Category: Higher Education/System

The next casualty stemming from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh’s budget crisis may be the campus bookstore.

The store is one of three left across the UW System that is not run by a third-party chain. Outsourcing the operation would save some money in the short term but likely increase costs for students and lead to poorer service on campus, according to a recent report by a university task force. The report raised the question of whether there would be any long-term financial benefit to the switch.

In the place of racial, ethnic, and gender labels, some schools are embracing experiences or identities such as “low-income,” “first-generation,” and “veteran”—or simply scrapping controversial wording. After the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Creando Comunidad: Community Engaged Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Fellows program faced a complaint from the Equal Protection Project in January, it became just “Creando Comunidad.” Rather than explicitly gathering BIPOC students, applicants instead now must show “demonstrated interest or experience in promoting equity, inclusion, and social justice for communities of color.”

New Marquette University President Kimo Ah Yun’s honeymoon easing into the job was cut short Monday when faculty narrowly declared a lack of confidence in the administration.

Jen Jones remembers the meeting well, down to which chair she sat in.

University of Wisconsin-Green Bay administrators huddled together in a meeting room about a decade ago, studying enrollment and financial reports. A new chancellor, Gary Miller, had just started and took a different tact from his predecessor.

When Kelly Meyerhofer started covering Wisconsin’s public universities in 2018, she told herself she’d cover the topic for one year, two tops, before switching to something more exciting.

Now in her seventh year, Meyerhofer continues to be fascinated by the Wisconsin higher education beat.

Unions representing Universities of Wisconsin faculty and graduate workers are lobbying to meet directly with chancellors to discuss workplace conditions, saying the government councils representing them are no longer effective.

Leaders of Wisconsin’s higher education systems were cautious Tuesday in predicting what could come from President-elect Donald Trump’s call to close the U.S. Department of Education. Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said he spent time in Washington, D.C., last week where he asked Wisconsin’s delegation about this issue.

“I think the general consensus that I was hearing … was that, is it likely that the Department of Education, as it currently exists, is voted out of existence? Not highly likely, in their mind,” Rothman told a crowd in Madison.

The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh started its first-ever women’s wrestling program this fall, becoming the fourth school in the state to add the sport along with UW-Stevens Point, Lakeland University, and Carthage College.

Marquette University Provost Kimo Ah Yun was unanimously elected the 25th president of the university by the school’s board of trustees.

The University of Wisconsin is also on track to collect $628 million this year. UC San Francisco received $562 million from the federal budget in 2023. The USCF School of Medicine received the most funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of any public university in that same year, totaling $789,196,651, according to the university website.

At UW-Madison, campus wards swung 14 points to the right.

Marquette University faculty members will vote next week on whether they have confidence in university leadership.

If passed, the Academic Senate’s vote against acting President Kimo Ah Yun and chief operating officer Joel Pogodzinski could send a message of disapproval in the current administration as a search for the next president is underway.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has lost a federal trademark fight against a Texas economist who filed for ownership of the words “buckynomics” and “buckymarkets.”

For five years, Grant Gosizk has taught Marquette University undergrads to think about how literature and pop culture shape attitudes toward addiction.

Non-tenure-track, or NTT, faculty like Gosizk teach many of Marquette’s core curriculum classes. Every year, individual instructors sign new 10-month contracts with the university, earning $43,000 a year. Gosizk calls the arrangement “precarious.”

The University of Wisconsin-Superior is one of the most affordable universities in the U.S. for international students for the 20242-2025 academic year, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Jordan L. Siegler has been named Interim Executive Director of Wisconsin Public Media (WPM), the division at the University of Wisconsin–Madison that oversees PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR). Siegler currently serves as Associate Director of WPM. The announcement follows the recent death of Executive Director Heather L. Reese.

Four Wisconsin universities have been ranked among the top 300 universities in the U.S., according to a recent study by personal finance website WalletHub.

A new behavioral health program at Carroll University in Waukesha is successfully helping students treat anxiety and homesickness, according to the program’s founders.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s new Center for Equity Practice and Planning Justice wants to “deconstruct and mitigate” the remnants of those policies that still shape and hyper-segregate Milwaukee today.

The investigation into Truss and her coworkers’ experience took over a year, records show. MATC ultimately gave Busalacchi a three-week suspension.

The college — one of Wisconsin’s most diverse — has faced years of concerns about its racial climate for employees of color.

The state Legislature could consider several proposals to revamp the Universities of Wisconsin system, including spinning off the University of Wisconsin-Madison and increasing tuition.

Since July, a legislative committee has been meeting to look at the future of the state’s public university system.

Committee member Robert Venable, a 1986 UW-Madison graduate and CEO of the Chicago-based company Miami Corporation Management, said disruption to the UW system is happening.

“Some of these changes, it feels disruptive, but I think we’re past that point,” Venable said. “We can wish it was the same, but we need to adapt and get in front of this stuff so the state gets the best it can out of our higher ed system and its students.”

Documents obtained by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression show the Universities of Wisconsin paid law firm Husch Blackwell $135,000 to investigate Joe Gow’s conduct while serving as UW-La Crosse’s chancellor.

After a nearly yearlong delay, the University of Wisconsin System is inching closer to an updated hiring policy that will minimize the chance of employees who engage in misconduct at one campus from being hired by another.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has sold it oldest, smallest residence hall as a cost-saving measure.

The 17-unit Purin Hall, 2600 E. Kenwood Blvd., was sold for $2.15 million to three Milwaukee investment groups: 2600 S LLC, 2600 S 1 LLC and 2600 H LLC, according to a deed posted online by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Vice President Kamala Harris met with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students Thursday during a campaign event at the university that, at the last minute, was closed to the news media.

The former home of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee chancellor recently sold for $1 million, according to state property records.

More than a year after the school’s current president announced his retirement, Madison College is starting over in a search for its next leader.

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt announced Wednesday that he will step down next year, becoming the 4th chancellor in the Universities of Wisconsin system to either announce plans to resign or be fired since December 2023.

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt is stepping down at the end of the school year to return to teaching after a decade at the helm of the Fox Valley institution.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris will be at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Thursday for a “meet and greet,” according to student media.

Meanwhile, college students in Wisconsin, another swing state, allegedly received mass texts last week that advocates say could dissuade them from voting. The claim came in a Tuesday letter from a free-speech-advocacy group writing on behalf of Wisconsin’s chapter of the League of Women Voters, which supports expanding voting access but does not endorse specific candidates.

The announcements feature former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum, as well as Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe and former leaders of the Universities of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Technical College System.