Noted: Ray Cross, president of the University of Wisconsin system since 2014, plans to retire.
Transitions: Wright State U. Selects New President, New Vice President for Student Life at Ohio State U.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
October 31, 2019
Higher Education/System
Teacher’s estate hands UW-Stevens Point $4.3m donation
Wisconsin State Journal
A teacher’s estate has given the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point the largest donation in its 125-year history.
Campus life
UW professor to return January 2020 after investigation into ‘toxic’ lab conditions
Badger Herald
University of Wisconsin professor Akbar Sayeed is expected to return in January 2020 after a two-year unpaid leave due to “abusive” lab conditions, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
ASM introduces campus free speech proposal
Badger Herald
Bill would allow each UW System school their own free speech policy.
UPDATED: Nicholas Recreation Center opening delayed
Badger Herald
’The Nick’ to open late 2020 due to weather, construction obstacles.
State news
Wisconsin lawmakers are working on a bill to allow college athletes to make money off their fame
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Wisconsin lawmakers are working on a proposal that would allow college athletes to use their fame in amateur sports to make money.
Wisconsin college athletes could be paid under bipartisan bill
Wisconsin State Journal
Wisconsin lawmakers from both parties are drafting a bill that allows college athletes to hire outside agents and profit from their status starting in 2023, a change that could upend the state’s college sports landscape.
Agriculture
Governor Declares Energy Emergency As Farms, Rural Residents Create High Demand For Propane
Wisconsin Public Radio
Quoted: Joe Lauer, agronomist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he started advising farmers to start buying propane over the summer after wet weather caused major planting delays across the state.
“Whenever that occurs, we typically have some fairly wet corn,” Lauer said. “We just haven’t gotten a break this year in terms of the weather. It’s been really cold and wet through most of the season.”
Community
MPD to remove Langdon Street neighborhood police officer
Daily Cardinal
The position of Langdon Street Resource Officer will be removed from the Madison Police Department as a result of ongoing understaffing and underfunding, according to current Langdon Street Officer Damion Figueroa.
Arts & Humanities
Want to Be More Creative? A MacArthur Genius Shows You How
Inc.
The phone’s ringing, your email is pinging and there are only 10 precious minutes until your next meeting. Is it any wonder that you can’t come up with even a small coherent thought–much less a big creative idea?
Maybe it’s time for an intervention. That’s why I’d like you spend the next few moments listening to Lynda Barry. Last month Barry was one of 26 people chosen as a 2019 fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. As The New York Times reported, “Known colloquially as the ‘genius’ grant (to the annoyance of the foundation), the fellowship honors ‘extraordinary originality’ and comes with a no-strings-attached grant of $625,000, to be distributed over five years.”
Health
China Left One-Child Policy Behind, but It Still Struggles With a Falling Birth Rate
The Wall Street Journal
Noted: Yi Fuxian, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pieces together birth estimates from other available data, such as the number of childbearing women and school enrollment. Using this method, he has arrived at estimates of only around 10 million births last year and a belief that the population is dropping.
Athletics
Badgers women’s soccer finishes regular season unbeaten in Big Ten play
Wisconsin State Journal
The seventh-ranked and Big Ten Conference regular-season champion Badgers remained unbeaten in their past 17 games at McClimon Field on Wednesday as senior Dani Rhodes broke a tie score in the first half en route to a 2-1 victory over Ohio State.
UW Experts in the News
Why am I a scaredy cat and you’re not? The science of fright
CNN
Quoted: “There’s an innate survival system in humans,” said retired University of Wisconsin communications professor Joanne Cantor. “It’s sort of like driving by a car wreck — you don’t want to see it, but you can’t help looking at it.
“Then there are others who like to play with those emotions and take risks,” said Cantor, who has spent 30 years researching the emotional reactions of adults and children to mass media, including fright.
‘Medicare for all’ funding dilemma poses threat to Warren’s claim to ‘have a plan for that’
Washington Examiner
“How to pay for her version of ‘Medicare for all’ is complicating things for Warren at the moment, just as other aspects of her campaign appears to be thriving,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center Director Barry Burden. “In keeping with her identity as having a ‘plan’ for most everything, there is an extra incentive to nail the broad parameters of how her healthcare expansion will work.”
Sailors on San Clemente Island face new adversary — deer mice
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Quoted: John Orrock, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the virus, which is “relatively rare on San Clemente Island,” has been found only among the island’s deer mice — just one of several rodent species on the island.
“We’ve done limited rodent sampling on San Clemente Island, but historical data and our data suggest (Sin Nombre virus) is at a very low prevalence” on the island, Orrock said during a phone interview Wednesday. “On San Clemente, the mice that (potentially) have the virus aren’t the only mice on the island.”
Chronic Wasting Disease burdens Wisconsin’s deer
Wisconsin State Journal
“It’s an insidious slow-moving disease that we don’t have very many effective treatments for,” said UW-Madison Professor of Forest and Wildlife Ecology Tim Van Deelen “Given our current understanding of the disease, we can slow it down, but we can’t stop it.”