Board of Visitors
The English Department Board of Visitors is a group of distinguished UW-Madison alumni who have agreed to serve in an advisory capacity to the Department to help us identify needs, make plans for the future, and develop fundraising strategies to enhance our endowment. The Board was established in the fall of 1999 and has fourteen members. It meets twice a year with the Department Chair, selected members of the faculty and staff, and some students for a day and a half. Board members majored in English or studied literature and language, and they have an abiding interest in and commitment to English literary, writing, and language studies. They represent an important link between the University's past and future. Fostering greater communication and cooperation, they form a vital bridge between past and present students, between faculty and alumni, and between the University and the larger communities of state, region, nation in an interconnected and globalized world. Their expertise and commitment valuable human resources for the Department's renewal and growth.
Frederick W. Axley
Fred Axley is currently Of Counsel with McDermott, Will & Emery a Chicago law firm. He is a member of the American, Illinois and Chicago Bar Associations and the Chicago Council of Lawyers. Mr. Axley is the President Emeritus of Friends of the Chicago River, a director of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, President of Shore Line Place, a 44-unit senior citizen residential facility located in Wilmette, Illinois and President of Housing Opportunity Development Corporation, a not-for-profit real estate development company headquartered in Wilmette, Illinois. He is a former trustee of the Wilmette Elementary School Board and of the Illinois Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. He is also on the Board of Chicago Tube and Iron Company and The Ohio Art Company. Mr. Axley earned his BA in English Literature and Economics from the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1963. After service as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, he received his MA in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1966. In 1969, he received his law degree from the University of Chicago.
Philip S. Brown
Mr. Brown is a retired vice-president of Kansas City Southern Industries and the Kansas City Southern Railway Company. He is a 1958 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BS in English Literature. After service in the U.S. Army, he received his law degree from the University of Michigan. He also attended the Program of Management Development of the Harvard Business School. Mr. Brown is licensed to practice law in the state of Missouri and before the Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to joining Kansas City Southern Industries, Mr. Brown practiced law in Kansas City and served as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Jackson County Missouri. He was an officer and member of the board of directors of subsidiaries of Kansas City Southern during his career, including Mid America Cellular Systems, Inc an early participant in the cellular telephone industry; and Midcon Labs. Inc. and Central Biomedia, Inc., producers of animal health products. He was also on the Board of Directors of Rycom Instruments, Inc. a manufacturer of buried cable fault locators for the telephone and power industries.
Mr. Brown has served as Chairman of the Board of the Swope Parkway Health Center which serves low income families in Kansas City Missouri and as President of the Grassland Heritage Foundation which is an organization dedicated to the preservation of native grassland. He is currently serving as a member of the board of the Jewish Community Relations Bureau/AJC, which promotes racial and religious tolerance and functions as an intermediary when problems develop in these areas.
Mr. Brown and his wife Peedee x’62 have been married for 45 years. They have three children and six grandchildren. All live in the Kansas City area.
Alec Y. Chang
Alec Y. Chang graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1987 with a B.A. in English. After graduating from Tulane Law School in 1990, he went to work for Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom LLP as an antitrust associate in its New York office. He continues to practice antitrust law as a partner in Skadden's Palo Alto office. Mr. Chang has served as an associate editor of the Antitrust Law Journal. He also serves on the Dean's Advisory Board of Tulane Law School. In addition, Mr. Chang is a former president of the Asian American Bar Association of New York and currently serves on the boards of the Asian American Law Foundation of New York and the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Silicon Valley.
Nancy Gellman
Nancy Gellman is currently retired but has worn a number of “working hats:” elementary school teacher in Mazomanie, WI and St. Louis, MO; first woman wholesale produce broker in St. Louis; and administrator of a family business. In addition, she is a school volunteer at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School; Trustee of her neighborhood association; founding Board Member and Treasurer of the St. Louis Breast Cancer Coalition; a founding member of the UW Women's Philanthropy Council in St. Louis. and volunteer in several other community agencies. Ms. Gellman was born and raised in Milwaukee, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970 with a BA in English and in 1972 with a MS in Curriculum and Instruction. She met her husband, Bob, at UW when they both played in the UW Marching Band. The Gellman’s daughter also attended UW-Madison. In addition to her volunteer work, Ms. Gellman enjoys bridge, yoga, gardening and reading.
William H. Gofen (Emeritus)
William Gofen graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1952 with a major in English. His first two years in Madison were in the ILS Program which coincidentally were the first two years of ILS. Subsequently, he attended Harvard Business School, served two years in the U.S. Army, and since 1956 has been with the investment counseling firm of Gofen and Glossberg in Chicago. He have been married to Ethel Caro since 1961. They have a daughter and son, and five grandsons. Ethel is a freelance writer and poet, who has published numerous articles on health and travel and books on Argentina and France for teenage readers.
Sally Hands
In 1948, Sally Hands graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BA in English Literature. She has four children and five grandchildren. She has done a variety of volunteer activities including the Junior League in Milwaukee and Chicago. She was a docent for the Chicago Historical Society for twenty-two years. She is involved with her church, and is presently working for Planned Parenthood. Ms. Hands is a governing member of the Chicago Symphony and the Art Institute, and was director of Consolidated Papers, Inc. from April 1991 through April 1999. She enjoys golf, tennis and swimming, and belongs to two book clubs.
Tom Johnson
Tom Johnson graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an English BA degree in 1973. He worked in New York for several years as a utility finance analyst and returned to Wisconsin to earn his MBA in Finance in 1980. He then joined the Milwaukee based securities firm Robert W. Baird & Co. and is now a Senior Investment Consultant. He met his wife Barbara at Baird and she is still there in the role of Director of Fee Based Account Administration. They both enjoy skiing, biking, travel and, of course, reading. They have three pre-college age children (one of whom just might be a budding writer).
Jane Katims
Jane Katims (BA, University of Wisconsin; M.ED, Lesley University) presently teaches contemporary literature and creative writing at The Cambridge Center for Adult Education and at Tufts Institute for Lifelong Learning at Tufts University. She has previously taught at Middlesex Community College, Buckingham, Browne and Nichols, and The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. She has authored numerous radio series for Wisconsin Public Radio, one earning her a George Foster Peabody Award in Broadcasting. In 2004, she was awarded a John Woods Scholarship in Fiction Writing (Western Michigan University) which entitled her to attend The Prague Summer Seminars. She is presently working on a collection of short stories and a novela. A collection of her poetry, Dancing on a Slippery Floor, was published in 2007. She has three children: Joshua, Ben, and Rachel. She lives with her husband, Dan Perlman, in Arlington, Massachusetts.
Lester Graves Lennon
Lester Graves Lennon was born and raised in New Rochelle, NY. He is an investment banker, who, during his 29 year public finance career, has been involved in the issuance of more than $140 billion of municipal debt. His first book of poetry THE UPWARD CURVE OF EARTH AND HEAVENS was published by Story Line Press in 2002. It currently can be found in more than 80 public and university libraries. Mr. Lennon received his B.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin. He is a member of the ACLU, Amnesty International and PEN USA. He lives with his wife and daughter in Altadena, California.
Howard W. Mead
Howard W. Mead graduated form the University of Wisconsin in 1956 with a BA degree, majoring in English. Howard spent a year and a half in graduate school trying to balance the likes of Milton and Shakespeare with the writing of an unpublishable novel. In 1957, the GI Bill money ran out. Howard married Nancy Peterman and took a job as an editor/marketing manager for the UW Press. In the spring of 1961, confidence buoyed by nearly three years experience in the publishing game, Nancy and Howard purchased a nearly bankrupt, one-year-old magazine called Wisconsin Tales and Trails. They changed its name to Wisconsin Trails and spent the next thirty-eight years exploring Wisconsin and describing its wonders.
Thomas Pavela
Thomas Pavela has over 25 years of marketing and sales management experience at high technology and publishing companies, ranging from entrepreneurial start-ups to Fortune 100 and global corporations. Currently, Tom is President of Demand Marketing, a consulting service for high-technology, consumer and educational organizations. His firm specializes in offering marketing services for customer demand creation, product marketing and communications, branding and positioning. He grew up in Wisconsin and received a BA and MA in English from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1973 and 1975. After moving from Boston to California in 1986, Tom received his MBA from Santa Clara University. Tom resides in Foster City with his wife Shelley and two daughters, Aly and Kimmie.
Carl J. Rasmussen
Carl J. Rasmussen is a partner at the Boardman Law Firm in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves on the firm's executive committee and chairs the trusts and estates practice group. Boardman is a firm of forty-nine lawyers with its origins in the law practice of Robert Marion La Follette. Carl is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and former Board Chair of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin. He currently serves in the following positions: Member, Board of Trustees, Dane County United Way Foundation; Editorial Board, Graven Images, published by UW Press; Member, Faith and Order Commission, Wisconsin Council of Churches; President, Madison Literary Club (currently in its one hundred and twenty-sixth year). Carl received his entire post-secondary education at UW-Madison: J.D. (cum laude) 1982; PhD (English) 1978; MA (English) 1973; BA (Honors, English) 1970. He is married to Catherine Crow Rasmussen (UW-Madison, PhD, English, 1981).
Jonathan Stapleton
Jon Stapleton was born in Rhode Island. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in English Honors, and went on to receive his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Jon has been in private law practice in New York City continuously since late 1973, first as an associate and partner in Breed, Abbott & Morgan, then as partner in Arnold & Porter, and. most recently, in Baker and McKenzie. He practices in the areas of corporate law, securities and financial transactions. Jon is married and has one son. His spouse Betsy, who grew up in Michigan's Upper Penninsula, credits his success to his Wisconsin experience. Jon believes she may be right.
Peter Straub (Emeritus)
Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1943. He earned a BA with honors in English from the University of Wisconsin in 1965 and an MA in English Literature from Columbia University in 1966. He is the author of nineteen novels, four collections of shorter fiction and two collections of poetry. Two of his novels (Julia and Ghost Story) have been filmed, and one (The Talisman) is currently in production. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He has won two World Fantasy Awards, four Bram Stoker Awards, the British Fantasy Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and was named Grand Master at the 1998 World Horror Convention. In the same year, he was Guest of Honor at the 19th Annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. He has reviewed fiction for The New Statesman, T.S. and The Washington Post. He and his wife, Susan, lived in Ireland and England for a decade and now live in New York City.
Susan Straub (Emerita)
Susan Straub was raised in Milwaukee and educated at the University of Wisconsin. Beginning her working life with the inaugural Project Upward Bound at UW-Madison, she continued working in college counseling services in Dublin and London. Further trained at the Tavistock (London) in child psychotherapy and social work at New York University, Susan created and continues to direct READ TO ME, an intergenerational reading program focused on teen parents and their babies.
Harry M. Yohalem
Harry M. Yohalem has been General Counsel of the California Institute of Technology since 1991. He graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was a participant in the English Honors Program, and then Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Mr. Yohalem practiced law in New York City with Shearman & Sterling and served as an Assistant Counsel to New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. Thereafter, he held a series of legal and policy positions in the federal government, including Deputy General Counsel for Legal Services and Deputy Under Secretary of the Department of Energy. After leaving the federal government in 1981, Mr. Yohalem practiced law for a decade in Washington, CD as a partner in the New York-based firm of Rogers & Wells.
(rev. 10/2006)
