Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center director, said the main source of distrust in elections are messages from political leaders to their followers indicating they should be distrustful.
“As the most important voice in one of the major parties, Trump has a unique ability to undermine public confidence through his rhetoric, even though it is often detached from facts about the situation,” Burden said.
Top graduate schools in Wisconsin landed on the latest U.S. News & World Report list ranking more than 2,000 programs across the country. U.S. News & World Report published its 2024-’25 report in April, ranking graduate programs in business, education, law and nursing, among other fields.
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s the School of Education tied for first overall with Teacher’s College, Columbia University, according the report. That’s up from third overall and second among public universities last year.
In 1951, Velvalea Phillips became the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School and in 1956, she became the first woman and first Black member of the Milwaukee Common Council.
Heather Kirkorian, professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researches the effects of media on children’s development. Kirkorian said media effects vary widely among individuals, noting it can pose both positive and negative outcomes. While clear evidence exists of manipulative practices to keep youth engaged longer, she said a direct link is lacking between the use of social media and an increase in suicidal ideation or mental health problems.
“It’s really important for us to understand that the effects of media are not the same for everybody, and some groups of children might be disproportionately affected by media,” Kirkorian said.
A newly released third-party analysis raises concerns about the financial future of multiple state universities.
“We have heard from Milwaukee listeners for years that they want us to bring classical music radio back to the city and this will do just that,” Marta Bechtol, executive director of the Educational Communications Board, said in a statement from WPR. The board operates WPR and PBS Wisconsin in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Newly released reports raise questions about the financial viability of Wisconsin’s public universities and signal additional cuts coming to some campuses in future years.
One of the event’s sponsors was UW-Madison’s Kemp Natural Resources Station. Kelly Tyrell, a spokesperson for UW-Madison said in a statement that the speaker at the GLTPA conference is chosen by a committee and that the university hosts speakers on a viewpoint neutral basis.
A UW-Madison professor explains new research and immigration patterns in the Darién Gap. Then, a hematologist discusses a rare blood disease known as amyloidosis. Then, WPR’s Lori Skelton previews the spring concert season.
New programs are working to fill the gaps. A new University of Wisconsin-Madison Special Education Teacher Residency Program covers the cost of an in-state resident’s master’s degree in special education and provides a stipend for students who agree to work at Milwaukee Public Schools. And the new Wisconsin Special Educators Induction Program provides coaching and training for new special education teachers.
Ezra Klein, New York Times columnist, podcast host, and bestselling author of “Why We’re Polarized”, will be in Wisconsin later this month for a presentation on why American politics is so polarized and what it has done to electoral institutions, policymaking, and the media. Before his stint at the Times, he was the founder, editor-in-chief, and then editor-at-large of Vox, the explanatory news platform, which has won many awards and now reaches more than 50 million people each month.
There are many types of cicadas in North America. Some emerge every year, often in July and August. These cicadas have life cycles of about 2-3 years, PJ Liesch, extension entomologist and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Insect Diagnostics Lab, told the Journal Sentinel.
“First, consider whether an online savings account is the only banking product you need right now,” says Jonathon Ferguson, a financial capability specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Financial Education Division of Extension. “Online savings accounts can be great due to their relatively high-interest rates and tech tools. However, these accounts do not solve all needs.”
America dropped 20 spots in the latest World Happiness Report. We talk with Christine Whelan, a UW-Madison consumer science professor, about the trends contributing to lower happiness and what can be done about it.
Collectively, about five million Americans are diagnosed with either MS or Sjogren’s disease. Interview with Dr. Sara McCoy, a clinical rheumatologist at UW Health and director of the Sjogren’s Syndrome Clinic.
We live in a time when fake news permeates social media feeds and partisan coverage blasts through some cable news channels. Teaching media literacy can help people wade through the disinformation and become critical news consumers. As Christina Lieffring tells us, a video game created by UW-Madison’s Field Day Labs aims to teach students to become more media literate and what it takes to be a journalist.
Joshua Calhoun, professor in the Department of English at UW-Madison, discusses how Shakespeare’s sonnets have been organized, printed and grouped over the centuries. Calhoun explores love and heartbreak in the poems.
Brandon Maly, chair of the Republican Party of Dane County, posted a photo on X of a large crowd of people gathered on UW-Madison’s Library Mall. Those people were “out in full force at UW Madison today protesting Biden,” he claimed.
Multiple news reports confirm that the people were in fact there to watch the eclipse.
Avian flu remains prevalent in Wisconsin’s wild bird populations and the risk to farms this year is about the same as recent years, said Ron Kean, a poultry specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension. Kean said lasers are a great option to reduce spread of the disease.
“Keeping the wild birds away from our domestic birds seems to be a big part of biosecurity,” he said.
America dropped 20 spots in the latest World Happiness Report. We talk with Christine Whelan, a UW-Madison consumer science professor, about the trends contributing to lower happiness and what can be done about it.
Ken Knobel of San Francisco traveled to Wisconsin to visit his son at UW-Madison over the weekend and decided to watch the eclipse from Milwaukee because of the clear skies.
“I think the most exciting part of it is that it’s, for some people, once in a lifetime,” said Knobel, who said it’s the first eclipse he’s ever watched.
An analysis by the University of Wisconsin’s Student Success Through Applied Research Lab found in 2020 that the largest group of borrowers — 23% of those with student debt — owed between $20,000 and $40,000, and 21% owed between $10,000 and $20,000.
Nielsen data shows that the top streaming service on home televisions is not Netflix or Hulu but YouTube. UW–Madison media studies professors Jonathan Gray and Derek Johnson weigh in on how the video social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok are becoming the top competition for the television and movie industries.
The University of Wisconsin System is becoming more family friendly.
Employees will receive six weeks of paid parental leave after the birth or adoption of a child under a new policy bringing UW campuses in line with many other universities across the country. The policy takes effect July 1.
Nearly three-quarters of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh do not approve of Chancellor Andrew Leavitt’s job performance.
Ever since the days of Puritan New England, American governments have struggled to define the relationship between religion and a secular nation. In recent years, that struggle has become increasingly strident with the rise of the Christian Right. What is the relationship between the Christian Right and traditional evangelicals? At what point did the Christian Right become an influence in US presidential elections? And who were the key players in that development? Historian Dan Hummel of UW-Madison will take us into the world of the Christian Right and its influence in American politics.
UW-Madison Office of Student Financial Aid assistant director of federal awards Katy Weisenburger describes nationwide difficulties with the FAFSA process and impacts on Wisconsin college students.
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh faculty voted no-confidence in their chancellor, sending a symbolic message of disapproval during a difficult budget year.
Bo Ryan is officially a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer. Ryan, 76, on Saturday was named to the Hall of Fame, in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was also a Hall of Fame finalist in 2023, but didn’t make the cut despite an impressive resume. Ryan in 2017 was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
University of Wisconsin-Madison criminal justice professor Kenneth Streit said the new unit will allow people on the waitlist for Mendota and other state mental hospitals to get treatment at a civil facility sooner, with more access to personal space and state-trained medical professionals. Many are currently languishing in county jails.
“A person’s going to have much more contact with people who are aware of what their symptoms are and aware of how that person should be behaving,” Streit said
Anglers aren’t the only ones catching something out in Wisconsin waters. University of Wisconsin researchers have detected almost 20 viruses in wild sport fish, including a distant relative of coronavirus that’s usually associated with birds.
The State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School also examined the referendum language and found that Wisconsin didn’t lay out some exceptions that other states have.
“Even states that have restricted the use of private funding or resources have often included exceptions for common donations, such as private spaces for use as polling locations or food and beverages for poll workers,” staff attorney Emily Lau wrote in an analysis of the referendums.
Samantha Crowley, a medical student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said during the Biden campaign’s press conference that a national abortion ban would “take away the reproductive freedoms” of over 1 million Wisconsin women. She said Trump’s largely taken credit for the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision getting overturned.
A lab at UW-Madison is working to create an atlas of prenatal brains with Down syndrome in an effort to better understand the condition. Anita Bhattacharyya, the leader of the lab, joins us.
Johnson grew up in the city’s troubled 53206 zip code and attended Milwaukee Public Schools. He was one of 10 siblings — his father worked as a janitor for the Milwaukee Public School District and his mother as a certified nursing assistant. After attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he returned to his hometown to work for the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, now Employ Milwaukee.
A former construction worker at Camp Randall Stadium settled for $22 million from a general contractor after burning over 70% of his body in an explosion in 2022, according to the man’s attorney.
“String Theory: The Richard Davis Method”: Richard Davis, the legendary bass player who became a revered music professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, gets a much-deserved spotlight in this documentary portrait.
As polls closed throughout most of Wisconsin for this battleground state’s spring primary election, one voting site’s hours were extended by 90 minutes. The court-ordered adjustment was a response to what officials have chalked up to a mistake made by University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Union employees.
This April, which marks Donate Life Month, the UW Health Transplant Center is reflecting on a major milestone. In Feb. 2024, surgeons completed the 20,000th organ transplant in the program’s history.
“Kind of top of mind is the fact that, how many people have helped that many people receive the gift of life,” Dr. Dixon Kaufman, UW Health Transplant Center’s medical director, said. “At the top of that list are all the organ donors [and] their families — the vast majority from our community and the state of Wisconsin. That … allows us to give the gift of life to so many people.”
The symposium kicks off at 6 p.m. April 12 with a keynote presentation (via Zoom) by Stanley Temple of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on “The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Then and Now: Is it Still Working?” Temple will talk about the first century of migratory bird protection and speculate about its future, given ongoing challenges from loss and degradation of habitat, collisions with human-made structures, predation by cats, pesticide poisoning and oil spills.
This year, the U.S. Department of Education revised their Free Application for Federal Student Aid – or FAFSA. They say that the new application is more user friendly and could broaden eligibility for federal aid by more than 600,000 students.
The Massachusetts General Hospital recently completed the world’s first successful transplant of a genetically altered pig kidney. A pair of Wisconsin kidney specialists share their insights on this milestone. Then, we dive further into chronic kidney disease, including transplantation and dialysis. Includes interview with Dr. Didier Mandelbrot, the medical director of the UW Health Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation Program
Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said the case highlights the importance of immediate action by dairy farmers if they see disease symptoms in their animals, which can include decreased lactation and low appetite. He said the people working on a farm with sick animals should be monitored closely.
“We don’t think that it’s a significant public health threat at this point,” Poulsen said. “But just like in our farms with poultry (highly pathogenic) avian influenza, they’re getting a large challenge, so we need to watch them very closely, and make sure that everyone is provided with the best public health care that we have available.”
Concordia University Wisconsin will lay off 24 employees at its Mequon campus, according to a federal WARN Notice filed with the state Department of Workforce Development.
In the dark, dungeon-like basement of Birge Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researcher Guilherme Gainett examined a tiny arachnid under a microscope and jumped from his chair in excitement.
It is likely the election funding ballot initiative will pass, but it is hard to gauge voter turnout in a presidential primary when neither major party has a competitive contest, said Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
University of Wisconsin-Madison public affairs assistant professor and property tax expert Ross Milton said it is hard to find academic literature with “real world evidence” of how higher property taxes are shared between tenants and landlords.
He said renters voting Tuesday should be aware that landlords can decide to make them bear the brunt of higher property taxes. However, Milton added that property companies can raise rent whenever they want in Wisconsin, regardless of a new tax. “We don’t have rent control in Wisconsin,” Milton said.
Potential solutions to the problem are ongoing across the state. Brining, where salt is mixed with water before being applied to roads, cleared Wisconsin highways faster and resulted in a 23% reduction in salt use on average, a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found. Some counties even use beet juice as a brining agent to allow the solution to work at colder temperatures, since standard road salt won’t work if it’s colder than 15 degrees.
One of the most common myths about dementia — a general impairment in thinking and memory — is that it’s a normal part of aging. But Dr. Nathaniel Chin, an assistant professor and geriatrician at UW Health, wants to bust that myth.
“There are plenty of people who live a really long and healthy life that never develop advanced thinking changes,” said Chin, the director of medical services with the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and host of the “Dementia Matters” podcast.
Many people seek the help of professionals after the death of a spouse or partner. We talk with Shilagh Mirgain, a psychologist from UW Health, about what options are available and how to decide what is right for you.
For the most part, the winter season was downright balmy, with only one small stretch of negative temperatures in January, making it the warmest on record for Wisconsin, said Steve Vavrus, Wisconsin’s state climatologist and the assistant director at the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Center for Climatic Research. The El Nino effect — which carries warm air from the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean across the U.S. — is largely to blame for the warmth.
“It was a full two degrees warmer than the previous record, which is a huge amount,” he said. “We had the warmest December on record. We had the warmest February on record and we had the 10th warmest January on record. So that really is extreme in terms of consistent warmth over a whole season.”
Reasons for the lack of candidates include the time commitment matched with lack of monetary compensation as well as declining participation in local government, according to Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The positions often entail significant time commitments, do not provide much if any monetary compensation, and subject people to complaints, criticism, and even harassment,” Burden told The Post-Crescent.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department (UWPD) launched a one-button alert system. The new tool aims to accelerate critical emergency notifications during a deadly, active threat.
Wisconsin’s in-state undergraduate students will see a tuition hike of 3.75 percent in the fall, Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman announced Thursday.
Before she was “The Bachelorette,” she was a Wisconsin Badger.
That’s right, Jenn Tran — the show’s first Asian American lead — is a University of Wisconsin-Madison alum.
The closure of two University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee branch campuses will lead to the layoffs of tenured faculty members under a policy that’s previously been applied just once.
The University of Wisconsin System wants to increase tuition for in-state undergraduates by 3.75% next school year, UW System President Jay Rothman said Thursday.
If approved, it would be the second consecutive increase for resident students after a decade of seeing their base tuition rate frozen. Tuition increased by an average of 5% this school year.
Party platforms have internal and external purposes, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center.
Internally, the platform serves to get all party faithful around the country on the same page, he said. The document is worked out in the lead-up to the convention and adopted by delegates at the event itself.
For the members of Ohe·láku, a co-op of Oneida Nation families growing their traditional white corn together, what started as an experiment has become a success story.
A few years ago, they partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to test different cover crop mixes to restore soil they grow on, which had been depleted under prior ownership. Cover crops are left in the soil after the primary crop is harvested. The idea is to make sure the fields are never bare, increasing soil fertility, limiting runoff and keeping the soil moist.
“From Community Benefits, to Collective Bargaining, and Back” was written by researchers Pablo Aquiles-Sanchez and Laura Dresser of the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The center describes itself as a “think-and-do tank” promoting solutions to social problems that focus on shared growth and opportunity, environmental sustainability and resilient democratic institutions as “necessary and achievable complements in human development.”
