Skip to main content

Category: Higher Education/System

Hip-hop’s role in today’s classrooms

Posted on
USA Today

“The reason why it resonated with students … is because it felt like an opportunity for them to be met on their own ground and to have a kind of shared ground with which to meet instructors or meet ideas,” says Nate Marshall, award-winning poet and assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Ultimately, like, the role of an educator is to connect the students in order to serve the students. So, if that’s not your way to connect with them, that’s cool. You find other ways.”

What are the best colleges in Wisconsin? Niche ranked the state’s top schools for 2025

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been named the best college in Wisconsin for 2025, according to a recent report from Niche.

The school rankings website analyzed more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the U.S. for its 2025 Best Colleges in America report and related state reports.

Lifelong Learner: Lifelong learning helps seniors age joyfully

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Embracing an attitude of lifelong learning can help seniors combat the effects of aging and find meaning in every day. In a study by Scientific American, seniors who regularly engaged in learning over three months performed similarly to adults 30 years younger on cognitive tests.

Whether it’s online learning, art classes or stargazing in Wisconsin state parks, educational opportunities can help make your golden years shine.

Evers bypasses GOP-led committee to implement pay raises for state workers

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Evers’ legal claim on raises was tied to Vos following through on a promise in 2023 to use the employee relations committee to block pay increases for around 34,000 employees of the University of Wisconsin until state campuses eliminated all of their diversity, equity and inclusion positions. Later that year, Vos and the UW Board of Regents struck a deal to release the funding for pay increases in exchange for new limits on DEI hiring through 2026.

Stolen land, sacred site: How an Ivy League school blocks Ojibwe in northern Wisconsin

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Both Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin are land-grant universities that profited from lands taken from Indigenous nations, as did at least 50 other universities throughout the U.S. Many are still profiting through their endowments.

The U.S. Morrill Act of 1862 gave states land taken from tribes by the federal government on the condition the land be sold or used for profit with the proceeds to help establish at least one agricultural college.

UW-Madison responds to being named among buyers from embattled beagle breeder

Posted on
Channel 3000

UW-Madison confirmed that Ridglan supplied the school with animals in the past. According to the school, dogs are used in research studies of cancer prevention, organ transplants, vaccines and other medical breakthroughs.

“Those studies have been supported by grants from federal agencies, nonprofit foundations and patient groups, and health care companies,” a university spokesperson said.

Law, vet, medical school may be out of reach to more Wisconsin students under new loan limits

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The loan changes may lure more professional students to UW-Madison and other public universities, where the cost of attendance is typically lower than at private institutions.

The UW Law School, for example, has aggressively fundraised to offer more need-based scholarships, contributing to a drop in the percentage of student borrowers from 78% in 2014 to 62% in 2024, said Rebecca Scheller, the law school’s associate dean for admissions and financial aid.

Galin Scholars expands free college prep program in Madison

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

The Galin Scholars program is welcoming its third cohort of high school students this fall, continuing its expansion of free college prep in the greater Madison area.

The Madison-based nonprofit now supports 15 students from seven high schools. The first five students graduated from high school this summer and will begin college at Northwestern University, Lake Forest College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison this fall.

Miami asks judge to dismiss tampering lawsuit involving former Wisconsin football cornerback

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

The University of Miami asked a judge to dismiss or scale back a case alleging it interfered with agreements for a former University of Wisconsin football player.

Miami filed a motion Friday to dismiss a complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court in June by Wisconsin and collective VC Connect that alleged Miami tampered with cornerback Xavier Lucas.

West Point and Air Force Academy affirmative action lawsuits are dropped

Posted on
The New York Times

The secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has long argued — first as a cable news host and then in his current position — that “woke” policies undermine morale in the military. But some who have studied military history disagree with that assertion.

“Nothing in my nearly 25 years of experience in the military substantiates that argument,” said John W. Hall, a professor of military history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Hall, a 1994 West Point graduate, said that the military had been an early champion of diversity initiatives, “not out of any sense of innate progressivism or certainly not wokeness.” Rather, he said, “they were necessary for the effectiveness of the military.”

This college’s strategy for preventing dropouts? Classes half as long

Posted on
Wisconsin Watch

Northeast Wisconsin Technical College’s Green Bay leaders have overhauled nearly every course in recent years, accelerating them to move twice as quickly. Administrators and instructors say the intensive pace helps students perform better and prevents them from dropping out when they face hardships outside of school.

NWTC is part of a growing national trend of colleges moving to shorter courses, but it’s one of fewer to offer eight-week classes almost exclusively. Many others have recently flirted with the idea by piloting a smaller share of shortened course options.

She was a teen mom and a longtime nurse. Next? Madison school teacher.

Posted on
The Cap Times

Edith Noriega never intended to become a teacher. But after working with students, Noriega transitioned to a bilingual resource specialist role at Schenk Elementary School on the city’s east side. She also enrolled last year in the school district’s new Grow Your Own program.

The program provides tuition, a $17,000 stipend and benefits for Madison Metropolitan School District staff to work toward an associate’s degree from Madison College. Participants are then guaranteed admission to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to work toward a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and teaching credentials.

Educator’s book ties personal history and the Black experience

Posted on
Wisconsin Examiner

Brown has critiqued some of the ways DEI has been carried out. When he read an audit of Universities of Wisconsin DEI programs conducted by the Legislative Audit Bureau on behalf of the Legislature, he was struck that there seemed to be no consistent definition throughout the system for DEI.

But he also considers the anti-DEI wave a backlash to the protests in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd. “That woke up the world,” Brown says. “There was a coming together, and it wasn’t even politicized like that.”

UW system would fund project to recover MIA soldiers under GOP bill

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Legislative Republicans nixed a plan to fund a UW-Madison program that recovers the remains of missing service members, but a new proposal would require the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents to pay for it.

A team of students and experts in the Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project at UW-Madison sifts through archives and conducts field excavations in an effort to return the remains of veterans who went missing in combat to their families.

How Dane County, UW-Madison have prepared for potential measles outbreak

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Jake Baggott, UW-Madison associate vice chancellor and executive director of University Health Services, said in a statement that UW-Madison as a campus has been actively preparing over the last year for a potential measles case.

University Health Services led and coordinated a walkthrough exercise with campus, local and state public health officials to simulate their preparedness during a measles outbreak, Baggott said

UW-Madison hosting men’s swimming and diving for 2025-26 Olympic sports championships

Posted on
Channel 3000

UW-Madison will be hosting swimming and diving squads this winter for the 2025-26 Olympic sports championships and tournaments.

The Big Ten Conference announced the dates and host sites Wednesday. The fall season is kicking off on Oct. 31 at Michigan State, with the Spartans hosting cross country championships from Nov. 6-9.

More Wisconsin high school students will be admitted into college without even applying

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

More Wisconsin high school students will be automatically admitted into college without even applying.

It’s a hallmark of Direct Admit Wisconsin, a new University of Wisconsin System program intended to reach students who haven’t considered college or never would apply on their own. High school students are automatically admitted into universities based on their grades at the end of their junior year.

Tom Still: A new college at UW-Madison focused on AI? Now may be the time

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

What’s so special about being a college versus a school or even a department, which is how computing programs at UW-Madison were structured up until six years ago? It’s not about bragging rights or status, but being able to build business relationships, raise money and more quickly carry out a mission that’s in step with the times.

UW secrecy allegations overblown

Posted on
The Cap Times

While transparency is an important democratic value, the tone and substance of the piece ignore the real complexities of steering a major public institution through extraordinarily difficult times.

The UW administration is working diligently — behind the scenes and under intense pressure — to ensure the university’s long-term viability and academic excellence. That work deserves respect, not knee-jerk criticism.

New Wisconsin undergrads will pay in-state tuition at Iowa university

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Incoming Wisconsin students will pay in-state tuition at a public Iowa university starting this fall.

The University of Northern Iowa is offering in-state tuition to new first-year and transfer undergraduate students from its neighboring states, including Wisconsin, in the next academic year in an effort to attract students from throughout the Midwest.

Budget agreement includes funding for virtual mental health services on smaller UW campuses

Posted on
The Daily Cardinal

The 2025-27 Capitol Budget passed at the beginning of July includes $7 million for virtual mental health services to University of Wisconsin students at all campuses apart from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The inclusion of the funding follows a bill introduced by Sen. Jesse James, R-Thorp, and Senate Republicans on June 2 to address mental health issues among UW System students.

Can A.I. help revitalize Indigenous languages?

Posted on
Smithsonian Magazine

Like the Skobot, most new A.I. technologies developed by Native scientists are designed for a specific language community. Jacqueline Brixey, a computer scientist formerly at the University of Southern California and now joining the University of Wisconsin, created a chatbot called “Masheli” that can communicate in Choctaw. Drawing from a collection of animal stories, the chatbot can listen and respond to users in both English and the target language, helping conversational skills.

Instructional software UW-Madison uses now has AI tools. Here’s what to know

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

A software program UW-Madison faculty and students use on a daily basis has added artificial intelligence tools to assist with grading and summarizing discussion posts.

But the university says some of the tools could run afoul of guidance it provides instructors against using AI to automate student feedback.

My Life in Protest I ran from tear gas and was arrested at People’s Park, occupied Wall Street, and wore a pussy hat. At 77, I’m not stopping.

Posted on
New York Magazine

True, the Tesla Resistance didn’t have the revolutionary romance of yesteryear: running through tear gas at the U of Wisconsin Dow Chemical demo (it made napalm) hand in hand with my then-girlfriend, Judy, who would soon leave me for a history grad student and break my heart. It didn’t have the grit of the People’s Park sieges in Berkeley in ’69, getting kicked in the stomach by Alameda County sheriff’s deputies on the way to the Santa Rita jail, throwing debris at the Northside home of H-bomb avatar Edward Teller. It didn’t even offer the thrill of marching across the Brooklyn Bridge during Occupy Wall Street and seeing the beacon of the 99 percent beamed onto the blank corporate slab of the Verizon Building, proclaiming ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE.

Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium in Madison ranks among the top 25 college-football venues by USA TODAY

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Don’t leave your seat at the end of the third quarter,” they wrote. “That’s when Wisconsin fans ‘Jump Around’ to the 1992 House of Pain classic of the same name, often causing Camp Randall to shake and vibrate. The tradition started in 1998, took a very brief, highly controversial hiatus in 2003 and became a rallying cry during the Badgers’ development into a Big Ten powerhouse under former coaches Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema.”

UW-Madison, Madison College see growing need for student food pantries

Posted on
The Cap Times

As college students locally and nationally struggle to feed themselves due to rising costs and other challenges, schools have tried to find ways to address the growing needs. UW-Madison and Madison College recently expanded their pantries and offerings, and UW-Madison hired a full-time employee just to concentrate on students’ basic needs.

They attack because we’re strong, not weak

Posted on
Inside Higher Ed

Universities did great things during the 20th century. Presidents and faculty found strength and legitimacy through relevance. They helped in the all-out effort to win the Second World War. Universities anticipated the needs of the Cold War. Research labs produced products that improved people’s daily lives. The University of Minnesota patented Honeycrisp apples. The University of Wisconsin patented fortifying milk with vitamin D.

Wisconsin science camps for kids with autism face uncertain future after federal funding cuts

Posted on
Channel 3000

Michael Notaro, director of UW–Madison’s Center for Climatic Research launched STEM camps in Beloit, Wisconsin Dells and at Madison’s Henry Vilas Zoo with a simple mission: make science accessible to all children with neurodivergences – but the camps are at risk.

“The main goals of the camps is to support the kind of interest and pursuit of science, degrees and careers, to foster and support neurodiversity and to celebrate it,” Notaro said.