Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Robert Jeanne is an entomology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says the Buddha-shaped hive could actually be four different nests formed over a couple of years. He says if someone wants to read miracles into that, that’s their privilege.

Quoted: Allan R. Odden, a professor at the University of Wisconsin who studies teacher compensation, â??it would raise eyebrows everywhere, because that would be a gargantuan change.â?

Quoted: “In no way do I want to minimize the sacrifices soldiers are making overseas. Those are immediate risks,” says Dr. Michael Fiore, a veteran and head of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Quoted: “We are completely owned by our gadgets,” says Joanne Cantor, a former professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who studies psychology and the effects of media, communications and technology.

Quoted: James Stein of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Quoted: “Half the time, patients and physicians disagree on what the problem is, and two-thirds of the time, patients and physicians disagree on what the goals of treatment are,” Dr. Alan T. Luskin, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said in the news release.

Quoted: “School boards around the country are going to be in real trouble over the next year or two,” said Andrew Reschovsky, a University of Wisconsin economist, who added that some states may be forced to seek additional federal funds to help their school districts maintain programs.

Quoted: “It’s going to be a challenging season for all retailers,” said Jerry O’Brien, director of the Center for Retailing Excellence at UW-Madison. “You can’t read a report that doesn’t say this is going to be a tough season.”

Quoted: “This is the bluest Wisconsin has been in a long time,” said Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor, referring to the color associated with Democrats on the electoral map.

Democrats are “going to have to do something with that power. They have the voters on their side right now. If they use it wisely, this could be a blue state for a good while into the future.”

Quoted: Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: In exchange for a 20-year promise not to put any donor’s name on the school, the University of Wisconsin School of Business received $85 million from a group that said, “You can run your own business,” said Dean Michael Knetter. “The more flexibility you have, the better for the school. You can align it with your school’s objectives rather than the donor’s objectives.”

Quoted: The University of Wisconsin at Madison does not have across-the-board enrollment caps, and faculty who teach online courses do so as part of their regular course load, said Marv Van Kekerix, interim vice provost for lifelong learning.

Wisconsin also has a state statute prohibiting full-time state employees from earning more than $12,000 per year in overload pay from a single institution.

Quoted: “I certainly hope this drives a stake through the heart of that demon,” Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist and polling authority, said of the Bradley effect.

Quoted: Lecturer David Streckfuss from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who has studied the law, said he expected the number of lese majeste cases to rise as both pro- and anti-Thaksin camps try to appear more royalist than their rivals.

Quoted: “Million-year-old species are a dime a dozen; 15,000-year-old species are not,” says Jenny Boughman, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the B.C. sticklebacks.

Even though negative ads pop up every election, their effectiveness is still in doubt, said Jacob Neiheisel, deputy director of the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, which tracks and analyzes political messages.

Quoted: “I certainly hope this drives a stake through the heart of that demon,” Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist and polling authority, said of the Bradley effect.

Quoted: Barry Gerhart, a professor of management and human resources at UW-Madison, Charlie Trevor, associate professor of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: UW-Madison political scientist and presidential scholar Charles O. Jones.

Quoted: “Some of this is shorter term and some of this may be longer term,” said Charles Franklin, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: “Some of this is shorter term and some of this may be longer term,” said Charles Franklin, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: “Financial experts are unlikely to want to come to work in a state-owned enterprise unless that enterprise has a tremendous amount of autonomy. I’m not sure CIC for instance has that autonomy,” said Menzie Chinn, an economist at University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: “The traditional role of wives in the White House is to play hostess. They are gracious and keep the home fires burning while the president is out doing business. Barbara Bush fit into that role wonderfully,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: “It’s amazing, frankly. It feels to me a little bit like the stage was set when he won the primary in February,” UW-Madison political scientist Barry Burden said.

Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor David Canon said president-elect Obama’s ability to ramp up the turn out of under-30 voters in Wisconsin was not only critical to his success, but may also portend the repeat of a past president’s long term winning formula.

Quoted: Katherine Cramer Walsh, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Journalists from Indiana, North Carolina and Colorado talk about early voting, turnout and all the attention from candidates.
Guests include Charles Franklin, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-developer of Pollster.com. (Audio.)

Quoted: “To have the kinds of changes we’re talking about, especially after 2006, those are bigger shifts than anything we’ve seen in a long time,” said David Canon, an expert on Congress from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “Different people are influenced by different issues, but certainly the condition of the economy is the central issue now for most voters,” said John Coleman, head of the political science department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It’s more important than ever to pay attention to your credit card accounts. Lenders across the country are curtailing credit card offers and credit limits, and UW Madison professor of consumer science, J. Michael Collins, says there’s a good reason for that. “For a long time, people have been able to use their home equity as a way to pay off their credit card debt,” says Collins. “That no longer exists, so credit card companies are responding to the changes in the housing market. It just shows how all these parts of our economy are so interlinked.”

Quoted: Howard Schweber, an associate professor of political science and law at UW-Madison.

Quoted: John Coleman, chairman of the school’s political science department.

Quoted: Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor who studies voting.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,

Quoted: Donald Downs, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist and First Amendment expert.

Quoted: Ken Goldstein, the UW-Madison political scientist who oversees the Wisconsin Advertising Project.

Quoted: Some political scientists, including Charles Franklin at the University of Wisconsin, say young voters have the highest drop-off rates because they are less informed about local politics. Both parties and outside groups say they’ll appeal to these voters by emphasizing what’s at stake in legislative races and trying to send them targeted messages.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin political science professor Charles Franklin has crunched early-October tracking poll data and found that Regina Hansley is pretty normal.

Quoted: Itâ??s important to note that the law of probability dictates that there will always be outlier polls. As Charles Franklin, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and co-developer of Pollster.com told us recently, â??You shouldnâ??t get too excited about one unusual poll.â?

Quoted: If the young Van Morrison felt awed in such exalted company, he did not show it. In fact, he betrayed little emotion at all, and throughout the session, spoke only to the technicians. ‘There wasn’t much communication,’ recalls Richard Davis, who now teaches music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ‘As far as I can recall, I don’t think I exchanged one word with the guy. We just listened to his songs one time, and then we started playing.’

Quoted: No one has ever won the presidency as a write-in candidate and there are only two examples of successful write-in candidates in national politics, according to John Cooper, a professor of U.S. history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: UW-Madison professor Ken Goldstein is the founder of the ad project, and said watching a candidate’s television spending can tell you, better than anything else, where the real battlegrounds are in an election.

QuotedL Wisconsin statutes give police the authority to place a person on an emergency mental health detention for his or her own protection or the protection of others. Two things are required to place someone on detention, said Ron Diamond, professor of psychology at UW-Madison and the medical director of the Mental Health Center of Dane County.

Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky is a professor of applied economics at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. Reschovsky has worked extensively on the economics of school funding throughout the state.

The advertising advantage held by the Obama campaign this year puts us in uncharted waters,” said Ken Goldstein, a UW-Madison professor who directs the Wisconsin Advertising Project. “This year the spending is hugely unequal and in some cases the Obama campaign has massive advantages.”

Quoted: UW-Madison political scientist David Canon calls it a “crude and outrageous attempt to try to scare people into not voting for Barack Obama.” He says it plays up racial divisions that may exist in Wisconsin, specifically in Wausau.

Quoted: Toma Longinovic, chair of the department of Slavic languages and literature at UW-Madison, sees the vampire as a violent image that matches our increasingly violent everyday: “As a society becomes more saturated with images of violence that we must essentially accept â?? wars, murder, genocides â?? then the vampire becomes more acceptable.”