📚 DOGE cuts come for WI Humanities

🏗️ Construction FINALLY Begins on UW Engineering Building

• After long delays and a protracted political funding battle at the Capitol, UW-Madison finally broke ground on a new engineering building.
• School officials say the building, named the Phillip A. Levy Engineering Center, will allow them to accept an additional 1,000 engineering students each year. The center is expected to cost $419 million, paid for with $150 million in private donations and the rest coming from the state.
• Some context: The funding was the subject of heated negotiations in the state Legislature, with Republicans demanding cuts to the Universities of Wisconsin system’s DEI initiatives in exchange for funding. [WPR]

🦒 Things Aren’t Looking Up For New Giraffe Exhibit

• Henry Vilas Zoo officials say construction has been delayed on a new $21 million giraffe exhibit.
• The original plan was for work to start this spring, but now bids won’t go out until this summer, and the start of construction could be delayed until 2026.
• In the meantime, the zoo’s 16-year-old giraffe, Eddie, will stay at a Green Bay-area zoo where he was transferred in 2023. [Cap Times]

📚 WI Humanities Future in Doubt After Funding Cut

• Wisconsin Humanities, a nonprofit that funds programming to libraries, museums, historical societies, and veterans’ groups across Wisconsin, will close “very soon” after the National Endowment for the Humanities abruptly canceled the funding the organization depends on, officials said.
• The nonprofit’s funding was approved through September in the most recent federal funding bill signed into law in March by President Donald Trump. But three weeks later, NEH announced that it was ending all funding to states.
• 🎧 Dig deeper: Jessica Becker, director of communications for Wisconsin Humanities, talked to City Cast Madison host Bianca Martin about the devastating impact of the funding cuts. [Wisconsin Humanities, Isthmus, 🎧 City Cast Madison]

There are some famous people, like Chris Farley or Frank Lloyd Wright, who are automatically associated with Madison.

But there are a lot more celebrities past and present who have local ties you might not know about. Even the most devoted fans of sex advice columnist Dan Savage, who was on the City Cast Madison podcast last week, might not have known he spent a couple of formative years in Madison as a young man.

Here’s some other famous folks you might not have realized were hometown heroes.

Kamala Harris

The former U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate spent two years living on Madison’s west side as a young child. She fondly remembers her time here in the late 1960s, including being pushed by her parents in a stroller in protest marches.

Carrie Coon

The acclaimed actress, who starred in the most recent season of “The White Lotus,” studied theater at UW-Madison and acted in several plays at American Players Theatre in Spring Green. “It was an extraordinary time in my life,” she told the Cap Times in 2018.

Yung Gravy

As a UW-Madison student, Matthew Hauri had an eventful senior year in 2017, getting a marketing degree and signing with a record label as the rapper Yung Gravy. “A lot of the business and marketing stuff has really stuck with me and helped me,” he told On Wisconsin.

Georgia O’Keeffe

The famous modernist painter was born on a farm in Sun Prairie in 1897 and attended high school in Madison for a couple of years, before the family moved to Virginia.

Bradley Whitford

If you’ve noticed the “West Wing” speaking out a lot about Wisconsin politics, that’s because he grew up in Madison and attended Madison East High School. Bonus points: he’s married to actress Amy Landecker (“Transparent”), who studied theater at UW-Madison.

Thornton Wilder

The author of the classic play “Our Town” was born in Madison in 1897, but didn’t stay long. His father was a U.S. diplomat, and his kids followed him as he was stationed around the world, including spending part of their childhoods living in China.

Clyde Stubblefield

The former drummer for James Brown has had his beats sampled by literally hundreds of artists, but never got his due. But he lived in Madison for decades until his death in 2017, playing around town and mentoring younger musicians.