ASM passed the legislation through the Wisconsin State Statute with the goal of providing legal grounds for academic staff, faculty and students’ involvement in the decision-making process throughout the University of Wisconsin System, creating a new statewide body intended to pass legislation and organize systemwide campaigns and efforts.
Wegenke, 73, became president of the Wisconsin Association of Private Colleges and Universities, also known as WAICU, in 1992. The Madison-based organization represents 23 private nonprofit schools and their nearly 54,000 students. WAICU members include Edgewood College and Marquette University.
Running up to this week’s deadline, other colleges came around to Biden’s order, including the University of Wisconsin system, whose leader had said it was unclear whether the mandate would apply to universities. On Wednesday the Wisconsin system’s interim president, Tommy Thompson, said it could not afford to potentially lose federal-contract funding, and so would comply with the executive order.
Ayearslong project studying the pay levels and job titles across the University of Wisconsin System is wrapping up and thousands of employees will next week learn the new salary range of the position they hold.
About 1,000 miles away in Dane County, the capitol of Wisconsin and home of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the electorate is anchored by young liberals who are thinking big about climate change, gun control and racial justice.
In a statement from former Republican Wisconsin governor and current UW System President Tommy Thompson, he said the university has to follow Biden’s executive order to receive federal funds. “We cannot afford to jeopardize millions of dollars in federal contracts, which are integral to our academic and research missions,” said Thompson. “Therefore, we intend to be in compliance with the federal executive order on vaccine mandates.”
The University of Wisconsin System says it will comply with the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for federal workers and contractors.
Founded in 1848, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a top research school that spends $1.2 billion annually on new projects. An enormous number, the research expenditure is a small portion of the university’s overall budget, a significant chunk of which is sunk into funding the school’s 9,000 individual courses, 232 undergraduate majors, and both need- and merit-based financial aid, which 59% of students receive.
UW System President Tommy Thompson visited UW-Whitewater Wednesday to promote his new 70-for-70 vaccine initiative.
The University of Wisconsin System announced Wednesday that it will comply with President Joe Biden’s vaccine order mandating that all federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The University of Wisconsin System announced Wednesday that it will comply with an executive order issued by President Joe Biden more than six weeks ago requiring federal contractors to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Likewise, highly selective public institutions saw a freshman enrollment increase of 1.2 percent this fall, compared with a 5.6 percent decline last fall. Some public institutions are seeing record enrollments despite the pandemic. The University of Utah, for example, announced Monday that its fall enrollment of 34,424 shattered previous records. The University of Wisconsin at Madison also welcomed its largest-ever freshman class this fall, enrolling 8,465 first-year students.
Noted: Gateway officials announced plans to introduce the pair of university-friendly programs at the beginning of the year, and multiple steps had to take place, including approvals from the local District Board, as well as state-level approvals from officials within the Wisconsin Technical College System and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.
Students taking either of the associate’s degree programs will be able to seamlessly transfer their 60-credit degrees to four-year schools within the University of Wisconsin System and apply them to bachelor’s degrees.
Noted: Critics of tenure have long argued that it enables subpar teaching, makes it difficult to fire predatory professors and hinders efforts to diversify faculty. Efforts to reform tenure policies have followed. In 2016, the University of Wisconsin system changed tenure policies to allow faculty to be fired due to poor performance or cuts to academic programs. Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers in Iowa proposed legislation that would have banned tenure at public universities in the state, though it did not progress through the legislature.
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire announced Thursday that it received a record-setting $10 million gift to invest in developing a reputation for its work in supporting and advancing health and human well-being.
Last week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison community was informed of the departure of Chancellor Rebecca Blank to Northwestern University this summer after nine years serving as their leader. Blank will be the first female to serve as Northwestern University’s president.
Performer, educator and author Erica Halverson has a lot to say about how the arts can be used in schools to transform education in a meaningful way in her book “How The Arts Can Save Education.” Halverson, who also is a professor of curriculum and instruction at UW-Madison, will discuss her book during an in-person event at the Wisconsin Book Festival later this month.
The top two jobs in the University of Wisconsin System are turning over within months of each other next year, a major leadership shake-up that comes on the heels of new chancellors installed during the pandemic at nearly half of the regional campuses and amid a variety of other challenges.
Noted: Currently, De Pierola splits her time between her own business, a part-time job as a Spanish teacher at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, and her own studies. Trained as a lawyer in Peru, she’ll graduate with a masters degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School in December and then take the bar exam — the necessary steps if she wants to practice law in Wisconsin. Simultaneously, she’s earning a teaching credential through online courses from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.
29. Madison, WisconsinColleges: Edgewood College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Herzing University-Madison
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are graduating sooner according to school data. The campus’s four- and six-year graduation rates have hit record highs.
All of that adds up to friction between faculty members and their top bosses. The University of Wisconsin system is a case in point, Tiede, the AAUP’s director of research, said. The system did not name any members of the faculty or academic staff to a 2019 committee charged with finding its new president, a move that drew criticism at the time. Only one finalist for the post was named, and he withdrew his candidacy because of “process issues.” The system restarted its search this past summer.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison unveiled a $20 million gift Wednesday that will allow the it to move forward with plans to build a new home for its College of Letters and Science.
UW System President Tommy Thompson reminisced on the history of the education system. “For 50 years, the University of Wisconsin System has been our state’s greatest asset other than its people,” Thompson said. “We have educated millions of our residents, improving the quality of life for individuals, families, and communities.”
When outgoing UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank leaves for Northwestern University this summer, the UW System and its most high profile leaders are likely to be new to the job as they continue to work against the prevailing trends of declining state support and demographic changes in Wisconsin.
The second-longest serving chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will step down in May next year to become the first female president of Illinois’ Northwestern University.
Rebecca M. Blank, the chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is set to become Northwestern’s 17th president, the university announced Monday.
With so many colleges going virtual last year, many sophomores are on campus for the first time. But it’s different — a lot still feel like freshman. Colleges set up programs to get them caught up.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank will leave the university at the end of the school year to become the first female president of Northwestern University.
Blank became chancellor of UW-Madison in 2013. She has deep ties to Northwestern and the Chicago area, serving as a faculty member from 1989 to 1999 and directing the Joint Center for Poverty Research. She was married in Chicago and her daughter attended Northwestern as a student.
Column by state Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Eau Claire: The “Reaching Higher for Higher Education” package builds off of Gov. Tony Evers’ commitment to college affordability. The majority party made significant changes to the governor’s 2021-23 budget proposal, but there is still time to fix higher education by passing these bills.
29. Madison, WisconsinColleges: Edgewood College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Herzing University-Madison
A conservative legal group has threatened legal action against the University of Wisconsin-Madison, claiming it hired three mental health providers to serve only students of color. UW
Children of Afghan refugees at Fort McCoy will have new toys to play with thanks to a UW-La Crosse toy drive.
After months of grim financial forecasts, University of Wisconsin System leaders presented a much rosier financial outlook this week as campuses settle into another school year shadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aformer UW-Whitewater student sued the University of Wisconsin System this week, alleging university employees failed to protect her and others from the husband of a former chancellor who she said sexually harassed and assaulted them.
The University of Wisconsin System says the COVID-19 pandemic has had a $720 million impact on state universities between March 2020 and June 30 of this year. But after a large infusion of federal stimulus funds, the system’s vice president of finance says it’s in “pretty good shape.”
A former University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student who said she was sexually harassed by the former chancellor’s husband has filed a lawsuit against the university system alleging UW-Whitewater violated her right to due process and protection from discrimination.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison responded to a letter from a conservative law firm sent Wednesday, clarifying that mental health providers are not assigned based on a student’s race, nor are they limited in terms of the students they can serve based on race.
A conservative Wisconsin law firm accused the University of Wisconsin-Madison of racial discrimination following an announcement of new mental health coordinators who would “exclusively serve students of color.” Now, an attorney with the firm says they’re giving the university “the benefit of the doubt” after it changed the wording of the near month-old press release about the hires.
Quoted: Simone Schweber, a professor of education and Jewish studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s a common misconception that it’s better to avoid talking about painful subjects in history and current events.
“One of the easy pitfalls is that you think sometimes by teaching this stuff that it necessarily replicates,” Schweber said. “That if you teach about the history of racism that you’re necessarily replicating the institutions that are racist. And I understand where that fear comes from, but I think it’s a real disservice to what it means to teach.”
After more than a year of cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, college study abroad programs in Wisconsin have begun sending small contingents of students around the world.
A conservative law firm issued a letter to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Wednesday opposing the hiring of mental health providers that exclusively serve students of color.
Aconservative legal group has threatened legal action against the University of Wisconsin-Madison for hiring three mental health providers to serve only students of color.
After a year of spending cuts driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, fund balances at University of Wisconsin System campuses have grown significantly. Tuition reserves, in particular, have increased by more than 46 percent following years of sustained decreases that put some campuses in financial jeopardy.
According to fall 2021 enrollment data released last week, 8,500 freshmen are enrolled at UW-Madison this semester — a 16% increase compared to last fall’s freshmen. The class comes from a pool of 53,829 applicants, a record-setting number that has risen 17% over the past year. The university has nearly 48,000 students total attending this fall semester, up from 45,540 last year.
Quoted: Heidi Johnson is the advising and training manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Office of Student Financial Aid and president of the statewide Wisconsin Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. She told WPR the coronavirus pandemic and the year of online classes it brought to the state meant in-person meetings about FAFSA applications between students and high school counselors were halted.
As a result, Johnson said it wasn’t as easy for counselors to offer “friendly nudges” to encourage students to fill out the applications when mulling whether to attend college.
“So, I think certainly the timing of it, especially for that particular senior class, played a part,” said Johnson. “And just the fact that things stayed virtual, I think much longer than any of us planned for in the beginning.”
The announcement Tuesday said that because UW-Stout met its campus goal, the UW System will award 70 $7,000 scholarships this fall in a drawing to students at campuses that have reached the 70%-vaccinated mark.
Students looking to become teachers were given a boost Tuesday, after Madison College and UW-Madison announced a transfer agreement.
Madison College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education have announced a new transfer agreement that will create a direct pipeline for future elementary and special education teachers.
On one hand, some institutions, like the University of Wisconsin, are still providing housing for those who need to quarantine or isolate. In Madison, those students may have to travel 35 minutes to an off-site hotel, according to an email to students and parents. Students are also responsible for their own food. On the other hand, some colleges, such as the University of Delaware, have some space for students to isolate.
Democratic legislators are introducing a package of bills that would secure additional funding for the University of Wisconsin System and the state’s technical colleges, as well as make college more affordable through tuition freezes and need-based financial aid grants.
Divestment activists now have turned their focus to Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Boston College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, none of which have fully abandoned fossil fuels.
The move adds UW-Madison to a list of 12 schools in the state that offer a transfer pipeline through Madison College’s liberal arts education program. It will also give students guaranteed admission to the School of Education after matriculating from Madison College.
“We have made mental health a priority on our campuses, and we know students are heavily reliant on services our universities provide,” said UW System President Tommy Thompson. “But there remains unmet need, and we are going to seek help from the governor and the legislature to partner with us to expand our capacity. It not only helps us retain students, but more importantly, ensures students get what they need to build a successful future.”
There has been a years-long increase in students seeking mental health services on campus.
“Thanks to the students and all the university employees at UW Oshkosh and UW-Whitewater for helping us reach this goal,” said UW System President Tommy Thompson. “Like me, they want to make our universities healthy and safe, and I know they have worked tirelessly to make today’s announcement possible.”
With UW-Oshkosh and UW-Whitewater reaching a 70% vaccination mark Friday, five System schools now at or above the benchmark.
The University of Wisconsin System’s drive to ensure that vaccination rates at each of its universities surpass the 70 percent mark leaped forward Friday with officials announcing that two more of its schools have crossed the magic threshold.
