Scholar of American West to address winter graduates

Acclaimed historian William Cronon will address midyear graduates, their families and friends at commencement ceremonies Sunday, Dec. 17.

About 1,600 students will be eligible for degrees this December. Two ceremonies in the Kohl Center on Dayton St. will mark the occasion:

• At 1 p.m., degrees will be awarded to all Ph.D., M.F.A., master’s and professional degree candidates; and bachelor’s degree candidates in agriculture, education, human ecology, medicine, nursing and pharmacy.
• At 4 p.m., bachelor’s degree candidates in business, engineering and letters and science will attend their commencement.

Cronon will speak at both ceremonies. He is a UW–Madison alumnus (B.A. ’76) who now is UW–Madison’s Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies. He is an expert on how humans and their environments affect each other. He has written extensively on the history of the American West, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and on many other subjects.

Cronon’s Pulitzer-nominated 1991 book, “Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West,” won the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History, and the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award from the American Forest History Society.

In 1996, Cronon became director of the Honors Program in the UW–Madison College of Letters and Science, and was instrumental in establishing the Chadbourne Residential College in 1997. In addition to his undergraduate degree from UW–Madison, Cronon holds M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.

The winter 2000 commencement will be the last for Chancellor David Ward. He will step down Jan. 1, 2001 after nearly eight years as head of the institution.

UW–Madison Secretary of the Faculty David Musolf, whose office organizes commencement, says Ward leaves an inspiring legacy.

“His contributions to UW–Madison, to higher education, and to our students have been tremendous. Both undergraduate and graduate students’ learning opportunities and experiences have been enhanced by his visionary leadership,” Musolf says.

No tickets are required for commencement. No alcoholic beverages are allowed. Parking will be available on a first-come, first-served basis on city streets and in university ramps and lots. Complementary shuttle service will be available from lots adjacent to Camp Randall. For more information, call the Commencement Hotline, (608) 262-9076.