Shelly Cai was 18 years old when she left the southern Chinese metropolis of Nanjing to enroll in the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In August 2010, after a 13-hour flight from Shanghai to Chicago and a three-hour bus ride, Cai finally arrived in Madison, where a distant cousin picked her up.
Researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory–or, LIGO–announced today that it has the first official detection of gravitational waves. This discovery helps solidify Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Interviewed: Sebastian Heinz, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Believe it or not, Wisconsin is the Silicon Valley of sheep cheese.
MILWAUKEE — Workers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Wednesday, February 10th were finishing up preparations for the Democratic presidential debate set for February 11th.
Noted: According to Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, last year was one of the hottest, driest years in Brazil’s history. The country saw 500,000 cases of dengue; presumably, it was suffering from the silent outbreak of Zika at the same time, the effects of which are only being reckoned with now.
Noted: “Entertainment media play a critical role in shaping people’s feelings, attitudes and behaviors in intergroup contexts,” said Sohad Murrar, the lead author of the study and doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Officials are planning to eliminate about 80 University of Wisconsin System-Extension positions as part of a reorganization plan drafted to absorb a state budget cut, the head of extension said Wednesday.
Noted: A third example: Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy have a new book, The Political Classroom, which shows that many teachers, even the most partisan, are eager for students to hear radically different viewpoints. Teachers also experience pressure to “scrub” any controversy from their curriculum, so they need support in enacting this. Diana Hess is chair of the College of Education at UW-Madison.
A recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has died as a result of a skiing accident. Bethany L. Rieth, 24, Oconto Falls, passed away Saturday morning at Divine Savior Hospital shortly after the mishap occurred at Cascade Mountain Ski Hill near Portage.
When folklorist Jim Leary was growing up in Rice Lake, Wis., in the 1950s and ’60s, old-time ethnic music was everywhere. You could dial up the local radio station, WJMC, and hear live broadcasts of Scandinavian music by the Eric Berg Band. The nearby ski lodge was a venue for Slovenian accordion music. Polka star Whoopee John was a frequent visitor from his home base a few hours away in New Ulm, Minn.
Athletics, administration, academic programs — everything’s on the table. That’s what the University of California at Berkeley told professors and staff Wednesday in announcing it’s seeking a “new normal” in light of projected long-term budget deficits. While details of the structural overhaul are scant thus far, the news left many wondering if Berkeley can maintain its standing as one of the world’s leading research universities throughout the process. In essence, can Berkeley stay Berkeley?
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Bill Tracy has become the school’s first organic agriculture researcher, inaugurating an endowed professorship that could lead to new advances in a field that might not otherwise see university research.
John Cooper, Jr., emeritus professor of American Institutions, University of Wisconsin: “The best way to judge Wilson on matters of race is not to keep score between good and bad deeds but to recognize him and judge him for what he really was. Many have made snap judgments based on his birth in Virginia on the eve of the Civil War and his upbringing in Georgia and South Carolina during the war and Reconstruction to write him off as a typical white man of those places and times. Such a characterization is wrong.”
UW Health, a Madison health care system, said Tuesday that Dr. Alan Kaplan, executive vice president and chief clinical transformation officer for UnityPoint Health in West Des Moines, Iowa, has been named chief executive officer of UW Health.
A group of international climate scientists warning that if carbon pollution continues at its current rate, it will wreak havoc on the global climate for more than 10,000 years.
The college frenzy obsesses on key hurdles students must clear to snag a spot in a good college: taking tough courses and getting good grades, building an impressive list of extracurriculars, gathering the financial resources to pay the bills. But the simple fact of a student’s street address can be as big a hurdle as any.
Quoted: John Milton Cooper, a Princeton alum and Wilson biographer who taught history at University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted in his essay that the former president also supported minority rights, albeit perhaps in less significant ways, such as speaking out against lynchings and opening university positions for Catholics, Jews, and poorer students.
English students at Southern Door High School are beginning to experience a Chinese literary classic in advance of this year’s Great World Texts In Wisconsin Conference. More than 1,200 students statewide including those at Southern Door High School have begun reading Journey to the West, Wu Cheng’en’s novel of sixteenth-century China.
If you are worried about the status of low-income students at the nation’s top public universities, recent news out of Madison, Wisconsin is disheartening.
The Nicholases, who are both alumni, stipulated that to receive the full pledge, the university must raise other money to endow support for students. Gifts of $125,000 to $1 million are eligible for the matched funds.
Fresh produce isn’t usually on the menu for astronauts in space, but some University of Wisconsin-Madison botanists are working with NASA to get astronauts gardening.
Noted: Catholicism is just one religion that urges followers to step out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves during certain seasons, according to Charles Cohen. He’s a religion professor at UW- Madison and specializes in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling and other Democrats hosted a listening session on student loan debt at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Monday. Some at the meeting said both parties aren’t doing enough to solve the problem.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison released a plan for addressing sexual violence Tuesday, a document that comes in the wake of a 2015 survey that found high rates of sexual assault at the school.
Noted: Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted that not only was 2015 the hottest year on record, but places like Brazil, where the disease began, and Columbia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, where it’s now flourishing, saw record-breaking temperatures last year too.
There will be an inescapable irony in the unlikely event Bryan Cranston wins a best actor Oscar later this month for his portrayal of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.
The University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents are used to being greeted by protesters outside their monthly meetings. Campus groups often demonstrate by quietly holding signs or distributing flyers.
Noted: Apps, by themselves, are not a continuing care program. But since they are used on phones, they are a logical tool to help people stay connected to their programs. David Gustafson, the University of Wisconsin professor who led A-Chess’s development, said that the evidence is that people in recovery need three things: social connection, motivation (“the desire to keep on keeping on”) and confidence that they know how to cope with their struggles. Apps can help with all three.
Lorna Jorgenson Wendt, whose high-stakes, highly publicized divorce settlement of 1997 engendered a national conversation about the economic worth of corporate spouses, died on Thursday in Stamford, Conn. She was 72.
On Friday, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents agreed to move ahead with a controversial new tenure policy.
At 21 years old, Keven Stonewall, a Chicago Public Schools graduate, has already conducted lab research offering scientists worldwide a breakthrough in their fight to cure colon cancer.
David Vanness is president of UW’s American Association of University Professors chapter. He said some people are concerned that using “financial considerations” to fire a tenured faculty member could impact high-quality academic programs. The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted on tenure changes Friday.
If this National Football League thing doesn’t work out for these Carolina Panthers players, well, maybe they’ve got a future in finance. Dispelling the typical jock image associated with football players, punter Brad Nortman and long snapper Jeffrey Richard “J.J.” Jansen, proved they’ve got skills beyond the gridiron, handling a battery of questions about the stock market.
Noted: Bagged greens are usually washed thoroughly (some packages boast that their contents are “triple-washed”) with a little bleach, but that unfortunately doesn’t make any difference if the produce carries disease-causing bacteria. “Listeria is a natural soil inhabitant, and spinach commonly comes in contact with the soil,” says Jeri Barak, associate professor of plant pathology and executive member of the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Listeria, like Salmonella and E. coli, can’t be rinsed or washed from leaves even if the dirt is, she says.
CLEMSON — Gloria Ladson-Billings may not be the first to name-drop hip-hop superstars like Lupe Fiasco, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj in the halls of higher education.
Noted: The Zika epidemic parallels the 1999 West Nile Virus outbreak in New York, according to Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Both arrived during record-hot summers and involved the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which bite more frequently in hot weather.
Quoted: “It could be that Zika is causing [microcephaly] with another factor, which is definitely possible. There could be other environmental factors, there could be co-infections that cause the unfortunate microcephaly, and at this point there is just not enough evidence to say it is causing it,” said Kristin Bernard, a mosquito-borne virus researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
When it comes to young people, their health and lifestyle habits, the large amounts of sugar they consume and linkages to diseases like obesity are documented and well known. But in 2014, University of Wisconsin–Madison cardiologist and assistant professor Heather Johnson brought to the nation’s attention a grim and lesser-known health fact about young adults: 1 in 10 suffer from hypertension and at rates that creep close to those seen in people as old as their parents and grandparents. And even when these young adults are considered hypertensive based on their numbers, they often go undiagnosed and untreated, Johnson concluded.
Quoted: Overall, infectious disease researchers are pushing toward a more interdisciplinary approach to predict outbreaks. Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at UW-Madison, is doing research to connect the dots between climate change and global health, offering a glimpse into the ways differing scientific fields can combine to build a proactive approach to mosquito-borne disease. His research has revealed a link between dramatic climactic shifts and the occurrence of viral outbreaks.
The UW-Madison Band is coming back to Sheboygan. The performance on April 4 at Urban Middle School will be a fundraiser for the city’s Mayor’s International Committee.
Quoted: “The arrival of Zika virus in Brazil is not good news,” wrote Thomas M. Yuill, an emeritus professor of veterinary science and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: This column, prompted by a friend’s excruciatingly painful problem that seemed to emerge from nowhere and by a new review of studies on the topic published in JAMA by Dr. Wald, a gastroenterologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Dr. James Conway, a pediatric disease specialist with University of Wisconsin Health, told the Assembly health committee there are national guidelines for Lyme disease, and that this bill may be a solution looking for a problem.
Quoted: But if you’re really intent on sidestepping illness, meditation may be the best way to stay cold free, says Dr. Bruce Barrett, a professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Wisconsin. In his research, he’s found that mindfulness meditation can lower risk for common respiratory infections by up to 60% by combating immune system-crippling stress.
The Republican leader of the state Senate says he expects the next state budget will be as difficult as the last one.
A dazzling sight streaked across the skies of southern Wisconsin Monday night leaving some people confused about exactly what they saw. A bright strip of light was captured by a rooftop camera and the footage was posted to YouTube by University of Wisconsin Madison’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Based off of the video’s timestamp, the “fireball” was spotted just before 6:30 p.m.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor John Hawks is part of a team that made one of the greatest fossil discoveries of the past half century.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin says Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson will return to Madison this spring to give the school’s commencement address.
Rose lives in a four-by-seven-foot trailer she built herself with salvaged materials, and she parks wherever she can. It’s a small space to share with an enormous red bloodhound, but Rose wouldn’t have it any other way.
Quoted: Al McCoy, the JRW Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says what we’re witnessing is the first time in modern history the Chinese have systematically fought to capture this key ’heartland’ region, and thus unify the Eurasian landmass.
Quoted: “This is definitely a market that’s in a lot of flux right now,” says Jon Eckhardt, a professor in the UW-Madison School of Business and a co-founder of gener8tor startup accelerator.
Efforts are already underway to help young people understand exactly what constitutes sexual consent, this as a bill to simply reporting assaults moves through the legislature.
Gov. Scott Walker says he thinks the state Legislature can afford to give the go-ahead to a few new programs during the spring legislative session, including elements of his college affordability plan.
County officials voiced concerns Tuesday about the impact of a $3.6 million cut in funding for county programs provided by the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension.
Quoted: While most Americans probably won’t see the inside of a Gulfstream, the campaign plane is a reality of early state primaries, said Ken Mayer, a presidential political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Lead also complicates water conservation. When customers use less water, that remaining in the system sits in the pipes longer, offering lead more opportunity to leach into it. “Systems can’t just go blindly into water demand reduction or conservation plans,” said Gregory Harrington, a UW-Madison professor of civil and environmental engineering. Lead’s relatively small part in the water system infrastructure highlights some of the long-term decisions ahead for water utilities — including Madison’s, which has about 900 miles of pipe, much of which is at least 50 years old. “I think the biggest decision they’re going to have to make is how to fund infrastructure over time,” Harrington said.
Quoted: Inclusion starts with ensuring that minority students are “not on campus in token amounts,” said Linda S. Greene, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who has served in various administrative roles that included diversity work.
In a recent Skype call with a Dutch friend, we discussed her kids and their college experience. Apparently, there had been protests on campus about costs and payments.
MADISON — The University of Wisconsin System’s net worth has increased.
Quoted: There is such a thing as good and bad debt—and the bad kind might be making us fear all of it, even when we shouldn’t. In a paper published in the most recent edition of the medical journal Pediatrics, Lawrence Berger, the director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, and Jason Houle, a sociology professor at Dartmouth College, suggest that when it comes to the youngest members of a household, not only does the nature of the debt matter a great deal, but certain types of debt are associated with better-adjusted kids.
