University of Wisconsin

For other UW schools, see University of Wisconsin System.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public university located in Madison, Wisconsin. Founded in 1848, it is the largest university in the state with a total enrollment of over 41,000 students, of whom approximately 29,000 are undergraduates. This makes the university the tenth largest in the United States in terms of student population.

University of Wisconsin–Madison is the official name of the university, although the campus is routinely called University of Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, Madison, or Wisconsin.

History

The university had its official beginnings when Wisconsin was incorporated as a state in 1848. Article X, Section B of the state constitution provided for "the establishment of a state university, at or near the seat of state government..." On July 26, 1848, Nelson Dewey, Wisconsin's first governor, signed the act that formally created the University of Wisconsin. The board of regents held their initial meeting in the library room of the capitol on October 7, and provided John W. Sterling a States dollar|$" target="_blank" >^*500 per-annum salary to become the university's first professor (mathematics). The first class of 17 students met in a Madison school building on February 5, 1849.

Regents continued to discuss the construction of the university and soon a campus site was selected. It was an area of 50 acres (200,000 m²) "bounded north by Fourth lake, east by a street to be opened at right angles with King (later State) street, south by Mineral Point Road (University Avenue), and west by a carriage-way from said road to the lake." Building plans called for a "main edifice fronting towards the Capitol, three stories high, surmounted by an observatory for astronomical observations." This building, University Hall, now known as Bascom Hall, was finally completed in 1859. A fire later destroyed the building's dome, which was never replaced. North Hall, constructed in 1851, was actually the campus's first building. Finally, in 1854, Levi Booth and Charles T. Wakeley became the first graduates of the university. Academics continued to improve at Wisconsin, and in 1892 the university awarded its first Ph.D. to future university president Charles R. Van Hise. In the years 1966 through 1970, the University of Wisconsin was shaken by a series of student protests, and by the use of force by authorities in response. The first major demonstrations protested the presence on campus of recruiters for the Dow Chemical Company, which supplied the napalm used in the Vietnam War. Another target of protest was the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC), clearly identified and centrally located on campus in the Sterling Hall physics building. Director J. Barkley Rosser, an eminent logician, publicly minimized any practical role and implied that AMRC pursued only pure mathematics. But the student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal, obtained quarterly reports that AMRC submitted to the Army. The Cardinal published a series of investigative articles making a convincing case that AMRC was pursuing research that was directly pursuant to specific US Department of Defense requests, and relevant to counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam. AMRC became a magnet for demonstrations, in which protesters chanted "U.S. out of Vietnam! Smash Army Math!"

On August 24, 1970, near 3:40 AM, a van filled with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixture was detonated next to Sterling Hall. Despite the late hour, the explosion killed physics researcher Robert Fassnacht. Ironically, the physics department was hit worse than the intended target, the AMRC. Those responsible were Karlton Armstrong, Dwight Armstrong, David Fine, and Leo Burt. Leo Burt has never been found.

Other notable historical moments in Wisconsin's first century include:

On April 4, 1892, the campus's first student-run newspaper began publishing The Daily Cardinal.
1898 saw UW music instructor Henry Dyke Sleeper write Varsity, the university’s traditional alma mater song.
The Wisconsin Union was founded in 1907, second only to Harvard's among U.S. universities.
William Purdy and Carl Beck wrote On, Wisconsin in 1909, which became the fight song for UW athletic teams.
In 1925, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation was chartered to control patenting and patent income on UW inventions.
In 1933, the University of Wisconsin at Madison became the first University to sell alcohol on premises, in the newly built German themed Rathskeller, overlooking Memorial Terrace.
The UW Arboretum dedicated itself to restoring lost landscapes, such as prairies, in 1934.
1966 through 1970, the University of Wisconsin was shaken by a series of student protests, and by the use of force by authorities in response. The first major demonstrations protested the presence on campus of recruiters for the Dow Chemical Company, which supplied the napalm used in the Vietnam War.
1969 The Badger Herald was founded, debuting as a conservative voice on campus. Born to cover and combat the turmoil of the Vietnam protests, the Herald maintains its maverick spirit, though to some extent it has shed the “conservative” reputation. The University of Wisconsin is to this day the only major American university with two daily student newspapers.
1970 In one of the first major acts of modern terrorism, a bomb was exploded outside the Sterling Hall physics building, killing post-doctoral researcher Robert Fassnacht (see Sterling Hall bombing)

Academics

The University of Wisconsin–Madison, the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System, is divided into twenty associated colleges and schools. In addition to traditional undergraduate and graduate divisions in business, engineering, education, agriculture, and letters and sciences, the university also maintains professional schools in law, medicine, veterinary medicine, environmental studies, urban and regional planning, and pharmacy.

University divisions

The largest university college, the College of Letters and Science, enrolls approximately half of the undergraduate student body and is made up of thirty-nine departments and five professional schools that instruct students and carry out research in a wide variety of fields such as biology, astronomy, history, geography, and economics.

Reputation

Wisconsin has been one of the leading public universities in the United States since the beginning of the 20th century and ranks as one of the great research universities of the world. Among U.S. universities, the University of Wisconsin is frequently listed as one of the "public Ivies"—publicly-funded universities providing a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League. In addition to being a highly-ranked school in education, geography, history, and sociology, the university was recently ranked the second-best college at which to earn an education degree, and the overall seventh-best public school in the United States. In the Gourman report on undergraduate programs, the University of Wisconsin was ranked the third-best public university, after the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan. Additionally, it was ranked the eighth-best university in the United States for overall strength of the undergraduate programs. In 2006 the school also produced six Fulbright Scholars. According to the National Research Council there are over 70 programs at UW ranked in the top 10 nationally. In one study, the University of Wisconsin was assessed as the 16th best among world universities. In a 2004 study by Bloomberg Market News, researchers found that UW tied Harvard for producing the most CEOs at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies. UW is second only to Harvard in the number of doctorates produced in the US, and leads the nation by numbers of alumni in the Peace Corps. The University is one of 60 elected members of the Association of American Universities.

The university's animal research facilities remain a point of contention among animal rights advocates, including PETA, which recently placed the school at the top of its 10 Worst Laboratories List, reproaching the school as the "worst animal-abusing university in the country."

Wisconsin also holds the distinction as the nation's number one party school, according to the 2005 Princeton Review's annual survey and the May 2006 issue of Playboy magazine. The "work hard, play hard" mentality of Wisconsin's student body is clearly displayed by the combination of the aforementioned academic and social life rankings.

Research

Since its founding as a Land-grant university, Wisconsin has always been at the forefront of research.

Stem cells

The University is considered a major academic center for embryonic stem cell research. UW Professor James Thomson was the first scientist to isolate human embryonic stem cells. This has brought significant attention and respect for the University's research programs from around the world. The University continues to be a leader in stem cell research.

Campus

The university is located in Madison, just blocks from the state capitol, and is situated partially on an isthmus between two lakes, Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. The main campus comprises 933 acres (3.77 km²) of land, while the entire campus, including research stations, is over 10,600 acres (42.9 km²) in area. The campus includes many buildings designed or supervised by architects J.T.W. Jennings and Arthur Peabody. The main hub of campus life is the Memorial Union.

The campus has its own police force, food service, hospital, recreation facilities, power facilities, and an on-campus dairy.

The campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison was featured in the 1986 movie "Back to School" (starring Rodney Dangerfield), although for the movie it was known simply as "Great Lakes University."

Museums

The Geology Museum features rocks, minerals, and fossils from around the world. Highlights include a blacklight room, a walk-through cave, and a fragment of the Barringer meteorite. Some noteworthy fossils include the first dinosaur skeleton assembled in Wisconsin (an Edmontosaurus), a shark (Squalicorax) and a floating colony of sea lilies (Uintacrinus), both from the Cretaceous chalk of Kansas, and the Boaz Mastodon, a found on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin in 1897.

The campus art museum, formerly the Elvehjem Museum of Art, was renamed the Chazen Museum of Art in 2005.

The Wisconsin Union

The University of Wisconsin, unlike many schools, is home to two different student unions. The first, Memorial Union, was built in 1928. The Memorial Union, also known as the Union or the Terrace, has gained a reputation as both one of the most beautiful and rowdy student unions or student centers on a university campus. Memorial Union is located on the shore of Lake Mendota and is a popular spot for socializing among students, as well as the public, while gazing at the lake and the sailboats that are often present there. The union is known for "der Rathskeller," a German pub that directly connects to the lake terrace. Political debates and backgammon games are common among students over a beer on the terrace. Memorial Union is home to many arts outlets, including several art galleries, a movie theater, and the Wisconsin Union Theater, and the Craftshop, one of the first in the nation. The Memorial Union is also home to one of the the many student run businesses on campus, ASM StudentPrint. Students and Madison community members alike congregate at the Memorial Union, which honors American war veterans, for the films and concerts each week.

Union South, the second campus union, is at the south end of campus. It was built in the 1960s, to help alleviate the pressure for space on Memorial Union, on an ever-growing campus. Union South has mainly served students, faculty, staff, and other users of the UW's many science related buildings, but has also become a home for many activities including weekly dances by student groups, weekly music and film series, and several bowling leagues.

The Wisconsin Union also provides a home for the Wisconsin Union Directorate Student Programming Board (WUD). Since the opening of Memorial Union, students have actively participated in programming on campus. WUD provides programs nearly every day of the year, for both students and community members. There are eleven WUD committees and one club:

Alternative Breaks, which provides UW-Madison students the opportunity to travel the country and volunteer in culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged communities.
Art, which curates four different galleries in Memorial Union.
Contemporary Issues, which provides opportunities for students and community members alike to participate in discussion of current events, and social and political issues.
Community Service, which encourages students to become involved in the Madison community and facilitate social change.
Distinguished Lecture Series, which brings between five and ten nationally recognized speakers to the campus each year.
Film, which has six regular series ranging from new releases to avant garde film to classic cinema to international cinema to cult classics.
Global Connections, which strives to foster awareness of global issues and opportunities within the UW Community through creative social and educational programs such as cultural dances and other events.
Hoofers, one of the nation's oldest and largest campus organization of its kind. With six clubs, Hoofers offers fun and challenging experiences for just about anyone.
Music, which programs over 120 concerts every year, in several different series, ranging from jazz to metal to singer-songwriter to rock to punk.
Publications, a new committee for the 2006-07 school year, this committee is responsible for two student publications, Emmie Magazine (a quarterly music magazine) and Illumination (an annual publication of undergraduate work in the Humanities)
Student Performance, which strives to enhance student involvement in the performing arts at UW as onstage and backstage participants, and as audience members.
Union Theater, which plans and promotes diverse theater and music events, including world music, classical music, dance events, and an international travel film series.

Each committee is a board of interested students, led by a student director. Students are completely responsible for all the amazing programming in the Unions every year.

Libraries

Wisconsin has the 11th largest research library collection in North America, according to a survey by the Association of Research Libraries. Memorial Library, the largest library in Wisconsin, and more than 40 General Library System, professional and special-purpose libraries serve the campus. In 2004, the campus library collections included more than 7.3 million volumes representing human inquiry through all of history. In addition, there are more than 55,000 serial titles, 6.2 million microfilm items, and hundreds of thousands of government documents, maps, musical scores, audiovisual materials and other items housed in libraries across campus. Nearly 1 million volumes are circulated to library users every year.

Memorial Library: Memorial Library serves as the principal research facility on campus for the humanities and social sciences. It houses the largest single library collection in the state of Wisconsin—-more than 3.5 million volumes. This library also houses an extensive periodical collection, a large selection of domestic and foreign newspapers, Special Collections, the University Archives, Mills Music Library, Silver Buckle Press and the UW Digital Collections Center.

College Library: Undergraduates find many of the resources they need at the College Library. Specialized collections include a college catalog collection, women's and minority studies materials, art slides, music and literature tapes and recreational reading paperbacks. College Library also hosts an extensive Media Center with over 200 computer workstations available for student use.

Kurt F. Wendt Library: This library serves the College of Engineering and the Departments of Computer Sciences, Statistics, and Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences. Designated a Patent and Trademark Depository Library, Wendt Library maintains all U.S. utility, design, and plant patents in various formats, and provides reference tools and searching assistance for both the general public and the UW-Madison community. Additionally, Wendt Library houses books, journals, standards, and over 1.5 million technical reports in print and microfiche.

The online catalog for UW Libraries is MadCat. MadCat includes bibliographic records for books, periodicals, audiovisual materials, maps, music scores, microforms, and computer databases currently owned by over 30 campus libraries. It also contains records for most of the items which are still on order. It also includes an increasing number of important World Wide Web resources either licensed for UW use or openly available on the World Wide Web.

Bascom Hall

As one of the most recognizable buildings on campus, Bascom Hall, at the top of Bascom Hill, is one of the icons of the UW campus and is often considered the "heart of the campus." Built in 1857, the structure has been added to several times over the years although a decorative dome atop the structure was destroyed by fire. The building currently houses the office of the university's chancellor and vice chancellors. Bascom Hall is located on the Historic Building Register.

Music Hall

This Victorian Gothic building, built in 1878, was initially named Assembly Hall and was designed to house an 800-seat auditorium, a library, and a clock tower. Dedicated on March 2, 1880, the building housed the newly-created Department of Music.

Student Newspapers

UW-Madison is the only American university to have two competing daily student newspapers: The Daily Cardinal, founded in 1892 and The Badger Herald, founded in 1969. Both papers are financially and editorially independent from the University. In addition, students also produce the liberal biweekly Madison Observer, founded in 2003, and the conservative weekly Mendota Beacon, founded in 2005.

Campus Radio

The University of Wisconsin–Madison Campus Radio Station is WSUM 91.7 FM. Historically, UW has been home to a collection of student run radio stations, a number of which stopped broadcasting after run-ins with the FCC. The current radio station started out in 1997 in a webcast only format because of the prolonged battle to get a FCC license and construct a tower. This lasted for five years until February 22, 2002, when the station finally started broadcasting over FM airwaves at 91.7 from its tower in Montrose, WI. The radio station currently has around 150 volunteer DJ's and 8 paid managers. Any students of UW-Madison are eligible to participate. They are trained over a three month process, after which they are required to produce an "air check tape" and submit a show proposal form. Though not all volunteers are guaranteed a show, the vast majority receive one. Unlike many other college radio stations, WSUM remains entirely free form and showcases a large variety of music and talk programming.

Sports

The school's sports teams are nicknamed the Wisconsin Badgers. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A and in the Big Ten Conference; its men's and women's hockey programs compete in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. This past year both the men's and women's hockey team took home the national title. Its highly-ranked men's Rowing team competes in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (against the Ivy League).

Football

One of the most popular sports at Wisconsin is college football. Playing at the 80,000-plus capacity Camp Randall Stadium, the Badgers have always drawn large crowds and a loyal following. The 2005-06 season was the last for the beloved Badger's head coach Barry Alvarez. He will focus on his position as athletic director while Bret Bielema takes over as coach. The Badgers won three Rose Bowl Championships under Alvarez in 1994, 1999, and 2000.

Men's basketball

After decades of mediocrity (notwithstanding a 1941 national championship), the men's basketball team has enjoyed success in recent years. They are now a perennial attendee of the NCAA's March Madness, reaching the Final Four in 2000. Bo Ryan, a four-time division III national champion at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, has coached the team since 2001.

Ice Hockey

First approved as a men varsity sport in 1922 by the UW athletic council, Badger Ice Hockey has been highly competitive over the years. The sport was dropped after the 34-35 season before becoming a varsity sport for the 63-64 season. That first team was coached by John Riley until Bob Johnson, nicknamed 'Badger Bob' by the fans, took over the reins in 1966. The men's team played in the Dane County Coliseum for many years until they moved to the Kohl Center (Capacity 15,237) in the fall of 1998. The first game played there for Ice Hockey was the Hall of Fame game against the University of Notre Dame. During the 2005-06 season, the team set an NCAA attendance record averaging 13,511, surpasing the record they had set in 1998-99. The tradition gained another dimension with the addition of a women's team that began play during the 1999-2000 season. The women's team coached by Mark Johnson, son of the legendary Badger Bob and member of the men's 1977 title team, won their first national championship on March 26th, 2006. On April 8th, 2006 the men's team coached by Mike Eaves, Johnson's teammate on that same '77 title team, won their sixth national championship. The 6 National Championships rank 4th in NCAA Ice Hockey History. The men's team had previously won NCAA titles in 1973, 1977, 1981, 1983 and 1990. It marked the first time that both the men's and women's titles were won by the same school in the same year for Division I NCAA hockey. Both teams play in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, the men's team becoming members in the 1969-70 season and the women's since their inception.

Rivalries

The Wisconsin Badgers are very competitive in the Big Ten Conference. Their most notable rivalry is the annual college football game between the Wisconsin Badgers and the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers for Paul Bunyan's Axe, which is the longest-running rivalry in NCAA sports. The two universities also compete in the Border Battle, which is a year long atheltic competition where the winner of each event is awarded a certain number of points (some sports are worth more than others). The long-standing rivalry between the University of Iowa and Wisconsin was finally recognized beginning in 2004; the winner of the annual football game between the schools is awarded the Heartland Trophy. Wisconsin also has a large basketball rival with in-state Marquette University, located in Milwaukee. The private school is pitted against the public school, which leads to animosity from the Wisconsin student body. The 2005-2006 women's hockey team won the national championship after defeating The University of Minnesota. Also, in recent years, an intense rivalry has developed between UW-Madison and Ohio State University.

Mascot

The signature mascot is an anthropomorphized badger named Bucky who dons a sweater affixed with the University of Wisconsin athletic logo (currently the red "Motion W"). Beginning in 1890, the university's first Bucky Badger was a live, temperamental and unruly badger who was quickly retired. Although the nickname of the Wisconsin teams remained the "Badgers," it was not until Art Evans drew the early caricature version of Bucky in 1940 that today's recognizable image of Bucky was adopted. In 1949, a contest was held to name the mascot, but no consensus was reached after only a few entries were received. In reaction, the contest committee chose the name Buckingham U. Badger, or "Bucky" for short.

Notable people

List of University of Wisconsin people

Notes

External links

Official site
Official athletics site
The University of Wisconsin Collection. This collection includes images, manuscripts, papers, and books, all relating to the University's history or mission, including selections from the UW archives, Badger yearbooks, and other pertinent resources.
Badger Bookstore, University of Wisconsin apparel, books and other insignia products
Badger Yearbooks. Presented by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center. The first yearbook of the University of Wisconsin was published in April 1884 and called the Trochos, which is a Greek word for badger. The second yearbook, also called Trochos, was not published until 1887. The first Badger was published in February 1888, and the Badger was published until 2003, with one hiatus in 1973-74. The Alumni Association helped publish volumes for those two years which basically only contain student photographs.
The University of Wisconsin: A History. A four-volume history covering 1848 to 1971. The first two volumes, covering 1848-1925, were written by Merle Curti and Vernon Carstensen and defined the genre of university histories. The second two volumes (1925-1945, 1945-1971) were written by E. David Cronon and John W. Jenkins.
The University of Wisconsin Alumni Directory, 1849-1919. The alumni directory published in 1921, which covers 1849-1919, is considered to be the most complete of the early directories. It lists graduates alphabetically by name (including degree granted, date, and where he/she was living in 1920/21), by year of graduation, and by state or country of origin. It also includes a directory of faculty members and officers up to 1919.
The Wisconsin Alumni Magazine. The Wisconsin Alumni Association has published a magazine continuously since October 1899. The publication was called the Wisconsin Alumni Magazine from 1899 to 1935 (volumes 1-37), the Wisconsin Alumnus from 1936 to 1988 (volumes 38-89), and the Wisconsin Alumni from 1988-90 (volumes 90-91). In 1990 the publication became On Wisconsin.
The History of Women at the University of Wisconsin. Presented by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center, this online collection consists of seven titles published by the UW that document the roles and activities of women students, faculty, and staff and on the development of women's studies throughout the UW System.
Historic Images from the University of Wisconsin Archives.
Wisconsin Electronic Reader. Stories, essays, letters, poems, biographies, journals, images and other documentation presenting Wisconsin history. Many first hand accounts - profusely illustrated. Includes much information documenting the history of the University of Wisconsin.
The Cultural Landscape of the UW-Madison Campus : Resources include images and electronic texts that document campus landmarks, the history of housing at UW, campus planning and architecture.
The Badger Chemist is a newsletter publication of the University of Wisconsin Department of Chemistry. Initiated in 1953, The Badger Chemist is published annually and features articles, commentary, news items, and photographs concerning students, faculty, and alumni of the Department of Chemistry.
The History of Limnology This image collection depicts three generations of limnological research in Wisconsin and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The collection mainly focuses on the important pioneers of limnology, Dr. Edward A. Birge, Chancey Juday and Arthur D. Hasler, their research laboratories, and field equipment.
WSUM Radio The Official Website for WSUM 91.7 FM Madison Student Radio. Contains training information, schedules, and a webcast.
UW-Madison Geology Museum
The Wisconsin Union The website for the Wisconsin Union, containing information on the Unions, how to become a Union member, and events sponsored by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Student Programming Board.

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