Noted: City and county governments, the nonprofit community, the public school system, the media, philanthropic entities, the University of Wisconsin, faith-based organizations, the private sector and the arts community have all demonstrated a deepened commitment to helping.
During the 1940s, at least three public universities expelled students and fired faculty who were presumed to be homosexual. The cases at Texas, Wisconsin, and Missouri open a window onto a little known aspect of the history of higher education in the United States. Although we know in a general way that homosexuals were discriminated against during the 1940s, there is scant documentation about the treatment of homosexuality on college campuses.
This evening I’ll be celebrating the achievement of William C Campbell when he receives his Nobel Prize in Stockholm. Short of being awarded oneself, it doesn’t get much better for a university president than seeing a graduate receive the greatest honour in his or her field. Campbell’s story has touched, and resonated with, people around the world, because the work for which he has been awarded – eradicating river blindness – is particularly inspirational and altruistic, and because so many places and institutions can claim him.
Join the Journal Sentinel’s David D. Haynes and Jonathan Martin, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for a live Journal Sentinel program on Wednesday.
“Straight Talk on Climate Change” will begin at noon at JS Online. We’re taking your questions now on Twitter: #MJSclimate
This exclusive show follows a Haynes column last week.
Noted: Author John Williams is the director of the Nelson Insitute’s Center for Climatic Research and Professor of Geography at UW-Madison. Paul Wilson is the interim chair of the Nelson Institute’s Energy Analysis Policy Certificate and professor of nuclear engineering in the Engineering Physics Department at UW-Madison.
Letter to the editor: It is an encouraging statement from academia. Generally, pronouncements from that arena feature political correctness and demands to quash any speech which disagrees with them.
With public demonstrations banned at the COP21 conference on climate change in Paris, climate activists are taking to social media to get out their message on climate justice.
The fundamental tenets of the Every Student Succeeds Act – the successor to No Child Left Behind – are now well known. It lessens the latter’s focus on standardized test scores and shifts much policy-making power from the U.S. Education Department back to the states. But many educators may be surprised to learn what it includes about teacher preparation. There are provisions in the bill for the establishment of teacher preparation academies – and they are written to primarily support non-traditional, non-university programs.
Column from Sara Goldrick-Rab and Katharine M. Broton, Wisconsin HOPE Lab: Three months after starting college, Brooke Evans found herself without a place to live. She was 19. She slept in libraries, bathrooms and her car. She sold plasma and skipped meals. It was hard to focus or participate in class, and when her grades fell, her financial aid did, too. Eventually, she left college and began sleeping on the street, in debt, without a degree.
Noted: What a presidential candidate says on the road must square with voters back home, but some saw inconsistencies in Walker’s narrative and his political persona. While the news media in Wisconsin covered budget reductions stemming from the new state budget — including $250 million in cuts to the University of Wisconsin System — network and cable television showed Walker telling people in other states what he would do for them if he were elected president. His stump speeches on how his policies have made life better for residents in his home state seemed unfamiliar to those having to deal with diminished state funding under Walker’s leadership.
No. 5: When Bo Ryan reneged on a retirement announcement that seemed to put a time stamp of one more year as head coach of the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team, he might as well have shaken Madison out of a bad dream where there was no Bo in Badgers basketball.
No. 2: There was a time not so very long ago when every serious discussion of the economic future of this state included the unassailable assertion of the University of Wisconsin–Madison as one of the most, if not the most, important economic engines in the state. Two thousand fifteen, however, was the year that notion became assailable. And Governor Scott Walker assailed away.
For more than a century, the term “in loco parentis” (“in place of a parent”) was used to describe a university’s responsibility to care for and guide its students. In recent years, however, the Latin term “loco” (“place”) could be more adequately represented by the Spanish meaning of the word.
Letter to the editor: Short of putting up a dome over the stadium, what was the UW Athletic Department supposed to do? With respect to snowballs — even a moron should know it’s dangerous and just stupid to throw a snowball or ice ball when so many people are in the area. W
Column from Caroline Levine, a professor and chair of the department of English at UW-Madison and co-chair of a UW committee on post-tenure review. “Tenure protects the independence of research. Rigorously peer-reviewed research helps us to make informed decisions about our world. It creates jobs and grows the economy. And one day it just might save your life.”
A week after the terrorist attacks in Paris, students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison held a candlelight vigil to mourn and commemorate the victims of that attack and others elsewhere. More than 100 Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and religiously unaffiliated students, after some moments of silence, began to comment on what had happened the week before. Despite their religious differences, there was a common thread in the short speeches that night. Every student rejected revenge and divisiveness and made a plea for the peaceful coexistence of people of all faiths. As they spoke, students acknowledged their religious differences and appealed to their common humanity.
Letter to the editor from Bruce Thomadsen, president of Wisconsin University Union.
Letter to the editor from Professor John Sharpless, and emeritus professors Donald Downs and Mary Anderson. “Top UW-Madison administrators issued a directive to all faculty and staff on Nov. 13 intended to prevent the racial confrontations that beset the University of Missouri earlier this month. Without questioning their intentions, we are concerned the statement may inhibit the free exchange of ideas on campus and that it is contrary to basic constitutional protections.”
Noted: Christina Ewig is professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and vice president of the UW-Madison Chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
The latest figures on academic research spending in the United States provide, on the surface, some reassuring news for Wisconsin. For starters, the University of Wisconsin-Madison held its position as the nation’s fourth-largest research and development powerhouse.
The latest figures on academic research spending in the United States provide, on the surface, some reassuring news for Wisconsin. For starters, the University of Wisconsin-Madison held its position as the nation’s fourth-largest research and development powerhouse. Lurking under the waves, however, are currents that should send a chilling message to policy-makers who believe the state can continue to reduce support for higher education — especially basic research — without taking on water over time.
Noted: Spencer Black represented the 77th Assembly District for 26 years and was chair of the Natural Resources Committee. He currently serves as the vice president of the national Sierra Club and is an adjunct professor of urban and regional planning at UW-Madison.
Last year alone over seventy-three hundred people contributed over two-point-five Million dollars to more than 500 charitable organizations and causes. By the time this year’s campaign ends next Monday they’ll have done it again, mostly small gifts that add up to make life a little better for local individuals, families and communities.
Just something to think about next time somebody takes a gratuitous political shot at state workers.
After four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition, I graduated in the spring of 2015 with a degree in political science. Thankfully, I am debt-free and employed in a relevant field of work. However, a recent survey of University of Wisconsin-Madison liberal arts graduates shows that is not the case for more than one-third of them.
As the vendors passed me with the warm chocolate for sale at $8.25, I realized coming to this game was like being invited to a friend’s house and entering a dirty home. UW had the ability to minimize the snow with some effort, they just chose not to. They were a very poor host.
The recent sighting of a Confederate flag on a construction worker’s truck on the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse campus was said to have created fear and angst and “personally offended” some students.
Column from Andrew Kydd, a political science professor at UW-Madison who studies international security issues including terrorism, nuclear weapons, conflict resolution, and war and peace.
There may be no better example of American meritocracy than higher education, where intelligence, good grades and athletic prowess are among the prerequisites for getting into elite colleges like UW-Madison.
Letter to the editor: Students have no right to a college education. They have no right to be liked. They have no right to define their environment. No administrator should acquiesce to rude demands suggesting that they do.
What is the value of a university? With the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee facing a massive budget gap, its leaders should not be alone in asking that question.
Editorial cites UW-Madison police department equipping its officers with body-worn cameras.
Noted: Author Sergio M. Gonzalez is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His primary research focuses on the development of Latino communities in urban areas in the American Midwest, with an emphasis on the religious communities Latino immigrants developed in Milwaukee and Wisconsin throughout the 20th century. He is completing a book manuscript titled “Mexicans in Wisconsin” (Wisconsin Historical Society Press).
Personal computers, cellphones, GPS devices, e-mail, the Internet — all of the technology driving today’s economy traces its origins to two inventions: the 1947 transistor from Bell Telephone Laboratories and the 1958 integrated circuit from Texas Instruments and Fairchild.
Growing up in a hunting family in central Wisconsin has taught me the value of traditional hunting, dealing with firearms and safety. I am far from gun shy and understand the year-round hunting culture. I don’t look toward firearms as an evil force, but as a tool to be used with great responsibility.
There’s a lot of news coming out of our college campuses these days and much of it re-raises an old question: To what degree, if any, should colleges and universities be responsive to pressing social and political issues? To my mind, the definitive answer to that question was given in 2003 by the provost of the University of Wisconsin at Madison when he addressed students who were demanding that the university take a stand on the then impending invasion of Iraq. The provost said, “The University of Wisconsin does not have a foreign policy.”
Op-ed from Jeffrey Russell, vice provost for lifelong learning and dean of Continuing Studies at UW-Madison.
I am an American professor teaching this year at Al-Akhawayn University in Morocco and, like everyone, am horrified by the stories of escalating terror that cross our screens daily. I am also disturbed to see that as the violence escalates, the rhetoric on Islam is becoming louder and uglier. In trying to outdo Republican candidate Ben Carson who has expressed fear of having a Muslim president, Donald Trump has promised to close mosques if elected. Ayaan Hirsi Ali headlined her recent Foreign Policy piece: “Islam is a Religion of Violence.” Bill Maher wants to urge liberals to wake up about Islam after Paris attacks. Such generalizations feed into fears that most Muslims are terrorists or soon-to-be terrorists. Are they referring to all 1.57 billion people who live from Indonesia to Senegal, Kazakhstan and the U.S.? Such rhetoric is both dangerous and ignorant.
Why, in a time when Americans are becoming health and serving size conscious, is the UW Food Science Department eliminating the healthier portion size from its dairy store menu?
The NFL and football industry more generally have taken pains to portray their sport as safer in recent years. The league points to the dropping number of reported concussions. Youth leagues point to a purportedly safer tackling technique known as Heads Up. More and more often, medical examiners can be seen on the sidelines, ready to pull a concussed player from the field. The sport was once dangerous, the thinking goes, but it’s safer now.
Neil Heinen talks about the University of Wisconsin comprehensive campaign that’s aiming to review the UW’s focus on its goals and raise money to help reach those goals.
(Video) Neil Heinen talks about the University of Wisconsin comprehensive campaign that’s aiming to review the UW’s focus on its goals and raise money to help reach those goals.
Noted: Jeremi Suri is the Mack Brown distinguished professor for global leadership, history and public policy at the University of Texas at Austin. He was the E. Gordon Fox professor of history, director of the European Union Center of Excellence, and director of the Grand Strategy Program at UW-Madison from 2007-2009, associate professor at UW-Madison from 2005-2007, and assistant professor at UW from 2001-2005.
Despite decades of public discourse and hand-wringing, the racial achievement gap persists across the country. Attention to this troubling pattern intensified once again this fall in response to the results of a new test in California — written specifically to reflect the recently implemented Common Core education standards.
Coauthored by Clif Conrad:
Visit an American college campus today and you’ll see a more diverse student body than ever before. Over the last 30 years, the number of Hispanic students has risen five-fold, Asian and Pacific Islander enrollment has tripled, black enrollment has risen 150 percent and Native American enrollment has doubled.But the graduation rate for minority students falls far below the nationwide average. Our colleges and universities are not succeeding at educating students with diverse backgrounds. In an increasingly competitive global economy, our country cannot afford this waste of time, money and talent.
The brutal shooting death of a 9-year-old boy is just the latest headline-grabbing act of gang violence on the streets of Chicago.
Noted: UW-Madison education professor Gloria Ladson-Billings assured a crowd of well over 100 that the problem is “not insurmountable.” Most important are highly effective, fully qualified teachers. Three really good teachers in a row, she said, citing research, will pull young students out of failure.
On Tuesday, an hour before the GOP presidential candidates’ debate about the economy in Milwaukee Theatre, the Milwaukee Bucks will tip-off their NBA game in the soon-to-be-replaced Bradley Center, directly across the street. As a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and for most Wisconsinites, the symbolism surrounding the debate’s location is almost too fitting.
Dear Editor: UW-Madison is home to upwards of 40,000 students, all of whom play a crucial role in our local government. However, a great number of UW-Madison students are not from Wisconsin. In fact, UW-Madison is expected to increase its number of out-of-state students. On balance, having out-of-state students is a good thing for the university and for the state. It increases diversity, contributes to a growing and talented workforce, and improves the social and economic fabric of our community and state. However, this does not come without unintended consequences, specifically the challenge many students have in participating in our great democracy through the electoral process.
There are sounds reasons to believe Exact Sciences’ non-invasive test for colon cancer will one day be a widely-recommended preventive procedure. But there is no doubt the announcement last month that a federal health task force gave the test an initial designation of “alternative test,” just as company officials were wrapping up plans for an ambitious expansion at Judge Doyle Square was about the worst timing possible. Very simply the implications for the company’s financial performance, short term as they might be, made the move downtown too risky. It’s too bad, but company CEO Kevin Conroy’s decision to grow the company at its current UW Research Park location is the right thing to do.
For years, UW Athletics and UW-Madison have had a strong private-public partnership that has brought people together in support of Badgers on and off the playing field. But now the UW Athletic Department’s private business mentality has gone corporate, pandering to the billionaire Koch brothers and their divisive tactics. Our Walker-controlled Board of Regents is in full support.
With higher education costs skyrocketing, Congress should be making it easier not harder to ensure students have access to an affordable college education. Yet, Senate Republicans, led by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), have twice blocked the renewal of the longest standing federal financial aid program — the Perkins Loan.
Having spent six years in Silicon Valley earlier in my career, I am a Steve Jobs fan. A new biography, Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart Into a Visionary Leader, contains important lessons for higher education.
You may recognize me as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, a position I’ve proudly held for more than five years.
Noted: Perhaps the ACLU should pick a new target. Say, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which refuses to make the changes necessary to make its student ID cards acceptable for voting, despite a joint request to do so from the College Democrats and College Republicans.
The benefits of the research, teaching, learning and discoveries of the UW affect the world and humanity. That’s the mission. That’s what Walker decided he wanted explicitly stated in state statutes no longer.
Let us just put it this way: Never has the Wisconsin Idea been more relevant, more important, and more worthy of our support.
When and why do people get involved in mass violence? What pushes individuals in a precariously tense region into brutality and blood — and what can prevent such slaughter? With gut-wrenching stories reaching us daily from Syria, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, North Korea, Central African Republic, Libya, Nigeria and Congo, that urgent public policy question is being tackled by a number of academics, researchers and policymakers, including the Early Warning Project, a public prevention system for mass atrocity and genocide that combines statistical modeling with insights from an expert opinion pool. A month ago, the EWP released a detailed risk assessment for such violence.
It has been nearly four months since videos surfaced showing Planned Parenthood employees discussing their role in making the organs of aborted fetuses available for medical research.
Noted: Consuelo Lopez Springfield, of Madison, is an emerita assistant dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a retired senior lecturer on gender and women’s studies and Chican@Latin@ studies.
Time Magazine reported institutions worth $2.6 trillion in assets have pledged to divest from fossil fuels. However, I am disappointed this value does not include UW-Madison’s endowment.
The best research yet, published last year out of Stanford University, shows statistical significance for an increase in aggravated assault from “right-to-carry” laws. This outweighs rarer events. I also understand our state government wants to allow people to carry guns into buildings on state campuses.
