Public and private universities issued tens of millions of dollars worth in housing and dining refunds to students who were no longer on campus. Sporting events and summer camps were canceled. For the University of Wisconsin System alone, there was an estimated $212 million in lost revenues.
Shortly after, Evers’ administration announced a 5% cut to the state operations budget, saving about $70 million. The largest cut was weathered by the University of Wisconsin System, which had to give up about $41 million. Universities across the state have since implemented employee furloughs to cut costs.
Weeks before University of Wisconsin campuses reopen, neither UW System nor campus leaders know how many students and staff have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past five months.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has joined all other UW colleges in waiving its test score requirements for fall 2021 admission as students nationwide struggle to access the ACT and SAT during the pandemic.
UW-Madison announced Wednesday afternoon that it will not require standardized test scores for Fall 2020 applicants.
High school seniors applying to UW-Madison this fall can opt out of the standardized testing admissions requirement. Students can still submit ACT or SAT scores, but they won’t be penalized in the admissions process if they choose not to, the university announced Wednesday.
The University of Wisconsin System announced a $2 million anonymous donation Monday that will help improve online classes and academic advising.
Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc with college sports.
Officials from four NCAA Division III conferences with Wisconsin members announced Monday they were either cancelling or postponing all fall sports for the 2020-21 academic year.
The University of Wisconsin System received a $2 million anonymous donation to improve online education as campuses try to make classes more engaging than was offered in the spring.
Annual publication of UW System salaries.
As University of Wisconsin System students grapple with the realization that most of their classes will again be online this fall, many hold out hope for some form of tuition relief to offset what they see as an inferior learning experience.
Noted: Legally, people can use slurs in a university setting. In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of free speech specifically with regard to anti-Black slurs or actions. In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, the Court unanimously struck down the city of St. Paul’s Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance and reversed the conviction of a teenager for burning a cross on the lawn of an African American family, arguing that the First Amendment protects cross burning as freedom of speech. Such legal protection was widely discussed in 2016 when a football fan at the University of Wisconsin at Madison wore a costume of President Barack Obama with a noose around his neck. University police officers asked the fan to remove the noose, and the University of Wisconsin issued the following statement: “The costume, while repugnant and counter to the values of the university and athletic department, was an exercise of the individual’s right to free speech.”
Quoted: “Even though states are putting the 14-day quarantines up, there are big questions about how it’d be enforced on a campus and for students who live off campus,” said Nicholas Hillman, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The impact seems really uncertain unless it’s strictly a residential campus.”
While a minority hiring program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison values skin color, there is less value placed on political minorities of color on the right.
Edgewood College has reinstated the positions of all six Edgewood College professors who were initially terminated in May.
The sole finalist in the University of Wisconsin System presidential search was “forced to withdraw” amid an onslaught of criticism that UW Board of Regents leaders viewed as “unfair” and “unprofessional,” emails show.
Noted: Minutes after Evers announced the plan, University of Wisconsin interim president and former Gov. Tommy Thompson pointed out that the system’s campuses had already absorbed more than half of the first round of cutting and signaled the system would have trouble with further reductions.
“Our universities are doing everything we can to provide in-person classes safely this fall and reductions in state support for the UW System are an obstacle to that work,” Thompson said in a statement.
UW System President Tommy Thompson said the budget reductions are an obstacle to providing in-person classes safely this fall. “The UW System has already borne a disproportionate share of state cuts to date,” Thompson said. “I am working with the Governor’s office to manage these further cuts, as well as to secure the resources we need to ensure our classrooms and university communities are safe this fall. We have a compelling case, and I believe the Governor will be helpful.”
Quoted: The effort to de-densify campus could have a public health benefit if the extra space is used to spread people out across classrooms and residence halls, said Craig Roberts, an epidemiologist emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a member of the American College Health Association’s COVID-19 task force.
“If the reduction is being done solely for budget reasons, however,” he said, such as to “keep class sizes the same but have fewer classes with fewer instructors, then I don’t think it’s going to make much difference.”
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted Monday to approve emergency rule changes ensuring compliance with the federal government’s new regulations regarding sexual discrimination and misconduct.
Noted: The first collective bargaining agreement for teaching assistants was reached at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the spring of 1970; in the 50 years since, there have been only about 40 more, covering just one in five graduate student workers, according to the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College.
Nearly three-fourths of classes at Madison Area Technical College will be delivered completely online this fall amid the COVID-19 pandemic, President Jack Daniels announced Wednesday.
University of Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank said the announcement today is “encouraging news” for institutions of higher education across the U.S.
“For me specifically, this country is the only home I have known,” said Radha Kanchana Karthik, a 2018 graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison who moved to the U.S. from Chennai, India in 2003.
The University of Wisconsin supports a multi-state lawsuit filed Monday challenging the Trump administration’s new restrictions on international students, interim system president Tommy Thompson said.
The rule threatens to upend the legal status of thousands of international students in Wisconsin, including roughly 5,800 on the UW-Madison campus.
Editorial: Wisconsin can’t afford to lose thousands of foreign students from its campuses, especially those attending UW-Madison.
The University of Wisconsin System has asked the governor for $110 million to fund COVID-19 testing and personal protective equipment, as campuses look to open this fall and the number of coronavirus cases in Wisconsin continues to rise.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that all of the roughly 1 million international students currently enrolled in the U.S. must attend at least one in-person class this fall or be denied visas. We hear student reaction, and Jeffrey Brown talks to Rebecca Blank of University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Interim University of Wisconsin President Tommy Thompson says he has requested $110 million from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to pay for COVID-19 tests, contact tracing and personal protective equipment so campuses can safely reopen this fall.
The UW Board of Regents unanimously passed the mask mandate Thursday, a few weeks after UW System guidelines recommended masks but stopped short of requiring them.
The lecturer says her comments were misinterpreted.
Noted: The surge in cases in the county has put in jeopardy the ability of the state’s flagship university to hold in-person classes this fall, the University of Wisconsin Health chief quality and safety officer told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week.
Pictures of Vanessa Guillen hung by a table with candles and flowers.
Dozens yelled chants that echoed against the walls of Spaights Plaza at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus Wednesday night.
Protesters demanded the termination of Betsy Schoeller, a senior lecturer and former colonel in the Wisconsin Air National Guard, after she made a controversial comment on Facebook in response to an article about the killing of Guillen, the Mexican-American soldier whose remains were found near the Fort Hood, Texas, base last week.
For Hannah Arbuckle, a summer internship focused on helping people cultivate wild foods at the Bad River Reservation was an opportunity to help the tribe she belongs to.
It was also the University of Wisconsin-Madison senior’s chance to complete her last requirement for graduation.
But when she called her supervisor at the reservation to ask if her internship was still happening, Arbuckle learned the program had been canceled.
After spending years studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Linh Nguyen, an international student from Vietnam, watched in recent days as his life fell into limbo.
In an emailed statement, University of Wisconsin System spokesman Mark Pitsch said the state’s universities are internationally recognized. According to UW data, there were 9,482 international students across all institutions. That works out to nearly 6 percent of the entire student body. The percentage of international students in the UW System has been growing since 2006.
New federal guidelines that would force international students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to leave the U.S. or transfer to another college if classes go entirely online this fall has injected another layer of uncertainty for thousands of students and threatens to add to the university’s budget stress.
Thousands of international students pursuing degrees at UW-Madison may be forced to leave the country, risk deportation or transfer to another institution if the university moves all of its classes online this fall in the interest of public health.
Gov. Tony Evers has given the University of Wisconsin System the go-ahead to begin complying with new federal rules that bolster the rights of sexual misconduct defendants and narrow the range of sexual misconduct that colleges must investigate.
His team created a Listening Post for people who live in Wisconsin and the UW community to ask questions and offer ideas.
At risk is University of Wisconsin-Madison’s plan to welcome students back to campus this fall. Jeff Pothof, University of Wisconsin Health chief quality and safety officer, said if local health officials don’t try to stop the spread of the virus in Dane County, in-person instruction could be called off. “If we’re unable to get on top of this current spike and it continues to accelerate, we may be in a position where it won’t make sense to be holding in-person classes,” he said. “It becomes a risk that most of us shouldn’t be taking with our children.”
Both the city and UW-Madison have similar orders in place to ensure people are distancing properly, which will be especially important come late August when the university’s 30,000 students return to campus. “We have been and will be working to ensure people are abiding by the campus order when they are on campus property,” Marc Lovicott of UW-Madison’s Police Department, said. “We have and will issue citations for blatant and/or multiple violations.”
It would ask students to wear masks and maintain distancing both inside and outside of the classroom.
He may be in the seat for only a year or so, but former Gov. Tommy Thompson brings a solid record of supporting academic research to the job of interim president of the University of Wisconsin System.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Meredith McGlone, a spokesperson for the university, said they are following CDC guidelines, and restroom sinks and toilets are flushed “at least weekly.” As people return to buildings, they are recommending that people let taps run for a few minutes to clear them.
Thompson has the experience, the maturity and the stature to renew the system’s historic commitment to the Wisconsin Idea and to the communities from Superior to Kenosha that will only flourish if Wisconsin expands its commitment to higher education.
Tommy Thompson has tapped two figures from his past to lead a transition team as he prepares to take over as the University of Wisconsin System’s interim president next week.
Thompson has asked the team to develop background on the UW System’s budget and organizational structure before he takes over as president next week.
Letter to the editor: It’s yet another wasted opportunity to set our broken course straight, to charge boldly into a future that includes and respects everyone.
Jim Johnsen, who was the lone finalist for the job of University of Wisconsin System president, has resigned from his job as University of Alaska president, the university announced Monday.
Letter to the editor: I remember a press conference to announce UW-Madison had recruited (poached?) an up-and-coming science researcher who arrived with two truckloads of high-tech equipment. Thompson and almost everyone else realized the university is a major driver of the state economy, and that increasing its profile is good for everyone.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Meredith McGlone, a spokesperson for the university, said they are following CDC guidelines, and restroom sinks and toilets are flushed “at least weekly.” As people return to buildings, they are recommending that people let taps run for a few minutes to clear them.
His resignation comes a week after the faculty union demanded he quit. Johnsen earlier this month also withdrew his name for consideration as the University of Wisconsin president even though he was the sole finalist.
That’s the message from a report called Restoring Regional Public Universities for Recovery in the Great Lakes, released this month by the Brookings Institution. The report suggests that public, regional universities — which include all the University of Wisconsin System four-year schools other than Madison and Milwaukee — are neither fully appreciated nor properly funded.
Tommy Thompson’s new job title has the word “interim” in front of it. But we trust he’ll be much more than a stopgap administrator for the University of Wisconsin System.
In between strained breaths, German — a freshman from West Bend attending UW-Madison — said he had been running from building to building in an attempt to cast his ballot. “I haven’t missed an election yet,” he said.
Picking former Gov. Tommy Thompson to serve as the interim president of the University of Wisconsin is a good thing.
The University of Wisconsin System regents’ leader has picked Republican darling Tommy Thompson as the system’s interim president, delivering another twist in what has become a messy search to replace outgoing President Ray Cross.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents appointed former Gov. Tommy Thompson as the interim system president during a closed session meeting Thursday.
Current UW System President Ray Cross announced plans to retire back in October, which led to a months-long search for a successor.
