Category: UW Experts in the News

Noted: Researchers from the University of Wisconsin helped manage the state’s herd.

Quoted: “The fact that we don?t hold teachers accountable is a huge problem,” says Douglas Harris, an associate professor of educational policy studies for the University of Wisconsin. “It?s a problem because there are huge variations between teachers. Teachers know this: That performance varies, and nobody is doing anything about it.”

Quoted: “I don?t even think you can quantify how many have been installed in the past six months, because the installations are happening so rapidly,” said David Noyce, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin. “We are approaching where either every state has implemented it or is thinking about it.”

Quoted: Dr. Patrick McBride, a cardiologist at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, says people with underlying heart, lung or neurological conditions are especially prone to heat illness, but really hot weather affects everyone.

Everyone in south central Wisconsin, from individuals to local and state governments, would hurt if Congress fails to raise the U.S. debt limit, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economist said.

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.

Quoted: Kathleen Horning, director of the Cooperative Children?s Book Center.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Justin Sydnor.

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.

Quoted: “I think it?s a tour de force, one of the top 10 papers of the year,” says Frederick Blattner of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the study. “Even though the genes are essential, they can be altered.”

Quoted: But the different journalistic cultures in the US and Britain are worth noting, says Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Quoted: Galen McKinley, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, worked with a team that looked at three decades of observational data from the North Atlantic.

Quoted: The slow economic recovery has left Obama in a “tenuous but not necessarily terrible position,” said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist.

Quoted: This, like many of the results, was split down party lines, said Katherine Cramer Walsh, a political science professor at UW-Madison who helped with the poll. Sixty-three percent of Republicans were satisfied, compared to 21 percent of Democrats.

Quoted: Michael Notaro, an associate scientist at UW-Madison?s Center for Climactic Research.

Quoted: Some of the most valuable material of The Curious Case comes from A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood?s Fight for Free Agency by former Baltimore Sun reporter and University of Wisconsin law professor Brad Snyder, who is interviewed in the film.

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.

Quoted: “Suburbs rule!” says CHR deputy director Bridget Booske, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin?s Population Health Institute, which produces the rankings with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin systems administrator Robert Plankers wrote in a blog entry that the licensing costs would not likely affect customers to the same extent as first thought but could still have an impact on licensing and budget concerns around virtual machines.

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.

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.

Quoted: ?None of us really know what that turnout looks like,? said Charles Franklin, professor of political science at UW-Madison.

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.

Quoted: Michael Notaro, an associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Center for Climactic Research.

Quoted: Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Could a newspaper phone-hacking scandal like the one sweeping Britain occur in the American news media? Not likely, says Stephen Ward, an ethics expert and journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who in the 1990s spent five years as a London correspondent for the Canadian Press.

Quoted: Phil Pellitteri, an insert expert at the University of Wisconsin Extension, said the new species, called the brown marmorated stink bug, is coming from the East Coast and they will eventually affect farmers? profits.

Quoted: Political scientist Kenneth R. Mayer told TheDC, ?I don?t think Feingold is going to run, though the word on the street is that he?s 50-50.? (Feingold raising money to ?shame? former Democratic colleagues)

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.”

Quoted: While there are certainly barriers, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin said there are just as many factors that can boost turnout. Everyone understands that if Democrats can net three Senate seats, they can shift the chamber in their favor.

Quoted: It might appear that bandwidth is an unlimited resource, but it isn?t, said Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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.

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.

Congressional leaders are set to meet with President Obama today to discuss raising the debt ceiling and reducing the deficit. University of Wisconsin Economics Professor Andrew Reschovsky has been following the debate closely ? and says the economic impact may yet be avoided.

Quoted: Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin.

Keeping Hmong food traditions alive in Wisconsin is among the missions of UW-Extension nutrition educator Kazoua Moua. Her pioneering work with Hmong families recently resulted in her being honored as an “Outstanding Woman of Color in Education” by the University of Wisconsin System.

Quoted: ?When we first started partnering with Arab journalists, we were just trying to build bridges,? said Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who chaired the international conference committee for the Doha meeting. ?It was in the midst of the Iraq War and there was a great deal of conflict between our cultures. We thought, we can do better than that. We built relationships and trust and eventually decided to partner to hold this conference in the Arab world.?

Quoted: Huntzicker has noticed  an unusual number of black flies this year. The same is true in other parts of the state, said Phil Pellitteri, extension entomologist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin says Smith?s presence on the ballot will serve mostly to buy each candidate more time to campaign.

Quoted: But Phil Pellitteri, an entomologist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Madison, suggests that complaining about pesky bugs should be discouraged.

Quoted: “There?s no question when the statistics come out sales of cigarettes will be down (and) there will be fewer people smoking,” said Patrick Remington, associate dean for public health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.