Lately, it seems like we’re seeing Bucky everywhere. The UW icon isn’t limited to campus — he’s gone global, as his image traces the extent of the university’s influence. It can be found from the Great Wall of China to London’s Big Ben.

As education, science, and commerce become increasingly internationalized, UW-Madison and its alumni are playing a larger role than ever on the world stage. Through a variety of initiatives in 2005–06, WAA worked to make that role even more effective.

In the last year, WAA helped create a series of connections between the university and the international community, as well as among our alumni overseas. In April, we helped coordinate a reception at Bio 2006, the world’s largest biotechnology conference. Held in Chicago, Bio 2006 brought in scientific, governmental, and business interests from around the world. WAA worked with the university’s Office of Corporate Relations, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the Wisconsin Technology Network, and the University Research Park, as well as the state’s Department of Commerce, to make sure that the UW’s leading biotechnology research found an audience with businesses both in the U.S. and abroad.

And to benefit education at the UW, WAA helped identify donors — including food and pharmaceutical giant Kikkoman and the Central Japan Railway Company — to help fund a Japanese language floor in Adams Residence Hall. WAA also helped forge the connections that would enable the university’s new International Academic Internship Initiative to line up internships for UW-Madison students at Toshiba and the Central Japan Railway Company.

Among alumni themselves, 2005–06 was “all about chapter rebuilding,” according to Kim Santiago ’88, WAA’s Asia coordinator. “We really wanted to help international graduates get a stronger structure and organization and make a commitment to holding regular events.”

This has meant a renewed focus on coordinating WAA events in international locations — such as a May event in London. When Chancellor John D. Wiley MS’65, PhD’68 was in England for the board meeting for the Worldwide University Network, WAA hosted a reception in the British capital, bringing dozens of alumni from around the nation together to meet with the chancellor and other UW representatives.

“The Wisconsin Idea increasingly means that the boundaries of the university aren’t just the state, they’re the whole world,” says WAA president and CEO Paula Bonner MS’78. “By keeping vital contact with international alumni alive, we’re in a position to help the university realize its global potential.”