The new president of the University of Wisconsin system discuss his priorities for the job, and the challenges he expects to face.
New UW System President Ray Cross Talks Priorities, Challenges
Wisconsin Public Radio
Author: jplucas
Animal researcher leads effort to help UW-Madison entrepreneurs
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
For University of Wisconsin-Madison animal sciences professor Mark Cook, there?s an important factor to his long-term success: chickens.
The Ghosts of Physics
NPR News
Right now, as you are reading these very words, trillions of particles called neutrinos are streaming through your body. Hardly a single atom in your body feels their passage. Hardly one of the trillion neutrinos feels your presence. They are ghosts to you as you are to them. But that doesn?t mean these tiny flecks of matter don?t matter.
Stem cell transplant complication gains attention at UW Health
Madison.com
After Susan Derse Phillips had chemotherapy for leukemia, she received a stem cell transplant, getting blood-forming cells from a donor to restore her immune system and attack any remaining leukemia cells.
VIDEO: Satellite captures Casselton explosions
KFGO-AM, Fargo
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say they were “shocked” by the images of last month?s fiery oil train derailment near Casselton picked up by earth observation satellites.
Our View: Tech Transfer – UW’s new focus on tech transfer could pay off
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Entrepreneurs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison soon will have a new advocate on campus that should boost the number of ideas that are commercialized, which we think should, in turn, give the state?s economy a boost over time.
Our Views: Student-athletes at UW winning at discipline, too
Janesville Gazette
In case you missed it, something remarkable is developing in that athletic complex known as UW-Madison.
Is Sleep The Price We Pay for Learning?
PsychCentral.com
Is Sleep The Price We Pay for Learning?Two sleep scientists from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health have introduced a hypothesis that challenges the theory that sleep strengthens brain connections.
New UW System Leader: ‘We Really Have To Be Good Listeners’
Wisconsin Public Radio News
Ray Cross, the incoming president of the University of Wisconsin System, used his introductory press conference to challenge the UW to listen more.
New UW System president mends fences at Capitol
WKOW-TV 27
New UW System President Raymond Cross began his work at a place laden with political land mines in the past for some top university educators: the State Capitol.
Fighting ‘Observation’ Status
New York Times
Noted: To increase the likelihood of being formally admitted, ?get yourself in the door before midnight,? advised Dr. Ann Sheehy, division head of hospital medicine at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, Wisc. A new Medicare regulation ? the so-called ?pumpkin rule? ? requires doctors to admit people they anticipate staying for longer than two midnights, but to list those expected to stay for less time as observation patients.
New UW President Cut His Teeth on Madison Proposal
MilwaukeeMag.com
Ray Cross, who will ascend to the post of UW System president in February, was a newcomer to Wisconsin when he arrived here in 2011 to head up the UW Colleges, which share an administration with the UW-Extension, the network of county-level offices that provide agricultural and other community programs. He struck many people in the state as hard-working, and he developed a reputation for being hands-on.
How UW-Madison lab cats became the symbols for PETA’s campaign against animal research
Isthmus
Deep inside a dimly lit campus laboratory, a 13-year-old calico cat stares ahead. Her tail twitches back and forth slowly. She appears relaxed but focused. Orange, white and black spots splotch her coat, and her white paws stand out against the charcoal-colored surface.
UW ‘ideas factory’ looks to turn research into economic growth
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
When Rebecca Blank arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Madison last summer, she became chancellor of one of the largest academic research universities in the world, but one that has an uneven track record for commercializing that work.
Bill Gives More Institutions Power To Authorize Charter Schools
Wisconsin Public Radio News
Charter school advocates are pushing for a major change to Wisconsin?s education laws, with a plan aimed at helping charter schools expand statewide.
Cross named University of Wisconsin System president
Green Bay Press-Gazette
MADISON ? Ray Cross, the only internal candidate out of three finalists, was chosen Thursday to lead the University of Wisconsin System.
LSU-Alexandria chancellor candidate Hong looking to take on challenge
The Town Talk, La.
A candidate for chancellor of Louisiana State University of Alexandria says her experience at a university with similar challenges and student population has prepared her for this new opportunity.
Riley Named 2014 Wisconsin Fairest of the Fairs
Wisconsin Ag Connection
Wisconsin?s 48th Fairest of the Fairs is Kaitlyn Riley from Crawford County. Riley is a UW student.
Diversity of UW System president pool questioned
WISC-TV 3
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System will meet Thursday to select and announce their next president, but now the question about diversity in the selection of candidates is being raised.
CPE President Did Not Receive University of Wisconsin Presidency
Kentucky Public Radio
Kentucky?s Council on Postsecondary Education President Bob King will not be the next president of the University of Wisconsin System. King, who has led the CPE since 2009, has also been the Chancellor for the State University of New York (SUNY). King was also a state lawmaker in New York.
John Coleman named dean of liberal arts at University of Minnesota
Minneapolis Star Tribune
John Coleman, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, has been named the new dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota.
Regents expected to select new system president during meeting
AP
The wait to find out who the next University of Wisconsin System president will be is nearly over.
New CLA dean announced
The Minnesota Daily
The University of Minnesota announced Wednesday that John Coleman is set to become the next College of Liberal Arts dean, pending Board of Regents approval.
Five Decades Later, Time To Change The Way We Define Poverty?
NPR News
The U.S. government?s official measure of poverty hasn?t changed much in 50 years: It?s still based on what it took to feed a family in the 1950s. There are new efforts underway to find a more accurate gauge of families in need. Interviewed: Chancellor Becky Blank. (Audio.)
BCS: How Much Is Your College-Football Team Worth?
Wall Street Journal
Never mind for a moment which college-football team is No. 1 on the field. Is Texas losing its grip on being No. 1 at the bank?
Some college athletes play like adults, read like 5th-graders
CNN.com
(CNN) — Early in her career as a learning specialist, Mary Willingham was in her office when a basketball player at the University of North Carolina walked in looking for help with his classwork.
Turning Victorian literature into data into visual art
Boston Globe
The big knock on the digital humanities is that it has no soul. Sure, you can set computers to crunch data on Shakespeare?s plays, but even the cleverest little algorithm is going to miss the anguish at the end of ?Romeo and Juliet.? A new project at the University of Wisconsin, however, shows the artistic potential in cold statistics.
Potential 8-lane, 50-meter University of Wisconsin pool removed from expansion plan
SwimSwam.com
An expansion to the University of Wisconsin?s Rec Sports facilities at one point carried an option to build an 8-lane, 50-meter competition pool, but that option has been scrapped from the master plan moving forward due to lack of funding sources.
UW finalists make last pitch to faculty
AP
The finalists vying to become the University of Wisconsin System?s next president made their final hiring pitches to faculty Monday, pledging to try to repair the system?s tattered relationship with Republican lawmakers who hold the system?s state purse-strings.
Seeking the Why of Giving
New York Times
Noted: Can charities use the phenomenon of warm glow to increase donations? Amanda Chuan, a doctoral student in applied economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Anya Samak, an assistant professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, sought to answer that question by conducting a field study involving holiday donations to a Chicago charity that provided blankets to people in need.
As temps plummet, docs warn against frostbite, hypothermia
WISC-TV 3
Noted: UW doctor Janis Tupesis knows what happens to your body when it gets dangerously cold, and it isn?t good.
Politics shadows process for UW System president finalists
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Two issues shadow the process of choosing who will next lead the University of Wisconsin System ? a process that reaches its crescendo this week. The first is how partisan politics increasingly seeps into statewide decisions that until now were fairly apolitical. The second is the degree of openness in the selection process, and whether it helps or hurts.
Making The Grade Low Graduation And Retention Rates Plague UW-Parkside
Kenosha News
Graduation and retention rates at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside continue to be at or near the bottom of the 13 campuses that make up the University of Wisconsin system.
DePauw Mourns the Passing of Prof. Emeritus Keith Opdahl
DePauw University
Noted: Dr. Opdahl taught American literature and creative writing courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1961 to 1967.
Big Ten?s Eco Efforts: University of Wisconsin
Great Lakes Echo
The F.H. King organic farm at the University of Wisconsin has been growing produce for students to veg out on since 1979. The urban garden is the pride of the sustainability of agriculture program at the Madison campus.
UW finalists to appear via video conferences
AP
The three finalists for the University of Wisconsin System president?s position are set to speak with the public through a series of video conferences.
Gene Patent Case Fuels U.S. Court Test of Stem Cell Right
Bloomberg
As scientists get closer to using embryonic stem cells in new treatments for blindness, spinal cord injuries and heart disease, a U.S. legal debate could determine who profits from that research. Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit advocacy group, wants an appeals court to invalidate a University of Wisconsin-Madison?s patent for stem cells derived from human embryos, saying it?s too similar to earlier research. The Santa Monica, California, group also says the U.S. Supreme Court?s June ruling limiting ownership rights of human genes should apply to stem cells, a potentially lucrative field for medical breakthroughs.
How to Tap into Your Creativity
Elle
Noted: For my inspiration fix, I head to the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), on the University of Wisconsin?Madison campus. The goal of the place, its lion-haired director, David Krakauer, tells me, exuberantly drawing arrows and intersecting circles on a whiteboard, is to bring together researchers from many historically isolated departments to share theories, concepts, and data sets. Krakauer, a geneticist who also happens to have deep and sophisticated interests in art and music and education reform, has written a quote from Niels Bohr across his office window in grease pencil: ?Your theory is crazy, but it?s not crazy enough to be true.?
Harvey K. Littleton, Pioneer in Glassworks, Dies at 91
New York Times
Harvey K. Littleton, an artist who helped found the so-called studio glass movement in the United States, developing and teaching do-it-yourself techniques that freed glassblowing from the cumbersome protocols of factory production and made molten glass almost as easy to work with in the studio as wet clay, died on Dec. 13 in Spruce Pine, N.C. He was 91.
Miller selected as Badger Kid for UW-Madison hockey game
Westby Times
Westby Elementary School fourth grader Cooper Miller got a close-up view of Wisconsin Badger?s hockey players before the Dec. 13 game against Colorado College. The Badgers went on to win the game 4-1.
Scientists help farmers make dairies green
Yahoo! Finance
Cows stand patiently in a tent-like chamber at a research farm in western Wisconsin, waiting for their breath to be tested. Outside, corrals have been set up with equipment to measure gas wafting from the ground. A nearby corn field contains tools that allow researchers to assess the effects of manure spread as fertiliser.
UW names finalists for president position
AP
Three high-level academic executives in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Kentucky have emerged as finalists to become the UW System?s next president, system officials announced Thursday.
3 Finalists Announced In Search For Next UW System President
Wisconsin Public Radio
The University of Wisconsin System has announced three finalists in the search for its next president.
State Launches Website To Make Government Expenditures More Public
Wisconsin Public Radio
The state has launched a website that makes it easier to see where government agencies are spending money, though it?s not without holes.
Finalists named for UW System president
WKOW-TV 27
University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents president, Michael Falbo, announced Thursday morning the names of the three finalists to be considered for the System?s top post.
UW accountant suspected of $144K theft pleads not guilty
WISC-TV 3
former accountant accused of stealing more than $144,000 from a university department pleaded not guilty Thursday.
Barry Alvarez confident in program’s direction
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Orlando, Fla. ? Barry Alvarez has watched the Wisconsin football program rise, fall and rise again over the last 24 seasons, first as head coach and now as UW?s director of athletics.
UW System president finalists include UW’s Raymond Cross
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A chancellor in the University of Wisconsin System and two outsiders who have managed public university systems in New York and Pennsylvania were named Thursday as finalists for the position of UW System president ? the CEO of a nearly $6 billion enterprise with 40,000 employees and 181,000 students.
Presidents denounce the academic boycott of Israel, but on some campuses faculty and presidents clash
Inside Higher Ed
The backlash against the American Studies Association?s resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli universities continued unabated through the holiday vacation, with scores of American college presidents condemning the action and the president of the American Council on Education joining the chorus of critics. At the same time that presidents are denouncing the boycott for reasons related to academic freedom, some faculty and students who back the ASA action have pushed back against the presidential reproofs, in one case arguing in an op-ed that ?the greatest threat to academic freedom related to the boycott resolution has come from U.S. university presidents? themselves.
Will booze-friendly Wisconsin ban strong liquor? Find out in 2014
AP
Quoted: “It has no taste. It?s only purpose is to impair people quickly,” said Julia Sherman, coordinator of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “We don?t need it on the shelves.”
U.S. hockey rosters feature 10 with ties to Wisconsin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Once again, Wisconsin is heavily represented on the U.S. Olympic men?s and women?s hockey teams.
Badgers football: Melvin Gordon laments failure on key third and fourth downs
Madison.com
University of Wisconsin sophomore running back Melvin Gordon will have plenty of motivation going into next season.
State employees awarded $14M in bonuses, raises
WKOW-TV 27
State employees have been awarded nearly $14 million in bonuses and merit raises this year, more than twice what they got last year.
Editorial: Keep UW selection process open
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Robin Vos says he?s a big believer in transparency. If that?s true, he can prove it by rejecting an idea to rope off from public view a portion of the selection process for top positions in the University of Wisconsin System.
Finalist list out Thursday for next UW System president
Wheeler News Service
We?ll find out on Thursday who?s still in the running to become the next president of the University of Wisconsin System.
Remember that time when UW Photoshopped a black student onto an admissions brochure?
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The University of Wisconsin-Madison still can?t live down the cast of the Photoshopped admissions brochure 13 years later.
Anne Lundin: Kudos to professor for 40 years of storytelling
Wisconsin State Journal
Long live UW-Madison professor Harold Scheub and his African stories. He was featured in Monday?s story about his retirement.
Editorial: Vos’ change of course troubling
Chippewa Herald
Transparency. It?s a word Republican legislators in Madison used often and at high volume earlier this year when criticizing the University of Wisconsin System because of its reserve funds.
Alvarez says he hit a ‘home run’ by hiring Gary Andersen
Wisconsin State Journal
During the final days of the University of Wisconsin football season, a familiar scene has played out repeatedly involving athletic director Barry Alvarez.
Mary K. Rouse: Let’s step up right now to help Rev. Alex Gee help others
Capital Times
Dear Editor: I commend my friend and former colleague at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Rev. Alex Gee, for his powerful and accurate analysis in the Cap Times about how we, many Madison residents, are failing the members of our African-American community. Yes, he is not politically correct; he is simply correct. I have two points to make: