Football rivalries, farmland, the Mississippi River — it’s easy to list things that separate UW–Madison from the University of Iowa. As the Badgers prepare to face the Hawkeyes during the Homecoming game this Saturday, we thought we’d reflect on some shared points of pride with our Big Ten neighbor to the west.
- The University of Iowa and UW–Madison were founded just one year, five months, and one day apart. The University of Iowa was founded on February 25, 1847, 59 days after Iowa was granted statehood. The UW was founded on July 26, 1848, 58 days after Wisconsin was granted statehood.
- The 1940 arrival of Bucky Badger on the Midwestern mascot scene helped inspire the creation of the University of Iowa’s Herky the Hawk in 1949. That same year, Bucky made his live debut at the Homecoming football game … against Iowa. (Final score: 35–13 Badgers.)
- Margaret Keyes MS’51 is best remembered for leading the restoration of the University of Iowa’s most famous building, Old Capitol. But before she joined their faculty in 1951, she completed her graduate studies in home economics at the UW.
- Legendary UW football coach and former UW athletics director Barry Alvarez started his collegiate football coaching career as an assistant coach at the University of Iowa from 1979 to 1986.
- Current University of Iowa president Barbara Wilson is a three-time Badger (’79, MA’82, PhD’85). Her research focuses on the social and psychological effects of the media.
