John Dunne, a Buddhist philosophy scholar at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, offers a helpful explanation if you’ve ever wondered why everyone seems to talk about mindfulness in a different way. Dunne says mindfulness isn’t one single thing, but a “family” of related practices shaped by different traditions, purposes and cultural backgrounds.
Babcock Dairy’s “Mnookie Dough” ice cream is stocked and ready to be served. At least for now.
The flavor that UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin helped develop, which consists of a vanilla base, with chocolate chip cookie dough pieces, and fudge and caramel swirls, will be available for at least through Mnookin’s tenure, Babcock’s spokesperson Bethany Jones said Tuesday.
Students from UW-Madison filled Library Mall to protest ICE activity across the country and show solidarity with Minneapolis residents on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026 in Madison, Wis. The protest, organized by Students for a Democratic Society Madison, intended to “show the campus, the city, the state, and the Trump administration the students will not allow this to continue unobstructed,” according to the organization’s social media.
A growing number of states, including Illinois, prohibit openly carrying “long guns” — meaning rifles and shotguns — at protests. Those rules aim to prevent armed confrontations between protesters, counterprotesters and law enforcement, said University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor John Gross. “What (law enforcement) don’t want,” he said, “is a situation where you have two armed groups facing off against one another with the police in between them.”
Andrew Reschovsky, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, said Wisconsin has a particularly complex system of school funding.
“The legislature said we are not going to increase state aid at all, not by one penny of general aid,” Reschovsky said.
Written by Vilas Research Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) will renew calls for university divestment from Israel, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and military operations in Venezuela while remaining civil with the university as the organization returns to campus Jan. 15 following a six-month suspension, a member told The Daily Cardinal.
Written by rofessor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said Madison’s argument is “conflating two different things.”
“The Legislature has, in these absentee voting statutes, made clear that it considers absentee voting to be a privilege, in that absentee voting as a method is not constitutionally required, and that the Legislature can impose some additional procedures on absentee voting that it maybe couldn’t impose on in-person voting,” said Godar. “That privileged language does not mean that when you vote absentee, you don’t have a right to have your vote counted.”
Tensions were high at the University of Wisconsin in May 2024. Protesters were nearly two weeks into an encampment meant to pressure the state’s flagship to divest from Israel in response to its bombing campaign in Gaza. Families were already arriving in Madison for commencement.
An assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences wants to improve sheep’s quality of life.
Sarah Adcock focuses her research on the welfare of farm animals, including specializing in the docking of lamb tails, a routine procedure on farms that can lead to acute and sometimes even chronic pain for the animal.
Hundreds of University of Wisconsin-Madison students braved freezing temperatures Tuesday evening to gather on Library Mall, demanding university leaders declare the campus a sanctuary for immigrant students following recent ICE-related deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Statewide, school enrollment data tells a similar story: throughout the 2000s and 2010s, enrollment in suburban school districts increased, while rural school enrollment continually declined, according to Sarah Kemp, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Applied Population Lab. Urban school districts, including Milwaukee, saw relatively steady enrollment through the 2010s, but the pandemic brought a sharp decline in student enrollment in most Wisconsin cities.
“There’s maybe not housing available for those young families to move into, or maybe the opportunities aren’t there for young families to find employment, and that may then show up in the school districts with declining enrollment,” Kemp said.
IKEA has dozens of other pickup locations around the country, including at Loyola University in Chicago and near the campuses of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan State University in East Lansing and at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
For UBS, located on the eastern edge of the UW-Madison campus, it gets a flat fee from IKEA for each order.
When Jennifer Mnookin joined UW-Madison in 2022 as its chancellor, she faced declining state funding, a decadelong tuition freeze, then campus protests and an onslaught of federal research cuts.
But during her nearly four years in the position, Mnookin built a track record of forging deals with critics of her leadership or the university itself, such as breaking ground on the hard-fought new engineering building, despite frequent opposition from the Republican-led Legislature.
“We don’t have the fountain of youth— nobody ever found it,” said Dudley Lamming, co-director of the Wisconsin Nathan Shock Center (WiNSC) and professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “but can we find ways [to] get to the end of our lives, still fit and functional?”
UW-Madison Athletic Director Chris McIntosh considers impacts of a decline in Wisconsin Badgers football season ticket sales for the 2025 season and the significance of that revenue to the university.
UW-Madison researchers argue undisclosed organizations targeted users based on race and location to discourage them from voting.
Young Mie Kim is a coauthor of the report and a media professor at UW-Madison. Kim was one of the first independent researchers to discover Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“It was just difficult just to surgically target these people, until now,” Kim said. “But with (today’s) data-driven, micro-targeted, algorithm-based information environment, it’s much more effective.”
Since the resignation of the last permanent University president, Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s board of trustees has tapped both its own CEO of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and a fellow trustee to fill the seat. The next permanent president, however, has no affiliation with Columbia.
Wisconsin legislators haven’t directed a ton of their attention to higher education issues during the current legislative session, lobbyist Jack O’Meara said.
“It just seems generally that it’s not at the top of the list of items that are being discussed … so I don’t see a whole lot of bills moving,” said O’Meara, who advocates on behalf of faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison through an organization called PROFS.
Jennifer Mnookin forged compromises with protesters and politicians at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now, she faces her biggest test.
Columbia University’s new president is already facing opposition from anti-Israel rabble-rousers, who have condemned her for previous actions taken against leftist encampments at her last college.
“I am just a lot more concerned about how we design the digital landscape for kids than I am about whether we allow kids to use screens or not,” said Heather Kirkorian, an early childhood development researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I haven’t seen concrete evidence that convinces me that screen use itself is creating problematic behavior.”
Campus and community leaders are congratulating Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin as she prepares to step down as leader of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and Athletic Director Chris McIntosh consider the performance of and expectations for the Wisconsin Badgers football team in a changing college sports landscape.
he Universities of Wisconsin announced Sunday that UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin was hired as the new president of Columbia University. Mnookin will remain in her role through the spring commencement.
Here are 5 things to know.
From her own ice cream flavor to a tense standoff with pro-Palestinian protesters and battles with the Legislature and the Trump administration over DEI, Jennifer Mnookin made a mark during her four years as chancellor at UW-Madison. On Sunday she was named the next president of Columbia University.
Here are highlights from her tenure in Madison.
Almost four years after Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin stepped in to lead UW-Madison, Columbia University has tapped her as its new president.
Mnookin, 58, will succeed acting president Claire Shipman. Mnookin will remain in her role in Madison through spring commencement and start at the New York university on July 1, Columbia announced Sunday. Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said he will appoint an interim chancellor after her departure.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin is leaving at the end of the school year for a job as president of Columbia University.
Mnookin, 58, started at UW in August 2022 after 17 years at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. A search for her replacement will begin later this year.
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin is set to leave the University of Wisconsin-Madison after this school year to become the new president of Columbia University in New York.
Columbia University has selected University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin as its next president.
Mnookin has led the state’s flagship university since 2022.
In a statement Sunday, Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said Mnookin brought “unbounded energy, resilience, and deeply thoughtful leadership to the position.
Jennifer Mnookin has led the flagship campus of the state university system since 2022. She takes the helm at Columbia after a tumultuous period.
Columbia University has selected Jennifer Mnookin, a legal scholar and current chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, as its next president.
Columbia University has named its next president.
The board of trustees has appointed Jennifer Mnookin to lead the university. Mnookin, 58, currently serves as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a nationally recognized legal scholar.
She’ll start in the role on July 1.
UW-Madison has called off classes on Friday due to extreme frigid winter weather — the first time the university has canceled instruction since 2019.
The university canceled lectures, labs and discussion sections, but other campus operations will continue as normal, the university announced Thursday.
Some people refer to the muriqui as “the hippie monkey” – a slightly sensationalising term that nonetheless captures their “relaxed” lifestyle, says Karen Strier, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, who has studied muriquis for decades. She mentions, for example, that the monkeys are, sexually speaking, very laid back. “Females mate with multiple males in close succession,” she says.
ttorneys for six former University of Wisconsin women’s basketball players suing the school and its former coach in federal court urged a judge to reject what they called a “sanitized” version of events presented by the defense.
The players Thursday night filed a response to a motion by the Wisconsin Board of Regents, Marisa Moseley and former Badgers administrator Justin Doherty that sought to dismiss the lawsuit.
our people have been charged in connection with a series of graffiti incidents that caused more than $10,000 in damage across the UW-Madison campus, university police said.
UW-Madison is cancelling classes on Friday due to extreme cold.
Bitterly cold temperatures are expected to begin on Friday and continue into the weekend. An Extreme Cold Warning has been issued for Dane County from midnight to 1 p.m. Friday, with wind chills expected in the range of -30-40 F.
Gov. Tony Evers told The Daily Cardinal in an interview Wednesday he is in the process of negotiating with the Legislature what will be done with the state’s budget surplus, but does not have a specific answer whether the University of Wisconsin System will receive any additional funding.
Four people are charged in connection with a series of graffiti incidents that caused thousands of dollars in damage across the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus over the past 18 months.
From 2020 to 2024, preliminary figures show the state has seen reports of 495 manure spills and incidents, according to Kevin Erb. He’s the manager of the Conservation Professional Training Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, which trains manure applicators. Erb did not have figures on the amount of manure spilled, saying releases are often estimated.
Through the Senior Guest Auditor Program, Wisconsin residents aged 60 and older take UW-Madison courses free of charge alongside students less than half their age. This fall, the program reached a record enrollment of more than 1,000 auditors, double the number enrolled a decade ago, according to program administrator Anne Niendorf. The program places older adults alongside traditional undergraduates in lecture halls across campus, creating multigenerational classrooms.
The Cinematheque, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s dedicated screening facility for international cinema history and fine films, returns this week for its 2026 slate — filling a niche since the 1990s by promoting movies audiences in Madison might otherwise miss.
“Sometimes good movies are brought to us through a proposed partnership with another campus department or community organization/concern,” said Jim Healy, Director of Programming at the Cinematheque. “Sometimes some movies are more relevant, like our screening of ‘Slap Shot’ last January in honor of Paul Newman’s centennial.”
Demographer David Egan-Robertson kicked things off in an interview with “Wisconsin Today,” looking at the big trends in the state’s population. Egan-Robertson has followed this story for years in his work with the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Four people have been charged in connection with a series of graffiti incidents that have happened across the UW-Madison campus over the past year and a half, the university’s police department reported Thursday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison cancelled Friday classes due to freezing weather conditions for the first time since 2019, according to a news release.
The cancellation of all lectures, labs and discussion sections comes after the National Weather Service placed Dane County under an Extreme Cold Warning from midnight to 1 p.m. Friday, with wind chills projected to range from 30 to 40 degrees below zero.
Last year, just as she was finishing a teacher residency program through the University of Wisconsin-Madison, federal funding for the project was cut by the Trump administration.
“So we were in the spring semester and we were all like, are we going to be able to continue?” Lind said. “Are we going to still be able to get our teaching license? Are we going to have to pay this back?”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison canceled classes Jan. 23, though all other campus operations will continue as normal. It marks the 13th weather-related closure for the state flagship since 1965.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has canceled classes for Friday, January 23, according to a release.
Cold temperatures are expected to start Friday and continue through the weekend.
The University of Wisconsin has launched Badger Athlete Partners, a new name, image and likeness (NIL) program. The initiative aims to help student-athletes earn more and take full advantage of third-party deals.
Consolidation continues to be the biggest factor shaping the number of farms in the state, according to Steven Deller, agricultural and applied economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“If you’re in your mid-60s, it just doesn’t make sense to be operating a dairy farm with 150 cows,” he said. “That’s demanding work, that’s really hard labor, and you hit a certain point where you just say, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”
As the winter weather continues, the University of Wisconsin-Madison welcomes both returning and new students to the spring semester in frigid fashion.
First years this fall enjoyed Wisconsin Welcome events as they learned the campus layout while returning students reacclimated. Returning this winter is no different with a Winter Wisconsin Welcome that not only opens doors for returning students but gives transfers and spring admits opportunities to make connections and meet new people.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison reported nine hazing violations connected to Greek life between 2021 to 2025 after a new federal law required universities and colleges to publicly report hazing incidents.
Under the Stop Campus Hazing Act, universities and colleges were required to begin documenting hazing violations starting July 1, 2025, implement anti-hazing policies and publish their first Campus Hazing Transparency Report by Dec. 23, 2025. UW-Madison went beyond the July requirement by including hazing reports from years prior.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are studying whether a drug used for organ transplant patients could slow aging in humans.
Some compelling evidence in recent decades shows rapamycin — also known as sirolimus — can increase the quality and quantity of life in animals, said Adam Konopka, a UW-Madison assistant professor of geriatrics and gerontology.
“This got people really excited that maybe this drug could be used to improve human healthy longevity,” he said.
Only the chancellor or someone authorized to act on their behalf has the authority to cancel classes, suspend services or close the campus or any campus building to the public, students and employees.
The university’s general philosophy? Remain open whenever possible.
A few years ago, a small baker from the West Coast had a problem. A day or so after baking chocolate chip cookies, the chocolate chips would develop an unpleasant white haze. Confused, she reached out to Richard Hartel, a professor of food science at the University of Wisconsin.
Hartel studies foods like chocolate and ice cream, and he gets questions like this all the time. So what was going on with those chocolate chips?
Canadians like to claim that they can tell the temperature outside by the sound the snow makes underfoot.
The topic has not been well studied, but researchers from the University of Wisconsin suggest that, at temperatures above -10C, the pressure of a foot causes a thin layer of snow to melt, producing a crunching sound as it compresses. Closer to zero, the sliding of grains becomes a squelch as the snow approaches the condition of slush, but as the temperature approaches -10C the snow becomes progressively crunchier.
The bill is “is a Band-Aid to stop the bleeding,” said Ryan Poe-Gavlinski, director of UW-Madison’s Restraining Order and Survivor Advocacy Clinic. She said it could fill a critical funding gap until lawmakers figure out a long-term solution.
But the number of victims in need of services is continually on the rise. Wisconsin broke records for domestic violence-related deaths in 2024.
“We’re going to always have victims who need assistance, and there’s just not enough people to help the victims,” Poe-Gavlinski said.
Political experts have said it’s possible, but not likely, congressional candidates will run on new maps this year.
“I think it’s not impossible, but a court would really have to give dedicated attention to the case and prioritize it over others,” Barry Burden, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last month. “There would just have to be a kind of rapid-fire set of events to get through all those steps in time for the 2026 cycle.”
Still, University of Wisconsin Law School professor and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative Rob Yablon noted, “it’s conceivable” the plaintiffs in the case brought by Elias Law Group will push for a speedy process. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Julie Zuckerbrod, argued during a scheduling conference that the case could in fact be decided in time for the 2026 election.
