Skip to main content

November 2, 2022

Higher Education/System

Abortion training is part of medical school curriculum, but some Wisconsin programs are having trouble providing it post Roe

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Administrators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are also coming up with ways to solve the current training problem, but they’re also beginning to worry about future recruitment.

Dr. Laura Jacques, an assistant professor and the director of medical student education at UW-Madison’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said the repercussions could be felt for years.

“I’m worried that we’re going to have a challenging time recruiting the best residents to our program because of these concerns, and not just for obstetrics and gynecology, but for all types of medicine,” she said.

Campus life

UW-Madison offers students free meals, free housing or $5,000 to move out of dorms

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Returning students who wanted to stay in the dorms were offered an alternative — a free 10-meals-a-week dining plan or a $5,000 housing stipend to live off campus, University Housing Director Jeff Novak said. Alternatively, they could live for free in the university’s Eagle Heights apartments, located on the Far West Side near Picnic Point, about 2.4 miles from Bascom Hall.

State news

Wisconsin’s housing shortage isn’t just a quality-of-life issue. It’s a workforce issue.

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Prior to the Great Recession, University of Wisconsin-Madison applied economics professor and community development specialist Steven Deller said there was a typical “flow” of new houses being developed.

Construction of new housing “plummeted” after the housing bubble burst in 2008 and never came back, Deller said.

He said many of the developers in the starter home market were crushed during the Great Recession, banks have become hesitant to make loans for starter home developments and the cost of building materials continues to rise.

“The economics are just not in favor of building those starter homes,” he said. “And that’s where a lot of communities are really struggling because the developers that they do have that are interested are saying, ‘I just can’t make it pencil out.'”

Where Wisconsin governor candidates Tony Evers, Tim Michels stand on funding for K-12 schools

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Julie Underwood, former dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Education, said the proposal would require a massive amount of money to fund while also meeting constitutional obligations to provide adequate public school education.

“If you take the 133,000 students that are in private schools right now and give them vouchers, and you run two parallel structures, I don’t know how the Legislature would would manage to fund that,” Underwood said. “And if they further reduce the amount of funding giving to schools at this time, I really think that we’re going to go below the standard that the Wisconsin Supreme Court set.”

Arts & Humanities

Q&A: Filmmaker Robert Stone, ‘American Experience: Taken Hostage’

Posted on
PBS Wisconsin

Unfolding like a political thriller, American Experience: Taken Hostage is a riveting four-hour, two-part documentary film about the Iran hostage crisis, when 52 American diplomats, Marines and civilians were taken hostage at the American Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979.

Ahead of its premiere, PBS Wisconsin spoke with writer, producer, director and University of Wisconsin-Madison alum Robert Stone about the film.

Health

Wisconsin hospitals made $4 billion last year, face financial test this year, report says

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

UW Health, which is building a $438 million, six-story clinic on Madison’s Far East Side, benefitted from the positive financial picture last year.

UW Hospital had the highest net income of the state’s 152 reporting hospitals, with $429.1 million, for an operating margin of 9.1%, according to WHA. The hospital also had the highest net income in fiscal 2020, with $201.5 million, for an operating margin of 5.1%.

Opinion

Letter | UW privatization of vaccine effort a bad idea

Posted on
The Capital Times

It is ironic that a biomedical powerhouse such as UW is doing this. Contracts often provide overly targeted responses that are too little, too late, and miss many people, allowing the virus to mutate and spread. Let’s not repeat the mistake of responding to the pandemic with the bare minimum, or even less. This contract is a missed opportunity to keep capacity in-house at UW, and to innovate, helping the rest of the state: the Wisconsin Idea.

Letter | What happened to sifting and winnowing?

Posted on
The Capital Times

Dear Editor: The article “UW-Madison event featuring conservative speaker Matt Walsh leads to graffiti, protest,” Oct. 24) makes me wonder what has happened to the proud tradition of “fearless sifting and winnowing” at the university.

UW Experts in the News

Obituaries

Cathy Ann Rasmussen, PhD

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Cathy dedicated her career to advancing groundbreaking technologies from laboratory to patient, first as a pivotal member of the pioneering team at Stratatech in Madison, WI, and later as Executive Director of the Forward Bio Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was a leader in regenerative medicine and a mentor to many throughout her life.

UW-Madison Related

Campuses are increasingly unsafe for Jews (opinion)

Posted on
Inside Higher Ed

In August, nine student groups at the University of California, Berkeley, voted to refuse invitations to speakers who support Israel or Zionism, effectively banning the vast majority of Jews. In September, at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, someone chalked on campus grounds: “zionism is racism” and “zionism is genocide” and that campus “Zionist” organizations have “blood on their hands,” explicitly naming Chabad and J Street. The Students for Justice in Palestine chapter on campus released a statement maintaining this was perfectly acceptable discourse.