Overall enrollment held steady. The number of graduate and international students declined, as anticipated. And the University of Wisconsin-Madison welcomed roughly 1,000 of the state’s top students through a new program this fall.
Those were among the key takeaways after Wisconsin’s flagship university released its latest enrollment numbers, based on a student census conducted on the 10th day of classes.
Madison police responded to reports of a fight with a shot fired on Friday in the 200 block of Langdon Street outside Pi Kappa Alpha on UW-Madison’s fraternity row. Authorities took an 18-year-old into custody nearby and recovered physical evidence at the scene.
“We live right over here, and like, past three, four years, we spend so much time on this street. And just to like, the fact that it happened is super scary,” said Jimmy Lynch, a UW-Madison student.
Universities of Wisconsin proposal to redesign general education curriculum would eliminate requirements that students take an ethnic or cultural studies class.
UW system administrators are trying to standardize general education requirements to comply with reforms approved during the biennial budget negotiations aimed at making it easier for students to transfer credits between the 13 universities.
Thirteen winners have been announced in the UW-Madison 2025 Cool Science Image Contest.
Winning snapshots include photos from professors, students, and specialists.
A flock of pink lawn flamingos will again dot the front lawn of UW-Madison’s Bascom Hill next week.
Support from the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association fundraiser, called Fill the Hill, which has happened at UW-Madison for over a decade, is more significant this year than ever amid cuts to federal funding, its organizers say.
City and UW-Madison officials want to make it easier for low-income students to find cheaper housing options.
Under a city zoning change enacted in 2024, downtown developers may exceed maximum story limits as long as they stay under the maximum height permitted under city ordinances and state law. In exchange, developers building student housing are expected to commit a negotiated amount of affordable beds for low-income applicants.
The University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty hosted a webinar Sept. 30 to examine the impact of housing quality on families and communities — focusing on health, stability and the lasting effects of discriminatory policies such as redlining.
The event featured presentations from senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Erik Hembre, Emory University assistant professor of epidemiology Christine Ekenga and Boston University assistant professor of sociology Steven Schmidt.
It’s Bucky Badger’s birthday.
The design for the mascot was copyrighted on Oct. 2, 1940, after an illustrator sketched the likeness of an upright badger wearing a cardinal and white sweater. The Library of Congress deemed this Bucky’s birthday.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students will no longer have access to local abortion services, as Madison’s East Planned Parenthood clinic will pause performing abortions in October, forcing students seeking care to travel to the closest clinic located in Rockford, Ill. or independent practices in Milwaukee.
On this day October 2, 1940 “Buckingham Badger,” better known as “Bucky,” was born at UW-Madison.
A Badger mascot has been used by the university since 1889 when intercollegiate football was established.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, for the 2026 academic year went live Wednesday as scheduled, despite the government shutdown.
Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman is urging high school students and their families to fill out FAFSA paperwork if students plan to attend one of the state’s 13 public schools or other private colleges.
Barret Elward is an engineer at UW-Madison, and co-president of United Faculty and Academic Staff (UFAS) Local 223, the union that represents faculty and staff at UW-Madison.
Elward and his team study fusion energy. Their work is mainly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is directly affected by the government shutdown.
“We’ve already been operating under don’t buy the expensive things, or be really cautious about your expenses,” Elward said.
While not the typical cat-owners, University of Wisconsin-Madison students are increasingly adopting cats, touting the benefits of cat ownership.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison placed in the top 40 institutions nationwide for undergraduate education for the fourth year in a row, according to recent rankings by U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison international student enrollment fell to its lowest point in at least a decade, reflecting a national trend caused by shifting visa policies in the United States.
More than 67,000 students applied to UW-Madison this admission cycle, making it the most competitive applicant pool the university has ever seen. But the number of enrolled international students dropped by 30%, reaching its lowest point since at least 2013.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin highlighted the arrival of a record 8,500 freshman, even as she warned of looming challenges tied to federal and state funding and free speech scrutiny in a student media roundtable Tuesday.
According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, much of the university’s research will continue for the time being, even projects that receive federal funding. But international students and staff may be affected as agencies that oversee passports and visas operate with reduced staffs. Similarly, small business loans and federal research grants will be paused or delayed during a shutdown.
Students applying to the University of Wisconsin-Madison will soon need to complete a second, longer financial aid application if they want a share of the millions of dollars in financial aid the university gives out each year.
Starting this fall, UW-Madison will require applicants to fill out the CSS Profile, an online application used by around 270 colleges, universities and scholarship programs to award institutional aid, separate from a different form used to apply for federal financial aid. Students can start working on their CSS Profile Oct. 1.
A panel of media professionals discussed the implications of modern-day censorship at the annual University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Journalism Ethics conference Friday.
“Journalism is a public good,” said Timothy Karr, senior director of strategy and communications at The Free Press. “The government needs to step in to figure out how it can help support that.”
PBS Wisconsin Education, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education, recently launched Whoopensocker, a new educational resource collection for upper elementary learners that provides an on-ramp to writing through group games and scaffolded lessons.
Whoopensocker was first developed as a six-week teaching artist residency by Erica Halverson, a professor in the department of curriculum and instruction at the UW-Madison School of Education. Halverson teamed up with PBS Wisconsin Education to make a multimedia version of the program that’s accessible to more educators around the state and in spaces where an artist residency may not be available.
UW-Madison’s School of Computer, Data, and Information Sciences celebrated its new home Friday.
Morgridge Hall is a privately funded $267 million investment, with Tashia and John Morgridge as the building’s principal donors.
As the fall semester begins, UW–Madison remains committed to maintaining a safe, inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of the campus community, according to UWPD Chief of Police Brent Plisch.
At their first meeting of the semester Sept. 19, the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) Sustainability Committee celebrated the GOLD Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) rating the University of Wisconsin-Madison was recently awarded, while calling for increased student and faculty involvement in combating the climate crisis.
Outside the University of Wisconsin’s Educational Sciences building on West Johnson Street, a new food cart, Aha Momo, opened this past August and is already drawing a crowd. Inside the cart, chef and owner Yeshe Gyatso brings decades of culinary experience to each handmade dumpling.
All core general education courses, or gen-eds, may soon be transferable between the 13 Universities of Wisconsin.
The proposed UW Board of Regents policy is now being shared for comment at the universities. The gen-ed credits, which are classes students must take for graduation outside their majors and minors, would range from 30 to 36 credit hours in 10 to 12 courses in six curricular categories at all the UWs, according to a statement.
Fewer graduate and international students are attending UW-Madison this fall, according to data the university released Thursday — a glimpse into how the deep cuts to federal research and visa crackdowns over the last year are rippling through the university.
The data show a 7% decline in total international student enrollment this fall, a decrease of 490 students, and 9% fewer new graduate and professional students.
UW-Madison was at a “critical juncture,” former Chancellor Donna Shalala told the group, amid budget constraints, critiques of higher education and a host of other issues.
“I look around, and I see a faculty and staff here that is too often trying to do 80 hours of work in a 40-hour week, too often fatigued, too often unheralded for their accomplishments, too often fearful of the future, and cynical about getting the resources they need to do their jobs,” said former Chancellor Donna Shalala.
A new Universities of Wisconsin policy is looking to ensure all core general education credits can transfer between each of the state’s 13 UW universities.
The Board of Regents policy would guarantee the credits earned at one UW university will apply toward graduation requirements at another UW university.
Former Chancellor Donna Shalala and University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin discussed the fragility of research institutions, the importance of undergraduate education and Shalala’s experience as the first female chancellor in the Big Ten at a fireside chat in Union South Monday.
When the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched a Women’s Physical Education Department in 1912, Wisconsin women did not have the right to vote. Women, only reluctantly admitted to UW-Madison in the first place, faced scientific misconceptions, double standards and restrictions from administration. But the department itself was always years ahead of its time, alumni said, from its early days to its eventual merger with the men’s program in 1976.
One of the University Wisconsin-Madison’s largest student organizations packed a lecture hall in Ingraham with over 200 students in attendance last week. The Badger Cheese Club’s goal is to bring Wisconsin’s cheese culture to their 500 official members.
The club of cheese connoisseurs — established in 2006 — offers its members a smorgasbord of cheese each meeting, educates its members on the differences between all the unique types of cheese made in Wisconsin and builds a strong community among its members with a variety of special events.
A proclamation President Donald Trump signed last week slapping a lofty price tag on new H-1B visa applications is shaking up a system Wisconsin’s universities and hundreds of companies use each year to hire thousands of highly skilled workers, researchers and educators from abroad.
Current University of Wisconsin Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin hosted former Chancellor Dr. Donna E. Shalala on Monday for a conversation on the future of higher education in Varsity Hall.
Shalala and Mnookin were introduced via remarks by Interim Provost John Zumbrunnen. Shalala and Mnookin took the stage for their conversation, which included questions directly from Mnookin as well as pre-submitted audience questions.
New season ticket sales have spiked from 151 in 2024-25 to currently 609 before this. That’s all while 93% of existing season ticket holders have renewed for 2025-26 — an increase from the previous season.
The success of this summer’s Morgan Wallen and Coldplay concerts suggests that the stage is set for the University of Wisconsin’s football stadium to continue serving as a venue for big-name acts.
The comeback is nearly three decades in the making. Before this summer, Camp Randall Stadium last held a major music concert in 1997: the year Princess Diana died, the first “Harry Potter” book was published and the WNBA debuted. On Oct. 6, The Rolling Stones thrilled more than 27,000 local fans at Camp Randall as part of their Bridges to Babylon Tour.
Four Republican legislators are reintroducing a bill that would protect free speech on Universities of Wisconsin campuses and penalize the schools if they prohibit it.
The bill allows students to sue the UW schools if their freedom is violated in any way.
The UW-Madison Police Department on Wednesday cleared the scene after asking the public to avoid the area of Johnson Street and Wisconsin Avenue due to reports of a man with a knife in the vicinity.
The UW-Madison Police Department on Wednesday cleared the scene after asking the public to avoid the area of Johnson Street and Wisconsin Avenue due to reports of a man with a knife in the vicinity.
UW-Madison Police Department gave an all clear after sending an alert out for the report of a man with a knife Wednesday morning off campus.
In October 1990, the Chicago Sun-Times came to the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus to see how students there felt about the new speech code, which could lead to suspension of students for “creating a hostile environment” by making remarks about another person’s sex, race, class, religion, or sexual orientation. Years later, the UW’s then-Chancellor Donna Shalala would tell The New Yorker that she pushed for the speech codes because the students wanted it.
But the Sun-Times headline told the truth: “Students cool to hostile-speech ban.” As board chair and former editor of The Badger Herald student newspaper, I was interviewed for the article and tried to make the point that the speech bans were self-defeating. I told the Sun-Times, “To shut off racial speech you’re actually feeding it. The whole point of a university is to educate the person to be a better person, and here’s the university saying, ‘Here’s a problem, we can’t handle it, send them [offending students] back to the farm.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Blk Pwr Coalition (BPC) honored Demartravion “Trey” Reed and Cory Zukatis, the two Mississippi men found dead hanging from trees in different parts of the state on Sept. 15, at a vigil on Library Mall Thursday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison opened the new Computer, Data and Information Sciences (CDIS) building at the start of the fall semester, bringing together three of the campus’s fastest-growing majors under one roof and establishing a hub for research, education and outreach in technology.
A chemistry fraternity is again looking for a new home at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Alpha Chi Sigma is a professional co-ed fraternity founded at UW-Madison in 1902. With about 80 active members, the chapter supports Badger students entering STEM fields — in science, technology, engineering and math.
Members of the Alpha Chapter lived and met in two houses at 619 and 621 N. Lake St. for decades, near Lake Mendota and UW-Madison’s Memorial Union.
UW-Madison graduate student Olivia Kusuma received a competitive federal grant allowing her to study advanced Indonesian this fall for her research on Southeast Asian American communities.
Kusuma is one of more than 50 UW-Madison students who, after weeks of waiting in limbo, got notice this month that the Trump administration canceled the university’s federal Foreign Language and Area Studies.
“What happened to Charlie Kirk was a tragedy, it was wrong,” Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said last week.
“The fact that it happened on a college campus is even a step worse,” Mnookin said during a panel discussion at the Reagan Institute Summit on Education. “Because college campuses should be part of the places within society where ideas are explored and bump up against each other, and the ways that we should be disagreeing with each other should never include what happened there.”
People walked, ran and biked for the tenth annual Badger Challenge fundraiser at UW Health Eastpark Medical Center on Sunday.
The challenge raises money to support cancer research and treatments at the UW Health Carbone Cancer Center.
A construction robot is getting its footing, using the Kellner Family Athletic Center’s construction site, next to Camp Randall on the UW-Madison campus.
UW-Madison police reported that 30 people were ejected from Camp Randall Stadium and 18 were arrested during Saturday’s game between the Badgers and Maryland.
Of those arrested, 10 were UW students. Of the ejections, 18 were UW students.
University of Wisconsin-Madison police have taken a suspect in custody in connection with an alleged aggravated assault that took place on campus in the early hours of Sept. 20.
UW-Madison police said this week that they are investigating a string of e-bike and e-scooter thefts.
From Aug. 28 through Sept. 13, UW police received five reports of stolen bikes and scooters, with the sites including Union South, Lowell Center, Nicholas Recreation Center, and Ogg Residence Hall.
Universities of Wisconsin faculty and staff employees seeking a voice in UW operations have gained the ears of a number of UW regents, a union leader said Thursday, and want their request for recognition put on the Board of Regents agenda in October.
A University of Wisconsin Board of Regents committee has signed off on a $13.5 million expansion of a planned cyclotron particle accelerator research facility that will create radioactive isotopes used in cancer research, detection and treatment.
Charlie Kirk’s death is resonating across college campuses. In Madison, College Republicans are thinking about where their own movement goes next.
“I didn’t even believe it when I first saw the news that he got shot. It really took me hours for it to even register that he was really gone,” said Courtney Graves, president of the UW-Madison chapter of College Republicans.
Kirk visited UW-Madison last fall as a part of his ‘You’re Being Brainwashed Tour,’ leaving an impression on young conservatives there.
Hundreds of community members poured into the sun-soaked cartography library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Science Hall in the last 10 days of July, gingerly perusing through decades of fantasy maps, all created by one woman.
The exhibit, curated by UW-Madison alum and University of Oregon professor Mark Fonstad, showcased the maps, annotated books and meticulous research notes behind Karen Wynn Fonstad’s, his mother, atlases of worlds including “The Lord of the Rings” and “Dungeons & Dragons.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Art History Department is celebrating its 100th anniversary this month, with an official centennial celebration Sept. 24-26 and further events planned throughout the semester, including lectures and panels with art history professionals.
Two North Korean defectors spoke to students about preconceptions about North Korea, their experiences escaping and how they accustomed to life in South Korea as university students at a Tuesday event sponsored by Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for East Asian Studies.
People attending the UW Board of Regents’ meeting last week will go through a security screening to enter the venue.
Under the new measures, attendees will be required to walk through metal detectors, and anyone who refuses a screening or has a prohibited item will be denied entry to the venue, according to Regents meeting materials released ahead of the meeting.
Patients with cancer could be diagnosed and treated in one building if UW-Madison gets approval for its expanded multimillion-dollar cyclotron lab.
Construction for a $48.5 million cyclotron lab between two research buildings next to UW Hospital was expected to start this year, but the university now is seeking the green light from the UW Board of Regents to add more space for patient treatment and research.
Lauren Fields was less than four months into a research project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) when she got an email message from her program officer at the federal agency.
A doctoral candidate in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fields has been studying the biochemistry involved in the feeding process of a common crab species. She and her faculty supervisor believe the project can shed new light on problems such as diabetes and obesity in human beings.
A new bill introduced by four of Wisconsin’s republican legislators focuses on free speech at University of Wisconsin System institutions and technical colleges. The proposed legislation aims to uphold First Amendment protections and ensure due process in disciplinary proceedings
