hooks wrestled with the issues of race, feminism, and love: “I am passionate about everything in my life — first and foremost, passionate about ideas.” UW Archives S17568

She rose at 4 or 5 a.m. each morning, prayed and meditated, and then tried to read a nonfiction book every day. This intellectual and author prepared like an athlete as she wrestled with the issues of race, feminism, and love.

bell hooks MA’76, a well-known social critic, wrote the first of her more than 30 books at age 19, and she was a provocateur ever after.

“I think of public intellectuals as very different, because I think that they’re airing their work for that public engagement,” she told the New York Times. “Really, in all the years of my writing that was not my intention. It was to produce theory that people could use.”

hooks — whose given name was Gloria Jean Watkins but who adopted the lowercase pseudonym from her great-grandmother — wrote that first book, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, as an undergraduate at Stanford University before coming to UW–Madison for a master’s in English literature followed by a PhD at the University of California–Santa Cruz.

In that acclaimed work, hooks said that sisterhood must encompass growth and change. “The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist, and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization,” she wrote.

hooks said she worried about what she called censorship of the imagination: “When I look at my career as a thinker and a writer, what is so amazing is that I have a dissenting voice and that I was able to come into corporate publishing and bring that dissenting voice with me.”

She was known to criticize often-admired African American figures including Spike Lee and Beyoncé, and she wrote about the nature of love, bringing a fervor to her work.

“I am passionate about everything in my life — first and foremost, passionate about ideas,” she said. “And that’s a dangerous person to be in this society — not because I’m a woman, but because it’s such a fundamentally anti-intellectual, anti-critical-thinking society.”

Hickey (right) was a central figure in efforts to ban the use of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides in Wisconsin and around the country. Here, he and Hallock Hosford MSx’51 examine a prairie chicken. UW Archives S12904

As UW–Madison’s second professor of wildlife management — recruited to the university by famed conservationist Aldo Leopold — Joseph Hickey MS’43 was a central figure in efforts to ban the use of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, such as DDT, in Wisconsin and across the country. During a 1965 conference on the peregrine falcon, Hickey championed a brave stance, given the state’s deep roots in agriculture, by showing a connection between pesticides and declining bird populations.

He’d always studied peregrines, but that interest intensified when they started dying. “As one of the few birds with a worldwide population, the peregrine falcon signaled that the threat wasn’t just a local phenomenon, but must be something happening at a global scale,” said Stanley Temple, a UW professor emeritus of wildlife management.

But before being in that spotlight, Hickey simply loved watching birds, and he wanted others to enjoy the pastime. For his UW thesis, he wrote A Guide to Bird Watching, which Oxford University Press immediately snapped up for publication. The book, which remains in print, “promoted bird watching as an activity that was perfectly in keeping with Leopold’s ideas about the potential importance of average citizens observing nature, interpreting those observations, and using the results to promote land health,” Temple said.

Shortly after Hickey joined the UW faculty, Leopold died unexpectedly. Hickey was appointed department chair, and he took on a mission: ensuring the publication of Leopold’s draft for A Sand County Almanac and illuminating the conservationist’s philosophy about the critical relationship between people and the land.

Though a devoted researcher and ornithologist, Hickey also embraced teaching. Students in his classroom would hear gentle bird songs and awaited what Temple described as “charming” lectures delivered with the Bronx accent that Hickey never lost. Enrollment in his classes grew during the 1960s and ’70s, mirroring students’ growing interest in environmental concerns. Despite receiving many honors during his career, his most cherished was the Distinguished Teaching Award the university bestowed in 1976.

Florence Bascom shows off a tool of her trade: a Brunton compass. During her work with the U.S. Geological Survey, she placed benchmarks like the one pictured below, which denoted a site’s exact elevation. Florence Bascom Papers, Smith College

There’s an apocryphal story about what set Florence Bascom 1882, 1884, MS1887 on her rocky path to a career in geology. The story goes that her father, John Bascom, took her to Mammoth Cave in south-central Kentucky, and the trip made such a deep impression on Bascom that she was determined to pursue science from then on.

But not all historians agree that the trip ever happened, much less during her childhood. Instead, Bascom was initially drawn to other fields of study, obtaining an arts and letters degree from the UW shortly after her father took over as university president in 1874 (and pushed for full coeducational status for women).

After graduating, Bascom spent a year in Madison “engaged in social activities” before her father encouraged her to return to school and pick a more lasting direction for her interests. (They may also have visited “a cave” around this time.) She returned to the UW for a second bachelor’s degree, this time in science, followed by a master’s in geology. She became a protégée of Charles Van Hise 1879, 1880, MS1882, PhD1892, then an assistant professor.

Bascom’s next step wasn’t easy. After a couple of years teaching in Rockford, Illinois, she applied to the PhD program at Johns Hopkins University, which until then did not admit female students. Through her father’s connections, a special exception was made for Bascom, though she had to sit behind a screen in classes to avoid “distracting” her male classmates. Ultimately, in 1893, she was the first woman to earn a doctorate from that institution. Her influential dissertation was on metamorphosed lava flows.

“The fascination of any search after truth lies not in the attainment, which at best is found to be very relative, but in the pursuit, where all the powers of the mind and character are brought into play and are absorbed in the task,” Bascom wrote. “One feels oneself in contact with something that is infinite, and one finds a joy that is beyond expression in ‘sounding the abyss of science’ and the secrets of the infinite mind.”

Bascom went on to become an expert on crystalline rocks in the Piedmont area of the Appalachian Mountains, and some of her surveys are still in use by geologists today. She balanced academic posts at various institutions with positions at the U.S. Geological Survey and other professional associations.

However, Bascom’s biggest influence was in the classroom. Recruited to the prestigious women’s college Bryn Mawr in 1895, she spent the rest of her career establishing — and protecting — a geology department that graduated a small but dedicated number of female geologists. When the college president threatened to shutter the department due to low enrollment in the early 1900s, Bascom’s students raised a substantial amount of money to save it.

Jerry Zucker is one of many impressive Badgers featured in the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Alumni Park. To discover their stories, visit alumnipark.com. Courtesy of Photofestnyc.com and Paramount Pictures

Love it or leave it, Airplane! is often cited as the funniest movie of all time, and surely, Jerry Zucker ’72 can be held responsible.

Zucker — writer, director, and producer of more than a dozen Hollywood films — found big laughs on campus in the 1960s as part of an outrageous comedy troupe, Kentucky Fried Theater.

The Milwaukee-area native joined his brother, David ’70, and friends Jim Abrahams x’66 and Dick Chudnow ’67 to perform groundbreaking comedy shows around Madison, including their debut in the old Union South.

Their improv-inspired humor was what the Daily Cardinal called “innovative, imaginative comedy” from a “zany bunch,” and they wasted no time in launching a new era of smart-yet-slapstick satire. Their road trip from Madison to Los Angeles started on Zucker’s graduation day.

“On the way, I passed Camp Randall, where my college graduation ceremony was in progress,” Zucker told Badger grads in 2003. “I thought about going to the ceremony, but it meant I would’ve arrived in Hollywood one day later, and at the time, I just didn’t see the point. I wanted to get there.”

After morphing their live show into the irreverent Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), the Zucker/Abrahams directorial dream team went on to create comedy classics, including Top Secret! (1984), Ruthless People (1986), and The Naked Gun (1988) and its sequels.

Zucker does have a more serious side: he directed the Oscar-nominated Ghost (1990), and he’s produced films like A Walk in the Clouds (1995) and My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997).

Today, Zucker and his wife, Janet, a fellow Hollywood producer, are vice chairs of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, in partnership with the National Academy of Sciences. Zucker says that his role in connecting scientists and entertainers is inspired in part by the research that helped his daughter when she was diagnosed with diabetes.

Zucker appreciates what entertainment and science share: “You have an idea of where you want to get, but you have to experiment your way through it, and it might take a long time to get there.”

Evans identified a bacterial infection in cows — and passed on to humans through drinking raw milk — that caused brucellosis, or undulant fever, an infectious disease characterized by high temperature and painful joints. Her findings led to pasteurization, ensuring that the milk that we drink today is safe.

Alice Evans is one of many impressive Badgers featured in the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Alumni Park. To discover their stories, visit alumnipark.com. National Institutes of Health

She cut a rare figure in 1909, when she became the first-ever female recipient of a graduate scholarship in bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin. After studying under UW professors including Elmer McCollum, who discovered vitamins A, B, and D, she moved on to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When news broke that a woman was joining their ranks to research the bac- teriology of milk and cheese, Evans said, her coworkers “almost fell off their chairs.”

Evans published a paper with her brucellosis findings in 1918, and the naysayers came out in force. Her fellow scientists dismissed the notion that a woman — and one without a PhD, no less — could make such a discovery. They scoffed at the idea that similar bacteria could cause disease in both animals and humans. And despite threats to the nation’s food supply, the dairy industry lobbied against her ideas. The skeptics shared the view, Evans said, “that if these organisms were closely related, some other bacteriologist would have noted it.”

But she held firm. In the late 1920s, male scientists confirmed her findings, and in the 1930s, milk pasteurization became mandatory.

In a cruel twist, Evans herself was infected with undulant fever in 1922, and the illness, which she experienced periodically for years, kept her from attending the meeting where she was elected the first female president of the Society of American Bacteriologists.

For one who had faced so much professional and personal adversity, Evans remained remarkably optimistic. “The course that was open for my ship to sail was on the whole gratifying,” she wrote in her memoirs. “The going was rough at times, [but] there were stretches of clear sailing, too.”

At the Alumni Park grand opening in October, visitors admired the new statue of Bucky Badger. Andy Manis

Alumni Park welcomed more than 2,600 visitors at a grand opening on the weekend of October 6–8, despite intermittent rain on Friday and Saturday.

The park is a 1.3-acre green space located between the Memorial Union and the Red Gym that celebrates the Wisconsin Idea with exhibits honoring alumni contributions and the university’s positive impact around the world. Spearheaded by former WAA president and WFAA chief alumni officer Paula Bonner MS’78, it is believed to be the first park of its kind in the country.

Visitors watched the real Bucky zoom into the even on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Andy Manis

The festivities included the unveiling of a statue of Bucky Badger, arts activities, an appearance by the UW Marching Band, and an opportunity to explore the park’s more than 50 artful exhibits and nearly 200 stories of alumni achievements and UW innovations and traditions.

The park’s exhibits were designed by museum- exhibit firm Ralph Appelbaum Associates, whose other projects include the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Many exhibits, such as the Badger Pride Wall and Alumni Way panels, were fabricated by Wisconsin companies and artisans.

Visitors also enjoyed exploring other facets of the project, including a rooftop terrace that overlooks the park; One Alumni Place — a welcome and visitor center and the new home for grads as they return to campus, and Goodspeed Family Pier, which features public boat slip access.

Visitors listened to remarks from WFAA’s Paula Bonner. Andy Manis

Alumni Park will feature special programming on a year-round basis. Following opening weekend, visitors enjoyed a Day of Learning panel with Park-featured alumni, coinciding with the 50-year reunion for the class of 1967; a Homecoming block party with music and a fish fry; Wisconsin Science Festival programs, and more. Can’t make it to see the park in person? See alumnipark.com for a virtual tour and expanded content on the stories featured in the park.

Bryce Richter

October 6
Grand opening, 6 p.m.; includes exhibits unveiling, artisan demonstrations, UW Marching Band, and appearances by alumni who are featured in park exhibits

October 7–8
Opening celebrations continue with tours, exhibits, and family- friendly art activities

October 13
Day of Learning programs with alumni who are featured in the park

October 20
Postparade Homecoming block party lights up Alumni Park

October and November
Join weekend tours and open houses

November 3–4
Wisconsin Science Festival programs

November 9–11
Celebrate alumni in public service

November 17
Special Global Hot Spots with Park-featured alumni

For more details, see alumnipark.com.

Paula Bonner

After just a year of teaching phys ed to eighth graders in her native South Carolina, Paula Bonner moved to Madison for graduate school and began a 40-year relationship with the UW. She helped lead the evolution of the Badger women’s intercollegiate sports program, and then in 1989 joined the staff of the Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA). She led the organization from 2000 until her retirement this fall.

What were alumni relations like when you assumed leadership of WAA?
The new millennium welcomed Rose Bowl championships, but also a drumbeat of reduced state support of UW–Madison — and all UW public colleges and universities. WAA [had to] invest in resources and new people as well as marketing and public relations in order to further support and advocate for this university.

Where did your work begin?
In 1998, WAA had decided to distribute the alumni member magazine, Wisconsin Alumnus (now On Wisconsin) to all alumni households in the U.S. No longer would the magazine be an exclusive benefit to dues-paying members of WAA. Indeed, this led to a new strategy of engaging all alumni. In 2000, when I assumed the WAA presidency, we had to develop a top-notch marketing, communications, and creative team that not only created a new and more powerful brand for WAA, but also provided expertise and additional resources to UW–Madison.

What were the keys to your work at WAA?
Everything we’ve done and accomplished is because of relationships — with alumni and with campus and with others. And one of the joys of this job has been building the staff that we have. I’ve been able to work with and for some amazing people. It’s those relationshps that have made things happen.

Things like what? What are you proudest of?
A hallmark of this time was a commitment to providing alumni with a new level of academically based lifelong-learning programs. WAA partnered with UW offices to offer Alumni University, Wednesday Nite @ the Lab, Made in Wisconsin, and the now-legendary Grandparents University.

One of your biggest projects in recent years has been the creation of Alumni Park. What makes it so special?
Alumni Park isn’t just a park — it’s an effort to tell a story. I want to convey meaning, to symbolize what’s iconic about Wisconsin. Madison is a special place, and the ideas and principles that students learn while they’re here and carry out into the world as alumni — that’s what this park is meant to honor.