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Category: UW Experts in the News

Wisconsin State Senate Races Getting Hotter (TPMDC)

Quoted: UW-Madison Professor Charles Franklin told TPM that turnout patterns were difficult to get any handle on, but some clues could be gleaned from this past spring?s very close state Supreme Court election, where turnout of eligible voters jumped to 35 percent — which was unusually high for a spring court race — and from last week?s turnout in the Democratic primaries for the six targeted GOP-held districts.

Health care law encourages innovation

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A lot of political venom is still directed at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. But this landmark legislation has provisions that promote health care innovations that can cut Medicaid costs while preserving coverage and quality of care.

A recently proposed health care delivery system for Medicaid patients would combine five features of the law: the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (the Innovation Center); community health centers; teaching health centers; the National Health Service Corps; and reform of graduate medical education and reallocation of its support. [A column by Richard E. Rieselbach, professor emeritus of medicine and Patrick L. Remington, professor of population health and associate dean for public health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.]

Museum of the African Diaspora Presents “Soulful Stitching: Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) in India” (Art Daily)

Noted: ?Soulful Stitching? is co-curated by Dr. Henry J. Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor of African and African Diaspora Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and by Dr. Sarah K. Khan, Director of the Tasting Cultures Foundation. The quilts in the exhibition were made by members of the nonprofit Siddi Women?s Quilting Cooperative, which is keeping this tradition vibrant.

Is meditation a religion? 

Washington Post

Noted: This could be because the current Dalai Lama is so undogmatic about how Buddhism is understood. Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin psychiatry professor who studies meditation?s impact on the brain, calls the Dalai Lama ?one of the strongest advocates for secularizing these practices.? That is, Davidson said, because the Dalai Lama believes the practices can ?reduce suffering,? a core Buddhist objective.

Poll: 59 pct disapprove of Wis. gov’s performance

Madison.com

A majority of Wisconsin residents disapprove of Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s performance and are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the state, according to a new poll released Wednesday. The University of Wisconsin Survey Center?s Badger Poll found that 59 percent of residents disapprove of the performance of Walker, who took office in January and wasted no time pushing divisive legislation through the Republican-controlled Legislature, including a law that stripped most public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Quoted: Katherine Cramer Walsh, a political science professor at UW-Madison who helped with the poll.

Inca Paradox: Maybe the pre-Columbian civilization did have writing

Quoted: The Spaniards, who were no slouches themselves in the bureaucracy department?Pizarro?s landing party included 12 notaries?observed that the Incas were remarkably skilled with numbers. For many years during the 16th century, says Frank Salomon, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Inca khipucamayocs and Spanish accountants would square off in court during lawsuits, with the khipu numbers usually deemed more accurate.

Speaker debunks achievement gap theories (Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise)

The achievement gap between middle-class white students and poor black or Latino students isn?t just academic, a speaker said Tuesday at a Summer Institute put on by the University of Redlands? Center for Educational Justice.

“We need to change the discourse from achievement gap to what I call educational debt,” said Gloria Ladson-Billings, a professor in educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin and a former president of the American Educational Research Association.

Guarding Privacy May Not Always Protect Adolescent Patients

New York Times

Quoted: ?In the vast majority of cases when we?re working with a student who has some sort of medical or mental health news, they want their parents involved and we are able to communicate freely,? said Dr. Sarah Van Orman, executive director of University Health Services at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and vice president of the board of directors of the American College Health Association.

Redistricting legal challenges face tough road

Wisconsin Radio Network

In most legal challenges to redistricting, UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin says the courts focus on two primary factors when determining maps; whether districts are equally divided among the state?s population and if minorities have proper representation. So far, he says the GOP-drawn maps appear to meet those conditions.

New school reform for Wisconsin a model for nation?

Wisconsin State Journal

A new initiative to reform how Wisconsin schools are held accountable could lead to the development of a national model, similar to welfare reform in the 1990s, according to a leading UW-Madison education researcher. But the effort, announced over the weekend by Gov. Scott Walker and State Superintendent Tony Evers, could be hampered by an intensely partisan political climate in which school funding has been slashed by hundreds of millions of dollars, education advocates said Monday.

Quoted: Adam Gamoran, professor of sociology and director of the Wisconsin Education Research Center at UW-Madison

Stage Presence: Theater director loves sharing tricks of the trade with others

Wisconsin State Journal

People know me as: David Furumoto, associate professor in the UW-Madison theater department and currently its director of theater production. I?m also an actor, director, playwright and in Japanese traditional dance circles have the professional name of Onoe Kikunobuhide. I play the Highland bagpipes and have accompanied Celtic fusion dancers at programs here in Madison. I also love collecting ghost stories and folk tales.

Republicans Release Redistricting Maps For State

WISC-TV 3

Quoted: “I think the question will be what challenge could be posed,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin said. “Redistricting is in one sense easy to get equal populations and relatively easy to draw it, so they provide minority representation. But beyond that, it?s easy to move the lines for partisan reasons, and generally partisan reasons are not subject to challenge in court where the population and minority representation.”

Grisly labels not so scary for cigarette sales (AP)

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Quoted: Aside from the potential to get people to quit smoking? or prevent them from starting __ the labels also could have a huge marketing effect for cigarette makers by making their brand names less important, said Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin.

4 Ways Colleges Can Take Their Social Media Presence to the Next Level (Mashable)

Noted: At UW-Madison, outgoing Chancellor Biddy Martin tweets to more than 5,000 followers about campus events and meetings, frequently responding to questions and comments from her community. Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee tweets to more than 18,000 followers about faculty and student accomplishments, university news and his perspective on happenings in the world.