Stories

Campus History

Where the W Roams

For Badgers, it makes perfect sense that a single letter can represent so much emotion and pride. Behold the W! It’s the little letter that could — make us happy and proud, that is. It’s the twenty-third letter in the alphabet of the English language, but, oh, around Badgerland, it’s so much more.

Teaching & Learning

The Hope Builder

By the time Roberto Rivera ’04 devised his own UW major, he had already experienced a life's worth of challenges. But that didn't stop him from showing other young people a way out.

Science & Technology

Street-Dance Scientist

He does popping. He devotes time to his company. He teaches adults and kids about science. He works on his doctorate. Is there anything Jeff Vinokur ’12 isn't doing?

Sports & Recreation

Team Player: Deanna Latham

Deana Latham. Photo: Bryce Richter.

Growing up in Newbury, Massachusetts, Deanna Latham ’15 wasn’t like the other kids running around the neighborhood. Her running around was more methodical.

“I was raised a track baby,” she says. “Since I was six years old, my dad was talking…

International

Timely Debut

Amid news of normalization efforts between the United States and Cuba, Apertura [Opening]: Photography in Cuba Today has made a timely debut at the Chazen Museum of Art.

The Arts

One Time at Band Camp…

This is perhaps the most casual-looking canoeing tuba player we’ve ever seen. Granted, he’s the only canoeing tuba player we’ve ever seen.

The Arts

A Cappella Groups

With their voices becoming the instruments, six student groups are making beautiful music on campus and beyond.

Book

Old Buildings Evoke Nostalgia

James Mathee sent this photo of the Madison capitol taken by his grandfather, William Mathee, sometime between 1915 and 1917.

Thanks for the memories! [“Old School,” Spring 2015 On Wisconsin]. The grace and charm of old buildings cannot be replaced. It is sad, but change is…

Teaching & Learning

We’re Em-bear-assed

I very much enjoyed the piece on Phil Rosenthal [“Staying Power,” Fall 2015]. In particular, I cheered the fact that “…after more than thirty years in the newspaper business,” he had covered grizzly crime scenes and survived. Those bears are very dangerous!

Lona Morris Jupiter ’56 San Francisco, California…

Campus History

Bascom Hill Cemetery

[In regard to the Spring 2015 Traditions, “Displays on Bascom Hill”]: In 1968, at the height of the war in Vietnam, students awoke one morning to find Bascom Hill covered with crosses painted white (just like the crosses in the cemetery at Omaha Beach in France) and a sign…

International

A Historic Visit

[In regard to Flashback in the Spring 2015 issue]: When I was an eleven-year-old, my mother, Etta Wittchow Barfknecht ’31, brought me to Madison to see and hear one of the great world leaders [Jawaharlal Nehru]. Thank you for reminding me of that day.

Charles Barfknecht ’60 Iowa City,…

Book

Bookshelf: Summer 2015

It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War (Penguin Press) is the memoir of Lynsey Addario ’95, a Pulitzer Prize–winning war photographer.