Interview with Jennifer E. Gaddis, an associate professor of civil society and community studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of The Labor of Lunch. She is an advisory board member of the National Farm to School Network.
While district-wide enrollment remained flat last school year, the student population is likely to trend downward for at least the next five years, according to projections by researchers at UW-Madison’s Applied Population Laboratory.
“We successfully increased knowledge of radon in this community, and more importantly, they could not have afforded the radon mitigation without our project’s support. This community had noted higher rates of cancer among their people for many generations and expressed concern that their land was poisoning them. They were correct,” said lead study author and associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Noelle LoConte in a release.
The Wisconsin Badgers announced in a post on social media over the weekend Coldplay would come to Camp Randall, exciting both local business owners and tourism leaders.
Spring in October. That’s what David Stevens, curator of the UW Arboretum’s Longenecker Horticultural Gardens, is calling the unusual fall blooming of local lilacs that’s drawing crowds to see and smell the typically spring-blooming flowers.
The researchers, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimated the net value of wind and solar based on a combination of off-reservation leases paid to landowners and taxes received by local governments. They predict that tribes and their members could earn about the same either by leasing the right to wind and sun to an outside developer or by developing themselves.
Combat Blindness International was founded by a Madison-based ophthalmologist and University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus professor Suresh Chandra.
Executive Director Reena Chandra, Suresh Chandra’s daughter, said her father’s “aha” moment was on a medical trip to India, where roughly 50 patients received cataract surgery in the same time it took Suresh to perform one particularly difficult eye surgery on another patient.
Black student enrollment at the state’s flagship university has never surpassed 3 percent of the student body, according to data from the Universities of Wisconsin. In 2023, 1,327 students out of 50,335 identified as Black, about 2.6 percent.
This year, the percentage of underrepresented students of color in the freshman class dropped by 3.7 percentage points from last year to 14.3 percent, according to UW-Madison data.
A local two day event celebrating all things food and the industry is coming to Garver Feed Mill. The University of Wisconsin’s “Food Finance Institute” presents the “Food Finance Forum & Expo” on Wednesday, September 25 and Thursday, September 26.
These historic injustices continue to fuel distrust among Indigenous peoples toward Western institutions.
As a result, University of Wisconsin health officials were pleased when the leadership of one tribal community in northern Wisconsin recently agreed to meet about the possibility of signing up tribal members for clinical health trials. The entire tribal council for the Sokaogon Mole Lake Ojibwe Nation visited with health professionals at UW-Madison Sept. 11 and 12 to help build a cooperative relationship between the tribe and the UW Health system.
The doors didn’t always work as they should. There were delays, some riders struggled to understand the new fare system, and more than one bus ended up being towed.
The town hall meeting featured a panel discussion with two faculty members from the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison who focus on climate change and health care policy, Morgan Edwards and Yang Wang, and Laura Olson, chief business development officer at Eneration, a subsidiary of Gundersen Health System that helps health care companies reduce their energy costs.
While districtwide enrollment is expected to remain flat this fall, projections from the UW-Madison Applied Population Laboratory indicate the student population is likely to continue trending downward for at least the next five years.
For more than a decade, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension has been offering the opportunity for people to become Master Naturalists by attending expert-led training sessions and volunteering their time to conservation efforts. Altogether, Master Naturalists volunteer over 25,000 hours of service each year to over 700 organizations across the state.
Two student housing developers — Core Spaces of Chicago and Mortenson Development of Minneapolis — have made agreements with the city and UW-Madison that let them offer lower rents to qualifying students at certain projects in exchange for added stories, Verveer said.
In 2020, UW-Madison and the Madison Metropolitan School District created a task force to study effective ways to teach literacy. Around that time, test scores showed about 80% of the school district’s students were failing to read proficiently.
Beverly Trezek, a UW-Madison professor who specializes in reading, said university administrators used the research to adjust courses. They added more instruction on topics like spelling and writing, and added opportunities for prospective special education teachers to teach reading in schools, she said.
For 50 years ending in 2019, Mike Leckrone directed the UW Marching Band. In his new memoir, co-authored by Doug Moe, Leckrone recalls the creation of the Fifth Quarter celebration that now follows every home football game, and where he got his penchant for sequins and spectacle.
A scientific survey of nearly 4,000 Wisconsin residents by the UW Survey Center helped identify the top issues heading into the fall election. Throughout the year, we’ve been publishing opinion pieces from faculty at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison, our partner in the Main Street Agenda, exploring the public policy behind those issues.
“Tension would probably be an understatement,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison junior Reuben Berkowitz of Milwaukee.
Berkowitz said his family, who raised him to understand the shared importance of Israeli and Palestinian safety, have supported him as he explored his relationship with Zionism, and chose to participate last spring in UW-Madison’s encampment. His father, Joel, is the director of UW-Milwaukee’s Jewish Studies program.
The commission signed off on additions to UW Health’s East Madison Hospital and the Rohr Chabad House at the University of Wisconsin, as well as new housing aimed at youth at risk of homelessness.
“We try not to romanticize our culture, but we are unapologetically Indigenous,” said Jennings, who is close to finishing the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. “There are a lot of statistics about our communities and a lot of negative statistics. Our goal is to showcase and highlight the good things in our communities — the good people, those traditional values our communities still rest upon.”
Alliant Energy and the University of Wisconsin-Madison also partnered on an argivoltaics research site near Stoughton, which will feature a small-scale solar site that will produce enough clean energy to power over 450 homes.
Madison’s two major art museums — the Chazen Museum of Art on the UW-Madison campus and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art on State Street — have joined forces with 14 other institutions statewide in hopes you’ll hit the road this fall and visit their galleries along the way.
The Main Street Agenda is here to help you navigate these times. It is an election-year project designed to provide information and civil conversations about the issues Wisconsin voters care most about. The topics come from a UW Survey Center survey, WisconSays, that asked residents about the top issues they face.
At its Aug. 26 meeting, the commission also reviewed a new study on student housing in Madison, which surveyed 46,000 undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and found many students struggle to afford rents.
UW-Madison has among the highest rents of any Big Ten university, according to a study released on Aug. 26. The study’s release is welcomed by a group of developers, alders and university officials recently formed to tackle Madison’s student housing problem.
Among the 18 schools in the Big 10 conference, only Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois ($1,482) and New Jersey’s Rutgers University ($1,353) had higher average per-bedroom rents for off-campus housing, according to the study.
The study confirmed what is largely already known through reams of anecdotal evidence: Nearly 70% of rentals are too expensive, costing individual students $1,000 or more in rent each month per student, often hundreds of dollars above what the students consider affordable; the cheapest apartments are often furthest from campus and more run down; and UW-Madison is one of the most expensive off-campus housing markets in the Big 10 conference.
Parking lots near residence halls are used as unloading zones, but other streets will be blocked off to allow students and their families to safely haul their stuff in.
The crash is the third in which a bicyclist has been injured at the crossing in the 600 block of West Washington Avenue in the last month, according to data compiled by the UW-Madison’s Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory. The others occurred on July 29 and Aug. 11.
Citizen scientists are hobbyists and passionate amateurs, and data they generate is as valuable as anything produced by professional scientists. UW-Madison Arboretum Citizen Science Coordinator, Annie Isenbarger, described citizen science as a way of “deepening the average person’s connection with the natural world.”
The second phase, which began in March, involved cleaning, painting and applying decorative gold leaf, and repairing and replacing glass beads and tiles that add to the elegance of the pavilion. The project is being funded by UW-Madison, which was gifted the pavilion more than 20 years ago.
This spring, UW-Madison diverted over 162,000 pounds of material from the landfill as students moved out of residence halls, including 7,515 pounds of futons and nearly 4,000 pounds of food.
To do this, the university recruits hundreds of student and staff volunteers and collaborates with various departments and community organizations, according to Malorie Garbe, sustainability coordinator for University Housing. Nonperishable food was donated to The River Food Pantry, Goodman Community Center and the on-campus Open Seat food pantry. Sergenian’s Floor Coverings and Reynolds Urethane Recycling took carpet and mattress toppers, Garbe said.
In 2021, the Tribal Elder Food Box program began in response to a shortage of food for Native elders, said Carolee Dodge Francis, who chairs the department of civil society community studies in the school of human ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This year’s camp, known as the Leadership Training Institute, took place at the end of July at a residence hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A Journal Sentinel reporter visited midway through the camp to experience the safe space firsthand.
Talks are underway with the Ho-Chunk Nation to schedule the official flag-raising.
“I’m sure the Indigenous student groups from UW-Madison will be a big part of the ceremony as they were a big part of helping me shape these inclusive measures,” Rose said.
Bryan Johnson, the city’s recycling coordinator, said crews will be out every morning starting at 6:30 a.m until Aug. 23. He emphasized that if students are able to donate or resale items to do so.
After nearly forty years of serving southern Wisconsin, UW Health’s MedFlight has expanded its services by creating a third satellite base in Janesville.
In addition to the cost of a monthly internet subscription, other barriers exist for households that have the internet infrastructure but don’t connect. Task force member Gail Huycke said barriers include a lack of digital literacy, not knowing how to use the technology, poor reliability and fear.
Huycke is a professor of practice and broadband specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Division of Extension. As part of the Connected Aging Communities initiative, she worked with seniors on using the internet and found people over age 65 are the most likely to be disconnected.
A new housing complex near UW-Madison is ready for students to move in later this month.
Madison is one of the most populous areas of the country where the local transit agency is run entirely by a city, according to Chris McCahill, managing director of the State Smart Transportation Initiative housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Madison Metro is not necessarily in a sustainable position, especially as we face population growth,” McCahill said. “But that is true of all major transit agencies across the country.”
Most leases expire around Aug. 15, and the move-in-move-out period affects communities beyond the downtown area. The city estimates nearly 35,000 UW students live in the neighborhoods on campus. Every year, the moving period generates over 1 million pounds of garbage that crews work to collect, large items requiring the most effort.
A new sculpture on the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds was unveiled Saturday afternoon, honoring Vel Phillips, a trailblazer for civil rights in Wisconsin, and the state’s first Black Secretary of State.
There is a limited number of weather reporting stations in Wisconsin, leaving some areas like New Berlin in data gaps.
A new weather station network run by University of Wisconsin-Madison is hoping to change that. It is called WiscoNet and New Berlin just got one of the newest weather stations.
After years of effort, Saturday will mark history for Wisconsin as the first statue commemorating a Black leader will be unveiled on the Capitol grounds in Madison.
Phillips holds significance in Wisconsin as a trailblazing Black woman who had a lasting impact on the state’s legal and political history.
Barbara Bowers, a long-term care researcher and professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, said she is “astounded” by the medical complexity of the people in assisted living today.
“They look a lot like, 10 years ago, the people in nursing homes,” she said.
A partnership led by the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition and the University of Wisconsin-Madison received $10 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agricultural Systems program earlier this summer.
The project involves community partners, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison and several multicultural groups. According to Gabriel Siaz, the city of Madison sustainability programs coordinator, the sensors will be part of one of the nation’s most significant metropolitan air quality data collection projects.
After developer LZ Ventures of Madison completes the new Porchlight building, it plans to demolish Porchlight’s existing facility at 306 N. Brooks St., near UW-Madison, and replace it with a 15-story, 189-unit student housing project.
The UW-Madison and Memorial Union are listed.
Members of the Wisconsin football team made a stop at the Salvation Army of Dane County’s day camp.
Team members played games with the kids. Cornerback Amare Snowden says the goal is to give back to the greater Madison community.
The Badgers will open their 2024 season on Friday, August 30 when they take on Western Michigan at Camp Randall.
“If anything, we’re gaining from undocumented immigrants,” said Karen Holden, a UW-Madison professor emerita of public affairs and consumer science who focuses on Social Security.
“It opens up a whole new world of possibilities,” said Kate Walsh, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and part of a team assessing the effectiveness of the statewide pilot project.
The UW-Madison team is gathering survey data from 68 housing recipients across the program’s nine pilot sites. More than half of the participants across the nine sites reported a reduction in exposure to domestic violence and higher satisfaction with their living situations, according to preliminary findings.
Tickets are on sale now for the Celebrity Softball Slam, pitting long-time rivals Marquette University and University of Wisconsin-Madison against each other.
Celebrity players include Brian Butch, Travis Diener, Chucky Hepburn, Steve Novak, new Badgers football player Darrion Dupree, Marquette soccer player Molly Keiper, and Oconomowoc native, UW Softball player Molly Schlosser.
Whether a church is involved in the broader community is a predictor of its success, said Steven Deller, a professor of applied economics and an expert in rural economic development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Congregations that are internally focused and closed off to new ideas and newcomers are “going to struggle,” Deller said.
“Is this the kind of community that the common response is, ‘Well, you’re not from here, so you don’t understand?'” Deller said. “That kind of attitude can be the kiss of death.”
Terrace Art Zone: Easy, free craft sessions for all ages are held on the UW Memorial Union Terrace, 800 Langdon St., from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays through Aug. 17.
Born Velvalea Hortense Rodgers in Milwaukee in 1923, the influential public figure was ahead of her time.
She received a scholarship to attend Howard University, in Washington D.C., where she obtained her bachelor’s degree. Phillips continued her studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School and was the first African-American woman to graduate there. She and her husband then opened a Milwaukee law firm.
Decades earlier, Whitehorse began mentoring Gene Delcourt, then a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on his wood sculpting craft. He encouraged Delcourt, who is Abenaki and Filipino, to attend symposiums in Europe dedicated to the art form. Each time Delcourt returned from a symposium, he thought, “I’d really love to put one of these on.”
A good schedule is on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion website.
New federal funding will help place more OBGYNs in training in Wisconsin’s rural communities.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health will receive a $750,000 grant over the next three years to expand their rural OBGYN residency track.
