Events to commemorate homecoming 2020 include a digital flamingo “Fill the Hill,” a Scavenger hunt with Chancellor Rebecca Blank, a Fifth Quarter performance and the first football game of the 2020 season against the University of Illinois.
Back to School – To embody Rodney Dangerfield this autumn, you’ll need to get in a car and drive through Wisconsin’s stunning changing foliage. End up at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (called “Grand Lake University” in the 1986 film) to see the lakeside college dressed in fall colors. Bonus points if you take this trip wearing a cardigan or find time to drink champagne in a hot tub.
Column authored by Sue Riseling, associate vice chancellor and UW chief of police, 1991-2016.
More than 3,000 of UW-Madison’s 45,500 students have contracted COVID-19 since late July. Some of them gathered in large groups without a mask, desperate to make friends in a new place or reconnect with old ones after months away. Others came into contact with the virus through their roommate or fraternity brother or some other seemingly unavoidable way. There’s also students like Post, who tested positive despite all of their efforts to dodge it.
In the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, Black Badgers have fought within the walls of this university to have their voice heard through various protests and social media trends.
Protesters stopped at UWPD’s headquarters, ended at UW Chancellor’s personal residence.
Advocates for international students, such as UW-Madison, have said the rule would create unnecessary burdens for international students, and makes the U.S. a less welcoming destination.
Some 150 University of Wisconsin-Madison students gathered Friday afternoon to march from Camp Randall to the UW Police Department headquarters and the Chancellor’s mansion to demand racial justice and a police-free campus.
The Wisconsin Union Directorate Arts Committee, in partnership with the Black Men Coalition of Dane County and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County, projected George Floyd’s last words on the wall of Memorial Union Thursday night as a tribute to bring attention to injustices faced by the Black community.
As they plan to decrease the $15 million deficit, Janairo said the Union does not plan to ask for extra student fees to help pay. “It hasn’t even come into our mind to ask for an increase in fees.”
Chancellor Rebecca Blank emphasized her confidence in the university and its future, despite university-wide issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic in a virtual speech to the Wisconsin Alumni Association on Tuesday.
As colleges have seen outbreaks, many have reconfigured their approaches to testing. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, after rising cases forced the campus into a two-week lockdown, students living in on-campus housing will now be tested weekly. After a surge in cases at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. — a school that was testing only students who believed they had been exposed or were feeling sick — the university halted in-person classes, sent some students home and hired an outside firm to start a surveillance testing program.
George Floyd’s final words will be projected on the wall of UW-Madison’s Memorial Union Thursday night, according to a post on Facebook. The presentation will be Thursday at 7 p.m.
The display’s debut will include brief remarks by Natalia Lugovskaya, the WUD Art Committee director, and Johnson.
Some of those closures came after students returned to campus or nearby, and COVID-19 cases spiked. James Madison University in Virginia halted in-person classes completely, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison saw an increase in cases that forced the school to enter a two-week lockdown.
At the start of the school year, University of Wisconsin-Madison saw a significant surge in COVID-19 positive test results. In response, the university paused in-person instruction for two weeks, restricted students to their residences, and banned all large gatherings. University Chancellor Rebecca Blank explained this drastic measure as critical to not just flattening the curve of infection, but to maintaining the “opportunity to have campus open to students this semester, which we know many students truly want.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery spoke with students in the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism and Mass Communication on Wednesday about the challenges of reporting on racial justice and the ethics of objectivity.
Three University of Wisconsin campuses are mostly back to normal, after COVID-19 spikes forced administrators to halt in-person classes and quarantine residence halls for two weeks. So far, the number of students testing positive at UW-Madison, UW-La Crosse and UW-River Falls has decreased substantially.
When Aaron Bird Bear first arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Madison two decades ago, he was shocked by its lack of infrastructure for retaining and graduating Native and Hawaiian students … UW-Madison did not yet understand how to reconcile its historic complicity ethnic cleansing and support Native students, said Bird Bear, the university’s first director of tribal relations.
In a release Wednesday night, the university announced it could not host the estimated 1,500 people it expect at the Badgers’ season debut against Illinois due to the increase of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations around the state.
The downward trend began during a two-week pause in face-to-face instruction and quarantine of two large dorms. Even amid a statewide surge in COVID-19, the university’s decline has continued for 23 consecutive days, outlasting expectations that cases would again spike seven to 10 days after the lockdown lifted.
The University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team intends to play a full Big Ten Conference schedule in 2020-21 but has to eliminate some of its non-conference games.
Blank said economic losses from COVID-19 pandemic have put UW in ’the worst situation that anyone has seen.’
Evers has used the powers to declare three public health emergencies this year. The first came March 12, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The second, on July 30, led to the first mask mandate and came as COVID-19 cases were beginning to climb. And the third, on Sept. 22, extended the mask mandate as COVID-19 cases were surging on University of Wisconsin campuses.
Joel Baraka, 23, is a civil-engineering student and a King-Morgridge Scholar at UW- Madison.As a young child, he fled the Democratic Republic of Congo with his family in 1997 and settled in the Hoima region of a Ugandan refugee settlement.
’If fee refunds were to occur, it might not be possible to immediately restore services for students for future semesters,’ University spokesperson says.
“There won’t be tailgates taking place around our stadium. There won’t be Badgerville. The Union won’t look like Union South normally looks,” McIntosh said. “We’ll come back in the fall of 2021 in a big way and get back to normal, but we all need to participate … We feel good about our chance to play right now, but there’s no guarantee, so we all need to play a role.”
Fears of a pandemic-related drop in student enrollment were not reflected at UW-Madison this fall. The 7,306 students in this year’s freshman class is the second-largest in university history.
“When it’s not enforced, you’re seeing very low mask-wearing rates,” said Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer with UW Health, a health system that serves more than 600,000 patients each year. “When we do contact tracing, it’s not the people who have been wearing their mask and doing social distancing that we’re talking to.”
Despite working longer hours than she ever has as the University of Wisconsin-Madison reduced its COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks, Chancellor Rebecca Blank said her to-do list for the fall semester is far from finished.
While the fall semester started under unusual circumstances, UW welcomed its second largest freshman class of 7,306, including a record number of applicants up 4.6 percent from last year.
“I personally know what it is like to be a high-achieving student of color in a predominantly white institution that is competitive,” Guzmán said. “All the students of color who are here are remarkable, high-achieving, smart kids. I have the experience, skills, passion and desire to do what I can to ensure that students of color are having the best possible Wisconsin experience.”
UW made the announcement in a video. Lavelle played for the UW Women’s soccer team as a midfielder and graduated in 2017.
Blank said that the demand involving the removal of the Abraham Lincoln statue from Bascom Hill was a “nonstarter,” and she does not think UWPD should be defunded.
Dr. Celine Gounder joined the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Distinguished Lecture Series virtual event Tuesday night to speak about the vital intersection of health and social justice.
Due to the economic hardships of COVID-19, UW-Madison announced full and partial layoffs in its Division of Continuing Studies, affecting 35 people, or around 18% of its staff.
University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson said in a Thursday interview that the campuses were among the safest places in the state, with extensive testing, tracking and quarantine programs. But he acknowledged there was “some connection” between returning students and the viral wave.
The discord may be especially thorny in towns that are home to land-grant universities such as Georgia and the University of Wisconsin, which view themselves as having a responsibility to the entire state, not just the locality where they sit, said Stephen Gavazzi, an Ohio State University professor who wrote a book about town-gown relations.
A contentious debate preceding the vote split members of the Associated Students of Madison’s student council, which ultimately passed the declaration with nine members in favor and five opposed. Nine others abstained.
The Dane County Board urged UW-Madison to move all classes online and empty out dorms, the latest call from local officials for the university to take more drastic action to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has implemented full and partial layoffs affecting 35 people — or about 18% of the staff — in the Division of Continuing Studies, citing the COVID-19 pandemic’s financial toll.
Soccer star and Badger alumna Rose Lavelle will deliver the keynote address at UW-Madison’s winter commencement ceremony, which will be held online because of COVID-19.
Two hundred and fifty students have withdrawn from the University of Wisconsin-Madison so far this fall, a number not substantially larger than the 208 withdrawals at the same point in the fall semester a year ago. The number makes up about 0.5% of the student body.
While most of the celebrations will be virtual, University of Wisconsin-Madison graduates this December will have a big-time name speaking at commencement.
The speaker for UW-Madison’s Winter Commencement knows a few things about goals.
’The University makes me feel like my Blackness is a burden,’ BIPOC students struggle to find safe, welcoming spaces on campus.
While this is the first U.S. grocery partnership for Starship, the company has been doing robotic grocery delivery in the U.K. for a while now. Here in the U.S., Starship is mostly known for its college campus food delivery, and has lined up a number of partnerships with higher-education institutions including George Mason University, University of Pittsburgh and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Providence is among colleges taking drastic steps to try to slow the spread of Covid-19, essentially pressing pause to salvage the rest of their fall term for face-to-face instruction and campus activities. The University of Arizona urged students to shelter in place for two weeks, while the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Colorado Boulder quarantined thousands of students and moved classes online for weeks, too.
UW-Madison’s student government on Tuesday declared it has “no confidence” in the university’s police force because the department helped Madison police during protests over the summer.
Extra safety precautions are being taken to make sure center can stay open.
’It felt like I was in a different sort of world,’ student says.
Gounder emphasizes history of health inequity within Native American populations.
No confidence vote signifies distrust in UWPD, call to reform, ASM rep. says.
Despite limitations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Morgridge Center for Public Service continues to connect student volunteers with community partners and non-profits.
The new health and wellness center on UW-Madison’s campus is officially open.
The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture awarded University of Wisconsin- Madison a grant Monday to support Native American students by providing a path to post-secondary education.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison had more than 2,800 confirmed student cases as of Friday. At Kansas State University, more than 2,200 students have been placed in quarantine or isolation. The University of Missouri has recorded more than 1,500 confirmed cases among students since classes started.
The ‘Nick’ got its start after 87 percent of UW-Madison students voted to approve recreational sports facility upgrades, although only 35 percent of students voted in that 2014 referendum.
UW-Madison’s student government may soon declare it has “no-confidence” in the university’s police force because the department assisted city police during protests over the summer.
