65
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
University of Wisconsin-Madison (view source)
Revision as of 18:04, April 26, 2007
, 18:04, April 26, 2007removed irrelevant information
[[image:Siftingwinnowing.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Plaque on Bascom Hall commemorating 1894 Regents statement: "We believe that the great state University of Wisconsin shall ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found."]]
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an important public research university with an enrollment of over forty thousand students and a budget of over two billion dollars. It is located in the state capital, [[Madison, Wisconsin]], on a sprawling lakeside campus.
It has one of the smallest minority enrollments among major schools, with only 11.5% of its student population being African American (2.7%), Asian American (5.2%), Native American (0.6%) or Hispanic (3%).
It is academically ranked among the top fifty U. S. universities, and among the ten best public universities <ref>[http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php National Universities: Top Schools] U. S. News and World Report</ref>
[[Aldo Leopold]] wrote his classic 1949 work, ''A Sand County Almanac,'' while a professor of game management at the University of Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin was a pioneer in the patenting and commercial licensing of university research. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) was founded in 1925 to licence professor Harry Steenbock's process for fortifying milk with vitamin D.<ref>[http://www.warf.org/about/index.jsp?cid=26 Our History], WARF website</ref> Another important WARF patent involved the blood anti-coagulating agent, dicumarol. The substance was discovered at the university in the 1933 by Karl Paul Link, after Ed Carlson—a farmer from Deer Park who was confident that the university would be interested in his problem—arrived unannounced on Link's doorstep bearing a milk can of blood from a dead calf and a hundred pounds of spoiled sweet clover. The drug was used first as a rat poison under the name Warfarin, then in human medicine under the name ''Dicoumadin.'' In 1999 it was the eleventh-most-prescribed drug in the United States.<ref>[http://www.uwalumni.com/home/coolstuff/askabe/askabe_people/askabe_people.aspx Ask Abe Archives - People], UW website</ref><ref>[http://www2.biotech.wisc.edu/alliance/plaques/1.php?id=9 Controlling Blood Clotting], photograph of historical plaque.</ref><ref>[http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4548&page=176 Biographical Memoirs of Karl Paul Link], uncorrected OCR at National Academy of Sciences: pp. 183-4, "Farmer Carlson's multiple evidence was a dead heifer, a milk can containing blood completely destitute of clotting capacity, and about 100 pounds of spoiled sweet clover.</ref>
[[image:Birgejuday.jpg|left|thumb|E. A. Birge and Chancey Juday, UW limnology pioneers, operating a plankton trap]]
In North America, [[limnology]] was founded by E. A. Birge and Chancey Juday at the University of Wisconsin, which remains prominent in the field.<ref>[http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/UW/subcollections/LimnHistAbout.shtml The History of Limnology], University of Wisconsin website</ref>
Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College, inaugurated in 1927, was a short-lived but very influential educational experiment at the University of Wisconsin. It was one of a number of attempts to present the liberal arts as a unified whole, with emphasis on the direct reading of original sources. It can be broadly consider as part of the "Great Books" movement, which lives on in its purest state today at St. John's College in Annapolis, and in an attenuated form at WIsconsin as the Integrated Liberal Studies program.<ref>[http://www.wisc.edu/ils/Meiklejohn.html Meiklejohn's Experimental College], University of Wisconsin ILS website</ref>
The university's radio station, WHA, was an important pioneer in broadcast radio, and makes the (questioned) claim to be "the oldest station in the nation"<ref>[http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/WIReader/Images/WER0607.html "The Oldest Station in the Nation"], photograph of historical marker]</ref> The physics department began experimental transmissions in 1900, received experimental license 9XM in 1915, began voice transmissions in 1920, and received its current call letters, WHA, in 1922.
During the late 1960s, students at the University of Wisconsin became radicalized by the Vietnam war, and the university was a center of campus unrest. One protest focussed on the presence of Dow Chemical Company job recruiters—Dow being singled out as a manufacturer of napalm, a weapon thought to be particularly cruel. Others centered on the military-funded Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC) which performed a mixture of published and secret research, with the university emphasizing its theoretical studies, while campus radicals suggesting it also did work with direct, practical military use. In 1970, Karleton Armstrong and three other students constructed what would now be called a "car bomb," filling a stolen van with a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, a home-made explosive familiar to farmers, and exploded it outside the Sterling Hall building which housed the AMRC.<ref>[http://www.madison.com/library/LEE/sterlinghall.html Sterling Hall Bombing], Madison library website</ref> The explosion killed a graduate student. The ensuing shock and revulsion, and the winding down of the Vietnam war, brought a steep decline to the period of campus radicalism.
It has long been one of the most liberal institutions in the United States.{{fact}}
It is the birthplace of both the [[political correctness]]<ref>"The University of Wisconsin Madison campus has often been cited as the birthplace of political correctness. Donna Shalala, former Clinton Secretary of Health & Human Services and University of Wisconsin Chancellor has been called the founder of political correctness."[http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/9178.html]</ref> and the [[Critical legal studies]]<ref>http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Critical_legal_theory</ref> movements. It is the reason that Wisconsin, which has a conservative population, has a pro-gun control governor and two liberal U.S. Senators. John Kerry carried Wisconsin in 2004 on the strength of the vote in Madison, where the large University is located.
It is one of only 15 U.S. Universities found to require a course in Shakespeare in order to receive a degree in English.<ref>http://www.goacta.org/press/Press%20Releases/4-19-07PR.htm</ref>
== References ==
<references/>
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an important public research university with an enrollment of over forty thousand students and a budget of over two billion dollars. It is located in the state capital, [[Madison, Wisconsin]], on a sprawling lakeside campus.
It has one of the smallest minority enrollments among major schools, with only 11.5% of its student population being African American (2.7%), Asian American (5.2%), Native American (0.6%) or Hispanic (3%).
It is academically ranked among the top fifty U. S. universities, and among the ten best public universities <ref>[http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php National Universities: Top Schools] U. S. News and World Report</ref>
[[Aldo Leopold]] wrote his classic 1949 work, ''A Sand County Almanac,'' while a professor of game management at the University of Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin was a pioneer in the patenting and commercial licensing of university research. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) was founded in 1925 to licence professor Harry Steenbock's process for fortifying milk with vitamin D.<ref>[http://www.warf.org/about/index.jsp?cid=26 Our History], WARF website</ref> Another important WARF patent involved the blood anti-coagulating agent, dicumarol. The substance was discovered at the university in the 1933 by Karl Paul Link, after Ed Carlson—a farmer from Deer Park who was confident that the university would be interested in his problem—arrived unannounced on Link's doorstep bearing a milk can of blood from a dead calf and a hundred pounds of spoiled sweet clover. The drug was used first as a rat poison under the name Warfarin, then in human medicine under the name ''Dicoumadin.'' In 1999 it was the eleventh-most-prescribed drug in the United States.<ref>[http://www.uwalumni.com/home/coolstuff/askabe/askabe_people/askabe_people.aspx Ask Abe Archives - People], UW website</ref><ref>[http://www2.biotech.wisc.edu/alliance/plaques/1.php?id=9 Controlling Blood Clotting], photograph of historical plaque.</ref><ref>[http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4548&page=176 Biographical Memoirs of Karl Paul Link], uncorrected OCR at National Academy of Sciences: pp. 183-4, "Farmer Carlson's multiple evidence was a dead heifer, a milk can containing blood completely destitute of clotting capacity, and about 100 pounds of spoiled sweet clover.</ref>
[[image:Birgejuday.jpg|left|thumb|E. A. Birge and Chancey Juday, UW limnology pioneers, operating a plankton trap]]
In North America, [[limnology]] was founded by E. A. Birge and Chancey Juday at the University of Wisconsin, which remains prominent in the field.<ref>[http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/UW/subcollections/LimnHistAbout.shtml The History of Limnology], University of Wisconsin website</ref>
Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College, inaugurated in 1927, was a short-lived but very influential educational experiment at the University of Wisconsin. It was one of a number of attempts to present the liberal arts as a unified whole, with emphasis on the direct reading of original sources. It can be broadly consider as part of the "Great Books" movement, which lives on in its purest state today at St. John's College in Annapolis, and in an attenuated form at WIsconsin as the Integrated Liberal Studies program.<ref>[http://www.wisc.edu/ils/Meiklejohn.html Meiklejohn's Experimental College], University of Wisconsin ILS website</ref>
The university's radio station, WHA, was an important pioneer in broadcast radio, and makes the (questioned) claim to be "the oldest station in the nation"<ref>[http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/WIReader/Images/WER0607.html "The Oldest Station in the Nation"], photograph of historical marker]</ref> The physics department began experimental transmissions in 1900, received experimental license 9XM in 1915, began voice transmissions in 1920, and received its current call letters, WHA, in 1922.
During the late 1960s, students at the University of Wisconsin became radicalized by the Vietnam war, and the university was a center of campus unrest. One protest focussed on the presence of Dow Chemical Company job recruiters—Dow being singled out as a manufacturer of napalm, a weapon thought to be particularly cruel. Others centered on the military-funded Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC) which performed a mixture of published and secret research, with the university emphasizing its theoretical studies, while campus radicals suggesting it also did work with direct, practical military use. In 1970, Karleton Armstrong and three other students constructed what would now be called a "car bomb," filling a stolen van with a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, a home-made explosive familiar to farmers, and exploded it outside the Sterling Hall building which housed the AMRC.<ref>[http://www.madison.com/library/LEE/sterlinghall.html Sterling Hall Bombing], Madison library website</ref> The explosion killed a graduate student. The ensuing shock and revulsion, and the winding down of the Vietnam war, brought a steep decline to the period of campus radicalism.
It has long been one of the most liberal institutions in the United States.{{fact}}
It is the birthplace of both the [[political correctness]]<ref>"The University of Wisconsin Madison campus has often been cited as the birthplace of political correctness. Donna Shalala, former Clinton Secretary of Health & Human Services and University of Wisconsin Chancellor has been called the founder of political correctness."[http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/9178.html]</ref> and the [[Critical legal studies]]<ref>http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Critical_legal_theory</ref> movements. It is the reason that Wisconsin, which has a conservative population, has a pro-gun control governor and two liberal U.S. Senators. John Kerry carried Wisconsin in 2004 on the strength of the vote in Madison, where the large University is located.
It is one of only 15 U.S. Universities found to require a course in Shakespeare in order to receive a degree in English.<ref>http://www.goacta.org/press/Press%20Releases/4-19-07PR.htm</ref>
== References ==
<references/>