Skip to main content

May 10, 2024

Top Stories

Wisconsin cultures and their folk music get major honor from Library of Congress

Wisconsin State Journal

“It is the most diverse, equitable, and inclusive folksong field collection ever made for the Library of Congress,” said James P. Leary, professor emeritus of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies at UW-Madison. It reminds “us that we cannot fully grasp the richness of American roots music without recognizing the many peoples, tongues, and sounds that – whether past or present, from mainstream or margins, deservedly acknowledged or unjustly ignored – have always made America great.”

Research

Higher Education/System

Diversity, equity and inclusion conference explores issue at a time of polarization

Wisconsin Examiner

Exploring the current status and the future of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts was the major theme at the annual Toward One Wisconsin conference organized by the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service (WIPPS) — a University of Wisconsin organization that seeks to address local, state and national issues through scholarship, outreach and public service.

Campus life

Crime and safety

Extension

Health

Athletics

Opinion

Letter to the Editor: Dissent from Jewish UW faculty member

Daily Cardinal

The demands of the anti-Israel protests on campus include “cutting all ties with Israeli institutions, including the… Mosse Graduate Exchange Fellowship.” As a member of the Faculty Committee for the George L. Mosse Program in History, which administers the exchange fellowship, I strongly oppose this demand as a threat to academic freedom. The free exchange of ideas, scholars, and students is essential for the advancement of knowledge and the fearless sifting and winnowing long championed by the University of Wisconsin.

UW-Madison needs to stand up to irrational protesters — David Arundel

Wisconsin State Journal

I have been a passionate supporter of my university, but I am now going to withdraw my support. I cannot support an administration that allows uneducated, ill-informed students to make irrational and illogical demands of said administration. Demanding that UW cut all ties with Israel is beyond antisemitic.

Business/Technology

UW Experts in the News

Invasive tree-killing beetle likely in every Wisconsin county

Wisconsin Public Radio

Around 50 percent or fewer ash trees have died in northern Wisconsin where infestations are relatively new, according to PJ Liesch, an entomologist with the Division of Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Unfortunately, we’re still going to be seeing lots of ash trees dying over the years and likely decades to come,” Liesch said.

Student Loan Cancellation Update: New Group Considered for Forgiveness

Newsweek

Dr. Nick Hillman, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referenced a 2020 article written by Dr. Denisa Gándara and Dr. Sosanya Jones titled Who Deserves benefits in higher Education? A Policy Discourse Analysis of a Process Surrounding Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, telling Newsweek via email on Thursday that “they have found policymakers favor certain groups over others based on notions of deservingness.

An Epic Battle Over 1 Mile of Land in Wisconsin Is Tearing Environmentalists Apart

Mother Jones

The Cardinal-Hickory Creek fight is as much about legal principles as it is about the fate of the mile-wide section of the wildlife refuge the developers want to traverse. The actual environmental impacts of the current deal on the table are arguably not the worst outcome, explains David Drake, a wildlife specialist at the University of Wisconsin. With proper mitigation, he argues, the ecosystem could respond well to the proposed land swap. “After the transmission towers are constructed, there is a minimal impact at that point,” he explains, though he warns that construction would still pose dangers like habitat disturbance and invasive species.

UW-Madison Related

Nearly all Gaza campus protests in the US have been peaceful, study finds

The Guardian

Nearly half of the 3% of campus protests that Acled categorized as violent became so because of demonstrators fighting with the police sent in to clear protest encampments. That included incidents at the University of Texas, Austin, on 24 April; at Emerson College in Boston on 25 April; at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, on 26 April; at Washington University in St Louis on 27 April, when campus officials said that three police officers were injured, including one who had a “severe concussion” and another who broke a finger; and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on 1 May, when a state trooper was reportedly injured after being hit on the head with a skateboard.