DISPATCHES Going for the Green New, eco-friendly campus facilities are flushing inefficiency. On a rain-splattered Earth Day, Near where the sweeper fill its tanks with a blend of a construction worker ran a clatters down Linden Drive, the ultra-low sulfur diesel and a sweeper on Linden Drive to new Microbial Sciences Building soybean-based biodiesel fuel in clean up a muddy slurry left will feature the campus’s first an effort to improve air quality. behind by dump trucks hauling designed “green roof,” which The new mixture yields a 13 per- dirt from the excavation site for will feature plants and ground- cent reduction in hydrocarbons, the new Microbial Sciences cover in a lightweight soil to a 16 percent decline in emissions Building. The work keeps soil help reduce stormwater runoff. of carbon dioxide, and a 15 per- from running into storm sewers But it’s not just new con- cent reduction in soot emission. that drain into Lake Mendota. struction that is receiving green Not everything on campus Later that same morning, scrutiny. The university has is so squeaky clean. The UW’s officials gathered under the invested more than $29 million coal-fired heating plant, for canopy of a nearby gas station to announce a university-funded pro- MICHAEL FORSTER ROTHBART gram that will exchange more than “You get to meet people four thousand old gaso- and have eye-to-eye line storage cans for contact, not looking at new, environmentally bright lights. And it’s friendly ones that Dane a forum where you County homeowners get feedback and can use to cut the interaction. I really release of ozone-mak- enjoy it.” ing ingredients into the atmosphere. — Popular recording artist Elsewhere, archi- Sting, on why he led a UW- tects are working on Madison English class a day environmentally sound before a scheduled concert campus buildings, stu- dents are using plumb- in Madison. Old toilets are lined up outside Ingraham Hall, one of several campus buildings ing fixtures that save that has received upgraded facilities in an effort to conserve water and energy. water and energy, and diesel trucks are using cleaner fuels. over several years in improving example, still receives much All across the campus, a efficiency in existing buildings. criticism from environmental green movement is picking up Alan Fish, associate vice chan- groups as a source of air pollu- steam. cellor for facilities, says more tion. The university has invested The planned addition to than 12 million square feet of $12 million in the past decade Grainger Hall, for example, will university buildings have been to ensure it meets state and incorporate a number of envi- audited for energy use, and new federal air standards, and Fish ronmentally conscious design energy management systems says that officials are evaluating principles, including daylighting have been installed. the costs and benefits of addi- — a way of positioning the “We have concentrated on tional changes — such as more building to make maximum use wise use of resources across the clean and efficient technology of the sun’s rays and reduce the campus, replacing 2,000 motors and switching fuels. need for artificial light. Design- with premium-efficiency motors, But even obsolete buildings ers are using more aggressive may turn out being green in the energy-saving technology and installing more than 8,500 occu- end. When Ogg Hall is demol- relying on recycled materials, pancy sensors, retrofitting 6,000 says Kurt Zimmerman, an archi- lighting fixtures with high-effi- ished to make room for new tect with Milwaukee’s Zimmer- ciency units, and replacing 3,000 student housing, its concrete man Design Group. toilets with water saving, ultra- towers will be ground up and “We’re talking about the low flow models,” Fish says. reused in roadbeds. In fact, environment going hand in Earlier this year, the univer- 75 percent of the old residence hand with form and function,” sity’s diesel-powered truck fleet hall will be recycled. Zimmerman says. became the first in Wisconsin to — Dennis Chaptman ’80 10 ON WISCONSIN DISPATCHES Making it (Point and) Click A tool for the instant-feedback generation may help learning. Professors occasionally look out JEFF MILLER at the sea of faces in a lecture hall and wonder, “Is this stuff sinking in?” A new technology gaining popularity at UW-Madi- son and nationally is helping to answer that question before final exams settle the matter for good. Personal response systems — better known as “clickers” — allow instructors to get instant feedback to questions posed during a lecture. A growing number of professors are finding the devices helpful for getting a quick read on what students understand or need to review — and injecting some active engagement into the normally passive lecture-hall environment. Here’s how they work: along 43 with textbooks, students pur- Number of UW-Madison faculty chase a clicker that’s roughly the who are members of the size of a television remote and National Academy of Sciences, has about a dozen response but- About the size of a TV remote, the new clickers send an infrared signal to a following this spring’s election tons. During a lecture, professors receiver, where the data are analyzed and formatted into graphics that show instantly how well students are understanding the material. of anthropologist Karen ask students to respond to ques- Strier. UW-Madison has more tions by punching a button on professors in the academy than the clicker, which beams the using it at least once in each through a National Science any public university east of answers to a receiver. The results class, and feedback from stu- Foundation coalition. He and California. are tabulated by software and dents is generally positive. engineering colleague John can be instantly displayed on a “There’s an anonymity that Mitchell have developed a projection screen. students like about this technol- methodology they call “assess- Psychology instructor ogy,” he says. “When you ask for ment-centered instruction,” Jeffrey Henriques MS’89, a show of hands in a lecture hall, which relies heavily on clickers. PhD’98 is a believer in the many students won’t raise them. “We ask multiple-choice- technology. He uses it in his two- This allows everybody to get style questions that have all hundred-student introductory involved without making your- sorts of different purposes,” psychology course, and he says it self conspicuous by committing Martin says. “Some questions yields meaningful information to the wrong answer.” probe specific concepts, others on how well students are Clickers have a long way to probe definitions, others probe absorbing classroom material. go before they’re as common as specific skills, and some even “I like the fact that I can go lecterns and chalkboards, but address student understanding over material from the previous they’re clearly drawing more of how things work.” week,” he says. “If a lot of stu- interest. The devices were Not all students like the dents are getting the answers demonstrated recently at UW- additional expense of a clicker, wrong, I can go back and rein- Madison’s Teaching and Learning but Martin says more students in force those concepts.” Symposium, an annual event his classes appreciate it than Henriques admits he was during which colleagues share reject it. skeptical at first, since the tech- ideas for improving instruction. “I want the classroom to be nology is an added cost to stu- “Clickers can be used to a place where students are dents. (The system he uses facilitate a ‘natural’ active and actively engaged in learning and charges twenty-five dollars per cooperative classroom,” says Jay assessing their understanding,” student.) But he says he is Martin, a mechanical engineer- he says. “The technology assists determined to have students ing professor who was intro- with this in a big way.” get their money’s worth by duced to the technology — Brian Mattmiller ’86 SUMMER 2005 11 DISPATCHES The Benefit Deficit The UW wants to extend benefits to domestic partners — but some object. Karen Ryker loved her stu- for diversity at Miller Brewing into the category of social Q AND A dents, her colleagues, and her Company and a member of the issues that elicit an “either- Joe Thompson work as an associate professor UW Board of Regents. “I think you’re-with-us-or-against-us in UW-Madison’s theater and it gives you an edge.” type of mentality.” Life can be tough when you’re drama department, where she But Doyle’s proposal to let “Because of that, it just an upright-walking badger, planned to finish her career. the UW begin offering the ben- doesn’t seem to be something which is why the UW has peo- But the University of Con- efits — part of the two-year the Republican legislature’s will- ple such as Joe Thompson necticut offered her something state budget he submitted to ing to go along with,” he says. ’84 around. A staffer in UW the UW did not: health insurance Athletics’ community relations benefits for her partner of department, Thompson lends twenty-five years, Sarah Jo Burke. a paw ... er, hand ... to help JEFF MILLER “I was very happy there, Bucky interact with his fans, and I know they were happy including maintaining Bucky’s with me,” says Ryker, who left Badger Den Web site (www. the UW in 2002, after more uwbadgers.com/for_kids/) and than a decade. “But this is a big driving the mascot to commu- issue, and we had to look out nity events. for our own future health and Q: So why can’t Bucky well-being.” drive himself? Is it the It is also becoming a big issue paws? for the UW, which is the only A: Yes, it is the paws.