As a student, UW sociology professor Alice Goffman spent six years immersed in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood. What she learned shaped her understanding of urban policy and inspired a break-out book.
Fall 2014
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Stories
An excerpt from The Opening Kickoff explores how UW legend Pat O'Dea "put the foot in football" and gained long-overdue respect for the Wisconsin team during the early days of intercollegiate athletics.
What does it take to produce one of those courses with the funny name? We look at the intense planning, the in-the-field work, and the post-production effort required to create a MOOC.
As our nation faces a great political divide, UW experts and alumni explore the current state of democracy, our voting system, the enormous power and potential of social media, and the hopeful voices of the next generation.
With an average of 17,104 fans packing the Kohl Center per game, the UW ranked second highest in home attendance among Big Ten men’s basketball teams last season. Indiana University came in first. When the Southeast Recreational Facility (SERF) is renovated, it will include a new swimming pool for competition.
Union Terrace, June 14, 2014, 9 p.m. 71 degrees Wish you were here.
Photo: Jeff Miller
Although today Michael Lihrman x’15 holds the NCAA championship title for weight throw, his introduction to the sport didn’t come until his junior year at Rice Lake High School in northern Wisconsin.
Back then, the 6-foot-5 senior was looking for a way to…
As a nation, we are deeply polarized. And our partisan divisions will solidify with the approaching 2014 midterm elections and the horserace already under way for the 2016 presidential campaign.
Despite daily deluges, twelve students in this anthropology course spent most of June sifting and winnowing dirt.
Fans of Harry Potter and other pop-culture touchstones transform into activists.
A powerful social platform is engaging citizens in the political process.
How can we prepare our kids to participate in the highly polarized world of politics?
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.
Long before Badger football season gets underway ... certain lucky students make the equivalent of a touchdown pass by securing season-ticket packages.
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) may be the newest trend in higher education, but at the UW, the practice of using mass-media technologies to connect the public with university instruction dates back more than eighty years.
My daughter participated in the [Washington D.C. Semester in International Affairs] program last year, resulting in her catching “Potomac fever” [Classroom, Summer 2014]. She has since graduated, packed her bags, and moved to D.C., and is now in search of employment to pursue her dream of making a difference. …
Ali Dewalt got a taste of what it’s like to be a hit author before she even arrived on campus.
Newlyweds Matt Hill and Jessi Hill ’12 pose for a photographer at the Memorial Union’s swimming pier on a June evening before heading to their wedding reception at Tripp Commons.
A class project sparked a career as an author and illustrator.
I thoroughly enjoyed your acronym acrobatics editorial in the Summer 2014 On Wisconsin [Inside Story]. It reminded me of a friend who became a member of MAD (Mothers Against Dyslexia). To get this effort off the ground ASAP, they utilized a program called PREGNANT — Parents Reaching Every Goal…
Those who knew Charlie Mohr during Madison’s NCAA boxing championship run in the 1950s were privileged indeed [News & Notes, “Fighting Back,” Summer 2014]. There was no better example of humility and sensitivity on campus. His popularity actually embarrassed him. [He was a] shy, sensitive, lanky, deeply religious boy most…
“Empty Nests” [Summer 2014] mentions UW scientists who have kept the passenger pigeon’s memory alive. I’d like to add Carol Ryrie Brink, author of Caddie Woodlawn (1935), to this list. Brink describes the annual migration of passenger pigeons over a farm south of Menomonie in the fall of 1864.…
[In regard to “Musical Numbers,” Summer 2014]: Fascinating article. As a musician, I’ve always believed that music is a form of math, and math is also an art form. Music is math, and time, and physics. Incidentally, I just finished reading a novel that combines music and time travel.…
Bravo to On Wisconsin for the splendid coverage of UW mathematics Professor Jordan Ellenberg and his new book How Not to Be Wrong [“Thinking inside the Box,” Summer 2014]. In an age when even our college-educated citizens struggle with the seemingly simple concepts of economic free lunches and the…
I recently read “Off the Prescribed Path” [Summer 2014], and I am highly disappointed and offended. I am an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, and am also Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe. I have worked for the Ho-Chunk Nation Department of Health as a physician assistant since graduation in…
