Learning about the state we serve
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 …
Faisal Abdu’Allah, a professor and the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art at UW–Madison, is a printmaker and a trained barber whose artworks explore race, culture and identity. His most recent work is a 7-foot limestone statue of himself that he designed and was created using a robotic tool and the skills of a master …
In this episode of Wisconsin Foodie, show host Luke Zahm travels to the Oneida Reservation meet Laura Manthe and Rebecca Webster, cousins and members of the Oneida Nation. They are both part of cooperative of White Corn Growers and have spent the last couple of years revitalizing White Corn, an ancient heirloom food within the …
Becky Webster, who will host the 2022 Wisconsin Idea Seminar at her family’s farmstead Ukwakhwa: Tsinu Niyukwayayʌthoslu, is teaming up with Oneida Executive Chef Arlie Doxtator to offer a special dinner featuring the ingredients and flavors of Oneida foodways. For over three decades Doxtator has focused on developing menus featuring Original Peoples’ foods while teaching …