Category: Higher Education/System

The fault lines of a national debate over free speech in higher education were on display Thursday during a lengthy hearing on Republican legislation that would require University of Wisconsin institutions to discipline students who interrupt speakers.

Big-budget diversity initiatives on a number of campuses have drawn praise and skepticism in recent years. The praise sounds like this: money dedicated to a cause signals its value and enables needed change. The skepticism centers on questions such as whether all students will benefit from, say, the hiring of 20 new professors who contribute to an institution’s diversity goals, or whether well-funded campuses will simply poach inclusion-attuned scholars from others, leaving winners and losers.

UW has started specialty tutoring to help students who haven’t been able to pass the test to get their license.

There’s a push to keep Wisconsin students in Wisconsin for college. Lawmakers on Tuesday morning introduced their bill for the Wisconsin Merit Scholarship.

The state would sell more than 70,000 acres of public land and use the money to create merit scholarships for Wisconsin students attending college in the University of Wisconsin System, under legislation announced by three GOP officials Tuesday.

A Republican-backed bill aims to create $5,000 scholarships for students who attend University of Wisconsin System schools.

Thomas Pleger, the president of Lake Superior State University, died today two days after undergoing emergency brain surgery. He was 48.

A firm that manages student housing on two University of Wisconsin campuses has settled a lawsuit with three subcontractors who said they were never paid for work done on one of the dorms.

SAN DIEGO — In the competition for marquee commencement speakers, the University of California, San Diego thought it had scored a coup this year — a Nobel Peace Prize winner, best-selling author and spiritual North Star to millions of people.

UW leads in areas of improvement, but ‘absolutely’ still has work to do.

One of the chief authors of a Republican bill that calls for the University of Wisconsin System to suspend or expel student hecklers who disrupt speeches says the measure’s language is too vague and may be unconstitutional.

Purdue University’s acquisition of Kaplan University is an unexpected tectonic shift in American higher education, revealing both the changing roles of public universities and the dwindling fortunes of for-profit colleges.

It’s no surprise that Pomona College’s decision to hire Alice Goffman as a visiting professor would raise some eyebrows. The young sociologist drew both widespread admiration and broad criticism for On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, her 2014 ethnography about poor black youth in Philadelphia.

Here comes the sun—and the solar panels—at UW-Stout. Previously one of only two UW System schools operating without renewable energy, their Sustainability Council received funding for the panels after pushback from administration.

It’s impossible to examine state higher education finances in 2016 without separating the collapse in Illinois from a more nuanced picture across the rest of the country.

The cherished Wisconsin Idea, though no longer directly related to its progressive origin, still shows the impact that Wisconsin’s political history continues to have on society and government today.

The pair, each with a track record of contributions to Republican campaigns or conservative causes, would replace Jim Doyle appointees Edward Manydeeds and Mark Bradley, leaving Tony Evers as the lone member of the governing board of the state’s public university system not appointed by Walker. Evers by law serves ex-officio and continues on the board by virtue of his recent reelection to a third term as state superintendent of schools.

The very soonest Madison residents could see an independent charter school open its doors in the city is fall 2018 — a year later than state officials first planned.That’s not foot-dragging, it’s prudence, according to Gary Bennett, who was hired last April to run the new Office of Educational Opportunity.

With less than a month away from graduation at UW-Green Bay, the semester is quickly wrapping up. But current students still haven’t been able to sign up for next semester’s classes, causing uncertainty about fall 2017’s schedule.

Yes, a fire last Saturday night destroyed the Mainstage Theatre’s scene shop in the arts complex at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. And yes, the restoration will take months. But what has happened in the days since then, that’s a different kind of story.