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Category: Top Stories

Joy Cardin: University Officials And Students Address #TheRealUW

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

After University of Wisconsin-Madison students return from spring break, a university-wide town hall will be held to address issues regarding the number of reported incidents of race and bias on campus.  Joy Cardin’s guest reporter discusses the recent string of cases and how UW officials and students are reacting, including the use of the social media hastag #TheRealUW.  Then, she talks with UW-Madison’s chief diversity officer about the concerns and additional steps the university is taking to address the campus’ cultural climate.  She also hears from a UW-Madison student about her on-campus experiences with racism as a Latina.

Badgers beat Xavier; Headed to Sweet 16

Posted on
AP (via Channel3000.com)

Wisconsin coach Greg Gard never lost confidence in Bronson Koenig, even when he struggled in the Big Ten Tournament and failed to hit a 3-pointer in an NCAA Tournament win over Pittsburgh. Gard proved just how much he believed in him Sunday night.

UW-Madison leader launches steps to blunt ‘troubling string’ of hate incidents

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Citing “a troubling string” of hate and bias incidents, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank announced she would accelerate the hiring of two mental health professionals dedicated to diversity and climate, roll out a program to teach students cultural competency and step up efforts to encourage students to report such incidents.

As reports of discrimination pile up, Blank announces new initiatives

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

UW-Madison freshman Synovia Knox was in a Sellery hallway with several friends from the 9th Cohort of First Wave the night before their Line Breaks performance that covered issues of racism, classism and sexism—when a male resident shoved her and spat in her face.

During the assault, the aggressor, who was intoxicated, hurled hateful language about race and socioeconomic status at Knox and three other First Wave scholars: Maryam Muhammad, Nora Laine Herzog and Francisco Velazquez.

Discrimination incidents spark hashtag on UW campus

Posted on
Channel3000.com

A trending hashtag has popped up on Twitter following University of Wisconsin-Madison’s third incident of discrimination in the last month. Students are using #TheRealUW to share their own experiences of discrimination on campus, saying they would otherwise go overlooked by the university.

Recruiting from the reservation: UW boosts effort to train Native American medical students

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

In high school near Green Bay, Justin Meyers worked at a hospital, delivering food to patients. In college, at UW-Madison, he joined Air Force ROTC. His dream of becoming a doctor won out over thoughts of being a fighter pilot. But he didn’t know any doctors like him, a Native American. At UW School of Medicine and Public Health, he talked to two Native American doctors who encouraged him to apply.

UW Regents approve tenure changes

Posted on
AP (via Channel3000.com)

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has adopted policy changes that will weaken tenure protections. The Republican-authored state budget stripped tenure protections from state law. The regents adopted the statutory language as policy but created a task force to recommend changes.

Dalai Lama brings message of peace, nonviolence to Madison

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Richard Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds and a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the Dalai Lama’s main message to the audience was that “we need to take responsibility now for cultivating positive qualities like kindness and compassion.”

Badgers men’s basketball: Greg Gard ‘so proud’ to be UW’s coach

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

After spending 12 weeks as an interim coach, Gard was rewarded with a five-year deal that will pay him $1.75 million in the first year and increase $50,000 each additional year. Gard began his news conference by saying it was an “extremely special moment for me” and his family. He went on to thank several people, a group that included family, friends, UW administrators, support staff and former coaches, including Bo Ryan.

Amid tenure debate, UW System campuses say faculty departures rise

Posted on
wisbusiness.com

University of Wisconsin System faculty declared tenure all but dead this summer when GOP lawmakers removed it from state statutes. Months later, some say that’s still the case, even under a new policy the Board of Regents will vote on this week. Unless the policy sees some changes, critics say, it will continue to drive the UW System’s top researchers and professors away from its 27 institutions.

UW-Madison Spends Nearly $9M To Keep Faculty

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

An open records request by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that the University of Wisconsin-Madison spent $8.72 million in retention packages to keep faculty members from accepting outside job offers. The majority of that money took the form of research support, such as funding for research assistants or new lab equipment. Less than a million went to pay raises.

UW officials to offer long-term contract to Gard, sources say

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin officials, dazzled by the remarkable turnaround engineered by interim head coach Greg Gard and his staff, are preparing to offer Gard a long-term contract to oversee the men’s basketball program. Two sources close to the program agreed UW officials have been blown away by the work of Gard, who has compiled a record of 12-5 in the Big Ten and 13-5 overall since taking over in the wake of Bo Ryan’s retirement on Dec. 15.

UW-Madison joins Common Application for 2017 freshman class

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Next fall’s class of high school seniors will have a new way to apply to UW-Madison, now that the campus has joined more than 600 other colleges and universities on the nationwide Common Application. Students will still be able to apply to UW-Madison through the University of Wisconsin System’s application process, as they have in years past, said Steve Hahn, vice provost for the Division of Enrollment Management.

Video: Heading a University System With Nervous Professors

Posted on
Chronicle of Higher Education

Raymond W. Cross has faced some serious tests in his two years as president of the University of Wisconsin system. Last year he had to defend his system against a proposed budget cut of $300 million. More recently he has dealt with faculty unrest as the system has struggled to come up with new tenure policies to replace faculty job protections that were stripped from state law.

UW-Madison to raise minimum wage for student employees

Posted on
AP (via WKOW)

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is raising the minimum wage for student employees and the pay rate for graduate assistants.

The school said in a news release Tuesday that the student hourly minimum wage is set to go up from $7.25 to $9 on Sept. 1. Graduate assistants will get a 2 percent pay increase July 1.

UW-Madison increases student minimum wage, gives raise to graduate assistants

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Some of the UW-Madison students who serve food in dining halls, staff the desks at campus libraries, work in research labs or lead class discussion sections will soon see bigger paychecks, campus officials announced Tuesday. Starting next fall, the minimum wage for student employees will increase from $7.25 to $9 per hour, the university said, while graduate assistants, whose work includes teaching and research, will see a 2 percent pay raise starting in July.

Zika researchers release real-time data on viral infection study in monkeys

Posted on
Nature

Researchers in the United States who have infected monkeys with Zika virus made their first data public last week. But instead of publishing them in a journal, they have released them online for anyone to view — and are updating their results day by day. The team is posting raw data on the amount of virus detected in the blood, saliva and urine of three Indian rhesus macaques, which they injected with Zika on 15 February. “This is the first time that our group has made data available in real time,” says David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a leader of the project, whose scientists have dubbed themselves ZEST (the Zika experimental-science team). He hopes that releasing the data will help to speed up research into the nature of the virus that has spread across the Americas.

The Great Expectations of Matthew Desmond

Posted on
The Chronicle of Higher Education

The selling of sociology’s next great hope began with a long talk between a literary agent and her potential client. Jill Kneerim was a veteran dealmaker known for helping Boston-area academics publish trade books. She’d done it for Stephen Greenblatt, shepherding the Harvard Shakespearean’s Will in the World (W.W. Norton) onto the bestseller list. She’d done it for Caroline Elkins, also of Harvard, whose history of colonialism in Kenya, Imperial Reckoning (Henry Holt and Company), won the Pulitzer Prize. Now here was Matthew Desmond, an urban ethnographer eager to fight poverty. Another Cambridge star paying a visit to her office near Boston’s North Station.

Mapping brains of people with epilepsy

Posted on
Isthmus

An ambitious project to map the human brain by the National Institutes of Health has funded a four-year, $5 million statewide study to image the brains of people with epilepsy. Researchers at UW-Madison and the Medical College of Wisconsin have joined the NIH Human Connectome Project, a national library of medical imaging data being used to create maps of human brain connectivity.