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April 5, 2022

Higher Education/System

UW-Whitewater interim chancellor abruptly resigns

Wisconsin Public Radio

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater interim Chancellor Jim Henderson has abruptly resigned from his position as head of the school.

In a brief message posted on the campus website, Henderson said that one of his three goals as interim chancellor has been to “help this campus hire the best chancellor possible who will be here for the long term.”

UWM’s plans are delayed to demolish the century-old Columbia Hospital to reduce costs. That proposal could be blocked permanently.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s plans to demolish the century-old Columbia Hospital building in order to reduce costs are being delayed — and could be blocked permanently.

The city Historic Preservation Commission on Monday recommended permanent historic designation for the former hospital building, 3321 N. Maryland Ave.

Campus life

After Foxconn’s pledges have failed to materialize, a former executive is hired by UW-Madison College of Engineering

Wisconsin Public Radio

Former Foxconn executive Alan Yeung has been hired by the University of Wisconsin-Madison to “jump-start technology entrepreneurship efforts” within its College of Engineering.

Yeung was heavily involved in Foxconn’s failed pledges to invest $10 billion into a high-tech manufacturing hub in Racine County and donate $100 million to UW-Madison.

An announcement posted Thursday by UW-Madison’s College of Engineering announcing Yeung’s hire lists him as an author, college alum and technology executive — it has no mention of Foxconn.

‘We’re just getting stronger’: Daily Cardinal celebrates 130 years

The Capital Times

On a typical print night, editor in chief Addison Lathers and managing editor Grace Hodgman stay at the Daily Cardinal office, a windowless room in University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Vilas Hall, often as late as 2:30 a.m. They hunker down until the pages of the student newspaper are finalized, editing stories and checking in with reporters in the newsroom, also known as the News Womb, in between.

State news

Agriculture

UW-Madison working to bring bird flu vaccine to market amid outbreaks

CBS 58

If you’ve been paying more for eggs recently, you have the bird flu to thank, according to egg producers.

UW-Madison scientists say they are fighting back.

Across the nation, tens of thousands of birds have had to be put down in recent weeks as the bird flu ravages flocks, and farmers say while it’s already making eggs expensive, it won’t stop there.

UW-Madison scientists say this is an issue that comes and goes, which is why they’re looking to bring a vaccine for the birds to market.

“Knock on wood, we’ve been doing okay in Wisconsin. We’ve had two outbreaks here in Wisconsin,” said UW-Madison Poultry Specialist Ron Kean.

Arts & Humanities

From TYME machine to ope!, here’s why many Wisconsinites say these words and more

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: While Tom Purnell — a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of English language and linguistics — was living in Pennsylvania in the mid-1980s, he said the cash dispensing machines in that area were called MAC (money access centers).

“ATM (automated teller machine) is the generic term that is being used more widely now, overtaking the local variants,” he said in an email.

“A lot of changes and variations in pronunciation reflect things that not just happen in our mouths, but also what happens in our ears,” said Joe Salmons, a longtime professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In many languages, when there’s an “l” at the end of a syllable, it will mess with how people hear a preceding vowel, he explained, especially when the “l” is in the same syllable.

A similar example of this is pillow v. “pellow,” he noted.

The “melk” pronunciation is also heard in other parts of the Midwest, he said. And while it’s not exclusive to the state, it appears to be most common in eastern Wisconsin.

UW Experts in the News

Russia denies atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine, saying images of apparent war crimes are fabricated

The Washington Post

That type of response is common these days among Russians, said Anton Shirikov, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who studies Russian state propaganda. The Kremlin’s misinformation “might not work in the sense that people believe everything, but people who are on the side of the government think that some of it must be true,” he said. Or they think, “We, the Russian army, cannot be that bad, so the other side must be bad.”