Julie Underwood, dean of the School of Education at UW-Madison, sums up neatly why she doesn?t give much credence to the National Council on Teacher Quality rankings of teacher training schools.
UW-Madison professors emeriti Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden must be having a wonderful time researching and writing their mystery series. It certainly is a lot of fun reading their books.
In the early 1970s, the University of Wisconsin-Madison made an extraordinary gesture for the time. It granted jazz composer Duke Ellington an honorary doctorate and mounted a weeklong festival of his music. It even gave Duke and the members of his orchestra the rare opportunity to conduct master classes.
There are a handful of moments on saxophonist Eric Dolphy?s seminal free jazz album Out to Lunch where the bassist lays down a series of upward-inflected glissandi, as if a question is being asked. He then answers with a descending line. Eventually the rest of the band come back in, providing the ultimate response to the query issued by the bass. The effect is downright Socratic; it?s almost as if the bassist is a music philosopher employing the classic Q&A format to encourage his pupil, the listener, to examine a particular musical problem from a particular angle.
A $25 million grant will allow the UW-Madison College of Engineering to hire 25 new faculty members with the goals of creating a more interdisciplinary teaching approach and focusing on manufacturing advances to boost the nation?s economic competitiveness.
The Letters & Science Department of Learning Support Services (LSS) has organized a series of matches in Van Hise Hall. In the opening match between host country Brazil and Croatia, one room carried a broadcast with Portuguese language commentary from Brazilian commentators while next door fans watched the match with Croatian audio commentary.
17 cellists are at UW-Madison from points across the country for the two-week National Summer Cello Institute. Their route to better cello playing involves a lot of time away from the instrument, working their bodies in a modified basic training for musicians. The institute is run by cello professor Uri Vardi.
Perhaps the best?and nearly unavoidable?way to start an exploration of the new Jim Dine artwork at the Chazen Museum of Art is with the six-foot-tall sculpture of a human skull sitting outside the front doors. Roughly textured, with dark eye hollows, the bronze form serves as a fitting harbinger for the sixty-six prints, paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures of skulls that await inside the museum.
Noted: Kathie, 53, is an author and owner and founder of AllWriters? Workplace & Workshop, a writing studio that offers online and in-person classes. A longtime resident of Waukesha and the mother of three grown children from a previous marriage, Kathie graduated from Waukesha North High School in 1979 and UW-Madison.
Noted: Herzog, grandson of Milwaukee Sentinel columnist Buck Herzog, is a graduate of Brookfield East High School and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also produced “Killing Lincoln,” based on the book by Bill OReilly.
The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society is a three-week concert series that presents chamber music from around the world ? but always with a clever twist. Co-founder Stephanie Jutt is professor of flute in the School of Music; other performers include piano professor Christopher Taylor.
The UW-Madison campus has a new landmark for graduation photos: Jim Dine?s sculpture ?Ancient Fishing,? a 1,500-pound, 6-foot-high work of bronze now outside the entrance to the Chazen Museum of Art.
Sometimes it seems we never stop worrying. We worry about the food we eat and the air we breathe. If we own property, we worry about whether it will keep its value, and if we don?t, we worry about whether we can afford to.
I guess when you?re 76 years old and on the verge of retirement after more than 50 years in the same field, there?s really no need to pull your punches. Madison East High School biology teacher Paul du Vair proved that in a Sunday story in this newspaper, where he says the ?greatest failure in education? is how little experience professors of education have in the classroom. ?They have no idea what goes on in our schools,? he said. … No doubt plenty of education professors, especially researchers, at UW-Madison lack teaching experience and haven?t logged significant time in the classroom. But plenty of them have, too.
Noted: The museum will also host a series of related events in June and July, including a lecture on Jewish rock entrepreneurs by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Jonathan Pollack, and a concert presented by School of Rock.
Quoted: Tom Loeser, chair of the art department.
Kim, now 33, is among 22 students awarded a doctorate this month from the UW-Madison School of Music. At the core of the dissertation that helped her earn a Doctor of Musical Arts degree is Kim?s development of a ?Tactile Stave Notation? system for reading music.
Notoriously prolific Pop artist Jim Dine has donated 67 of his works, made between 1982 and 2000, to the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin. The pieces cover a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, ceramics and photography, but all take the figure of the skull as their subject matter.
A brand new sculpture is now on permanent display in downtown Madison.
?For years, I wanted to hold on to my work, to have it all in one place, so I kept everything,? Lynda Barry, the painter, cartoonist, playwright, and teacher (at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), who is in town for the opening of the first exhibit of her work, says.
Noted: Vander Hoop earned her bachelor?s degree from UW-Madison, where she performed for Li Chiao-Ping Dance. While working on her master?s in fine arts at New York University?s Tisch School of the Arts, she and Sumi Clements founded Summation in 2010.
Noted: “Getting Back to Abnormal,” co-directed University of Wisconsin-Madison alum Louis Alvarez, will air on “P.O.V. (Point of View)” on PBS July 14. It is about the changing face of New Orleans post-Katrina. Watch the trailer for the film here. Alvarez won the Peabody Award for the films “American Tongues” and “Vote for Me.”
Wisconsin Public Radios listeners heard a long-running tradition for the last time today.
A Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban and became an international figure of courage and human rights has been selected as the next featured author for Go Big Read, UW-Madison?s common reading program.
John Brennan was deeply engrossed in organic chemistry, studying for an exam last week, when he absent-mindedly began drawing goofy cartoon fish with conversation bubbles explaining mechanisms behind chemical reactions.
All her nonfiction is produced under MavenMark Books. Those titles include “A View from the Interior: Policing the Protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol” (428 pages; 2013), written by the chief of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s police, Susan Riseling, who chronicled what happened when thousands of protesters opposed to the policies of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker disrupted the state capital for weeks.
Noted: A University of Wisconsin-Madison grad who studied for a doctorate in Hebrew literature at UCLA, Hirsh is known both for his deep knowledge of Jewish history and culture and for his ability to convey it in novel and creative ways.
On my first visit to Tandem Press?s new transitional space, I expected to find a less-than-ideal setting and staff with a make-do attitude as they raise money for a permanent space on the UW?Madison campus.
An account by Alice Goffman, assistant professor of sociology at UW-Madison, of the U.S. prison system?s impact on a circle of low-income African-American men has sold so well that its academic publisher has gone back to press three times and inked a deal with a popular publishing house.
Married people are generally happier and healthier than single people, but chronic marital stress may make people more vulnerable to depression, say UW-Madison researchers.
Noted: Porath was Dorothy Karnthaler at the time. Born and raised on Milwaukee?s north side, she?d been a librarian since 1946, first studying at the teacher?s college and then getting her bachelor?s degree from Marquette University and her master?s degree in library from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It was music to the ears of the UW-Madison School of Music staff when Leslie Shank, violinist for the renowned St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, recently agreed to join the music faculty. She?ll be a visiting assistant professor of violin next fall.
Profile of former UW Opera director Karlos Moser, who will reunite his Hyperion Oriental Fox Trot Orchestra for a concert on May 19 to benefit the Karlos and Melinda Moser Opera Ticket Fund, which gets students into live operas for free.
Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet paid tribute to its Belgian roots by premiering a new work by Belgian composer Benoît Mernier. This composition, Quartet No. 3, was commissioned for the ensemble’s centennial celebration.
Ending a memorable 16-season career with University Opera, director William Farlow directed a charming rendition of Hector Berlioz’s comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict at the UW Music Hall on Friday, April 11. The 1862 opera, Berlioz’s last work, is based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing but features a pared-down plot and additional comedic sections.
Shank will be a visiting assistant professor of violin next fall, with a one-year appointment while a search for a full-time, tenured professor will continue. She replaces Felicia Moye, professor of violin, who has taken a position at McGill University in Montreal.
Moser, an acclaimed UW-Madison emeritus music professor and opera conductor, has been standing the whole age thing on its head his entire life. He started on the piano at 4. He entered Princeton at 16. He began doing yoga at 70.
New feature on the regional dialect dictionary started by a UW?Madison prof.
A round of happy birthday is in order as the University of Wisconsin Varsity Band Concert turns 40 this year.
The University of Wisconsin Marching Band is celebrating 40 years of putting on amazing concerts.
Five students at UW-Madison have won prestigious national scholarships, including four in a single science scholarship program.
In a partnership described as ?the Wisconsin Idea come to life,? the UW-Madison School of Education will be working with the Madison Metropolitan School District to improve the quality and diversity of teachers and principals to help close the academic achievement gap.
The creator of the “hockey stick” graph showing a sharp increase in Earth?s temperature will be speaking at UW-Madison April 17.
Stan Temple, emeritus professor of wildlife at the University of Wisconsin and fellow of the Aldo Leopold Foundation, is helping people remember the extinction of passenger pigeons during this anniversary year.
A University of Wisconsin professor and her students have researched the lives of American soldiers for volunteers in France who are tending to the soldiers? graves.
On Monday, Downs, 65, will be one of four UW-Madison professors honored at a meeting of that same faculty senate. He and the others will receive the Hilldale Award, given in recognition of contributions to teaching, research and service on campus.
It?s almost time again for the Wisconsin Film Festival (WFF), playing on screens around Madison starting Thursday night and lasting a week.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Maraniss will be one of three recipients of honorary degrees at the UW-Madison commencement.
Just a day after its setup, a living room tucked into a corridor outside of the Humanities building has attracted the attention of multiple passersby on University of Wisconsin-Madison?s campus, including freshmen Olivia Gallenberger and Selia Salzsieder.
The Madison School Board on Monday approved a $1.3 million partnership with the UW-Madison aimed at expanding training and improving diversity.
Noted: The event is held at four venues on campus.
But UW-Madison political science professor emeritus Dennis Dresang argued that Republicans prioritizing local control is a fallacy dating back to “day two” of the party ? that is, the iteration following the abolition of slavery. From that point in the party?s history, Dresang said, it has been dominated by moneyed interests as opposed to those espousing small government philosophy.
Phillips was honored Wednesday morning with a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Wisconsin Alumni Association. She was the keynote speaker for “A Nation Still Under Construction,” a UW program observing the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act.
The gathering draws ridicule and outrage from some, especially political conservatives, who question the need for it and the amount of tax money helping to stage it. Among the two dozen co-hosts of this year?s conference are Madison Area Technical College, UW-Madison and the city of Madison?s Department of Civil Rights. Most co-hosts are paying a fee between $500 and $3,000, according to organizers, although UW-Madison is kicking in $5,000.
Toma is an associate professor of communication science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies how people relate to each other online, using Facebook, Twitter, OK Cupid and Match.com to analyze what we share, alter, inflate and lie about when we can?t be seen face to face.
Larry Shapiro isn?t interested in arguing over whether there is a God or not. But if you ground your belief in God on a belief in miracles, then the UW-Madison philosophy professor has a problem.
The papers of Moss Hart and Kitty Carlisle Hart were donated to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, a partnership between the UW-Madison Department of Communications Arts and the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS). The collection is stored in the WHS archives and is available for public perusal.
It?s too early to be talking about restructuring ethnic studies programs at UW-Madison, but greater collaboration could broaden and update scholarship, says professor Craig Werner, chairman of the Department of Afro-American studies.
A team from The Associated Press has won the 2014 Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics for a story that revealed the CIA ties of an American who vanished in Iran.
Noted: Real earned her master?s degree and PhD in American history at UW-Madison and was part of a small group of volunteers who traveled to the South to collect the papers and memorabilia that started the civil rights archives in Wisconsin.
