Skip to main content

Author: knutson4

How To Rank College Ranking Sites

Posted on
Forbes

It’s college ranking list time again and everyone but those who make them will lament their effect on students and parents trying to make informed decisions about which colleges to apply to and attend. I’m one of those who don’t put much stock in rankings, no matter how “scientific” they are, since the imponderables of college are too great to measure meaningfully. And with students themselves being one of the top imponderables, no matter what the lists say, any indicators of “value” or “success” or “employability” will be strictly based on generalities, not realities. So, caveat emptor.

UW-Madison to Upgrade Engineering Campus With $100M Foxconn Gift

Posted on
Xconomy

Foxconn, a leading Taiwanese contract manufacturer constructing a huge electronic display assembly plant in Southeastern Wisconsin, announced a $100 million gift to the state’s flagship public university Monday. The company’s gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison will support research and development of new technologies statewide, Foxconn said.

Rochester Simon Becomes First B-School With STEM-Certified MBA

Posted on
Poets & Quants

Noted: Last year, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business added to its full-time MBA program a certificate in management science and technology management that allows students to be STEM-certified (see Fuqua Hikes MBA Appeal To Internationals). Two years ago, the University of Wisconsin School of Business gained STEM certification for two specializations–supply chain management and operations and technology management–in its MBA program. And many more schools, including Rochester, boast specialty master’s programs in quant heavy business disciplines that also are STEM certified.

The Closers: Business Schools That Get The Students They Want

Posted on
Poets & Quants

Noted: Then, there is Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business. Smeal boasts a 62.8% yield – a percentage that’s 10 points or better than Northwestern Kellogg, Chicago Booth, Dartmouth Tuck, and Michigan Ross. Smeal’s secret? High standards and consistency. Although the program received 62 fewer applications during the 2016-2017 cycle, it managed to enroll two more students. Even more, it raised average GMAT by two points and lowered its acceptance rate by a point to 17.1% – two points better than Wharton, the pride-of-Pennsylvania. The Wisconsin School of Business performed a nearly identical feat. Despite collecting 174 few applications during the last cycle, it still manage to raise yield by 10 points to 61.6%. At the same time, it raised average GMAT by nine points, while maintaining a respectable 30.4% acceptance rate – just four points higher than the previous year.

Standing water after flooding poses health risks

Posted on
NBC-15

Standing water could be a health threat in the wake of the flooding and rising water levels seen over the past week. Standing water in backyards, puddles, and along roads could be contaminated with chemicals such as fertilizers and even waste and debris, leading to the potential of bacteria and other viruses in the water, said UW Health infectious disease doctor Jeannina Smith.

Ex-cabinet secretary, university head Shalala bids for House

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Noted: Shalala, former president of both the University of Miami and the University of Wisconsin, is banking that her experience is seen as an asset by voters. The Democratic candidates take similar positions on most key issues — tackling climate change, reducing gun violence, improving health care, overhauling immigration — but none of the others can match Shalala’s lengthy record or familiar name.

Athletics scandals lead UW regents to question officials about UW-Madison

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Sexual assault charges filed this week against Wisconsin wide receiver Quintez Cephus — along with several other university athletic departments under scrutiny — prompted a member of the UW Board of Regents to question university leaders about the extent of their awareness regarding financial and behavior practices within UW-Madison athletics.

Nada Elmikashfi: Youth vote will be out in force in November

Posted on
The Capital Times

Noted: What this new tide of voters has also realized is that the remedy for such a regressive regime lies within our capacity. We can fight back by encouraging our peers to become civically engaged alongside us. Particularly at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we are working to make sure that during welcome week, registering to vote is as routine as buying textbooks. Engaging students in activities that mobilize them to participate in the civic process is the key to translating our generation’s immense energy into real change — we know that when we vote, we win.

Susan Nitzke

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Susan Nitzke, 71, of Cottage Grove, the woman who once added colors to our pale skies, has died after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer. Susan was born Aug. 23, 1946, in Byron, Wis., to Lawrence and Marcella (Schoofs) Schwartz. She married William Nitzke on Aug. 24, 1968. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and worked for more than 30 years at UW-Madison, ultimately serving as Chair of the Nutritional Sciences Department. Susan battled pancreatic cancer for five years, defying the odds as she did throughout her life and career.

Urban wildlife workshop coming to Milwaukee

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “There’s a lot people can do to benefit wildlife, even in a relatively small space,” said David Drake, UW-Extension wildlife specialist and UW-Madison professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology. Drake will lead an “Urban Wildlife Workshop” on Sept. 15 at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee.

Google as an Outdoor Ad Player? The Industry Is Anticipating It

Posted on

Quoted: If the company entered this market, “Google is going to hands down beat any other player just with the sheer number of advertisers that they already have,” said Paul Hoban, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s business school. “They already have the auction mechanism built up from the display ad framework.”

Better never than late

Posted on
Isthmus

Every Badgers football season it’s the same. The student section fills up slowly for each game and older fans grumble about it. Players and coaches plead with them to get there on time. There are often even angry letters to the editor.

High-speed lane: Legislation moved much faster after Republicans gained control in Madison

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “I think it’s a symptom of the legislative process becoming less participatory,” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Elections Research Center. “We see more examples … of bills being sprung very quickly without members knowing they’re coming, without the public knowing, and hearings being announced very quickly without lots of notice.”

Then and Now: Milwaukee Latino leaders progress from activism to classrooms and boardrooms

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Salas served briefly as executive director of United Migrant Opportunity Services and has been involved in numerous Latino civil rights issues throughout his life. He earned an undergraduate degree in education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He went on to teach social science at Milwaukee Area Technical College and Chicano and Latino studies at UWM and UW-Madison, and is a former member of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents.

Democrats, The Yoga Vote Won’t Save You headshot

Posted on
Huffington Post

Noted:A few decades later, white women would become central to the white power movement, which began in the mid-1970s and culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. In her book Bring the War Home, historian Kathleen Belew details how the protection of white femininity formed the core of that movement and how white women worked to broaden the appeal of the cause. Assessing those three books for Boston Review, historian Stephen Kantrowitz (professor of history at UW-Madison) observes that white women’s involvement in white supremacy “is not disconnected from the fact that a majority of white women voted for Trump.” It can still be difficult, he continues, “to take this a step further and acknowledge that feminism is not a strictly left phenomenon.” White women can and do use feminism help further white supremacy.

Wisconsin residents see democracy decline, reflecting national discontent with government

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Jacob Stampen, a University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus professor of educational leadership and policy analysis, said his research reveals a growing partisanship that has made state lawmakers more indebted to party bosses than to the public. Stampen has been tracking voting in the Wisconsin Legislature since 2003. His first analysis of voting was as a graduate student at UW-Madison in the mid-’60s.

Caregiver crunch: Baby boomers juggle raising children while helping aging parents

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Already, hospitals, nursing homes and home-care agencies face a worker shortage. Three times more families need elder care services than the workforce can support. The responsibility will continue to fall heavily on friends and family, who in Wisconsin shoulder 78 percent of the unpaid long-term care needs of the elderly and disabled who need long-term support, according to research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Fruit of the vine

Posted on
Isthmus

Noted: The second-annual event is organized by the UW-Madison Department of Food Science. Enologist and outreach specialist Nick Smith is running the show with help from the Wisconsin Vintners Association, a Milwaukee-based organization for winemakers and enthusiasts that provided volunteers to serve as wine stewards for the competition. They’re busy backstage opening bottles, pouring flights and making sure that the nearly 500 glasses of wine are properly labeled before they’re delivered to the judges.

Has Casper put traditional mattress sellers to sleep?

Posted on
Marketing Dive

Noted: Long-standing mattress retailer Sleepy’s was founded in 1931, with Mattress Firm coming around in 1986 and Tempur-Pedic in 1992. For many of the more traditional mattress retailers, sales strategies consisted of inflated prices and little innovation, according to Hart Posen, associate professor of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin. “At store number one, they sold you ‘posturepedic best sleep’ and then the next store, so they wouldn’t have to compete, they had ‘posturepedic good sleep’ — the same mattresses with slightly different colored threads or what have you and a different name to make price comparison more difficult,” Posen told Retail Dive.

Looking at Depression Through an Evolutionary Lens

Posted on
Psych Congress

Psych Congress cochair Charles Raison, MD, gave attendees a “10,000-foot view” of what depression is at the Psych Congress Regionalsmeeting here, and will explore the idea more at the upcoming Psych Congress 2018 preconference.

“I’m not claiming that this provides a universal understanding of depression or even necessarily that it’s right,” Dr. Raison said in opening his talk. “But it’s good to think about things, sometimes raise our head a little bit above the intense struggle we have on a daily basis in the clinical world and just think about a 10,000-foot view.”

History in an Age of Fake News

Posted on
Chronicle of Higher Education

Noted: Patrick Iber is an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

We work and live in a time when historical knowledge has become intensely politicized. That knowledge is political is hardly new, but the rise of Donald Trump has heightened the polarization. His administration governs with a torrent of disorienting dishonesty, and his cry of “fake news” seems to mean less that the news in question is false than that it tells a story about him that he finds discordant with his self-image. Journalists — writers of the first draft of history, as the cliché goes — have struggled to balance their responsibility to reporting discovered facts with reporting the views of those who reject those facts.