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Wisconsin People & Ideas – Winter 2020

In our special 150th anniversary issue: A brief history of the Wisconsin Academy, from our founding in 1870 to today and four perspectives on the role the Academy's Wisconsin Strategy Initiatives have played in helping our people, lands, and waters over the past twenty years. We meet our new 2020 Fellows Award winners and learn about the early scientists and naturalists who founded the Academy through the Collections & Connecctions exhibition at our James Watrous Gallery. And poems galore by Wiscoinsin Poets Laureate past and present. Did we mention this issue is a flip issue? (You can't tell in the online version!) But the other side of the magazine features mini-profiles of fascinating and innovative writers, artist, chefs, researchers, and community leaders. Oh, and did we also mention a world premier story by author Nickolas Butler?

Volume:

Issue Number:

From the Director

Celebrating 150 Years of the Academy

By:

Jane Elder

Imagine what it was like on that February afternoon in 1870, when hundreds of people crowded into Wisconsin’s State Agricultural Hall for the convention to organize the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.

Happenings

Community Café Culture

By:

Alex Paniagua

Ben Cadman and Celeste Parins, the owners of Voyageurs Sourdough, want to share their love of bread with the people of Green Bay.

Happenings

Chronicler of Weird Wisconsin

By:

Jason Smith

Frank Anderson knows a lot about Wisconsin.

Happenings

Fighting Climate Change with Faith

By:

Alex Paniagua

Dekila Chungyalpa is on the forefront of a new movement to bring together two powerful tools in the fight against climate change: science and faith.

Happenings

Education through Reclamation

By:

Alex Paniagua

Holly Dolliver’s interest in nature began at a young age. After noticing the stinky algal blooms in Dunns Lake on her family’s farm, she wanted to learn more about why the blooms appeared—and what she could do to stop them.

Happenings

Brewing Up Collaborations

By:

Jason Smith

Let’s make a beer together. This is how collaborations such as the one between Working Draft Beer Company and the Wisconsin Academy get started.

The view of the confluence between the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers is a good reminder that the health of our lands and people rely upon healthy aquatic ecosystems, resilient rural communities, and clean energy.

Report

Wisconsin Strategy Initiatives: A History of Impact

By:

Curt Meine, Chelsea Chandler, Bill Berry, Jane Elder

Over the last twenty years, the Academy has worked to find promising strategies to address large-scale Wisconsin challenges.

A closeup of Randall Berndt's illustration created for the Academy's anniversary, "A Select Few: Wisconsin Academy Luminaries," 2020. Graphite on paper, 25 by 23 inches.

Essay

On the Threshold: The Academy at 150

By:

Chrissy Widmayer

On a warm fall day in September 1973, James Batt watched as two plaques were affixed to the sandstone entryway of a small office building at 1922 University Avenue in Madison.

@ the Watrous Gallery

Collections & Connections

By:

Jody Clowes, Martha Glowacki

Building a specimen collection of plant, animal, and mineral resources was a matter of scientific interest and civic pride for the Wisconsin Academy’s 19th-century founders.

Fiction

Foxx Finds a Tree

By:

Nickolas Butler

From his kitchen window, Nathaniel Foxx counted six bulldozers in the neighboring cornfield. Or what was left of the cornfield. It began with a For Sale sign that Foxx drove by for months, but ultimately ignored.