Five Questions With...

March 21, 2006

Michelle Bright is assistant to the chair of the Department of Sociology. “I’ve called myself a social secretary, yes,” she says.

1. How long have you worked at UW-Madison?

I quit my job at Isthmus on Sept. 11, 2001; thank goodness there was other news that day.

2. What made you want to work at UW-Madison?

Being able to contribute to both 403(b) AND 457 retirement plans!

3. What has made you want to continue working at UW-Madison? What do you like about your job?

Originally trained in acting, what I like best is observation. I’m a secret ethnographer.

4. What is your favorite memory of UW-Madison?

In 2002, Jonathan Miller was in residence at UW-Madison at the Institute for the Humanities; I thought he had the biggest brain in the world. Not only did he co-author and appear in the 1960 review “Beyond the Fringe,” but the man is a director, producer, curator, art critic and a neurologist.

5. If a friend or family member who had never been to campus before was coming for a visit, where would you take them and why?

This January, I was working with a photojournalist, and I took him to the Sewell Conference Room in my building. The room has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Mendota, and the blue from the lake floods the room. When I looked at the proofs, I saw it was the same blue from Marc Chagall’s America Windows.