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University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (U.S.)

image located by Jan Mertens, 22 November 2008
source: www4.uwm.edu/cuts/mineta.html

Background
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Background

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was originally a private institution known first as the Downer Normal School and then as Downer College, and was devoted exclusively to teacher training. It was taken over by the City of Milwaukee during the Great Depression of the 1930s and was known as Milwaukee-Downer College, still with its focus on teacher training. During the 1950s, as was the case with so many municipal institutions of higher education around the US the Milwaukee city government could no longer afford to maintain the college and it was incorporated into the University of Wisconsin System, where it went under many names - Downer Teachers' College of the University of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Downer, and eventually since the early 1970s as the University of Wisoonsin-Milwa\ukee. It has long been the hope of the University of Wisconsin System that the Milwaukee branch could be developed into becoming the co-eqaual of the main Madison campus of the university, but although the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukeee has been a full service university for over thirty years it still has a very long way to go before it can achieve parity with the Madison campus. One of its most famous graduates was the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, who as Goldie Myerson received a Diploma in Elementary Education (in the 1920s most primary or elementary teacher sin the US received Diplomas rather than actual bachelor's degrees).

The story is told that when Meir was the Israeli Prime Minister she visited Milwaukee and was taken to the old school where she taught. In the 1920s the school was a Ghetto school serving the large immigrant community of Jews, Italians, and Slavs of various nationalities. In the 1970s it was still a Ghetto school, but its student population was now entirely black.

Upon entering the school building, Meir's first comment was, 'My God! They still haven't painted the place!.'

Ron Lahav, 23 November 2008

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image located by Jan Mertens, 22 November 2008
source: bookstore.uwm.edu