Wisconsin Union director announces retirement

Theodore (Ted) Crabb, Wisconsin Union director for 33 years, plans to retire this year.

Crabb, only the second director of the Union in its 73-year history, announced his plans today, Jan. 11, to Union employees, Union Council members and the Wisconsin Union Directorate. He is expected to remain as director while the university seeks a successor.

“We are grateful for Ted’s extraordinary years of service to UW–Madison and his dedication to enriching the university community,” says Chancellor John Wiley.

Crabb has been a fixture of the Union since he was elected its student president in 1953. He was advisor to the Wisconsin Hoofers, reservations supervisor and assistant director before he succeeded the Union’s first director, Porter Butts, in July 1968. He also served as director of the UW-Milwaukee Union from 1964-68.

“I have enjoyed every one of those jobs and the opportunity each gave me to help provide an expanding array of social and educational programs and services for all members of the university community,” Crabb says.

“It has given me great satisfaction to be able to help students develop leadership skills, to improve and expand Union facilities and to lead a dedicated staff,” Crabb adds.

The Wisconsin Union operates Memorial Union and Union South, two gathering places regarded as the heart and soul of UW–Madison. Day and night, the Union acts as a social, cultural and educational hub where university community members can meet, eat, talk, view art, enjoy live music or theater performances, take in a lecture or participate in many other activities. The Union is a membership organization with more than 75,000 annual and lifetime members in addition to all enrolled students.

“The unions are a home for Wisconsin spirit,” Wiley says. “Ted’s commitment to the original idea of the Wisconsin Union — that we at the university have a responsibility not only to produce scholars but well-rounded individuals — has paid off for innumerable graduates in a myriad of ways.”

Crabb says he is choosing to retire now for several reasons:

• To give a new director time to plan activities for Memorial Union’s 75th anniversary in 2003-04.
• Top leadership at the university is changing, and a change in Union director now will give the new director a chance to work with Chancellor John Wiley almost from the start. Wiley assumed his post Jan. 1.
• Decisions needed this year will set the scope and nature of Union activities for the long term, and a new director should be in place to set the goals for those initiatives.

The time is right for other reasons as well, Crabb says. The Union Council, which governs the Union, and Wisconsin Union Directorate, the student-run programming board that plans Union activities, are “strong and vibrant,” Crabb says. A fund drive to raise $1 million for improvements is nearly complete, and many major improvements to Union facilities, including the theater and kitchens, are already under way.

“I feel comfortable about turning the job over to a new director,” Crabb says. “I think it’s time to let someone else have the privilege of serving as director of this inimitable institution.”

The Chancellor’s Office plans to appoint a group of faculty, staff, students and alumni to search for a new director.

Crabb is married to federal judge Barbara B. Crabb. They have two children.