In March, The Washington Post reported that University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank sought to move a conversation around the COVID-19 pandemic and students returning to campus in the fall to a private portal used by presidents and chancellors of the 14 Big Ten universities.
Four campuses within the University of Wisconsin System have seen spring enrollments decline by more than 10 percent since 2019. UW-Platteville saw spring enrollments drop by more than 17 percent in the last three years.
Noted: The two-year state budget plan also won’t allow the University of Wisconsin System to borrow for operational expenses, restore collective bargaining for public employees, make Juneteenth a state holiday, create a so-called red flag law for gun owners or adopt maps from the governor’s redistricting commission.
It was a comment to that effect by Rebecca Blank, the chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, that helped ignite the debate in her state over faculty course loads. Blank started a political firestorm by saying that, when top faculty got job offers from other institutions, she sometimes reduced the number of courses they had to teach as a way to get them to stay.
Other items Republicans intend to remove include freezing enrollment in the private school voucher program and allowing the University of Wisconsin System to borrow for operational expenses. That is a top priority of university officials, who said it was needed to deal with short-term losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Gov. Tony Evers on Friday appointed a medical group CEO to the UW Board of Regents, tipping the political balance of a board long led by Republican appointees who passed policies for University of Wisconsin System campuses opposed by many faculty and staff.
Republicans are also stripping the budget of proposals to allow the University of Wisconsin System to borrow money for operational expenses. They also stripped a provision that would have expanded a tuition promise program to all of the state’s universities and their branch campuses, building off a UW-Madison tuition promise, which provides free tuition to students from families making up to $60,000.
Column by Thompson, president of the University of Wisconsin System.
One issue is whether there can be only one flagship per state. Flagship is a nautical metaphor. The flagship is the grandest vessel in a flotilla; the leader. In this metaphor, the flagship is the “top” campus in a university system. For some states, this makes sense. The University of Wisconsin at Madison leads the University of Wisconsin system. In other states, two universities claim flagship status, such as the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses for the University of California system. Some states have two or more major university systems. The University of Texas at Austin is the University of Texas system’s flagship, but the College Station campus is the Texas A&M system’s flagship.
Classes on six UW System campuses start Sept. 7 or 8, while Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of Sept. 6, ends sundown Sept. 8.
Wisconsin college leaders will take a close look in the coming weeks at President Joe Biden’s plan for a free community college program, which could influence already precarious enrollment patterns at schools struggling to fill seats.
UWM’s Sandra McLellan and MIT’s Eric Alm are among the world’s foremost experts at detecting very small organisms in very large quantities of sewage — a useful tool during the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite their similar research capabilities, Alm’s work is having a wider impact and creating more economic value and high-paying jobs.
This summer could see the launch of a renewed search for the next president of the University of Wisconsin System. It would come just over a year after a controversial, failed search in 2020 that included candidates who said they would only seek the job if they could be named as a sole finalist.
The FFI was founded in 2013 and is part of the University of Wisconsin System’s Institute for Business & Entrepreneurship. The organization focuses on building and funding profitable businesses in the food, beverage and value-added agriculture sector through training, coaching, resources, tools and mentoring programs.
For the Class of 2021, graduation may have felt like a long time coming, but the COVID-19 pandemic is leaving one last reminder of how little has been normal in their recent college years.
The leaders of the University of Wisconsin System’s two largest schools aren’t embracing President Joe Biden’s plans to forgive student debt.
Among major public universities, U-Md. has one of the highest six-year graduation rates for Black students: 81 percent in 2019. That’s just behind the University of Michigan — 84 percent — and ahead of the University of Florida’s 77 percent. Black graduation rates for the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin were 76 percent
Column by Kevin Reilly, former president of the University of Wisconsin System and a senior fellow at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.
Wisconsin technical colleges could more easily establish general education degree programs under a Republican bill that the University of Wisconsin System says would threaten the existence of some of its smallest campuses.
Written by John B. Diamond, the Kellner Family Distinguished Chair in Urban Education and a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s education school, and Jennifer Cheatham, a senior lecturer on education and the co-chair of the Public Education Leadership Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former superintendent of the Madison school district in Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin System has a similar program for its students called the Ben R. Lawton Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant, which lists the same eligibility criteria. Lennington said WILL is looking at that program as well.
Several Madison residents on Thursday sued the state board that awards scholarships and loans to college students, alleging a grant program restricted to certain students of color is unconstitutional.
Partnerships between mobile vaccination teams and local agencies helped to fill more than 300 vaccinator requests throughout the state since January, Bauman said. Requests for assistance made by local health departments were fulfilled by volunteers found through WEAVR, the state’s registry of nurses and the University of Wisconsin System.
In the University of Wisconsin System, individual campuses also offer short-term summer programs to meet campus-specific needs for admitted students. National programs last about two to eight weeks and often include housing, allowing students to adapt early to campus life and resources. But when the pandemic started last spring, System campuses transitioned many of these “bridge” programs to a virtual format, while canceling or delaying others until the fall.
“UW regent Robert Atwell, who sits on the board of @HospSistersHS, has chosen to spread incorrect information regarding the vaccine,” the UW BIPOC Coalition tweeted.
Crumbling concrete, rusted rebar and falling facades were among the selling points on a campus tour Monday designed to shore up support for the University of Wisconsin System’s more than $1 billion request to repair or replace aging facilities.
Gov. Tony Evers authorized emergency work on the 19-floor Madison building that houses the University of Wisconsin System’s headquarters Thursday after two precast concrete railing slabs fell from the third floor.
The 10-by-6 foot slabs fell from Van Hise Hall on UW-Madison’s campus Sunday, landing directly in front of the building’s entrance. No one was injured.
Gov. Tony Evers took the unusual step Friday of ordering workers to remove all concrete slabs hanging over the entrances and exists of the University of Wisconsin System headquarters building, days after two slabs fell off the facade and crashed to the sidewalk outside the building’s main doors.
University of Wisconsin System interim President Tommy Thompson is continuing his push for a system-wide approach to online education. Thompson says a unified front on behalf of all UW System campuses is the best way to compete with out-of-state colleges spending heavily in Wisconsin to attract working adults to take courses.
’UW-Madison has been able to increase tuition revenue in ways that other campuses really can’t,’ UW-Milwaukee professor says.
Gov. Tony Evers ordered emergency repair work to Van Hise Hall after concrete slabs broke off the UW-Madison building earlier this week and an engineering company found the building’s remaining panels “pose an immediate threat to public health, welfare and safety.”
A member of the University of Wisconsin System’s governing board says state universities shouldn’t be “compelling or coercing” students to get vaccinated against COVID-19. This comes a day after interim UW System President Tommy Thompson announced a plan to incentivize vaccinations by lifting testing requirements for students that get them.
Wisconsin’s Jewish community is calling on six University of Wisconsin System campuses, including UW-Madison, to reconsider their academic calendars for next year because the first day of classes conflict with Rosh Hashanah, one of the holiest holidays on the Jewish calendar.
With college-age students now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, University of Wisconsin campuses have a new rule that leaders hope will encourage young adults to get their shots.
UW System interim President Tommy Thompson asked campus chancellors Wednesday to allow students who have gotten vaccinated against COVID-19 to be exempt from the weekly COVID-19 testing regimen.
“One of the inducements, encouragements to not to have to go through testing is to get vaccinated,” Thompson said.
Noted: University of Wisconsin students who get their vaccines will be exempt from weekly testing requirements under new system guidance.
UW System interim President Tommy Thompson asked campus chancellors Wednesday to allow students who have gotten vaccinated against COVID-19 to be exempt from the weekly COVID-19 testing regimen.
“One of the inducements, encouragements to not to have to go through testing is to get vaccinated,” Thompson said.
University of Wisconsin students who get vaccinated for COVID-19 will no longer have to be tested weekly for the virus under a policy change that interim President Tommy Thompson on Wednesday called an incentive to bolster vaccination rates on campus.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank has several times in recent weeks noted her disappointment with the amount of vaccine allocated to University Health Services. Officials have encouraged the campus community to look elsewhere, noting in a Monday social media post that appointments for the week were already full.
Whether to get a COVID shot or not– UW Systems announced it will leave it up to students to decide. “We’re doing everything we can, but we’re not going to mandate it,” President Tommy Thompson told reporters Wednesday.
The collapse of part of a building on UW-Madison’s campus has alarmed UW System officials.
The Regents are scheduled to consider rescinding the policy on all system campuses except UW-Madison during a meeting Thursday. UW-Madison officials would be allowed to their own policy on excess credits.
Aconcrete slab broke off the side of Van Hise Hall on Sunday afternoon, landing almost directly in front of an entrance to one of the most highly trafficked buildings on UW-Madison’s campus.
Noted:
Also included in the budget: $100 million in borrowing for clean energy conservation projects at state agencies and the University of Wisconsin System, helping to meet goals of energy reduction and reduced utility costs. The savings on utility prices would be used to pay off the bonds.
Yesica Hernandez feels like her head is about to explode.
A healthy sleep schedule is nonexistent. She’s always struggled with anxiety, especially when it comes to taking exams. And as she spends day after day alone in her apartment, it has become even more difficult.
The head of the University of Wisconsin System is asking state lawmakers to help protect the system from hackers. Interim President Tommy Thompson went before state senators this week, telling them the system has been targeted.
Noted: An increasing number of studies support the effectiveness of financial literacy education when taught by well-trained teachers, said Nan J. Morrison, chief executive of the Council for Economic Education. And more teachers now say they feel confident teaching the material. A study released in March by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Montana State University found significant increases in teacher participation in professional development.
Quoted: Dr. Jerlando F.L. Jackson described mentoring as “the sharing of information and guidance that helps demystify a pathway, whether that’s a pathway to and through a graduate program or a career pathway.” He’s the chair of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as a Vilas Distinguished Professor.
For him, a meaningful mentee-mentor relationship means the two “walk together through one’s journey,” sharing successes and concerns.
The University of Wisconsin System will continue offering $500 tuition credits for nursing and pharmacy students who work at COVID-19 vaccination sites through May.
Students can receive a $500 tuition credit for working at least 16 hours at a vaccination site.
UW System President Tommy Thompson said the $500 tuition credit for the spring semester has been extended to May 22. The credit was originally scheduled to expire Wednesday.
Enrollment is down 19% in undergraduate and 11% in graduate education programs at colleges across the country, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. However, it’s the opposite at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (UWW). It’s seen a 4.4% increase over the last two years.
Quoted: The known benefits of directly protecting vulnerable people outweigh those of indirectly protecting them through immunizing less at-risk community members, said R. Alta Charo, professor emerita of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “While the data is showing good signs of reduced spread by vaccinated individuals, that data is still not as robust as the data demonstrating personal protection from being vaccinated,” she wrote in an email. Meanwhile, for high-risk individuals — “until they are vaccinated, they have limited ways to protect themselves.”
It’s a sunny winter morning and Tommy Thompson is sitting at the center of a long table on the 19th floor of Van Hise Hall, surrounded by his advisers and an aerial view of the city of Madison.
U. of I. isn’t alone in revising its admissions policy. Other Big 10 schools including the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Penn State University are stretching the test-optional protocols through 2023 while others, most notably the University of California, are exploring permanent options to ditch standardized tests.
The State Building Commission deadlocked on Gov. Tony Evers’ capital budget Wednesday, which includes over $1 billion in UW System projects.
Afederally supported mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic will open on April 8 at UW-Eau Claire’s Zorn Arena, Gov. Tony Evers said Thursday.
An example is a $600,000 item buried in Gov. Tony Evers’ $91-billion proposed two-year state budget. The money would expand a six-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison program designed to tap the expertise and energy of students on the flagship Madison campus to solve problems and improve lives in communities throughout Wisconsin.
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday rejected Gov. Tony Evers’ $2.4 billion spending plan to upgrade buildings across Wisconsin — nearly half of which would be spent on University of Wisconsin System campuses.
Evers’ latest capital budget includes $1 billion worth of projects at the University of Wisconsin System, in addition to funding for a new state office building in Milwaukee and facilities to treat juvenile offenders once the Lincoln Hills juvenile prison is closed.
The State Building Commission on Wednesday failed to make any recommendation on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ $2.4 billion capital budget, potentially jeopardizing the cost and construction timeline for dozens of state building projects.
Evers’ plan is funded by nearly $2 billion in new borrowing and includes $1 billion for the University of Wisconsin System. Among the projects Republicans rejected were a new state office building in Milwaukee, a host of projects at UW-Madison including the removal of two residence halls, an expansion of the Mendota Mental Health Institute’s Juvenile Treatment Center and more.
