When UW leaders asked for $845 million, a fraction of the total amount cut from the UW budget under his watch, Assembly Speaker Vos said, “I just know that some of these numbers, where they ask for the moon, are unrealistic.”
When Vos graduated from UW-Whitewater in 1991, Wisconsin’s higher education appropriations per student were $11,028. In 2023 it was $9,277. So the “moon” was realistic when he personally benefited from taxpayer support, but is unrealistic when it is your turn to benefit?
UW scientists study how methamphetamine affects body, probe legal, medical, societal implications of drug.
I would be correctly described as a member of that committee with a partisan background. I did not, however, vote in “lockstep” with other members who might also be so categorized. Furthermore I would suggest many of the questions were more nuanced than the authors claimed. Additionally there were members of this committee (including some UW employees and past Regents ) who did not show, nor do I believe they have, strong partisan leanings. Instead their clearly expressed concern was for the future of the system. That was also my concern.
Written by Sarah Halpern-Meekin, director of UW-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty and a professor of public affairs with the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Vaughn Bascom Professor of Women, Family, and Community in the School of Human Ecology.
This is no time to be downgrading one of the world’s most important systems of public universities. UW System President Jay Rothman, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, and Gov. Tony Evers have all publicly opposed this splitting off of UW Madison, a fugitive relic of the Walker years.
Everyone else should too.
Letter to the editor: According to Open Seat Food Pantry, a student organization at UW-Madison that seeks to address food insecurity, it is estimated that 12% of UW-Madison students are food insecure. The Office of Student Assistance and Support houses Badger FARE, a program that only provides $75 per academic year for those who meet the criteria. The school additionally provides frozen meals, but distributes them through churches, limiting its effectiveness.
On the flip side, John Lucey, a professor of food science and the director of the Center for Dairy Research at University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Washington Post that drinking raw milk is “a really stupid, bad idea,” adding: “It’s almost like a doctor shouldn’t wash their hands before they go into an operating room.”
Letter to the editor: I am writing to argue that the issue of divestment raised by the protesters should be taken seriously by the board.
Letter to the editor: I am reaching out today from the standpoint of a concerned student at UW-Madison.
Having a city situated between two lakes has its advantages, but also its consequences. I’d like to express my concern and bring awareness to our area lakes, specifically their water quality.
Republicans have long urged government to run more like a business.
Well, the Universities of Wisconsin are doing just that, under the leadership of President Jay Rothman. The GOP-controlled Legislature should appreciate and reward his effort with greater funding in the state budget.
Why UW-Madison students, especially women, are instead choosing to walk home alone at night.
UW’s CS department is packed — there’s no doubt about it. The department has had to adjust to a meteoric rise in popularity among undergraduates, and yet, unlike many of their peers, they have not instituted a limited-access model.
Written by Theresa Delgadillo, a professor of English and director of the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-editor of Latinx Talk.
The Badgers are inconsistent and underperforming, does the problem run deeper than Luke Fickell?
UW-Madison would greatly benefit from a program similar to Carroll’s Wellness Advocate initiative. 43% of UW students were positive for significant symptoms of anxiety and depression, according to the university’s 2022 Healthy Minds survey.
Co-authored by Amber Wichowsky, an associate professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs and holds the Leadership Wisconsin Endowed Chair for the Division of Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Allison Keeley who is pursuing a master’s degree in international public affairs at the La Follette School.
Letter to the editor: This is a violation of freedom of speech and UW-Madison traditions. The university would not permit a history or chemistry professor or others to silence their students and not permit any discussions.
Written by Alfred McCoy, the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Put him to work — sorting clothes at the Dane County Free Clothing Center. Who knows? He might even find something to wear.
I am a co-president of my graduate student labor union, the Teaching Assistants’ Association. We represent Teaching Assistants (graduate workers who teach classes, grade papers, lead discussion sections) and Research Assistants (graduate workers who do research, often in a laboratory setting) and all other graduate workers.
Co-op programs offer early step into workforce, create hands-on opportunities for students in chosen fields.
Digitization of coursework, growth of artificial intelligence, changing norms create gap between how professors design courses, how students approach them.
Written by Susan Webb Yackee, a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.
It is difficult for me to imagine being prouder of my fellow UW students or more embarrassed by my university than I have been over the past six months.
Meta’s poor customer service, cost-cutting layoffs cause real harm to businesses, organizations depending on its platforms.
Patent law “march-in” rights: Some say the federal government should be allowed to appropriate products patented by universities and developed with private money if the underlying research received any federal funding and if the products are deemed unreasonably priced. In patent law-speak, that’s called “march-in” rights. It would be a major departure from the bipartisan 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which was silent on what constitutes “reasonable” price and which has been credited with spurring innovation at major universities nationwide.
Letter to the editor: This past weekend would have been an opportunity to expand the fan base for Badgers volleyball and basketball if fans could watch games via their standard cable TV package.
Column by Nick Buttrick, assistant professor of psychology at UW-Madison.
Column by Jessica Maki, a mass communications Ph.D. student at UW-Madison who earned her master’s at Louisiana State University, and Michael W. Wagner, the William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea, director of the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal and professor of journalism and mass communication at UW-Madison.
Authored by Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
If all goes well, the new engineering building will help the future of the engineering program and will boost Wisconsin’s economy as a whole. Conversely, the cost of this future improvement is leaving programs underfunded, tuition raised and immediate needs unmet.
Written by Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics in UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs and Department of Economics, and Mark Copelovitch, a professor in UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs and Department of Political Science.
Cardinal View: UW-Madison expression policies shape debate on only their terms. This restricts student dialogue.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, UW-Madison was an international leader in the first renewable energy to produce electricity for the public — hydropower. During some of those years, the Wisconsin River was known as the hardest working river in the world because it produced so much electricity.
Today’s UW-Madison protests have passion but do not wield the same political influence that once shook campus and sparked national dialogue. Students must harness the generational protest tactics of the past.
While the world looks on with trepidation at regional wars in Israel and Ukraine, a far more dangerous global crisis is quietly building at the other end of Eurasia, along an island chain that has served as the front line for America’s national defense for endless decades. (Author: Alfre C. McCoy)
Hamas attacks and the Israeli response. Colleges and universities around the country are reconsidering their neutrality policies in the wake of such positions adopted by the University of Virginia, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Southern California, Harvard, Stanford, and many others. Schools are balancing, on the one hand, whether they put student rights or voices at risk when they take sides on controversial issues or whether they have a moral obligation to address societal wrongs.
As more students choose MATC for affordability, UW should streamline transfer processes and expand financial aid.
Written by Denia Garcia, an assistant professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. Garcia’s work examines the role of space and organizations in shaping how inequalities are experienced and reproduced.
A modern, thriving Wisconsin requires universities rated in the top tier of research institutions, ones that produce productivity enhancing innovations making modern life possible, while also imparting knowledge enabling citizens to create and think. Thus armed with these capacities, graduates of these Research One, or R1, universities find success in the arts, professions, sciences and as entrepreneurs.
UW is facing a decline in the number of Black students in its freshman class, pointing to deeper issues in diversity, equity in higher education.
Co-authored by PhD candidates in sociology, and William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea & Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Wealthy donors have turned us into a DIY Society, where people are supposed to take care of themselves rather than be helped by government.
GOP attempts to protect conservative voices with End Woke Higher Education Act, putting campuses at risk for hate speech.
Written by Alvin Thomas, an Associate Professor of Human Development & Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a consulting editor at the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
Staff Attorney, State Democracy Research Initiative, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Digital learning management system softwares changed higher education forever, but that has come at a price.
Dear Editor: In this new academic year, UW-Madison administration is beginning to enforce a crackdown on its own students and faculty who participated in the anti-war and anti-genocide protests at downtown Library Mall last spring, organized by Students for Justice in Palestine.
Recent appearances from Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles and Charlie Kirk have sparked campus controversy, offering lessons in free speech.
For the benefit of students and faculty, the university should start classes a week earlier.
When looking at sexual violence on campus, the need for this space becomes particularly clear.
University must continue investing in study abroad programs to improve cultural consciousness in student body.
Yet, under a new UW policy announced by system administrators last week, top UW officials will be barred from making public statements about what might broadly be imagined as controversial. The policy lists those officials as “the UW System president and vice presidents, the university chancellors, provosts, vice chancellors, deans, directors, department chairs and others who, when communicating in their official capacity, are likely to be perceived as speaking in the name of and on behalf of the institution or one of its units.”
Letter to the editor: As is common, the wealthy donors will have an important new building on campus named after a family member. There are winners in all this. But I urge families with significant resources to consider a different giving opportunity: affordable housing developments.
Letter to the editor: Now I see they are doing away with the Hall of Fame walk. These bricks are very special to the people who purchased them. Some of these bricks were very old, and some were memorials to loved ones. It was all done very underhandedly. Brick purchasers received little or no notification.
In the same breath, colleges claim that they remain committed to academic freedom, the right to protest and freedom of expression. In another extreme example, University of Wisconsin at Madison updated its expressive activity policy in a manner seemingly straight out of 1984, banning any speech activity short of “individuals speaking directly to one another” within 25 feet of a building, a policy UWM constitutional law professor Howard Schweber called “clearly unconstitutional” because it covers “an enormous and almost incalculable amount of First Amendment–protected expression in ways that have nothing to do with ensuring access to university buildings.”
Lawmakers must move to support increased state funding for UW system schools, steady tuition, enable scholarships.
Expanded league will lead to new rivalries, stronger recruiting, higher revenues.
After a lack of communication from UW System officials, many communities and students face uncertainty and isolation with higher education after a myriad of branch campuses closed.
A scientific survey of nearly 4,000 Wisconsin residents by the UW Survey Center helped identify the top issues heading into the fall election. Throughout the year, we’ve been publishing opinion pieces from faculty at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison, our partner in the Main Street Agenda, exploring the public policy behind those issues.
