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January 31, 2024

Higher Education/System

GOP’s latest proposal to eliminate DEI receives public hearing

Posted on
Wisconsin Examiner

A proposed constitutional amendment limiting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts throughout Wisconsin received a public hearing on Tuesday.

The amendment — AJR 109 — would prohibit governmental entities, including the UW System, technical colleges and governmental offices and agencies, from discriminating against or granting “preferential treatment” to people and groups on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, public education, public contracting or public administration.

Police presence in schools, UW-Superior welcomes new research center, How to avoid probate court

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

We examine a new study about the effectiveness of having police officers in schools. Then, two members of UW-Superior’s newest research center explain their efforts to advance community-based projects. Then, a Madison-based attorney offers advice for end-of-life planning. Includes interview with Ben Fisher, associate professor of civil society & community studies at UW-Madison.

Inequity in higher education funding, A Republican conflict on border measures and Ukraine funding, The significance of Pitchfork

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

We talk about where the most government funding for higher education goes — and why the recipients may not be the most needy. Then we look at what’s happening with a compromise bill that former President Trump could be holding up to energize his 2024 campaign. And we reflect on the demise of a major taste-making music enterprise.

How Wisconsin museums are responding to new rules on using objects sacred to Native Americans

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Anthropology Museum Director and Campus NAGPRA Coordinator Liz Leith: “The university is already in compliance with the recently announced NAGPRA revisions. UW–Madison does not have human remains or cultural items on exhibit, and access to and research on human remains and cultural items is already restricted, pending approval through consultation. My colleagues and I in the Department of Anthropology have been consulting with the Wisconsin Intertribal Repatriation Committee since the mid-2000s. UW-Madison deeply values and prioritizes consultation as a standard practice in relation to human remains and cultural items present on campus. Through these consultations, we have successfully repatriated most of the remains and cultural items that had once been on campus, and we will continue our work to maintain a strong shared future with Wisconsin tribes.”

Campus life

Community leader Maurice Mitchell speaks on achieving freedom through collective activism

Posted on
Badger Herald

Leader in the Movement for Black Lives, Maurice Mitchell, spoke at the University of Wisconsin Tuesday for an event in collaboration with the School for Workers. Mitchell is the National Director of the Working Families Party, a left-wing political party promoting dignity, compassion and justice for all, according to the Working Families Party website.

Golden to step down as dean for UW-Madison’s SMPH

Posted on
WMTV - Channel 15

“It has been an incredible honor and privilege to serve as dean and as the university’s vice chancellor for medical affairs,” said Golden. “As I look forward to the next phase of my professional life, I cherish the experience of working with so many remarkably talented and dedicated individuals within our school and our academic health system on behalf of those we serve.”

Crime and safety

Arts & Humanities

The joy of dictionaries

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Who decides which words make it into dictionaries and how to define them in non-biased ways? Professor Emeritus Marshall Cook looks behind the scenes at lexicographers such as Kory Stamper (author of Word by Word), and Derrick Allen (graduate of the UW Odyssey Project www.odyssey.wisc.edu) adds readings of “I Love Webster’s” by Tosumba Welch and Malcolm X’s “A Homemade Education” on the life-changing power of dictionaries.

Health

My friend Herb Kohl had deep convictions, including more equitable health care

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The recent death of Herb Kohl concluded our association of 70 years as mutual friends and ideological colleagues. We began to interact as University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate fraternity brothers living together at our frat house. We frequently discussed maximizing opportunities to achieve what our democracy provided for us to attain professional prominence as minorities.

Athletics

UW Experts in the News

Here’s the Happiness Research that Stands Up to Scrutiny

Posted on
Scientific American

Such rigor is admirable, but it also means one can miss things, says Simon Goldberg, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studies the effects of meditation, including research among people who have psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. He noted that because of Dunn and Folk’s strict criteria, they omitted hundreds of studies on meditation’s benefits. “It’s, in the spirit of rigor, throwing lots of babies out with the bathwater,” he says. “It’s really very obvious that meditation training reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression.”