UW-Madison’s return to the physical classroom nearly six months after shifting all courses online last spring stokes fear among some who say the safest option is to continue online and relief to others whose experience teaching or learning remotely was underwhelming.
UW-Madison ordered students who live in nine fraternity and sorority houses to quarantine for two weeks after more than three dozen members recently tested positive for COVID-19.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank on Monday ordered undergraduate students to restrict their movements for 14 days to curb the spread of COVID-19 on campus as cases continue to rise.
Students at UW-Madison are attending a mix of virtual and in-person classes this semester, and Wednesday is the first day the school’s health and safety protocols will be put to the test.
As students return to campus for the fall semester, colleges are taking measures to protect students, physically as well as mentally, from the pandemic and its effects.
A crucial Phase III clinical trial of a vaccine against COVID-19 begins this week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and its teaching hospital UW Health.
The coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx talked up the value of masks during a visit on Monday to Wisconsin and praised the University of Wisconsin system’s plans for protecting students.
UW Hospital plans to enroll 1,600 people in a study of one of the leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates, research that will evaluate the effectiveness of the injection before it can be submitted for approval and potentially used to tame the pandemic.
Many of the nearly 6,500 UW-Madison students who moved into dorms over the past week expect a short-lived semester on campus this fall. They have watched as reopenings at other colleges across the country either failed or are in deep jeopardy.
Wisconsin universities are reporting multiple positive cases of COVID-19 among students and staff as many campuses within the University of Wisconsin System prepare to start classes next week.
About 1% of COVID-19 tests administered by UW-Madison over the past three weeks came back positive, according to a new data dashboard that launched Wednesday.
According to the dashboard, which was last updated Tuesday, the university has conducted 3,006 tests since testing began on Aug. 6. Thirty-six people have tested positive. Of those 36 people, 33 of them are students and 3 are employees. An additional 87 students and eight employees have tested positive at an off-campus testing site.
The site will be updated every day with information on the number of tests performed on campus, the percentage of campus tests that are positive, positive cases identified both on and off of campus, and cumulative data. Updates will happen by 2 p.m.
The website will include the number of tests performed on campus, the percentage of campus tests that are positive and positive cases on and off campus, according to a news release.
Some Madison-area elected officials are sounding the alarm on UW-Madison’s reopening plan, alleging weak enforcement plans for students to follow public health guidelines and an “inevitable outbreak” on campus that may lead to larger community spread of COVID-19.
University of Wisconsin campuses plan on welcoming students to dorms and classrooms in mere days even as colleges across the country watched their own reopening plans collapse amid rising COVID-19 cases.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is starting the process of tearing down the Natatorium recreational building this fall, as part of a multi-year, campus-wide recreational facelift.
Fifty years ago, a bomb blasted through a UW-Madison building in the early morning, reverberating across the city, killing a university researcher, injuring several others and forever changing the anti-war movement.
Calling the process of building the 2021-23 biennial budget “one of the most significant actions” in the University of Wisconsin System’s history, interim President Tommy Thompson delivered a State of the University address Thursday that urged support for higher education and a reconsideration of System priorities.
At the same time as the University of Wisconsin-Madison prepares to welcome back students living in residence halls next week and students into classrooms Sept. 2, two Midwestern universities have reversed course and gone virtual because of COVID-19 outbreaks.
“Nothing is certain about this fall,” Blank said. “We’ll have a testing regime in place that allows us to monitor the rate of infection among different groups on campus. If the infections appear to be growing rather than stable, we will shut down activities on some or all parts of campus.”
The head of the University of Wisconsin System will propose its Board of Regents support a 3.5% increase to its 2021-23 state budget in the hope of funding several new initiatives, including a statewide free tuition scholarship program for some Wisconsin students.
The program offers its students financial support including in-state tuition, fees and testing certification costs in exchange for the students teaching for three or four years at a pre-kindergarten through 12th grade school in Wisconsin.
As Wisconsin continues to face diminishing enrollment in teacher education programs, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education hopes to financially support over 1,500 students to study and work as teachers in the state over the next five years.
Sierrena Taylor-Seals expected to take out thousands of dollars in student loans to earn her education degree from UW-Madison.
Interim University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson will request a 3.5% operating budget increase for the 2021-23 biennium, alongside ten key initiatives to be presented to Gov. Tony Evers Thursday.
The University of Wisconsin System wants nearly $100 million more in the next state budget to cushion COVID-19’s financial blow to campuses and cover tuition for Wisconsin students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year.
In a shaded parking lot on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, so-called spit concierges guide volunteers though giving a saliva sample. On the other side of the parking lot is a pared-down biology lab where scientists test the spit-filled plastic vials for the virus that causes COVID-19.
They’ll have the results within one or two hours.
The scene looked like it always does this time of year when tens of thousands of UW-Madison students’ off-campus leases turn over.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank delivered a sobering message Wednesday about the state’s flagship campus as the fall semester looms, saying “we’re in a real financial crisis” due to the coronavirus pandemic.
How bad the crisis will be depends on several factors, Blank said in an online presentation at the Rotary Club of Madison. Those include whether students who are enrolled for the fall semester actually show up, how deep state budget cuts are and whether the Legislature gives the university the authority to borrow money.
The Big Ten Conference won’t be playing football this fall because of concerns about COVID-19.
The University of Wisconsin System will reduce central office spending by $10 million over the next two years in an effort to streamline administration and refocus resources on students, its leader announced Tuesday.
Bracing for more financial losses associated with COVID-19, the University of Wisconsin System announced on Tuesday a series of additional cost-cutting measures for its roughly 600 administrative employees, including some layoffs.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s first on-campus COVID-19 testing location is now operating on an appointment basis, with at least two more sites expected to open for the fall semester.
The Big Ten is likely to cancel fall sports, including football, over coronavirus concerns, according to several reports. A formal announcement is expected Tuesday.
An already-battered Madison hospitality industry could take another hit worth tens of millions of dollars if the Big Ten Conference ultimately decides to cancel the fall football season because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the past 72 hours, conference presidents and athletic directors have grappled with the decision to delay, postpone or cancel the season, while coaches and players have pleaded for the chance to play.
Democrat Joe Biden led GOP President Donald Trump in Wisconsin and two other battleground states in a poll released Monday by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“All three states remain battlegrounds that should not be ignored by either campaign,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center, in a news release Monday.
Gov. Tony Evers has allocated about $32 million to University of Wisconsin System schools for COVID-19 testing and protection — a significant savings from the original request — based on the availability of a rapid, less costly test.
If the college football season is able to be played this fall, the University of Wisconsin football team now knows who it’ll face and when.
The lead mechanical engineer for a recently launched Mars rover mission is a UW-Madison alumnus who, for the second time, is playing an integral role in the search for life on the Red Planet.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has joined all other UW colleges in waiving its test score requirements for fall 2021 admission as students nationwide struggle to access the ACT and SAT during the pandemic.
Shortly after finding out about the money from the county, Mt. Zion lead pastor Rev. Marcus Allen called University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Gloria Ladson-Billings about getting something started. “Like this,” he said while snapping his fingers, “she had a whole acronym and everything ready to go.” Ladson-Billings said she’s “been thinking about questions of summer slide for a while,” and this was a good opportunity to put some of those thoughts into practice.
High school seniors applying to UW-Madison this fall can opt out of the standardized testing admissions requirement. Students can still submit ACT or SAT scores, but they won’t be penalized in the admissions process if they choose not to, the university announced Wednesday.
For the ninth year in a row, University of Wisconsin Hospitals, including University Hospital and UW Health at the American Center, have been ranked #1 by U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals.”
The University of Wisconsin System announced a $2 million anonymous donation Monday that will help improve online classes and academic advising.
The University of Wisconsin System received a $2 million anonymous donation to improve online education as campuses try to make classes more engaging than was offered in the spring.
UW-Madison’s University Housing division plans to reopen all 21 of its residential halls next month. The dorms are set to hold between 7,300 and 7,500 undergraduate students and university leaders finalized a series of changes that aim to prevent the spread of COVID-19 between students and out into the community.
As University of Wisconsin System students grapple with the realization that most of their classes will again be online this fall, many hold out hope for some form of tuition relief to offset what they see as an inferior learning experience.
Noted: Minutes after Evers announced the plan, University of Wisconsin interim president and former Gov. Tommy Thompson pointed out that the system’s campuses had already absorbed more than half of the first round of cutting and signaled the system would have trouble with further reductions.
“Our universities are doing everything we can to provide in-person classes safely this fall and reductions in state support for the UW System are an obstacle to that work,” Thompson said in a statement.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, study of Asian jumping worms began after they were discovered on the grounds in 2013. “They may have a cascading, behind-the-scenes impact that might not happen tomorrow, but that will eventually affect other organisms at a higher trophic level,” said Bradley M. Herrick, a plant ecologist and the research program manager at the arboretum.
Shiva Bidar, UW Health chief diversity officer and a Madison City Council member, confirmed that Wisconsin residents can come to their health facilities and receive care, no questions asked. “We’ll make sure they go where they need care and nobody’s asking them to pay up front for anything,” Bidar said. “We will figure out on the back end what we need to do to make sure that their bills are covered.”
Equipped with a laptop, legal pad and smartphone, Merta Maaneb de Macedo this week called a UW-Madison student whose roommate recently tested positive for COVID-19.
An infectious disease epidemiologist who teaches a course called “Conspiracies in Public Health,” Ajay Sethi has paid close attention to misinformation related to COVID-19.
“It’s for cases where people want to be able to see faces,” said Lennon Rodgers, director of the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It could be a teacher talking to their students, seeing smiles, things like this that are important, some people say, for developmental reasons.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Athletic Department has announced student-athletes will wear black crest logos on their jerseys next season as a symbol of solidarity with the school’s minority communities.
Wisconsin plans to have its sports teams wear a university crest logo with a black “W” to show solidarity with Black and other underrepresented communities on campus.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank has unveiled a series of changes aimed at improving the racial climate on campus, including a mandatory cultural competency workshop for new undergraduate students and a $10 million fundraising campaign to recruit and hire more students and employees of color.
