University of Wisconsin-River Falls students are returning from winter break while the school grapples with how to address a mental health crisis on campus that’s mirrored across the country.
Firing a chancellor can be executed swiftly.
In the case of former University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow, it took just eight days from the time the UW System said it learned of his appearance in porn videos to the closed-door meeting when the UW Board of Regents ousted him as chancellor.
Tuition at Marquette University now tops $50,000 per year.
Marquette announced the new rates for the 2024-25 school year this week. An online statement pointed to inflation, increasing energy and health care costs, and other economic pressures for the 5% increase, bringing undergraduate tuition to $50,070.
A third University of Wisconsin System campus will join two others already slated to end in-person instruction at the end of this school year.
UW-Green Bay will suspend face-to-face classes at its Marinette campus after the spring semester concludes, moving to an entirely online campus come fall. Chancellor Mike Alexander insists, however, this isn’t the end.
The announcement, made by UW-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander in a letter to faculty and staff Friday, makes UW-Green Bay at Marinette the fourth UW System branch campus to effectively close in the past year and a half, and the fifth overall since the branch campuses were established in the 1960s and 1970s.
On Wednesday, Jan. 17 Interim Chancellor Betsy Morgan addressed a room of 600 University of Wisconsin-La Crosse staff and faculty in her opening remarks for the upcoming spring semester.
The “Joy Fest”, titled by Morgan, was held in the Bluffs Ballroom in the Student Union and offered standing room only as the event commenced with a performance from members of the UWL arts program.
By comparison, the University of Wisconsin Madison’s undergraduate in-state tuition rate as of the fall of 2023 was $11,216 per year; at the University of Iowa, in-state undergraduates pay $10,964 a year; Indiana University in-state undergraduates pay $11,790 for tuition and fees at the Bloomington campus; and in-state freshmen and sophomores at the University of Michigan pay $17,228 per year in tuition and fees, while juniors and seniors pay $19,390.
“Some of these programs are focused on racially minoritized students,” said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The hallmark is the Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant and it gives students $2,500 per year. What is not mentioned, I think, in a lot of dialogue, is that they not only have to qualify as a racially minoritized student, but they also have to qualify on the basis of financial need.”
College completion rates for low-income students and students of color remain dismal. About half of them earn a degree from the University of Wisconsin System within six years. Universities face tight budgets, Republican state lawmakers aim to eliminate diversity programs supporting first-generation students and students of color, and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year scrambled the college admissions landscape.
All-In Milwaukee partners with Alverno College, Carroll University, Marquette University, Milwaukee School of Engineering, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Whitewater and Wisconsin Lutheran College.
The Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance held a public hearing Thursday on legislation to provide funding for the UW System capital projects that were used as bargaining chips in the system’s debate with legislative Republicans late last year over diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
The bill would provide more than $400 million from the state’s general fund to pay for new campus buildings, renovations, additions and the demolition of aging infrastructure. The marquee project included in the bill is funding for a new engineering building at UW-Madison.
About 5,000 students at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls will return to start the spring semester in a little over a week.
But junior Juliana Graff knows the campus is still hurting, especially after the death of Mason Crum. He was a junior studying finance. “I can’t really shake that feeling that this is going to continue, that there’s still going to be issues in this regard going forward, unless something changes,” said Graff.
States and the federal government have made efforts to increase the number of health care providers. Wisconsin has a rural residency program and a loan assistance program to draw medical students to rural and other shortage areas. The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health developed an urban program and a rural program, called the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine, to increase enrollment to address shortages. And there’s the effort of the Medical College of Wisconsin to open up two satellite campuses with 50 enrollment spots.
Wisconsin lawmakers are considering ending “gain-of-function” research at all higher education institutions in the state.
The rare practice of modifying risky pathogens to make them more harmful to people during research has become political and controversial since the COVID-19 outbreak.
Cohen, who studied foreign policy and mass media’s role in shaping it, spent three decades at UW-Madison, first joining the faculty in 1959 and later serving as chair of the political science department. Cohen later transitioned into administrative roles, including associate dean of the Graduate School in the 1970s and vice chancellor of academic affairs in the 1980s.
Are you house-hunting on Milwaukee’s east side?
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is hoping to sell the chancellor’s residence at 3435 N. Lake Drive. UWM will first seek permission to sell from the UW Board of Regents, then put it on the market.
The university announced Thursday that officials will seek permission from Universities of Wisconsin regents to sell the residence along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Real estate website Zillow estimates the six-bedroom home is worth about $1.4 million. The university’s real estate foundation purchased the home in 2012 for $955,000.
The closures of three Universities of Wisconsin branch campuses have left empty buildings and hundreds of acres of unused land in Richland, Washington and Fond du Lac counties.
A proposed GOP bill could give those communities $2 million to redevelop the former two-year campus sites.
This fall, UW-River Falls took over UW-Madison’s Farm and Industry Short Course. We learn why the agricultural program shifted to another university as well as what the program means for the future of dairy farming.
Gracz declined to criticize the mayor or the Common Council. But he emphasized that he has a business degree from Marquette University, was a union leader for 20 years, spent seven years on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, did labor negotiations for the county and was head of employee relations for the state.
The goal is not to replace any Wisconsin students but to help make up for the fact there are 20,000 fewer students at UW campuses than there were 10 years ago, thanks to a declining pool of in-state high school students and some attrition in interest in earning a four-year degree. International students make up about 4% of UW enrollment — much of it concentrated at UW-Madison — while neighboring states Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan and Iowa report higher shares, in most cases double or more.
Lawmakers will bring forward a bill to fund the construction of UW-Madison’s new engineering building, among other projects, that was one of the most significant aspects of the deal struck last month between the Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman and Assembly Speaker Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester.
And you can expect the sagas of long-standing issues with the UW system — anticipated budget shortfalls, enrollment and the future of the branch campuses — to continue as well. Here are five things to keep an eye on in 2024.
The beta testing-like process has complicated financial aid advisors’ communication with students, said Helen Faith, director of the Office of Financial Aid at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A bill from Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature would require University of Wisconsin schools to provide out-of-state students with information on how to vote absentee in their home states.
The Arizona College of Nursing, a for-profit institution, is on track to open two Wisconsin campuses: the first in Milwaukee by spring 2024 and a second in Madison by spring 2025.
Gov. Tony Evers said threats from Republican legislators are “not going to scare me out of” employing diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state government.
The use of programs to foster inclusion and support for marginalized communities at the Universities of Wisconsin and other state agencies have come under fire from conservatives in recent months.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said he has no plans to change state government’s use of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, positions, despite increased criticism of the practice from Republican lawmakers.
After a closed Board of Regents meeting Dec. 27, Rothman messaged Gow saying he was out as UWL Chancellor. The decision to fire Gow came after Gow confirmed a report to Human Resources that he was appearing in and producing online pornography with his wife, as well as writing several books about their experiences in the pornography industry under pseudonyms.
The deal, which Evers called “rotten” during a one-on-one sit down with News 3 Now, secured funding for building improvements, employees pay raises, and general funds for UW schools; in exchange, the GOP-controlled Legislature required the university system to reassign a third of current diversity, equity and inclusion positions to other work.
The Wisconsin GOP forced the state to slash DEI programs in order to receive critical funding for the University of Wisconsin system, and the GOP-led state Assembly passed a bill that bans financial aid based on race and other forms of diversity. The right’s racist crusade against campus inclusivity is showing no sign of slowing down.
It’s ironic to say the least that the side that has made its entire identity about opposing cancel culture has now adopted it wholesale. Indeed, they used to be silent when students were chanting heinous things—like when a white student went on a anti-Black tirade at the University of Wisconsin-Madison last year. The video went viral, and many students wanted the woman to be expelled, yet the university did nothing because according to their statement on the matter, “the university can’t limit what students and faculty post to their personal social media accounts and can’t take action against posts that are not unlawful.
Calls for her resignation grew in the following weeks after dozens of plagiarism allegations, first reported on by The Washington Free Beacon, were unearthed, including this claim: “In a 2001 article, Gay lifts nearly half a page of material verbatim from another scholar, David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.”
Even some scholars whom Gay has been accused of plagiarizing have dismissed the allegations, including David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Gay has been accused of using nearly verbatim language from Canon’s 1999 book in an article she published in 2001.
The letter, penned by Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman, told Gow of his termination after it was discovered Gow and his wife produced pornographic content.
The Universities of Wisconsin would be required to provide all first-year students with information on how to vote absentee in their home states under a bill introduced by GOP lawmakers.
“Both Dr. Gay and I are defining basic terms such as Section 2 and Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, covered jurisdictions, and bailout,” he said. “Good definitions of these terms would have to use similar language or they would not be accurate.”
Also looking to get on the ballot are former Milwaukee firefighters union president and retired University of Wisconsin System Regent Gregory Gracz and Christopher L. Wanty, who has worked in the Comptroller’s Office for 24 years, according to his campaign website.
The past 12 months in higher education in Wisconsin have been filled with major developments and some attention-grabbing headlines from the Universities of Wisconsin.
The regents fired Gow in a unanimous vote on UW system President Jay Rothman’s recommendation after UW system officials were tipped off the week before Christmas about videos published on popular porn websites.
Gow said the university was the only within the UW System to avoid furloughs and layoffs when COVID-19 hit.
Former University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow told WPR officials disregarded his rights to due process and freedom of expression when the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted Wednesday to fire him over his appearing in porn videos.
As UW-La Crosse faces a change at the top, longtime faculty member Betsy Morgan has been named interim chancellor.
She replaces Joe Gow, who was fired Wednesday after the UW System discovered videos posted on porn websites featuring him and his wife.
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse chancellor fired for producing pornographic videos with his wife said the termination violated his free speech rights and is contemplating a lawsuit.
Gow revealed that a week before receiving his termination letter, he attended an unexpected meeting with HR and general counsel. However, he left the meeting without any clear directives or disciplinary actions taken against him. “I didn’t expect this would be so sudden,” Gow told 27 News.
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System has terminated a 63-year-old university chancellor from his position after “discovering sexually explicit videos” he made with his wife, according to statements from officials and reporting from major media outlets that interviewed the ex-chancellor.
On Tuesday, the Regents announced a special closed-door virtual meeting. The notice for the Wednesday meeting stated the Regents would consider punishment of an unnamed chancellor for unspecified actions. Gow said he was not informed of the meeting or given an opportunity to respond to allegations that he had embarrassed the institution.
A long-running standoff over diversity, equity and inclusion in state government, notably on Universities of Wisconsin campuses, boiled over in 2023, as Republican legislators aimed to cut UW budgets before a deal was ultimately reached.
UW Oshkosh’s former director of affirmative action, Dr. Brian Xiong, maintains his retaliation case against the University of Wisconsin System was about giving a voice to the entire Oshkosh community and not a cash grab.
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow was fired by the UW Board of Regents in a closed-door meeting Wednesday night after revelations about his involvement in the adult film industry.
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted unanimously Wednesday to fire longtime UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow for what the university system president called “abhorrent” actions.
Chancellor Joe Gow, the longest-tenured chancellor in the UW system, already had plans to retire at the end of the school year. In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, the regents voted to terminate his chancellorship and place him on paid administrative leave as he transitions into a faculty role.
UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow, who was denied a pay raise five years ago over inviting a former porn actress to speak on campus, has been fired for himself engaging in explicit sexual acts with his wife on popular porn websites.
“An outside law firm has been engaged to undertake a fulsome investigation of the matter,” Rothman said in a statement. “We anticipate the complaint will be considered in the normal course as dictated by Wis. Admin. Code Ch. 4.”
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents decided unanimously Wednesday to fire the chancellor of one of its campuses for unspecified behavior that could damage the school system’s reputation.
Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said Universities of Wisconsin leadership learned of specific conduct by Dr. Gow that has subjected the universities to significant reputational harm, calling Gow’s actions abhorrent.
The UW Board of Regents plans to hold a special closed-door meeting Wednesday to consider “taking a personnel action to discipline or terminate a chancellor,” an agenda released Tuesday night states.
The board overseeing University of Wisconsin System campuses will meet behind closed doors Wednesday evening to consider disciplining or firing a UW chancellor.
International students make up about 4% of the UW system’s undergraduate population, although much of that comes from UW-Madison, where about 10% of its undergraduates come from other countries. Of the regional schools, UW-Superior has the highest percentage of its undergraduate enrollment from international students, about 6.4%.
Republican lawmakers and UW System President Jay Rothman reached an agreement earlier this month to restructure diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) positions in exchange for pay raises and building projects.
This is the first year the short course is being held at UW-River Falls. But the program is nothing new.
The short course is actually the UW system’s oldest training program in the agricultural sector, originating in 1886 at UW-Madison.
