Who knew?

Wisconsin Week’s Josh Orton finds answers to questions of campus interest posed by faculty and staff. We can’t promise to answer all questions submitted, but we’ll try to pick those most likely to be of interest to the largest number of readers. Send queries to wisweek@news.wisc.edu.

Q: Is it true that the Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow once studied here?
Yes, but you didn’t see him lurking around the English Department. David Null of University Archives came across proof of Bellow’s enrollment recently while helping a Harvard researcher with a history of the American Anthropological Association. In the records amidst a group of undergrads of the 1920s and ’30s, who all went on to become widely known anthropologists, was the name of anthropology graduatstudent Saul Bellow.

“And after some checking, we found out that he did indeed enroll as a graduate student in anthropology in 1937 and apparently only stayed here one semester,” Null says. “According to his entry in Contemporary Authors, he abandoned his studies here because “every time I worked on my thesis, it turned out to be a story.'”

Bellow lived at 112 S. Mills St., a house that’s still standing. The university notes other folks who didn’t graduate — such as Frank Lloyd Wright — among its famous alums, but it seems Bellow has escaped notice until now.

Q: Can students really order a pizza delivery online?
Not only can students e-mail up a 12-inch with extra cheese and pepperoni, but Fran Johnson, a food service manager with University Housing, says calzone, chicken wings and more are on the menu.

Using a system Johnson introduced six years ago, students placed more than 16,000 pickup or delivery orders online to one of two res hall eateries, Ed’s Express or Carson’s Carryout.

When the program was introduced, the technology was less reliable. Johnson recalls such culinary mix-ups as subs with someone else’s pizza toppings. Now, food orders fly directly from the Web-based order form to the kitchen. When a food service worker delivers food to the residence hall room, the student signs for the meal and the WisCard number is verified.

Nationally, some pizza chains offer online ordering in large cities, but not in Madison. Using the streamlined payment system of students’ WisCards, the campus is ahead of the food-service curve, serving a gigantic number of orders. Today, online orders account for 25-30 percent of total sales. Visit: http://www.housing.wisc.edu/foodservice.