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| Home : Volume 32 : Winter 2006 | |
| William Steuber bequeaths nearly $2 million to improve communications education for engineers | |
William Steuber |
William F. Steuber was a University of Wisconsin graduate and the author of three books, eight educational motion pictures, and numerous news and feature articles. In 1992 he provided a generous endowment to the UW-Madison College of Engineering for the Steuber Prize for Excellence in Writing. The top prize in the competition has been as high as $5,000.
Steuber died in October 2005. He stipulated in his gift that upon his death the first prize in the William F. and Marie D. Steuber Prize for excellence in writing be increased to cover the cost of current tuition and fees plus as much as $10,000.
“This is a tremendous gift to the College of Engineering,” says Dean Paul Peercy. “William Steuber had a passion for writing and knew how critical good communication is to the practice of engineering. His legacy will be that UW-Madison College of Engineering students will graduate with not only world-class engineering skills, but with excellent communication skills as well.”
Born in 1904 in Prairie du Sac, William Steuber moved to Madison in 1911 and attended UW-Madison in the late 1920s. After interrupting his engineering studies to work in Canada as a surveyor, Steuber returned to Madison and resumed his school work, this time as an English major. While attending classes three days a week and working the other two as a draftsman and Dane County surveyor, Steuber also found time to cover local events using his 35 millimeter camera. He had the privilege of filming the honorary reception for Charles Lindbergh held at Camp Randall Stadium in 1927, and in that same year mounted the Wisconsin Capitol Building dome to film the regilding of the statue, Wisconsin, that sits atop the dome.
After graduating from UW-Madison in 1930, Steuber began working full time as a draftsman and surveyor for Dane County. He joined the Highway Safety Promotion Department in 1937 and began producing brochures, pamphlets and films on highway safety. He returned to an engineering role in the Wisconsin Division of Highways in 1939 and was promoted to chief of public information in 1954 and to assistant highway engineer in 1958. He retired in 1969 as the second-ranking person in the Division of Highways.
Joel C. Moser (left), winner of the 1996 Steuber Writing Prize, is shown with contest sponsor William Steuber. |
While pursuing his career at the Division of Highways, Steuber wrote his three books. The first book, Us, Incorporated, published in 1953, is the story of boyhood adventures in a small Midwestern city. His second — and most famous book — The Landlooker, details the events of the tragic Peshtigo Fire of 1871. It won awards from the Friends of American Writers and the American Association of State and Local History. Steuber's third book is about the Menominee Indians 300 years before the white man settled in this area.
Steuber established his writing prize out of his conviction that writing is important to engineers, proclaiming: “The combination of my engineering and writing skills gave me a tremendous advantage in my profession and work. Through this prize, I want to give UW engineering students the same opportunities and advantages I had because of these two skills.”
Content by perspective@engr.wisc.edu
Date last modified: 03-Feb-2006
Date created: 03-Feb-2006
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