The town hall meeting featured a panel discussion with two faculty members from the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison who focus on climate change and health care policy, Morgan Edwards and Yang Wang, and Laura Olson, chief business development officer at Eneration, a subsidiary of Gundersen Health System that helps health care companies reduce their energy costs.
Richard Keller, a UW-Madison history professor and expert on the health impacts of climate change, says he’s been “joking with relatives in Texas as far back as 2003 that as their [climate change] problem was going to be getting worse, ours was going to be getting better.”
According to UW-Madison political science professor Kathy Cramer, political ads aim to achieve two primary goals.
“One is activate people who are already leaning towards them or their party — and ads can definitely help kind of remind people both that an election is coming up and reconnect them with their party and the leading candidate. But the other thing that they do is persuade people on the margins,” Cramer told the Cap Times.
Dr. Megan Moreno, a pediatrics professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine who studies adolescents and problematic social media use, said Instagram’s new youth default settings were “significant.”
Melissa Kono trains other municipal clerks around the stateas an associate professor with UW-Madison Extension Trempealeau County.
“There are outright threats, right? But there are also comments and things that are said that feel threatening,” she said.
A racist social media video featuring a University of Wisconsin-Madison student consumed the campus in spring 2023. A Black student advocacy organization formed. Protests staged. A petition signed, to the tune of 67,000 signatures. And an ad-hoc group formed to study the Black experience on campus.
“So essentially when the cost of things go up, that reduces the amount of money that people have in their pockets at the end of the day,” said Michael Collins, a poverty researcher at the University of Wisconsin Madison. The biggest driver of the higher poverty rate is also the source of inflation the Fed has struggled with most: “Rent is more expensive, and so rent took away more money out of people’s budgets, and so — as a result — they had less money left over for everything else,” Collins said.
The proposed amendments “perpetuate a misimpression that noncitizens are currently voting,” said Bree Grossi Wilde, the executive director of the nonpartisan State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.In the case of Wisconsin, she said, that’s because the ballot measure doesn’t mention that the state constitution already includes “citizen” in the language about who has the right to vote in Wisconsin. (None of the other seven measures do either)
In the same breath, colleges claim that they remain committed to academic freedom, the right to protest and freedom of expression. In another extreme example, University of Wisconsin at Madison updated its expressive activity policy in a manner seemingly straight out of 1984, banning any speech activity short of “individuals speaking directly to one another” within 25 feet of a building, a policy UWM constitutional law professor Howard Schweber called “clearly unconstitutional” because it covers “an enormous and almost incalculable amount of First Amendment–protected expression in ways that have nothing to do with ensuring access to university buildings.”
Last month, a district court judge in Texas struck down a new rule from the Federal Trade Commission banning noncompete clauses in employment contracts. A legal scholar from the UW School for Workers explains what this means for workers in Wisconsin.
NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster reports from Madison, Wisconsin on the rapidly growing population of Dane County and how both Democrats and Republicans are trying to increase their vote share. (Barry Burden)
The parts of the economy where inflation is taking a while to come down are in the services sector. For instance, inflation actually picked up last month in the food away from home category.“Which reflects what? Well, that’s, like, restaurants. And what’s a big component of restaurant costs is labor costs,” said Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin.
“It’s hard to say,” said UW-Madison Journalism Professor Michael Wagner. “Most of the literature in political science has suggested that debates don’t tend to matter in terms of who people vote for.”
This year, Wisconsin Athletics started selling alcohol at Camp Randall Stadium to the general public for the first time.
For more than a decade, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension has been offering the opportunity for people to become Master Naturalists by attending expert-led training sessions and volunteering their time to conservation efforts. Altogether, Master Naturalists volunteer over 25,000 hours of service each year to over 700 organizations across the state.
Wisconsinites have lower concentrations of “forever chemicals” in their blood than residents of other states, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
‘There’s so much uncertainty in those predictions that I would hesitate to really read too much into any small variation from year to year, outside of demonstrable changes and practices out on the landscape,” said Steven Hall, a professor in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The emissions inventories published by EPA are subject to substantial uncertainty.”
Ron Kean, poultry specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said many farms will choose to cull an infected flock after a recall to ensure the bacteria does not continue spreading.
BJ Ard, a copyright expert at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said four factors determine whether the material is being used fairly. That includes the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the work being copied, the amount and substantiality of the work being copied and the market impact of the copying.
“There’s not a specific rubric spelling out which of these factors takes priority,” he said.
Murv Seymour talks with Corey Pompey at the Hamel Music Center about leading the University of Wisconsin Marching Band and crafting its musical direction in practice and on the field for Badgers fans.
For 50 years ending in 2019, Mike Leckrone directed the UW Marching Band. In his new memoir, co-authored by Doug Moe, Leckrone recalls the creation of the Fifth Quarter celebration that now follows every home football game, and where he got his penchant for sequins and spectacle.
During the 2022-23 school year, more than 2,500 UW-Madison students participated in a study abroad program, according to the university’s International Academic Programs annual report for that year.
“We really see it as an opportunity for growth,” said Dan Gold of UW-Madison’s study abroad office. “When you look at it conceptually, basically it’s just: What can you do that’s not on campus that will help your academic goals?”
“Weaving a Legacy” features nearly 200 works of black ash baskets made by more than 40 Ho-Chunk makers from the mid-1800s to the present. The exhibit, which runs through Nov. 10, is curated by Tom Jones, a University of Wisconsin-Madison photography professor, who has collected and studied thousands of Ho-Chunk baskets for more than decade.
“It’s really pushing back against this idea that you need to constantly be buying things to have a happy and fulfilling life,” said Megan Doherty Bea, assistant professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It’s also probably the case that viewership trended upward since 1996 in part because of increased partisan identification. The University of Wisconsin’s Barry Burden made this point before that Biden-Trump debate and it tracks: Higher investment in partisan success would suggest more interest in seeing how well each candidate does.
Turf expert Doug Soldat is back with his annual fall lawn tutorial. We talk with him about the latest in lawn care research.
In the last half hour Native Plant Garden Curator at the UW-Madison Arboretum, Susan Carpenter is back. She’ll have updates on classes and tours, and what’s happening in the fall native gardens.
“Demand for dairy products overall, both United States domestic and export demand, continues to grow,” said Charles Nicholson, an agriculture and economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We try not to romanticize our culture, but we are unapologetically Indigenous,” said Jennings, who is close to finishing the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. “There are a lot of statistics about our communities and a lot of negative statistics. Our goal is to showcase and highlight the good things in our communities — the good people, those traditional values our communities still rest upon.”
“There’s very little authority behind these positions,” said Richard C. Keller, a historian of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who wrote a book about extreme heat in Europe. “They can issue recommendations, they can help establish policy, but they’re going to have a very hard time enforcing those policies.”
“This study shows that bats can save human lives just by doing what they do best – eating insects,” says Jennifer Raynor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Many wild animals are important for human health and well-being, and we are now beginning to understand that technology cannot always replace these benefits when they are lost,” she says.
Jake Vander Zanden directs UW-Madison Center for Limnology — the study of lakes. He says both zebra and quagga mussels feed on phytoplankton, the base of the aquatic food chain.
“In effect, what they do is they will undermine the basis of the food web, and that can have impacts on fisheries,” Vander Zanden said. He added that the mussels create good conditions for algae growth, which gets smelly when washing up on beaches.
Wages for the lowest-paid workers in Wisconsin have risen faster than pay for higher earners in recent years, but workers still face challenges.
That’s according to the new “State of Working Wisconsin” report from the High Road Strategy Center, an economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The report is released annually around Labor Day to provide insights into how workers are doing in the economy.
Whether information on elections and current events comes from a dedicated civics course or another type of social studies class, University of Wisconsin-Madison education researcher Jeremy Stoddard said covering those topics is vital to creating informed, engaged citizens. It can also reduce political polarization.
“Schools might be the only place where they actually get exposed to different views on key issues of the day,” Stoddard told “Wisconsin Today.” “Otherwise, people get their news filtered in through one way … If they’re not doing it in schools, that’s a real problem.”
The building’s homage to Flemish Renaissance Revival architecture − City Hall’s design − resonated with board member Sissel Schroeder.
“I think that’s what made this stand out compared to other Postmodern buildings in Milwaukee,” said Schroeder, a University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropology professor who voted to support 100 East’s nomination.
The area’s labor “shed,” or the areas in which the workforce now lives, “is getting bigger and bigger … and spilling into neighboring communities,” said Steven Deller, distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s department of agricultural and applied economics.
Extended periods of supervision after release from prison do little to improve public safety, according to Cecelia Klingele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School professor of criminal law. The long terms “may interfere with the ability of those on supervision to sustain work, family life and other pro-social connections to their communities,” she wrote in a 2019 study examining 200 revocation cases.
“Fewer, more safety-focused conditions will lead to fewer unnecessary revocations and more consistency in revocation for people whose behavior poses a serious threat to public safety,” she added.
UW-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs professor J. Michael Collins discusses low unemployment, higher pay and stock market growth as economic indicators amid experiences of low wage workers.
But the number of diverse children’s books and creators has significantly increased since then, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center found. The CCBC is based in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education and receives funding from the state Department of Public Instruction. It reviews the diversity of both content and creators of about 3,500 children’s and young adult books each year.
“Children are curious learners, and are most naturally interested in themselves and also in understanding the world they live in,” CCBC Director Tessa Schmidt said. “Books should offer children the opportunity to see themselves, as well as people in their local and global communities.”
“It’s a small factor compared to not liking the candidates or not caring about the outcome,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Elections Research Center. His university colleagues published a 2017 study on the effect of the law.
While there’s a “much larger body of evidence” suggesting beneficial metabolic effects of akkermansia, the studies pointing to potential downsides should not be ignored, said Federico Rey, a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who studies the relationship between the gut microbiome and cardiometabolic disease. “The overwhelming data suggests that akkermansia is good for your metabolic health, but there’s also data suggesting that it might not be good for other conditions,” he added. “There’s a lot of moving parts we still have to understand before making general recommendations.”
“The distribution of offices does not align with the distribution of voters,” said Barry C. Burden, who heads the Election Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison labor economist and High Road Strategy Center associate director Laura Dresser discusses the group’s State of Working Wisconsin 2024 report on job numbers, wage growth and gender pay gaps.
Sarah Halpern-Meekin, a sociologist at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me that “the majority” of people with low incomes make cashless transactions — on apps like Cash App, for instance.
“We have little insights and micro-epiphanies all the time, but we usually forget about them a few moments later,” Dahl, who is also a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, told HuffPost. “Taking a few moments to step back and make note of the ways we are learning and growing is a great way to build some muscle memory around self-discovery.”
Tyler Lark, research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the report’s co-authors, said some lands have been restored to natural ecosystems. Others, those perhaps currently populated by invasive species, could be the answer to big questions the country is facing about where to house increasing renewable-energy development.
“We ideally want to avoid our best and most productive ag lands but we also don’t want to encroach on pristine or native ecosystems,” Lark explained. “Formerly cropped lands might hit that sweet spot in the middle.”
These days, she’s (Lynda Barry) been busy teaching. She’s an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She’s written several books on the subject of drawings and comics, and how to do and make them.
“We as humans are very social creatures,” said Kathryn Howell, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So when bad things happen to us, we want to be together and connected to others.”
“One story is that people are short of cash, and they need extra hours and the only way to pick up extra hours is by picking up a short-term job,” said Christopher Taber, chairman of the economics department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Another story is that it’s easier to work two jobs now than it was before.”
Patients have been harassed or mocked for wearing masks in public, Dr. Jeannina Smith noted, despite international and national medical organizations emphasizing the importance of mask wearing as a mitigation tactic for illnesses. Hill has experienced this first hand.”You can’t look at someone and know that they’re receiving immunosuppression for an organ transplant or an autoimmune condition, and they remain at risk,” Smith said.
Do you have any advice for students shopping for a personal loan?
“Be realistic. Make sure you understand the terms of the loan and have calculated your expected loan payment,” says James M. Johannes, a professor emeritus at the Wisconsin School of Business. “Recognize that these scheduled debt payments will in almost all cases severely and adversely impact your ability to borrow to fund a car, house, etc. after you graduate until the loan is repaid. Be patient! Recognize that life is a journey, and you might have to live frugally until the loans are repaid.”
Research this week published by the University of Toronto’s Jason Choi, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Rishabh Kirpalani and Duong Dang, and New York University’s Diego Perez highlights the extent of America’s ‘exorbitant privilege.’
In their report ‘Exorbitant privilege and the sustainability of U.S. public debt’ they note that this special status “increases the maximal sustainable debt by approximately 22% of GDP.”
In other words, the U.S. government can sustainably borrow as much as 22% of GDP more than it would otherwise be able to if it weren’t the supplier of the global reserve currency.
One of those O.C. activists was Carolina Sarmiento, a community studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who sits on the board of El Centro Cultural de México. The Santa Ana nonprofit uses music and art classes to organize residents around issues such as gentrification and cultural identity, and it also puts together one of the biggest Día de los Muertos commemorations in Southern California.
“There were few foundations that would allow us to do the work we do, the way we do, and the endowment allowed us to do that,” Sarmiento said. She credits Ross with “leading the conversation in philanthropy on how to gift responsibly in a way that they’re not co-opting social movements but letting community-based groups lead.”
Written by Leonard Polzin, dairy markets and policy outreach specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Climate change will increase the risk of foodborne illness from consumption of raw produce,” said study author Professor Jeri Barak, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s not surprising that a host is altered by disease,” said Barak. “What’s interesting is how these changes affect other members of the bacteria community, in addition to the pathogen causing the disease.”
Barry C. Burden, a professor of political science and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains what the process of targeted races means.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated loneliness among adolescents, young adults and older people,” said Bradford Brown, UW-Madison professor emeritus of human development.
Bill Banholzer, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a wakesurfing fan, said there is a body of research indicating that waves created by high winds are more powerful than any generated by boats.
Interview about heart health for dogs and cats with Dr. Heidi Kellihan, a UW-Madison veterinarian.
Clare Dahl, a financial and life span educator with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, supports the change.
“Any time that access to free tax filing is expanded, it’s good news for everyone,” said Dahl, whose division supports the volunteer-run Richard Dilley Tax Center.
“I think all of these non-major party candidates are quickly shrinking away (in voter support),” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
