The original Rocky Rococo pizzeria opened in April 1974 on West Gilman Street, in a building as rectangular as its signature slice. Wisconsin Historical Society

A chapter of Madison history came to a close last December when Roger Brown, one of the founders of Rocky Rococo Pizza, sold his last restaurant. This wasn’t the pan-style pizza joint most Badgers will remember — it was on Madison’s Beltline highway. But it was a last tie to a pizza tradition that began at 411 W. Gilman, just off State Street.

You may be thinking, “I remember Rocky Rococo, and it wasn’t there. It was at …” Well, let your gluten relax a moment. The Rocky’s story is, if not rococo, certainly baroque.

In April 1974, Brown and his partner, Wayne Mosley, opened the first Rocky’s in the site of what had been Floyd Brown’s Restaurant (no relation to Roger). Rocky’s offered up three varieties of pizza — pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom — cut into rectangles and served in foil packets. (The iconic Rocky’s “This Box Rocks” cardboard container didn’t appear until 1976.) That fall, it won the Daily Cardinal’s annual pizza contest, knocking off such favorites as Gino’s, Gargano’s, and Pizza Pit. “Rocky Rococo’s victory was insured [sic] by a combination of a moist-deep crust and good spicing,” said the review.

The little pizza place slowly built toward success. In August 1975, it opened a second location at 651 State Street. Then came pizzerias in La Crosse, Minneapolis, and farther afield. By 1990, Rocky’s had 10 locations in Madison and dozens more around the country.

But pizza is a competitive business in Madison, and Rocky’s might have loaded a few too many pepperonis onto its slice of the market. By 2000, nine of those 10 locations had closed, including Gilman and State. Of course, three more had opened, the one nearest campus located at 1301 Regent Street. That location is now Fabiola’s Spaghetti House. The building that housed 651 State has been swallowed up by the sportswear shop Insignia. And since 2009, the West Gilman location has been home to Fugu Asian Fusion.

If you’re back in town and get a hankering for the Rocky’s deep dish you remember from your student days, don’t fear: Madison still has three locations, and they deliver.

The pep rally (shown here in 2024) is one of several enduring celebrations of Badger spirit. Andy Manis

The UW held its first Homecoming in 1911, making it one of the first institutions to adopt the popular tradition, alongside Baylor University and the University of Illinois.

Prior to that, the UW had informally invited alumni back for commencement, but organizers soon saw the wisdom of tying visits back to campus to a football game. More than 3,000 people attended the inaugural event, which featured speakers, doughnuts, cider, and cigars. A Homecoming Ball made its debut in 1919, and annual dances continued until 2011. Judges awarded prizes for the best house and float decorations, and a Homecoming king and queen reigned over festivities every year from 1937 until 2011.

Bonfires were considered essential to the fall ritual for decades, culminating in revelers snaking down State Street. They often crossed the line from exuberance into mayhem, rocking cars, throwing objects, and stopping traffic. After a bonfire sparked a State Street riot in 1946, city and university officials canceled that particular expression of school spirit.

During World War II, Homecoming celebrations honored the military. Concerts through the years have drawn national acts such as Tommy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Simon and Garfunkel, and Dionne Warwick. Steve Miller x’67 headlined a scholarship benefit concert in 2017, and the student-led Homecoming committee continues to book popular artists today.

The Homecoming parade and pep rally, long essential events, are still highlights of what has become a week’s worth of activities.

In recent years, the Wisconsin Alumni Association began sponsoring a multicultural tailgate as well as the Multicultural Homecoming Yard Show, and the Block Party has become another popular addition. It features activities such as a silent disco, face-painting and crafts for children, fireworks, and yard games in Alumni Park. The week also includes Fill the Hill, a fundraiser that involves planting plastic flamingos on Bascom Hill to symbolize gifts made to the university, riffing off a beloved 1979 prank by the student-government Pail and Shovel Party.

Bucky Badger, who made his debut at the 1949 Homecoming game, will feature prominently this year. Fans will have a chance to learn what it’s like to play the beloved mascot at a showing of the PBS documentary Being Bucky. This year’s Homecoming events will take place the week of October 5, culminating in the football game against the Iowa Hawkeyes on October 11.

In May, Shane Hoffman became the first person to graduate from the UW’s accelerated program for training rural physicians. Jeff Miller

Shane Hoffman ’18, MD’25 can see the future he wants clearly: he’s a surgeon at a clinic or small hospital in rural Wisconsin — perhaps somewhere in the far northern part of the state, where his family has deep roots. His medical practice will allow residents to access care quickly and stay closer to their homes and families.

“Hospitals are going under because they can’t attract people to these rural communities,” says Hoffman, who grew up near Lake Mills, Wisconsin. “I want to live in a small town or in the country. It’s where I feel most at home.”

In May, Hoffman became the first graduate of a program at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health that reduces the time it takes to train doctors who are interested in serving rural parts of the state. Students in the accelerated program take all the same required courses but graduate in three years instead of four.

“There’s a significant geographic disconnect in Wisconsin between where people live and where doctors practice,” says Joseph Holt ’91, director of the UW’s rural medicine program. “As many as 31 percent of the state’s residents live in rural areas, yet only one in 10 physicians practice in these rural areas. It’s imperative that we address this problem, because the rural physician shortage is only going to increase as current physicians retire and the population ages.”

The goal of the accelerated program is to instill in graduates a desire to practice in rural Wisconsin — there are no contracts or other requirements. Hoffman’s clinical rotations as a medical school student took him to rural areas all over the state. What he witnessed only increased his resolve to practice rural medicine.

“It makes me sad to walk through an empty hospital wing,” Hoffman says. “People are being shipped to bigger cities because of staff shortages in these rural areas.”

For more than 40 years, UW researchers have been working to turn satellite data into faster and more accurate weather forecasts. Althea Dotzour

The University of Wisconsin–Madison may be the birthplace of satellite meteorology, but scientists on campus have never stopped developing new ways for space-based instruments to protect and improve the lives of people back on Earth.

For more than 40 years, researchers at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) — a partnership between UW–Madison and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — have been working to turn satellite data into faster and more accurate weather forecasts. They are protecting you and your community in ways you may not expect.

“Technology is constantly advancing, improving our ability to observe our surroundings and enhancing our lives,” says Tristan L’Ecuyer, CIMSS director and a satellite researcher. “The innovative research we do here plays a critical role in delivering essential satellite products that support NOAA’s mission to improve public safety and well-being and effectively manage our nation’s resources.”

Here are just a few of the most recent ways CIMSS has made Americans safer:

• AI-assisted hurricane prediction: Used by agencies worldwide, CIMSS algorithms add speed and accuracy to assessments of hurricanes that can abruptly grow stronger and shift their tracks.
• Dodging lightning: A CIMSS-built tool called ProbSevere employs AI to sharpen severe weather predictions, shortening the wait for forecasts that protect people and their property from lightning, heavy rain, hail, and tornadoes.
• Fighting wildfires: The CIMSS-designed Next Generation Fire System provides highly accurate, real-time information on a wildfire’s location, movement, size, and intensity.
• Protecting against floods: The National Weather Service uses a mapping tool developed at CIMSS to quickly provide situational awareness of changing conditions and flood risks.
• Smoother and safer airplane flights: Researchers working on the CIMSS Turbulence Product use AI to help pilots avoid the atmospheric conditions that make flights uncomfortably bumpy — or worse.

Mnookin: “Creating opportunities for respectful dialogue across our differences of background and beliefs, and building a shared appreciation for our pluralistic society, are our imperative.” Althea Dotzour

In July, Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin announced a series of administrative changes to improve how UW–Madison supports all undergraduate students through centralized programs and resources.

Last fall, Mnookin asked former provost Charles Isbell to lead a comprehensive review of the undergraduate experience and provide recommendations that would bolster retention and graduation rates. The resulting working group suggested enhancing support for students with financial need and first-generation students in particular; developing mechanisms for providing data-driven student support across the undergraduate population; and streamlining campuswide assistance to help students more easily navigate available resources.

Accepting these recommendations, Mnookin has directed campus to reorganize student assistance along three functional lines. Efforts related to student well-being, involvement, and belonging will be centralized within Student Affairs. Academic support resources will be housed within the Division for Teaching and Learning. And initiatives around financial support will be run by the Office of Student Financial Aid.

In addition, a new office focused on serving first-generation students and students with financial need will open within Student Affairs during the upcoming academic year. Support services for both groups of students were previously dispersed across multiple units on campus.

As a result of this consolidation, the university is sunsetting the Division of Diversity, Equity & Educational Achievement (DDEEA) as a freestanding unit. DDEEA’s portfolio — which includes scholarship-linked student assistance, employee support, and institutional data collection — will be relocated by function to the Division of Teaching and Learning, the Office of Human Resources, and the Data, Academic Planning & Institutional Research unit.

“I believe these changes will allow us to serve many more students with an even greater array of resources,” Mnookin said.

She noted that the university will continue to support the scholarships and programs formerly administered by DDEEA, including the PEOPLE, Posse, and First Wave cohorts. The same is true for campus’s student cultural centers, residential learning communities, and events that promote cross-cultural exchange and learning.

“Diversity of all kinds, including both diversity of viewpoint and diversity of identity and background, remains a core value of our university,” Mnookin said. “We must create the conditions here, including through programs and support services, that allow all of our students, faculty, and staff to flourish and to reach their full potential.

“Fostering cross-cultural competency among our students will prepare them to thrive in our complex world. Creating opportunities for respectful dialogue across our differences of background and beliefs, and building a shared appreciation for our pluralistic society, are our imperative.”

Mike Grall of Fulcrum Solutions watches PEAR (Piano Education in Augmented Reality) founder Mason Baloun use a virtual reality headset. Paul L. Newby II

Housed at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, the Tech Exploration Lab focuses on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, Internet of Things, machine learning, and robotics. Students work on innovative projects under the guidance of alumni and industry partners who offer mentorship and resources. Among them: creating an app that assists Alzheimer’s caregivers and refining the user experience on Airbnb’s website.

Launched last semester, the Tech Exploration Lab is a cross-campus collaboration led by the Wisconsin School of Business and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Its 14 industry mentors are UW alumni from leading firms in retail, tech, and venture capital, including Salesforce and Amazon.

“We believe the best learning happens when students engage with real problems from industry,” says Sandra Bradley MS’90, the lab’s executive director. “Our mentors and partner companies are the driving force behind that experience. By bringing their toughest challenges into the lab, companies not only give students an invaluable opportunity to experiment, but they also gain something just as powerful: fresh thinking, rapid prototyping, and insights that can directly advance their own innovation efforts in a low-risk environment.”

For Cub Foods CIO Luke Anderson ’98, mentoring students is a way to support the next generation of innovators.

“The Tech Exploration Lab has been a great resource for us to explore how AI can benefit our business, without the high risk that usually comes with early experimentation,” he says. “Through our engagement with the lab, we’ve been able to surface fresh ideas from talented students, test potential applications in a low-stakes environment, and get clearer insights into where AI could drive real value for our operations.”

Kurt Kober MBA’07, an entrepreneur and the former division president of the Honest Company, worked with a student team that developed an AI model to monitor changes in skin health.

“I came into the Tech Exploration Lab to mentor students, but I walked away with something I didn’t expect: momentum,” Kober says.

“The lab’s interdisciplinary, experimental spirit gave me the space — and the spark — to test an idea I’d been quietly incubating in the wellness space. Sometimes, the best breakthroughs happen when curiosity, collaboration, and a little Badger grit collide.”

Jeff Miller

A flagship financial aid program at UW–Madison that provides generous support to in-state students from low- to moderate-income families increases student retention by several percentage points, according to new research.

The study, scheduled for publication in the Peabody Journal of Education, is the first to assess the long-term outcomes of Bucky’s Tuition Promise, which began in 2018.

Bucky’s Tuition Promise guarantees four years of tuition and segregated fees for any incoming freshman from Wisconsin whose family’s annual household adjusted
gross income is $65,000 or less. Transfer students can qualify for up to two years.

Prior research has shown that being eligible for Bucky’s Tuition Promise increases the probability that a lower-income student from Wisconsin will accept an enrollment
offer from UW–Madison. The new study looks at what happens to the students once they arrive on campus.

“We wanted to make sure that this program wasn’t just bringing students to campus but that those students went on to have successful college careers here,” says Amberly Dziesinski, the study’s author and a research analyst in the UW’s Student Success through Applied Research Lab.

Comparing students closest to either side of the income eligibility threshold, Dziesinski found that the retention rate going into the second year for Bucky’s Tuition Promise students close to the eligibility threshold was 96.6 percent, compared to 93.4 percent for the control group of ineligible students.

The difference of three percentage points is significant, she says, because the UW’s retention rates are already very high across the board.

The Green Fund supported installing bird-safe windows around campus. Lauren Graves

Students at UW–Madison are often quick to notice opportunities to improve the sustainability of campus facilities. However, many don’t have the resources to solve the problem on their own. That’s why the UW Office of Sustainability created the Green Fund program, which supports student-initiated environmental projects.

Students bring their proposals to the Green Fund staff, who help them collect data, write funding proposals, implement a project, and report on the outcomes. Since launching in 2017, it has supported such initiatives as installing bird-safe windows around campus, reducing waste in dining halls, and installing a BCycle station at the Arboretum Visitor Center.

In the last academic year, the Green Fund received 15 applications, the highest number ever.

“We approve most applications we receive,” says program manager Ian Aley MS’17. “If an idea isn’t ready right away, we offer feedback and continue to support the student team until it’s ready for approval.”

In 2022, the UW grounds crew approached Office of Sustainability staff about replacing seven of their fossil-fuel-powered riding lawn mowers with electric ones. The Green Fund staff invited the student group Campus Leaders for Energy Action Now (CLEAN) to collaborate on the project.

Aley helped the CLEAN students calculate the cost savings and carbon impact of the conversion to electric. They also conducted interviews with the mower operators to learn about their process. The result: swapping out the diesel and gas mowers for electric models.

The data collected by the students will inform future electrification efforts on campus.

UW–Madison is one of the world’s leading research universities, and federal funding is vital to its work. Taylor Wolfram

One of the most pressing issues on campus in 2025 has been the threat to federally funded research. UW–Madison’s research expenditures top $1.7 billion a year, and about half of that comes from federal grants. When the government announced changes that would limit those funds, the UW felt, in Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin’s understated phrase, “deep concern.” Although a relatively small number of grants have been cut so far, all of them face uncertainty, and delayed decisions on future grants only add to the uncertainty. The effects could extend well beyond the lab.

The On Wisconsin team chose this issue’s cover subject with several purposes in mind. One is obvious: we think that Immuto Scientific has an interesting story. Another is about timing: this year marks the centennial for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the organization that manages UW–Madison’s intellectual property. WARF helps get discoveries out of the lab and into the hands of people who can use them. It’s been part of some of the UW’s biggest research successes: vitamin D enrichment, warfarin, the UW Solution for organ transplants, and more. Those discoveries and inventions have helped millions of people, and they’ve proven lucrative, providing funding for more UW research.

But Immuto’s story also illustrates one aspect of the importance of UW–Madison’s research enterprise. Immuto has a product that could revolutionize drug development, and it aims to create its own drugs — including a treatment for a deadly blood cancer. But the company didn’t just form out of good ideas and a savvy business plan. It was helped along by federally funded research.

Immuto’s leaders are Faraz Choudhury PhD’17 and Daniel Benjamin ’16, MS’17, PhD’21, and its technology grew out of work they did with Michael Sussman. Sussman’s lab receives funding from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. Immuto itself received a National Institutes of Health SEED program grant. Federal research funding helped Badger scientists conduct the studies that underlie Immuto, long before anyone knew that those studies might lead to patentable discoveries or that those discoveries might prove profitable. Private companies are unlikely to provide funding for early discovery work — it seldom leads to a financial return. Federal funding helps scientists do the work of discovery that businesses will build on later.

UW–Madison is one of the world’s leading research universities, and federal funding is vital to its work. That funding is under threat, and it’s crucial to realize what’s at stake. You’ll be seeing more about the UW’s research work in coming issues. If you’d like more frequent updates, visit news.wisc.edu/research-impact, and if you want to see five ways you can help protect UW research, see uwalumni.com/news/how-to-fight-for-the-uws-future.

A special kind of grit (left to right): Rowen Ellenberg ’24, MS’25; Christian de Vaal x’27; and Bob Liking ’25. Althea Dotzour

The UW men’s cross-country team is used to leaving the Big Ten competition in the dust.

The Badgers have won seven straight conference championships. They’ve captured 14 titles in the 17 years that Mick Byrne has been at the helm, making him the winningest cross-country coach in Big Ten history. Last season, to no one’s surprise, Byrne was named the Big Ten men’s cross-country Coach of the Year — for the 15th time.

Cross country has been a Big Ten sport since the conference formed more than a century ago, and all told, the men’s squad has tallied an astounding 57 Big Ten championships, five NCAA championships, and 38 top-10 finishes at the nationals, including a fourth-place spot last season. Four UW runners have won individual national championships: Walter Mehl ’40, MPH’46, PhD’51 in 1939, Tim Hacker ’86, MS’91, PhD’96 in 1985, Simon Bairu ’07 in 2004 and 2005, and Morgan McDonald ’19 in 2018.

Can we assume that this perpetually winning team will win again in the 2025 season, which runs from September through November? While no one would count them out, there are obstacles on this year’s path to the finish line.

For one, the West Coast schools that joined the Big Ten in the 2024–25 season offer stiff competition, with Oregon looking particularly strong. For another, all-time Badger great Bob Liking ’25 has graduated.

Liking won four Big Ten men’s cross-country titles, becoming only the fourth athlete to accomplish that feat. Last season, he set a Big Ten record of 22 minutes, 47.3 seconds for an eight-kilometer race, breaking the previous record by nearly 25 seconds.

How do you follow a Bob Liking? According to Coach Byrne, it’s by “finding another Bob Liking.” Success breeds success, and runners from around the world are eager to join the UW program. Byrne has recruited several heirs apparent who turned in strong showings last season, including Christian de Vaal x’27, Matan Ivri x’28, Johnny Livingstone x’27, Liam Newhart x’28, and Micah Wilson x’27.

“We have some good young guys who’ve served their apprenticeship under Bob’s leadership,” Byrne says. “And now they’re ready to step into the leadership role themselves.”

Last season, de Vaal finished seventh at the Big Ten championships, and he benefited from Liking’s example. “Bob was someone I looked up to for being so professional in his approach to training,” says de Vaal, who came to UW–Madison from Auckland, New Zealand. “I’d like to serve that function for the new guys on the team.”

Distance runners require a special kind of grit. They train year-round and participate in three sports: cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. A crucial skill, according to Byrne, is patience.

“It’s all about trusting the system and not rushing the system,” he says. “In our sport, long and steady is a lot better than just hammering all the time and wanting those quick results.”

Raised in Ireland, Byrne came to the UW in 2008 after excelling as a distance runner at Rhode Island’s Providence College and as a coach at New York’s Iona College. He’s the director of track and field and cross country, overseeing both the men’s and women’s programs. This is a guy who’s nurtured six Olympians and 12 NCAA individual champions, along with bringing home the 2011 NCAA championship in men’s cross country — an achievement that earned him national Coach of the Year honors. He maintains his passion for the work despite the long hours and incessant travel of a three-season sport.

Above all, Byrne sees himself as a teacher. He spent 13 years as an educator in New York City, developing his empathy and listening skills. Understanding that a coach can’t control a race, he teaches his runners how to take control themselves.

“I always say, ‘I don’t know how this race is going to go. I can give you a couple of scenarios.’ And we try to have a plan for each of those scenarios. But I prefer to teach our athletes to trust their instincts. Great athletes always have great instincts, and I give them the freedom to make choices in a race.”

The close-knit cross-country team gets a boost from the Badger faithful who cheer on runners at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course. The UW’s home field, which last year hosted the NCAA championships, is renowned as spectator-friendly. The inner and outer loops allow everyone to see a race develop — a thrill for both the UW athletes and fans.

What makes UW men’s cross country so extraordinary, year after year? Byrne points to the program’s storied past and sums it up in a single word: pride. The runners, he says, love putting on the UW–Madison uniform.

“There’s a 50-year Badger legacy that we’re carrying on,” notes de Vaal. “If that doesn’t give you motivation, I don’t know what will.”