“We talked about whether the universities could work with us to test all of their students, the ones not only in residence halls but also all of their students across Wisconsin, and also bring in the vocational schools and test those students, and really get an idea of how much asymptomatic spread there is in the community,” Birx said.
“Universities that required weekly testing of students, staff and faculty have extraordinary low community spread. What do I mean? There’s very little infection of the students because they’re constantly finding those cases early and isolating them for 10 days and that prevents community spread,” said Birx.
Expansion of COVID-19 testing at campuses like UW-Madison and a related drop in cases is a model for how to reduce spread of the coronavirus, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday during a visit to the university.
UW-Madison’s spring semester will look a lot like this fall with a mix of online and face-to-face classes, promotion of public health guidelines and dorms open to students who want to live on campus. One major difference, however, is that more students will be taking COVID-19 tests.
The University of Wisconsin plans a major increase in on-campus testing starting next semester. The university intends on doubling routine testing to twice a week and requiring more students and staff to be tested.
“As the university demonstrated this fall, quick detection of cases through testing, combined with isolation and quarantine efforts, rigorous contact tracing, and adherence to public health measures such as mask wearing, physical distancing and regular hand washing, is critical to keeping transmission rates of the virus low,” the release said.
According to a news release, 923 students — 755 freshmen and 168 transfers — new to campus this fall are benefiting from Bucky’s Tuition Promise, which is now in its third year.
More than 3,000 of UW-Madison’s 45,500 students have contracted COVID-19 since late July. Some of them gathered in large groups without a mask, desperate to make friends in a new place or reconnect with old ones after months away. Others came into contact with the virus through their roommate or fraternity brother or some other seemingly unavoidable way. There’s also students like Post, who tested positive despite all of their efforts to dodge it.
Three University of Wisconsin campuses are mostly back to normal, after COVID-19 spikes forced administrators to halt in-person classes and quarantine residence halls for two weeks. So far, the number of students testing positive at UW-Madison, UW-La Crosse and UW-River Falls has decreased substantially.
The downward trend began during a two-week pause in face-to-face instruction and quarantine of two large dorms. Even amid a statewide surge in COVID-19, the university’s decline has continued for 23 consecutive days, outlasting expectations that cases would again spike seven to 10 days after the lockdown lifted.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison hired a record number of faculty and graduated a record number of students in the last academic year, Chancellor Rebecca Blank announced Monday.
“There won’t be tailgates taking place around our stadium. There won’t be Badgerville. The Union won’t look like Union South normally looks,” McIntosh said. “We’ll come back in the fall of 2021 in a big way and get back to normal, but we all need to participate … We feel good about our chance to play right now, but there’s no guarantee, so we all need to play a role.”
Fears of a pandemic-related drop in student enrollment were not reflected at UW-Madison this fall. The 7,306 students in this year’s freshman class is the second-largest in university history.
“It’s hard to know what’s going to be the next pandemic,” said Kristen Bernard, a UW virologist who studies animal-borne viruses, like the one that turned the world on its head this year. Bernard spoke with Kelly Tyrrell, an award-winning science writer and director of UW-Madison’s research communications, in a one-on-one session for the Cap Times Ideafest on preparing for the next pandemic.
Despite working longer hours than she ever has as the University of Wisconsin-Madison reduced its COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks, Chancellor Rebecca Blank said her to-do list for the fall semester is far from finished.
University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson said in a Thursday interview that the campuses were among the safest places in the state, with extensive testing, tracking and quarantine programs. But he acknowledged there was “some connection” between returning students and the viral wave.
The discord may be especially thorny in towns that are home to land-grant universities such as Georgia and the University of Wisconsin, which view themselves as having a responsibility to the entire state, not just the locality where they sit, said Stephen Gavazzi, an Ohio State University professor who wrote a book about town-gown relations.
Soccer star and Badger alumna Rose Lavelle will deliver the keynote address at UW-Madison’s winter commencement ceremony, which will be held online because of COVID-19.
Two hundred and fifty students have withdrawn from the University of Wisconsin-Madison so far this fall, a number not substantially larger than the 208 withdrawals at the same point in the fall semester a year ago. The number makes up about 0.5% of the student body.
UW will not remove Abe Lincoln statue or defund UWPD, chancellor says.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank met with representatives of the school’s two student newspapers Tuesday afternoon to answer questions and share her views on the current semester. “We’re in the midst of three crises,” the Chancellor told the Daily Cardinal and Badger Herald, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, the university’s financial woes and the “social revolution” brought on by the killing of George Floyd and enduring cycles of racial injustice.
The Nicholas Recreation Center is scheduled to open Monday with limited capacity on the site of the former Southeast Recreational Facility near the Kohl Center and LaBahn Arena. The University Recreation and Wellbeing building includes the Soderholm Family Aquatic Center that will be home to the Badgers swimming and diving teams.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank says the campus will begin to reopen Saturday following a two-week lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 among undergraduate students.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is slowly phasing back to in-person classes and activities after two weeks of online learning and quarantines in two residence halls.
UW-Madison lifted quarantine orders for two of its largest dorms on Wednesday and will soon phase in some face-to-face classes, the first easing of restrictions since COVID-19 cases spiked on campus about two weeks ago.
UW-Madison posted its official enrollment numbers for the fall of 2020 on Tuesday, revealing that the student body has grown to an unprecedented size with its second largest class of first-year students in university history despite complications posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison published its official enrollment numbers Tuesday, touting record-breaking total enrollment and its second-largest freshman class in history despite the challenges of opening a campus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chancellor Blank and Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow: If you are leading a college or university right now — or if you are making the academic year possible as a member of the faculty or staff at any one of our nation’s institutions of higher education — asking something more of your students in the midst of a global pandemic may seem impractical. But one assignment cannot wait. We urge you to encourage your students to register to vote, to become informed of the issues and the candidates, and to cast a ballot
UW-Madison’s College of Engineering received its largest donation in the college’s history that will start a new scholarship program, help expand the undergraduate student body and create several professorships to keep top talent in Madison.
Eight Wisconsin cities that are home to University of Wisconsin System schools made the New York Times’ list of metro areas with the fastest growing COVID-19 cases this week.
The UW-Madison College of Engineering received a $32 million donation pledge from The Grainger Foundation of Lake Forest, Illinois — the largest donation in the College’s history.
A UW-Madison graduate student resigned from their co-presidency of the Teachers Assistant Association after coming under fire for misrepresenting their racial identity.
Eight Wisconsin metro areas have landed on the New York Times’ list of places across the country where new cases of COVID-19 are rising the fastest.
La Crosse is number one on the New York Times’ list, which was updated Thursday afternoon. In third is Whitewater, and the Oshkosh-Neenah area is in eighth. Stevens Point, Appleton, Platteville, Madison and Green Bay take up the 15th through 19th spots of the list, respectively.
With the exception of Appleton, all the Wisconsin cities on the list are home to a University of Wisconsin System campus.
Dane County confirmed 210 new coronavirus cases this morning, as yesterday’s Data Snapshot from Public Health Madison Dane County (PHMDC) reported 72 percent of all new cases the September 1-14 were from UW students and staff. Today’s new cases bring the total for the county to 8,461 as of this morning. There are 6,548 recovered cases while 1,872 are currently active. This brings the percentage of active cases to 22 percent.
Noted: Just over three-quarters of those recent cases were found in University of Wisconsin-Madison students and staff, with students making up the vast majority, 1,808 to 10 for the UW staff, PHMDC data notes indicate. Nearly 1,400 of the total cases were linked to college-age housing clusters, such as forms, apartment complexes with 10 or more cases, and fraternities and sororities.
Ajay Sethi, a UW Madison associate professor in population sciences who works on the dashboard, said while universities do not have to report the information, they know it is important to do so.“Dashboards are common, and I think transparency is paramount right now during our pandemic,” he said.
Health officials in Madison and Dane County are urging fans not to gather to watch football games when the University of Wisconsin Badgers begin their season next month.
Noted: The new cases come as colleges and universities across the state continue to grapple with outbreaks of the virus on and around their campuses.
Nearly 90% of University of Wisconsin-Madison students who have tested positive for COVID-19 have exhibited symptoms, public health officials said Wednesday.
At the end of August, nine days before students started class at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, more than two dozen local elected officials sent a letter to university administrators urging them to significantly alter their plan to bring students back to campus in the fall.
Significant numbers of freshmen have temporarily left or are considering moving out of Witte and Sellery residence halls, while those who remain are now halfway through a mandatory two-week quarantine.
UW-Madison on Wednesday extended its tuition refund deadline for students impacted by COVID-19 until Friday, as officials said at least one student has been hospitalized with coronavirus complications.
In March, Martin Shafer, a scientist at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) and UW-Madison College of Engineering, noticed a trend in COVID-19 testing techniques.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is adjusting tuition refund deadlines to help students and families cope with challenges related to COVID-19.
As expected, Big Ten officials are determined to play football this fall.
The league announced Wednesday morning the 2020 season is scheduled to begin the weekend of Oct. 23-24.
As late as Tuesday morning, University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank said that uncertainty over cardiac complications had driven the August decision to nix fall football, and could still lead the Big Ten to sit out.
“Until we have answers to that, we’re going to keep our season postponed,” she testified before the U.S. Senate’s health committee.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank testified before a Senate committee Tuesday as speculation swirled all the way up to the Oval Office about the fate of the Big Ten’s football season. President Donald Trump has tried to pressure the conference — the home of several key Midwestern battleground states in the November election — to reschedule the football season this fall.
University of Wisconsin-Madison officials made the right decision to reopen the campus even though there’s been a surge of COVID-19 cases among students and university employees, Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday.
The Big Ten Conference announced Wednesday morning that football will return the weekend of Oct. 23-24.
After moving all classes online for at least two weeks, the University of Wisconsin-Madison may push back its tuition refund deadline and continue to offer housing refunds to students who choose to leave their residence halls.
Sports Illustrated obtained the 1,700-word testimony that Blank submitted ahead of a hearing Tuesday on name, image and likeness before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. While she agrees that NIL reform is needed, Blank plans to tell senators that an unchecked athlete-compensation model could adversely impact Olympic sports and that athletes are already given a “generous package” of benefits that includes thousands of dollars in education, unlimited meals, state-of-the-art medical care and other on-campus resources—many of which normal students do not receive, she notes in the testimony. According to her written testimony, a full scholarship package at Wisconsin is nearly $87,000 for out-of-state students and more than $59,000 for those in state.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s coronavirus crisis hit a new phase Monday with the faculty senate voting to cancel spring break and the school investigating 300 students for violating policies related to COVID-19.
University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank gave an update on the school’s response to COVID-19 concerns during a news conference Monday afternoon and defended the decision to bring students back to campus for the fall semester amid the pandemic.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Faculty Senate voted Monday to lengthen winter break and remove spring break next semester, in attempts to discourage travel that might facilitate the spread of COVID-19.
Fans and players across the Big Ten Conference’s landscape await a vote on a potential start of the conference football season.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank on Monday defended reopening the university this fall, even as criticism mounted, the Faculty Senate scrapped spring break and the number of reported COVID-19 cases on campus exceeded 2,000 infections.
Less than a day after UW-Madison abruptly ordered a two-week quarantine for students in Witte and Sellery residence halls, students Thursday were weighing whether to pack up and head home or hold out hope for a more normal semester while “stuck in the dorms.”
As she climbed down nine flights of stairs and stepped into the dark night in the pouring rain outside Sellery Hall, Lauren Tamborino described the scene as “apocalyptic.”
In response to spiking COVID-19 cases, the University of Wisconsin-Madison decided to make classes virtual, restrict other in-person activities and quarantine students living in two residence halls, Sellery and Witte. The decision was made Wednesday and most restrictions will be in place until at least Sept. 25.
In an interview with PBS Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank defended on Friday the decision to offer a mixture of in-person and online classes, saying the university is taking steps to address the campus’ record-breaking COVID-19 test numbers.
