Almanac

Ask Bucky

Do you have questions? We have answers! Ask Bucky is a service provided by the Campus Information and Visitor Center, your one-stop shop for information about the UW–Madison campus and community and your centralized source for off-campus housing listings. For more information, call 263-2400, visit the office in the Red Gym or the new satellite location in Bascom Hall, or visit us at http://www.civc.wisc.edu. Below are two questions Ask Bucky recently answered.

Q: I am a UW alum and recently hung a picture of our beloved Bascom Hall in my office. I would greatly appreciate any details about the hall that you could share with me (year built, etc.). So many of my associates are asking!

A: Bascom Hall is one of the oldest and most well-known campus landmarks. Originally called University Hall, it opened in 1859 at the cost of $60,000 and was the first campus building dedicated entirely to instruction. In 1920, it was re-named Bascom Hall, after John Bascom, who was UW–Madison’s first chancellor. Through the decades, Bascom Hall has undergone numerous additions, subtractions and even tragedies, including a fire in 1916 that destroyed the original ornate dome.

Furthermore, Bascom Hall is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Bascom Hill Historic District. For more information about the history of Bascom Hall, including photos from the 1916 fire, visit the UW–Madison Libraries Web site at http://www.library.wisc.edu and search for “Bascom Hall.”

Q: Can you provide me the average teacher-student ratio for classes at UW–Madison?

A: According to the Office of Admissions, the average undergraduate class is approximately 29 students per instructor. In addition, only 10 percent of classes on campus have 100 or more students. With more than 2,000 faculty members, the student-to-faculty ratio is calculated to be about 13 to 1. For more UW–Madison facts, visit http://www.wisc.edu/about/facts/.

Babcock Hall Dairy Store announces seasonal offerings

The Dairy Store offers seasonal ice cream flavors and cheese boxes for holiday giving. Select any of the regular flavors of ice cream or try Pumpkin Cream Pie, Wisconsin Cranberry Cheesecake, Berry Alvarez or Peppermint Stick to serve at holiday gatherings. Dry ice is available to pack with ice cream for travel. This year the store is offering a new cheese box called Bucky Badger Snack Box, which contains Holland-style gouda, Monterey jack with chives, a 12-ounce beef sausage and half-pound of UW hard candy. Dairy Store hours are 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Backward Glance

From Wisconsin Week of Nov. 29, 1995: HEALTHSTAR, a funding partnership with the state that allowed UW–Madison’s Center for Health Sciences to begin making facilities upgrades, began to move forward with an endorsement from the Campus Planning Committee. The alliance allowed for the construction of the Medical School Interdisciplinary Research Complex and the Health Sciences Learning Center. … UW–Madison ranked first among all U.S. public universities and eighth among all U.S. universities in private support, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.