Interview with Professor Cecelia Klingele: “It’s exciting to see such depth of experience from our state being called upon to give advice to the new governor about how best to move forward with reform in Wisconsin.”
A new paper by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison paints a stark picture of climate changes taking place.
Noted: Article co-written by Anita Mukherjee of the Wisconsin School of Business.
One hundred and fifteen people die each day due to an opioid overdose in the United States. Policymakers have tried many approaches to reduce this mortality rate, and researchers have been studying their effects. This post summarizes recent research on how to reduce opioid abuse and opioid-related mortality. What have we learned so far?
Quoted: In total, nearly 300,000 union members are either drawing benefits from the Cental States fund or are qualified to do so in the future, Gordon Enderle, an actuary at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, said. He added that another 123,000 are qualified for future pensions, but only 62,000 Teamsters are currently contributing to the fund through their employers.
“Everyone who’s in Central States’ Union is affected by it, in my opinion,” Enderle said.
A member of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents who often voted alone or in the minority on controversial political issues arrived at Thursday’s meeting on the UW-La Crosse campus as the guy everyone wanted to embrace.
The chancellor who hosted the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents on his campus this week has been denied a $25,600 performance raise after his reprimand for inviting a porn star to speak to students during free speech week a month ago.
For about an hour, it appeared the Bucks would be acquiring former University of Wisconsin star Sam Dekker in a trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers. And then, it was reported that the Washington Wizards would be getting Dekker in a three-team trade.
Noted: Why Hunt? A Guide for Lovers of Nature, Local Food and Outdoor Recreation was published earlier this year by The Aldo Leopold Foundation. Aldo Leopold, the former University of Wisconsin professor, author of Sand County Almanac and considered by many as the founder of the modern conservation movement, was an avid hunter.
Noted: Late last week I spoke to two of our state’s most knowledgeable and respected wildlife and natural resources educators – Christine Thomas, dean of the UW-Stevens Point College of Natural Resources, and Scott Craven, professor emeritus and former head of the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology – about prospects for ruffed grouse research. Both agreed there was a strong need.
Tuition for graduate students and out-of-state undergrads at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is headed up again under a plan the UW System Board of Regents approved Friday.
Last month, Wisconsin sophomore Jonathan Taylor was named the best running back in the Big Ten Conference. On Thursday, Taylor was named the best running back in the nation when he won the Doak Walker Award.
You don’t really see it until it’s all in one place.
That was certainly the case in mid-October, when more than 400 game developers from Madison and the Midwest converged at the second edition of M+Dev, the game developers’ conference held annually here. As the assembled masses networked and swapped personal stories, it was hard not to feel — and impossible not to see — an ongoing sense of critical mass.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Veterinary Care’s oncology department is conducting a clinical trial that could develop a vaccine for canine cancer.
Noted: The problem would get much worse if healthy people who can afford health insurance only because of the federal subsidies were removed from the market, said Justin Sydnor, an assistant professor of actuarial science, risk management and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Gov.-elect Tony Evers wants Gov. Scott Walker to rescind four dozen appointments approved by the state Senate Tuesday in a special legislative session called before Walker leaves office in January.
Noted: The founder and chairman of Lubar & Co., a private investment company in Milwaukee, Lubar was president of the University of Wisconsin System’s Board of Regents, president of the Milwaukee Art Museum, trustee and acting chairman of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board and in 1991 served as co-chairman of the Governor’s Conference on Small Business.
Quoted: Howard Schweber, a professor of law and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said if the Michigan proposal about legislators intervening in lawsuits were a federal law, it clearly would be unconstitutional.
He said while “some degree of chicanery is a standard part of hardball politics,” the current moves in Madison and Lansing seem unprecedented.
Soil health” is a phrase that has been thrown around a lot lately, but what exactly makes a soil healthy? The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has their own definition, as do well-known soil scientists John Doran and Timothy Parkin. But according to Richard Lankau, assistant professor in UW-Madison’s Plant Pathology Department, each farmer, too, has their own definition of what makes a soil healthy.
“Soil health is up to us to define,” he said. “Ask yourself, what do you want your soil to do for you?”
Noted: Nationally, about 36 percent of university students and 42 percent of community college students indicated feeling insecure about food in the 30 days before they were surveyed, according to an April report from the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, a group of researchers based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The survey took into account responses from more than 43,000 students at 66 higher education institutions nationwide.
Noted: Among the jobs sought by Mariani Packing Co. in Wisconsin Rapids is a position for food science technician, a job requiring a science background and a bachelors degree. The last three hired by the company have come from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Republican Bryan Steil is resigning his position on the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents effective immediately to focus on his first congressional term, according to a statement he released Friday.
Quoted: Ryan Owens, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist and director of the school’s Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership, said it’s typical for justices to steer clear of talking about legislation because it might eventually come before the court in a legal challenge.
“He cares a lot about the court and the legitimacy of the institution,” said Owens, who like Kelly is a member of the conservative Federalist Society. “It’s not surprising to me he’s not commenting on this. … From the justice’s perspective, trying to stay out of the fray is the right thing to do.”
Noted: Thomas is a Milwaukee native who went to MPS’ 65th Street School and graduated from Rufus King High School and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined Teach for America, the program that recruits college grads to teach in high-needs schools. As a high school teacher in Atlanta, he was named the Teach for America national teacher of the year a decade ago.
Quoted: “This is a great thing for Aurora to do,” said Timothy Smeeding, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The idea that you are willing to help your least well-off employees — just at a minimal level — says how you value labor,” he said. “That’s a really important message in my mind.”
Quoted: John Lyons, a fisheries scientist now retired from the DNR, said he and others at the agency spent considerable time planning to move fish through the dam.
“The issue of invasive species, particularly invasive Asian carp, was always a big issue,” said Lyons, now curator of fishes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s zoological museum.
Quoted: “[To] suggest that neurofeedback can be helpful to people meditating is really grossly overstating the case,” said Richard Davidson, the founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leading neuroscientist in the study of meditation. “The brain is ridiculously complex. Our measures, even though they’ve come a long way, are absurdly limited and very coarse, and it’s nothing short of hubris to think that we have the right measures at this point in time that we should be providing feedback on.”
Noted: The Tropical Cyclone Research Group at the UW-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center ended up in the middle of the heartland because of the groundbreaking work of atmospheric science professor Verner Suomi, who is widely credited with developing imaging technologies that spawned modern weather satellites in the 1960s and ’70s.
Noted: In the case of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the institution reviewed data on student participation in internships to further conversations about the definitions of internships across majors, such as who qualifies, who participates and how students connect their experiential learning to their professional development, the survey said.
Noted: Owens is a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the director of the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.
Quoted: According to Cecelia Klingele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor, sexual violence reports that are only given to university officials—and not law enforcement—can only lead to suspensions and expulsions. And that’s only for the few cases that get looked into; in 2017, the UW-Madison investigated just eleven allegations of sexual assault out of 318 reported.
Quoted: Adam Stevenson, a clinical associate professor from University of Wisconsin-Madison, said CEOs and government officials have served at the federal prison camp.
“You’re typically thinking of things like white-collar crime, low-level or older drug offenders, individuals who don’t have lengthy criminal histories or if they do, they’ve reached an age where the Bureau of Prisons feels they’re no longer a risk,” Stevenson said.
Noted: Sleep “cleans up” the brain. When you sleep, your brain removes information you don’t need and consolidates what you learned that day. This makes room for new learning. After all, do you really need to remember what socks you wore, the joke you heard during first period, or what you ate for breakfast? Neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin found that many of our synapses shrink at night as the brain weeds out or “forgets” information that it no longer needs. And it’s not just memories that need to be cleaned up. According to the National Institutes of Health, sleep also flushes out toxins that accumulate during the day.
Quoted: Schultz says that being a cranberry farmer and establishing a productive marsh is not for everyone, a sentiment reflected by Amaya Atucha, a fruit crop specialist in the Horticulture Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies cranberry vine physiology and how the plants cope with environmental stresses.
“I’ve never heard of anyone ever calling me because they want to start a cranberry marsh,” said Atucha, pointing out that, like Schultz, most growers today come from multi-generational farms and that establishing a new marsh is very expensive.
Quoted: But sexual abuse experts said what the wrestlers describe is a form of sexual harassment and stalking. “You don’t need to touch somebody to hurt them,” said University of Wisconsin psychology professor Ryan McKinley, a member of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity. “There may not have been any contact, but clearly people on the receiving end saw its impact.”
Noted: They are connecting with the children through an organization called, The Memory Project and it was actually started by a UW-Madison student back in 2004, with a goal to let youth facing hard times know that somebody cares about their well-being.
Noted: Ryan Herringa, a pediatric psychiatrist and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says children without this kind of professional support can benefit by talking to any trusted adult.
Also quoted: Pamela McGranahan, director of UW-Madison’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program, studies the impacts of childhood trauma. She said children are vicarious learners and they’re watching what’s going on around them at all times — even if it’s just something they hear on the news.
Noted: Kidd got his medical degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in 1992. After completing a residency program in anesthesia at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Kidd joined the anesthesiology group in Appleton and began practicing at Theda Clark in 1998.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a bandage that harnesses a body’s own energy to speed up wound healing through gentle electrical pulses.
Mature, adult oligodendrocytes can reacquire their ability to produce myelin to replace the ones lost in diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) without undergoing a stem cell-like state, a new study shows.
UW-Madison’s Discovery To Product program was launched in 2013 asking the still vital question: What could be done to bring the great breakthroughs produced by the nation’s sixth largest research university to the broader public?
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse chancellor who invited a porn star to campus to talk about the adult entertainment industry as part of free speech week has been reprimanded “for exercising poor judgment.”
Noted: His keen intelligence was noticed by his teachers, and he was admitted to the prestigious Stuyvesant High School, in New York, which specialized in sciences. He then earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from City College of New York and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from UW.
Noted: Well before the recent shift in public discourse, racism brewed under the surface for decades, but hate groups generally maintained a lower profile, said Pamela Oliver, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin. Racially offensive images became publicly unacceptable by the end of the Civil Rights era, she said, but they never disappeared completely.
As an undergraduate at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, Sheridan Blanford first became interested in diversity and inclusion in relation to athletics after being the only woman of color on the college’s woman’s basketball team all four years.
Quoted: Law professor and bioethicist R. Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a member of the summit organizing committee, thinks that’s the right emphasis. “We continue to have a public fascination with the least likely applications” of CRISPR, she said: “Germline editing, which will be the most complicated use to evaluate in terms of its risks and benefits, and enhancement” — using CRISPR not to treat a disease but to improve someone’s appearance, strength, or other traits. People, she added, put these applications together — germline editing for enhancement, a.k.a. “designer babies” — “and we’re off to the races.”
Guest is Amy Wagner, executive director of the UW Child Development Lab.
Quoted: The work of UW-Madison marketing professor Evan Polman centers on consumer psychology. Several recent studies he’s conducted show that “there can be a dark side to generosity. It’s not 100 percent good,” says Polman.
Polman, who researches gift giving, says that most studies on the topic focus on what happens before gift giving. “It’s usually about the struggles and decision-making the giver goes through when thinking about what kind of gift to give someone,” says Polman.
Quoted: UW-Madison journalism professor Mike Wagner says if the GOP supermajority in the Assembly seems lopsided, “that’s probably why there is a lawsuit.”
“A court-drawn map or bipartisan commission map certainly wouldn’t promise a Democratic majority,” Wagner says. “But it would be far more likely to have a more representative result given the partisan makeup of the state. Wisconsin is very competitive. That we know.”
Noted: Voting in Madison and Milwaukee was supported by a 28 percent increase in turnout from the 2014 election on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and a 43 percent increase on UW-Milwaukee’s campus. NextGen America, a liberal group that spent $2.8 million in Wisconsin to boost Democratic turnout among millennials, reported between 75 percent and 80 percent of the vote share on the campuses went to Evers.
Evan Polman is an assistant professor of marketing and the Cynthia and Jay Ihlenfeld Professor for Inspired Learning in Business at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Noted: Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has studied poverty in America, city life, housing insecurity, public policy, racial inequality and ethnography. (“Evicted” was the 2016-17 Go Big Read selection.)
Quoted: “The consensus seems to be that missing school has adverse consequences, from achievement growth to high school graduation and I’m not sure I totally buy it,” said Eric Grodsky, a UW-Madison professor of sociology and educational policy studies who has been studying absenteeism among Madison students.
Noted: The genesis of the Kubly Foundation, in its current form, began at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1950s when four undergrad students began a lifelong friendship — Michael Kubly and his wife-to-be Billie Wenger, and Michael Schmitz and his wife-to-be Jeanne Berry.
Proclaiming the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point no longer can be all things to all people, Chancellor Bernie Patterson on Monday proposed eliminating a handful of humanities majors and transforming the school into “a new kind of regional university” that infuses the liberal arts into career-minded majors.
Noted: Wisconsin only ranked as the 42nd best overall business school in the U.S., with its compensation figures in other industries falling well below the $130k average for tech. For example, Wisconsin Business School grads who took a job in finance earned a median salary of roughly $90k, well behind the $150k average for Stanford and Harvard MBAs. But Wisconsin appears to be your best bet in the Midwest for a high-paying tech job. And tuition is only around $38k, half that of Harvard.
Wisconsin is in dire need of more housing to meet the current demands as well as future demands as the state’s workforce continues to grow, says Mark Eppli, who is with the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the Wisconsin School of Business.
Noted: Among them was Marion Cranefield, one of the first Madison men killed in World War I. Cranefield was a University of Wisconsin-Madison junior when he joined the Army. He had tried to enlist the previous year to take part in the U.S. Army’s pursuit of Pancho Villa but was turned down because he was too thin. He wrote home from France, telling his family “it’s a wonderful country and worth dying for.”
Robert Golden, dean of the UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health for the past dozen years, leaned into the question as if he wanted no doubt to exist on where he stood. We were in his office in a campus building located a stone’s throw away from University Hospital.
Quoted: “Basically, they’re going to destroy 25 percent of the crop,” said Paul Mitchell, a University of Wisconsin-Madison agricultural economist.
Mark Johnson’s No. 10 Wisconsin Badgers hockey jersey will hang from the rafters at the Kohl Center, elevated in a ceremony Feb. 9.
