The State Building Commission has deadlocked on recommendations for new capital spending in the upcoming budget Tuesday, ceding its authority once again to the Legislature’s Republican-controlled budget committee.
Director Samantha McCabe runs International Student Services at UW-Madison. She said international students are worried about a potential travel ban, their visas and federal funding uncertainty. She is concerned recent federal actions could ultimately shrink the international student population at UW-Madison.
The Social Security Administration axed the Retirement and Disability Research Consortium (RDRC), a federally funded research program studying demographic trends and social security policy impact.
The Wisconsin Women’s Hockey team is celebrating their eighth national championship with fans at LaBahn Arena on Monday night.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison said they are struggling to advance study of a potential new epilepsy treatment after the Trump administration’s pause on grant review meetings by the National Institutes of Health.
The University of Southern California and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are the latest universities to announce plans to trim their spending as they attempt to cope with increasing financial challenges stemming from the funding cutbacks and policy demands coming from the Trump administration.
Last Friday, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, Provost Charles Isbell Jr. and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Rob Cramer advised academic administrators to exercise several budget controls for the remainder of fiscal year 2025, including reducing non-essential spending on travel, supplies, equipment, and events as well as reviewing all vacancies to determine if filling them is critical. Even more significant, all UW-Madison schools, colleges and administrative divisions were instructed to develop 5% and 10% budget reduction plans for the upcoming fiscal year.
Mark Johnson has been musing about golf, fly fishing and, eventually, hockey the past few days while sitting behind a microphone at the Frozen Four, and one of the constant themes was life lessons.
Wise people, the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey coach said on the eve of his 12th appearance in an NCAA championship game, learn from the experiences that life throws their way. Wiser people, he continued, take knowledge from the journeys of others.
Match Day — the long-awaited moment when medical students nationwide learn where they’ll begin their residencies — arrived Friday at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
For Samantha Bush, it wasn’t just about where she’d spend the next few years of her training, it was about continuing a mission she started years ago.
Days before his flight to Argentina, a UW-Madison researcher lost a Fulbright award from a federal funding freeze.Under President Trump’s administration, the U.S. State Department froze funds in February for international education programs. That includes the Fulbright Program, which allows scholars to conduct research overseas.
For one UW-Madison researcher, the freeze put more than a year’s worth of planning down the drain. “There’s a lot of anxiety in the scientific world now,” said UW-Madison professor emeritus, Richard Lindroth.
Hillary Jones Henry was banking on the American government keeping its promise.
A native of Kenya, Jones Henry was accepted into the federally funded Fulbright Foreign Student program for the 2024-25 academic year, teaching Swahili at UW-Madison in exchange for a monthly stipend of $1,320 to help cover costs, like rent. But on Feb. 22, his scheduled payment didn’t arrive. He tried to donate blood and plasma as a quick way to make money but was denied due to the prevalence of malaria in Africa.
Women at the University of Wisconsin conduct groundbreaking research every day to advance their fields of study and contribute to a better understanding of the world.
UW ranks sixth in the nation for research universities among private and public universities, according to the National Science Foundation’s annual ranking. Women in research, specifically in STEM areas, are still underrepresented in research funding, according to a study by JAMA.
UW-Madison Professor Sterling Johnson leads one of the world’s largest and longest-running studies of people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. His team aims to diagnose the disease years before people develop symptoms and then identify ways to slow its progression.
“A key problem we are trying to solve is how we can diagnose the disease earlier, before people even develop symptoms,” Johnson said during a campus news conference. “Early diagnosis allows time for individuals and their families to take control of their situation, maintain good quality of life, take steps to protect brain health and learn about treatments.”
After nearly 20 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Brent Plisch officially became the new leader of campus police Sunday.
Plisch temporarily led the department after Kristen Roman resigned last year amid an investigation into her conduct as chief. Plisch then competed against a handful of outside candidates to fill the permanent position.
Gov. Tony Evers visited the University of Wisconsin-Madison Thursday, touring Chadbourne Residence Hall and the Mosse Humanities Building to hear student concerns about the building and to highlight his 2025-27 Executive and Capital Budget investments.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is reported to be under federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas denied receiving a complaint.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of over 45 universities the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is investigating.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of 45 universities the U.S. Department of Education is investigating for using what the department calls “race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs”.
Wisconsin farmer Andy Diercks sits on a red Memorial Union Terrace chair in the middle of a farm field, holding a potato in his left hand. “It’s amazing all the work that goes into growing this little guy,” he says to Amanda Gevens, UW-Madison chair of plant pathology, who sits across from him. “The research you’ve done over the past decades is critical to grow a good quality crop.”
Inside Higher Ed also contacted the two dozen institutions under investigation, and their responses varied. The University of Wisconsin at Madison and Carnegie Mellon University said they had yet to be formally notified of any complaint by the OCR and were awaiting more information to determine how to comply with an investigation.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s former chief diversity officer displayed a “significant lapse” in judgment and fiscal responsibility, according to a report, as state and federal lawmakers seek to root out diversity, equity and inclusion programs in education.
For the second time in a week, the federal education department placed the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a warning list.
The U.S. Department of Education said Friday it had opened an investigation into UW-Madison and 44 other universities nationwide over alleged racial discrimination. The notifications came exactly a month after the department issued sweeping guidance threatening to pull funding from colleges that do not eliminate all considerations of race from policies and programs.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s chief diversity officer made a series of poor financial decisions, including approving substantial salary increases and authorizing excessive travel spending, according to newly released records that shed light on the employee’s demotion earlier this year.
“Some of these surveys allow us to know if people are being successful in college. It tells us where those students are enrolled in college and where they came from. For example, COVID impacted everyone, but it had a disproportionate impact on specific regions in the U.S. and specific social and socioeconomic groups in the U.S.,” said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
“Post-COVID, states and regions have implemented a lot of interventions to help mitigate learning loss and accelerate learning for specific individuals. We’ll be able to know by comparing region to region or school to school whether or not those gaps increased or reduced in certain areas.”
This canceled grant — which funded research into retirement that informed federal policymaking — has impacted the work of more than 50 people at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including the termination of five senior researchers, says Ghilarducci, who anticipates more job losses at the other centers.
The committee heard testimony from agencies with employees who telework, including the Department of Public Instruction and the Department of Safety and Professional Services, in addition to the University of Wisconsin System and private-sector companies.
“It appears that there are forces intent on destroying our existing vaccine enterprise,” says Dr. Jonathan Temte, a professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin who studies vaccine hesitancy. “Defunding research on vaccine hesitancy is the latest example of this effort.”
UW-Madison is among 60 universities nationwide that received letters this week from President Donald Trump’s Department of Education warning of unspecified “potential enforcement action” if the administration determines they are not sufficiently combatting antisemitism on their campuses.
Gov. Tony Evers is recommending the state take a wrecking ball to numerous aging state facilities, including the Green Bay Correctional Institution and UW-Madison’s Mosse Humanities building, as part of his $4.1 billion capital spending plan.
The federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating the University of Wisconsin-Madison for antisemitism, according to a press release issued Monday.
UW is one of 60 institutions that received letters “warning them of potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities,” according to the release.
Four days before Rick Lindroth planned to leave Madison and fly to Argentina, he received an email saying his Fulbright award had been rescinded.
“That was a head spinner,” said Lindroth, a professor emeritus in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s entomology department.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison was among a list of 60 schools the U.S. Department of Education warned Monday about a potential loss of federal funding if they fail to protect Jewish students.
Devesh Ranjan, currently a chair and professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, will be returning to Wisconsin this summer as Grainger Dean of Engineering.
Leaders from Wisconsin’s top universities, including University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman and UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, urged Congress to reverse federal research funding cuts at a press conference Wednesday at the UW-Madison’s Health Sciences Learning Center.
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.
Thursday afternoon, University of Wisconsin staff and various members of the scientific community gathered to address concerns of cuts in medical research funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Life-saving work in biomedical research is on the line, University of Wisconsin System and UW-Madison administrators said, if the National Institutes of Health makes cuts to its funding to the system.
“Taking a meat cleaver to this funding is simply wrong,” Universities of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman said Thursday.
Researchers at the Universities of Wisconsin defended their work in medical research on Thursday as they face uncertainty amidst federal funding cuts.
UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin warned of the danger of “indiscriminate reductions in research funding,” and medical and scientific researchers argued that funding from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, is critical to their work.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Sterling Johnson leads one of the world’s largest and longest-running studies of people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. His team aims to diagnose the disease years before people even develop symptoms and identify ways to slow its progression. He finds his work meaningful and rewarding.
But over the past seven weeks, as President Donald Trump’s administration proposes deep cuts to biomedical research, Johnson has encountered a new feeling. Something he’s never felt since he started studying studying Alzheimer’s in 1997.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin indicated during a Faculty Senate meeting Monday the university would walk back hiring and rethink grant-making if a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding cut is implemented.
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and other campus leaders are evaluating different scenarios for how federal funding cuts and policy changes could affect the University of Wisconsin-Madison financially.
College leaders are scrambling to assess the ramifications Trump’s orders would have on their institutions and come up with a long-term strategy to defend higher education, which has long been a political punching bag for Republicans. They are trying to respond in a way that appeases students and professors, who tend to be progressive, without antagonizing the conservatives now in charge of the federal government.
“The chancellor is trying to thread a very, very narrow needle,” said Michael Bernard-Donals, a UW-Madison professor of English and Jewish studies.
University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman and UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin emphasized the mission of the Wisconsin Idea and the value of higher education during the Wisconsin Counties Association Legislative Conference Tuesday.
An announcement from the National Institutes of Health earlier this month said the agency would slash support for indirect research costs paid to universities, medical centers and other grant recipients.
The change could leave research institutions like the University of Wisconsin-Madison scrambling for millions of dollars from other sources to support labs, students and staff.
A major cut in federal funding for medical research, announced by the Trump administration this month, would harm efforts at UW-Madison to better treat cancer, diabetes and heart disease, university officials said.
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.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the nation’s top research institutions, are wary of potential cuts to funding under the Trump administration that they warn could slow their work and delay new treatments for cancer and other diseases.
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.
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.
Devesh Ranjan will step into his new role on June 16. He is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and won the Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in Mechanical Engineering in 2023.
Josette Jaucian has been “Bucky’s mom” — or on the occasion he misbehaves, “Bucky’s unofficial parole officer” — since 2000. She took over leading the Spirit Squad in that year, which consists of not only wrangling the multiple performers who bring the Bucky costume to life, but also overseeing the university’s dance team and cheerleaders, more than 60 students total.
“We really rely on NIH funding,” Jon Audhya, a professor and associate dean at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said. “That reduction would have a huge negative impact on the institution. The university really couldn’t fill the gap.”
On Monday, higher education groups joined an association of public universities with schools in states that supported Trump in last year’s election to file their own legal challenge that described $65 million in losses for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a 70 percent reduction in funding for the University of Florida.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said the National Institute of Health (NIH) decision capping research funding might be a “little painful in the short term” but said it would be beneficial in the long-run.
“This executive order raises a lot of issues over who really controls public education,” said Suzanne Eckes, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor whose work focuses on K-12 legal issues and school policy. Public education has historically been a state and school board function, she said.
“Typically, the federal government isn’t saying, ‘You’re going to do this social studies curriculum, and you’re going to use this book, and everybody in the United States is going to learn about slavery or World War I or the American Revolution in this way,'” said Eckes, speaking from her perspective and not as a representative of the University of Wisconsin.
“It basically literally means we are stepping back in time decades, that we are now gonna look at data on CDs, they’re gonna be mailed out across the country instead of stored securely in an online data platform,” said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies college access and success. “It’s gonna be a huge waste of my time and a huge waste of the department’s time to have to process all of these new applications.”
“Cutting the rate to 15% will destroy science in the United States,” says Jo Handelsman, who runs the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “This change will break our universities, our medical centers and the entire engine for scientific discovery.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said the decision to cut National Institutes of Health funding, or NIH, will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and much more.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison put out a statement arguing the new indirect cost cap will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and daily life-saving discoveries.” It added that the move will also “have an inevitable impact on student opportunities to engage in research activities.”
Dr. Robert Golden, the dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said indirect costs aren’t just administrative tasks, or “waste,” but the physical structures and equipment needed to do “top tier” research.
“I’ve been at several public institutions, including the NIH early in my career, and never saw waste to a striking degree,” he said. The NIH’s change, Golden said, “will have a profound significant impact on everything,” including utility charges, building out the laboratories where scientific experiments are done and finding cures for patients.
Afederal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a Trump Administration cap on federally funded medical research that UW-Madison said Monday could cost the the university $65 million in already-pledged funds.
