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.
Since the beginning of the fall semester, I’ve received all the standard back-to-school emails from university officials, offices and organizations. “Remember to get your free flu shot,” “Scholarship application deadline approaching,” “Join our team.”
Dear Editor: The Kochs and Koch Industries have such an insidious hold on national conservatism that it is disingenuous for any responsible person at UW to say Koch sponsorship doesn’t matter. When the Kochs are writing the playbook for national politics, especially gubernatorial and legislative policies, does anyone see a connection between recent defunding of the university system and the allure of this lucrative sports package?
Here’s how six people on the UW-Madison campus answered this week’s question posed by Capital Times freelancer Kevin Murphy.
University of Wisconsin-Madison officials recently announced that they will not change student identification cards, also known as Wiscards, to be compliant with state voter ID laws. This means that in order to cast a ballot on election day, students who are not Wisconsin residents will have to go to Union South to obtain a separate voter ID. The university has said it will take steps to expand access by offering students a free voter ID card when they obtain their Wiscard, and by continuing a campus-wide effort to publicize the availability of these cards.
Gloria Ladson-Billings is the Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies for the University of Wisconsin.
There are a lot of important contributions to our world for which the University of Wisconsin-Madison is responsible that tend to get lost in the political policy debates.
I had to wonder what Aldo Leopold would say.What would he think about allowing deer hunting at night or about letting hunters “shine” deer with bright lights to freeze them in their tracks so they can be shot more easily?The father of the conservation movement was an avid hunter but he could be tough on hunters who didn’t measure up to his ideal of the hunter’s ethic. In his seminal book, “A Sand County Almanac,” Leopold complains about hunters who kill does and young male deer then leave the carcasses to rot in the field while they pursue bigger bucks.
The issue of violence and mass shootings in this country is one that needs to be addressed. However, would allowing students to carry guns on campus actually decrease the chances of further gun violence, or would it lead to further tragedy?
We have a sexual assault problem. By now, you’ve probably seen or heard of the statistics from a recent national survey on campus climate: More than one in four female undergraduate students at UW-Madison report having been sexually assaulted in college. It’s a startling statistic, but sadly, is this new information?
There’s a lot of bad blood between stakeholders in our higher education system. There is tension between the Republicans who control the state Legislature and University of Wisconsin-System leaders, between the Board of Regents and the faculty, and between rural residents and the bigger schools, particularly UW-Madison.
Noted: Through the humanities, the students [in the Odyssey Project] earn college credits, gain confidence in their abilities to succeed, and an opportunity to find a career path. In other words, they find hope.
There’s a gathering next Thursday night at the University Club on campus for those interested in supporting the Odyssey Project. We think it is so worthy of support.
It seems to us that some of the most successful strategies to help people who are struggling, who are dealing with some of life’s biggest challenges, involve meeting folks at the most individual and personalized level possible. In others words, meeting with them one by one.
If we’re going to have the “guns on campus debate” – and due to warring pieces of legislation, we must – let’s at least argue the issue using accurate information. And according to that information, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, if it were a city – and it sort of is one, like Vatican City is within Rome – would be one of the safest around.
Genome editing, 3-D printing and robotics — these sound like subjects for doctoral students or headlines for a conference of tech savvy entrepreneurs. And they often are. They also are a slice of the activities planned for the fifth annual Wisconsin Science Festival, taking place in 36 communities across Wisconsin on Oct. 22-25, for people of every age and background.
We, the undersigned collection of instructors from colleges and universities in the city of Milwaukee, feel compelled to speak out against the bill recently proposed by Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) and Sen. Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg).
On Oct. 12, it was announced that state legislators Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, and Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostberg, circulated legislation that would revoke the exception to Wisconsin’s concealed carry law that allows the University of Wisconsin System and technical colleges to ban concealed carry within campus buildings.
Genome editing, 3-D printing and robotics — these sound like subjects for doctoral students or headlines for a conference of tech savvy entrepreneurs. And they often are. They also are a slice of the activities planned for the fifth annual Wisconsin Science Festival, taking place in 36 communities across Wisconsin on Oct. 22-25, for people of every age and background.
The National Rifle Association and its supplicants in legislatures around the country and the U.S. Congress have a ready and facile answer for the problem of gun violence in the United States:
The National Rifle Association and its supplicants in legislatures around the country and the U.S. Congress have a ready and facile answer for the problem of gun violence in the United States: More guns.
UW-Madison is touting the results of a survey that show only 5.9 percent of the liberal arts class of 2012-13 is unemployed and that a plurality of those in the workforce make between $30,000 to $40,000 a year.
A US federal court has found that Apple infringed a patent held by the patenting arm of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The patent describes a mechanism that could be used in speeding up processors and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), who own the patent, claimed that Apple has used this technology in the processors for its recent iPhones and iPads.
Thank you to the Star Tribune for bringing critical attention to the issue of farm-work injuries and deaths in Minnesota over the last decade (“Tragic Harvest,” Oct 4-7). I began my career in farm safety 30 years ago, and spent almost 18 years as the agricultural safety and health specialist in Minnesota, leaving to become an associate dean in Wisconsin in 2008.
Column form Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now, a liberal research, advocacy and communications organization dedicated to fighting for a state with equal economic opportunity for all.
We all thought it was a miracle when the Wisconsin Badgers beat Kentucky in the Final Four. Legislators – both Republican and Democrat – couldn’t wait to honor the University of Wisconsin basketball team.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison. The words “of Wisconsin” are right there in the name, just in case anyone needed reminding that the UW System schools are funded by the taxpayers of Wisconsin primarily to serve students from the Badger State.
Column from W. Lee Hansen, professor emeritus, economics, UW–Madison
As more and more videos are released by the Center for Medical Progress, the prohibition of the sale of aborted baby parts is a critical issue for Wisconsin, and for the nation. Now is the time to end the victimization of the unborn for profit, especially when they are dismembered in the womb for the harvesting of their organs.
Noted: Earlier this week, University of Wisconsin-Madison public affairs professor Donald Moynihan wrote that he hoped the new civil service reforms wouldn’t become a new Act 10. According to Moynihan, the approach Walker is taking in supporting the civil service modernization bill is “echoing the divisive tactics of Act 10.”
