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Thursday, November 29, 2018
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LOCAL BAR GUIDE 2018 page 4
Leckrone ends 50 years on a high note By Dana Brandt STAFF WRITER
Few band directors get the chance to teach the children of former students. Even fewer directors have conducted their students’ grandchildren, maintaining leadership long enough to influence decades of performers. UW-Madison’s Director of Bands Mike Leckrone, a career of 50 years under his belt, has done both. Leckrone, whose career has lasted longer than any other director in the Big Ten, conducted his last halftime show and Fifth Quarter — a tradition he started himself — at Camp Randall last Saturday. Apart from a future appearance at Wisconsin’s bowl game, the Minnesota face-off closed the book on Leckrone’s halfcentury as marching band conductor. He’s part of Badger tradition today, but when Leckrone first arrived on campus in 1969, he was a newcomer trying to fill the shoes of a UW-Madison icon. Leckrone followed in the footsteps of renowned Director of Bands Ray Dvorak, who led the Wisconsin band for 34 years and created such
DANA BRANDT/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Director of Bands Mike Leckrone leaves his half-century career conducting the UW-Madison marching band. traditions as singing “Varsity” and the hand-wave that accompanies it. “[Dvorak] was someone who was very revered by the students,” Leckrone said. “It was
very intimidating because I felt like I was following somebody who had legendary status.” Not only that, campus was in the midst of social transformation
and unrest when Leckrone took the baton. Wearing a uniform and marching was not popular during a time when many students were protesting the Vietnam War, according
to Leckrone. The football team was also deep in a losing streak exceeding 20 games, which Leckrone said lowered interest in the marching band. He fought this lack of excitement by creating an atmosphere where band members could have fun in addition to working hard. He built enthusiasm not only by expanding the band’s role, but by embracing change. Perhaps one of the most impactful changes Leckrone oversaw was the addition of women into the ranks of the marching band in 1974. MaryAnne Thurber and Paula Schultz marched in Wisconsin’s first co-ed band, and Thurber cited Leckrone himself as part of what drew her to audition. “When Leckrone came, [the band] just exploded with excitement,” Thurber said. “Who wouldn’t want to be part of it?” The Wisconsin Marching Band can also thank Leckrone for traditions including the “stop at the top” style of marching — a high-
Leckrone page 3
What makes Wisconsin so terrible for black residents? By Andy Goldstein STATE NEWS EDITOR
GRAPHIC BY MAX HOMSTAD
UW System faculty show support in lieu of budget deficit and faculty cutbacks plaguing UW-Stevens Point.
UWSP supporters prepare for fight By Robyn Cawley COLLEGE NEWS EDITOR
On Nov. 12, UW-Stevens Point Chancellor Bernie Patterson released a proposal that would eliminate six humanities majors. Two weeks later, faculty have propelled a movement calling for his resignation. But for many educators, this is only the beginning. “Hold on tight, there will be a fight,” said Noel Radomski, director and associate researcher at the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education. Earlier this month, members of the UW-Stevens Point community crafted a letter justifying their “lack
of confidence” in the current university administration led by Patterson and Provost Greg Summers. Instead of imparting “forward-thinking” methods to tackle financial uncertainty, the letter discusses how the new Point Forward proposal, which documents the university’s decision to shift their focus towards the workforce, “singles out” lowcost programs to cut, including history and geography. Jim Oberly, a UW-Eau Claire history professor, obliterated the belief that UW-Stevens Point reduction in faculty and programs were a result of decreased funds and labor force variability. “The budget shortfall at
UW-Stevens Point is not the result of a natural disaster such as a hurricane or wildfire,” Oberly said. “It is caused by a long-running policy of austerity with state support for the UW.” More specifically, the letter documented the evolution of the university’s administrative “mismanagement.” Curricular reforms, demographic projections and long-term reductions in state funding together pointed toward improving graduation rates, declining numbers of high school graduates and an ongoing imperative to cut spending. Upon obtaining his posi-
UWSP page 3
Wisconsin is home to a variety of stereotypes: an affinity for dairy, land as flat as can be and of course, overwhelming whiteness. A long agricultural heritage and a lack of geographic excitement explain the first two, but what explains the third? According to a new report, Wisconsin is home to some of the worst places in the country for black people to call home. “Disparities in socioeconomic measures exist to some degree nationwide,” the report states. However, in certain cities, gaps in outcomes along racial lines are chasmic.” Milwaukee and Racine rank respectively as the second and third worst cities in the country for black Americans. With a population of 260,776, Milwaukee’s black residents make up less than half of their white counterparts, and with almost quadrupled unemployment levels. Like many of the other cities that made the list, Wisconsin’s largest city has an aggressive history of segregational housing laws, contributing to a significant level of residential, employment and educational segregation today. “Where you have residential segregation and where you have
large percentages of poor black populations, the schools that service those neighborhoods tend to be substandard relative to white neighborhoods,” Camille Busette, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said of the report. “People tend to hire people like themselves, so when you get residential segregation, you tend to also get employment segregation,” Busette said. The numbers are similar for Racine’s 21,450 black residents, who earn just 42.3 percent of the average white income. “In many respects this is old news,” Afro-American Studies professor Brenda Plummer said. “I guess one of the questions to be asked is why people in Wisconsin don’t see a benefit to the state as a whole in alleviating poverty, unemployment, segregation and poor schools.” The reports damning findings go beyond Wisconsin, with 11 of its bottom 15 cities in the Midwest: six in Illinois, and one each in Minnesota, Michigan and Iowa. With regional inequalities running this deep, the question becomes why the Midwest? “Well why is harder to answer than that it is bad,” UW Madison sociology professor Pamela
race page 3
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”