“In some sense we’re seeing a continuation of this tendency that we see at the national level, that whatever slow down there is coming, it keeps on getting pushed further and further into the future,” University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor Menzie Chinn said.
In the same interview, Vos also said he would continue challenging programs aimed at increasing diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, in the state.
That comes after he secured a victory on that issue by exchanging pay raises for UW employees and funding for certain university projects — notably, a new engineering building at UW-Madison — for a reduction in DEI-related staff positions in the UW system.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the first lab-grown chicken meat for commercial sale. It’s the first cell-cultivated meat to be approved in the country, and it’s grown from stem cells in a bioreactor—no slaughter required. We talk to Jeff Sindelar, a professor and extension meat specialist in the department of Animal Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about whether lab-grown meat could eventually compete with the factory-farmed meat that dominates the industry.
Over the last few decades, Wisconsin and the U.S. have seen divorces lead to a growing rate of equal joint custody of children, instead of one parent gaining sole custody. We talk to Quentin Riser, an assistant professor of human development & family studies at UW-Madison, about how this shift has affected families and the child support system.
Susan Ridgely is a professor of religious studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She said Francis has wanted to portray the church as welcoming since early in his papacy. She pointed to his symbols of service, such as washing the feet of young inmates.
The declaration is a “natural extension” of Francis’s olive branches to a changing world, she said. “That’s a major step towards kind of an openness of the church and an acknowledgment that people reaching out for God should get that blessing through the church,” she said.
Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly said Wednesday she would have voted against the deal the Universites of Wisconsin struck with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Wednesday he wants a comprehensive audit of diversity programs in Wisconsin state government, the latest signal from Republicans that debates about equity and inclusion initiatives will extend into the state’s next budget cycle.
A University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire employee filed a federal lawsuit this month, alleging she was essentially forced to resign from her position in a campus diversity office because she is white.
Photo package of historic Wisconsin Badgers football bowl game photos going back to 1953
Kenneth Streit, a clinical professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School who has been involved with Wisconsin’s corrections programs for more than 40 years, said it would be extremely unlikely for the state to close one of its prisons without first addressing violent crimes.
“Closing prisons without first reducing gun-related homicide and injury will never happen in Wisconsin,” Streit said, noting that New York was able to release thousands of older incarcerated men when it eliminated its 1970s-era drug sentencing laws.
New research by a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor suggests police in schools don’t reduce violence, diminish crime, or have any impact on the presence of weapons or drugs in a school.
If anything, having police in schools has an impact on young people’s mental health, according to Ben Fisher, a UW-Madison associate professor who reviewed 32 evaluations of school-based police programs, said he found that police in schools weren’t shown to diminish school violence, crime, or the presence of weapons or drugs.
An employee of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire has filed a federal lawsuit claiming she faced racial discrimination and was demoted from a diversity, equity and inclusion leadership position because she is white.
“There’s really nothing like the efforts of the fake electors in 2020,” said UW-Madison Political Science Professor Barry Burden. “That was an orchestrated effort across multiple swing states, including Wisconsin, to present false electors on behalf of the party that had lost in every one of those states.”
A program in Milwaukee County is growing and strengthening the life skills of inmates at the Community Reintegration Center in Milwaukee County.
The Building a Path to Success workshop is hosted by My Way Out, a re-entry organization in Milwaukee. The six-week workshop is a collaboration between My Way Out, University of Wisconsin-Extension and Milky Way Tech Hub.
“If oil prices are going to stay at the levels that they are, then we can continue to see at least not an upward movement in gasoline prices, and that’s gonna allow us to have inflation continue to fall,” said Menzie Chinn, a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Milwaukee Water Works plans to prioritize lead service line replacements based on three factors, each given a different weight in the decision-making:
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is pledging to cover the full cost of a college degree for students from Wisconsin Indian tribes under a new program announced Monday.
Underage sales of nicotine products have more than doubled in Wisconsin since 2019, the year when the federal age for purchasing tobacco products was raised to 21. Wisconsin has kept the minimum age at 18 in spite of research showing that raising the smoking age reduces nicotine addiction. Dr. Michael Fiore, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, explains.
How farmers handle their cows can have a big impact on their health and safety. We talk to Jennifer Van Os, an animal welfare extension specialist at UW-Madison who developed a new tool to help farmer’s practice better methods.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who studies technology in education said artificial intelligence holds promise in schools. David Williamson Shaffer is the Sears Bascom Professor of Learning Analytics at UW-Madison. He got into this work after being a teacher in the 80s and 90s.
“Graphing calculators and computers were just starting to come to the place where they were impacting the classroom, were a kind of change agent,” Shaffer said. “They were a way in which the old system was disrupted just enough that we had a chance to rethink a little bit about what we were doing.”
Backed into a corner on a deal seen as selling out students of color in exchange for state money, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents talked around the problem this week.
The UW System’s Board of Regents approved the controversial deal yesterday, in what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports was the board’s fifth meeting in seven days.
Fitzgerald’s remarks misconstrue that process, according to former University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon, whose research focused in part on election administration.
“He has it exactly backwards,” Canon said. “They don’t vote individually to certify the results in all 50 states.”
The Universities of Wisconsin will have the opportunity to give pay raises to its 34,000 employees and build a new $347 million engineering building in Madison under a deal approved Wednesday by the Board of Regents. But the universities will also freeze DEI staffing through 2026 and eliminate or refocus about 40 positions focused on diversity.
The last time the University of Wisconsin volleyball team played in the Final Four, Anna Smrek stood tallest, figuratively and literally.
Then a freshman, the 6-9 middle blocker/right side hitter was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player in 2021 after the Badgers defeated Louisville and then Nebraska in five-setters to secure the NCAA championship.
Three members of the UW Board of Regents changed their votes on a controverisal deal over diversity efforts and pay raises.
The vote-flipping by Regents Karen Walsh, Amy Bogost and Jennifer Staton solidifed a deal months in the making between the University of Wisconsin System and Republican legislative leaders.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents flip-flopped Wednesday, voting 11-6 to approve a deal on diversity positions and pay raises it had rejected just four days earlier.
The lawsuit, brought by Julie Underwood, former University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education dean, and other Wisconsin residents is funded by the liberal Minocqua Brewing Super PAC.
UW-Milwaukee’s “Milwaukee Tuition Promise” and University of Wisconsin-Madison’s “Teacher Pledge Program” are blueprints that other colleges can consider replicating. The longevity of the programs are reliant on private fundraising, however, and represent a fraction of the twenty-one four-year colleges in the state. A systems-level, state approach could offer funding sustainability to colleges seeking to attract students into education, an issue impacting all of Wisconsin.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral student’s research boat has been found in Michigan – six weeks after it went missing on the water.
Chelsea Volpano was collecting data offshore in Lake Michigan at Lion’s Den Nature Preserve on Oct. 30. It was a perfect day to collect information about coastal erosion until the small research vessel drifted away.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is calling for a do-over.
The board is scheduled to vote 5 p.m. Wednesday on the same deal it rejected Saturday. It will be the board’s fifth meeting in a chaotic seven days.
Restorative justice is a framework that focuses on repairing the damage from breaking a rule or committing a crime, instead of punishment. It works to have individuals accept responsibility for their actions and rebuild community relationships all while including those harmed in the process, according to the University of Wisconsin Law School. What that looks like can vary, including mediation, conflict resolution programs, reparations and more.
Author Beth Nguyen is a Madisonian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in creative writing. “Owner of a Lonely Heart” isn’t her first published book, but it’s different because of the way it’s written as a memoir in essays.
That story tells of a woman who, as a child, escaped Vietnam with her father. He didn’t tell the young girl’s mother where they were going, leaving her behind. The mother eventually escaped to the Boston area, and 20 years later, mother and daughter reconnected.
Ben Fisher, a University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor who reviewed 32 evaluations of school-based police programs, said he found that police in schools weren’t shown to diminish school violence, crime or the presence of weapons or drugs.
“The challenge that insurance companies face is that since they do not have the same information as drivers, they must set higher insurance premiums that consider the average risk of drivers,” says Jordan Van Reign, assistant teaching professor and MSPO Associate Director, Department of Agricultural & Applied Economics (AAE), University of Wisconsin–Madison. “If insurance companies could have the same information about risk as drivers, they could set individual insurance premiums that better match the risk of each individual. This would improve overall market efficiency by reducing overall rates and better matching rates to the risk of individuals.”
The salaries of more than 34,000 University of Wisconsin system employees are in limbo because of a few on-campus programs.
Dr. Gerald Pankratz, an associate professor and geriatrician at UW Health, said the most common injuries from falls are innocuous and might include a few bruises or cuts.
“On the more serious side, we’re definitely concerned about fractures of the big bones, the hip, most predominantly — there’s a marked increased risk in mortality and institutionalization in the months after having a hip fracture,” he said.
Nations were divided over whether to create a timetable for eliminating fossil fuels at the latest United Nations’ conference on climate change. We learn what happened from Sumudu Atapattu, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor attending the conference.
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents could be positioning itself to reverse a surprise decision made over the weekend.
On Tuesday, Dec. 12, the board will meet in a special session and is expected to discuss the rejection of an $800 million funding deal.
Members of the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents will consult with attorneys Tuesday about a lawsuit challenging the power of the Legislature, a move that comes just days after the board rejected a deal with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos involving pay raises and limits on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
For months, the Universities of Wisconsin and Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos have been at odds over diversity initiatives on public campuses.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will meet on Tuesday to discuss the ongoing fight over funding after the regents voted to reject a deal with Republican legislators that would have traded money for concessions on diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman knew the vote on a deal over campus diversity efforts was critical.
In fact, in the days leading up to it, he floated resigning if the vote failed, according to UW student Regent Evan Brenkus.
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh sophomore Aubrie Selsmeyer read the assurances from campus administrators that cutting 200 staff positions to address an $18 million budget deficit would have a “minimal impact on students and student success.” But she doesn’t buy it.
“We’re losing mentors. Our professors are losing colleagues and friends,” Selsmeyer recently said on WPR’s “Central Time.” “There are going to be empty classrooms. Emails are going to go unanswered. And I think we’re going to lose things that we absolutely took for granted and we may not even realize yet.”
Campus closures and tuition hikes loom at the Universities of Wisconsin with a projected $60 million deficit by next summer.
College leaders and lawmakers hope a change to the state’s reciprocity deal with Minnesota can help ease some of those shortfall struggles.
Krishanu Saha leads the CRISPR Vision Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is member of National Institute of Health’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium. His lab is specifically studying how to cure Best disease as well as Leber congenital amaurosis, one of the most common causes of blindness in children.
“All of the testing that we’ve done thus far shows a lot of promise that it can actually correct the defects in these cells. And so the task for us over the next five years is to formulate a medicine that could be used here in trials enrolling patients,” Saha said in a recent interview with WPR’s “The Morning Show.”
A Broadway-caliber entertainment group is getting ready to tour Wisconsin and the Midwest. The Wisconsin Singers is a decades-old tradition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nearly every person involved in the production is a student, and not all of them are arts, music or theater majors.
The marten has been the focus of several reintroduction efforts over the last 75 years. Ten Pacific marten were introduced to the Apostle Islands from Montana and British Columbia in the 1950’s but didn’t survive; the last was detected in 1969, according to Jonathan Pauli, marten researcher and professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin.
Patrick Remington, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said the rate of underage tobacco sales is going in the wrong direction.
“It’s more than just a minimal change,” Remington said. “To me, that would be cause to certainly redouble the efforts to vendors and sellers to comply with federal law.”
Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said most Republicans in the state legislature and GOP leaders opposed any kind of independent redistricting commission or process “until Tuesday, September 12, when Speaker Vos led a press conference to announce support for a freshly crafted bill that would implement a system similar but not identical to the Iowa model.”
Burden said it was a surprising turn of events given Republicans’ history of standing by the existing system and resisting reforms.
Verona Area High School (VAHS) students Maitri Patel and Hannah Mason attended the University of Wisconsin’s “Great Biology Bake-Off” on Friday, Nov. 17, bringing the process of DNA replication to life using cake and cupcakes.
In a deal months in the making, the University of Wisconsin system will “reimagine” its diversity efforts, restructure dozens of staff into positions serving all students and freeze the total number of diversity and administrative positions for the next three years.
In exchange, the universities would receive $800 million to give pay raises for 35,000 employees and move forward on some building projects, including a new engineering building for UW-Madison.
“Farmers would welcome warm and dry (conditions) to get out and have things planted in a timely fashion, but they need moisture in the soil for germination and early growth,” said Chris Kucharik, a plant and agrosystem sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
During the holiday season, we’re often encouraged to make amends and forgive people, but what does it take to really forgive someone? And what happens to your brain and body when you do… or don’t? In this episode, Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks with forgiveness science pioneer, Robert Enright. He’s been studying and writing about forgiveness for decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and he says forgiveness is a choice, and that your ability to do it can be strengthened like a muscle. Enright walks us through a range of scenarios, from forgiving small things like being late for a meeting to larg
Several companies say they’re close to achieving nuclear fusion that could be used as clean energy. Cary Forest, a physics professor at UW-Madison, explains why fusion is so difficult to achieve and whether commercial fusion is realistic.
How does late adolescence impact you in your 80s? A decades-long study aims to answer that question after following thousands of students who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. We hear from Michal Engleman, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and current director of the study, on takeaways from one of the longest longitudinal studies in the country.
“There are many restrictions, where Wisconsin goes is back to where it was in June 2022, before the Dobbs decision,” said Amy Williamson, associate director of the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“All evidence indicates that the vaccine is very safe and effective,” said Jenna Nobles, a demographer and professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison and study co-author. “In addition, it shows that avoiding the vaccine is what is potentially harmful for the pregnancy. This is an important piece of information for patients to have.”
Starting next year, high school students could be accepted into University of Wisconsin schools without even applying.
The Universities of Wisconsin is rolling out its direct admissions initiative to boost enrollment across its campuses. UW system administrators hope to reach first-generation college students and other potential students who might not have considered attending a four-year school.
People are generally staying in their homes longer, says Mark Eppli, director of the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the University of Wisconsin. In 1988, for example, “your average time in a house was 10 or 11 years.” Today, he says, it’s 20 years.
“That’s really long; inventory’s going to stay low,” Eppli says. “With high interest rates making housing all the less affordable…it’s going to keep people in their houses even more.”
