Knowing basic math is crucial to set up students for success later in life, according to Lisa Hennessey, a UW-Madison educator helping to organize the tutoring program. Research shows understanding the subject in middle school prepares students for more advanced math in high school and ultimately leads to higher-paying jobs in adulthood.
Category: Community
Milwaukee immigration advocates stress need to know rights as first Trump orders roll out
Meanwhile, about five to 10 University of Wisconsin law students are preparing for a visit to the Dodge County Detention Facility, where people facing deportation are detained. Erin Barbato, director of the UW Immigrant Justice Clinic, said the goal is to be thoughtful in the information they share with clients about the Trump orders.
Here’s how the Madison area will be celebrating Martin Luther King Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Community Dinner: The MLK Jr. Coalition hosts this annual event and buffet dinner, 4:30 to 7 p.m. Friday at UW Gordon Dining and Event Center, 770 W. Dayton St. Meet neighbors, share in the spirit of Dr. King and hear music from WYSO Music Makers at 6:15 p.m.
MLK Symposium 2025: Donzaleigh Abernathy, the youngest daughter of Civil Rights Movement co-founder Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy and goddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., is the featured speaker in this special event honoring King’s legacy, 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, in Shannon Hall, Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St. Hosted by the UW-Madison Student Affairs and the Division of Diversity, Equity and Educational Achievement.
New student living set to open fall of 2026 by UW-Madison breaks ground
What sets this apartment complex from others, you may ask? For example, a podcast room and expansive rooftop decks are two additional amenities that will be featured.
List of new names for Southside Elementary narrows to 4
Ada Deer was a decades-long champion of Native American rights, Deer was the first Native American woman from Wisconsin to run for Congress. She was also the first Menominee citizen to graduate from UW-Madison and led the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Deer died in 2023.
As homelessness rises in Dane County, housing services are limited
Founded in 2021, the Eviction Diversion and Defense Partnership is intended to prevent evictions through court navigation, landlord mediation, rental assistance and no-cost legal representation for tenants, according to Hannah Renfro, executive director of the Tenant Resource Center. The partnership is run through the center in collaboration with nonprofit law firms Community Justice Inc. and Legal Action of Wisconsin, as well as UW-Madison’s law school.
How Madison’s economy could change in 2025
The nearly 150,000-square-foot Element Labs opened at University Research Park in March 2024, with space for up to 20 bioscience companies. A similar-size project, called Velocity Station, is slated to replace the former Clock Tower office park at 6411 Odana Road, but no timeline has been announced.
He dropped out of UW in 1999. A new program covering college costs for Native students brought him back
Schuyler, who is an enrolled Oneida Nation citizen, earned a scholarship to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1990s. He dropped out when he was 21 credits short of earning his bachelor’s degree.
The radio broadcast described a new UW-Madison program launching in fall 2024.It would cover not only tuition but room and board, books and other expenses, to enrolled members of Wisconsin Native American tribes.
“That was my sign,” Schuyler said.
New mentorship program to support Indigenous graduate students at UW–Madison
A new program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is aimed at supporting Indigenous graduate students through the hoops and hurdles of academia.
Coyotes, red foxes ‘coexist peacefully’ in Madison, researchers say
David Drake leads the Urban Canid Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since 2014, researchers with the project have studied where coyotes and red foxes live in the Madison area, when they are active and how they interact with each other, in addition to humans and pets. University students help Drake set up traps around the city from November to March, so they can put radio collars on animals and track them.
“We’ve gotten some really good data,” said Drake, a professor and Extension wildlife specialist at UW-Madison’s Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology.
Abundant Life school shooting prompts calls for support, action
One resource people can turn to for their own healing is the Healthy Minds Program, Davidson said. The free, evidence-based app was created by Healthy Minds Innovation, a nonprofit affiliated with UW-Madison’s center.
Madison school shooter was 15-year-old girl, police say
Fifteen ambulances responded to the shooting. Four victims were transported to St. Mary’s and three to University of Wisconsin-Madison hospitals, Madison Fire Chief Chris Carbon said.
Officers from the Madison Police Department, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department, Wisconsin State Patrol and Dane County Sheriff’s Department were on site. Barnes said he also had been in contact with the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
UW-Madison Pharmacy School joins new efforts to stop overdose deaths
A new University of Wisconsin project aims to train pharmacists on responding to overdose deaths that, despite recent declines, continue to be seen as a public health issue in Wisconsin.
Big changes are coming to West Mifflin Street, Madison’s best-known student neighborhood
Miffland, as the neighborhood around West Mifflin Street is known, doesn’t look all that different from a half-century ago. Many of the single-family and multifamily houses with distinctive porches, balconies and yards that were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s are still there — and are still sought after by students. But now the way the neighborhood looks is changing, too.
10-story student apartment building would go between 2 Downtown landmarks
The 10-story apartment building that Trinitas Ventures of Lafayette, Indiana, plans to build at 619 and 699 W. Mifflin St. would add hundreds of student beds near the UW-Madison campus, where housing is in high demand.
These disability doulas are helping people navigate life more comfortably
When I ask Sami Schalk, associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Black Disability Politics,” how disabled people should prepare for the next Trump term, she says, “The state is going to abandon disabled people more than ever. Informal networks of care and support are the only way we survive.”
What to know about Madison’s plan to charge for parking at some parks
Only preliminary possibilities have been floated so far. One idea is to charge for parking at Vilas Park during home UW football games.
Learn more about ‘American Indians and the American Dream’ with this ‘University Place’ Q&A and episode
In this episode of University Place Presents, host Norman Gilliland and his guest Kasey Keeler, assistant professor of American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discuss the topic, American Indians and the American Dream, which she explores in her book of the same title.
Almost everything around Camp Randall is a parking space for Wisconsin football games
The money that property owners and managers get from packing in cars can add up fast. On South Randall Avenue near the intersection with Regent Street, a landlord had about 35 spaces going for $40 apiece. Some were reserved for friends and one was for the owner’s tailgate party, but it’s still roughly $1,200 of income per game day that goes into the bank account.
Historic Mifflin Street house should be moved, other buildings can be razed, Plan Commission says
Madison Development Corp., a local nonprofit that develops and manages workforce housing, is proposing a four-story, 40-unit apartment building at 423–427 W. Mifflin St. near the UW-Madison campus.
UW survey made correct call on all three Madison referenda
A University of Wisconsin Survey Center poll conducted in the weeks before the Nov. 5 election correctly projected the outcomes of a city of Madison referendum and two Madison school district ballot measures — from the narrowest margin of victory to the widest.
Proposed Madison charter school would train for ‘high-demand’ careers
The Universities of Wisconsin’s Office of Educational Opportunity is also evaluating the Forward Academy’s charter application, McKenzie said. Organizers plan to begin holding community engagement sessions for the school in December.
Madison police say residents should take caution around coyotes
The University of Wisconsin Canid Project, which studies coyotes and red foxes in the area, has also fielded calls about the coyote. In a post on the Project’s Facebook page Thursday, officials said they believe there are two coyotes roaming the West Side: The one with the leg injury and another with an unknown illness. Recent reports with the Project suggest that the animal with the leg injury might be moving better.
Opinion: Wisconsin legislators lay out priorities. Here’s what to know from leaders of both parties.
Written by Susan Webb Yackee, a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.
It’s official: 20 years of construction on University Avenue is finally over
More than two decades of construction on the Near West Side’s main thoroughfare has finally wrapped up, a process that’s certainly added to commutes but is leaving the area better protected from intense flooding.
Pursuit Unlimited: Odyssey Beyond Wars program helps veterans make the leap into higher education
For many veterans, higher education can seem out of reach. However, a special program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is helping change that narrative.
Volleyball popularity spikes among Madison teens after Badgers success
With increased visibility of women’s volleyball and the success of the University of Wisconsin-Madison women’s volleyball team, the sport has flourished among girls too, said Franco Marcos. He anticipates Madison’s new professional women’s volleyball team, which launches in January, will continue to bolster the popularity.
Should UW-Madison light, pave Lakeshore Path? University wants input
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is, once again, considering whether to light and pave a portion of the Howard Temin Lakeshore Path along Lake Mendota.
UW-Madison community celebrates 114th Homecoming Parade
Hundreds of UW-Madison students, alumni and Madison community members flocked to campus to watch the 114th UW Homecoming Parade on Oct. 25.
UW-Madison nets more than $511,000 in annual flamingo fundraiser
A sea of pink flooded Bascom Hill Friday as Badger donors brought in nearly $511,877 during the annual fundraiser paying homage to one of UW-Madison’s most memorable pranks.
UW journalist in residence sees a shift underway in Wisconsin’s traditional political strongholds
POLITICO columnist Jonathan Martin talks about the challenges of covering Trump, why bipartisanship could be the winning move for Harris
Madison hosts seventh annual Science on the Square fest
Hands-on science stations lined the street, one belonging to a group working in Song Jin’s Lab at the UW Department of Chemistry.
Madison’s Spanish-speaking radio station gives ‘a way of life’ to the Latino community
“Community radio plays a really important role in creating the range of voices … from minority communities who wouldn’t have any voice in mass media at all otherwise,” said Lewis Friedland, an emeritus professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Clinical psychologist, researcher holds event to shed light on issues fathers face
A researcher and clinical psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has made it his mission to focus on the challenges fathers face and rebuke stereotypes around Black fathers. Event co-chair Alvin Thomas told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that it is important to discuss and address the problems fathers face.
“We know that if the parent relationship is not a very strong one or not a very healthy one, that more likely than not, the attachment between the child and the father is going to be compromised,” Thomas said. “Which of course will lead to potential negative outcomes for the child, but also for the dad.”
Journal Sentinel’s Main Street Agenda town hall meeting discusses inflation. Here’s what we learned.
Yes, inflation has gone down, says Menzie Chinn, a UW-Madison economics and public affairs professor. But there’s a catch. He said that, though the rate of prices going up has slowed, it doesn’t mean prices are coming down. “Prices are flattening out,” Chinn said. “They are not going up as fast as they were, but they are still going up.”
J. Michael Collins, UW-Madison professor at La Follette School of Public Affairs and School of Human Ecology, said inflation hits people differently across the state, with one in four saying they’ve had trouble meeting expenses, especially rent, which can be a third to half of a person’s income.
Greetings! Madison Public Market art projects take shape
Some art projects are still in the works, Wolf said, like a collaboration with UW-Madison Design Studies teaching professor Monika Thadhani and her class to make an engaging “food culture” wall of historic images.
The Main Street Agenda project uncovers top issues among Wisconsin residents
The Main Street Agenda is a project done in partnership between the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. La Follette Director Susan Yackee told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” the project aims to get people from different political backgrounds talking with one another.
“We need to be able to talk to each other to get to the mission of the La Follette School, which is evidence-based policymaking,” she said. “That oftentimes takes political compromise and we just can’t get to political compromise if people aren’t talking to each other anymore.”
Watch our Main Street Agenda town hall meeting on inflation
The Journal Sentinel partnered with the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wisconsin Public Radio on the Main Street Agenda, a 2024 election project designed to focus on the issues Wisconsin voters care about most. Panelists included Menzie Chinn, professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs and Department of Economics at UW-Madison, and . J. Michael Collins, professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs and School of Human Ecology at UW-Madison.
Jane Rotonda and Jessica Calarco preview the 2024 Wisconsin Book Festival
Interview with Jessica Calarco, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
School lunches could be a learning experience for students
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.
Madison schools’ $507M facilities referendum a ‘bet on the long game’
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.
Study: Over 50% of returned tests in Wisconsin Indigenous community had high levels of radon
“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.
Camp Randall Coldplay concert excites business owners, tourism officials
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.
It’s October and lilacs are blooming in the Arboretum
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.
Many Native Americans struggle with poverty. Easing energy regulations could help.
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.
Wisconsin-based nonprofit Combat Blindness International turns 40
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.
Students, faculty say being Black at UW-Madison isn’t easy
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.
UW’s Food and Finance Institute is celebrating local food
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.
Overcoming distrust of West, one tribe in Wisconsin is partnering with UW for health care
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.
Malfunctioning doors aside, Madison’s BRT debut ‘smoother than expected’
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.
Voter frustration fueled by lack of policy details on issues like health care, climate
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.
You have questions about Madison’s school referendums. Here are some answers.
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.
Wisconsin Master Naturalists, Ho-Chunk Nation to host ‘Caring for Grandmother Earth’ volunteer summit
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.
Madison City Council expands affordable housing incentive with aim to help students
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.
Wisconsin students failing reading exams, and so are future teachers
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.
How to increase our cybersecurity, and former UW Band leader releases memoir
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.
Higher prices are burden for Wisconsin families. Senate candidates outline their remedies.
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.
What does it mean to be Jewish? Age, upbringing influence response to Israel’s war in Gaza
“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.
Hospital, Chabad expansions, youth-oriented housing get Plan Commission green light
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.
Wisconsin’s Bizhiki spotlights powwow music and Ojibwe culture, with Justin Vernon’s help
“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.”