Co-authored by Tova Walsh, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network and Alvin Thomas, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network.
The last two school years have been anything but normal. A global pandemic upended schools, taking learning from the classroom into students’ homes. All the while, the country has grappled with deep-rooted racism, climate change, debates over abortion access, gun control and rights for trans students — leading to widespread student activism. Politics infiltrated schools and school boards at a pace not seen in decades, and yet students’ hopes for the future are as strong as ever.
As the school year draws to a close, Wisconsin Public Radio is celebrating graduation season — and the future — by featuring stories from new graduates around the state in their own words.
Two Republican candidates for governor said that if elected they would recall and replace all of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ unconfirmed appointees to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Monday.
Two former University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students who waged a yearslong court battle against the university have settled nearly a decade after a contested student government election, their lawyer said.
For the first time, the positions of president and vice president of the University of Wisconsin System’s Board of Regents are held by women after the board elected its new leadership in Milwaukee on Friday.
The board overseeing Wisconsin’s public universities could look remarkably different come this time next year.
At least two of the four Republicans running for governor have vowed to replace all of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ unconfirmed appointees serving on the UW Board of Regents with their own picks if elected this fall.
Quoted: While there is no strict definition of a supermoon, explained Jim Lattis, director of UW Space Place, it is a special astrophysical case that occurs within 24 hours of when a full moon is at perigee. In other words, the moon within a day of being at its fullest, and at a point in its path that is closest to Earth.
“The closest approach is going to happen roughly every 27 days. And a full moon happens every 29½ days,” said Jennifer Stafford, an astronomy graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So it’s not every month that we’re going to have a supermoon.”
There’s much to be said about Thursday’s January 6 committee hearings, and there will be more to be said following the hearings’ full sequence. But speaking as a historian, let me for now say this: Americans need to understand that what the terrorists at the Capitol did that day wasn’t the anomaly people think it was within the long history of the United States. The almost entirely white mob storming the halls of Congress operated squarely within a tradition of white mob terrorism that has deeply shaped specific parts of the country, and the whole of the nation itself.
Simon Balto is an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents Thursday approved a budget that keeps an in-state undergraduate tuition freeze in place for another year.
When Shekeba Samadzada makes vegetable korma at UW Hospital in Madison, she thinks of her mom. Just about every time. That’s where the recipe came from, after all.
Two of the more dominant players in the history of the Wisconsin football program, both of whom have achieved success off the field, are on the National Football Foundation’s 2023 College Football Hall of Fame ballot:
Offensive tackle Chris McIntosh and defensive back Troy Vincent.
Noted: Haanstad graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2000 and was named U.S. Attorney in 2016. He held the post until 2018.
Noted: Despite those artistic influences and alluring drama, Schultz first pursued his dream of being a jet pilot or astronaut when he headed to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study astronautical engineering.
Quoted: Bob Cropp, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said high demand for milk is what drove prices up in 2014. But he said this year’s record prices are due to farmers cutting back on production.
“Milk production for several months, starting actually the last quarter of last year, has been running below a year ago,” Cropp said. “Cow numbers have declined and production per cow has been below normal, so we have resulted in a tightness of the supply-demand situation.”
Quoted: Hart Posen is an expert on business strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Business. He said he was surprised to see Kohl’s move forward with Franchise Group, Inc. because the holding company runs such a different set of retail businesses.
“There are two reasons one firm acquires another firm. One reason is they believe that the firm’s assets are undervalued, they think they’re getting a good deal on it,” Posen said. “More often than not what we would like to see in these situations is what we would call a strategic buyer — a buyer that brings specific assets or knowledge or expertise to bear — that we believe may add value within Kohl’s. And it’s not at all clear to me that this buyer is a strategic buyer in that sense.”
Quoted: “There’s this idea that whatever a patient wants, they should get,” says Pilar Ossorio, a bioethics law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and a scholar in ethics at the Morgridge Institute for Research.
Quoted: A study released last month by UW-Madison researchers found the elimination of air pollution emissions across the country from energy-related activities could prevent more than 50,000 premature deaths a year.
In a press release about the analysis, Claire Gervais, a clinical associate professor with University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, called the results “shocking.”
“Doctors can only do so much,” Gervais said. “We must have better public policy to reduce industrial and transportation sources of fossil fuel burning.”
Jay Rothman, incoming president of the University of Wisconsin System, outlines his vision for promoting higher education and managing the state’s 13 universities, 26 campuses and statewide extension.
Quoted: “When even a little bit of support is provided, or attention is provided, that there is such a backlash is a reminder to us of what trans and gender-diverse kids are facing every day in this country,” said LB Klein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in Title IX and LGBTQ+ health. “Folks are acting out in violence about basic names, pronouns and terms, and that’s politicized — trans and gender-diverse kids are not being political, they’re being politicized.”
Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Collaborative for Reproductive Equity (CORE) says Wisconsin already restricts many aspects of abortion, including banning government-funded insurance coverage, limiting availability through family planning programs, requiring mandatory counseling, ultrasounds and waiting periods for medication and surgical abortions and gestational limits, among other restrictions.
“None of these restrictions are evidence-based,” says CORE director Jenny Higgins.”There’s no medical reason for any of these restrictions. So just on that alone, these restrictions should be seen as onerous.”
Quoted: According to UW associate law professor Miriam Seifter, the judges found a right to privacy based on precedents dating back to the late 19th century. The opinion concludes that the “mother’s interests are superior to that of an unquickened embryo,” regardless of whether that embryo is “mere protoplasm,” in the view of the physician, or “a human being,” in the view of the Wisconsin statute.
A group of University of Wisconsin alumni and donors determined to see UW athletics remain competitive in the Big Ten and nationally, have banded together to form “The Varsity Collective.”
A Mequon couple employed as engineering professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee engaged in a years-long scheme to defraud graduate students through fake grants and gifts, according to newly released university records.
New University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman will recommend freezing in-state, undergraduate college tuition for another year. And he said a student free speech survey, which led to the resignation of an interim chancellor at UW-Whitewater, will be sent out during the fall semester.
Jay Rothman started the tight-rope-walking job of leading the University of Wisconsin System this week by defending the incoming UW-Madison chancellor while also not calling out Republicans for criticizing her.
Quoted: “The Turnaway Study is brilliant,” said Jenny Higgins, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s an incredibly strong source of evidence and the study design is so fantastic.”
In February 1969, University of Wisconsin-Madison freshman Harvey Clay stood outside Bascom Hall, seething with anger.
Clay, a 6-foot-8-inch, 255-pound center, came to UW-Madison to play football. But in this moment, he was confronting players from his own team.
Interim University of Wisconsin System President Michael Falbo bypassed an open search process in the hiring of a high-level administrator and offered a far more generous contract than the previous person holding the post.
Quoted: Keith Findley, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, previously told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that probable cause is a “relatively low evidentiary threshold.”
“Most prosecutors, even if there’s probable cause, will tell you they won’t prosecute unless they believe they have sufficient evidence that they could persuade a jury of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Findley said.
Noted: Mitchell, who lives in Windsor, is the presiding judge of the juvenile division in Dane County and oversees cases within the county’s high-risk drug court program. He is a former prosecutor for the county and was the director of community relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before first being elected judge in 2016.
Quoted: Rob Yablon, University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and redistricting expert, disputes that.
“Even at that late stage, I do think it’s an exaggeration to say that there weren’t any other options that were available,” he said.
Yablon said the state Supreme Court could have taken more evidence or reconfigured the Milwaukee districts. They also could have drawn a whole new map. These are things courts do, Yablon said.
Noted: In fact, a 2008 analysis from University of Wisconsin system researchers noted, “effective gender‐responsive care remains elusive in Wisconsin and elsewhere.”
The researchers found that girls who come into the juvenile justice system are more likely than boys to have run away from home, survived sexual abuse, experienced pregnancy, have a psychiatric condition and/or become involved with partners — especially males — who are also committing crimes.
“Adolescent girls are entering the juvenile justice system at higher rates than in the past, requiring that professionals responsible for administering programs respond to their specific needs,” researchers wrote.
Quoted: “It is shocking that Wisconsin has the third-highest racial disparity in the country for
exposure to particulate matter, disproportionately killing black residents,” said Dr. Claire Gervais, a clinical associate professor with the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.
“Doctors can only do so much. We must have better public policy to reduce industrial and transportation sources of fossil fuel burning,” Gervais said.
Quoted: Dr. Megan Moreno, a professor of pediatrics at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health and study lead, said their findings show just how important parents are when it comes to teens and technology.
“Parents serve as such role models, and I think that when kids are young, the role-modeling includes a lot of instruction and talking; and I think when teens are older, parents teach more through their own behavior than through their own words,” she said.
Quoted: John Hendrickson, farm viability specialist for UW-Madison’s Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, helped develop the tool for the Grassland 2.0 project. Started in 2020 using a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the collaboration between researchers from UW-Madison and other universities, farmers and agriculture industry leaders is working to encourage farmers to adopt the use of grasslands.
“We want farms to be financially viable and sustainable for the long term,” he said. “But of course the Grasslands 2.0 project also has this larger look at the entire landscape and climate change and soil erosion and what can we do to have a more sustainable agricultural system on the landscape.”
Enrollment at Wisconsin’s private universities fell by an average of nearly 10 percent, according to new national data. That’s far higher than enrollment losses reported by the state’s public universities.
Quoted: “The average person shouldn’t be worried about monkeypox. It’s more about knowing when and where it’s been found and monitoring your own health,” said Dan Shirley, medical director for infection prevention at UW Health in Madison. “If you have anything that seems like monkeypox, report it right away.”
Noted: Golla earned two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, one in political science and the other in history. He also earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from Marian University. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership and policy analysis at UW-Madison.
Quoted: “We’ve built a supply chain system that includes factories, that includes distribution centers, that includes transportation methods and all that stuff. We’ve built that to handle a certain capacity that we thought was coming at us,” said Jake Dean, director of the Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management at the University of Wisconsin School of Business.
Welcome to Wisconsin: Legislative leaders immediately slammed the newly named chancellor for the university’s flagship campus for being too liberal.
The Wisconsin football program will commemorate “100 Days to Kickoff” on Thursday with a statewide scavenger hunt, partnering with city parks departments to make it happen.
The job market is leaning in the workers’ direction, but for students wanting to get a job or work experience during or after college, it can be overwhelming.
At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the newly opened Lubar Career Center aims to be a space where business students can find their next spot after their college careers.
Quoted: Our reliance on the internet quadrupled during the pandemic, said Barry Orton, professor emeritus of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The bar keeps getting raised higher,” Orton said, with increased demands for faster speeds, especially in uploads.
According to a UW-Madison professor, there’s a big return to work in Wisconsin right now. Laura Dresser is an assistant clinical professor with the university’s Institute for Research on Poverty.
“There are more workers in the labor force today than there were in February of 2020 before the shutdowns,” she said.
She added the labor force participation rate is about 66% in the state.
“That doesn’t mean women’s lives aren’t really stressed by the pandemic, but I think we haven’t seen a kind of permanent shift in work as a result at least here in Wisconsin,” Dresser said.
Noted: Wisconsin is seeing “warmer and wetter” weather, like much of the world, according to Stephen Vavrus, a senior scientist for the Nelson Institute for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the past decade, heavy rains and flooding have become more common, leading to flooded lawns and basements, and leaking roofs for homeowners.
Percival Matthews, as interim associate dean since Aug. 1, 2021, will be the UW–Madison School of Education’s next associate dean for equity, diversity, and inclusion, Dean Diana Hess announced on Monday following a recently completed search.
A search will soon begin for a new chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater who can provide “stable leadership” at the campus, which has had four chancellors since 2018.
The announcement comes just days after Republican state lawmakers and candidates attacked the most recent UW chancellor pick.
Spring enrollment data from the University of Wisconsin System show continued declines at many two-year campuses and some four-year universities.
Enrollment across all state public colleges and universities showed little change, with an average 1.6 percent decline this spring, according to final UW System data. The average among all four-year universities was down 1.4 percent while the decline across the state’s 13 two-year campuses dropped by 8.6 percent.
More than 50,000 premature deaths each year could be prevented if air pollution emissions from energy-related activities in the United States were eliminated, according to a new study from University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
Quoted: “We call them essential but we treat them as expendable,” says Tiffany Green, a health economist and professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “They’re less likely to be covered by benefits like health insurance.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor-designate Jennifer Mnookin said Tuesday that helping students of all races and ethnicities feel like they belong on campus will be one of her top priorities.
Long before Kevin Zeitler played at the University of Wisconsin and went to a long career in the National Football League, he learned the game during practices on rough grass fields that sat under electric lines just south of Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
Those fields are part of the massive upgrades the school broke ground for Friday morning. The project is scheduled to be complete at the end of August, Lutheran athletic director Jeff Sitz said.
The University of Wisconsin athletic department has lost a family member who contributed to one of the more memorable victories in in the history of the football program.
Jeff Mack Sr. died May 8. He was 68.
Mack played flanker under John Jardine and lettered in 1972, 1973 and 1974. His son, Jeff Mack Jr., played linebacker at UW from 2000 through 2003.
Jennifer Mnookin, the dean of the University of California, Los Angeles law school, will become the next chancellor of Wisconsin’s flagship university this summer.
The UW System Board of Regents unanimously voted Monday for Mnookin, 54, to take the top post at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A new, more effective option for radiation therapy is coming for cancer patients at UW Health, one that experts hope will not only make treatment more affordable, but also more empowering for patients.
A day after being pilloried by Republicans, incoming University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said she couldn’t be more excited for the “opportunity of a lifetime” and looks forward to working with the GOP-led Legislature.
Quoted: Barry Burden, the director of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center, said the Republican candidates’ focus on elections or Democratic incumbent Gov. Tony Evers’ push to show himself as a goalie fending off anti-democratic legislation could resonate, but the complicated nature of the issue might blunt the impact when compared to other matters that animate voters.
“Most of the public would say they think there were things that could be done to improve the election system and to tighten it up. That tends to be what you see in surveys. But, as I said, people were also contradictory,” Burden said. “They want voting to be easy, and they like getting ballots by mail … and I think the average member the public just hasn’t put all these pieces of the system together to think about how it all interacts.”
Former four-term Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, given the chance to defend the incoming University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor who has been criticized by Republican leaders, offered a lukewarm reaction to the hire.
Eliminating air pollution from energy-related activities in the U.S. could prevent more than 53,000 premature deaths each year, according to a newly published study from University of Wisconsin researchers.
Noted: On May 24, the Wisconsin Technology Council is hosting a luncheon at the Sheraton Hotel, on John Nolen Drive in Madison, to learn more about the Dairyland project and the larger debate over nuclear power. Panelists will include Ridge, who’s also the CEO of the cooperative; Jeffrey Keebler, chairman, president and CEO of Madison Gas & Electric; and Paul Wilson, Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering, and chair of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s department of engineering physics.
Research happening in Wisconsin studying the biology of early Earth shows there is the possibility of life on other planets. Betül Kaçar, a bacteriologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, tells us about the research and talks us through its ethics.
