It’s time for Wisconsin to increase its investment in its public universities. After too many years of huge cuts by both Democrats and Republicans, the University of Wisconsin System deserves the additional $42.5 million investment it is seeking in the next state budget. The key word is investment.
UW-Madison just ranked seventh in the world for patents. That’s a lot of brainpower. But the state of Wisconsin just ranked last for startup business activity. That’s a lot of lost opportunity.
In 2013, the National Academy of Sciences hosted a forum on the influence of global environmental change on infectious diseases. In his keynote speech, Dr Jonathan Patz stood in front of a large slide of a mosquito and warned: “Global warming’s greatest threat may also be the smallest.”
The campaign chairs for this year’s Partners in Giving fundraising campaign for state employees, including UW-Madison and UW Health employees, held their orientation meeting Tuesday to get ready for their work encouraging their co-workers to support some 520 charities and it was an impressive event.
I heard UW-Eau Claire Chancellor James Schmidt on the radio earlier this month responding to Gov. Scott Walker’s pronouncement that he’s going to include another two-year tuition freeze on the UW System when he unveils his state budget this fall.
According to Tuesday’s State Journal story, the online retail giant Amazon is hoping to open a Pickup Point, called Amazon@UWMadison, in the Red Gym on the UW-Madison campus next spring.
My job as a professor teaching European politics in the US revolves around explaining European political events to Americans. But as a dual citizen who grew up in Germany, I also spend much time during my frequent visits to Europe trying to help Europeans make sense of American politics.
It’s hard to know what to make of recent survey results suggesting a significant number of UW-Madison professors are making passes at, cracking dirty jokes around, and skeezily commenting on the physical appearances of their female graduate students.
Letter to the editor: The University of Wisconsin System has proposed that all students, professors and staff participate in mandatory programs designed to instill “cultural fluency.” (Am I the only one who cringes at the Orwellian undertones of that phrase?)
Letter to the editor: Immediately after learning of the sudden passing of former University of Wisconsin quarterback Ron Vander Kelen, my mind raced back to the 1963 Rose Bowl, which I can still vividly recollect.
Letter to the editor: It is rare to be able to tell the story of a wealthy donor with the unlikely combination of a hot dog and soda.
As Regents, we have a strong responsibility to keep the University of Wisconsin System affordable and accessible for Wisconsin families. We feel just as strongly about protecting the quality and excellence for which the UW System is known the world over. The reasons for ensuring this are compelling.
Christian Schneider’s Aug. 12 column dismissing the value of programs promoting cultural understanding at universities read like it was inspired by the sort of touchy-feely “diversity training” lampooned on TV shows like “The Office.”What we’re actually doing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this year is quite different. The issues we’re addressing are real and the new Our Wisconsin program is a rational, evidence-driven response to them.
As a student at UW-Madison, a world-class research institution, I have the ability to receive a quality degree with hard work and support. However, that support is threatened by polarized views and a misunderstanding that investing in public education is a partisan issue, rather than a value. I understand the value of my education because I know that in order to create jobs, improve the Wisconsin economy and maintain a quality education, my state must invest in education.
On July 18, Guatemala’s most infamous — and powerful — prisoner, Byron Lima Oliva, was shot to death in the Pavón prison outside Guatemala City. While it was a fellow prisoner who, the authorities said, put two bullets in Mr. Lima’s head, in all likelihood the intellectual authors of the killing hail from the highest echelons of the state and the moneyed elite. In Guatemala, it is often impossible to tell where the state ends and the underworld begins.
Letter to the editor from Carmen Gosey, a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying political science and legal studies.
UW System is an engine for economic growth that needs investment after years of cuts, layoffs and lower staff morale.
Years of budget cuts under both Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his predecessor, Democrat Jim Doyle, have made for a lean UW System.
Column: For years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has regaled state residents with its tales of woe. Since the last budget froze tuition and cut state support for the UW System, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank has outlined staff layoffs, reductions in student employment hours, and even cutbacks in technology support.
Column: In 1974, General Electric was headquartered in New York City, and was looking for a new home. Many of GE’s executives had already moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, drawn by the good schools, small-town atmosphere and suburban lifestyle.
Letter to the editor: The phrase “tuition freeze” makes for good politics, but not good policy. The University of Wisconsin System campuses have been economically pinched for years. As a result, many of the best and brightest faculty have simply left for other states.
Letter to the editor: I agree with UW System President Ray Cross that the people of Wisconsin support the UW System and want it to continue. What he wrote in his column “Now is the time to stand with your UW” is ivory tower puffery that fails to address the reality of what is happening in Wisconsin politically.
UW-Stout chancellor Bob Meyer wants people to know his decision to move a couple of campus-owned, Depression-era paintings was absolutely not about “political correctness” — even if he was pressured to move them by people who found the paintings demeaning to Native Americans.
Letter to the editor: Gov. Scott Walker’s column “Tuition freeze key to college affordability” shows a total lack of understanding of the role of higher education. Universities are not trade schools and were never intended to produce students with so-called “job skillss” Especially UW-Madison, which is a research institution
Letter to the editor: UW’s Dave O’Connor and Tom Friedrich are to be congratulated on their swift response to the Zika virus, a horrifying emerging disease.
Should American hunters register their firearms? Would it help improve their image among the general public? Could it help reduce U.S. gun deaths?
Noted: Byron Shafer is Hawkins Chair of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has been attending national party conventions since 1980.
Over the last nine months, UW System leaders and I held listening sessions around the state, surveying the public and meeting with focused stakeholder groups about the future of Wisconsin.
Sunday was Sue Riseling’s last day as chief of the UW Madison Police Department after 25 years of service to the UW community, and she leaves as one of the most respected campus police chiefs in the nation.
Twenty years ago, I headed to Sweden for a sabbatical year to study the country’s attitudes toward hunting. As a responsible hunter, I brought my own guns — an old 12-gauge shotgun and a Remington .30-06 — because I didn’t want to miss a shot or wound an animal using unfamiliar, borrowed firearms.
Sunday was Sue Riseling’s last day as chief of the UW Madison Police Department after 25 years of service to the UW community, and she leaves as one of the most respected campus police chiefs in the nation.
This letter is in response to the July 9 news article (Page 2A) regarding Sen. Steven Nass, R-LaGrange, complaining about a lecture that took place at UW-Madison.
I read with interest W. Lee Hansen’s Cap Times op-ed “Is a new UW ’BlackOut Student Diversity Plan’ the answer?”. I respect Lee’s long-time interest in these issues, but wanted to clarify several points that he made.
Natural selection is tricky to catch in action. As Darwin put it, “A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die.” The grain in the balance—the slightly increased chance that organisms carrying one gene variant will fail in the struggle for existence—is the cost of selection. It is almost invisible, only becoming statistically evident when viewed across thousands of individuals, who may display only subtle differences in the affected character.
When it comes to putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, former U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl is better than most. He’s also good at putting his money where his heart is, as his generous gift to the UW’s athletic department shows.
Letter to the editor from Russ Castronovo and Lisa Cooper, two members of UW-Madison’s English Department faculty.
Editorial from WISC-TV’s Neil Heinen.
While I suspect we will never fully take for granted the miracle of organ transplants, the life-saving operation is certainly viewed today as commonplace and increasingly successful.
But in the fields of zoology and genetics, Abrahamson, who died Saturday at the age of 88, was a towering figure, particularly during his years as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Columnist ruminates on the UW-Madison’s Multicultural Student Center’s meetings to discuss fatal shootings of police and black men.
Thanks to Marc Eisen for his July 10 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel commentary, “Empowering UWM will empower the state,” advocating investment in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as the pathway to a prosperous future for Wisconsin.
Letter to the editor from Jeff Carroll: Six years ago, my daughter spent a semester in Cape Town, South Africa, through the UW-Madison Study Abroad program. She arrived to a shared house with one lock in the whole residence and a 2-foot-high wall surrounding the property, not the 10-foot security wall that was promised.
Depending on how old you are and how long you’ve lived in Wisconsin, you’ve likely heard the dismissive phrase “When in doubt, Stout!” It’s an outdated reference to UW-Stout being a college choice of last resort.
Members of Congress are leaving Washington for seven weeks without passing a bill to pay for the fight against Zika. Their failure to do so will delay the public health response to the mosquito-borne virus that causes birth defects, unnecessarily putting thousands of people at risk.
The Republican state senator from Whitewater, Steve Nass, could use a refresher course on the Wisconsin Idea.
Noted: UW-Madison professor and constitutional expert Howard Schweber didn’t think Steffen’s proposal was likely to run into constitutional problems, though.
The Republican state senator from Whitewater, Steve Nass, could use a refresher course on the Wisconsin Idea.
Letter to the editor from Emily Auerbach, UW-Madison English professor and director of the UW Odyssey Project.
Wisconsin’s open records law requires the release of public documents “as soon as practicable and without delay.”
Clearly, Americans fear sharia, Islam’s legal framework. At least nine states have passed “foreign law” statutes banning sharia in American courts — even though no U.S. court has ever ruled based on sharia.
State Sen. Steve Nass is pointing to an essay on gay sexual preferences assigned in a UW-Madison sociology course as evidence of what’s wrong with the state’s premier system of higher education and why it might need to be supplied with even fewer taxpayer dollars during the next round of budget-making.
I’m a true-blue Madison guy of many decades, so I have a deep appreciation of what a world-class university means for a successful Madtown.
Nass has written a letter to the UW Chancellor, the President of the UW System and each member of the Board of Regents demanding they justify this course offering, and threatening the legislature could withhold funding for higher education throughout the state if he doesn’t like their answers. Who made this guy the chief of the morality police?
Letter to the editor from Joe Robinson, who accepted but ultimately turned down a job at UW-Madison’s Odyssey Project due to concerns about the racial climate in Madison.
Letter to the editor from Eric A. Johnson, Madison, professor, Department of Bacteriology, UW-Madison
State Sen. Steve Nass would like you to know he is very offended.
Noted: W. Lee Hansen is a professor emeritus of economics at UW-Madison.
Carl Gulbrandsen is so understated that even some people close to him didn’t know he played in a band growing up in Viroqua — or that his cousin is rocker Butch Vig of Garbage, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins fame.
I was annoyed and incredulous when I read in The Northwestern that “Wisconsin football fans, clamoring for more night games, will be giddy in 2016,” because ESPN announced that the Ohio State and Nebraska home games will be at night. This ruffled my feathers. I do not believe that fans want more UW–Madison football games at night.
The horrendous tragedy in Orlando has prompted fierce debates about how to prevent such attacks – should there be more restrictions on gun ownership? Different military and diplomatic policies combatting terrorism?Many of these debates break out along partisan lines with seemingly little room for compromise and action. But there is something we can do – each of us, whether parents or policy-makers, Republicans or Democrats.
