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Category: Opinion

Nadler: How to Fix American Stupidity

Time.com

When so many obviously intelligent and well-educated Americans claim that global warming is a “hoax”; when we seem obsessed with vilifying an entire, fourteen centuries-old religious tradition simply because of recent heinous actions of terrorists who profess to act in its name; when, nearly a century after the Scopes Trial, there is still significant public resistance to the theory of evolution, with one recent poll revealing that 34% of the population rejects evolution — over one third of the country! — and when voters elect a man so obviously unprepared and unfit to be president, I begin seriously to worry that we Americans are exhibiting greater and greater stupidity.

Issues of diversity, inclusion must be addressed with same level of commitment as Alcohol Edu, Tonight

The Badger Herald

As freshmen, we often experience some culture shock in our first two weeks of class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For some of us, the school is bigger than anything we’ve ever seen. For others, classes are harder than we expected. But, for a lot of students, especially minority students and members of historically disadvantaged communities, the obvious lack of diversity comes as a big hit.

Schwartz: Guatemala’s president tried to shut down a U.N. commission that announced it was investigating him

Washington Post

On Aug. 27, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales ordered the immediate expulsion of the head of the U.N. Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, Iván Velásquez. Within hours, the country’s Constitutional Court had blocked the move. (Rachel A. Schwartz is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.)

David Wandel: Congrats to professor Shakhashiri

Capital Times

Every so often there is an action that has a perfect reaction. And so it is for an old friend, professor Bassam Shakhashiri. He is the 2018 recipient of the prestigious Grady-Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public.

Charlottesville May Put The Brakes On Campus Free Speech Laws

Huffington Post

The sight of white supremacists marching through the heart of the University of Virginia, carrying flaming Tiki torches and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” — followed by the killing of a counterprotester at a rally in downtown Charlottesville the next day — may put the brakes on state efforts to strengthen campus free speech protections.

Hicks: Memo to the Google memo writer: Women were foundational to the field of computing

Washington Post

The rampant sexism in the tech world was put on full display this week after an internal memo from a Google software engineer went viral on the Internet. If we are to believe the memo’s author — who was fired from the company Monday — women are more prone to “neuroticism” and less likely to pursue leadership roles in the tech industry because of “biological differences.” (Marie Hicks is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing.”)

Tom Still: Key leaders offer support for Foxconn deal

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON — After lawmakers finished grilling members of the Walker administration over the details of a proposed incentive package to bring Foxconn Technology Group to Wisconsin, the mood in Thursday’s public hearing audibly changed.

What rural Wisconsin voters think of Donald Trump.

Slate

The divide between urban and rural communities, which has existed essentially everywhere for centuries, took on a singular importance to many of us when Donald Trump was elected last November. In her new book, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, political scientist Katherine J. Cramer looks at what happened in 2016 through the lens of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s rural popularity, despite policies that would endanger his rural and working-class constituents.

Chelsea Blackburn Cohen: More than UW-Madison accreditation at stake for proposed anti-abortion-training bill

Capital Times

Dear Editor: Introduced in April, a bill written by Rep. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, would prohibit faculty from training resident physicians in performing abortions. Critics of the proposed measure fear for the loss of UW-Madison’s national accreditation in training OBGYNs. Others fear for a future further down the line that results in decreasing access to OBGYN professionals throughout the state.

Tom Still: Foxconn decided to make Wisconsin its American home for more than incentives

Wisconsin State Journal

There are 75,000 graduates produced each year by the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System and the state’s private colleges and universities. That’s a likely source for some of the workers who will eventually fill Foxconn’s Wisconsin labor force. Wisconsin colleges and universities are also home to a research and development structure that rivals what can be found in most states – although it’s time to reinvest in that asset before quality wanes.

State Journal editorial: Taxpayers need convincing that $3B for Foxconn is worth it

Wisconsin State Journal

Foxconn, which makes liquid display panels for computers, televisions and other devices, also has expressed an interest in UW-Madison research, which could further expand the company’s positive economic impact across the state. This week’s announcement is exciting and welcome, given that several other states had hoped to land the technology manufacturer and its 20 million-square-foot campus on at least 1,000 acres. But Wisconsin taxpayers still need convincing that the governor’s incentive package is worth its steep price.

When the federal budget funds scientific research, it’s the economy that benefits

The Conversation

Emergency: You need more disposable diapers, right away. You hop into your car and trust your ride will be a safe one. Thanks to your phone’s GPS and the microchips that run it, you map out how to get to the store fast. Once there, the barcode on the package lets you accurately check out your purchase and run. Each step in this process owes a debt to the universities, researchers, students and the federal funding support that got these products and technologies rolling in the first place.

Chris Rickert: ‘Charter czar’ prepares launch as charter popularity plateaus

Wisconsin State Journal

More than two years after his office was created within the University of Wisconsin System and more than a year after he was hired, the czar has yet to authorize a single charter school. His office doesn’t even have a website. Education reformers can have some confidence he hasn’t just been loafing around these last 16 months, even as state education data suggest the popularity of charters could be waning.

Commentary: How should Singapore teachers manage issues of race in the classroom?

Channel NewsAsia

Jul 21 each year marks Racial Harmony Day. Ho Li-Ching explores whether students should be encouraged to discuss controversial issues related to race in the classroom and what’s stopping teachers from doing so. Ho Li-Ching is president of the Singapore Association for Social Studies Education and associate professor of social studies education at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wisconsin’s war on women: Republicans threaten gynecology program at UW-Madison

Salon.com

GOP state representative Andre Jacque has introduced a bill that would bar medical residents at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from learning how to perform abortions. It’s a move that would do a lot more than hurt abortion access — though that alone is a reason to oppose it. It would also chip away at women’s access to all forms of gynecological and obstetric care, particularly in the state of Wisconsin.

You can’t protect free speech by limiting it

WIZM-AM, LaCrosse

It is good that Wisconsin lawmakers are concerned about free speech. But it makes no sense to protect free speech by limiting free speech. But that is exactly what the Wisconsin Assembly has done in approving legislation that threatens those who dare speak their mind on college campuses.

Lindsay Lemmer: Speak out at Tuesday hearing on women’s health bill

Capital Times

Letter to the editor: This Tuesday, July 18, there is a public hearing on a uniquely dangerous bill. This legislation if passed will do irreparable damage to the University of Wisconsin System and the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority, while attacking health care access for Wisconsin women.

Column: The manufactured free speech crisis

Detroit News

The Michigan Legislature, like the U.S. Senate, is a safe space for right-wing groupthink. That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn from a recent flurry of activity on the manufactured crisis of “campus free speech” in Lansing and Washington, D.C.

Owens: What is the ‘blue slip,’ and should it be reformed?

Washington Examiner

President Trump and Senate Democrats are steadfastly opposed to one another over judicial nominees. Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., are now threatening to “blue-slip” Trump’s nomination of Joan Larsen to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Other senators are making similar threats. With Republicans poised to reform the blue slip, now seems an appropriate time to discuss what it is and how it works in practice.

Oscar Mayer helped advance UW research — Robert G. Kauffman

Wisconsin State Journal

Letter to the editor: Oscar Mayer allowed UW departments to collect tissue samples that led to innovation. An example was the use of pig heart valves to pioneer “bird cage” heart valves for humans. The company’s unpublished discoveries and inventions have been applied throughout the meat industry.

Savion Castro: The missing voices in the free speech debate

Capital Times

Column: Right now there there are 664 African-Americans out of 31,407 undergraduates at UW-Madison. In the entire UW System, there are 4,640 African-Americans out of 151,895 undergraduate students. Yet rather than asking why the percentage of African-American students is so alarmingly low, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, is fast-tracking a bill to create safe spaces on Wisconsin campuses for right-wing purveyors of racism, misogyny and xenophobia.

John Nichols: Petty partisanship does not honor Tommy Thompson

Capital Times

Of course, Tommy Thompson deserves to be honored with a University of Wisconsin center that is named for him — and that explores his fascination with politics and the innovative policymaking that can and should extend from the electoral process. But the center must not get bogged down in the petty politics of the moment.

The Missing Voices in the UW Free Speech Debate

Madison365

As a person of color studying at the overwhelmingly white University of Wisconsin-Madison, I believe policymakers also ought to hear my story and consider my experience, and the stories and experience of other students of color, before telling us whose voices are and aren’t being heard.

Many ideas, where’s the action?

Wisconsin State Farmer

A crowd of 200 dairy-involved attendees participated in the “Dairy Summit” hosted by the University of Wisconsin held at the Alliant Energy Center June 19, 2017. A host of speakers described everything from research to milk production, and dairy marketing to the future of dairying in Wisconsin.

Americanize the University of Wisconsin

Wisconsin State Journal

State Journal editorial from a century ago: The University of Wisconsin’s own catalog lists 27 teachers in the department of German. And it was only a short time ago when every student at the university, regardless of what course be pursued, was compelled to study German. …That compulsory regulation has been eliminated. But German is still the language urged on our students. The German department has 27 instructors compared to 25 in all other modern languages combined.

Sandeen: Looking back at predictions about MOOCs

Inside Higher Education

After thinking that interest in and excitement about massive open online courses had faded to the background of the higher education landscape, I was surprised to see a recent flurry of news media coverage of MOOCs.