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October 26, 2023

Top Stories

Research

Higher Education/System

UW-Madison program will boost special education teaching pipeline in Milwaukee Public Schools

Wisconsin Public Radio

Over the next three years, Milwaukee Public Schools will have help securing candidates for some of its toughest-to-fill teaching jobs.

A new partnership between MPS and the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides on-the-job training through a 10-month teaching residency, paired with a special education teacher preparation master’s degree program.

Campus life

Halloween Culture Wars: Trump Clown, Decapitated Jesus, Nixed Celebrations

Newsweek

For several years now, colleges around the nation have been warning students against costumes that amount to “cultural appropriation.” Last year the University of Wisconsin-Madison unveiled its “Halloween Cultural Awareness” webpage that states it is offensive “when cultural elements are copied from a marginalized culture by members of the dominant culture.” One student complained to Fox News that the standard is applied in a “funny way,” since there’s no objection to appropriating Catholic culture by dressing as Jesus, a nun or a priest.

State news

Dairy workers on Wisconsin’s small farms are dying. Many of those deaths are never investigated.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Lola Loustaunau, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers, said that “it would really open the door for a lot of protections for workers” if OSHA consistently inspected small dairy farms that provide housing to immigrant workers.

“If they are politically interested in doing something,” she added, “it looks like they have all the basis to do it.”

Arts & Humanities

NY natural history museum changing how it looks after thousands of human remains in collection

Washington Post

Susan Lederer, professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin’s medical school, said that as the number of medical schools increased in the 19th century and dissection became an essential part of training, schools needed to find more cadavers.

States passed laws making unclaimed bodies, mostly of very poor people, available to medical schools.

“It reflects longstanding assumptions about the differences between middle-class and either working-class or underclass people” that it was deemed acceptable to turn certain bodies over but not others, she said.

Health

A spider was found inside a woman’s ear. Such cases are rare, doctors say, but not unheard of.

NBC News

Dr. Stacey Ishman, an otolaryngology instructor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, estimated that she has treated about eight patients with insects in their ears over her 23-year career — often people who did outdoor activities like camping.

“Most of the time the ear is completely fine,” said Ishman, who also wasn’t involved in the new report. “If there’s some injury to the ear canal, quite honestly it’s more often from people trying to get it out than it is from the bug itself.”

Athletics

Opinion

Business/Technology

Wisconsin business leaders see AI’s potential. Are companies ready?

Wisconsin Public Radio

In an August presentation, Somesh Jha, a computer science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the technology could be a threat to cybersecurity and could be misused to spread misinformation.

For example, there’s already a “fine-tuned” AI that can write spam emails, he said. AI can also be used to create fake images and videos that look real, known as “deepfakes.” Jha said deepfakes could be used, unethically, during elections to sway public opinion.

“This is coming,” he said. “I can tell you that there are people (who) are really scared.”