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Category: UW-Madison Related

Vintage 70s Selfies Show an Artist Discovering Her Sexuality

Vice

Meisler got her first camera in second grade, but it wasn’t until she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in Madison during the mid-1970s that she became serious about the form while pursuing an MFA in illustration. During school breaks, she returned to her childhood home, where she staged a series of self-portraits that examined her past, present, and future.

Supreme Court’s conservatives appear set to strike down union fees on free-speech grounds

Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court upheld mandatory bar dues for lawyers in 1990, relying on the Abood decision. And in 2000, the court rejected a free-speech challenge to the required student fees at state universities. Conservative students at the University of Wisconsin had sued, contending they should not be forced to subsidize left-leaning speakers and student groups.

Why hiring the ‘best’ people produces the least creative results

Quartz

While in graduate school in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I took a logic course from David Griffeath. The class was fun. Griffeath brought a playfulness and openness to problems. Much to my delight, about a decade later, I ran into him at a conference on traffic models. During a presentation on computational models of traffic jams, his hand went up. I wondered what Griffeath—a mathematical logician—would have to say about traffic jams. He did not disappoint. Without even a hint of excitement in his voice, he said: ‘If you are modeling a traffic jam, you should just keep track of the non-cars.’

JFC Harrison obituary

The Guardian

During its writing he had enjoyed a year as a visiting fellow at the School for Workers run by the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and in 1961 he returned there to a professorship in the department of history. Many friends thought he might settle in the US for good, but his former Leeds colleague Asa Briggs lured him back to the UK and the chair of social history at the University of Sussex in 1970.

‘Cheaters edition’ of Monopoly cheerfully caters to sordid reality

The Washington Post

There are many versions of Monopoly, most created to attract fans of one thing or another. Those who loved “The Force Awakens” might buy the Star Wars edition, for example, while University of Wisconsin Badgers might display a copy of Wisconsinopoly atop their bookcases. But these versions still expect players to follow the rules, making the cheaters edition one of its more radical spin offs.

Majic Productions stages pre-Super Bowl festivities in Minneapolis

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: A husband-wife team, the Jurkens met while planning events as students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.The pair teamed up on planning all-campus parties through the Wisconsin Alumni Student Board. For one, they set up a tent dubbed “Club Bucky” and threw a 4,000-person dance party inside. The Jurkens graduated in 2010 and wed two years later.

Do I make myself clear? Media training for scientists

Science Magazine

Other institutions offering programs to train scientists in communications include the University of Michigan, which has a workshop and community events, launched in 2013 by two graduate students. Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin have had such programs for decades, and dozens more are cropping up, some in the early stages of growth.

States Getting the Most (and Least) Sleep

247 Wall Street

To determine the states where residents report getting the most and least sleep, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the share of adults in every state who get less than seven hours of sleep. These figures were obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The share of adults in each state reporting frequent mental distress was compiled by County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute joint program using 2014 CDC data.

Lake Zurich couple enters online grant contest to fuel aquaponics farm

Chicago Tribune

Johnson said the decision to pursue aquaponics came from attending the College of Lake County, where she earned an associate’s degree in Applied Science in Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Areas Management. From there, Johnson and her husband enrolled in classes at Cornell University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Wisconsin to further their knowledge. They are also members at a number of local and international groups and associations on aquaponics and farming.

The Lovely Tale of an Adorable Squid and Its Glowing Partner

The Atlantic

A few years ago, in a laboratory at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, I walked into a mostly dark room, with a single light illuminating a plastic cup. Within the cup were dozens of tiny white blobs, each smaller than a pea. They were baby Hawaiian bobtail squid, and they were adorable. Their diminutive arms trailed behind them as they bobbed in the water, and the pigment cells that would eventually allow their adult selves to change color gave their infant faces a freckled appearance.

UW students present costs of EMS merger

Cambridge News

Graduate students from UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs presented a cost-benefit analysis of consolidation at a Jan. 18 Deer-Grove EMS meeting.

UW students Erwin Chen, David Harms, Ian Korpel, Ruanda McFerren, Zachary Petersen and Mathew L. Rohrbeck presented two consolidation models.

MWERC opens Madison office

BizTimes

“This partnership will more closely align M-WERC and our members to the premier research institution in the University of Wisconsin System and represents another significant step in reaching across the Midwest to foster industrial collaboration and realize our goal of more quickly transitioning technology innovation into economic growth and job creation in the energy power and controls sector,” Perlstein said.

Science-Fiction Writer Ursula K. Le Guin Dies at 88

AP

A longtime feminist, Ms. Le Guin earned degrees from Radcliffe and Columbia. Her 1983 “Left-Handed Commencement Address” at Mills College was ranked one of the top 100 speeches of the 20th century in a 1999 survey by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Texas A&M University.

Seeking harmony in performance and life: Inside the musical marriage of Leo and Soh-Hyun Park Altino

Wisconsin State Journal

In the piece that violinist (and UW-Madison assistant professorSoh-Hyun Park Altino and cellist Leo Altino will perform in Capitol Theater Friday night with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra — Brahms’ Double Concerto in A minor — each instrument starts off with a cadenza, where the soloists play individually.

Surprise Democratic winner of Wisconsin special election is a school board member

The Washington Post

An interest in education issues could affect elections later this year in a state where public education advocates have accused the Walker administration of cutting K-12 funding (even though Walker says he is spending more than ever in the state), stripping teachers of collective bargaining rights and attempting to change the long-standing mission of the University of Wisconsin system.

Nearly 100 scientists spent 2 months on Google Docs to redefine the p-value. Here’s what they came up with

Science Magazine

Daniel Bradford, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, was “excited about helping” with the paper. “I had been a longtime student of statistics and I had been joining the waves of discussion of methodological reform in psychology,” he says. Bradford was initially skeptical that the crowdsourcing authorship process would work. “I have collaborated on papers with only five authors and often thought that things would be much more efficient if the author list was even shorter than that,” he says.

Surprise Democratic winner of Wisconsin special election is a school board member

The Washington Post

An interest in education issues could affect elections later this year in a state where public education advocates have accused the Walker administration of cutting K-12 funding (even though Walker says he is spending more than ever in the state), stripping teachers of collective bargaining rights and attempting to change the long-standing mission of the University of Wisconsin system.

‘My name is Lorraine Hansberry’: New PBS documentary tells her story

Chicago Tribune

Hansberry did not remain in Chicago after attending the University of Wisconsin. By her early 20s, she was married to a fellow radical, a white, Jewish guy named Robert Nemiroff. They lived at 337 Bleecker St. and together imbued all that was Greenwich Village in the 1950s. But there is no question that Chicago and its theater formed her artistry. She had been exposed to Chicago theater as a child. And she rapidly figured out that playwriting was a way to make people both think and feel, and to express the ideas in which she believed. It was the theater that would allow Hansberry to fight.

The 1962 Alcatraz Prison Break, Inspired by Popular Mechanics

Popular Mechanics

This man’s name is Bayard Richard, and you shouldn’t worry about him. He swam backstroke for the University of Wisconsin, and could make it to the edge of the pool and climb out whenever he wants. Richard is thirty years old and works at Popular Mechanics in the promotions department. Mostly he comes up with ideas to get companies interested in buying ads—mailers, meetings, stuff like that.

A Modest Immigration Proposal: Ban Jews

The New York Times

In 1914, Edward Alsworth Ross, the famous progressive sociologist from the University of Wisconsin, called Jews “moral cripples” whose “tribal spirit intensified by social isolation prompts them to rush to the rescue of the caught rascal of their own race.” Subversion? During the campaign, Donald Trump said at a New Hampshire rally that Syrian refugees “could make the Trojan horse look like peanuts.”

New documentary chronicles the brief but brilliant life of Lorraine Hansberry

Chicago Sun Times

Raised as part of a prominent, groundbreaking family on Chicago’s South Side (her father, a successful real estate broker, was dubbed “The Kitcheonette King”), Hansberry spent a brief period at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to New York in 1950 where, before turning to the theater, she worked as a journalist and political activist. Along the way she would cross paths with everyone from Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois and James Baldwin to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

School District to Settle Transgender Student’s Lawsuit

The Cut

Whitaker, who is currently a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, alleged that officials at his former high school invasively monitored his bathroom use, forbade him from running for prom king, ostracized him, repeatedly called him by his birth name, and referred to him using female pronouns, according to the Transgender Law Center.

School district settles discrimination lawsuit with transgender student

Miami Herald

Whitaker said in a statement released by the Transgender Law Center that he’s “deeply relieved” that what he called a “long, traumatic” part of his life is over. “Winning this case was so empowering and made me feel like I can actually do something to help other trans youth live authentically,” he said. Whitaker is now a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Buzzfeed News reported.

An Interview with Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold

The Yale Politic

And I can say that, because I can remember—I went to the University of Wisconsin, Madison—I was 18, and I thought, “Eh.” High school was fine, I enjoyed it, but all of a sudden, I had all my books for all my classes, and I looked at them and I thought, “I want to learn all of this.” And that feeling has never left me.

Klement’s Sausage names industry veteran as new CEO

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “Being a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate and a resident of Wisconsin for most of my life, I understand the passion and dedication that the Klement family and all our current and former employees have shared to make Klement’s one of the leading sausage brands in the U.S.,” Danneker said in the statement. “I look forward to continuing to grow Klement’s strong position in Milwaukee and Wisconsin and to sharing our love of sausage with consumers throughout the country.”