A professor at UW Madison is among those closely watching events in Egypt. Jennifer Lowenstein is a faculty associate in Middle Eastern Studies at UW. She thinks it?s unlikely President Hosni Mubarak can remain in office until September when ? he?s said ? he won?t seek reelection.
Quoted: For many, the assertions against Sang conjure up memories of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines and its role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Political scientist Scott Straus of the US? University of Wisconsin worries that the media is singled out in violence cases due to the RTLM precedent. ?My experience with these media cases is that prosecutors choose them because it?s something that audiences around the world can easily understand because of RTLM.?
Quoted: Stanley Payne, now professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, uses a lot of historiography and a bit of autobiography to consider Spain?s fate, which has long been held hostage to evocative, distorting myths. Spain may be unique, suggests Mr. Payne, but not for the reasons we think.
Quoted: “He keeps his options alive,” said Charles Franklin, a political expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I wouldn?t take it as an indication that he?s definitely in the race.”
A UW-Madison researcher has found that the venom dispensed by scorpions may hold as much promise for healing as it does for pain and poisoning. Dr. Hector Valdivia, with the UW-School of Medicine and Public Health, has long been fascinated by scorpions. He?s been studying their venom since the mid-1980s.
Quoted: Jane Allyn Piliavin, professor of sociology emeritus from UW-Madison.
After a conference last May where UW-Madison students said they felt minorities are represented negatively on campus, Vice Provost of Diversity and Climate Damon Williams will hold a town hall-style meeting Thursday for students to discuss campus climate and answered questions ahead of the meeting Monday night.
Quoted: Brian Hellmer, director of the applied securities analysis program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Column by political science professor David T. Canon and public affairs professor Donald P. Moynihan.
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Homeowners who have been served with a foreclosure suit might consider a free offering. Known as Foreclosure Answer Clinics, the walk-in legal clinics are held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Room 354 of Madison?s City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Staffed by volunteer lawyers and UW-Madison law students, the clinics provide homeowners in foreclosure with basic legal information.
Quoted: In this case, however, the steers died from consuming moldy sweet potatoes that were mixed in with their food, Peter Vanderloo, associate director at the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the Star.
Almost a month after taking office, Governor Scott Walker will deliver his first State of the State Address tonight to lawmakers at the Capitol. UW-Madison Political Scientist Charles Franklin says the speech gives Walker an excellent opportunity to further outline and restate his goals, although he says it?s rare that a governor provides any concrete plans during the annual speech.
Associate Director of UW-Madison?s La Follette School of Public Affairs Donald Moynihan has been elected to the Policy Council of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
The new governor and Legislature have fast-tracked a bill requiring a photo ID to vote in Wisconsin. Opponents say the law would do little to prevent alleged fraud at the polls, while supporters say it is necessary to protect the integrity of the system. Some version of this bill is almost certainly going to be signed into law. If photo ID is going to be implemented, it needs to be done right.
(By UW-Madison professor of political science David Canon and associate professor of public affairs Donald Moynihan. Also mentioned are political science professors Barry Burden and Ken Mayer.)
Recent University of Wisconsin research results may disappoint residents looking for signs of the apocalypse in the deaths of 200 cows in central Wisconsin earlier this month.
Noted: “It seems like a pretty good link that more sexual activity, particularly oral sex, is associated with increased HPV infection,” said Dr. Greg Hartig, professor of otolaryngology head and neck surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.
Quoted: The evidence, however, is controversial — and is invariably tied to history professor Alfred W. McCoy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Seasonal affective disorder is a kind of depression probably caused by a lack of sunlight, said Dr. Claudia Reardon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health psychiatrist and assistant professor. Exercise can help fight the problem.
Quoted: “Class-size reduction policies came into effect because of an economic boom,” says Beth Graue, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It was in the ?90s and we had money to spend, and it was invested in reducing pupil-teacher ratios.”
The emotional health of freshmen entering college in the fall of 2010 tumbled to a record low, according to an annual survey of incoming students attending four-year institutions across the country. The report, titled “The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2010,” indicates that just over half 51.9 percent of the students surveyed this past fall self-reported their emotional health was in the “highest 10 percent” or “above average.” In 1985, the first year the question was asked in this survey, 63.6 percent placed themselves in those categories.
Quoted: Danielle Oakley, director of counseling and consultation services for University Health Services, and Amanda Ngola of UHS.
University of Wisconsin astronomy professor Kenneth Nordsieck said the Challenger disaster changed the way many Americans viewed space flight.
It was with pronounced eye-rolling that I read the latest study by the UW-Madison Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center. Funded in part by the state Tobacco Prevention and Control Program and Smoke Free Wisconsin, the study?s author, David Ahrens, looked at antismoking ordinances in seven Wisconsin cities and found they did not eliminate hospitality industry jobs or cause bars and restaurants to close. Of course they didn?t. To find otherwise would be like a tobacco industry study finding its products kill you.
A seven-course dinner inspired by the papacy in Avignon, in medieval France, will be held Feb. 3, at 6 p.m. at Steenbock?s on Orchard, 330 N. Orchard St., in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. The dinner will be prepared by chef Michael Pruett, and each course will be paired with a wine from the Rhone region. The featured speaker on the dual papacy will be William Courtenay, a medieval history professor emeritus at UW-Madison.
Quoted: Diane Sheehan, a UW-Madison professor and textile art expert.
Quoted: Pao Wang, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UW-Madison.
A state lab says the 200 steers that died this month in Portage County were done in by tainted potatoes. Peter Vanderloo is an associate director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which is run on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says the cows tested positive for a toxin that?s found in moldy sweet potatoes.
Quoted: UW-Madison professor Tom Oliver, the director of the school?s master of public health program.
Quoted: Ben Kempinen, a UW-Madison law professor.
The late Hmong military leader Vang Pao was revered among his people for leading guerrilla forces against the Communists in Vietnam. When he died Jan. 6 from pneumonia in Clovis, Calif., at age 81, the loss was keenly felt in Madison, where many Hmong resettled after the war. Noted: Madison dropped a plan in 2002 to name a park in honor of Vang Pao after UW-Madison history professor Alfred McCoy cited published sources alleging Vang Pao had ordered executions of his own followers, enemy prisoners of war and his political enemies.
A seven-course dinner inspired by the papacy in Avignon, in medieval France, will be held Feb. 3, at 6 p.m. at Steenbock?s on Orchard, 330 N. Orchard St., in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. The dinner will be prepared by chef Michael Pruett, and each course will be paired with a wine from the Rhone region. The featured speaker on the dual papacy will be William Courtenay, a medieval history professor emeritus at UW-Madison.
Quoted: ?If we?re going to take these enzymes and use them on an industrial level, we need to be able to mass produce them. To do that, you actually need the gene that produces the enzyme,? said Garret Suen, professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
While the plan builds on voter ID bills of years past, David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says this one is different.
“This version?is more restrictive than any bill we’ve had in the past. Indeed, if this bill passes, it would be the most restrictive in the United States.”
Quoted: David Canon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.
Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon, who studies election law, said the proposal would be the most restrictive in the country.
Quoted: Dr. Craig Van Rybroek, a lawyer and psychologist who teaches at the University of Wisconsin and works at the Mendota Mental Health Institution, was hired by the court, not the prosecution or defense, to evaluate murder defendant Shane Hawkins.
Quoted: “There?s almost not a living state Democratic office holder left after that; I exaggerate slightly,” said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon, who studies election law, said the proposal would be the most restrictive in the country.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the president?s decision to make Wisconsin his first stop after the State of the Union makes political sense because Wisconsin is the geographic epicenter of the ?Midwest battleground? for the 2012 presidential campaign.
Noted: There could also be legal problems with the bill, according to David Canon, professor of political science at UW-Madison.
Dr. William Clancy, who developed ACL and PCL reconstruction techniques now used worldwide, is returning to the UW-Madison community to treat student athletes and serve as the new chair of the sports medicine division at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
Add the insolvent and still hemorrhaging Unemployment Insurance Reserve Fund ? and a looming $50 million in annual interest payments due the feds ? to the list of economic challenges facing the Walker administration. Due to the high number of applicants and a failure to salt away enough money during the good times, Wisconsin since February 2009 has been forced to borrow nearly $1.5 billion from the federal government to cover weekly benefits for the unemployed.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and applied economics
Quoted: “I was surprised he wasn?t more specific,” said Charles Franklin, UW-Madison political science professor. “He stuck to some very broad conservative principles.”
Quoted: “It seems like a pretty good link that more sexual activity, particularly oral sex, is associated with increased HPV infection,” said Dr. Greg Hartig, professor of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.
Quoted: And at least one, Jeremi Suri, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, contends that Kissinger?s exile from Nazi Germany was central in shaping whatever decisions he made. You cannot understand Kissinger, Suri argues, without understanding his Jewish past. ?It was with him every day,? said Suri, referring to Kissinger?s escape from Germany to New York in 1938, when he was 15. ?How could it not be??
Researchers from the University of Oregon and the University of Wisconsin designed two studies looking at food preferences. In the first, mothers of 31 male and 36 female preschoolers completed a survey of their children?s preferences for foods high in sugar, fat and salt. Their children were shown cards featuring 11 natural foods (such as apples and green beans) and 11 flavor-added foods (such as cheese puffs, jelly beans and ketchup) and asked to rate them on a five-point scale of facial expressions: a big frown indicated a great dislike to something and a big smile indicated they really liked the taste. None of the pictures of food showed any packaging.
Quoted: “We don?t have big army bases. We don?t have a lot of defense contractors. So the flipside of that, if there are cuts in defense, we are fairly immune,” said Andrew Reschovsky, a University of Wisconsin economic expert.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said Obama likely won?t win Wisconsin by the margin he did in 2008.
Noted: Cornwell and co-author Anna McAlister, a consumer science researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, involved both developmental psychology and marketing for the two-part study. It appears online this month ahead of regular publication in the journal Appetite.
Quoted: “I think it?s the Democrats? nightmare, a state that Obama won quite handily has suddenly switched at all levels,” said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This really puts the fear of God in Democrats that Wisconsin might stay in Republican mode, in which case for the 2012 Obama reelection campaign is particularly frightening.”
Catching up on a couple higher education-related items …
** President Barack Obama named UW-Madison professor Douglass Henderson one of 15 recipients of the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. The award earned by Henderson, an engineering physics professor, is the highest federal honor for mentoring in the country.
** Rosa Clemente, a hip-hop activist and the 2008 Green Party vice-presidential candidate, is speaking on the UW-Madison campus Thursday night.
** Washington State University has lured a professor from UW-Madison out west to take an endowed chair in small grains economics funded by the Washington Grain Commission, according to Washington Ag Today.
Quoted: Although many have lacked Camping?s down-to-the-minute surety, predictions of time?s end have been burbling up almost since time began, notes University of Wisconsin history professor Paul Boyer, a scholar of apocalypticism.
David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, seconds the motive. “Paul Ryan is clearly viewed as one of the rising stars of the Republican Party,” Canon says.
A group of UW-Madison researchers received approximately $4.7 million from the United States Department of Agriculture to educate regional K-16 students in energy and ecosystem concepts as well as oversee the students in leading their own bio-energy research.
UW-Madison researcher James Thomson has been named co-winner of the King Faisal International Prize for Medicine for his continuing work to advance stem-cell research.
As issues of sustainability and alternative energy sources continually enter political discourse and influence local and national policymakers, a team of University of Wisconsin professors has received a $4.7 million grant to fund sustainability education programs in rural Wisconsin.
While the lasting positive effects of having a true mentor are hard to quantify, President Barack Obama?s decision to award a University of Wisconsin professor for his mentoring efforts provides recognition for years of a job done well.
Morgridge Institute and University of Wisconsin researcher Jamie Thomson recently received the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine for his groundbreaking stem cell research, a prize that often marks a stepping-stone on the road to a Nobel Prize.
