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Timeline of Notable Events University of Wisconsin–Parkside's first half century include:
1965 On Sept. 2, the state Legislature approves Senate Bill 48, which mandates creation of new collegiate institutions in northeastern Wisconsin and the Kenosha-Racine area "as soon as is practicable." Gov. Warren Knowles signed the bill into law. Although designated a Senate bill, much of the political force behind the legislation came from Democratic Rep. George Molinaro of Kenosha
1966 April: A site-selection committee chooses a 690-acre (2.8 km2) parcel of rolling farmland and woods near Petrifying Springs Park in Kenosha County as the home for the new southeastern UW campus, rejecting more than a half-dozen other sites.
1966 April 21: Even before officially being named chancellor, Irvin Wyllie chooses the name University of Wisconsin–Parkside for the campus. "No place can go anywhere tagged the Petrifying Springs Campus, or snide variations thereof: Putrifying Springs, Stupefying Springs," he wrote.
1966 May: UW–Madison history professor Irvin G. Wyllie, author of "The Self-Made Man in America," is named the first chancellor by UW President Fred Harvey Harrington.
1967 October: Author Irving Wallace donates a collection of his books, manuscripts, correspondence, awards and other items to UW–Parkside to establish the Irving Wallace Collection. A Kenosha native, the author of "The Man," "The Prize," "The Chapman Report" and 30 other books donates plays, screenplays, photographs and other materials.
1967 November: Ground is broken for the first two buildings of the new campus. Thirty-one parcels of land are acquired for the $6.5 million first phase of the construction project, mostly through condemnation. The first building would be finished in time to hold classes in the fall of 1969. The rest of the campus was finished in 1976 with opening of the Union.
1967 The historic and pristine Chiwaukee Prairie in southern Kenosha County is named a state natural area as The Nature Conservancy Inc. begins donating the land to UW–Parkside. One of the largest parcels of truly native prairie of its kind anywhere, Chiwaukee Prairie was saved from destruction in the 1960s by local members of the Conservancy.
1968 June: The University's library opens with 70,000 volumes. Part of the library's collection is stored in a barn on one of the former farms purchased for the University.
1968 July: The University of Wisconsin–Parkside is officially founded, taking administrative control of the two-year UW centers in Racine and Kenosha. Classes are held on the two-year centers, which are later disbanded. December: The Board of Regents names the administration building on Wood Road for Bernard Tallent, dean of the UW–Kenosha center from 1948 until his death in 1965.
1969 February: A bill introduced in the state Assembly would limit UW–Parkside enrollment to 30,000. The University's master plan envisions eventual enrollment at 25,000. (Legislators need not have worried. The record enrollment was 6,008, set in 1983.)
1969 September: The university opens doors to its first students, holding classes in Greenquist Hall. Enrollment hits 2,911 at the three campus locations, including the two former two-year UW Centers in Kenosha and Racine.
1969 November: Students choose the name "Rangers" for the University's athletics teams, spurning such suggested monikers as Apollos, Marauders, Cohos, Juggernauts, Polecats, Fightin' Farmers, Parkies and Woodchucks.
1970 May: A host of dignitaries turns out to officially dedicate the new university at the close of its first year. June: The University graduates its first 36 students at a modest ceremony that attracts 500 people to Greenquist Hall. George Becker of Kenosha is the first to receive his diploma.
1971 April: The first UW–Parkside student government is elected. October: The Legislature approves a bill to merge the four-campus University of Wisconsin with the Wisconsin State Universities, creating the University of Wisconsin System. The move would have a profound effect on growth of the fledgling UW–Parkside campus.
1971 December: Three UW–Parkside researchers land a U.S. Navy grant to study the effects of a proposed Navy communications system, "Project Sanguine," on the cells of slime mold. Over the years, Eugene Goodman, Ben Greenebaum, Michael Marron and others will land hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to study effects of the communication system on living organisms.
1972 May: The 250 students awarded degrees at commencement are the first to complete all their studies at the new campus. Summer: UW–Parkside runner Lucien Rosa competes in the Olympic marathon, representing his home country of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He is the former head men's cross country and track coach at UW–Parkside.
1972 September: The Library/Learning Center and the Physical Education Building open to the public. The library's collection includes 200,000 books and 1,700 periodicals. The Library would eventually grow to more than 365,000 volumes, 1,680 periodicals, 4,720 maps and 11,600 audio/visual titles.
1973 March: A tiny parasitic worm gives the new university a measure of immortality. Assistant life sciences professor Omar Amin discovers the new species in the Pike River and names it Acanthocephalus parksidei after UW–Parkside.
1973 June: The first UW–Parkside Alumni Association is founded, as the ranks of alumni top 1,200.
1974 March: Bill West wins the NAIA wrestling nationals.
1975 July: Alan E. Guskin, acting president of Clark University in Massachusetts, is named the second chancellor of UW–Parkside. Guskin is the youngest chancellor in the UW System at 38.
1976 Spring: Gary Cole finishes a historic basketball career with a record 2,262 points (20.6 per game) and 1,177 rebounds. Cole, now known as Abdul Jeelani, goes on to play for the Portland Trail Blazers and Dallas Mavericks. Spring: Jim Heiring is the first UW–Parkside race walker to compete in the U.S. Olympic trials in the 20-kilometer walk. He just misses the team. A six-time national champion, Heiring later becomes a member of the 1980, 1984 and 1988 teams. October: The $3.7 million student union (at right) opens.
1980 January: Six star athletes become charter members of the UW–Parkside Hall of Fame: Race walker Jim Heiring; basketball player Abdul Jeelani; four-time All-American wrestler Ken Martin; Kim Merritt, the first UW–Parkside woman All-American distance runner; marathoner Lucien Rosa and wrestler Bill West. October: Chancellor Guskin is the featured speaker at the Peace Corps 20th anniversary observance at the University of Michigan. Guskin and his wife were student activists behind the 1960 movement believed to have persuaded President John F. Kennedy to propose the Peace Corps. Kennedy personally thanked the Guskins for their work to organize the Peace Corps at a meeting in Ohio in 1960.
1981 February: The University establishes the Biomedical Research Institute to foster medical-related research. Over the next decade, institute members attract nearly $4 million in research grants. September: Responding to a shortage of nurses, UW–Parkside and UW–Milwaukee enroll the first students in a cooperative program that allows students to earn a UW–Milwaukee nursing degree by taking courses at UW–Parkside. The program becomes a model for the UW System and beyond.
1983 June: Researcher Ross Gundersen demonstrates for the first time that a substance released by developing muscle tissue exerts an attraction on growing spinal nerves illustrating that growing nerves communicate with the muscles to which they eventually attach. Fall: The University enrolls a record 6,008 students.
1985 March: Chancellor Alan Guskin accepts appointment as the 17th president of Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He leaves UW–Parkside Sept. 1, ten years to the day of assuming the chancellorship.
1986 July: Sheila I. Kaplan, vice chancellor for academic affairs in the Minnesota State University System, becomes UW–Parkside's third chancellor.
1987 December: Biological sciences Professor Chong-maw Chen is named one of six Wisconsin Distinguished Professors by the Board of Regents. An internationally recognized researcher on plant hormones and genetic engineering, Chen is reappointed a Distinguished Professor in 1993.
1988 September: The Biological Sciences Department is designated a Center of Excellence by the Board of Regents. October: Approval is granted for the University to offer a unique master's degree in applied molecular biology, including study of advanced techniques in cloning, gene splicing and isolating traits on genetic material. December: Professor of engineering science George Perdikaris is named a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor of Applied Science.
1989 February: The UW–Parkside basketball team sets four NCAA records with the new three-point shot during a 121-95 win over Lakeland College: most three-point shots completed by one player (14), most attempts by one team (70), most completions by one team (25) and most three-point attempts by both teams (77).
1991 February: U.S. Marine Maj. Joseph Small III, a 1975 business graduate, is shot down while patrolling the skies over Kuwait during the Gulf War. Small was captured by Iraqi soldiers, beaten savagely and held for nine days before being released.
1991 March: University officials travel to Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia to initiate an exchange agreement between UW–Parkside and Georgian Technical University. Later in the year, Chancellor Kaplan and Vice Chancellor John Stockwell travel to Ile-Ife, Nigeria to pen final details of an exchange agreement with Obafemi Awolowo University
1991 April: A human-protein experiment coordinated by Associate Chemistry Professor Z. Richard Korszun launches into orbit aboard space shuttle Atlantis. Korszun invented a specialized device to "grow" crystallized human protein samples in the weightlessness of space. It is hoped the crystals will provide "road maps" to the structure of proteins.
1991 September: Ken "Red" Oberbruner, who compiled a 332-229 record as UW–Parkside's baseball coach from 1970 to 1991, dies. He was the seventh winningest coach in NCAA Division II baseball. His son, Jamey, was inducted into the UW–Parkside Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995 for his stellar baseball career from 1978-81.
1992 July: Two race walkers with UW–Parkside ties compete in the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Michelle Marter-Rohl, '89, English, finishes 20th. Debi Spino-Lawrence, a member of the University's race walking team, finishes 26th. Marter-Rohl went on to compete in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, finishing 14th in the 10k race. She had the best time of the U.S. race walkers.
1992 August: Coach Gary Barnett brings his Northwestern Wildcats football team north for a new preseason tradition: Camp Kenosha. The team continues to hold its fall drills at UW–Parkside.
1992 Fall: History professor Thomas Reeves publishes, "A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy." The book spends weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It has been published in France, Germany, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
1992 Fall: The University becomes home to a national computer Olympics. Coordinated by math professor Donald Piele, the competition is used to pick the United States team to compete in the annual International Olympiad in Informatics. By 1998, Piele's teams would win four gold medals, six silver medals and nine bronze medals.
1993 May: The University awards its first honorary doctor of humane letters degree to Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and a frequent visitor to campus. May: After seven years as chancellor, Sheila Kaplan accepts the presidency of Metropolitan State College of Denver, an 18,000-student baccalaureate institution.
1994 April: Eleanor J. Smith, vice president for academic affairs and provost at the William Paterson College of New Jersey, is named UW–Parkside's fourth chancellor at a Board of Regents meeting held on the UW–Parkside campus. Smith assumes her new post in mid-May 1994.
1994 A project that grew from the 25th anniversary celebration, the UW–Parkside Nature Trail includes 10 geologic and historic markers around the nearly 700-acre (2.8 km2) campus. Eventually, the project will include a printed guide and signs marking more than 140 species of trees.
1996 May: The University of Wisconsin–Parkside is granted professional accreditation of its School of Business by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The AACSB, headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., is generally regarded as being the world's most prestigious accreditor of business school programs. Only approximately 25 percent of all business schools in the country are accredited by the AACSB.
1996 Fall: International Business Machines (IBM) donates an AS/400 computer worth $353,000 to UW–Parkside as part of a program to increase the number of employees with experience on the popular server. The computer is to be integrated into the management information systems curriculum in the Department of Business. It is the same computer that helped run the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta.
1997 May: After three years as chancellor, Eleanor Smith resigns her post. Gordon Lamb, president emeritus of Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, is named interim chancellor by UW System President Katharine Lyall.
1998 March: The UW System Board of Regents names John Keating, provost of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, UW–Parkside's fifth chancellor. Keating's extensive credentials include establishing two branch campuses at the University of Washington. Keating begins as chancellor July 1.
2008 January 17: Chancellor Keating announces his resignation, effective in August 2008. During Keating’s tenure, UW–Parkside was one of 64 universities nationwide, and the only one in Wisconsin, to be designated as an “engaged campus” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
2008 (Summer) The named successor to Chancellor Keating, Robert Felner, was asked to resign before taking leadership of the university. As former dean of the University of Louisville’s College of Education and Human Development, he was the focus of a federal criminal investigation into possible misuse of funds. The investigation included an FBI raid at Parkside of the papers Felner had shipped in preparation for his new job.
2008 August 25: Lane R. Earns begins his tenure as UW–Parkside Interim Chancellor.
2009 August 1: Deborah Ford begins her tenure as the sixth UW-Parkside Chancellor.
2011 February 1–3: The school is shut down for two and a half days because of a massive snowstorm, which dumps nearly two feet of snow on the area the night of February 1. Many professors cancel classes on an individual basis even before the closing at 3:00 PM on the 1st, in anticipation of the difficulties ahead. Nearly 1000 students who live on campus are stranded, though the Brickstone Grill and Eatery remains open with limited service to provide for their needs.
