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Category: Top Stories

Wisconsin fires coach Paul Chryst after home loss to Illinois, 2-3 start

The Washington Post

“After a heartfelt and authentic conversation with Coach Chryst about what is in the long-term best interest of our football program, I have concluded that now is the time for a change in leadership,” Wisconsin Athletic Director Chris McIntosh said in a statement. “Paul is a man of integrity who loves his players. I have great respect and admiration for Paul and the legacy of him and his family at the University of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin fires head coach Paul Chryst after 2-3 start to season

Fox News

“After a heartfelt and authentic conversation with Coach Chryst about what is in the long-term best interest of our football program, I have concluded that now is the time for a change in leadership,” McIntosh said. “Paul is a man of integrity who loves his players. I have great respect and admiration for Paul and the legacy of him and his family at the University of Wisconsin.”

UW System launches campaign to increase financial aid applications

Wisconsin State Journal

The University of Wisconsin System’s new tuition-waiver program aims to help the state compete for talent and fill critical worker shortages.

But financial aid applications determine eligibility, and Wisconsin ranks 38th in the nation for the percentage of high school seniors who file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

3,000-year-old canoe found in Lake Mendota

WKOW-TV 27

The canoe dates back to 1000 B.C.. It’s the oldest canoe found in the Great Lakes region by a thousand years, and is the earliest evidence that canoe-making and water travel dates back to the Native people’s first arrival into Wisconsin.

UW System sees record levels of new student enrollment

NBC-15

UW System President Jay Rothman believes strategies to increase access and the disappearing effects of the pandemic are reasons for higher enrollment rates. “Our UW universities are the state’s biggest and best attractor of talent, and our application process is easier and more affordable,” Rothman said. “We are turning the corner on the COVID-19 pandemic, as our freshman class is the largest in years.”

Chazen Museum of Art exhibit illuminates historically marginalized voices

NBC-15

John Zumbrunnen, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, explained that the Public History Project will help instructors engage with students more honestly and openly.“We’re committed, after all, to the basic idea that learning together in open and honest dialogue about ourselves and about our campus and about our communities will lead to a better future,” Zumbrunnen said.

UW-Madison opens new exhibit in Chazen Museum of Arts

WKOW-TV 27

“We look at discrimination, you know, against racial and ethnic groups, but also discrimination against LGBTQ folks, folks with disabilities, religious discrimination, to really tell a different history of the university,” Director of the Public History Project Kacie Lucchini Butcher said.

As Wildfires Grow, Millions of Homes Are Being Built in Harm’s Way

The New York Times

“That’s the perfect storm,” said Volker Radeloff, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who helped lead the research. “Millions of houses have been built in places that will sooner or later burn,” he said, even as climate change increases the risks of major wildfires across the West with extreme heat and dryness.

Seven Million Years Ago, the Oldest Known Early Human Was Already Walking

Smithsonian

John Hawks, who studies human evolution at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and was not involved in either femur study, has questioned whether Sahelanthropus‘s skull and teeth mark it as an upright hominin. He finds the disconnect between femur analyses puzzling and more than a little frustrating—particularly since the fossil in question was discovered two decades ago.

Wisconsin Considers Direct Admissions

Inside Higher Ed

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents is considering direct admissions for some of its campuses in an attempt to reverse enrollment declines, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.

Historically, 32 percent of high school grads from the state of Wisconsin have enrolled at one of the system’s campuses immediately after graduation. That dropped to about 27 percent in 2020.

UW Regents request $24.5M from state for Wisconsin Tuition Promise

The Cap Times

Under the new Wisconsin Tuition Promise starting next fall, in-state students from low income families will be able to attend any school in the University of Wisconsin System for free.

The program, announced this week, will waive the costs of tuition and fees that remain after receiving financial aid for UW System students whose household incomes are less than $62,000 per year.

UW System budget request seeks additional $262.6M from Legislature

Wisconsin Public Radio

The University of Wisconsin System is seeking $262.6 million in additional state funding in its two-year budget request and plans to use the bulk of that to boost employee pay by 8 percent by 2025. Regents passed the proposal unanimously even as some expressed concern that it could be a tough sell with Republican state lawmakers who increased the system’s base funding by $16.6 million last year.

 

As prison education expands in Wisconsin, incarcerated students find success

The Capital Times

In addition, the Odyssey Beyond Bars program expanded its English 100 college-credit course to four state prisons this past semester. The University of Wisconsin-Madison organization will add an intro to psychology class next year.

In collaboration with UW-Madison and four other campuses, the UW System will also soon offer incarcerated students a pathway to a bachelor’s degree through its Prison Education Initiative. Last December, the program received a $5.7 million grant from Gov. Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.

UW System wants to expand UW-Madison’s tuition promise program to all UW campuses. Will the state support it?

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

At a Monday news conference on the UW-Milwaukee campus, UW officials framed the scholarship program as a “gamechanger” that will help more students graduate and ease the workforce shortage straining the state.

“We are in a war for talent,” UW System President Jay Rothman said. “We are not graduating enough people with four-year degrees and graduate degrees in order to help sustain the economic growth of the state. We hear that from employers all the time.”

Tuition, state funding and diversity: New UW-Madison chancellor’s agenda has familiar ring

Wisconsin State Journal

Jennifer Mnookin spent her first day on campus meeting with students, faculty and campus leaders as she takes on the role as UW-Madison’s 30th chancellor.

Mnookin, who comes to Madison from her previous role as dean of the UCLA School of Law, said her primary goal is to have conversations with UW-Madison students and staff and community and state leaders to discuss ways to keep UW-Madison affordable, while also addressing challenges like accessibility, funding and diversity.

Teacher shortages loom ahead of the new school year. UW-Madison’s School of Education is trying to help.

Channel 3000

Kimber Wilkerson is the faculty director of UW-Madison’s Teacher Education Center. She says there are many reasons hiring teachers is difficult right now.

“A critique of the teaching profession is the pay,” said Wilkerson. “I think COVID has exacerbated that experience by making the working conditions for teachers even more challenging.”

A Navajo scientist couldn’t translate his work to his family. Now, because of a UW-Madison project he co-founded, he can.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

That’s when Martin and his colleagues — Joanna Bundus, a biology post-doctoral fellow at UW-Madison, and Susana Wadgymar, an assistant professor of biology at Davidson College in North Carolina — founded Project ENABLE (Enriching Navajo As a Biology Language for Education), an online dictionary of biology terms translated from English to Diné Bizaad, a Navajo language.

UW Alzheimer’s doctor, researcher inspired by father’s diagnosis with the disease

Wisconsin State Journal

Dr. Nathaniel Chin, who grew up in Watertown and got undergraduate and medical degrees from UW-Madison, planned to specialize in infectious diseases. But during his internal medicine residency at the University of California-San Diego, his father — a family medicine doctor in Watertown — was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Four arrested, including 15-year-old, in attack on UW Ph.D. student

WISC-TV 3

Four people who police said attacked a UW-Madison Ph.D. student who was walking in downtown Madison Tuesday night were arrested Saturday. One of the suspects is 15 years old.Madison police said the fifth-year doctoral student was walking in the 400 block of West Gilman Street at around 10:15 p.m. Tuesday when he was allegedly punched by a group of men. The men then kicked and punched him after he fell to the ground.

‘A lasting and influential impact’: Karen Walsh elected president of UW Board of Regents

Wisconsin State Journal

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents elected Karen Walsh to serve as its president on Friday, filling the role after its former holder declined to run for the seat again earlier this year.

Also on Friday, the board elected Amy Blumenfeld Bogost to the role of vice president. Bogost works as a federal Title IX lawyer and joined the board in May 2020.