Learning about the state we serve
EPIC-N recognized Andrea Hicks with the 2025 Faculty of the Year award! Since 2017, Andrea has collaborated with seven Wisconsin communities through UniverCity Alliance. Andrea Hicks participated in the 2017 Wisconsin Idea Seminar.
If, on a hungry afternoon, you’ve been eager to discover a forgotten protein bar tucked in your backpack, only to find it’s become hard and unappetizing after weeks of neglect, food scientist Audrey Girard’s research is for you. Girard recently led a study into chemical changes that occur in protein bars over time, making them …
For decades, Andy Diercks, a fourth-generation potato farmer from Coloma, Wisconsin, has worked closely with vegetable researchers at UW–Madison to improve crops, resulting in healthier yields — and robust friendships. “The research team — they’re just really good people,” says Diercks. Related: Watch Diercks discuss innovations that have benefited his farm with UW–Madison Extension specialist …
After learning how to create a warp with cattails, the Wisconsin Idea Seminar participants began to weave, methodically crossing cattail fibers to create a small mat, talking and meditating on the meaning of their project.
The Wisconsin Idea Seminar team is seeking a communications intern! Our communications intern will hone their writing and image-making skills and meet folks across the state who are making a difference in their communities. The Wisconsin Idea Seminar Communications Internship offers the opportunity to: Dates of Internship Beginning in January, 2024. Hours offered during academic breaks (winter, …
The Wisconsin Idea Seminar’s Forest + River experience started under a canopy of centuries-old bur oaks alongside mounds in Willow Creek Woods near the shore of Lake Mendota. A group of 39 faculty and staff became students of Wisconsin life and learned from folks who are deeply committed to the place where they live and …
“It wouldn’t be unusual for an out-of-towner passing through a neighborhood in the Oregon School District (OSD) to notice someone from the University of Wisconsin-Madison dropping off medical testing supplies on a residential doorstep. Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sight may come off as either apocalyptic or expected depending on one’s disposition. …
“First, Marianne Fairbanks went big. Then, she went little. Very little. In 2016, then an assistant professor of design studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she launched a “social weaving project” called the Weaving Lab, by the Image Lab created by cartoonist Lynda Barry at the campus’ Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. For two summers, Fairbanks …
WIS’22 alum Alvin Thomas, assistant professor in Human Development and Family Studies in the School of Human Ecology co-authors a piece in Salon. “As researchers who study the role of fathers in the lives and development of their children, we couldn’t help but notice a pattern. Headline after headline decried the crisis facing parents, yet …
Lake Michigan and the people who live along its shores shaped the contours of the 2022 Wisconsin Idea Seminar’s “Bay Tour.” For five days along 600 miles, the cohort of 29 faculty and academic staff became students of Wisconsin life, whether at a farm that grows Oneida traditional foods, a program that helps incarcerated people …