Edmund Manydeeds will serve as president of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents for the 2021-2022 school year.
UW System Board Of Regents Elects First Native American President
Wisconsin Public Radio
June 7, 2021
Top Stories
Evers appointees clinch control of UW Board, ending tense, politically charged election
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The University of Wisconsin System’s Board of Regents elected Regent Edmund Manydeeds III as its next president, bringing an end to an uncharacteristically tense process of transitioning the board’s leadership.
Research
Enwejig Works To Preserve Wisconsin’s Indigenous Languages
WORT FM
For hundreds of years, Wisconsin’s indigenous languages faced suppression and extermination. Concerted efforts to wipe out native tongues played out in a variety of arenas — from schools to government policies.
Enwejig hopes to address some of those past injustices. The group, which formed last year on the UW-Madison campus, works to bring visibility and recognition to Wisconsin’s native languages.
For more on the group’s mission, our producer Jonah Chester spoke with Brian McInnes, an associate professor of civil society and community studies/American Indian studies at UW-Madison.
UW-Madison Launching Center To Study Health Disparities
Wisconsin Public Radio
A new center at UW-Madison will be studying health disparities in Wisconsin and beyond. Its early work will look at health outcomes in the state’s different neighborhoods. We talk with a doctor leading the research about the big questions she’s hoping to answer.
Wisconsin Experiment Grows Cotton In Space To Help Crops On Earth
WUWM
For the first time, cotton seeds will germinate and grow in space over the next few days, under the supervision down here of UW-Madison botany professor Simon Gilroy.
Gilroy says he wants to clarify this is not to supply fabric for those in orbit. “Yeah, our classic joke when talking about the experiment is the astronauts are going to make their own suits. It’s not what’s its for,” Gilroy tells WUWM.
University of Wisconsin professor sends cotton experiment to space
Spectrum News
A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is taking his experiments to new heights at the International Space Station (ISS).
Dr. Simon Gilroy is a botany professor at the university. An experiment he and colleagues have been working on for the past three years is now making its way to the ISS after being launched Thursday.
What lurks beneath: A new answer to more intense storms
The Washington Post
As storm-water infrastructure is failing, climate change is driving more frequent and intense rainfall. A 2019 study by University of Wisconsin researchers found in the eastern half of the United States, 100-year storms — ones with a 1 percent chance of happening in any year — were occurring almost twice as often as in 1950. In 2020, there were a record 20 storm and hurricane events each causing more than $1 billion in damages, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
UW researchers reflect on 40 years since first AIDS case
WKOW-TV 27
Researchers Dave and Shelby O’Connor spent the last year understanding the virus that shut down the world. But for decades, the husband and wife have worked to understand another deadly virus.
UW researchers focus on preventing cancer in rural communities
WKOW-TV 27
They’re using a $1.2 million dollar grant from the American Cancer Society to examine more than 200 rural primary care clinics in the upper Midwest.
Higher Education/System
Bill would prohibit UW System from requiring COVID vaccines, but Thompson says they won’t be mandated
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Republicans who control the Legislature want to ban requiring COVID-19 vaccines on University of Wisconsin campuses, but UW System President Tommy Thompson says that won’t be happening anyway.
Wisconsin Republicans join a national push back against how racism is taught in K-12 schools, colleges
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A group of Wisconsin lawmakers is joining a national campaign of Republicans pushing back against a decades-old theory that examines how slavery affected the way societal institutions treat Black people more than a century later.
UW Board of Regents elects Gov. Tony Evers-appointee in rare contested president election
Wisconsin State Journal
In just the sixth contested election in University of Wisconsin System history, the UW Board of Regents elected an appointee of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers as board president for the next year.
Campus community reacts to possible end to UW System tuition freeze
Daily Cardinal
With the tuition freeze in place, UW-Madison found ways to increase their revenue stream during the freeze period by enrolling more out-of-state students who pay more in tuition than their in-state counterparts.
Campus life
The pandemic’s effects on campus sustainability
Daily Cardinal
Sustainability is the ability for humans to coexist with the earth in a way that meets both the needs of the present and the future — it’s a way of living that tries to ensure that future generations will be able to safely and healthily inhabit the planet. Malorie Garbe, the Sustainability Coordinator at University Housing and Dining, describes sustainability as having three parts: social, environmental and economic.
State news
Wisconsin Republicans float plans to ban CRT-style curricula in schools and state employee training
Washington Examiner
Another bill sponsored by Jacque and Rep. Rick Gundrum would establish the same ban on the teaching of the same concepts within the state’s University of Wisconsin System and the Technical College System with similar provisions for the withholding of noncompliant institutions.
Health
No more mask mandate for Dane County
Daily Cardinal
Dane County officials released a public statement on May 18 announcing that all health orders regarding COVID-19, including mask mandates and indoor gathering limits, will be lifted starting June 2. The announcement comes 10 months after Dane County Health officials implemented their first public health order.
Athletics
Here’s how Wisconsin defends its AD hiring process against charges it ignored diverse voices
Wisconsin State Journal
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank solicited feedback from a select number of voices on what qualities and characteristics in the next Badgers athletic director mattered to them. School officials have declined to reveal who was invited to offer input, but it has emerged that Blank held listening sessions with Badgers coaches, some UW players and a group dedicated to equity and diversity in the athletic department.
Chris McIntosh selected to head UW athletics department
Daily Cardinal
After playing Badgers football and serving as captain of the 1999 and 2000 Rose Bowl teams, McIntosh went on to play in the NFL until 2004 before joining the UW athletics department as associate athletic director for business development in 2014.
Opinion
OPINION: UW remains out of step … and behind
Madison365
When we learned last fall that Alvarez might be retiring, we were concerned that the University would again engage in a process that would result in another applicant being chosen for the AD position that would not be a person of color, regardless of how credentialed and experienced such applicants might be.
Laziness and a lack of flexibility
Daily Cardinal
The university subjected their students to restrictive policies that had little room for flexibility based on the public health standards at the time.
UW Experts in the News
The Geometry Of The World Around Us
Wisconsin Public Radio
Math may seem as though it only exists in an abstract part of our lives, but a new book shines a light on the geometry of everything around us. University of Wisconsin-Madison math professor Jordan Ellenberg joins us to talk about his latest book Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else.
Jair Bolsonaro is facing a political reckoning in Brazil. How far will it go?
Vox
“This is one more element in place that could lead to Bolsonaro’s downfall,” Jessica Rich, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, said. “I don’t think they are yet all in place. But this is a real escalation of the threat against him.”
South Dakota Meat Processing Plant Weighing Walkout After Union Rejects Smithfield Contract
Newsweek
“This is a moment when workers have leverage right now,” said Laura Dresser, a labor economist at COWS, a liberal think tank at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Czech women might be able to have different last names
Washington Post
David Danaher, professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, noted that similar proposals have failed in the past, but said that non-gendered last names aren’t necessarily new in the Czech Republic.
The USA TODAY SmartEdition – USA TODAY US Edition – 7 Jun 2021 – US may have to learn to live with COVID-19
USA Today
But as with much about the SARSCoV-2 virus, that’s not certain because it’s so new. There’s not yet enough data to answer pressing questions, such as how long vaccines or natural immunity from previous infections lasts, said Ajay Sethi, a professor of population health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison school of medicine.
Air purifiers can’t save us from airborne pandemics.
Slate
Scientists have only begun to study the chemical mechanisms by which the purifiers actually work indoors, says Timothy Bertram, a University of Wisconsin chemist leading a study of bipolar ionizers. Without that understanding, it’s hard to evaluate what, if anything, additive purifiers do when they’re installed inside an air vent or plugged in at the back of a classroom. So far, Bertram’s study has found no evidence of the ionizers reducing aerosols.
Severe drought means Rock Co. farmers are hoping for summer rain
NBC-15
So far in 2021, Rock County has only seen about half of the rain the county would usually get by this point in the year, causing eastern parts of the county to reach severe drought levels. Chelsea Zegler, UW-Madison Dane County Extension Crops and Soils Educator, said the impact is minor, but could get worse if the drought continues through summer.
UW-Madison Related
Kathryn Garcia Doesn’t Want to Be Anyone’s No. 2
The New York Times
That connection would eventually pay off. Ms. Lloyd recruited Ms. Garcia to work as an unpaid intern at the Department of Sanitation after she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
EY Announces Dr. Susan L. Levinson of BioAegis Therapeutics Inc. as an Entrepreneur Of The Year(R) 2021 New Jersey Award Finalist
MarketWatch
Dr. Levinson has founded two New Jersey biotech companies in partnership with scientific and business founders and is passionately committed to developing unique products to meet patient needs. The second company, Azure Biotech, is focused on unmet medical needs in women’s health. She is a strong advocate of women in STEM and the biotech ecosystem in NJ. Dr. Levinson was recently elected to the Board of BioNJ, the NJ biotech trade association. She has over 30 years of life sciences pharmaceutical experience spanning the entire value chain, from the lab bench to marketing. Dr. Levinson has a B.S in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Convictions bar Wisconsinites from many jobs, making re-entry ‘a real struggle’
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Noted: After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Janie Ocejo put her social work education and bilingual, bicultural background to work by supporting Madison’s Hispanic folks through positions at various community organizations.
Who is Sister Cindy? Evangelist Christian Preacher Turned TikTok Star
Newsweek
But at what point are her preaching methods, and consequential fame, no longer so-wrong-it’s-right, and just wrong? “She said ’You need to cover up young lady, you’re an accessory to the rape crime on campus’, and then at that point, my jaw just dropped. I think that’s when I was like, ’people like this actually exist, because you see on social media people victim blaming for assault but I didn’t know that people actually said those kinds of comments,” said Jenna Gosz, who stumbled across Cindy preaching at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2019 and, although it’s off little importance, says her clothing was far from revealing anyway. In another of Gosz’s videos, Cindy tells a man he needs to repent after asking if he’s a “homo.”
Why Is TikTok Turning a Hateful Radical Evangelist into a Viral Star?
The Daily Beast
But Sister Cindy’s zealotry comes at the expense of students. Many of her sermons paint women as harbingers of their own doom and deserving of sexual and gender-based violence. “You are an accessory to the crime,” she told one student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referring to rape. “You are causing people—boys—to get their passions stirred up.”