With the end of the 2018-19 school year approaching, The Badger Herald interviewed University of Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank on a range of issues, including higher education funding, the campus climate and UW mental health services.
Noted: This past weekend, the pair of tropical cyclones resembled mirror images of each other, spinning at roughly the same longitude, but in opposite directions, as noted in a satellite loop of atmospheric moisture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Richard Davidson spoke on his work surrounding mindfulness practices, cultivating well-being through meditation.
Noted: The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s chemistry department has provided paid parental leave for graduate students and postdocs since 2008. Birth mothers receive six weeks paid maternity leave, and any new parent, including birth mothers, partners and adoptive parents, receives another six weeks of paid leave. University gift funds support the periods of leave, and a 12-week combined leave taken by a birth mother costs about $10,000, says chemist Robert Hamers, who was department chair when the policy was formally adopted. “We don’t want women students or postdocs to drop out,” he says. And, he adds, it makes financial sense to ensure that students complete their PhDs.
Evers announced Monday that he has appointed Karen Walsh of Madison, Edumund Moneydeeds III of Eau Claire and Olivia Woodmansee, a UW-La Crosse student to the board.
The appointments include Karen Walsh, of Madison, and Edmund Manydeeds III, of Eau Claire, both of whom will serve seven-year terms that begin May 2 and run through 2026. Evers also announced the appointment of a UW-La Crosse student.
Experts say state revenue drops during Great Recession result in decrease in higher education funding.
As you may know, there was a famous and pivotal event in Madison and University of Wisconsin history of May 1969 known by some as the Mifflin Street Riot and by others as The Battle of Miffland, which spread to the UW campus and went on for three days and nights.
A student reportedly walked out of a legal studies lecture last Thursday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after an ex-convict spoke to the class about his incarceration as a convicted rapist.
Photo gallery of UW Marching Band director Mike Leckrone through the years. Leckrone is retiring after 50 years.
Quoted: Michael Light, associate professor of Sociology and Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he is not surprised to see that level of public opposition. He said general views on immigration crackdown are linked now to the family separation policy, which Democrats unanimously oppose and Republicans are split on.
“The family separation issue galvanized many people,” he said.
Quoted: “There have always been people farming who are women, who identify as women. What has changed is that we’re doing a better job now capturing it,” says Jaclyn Wypler, a PHD Sociology student at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: “Coffee drinkers should care. Every sip of coffee is a footprint on the earth, and is that footprint good for birds or not? It’s an open question which this study helps clarify,” says Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
To support survivors of domestic violence, the UW Law School created the VOCA Restraining Order Clinic, with attorney Ryan Poe-Gavlinski as director. Since January, the clinic has trained students to represent or advise about 25 clients seeking restraining orders.
Quoted: “A guy could go decades without seeing a doctor, but when he is having trouble with erections or waking up three times in the night to urinate, he will seek medical attention,” says urologist David Paolone, vice chair of community and regional urology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “We need to look beyond those initial complaints at what could be leading to this, what unrecognized problems you have, and how we could be taking better care of you.”
Noted: Even before #MeToo, some parts of medical academia had begun to address sexual misconduct. At the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, administrators created a structure unconnected to the school where students or employees can report wrongdoing. An independent representative works with the student on how to deal with the allegation, including whether to go to the police or administrators, said Associate Dean Elizabeth Petty.
“We want to hold staff and faculty accountable if there’s a sexual assault,” Petty said. Right now, “there is a lot of under-reporting.”
Quoted: “We do know if people aren’t treated early, sometimes they go on to have lifelong symptoms,” said Susan Paskewtiz, a professor and chair of the University of Wisconsin Madison’s entomology department.
As cost of UW housing continually increases, administration must reassess priorities, aid students with accessibility.
Letter to the editor from Sanford A. Klein, UW-Madison emeritus professor of mechanical engineering.
Quoted: There haven’t been any formal studies looking at how precisely this interference could interfere with 23.8 GHz weather satellites. “But the more we lose, the greater the impact will be,” says Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Quoted: “The knife-edge politics of Wisconsin mean that Trump will not be able to take the state for granted,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “However important Wisconsin is to the Trump campaign, it will be even more essential to the Democrats.”
“I hope it’s a matter of when [national regulation is put in place], and not if,” said David Abel, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who focuses on energy systems, air pollution and public health. “It really has to be, if we’re going to avoid some of this really catastrophic damage.”
As for Trump’s rhetoric about “executing” babies, it and the bills to which it referred are meant to evoke a “visceral reaction,” according to Jenny Higgins, a professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and in Obstetrics and Gynecology at UW-Madison. “In addition to these claims being false, about doctors executing newborns, I would just emphasize that these bills just distract us” from a broader debate about abortion, contraception and related issues, Higgins said.
