With recent polls giving Donald Trump a reasonable chance of defeating President Biden in the November elections, commentators have begun predicting what his second presidency might mean for domestic politics.
-Alfred McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Column by Erik Iverson, chief executive officer of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).
My hope for 2024 is that we start asking better questions about these systems, so that we can find better answers.
-Simon Balto is assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power
Written by Dr. Jonathan Patz, the Vilas Distinguished Professor & John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute & Department of Population Health Sciences.
Letter to the editor: As a proud UW-Madison alum and emerita professor, I’m deeply dismayed by the GOP’s efforts to strong-arm the Board of Regents into diminishing diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
One of his big fights, which he eventually lost, but really won, was against the UW-Madison’s decision to take a piece of Bascom Hill’s John Muir Woods to build a new social sciences building just north of the hill’s celebrated Carillon Tower.
Kohl gave a lot of money away. Like… a lot. He put Kohl in the Kohl Center at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, by donating $25 million to get it built. Twenty years later, he put up $100 million to build a new stadium for the Bucks, now known as the Fiserv Forum. And he gave over $50 million in grants and scholarships to teachers, schools and programs throughout Wisconsin.
Letter to the editor: Just days after the UW Board of Regents caved and reversed its vote on the significant reduction to efforts of diversity, equity and inclusion, the UW system brazenly announced it is looking to double its numbers of international students in the next five years. How impressive, right?
Tenure is a rigorous process by which one’s academic publications are reviewed by the country’s (and often even world’s) top experts in one’s field of research. The tenure process is undertaken after completing 6 years of work and can take up to a year to assemble and review materials.
Letter to the editor: The deal requires UW system to implement a freeze on some positions that do not work directly with students or patients. This will have devastating impacts on our universities’ ability to grow and fulfill their missions.
Letter to the editor: I am writing to celebrate the outstanding accomplishments of women student athletes at UW-Madison.
Common sense prevailed recently when the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents flip-flopped and voted 11-6 to agree to a compromise deal with Republican legislators. The agreement limits diversity positions on system campuses in exchange for money to cover staff raises and construction projects.
The diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy on campus has proliferated in recent years, but there are signs it’s finally meeting resistance. The latest good news is from Wisconsin, where public universities will pare back some DEI programs and freeze them going forward.
Letter to the editor: Now put the other outstanding six-time national champion Wisconsin Badger women’s hockey on the front page each and every day. They deserve more front-page news than Badger football, because what has their record been in the last five or six years compared to Women’s hockey?
Guest column: Fairness is at the heart of justice, and even a small child understands and asks for fair treatment. Justice’ most recent political name is diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Diversity, equity and inclusion are fast becoming a polarizing concept in our state, like previous opponents changed the meaning of affirmative action from positive to negative.
Letter to the editor: Despite the setback for diversity by Republicans the momentum for justice and righteousness will continue for all Americans. We hold these truths to be self evident since the creation. The righteous in the UW and the state of Wisconsin will find a way to continue making progress in diversity.
Column by Neil Kraus, the president of United Falcons of UW River Falls, and Jon Shelton, president of UWGB-United, and vice president of Higher Education for American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin.
New research by a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor suggests police in schools don’t reduce violence, diminish crime, or have any impact on the presence of weapons or drugs in a school.
If anything, having police in schools has an impact on young people’s mental health, according to Ben Fisher, a UW-Madison associate professor who reviewed 32 evaluations of school-based police programs, said he found that police in schools weren’t shown to diminish school violence, crime, or the presence of weapons or drugs.
Letter to the editor: The capitulation of regents who voted to accept the Republicans’ offer of funding in exchange for revising the Universities of Wisconsin system’s practices has far greater implications than have yet been recognized.
Letter to the editor: As a UW-Madison employee, I help faculty teach, mentor and advise in more inclusive and equitable ways. We support all students — regardless of race, ethnicity, gender orientation or physical ability.
Column by Joshua Wallace, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. His research critically examines issues of race and gender in higher education.
Imagine lower State Street in Madison as a Christmas market every December. Colorful lights adorn the trees and illuminate the street from above. Festive huts sell ornaments, crafts and holiday treats to streams of passersby. A student quartet plays holiday songs.
The volleyball players’ competitive passion, their joy in supporting one another, their resilience and their emotional vulnerability are unlike what I see in other sports. Oh, and the absence of trash-talking. I like that, too.
Rich Kremer reports for Wisconsin Public Radio, which is staffed by employees of the University of Wisconsin-Madison: The Universities of Wisconsin will have the opportunity to give pay raises to its 34,000 employees and build a new $347 million engineering building in Madison under a deal approved Wednesday by the Board of Regents. But the universities will also freeze DEI staffing through 2026 and eliminate or refocus about 40 positions focused on diversity.
The best deals over time are often the deals that left no one happy at first.
The breaking news hit my inbox at precisely 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Barry Alvarez often praised his players who dealt with adversity during a game, but never flinched. Universities of Wisconsin system President Jay Rothman could learn a valuable lesson from the former Wisconsin football coach.
The offense can even be 100 years in the past. In 2021 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, some Black students were upset when walking past a boulder on campus.
Letter to the editor: What is it about the diversity, equity and inclusion employees that strikes fear in the hearts of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg?
Editor’s Note: David Mott is the William S. Apple Distinguished Professor in Social and Administrative Sciences at the University of Wisconsin. CNN — Pharmacists swear an oath upon entering the profession to “assure optimal outcomes for all patients.” But current working conditions are making it nearly impossible to live up to this oath.
Column by Tiffany Green, an associate professor of population health sciences and obstetrics and gynecology at UW-Madison, and Jenny Higgins, the Bissell professor of reproductive health, rights and justice in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at UW-Madison.
UW-Milwaukee’s “Milwaukee Tuition Promise” and University of Wisconsin-Madison’s “Teacher Pledge Program” are blueprints that other colleges can consider replicating. The longevity of the programs are reliant on private fundraising, however, and represent a fraction of the twenty-one four-year colleges in the state. A systems-level, state approach could offer funding sustainability to colleges seeking to attract students into education, an issue impacting all of Wisconsin.
Letter to the editor: Our public universities can become more diverse, equitable and inclusive in any number of ways.
Letter to the editor: What Speaker Vos is actually threatening to do is gain acceptance of one view (conservatism) by dismantling and eliminating an alternative view. This tactic seems dangerously close to tactics employed by dictators. But apparently Vos is comfortable with this.
Every year the American Association of University Professors awards the Alexander Meiklejohn Award for Academic Freedom to an American college, university administrator, trustee or a board of trustees as a group, in recognition of an outstanding contribution to academic freedom.
Letter to the editor: In the Dec. 2 State Journal article “Rothman: Liberal arts safe,” Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman walks back parts of an email he had sent to chancellors that suggested “shifting away from liberal arts programs.”
Letter to the editor: Here is a little reminder to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who is holding Universities of Wisconsin employees hostage.
Co-authored by State Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, represents the 7th Senate District. State Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, represents the 26th Senate District.
The bills would allow DACA recipients to qualify for in-state tuition at schools within the University of Wisconsin System. DACA individuals would be able to train and obtain professional licenses issued by the state. Additionally a biennial tax credit of $250 would be offered to offset the $495 fee that recipients must pay every two years to document their DACA status.
Proposal that does not consider marginalized identities in financial aid decisions reinforces inequitable systems in higher education.
Column by Larry Gallup, audience growth editor for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.
Written by Jason Fletcher, a professor of public affairs at UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs with appointments in Applied Economics and Population Health Sciences.
Guest column by state Sen. Melissa Agard, D-Madison.
For decades, Wisconsin prioritized funding the UW System, knowing that it was the most important thing we could do to develop our workforce and innovate for our future. Our public universities attract people from the Great Lakes region and beyond because our institutions offer quality educational opportunities and affordable tuition.
According to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau, Senate Bill 571 would “afford certain rights and protections to student journalists who are public school pupils or students enrolled in a University of Wisconsin System institution or technical college.”
Given the ‘success’ of this project, the Biden administration expanded the government-higher education alliance in June 2021 through the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. Since then, a plethora of new partnerships between the government and higher education have emerged to shape our perceptions and opinions. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $5 million taxpayer dollars to the University of Wisconsin to develop a system that can detect and “strategically correct” what the government perceives as misinformation. This is in addition to $7.5 million awarded to ten other universities to work on similar censorship-type programs, and $40 million awarded to 15 higher education institutions under the “Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant.”
How sad that over a half century and more of history has been jettisoned by a “rebranding exercise.” (“UW System rolls out new name for itself: Universities of Wisconsin,” Oct. 12).
The truth is that Ms. Tai is taking the pen away from Facebook, Google and Amazon, who helped shape the previous policy, according to a research paper published earlier this year by Wendy Li, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who used to answer the phone and interact with lobbyists at the U.S. trade representative’s office.
Letter to the editor: Why did the Big Ten and the NFL suddenly move to streaming so many games this year? It is maddening and insensitive to fans.
There is no room for this hate in Madison or any community, and I’m heartened to see how many of you weighed in on our coverage of these hate groups. Community leaders from the mayor to the UW-Madison chancellor are quick to call out haters for who they are.
Letter to the editor from Maya Kamin, a student at UW-Madison’s School of Nursing.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said: “The presence of this hateful group in Madison is utterly repugnant. I am horrified to see these symbols here in Madison. Hatred and antisemitism are completely counter to the university’s values, and the safety and well-being of our community must be our highest priorities.”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” highlights the U.S. government’s role in a historical injustice. But those concerned with modern poverty should not lose sight of the elephant in today’s room. Oppressive regulatory oversight means paper rights for American Indians, paper rights mean dead capital, and dead capital means poverty. We can’t change the past, but the federal government should cut today’s white tape.
-Dominic Parker is an economist at the University of Wisconsin and the Ilene and Morton Harris Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Adam Crepelle is a professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Dear Editor: I completely agree that Madison Metro should not close the bus stop in front of the Hamel Music Center. Nor should Metro close the bus stop in front of the Witte Residence Hall. These two stops, Numbers 0670 and 0435, are heavily used and strategically located.
People who earn degrees from UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, Marquette University, UW-Platteville and the Milwaukee School of Engineering, to cite prominent in-state examples, are engaged in disciplines that also include chemical, civil, biomedical, mechanical, environmental, nuclear, aeronautical and materials engineering, to name a few.
It’s pretty hard to explain, isn’t it? While Wisconsin is sitting on a multibillion-dollar budget surplus, its highly regarded state university campuses are being forced to lay off faculty, cut back classes, even close some two-year campuses to balance their own budgets.
The Legislature should quickly take up and approve funding for a new engineering building on the UW-Madison campus. If the Republican-run Legislature thought AmFam Field was a good proposal for Wisconsin — and it definitely was — then get a load of this offer: a $350 million engineering building that costs the public less and delivers the state economy far more.
UW-Madison students are frustrated with classes held until the day before Thanksgiving.
Our hope would be that Vos and GOP leaders would accept this olive branch from the state’s universities, create new jobs by expanding university-backed workforce development and mothball their misguided effort to dismantle DEI programs.
Oh, yes, and give state university workers their 6.6% pay raises as promised in the state budget — just like they did for other state workers.
Dear Editor: The boo-birds have been released. Flocking from UW football game day fans and letters to the editor writers. Already demanding coaching changes.
