Skip to main content

Category: Opinion

Michael Bernard-Donals: University of Virginia’s experience resonates here

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

The University of Virginia?s board recently pressured the university?s president, Teresa Sullivan, to step down because it didn?t think she was making changes quickly enough. After an outcry from faculty, students and citizens of the state, the board backed down and reinstated Sullivan. I?d argue that what happened in Virginia should matter deeply to us here in Wisconsin because it highlights the crisis in public higher education both locally and across the country. The actions of Virginia?s board were an attempt to mandate change from the top and to run the university on a business management model. In this model, what matters is the bottom line, efficiency and return on investment.

Chris Rickert: Does the ?God particle? lessen faith?s bearing?

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

If physicists have found the ?God particle,? does it lessen the need to find God? This was basically the question an anthropology professor friend of mine posed after news broke Wednesday that evidence of the elusive particle, also known as the Higgs boson, apparently has turned up in experiments at the renowned European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. As someone for whom high school physics was one big misunderstanding, I?m not qualified to adequately explain what a Higgs boson is.

Madison 360: Just maybe, things are brightening a bit

Posted on
Capital Times

A Madison teacher and administrator for 29 years, Jane Belmore, will take a leave as education dean at Edgewood College. She strikes me as the Madison schools? version of David Ward, the deeply experienced and highly respected interim chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Speaking of UW, I think there is also good news in the absence of grousing by Republican legislators over UW-Madison?s plan to target pay raises to about one-third of faculty and academic staff in an aggressive effort to retain employees. When the plan was announced a month ago, one might have expected the usual GOP suspects to pounce. The GOP seldom misses an opportunity for a cheap, anti-intellectual stunt.

Buzz Davis: Open Wisconsin Retirement System to private sector workers

Posted on
Capital Times

All workers deserve financial security in their retirement years. Wisconsin should use the Wisconsin Retirement System as a model and expand the WRS to cover workers in the private sector to ensure that all Wisconsin workers ? public and private ? will have financial security. Wisconsin could be the first state in the nation to provide a ?defined benefit? pension plan with guaranteed fixed payments for life to all retired workers.

Dave Zweifel’s Madison: Puzzled cabbie seeks State Street solution

Posted on
Capital Times

Ron the cabbie, one of my morning coffee buddies at Park Street?s Cargo, is having trouble figuring out why Mayor Paul Soglin is so adamantly opposed to allowing taxis to ?cruise? for fares late night on State Street. ?Think of all the drunks that those cabbies keep off the road,? he said the other morning. ?Why wouldn?t you think that was a good idea.? Since the mayor is a former cab driver himself (he drove when he was at the UW back in the ?60s), I wondered why he was so adamant about this. He replied that, first of all, there?s an ordinance that makes that activity illegal and no cab company can unilaterally decide that it can be violated.

Chris Rickert: Don’t ‘fix’ successful pension system

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Leave it to Wisconsin’s controversial governor to turn one of the least sexy topics in government ? public pensions ? into a nail-biter. There are plenty of things in state government in need of reforming, but Wisconsin?s pension system ain?t one of them. But even if you?re not particularly concerned about getting the best returns for WRS beneficiaries, you should know that the system?s administrative costs are low, according to UW-Madison public affairs and consumer science professor emerita Karen Holden.

What?s with the global spread of English?

Posted on
The Jakarta Post

The speed at which English has spread all over the world as a global language is simply breathtaking. With this phenomenon comes the fact that English no longer exclusively belongs to the native speakers of the language. (The writer is a fulbright presidential scholar and a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US.)

Chris Rickert: UW System’s new ‘flexible degree’ a good start

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

The announcement last week of the University of Wisconsin System?s new “flexible degree” is a worthy start. The program, to be rolled out over the next year, will allow students to learn online at their own pace and provide college credit for proving they?ve mastered skills learned at work. It?s about time the public education establishment started really shaking up the standard high school-to-college-to-career path. Economists and education-reform types have been saying for years that a changing world requires changing education models.

Donald J. Wuebbles and Jack Williams: Wild Wisconsin weather demands action

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

At coffee shops, truck stops and around backyard grills, many people are asking the same question: As the climate changes, can we expect more of this? The answer: Yes. There is a strong probability that climate change is influencing certain extreme weather events. Along with other leading scientists at Big Ten universities, that?s what we know. We?re not alone. Insurance industry leaders think so, too, and they have been meeting with U.S. senators to call for action.

Donald J. Wuebbles is a professor of atmospheric sciences as well as electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois. Jack Williams is director of the Center for Climatic Research Geography at UW-Madison.

Madison360: From the rubble, a new kind of Democratic leader is needed

Posted on
Capital Times

The first few days featured Republican gloating and Democratic finger-pointing, but now — two weeks after the recall vote — two mega-themes have taken shape that will resonate in Wisconsin politics for years. First is what to do about the apparently unprecedented antagonism that exists between people who live in the same communities, the same neighborhoods, even the same households. On talk radio and in Internet comments, that antagonism seems to border on hatred.

Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin

Tom Giffey: Priced out of education, redux

Posted on
Eau Claire Leader-Telegram

After I posted my previous blog entry, ?Priced out of education? (which also was published in Monday?s hard-copy edition of the Leader-Telegram), I received a couple of emails saying I?d missed half of the picture in my rant about the rising cost of college. I?m accustomed to complaints about my writing, but in this case they were exactly right.

Chris Rickert: Science push can’t neglect the ‘soft’ side

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

I can?t open the paper lately without reading about how the American economy is doomed unless we get more kids into the so-called STEM fields ? science, technology, engineering and math. On Tuesday, it was news touting five University of Wisconsin System campuses who are taking part in a nationwide science and engineering initiative led by a group of university and private sector bigwigs who want to boost the United States? competitiveness.

….”Skills and methods associated with the humanities aren’t soft, despite the convention of referring to them as such,” said Sara Guyer, director of the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities. “The importance of the humanities … is not just about empathy or imagining others, but it is about deepening our real understanding and fostering rigorous, critical analysis.”

Madison Politiscope: Combative Dem spokesman Graeme Zielinski pushes the envelope

Posted on
Capital Times

….he (Zielinski) has long-claimed that UW-Madison professor Charles Franklin, who conducts the Marquette University Law School poll as a visiting professor, is a Republican “hack” whose polls showing Gov. Scott Walker winning the recall election by five to seven points in recent weeks were “as reliable as a three-dollar bill.” As it turned out, Franklin?s poll results matched Walker?s 7 percent win. When I asked months ago for justification of his allegations against Franklin, Zielinski told me that several of Franklin?s students had informed the party that Franklin boasted about consulting for GOP groups. “If he denies this, we don?t believe him,” Zielinski concluded in an email. Indeed, Franklin says he has never worked for any party or partisan organization.

Chris Rickert: A touch of irony on UW?s road to China

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison is pressuring its athletic apparel contractor, Adidas, to contribute to the approximately $3.2 million in severance pay owed to 2,800 workers at a former Adidas subcontractor in Indonesia. Meanwhile, interim chancellor David Ward is leading a delegation of state officials in China, where the university will open its first foreign office ? the UW Shanghai Innovation Office ? and kick off an entrepreneurship and innovation conference. Anyone else see the irony here? Indications are that the university probably doesn?t.

Madison360: To reunite Wisconsin, elite leaders must step up

Posted on
Capital Times

?Together apart. ?Those words popped to mind in the aftermath of Wisconsin?s recall election as describing our political culture. The phrase was part of the title of a reporting project 20 years ago by the New Orleans Times-Picayune about myths on race and segregation in the south. I met the project?s editor shortly after it appeared and the title stuck with me. Now it seems to aptly describe Wisconsin?s gaping political divide. We are together, but very far apart.

….One compelling suggestion is that major business and academic leaders, people with the cash and clout to speak freely, need to step forward. The idea is not from a political scientist but rather a historian, a professor who left the University of Wisconsin-Madison last year.

Dr. Jonathan L. Temte: Don’t underestimate whooping cough’s threat

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Thanks to the Wisconsin State Journal for Monday?s excellent article on pertussis. The resurgence of whooping cough may be due to a change in our childhood pertussis vaccine 15 years ago. In 1997, the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended a safer vaccine for prevention of pertussis. This emphasis on safety came at the expense of a shorter period of protection following vaccination.

Tom Giffey: Priced out of education

Posted on
Eau Claire Leader-Telegram

It?s a cliché to say that paying for college keeps parents awake at night. As is often the case, this became a cliché because it?s true — even if, as in my case, the child is barely a year and a half old.

Leland Pan: Why UW should put Adidas on notice now

Posted on
Capital Times

Over the past year, Wisconsinites have seen unprecedented attacks on workers? rights. But these attacks have not just been on public employees; since August, students at the University of Wisconsin have been pushing Interim Chancellor David Ward to hold Adidas, the primary producer of UW apparel, accountable for withholding $1.8 million in severance pay to 2,700 Indonesian garment workers. The company?s refusal to pay its workers is an explicit violation of Adidas? contract with the university, which states, ?Licensees shall provide legally mandated benefits.?

The struggles against sweatshops abroad and against corporate power in our own country may seem separate, but the rights of foreign workers are intimately connected to the conditions of workers in our own state. As corporations relocate to countries with weaker labor standards, workers in the U.S. endure major rollbacks to their own workplace standards.

John L. Gann Jr.: City should get retiring alumni to move back

Posted on
Capital Times

If Madison is complacent about economic growth as Paul Fanlund and others concluded in these pages on May 9, the city is hardly alone among its peers. My research for ?The Third Lifetime Place: A New Opportunity for College Towns? suggests that this tendency is common in college towns nationwide. But the substandard new growth that disturbs Fanlund may not be the only economic peril. Another is the potential gradual withering of what the city already has: the economic payoff from a 40,000-student university.

Robert Mathieu and Steven Ackerman: Doctoral research, teaching both valued

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

As two of many faculty and staff long engaged in preparing UW-Madison graduate students to be both excellent researchers and excellent teachers, we were disappointed with the headline in the May 27 newspaper: “Interest in research wanes among UW-Madison Ph.D.s.” The headline missed the point and an important sea change in graduate education: Interest in teaching is increasing among UW-Madison Ph.Ds.

Plain Talk: It?s Walker?s policies that turn back the clock

Posted on
Capital Times

During the only two debates that he would agree to appear in, Scott Walker spent a lot of time claiming that Tom Barrett wanted to return to the past and that it was now time to move ?forward,? something Walker claims he?s been doing these past several months. If only it, like a lot of things he says, were true. Frankly, in less than a year and a half Walker and his allies in the state Legislature have done more to turn back the clock on state policies ? everything from fair taxation to environmental safeguards ? than any administration in recent history.

….A biofuel power plant at the UW-Madison was scrapped even though it would have provided a market for Wisconsin farmers to sell some of their crop waste and other material that is now discarded. Instead, Walker ordered the plant to be converted to natural gas.

Tom Kleese: Much to consider in college selection

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Last Thursday?s editorial titled “Interest rate debate a sideshow” cuts through the political nonsense to focus on the cost of a college degree. What is more important, however, is the potential value any degree may hold. As a former UW System professor who now helps families navigate through the college admissions process, I fear some opt for a “pretty good school” and then aim for a “good grade point average.” Neither is sufficient when the price tag of a UW-Madison degree has surpassed six figures.

Chris Rickert: Class discrimination moves to the fore

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

More than 20 years ago when I was in college at UW-Madison, the debate du jour was over so-called “speech codes.” Were race-, gender- or religion-based slurs protected free speech? Punishable offenses under a public university?s rules? Both? The fight raged. I remember a classmate locking herself to some fixed object in front of a Langdon Street fraternity to protest an event the frat held in which some members wore blackface. And I ? just another white boy from the suburbs ? felt positively righteous wearing a “Celebrate Diversity” button on my leather jacket.

Craig Werner: Don’t Believe the Hype: Springsteen’s Politics

Posted on
Huffington Post

Call Bruce Springsteen whatever you want, but make sure to call him a professional. Early in our class we had a conversation on whether or not he was as erudite as we were making him out to be. There were plausible arguments on either side. In interviews he claimed not to have read much, but he also lifted most of The Grapes of Wrath. For me I don?t think it matters too much, because he actively tries to be both. Springsteen is no fool, and he plays up his country or working-class image in spite of being ridiculously informed on music, as exhibited by his most excellent keynote address at the SCSW music conference.

Chris Rickert: Kindness at your gamer’s fingertips

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving two UW-Madison researchers a $1.39 million grant to develop two video games to help teach eighth-graders compassion, empathy, cooperation, mental focus, self-regulation, kindness and altruism. I can?t help but wonder, wouldn?t a puppy work just as well, and be a heck of a lot cheaper? Besides, if your kid is going to be a mass murderer, derivatives trader or some other empathy-less sociopath, isn?t that mold pretty much cast by the time he?s 13 or 14?

Mike Nichols: Why UW-Madison is seeing applications spike

Posted on
Twincities.com

My 17-year-old daughter and I sat on the Memorial Union Terrace on a warm spring day at the University of Wisconsin-Madison last week, and I didn?t want to ruin the tranquil beauty of the moment. But I had a disturbing vision of something large washing up on the shores of Lake Mendota.

Madison360: Walker?s fate aside, rich conservatives are defining the debate

Posted on
Capital Times

In December 2010, weeks before Scott Walker dropped his self-described ?bomb? eviscerating bargaining rights for public workers, the single divide that defines contemporary state politics today was already crystallizing in my mind. The truth is that, more than ever, we in Wisconsin are split into two tiers — wealthy conservatives who leverage their money and the influence it buys to control our policy debates — and the rest of us. Back then, my column was describing a series of interviews with regular people across the state by a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

UW-Madison political science professors Katherine Cramer Walsh, Barry Burden, and Çharles Franklin are included in this column.

Another Idea for Wisconsin

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Since 1994, the UW budget has expanded from $2.1 billion per year to $5.5 billion in 2011, an increase of 114% over that time. During the same time period, state aid to the UW system has increased by 27.2%, even when Walker?s “draconian” cuts are figured in. [A column by Christian Schneider, senior fellor at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.]

Go Bucky! Defend The Wisconsin Idea!

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

I grew up in a home where the University of Wisconsin-Madison held god-like status. My mother and father met in Madison, and I learned to sing ?On Wisconsin? long before I could even hum ?The Star Spangled Banner.? I and most of my siblings graduated from Madison, and my father-in-law is a UW-Madison soils scientist who spent much of his career traveling the back roads of Wisconsin to talk with farmers.

Plain Talk: Tinkering with state retirement courts disaster

Posted on
Capital Times

All government workers in Wisconsin, except those in the city and county of Milwaukee, contribute to the state?s own pension plan, which administers and invests the funds. The state system is currently 99.5 percent funded. A special committee is currently looking at the state system and is due to issue a report in mid-June, but 401(k) options have already been touted in the Legislature, although so far they?ve fallen by the wayside….The Walker administration has signaled that it isn?t going to push changes, at least in the near future. But it would be best to keep a close lookout.

Brad Taylor: City’s unfriendly view toward business hurts

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Positive signs exist, however. UW-Madison embarked on a “D2P” effort (development to product) pushing the $1 billion of annual research inflows beyond satisfying curiosity and reaching for validation of commercial usefulness. Examples include the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which is patent-focused, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, Morgridge Institute for Research, the UW Foundation and Wisconsin Center for Education Products and Services (copyright-focused) as supportive, commercially-focused satellites of the university.

A Cardinalista bids you adieu

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

Two months ago, after hearing of the passing of his Cardinal colleague, New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid, ESPN?s Andy Katz tweeted the following: ?To all those aspiring college journalists. Value the time at the campus newspaper. We had an amazing Cardinal staff. Lifetime of memories.? To the Cardinalistas who made my college experience the adventure I dreamed it would be, I offer my most gracious admiration and love. I hope I have touched your lives in the same way you have mine, and though I am ready to see what the next chapter of my life holds, I doubt I will ever find a group of people as clever and kind as you guys and gals. Thank you all so much, and keep on sifting and winnowing.

Schneider and Goldrick-Rab: How to make the Texas Grants financial aid program more effective

Posted on
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

As a conservative and a liberal, policy wonk and professor, Washingtonian and Midwesterner — there isn?t much we can agree on. Where we do see eye to eye is that most aid programs are less cost-effective than they could be. With money scarce and demand for college graduates high, now is the time to fix financial aid. In the Lone Star State, that means thinking smarter about Texas Grants.

Finals are stressful, seek out dogs to make it through

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

With finals week fast approaching, many UW-Madison students will experience stress associated with the pressure to perform well on exams, an unfortunate reality considering the fact that everyone is extremely burnt out from school around this time. Therefore, university students should acknowledge the importance of stress relief options during finals week. I believe that one particular idea, allowing students to interact with dogs as a means to curtail stress levels, is an excellent idea.

Commentary: Wisconsin voter ID law is unfair to college students

Posted on
Oshkosh Northwestern

Among the sweeping changes made to Wisconsin?s political landscape over the last year was the choice to make voting more difficult under the guise of preventing voter fraud. The voter identification requirement of Act 23 has been widely debated and is now suspended by judicial order. The reason for this suspension is that the law was unfair to the 220,000 or so adult state residents without a driver?s license, who are disproportionately poor, elderly and minority. Receiving less attention was the alteration in our residency requirement, which changed from 10 days to 28 days.

Andy Baggot: More voices needed in the huddle

Posted on
Madison.com

First impressions, second thoughts and the third degree: When Lori Berquam made that original video about the notorious Mifflin Street block party, using her status as dean of students to say “Don?t go” to University of Wisconsin pupils, she caught a lot of flak that could have been avoided with one tweak to the script. She should have had some background vocals from UW coaches, who no doubt shared her protective instincts, but not her moxie. That kind of collaboration may have prevented an unfortunate jolt of embarrassment for Montee Ball, the most celebrated student-athlete in Badgers Nation.

Craig Werner: The Rising: Responding to Tragedy

Posted on
Huffington Post

Tragedies are all around us. Some are large, while some are small: the death of a family member, unemployment, a failing grade. Who do you turn to when such a tragedy strikes? A close friend? A family member? A stranger? After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centers, an inconceivable tragedy for many, no one seemed to know where to turn. There were no easy answers, no solutions. Some turned to religion, some turned to revenge, and some turned to forms of art. Bruce Springsteen?s album The Rising was one of those outlets, and it covered the tragedy with unmatched delicacy and insight.

Serkin brings exceptional performance to Union Theater

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Here are some of the things that I think characterize a good musical performance: a program that surprises in its content and its execution; moments of unexpected and enlightening conversation between pieces; the co-existence of stunning beauty, thinky material, and wit. So, Peter Serkin is my kind of performer. His solo concert at the Wisconsin Union Theater provided all of the above with intelligence and grace.

UW needs to pay commencement speakers

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

Last week, the University made what should have been a grand unveiling of the 2012 spring commencement speaker. Instead, what we got was a rather disappointing ?wah, wah? flop for a handful of seniors?a dud that appears to be an annual trend for the UW. Like most years, the 2012 university committee and senior class officers worked together to recruit a successful individual to address seniors at graduation. And like most years, the year-long build up and dramatic reveal of the honored individual only ended in a brow-raising ?who??

UW’s Landweber inducted into Internet Hall of Fame

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Al Gore has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. So has Wisconsin?s Larry Landweber.

I?m betting you know all about Gore, the former vice president and U.S. senator who is occasionally the butt of jokes on late-night comedy shows. While Gore didn?t “invent the Internet,” as he once claimed in a weak moment, he made essential political contributions during its formative years.

I?m also guessing you know next to nothing about Landweber, who along with Gore and 31 others made up the inaugural class of the Internet Society?s Hall of Fame, announced in late April in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mifflin rules can improve our safety

Posted on
Badger Herald

The highly anticipated Mifflin Street Block Party is less than a week away. However, there seems to be so many rumors about this year?s Mifflin that it is hard to figure out what to believe. We are here to put these rumors to rest and explain what is really going to happen on Mifflin. We are a group of students who have worked closely with city officials, members of the neighborhood and the police in preparation for Mifflin, and one thing we can say for sure is that this year?s event will see some serious changes.

Refocus on Wisconsin Idea to boost UW image within state

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

Katherine Walsh is an associate professor of political science at UW-Madison. Since 2007 she has gathered information about how the state perceives the university. Walsh?s research, published in her paper ?The Distance from Public Institutions of Higher Education,? has exposed a rift between Wisconsinites and the university and the university?s failure to live up to the high expectations of the Wisconsin idea. By taking an innovative approach to the problems Walsh has highlighted, Wisconsin could join the forefront of the national conversation on how to restructure higher education.

Chris Rickert: It’s not easy to rescue teens from themselves

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

I asked three UW-Madison educators who know a lot more about alcohol abuse and teenage behavior than I do what they thought of social host ordinances. In general, they were fans, although they were not able to point me to any research on their effect on teen drinking and its consequences. Social host ordinances are aimed at “adults who allow a very large group of underage people to consume alcohol typically with no supervision at all, just no questions asked,” said Nina Emerson, director of the Law School?s Resource Center on Impaired Driving. Brad Brown, a professor of educational psychology, thought it was “naive to believe that an adult can adequately monitor the behavior of any more than a small group of teens at an event where the teens are drinking.”

Jay Rhodes: Cut costs to keep basketball here

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Now that the WIAA has made the decision to keep the boys basketball tournament in Madison, it?s time for UW-Madison, city officials and local businesses to get off the bench. According to reports, the boys basketball tournament brings in over $6 million to the Madison area. So you?ve got to ask, what is going to be done to keep the money in Madison versus losing it to Green Bay or even Milwaukee?

Dean condescending, Mifflin a must for students

Posted on
Badger Herald

?Don?t go. Don?t go to that event.? These words will live in infamy, at least for the Mifflin Street Block Party 2012 cohort, thanks to Dean of Students Lori Berquam. The now famous video, posted online, removed and then reposted by some anonymous dark knight of Madison, features a concerned but fumbling Berquam pleading with students not to go to Mifflin.

Paul Ginsberg: Berquam said what everyone wanted to

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Kudos to UW-Madison Dean of Students Lori Berquam. She had the courage to say, publicly and clearly, what everyone in the university, city and police department was thinking but didn?t have the courage to say. That?s what deans of students do ? I know, I?ve been there. Students were not being told what to do, they were being told that going to the Mifflin Street block party was not in their best interest, nor in the best interests of the community.

– Paul Ginsberg, Madison, UW-Madison emeritus dean of students

Ed Friedman: If China Sneezes?

Posted on
The Diplomat

Fixation on political vicissitudes in China can draw attention away from the ever larger global impact of a rapidly rising China ? and the conditions that make that awesome rise possible.

Citizen Dave: The Mifflin Street Block Party can be cool

Posted on
Isthmus

Let?s start out with what should be an obvious truth. If there?s any trouble at this year?s Mifflin Street Block Party, it won?t be the fault of the UW Dean of Students or the mayor or the police. The fault will be with the perpetrators. Look, if it helps, I?ll take my share of the blame for last year?s mess. I?m not sure if the bad stuff would have happened if it hadn?t been for the transition between myself and the incoming mayor. Paul Soglin was legitimately focused on other more demanding issues and I was busy looking for more bubble wrap and packing boxes.