UW-Madison: Alumni Weekend Will Bring Storied UW Graduates Back To Campus

MADISON – Some of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s most illustrious graduates will be on campus on Friday and Saturday, May 5 and 6, for Alumni Weekend 2006.

On May 5, four graduates whose work has benefited the campus and the world will receive Distinguished Alumni Awards from the Wisconsin Alumni Association; two other graduates will accept Distinguished Young Alumni Awards.

Other weekend events include:

– Friday, May 5

During Day on Campus, more than 200 alumni will attend classes on topics ranging from German influences on Wisconsin dialect to the wonders of physics.

At the 2006 Distinguished Alumni Awards program, meet the following award recipients:

– Jeffrey Bartell, founding partner of Quarles and Brady-Madison. Formerly, he was the Wisconsin assistant attorney general and the Wisconsin commissioner of securities. For 10 years, Bartell was named one of “The Best Lawyers in America” (Corporate Law) by Woodward/White. He also chaired the Memorial Union’s capital campaign, is chair of the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts and was instrumental in the creation of Madison’s Monona Terrace and Overture Center for the Arts.

– Russell Peterson, a chemist at DuPont for more than a decade and former governor of Delaware from 1969-73. As a chemist at DuPont in the 1940s and 1950s, Peterson was instrumental in the development of Dacron, the first wash-and-wear fabric. His career at the company, however, stalled when he suggested the promotion of five African-American employees. As Delaware’s governor, Peterson worked to protect the state’s unspoiled coastline. He also fought to outlaw the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons while serving as the founding chair of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality.

– Pat Richter, former UW-Madison director of athletics. Richter holds the record for the longest-tenured UW-Madison director of athletics, serving through three administrations. He brought the department out of a $2.1 million budget deficit, a budget that now has a reserve of $6.4 million. He brought the department into Title IX compliance and hired Barry Alvarez to transform the football program. Under Richter, UW-Madison won three national championships, 49 Big Ten championships and eight football bowl games.

– Judith Hicks Stiehm, professor of political science at Florida International University and former vice provost at the University of Southern California. Stiehm has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was appointed to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in Service. Stiehm is an author and a noted scholar in political theory, particularly as it relates to women and the military. A longtime advocate for women’s rights, she mobilized support to build a school for girls in rural Afghanistan.

– Benjamin Karlin, a Distinguished Young Alumni Award recipient, is executive producer of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” He has received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing and a Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting.

– Jean Geran, also a Distinguished Young Alumni Award recipient, was employed by the U.S. Department of State, where she was given responsibility for human rights and democracy policy in Asia. She has also held positions at the United Nations and the World Bank. Geran has advocated for victims of rape at the hands of the Burmese military, and in 2003, she helped create the first abuse prevention unit to investigate human rights abuses in Iraq.

– Saturday, May 6

At the Half Century Club Luncheon in the Memorial Union’s Great Hall, UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley will help honor alumni who graduated 50 years ago.

There also will be reunion activities and dinners for the classes of 1946, 1951 and 1956.

More about the 2006 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients can be found at http://www.uwalumni.com/daa . Visit http://www.uwalumni.com/alumniweekend for more on the weekend’s activities.

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