UW to allow ASM reps to be paid for international work, ASM reps express disappointment after UW Dean leaves meeting early.
ASM calls on UW to pay telecommuting workers, implement pass/fail grading option
Badger Herald
Author: gbump
UW Health to distribute and store Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine
Daily Cardinal
The DHS plans to implement a hub-and-spoke model, where Pfizer vaccine doses will be stored in a central location like UW Health before being shipped to healthcare systems. The Pfizer vaccine requires storage in a facility that is colder than -94 degrees Fahrenheit.
ASM passes legislation supporting international telecommuters, pass/fail option
Daily Cardinal
In its final meeting of the semester, the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) approved legislation Tuesday night supporting international telecommuters and calling for a Pass/Fail and Satisfactory Disruption/Non-Satisfactory Disruption option for the Fall 2020 semester.
Election Symposium understands 2020 pre-election survey results, looks forward to future research
Daily Cardinal
UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) Professor Michael Wagner focused specifically on a “pre-election” swing state and democratic agenda survey conducted by the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal (CCCR), an SJMC research group dedicated “to understand[ing] the communication ecology and political culture in Wisconsin over the last decade.”
U.S. physicists rally around ambitious plan to build fusion power plant
Science
The new fusion road map identifies technological gaps and nearer-term facilities to fill them (see partial list, below). “By identifying [a power plant] as a goal, that can trigger more research in those areas that support that mission,” says Stephanie Diem, a fusion physicist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. For example, in a fusion power plant a barrage of energetic neutrons would degrade materials, so the report calls for developing a particle-accelerator–based neutron source to test new ones.
Business Group Says Some Industries Still Dealing With Worker Shortage
Wisconsin Public Radio
University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Steve Deller said the shortage continues to be a problem in Wisconsin. Deller pointed to a mismatch between the industries and positions that have seen large job losses during the pandemic, and those that are in need of workers.
Badgers women’s hockey team has 2 more series postponed because of positive COVID-19 tests
Wisconsin State Journal
The University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team’s final two series of 2020 have been postponed due to a rising number of COVID-19 cases with the Badgers.
Wisconsin expects first batch of COVID-19 vaccines soon, general public may not see it until mid-2021
Wisconsin State Journal
St. Mary’s Hospital and UW Health, both in Madison, will operate as regional distribution hubs for the Pfizer vaccine. “These vaccines will be going to frontline healthcare workers first, and there are still uncertainties around the quantities we’ll get and the timing of their arrival,” Matt Anderson, senior medical director of ambulatory operations with UW Health, said in a statement. “The public must remain diligent as it will not be widely available anytime soon.”
UW fraternity appeals Plan Commission denial of North Lake Street project
The Capital Times
Alpha Chi Sigma, a professional chemistry fraternity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is appealing the city Plan Commission’s decision to quash plans to demolish two houses on North Lake Street and replace them with a new building that would house both the fraternity several apartments for rent.
UW System extends COVID-19 testing until Christmas
WISC-TV 3
The University of Wisconsin System announced in a release today that they will operate their COVID-19 “surge testing” sites until at least Christmas, thanks to added support from the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
Positive COVID-19 test within Badgers men’s hockey team postpones series at Michigan State
Wisconsin State Journal
The Badgers, who already were in East Lansing as part of a road trip that began last week at Ohio State, started returning home Sunday night after learning earlier in the day one of their players had a confirmed positive test for the coronavirus.
With Louisville game postponed, Rhode Island landed as replacement for Badgers men’s basketball
Wisconsin State Journal
Badgers coach Greg Gard knew all along that it would be a matter of when, not if, the schedule would have to be adjusted on the fly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That moment arrived four games into the season and No. 13 UW will host Rhode Island on Wednesday at the Kohl Center — tipoff is at 3:30 p.m. to accommodate the Big Ten Network — instead of playing Louisville as previously scheduled.
UW, SSM designated hubs for Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine distribution
WKOW-TV 27
When the vaccine is available, SSM Health, UW Health and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services will distribute it to health systems and long-term care facilities.
UW System asks for 2% and 2.5% employee pay increases in each of next 2 years
Wisconsin State Journal
University of Wisconsin System employees would receive 2% and 2.5% pay increases over the next two fiscal years under a plan officials released Monday, but the annual raises require legislative approval and COVID-19 complicates the state budget picture.
UW System extends COVID-19 surge testing through Christmas
WKOW-TV 27
The University of Wisconsin System COVID-19 surge testing sites will operate at least until Christmas, System President Tommy Thompson announced Monday.
UW Badgers give back at SYH Celebration Drive-Thru Food Drive
NBC-15
“Badgers give back is the philanthropic arm of Wisconsin athletics” said Jackie Davenport, the Director of Community Relations for UW Athletics. She added “They say we are the heart of Wisconsin athletics. We coordinate all engagement with the community and non-profits in our area.”
ASM leaders advocate for international telecommuting student workers’ compensation, UW defends current policy
Badger Herald
’This [policy] is specifically targeted towards students who are currently on international soil — the vast majority being international students,’ ASM Chair says
SSFC approves Student Judiciary budget, postpones SAC Governing Board Decision
Badger Herald
The Student Services Finance Committee met Monday to introduce their internal budget and approve Student Judiciary’s FY22 budget. SSFC was also going to vote on the Student Activities Center Governing Board budget but voted to push the decision to next week.
UW-Madison recognized for civic engagement in 2020 presidential election
Daily Cardinal
The Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition hosted a virtual awards ceremony Friday awarding UW-Madison “for exemplifying the SLSV Coalition’s Guiding Principle of Removing Barriers and Increasing Access.” The award title is shared with Alabama A&M University, an institution also recognized for its removal of barriers impacting voter suppression.
Asteroid Dust from Hayabusa2 Could Solve a Mystery of Planet Creation
Scientific American
“This is a short-lived nuclide that only exists in the early solar system,” says Noriko Kita, an expert in meteorite aging from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That advanced vintage makes chondrules the second-oldest recognizable objects in our solar system, after calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs), specks of white in meteorites that are thought to have formed one to three million years earlier by condensing out of the gas that surrounded our young sun.
Gene Modification Treatments Could Delay Onset Of Huntington’s Disease
Wisconsin Public Radio
The average age of onset of Huntington’s disease is 39 years old, said Jane Paulsen, a research faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Neurology Department who is leading a study to determine if the disease can be prevented or delayed. Paulsen said she has seen cases of Huntington’s in people as young as 2 and as old as 82.
When do voters support Black Lives Matter or the Green New Deal?
The Washington Post
As President-elect Joe Biden continues his transition to the White House, House Democratic progressives and centrists are fighting over how to frame the party’s agenda for the public. For instance, progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said “I can’t be silent” and will continue speaking about policy goals ranging from defunding police departments to passing the Green New Deal. But centrist Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) argues that if party members keep using such language, Democrats will get “torn apart in 2022.”
-Jianing Li, Mike Wagner, Lew Friedland, Dhavan Shah
Baltimore’s New Progressive Mayor Is Ready To Tackle The City’s Biggest Problems
NPR
“Baltimore never really wrestled with the demons of segregation,” said Lawrence Brown, a visiting sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
UW’s Tommy Thompson: Turn Wisconsin Prison Into College For Inmates
Wisconsin Public Radio
University of Wisconsin System Interim President Tommy Thompson says he wants to transform one of the state’s prisons into a college for inmates.
The Easy Way to Quit Smoking
The Atlantic
“I am always a bit suspicious of silver bullets in public health,” Michael Fiore, one of the country’s leading experts on tobacco use and smoking cessation, told me. “Things are rarely silver bullets. But reducing the nicotine in cigarettes to near-zero is as close to a silver bullet as you get.”
How the leading coronavirus vaccines made it to the finish line
The Washington Post
Some scientists believed from the start that it would be possible to repurpose this basic cellular function for medicine. In 1990, a Hungarian-born scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, Katalin Kariko brashly predicted to a surgeon colleague that his work would soon be obsolete, replaced by the power of messenger RNA therapies. That same year, a team at the University of Wisconsin startled the scientific world with a paper that showed it was possible to inject a snippet of messenger RNA into mice and turn their muscle cells into factories, creating proteins on demand.
Why Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide Might Save Our Lives
Mother Jones
Four years later, those divisions are as solid as ever, and a pandemic has shown us how deadly they can turn. Cramer, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, watched the virus hit the state’s cities first. Amid a tornado of misinformation and political polarization, many people in more rural—and more conservative—corners of the state became skeptical about whether the pandemic response they were hearing about was designed for them.
Primer on Trump’s Visit to Georgia
FactCheck.org
Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us it is not possible to know how many Georgians voted for Biden and no other candidate. That “would require individual-level information from ballots, not aggregation information about ballots cast in each race,” he said.
Applying to college? These are some of the hardest to get into
USA Today
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s children’s hospital was the site of the first bone marrow transplant in 1968. Twenty alumni have won a Nobel prize. Novelist Joyce Carol Oates, progressive politician Robert M. La Follette, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright are among the school’s alumni.
Professor: Let’s Drop The ‘Guilty’ In ‘Guilty Pleasure’
Wisconsin Public Radio
“I believe that pleasure is freedom,” said Schalk, an associate professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Pleasure is part of liberation.”
First-Year College Students Reflect On ‘Intense’ Pandemic Semester
Wisconsin Public Radio
University of Wisconsin System campuses are wrapping up their first full semester amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been anything but normal, and for some first-year students, finding a sense of community on campus has been hampered by heavy restrictions on social gatherings. Mental health experts say that isolation is a problem and has contributed to a myriad of anxieties faced by students.
4 UW System Campuses Cancel Spring Break To Avoid COVID-19 Spread
Wisconsin Public Radio
A growing number of University of Wisconsin System campuses are canceling spring break in hopes of preventing outbreaks of COVID-19. While most UW System schools are keeping spring break plans in place, administrators say that could change.
UW-Madison student reimagines education through board game designed for Ugandan refugees
WISC-TV 3
For University of Wisconsin-Madison senior Joel Baraka, there was one question that always lingered in the back of his mind: What can I do today to improve the life of another child?
UW Health to serve as distribution hub for Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine
WISC-TV 3
Even though the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has yet to be given emergency authorization by the FDA, UW Health says it will serve as a regional distribution hub for the vaccine once it is approved.
UW Health designated a hub for Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine distribution
WKOW-TV 27
“We are proud to play a role in helping our partners in the area get vaccine doses they need to protect their frontline workers as fast as possible so we can get on to the next group of people to be vaccinated,” said Matt Anderson, senior medical director ambulatory operations, UW Health.
No, that’s not a mountain behind Madison…
NBC-15
Researcher Tim Wagner at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Space, Science, & Engineering Center (SSEC) knew exactly what it was. All he had to utter was “Superior Mirage” and his wife grabbed his camera for him. He snapped a photo shortly before 8:30 Wednesday morning – showing what appeared to be a mountain behind the capitol city.
How the pandemic is changing the future of the movie industry
NBC-15
UW-Madison media professor, Dr. Derek Johnson says even the largest theater companies are struggling right now. He says the new option to stream releases at home will likely be attractive to many families because of the lower cost.
UW Health psychologist explains importance of safeguarding mental health this holiday season
NBC-15
Dr. Shilagh Mirgain, a UW Health distinguished psychologist, recommends if you live by yourself, prioritize social connection in safe ways.
Top UW Health official says COVID-19 vaccine should be available for frontline workers before Christmas
NBC-15
UW Health Chief Quality Officer Dr. Jeff Pothof said he believes there will be a quick turn around once there is authorization , and the hospital is already preparing for which healthcare workers will get vaccinated first once shipments come in.
UW Health to serve as central hub for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine
NBC-15
If approved, the vaccine is still months away from widespread distribution.
Scientific journal retracts decades old paper by UW professor due to homophobic content
Daily Cardinal
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease flagged the article, “Observations on Homosexuality Among University Students,” which was written by UW professor Benjamin Glover. The study based itself on psychotherapy work and Glover’s belief that he could “cure” homosexual attraction.
Wisconsin could face a budget gap of as much as $2 billion over two years
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Prisons, schools and the University of Wisconsin System are also expected to need more money, adding to the challenges for Evers and lawmakers.
The Wisconsin basketball team still isn’t sure if it will play Louisville on Wednesday night
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The status of Wisconsin’s basketball game Wednesday against visiting Louisville in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge remains uncertain because of at least one positive COVID-19 test within the Cardinals program.
Research inspired by COVID-19: ‘COVID toes’ likely a sign of successful viral response
The Capital Times
Over a few weeks, there was nearly a 300% increase of patients in Wisconsin exhibiting the condition compared to 2019, said Lisa Arkin, director of pediatric dermatology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Trends were similar across the United States. “This was a real pivot because there aren’t so many dermatologists doing COVID-19 research,” Arkin said. “Suddenly, in the spring, there was an avalanche of patients, many of whom had had symptoms for several weeks.”
Kuczmarski, Thomas A.
Wisconsin State Journal
From 1969 to 1980, he was employed as a systems programmer at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison Academic Computing Center.
Lammers, Barbara Ruth
Wisconsin State Journal
She worked as a secretary for the University of Wisconsin, retiring in 2002.
Report: Wisconsin faces big deficit, difficult budget session next year
Wisconsin State Journal
What’s more, the report does not include the projected $1.1 billion cost of maintaining Medicaid services or additional spending on COVID-19 measures or state aid to K-12 schools, the University of Wisconsin System, local governments or prisons.
Wisconsin dairy farmers returning to their roots
Wisconsin State Journal
A new initiative based at UW-Madison is helping others do the same in a bid to boost Wisconsin’s struggling ag economy while promoting healthy food and the environment.
Know Your Madisonian: Radiolab editor calls Madison home
Wisconsin State Journal
His voice may not be familiar, but Soren Wheeler’s stories are heard by millions of people each week. Wheeler, 46, is the managing editor of Radiolab, the show that explores heavy scientific and philosophical issues with an eccentric style and sound.
Dig deeper during this season of giving — Jeff Russell
Wisconsin State Journal
Column by Jeff Russell, Dean of the Division of Continuing Studies, UW-Madison. :The economic fallout from the pandemic has touched all of us, but very disproportionately. Witness recent market highs that will benefit a fortunate slice of society while many struggle mightily.”
Badgers women’s hockey series at Minnesota postponed because of positive COVID-19 tests
Wisconsin State Journal
The University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team’s series at Minnesota was postponed Friday, less than 12 hours before it was supposed to begin because of at least two positive COVID-19 tests in the program.
UW stops allowing student employees to work from abroad, student council tables response
The Capital Times
Student government leaders and administrators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are failing to find common ground on new policies that prevent the university from hiring or paying hourly student workers who telecommute from outside the United States.
Scientific journal purges anti-gay UW-Madison paper published in 1951
Wisconsin State Journal
Ascientific journal, in a fairly unusual and contentious move, recently retracted a decades-old paper by a UW-Madison psychiatrist who blamed the failure of his so-called conversion therapy on gay students who refused to cooperate.
West, Richard Carroll
Wisconsin State Journal
Until his retirement, Richard was employed as the Senior Academic Librarian Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Laxova, Renata
Wisconsin State Journal
In 1975, she moved to Madison, Wis., where she joined the faculty at the UW Medical School. During her tenure, Renata made foundational contributions to the fields of medical genetics, human developmental disabilities, genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis. She established the Statewide Genetic Services Network in Wisconsin, instituted the University of Wisconsin Master of Genetic Counselor Studies degree program, and advocated tirelessly for genetics services in Wisconsin and at the national level.
‘Empty Stocking is literally delivering Christmas to some families’
Wisconsin State Journal
The Odyssey Project offers a two-semester, UW-Madison humanities course for adults who have faced barriers to higher education or who are living near the poverty level. Students earn six college credits upon completion.
Wisconsin’s Top Court Rejects Trump Lawsuit
The New York Times
The Trump campaign challenged ballots only in Milwaukee County and Dane County, which includes Madison, the state capital and home of the flagship University of Wisconsin campus. The two counties are the largest and most Democratic in the state.
Wisconsin’s not so white anymore – and in some rapidly diversifying cities like Kenosha there’s fear and unrest
The Conversation
Kenosha, Wisconsin, became a national byword for racial unrest when protests in August erupted in violence.After local police shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back, leaving him paralyzed, furious residents took to the streets expressing years of pent-up anger. During nighttime hours, fires were set.
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Report: Limited Workforce, Housing And Broadband Coverage Create Challenges For Rural Wisconsin
Wisconsin Public Radio
Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agreed the COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for rural Wisconsin.
Trump’s ‘Most Important’ Speech Was Mostly False
FactCheck.org
Election experts also attribute some of the disparity to “ballot roll-off,” which is when voters skip certain races. Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us it’s not unusual for voters to “choose a candidate at the top of the ballot and then ‘roll off’ as they move down the ballot. There is nothing suspicious about lower participation in lower level races.”