Higher education officials would be prohibited from factoring in race when considering grants, loans and student retention plans, and public universities and colleges could be liable for up to $100,000 in damages if they have been found by a judge to have violated a person’s right to free speech, under legislation the Republican-led Assembly will take up Tuesday.
Announced Monday, the proposal splits the $32 million among the system’s 13 four-year schools. All schools would use the funding toward educating students in engineering, nursing/health care, business/finance and computer/data science.
The Universities of Wisconsin on Monday proposed using $32 million the Legislature withheld earlier this year over the UW system’s refusal to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion programs to expand training in several high-demand fields at 13 schools in the UW system.
A campaign launched this week by the Wisconsin Alumni Association, a nonprofit arm of UW-Madison that facilitates much of its fundraising efforts, is encouraging business leaders and others around the state to contact their legislators and push them to take up legislation to construct a new engineering building.
Sunday’s edition of the Wisconsin State Journal contained a piece of writing that will be of interest to some of Wisconsin’s elected leaders.It wasn’t an article or an editorial, but instead a full-page advertisement paid for by the Wisconsin Alumni Association.
It may be too harsh to call it a death spiral. But the University of Wisconsin System is in trouble and it’s not clear when or how it can turn things around. Consider what’s happening.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos nixed a 6% pay raise for UW System employees while allowing it to go through for other state employees. He’s trying to put pressure on the UW to discontinue its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
This week, the State Legislature debated a series of election-related amendments to the state Constitution. The Republican-led proposals would outlaw private funding for elections, prevent non-U.S. citizens from voting in local elections and have current voter photo ID requirements written into the state constitution.
Interview with Howard Schweber, professor of political science and legal studies at UW-Madison.
Gov. Tony Evers filed a lawsuit against Republican state lawmakers Tuesday, claiming their decisions to block pay raises for employees of the Universities of Wisconsin, conservation projects and updates to the state’s commercial building standards are unconstitutional.
In a lawsuit that could upend how the state Legislature operates, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is suing Republican lawmakers over decisions to withhold pay raises for University of Wisconsin System employees and to block conservation projects, arguing such actions made by legislative committees rather than the full Legislature violate the state Constitution’s separation of powers requirements.
Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center, said the situation in the state is not as black and white … er, blue and red, as Walker claimed.
“It seems factually incorrect to call Wisconsin a blue state,” he said via email, adding Wisconsin is actually remarkably balanced between Democrats and Republicans.
In fact, the UW Health spokesperson said the hospital isn’t certain if its decrease in applications is an indication of a trend – though she noted that some applicants have asked about the 1849 law in their interviews.
Dr. Ellen Hartenbach, chair of the OB-GYN department at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, also told Wisconsin Health News in May that the university is uncertain if abortion restrictions caused this year’s decrease in applicants.
Governor Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has filed a lawsuit to sue Wisconsin Republicans in the state legislature after an ongoing feud that has left more than 35,000 UW System employees without pay raises.
Evers said it was “a bridge too far” and “just bull s—” that Republican state lawmakers were telling 35,000 University of Wisconsin employees who were expecting pay raises to “stick it.”
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, has sued Republican legislators for allegedly defying the state Constitution and undermining his executive powers by withholding approved raises for University of Wisconsin system employees.
The Wisconsin governor, now in his second term, has reportedly attempted to bypass the lower courts, asking the state supreme court to take up the case directly.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, outlines Evers’ allegations that Republican members of the Legislature are holding hostage the pre-approved raises for 35,000 University of Wisconsin System employees and misusing the legislative veto process to block executive actions outside the bounds of normal budgetary operations.
Legislative committees controlled by Republicans are violating the state Constitution by blocking pay raises for around 35,000 Universities of Wisconsin employees and stalling conservation projects, Gov. Tony Evers argues in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The governor accused Republicans of an intrusion into executive powers and violating the Wisconsin Constitution.
“I’m not recalling a newspaper or news outlets suing someone for defamation,” said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, an associate journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Nothing is leaping to my mind.”
A new financial aid initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is aimed at making the cost of college more affordable to Wisconsin-based students from low-income backgrounds.
Wisconsin’s public universities and colleges could be liable for up to $100,000 in damages and institutions could be cut off from state grants under a Republican-authored bill seeking to add civil penalties for violating a person’s right to free speech.
The Assembly’s higher education committee considered a bill Thursday that sets free speech policies at Wisconsin’s public universities and colleges and provides penalties for violating them. Another bill taken up by the committee would eliminate race-based higher education loan and grant programs.
Steven Deller, the report’s author and an agricultural and applied economics professor at UW-Madison, said he attributes the state’s inability to return to the low poverty rates it saw in the late ’90s and early 2000s to a shift away from more highly-paid manufacturing jobs toward a more service-based economy, the state’s decline in unionization and a slow recovery from the Great Recession.
Republican lawmakers are advancing a bill for a fourth time that would punish Wisconsin universities and technical colleges for free speech violations.
Dorothea Salo, an instructor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Information School, said the bill goes against “really bedrock, standard library ethics about letting people read what they want without interference, and without sharing that information.”
“The party majorities are sufficiently large that the legislature can get away with being completely unresponsive to anything a majority of voters want,” said Ken Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. “If you can’t lose, you don’t have to care. If you run the risk of losing, based on not caring, you will start to care.”
Over the next three years, Milwaukee Public Schools will have help securing candidates for some of its toughest-to-fill teaching jobs.
A new partnership between MPS and the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides on-the-job training through a 10-month teaching residency, paired with a special education teacher preparation master’s degree program.
Lola Loustaunau, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers, said that “it would really open the door for a lot of protections for workers” if OSHA consistently inspected small dairy farms that provide housing to immigrant workers.
“If they are politically interested in doing something,” she added, “it looks like they have all the basis to do it.”
In recent years, conservatives have set their sights on higher education, arguing that liberal attitudes at campuses across the country suppress more conservative viewpoints.
In 2022, Wisconsin saw a record-setting increase in domestic violence-related suicides and homicides, up 20 percent compared to the previous year. We talk to Mariel Barnes, an assistant professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison, about why Wisconsin’s domestic violence problem is worsening, and what we can do to improve outcomes for victims.
Wisconsin Republicans are pushing a bill that would end consideration of race in college scholarships, grants and loans, arguing the practice perpetuates stereotypes in higher education.
Payne received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in communications and urban and regional planning.
One 2017 study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggested the ID law depressed turnout in the 2016 contest between former President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, although it did not measure which party affiliation non-voters may have aligned with.
Written by Ken Brosky, an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Political Science Professor Barry Burden told WPR that, unlike Wisconsin, most states have banned losing primary candidates from running in general elections.
“I do wonder if this is coming from Republicans, in part, because of a concern that there might be candidates who splinter off from the Republican Party if Trump is the nominee next year,” Burden said.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the partners behind the tech hub application, and contributes to the biohealth industry through academic research and providing an educated workforce through its medical physics, biotechnology and medical engineering programs.
In a statement, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said the university is thrilled to be part of the collaboration that helped secure the federal designation.
“Our culture of innovation and strong collaborative spirit, both within the university and across the state, make us well-positioned to make the most of this important opportunity,” she said.
In 2018, the UW-Madison’s Division of Extension received a $2.5 million five-year grant from the CDC’s High Obesity program to address obesity in Menominee County. The funding led to the Kemāmaceqtaq: We’re All Moving initiative, which worked with county and tribal government and community groups.
Gauthier, who helped lead the initiative, said the last five years of work have focused on changing policies and making environmental improvements to support healthy choices. The initiative has helped local government buildings, schools and community groups adopt new nutrition policies, supported a local farmers market program and led a walking audit of the county to identify how to improve infrastructure for walking and biking.
Amber Canto is director of the Health and Wellbeing Institute with the UW-Madison’s Division of Extension and project director for the High Obesity Program grant funding. She said they’ve received another five-year award to continue their work in Menominee County and begin work in Ashland County, which now also has an obesity rate of more than 40 percent.
Canto said they’ve tracked increases in healthy food options and recreationally-accessible miles, but the bigger impacts are harder to quantify this early on.
“That data has shown, from a theory perspective, that if these opportunities are present that the behavior and therefore the health outcomes will shift over time,” she said at Monday’s hearing.
Two Republican lawmakers are seeking to eliminate race-based criteria for college scholarships, grants and loan programs under a draft bill released Monday.
The bill, authored by Rep. Nik Rettinger, R-Mukwonago, and Sen. Eric Wimburger, R-Green Bay, comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that public and private universities could not use race as an admissions criterion. Republicans in the state Legislature have hinted they would eliminate race requirements within state statutes following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The Republican led Joint Committee on Employee Relations voted to separate employees of the University of Wisconsin system from other state workers who will receive a pay increase.
UW System President Jay Rothman is disappointed with the outcome and says they will make the best of this difficult situation.
The tax credit provides the biggest benefit to families “who can afford to spend a lot on child care,” says Tim Smeeding, an economist and emeritus professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin. The proposal doesn’t help people for whom the cost of child care is out of reach, he added.
“This is a very pressing issue for many people in Wisconsin,” said Laura Dresser of the Center for Wisconsin Strategy, which has published “Can’t Survive on $7.25,” a report that explores the impact and issues of low wages for Wisconsinites.
“We know that there are fewer people working very close to the bottom of the wage floor – that $7.25 per hour minimum wage – today than there were even three years ago,” Dresser added, “but there are still some in the state who do and others who don’t make much more than that.”
Launched this fall, Bucky’s Pell Pathway meets the full financial need for in-state students who qualify for Pell grants, helping them graduate debt-free. Pell federal dollars are limited to undergraduates with exceptional financial need but often don’t cover the full cost of school, causing many recipients to take out extra loans.
Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who co-chairs the Legislature’s employment relations committee, has promised to block pay raises for UW employees until the school system cuts its so-called DEI spending by $32 million.
ARepublican-controlled legislative committee on Tuesday approved 6% pay raises over the next two years for most state employees, but withheld any increase for Universities of Wisconsin staff unless the UW system eliminates its diversity, equity and inclusion positions.
Half of state workers, about 34,000 people, will not be getting pay raises included in the state budget, as a Republican-controlled committee on Tuesday approved a 6 percent raise over two years for all but those who work for the University of Wisconsin System.
In an ongoing battle between Republican legislative leaders and the state’s public university system, GOP lawmakers on Tuesday approved a two-year pay increase for state workers but left out the 41,000 people who work for the University of Wisconsin System.
State employees have been waiting to see these pay increases approved since July when they were first authorized in the governor’s budget. Public sector employees have been holding out the past three months for the approval of the Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JCOER), a committee Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) co-chairs.
At least two University of Wisconsin system schools have modified diversity offices or programming amid Republican lawmakers seeking to shut down DEI initiatives statewide.
Two events in Madison Monday included a conference on Social Science and Sustainability at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the art exhibit “Garbology: What We Throw Away” at the Overture Center’s Playhouse Gallery.
The lawsuit is filed on behalf of: Julie Underwood, former dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Education; Charles Uphoff, former member of the Oregon School Board; Randy Wendt, former police officer and school counselor in the Arbor Vitae Woodruff School District; Tom Mueller, a priest from Campbellsport; Angela Rappl, a special education liaison for Milwaukee Public Schools; Dustin Imray, a parent from Madison; and Scott Walker, a parent from Prairie du Chien (not the former governor).
Dr. Emma Mohr, pediatric infectious disease physician at UW Health, said she is encountering more families who are questioning recommended vaccinations for their kids than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. She said hearing about the development of the COVID-19 vaccines — and often the misinformation spread about the shots — has put all vaccinations at the forefront of parents’ minds.
“They say ‘oh, people were questioning the COVID vaccine and researching it. Now our doctor is offering us a different vaccine, should we be questioning this one and researching this one?'” Mohr said.
The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) also opposes the ban on transgender girls and women from competing in sports designated for women. And University of Wisconsin-Madison officials previously warned that the university’s teams would be out of compliance with NCAA policies if the legislation is enacted.
The bills ban transgender athletes in high school and college from competing in sports that align with their gender identities. In addition, separate legislation bans gender-affirming health care for transgender youth under the age of 18, threatening the licensure of any medical professional who provides such care.
Assembly Bill 378 would implement similar rules for the University of Wisconsin System and the state’s technical colleges. The measure would require the designation of intercollegiate, intramural or club athletic teams or sports as being for men, women or both.
Nationwide, big-name retailers and small community pharmacies are struggling to find pharmacists. The challenge to recruit more is magnified in rural areas.
UW-Madison is offering a new program to help build a pharmacy workforce in Wisconsin. It’s called the PharmD Early Assurance Program.
The bill reintroduces funding for programs that Evers had written into his budget proposal that were later removed by the Legislature’s Republican-led budget writing committee. It would extend a pandemic-era child care subsidy, establish a paid family and medical leave system and provide grants for the University of Wisconsin System and workforce development programs.
The president of Wisconsin’s university system defended a decision to spend nearly half a million dollars on a rebranding effort that changed the name and look of the state’s public universities.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz has faced impeachment threats for declining to recuse herself from a lawsuit over redistricting in Wisconsin. Robert Yablon, a UW-Madison law professor, joins us to look at the legal precedents at issue and where the case could go from here.
The University of Wisconsin System is being renamed as the Universities of Wisconsin.
