We all thought it was a miracle when the Badgers beat Kentucky in the Final Four. Legislators — both Republicans and Democrats — couldn’t wait to honor the University of Wisconsin basketball team. But the real miracles are happening in the labs at UW, at the Waisman Center, at Research Park, and across Wisconsin.
Noted: A study from the University of Wisconsin found that a person’s chances at a callback interview for an entry-level job dropped by 50% when that applicant had a criminal history. And much like the criminal justice system itself, re-entry employment discrimination has a disparate impact on Americans of color.
That same study found that while 17% of whites with a criminal record were given a call back, only 5% of African Americans were given that same opportunity to continue in the interview process.
[The study in question is “The Mark of a Criminal Record,” a 2002 sociology dissertation by Devah Pager later published in the American Journal of Sociology. Pager is now a professor at Harvard.]
A Catholic, a Jesuit and a scientist walk into a bar. What do they have to talk about? And just how do those conversations go?
State spending on public higher education has been in a free fall since the Great Recession. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in 2013-14, average state support for higher education was 23 percent less than it was prior to the recession. For many colleges and universities, reductions in state spending have left sizable budgetary holes that cannot be filled exclusively with spending cuts.
Studies have long shown that a college student’s odds of achieving financial security and a better quality of life improve when he or she earns a degree.
Is the Republican drive to limit research using fetal tissue a product of the gerrymandered Wisconsin Legislature? Republicans have a partisan lock on the Legislature thanks to boundary lines they drew in 2011.
Republicans in the state Legislature apparently think they are making a principled stand against abortions, but the impact of their proposed legislation to outlaw research on tissue from aborted fetuses would probably do little to deter abortions and would very likely be extremely damaging to the University of Wisconsin’s future as a research institution.
Since the economic downturn signaled by the fall of Lehman Brothers, law practice has become more competitive. Firms have failed, they are hiring fewer entry-level lawyers and, as a result, student demand for legal education has plummeted. According to the Law School Admissions Council, the organization that administers the LSAT, the number of students taking the exams was at an all-time high during the 2009-2010 academic year — 171,514 — and dropped to 101,689 in 2014-2015. The 205 American Bar Association-approved law schools are now competing for the best students in this shrunken pool.
He can start by rejecting an unnecessary and purely ideological attack on UW-Madison research that Chancellor Rebecca Blank warns would be a “direct hit” to her institution’s reputation — much worse than the $250 million the governor and Republican-run Legislature cut from the Madison campus and other University of Wisconsin System schools this summer.
Before Wisconsin Badgers running back Melvin Gordon completed his then NCAA record-setting 408-yard rushing performance, the Nov. 15, 2014 Wisconsin-Nebraska football game in Madison was interrupted for a special announcement: University of Wisconsin alumni John and Tashia Morgridge would match up to $100 million in donations made by others to UW-Madison.
Service workers are proud to work at UW and strive to do excellent work, but are easily forgotten. They, too, would like to receive some acknowledgement and reward for their work.
In his column last Sunday, Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin, proposed replacing the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board with a partisan model based on the Federal Elections Commission … Whether the state’s campaign finance laws or election rules ought to be changed is separate from the structure of the GAB, but they have unfortunately been conflated. Now that the busy budget season is complete, the Legislature has an opportunity to consider some helpful reforms to state election laws.
Opinion column on faculty tenure issue.
It’s tempting to look at the success of UW-Madison and the Madison area and conclude that Milwaukee has somehow missed the R&D boat that carries metropolitan regions to warmer economic ports. That’s only true if the region fails to work together in the years ahead.
One of the places where Madison makes a singular contribution to a better world is through the work of the Combat Blindness Foundation, founded by UW Opthamologist Dr. Suresh Chandra. The Foundation is a world leader restoring eyesight to people in developing countries. It is an extraordinary organization doing extraordinary work.
This past Saturday, September 12, following an announcement in President Obama’s weekly address, the US Department of Education released its College Scorecard.
National attention on issues facing boys and men of color has been elevated in the wake of My Brother’s Keeper, President Obama’s initiative to improve life outcomes for boys and men of color in the United States.
[Neil Heinen op-ed] The UW Madison’s Big Read program is meant to be a shared experience on campus of reading a selected book together. This year, five thousand students who attended Chancellor Becky Blank’s Convocation prior to the start of classes each received a copy of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. It’s the seventh year of the common book program.
The UW Madison’s Big Read program is meant to be a shared experience on campus of reading a selected book together. This year, five thousand students who attended Chancellor Becky Blank’s Convocation prior to the start of classes each received a copy of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. It’s the seventh year of the common book program.
MULTIPLE TIMES OVER the past few years we have expressed concern about Wisconsin state government’s declining support for the University of Wisconsin system. The percentage of student education costs paid by the state — the same thing is happening all around the country, by the way — has been declining for years, while the percentage burdening families and students has risen rapidly.
State Journal editorial looks back at the hubbub over the last major renovation to the beloved Memorial Union Terrace.
Opinion column: The University of Wisconsin System’s new online “accountability dashboard” includes useful information about enrollment, costs, graduation rates and where students come from. It can tell you whether professors are paid competitively and how the System contributes to economic development — both common talking point in the System’s quest for more state money. But among its many data sets — designed to show students, parents, lawmakers and the public what they’re getting for their billions in tax and tuition dollars — there’s nothing to indicate whether UW graduates get well-paying jobs in their fields.
The scurrilous attacks on Planned Parenthood — based on hidden-camera videos falsely purporting to show that it illegally sells fetal issue — have turned into attacks on fetal tissue research in Congress and in several state legislatures.Various bills now threaten to curtail or eliminate research that has already benefited millions of Americans and is poised to benefit many more.
Every once in a while research and advancement of knowledge at the University of Wisconsin can leave one in awe. It has again this week with the announcement of the UW-led discovery of fossils being described as a new species of human.
Prominent bioethicist, R. Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin, notes the campaign of distorted videos mounted against Planned Parenthood by the inaptly named Center for Medical Progress aims to depict fetal tissue research as the unholy beneficiary of induced abortions. It’s a convenient target, for there’s no question that fetal tissue research exists, and that some of the tissue comes from abortions. But that’s where the reality ends and the sophistry begins.
Noted: Authors Jay Smith is chairman of Teel Plastics Inc. and the president emeritus of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. Kevin Conroy is chairman and CEO of Exact Sciences Corp. Both are members of the Board of Visitors for the Waisman Center at UW-Madison.
The numbers speak for themselves: starting this year, thousands of students will be affected. But this is not the end of the line.
Though Gov. Scott Walker’s name is etched into the financial paperwork, a name on paper cannot, and will not, shut down a democratic laboratory. As students, when we move forward, our university moves forward. Possessing the ability to adapt to a new sociopolitical climate is a fundamental aspect of belonging to a progressive institution. So, again …
Now what?
The answer is dependent on us, the student body.
Noted: It was impossible to miss the sense of apprehension over misguided politics like the proposed ban on fetal tissue use, or the terrible risks involved in devaluing the University of Wisconsin. But these issues too served to focus the vision for the future that is being created along East Washington Avenue, at the UW Research Park, Epic and elsewhere.
Column from Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now and One Wisconsin Institute, progressive research, advocacy and communication organizations.
Reverend Mitchell’s comment, taken irresponsibly out of context, offered that these arrests are predicated on the poverty in which three out of every four black Madison youth live. While large insured entities can cover the fiscal loss, the real cost is to Madisonians, as the homes they return to after arrest are primarily within black communities.
Letter to the editor from W. Lee Hansen, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This column ran first on the National Association of Scholars website.
Respect for human dignity is essential in the performance of scientific research. As a University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate in the Medical Scholars Program, I heard a declaration from more than one professor that ethical questions about experimentation could be set aside and dealt with later as long as there was great potential for medical breakthroughs.
MADISON — A working group of Republican lawmakers in the Assembly is examining whether the state’s technical college system should be merged with the University of Wisconsin’s two-year campus network, mainly as a way to save money.
I will never forget the day, now 65 years ago, when my teammate on the Appleton High School basketball team was allowed to dribble the ball down the court and make a scoring shot.
If you’re from Wisconsin, the Friday night fish fry is a big deal, and the fish you want on your plate is a yellow perch you caught yourself. But for years, the population of yellow perch has been in serious decline. Now on the verge of collapse, the future of this iconic fish is looking grim. Kind of like what is happening right now with the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, under siege from a legislative agenda that has been steadily decimating its numbers while pretending that the loss doesn’t matter and hey, maybe it’s even a good thing! Why do you care, anyways? It’s just stupid fish. There are always more of them.
Further to my 9 August Inside Higher Ed post on unexpected leadership change at the University of British Columbia (UBC), I was recently asked by Lori Culbert of the Vancouver Sun to comment on the possible impacts of this type of change at a large public research university in North America.
Letter co-signed by 678 UW faculty members
I recently heard the new University of Wisconsin football coach speak before a service club. For a guy said to dislike public speaking, Chryst, a Madison native and former UW player, struck me as humble, likable and earnest. Humble is not a word that pops to mind to describe recent Badgers football coaches.
Letter to the editor from UW Foundation President Mike Knetter regarding the Wisconsin Partnership Program endowment.
Column from Grant Petty, a professor and chair of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Letter to the editor from School of Medicine and Public Health Dean Robert Golden regarding the Wisconsin Partnership Program endowment.
The political reflex to the creepy possibility that people are illegally selling organs and tissue from aborted fetuses is understandable. The rush to pass overly broad legislation that would outlaw and even criminalize legitimate, longstanding medical research is not.
Alicia Beltran is famous for her recent Kafka-esque pregnancy experience. She had stopped using painkillers and weaned herself off the antiaddiction medication. She provided full information to her health care provider. But instead of receiving prenatal care, she was ordered by the state to resume using antiaddiction medication. When she declined, she was arrested and, although she screened negative for all evidence of drug dependence or abuse, was committed to a facility for months before finally being released after a federal complaint was filed on her behalf.
Assembly Republicans are considering whether it makes sense to merge the University of Wisconsin’s 13 two-year college campuses and the states 16 technical college campuses. We think they’re on to something. We encourage them to fully explore the idea and come up with proposals to make it work.
Thousands of people with illnesses ranging from Parkinson’s disease to cancer, from heart defects to multiple sclerosis, cling to a hope that ongoing research using tissue from aborted fetuses will find a cure.
…Efficient administration of public education in this state that protects or enhances quality, is worth pursuing if it makes sense. So we’re up for a look at what a closer relationship between the Wisconsin Technical College System and UW Colleges and Extension might mean. Already the word merger has been attached to the talks, but there may well be other options.
Federal law already bans the sale of aborted fetal tissue.
Letter to the edtor from UW-Madison professor emeritus of theater and drama and Jewish studies
Noted: Authored by John R. Raymond, Sr., M.D., president and chief executive officer and professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Robert N. Golden, M.D., dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, the Robert Turell Professor in Medical Leadership and vice chancellor for medical affairs.
UW-Madison should consider this recommendation and cut the campus police department and contract with the Madison Police Department. The same should be done for Madison Area Technical College and any other public entity that separately has established its own police units.
On July 1, Elizabeth Garrett assumed the presidency of Cornell University.With this, half of the eight-member Ivy League schools now have female presidents. Garrett joins an illustrious group: Christina Paxson (Brown University), Drew Faust (Harvard University) and Amy Gutmann (University of Pennsylvania).
By R. Alta Charo:
If you’ve followed the news over the past several days, it’d be easy enough to think that politicians on the right, without exception, are and have been unwavering opponents of fetal tissue research while politicians on the left have callously enabled the sale and donation of fetal tissue for research use. George Will’s observation that the “nonnegotiable tenet in today’s Democratic Party” is “opposition to any restriction on the right to inflict violence on pre-born babies” is fairly representative.And also pretty misleading.Yes, Republicans tend to be anti-choice and Democrats tend to be pro-choice. But Republicans and conservatives have long supported Planned Parenthood’s retrieval of tissue from legally aborted fetuses.
In recent years, Wisconsin has seen a large exodus of college graduates seeking opportunities in other states. According to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Morris Davis, on average the state lost roughly 14,000 college graduates per year between 2008 and 2012. Almost half of those who left were young adults between the ages of 21 and 24 who recently obtained degrees. This loss of talent comes with consequences. This “brain drain” stunts entrepreneurial efforts, shrinks the tax base and ultimately hinders the states overall ability to innovate and grow economically.
Noted: “My own view is that there isnt a deliberative process privilege thats available,” said Raymond Taffora, the vice chancellor for legal affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Taffora was formerly the top deputy to Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and chief counsel to GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson.
From July 25: This fall, our students will return and we will pick up the mantle of teaching and learning once again, finding tremendous meaning and joy in a profession that focuses on helping people acquire knowledge. And politicians will take to the road, looking for trouble and finding it everywhere.
From July 25: This fall, our students will return and we will pick up the mantle of teaching and learning once again, finding tremendous meaning and joy in a profession that focuses on helping people acquire knowledge. And politicians will take to the road, looking for trouble and finding it everywhere.
Quoted: Eric Sundquist, managing director of the State Smart Transportation Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told the Journal Sentinel that kind of thinking is all wrong. An approach of, as he put it, “build, build, build” may actually worsen the condition of the local roads people travel on every day, the Journal Sentinel reported. Money may go to megaprojects at the expense of fixing potholes and maintaining pavement.
How do young children learn to swear – and why do they seem to do it at the most inappropriate moments?
The reorganization of the 13 UW Colleges into four regional groups should be viewed as a first step toward a regional reorganization of the whole University of Wisconsin System.
Column from Merluzzi, a doctoral student in the neuroscience and public policy program.
