UW-Madison Public Affairs School Gets $30 Million Honoring Herb Kohl

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs has found its future home at one of the college’s oldest buildings — thanks to a $30 million donation from the late U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl’s philanthropic foundation.

The public affairs school is currently sprawled across 28 different locations on UW-Madison’s nearly 1000-acre campus. The gift from Herb Kohl Philanthropies will turn the university’s Music Hall into Herb Kohl Hall and also help support school programming.

The “state-of-the-art” center is expected to open in 2029.

The project comes as the School of Public Affairs continues to expand. The master of public affairs program is nationally ranked. This fall, it will introduce an undergraduate major, expecting to enroll nearly 400 students in coming years. That would put it in the top 10 percent of majors at the university.

The university originally built the Victorian Gothic building in 1878 to serve as an assembly hall and library. Students gathered there for dances, graduations and occasionally to hear major political speakers of the time.

It’s currently home to the voice and opera program at the music school and serves as a music venue. But the building is deteriorating. It has no sprinklers and is not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Susan Yackee is the director of the School of Public Affairs. She says the funding will modernize the space while keeping its historic features.

“When you walk in the front door of the new Herb Kohl Hall building, you could turn to your left and go into this beautiful, large auditorium for class, or you could turn to the right and go to this amazing student centered space where they’ll be able to interact with our staff in order to get the services and advising that they need,” Yackee said.

She says she is excited to expand the programming during a time when “there are so many public policy problems confronting our state, our nation, our world.”

“We really think that our ability to offer this new undergraduate major in public policy and train hundreds and thousands of future public policy leaders is part of the solution,” Yackee said.

For 35 years, the school only taught graduate students. A $10 million donation from Kohl in 2019 helped expand to offer undergraduate certificates in public policy and health policy. More than 1,000 students enrolled in undergraduate courses during the 2024-25 school year. Since then, the school has awarded more than 800 certificates.

The 2019 donation also created the Kohl Initiative, a program to help expand public outreach, train future public leaders and support influential research. It will continue to be funded by another $10 million of Herb Kohl Philanthropies’ recent gift to the school.

JoAnne Anton is the nonprofit’s president and CEO. She says the school is helping to expand the Wisconsin Idea, a philosophy meaning the school’s education and research goes beyond the classroom to reach everyone in the state.

“(The gift) honors the legacy of someone who was a really great public servant and really did embody the teachings that the La Follette school goes to work every day to deliver,” Anton said.

Listen to the WPR report

UW-Madison’s public affairs school receives $30M honoring Herb Kohl, finds new home was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.