Chancellor Martinâ??s op-ed addressing the controversy surrounding the Heraldâ??s publication of the Holocaust denial ad (â??Truth and Scholarship Greatest Tools in Combating Falsehoodâ?) is a breath of fresh air for those committed to UW-Madisonâ??s core belief in the â??sifting and winnowingâ? of ideas and the freedom of speech that goes with it.
The work of building a media reform movement began long before Bob McChesney and I started writing about issues of media monopoly, the decay of newspapers and the current crisis in journalism, and it will go on long after we put down our pens â?? or, in this digital age, shut off our computers.
But the past decade has been a critical juncture in the growth of media activism, as the movement to free up and democratize our communications has gone from strength to strength. That growth has been made possible by the diligent engagement of some remarkable people who recognized early on that the media are not just something that happens to us. Media are a constant in our lives that we the people can, through enlightened policy making, shape and influence to serve human and civic needs â?? as opposed to merely enriching speculators and the CEOs of media conglomerates.
Madisonâ??s Cynthia Laitman, who has died in her early 70s after a nasty bout with brain cancer, was a pioneer in turning that recognition into activism at the local, state and national levels.
For the past week, members of the UW-Madison community have been debating the extent to which denials of the Holocaust, or more specifically, ads that deny the Holocaust constitute free speech. As a scholar in German studies, I want to take a few moments to address a slightly different set of issues.
For too long, bankers have gotten a free ride from the U.S. Department of Education.
Under current law, taxpayers provide as much as $9 billion each year to subsidize guaranteed student loans issued by banks. The banks earn profits on the interest; if students default, taxpayers take the loss, not the banks. In other words, working Americans pay while bankers get rich.
Meanwhile, educators, engineers and computer scientists — the backbone of the new economy — face crushing debt from six-figure college tuitions. A study of national post-secondary student aid found that in 2008, two-thirds of college seniors graduated with debt averaging more than $23,000. That number will rise as public and private college tuition costs escalate.
WASHINGTON â?? Young Americans are the linchpin of a new progressive era in American politics. So why arenâ??t Democrats paying more attention to them?
Since the first commercial cultivation of genetically modified GM crops in 1996, Monsanto and the rest of the big six biotech seed companies Pioneer/DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, BASF and Bayer have become masters at the art of story telling.
Farmers, always looking for the next big technology fix, loved the stories: the promise of better yields, less chemicals needed for weed control, higher profits and of course, a solution to the elusive goal of feeding the world.
Governments, seeing biotechnology as a huge economic engine, embraced the technology. University research was shifted almost exclusively to biotech crops.
An ad hoc committee of the Faculty Senate released its report Monday in response to proposals from Chancellor Biddy Martin and Provost Paul DeLuca, who intended to substantially restructure the UW-Madison Graduate School. Administrators sought to divide the graduate education and research sections of the Graduate School into more separately defined entities and create a new administrative structure to accommodate them. Martin and DeLuca both said restructuring was needed so UW could remain competitive in securing multi-million dollar federal grants, fix problems in research safety compliance and better administer UW-Madisonâ??s ever-expanding research capabilities.
Over the course of the last week, we have been inundated with comments of the most reprehensible quality. Anti-Semitism was bandied about in our comments section for our story on Alpha Epsilon Pi. This spurred a dialogue between Dean of Students Lori Berquam, Hillel Executive Director Greg Steinberger and the University of Wisconsin-Madison student body over appropriate speech and the need to repudiate anti-Semitic speech in all forms.
s Dean of Students, Iâ??m a regular consumer of newspapers, blogs and websites containing news and opinions about the state of our campus community. Iâ??m most proud of our students, faculty and staff when we engage in a thoughtful and productive exchange of ideas on even the most controversial topics. That is the foundation of our campus â?? the process of fearless sifting and winnowing.
Empty possessions. Empty seats.
Was there a correlation Tuesday night at the Kohl Center? Unlikely.
Nonetheless, while the Badgers were misfiring repeatedly on offense throughout a brutal second half â?? coming up empty on possession after possession in the closing minutes against Illinois â?? you couldnâ??t help but notice the empty seats in the 300 level. That would be part of the so-called Grateful Red section.
Co-authored by Andrew H. Kydd, associate professor of political science at UW-Madison.
The Wisconsin Senate, in a strong bipartisan vote, has approved a bill adding new regulations to campaign speech in state and local races.
THE warning in The Journal of the American Medical Association is not ambiguous: â??There is a very definite brain injury due to single or repeated blows on the head or jaw which cause multiple concussion hemorrhages. … The condition can no longer be ignored by the medical profession or the public.â?
Today the University of Wisconsin Union Theater will host Ayaan Hirsi Ali as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series. Originally she was rejected as a speaker – too controversial.
….It is sad and even frightening that students, or any one for that matter, would succumb to the notion that the right to speak is measured by the messenger being timid, meek, and boring.
Fortunately there was an opportunity to revisit the issue and the right thing was done.
The No. 1 one issue today for students at University of Wisconsin System schools and across the nation is the inability to pay their tuition. As the amount students pay for their education increases, the State of Wisconsinâ??s contributions to higher education continue to decrease. The systematic, historical and ongoing reasons for this change in our state and society cannot be explained quickly or easily. A column by Jay Burseth, president of the UW-Milwaukee Student Association.
Any person who knows me relatively well might tend to describe me, among many things, as occasionally frugal. So as a frequent penny pincher, I too am surprised to find myself endorsing tuition increases.
Journalists are extremely insecure. If you were in a profession that might be a shadow of its former self in a matter of years, you would be, too.
Provost Paul DeLuca, Jr., we know you were all ready to reform the grad school, but it looks like you might have to rethink that Che shirt, because itâ??s not revolution time just yet. DeLuca recently proposed the creation of a new vice chancellor for research, separate from the graduate school, to manage the University of Wisconsinâ??s research operations.
Whenever newspapers publish findings of their latest poll, they try to persuade us that the poll is honest, conducted without bias, and scientific. The obligatory blurb goes something like this: â??Results are based on phone interviews with X adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Jan 6-8. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus X points.
â?If a name like Harris, Pew or Gallup is involved, you have confidence there is only one goal: Inform the public. The pollsters have too much to lose to cook the books.
But what if the pollsters are biased — determined to get a result consistent with their agenda? It is vital to know who writes the questions, decides when to poll, and determines whether or not to release the results.
On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with plastic explosives hidden in his underwear. On Dec. 22, 2001, Richard Reid tried to blow up a transatlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes. Incompetent and poorly supported, they were quickly foiled by passengers and flight crew. But the fact that Abdulmutallab would try a variation of Reidâ??s attack eight years later raises some interesting questions about terrorist tactics.
Andrew H. Kydd is an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Robben Wright Fleming wasnâ??t my mentor or my “Morrie.” We met only once before Wednesday, when he was eulogized by three University of Michigan presidents, former administrators, and myself, in the role of student journalist in the Fleming years.
Fleming, who led the University of Michigan from 1968 to 1979, died peacefully in an Ann Arbor retirement home on Jan. 11 at age 93.
If I had seen or read only the news coverage about research animal care at UW-Madison, without knowing the full story, I would have written a letter of complaint to myself. Fortunately, as director of the animal program, I know the full story. Unfortunately, some early news coverage misrepresented it.
….Students on campuses across America turned their concern about their future to the biggest polluters on campus — coal-fired power plants that still operate on more than 60 campuses. To end coalâ??s foothold on campuses, Sierra Club and its Sierra Student Coalition in September launched a campaign to educate and enlist hundreds of thousands of students to move beyond coal and fight for clean energy. This campaign has taken off like a prairie fire on a warm, dry spring day.
I used to be a science writer for a California newspaper, where I learned to think of the ground beneath my feet as something alive. It crawled and shivered, stretched and quaked. It was the thin, wrinkled skin of an A.D.D. planet, whose muscles and bones constantly twitched beneath it.
Granted, I hardly ever miss a telecast of Badgers football or basketball, so maybe my complaint is related to overexposure. But am I the only one who finds the 30-second public service announcement broadcast during games to be annoying, even embarrassing, for a world-class research institution like UW-Madison?
For years now, the UW-Madison has tried to portray a cadre of local folks who complain about its animal experiments as wackos.
Well it turns out that the local Alliance for Animals and other people who have been doing the complaining have been right about a lot of things.
The year 2009, while a bummer in all too many ways, was a good one for local authors.
There were many winners worth recommending, from â??Same Time, Same Station,â? UW-Madison School of Journalism Professor James Baughmanâ??s fascinating history of the beginning days of network television, to Marshall Cookâ??s delightful â??Walking Wounded: A Wartime Love Story,â? a fact-based piece of fiction centered on Madisonâ??s newspaper scene.
I stumbled across the following opinion piece which appeared in the Boston Globe last month.
Itâ??s penned by Kara Miller, who teaches rhetoric and history at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. While the headline “My lazy American Students” caught my eye, I found the following two paragraphs to be especially noteworthy.
Wrote Miller: “Teaching in college, especially one with a large international student population, has given me a stark — and unwelcome — illustration of how Americansâ?? work ethic often pales in comparison with their peers from overseas.”
When business people think of Wisconsin, they usually conjure up images of manufacturing, agriculture and a strong Midwestern work ethic.
Some may not realize, however, that a growing part of this stateâ??s economic engine is the biotechnology, medical research and biopharmaceutical industries. Despite 2009â??s down economy, this sector has found Wisconsin to be a welcoming environment for business opportunity and growth.
In this economic climate, weâ??d forgive some of the 576 graduates who will participate Saturday in winter commencement exercises at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for being a little reluctant to leave college for the work force.
President Barack Obama spoke at Wright Middle School in Madison last month and urged our nation to make improving K-12 education a national priority.
If you want to know why there is a groundswell of support for the Big Ten Conference adding a 12th school, look no further than the final Saturday of the college football season, when the SEC and Big 12 dominated the nationâ??s television sets with their title games and the Big Ten twiddled its thumbs.
Indeed, a sagging national image and the need for media exposure late in the football season are the reasons behind the Big Tenâ??s announcement Tuesday that it will spend the next 12 to 18 months investigating its expansion options.
But all the Big Ten really did Tuesday was cast a line into the lake. So which school, if any, will end up on the Big Tenâ??s hook?
As the mother of a royalty-worshipping little girl, my feelings about Disneyâ??s first black princess are mixed. From the media coverage of “The Princess and the Frog,” youâ??d think it was a historical moment akin to President Obamaâ??s election.
Author: Leslie Bow is a professor of English and Asian-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Since Dale Kiddâ??s death Saturday, at 55, from complications of the swine flu virus, it has become evident just how many people appreciated his music and spirit. Tributes have poured into a website, www.dalekidd.com, that was quickly established by his colleagues and friends.
Kidd, who served in the Navy, studied fire science at MATC and worked in fire safety at UW-Madison. But as Burns said, he never stopped playing. It may be better to say he never stopped thinking about music, how to get better, how to hit the perfect note. There are several friends who fondly recall Kidd pulling up at their curb unannounced and insisting they jump in and hear his latest recording or guitar riff.
When I first moved to Madison seven years ago anyone who hailed from one of the coasts was, understandably, considered a “coastie.” Iâ??ve watched as over the past couple of years that term has morphed into a more direct stereotype.
I write to bring you up to date on an important issue. Some of you have been following the news and publicity about the workers of two now-closed apparel factories in Honduras, Hugger de Honduras and Vision Tex.
Even if President Barack Obama doesnâ??t deliver the change he promised, at least he could restore basic oversight in key financial areas.
The need was highlighted by a story out of Cleveland last week. On Friday, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. regulators seized the AmTrust Bank, the fourth-largest U.S. bank or savings institution to fail in 2009. The AmTrust debacle — the FDIC had dutifully guaranteed the bankâ??s deposits at a cost of more than $2 billion — vividly reflects the Obama administrationâ??s steadfast commitment to the status quo.
(Stanley Kutler is a UW-Madison history professor emeritus. This column first appeared on truthdig.com.)
When I was back home two weeks ago, my mother mentioned John — the cute boy with red hair and freckles on whom I had my first crush in grade school. I was sorry to hear that he has spent years battling alcoholism. I gather it began in college, which doesnâ??t surprise me, after visiting my sonâ??s college this fall.
We enjoyed so much about visiting Martinâ??s school. The wonderful concert in the auditorium, the birthday messages written by friends on the sidewalk in front of his dorm, the bulletin board notices of creative activities and organizations, the engaging academic community, the sense of belonging. But there was another side to college that Martin said disturbed him, and it too was in evidence — the broken chair in the kitchen, destroyed by a few drunken students a week or two earlier, the bloated face of a hall mate, the beer bottles left in odd places. Even at a college based on principles of simplicity, emphasizing personal restraint and responsibility to community, excessive college drinking is rampant.
Forty years ago, I conducted the first comprehensive study of Wisconsin hunters for a masters of science degree from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A popularized version was published by the Department of Natural Resources. I have been a keen observer of hunting regulations and hunter success ever since. [An opinion column by Lowell Klessig.]
To improve campus climate and truly benefit from the wide range of cultures and ethnicities that are represented in our student body, we must create cross-cultural connections.
Most students here are familiar with Gordon Commons. Regardless of your love-hate relationship with University Housing, you have to admit itâ??s a homey place to relax during free time. Well, fun at Popâ??s Club and Edâ??s Express will soon come to an end, as UW plans to tear down the building this upcoming summer. Even if you look at the upcoming project glazed with rosy assumptions, the $34 million project is probably unnecessary.
Depending on how much you read the paper, or how often you feel the need for that two-for-one Long Island special, you may or may not be aware of the lawsuit Brothers recently filed to prevent losing its current location. The suit came after the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents granted the university the right, under eminent domain, to build a performance facility on the property occupied, in part, by Brothers.
Deploy the models of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and BizStarts Milwaukee to encourage a national corps of mentors – seasoned entrepreneurs – to help high-growth ventures get out of the starting gates. Veterans with lots of scar tissue can help entrepreneurs avoid critical start-up mistakes, thereby improving the win ratio.
Diversity issues extend beyond race and nationality. I would argue we are a product of our experiences, and though skin color and nationality play a significant role in influencing our experiences, encouraging a diversity of experiences on campus cannot be measured by admittance data alone. UW-Madison cannot hope to achieve true diversity simply through programs aimed at aiding minority students. A truly diverse campus would embrace students from all walks of life, whose experiences are as vast as they are different and who are united by a common goal: to educate and better themselves.
During the Civil War and Reconstruction era â?? best described as our â??Second American Revolutionâ?â??the political parties marched in virtual lockstep in consistent, rigid opposition to each other. Democrats steadfastly resisted the Republicansâ?? organic program for a new nation, including the Homestead Act, the land-grant college program, a protective tariff, a transcontinental railroad, a national currency and a reordering of judicial power.
Party discipline soon weakened, and legislators again comfortably crossed party lines. Even at the New Dealâ??s high point, the Republican minority, after opposing many of the details, often supported major reforms, such as Social Security. More recently, in the mid-1960s, conservative Midwestern Republicans helped break filibusters and the obstructionist tactics of conservative Southern Democrats (many still mired in â??lost causeâ? nostalgia).
We have now regressed. Rarely in our history has partisanship been more narrow and rigid.
Written by Stanley Kutler, a UW-Madison professor emeritus
In the first-ever hockey games at Camp Randall on Feb. 6, the UW menâ??s team will play Michigan in a game preceded by the Badger women against Bemidji State. The dilemma: Be a part of history, or stay warm.
Members of the Wisconsin Legislature are weighing the merits of two bills aimed at clarifying the extent to which parents can legally deny, because of their religious beliefs and practices, conventional medical treatment to their sick or injured children.
As the debate over these measures unfolds, lawmakers should not allow the self-serving and dubious claims of a single, small church to shape laws meant to safeguard the health and welfare of our children. That happened once before in Wisconsin, and the results were a public policy debacle. [A column by Shawn Peters, who teaches on UW-Madison’s School of Education]
Diversity.
If the article stopped there, the comments section would still be ablaze. While most would focus on the bizarre nature of my minimalist post-modern commentary, the rest of the debate would focus on the definition of the term, the â??racistsâ? on campus who oppose it and the response to being called racist until someone cites Hitler and our comments hit a new low.
Charles Darwin seems to have had a boundless interest in the many forms life takes on earth. He could find something about any animal or plant that piqued his insatiable curiosity, and masses of such observations fueled his prodigious output of books and scientific papers.
The passage of recent school reform legislation in Wisconsin (SB370-SB373) has positioned the state to compete for Race to the Top funds and, more importantly, to address the pernicious achievement gaps in Wisconsin.
Noted: Carolyn Kelley is a professor of educational leadership and policy analysis in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They are co-authors of the book “Learning First,” Thousand Oaks, Calif., Corwin Press, 2009.
UW-Madison Professor Alta Charo was right — womenâ??s health would be sacrificed for overall health care reform.
Academic research and development, one of the few bright spots in Wisconsinâ??s economic landscape, doesnâ??t need to be a political football.
Political games abound in the absence of clear strategic direction, and thatâ??s what happened with the idea that the University of Wisconsin System should spread dollars for fresh water technology to all four-year campuses in the state.
The idea that fresh water technology should be proliferated, rather than focused, demonstrated a lack of understanding of the concept of clusters that grew out of the four economic summits early in this decade.
UW-Madisonâ??s long-standing focus on â??targeted minoritiesâ? is a much-too-provincial view of â??diversityâ? in the global world of the 21st century. This narrow approach ignores the many channels through which students are exposed to the wide range of subject matter, ideas, people, cultures, and attitudes that characterize UW-Madison.
For starters, in 2008-09 UW-Madison undergraduates came from cities large and small, spread across Wisconsinâ??s 72 counties and all 50 states, plus Guam and Puerto Rico, and more than 100 foreign countries.
The most â??targetedâ? of the â??targeted minorityâ? groups — African-Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics — included 2,088 students. â??Targetedâ? Southeast Asians added another 528 students. To this must be added the 1,149 Asian-American undergraduates who are not counted among â??targeted minoritiesâ? but bring with them a rich cultural heritage and unmatched academic prowess.
My body is sitting in an environmental health lecture in Bascom Hall with 250 students, but my mind is deep in the woods of northern Wisconsin. The glow of my headlight guides me through the early morning darkness as I walk quietly along the mixed maple trail to my deer stand. The air is cold. I can see my breath as I climb the ladder. Wrapped in layers and blaze orange, wearing heavy boots, and with pockets full of hand warmers, I get cozy and prepare mentally for a dusk-till-dark sit. I load my gun. As I wait for the sun to rise, my excitement builds.
I snap back to Environmental Studies 113 and scramble to take notes to catch up. Thanksgiving break is coming, I tell myself. I anticipate it not for the turkey, but for the hunt that excites me every year and for the chance to escape city streets.
Diversity is a recurring theme at UW-Madison and, as always, the discussion turns to race. Administrators who focus on the color of studentsâ?? skin continue to find a lack of diversity, which is a nice way of saying we are too white. Responding to this crisis of superficial uniformity has been a favorite task of chancellors, committees, and columnists for decades. While the overwhelming sea of good intentions is aimed at increasing diversity, I would argue that there are almost no students who pay any attention to race.
….The military, after all, does not rely solely on patriotic feelings to build its force, and neither should the civilian parts of government. One of the most powerful incentives the military has is the Reserve Officersâ?? Training Corps, which offers assistance to those seeking higher education. Itâ??s time for a civilian ROTC.
Thatâ??s the idea of a bipartisan group of senators and House members who are proposing to create the Roosevelt Scholars program, named after Teddy Roosevelt. Reps. David Price, D-N.C., and Mike Castle, R-Del., have introduced a bill in the House, and a similar measure is expected in the Senate this week from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio.
Although there is sentiment to include undergraduates in the program, the House bill is aimed at graduate students, because the federal government has a special demand for highly qualified employees who are otherwise attracted (and heavily recruited) by the private sector. In exchange for generous scholarships in fields such as engineering, information technology, foreign languages and public health, the scholars would commit to three to five years of service in an agency of the federal government.
The prevailing strategy behind UW-Madisonâ??s more than 40-year effort to increase the presence of â??targeted minorityâ? students remains as confusing as ever.
Good grief! UW-Madison is not going to use the Kindle e-book because visually-impaired people canâ??t find the button that makes the device read to them?
Pray tell: Where is the button on a regular book they can push to get that weighty hunk of paper and cardboard to read to them? How absurd can this tyranny of the minority get?
In his approach to National Security Agency surveillance, as well as CIA renditions, drone assassinations, and military detention, President Obama has to a surprising extent embraced the expanded executive powers championed by his conservative predecessor, George W. Bush. So says an online opinion column by Alfred McCoy, UW-Madison history professor and author of “A Question of Torture,” among other works.
