable vaccine. Today, Bharat Biotech has supplied 1.5 billion doses to more than 65 countries and established India’s first biotech park.

A 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award winner, Ella joins other great minds in Madison July 26–29, 2011, for the UW’s International Convocation to explore world issues and celebrate Wisconsin’s leadership as a global university.

INTERNATIONAL CONVOCATION • MADISON • JULY 26–29, 2011