The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs has found its future home at one of the college’s oldest buildings — thanks to a $30 million donation from the late U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl’s philanthropic foundation.
The public affairs school is currently sprawled across 28 different locations on UW-Madison’s nearly 1000-acre campus. The gift from Herb Kohl Philanthropies will turn the university’s Music Hall into Herb Kohl Hall and also help support school programming.
Co-authored by rofessor of environmental medicine, and djunct associate professor of Population Health Sciences, both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The preparation of this year’s guidelines deviated from the past years’ processes, according to associate professor in the University of Wisconsin Department of Food Science Brad Bolling.
“There was a new scientific review process that didn’t follow the established public accountability and measures that typically the dietary guidelines goes through,” Bolling said.
The revised guidelines are lacking review and thought, retired senior clinical nutritionist of UW Hospital and Clinics Donna Weihofen said. The adaptation of the guidelines into effect is scary, given the existing controversy behind them, according to Weihofen.
The layout and suggestions presented in the new guidelines also confuse Weihofen. The graphic is completely flipped, and the placement of whole grains, an important source of fiber, on the bottom is a confusing choice, according to Weihofen.
“Fiber is really an important part of our diet … so to put that at the bottom of the pyramid doesn’t seem to make nutritional sense,” Weihofen said.
The Madison Water Utility oversees the 21 wells that service the City of Madison, including the University of Wisconsin campus, according to Grande. They closely monitor a wide variety of regulated contaminants, like volatile organic compounds, pesticides, inorganic compounds, bacterial contaminations and PFAS, according to Grande.
In moves they described as efforts to make the state’s higher education system more meritocratic and safe for conservative students, Assembly Republicans voted Thursday to change eligibility for certain financial aid programs, and make it easier to sue universities for free speech violations.
Music educator and violinist Zeynep Alpan believes music is more than entertainment — it teaches “life.”
Alpan, who works on music education programming with the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center, is the co-founder of Global Impact Musician (GIM), a nonprofit based in New York and partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Madison that works with young professional musicians in East Africa.
The University of Wisconsin College of Engineering is set to debut its new Aerospace Engineering major this fall after the UW System Board of Regents voted on its approval Feb. 5, according to a College of Engineering press release.
Eric Wilcots, dean of UW-Madison’s College of Letters and Science, will serve as interim chancellor, the Universities of Wisconsin has announced.
Wilcot replaces Jennifer Mnookin, who is taking over as president of Columbia University in New York City.
Here’s what to know about Wilcots.
UW-Madison is looking for an additional $14.6 million from taxpayers annually to maintain its athletics facilities.
But the state’s flagship public university also wants to ensure that name, image and likeness (NIL) contracts for the student athletes who train in them — and all other Badgers athletes — aren’t viewable by the public. Legislators on the Assembly Committee on State Affairs on Feb. 11 unanimously passed a bill which would exempt NIL contracts and revenue sharing for any UW campus from Wisconsin’s public records law.
UW-Madison students now will be required to report their vaccination status to the university, campus officials said Thursday.
The mandate comes after UW-Madison announced earlier this month that a student living in an off-campus apartment tested positive for measles. University and Dane County officials said at least 4,000 people were exposed.
UW-Madison has announced it will now require students to share their vaccination status for multiple diseases, including measles.
The policy change comes after a measles case in a UW-Madison student, which was reported in early February. The student visited several locations on and off campus while contagious, and university officials had to notify about 4,000 people who may have been exposed.
The Wisconsin Badgers men’s basketball team gathered tonight for a meaningful celebration of resilience, faith, and community as they attended a premiere.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved new policies that would cautiously ease access for political campaigning in residence halls in their February meeting by allowing greater door-to-door campaigning.
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will now be required to disclose their vaccination status to the university under a new policy introduced Thursday.
After experiencing increased demand in recent years, organizers of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s student food pantry are asking campus leaders for help.
The Open Seat Food Pantry is run by eight part-time student employees who distribute over 32,000 pounds of food to hundreds of students each month.
“Health risks are increasing because human-cause climate change is already upon us. Take the 2021 heat dome for example, that killed (more than) 600 people in the Northwest,’’ said Dr. Jonathan Patz, a physician who directs the Center for Health, Energy and Environmental Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The new climate attribution studies show that event was made 150-fold more likely due to climate change.”
“We are often so externally focused that we don’t recognize what is going on in our minds, and when we begin to pay attention to that, it’s genuinely exhausting for most people,” Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin psychologist who studies meditation. It also can make us more anxious, at least at first.
A new $5 million grant is set to bring more mental health professionals to Milwaukee Public Schools.
The U.S. Department of Education awarded MPS the four-year grant to help the district recruit and train school psychologists through partnerships with Alverno College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sara Richie, who works to promote aging-friendly communities as the Life Span program manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension, said it’s important for communities to be inclusive and healthy places for older residents.
“(The community groups) are ensuring that people have an opportunity to lead fulfilling and connected lives and have access to the things that they need to age in place,” Richie said. “They provide an opportunity to celebrate the strengths and contributions of older adults, and have an infrastructure that supports them, and the services to meet their needs as well.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison leaders and students urged campus communities to strengthen civil dialogue, protect free expression and adopt a systemwide artificial intelligence vision responsibility at a Board of Regents meeting Thursday.
Forty-six years ago, on an ice rink in Lake Placid, New York, the United States shocked the world.
Republican lawmakers are advancing a bill to restore the ACT requirement as the “predominant” factor in admission to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In her final appearance before the Board of Regents on Thursday, outgoing University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin delivered a reflective defense of public higher education, urging leaders to hold fast to core values while navigating an era of “profound uncertainty.”
A student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison also tested positive for measles last week; an update from the university on Friday confirmed that the student was no longer contagious and provided a list of times and places, both on and off campus, “where they may have inadvertently exposed others to measles.” The university called for exposed unvaccinated students to quarantine for three weeks in accordance with local public health guidance.
“For schools that were looking for ways to provide cheap and nutritious meals for school children, one of the easiest ways to do that was just to provide milk, even before they were able to provide meals,” explained Andrew Ruis, research scientist in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the book “Eating to Learn, Learning to Eat: The Origins of School Lunch in the United States.”
How Bad Bunny became the global voice of a generation in crisis — and what it means when resistance becomes profitable. Includes interview with Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, a professor of Puerto Rican, Caribbean and Latin American History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s the author of Puerto Rico: A National History. He is also the author of the history visualizers for Bad Bunny’s DTMF album.
To get a clearer picture of what the Constitution says on this point – and what such a proposal might entail, Decision Points reached out to Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the school’s Elections Research Center.
“The U.S. Constitution gives the states the lead role in conducting elections,” Burden said. “Although the document also allows the federal government to set the regulations for administering elections, states are granted a lot of autonomy for running elections, even more if the offices on the ballot are not federal ones.”
Luke Fickell’s request for “blind faith” from his first offseason as the University of Wisconsin football coach remains partially in effect.
The faith nowadays isn’t as blind as it is forgiving for Fickell and a Badgers staff that haven’t done their jobs at Wisconsin well enough to earn many passes with a 17-21 record and 10-17 mark in Big Ten Conference play. But the person tasked with assessing Fickell’s job with the program, athletic director Chris McIntosh, maintains his trust and belief in Fickell after a transformational offseason that saw nearly half the roster turn over.
It’s like the World Cup. The stadium is on edge, and a player kicks the ball, scoring the winning goal.
The crowd erupts.
But at UW-Madison in Morgridge Hall, the soccer stars are autonomous humanoid robots.
Josiah Hanna, a UW-Madison assistant professor of computer sciences, leads the university’s student RoboCup team, which uses artificial intelligence to teach soccer-playing robots humanlike behaviors, all while producing research to advance the field.
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents is looking to incorporate a shortened degree length.
Currently most degrees studied in the UW system require 120 credits to graduate, but a revised policy may lower that to 90. Following the lead of other universities including Milwaukee’s Mount Mary University and Indiana’s Manchester University
Tyler Hagen is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who celebrated his 21st birthday while at college and away from his home in San Diego.
He said having someone like Morgan work alongside his mom to make his milestone birthday memorable was important to him.
The powerhouse Badger program has a knack for churning out Olympic hockey players. Four current and two former Badgers are in Milan representing Team USA in women’s ice hockey. With 23 players on the roster, that means more than one-quarter of the team has played for Madison. Along with Harvey, Simms and McNaughton, forward-turned defender and current Badger Laila Edwards is part of the team. Alumna forward Britta Curl-Salemme and five-time Olympian and forward Hilary Knight round out the Badgers’ representation.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity will cancel Lily’s Classic, its annual fundraiser and social event on the frozen Lake Mendota, this year after the University of Wisconsin-Madison imposed expectations fraternity leadership said they were not comfortable with.
The event will transition from the traditional philanthropy boot hockey tournament to a private social event after multiple rounds of negotiations with university officials, Harrison Long, SAE’s philanthropy chair, told The Daily Cardinal. He said the fraternity “doesn’t want to be liable” for issues on the ice.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison hosted a stop on a traveling euchre competition, bringing players together to celebrate the popular Midwest card game.
Campus winners received $1,000 in scholarship funds and will advance to regional competition for a chance to qualify for the 2026 World Euchre Championship in New Glarus, Wisconsin.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discussed ethical concerns stemming from the rise of generative artificial intelligence in academia and research at a Jan. 30 panel.
The panel, which included experts from the UW-Madison Data Science Institute, Libraries and Institutional Review Boards Office (IRB), provided recommendations for researchers, offering definitions and opportunities for ethical AI use in research.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is celebrating Badgers competing on the international stage with a Winter Olympics watch event on Tuesday, Feb. 10.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Wednesday over the legality of a grant program aimed at helping students of color attend college.
The case dates back to 2021, when a group of Wisconsin taxpayers — including some from Madison — filed a lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court, arguing the state’s Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant program unlawfully discriminates based on race and national origin.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison saw a 17 percent decrease in federal research funding since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to outgoing Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin.
In a presentation to the Board of Regents last week, Mnookin shared the clearest quantification yet of cuts to Wisconsin’s flagship university by the Trump administration, which also included a decrease in grants awarded.
Many people think that the amount they spend on a gift is directly associated with how much the receiver will appreciate it. But as long as it meets reasonable expectations, the people you are gifting are unlikely to care too much about how you spend, said Dr. Evan Polman, professor of marketing at Wisconsin School of Business at University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also focuses on gift-giving decision-making.
The goal of gift giving should be relationship maintenance, especially on a holiday so focused on love, and gifting an activity or experience you and your loved one can do together is a great way to spend quality time together while communicating your level of care, Polman said.
Birds have different kinds of feathers, and one type is especially important in cold weather: down feathers. These feathers are very fluffy and grow close to the skin, essentially acting like a thermal base layer. “Of the several types of feathers birds possess, down feathers are excellent at trapping body heat,” says Anna Pidgeon, professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It is arguably harder today in 2026 than at any other time in American history to sue federal officials for money damages if they violate your constitutional rights,” said Harrison Stark, senior counsel at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
hile house calls may seem to belong in the past, they’re trending upward at UW-Madison.
Wisconsin-based company Pivotal Health, which UW-Madison alumni Sal Braico and Pete Johnson launched, has, since 2021, brought nurse practitioners to patients’ living rooms — or dorms — to provide primary and urgent health care.
The effects of the federal government’s cuts to UW-Madison’s research are coming into full view: $27 million lost in the last year from terminated or suspended grants.
On this day, Feb. 5, 1849, the first University of Wisconsin-Madison class met under the direction of professor John Sterling. The event is celebrated as Founder’s Day.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison attempted to strike a reassuring tone in the wake of a student contracting measles. While submitting immunization records to UW-Madison is voluntary, the available records indicated 95% of the campus is vaccinated against measles.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s continued and growing excellence will depend on either more state support or more flexibility, the school’s leader said Thursday.
“Now look, both would be best of all. But we deeply need, at a minimum, one or the other,” Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin told the Board of Regents, which oversees UW-Madison and Wisconsin’s 12 other state universities, at a campus meeting.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison began its three-day Winter Carnival Thursday with outdoor activities on campus.
Outdoor UW hosted a learn-to-skate session on Lake Mendota Thursday afternoon. People of all ages participated in the ice-skating activity.
Wisconsin football coach Luke Fickell did not receive the usual approval for a contract extension following the Badgers’ disappointing 2025 season.
The UW athletic board approved one-year extensions for the Badgers’ other coaches of fall sports – a longstanding common practice by the athletic department – but Fickell did not receive an extension at the board’s bimonthly meeting Feb. 4.
A UW-Madison student has contracted measles, according to a Feb. 2 email to the campus community. It’s the second case of measles in Wisconsin this year.
The Wisconsin Historical Society has reopened and expanded its hip hop exhibit for Black History Month, offering visitors a deeper look into more than five decades of hip hop culture in Wisconsin.
Phase two of the “Lead Between the Rhymes” exhibit now includes recognition of University of Wisconsin artists, students, professors and student organizations that partnered with Madison’s hip hop scene. These collaborations helped organize events including the “Hip Hop as a Movement” conference and other significant cultural gatherings.
The UW Athletic Board has approved contract extensions for three University of Wisconsin head coaches.
Volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield, women’s soccer coach Paula Wilkins, and men’s soccer coach Neil Jones all received extensions to their five-year agreements, now running through January 31, 2031.
The University of Wisconsin has a practice where athletic contracts for coaches that include predetermined extensions, providing a level of security and continuity for the programs. Recently, Kelly Sheffield, along with the coaches for the men’s and women’s soccer teams, received their contract extensions, continuing their tenure with the Badgers.
A bill that would provide funding to a program that helps identify the remains of missing-in-action service members is in limbo after an Assembly committee put off a vote Wednesday due to concerns by Republican lawmakers that Gov. Tony Evers would use his partial veto on the measure.
The University of Wisconsin Missing-In-Action (MIA) Recovery and Identification project, which was started in 2015 at the state’s flagship campus, works to further the recovery and identification of missing-in-action American service members. Those working on the project include researchers, students, veterans, alumni and volunteers who conduct research, recovery and biological identification. The program is partnered with the federal Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) on the work and has acted as a model for DPAA, which now partners with more than 50 other academic and nonprofit institutions to work on MIA identifications.
Wisconsin football coach Luke Fickell did not receive the usual approval for a contract extension following the Badgers’ disappointing 2025 season.
The UW athletic board approved one-year extensions for the Badgers’ other coaches of fall sports – a longstanding common practice by the athletic department – but Fickell did not receive an extension at the board’s bimonthly meeting Feb. 4.
Wisconsin gives routine extensions to avoid ambiguity about where a coach stands with the university and avoid any negative recruiting that could be done regarding a coach’s contract status, a spokesperson told BadgerExtra last year. Badgers fans chanted “Fire Fickell” at multiple home games in 2025, a season that brought Fickell to 17-21 overall and 10-17 in Big Ten play as Wisconsin’s coach.
Fickell’s contract, originally signed in November 2022, was for seven years and remained at that term after receiving one-year extensions in 2024 and 2025. He now will coach under a six-year deal. His salary, which is set to increase $100,000 to $7.8 million per year April 1, and his buyout remain unchanged. Fickell’s buyout ranges from roughly $22.7 million to $21.3 million during the 2026 season.
The scribe who copied Phaenomena, which details how various constellations rise and set, onto the parchment integrated descriptions of the stars’ positions that were probably based on Hipparchus’ work. The celestial objects’ coordinate system and accuracy align with references to the ancient astronomer’s writings, reports Science News’ Adam Mann. “There’s an appendix which includes coordinates of the stars discussed in the poem, and then little sketches of the star maps,” Minhal Gardezi, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who is working on the project, tells the outlet.
UW-Madison is among the top 20 universities in the world, according to a new ranking from TIME.
TIME ranked the university 20th next to top private and global institutions and gave UW-Madison the no. 2 spot for public universities in the United States, after the University of Michigan.
After concerns were raised about spending on DEI, the University of Wisconsin-Madison shuttered a department but kept most of the staff and their titles working on equity issues, an investigation by The Center Square found.
The former Division of Diversity, Equity and Education Achievement – which employed about 100 people who earned more than $7 million annually – had been mired in financial mismanagement and attacks from Republicans before the university closed it last year.
An audit found that the university had no grasp of its total diversity spending and whether it was effective, and auditors identified problematic employee bonuses, travel and other expenses in the division.
Health officials confirmed a second measles case in Wisconsin earlier this week — this time in Madison — and one local expert says there’s a reason to be concerned but clear ways to stay safe and healthy.
The Cap Times spoke with Dr. Joseph McBride, an infectious disease specialist at UW Health, after public health officials reported a University of Wisconsin-Madison student contracted measles, likely through international travel, and potentially exposed people on campus.
Scott Craven, emeritus professor and UW Extension wildlife ecologist, joins us for another Wildlife Wednesday.
