L&S welcomes 1,000+ during Doors Open Milwaukee

The UWM campus as viewed from above. Brick buildings are surrounded by green trees and lawns, with the blue lake Michigan and partly cloudy blue skies in the background.
The UWM campus welcomed more than 1,000 visitors during Doors Open Milwaukee in September.

Doors Open Milwaukee is an annual event that invites the public to peer behind-the-scenes of iconic Milwaukee buildings and institutions – including those at UW-Milwaukee!

The College of Letters & Science was pleased to throw open its doors on Sept. 28-29 and invite curious onlookers to view some of our exciting facilities, including the Greenhouse, Planetarium, and Thomas A. Greene Geological Museum.

Greenhouse

A corpse flower, a long stalk with green on the bottom and dark brown and purple on top, stands in the foreground with many leafy green plants in the background.
The UWM Greenhouse is home to a Titan Arum, or corpse flower.

The Greenhouse, operated by the Biological Sciences Department, welcomed 1,080 guests to view over 600 species of plants grown, tended, and studied by our students and faculty. The Greenhouse is home to some fascinating specimens, including a Titan Arum, or “corpse flower” nicknamed “Hoot,” which had a rare and smelly bloom in 2021. Located on the roof of the Northwest Quad building, the Greenhouse boasts over 9,000 square feet of classroom, lab, lounge, propagation, and research space.

Planetarium

A planetarium projector, which looks like a round globe attached to mechanical apparatus, stands in the center of a room beneath a white domed ceiling. People sit in reclining chairs around the perimeter of the room.
Guests prepare to watch a show at the Planetarium.

Under the umbrella of the UWM Physics Department, the Planetarium is no stranger to guests: the facility hosts regular shows throughout the year where visitors can gaze at the stars and learn about the intricacies of space. Even so, more than 1,000 members of the public visited the space during the Doors Open event to see the Planetarium’s Spitz A3P optomechanical projector that casts images of the night sky onto the building’s 30-foot domed ceiling. If you missed the Planetarium during the Doors Open event, don’t worry: There are plenty of upcoming shows.

Thomas A. Greene Geological Museum

A group of seven older people stand in a line behind a glass display case holding dozens of rock and mineral samples.
Descendants of Thomas A. Greene gather around their forefather’s collection at the Greene Geological Museum in 2021.

Rock hounds and fossil hunters were especially welcome at the Thomas A. Greene Geological Museum in UWM’s Lapham Hall. Tended by the Geosciences Department, the museum houses the collection of historical Milwaukee businessman Thomas A. Greene, who was an avid fossil hunter himself. More than 660 visitors were able to view the vast mineral collection on display, though most of the museum’s collection of fossils from the Devonian Period are carefully preserved and stored in Lapham Hall. If you missed out in September, the museum is open to the public on weekdays.

We hope you’ll join us for Doors Open Milwaukee again on Sept. 27-28, 2025 to see behind the scenes of Letters & Science.

By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science

Share:

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.