UW-Madison is ranked No. 425. This number makes me proud because in comparison to a school such as Washington University in St. Louis (No. 1), which enrolls a higher percentage of the elite (27.1 percent) than any other school, UW represents a broad experiment in which a liberal arts education acts as an engine of social mobility.
Recent accounts of free-speech issues both on the UW-Madison campus and elsewhere throughout the country move me to write to express some perplexity over these incidents. Why, I ask myself for the umpteenth time, is protesting imitatively and predictably on such a scale regarded as a particularly effective expedient? Why not adopt a different strategy?
Column: Kim Krautkramer is now a third-year medical student at UW-Madison, pursuing a dual doctorate (M.D.-Ph.D.) in the medical scientist training program.
That liberals run American universities is never going to be a man-bites-dog news headline, but the urgent question ought to be: When are university liberals going to stand up and defend liberalism?
Racist hate speech on campus has become the de facto litmus test for free speech protections today. But racist hate speech may not be doing what progressive free speech defenders think it is doing.
For the last couple of years, one of the two biggest topics of discussion regarding college education in the U.S. has been the widespread assault against free speech by “progressives.” (The other is the rising level of student debt and the inability of many students to pay off their obligations.) Speakers who don’t toe the leftist party line are shouted down and students who don’t are apt to be accused of “hate speech” and hauled before a “bias response team.” Debate, say many leftists, should be curtailed in the interests of “fairness” and “sensitivity.”
Many legal tools are already available to campus administrators and local authorities that allow them to deal with those who disrupt speakers at campus events.
Letter to the editor: Even when they are well-intentioned, attempts by legislators to micro-manage University of Wisconsin affairs are often heavy handed or misdirected.But the bill from Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, to ensure free speech on campus seems appropriate and essentially constructive.
They are advancing speech-code legislation that Larry Dupuis, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Wisconsin chapter, correctly refers to as “unnecessarily draconian.” If Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and his compatriots get their way, the Board of Regents would be mandated to adopt policies requiring UW campuses to remain neutral on public controversies — like, one supposes, the debate over how best to protect Wisconsin dairy farmers in international trade disputes. This has the potential to impinge on academic freedom, public discourse and the ability of lobbyists for the university system to advocate for maintenance of the Wisconsin Idea, adequate funding of campuses, tuition issues and more.
Both UW-Madison and Edgewood College have joined Madison College as partners in the Madison School District program to get high school students thinking about college and career possibilities earlier and more strategically.
Noted: To find out, I got in touch with Prof. Steven C. Deller at the University of Wisconsin-Madison-Extension, who has followed the state’s economy closely and who dug up a wide range of data for me to review. I also took a close look at a recent Politifact Wisconsin report by Tom Kertscher that rated Walker’s statement — “Wisconsin’s economy is in the best shape it’s been since 2000.” — as only half true.
“You’re the whitest black guy I know”.
A few weeks ago I accomplished one of my dreams, successfully defending my Ph.D. dissertation in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was a goal I didn’t even realize I could have as a high school student. I grew up on a farm near Marathon City in central Wisconsin. My roots are working-class — Dad grows ginseng and Mom works in a cheese factory.
Columnist: Freedom of speech includes both sides.
The U.S. corporate income tax wastes resources: avoidance distorts business decisions, compliance imposes administrative costs, and very interested parties fight vigorously over its details. Its complexity enables some profitable corporations to avoid taxes altogether and it increasingly provides a smaller share of federal revenue, falling from about one-third in the 1950s to about a tenth today. Its complexity obscures transparency and provides opportunity for various interests to seek and obtain favorable treatment.
Netflix’s new talk show, “Bill Nye Saves the World,” debuted the night before people around the world joined together to demonstrate and March for Science. Many have lauded the timing and relevance of the show, featuring the famous “Science Guy” as its host, because it aims to myth-bust and debunk anti-scientific claims in an alternative-fact era.
Since the Virginia Tech shooting 10 years ago, more Americans are speaking up for strong gun policies across our nation. But we have miles to go in terms of reducing gun deaths and injuries that occur every day in cities, towns and neighborhoods.
Dear Editor: In his op-ed, “UW doesn’t need state law to ensure free speech,”Tom Loftus raises an important point about the problems that can arise with legislative intervention regarding the internal decisions of higher education. Academic freedom partly entails sufficient institutional autonomy.
Driving me to ballet, my mom would describe how she expected the world would have mirrored “The Jetsons” by then — a futuristic utopia with breakfast at the push of a button and families buzzing around in spaceships. Stuck in traffic, we laughed. No flying cars in sight.
Ravi Kalla got his master’s degrees in engineering from UW-Madison and founded Symphony Corp., a health information company that employs a couple of hundred people in Madison.
With both sides making valid arguments, finding which one is in correct is far more difficult than we might imagine.
Letter to the editor: The state of Arizona has a statutory prohibition very similar to my bill which has been in place since 2011. Neither of Arizona’s state medical schools have lost their accreditation, despite the same sort of claims to that end as made by Dean Golden.
The mix of activities and programs and the amount of funding varies by campus because students decide for themselves what to support.
These fees fund what we call “campus life,” as they extend and enhance the college experience in valuable ways, especially on smaller UW campuses such as UW-Marathon County. Making allocable segregated fees optional would very likely devastate the programs they support and reduce, if not eliminate, extracurricular opportunities to live and learn on our campuses.
Letter to the editor from Robert Golden, dean UW School of Medicine and Public Health and chair of the board, UW Health.
Letter to the editor: The University of Wisconsin is a vital resource for all Wisconsinites. Through educating our citizens and conducting important research, the university lays the foundation for a bright future for Wisconsin. While doing so, it creates thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of income. But because of budget cuts over the past decades, it has become increasingly difficult for young people to afford a UW education, and the university has slipped out of the top five research institutions in the country. To secure Wisconsin’s future, more money must be allocated to the University of Wisconsin.
Letter to the Editor: Speakers at open forum resorting to personal attacks distracted from productive dialogue
Serena Williams knows the power of language. She understands the brawn of a single word, the chasm between being anointed “greatest of all time” and “greatest female of all time.” This linguistic perception extends beyond defense of her titles; it’s part of how Williams moves in the world.
Letter to the editor from former ambassador to Norway, Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly and member of the UW Board of Regents.
By taking away UW’s family planning rotation, Jacque and Kapenga would be ensuring that OB/GYNs who train in Wisconsin are receiving substandard training. I urge every one of their constituents to let them know that the women of Wisconsin deserve better.
Letter intended to help readers better understand the genesis of Erika Gallagher’s research paper, its methodology, and its aims.
Letter to the editor: It strikes me as very disturbing to see what should be bastions of liberal thinking and freedom of expression turn into conservative, censored, restrictive quagmires.
I had no idea. You might not either.
Skyrocketing premiums, lack of choice in insurance leave Americans with less than they deserve.
As the confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch were getting underway, the University of Wisconsin philosopher J. Paul Kelleher explored, in Vox, an important aspect of Gorsuch’s view of the world. Gorsuch has praised the late Justice Scalia’s “originalist” approach to interpreting the Constitution. But he has also been influenced by the concept of “natural law” — and even studied under a famous natural law theorist at Oxford. In this excerpt from that Vox piece, Kelleher explains natural law theory, and why it’s important for the senators voting on Gorsuch to consider its implications:
It is an unprecedented time in a nation’s political history. A neophyte politician — a man famous for lowbrow TV antics who has never held political office — is vying to become president. He feeds on simmering discontent about the corruption of the political establishment and mainstream politicians. Backed by extreme right-wing elements, he makes vague promises and trumpets his lack of political experience as a reason to vote for him. His competition is a former first lady married to a left-leaning ex-president. She is an altogether polarizing figure considered by a large portion of the electorate to be deeply corrupt.
Column by Andrew Merluzzi, a Ph.D./MPA candidate in neuroscience and public policy at UW-Madison.
In 2016, something extraordinary happened in the politics of diverse countries around the world. With surprising speed and simultaneity, a new generation of populist leaders emerged from the margins of nominally democratic nations to win power. In doing so, they gave voice, often in virulent fashion, to public concerns about the social costs of globalization.
On March 13, the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) announced that it will cap interest rates on microfinance loans at 18 percent per year starting April 1 in order to help growing numbers of Cambodians struggling with over-indebtedness. After this announcement, leaders and experts of the microfinance industry responded that this government intervention is merely a political gesture that will backfire and hurt the rural poor even more.
Column by Wisconsin governor on his budget proposal, touting “More money into our technical college system than ever before” and “Over $100 million more into our University of Wisconsin System.”
The mental health and well-being of our campus community is a top priority of University Health Services (UHS). We are continuously working to improve access to the services students need.
Our sexual assault agenda item is another issue that could be affected by budget decisions here and in Washington. In particular we’re concerned about a Walker budget proposal that could result in cuts to the services the Rape Crisis Center offers on the UW-Madison campus.
Quoted: “President Trump seems to have no awareness whatsoever of what he does and does not know,” Steven Nadler, a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote me. “He is ignorant of his own ignorance.”
One of the biggest things college kids have to adjust to is the need for more effective time management skills.
“Think of the marvels we can achieve if we simply set free the dreams of our people,” President Trump said in his speech to Congress last month, after summoning a list of technological triumphs from America’s past. “Cures to illnesses that have always plagued us,” and “American footprints on distant worlds.”
With his proposed cuts in federal research and development spending, President Donald Trump risks harming a priority he puts at the top of his own list – national security.
On March 21, the rusty-patched bumble bee, Bombus affinis, officially became the first bumble bee listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act. This designation recognizes this important pollinator’s precarious position in the face of multiple threats to its survival. It also provides some of the tools necessary to begin to reverse its decline.
On March 21, the rusty-patched bumble bee, Bombus affinis, officially became the first bumble bee listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act. We must take action now to prevent the extinction of the rusty-patched and other imperiled bumble bees and foster native pollinators to maintain agricultural productivity and healthy ecosystems. It is still found in southern Wisconsin, including at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum, where our restored prairies, savannas, and woodlands provide the diverse native plant habitat they need to survive.
Editorial: [T]he impact of UW research and teaching on the state’s economy cannot be overstated. But it all requires resources and investment. Let’s not put UW’s best at unnecessary risk.
Students at UW-Marshfield/Wood County and those at our 12 other campuses in the state want a smaller, more personal educational environment to start, with University of Wisconsin coursework taught by University of Wisconsin teachers. Some want to get acclimated to college and learn better study habits. Some want to get more hands-on help to ensure success in their careers. Others want the reassurance of an environment where they won’t get lost.
When Antonin Scalia’s death was announced, Neil Gorsuch was on the ski slope. Checking his phone halfway down the hill, tears welled up as he read the news, he has said. According to Gorsuch, who is President Trump’s nominee to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court, Scalia was “a lion of the law” whose judicial philosophy was exactly right: A judge must apply the law as it is, and never as the judge prefers it to be.
Letter to the editor: As a freshmen in the fall of 2015, I did not anticipate encountering so many issues related to diversity on the University of Wisconsin campus. Having grown up in a predominately white town in Wisconsin, I was excited to come to a university that people and advertisements told me was very diverse. Little did I know that when trying to navigate this large university, campus sometimes can feel unwelcoming to minority students.
Allocable segregated fees—the approximately $90 each UW-Madison student pays along with their tuition every year—go toward funding many clubs, resources and services across campus. However, according to the new budget proposal from Gov. Scott Walker, these fees will be made optional for students. While saving money may sound appealing, the loss of segregated fee income could be catastrophic for our campus community.
Rape and the fear of rape is a part of the American college experience for women. On American college campuses, one in four undergraduate women will be sexually assaulted or raped by the time they graduate. Indicated by UW-Madison’s Association of American Universities Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Assault Climate Survey, our precious UW-Madison is no exception, with 27.6 percent of undergraduate female students reporting experiencing nonconsensual penetration or sexual touching.
Kids are often told that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Even so, people often believe they can rely on their gut to intuit things about other people. Stereotypes often influence these impressions, whether it’s that a black man is dangerous, a woman won’t be a good leader or a fashionable man is gay.
Nigel Hayes is a name that will be remembered on the UW-Madison campus for years to come. A hard working, charming and bright young man, Hayes has made a lasting impact both on and off the court during his four years at Wisconsin. Entering tonight’s tournament game vs. Virginia Tech, Nigel will know that it could be his last game as a Badger. Whether Hayes walks off the court a winner or loser, boasting a great performance or not, every Badger fan ought to appreciate the things he has done during his time in Madison.
Column by William Cox, Assistant Scientist, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Column by Jeffrey S. Russell, dean of the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies.
For a student government so avowedly committed to creating a welcoming campus atmosphere for students of color, this legislation may be a counterproductive move. Black students already experience some measure of harassment because of stereotypes surrounding race, affirmative action and scholarship money. Imagine the hostility they as a group would face if every black student did not pay tuition, and nearly every white student did.
The city’s University of Wisconsin campus has more than 1,200 faculty in the biological and physical sciences, plus an uncounted number of academic and university staff who are scientists, according to UW spokeswoman Meredith McGlone. And as of last fall, there were more than 19,000 students, including graduate students, in those sciences out of a total of some 43,000. These days, it occurs to me that most of those scientists and science students might be inclined to take to the streets.
The global climate crisis presents enormous challenges to our current high-energy consuming lifestyle. Or does it?
