Letters: Thirteen UW Degrees Around the Table

[In response to “A Matter of Degrees,” Spring 2009], Iva Mortimer ’20, MA’26, ’39, MA’40, PhD’47 [who was the first alum to earn five degrees from the university] was my mother-in-law. We had long known that for a considerable time she had received the highest number of UW degrees of any individual, but my wife and her daughter, Mary Mortimer Schar ’50, MS’58, were surprised and delighted by your article. Mary is extremely proud of her mother’s academic achievements.

It is probably in the gene code somewhere. For several years, when both [my wife’s] mother and mine (Dorothy Schar ’23) were living, when our family got together for dinner, we had a total of thirteen UW degrees around the table. Iva had five; my wife, my daughter Susan Schar Balsai ’83, MBA’84, and I each have two; and my mother and my son Steven Schar ’89 had one each. We are solidly a Badger family.

Thank you for the nice story.

Walter Schar, Jr. ’52, MBA’55 Madison

Published in the Summer 2010 issue