Two transgender Wisconsin state employees will receive $780,000 after previously being denied healthcare coverage for treatments such as sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy. A jury awarded the damages this week.
October 11, 2018
Top Stories
Jury awards $780,000 to transgender Wisconsin employees denied insurance coverage for transition surgeries
A federal jury in Madison has awarded $780,000 to two transgender state employees who were wrongfully denied insurance coverage of transition surgeries.
Research
Starving bears and snowballs: talking science in a time of denial
A starving polar bear. A US Senator with a snowball. Images of the opposing sides of the issue of climate change.
Organic farming with gene editing: An oxymoron or a tool for sustainable agriculture?
Quoted: Bill Tracy, an organic corn breeder and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, says, “Many CRISPR-induced changes that could happen in nature could have benefits to all kinds of farmers.” But, the NOSB has already voted on the issue and the rules are unlikely to change without significant pressure. “It’s a question of what social activity could move the needle on that,” Tracy concludes.
Starving bears and snowballs: talking science in a time of denial
Noted: In the first article, the authors, experts in science communications, Michael Dahlstrom from Iowa State University and Dietram Scheufele from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, both in the US, argue that we must exert the utmost care in telling the stories of science.
Eerie Florida sky turns purple as Hurricane Michael storms through
Noted: According to research reported in Science Daily, this coloring of the sky is due to a phenomenon called scattering. “Scattering affects the color of light coming from the sky, but the details are determined by the wavelength of the light and the size of the particle,” University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists said.
‘Go Big Read’ event looks at Great Lakes
Each year the University of Wisconsin-Madison picks a common book for the entire campus to read and discuss called the Go Big Read program. The book for the 2018-2019 school year is “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes” by Dan Egan, a Milwaukee Journal reporter and senior water policy fellow at UW-Milwaukee.
Madison brewery, UW-Madison students brew first North American wild lager
Wissconsin Brewing Co., Heineken and University of Wisconsin–Madison students are partnering to brew the first wild lager brewed in North America.
Higher Education/System
UW System continues search for methods to reconcile budget losses
UW System universities have been grappling with how to manage decreased funding for years, while still trying to offer reliable programs and ignite successful job creation. Let’s see how they’ve done.
Six grad students win Fulbright-Hays fellowships
Noted: Last year, two DDRA fellows came from Cornell, and in 2016 there were three. This year, only the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with seven, had more.
At 100 Wisconsin schools, most seniors miss chance for college aid through FAFSA
Noted: In Wisconsin, researchers have raised similar concerns by showing that schools with more low-income families tend to produce lower FAFSA completion rates. Ellie Bruecker, a University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral student who studies FAFSA completion rates, said there hasn’t been much movement in Wisconsin’s numbers.
“Wisconsin’s got some work to do,” she said.
Campus life
A year after it exploded, we’re still saying “#MeToo”
Me Too. These two small words, coined by Tarana Burke in 2006 and brought into the public sphere nearly a year ago by actress Alyssa Milano on Twitter, have since sparked a widespread campaign for women’s rights.
New Film Explores Innovate Work of UW First Wave Students
“This is the type of learning that will light a fire in you. You learn more from the burning in your throat than all the time spent in limbo.”
Those words help kick off “Hip Hop U,” a documentary detailing the rise of hip hop in a college academic setting that is now available on the Wisconsin Public Television website. Hip Hop U, which premiered two weeks ago, tells the story of a one-of-a-kind academic program offered at the University of Wisconsin.
Students share coming out stories on national LGBT awareness day
In light of National Coming Out Day, UW-Madison students reflect on their coming out experience, describing their identities as journies.
UW-Madison testing off-campus alert system, allows parents to receive WiscAlerts
The UW-Madison Police Department will be testing out an off-campus alert to warn students of emergency situations east of campus, while parents of students will now be able to receive WiscAlert notifications for on-campus incidents.
UWPD expands its alerts to parents, off-campus students
To keep the community and parents more informed, the University of Wisconsin–Madison Police Department is launching Off-Campus Alerts and is expanding WiscAlerts to parents.
In Madison, Mickies Dairy Bar serves big helpings with a side of nostalgia
When Earl Edwards – a farm boy from near Cedar Falls, Iowa – arrived at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the fall of 1954 on a wrestling scholarship, he took up residence in a tiny room in the field house at Camp Randall football stadium.
President’s Oak Lives on at UW-Madison
UW-Madison’s oldest tree, cut down three years ago, is getting another lease on life. In 2015, UW-Madison had to say goodbye to the President’s Oak. It was the oldest tree on campus, estimated to be around 300 years old.
State news
Jury Awards Transgender State Workers $780K For Denied Coverage
Two transgender Wisconsin state employees will receive $780,000 after previously being denied healthcare coverage for treatments such as sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy. A jury awarded the damages this week.
Crime and safety
Suspended UW Badger receiver pleads not guilty in sexual assault case
In a brief arraignment hearing Thursday morning in Dane County Circuit Court, suspended Badger receiver Quintez Cephus pleaded not guilty in his sexual assault case.
Cephus pleads not guilty in sexual assault case
A UW-Madison football standout charged with sexually assaulting two women is pleading not guilty. Madison Police say the incidents happened in April.
Suspended Badger Quintez Cephus sues university officials over the timing of disciplinary action
Suspended Badgers wide receiver Quintez Cephus has sued the University of Wisconsin to try to stop an expected expulsion over a sexual encounter with two students in April.
Agriculture
2 Of The World’s Closest Allies Disagree On Dairy With USMCA
AgDay National Reporter Betsy Jibben talks with Harry Van Der Linden, President of Holstein Canada; Chris Galen, Communications Senior Vice President with the National Milk Producers Federation and Mark Stephenson, an Economist and Dairy Policy Expert with UW-Madison.
Arts & Humanities
A New Biography of a Brilliant Playwright Who Died Too Young
Noted: At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where Lorraine studied painting and sculpture and acted in plays, she single-handedly integrated a women’s dorm. Early in her writing life, she was mentored by both W. E. B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes. And yet next to nothing is broadly known about her life, beyond the facts that she was black and a woman and, maybe, that she was a communist and queer.
Health
Older mothers could be traumatising their children, psychologist says
Quoted: Dr Julianne Zweifel, a clinical psychologist at University of Wisconsin, Madison said: “Surveys show the drive to be a mother is so strong they don’t think about the problems their child will face until after the child is born.”
Mothers in 50s ‘risk harming children’
Quoted: “Surveys show the drive to be a mother is so strong they don’t think about the problems their child will face until after the child is born,” Julianne Zweifel, a clinical psychologist at University of Wisconsin, Madison, told the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in Denver.
Athletics
“Jump Around” celebrates 20 years at Camp Randall
The song that shakes the stadium, “Jump Around” is celebrating 20 years after debuting in 1998 at Camp Randall.
As Jump Around turns 20, re-live seven memorable Badgers fourth-quarter rallies in the Jump Around era
Twenty years ago when the Badgers took on Purdue at Camp Randall Stadium, the “Jump Around” tradition was born, a Madison quirk known nation-wide in which the entire stadium channels its inner House of Pain while the famous 1992 song is played before the start of the fourth quarter.
Port’s World Series champ
The bigger stars and vocal leaders on that team were pitcher Warren Spahn and third baseman Eddie Mathews. DeMerit was a rookie on that team. He was signed after his junior year — there were no agents or a draft — at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Business/Technology
UW-Madison introduces of MFA to further secure personal information
Multi-factor authentication process will be implemented at UW-Madison in order to create a safer online experience for students and staff.
UW Experts in the News
As Global Temperatures Rise, Wisconsin’s Local Governments Seek Climate Change Solutions
Quoted: Local and state governments can take action to mitigate the effects of climate change, according to Paul Robbins, director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Science news in brief: From elephant’s skin to the discovery of Planet Nine
Quoted: “If the fungus dies, the ants die,” says Cameron Currie, a microbial ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the fungus-farming ants and their mutually beneficial relationships with other species.
Coping with global warming, rising mental issues
Quoted: Dr. Jonathan Patz, a professor and director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the study is consistent with recent work by other scientists, including his own research on heat waves and hospital admissions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, over a 17-year period, he said. Patz and his co-authors found that high temperatures impacted admissions for self-harm, including attempted suicide.
How tiny fish ear bones can reveal criminal activity
Quoted: Another factor working in the Montana researchers’ favor was the fortuitous and improbable fact that they seemed to have found the very individuals that had been introduced, rather than their offspring, says Jake Vander Zanden, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies aquatic invasive species.
“Typically when you discover a new population of what might be considered an invasive species, you’re not going to capture the individuals that were themselves transported,” Vander Zanden says. He calls the otolith findings “pretty striking.”
As Global Temperatures Rise, Wisconsin’s Local Governments Seek Climate Change Solutions
Quoted: Local and state governments can take action to mitigate the effects of climate change, according to Paul Robbins, director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We need better water management. We need new policies for our lake levels,” said Robbins. “We need to look at our combined sewer overflows coming out of Milwaukee — the sewage system there, as well as how we manage our drainage across the Yahara watershed, plus any other parts of the state.”
Here’s the Abortion Case That Could Overturn Roe v. Wade
Quoted: Ryan Owens, director of the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said “excessive panic [among liberals about abortion] … is, frankly, overblown.”
Mobilizing Madison’s young voters
Quoted: Connie Flanagan, a UW-Madison professor and expert on youth and politics, notes that the size and diversity of this generation of young voters is unique.
“This generation is huge, and it’s far more demographically diverse than many of its predecessors,” she says. “So the tolerance of diversity in a lot of dimensions is true in part because they are a diverse generation, and because the issues have been ones they’ve grown up thinking about.”
UN climate change report could reflect local weather patterns Climate change report could reflect local weather
Quoted: “Our global climate has warmed by about a degree Celsius already, so this report looks at what our climate would look like if we were to stop that warming at one and a half degrees Celsius, so about three degrees Fahrenheit global warming,” said Daniel Vimont, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin, and the director of the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research.
Guries Inducted into Wisconsin Forestry Hall of Fame
An emeritus professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology is the newest member of the Wisconsin Forestry Hall of Fame. Ray Guries was inducted during a ceremony at the Wisconsin Society of American Foresters annual meeting in September.
UW-Madison Related
‘Trumpaganda’ class at University of Illinois to examine President Trump’s ‘war on facts’
Noted: Sotirovic, who has a doctoral degree in mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is an expert in propaganda. She contributed a chapter to the 2018 book “Communication in the Age of Trump” by Arthur Hayes.