SOLD OUT:
Ticket lotteries force empty-handed students to navigate risky reselling networks
Board of Directors
Publisher Emmet O’Connor
By: Adrian Carmosino
Legislative council debates UW’s potential separation from Universities of Wisconsin
‘It is really important to recognize the ways that we differ, but that we can do that within the system,’ Chancellor Mnookin says
by Zindzi Frederick News Associate Editor
The future of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a subject of debate within the 2024 Legislative Council Study Committee on the future of the Universities of Wisconsin System.
The topic was brought up in the council’s meeting on Aug. 29 by Vice President for Administration at University of Wisconsin System James Langdon. Langdon distributed a written proposal to the other committee members, according to the meeting minutes.
Part of Langdon’s proposal focused on establishing UW-Madison as a separate state agency named the “University of Wisconsin” and providing UW with limited bonding authority, according to the meeting minutes.
In last month’s meeting Wisconsin Policy Forum President Jason Stein gave a presentation regarding higher education governance. UW-Madison, out of its peer universities, is the only one that both reports to a larger governing board with statutory authority and is part of a comprehensive statewide system, according to the 62-page document.
Other committee members argued that the separation would make the flagship more competitive nationally, according to a report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Another argument made for UWMadison’s spin-off is that it would allow the council to focus on solving problems at the other 12 universities. In the 2024 Universities of Wisconsin Facts and Trends documents, there are several statistics regarding declining enrollment and lack of funding that write “excluding UW-Madison” in parentheses. Many of the issues that the other universities are facing, the university doesn’t have, according to an email statement from committee member Peter Kies.
“UW-Madison is a premier academic institution that provides nearly $30 billion in economic impact to our state each year,” Kies said. “As a member of the committee examining the future of higher education in Wisconsin, I feel it’s important that we fully explore how we best position UW-Madison and the Universities of Wisconsin for long-term success with an understanding that may require changes to how our state’s flagship campus is governed.”
Among those opposed to the UW spinoff are Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and State Senator Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee).
Both have raised concerns about how the spin-off might alter the system’s mission.
Larson expressed skepticism about the merits of this proposal, warning that it could exacerbate what he sees as a trend
now you’re you have it divided or you have UW cleaved off, and then you have the rest of them also trying to fend for themselves,” Larson said.
The conversation around whether or
of dwindling state support for higher education.
“I see no evidence, if you cleave off one campus from the others, that the exact same thing wouldn’t just happen, only
2013 biennial budget originally had a proposal to remove UW-Madison from the UW System. The drafted proposal was met with pushback from the system.
“If changes are proposed that establish UW-Madison as a separate, self-contained institution with its own governance board separate from the Board of Regents, we would return to a two-tiered system the state abandoned 40 years ago for good reasons,” the UW System said in an open letter to Governor Walker. “Those competing systems gave rise to wasteful duplication, unnecessary competition and conflict.”
Despite the UW System’s disapproval, former UW-Madison Chancellor, Carolyn “Biddy” Martin, supported the schism, according to the Cap Times. This put the former chancellor in the middle of a lot of controversy. The proposal for the separation was deleted from the final budget, and 10 days later, on June 14, Martin announced that she’d be leaving the university.
Larson attributes the renewed interest in this idea to a “scarcity mentality” and the influence of conservative economic philosophies, such as those taught by Milton Friedman, which advocate for the shrinking of government.
“This is the biggest line item for the state of Wisconsin, higher education, and so there is always a temptation to slash and burn it as a way to lower taxes for rich folks,” Larson said.
Larson also highlighted the historical significance of the UW system, noting its role in the development of landmark social programs like Social Security and Medicare. He argued that the conversation should focus on Wisconsin’s achievements in higher education and making strides to achieve more.
The senator’s concerns echo the sentiments of UW System President Jay Rothman and UW Chancellor Mnookin, both of whom have publicly stated their belief that the system is better off remaining united.
At a student media roundtable in September, Mnookin expressed her opinion on the topics. The chancellor acknowledged the ways that UW is different from Wisconsin’s other universities, and that this dialogue is legitimate. But, she stands behind the Universities of Wisconsin’s current structure.
not UW-Madison should separate from the 53-year-old system is not new. It’s been brought up several times in the past, but has been met with opposition.
Former Governor Scott Walker’s 2011-
“It is both possible and preferable to manage those differences as one organization for higher education in the state of Wisconsin,” Mnookin said.
MEGAN EDWARDS. THE BADGER HERALD.
Mayor Rhodes-Conway announces 2025 city budget, Capital Improvement Plan
Budget $24 million lower than requested, invests in public infrastructure
by Anja Breiehagen News Associate Editor
City of Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway announced her 2025 Executive Capital Budget and Capital Improvement Plan Sept. 10, according to the City of Madison website.
The CIP is a six-year plan running from 20252030 which details how much money the city will invest each year to improve its infrastructure — including public transit, streets, parks, bikeways and stormwater systems, according to the executive summary.
The capital budget is the first year of the plan, investing $418.3 million in 2025, but the plan accounts for $1.5 billion in total from 2025-2030, according to the executive summary.
This capital budget concerns long-term largescale projects, but the operating budget, which focuses on the day-to-day costs like employee wages, is still under development, according to the City of Madison website.
The proposed capital budget is $24 million lower than what agencies requested and $12.3 million lower than the 2024 adopted budget, according to the City of Madison website.
Associated Students of Madison Legislative Affairs Committee Chair Ethan Jackowski said while the lower budget may seem concerning, the mayor is targeted with her approach developing infrastructure and long term projects for the City.
“… The decrease just means that they’re doing less and they have to be more targeted,” Jackowski said. “But it doesn’t mean that infrastructure changes and updates aren’t happening, and that the changes that are happening aren’t meaningful. They’re just being more cautious.”
The budget includes funding for a South Point Road Public Works Facility on the west side of Madison, a north-south transit route, co-locating the South District Police Station and updates for aging infrastructure, like stormwater drains on Regent Street, according to the executive summary.
Madison Deputy Mayor Christie Baumel emphasized the importance of funding critical infrastructure efficiently.
“This year, our focus was really trying to maintain those critically important services that everybody relies on, while also recognizing that we need to recognize the burden on taxpayers,” Baumel said. “So we’re trying to be very efficient, and not only with what we select in terms of capital projects, but how we invest that money in ways that reduce our long term operating expenses.”
Jackowski said the infrastructure updates are important for students, especially in areas on and near campus, like Regent Street. Students will also benefit from better snow plowing and improved traffic patterns during the winter, Jackowski said.
The South Point Road Public Works Facility will house garbage trucks, snow plows, street
sweepers and other vehicles, and the introduction of rapid public transit will decrease traffic, according to the executive summary.
“When we have better infrastructure and people feel more supported, it makes Madison more comfortable to live in,” Jackowski said.
Baumel.
The CIP allocates $36.2 million for affordable housing and the redevelopment of South Madison and the Sheridan Triangle neighborhood, according to the CDA redevelopment plan.
Capital Management Club President Spencer
“It makes getting around campus better and it makes Madison more hospitable, which brings in a diversity of people. There are net positives that are downstream, even though it might seem like fixing drain water issues isn’t a big thing.”
The budget also includes a housing fund that aims to incentivize the creation of new, long term affordable housing developments, according to
Callaway underscored the importance of affordable housing initiatives in Madison, especially for University of Wisconsin students.
“I hope that the City balances priorities between full time residents and students, and acknowledges that there is a real shortage of housing for students,” Callaway said.
The budget proposes funding replacing
facilities and adding mixed-income housing, since federal limits restrict the amount of public housing Madison can have, according to Baumel. The Community Development Division oversees Madison’s public housing and will preserve affordability, increase the number of housing units available and help address the City’s housing demand, Baumel said.
The mayor’s budget proposal includes several environmental initiatives, including solar panel installations for affordable housing projects, according to Baumel. Other efforts include expanding bike lanes for sustainable commuting, air quality monitoring, energy efficiency upgrades for commercial buildings and stormwater cleanup to reduce lake pollution and funding for green space, Baumel said.
The funding for bus transit represents a major sustainability effort, with a new east-west route launched on Sept. 22 and a proposed north-south route in the budget, according to City of Madison news.
Rhodes-Conway introduced a $22 million funding referendum resolution in July, according to the City of Madison website. Each city government agency was asked to propose a 5% budget reduction, and combined, they suggested $22 million in cuts, according to Baumel.
“There are items [budget cuts] in there related to public safety and whether that be related to violence prevention or police service reductions or fire service reductions, there are options in there related to cutting community contracts,” Baumel said.
If voters approve the referendum, it will avoid major service cuts, though property taxes will increase by $219 annually for the average homeowner, according to the City of Madison.
Without the referendum, the City will need to reduce services by $6 million in 2025, Baumel said. This will mean significant cuts across city workforce, including police, fire, garbage, libraries and community services, Baumel said.
The Common Council voted to place the referendum on the ballot in November for voters to decide whether to approve an increase in the property tax levy, according to the City of Madison website.
Baumel and Jackowski said they encourage students to make their voices heard in the municipal government processes. The proposed capital budget and operating budget processes include public hearings that students should attend to voice their concerns and opinions, Jackowski said.
The capital budget Finance Committee hearings are in September, followed by Common Council hearings in November, with final adoption in January 2025, and the operating budget will be released Oct. 8, according to the City of Madison.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway hosts a roundtable for student journalists. September 19, 2024.
Madison celebrates National Women’s Small Business Month
by Zindzi Frederick News Associate Editor
October is National Women’s Small Business Month. This annual observation recognizes the contribution of women entrepreneurs to the American economy. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, women-owned businesses accounted for 42% of all American businesses by 2019, generating over $1.9 trillion in revenue. Only after the Women’s Business Ownership Act of 1988 was passed were women allowed to apply for business loans without a male relative having to cosign.
Belle Voell, owner of Paleo Mama Bakery
For Belle Voell, the path to entrepreneurship began with a personal health journey. After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, Voell started experimenting with different diets to manage her condition.
“I eliminated a lot of things that cause inflammation, like grains and dairy and sugar,”
Voell said.
As Voell adjusted her own eating habits, she realized there was a growing demand for allergen-friendly baked goods in the community. This insight inspired her to take the leap and open Paleo Mama Bakery a decade ago, despite having no prior experience as an entrepreneur.
In the years since, Voell has worked to build a loyal customer base by prioritizing community feedback. The bakery has evolved to meet the diverse dietary needs of its patrons, with keto options now making up half of the menu. Veoll tries to cater to many different food allergens, offering egg-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, keto, paleo and vegan options.
“I was cooking a lot, baking a lot of products for myself. And then I realized that there was a need for this in the market for other people with
food allergies and food intolerances,” Voell said.
Voell credits the support of local mentors for helping her navigate the challenges of starting a business from scratch. Voell said she reached out to other local businesses and another paleo business nationwide, and they gave her some insight on getting started and the steps she needed to see her dream come to fruition.
As Paleo Mama Bakery continues to grow, Voell has her sights set on expanding both locally and nationally.
“We’re in the process right now of looking for our next spots where we’ll be able to have more space and bring in more products and a larger staff,” Voell said.
Reflecting on her journey, Voell’s advice for aspiring women entrepreneurs is simple but powerful: “Take that risk and go for your dreams.”
Kenzie Beam, owner of Every Bitch Needs a Scrunchie
University of Wisconsin alumni Kenzie Beam, 25, found a unique way to blend her passion for retail and community in Madison. Beam started her business, Every Bitch Needs a Scrunchie, in 2018 as a high school student after learning how to sew and make scrunchies. Every Bitch Needs a Scrunchie is located under the Roundhouse Apartments on Langdon Street.
Beam said that she never pictured herself having a cafe to go along with her retail store. But, she realized that adding a coffee option could create a gathering space for her customers, allowing them to shop and enjoy a beverage. The combination of retail and cafe has set her business apart in the local market.
“One of my favorite parts of our store is that it does have a lot of retail items, and they’re not just stuff that I make or stuff that says the name of the shop on it, it’s other products from local, women-owned small businesses,” Beam said. Beam outsources different items such as keychains, earrings, jewelry, ceramics, handbags, juices and baked goods. All of these items come from women-owned small businesses.
Navigating the challenges of starting a business, such as getting the space rezoned, has been made easier with the support of a group of women-owned small businesses. Beam credits the women of Thistle + Elm, Miggy’s Bakes, Beneblends and Tricky Foods as being influential in helping her with business and being role models.
“I have a really great group of womenowned small businesses that I’m a part of, and we collaboratively help each other and support each other in any way,” Beam said. “Honestly, I don’t think I could do it without them.
Building a strong community has been crucial for Beam’s business, especially given its location which is near both campus and student housing. She has hosted events, such as sorority gatherings, to engage with students and organizations.
Looking ahead, Beam hopes to continue loving what she does and being happy with her business in the next five years, she said. Beam encourages other young women to take the leap and start their own ventures.
“It sounds so cliche, but just go for it, you never know what you are going to learn from opening a business,” Beam said. “Also, the joy that it can bring — from new friendships and new obstacles that you have to get through.”
In celebrating National Women’s Small Business Month, the journeys of Belle Voell and Kenzie Beam exemplify the efforts female entrepreneurs put in to uplift their communities by supporting one another.
Owners of Every Bitch Needs a Scrunchie, Paleo Mama Bakery speak to experiences as female business owners
A candle display as seen inside the store Every Bitch Needs a Scrunchie. September 26, 2024.
BENNETT WAARA. THE BADGER HERALD.
UW System fosters effective civil dialogue through grant program
$90,000 budgeted for UW schools for the fall cycle of the Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship, Civil Dialogue grant program
by
The Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship and Civil Dialogue has reopened their grant program for the fall, inviting Universities of Wisconsin faculty, students and staff to apply for grants aimed at promoting democracy through civic engagement, WICCD spokesperson Mark Pitsch said in an email statement to The Badger Herald.
WICCD introduced the grant cycle last spring and awarded grants to seven UW schools. The program awarded $15,000 to support facilitator training to UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs for their project titled, “A Remedy for Polarization? Citizen Conversations Across Partisan Difference,” according to the WICCD grant program page.
The School of Public Affairs is conducting community conversations across six different Wisconsin cities, Director Susan Webb Yackee said. Two of the events are traditional town hall events, where community members identify what policy issues they want to discuss and faculty members speak on their expertise regarding the topics. The other four are more interactive roundtable discussions, where people across all political identities can come together to engage in civil discussion on policy issues, Yackee said.
Yackee said the grant money has gone toward training the moderators who direct the community discussions. These conversations are integral to connecting community members during times of intense polarization, according to Yackee.
“It’s a wonderful source of funding for work
that’s important to the state,” Yackee said.
WICCD awarded $13,000 to UW-Oshkosh’s project, “Foundations in Facilitating Dialogue,” led by the school’s Director of the Center for Civic and Community Engagement Mike Lueder, according to the WICCD grant program page.
The funding was used to launch in-person workshops led by the Constructive Dialogue Institute, where instructors receive training on strategies for promoting civil and constructive dialogue, Lueder said. The grant almost entirely funded the integration of CDI and without it, their faculty would not have been introduced to the training at all.
Lueder said he always encourages people to apply for grants that are offered through the UW system. Such grants are meant solely for UW schools, meaning the competition is smaller for faculty or students considering applying, Lueder said.
“They really understand the work that we’re doing, and they want us to be productive and successful on the campuses,” Lueder said.
UW-Whitewater’s LEARN center received a $13,000 grant to finance the training of instructors in teaching civil dialogue, LEARN Center Director Rimi Zakaria said. LEARN is dedicated to enhancing student learning through ongoing staff development, according to its website. The training helps faculty come up with more effective assignments and improve upon their teaching methods surrounding civil dialogue, Zakaria said.
The grant helps students develop crucial workplace skills, such as empathy, tolerance and the ability to collaborate with people who have different mindsets, making them valuable assets to employers, Zakaria said.
“We think it’s a skill to be learned,” Zakaria said. “You can listen to a different viewpoint and think about it, no matter what the viewpoint is.”
These skills make up a large part of what WICCD hopes to achieve with its grant program. WICCD’s purpose is to encourage education surrounding civic knowledge and democratic engagement, Pitsch said. Specifically, WICCD aims to provide the resources to UW schools necessary for training and modeling proper civil dialogue.
Ensuring students understand the presence of differing viewpoints on their campus and providing them with opportunities to engage in civic participation is one of WICCD’s main goals, Pitsch said.
The grant program is intended to encourage these values within UW campuses, specifically by providing funding to students or faculty who are interested in igniting their ideas around civic engagement through activities like research, events, assessment and evaluation or curriculum and professional development, Pitsch said.
importance of these grants in a big-picture context.
“I think the more people who want to do a range of activities to promote civil dialogue, the better we become as a society,” Zakaria said. “We rely on more people to join these efforts.”
To apply for the grant, applicants submit a proposal no longer than 1,500 words that communicates their project’s alignment with WICCD’s missions. The proposal should also touch on the need for the project, including clear objectives and impacts, a plan for assessing the project and its results, the qualifications of the applicant and an itemized budget, Pitsch said.
Proposals will be initially reviewed by the WICCD director to determine whether they move on to content experts for further evaluation. From there, experts suggest the director to either fund the proposal as submitted, offer the applicant the option to resubmit with corrections or reject the proposal for specified reasons, Pitsch said.
WICCD’s main goals with the grant program are to support academic freedom, free expression and civil dialogue across the Universities of Wisconsin, Pitsch said.
A total of $90,000 is budgeted for the fall grant cycle and fall semester proposal applications are due Oct. 15, according to the
Sophie Wooldridge News Associate Editor
Badger Herald archival photo of a classroom. February 19, 2019.
SAM CHRISTENSON. THE BADGER HERALD.
Facing high freshmen enrollment, UW converts study lounges into dorms
friends on other floors that say they don’t have kitchens, so sometimes they’ll come up
Anderson said she believes her roommate had to search for that information.
Aid.
by Zoe Klein News Associate Editor
The University of Wisconsin has enrolled 8,516 freshmen for the fall 2024 semester, its second-largest class in school history, according to UW News. The latest summer 2024 housing analysis reports the university’s residence halls in total have a design capacity of 7,724 beds, while the operating capacity is 8,849, according to UW News.
The university does not require freshmen to live on campus, yet the residence halls have maintained an average occupancy rate of 104% from 2010 to 2023, according to the Student Housing Market and Affordability Analysis.
In Chadbourne Residence Hall, some of the building’s study lounges have been transformed into additional dorm rooms and the kitchens next to the lounges have been closed off to give residents privacy, Residential Operations at University Housing director Brian Ward said. Ward said that the school aims to use available community spaces to accommodate growing enrollment.
“We [the university] came back and said we need to grab a few more of these lounges to make sure that we can still offer all the freshman students that are telling us they want to be at UW–Madison,” Ward said.
Students in the converted lounges are able to use their attached kitchens, excluding the stoves, which have been turned off, Ward said.
To address the overcrowding, the university has implemented accommodations such as adding extra beds in existing rooms that have space, Ward said.
Ward said the university is aware of certain rooms that are not ideal for triple occupancy and has reverted some back to doubles.
“To be honest, the students are usually very excited about these [converted] spaces because they’re really nice rooms,” Ward said. “They’re sometimes bigger, and they’re a great location … students generally really enjoy the space.”
Ward said students without a kitchen on their floor would still have access to kitchens on the floors above or below. Each residence hall is equipped with at least one kitchen, according to the UW Housing website.
UW freshman and Chadbourne Residence Hall resident Lauren Anderson said she would have been a bit disappointed if she did not have a kitchen or study lounge on her floor.
“For my floor, I’m lucky enough that it [the conversion] hasn’t happened yet… we still have our den and our kitchen,” Anderson said. “I do have
here and use ours.”
Anderson said she doesn’t remember being notified by the university, but she did get a text from her roommate that they were placed on a floor that still had a kitchen. But,
Ward said part of the reason for housing changes is a recent adjustment to the FAFSA system. The formula for determining financial aid eligibility was altered this past year, according to the Office of Federal Student
Many students received delayed notice of their financial aid eligibility, causing some to commit to UW later than in previous years and pushing back the typical timeline of university housing assignments, Ward said.
Ward said that a key difference between housing at UW and other universities is that students placed in lounges here will not be moved throughout the year, allowing them to stay in the same space, which minimizes disruption.
Students that made the decision to come to campus later, or were taken off the waiting list, were told that they were likely to be put into a lounge, but would be allowed to stay there all year, Ward said.
Ward said his team works very closely with the Off-Campus Housing Services Office, which was created by University Housing last year and provides students with the resources to make informed decisions about moving off campus, according to the student housing analysis.
While immediate modifications have been made to accommodate current students, longterm solutions are necessary to ensure that future cohorts do not face similar challenges, Ward said. The university has consistently advocated for more housing to allow dorms to operate as originally intended.
“We would love to have more housing so that we can get back to operating our buildings the way they were built for and designed to,” Ward said. “… We do have projects that we’re constantly looking for approval from the state to grant and finance for the construction of new buildings.”
One significant solution UW is proposing to address its housing crisis is a state project aimed at constructing new residence facilities that could increase campus capacity by up to 2,000 beds, according to the student housing analysis.
This initiative, however, requires multiple layers of approval before it can proceed, as the university lacks the authority to commission or construct new housing independently, according to the student housing analysis.
The UW Board of Regents approved this project request Aug. 22 and incorporated it into its six-year capital development plan and the upcoming 2025-27 state biennial budget request, according to the request document.
For the project to move forward, it will need the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers, as well as bonding authority for the construction, according to the student housing analysis.
The funding for these new facilities would come entirely from student room rents and dining fees, ensuring that no state funding or taxpayer money is involved in the project, according to the student housing analysis.
What scientists get wrong about ‘anti-science’
Where science communicators see the conversation about trust in science going wrong
by Kiran Mistry Science News Associate Editor
Scientists have been facing growing levels of distrust from the public, crossing political lines.
A Sept. 11 opinion piece by Thomas Edsall in the New York Times said science denial comes from political motivations. Edsall also references the viewpoint of Dietram Scheufele, a professor at the University of Wisconsin’s Life Sciences Communication, who flips the argument by suggesting that science is lending itself to political motivation.
“Science has become a signaling device for liberals to distinguish themselves from what they see as anti-science Republicans,” Scheufele said. “That spells trouble.”
Scheufele said polarizing science harms an institution that relies on the perception that it is unbiased.
UW Professor Dominique Brossard, who chairs the Department of Life Science Communication, said that Americans are losing faith in scientists, not science.
“The notion that fundamentally there is a drop in trust in science in the United States is without evidence,” Brossard said. “There is a drop in trust in institutions overall, including medical science.”
Brossard said the politicization of science plays a key role in the growing distrust of scientists by Republicans. Scientists publicly embracing political positions harms the image of science as a neutral body, Brossard said. Similarly, linking left-leaning political messages with affirmations of belief in science has the same detrimental effect.
Not long ago, conservatives and liberals had similar views on scientists and their institutions. Pew Research Center found that in April 2020, 85% of U.S. adult Republicans and 91% of Democrats believed scientists acted in the best interest of the country. As of 2023, this figure has dropped to 61% for Republicans and 86% for Democrats, a 25-point shift, according to Pew Research Center.
UW LSC Professor Todd Newman said scientists engage with the public in ways that don’t help build trust. Instead, scientists should aim for more public input as a way to improve their standing, Newman said.
“Scientists go into communicating expecting their audiences to see that same wonder and curiosity about the unknown the same way that they do,” Newman said. “There needs to be more ways in emphasizing and showing how society can be engaged and be a part of research.”
Newman said scientists should not be expected to always communicate their work to the public. Institutions like Extension &
Outreach at the UW College of Agriculture and Life Sciences were built specifically for communication and community outreach to Wisconsin’s farmers about the work and research done at the university.”
Newman believes scientists can begin to re-engage the public by taking a step back.
“It’s about science as an institution showing some humility and valuing the public sentiment into the work that’s being done,” Newman said.
In an article Brossard and Scheufele coauthored, they point to “trust fallacies,” which are oversimplified explanations for why people behave in ways that scientists consider uninformed. Trust in science erodes when scientists rely on authority and political figures to inform the public, politicizing the issue, the article says.
Scientists’ misunderstanding of trust leads them to pursue paths that don’t seriously examine why trust has eroded and instead focus on a lack of information, according to the article. This ‘deficit’ model is not the cause of distrust and simply providing more information won’t restore public trust in scientists.
“Overall, trust in science is so nuanced and sensitive to contextual factors that it’s difficult to measure, much less to compare, trust levels across contexts and across time, unless the questions are repeatedly asked in very similar ways,” the article reads. “Once we acknowledge the complexity of trust as a social phenomenon, it is easy to pull at the threads that unravel the trust fallacy.”
People adopt anti-science views after undergoing political polarization, according
to the article. If scientists want to start gaining back trust, they need to better understand the nuanced and complex reasons they lost it in the first place.
Looking forward, Brossard, Sheufele and Newman see even bigger issues on the horizon for scientists. The explosion of progress in AI has caused public alarm and fear it’s progressing too fast. Private companies have monopolistic control over cutting-edge technologies with unknown limits.
“There’s something to understanding, with any kind of science and emerging tech that’s coming out now, understanding from the early stages what are the ethical and moral issues that may come up,” Newman said.
The Badger Herald archival photo of lab materials. April 13, 2021.
AHMAD HAMID. THE BADGER HERALD.
Clean energystudybrings attention to NativeAmerican reservation economies
Recent research conducted by UW faculty finds how to help improve economies on Native American reservations through clean energy
by Anna Singh Reporter
An August 23 publication led by University of Wisconsin Environmental Economics professors Dominic Parker and Sarah Johnston, found that Indigenous Americans are the poorest minority in the United States. Business professor at Gonzaga University Daniel Stewart also contributed to the publication.
The paper, titled “Economic potential of wind and solar in American Indian communities,” offers the idea of clean energy to improve tribal economies.
Due to stringent U.S. federal government control and lack of natural resources, reservations have experienced job, health and education disparities compared to the rest of the country, according to Stewart.
“There is a disproportionate amount of
badgerherald.com
October 1, 2024
resources on reservations in comparison to the rest of the country,” Johnston said.
Historically, the federal government gave Indigenous Americans the short end of the stick when it came to land, often leading to reservations having little to no natural resources such as fossil fuels, which contribute to a strong economy, Parker said.
“Many indigenous reservations today are geographically isolated and are disadvantaged when it comes to education, especially in topics such as business and energy,” Stewart said. emerging clean energy technologies present opportunities for reservations to harness the resources available on their lands, according to Stewart.
The team first explored the potential of wind
and solar power on Indigenous American reservations and examined the current development of these energy sources on nearby lands, Parker said.
“The main method of finding the data was using statistical analysis for public data,” Johnston said.
Parker said the team analyzed wind and solar energy companies to determine if their resources were located on Indigenous reservations. The team found Indigenous reservations are 50% less likely to host solar farms, and 100% less likely to host wind farms, according to Parker.
“This gap was significant when looking at future projections of development of clean energy through 2050,” Parker said.
Through the future projections, assuming there
is no immediate development of clean energy on reservations, they found there would be $19 billion dollars forgone for Indigenous people, according to Parker.
The findings suggest that installing solar energy on Indigenous American reservations could boost their economy by reducing unemployment, according to the report.
“It’s not just about the energy, it’s about the poverty,” Stewart said.
Stewart, who wrote the section on the barriers of implementing clean energy on reservations, explained that while building renewable energy on reservations may seem straightforward, numerous challenges still exist.
Stewart is also part of the Spokane tribe and shared how past energy policies have negatively affected Indigenous tribe economies.
“When the federal government attempted to implement hydroelectric energy, it created disastrous results for the tribal communities,” Stewart said. “For the Spokane tribe, the dams in the Northwest destroyed the salmon in the rivers which destroyed the economy.”
This is just one of many instances in the U.S. that has harmed Indigenous reservations and continues to do so, Stewart said.
The term ‘green colonialism’ can be used to describe this control over tribal lands, according to the report.
“This is where the federal government still tries to implement policies for climate policy that only benefits the federal government, and not based on the choices of Indigenous people living on those reservations,” Johnston said.
The study emphasizes how Indigenous people have sovereignty over their energy choices. But, the study does not discuss what reservations should or should not do with energy.
There is also a culture variable that comes with this idea.
“The concept of owning and selling energy such as water or heat is a newer concept to many Indigenous communities and while communities are getting around to it now, it is still a new concept that needs to be adapted in these communities,” Stewart said.
Another barrier is renewable and clean energy takes a long time to develop and even lengthier processes on reservations. If any developments were to be implemented, it would have to go through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal courts, according to Stewart.
These processes tend to make it harder for companies to implement energy developments onto reservations, according to Johnston.
While these barriers exist, the study reiterates that the idea of implementing clean energy can uplift the economies of reservations.
“With developing clean energy, jobs and education on reservations would increase and poverty would decrease,” Stewart said.
Badger Herald archival photo of solar panels. April 21, 2016.
KATIE COONEY. THE BADGER HERALD.
Basketball: Men’s and Women’s programs announce schedules for 2024-25 season
Badgers to face old rivals, new opponents
by Julien Payen Sports Editor
Men’s Basketball
Over a month before the season officially begins, fans of the men’s basketball program have already set high expectations, as for the 19th time in 22 seasons, all 2,100 student season tickets sold out within 12 minutes on Sept. 25.
Season Schedule
The men’s basketball season will start on Oct. 30 with the third-ever matchup between the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-River Falls. The Badgers will go head-to-head against the Falcons for the Garding Against Cancer Initiative, an organization founded by head coach Greg Gard to support cancer research, patients and their families.
The Badgers will then participate in the inaugural edition of the Greenbrier Tip-Off tournament in West Virginia from Nov. 22-24, facing UCF in the semifinals and either Pitt or LSU in the final.
However, the season won’t get into full swing until the first week of December, when the Badgers host their first Big Ten game against Michigan Dec. 3 before traveling to Milwaukee to face long-time rivals Marquette Dec. 7 and Big Ten rivals Illinois Dec. 10.
The Badgers are currently on a three-game winning streak against the Golden Eagles, most recently beating them 75-64 at the Kohl Center thanks to a 21-point performance from then-junior Max Klesmit.
On the other hand, the Badgers fell against the Wolverines and the Fighting Illini last season in single-digit losses, which they’ll look to make up for this season.
The Badgers follow the three-game stretch with another tournament, this time participating in the Indy Classic in Indianapolis Dec. 14 against Butler.
In one of the biggest games of the season, the Badgers will host the Minnesota Golden Gophers Jan. 10 before they travel to Minneapolis Mar. 5. But, much to the enjoyment of Badger fans, the Badgers are currently on a seven-game winning streak against the Golden Gophers stretching back to the 2019-20 season.
Closing out the season, the Badgers have over two months straight of Big Ten action, including brand-new rivalry games against the four new Big Ten teams — USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon.
The Badgers will face the Trojans and Bruins in Los Angeles Jan. 18 and 21 respectively, but will be privileged to host the Huskies and Ducks at the Kohl Center Feb. 22 and 25, respectively.
This season, the pinnacle of college basketball glory, March Madness, will take place starting on Selection Sunday, Mar. 16. Selection Sunday falls on the same day as the Big Ten Championship game, which the Badgers will also fight to compete for.
Last season, the Badgers were upset in the Round of 64 of March Madness by James Madison University, but with the arrival of four true freshmen and redshirt Jack Janicki, the Badgers will look to improve on last year’s performance.
New Talent
In total, the Badgers added eight new faces to the program, including freshmen Ricardo Greppi, a 6-foot-10 forward from Italy, Jack Robison, a 6-foot-6 forward from Lakeville, Minn., Daniel
the year Camren Hunter from Central Arkansas University, four-star prospect Xavier Amos from Northern Illinois University and Cameroonian international John Tonje from the University of Missouri.
But, bringing so much talent to UW came with a serious trade-off. Three key players from last season, top scorer A.J. Storr, starting guard Chucky Hepburn and Connor Essegian entered the transfer portal.
Freitag, a 6-foot-3 guard from Bloomington, Minn. and Aidan Konop, a 6-foot-2 guard from Sussex, Wis.
UW also added former ASUN freshman of
Tyler Wahl, whose 162 appearances for the Badgers is the most all-time, graduated in May with a master’s degree in sports leadership, a real testament to his contribution to the program
during his five years as a Badger. He also ended his collegiate career as the 21st highest scorer in Badger history with 1,350 points.
There are many questions surrounding the men’s basketball program this season, but the new additions bring a ton of experience to the lineup, which could benefit the younger prospects and continue to set up the program for future success.
Women’s Basketball Season Schedule
The Badgers kick off the 24-25 season with an exhibition game against UW-Stevens Point, playing them for the first time since winning big back in 2013.
Big Ten play for the Badgers begins against Rutgers Dec. 8, and they’ll look to finish 2024 strong with a game against Minnesota Dec. 31. The Badgers currently boast a four-game win streak against the Golden Gophers.
Starting in 2025, the Badgers will make their first trip to the Pacific Northwest in over 10 years, taking on Oregon and Washington.
The other two new Big Ten programs, USC and UCLA, will face off against the Badgers for the first time in their history on Feb. 5 and Feb. 26, respectively.
The Badgers had their most successful season under head coach Marisa Moseley last year, finishing with a 15-17 record and narrowly falling to St. Louis in the National Invitation Tournament quarterfinals.
New Talent
The women’s team got stronger this offseason, retaining preseason All-Big Ten forward Serah Williams. She was last season’s Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year setting the Big Ten record for most consecutive double doubles with 17.
The Badgers also retained guards Halle Douglass and Natalie Leuzinger, who, after starting in 29 games each last season, returned to UW to work on graduate programs.
Moseley brought in some new talents from the transfer portal, adding Horizon League Freshman of the Year Carter McCray from Northern Kentucky and Tess Myers, who helped lead Duquesne to the Atlantic 10 Championship semifinals last season.
Moseley didn’t stop at the transfer portal however, recruiting five freshmen from around the world. 5-foot-11 forward Gracie Grzesk and 5-foot-8 guard Reese Jaramillo are both in-state prospects, but 6-foot wing Jovana Spasovski joins the Badgers from Serbia while 5-foot-6 guard Alba Martín Mesa joins from Spain. Rounding out this season’s freshman class is 6-foot-4 Alie Bismalle from Michigan.
The Badgers made some off-the-court changes as well, promoting Margaret McKeon to associate head coach and bringing in assistant coach Frozena Jerro from Cleveland State.
With these changes, it’s hard to imagine the Badgers will not see a jump from last season’s 10th place finish in the Big Ten.
Badger guard Max Klesmit takes a shot against Marquette in the Kohl Center. January 21, 2024.
SOREN GOLDSMITH. THE BADGER HERALD
Badgers in the NFL: Braelon Allen shines as youngest player making history
At 20, Allen is youngest player in NFL history to score multiple touchdowns in a game
by Cameron Wilhorn Reporter
Every year, exceptional college football players slip into day three of the NFL Draft, with some never proving worthy of an early-round pick. Others make the general managers who passed on them regret their decisions. New York Jets fourth-round pick and Wisconsin alumni Braelon Allen is shaping up to be the latter.
Allen, 20, is the youngest player in the National Football League and became the youngest player in NFL history to score multiple touchdowns in a game during the Jets’ 24-17 win over the Tennessee Titans in Week two.
Through three weeks, the Fond du Lac, Wis. native ranks second among rookie running backs in yards per carry at 5.1 and rush yards at 96 while leading all rookie tailbacks in receiving yards at 45. Allen was the 11th running back selected in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Week 2 feat wasn’t the first time Allen’s drawn national attention for playing beyond his age. Allen reclassified coming out of high school, playing his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin as a 17-year-old. In that season, Allen rushed for third most yards in the Big 10 and averaged 6.8 yards per carry.
It’s rare to see players as young as Allen in the NFL, as the league operates under a rule that states players must be at least three years removed from high school to be eligible for the NFL Draft. Allen’s reclassification made it possible for him to be drafted and play most of his rookie season prior to his 21st birthday in January.
While Allen looks to already be an NFLcaliber running back, it’s tough to imagine a better landing spot for him than the Jets. In New York, Allen is the thunder to starter Breece Hall’s lightning.
The speedy Hall wears down opposing defenses for the hard-running Allen to exploit. Allen’s complementary running style allows for the Jets to deploy him in opportune spots and constantly keep him on fresh legs.
In addition, the Jets overhauled their offensive line. This offseason they turned a group that ranked last in the NFL according to analytics site NFL Lines, into a unit Pro Football Focus ranks sixth through three weeks.
The changes included selecting Olu Fashanu of Penn State with the 11th overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, signing All-Pro tackle Tyron Smith and guard
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John Simpson and trading for veteran tackle Morgan Moses. New York’s push to improve in the trenches wasn’t just to set up the run game, but to keep their fourtime MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers safe.
Rodgers-led offenses have proven to
be a gold mine for running backs, and in recent years, shown to be capable of supporting multiple running backs. In each of Rodgers’ final two seasons in Green Bay, the team had two running backs rush for more than 700 yards. Going further in the past than Aaron Jones and
A.J. Dillon, Rodgers had RB tandems of Jones and Jamaal Williams, and Eddie Lacy with James Starks. Comparing Hall and Allen to the Packers’ tailbacks of the past isn’t apples to apples, but the historical precedent of RB success in Green Bay bodes well for Allen in 2024 and beyond.
Being selected by the right team is imperative to a player succeeding in the early years of their careers.
In the case of running backs, that statement may be even more accurate. As of August 2022, the average NFL career length was 3.3 years. For running backs, that number dwindles to 2.57 – the shortest average career span of any position. It begs the question, will Allen’s premature entrance to the NFL result in an early exit?
There isn’t a clear answer but studies have shown that running back production falls off as their career carry total increases. In 2021, Pro Football Focus examined running back’s rush yards over expected and found a clear decrease after 1,500 career carries.
The good news for Allen is that his complementary role to Hall shouldn’t result in an excess of carries. Even if he were to be a workhorse back, it’s also not a guarantee that Allen will abide by PFF’s findings.
There’s been two recent, notable outliers to the standard career progression for running backs: Todd Gurley and Derrick Henry. The two ball carriers fall on opposite ends of the spectrum of RB longevity.
Gurley sustained a torn ACL in college, and although he made a full recovery and topped 1,000 yards in three of his first four NFL seasons, Gurley was pushed out of the league before he hit the 1,500-carry mark due to arthritis in his knee. Henry’s career took a drastically different route.
In high school alone, Henry toted the rock 1,397 times. In college, he rushed 603 more times. And now, through 122 career NFL games, Henry has 2,086 carries. In 2024, he’s still going strong, averaging five yards per carry across three games.
Many attribute Henry’s longevity and success to his massive frame. Allen, measuring 6-foot-1 and 235 lbs at the NFL Combine, has a body type that falls between that of Gurley and Henry. However, the rookie was compared to Henry during the pre-draft process, which while mostly meaningless, could be an indication of a lengthy and fruitful career for Allen.
Nobody knows what the future holds for Braelon Allen, but in just three weeks of professional action, he’s become a
Former Badger Running Back Braelon Allen powers through Michigan defenders. October 3, 2021.
JUSTIN MEILKE. THE BADGER HERALD.
Democrats must cut their losses on student debt, look to the future
Why Harris, Democrats should leave student debt loan forgiveness alone
by Josh Standal Opinion Associate Editor
When Joe Biden assumed office in Jan. 2021, one of the policies people were most excited about was his student loan forgiveness plan. As of Sept. 2024, little progress has been made. Some individuals have had student loans forgiven, but President Biden’s overall plan has been a failure.
The administration’s goal was to forgive undergraduate federal student debt from public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000, according to an article written by President Biden on Medium. The program was both overly ambitious and has been picked apart and blocked by courts, judges and pre-existing legislation
While Biden has been able to administer some
loan forgiveness to select individuals, most were left with a bitter taste in their mouths from an unfulfilled promise.
Student loan debt has long been a major problem in the United States, and it has only gotten worse in recent years. As of June 27, 2024, 43.2 million Americans have federal loan debt totaling $1.73 trillion. The average person with student loan debt has roughly $37,853 worth of debt.
This significant amount of debt explains why it is an issue that is so popular amongst voters.
According to a series of studies carried out by Brookings in 2022, two-thirds of Americans say student loan debt is a serious problem and sixty-
three percent see student loan debt relief as a way to lighten financial burdens.
A group of voters that is exceptionally in favor of student loan debt forgiveness (unsurprisingly) is the youth. A 2023 Data For Progress survey found 84% of Democrats under 45 strongly or somewhat approved of the federal government providing student debt using an authority unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although not as high, 66% of Independents and 50% of Republicans in the same cohort also approved.
On Aug. 28, the United States Supreme Court temporarily blocked a policy called the SAVE plan from continuing until lower courts had resolved challenges to the policy. This policy was the
primary way for people with student loan debt to apply for loan forgiveness, according to The New York Times. Over the past four years, Biden’s plan has been picked apart by courts, political opponents and existing legislature.
As of late August, the Biden administration has been able to cancel roughly $167 billion in loans for 4.75 million people. This is roughly 1in10 federal loan holders and while these are still impressive numbers, they are far from what Biden had originally promised.
But, it is not entirely the Biden administration’s fault they did not deliver on this promise. A program of this magnitude is hard to fathom and even more difficult to execute. The United States defense budget for the 2025 FY (fiscal year) is $849.8 billion or about half of the money that would be needed to forgive all of the student loans in the United States.
Coming up with that amount of money was not the only issue the Biden administration faced, as courts, politicians and bureaucrats have also made the issue much more difficult. Multiple Republican-led states have filed federal lawsuits in attempts to block certain parts of the plan.
Attempting to create, fund and administer a program of this magnitude is almost unheard of in American history. Creating a program that works to alleviate the debt of tens of millions of Americans would be a massive win for the American people. With that being said, it is probably best Kamala Harris stays away from this piece of legislation.
It is best for Harris and the Democrats to accept this defeat and move on from the issue. The initial idea for this program was a great way to attract the youth vote and help out tens of millions of Americans, but the program has been both hugely cumbersome for Democrats and methodically dismantled by lawsuits, judges and other roadblocks.
Harris’s campaign is in very good shape right now. According to the New York Times national polling average Harris is 3 points ahead of Donald Trump. Considering she only began her campaign towards the end of this past July, she is performing very well.
However, if Harris chooses to attach herself to a student loan debt forgiveness program, it could mean disastrous things for her campaign. President Biden failed when it came to his student loan debt forgiveness plan and a similar promise from Harris is likely to instill resentment in much of her voter base.
Relieving a massive financial burden tens of millions of Americans carry is a phenomenal idea and hopefully, it is a program that will one day be put into place. However, it would be a terrible idea for Kamala to renew her support for this program at the current moment.
President Joe Biden enters the stage where he proposes his student debt cancelation plan in Madison. March 8, 2024.
BENNETT WAARA. THE BADGER HERALD.
Point: Door-to-door canvassing is crucial to the democratic process, residence halls are not exempt
by Aanika Parikh Opinion Editor
As political divides grow wider than ever, the public discussion of political issues is becoming more and more taboo. While social media continues to swim with personal attacks and polarized propaganda, it is now widely considered unacceptable to talk about politics even at the dinner table.
If we continue to shove respectful discussions on important issues under the table in fear of confrontation or judgment, how can we expect the next generation to develop thoughtful stances on social issues?
Door-to-door campaigning serves to solve this problem by providing a playground for individuals to wrestle with complex political issues. Citizens need opportunities to ask questions and reflect on the consequences of their votes rather than blindly consuming the political ideologies they are fed by twoparty politics. By providing a space for healthy discussion, canvassing allows constituents to reclaim the power of their votes.
A study conducted in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election surveyed 1,311 undergraduate students from each region of the country, and found that most students felt their college campuses did not provide a climate that encouraged open conversation on controversial political issues. Specifically, the Heterodox Academy found that 60% of surveyed students reported feeling reluctant to converse with their peers about the impending presidential election.
Door-to-door canvassing opens up space for free discourse on campus. For instance, District Alder Muralidharan Govindarajan tells the Cap Times that his experience with campaigning in residence halls was the most effective method of communicating with his voter base.
While campus safety must be a priority, it does not have to come at the cost
of a democratic process. For instance, UW is considering a requirement for candidates to be accompanied by a UW student when campaigning in residence halls. This requirement would ensure safe probing of political issues right at students’ doorsteps. If young adults can get comfortable discussing controversial issues, we are likely to see a future where radical politics lose their influence and divisive propaganda is less influential.
Additionally, UW’s proposal to require campaigning be restricted to certain hours and receive approval from university housing should relieve concerns regarding safety. Until these policies are passed, there is nothing stopping students from simply placing a sign on their doors to prevent campaigners from knocking.
While rallies are important avenues for voter education, they cannot replace door-to-door campaigning, a historical tool that provides accessible voter education. For instance, political rallies might require attendees to take a day off work or miss classes. Rallies are offcampus, raising transportation costs and accessibility issues.
Moreover, local elections do not always offer rallies, leading to a heavy reliance on canvassing. Fortunately, oncampus speaker events might be more accessible than rallies, but they must be supplemented with canvassing efforts that meet students right where they are.
As young adults, we are not absolved from our responsibility to roll up our sleeves and get uncomfortable. Canvassing forces students to take a step beyond hitting the like button on a political meme on TikTok before scrolling away.
Aanika Parikh (aparikh@badgerherald. com) is a junior studying molecular and cell biology and health policy.
Counterpoint:Campaigning in residence halls is a violation of student’s safety, privacy
by Sammie Garrity Opinion Associate Editor
In its proposal, UW would remove limits surrounding campaign materials being placed in common areas and would also certify that candidates must be accompanied by a student or student organization for door-to-door campaigning. While it is important to educate and inform young voters, this proposal could end up doing far more harm than good.
There are concerns surrounding free speech and safety and how they apply specifically to a residence hall. Likewise, there is considerable ambiguity in classifying a residence hall as a public space. Trying to define what exactly is private or public can prove difficult. For instance, is a hallway just as public as a common area lounge? Do the same rights afforded to residents of privately owned property apply to those in a university-owned building?
When it comes to political campaigning, students need to know what to expect and when to expect it. If students do not know whether they will be bombarded on their way to the bathroom or not, their home environment — which they have a right to — will not feel safe. Moreover, many roommates share different political beliefs and values, so if political content reaches their doorstep, it may create immense strife within relationships.
Additionally, not every student at UW is even eligible to vote. International students who live in dorms cannot vote in a U.S. election. If individuals are campaigning for these students to vote for a certain candidate it is not only a waste of the student’s time, but also the campaigner’s. Campaigning in residence halls can also alienate international students, as it may force them to explain to strangers that the U.S. is not their home, creating an emotional burden for those who are not eligible to vote.
It is critical for universities to promote and maintain a safe environment
for students of all backgrounds and beliefs and having politics overwhelm a person’s home, goes against those values. American society is highly polarized right now and individuals maintain the right to be as involved in politics as they please. If students must worry their room will not be free of political conversations, campaigning veers into an issue of safety, not just free speech.
Political content in designated common areas is commonplace, but door-to-door campaigns infringe on the safety and rights of students. The university needs to take significant time — post-election — to evaluate the effects bringing politics into residence halls would have on the student body.
Rallies, speakers, posters and media announcements are just some of the sufficient ways for candidates to reach the student body. Finally, getting mail in a mailbox explaining a candidate and their values accomplishes the same goal that showing up at a door would without infringing on safety. Mail campaigning protects the privacy of students while simultaneously advocating for younger people to vote. A younger audience is critical to the election, but youth voters need to have a safe space free of political conversations. That place should be their residence hall.
Sammie Garrity (sgarrity@badgerherald. com) is a sophomore majoring in journalism and political science.
The affordable housing no one is talking about
by Aiden Mellon Opinion Editor
For renters, the housing story in Madison has been a tragedy in recent years. You don’t have to look far to find this story. It has been covered, at length, by every paper in the city. There is, however, one small segment of the housing market that has been underreported that has, in many ways, defied the odds — housing cooperatives.
According to Spectrum News, Madison has over two dozen co-ops. The nonprofit collective Madison Community Cooperative owns and operates 11 of them. MCC co-ops have the most publicly available information, are frequently used by students (or only by students, in the case of Zoe Bayliss), and their largerscale non-profit model offers particularly valuable insights.
Co-ops are inexpensive, shockingly so. The average monthly rent among MCC’s 11 co-ops works out to about $500, given a rough average of the rent price ranges on their website. Even more surprising, the average number of occupants per room is 1 person. Paying less than $500 a month for your own room in downtown Madison seems too good to be true, yet it is possible.
After freshman year, students have esesntially two options for housing — continue living in the dorms or sign a lease for an off-campus apartment. For the 2024-2025 school year, monthly rent in the dorms can range from anywhere between $1,129 (Lowell/Smith single with bath) per month to $811 (Adams/Bradley/ Cole/Sullivan/Tripp quad), excluding the $500 winter break fee and meal plan cost, according University Housing. The average rent for a double occupancy dorm room on campus is $862, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
The university had high enrollment numbers again this fall and has now had to take further remedial measures like converting the kitchens in Chadbourne and Leopold into bedrooms. In this way, students are stuck in somewhat overcrowded, truncated facilities – worse than what they bargained for when signing UW housing contracts.
Meanwhile, students report paying an average of $903 (excluding utilities) for off-campus housing, according to a recent housing report undertaken by UW and the city of Madison. The report also noted 27% of students reported sharing a bedroom to minimize rent, as compared to 10% of student tenants at similarly sized institutions.
Freshman don’t have much time to weigh their housing options after starting at UW. By October, most freshmen are already thinking about whether or not to sign a pricey off-campus lease or remain in the dorms, relatively cramped and
should not be overlooked by the city or university as they forge ahead in trying to address the housing crisis.
MCC is a non-profit. As stated on their home page, MCC’s chief aim is to provide low-cost not-for-profit housing
somewhat inexpensive in comparison. Most students split from the dorms after their freshman year, according to the report.
There are a little under 200 people in MCC’s 11 houses, and perhaps their small size allows them to be a housing anomaly in Madison, but the virtues of co-ops
for very low to moderate-income people. Beyond this, MCC also aims to educate its members about the principles of cooperative hous000ing, strives to include underrepresented and marginalized members of the community, reduce the carbon footprint of its cooperative houses and maintain relationships with other
community organizations. The goal of every for-profit housing company in Madison? Make money.
This is not to say co-ops have been immune to the inflation and cost of living increases that have affected rent prices across Madison, but their rent hikes have been relatively gradual, especially considering the already low co-op rent. MCC has increased its rent by 5% each year over the past few years in order to keep up with inflation and higher maintenance costs, according to MCC coordinating director John Parsons. Considering, though, that in 2023, year-over-year rent growth in Madison was 14.1%, MCC rent growth has been small in comparison.
Life in a co-op comes with a set of peculiarities unique to the system, such as mandatory work duties (typically 2-5 hours per week), house meetings and participation in various shared governance tasks. This helps bring down the cost of living, but also creates a strong sense of community in the houses, according to Parsons.
After several years of significant renovations and housing difficulties, MCC has only recently brought all of their properties fully online and is not currently in a position to purchase more houses, though more independent co-ops have begun to spring up in Madison, Parsons said.
This is where the university should step in. UW wields enormous influence on the housing market in Madison, and by purchasing local real estate before developers do, UW could set up a system of co-ops similar to MCC’s.
In 2024, UW tore down the Zoe Bayliss Housing Co-Op to make room for the new Irving & Dorothy Levy Hall humanities building. MCC swooped in to offer the Zoe Bayliss tenants a new house on Langdon Street, but people should not forget that UW used to lease property on campus to a student cooperative.
Many students are at a point in their lives where low-cost, communal living works well. A system of UW co-ops could represent a kind of intermediate zone between dorm life and apartment life, both in lifestyle and expense. It would also enable the university to purchase existing houses in the city rather than create new residences. The fact that the old Zoe Bayliss system worked for 67 years is a testament to the viability of this system, and it is one that UW and the City of Madison should not ignore as they search for housing solutions.
The Badger Herald archival photo of Zoe Bayliss co-op. March 1, 2022.
ERIN GRETZINGER. THE BADGER HERALD.
SOLD OUT:
Ticket lotteries force empty-handed students to
navigate
risky reselling networks
By: Brody Killoren Features Editor
As dawn breaks on a July morning, eager Badger fans swarm any device possible — laptops, iPads and cell phones, vying for the competitive prize of a coveted season student football ticket. For students at the University of Wisconsin, securing a seat at a Badgers football game can feel like winning the lottery — because it is.
It’s not just football either — whether it’s the roar of Camp Randall during football season, the intensity of the Kohl Center for basketball or the electric energy of a packed volleyball game in the Field House, these events are almost always sold out — and the fear of missing out is even higher. Behind these events lies a lottery system and a ticket economy constructed by thirdparty apps and message boards. With some students left looking to buy a ticket to the big game, others are looking to resell, taking advantage of a lucrative ticket market.
The initial sale Student tickets are initially sold through UW Athletics, directly to students. To manage demand, Wisconsin employs a lottery-style system for distributing student tickets for most high-profile sports — football, men’s basketball and men’s hockey. Under this system, students enter a virtual waiting room when tickets go on sale, and from there securing a season ticket boils down to luck. If students make it through the virtual queue, they get put through to the purchase page — where they finally have the opportunity to pay
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• badgerherald.com •October 1, 2024
$219.50 for season tickets to seven home football games.
Patrick Herb, UW Assistant Athletic Director of Strategic Communications, shared how the system functions to optimize the student buying experience.
“The number of student tickets sold at Camp Randall Stadium for football and the Kohl Center for men’s basketball was determined by the UW-Madison Athletic Board more than 25 years ago,” Herb stated. “We are grateful for the incredible passion and interest of our student body, but unfortunately, we simply do not have enough inventory to match the high demand for student tickets across [Basketball and Football] each year.”
Camp Randall’s capacity is 80,321 fans, of which only 14,000 of those are delegated to students. Students sit on the North end of the stadium, in sections J through P. Dedicated seats for students at the Kohl Center are in even shorter supply — 2,100 seats out of the total capacity of 17,230.
Tickets for Badger Football and Basketball regularly go on sale at 7:30 a.m., when students access the queue and then can be pushed through to the ticket purchasing portal.
“We do our best to schedule the on-sale timing early in the morning to avoid as many conflicts as possible,” Herb said.
So far in the 2024 season, UW has generated $23 million in revenue from football ticket sales. Additionally, the new alcohol sales at Camp Randall for the first three football games brought in just over $1.2 million, according to records obtained by The
Badger
Herald. Student testimonials
Ellie Culver, a senior at UW, shared her experience with buying tickets through third parties. She missed out on getting student season tickets during the initial sale, forcing Culver to turn to thirdparty platforms for availability. Searching for tickets to one of the most anticipated matches of the season against Alabama, Culver quickly discovered the challenge and risk associated with buying tickets on the resale market.
“For football, my first choice is Facebook, but people always seem to highball it on Facebook,” Culver said.
She shared that message boards, like the one on Facebook, are one of the primary methods of communication between buyers and sellers. The UW Badger Student Ticket Exchange on Facebook has approximately 73,000 members.
Listings consist of “Selling [Event] message me” and students will strike a deal through direct messages, often Messenger. From there, it’s up to students to independently verify the credibility of the buyer or seller and make sure both parties receive either the money or the ticket. Money is often exchanged between peer-to-peer platforms such as Cash App or Venmo. There is no promise of security with these transactions.
$100 so I direct messaged her. I was like, ‘Hey, I see you’re selling’ and then she asked if we could do Apple Pay,” Ellie said. “And I said, ‘I don’t have Apple Pay. Can we do Venmo?’ She said, ‘Sure.’”
Ellie never got the ticket, and she never saw her $100 again.
“I have nobody to blame but myself,” she said.
Ellie’s experience does not happen in a vacuum, there are plenty of scammers fishing on these unregulated boards hoping to dupe students into sending money to them. These scammers often impersonate other students to make prospective buyers believe they have a valid ticket. The goal is to get payment on a peerto-peer service then quickly disappear.
“So then I went back in the group chat, and I was like, don’t buy from [Name of scammer].
She’s gonna scam you,” Ellie said. “And then she changed her name in the GroupMe, and just kept, kept going, selling Alabama for $100.”
Ellie went on to say this experience is not uncommon.
“One girl got scammed $270 and I’m kind of just like, why do we have to be like that?” she said.
Similarly, other platforms are also utilized. Other students pointed Ellie to a GroupMe chat named “KK Waffle Gallery.” The chat operates by members listing certain tickets they are attempting to buy or sell, and then members respond to one another to complete the transaction.
“I saw someone was selling a ticket for
Another platform where students regularly sell tickets is the Snapchat Class Story. Any current student at UW can use their Wisconsin email for verification and then can add anything to the story that all followers see. Business is direct — students can simply post the words “selling Oregon,” or “looking to buy Minnesota”
and students can then direct message over Snapchat to complete the transaction.
“I know a lot of people have moved to the route of meeting up in person to do it. So it’s like, you can see that they have the ticket, and they can see that you’re gonna send the Venmo,” Ellie added.
It’s important to note that no matter the platform, every student ticket must be transferred through the UW Badgers app, which is managed by UW Athletics. Students share tickets by using the “Send Ticket” feature, which is sent through a phone number.
Third-party platforms: A new solution?
A new player in the ticket space, Student Seats is a platform where buyers and sellers can find ticket prices and be assured everyone is verified in the transaction.
Chief Marketing Officer Charlie Pietz shared how the platform fills a void with reliability and security.
“Both parties need to confirm that they have received the ticket, or they have sent the ticket, which is another layer of security, and then the ticket is held in escrow until we can confirm from both parties that it’s been sent over, and of course that there are no scams,” Pietz said.
The platform functions as an escrow service, meaning the money is transferred through Student Seats while the ticket is exchanged through the UW Badger app. The app has an in-depth verification process which includes your school email and social security number. The platform says since both parties know exactly who they are dealing with, the opportunity for scams is greatly reduced. Additionally, the platform allows for price transparency as buyers can see what tickets have been listed for and the average ticket price.
Student Seats does take a commission — sellers do not incur fees when selling their tickets on Student Seats, but the buyer incurs them based on what it was sold for. The higher the price of the ticket, the higher the percentage and flat rate fees are. For example, a transaction between $100 and $250 will have a 15% fee plus a flat
rate fee of $10.
Sarah, a UW student who wishes to remain anonymous, and her friend Emma, also using a pseudonym, shared their frustrations about the growing challenges of securing student tickets. They wanted to retain anonymity due to ticket policies and the nature of their transaction — Their experience happened on Student Seats.
Sarah was looking to sell her Alabama student section ticket, so she listed it for $140. Wisconsin State Statute 42.07(2) states that selling any ticketed event above face value is a crime in Wisconsin, and when purchasing tickets through UW students agree to a policy to abide by this rule.
Furthermore, UW Athletics states, “The University of Wisconsin Athletic Department prohibits ticket purchases by account holders who are purchasing with the primary intent of reselling their tickets. If your account is identified as one with the primary intent to resell, the tickets on your account will be removed and your account will be canceled.”
Student Seats connected Sarah with a buyer, also a UW student, who first had to prove their intent to buy by sending money into the platform’s escrow system. But, things went wrong in the transfer process and the buyer took advantage of Sarah. She sent the ticket to the buyer on the UW Badger app, but before she could tell Student Seats she did, the buyer claimed he did not receive a ticket and took the money back — leaving Sarah with no money and no ticket.
“He snatched the money. [It took] five minutes, five minutes [sic],” Sarah stated. “So, like, if you didn’t click that button [to confirm] that I sent the ticket in five minutes, he was able to take [the money] back.”
Sarah and Emma worked to recover their money by contacting the buyer since they are both UW students and their identities are known they were able to track down a few parties that could help. However, the exchange escalated.
“And then the last text [the scammer] sent me when I blocked him is, ‘Don’t contact me or my family again if you care about your safety,’” Sarah said.
Student Seats has policies in place to prevent exchanges like this and ways so sellers never have to deal with losing their money.
“We have almost 50,000 users, so there’s going to be instances like that,” Pietz said. “We do have a 24/7 customer support system…We don’t get a ton, but we are answering those [incidents] as soon as possible and trying to fix things. And we do offer refunds as well. So, if students do ever, like, there’s a weird scenario like that, we make sure that they’re not getting screwed over. So that’s our number one priority. We don’t want students to think of us in a bad way. We’re just a ticket provider that allows students to connect with one another.”
Calls for reform and a role for UW
As the gap between limited availability and increasing demand for student tickets continues to widen, market risks and realities will continue to impact the fan experience. Sarah shared how she felt about the exchange and her feelings about attending future games.
“I don’t think that this has deterred me from wanting to go to the games at all, by any means, but it definitely has deterred me from wanting to sell my ticket in the future,” Sarah stated. “So I guess maybe that’s better for [UW Athletics] because I’m actually probably going to go to the rest of them now.”
Pietz shared how Student Seats wants to continue to be a reliable and helpful resource for students navigating a ticket landscape otherwise ripe with scammers and fraud.
attempt to fill a void in the market. Either way, there will still be students looking to buy tickets for the big game while there are also students and other entities looking for financial gain.
“I just think that there is a way better process at the university can implement,” Sarah said. “I don’t know how they would do it, but making sure students aren’t price scalping them for a higher price. Because I feel like it just depends on [a] per game [basis]. Obviously, Alabama was a huge game, and then last year was Ohio State. It’s very dependent on who’s coming here.”
“We aren’t like a massive ticket company such as Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, etc. that are destroying the industry,” Pietz stated. “None of us do this as a full-time job and just work on it at night when we have free time. We operate as a small business with eight total people with half of them being in college.”
Culver suggested that reform to the UW Athletics system would offer a better solution to the problem.
“I think a [individual] game ticket lottery would be a better approach,” Culver said. “That way, the tickets would go to genuine fans who want to attend the games, rather than scalpers looking to profit.”
Demand for tickets shows no signs of letting up, while 3rd party platforms
Emma followed up with how the ticket economy encourages secondary scalping.
“It’s really scary how most people that get the tickets and then they sell their entire student pass literally a minute after, for like, $1,000 — that’s bad,” Emma replied. Emma suggested the tickets should only be transferable to the university and the students, thus eliminating an unregulated 3rd party market.
“[UW] should only let you sell it back to the university for the price you bought it, like each ticket is $38 or whatever [sic],” Emma said. “You take the whole pass, and you divide by how many games that tickets are, you’d only be able to sell it back, through the university for that $38 or whatever, and then the university sells it to a different student for $38.”
Culver stressed her advice for students looking to score tickets.
“I would first ask literally every trusted source you know. Do you have any tickets? Does anyone you know have any tickets? Because then you know it’s reliable,” she said.
Chazen exhibit highlights emotions, experiences through unorthodox artwork
New York
by Akhilesh Peddi ArtsEtc. Editor
Petah
stages ‘coup d’état’ on the heart with deeply emotional installations
her experience and the cultures she has witnessed through her art.
Hidden between the walls on the first floor of the Chazen Museum of Art, a statue is paused with an obedient heavy bowed head and closed eyes, her neck protruding from a garden of white wax flowers and candles. It is the face of Zelda Fitzgerald, writer and wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
On April 23, 1939, Fitzgerald entered a psychiatric facility a few miles outside Paris — her life forever becoming a routine of electroshock therapy and insulin shock treatments.
Today, New York contemporary sculptor and photographer Petah Coyne brings back the story of her life through her wax statue.
Zelda’s wax statue, with her calm charm, stands at the entrance of Coyne’s new exhibition at the Chazen, “How Much a Heart Can Hold.” The exhibit appreciates Zelda’s contribution to history and serves as a remembrance of her legacy — one of the many hidden stories shared through Coyne’s work.
Best known for her work with unorthodox material such as silk flowers, human hair, wax and scrape metal amongst others, Coyne’s exhibit presents a mixture of hope and darkness to Madison, showing both the suffering and happiness life is capable of inflicting along with the frailty and power of the human will.
Coyne discussed the complexities of Zelda’s life.
“It was a tragedy,” Coyne said. “She helped [Scott] so much and he would not have become the writer he is today without her. And there was so much love between them. She was a flapper and she was so glorious and had an aroma and was beautiful. Her life became a tragedy.”
UW junior Kayley Bell said viewing the exhibit was like being sucked into the darkness.
Another UW Student, Kennedy Webb, shared her views on being swept by the fleeting vivacity of the work and the ambiance of its power.
“I really like the contrast between the white and black hanging from the walls and also the how there is that one escaping squirrel amongst all those powerful peacocks,” Webb said. “It really fascinates me. It is as if I can sense good and evil.”
As a young child, Coyne traveled to many different parts of the world. Her father was in the military which took her all over the U.S. and other countries like Japan and Indian. Today, she shares
One piece carrying importance for Coyne sprawls across the center of the exhibit. Thick batches of hair flow on the
sacrifice and pride of 13th century Japanese women who cut their hair to build a temple.
“In Japan, when women cut off their hair, it is giving up their position in the
floor and amass into a lady whose face and body cannot be seen.
“There is something haunting about it. I don’t know what it is, but it feels really sad and terrifying.” Bell said.
It is a sad but proud portrayal of the
household, their sexuality and their beauty,” Coyne said. “They usually give it when their husband dies but they did it to make a temple. A whole generation of women in their 30s and 40s cut their hair and they were proud of it.”
The hair was used to make ropes to carry wood from the forests. One can still discover it if they go to Kyoto, Japan. Coyne shared her astonishment on discovering the hair’s unremovable mark on earth.
“I had a vision with these braids having bows and beautiful things and I wanted to see it. I looked everywhere in the temple but I couldn’t find it. This monk saw me looking for two hours, and he comes up to me. I did not speak Japanese, so I drew a sketch in my sketchbook. He takes me over and shows me this big flexiglass coil of hair, but it did not look like hair. It was perfect rope,” Coyne said.
Forty years later, when all the women who contributed died, the temple’s congregation would separate due to conflict. The division would lead the south of Kyoto to disperse further away, forcing them to build another temple of their own.
The piece is intended to make us think about our failure to learn from history and our destructive actions, according to Coyne.
“The next generation of women had to cut their hair. It so sad that we learned nothing. We continue to do this. We cannot have another war,” Coyne said.
Another piece which stands out in Coyne’s exhibit is her installation made from a shredded 1950s Airstream trailer. It’s inspired by her time lecturing at Yale, where her students took her to their favorite place — a wrecking yard.
On watching the Airstream trailer present during that time, she was captivated by the process but was told it would cost $100,000 to shred. With the help of a government grant, she was able to see it happen.
The trailer now sits in Coyne’s exhibit as an installation inspired by Yasunari Kawabata’s “The House of the Sleeping Beauties,” according to Isthmus.
Coyne likes to use her art to show cultures and experiences of what it means to be alive and both the happiness and suffering which comes with it.
“How Much a Heart Can Hold” makes the spectator ask themselves questions about their own actions and that of the world while experiencing the various cultures we have to see. It tells the stories hidden in the passage of time through innovative material.
“It does not matter what I made [the piece] to be. What matters is that the artist puts the heart into it and then the audience see it with their own and what they see and feel is important,” Coyne said.
artist
Coyne
GABE GERMAIN. THE BADGER HERALD.
Sculpture made from wax, pearls, and horse hair. September 14, 2024.
Madison Public Library celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month
Library hosts bilingual story times, movie nights to honor Hispanic culture
by Evan Randle ArtsEtc. Associate Editor
From Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, the Madison Public Library is hosting a series of events to honor Hispanic Heritage Month. According to the Public Library’s website, these events are intended to highlight the achievements of Hispanic and Latino Americans and celebrate their culture. The events include a Portrait Exhibition by local artist Sirena Flores, a Saturday Music Series, films shown every Friday, Spanish conversation groups, and multiple online activities.
The Badger Herald spoke to Madison Public Library Marketing Specialist Liz Boyd, who is heavily involved in the library’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and its potential impacts.
Liz Boyd said the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration occurs annually and hopes to facilitate events and highlight resources available to Spanish speakers and Madison’s Hispanic community. Movie nights and bilingual story times are often
featured in the Public Library’s celebration, according to Boyd.
In addition to these more regular events, Boyd said events for Hispanic Heritage Month can include ‘takeover events’ where citizens can apply to host events at the Madison Public Library. This year’s event occurred on Sept. 14 and revolved around violence targeted toward women in the Latino community, according to Boyd.
“Program[s] like the library takeover… [give] people voice, space and time to share their own experiences and reflect that back out to the community,” Boyd said.
Boyd said by hosting the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, the Madison Public Library is able to both share their experiences while giving citizens the chance to voice themselves and their community.
The Badger Herald also spoke to Rissel
Sanderson, an educator affiliated with the Play and Learn program in the Madison School District. She is currently leading the Madison Public Library’s bilingual storytelling program for Hispanic Heritage Month.
Sanderson, who was born in Bolivia and moved to Madison 36 years ago, has conducted bilingual story times for two years. She said the story times are often short, interactive, and involve the use of English or Spanish for the entire story.
“For the kids… understanding a language, it’s so important to have them enjoy them in [those ways],” Sanderson said.
The Madison Children’s Museum will also be celebrating Hispanic Heritage month in October, Sanderson said. According to Sanderson, the event will include activities and food from nations such as Peru, Colombia and Venezuela.
When asked about the importance of the cultural
impacts of events such as the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration to the city of Madison, Boyd said Spanish speakers are an essential part of Madison’s community who do many things to support the city. The Madison Public Library endorses events allowing beginners to learn the Spanish language or for more experienced speakers to have more time to use it.
“It’s a good opportunity to practice that language and keep that heritage alive,” Boyd said.
The Badger Herald also asked Rissel Sanderson about the impacts of cultural heritage events on the greater Madison area. Sanderson said Madison is a melting pot of a city, and 24 different languages are spoken in the Play and Learn program alone.
Sanderson said that more events celebrating Hispanic heritage would be greatly helpful in helping people feel proud of their heritage. Representing countries in specific is also appreciated among the greater community, according to Sanderson.
“Recently, we [had] a parade of flags of nations… and you could see people’s faces light up when they saw the [different] flags,” Sanderson said.
Liz Boyd said that through these language lessons and the other events hosted during the next month, the general population of Madison can understand the experiences of the Hispanic community and learn from them. According to Boyd, the widespread accessibility of events celebrating diverse cultures makes them more impactful.
The Badger Herald also spoke to Boyd and Sanderson about University of Wisconsin student involvement with the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration and the Public Library’s future events. Through the aforementioned library takeover program, students have the opportunity to bring their own event ideas to the library, Boyd said.
“We’d be interested in and encourage having more students in our spaces and bringing their ideas here,” Boyd said.
Sanderson said students can volunteer at events like the Madison Public Library and the Madison Children’s Museum’s celebrations of Hispanic heritage. Volunteering includes encouraging children to engage with the various activities on display in each.
In regards to students hosting takeover events, Boyd said the library has free meeting spaces inperson and online to discuss ideas for the library and its future.
“[Volunteering] gives you experience and helps a lot in the community,” Sanderson said.
Hispanic Heritage Month events at Madison Public Library are free and open to the public.
Display in the Madison Public Library. September 20, 2024.
BENNETT WAARA. THE BADGER HERALD.
People of UW: Student Voters Union Co-founder talks civic engagement
Stories of
students: read about students making a difference on campus
by Blanca Collins Social Media and PR Associate
Editor’s note: People of UW is a human interest series produced by Badger Herald staff members. The series aims to highlight a student or student group at the University of Wisconsin making an impact on the campus community. These Q&As are edited for length and clarity.
Tell us about yourself. What year are you in school and what is your major?
My name is Kayley Bell. I’m from Sturgeon Bay, Wis., but pretty much everyone just says they’re from Door County. I’m a junior, so in my third year, and I am studying history and political science with a certificate in public policy. What is the Student Voters Union?
The Student Voters Union is a student organization here at UW-Madison that me and Amanjot Kaur co-founded that promotes general, “get-out-to-vote messaging,” nonpartisan civic engagement and voting rights advocacy at UW-Madison. So we’re also in the process of forming a larger coalition structure for UW. The plan, tentatively, is called the UW Madison Student Voting Alliance. We’re figuring out the name. As of right now, we’re hoping to branch out the outreach scope of our organization and connect with other organizations that are in the political public service realm. In terms of what we have to do with SVU, a lot of our work focuses on aiding in voter registration. Most of our members are election officials, so they both serve at the actual polls and also help staff the voter registration drives on campus and in the city of Madison. We also do a lot of educational work on social media and have helped facilitate voter education workshops. Our interns have done that through the university, sometimes outside of the university. Everything that we do is nonpartisan, and what we do is advocate in the terms of supporting voting rights and ballot box access for students.
What made you decide to start that journey with the Student Voters Union?
It’s a little bit complicated because the SVU was originally a different organization. It was originally supposed to be an official function of the university and not a separate RSO. So BadgersVote is both a campus wide initiative that supports nonpartisan democratic engagement at UW, but it’s also a campus-wide coalition, mainly of very administrative department head type groups. Although students are allowed to attend and encouraged to attend, it’s a very from the top kind of approach to civic engagement at UW, and we identified that there was definitely a need for a bottom-up student approach to fostering civic engagement and participation at UW. So in 2023, me and Amanjot Kaur were co-lead interns for the BadgersVote coalition, and we started the process of forming a student coalition, and basically it all got approved, and we all did it. And then because of some messaging guidelines
from university administration, we were made to de-affiliate. And so we took away the BadgersVote name and then took on the title of SVU as an RSO rather than the official, branding function of UW-Madison. Although our history is very connected to BadgersVote, we are now completely a separate entity.
of their broader community. What goals do you have for SVU? One thing that we’re trying to advocate is to get the Wiscard to be voter compliant. Right now, our student IDs are not voter compliant, so you can’t use them as a form of voter identification at the polls. Wisconsin, as I’m sure you know,
Why do you think it’s important for students to vote?
This is one of those questions where I think there isn’t necessarily one universal answer in that, obviously, students come from different backgrounds. They have different political and ideological opinions that represent them, and so the reason I might vote might not be the same for everyone. Across the board, voting is a way to make your needs and opinions known and advocate for the changes you’d like to see in your community. Generally, the metaphor that I use when talking about voting in relation to broader civic engagement is voting is the hammer in your civic engagement toolbox. It’s not the only mechanism of change and way to get your voice across, but it’s one of the primary ways. So, yes, you should also sign up to be an election official, get in contact with your representatives and all of that wonderful stuff, but also voting is one of your very essential tools. In order to make your project that you’re working on as successful as possible, you’re the one to utilize it as much as possible. So that’s my very literal, picture version metaphor. Broadly, voting is a way for people to express what they believe needs to happen in their communities, who they think represents their communities, or whoever they would like to see in the future represent their communities and advocate for both their needs and the needs
requires identification at the polls. As far as voter ID laws, there’s precedent there. I believe I have to double check the number, but there are multiple other schools in the state of Wisconsin where the student IDs are voter compliant, although UW isn’t one of them. UW-Stevens Point, I believe, was the most recent to update their student ID to make it voter compliant. All that would need to happen for our IDs to be voter compliant is for the expiration to be every two years, and for there to be a signature of the students on there, and they would be able to use it for voter identification at the polls, just like a passport or driver’s license. That’s one of our biggest quote unquote, advocacy things, but obviously that does not have any sort of partisanship associated with that. Something that we struggle with is to facilitate conversations and safe spaces for students across different political, different parts of the ideological spectrum, to have a voice, not just on campus, but also in the greater Madison community, and we’re helping to kind of facilitate that. Something that I found very alarming was a study of free expression at UW, and it was highlighted that a lot of students don’t feel comfortable talking in the classroom on political topics, and so something that there’s a big need for at UW is a group that doesn’t necessarily have a partisan agenda, hoping to make all students on campus, regardless of
political or ideological affiliation, have a voice and to advocate for them across the board. Does SVU have any specific plans for the upcoming presidential election?
I would say, yeah. The voter ID stuff in relation to Wiscard is kind of an ongoing project. Although, I would like to see that implemented as soon as possible, there’s a lot of red tape and logistical things to do with that advocacy journey, so I would like to see that implemented before the 2026 term although the sooner the better. But realistically, I don’t see that happening in the upcoming presidential election. Like I said though, we partner directly at the state of Madison, so we are under oath, trained election officials. There’s been kind of an issue on campus, in the community, with a lot of external entities doing improper voter registration. So we’re not only providing information to students, but we’re a very primary and trustworthy resource for students to get registered to vote. We’re also continuing to post more educational materials on Instagram, like educating students about the election. Something that we’re also going to be working on is actually part of UW-Madison’s faculty policy and it says that professors are to the best of their ability, supposed to avoid scheduling exams or large assignments for election day. We’ve noticed that a lot of students have come to us and said, “Hey, I have an exam on November 5” And while the policy doesn’t necessarily forbid professors from scheduling exams on election day, they are supposed to avoid it. So we’re in the process of trying to formulate communications between both our organization students and the professors to try to help advocate for those students in those classes to have their exams moved to not on election day. So that’s a big thing that we’re working on right now and then also, just broader coalition building is a big project that we’re working on as well.
How can students get involved with SVU? We don’t have a digital website yet, but students can follow us on social media. @ studentvotersunionuw is our Instagram handle. If you want to get involved, we have general membership meetings this semester every other week at 5 p.m. on Thursdays. Those meetings will be hybrid. It’s not just for people that are really, really hands on. We also have opportunities to get involved in a lower commitment capacity as well for people who just want to attend an occasional meeting or volunteer here and there. So, follow on Instagram, request to join our LinkedIn network, and we’ll add you to the slack and Outlook group. I’d also highly encourage students to apply to the city of Madison, speak with election officials that they’re interested in and aid voter registration efforts on campus.
Student Voters Union Kayley Bell discusses student voting engagement.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KAYLEY BELL.
‘It’s All the Rage’exhibit proves activism has no age
Raging Grannies of Madison have been on the frontlines of protests for years, history documented at Nancy Nicholas Hall exhibit
by Elsa Englebert ArtsEtc. Associate Editor
Anyone who frequents the Dane County Farmers’ Market may have stumbled across a band of apron-clad, high-spirited elderly women, huddled together and singing enthusiastically. They’re hard to miss, donning outrageous, flower-adorned hats, some draped in brightly colored shawls or sporting chunky jewelry. As they sing, Ursula, a hot pink, crocheted uterus mounted on a pole, hovers over them like a guardian angel. It is certainly a sight to behold.
These women are grannies, that’s for sure. But look a little closer, and listen a little harder, and you’ll realize that they aren’t just any old grannies — they’re the Raging Grannies. And they’re not just singing lighthearted songs — they’re protesting for feminist and progressive causes. Are they acting their age? Yes. Because, as the Raging Grannies believe, grandmothers don’t belong in retirement homes — they belong on the frontlines of protest.
The Raging Grannies, an activist organization of senior women with chapters throughout the U.S. and Canada, have a long and storied history in Madison, protesting for labor unions, reproductive freedom, gun control and LGBTQ+ rights. That history is now documented in a new exhibition at Nancy Nicholas Hall: “It’s All the Rage: Activism, Aging, and the Raging Grannies of Madison.” The exhibit opened Sept. 16 and will remain on display through Feb. 7.
Longtime member of Madison’s Raging Grannies, Susan Bickley, is one of the exhibit’s contributors. Bickley joined the chapter in 2007, four or five years after its conception — the date of which is under dispute, she said. After retiring from her career as a teacher and librarian, Bickley wanted to find a fulfilling way to spend her time. Singing on street corners about things she was passionate about was appealing to her, she said.
The first group of Grannies was formed in 1987 in British Columbia to protest nuclear submarines, Bickley said. Madison’s chapter formed in opposition to the Iraq War. Grannies aren’t the biggest fans of guns or war, Bickley said.
The Grannies’ form of protest is usually their original songs with campy, biting lyrics: “If my uterus were a gun, these guys would leave it alone,” for example. Their genre of protest brings together thoughtful, deliberate activism with the upbeat spirit of song.
According to the organization’s website, to be a Granny one needn’t possess singing ability — only a sense of humor, a willingness to make noise, an open heart and “no color sense, obviously.”
“We have more fun than we deserve, really,” Bickley said.
The Madison Raging Grannies were particularly active during the 2011 protests against Wisconsin Act 10, Bickley said. They protested alongside thousands of peaceful demonstrators opposing the act for limiting the rights of Wisconsin government employees,
showcase their values, reads “Governor Walker, now you’ve pissed off Grandma.”
It was at the 2011 protests that University of Wisconsin Gender and Women’s Studies professor Christine Garlough, who helped curate “It’s All the Rage,” first encountered the
“It’s All the Rage: Activism, Aging, and the Raging Grannies of Madison” exhibit at Nancy Nicholas Hall. Sept. 20, 2024.
including teachers, she said. The Grannies put on “solidarity sings” at the Capitol five days a week for over a year, many of their songs featuring lyrics calling for a recall of Gov. Walker. Eight Grannies were arrested, but their cases were dropped for lack of cause.
“It was one of the most memorable things I’ve ever done,” she said.
To this day, her favorite of her buttons, which the Grannies pin to their aprons to
Nicholas Hall had an open call for exhibits, Garlough jumped on the opportunity to share the Grannies’ history with the university.
The finished exhibit, which is made up of three display cases on the first and third floor of Nancy Nicholas Hall, features a wide array of artifacts donated by Madison Grannies, as well as QR codes that link some of the chapter’s performances and oral histories told by Grannies. Graduate student Svea Larson heavily contributed to curating the exhibition, Garlough said.
When exploring the exhibit, visitors are encouraged to peruse drawers filled with photographs, buttons, embroidered bibs and even miniature Ursulas (considerably smaller but no less furious). There’s no shortage of buttons, which are the group’s trademark — dozens upon dozens are on display, reading, for example: “Bad politicians are elected by good people who don’t vote,” “Peace is patriotic,” “At my age, I don’t have to prove anything,” and “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament!”
Garlough loved working alongside the Grannies to curate the exhibition, expressing admiration for their commitment to fearless speech.
“They’re advocating for progressive causes in ways that sometimes people wouldn’t think that grannies would do,” Garlough said. “They take the stereotype of the Granny… and they turn it on its head.”
Dressed as stereotypical grandmothers in flashy colors and patterns, the Grannies certainly challenge expectations for older women in regards to activism. Rather than filling the passive roles assigned to elderly women, they’ve forged their own ways of protesting, without trying to appear or act younger than they actually are. They’re the Raging Grannies, unabashedly so.
Garlough said she hopes that the exhibition will inform visitors of the importance of documenting activist history.
“This exhibit should start conversations about activism, about aging, about feminist issues and LGBTQ issues,” Garlough said. “It’s not the end of the conversation, it’s the beginning.”
Bickley has a very simple message for visitors.
“The Grannies will be weeping if you don’t vote!” Bickley said.
Grannies.
“I was really interested in how people use culture for political purposes,” Garlough said.
The Grannies, with their energetic performances and brazen refutation of grandmotherly stereotypes, intrigued her.
Now, Garlough said she collaborates with the Grannies through a research group that studies gender activism and aging. When the Center for Design and Material Culture at Nancy
Voting is all the rage. Activism is all the rage. And above all, the Grannies are all the rage, and they show no signs of slowing down. Take it from them — you’re never too old to raise your voice and make change.
Visit the exhibit’s webpage for more information or check out some crochet and protest poster and button craft workshops hosted by the Grannies on campus.
BENNETT WAARA. THE BADGER HERALD.
As the school year begins, I would like to take this special moment to welcome you back to campus.
It feels like yesterday that I was a student at Howard University. I found forever friends, people who shaped me and supported me. I found my beloved Alpha Kappa Alpha sisters. Like many, college is when I started to become politically engaged. Together, we learned that progress happens in our country when young people fight for it.
Throughout my travels as Vice President, I love talking to young leaders. I am continually amazed by your grit, your perseverance, your intellect, and your deep passion for making our world better.
It is because of the record turnout among college students in 2020 that I am Vice President today. And to win this election, I need your support.
This November, so many of our fundamental freedoms are at stake. The freedom to vote. The freedom to live safe from gun violence. The freedom to love who you love, openly and with pride. The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water. And the freedom to make decisions about your own body.
Later this semester, you will have the opportunity to vote in an election that will decide the future of our country. You will have the power to shape our future. To continue to build the country you want to live in—one where your fundamental rights are protected—by taking to the ballot box and making your voice heard.
Your vote has never mattered more. When young people fight for progress, it changes the course of our nation. I believe in you. I am inspired by you. And I am rooting for your success.
Sincerely,
Vice President Kamala Harris
