In a survey sent out last spring, the College for Rural Wisconsin found that 82% of rural-identifying UW-Madison students felt somewhat or unprepared for college, director Jennifer Blazek said.
October 15, 2024
Top Stories
Research
Jane Rotonda and Jessica Calarco preview the 2024 Wisconsin Book Festival
Interview with Jessica Calarco, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
School lunches could be a learning experience for students
Interview with Jennifer E. Gaddis, an associate professor of civil society and community studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of The Labor of Lunch. She is an advisory board member of the National Farm to School Network.
Review of Wisconsin talk radio finds stark divides, misinformation
Divided Americans are often described as living in different media bubbles, so for this story University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism students listened to several radio hosts across the political spectrum to report on just how different those bubbles are.
Watch Duty Wildfire Tracker Is the Hottest App of the Year
According to the University of Wisconsin, almost one-third of US land is in the so-called wildland-urban interface and thus susceptible to forest fires, up from 29.5% in 1990. Meanwhile, people are spreading out; some 44 million US homes are now under threat from fire, up from 30 million in 1990, the data shows. Climate change is making those 72,000 communities more tenuous.
Change is on the Air: New series explores state of Wisconsin talk radio ahead of November election
In a new series, student journalists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by Wisconsin Watch State Bureau Chief Matthew DeFour, explore all of those changes. The students who collaborated on this series include: Benjamin Cadigan, Hallie Claflin, Meryl Hubbard, Ray Kirsch, Frankie Pica, Ashley Rodriguez, Andrew Schneider, Sophia Scolman, Paige Stevenson and Omar Waheed.
Campus life
Here’s when the sunburst chairs at Memorial Union will go away for the year
The removal of the Memorial Union’s colorful orange, yellow and green terrace chairs — that bellwether of impending winter — will start the last week of October.
UW-Madison set to kick-off homecoming week, events starting Saturday
Festivities begin with the “Badger Games,” which is a bracket-style student intramural volleyball tournament. That goes from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Nicholas Recreation Center.
Terrace season coming to an end: chair removal anticipated to begin Oct. 28
The Union will continue to host concerts, art events and other activities inside once the outdoor area closes.
Memorial Union Terrace chairs to be removed beginning Oct. 28
Wisconsin Union announced the move on Monday. The removal date is subject to change based on factors including staffing. Crews will remove 2,000 chairs and 431 tables from the Terrace.
Sunburst chairs to be removed from UW-Madison Memorial Union Terrace later this month
The iconic chairs are expected to be removed from the Terrace on Oct. 28. The more than 2,000 yellow, orange and green chairs and more than 400 tables mark an end to the Terrace summer entertainment season.
Health
Dual use of combustible and electronic cigarettes is worse for your health
“Very few people these days just smoke cigarettes,” said Megan Piper, a director of research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. Piper is currently conducting a study of dual users to figure out effective ways to help them quit cigarettes.
Business/Technology
Tom Still: Tech, ’trep issues on campaign back burner, but should emerge over time
Some say the federal government should be allowed to appropriate products patented by universities and developed with private money if the underlying research received any federal funding and if the products are deemed unreasonably priced. In patent law-speak, that’s called “march-in” rights. It would be a major departure from the bipartisan 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which was silent on what constitutes “reasonable” price and which has been credited with spurring innovation at major universities nationwide, including the UW-Madison. Erik Iverson, who leads the independent Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, has said the proposal “ignores years of input from experts” who have found “there is no legal justification to redefine march-in rights as a price-control tool.”
UW Experts in the News
Column | Climate change is transforming homeownership in the U.S.
To test this idea, Keys and Philip Mulder, now on faculty at the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s business school, searched for the prelude to a housing crash: a distinctive “lead-lag” pattern of a spike in unsold homes (“the lead”), followed by falling prices (“the lag”).
Obituaries
Wisconsin Public Media remembers executive director Heather L. Reese
Wisconsin Public Media (WPM) is saddened by the death of Heather L. Reese, executive director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison division that, in partnership with the Educational Communications Board (ECB), provides statewide access to public media through PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).