Quoted: When talking about the sense of community with alumni, Chong Moua, the UW humanities fellow behind the study, says people recall positive experiences with race equity efforts. “They were really young when they went through some of these programs, but now that they’ve had some time to look back, that’s really what they really remember,” says Moua. “[Those] things make for really powerful language, that you can talk about impact and give us a way to talk about evaluation.”
Category: Community
Crazylegs Classic kicks off running season
When, as they have in recent years, 15,000 or more people show up Downtown for the annual Crazylegs Classic, they stand (then move forward en masse) as representatives of the unofficial start of the running season in the Madison area.
Price of policing Madison’s Mifflin Street bash declined in recent years
Since a violent 2011 block party on Mifflin Street spurred Madison officials to crack down on the unsanctioned event, police costs have declined.
UW-Madison Day of Service Food Drive
As part of the UW-Madison’s campus wide Day of Service, the first ever UW student food pantry, Open Seat, collected donations in exchange for herb and vegetable plants.
If students donated a non-perishable food item or a hygiene product to the pantry, they were given a basil or lettuce plant to take home and grow.
College students deliver ‘Highlights’ to elementary school for service day
Video: University of Wisconsin-Madison and Edgewood College students partnered with the nonprofit magazine “Literacy” to deliver more than 600 copies of “Highlights” magazine to Midvale Elementary School Wednesday.
Annual Hmong Heritage dinner Friday
Noted: Friday’s event will include a lecture about the progression of the Hmong people over the last 40 years from Yang Sao Xiong, an assistant professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, who specialized in Asian American studies, as well as a special performance with a traditional Hmong instrument.
Urban League’s Emerge Gala grows as event recognizing young Madison talent
Noted: Best of all, this event is not about selling tickets: Saturday’s Gala is sold out. Rather it’s to acknowledge the generous gifts of funds raised to the UW’s Information Technology Academy, and the supportive collaboration of Quarles and Brady and the Urban League in making Madison truly inclusive.
Wisconsin Microfinance program offers hope amid devastation
Noted: Soon after that, with support from fellow students and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Polynice created an initiative that still is helping families become self-sufficient in Haiti more than six years later.
Mike Leckrone defines leadership
UW-Madison marching band director Mike Leckrone said he’s often compared to a coach. It’s a parallel he agrees with.
State official impressed with Reach Out & Read
Professor Dipesh Navsaria of UW-Madison is the state medical director for the program. He says there’s more to it for doctors and nurses than just handing over books. He says they have to give advice to parents, on how to interact with their kids in a loving and nurturing way.
Madison police increase forces for Mifflin St. Block Party
Since 1969, students have taken to the streets for the biggest block party of the year. This year, police have a plan to keep everyone safe this year on Mifflin Street.
Madison Police Chief calling for end to Mifflin Street Block Party
Madison’s police chief says he wants the annual Mifflin Street Block Party to be a thing of the past.
Madison community leaders share ideas and criticism during UW-Madison racial climate meeting
UW-Madison leaders met with community members Monday night at the Urban League of Greater Madison on Park Street. The goal of this community Q&A session was to address recent hate and bias incidents at UW-Madison and to also come up with ways to improve the racial climate on campus.
Community, UW campus leaders meet to discuss racial climate
University of Wisconsin-Madison campus leaders responded to community concerns at a forum Monday night following incidents of racial discrimination culminating in campus protests over the past few months.
Madison police chief worries this Mifflin bash will be a bad one
Despite a recent stretch of toned-down, relatively tame celebrations, Madison Police Chief Mike Koval is worried that this year’s Mifflin Street block party on Saturday may be a bad one, and increased police presence is planned as alternative programming put on by UW-Madison to divert attention from the spring party shrinks.
Is debate over a south side MATC campus another example of ‘two Madisons’ theme?
The concept of “two Madisons” separated by race and class divisions that has shadowed civic discourse in recent years now has entered the debate around whether Madison Area Technical College should close its downtown facility and expand in south Madison.
Madison police chief: ‘No more Mifflin’
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval said this year’s Mifflin Street Block Party will likely see an increase in police presence, coinciding with a scaled back music festival sponsored by the Wisconsin Union. Koval said the police department will continue efforts to downsize and eventually eliminate the event, saying the unsanctioned block party has “all the earmarks of a very real public safety concern.”
Think big about future of State Street
City officials should seriously consider creating a pedestrian mall the entire length of State Street, from the UW-Madison campus to the Capitol Square.
Madison police chief worries this Mifflin bash will be a bad one
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval is worried that this year’s Mifflin Street block party may be a bad one.
Boys and Girls Club hires former Badger basketball coach
Bobbie Kelsey-Grayson, the former UW Madison women’s basketball coach, will join Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County as the interim vice president of corporate and wellness programs, the organization said.
Innovative collaborations for equity; UW and the community
UW leaders have initiated a community conversation on the recent stories of racial climate challenges on campus. We take this as a serious effort by the UW to learn and understand and commit to demonstrable change. It’s an open invitation to the community to discuss campus climate Monday from 6 to 8 at the Urban League. We look forward to the dialogue.
Former Badgers women’s basketball coach Bobbie Kelsey-Grayson joins Boys & Girls Club of Dane County
Bobbie Kelsey-Grayson, fired from her position as University of Wisconsin women’s basketball coach last month, is staying in Madison and joining the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County.
Boys and Girls Club of Dane County hires former UW-Madison women’s basketball coach Bobbie Kelsey
Former University of Wisconsin women’s basketball coach Bobbie Kelsey has been hired by the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County as the interim vice president of corporate and wellness programs and will start May 9. A press release from the organization said Kelsey will help fundraising efforts and aid partnerships to support its programs. She will help the organization in its relationships with the UW athletic department, the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Bucks.
UW-Madison alumni call out chancellor, chief for response to racially charged campus incidents
Kaleem Caire wrote an open letter with his wife, Lisa Peyton-Caire, both of whom are alumni of UW-Madison; Caire is the former head of the Urban League of Greater Madison. They said they’ve watched with growing concern the response of campus leaders to racially charged incidents and believe the incidents should be handled much differently.
Top Docs: Dr. Patricia Téllez-Girón awarded for service to community
Dr. Patricia Téllez-Girón knows what having your world turned upside down feels like. When she moved to the U.S. after completing medical school in Mexico, she was an immigrant in a place where she couldn’t speak the language and had little money. “I was cleaning houses and caring for people and doing what all of my community has to do initially … I’ve seen discrimination and unfairness,” says Téllez-Girón, associate professor with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So I decided if I was able to have a position where I would be able to help others, I was going to do it.”
Madison Black Chamber of Commerce under new leadership
Noted: Another part of what the Madison Black Chamber of Commerce does is develops collaborative relationships that result in reaching organizations with rich resources and like-minded goals. Since 2004, they have collaborated with more than 25 Wisconsin businesses and agencies such as CDBG with the city of Madison, BMO Harris Bank, WARF, Summit Credit Union, Madison College, UW Small Business Administration and Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative (WBIC).
Top Docs: Dr. Patricia Téllez-Girón awarded for service to community
Dr. Patricia Téllez-Girón knows what having your world turned upside down feels like. When she moved to the U.S. after completing medical school in Mexico, she was an immigrant in a place where she couldn’t speak the language and had little money.
Keegan’s adventure
Noted: The students are part of nationwide group called Love Your Melon (LYM), an apparel brand run by college students across the country on a mission to give a hat to every child battling cancer in America. The organization reserved more than 45,000 hats to donate to children battling cancer in the United States. LYM college student ambassadors dress up as superheroes as part of a way to help children laugh and cope when visiting with them.
“I enjoy being Super-girl especially when I see faces like Keegan’s light up,” Anne Murphy, president of LYM at UW-Madison said.
Badgers athletes host event for pediatric cancer awareness
(Video) As part of the UW-Madison athletic department’s “Badgers Give Back” initiative, athletes hosted a special event Friday with patients from the American Family Children’s Hospital to raise awareness of pediatric cancer. The “Badgers Go Bald” event ended with haircuts for some players with a little extra help from special guests…
Badgers athletes host event for pediatric cancer awareness
Video: As part of the UW-Madison athletic department’s “Badgers Give Back” initiative, athletes hosted a special event Friday with patients from the American Family Children’s Hospital to raise awareness of pediatric cancer. The “Badgers Go Bald” event ended with haircuts for some players with a little extra help from special guests.
UW’s Allen Centennial Garden ready for its close-up
The garden — it is singular — at Babcock and Observatory Drives may be the most accessible classroom on campus, with the most diverse syllabus. Even on a recent chilly Sunday, the walkers in the 2.5 acres surrounding the vintage 1896 Agriculture Dean’s House ranged from an old man and his dog to curious children to students from the nearby Lakeshore dormitories.
Catching Up: Free clinic helps women with gynecological care
(The clinic) was started by Dr. Mary Landry, a UW School of Medicine and Public Health obstetrician-gynecologist who works at Meriter Hospital and UW-Madison’s University Health Services, and Dr. Katherine O’Rourke, an OB-GYN resident at UW.
Supporters of proposed South Side MATC campus tout benefit to neighborhood
Supporters of a Madison Area Technical College proposal to bring a new, comprehensive campus to the city’s South Side are hoping they can convince members of the college’s board, who punted on a similar plan last year, to vote in favor of a shift toward the diverse but historically under-served area.
MATC plan for South Side will help community — Isadore Knox Jr.
The MATC south campus would be very close to UW and Edgewood College in a developing residential, business and medical corridor. It would be located in neighborhoods where students, professional workers and families are thriving and is very accessible to transportation routes.
Former Madison heart surgeon finds life in teaching
A former Madison heart surgeon finds new life after retirement teaching medical students at the UW-Madison.
Doctor Louis Bernhardt worked as a heart surgeon in Madison, mainly at St. Mary’s hospital, from 1971 to 2004, when he retired.
Since then, he has been teaching courses at the UW-Madison medical school. It’s the same school he graduated from in 1963.
Higher ed leaders question need for MATC to leave Downtown campus
Jonathan Barry, who has served on the Wisconsin Technical College System board and the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents … has joined with former UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley in calling for the college to instead stay in the Downtown campus, make a smaller expansion on the South Side and more thoroughly study its space needs.
Bringing Bucky Home: New zoo exhibit will celebrate Wisconsin
“Bringing Bucky Home”. That’s the idea behind a joint effort between UW-Madison and Henry Vilas Zoo.
Wednesday zoo officials, Dane County officials and the UW head men’s basketball Coach Greg Gard came together to announce a new Wisconsin heritage exhibit.
Badgers to join Vilas zoo
The latest project at Dane County’s zoo will showcase the state animal. In a news conference, Henry Vilas Zoo representatives said Wednesday afternoon that its new exhibit will showcase the badger, which is also the mascot critter for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Boys to men: How mentoring programs for middle school boys get to the ‘soul of how things really work’
Noted: He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a football scholarship and graduated with a nonprofit leadership degree in 2014. He returned to Vera Court as a volunteer and helped expand Life as a Boy to include middle school boys before moving on to Kennedy Heights last June.
Fresh burrows await badgers at Vilas Zoo as a new exhibit is planned
Badgers, which have long been as synonymous with Wisconsin as cheese, will soon be burrowing into a new home at Vilas Zoo.Zoo, Dane County and UW-Madison officials announced plans Wednesday for a larger exhibit to house the zoo’s two current badgers, with a tentative goal of opening in time for the fall football season. Fundraising efforts are underway for the Wisconsin Heritage Exhibit, with $350,000 of the required $650,000 already collected.
Former chancellor Donna Shalala to address women’s summit at UW
Former UW-Madison chancellor Donna Shalala will be keynote speaker at a global summit for women at the university.
As Dane County Judge, Everett Mitchell pledges to work for the people
Supporters of newly elected Dane County Circuit Court Judge Everett Mitchell made a joyful noise Tuesday evening, joining with him as he called on them to renew their commitment to making Dane County a place where “everybody is somebody!” Mitchell, director of community relations for University of Wisconsin-Madison, pastor of Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church, community activist and former assistant Dane County District Attorney, ran unopposed. He spoke to a crowd of some 80 supporters at the Goodman Community Center, recalling how in a recent interview he was asked how it was going to feel “working for the man,” sitting on the bench in Dane County Circuit Court and meting out justice. “I’m not going to be working for the man. I am going to be working for the people,” Mitchell told the crowd.
Native Americans reflect on traditions, challenges at powwow
Noted: The event was organized in part by Wunk Sheek, a Native American student group on the UW-Madison campus. In March, the group made news after an incident of intolerance on campus, when students mocked a Ho-Chunk Elder, shouting stereotypical war cries during a Native American ceremony.
Diana Peterson, a UW-Madison grad student and Menominee Nation member, said incidents like this show the challenges Native Americans and other minority groups face from discrimination.
“It’s not just with the native peoples, but it’s representatives with other cultures as well,” Peterson said. “It’s frustrating sometimes to see these things on campus.”
Peterson said she hopes to work with UW staff to include more representation from all cultures.
Digging Deeper: How police departments handle extra workload during recent campaign visits
The presidential race has brought a lot of excitement and debate to Wisconsin this week, but for the law enforcement agencies charged with keeping everyone safe at these events, the visits have also created a lot of extra work.
Jonathan Barry, John Wiley call plan to sell downtown Madison College facility ill-conceived
Jonathan Barry, a former president of the Wisconsin Technical College System, and John Wiley, former chancellor of University of Wisconsin-Madison, met with MATC president Jack Daniels and raised concerns about the wisdom of selling the facility at 112 N. Carroll St.
Early voting or election day – Don’t forget your voter ID
Noted: McDonell said all poll workers have undergone training in the hopes of making the process as smooth as possible; however, some analysis done with the UW-Political Science Department found that taking an extra 10 to 15 seconds to check IDs could add a wait time of 40 to 50 minutes for those in line – especially after work.
Planned burn at Arboretum could cause smoke over Beltline on Tuesday
If the Beltline seems to be smoky on Tuesday, don’t call 911. The smoke is from a prescribed burn at the Arboretum.
Middleton-Cross Plains School District promotes from within for new superintendent
Noted: He earned his doctorate from UW-Madison in 2012. He also has a master’s degree in educational administration and bachelor’s degree in elementary education from UW-Madison.
East siders not feeling same support in city coyote issue
Noted: The UW Canid Project currently tracks and traps coyotes on the West Side but can’t do the same on the East Side. Last October, a community meeting was held after four dogs were killed on the east. At the meeting, hosted by the city of Madison and Dane County, the UW Canid Project said they could help by monitoring problem coyotes and then having them euthanized by the DNR, but that plan fell through.
“We are constantly struggling to fund our project,” said David Drake, a UW professor who heads the project.
Man tackling food insecurity on the south side
Noted: “We got a Baldwin Grant to do this and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies is helping us. It’s working out really well,” Pierce said. “We got a guy right now and we’ve been teaching him all about urban agriculture and we’re giving him a space at the farmer’s market to sell his stuff. We’re working with him. Trying to teach people how to grow their own food.”
Police respond to mental illness crisis
Noted: The relationship between city police and area social services agencies is hardly new. But there was a time “when if a police officer showed up at the mental health clinic, they were the enemy,” says Ronald Diamond, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of psychiatry and former medical director of Journey (then called the Mental Health Center of Dane County).
Story about farming in warmer climate wins writing contest
Noted: The “Our Waters, Our Future” contest was a collaboration of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Water Sustainability and Climate project and Center for Limnology, Madison Magazine, Sustain Dane, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.
4 Madison walking tours for the adventurous
Noted: Taking a page from Doors Open Milwaukee, our city is holding its own Doors Open Madison tour on April 24. Most site tours are self-guided and include several UW–Madison buildings—the Education Building, the Observatory and the Carillon Tower—plus other places like the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the YWCA and guided tours at the MGE cogeneration plant and Bascom Hill.
MPD officers could be in mindfulness study
A possible pilot study would investigate the effects of mindfulness training on Madison police officers. MPD Chief Mike Koval says he’s working with the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin to plan the project to determine how mindfulness training affects a police officer’s physical and mental well-being.
University of Wisconsin, South Madison partnership ‘bridges gap’ between communities
A community space in South Madison enables University of Wisconsin affiliated programs to tackle issues of poverty and mental health through educational courses and informational meetings.
Tracking coyotes in the Madison area
Noted: Dr. David Drake starts his mornings when the campus is just lit by a few headlights and street lamps. He’s on the look out for coyotes, the animals you hope you don’t see in your backyard. He leads the UW-Canid Project. “At least with some of our preliminary data, the coyotes are concentrating a lot of their time and activity to green spaces within the urban landscape,” said Dr. Drake.
State employees make our community stronger as Partners in Giving
We just never get tired of this one. Every year the more than seventy-one hundred employees at state agencies in Dane County, the UW and UW Hospital participate in the local component of the State Employee Combined Campaign to support non-profit charities.
UW students help kids whose parents have cancer
(Video) Camp Kesem is a college student run camp at UW Madison for kids whose parents have cancer. Camp counselor Joey Seliski visited News 3 This Morning to talk about it.
A year after Tony Robinson’s death, protesters march in downtown Madison
Noted: Other speakers included members of UW-Madison’s Blackout movement, a group formed last year to raise awareness of racial issues on campus.
More training, more Taser use, more attention to implicit bias among local police changes following Tony Robinson shooting
Noted: UW-Madison Police: Last year, the number of officers who received crisis intervention training increased to 72 percent from 5 percent of the 60-officer agency, Chief Sue Riseling said.