Quoted: “There’s a multiplier effect to this decision,” Steve Born, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison urban planner who worked with the DNR, said during a River Alliance news conference Thursday to protest the cuts. “Over time, the loss of their knowledge base … will start to erode the quality of decisions we make.”
So what does it mean to be an Asian-American in Michigan, and how did immigrants from so many different Asian countries come to Michigan? These are some of the questions explored in the new book Asian Americans in Michigan: Voices from the Midwest.
A survey of Hispanic Americans finds older men are at especially high risk of losing their hearing.
Noted: University officials provided 420 pages of documents at no charge to USA TODAY. Shortly after the request was filled, university officials pointed to the process as grounds for a new state law that would restrict access to records of university research until that information is published or patented.
Noted: The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education graduates approximately 200 teachers each year. Hanley-Maxwell said this change discounts all that goes into teaching.
Tony and Julie Hook are giving $40,000 from the cheese sale to the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Great Lakes Bioenergy is a DOE, Office of Science-funded Bioenergy Research Center. Its mission is to develop ways to produce ethanol, advanced biofuels and chemicals from the non-edible, lignocellulosic part of plant biomass. The Center includes researchers at UW-Madison & Michigan State University, plus partners in a DOE-national.
Vials of bioterror bacteria have gone missing. Lab mice infected with deadly viruses have escaped, and wild rodents have been found making nests with research waste. Cattle infected in a university’s vaccine experiments were repeatedly sent to slaughter and their meat sold for human consumption. Gear meant to protect lab workers from lethal viruses such as Ebola and bird flu has failed, repeatedly.
High-profile biological lab accidents last year and this week with deadly pathogens like anthrax and Ebola put secretive bioterror labs under the microscope nationwide. The “high-containment” labs operate largely out of the public view in Wisconsin, even as mistakes happen.
ORLANDO, Fla. — One morning recently, a dozen college students stepped out of the bright sunshine into a dimly lit room at the counseling center here at the University of Central Florida. They appeared to have little in common: undergraduates in flip-flops and nose rings, graduate students in interview-ready attire.
For the coming fiscal year, Wisconsin is one of only a few states considering or enacting cuts to higher education. A reporter looks the numbers, and how Wisconsin stacks up.
Quoted: With several Australopithecus species living in eastern and central Africa in the same general period, “we’re looking at hominins who are potential candidates as human ancestors,” says Henry Bunn, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Today’s cast-off gadgets are far more likely to end up in a landfill than they are being responsibly disposed of. In fact, 41.8 million tons of e-waste were scrapped last year alone. To combat this, a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has invented a radically new kind of ecologically-friendly semiconductor chip made from wood. No, seriously.
The University of Wisconsin football team may not be No. 1 in the rankings, but it is in the classroom.
With increasing frequency, especially on college campuses, speakers presenting unpopular views – or views unpopular with a vocal minority of the audience – are being disrupted or “shouted down” until they leave the stage. This has happened at my own campus and many others.
Noted: At the School of Business at University of Wisconsin—Madison, MBA students choose a specialization, such as arts administration or real estate. They can immediately dive into classes that are of interest to them, says Blair Sanford, assistant dean for the full-time MBA program at the school.
Noted: Galileo was put under house arrest for the rest of his life after he continued to publish work showing the Earth orbiting the sun, despite warnings from the pope and the Inquisition. But it was more than a theological issue, said Heilbron and University of Wisconsin science historian Ron Numbers.
The future was the focus of a public forum at the UW-Extension building in Wausau on Wednesday night.
Quoted: “If Haile-Selassie is right, I think it’s only reasonable to conclude that some unknown number of Australopithecus afarensis skeletal remains actually belong to this new species instead,” says John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This means that everything that has been written about variation, function and the anatomy of Australopithecus afarensis from fragmentary remains must now be in doubt.”
Tim Smeeding, a professor of public affairs and economics at Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, has a few ideas on how to solve income inequality in the US.
Noted: And pink has advantages over orange, according to research by University of Wisconsin-Madison color scientist Majid Sarmadi, the caucus said.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison stripped Chi Phi of its formal status as a student group for “hazing” pledges – humiliating or abusive initiation rituals – that included making new members wear hoods during a period of isolation and refusing them food.
Former Democratic U.S. Senator Russ Feingold wants his seat in Washington back, and he’s announced he’ll challenge the man who unseated him five years ago, Republican Ron Johnson. The election isn’t until November of 2016, but UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden says the race already has a very high profile.
Patents on scientific discoveries made in academic or non-profit settings don’t necessarily limit research. Generally speaking, inventions made with federal funding can be patented, but the university or nonprofit institution behind the researcher usually owns the patent rights. The researcher is credited as the inventor but the researcher’s employer — usually, the university — controls the patent and determines who may use the invention and for what purpose.
While scientists cannot ever fully control how their scientific discoveries will be used, they can profoundly affect the application by example and moral persuasion. Fears that scientific breakthroughs might lead to a slippery slope, ethically or medically, shouldn’t scare society into trying to prohibit controversial work.
Watch the most memorable moments, both witty and wise, from college commencement ceremonies this year. Katie Couric is featured.
As Illinois, Louisiana and Wisconsin threatened nine-figure reductions in higher education funding, public colleges and universities in those states made their own threats in return. System leaders warned — often and loudly — that layoffs, program cuts and the general welfare of the states’ college students were on the line if legislators went forward with the proposed cuts.
We’re one step closer to biodegradable gadgets. These computer chips are made almost entirely out of wood.
Quoted: “This would combine the two major cable companies that serve the state into one,” said Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor at UW-Madison.
If blaze orange is not your color, a proposal at the Wisconsin Capitol would could give you another option. The legislation would add blaze pink to the list of approved colors that must make up half of the outerwear worn by hunters who head out into the woods in Wisconsin throughout the year.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has chosen UW-Whitewater Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Beverly A. Kopper to run the school as chancellor.
Noted: But Keith Findley, assistant law professor at the University of Wisconsin and the codirector of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, said the consensus around shaken baby diagnoses has crumbled.
Featured: Katie Couric. “But don’t wait forever to find your bliss, or you may find yourself at 30 living in your parents’ basement eating microwave popcorn and binge-watching reruns of “The OC.” And while it might be nice to have your mom or dad make your favorite casserole or do your laundry, don’t wait too long to get going. As Einstein said, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” …
Quoted: “If history had stopped in 2010-2011, and you were writing about Walker’s legacy, you’d say he did reduce the structural deficit. But history didn’t stop in 2011,” said Andy Reschovsky, professor emeritus of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Real men — and women — could wear pink in Wisconsin’s woods if a group of lawmakers get their way.
The Open Source Seed Initiative wants to make carrot seeds more like software. That may seem like an odd project, but consider this: It’s currently possible to patent plants with certain traits, whether they are created through traditional breeding or biotech modification.
When the state of Wisconsin is facing fiscal challenges, it’s more than fair to expect the University of Wisconsin-Madison and all the campuses in the UW System to play a role in closing the budget gap. Universities across the system are already doing their part by streamlining staffing, making cuts to operations and finding ways to generate additional revenue.
Chippewa Falls (WQOW) – The Wisconsin Experience Bus Trip with 35 UW-Madison student leaders rolled into the Chippewa Valley Friday to learn from successful entrepreneurs.
WHITEWATER—College isn’t just about how fast you graduate. It’s also about the experiences had, memories made and earning a diploma.
On any college campus you’re bound to see students munching or sipping on something during class, but in Professor Bradley’s Sensory Evaluation course, it’s required. “You don’t really sit down at home and try eight different types of the same ice cream or the same milk,” said Eleanor Miller, a Junior majoring in Food Science at UW – Madison. “Um, so it helps me a little bit with knowing you know, what I like and what I don’t like in the store.”
Gov. Scott Walker has appointed the son of a president of a foundation that supports conservative causes to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.
MINNEAPOLIS — IF you want to see just how long an academic institution can tolerate a string of slow, festering research scandals, let me invite you to the University of Minnesota, where I teach medical ethics.
Noted: Given that a defendant has a right to speak at sentencing, a video is on solid legal ground, said Walter Dickey, emeritus professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, “though the judge can obviously limit what’s offered.” Professor Dickey said that because, at both the state and federal levels, the lengths of sentences are increasingly up to judges rather than mandated by statute, it followed that videos that “speak to the discretionary part” of sentencing were having a bigger role.
Engineers at University of Wisconsin-Madison who say frac sand leaking from train cars is harming rail lines in Wisconsin are studying a new, cost-effective fix.
There will finally be answers to some of the big questions about Wisconsin’s state budget if everything goes as planned this week at the state Capitol.
Wisconsin is home to largest number of organic dairy farms in the country and cows on each of those farms get part of their diet from grazing grass and other plants. Now, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are trying to find ways to improve those pastures.
The rise in college costs—and student-loan burdens—is breaking through as a hot issue in the 2016 presidential race as contenders float proposals that rethink what college should cost and who should foot the bill. (Subscription required.)
As the state budget process runs on and legislators debate substantial cuts, a pair of University of Wisconsin-Madison economists are debating the current health of Wisconsin’s economy.
In August 2003, hundreds of Parisians returned from their summer holidays to an unholy smell. Ascending the stairs in their apartment buildings, they found the source: dead bodies. Between August 1st and 20th, a heat wave baked Europe, and nearly 15,000 people died in France alone. Richard Keller’s intrepid new book, Fatal Isolation, is a social autopsy of those deaths. (Subscription required.)
Concerned about far-reaching impacts, the Baraboo City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday that opposes proposed state budget cuts for the local University of Wisconsin campus.
Quoted: According to University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden, Walker is focusing his cuts on places that appeal to small government advocates, such as deep cuts to public broadcasting and the entirety of the state park budget, but won’t do much to balance ledgers.
For graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the state appears to be fertile ground for business startups.
A new hotline to report waste, fraud and abuse in the University of Wisconsin System has gone live and officials say it’s already ringing.
Members of the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee won’t decide until later this month whether or not they will reduce the $300 million cut to the UW System proposed in Gov. Scott Walker’s biennial budget. But with the UW System’s fiscal year set to begin on July 1, campuses have been forced to prepare for a worst-case scenario. So regardless of what the Legislature does, the cuts are already being enacted.
“There was a real tension within the business ethics of what you do when you’re investing in a country whose laws are unethical,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison sociology professor Gay Seidman, an apartheid activist at Harvard at the time. “Most of the people working in the divestment movement through the 1970s and 1980s weren’t doing it to simply to get the institution to divest,” Seidman said. “It wasn’t about the institution; it was about a broader issue. We wanted people to think about apartheid.”
The 13 colleges in the University of Wisconsin System have been told to prepare for a reduction of $2.6 million in a first round of budget cuts, with maybe more to follow.
As this year’s crop of college graduates don their caps and gowns and listen to inspiring commencement addresses before embarking on uncertain futures, they’ll also hear a lot about the consequences of the large debts most of them amassed attaining a degree.
Noted: It’s estimated that there are several thousand dogs who have been affected by the virus, but not more than 10,000 at this point, Keith Poulsen, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told USA TODAY Network in an email.
Back in February, our Academic Series featured an interview with distinguished radio scholar Michele Hilmes. The interview touched on a variety of issues in Radio Studies, including the lost critical history of radio and the transnational production on sound media.
It was America’s first metropolis.Cahokia, the largest prehistoric settlement in the Americas north of Mexico, flourished in the 1200s, with a population of 20,000 people at its peak – but was mysterious abandoned by 1400. Now researchers think they know why – a megaflood that raised the Mississippi River by 10m.
