Written by Tim Smeeding, the Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics at the La Follette School of Public Affairs and former director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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.
Without this student newspaper, I probably would be on my way to finishing out a god-awful stats degree (sorry stats majors).
Is the Madison Police Department finally taking a step that all police departments should also take? The short answer is yes. The long answer is not so simple.
Column by Thompson, president of the University of Wisconsin System.
Professor Dietram Scheufele is an award-winning and nationally recognized expert on science communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and someone I’ve written about for years. He recently shared with me five thoughts about what could have been done differently to mitigate this stark divide over vaccine attitudes.
Mifflin party events shows double standard policing, failure of UW to protect students, enforce regulations.
Entering the school year, students and faculty alike were anxious for how the semester would look.
“Really interesting how a Black man gets a chance and y’all are rushing to take it away,” UW BIPOC Coalition says.
UW-Madison and Madison need a return of fans in stands this year to make money. May I humbly suggest the university immediately announce that only fully vaccinated fans will be allowed at its venues such as Camp Randall, the Kohl Center, the Field House and the LaBahn Arena.
New ISS director should represent international students, hear and voice their concerns.
Fighting for the rights of African American voters is a task that is both daunting and never-ending. Discriminatory redistricting creates a cyclical process that weakens political power for Black voters and political officials. This tactic is as discriminatory and as noxious as any other suppression legislation used during Jim Crow.
–Steven Wright served in the Voting Rights Section of the US Department of Justice for five years. He’s a clinical associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
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.
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.
As a history student at UW-Madison, I have seen many of these issues first-hand. Because of fears that the recent economic crisis would cause a new round of sweeping cuts to history departments, almost every major history PhD program in the country accepted almost no new graduate students, or far fewer than usual. Declining opportunities for history teachers have caused many bright and wonderful students to seek other career paths.
As we approach the end of this semester, many students are left burned out, exhausted and overwhelmed with the seemingly endless demands of college. Coupled with the increasingly demanding academics, the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated students’ existing feelings of continuous stress. In fact, 71% of college students have indicated increased anxiety due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, more than ever, it is essential for students to find ways of dealing with these demanding stressors. This is where meditation comes into play!
Here’s something the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA) won’t tell you when you donate to your alma mater — UW is strategically profiting off the destruction of our planet and its people. As of 2018, UW invested $124,785,961 in the fossil fuel industry through the WFAA.
Having graduated from UW a while back, I now have the perspective to look back and reflect on how my own career has progressed. The students I once worked with and gave my best as a leader to are now some of my current colleagues — and one is even my current boss.
Hub II proposal will inflate already high rental costs in Madison, which majority of students cannot afford.
Created in 1925, WARF handles patent and license issues for the UW-Madison, returning money to the campus research cycle and often making it possible for young companies to get a start. WiSys is doing much the same for four-year UW campuses outside Madison and Milwaukee while engaging students in research and entrepreneurism.
Diversifying demographics of teachers will help build deeper relationships with students, create more equitable society for future generations.
We believe that it is important to have a candidate that will stand with all members of the Madison and campus community.
UW must step up and support Asian international students, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Outside of loan options, students typically turn to financial aid and scholarships to finance their education. UW-Madison has multiple “Wisconsin Promises” in place for in-state students that qualify for financial aid, like Bucky’s Tuition Promise Plus, Badger Promise and the Financial Aid Security Track.
Students have long told UW-Madison that “it is not enough for the University of Wisconsin System to demonstrate optical allyship … by means of posting on social media, tokenizing students of color and providing resources for students and alumni to combat racism on an individual level.” Instead, they have called for the UW to make good on their promises and deconstruct the systems that “uphold racial inequalities.”
The bill makes huge strides for American democracy. No one should claim that dark money and large-scale statewide voting barriers aren’t noxious. Indeed, experts estimate that voter identification requirements may disenfranchise millions of Americans, and such laws disproportionately harm poor voters and voters of color. But no one, except the federal government, has the capacity to ensure fair federal elections at the local level. And sadly, For the People Act fails to do so.
Steven Wright served in the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Department of Justice for five years. He currently teaches Law and English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This current version of the Suez syndrome is, nonetheless, anything but the usual. Thanks to longterm imperial development based on fossil fuels, planet Earth itself is now changing in ways dangerous to any power, no matter how imperial or ascendant. So, sooner or later, both Washington and Beijing will have to recognize that we are now in a distinctly dangerous new world where, in the decades to come, without some kind of coordination and global cooperation to curtail climate change, old imperial truths of any sort are likely to be left in the attic of history in a house coming down around all our ears.
–Alfred McCoyAlfred McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A TomDispatch regular, he is the author of In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power and Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State.
The intent of this statement is there, but the diluted semantics don’t provide much comfort. First and foremost, it’s clear they’re avoiding the word racism. When have you heard the term ‘bias crime’ before? It sounds like someone typed ‘hate crime’ but was told to substitute ‘hate’ for a more watered-down word. In this situation, who would that be serving?
With no spring break and burnout rampant among students, mental health support must come as policy-based, structural changes.
Column by Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and also holds master’s degrees in public health and children’s librarianship.
On March 1, the University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate passed a resolution urging the UW Foundation to divest from fossil fuel companies. But, before we take a victory lap, let’s flash back and remember that a similar effort failed in 2014 because it was too ‘divisive.’
Letter to the editor: As a former technical college instructor and wife of a 30-plus-year University of Wisconsin System branch campus instructor, I’ve had a long affiliation with both systems. Our three children attended the two-year UW System campus in our county.
UW System, Foundations must make financially, ethically smart decision to divest from fossil fuels.
Letter to the editor: “The WNPRC does not provide room for their monkeys to exercise, nor access to the outdoors, and they never see the sunlight.”
Gov. Evers nearly $1 billion proposal for UW system upgrades essential for outdated, deteriorating campus buildings.
UW should expand hours beyond pre-pandemic levels to support student productivity and mental health.
Let’s start with an inconvertible fact: Being outdoors is very low risk. This holds for kids and adults. A new study, out in preprint but not fully peer reviewed, from the University of Wisconsin, which followed nearly 1,000 schools and more than 150,000 athletes, found that outdoor sports had half the rate of new cases as indoor sports.
If we focus on continuing what we are doing to stay safe, it is possible sometime in the coming months we could safely and effectively reduce the limitations currently in place, but we need to reach that point first, not jump ahead to progress that has not yet been made.
Holding elections in the coming years will not be simple but it is within our grasp to have a safe and uneventful elections. Using proven scientific methods is the path to improvement.
Dr. Laura A. Albert is a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Barry C. Burden is a professor of Political Science and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
As a professor for 49 years, at one of the UW System’s two-year campuses, I would like to answer President Thompson’s question with a resounding NO! Please, leave the two-year colleges alone! Give our new relationship with the four-year campuses time to grow.
Considering UW’s ineptitude last semester which resulted in the quarantine of two dorms and a halt to on-campus student activity for two weeks, it’s unsurprising there’s already a rise in cases when half of this campus operates under unproven measures to mitigate viral spread — such as excessively wiping down classroom and library desks — while the other half exists as though there is no pandemic at all.
Professors can see data ranging from which students opened assigned readings to those that switched internet browser tabs during quizzes.
Letter to the editor: University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson has an idea for Wisconsin’s outstanding two-year universities. He’s wondering if they should be combined with the state’s technical school system. As a professor at one of UW System’s two-year campus for 49 years, I would like to answer President Thompson’s question with a resounding “no.”
Letter to the editor: The campuses have been severely underutilized for the past several years, ever since the concept of regionalization was implemented. Many thought returning to our roots (Richland started as a branch of Platteville) would be the saving grace for the campus, but that hasn’t proven to be the case.
But three of the governor’s major spending priorities deserve broad bipartisan support:
Noted: Brenda Gayle Plummer is a historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in African American history, the history of U.S. foreign relations, race in international affairs and Caribbean history. She is the author of several books, most recently of In Search of Power: African Americans in the Era of Decolonization, 1956-1974.
As we approach a full year of this pandemic and attempt to survive sub-zero Wisconsin winter, many of us are tired; physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I teach at UW-Madison and the beginning of the semester is always an intense energetic marathon for me so I find myself having to be extra mindful about resting. So this month’s piece isn’t about food, but about rest as a political practice of resistance.
Though Biden has imposed sanctions on Burma and UW SEARG has called on international community to denounce coup, the Burmese military remains undeterred.
I have directed our universities to ensure that students attending a UW campus in the fall will have as classic a UW campus experience as possible — including a goal of at least 75% of all classes being in person.
Many of the excused absences offered by these professors, however, only account for physical illnesses and require a doctor’s note. Many of the policies say nothing relating to mental health.
Even after ASM proposed the solution and amendment that students become “Mask Ambassadors” — designed as a workaround to the policy which would allow the university to make payments to students — Heller stated that it could not go any further once again.
While ASM seems intent on misleading the public regarding the legality of their COVID-19 student relief fund and disgracefully shaming University Officials, the University is trying to move forward and provide students with expansive and immediate assistance.
Someday, maybe soon, this will all be over. Things will start to get back to a kind of “normal,” whatever that may look like, and lives will begin to pick up where they might have left off. At least, that’s what many are hoping for.
Chad S.A. Gibbs served in the US Army from 2002-2009, including deployment to Iraq. He is currently a PhD candidate in the history of the Holocaust at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He tweets at @Chad_G101.
Essay by Professor Beth Nguyen
Lunar New Year might bring to mind festivals and fireworks, but I’ve always associated it with a kind of isolation. Long before the pandemic, long before the rest of America learned about sriracha and pho, I grew up in a Vietnamese refugee family in a mostly white town in Michigan.
National mental health crisis compounded with COVID-19 pandemic calls for increased mental health support options on campus, collaborative effort among UHS and UW divisions shows promise.
Column by Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Column by Matthew T. Hora and Mindi Thompson, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
First, education is king. Don’t ever allow UW-Madison to be anything but a premier, world-class institution. State and private dollars invested now will be leveraged considerably by virtue of the fact that most of the federal investment will go to expanded research at universities such as UW.
Unpaid internships are often seen as an important rite of passage for college students. And with good reason. Studies have found that students acquire new skills and networks that enhance their job prospects.
-Matthew T. Hora, Assistant Professor of Adult and Higher Education, Director of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Mindi Thompson, Professor of Counseling Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
It will take years until all air travelers are immunized, but we do not have to wait years until it is safe to fly.
-Dr. Laura A. Albert is a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the College of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is a prominent member of INFORMS. Her research applies optimization and analytical methods to public sector applications including aviation security.
