Greetings from the Center for Campus History. Happy holidays and happy new year! We hope everyone is able to finish off the semester smoothly and can enjoy some rest over the break. But before you go, we have one last newsletter for the year with center updates, archival finds, holiday recommendations and more!

The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Rebecca M. Blank Center For Campus History is an ongoing effort to expand and enrich UW-Madison’s historical narrative by centering the voices, experiences, and struggles of marginalized groups. As always, if you have a story to share, an event you think should be researched, or a person you think has been overlooked, please email us at centerforcampushistory@wisc.edu.  

Meet one of Center’s student researchers, Nama Pandey!

Nama is a junior undergraduate student at UW-Madison studying Political Science and History with certificates in Public Policy and Gender Studies. She’s passionate about historical research and enjoys writing and working with archives.

Nama’s work with the CCH includes research for the second season of the Center’s history podcast, Reorientation.

Did we mention we have a new podcast? Each season of Reorientation gives one  historical topic the deep-dive treatment with new archival research, interviews with experts and scholars, and nonfiction storytelling. 

Season 1 asks What’s the deal with campus police? How did UW–Madison and hundreds of other universities across the country end up with their own deputized law enforcement agencies? 

All six episodes of Season 1 are available now in case you’re looking for something to binge over the break. You can find it on our website, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all the other usual podcast places. 

When did plaid pants go out of style? Why doesn’t anyone iron their Christmas decorations anymore? These are history questions that we, unfortunately, don’t have good answers to. But maybe you can find some clues in these photo finds from the UW Archives showing students decorating for the holidays on campus in the 1950s.

Each month, we like to share one of the many (many… many… ) books that have helped the Center’s research.

This month, we’re recommending Lindsay Weinberg’s Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age. The book explores how US universities are increasingly using digital tools to monitor and manage campus life.

While supposedly allowing institutions to run their services more efficiently, strengthen the quality of higher education, and better prepare students for future roles in the digital economy, Weinberg argues that, in practice, these initiatives often perpetuate austerity, structural racism, and privatization at public universities under the guise of solving higher education's most intractable problems.

Normally Center Director Kacie Lucchini Butcher uses this space to share a book, podcast, movie, quote, or something else she thinks has been adding to the Center’s work. But to close out the year, we’re roping in the entire CCH staff to share some holiday favorites. 

This month From the Desk of KLB CCH: Center Assistant Director Taylor L. Bailey recommends the spectacular 1970’s stop-motion Christmas TV special The Year Without a Santa Claus, alongside the 2001 Destiny’s Child holiday album 8 Days of Christmas.  Curricular Program Manager Daniel Berman does a family rewatch of Die Hard every year and spins Barbra Streisand’s A Christmas Album, which features “the most UNHINGED version of Jingle Bells ever.”

Communications Manager John K. Wilson believes everyone should subject themselves at least once in their lives to Paul McCartney’s 1980 classic “Wonderful Christmastime.” And the Center’s Director Kacie Lucchini Butcher is a little bit of an obsessive when it comes to Christmas. So if she has to narrow it down, she recommends The Ronettes’ A Christmas Gift for You (1963) or the smooth stylings of A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra (1957). She also watches A Christmas Story every single Christmas morning.