Rep. Scott Johnson, R-Jefferson, and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, are circulating a bill that would provide the UW system with $500,000 annually to run its free speech office, the Wisconsin Institute of Citizenship and Civil Dialogue.
Though the UW system is struggling with millions of dollars in structural deficits, Rothman said the decision was not a cost-cutting measure but instead driven by dwindling enrollment.
“If we’re thinking about how we want to manage or protect groundwater resources in the future, we really need to be thinking about what’s happening on the land surface. And if you look at Wisconsin, greater than 90% of the land is, really, rural land,” said Michael Cardiff, a professor in the department of geoscience at UW-Madison. “Rural water users are probably most connected to the largest area of land in Wisconsin, and could probably tell us about what sort of concerns they’re seeing.”
The rising trajectory of Snapshot Wisconsin could make it the largest such wildlife monitoring project in the world, said University of Wisconsin Professor of Forest and Wildlife Ecology Phil Townsend.
Preparations are well underway for the 2024 Republican National Convention, which will be held at Fiserv Forum from July 15-18. A big part of those preparations revolves around public safety and security.
Mounted patrol officers from the Milwaukee and Madison Police departments, as well as the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wisconsin State Fair Police departments, are getting ready for the big event.
“It’s a really unusual dynamic where neither party has a competitive primary process this year,” said Eleanor Powell, associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I’m hard pressed to think of a cycle where there was this much lack of interest or competitiveness.”
There will be other races and measures on the primary ballot. Some municipalities will see elections for county boards or local school funding measures, said Barry Burden, director of the UW-Madison Elections Research Center.
“So even if the presidential race doesn’t look competitive, hopefully there’ll be other things that’ll draw voters out,” Burden said.
Madison’s population will still be less than half that of Milwaukee in 2040, according to official population projections by the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2013. The 2040 projections estimated a Madison population of 281,150, compared with 627,400 for Milwaukee.
A regional study from 2022 projected larger growth figures for Madison, with estimates of 306,521 for 2035 and 345,675 for 2050. That’s still much smaller than the state’s largest city.
Sen. Kelda Roys of Madison and Sen. Jeff Smith of Brunswick, along with Rep. Deb Andraca of Whitefish Bay and Rep. Alex Joers of Middleton, said the bill would exclude student loans from Wisconsin state income tax by adopting the student debt loan relief tax exclusion passed under the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
Nearly 15 percent of Wisconsin children ages 2 to 17 years are obese, according to data from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health. The data show rates of obesity continue to climb until middle age, peaking at 47 percent of residents age 55 to 64.
“(Nicotine) literally alters the makeup of the brain as it’s developing,” explained Chris Hollenback, the communications director for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. “You have these receptors saying ‘more, more, more.’ When you’re under the age of 17, it’s easier to get addicted and harder to quit.”
“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.”
Steve Vavrus, director of the Wisconsin State Climatology Office, said Wisconsin tied 1987 to become the fourth-warmest year on record since 1895. The statewide average temperature for the year was 46.3 degrees Fahrenheit, which was roughly 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the long-term average. Only 2012, 1998 and 1931 were hotter.
Data from UW Health urgent care centers indicates a 4.5 percent increase from 2022 in visits for acute respiratory infections during a 9-week period spanning June and July last year.
Claire Allen runs the office at UW-Madison every Tuesday from 10 to 4. She’s been staffing it for nine months as a housing counseling specialist.
“For a lot students, their first time renting is in college,” Allen said. “Lease questions, roommate conflicts, security deposit questions, options to end a lease if it’s not working out,” Allen said. “Questions about landlords not addressing repairs, that’s a big one.”
UW-Madison political science professor and Elections Research Center director Barry Burden details the plan and timeline set by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for creating new legislative district maps.
So far this decade, the state has experienced about a quarter of the population growth it saw between 2010 and 2020. But the COVID-19 pandemic led to a spike in deaths that altered the state’s trajectory, said David Egan-Robertson, demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Applied Population Laboratory.
“It actually may be a case that population will grow a little bit faster because there will be fewer deaths going forward in the state,” Egan-Robertson said.
Democrat Gov. Tony Evers told the Daily Cardinal, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he supports the bill to lower tuition for DACA recipients.
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.
No longer tied to milking cows herself twice a day, Hinchley says both she and her dairy cows are happier with the robotic milkers operating 24 hours a day.
“It’s not necessarily something that you would have to do in order to stay in the dairy business,” said Chuck Nicholson, a UW-Madison professor of animal and dairy sciences. He noted only about 8% of Wisconsin’s dairy farmers have implemented the new technology, typically family farms that want to save on labor costs. “The labor shortage is definitely a key motivating factor.”
“This judge seems to be a very activist judge,” said John Gross, a clinical law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “He seems to want to insert himself into the resolution of cases in ways that are often not appropriate, or at the very least, not authorized by any statute.”
Gross also raised concerns the restitution order, which directed money to the county that supported the victim after the assault, could set a dangerous precedent in which judges or district attorneys could use restitution to fill government coffers.
In less than six years, the number of dugout canoes known to exist in Wisconsin rose from 11 to nearly 100. Locating and studying these vessels, ranging from about 150 to 4,000 years old, is the mission of the Wisconsin Dugout Canoe Survey Project. Interview with Sissel Schroeder, a professor of anthropology with a specialization in archaeology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose lab hosts the Wisconsin Dugout Canoe Survey Project which she heads up with state maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen.
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.
“That language is pretty categorical, so my sense is that no recall election could be held until new maps are adopted or the court takes some other authorizing action,” Robert Yablon, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who specializes in election and constitutional law, said.
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 week, Republican legislators unveiled a proposal to legalize medical marijuana in Wisconsin. We get reaction to the proposal from Lucas Richert, a pharmaceutical historian at UW-Madison.
A bill that would prohibit higher education institutions in Wisconsin from conducting “gain of function” research on “potentially pandemic pathogens” received a public hearing on Wednesday.
The bill — AB 413 — was introduced by Rep. Elijah Behnke (R-Oconto) and Sen. André Jacque (R-DePere), who cited several incidents at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and controversy over the origins of COVID-19.
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.
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education said the school had not been made aware of the bill before Monday and was still reviewing it.
For more than 150 years, debtors prisons have been illegal in the United States. However, that restriction only applies to private debts; a recent study found that between 2005 and 2018, eight thousand Wisconsin residents were jailed for failing to pay court debts each year. We talk to John Gross, director of the Public Defender Project at UW Law School, about the causes and consequences of modern-day debt imprisonment.
Local governments and state agencies would be prohibited from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to anybody on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin under a proposed constitutional amendment Republicans began circulating last week.
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.
Gov. Tony Evers criticized Republican-led attempts to weaken DEI programs and applauded a recent court ruling ordering new legislative maps in Wisconsin.
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.
We assess several bills working through the Wisconsin legislature that would seek to reform predatory — yet legal — payday loan operations, including one that could cap interest rates, and another that would expand the definition of a “payday loan.” Interview with Sarah Orr, clinical professor and director of the Consumer Law Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Covering Wisconsin, a program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, helps people sign up for and understand their health insurance.
The program’s GetCovered Connector Tool can connect you with a local health insurance expert via Zoom, phone, or in person. The experts can provide advice on applications, appeals, coverage issues and more.
The lawsuit, brought by Julie Underwood, former University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education dean, and other Wisconsin residents is funded by the liberal Minocqua Brewing Super PAC. Underwood has donated thousands to Evers’ campaigns for governor and campaigns for state superintendent.
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.
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.
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.
In an opinion column in the Wisconsin State Journal, two University of Wisconsin-Madison professors wrote that the additional births caused harm to Wisconsin communities.
“Dobbs is just the latest abortion restriction to harm Wisconsinites, especially low-income Wisconsinites,” wrote Tiffany Green, associate professor of population health sciences and obstetrics, and gynecology, and Jenny Higgins, director of the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity. “In our role as scientists and public health professionals, we conclude that the evidence is clear: Restrictions and policies in our state that make abortion inaccessible and unaffordable harm the health and well-being of Wisconsin families
Quoted: “There can be some ability to trace that, because each company would be producing, potentially, different types of PFAS that could be linked back to them,” said Steph Tai, a law professor and associate dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an expert on environmental law.
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.
Herb Kohl, the former U.S. senator, Milwaukee Bucks owner and retail shopping magnate, died Wednesday afternoon at the age of 88 after a brief illness.
Kohl’s death was announced by the Herb Kohl Foundation.
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.
“In some sense we’re seeing a continuation of this tendency that we see at the national level, that whatever slow down there is coming, it keeps on getting pushed further and further into the future,” University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor Menzie Chinn said.
In the same interview, Vos also said he would continue challenging programs aimed at increasing diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, in the state.
That comes after he secured a victory on that issue by exchanging pay raises for UW employees and funding for certain university projects — notably, a new engineering building at UW-Madison — for a reduction in DEI-related staff positions in the UW system.
About 35,000 UW employees will receive 4% wage increase, back pay from July by Jan. 11.
Each side of the agreement still has to take steps to fulfill various promises they made to each other, a process that is expected to take years and that could face new barriers.
Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly said Wednesday she would have voted against the deal the Universites of Wisconsin struck with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Wednesday he wants a comprehensive audit of diversity programs in Wisconsin state government, the latest signal from Republicans that debates about equity and inclusion initiatives will extend into the state’s next budget cycle.
The Republican lawmaker who forced the Universities of Wisconsin to commit to reducing diversity positions called Tuesday for an in-depth review of diversity initiatives across state government and repeated his claim that he has only begun to dismantle equity and inclusion efforts in the state.
On its website, the bar association says the program is for University of Wisconsin and Marquette University law school students “with backgrounds that have been historically excluded from the legal field.” But the lawsuit alleges that is a new focus and that the program has historically been touted as a way to increase racial diversity among attorneys at law firms, private companies and in government.
Kenneth Streit, a clinical professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School who has been involved with Wisconsin’s corrections programs for more than 40 years, said it would be extremely unlikely for the state to close one of its prisons without first addressing violent crimes.
“Closing prisons without first reducing gun-related homicide and injury will never happen in Wisconsin,” Streit said, noting that New York was able to release thousands of older incarcerated men when it eliminated its 1970s-era drug sentencing laws.
ARepublican-controlled legislative committee approved 6% pay raises for about 35,000 Universities of Wisconsin workers Tuesday after the UW system agreed last week to repurpose some diversity positions as part of a broader deal with lawmakers to unlock nearly $800 million in state aid.
State lawmakers officially approved raises Tuesday for 35,000 employees of the Universities of Wisconsin after a deal brokered and approved last week with a top Republican legislator.
The Republican lawmaker who forced the Universities of Wisconsin to commit to reducing diversity positions called Tuesday for an in-depth review of diversity initiatives across state government and repeated his claim that he has only begun to dismantle equity and inclusion efforts in the state.
The school is also launching a five-year pilot program to cover in-state tuition and fees for students pursuing a law or medical degree who are from tribes in the state, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced Monday.
Dubbed the Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise, the program launches next fall. Unlike the university’s other tuition promise program, this one isn’t based on financial need. All enrolled members of Wisconsin tribes qualify.
Starting next fall, UW-Madison will meet the full financial need — including tuition and fees, as well as housing, meals and books — for in-state undergraduates who are enrolled members of one of 11 federally recognized Wisconsin tribes.
UW-Madison will launch tuition assistance programs next fall for in-state students who are members of one of Wisconsin’s federally recognized tribes, part of the university’s efforts to acknowledge the Indigenous history of the land on which the university was built.
