Noted: Citizen-initiated John Does are rarely used in Wisconsin. Marcus Berghahn, a criminal defense attorney and adjunct law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said they happen perhaps once or twice a decade in the state.
While Madison’s students are preparing for the fall semester, the Delta coronavirus variant is complicating plans for the upcoming school year. According to local public health officials, Delta is now the dominant coronavirus strain in Dane County.
For more on what the Delta surge means for local students, our Producer Jonah Chester spoke with Dr. Gregory DeMuri, a professor of pediatrics at UW-Madison.
Quoted: “Breakthrough infections started out at a very low rate. But now with the delta variant and the higher ease of transmissibility, those breakthrough infections are growing,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, director of infection control at UW Hospital and Clinics and faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “So, the mask then will be this extra layer of protection in addition to the vaccine. Of course, it’s crucial for unvaccinated people (to mask up) because they don’t have that layer of protection from the vaccine.”
Noted: A painter all his adult life, Mr. Rhoads knew little about electronics and was not an engineer, although he took engineering courses at the University of Wisconsin while he was in the Army.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat it, it’s going to be bad,” said Kurt Paulsen, University of Wisconsin-Madison urban planning professor. He explained that the eviction moratorium barred landlords from evicting tenants who were unable to pay their rent during the pandemic, but that renters are still ultimately on the hook for all the rent they missed when the moratorium expires.
“Thousands and thousands of renters have been unable to pay the rent because of unemployment or COVID-related financial hardships, and eventually the rent comes due,” Paulsen said.
Quoted: The CDC based their recommendation on new evidence about the delta variant. Ajay Sethi, associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said he would classify the latest science as “a bit of a game-changer.”
“We didn’t know this was going to be the case until we discovered that people who are vaccinated and get a breakthrough infection can potentially spread that to other people and that wasn’t the case before delta,” Sethi said.
Quoted: Public health officials do not know how long the immune system protects itself after an infection with COVID-19 and encourage all eligible people to get the vaccine.
“The duration of that protection is unknown,” said Ajay Sethi, associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “The science is already showing that people who have had the vaccine have better responses to the (delta) variant than people who had past infection.”
Written by Susan Yackee, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs and a Collins-Bascom Professor of Public Affairs and Political Science at UW-Madison.
Noted: Trump’s agencies wrote fewer rules than past administrations, including other Republican ones, says Susan Yackee, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who focuses on rule-making. Although many controversial regulations wind up in court, agencies typically win those cases, she told me. Here, too, the Trump administration was an outlier: It lost a lot.
With just more than six weeks before the fall semester begins on UW campuses, the system’s administrators unveiled a program designed to give students an added incentive to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
While the debate over enhanced federal unemployment aid in Wisconsin has been settled for now, the broader, national discussion on the issue continues.
At least 26 states have cut their ties with the program. Business owners and interest groups argue that ending the additional aid is the best way to address difficulties in hiring new workers.
For more on the debate, WORT producer Jonah Chester spoke with Laura Dresser, a labor economist at UW-Madison.
Industry experts Mark Stephenson and Bob Cropp say they see optimism in price and supply for the coming months, according to the latest episode of the Dairy Markets and Policy podcast.
Cropp, professor emeritus of UW-Madison’s Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, said cold storage reports bring both bad and good news to dairy farmers: American cheese stocks are slowly decreasing at 2% this month, but butter stocks have gone up 14% in the same timeframe. Stephenson, director of the Center for Dairy Profitability, said cheese stocks will continue to see rising price support.
Quoted: The authority of the minister and her deputies in advocating vaccination doesn’t guarantee a new national attitude, says Aikande Kwayu, honorary research fellow specializing in political governance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is based in Tanzania.
“Their actions and statements during the last administration influenced a lot of conspiracies, lies and also denial about the pandemic,” says Kwayu.
“I’ve got one of my Badger caps in my bag. It will be coming with me of course. I don’t think, I won’t be wearing it because of course we’ll be wearing the flag caps,” Phoebe Bacon says.
Fresh off her freshman year, Phoebe Bacon reps the Wisconsin Badgers well.
Quoted: Lead author Adrian Treves, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, argues that without a more precise number the hunt quota should be set as low as is possible.
“A quota of one would comply with the statute [mandating a hunt] and acknowledge that we have no clue how successfully the wolves reproduced this year,” Treves said. “Because the hunt happened during the mating season, we would need good data on how many packs produced pups, and that is data we do not have.”
Video: Interview with Professor Michael Wagner with the University of Wisconsin Madison’s – School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Quoted: “I have The Nature and Properties of Soils in front of me — the standard textbook,” said Gregg Sanford, a soil researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “The theory of soil organic carbon accumulation that’s in that textbook has been proven mostly false … and we’re still teaching it.”
Quoted: “People respond to price changes by shifting their consumption,” according to Noah Williams, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Quoted: “If you look at the language of some of these bills, they’re really pretty broad,” says Diana Hess, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s school of education. “There’s a lot of things that are in the language that would make it really hard to teach civic education.”
For today’s show, Tuesday host Carousel Bayrd talks about uncovering UW–Madison’s campus history with Kacie Lucchini Butcher, director of the Public History Project. They discuss some of the project’s research, including fraternity ties to the Ku Klux Klan, housing discrimination, blackface and minstrelsy on campus, and the UWPD.
Quoted: “The virus multiplies exponentially so 10 today could be 100 tomorrow,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, director of infection control at UW Hospital and Clinics and faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Safdar urged people to take precautions like mask wearing and getting vaccinated.
“All around us, we are surrounded by high transmission, and it’s just a matter of time before we are right in there with the rest of the country,” she said.
Quoted: “If that indeed means that vaccinated people can become a source of transmission, though not the majority of transmission, mask use is a good idea,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Doctors and researchers who share Ciappa’s hope are worried about how much progress the movement lost during the last year and a half. “It took time to get those family-centered policies into the fabric of hospitals,” said Traci Snedden, a career critical care nurse and assistant professor of nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Will Covid give clinicians permission to pull back again, or will it propel us forward like, ‘I can’t believe we went without family at the bedside’?”
Noted: Hansfield hopes he can ward off a gap in services for the Waupun area by participating in a first-of-its-kind program out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison — one that places OB-GYN medical school residents at rural hospitals.
The program graduated its first resident in June. If it’s successful, it would send a slow but steady pipeline of doctors into Wisconsin’s rural hospitals, so women don’t have to go extra miles for care, and potentially risk their health or their baby’s health along the way.
Noted: Public-sector graduate student employee unions are much more advanced than their private-sector equivalents, Herbert said, after the first contract was ratified in 1970 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While state laws differ, in general their efforts have been more stable.
Noted: The law Motley is seeking to use — Wisconsin Statute 968.02 — is similar to a John Doe proceeding, but is technically not the same thing, according to Keith Findley, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Findley said the law is essentially used as a check on the court system. Findley also said Statute 968.02 means a judge has more discretion when it comes to filing charges. Under the statute, a judge “may” file charges if they find probable cause.
Noted: The governor said the session would be an opportunity to make investments in education he believes should have been included in the budget. GOP lawmakers approved an education spending plan that was roughly $750 million less than the governor originally requested for K-12 schools. For the University of Wisconsin System, the GOP-backed budget included an increase of just $8 million over two years, a fraction of the $191 million proposed by the governor.
Noted: On Sunday, University of Wisconsin (UW) System President Tommy Thompson announced a new program that provides an opportunity for UW students who are vaccinated against Covid-19 to win a $7,000 scholarship.
Under the “70 for 70” campaign, vaccinated students who attend UW campuses that achieve at least a 70% vaccination rate will be eligible to win one of 70 scholarships valued at $7,000 each. Students at all UW System universities except UW-Madison are eligible for the drawing. UW-Madison is reportedly developing its own vaccination incentive program.
Quoted: “It is as simple as if we’re all vaccinated, hanging out together in large groups, however large you want, that becomes a safe thing to do,” said Dr. Pothoff, an emergency medicine doctor at UW Health.
Quoted: “It’s almost like a personal tourniquet system. So you have a cuff that’s applied to your arm or leg that significantly reduces blood flow,” Marc Sherry, a physical therapist and manager of the UW Health Sports Rehabilitation Department in Madison, Wisconsin, told TODAY. “The basic premise is that it’s inflated to a pressure that prevents the blood from coming out of your arm but doesn’t prevent the blood from going into your arm.”
Quoted: Adrian Treves, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied wolf-hound conflicts, found that neighboring Michigan, which has stricter hounding regulations, has seen far fewer dogs injured or killed by wolves. Lighter regulation in Wisconsin means more dogs in the woods, Treves said, which leads to more conflict. “Houndsmen prefer to hunt in a place that lets them do what they want to do.”
Reports of cheating and other forms of academic misconduct increased substantially at six of the University of Wisconsin System’s 13 universities when classes were moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Administrators say increased student stress was a major contributor, and they expect misconduct reports to decrease once more classes are taught in person.
Quoted: Landlords have a lot more options available to them than eviction, Madison-based rental housing lawyer and University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Mitch said. Mitch said property owners can negotiate rather than file evictions that will go permanently on the tenant’s record.
“I know that eviction isn’t the only tool in your toolbox when renters don’t pay, and I wish that property owners would realize that they have other tools such as working out agreements on early move-outs, working on payment plans or working together to get government assistance,” Mitch said.
Noted: Another, and probably underestimated, factor may be the weather. Mississippi summers usually see average temperatures rise above 80℉ (26.7℃), a threshold at which the likelihood of violence in prisons increases.
That is the finding of a working paper by Anita Mukherjee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Nicholas Sanders of Cornell University. The authors matched county-level weather variations across Mississippi with violent incidents reported in the state’s 36 prisons and jails between 2004 and 2010. Using these data, they built a statistical model that controlled for the time of year that the violence took place, the type of institution and other factors. They calculated that on days with average temperatures of 80℉ or higher the chances of violence increased by 20%. The hot weather leads to an average of 44 additional incidents of severe violence—those that result in serious injury or death—each year,
Quoted: “You used to have to use McKinsey or another specialized consultant, but with the Internet and data science you can do this at a fraction of the cost and make it very easy for the farmers themselves,” said Tom Erickson, Founding Director of the University of Wisconsin’s School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences.
Quoted: Annual inspections might offer peace of mind, but building professionals said the expenses would be astronomical. Besides, it’s when the building is being constructed that inspectors have the most critical safety checklist to ensure its longevity, said Steven Cramer, vice provost for instructional continuity & academic affairs and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We have a great set of building codes in Wisconsin, but the greatest scrutiny occurs at the time of construction or remodel when building permits are required and inspections occur,” Cramer wrote by email.
Quoted: “Often, probation is sort of the default sentence,” said Cecelia Klingele, associate professor at University of Wisconsin Law School, where she teaches criminal law, including sentencing.
The University of Wisconsin System plans to offer about $500,000 in financial incentives aimed at encouraging students to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The campaign features a lottery in which a total of 70 students will each receive a $7,000 scholarship if 70 percent of a campus’ student body reports being vaccinated.
UW-Madison is not participating.
Noted: Green county has seen one of the state’s fastest growths in Latino population, increasing by an estimated 228% from 2000 to 2019, according to the Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Monroe is the largest city in Green county and has seen a steady increase of Latino immigrants over 20 years. With a population of only about 10,800, new people stand out, which has made the adjustment, like the farm work, incredibly difficult for some dairy workers.
Noted: While some higher education institutions like the University of Wisconsin-Madison and The Johns Hopkins University feature sophisticated and user-friendly websites, and their leaders have instituted efficient, unencumbered application processes, college applicants may encounter inept websites and application processes when applying at many other institutions.
Quoted: “These early plants are relatively easy and that’s a good place to start,” said Greg Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in the development of climate-friendly energy technology. “As that gets shown and proven, you get some transportation networks, then it gets easier to do the harder stuff later.”
Quoted: Mark Stephenson, the director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the industry definitely has a lot of challenges but is nowhere near extinction.
“We’ve produced record amounts of milk in the last year or two. It’s being consumed. Most of it domestically, but increasingly with exports,” said Stephenson.
As an incentive for students across the UW System to get vaccinated, interim President Tommy Thompson on Sunday announced a lottery giving out nearly a half-million dollars in scholarships.
Under the plan, vaccinated students at all University of Wisconsin campuses except UW-Madison will be entered into a lottery for one of 70 one-time, $7,000 scholarships.
Abbie Esterline, a fifth-year student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, found herself missing fewer classes during the pandemic.
She has several chronic illnesses, such as gastroparesis and fibromyalgia, that can make it difficult to go in person to a classroom.
Noted: George Poage moved to La Crosse as a young child in 1884. Locally, he was known as a scholar and remarkable athlete. He went on to become the first African American on the UW-Madison track team. But his greatest triumph came at the 1904 Olympics when he became the first African American to medal in the 200m and 400m hurdles. From Wisconsin Life, WPR’s Maureen McCollum talked with UW-La Crosse retired special collections librarian Ed Hill about George Poage’s life as a student athlete in La Crosse.
Quoted: Ryan Poe-Gavlinski is clinical director of the Victims of Crimes Act Restraining Order Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She said creating a lifetime protective order would put survivors of assault “in the driver’s seat.”
“If someone has committed sexual assault and that’s been determined, either at the (civil) restraining order level or through a criminal court, there’s no reason that that perpetrator needs to have contact with that victim going forward,” Poe-Gavlinksi said.
Barry Alvarez’s retirement is over.
Big Ten Conference commissioner Kevin Warren announced Thursday that Alvarez, who stepped down as Wisconsin’s athletic director June 30, has been named special advisor for football.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison plan to meld computer modeling and social science in hopes of providing better responses to future pandemics. The goal is to be ready with quicker and more equitable strategies to distribute vaccines.
A study of student athletics released by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire last week found that despite an overall culture of acceptance, student-athletes of color face disproportional amounts of stereotyping at the school.
Interview with Jirs Meuris, assistant professor of management and human resources at the Wisconsin School of Business.
Noted: Dr. Luke Funk is an associate professor of surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Srividya Kidambi is an associate professor and chief in the Division of Endocrinology and Molecular Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin/Froedtert Hospital. Dr. Christopher Weber is an obesity medicine specialist practicing in Milwaukee.
Schools across the state — whether they serve kindergartners or college students — continue to adjust plans for the fall based on the ever-evolving COVID-19 situation. The general idea is to bring as many students back in person as possible — the so-called return to normalcy — while not endangering students, teachers or their families.
Noted: Includes interview with Jonathan Gray, professor of media and cultural studies at UW–Madison.
Less than a month after the NCAA ruled college athletes can profit from their names, image and likeness some Badgers Football players have begun to reap the benefits.
On July 1, the NCAA adopted a temporary policy to suspend rules that banned college athletes from getting paid for the use of their names, images and likeness. It was a significant shift but a small part of a larger debate over whether students should be paid to compete in college sporting events.
Noted: Pérez-Wilson is a 2019 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison who earned a bachelor’s degree in legal studies and plans to pursue a law degree at UW.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank is apologizing for a university decision to start the school year on the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashana.
The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health will be the first site to host a new national fellowship that aims to make the doctor’s office more supportive of LGBTQ patients.
Quoted: “This is just a stunning change in the American social policy context,” says Tim Smeeding, a professor of public affairs and economics with the LaFollette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an advocate for the policy.
Some form of universal child allowance benefit is found in 17 affluent countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
“They allow parents who don’t have enough money to do things for their kids,” he adds. “It says kids are important.”
Quoted: “It’s transformative,” said Tim Smeeding, a professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s a recognition that kids are expensive, and that we as a society have an obligation and an interest in having them grow up well, and do well.”
Smeeding noted that it’s particularly remarkable for including families who aren’t typically reached by the Earned Income Tax Credit, like the children of immigrant parents and “grandfamilies” — families where kids live with grandparents at least half of the year, and for whom grandparents provide at least half of the support. Unlike the Earned Income Tax Credit, which families receive as a credit when they file taxes each year, families can be eligible for the child tax credit even if they don’t make enough to file taxes.
Quoted: “This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. I have no idea why he did that,” said John Witte, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus who specializes in tax and budget policy.
Witte said there is speculation that Evers vetoed the change in the withholding tables because the governor hopes Democrats will take control of the Legislature in the 2022 election and repeal the tax cuts. By not changing the withholding tables, most taxpayers wouldn’t notice a difference, that thinking goes.
“If he changed the tables the tax cuts would be permanent,” said Witte.
