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.
Indigenous students from any of Wisconsin’s 11 tribes will be able to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison for free beginning next fall, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced Monday.
Beginning in the fall of 2024, the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW-M) will cover the full cost of an undergraduate degree for Wisconsin residents who are members of federally recognized Wisconsin Indian tribes, the University announced on Monday.
“Oh it’s a really big deal, we’re all really excited to hear about this,” Senior Cayden Kirkpatrick, President of the American Indian Science Engineering Society (AISES) chapter at UW-Madison, said.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is pledging to cover the full cost of a college degree for students from Wisconsin Indian tribes under a new program announced Monday.
“Wisconsin did a lot for me,” Finley said. “The 4 years I spent here was very monumental in where I am today as a man, so to share my experiences with them, (the graduates) celebrating this great day, is just a great honor.”
UW-Madison’s chief diversity officer on Thursday tried to allay concerns that the Universities of Wisconsin is stepping back its support for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, despite UW system President Jay Rothman and legislative Republicans brokering a deal that authorizes about $800 million for the UW system in exchange for DEI changes.
A Republican-controlled legislative committee is slated to approve 6% pay raises for Universities of Wisconsin workers Tuesday after the UW system agreed this week to repurpose some diversity positions as part of a broader deal with lawmakers to unlock nearly $800 million in state aid.
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 University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents flip-flopped Wednesday, voting 11-6 to approve a deal on diversity positions and pay raises it had rejected just four days earlier.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is calling for a do-over.
The board is scheduled to vote 5 p.m. Wednesday on the same deal it rejected Saturday. It will be the board’s fifth meeting in a chaotic seven days.
The UW Board of Regents will meet again on Wednesday to reconsider a deal brokered between Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman and legislative Republicans to secure pay raises for UW system employees and funding for UW-Madison’s long-awaited engineering building in exchange for restructuring system diversity efforts.
Members of the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents will consult with attorneys Tuesday about a lawsuit challenging the power of the Legislature, a move that comes just days after the board rejected a deal with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos involving pay raises and limits on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman knew the vote on a deal over campus diversity efforts was critical.
In fact, in the days leading up to it, he floated resigning if the vote failed, according to UW student Regent Evan Brenkus.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Monday that Republicans “are not changing one thing” in the compromise plan the Universities of Wisconsin Regents rejected Saturday to roll back diversity efforts in exchange for staff raises and a new engineering building and other infrastructure improvements.
In an unexpected move Saturday, the board overseeing state public universities narrowly rejected a deal University of Wisconsin System leaders brokered with the state’s top Republican over campus diversity efforts.
A narrowly divided UW Board of Regents on Saturday rejected an agreement between Universities of Wisconsin system President Jay Rothman and legislative Republican leaders authorizing UW system funding and pay raises in exchange for changes to universities’ diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
In a deal months in the making, the University of Wisconsin system will “reimagine” its diversity efforts, restructure dozens of staff into positions serving all students and freeze the total number of diversity and administrative positions for the next three years.
In exchange, the universities would receive $800 million to give pay raises for 35,000 employees and move forward on some building projects, including a new engineering building for UW-Madison.
The leader of the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate said Wednesday that lawmakers are nearing a deal that would allow for long-blocked pay raises for Universities of Wisconsin employees to take effect and for funding to be released to pay for construction of a new engineering building.
Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman sought to clarify this week that he is not proposing to solve the system’s financial woes by eliminating liberal arts programs after sharing a report with chancellors that examined steps an Arkansas university took to head off its own fiscal crisis.
When Jeff Roznowski and Bill Monfre first joined a coalition in 2020 to advocate for a new engineering facility on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, they figured they’d work with the group only a year or two.
An increasing number of first-year UW-Madison students are qualifying for two of UW-Madison’s tuition promise programs, with Pell Pathway intended to tackle the ever-growing cost of attending the state’s largest university.
“We’re trying to understand how this rich data that we collected when they were younger and in middle age is influencing their memory and cognitive function now,” said Michal Engelman, a UW-Madison sociology professor who directs the study.
“There’s biological and physiological processes, but there’s also the social and economic environment,” Engelman said. “All of these things work together to shape people’s well-being through their life course.”
In a poorly ventilated room in a dairy lab on ninth floor of UW-Madison’s Animal and Dairy Sciences building, more than $1 million of research equipment sits on decades-old desks. An average-looking air purifier on the floor nearby keeps the machines running.
“It was such a relief. I cried,” Freshman Mattie Place said. “Honestly, I did, it was a relief to me, my mom, my dad, everybody. It was amazing.”
The Madison Fire Department said in a statement about 8:45 a.m. that fire crews were sent to the scene at 7:33 a.m. to investigate an alarm and arrived at 7:36 a.m. as UW-Madison police officers confirmed a fire on the fifth floor of the building. Additional fire crews then were sent to the scene.
The Republican war on diversity, equity and inclusion could cost Wisconsin hundreds of engineers.
The GOP-controlled Legislature declined to fund a new engineering building for the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of the state budget. The project would expand enrollment in the engineering college.
From Pearl Harbor all the way to today, there are 1,500 Wisconsinites who served and paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country now missing in action across the globe. And there’s a team of Wisconsin archaeologists, historians, and college students working to find those fallen heroes.
With 1,700 more students that last year, UW system enrollment grew by 1.1% to about 162,500 students. These are the official numbers, based on the system’s 10-day enrollment count, that are reported to the federal Department of Education.
Bascom Hall, one of UW-Madison’s earliest buildings, sits on land the Ho-Chunk Nation called “Teejop.” Once home to more than 900 effigy mounds made generations ago, the Ho-Chunk Nation considered dejope to be sacred immemorial. When Bascom Hall was built in 1859, UW-Madison destroyed the effigy mound where it currently sits.
The Universities of Wisconsin on Monday proposed using $32 million the Legislature withheld earlier this year over the UW system’s refusal to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion programs to expand training in several high-demand fields at 13 schools in the UW system.
A campaign launched this week by the Wisconsin Alumni Association, a nonprofit arm of UW-Madison that facilitates much of its fundraising efforts, is encouraging business leaders and others around the state to contact their legislators and push them to take up legislation to construct a new engineering building.
The applicant pool for UW-Madison’s School of Pharmacy has declined 15% in the past five years. Nationally, 30% fewer applicants are trying to get into pharmacy schools.
So UW-Madison officials have expanded their recruitment team, using the new manpower to give students a more comprehensive understanding of the opportunities at the university’s School of Pharmacy early on.
UW-Madison is leveraging swathes of experience across departments — and across the University of Wisconsin system — to meet student demand for an architecture program.
In a lawsuit that could upend how the state Legislature operates, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is suing Republican lawmakers over decisions to withhold pay raises for University of Wisconsin System employees and to block conservation projects, arguing such actions made by legislative committees rather than the full Legislature violate the state Constitution’s separation of powers requirements.
UW-Madison announced the selection Monday nearly a month and a half ahead of commencement, which is set to take place Sunday, Dec. 17. Each semester, the senior class leadership picks the commencement speaker in consultation with university administration.
UW-Madison will officially be celebrating its 175th anniversary by hoping for that many “s’more” years with its new Babcock Dairy ice cream flavor.
The number of graduating students and conferred degrees narrowly beat previous years to set new all-time highs.
UW-Platteville plans to lay off 60 employees this week and will lose dozens of others to retirements, vacancies and administrative restructuring, as it seeks to fully close its $9.7 million budget shortfall by the end of the 2024 fiscal year.
“(The tech hub status) will help ensure that we continue to push forward innovation, economic growth and transformative advancements in healthcare,” said UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin in a statement.
A new cow pen created by a UW-Madison researcher includes a feed bunk, salt blocks and and beds of straw on which the animals can lounge between milkings. Only the pen isn’t on a plot of prime Dane County farmland or nestled in the rolling hills of Green County.
Instead the pen is part of a new game on an app designed to help dairy farmers better understand and learn more about how to interact safely with their cows.
Launched this fall, Bucky’s Pell Pathway meets the full financial need for in-state students who qualify for Pell grants, helping them graduate debt-free. Pell federal dollars are limited to undergraduates with exceptional financial need but often don’t cover the full cost of school, causing many recipients to take out extra loans.
ARepublican-controlled legislative committee on Tuesday approved 6% pay raises over the next two years for most state employees, but withheld any increase for Universities of Wisconsin staff unless the UW system eliminates its diversity, equity and inclusion positions.
President Jay Rothman has ordered chancellors to cease in-person instruction at UW-Milwaukee at Washington County, located in West Bend, and UW Oshkosh at Fond du Lac. UW-Platteville’s Richland Center campus will also officially close after receiving a similar directive as the other two schools last year.
UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin is condemning the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians last week, calling for respectful dialogue and a focus on shared values as many Jewish students struggle to reckon with violence against their faith.
The universities are also working to address structural deficits, solve the problems facing branch campuses and address diversity, equity and inclusion to prepare students for an “increasingly multicultural workplace.”
The University of Wisconsin System is being renamed as the Universities of Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin System will rebrand itself over the coming months to “Universities of Wisconsin” as it looks to strengthen the “UW” reputation across all 13 schools, not just UW-Madison.
“Fill the Hill is a great way for Badgers everywhere and supporters everywhere to show their spirit and show their support for UW Madison by making a donation,” Chief Alumni Officer & Executive Director of Wisconsin Alumni Association Sarah Schutt said.
Under the program, Wisconsin high school students would be able to sidestep the traditional college application process and instead be automatically admitted to one or more System schools for which they qualify. Qualification would be based on academic performance, taking aspects such as grade-point average and class rank into consideration.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced the launch of its First Generation Badgers pilot program last week. The experimental program is designed to better support first-generation students by building community and providing more resources, one-on-one mentorship and various events throughout the year.
The university’s 175th anniversary year, which kicked off in July, brings the next specialty flavor. The university has put up a public survey online for ice cream aficionados to choose a winning flavor from the four options vying for the coveted spot.
As most state universities in Wisconsin continue to deal with declining enrollment, the University of Wisconsin-Madison received a record 63,537 applications for just 7,996 open slots in the fall 2023 freshman class.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison student body is now the 13th largest city in the state, surpassing Sheboygan, Wauwatosa and Fond du Lac. It could potentially pass La Crosse in population size next year.
Even with a reduced freshman class this year, total campus enrollment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is now the largest in the campus’ history.
There 9,095 freshman and transfer students on campus this fall, and nearly half of them are Wisconsin residents.
Of the first-year students on campus, 3,813 are from the Badger State, meaning this year’s freshman class has the second-highest number of Wisconsin residents in the university’s history.
UW Madison has surpassed a personal record and now has the highest number of students enrolled – for the first time, the number exceeds 50,000.
“I certainly feel incredibly fortunate to be here, and I know we share a drive to learn, to educate, to engage, to serve the public, to push beyond boundaries and hopefully to solve some of society’s greatest challenges,” Mnookin said. “I have no doubt that together we can make real progress.”
Major facelifts meant to stretch the lifespans of UW-Madison’s two highly coveted dorms late into the 21st century are wrapping up after nearly six and a half years.
