If you’ve never heard of Mildred Harnack that’s about to change. By any measure, the free-thinking young woman from Wisconsin is an American hero.
Harnack was born in Wisconsin where she studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to Germany.
Sea lampreys, zebra mussels and white perch are a few of the aquatic invasive species in Wisconsin. We catch up with the efforts to control them with Tim Campbell, an aquatic invasive species outreach specialist with the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant program.
State law doesn’t appear to require a special election, however, says Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Statute 17.19 states that the governor gets to appoint replacements whenever there is a vacancy [in an elected office] and the replacements serve until an election is held,” Burden says. “That could be the regular election at the end of the term or until a special election is held.”
Anna Pidgeon, a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joins Live at Four to share what to look for as migratory birds return to southern Wisconsin.
A new strategy to combat the deadly white-nose syndrome decimating bat populations in Wisconsin and other states is being studied by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This year’s headliners, who will perform across at least seven stages at Maier Festival Park, range from singer-songwriter Noah Kahan (fresh off a sold-out Miller High Life Theatre show in February) to University of Wisconsin graduate and tongue-in-cheek rapper Yung Gravy to Oscar-winning hip-hop veterans Three 6 Mafia to indie rock royalty Fleet Foxes, The War on Drugs and Japanese Breakfast.
It signed an $100 million agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and several local agreements to build “innovation centers” in Racine, Green Bay and Eau Claire. However outside of signing the agreements, not much else has been done.
The $100 million agreement with UW-Madison is to create the Foxconn Institute for Research in Science and Technology and a new interdisciplinary program in the College of Engineering.
Efforts to develop sustainable fuels as an alternative to gasoline, diesel and other petroleum-derived products are receiving renewed federal support at a University of Wisconsin-based research center.
Quoted: Despite unemployment remaining low, Laura Dresser, associate director of the COWS economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said increased layoffs are tied to the Federal Reserve’s efforts to curb inflation by raising interest rates.
“There’s federal policy focused on trying to cool economic growth,” she said. “I think it’s also the case that the economy remains — in spite of that — quite robust in terms of demand for workers. The unemployment rates are staying low and new workers are coming into the labor market.”
Steven Deller, professor of agriculture and applied economics at UW-Madison, said it remains to be seen whether the economy will experience the “soft landing” the Fed is hoping for.
“The debate is not whether or not the economy is going to slow down, it’s whether or not we’re going to go into a recession or not,” Deller said. “And the general consensus is that we probably are going to go into a recession. The debate really is, how severe will it be?”
As Wisconsin school districts struggle with an ongoing teacher shortage, a privately funded effort at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to recruit more instructors and keep them in Wisconsin is being extended.
The University of Wisconsin Women’s Hockey team made history — again.
The team won its seventh national title on Sunday in a major upset, beating the Ohio State Buckeyes, the top ranked team of the season and the 2022 defending NCAA champions. The Badgers now lead Minnesota with the most national titles of all time in the Frozen Four.
Quoted: Whether the court takes that step almost surely depends on who wins next month’s election. A victory by former Justice Dan Kelly would preserve the 4-3 conservative majority. A win by Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz would give liberals control of the court for the first time since 2008.
If the latter happens, it would open the door to a redistricting case, said Rob Yablon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and redistricting expert.
“The court likely would have that opportunity,” Yablon said. “I think there are litigants who would almost certainly try to bring a case.”
A new program for UW-Madison pharmacy students looks to help address a rural shortage while giving students a hands-on experience.
In May 2021, UW’s School of Pharmacy began the Advanced Pharmacy Experience rotation. The program rotates students in their fourth year into rural pharmacies to practice under the supervision of a pharmacist preceptor.
University of Wisconsin Law School professor John Gross, director of the Public Defender Project, explains efforts by lawmakers to increase penalties for drug overdoses resulting in homicide charges.
Noted: Randy Melchert, the founder and leader of the Academy of Excellence, is a graduate of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, a widely known conservative Christian school. Melchert, who has a law degree from the University of Wisconsin, has also been active in Republican politics and in legal organizations, primarily as an advocate for religious causes.
Quoted: Referendums are increasingly being used by both political parties, particularly with non-partisan spring elections, which don’t usually generate great voter turnout, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“These elections just don’t generate the same level of media coverage or public discussion so these gimmicks are one way to get the attention of the voter,” Burden said. “The effect on overall turnout probably won’t be great, but in Wisconsin, most people assume elections are going to be close, so even a change in the balance of things by a percentage point or two could tip the race and tip the balance of the Supreme Court itself.”
A former University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he threatened students, professors and their families.
Arvin Mathur was arrested at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport March 10 after emailing victims that he was returning to campus for “an evening of fun” on St. Patrick’s Day. Mathur, 32, of Grass Lake, Michigan, now faces six counts sending online threats to nine individuals associated with UW-Madison.
Roberto Robatto is associate professor of finance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said the Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse is the result of two failures of the regulatory framework and serves as a warning sign for industry.
“This interest rate risk is something that banks are supposed to be careful about, and they manage that, but the type of interest rate risk that Silicon Valley Bank took was very high,” he said.
The UW System is funding the first year of the Wisconsin Tuition Promise program, which launches next fall and provides full tuition coverage for new, in-state freshmen and transfer students whose families earn $62,000 or less. The program is open to students attending any UW campus except UW-Madison, which already offers its own tuition promise program that isn’t funded with taxpayer money.
After six months of searching, the University of Oregon has found its new president.
John Karl Scholz, an economist, professor and provost at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was hired by the UO Board of Trustees in a unanimous vote Monday morning.
A new partnership aims to expand opportunities between Wisconsin and one of the state’s biggest foreign trade partners.
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., or WEDC, and the Wisconsin Alumni Association in Korea signed an agreement last month to promote the state both as a good place to do business and as a welcoming destination for Korean students.
County boards overseeing some two-year University of Wisconsin schools are delaying maintenance and upgrades until they get commitments that the university system won’t close those campuses.
The uncertainty around local campuses comes three months after the UW System announced it would stop offering classes at UW-Platteville Richland. It’s the first time the UW System has planned for instruction to cease at a campus in more than four decades.
There are many ways walking benefits the mind. For example, it can improve sleep and reduce stress. We talk with Dr. Shilagh Mirgain, a Distinguished Psychologist and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, about how walking helps our mental health.
Evers wants to provide the University of Wisconsin System with a funding increase of $305 million. Republicans are unlikely to go along with an increase as large as what Evers is seeking.
A former University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student was arrested in Michigan last weekend after allegedly threatening nine people on campus, emailing some about plans to kill their children and harassing others over social media for months, federal court records show.
A 130-year-old program created to connect Wisconsin farmers with university research is getting a second chance at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
UW-Madison announced last year that the Farm and Industry Short Course would move from a 16-week, on-campus certificate program to a non-credit format that would use online learning. Officials said the change was due to a significant decline in enrollment, with less than 100 students each year over the last decade. With only 20 students projected to enroll in the program for 2022, officials said it no longer had enough students to run the self-funded program.
The Gordon Dining Center voting ward on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus usually draws about 50 voters in spring primary elections.
But this February, 515 voters cast their ballots there, according to turnout data from the city of Madison clerk’s office. Other campus-area voting wards reported similarly high voting rates. A dorm along Lake Mendota reported 39% turnout.
A new study, published in Nature Geoscience, found there were abrupt changes in Wisconsin’s climate that have a “credible link” to a major warming episode in Greenland between 48,000 and 68,000 years ago.
As the climate is projected to get warmer, scientists can look back at these major warming events for clues about what to expect in the future, said Cameron Batchelor, lead author on the study and now a post-doctoral researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The study was a part of her doctoral research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “There are many local legends of Al Capone in Wisconsin, most of which I suspect were not true,” said Robert Ritholz, who has history degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and takes friends on informal tours of Chicago mafia sites, sometimes in his antique Rolls-Royce.
“There really is very little evidence that Capone spent a whole lot of time in Wisconsin, and when he was in the state, he seems to have behaved himself,” Ritholz said.
Researchers with the University of Wisconsin-Madison say a stalagmite from Cave of the Mounds in southern Wisconsin holds clues about the impact of abrupt, global climate changes during the last ice age. A team of UW-Madison scientists led by Cameron Batchelor removed a stalagmite about the length of a pinky finger and used chemical and physical analysis to detect telltale signs of sudden warming in the atmosphere. A paper on their research was published this month in the journal Nature Geoscience.
“This work really puts Wisconsin on the map in terms of showing that this region of the world is not immune to these abrupt climate change events,” Batchelor told Wisconsin Public Radio.
Dane County resident Dominic Ledesma is one hobbyist who jumped on the early warm weather. Ledesma, who is chief diversity officer for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension, started tapping trees at his home and his family’s cabin in Jackson County last year after learning about the craft from his colleagues. He said sap was flowing in when he first tapped his trees in February, but collection slowed down in Jackson County as the weather turned cold again.
“The season really didn’t take off,” he said. “In talking with other colleagues in Extension, I certainly noticed some very significant differences between the southern part of the state and Jackson County.”
“It’s no longer your grandmother’s pickled beets,” said Adam D’Angelo, a UW-Madison graduate student and plant biologist. “You go to the grocery store, and you find beet juice, beet chips, beet this and beet that.” D’Angelo and UW-Madison horticulture professor Irwin Goldman recently appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Larry Meiller Show” to discuss their work redesigning beets for modern tastes. Goldman said people often complain “about the fact that they taste like dirt.”
“You look at it, and you think of the huddled masses of our ancestors and their old-style foods,” Goldman said. “But there’s something about its earthiness, about its color and its beauty that I find has grown on me over the years I’ve worked on it.”
“We’re not going to set the record, we’re gonna blow it out of the water,” said David Canon, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Canon said it was hard to say what WMC’s ad buy would mean for the race because there hasn’t been any public polling. “Although one thing that I think you can infer from that is that if they thought this was not a winnable race, they wouldn’t be putting more than $3 million into it,” Canon said.
Alicia Monson, a former distance-running standout at the University of Wisconsin and Amery High School, crushed the American record in the 10,000 meters over the weekend when she took second at an event called The Ten in San Juan Capistrano in California on Saturday.
Noted: Phosphorus runoff also increases after extreme precipitation events, which are projected to be more frequent as the climate changes. A 2017 study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Limnology found that phosphorus “pulses” into waterways after extreme rainfall, building on previous research that showed waterways receive most of their phosphorus in just a dozen or two events per year. The bigger the rainstorm, the more phosphorus was flushed downstream, the UW study found.
Noted: Joe Salmons, a linguist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says this is not just a Milwaukee concern — it’s a national and an international perception that dialects are disappearing.
Children who grew up in Milwaukee at the turn of the 20th century spoke languages besides English at home and likely learned English as adults, Salmons said.
Noted: After receiving a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Tardy began working with UW-Whitewater and Mount Mary University before returning to Milwaukee.
Noted: A new study led by Matt Hirshberg, a scientist at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, dove into the toll it took on their mental health.
The University of Wisconsin might be on the outside looking in if the NCAA men’s basketball tournament began today, while Marquette is looking to lock down a top-four seed. And don’t forget about UW-Milwaukee, which is tied for first place in the Horizon League and could reach the Big Dance for the first time since 2014 by triumphing in the Horizon League Tournament.
Here’s what bracket projections are saying on the precipice of February.
University of Wisconsin officials on Monday provided the contracts of three new football assistants, Colin Hitschler, Paul Haynes and Greg Scruggs.
Former University of Wisconsin linebacker T.J. Edwards has been an essential cog for the Super Bowl-bound Philadelphia Eagles, working his way up from undrafted free agent to the best linebacker on an NFC champion team.
Noted: “Milwaukee is this beacon of underrepresented development talent,” said Matt Paschall, a University of Wisconsin-Madison alum who leads the Baker Tilly program.
A pair of longtime tuba players and educators answer a WHYsconsin question about the prominence of the lowest brass instrument both around Wisconsin, and specifically in the University of Wisconsin Marching Band.
Quoted: Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center are creating carbon-neutral fuels they hope to power the transportation sector through deconstructed, nonfood plant materials.
“We are producing the basic science knowledge on campus to generate the fuels and chemicals that will allow us to have a decarbonized economy and create environmental and economic benefits for the people of Wisconsin and around the United States,” said Tim Donohue, principal investigator and director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.
Noted: The Super Bowl will also feature a pair of former Badgers going head-to-head. Rookie Leo Chenal, a star linebacker for the University of Wisconsin before turning pro after the 2021 season, plays largely on special teams for the Chiefs. Linebacker T.J. Edwards, who went undrafted in 2019 despite four solid years with UW, has become one of the best players on Philadelphia’s defense.
Quoted: “The election is primarily an opportunity for liberals and a risk for conservatives,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Referendums are increasingly being used by both political parties, particularly with non-partisan spring elections, which sneak up on people after the holidays and don’t typically generate great voter turnout, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“These elections just don’t generate the same level of media coverage or public discussion so these gimmicks are one way to get the attention of the voter,” Burden said. “The effect on overall turnout probably won’t be great, but in Wisconsin, most people assume elections are going to be close, so even a change in the balance of things by a percentage point or two could tip the race and tip the balance of the Supreme Court itself.”
Noted: He studied journalism and environmental geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he graduated in 2009. Berens delivered his alma mater’s winter commencement address at the Kohl Center in December.
Quoted: At the 2023 Wisconsin Agricultural Outlook Forum this week, Paul Mitchell, director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said part of the decline is likely from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s move to stop past-due debt collections and farm foreclosures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The University of Wisconsin Law School won’t participate in this year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings, a decision made in protest of how the magazine prioritizes metrics that the school says conflict with its underlying values of accessibility and affordability.
The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Fox Cities cafeteria needs an upgrade, and the two counties that jointly own the campus buildings had planned to put up $2 million each for the renovation project this year.
But then the news about UW-Platteville Richland hit late last fall. With just 60 degree-seeking students, the southwestern Wisconsin campus had reached the point where enrollment could no longer justify its traditional existence. The UW System said this spring semester will be the last for in-person degree programs.
Quoted: Steven Deller, professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said U.S. and global economic activity is expected to decline in 2023. Deller cited the Wall Street Journal’s Monthly Survey of Economic Forecasters, which averages 68 economic forecasts from individuals, organizations and universities, in a recent presentation.
“There’s pretty much consensus that we’re going to go into a slowdown, and that, if we go into a recession, it is going to be a very mild recession,” he said. “There’s actually a significant number of economists that are actually saying, ‘No, we’re not going to go into a recession. We’re going to go into a serious slowdown.'”
Noted: Wisconsin’s wolf population fell around 14 percent to 972 wolves after the 2021 wolf hunt, according to the Wisconsin DNR. Even so, state wildlife managers say data indicates the state’s wolf population is stable. However, some researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say the agency is overestimating the state’s wolf population.
Jermika Jackson believes her son is destined for greatness. From a young age, D’Marion Jackson seemed wise beyond his years. He was a voracious reader who quickly finished handfuls of library books.
He is now a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and that was made possible by the college’s in-state tuition guarantee. D’Marion is one of about 800 freshmen receiving Bucky’s Tuition Promise.
Noted: The term was coined by Lisa Ellinger, the outreach director at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as we debriefed our first Main Street Agenda event in September. During that town hall, our panelists were crowded around a table sitting on stiff, uncomfortable plastic chairs. The set-up wasn’t exactly conducive to our goal of having relaxed conversations where people felt comfortable sitting talking about complex and often deeply held convictions about democracy, inflation or climate change.
In an unassuming building off of West Johnson Street, sits the remains of around 750,000 animal specimens for scientific research in the UW Zoological Museum. One of five museum collections on the UW Madison campus, the collection provides hands-on research material for universities across the country.
The University of Wisconsin System is banning use of the popular social media app TikTok on UW-owned devices, a spokesperson said Tuesday.
The decision comes about 10 days after Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order banning the TikTok app on most state-issued devices. The mandate applied only to the executive branch, which consists of most of the state’s agencies but not the UW System.
Noted: Protesters participating Sunday’s demonstration first gathered on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Madison, marched on Madison’s most well-known thoroughfare of State Street, and concluded the event with a two-hour rally in the rotunda of the state Capitol.
Noted: In a study published in the journal Ecosphere in December, Alex Latzka, a fisheries biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and Bryan Maitland, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Aquatic Sciences Center, compared annual brook and brown trout population numbers over nearly three decades with climate and weather data from the streams the trout swam in.
Snapshot Wisconsin has collected more than 2 million images caught on motion-sensor trail cameras. Researchers have looked at many of the photos and found further evidence of animals changing their behavior due to the presence of humans and loss of habitat.
Interview with associate professor Benjamin Zuckerberg, and Jonathan Pauli, a professor of wildlife ecology, both in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology.
