Category: Opinion

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Cardinal View: UW-Madison expression policies shape debate on only their terms. This restricts student dialogue.

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.

As more students choose MATC for affordability, UW should streamline transfer processes and expand financial aid.

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.

GOP attempts to protect conservative voices with End Woke Higher Education Act, putting campuses at risk for hate speech.

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.

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.

Column by Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at UW-Madison.

Column by John Gross, a clinical associate professor of law at the UW-Madison Law School and director of the Public Defender Project.

If we run public higher education even more like a business that prioritizes efficiency over all other values, the outcome will be a disaster for a significant majority of students and the state.