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November 19, 2021

Research

The Least Sleep Deprived City in Every State

24/7 Tempo

Using data from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute joint program, 24/7 Tempo identified the least sleep deprived metro area in every state. Four states — Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont — have only one metro area. As a result, these areas rank as the least sleep deprived in the state by default only.

Inside the Bitter Debate Over How to Manage Wolves in Wisconsin

Milwaukee Magazine

Quoted: “Wolves are moving south, and they have been for a while,” says Tim Van Deelen, a professor of wildlife ecology at UW-Madison with a focus on large mammals in the Great Lakes region. “We’ve seen wolves go through Chicago. We know one wolf was killed in a cornfield in Indiana. And if you think about the most direct route, they would walk right through Milwaukee. That is part of how wolves disperse. Is it common? No. But is it out of the realm of possibility? No.”

Higher Education/System

Campus life

Roadrunner by van, monkeypox: News from around our 50 states

USA Today

Two top state Republicans are criticizing mandatory University of Wisconsin-Madison sexual violence prevention training that includes references to privilege, identity and critical race theory. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Tuesday wrote a letter to the school chancellor demanding answers on why graduate students are required to watch the two-hour webinar that university spokesperson John Lucas said includes “a brief reference” to critical race theory, which he said is supported by academic research and noted in the citations.

‘A toxic environment’: The other costs of Greek life housing

Daily Cardinal

Participating in Greek life is typically known to be a sizable expenditure — choosing to live in a fraternity house can cost anywhere from $4,200 to $18,000 a year, according to the Interfraternity Council. According to the Panhellenic Association, living in a sorority house can range from $7,700 to $11,980 a year. In addition to live-in costs, semesterly membership dues, which also range in price, are required of all members.

What happens when a fraternity dies?

Daily Cardinal

Senior Cal Floyd opened up about Psi Upsilon at UW-Madison, and its challenges this semester with finding incoming freshmen to rush at the beginning of the year. He also explained why the fraternity’s decision to rush online ultimately made this semester Psi Upsilon’s last.

State news

From books to museums, here’s where you can learn about Native peoples in Wisconsin during Native American Heritage Month

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: What do you know about the Native peoples who have called Wisconsin lands their home for thousands of years?

November is Native American Heritage Month and is a good opportunity to learn about the history, culture and sovereignty of the 11 federally recognized tribes in Wisconsin and the Brothertown Indian Nation, which hopes to regain its federal status.

Most people know little to nothing about Native Americans, said Aaron Bird Bear, director of tribal relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Keeping ourselves ignorant about Indigenous nations, about our shared history and our treaty-based relationships with Indigenous nations is a form of collective amnesia,” Bird Bear said.

“One thing we would hope is that people really think deeply during Native American Heritage Month of how they can interrupt or arrest settler colonialism itself, which is a process by which the vast majority of U.S. society knows little to nothing about the people who’ve lived here for 20,000 years and counting.”

Crime and safety

Community

Commemorative plaque on Richard Davis Lane helps to preserve jazz legend’s legacy for generations of Madisonians to come

Madison 365

In 2018, a new street in the Darbo-Worthington Neighborhood on Madison’s east side was created in honor of the legacy of Richard Davis, a Madison jazz legend and Professor Emeritus of Bass at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught for nearly four decades. Now, after a fundraising effort throughout the pandemic, Davis’ former student and mentee, Wilder Deitz, has honored the man who inspired him and so many others with a commemorative plaque to accompany the street sign on Richard Davis Lane.

Arts & Humanities

Athletics

Opinion

Revising department handbooks to better support grad students (opinion)

Inside Higher Education

As members of Catalysts for Science Policy, we recently examined 34 departmental handbooks from graduate programs in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine fields at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The goal of this policy analysis was to act as a case study, reviewing and analyzing current handbook policies to better understand their utility as a rapid and feasible first step in establishing a healthy environment for graduate students. We assessed the handbooks based on mentorship guidelines developed by Future of Research, evaluating their policies in several categories: mentoring; academic and nonacademic misconduct; transparent accountability; diversity, equity and inclusion; and graduate student representation in decision making.

UW Experts in the News

Rittenhouse Jury Enters 24 Hours of Deliberation, Likely to Worry Defense, Experts Say

Newsweek

“Like the Chauvin and Zimmerman cases, this case raises tough issues of self-defense,” Ion Meyn, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, told Newsweek. “Unlike those cases, this case involves four separate incidents, each requiring a complex set of considerations. Given how many people were shot or shot at, I think this case is even more complicated.”

UW-Madison Related

Senators erupt in partisan sniping over Soviet upbringing of Biden’s pick for top bank regulator

The Washington Post

Omarova earned an undergraduate degree from Moscow State University before emigrating to the U.S. in 1991 and continuing her studies. She earned a PhD from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a law degree from Northwestern University. She then worked at Davis Polk & Wardwell, a top New York firm, where she focused on corporate transactions and advising financial industry clients on regulation. She also served in the Treasury Department of Republican President George W. Bush’s administration as a special adviser on regulatory policy.