Blackhawk Church Pastor of College-Age & Young Adult Ministry Michael Knapstad said the Middleton church has created an adopt-a-dorm program.
Local church supports quarantined UW-Madison students with snack donations
Channel 3000
Category: Community
Black Maternal and Child Health Alliance launched to improve the birth outcomes of Black mothers and babies in Dane County
Noted: The group will be co-chaired by inaugural members Dr. Tiffany Green, assistant professor in the Departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Alia Stevenson, Chief Programs Officer with the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness.
“The Black Maternal & Child Health Alliance is comprised of Black women serving in important roles in health care, our community, and as decision-makers and knowledge experts. Our highest priority is to ensure that the health and wellbeing of Black mothers remains front and center,” says Co-Chairs Green and Stevenson in a statement. “As the Alliance moves forward, we are pleased to join the Dane County Health Council as we work together to advance the health of Black mothers, babies and their families in this county.”
Group formed to address Black maternal health, infant mortality in Dane County
Wisconsin State Journal
The 21-member group, announced Thursday, is led by Dr. Tiffany Green, a UW-Madison obstetrician-gynecologist, and Alia Stevenson, chief programs officer with the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness.
UW-Madison Wastewater Surveillance Program Begins Statewide Sampling
The Daily Cardinal
In March, Martin Shafer, a scientist at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) and UW-Madison College of Engineering, noticed a trend in COVID-19 testing techniques.
Amid national racial justice protests, UW students drive Madison’s own reckoning
Badger Herald
Sept. 12, around 100 University of Wisconsin students gathered in the rain to demonstrate, placing mock gravestones and a “RIP UW” sign in front of the Gordon Dining and Event Center.
Business school partnership with non-profit assists underrepresented students in finance world
Badger Herald
Access Distributed, a non-profit organization, formed a partnership with the University of Wisconsin and the School of Business to help students from underrepresented backgrounds get jobs in high-ranking positions in the finance industry.
Dane County calls on UW to close dorms following campus COVID-19 outbreaks
Badger Herald
At least 74% of Dane County’s new positive cases have been connected to UW since beginning of September.
Residents frustrated as UW drives Dane County’s COVID-19 upswing
Daily Cardinal
With positive cases per day rising with a sudden spike in cases on the isthmus in early September, little guesswork needs to be done to determine who the culprit might be — university students.
Dane County asks UW-Madison to send undergrads who live in dorms home
WKOW-TV 27
Due to the rise in COVID-19 cases on the UW-Madison campus, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi is asking university officials to require undergraduates living in residence halls to move back home for the rest of this semester.
Madison mayor blaming parties for increase in cases at UW-Madison
WISC-TV 3
Madison’s mayor thinks she knows exactly what’s causing so many college students to catch COVID-19, and in her mind, it’s preventable.
Dane Co. sets new single-day record for coronavirus cases, at least half among UW-Madison students, staff
WISC-TV 3
PHMDC officials said the number of confirmed cases includes people tested on the UW-Madison campus, but it does not account for students or staff who may have been tested at off-campus sites. As more contact tracing is completed, officials expect the proportion cases tied to UW-Madison to increase.
State Street Brats announces temporary closure
NBC-15
“To prioritize the safety of our customers, employees and community, we will be closed until further notice,” the bar posted on Instagram.
What new police accountability measures would mean for Madison: An interview with Matthew Mitnick
Daily Cardinal
Mitnick, a UW-Madison student and former candidate for the Madison City Council, is a current member of the Madison Public Safety Review Committee.
Kohl Center approved as site that may be used for in-person absentee voting
NBC-15
While the athletic center was approved, Madison election day polling locations are not confirmed yet.
Protesters hold Justice for Jacob Blake march in Madison
NBC-15
Nearly one week after a police officer in Kenosha shot Jacob Blake, protesters in Madison marched for justice Saturday afternoon, marching from UW-Madison’s Library Mall to the Wisconsin Department of Justice building. The DOJ’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) is investigating Blake’s shooting.
Online panels Thursday to focus on anti-racist schools, virtual learning
Wisconsin State Journal
The first event, which requires registration, is hosted by the UW-Madison School of Education’s Professional Learning and Community Education department, or PLACE, and Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. The 3 to 5 p.m. discussion on anti-racism in schools is the first in a “Real Talk for Real Change” symposia series that will continue through the fall.
Protesters march down State Street to protest police brutality, white supremacy at UW
Badger Herald
Tuesday, around 100 protesters gathered at the Capitol and marched down State Street to demand the City of Madison and the University of Wisconsin take action against white supremacy and police brutality.
‘Absolutely horrific’: Madison responds to Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake
Wisconsin State Journal
Protesters made their way toward UW-Madison’s campus chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “Jacob Blake.” They briefly held up traffic on Johnson Street, where they shouted “all cops are bad cops” at a handful of police officers watching from the curb.
Paul Fanlund: On race, a reminder that Madison is two cities
The Capital Times
Let’s be honest. Madison has always struggled to expand or even maintain its ranks of professionals of color. I’ve witnessed firsthand the turmoil felt by Blacks about the price their families pay to live in a city where their numbers are so few and their sense of being scrutinized so constant. Which makes the perspective of Patrick Sims so relevant. Sims came through Chicago’s troubled public schools to graduate from Yale University and earn a master’s degree in the professional theater program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Younger generation steps in as poll workers for August primary
NBC-15
Nathan Haimowitz says this primary is his first time as poll worker. The 20-year-old UW-Madison student has said he is enjoying watching the voting process unfold.
Reported Big Ten football cancellation deals economic blow to Badger-reliant businesses
Wisconsin State Journal
An already-battered Madison hospitality industry could take another hit worth tens of millions of dollars if the Big Ten Conference ultimately decides to cancel the fall football season because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Metro Transit to boost service as COVID-19 pandemic continues
Wisconsin State Journal
Service will increase by approximately 300 bus hours a day, from 700 to approximately 1,000, not including UW-Madison campus circulators or service for the Madison School District, Metro planning manager Drew Beck said. The pre-COVID-19 level was about 1,300 bus hours a day.
The Wisconsin Black Market
The Daily Cardinal
The Wisconsin Black Market is an Instagram page that showcases Black business owners in Wisconsin. The creators, Nalah Shea and Jalia Labre, hope this page will foster a prosperous Black market in Wisconsin.
New program brings learning, interaction for 3rd and 4th graders at Penn Park
The Capital Times
Shortly after finding out about the money from the county, Mt. Zion lead pastor Rev. Marcus Allen called University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Gloria Ladson-Billings about getting something started. “Like this,” he said while snapping his fingers, “she had a whole acronym and everything ready to go.” Ladson-Billings said she’s “been thinking about questions of summer slide for a while,” and this was a good opportunity to put some of those thoughts into practice.
UW students push voting during pandemic with masks, TikToks
The Capital Times
Kathy Cramer, who leads the BadgersVote committee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that group’s activities have shifted to virtual engagement and absentee voting education.
‘New Voter Project’ aims to register 1000 new youth voters in Madison area
Channel 3000
Students from UW-Madison are teaming with non-profit group WISPIRG in an effort to register 1,000 new voters ahead of the fall election.
Proposal would rename Madison elementary school after late Black community leader
WKOW-TV 27
“Two summers ago, we became aware of some research that had been done that had been commissioned by Chancellor Blank at UW-Madison looking into the KKK’s presence at the university,” said Adam Zingsheim, principal of Philip H. Falk Elementary. Zingsheim says that research found Philip Falk — a former Madison superintendent — had also been a member of a KKK student group.
Women’s suffrage exhibition at DeForest Area Historical Society
DeForest Times-Tribune
Noted: Before that, on Thursday, Aug. 6, there will be a virtual program entitled “Black Male Suffrage in Early Wisconsin,” presented by Dr. Christy Clark Pujara, assistant professor of history, Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It will tell the story of Ezekiel Gillespie, a Black Milwaukee resident, who asked that his name be added to the list of eligible voters on Oct. 31, 1865.
COVID-19 antibody detection up slightly as cases, hospitalizations rise
Wisconsin State Journal
The state Department of Health Services is partnering with UW-Madison’s Survey of the Health of Wisconsin to embark on a study of the prevalence of COVID-19 antibodies throughout the state. Past SHOW participants, from 10 randomly selected counties and the city of Milwaukee, will receive antibody testing quarterly over the next year.
COVID-19 posing difficult choices for Wisconsin’s immigrant workers
Wisconsin State Journal
Shiva Bidar, UW Health chief diversity officer and a Madison City Council member, confirmed that Wisconsin residents can come to their health facilities and receive care, no questions asked. “We’ll make sure they go where they need care and nobody’s asking them to pay up front for anything,” Bidar said. “We will figure out on the back end what we need to do to make sure that their bills are covered.”
Contact tracers work to curb, keep up with growing COVID-19 outbreak
Wisconsin State Journal
Equipped with a laptop, legal pad and smartphone, Merta Maaneb de Macedo this week called a UW-Madison student whose roommate recently tested positive for COVID-19.
Evjue Foundation announces grants, including pandemic relief
The Capital Times
The additional $70,000 brings total pandemic-related aid to $705,000 for the year, including assistance to front-line health care workers and vaccine-related endeavors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Indoor face mask mandate to start Monday in Dane County
Wisconsin State Journal
Face masks will be required indoors except at home in Dane County starting Monday, officials said Tuesday, announcing Wisconsin’s first mask mandate in response to a recent increase in COVID-19 cases especially among young adults and those who have attended large gatherings.
Restore or replace? Community reckons with what’s next for Capitol’s fallen statues
Wisconsin State Journal
In a guest column for the Wisconsin State Journal, UW-Madison emeritus history professor John Sharpless wrote that protesters who pulled down the Heg statue “were essentially spitting on his grave.”
Q&A: District 8 alder Max Prestigiacomo takes on systemic change
Capital Times
As an 18-year-old rising sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, District 8 alder Max Prestigiacomo is already pushing for change after being elected to the City Council in April. He introduced a bill on June 16 to remove funding for less lethal weapons for the Madison Police Department, and it passed unanimously.
“Malik has unlimited potential.” UW student raising college money for Tony Robinson’s youngest brother
Madison365
Madison East graduate and UW-Madison senior Sirena Flores has started a higher education GoFundMe for Tony Robinson’s youngest brother, Malik Robinson, a recent graduate of Madison La Follette High School who is pursuing higher education.
Amid rise in COVID-19 cases, Dane County tightens restrictions on bars, restaurants, indoor gatherings
Wisconsin State Journal
Last month UW officials released their “Smart Restart” plan for opening campus in the fall. It allows in-person teaching with precautions and with instruction moving completely online after Thanksgiving. But officials made clear that if COVID-19 cases spike early in the semester, that shift could happen earlier.
Petition calls for statue of African American leader at State Capitol
NBC-15
Phillips was the first African American women to graduate from UW-Madison’s law school, first woman elected to Milwaukee’s City Council and first African American judge to be appointed in Wisconsin.
Two of Mayor Rhodes-Conway’s deputy mayors resign
NBC-15
Orrantia previously served as the Director of Community Relations for UW-Madison’s Chancellor and worked as Assistant Director for the Wisconsin Collaborative Education Research Network and as a caseworker in Madison outside the university.
‘Until I’m free you are not free either’: Civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer has Madison connection
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
When Fannie Lou Hamer spoke to a predominantly white audience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1971, the civil rights icon spoke of the time when she was 13 and asked her mother a seemingly innocent question.
“How come we wasn’t born white?”
It was the question of a young teenager growing up in the heart of the South, when ruthless racism was the norm.
What’s next for Madison art created after George Floyd protests?
milwaukee journal sentinel
Shiloah Symone Coley, 21, just graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison this spring when she was asked to paint a mural on State Street. She’d done a few pieces of public art before on campus, but this was her first community piece. Her mural depicts Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley Jones, who was killed at the age of 7 when she was mistakenly shot by a SWAT team member in Detroit, and Cameron Tillman, who was killed at the age of 14 by a deputy in Houma, Louisiana.
A changed landscape, worry and hope on State Street in wake of protests, amid COVID-19 pandemic
Wisconsin State Journal
The business owners who remain on one of Madison’s most iconic streets — stretching from the State Capitol to UW-Madison — are trying to move forward with respect and purpose.
Local experts weigh in on black communities disproportionate share of COVID-19 deaths
WKOW-TV 27
Quoted: UW-Health Doctor Tiffany Green studies the causes and consequences of racial disparities in health.
“We see across the country that Black Americans are dying disproportionately relative to our share of our population, and that is especially true here in Wisconsin unfortunately,” Green said.
“Currently we’re talking about what can we do about the police, but the police are not the only issue, every other social system was built on the same inequities,” Alvin Thomas, UW-Madison Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Human Development and Family Studies, said.
Hundreds shut down South Park Street for Glow in the Dark March for Black Lives
Badger Herald
The noise and the colorful glow sticks lighting up the crowd were intentional, according to youth organizer and University of Wisconsin sophomore Ayomi Obuseh. “This is not just for show, we are trying to be loud, we are trying to be disruptive,” Obuseh said.
Langdon Street development controversy spurs creation of student-led neighborhood association
The Capital Times
Members of the newly formed Campus Neighborhood Association met Thursday night to begin reviewing proposed bylaws and plans for the group, which include securing a larger role in development projects of Madison neighborhoods with large concentrations of students.
Madison medical students and physicians to host “White Coats for Black Lives” rally Saturday
Madison365
The rally starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 13 at the Madison state Capitol and is led by the UW-School of Medicine and Public Health, Student National Medical Association (UWSMPH).
Youth organizers announce new organization, Impact Demand
Badger Herald
Three demands are community control, Breonna’s Law, Hands Up Act.
Borsuk: On the education front, one way to move from anger to action would be to make sure all youngsters are proficient in reading
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Noted: I read this past week an article in the New York University Review of Law and Social Change by McKenna Kohlenberg, a Milwaukee area native who is in the home stretch of getting both her law degree and a master’s degree in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It uses Madison as a case study in what Kohlenberg calls the “illiteracy-to-incarceration pipeline.” She cites research that 70% of adults who are incarcerated and 85% of juveniles who have been involved with the juvenile justice system are functionally illiterate.
“Literacy strongly correlates with myriad social and economic outcomes, and children who are not proficient by the fourth grade are much more likely than their proficient peers to face a series of accumulating negative consequences,” Kohlenberg writes.
Maps show ZIP codes with highest percentage of people at risk of severe complications from COVID-19
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: “We found substantial variation across communities in the proportion of people who had these risk factors for severe complications,” said Maureen Smith, a physician and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “That finding suggests that matching community with the right resources needs to take into account that communities are different.”
The information compiled by UW researchers can help identify potential hot spots, said Jessica Bonham-Werling, director of the Neighborhood Health Partnership Program, which prepared the reports, at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. That in turn can help public health and other officials make decisions on where to allocate resources, from testing and contact tracing to community services, such as delivering groceries.
On eighth night of Capitol protests, painting on State Street helps artists of color heal
Capital Times
Sirena Flores, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is Afro-Latina, is finishing up two murals next to Jackson’s on the 100 block of State Street in front of the Vom Fass oil and vinegar shop.
Black Lives Matter protests continue peacefully Saturday night at Capitol
Badger Herald
Since Friday, the group of previously unaffiliated youth activists organizing the protests officially created an organization, which they’re calling Impact Demand. Impact Demand will help organize future protests and work with other community organizations to create policy change in Madison, Co-Creator and University of Wisconsin rising sophomore Ayomi Obuseh said.
Paul Fanlund: Cap Times Idea Fest 2020 will be virtual and shaped for these troubled times
The Capital Times
Here are some possible themes we could cover: Huge questions confront higher education. How will the University of Wisconsin-Madison reassert itself as a world-class research institution? Will its current financial challenges become crippling, or will a newfound respect for scientific research usher in a new golden age?
‘We gotta call out racism’: Milwaukee Muslim students lead march against police violence
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Noted: Last spring, Milwaukee teenagers Dana Sharqawi and Sumaya Abdi organized protests after mass shootings at mosques in New Zealand.
On Wednesday, they brought people together again at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee — this time to remember George Floyd and to protest police violence. They said they were guided by their Muslim faith.
“Our religion tells us that if one part of your body’s in pain, then the whole body’s in pain,” said Abdi, now 19 and a student at UW-Madison. “So if our black brothers and sisters are in pain, we’re in pain, too.”
Madison Latino Consortium steps in to provide safety net, cash to undocumented families
The Capital Times
According to data gathered by Armando Ibarra, a UW-Madison associate professor who studies Latino working communities, 34% of the Latino population in Dane County lives below the poverty line, and nearly half lack health insurance.
Madison Common Council introduces resolution to create MPD civilian oversight committee
Badger Herald
The City of Madison Common Council moved to not allow public comment on a resolution that would serve a new role in independently assessing the Madison Police Department in their virtual meeting tonight.
Fourth day of protest in Madison shuts down state highway
Associated Press
Protesters shut down a six-lane state highway that feeds into downtown Madison for a second day on Tuesday, as Gov. Tony Evers called for the Legislature to pass a law to reduce the use of police force and urged a united battle against racism.
To our readers: what can we do?
The Daily Cardinal
The recent protests in Madison demonstrated pent-up frustration with broken, white-dominated systems that have perpetually — and disgustingly — violated Black bodies, souls and freedoms. The presence of COVID-19 has only pushed the injustice further as more and more Black lives are taken daily.
Third day of George Floyd protests shuts down John Nolen Drive for over six hours
Badger Herald
Urban Triage, Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Inc. held a press conference discussing the protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, Monday afternoon.
Boys & Girl Club president calls for peace
Channel 3000
Video: Boys and Girls Club of Dane County President and CEO Michael Johnson is calling for peace.
More unrest, marches across Wisconsin in reaction to Floyd
Associated Press
Protests resumed across Wisconsin for a third straight day Monday, with marchers stopping traffic in downtown Madison after a night of violence in the capital city that resulted in 15 arrests, more damages to businesses and the spraying of tear gas by police.