After the emergence on social media of a photo of a blackface Halloween costume that was tied to the school, University of Wisconsin-Stout Chancellor Bob Meyer declared that “incidents of hate or bias are not welcome” on the Menomonie campus.
Coauthored by Clif Conrad:
Visit an American college campus today and you’ll see a more diverse student body than ever before. Over the last 30 years, the number of Hispanic students has risen five-fold, Asian and Pacific Islander enrollment has tripled, black enrollment has risen 150 percent and Native American enrollment has doubled.But the graduation rate for minority students falls far below the nationwide average. Our colleges and universities are not succeeding at educating students with diverse backgrounds. In an increasingly competitive global economy, our country cannot afford this waste of time, money and talent.
Last spring, 465 students took the AP computer science exam in Wisconsin. Only four of those test takers were African-American. According to a report by Education Week which looked at College Board data from each state, the numbers around the country show that the vast majority of those who take the AP computer science exam are white and male.
On Saturday evening, black football players at the University of Missouri announced that they were boycotting practice and even a crucial game if the system’s president, Timothy M. Wolfe, didn’t resign over his response to racist incidents on the Columbia campus.
Tim Wolfe’s undoing may have been the moment he refused to step out of his car during the University of Missouri homecoming parade last month.
A group of University of Missouri faculty plan to walk out of their classrooms for the next two days to “stand in solidarity with the Mizzou student activists who are advocating for racial justice on our campus.”
Noted: UW-Madison education professor Gloria Ladson-Billings assured a crowd of well over 100 that the problem is “not insurmountable.” Most important are highly effective, fully qualified teachers. Three really good teachers in a row, she said, citing research, will pull young students out of failure.
UW-Whitewater’s longtime dean of students died Friday, the university reported.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Students at the University of Missouri have been demonstrating for weeks for the ouster of the university president, protesting the school’s handling of racial tensions. But their movement received a boost over the weekend when dozens of black football players issued a blunt ultimatum: Resign or they won’t play.
University of Wisconsin Board of Regents gathered Thursday to listen to public opinion on UW Extension’s mission change, which includes granting special degrees in business and management to “nontraditional” students in Wisconsin and beyond.
Noted: Panelists will include: Gloria Ladson-Billings, faculty member in the UW-Madison School of Education.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank was elected to the Internet2 Board of Trustees this week, a panel made up of various university presidents, chief information officers, researchers and industry partners.
An information and intelligence shift has emerged in America’s national security state over the last two decades, and that change has been reflected in the country’s educational institutions as they have become increasingly tied to the military, intelligence, and law enforcement worlds. This is why VICE News has analyzed and ranked the 100 most militarized universities in America.
Oscar Chamberlain, a senior history lecturer at UW-Eau Claire, said knowing students may be carrying firearms would be a distraction in a classroom setting.
Faculty representatives at UW-Madison approved a new campus policy on Monday laying out a narrow set of circumstances under which tenured professors may be fired.
It won’t happen as quickly as hoped, but University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said Monday she expects the UW System and its campuses will end up with a new tenure policy that offers the same protections as what the governing body of the flagship campus unanimously endorsed Monday.
Faculty members within the University of Wisconsin System lost a key battle when Governor Scott Walker and fellow Republicans in the Legislature removed tenure protections from state law. But professors are trying to preserve something like tenure as they know it through campus-specific policies.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross has come under fire from faculty and a high-profile administrator for his changing stance on how the system should address tenure in light of recent changes to its legal status in the state. Faculty members and Chancellor Rebecca Blank of the University of Wisconsin at Madison have criticized Cross’s recent directive that new tenure polices can’t be written at the campus level, saying that the guidance contradicts Cross’s earlier assurances that tenure as it’s known would be preserved at the campus level — even though the Wisconsin state Legislature changed the law to make it easier to fire tenured faculty members.
Newly elected Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) made a University of Wisconsin “W” hand gesture after he ascended the Speaker’s podium on Thursday.
UW System President Ray Cross’ about-face on a campus-specific tenure policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison makes the Board of Regents look bad, abets faculty seeking extreme provisions and potentially delays adoption of a policy, threatening faculty recruitment, said Chancellor Rebecca Blank. Cross also undermined her ability to broker agreement on tenure issues among UW-Madison faculty, Blank said in an Oct. 22 email to Regent John Behling.
Wisconsin college graduates in 2014 carried an average $28,810 in debt, compared to $16,560 a decade earlier, said the nonprofit organization’s newly released 10th annual report on student debt. The average increase in debt at graduation among states was 56 percent, more than double the rate of inflation (25%) over the 10-year period.
The UW System’s offerings do not well serve “non-traditional” college students — 25 and older, part-time and not living on or near campus — that make up the majority, prompting some of them to turn to more expensive and less credible for-profit schools, Extension administrators argued in a filing with the UW System Board of Regents.
With the launch of a $1 billion fund drive, the College of William and Mary on Friday joined the big leagues of higher education philanthropy.
Inside the administration building on Lake Superior State University’s campus is a room with more than 100 student-owned guns.
A proposal from Republican legislators would make Wisconsin the second state in the nation to allow complete concealed carry on their public college and university campuses.
Jeff Nass, legislative affairs liaison for Wisconsin Force, said the campus carry act would give a person on campus the ability to protect him or herself from someone who chooses to misuse their size, gender or any form of a weapon. He said the act promotes student safety.
The Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education released a report Wednesday detailing additional effects of the Wisconsin state budget throughout the UW System.
The complex process of writing new tenure policies for University of Wisconsin System faculty took a turn this week that frustrated professors and led some to question whether efforts at UW-Madison to write strong layoff protections will be negated by less robust statewide rules.
The Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education released a report Wednesday detailing additional effects of the Wisconsin state budget throughout the UW System.
When the Center for the Humanities staff at the University of Wisconsin–Madison saw how difficult it had become for humanities students to find academic positions, they looked to the local community to see what possibilities existed for fruitful collaborations.
The issue of violence and mass shootings in this country is one that needs to be addressed. However, would allowing students to carry guns on campus actually decrease the chances of further gun violence, or would it lead to further tragedy?
The Wisconsin Badgers’ Oct. 31 football game against Rutgers at Camp Randall Stadium will be sponsored by Koch Industries, the energy company run by billionaire political players David and Charles Koch. The game sponsorship is part of UW’s multi-year contract with a collegiate sports marketing company worth more than $111 million in guaranteed payments alone.
Concerned that a Republican lawmaker cited an uptick in violent crimes in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee neighborhood while proposing students and faculty be allowed to carry concealed firearms at campuses across the state, UWM officials have produced crime statistics they say contradict the lawmaker’s statement.
Several hundred people demanded the resignation of the entire Iowa Board of Regents in a raucous protest Wednesday that interrupted the state board’s meetings in Iowa City on multiple occasions.
The University of Wisconsin System is seeking community input during strategic planning listening sessions this week in Madison and next week in Milwaukee.
The author of a study being invoked in the push to pass a “campus carry” bill in Wisconsin isn’t thrilled about the way his work is being interpreted, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported this weekend.
University of Wisconsin System officials will be in Madison this week to hear from the public about what they want from the state’s universities.
Genome editing, 3-D printing and robotics — these sound like subjects for doctoral students or headlines for a conference of tech savvy entrepreneurs. And they often are. They also are a slice of the activities planned for the fifth annual Wisconsin Science Festival, taking place in 36 communities across Wisconsin on Oct. 22-25, for people of every age and background.
We, the undersigned collection of instructors from colleges and universities in the city of Milwaukee, feel compelled to speak out against the bill recently proposed by Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) and Sen. Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg).
LOS ANGELES — When Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed legislation this month banning concealed weapons on school campuses, the nation was in the midst of one of the worst spasms of gun violence at colleges in recent years. There were three such shootings, including one in Oregon that left 10 people dead, as the bill sat on Mr. Brown’s desk.
Facing state budget cuts to the University of Wisconsin system and dwindling federal funding, Robert Golden would love to find a pile of money somewhere.
The National Rifle Association and its supplicants in legislatures around the country and the U.S. Congress have a ready and facile answer for the problem of gun violence in the United States: More guns.
Wisconsin was one of the last states to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons. Now it is in the vanguard of the debate about whether allowing guns on college campuses will protect students or put them more at risk of violence. How did the state get there?
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, held a press conference Wednesday to push for the reauthorization of a longstanding University of Wisconsin loan program which allows undergraduate and graduate students to borrow money free of interest until they graduate.
Pocan said lower income families in particular use the Perkins Loan Program. He said he himself used a variety of loans throughout his pursuit of higher education and wants other students to have the opportunity to do so too.
A bill that would prohibit carrying a dangerous weapon on a university or college campus in Wisconsin bubbled up from state Democrats one day after a pair of Republicans introduced a bill that would allow guns inside campus buildings.
At the University of Wisconsin—Madison next September, nearly half of all freshmen are expected to hail from other states. The university system’s Board of Regents recently lifted the 27.5 percent cap on out-of-state undergraduates at its flagship campus—a decision that’s emblematic of a nationwide trend at public colleges to both raise revenue and boost selectivity.
A measure that would allow anyone with a license to bring a concealed gun into college campus buildings is unsettling to some students and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
On August 1, 2016 — exactly 50 years after a student named Charles Whitman climbed into the University of Texas tower and shot 46 people, killing 14 of them — a new law on concealed firearms will take effect here. Already, emotions are exploding.
Quoted: UW Political Science Professor Mike Wagner is voicing opposition on Twitter.
“Am I worried, about it? Yeah, I would be worried about going into a classroom knowing 120 students are not enjoying a lecture…or worrying themselves, yeah I worry.”
And UW Madison Police Spokesman Marc Lovicott says his department opposes the bill.
“We don’t feel putting more weapons in the hands of our students, even though they legally have a permit to do so elsewhere will make our campus safer.
The leaders of Wisconsin’s public universities and technical colleges Tuesday lined up against a bill that would allow anyone with a concealed carry license to bring guns into campus buildings, classrooms, dormitories and stadiums.
While a pair of Republican state lawmakers want to allow students and faculty to carry concealed guns inside public university and college buildings, at least one campus and its police department are warning the measure could have dangerous day-to-day implications.
At a press conference on Monday, the University of Wisconsin – Madison announced it is joining a campaign called, “It’s on Us.” The program is a national campaign aimed at stopping sexual assault.
During the press conference, the university stated it would begin playing a video during this weekend’s homecoming football game against Purdue University that will highlight the “It’s on Us” campaign. UW’s athletic program will play a key role in getting the message out to student’s on campus.
Noted: Police who protect the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus in Madison are urging state lawmakers not to allow concealed weapons to be carried into campus buildings.
UW-Madison Police spokesman Marc Lovicott issued a statement Tuesday coming out against the bill circulated Monday by Republican lawmakers.
Two Republican state legislators have introduced a bill that would allow concealed carry gun owners to bring weapons into public university and college buildings in Wisconsin.
People with concealed weapon licenses would be allowed to carry guns inside the buildings and classrooms of Wisconsin’s public universities and colleges under a bill introduced Monday by two state legislators.
Wisconsin’s public university and technical college systems said each system has emergency plans that include how to respond to a campus shooting.
University of Wisconsin System officials said each campus has an all-hazards plan with responses for emergencies including an active shooter. They said the campuses share the plans with faculty and students several ways including posting the plans online, presenting them during student orientations and sending them out via campus-wide email.
Each University of Wisconsin System campus has a so-called “all-hazards” plan that details how to handle crises including active shooters. The campuses share the plans with faculty and staff several ways including posting the plans online, presenting them during student orientations, text messages and campus-wide email alerts.
UW-Madison is poised to enroll hundreds more out-of-state students, starting with next year’s freshman class, after the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents on Friday approved a request to waive the limit on nonresident students at the campus.
For nearly 30 years, through rounds of state funding cuts and tuition increases, the cost of attending UW-Madison increased at a higher rate than inflation each year. The main culprit has been tuition — the largest single cost college students pay and the one that has been rising at the steepest rate, now more than three times as expensive as it was in the mid-1980s. A tuition freeze in place since 2013 has kept that price nearly flat in recent years at about $10,400.
How much more elite will UW-Madison become now that a cap on the number of nonresident students it can enroll has been lifted? It won’t, Chancellor Rebecca Blank assured the UW System Board of Regents Friday as they voted to approve her proposal to lift the cap and let UW-Madison take more out-of-state students.
Eight years after the Virginia Tech massacre led to tighter security at colleges across the U.S., some schools make “active shooter” training mandatory for incoming students, while others offer little more than brief online guidance on what to do if there’s a gunman on the loose, a review by The Associated Press finds.
