Dispatches

Campus Lifeline Counseling is key for students facing mental health problems. For college students grappling line, and students with the most mechanisms recommended by with depression or anxiety, urgent needs receive appoint- the UW System report: a pro- access to mental health counsel- ments the same day, or the fol- cess to track students who are ing can mean the difference lowing morning if they call after identified as high-risk once they between failing and passing an hours. Other students typically are referred to off-campus pro- exam — or between staying in see a counselor the day after viders for continued care and school and dropping out. they call, says Bob McGrath, a treatment. “If there’s anyone When a recent audit found clinical psychologist and director that there’s a concern about,” long waits at some UW System of counseling and consultation he says, “we’re not just going to campuses for students who services for University Health make a referral. We’re going to want counseling appointments, Services (UHS). refer and follow up.” members of the board of “Student issues can be very McGrath and Van Orman regents responded with alarm. transitional,” McGrath says, say UW-Madison won’t seek to While students with the most explaining the need for prompt adopt some of the report’s other urgent needs are prioritized at attention. recommendations — including all schools, increased enrollment A spring 2007 survey by the using more group therapy, set- at some UW System campuses is American College Health Asso- ting a strict limit on the num- making it difficult for counsel- ciation found that more than ber of counseling sessions per ing staff to keep up with overall 60 percent of college students student, and charging fees to demand. In fact, the number of reported feeling hopeless at help cover costs. The university’s 37,000 staff has remained unchanged times, 45 percent said they were counseling service offers a num- since 2002 across the system. depressed to the point of hav- ber of targeted support groups, The reduction per year — At one extreme is UW- ing trouble functioning, nearly but, in many cases, groups are in tons — of UW-Madison’s Milwaukee, with just one coun- 10 percent considered attempt- not the right substitute for indi- carbon dioxide emissions under selor for every 4,289 students ing suicide, and 1.6 percent had vidual sessions, Van Orman says. We Conserve, a campus energy and where the wait for an attempted suicide at least once UW-Madison’s guidelines initiative launched in April appointment can be as long as during the past school year. include a maximum of 10 ses- 2006. Efforts include energy four weeks during a semester’s “A lot of mental illnesses sions per student — a limit not upgrades to buildings such as busiest times. However, UW- emerge at this age,” says Sarah strictly enforced for those who Chamberlin Hall, piloting a Madison — the only system Van Orman, UHS director. need more help — but the aver- power-management system school meeting the minimum “So this is the place to have age number of sessions is 4.5. for computers, employing staffing ratio established by the resources.” Last, charging any access fees for more efficient steam and the International Association of An increased demand counseling services would “put a chilled water production, Counseling Services Standards for the counseling services is barrier up for students at a time and using more energy- — has one counselor for every expected as more veterans when we don’t want to put bar- efficient light bulbs. 1,492 students and is able to enroll in college, and because riers,” Van Orman says. provide a quicker response. faculty, staff, and student The $150 segregated fee UW-Madison operates a awareness has grown follow- that each UW-Madison student twenty-four-hour crisis phone ing the tragedies at Northern pays per semester helps to cover Illinois and Virginia Tech in counseling, plus medical and pre- which troubled students went vention services. The fees total Who needs on shooting sprees. But, Van about half of the $2.4 million help and why Orman says, violence is not the budget for salaries and benefits typical response from students for counseling staff, with the rest • 9 percent of UW-Mad- who are struggling with depres- coming from state tax dollars. ison’s 42,041 students sion or anxiety. “The most com- The start of the fall semester seek counseling services. mon outcome,” she says, “is in September was “intense” as • Two-thirds are female; them dropping out of school usual for UW-Madison’s counsel- just under half are seniors or not doing well. If we know ing services, McGrath says, but or graduate students. that we can get students in [for he adds that the challenges of • Most-common problems: counseling] and get them into the work are outweighed by the depression and anxiety the right kinds of treatment, rewards. “Now and then you get disorders they’re going to do better, and a letter from someone from five Data from 2007–08. Source: they’re going to stay in school.” years ago that says, ‘You helped University Health Services McGrath notes that his me make it through.’ ” office already has one of the — Jenny Price ’96

10 ON WISCONSIN Dispatches

It Doesn’t Add Up

We’ve all heard it, and many of The effect sizes they found were us believe it: girls just aren’t as very close to zero, indicating good at math as boys are. But is that average scores of girls and it true? boys were the same. After sifting through “Boys did a teeny bit better mountains of data, a team of in some states, and girls did a scientists says the answer is no. teeny bit better in others,” says Whether they looked at aver- Hyde. “But when you average age performance, the scores of them all, you essentially get no the most gifted children, or stu- difference.” dents’ ability to solve complex Some critics argue, however, math problems, they found that that even when average per- girls measured up to boys. formance is equal, gender dis- “There just aren’t gender crepancies may still exist at the differences anymore in math highest levels of mathematical performance,” says Janet ability. So the team searched for problem-solving. Hyde, a UW psychology profes- those, as well. They compared, Still, will all of this be sor who led the study. “Parents for example, the variability in enough to finally shift our coun- and teachers need to revise boys’ and girls’ math scores — try’s long-held attitudes about their thoughts about this.” the idea being thatif more boys gender and math? Hyde can’t Although girls today take fell into the top scoring percen- say, but she remains determined just as many advanced high tiles than girls, the variance in to do her part. school math courses as boys do, their scores would be greater. “Stereotypes are very, very and women earn 48 percent The effort again uncovered little resistant to change,” she says, of all mathematics bachelor’s difference, as did a comparison ”but as a scientist, I have to degrees, the stereotype persists of how well boys and girls did challenge them with data.” that girls struggle with math, on questions requiring complex — Madeline Fisher PhD’98 says Hyde. Not only do many parents and teachers believe this, but scholars also use it to explain the dearth of female A Degree of Success Earning a college diploma pays off in the long run, but it seems mathematicians, engineers, and degrees from some universities net more than others. PayScale physicists at the highest levels. Inc., an online provider of global compensation data, recently Cultural beliefs like this are surveyed 1.2 million people who attended one of three hundred “incredibly influential,” Hyde schools, hold bachelor’s degrees, and have a minimum of ten years says, making it critical to ques- of work experience. (The typical mid-career employee is defined tion them, “because if your as forty-two years old with fifteen and a half years of experience.) mom or your teacher thinks you The survey excluded respondents with advanced degrees, includ- can’t do math, that can have a ing MBAs, MDs, and JDs. big impact on your math self- concept.” UW-Madison graduates ranked fifth in the Big Ten for mid-career To carry out its query, the salaries. Here’s how they stacked up among some other peer team acquired math scores from institutions. the annual state exams that are now mandated under the No DarTmouth $134,000* Child Left Behind Act, along with detailed statistics on test uc berkeley $112,000 takers, including gender, grade illinois $ 96,100** level, and ethnicity, from ten states. Using data from more michigan $ 93,000 than 7 million students, they then calculated the “effect Wisconsin $ 87,800 size,” a statistic that reports the minnesota $ 84,200 degree of difference between * Top among all schools girls’ and boys’ average math ohio State $ 83,700*** ** First in Big Ten scores in standardized units. *** Last in Big Ten

WINTER 2008 11 Dispatches

Telling Tales UW students introduce Wisconsin schoolchildren to African traditions. During her childhood in Nigeria, located nearly five hours north song in the Disney film The Mobolaji Falomo x’10 didn’t of Madison — had just a hand- Lion King. As the children raise spend family time in front of ful of African-American stu- their hands, Okelo explains that the television. At night, when dents. “Those kids lit up,” she “hakuna matata is Swahili,” one the moon was out, her parents, says. “They don’t see anybody of four languages she speaks. aunts, uncles, and cousins gath- that looks like them very often.” Falomo tells the story of ered together to tell stories. Moji Olaniyan, a UW assis- a male tortoise that eats food tant dean who first shared tales meant for his wife, prepared by from her native Nigeria with a doctor to help the female tor-

Bryce R ichte her daughter’s kindergarten toise become pregnant. Falomo class some years ago, launched asks the fourth-graders about African Storytelling on Wheels their favorite foods to engage last spring. The program is oper- them in the story. In this ver- ated out of the African Studies sion, the turtle takes a trip from Program. Madison to Texas to deliver On this fall morning, lasagna, eats the lasagna on the Falomo teams up with Beatrice way back home, and becomes Okelo MAx’10, a native of pregnant instead of his wife. Kenya who is seeking a degree She then adds a song, playing a in African languages, literature, tall African drum and singing in and linguistics. The UW story- Yoruba, and teaches the class a tellers poll their young audience refrain to sing along with her. to find out how many students The stories always have think Africa is a continent, and a moral, with the end result how many think it’s a country showing the danger of behav- — and in one fifth-grade class, iors such as ingratitude or students were split evenly on treating others poorly. But the the question. children don’t always catch on The university student right away — as shown when Fourth-graders at Adams Now an aspiring pediatri- storytellers are from Cameroon, Okelo tells the story of a hyena Friendship Elementary School cian majoring in child develop- Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libe- that falls in a pit and acts less in Adams, Wisconsin, take turns ment, Falomo is sharing that ria, and Nigeria, or they were than thankful for the help he playing African instruments with UW students Ibukun tradition through African born to parents who came to gets from a cow. “I learned if Ogunmodede x’09, foreground, Storytelling on Wheels, a UW- the United States from those I was a cow, I’d never trust a and Clementine Uwabera x’11, Madison program that sends countries. The geography les- hyena,” says one fifth-grade far right, during an African students of African origin into son inevitably sparks questions boy after hearing the tale. Storytellers on Wheels elementary schools in eastern about their homelands, giving Sometimes, the storytellers presentation. and northern Wisconsin. The the storytellers a chance to use questions to guide children effort brings African culture, break down generalizations and toward the story’s ultimate music, and languages to class- misconceptions some of the chil- lesson, as when Okelo asks, rooms, with help from a three- dren have about Africa and its “What would you do if some- year grant from the 2008 people. In the fifth-grade class- one helped you out of a pit?” Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin room, students ask if most peo- The class responds correctly, Wisconsin Idea Endowment. ple in Africa are sick, if Nigeria “Say ‘Thank you!’ ” “How many of you like has ever been hit by a tornado, At the end of each pre- stories? What’s your favorite and if Africans go fishing. sentation, the storytellers pass story?” Falomo asks fourth- “Kids are very inquisitive. handmade African instruments graders in Arkdale, a rural com- What’s in their heads pops out,” around the room for students munity ninety miles north of Falomo says. to shake, pound, and bang. Madison. She wears a vibrant The students also wonder During a break in the teach- orange long-sleeved tunic with which languages the women er’s lounge, as the storytellers a matching skirt and completes speak. Okelo answers by con- wash down a snack of brownies the traditional Nigerian outfit necting her culture to American and Rice Krispie bars with small with a dark green head wrap. culture, asking if the students cartons of milk, a third-grader The previous school Falomo have heard the phrase hakuna peeks in and says, “You rock!” visited with the program — matata, made famous by a — Jenny Price ’96

12 ON WISCONSIN Dispatches

Manly Display Study investigates the development of secondary sex characteristics.

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even tion. Secondary sex characteris- “In evolutionary biology, The sound of silence greeted moose among the trees do it: tics present a problem because you deal with a lot of double fans at Camp Randall dur- they all develop flashy secon- males and females have nearly negatives,” says Carroll. He ing the Badger football game dary sex characteristics that identical genetic material and notes that such complications against Ohio State in October, make males visibly different yet show such distinction, called arise out of the way that genes after the UW Marching Band from females. The question of dimorphism. tend to stack characteristics, was suspended for hazing how males and females of the “Specifically,” says Williams, adding to and modifying a activities. Complaints included same species can end up looking “we wanted to find out how species’ inheritance of genetic humiliating and sexualized so different — whether due to genetic expression can be limited code. “That’s pretty common in behavior as well as underage beards, antlers, or outlandish to one sex and not the other.” genetics — it’s much easier to drinking. Director Mike Leck- plumage — has long perplexed What Carroll and Williams modify something that’s already rone suspended the band for evolutionary scientists. But a found was that dimorphism, there than to add a new charac- one game — the first time the study by UW researchers may at least among the fruit fly teristic,” he says. band hadn’t played at a home have discovered the biological Drosophila melanogaster, is Carroll’s lab studied the game in nearly forty years. mechanism behind the process, linked to a pair of genes called protein in several different fruit as well as how that mechanism bab-1 and bab-2 — short for fly species and concluded that it UW-Madison and UW- evolved. bric-a-brac, due to the way that was active in the development Milwaukee are joining forces In the August issue of it governs the flies’ physiologi- of secondary sex characteristics in upper-level study of art and Cell, genetics professor Sean cal decoration. Those genes in all of them. From this, they architecture. A joint program Carroll and post-doctoral fel- produce a protein that appears generalize that a similar process between the two universi- low Thomas Williams pub- to control the development of takes place in other species, ties will enable grad students lished the results of a study of abdomen color, as well as other leading to the development of from UW-Milwaukee — which fruit flies that examined how male-female differences within the differences between bucks doesn’t have a doctoral pro- males develop dark-colored the flies. and does, cocks and hens, and gram in art history — to take abdomens while females do The flies, they found, are all men and women. PhD-level courses from UW- not. That abdominal coloration born with the genes that would “This seems to have a deep Madison professors. Meanwhile is considered a secondary sex give them colored abdomens, as influence in evolution,” Carroll students from UW-Madison — characteristic — that is, a devel- well as genes that would repress says. “It shows us a little about which doesn’t have a school of opmental difference between that coloration. But males pro- how genetics often adds bells architecture — can take archi- males and females that has no duce a protein that represses and whistles to a species.” tecture classes in Milwaukee. direct connection to reproduc- the repression mechanism. — John Allen Many student organizations are tightening their budget belts this year as the UW’s General COLLECTION Student Services Fund Commit- Going Green(house) tee has increased restrictions on which campus organizations With its northern climate, Wisconsin is known for receive student fees, or “seg- hot summers and cold, snowy winters, which sup- regated fees.” “There’s been a port a wide variety of vegetation — just not neces- conscious effort by committee sarily when UW classes are in session. But biology members this year and last year and horticulture students can get a good long look to make sure funding stays at at all sorts of plants, thanks to the collections at a reasonable level,” committee the university’s Botany Greenhouse. chair Kurt Gosselin x’10 said in Located at 430 Lincoln Drive, the greenhouse an interview with the Wiscon- contains more than a thousand species of plants in sin State Journal. “The idea is eight thousand square feet of space divided into we should be funding student eight rooms. Overseen for the last quarter century While outdoor winter temperatures hover in the single digits, a Red Powderpuff plant flowers inside services, not making a slush by Mohammad Mehdi Fayyaz MS’73, PhD’77, the Botany Greenhouse. fund for [registered student the structure provides a tropical oasis, irrespective organizations].” Among those of the weather outside. The greenhouse is open to the public week- groups denied funding were “The greenhouse’s chief purpose is as an days from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The UW also has Vets for Vets, Engineers with- instructional tool,” Fayyaz says. “We get botany other greenhouse, the D.C. Smith Greenhouse on out Borders, the Legal Informa- and biology students who are studying morphol- the west side of campus, which offers a conserva- tion Center, and the College of ogy and physiology of various plants. But we also tory and reflecting pond, and is open to the public Agricultural and Life Sciences get art students who are looking for a tranquil during regular university building hours. Student Council. space to draw.” — J. A.

WINTER 2008 13 Dispatches

Double Trouble A determined physician fights a battle against lung cancer and its stigma. Tracey Weigel spends days being that one person in ten.” grateful that she was not afraid from sunrise to sunset attack- Pessimism about this most to be human and still be a great ing tumors brought on by lung fatal of all cancers has statistical doctor,” Zinda says. cancer, trying her best to be a grounding. Almost 85 percent Weigel also uses technology “numerator doctor.” of patients diagnosed with lung to gather critical information A thoracic surgical oncolo- cancer die within five years. It about the spread of cancer gist with the UW School of kills more women than breast, within and beyond the lungs. Medicine and Public Health, ovarian, uterine, and cervi- Then she works with a team: Weigel cannot bring herself cal cancers combined. Yet its a thoracic surgeon, a medical to focus on the denominator research funding pales in com- oncologist, and a radiation of a disease that kills 160,000 parison. It received less than oncologist review all patients Americans each year. 5 percent of the National Can- coming to UW Hospital and “I think there’s a lot of cer Institute’s $4.8 billion bud- Clinics with a suspicion or diag- nihilism about lung cancer,” get in 2007. Weigel is quick to nosis of advanced lung cancer, she says. “You have to focus on point to a reason for the dispar- then decide the best combina- ity: the stigma from the connec- tion of surgery, radiation, and tion between smoking and lung chemotherapy. cancer, she says, contributes to The approach, says UW poor research, late testing, and oncologist Minesh Mehta, — eventually — death. transforms the outlook for “It’s treated like a ‘dirty dis- patients who may feel as though ease,’ like you did it to yourself,” their lives are collapsing. “They Weigel says. “The thought never hear a totally different message crossed my brain that someone — ‘There’s a whole team work- ... deserved to get lung cancer.” ing on me. They’re going to About half the people who work hard. It’s not like my world face lung cancer have stopped is caving in on me,’ ” he says. smoking by the time of their Lung cancer, admittedly, diagnosis, and 15 percent have is personal for Weigel. Her never smoked. The biggest risk mother, who faced the disease smokers face is cardiovascular in 1990, was not referred to an disease, but Weigel does not oncologist upon diagnosis and see the same shame among died seven months later follow- those patients — or the same ing a course of chemotherapy. New Home for WSUM fatalism among their providers. It may well be, Weigel now Just as Weigel fights tumors, says, that her mother’s primary When the student radio station WSUM moves into a brand new she battles the pessimism about care doctor was right to doubt studio this winter, there are some things its staff won’t miss about lung cancer. Her weapons of that treatment would extend their old digs on State Street — beginning with the poor acoustics choice are better screening, her life. But, she adds, without in the converted office space where the station has been since 1996. improved cancer staging, and a a team to consider every angle WSUM’s new home is part of the UW’s 250,000-square-foot multidisciplinary approach. of a case, a patient — and a wing of the new University Square complex, located at Lake Street Survival rates improve dra- family — will never really know. and University Avenue, which includes University Health Services, matically if the cancer is caught Weigel remembers that her a student activity center, and offices for the registrar and financial early, yet only 16 percent of mother, a smoker who had long services. The development also includes a food court, retail space, cases are diagnosed before the since quit, awoke at 2 a.m. just and apartments. disease spreads from the lungs. before her death, looked at The radio station’s new space — paid for mostly with student Weigel sees this as sufficient Weigel’s father, and said, “Bob, fees — is on the project’s fourth floor and offers DJs and hosts a cause to advocate for research I killed myself.” north-to-south view of the new East Campus Mall. Last May, then- into the efficacy of CT screen- Weigel’s most important Chancellor John D. Wiley MS’65, PhD’68 designated $400,000 ing for lung cancer in high-risk numerator simultaneously lost in unrestricted donor funds for state-of-the-art digital equipment. patients. the battle against lung cancer WSUM, which transmits at 91.7 FM in Madison, also has a new live Gayle Zinda, a patient and and its stigma. In fighting both recording studio that David Black ’93, the station’s manager, says lung cancer survivor, credits tumors and shame, her daugh- will allow the station to bring in more bands for performances and Weigel for opening her mind ter seeks to win the war. recording, “instead of cramming them into a closet.” to CT screening despite doubt — Kathleen Bartzen — Jenny Price ’96 among other doctors. “I’m so Culver ’88, MA’92, PhD’99

14 ON WISCONSIN Dispatches

Nervous Once, Nervous Forever? A study suggests that children may not outgrow shyness or anxiety. How do you know when a ence for children at risk.” If traveling to Uranus this time monkey is nervous? It sounds The study also showed of year, should you take a like the lead-in to a joke, but that the brains of anxious jacket? Astronomy researcher worried monkeys are giving rhesus monkeys were dif- Lawrence Sromovsky can tell scientists some important clues ferent from those of their you. He led a study using the about the brains of shy and calmer peers; in situations Keck II telescope and examined anxious children and whether both stressful and serene, spencer walts how Uranian weather changes they’ll be anxious or depressed their brains showed a stron- over the planet’s seasons. as they grow up. ger stress response. In other Ned Kalin, chair of the words, their brains hit the The UW Connections program UW’s Department of Psychiatry panic button even when is growing. The plan opens and co-director of the Health- things were calm. UW-Madison’s doors to more Emotions Research Institute, this “The brain machinery Wisconsin high school grads summer published findings of underlying the stress response unfamiliar cage. And the most by enabling students to spend a study that found that adoles- seems to be always on in these uncertain and potentially wor- their freshman and sophomore cent monkeys that were more individuals,’’ Kalin says, “even in rying situation was when the years at one of the UW System’s anxious than their peers tested situations that others perceive young monkey was confronted two-year UW Colleges campuses that way again later in life. as safe and secure.” by an unfamiliar person who or at certain technical schools Young rhesus monkeys And when things are wouldn’t make eye contact. around the state, then transfer have long been used as models truly scary, the part of their When that happened, the most to UW-Madison as juniors. Now for anxious behavior in chil- brains that triggers the “flight nervous monkeys froze and several of System’s four-year dren. And psychiatrists know or fight response” gets very even stopped vocalizing — a campuses will join the program. that anxious temperament in active. response very similar to that of UW-Green Bay began participat- children predicts a higher risk So how do you study worry shy children in the presence of ing this fall, and Parkside, River of developing into depression, and anxiety in a monkey? The a stranger. Also, these anxious Falls, Stevens Point, and Stout anxiety, and substance abuse researchers exposed both calm monkeys had higher levels of will join next fall. System offi- problems over time. and worried monkeys to a vari- the stress hormone cortisol com- cials estimate that 285 students “The important point is ety of situations. One test took pared to the calmer animals, will take part in the program that we need to identify people place in the cozy confines of and their brain scans showed next year and eventually gradu- early in life who are at risk for their home, where they were more activity in the area of the ate from UW-Madison. [these problems],” Kalin says. housed with familiar cage- brain that responds to stress. Size matters, at least among “This work points to ideas mates. The second test occurred The monkeys were tested doctors. A UW study discovered about how early interventions when they were separated as adolescents and again, about that surgeons with smaller might make a long-term differ- from a partner while in an a year and a half later, as they hands are at a disadvantage became adults. The monkeys in the operating room, where who were nervous as youngsters tools generally come in only were still more stressed out as one size. Peter Nichol, who adults, indicating that anxious un conducted the study, hopes to E temperament is a lifelong trait. convince medical instrument

Jenna Kalin has a deep interest companies to produce OR tools in how the brain influences in a variety of sizes. mood, reactions to stress, and physical health, and is an advo- Will Red be read? Sydney cate for screening children for Burdick x’10 and Sarah Resimius mental health issues. This latest x’10 launched a new student research suggests that extremely magazine called Red this fall. shy or anxious children aren’t Using a $15,000 grant from the likely to grow out of their prob- Office of the Chancellor, the lems. So the anxious monkeys two led a staff of about sixty might be telling us that, from a students to produce the maga- More than Squiggles medical perspective, we should zine, which gives an insider’s Melting Oreos? Not quite. This photo — taken under a microscope be worried about anxious chil- views on college life in Madi- by Jenna Eun PhDx’10 — shows the pattern that developed when dren — and make sure they get son — music, politics, style, and she grafted a small sheet of water-loving “hydrogel” onto another the help they need. substance and added water. The image won second place in the 2008 environment. Some 14,000 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge and appeared in — Susan Lampert Smith ’82 copies of Red were distributed Science magazine. free around campus.

WINTER 2008 15 Classroom

Ballroom Basics Students dance in their great-grandparents’ footsteps. Dancing is a Wisconsin tradition University of Cape Town to among the general public in — its legs extend well beyond study ballet. He spent fifteen recent decades, though inter- all the polkas, chicken dances, years with the university’s bal- est could be on the rise again and jumping around that takes let troupe, until a friend con- because of television shows place at Camp Randall Stadium. vinced him to move to Madison such as Dancing with the Stars. In historic Lathrop Hall, thou- to join the Wisconsin Ballet In competitive ballroom, sands of stocking feet glide Company. When the company dancers are judged by their along the wood floors each closed in the 1970s, Tomlinson connection, frame, posture, year, as they have for decades, taught noncredit, continuing speed, timing, alignment, and to the rhythms of the waltz, education classes, instructing proper use of feet. They wear the tango, the fox trot, the ballet and ballroom dancers of traditional gowns and tuxedos cha cha, and the jitterbug. all ages and abilities. In 1975, — or if they’re performing Latin-style ballroom dances such as the samba, rumba, or paso doble, women dress in short skirts and men in tight- fitting shirts and pants to emphasize their leg action and body movement. But in Lathrop Hall, dancers are decked out in shorts and T-shirts. If their jeans are drag- ging on the floor, Tomlinson gently admonishes them to cuff their pant legs. This is a move- ment class, after all. Tomlinson feeds off his busy teaching schedule with the discipline and stamina of a professional performer. His big- gest challenge with the begin- ners in his course is inadequate time to practice outside of class. During the semester, the students are required to attend four dances sponsored by orga- nizations such as the UW Ball- If these floors could talk: Instructor Vivian Tomlinson (with back to camera) demonstrates some basic steps room Dance Association, which in the traditional Viennese waltz to a new generation of ballroom dancers. offers weekly soirees at Union South or Memorial Union. Today, most students spend he joined a dance program When students arrive for more time on their computers at UW-Madison that eighty the one-credit course, they take and less time moving their bod- years ago had become the first off their shoes in the hallway ies, but little else has changed in degree-granting program of its and sit along the mirrored the world of Dance 41: Ballroom kind in the country. walls surrounding the studio. Dancing, says instructor Vivian In the course’s heyday, UW- Before class begins, one dancer Tomlinson. He knows whereof Madison offered seventeen sec- helps another catch up on steps he speaks: for the past thirty- tions of ballroom dancing, but missed during the previous two years, he has been teaching tighter budgets in recent years session. The room gradually Madison-area adults and UW have forced the university to cut fills with about forty students, students how to boogie. it down to five sections today. women slightly outnumbering A native of Cape Town, Still, it remains a perennial men. This has been the case South Africa, Tomlinson grew favorite. Since most ballroom in nearly every class during up in a household full of music or partner-style dances require Tomlinson’s tenure, he says. and dance. With help from a some knowledge and practice, After a brief warm-up of scholarship, he went to the they have dipped in popularity head rolls and arm circles to

16 ON WISCONSIN Classroom

a Beach Boys or Cher CD, the beginning dancers pair up to Bryce R ichter (2) work on the waltz. Throughout the class, students dance to recorded music, though occa- sionally Tomlinson accompanies them on the piano. The slow or hesitation waltz is the first dance the class is learning. In week three, they have nearly mastered the whole sequence: the basic steps and then in the conversation position, forward six steps, walk around nine, recover for three, and then balancé, balancé turn- ing, and cuddle wheel. Michael Chay x’08 discovers it’s no easy feat to be graceful and As they move around elegant while learning new moves and adjusting to a new waltzing the room in pairs, Tomlinson partner. chimes in with lighthearted directives: “Don’t pull or push sciences major and member of your partner. Step lightly. Make the naval ROTC, says he hopes your first and second steps to gain some “basic knowledge longer. Keep your focus out. that will help me at the balls Be careful of your upper arm. held by ROTC.” Class Note Relax your ankles.” Melissa Geiwitz x’08 is Russian Roulette Concentration gives way to also hoping to use her new History 418: Imperial Russia, 1801–1914 giggles and spontaneous laugh- dance skills at weddings — ter. “Don’t forget to breathe,” and indeed, more than one During its summer 2008 military intervention in Georgia, Russia Tomlinson adds, “and smile romance has blossomed in provoked cries of imperialism from newspapers across Europe — you’re not in pain.” After Lathrop Hall, says Tomlinson. and North America. But fears that Russia is driving for dominance ten minutes, he instructs the A consumer affairs and in the Caucasus and northern Asia is nothing new to David dancers to switch partners and business major, Geiwitz has McDonald’s students. They’ve seen the world’s reaction to as they’re doing so, to “look at danced before: jazz, ballet, and Russian expansion over the last two hundred years. each other — and look inter- hip-hop. “But this is totally dif- Actually, the UW’s class on imperial Russia isn’t quite as old ested!” ferent, dancing with someone as the tsars. Created in the 1950s by legendary history profes- Trading partners is difficult else,” she says. “I would recom- sor Michael Petrovich, the course once gave generations of for Michael Chay x’08, a math mend this class to someone and Madison undergrads a glimpse of how Russia became the world’s education major, who’s taking if I were here longer, I’d take largest state. The class begins with the 1801 accession of Alexan- ballroom dancing as an elec- the second level. The professor der I, the tsar who defeated Napoleon, and proceeds to the First tive. “A lot hinges on my ability is knowledgeable, and the class World War, when Russia collapsed into revolution, giving rise to to communicate with my part- is really fun.” the Soviet Union. But as different as these regimes are, McDon- ner through subtle cues and Teaching these students is ald, the Alice Mortenson/Michael Petrovich professor of history, body language, and that can be easy because they want to be stresses that there’s a great deal of continuity. difficult with someone here, Tomlinson says, adding, “I “We really look at Russia as an empire rather than a nation- I don’t know,” he says. tell them to be serious, but not state,” he says. “We take into account that Russia’s elite were Chay registered for the take themselves too seriously.” drawn from all sorts of groups. German-speaking nobles, Polish course before, but had to drop He enjoys teaching begin- princes, Cossack hetmans, Tatar mirzas — they were all part of it when it didn’t work out ners and seeing them progress. the class that governed Russia.” with his schedule. “I’ve always “In the first class, they learn McDonald has taught the class since the 1980s, and says it’s wanted to fit this in,” he says. to walk. Then, they walk to undergone a variety of alterations over the years, changing to “I’ve always been amazed by music,” Tomlinson explains. match an evolving understanding of Russia’s history. ballroom dancing.” “For many students, this is a “The central problem we’re trying to work through is how In his last semester at UW- release from stress and the only Russia looks at the world and society,” says McDonald. “However Madison, Peter Hudack x’08, movement they have all day.” different their view is from ours, it’s still plausible in their eyes.” an atmospheric and oceanic — Karen Roach ’82 — John Allen

WINTER 2008 17 Martin Kli m e k

18 ON WISCONSIN Martin Kli m e k Capitan Courageous When Yosemite park ranger Eric Gabriel was called to aid distressed climbers on El Capitan, his story became a real cliffhanger.

By John Allen Up or down? As Eric Gabriel ’88 dangled on a strand of rope less than half an inch thick, he wondered which way to plot his course: up or down? He was three-quarters of the way up the granite monolith known as El Capitan — the Captain, to rock climbers, the iconic cliff at the heart of California’s Yosemite National Park. Above him were 800 feet of stone, often sheer, occasionally broken. Below were 2,400 feet of the same. Before him was a ledge called the Glowering Spot, which is about the size of an office desk and was occupied by two men in obvious distress. Behind him, the September sun was setting. Up or down? Gabriel, a ranger working search and rescue at Yosemite, knew he couldn’t stay put. Though one of the two men was in fair condition and could survive a night on the cliff face, the other could not. With both legs broken, and the bones from one of those fractures protruding through his skin, climber Miguel Jimenez Morante’s condition was looking dicey, and the falling temperature of the coming night might mean his end.

WINTER 2008 19 “He was heading into shock, and men off the ledge. But helicopters aren’t cliff top, he’d recently covered that distally, he was shot,” says Gabriel, who allowed in Yosemite after dark — navi- ground. But there was limited help there is also trained as an emergency medical gating among the cliffs and peaks is too for Jimenez. There were more rangers, technician. “His limbs were cold, and I dangerous. And so Jimenez would have sure, but they were armed only with the could tell that his sensory and circula- to be removed by human effort alone, first-aid equipment they could pack into tory function had diminished. He was using ropes and pulleys. a field kit. The trails down to find a road likely, at least, to lose a limb.” Up or down? Up would be safer were rough and steep. If Gabriel took Had it been daytime, Gabriel might — it was a shorter distance and, since Jimenez upward, he’d have to spend the have called in a helicopter to fly the Gabriel had rappelled down from the night there in the rangers’ care, rather

20 ON WISCONSIN EARL M A DD EN

El Capitan, the largest mass of granite in the world, has been a challenge to rock climbers for half a century. Though there are dozens of different routes up the cliff face, the most pop- ular is called the Nose, shown just right of cen- ter in this photo. The Nose is a vertical ridge that divides the cliff’s east and west faces.

“I don’t speak Spanish all that well to begin with,” he says. “And in classes, they never teach you the important phrases, like the names of various pieces of climbing gear, or ‘Are you allergic to morphine?’ ” Ultimately, Gabriel decided that the risk of death was better than the cer- tainty of crippling. “At the top,” Gabriel says, “the patient probably wouldn’t have died, but he would certainly have lost one leg, probably both. If I took him down, at least we had a chance of get- ting him to an OR.” And so down it was. The decision launched him on a daring nighttime descent of the Captain, and, ultimately, earned him the Department of the Interior’s highest award for valor.

“ADD at Heart” “Yosemite attracts some strange people,” says Gabriel, and though he may not realize it, he’s one of them. A native of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Gabriel ought to have been more at home on flat Midwestern prairies than among California’s mountains and val- leys. “But,” he says, “I’ve felt all my life that I was born in the wrong spot.” From his earliest years, he looked for ways to live on the edge — or over it. “Eric was always something of a thrill-seeker,” says Gabriel’s brother Paul ’82, JD’86. “I have a clear memory of him when we were kids. I was at the breakfast table, and I looked up, and than a surgeon’s, and he’d definitely lose rope snagged in a crack or maybe sev- he came flying by the window. He’d a limb. ered on a sharp spur of rock. jumped off of the second story of the Down meant quick access to a road, As for advice, the two men were little house using a homemade parachute. and thus an ambulance, and a good help. Jimenez was heading into shock, I think he broke his collarbone.” chance of getting Jimenez to the operat- and his climbing partner, Jose Maria Paul says that Eric “takes his risks ing room he so badly needed. But down Villapalo Brasazo, was near panic. Fur- in more measured doses now,” but one had dangers, too. Half a mile of vertical ther, both were from Spain and spoke of the ways he pursues them is through granite threatened many opportunities very little English, while Gabriel’s lin- rock climbing, a hobby he took up as a for accidents — a slip or tumble, the guistic capacity was nearing overload. teenager. When he enrolled at the UW,

WINTER 2008 21 G ETT Y I M A E S/DO N SM IT H Eric Gabriel joined the Union’s Hoofers visitor and resource protection ranger being dragged kicking and screaming outdoor adventure club. With them, he (law enforcement). Carrying a gun and into upper management.” went climbing at Devil’s Lake State Park badge (number 187), he’s responsible north of Madison, but when they couldn’t for seeing that visitors enjoy the park get there, or to any other location with in its intended state while protecting its The Captain natural cliffs, he and his friends would resources and other visitors. If Yosemite attracts strange people, scale buildings on campus instead. Since 2003, Gabriel has been one of climbers are among the strangest. “The Red Gym was particularly Yosemite’s supervising rangers. Under From around the world, people such as good,” Gabriel says. “And so was the direction of the park’s chief ranger, Jimenez and Villapalo go there to scale Science Hall. They both had rhyolite Steve Shackleton, Gabriel is responsible the park’s steep heights. [stone] for the first eight or ten feet, and for the more than four hundred square Among the most popular of these is then brick, which offered pretty good miles of the Mather District of Yosem- El Capitan. At 3,593 feet from floor to handholds.” ite Valley, and at the height of tourist peak, the rock is more than twice as tall Although he earned his degree in sec- season, as many as fifty rangers and vol- as the Sears Tower from street level to ondary education, Gabriel never sought unteers report to him. His duties cover the top of its antenna. a career in teaching, preferring instead to all aspects of the ranger job description. There are more than seventy distinct pursue professions that wouldn’t interfere “That’s the great thing about ranger- routes to scale El Capitan, and the names with climbing. He trained as a carpenter ing for me,” he says. “I think I’m a little climbers have given those routes reflect and as an emergency medical technician ADD at heart.” their culture of humor and machismo: — jobs that were universal enough that Magic Mushroom, Tangerine Trip, he could do them anywhere in the coun- Lurking Fear, Iron Hawk, Realm of try, and for which employers wouldn’t El Capitan is consid- Flying Monkeys. Jimenez and Villapalo mind a spotty resume for those times ered the best rock were attempting a route called the Nose, when he’d decide that the climbing was which follows the vertical ridge that better somewhere else. climb in the world, divides the cliff’s east and west faces. “I’ve read that a leisure class exists at The Nose was the route taken by the both ends of the financial scale,” Gabriel but all its routes are first climbers to scale El Capitan. Over says. “I was enjoying exploring the the course of eighteen months in 1957 lower end.” ‘huge, exposed, and and 1958, they spent forty-five days on In 1990, he finally connected climb- terrifying.’ the cliff, slowly creeping up its face and ing with a career when he took on a pounding bolts and rivets into the rock seasonal position as a ranger at Yosemite to secure their ropes. Because those National Park. Over the following years, One of the areas Gabriel is involved climbers left their bolts behind, the Nose as he scaled the cliffs — including the in is the park’s search-and-rescue opera- has since become by far the most popu- Captain, five times — he also climbed tion, where his climbing skill and EMT lar route on the Captain. the authorita- the ladder at the National Park Service, training are highly valued. The SAR tive topographic climbing guide to the from seasonal to permanent, working personnel aid park visitors who are park, describes it as “the best rock climb at a variety of the country’s large parks: injured, lost, or suffer an accident any- in the world.” Though its authors rank Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Rocky where within Yosemite’s territory. They the route as “technically easy,” they note Mountain, and others, eventually aid victims of auto and boating acci- that, “like all El Cap routes, [it] is huge, returning to Yosemite. dents, find hikers lost in the wilderness, exposed, and terrifying.” The record for National Park Service rangers and seek climbers who fall or become speediest ascent up El Capitan — two come in a variety of types — the most trapped. The SAR group takes half a hours and forty-three minutes – was set familiar are interpretive rangers, who, dozen or more calls daily, and in the on the Nose in the summer of 2008. dressed in the green-and-gray uniform course of a year, runs fifty missions on But those were elite climbers, and and Smokey-the-Bear hat, help visitors El Capitan. Most end well, though there according to Gabriel, it typically takes a understand and enjoy federal parks, are, on average, twelve deaths a year in good climber three to four days to scale monuments, and other service areas. But the park. the Captain’s Nose — days spent hauling there is a wide variety of professionals Keith Lober, the park’s SAR coordi- up dozens of pounds of equipment, as who perform a park’s business — fire- nator, is grateful for Gabriel’s help. “The well as diminishing supplies of food and fighters, maintenance and administrative guy’s a search-and-rescue stud,” Lober water and an increasing burden of waste. workers, dispatchers, business and rev- says. “He’s one of the top guys in the There are no garbage cans or toilets on enue managers, and search-and-rescue park as far as authority, but he’s also one the Captain’s nearly vertical face, and (SAR) personnel. Gabriel became a of the troops, in the trenches, and he’s

22 ON WISCONSIN G ETT Y I M A E S/DO N SM IT H

WINTER 2008 23 JO N G LEA SO

Don’t look down: Yosemite SAR personnel Ed Visnovske and George Paiva show what it’s like going “over the edge” on El Cap. The two were conducting a rescue of a fallen climber in 2005 on a route not far from the one taken by Eric Gabriel. climbers cannot simply drop their refuse ite, cell reception is spotty, but they copter to pluck him off — a dangerous for fear of hitting those lower on the cliff. eventually raised Jimenez’s wife, who maneuver called a short haul, though On September 16, 2007, Jimenez was located about an hour away, in the less dangerous than rappelling all the and Villapalo had made it three-quarters northeast part of the park. She relayed way down. of the way through that journey before the call to SAR headquarters at 2:33 that But it took hours to discover the true Jimenez slipped, slid, and tumbled part- afternoon. But with the language barrier location and nature of the accident. Once way down the cliff face, shattering both adding to confusion, the SAR team lost SAR coordinator Keith Lober had all the of his ankles. precious time converging in the wrong information, he determined that he’d have They had come prepared, however, direction. Had they known that Jimenez to call on Gabriel to perform the rescue. and used a cell phone to call for help. In was on El Capitan, they might have, in “There are things in Eric’s experience and the mountainous wilderness of Yosem- the remaining daylight, used their heli- background that other [rangers] haven’t

24 ON WISCONSIN developed yet,” Lober says. “His medi- for more than eight hundred feet until The best stretches of the descent cal training and the experience of having he could see for himself the clues that were when the cliff was vertical or sloped climbed El Cap several times meant that would lead him directly to Jimenez and inward, back away from Gabriel. “At he was the only guy for the job.” Villapalo — a ten-foot-long blood smear those times, you’re basically the fall line,” pointed directly to the Glowering Spot, he says. “You just go where the rope the small ledge on which they had landed. dangles you.” Though Gabriel had no “The Dope on the Rope” Still, it took half an hour to lower contact with the rock and couldn’t direct But Lober mobilized far more than just Gabriel from the cliff top to the ledge. their progress, they were at least margin- Gabriel. Some thirty rangers performing “It was a pretty standard fall-in,” says ally safer. Dangling meant that their line various functions became involved in Dill. “Getting Eric down there wasn’t was passing through open air and free the operation that would become known wild-ass crazy dangerous or anything.” from potential snares. A lack of contact as the Morante SAR (due to confusion But from there down, it would get with the cliff also meant a slightly more over Spanish naming conventions). much more difficult. With the coming of comfortable ride for Jimenez. First sent to the scene was John evening, Dill could no longer assist. “In “With the morphine, he was pretty Dill, a ranger with thirty-eight years of the dark, I couldn’t see enough to direct much out of it,” Gabriel says. “But climbing experience in Yosemite. Dill him,” Dill says. “I couldn’t even be a whenever we hit the cliff, he’d still took up station on the floor of Yosem- spectator.” scream.” ite Valley, a mile from the cliff’s base, As well as he could, Gabriel And yet it wasn’t an empty world. where he served as the rescue’s spotter. informed Villapalo that he’d have to At night, as the air on El Capitan cools, “It was my job to find a vantage spend the night on the cliff, then be the wind stills and voices can carry over point and use eyeballs, binoculars, a tele- hauled up to the top after dawn. hundreds of yards. And as September scope, whatever, to figure out where the victims were,” Dill says. “Then I had to talk to the team on top to give them the “At a thousand feet above the deck, I started path to lower Eric down.” At the top of the cliff, connected by seeing the individual lights of the people radio to both Dill and Gabriel, was a team of edge attendants — thirteen SAR rang- working on the ground. … I got this warm ers whose job it was to manage the rope and its passage over the side of the cliff. feeling. Once I could see the folks working “The most dangerous places on a below me, I realized this was really going to descent are anywhere that rope runs over rock,” says Dill. “That’s where you work. We were going to make it.” get friction, and friction has the potential to cause all sorts of problems.” A rope could be severed by a sharp “He didn’t like it much,” says Gabriel, is one of the most popular climbing sea- spur or jar free a loose stone, and either “but he didn’t really have a choice.” sons in Yosemite, the Captain had many could lead the rescue to a fatal conclu- Gabriel injected Jimenez with mor- other groups bivouacking for the night. sion. And so the edge attendants climbed phine, splinted his legs, and strapped As he dropped onto a long ledge out around the top edge of the cliff to him onto a stretcher. Then the two called the Great Roof, Gabriel ran into protect the rope with rollers and pads, dropped off the ledge and into the dark. a climbing party. “I said to them,” and they monitored the line to ensure he says. “They were pretty cool about that it remained securely fixed at the top seeing us pass.” and passed freely over the side. Gravity Is the Most Feared Friendly though they were, climb- “There are really a lot of people As Gabriel and his nearly unconscious ers were another obstacle — people and involved in any rescue,” says Gabriel. cargo slipped downward from the Glow- equipment that could become entangled “My position was really just what we call ering Spot, their world was reduced with Gabriel’s line. Below the Great ‘the dope on the rope.’ I was the guy who from three dimensions to two: left, right, Roof, the cliff sloped toward Gabriel was dumb enough to go down. There up and down. Before them was impen- again, and he decided to kick off to the were twelve strong men and a woman at etrable rock, and behind them, empty right, east along the cliff’s face, away the top who did the real lifting.” darkness. Even the vertical plane they from the Nose and its climbers. Gabriel began his descent at 6:40 inhabited was limited to the area illu- But as they fell below the level of that evening, and with Dill’s direction, minated by Gabriel’s helmet lamp — a the Great Roof, the danger grew more he picked a path down the Captain’s face radius of about a hundred feet. acute for Gabriel and Jimenez. They

WINTER 2008 25 EARL M A DD EN

Top of El Capitan

2400 feet: approximate site of accident

2000 feet: minimum altitude for a skydiver to deploy parachute

1707 feet: Sears Tower

1063 feet: Eiffel Tower

Van Hise Hall, on UW campus

How far down did Eric Gabriel have to go? Take a look at El Capitan compared to other precipitous descents. were now 1,200 feet below the top of the might have tied off their equipment — descent. Soon after, as they reached cliff. The SAR team’s ropes are 1,200 all the while avoiding dozens of cracks, a ledge 1,300 feet above the valley, feet long — nearly ten times the length stone spurs, and knobs, and the bolts left Gabriel received a boost from his col- of typical climbing ropes, but still just a behind by previous climbers. leagues. A searchlight came on, flooding third of the length down the Captain. At At an area called the Gray Bands, the cliff face with light. Three hundred the top, the edge attendants would have Gabriel found that he was heading into feet farther on, they reached a spot to knot Gabriel’s line onto a second, and trouble. “We were going more or less to called Dolt Tower, and he saw some- then a third rope to get him to the bot- the east, to the right, with the rope skid- thing even more heartening. tom. Each of those knots provided a new ding along the rock,” he says. Then he “At a thousand feet above the deck, I obstacle, a tumor in the line, far more noticed they were heading into a major started seeing the individual lights of the liable to catch in a crack or hang up on a dihedral, an inward-facing corner, and people working on the ground,” he says. flake. If that happened, there was noth- a particular danger for a long rope. The “I got this warm feeling. Once I could see ing but jagged rock between Gabriel, angled walls of the rock could funnel the folks working below me, I realized his patient, and the valley floor. the line in toward the tighter part of the this was really going to work. We were “Climbing is basically all about corner, until it became stuck. going to make it. I stopped for a moment, physics, about forces,” Gabriel says, “You never want your rope to just to gaze at them and appreciate it. “and gravity is the most feared.” catch in a crack,” says Gabriel. “It’ll get Then I gave the patient another shot of On and on they crept, yard by yard, pinched or cut — something like that morphine so we could finish the descent.” Jimenez’s screams beating out the would definitely catch a knot.” When they reached the ground, it irregular rhythm of the descent. From So Gabriel kicked off the cliff as was 10:40 p.m., eight hours after the the Great Roof to the valley floor, they hard as he could, angling back to the accident. A team of SAR rangers was had to travel more than 2,000 feet, past west, Jimenez screaming out as they waiting to assist, but it still took nearly an four camp sites and twenty-two belay- pounded back against the granite. But hour to carry Jimenez over the broken ing stations — ledges on which climbers that was the worst moment on the ground at the cliff’s foot to get him to the

26 ON WISCONSIN valley road. From there, an ambulance the Morante SAR was: the darkness, money,” Gabriel says. “You’ve got to do drove Jimenez and Gabriel to Craneflat the descent, the language barrier. For it because you love it. To this day, I can Helibase, where a helicopter was wait- his actions that night, Gabriel received still hear certain people saying, ‘Federal ing to fly them to a hospital in Modesto. the U.S. Department of the Interior’s employees — what do they do for their At around 1:00 in the morning, Jimenez valor award — a gold medal (“It feels paychecks? Nothing!’ But the folks who went into surgery, and though his legs like gold,” he says; “anyway, it’s heavy”) wear the ranger uniform — they abso- required several operations, he still had inscribed with his name and the depart- lutely bleed green and gray.” both feet when he returned to Spain. ment’s seal. That and the time-and-a- Gabriel hasn’t seen or spoken to quarter hazard pay were his only reward On Wisconsin senior editor John Allen is proud to him since — which is not unusual, for the nighttime descent on the Captain. state that he did not fall off of a cliff or anything though almost every other aspect of “You can’t really do this job for the else while researching this story.

Climbing the Walls

Spider-Man isn’t an alumnus of the UW, but if you were a student in Madison between the late 1940s and mid-1990s, you can be forgiven for thinking that he was. During those years, it was common to see people scaling the walls of UW–M A D I SO N AR CH V E S campus buildings. But those were no super heroes — they were just Hoofers. The UW’s Hoofers have been sending climbers up steep slopes since 1949, when Don Orth x’53 and Wally Green ’52, MS’53, PhD’60 organized a mountaineering club. They made their first ascents on the cliffs and rocks of Devil’s Lake State Park near Baraboo, north of Madison, where the Hoofers still make regular expeditions. But sometimes, when the weather was too poor for climbing, or Baraboo was too far to go, those early Hoofers got a bit restless and tried their skills closer to home. “We used to do a little bit of climbing [west of] the [Memorial Union] Terrace, near the Hoofers office,” says Green. “And we’d try climbing around the inside walls of the office to see how far we could get without touching the floor.” Over time, the challenges grew more extreme, with club members scaling other buildings, including the out- side of Science Hall and the Alumni Center, and both the exterior and interior of the Armory. “We’d epoxy little rocks on the [gymnasium] wall and use them as climbing holds,” says Eric Gabriel ’88. “Often the UW’s gymnasts were practicing in there at the same time. I think they were amused by us.” According to Jim Rogers, the Hoofers’ adviser, the rules As if finals weren’t hard enough: a student scales his way down for on-campus climbing were relatively few. “They weren’t the walls of the Red Gym in this undated photo from UW-Madison supposed to climb buildings during office hours,” he Archives. Climbing on campus buildings — an activity called “buildering” — was once a favorite activity of the UW’s Hoofers says, “because it didn’t seem polite to have their crotches mountaineering club. spread across windows.” In the mid-1990s, however, the practice began to In the future, the Hoofers mountaineering club hopes change. The Alumni Center was remodeled, gaining a new to return to practicing on campus — though not quite in concrete face that was resistant to climbing. The Hoofers Spider-Man style. They’ve proposed that a climbing wall migrated to indoor climbing walls, such as the one at be added when Union South is rebuilt in 2011. Boulders, a climbing gym on Madison’s east side. — J.A.

WINTER 2008 27 28 ON WISCONSIN Lean on me Behind every successful airing of is chief booker Cindy Mori and a team of Badgers.

By Jenny Price ’96

You wouldn’t think anyone would say “no” to Oprah, would you? At first blush, any outsider, including me, would assume booking guests for the top-rated daytime talk show would be a breeze. But Cindy Goldberg Mori ’89 finds otherwise when she scrambles to line up guests for the annual post-Academy Awards broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show in front of a live audience of six thousand people at the Kodak Theatre, where the Oscar ceremony is also held. It seems the nominees and their publicists are fearful of somehow jinxing their chances to win by committing before the envelope is opened — and that makes the job of Mori, the show’s chief booker, more than a little interesting. “I go out to L.A., I have no idea who’s going to win,” she says. “I have no idea who’s going to be on the show, but I have a live show in twelve hours and I have to have people in the chair and they have to have won an Oscar.” Despite the pressure, the job’s a blast for Mori, one of eleven UW-Madison alumni who are part of the large production team working on one of the most influential shows on television. As On Wisconsin took a peek behind the scenes — thanks to help from some of these alumni — a certain aspect was clear: although the show carries only one name, it’s much bigger than one person.

PHOTO Composite. original photos by bryce richter

WINTER 2008 29 The Oprah Winfrey Show airs 140 new dangerous area can be detrimental to And now she does her best to help episodes every season, but it’s hard to your health. Suggested title: “Stress and UW graduates who eagerly seek her put a number on how many ideas are the City.” Mori agrees it’s a great title for out, reliving the dream that she once had floating around before some of them a show, but she reminds the team that — and pursued for so many years — to become shows. Ideas are a driving force viewers need some kind of take-away work on the show. at Harpo Studios — the show’s Chicago message. Since people can’t necessarily “When I think about Wisconsin and home — and with the program now in afford to move, she points out, the show giving back and the journalism school its twenty-third season, bringing Win- would need to offer tips about how peo- and what I can do … it’s not just about frey and her viewers something new and ple could reduce stress and improve their giving money, it’s about trying to be a surprising is a top priority, and an excit- health right where they live. good mentor and be a good role model, ing challenge. The Yahoo buzzer goes off and trying to help fellow Badgers,” she says. The show’s season premiere, which pitches continue around the table, from Not everyone who connects with featured 176 U.S. Olympians — and homelessness among the middle class — Mori ends up getting a job — it’s com- reigning American Idol David Cook — prompted by a series of stories about peo- petitive, after all — but the Badger con- on one stage in Chicago’s Millennium ple living in their cars after losing their nection did make a difference for three Park, demonstrated the lengths to which homes — to the critically acclaimed cable alumni who now work as research coor- her staff will go to meet that challenge. drama Mad Men, to one booker’s self- dinators for the show. “It makes me really No detail for a potential show is declared obsession with somehow get- proud that they have done so well, so overlooked. Each one of the thousands ting Star Search back on the air. “I know fast,” Mori says. of e-mails sent to the show is read. That’s I should let this go, along with Richard Chelsea Carey ’07 first met Mori how producers first heard about the now- Simmons,” she says. when she and two classmates presented a famous pregnant man, who contacted the Another team member says she spot- project to the School of Journalism and show through its Web site and ended up ted a photo of a s’more in a magazine the Mass Communication’s board of visitors. being featured in one of its highest-rated night before and wondered, “What if we Before the meeting, Carey looked over episodes last season. had Oprah and Gayle go on a camping the list of board members and thought And then there’s Mori’s booking trip?” She notes that during past shows, her eyes would pop out of her head team: seven people who keep a close eye Winfrey and her best friend, Gayle King, when she spotted Mori’s name and her on what’s hot in entertainment and the went on a road trip across the country Harpo e-mail address. The answer to news, and pass on possible topics and and toughed it out at the location of the the question, “Does she work at Oprah?” guests to the teams of producers who put PBS reality show Colonial House. was the one Carey was hoping for. The each show together. At any given time, “I don’t think they’re going on a camp- two talked, and Mori offered Carey the the booking team handles hundreds of ing trip, I gotta say,” Mori says, as the chance to shadow her on the job for a pitches about books, movies, music, and group chuckles about the misadventures couple of hours. The connection led to a news stories. And as Mori perches at her the pair had during the previous trips. summer internship for Carey, followed by desk, she keeps tabs on breaking stories a full-time position. via a small TV mounted near her com- Wendy Corenblum ’05 was equally puter that’s tuned to a cable news chan- motivated when she learned Mori would nel. “We’re TV addicts,” she says. Mori still has the rejection letter from be attending the journalism school’s During an ideas meeting, the group the first time she applied to work at The centennial luncheon in April 2005. She sits at the end of a large conference table, Oprah Winfrey Show. She was a booker arranged to sit with Mori, getting a foot and each person gets seven minutes to for ABC’s Good Morning America, spend- in the door that eventually led to a job. pitch as many topics as she can. When ing three years based in New York and And in summer 2007, during a time is up, someone hits a button that another three in Los Angeles. Along the chance encounter on the Memorial Union emits the twangy tagline from TV com- way, she chased down some of the big- Terrace with mutual friends from their mercials for Yahoo, the popular Web por- gest stories of the 1990s: O.J. Simpson’s sorority, Jill Salama ’06 was prompted tal. There’s no guarantee that any of these civil trial, JonBenet Ramsey, and the to call Corenblum and get right to the ideas will ever become part of the show. Columbine High School shootings. Even- point. “Wendy, I haven’t talked to you for “We have to have this timer because tually, she had some contacts at the Oprah a while,” Salama told her. “I heard you people get so passionate about their show and sent her resume again in 1999, work at Harpo. It’s my dream job — stories when they’re pitching,” Mori this time landing an interview and an tell me about it.” Within a month, Salama explains before the first team member offer to work as an associate producer. had a job at the show, a goal she’d set in takes a turn. “I felt on the first day like I feel now freshman year after experiencing a taping The session kicks off with a pitch … like a kid in the candy store,” Mori as an audience member. about a study revealing that living in a says.

30 ON WISCONSIN C op yrig ht 2008 Har po Pr o du ct i ns, I n c / A ll R ig s eserved./P hoto gra ph er: G e rge B urns

What a production: With only a few days’ notice, the booking team for The Oprah Winfrey Show juggled 176 travel schedules, bringing U.S. Olympic medalists to join Oprah — here, front and center — to tape the show’s season opener at Chicago’s Millennium Park in September.

Today the three women are part of a rent jobs. “The time really does go by fast team that handles an array of responsibil- when you’re here from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Question: “Can you get us tickets for the ities. They read the thousands of e-mails on some days on a night before a show, ‘Favorite Things’ show?” sent by viewers, flagging their favorites and it’s crazy, but you still love what Answer: “No, I can’t.” and trying to persuade producers that you’re doing and you get such a rush. they might lead to a good guest or a That is really lucky.” Question: “Can you get us tickets for any strong topic for a show. They track down show?” information and provide producers with Answer: “Maybe, but I have a waiting a binder chock-full of details for each Carey, Corenblum, and Salama all laugh list about this long, so talk to me in three program. They check the facts included when asked whether friends and family years.” in scripts. Every day brings something regularly bug them for tickets to be part different — especially when a breaking of the show’s studio audience. That’s news story sends them springing into pretty much a given, Salama says, adding If there’s one thing the show has, it’s action to assist the show’s producers. that sometimes people she doesn’t know reach. Every week, it’s seen by an esti- “We work such long hours, but the well track her down via Facebook to mated 44 million viewers in the United people we work with are not even like make such requests. States and distributed to another 140 our co-workers anymore,” Corenblum The three also say that when someone countries, ranging from Abu Dhabi to says. “You truly find your friends here.” finds out where they work, a conversa- Zimbabwe. “You have to pinch yourself when tion like this usually follows: Mori sums up the experience of being you can say, ‘I love my first job out of Question: “Have you met her and what an Oprah guest quite simply. “It’s going college,’ ” says Salama, adding that many is she like?” to be transformative,” she says. of her friends are miserable in their cur- Answer: “Yes. She’s very nice.”

WINTER 2008 31 Authors who appear on the show Pinch-Yourself Moments see their books climb the bestseller lists. Working for The Oprah Winfrey Show offers experiences and Products that are featured during the pro- brushes with celebrity most of us can’t fathom. “Sometimes you gram sell out quickly. So it’s not really a leave this job and you can’t believe what you did that day,” says surprise, as I drive toward Harpo Studios Chelsea Carey ’07, a research coordinator. Here are highlights in Chicago’s West Loop on a summer day, from some of Oprah’s Badgers. to notice that a motivational speaker has purchased a billboard one block from the C op yrig ht 2005 Har po Pr o du ct i ns, I n c ./ A ll R ig s eserved/P hoto gra ph er: G e rge B urns studio to hype his new book. The same tactic worked for a Pennsylvania animal shelter, which bought a billboard as part of its ongoing crusade against puppy mills. Oprah producers saw the message and pur- sued a hidden-camera report. The UW alumni who work for the show see its influence firsthand. For example, Corenblum did research for two shows on health care in the United States, which included talking with film- maker Michael Moore, who made the Oscar-nominated documentary Sicko. As part of those broadcasts, show correspon- dent Lisa Ling investigated insurance companies for viewers who were strug- gling to get coverage. After the show aired, insurers for some of the viewers featured Surrounded by celebrity: Oprah Winfrey with, left to right, Jamie Foxx, Hilary Swank, “called them back and said, ‘We’re going and Chris Rock. to cover you now,’ ” Corenblum says. “It was just a really powerful show The Piano Man and very moving to work on,” she adds, During her first season on the show, Carey worked on an episode that “and to meet the people that we helped featured rocker Billy Joel. The night before the show taped, she attended was really amazing.” rehearsal and got to watch him perform “Only the Good Die Young” in an Mori saw how the show could change intimate performance for the production team putting the show together. “I grew up on Billy Joel, and my dad loves him,” she says, “and so I just a life after she read an article about a thought, ‘What did I just do tonight?’ ” young black playwright who once was homeless and sleeping in his car. The Mom and Julia man, who had struggled to produce his Wendy Corenblum ’05, also a research coordinator, had an inside source plays, saw his career take off once he to help producers working on a show featuring stars Tom Hanks and Julia addressed his unresolved issues, includ- Roberts. Corenblum’s mother, who had been Roberts’ sixth-grade teacher, ing an abusive father. Mori booked him provided old yearbooks and photos — and even ended up appearing on the for a show, and after it aired, Tyler Perry show to reunite with the actress. “My mom had actually been more than a experienced phenomenal success in the- teacher; she had gone to the opening of Steel Magnolias … then [she and Julia] had just lost touch, so that was a really cool experience,” says Corenblum. ater and eventually on the big screen, including with Madea’s Family Reunion, Hanging with Hilary a movie he directed. Cindy Mori booked actress Hilary Swank to talk about her performance in “In some ways,” Mori says, “he credits the movie Million Dollar Baby. Two days before she came to the show, Swank me with bringing him here the first time was nominated for a best actress Oscar — which she went on to win. Mori, and having the opportunity to meet Oprah who met Swank in the green room before the taping, says she will never for- and have that experience. I’m so excited get what Swank said: “You know, obviously it’s a big honor to get an Oscar to see his success and feel — in some small nomination, but being on the Oprah show for the first time is so much cooler way — [my] stumbling across this article than that!” Although Mori hesitates to name favorite guests, a framed photo of herself with Swank sits on her desk. — J.P. changed the trajectory of his life.” Mori has worked on hundreds of shows, but some of the more serious sub-

32 ON WISCONSIN jects stick out most in her memory. As an Osmonds had fifty-eight kids, and those associate producer, she was part of a team fifty-eight had forty-two kids. So, it was When looking around the table at the that put together “Islam 101,” a show that like putting together the family tree.” ideas meeting or reading the closing cred- aired after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The Getting the entire clan to Chicago its of the Oprah show, one fact is inescap- goal was to break down stereotypes and involved chartering a plane and buses, able: there are a lot of women on the staff. inform viewers about the religion. and when they all began arriving at the Mori’s team is all female, save for one “That was a lot of responsibility for studio early the day of the show, Carey member who introduces himself as “the us,” Mori says. “What I learned about was there to greet them. new guy.” Given those odds, Mori still that religion in the two weeks or ten days “It was nuts, but it was really cool marvels that she actually met her husband, that we had to prep for it was amazing, seeing [them],” she says. “And they all a senior producer for the show with whom because I didn’t really know much about look alike.” she has two young sons, at work. the religion — and I’m not sure anyone The show took it to a whole new level “Oprah once said about my husband, I was working with on that show knew. for its season premiere in September, ‘Well, he’s worked here forever, he’s But we had to do an hour for our audi- when the staff pulled off a homecoming about 70 percent woman. … He’s got a ence that really broke it down in simple party for Team USA in just nine days. little girlfriend in him,’ ” Mori says. terms that would teach them, that would Mori’s crew worked the telephones and Although the work schedule can be educate, and hopefully make them think sent e-mails “all hours of the day and grueling, Mori says it’s inspiring to work about Muslim people and the religion of night” to book athletes for the show, she in an environment where so many other Islam in maybe a different way than they says. The United States had 262 medal- women are balancing marriage, family, had right after 9/11.” ists in Beijing; the goal was to get as and career every day — just as she is. many as possible to appear on Oprah. “There’s no glass ceiling at The Oprah On the research side, it was Salama’s Winfrey Show,” she says. “Women have The studio where Winfrey tapes her show job to double-check everything about the many, many, many of the top jobs … and looks smaller in person than it does when Olympians, including their hometowns, have from the beginning.” you’re watching from home. But it’s still the number of medals won, and any Mori briefly left the show after the impressive, with a breathtaking canopy of other facts the producers might want to birth of her first son, now five, and found spotlights hanging down from the ceiling know. “Up until the end, people were that she “missed it desperately.” She and rows of chairs waiting to be filled with RSVPing,” Salama says. “It just kept get- returned on a freelance basis, helping ebullient fans. On a typical day, the stage ting bigger and bigger. … It was exciting out in different departments until she is set up for an interview, with two arm- to be part of it — and lucky.” filled a position booking celebrities. Now chairs — one for Winfrey and one for her Not every athlete could attend — that she is manager of booking relations, guest. But overnight, crews can transform for example, one baseball player had to her team does most of the traveling and the space. For a show featuring dancers cancel at the last minute because he got knocking on doors that she used to do. and contestants from the ABC reality called up to the major leagues. As the big “I wasn’t sure I could [make the show Dancing with the Stars, they converted day loomed, though, Oprah staffers final- change],” she says, “but they were the studio into a ballroom, complete with a ized travel arrangements to bring 176 extremely accommodating in finding some- parquet dance floor. athletes to Chicago from sixty cities and thing that really fit my talents, but that also People who work on Oprah think big. thirty states. The final group included contributes in a big way to the show. So, After all, this is the show that once gave Olympic sensations Nastia Liukin for me, it’s worked out great. You know, a car to everyone in the studio audience. and eight-time gold-medalist swimmer there’s a lot of girl power there.” “Nothing’s too big. We’re only limited by Michael Phelps, as well as Kobe Bryant the size of the TV screen,” Mori says. and other NBA players from the men’s That scope includes 125 Osmonds. basketball team. On Wisconsin writer Jenny Price had the thrill of Carey worked on the team that put appearing on the Oprah show in 1995 as one of ten “I learned that anything is possible in audience members selected to receive a Hollywood together a reunion show featuring the any amount of time. … If you can dream makeover. She has failed to replicate the fabulous entire Osmond family, including the it, you can make it happen,” Mori says. results on her own. brother-and-sister duo of Donny and “The way that we all felt when Michael Marie. As it turned out, keeping track of Phelps touched the wall — that’s how I who belonged to which part of the family felt times 176. With the confetti going, wasn’t easy. and Oprah on stage, and six thousand “It was down to even making a people on hand to watch, I just cried spreadsheet in Excel of ‘Okay, this is tears of pure joy.” Donny. His wife’s name is this. They have three kids,’ ” Carey says. “The nine

WINTER 2008 33 Shaped by History Why do our states look the way they do? Mark Stein dug into America’s past to find answers.

By Jenny Price ’96

uring seventh grade geography class, and the District of Columbia look the Mark Stein ’73 spent a lot of time way they do, often revealing some sur- Dstudying a map of his home state of prising answers (see facing page). “The Maryland. One question always nagged him: further I got in, the more I was amazed to why do we have Delaware? discover there was this splendid logic, and To Stein, it looked more like Maryland’s missing it was integral to what was happening in piece than a separate state. He continued to ponder American history,” Stein says. the mystery of state borders well past junior high He had a secret weapon in his hunt for infor- school. During his years on the UW-Madison cam- mation: his wife, Arlene Balkansky ’74, who pus — where he earned degrees in English and psy- works for the Library of Congress. “She’d point chology — the sight of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula me to areas, and then she was terrific if I found connected to Wisconsin’s northern border made him something that was in a book [there],” he says. wonder, “How’d Michigan get that?” “She had borrowing privileges, and I wouldn’t Stein went on to make his living as a play- have to go in; she could bring books home, wright, with works produced Off Broadway and at which was a great time-saver.” theaters around the country, and as a screenwriter, Still, it was an arduous search. Stein devoted with films including Housesitter, which starred about four years to researching and writing the Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. But a break in his book, while continuing to work in theater. He movie career finally gave him the chance — and started with basic histories of each state and fol- the push — to pursue the answers to those persis- lowed up on any clues he found, leading to every- tent questions about the shapes of states. thing from surveyors’ notebooks to the personal “I actually did pretty well in Hollywood, but not diaries of John Quincy Adams. “A lot of times, it well enough to just retire,” Stein says, “so at some was detective work like that — just to find a name point it came together for me, ‘Why don’t I just or a specific reference, and then chase that down,” pursue this thing that I’ve been so interested in — he says. if nothing else, as a labor of love?’ And the more I Would establishing state boundaries be handled looked … the more I discovered that, ‘Oh my god, differently today? Stein doesn’t think so. Although you can even say something about Hawaii?’ ” the issues might be different, one aspect hasn’t Stein’s book, fittingly titled How the States changed. “Power is power,” he says, “and it will Got Their Shapes, explores why all fifty states manifest itself whenever resources are at stake.”

34 ON WISCONSIN The Upper Peninsula— Equality was a driving force in the devel- Minnesota— The Upper Peninsula might be Wisconsin’s opment of state borders after the unequally shaped thirteen most puzzling loss of land, given that it’s not colonies became states — and one of the reasons so many of the connected to the rest of the state of Michi- states out West look like rectangles. But being equal applied not gan. “The UP,” as it’s usually called, was a only to divvying up land, but also to ensuring access to resources. gift to the state from Congress, something When the Great Lakes became avenues of commerce with the Stein calls a “consolation prize” for land completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, states in the region could Michigan lost to Ohio and Indiana. “Hardly be considered equal only if Minnesota was given access to the any settlers were living there to complain,” lakes, something Wisconsin already had. So instead of Wiscon- he notes in his book. In addition, Wisconsin sin’s western border continuing to follow the Mississippi River, it had no case to make when the move ended follows the St. Croix River and then continues straight north to the Toledo War, a conflict that started Lake Superior, connecting Minnesota to the lake’s western shore. when Michigan sent its militia to seize the disputed land back from Ohio. “Geographi- cally, there’s no logic,” Stein says. “The logic is all political.”

Wisconsin would not be shaped like a mitten if history had gone a different way. Mark Stein’s book uncovers the reasons why it looks the way it does today. In a foursome including Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, Wisconsin was the last to have a population that was large enough to merit statehood — a fact that had a significant impact on its borders. But, Stein quickly Illinois— points out, the Badger State fared far better The Packers and the Bears play- ing in the same state? That than some others. “I don’t think it’s as could have happened if Wis- consin had not lost sixty miles egregious as what they did to Utah,” — including what became Chi- he says. The federal government, he cago and Rockford — to Illinois when it earned statehood in notes, distrusted the Mormons who 1818. Congress voted to allow the annexation after Illinois’s founded that territory, so “every founders argued that it was time a resource was found in important for their state to be connected to New York (via the western part of the Utah the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal) to keep the commerce Territory, Congress would slice from becoming dependent on the slave-holding Southern another degree of longitude off the states via the Mississippi River. The concerns were present WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY WHI-24946 before transcontinental rail- roads were built. “Illinois had the muscle and the hot button issue of the day — the fear that the country might one day break apart,” Stein says.

WINTER 2008 35 Remaking

As mayor of Medellín, Colombia, Sergio Fajardo has helped transform one of the world’s most violent cities by bringing beauty and culture to its meanest streets.

“Let me show you,”Raúl tells me, pointing with his left index finger down a street in Medellín, Colombia. “In that corner, I received a bullet in my head and lost sight in my left eye dur- ing an ambush by left-wing guerrillas while I was in a paramilitary group. … A few blocks from here, I had a motor- bike accident while I was escaping after shooting somebody in the head when I was a triggerman for a big drug lord, and now I can’t use my right arm.”

36 ON WISCONSIN Remaking Medellín By Andres Schipani SCOTT DALTON/The N E W YORK TIM S/R DUX (2)

PQ

Sergio Fajardo visits residents of Santo Domingo Savio, which was one of the most violent barrios in Medellín, Colombia, before he became mayor. In keeping with his plan to “change the skin of the city,” Fajardo built a library here that included a day care center and an art gallery, and he installed cable cars to link the neighborhood with jobs in the downtown area.

WINTER 2008 37 While scrambling through the streets working as a newspaper columnist, until “We have had to struggle with the of the city of Medellín, before arriving at a he decided to run for mayor of Medellín. label of the most violent city in the world, square full of the chubby statues by world- As decades of violence rocked Colom- the city of the [cocaine] cartels, of the renowned artist Fernando Botero, Raúl bia, Medellín became synonymous with paramilitaries. … Medellín was inher- told me his story. After living for almost kidnappings, murders, and drug traffick- ently associated with violence,” explains fifteen years on the margins of the law, he is ing. During the nineties, there were about Fajardo, pushing back his unruly curls. now following a recovery program, work- 300 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants a In 2002 there was a strong intervention ing as an intern at the mayor’s office, and year. However, Fajardo did not get the by the central government that started to considering enrolling at a university. memo. In 2004, a year after he took office, make things a bit better, but that was not “This place was hell, hell on earth, the city saw its least violent year in two enough for Fajardo. The key issue that he I can assure you,” he adds, nodding his decades, with 57 homicides per 100,000; sensed everywhere, on every corner, in head, “but things have changed, things by 2007, the number had dropped to 26. every shop, was that the city had “lost its have changed for good, and I think we self-esteem … [It] was then a city without now have one of the most beautiful cities a path, without an identity.” in Latin America … and this is all thanks He owes his very Then, a group of “friends” from to Fajardo.” various professions — business owners, “Fajardo” is Sergio Fajardo MA’81, particular vision to his scientists, members of civic organiza- PhD’84, the recently retired mayor of tions — started to push for more changes. Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city. father, Raúl, a renowned “We always ended up being frustrated,” A native of Colombia, he says he came architect who gave the Fajardo explains. “The challenges com- to UW-Madison to get his doctorate in ing from the traditional political sectors math “because it had the best program in younger Fajardo a keen were very tough.” Fed up with the status mathematical logic in the whole world.” quo and tired of hearing excuses from After Fajardo returned to his home sense of the role that politicians that things were too difficult to country, he became a lecturer in math- architecture can play change, they stepped in with the attitude ematics and a researcher at the Univer- that nothing was too difficult, and to their sity of Los Andes in Bogotá, while also in society. surprise, they found out that people were

38 ON WISCONSIN Ph oto court e sy o f C ity Hall Me d ll í n

The recently renovated Botanical Gardens Orquidea, also known as the Orquideorama (above), features a stunning sustainable design that collects rainwater in the petals of the flower-shaped structures. The Spain Library-Park Cardona (facing page) is one of several “park-libraries” that Fajardo constructed in the city’s poorest neighborhoods to provide residents with access to cultural activities and services. supporting them. It was a gamble that ings where a host of cultural, social, and corner in this city holds a message say- paid off, especially when Fajardo sought educational projects are mushrooming in ing, ‘There was violence here,’ and that and won the office of mayor as an inde- the old battlefields. is what people remember,” he explains, pendent candidate. “To the poorest people, the most echoing what my unofficial tour guide But paramilitary groups provided beautiful buildings,” he says with a Raúl had told me earlier. another major obstacle. Immediately after smile. He owes that very particular “Changing the skin” means that taking office in 2003, Fajardo and his vision to his father, Raúl, a renowned the mayoral administration has built an team sought to orchestrate the re-inser- architect who gave the younger Fajardo impressive social urban transformation in tion of these group members into society a keen sense of the role that architecture those places that are generally the most in an effort to decrease the violence. “The can play in society. humble spots in the city. Where there [previous] government was the one doing Fajardo and his highly enthusiastic used to be violence, Fajardo put up the secret settlements and arrangements in team have made a large investment in kinds of buildings that most of the resi- dark rooms, and we were never part of something that, for him, has been crucial dents of Medellín had never had before, those,” he says. “We always acted trans- for Medellín. He describes it as “chang- including what he calls “park-libraries.” parently, and from the start, we made it ing the skin of the city.” “We use those words because this is very clear to the paramilitaries what the Being a pragmatic mathematician a novel concept,” he says. “There are no rules of the game were.” with a well-rooted social consciousness, words to describe what they are — it is Fajardo’s openness was seen as a he is convincing when he talks about the place where we can get together, a park novelty, and that transparency gained the changes the city has seen. “When you where everybody can be there and get people’s confidence. So, what was once have gone through many years of vio- there.” a hot spot for skirmishes between right- lence, then public spaces begin to repre- The park-libraries are indeed a nov- wing paramilitary groups and left-wing sent that violence — somebody was killed elty. Directly opposite a crowded wom- guerrillas is now, after his four years in here in this corner; three years ago, four en’s prison, a stunning yellow-and-grey office, a place of artfully designed build- people were killed in this field. Every structure rises from the edge of a green

WINTER 2008 39 Fajardo claims that the “worst places are now something Ph oto court e sy o f C ity Hall Me d ll í n (2) beautiful with the highest standards.”

hill. A metal-and-concrete work of art kid goes,” he says. Fajardo expects that presidential race, probably against the that would amaze many— even if it were the effects of his spending will resonate incumbent, Alvaro Uribe. to appear on the streets of Paris — faces beyond the classroom. “He would probably be the strongest a slum. However, the former mayor is not candidate the center-left has,” according “That is the idea,” Fajardo claims. without his detractors. Some in Medellín to Adam Isacson, director of programs “The worst places are now something feel he has been wasting their money. at the Center for International Policy’s beautiful with the highest standards.” At one of the arteries of the city, staring Colombia Program in Washington, D.C. Marina, an eighteen-year-old social at a boulevard where trees grow from Fajardo is “a very skilled politician, very worker who works part time at this colorful pyramids, Miguel, a local small- charismatic, not corrupt, and seems to park-library, shows me around as we business owner, asks, “Why did we let have a vision for how to govern. On the pass a young, working-class mother car- him spend so much money on his useless other hand, he does have a hyper-inflated rying her child in one arm and a book by and pretty projects? We are a very Latin opinion of himself — the same ‘arro- French writer Emile Zola in the other. American city — why do we want to gance’ argument the [Republicans] have “Inside here, you will find an audi- be like an American or European one? used against Obama.” torium, books, films, a micro-credit loan We might look a bit alike on the surface Isacson adds that some of the credit office, and an office for entrepreneurial- now, but we will never be one — be sure for transforming his troubled city is ism,” Marina explains. “So what people of that. What this city needs are stronger shared with Uribe, who increased its find here are not just access to culture or and more experienced politicians, not a security force. Indeed, Uribe is very a place to hang out — what they find are fashionable one.” popular and could be re-elected if the opportunities.” Yet Fajardo seems to be learning constitution is amended to allow him to Knowledge and culture seem to be fast. About five years ago, while cam- seek another term, according to Her- behind many of Fajardo’s projects, as paigning, he crisscrossed the city on nando Rojas, a UW-Madison assistant he has increased city spending on edu- foot, talking to people. Until recently, professor of life sciences communication cation, bringing it to 40 percent of the he was crisscrossing the country as with a focus on Latin American politics. annual budget. “We have built the great- the main star of a radio show, trying “I think [Fajardo] will continue to play a est schools in places where the poorest to understand the realities of other very important leadership role in Colom- child in Medellín goes to a school as Colombian communities — and gauging bia for years to come, even if he doesn’t good as the private one where the rich whether he feels ready to run in the next get elected,” Rojas says. “Fajardo is very

40 ON WISCONSIN has evolved into a political symbol, espe- … Helping them find their own talents cially for young people, his most loyal was a good idea, helping them to grow fans. They have even created more than as musicians, mathematicians, waiters … forty Fajardo groups on Facebook, the because when you are young is when you social networking Web site. build the way toward a prosperous life,” “I come from the academic world, Fajardo says. so my relationship with youngsters is He believes that Medellín’s younger something natural,” he says. “Somehow I generation needs to develop its own talent became a symbol of youth, without being — talent that will have nothing to do with one, as they felt confident simply because crime and violence. “If you have people I was close to them.” that have a wall in front of them,” he says, He points at his Levis and casual “you need to help them to build doors in shirt, saying, “I dress up like this all the that wall.” time, this is the real me, somebody that And some did build those doors. At will never put distance.” the business office of a sports shop close Reaching out to youth has been to Barrio Triste, Yuli, a twenty-year-old central to the transformation of the city. single mother of a paraplegic child, talks “For years and years, the youngsters of with me over a cup of sublime Colom- Medellín had violence as the only option bian coffee. in life,” Fajardo says. Determined to “I come from a humble family,” she change that bleak scenario, his team of says. “My mother abandoned me when specialists employed a broad formula I was twelve, and I used to live with my tailored for each young person that sick uncle in what used to be a very dan- combined psychological attention with gerous neighborhood. I gave birth three educational and vocational training. Since years ago, and at the beginning [that] then, many youths have seen that positive was very hard for me, to raise a kid and young, and he probably has many years things were happening in their communi- support myself. I wanted to study, but my and many elections to come.” ties and that, as one of Fajardo’s slogans family was pressuring me not to do it. The politician’s youth has also con- says, “Being good pays good.” “I thought there was no way out, no tributed to a rapport with young people “Violence was our pain, our tumor, future,” she tells me, adding with a grow- that began at Wisconsin, where he was a and we needed to do something for our ing smile, “but now, after attending one math teaching assistant. Remarkably, this community so the youngsters were able of the courses the mayor’s office started academic with no prior political affiliation to realize the magnitude of the problem. to offer, I’ve got an internship here [at the shop], and now they’ve offered me a full-time position. I am now attending another course and I feel I am growing. I see a future now, for my kid and me. I see a future for this city. And if Medellín and I now have a future, it is because of Sergio Fajardo.”

Andres Schipani is an Argentine-born Latin America correspondent for the BBC. Educated at Oxford, Cardiff, and London, he also writes regularly on Latin American issues for newspapers such as The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, and the Financial Times.

Top left: The Explora Science and Tech- nology Park, which includes interactive museum exhibits and an aquarium, is one of many new avant-garde structures initiated by Fajardo. Left: Riding on the tails of his successful term as mayor, Sergio Fajardo is now plan- ning to run for president of Colombia. Here he campaigns in the city of Barranquilla. WINTER 2008 41 ddWisconsin ddUW From John Muir’s wake-up contraption to the queen of bootleggers, some of the state’s most unusual tales have university ties.

By Erika Janik MA’04, MA’06 he Wisconsin Idea — the venerable concept that extends the borders of knowledge beyond the university — also, apparently, extends the bounds of oddity. Wisconsin’s past is full of crazy characters, bizarre events, and surprising schemes that didn’t make it into the state’s official history. And many of these offbeat stories have University of Wisconsin connections. T Odd Wisconsin: Amusing, Perplexing, and Unlikely Stories from Wisconsin’s Past, pub- lished by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, brings these stories to light, reveal- ing the state with all the bumps, bruises, and perplexities that make a place more than just a location on a map, an entry in an encyclopedia, or the home of a university. The idea of telling the state’s peculiar stories began as a way to share the funny articles, books, manuscripts, and photos found in the society’s collections that were simply too good

to put aside in the name of serious

r 7 r e Fold 1, Box 9, Mss land h ort N ty, e oci S Wisconsin Historical Historical Wisconsin research. So, in 2004, “Odd Wisconsin” debuted as a blog on the organization’s Web site, and a year or so later, the Wisconsin State Journal began running entries as a weekly feature. In 2007, the blog’s content was recast as a book, bringing together some of the best tales and a bunch of new ones — including this sampling of stories with UW connec- tions. Buying the Farm The phrase “buying the farm” took a literal turn in the early twentieth century when realtor, banker, land developer, and UW regent Benjamin Faast organized the Wisconsin Colonization Co. in northern Wisconsin. In 1917, Faast purchased about fifty thousand acres of land devastated by logging in Sawyer County and began offering parcels of it to immigrants as ready-equipped farms. It was not Faast’s first development scheme in the state’s northern region; he had ear- lier convinced the regents to help new farmers by locating an agricultural demonstration station on his own land in Rusk County. But his plans for Sawyer County were scaled to a whole new level of magnitude, both in amenities offered to settlers and in his longer-term vision.

42 ON WISCONSIN Wisconsin Historical S oci e ty Im ag 10983

 The Peculiar Birth of Paul Bunyan Paul Bunyan is America’s best-known folk hero, the subject of stories told and retold in lumber camps from Michigan to California. Known for his size and strength, Bunyan supposedly cleared North Dakota of its forests, created Minnesota’s ten thousand lakes from his footsteps, and carved the Grand Canyon from the trail of his dragging axe. From the 1880s through 1910, Bunyan stories were often improvised aloud by groups of veteran lumberjacks to test the gullibility of new recruits. Some were also intended to intimidate the novice loggers, who were mostly teenagers fresh from the farm or the city, by exaggerating the dangers of extreme winter conditions or mythical forest beasts. But as oral tales, these Bunyan stories might have easily disappeared along with the lumber camps that sustained them, were it not for the efforts of a UW student named K. Bernice Stewart ’16. The daughter of an Antigo timber cruiser — someone who Wisconsin Historical S oci e ty Im ag 55611 estimated the value of timber in a forest — Stewart had spent several winters of her childhood in logging camps, hearing Bun- yan accounts directly from loggers. Under  Morning the guidance of her UW English professor, Wake-Up Call Homer A. Watt, she began interviewing and carefully collecting these stories from Wis- For those who struggle to get out consin sources around 1912. With Watt’s of bed in the morning, consider this help, she published her research in 1916. solution from former UW student and Her careful efforts to preserve and inter- famed naturalist John Muir x1863 — pret the tall tales helped to launch a tradition a bed that does it for you. of scholarly study of folk tales that continues In a letter written years after to this day. And because of Stewart, Bunyan she first visited Muir’s dorm room himself lives on, memorialized on countless in North Hall in the early 1860s, restaurant menus, in songs, and at tour- Grace Lindsley recalled a combina- ist attractions and festivals from Bangor, tion alarm clock/bed that tipped him Maine, to Portland, Oregon. onto the floor at the appointed time each morning. While Muir was being unceremoniously dumped out of bed, another mechanism struck a match and lit a candle at the foot of the bed. In fact, Muir’s room was full of Each farm came with land, an “attrac- The farm sites were only the beginning innovative gadgets to help him maxi- tive house and barn, a cow, 2 pigs and 6 of Faast’s grand plan. He also mapped out mize his college experience, many of chickens, a set of clearing tools, and clo- what he hoped would become the center- which could still prove quite useful ver and timothy seed.” An expert in close piece of the colony, a prosperous city he today. One invention, a bookstand touch with the College of Agriculture named Ojibwa and described as “the first that revolved after a preset time provided free farming advice. Houses planned and carefully thought out rural spent studying, led Lindsley’s mother came in four styles and were “attractively town in the whole Chippewa Valley, if to remark, “He ought to have so painted in striking contrast with the aver- not in all Wisconsin.” In his mind, Ojibwa arranged it that if he hadn’t properly age tar paper shack and log cabin of the included a zoo, parks, streets with side- learned the lesson, a hand would pioneer.” Faast, who strongly believed walks, a restaurant, a large general store, come up and bop his ears.” Muir’s that the happiness of the townspeople and neighborhoods that took “advantage creative bookstand is displayed in was directly tied to aesthetic beauty, of the natural beauty spots.” the lobby of the Wisconsin Historical provided seeds and garden plans, and Unfortunately, Faast’s dream began Society. encouraged settlers to contribute to the to bottom out soon after it began, and overall appearance of the community by the Wisconsin Colonization Co. went Continued on page 62 growing flowers and vegetables. bankrupt in 1929.

WINTER 2008 43 Odd UW q Continued from page 43 A Plate Full of Patriotism Wisconsin Historical S oci e ty Im ag 9426 Live without dairy products, wheat, beef, pork, or sugar? While they may sound like fightin’ words in a dairy and agricultural state, during World War I, Wisconsin residents were encouraged to do just that — and the Women Students’ War Work Council and the UW Home Econom- ics Department produced a recipe booklet to show them how. Although most people associate food rationing with World War II, these state and federal programs were first implemented as a show of home- front patriotism during WW I. And Wisconsin was actually at the fore- front, pioneering many of the programs that formed the foundation for federal Food and Drug Administration poli- cies under Herbert Hoover. Wisconsin became the first state to  organize both state- and county-level A “Gibraltar of the Wets” councils of defense, which helped to Though known as the Dairy State, Wisconsin might just as easily have been known educate citizens about wartime sacri- as the Brewski State, since beer-making was a tradition in many of its German-Amer- fices. Wisconsin’s State Council of ican communities. When national prohibition went into effect in 1920, Wisconsinites Defense was particularly interested in begrudgingly went along with it for a while, but in 1926, they overwhelmingly voted the national food crisis that developed to support an exemption for “near beer,” a beverage with 2.75 percent alcohol. Three once the United States entered years later, voters endorsed a second measure that called for an end to the war in 1917.

Wisconsin Historical Society Image 61587 prosecution of prohibition violators. Council chair- By then federal officials were afoot in Wisconsin to assess man Magnus conditions. Investigator Frank Buckley found that the state Swenson 1880, was “commonly regarded as a Gibraltar of the wets — sort of a UW regent, a Utopia where everyone drinks their fill and John Barleycorn began vigor- still holds forth in splendor.” After ten years of prohibition, he ously found that in Madison, “The section of the city known as the promoting Bush is made up of Sicilian Italians of the worst sort, most of food conser- whom are bootleggers. ... The queen of bootleggers, an attractive vation young Italian girl, caters exclusively to a fraternity-house clien- through the tele.” While in Madison, Buckley visited the local chapter of his cultivation of national fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, one morning about nine home gardens and the institution of o’clock. He observed quite a commotion — the result of an attempt to induce two of the meatless and wheatless days. brethren, who had apparently imbibed well, but not wisely, the night before, to get up Anyone for some steamed barley for morning classes. pudding or scalloped cheese? Other cities were worse. At the opposite end of the state, Buckley wrote, Hurley “tucked away up in the wild lumber and iron section of northern Wisconsin, right on “Names and dates matter, but the stories the Michigan State line, has the distinction of being the worst community in the State. are what make history fun, important, and relevant,” says Erika Janik MA’04, MA’06, Conditions in Hurley are not unlike those of settlements like Dawson City, Cripple who wrote about WHA Radio’s Homemakers’ Creek, El Dorado, Borger, and other boom communities. Gambling, prostitution, Program, another gem in Wisconsin’s history, bootlegging, and dope are about the chief occupations of the place. Saloons there for On Wisconsin in Spring 2007. function with barmaids who serve the dual capacity of soda dispenser and prostitute.”

44 ON WISCONSIN Sports

Team Player Body Building Moritz Baumann Nutritionists work to keep Badgers fed, but healthy. Five things you should know Badger fans get to see a wide ized that adequate nutrition [athletes] with nutrition for the about tennis player Moritz variety of bodies in motion should be number one on the now, but also for the later, so Baumann x’10: — muscular football players, list,” explains UW Health nutri- that when [they] get older, all compact wrestlers, speedy bas- tionist Sarah Mattison, who of these healthy food habits • While growing up ketball players. What they don’t oversees what Badger athletes carry over,” she says. in Germany, see is the work that goes into eat. “Many schools now have a Inadequate nutrition can Baumann keeping those bodies in dietician on staff to help serve lead to obesity and heart played ten- motion. Feeding athletes in developing meal plans and disease, and Mattison must nis and an optimal diet — one make sure that players are eat- convince athletes that their soccer that will make them prop- ing healthy. This was not nearly level of exercise cannot fully until he erly muscular, compact, or this huge ten years ago. Most compensate for poor nutrition. was forced speedy — requires both sci- professional sports teams are Though she can control the to pick one ence and salesmanship. hiring dieticians and nutrition- food they eat at the training sport because “It used to be that athletes ists as well.” table — the meal that they get of scheduling tried to rely on genetics and Although not all athletes while preparing for practice or conflicts (and too working really hard in the follow a strict nutritional plan, competition — most of their much driving for his weight room and at practice Mattison hopes they learn the diet is outside of her control. mother). to become champions, and a benefits of a healthy diet, not Jeremy Isensee ’00, • His hometown of good diet was the last thing only for its on-field effects, but another athletic department Inzlingen in southwest on their minds. But in the past also for the lifelong benefits. nutritionist, says the players Germany is much qui- several years, they have real- “I don’t only want to help receive clear advice about how eter than Madison, he to build a proper meal. “Ath- says. And with a campus letes should eat a very healthy apartment near State and balanced diet that will help Street, he sees Madison them refuel after hard games at its busiest. and practices,” he says. “We developed a nutrition card • Baumann was the Bad- labeling system for all the foods gers’ top-ranked singles we serve and that they should player during his sopho- eat. So if we’re not there, they more year, and he was sports information (2) have a good idea of what to the first Badger since pick.” 2002 to play in the NCAA The cards feature green, singles draw. A two-time yellow, and red borders. All-Big Ten selection, “Green, you can eat as much as he was the second UW you want,” Isensee says. “Yel- player ever named to low, a little bit more caution, the All-Big Ten team as Men’s Swimming but a lot of foods actually are a freshman. Circle the dates: December 4–6, the Badgers travel to Austin for yellow. And then we have a red • His decision to play for the Texas Invitational. This will be the first shot for the Badger border for things that aren’t the Badgers was based swimmers to qualify for the NCAA Championships in March 2009. good for you. Not all the guys really care — some just want to on academics and athlet- Keep an eye on: Nick Fulton x’09. After participating in the Olym- get their food, but some of the ics. “I have the oppor- pic Time Trials with co-captain Kyle Sorensen x’09 in summer 2008, guys really are conscious of it.” tunity to get a good Fulton now looks to lead the Badgers to a successful season. This The nutritionists’ advice education and can still three-time letter winner is no stranger to a leadership role. When not meets with a mixed recep- practice every day to in the pool, Fulton fulfills his duties as the Big Ten’s student athlete tion from athletes, according improve my game,” he representative on the NCAA’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee, to Mattison. “I work with all says. “In Germany, this speaking on behalf of both UW and Big Ten student athletes. wouldn’t be possible, sports, and some take nutrition because there are no Think about this: In addition to seven returning sophomores from very seriously, [but] some teams sports in college.” last year’s squad, the Badgers’ incoming freshman class brings two do better than others, and Olympic Time Trial competitors and was ranked ninth in the nation some players — for instance, • A communication arts by collegeswimming.com. The balanced roster includes 14 upper- a lineman versus a receiver — major, Baumann hopes classmen, laying the foundation for a bright future, which head have very different bodies that to make the pro circuit coach Eric Hansen hopes begins with the team breaking into the require different nutritional after college. top 20 this season. needs,” she says.

46 ON WISCONSIN Sports

Badger running back P.J. Big Red is going green. This Hill x’10 says that, while the bryce richter (2) year’s Homecoming game — department’s plans don’t gov- October 25, against Illinois — ern his diet, they do affect the was designated the Big Ten’s decisions he makes. “Keeping first “carbon neutral” football it real, I eat whatever I want, game. The goal, according to actually whatever is convenient new UW chancellor Carolyn and I can afford,” he says. “It “Biddy” Martin, was to stimulate is too expensive to go and buy awareness of environmental what’s on the nutritional plans, issues. The UW worked to reduce but I keep in mind that what- emissions of carbon dioxide — a ever I eat might hinder me greenhouse gas — generated by during the next workout.” activities directly surrounding Former basketball center the game. Further, the project Brian Butch ’07, MS’08, how- involved planting thousands of ever, adheres to his nutritional trees — which absorb carbon plan much more strictly. “I tend dioxide from the atmosphere to do my own thing when it — at Arlington Tree Farm near comes to a bite to eat during the Cambridge, Wisconsin. off-season, but I always make The UW’s University Ridge was sure I follow the plan,” he says. ranked the top collegiate golf Now that his Badger playing course in the nation, according days are over, he hopes to con- to a survey in Golf World maga- tinue his basketball career pro- zine. The publication announced fessionally. “I have to eat really, its 2009 Reader Choice Awards in really good during the season, October, including the results of though, because I know that my a reader poll on public courses. body can run much better when University Ridge scored 8 or I am putting the best fuel into higher (on a 10 point scale) for it,” he acknowledges. “Because quality and condition of course, of that, I eat a balanced portion reputation, pro shop, and off- of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, course activities. It was ranked and good carbs [as] suggested among the top thirty public by the meal plan.” courses in the country overall The temptation for an Yellow means caution: color-coded borders tell athletes how much of a particular food they may eat. The twice-baked potatoes that this and received the highest score of athlete to blow off a diet can student is passing by are to be eaten sparingly — but are less trouble any collegiate course. be very strong, explains John than the red-bordered chicken cordon bleu he’s taking. Dettman, a strength-and- With plans in motion to give the conditioning coach for the foot- may be able to work off their nutrition. “I see a lot of guys Kohl Center a new basketball ball team. “Not only is [there] calories now, an unhealthy that I used to play with get floor, the old one is now up for a lack of time, resources, and diet will eventually catch up really huge once football [is] sale. Fans can buy pieces of the sometimes commitment that to them, especially when their over for them,” he says. “Most old floor from the UW’s SWAP makes eating right hard, but playing days are over. Later in likely it is because they are surplus program. Most sections a place like Madison sets stu- life, many athletes find them- continuing to eat really calorie- are priced between $150 and dents up for failure,” he says. selves overweight because their rich diets that they had in their $200, but fifteen sections with “Everywhere you turn, there metabolism doesn’t keep up playing days — when they special significance — including are cheese curds, fast-food with their eating habits. would work out forty hours a the freethrow lines and the spot joints, and bars on every corner. Ben Herbert ’02, a former week — to now having those where Jolene Anderson set the Wisconsin as a state is obese Badger football player, now same diets, but only working UW career scoring record — are anyway, and a town like this is coaches strength and condi- out one or two days a week or being auctioned off. Visit SWAP’s a reflection of why. If you don’t tioning for the Badgers and not at all. It just doesn’t work Web site (www.bussvc.wisc.edu/ have the time and the money, controls dietary supplements. that way. After your metabo- swap/swap.html) before Decem- then you are stuck with very Because of the environment lism slows down, you need the ber 8 to place a bid. The floor limited options.” he is in, he’s forced to stay in willpower to discipline yourself has been part of the Kohl Center Nutritionists must convince shape, which helps him relay a to stay active and healthy.” since 1998. athletes that, though they clear message to others about — Chris Pressley x’09

Winter 2008 47 Upfront

For the Love of Television By Elana Levine MA’97, PhD’02

Family lore tells of me hap- the vastness and democ- in their fortunes. As we watch a pily tearing and chewing on racy of television’s reach is television story play out, ongo- the TV listings book delivered one of the reasons I find it so ing character traits rise to the with the local newspaper dur- compelling. Regardless of what narrative fore, affirming our inti- ing my 1970s babyhood. As a we are watching, many of us mate knowledge. Whether I am preschooler, I started the day across the country, as well as watching 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon by asking when The Flintstones around the globe, spend sub- stave off perpetual singledom and Mister Rogers’ Neighbor- stantial time in front of a TV or Six Feet Under’s Nate Fisher hood would be on; as a grade- screen nearly every day. And struggle against the forces of schooler, I enacted episodes even while our viewing is frag- death and loss, my investment of of Wonder Woman, Charlie’s mented across the wide range time is repaid with the satisfac- Angels, and The Love Boat with of choices now available, we tion of recognition. my friends; and as a teenager, still join with millions of oth- As a historian and critic of I papered my bedroom walls ers in consuming stories and this medium I love, I explore with images lovingly cut out of images. questions ranging from TV’s soap opera fan magazines. We may be different from representation of social groups, My TV-obsessed youth one another in innumerable to the maneuverings of the proved remarkably prescient, as ways — and those differences television industry, to the social my master’s and PhD degrees surely carry over to how we ramifications of this persuasive in communication arts have react to what we watch — force. And the answers I find do literally made me a doctor of but we have that watching in not necessarily place television television. My training in media common. This commonality in the most flattering light. But and cultural studies prepared inspires me not only intellectu- always motivating such ques- me for a career of research and ally, but also personally. When tions is my love, my belief that teaching about popular culture I find myself in unfamiliar sur- this kind of interrogation is of all kinds, but my scholarship roundings, it’s often comfort- inherently worthwhile because We may be different from consistently focuses on TV. I ing to know that surely some television itself has held — and one another in innumer- am indeed one of those people of the folks around me also continues to hold — such a able ways — and those who can claim their time in voted for David Cook during prominent place in my life. front of the tube as work. last season’s American Idol. Of course, the cultural differences surely carry even while television is my As the millions of my fel- experiences television offers over to how we react to vocation, it is still my pleasure, low Cook voters might attest, are much broader than those what we watch — but something that I am most another of the pleasures I find of any individual viewer. But eager to experience during the in TV is rooted in the characters my TV friends may very well we have that watching infrequent leisure time of a that we can know there, char- be your pals, too, and, for in common. conventional adulthood full of acters we can follow through that, television has won my the pressures of career, parent- weeks and months and years, unflagging devotion. ing, and home ownership. their stories unfolding before us. television is a pleasure these characters can be real Elana Levine MA’97, PhD’02 is an I share with many others. people — reality show contes- associate professor of journalism Despite the proliferation of tants, athletes, news anchors — and mass communication at screens — computer, iPod, or they can be fictional creations UW-Milwaukee and author of a book cell phone — that now fill so — the Tony Sopranos, Erica about the sexual culture of 1970s American TV. Her next book will many Americans’ days, market Kanes, and Bart Simpsons of the explore the history of soap operas. research has found that the world — but we easily think of hours we spend watching tele- them all as friends. Television vision have actually increased introduces us to these charac- If you’re a UW-Madison alumna over the years, and our time ters in bits and pieces, slowly or alumnus and you’d like the spent with TV content is also revealing their strengths and editors to consider an essay for magnified when we factor in weaknesses, and their idiosyn- use in On Wisconsin, please send programming watched online. crasies, and invites us to invest it to [email protected].

Winter 2008 51 WAA News

Biddy Gets Down to Business Kohl Center event officially welcomes Chancellor Martin.

In October, the Wisconsin Alumni Association helped bryce richter introduce the UW community to its new top administrator. On the eve of Homecoming, nearly two thousand alumni, faculty, staff, and students turned out at the Kohl Cen- ter for a reception to honor incoming chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin PhD’85. The event, called “On, Wis- consin! A Great University and Its Friends Welcome Chancellor Martin,” marked Martin’s first official appearance since she became chancellor in Septem- ber, when predecessor John D. Wiley MS’65, PhD’68 stepped down. It was made possible by WAA helped plan an event to introduce the campus and alumni community to UW-Madison’s new chancellor, Carolyn “Biddy” Martin. support from the UW Foun- dation, WAA, the Wisconsin chaired the event’s planning most of her career at Cornell Alumni Research Foundation, committee. “She brings a new, University in New York, rising the Division of Intercollegiate outside view to the university, to the post of provost before Athletics, University Communi- and so it was important to us accepting the UW-Madison cations, the UW Libraries, and to introduce her to the alumni chancellorship earlier this year. UW Archives. community as well as to help She is the university’s first chan- “We’re very excited about our colleagues introduce her to cellor hired from outside its Chancellor Martin’s arrival,” campus and to Madison.” faculty since Donna Shalala says WAA president and CEO Martin received her doctor- accepted the post in 1988. Mar- Paula Bonner MS’78, who ate from the UW, but spent tin is only the fifth chancellor appointed from outside the faculty in the last century. During the event, Martin BRE N T IC AS TR O laid out her goals for UW-Mad- ison. Describing the university as “one of the world’s liveliest, most publicly minded, most accomplished institutions,” she said that she aims to improve accessibility and affordability for students, recruit and retain top faculty and staff, maintain excellence in research and undergraduate education, improve diversity, and invigo- rate the Wisconsin Idea. For more about the event, including a link to video of Martin’s speech, visit uwalumni. com/chancellorwelcome. From left: Ted Kellner ’69, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle ’67, and Lynn ’62 and Foster ’62 In the ensuing weeks, WAA Friess enjoy the 2008 Brittingham Viking Organization (BVO) Convention. Held every five continued to introduce Martin years in Madison and hosted in partnership with WAA, the annual event gathers Brit- to alumni with events in Green tingham Vikings past and present and their family and friends for a weekend of business, dinner, and dancing. Since its founding in 1953 by Thomas E. Brittingham, Jr., BVO, a WAA Bay, Milwaukee, and Chicago. affiliate organization, has been providing scholarships to UW-Madison students to study in — John Allen Scandinavia. 48 ON WISCONSIN WAA News

Brain Gain Bringing alumni back to Wisconsin could help state economy.

A recent survey of UW gradu- area employers to Minneapolis around the world. At the same ates reveals that offering the to connect with UW alumni time, university research and right kinds of jobs in Wisconsin who were interested in relo- spin-off businesses are creating could turn “brain drain” into cating. Future career expos in the kinds of high-level jobs that “brain gain” by bringing Bad- other U.S. cities are possible. could keep many UW alumni in ger alumni back to the state to Alumni and employers can find the state, instead of sending live and work. more information at uwalumni. them to pursue careers beyond With this potential eco- com/careers. its borders. nomic boost in mind, the Wis- Both UW-Madison and its “Badger alumni like Wis- consin Alumni Association and 368,000 alumni are important consin’s quality of life, and the economic-development to Wisconsin’s economic for some, a move back to the group Competitive Wisconsin, growth, Bonner says. For state would bring them closer Inc. (CWI) are partnering to example, she notes, state busi- to friends and family,” Bonner connect Wisconsin-based busi- nesses and industries benefit says. “For grads who do wish nesses with UW graduates who from connections with the to return to Wisconsin, this would consider returning to 228,000 Badger graduates who partnership is a way we can the state. live outside Wisconsin, both welcome them home.” “Many grads say they across the United States and — Kate Dixon ’01, MA’07 moved to other states because they didn’t find the right career opportunities in Wis- The Shirt That’s Giving Back consin,” says Paula Bonner

MS’78, WAA’s president and A n dy M an i s CEO. “But as we see more Wisconsin businesses begin to offer high-level, high-wage jobs, we’re ready to help UW alumni make career moves that are right for them.” In an August 2008 survey of UW alumni in Chicago, Minne- apolis and St. Paul, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., half of survey respondents said they initially left the state after college to pursue a new job or to continue their educa- tion. But today, 58 percent say they would consider moving back to Wisconsin. “Our research clearly dem- onstrated an interest among Andrew Berns ’91, MS’93, right, led an effort to sell the Red Shirts to his execuctive MBA class at Grainger Hall this semester. a significant number of out- of-state UW alumni to come UW-Madison alumni, students, groups to partner with it to over the world are part of an back to Wisconsin for the and fans kicked off the fall sea- sell Red Shirts at their events, exciting new program.” right opportunity,” says Bill son with style by wearing The with a portion of the proceeds Nearly a dozen student McCoshen ’87, CWI executive Red ShirtSM, designed by WAA going to benefit student groups have partnered with director and a member of the and created to reflect the UW organizations. WAA to raise funds so far, WAA board of directors. tradition of spirit and giving “This unique shirt has been including the International The partnership, funded in back. a wonderful opportunity for Business Student Association, part by a $25,000 grant from Proceeds from the shirt our student groups on campus Mu Kappa Tau, and the Public the state Department of Com- benefit scholarships and to generate funds,” says Jes- Relations Student Society of merce, includes holding Badger programming under WAA’s sika Kasten ’01, WAA director America. Career Expos in cities around mission to serve UW-Madison of marketing. “By wearing the For ordering information, the Midwest. The first, held in alumni and students. WAA first edition of The Red Shirt, visit uwalumni.com/TheRedShirt. October, brought Wisconsin- also encourages student students, grads, and friends all — Ben Wischnewski ’05

WINTER 2008 49 WAA News

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Alumni learners explore Wisconsin’s rich German heritage.

From its tiny house on the west in October. Scheduled for know why my grandfather, and appreciation of my ances- edge of campus, the Max Kade November were Joe Salmons, Alfred Arendt, said ‘tink’ tors’ contributions to Wisconsin Institute has been promoting director of the Center for the instead of ‘think,’ ” says history.” Besides, she adds, German language and culture Study of Upper Midwestern Pamela O’Donnell MA’02, “there’s nothing better than a for a quarter century. This fall, Culture, with a lecture on Ger- MA’03. “I’m hoping to take good polka.” the institute is working with man language; and Jim Leary, away a better understanding — Karen Roach ’82 Wisconsin Alumni Lifelong professor and director of the Learning to host a series of UW’s Folklore Program, with three lectures on German- a presentation about Wiscon- American heritage. sin’s folk music traditions and A Winter’s Tale Max Kade emigrated from their German roots. Wisconsin WAA is seeking UW grads’ tales of win- Germany to America in 1905 Alumni Lifelong Learning plans tertime campus life for its membership and made his fortune in the to make the lecture series avail- magazine, Badger Insider. Cold weather pharmaceutical business, leav- able online next spring. plays a large role in the Wisconsin ing a foundation that has since Nearly ninety learners experience, whether students face promoted German-American have signed up for the free scaling an icy Bascom Hill or finding studies around the country. series. Carol Claybaker ’60 of ways to keep warm in under-insulated UW-Madison added its own Janesville, Wisconsin, says she apartments. Badger Insider wants to Max Kade Institute in 1983 to is “hoping to pick up some- hear — and share — those stories. explore Wisconsin’s rich Ger- thing I may have missed in my Badger Insider is a quarterly man heritage. [genealogy] studies and to be magazine published for members of Cora Lee Kluge, professor with people who have my same WAA. Each issue includes reader-submitted stories about some aspect of German and the institute’s interests.” Claybaker’s great- of campus life. To share your tale of cold comfort or icy resolve, send director, presented the first grandparents emigrated from it to [email protected]. German-American heritage Germany in the mid-1800s. If you’re not currently receiving Badger Insider and would like lecture, on immigration, “I’ve always wanted to to, go to uwalumni.com/join to become a member of WAA.

50 Alumni News

Compiled by Paula Wagner many friends gathered to toast of Poway, California, sent us Apfelbach ’83 his ninetieth birthday in July. a summary of his broad life “Pivotal studies on thermal experiences titled “My Testi- What’s the News? radiation, propulsion, com- monial.” It begins, “More than early years bustion, and energy systems; two careers were made possible Please share your recent directing government studies; by graduating from the Uni- We learned about the lives founding a university depart- versity of Wisconsin, and new accomplishments, transitions, of brothers Robert ’33 and ment and energy center; and innovations in thinking about and other significant life Harry (Henry) ’33, LLB’36 training future leaders”: all our society were created and Hutchison from UW emeritus of these were attributed to implemented with this knowl- happenings with us by e-mailing professor Richard Merelman Stanford Penner MS’43, edge and these skills.” It ends the (brief, please) details to of Madison. Robert, an agricul- PhD’46 when he earned the with advice on how to live to tural chemistry major, did post- National Academy of Engineer- be 112 — the age at which one [email protected]; graduate work with former UW ing’s 2007 Founders Award. of Athan’s ancestors died. At mailing them to Alumni News, President Conrad Elvehjem. Penner is a distinguished pro- 83, he’s on his way! Wisconsin Alumni Association, During World War II, Robert fessor emeritus at the Univer- Poetic English transla- was a nutrition fitness officer sity of California-San Diego. tions of Slovak folk-song lyrics 650 North Lake Street, Madison, in the Army Air Forces (AAF), Eileen Martinson Lavine by Milan Maliarik ’52 were WI 53706-1476; or faxing and Harry served in the AAF as ’45 of Bethesda, Maryland, published recently as part of a a photo-topologist. After the has become — in her “retire- trilingual songbook — in Latin, them to (608) 265-8771. Our war, Robert founded a lumber ment” — an associate editor Slovak, and English — called submissions far exceed our space company in Dubuque, Iowa, of Moment magazine, a Wash- Resonantia Tatrae (Bolchazy- to publish them, but we love to where he still resides. Harry ington, D.C.-based publication Carducci Publishers). Maliarik, spent his career with the Veter- about Jewish politics, culture, of Lake Forest, Illinois, says that hear from you anyway. ans Administration and lives in and religion. During a recent this endeavor is quite a depar- Mineral Point, Wisconsin. interview with Anthony ture from his physical-sciences Please e-mail death notices and Congratulations to Irving Shadid ’90, a Pulitzer Prize- background. all address, name, and e-mail ’35 and Carlyn Strauss ’35 winning Middle East correspon- Roger Axtell ’53 has Ungar of Chicago, who dent for the Washington Post, been pretty much everywhere; updates to alumnichanges@ celebrated their seventieth the pair reminisced about their he’s written the Do’s and uwalumni.com; mail them to wedding anniversary this spring, work at the Daily Cardinal, Taboos book series about how Alumni Changes, Wisconsin and to Harold Fennema ’38, which Lavine edited in 1944–45. to behave when traveling or who shared this double news: The staff and readers of the working abroad; and he’s given Alumni Association, 650 North it was three score and ten years Idaho State Journal in Pocatello countless presentations. But even Lake Street, Madison, WI 53706- ago that he graduated from the will miss Joy South Morrison he had to admit to a few jitters UW and married his wife. “Two ’46: she’s retired after more before speaking to U.S. Olympic 1476; fax them to seventieth anniversaries in one than sixty years, many of which hopefuls about their summer (608) 262-3332; or call them in year is an accomplishment to she spent as the community trip to Beijing. His advice? Do to (608) 262-9648 or toll free to be proud of,” says the New editor. “She’s a local institu- some homework about the Brighton, Minnesota, resident. tion,” says the Journal’s editor. culture; be aware and respectful; (888) 947-2586. “There’s probably not another and go with the flow. Axtell is a newspaper in the country that retired Parker Pen executive who Most obituary listings of WAA 40s–50s has someone with that much lives in Janesville, Wisconsin. members and friends appear in time in the trenches.” Henry Schwarz ’54, A half-century spent at the This summer the Colonial MA’58, PhD’63 offered us an the Badger Insider, WAA’s University of Virginia in Williamsburg Foundation unusual submission: news that quarterly publication for Charlottesville made Raymond received a most generous gift: President Nambaryn Enkhbayar its members. Bice, Jr. ’40, MPh’42, PhD’54 a collection of rare, nineteenth- of Mongolia had awarded him quite a celebrity on the campus. century folk art and antiques the Order of the Polar Star — x-planation: An x preceding His “Bice devices” — house- valued at nearly $2 million. The one of that nation’s highest hold items that he tinkered donors were Winnetka, Illinois, honors. Schwarz is a professor a degree year indicates that the with to illustrate difficult con- residents Juli (Mildred) Plant emeritus of East Asian Studies individual did not complete, or cepts — and storytelling skills, ’48 and David ’50 Grainger at Western Washington employed during his packed, and their Grainger Foundation. University in Bellingham. has not yet completed, the degree five-hundred-seat lecture class Several of the objects filled at UW-Madison. in psychology, were legendary, long-standing holes in the col- as was his service as the assis- lection, and will become part 60s tant to the president, secretary of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller to the board of visitors, and Folk Art Museum. The Minnesota Speech- the school’s history officer. His Paul Athan ’49, MS’50 Language-Hearing Association

52 ON WISCONSIN Alumni News

A Minister Who Dances — and Vice Versa Jeff Nehrbass ’89 has many hundred students in ballet, tap, loves in his life: a love for his jazz, modern, hip-hop, and wife, Cindy Lehew-Nehrbass ballroom dance. ’89, and their two children, Over the years, Nehrbass Jacob and Sarah Grace; a love has developed a particular for his work as a Lutheran niche in competitive ballroom minister, which he’s practiced dancing. In 2006, he partici- for fourteen years; and a pated in PBS’s professional- love for dance, which he has amateur competition America’s learned, taught, and competed Ballroom Challenge with former in since getting involved with student Adrienne Brown. the pastime at UW-Madison. Shortly after, they were Nehrbass enrolled in a crowned world champions in recreational dance class not American Smooth, one of four long after arriving on campus styles of competitive ballroom — persuaded by a female dance. student who would date a As a minister and profes- suitor only on the condition sional dancer, Nehrbass is that he knew his way around quick to note the similarities a dance floor. The girl didn’t between the two vocations, work out; the classes did. and the important role of “Something happened to each in his life. The most me,” says Nehrbass, a multi- enjoyable aspects, he says, award-winning professional lie in teaching and giving dancer and 2005 world cham- people the tools to achieve pion. “I walked into my first something that they couldn’t [dance] class at the UW, and accomplish before. in a class of sixteen, I was the Jeff Nehrbass leads confidently while competing in PBS’s pro-am “I would go crazy being competition, America’s Ballroom Challenge. only boy. So my social hori- a full-time pastor, and I’d go zons had improved consider- Minnesota, to attend Luther Bible’s messages to issues of crazy if I had to be a full-time ably. And eventually I realized Seminary, graduating in 1994. transition, poverty, and urban business owner,” says Neh- that I was actually pretty good, Faced with two aspirations he renewal in cities — the couple rbass. “It’s a perfect fit so it was sealed.” cared deeply about, Nehrbass opened On Your Toes dance for me in what I call a bi- After graduation, Nehrbass chose to explore both. studio. During the last four- vocational aspiration. I really moved with Cindy — a fellow In 1994, as he embarked teen years, they’ve grown the consider who I am to be a dancer whom he’d met as an on a career in Urban Center staff to seventeen instructors, function of two callings.” undergraduate — to St. Paul, Ministry — connecting the who teach more than five — Ben Wischnewski ’05 has given its Lifetime Achieve- fellow of both the American for the nursing profession and without asking for help.” ment Award to Diane Barber Psychiatric Association and the health care issues. Michael Grow ’66, Sineps ’60 in recognition American College of Forensic We bet you’ll chuckle all MA’68 writes that he “still viv- of her forty-five years as a Psychiatry. Fosdal, of Middle- the way through I’ll Never Be idly recalls the feeling of inner speech language pathologist ton, has performed many French (No Matter What I Do): terror that swept through him” in university, hospital, and criminal- and civil-law forensic Living in a Small Village in Brit- during his 1968 oral master’s private-practice settings. The evaluations, and has testified tany (Free Press), a charming comprehensive exam when St. Paul resident has recently on numerous occasions. tale by Mark Greenside ’66, he was asked to identify the retired, and is president of the In June, the American MA’68. The book shares how a factors that led the U.S. to board of the Minnesota Speech Nurses Association bestowed its reluctant visit to France turned overthrow Latin American gov- and Hearing Foundation. Curtis Award on Mary Bryant into a semi-permanent stay ernments. Four decades later, Frederick Fosdal ’61, Behrens ’64 for her contribu- and “celebrates the joys and he’s written a book about his MD’64 recently received the tions to nursing practice and adventures of living a double answer: U.S. Presidents and 2008 State Bar of Wisconsin health policy through political life.” That double life includes Latin American Interventions: President Award and a com- and legislative activity. She’s time in Alameda, California Pursuing Regime Change in mendation from Wisconsin served as the mayor of her — where Greenside writes, the Cold War (University Press Governor Jim Doyle ’67 for home community of Casper, teaches, and is politically active of Kansas). Grow, of Scotland, his forensic psychiatric service Wyoming, and in county and — and in Brittany, where he Connecticut, recently retired to the state. He’s a longtime state roles — always advocating says he “still can’t do anything from Ohio University, where he

Winter 2008 53 Alumni News taught and directed the Carbon Economy (Oxford who, after Freud, was the most onlookers included Brewster Contemporary History Institute. University Press). widely read psychoanalytic Shaw, Jr. ’68, MS’69, the VP Donald Zillman ’66, Bettelheim: Living and public intellectual. Fisher was a and general manager of Boeing JD’69 has been reappointed Dying (Rodopi Publishers) student of the late UW history Space Exploration in Houston. as president of the University is the fourth book by Los professor George Mosse. He was a member of NASA’s of Maine at Presque Isle. He’s Angeles-based psychoanalyst When the space shuttle first shuttle-astronaut class in co-authored Strategic Legal and psychotherapist David Discovery lifted off on a two- 1978, which had gathered for a Writing (Cambridge University James Fisher ’68, PhD’73. week mission to the Interna- thirty-year reunion. Shaw flew Press), and is an author and The work explores the life and tional Space Station in May, three missions as a pilot and the lead editor of Beyond the writings of Bruno Bettelheim, the group of distinguished commander in the 1980s. In light of this fall’s finan- cial meltdown, Macroeconomic Definitely in the Running Policies for Stable Growth (World Scientific) by Dan Stephanie Herbst-Lucke ’88, (Delano) Villanueva MS’68, MBA’89executive—Sarah Barker PhD’70 could hardly be more timely. The book is a collec- tion of his papers, written over the last two decades during his tenure at the International Monetary Fund, the South East Asian Central Banks Research and Training Center, and Singa- pore Management University. Villanueva, of Fairfax Station, Virginia, is now a special con- sultant with the Central Bank of the Philippines. Claudia Orde Bartz ’69 is the coordinator of the Interna- tional Classification for Nurs- ing Practice, a program of the International Council of Nurses. She’s also a retired colonel of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and a clinical associate professor of nursing at UW-Milwaukee.

70s HAROLD DANIELS Felicitations to John Burd MS’70, PhD’75! He’s received the American Association of Clinical Chemistry’s 2008 Ull- man Award, which recognizes contributions to the clinical- chemistry field through new or adapted technologies or analyt- ical methods. Burd is currently a co-founder and general partner of San Diego’s Sabur Technol- ogy — which develops innova- tive medical testing products — but he’s also founded and run numerous other companies. Job’s Daughters Interna- After a 20-year absence from running, Stephanie Herbst-Lucke is tional — an organization of poised to set master’s records in events from the 5K to marathons. females aged ten to twenty who are related to Master

54 ON WISCONSIN Alumni News

Masons — elected Janine and a Telly Award-winning Quarles & Brady in Milwaukee, Albee Coley ’70, MS’80 of documentary by Chicagoan the only Wisconsin attorney to Bookmark Mukwonago, Wisconsin, as its Arlene Michlin Bronstein receive the distinction, and one supreme guardian last year. ’71. Both celebrate the board’s of the first African-Americans Since then she’s been traveling 160 years as a leading financial to lead a top U.S. law firm. the world, representing the institution and preserve its his- Peter Holsten ’72 is a group as its top adult leader. tory. Two of the interviewees force for change in Chicago Coley’s friend Karen Cigale were Keith Bronstein ’71 of as president of Holsten Real ’86 of Madison shares that Chicago and Burt Gutterman Estate Development Corpora- Coley has been “teaching the ’71 of suburban Glencoe. tion. His firm renovates old chicken dance every chance she Speaking of Chicago, buildings using green building gets” during her travels. Mayor Richard Daley recently practices and creates mixed- Cary Herz ’70 has earned presented Caroline Orzac income properties that include a first-place award for the best Shoenberger ’71 with a Sage community and green spaces. “Ellen Butterby had never non-fiction book on religion Award as part of the city’s Holsten’s latest major project before seen a dead body.” in the National Federation of Women’s History Month. She’s has been the renaissance of So begins Black & White and Press Women’s annual com- an attorney specializing in Cabrini Green, now called Dead All Over (Knopf) — a munications contest for New immigration and guardianship North Town Village. You can satirical, intelligent, and wry Mexico’s Crypto-Jews: Image law who joined the nonprofit view a video clip about it at mystery by John Darnton and Memory (University of Chicago Legal Clinic after retir- http://64.224.12.86/HOLSTEN/ ’67. And so begins Butterby’s New Mexico Press). Herz, of ing from a quarter-century in movie/north_town.html. morning one rainy Septem- Albuquerque, is a professional city, county, and state govern- We have a photo of the ber day as she arrives at her photographer whose work has ment, including a city-cabinet world’s largest smile — on the office at the New York Globe appeared in national media and post as commissioner of con- face of Sharon Fredricks and finds her boss — who at the Smithsonian Institution. sumer services. She also lectures Wallace MS’72 as she received had always been regarded A note from Bill Stark at Harold Washington College. the Birkner Leadership Award with fear and loathing by the MA’70, PhD’73, a professor How can job seekers find for her “inspiration, enthusi- staffers — lying dead, with of biology at Saint Louis [Mis- meaningful, desirable work, asm, and mentorship” in her an old-time editor’s spike souri] University, had a definite even in tough economic times? home community of Sedona, driven into his chest. air of contentment about it. Sue Taylor Swenson ’71 and Arizona. To top it off, Governor Among the problems for He writes that he’s developed co-author Joe “The Job Search Janet Napolitano praised the young, ambitious detec- a Web site for his research and Guy” Turner tell how to do it Wallace for her vision, knowl- tive assigned to the case, teaching; has celebrated his in Paycheck 911: Don’t Panic … edge, and focus on education. along with the rebellious thirty-ninth anniversary; and Power Your Job Search! (OPA Among the authors Globe reporter with whom is pleased to have two hap- Publishing). Swenson was a accepted into the Madison- she teams up, are that there’s pily married sons and three recruiter in the semiconductor based Wisconsin Book Festival plenty of internal scandal grandchildren, with another on industry who’s now a writer this fall was Kendall Hale ’73. to complicate the situation, the way. He adds, “September in Phoenix. She said it was “a great honor” and far too many suspects — [marked] my thirty-second year Avid runner Jay Jacob to return to the scene that until the field begins to nar- of not missing a day of running Wind ’71 was only the twenty- opens her memoir, Radical row as more bodies turn up. at least a mile.” ninth person in fifty-one years Passions: A Memoir of Revolu- This newspaper setting Peter Weil ’70, JD’74 was to join the Arlington [Virginia] tion and Healing (iUniverse). is very familiar turf for the center of attention this sum- Sports Hall of Fame when he That opening also takes readers Darnton, a Pulitzer Prize- mer when he received the 2008 was inducted in May. Wind back forty years, to 1968 — the winning reporter whose Community Service Award from has completed 118 marathons year that set in motion Hale’s work for the New York Times the Los Angeles chapter of the and thousands of shorter races, lifetime of discovery about since 1966 has kept him American Jewish Committee. directs track meets and lon- herself and the world. grounded in New York, but Weil is a senior partner and real ger races, coaches youth and A thwarted, Columbine- has also taken him to Lagos, estate specialist in the L.A. law adults, and writes a weekly like plot to attack Green Bay Nairobi, Warsaw, Madrid, firm of Christensen, Glaser, Fink, sports column. And when he’s [Wisconsin] East High School in and London. He’s served Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro, as well not doing all of that? Wind is September 2006 thrust school as the Times’s metro editor as a longtime supporter of the a statistician who manages the superintendent Dan Nerad and culture editor as well, UW’s Center for Jewish Studies cost-accounting project for the ’73, MS’75 into the national and is currently the editorial and the UW’s Hillel. 2010 Decennial Census. spotlight. Many said that his director of special projects. Interviews with people A Badger attorney is one leadership after the crisis was Darnton is also the author of aged thirty-five to ninety-two of the Fifty Most Influential a highlight of his tenure, but Neanderthal and The Darwin formed the foundation of My Minority Lawyers in America, he’s also been praised for his Conspiracy. Word Is My Bond: Voices from according to the National Law emphases on listening, out- Inside the Chicago Board of Journal. He’s John Daniels, Jr. reach, communication, and Trade (John Wiley and Sons) MS’72 — chair of the firm at accessibility. Now Nerad has

Winter 2008 55 Alumni News

moved south to become the calendars and greeting cards. children and animals. Bookmark Madison Metropolitan School Now HNB Publishing has com- CarolAnn Garratt ’77 of District’s new superintendent. piled her often-amusing images Ocala, Florida, spent twenty- The Society for Technical in Bears I’d Like to Meet! A five years in industrial manufac- Communication (STC) named Bear’s-Eye View of 101 Notable turing, but her passion is flying. Thea Teich MS’73 of Cincin- Figures in History. Boehm The evidence? In 2003, she flew nati a new fellow this summer is also a nurse at Madison’s a single-engine plane around in recognition of her thirty- Meriter Hospital. the world, and in December, plus years of work in industry, (Margaret) Ellen Birkett she plans to improve on that: government, nonprofits, and Lindeen ’76 and other college Garratt and a co-pilot hope to research institutions. In 1995, educators used their Fulbright- break a world record by flying she founded Teich Technical Hays fellowship this summer to around the globe in seven days and Marketing Communica- learn about — and live — the — and to raise money for ALS If you’ve ever wondered how tions, and has been heavily legacy of Mahatma Gandhi in (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) research the mega-rich live, just read involved in STC leadership. contemporary India. Lindeen, in the process. Stay tuned to The Official Filthy Rich Hand- Tom DeCotiis PhD’74 has an assistant professor of Eng- the fearless duo’s progress at book (Workman Publishing) penned Make It Glow: How to lish at Waubonsee Community alsworldflight.com. by New Yorker Christopher Build a Company Reputation College in Sugar Grove, Illinois, Robert Lebel MS’77, Tennant ’00 — an “ethnog- for Human Goodness, Flawless says the experience furthered MD’82 has been the senior rapher of the fabulously Execution, and Being Best-in- her goal to introduce peace clinical geneticist at the Green- wealthy” who spent eigh- Class (Greenleaf Book Group). studies to community colleges wood [South Carolina] Genetic teen months tracking down The author is the CEO of Cor- in her state. Center for the last five years, insider information and Virtus, a firm specializing in For “exemplifying out- but this summer he joined the compiling directories of those enterprise-growth solutions in standing citizenship and serv- faculty of the State University who cater to the privileged Colorado Springs, Colorado. ing as excellent role models,” of New York Medical Center in order to create a guide for The UW-River Falls College Joseph Marinelli PhD’76 in Syracuse. There he’s chief of the rest of us. of Agriculture, Food, and and his spouse, Rebekah, have the medical-genetics section, Like inhabitants of other Environmental Science has earned the 2008 Distinguished a lecturer in bioethics, and a subcultures, members of honored Michael Kaltenberg Citizen Awards from the Finger professor of pediatrics, internal this one — which Tennant ’75, MS’76, PhD’83 with Lakes [New York] Council of the medicine, obstetrics and defines as those with more its 2008 Outstanding Faculty Boy Scouts of America. Joseph gynecology, and pathology. than $30 million in liquid Teaching Award. He’s a profes- is the district superintendent of This spring, Larry Wert assets — have a language, sor of forestry and environ- the Wayne-Finger Lakes Board ’78 of Riverside, Illinois, was secret codes, and ways of mental education who also of Cooperative Educational promoted to president of the dressing. But why find out manages the UW-River Falls Services, and the couple lives in central and western regions of such things? “There’s just School Forests, and is an expert Macedon, New York. NBC Local Media. He now over- endless room for comedy,” forestry witness and consultant, A Madison team won the sees five NBC-owned television he explains, and there’s also a certified tree farmer, the 2008 United States Men’s Club stations in San Francisco, Los altruism: Tennant wants to owner of a large tree farm, and National Curling Champion- Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, and help the nouveaux riches to a wildfire-suppression trainer. ship in March, and Richard Chicago. Wert most recently avoid ghastly gaffes. If you ever visit the Stanley Maskel ’76 was part of it. He served as president and general If you withdraw $11.95 Lambert winery in Australia’s also finished third at this year’s manager of Chicago’s WMAQ. from your own vault to buy Barossa Valley, tell owner Jim U.S. Mixed National Champion- The UW-Extension has wel- a copy, expect graphics-rich Lambert ’75, MS’76 that ship, and ninth at the 2008 U.S. comed Christine Quinn ’79, offerings on how to identify you’re from Wisconsin — he’ll Men’s National Championship, MS’82 as its new provost and plutocrat subspecies, admin- probably give you a VIP tour marking the first time that an vice chancellor. Her background ister your wealth, hire wait of his twenty-thousand-case- American curler has qualified includes service at UW-Stout, staff, buy an island, design per-year boutique-winery for three separate national New Mexico State, and the Uni- the interior of your private operation. Lambert is also the championships in a single year. versity of Minnesota, and most jet, choose boarding schools, founder of a California data- Taking the reins in the new recently, as the associate VP and pronounce words you storage company called Dot role of chief operating officer for academic affairs at Winona simply must know. Hill, but he stepped down in at the American Humane [Minnesota] State University. Tennant has worked at 2006 — after twenty years as its Association in Denver is Dale The list of Badgers who are New York magazine, Talk CEO — to move Down Under. Austin ’77, MA’86. He was leading colleges and universi- magazine, and the New York An unusual hobby has led previously senior VP and COO ties just keeps growing. The lat- Post’s Page Six. In 2003, he to a book for Barbara Boehm for the Dallas-based Federation est is Patrick Schloss PhD’79, co-founded Radar magazine, ’76, ’81. For the past fifteen of State Medical Boards of the who was named president where he’s now a contribut- years, she’s been making teddy U.S. Austin’s new employer is of Valdosta [Georgia] State ing editor. bears, costumes, and props, and the only national organization University in June. Formerly, photographing them to use in dedicated to protecting both he was president of Northern

56 ON WISCONSIN Alumni News

State University in Aberdeen, to the nonprofit world,” says Family (The Intrepid Traveler) South Dakota, where the stra- Megan Vidis ’81, MA’83, has been named a silver-award Bookmark tegic planning process that he speaking of her new role as winner in ForeWord Maga- initiated was highly lauded. senior director of marketing zine’s 2007 Book of the Year In March, Karolee Hogden and communications at the competition, and it’s the pride Church Sowle MS’79 became Respiratory Health Association of Elisa Bernick ’86. The St. CEO of Desert Regional Medi- of Metropolitan Chicago. Her Paul, Minnesota, author is also cal Center — a 394-bed tertiary previous work includes produc- a journalist who’s worked in trauma center in Palm Springs, ing advocacy media and serving radio and TV. California. She’s also won her as the deputy managing direc- Gladys Hart DeClouet second Circle of Excellence tor of the Illinois Film Office. MBA’86 is a pioneer. Begin- Award from Tenet Healthcare. The online store Bag ning her career as a reservoir Borrow or Steal — of which and production engineer for Mike Smith ’83 is the Seattle- Conoco, she acknowledges that Margaret Trost MA’87 of 80s based CEO — got some big- being an African-American Berkeley, California, turned time publicity during the May woman in a white, male-domi- personal tragedy into a way Paul Gibbons ’80 first regis- release of the Sex and the nated field was tough, but she to help others when she tered at the UW as a fifteen- City movie. Smith’s company persevered, moving on to Brit- began visiting Haiti in 2000. year-old special student in rents luxury accessories such as ish Petroleum Oil Company and She was trying to regain 1976, earned several degrees designer purses, jewelry, and then into fast food with Jack some meaning in her life elsewhere, and has now re- sunglasses, which were, natch, in the Box. She’s now Burger after the sudden death of her enrolled at the UW to earn a a topic of conversation for the King’s senior VP of North Amer- spouse, Richard Tanaka ’82, doctorate. The chair of man- film’s Carrie Bradshaw. ica Company Operations, over- from an asthma attack. agement-consulting firm Future In Your Child’s Strengths: seeing the restaurant chain’s In Port-au-Prince, Considerations, Gibbons has Discover Them, Develop Them, re-imaging efforts from Miami. Trost saw a chance to help just returned to Madison after Use Them (Viking), Jenifer Who’s adding a new hat Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste twenty-seven years in London Fox ’84 describes “a girl who to the two he already wears at create a lunch program to and was recently featured in almost didn’t graduate from Dean Foods Company in Dallas? feed the many hungry chil- CEO Magazine as one of the high school, but somehow It’s Steven Kemps ’86, JD’91. dren who inhabit this poorest world’s “CEO super coaches.” got into the UW.” That girl He’s been promoted to execu- nation in the western hemi- Radio and film historian is Fox, who learned to fly on tive VP, but retains his general- sphere. She raised $5,000 to Clair Schulz MA’80 of Mus- her strengths — wisdom that counsel and corporate-secretary launch it, and then set up the kego, Wisconsin, has created fueled three degrees, a career duties. He was previously with What If? Foundation (wha- Fibber McGee and Molly: On in education, and founding Kimberly-Clark. tiffoundation.org) to provide the Air 1935–1959 (BearManor an international educational- Author Patricia Cumbie ongoing support. The pro- Media), a comprehensive guide reform initiative called the ’87, ’88 of Minneapolis gram now serves more than to the nine-hundred-plus epi- Strengths Movement in began her recovery from a six thousand meals weekly. sodes that made the show such Schools. Fox also runs the Pur- sexual assault years later, as Making this dream a a broadcasting triumph. Schulz nell School, a high school for she delved into the subject of reality is only one element has been a teacher, librarian, girls with learning differences, her first novel, Where People of Trost’s new book, On bookseller, and the archives in Pottersville, New Jersey. Like Us Live (HarperTeen). The That Day Everybody Ate: One director at Chicago’s Museum The Happy Soul Industry young-adult book explores Woman’s Story of Hope and of Broadcast Communications. (Inkwater Press) by Steffan the friendship between two Possibility in Haiti (Koa When the faculty honors Postaer ’84 sets up a most girls, and what would hap- Books). She also explains were bestowed this summer intriguing situation: the CEO pen if someone did something how factors such as inter- at UW-Stevens Point, Emmet of L.A.’s hippest ad agency about an act of sexual violence. national pressures, market Judziewicz ’81, MS’85, takes on a troubled new client Cumbie hopes that shedding forces, the indifference of PhD’87 took home the Uni- — God — who laments that in light on this disturbing subject prosperous nations, and local versity Scholar Award. He’s an this “hip-hop age of Internet will help society to see, discuss, corruption all crash down on associate professor of biology, porn and reality TV, who has and end sexual violence. the smallest of citizens. the curator of UW-SP’s Freck- time for goodness?” The book Marine Corps Reserve Despite witnessing mann Herbarium, and one of is being promoted through a Lieutenant Colonel Roderick governmental turmoil, arrests the world’s authorities on bam- blog (How-Are-You.net) and Arrington MS’88 has returned of Jean-Juste, kidnappings, boos and grasses. Last year he a national advertising-design from a month-long deployment and batterings by hurricanes, was named a three-year honor- contest. Postaer is chair and to Latin America through Trost’s work has taught ary research associate with the chief creative officer at adver- Partnership for Americas 2008. her to trust in optimism. As U.S. National Herbarium at the tising giant Euro RSCG Chicago. The deployment included Jean-Juste says in Creole, Smithsonian Institution. The Family Sabbatical humanitarian work in San “Piti piti na rive,” or “Little “I’ve recently switched Handbook: The Budget Guide Clemente, Peru, in the wake by little, we will arrive.” careers from the film industry to Living Abroad with Your of a 2007 earthquake.

Winter 2008 57 Alumni News

Lamont Colucci ’88, Canyon Association, oversee- studies bacteria that cause Backstreets of a City Trans- MA’89, MS’98 is a former U.S. ing its books, visitor newspa- urinary-tract infections and is formed (Walker & Company) State Department diplomat per, brochures, and more. In an instructor of medicine at sounds familiar, perhaps it’s who’s now an assistant profes- November, Berger also became Washington University in St. because its author, Michael sor of politics and government president of the Publishers Louis, Missouri. Meyer ’95, was interviewed at Ripon [Wisconsin] College, Association of the West. The new program director about the book on NPR’s All as well as the coordinator of its People studying English in the communication sciences Things Considered in August. new national security studies as a non-native language can and disorders graduate pro- The work is based on Meyer’s program. Colucci’s new book now learn through a textbook gram at Boston’s MGH Institute observations — first as a Peace is Crusading Realism: The Bush created by Mary Ward ’91, of Health Professions is Greg- Corps member after gradua- Doctrine and American Core MA’95 called What I Believe: ory Lof PhD’94. He’s been tion, and then over the last Values after 9/11 (University Listening and Speaking about with the institute since 1997, three years while volunteering Press of America). What Really Matters (Pearson- focusing on childhood speech as an English teacher in a The capital and real estate Longman). The author is a sound disorders. public school — of how transformation practice of TESOL (Teachers of English to Way to go, Vishy Beijing’s oldest neighborhood Deloitte Consulting has wel- Speakers of Other Languages) (Viswanath) Poosala MS’94, is being destroyed by relentless comed Kurt Ochalla ’88 to its instructor at the Institute for PhD’97! He’s made the move modernization. Boston office. He lives in Need- European Design in Rome, Italy, from his position as the chief The Doorpost Film Project ham, Massachusetts. and at New York’s Columbia technology officer at Geopep- is an international, online, If you don’t know anyone University. Her spouse, Luca de per — an Alcatel-Lucent ven- short-film-making contest who has a mite species named Caprariis PhD’98, is a profes- ture based in New Jersey — to aimed at nurturing visionary after him or her, then meet sor of history at John Cabot become the new head of Bell filmmakers who can inspire Kier Klepzig MS’89, PhD’94 University in Rome. Thanks to Labs’ research and ventures and influence, rather than — an entomologist, plant Ward’s mother, Marion Ben- division in Bangalore, India. simply entertain. When round pathologist, and the newly son Ward ’88 of Lake Mills, It’s been a good year for one of the inaugural project promoted assistant director of Wisconsin, for letting us know. Kevin Christy ’95: the Casu- ended this summer, L.A. film- research at the USDA Forest Have you ever seen a alty Actuary Society (CAS) has maker Bragi Schut, Jr. ’96 Service’s Southern Research visitor to Madison searching a bestowed its highest credential was one of its fifteen finalists, Station in Pineville, Louisiana. map — fruitlessly — for a road of fellow upon him, and he’s for his film Scarecrow Joe. He Research entomologist emeri- called “the Beltline”? A new been promoted to vice presi- then received $10,000 to pro- tus John Moser, who recently online business, City Dictionary dent and chief actuary at West- duce a final-round short film discovered two new mite spe- (citydictionary.com), aims to ern National Insurance Group based on the topic of hope, cies, named the Caesarodispus explain similar mysteries across in Edina, Minnesota. He’s the which he called Charlie Thistle. klepzigi after Klepzig in honor the nation by asking users to company’s first CAS fellow. In the end, Schut won third of his contributions to under- contribute entries about their Three ’90s grads shared place and $20,000. standing the symbiosis among cities’ landmarks, slang, attrac- word of their new advanced It’s estimated that more insects, fungi, and mites. tions, and quirks. It’s the brain- degrees: Amy Seif Hattan than 10 percent of children child of the spouse team of MA’95 has graduated from have some form of sensory- Colleen Gatterman ’92 and Harvard University’s Kennedy processing disorder, which is 90s John ’95 Carmona, plus John’s School of Government with a often misdiagnosed. Now Tara brother, Thomas Carmona master’s of public administra- McCaghey Delaney MS’97 The University of California- ’04 — all Madisonians. tion and a focus on climate has written The Sensory Pro- Santa Barbara’s Institute for Who’s in charge of men’s change and energy policy. cessing Disorder Answer Book: Energy Efficiency has a new hoops at Wingate [North Jennifer Rider Stark ’97 has Practical Answers to the Top executive director: Daniel Carolina] University? It’s Brian received a doctorate in epide- 250 Questions Parents Ask Colbert PhD’90. Previously, Good ’93, the Bulldogs’ new miology from Harvard’s School (Sourcebooks) to clear away he was the chief technology head basketball coach. He’s of Public Health and is now a the confusion. Delaney, of officer and a principal at NGEN held the same post for the post-doctoral research fellow Granite Bay, California, is a Partners, a venture-capital firm last four seasons at Queens at Harvard and at Brigham pediatric occupational therapist focusing on “cleantech” invest- University of Charlotte [North and Women’s Hospital’s Chan- and the founder of BabySteps, ments, as well as a founder of Carolina]. Good was a four-year ning Laboratory. And, Rachel a pediatric-therapy and Carbon Nanotechnologies with letter winner at the UW and a Gavelek Konkle ’98 has educational-services company. Nobel laureate Rick Smalley. Big Ten free-throw champion. completed her second master’s In 2003, Marine Reserv- If you’ve visited the Grand An award of $700,000 in — in management — through ist Jodi Miller Maroney ’97 Canyon lately, chances are research funding over five years Cardinal Stritch University, was the first pilot to fly the excellent that you saw the is going to Jeffrey Henderson while working full time as an CH-53 Super Stallion — the work of Todd Berger ’91. In ’94, one of sixteen scientists to information scientist for Abbott U.S. military’s largest and most April, he was promoted from receive a national Burroughs in North Chicago, Illinois. powerful helicopter — into Iraq managing editor to director Wellcome Fund award for If The Last Days of Old during Operation Iraqi Free- of publishing for the Grand medical scientists. Henderson Beijing: Life in the Vanishing dom. In June, she landed the

58 ON WISCONSIN Alumni News thirty-three-thousand-pound in the 2007 Burrill Technology vals, for his feature documen- teenage girl who goes to craft at the Dane County air- Business Plan competition at tary, Equality U. Then the L.A. boarding school in Montréal port while helping to move the UW-Madison, and he’s since Times publicized the innovative and kills all the boys who fleet. Major Maroney is based moved to Durham, North Caro- HIV-prevention campaign that mistreat her, one by one.” in San Diego, California. lina, to tap into steadier winds. O’Brien is working on, includ- Folks in Des Moines, Iowa, Vincent Purpero ’97 is Liz Lance ’00 of San ing what it terms his “racy Web will never forget the flooding a post-doc researcher at the Francisco is using her Fulbright show” — a gay, online soap there this summer, nor will University of Minnesota; Betsy fellowship to complete a Web- opera with a serious message they soon forget the leadership (Elizabeth) Maloney MS’06 based radio, photo, and print called In the Moment. demonstrated by Bill Stowe is an academic adviser for documentary project about A “clean, domestic, and PDE’03. As the city’s director Capella University; and as of how the mass media influence economical energy future”: of public works for the last May, they’re spouses as well. body image in young Nepali sounds great, doesn’t it? Ben ten years, he got plenty of TV Though they live in Minne- women. And she made the Cipiti MS’03, PhD’04 has out- time as he advised citizens on apolis, she swears that they’ll most of her UW experiences lined his plan for this very thing what to expect next. Said one “always be avid Badger fans.” to prepare — participating in in his new book, The Energy city-council member, “Bill is the the UW’s College Year in Nepal Construct (BookSurge Publish- most competent person I know. program, studying the Nepali ing), which he hopes will help He’s like the Jedi knight: just 2000s language, writing for the us to “find realistic solutions teach me your ways.” Badger Herald, and serving as and develop a path forward.” Brian Faudree ’07 of Generating power from wind the news director of the UW’s Cipiti is a nuclear engineer and Madison celebrated a promo- using large kites: that’s the student-run radio station, researcher at Sandia National tion in May at JP Morgan vision of Rob Creighton ’00, WSUM. Laboratories in Albuquerque, Chase, advancing from sales MBA’07 — an inventor and In July, L.A.-based film- New Mexico. and service associate to per- the founder of Windlift, a maker Dave O’Brien ’00 wrote Jenny Green’s KILLER Junior sonal banker. His promotion firm that’s working to per- about what a crazy — crazy Year (Simon Pulse) — a new, came exactly one year after the fect kite-powered systems to good — month it had been. young-adult work co-authored date of his UW graduation. replace diesel-engine-powered First, he received the Outstand- by Jacob Osborn ’03 of Los irrigation systems in develop- ing Emerging Talent Award Angeles — hit bookstores this Alumni News compiler Paula Wagner ing nations. Creighton’s initial at Outfest 2008, one of the fall. Osborn describes it as a Apfelbach ’83 is the mother of a first- invention took second place world’s largest LGBT film festi- “dark comedy about a spoiled year Badger. What a time warp.

Winter 2008 59