Vernon Thomson was born in 1905. He went to Richland Center High School and eventually earned a law degree from UW-Madison. He practiced in Richland Center and became active in the Republican Party.
In 1963, Lloyd Barbee, a UW–Madison Law School graduate and NAACP attorney, called on Milwaukee Public Schools to desegregate.
Protesters reached an agreement with University of Wisconsin-Madison administrators in 2024 to end a pro-Palestinian encampment on Library Mall. Two years later, the two sides disagree on whether that deal has been upheld.
Wisconsin families didn’t always dominate the dairy industry. According to UW-Madison, after other states outpaced the Badger State in growing wheat, farmers had to shift to dairy production and adopt entirely new practices — something dairy farmers are always looking to do.
A national organization focused on defending free speech is calling on the University of Wisconsin-Madison to halt its disciplinary investigation into an animal rights student group.
In May 2024, a pro-Palestinian encampment formed on a campus lawn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When the students refused to leave, Jennifer Mnookin, who was then the chancellor of the flagship state university, called in the police to remove their tents. Thirty-four people were arrested.
This fall, the organization plans to release a competitive grant to Wisconsin universities and school districts to determine who the National Center for Grow Your Own will work with. The $300,000 will cover about 15 apprentices, depending on how much universities will charge the prospective teachers, Donaldson said.
Hong grew up in Madison’s Eagle Heights community, a neighborhood near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Her parents emigrated from South Korea to the U.S. in the late 1980s. Her dad is a researcher at UW-Madison’s Waisman Center and her mom was a music teacher.
Rayburn, a UW-Madison graduate who got his start in radio in 2001 when John “Sly” Sylvester hired him at WTDY-AM, says he will bring his own personality to the chair with the “Lee Rayburn Show.”
A radio class in his final semester at UW-Madison changed his career and life trajectory, making Meiller one of the most beloved personalities in Wisconsin.
The fleet of small white robots that have zipped around UW-Madison’s campus since 2019 to deliver dining hall food to students has been permanently powered down.
[Leslie] Petty has more than 30 years of experience in higher education.
“I was the first Black administrator at the University of Wisconsin School of Business,” Petty said.
After eight years at UW-Madison, Petty was hired as dean for the School of Academic Advancement at Madison Area Technical College (MATC).
The Madison Metropolitan School District is celebrating its inaugural Grow Your Own to Teacher Program.
The initiative inaugural cohort completes associate degrees at Madison College and prepares to continue towards teacher licenses through the UW-Madison School of Education.
The first dairy school in the U.S. was established at UW-Madison in 1890.
UW-Madison is responsible for another massive medical advancement — but this one was pharmaceutical, not biological.
Warfarin, one of the most widely used blood thinners on the market, began as a treatment for cows. A Deer Park farmer walked into the laboratory of Karl Paul Link, a biochemist working in the university’s College of Agriculture, because his cows had developed a bleeding disorder.
The genesis of Space Place — the education and public outreach center of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Astronomy — dates to the fall of 1989, at the Memorial Union’s Play Circle.
On this day, June 22, 1931, University of Wisconsin-Madison dedicated its new mechanical engineering building at the North end of Camp Randall.
More than 30 teams participated in this year’s event — raising money for the UW Carbone Cancer Center.
Jade Levendoski put on her cowboy hat and flipped a switch. A red neon light illuminated the hat, matching the color in Levendoski’s pigtails.
“It looks so good!” Kylie Tsai exclaimed.
Levendoski and Tsai put the finishing touches on their art projects this month at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The two were among nine students who took a summer course called “Neon: Light as Sculpture.”
UW-Madison is searching for its next chancellor at the same time recruitment is underway to find a new Universities of Wisconsin president.
Wisconsin residents battling itchy eyes, runny noses and relentless sneezing this summer might figure this year’s allergy season is worse than years past. They would be right.
For as long as motorsports has existed, gas has been perhaps the most important part of raceday.
The cars depend on it, teams hire high-level analysts to maximize it and companies go into bidding wars to ensure their fuel goes into each competitor’s tank.
So what happens when you remove gas from the equation? You get the Sunburst.
Question: What causes a thunderstorm?
Answer: Thunderstorm development requires three basic ingredients: moisture, unstable air and upward motion.
Moisture comes from regions like oceans, lakes and vegetation that provide the water vapor necessary for cloud formation and precipitation.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison law school made misleading statements to The College Fix about its plans to remove a racially discriminatory fellowship description.
As previously reported, a third-party database advertised a law school faculty fellowship as targeted for “candidates of color.” After being pressed for answers, Associate Director of Communications Jennie Broecker told The Fix on May 15 she would ask ProFellow to update the listing.
Community members gathered to remember a young man from Edina whose life touched many people across Minnesota.
Poisoned, killed, skinned and dissected. In 2023, six beagles purchased from Ridglan Farms were injected with methylene blue by researchers at University of Wisconsin–Madison before being euthanized and dissected for research.
Photos obtained through public records during a recent Rise for Animals investigation show the six dogs unconscious before being killed, their organs on display. The images are too graphic for news organizations to publish, and the university unsurprisingly fought to conceal them.
As the founder and executive director of The Playing Field in Madison, I am seeing programs struggle with the reduction and planned elimination this month of Child Care Bridge Payments from the state. A UW-Madison report estimates that as many as 1 in 4 Wisconsin childcare programs could close with significant consequences for families already struggling to find care.
Within the next five years, Wisconsin should have more workers who can help run clinical trials for important research.
That’s the aim of a new program that Madison Area Technical College and the UW-Madison School of Medicine are launching in 2027.
Casey Brown and his father spoke at the May Parks Commission meeting. Aaron Bird Bear, a former UW-Madison director of tribal relations who created the university’s Indigenous land landscape tour, also appeared and spoke about mounds in Madison more broadly.
Brown, who graduated from UW-Madison and is familiar with local politics, said he has never seen a meeting turn around the way this one did.
Wisconsin’s business climate continues to position the state as a competitive location for companies seeking manufacturing strength, cost stability, and long-term operational reliability. Anchored by a deep industrial heritage and a highly productive workforce, Wisconsin offers businesses a favorable environment defined by competitive operating costs, strong infrastructure access, and close connections between industry, higher education, and technical training systems.
When Kris Marconnet was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Nicholas Recreation Center didn’t exist. Instead, she remembers taking an aerobics class in the Natatorium, a “hideously hot” building near the Lakeshore dormitories with no air conditioning.
She didn’t imagine that years later, she would play a hand in designing the new athletic center as part of her work with Thysse (pronounced TIE-See), a facility branding company located in Oregon, Wisconsin — just 10 miles away from the university.
Wisconsin is among 20 states that secured a federal court ruling against a Trump administration policy imposing a $100,000 fee on certain H-1B petitions.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice says the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the policy Monday, finding it unlawful. Wisconsin joined the multistate coalition challenging the policy late last year.
Attorney General Josh Kaul says, “This ruling stops an unlawful policy that shouldn’t have been adopted.” Kaul says the federal government should be addressing workforce shortages in health care and education, not worsening them.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison designated 2026 as the “Year of AI Readiness and Competency” on May 21, formalizing the university’s effort to better prepare students and faculty for thoughtful use of AI.
The campus-wide announcement builds off of previous university investments to further AI use and understanding this year, including a hiring blitz of 50 faculty for the new College of Computing and AI (CAI), which will open July 1, 2026 — bringing the total new faculty hired through the university’s RISE-AI initiative to over 100.
Rural areas of Wisconsin typically rely on volunteers to staff their EMS and fire departments. While the courage of those individuals is necessary, it can translate to longer wait times for patients in critical condition.
The towns of Manitowish Waters, Boulder Junction, Presque Isle and Winchester in Vilas County used to rely on volunteers, and have collaborated in a first-of-its-kind way to solve that problem.
“You’re hoping on people that are working full time jobs and they have families, and are they available?” said Jason Joling, Chief of the Northwoods EMS District.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department (UWPD) announced a renewed call for information about a 58-year-old unsolved murder case of a University of Wisconsin-Madison freshman on May 28.
On the morning of May 26, 1968, UW-Madison freshman Christine “Chris” Rothschild was found strangled and stabbed to death next to Sterling Hall. UWPD attempted to solve the case but it was overshadowed due to anti-war protests on campus and no suspects were arrested. This year marks the 58th anniversary of Rothschild’s murder.
Wisconsin has one of the leading nuclear physics programs in the United States at UW-Madison’s College of Engineering. One of a handful of academic reactors in the United States sits on the UW-Madison campus and its graduates are largely coveted by companies hoping to build a talented workforce.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison offers a course that teaches students to analyze topics such as prisons, welfare, racial justice, and terrorism through the lens of ‘queer of color critique.’
The public university offers a Bachelor of Arts in Gender and Women’s Studies, a program that provides ‘a platform for students to study how equity and social justice are connected to gender, sexuality, and identity.’
“The University of Wisconsin-Madison has done a great job of research and finding a path to help and hopefully someday cure Alzheimer’s,” Lenz said. “So we’re here supporting that initiative to raise funds for everyone so that the research can continue and so that we can find an end to Alzheimer’s.”
A Smithsonian museum specialist will visit Madison later this month for a free lecture focused on the military service of Native Americans.
Rachelle B. Pablo, who is Diné and serves as a Museum Specialist with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, will present “The National Native American Veterans Memorial: Honoring the Military Service of Native Americans” on Tuesday, June 23rd, at 7 p.m. at the Fluno Center on the UW-Madison campus.
Broadway legend and University of Wisconsin-Madison alum André de Shields says he’s dropping a “joy bomb” on the world with his work in a reimagined revival of a classic musical.
Last weekend, de Shields performed at the 2026 Tony Awards, where he was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical. The nomination was for his portrayal of the wise and respected Old Deuteronomy in “CATS: the Jellicle Ball” a new version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s play.
It was the second and final day of the Democratic State Convention and all seven democratic candidates running for governor were given five minutes to tell their party why they should be the democratic nominee for governor.
Democratic activists today approved a slate of resolutions that call for the abolishment of ICE, the support of gender-affirming care for young people, and an end to the state’s choice and voucher programs.
The resolutions were largely approved by voice vote without debate. But the party broke out two resolutions for discussion, including one that called for raising the minimum wage to a living wage of roughly $21 an hour.
If you’re finalizing a late-summer itinerary for Paris or planning a fall foliage tour through Japan, you may be thinking about how you can best learn a little French or Japanese before you go — and with good reason. Learning a language for travel not only helps with logistics like getting directions but also fosters deeper connections with a country’s people and culture.
For a long time, Megan Kokalj refused to jump into the water at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Soderholm Family Aquatic Center from any point higher than the 5-meter platform.
Here’s what guests on the June 12, 2026 episode said about a PFAS settlement, housing help for renters, the State Health Assessment and UW tuition hikes.
The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) is seeking state approval to change how it ranks high school students for the Wisconsin Guarantee program, potentially affecting how many students are automatically admitted into University of Wisconsin-system schools.
Students who place in the top 10% of their class at the end of the 11th grade are automatically admitted to all UW universities, save for UW-Madison, under a state program known as the Wisconsin Guarantee, provided they apply by the regular deadlines. Students who apply by the early deadline and rank in the top 5% of their class are automatically admitted to UW-Madison.
On August 15, 2025, five former University of Wisconsin women’s basketball players filed a federal lawsuit claiming they experienced psychological abuse and discrimination by former head coach Marisa Moseley. The suit also alleges the university failed to respond appropriately and includes claims of retaliation, emotional harm, and disability discrimination.
The Wisconsin Dive Club held its final practice at the Soderholm Family Aquatic Center, ending a three-and-a-half-year run at the downtown Madison facility.
The club, which serves nearly 90 families, will no longer have access to the pool this fall after the University of Wisconsin-Madison denied its specific request for pool time.
Katie Knill said her son joined the club almost a year ago.
Infleqtion, a leading quantum tech firm with offices in Madison, is accelerating with $550 million in new funding after going public earlier this year.
Chief Scientist and UW-Madison physics Prof. Mark Saffman addressed attendees of yesterday’s launch event for the Wisconsin Quantum Alliance in Madison, organized by the Wisconsin Technology Council. The initiative aims to accelerate tech development and commercialization of quantum in Wisconsin, as well as preparing for future workforce needs.
From bus routes to a new train service, University of Wisconsin-Madison students are fueling alternative transportation options in Madison.
A 2023 UW Transportation Services survey showed 70% of students walk or ride the bus on good weather days and 80% on bad weather days.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCIS) announced a new policy memo May 22 stating that individuals seeking a green card must return to their home countries to complete the process. Students who arrive on visas and stay for longer than its validity will be among those most affected.
The USCIS memo describes obtaining a green card, or an “adjustment of status,” as an “extraordinary act of administrative grace,” and a privilege granted by the government rather than a right.
Madison’s City Council approved plans Tuesday to redesign Regent Street near Camp Randall Stadium, following months of debate over a new layout for one of Madison’s main cultural hubs and one of the west side’s major east-west connector streets.
The Universities of Wisconsin’s search for UW-Madison’s next chancellor is kicking off with public input sessions starting next week.
The 23-member committee leading the search to identify former Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s successor will gather feedback from the faculty, staff, students and the public on Monday and June 22 at two listening sessions, the university announced Tuesday.
Newly disclosed records have put a new focus on the beagles used in research facilities. At UW-Madison, dogs were involved in 2023 experiments that included injections of blue dye before the animals were euthanized and dissected.
Those records, secured by the animal advocacy organization Rise for Animals and first reported by FOX6 News, intensify the continuing attention on Ridglan Farms and broader animal-welfare concerns.
A plant in one of UW-Madison’s greenhouses is making a dramatic exit.
The Botany Garden and Greenhouse’s Agave victoriae-reginae plant, which is about 30 years old, has erected a towering 15-foot “death bloom,” which looks like a spikey, oversized stalk of asparagus, as a finale to its multigenerational lifespan.
Aid for childcare providers is expiring, the Universities of Wisconsin raises tuition, and the state reaches a $10 million PFAS settlement — Inside Wisconsin Politics reviews a busy start to summer.
A new report from the University of Wisconsin says tuition in the state is actually too low.
UW regents last week voted for a 2% tuition increase across the UW System, but the report from the university’s Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy said that tuition increase is modest at best.
The University of Wisconsin board has approved a tuition increase of 2% for the 2026-2027 academic year. That decision has some lawmakers in disagreement.
Before documents detailing its use of Ridglan Farms beagles in a 2023 study could become public, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine released a statement June 5 alongside a letter to clients of UW Veterinary Care, an animal hospital run by the university.
What we know:
In January 2023, the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine bought six, 11-month-old beagles from Ridglan Farms.
More than 1,600 beagles once caged at Ridglan Farms are getting a second chance at life. But for every Bailey, Milo, Lucy, or Ginger, there are countless others whose fate looks different.
