Dr. Joan Bischoff and the late Dr. Egal Feldman

Between them, Dr. Egal Feldman and Dr. Joan Bischoff devoted 42 years to sharing their knowledge and wisdom with students at UW-Superior.

Now, through a significant gift to Campaign Superior: Higher Expectations, their legacy to education will continue far into the future. When finished, UW-Superior’s new academic building will include a seminar room named for the late Dr. Feldman and another named for Dr. Bischoff.

“The idea of seeing a room with Egal’s name and one with my name is tremendously exciting. It would make Egal feel good, and it makes me feel good,” said Dr. Bischoff, a professor emeritus now living in New Jersey. “Being able to help future students get an education – that’s exciting.”

Excitement about education is a common thread in the lives of both Dr. Feldman and Dr. Bischoff.

Dr. Feldman grew up and was educated in New York City. After earning his doctorate, he decided to move beyond the East Coast and spent six years teaching in Texas. In 1966 he landed a job teaching history at Wisconsin State University Superior, as UW-Superior was then known.

“Egal loved the place,” Dr. Bischoff said. “When he came there, the chancellor was Jim Dan Hill. The university was much different back then. But Egal enjoyed imparting knowledge to students and seeing some of them deciding to major in history and go on to teach it.”

In addition to his teaching, Dr. Feldman was a noted scholar. His doctoral thesis about New York City’s clothing trade was published as a book in 1960. He wrote three more books while a professor at UW-Superior. His fifth book, “Catholics and Jews in Twentieth-Century America” was published in 2001, seven years after his retirement and three years before his death. He also researched and wrote dozens of essays, scholarly articles and book reviews.

Dr. Bischoff described him as “a painstaking scholar who paid tremendous attention to detail in his writing.”

Dr. Bischoff’s own academic career also began on the East Coast. The native of New Jersey attended college and earned her advanced degrees in Pennsylvania. She spent more than two decades teaching at the high school and university levels there before joining UW-Superior’s English faculty in 1988. She met Dr. Feldman in Sundquist Hall, where they both had offices. They were married in 1992.

She recalled with fondness the “amazing variety of students in every class” at UW-Superior, from 18-year-olds to those who were middle-age.

“The wide variety of their economic circumstances, their cultural backgrounds, the ages of my students – all excited me tremendously,” she said. “I found the students at UW-Superior genuinely the nicest students I had ever taught anywhere.”

As a teacher, she preferred an informal approach in class, with plenty of discussion among the students. She particularly enjoyed working with the students who served as tutors in the university’s Writing Center.

“I’d love to be remembered just as a good teacher,” said Dr. Bischoff, who retired in 2002. “My interest was in taking an assignment and organizing a discussion about it with my students. I loved re-reading the material I taught; I loved to see my students’ response to it.”

Both Dr. Feldman and Dr. Bischoff were longtime donors to the UW-Superior Foundation.

“From the time I first came to Superior, I began giving money to the Foundation every year, and I believe Egal also was doing so at that time,” Dr. Bischoff said. “I couldn’t have gone to college without scholarships and loans, so to be able to give money to help some other student go to college was very near to my heart.”

“Egal didn’t get any scholarships, so he had to put himself through college from his bachelor’s degree to his doctorate. He knew how wonderful it would have been to have gotten help. So both of us felt strongly about helping the students we had at UW-Superior, many of whom we knew were having difficulty raising tuition.”

The subject of making a large gift to Campaign Superior arose several months before Dr. Feldman’s death while the couple was taking their daily walk around campus.

“We walked past the Health & Wellness Center,” Dr. Bischoff recalled, “and, out of the blue, Egal said to me ‘You know, we really ought to think about making a sizeable gift to the university because of the way we feel about the place and because they’re starting this new campaign.’ ”

They never spoke about the topic again. After Dr. Feldman’s passing, Dr. Bischoff wanted to do something to honor him. Recalling his remark, she contacted Assistant Chancellor Jill Schoer. They reviewed the Campaign’s naming opportunities, and Dr. Bischoff decided to make a gift to support two seminar rooms in Swenson Hall.

“Egal spent so much of his time in the library doing research. I thought a seminar room – for student seminars and individual study – would be fitting,” Dr. Bischoff said.

“I feel very, very privileged to use some of Egal’s and my money to be part of this,” she added. "I can't imagine anyone whose life has been touched by UW-Superior -- whether that person worked there, was a student there, or sent a son or daughter there -- who wouldn't want to be a part of the Campaign. What a wonderful thing to give to education, because education goes on forever."