While many Wisconsin state employees received pay increases from the state government Tuesday, employees within the Universities of Wisconsin were left out. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos claims he will continue to withhold pay increases from these employees until the UW-System gets rid of all programming related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Letter to the editor: Tom Still’s column last Sunday, “Remove barriers to UW projects,” neatly summarized the baffling behavior of the Legislature toward UW-Madison and UW-La Crosse.
Graduate students begin programs because we want to learn. We have a passion for a subject area and we want to contribute to a solution. I am constantly in awe of my friends and lab mates, the dedication and creativity they pour into their degrees. But we are more than just students.
In Madison, 322 corporations and other major employers attended a three-day “career fair” in September to compete for upcoming graduates of the College of Engineering. More than 235 of those mostly large employers have operations in Wisconsin. Why were they there? To find and recruit talented workers from today’s limited engineering pool. A new building would accommodate about 1,000 additional graduates per year.
Looking beyond published records to private discourses provides a fuller portrait of the U.S. at midcentury and the resentments that linger. Handwringing about the low trust in journalism that social media and online comments make visible today is justified as long as we acknowledge it has deep roots, ones that will not disappear when Trump rallies stop.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)Kathryn J. McGarr is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She earned her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University and is the author of City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
Not a moment too soon, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has chosen a paradigm-shifting book on truth, persuasion and social change for its 2023-2024 Go Big Read common reading program.
“How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion” by David McRaney (Penguin Random House 2022) tackles the psychology that drives our bitterly divided, tribal politics, and sheds light on the path to a more civil, democratic and constructive future.
This is the third chapter of a 5-part series in which former University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson and Vice President Jim Langdon reflect on their experience guiding the system though the COVID-19 pandemic.
Letter to the editor: The same university that opens its mouth to speak on countless social issues and found it necessary to remove a “racist” rock suddenly finds itself unable to comment on students supporting terrorists who murder children.
Written by Allison M. Prasch, associate professor of rhetoric, politics and culture, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Letter to the editor: Thank you to UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin for her courage in speaking out about the scale and utter brutality of the Hamas attack on Israeli men, women, children and infants.
Rebranding of University of Wisconsin System is unnecessary change that will likely not have intended impact.
Despite Wisconsin having a record budget surplus, state Republicans voted to cut $32 million from the University of Wisconsin System ostensibly because of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. But to make matters far worse, the UW System has prioritized the elimination of what are being called “structural deficits” on our campuses. They sound dreadful, don’t they?
Letter to the editor: With similar practical reasoning, can the System please rescind the unwieldy renaming of the state’s two-year campuses? Does anyone really aspire to attend the “University of Wisconsin-Whitewater — Rock County”?
Letter to the editor: I am totally frustrated that the Wisconsin Badgers homecoming football game could only be watched by streaming on NBC Peacock. Who is deciding this? When will the true longtime Badgers fans get a vote on this change?
I didn’t lose those ideals after returning to the States. I joined an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I made friends among Arab, Jewish and Israeli students. We had no political impact, but it gave me hope just to talk about a future, peaceful Palestinian state over a potluck dinner with those smart, funny, impassioned folks.
Letter to the editor: So if the University of Wisconsin System is now called the “Universities of Wisconsin,” does that mean Viterbo University, Marquette University, Lawrence University, Marian University, Mount Mary University, Carroll University and Lakeland University are all part of it, too?
Column by Universities of Wisconsin president Jay Rothman. “The goal is to shift the emphasis from our System to our universities, which create opportunities for students and improve communities all across the state. It’s an exciting change that I’m confident the people of Wisconsin will embrace with pride.”
Editor’s note: This is the second chapter of a 5-part series in which former University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson and Vice President Jim Langdon reflect on their experience guiding the system though the COVID-19 pandemic. After making a controversial decision to return to in-person classes in the fall of 2020, they discuss the innovative testing program that helped limit the spread of COVID at colleges and the communities they serve.
Conservatives have been claiming for decades that the University of Wisconsin-Madison is brainwashing young people to make them liberals. The problem with that claim is that some of the most right-wing figures in American politics are UW grads.
Letter to the editor: As a UW-Madison alum, I read with embarrassment the article “Profanities, lewd behavior mar conference livestream.”
Kasey Keeler is an author and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin. She is an enrolled citizen of the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians and descendant of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
An engineering professor in Platteville. A student counselor in Whitewater. A crops and soils expert in Dodge County.
These are just a few of the 41,000 University of Wisconsin System employees waiting for top Republican lawmakers to release their 4% raise.
Column by president of the Badger Institute, a free-market think tank based in Milwaukee.
This is the first installment of a 5-part series in which former University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson and Vice President Jim Langdon reflect on their experience guiding the system though the COVID-19 pandemic.
Letter to the editor: Power politics has become the norm in Madison and has pushed good governing aside. Rather than employing the power of his office by denying pay increases to UW’s employees Vos should take his case to the UW Board of Regents as they are the governing body for the UW System.
This program certainly has the potential to be helpful to incoming first-generation students, but it is long overdue and needs much more development to truly support first-generation Badgers.
Letter to the editor: In spite of many corporations and business embracing employee diversity and inclusion programs Vos sees the UW programs as ineffective and creating racial divisions by focusing support on these specific groups of students.
Column by Barry Burden, professor of political science and the director of the Elections Research Center at UW-Madison.
Republican-proposed bill aims to guarantee admission to UW-Madison for in-state students, ironically represents chance to expand access to underrepresented students.
When the forefront response to a student being beaten into a coma is to state that her situation is some sort of anomaly to campus living, it becomes crucial for us as students to look back and understand these statistics of abuse to be a result of Madison-specific institutional enabling.
Letter to the editor: I don’t know why Vos has a problem with diversity and equity, except that maybe he just wants our UW System schools to follow Florida’s lead and remove all positions which may ensure equal treatment under the law. What’s next? Removal of all courses that teach theoretical subject matter?
The standoff between the Wisconsin Legislature and Wisconsin’s public universities threatens to harm the state’s economy the longer it persists. There needs to be a negotiated end.
Scheufele is a professor of life sciences communication, Brossard is a professor and chair of life sciences communication, and Newman is an assistant professor of life sciences communication — all at UW-Madison.
Letter to the editor: But a University of Wisconsin-Madison game is and should be a special experience — one that is different than the ordinary world. It’s not ordinary, it’s not an everyday experience, it’s not close to boredom. It’s amazing, incredible, almost unique. My point: Tradition in this case should be upheld 100%.
Letter to the editor: The University of Wisconsin System needs to make this effort. Otherwise, we are robbing our work force of its full complement of job candidates, and robbing a substantial slice of the population a chance to build wealth and pay taxes.
Despite leading hateful sermons on college campuses, Christian preacher garners broad support online.
The struggle to find affordable housing in Madison is at an all time high.
While not doing much about climate change, the Biden administration has managed to increase the cost of living and weaken national security. Canceling oil leases signals to markets that making new investments won’t be profitable. This restricts domestic supply, increases prices and weakens Western economies. It also bankrolls our adversaries. Russia depends on higher oil prices to finance its war. Mr. Biden has also drawn down the strategic petroleum reserve and, more recently, allowed huge Iranian oil sales to China. The climate-change war on domestic fossil-fuel production is truly an all-around disaster.—Anika Horowitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison, economics
As this controversy unfolds, it is important to know the law and practice of judicial recusal and impeachment in Wisconsin and beyond — a topic that we, as scholars of state courts and constitutions, have studied closely. In short, recusal is rare, and impeachment is even rarer.
Robert Yablon is an associate professor of law and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at UW-Madison. Derek Clinger is a senior staff attorney for the initiative at UW-Madison.
Conservation must include more diverse voices from people of color to truly enact change.
Despite Evers’ partial-veto targeting DEI funding, Republicans continue to threaten UW System
Letter to the editor: Thank you to the State Journal for the coverage about the terrible noise at the recent Wisconsin Badgers football game. Sadly, we have experienced the same horrific noise levels for several years at the UW basketball games.
Listen again to the title track of Van Morrison’s groundbreaking 1968 album “Astral Weeks” and you will instantly be reminded of Richard Davis’s genius.
Dr. Tiffany Green, a professor at the school of medicine and public health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said she believes the effort to reduce maternal mortality should focus not only on care received in hospitals, but on the social and economic conditions faced in general by Black women. The United States should consider using federal civil rights law in cases where racial bias severely hurt the care a patient received. “If you think bias is a fundamental driver of these iniquities then you have to hold providers accountable,” Dr. Green said.
At a minimum, UW should implement such training. It isn’t costly, takes little time or resources and could help prevent such tragedies as witnessed here.
A bill before the Wisconsin Legislature, Senate Bill 401, will protect the public from the most significant hazards of research on potential pandemic pathogens — without having significant costs or adverse impacts. The bill is commonsense legislation that deserves broad-based support.
Virtually every policy that governs our higher education system is based on a
dangerous myth — that students do, and should, meticulously shop around for
colleges nationwide and pick the best fit.
Letter to the editor: The Wisconsin Badgers game day experience at UW-Madison took a big step backward off the field on Saturday.
Letter to the editor: I have been a Wisconsin football season ticket holder for over 30 years. I attended Saturday’s UW football game anticipating a great afternoon of college football. What I experienced was horrible.
For example, SHINE Technologies in Janesville is looking to use fusion to recycle fissile material from reactors, past and future. Company founder Greg Piefer said climate change can’t wait to be solved by fusion energy, but safe fission energy is possible now. The nuclear engineering programs at UW-Madison are also a part of that research mix.
Written by Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, distinguished professor and John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Steven Running is professor emeritus of ecosystem and conservation sciences at the University of Montana.
Without any increase in state funding, the System is projected to reach a $60.1 million structural deficit by the end of 2023-24, according to System President Jay Rothman.
The promotion of civil discourse is one of the most urgent actions the La Follette School can take going forward.
Co-authored by Susan Webb Yackee is a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. Curt S. Culver is the non-executive chairman of MGIC Investment Corp. and its principal subsidiary, Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC), the nation’s leading private mortgage insurer. He is a founding member of the La Follette School’s Board of Visitors.
When will UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin explain to the public, alumni, faculty, staff and students how the latest expansion of what was formerly known as the Big Ten Conference will further the educational mission of the UW-Madison campus?
The first member of the Menominee to graduate from the University of Wisconsin, the first woman to serve as tribal chair, the first Native American woman to run for statewide office in Wisconsin and the second Native American woman to bid for Congress, she would eventually become the first woman to head the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs — where she ushered in a new era of respect for tribal sovereignty.
Then there are the culture wars against public universities, especially UW-Madison. Even as the state’s financial contribution has dwindled, Republicans this summer pick picked a fight over meager budgets for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and blocked construction of a UW-Madison engineering building. Inventing and then enflaming such issues is most of what Republicans offer their base.
While this year’s team is off to a strong start, their future home is uncertain. A recent article indicates that the McClimon Complex may not be available for women’s and men’s soccer, as well as the track and field teams. The article also stated that, at least for soccer amenities, McClimon lags behind peer institutions.
The report suggests three factors that are driving the increase: exploding administrative staffs, a building boom and subsidies to athletic programs. Especially noteworthy was the finding that even as state governments slashed their support for their flagship universities, the schools continued to increase spending. They more than made up for the cuts with increases in tuition. For every one dollar in state support that was lost, these schools, on average, increased tuition and fees by $2.40.
But that apparently did not happen at UW-Madison, where tuition was frozen for about a decade. The UW was not one of the six schools that the Journal highlighted in its story, but it probably was part of the database of 50 schools that fed into the report’s median numbers.
We each have a voice, and it’s our responsibility to use our voices to enact meaningful change. Gen Z could be the generation that champions nuclear energy and fights back against climate change. In fact, we have to. It’s time to seize this valuable opportunity to hold politicians accountable and take action to create reliable and zero-carbon energy.
-Grace Stanke is 2023’s Miss America and is studying nuclear engineering at the University of Wisconsin. Karly Matthews is the communications director for the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a nonprofit organization that advocates for climate solutions such as nuclear energy.
