The Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education approved renaming Conrad A. Elvehjem Elementary School after SRSSW alumna Ada Deer ’56. Ada Deer, who died in 2023, was a Menominee leader, tribal sovereignty advocate, and first Native American woman to lead the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She was the first Menominee to earn an undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin and the first Native American to receive an MSW from the Columbia University School of Social Work. She was a key figure in the restoration of federal recognition to the Menominee Tribe and, while at the BIA, she helped set federal policy for more than 550 federally recognized tribes. Beyond her government service, Ada Deer was a teacher and director of the American Indian Studies Program at UW–Madison and served as the inaugural Elder-in-Residence for Native students.

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