Stories recall Denice Denton's wit and passion.

At the Denice D. Denton Memorial Symposium in Madison WI in July, panelists recalled her passion, warmth and humor. A noted scientist, administrator and champion of women, UC-Santa Cruz Chancellor Denton took her own life in June 2006. She was on the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty from 1987 to 1996, when she left to became dean of the college of engineering at the University of Washington.

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First to speak was history professor emerita Dr. Gerda Lerner, a voice for women at UW-Madison back when it took a nude swim-in to open the University's swimming pool to women. The Women's Studies department was located "in a little house so small if we wanted to have a meeting, we all sat on the floor," she said.

One day a young assistant professor knocked on her office door. It was Denton, who told her, "You don't know me, but I heard you are a person on campus who cares about women. I need you as a mentor."

Denton struggled with daily insults and humiliations as a lesbian and the only woman on the whole engineering faculty. Once she and her students got locked out of their lab by a senior faculty member with an attitude; she had to "go public" and appeal to the chancellor to get back in. Lerner helped her learn to fight and win battles within the university structure: "She was very impatient."

Like many women, Denton faced a difficult tenure struggle. Her first application was turned down in 1991 despite two national teaching awards and a $100,000 research grant. Her department woke up after she got an attractive sabbatical offer in Switzerland. In 1992 she became the first woman with tenure in the College of Engineering.

Her final struggle at UW-Madison followed her successful application for a $10 million research grant from the National Science Foundation. Publicity photos showed six male University leaders taking credit for the feat, with no mention at all of Denton. "It was either the last straw or a defining moment," Lerner said.