what is the history of uw
History of the Department. The UW Colleges Department of History traces its origins to 1964, when the Board of Regents and state legislature approved the establishment of the UW Center System. Prior to that event the historians who taught at many of the two-year campuses had been members of the UW-Madison History Department. When all the stateâs two-year campuses were merged in 1972, the department was merged temporarily with Political Science.