You don’t really see it until it’s all in one place.
That was certainly the case in mid-October, when more than 400 game developers from Madison and the Midwest converged at the second edition of M+Dev, the game developers’ conference held annually here. As the assembled masses networked and swapped personal stories, it was hard not to feel — and impossible not to see — an ongoing sense of critical mass.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Veterinary Care’s oncology department is conducting a clinical trial that could develop a vaccine for canine cancer.
As an example, he pointed to the state’s voter identification law, one of the most restrictive in the country. In 2017, as reported by the Journal Sentinel, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study estimated that “thousands of registered voters in Dane and Milwaukee counties were deterred or prevented from voting” in the 2016 election as a result of the law, a form of suppression that “more heavily affected low-income people and African-Americans.”
Noted: The problem would get much worse if healthy people who can afford health insurance only because of the federal subsidies were removed from the market, said Justin Sydnor, an assistant professor of actuarial science, risk management and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Five University of Wisconsin football players earned Associated Press All-Big Ten first-team honors when the teams were released Wednesday, including the only unanimous selection in the conference.
The University of Wisconsin’s new policy protecting free speech is about to be put to a test thanks to a brouhaha over a campus speaker. But it isn’t students who feel triggered and are raising a stink—it’s the university system president, Ray Cross, who claims to be a protector of free speech.
Quoted: These actions are also unfolding quickly. In Wisconsin, less than a week elapsed between the rough outlines of that state’s legislation becoming public and lawmakers sending the bill to the governor’s desk, said Barry C. Burden, a professor of political science and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Quoted: “Isn’t it interesting that there are some few states — places where redistricting is the hot topic — and the stakes around voting rules are higher,” Barry Burden, a political scientist with the University of Wisconsin Madison, said. “Wisconsin is going to be ground central for the next presidential election.”
Quoted: Wisconsinites have been bitterly at odds ever since. Katherine Cramer, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the elections in November confirmed that “stark division” especially as urban liberals in places like Madison and Milwaukee lined up against rural, conservative Republicans.
Quoted: In order to better understand both the radical nature of the legislature’s actions and what it will mean for the future of democracy in Wisconsin, Salon spoke by email with Michael Wagner, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in “research, teaching, and service are animated by the question, ‘how well does democracy work?’”
Quoted: Barry C. Burden, a professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin -Madison says that the session was so unprecedented that political scientists are still examining the details of what was passed, but some of the threatened measures that would have certainly spurred legal challenges were removed before passage.
“He entered office with protesters of Act 10, and he’s leaving office with protesters of these last minute actions,” said Michael Wagner, a political science and journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referring to 2011 legislation intended to curtail public employee union powers.
