Quoted: “It’s like you have a can of gasoline and you’re just waiting for someone to drop a match,” said James Conway, a doctor who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases and associate director for health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
Noted: Tony Leys has worked at the Des Moines Register as an editor and reporter since 1988. He has been the newspaper’s main health care reporter since 2000, with a strong focus on mental health and health care policy. He also helps cover politics, including Iowa’s presidential caucus campaigns. Leys grew up in the Milwaukee area and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a national board member of the Association of Health Care Journalists.
Noted: Out of West High, where he met Linda — they’ll celebrate 50 years of marriage in August, the same month David turns 70 — Maraniss attended UW-Madison but did not graduate. He wasn’t much of a student, preferring chess games at the Union to class.
Noted: Critics such as Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of law and bioethics, say such legislation doesn’t do anything beyond stirring up an ugly fight because there are already laws in place that protect babies as soon as they’re born.
Noted: Includes tips from Cliff A. Robb, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Consumer Science, Faculty Director, Consumer Finance & Financial Planning, School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: He was stationed in Hawaii during World War II and later earned a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He became a lawyer in 1953, taking some cases to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and served on the Milwaukee County Board for 20 years.
J.J. Watt is returning to the University of Wisconsin, where he played football his sophomore and junior years before being drafted.
Written by , PhD Candidate, History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Quoted: “In demanding aggressive cuts in the Fed funds rate, and a resumption in quantitative easing at a time when economic growth remains solid, the administration is only further demonstrating that it has only the political self interest of Mr. Trump at heart,” said Menzie Chinn, an economist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
When you hear the phrase “the future of politics,” they’re talking about people like Avra Reddy. At just 19, this Illinois-native University of Wisconsin-Madison student has become the first woman in 26 years—and the first woman of color—to represent District 8 on Madison’s City Council. And like many women who’ve sought to be the first, she faced sexism and doubt along the way. Here, she talks about the women who helped pull her through and the steps to take to follow in her footsteps.
Chances are, if you’re in the NFL, regular graduation gowns aren’t going to cut it.
Former Wisconsin Badgers and current Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt will give UW-Madison’s commencement speech this year.
Two Republican legislators want to spend nearly $8 million annually to create dairy research programs at three University of Wisconsin System schools.
Noted: The 2015 price plunge can largely be explained by weakening export demand, according to Mark Stephenson, who directs University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Dairy Profitability and chairs a state dairy task force, that seeks to “maintain a viable and profitable dairy industry.”
Two Republican legislators want to spend nearly $8 million annually to create dairy research programs at three University of Wisconsin System schools.
Noted: Jerry Apps, born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of more than 35 books, many of them on rural history and country life. For further information about Jerry’s writing and TV work go to www.jerryapps.com.
Quoted: Of the five researchers Poynter reached out to, only one responded saying that fact-checking was in the scope of their project for Social Science One. But for Sebastián Valenzuela, a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying how fact checks affect misinformation on Facebook is still tough even with the data-sharing tools.
“It’s a bit more tricky for our project because the information on whether the shared link on Facebook was sent or not to a third-party fact-checker (which is the easiest way of measuring whether fact checks affected fake news sharing) is not available for Chile,” said Valenzuela, the lead researcher for one of the winning abstracts, in an email to Poynter.
Quoted: “The trouble is if you look at the official poverty measure, it doesn’t cover things like the taxes they pay or the cost of going to work, and it doesn’t include the Earned Income Tax Credit or SNAP (food stamps) and other non-cash benefits,” said Timothy Smeeding, professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former director of the poverty institute.
Almost a year ago, a viral photograph of high school students mugging for the camera with a Nazi salute after a prom in Baraboo caused a worldwide scandal. Since then, some prominent Madisonians have joined with residents of the Sauk County town in public education efforts about the grim realities of fascism and the legacy of the Holocaust. Among these is Teryl Dobbs, associate professor and chair of music education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Music. Having long studied the music of Eastern European Jews under Nazi occupation, Professor Dobbs will share her research with the public at the Baraboo First United Methodist Church on Thursday, May 2nd at 6:30 pm.
Noted: His death rocked the department that he had started at the University of Wisconsin-Madison—there was no apparent successor—and his students scattered across the globe, carving out niches for themselves in areas of academic scholarship in which they would become experts. Now, 50 years after his death, we’re taking a long-overdue look at Robinson, who mentored some of today’s top Buddhist thinkers and set the groundwork for Buddhist higher learning in the US.
Noted: Cliché as it sounds, I knew I wanted to go to Wisconsin-Madison within about 20 minutes of my being on campus. Prior to visiting, it had checked all of my boxes: it was a big school with great game days and school spirit, it had an extremely impressive dairy science program (arguably the best in the nation), and the location wasn’t too close to home while still having all of the seasons. But my love for the school grew exponentially while I was on campus.
Noted: Madeleine Pape is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a former athlete
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the availability of a new web-based tool — developed in partnership with the University of Wisconsin — to help dairy producers evaluate various scenarios using different coverage levels through the new Dairy Margin Coverage program.
Noted: I discussed the matter with one of the nation’s experts — Dr. Dianna L. Murphy, who directs the Language Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She pointed out that people can have a variety of language strengths and weaknesses; and rather than treating language competency as a “switch yes or no,” learners can tell more of a story about their abilities.
Noted: Finalists for the interior piece include Maria Amalia Wood, a Honduran-born textile artist and recent master of fine arts graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Human Ecology.
Gov. Tony Evers made two appointments to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents Monday — his first to the university system oversight panel on which he served until his election in November.
Quoted: “The knife-edge politics of Wisconsin mean that Trump will not be able to take the state for granted,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “However important Wisconsin is to the Trump campaign, it will be even more essential to the Democrats.”
With the end of the 2018-19 school year approaching, The Badger Herald interviewed University of Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank on a range of issues, including higher education funding, the campus climate and UW mental health services.
“I hope it’s a matter of when [national regulation is put in place], and not if,” said David Abel, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who focuses on energy systems, air pollution and public health. “It really has to be, if we’re going to avoid some of this really catastrophic damage.”
Quoted: Michael Light, associate professor of Sociology and Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he is not surprised to see that level of public opposition. He said general views on immigration crackdown are linked now to the family separation policy, which Democrats unanimously oppose and Republicans are split on.
“The family separation issue galvanized many people,” he said.
Quoted: There haven’t been any formal studies looking at how precisely this interference could interfere with 23.8 GHz weather satellites. “But the more we lose, the greater the impact will be,” says Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Quoted: “A guy could go decades without seeing a doctor, but when he is having trouble with erections or waking up three times in the night to urinate, he will seek medical attention,” says urologist David Paolone, vice chair of community and regional urology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “We need to look beyond those initial complaints at what could be leading to this, what unrecognized problems you have, and how we could be taking better care of you.”
Quoted: “There have always been people farming who are women, who identify as women. What has changed is that we’re doing a better job now capturing it,” says Jaclyn Wypler, a PHD Sociology student at the University of Wisconsin.
Noted: Even before #MeToo, some parts of medical academia had begun to address sexual misconduct. At the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, administrators created a structure unconnected to the school where students or employees can report wrongdoing. An independent representative works with the student on how to deal with the allegation, including whether to go to the police or administrators, said Associate Dean Elizabeth Petty.
“We want to hold staff and faculty accountable if there’s a sexual assault,” Petty said. Right now, “there is a lot of under-reporting.”
Quoted: “Coffee drinkers should care. Every sip of coffee is a footprint on the earth, and is that footprint good for birds or not? It’s an open question which this study helps clarify,” says Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “We do know if people aren’t treated early, sometimes they go on to have lifelong symptoms,” said Susan Paskewtiz, a professor and chair of the University of Wisconsin Madison’s entomology department.
As you may know, there was a famous and pivotal event in Madison and University of Wisconsin history of May 1969 known by some as the Mifflin Street Riot and by others as The Battle of Miffland, which spread to the UW campus and went on for three days and nights.
Noted: This past weekend, the pair of tropical cyclones resembled mirror images of each other, spinning at roughly the same longitude, but in opposite directions, as noted in a satellite loop of atmospheric moisture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s chemistry department has provided paid parental leave for graduate students and postdocs since 2008. Birth mothers receive six weeks paid maternity leave, and any new parent, including birth mothers, partners and adoptive parents, receives another six weeks of paid leave. University gift funds support the periods of leave, and a 12-week combined leave taken by a birth mother costs about $10,000, says chemist Robert Hamers, who was department chair when the policy was formally adopted. “We don’t want women students or postdocs to drop out,” he says. And, he adds, it makes financial sense to ensure that students complete their PhDs.
Quoted: “I think we all probably expected to be out playing outside this weekend,” said Joe Muellenberg, horticulture program coordinator at Dane County’s University of Wisconsin Extension. “Instead, we’re going to be rushing to protect our plants and worrying about them.”
Quoted: “He still has his Trump base in Wisconsin and all around the county, and these are the people who come for the rallies,” said David Canon, a professor of American politics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “But it’s a relatively small percentage of the overall electorate right now in Wisconsin.”
Quoted: “There are a lot of buildings and there is a lot of woodland vegetation and they are close to each other, and there is a lot of fire,” said Anu Kramer, a wildfire scientist at the Silvis Lab at the University of Wisconsin who conducted the research. “When those things come together that is when you are going to see a lot of destruction.”
Noted: Microsoft can’t claim sole ownership of the term. Xiaojin (Jerry) Zhu, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, has used “machine teaching” to describe a set of approaches to training machine learning algorithms since 2013, though he and Microsoft both agree there’s some overlap in their definitions.
Richard Davidson is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he has studied emotion and the brain for the past 35 years. Davidson’s work focuses on happiness and compassion being learned much like any other skill.
Thousands of runners hit the rainy streets Saturday morning for the 38th annual Crazylegs Classic. The 8K run and 2-mile walk started at Library Mall and continued through the UW-Madison campus.
The weather meant a long-time tradition near UW-Madison wasn’t quite as popular this year.
UW-Madison Collegiate Farm Bureau hosted its annual Ag Day on Campus April 19 on Library Mall on the UW-Madison campus. The event, with a theme of “One percent feeding 100 percent,” was designed to educate others and promote Wisconsin agriculture.
Noted: The UW-Madison MFA candidate’s current show runs through July 26 at the Central Library.
Noted: Teryl Dobbs, a University of Wisconsin-Madison music professor, will present the free community event “Music, Remembrance, and Repairing Our World: Lessons on Yom Ha’Shoah” on Thursday at First United Methodist Church. Through her work, she has interviewed Holocaust survivors and studied testimony and oral history, with a focus on how they made music while undergoing hardship and oppression.
Noted: Abdu’allah, who is 49, has lived in the United States since 2014, where he is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but visits his home town regularly.
Quoted: “You think of all the ways people interact with lake ice — skating, fishing derbies, iceboats,” said John Magnuson, an ecologist and limnologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “And already, in some of these lakes you have about a month less to do it.”
Noted: At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for instance, the number of students graduating with humanities degrees fell from 1,830 in 2008 to 1,025 in 2016. Nationwide, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, English departments have lost some 20% of their majors over the last 10 years. Meanwhile, students are flocking to STEM subjects: At the University of Pennsylvania, the number of students majoring in biology went up 25% between 2005 and 2014.
Noted: Sheridan Blanford, director of inclusion for the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has attended the forum across the years and says that she always leaves inspired.
“I love the Inclusion Forum because it brings a good majority of people who are really invested in this work to one space, and we all are trying to figure out how we can be better in our selective areas and it’s just really great to be around a lot of like-minded, extremely progressive people that really want to see our spaces be better,” she said. “A lot of these people come and figure out how to take this back to cater it toward their respective jobs, but this is my job. So I get to do it everyday and I always walk away feeling like my tool belt is set and full and ready to go.”
Quoted: “There are pros and cons, but if we were to just implement a cashless society with the current system, it would be pretty negative for low-income people,” said J. Michael Collins, faculty director of the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Noted: Madison listed as No. 1: Home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and its more than 40,000 students, Madison has a thriving nightlife and music scene, a surprisingly strong job market, and a reasonable cost of living.
Noted: De Shields said he was “the only hippie” from his family. “I grew up during the summers of love in ’64 and ’65. I’m the one who went to college [the University of Wisconsin-Madison]. I’m the one who brought white friends back to the ’hood. People said, ‘Is André crazy? But I’m the one who made it beyond 25, because growing up in Baltimore you had to check yourself, ’cause 25 is old age.
Quoted: This is the first study of rip currents on the Great Lakes even though they have been a topic of discussion for a long time, said Chin Wu, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wu supervised Ph.D. student Álvaro Linares, who led the project.
“A rip current is a concentrated, strong offshore flow,” said Adam Belche, a coastal resilience outreach specialist with the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute. The standard speed is about 1 foot per second.
Quoted: “This is a global problem,” says Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Quoted: “A cello sounds like a cello because of its size and shape,” Jacqueline Goldstein, a graduate student in the University of Wisconsin-Madison astronomy department, explained. “The vibrations of stars also depend on their size and structure.”
Police escorted 16 University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students out of the Graduate School dean’s office Friday evening after a meeting to discuss the university’s Graduate Assistant Policies and Procedures imploded.
