Category: Opinion

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is currently asking students to respond to a survey on how comfortable they feel on campus on a number of levels.

The current—Fall 2016—issue of the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Badger Insider magazine contains a fun story by John Allen titled “Legends of the Fall Semester.”

For the second time in seven years, violent unrest has followed the presidential election in the small country of Gabon in West Equatorial Africa

This is a letter of comment concerning the actions and abuse of authority by Sen. Steven Nass.

On Sunday evening, students did not receive a WiscAlert. This is disturbing, because when a violent sexual assault occurs in the heart of campus, I think it’s well within our right to know.

For the second time in seven years, a presidential election in Gabon has triggered violent unrest. Rich in oil, uranium and manganese, Gabon now faces a turbulent future. Incumbent president Ali Bongo’s narrow victory over opponent Jean Ping ignited the country’s main cities and forced a recount of the vote.

Politics naturally involves debate, but perhaps never before has it seemed so divisive. Beyond the partisan divide, our society is split along racial, ethnic and class lines, divisions that have rocked communities and forced hard conversations across the country.

Where are the professors? Nothing annoys academics more than pointing out how little time they actually spend teaching students.

Letter to the editor: The Madison Trust for Historic Preservation believes the contract negotiated with Amazon by the UW Board of Regents to allow a package pick-up center in the Historic Red Gym is an inappropriate use within this prized national historic landmark.

Students at UW-Madison are stuck in the epicenter of Wisconsin’s disastrous political discourse. Nowhere in the nation, it seems, is the debate over education as prevalent as it is a few blocks away at our state Capitol.

Letter to the editor: The article on the proliferation of luxury high-rises aimed at UW students was in depth, informative, and thoroughly dispiriting. Setting aside the soul-crushing banality of their architecture, these buildings symbolize perfectly the elitist agenda of UW administrators.

With UW-Madison at its epicenter, the UW System appears to be sinking deeper into the intellectual morass known as political correctness. UW-Madison has unveiled a pilot program targeting 1,000 students devoted to improving race relations, largely in response to racial incidents on campus last year. If deemed successful, this program is likely to grow and probably move to other campuses.

With UW-Madison at its epicenter, the UW System appears to be sinking deeper into the intellectual morass known as political correctness.

The whining and bleating factions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison haven’t lost a step judging by the kerfuffle they’re stirring up over the renting of some space at the old Red Gym.

The United States has one big advantage where it still towers over the rest: its world-beating universities. The days of U.S. supremacy in manufacturing are gone, although we still are competitive in certain areas connected to our research universities. Yet when the world is “free to choose,” to paraphrase the late iconic conservative University of Chicago economist, they “choose” the U.S. for education and research.

Letter to the editor: I am an out-of-state student studying conservation biology at UW, and I have seen firsthand the pride Wisconsinites have in this great state, especially on campus and in Madison.

What we all want after college, to get a job, just became a little easier for members of the University of Wisconsin System.

Letter to the editor: Gov. Scott Walker has recently promised to link UW funding to what he vaguely calls “performance metrics.” The recent leak of documents to the Guardian newspaper clarify what “performance metrics” means.

Despite the evidence that we already have too many students in higher education, the hot new idea among the political class is to double down by pushing for “free college tuition.”

The article “Republicans voice contempt for UW ‘political correctness’ as budget process begins” consists of a long spiel of quotes wherein Rep. Robin Vos and Sen. Steve Nass are allowed to state their case repeatedly and at length. “Balance” is provided in five paragraphs at the end of the story which talk about the UW’s proposed diversity initiative, and provide no substantive response at all to the accusations voiced by Vos and Nass earlier in the piece.

On Sept. 5, Russia’s Justice Ministry declared the country’s leading independent polling organization, the Levada Analytical Center, to be a “foreign agent.” The designation applies to nongovernmental organizations that take part in “political activities” and receive foreign funding.

In order to invest effectively in rural areas, the most important step is to listen. I am a public opinion scholar, and since 2007 I have been studying political attitudes by inviting myself into conversations among groups of regulars in gas stations, diners, etc. in communities across Wisconsin.

Letter to the editor: At the Sept. 14 UW budget meeting Regina Millner vowed to protect the humanities at the University of Wisconsin, citing the necessity of fields like English and philosophy in terms of their capacity to enrich students on a human level.

As Badgers both new and old flood the University of Wisconsin campus this fall, a renewed pressure greets them — the pressure to party.

Letter to the editor: I am appalled that you would reproduce Rep. Robin Vos’ charges about “political correctness” on the UW campus without any fact checking or examination.

I think there’s a theme here, a common thread that ties some of this stuff together. Each provokes a modicum of frustration for me. We should be doing better in measures of new economy performance, in part by virtue of the presence of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the excellence of our public schools. So it would follow that we should be doing a better job of supporting UW–Madison and those public schools.

I know the University of Wisconsin-Madison was recently ranked the top party school in the nation by the Princeton Review’s 2017 edition of “The Best 381 Colleges.” And that is definitely something to celebrate. But do we really need to fill every week, weekday and weekend with experiences centered on consuming endless amounts of alcohol?

When a young man or woman goes off to college, it’s in society’s best interests for him or her to be encouraged in development of critical thinking, to be expected to use research and investigation to examine points of view and beliefs.

A developer wanted to put up a large apartment building in the 1200 block of Spring Street — right where UW-Madison plans to expand.

We do not frequently agree with Gov. Scott Walker on issues relating to the University of Wisconsin System. But, in the absence of real reforms that address the excessive cost of higher education, Walker’s proposal to extend the state’s tuition freeze on UW campuses into the 2017-2019 state budget is necessary.

The UW System has a great mission statement, part of which says the university should develop students’ “intellectual, cultural and humane sensitivities.” But this cannot be accomplished when conservatives are largely not speaking on campus, as Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, argued in a column for Right Wisconsin.