Ellie Huber sat down with staff writer Henry Matson to discuss longtime UW-Madison faculty member Kristin Eschenfelder’s appointment as L&S dean amid broader leadership changes. In other campus news, student Democrats and Republicans debate foreign policy, free speech and political polarization, and Memorial Union’s sunburst chairs are back on the terrace.
The University of Wisconsin System has undergone a striking series of leadership changes over the past few months. In February, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced her departure for Columbia University. A couple weeks ago, the Regents terminated President Jay Rothman, and most recently, Athletic Director Chris McIntosh announced his exit.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison ranked first on the Peace Corps’ 2026 Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges and Universities list, according to an April 7 Peace Corps press release.
The university also ranked first in 2025 and sustained its second place ranking for all-time volunteer-producing institution
College freshman Nandini Aluri spent a month “all day and all night” painting dozens of designs — a digital camera, the University of Wisconsin-Madison crest, an intricate design in the style of henna — on a matching set of brown corduroy pants and jacket.
She designed this wearable suit for “Becoming,” a fashion show hosted by The Vault. The Vault is a student organization at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that focuses on fashion, from design to marketing to business operations.
Also on the panel was Parnia Serjooei, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student with plans to apply to medical school this May. She is the vice president of the UW Persian Students Society and has visited Iran.
Several Downtown and UW-Madison campus-area streets will be closed for a time on Saturday to make way for the annual UW Athletics fundraiser known as the Crazylegs Classic.
More than 9,000 people are expected to participate in the event’s 8K wheelchair race, 8K run or 2-mile walk, with the wheelchair race starting at 9:50 a.m., the run at 10 a.m. and the walk at 10:20 a.m.
During his four years at UW-Madison, student Harshet Anand repeated the “painful” and competitive search for housing in Madison with his roommates.
“We’d bounce between Zillow, Apartments.com, Facebook groups, texts from anyone that was older than us,” said Anand, a computer and data science major who graduated in spring 2025. “We’d spend hours and hours comparing listings, waiting days for property managers to respond to emails, scheduling tours around sometimes midterms.”
The police are assigned and the balconies inspected. All that’s left — as much as city leaders might wish otherwise — is for the drinking to begin.
With the Mifflin Street Block Party scheduled for Saturday, Madison officials on Wednesday laid out a series of warnings and plans pertaining to the annual and unsanctioned bacchanalia that traditionally occurs near the end of the UW-Madison spring semester.
UW-Madison is gearing up to bid farewell to its chancellor, Jennifer Mnookin, who is leaving next month to take the helm at Columbia University.
The university is hosting a send-off for Mnookin on May 14 at the Memorial Union Terrace from 2 to 4 p.m. for the campus community, UW-Madison announced Wednesday.
Marcus Sedberry is getting a pay raise to serve as interim athletic director at the University of Wisconsin.
Sedberry will have an annual base salary of $875,000 for the temporary role, according to an offer letter from UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin dated April 12. That was the same day Chris McIntosh submitted a resignation letteras he left the school to take a job as deputy commissioner of strategy at the Big Ten Conference.
Author Sarah Thankam Mathews spoke about her relationship with writing and her experience immigrating to the U.S. last Thursday as part of the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month keynote speech.
Mathews is a University of Wisconsin-Madison alum who published her debut novel, “All This Could Be Different,” in 2022. The book follows a young woman in Milwaukee in 2008 as she navigates relationships and employment during the Great Recession.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has chosen journalist Eliot Stein’s “Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive” as the Go Big Read book for the 2026-2027 school year, according to UW News.
The Wisconsin Hoofers are getting a new expansion, as the University of Wisconsin plans a $2.7 million renovation to the club’s lake lab, according to Isthmus. The renovation to the lake lab, which is located off the Memorial Union shoreline, would include additional storage for the Hoofers’ sailing facility, an expanded rooftop, and a ramp compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, according to Isthmus.
The UW-Madison Police Department is renewing call for information in the 1982 death of UW-Madison student Donna Mraz.
In the early morning hours of July 2, 1982 just days before the July 4 holiday Mraz was walking home from her shift at The Bittersweet restaurant on State Street. While on a sidewalk behind Camp Randall Stadium, she was stabbed repeatedly by an unknown offender with an unknown motivation.
A University of Wisconsin lab worker upset about his colleague’s behavior and promotion allegedly confessed to poisoning the co-worker’s water bottle.
Makoto Kuroda, 41, was charged with recklessly endangering safety and tampering with a household product “with the intent to kill, injure or otherwise endanger the health” of another person, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County last week.
Mike Abernethy had an unexpected meeting with a former patient in 2020 — one he’ll never forget.
It was after a shift in the emergency department. He was checking out with groceries at Walmart when a man approached him and asked, “Are you Dr. Abernethy?”
Abernethy had no recollection of the man until he unzipped his jacket and revealed a large scar.
Severe storms swept through Wisconsin last week, bringing strong winds, heavy rainfall and massive hail that caused extensive damage to homes, businesses and cars, especially in the central and southern parts of the state
About 900 University of Wisconsin–Madison students are preparing for Humorology, the university’s largest student-run philanthropy and variety show tradition.
Students spend the year writing and performing original mini-musicals in teams made up of Greek life and other campus groups. The final shows will be held April 23–25 at the Wisconsin Union Theater in Madison.
The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art on Tuesday announced the addition of Gelsy Verna’s ‘Mother, Father, Please Help Me‘ to its permanent collection.
The piece was one of Verna’s last major works and will be on display as part of an exhibition at MMoCA’s Henry Street Gallery from May 8 to Sept. 27. Verna, a Haitian-born Canadian artist, served as an associate professor at UW-Madison from 2001 to 2008. The school’s art department dedicated a project space in her memory following her death in March 2008.
UW-Madison’s future engineering building just got another major fundraising boost.
Badger alumni and donors John and Tashia Morgridge have donated $25 million toward the university’s 395,000-square-foot engineering building that’s under construction, the Phillip A. Levy Engineering Center, the university announced Tuesday.
A cluster of outdated historic dorms at UW-Madison next to Lake Mendota is getting a major makeover, including new elevators and air conditioning.
Located in UW-Madison’s Lakeshore neighborhood, Humphrey and Jorns halls and Kronshage Residence Hall’s complex — which consists of a main building and eight smaller buildings — will be overhauled with $79.2 million in upgrades starting next fall, according to UW Board of Regents materials.
The visible light spectrum covers colors from violet to red. Each color corresponds to a different wavelength, with green sitting roughly in the middle. Blue and violet have shorter wavelengths. Light rays change direction when they hit particles — a process known as scattering. The sky looks blue because air molecules scatter shorter wavelengths more effectively.
After months of listening, learning and analysis, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research is undergoing strategic planning efforts focused on a comprehensive set of updates to ensure the University of Wisconsin–Madison maintains a strong and resilient research enterprise amid significant changes to the research environment and to meet identified areas of opportunity.
A scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison had simmered for years with such resentment and jealousy over a colleague that he poisoned the man’s water with chemicals this month, local authorities said.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher admitted to poisoning his colleague, saying he was angered by the co-worker’s attitude after a promotion and his disdain for following lab rules, according to a complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court.
You’re one of the smartest people in the country. You’ve had success throughout your career, academically and professionally. You serve on several boards of international businesses and joined public policy debates. You’ve answered questions on national issues posed by conservative and liberal talk show and podcast hosts.
But you might write the following note turning down a suggestion that you apply to be the next president of the Universities of Wisconsin.
A UW-Madison School of Journalism Ph.D. student is back home living just outside Tehran. Each day brings fear and uncertainty for Tahereh Rahimi, who does not support the war, nor does she support the regime. She sees her country and people living there being destroyed. Communications are mostly down in the country, so we sent her questions to learn firsthand what it’s like right now. Here’s a sampling of what she said.
the Trump Administration has slashed the number of grants from the National Institutes of Health, with far fewer focused on women, cancer and mental health
The ICE OUT UW Coalition marched up Bascom Hill to demand the University of Wisconsin end surveillance and refuse cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcements on Higher Education Day of Action April 17.
ICE OUT UW is comprised of UW’s United Faculty and Academic Staff union, their graduate student union Teaching Assistant Association and several student groups such as the Socialist Alternative and Voces de la Frontera, according to Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement.
The Transcend UW startup competition hosted student entrepreneurs in the Discovery Building April 16 to 17, according to the Transcend website. At the event, participants pitched ventures and connected with investors and industry professionals, according to Transcend President Siddharth Singh. Prize winners walked away with thousands of dollars for their innovations.
Four people were charged in the shooting of a 17-year-old on Lathrop St., leading to their death in 2021.
The teen was killed in a drive-by near the UW-Madison campus.
Police found 18 spent shell casings and the victim had a single gunshot wound.
UW Madison hosting Family Gardening Day in May.
This spring, the staff of the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wis., is in the midst of shuffling the deck of its collection, following a well-laid plan but staying open to last-minute inspiration as they go. The museum will be closed for around two months this summer, with the grand reopening scheduled for September.
Mick Byrne made it clear his impending retirement was not a revelation. Instead, some alarms went off for the University of Wisconsin cross country and track coach.
In late November, a handful of days after the NCAA men’s and women’s cross-country championships, Byrne had triple bypass heart surgery.
Wisconsin mothers on Medicaid will soon have access to a full year of postpartum health coverage after Gov. Tony Evers signed legislation extending benefits from 60 days to 12 months after giving birth.
The policy change addresses what doctors consider a dangerous and long-standing gap in care, when many pregnancy-related complications and mental health challenges emerge.
When in-person classes resumed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison following the COVID-19 pandemic, Liv Romanov found herself on academic probation during her sophomore year.
She knew she needed to make a change and started meeting with an adviser at the McBurney Disability Resource Center, which students at Wisconsin’s flagship campus have increasingly sought out for help in recent years. For Romanov, the center made all of the difference.
University of Wisconsin’s Women in Entrepreneurship hosted TikTok creator Bria Lemirande Thursday to discuss her journey as a content creator and entrepreneur. The event emphasized the importance of connections through an online platform.
To Madison-based writer Alison C. Rollins, poetry is interactive. Her second book, “Black Bell,” includes instructions for reading poems, where the reader is invited to cut them up and rearrange them.
“Some pages are perforated so they can be torn out,” Rollins said. “There are visuals and diagrams. I wanted to expand what people expect from a traditional poetry book.”
This week, Rollins, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor in the English department, was awarded a $50,000 prize for her work. The Whiting Awards were established in 1985 and have been awarded to notable figures such as Ocean Vuong and Colson Whitehead.
Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people of 2026 includes three people with strong Wisconsin connections: Olympic hockey champion and U.S. team captain Hilary Knight, a former University of Wisconsin-Madison star; actor Kate Hudson, who portrayed local singer Claire Sardina in the recent film “Song Sung Blue”; and photojournalist Lynsey Addario, a UW alum renowned for documenting the lives of women and children in conflict zones.
In a seismic shakeup at the top of the Wisconsin athletics department, athletic director Chris McIntosh recently announced his departure from the role to join the Big Ten conference in an administrative capacity.
Wisconsin legend Barry Alvarez was just as surprised as anybody.
Longtime UW-Madison Law School professor Marc Galanter, an influential legal scholar and mentor to many, died Tuesday. He was 95.
Galanter was born on Feb. 18, 1931, in Philadelphia to his two parents, Jacob and Mary.
He met his wife, Eve Galanter, at the University of Chicago in 1966 after she reached out asking to attend a class he was teaching, but she couldn’t make it to his talk. He offered to put together a reading list for her.
Three University of Wisconsin–Madison juniors have received 2026 Goldwater Scholarships, the premier undergraduate scholarship in mathematics, engineering and the natural sciences in the United States.
The students are juniors Aletta Bergman, Krithi Gopinath and Eva Stafne.
Last fall, Tahereh Rahimi traveled back to Iran to study local journalism for her dissertation. These days, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Ph.D. candidate finds herself sheltering with her parents, fearing for their lives.
Rahimi returned to her home country in September to conduct field work at a local news organization that has since stopped publishing because of the war. She was excited to be home after years away and looked forward to continuing her doctorate work.
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s University Health Services is hosting a free art and history gallery this April highlighting campus sexual assault activism over the past 50 years, featuring student-made artwork for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
The exhibit is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday on the first floor of 333 East Campus Mall as part of a Connect and Reflect series to raise awareness about sexual violence.
University Wisconsin-Madison College Democrats and Republicans debated campus free speech, foreign policy and political polarization at Union South Monday in an event focused on fostering productive conversations between those with differing opinions.
The Wisconsin Union Directorate Society and Politics Committee moderated the conversation.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison American Indian and Indigenous Studies program will host its spring Elder-in-Residence, Leon Valliere, on campus this week as part of an initiative aimed at strengthening connections between students and Indigenous communities, according to the UW Events Calendar.
A local diving club is set to close its doors this summer. On June 11, Wisconsin Dive Club officials announced they will no longer be able to use UW-Madison Rec Well’s Soderholm Family Aquatic Center.
The dive club stated it does not know the reasoning behind the decision; however, the director of UW-Madison’s Rec Well explained that due to high demand, they could not accommodate the club’s preferred times.
A Dane County court commissioner set a $5,000 bond Tuesday for a UW-Madison lab employee accused of trying to poison his coworker.
Makoto Kuroda made his initial appearance in Dane County Court, where Court Commissioner Brian Asmus set a $5,000 bond for him.
Day of the Badger, the University of Wisconsin’s annual giving celebration, took over campus Wednesday.
Alumni, students and friends were asked to pay it forward by donating to a UW program or department of their choice. Donors can choose from more than 150 areas across the university.
UW says the total has topped $2 million, with the money going to programs that support students.
UW Health has become the Official Health Care Partner of the Green Bay Packers through a new multi-year agreement.
The partnership, announced at a Thursday press conference, includes joint community initiatives, fan-focused events throughout the year and a visible presence at Lambeau Field. UW Health will have permanent signage at the north entry gate of Lambeau Field and logo patches on Packers practice jerseys.
Marcus Sedberry’s grown used to being pulled in many directions.
He enjoys that each day of his career as a University of Wisconsin administrator throws new challenges his way. The biggest curveball of his tenure in Madison came over the past week when Sedberry learned his job was about to change entirely.
It was Marcus Sedberry’s first public meeting as interim athletic director of the University of Wisconsin.
But Wednesday’s Athletic Board meeting was a farewell, too: UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin delivered her final address to the group that’s tasked with oversight of the athletic department.
The severe weather in Madison this week couldn’t stop the reemergence of the colorful sunburst chairs at UW-Madison’s Memorial Union Terrace.
Crews unpacked the orange, yellow and green sunburst chairs and tables on Wednesday in preparation for a celebration at 3 p.m. Friday for the official opening of the terrace at the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
The University of Wisconsin athletic department is budgeting for around $2 million less in football ticket revenue for the 2026 season than it earned in 2025.
That was one of the takeaways from a department budget request, approved Wednesday by the Athletic Board, that exceeded $200 million for the first time.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is warning about a new invasive plant, the fig buttercup, spreading across the Upper Midwest.
The fig buttercup emerges in early spring for a short period, according to university officials.
The plant has heart-shaped leaves and bright yellow flowers. Officials said it is important to look for it now because there is only a brief window when it can be identified.
Chris McIntosh said he had “very mixed emotions” in resigning from the University of Wisconsin athletic director position.
McIntosh emailed UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and her chief of staff and senior adviser Jennifer Noyes a four-paragraph resignation message Sunday night.
Mick Byrne had a lot to live up to when he arrived at the University of Wisconsin in 2008.
Byrne took over a Badgers men’s cross country program that had won nine straight Big Ten championships and had each of its previous three coaches bring home an NCAA championship.
Wisconsin has long influenced national policies, ranging from its status as the first state to ratify the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote to the advent of the school choice program.
A postdoctoral researcher at UW-Madison tried to poison a colleague who the researcher thought had disrespected him and wasn’t following lab rules, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Dane County.
Makoto Kuroda, 41, of Madison, was charged with felony second-degree endangering safety and tampering with household products for putting lab chemicals into the colleague’s water bottle and shoes, the complaint says.
Spirited school pride, interactive games and opportunities to double donations are all part of this year’s Day of the Badger, a two-day fundraising effort supporting the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Sponsored by the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association, the annual event brings together alumni, students and supporters through both virtual and in-person activities aimed at raising critical funds for campus programs and initiatives.
Organizers say more than 150 areas across campus are participating this year, including schools, colleges, departments and other causes. Donors can choose where to direct their contributions through the event’s website.
