University Of Wisconsin–Madison
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The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded when Wisconsin achieved
statehood A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "sta ...
in 1848, UW–Madison is the official state university of Wisconsin and the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It was the first public university established in Wisconsin and remains the oldest and largest public university in the state. UW–Madison became a land-grant institution in 1866. The main campus, located on the shores of Lake Mendota, includes four National Historic Landmarks. The university also owns and operates the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum, located south of the main campus, which is also a National Historic Landmark. UW–Madison is organized into 13 schools and colleges, which enrolled 35,184 undergraduate, 9,993 graduate, 2,046 special, and 2,663 professional students in 2022. Its academic programs include 136 undergraduate majors, 148 master's degree programs, and 120
doctoral A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...
programs. Wisconsin is one of the twelve founding members of the Association of American Universities, a selective group of major research universities in North America. It is considered a Public Ivy, and is classified as an R1 University. UW–Madison was also the home of both the prominent "Wisconsin School" of economics and diplomatic history. The National Science Foundation ranked UW–Madison 8th among American universities for research and development expenditures in 2022 with $1.52 billion (). , 20
Nobel laureates The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ou ...
, 41
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
winners, 2 Fields medalists, and 1 Turing Award recipient have been affiliated with UW–Madison as alumni, faculty, or researchers. It is also a leading producer of Fulbright Scholars and
MacArthur Fellows The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 ind ...
. , 14 CEOs of
Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
companies attended UW–Madison, the most of any university in the nation. The Wisconsin Badgers compete in 25 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division I Big Ten Conference and have won 31
national championships A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best team, i ...
. Wisconsin students and alumni have won 50 Olympic medals (including 13 gold medals).


History


Beginnings and formative years

The university had its official beginnings when the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature in its 1838 session passed a law incorporating a "University of the Territory of Wisconsin", and a high-ranking board of visitors was appointed. However, this body (the predecessor of the UW board of regents) never actually accomplished anything before Wisconsin was incorporated as a state in 1848. The
Wisconsin Constitution The Constitution of the State of Wisconsin is the governing document of the U.S. State of Wisconsin. It establishes the structure and function of state government, describes the state boundaries, and declares the rights of state citizens. The ...
provided for "the establishment of a state university, at or near the seat of state government..." and directed by the state legislature to be governed by a board of regents and administered by a
Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
. On July 26, 1848,
Nelson Dewey Nelson Webster Dewey (December 19, 1813July 21, 1889) was an American pioneer, lawyer, and politician. He was the first Governor of Wisconsin. Early life Dewey was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, on December 19, 1813, to Ebenezer and Lucy (née ...
, Wisconsin's first governor, signed the act that formally created the University of Wisconsin. John H. Lathrop became the university's first chancellor, in the fall of 1849. With
John W. Sterling John William Sterling (May 12, 1844 – July 5, 1918) was a founding partner of Shearman & Sterling LLP and major benefactor to Yale University. Early life and career John William Sterling was born in Stratford, Connecticut, the son of Cat ...
as the university's first professor (mathematics), the first class of 17 students met at Madison Female Academy on February 5, 1849. A permanent campus site was soon selected: an area of "bounded north by Fourth lake, east by a street to be opened at right angles with King street", ater State Street"south by Mineral Point Road (University Avenue), and west by a carriage-way from said road to the lake." The regents' 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 Bascom may refer to: Places and sites ;United States * Bascom, Florida * Bascom Corner, Indiana * Bascom, Montana * Bascom, Ohio * Bascom, Texas * North American Farms Airport, Bascom Auxiliary Field * Bascom B. Clarke House * Bascom Hill, Universi ...
, was finally completed in 1859. On October 10, 1916, a fire destroyed the building's dome, which was never replaced. North Hall, constructed in 1851, was actually the first building on campus. In 1854, Levi Booth and Charles T. Wakeley became the first graduates of the university, and in 1892 the university awarded its first
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
to future university president
Charles R. Van Hise Charles Richard Van Hise (May 29, 1857 – November 19, 1918) was an American geologist, academic and Progressivism, progressive. He served as president of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison, Wisconsin, ...
.


The Wisconsin Idea

Research, teaching, and service at the UW is influenced by a tradition known as "the Wisconsin Idea", first articulated by UW–Madison President
Charles Van Hise Charles Richard Van Hise (May 29, 1857 – November 19, 1918) was an American geologist, academic and progressive. He served as president of the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison, Wisconsin, from 1903 to 1918. Early life and education Char ...
in 1904, when he declared "I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the University reaches every home in the state." The Wisconsin Idea holds that the boundaries of the university should be the boundaries of the state, and that the research conducted at UW–Madison should be applied to solve problems and improve health, quality of life, the environment, and agriculture for all citizens of the state. The Wisconsin Idea permeates the university's work and helps forge close working relationships among university faculty and students, and the state's industries and government. Based in Wisconsin's populist history, the Wisconsin Idea continues to inspire the work of the faculty, staff, and students who aim to solve real-world problems by working together across disciplines and demographics.


World War II

During World War II, the University of Wisconsin was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.


Expansion

Over time, additional campuses were added to the university. The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee was created in 1956, and UW–Green Bay and UW–Parkside in 1968. Ten freshman-sophomore centers were also added to this system.History and Organization of the University of Wisconsin System
. Retrieved on Feb, 18, 2007.
In 1971, Wisconsin legislators passed a law merging the University of Wisconsin with the nine universities and four freshman-sophomore branch campuses of the Wisconsin State Universities System, creating the University of Wisconsin System and bringing the two higher education systems under a single board of regents.


Student activism

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, UW–Madison was shaken by a series of student protests, and by the use of force by authorities in response, comprehensively documented in the film '' The War at Home''. The first major demonstrations protested the presence on campus of recruiters for the
Dow Chemical The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastics ...
Company, which supplied the napalm used in the Vietnam War. Authorities used force to quell the disturbance. The struggle was documented in the book, '' They Marched into Sunlight'', as well as the PBS documentary ''
Two Days in October ''Two Days in October'' is a 2005 documentary film about the Battle of Ong Thanh and the protest at the University of Wisconsin–Madison during the Vietnam War. Both events occurred in October 1967. The film aired on the PBS series ''American Ex ...
''. Among the students injured in the protest was former Madison mayor Paul Soglin. Another target of protest was the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC) in Sterling Hall, which was also home of the physics department. The student newspaper, '' The Daily Cardinal'', published a series of investigative articles stating that AMRC was pursuing research directly pursuant to US Department of Defense requests, and supportive of military 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 bomb exploded next to Sterling Hall, aimed at destroying the Army Math Research Center.Heinz Stucki
"Army Math: A Home Grown Terrorist Bombing," ''American Heritage'', Aug./Sept. 2006.
Despite the late hour, a post doctoral physics researcher,
Robert Fassnacht Robert E. Fassnacht (January 14, 1937 – August 24, 1970) was an American physics post-doctoral researcher who was killed by the August 1970 bombing of Sterling Hall on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus, perpetrated as a protest ...
, was in the lab and was killed in the explosion. The physics department was severely damaged, while the intended target, the AMRC, was scarcely affected.
Karleton Armstrong The Sterling Hall bombing occurred on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus on August 24, 1970, and was committed by four men as an action against the university's research connections with the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. It resu ...
,
Dwight Armstrong Dwight Alan Armstrong (August 29, 1951 – June 20, 2010) was an American anti-Vietnam War activist who helped use a truck bomb to shatter Sterling Hall, a centrally located building on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus, on Augus ...
, and David Fine were found responsible for the blast. Leo Burt was identified as a suspect, but was never apprehended or tried.


Timeline of notable events

Notable moments in the history of the University of Wisconsin–Madison include: * 1848 on July 26, act creating the university signed by the governor * 1849 on February 5, the first class meets * 1863 Female students first admitted to University of Wisconsin during the American Civil War * 1866 State legislature designated the university as the Wisconsin land-grant institution * 1875 William Smith Noland is the first known African-American to graduate from the university. * 1888 Science Hall is constructed, one of the world's first buildings to use I-beams * 1892 on April 4, the first edition of the student-run '' The Daily Cardinal'' was published * 1894 State Board of Regents rejected an effort to purge Professor Richard T. Ely for supporting striking printers, issuing the famous "
sifting and winnowing Sifting and winnowing is a metaphor for the academic pursuit of truth affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It was coined by UW President Charles Kendall Adams in an 1894 final report from a committee exonerating economics profe ...
" manifesto in defense of academic freedom, later described as "part of Wisconsin's Magna Carta" * 1904–1905 UW Graduate School established * 1905 the university awards the first PhD in chemical engineering ever granted, to Oliver Patterson Watts. * 1907 Wisconsin Union was founded * 1909
William Purdy William Frederick Purdy (born June 5, 1940) was a provincial level politician from Alberta, Canada. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1971 to 1986. During his time in office he sat with the governing Progressi ...
and Paul Beck wrote '' On, Wisconsin'' the UW–Madison athletic fight song * 1907–1911 The " Single-grain experiment" was conducted by
Stephen Moulton Babcock Stephen Moulton Babcock (22 October 1843 – 2 July 1931) was an American agricultural chemist. He is best known for developing the Babcock test, used to determine butterfat content in milk and cheese processing, and for the single-grain experime ...
and
Edwin B. Hart Edwin Bret Hart (December 25, 1874 – March 12, 1953) was an American biochemist long associated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A native of Sandusky, Ohio, Hart studied physiological chemistry in Germany under Albrecht Koss ...
, paving the way for modern nutrition as a science * 1913 Vitamin A discovered by
Elmer V. McCollum Elmer Verner McCollum (March 3, 1879 – November 15, 1967) was an American biochemist known for his work on the influence of diet on health.Kruse, 1961. McCollum is also remembered for starting the first rat colony in the United States to be u ...
and Marguerite Davis * 1916 Vitamin B discovered by McCollum and Davis * 1919 Radio station 9XM founded on campus (now WHA (970 AM), it is the oldest continually operating radio station in the United States) * 1923
Harry Steenbock Harry Steenbock (August 16, 1886, Charlestown, Wisconsin – December 25, 1967, Madison, Wisconsin) was a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Steenbock graduated from Wisconsin in 1916, where he was a member o ...
invented process for adding vitamin D to milk * 1925 Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation chartered to control patenting and patent income on UW–Madison inventions * 1928 Memorial Union opened * 1934 The University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum, whose mission was to restore lost landscapes, such as prairies, was opened * 1936 UW–Madison began an
artist-in-residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...
program, the first ever at a university, with John Steuart Curry * 1940–1951 Warfarin (Coumadin) developed at UW. Named after Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation * 1969 Two sticks of dynamite were detonated outside the Administration Building, shattering over 700 windows and creating a crater in the reinforced concrete floor of the entranceway. There were no casualties, and no one claimed responsibility for the explosion. * 1969 '' The Badger Herald'' was founded as a conservative student paper * 1969 UW–Madison's Howard Temin (Virologist) co-discovers the enzyme
reverse transcriptase A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA (cDNA) from an RNA template, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, ...
* 1970
Sterling Hall bombing The Sterling Hall bombing occurred on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus on August 24, 1970, and was committed by four men as an action against the university's research connections with the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. It resu ...
* 1984 University Research Park founded to encourage technology transfer between university and businesses * 1998 UW–Madison's James Thomson first isolated and cultured human embryonic stem cells * 2020 In response to an ongoing pandemic of
coronavirus disease 2019 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
and amidst a statewide public health emergency declaration, UW–Madison suspends in-person instruction from March 23 until at least the end of the summer term, shifting courses online and drastically reducing campus operations.


Admissions


Undergraduate

The '' Princeton Review'' ranked the University of Wisconsin–Madison's undergraduate admissions selectivity a 92/99. The 2022 annual ranking of '' U.S. News & World Report'' categorizes UW–Madison as "more selective". For the Class of 2027 (enrolled Fall 2023), UW–Madison received 63,537 applications and accepted 27,527 (43.3%). Of those accepted, 7,966 enrolled, for a total yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who choose to attend the university) of 28.9%. UW–Madison's freshman retention rate is 94.2%, with 89.2% going on to graduate within six years. The university started test-optional admissions with the Fall 2021 incoming class in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has extended this through Fall 2024. Of the 38% of enrolled freshmen in 2022 who submitted ACT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite score was between 28 and 33. Of the 18% of the incoming freshman class who submitted SAT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite scores were 1370–1500. The average unweighted GPA among enrolled freshman was 3.88. Admission is need-blind for domestic applicants. The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a college-sponsor of the National Merit Scholarship Program and sponsored 10 Merit Scholarship awards in 2020. In the 2020–2021 academic year, 30 freshman students were
National Merit Scholars The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded, not-for-profit organizati ...
.


Academics

The University of Wisconsin–Madison, the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System, is a large, four-year research university comprising twenty associated colleges and schools. In addition to undergraduate and graduate divisions in agriculture and life sciences, business, education, engineering, human ecology, journalism and
mass communication Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large segments of the population. It is usually understood for relating to various forms of media, as its technologies are used for the dissemination o ...
, letters and science, music, nursing,
pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links heal ...
, and social welfare, the university also maintains graduate and professional schools in
environmental studies Environmental studies is a multidisciplinary academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment. Environmental studies connects principles from the physical sciences, commerce/economics, the humanities, and social ...
, law, library and information studies, medicine and public health (School of Medicine and Public Health), public affairs, and veterinary medicine. The four year, full-time undergraduate instructional program is classified by the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) is a U.S.-based education policy and research center. It was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of the United States Congress. Among its most nota ...
as "arts and science plus professions" with a high graduate coexistence. The largest university college, the College of Letters and Science, enrolls approximately half of the undergraduate student body and is made up of 38 departments and five professional schools that instruct students and carry out research in a wide variety of fields, such as astronomy, economics, geography, history, linguistics, and zoology. The graduate instructional program is classified by Carnegie as "comprehensive with medical/veterinary." In 2008, it granted the third largest number of doctorates in the nation.


Rankings


National

UW–Madison's undergraduate program was ranked tied for 35th among national universities by '' U.S. News & World Report'' for 2024 and tied for 12th among public colleges and universities. Poets&Quants ranked the Wisconsin School of Business undergraduate program 22nd in the nation, up 10 positions from 2022, and top 10 among public universities. Other graduate schools ranked by ''USNWR'' for 2022 include the School of Medicine and Public Health, which was 33rd in research and 12th in primary care, the
University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education The University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education is a school within the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Although teacher education was offered at the university's founding in 1848, the School was officially started in 1930 and today i ...
tied for fourth, the
University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering The University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering, often referred to as COE, is the engineering school of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The college comprises 8 academic departments. With an enrollment of 4,500 undergraduate a ...
tied for 26th, the University of Wisconsin Law School tied for 29th, and the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs tied for 25th. The Wall Street Journal/ Times Higher Education College Rankings 2022 ranked UW–Madison 58th among 801 U.S. colleges and universities based upon 15 individual performance indicators. UW–Madison was ranked eleventh in the nation and second among public universities by the Washington Monthly 2023 National University Rankings. In 2023, Money.com gave the University of Wisconsin–Madison 5 out of 5 stars among four-year colleges and universities in their Best Colleges in America list.


International

UW–Madison was ranked 35th among world universities in 2022 by the ''
Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University ...
'', which assesses academic and research performance. In the 2024 '' QS World University Rankings'', UW–Madison was ranked 102nd in the world. The 2024 '' Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' placed UW–Madison 63rd worldwide, based primarily on surveys administered to students, faculty, and recruiters. For 2023, UW–Madison was ranked 63rd by '' U.S. News & World Report'' among global universities. In 2023, UW–Madison was ranked 28th globally by the '' Center for World University Rankings'', which relies on outcome-based samplings, coupled with a Subject ranking in 227 subject categories.


Colleges and schools

The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences fulfills UW–Madison's mission as a land-grant university, which dates back to 1862, when Congress passed legislation to establish a national network of colleges devoted to agriculture and mechanics and Wisconsin received 240,000 acres of allotted federal land. It has 12 associated research centers including the Marshfield Agricultural Research Station and research centers in Arlington among other locations in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin School of Business was founded in 1900, it has more than 46,000 living alumni across nearly 90 countries. The school has eleven centers and institutes focused on various business disciplines. The
Wisconsin school The Wisconsin school in economics was based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and played a significant role in American economics in the first half of the 20th century. The Wisconsin school was central to institutionalism in the United St ...
in economics was central to institutionalism in the U.S. in the 20th century. Although teacher education was offered at the university's founding in 1848, the School of Education was not founded until 1930. Today it is composed of 10 academic departments. The College of Engineering college comprises eight academic departments with an enrollment of 4,500 undergraduate and 1,500 graduate students. The School of Human Ecology has departments in consumer science, design, civil society, and human development. Each major is based on a background of course work in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and the biological, physical, and natural sciences. The focus of undergraduate professional programs may be in scientific, aesthetic, and/or business areas. The school has more than 2,400 undergraduates working towards majors, and 100 graduate students. The School of Journalism & Mass Communication was one of the first schools to grant a doctoral degree in
mass communication Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large segments of the population. It is usually understood for relating to various forms of media, as its technologies are used for the dissemination o ...
, as well as among the first to introduce education in electronic editing and the offset press. Radio news started in the School before World War II, and by 1970 a radio-television news sequence was established. The University of Wisconsin Law School is guided by a "
law in action Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
" legal philosophy which emphasizes the role of the law in practice and society. It offers the
Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
, Master of Laws, and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees; Juris Doctor graduates of the law school receive admission to the Wisconsin bar without taking a traditional bar examination via diploma privilege. The School of Medicine and Public Health is one of only two medical schools in Wisconsin. The school is adjacent to the
UW Health University Hospital UW Health University Hospital (UW Health, University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics or UWHC) is a 515-bed academic regional referral center with 127 outpatient clinics, located on the western edge of the University of Wisconsin–Madison's camp ...
, its primary affiliated teaching hospital, as well as the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research. The
medical school A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...
was proposed in 1848 and a two-year basic science course began in 1907. The Mead Witter School of Music was established in 1895. In 1939, the school created the first musical artist-in-residence position at any American university. The wind band program consists of numerous ensembles based on the musical ability of the musician. Students that are non-music majors can take courses with the School of Music, and private lessons are offered by the school through the Community Music Lessons program. The Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs offers master's degrees in public affairs and international public affairs, joint graduate degrees with other departments, and undergraduate certificates in public policy and health policy.


Letters & Science Honors Program

The L&S Honors Program serves over 1300 students in the College of Letters and Science (the UW–Madison's
liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in liberal arts and sciences. Such colleges aim to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capac ...
) with an enriched undergraduate curriculum. In addition to its curriculum, the program offers professional advising services; research opportunities and funding; and numerous academic, social and service opportunities through the Honors Student Organization. The Honors Program also supports several student organizations, such as the University of Wisconsin–Madison Forensics Team.


Research

UW–Madison was a founding member of the Association of American Universities. In fiscal year 2022, the school received $1.524 billion in research and development (R&D) funding, placing it eighth in the U.S. among institutions of higher education. Its research programs were fourth in the number of patents issued in 2010. The University of Wisconsin–Madison is one of 33 sea grant colleges in the United States. These colleges are involved in scientific research, education, training, and extension projects geared toward the conservation and practical use of U.S. coasts, the Great Lakes and other marine areas. The university maintains almost 100 research centers and programs, ranging from agriculture to arts, from education to engineering. It has been considered a major academic center for embryonic stem cell research ever since UW–Madison professor James Thomson became 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 In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can differentiate into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type o ...
research, helped in part by the funding of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and promotion of
WiCell WiCell Research Institute is a scientific research institute in Madison, Wisconsin that focuses on stem cell research. Independently governed and supported as a 501(c)(3) organization, WiCell operates as an affiliate of the Wisconsin Alumni Rese ...
. Its center for research on internal combustion engines, called the Engine Research Center, has a five-year collaboration agreement with General Motors. It has also been the recipient of multimillion-dollar funding from the federal government. The Department of Engineering Physics conducts research to advance the scientific and technical basis for magnetic fusion energy. They have over 20 current graduate students and recruit new students annually. Their research includes non-inductive startup techniques, investigation of ion gyro-scale turbulent instabilities and dynamics, understanding core-edge coupling, and development of diagnostic systems. The UW also hosts the Helically Symmetric Experiment (HSX), which is a modular coil stellarator. In June 2013, it is reported that the United States National Institutes of Health would fund an $18.13 million study at the University of Wisconsin. The study will research lethal qualities of viruses such as
Ebola Ebola, also known as Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), is a viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates, caused by ebolaviruses. Symptoms typically start anywhere between two days and three weeks after becom ...
, West Nile and
influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptoms ...
. The goal of the study is to help find new drugs to fight off the most lethal pathogens. In 2012, UW–Madison experiments on cats came under fire from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who claimed the animals were abused. In 2013, the NIH briefly suspended the research's funding pending an agency investigation. The following year the university was fined more than $35,000 for several violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
Bill Maher William Maher (; born January 20, 1956) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is known for the HBO political talk show ''Real Time with Bill Maher'' (2003–present) and the similar la ...
,
James Cromwell James Oliver Cromwell (born January 27, 1940) is an American actor and activist. Some of his best-known films include ''Babe'' (1995), '' Star Trek: First Contact'' (1996), ''L.A. Confidential'' (1997), '' The Green Mile'' (1999), ''The Queen'' ...
and others spoke out against the experiments that ended in 2014. The university defended the research and the care the animals received claiming that PETA's objections were merely a "stunt" by the organization.


Big Ten Academic Alliance

The University of Wisconsin is a participant in the Big Ten Academic Alliance. The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) is the academic consortium of the universities in the Big Ten Conference. Students at participating schools are allowed "in-house" borrowing privileges at other schools' libraries. The BTAA uses collective purchasing and licensing, and has saved member institutions $19 million to date. Course sharing,
professional development Professional development is learning to earn or maintain professional credentials such as academic degrees to formal coursework, attending conferences, and informal learning Informal learning is characterized "by a low degree of planning and ...
programs,
study abroad International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying. In 2019, there were over 6 million internati ...
and international collaborations, and other initiatives are also part of the BTAA.


Institute for Creative Writing

The Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing is a post-graduate program for emerging writers offered by the Creative Writing Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Each year, it awards "internationally-competitive" nine-month fellowships to writers of fiction and poetry who have yet to publish a second book. Notable past Fellows include Anthony Doerr,
Ann Packer Ann Elizabeth Packer MBE (born 8 March 1942) is an English former sprinter, hurdler and long jumper. She won a gold medal in the 800 metres and a silver in the 400 metres at the 1964 Summer Olympics. Early life In 1959 Packer won the English ...
and
Quan Barry Amy Quan Barry (born Saigon) is a Vietnamese American poet, novelist, and playwright. She is a recipient of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. Barry is a Lorraine Hansberry Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Biogr ...
. The Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing offers two fellowships in fiction and three fellowships in poetry. These include the James C. McCreight Fiction Fellowship, the Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellowship, the Ruth Halls Poetry Fellowship, the Ronald Wallace Poetry Fellowship, and the First Wave Poetry Fellowship. Additionally, it offers the Halls Emerging Artist Fellowship to a second-year candidate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison's MFA program in creative writing, in order to fund a third year of study. Fellows receive a cash prize of a minimum of $38,000 as well as health insurance. Fellows are required to live in the Madison, Wisconsin area for the duration of their fellowships, teach one creative writing workshop each semester, assist in judging the English department's writing contests and fellowships, and give a public reading. The Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing was founded in 1985 by the poet Ronald Wallace, who taught at the University of Wisconsin's English department from 1972 to 2015. WICW was created "to provide time, space, and an intellectual community for writers working on a first book of poetry or fiction." In 2012, the Institute expanded its fellowship eligibility requirements to include writers who have published only one book-length work of creative writing. From 2008 to 2014, it offered the Carl Djerassi Distinguished Playwriting Fellowship in addition to fiction and poetry fellowships. Fellowship applications are judged anonymously until finalists are chosen. However, "it is the work and the work alone that really matters," says
Jesse Lee Kercheval Jesse Lee Kercheval (born 1956) is a poet, memoirist, translator and fiction writer. She is an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is the author of numerous books, notably ''Building Fiction, The Museum of Happiness, ...
, in a conversation with the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.


Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement

The Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement (WISCIENCE) is a unit that facilitates coordination of science outreach efforts across the university and works to improve science education at all levels.


Campus

Located in Madison, about a mile from the
state capitol This is a list of state and territorial capitols in the United States, the building or complex of buildings from which the government of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia and the organized territories of the United States, exercise its ...
, the main campus of the university is situated partially on
the isthmus ''Isthmus'' is a free alternative newspaper based in Madison, Wisconsin (US). Founded by Vince O'Hern and Fred Milverstedt in 1976, the paper is published monthly on the first Thursday, with a circulation of 35,000. In 2020 the newspaper became a ...
between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. The main campus comprises of land, while the entire campus, including research stations throughout the state, is over in area. The central campus is on an urban layout mostly coinciding with the city of Madison's street grid, exceptions being the suburban University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, and the Department of Psychiatry & Clinics in the West Side research park. The University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum, a demonstration area for native ecosystems, is located on the west side of Madison. The main campus includes many buildings designed or supervised by architects
J.T.W. Jennings John T. W. Jennings (Brooklyn, New York (state), 1856 to ?) was the Milwaukee Railroad's architect from 1885 to 1893, and was part-time supervising architect for the University of Wisconsin from 1899 to 1906. He contributed to many prominent campus ...
and Arthur Peabody. The hub of campus life is the Memorial Union. UW–Madison's campus has been ranked as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States by ''
Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Co. (formerly Wyndham Destinations, Inc. and Wyndham Worldwide Corporation) is an American timeshare company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. It develops, sells, and manages timeshare properties under several vacation ownershi ...
'' and ''
Condé Nast Traveler ''Condé Nast Traveler'' is a luxury and lifestyle travel magazine published by Condé Nast. The magazine has won 25 National Magazine Awards. The Condé Nast unit of Advance Publications purchased ''Signature'', a magazine for Diners Club memb ...
''. One unusual feature of the campus is the Babcock Hall dairy plant and store, a fully functional dairy well known for its ice cream.


Bascom Hill

As one of the icons on campus, Bascom Hall, at the top of Bascom Hill, is often considered the "heart of the campus." Built in 1857, a decorative dome that once sat atop the structure was destroyed by fire in 1916. The structure has been added to several times over the years. The building currently houses the office of the
chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
and vice chancellors. Bascom Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing building within the Bascom Hill Historic District. Flanking both sides of Bascom Hall are the two oldest surviving buildings on campus. Designed by
John F. Rague John Francis Rague (1799–1877; pronounced ''ra-gu'') was a mid-19th century architect who designed and built numerous public buildings including the 1837 Illinois State Capitol#Former capitols, Old Capitol of Illinois and the 1840 Iowa Old ...
in a
Federal style Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...
, the oldest structure in the university, North Hall (built in 1851), was planned to be similar to the dormitories in
Ann Arbor Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), ...
, Michigan. With . It is still in use as the home of the Department of Political Science. Its opposite twin, South Hall (built in 1855), originally served as the women's dormitory prior to the establishment of the Female College Building in 1871 (today the location of Chadbourne Hall). The administrative offices of the College of Letters and Science now occupy the building. The Carillon Tower, erected in 1936, was designed by Warren Laird and Paul Philippe Cret so that the
balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...
echoes that on Bascom Hall.Feldman, pp. 227–228. The carillon has 56 bronze bells, with the largest weighing 6,800 pounds. An automated system rings bells on the hour, playing songs such as "
Varsity Varsity may refer to: *University, an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in various academic disciplines Places *Varsity, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta, Canada * Varsity Lakes ...
" and " On, Wisconsin!". East of the tower, lies a monument to the Sauk leader
Black Hawk Black Hawk and Blackhawk may refer to: Animals * Black Hawk (horse), a Morgan horse that lived from 1833 to 1856 * Common black hawk, ''Buteogallus anthracinus'' * Cuban black hawk, ''Buteogallus gundlachii'' * Great black hawk, ''Buteogallus ur ...
, whose flight through the Madison area represented the last armed conflict between the United States Army and native peoples in southern Wisconsin. Several other notable architectural styles are represented in the historic core of the university. Following the 1884 fire that destroyed the original, Milwaukee architect Henry C. Koch designed the new Science Hall (built in 1888) in a
Romanesque Revival style Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...
. The Education Building, originally designed to house the College of Engineering, features a Beaux-Arts style. Structures built in a Neoclassical style include Birge Hall and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Located at the foot of the hill, Music Hall was designed in 1878 by Madison architect David R. Jones in a
Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
style. Van Hise Hall is home to most of the languages departments of the university and the upper floors house the offices of the University of Wisconsin System's president and its Board of Regents. At 241 feet and 19 stories, Van Hise is the second-tallest building in Madison and one of the tallest educational buildings in the world. Because of its placement atop Bascom Hill it towers over the State Capitol as the building with the highest elevation in the city. Van Hise Hall was constructed in 1967 and its destruction is slated for sometime around 2025 as part of the university's campus master plan. The
George L. Mosse Gerhard "George" Lachmann Mosse (September 20, 1918 – January 22, 1999) was an American historian, who emigrated from Nazi Germany first to Great Britain and then to the United States. He was professor of history at the University of Iowa, the ...
Humanities Building, located on Library Mall, was built in the late 1960s in the
Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...
style. Although debunked, the campus myth is that the building (with its poor ventilation, narrow windows, inclined base, and cantilevered upper floors) was designed to be "riot-proof". Its seven floors house the history, art, and music departments. The most recent campus master plan calls for it to be demolished and replaced with two other buildings, in part because of water damage.


Wisconsin Union

The University of Wisconsin–Madison has two student unions. The older, Memorial Union, was built in 1928 to honor American World War I veterans. Also known as the Union or the Terrace, it has gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful student centers on a university campus. Located on the shore of Lake Mendota, it is a popular spot for socializing among both students and the public, who enjoy gazing at the lake and its sailboats. The union is known for the Rathskeller, a German pub adjacent to the lake terrace. Political debates and backgammon and
sheepshead Sheepshead, Sheephead, or Sheep's Head, may refer to: Fish * '' Archosargus probatocephalus'', a medium-sized saltwater fish of the Atlantic Ocean * Freshwater drum, ''Aplodinotus grunniens'', a medium-sized freshwater fish of North and Central ...
games over a beer on the terrace are common among students. The Rathskeller serves "Rathskeller Ale", a beer brewed expressly for the Terrace. Memorial Union was the first union at a public university to serve beer. Memorial Union is home to many arts venues, including several art galleries, the Wisconsin Union Theater, and Wheelhouse Studios-a craft shop that provides courses and facilities for arts and crafts activities. Students and Madison community members alike congregate at the Memorial Union for the films and concerts each week. An advisory referendum to renovate and expand Memorial Union was approved by the student body in 2006, and the university completed the renovation in 2017. Union South, the newer campus union, was built in 1971 to better accommodate a growing student enrollment and was demolished in 2008. A new "green" Union South, located on the site of the old union, opened April 15, 2011. It is a certified
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...
(LEED) gold building. The building contains several dining options, an art gallery, a movie theater, a climbing wall, a bowling alley, event spaces, and a hotel. The Wisconsin Union also provides a home for the Wisconsin Union Directorate Student Programming Board (WUD), which provides regular programs for both students and community members. One of the most well-known members of WUD is the
Wisconsin Hoofers The Wisconsin Hoofers of the Wisconsin Union is a group of outdoor recreational clubs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, operated by the Wisconsin Union Directorate. The Wisconsin Hoofers was begun in 1920 by a group of Norwegian exchange ...
, a club that organizes outdoor recreational activities.


Henry Mall

Henry Mall is a 50-foot wide and 575-foot long landscaped quadrangle that was designed by architects Warren Laird and Paul Cret and constructed between 1903 and 1961. With . The mall contains buildings that represent Neoclassical, Beaux-Arts, Italian Renaissance Revival, and Modern Movement styles of architecture. Laird and Cret were hired to draw up a master plan for future construction at the campus, with the idea of creating a more unified and aesthetically pleasing area. The departments around the Henry Mall area were conceived to be "technical" and geographically close to the science departments and the university farm. The Mall features several notable buildings, including Agriculture Hall, the Agronomy Building, the Agricultural Engineering Building, and the Agricultural Chemistry Building. The Mall is also home to several artworks, including the Hoard statue by Gutzon Borglum, which honors William Dempster Hoard, the publisher of Hoard's Dairyman magazine. The Henry Boulder, a chunk of gneiss on the mall with a plaque, is dedicated to Dean William Arnon Henry, the mall's namesake, who helped establish the College of Agriculture. Other buildings in the area include the Stovall Lab of Hygiene and the Genetics Building. The Henry Mall Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.


Libraries

The University of Wisconsin–Madison has the 12th largest research library collection in North America. More than 30 professional and special-purpose libraries serve the campus. The campus library collections include more than 11 million volumes representing human inquiry through all of history. In addition, the collections comprised more than 103,844 serial titles, 6.4 million microform items, and over 8.2 million items in other formats, such as government documents, maps, musical scores, and audiovisual materials. Over 1 million volumes are circulated to library users every year. Memorial Library serves as the principal research facility on campus for the humanities and social sciences. It is the largest library in the state, with over 3.5 million volumes. It also houses a periodical collection, domestic and foreign newspapers, Special Collections, the Mills Music Library, and the UW Digital Collections Center. The UW–Madison Libraries are members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Steenbock Memorial Library is the primary science library and supports the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Engineering, the School of Veterinary Medicine, UW–Extension and Cooperative Extension, and the College of Liberal Arts and Science Departments of Botany, Chemistry, Computer Science, Statistics, and Zoology. The University of Wisconsin–Madison Archives and Records Management Department and Oral History Program are also located in Steenbock Library. The library is named for UW professor
Harry Steenbock Harry Steenbock (August 16, 1886, Charlestown, Wisconsin – December 25, 1967, Madison, Wisconsin) was a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Steenbock graduated from Wisconsin in 1916, where he was a member o ...
(1886–1967), who developed an inexpensive method of enriching foods with Vitamin D in the 1920s. This library is open to the public. After the closure of the Wendt Library for Engineering, Steenbock Library was designated a Patent and Trademark Depository Library, and it maintains all U.S. utility, design, and plant patents, and provides reference tools and assistance for both the general public and the UW–Madison community. Undergraduates can find many of the resources they need at College Library in Helen C. White Hall. Special collections there include Ethnic Studies, Career, Women's, and Gaus (Poetry). The Open Book collection, created to support the extra-academic interests of undergraduates, contains DVDs, audio books, and video games, and paperback books. The library also has a coffee shop, the Open Book Café. College Library houses a media center with over 200 computer workstations, DV editing stations, scanners, poster printing, and equipment checkout (including laptops, digital cameras, projectors, and more). Ebling Library for the Health Sciences is located in the Health Sciences Learning Center. It opened in 2004 after the Middleton Library, Weston Library, and Power Pharmaceutical Library merged collections and staff. The LGBT Student Center, located in the
Red Gym Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a second ...
, functions as a library for queer-themed fiction and non-fiction and provides training and resources for the entire campus. The Kohler Art Library is located in the Conrad A. Elvehjem Building across from the Chazen Museum of Art and serves as the main campus resource for art and architecture. The library supports the Departments of Art and Art History as well as the Chazen Museum. Its collections number over 185,000 volumes covering global art movements of all periods. A feature of the library is the Artists' Book Collection, which contains over 1,000 artists' books from 175 presses and artists. The collection, created as a teaching resource in 1970 by founding Kohler Art Library Director William C. Bunce, was digitized in 2007 by the UW Digital Collections Center. The Kohler Art Library is open to the public. UW–Madison Libraries is maintain their own online catalog. It includes bibliographic records for books, periodicals, audiovisual materials, maps, music scores, microforms, and computer databases owned by over 30 campus libraries, as well as records for items part of the University of Wisconsin System Libraries. The UW–Madison Libraries website provides access to resources licensed for use by those affiliated with UW–Madison, in addition to those openly available on the World Wide Web.


Museums

The
Geology Museum Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Eart ...
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 ''Edmontosaurus'' ( ) (meaning "lizard from Edmonton") is a genus of hadrosaurid (duck-billed) dinosaur. It contains two known species: ''Edmontosaurus regalis'' and ''Edmontosaurus annectens''. Fossils of ''E. regalis'' have been found in rocks ...
''), a shark (''
Squalicorax ''Squalicorax'', commonly known as the crow shark, is a genus of extinct lamniform shark known to have lived during the Cretaceous period. The genus had a global distribution in the Late Cretaceous epoch. Multiple species within this genus are c ...
'') and a floating colony of
sea lilies Crinoids are marine animals that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that are attached to the sea bottom by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms are called feather stars or comatulids, which are ...
(''
Uintacrinus ''Uintacrinus'' ("crinoid from the Uinta Mountains") is an extinct genus of crinoids from the Cretaceous of Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is ...
''), both from the Cretaceous chalk of Kansas, and the Boaz Mastodon, a found on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin in 1897. The Chazen Museum of Art, formerly the Elvehjem Museum of Art, maintains a collection of paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints and photographs spanning over 700 years of art. The university's Zoological Museum maintains a collection of approximately 500,000 zoological specimens, which can be used for research and instruction. A special collection contains skeletons, artifacts, and research papers associated with the Galápagos Islands. Since 1978, the UW–Madison Zoological Museum has been one of only three museums granted permission by the Ecuadoran Government to collect anatomical specimens from the Galápagos Islands. The
L. R. Ingersoll Physics Museum The L.R. Ingersoll Physics Museum is located on the second floor of Chamberlin Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. It is one of several museums on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus that focus on hands-on exhibits and public ...
contains a range of exhibits demonstrating classical and
modern physics Modern physics is a branch of physics that developed in the early 20th century and onward or branches greatly influenced by early 20th century physics. Notable branches of modern physics include quantum mechanics, special relativity and general ...
. Many of the exhibits allow for hands-on interaction by visitors. The museum also has a number of historical instruments and pictures on display.


Effigy mounds

UW–Madison claims more distinct archaeological sites than on any other university campus. The campus contains four clusters of effigy mounds located at Observatory Hill, Willow Drive, Picnic Point, and Eagle Heights. These sites, reflecting thousands of years of human habitation in the area, have survived to a greater or lesser degree on campus, depending on location and past building activities. Surviving sites are marked and fenced on the campus, ensuring that they are not disturbed. Wisconsin statutes protect effigy mounds by giving them a five-foot buffer zone. The Lakeshore Nature Preserve Committee is endeavoring to "…safeguard beloved cultural landscapes," through aggressive enforcement of measures for the preservation of such zones and advocating for broader buffers where possible.


Athletics

The University of Wisconsin–Madison sports teams participate in the NCAA's Division I-A. With the exception of lightweight Wisconsin Badgers Crew, the university's athletic programs compete in the Big Ten Conference. The women's hockey program competes in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), while the men's and women's crew programs compete in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges and Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges, respectively. The school's fight song is '' On, Wisconsin!''. The school's mascot is Buckingham U. Badger, commonly referred to as "
Bucky Badger Buckingham U "Bucky" Badger is the official mascot of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The mascot attends major sporting events for the Wisconsin Badgers and other events in Wisconsin. Origin The most familiar portrayal of Bucky Badger, we ...
". The athletic director is Chris McIntosh. 2005–2006 marked the first time in school history that four Badger teams won national championships in the same academic year. In the fall, the men's cross country team won its fourth national championship. The winter season was highlighted by the men's and women's ice hockey teams both winning national titles. The year was capped off in the spring with the women's lightweight crew taking its third straight Intercollegiate Rowing Association national crown. In 2008, both men's and women's crew teams claimed national titles.


Football

The Badgers play
college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...
at Camp Randall Stadium. The head coach is Luke Fickell. Before the fourth quarter of every game at Camp Randall, the crowd jumps around to House of Pain's song " Jump Around". After every game, the
University of Wisconsin Marching Band The University of Wisconsin Marching Band (also known as Badger Band, and The Wisconsin Band) is the marching band for the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It was formed in the fall of 1885 to support the university military battalion. Tod ...
plays popular songs during the
Fifth Quarter In the cuisine of modern Rome ''quinto quarto'' (literally the "fifth quarter") is the offal of butchered animals. The name makes sense on more than one level: because offal amounts to about a fourth of the weight of the carcass; because the import ...
. The Badgers won three Rose Bowl Championships under Barry Alvarez in 1994, 1999, and 2000. In 2006, Bret Bielema led the Badgers to a school record (at that time) 11-win regular season and to 12 overall wins, defeating Arkansas in the Capital One Bowl. Coach Paul Chryst would later break that record as he led the Badgers to 12 regular season wins in the 2017–2018 campaign, as well as a 34–24 victory over Miami in the Orange Bowl, for a season total of 13 wins. Chryst also won a Cotton Bowl the year before the Orange Bowl win. The Badgers lost to
TCU TCU may stand for: Education * Tanzania Commission for Universities, regulatory body for Universities in Tanzania * Texas Christian University, a private university in Fort Worth, Texas ** TCU Horned Frogs, the athletic programs of the school * Tok ...
in the
2011 Rose Bowl The 2011 Rose Bowl was the 97th edition of the annual bowl game played on January 1, 2011, as part of the 2010 NCAA Division I FBS football season. Played in Pasadena, California, the TCU Horned Frogs of the Mountain West Conference defeated the ...
Championship on January 1, 2011. In the 2011 season, the Badgers defended the B1G championship title to go to the
2012 Rose Bowl The 2012 Rose Bowl, the 98th edition of the annual game, was a college football bowl game played on Monday, January 2, 2012 at the same-named stadium in Pasadena, California. The Oregon Ducks of the Pac-12 Conference beat the Wisconsin Badgers ...
Championship. The Badgers lost to Oregon 45–38 in the highest-scoring Rose Bowl of all time. The Badgers made it to the
2013 Rose Bowl The 2013 Rose Bowl, the 99th edition of the annual game, was a college football bowl game played on Tuesday, January 1, 2013, at the same-named stadium in Pasadena, California. The Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association is the organizer of the ...
for their third consecutive Rose Bowl appearance. Bret Bielema took the Arkansas football head coaching position before the game and Barry Alvarez took over as a one-game interim coach. The Badgers lost to Stanford 14–20 for Barry Alvarez's first Rose Bowl loss, he had previously won it three times.


Men's basketball

The Badgers have made 19 consecutive appearances (1999–2017) in the NCAA Tournament, having played in the National Championship game in 2015, making Final Four visits in 2000 and 2014, an Elite Eight appearance in 2005, and Sweet Sixteen appearances in 2003, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2016, and 2017. Bo Ryan was the head coach from 2001 to 2015.
Greg Gard Gregory Glen Gard (born December 3, 1970) is an American college basketball coach for the Wisconsin Badgers . Gard took over on December 15, 2015, after Bo Ryan announced his retirement as head coach of the Badgers. Gard is a native of Cobb Wisco ...
is the current head coach. The Badgers play at the Kohl Center, where the student fans are known as AreaRED. In the 2006–2007 season, the Badgers attained their highest AP ranking in school history (#1 Feb 19–25), garnering 35 first-place votes. The Badgers earned their only NCAA National Championship in 1941.


Women's basketball


Women's ice hockey


Ice hockey

Badger ice hockey first became a men's varsity sport in 1922. Although dropped after the 1934–35 season, it again became a varsity sport in the 1963–64 season. The men's team played in the Dane County Coliseum until moving to the Kohl Center (capacity 15,359) in the fall of 1998. The first ice hockey game played at the Kohl was the Hall of Fame game against the University of Notre Dame. From 1999 to 2012 the men's team led the nation in college hockey attendance, setting an NCAA attendance record (averaging 15,048) during the 2009–10 season, which surpassed their previous record set in 2006–07. Bob Johnson, nicknamed "Badger Bob" by fans, took over the reins in 1966. Johnson coached the Badger men to three national championships in 1973, 1977 and 1981.
Jeff Sauer Jeffrey Sauer (March 10, 1943 – February 2, 2017) was an American ice hockey player and coach. Sauer was the head coach at the University of Wisconsin from 1982 to 2002 and Colorado College from 1971 to 1982. While at Wisconsin, he led the Bad ...
coached the Badger men to two more titles in 1983 and 1990.
Mike Eaves Michael Gordon Eaves (born June 10, 1956) is an American former National Hockey League (NHL) player and the former head coach of the St. Olaf College men's hockey team and for his alma mater the University of Wisconsin, where he was part of two N ...
, member of the 1977 NCAA title team, coached the Badger men's team to its sixth national championship in 2006. The six Badger titles rank fourth in NCAA men's ice hockey history. Eaves' 2010 squad advanced to the national championship game during the Badgers' 11th appearance in the men's Frozen Four before bowing to
Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...
. The school's strong ice hockey tradition gained another dimension with the addition of a women's team that began play in the 1999–2000 season. Coached by Mark Johnson, son of "Badger Bob" and another member of the men's 1977 title team, the Badger women won their first NCAA championship on March 26, 2006. The dual 2006 titles marked the first time that both the men's and women's Division I NCAA hockey titles were won by the same school in the same year. The women's team repeated as national champions in 2007 with a victory over the University of Minnesota-Duluth and in 2009 with a victory over Mercyhurst. The team set the NCAA women's hockey attendance record on February 15, 2014, in a game against Minnesota.


Rivalries

The Wisconsin Badgers' most notable rivalry within the Big Ten is with the Minnesota Golden Gophers, which is the most-played rivalry in Division I-A football. In their annual
college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...
game, the teams compete for Paul Bunyan's Axe. The two universities also compete in the ''Border Battle'', a year-long athletic competition in which each team's wins earn points for their university. Wisconsin's other prominent rivalries in football are with the
Iowa Hawkeyes The Iowa Hawkeyes are the athletic teams that represent the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa. The Hawkeyes have varsity teams in 22 sports, 8 for men and 14 for women; a 15th women's sport will be added in 2023. The teams partici ...
and Nebraska Cornhuskers. The I-94 rivalry between Wisconsin men's basketball and the in-state Marquette Golden Eagles has been played annually since 1958. Other basketball rivalries include the Michigan State Spartans and Illinois Fighting Illini within the Big Ten. The Wisconsin men's and women's hockey teams' most recognized rivals are Minnesota and the North Dakota Fighting Hawks. Other rivals include the Denver Pioneers, Colorado College Tigers, Michigan Tech Huskies, Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs, and
St. Cloud State Huskies The St. Cloud State Huskies are the athletic teams for St. Cloud State University. The university is primarily a member of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC), and currently sponsors 18 NCAA Division II teams. SCSU also sponsors a ...
.


Mascot

The school mascot is an anthropomorphized badger named Bucky who dons a sweater affixed with the UW–Madison 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. At Wisconsin football games in the 1920s live mascots were used to inspire fans. The animals used included a black bear, a bonnet monkey, and live badgers. 1949 was the first year a student sporting a papier-mâché badger head appeared; this subsequently replaced the use of live badgers. The team's nickname originates from the state nickname. In the 1820s, many lead miners and their families lived in the mines in which they worked until adequate above-ground shelters were built, and thus were compared to badgers. In 2009, Fulton Market Films produced the documentary ''Being Bucky'' which followed the lives of seven Wisconsin students who take on the role of Bucky Badger. ''Being Bucky'' won "Best Documentary Film" at the Wisconsin Film Festival and went on to play in local Wisconsin movie theaters.


Student life


Residential life

The university runs over twenty residence halls, including learning communities and affinity communities. These are spread across two distinct neighborhoods: Lakeshore and Southeast. The largest residence hall has a capacity of 1,250 students, while the smallest is home to 30 residents. Nestled against Lake Mendota, the Lakeshore Neighborhood is home to thirteen residence halls and four dining markets. The neighborhood is close to Ebling and Steenbock Libraries and the Engineering campus. The Southeast Neighborhood, near downtown Madison, is home to eight residence halls and two dining markets. The Lakeshore and Southeast neighborhoods are considered to be rivals owing to their contrasting lifestyles. Southeast dorms are considered to be more social, while Lakeshore dorms tend to be more quiet. In winter, the two sides meet at Bascom Hill for a snowball fight that draws hundreds of students known as the "Battle for Bascom". Barnard Residence Hall, the oldest functioning residential building on campus, opened its doors in the fall of 1913 as the second women's dormitory. The building features an Italian Renaissance Revival style and owes its namesake to former Chancellor Henry Barnard, who, ironically, opposed student housing on campus believing it to be a drain on the institution's income. Alongside neighboring Chadbourne Residence Hall, Barnard Hall is part of the Chadbourne Residential College, a building-wide living-learning community. Barnard Residence Hall is connected to Rheta's Market, a buffet-style dining hall. On May 22, 2012, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin passed a resolution permitting the usage of the name "Dejope", a variation of the original Ho-chunk term, for a new residence hall at the university. ''Teejop'' means "Four Lakes" in the Ho-Chunk language, and Native Americans have used this word to describe the Madison area for thousands of years. The building and its grounds contain imagery of the mounds and lakes in the area and include a fire circle that overlooks Lake Mendota. Dejope Hall pays tribute to its name with the Four Lakes Market, which features an authentic canoe.


Media


Student publications

UW–Madison is the only university in the country with two daily student newspapers: '' The Daily Cardinal'', founded in 1892 and '' The Badger Herald'', founded in 1969. '' The Onion'' was founded in 1988 by two UW–Madison juniors, and was published in Madison before moving to New York City in 2001. It is also the home of ''The Madison Misnomer'', an undergraduate comedy newspaper, founded in 2007. UW–Madison is also home to one of only two nationally distributed undergraduate international studies journals in the country. The Journal of Undergraduate International Studies (JUIS) is a competitive publication that features peer-reviewed academic articles. It was founded in 2003 by David Coddon with the support of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Leadership Trust.


Campus radio

The University of Wisconsin–Madison campus radio station is
WSUM WSUM (91.7 MHz FM) is a student radio station in Madison, Wisconsin, affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The station schedule consists of a wide range of music and talk programming serving the campus and Madison community. ...
91.7 FM, "The Snake on the Lake". Historically, UW–Madison has been home to a collection of student run radio stations, a number of which stopped broadcasting after run-ins with the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The current radio station, WSUM, began in 1997 in a
webcast A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web ...
only format because of the prolonged battle to get an FCC license and construct a tower. This lasted five years until February 22, 2002, when the station started broadcasting over FM airwaves at 91.7 from its tower in
Montrose, Wisconsin Montrose is a town in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,134 at the 2000 census. The unincorporated communities of Basco, Montrose, and Paoli are located within the town. Geography According to the United States Censu ...
. The radio station currently has around 200 volunteer DJs and eight paid managers. All UW–Madison students, as well as a limited number of community members, are eligible to participate in running the station. WSUM remains entirely free format, which means that the on-air personnel can showcase a large variety of music and talk programming at their discretion with few limitations. WSUM has garnered many awards from the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association for their news, play-by-play broadcasts of Badger athletic events, and unique public service announcements.


Organizations

Over 800 student organizations or clubs are registered with the Center for Leadership and Involvement (CFLI) at UW–Madison each year. Student organizations at the school include chapters of the fraternities
Acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
, Alpha Chi Omega,
Alpha Delta Phi Alpha Delta Phi (), commonly known as Alpha Delt, ADPhi, A-Delt, or ADP, is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. Alpha Delta Phi was originally founded as a literary society by Samuel Eells in 1832 at Hamilton College in Cli ...
,
Alpha Gamma Rho Alpha Gamma Rho (), commonly known as AGR, is a social/professional, agriculture fraternity in the United States, currently with 71 collegiate chapters. Founding The fraternity considers the Morrill Act of 1862 to be the instrument of its incepti ...
, Delta Chi, Chi Psi, and Sigma Alpha. Alpha Chi Sigma was founded at the university in 1902. Religious student organizations include affiliates of the
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
organizations
Athletes in Action Athletes in Action (AIA) is an American sports organization founded in 1966. It is the sports ministry of Cru Ministries, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ. History Athletes in Action was started in 1966 by Dave Hannah."Fact Sheet: ...
,
Chi Alpha Campus Ministries Chi Alpha , (sometimes XA, χα, xa, or SfC - Students for Christ, officially known as Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship), is an international and interdenominational coeducational Christian fellowship, social club, student society, and serv ...
, and the
Christian Legal Society Christian Legal Society (CLS) is a non-profit Christian headquartered in Virginia, United States. The organization consists of lawyers, judges, law professors, and law students. Its members are bound to follow the "commandment of Jesus" and to "se ...
. Pres House is a progressive student organization loosely associated with the PCUSA that welcomes students of all backgrounds to its worship and various other gatherings. Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel is a Christian chapel and campus ministry that serves students of UW–Madison. UW is also home to student vehicles teams such as Formula SAE combustion and electric, Baja SAE, SAE Clean Snow, ASME Human Powered Vehicle, Wisconsin Autonomous, Concrete Canoe and formerly the UW Hybrid Vehicle Team and
Badgerloop The Hyperloop Pod Competition was an annual competition sponsored by SpaceX from 2015 to 2019 in which a number of student and non-student teams participate to design—and for some, build—a subscale prototype transport vehicle in order to de ...
. There are 8 A cappella groups on the UW–Madison campus. Of them, two are mixed-voice, two are lower voice, two are upper voice, and two are themed mixed-voice. The groups are the MadHatters, Redefined A Cappella, Fundamentally Sound, Pitches and Notes, Tangled up in Blue, Under A-Rest, Jewop, and Wisconsin Waale.


Notable people


Alumni

Over its history, UW–Madison alumni, faculty, or former faculty have distinguished themselves in a wide variety of fields, and have been awarded 20 Nobel Prizes and 41 Pulitzer Prizes. UW–Madison graduates have been recipients of 32
Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
s, 22 Marshall Scholarships, 25 Truman Scholarships, 6
Churchill Scholarship The Churchill Scholarship is awarded by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States to graduates of the more than one hundred colleges and universities invited to participate in the Churchill Scholarship Program, for the pursuit of rese ...
s, and 1 Mitchell Scholarship. The university has produced 828 Fulbright Scholars and 20
MacArthur Fellows The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 ind ...
. UW–Madison alumni have occupied several prominent offices in the United States government, including Vice President of the United States (
Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...
);
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is any member of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the chief justice of the United States. The number of associate justices is eight, as set by the Judiciary Act of 18 ...
( Wiley Rutledge, BA); United States Secretary of State ( Lawrence Eagleburger, BA, MA); United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (
Wilbur J. Cohen Wilbur Joseph Cohen (June 10, 1913 – May 17, 1987) was an American social scientist and civil servant. He was one of the key architects in the creation and expansion of the American welfare state A welfare state is a form of government i ...
, BA, and Tommy Thompson, BA, JD); United States Secretary of the Interior (
Julius Albert Krug Julius Albert Krug (November 23, 1907March 26, 1970) was a politician who served as the United States Secretary of the Interior for the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1946 until 1949. Early life and education Krug was born Novem ...
, BA, and
William Freeman Vilas William Freeman Vilas (July 9, 1840August 27, 1908) was an American lawyer, politician, and United States Senator. In the U.S. Senate, he represented the state of Wisconsin for one term, from 1891 to 1897. As a prominent Bourbon Democrat, he ...
, BA); United States Secretary of Agriculture ( Clayton Yeutter); United States Postmaster General (
John A. Gronouski John Austin Gronouski Jr. (October 26, 1919January 7, 1996) was the Wisconsin state commissioner of taxation and served as the United States Postmaster General from 1963 until 1965 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Biography ...
, BA, MA, PhD, and William Freeman Vilas, BA); numerous federal judges, governors, and members of the United States Congress (including 7
United States Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
and 1 United States Senator currently serving). Some 843 UW–Madison alumni serve as CEOs, and nearly 16,000 hold an executive management position. Additionally, as of November 2018, the current CEOs of 14 Fortune 500 companies have attended UW–Madison, the most of any university in the United States. Notable CEOs who have attended UW–Madison include John Rowe ( Exelon), Thomas J. Falk (
Kimberly-Clark Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American multinational personal care corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. The company manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments. Kimberly-Clark brand n ...
), Carol Bartz ( Yahoo!),
David J. Lesar David John Lesar (born May 30, 1953) is an American businessman who is the former chair of Halliburton Energy Services. He was the CEO of Halliburton for 17 years from 2000 to 2017. Trained as a Certified Public Accountant, Lesar spent 16 years ...
( Halliburton), Kelly Kahl ( CBS Entertainment),
Keith Nosbusch Keith Nosbusch was the chairman and CEO of Rockwell Automation Inc., one of the world largest industrial automation companies. He was appointed the company's CEO in 2004 and chairman in 2005. Before that, he worked as senior vice president and pres ...
( Rockwell Automation),
Lee Raymond Lee R. Raymond (born August 13, 1938) is an American businessman and was the chief executive officer (CEO) and chairman of ExxonMobil from 1999 to 2005. He had previously been the CEO of Exxon since 1993. He joined the company in 1963 and served ...
(
Exxon Mobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
),
Tom Kingsbury Thomas A. Kingsbury (born 1952) is the Chief Executive Officer of Kohl's Department Stores as of 2023, after the departure of embattled CEO Michelle Gass. He served on the Board of Directors of Kohl's since 2021. Tom was Chief Executive Officer ...
( Burlington Stores), and
Judith Faulkner Judith R. Faulkner (born August 1943) is an American billionaire, and the CEO and founder of Epic Systems, a healthcare software company located in Wisconsin. Faulkner founded Epic Systems in 1979, with the original name of Human Services Comput ...
( Epic Systems). Foreign alumni include the President of Bangladesh 2002–2009 ( Iajuddin Ahmed, MS, PhD); the
Prime Minister of Iraq The prime minister of Iraq is the head of government of Iraq. On 27 October 2022, Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani became the incumbent prime minister. History The prime minister was originally an appointed office, subsidiary to the head of state, a ...
( Sa'dun Hammadi, PhD); the Prime Minister of Bhutan 2004–2005 ( Yeshey Zimba, MA); the Prime Minister of Singapore and Minister of Finance ( Lawrence Wong, BS); the
Secretary of Finance and Public Credit The Secretariat of the Treasury and Public Credit ( es, Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, SHCP) is the finance ministry of Mexico. The Secretary of the Treasury is the head of the department, and is a member of the federal executive ...
of Mexico 1975–1976 (
Mario Ramón Beteta Mario Ramón Beteta Monsalve (7 July 1925 – 5 October 2004) was a Mexican economist who served as the last Secretary of Finance in the cabinet of President Luis Echeverría (1975–76), as director-general of Pemex (1982–87) and as gove ...
) and 2018–2019 ( Carlos Manuel Urzúa Macías, PhD); the President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany 1971–1983 ( Ernst Benda); the Minister of Finance of Somalia 2017–2022 ( Abdirahman Duale Beyle, PhD); the
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile ( es, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores) is the cabinet-level administrative office in charge of planning, directing, coordinating, executing, controlling and informing the foreign policy formulated by ...
2006–2009 ( Alejandro Foxley, PhD); the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tunisia 2010–2011 ( Kamel Morjane); the Minister of Education of Taiwan 2013–2014 (
Huang Pi-twan Huang Pi-twan (; born 14 November 1945) is a Taiwanese politician. She was the political deputy minister of the Ministry of Education from 2013 to 2014. Previously, she had served as minister of the Council for Cultural Affairs between 2008 and ...
, PhD). UW–Madison alumni have made significant contributions to the field of computer science, including Edison Medal recipient Howard H. Aiken, who envisioned the conceptual design behind IBM's
Harvard Mark I The Harvard Mark I, or IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), was a general-purpose electromechanical computer used in the war effort during the last part of World War II. One of the first programs to run on the Mark I was initi ...
, and Turing Award Laureate Pat Hanrahan (BS, PhD). Gene Amdahl (MS, PhD) formulated Amdahl's law, while
Willi A. Kalender Willi A. Kalender (born 1 August 1949) is a German medical physicist and professor and former chairman of the Institute of Medical Physics of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Kalender has produced several new technologies in the field of diag ...
(MS, PhD) invented spiral scan computed tomography. The Macintosh II computer was co-invented in 1987 by Michael Dhuey, who also designed the power supply for the original
iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...
in 2001. Alumni have won a total of 10 Academy Awards. There have been three winners of the Oscar for Best Picture: Nichole Rocklin for her work on ''Spotlight'' (2016), Tom Rosenberg (BA) for his work on ''
Million Dollar Baby ''Million Dollar Baby'' is a 2004 American sports drama film directed, co-produced, scored by and starring Clint Eastwood from a screenplay written by Paul Haggis, based on stories from the 2000 collection ''Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner' ...
'' (2004), and Walter Mirisch (BA) for his work on '' In the Heat of the Night'' (1967). Pat Hanrahan (BS, PhD) has won three Oscars for his work in technical achievement (2014, 2004, 1993). Errol Morris (BA) won the Best Documentary Oscar for '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara'' (2004). Marshall Brickman won the Best Screenplay Oscar for his work on '' Annie Hall'' (1978). Frederic March won two
Best Actor Oscar The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...
s for '' The Best Years of Our Lives'' (1946) and ''
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Doctor is an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, w ...
'' (1932). , UW–Madison had more than 427,000 living alumni. Although a large number of alumni live in Wisconsin, a significant number live in Illinois, Minnesota, New York, California, and Washington, D.C.Wisconsin Alumni Association
Notable Alumni
File:John Muir Cane.JPG, John Muir - naturalist, founder of the
Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...
, instrumental in preserving Yosemite National Park File:Frank Lloyd Wright LC-USZ62-36384.jpg, Frank Lloyd Wright - architect known for designing the Guggenheim Museum and Fallingwater among other works File:EVMcCollum-crop-UW.jpg, Elmer McCollum - biochemist, discoverer of Vitamins A, B, and D File:Lindbergh.jpg, Charles Lindbergh - aviator and military officer, remembered for the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean File:Bardeen.jpg,
John Bardeen John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...
- physicist, only two-time recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 and 1972 File:William C. Campbell 4983-1-2015.jpg, William C. Campbell -
biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually specialize in ...
and parasitologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015 File:Laurel Clark, NASA photo portrait in blue suit.jpg, Laurel Clark - medical doctor and
NASA astronaut The NASA Astronaut Corps is a unit of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members for U.S. and international space missions. It is based at Johnson Space Ce ...
, flew aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia File:James Lovell.jpg, Jim Lovell -
NASA astronaut The NASA Astronaut Corps is a unit of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members for U.S. and international space missions. It is based at Johnson Space Ce ...
, one of the first humans to fly to and orbit the Moon, commanded
Apollo 13 Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted aft ...
File:LaFOLLETTE, ROBERT. SENATOR LOC hec.14955 (cropped).jpg, Robert M. La Follette - politician and lawyer, Progressive Era leader, former Congressman, Senator,
20th 20 (twenty; Roman numeral XX) is the natural number following 19 and preceding 21. A group of twenty units may also be referred to as a score. In mathematics *20 is a pronic number. *20 is a tetrahedral number as 1, 4, 10, 20. *20 is the ba ...
Governor of Wisconsin The governor of Wisconsin is the head of government of Wisconsin and the commander-in-chief of the state's army and air forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Wiscons ...
and Presidential candidate File:GaylordNelson.jpg, Gaylord Nelson - environmentalist and politician, founder of
Earth Day Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 b ...
,
35th Military units *35th Fighter Wing, an air combat unit of the United States Air Force *35th Infantry Division (United States), a formation of the National Guard since World War I *35th Infantry Regiment (United States), a regiment created on 1 July 1 ...
Governor of and later United States Senator from Wisconsin File:Richard Cheney 2005 official portrait.jpg,
Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...
- politician and businessman, 46th
Vice President of the United States of America A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trai ...
File:Herbert Kohl, official photo.jpg, Herb Kohl - businessman and politician, United States Senator from Wisconsin, former owner of the Milwaukee Bucks File:Tammy Baldwin, official portrait, 113th Congress.jpg, Tammy Baldwin - politician and lawyer, United States Senator from Wisconsin, first openly LGBT person elected to the United States Senate File:Linda-Thomas-Greenfield-v1-8x10-1.jpg, Linda Thomas-Greenfield - diplomat,
United States ambassador to the United Nations The United States ambassador to the United Nations is the leader of the U.S. delegation, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The position is formally known as the permanent representative of the United States of America to the United Nations ...
File:Chuck Robb (2019).jpeg, Chuck Robb - former governor and United States Senator from Virginia, co-chair of the 2004 Iraq Intelligence Commission File:Joyce carol oates 8333.JPG,
Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...
- National Book Award-winning author of plays, poetry, short stories, and nonfiction File:Manu Raju, reporting in 2016 on House Speaker Paul Ryan from Madison, Wis.jpg, Manu Raju - television journalist, Senior
Congressional A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
Correspondent for CNN File:Greta Van Susteren by Gage Skidmore.jpg, Greta Van Susteren - commentator, lawyer, and television news anchor for CNN, Fox News, and NBC News File:Joan Cusack June 2010 cropped.jpg, Joan Cusack - actor, Academy Award and
Golden Globe The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
nominee File:Jeffrey Sprecher.jpg, Jeffrey Sprecher - chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, founder and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange File:Virgil Abloh Paris Fashion Week Autumn Winter 2019.jpg, Virgil Abloh -
fashion designer Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
and founder of Off-White


Faculty and staff

Current UW–Madison faculty and researchers include 68 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, 112 Guggenheim Fellows, 5
MacArthur Fellows The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 ind ...
, 6 members of the National Academy of Education, 20 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 5 members of the American Philosophical Society, 2 recipients of the American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal, 13 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 2 National Academy of Public Administration Fellows, 39 members of the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
, 11 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows, 4 National Humanities Center Fellows, and 1 Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow. Faculty members have been responsible for numerous scientific advances at UW–Madison, including the single-grain experiment by
Stephen Babcock Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; h ...
, the discovery of vitamins A and B by Elmer McCollum and Marguerite Davis, the development of the anticoagulant medication warfarin by Karl Paul Link, the first chemical synthesis of a gene by Har Gobind Khorana, the discovery of the retroviral enzyme
reverse transcriptase A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA (cDNA) from an RNA template, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, ...
by Howard Temin, and the first synthesis of
human embryonic stem cells Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, an early-stage pre- implantation embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist ...
by James Thomson. UW–Madison professor
Aldo Leopold Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...
played an important role in the development of modern
environmental science Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...
and
conservationism The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the f ...
, while professor Gloria Ladson-Billings formulated the framework of culturally relevant pedagogy. UW–Madison is also known for its contributions to the field of glaciology. Thwaites Glacier, infamously a part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet's so-called "weak underbelly", was posthumously named after its professor emeritus Fredrik T. Thwaites (1883–1961). Other Antarctic features named after UW–Madison glaciologists include
Black Glacier Black Glacier () is a broad tributary to the Lillie Glacier flowing northeast, marking the southeast extent of the Bowers Mountains, a major mountain range situated in the geographical location of Victoria Land, Antarctica. The glacier was first ma ...
(after professor Robert F. Black), as well as Mount Bentley and the
Bentley Subglacial Trench The Bentley Subglacial Trench is a vast topographic trench in Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica, 80°S, 115°W. At 2,555 meters (8,382 ft) below sea level, it (along with the deepest points within the adjacent Byrd Subglacial Basin) is am ...
, both named after professor Charles R. Bentley. File:Portrait of Stephen Moulton Babcock.jpg,
Stephen Moulton Babcock Stephen Moulton Babcock (22 October 1843 – 2 July 1931) was an American agricultural chemist. He is best known for developing the Babcock test, used to determine butterfat content in milk and cheese processing, and for the single-grain experime ...
File:CharlesRVanHise.jpeg,
Charles R. Van Hise Charles Richard Van Hise (May 29, 1857 – November 19, 1918) was an American geologist, academic and Progressivism, progressive. He served as president of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison, Wisconsin, ...
File:Joseph Erlanger nobel.jpg,
Joseph Erlanger Joseph Erlanger (January 5, 1874 – December 5, 1965) was an American physiologist who is best known for his contributions to the field of neuroscience. Together with Herbert Spencer Gasser, he identified several varieties of nerve fiber and es ...
File:JH van Vleck 1974.jpg, John Hasbrouck Van Vleck File:Joshua Lederberg-nih.jpg, Joshua Lederberg File:Wigner.jpg, Eugene Wigner File:Howard Martin Temin 1975.jpg, Howard Martin Temin File:Portrait of Paul Samuel Reinsch.jpg,
Paul S. Reinsch Paul Samuel Reinsch (June 10, 1869 – January 26, 1923), was an American political scientist and diplomat. He played an influential role in developing the field of international relations. Career overview Reinsch was born in Milwaukee, Wiscons ...
File:Stanislaw Ulam.tif,
Stanislaw Ulam Stanisław Marcin Ulam (; 13 April 1909 – 13 May 1984) was a Polish-American scientist in the fields of mathematics and nuclear physics. He participated in the Manhattan Project, originated the Teller–Ulam design of thermonuclear weapon ...
File:Oliver Smithies HD2009 AIC Gold Medal portrait (cropped).JPG, Oliver Smithies File:Har Gobind Khorana.jpg, Har Gobind Khorana File:Jamie Thomson.jpg, James Thomson


See also

*
Badgerloop The Hyperloop Pod Competition was an annual competition sponsored by SpaceX from 2015 to 2019 in which a number of student and non-student teams participate to design—and for some, build—a subscale prototype transport vehicle in order to de ...
– a SpaceX Hyperloop Competition Team * MadFiber Ice Cream – created by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences * TRNSYSsimulation program for
renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
developed at UW-M * UW Hybrid Vehicle Team *
Weinert Center The Weinert Center is the home of entrepreneurship education in the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees ...
for Entrepreneurship * World Cocoa Foundation (Partnership)


Notes


References


Further reading

* Butterfield, C. W.
''History of the University of Wisconsin''
Madison: University Press, 1879. * Fred, Edwin Broun. ''A University Remembers''. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1969. * * Thwaites, Reuben Gold

1900.


External links

*
University of Wisconsin–Madison Athletics website
* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wisconsin-Madison, University of Buildings and structures in Madison, Wisconsin Education in Madison, Wisconsin Universities and colleges established in 1848 Flagship universities in the United States Forestry education Land-grant universities and colleges Madison Tourist attractions in Madison, Wisconsin University Universities and colleges established in the 1840s National Register of Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin University of Wisconsin-Madison Need-blind educational institutions Universities and colleges accredited by the Higher Learning Commission