Reopen and Rejoice

The Madison Jazz Festival brought live music back to the Terrace in June. Bryce Richter

Crowds have returned to the Memorial Union Terrace. Many events are planned for reopened UW arts venues. And the university is getting back to relatively regular operations this fall, including (at press time) hosting fans at athletic events in Camp Randall Stadium and other venues.

Yes, campus will remain vigilant, conducting COVID-19 testing and requiring masks. But unless the pandemic worsens, we Badgers will begin to venture out of our virtual spaces and “Jump Around.”

Here at On Wisconsin, that means heading back to the office. We’ve scheduled our first in-person staff meeting since winter 2020, allowing us to finally bump elbows with colleagues who joined the magazine during the pandemic. (Hello, Danielle Lamberson Philipp and Megan Provost ’20!) Our photographers, Bryce Richter and Jeff Miller, can more easily invite subjects into their studio or work with them on location. That’s resulted in artful portraits of journalism professor Young Mie Kim and husband-and-wife children’s illustrators Kevin Henkes x’83 and Laura Dronzek ’82, MFA’93.

Reassuringly, our fall articles find UW–Madison the same as ever, conducting transformative research, preserving beloved traditions, and producing extraordinary alumni. A more fitting name for this issue of the magazine might be Carry On Wisconsin.

See you at the Terrace, face-to-face.

Published in the Fall 2021 issue