Farmers may prevent blight by spraying their fields with fungicides, but if overdone, this practice has its drawbacks, University of Wisconsin professor of plant pathology Andrew Bent said. To prevent blight and overspraying, professor and Department of Plant Pathology Chair Amanda Gevens uses a tool called Blitecast to communicate to farmers the appropriate time to spray fungicides.
Wisconsin receives roughly $654 million per year in National Institutes of Health grants, which supports more than 7,700 jobs and $1.4 billion in economic activity, according to United for Medical Research.
Without additional funds from elsewhere, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said the capping of indirect costs would have a “ripple effect” on the state’s economy.
An estimated 70% of the labor on dairy farms in Wisconsin are carried out by unauthorized immigrants, according to a 2023 survey from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School for Workers.
“There is a lot of evidence that when judges are approaching an election, they sentence people more harshly than they do in other points in their term, said Zoe Engberg, an assistant clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
“And there’s also a lot of evidence that shows that negative campaign ads, in particular, have a large impact on how judges make decisions in cases,” she added.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have projected overall enrollment declines at Madison schools next year, according to the district’s long-range facilities plan. However, in advocating for the referendum last year, district leaders and school advocates said those predictions were imperfect. They said the district defied projections this year and anticipated future enrollment increases, citing expected growth in the city of Madison and new housing developments.
The Madison city clerk’s office first informed the public on Dec. 26 about the unprocessed ballots from three wards near downtown and the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. That disclosure was six weeks after a first batch of 68 ballots was found in a tabulator machine, sealed in an envelope inside a sealed courier bag.
“Many of these uncounted votes belonged to University of Wisconsin students in downtown Madison. The students were voting in their very first presidential election and perhaps one of the most consequential elections of their lives,” Jeff Mandell, general counsel of Law Forward, said in a statement.
“I’m looking at whether we’ll get into a tit-for-tat type of trade war,” said Steven Deller, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies Wisconsin’s agricultural and manufacturing economy. “One of the things the Canadian Prime Minister was talking about is cutting off the electricity supply to the U.S. If we get into that kind of tit-for-tat, then things are going to start to deteriorate rapidly. So I’m just going to be watching how our trading partners respond.”
While the new ads seem clever in their deception, they probably won’t be effective in swaying many voters, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He noted the messaging is mild compared to attack ads that are hitting Crawford more harshly.
“The ‘Progress 2028’ ad has subtler messaging that requires the viewer to pay close attention to the content and connect the dots,” Burden said. “Voters who are aware enough to make these connections are probably already paying attention to the race and have enough independent information to offset any effect of the ads.”
About 20% of U.S. milk production is exported annually, with about 40% of that going to Canada, Mexico, and China, according to Chuck Nicholson, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. If the domestic dairy industry gets only a little more milk than traders were expecting, prices drop as a result, Nicholson says. So if the dairy industry started trying to sell that 20% domestically instead of exporting it, prices would plummet, making it difficult for farmers to continue to operate.
“We need really, really high vaccine coverage in order to protect a community from a measles outbreak,” said Malia Jones, a public health researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It is the most infectious disease on Earth. Nearly everyone who is exposed to measles and has not been vaccinated will get it.”
A few birds have already started to arrive in the state for the spring, such as robins and red-winged blackbirds, according to Anna Pidgeon, a professor of avian ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Though hummingbirds are a little further behind, there are a few steps you can take in the coming weeks to encourage them to your yard later in the spring.
In announcing the committee, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told the Cap Times he wanted to better tailor the work of government to a 21st century context.
“We need to deliver services in a different way than we have,” Vos said. “You know, how many (Universities of Wisconsin) campuses do we need? How many school districts do we need? How many townships do we need? All the things that we’ve never really thought about.”
Essentially, the University of Wisconsin-Madison wants the authority to borrow money for construction projects that are funded by the university and don’t involve state tax dollars. Currently, that authority rests with the state.
A state appeals court ruled a Wisconsin college grant program restricted to certain students of color was unconstitutional and ordered the state to end administering the program.
UW-Madison has funded efforts to prevent farmer suicides, expand access to health services for Black men through barbershops and improve Alzheimer’s disease detection among Latinos. The school has trained medical students to work in rural communities and sought to increase Indigenous representation in medicine. Researchers have studied new ways to treat melanoma and prevent opioid misuse.
Evers highlighted his “Year of the Kid” designation and said a focus needs to be on schools during the budget season. An ongoing battle over literacy funding from the last budget is yet to be squared away and he called for setting aside funds for youth mental health. Though funding for public schools, the University of Wisconsin and the state’s technical schools is large, it’s a necessary investment, especially because of the uncertainty at the federal level, he said.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Traffic Operations and Safety (TOPS) lab have found liquid brine in water highway maintenance cleared the state’s highways faster, provided better friction on roadways and reduced overall salt usage.
“The data tells a very positive story for winter highway safety in Wisconsin,” says Andrea Bill, associate director of the TOPS Lab, which is housed in the UW-Madison College of Engineering. “Liquid brine is an effective tool, and along with training, education and technology, our storm fighters are making effective reductions in the amount of chloride on our roads and improving the performance of winter roads.”
School districts across the country are struggling to hire and retain enough special education teachers to meet the growing need for them. A new partnership between the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is working to bridge the gap.
It’s a sign of an increasingly negative campaign environment, said Michael Wagner, an expert on political communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“One thing that we’ve seen in our politics over the last several election cycles is an increasing willingness to take the shot, even if the candidate isn’t sure that the shot is accurate,” Wagner said. “The rush to get on air with negative ads, the appetite some audiences seem to have for them, all kind of contribute to the environment where mistakes like this can happen.”
There are several reasons for Wisconsin’s low and declining measles vaccination rates, said Jim Conway, a pediatric infectious disease professor at the University of Wisconsin’s medical school. A “recency phenomenon” is one of them, he said.
“These ‘old-fashioned diseases,’ as one parent said to me a couple weeks ago, just aren’t as concerning,” he said. “Because they’re considered diseases that affected all our parents, but they don’t see them as a current threat.”
UW-Madison is balking at a key lawmaker’s claim that the university has broken its promise to establish an endowed professorship focusing on conservative politics or thought.
The federal education department abruptly ended a University of Wisconsin-Madison grant that pays for students to train as special education teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools classrooms.
Jay Rothman interview with WISC-TV on the state budget bill introduced this week by Gov. Evers.
Arnold Alanen is a professor emeritus of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he researched the history of sauna structures. Alanen told “Wisconsin Today” that as a Finnish American, sauna has been a way of life for him from the beginning. He said he was first brought into a sauna as a very young baby, and then he caught on to the ritual when he was about 8 years old, living on his grandparents’ farm in Minnesota.
“The weekly sauna tradition was something that we did on our farm, just without interruption. We would do it every Saturday evening,” he said. “It became such an integral part of my life, as well as of our family.”
Additionally, the district’s M-Cubed program is helping high school students start teaching degrees. A new partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison pays prospective special education teachers.
“We’re right in the midst of it. There’s no glimmer at this point whatsoever that it’s starting to go down,” said Dr. James Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute.
In a University of Wisconsin study published in September 2017, 1 in 10 registered voters in Milwaukee County and Madison’s Dane County who did not cast a ballot in 2016 cited the voter ID law as a reason why.
“It’s going to be a blockbuster,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In a state where a Democrat controls the governor’s mansion and Republicans hold the legislative majority, the state Supreme Court “is the center of the action,” he said. “It’s become a place where a lot of hot-button issues people care about get decided.”
For many University of Wisconsin-Madison students, the beginning of September is a time to reacclimate themselves to Madison before classes start and take advantage of the remainder of summer to enjoy campus. But some say the first day of classes, usually the middle of the week after Labor Day, arrives too late.
UW-Madison has eyed the demise of the Humanities building for the last decade, when leaders developed the current campus master plan, a wide-ranging road map for new developments and renovations, in 2015.
The governor’s budget proposal would increase K-12 spending by a substantial $3.15 billion, in addition to more than $850 million for the Universities of Wisconsin System. A child care subsidy, previously subsidized by the federal government, would be paid for by $480 million in state funds under Evers’ plan.
Phillips was also a trailblazer in the world of law. She was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1951 and the first female judge in Milwaukee County.
For higher education, Evers proposed $856 million for the University of Wisconsin System, in line with the agency’s request. That includes an about $40 million scholarship program to benefit around 5,000 students whose families have an income less than the state median.
Evers proposed $856 million in new operational funding for the UW system, more than the $800 million he pledged to the UW Board of Regents last August. His proposed budget also includes $60 million in new state aid for Wisconsin’s technical college system, $10 million of which is meant to support the 16 two-year colleges in investing in artificial intelligence.
In June, the governor said he wanted to see an additional $856 million go to the Universities of Wisconsin. Evers said the next state spending plan is a “make-or-break budget for our UW campuses.”
Evers will ask the Legislature to approve an additional $856 million in funding for the University of Wisconsin System, the largest two-year increase in history.
Howard Schweber, a professor emeritus of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted many judges previously worked as criminal prosecutors or defenders.
“It would be absurd to suggest that those judges must recuse themselves from any case involving a crime,” Schweber said.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a key partner for USAID’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab, helping train agricultural researchers around the world and research new seeds. In the past decade, Feed the Future has reduced hunger and poverty by 20 to 25 percent in targeted areas, with over 6 million producers newly using better agricultural practices in 2023 alone.
Of course, these innovations not only support communities abroad, but can also be put to use right in UW-Madison’s backyard to make farmers more resilient to increasing hazards such as heatwaves and extreme precipitation.
Andrew Reschovsky, a professor emeritus of public affairs at UW-Madison, said sometimes it makes sense for a state agency to contract out services when it doesn’t have the staff or knowledge for the work. Without the outcome of cost-benefit analyses or other information, it is impossible to know when contracting out makes sense without querying each agency, he said.
Treatment for postpartum mental health issues is also important, said Kathleen Hipke, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She said suicide and overdoses are leading causes of postpartum death.
Two Republicans who chair state legislative committees on energy and utilities say they want to bring more nuclear power online in Wisconsin in the coming years.
To start that effort, they introduced a resolution calling on the Legislature to publicly support nuclear power and fusion energy.
The Office of Children’s Mental Health released new recommendations this week for students, parents and colleges to improve mental health and sense of belonging on campus.
Last year, an analysis released by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau found most state agencies and University of Wisconsin institutions allowed employees to work from home up to five days a week and one-third or less of workstations in state offices were being used during auditors’ visits.
Based on six visits to 15 agencies and University of Wisconsin System offices between July and August 2023, the highest percentage of workstations being used was 34.5% at the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. The audit was released in December 2023.
Patrick Remington, emeritus professor at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health who began his career at the CDC, said some who oppose fluoride because of its risks aren’t weighing them against the benefits — something people do every day when they choose to drive a car, have a drink or make other choices.
The benefits of fluoride are clear: less tooth decay, Remington said, while the science doesn’t yet show neurodevelopmental problems for children who ingest fluoride at the level in the U.S. water supply.
The UW System is asking for roughly $855 million over two years from the state and urged support for that funding during a discussion with members of the Hoan Group, a private group of about 160 business and community members in the Milwaukee and Madison area.
Changes to federal funding directly impacts Wisconsin’s largest university. The National Institutes of Health is reducing the rate for its “indirect costs” grants to 15%, which goes into effect on February 10.
UW system Capital Planning Vice President Alex Roe told the UW Board of Regents that two projects are a particular concern: UW-Stout’s $138.9 million Heritage Hall project and the $96.3 million Cofrin Library at UW-Green Bay.
To provide rural students improved access to higher education, the College for Rural Wisconsin launched a program through UW-Madison about a year ago.
Public and private leaders in Milwaukee say increasing funding for the Universities of Wisconsin system will lead to more people living and working in the state.
Seventy-five percent of CWD-positive deer necropsied were in poor nutritional condition, according to Marie Pinkerton, clinical professor of anatomic pathology at the University of Wisconsin.
From 2005 to 2023, Madison stands out as a top performer in the Upper Midwest in addressing the housing shortage, according to a new analysis. Yet, Texas has 15 cities out-pacing the nation in housing stock growth. Kurt Paulsen, a UW-Madison urban planner, examines the report and offers takeaways.
Greg Nemet, energy expert and public affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the president doesn’t decide what to do about spending that Congress has authorized.
“This could end up just being more of a power struggle between Congress and the president,” Nemet said. “But in the meantime, it does reduce some confidence in the funding and the expectations that would go to our state.”
The Wisconsin Innocence Project operates as a legal clinic through the University of Wisconsin Law School. Since the project’s founding in the late 1990s, student teams have exonerated more than 30 wrongfully convicted people.
Anyone can show their love for the Wisconsin Badgers with this plate — it’s not just available to alumni. While the UW-Madison plate is the most popular, you can choose a plate logo for any of the other UW System campuses.
The annual donation associated with the plate is $20, less than the typical $25. Proceeds support scholarship programs at the selected campus.
Others like Chris McCahill, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and managing director of the State Smart Transportation Initiative, point out one negative to the tax — is electric vehicle owners already pay more than those with gas powered vehicles when registering their vehicle each year.
“So now with this new surcharge, the folks will be paying the state twice to try and compensate for those lost gas tax revenues,” said McCahill.
A 2023 UW-Madison School for Workers survey found that over 10,000 undocumented workers perform around 70% of the labor on Wisconsin’s dairy farms. “Without them, the whole dairy industry would collapse overnight,” the researchers concluded.
Work can begin on a new engineering building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after the State Building Commission reversed course Friday and approved the long-awaited project.
The State Building Commission on Friday approved a new proposal to use unspent funds for a new engineering building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and other projects in the university system.
