Multiple landmarks on the UW-Madison campus — including Memorial Union — were seemingly vandalized overnight with messages protesting a conservative commentator who was set to speak on campus Monday night.
October 24, 2022
Top Stories
Messages deface Memorial Union, Alumni Park ahead of conservative commentator’s visit to campus
Research
WARF announces 2022 annual budget for university research
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) announced the monetary amount it will contribute to research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the 2022-23 academic year last week. A total of $130 million will be used to support its programs.
Is Hand-Washing Still Important in the COVID-19 Pandemic?
This realization is not an entirely new one: A 1987 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that a group of men playing poker with “soggy,” rhinovirus-contaminated cards were not infected, while a group playing with other sick players were.
Higher Education/System
Coalition of Wisconsin universities canceling class for students on Election Day
A coalition of private universities in Wisconsin is canceling classes for students on election day as part of an effort to boost voter turnout. We talk about the “Why Bother, Wisconsin?” campaign, and hear why they want other universities to join them.
UW-Madison’s ‘Fill the Hill’ raises more than $421K
The tenth “Fill the Hill” fundraiser at the University of Wisconsin-Madison brought in more than $421,000 for various campus initiatives.
The most beautiful college campus in every state
The University of Wisconsin–Madison lies on an isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona and boasts some stellar lakeshore trails, along with some notable historic buildings such as the Neo-Renaissance–style Memorial Union and the castle-like Red Gym.
Campus life
UWPD releases stats from homecoming weekend Badgers game
The University of Wisconsin-Wisconsin Police Department released statistics of the citations they handed down on the game day Saturday.
During the Purdue Game, UWPD said they ejected 43 people, with 24 of them being students.
Q&A: UW GSCC discusses fostering community space for LGBTQ+ students
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Gender and Sexuality Campus Center (GSCC) works to support and foster community among UW’s trans and queer students. The organization planned a day-long community-building event and trans film festival on Oct. 24, the same time as conservative commentator Matt Walsh’s talk at Memorial Union. GSCC organized several other initiatives throughout the fall to support LBGTQ+ students on campus.
43 people ejected, 20 arrested during Badgers game, UW police say
UW-Madison police reported that 43 people were ejected from Camp Randall Stadium and 20 people were arrested during Saturday’s game between the Badgers and Purdue.
Of the 43 people ejected, 24 were UW students, and of the 20 arrested, 12 were UW students, police said in a statement detailing the numbers.
“It placed a hunger in me.” UW Odyssey Project celebrates 20 years of changing lives
The potential for adults returning to school to reach goals of obtaining degrees and knowledge is often most affected by external factors that can make everyday life and returning to academics a difficult balance. The UW Odyssey Project is a remedy to that problem, and over their 20 years working to bring adults to higher education, they have gone the extra mile every time.
The Odyssey Project started in 2002 and quickly started changing lives. Acting as an avenue for adults to return to higher education through the resources and knowledge that run throughout UW-Madison has allowed the Odyssey Project to serve a plethora of people each year to achieve their academic, career, and personal goals. A celebration at the UW-Memorial Union was only fitting.
University of Wisconsin celebrates homecoming weekend parade
UW-Madison is celebrating homecoming and starting off the weekend strong with their beloved parade.
NBC15′s John Stofflet reported live from the parade and talked to the owners of a Bucky Wagon, a reconstructed fire engine.
WATCH: Badger Band prepares for UW Homecoming parade
It’s Homecoming Week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Badger Band is getting ready for its annual parade performance.
News 3 Now photojournalist Sydney Martin caught up with the band as they ran through one of their final practices before the event.
UW vet school is short-staffed. Students say the work is falling to them and it’s unpaid.
Morning rounds at the animal hospital on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus start at 8 a.m. sharp. That means the days begin around dawn for veterinary medicine students in their fourth and final year of school, when clinical rotations largely replace classwork.
State news
Why Hispanic voters are a focus in Wisconsin’s 2022 election
Quoted: “They vote for the Democrats. And it’s been pretty consistent,” said Marquez, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison specializing in Chicano and Latino studies.
“The Democrats have to have a good strategy for reaching out to Latino voters. They have to make contact on the ground. They have to convince them that the election is important, that their vote matters, and that they should go to all of this trouble to get out and vote for a party that oftentimes doesn’t deliver,” he said.
With inflation top of mind for voters, Wisconsin governor candidates tout tax cuts. Here’s why that could make things worse
Quoted: Some studies have shown more than 60% of the inflation Americans are feeling today can be directly attributed to the supply chain shortages of last year, said Mark Copelovitch, a political science and public affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Second is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is a major exporter of grain and Russia is a major supplier of oil, so wartime disruptions and U.S sanctions on Russia have contributed to rising food and gas prices.
Stimulus spending has also been a factor.
“The other part of the inflation is the demand side, especially when we were all sitting home, spending out stimulus checks when we could not go out (during the pandemic),” Copelovitch said.
Viral false COVID vaccine claim lands in Wisconsin governor’s race after Tim Michels tweet
Quoted: Patrick Remington, a former epidemiologist for the CDC and director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said COVID-19 vaccines have turned out to not be as effective as initially hoped but “the one aspect that every scientist agrees is that this is one of the safest vaccines ever produced, if not the safest vaccine.”
“I think it’s very worrisome that any politician would view information that is not scientifically sound or that maybe comes from a conspiracy theory,” he said. “I would be very concerned if that information resonates with their base, because then we’ll have policy that is being determined not by science and evidence but by superstition and by conspiracy, and that should be concerning for everybody.”
Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, who served as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and has endorsed Michels, promoted COVID-19 vaccines to college students while he was president of the University of Wisconsin System during the coronavirus pandemic but did not mandate them.
Thompson said Friday he hadn’t seen Michels’ comments on the CDC and COVID-19 vaccines because he has been traveling out of state. He said spreading rumors about COVID-19 vaccine mandates is a bad idea.
“This rumor now about CDC requiring children being vaccinated should not be spread,” Thompson said.
Health
UW’s Dr. Joseph McBride: Respiratory illnesses in children surge, COVID changed seasonality of sicknesses
Hospitals across the nation are experiencing a surge in respiratory illnesses among children.
And hospitals in Wisconsin aren’t immune.
University of Wisconsin assistant professor of adult and pediatric infectious disease Dr. Joseph McBride says practitioners are “without a doubt” seeing higher numbers of respiratory issues in children. He specifically points to “respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.”
“RSV is a common seasonal virus that pediatricians, healthcare providers, young parents and families are well aware of year-in and year-out,” McBride says. “What’s interesting about RSV is that in the setting of COVID and all the mask use, it kind of threw off our normal seasonality of it. Usually it’s pretty predictable each year starting toward the end of fall, in to the winter during our normal cough-and-cold season that we would see spikes in RSV.”
Helium shortage: Doctors are worried that running out of the element could threaten MRIs
“You get these sharp images, and you can distinguish soft tissues,” said Dr. Scott Reeder, chief of MRI at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “It’s central to many things we do in modern medicine.” MRIs help doctors diagnose brain tumors, strokes, spinal cord injuries, liver diseases and cancer. The 3D images, experts say, are irreplaceable.
Athletics
Wisconsin women’s volleyball takes court, wins for first time since leaked photos scandal
For the first time since “private photos and video” were shared online of the University of Wisconsin women’s volleyball team, the team took to the court.
Opinion
The Jan. 6 committee is fueling unwarranted distrust of the Fifth Amendment
But the committee gains nothing by highlighting the advisors’ decision to plead the Fifth, and it risks further eroding one of the most important rights in the American criminal justice system.
-Steven Wright teaches criminal constitutional law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. He is also the former co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project.
UW Experts in the News
Ancient DNA Reveals the First Known Neanderthal Family
Studying Neanderthals is like “putting together a puzzle where we have many, many missing pieces,” John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin not involved in the study, tells the Associated Press’ Maddie Burakoff. And now, the new study means “somebody’s dumped a bunch more pieces on the table.”
15 Plants With Red Leaves Perfect For Your Indoor Space
The angel wings, also known as (Caladium ’Red flash’) is a tropical plant that is purposely grown for its large and showy foliage. The surface of the leaves features a combination of green shade, red veins, and pink dots that are extremely eye-catching. This pot plant doesn’t have stems; the leaves grow directly on petioles that emerge from the tuber underground (via the University of Wisconsin-Madison).
UW-Madison Related
Nicholas Goldberg: Where have all the English majors gone?
In 2015, Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker stumbled gracelessly into this debate when he tried to alter the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin by deleting the words that called on the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition.” In their place he wanted to substitute words calling on the university to “meet the state’s workforce needs