Newly appointed University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman plans to recommend a tuition freeze in the upcoming school year for in-state undergraduate students when he presents the Board of Regents with the System’s annual budget next week.
Category: Top Stories
Lifelong learners: For older students at UW-Madison, guest auditing keeps them young
Steve Holtzman is easy to spot on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. At the back of a classroom in the psychology building, he and his wife Jane sit amid students decades younger than them as they take notes for a lecture on the Civil War. “You won’t have any problems seeing us,” Holtzman said, laughing. “We’re the only old folks in there.”
UW education dean Diana Hess to serve as interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs
Diana Hess, dean of the UW-Madison School of Education, will become interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs on June 1, when Provost John Karl Scholz takes over as the interim chancellor, UW said on Tuesday.
Ancient canoe from Lake Mendota undergoes high tech scan
UW-Madison announced Tuesday that Lennon Rodgers, who directs the Grainger Engineering Design and Innovation Laboratory, conducted the scans at the invitation of Wisconsin State Archaeologist James Skibo and Scott Roller, a senior collections manager for the Wisconsin Historical Society. The canoe, being preserved and housed at the Wisconsin State Archive Preservation Facility on Madison’s Near East Side, was out of its tank for about a day in order for Rodgers, who oversees the College of Engineering’s makerspace, to do his work.
UW profs, Board of Regents show support for new chancellor after GOP attacks
Professors and Board of Regents Vice President Karen Walsh spoke out in support of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s next chancellor, Jennifer Mnookin, after some state Republicans criticized the hire.
Cutting fossil fuel air pollution saves lives
“These [particles] get deep into the lungs and cause both respiratory and cardiac ailments,” says Jonathan Patz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the study. “They are pretty much the worst pollutant when it comes to mortality and hospitalization.”
UCLA dean Jennifer Mnookin named UW-Madison’s next chancellor
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents has selected Jennifer Mnookin as the next chancellor to lead UW-Madison. Mnookin, law school dean at UCLA, was unanimously approved as UW-Madison’s 30th chancellor, the regents announced in a Monday news release. Her appointment will take effect Aug. 4.
Five things to know about incoming UW-Madison chancellor Jennifer Mnookin
Jennifer Mnookin has been named as the next chancellor to lead UW-Madison. She will be the university’s 30th chancellor. Her appointment takes effect Aug. 4.
Regents pick UCLA law school dean to lead UW-Madison
The dean of UCLA’s law school has been chosen as the next head of the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus in Madison, the university system’s regents announced Monday.
Cutting air pollution from fossil fuels would save 50,000 lives a year
Eliminating air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels would prevent more than 50,000 premature deaths and provide more than $600 billion in health benefits in the United States every year, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers.
Full UW-Madison commencement thunders back to Camp Randall
After years of the COVID-19 pandemic’s shuttering of dear traditions, UW-Madison had its first proper spring commencement in three years on Saturday. As the smiling faces of friends and families packed the stands at Camp Randall, the theme of change, for students and the university, ran through the words of speakers and the audience of 42,000 people.
Rebecca Blank advises successor to improve campus climate, seek flexibility
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank says she will miss the Memorial Union Terrace, Badgers game days and Bucky. What she won’t miss, she told reporters Wednesday, are the hurdles in leading “one of the more constrained and regulated universities in the country.”
Outgoing UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank suggests ‘persistence and stubbornness’ for successor
On the cusp of leaving the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chancellor Rebecca Blank used a final news conference Wednesday to take somewhat of a victory lap, saying she is leaving the university on strong financial footing and in a much better place.
But she also took the opportunity to highlight “unfinished agenda” items, such as increasing diversity and students’ sense of belonging on campus.
UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank reflects on tenure
Her final day is Friday, May 27 before she heads to Northwestern.
Blank holds final media briefing as UW-Madison chancellor
Blank, at times emotional, touted the university’s accomplishments during her nine-year tenure, including efforts to make UW-Madison more financially stable. She highlighted the university’s work in expanding summer programs, increasing research dollars and fundraising, which have allowed it to invest in high-need areas like increasing staff salaries and scholarship opportunities.
Blank laments not building diversity, won’t miss bureaucracy
She said she will leave with “unfinished” items on her agenda, including increasing diversity and improving students’ sense of belonging.
Woman gets second chance at UW-Madison graduation she missed 36 years ago
Dawn Proctor made a request in March that she considered to be bold and unusual and unlike her. The UW-Madison alumna graduated in 1986 but circumstances beyond her control prevented her from participating in the commencement ceremony. Now 67 and auditing a full load of courses this semester, being back on campus reminded her over and over again of the missed opportunity.
UW-Madison chancellor finalist John Karl Scholz points to track record of campus successes
UW-Madison chancellor finalist John Karl Scholz said it’s going to take a three-pronged effort to address the challenges the university faces, such as the need for additional resources and the increasingly polarized view of the value of higher education.
UW-Madison chancellor finalist outlines ways to boost higher ed’s image
UW-Madison leaders hoping to convince a sometimes skeptical public and their elected representatives of the value of higher education need to come prepared with a few key arguments and stay on message, one of the five finalists for the university’s chancellorship said during a public forum Thursday.
UW group wins it all in NYC ‘Pitch Perfect’ competition
They figured they’d go to New York City and just enjoy the experience: Central Park. The Empire State Building. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. But the UW-Madison singing group Pitches and Notes also capped off their Big Apple trip last month with an unexpected souvenir: The first-place trophy from the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella.
UW-Madison chancellor finalist Ann Cudd wants to restore confidence in value of college degree
UW-Madison chancellor finalist Ann Cudd is troubled by the statistics that show a large swath of the public believe leading research universities are headed in the wrong direction. “Top research universities need to both ensure and better communicate that most of their students actually graduate on time and their return on investment is, financially and socially, very highly beneficial,” she said.
UW-Madison chancellor finalist Jennifer Mnookin’s pitch: Make Wisconsin idea a national model
Mnookin, who is one of five finalists vying to become the next UW-Madison chancellor, said she donated a kidney to her father in late 2020. The organ made its way from Los Angeles, where Mnookin leads the University of California Los Angeles law school, to her dad in Boston thanks to a solution developed at UW-Madison that extends the time that an organ can be safely stored outside of a body
UW-Madison chancellor finalist Daniel Reed brings blend of corporate, academic experience
As a computer science professor, Daniel Reed often turns to data when arguing about the value of a college degree. But sometimes, he said, those who need convincing don’t want more data points or details. The UW-Madison chancellor finalist said one of the more successful models in advocating for the university is relying on the campus community — the students learning in class, the faculty making life-changing discoveries — to tell that story.
5 finalists named in UW-Madison chancellor search
The list released Wednesday — comprising two men and three women — includes no politicians and just one candidate with known ties to the university. Another candidate spent several years working in a leadership position at a large corporation but, like the others, has spent most of his career in academia.
Burned and vandalized: A history of cherry blossoms bearing the brunt of xenophobia
But when they arrived in 1910, the Agriculture Department discovered upon inspection that they were diseased and infested with insects, according to the National Park Service. The trees were burned. Some anthropologists, including Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, are skeptical about whether the trees were, indeed, infested.
Report: Wisconsin financial aid funding lags other states, straining students and workforce
Wisconsin’s financial aid funding hasn’t kept pace with inflation or the rising cost of college over the past decade, a new report found, raising questions about the state’s ability to enroll and graduate enough students to meet long-term workforce needs.
Meet the Science moms working to save the planet for future generations
Moms may just be one of our most potent weapons against the climate crisis. Dr. Rios-Berrios joined forces with several climate scientists and parents in Science Moms, a nonpartisan group launched by the Potential Energy Coalition in 2021.
“One of the things I love about the Science Moms program is that the website and outreach make it easy for moms to get involved. It takes this complicated topic and breaks it into bite-size pieces,” says Science Mom’s Tracey Holloway, Ph.D., a professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and mom to two.
The human genome is finally complete
This is an impressive tour de force and a landmark accomplishment,” Lloyd Smith, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved with the T2T project, told The Daily Beast. “It takes tremendous commitment, perseverance, and deep technical knowledge to decipher these most difficult to access regions of the genome.”
Barron’s 100 most influential women in finance: Katy Huberty
Katy Huberty has spent two decades at Morgan Stanley analyzing technology hardware stocks. Her coverage has included Apple, Dell Technologies, and Seagate Technology Holdings, among many others. Now director of equity research for the Americas, Huberty is thinking about how to scale her IT hardware team’s data-heavy approach to stock analysis to all of Morgan Stanley’s 49 research teams.
A Morgan Stanley lifer, Huberty, 44, joined the firm after college at the University of Wisconsin. Today, she sees technology diffusing into every corner of the market.
Antarctica hit 70 degrees above average in March, an apparent world record
“Not a good sign when you see that sort of thing happen,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Matthew Lazzara.
Lazzara monitors temperatures at East Antarctica’s Dome C-ii and logged 14 degrees (-10 degrees Celsius) Friday, where the normal is -45 degrees (-43 degrees Celsius): “That’s a temperature that you should see in January, not March. January is summer there. That’s dramatic.”
The Washington Post’s Jessica Contrera wins 2022 Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics
The Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has named Washington Post reporter Jessica Contrera winner of the 2022 Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics for her extraordinary stories on child sex trafficking in America.
At 8, he could see the whey: UW-Madison’s lone master cheesemaker shares his knowledge with Wisconsin
Gary Grossen talks about cheesemaking poetically, even almost romantically. “Copper vats have a special place in my heart,” he said, arm extended toward some machinery in Babcock Hall on the UW-Madison campus.
UW South Madison Partnership a “trusted space” that connects South Madison to UW
“There is just so much going on in this area … the potential is huge. We are going to continue to have conversations with different organizations to support them in any way we can and we are hoping that will grow,” says Brenda González, director of community relations for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
US ambassador to United Nations to speak at UW-Madison spring commencement
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will deliver the keynote address at the UW-Madison commencement ceremony on May 14.
UW study finds rivers emptying PFAS chemicals in Lake Michigan
Christy Remucal, an associate professor with the UW Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and postdoctoral investigator Sarah Balgooyen looked at the water and sediments within 41 of the tributaries that feed water into the bay, and the impact water from tributaries broadly could be having on the Great Lakes.
UW System to end mask mandate by spring break
University of Wisconsin System officials say they plan to end their campus mask mandates by spring break.
UW System interim President Tommy Thompson announced Wednesday that widespread vaccinations and waning case numbers on system campuses and across the state justify the move.
As COVID-19 case counts decline, UW schools expect to lift mask requirements as early as March 1 and no later than spring break
The 26 University of Wisconsin System campuses will begin lifting masking requirements as soon as March 1 and no later than spring break, outgoing System President Tommy Thompson announced Wednesday.
UW-Madison to lift mask mandate March 12
UW-Madison will lift its mask mandate when spring break starts March 12, a move criticized by some on campus as too soon to begin easing up on the COVID-19 safety measure.
Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State address pushes tax rebates, tuition relief
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday during his State of the State address that he was extending the University of Wisconsin’s long-running tuition freeze for another year.
Tony Evers calls for education spending, $150 checks to residents in state of the state address
Evers, who is seeking a second term this November, also touted the billions of dollars of federal stimulus funds he has allocated over the course of the pandemic to businesses and farmers. Adding to that, he announced on Tuesday plans to spend $25 million of those funds to freeze tuition at University of Wisconsin System for two years and another $5 million to expand counseling and provide mental health programs for members of the Wisconsin National Guard.
UW campuses may drop mask mandate as soon as March 1
Citing a rapid decline in COVID-19 cases across the state, System President Tommy Thompson is working with chancellors to phase out the requirement no later than spring break, which at UW-Madison begins March 12.
UW-Madison chancellor calls political divide the greatest threat to public universities
In her farewell address to the UW Board of Regents Thursday, Rebecca Blank also took aim at state involvement in campus building projects, criticized some “one-size-fits-all” University of Wisconsin System policies and again called for raising in-state undergraduate tuition.
Blank: Political divide is greatest threat to UW-Madison
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s outgoing chancellor is warning regents that the state’s bitter political polarization is the greatest threat to the school’s existence.
UW-Madison keeps alive its 20-year streak in international computer competition
The university’s team placed 17th out of 117 teams at the International Collegiate Programming Contest world finals in Moscow last fall, the results of which were recently released. It’s the 20th consecutive year UW-Madison has made it to the world finals, a title no other school in North America can claim, according to the university’s Computer Sciences department.
Inside UW-Madison’s new Chemistry Tower: modern labs, study spaces and a ‘library of the future’
UW-Madison opened its gleaming nine-story Chemistry Tower to students this semester after months of construction delays. The new building at 1101 University Ave. will ease enrollment bottlenecks that have plagued the department for decades.
Beloit College mandates COVID-19 booster shots while UW-Madison starts collecting booster data
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank told a faculty committee during a Monday meeting that she didn’t know what percentage of the campus community is boosted beyond those who received it at University Health Services. The university will be encouraging students and staff to report if they have been boosted off-campus to get a better picture of booster status across UW-Madison.
Tommy Thompson resigning from post as interim president of UW System
University of Wisconsin System interim President Tommy Thompson plans to resign from the position March 18.
The former Wisconsin governor took on the role July 1, 2020, after being hired that June by the system’s Board of Regents. Thompson has been filling the void after a failed search for a replacement for former UW System President Ray Cross, who retired in 2020 after serving as president since 2014. Thompson was 78 at the time of being hired for the interim role.
University of Wisconsin System interim President Tommy Thompson is resigning
UW System interim President Tommy Thompson is resigning from his post, effective March 18.
He announced his impending departure to the UW Board on Friday, as the search committee tasked with finding a permanent president anticipated it would name a hire sometime in February.
Tommy Thompson announces he will step down as UW System president mid-March
Tommy Thompson announced that his last day leading the University of Wisconsin System will be March 18. His resignation announcement came Friday, the same day that a committee of UW Board of Regents members meet to select finalists in the presidential search.
UW-Madison to host community listening sessions for chancellor search
The university announced on Thursday upcoming dates for a series of listening sessions that will take place throughout January, hosted by a 21-person search committee of Regent members, community representatives, administrators, students and faculty.
How Psychedelic Drugs Can Be Used for Mental Health
That research isn’t conclusive yet, said Paul Hutson, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies psilocybin and leads the school’s center for psychedelics research. But he anticipates there will soon be enough evidence for the Food and Drug Administration to approve psilocybin capsules to treat at least some of these disorders — most likely in the next five years or so.
UW-Madison study shows fasting, calorie restriction lead to longer, healthier lives for mice
Dudley Lamming, an associate professor of medicine at UW-Madison, and graduate student Heidi Pak were in the midst of a calorie restriction study using mice when Pak noticed the mice ate the food they were given within two hours, going another 22 hours before eating again.
UW-Madison again ranks 8th in nation for research spending
UW-Madison retained its top-10 rank in research spending among hundreds of institutions, according to the latest figures released Monday by the National Science Foundation.
Sharks may be able to protect us from coronavirus, research suggests. Here’s how
Although some may fear sharks when swimming in open waters, these often misunderstood creatures may hold a way to help protect us from the coronavirus, new research suggests. As one of the ocean’s top predators, sharks have antibody-like proteins that can stop the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study published Dec. 16.
Search panel aims to name next UW-Madison chancellor in May
The tentative timeline, laid out for the first time by search committee chair Karen Walsh, includes an application deadline in mid-March, semifinalist interviews in mid-April, campus finalist visits during the first week of May and a recommendation to the full UW Board of Regents by mid-May.
NCAA champion Badgers volleyball players celebrate with their fans
The celebration that began on the floor of Nationwide Arena on Saturday night following the longest match in NCAA tournament history, picked up late Sunday afternoon when the team landed in Madison.
UW-Madison winter Class of 2021 celebrates after years of resilience amid pandemic
UW-Madison student speaker Jai Khanna reflected on the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic as he looked out across a sea of faces, masked under their graduation caps, during the university’s first commencement that allowed friends and families of graduates to attend in person since December 2019.
East High graduate and UW-Madison student selected for prestigious Marshall Scholarship
UW-Madison student Lydia Nyachieo applied to study abroad in the spring 2021 semester. COVID-19, of course, canceled those plans.
Wisconsin’s ‘mad scientist’: How DE Matt Henningsen’s passion for academics has him succeeding on and off the field
This fall, Henningsen is one of 13 finalists for the William V. Campbell Trophy, known in college football circles as the academic Heisman Trophy. The award annually recognizes the best in the country for combined academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership.
UW System names committee members tasked with replacing outgoing UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank
The Chancellor Search and Screen Committee, made up of students, professors, regents and community members, will be tasked with determining and interviewing candidates, who will then be forwarded to a special regent committee. In a news release, UW System said the search committee is set to meet in December ahead of a national search for Blank’s replacement beginning in January.