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Coming of Age — Part 3
The school has always been committed to academics and research,
but not many people have known this, says Douthitt. Many parents
allowed their daughters to attend the home economics program, adds
the dean, because they thought the young women would learn how to
be wives and mothers.
"Many alumnae have said that they didn't choose this program,
that their parents did," she recalls. "In many ways, the
program made it acceptable for these young women to go to college."
What parents didn't realize, says the dean, is that their children
learned much more than vocations.
As the program pushed toward establishing an identity that reached
beyond home economics, administrative moves altered its course.
In 1908, the board of regents voted to transfer the department
from L&S to the College of Agriculture. The change also brought
several physical moves — from South Hall to Agriculture Hall,
then to the attic of Lathrop Hall, and finally to the east wing
and fourth floor of the Home Economics and UW Extension building,
completed in 1914.
"Moving us to the [agriculture] school was a major change,"
says Douthitt. "We took on more of a focus on homemaking."
But during this time, the department experienced its greatest growth
in terms of courses, space, and outreach efforts. While it did not
add a biochemistry program — as had been proposed by the department's
second director in an effort to retain students interested in the
sciences — it did create new majors in communications, and
child development. It also added new facilities: practice cottages,
a tearoom and cafeteria, and a nursery school that grew into today's
preschool laboratory.
In all these places, students gained hands-on experience. At the
nursery school, for instance, dietetics students prepared meals
and watched the children eat, and students in child development
observed the children at play and wrote reports on what they learned.
The preschool also extended the department's growing commitment
to outreach. Started at the behest of neighborhood mothers in 1926,
the nursery school provided a learning environment and day care
program for young children, whose parents were not necessarily affiliated
with the university. As society's needs changed, so too did the
preschool.
"In the old days, it was part time, part year," says
Leckwee, the current director. "But as society changed —
as more mothers went to work — we needed to be more flexible."
Today, the preschool offers full-day programs throughout the year.
Furthermore, growing interest in early childcare for babies and
one-year-olds encouraged SoHE in 1999 to open an infant program
at the preschool's second site, on Madison's west side. Leckwee
says, "We're staying with the times."
Under the auspices of the College of Agriculture, the department
served the community in other ways. It reached wives and mothers
throughout the area with the radio show called the Homemakers'
Program, which eventually aired five times a week on WHA. Students
were involved in the sanitation, quarantine, and feeding of female
influenza patients in 1918. And, during World War II, some students
organized a Clothes Clinic to teach others how to repair and reuse
clothing for conservation purposes.
By 1941, the home economics department had 675 students. And, in
1947, it admitted its first male student, Paul Cleary '55 (he served
in the Marine Corps from 1950 to 1953). He was not expected or even
allowed to live in the practice cottage, at that time called the
Home Management House.
Because of its continued growth, the university regents voted to
turn the department into a school within the College of Agriculture.
Effective July 1, 1951, it became the School of Home Economics with
four departments: clothing and textiles, foods and nutrition, home
management and family living, and related art. Four years later,
the school added a fifth: home economics education and extension.
A campuswide advisory committee, however, suggested a different
direction for the new school. In 1967, it recommended the school
change its name to one that put more emphasis on research, and become
an independent unit within the university. So within the next six
years, the School of Home Economics switched to the name of School
of Family Resources and Consumer Sciences, converted the remaining
practice cottage into office and classroom space, and became an
autonomous unit.
1, 2, 3, 4,
5
On Wisconsin Home
Page
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Coming of Age
- Parents of newborns and toddlers can access Professor David
Riley's research-based advice by reading his instructional
newsletters.
- In 2003, the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
will mark its 100th
anniversary. Learn about the people and events that made the
school the vibrant educational and research institution it is
today
- Trace the history
of human ecology through archival material from one of SoHE's
competitors for students, Cornell University.
Fall 2003 Features
Alumni News
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