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August 7, 2023

Research

Higher Education/System

Former UW-Richland building sold for potential charter school

Wisconsin Public Radio

Richland County has sold one of the buildings at the former University of Wisconsin-Platteville Richland campus to a nearby school district. It’s the first repurposing plan for campus facilities since UW System President Jay Rothman announced college classes would cease July 1 after enrollment fell to just 60 students.

Colleges still squeezed by inflationary construction costs

Inside Higher Ed

This year, cost overruns have popped up all over the U.S. At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, multiple projects have soared over budget, leading the UW Board of Regents to approve an extra $60 million for overages driven by inflation and supply chain issues. But in the case of two projects at UW Madison, state officials are mulling a possible lawsuit against contractors to recoup the overages.

Campus life

Rec Well offers classic summer camp fun, with focus on leadership for teens

Wisconsin State Journal

The Rec Well Summer Camp features recreational activities and on- and off-campus field trips with partners including Outdoor UW, Babcock Hall Dairy Store and science labs for 10 one-week sessions. The camps are open this year to 5- to 14-year-olds broken into four age groups, and the size of each session was increased from 55 to 110 campers. Next year even more campers will be allowed to register, Van Note said.

Athletics

Getting to know the Big Ten mascots: Who are these guys?

Duckswire USA Today

From the University of Wisconsin website:Wisconsin’s loveable mascot, Bucky Badger, has always ranked high in fan appeal and enthusiasm. Although badgers in various forms had been the University of Wisconsin mascot for decades, the version that is currently known as Bucky, sporting a cardinal and white sweater, was first drawn in 1940 by professional illustrator Art Evans of Garden Grove, Calif. In 1949, a student first wore a badger outfit with a papier-máchê head at the homecoming game and the mascot came to l

How U.S. soccer star Rose Lavelle developed part of her game at Wisconsin

Wisconsin State Journal

But Badgers coach Paula Wilkins has seen a familiar element in U.S. games when Lavelle, who played for the Badgers from 2013 to 2016, has been on the pitch.

“The national team is reliant a little bit on her,” Wilkins said. “And she learned that here because a lot of times in games we were reliant on her. So she’s learned to carry that load a little bit.”

Don’t encourage UW sports fans to drink — Steve Hoffenberg

Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison announced it will offer “enhanced beverage choices” at the Kohl Center and Bahn Arena in Madison this fall.

What does it look like to me? People will get drunk before and after the games, so we need to cash in on this, too. College athletics at UW will offer alcohol on a campus widely known as one of the biggest party schools in the U.S.

UW Experts in the News

The new liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is off to a tense start

NBC News

“The court has been a contentious place, by some measures, for a decade,” said Michael Wagner, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But I do think it’s in the court’s interest to demonstrate how the decisions they make are rooted in the law and not rooted in politics. “It’s a difficult thing to do,” he added.

The NIH halts a research project. Is it self-censorship?

CBS News

Even though the NIH has had to navigate political rapids for decades, including enduring controversy over stem cell research and surveys on the sexual behavior of teens, this is a particularly fraught moment. “It is caught up in a larger debate about who gets to decide what is truthful information these days,” said Alta Charo, a professor emerita of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has advised the NIH in the past.

Addiction-treating drug still seldom prescribed in ERs, study finds

The Capital Times

“Buprenorphine is a first-line treatment for opioid use disorder, and offering it to anyone seen in the emergency department after an opioid overdose should be standard of care,” said Dr. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, a UW Health addiction medicine physician and University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor of family medicine and community health, who called the study results “promising.”

Obituaries

William Nicholas Guy “Nick” Hitchon

Wisconsin State Journal

Nick was about to make a major change in his life, as he moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US in the early 1980s to continue his work in nuclear fusion.

He remained at the university’s Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering for four decades. Nick became a full professor in 1994, and was department chair from 1999 to 2002. He was the author of more than 100 articles and three books in his specialist field.