University of Wisconsin-Parkside history

In February 1969, a bill introduced in the State Assembly limited UW–Parkside enrollment to 30,000, with the university's master plan envisioning eventual enrollment of 25,000.

In May 1970, a host of dignitaries were invited to officially dedicate the new university at the end of its first year.

In December 1971, three UW–Parkside researchers, Eugene Goodman, Ben Greenebaum, Michael Marron, received a United States Navy grant to study the effects of a proposed Navy communications system, Project Sanguine, on the cells of slime mold.

In Summer 1972, UW–Parkside runner Lucien Rosa competed in the Olympic marathon in Munich, representing his home country of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He later became the head men's cross country and track coach at the university.

In March 1973, assistant life sciences professor Omar Amin discovered a new species of tiny parasitic worm in the Pike River and named it Acanthocephalus parksidei after the university.

In July 1975 , Alan E. Guskin, acting president of Clark University in Massachusetts, became the second chancellor of UW–Parkside.

In October 1976 the $3.7 million student union opened.

In October 1977, author Irving Wallace, a Kenosha native, donated a collection of his books, manuscripts, correspondence, awards and other items to UW–Parkside to establish the Irving Wallace Collection, including plays, screenplays, photographs and other materials.

In January 1980, six athletes became the inaugural members of the UW–Parkside Hall of Fame: Heiring; Jeelani; four-time All-American wrestler Ken Martin; Kim Merritt, the first UW–Parkside woman All-American distance runner; marathoner Lucien Rosa; and wrestler Bill West.

In February 1981, the university established the Biomedical Research Institute.

In June 1983, researcher Ross Gundersen demonstrated for the first time that a substance released by developing muscle tissue exerts an attraction on growing spinal nerves, illustrating that growing nerves communicate with the muscles to which they eventually attach.

In September 1985, Chancellor Guskin left UW-Parkside to become president of Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and Sheila I. Kaplan, vice chancellor for academic affairs in the Minnesota State University System, became UW–Parkside's third chancellor the following July.

Explores the end of World War II, the Cold War and Sovietization of Eastern Europe, political change in the West, decolonization, European unification, revolutions of 1989, and recent developments in Europe.

In March 1991, university officials traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia, to initiate an exchange agreement between UW–Parkside and the Georgian Technical University.

In the fall of 1992, UW-Parkside history professor Thomas Reeves published A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy, which spent several weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.

In May 1993, the university awarded its first honorary doctor of humane letters degree to poet Gwendolyn Brooks.

In 1994, in a project that grew from the university's 25th anniversary celebration, the UW–Parkside Nature Trail was created, including 10 geological and historical markers around the nearly 700-acre (2.8 km) campus.

Chancellor Smith resigned in May 1997 after three years in the post, and Gordon Lamb, president emeritus of Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, was named interim chancellor by UW System President Katharine Lyall.

The university's fifth chancellor, John Keating, previously provost of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, began his tenure on July 1, 1998.

March 27, 2021 UW-Parkside History Department is offering a seven-week course beginning March 29 titled “Researching Kenosha’s Black History,” taught by Professor Edward Schmitt. “For us to begin learning, healing, and making progress […]