Dave Cieslewicz fits the definition of a true Madisonian. From being a University of Wisconsin graduate, former mayor of Madison and now an adjunct associate professor of geography and political science at UW, Cieslewicz’s career has come full circle. As mayor, he worked in the politics and functioning of cities, and now as an educator he shares that knowledge with his students.
Dave as an Educator
Although he is known better for his political career, Cieslewicz told The Badger Herald he has some background as an educator. He taught short courses in urban regional planning during his eight-year stint as mayor.
He now teaches Geography 304, Introduction to City, as well as a seminar on the Politics and Policy of Green Urbanism that is a part of Political Science 401, a Selected Topics in Political Science course.
“I really enjoy the teaching. Not only that, I really enjoy preparing for class. I spend whole day before each class preparing for the next day’s lecture, and I love it,” Cieslewicz said. “I’m a real city geek. This gives me a chance to explore my full geek-ness, my geekitude.”
His plan for the final project in his Introduction to City class consists of the students exploring a real issue that exists in the City of Madison and making a recommendation on how to solve this issue.
Students will be basically using Madison as their own personal laboratory by applying their course work to the real world, he said. But he added his goal as an educator is to teach in a way that allows the students to enjoy the material.
“When I’m teaching, I really want my students to have fun. I think that is the most important thing. I don’t want them to feel like its drudgery, but rather I want to instill in them some of the excitement that I have about cities,” he said.
Cieslewicz also said he has every intention of coming back and teaching again next semester.
He said he is unsure about whether or not he will return to politics, and he really enjoys teaching and interacting with UW students.
Cieslewicz is also doing some consulting work with UW, Meriter and St. Mary’s hospitals. They are looking to redevelop the neighborhoods surrounding those hospitals, he said.
He added he enjoys having more time to pursue writing, having once considered pursuing a journalism early on in his career. He has a blog – Citizen Dave – for Isthmus’ The Daily Page, where he posts his thoughts on Madison and current events.
“I am enjoying my life quite a bit right now, and I have no immediate plans to return to politics,” Cieslewicz said.
One of his students, Makie Matsumoto-Hervol, a sophomore at UW, praised Cieslewicz’s teaching style.
“Dave is great, all around five stars. Constant wit, a splash of occasional self-deprecation as ex-mayor and a genuine love affair with city-related material. There is little not to love about his lectures,” Matsumoto-Hervol said.
In reflecting on how Cieslewicz’s past experience as mayor affects his teaching, Matsumoto-Hervol said his experience as mayor is just an extra punch in an arena of politics that is rarely explained in depth.
“Politics is messy, but Dave emphasizes specifically which parts are messy, and that gives it an interesting spin,” Matsumoto-Horvel said.
Another student, Herschel Kissinger, a UW freshman, agrees the Introduction to City class has been a great experience so far.
Herschel said he feels because Dave’s background is not exclusively academic, he brings something to the classroom that not every professor can bring.
“A lot of anecdotal evidence that he uses is from neighborhoods in Madison, so it makes his knowledge of Madison really applicable,” Herschel said. “Dave has met a lot of the people whose theories we study, so I would definitely say that his experiences as mayor have definitely come through in his teaching.”
Dave as Mayor
Cieslewicz was the 56th mayor of Madison; he served in office from April 2003 until April 2011 after losing a race for a third term to Mayor Paul Soglin. As mayor, he became notable for creating of a municipal minimum wage in 2004, the citywide smoking ban in 2005 and mandating 15 percent of new building units be made affordable to persons of a lower socioeconomic status.
“In some ways being mayor and being a professor are very similar experiences. In both cases you’re trying to convey what are sometimes very complex ideas as clearly as possible,” Cieslewicz said in an email to The Badger Herald. The difference is that as a prof you get an hour and fifteen minutes and as mayor you get 30 seconds if you’re lucky. Also, as a prof your students more or less have to listen to you. That wasn’t always true as mayor.”
One of his goals as mayor was to make Madison a more bike-friendly city. His initiative to make Madison one of the top biking cities in America earned a gold ranking in 2006 from the League of American Bicyclists.
“I really enjoyed the opportunity to get around the city, meeting people from different interests and backgrounds and be[ing] a little bit involved in everything that was going on in the city. One day you would be talking to the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors in the morning and in the afternoon being on Allied Drive meeting with neighborhood residents and having lunch at the fire station. That’s what I enjoyed most,” he said.
He also said having the best parking space was a definite perk.
As mayor of Madison, Cieslewicz faced a couple of great challenges, one of which being “troubled” neighborhoods. He said neighborhoods in the city were changing, especially on the southwest side and crime, along with racial tensions, was starting to increase, he said.
Cieslewicz said he feels he did a reasonably good job of turning those trends around, but the efforts still have a long way to go.
He also said his other biggest challenge as mayor was the perception of city government among the business community.
“Madison has long had a reputation as being anti-business, which I think is unfair, but it’s been a perception nonetheless,” Cieslewicz said. “So we made an effort to turn that around and we were making some progress when we left office.”
Edit: The print version of this story incorrectly stated Dave Cieslewicz was an associate professor, when he is actually an adjunct associate professor. We regret the error.
