A former Miss America and Wausau native will take the podium as the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s winter commencement keynote speaker, UW officials announced Wednesday.
November 20, 2025
Top Stories
UW-Madison, Microsoft, TitletownTech team up to boost Wisconsin research with AI
A new collaboration between UW-Madison, Microsoft, and TitletownTech is set to boost scientific research in Wisconsin. The partnership will leverage advanced AI tools to help researchers tackle major challenges more efficiently.
New UW faculty workload policy could hinder faculty recruitment, professors say
The UW Board of Regents on Nov. 19 approved controversial changes to a teaching workload policy despite some criticism and concern from faculty.
Under the proposal, full-time instructors would be required to teach at least 24 credits every school year, or four three-credit classes each semester. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee, where professors are expected to produce more research, the minimum load is 12 credits per year, or two classes per semester.
Former Miss America returns to UW-Madison as commencement speaker
Former Miss America and UW-Madison graduate Grace Vanderhei will be back at UW-Madison’s commencement — less than three years after she celebrated her own graduation — as the university’s winter commencement speaker.
UW Regents pass workload requirements, redesigned gen eds
The UW Board of Regents on Wednesday approved minimum teaching requirements for Universities of Wisconsin professors and a redesign of general education courses to make them easier to transfer between schools.
Research
UW-Madison’s new center studies the link between aging and diseases
UW-Madison researchers at a new federally funded center on campus will examine how aging influences diseases, such as cancer and neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s.
The Wisconsin Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging will fund new research that examines how metabolic changes associated with aging are linked to disease. The center’s researchers aim to develop improved treatments or methodologies that physicians can use to better address their patients’ conditions.
The polar vortex is about to bring a wild weather pattern change
It’s still not certain there will be a major winter blast, but scientists are watching for colder than normal conditions to develop in the mid-latitudes — where most of the world’s population resides — over the next month or so. Once the polar vortex is disrupted, it can take a month or more to recover, said Andrea Lopez Lang, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We can see more active and shifted storm tracks and increases in cold air outbreaks in regions across the Northern Hemisphere,” she said in an email.
Honda invests in soil carbon removal credit scheme to offset emissions
University of Wisconsin Madison Division of Extension’s Crops and Soils program defines a carbon credit as, “a certified, tradable carbon offset that is exchanged under a cap and trade system of emissions regulation.” Under that system, companies are allotted a certain number of credits to offset their emissions impact. Farmers who have generated their own credits may sell them to companies who, in turn, may release more harmful emissions into the atmosphere.
Higher Education/System
It’s time to break up the programmatic accrediting agency monopolies
As John D. Wiley, former provost at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, correctly noted almost 20 years ago, “We are already seeing this very phenomenon of degree inflation, and it is being caused by the professions themselves! This is particularly problematic in the health professions, where, it seems, everyone wants to be called ‘doctor.’ I have no problem whatsoever with the professional societies and their accreditors telling us what a graduate must know to practice safely and professionally. I have a big problem, though, when they hand us what amounts to a master’s-level curriculum and tell us the resulting degree must be called a ‘doctor of X.’ This is a transparently self-interested ploy by the profession, and I see no conceivable argument that it is in the public interest. All it does is further confuse an already confusing array of degree names and titles, to no useful purpose.”
What the Trump administration’s latest moves to dismantle the Education Department mean for schools and students
Experts also expressed concerns that the process of disseminating funding or services may change once they’re moved to other federal agencies. Nicholas Hillman, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says he wonders, for instance, if a college that is seeking funding from an OPE grant will now be asked different questions and will have to undergo a different review process, which could potentially create “additional hurdles” for colleges that are “already stretched pretty thin.”
Campus life
UW-Madison School of Nursing Dean Linda Scott, a leader in her field, dies at 69
Linda Scott, who served for nearly a decade as dean of the UW-Madison School of Nursing and was a leader in her field, died Monday. She was 69.
A native of Kalamazoo, Michigan, Scott’s ambition to work in nursing started during her childhood, inspired by her mother’s career as a nurse attendant. This year was Scott’s 10th in the role at the School of Nursing as its eighth leader and the program’s first Black dean.
Wisconsin football seniors reflect on career disappointments, points of pride
Sighs, long pauses and stares into the distance accompanied many of the answers to a difficult question posed to University of Wisconsin seniors over the past three weeks.
The class, which will be celebrated Saturday night when the Badgers face Illinois for the final game at Camp Randall Stadium this season, finds itself celebrating something different than most senior days.
University of Wisconsin Police investigating stickers promoting violence against ICE
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Police are investigating stickers that appeared on campus encouraging violence against federal immigration agents.
Republicans are pointing to the imagery as another example of the hostile climate conservatives face on college campuses.