Editorial: UW Waisman Center – “A Game Changing Gift”

A boost to research to help children with disabilities.

UW WAISMAN CENTER – “A GAME CHANGING GIFT”

08/02/12

The University of Wisconsin Madison has, to its great credit and good fortune, been the recipient of such high profile, big name philanthropy, that some of the smaller stuff gets lost. Not that a multi-million dollar gift is small. In fact Dr. Richard Morse’s gift from the estate of his parents is particularly important to us because it is going to fund research into childhood mental health and developmental disabilities in the Waisman Center.

Such study is what the Waisman Center does and it is among the best in the world at it. Yet the Center remains confusingly under the radar as a UW Madison asset whose work is so important and so necessary. This gift will create a new multi-disciplinary society of scholars, an approach that has proved highly successful elsewhere on campus.

Waisman Center director Marcia Seltzer calls the gift a game changer. That is especially meaningful to us because the game it’s changing is the quality of life for kids with disabilities.