University of Wisconsin-Madison
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J u st i c e l eag u e r ev i e w
UW grads leave Wisconsin, state devises plan to draw them back By Cameron Lane-Flehinger STAFF WRITER
When Elsa Davids considered applying to UW-Madison as a high school senior from Albuquerque, N.M., she didn’t know much about the state she would be committing four years of her life to — and the impression of Wisconsin she got from the people around her wasn’t always positive. “What I heard from other people was ‘drink a lot of beer, eat a lot of cheese, it’s going to be really cold,’” Davids said. “And that it was a pretty conservative state, and that was essentially all I heard.” Davids was undeterred by the warnings and became one of the more than 7,500 students annually from around the country and the globe who enroll at UW System schools. These students represent a potential boon to the state’s economy: thousands of highlyskilled workers coming out of the UW System with a connection to Wisconsin already in place. This is especially important in a state
that trails behind others in the upper Midwest in the education of its workforce and consistently ranks among the bottom five states in attracting new residents. Despite a strong high school graduation rate and affordable public higher education compared to neighboring states, Wisconsin’s workforce lacks highly skilled workers. Just 29 percent of the state’s adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher, three-and-a-half percent below the national average. But when it comes time for students like Davids to graduate and move into the workforce, that “new resident” potential is rarely realized. Five years after graduation, just 10 percent of out-of state UW students retain an address in the state, according to figures from the system’s annual accountability report. These recent graduates predominantly go south to Chicago and surrounding suburbs. Thirty-two percent of out-ofstate students go on to live in Illinois — seeking out career opportunities they believe
Monday, November 27, 2017
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Can your stomach burst from too much food?
University to add database for reporting sexual assault By Kayla Huynh STAFF WRITER
respond to the fight at Wando’s this weekend. In the meantime, city officials and police are meeting with business owners to discuss preventative measures, like installing more surveillance cameras and lighting. But some just want to see more patrol officers. Arturo Ruiz, manager of Village Pizza — a new latenight restaurant located a few doors down from Wando’s — says while he isn’t aware of any gang-related activity in the area, he has felt “unsafe” at times. “During store renovations, someone broke two of the windows,” Ruiz said, also adding that he has seen at least one “big” fight in the area recently. Ruiz said he would feel more
As sexual assault and harassment in the workplace has gained national attention, UW-Madison is working to update its prevention and reporting of sexual harassment on campus. The university will establish a central reporting system and database for reports and complaints of sexual harassment or sexual assault, according to a news release posted last week. Lauren Hasselbacher, the university’s Title IX Coordinator, said that it is important for all branches of the university, rather than only offices dedicated to sexual misconduct, to respond to sexual violence seriously. “It is essential that individual departments, schools/colleges and the entire university not only respond appropriately to all complaints and concerns of sexual harassment and violence, but also work proactively to create positive and inclusive environments for students and employees,” Hasselbacher stated in the news release. The news release, which highlighted UW’s efforts to improve campus safety, was made public on the same day the Wisconsin State Journal published an article reporting a series of sexual harassment allegations in the university’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Campus officials said in the post that they will continue efforts to “improve record keeping, training and referral processes.” After the 2015 Association of American Universities’ Sexual Assault Climate Survey found that 53 percent of female graduate and professional students said they have experienced sexual harassment on campus, the university made the Title IX Coordinator into a full-time position. The Title IX Coordinator organizes university efforts for prevention and response to sex discrimination. Title IX is a 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational institutions receiving public dollars, including UW-Madison. After the 2015 survey, UW made sexual harassment and sexual assault prevention training mandatory for graduate students. Undergraduate students
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GRAPHIC BY JADE SHENG
Five years after graduation, only 10 percent of UW grads live in-state. aren’t available in the Badger State, according to research from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. But that same WEDC research also exposed a potential bright spot for the state’s long-term prospects. Even after leaving Wisconsin, UW System graduates tend to hold positive opinions of the state and would consider moving back. And with Chicago experiencing an unusual population decline — it was the only one of the country’s top 10 metro areas to lose population in 2015 and 2016 — WEDC hopes to attract some of these departed graduates back to their alma mater’s state. That attempt comes in the form of a $1 million advertising campaign, set to begin this spring, targeting recent college graduates in the Chicago area. The exodus of young college graduates — exactly the demographic WEDC is targeting — represents “lowhanging fruit” for advertisements according to Kelly Lietz, WEDC’s vice president of marketing and brand management.
WEDC is hoping to use the advertisements — which will be found in subway stations, health clubs, bars and just about anywhere else affluent 21-35 year olds congregate — to change the stereotypical perceptions of Wisconsin that Davids got from her friends when applying to UW. Instead of cows, beer and cold, WEDC wants to sell Wisconsin as a safe, cheap place to raise a family that doesn’t compromise on quality of life — what Lietz calls the state’s “personal fulfillment opportunities.” “We are America’s dairyland certainly, but we’re much more than that as well,” Lietz said. Wisconsin’s ability to attract new highly skilled residents, and retain them longterm, will only become more important as the state transitions to an economy suited for the 21st century, according to a study of the state’s long-term employment trends conducted by Tessa Conroy and Matthew
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City confronts ‘gang’ presence near campus By Gina Heeb CITY NEWS EDITOR
A strip of bars near the UW-Madison campus has become a center for “criminal gang” activity, according to some city officials. And local law enforcement is having trouble keeping up. Due to a “lack of resources,” city police had to request help from the UW-Madison Police Department to break up a fight Saturday at Wando’s Bar on University Avenue, MPD Chief Mike Koval wrote in a blog post. The incident comes as part of a recent spike in crime on the 600 block of University Avenue — including some instances in which MPD has had to deploy pepper spray to break up fights. Some of those involved in recent disturbances have “ties to criminal gangs and criminal histories
CAMERON LANE-FLEHINGER/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Some bars on University Ave. have become a center for gang activity. involving the use of firearms,” according to Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4. As disturbances have become “acute,” the city now deploys an average of 15 extra officers in the area on weekend nights. With
most of those officers clocked in on overtime, the initiative cost the city more than $100,000 this year. “The big question we are facing now is whether to dial back,” Verveer said, noting the shortage of officers able to
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”