Born in Wisconsin in the 1960s, I was always taught that Wisconsin valued progressive ideas, transparency in government and above all our excellent education system. These ideals made Wisconsin special.
So it was very saddening to see the recent closing of yet another two-year campus in the Universities of Wisconsin System: UW-Plattville Baraboo Sauk County.
Acknowledgment without any sort of follow through is hollow. The university has an opportunity and obligation to move past empty gestures and truly show that Native American people, their complex history and ongoing struggles are genuinely valued.
Remember when the Badgers football team competed for the Big Ten championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl? If so, your memory would have to go back a few years. Remember when the Badgers lost to a so-so, 20th ranked Michigan team by 14 points and that was considered a moral victory? You’d have to think all the way back to last Saturday for that one. It might be fresher in your mind.
Written by Joshua Braver, an assistant law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“I am not going to be that professor who posts on social media and is promptly pilloried for expressing an opinion.
“Like many academics these days, I have been wanting to weigh in on recent crises and tragedies that are at the top of the news cycle. But such a course hardly seems wise.”
Written by Russ Castronovo, a professor of English and the director of the Center for the Humanities at UW-Madison.
Written by Anthony Hernandez, a faculty member in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received a research award from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation for his study on leadership in higher education.
Letter to the editor: My question is: Why should Baraboo and Sauk County supply the funds for upkeep and maintenance, which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Why not establish trade courses in the unused portion of this facility.
Letter to the editor: Perhaps the UW-Madison athletic department should let the season ticket holders vote for the next coach. Give us three qualified candidates and let the people paying for these outrageous salaries choose the next coach.
It’s a cycle. Embrace it.
I became a fan when the University of Wisconsin Badgers football team went 0-9-1 in 1967. The losses make the wins more special. UW can rise again, but we need to set realistic expectations and enjoy the bumpy journey.
Written by Frances Vavrus, the vice provost and dean of the International Division at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
I was just out walking on the UW campus and I witnessed a girl just about get killed on at the Johnson Street crossing outside Gordon Commons.
In an email July 9, University of Wisconsin Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced the Division of Diversity, Equity and Educational Achievement was ceasing operations and most of its staff would be transferred to other departments within UW. The sudden end of the 15-year-old division walks back the short history of the university administration accommodating its marginalized students.
Parents struggle to help teens deal with online racism. Online racism is different from in-person racism because the people behaving that way usually hide behind fake names, making it hard to stop them. Studies found that teens of color see more untargeted racism – memes, jokes, comments – and racism targeting others online than racism targeted directly at them. But vicarious racism hurts, too.
Written by rofessor of human development & family studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Labor Day offers a critical juncture at which to access the condition of workers in Wisconsin. For two decades, the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has produced comprehensive “State of Working Wisconsin” reports, which have set the standard for assessing where we are at.
The 2025 assessment features some concerning news.
Badgers fans love to win. But more important than any championship are the lives and wellbeing of the student athletes in red and white. They face enormous pressure to succeed in their sports, often with scholarships and additional compensation at stake.
That’s what makes the State Journal’s recent investigation into the women’s cross country and basketball teams so troubling. Winning, or trying to, trumped the best interests of students.
According to the Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Green County, where Monroe is located, has experienced a 229% increase in Latinos from 2000 to 2019. That growth has not been accompanied by a surge in murders, robberies, pet-eatings or any other crimes that the current administration has leveled against migrants. Instead Monroe has seen a rise in the number of Mexican restaurants and bilingual masses at the local Catholic church, as well as hardworking community members hoping to make a better life for themselves.
Written by rofessor of cultural anthropology and international studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
While at NPR, Jack Mitchell co-created the long-running afternoon news program “All Things Considered” and was its first producer and newscaster.
Mitchell’s retired now as emeritus professor at the UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where he taught after stepping down as WPR’s director in 1997. In the meantime, he’s authored several books, including my favorite, “Wisconsin on the Air: 100 years of public broadcasting in the state that invented it.”
Jack a few days after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced it was closing its doors after Congress took away its $1.1 billion annual funding (about $1.60 per person.)
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.
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.
Written by Greg Wiercioch, a member of the clinical faculty at the Frank J. Remington Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
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.
Written by James Dahlberg, a professor emeritus in the department of biomolecular chemistry at UW-Madison.
After three successful shows in the last month at Camp Randall — the first in 28 years — Madison is back on the map for the biggest musical acts. The city, its boosters and the university should do everything it can to keep it that way.
Nobody voted for higher costs, crowded classes and less research at the UW, writes Jordan Ellenburg in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Ideas Lab column. The UW-Madison math professor explains how federal budget cuts are undermining decades of the university’s contributions to industry and the dangers that presents to the economy.
Written by Mark Copelovitch, a professor of political science and public affair, and director of the Center for European Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Written by Jordan Ellenberg, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region have all the pieces to build a fusion industry here. UW-Madison is one of the top two fusion energy research universities in the country (MIT is the other). Amazingly, UW-Madison has spun out three of the world’s 45 fusion companies: SHINE Technologies; Type One Energy and Realta Fusion. And UW-Madison alumni work at all the major U.S. fusion companies that use magnetic (as opposed to laser) plasma containment.
That’s where big time college sports clearly needs to go. Rather than fighting steps that would lead to a players union, the UW should be doing everything it can to facilitate it. Because a union is an essential ingredient to the stability that coaches and fans want.
In their latest attempt at micromanaging an institution for which their support ranks 44th among the 50 states, the budget contains a provision that requires faculty members to teach at least 24 credit hours per year, a number that is reduced to 12 credit hours for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Faculty can buy down the number of courses they must teach by replacing their compensation with funding from other sources, like grants, the reporters explained.
rofessor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Since then, I’ve graduated from UC Davis with honors and am now a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research investigates how plants sense nutrients so we can grow healthier plants using fewer resources like fertilizers.
Materials engineering programs typically have dozens of students, not hundreds. To put this into perspective, however, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts an average of just 10 job openings per year for neurologists in Wisconsin. Hopefully, no one would suggest that UW-Madison should stop training neurology residents, since most of us recognize that medical specialists are essential to the kind of society we want to have.
If legislators truly want viewpoint diversity and top talent to help Wisconsin citizens earn a college degree and achieve a better future, they should begin by paying UW System faculty at least an average salary. Not by cutting the UW System budget even more than they have already.
Written by Anthony Hernandez, a faculty member in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (UW-Madison) who received a research award from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation for his study on leadership in Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
When I approached graduation from Lake Forest College, I felt lost. How could I blend my passions into a career? I found the answer during a research internship at Rush University on a project funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease. Today, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I am a doctoral candidate in epidemiology, the field that works to understand and reduce disease. My research and training are largely supported by the National Cancer Institute.
The Morgridge Institute for Research, or MIR, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has always been a bit of a mystery to me, and not just because the scientific research that goes on there exceeds my limited grasp of biology, chemistry and physics. (Or the fact that the building it shares with the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, or WID, is at the nearly-impossible-to-navigate intersection of University Avenue, Campus Drive, North Randall Avenue and North Orchard Street.)
The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program through TRIO helped me earn my Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and led to my becoming dean of the Dougherty Family College (DFC) at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. DFC is a mentoring student-focused two-year college, and I have incorporated my research and experiences in TRIO programs into the college’s design.
Written by Hanns Kuttner, a guest essayist to Madison Magazine.
Poker puts into focus the same gender dynamics that can create anxiety for women in a patriarchal society, says Jessica Calarco, a sociologist, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of ”Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net.” “You’re expected to read the room, stay composed, and manage risk — much like women do every day in a world that asks them to carry everything without appearing to struggle,” she tells me.
While the daycare dilemma is large and complex, colleges have a unique role. Student parents (and faculty and staff) can be supported with resources by the university. Tuition paid by students should cover the costs of child care, if provided on campus.
According to an analysis by the American Council on Education, nearly one in every five undergraduate college students, about 18%, are parents, typically to preschool-aged or younger. In Wisconsin alone, 22% of all undergrads are single moms.
An op-ed by Joshua Braver, an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies civil-military relations.
Written by Alfred McCoy, the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Written by James Pikul, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UW-Madison.
And Allison Prasch, an instructor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is quoted as saying that “Democrats trip over themselves in an attempt to say exactly the right thing.”
Nonsense. Some Democrats trip all over themselves trying to obscure the meaning of what they say. Take referring to felons as part of “justice-involved populations.” Likewise, the term “undocumented person” implies that the problem is one of paperwork. It simply omits the fact that the person resides in the United States illegally.
Written by ssociate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Cap Times higher education reporter Becky Jacobs detailed this past week how drastically the UW is being challenged by the Trump administration’s indiscriminate cuts to American higher education.
It isn’t just Harvard that’s in the crosshairs, but premier universities throughout the country are being defunded. It’s as if the country’s own government has for mysterious reasons decided to declare war on its world-renowned citadels of learning.
We also found something we did not expect: a gender gap in how students respond to rising housing prices. University enrollment among male students drops sharply as housing costs rise. For female students, the pattern is different. In some cases, female enrollment actually increases, perhaps because women see education as a long-term investment worth making, even in tough times. But when tuition and housing costs rise together, even that resilience begins to falter.
Written by Kevin P. Reilly, president emeritus of the University of Wisconsin system. He served as president of the system from 2004 to 2013.
When I was a student at Rufus King, I took Spanish and Italian courses. Four years later, my younger brother Michael did the same. After high school, I went on to study Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied abroad in Italy. After graduation, I used my Italian language skills and taught 4-year-old kindergarten at the Italian Immersion School during the 2008-2009 school year.
Co-authored by Susan S. Engeleiter Professor of Education Law, Policy and Practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The silence by our administrative and faculty leaders, specifically in my field of the sciences, is deafening. Graduate students are looking for someone to step up for us, while our class sizes are shrinking, our stipends do not meet the cost of living, and our future job prospects are disappearing. Yet UW leadership is all too concerned with playing politics, if that is what you call rolling over for legislative Republicans. The few scientific faculty who will speak publicly shrug off the inevitability of layoffs and decreased class sizes for graduate workers, who do the majority of scientific labor toward cancer cures and Alzheimer’s research.
Ditto for potential candidates weighing the rigors of a campaign, says Joel Rogers, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s High Road Strategy Center: “Running for office is a drag for sure, and has become much more dangerous to one’s mental health and a happy family life.”
Letter to the editor: This attack is nothing more than an attempt to dictate what students should be taught. This is not what colleges and universities are there for. They are there to engage young minds to learn what they feel their future lives should be like.
Written by Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD, FAAP, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and also holds master’s degrees in public health and children’s librarianship.
Wisconsin Public Radio has, in varying forms, been an essential part of this state’s media landscape for more than a century. PBS Wisconsin, with roots tracing back to the early days of WHA-TV, has been just as essential for the past 70 years.
The United States had a taste of such a gap during the Vietnam War. At the time, academic scientists found themselves caught in the crosshairs of zealous anti-war activists who, despite scant evidence, accused them broadly of collaborating on weapons research in support of the war. In 1970, the situation reached a violent crescendo with the death of Robert Fassnacht, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who was working in a building that was bombed by anti-war protesters.
Written by Anthony Hernandez, a faculty member in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (UW-Madison), who received a research award from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation for his study on leadership in higher education. He has been recognized with four teaching awards at UW-Madison. He led the evaluation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) in Dane County, Wisconsin for two years.
Rather than laying off staff or admitting fewer graduate students, one place the school (and the UW System more broadly) could look to save hundreds of millions of dollars is to cut its exorbitant spending on out-of-state business consultants and costly technology purchases. Additionally, in this time of attacks on faculty research, now UW System’s adoption of Workday further threatens researchers’ ability to do their work.
