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Category: State news

Task force finalizes new UW tenure policy

Posted on
AP (via Channel3000.com)

A University of Wisconsin System task force has finalized new tenure rules. The Wisconsin State Journal reported Thursday that the task force wrapped up work Wednesday. The task force is expected to forward the policy to the Board of Regents’ education committee by February. The full board is expected to vote on the plan in March.

After state budget cut, energy research hub awarded $3.5 million grant

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation will provide $3.5 million to fill a budget hole and help a hub for energy research keep operating at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Funding for the Wisconsin Energy Institute had been cut in the state budget lawmakers approved this summer. Gov. Scott Walker removed the funding as part of a proposal to cut back state support for the university system and give it more autonomy.

A legislative proposal wants to bring back shared governance to the UW System

Posted on
WKOW TV

Representatives Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) and Terese Berceau (D-Madison) held a news conference on Monday to announce a proposed piece of legislation that would bring back shared governance to the University of Wisconsin System. This proposed bill aims to improve the status of faculty, staff, and students within the UW System. If passed it would mean a return to students, faculty, and staff being decision makers on campus, not simply advisers to campus chancellors, as is now the case.

Shared governance in the UW System was removed by Wisconsin state legislators during the last passed budget.

UW faculty question tenure survey reliability, despite some favorable findings

Posted on
Capital Times

Despite seeing some numbers favorable to the cause of preserving tenure at the University of Wisconsin, David Vanness says he doesn’t have confidence in the results of a controversial survey unveiled Wednesday in Madison. “I would love to have confidence in some of the results,” Vanness, an associate professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health, said after University of Chicago professor William Howell released the numbers at a media event at the Madison Club.

UWM faculty demand closing gap in funding with UW-Madison

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Citing what it sees as systematic abandonment of the state’s largest city, faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Monday called for an immediate change to the way state funding is divided among Wisconsin’s two research universities.

If UWM’s per-student funding from the UW System were increased to just half the level that UW-Madison receives, it would yield an additional $23.6 million and eliminate UWM’s structural budget deficit, according to the UWM chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

While UW-Madison receives more than $12,400 per student, UWM receives less than $5,200 per student — 40% of UW-Madison’s per-student allocation.

Students at for-profit schools will see loans forgiven

Posted on
Madison.com

The Wisconsin Education Approval Board announced Monday that 933 adult students who enrolled at four EDMC institutions — the Art Institute of Wisconsin and online programs through Argosy University, South University and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh — will have more than $916,500 in loans from the institutions forgiven under the settlement.

Board of Supervisors: Wiscards should meet voter ID criteria

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

The Dane County Board of Supervisors voted 32-2 in favor of a resolution for UW-Madison to modify their student ID cards to have a two year expiration date to comply with voter ID criteria.

Currently, students at UW-Madison cannot use their Wiscards for voting purposes. While in-state students can use their government issued driver’s licenses, out-of-state students do not have a readily available ID to take to the polls, as out-of-state driver’s licenses and other IDs are not valid voter IDs in the state of Wisconsin.

Researchers to use $5.2M grant to reduce opportunity, achievement gaps

Posted on
Channel3000.com

A grant will fund collaborative research between Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction and the University of Wisconsin-Madison [WCER] to narrow gaps in student opportunity and achievement levels, according to a release.

The $5.2 million U.S. Department of Education grant will fund research on data from all state public schools over the next four years, officials said. The goal of the research is to identify proven techniques that teachers can use to narrow gaps in student opportunity and achievement levels across all racial and ethnic backgrounds and family incomes.

Drop in academic R&D spending should worry policy-makers

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The latest figures on academic research spending in the United States provide, on the surface, some reassuring news for Wisconsin. For starters, the University of Wisconsin-Madison held its position as the nation’s fourth-largest research and development powerhouse. Lurking under the waves, however, are currents that should send a chilling message to policy-makers who believe the state can continue to reduce support for higher education — especially basic research — without taking on water over time.

$5.2 million grant targets student achievement gaps

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A $5.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education will fund a collaboration between the state Department of Public Instruction and the University of Wisconsin-Madison aimed at helping schools narrow the achievement and opportunity gaps among Wisconsin students, the DPI and the university announced Tuesday.

UW-Madison enlists parents in fight against campus carry bill

Posted on
WKOW TV

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Alumni Association has sent an email to parents of current students telling them how to lobby on a bill allowing concealed weapons in campus buildings.

The email, sent Friday morning, tells parents about the bill and why UW System leaders oppose it. There’s no explicit request to lobby against the bill, but the email encourages families to discuss campus safety and the impact the legislation might have on learning.

UW alumni tells parents how to lobby on campus carry

Posted on
Associated Press (Channel3000.com)

The University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni group has sent an email to parents of current students telling them how to lobby on a bill that would allow concealed weapons in campus building.

The UW Alumni Association sent the message Friday morning. The email tells parents about the bill and how UW System leaders oppose it. The message doesn’t explicitly ask parents to lobby against the measure but encourages families to discuss campus safety and the impact the legislation might have on learning.

Alumni group asks UW-Madison parents to lobby against concealed carry on campus

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

The alumni association sent an email to UW-Madison parents Friday morning encouraging them to “have a conversation in your family about campus safety and the impact this legislation might have on learning.” Although the email does not directly encourage parents to lobby against the proposal, it points them to an alumni association website that asks visitors to contact their state representatives and “express your concerns about the proposed concealed carry legislation.”

Nature’s critical warning system

Posted on
Quanta Magazine

Nestled in the northern Wisconsin woods, Peter Lake once brimmed with golden shiners, fatheads and other minnows, which plucked algae-eating fleas from the murky water. Then, seven years ago, a crew of ecologists began stepping up the lake’s population of predatory largemouth bass. Today, largemouth bass still swim rampant. “Once that top predator is dominant, it’s very hard to dislodge,” said Stephen Carpenter, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the experiment.

Eli Bovarnick: Walker misplaced taxpayers’ priorities, GOP candidates can’t do the same

Posted on
Capital Times

On Tuesday, an hour before the GOP presidential candidates’ debate about the economy in Milwaukee Theatre, the Milwaukee Bucks will tip-off their NBA game in the soon-to-be-replaced Bradley Center, directly across the street. As a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and for most Wisconsinites, the symbolism surrounding the debate’s location is almost too fitting.

Voter ID foes strike out again

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Perhaps the ACLU should pick a new target. Say, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which refuses to make the changes necessary to make its student ID cards acceptable for voting, despite a joint request to do so from the College Democrats and College Republicans.

Is Wisconsin System Chief Backtracking on Tenure?

Posted on
Inside Higher Ed

University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross has come under fire from faculty and a high-profile administrator for his changing stance on how the system should address tenure in light of recent changes to its legal status in the state. Faculty members and Chancellor Rebecca Blank of the University of Wisconsin at Madison have criticized Cross’s recent directive that new tenure polices can’t be written at the campus level, saying that the guidance contradicts Cross’s earlier assurances that tenure as it’s known would be preserved at the campus level — even though the Wisconsin state Legislature changed the law to make it easier to fire tenured faculty members.

Never has the Wisconsin Idea been more relevant

Posted on
Channel3000.com

The benefits of the research, teaching, learning and discoveries of the UW affect the world and humanity. That’s the mission. That’s what Walker decided he wanted explicitly stated in state statutes no longer.

Let us just put it this way: Never has the Wisconsin Idea been more relevant, more important, and more worthy of our support.

Committee aproves blaze pink hunting gear

Posted on
Appleton Post-Crescent

Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison textile expert Majid Sarmadi, who studied blaze pink’s visibility for Milroy and Kleefisch earlier this year, assured the committee earlier this month that blaze pink would be safe in the woods, saying it stands out better than orange against Wisconsin’s orange-brown fall landscape. He also said deer have an easier time seeing blaze orange than blaze pink, suggesting the color might camouflage hunters.

UW-Madison band serenades Assembly

Posted on
Madison.com

The Assembly began a floor session Tuesday by honoring the band’s director, Mike Leckrone. A couple dozen band members dressed in red sweaters marched into the chamber and began pumping out “On, Wisconsin.”

Wisconsin would follow only one state in campus carry

Posted on
Badger Herald

A proposal from Republican legislators would make Wisconsin the second state in the nation to allow complete concealed carry on their public college and university campuses.

Jeff Nass, legislative affairs liaison for Wisconsin Force, said the campus carry act would give a person on campus the ability to protect him or herself from someone who chooses to misuse their size, gender or any form of a weapon. He said the act promotes student safety.

How fetal tissue is used in medical research

Posted on
The Week

It’s used to find potential treatments for a wide range of common diseases and afflictions, including cancer, diabetes, birth defects, HIV, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and Alzheimer’s. Unlike adult tissue cells, fetal tissue cells can be manipulated into almost any kind of tissue, are less likely to be rejected by a host, and have the capacity to replicate rapidly — making them perfect for analysis into how diseases work. They are also being tried as actual treatments for Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries, and diabetes, with researchers injecting fetal cells directly into organs in hopes of regenerating them. Fetal tissue was also a vital component in the development of vaccines for polio, chicken pox, rubella, and shingles. The polio vaccine alone saves 550,000 lives a year. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says fetal tissue research has benefited “virtually every person in this country.”

How the Deceptive Videos Attacking Planned Parenthood Are Hindering Cures for Deadly Diseases

Posted on
Mother Jones

Since July, an anti-abortion group’s deceptively edited videos targeting Planned Parenthood for allegedly profiting off sales of fetal tissue appear to have prompted at least four arson attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics. And even though the allegations were bogus, the vilification of the women’s health organization has done additional damage: Violent threats and a political chill in the wake of the videos have begun to undermine potentially life-saving research on diseases including diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. Fetal-tissue donation programs essential to such research have been shut down, supplies of the tissue to labs have dwindled, and legislation is brewing in multiple states that could hinder cutting-edge scientific studies.

Prosecutors face limited options under law targeting John Doe probes

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: State grand juries will be cumbersome — they require 17 people — and bringing one into court day after day requires space and is expensive, said University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor David Schultz. Still, other states have been able to pursue political corruption cases without the John Doe process. Wisconsin prosecutors still have considerable powers and there are more statutes on the books that can be broken now than ever before, said Donald Downs, a UW-Madison political science professor and an expert on criminal law and politics.