When Peter M. Weil (’70, JD’74) was a student at UW–Madison in the late 1960s, he studied the past while history was being made around him. Peter, a St. Louis native and a son of German-Jewish refugees who came to the United States in the 1930s, was drawn to the University due to the reputation of its history department and such renowned faculty as George Mosse, Stanley Kutler, Merle Curti, William Appleman Williams (MS’48, PhD’50) and James Willard Hurst.
“I came to UW in the fall of 1966, but it could have been 1956, the way it felt. And then the world changed,” Peter says, referring to the anti-Vietnam War protests and cultural revolution that transformed the country and campus. “It was a wild time. And it was a stimulating time, intellectually, emotionally and culturally. So many of my professors — whether it was Mosse or Kutler — brought what was happening outside into the classroom.”
After earning a master’s degree in history from the University of California at Berkeley, Peter returned to UW–Madison for law school. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he built his career in real estate law and met his wife, Julie, a lawyer originally from Evanston, Illinois. Their two oldest children are lawyers, and their two youngest are a software programmer and an artist. While only two are UW alumni, all four support the Badgers — almost as passionately as Peter.
“You have to understand, Wisconsin is everywhere in our house,” says Julie, holding up her husband’s wrist to reveal his red watch and picking up his red-cased phone. His car interior is red, and their home gym has a Badgers theme, she adds.
For years, Julie and Peter have worked with the UW Foundation & Alumni Association to host more than 60 events, from lectures to alumni meetups to parties for Los Angeles students who have been admitted to UW–Madison, to share the Wisconsin experience with them and their families.
And the Weils have supported a variety of projects across nearly 20 different areas of the University, including the history and political science departments, the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, the UW Hillel Foundation, the Los Angeles branch of the Posse Program, the Law School and the UW Children’s Hospital. Additionally, Peter served on the UW Foundation Board of Directors for 12 years, and in 2009 he received a Distinguished Alumni Award.
Julie and Peter especially like finding opportunities where they can make connections and a tangible difference.
“We try to do things where we have real impact,” Julie says.
A striking example is a trip the couple helped support and coordinate that sent groups of professors to Israel.
“Reading books is one thing, but exposing them to the diversity of points of view is quite another,” says Peter. “These professors were teaching courses to large numbers of students, and the trip gave them a better understanding of Israel, its politics and its people.”
Fostering connections is also at the heart of the Weils’ latest endeavor: the Julie & Peter Weil Study & Event Space in Irving & Dorothy Levy Hall, a new building set to become a hub for the humanities on campus. It will be a safe and welcoming lounge where students can study and collaborate.
“The reason we picked that particular space is because that is a place where faculty and students can congregate,” Julie says. “It’s a unifying space.”
Julie and Peter foresee an exciting future of ideas being sparked and opportunities being created as students, faculty and visitors meet and learn from one another.
“We need to be talking with each other, mixing with each other and seeing each other,” she says.
“That’s a way you can have impact,” adds Peter.
