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October 25, 2024

Research

UW-Madison study shows gaps in care for Hmong nursing home residents

Posted on
Channel 3000

Wisconsin is home to the third largest population of Hmong Americans in the United States. But a new case study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows for the aging members of this community, there’s a gap in their quality of life in nursing homes.

“This work is also personal, right?” And for medical anthropologist Mai See Thao, the study conducted with researchers at the University of Minnesota and the University of Iowa was work that felt nostalgic—and not in a good way.

“Growing up in Wisconsin, my grandmother and my aunt went through the nursing home experience,” Thao, who is ethnically Hmong, said. “My aunt was actually doing very poorly because she was restricted to eating only the nursing home food. And so she was starving a lot of the time as well as my grandmother.”

Higher Education/System

Legislature could consider spinning off UW-Madison, several other proposals to revamp UW system

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

The state Legislature could consider several proposals to revamp the Universities of Wisconsin system, including spinning off the University of Wisconsin-Madison and increasing tuition.

Since July, a legislative committee has been meeting to look at the future of the state’s public university system.

Committee member Robert Venable, a 1986 UW-Madison graduate and CEO of the Chicago-based company Miami Corporation Management, said disruption to the UW system is happening.

“Some of these changes, it feels disruptive, but I think we’re past that point,” Venable said. “We can wish it was the same, but we need to adapt and get in front of this stuff so the state gets the best it can out of our higher ed system and its students.”

Campus life

UW, Madison pursue efforts to make housing market more accessible

Posted on
Badger Herald

Each fall, University of Wisconsin students throw themselves into the battle for their next house or apartment. Simultaneously, students on campus contemplate various routes they can take to not only lock down a room but to make living cheaper for themselves.

According to a 2023 Housing Snapshot Report on the City of Madison, demand exceeds supply when it comes to housing, rendering prices unaffordable to the median renter household. Throw tuition into the mix and students who become overwhelmed by finding affording housing may feel the need to get creative. Students may resort to alternative and unfavorable methods to make housing prices more manageable.

Track alums urge UW-Madison athletics to reconsider Shell replacement

Posted on
The Cap Times

A group of UW-Madison alumni and other supporters say the university’s track and field and cross country programs shouldn’t be cast aside to bolster the football team, though.

“There’s absolutely no reason that it has to be one over the other,” said Heidi Kalsen, who competed as a long jumper and sprinter at UW-Madison from 1999 to 2003.

Rapper and UW-Madison alum Yung Gravy leads hundreds of students from a club to the polls in Madison

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Spotted Cow in hand, Yung Gravy marched hundreds of students from a club to the polls at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wednesday. The tongue-in-cheek rapper got his start during his time as a student there.

“We’re going to party to the polls, baby,” Gravy — in a red Wisconsin T-shirt with an “I voted” sticker on it — said in a video he shared to his Instagram Story as a crowd cheered behind him.

UW Experts in the News

Mayor of prominent Republican Wisconsin city says he will vote for Harris

Posted on
Washington Post

“It’s kind of a political joke amongst pundits that it all comes down to Waukesha County, Wisconsin,” Mike Wagner, a professor who focuses on political communication and public opinion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, previously told the Washington Examiner. “There is some truth to that — the turnout is really important for Republicans there. It’s really a place that they need.”