There’s nothing quite like Madison in the spring. The trees are blooming, the weather is warming, and the students are leaving. This past weekend, over 8,000 students earned their UW-Madison alumni status.
We compiled a list of some notable former Badgers with whom the new grads now share this title:
John Bardeen — class of 1928 | Physicist and engineer, first person to win two Nobel Prizes in the same field
Gaylord Nelson — class of 1942 | Founder of Earth Day
Nancy O. Lurie — class of 1945 | Set the precedent for the use of anthropologists as key witnesses in land claim disputes
Herb Kohl — class of 1956 | US Senator, Kohl Center’s namesake
Allan ‘Bud’ Selig — class of 1956 | Former MLB commissioner, founder of MKE Brewers
Jerry Zucker — class of 1972 | Film director (Think: “Airplane,” “Ghost”)
Laurel Clark — class of 1987 | Doctor, US Navy captain, and NASA astronaut
Tammy Baldwin — class of 1989 | Wisconsin’s first woman to serve in US Senate
Virgil Abloh — class of 2002 | Former Louis Vuitton artistic director