University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross is asking Gov. Tony Evers and state lawmakers for a line of credit, fewer regulations and the ability to begin classes early in the fall.
Tuesday, UW System President Ray Cross sent a letter to the state legislature and Gov. Tony Evers which would allow the system to move the start date of the semester.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross asked Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and legislative leaders Wednesday to consider temporary changes for UW campuses in response to COVID-19, including potentially starting the fall semester early.
Entering the next phase of a presidential search process marred by criticism and hindered by a global pandemic, the committee tasked with hiring a replacement for retiring-University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross named a single finalist Tuesday.
Gov. Tony Evers announced three new appointees to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents Monday, including a Madison lawyer who represented the women who accused former UW-Madison Badgers football player Quintez Cephus of sexual assault.
More than half of the $70 million in state agency spending cuts ordered by Gov. Tony Evers will be to University of Wisconsin campuses in the first move to stabilize state finances during the coronavirus pandemic.
Quoted: Oguzhan Alagoz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an infectious disease modeling expert, said the increases Wisconsin is seeing are likely driven by many factors, like increased testing availability.
Alagoz said early mobility data shows people are taking precautions despite moving more.
“With current levels of movement, if people didn’t wear masks, if people were behaving as they were pre-March 10, believe me, we would have seen a double, triple, exponential increase in the number of cases,” Alagoz said.
Quoted: Nasia Safdar, an infectious disease expert with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said factors such as improved weather and the end of at-home schooling in some districts have likely contributed to a general trend of increased movement.
“I think there were things that helped people stay put in the beginning of this, which is that there was a lot of fear and uncertainty and the weather wasn’t great,” she said. “I’m sure people are experiencing some cabin fever despite their best intentions.”
Thomas Oliver, a health policy expert, also at UW-Madison, said the increased movement in Wisconsin and mixed messaging sent by the patchwork of rules from authorities at all levels is concerning.
“It was inevitable you would see slipping adherence to the recommended guidelines regardless, but now we have so many contradictory and competing guidelines,” he said.
Oguzhan Alagoz, an expert in infectious disease modeling at UW-Madison, said the pictures he saw after the court order of unmasked people standing close together inside bars is troubling and likely to lead to more cases.
Quoted: “If the state wanted to really do a vote-by-mail system like those five states out West do, it would require lots of printing and postage costs upfront, millions of dollars,” said Barry Burden, UW-Madison political science professor. “Because all those states automatically send ballots to all their registered voters. That would be about 3.3 million ballots in Wisconsin.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison hosted a virtual town hall in March after racist graffiti was found written in chalk on campus.
That number is “incredibly high,” said Dr. Laura Dresser, associate director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison think-tank COWS.
University of Wisconsin System leaders are working on safety protocols that could enable students to return to campus if the coronavirus pandemic stretches into fall, system President Ray Cross told regents Thursday.
University of Wisconsin System leaders are working on safety protocols that could enable students to return to campus if the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into fall, System President Ray Cross told Regents Thursday.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross sounded a warning Thursday about ending some academic programs and layoffs as campuses brace for coronavirus-related budget cuts in the coming years.
Recently released tax data show an $870 million drop in state tax collections last month — due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s efforts to shut down nonessential businesses to mitigate transmission of the virus.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross directed campuses Thursday to quickly identify signature programs worthy of preservation and brace for layoffs as the coronavirus pandemic deepens the system’s financial losses.
Quoted: Song Gao, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been aggregating cell phone data that shows how far Wisconsinites are traveling each day as a way to understand if residents are following the state’s “Safer At Home” order. Gao said residents’ mobility has been reduced significantly in the past month, especially in urban areas like Dane and Milwaukee counties.
But he has seen increased movement around Wisconsin starting last week
“I think this is also linked with last week’s events. Like people started getting (outside) and also last Friday, they also had some protests outside the state Capitol,” Gao said.
Quoted: Jim Conway, an infectious disease expert and associate director for health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute, argued loosening restrictions regionally is a short-sighted idea.
“It’s like being in a swimming pool and having one area of the pool that it’s OK to pee in,” he said.
Conway said because the economy relies on travel in many sectors, there would be no way to ensure new cases weren’t brought to areas with few cases and few restrictions under a regional plan — especially in a state like Wisconsin with a lot of recreational tourism in rural areas.
Dr. James Conway, a professor at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health who specializes in infections diseases, said loosening up restrictions regionally would more easily allow for infection to spread rapidly in places other than Madison and Milwaukee.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has announced campus-wide furloughs for faculty, and academic and university staff to help address a $100 million budget deficit caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Quoted: But James Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute, called opening different regions of the state at different times “terrifying.”
“It’s almost like the least common denominator will prevail if you do start to allow certain areas to open more liberally and have other areas still confined because you know there’s going to be travel and transit between those places. And as we saw in the Green Bay area it doesn’t take much for something to go from a small number of cases to exponentially exploding in just a few short days,” said Conway, who supports Evers’ plan.
University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty and staff will be taking three to six unpaid furlough days over the next six months, which Chancellor Rebecca Blank said Wednesday will save the university up to $30 million.
UW-Madison is ordering most of its employees to take varying amounts of unpaid time off over the next six months and university leaders will take a 15% pay cut over that same time as COVID-19 costs grow and the campus remains mostly closed.
“There may be some things we simply cannot do in the fall,” UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said Monday to the University Committee, a small group of professors representing faculty members on campus. “It is quite possible that 80,000 people cannot gather in Camp Randall.”
The task force includes judges from a cross-section of counties throughout Wisconsin, along with medical consultants from the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, circuit court clerks, county corporation counsels, district attorneys, public defenders and county sheriffs.
While the University of Wisconsin System and some UW campuses last week announced employee furloughs to save money in the face of looming recession-related reductions in state and local tax collections, many local governments in Dane County are making sure their employees get their hours, with some adjustments.
Wisconsin started its COVID-19 testing efforts with a small group of dedicated labs, including UW-Madison’s State Laboratory of Hygiene, the Milwaukee Public Health Lab, UW Health, Gundersen Lutheran, ACL Laboratories, Mayo Clinic and Wisconsin Diagnostic Lab.
Chancellors of UW campuses, where the bulk of the System’s 39,000 employees work, are making their own decisions on whether to furlough employees. UW-Milwaukee became the first to say it will “most likely” impose a campus-wide furlough for its roughly 3,700 employees. UW-Madison, which is bracing for the largest loss among the campuses with an estimated $100 million shortfall, expects to announce details by the end of the month.
A University of Wisconsin System regents committee overwhelmingly approved imposing employee furloughs Thursday as campuses grapple with the coronavirus pandemic’s economic fallout.
But there was a broad base of support that included businesses, communities, economic developers, office holders, veterans and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“This went against all public health recommendations,” said Patrick Remington, the director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Preventive Medicine Residency Program.
Ms. Karofsky is currently a circuit judge in Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With 94% of precincts reporting, she had 54.1% of the vote.
The University of Wisconsin System forecasts a $170 million financial hit for the spring semester alone, an estimate that will likely grow as campuses grapple with the broader economic fallout associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Noted: Located within the city, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is also taking steps in its outdoor spaces to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
UW-Madison spokesperson Meredith McGlone said the university has posted signs at outdoor locations, including Memorial Union, campus recreational fields and Picnic Point. Also, the university has removed some recreational equipment, like basketball hoops and volleyball nets.
“We understand everyone’s desire to spend some time outdoors staying active, especially as the weather is improving, but we share the concern about maintaining 6 feet social distancing while being outdoors and engaging in recreational activity,” McGlone said in a statement. “Now more than ever, Badgers need to look out for each other and for the most vulnerable members of our community.”
Quoted: “From a public health perspective, this was counter to all good scientific evidence and advice right now for how to continue to curb the pandemic from having serious impacts in the state,” said Kristen Malecki, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “The fact that politics interfered with sound judgment and jeopardized public safety is something that should not be ignored.”
Noted: Dávila graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison then served as a Spanish linguist in the U.S. Army before attending Marquette University Law School. He graduated the law school in 2011.
Quoted: Disability groups have sued in New York and Washington, which are two of 14 states with such ventilator triage guidelines and have guidelines “similar” to those proposed in Wisconsin, said Dr. Norman Fost, a UW-Madison bioethicist. “There’s probably going to be a lawsuit (here),” he said.
Sarah Farr, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student, signed up to be a poll worker after hearing about the need for volunteers. “I felt like if I could volunteer to help out, maybe that would mean that somebody else could stay home,” she said, adding that she checked her temperature last night to ensure she didn’t have a fever.
“It’s a personal health and safety question you have to ask yourself,” Nate Moll, 30, who works at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and regularly staffs elections, said. On Tuesday he was stationed at a consolidated voting ward in one of the university’s student unions. “I did go back and forth … One of my friends ducked out because he lives in a house full of other people. It was too large of a risk to go out.”
Sally Rohrer, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, volunteered at a local polling station, a location that combined four sites into one.
It’s the latest in a series of efforts to isolate people who may have come into contact with the new coronavirus. Last week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison opened up the Lowell Center, an on-campus hotel, to people who have suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Noted: For Alyssa Birkeland, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying political science and business, volunteering as a poll worker was an easy decision.
“I felt like it was my duty to volunteer, and hopefully relieve the stress,” she said.
But Birkeland, 21, still worried about the risk of contracting the coronavirus as people flock to the polls.
“It’s definitely a little bit of a concern, but I’m probably one of the best people to be put in that position,” she said. “I rather it be me than someone else.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said that a group of students who went on spring break mid-March to Nashville and Gulf Shores, Alabama have tested positive for COVID-19, reported KIRO7.
Quoted: James Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute, said allowing people to gather at polling locations during Tuesday’s spring election will also damage the effectiveness of state leaders’ message to stay away from each other to blunt the spread of coronavirus.
“It just seems really irresponsible to make this one giant exception,” Conway said in an interview. “I was a little naive a week or so ago in thinking, ‘Oh, they’ve got to realize they’ve got to delay.’ … And then time has crept on and I’m like, really? I am very concerned.”
Skyrocketing unemployment, expected declines in tax revenue and other economic problems associated with the coronavirus crisis could spell trouble for Wisconsin’s public universities, which rely on state money to stay afloat.
University of Wisconsin President Ray Cross cautioned Thursday that the coronavirus outbreak that has already led to the suspension of all in-person spring classes could also force changes to the fall semester, which is scheduled to begin in August.
The University of Wisconsin System is continuing to monitor and recoup financial losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, which President Ray Cross said Thursday are only just beginning but already “significantly greater than anything I’ve seen in my 42 years of higher education.”
On March 20, the University of Tampa said five of its students had tested positive after a spring break trip and that a sixth had tested positive after traveling internationally. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, meanwhile, said earlier this week that “multiple” students had tested positive after a spring break trip to Nashville and Gulf Shores, Alabama.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison expects to lose $100 million because of the coronavirus pandemic, that’s if social distancing is over by June.
The COVID-19 shutdowns have taken away cornerstones of newspapers’ already-struggling revenue: business ads and events, said Mike Wagner, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“When news organizations rely on events to advertise about and rely on events that they themselves host, and they’re in an environment where there are no more events, they lose a significant portion of their revenue model,” he said.
Wagner said the situation still has time to get worse.
“It feels like March 84th, but really, we’ve just been at this for a couple of weeks,” he said. “The real economic hits are still to come, and the fact that an organization like the Isthmus had to close down so early, suggests how fragile some news organizations see themselves financially.”
UW-Madison anticipates a $100 million loss because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has thrown its campus into chaos as dorms are emptied, classes moved online and students told to stay away.
Quoted: “I worry about additional heavy farm losses this year,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Other candidates include Nada Elmikashfi, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student, and Aisha Moe, a recent UW-Madison graduate.
“It really started when the University (of Wisconsin-Madison) announced that it was closing,” she said. “That signaled to people that this was quite serious.”
Quoted: “One thing to keep in mind, particularly during a crisis like this, is that state actors and governors in particular can often just act more swiftly and more nimbly than the federal government can,” University of Wisconsin Law School professor Miriam Seifter said.
Seifter studies administrative law and constitutional law; much of her recent work has focused on the powers of state leaders.
Details were not available Monday on which Wisconsin businesses will be allowed to remain open, when the order will go into effect or how long it will be in place. An Evers spokeswoman said there will be a grace period for businesses to adjust.
A 53-year-old man was charged Friday in the 2008 killing of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who was found strangled and stabbed in her downtown apartment after she returned home from class.
Noted: One in five Wisconsin workers holds “a poverty wage job with few benefits,” according to a 2018 report from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Social distancing would be a lot less inequality promoting if we had the infrastructure of strong medical care, insurance and housing supports for low-wage workers, but we don’t,” said Laura Dresser, a labor economist and the associate director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. “That means that this crisis tends to push the inequality along, instead of the crisis showing how connected we are and pulling us closer together.”
“You can’t plan for an outbreak of COVID-19 in a prison as if it was like a nursing home or assisted living because there are more variables than just visitors,” the officer wrote in a letter to Evers. “They have inmate transfer from institution to institution, Monday (through) Friday trips to (University of Wisconsin)-Madison for inmate doctor/surgical appointments, semi drivers bringing in supplies, County Sheriff’s picking up (and) dropping off inmates due in court, laundry that GBCI does for other institutions, emergency trips to local hospitals and the list goes on (and) on.”
Quoted: “I think it could be an interesting test case for the rest of the country to examine,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Barry Burden said of the “terrible trade-off” between holding the election as scheduled and putting it off.
