UW-Madison nursing student Cassie Dietrick graduates Sunday, and she cannot pinpoint the School of Nursing building on campus.
2 kids, 2 jobs, a deployment to Afghanistan. That didn’t keep her from a UW-Madison degree
Wisconsin State Journal
December 16, 2019
Top Stories
Student speaker spins songs from Hamilton at UW-Madison’s 2019 winter commencement
Wisconsin State Journal
Raise a glass to freedom. Raise a glass to all of us. Telling the story of today. Those slightly modified lyrics to “The Story of Tonight” from the musical “Hamilton” kicked off Lisa Kamal’s speech to her fellow graduates and a crowd of more than 7,000 people Sunday at the Kohl Center for UW-Madison’s 2019 winter commencement ceremony.
Malaysian student shares story at UW-Madison Winter Commencement
NBC-15
Lisa Kamal shared the story of how she got to UW-Madison in front of her classmates, as the chosen student speaker at the commencement ceremony.”I came here on a scholarship, a long way from my home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,” Kamal told her peers.
Graduates fill Kohl Center for winter Commencement
WKOW-TV 27
Student speaker Lisa Kamal shared her story, of how she get a full-ride scholarship from the Malaysian government.”I think in college, truthfully there’s going to be a lot of times where you get bummed down, things get really hard. You just have to keep going. Take it one day at a time, and you’ll get to the end,” Kamal said.
Nearly 1,800 students graduate at UW-Madison winter commencement
WISC-TV 3
The University of Wisconsin-Madison conferred 1,770 degrees Sunday to undergraduate, graduate and professional school students at the winter commencement in the Kohl Center.
Sports columnist Jason Gay urges 2019 graduates to embrace life’s chaos
Badger Herald
The keynote speaker Jason Gay, Wall Street Journal sports columnist and University of Wisconsin alum, began his speech by taking a selfie with the graduates.
Research
How to avoid an Election 2020 misinformation nightmare
Quartz
According to a study I published this year from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, these Russian trolls are more coordinated than we thought when the news first broke.
2019 Is The Wettest Year Ever Recorded For Wisconsin And The Midwest
Wisconsin Public Radio
Wisconsin received 41.75 inches of precipitation through last month. The amount of rain and snow so far this year beat out the previous record of 40.09 inches set back in 1938, according to Steve Vavrus, senior scientist with the Nelson Institut’s Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Higher Education/System
Wisconsin lawmakers continue heated debate on campus free speech bill
The Capital Times
Seven speakers testified Thursday at a public hearing on a Wisconsin Assembly bill that more strictly defines and sets mandatory punishments for free speech disruptions on the state’s college campuses.
UW-Whitewater Veteran Services Coordinator Placed On Leave; Alleges Racism, Retaliation
Madison365
The Coordinator of Student-Veteran and Military Services at UW-Whitewater has been placed on administrative leave following an altercation with a student, but the coordinator says the allegations against him are false and part of a pattern of racist and hostile behavior by students and staff.
Campus life
How Madison, Wisconsin Cultivated a Quietly Booming Startup Scene
Inc.com
For years, the Badger State bemoaned its post-graduation “brain drain” from schools such as University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now, a burgeoning startup scene, plentiful tech jobs, and an abundance of remote work are compelling graduates to stick around and enjoy the city’s vibrant culture and reasonable cost of living.
Words Of Wisdom For UW-Madison’s Class Of 2019
Wisconsin Public Radio
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s winter commencement is this weekend. We talk with the keynote speaker, Wall Street Journal sports columnist and UW alum Jason Gay, about his advice for this year’s class – including why he says it’s “essential to avoid (University of Michigan) Wolverines.”
Grocery-carrying robots are coming
Associated Press
So far, the best habitat to find Starship’s six-wheelers are confined spaces such as college campuses; the University of Houston and the University of Wisconsin-Madison rolled them out this fall.
Black Power 2019: Wisconsin’s 49 Most Influential Black Leaders
Madison 365
Noted: Gia Gallimore is the director of diverse alumni engagement at Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association. One of her core goals is to connect alumni of color with the alumni association at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To do so, Gallimore had a hand in creating a strategic plan for diverse engagement, including strengthening the alumni of color network, enhancing marketing and engagement programs and cultivating student-to-alumni connections. She is also the founder of and driving force behind Badger Vibes, a monthly newsletter highlighting faculty, students and alumni of color in order to celebrate the diverse UW experience, produced in partnership between the WFAA and Madison365.
Business school can do more on climate — Mark Starik
Wisconsin State Journal
Letter to the editor: As a UW-Madison double alumnus, I was pleased to join a couple of hundred UW climate activists rallying to urge the university and its stakeholders to better address our local and global climate crises with significant and immediate action to lower carbon emissions.
Arts & Humanities
Jazz residency program helps keep students miles ahead
Wisconsin State Journal
When Michele LaVigne’s mother died about two years ago, she gave a certain amount of money to each of her five children to be put toward some educational cause.
It was a fitting gesture by Marion LaVigne, who had taught math to middle school-age children for 49 years in New York. Michele LaVigne knew what she was going to do with her money the day she attended an event honoring jazz musician Richard Davis, where she heard how much he enjoyed being an educator and how a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools had inspired him.
LaVigne, a clinical law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who takes jazz piano lessons, said she decided to pursue a jazz residency at Sherman Middle School, hoping it would inspire students.
Three Wisconsin books and a calendar to consider as gifts this season
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Noted: The Aldo Leopold Foundation subsequently began a tradition of producing an annual Wisconsin Phenology Calendar. The 2020 edition is packed with photographs and information, including monthly sidebars written by Stanley Temple, UW-Madison professor emeritus and senior fellow at the foundation.
Health
Q&A: Hey, parents? Jennifer Gaddis wants you to put away the PB&J
The Cap Times
It can take a dozen times of trying a vegetable before a child learns to like it. That’s not a risk some lower-income parents can take, no matter how many vitamins are in beets.
“That’s one thing schools can be useful for,” said Jennifer Gaddis. Parents “maybe knew over time their kids would like something,” Gaddis said. “But in the immediate term, they couldn’t afford their kids not eating.”
Frail Older Patients Struggle After Even Minor Operations
The New York Times
Quoted: Dr. Gretchen Schwarze, a vascular surgeon at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies doctor-patient communications, has too often heard patients say they had no choice but surgery, or were blindsided by how debilitated they felt afterward.
Athletics
Vulgar chant insults UW football team — Richard Riley
Wisconsin State Journal
I found out from a Wisconsin fan that this cheer is done at all the team’s home games, and it seems to be acceptable to the university. If this is the case, I find it hard to understand why the university would allow this.
Curtain call: Seniors on Badgers volleyball team enjoy special moment in front of home crowd
Wisconsin State Journal
As coach Kelly Sheffield pushed his five seniors toward center court for a curtain call after the University of Wisconsin volleyball team’s victory over Nebraska in the NCAA regional final Saturday, M.E. Dodge had a flashback to a similar scene during her freshman season.
UW Experts in the News
Wisconsin Life Host Angela Fitzgerald Explores The People and Places That Make Wisconsin Great
Madison 365
Noted: Now, she’s made a home in the city of Madison with her husband, Anthony. In addition to being on television, Fitzgerald is currently pursuing her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working as faculty within Madison College’s Psychology Department, and serving as Director of Family, Youth & Community Engagement for Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD). When she’s not wearing either of those roles she may be giving others financial planning advice.
Thousands of Thanathorn backers rally against Thai establishment
Al Jazeera
Quoted: “The establishment has gone after Thanathorn with such force because FFP has catalysed a change in how citizens imagine the Thai polity and their role in it,” said Tyrell Haberkorn, associate professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an expert on state violence and dissident politics in Thailand.
As many as 17% of voters are targeted to be removed from the rolls in some Wisconsin cities
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said removing voters from the rolls because they are believed to have moved would more likely affect Democratic voters because they are more likely to move frequently.
“Mainly because they are younger, supporters of Democratic candidates tend to change their residences more often,” he said by email. “As a result, their voter registrations are more likely to be out of date, and they are more likely to be targets of efforts to clean up the rolls.”
A freshwater mussel apocalypse is underway—and no one knows why.
National Geographic
Quoted: Tony Goldberg, a wildlife disease expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, puts mussels’ importance more bluntly. Without them, he says, “the freshwater ecosystem will change forever.”
Mysterious Denisovans emerged from the shadows in 2019
Science News
Quoted: Discoveries reported in 2019 brought Denisovans into focus — but left plenty of room for interpretation. As fossils accumulate, investigators will grasp how Denisovan anatomy influenced the skeletal makeup of its mating partners in the Homo genus. Thanks to Denisovan discoveries, “we can now see that hybridization contributed to our own origins,” says paleoanthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Obituaries
Stephen Porter, lawyer active in D.C. civic life, dies at 80
The Washington Post
Stephen William Porter was born Feb. 22, 1939, in Milwaukee, where his father was a buyer for the New York-based Gimbels department store. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1960 and from its law school in 1966. (He worked as an accountant between degrees.)
Blumer, Diane K.
Wisconsin State Journal
Diane had worked at WPS and then later the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents and the UW Department of Psychology.
UW-Madison Related
40 notable people who attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Wisconsin State Journal
A gallery of notable alums.