Not even a month into 2017, and we have seen yet another outburst from Republican state Sen. Steve Nass, whose career is notable not for any significant policy accomplishment but for making news with his personal crusade of attacking the University of Wisconsin at any and every opportunity.
When Republican legislators threaten to withhold funding from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, fire professors who teach material they deem controversial, or comb through the list of course offerings to make sure classes meet some conservative definition of what is legitimate to teach, it has a chilling effect on academic and intellectual freedom and threatens our democracy. These attacks on free speech will continue to poison the atmosphere on our campus and do significant damage to Madison’s national and international reputation.
Sixty years ago, Chief Justice Earl Warren warned our nation that we had a choice. Either “teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate,” or “our civilization will stagnate and die.” There was no third option.
Letter to the editor: Thanks to former Gov. Tommy Thompson for his article that reminds us of the vitality that is brought to the state and its citizens, on so many levels, by a healthy partnership between the UW and state, local and federal government. I fear that for the most part, his pearls of wisdom will fall on deaf ears of the GOP legislators and Gov. Walker.
Recap of New York Times column penned by Professor Don Moynihan, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs.
Column from faculty members Stephen R. Carpenter, John E. Kutzbach, John J. Magnuson, Monica G. Turner, Jonathan A. Patz, Stanley A. Temple and Donald M. Waller.
In late December, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources altered and removed information on its website concerning climate change, its impacts, and ways to mitigate and adapt to those impacts.
A group of UW-Madison professors criticized the state Department of Natural Resources on Monday for scrubbing its website of language that stated human activity is causing climate change, accusing the agency of ignoring facts and violating the public trust.
Prominent scientists at UW-Madison say that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ revised statement on climate change is “simply incorrect.”
A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison professors criticized the state Department of Natural Resources on Monday for scrubbing its website of language that stated human activity is causing climate change, accusing the agency of ignoring facts and violating the public trust.
When Republican legislators threaten to withhold funding from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, fire professors who teach material they deem controversial, or comb through the list of course offerings to make sure classes meet some conservative definition of what is legitimate to teach, it has a chilling effect on academic and intellectual freedom and threatens our democracy. These attacks on free speech will continue to poison the atmosphere on our campus and do significant damage to Madison’s national and international reputation.
MADISON, Wis. — At least three times in the past six months, state legislators have threatened to cut the budget of the University of Wisconsin at Madison for teaching about homosexuality, gender and race. As a faculty member who focuses on how public organizations are managed, I hear a great deal about the dangers of political correctness in higher education. Several of Wisconsin’s elected officials have joined the growing chorus of demands for better protections for free speech on campus, even as they fail to recognize how their own politicized approach to managing campuses poses a much more fundamental risk to free speech.
Today, the UW’s flagship school in Madison has a $15 billion annual impact on Wisconsin’s economy and brings in $1 billion in research funding. Then as now, I was proud to carry on the tradition started more than a century ago by Van Hise and La Follette — that the university is intricately tied to the state. While today’s challenges differ in some ways from those that we tackled in my time as governor, I believe strongly that this collaborative approach remains the most effective way to solve them and ensure prosperity and health for the people of our state.
Letter to the editor: Following the Cotton Bowl game Monday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, I was standing in the elevator corridor with about 100 other UW-Madison alumni when a group of Western Michigan University fans exited.
I had the privilege of attending the Nobel Prize ceremonies and lectures in Stockholm this year. Bob Dylan’s thank you speech, read by the American ambassador, and Patti Smith’s performance of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” captured headlines.
Letter to the editor: Election season is over, so what useful things are our Wisconsin legislators doing now? Well, Rep. Dave Murphy (Greenville) is getting himself all worked up about a course offered at UW-Madison. It’s a course about race and culture called “The Problem of Whiteness.” Murphy seems to think this course is a personal insult to him, as a white person.
UW-Madison officials are hoping to tamp down concerns among students that under incoming President Donald Trump, their peers living in the country without legal permission could be snatched from campus lecture halls and deported.
State Rep. David Murphy, R-Greenville, is the latest in a line of state legislators to get his tighty whities in a bundle over a class going on over at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison’s spring course guide has been available for more than two months, but some legislators recently raised concerns about next semester’s offerings, particularly about an African languages and literature class called “The Problem of Whiteness.”
UW-Madison’s spring course guide has been available for more than two months, but some legislators recently raised concerns about next semester’s offerings, particularly about an African languages and literature class called “The Problem of Whiteness.”
State Rep. David Murphy, R-Greenville, is the latest in a line of state legislators to get his tighty whities in a bundle over a class going on over at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The hand-wringing time for higher education is over. The economic realities that shaped the 2016 election also apply to students on our campuses.
Republican state legislators, led by Rep. Dave Murphy, Greenville, and Sen. Steve Nass, Whitewater, are threatening to withhold funding from the University of Wisconsin-Madison if it doesn’t kill the course “The Problem of Whiteness” and dismiss the professor who teaches it (Dec. 21 Tribune). I’m not surprised by this news, but I am, sadly, reminded again how little these lawmakers seem to understand about what makes a university work.
Guest column in Gannett’s “Degrees of Debt” series by a Concordia University student: Eighty-eight thousand dollars. As I cross the stage at my college graduation, my tuition will have totaled approximately $88,000.
Community columnist Tom Clementi: If you’re a football fan, 2016 has been a wonderful year. … These accomplishments help us get through a cold winter. What is baffling, however, is that when it comes to the academic funding side of these, and other state, universities, they somehow become our favorite whipping boys.
If the day of the week ends in “y,” odds are that someone in academia is being silly. A recent example is a course in “The Problem of Whiteness” at the University of Wisconsin-Madison taught by a professor named Damon Sajnani. Two GOP legislators have called for the course to be cancelled or Sajnani to be fired. I think that they are wrong to do so, but let’s first consider why they are upset.
Guest column by Larry Shapiro, a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has been on the faculty since 1993.
Letter to the editor: There are some excellent, high-quality, lower-cost college options that will allow students to reduce or eliminate college debt. While tuition at Lawrence University in Appleton is $44,544 and Marquette University is $38,000 per year, Wisconsin resident tuition is significantly lower. Tuition and fees at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County are $5,162 annually. Tuition at the four-year campuses is also significantly less, for example it is $7,672 at UW-Stevens Point and just more than $10,000 annually at UW-Madison.
Letter to the editor: To end the year on a positive note, I’d like to express my gratitude to UW for offering the senior guest auditor program.
As state budget writers wrap up their draft of a two-year spending plan to be unveiled early next year, the University of Wisconsin System will once again face stiff competition for public dollars.
Seems to me that the clowns who wore a Barack Obama costume with a noose attached to it to a Badgers game this fall could use a course that explores the issue of racism. But GOP legislators, with Rep. Dave Murphy of Greenville leading the charge, think that a University of Wisconsin-Madison course dealing with racism and titled “The Problem of Whiteness” should be canceled and the professor teaching it fired.
If I were Santa Claus, my Christmas gifts to Republican state Rep. Dave Murphy and Republican state Sen. Steve Nass would be vouchers to enroll in the UW-Madison class “The Problem of Whiteness.”
The University of Wisconsin in Madison has always been a bit strange. I ought to know. I was there during the wave of radicalism that crested in the Sixties; I watched as demonstrators carrying North Vietnamese flags stormed the school’s administration buildings, burned this country’s flag and finally closed the place down to protest the Vietnam War and just about everything else Americans value.
As state budget writers wrap up their draft of a two-year spending plan to be unveiled early next year, the University of Wisconsin System will once again face stiff competition for public dollars.
Letter to the editor: Some things never change: taxes, gravity and the annual attack by Republican legislators on university course content.
Letter to the editor: Once again, UW-Madison has drawn the ire of a state legislator over the content of one of its courses, this one entitled “The Problem of Whiteness.” Judging by its description and reading list, this course sounds more like ideological brainwashing (based on the shaky premise that every institution and white citizen in America is permeated by racism) than an exercise in critical inquiry.
Sen. Steve Nass is developing a reputation for acting more like the Thought Police than a legislator in his dealings with UW-Madison.
Column by Caroline Levine, former chair of the English department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, long one of the nation’s most highly regarded research institutions, is a little less well-regarded these days. For the first time in 44 years, UW-Madison fell out of the top five U.S. research universities.
Letter to the editor from Virginia Tech assistant prof.: News about the Wisconsin Legislature introducing a concealed-carry policy at University of Wisconsin campuses sends fear through me.
Wisconsin State Journal editorial: A chief asset is our university system. About 4,500 foreign students attend UW-Madison. Statewide, the total is more than twice as large. That’s brainpower that could fill and create jobs in the state. One of every eight STEM workers in Wisconsin with an advanced degree is already an immigrant.
Letter to the editor: My dilemma now is: I’m having trouble making my (fairly meager) annual contribution to the UW Foundation or any other UW-related fund.My feeling is, with people like budget-cutting Gov. Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, Ron Johnson and Reince Priebus as the state’s standard-bearers, and Wisconsin voting red, don’t come around to blue-state outsiders like me to make up the budget difference. I wonder if other alumni feel the same way?
There’s an inherent dilemma in effectively managing cybersecurity: IT organizations must dedicate the time and focus required for long-term strategic planning while maintaining the agility to meet evolving threats and take advantage of emerging technologies. Add in the ongoing need to review and revise strategic plans to reflect those changing risk and technology landscapes, and the task can seem herculean.
Noted: Julia Sherman is the coordinator of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Dietram Scheufele: Truth seems to be an increasingly flexible concept in politics. At least that’s the impression the Oxford English Dictionary gave recently, as it declared “post-truth” the 2016 Word of the Year. Many scientists and science communicators have grappled with disregard for, or inappropriate use of, scientific evidence for years – especially around contentious issues like the causes of global warming, or the benefits of vaccinating children.
Excessive force by police against minorities, especially African-Americans, is nothing new in America. But now video evidence verifies the lethal violence occurring to our fellow Americans.
I am alarmed and disappointed by reports Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, acting on the wishes of his pro-gun campaign contributors, will again introduce concealed-carry legislation bringing handguns to a University of Wisconsin System campus near you.
Choosing where to go to college is a huge choice. It’s an even bigger deal for me because of the amount of debt I’ll be taking on.
It is not obvious to me that Chinese leaders are very angry over President-elect Donald J. Trump’s phone call to President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan. It’s not even obvious to me that Taiwan is a top priority for the Chinese Communist Party, but the United States is.
Truth seems to be an increasingly flexible concept in politics. At least that’s the impression the Oxford English Dictionary gave recently, as it declared “post-truth” the 2016 Word of the Year. What happens when decisions are based on misleading or blatantly wrong information? The answer is quite simple – our airplanes would be less safe, our medical treatments less effective, our economy less competitive globally, and on and on.
Justin Sydnor is a UW-Madison business professor specializing in risk management and insurance.
I’ve often been asked what the difference between Milwaukee and Madison when it comes to the world of startups. Madison and the UW system represent one of the greatest intellectual brain trusts on the planet; backed up by world-class research.
Letter to the editor: Now, after many successful seasons and a 2016 year where the Badgers were outstanding, the State Journal comes up with the headline: “Cotton Bowl serves as consolation prize.” Consolation? The Cotton Bowl is one of the biggest prizes among the many bowls.
It’s slow going, but the campaign to highlight censorship on campus may be getting somewhere. That’s the message of a new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (Fire), which tracks the speech bullies in academia.
Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “My wife has cancer, and her treatment isn’t working.” Or, “I need equipment that performs better in my plant and saves me time and money.” “My child has autism, and I need better ways to help him.”
State legislators should fully support the moderate and reasonable budget request submitted by the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison recently slid two spots in the national rankings for total research funding. The shift is a troubling indicator for our state’s economic future. While this prestigious flagship university is certainly capable of a rebound, these are signs of things to come and no one should be surprised.
The conservative website, professorwatchlist.org, claims its list comes from credible sources, but the website’s entry portraying a UW-Whitewater professor as a left-wing radical smacks of fake news.
State lawmakers should fully support the moderate and reasonable budget request submitted by the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents.
“Person on the street” interviews.
