University of Wisconsin System history

1849 – First class meets Feb.

1851 – North Hall opens.

1854 – The UW awards its first degrees to Levi Booth and Charles T. Wakeley.

1863 – First women admitted to UW in the Normal Department.

In 1867, to satisfy President Paul Chadbourne’s anti-coeducation views, the Normal Department is abolished and replaced by the separate Female College.

In 1871, the Female College building (later Chadbourne Hall) opens.

1872 – Legislature begins making annual contributions for support of the university.

1875 – William Smith Noland is the first known African-American to graduate with a B.A.

1876 – The UW establishes the country’s first magnetic observatory.

1877 – Cadwallader C. Washburn, former regent and governor, gives the first major gift to the university, $43,000 to build and furnish an observatory overlooking Lake Mendota.

1881 – Agricultural physicist Franklin H. King develops the round silo.

1884 – John Stearns is appointed the first full-time education faculty member.

1885 – Marching Band is founded to accompany the University Military Battalion.

1889 – Legislature formally establishes the colleges of Letters and Science, Mechanics and Engineering, Agriculture and Law.

With the second Morrill Act (1890), Congress began to make regular appropriations for the support of these institutions, and these appropriations were increased through subsequent legislation.

1892 – Charles R. Van Hise receives the first UW Ph.D. (Van Hise later becomes first UW graduate to be named its president.)

1899 – Regents establish the Summer Session and name College of Letters and Science Dean Edward Birge as its director.

1905 – Under President Charles R. Van Hise, the Wisconsin Idea — the principle that the university should improve people’s lives beyond the classroom — becomes a living doctrine.

1907 – The College of Medicine is established to run a two-year, preclinical course.

1909 – The Department of Agricultural Economics is established — the first of its kind in the United States.

1914 – The university establishes first curriculum in speech correction and first speech clinic in the country.

1917 – WHA, considered the oldest radio station in the nation in continuous service, begins broadcasting.

In 1920, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching issued a report on "The Professional Education of Teachers of American Public Schools", which attacked such programs, arguing that normal schools should not deviate from their purpose as trainers of teachers.

1921 – Professor Edgar Gordon starts “Music Appreciation” on WHA, the first course broadcast over radio.

1922 – Sara Stinchfield receives the first Ph.D. in communicative disorders in the country.

In fall 1925, the first class of clinical students (19 men and six women) begins work.

1926 – Carson Gulley hired as a chef in Van Hise Refectory

1928 – Memorial Union opens the first university union art gallery.

1930 – Memorial Union opens the first craft shop housed in a union building and establishes an outing club, Wisconsin Hoofers, as a part of a recreation center.

1932 – The UW releases Wisconsin’s first strain of hybrid corn.

1935 – UW economist Edwin Witte heads the commission that drafts the Social Security legislation as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

1937 – Conrad Elvehjem leads UW researchers who find that niacin supplementation prevents pellagra, a disease that killed 5,000 people a year at the time.

1939 – The College of Agriculture establishes the first Wisconsin artificial-breeding program.

1941 – Harold Rusch, a UW oncology professor, is the first to show which wavelength of ultraviolet light produces skin cancer.

1946 – The Beta Omicron Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated was the first Black Greek-letter organization (B.G.L.O.) at the University.

1951 – Vel Phillips was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School.

1965 – John R. Cameron and Richard Mazess, emeriti professors of medical physics, along with other UW researchers, develop new techniques to measure osteoporosis, allowing better detection, prevention and treatment of bone diseases.

1966 – National Organization for Women, launched by Kathryn Clarenbach and Betty Friedan, is first housed in Clarenbach’s faculty office on the UW campus.

1967 – A series of protests against the war in Vietnam begins with an Oct.

1968 – The UW’s Space Astronomy Laboratory constructs the world’s first true observatory in space — the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory.

1969 – The UW establishes world’s first research center on rheology, a branch of physics.

1970 – The Faculty Senate holds its first meeting, replacing meetings of the whole faculty.

1971 – Richard Hong, a professor of pediatrics and microbiology, develops a new thymus transplant technique for treating immune-system deficiencies in children and young adults.

1973 – Sapporo Gold, the country’s first artificially produced variety of elm resistant to Dutch Elm disease, is released.

The merger took effect on July 9, 1974, combining two chapters of the Wisconsin statutes.

1976 – Charles Mistretta, professor of medical physics, develops a method to digitize X-ray images of blood vessels, allowing data to be stored and interpreted by a computer.

1981 – The medical physics department is founded, the first in the nation within a medical school.

1985 – The atomic structure of a common cold virus is described for the first time by UW–Madison researchers working with a Purdue University team.

1986 – Waclaw Szybalski, professor of oncology, in conjunction with a Polish associate, develops the first pair of “chemical scissors” capable of cutting DNA molecules.

1987 – The Academic Staff Assembly holds its first meeting.

1989 – Students begin registering for classes by touchtone telephone.

Named UW System president April 1, 1992, Katharine C. Lyall brought familiarity with the System and her own strong record of internal leadership to the position.

1993 – The university’s Division of Information Technology initiates email accounts for students.

1994 – Hector F. DeLuca, discoverer of a “super vitamin-D” compound, and colleagues develop biochemical techniques to synthesize the vitamin, opening the way to advances in the treatment of diseases such as osteoporosis.

1996 – Regents approve the Campus Master Plan, a comprehensive blueprint for campus development — from facilities to bike circulation and more — into the 21st century.

1997 – UW–Madison becomes one of six universities to participate in an $8.6 million effort funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to curb binge drinking among students.

1998 – Researcher James A. Thomson announces the successful cultivation in the laboratory of human embryonic stem cells — primordial cells that have the capacity to develop into any tissue in the body.

2001 – The $45 million Rennebohm Hall opens, giving the School of Pharmacy a state-of-the-art facility.

By Lyall’s retirement, in 2004, with merger fully completed, the mature System could claim numerous achievements, both organizational and individual.

2005 – A $20 million gift from alumni Jerome and Simona Chazen funds a major expansion of the Elvehjem Museum of Art, and the university renames the museum in honor of the Chazens.

2006 – Alumni John and Tashia Morgridge give UW–Madison its largest individual gift ever, paving the way for scientific collaboration at a new Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

Although the Great Recession of 2007– 9 stalled progress on his Growth Agenda initiative, Reilly provided steady management through the economic crisis and hoped to resume his programmatic efforts as the economy recovered.

2009 – The Great People Scholarship campaign is launched to raise funds for need-based financial aid.

2010 – The UW undertakes two cross-campus initiatives to tackle complex societal issues: global health and sustainability.

2011 – The UW receives the top ranking among United States colleges and universities for “brand equity” on the Internet.

2012 – An annual giving campaign, Share the Wonderful, is launched to encourage alumni to provide critical funding support to the university.

2013 – The Wisconsin Energy Institute, a center for clean energy research and education, opens.

2014 – UW alumni John and Tashia Morgridge donate $100 million, the largest single contribution from

In October 2017, UW System president Ray Cross publicly proposed a restructuring of the University of Wisconsin System that would bring the UW Colleges under the control of their nearest comprehensive university, creating regional campuses within the system.

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