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Category: Higher Education/System

Cuts to Medicaid would affect wide range of Wisconsin residents, researcher says

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Donna Friedsam is a researcher emerita who has been studying health care policy and reform for decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Friedsam told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that changes at the federal level could have significant ripple effects at home.

“Many people who are on Medicare, who are low-income, also duly rely on Medicaid to cover things that Medicare does not cover,” Friedsam said. “So, Medicaid is actually quite a wide-ranging program and reaches over a million Wisconsin residents who rely on it.”

Feds warn UW of “potential enforcement actions” over alleged antisemitism at campus protest

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Madison 365

The federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating the University of Wisconsin-Madison for antisemitism, according to a press release issued Monday.

UW is one of 60 institutions that received letters “warning them of potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities,” according to the release.

Gov. Evers seeks $4 billion for state building projects, including UW science facilities and new juvenile prison

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers wants to spend about $4 billion on state building upgrades across Wisconsin under a plan released Monday.

If approved, about $1.6 billion would go to the University of Wisconsin System for brick-and-mortar building projects. Other big-ticket items include $634 million for the Department of Corrections, $137 million for upgrades to veteran homes and $40 million to restore the state Capitol building.

UW-Madison young scientists’ careers in upheaval as Trump slows research funding

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Randy Kimple, a professor of human oncology at UW-Madison, has two Ph.D. students in his lab supported by grants, called “supplements,” meant to promote diversity among researchers. The supplements fund not only students of color, but also first-generation college students and those from rural areas or low-income neighborhoods.

Kimple expects to lose that funding — roughly $150,000 — in the summer, given the Trump administration’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Democratic lawmakers introduce new bill to address gaps from federal funding freeze

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The Daily Cardinal

Wisconsin receives roughly $654 million per year in National Institutes of Health grants, which supports more than 7,700 jobs and $1.4 billion in economic activity, according to United for Medical Research.

Without additional funds from elsewhere, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said the capping of indirect costs would have a “ripple effect” on the state’s economy.

‘It’s gut-wrenching’: life-saving neurological research on line with NIH funding cuts, UW leaders say

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Channel 3000

Life-saving work in biomedical research is on the line, University of Wisconsin System and UW-Madison administrators said, if the National Institutes of Health makes cuts to its funding to the system.

“Taking a meat cleaver to this funding is simply wrong,” Universities of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman said Thursday.

UW leaders, Wisconsin medical researchers defend NIH funds amid uncertainty

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Researchers at the Universities of Wisconsin defended their work in medical research on Thursday as they face uncertainty amidst federal funding cuts.

UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin warned of the danger of “indiscriminate reductions in research funding,” and medical and scientific researchers argued that funding from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, is critical to their work.

He studies Alzheimer’s. Federal cuts could cripple his search for treatments

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Sterling Johnson leads one of the world’s largest and longest-running studies of people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. His team aims to diagnose the disease years before people even develop symptoms and identify ways to slow its progression. He finds his work meaningful and rewarding.

But over the past seven weeks, as President Donald Trump’s administration proposes deep cuts to biomedical research, Johnson has encountered a new feeling. Something he’s never felt since he started studying studying Alzheimer’s in 1997.

It ‘feels disruptive’: UW-Madison teacher training program loses funding from the federal government

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Channel 3000

In February, a UW-Madison teacher training program lost its funding from the federal government, citing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“It’s unfortunate that the approach toward sort of rooting out programs seems to have overlooked what the program is really doing and its value to the high need communities that are being served by those programs,” said program director, Kimber Wilkerson.

Conservative professor would be just a diversity hire

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Wisconsin State Journal

My confusion arises because the Legislature also required UW-Madison to create an endowed chair for a “conservative” professor. To me, that sounds exactly like DEI. Were Vos and colleagues requiring the university to potentially choose a less-qualified person as a professor because that person was “conservative”?

‘I was rejected from 16 colleges because I’m Asian and smart’

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The Telegraph

His high school grade point average (GPA) was an exceptional 4.42, much higher than the American average of 3.0, and he was one of only around 2,000 students to score 1590 or higher on the SAT, out of more than two million students who take the test every year.

Yet after sending off his applications, he was rejected by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell University, Georgia Tech, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin.

Four Trump threats to Social Security

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Forbes

Under the radar, but also a critical threat to Social Security is the recent cancellation of Social Security research and evaluation contracts with six university-led research consortia, including College of New York (CUNY and The New School, Boston College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

More state colleges are admitting students — before they apply

Posted on
The Washington Post

Those efforts have increased first-time undergraduate enrollment by an average of 50 to 100 students per participating campus in Idaho, with the strongest gains at community colleges, according to a 2022 study of the state program. Taylor Odle, assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-author of the study, said the results show that states shouldn’t solely focus on high-achieving students when designing direct admissions programs.

“This behavioral nudge is going to be most effective for the people who didn’t know that college was an option for them, and those are most often students who fall further down the academic gradient,” Odle said.

DOGE, the Wisconsin version: Here’s what it could look like

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The Capital Times

In announcing the committee, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told the Cap Times he wanted to better tailor the work of government to a 21st century context.

“We need to deliver services in a different way than we have,” Vos said. “You know, how many (Universities of Wisconsin) campuses do we need? How many school districts do we need? How many townships do we need? All the things that we’ve never really thought about.”

More universities slow spending, admissions over Federal funding chaos

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Forbes

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the provost and the dean of the graduate school sent a memo to college deans on February 23 advising them to “consider decreasing the number of admissions offers” and also to “carefully consider” whether to make any offers to candidates on their applicant wait lists should students who were initially accepted decline to enroll. While it was not an order to reduce graduate admissions, it was a clear suggestion to move cautiously as the university evaluated its available resources in light of continuing worries about federal funding.

23 Dem AGs think they’ve cracked the code to fighting Trump

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Politico

On February 10, 22 of the states sued over cuts to the National Institutes of Health. It was filed in Massachusetts, but is filled with details on which programs at the University of Wisconsin are being the most impacted.

“Making sure that information is being included and considered as part of these cases is what I see as sort of a key role for us and for other states,“ said Wisconsin’s Attorney General Josh Kaul.

Careful messaging, uncertainty reign on Wisconsin college campuses in Trump’s second term

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

College leaders are scrambling to assess the ramifications Trump’s orders would have on their institutions and come up with a long-term strategy to defend higher education, which has long been a political punching bag for Republicans. They are trying to respond in a way that appeases students and professors, who tend to be progressive, without antagonizing the conservatives now in charge of the federal government.

“The chancellor is trying to thread a very, very narrow needle,” said Michael Bernard-Donals, a UW-Madison professor of English and Jewish studies.

NIH funding cuts ‘a travesty to biomedical research,’ says UW research director

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Wisconsin Public Radio

An announcement from the National Institutes of Health earlier this month said the agency would slash support for indirect research costs paid to universities, medical centers and other grant recipients.

The change could leave research institutions like the University of Wisconsin-Madison scrambling for millions of dollars from other sources to support labs, students and staff.

Trump administration delays Wisconsin research funds by withholding, canceling review meetings

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Wisconsin Public Radio

“This is clearly a loophole which is now used to stall the reviews,” said Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, vice chancellor for research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The impact of the postponement won’t be felt immediately, she said. But if the meetings can’t continue, it will have an impact in coming months.

“At the minimum, a delay. At the most extreme case, maybe funding won’t happen,” Grejner-Brzezinska said. “At the moment, we hope that it is just a delay. And are watching what’s going to happen next.”

A Michigan college student filed a lawsuit over a bad grade. It’s not the first time.

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Detroit Free Press

Donald Downs is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin. He co-founded the Academic Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit that defends the rights of professors to speak, teach and publish without interference. He said courts aren’t the right place to settle grade disputes.

“These are matters of academic freedom and it’s usually best leave it up to the professors, because they’re the ones who know the subject,” Downs said. “If you take it out of their hands, then who’s going to do it? Our position is a strong presumption in favor of the faculty members’ academic right to have discretion over grades.”

Cardinal View: Trump’s NIH funding cap is an existential threat to higher education

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The Daily Cardinal

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison — the sixth largest research university in the country — this cap would translate into an annual loss of approximately $65 million in research funding. The nationwide impact is even more staggering, amounting to billions of dollars in cuts for institutions that rely on NIH grants to support their research infrastructure. The hardest hit area would be indirect costs, or Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs, funds that cover essential expenses like laboratory equipment, research facilities and staff salaries.

‘Heartbreaking to slow down’: UW-Madison researchers warn funding cuts would delay new treatments for cancer, more

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the nation’s top research institutions, are wary of potential cuts to funding under the Trump administration that they warn could slow their work and delay new treatments for cancer and other diseases.

On Collaborentoring: Xueli Wang offers advice for embracing mentoring as a form of collaboration.

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Inside Higher Ed

Written by Xueli Wang, the Barbara and Glenn Thompson Endowed Professor in Educational Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With a focus on community colleges and postsecondary STEM education, her research examines educational practices, structures and policies that promote students’ holistic well-being and equitable access, experiences and outcomes.

Gov. Tony Evers’ budget calls for tax cuts, protection against ‘needless chaos’ of Trump policies

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Wisconsin State Journal

Evers proposed $856 million in new operational funding for the UW system, more than the $800 million he pledged to the UW Board of Regents last August. His proposed budget also includes $60 million in new state aid for Wisconsin’s technical college system, $10 million of which is meant to support the 16 two-year colleges in investing in artificial intelligence.

UW-River Falls’ second interim chancellor in 6 months is expected to serve for a long time

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Wisconsin State Journal

On Tuesday, Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman announced UW-Whitewater’s provost and former interim chancellor John Chenoweth would lead UW-River Falls on a temporary basis starting March 1. Chenoweth will replace Michael Martin, who took on the position in an interim status in September following the retirement of Chancellor Maria Gallo.