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Category: Community

Stoneman’s got Badger spirit

The Mcfarland Thistle

Competitive dancing was not part of Hayley Stoneman’s college plan. Sure, the 2016 McFarland High School graduate had been dancing competitively since the age of 10, but she figured once she started at UW-Madison, she’d hang up her dance shoes.

Bright Ideas 2017: Make it easier to buy a Madison flag

Capital Times

UW-Madison social media specialist Nate Moll: The UW and the city go hand in hand for me: you can’t have one without the other. At UW-Madison, I strive to build affinity and establish a digital sense of place through the voice and tone I carry online and through visual media. Two of the things that allow me to do that are Bucky and the Terrace chairs.

New program offering Madison heroin addicts treatment over jail on track for spring start

Wisconsin State Journal

The money from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Smart Policing Initiative will pay for a community-wide program in Madison, involving not just police but treatment providers, UW-Madison researchers — to measure and analyze the program’s effectiveness — public health officials, Dane County Human Services, the nonprofit organization Safe Communities Madison-Dane County and other partners. The grant also will buy about $21,000 worth of the overdose antidote Narcan, now provided to police by pharmaceutical company donations.

2016 is nearly in the books

Monona/Cottage Grove Herald-Independent

Noted: A new University of Wisconsin-Madison initiative to help boost urban sustainability in Wisconsin landed its first partner: the city of Monona.

Bright Ideas 2017: Understanding through debate

Capital Times

Jordan Foley and CV Vitolo-Haddad of the UW-Madison debate team: As the director and assistant director of debate at UW-Madison, we have big ideas for 2017: To solidify and build UW-Madison’s competitive program, reinforce high school debate participation and enhance inter-community political discourse through public debates.

Walker’s Point Center for the Arts announces new director

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Garcia grew up on Milwaukee’s south side and attended WPCA’s youth arts programming. She is an alumna of Milwaukee Public Schools. Before joining WPCA, Garcia served as a program director at Partners Advancing Values in Education. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in English.

Assisted living providers work together to reduce falls, drug errors

Wisconsin State Journal

Oakwood took the actions to reduce falls as part of its participation in the Wisconsin Coalition for Collaborative Excellence in Assisted Living. The coalition, formed in 2009 by the state, UW-Madison and Wisconsin’s four assisted living associations, is designed to help facilities in good standing with the state improve their quality of care, while state inspectors focus more on troubled facilities.

Amazon pickup point a divisive issue for UW

WISC-TV 3

When the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents approved a five-year contract in August to allow online retail giant Amazon to put a package pickup point on the UW–Madison campus, among the deciding factors were convenience and the minimum of $100,000 per year in commissions the deal would bring to the university. Under the plan, packages with campus ZIP codes would be dropped off at a single pickup site, which is expected to open by spring 2017.

Deserving families go on shopping spree

NBC-15

The holidays are just around the corner and for some families, gift giving may not be possible.That’s why Nigel Hayes, UW-Madison student athlete and the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County teamed up to help local families by taking them on a shopping spree. Life hasn’t been exactly easy for the Schultz and Keaton families.

Battling buckthorn

Isthmus

There’s not a lot to like about the stout, spiked branches of the aggressively invasive buckthorn tree. “Buckthorn is spreading actively across the landscape, facilitated by birds eating the berries and spreading seeds,” says Mark Renz, assistant professor of agronomy at UW-Madison and a UW-Extension weed specialist. “The way it is changing the forest understory is really an epidemic in the upper Midwest.”

For the Record: Responding to racism

WISC-TV 3

Noted: Neil Heinenis joined by Gloria Ladson-Billings, the Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Rev. Alex Gee, a pastor at Madison’s Fountain of Life Covenant Church and founder of the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership and a part of the Justified Anger Coalition.

Wollersheim donates $25,000

Sauk Prairie Eagle

Wollersheim Winery owners Philippe and Julie Coquard presented a $25,057.60 donation to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Fermentation Sciences program at an event held at the winery Oct. 12. The donation represents the grapes, production, and all proceeds from the sale of Red Fusion wine, collaboration between UW, Wollersheim, and other wine and grape industry partners, to provide an educational experience for students exploring interests in viticulture, enology, and the fermentation process.

Halloween in Madison

WTMJ-AM, Milwaukee

Since the first gathering in 1977, Halloween in Madison has meant partying on State Street. Jay Messar graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009. “It’s a night to basically be anybody who you want to be.”

‘Passing the Mic’ celebrates hip hop in Madison

WISC-TV 3

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives will host its annual Passing the Mic event this weekend that will celebrate the transformational potential of hip hop arts in the Madison community and on the UW-Madison campus. This is the 12th annual Passing the Mic event, which is one of the truly diverse, multicultural events that the city of Madison will see.

The M List 2016: Emily Auerbach

Madison Magazine

It’s difficult for adults who live at or below the poverty level to attend college. That’s something Emily Auerbach wants to change. Auerbach, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, serves as the director of the Odyssey Project, which provides a free college course for adults who are overcoming adversity. That one course, she says, followed up with practical help toward completing a college education, has transformed many lives. “We have students who have gone from being homeless to having UW master’s degrees, who were incarcerated and are now working in the community,” she says.

The M List 2016: Richard Davidson

Madison Magazine

Richard Davidson and his team want to help create a kinder, wiser and more compassionate world. And it all started in 1992 when Davidson met the Dalai Lama. Davidson, founder of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, focuses his research on why some people are more vulnerable to life’s challenges than others. The Dalai Lama suggested shifting away from studying things like anxiety and depression to studying kindness and compassion.

The M List 2016: Patty Loew

Madison Magazine

When a storm caused flooding, electrical outages and washed out roads in northern Wisconsin in July, Patty Loew showed her students how journalists pivot quickly to cover breaking news. Loew, a professor in the department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, was teaching at her annual summer program on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe reservation when the devastating storm hit.