Edwin Young, the former head of both UW-Madison and the University of Wisconsin System, died Monday of natural causes at the age of 94. Young served as chancellor at UW-Madison from 1968 to 1977, which was one of the most turbulent eras on campus due to the anti-war demonstrations. He was heading the university on Aug. 24, 1970, when Madison was rocked by a bomb exploding outside Sterling Hall.
“His chief recognition, for better or worse, was that he kept the university open in 1970, ?71 and ?72 even during all the student disturbances,” says David Johnson, a UW-Madison emeritus professor of economics who first got to know Young during the 1950s. “There were calls by some to close it down, but he refused. He held the university together.”