A University of Wisconsin professor recently received one of NASA?s highest public service honors for non-government employees for his collaborative work with astronauts, military and industrial leaders.
I support the administrative flexibilities included in the ?New Badger Partnership.? Like every Wisconsin resident, I understand that Wisconsin faces a significant budget deficit. Any plan to improve the economy must ensure a competitive and educated work force. During my years at UW-Madison as a student-athlete and director of athletics, it was necessary to have the best tools to compete successfully. The same holds true as UW-Madison faces increased competition in the world of higher education.
Quoted: Mark Saffman, a professor of physics at UW-Madison.
Laura Schwendinger, a UW-Madison music professor, is already a well known composer in contemporary art music circles, the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters fellowship given to mid-career composers of exceptional gifts, and the first composer to win a fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin. But this current project has taken Schwendinger in a new direction: a collaboration with her cousin Leni Schwendinger, a renowned New York-based lighting designer whose large-scale architectural installations include Seattle?s opera house and Manhattan?s Port Authority Bus Terminal. The team has paired up for ?Orchestra Underground: Playing it UNsafe,? a project of the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), which is dedicated to the development of new works for orchestra.
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Noted: A February 2011 report, “Declining Deer Hunters,” a study on Wisconsin deer hunting participation by Dr. Richelle Winkler at the University of Wisconsin?s Applied Population Laboratory.
Quoted: Timothy Donohue, director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.
Saturday is set to be the biggest rally at the state Capitol in Madison. Wake Up Wisconsin hosted UW-Madison Political Science professor Charles Franklin Saturday morning. (Video.)
Chancellor Biddy Martin, Vice Chancellor of Administration Darrell Bazzell, Dean of Students Lori Berquam and the Director of the Office of Human Resources Bob Lavigna held a live web chat for students and community members to have questions about the New Badger Partnership Thursday.
University of Wisconsin professors and students offered first-hand perspectives on the revolution in Egypt and the possible steps for rebuilding the government and students? personal experiences in the country.
As rallies at the Capitol enter their 12th day, unions are increasing efforts to coordinate acts of protest around the state, though numbers of protesters present have been in decline.
Economists continue to sift through Gov. Walker?s budget repair bill, wondering what impact a pay cut for thousands of public workers might have on the local business community. If workers have less disposable income in their pockets, the thinking goes, they?ll have less to spend on furniture, eating out or a new car.
One analysis released Wednesday by a UW-Madison Extension economist suggests that laying off 1,500 state employees, as Walker has threatened, would actually have less negative impact on the economy than subjecting some 350,000 public employees in Wisconsin to a 7.7 percent cut in take-home pay. That pay cut figure is based on employees contributing to their pensions and more to their health insurance.
Quoted: Steven Deller of Extension’s Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics
Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden.
Dennis Dresang is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin. He says the modern history of the state helps explain the strong reaction.
Quoted: “What we’re seeing ultimately, we’re seeing corporations understanding that data is everything. That knowing everything about the consumer, will make you, ultimately, the most successful business over the next 10 years,” said UW-Madison Professor Dietram Scheufele.
Noted: But the most data we found was uploaded by UW Dean of Students Lori Berquam. In 2009, she posted dozens of GPS-tagged photos. Using that information, we were able to track where she lives, how she gets to work and what time she leaves her house, even when and where she walks her dogs on weekends. Berquam said through a spokesperson she didn?t know her pictures revealed that information.
UW-Madison Anthropology Professor Sharon Hutchinson sent in her letter of retirement to the university Feb. 20 in response to Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill.
In a recent phone conversation with a journalist impersonating a Republican donor, the governor disclosed measures he said he hopes will bring 14 Democratic senators back into the state to make quorum and is unwilling to negotiate on the proposed bill.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin polling expert Charles Franklin.
Quoted: The study could help doctors better understand why childhood asthma rates have doubled in the past 30 years, says James Gern of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who was not involved in the study. About one in 10 U.S. children have asthma, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
?This is pure party politics,? University of Wisconsin political science professor Howard Schweber explained. ?Mr. Walker is one of half a dozen Republican governors who came to power committed to pursuing a political goal of breaking the power of public sector unions because they are regarded as traditional supporters of Democratic politicians.?
Quoted: ?Ironically, public financing probably will make outside groups more influential,? said Barry Burden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?Because the candidates are constrained in what they can spend, the deep pockets of independent groups will carry more weight.?
Quoted: The latest study helps untangle that question by providing evidence that the reduction in risk is indeed significantly related to the variety of bacteria and other bugs a child is exposed to, according to James Gern, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who wrote an editorial to accompany the paper in the journal but wasn?t involved in the study.
Quoted: Large telecommunications companies are not intimidated by obstinate municipalities, said Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. If it?s not in their economic interest to wire an entire city, they?ll stick to their plans over city objections, he said.
Other states facing legislation that would threaten state employees? bargaining rights are beginning to mirror Wisconsin?s own mayhem, from unions protesting in Ohio to legislators fleeing in Indiana.
Quoted: UW-Madison professor Cameron Macdonald.
Quoted: “From the day after the election you could argue he has been in overdrive,” said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Less than two months into his first term, Gov. Scott Walker finds himself at the center of a political storm.Calm and unflappable in the wake of daily demonstrations at the state Capitol, Walker has emerged as a new face on the national scene and a new political hope for the national Republican Party. Story also quotes UW-Madison political scientists Charles Franklin.
Quoted: “They?re exercising both symbolic power here as well as the only leverage they?ve got, not unlike the U.S. Senate filibuster,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Dennis Dresang.
Quoted: “It drew national attention and emboldened their supporters and may have brought some donations in to their side,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But in the end they lost the policy dispute.”
According to this recent story from the New York Times, court rules are being written that would guarantee free legal representation to homeowners facing foreclosure in New York. Local foreclosure advocates also have warned about too many area residents trying to save their homes without lawyers. Two local support programs, the Foreclosure Answer Clinic, and a voluntary court mediation program, were designed to address that concern. Voluntary lawyers from the State Bar and UW-Madison law students may help with those programs.
Quoted: Speaking of Mr. Beil?s stance then, William Powell Jones, a labor historian at the University of Wisconsin, said: ?My sense is his position was, ?We?re in a position of power. We don?t negotiate.? It?s certainly not the kind of thing to make an anti-union public sympathetic to the union movement.?
Quoted: Earlier this month, University of Wisconsin students had their first full snow day in years. Spokeswoman Liz Beyler said the school had a snow day Feb. 2 during which most things were closed due to an expected blizzard.
Column by Andrew Reschovsky, professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
?If you had suggested that about Scott Walker 10 days [ago] it would have seemed incomprehensible,?? Byron Shafer, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told National Journal. ?Stay tuned and ask me again in another 10 days.”
Quoted: It?s difficult to predict how much the proposed change in collective-bargaining rules would save local governments and schools because not all entities will apply the changes in the same way, said Andrew Reschovsky, a professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Combined with proposals to require voters to show identification, end election-day voter registration and redraw legislative boundaries, Wisconsin Republicans could solidify their power if the anti-union bill passes, said David Canon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.
Scores of union members from other states joined the pro-labor rallies Monday at the state Capitol, saying they fear for their own collective bargaining rights because of what?s happening here. Among the more renowned protesters was Jeff Skiles, the “Miracle on the Hudson River” co-pilot who was hailed as a hero in 2009 for helping safely land a US Airways plane in New York. “Gov. Walker?s plan goes too far to promote an extreme right-wing agenda of what America should look like,” he said at a press conference. Skiles, who lives in the city of Oregon near Madison, said he has been protesting at the Capitol numerous hours daily since Friday. His daughter, Kelly, a UW-Madison student, and his son, Matt, an Oregon High School junior, have slept some nights at the Capitol.”I have never been more proud of them,” Skiles said.
Quoted: David Canon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.
Wisconsin?s financial problems are not as dire as those of many other states. But a simmering resentment over those lost jobs and lost benefits in private industry ? combined with the state?s history of highly polarized politics ? may explain why Wisconsin, once a pioneer in supporting organized labor, has set off a debate that is spreading to other states over public workers, unions and budget woes.
Quoted: ?The Republicans are really Republicans here, and the Democrats are really Democrats, so the candidates who come out of primaries reflect that,? said Ken Goldstein, a political scientist from the University of Wisconsin.
Yet problems are emerging in the way hospitals use the systems, leading to billing mistakes to the tune of “thousands of errors in an hour,” according to a 2010 study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association by Ben-Tzion Karsh, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: There are some young people, particularly those who are lonely, who are more susceptible to predators who tell them they?re terrific, said Darald Hanusa, who has a Ph.D. in clinical social work, is employed at the Midwest Domestic Violence Resource Center in Madison and lectures part time at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A lot of flattery goes into the grooming process.
Quoted: Professor Mark Copelovitch of the University of Wisconsin said the Democrats? move was a local version of the U.S. Senate filibuster, a tactic once minimally used that he called now “systematic.
Quoted: According to the economist Menzie David Chinn at the University of Wisconsin, yes, state and local employees in the state are somewhat undercompensated compared to their private-sector counterparts. First of all, here?s a chart, which reflects national averages not Wisconsin ones but is interesting anyway, comparing public- and private-sector workers? wages (I assume whoever made this chart means wages specifically, which refers to money compensation only and not benefits). It shows that at every level of education except “less than high school,” private-sector employees out-earn public-sector ones. The difference gets more stark as you go up the education ladder, as you might expect.
Quoted: But in Wisconsin, Obama had no choice but stand up for his friends in labor, according to Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin, Madison political scientist and polling specialist. “The unions are seeing it as essentially a threat to their existence.”
Quoted: Federal stimulus money that states used last year to plug budget holes is gone, and Howard Schweber, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described the outlook for municipalities as “bleak.”
Quoted: “At least personally I did not see this coming,” UW-Madison in political scientist David Canon said.
Quoted: Combined with proposals to require voters to show identification, end election-day voter registration and redraw legislative boundaries, Wisconsin Republicans could solidify their power if the anti-union bill passes, said David Canon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.
UW-Madison Marketing Professor Deborah Mitchell says the news of the liquidation is not surprising but ?sobering.? She says the book giant lost touch with its competitive advantage as a gathering place in the community, in addition to taking on too much debt and futile efforts to edge out Amazon.com as an online presence.
Quoted: Dennis Dresang, UW-Madison political science professor emeritus.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and applied economics.
Quoted: Charles Kalish, professor of educational psychology at UW-Madison.
Quoted: Tim Smeeding, director of the UW-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty.
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Quoted: Giri Venkataramanan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW-Madison.
From her office near Capitol Square last week, Susan Bauman could hear the chants of union protesters rising and falling. For Bauman, a former teacher in the Madison School District, the sound took her back to one of the most difficult times of her life ? the city?s bitter 1976 teacher strike.
….Bauman and others now fear Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to eliminate almost all collective bargaining for most public employees will lead to gut-wrenching strikes and workplaces where uncertainty over everything from sick days to the timing of breaks will fundamentally change a day on the job.
Quoted: Dennis Dresang, UW-Madison professor emeritus of political science and public affairs.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin
Quoted: Professor Mark Copelovitch of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, a professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Howard Schweber, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
