The UW very nearly hired two professors who were destined to win Nobels. Both of them slipped through the university’s fingers in a two-year period.
Campus history
342 stories. Showing page 6 of 12.
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…
From the beginning, the UW has been a higher education pioneer in research, education, and innovation.
Music is tied up in the fabric of campus life. Some concerts — including these — are highlights from the university’s history.
UW Archives S06352
“I figured if it was going to happen eventually, it might as well be me,” says Dee Willems ’90, MS’96, who became the UW Marching Band’s first woman drum major in 1989. (See Tradition for more on the band’s audition process.) Today, Willems…
For five decades, the Wisconsin Singers have taken their act on the road to serve as goodwill ambassadors for the university. Former WAA president Arlie Mucks ’47, along with the School of Music’s Donald Neuen, founded the musical group in 1967. Originally called the University Singers, the students…
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…
UW Archives UW.CLP-A0385.bib; Bryce Richter; photo illustration by Danielle Lawry
Long before “Jump Around” and the Fifth Quarter, the 50-acre lot on which Camp Randall now stands was home to Wisconsin state fairs and Civil War soldiers.
When the state donated the land to the university…
Above and below: Students from the Milwaukee Excellence Charter School explored hands-on exhibits during a tour of the L. R. Ingersoll Physics Museum this spring.
“I was always a tinkerer,” Steve Narf explains from his Chamberlin Hall workshop lined with towering cabinets, each one stuffed with an…
As the sport’s popularity swelled in the 1900s, a UW professor took on college football and tried to reform it, facing the wrath of students and fans.
A resource center for African American students has a new home on campus.
Images and memorabilia from the early years of the UW’s football team.
Muir Knoll is a small, knobby extension of a drumlin — in this case, Bascom Hill — formed by the retreat of the last glaciers that remade Wisconsin’s landscape.
In 1919, one year after the knoll was dedicated to naturalist John Muir…
For one night a year from 1911 until 1930, the shores of Lake Mendota sparkled with old-world charm.
From telegraphy to auto repair to engineers, the UW campus organized to prepare student soldiers for war.
As sharply divided opinions about the war drew unwanted national attention to the state, the UW was eager to show its loyalty.
From meatless Tuesdays to research aimed at improving agricultural production, food was deemed a key weapon against the Germans.
UW Archives [UWYearBk1920.p0371]
The war yielded some positive outcomes for female students. Many gained leadership positions on campus that had previously been closed to them, including editorship of the Badger yearbook. Twelve agriculture students established the first Women’s Agriculture Society in the United States, and…
UW Archives S16748
The greatest impact on the home front was the rationing program. To save coal, Lathrop Hall was closed in the winter of the 1917–18 academic year, and physical education activities were reduced to outdoor winter sports, including skiing on Bascom Hill.…
A submarine detector tested in Lake Mendota is just one of the contributions UW faculty members made to the war effort.
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, a UW English professor proposed another path.
The First World War changed the course of history and — for a time — the UW’s mission. To help with the war effort, the campus shifted much of its focus to educating and training future soldiers. “When the war was declared … there was not an instant’s hesitation in…
UW–Madison’s campus has long been known for its beauty. Iconic places such as Picnic Point and Bascom Hill bring back memories of campus life for decades of alumni.
But little of that beauty happens by accident. There’s a plan — a master plan.
Campus master plans are required under Wisconsin…
A look back at May 1970 through the lens of an alum’s camera
Scientists weren’t the only faculty members to assist the government — historians, geologists, and others pitched in, too.
Sculptor Elmer Petersen created a statue of George Poage for the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Michael Lieurance
No one alive today has seen George Coleman Poage 1903, MAx1904 run. Only grainy black-and-white photos remain of the UW track star who became the…
