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September 21, 2020

Top Stories

Two leaders urge colleges to encourage student voting

Posted on
Inside Higher Ed

Chancellor Blank and Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow: If you are leading a college or university right now — or if you are making the academic year possible as a member of the faculty or staff at any one of our nation’s institutions of higher education — asking something more of your students in the midst of a global pandemic may seem impractical. But one assignment cannot wait. We urge you to encourage your students to register to vote, to become informed of the issues and the candidates, and to cast a ballot

Research

Giant ‘survivor’ planet found orbiting dead star

Posted on
Earth Sky

Andrew Vanderburg at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the study, said in a statement: WD 1856 b somehow got very close to its white dwarf and managed to stay in one piece. The white dwarf creation process destroys nearby planets, and anything that later gets too close is usually torn apart by the star’s immense gravity. We still have many questions about how WD 1856 b arrived at its current location without meeting one of those fates.

How to Save the Pandemic Generation

Posted on
The New Republic

Black young adults hold 10.4 percent less wealth, on average, than their white counterparts due to student debt, according to research by Fenaba Addo at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Black and Latinx borrowers also have higher rates of default than white borrowers, and two in five Native American or Alaska Native borrowers have defaulted on a federal student loan.

Higher Education/System

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Athletics

Big Ten Football May Be Back. The Atmosphere Isn’t.

Posted on
The New York Times

There are a few things you can count on on the Madison campus during a fall weekend. The farmers’ market on the square of the state Capitol; music blasting from apartments, fraternity houses and bars in the hours before a football game, and the mass migration of tens of thousands of fans wearing red T-shirts toward Camp Randall Stadium.

Opinion

Op-Ed: Clerking for Justice Ginsburg, we learned about the law — but also about love

Posted on
LA Times

With marriage, as with everything else, the justice set a high bar. She tirelessly championed righteous causes and lofty ideals, and also devoted herself to the family she adored. She inspired millions of people she never met and also enriched the lives of those of us who were lucky enough to know her. It is difficult to lose her, especially now. But we know the best way to honor her is to try to live as fully as she did, embracing the values she held dear.

Miriam Seifter and Robert Yablon are associate professors of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. They clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2008-2009.

UW Experts in the News

Declaring 2020’s Winner Could Well Hinge on How Quickly States Count Mail Ballots

Posted on
Wall Street Journal

“There’s a lot of suspicion among hard-core Trump supporters, and hard-core Trump opponents, about people trying to manipulate the voting system,” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s just very tempting for people to believe that something nefarious has happened when the results don’t seem to be going in the way they expected.”

After a tantalizing discovery at Venus, what could an astrobiology mission look like? | Space

Posted on
Space.com

“This is something more that we can’t explain about Venus,” Sanjay Limaye, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Space.com. “Venus has got more questions [about it] than Mars, which is why we are suggesting that Venus should be considered an astrobiology target.”

Law Firms Pay Supreme Court Clerks $400,000 Bonuses. What Are They Buying?

Posted on
New York Times

Ryan J. Owens, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the other author of the study, said its basic conclusion was that “knowing your former boss gives you a leg up.”

“When you clerk for a justice for a year, you come to know how that justice thinks very intimately,” he said. “You know the ins and outs of the justice’s thought processes.”

Sleep scientists urge consistent schedule during unusual school year

Posted on
WKOW-TV 27

“People think a lot about how sleep is important for consolidating memory, but what they don’t think about is that sleep resets your brain for learning, meaning in order to take in information during the day, you need to have a rested brain,” said Dr. Stephanie Jones, the assistant director at the Institute for Sleep and Consciousness at UW-Madison.

How RBG’s vacancy could affect decisions at the polls

Posted on
NBC-15

Howard Schweber, a political science professor who also teaches law at UW-Madison, described how he saw the late justice interpreting the law. “Not only on issues involving women’s rights, [but] her dissenting opinions in the voting rights decision that stripped protections from minority voters in numerous jurisdictions. Her dissenting opinions in particular, rang with passion.”

Obituaries

Gibson, Chère Campbell

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

In 1982 Chère worked as an academic planner in University of Wisconsin System Administration. In 1984 she left administration and joined the faculty of the Department of Continuing and Vocational Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Family Living Program Area in University of Wisconsin -Extension.

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