Quick Takes: Winter 2012

• In September, the Wisconsin Law School’s Latino Law Student Association launched the state’s first Immigration Law Clinic. The organization’s goal is to provide low-cost legal services to immigrants.
• The UW’s Odyssey Project is the subject of a documentary for the Big Ten Network. Now in its tenth year, the Odyssey Project offers economically disadvantaged Madisonians an opportunity to take evening courses and earn college credits studying literature, history, philosophy, art, and writing. Check local listings for when the Big Ten Network program will air.
• Students had a blast from the past
  

  Photo: Bryce Richter

when plastic pink flamingos returned to Bascom Hill at the start of the fall semester. Echoing a classic prank by the 1970s Pail and Shovel Party, students placed 400 flamingos on the hill to promote Flamingo Run, a convenience store located in the campus’s new Dejope Residence Hall.

• The School of Human Ecology named Soyeon Shim as its new dean, succeeding Robin Douthitt. Shim was previously the director of the School of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Arizona. Also coming from Arizona is Paul Robbins ’89, who has been appointed director of the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. The School of Veterinary Medicine named Mark Markel as its third dean, following Daryl Buss MS’74, PhD’75 and Barney Easterday MS’58, PhD’61.
• As Memorial Union’s reconstruction continues,
  

  Photo: Herschel Kissinger

  workers removed the James Watrous murals that decorate the Paul Bunyan Room. The murals were painted in the 1930s and depict the Paul Bunyan legend. They will be returned in 2014. Similarly, murals in the Stiftskeller and the collection of steins that decorate the Rathskeller have been put into storage until the renovation is complete.

• Hiring a new UW-Madison chancellor took a step forward in September when the UW System formed a search committee. The group includes thirteen faculty members and twelve staff, students, administrators, and community representatives. Its charge is to form a short list of five candidates for the board of regents to evaluate to succeed Interim Chancellor David Ward MS’62, PhD’63.
• Engineering Professor John Moskwa is the first university professor to earn the Cole Award for Automotive Engineering Innovation from the Society of Automotive Engineers International. It lauds his work in high-bandwidth engine transient test systems.
• Victory Media named UW–Madison
  

  Photo: Jeff Miller

  among the top 15 percent of military-friendly colleges and universities in America. The UW enrolls some 600 military and veteran students.

Published in the Winter 2012 issue