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Author: gbump

UW’s Gard calmly set for his shot at top job

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Somewhere down deep, you’re thinking, Wisconsin interim basketball coach Greg Gard has to be feeling some pressure. He’s got 12 weeks and at least 20 games to prove he was more than just a longtime loyal assistant to Bo Ryan. He has to convince athletic director Barry Alvarez that a national coaching search after this season will lead right back to a guy who grew up slopping manure on a hog farm just down the road in the Mayberry-esque town of Cobb.

Banking on stem cells at Cellular Dynamics International

Wisconsin State Journal

Founded by UW-Madison’s renowned stem cell pioneer James Thomson in 2004, CDI has been inking powerful deals and gradually adding staff as it has set about to become the premier source for stem cells in the world. In a meeting with the Wisconsin State Journal this week, Kazuyoshi Hirao, CDI’s new chairman and CEO, and Chris Parker, executive vice president and chief business officer, said the company, at 525 Science Drive, will stay in Madison and will continue to grow here.

Food pantry on campus to feed needy UW-Madison students

Wisconsin State Journal

Called the Open Seat, the pantry will serve a population of college students that advocates say often goes unnoticed, struggling to afford basic needs like housing and food while some of their peers pay four-figure monthly rents to live in luxurious apartment buildings.

UW-Platteville chancellor says idea that minority students can’t compete is ‘nonsense’

Capital Times

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s remarks in a college admissions case that students of color may not be able to compete at selective universities are “just nonsense,” says UW-Platteville Chancellor Dennis Shields. “Justice Scalia is wholly uninformed about the amount of talent that has flowed through elite universities that included people of color who went on to have distinguished careers,” Shields said Monday.

UW faculty question tenure survey reliability, despite some favorable findings

Capital Times

Despite seeing some numbers favorable to the cause of preserving tenure at the University of Wisconsin, David Vanness says he doesn’t have confidence in the results of a controversial survey unveiled Wednesday in Madison. “I would love to have confidence in some of the results,” Vanness, an associate professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health, said after University of Chicago professor William Howell released the numbers at a media event at the Madison Club.

Fed rate hike not likely to hurt consumers, UW professors say

Wisconsin State Journal

Noted: A quarter of one percent is “very, very small,” said James Johannes, director of the Puelicher Center for Banking Education at the UW School of Business. “If this causes capital flows into U.S. financial markets, the price of U.S. assets will go up and interest rates on U.S. assets will go down,” defeating the purpose of raising the rates, Johannes said…. UW professor Mark Ready, academic director of the Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis, said the rate increase is the beginning of “a very long path toward what looks to be normal.”

After UW-Madison chancellor’s email stirred controversy, Regents prepare resolution on free speech

Wisconsin State Journal

The Regents will take up a proposed resolution reaffirming the board’s commitment to academic freedom and free speech when its education committee meets Thursday in Madison. The move comes weeks after UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank sent students and faculty a controversial message about speech, which critics said was contrary to First Amendment principles, and as colleges across the country weigh how to handle sensitive debates on campus.

Students at for-profit schools will see loans forgiven

Madison.com

The Wisconsin Education Approval Board announced Monday that 933 adult students who enrolled at four EDMC institutions — the Art Institute of Wisconsin and online programs through Argosy University, South University and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh — will have more than $916,500 in loans from the institutions forgiven under the settlement.

On Campus: Tammy Baldwin hears from UW sexual assault task force

Wisconsin State Journal

Baldwin met with the University of Wisconsin System Task Force on Sexual Violence and Harassment for an hour on Friday. The discussion came as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — of which Baldwin is a member — discusses changes to the Higher Education Act, a sweeping 1965 law that covers the federal financial aid system.

UW professor’s work on Midwest Folksongs gets Grammy nod

Wisconsin State Journal

The UW-Madison professor of folklore and Scandinavian Studies and Mount Horeb resident was nominated Monday morning in the category of Best Album Notes for one of the annual music awards presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. Leary’s project, “Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946” was released by the University of Wisconsin Press and Dust-to-Digital in July. It includes five CDs of folk recordings made decades ago, and his book includes lyrics for all the songs and translations in more than 25 languages.

Tom Oates: Holiday Bowl final chance for UW to get signature win this season

Wisconsin State Journal

With only the Holiday Bowl to play, the Badgers are being perceived from two dramatically different angles. Some see UW as a team that was 2 yards away from being 11-1 and earning a spot in the Big Ten Conference Championship Game. Others see a team that has underachieved because, despite its respectable 9-3 record, it doesn’t have an attention-grabbing, signature win on its resume.

UW Urban Canid Project finds healthy coyotes, foxes roaming city neighborhoods

Capital Times

The project is researching the size and behavior of packs of coyotes and foxes on and around the UW-Madison campus by capturing the animals and putting radio collars on them. Physical examinations and bio-testing of anesthetized animals provides data for the eventual mapping of the transmission of disease from wild canids to domestic dogs, said David Drake, a professor in the UW-Madison Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology and UW Extension wildlife specialist.

Steinbach, Shirley M.

Madison.com

Shirley was on the staff of WisTEP of the UW-Madison campus for 12 years, where she and others developed and facilitated graduate level Science summer courses for classroom science teachers.

Bless, Robert Charles

Madison.com

Bob joined the staff of the Astronomy Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1958 and retired as professor emeritus in 1994. His dedication to astronomy education extended far beyond the academic community and helped set a pattern of outreach to the general public now widely followed by NASA and other institutions. The clearest manifestation of that dedication was his founding, in 1990, of UW Space Place.

Chefs, farmers and UW scientists team up for flavorful produce

Wisconsin State Journal

The squash, corn, peppers, carrots, kale — just about all of the ingredients that went into the dishes — were some of the early results of a UW-Madison program that has brought professors, plant breeders, organic farmers and some of the city’s top chefs together with the goal of creating more flavorful fruits and vegetables for local agriculture.

Q&A: UW professor Craig Werner finds the soundtrack of Vietnam veterans

Capital Times

Q&A with Werner, professor and now the head of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Afro-American Studies department. He and co-author Doug Bradley, a UW professor who served in Vietnam, have published a book. “We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War” looks at the songs that soldiers listened to while serving in Vietnam, and what they meant to them.