If you care about humanity, you care about human ecology.
Humanity revolves around relationships, and the quality of our relationships significantly affects our well-being and the quality of lives.
In natural science, “ecology” refers to how living things relate to one another. Human ecology, then, is the science of how people relate to one another.
At UW–Madison, the School of Human Ecology is at the center of education and research about how healthier relationships can support strong families, vibrant communities, financial security, innovative design, and sustainable systems.
When Robin Douthitt arrived at UW–Madison, the continued existence of a School of Human Ecology here was not a given.
The future was filled with what-ifs…What if student enrollment continues to decline? What if funding is cut? What if the school is dismantled?
Human ecology — in Wisconsin, and nationally — was still tied in many people’s minds to the version of home economics popularized by high schools, more so than the science-rooted curriculum taught at universities.
At some universities, schools of human ecology were poorly understood, underappreciated, dismissed as irrelevant, and in danger of being dismantled.
At UW–Madison, the School of Human Ecology’s future was clouded by financial, personnel and enrollment pressures. Its functions were crowded into outdated facilities.
When the previous dean stepped down in 1999, Chancellor David Ward asked Douthitt, a professor of consumer science since 1986, to serve as interim dean.
What if he had chosen someone else? What if Douthitt hadn’t said yes? Where would the School of Human Ecology be today?
At this pivotal moment, the obstacles were many; the skeptics were unconvinced. The school’s new leader had her work cut out for her.
Adding to the urgency: Douthitt herself was experiencing a personal health crisis. She had been diagnosed the year prior with breast cancer.
But Douthitt knew that Human Ecology had a future — that, indeed, Human Ecology was the future.
Crisis meets crusader
As a student in the 1960s, Douthitt had aspired to be a consumer advocate in the “Nader’s Raiders” mold. Her career goals dovetailed with the evolution of human ecology.
The field once known as “home ec” was growing in scope – expanding even more into consumer affairs, retailing, financial literacy, and nonprofit organizations by the time Douthitt’s appointment as dean was made permanent in 2001.
Douthitt’s vision for leading the School of Human Ecology at UW–Madison into the 21st century included new programming and centers focusing on retail commerce, financial security, nonprofit leadership and design excellence.
But it was hard to imagine this vision coming to fruition in aging, crowded facilities where students sat on floors and in stairwells between classes. Douthitt knew the school could not reach its potential with an inadequate building constructed a century earlier to meet yesterday’s needs.
Building the future would require building a building.
Campus fundraisers told Dean Robin Douthitt, “There’s no way you are going to be able to raise money for a building.”
Buildings are expensive. Merely planning a building is expensive. But a generous legacy gift from alumna Elizabeth Metz ’35 was the catalyst that made it possible to develop facilities master plan and set the stage for women philanthropists to make the dream a reality.
The plan envisioned an addition, doubling the size of the Human Ecology building on Linden Drive, allowing all the school’s functions to be located together for the first time — restoring and updating the original structure’s historic features, while fostering the interdisciplinary approach needed to modernize the curriculum.
The bold vision received a chilly reception, however.
Money was tight, Douthitt was told. Campus fundraisers said bluntly that a program like Human Ecology, whose mostly female alumni base was not heavily populated with wealthy donors, would never be able to raise money for a new building.
This only strengthened her resolve. Armed with the compelling vision needed to inspire investment, Douthitt was confident that philanthropy could fuel progress. And she knew just who to ask.
Investment follows vision
For many years, Albert (“Ab”) Nicholas and Nancy Johnson Nicholas — who met and married as UW students — had been among their alma mater’s most generous benefactors. Nancy was an alumna of the UW’s former School of Home Economics. Ab was a business major and Badger basketball star in the 1940s.
In 2004, Robin Douthitt shared a vision for the future that resonated with the Nicholases, particularly with Nancy: a new addition to the Human Ecology Building that would double the school’s size, financed in part through a wall of honor highlighting 100 women who had contributed to the quality of human life.
The rest, as they say, was history.
The Nicholases donated the $8 million lead gift needed to allow the building project to go forward — the largest-ever gift to any human ecology program in the U.S. And “Nancy Nicholas Hall” would be UW–Madison’s first academic building named for a woman. The final cost: $52.5M, and $30M was raised by a collective of hundreds upon hundreds of individual donors.
“This will literally rebuild the foundation of the school.” — Dean Robin Douthitt
But even as the new Nancy Nicholas Hall was about to open, the School of Human Ecology’s future was not secure.
With the building plan in motion, Douthitt oversaw a decade of extraordinary growth in research productivity and community outreach, along with an enhancement of the quality of the school’s academic programs.
A campus study threatened to split its programs among other campus schools and colleges and eliminate Human Ecology as a distinct academic unit. Meanwhile, the prospect of dwindling resources loomed as the governor and legislature considered cutting the University of Wisconsin System’s budget.
And Douthitt, who had overcome daunting obstacles to meet and exceed her audacious goals, was ready to retire. But she had been building toward this moment. Years earlier, by happenstance, Douthitt met a person who possessed the characteristics she hoped to one day see in her successor.
In a well-timed convergence of vision, opportunity and philanthropy, the moment was at hand for a new dean with a fresh perspective to take the program in new directions in its new building.