FOR UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MADISON ALUMNI AND FRIENDS SPRING 2020 Earth’s Bright Future Despite bleak environmental news, the UW’s Nelson Institute finds reasons to hope. Page 22 Vision In an emotional night for Badger men’s basket- ball, 13-year-old Jerell Moore took the court as an honorary sixth man before the team’s home opener at the Kohl Center. Jerell is the son of Assistant Coach Howard Moore ’95, who was severely injured in a May 2019 car crash that took the lives of his wife and daughter. The Badgers won the No- vember 8 game against Eastern Illinois, and Jerell — who survived the crash himself — enjoyed a poignant moment amid his family’s painful year. Photo by Darren Lee On Wisconsin 3 Come home again to Wisconsin, it’s more you. NAME: SCHOOL: STUDIED: YEAR GRADUATED: MOVED TO: MOVED BACK TO WISCONSIN: REASONS: See more of Matt’s story at InWisconsin.com/Matt SPRING 2020 4 On Wisconsin Contents Volume 121, Number 1 Joan Cusack ’84 digs Christopher Lloyd in Addams Family Values. See page 30. TCD/PROD.DB/ALAMY DEPARTMENTS 2 Vision 7 Communications 9 First Person OnCampus 11 News 13 Bygone WAVES 14 Calculation Sustainable UW 17 Conversation #TwerkWith- Lizzo 18 Exhibition Science to Street Art 20 Contender K’Andre Miller OnAlumni 52 News 53 Tradition Campus Tours 54 Class Notes FEATURES 61 Diversions STLUKA DAVID 62 Honor Roll Arthur Hasler 22 Hope’s Eternal Spring 63 Conversation Veronica As Earth Day hits its 50th birthday, environmental news Rueckert seems worse than ever. Where do the faculty of the UW’s 66 Destination The UW Maker- Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies find reason for space hope? By John Allen 30 Hair-Raising Performances UW alumni have starred in classic movies and collected Academy Awards. Here are their greatest roles. By Dean Robbins The professor 36 Six Lessons from the Rose Bowl who twerked It turns out that being a Badger is about much more than a with Lizzo. football game. By Preston Schmitt ’14 See page 17. 42 A New Era for Children’s Books A hot NHL prospect. The UW Cooperative Children’s Book Center pushes the See page 20. publishing industry to feature more diverse books and authors. By Preston Schmitt ’14 Cover JEFF MILLER JEFF Illustration by 48 In a Garden Far, Far Away N. B. Rinehart; UW researchers are at the forefront of developing a new photos by Bryce agriculture for long-term space travel. By Eric Hamilton Richter On Wisconsin 5 KNOW ANY UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS? SummerTELL THEM ABOUT WITH SUMMER TERM,T STUDENTS CAN: Meet academic goals. Move one step closererm to graduation and add breathing room into fall or spring schedules. Stretch the budget. Apply for tuition scholarships and financial aid. Make room for more. With flexible options in-person and online, Summer Term fits with family, travel, and work plans. Students from other colleges are welcome at Summer Term! Learn how to apply and transfer credits back to a home institution. Visit SUMMER.WISC.EDU to learn more. 6 On Wisconsin SPRING 2020 19313-1/20 Communications (2) RICHTER BRYCE Unforgettable André that the call was an emergency. Thank you for the article by We were allowed to listen in Jenny Price about André De briefly, and when a caller would Shields [“A Star Was Born,” start bragging about how he Winter 2019 On Wisconsin]. It had fooled the stupid operator, really brought back memories, as he would find himself suddenly I attended De Shields’s unforget- disconnected. table performance as Martha in Henry J.C. Schwartz ’61, BUT WAIT, THERE’S Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, MD’65 held in a large apartment over Fredericksburg, Virginia MORE! a movie theater in Madison. Ms. We know you like to hold a mag- Price is correct that the perfor- Dow Protest Prequel azine in your hands. That’s why mance began in the middle of the “The Travel Detective” [Winter you’re reading On Wisconsin right night and ended at dawn. I think 2019] about Peter Greenberg was now. We like print, too, but we’re the audience at first wondered nicely written. [Many people just as fond of the magazine’s why a black man was playing Eliz- don’t realize that] the first Dow online version. The web allows us abeth Taylor’s role, but he was so protest was in 1966, before Mr. to enrich our stories with videos clearly good at it that, after a bit, Greenberg arrived. Innocent stu- and additional photos — for we just began to get into the play. dents were victimized and lumped example, emotional images for The attendees were as exhausted in with a then-small group of as the actors by the end. anti-war protesters. I was in an “Six Lessons from the Rose Bowl” I also saw the not very “nude” accounting class on the second (page 36) and rare film clips for Peter Pan show at Memorial floor of the Commerce Building “Hair-Raising Performances” Union, which got national atten- when we were forcibly removed (page 30). See these and others tion when it was covered in Time by police with plexiglass shields at onwisconsin.uwalumni.com, magazine. The nudity was well on their helmets, herded down- where there’s more of us to love. camouflaged with colored light- stairs to the exit, and gassed. I ing, and the scene was tasteful witnessed police swinging clubs and appropriate in the context randomly at students. The actions of the play. I must admit that of the police on that day were a I remember these cultural events catalyst that mobilized [the anti- more than most of the classes war movement]. I took at the UW. Ron Sager ’70 Gary Saretzky ’68, MA’69 Milwaukee Lawrenceville, New Jersey Thanks from What Is Your Down Under Emergency? I received my Winter 2019 On THE WORLD IS Bygone [“Landlines,” Winter Wisconsin last week. As always, 2019] showed several ladies at it is a wonderful read and a WATCHING work at the university switch- high-quality magazine, which Lisa Kamal ’19, the student board in the 1930s. In the late I feel proud to display on the speaker at winter commence- 1950s the switchboard had coffee table in my office. On ment, has gone viral. Videos of women operators during the day, Wisconsin is informative and her inspiring speech have re- but the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift was engaging and brings back a bit ceived millions of views on social manned by a single male student. of nostalgia and longing for the media, making her a hero not I was an operator for a semester University of Wisconsin. Thank only on campus, but also in her or so. I think the pay was six dol- you for continuing to send the home country of Malaysia. Kamal lars a shift, or 75 cents an hour. magazine all the way to my home opened the speech by singing We occasionally had students in Sydney, Australia. You make a few lines from the Broadway call in after the 11 p.m. curfew, this Badger feel connected. musical Hamilton, which she said attempting to call friends in the Stephen Mally ’86 helped her cope during tough dorms. Usually, the call ended Glebe, New South Wales, times. That caught the attention when we politely told the caller Australia that calls were not permitted of Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel after 11. Occasionally, a more Editor’s Note: Our thoughts go Miranda, who tweeted his high brazen student, often a male out to all of the alumni and friends hopes for Kamal’s future: “Mira, trying to talk to his sweetheart in who have been affected by the dev- Lisa, no me preocupo por ella … a women’s dorm, would declare astating fires in Australia. (thank YOU)” On Wisconsin 7 LOCATED IN THE HEART OF MADISON Right Where You Want to be Celebrating 20 years of providing AWARD-WINNING LODGING, MEETING and EVENT PLANNING CONTACT US TODAY! 601 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53715 (608) 441-7117 • (877) 77-FLUNO/35866 fluno.com Follow us: 8 On Wisconsin *Subject to restrictions. Please call for moreSPRING information. 2020 First Person UW ARCHIVES UW Spring 2020 COEDITORS Niki Denison, Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA) Dean Robbins, University Communications PUBLISHER Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association 1848 University Avenue Madison, WI 53726-4090 608-263-4545 Email: [email protected] Web: onwisconsin.uwalumni.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER John Allen, WFAA WRITER Preston Schmitt ’14, University Marketing CLASS NOTES/DIVERSIONS EDITOR Stephanie Awe ’15, WFAA UW–Madison’s Gaylord Nelson Institute for Envi- Gaylord Nelson ART DIRECTOR ronmental Studies is one of the most well-known (right) cele- Nancy Rinehart, University Marketing legacies of Nelson LLB’42, the former Wisconsin gov- brates Earth Day in 1988 with a DESIGNERS ernor and senator. But it’s not the most well-known tour of Wiscon- Christine Knorr ’97 and Danielle Lawry, legacy. That would be Earth Day, the environmental University Marketing sin’s Schmeeckle teach-in that Nelson sponsored beginning in 1970. Reserve in Ste- PRODUCTION EDITOR Fifty years ago this April 22, some 20 million Amer- vens Point. Eileen Fitzgerald ’79, University Marketing icans, including students at more than 2,000 colleges PHOTOGRAPHERS and universities and thousands more primary and secondary schools, Jeff Miller and Bryce Richter, University took part in a national conversation about conservation and the envi- Communications ronment. (Because it was a teach-in, those students didn’t get a day off DESIGN, LAYOUT, AND PRODUCTION from school.