When he died in 1999, George L. Mosse’s friends and colleagues wanted to name the Humanities Building after him — even if he wasn’t known to like the building very much.
But the chairman of the University of Wisconsin history department at the time knew Mosse appreciated a good joke, Mosse’s friend and UW history professor emeritus Stanley Payne said. And so the UW System Board of Regents approved dedicating the building after him, honoring the legacy he left behind as a professor with personality and a big voice.