The uncertainty of not having a nonpartisan elections leader in a paramount state is worrying, experts said. “The elections commission is training clerks around the state and issuing guidance, so to have uncertainty about who the top administrator is going into this crucial election season, I think is a real problem,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and director of its Elections Research Center.
Author: gbump
Is Iowa-style redistricting in Wisconsin’s future?
Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and director of the university’s Elections Research Center, noted Iowa has used their model for decades and that there has never been a map that has had to be subject to amendment.
Wisconsin-Marquette volleyball breaks indoor regular-season attendance record
The No. 1 University of Wisconsin team has been a part of several college volleyball attendance milestones over the last few years. It hit a new one in its four-set victory Wednesday.
Senate voting today to fire elections chief, setting the stage for a legal fight heading into the 2024 elections
“The effort to remove Wolfe appears to be almost entirely partisan and not based on facts about her actions or authority,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Elections Research Center. “Trump supporters in particular who distrust Wolfe have blamed her for many things over which she does not actually have responsibility.”
Defending champion Wisconsin women’s hockey co-favorites in WCHA; Caroline Harvey named POY
The coaches of the WCHA are split on the subject of the league’s top team.
UW nurses union pressure hospital for better pay, says strike possible if demands unmet
A year after Gov. Tony Evers stepped in to negotiate a deal and halt a strike at a Madison-based hospital, union nurses are planning to “escalate pressure,” again mentioning a strike, if UW Health does not provide greater pay transparency and remove salary caps.
GoFundMe for UW student who was attacked downtown passes $10K in less than 24 hours
A GoFundMe that was set up to support a UW-Madison student who was physically and sexually assaulted downtown last week has surpassed $10,000 in less than 24 hours.
Vice President Kamala Harris to visit UW-Madison on Oct. 4
Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Madison next month as part of a nationwide college tour, her office announced in a social media post Wednesday.Harris will visit UW-Madison on October 4. Further details of her visit were not released as of Wednesday evening.
Camp Randall unveils new creative food options
University of Wisconsin Athletics Executive Chef Marlene Duke says some of the items will be open to all Badger fans, while some will be a little more exclusive.“It’s a new era, as we’re saying, right?” Duke said. “So with that being said, we want to raise the bar as far as what we’ve been seeing in our kitchens.”
Date set for Vice President Harris’ visit to UW-Madison
Vice President Harris posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that she will stop on campus on Oct. 4.
Community comes together to support UW-Madison student who suffered brutal attack
The RCC Sexual Violence Resource Center created a GoFundMe stating the student is still fighting for her life in the hospital. Organizer Dana Pellebon said the goal is to help the survivor and her family focus on healing rather than worrying about bills during her recovery. Pellebon said crime victim insurance could eventually cover some costs, but immediately after a sexual assault or rape, it is hard for the survivor to work while they try to recover from a traumatizing event.
“It’s really disheartening.” Milwaukee teacher says anti-CRT ad aired during Packer game used her video without permission
University of Wisconsin law professor and media law expert Anuj Denai said Harris would have a difficult case, because the reproduced clip is used in the ad for purposes of criticism, which is permissible under fair use. Further, the ad does not imply that she endorses a product or position.
Wisconsin Weighs Ousting Elections Official as Control of Voting Gets Partisan
“It’s a serious problem to not have seasoned trusted leadership in place well before the election gets under way,” said Barry Burden, a political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who added that the nation will be watching the state in the 2024 presidential contest. “It’s a battleground state. It’s maybe the battleground state.”
GoFundMe organized to support survivor of recent downtown act of violence
Fund has raised over $15,000 in 24 hours.
How Agtech, Data Collection Are Changing Farming Methods
Soon, they’ll need even more help. The average age of a farmer is 57.5 years old, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s most recent estimates. With older farmers about to retire, estimates indicate that young people won’t be able to fill the gap; A 2022 survey conducted by The National Young Farmers Coalition and the University of Wisconsin Survey Center found that this is primarily because land is so expensive.
UWPD releases BadgerSAFE app to centralize student resources, services
App services include “FriendWalk,” off-campus alerts.
UW Jewish community prepares to celebrate Rosh Hashanah
UW Hillel to host events, meals to bring campus Jewish community together for Jewish new year.
University Of California System Tops University List For Most Patents
UW-Madison comes in at No. 12 with 132 patents in 2022.
Wisconsin Republicans Are Taking Desperate Steps to Subvert Fair Elections in 2024
“The idea that she should recuse here is itself a legal stretch,” says Robert Yablon, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative. “And the idea that then a failure to recuse would be impeachable also seems like a stretch. I’m not aware of any other judicial impeachment anywhere in the country that was premised on a non-recusal from a case involving campaign supporters or campaign statements.”
How a UW-Madison garden is managing Wisconsin’s deepening drought
“We have not been able to keep new plantings sufficiently watered,” explained Isaac Zaman, a horticulturalist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Allen Centennial Garden. “We have to be in there almost every other day with how behind we’ve been with the rainfall.”
Graduate workers meet to organize for more pay, respect
Their demands include raising graduate assistants’ annual stipend to $50,000 from its current average of around $23,000. “We need to reframe the narrative,” Flowers-Morgenstern said. “It shouldn’t matter what the university thinks of our demands. What matters is that graduate students need to be making $50,000, and the school can afford to pay us.”
UW-Madison will not cut DEI positions despite Republican pressure
Lori Reesor, UW-Madison vice chancellor for student affairs, confirmed the decision in remarks during a meeting with the university’s student government body Wednesday evening.
Sculpture created by Ho-Chunk artist Truman Lowe returns home to UW-Madison after 26 years
An official dedication of the sculpture honoring Ho-Chunk artist and Professor Emeritus Truman Lowe’s life and work will take place on the UW-Madison campus this Friday, Sept. 15 at 10 a.m. After several stopovers, the artwork has made a final journey back home to UW-Madison.
Diversity needed to further conservation field
Conservation must include more diverse voices from people of color to truly enact change.
Evers must do more to protect UW System
Despite Evers’ partial-veto targeting DEI funding, Republicans continue to threaten UW System
UW celebrates 175 years of legacy, achievements
This past July, the University of Wisconsin kicked off celebrations for its 175th anniversary with festivities at the Memorial Union for years of achievements, traditions and the legacy of the Wisconsin Idea.
Students establish Vietnamese International Student Association
During summer 2023, Mai Nguyen and Lacey Dinh established the Vietnamese International Student Association at the University of Wisconsin, with the goal of facilitating networking for Vietnamese international students.
Conscious curriculum: The fight for expansion of UW’s Ethnic Studies Requirement
Students, faculty fight for expansion of three-credit requirement, but challenges persist.
Sister Cindy, TikTok evangelical preacher, to visit Madison
The controversial speaker announced via TikTok that she will visit Madison on Sept. 19.
Rekindling of Wisconsin-Marquette volleyball rivalry leads to special night at Fiserv
The expectation from this neck of the woods is that history will be made at Fiserv Forum on Wednesday night.
Loud music ruins UW basketball games as well — Martha A. Taylor
Letter to the editor: Thank you to the State Journal for the coverage about the terrible noise at the recent Wisconsin Badgers football game. Sadly, we have experienced the same horrific noise levels for several years at the UW basketball games.
Why The Varsity Collective is offering club membership around Wisconsin football
Agoal for organizers of The Varsity Collective in its second year in business is to lock in on a mission of supporting name, image and likeness opportunities for players from all 23 University of Wisconsin sports.
Wisconsin Assembly to vote on $3B income tax cut that Gov. Evers vows to veto
Evers has said he was open to reconsidering cutting taxes if Republicans would look at funding some of his priorities. Evers called a special session for the Legislature next week to spend more than $1 billion for child care, the University of Wisconsin System, worker shortage programs and other areas.
US poverty rate 2022: Levels jumped, breaking a three-year streak
“Child poverty took a big jump,” said Timothy Smeeding, a leading expert on the poverty line and professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Richard Davis, Gifted Bassist Who Crossed Genres, Dies at 93
His death was announced by Persia Davis, his daughter, who said he had been in hospice care for the last two years. Mr. Davis had taught music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Opinion | Richard Davis — a musical genius with a passion for racial justice
Listen again to the title track of Van Morrison’s groundbreaking 1968 album “Astral Weeks” and you will instantly be reminded of Richard Davis’s genius.
Opinion | America Already Knows How to Make Childbirth Safer
Dr. Tiffany Green, a professor at the school of medicine and public health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said she believes the effort to reduce maternal mortality should focus not only on care received in hospitals, but on the social and economic conditions faced in general by Black women. The United States should consider using federal civil rights law in cases where racial bias severely hurt the care a patient received. “If you think bias is a fundamental driver of these iniquities then you have to hold providers accountable,” Dr. Green said.
Inside the design process of the Wisconsin women’s hockey NCAA championship rings
Wisconsin licensing officials wanted to know whether the team really wanted to use an old-school W inside a circle — not the Motion W that’s the school’s primary athletics logo — as the dominant element on the face of rings to celebrate the Badgers’ record seventh NCAA crown.
More school districts are bringing back or adding police. Experts say it may not help
“The best evidence that we have to date shows no deterrent effect of where gun violence happens in schools or where weapons are brought to schools… Similarly, when a shooting does happen in a school, those shootings, actually, on average have been more deadly in schools with police,” said Ben Fisher, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who recently reviewed dozens of studies on the effects of police in schools.
Republicans threaten to impeach newly elected Wisconsin supreme court judge
Ryan Owens, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin who ran for attorney general as a Republican in 2021, defended the calls for Protasiewicz’s recusal, arguing that she was too explicit about her policy views during the campaign.
“Candidates who are running for justice shouldn’t go to the levels that she did when campaigning,” he said. “In the short term, it might gain you votes, but in the long term, you put the court’s credibility at risk.”
New Academic Freedom Principles Open Door to Outside Intervention
“We open that door, and Chicago didn’t do anything like that,” said Donald A. Downs, the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Alexander Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science Emeritus and one of the principles’ developers.
UW-Madison’s Zoological Museum boasts amazing teaching tools
Tucked away in a hot and humid room on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, colonies of flesh-eating beetles and their larvae crawl along the bones of a giraffe, chomping away at its dried tissue.
Richard Davis, master of jazz bass and advocate for understanding, dies at 93
To much of the world, Richard Davis — whose versatility and mastery of the bass is legendary on recordings such as Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” and Eric Dolphy’s “Out to Lunch” — was a jazz great. To Madison, he was much more.
Joan Louise Schuette
Beginning in 1972, Joan was Program Advisor and Volunteer Services Coordinator for the Wisconsin Union, retiring in 1980.
This Wisconsin student landed ‘unique exception’ NIL deal
Will Hazeltine just wanted free coffee.
Dorothy Duvall (Fix) Schmidt
Schmidt worked for the UW-Madison Department of Kinesiology to retirement.
Kathleen Smith Irwin
After working for the State of Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau she landed her “dream job” as an attorney for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Olbrich’s Thai Garden off limits for the moment, as the bridge and pavilion need repairs
One of only four in the world outside of Thailand, the Royal Thai Pavilion arrived in Wisconsin in 2001 as a gift to UW-Madison from the government of Thailand and the Thai Chapter of the Wisconsin Alumni Association.
Staffing shortages, complex requests blamed for delays in getting public records in Wisconsin
UW-Madison saw a similar records backlog after the onset of the pandemic, when local and national media, advocacy groups, parents, and local and state officials sought records related to the university’s response, according to UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas.
“Issues of high interest, which can develop at any time, tend to generate a large volume of complex requests that can impact completion times.” Lucas said in a statement.
Vice President Kamala Harris to visit UW-Madison as part of college campus tour
Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit UW-Madison in the coming weeks as part of a monthlong college tour highlighting the Biden administration’s policies, including reproductive rights, climate action and voting rights. (UW-Madison isn’t a sponsor of the event.)
Richard Davis, Gifted Bassist Who Crossed Genres, Dies at 93
Richard Davis, an esteemed bassist who played not just with some of the biggest names in jazz but also with major figures in the classical, pop and rock worlds, died on Wednesday in Madison, Wis. He was 93.
Laura Dresser on the state of working in Wisconsin in 2023
Wisconsin job numbers reached a record high in July, at more than 3 million. However, a new report from COWS – High Road Strategy Center says beneath the bigger picture is a troubling decline of women participating in the workforce, falling below 60% for the first time since the late 1980s. Laura Dresser, associate director at COWS, dives deeper into the report’s numbers.
Janet Protasiewicz impeachment threat — how did Wisconsin get here?
UW-Madison political scientist Howard Schweber said Republicans would be much less competitive in Wisconsin if the maps were redrawn.
“A threat to the gerrymander is an existential threat to their hold on power,” Schweber said.
The Elephant in the Room: The Role of Poverty in Child Maltreatment
UW Professor of Social Work Kristen Slack will hare her research into programs designed to prevent child maltreatment. She’ll discuss her work with coordinating services and benefits and detail improved strategies for preventing child neglect.
‘Bragging’ is essential to success in workplace, UW researcher says
Associate dean for clinical trials at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Dr. Nasia Safdar spoke about “Gracefully Sharing Your Awesomeness with the World” Thursday. Safdar’s talk is part of UWSMPH’s Pathology Grand Rounds series.
‘He was a force of nature’: Former students remember jazz legend, UW professor Richard Davis
When Ken Fitzsimmons remembers Davis’s bass-playing, he can see how “he would just sing under his, you know, under his hands.” Davis played music soft as his heart, but his former students like Fitzsimmons say he was as tough as the blisters on his hands. “Warm and tough.”
Q&A: UW-Madison alumna Brooke Harding uses cartography to support Ukrainians
The Daily Cardinal spoke with Brooke Harding, B.A. 2014, about her efforts in Ukraine, her time at UW-Madison and what she’s learned from her work with USAID.
MPD sergeant calls attack on UW student ‘one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen’
The woman was walking home from a friend’s house when investigators maintain Brandon Thompson, 26, attacked her on West Wilson Street near Bedford Street.
$1 million cash bond ordered for suspect in UW-Madison student’s sexual, physical assault
The man accused of sexually and physically assaulting a UW-Madison student over the weekend was formally charged and given a $1 million cash bond Thursday.
‘I went into a rage’: Complaint details moments before, after attack on UW-Madison student
A criminal complaint filed Thursday in Dane County provides a clearer timeline in what prosecutors called “one of the most horrific sexual assaults in recent memory.”