History 450—Re-Enactment: Joe Klotsche

 Guest post by Daniel Bauman

For our class project exploring UWM in the 1960s and specifically the creation of the Olson Planetarium, I will be re-enacting J. Martin “Joe” Klotsche. He was at the center of the expansive

growth of UWM in that time period, and his thoughts and words provide good context for understanding the institution that would house the Planetarium.

Klotsche spent 47 of his 88 years on the landlocked Kenwood campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and its preceding institutions. He graduated high school at the age of 13 in Scribner, Nebraska, and, from that moment on, remained connected with academia for his remaining 75 years, as a student, faculty member and an administrator. Even in retirement, he dedicated time and energy looking back and writing about his life on campus, publishing several pieces. Joe Klotsche has over 10 publications to his name, ranging from international affairs, to his ideal of an urban university, and his own memoirs and reflections on being an educator. His early interests were in International Affairs (which he would continue to indulge), but as his role in campus life grew he would pursue the ideal of a major urban university, administratively and intellectually. The “urban mission” of such a university would confront the realities of the 1960s head-on, and Klotsche would lead UWM through anti-war protests and a significant push by BIPOC students and community members for more inclusion on campus.

Joe Klotsche was committed to developing UWM throughout his entire 27-year career as an administrative leader, which began, if not in UWM’s name yet, in 1946 as President of Wisconsin State Teachers College-Milwaukee. He was characterized by many as approachable, and as an administrator we can see him as being highly pragmatic. Over the years of Klotsche’s leadership UWM’s autonomy would steadily grow, but Klotsche always was aware of having to work productively with some form of leadership in Madison to produce desired outcomes in the shape of UWM’s growth. He was a self-proclaimed advocate for student and faculty rights, but acted in efforts to protect the institution, either from state leadership or from situations he felt threatened the university ideal from within campus or community, as exemplified by his actions around the social unrest of the 1960s.

Klotsche stepped down as Chancellor of UWM in 1973, or rather aged out as 65 was the maximum age for an administrator. He stayed on as a faculty member in the History Department until 1978. He died in 1995.

References

Klotsche, J. Martin. Confessions of an Educator: My Personal and Professional Memoirs. Milwaukee, WI: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1985.

Klotsche, J Martin. “Oral History Interview with J. Martin Klotsche”. Interview by Frank Cassell. UW-Milwaukee Oral History Project Records, 1981-1990, April 21, 1981,University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archives, UWM Libraries, https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/uwmoh/id/56/rec/1.

Schroeder, John H. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: The First Sixty Years. Milwaukee, WI: UWM Foundation, 2018.

UWM Office of the Chancellor—Past Chancellors - https://uwm.edu/chancellor/about/past-chancellors/.