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January 28, 2021

Research

Young People Spreading Covid a Concern in Rapidly Aging Japan

Posted on
Bloomberg

Noted: One way to appeal to youth on Covid-19 is by placing the wellbeing of their social group on their shoulders, said Dominique Brossard, a professor specializing in science communication at University of Wisconsin at Madison.

She pointed to the decades-old “Friends don’t let friends drink and drive” slogan in the U.S. as one successful campaign that helped lower incidence of youth drunk-driving. Simply relaying information about the virus may have limited effectiveness with the younger generation, who are accustomed to being bombarded with a constant stream of content.

How Laura Albert Helped Make Election Day in Wisconsin Safer Amid the Pandemic

Posted on
American Association for the Advancement of Science

When public servants face a challenge, AAAS Member and newly elected 2020 AAAS Fellow Dr. Laura Albert finds solutions. Whether helping police tackle the opioid crisis, or assisting election officials in protecting voters during a deadly pandemic — which was one of her most recent feats — the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor uses mathematical models and analytics to recommend safe, economical and often innovative remedies.

Higher Education/System

A Different Kind of Student Feedback

Posted on
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Noted: Lewis, an assistant professor of mathematics at George Washington University, decided to hire Rai before he had any idea that the pandemic would push the course online. He had gotten the idea from Harry Brighouse, a philosophy professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has written about having a student worker critique his teaching. The move online meant Lewis’s discussions with Rai covered different ground than the professor had initially imagined — he thought they’d talk more about issues like how much class time he should spend on particular topics. But it ended up being an especially good semester in which to have a thoughtful observer.

Pressure grows on Biden for more ambitious student loan forgiveness

Posted on
MSN

Noted: Annika Kersten Wellman, a senior studying nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says she believes that the administration should at least go for a middle ground of $30,000 in federal loan forgiveness per borrower. That amount would be closer to the national average of student debt and “will help correct the inequity that is student loan debt,” she said.

Wellman, who said she was lucky that she didn’t have to take out loans for her education, supports student loan forgiveness as a way to address the disproportionate burden of education debt on people of color, something that Warren and Schumer have emphasized in their support of student loan forgiveness.

Assembly Republicans to take up resolution that would make Wisconsin one of few states without face mask mandate

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“President Thompson is and has been focused on strategies to combat COVID-19 on UW System campuses given their inherent congregate settings,” Mark Pitsch, spokesman for the UW System, said. “He has championed a culture of responsibility that includes wearing a mask, social distancing, hand washing and a robust testing strategy.”

Campus life

State news

Health

After getting placebo in vaccine trial, medical reporter opts for the real thing — and wrestles with his decisio

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Arriving in my inbox at 7:50 a.m. on Jan. 21 was an email that I anxiously had been anticipating. It was from the University of Wisconsin Madison doctor who is running UW’s clinical trial of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. I, along with 460 volunteers, had been making monthly appearances at UW Hospital to provide blood samples and to get two shots spaced a month apart.

UW discusses lessons learned from the pandemic

Posted on
WISC-TV 3

Saturday will mark the one-year anniversary of the first known COVID case here in Wisconsin. Today, a panel of experts at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health reflected on the lessons learned over the past year.

Athletics

UW Athletics projects $47 million net impact from COVID

Posted on
WKOW-TV 27

Adam Barnes, the associate athletic director and CFO for Business Operations, told the Athletic Board’s Finance, Facilities and Operations Committee in a meeting Wednesday afternoon that revenue is projected to be down $73 million from pre-pandemic budgets for the fiscal year. The department has offset some of that loss by cutting $26 million from the original expense budget. That leaves the negative net impact of $47 million.

COVID-19 has resulted in $73 million in lost revenue for UW’s 2020-21 operating budget, though expense offsets have reduced that figure

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin officials Wednesday provided a snapshot of how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the athletic department’s 2020-21 operating budget. In summary: Revenue losses for the 2021 fiscal year budget, before the pandemic shut down college sports last March, is $73 million.

Business/Technology

An old arrest can follow you forever online. Some newspapers want to fix that.

Posted on
Washington Post

Quoted: The idea of removing names — let alone an entire article — from a newspaper’s digital archive is traditionally anathema for many journalists. “For a long time the instinct was, ‘Nope, we’re not even going to think about this. We are about seeking the truth and reporting it and we don’t go back and unreport it,’ ” said Kathleen Culver, the James E. Burgess Chair in Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Walmart Presses Into Stores as Fulfillment Center Strategy

Posted on
MSN

Quoted: As customers make their way through shelves, they may move or pick up items in ways that can make the location and quantity of inventory difficult to to gauge, said Hart Posen, professor at the University of Wisconsin school of business.

“It leads to lots of mistakes and errors because what the computer system says is on the shelf might not be there, because a customer has it in their cart, or…picked it up and moved it someplace else,” he said. “So mostly using store shelves for e-commerce fulfillment is not a scalable and efficient way to do it.”

UW Experts in the News

Obituaries

Eichman, Peter L.

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

In 1954, he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Medical School, in Madison, Wis., as a professor of neurology, a position he held for nearly 50 years. In 1965, he was appointed dean of the Medical School-the youngest dean in the university’s history–and was instrumental in the creation of the university’s vast new medical center.