atures rocks, minerals, and fossils from around the world. Highlights include a blacklight room, a walk-through cave, and a fragment of the Barringer meteorite. Some noteworthy fossils include the first di

Undergraduates can find many of the resources they need at College Library in Helen C. White Hall.[101] Special collections there include Ethnic Studies, Career, Women's, and Gaus (Poetry). The Open Book collection, created to support the extra-academic interests of undergraduates, contains DVDs, audio books, and video games, and paperback books.[102] The library also has a coffee shop, the Open Book Café.[103] College Library houses a media center with over 200 computer workstations, DV editing stations, scanners, poster printing, and equipment checkout (including laptops, digital cameras, projectors, and more).
The Kurt F. Wendt Library[104] serves the College of Engineering[105] and the Departments of Computer Sciences,[106] Statistics,[107] and Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences.[108] In addition to books, journals, and standards, Wendt Library houses over 1.5 million technical reports in print and microfiche. Designated a Patent and Trademark Depository Library, it maintains all U.S. utility, design, and plant patents, and provides reference tools and assistance for both the general public and the UW–Madison community.
Ebling Library for the Health Sciences is located in the Health Sciences Learning Center. It opened in 2004 after the Middleton Library, Weston Library, and Power Pharmaceutical Library merged collections and staff.[109]
The online catalog for UW–Madison Libraries is MadCat.[110] It includes bibliographic records for books, periodicals, audiovisual materials, maps, music scores, microforms, and computer databases owned by over 40 campus libraries, as well as records for items that are on order. The UW–Madison Libraries website provides access to resources licensed for use by those affiliated with UW–Madison, in addition to those openly available on the World Wide Web.
Museums[edit]



Wisconsin Historical Society
The Geology Museum features rocks, minerals, and fossils from around the world. Highlights include a blacklight room, a walk-through cave, and a fragment of the Barringer meteorite. Some noteworthy fossils include the first dinosaur skeleton assembled in Wisconsin (an Edmontosaurus), a shark (Squalicorax) and a floating colony of sea lilies (Uintacrinus), both from the Cretaceous chalk of Kansas, and the Boaz Mastodon, a found on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin in 1897.[111]
The Chazen Museum of Art, formerly the Elvehjem Museum of Art, maintains a collection of paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints and photographs spanning over 700 years of art.[112]
The university's Zoological Museum maintains a collection of approximately 500,000 zoological specimens, which can be used for research and instruction. A special collection contains skeletons, artifacts, and research papers associated with the Galápagos Islands. Since 1978, the UW–Madison Zoological Museum has been one of only three museums granted permission by the Ecuadoran Government to collect anatomical specimens from the Galápagos Islands.[113]
The L. R. Ingersoll Physics Museum contains a range of exhibits demonstrating classical and modern physics. Many of the exhibits allow for hands-on interaction by visitors. The museum also has a number of historical instruments and pictures on display.[114]
Effigy mounds[edit]



Willow Drive Effigy Mounds

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A view of the Wisconsin State Capitol from atop Bascom Hill. The Mosse Humanities building is on the right, Wisconsin Historical Soc

Union South, the newer campus union, was built in 1971 to better accommodate a growing student enrollment and was demolished in 2008. A new "green" Union South located on the site of the old union opened April 15, 2011. It is a certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold building.[88] The building contains several dining options, an art gallery, climbing wall, bowling alley event spaces, and a hotel.[89][90]
The Wisconsin Union also provides a home for the Wisconsin Union Directorate Student Programming Board (WUD), which provides regular programs for both students and community members. One of the most well-known members of WUD is the Wisconsin Hoofers, a club that organizes outdoor recreational activities.[91]
Dejope Hall[edit]


Dejope Residence Hall
On May 22, 2012, the Ho-chunk Nation passed a resolution permitting the usage of the name "Dejope" for a new residence hall at the university. Dejope means "Four Lakes" in the Ho-Chunk language, and Native Americans have used this word to describe the Madison area for thousands of years.[92] The residence hall was planned as a symbol of the ongoing cooperative relationship between University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Ho-Chunk nation and the building and its grounds contain imagery of the mounds and lakes in the area. A fire circle in front of the building contains plaques representing all 11 Native American nations in Wisconsin. Images of the four effigy mounds that are located on the campus (Observatory Hill, Willow Drive, Picnic Point and Eagle Heights) are embedded into the flooring of the building's main floor. An acrylic depiction of Lake Mendota is located in the conference room, and another artwork of glass and metal depicting the Four Lakes is located in the East Hall.
Libraries[edit]



A view of the Wisconsin State Capitol from atop Bascom Hill. The Mosse Humanities building is on the right, Wisconsin Historical Society (fore) and Memorial Library (rear) on the left.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has the 12th largest research library collection in North America.[93] More than 40 professional and special-purpose libraries serve the campus.[94] The campus library collections include more than 8.3 million volumes representing human inquiry through all of history.[93] In addition, the collections comprised more than 101,000 serial titles, 6.4 million microform items, and over 8.2 million items in other formats, such as government documents, maps, musical scores, and audiovisual materials.[93] Over 1 million volumes are circulated to library users every year.[95] Memorial Library serves as the principal research facility on campus for the humanities and social sciences. It is the largest library in the state, with over 3.5 million volumes.[96] It also houses a periodical collection, domestic and foreign newspapers, Special Collections,[97] the Mills Music Library,[98] a letterpress printing museum,[99] and the UW Digital Collections Center.[100]
Steenbock Memorial Library is the primary library for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, School of Human Ecology, School of Veterinary Medicine, UW-Extension and Cooperative Extension, and Zoology and Botany Departments. The University of Wisconsin–Madison Archives and Records Management Department and Oral History Program are also located in Steenbock Library. The library is named for UW professor Harry Steenbock (1886–1967), who developed an inexpensive method of enriching foods with Vitamin D in the 1920s. This library is open to the public.

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ome exist simply to network with other students. The Wisconsin Union[edit] The Memorial Union as seen from the

Van Hise Hall seen from Linden street
Van Hise Hall is home to most of the languages departments of the university[80] and the upper floors house the offices of the University of Wisconsin System's president and its Board of Regents. The building is often humorously touted by campus tour guides as the birthplace of the Elven language spoken in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.[81]
At 241 feet and 19 stories, Van Hise is the second-tallest building in Madison (after the State Capitol) and one of the tallest educational buildings in the world.[82] Because of its placement atop Bascom Hill it towers over the State Capitol as the building with the highest elevation in the city. Van Hise Hall was constructed in 1967 and its destruction is slated for sometime around 2025 as part of the university's campus master plan.[83]
Grainger Hall[edit]


Grainger Business Hall and Conference center
Home of the Wisconsin School of Business, Grainger Hall was built in 1993. In 2008 it underwent a major renovation and addition to assist the 12 MBA specialization programs that were housed there.[84] The addition occupies the corner of Park Street and University Avenue, projecting the school’s crest outward in a location that once housed a bank.[85]
Grainger Hall also houses an array of student-run organizations, both undergraduate and graduate. There are major-specific organizations as well as organizations that welcome all students. Several of the clubs are Madison chapters of nationwide organizations, others are honor societies that require a minimum grade point average, while some exist simply to network with other students.
The Wisconsin Union[edit]


The Memorial Union as seen from the Library Mall on the UW–Madison campus
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has two student unions. The older, Memorial Union, was built in 1928 to honor American World War I veterans. Also known as the Union or the Terrace, it has gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful student centers on a university campus. Located on the shore of Lake Mendota, it is a popular spot for socializing among both students and the public, who enjoy gazing at the lake and its sailboats. The union is known for the Rathskeller, a German pub adjacent to the lake terrace. Political debates and backgammon and sheepshead games over a beer on the terrace are common among students. The Rathskeller serves "Rathskeller Ale", a beer brewed expressly for the Terrace. Memorial Union was the first union at a public university to serve beer.[86]


Hoofer Badger Sloops on Lake Mendota behind Memorial Union
Memorial Union is home to many arts venues, including several art galleries, a movie theater, the Wisconsin Union Theater, and the Craftshop, which provides courses and facilities for arts and crafts activities. Students and Madison community members alike congregate at the Memorial Union for the films and concerts each week. An advisory referendum to renovate and expand Memorial Union was approved by the student body in 2006, and the university is currently undergoing the expansion.[87]

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rch[58] and 13th in primary care,[59] the College of Engineering 16th,[60] the School of Education 12th,[61] and the La Follette School of Public Affairs 14th.[62] Madison has been labeled one of the "Public Ivies," a publicly funded university considered as providing a quality

s a re-analysis of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University data, the UW–Madison was listed 13th.[43] The Times Higher Education Supplement placed it 27th worldwide, based primarily on surveys administered to students, faculty, and recruiters.[44] Additionally, the professional ranking of world universities from École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, based in part on the number of senior managerial positions occupied by alumni, placed UW–Madison 35th in the world.[45]
National[edit]
UW–Madison was ranked 11th among national universities (with three institutions tied) by the Center for Measuring University Performance in its 2007 report, with rankings based on objective statistics on research, faculty awards, student qualifications, and university assets. Of 38 programs at the UW–Madison that were included in the National Research Council's 1995 study, 16 ranked in the top 10 nationally.[46][47] In 2007, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that 57 disciplines at the UW–Madison were in the top 10 in the U.S. in scholarly productivity, which placed it second after UC-Berkeley in the number of top ten programs.[48] The UW placed 30th among national universities in Washington Monthly's 2009 rankings, which consider community service and social mobility, as well as research productivity.[49] In 2009, UW–Madison was ranked 6th in the TrendTopper MediaBuzz rankings by the Global Language Monitor.[50] In 2011, the Global Language Monitor increased the ranking to 1st in Internet Media Buzz.[51]
Madison's undergraduate program was ranked 42nd among national universities by U.S.News & World Report for 2012 and 10th among public schools.[52] In both cases, UW-Madison is tied with another UW, University of Washington. The same magazine ranked UW's graduate School of Business 29th,[53] and its undergraduate business program 13th.[54] Twelve CEOs of S&P 500 companies hold degrees from the University of Wisconsin, putting it in a tie with Harvard and Princeton for first place.[55]
In 2011, USNWR ranked UW's Law School 35th,[56] while Vault listed it as 25th for 2008.[57] Other graduate schools ranked by USNWR include the School of Medicine and Public Health, which was 27th in research[58] and 13th in primary care,[59] the College of Engineering 16th,[60] the School of Education 12th,[61] and the La Follette School of Public Affairs 14th.[62]
Madison has been labeled one of the "Public Ivies," a publicly funded university considered as providing a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League.[6][7]
Research[edit]
UW–Madison was a founding member of the Association of American Universities.[63] In 2009, the school received $952 million in research funding, placing it third in the country.[64] Its research programs were also fourth in the number of patents issued in 2010.[65] The University's research programs were ranked fourth in federally funded research and second in nonfederally funded research among U.S. public universities in 2009.[66]
The University of Wisconsin is a participant in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the academic consortium of the universities in the Big Ten Conference and the University of Chicago. The initiative is a research partnership that involves faculty and staff networking, cooperative purchasing, course sharing, professional development programs, study abroad, diversity initiatives for students and faculty, and sharing of library resources and information technology.[67][68][69]
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is one of thirty sea grant colleges in the United States. These colleges are involved in scientific research, education, training, and extension projects geared toward the conservation and practical use of U.S. coasts, the Great Lakes and other marine areas.
The University maintains almost 100 research centers and programs, ranging from agriculture to arts, from education to engineering.[70] It has been considered a m

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