By Kari Dickinson UW–Madison alumnus Brian Raffel’s path to the top of the video game industry has been anything but conventional. A former art student turned high school art teacher, Raffel co-founded Raven Software with his brother, Steve, in 1990, when they got a publishing deal for their first computer game, Black Crypt. What began …
1950s Corinne (Corky) WickBA 1952 – Speech TherapyCorky lives in Oakland, California, where she remains active in her theater group, the Mothertongue Theater Collective. At 90, she continues to perform in the Bay Area, most recently in “Death and Other Jokes.” Sally FreyBS 1955 – EducationSally earned her graduate degree from Bank Street College of …
By Kari Dickinson As the Dance Department celebrates its centennial, it is also looking to the future with the launch of a new Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Dance program. The first students will arrive in fall 2026. This fully funded, two-year degree gives outstanding artists opportunities to push the boundaries of their creative …
By Maggie Ginsberg, Division of the Arts Last summer, during the first week of the Madison Metropolitan School District’s Summer Arts Academy, the gymnasium inside Thoreau Elementary School was crawling with restless second graders. They were hot, distracted, and a little shy. “Let’s form a circle,” said lead teaching artist Abbey Brooks, who wore a …
By Kari Dickinson More than 100 years ago, Margaret H’Doubler taught the first dance courses on the UW–Madison campus. At the time, the idea that dance was suitable for academic study was nothing short of radical. From those first improvisational classes in 1917 grew the nation’s first dance major, formally approved on June 8, 1926. …
DATE: Sept. 17, 2025 TIME: 10:24 a.m. PLACE: Humanities Building Meri Lau leads a workshop on developing elementary art curricula with UW–Madison art education majors. Lau — a recently retired art teacher from the Madison Metropolitan School District and longtime cooperating teacher — focuses on unit planning, sharing three lessons she designed around the theme “Dogs in Art.” …
I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on the impact of our School. Attempting to wrap my mind around the enormity of the past, present, and future work of our community and all of the lives it touches is humbling, to say the least. We are artists, educators, and health care providers in many forms and, …
Lead the Way Brenna says she was 3 years old when she first knew about her autism. “I’ve lived it,” she said. “This program helped me feel confident in it.” Now 20 years old, Brenna was one of 25 young people who attended the Wisconsin Youth Leadership Forum (YLF), a six-day program in July that …
By Hannah Haynes, WIDA Communications Jenni Torres has built her life on a simple but powerful belief: Language is a bridge. As the new executive director of WIDA, she brings that conviction to the forefront of a national and global effort to engage, equip, and inspire the educators who impact the lives of multilingual learners. …
By Sarah Fuelleman Norm and Barbara Berven are proud of UW–Madison and its School of Education. Barbara’s eyes shine when she talks about the School’s No. 1 rankings from U.S. News and World Report — its overall standing as the top school of education in the nation and its No. 1 graduate program in rehabilitation …