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Category: State news

Varying temperatures mean different maple syrup seasons for northern, southern Wisconsin producers

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Dane County resident Dominic Ledesma is one hobbyist who jumped on the early warm weather. Ledesma, who is chief diversity officer for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension, started tapping trees at his home and his family’s cabin in Jackson County last year after learning about the craft from his colleagues. He said sap was flowing in when he first tapped his trees in February, but collection slowed down in Jackson County as the weather turned cold again.

“The season really didn’t take off,” he said. “In talking with other colleagues in Extension, I certainly noticed some very significant differences between the southern part of the state and Jackson County.”

Can new, sweeter beets defeat stigmas? Wisconsin breeders hope so

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Wisconsin Public Radio

“It’s no longer your grandmother’s pickled beets,” said Adam D’Angelo, a UW-Madison graduate student and plant biologist. “You go to the grocery store, and you find beet juice, beet chips, beet this and beet that.” D’Angelo and UW-Madison horticulture professor Irwin Goldman recently appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Larry Meiller Show” to discuss their work redesigning beets for modern tastes. Goldman said people often complain “about the fact that they taste like dirt.”

“You look at it, and you think of the huddled masses of our ancestors and their old-style foods,” Goldman said. “But there’s something about its earthiness, about its color and its beauty that I find has grown on me over the years I’ve worked on it.”

Ad war heats up as spending shatters records in Wisconsin Supreme Court race

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Wisconsin Public Radio

“We’re not going to set the record, we’re gonna blow it out of the water,” said David Canon, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Canon said it was hard to say what WMC’s ad buy would mean for the race because there hasn’t been any public polling. “Although one thing that I think you can infer from that is that if they thought this was not a winnable race, they wouldn’t be putting more than $3 million into it,” Canon said.

It’s been more than a decade since Wisconsin cracked down on phosphorus. Has it helped protect our lakes and rivers?

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Phosphorus runoff also increases after extreme precipitation events, which are projected to be more frequent as the climate changes. A 2017 study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Limnology found that phosphorus “pulses” into waterways after extreme rainfall, building on previous research that showed waterways receive most of their phosphorus in just a dozen or two events per year. The bigger the rainstorm, the more phosphorus was flushed downstream, the UW study found.

High stroke risk threatens the keepers of Oneida culture. Now, tribe works with UW to improve health.

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Now, at a special health education event on the farm, she watched as Chef Arlie Doxtator, her nephew, cooked roasted corn mush in a clay pot and taught attendees about the benefits of traditional foods. Joining Doxtator remotely was Dr. Robert Dempsey, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher and neurosurgeon.

A prolific fundraiser, Rebecca Blank reshaped UW-Madison research, finances

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Wisconsin State Journal

Rebecca Blank’s influence can be seen in some unexpected places.

It’s embedded in a nationwide breast cancer database that examined how long patients could delay surgical treatments at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s noticeable in research endeavors she helped make possible. It’s found, subtly, in portraits hanging at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

A bipartisan consensus could be growing on how to teach reading statewide

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In 2021, the DPI and the Wisconsin Center of Education Research at UW-Madison surveyed school districts statewide about the curriculums they use for teaching reading. Participation was voluntary; more than 80% of districts responded. Of those, 79% were using curriculums that were not listed by a national nonprofit organization called EdReports as meeting quality expectations. DPI recommends that districts use programs recommended by the organization.

Tony Evers seeks $3.8 billion for building projects, nearly half for UW campuses

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

About $1.8 billion would go to the UW System for brick-and-mortar building projects. Other big-ticket items include $41 million for fiberoptic upgrades to the state Capitol to improve cellular service, an additional $60 million for the new Wisconsin History Museum to offset rising construction costs and $190 million for juvenile corrections facilities that would eventually lead to closing the state’s long-troubled Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth prisons.

Gov. Tony Evers proposes $3.8 billion for building projects, about half for UW System

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Wisconsin State Journal

“We thank Governor Evers for prioritizing this critical project,” UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said in a statement. “I look forward to continuing to work with lawmakers to share the tremendous value of an engineering facility, both to grow our number of engineering graduates and for our world-changing research in areas ranging from clean energy to semiconductors to transportation, areas that are critical to the economic development of the state.”

UniverCity Year program adds nine new Wisconsin communities to alliance for 2022-25

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The Daily Cardinal

In a record-setting cohort, the UniverCity Year (UCY) program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced partnerships with nine new communities for the 2022-25 academic years. These collaborations will leverage university resources to move forward with the different communities’ goals to address specific issues facing their residents.

Evers budget proposes $305M for UW System, expanding financial aid

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The Capital Times

Evers’ state budget, announced Wednesday night, would increase the University of Wisconsin System’s budget by $305.9 million over the biennium. But even as the state finds itself in an unprecedented financial position, with a projected $7.1 billion surplus, the number is nearly $130 million less than the UW System’s request of $435.6 million, according to figures from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Gov. Evers proposes $305M boost for UW System in state budget proposal

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Wisconsin’s state universities would see a significant funding boost under Gov. Tony Evers’ state budget proposal, with a portion of the money helping pay for a tuition waiver program aimed at students from lower income households. But if past budget battles with the Republican-controlled state Legislature are any guide, the final number for the system is unlikely to match the governor’s wishes.

Gov. Evers’ 2023-25 budget spends big for UW System, tech colleges

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Democratic governor on Wednesday proposed a $305 million increase for University of Wisconsin System campuses over the next two fiscal years. That’s less than the $435 million UW System asked for, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Even so, top UW leaders praised the proposal, saying it would help schools educate the state’s future workforce.

Evers budget includes $2.6 billion in new Wisconsin K-12 school funding

Posted on
The Capital Times

The budget would attempt to address the state’s teaching shortage through investments in “grow your own” programs that allow current staff to pursue additional higher education credits or licenses, or cover college costs for students who commit to teaching in their district of attendance after graduation. It would also provide stipends to student teachers and interns and those who agree to train and oversee them.

New UW scholarship aims to boost rural health care

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Wisconsin State Journal

The Lyle L. Vandenberg Rural Health Scholarship was created by UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association, the American Medical Association Foundation and Homeward, a rural health care company started last year. It is named after a 1959 UW-Madison pharmacy graduate who provided pharmacy services in northeastern Wisconsin for many years before his death in 2021.

Hit with staggering enrollment declines, 2-year UW campuses might have discovered a way to survive

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Wisconsin State Journal

The counties, who jointly manage the UW-Oshkosh at Fox Cities campus, are requesting a guarantee that, if they sink millions into renovating the campus’ 60-year-old cafeteria, and then the University of Wisconsin System shuts down the campus within the next five years, the System will pay the counties back for the renovations.

Bucky’s Pell Pathway to cover full cost of UW-Madison for Wisconsin Pell students

Posted on
The Capital Times

The program, which Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin introduced Thursday to the Board of Regents, will meet the full financial need for those who qualify for Pell grants. Those 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.

Wisconsin schools at the center of budget deliberations

Posted on
The Capital Times

While the difference was offset in some years with aid that did not apply to the revenue limit, public school advocate and former University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education dean Julie Underwood said numbers like that justify a major increase in budgets ahead.

She characterized the state of education funding in Wisconsin as “really abysmal,” suggesting that the state is “so far behind” where it should be given the increasing costs of the past decade. “We need a ladder up to where we should have been,” Underwood said.

Republicans are banking on a welfare referendum to get voters to the polls for April’s Supreme Court race. Will it work?

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Referendums are increasingly being used by both political parties, particularly with non-partisan spring elections, which sneak up on people after the holidays and don’t typically generate great voter turnout, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“These elections just don’t generate the same level of media coverage or public discussion so these gimmicks are one way to get the attention of the voter,” Burden said. “The effect on overall turnout probably won’t be great, but in Wisconsin, most people assume elections are going to be close, so even a change in the balance of things by a percentage point or two could tip the race and tip the balance of the Supreme Court itself.”

Wisconsin no longer leads the nation in farm bankruptcies

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: At the 2023 Wisconsin Agricultural Outlook Forum this week, Paul Mitchell, director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said part of the decline is likely from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s move to stop past-due debt collections and farm foreclosures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Most Wisconsin businesses think a recession is coming, but it’s still too soon to tell

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Steven Deller, professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said U.S. and global economic activity is expected to decline in 2023. Deller cited the Wall Street Journal’s Monthly Survey of Economic Forecasters, which averages 68 economic forecasts from individuals, organizations and universities, in a recent presentation.

“There’s pretty much consensus that we’re going to go into a slowdown, and that, if we go into a recession, it is going to be a very mild recession,” he said. “There’s actually a significant number of economists that are actually saying, ‘No, we’re not going to go into a recession. We’re going to go into a serious slowdown.'”

Groups seek to bar the use of hounds while hunting in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Noted: Wisconsin’s wolf population fell around 14 percent to 972 wolves after the 2021 wolf hunt, according to the Wisconsin DNR. Even so, state wildlife managers say data indicates the state’s wolf population is stable. However, some researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say the agency is overestimating the state’s wolf population.

A promising education | Racine native one of 800 attending UW-Madison via free tuition guarantee

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The Journal Times

Jermika Jackson believes her son is destined for greatness. From a young age, D’Marion Jackson seemed wise beyond his years. He was a voracious reader who quickly finished handfuls of library books.

He is now a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and that was made possible by the college’s in-state tuition guarantee. D’Marion is one of about 800 freshmen receiving Bucky’s Tuition Promise.

Comfy chairs, warm welcomes and a call to ‘take it on the road’

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: The term was coined by Lisa Ellinger, the outreach director at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as we debriefed our first Main Street Agenda event in September. During that town hall, our panelists were crowded around a table sitting on stiff, uncomfortable plastic chairs. The set-up wasn’t exactly conducive to our goal of having relaxed conversations where people felt comfortable sitting talking about complex and often deeply held convictions about democracy, inflation or climate change.

UW System restricts use of TikTok on UW-owned devices

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The University of Wisconsin System is banning use of the popular social media app TikTok on UW-owned devices, a spokesperson said Tuesday.

The decision comes about 10 days after Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order banning the TikTok app on most state-issued devices. The mandate applied only to the executive branch, which consists of most of the state’s agencies but not the UW System.

EXPLAINER: List of states banning TikTok grows

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AP

The University of Wisconsin System, which employs 40,000 faculty and staff, is also exempt. But a UW System spokesperson said despite the exemption, the university was conducting a review and moving toward placing restrictions on the app being used on devices in order to protect against serious cybersecurity risks.

‘We’ve lost track of who we are’: How one group is helping people support farmer mental health

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Wisconsin Public Radio

The group (Farm Well Wisconsin), founded in 2020, is funded through a five-year grant associated with the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Through trainings, community members work on building empathetic listening skills, connecting people with resources and discussing issues related to farm culture.

Legislation by Sen. Tammy Baldwin requires more transparency around foreign owners of US farmland

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Andrew Stevens, assistant professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said this percentage has been fairly consistent over time and includes forestland, pasture and cropland.

“The analyses that have been done with the data that are currently available really show that foreign ownership of agricultural land in the United States is a pretty miniscule issue, if it’s an issue at all,” he said. “There are no systematic differences across communities with more or less foreign ownership. Land prices don’t seem to systematically differ.”

 

Madison will get prime-time spotlight on PBS travel show ‘Samantha Brown’s Places to Love’

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: In the episode, first airing Jan. 20, Brown tastes “sophisticated Wisconsin cheeses,” is a judge in a mustard-tasting contest and learns about the University of Wisconsin, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed First Unitarian Society meeting house, her first supper club (Tornado Club Steak House) and the joys of curling and its Madison roots — the latter with help from Olympian Becca Hamilton, according to publicity material on the episode.

Proposed North Shore area charter school application denied

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: In a letter to North Shore Classical Academy officials, Vanessa Moran, the University of Wisconsin System’s Office of Educational Opportunity director, said the school’s application “was lacking the necessary detail in each of the five sections of the application to demonstrate that the school would be able to open successfully.”