Wisconsin Welcome, an annual multiweek celebration welcoming the incoming freshman class and transfer students, is underway at the University of Wisconsin, according to the UW Office of Student Transition and Family Engagement.
The celebration began Sunday with the Sunburst Festival at Union South, which offered free food samples from its restaurants, a silent disco, several indoor and outdoor games, live music and more for students to check out, according to the Wisconsin Union.
The Board of Regents unanimously approved a 2027-29 biennial budget request which included a University of Wisconsin-Madison demolition plan for the Mosse Humanities Building with a proposed budget of $463.5 million.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Interim Chancellor Eric Wilcots and faculty welcomed just under 6,000 first-year and new transfer students to campus at the university’s annual convocation on Sept. 1 at the Kohl Center.
Music wellness organization Two Bridge announced Tuesday their music and mental health-focused events that will take place on UW’s campus this fall, including a student concert from Mt. Joy, according to a Reuters press release.
The events are in partnership with Future Friends Campus Series, a nationwide expansion of the mental wellness programming, according to the release. Future Friends similarly brought artist Alex Warren to UW in 2025, according to the release.
UW–Madison welcomed students and their families to campus Saturday as fall move-in began at the University’s residence halls.
Families arrived from Wisconsin and other states to help students move into their rooms before the start of the new academic year. Among those arriving was Chris Olhoff from Chicago, who was moving his son, Henry, into campus housing.
Olhoff said the move-in experience into Witte had gone well so far.
This weekend marks the beginning of a new school year at UW-Madison as students begin moving into the residence halls.
Nine-thousand new and returning students will be moving into on-campus housing starting Saturday until Monday.
University Housing is warning drivers heading downtown may experience delays, especially near campus resident halls, as there will be heightened traffic and lane closures.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students will begin moving into residence halls this weekend, bringing an estimated 9,000 students to campus and prompting traffic changes near the southeast side of campus.
Students and families headed downtown in the coming days should expect increased traffic, crowds and students moving furniture as the university’s fall move-in begins.
The university will close some roads on the southeast side of campus and convert Park and Lake streets to one-way traffic to accommodate move-in activity.
The newly redeveloped State Street Campus Garage is now open to the public.
The development replaces the former Lake Street Parking Garage, built in 1964, as maintenance costs for the aging structure increased.
City officials say the building will include student housing and public parking. A regional bus terminal is scheduled to open in October.
Country singer Kane Brown is performing at UW-Madison’s campus next month for a student-only concert, the Wisconsin Union announced Monday.
The Sept. 5 block party and concert at the Library Mall is free for UW-Madison students and comes at the close of the first week of classes. The first day of the 2026-27 academic year is Sept. 2.
It’s not often that public projects can be described as both on time and under budget, but Madison’s State Street Campus Garage appears to have managed that feat.
The combined apartment building, parking garage and intercity bus terminal at 415 North Lake St. is slated to open its leasing office and public parking Monday, though bus service is still a few months away.
The Universities of Wisconsin is again requesting money to demolish and relocate UW-Madison’s Mosse Humanities Building and to build new residence halls.
The Humanities Building project tops the list of major requests included in the system’s $2 billion capital budget request for 2027-29, released Monday. The request seeks $463.5 million to cover the demolition of the entire building and a portion of the Art Lofts facility next to the Kohl Center, which houses a gallery for student and faculty artwork, though $46.8 million would be covered by donations.
All of the buildings on UW-Madison’s campus that were closed because of air conditioning problems opened back up on Monday.
Parts of the campus have been closed since June because a chilled water line broke during a stretch of extreme heat and humidity.
For now, UW has installed temporary chillers to help the buildings stay cool until the air conditioning is back to its full operating capacity.
Employees who have been working from home are able to return to their normal workplace arrangements.
After nearly two decades without a permanent regional bus station, Madison is preparing to open a facility this fall as part of the redevelopment of the former State Street Campus Garage.
The site at 415 N. Lake St. is now home to Theory Madison, a 15-story student housing development built above a new public parking garage and regional bus terminal that will provide service to destinations including Milwaukee and Chicago.
All closed and partially closed buildings on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus will fully reopen Aug. 10 following weeks of repairs to the chilled water system.
Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Robert Cramer announced the reopening date in a campus-wide message on Thursday. All employees should return to their standard workplace arrangements on that date, he said.
As one of the nation’s leading research universities, the University of Wisconsin-Madison offers students access to thousands of research opportunities. In 2024, the university ranked fifth nationally in research volume and expenditures, spending $1.93 billion on research.
Starship Technologies has withdrawn its tiny, white food delivery robots from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus alongside other universities in the United States, the company announced early June.
The robot delivery company, based in Estonia and San Francisco, said they reduced their campus operations to focus on retail grocery chains and hot food delivery in cities across Europe and the United States.
UW-Madison’s June water main break that continues to disrupt campus air conditioning has prompted broader concerns from the UW Board of Regents about the aging infrastructure at the state’s 13 public universities.
Several Regents at a virtual meeting Thursday said the Universities of Wisconsin needs to plan for fixing other potentially failing campus infrastructure.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison plans to repair recent air conditioning problems at campus buildings before students return later this summer, an administrator said Thursday.
A broken pipe about four feet in diameter and buried 20 feet underground is affecting air conditioning at nearly every UW-Madison facility.
As another stretch of hot weather settles into southern Wisconsin, UW-Madison is continuing to work to restore cooling across campus after a major chilled water line broke last month.
The university says campus remains open and operating, but many buildings are still warmer than normal. Some buildings remain temporarily closed while crews continue both temporary cooling efforts and work toward a permanent repair.
The size of an adult male giraffe. The height of a small two-story house. The length of a standard shipping container.
That’s how deep crews are digging to fix the broken pipe 20 feet underground that has left UW-Madison without most of its air conditioning and temporarily shuttered nearly three dozen buildings to preserve cooling.
It’s expected to take weeks to repair the chilled water line that broke on June 17, Robert Cramer, vice chancellor for finance and administration, wrote in a message to campus Monday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department will stop using contentious license plate reader cameras on campus.
The department started using the automated cameras last July, and its contract with the company Flock Safety was set to expire June 26. The department said it decided not to renew the contract “after careful and thoughtful consideration.”
It’s unlikely these kinds of dreams will ever go away, even in retirement. Meiller reflected on a story Maury White told him — Meiller began his radio career in 1967 after subbing in for a summer for White, a UW-Madison professor who hosted a farm show:
“He told me — and he was like 90 at the time — he said, ‘I still have that dream every once in a while,’ and it had been 50 years since he’d been on the air.”
Rayburn, a UW-Madison graduate who got his start in radio in 2001 when John “Sly” Sylvester hired him at WTDY-AM, says he will bring his own personality to the chair with the “Lee Rayburn Show.”
Had UW Cinematheque organizers known what was coming, they might have reconsidered naming their most recent film series Bleak Week. It was almost too on the nose.
Protesters reached an agreement with University of Wisconsin-Madison administrators in 2024 to end a pro-Palestinian encampment on Library Mall. Two years later, the two sides disagree on whether that deal has been upheld.
More than 20 buildings on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus are locked on Tuesday as crews work to address air conditioning issues caused by a broken chilled water line.
Meanwhile, university records are raising new questions about the state of UW-Madison’s infrastructure.
The UW-Madison campus experienced a significant break in a chilled water main supply line at one of the three heating and cooling plants that serve campus on June 17, according to an email sent to students, faculty and staff Friday. The break has caused campus buildings to have reduced cooling capacities this week, according to the email from UW Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Robert Cramer.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said it was closing 23 buildings to the public starting June 30, allowing only limited access to 11 others. It was relocating some summer classes after a broken water line at its cooling plant earlier in June severely reduced the ability to provide air conditioning across campus.
While Wisconsin residents are dealing with a heat emergency that’s sent the heat index over 100, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s response has been complicated by a broken cooling system affecting dozens of buildings on campus.
A national organization focused on defending free speech is calling on the University of Wisconsin-Madison to halt its disciplinary investigation into an animal rights student group.
Nearly two dozen buildings on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus will temporarily close because of air conditioning issues during the extreme temperatures.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said it was closing 23 buildings to the public starting Tuesday, allowing only limited access to 11 others. It was relocating some summer classes after a broken water line at its cooling plant earlier this month severely reduced the ability to provide air conditioning across campus.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is temporarily closing over 20 buildings on June 30 after a broken chilled water line significantly reduced air conditioning capabilities across campus, the university said in a news release.
UW-Madison is closing nearly three dozen buildings for at least a month starting Tuesday as it repairs a water main break earlier this month that upended its air-conditioning system.
UW–Madison will temporarily close more than 20 buildings starting Tuesday because of a broken chilled water line that has cut the campus’s air conditioning capacity during one of the hottest weeks of the year.
UW-Madison is home to dozens of historic and archaeological sites that have national recognition.
The fleet of small white robots that have ambled slowly around UW-Madison’s campus since 2019 to deliver dining hall food to students has been permanently powered down.
A break in a chilled water line from the Charter Street Heating Plant, 130 N. Mills St., on June 17 released some 40,000 gallons of lake water onto Charter and Spring streets.
The army of small, white food delivery robots crisscrossing the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus for the past seven years have vanished, destined for city streets around the world as the company behind them transitions from mobile campus snack packs to grocery delivery drones.
The fleet of small white robots that have zipped around UW-Madison’s campus since 2019 to deliver dining hall food to students has been permanently powered down.
Jade Levendoski put on her cowboy hat and flipped a switch. A red neon light illuminated the hat, matching the color in Levendoski’s pigtails.
“It looks so good!” Kylie Tsai exclaimed.
Levendoski and Tsai put the finishing touches on their art projects this month at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The two were among nine students who took a summer course called “Neon: Light as Sculpture.”
When Kris Marconnet was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Nicholas Recreation Center didn’t exist. Instead, she remembers taking an aerobics class in the Natatorium, a “hideously hot” building near the Lakeshore dormitories with no air conditioning.
She didn’t imagine that years later, she would play a hand in designing the new athletic center as part of her work with Thysse (pronounced TIE-See), a facility branding company located in Oregon, Wisconsin — just 10 miles away from the university.
Runners from all parts of the state gathered at the UW-Madison Library Mall for the annual Run Madtown half marathon and 10k run. Runners took off at 7 a.m. and ran through several parts of the city, including the State Capitol, Arboretum and Camp Randall.
John and Tashia Morgridge, University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni, have pledged $85.2 million to support the renovation of the 139-year-old Science Hall, a project expected to begin in 2027.
This gift is the leading private contribution to UW-Madison’s $163.2 million plan to restore and modernize the historic building.
UW-Madison’s Science Hall will be undergoing a major renovation, courtesy of a gift from philanthropists.
John and Tashia Morgridge gifted $85.2 million to help restore the university’s iconic red-brick building.
Science Hall was first constructed in 1887 and was built as the first home of the College of Letters & Science. The renovation project is scheduled to begin in 2027.
The State of Wisconsin Department of Administration requested proposals from contractors on May 14 for a new residence hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. All proposals are due to the State July 16.
The new dorm, which is expected to be finished by 2028, is a step towards increasing dorm space available for students, a long-time priority for the university.
UW-Madison’s Science Hall will undergo an extensive renovation to restore its historical features while adding modern updates, assisted by an $85.2 million gift from philanthropic couple and class of 1955 alumni John and Tashia Morgridge, the university announced Thursday.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a group of students and staff are working to reduce the amount of food wasted. They’re using a tool that a graduate of the university helped develop.
At Badger Markets, food that doesn’t sell right away now gets a second chance.
Another iconic music group is making a stop in Wisconsin this year. The Smashing Pumpkins will perform at the Kohl Center on Sunday, Oct. 11, UW Athletics announced Monday.
The alt rock band, known for hits like “Tonight, Tonight” and “1979,” are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their third studio album, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.”
It wasn’t pink plastic flamingos that filled Bascom Hill on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus Sunday morning. It was decoy turkeys.
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the reintroduction of wild turkeys to Wisconsin, the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) planted 50 decoy turkeys at the base of Bascom Hill.
Thousands of graduates filled Camp Randall Stadium Saturday as the University of Wisconsin–Madison celebrated its Spring 2026 commencement ceremonies.
The university says nearly 10,000 students are expected to earn degrees this spring, including bachelor’s, master’s and law graduates honored during Saturday’s ceremony.
A major cyberattack knocked out Canvas, an online platform used by about 9,000 schools across the country, including universities in Wisconsin, Thursday afternoon.
UW-Madison’s class of 2026 was left with a resounding message at its commencement ceremony at Camp Randall on Saturday: Find your purpose through times of uncertainty.
“Purpose is not a perfect plan, it’s a compass,” UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said to a sea of black graduation caps and gowns in the stadium. “It helps you decide what deserves your time, what deserves your courage, and what you may need to walk away from.”
Some streets around Camp Randall will closed on Saturday due to the UW-Madison commencement ceremony.
Residents are asked to plan for extra time when traveling.
Starting at 6 a.m. the following streets will close to traffic and will reopen at 4 p.m. after commencement has finished:
North Breese Terrace, between Regent Street and University Avenue
Monroe Street, between Regent Street and North Randall Ave.
University of Wisconsin-Madison and the rest of the UW campuses are part of a nationwide outage of Canvas – an online platform used for assignments, grading and more – that is causing disruptions to final exams.
Madison will be buzzing this weekend with family members and supporters of UW-Madison students in town for their graduation ceremonies.
UW-Madison has commencement ceremonies on Friday at the Kohl Center and Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium.
Larry Meiller once commented on the appeal of his Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) call-in show by describing his connection with listeners: “I think they look at me as an old friend.”
That was in 1987.
Wisconsin Union launched the sale of unsold food on the app Goodie Bag April 6 to reduce food waste at Union locations and increase food affordability.
Food including sandwiches and baked goods from the Badger Markets in Union South and Memorial Union are now offered at a 67% discount through Goodie Bag.
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers Anjon Audhya, Katherine Cramer, Shannon Stahl and Stephen Wright have been named Vilas Research Professors.
