Sifting and Winnowing

For over four years, Sifting and Winnowing has served as a forum for the campus community to speak out on issues that cannot be adequately debated in the student dailies or the off-campus media alone.  For most of those years, we have depended on sporadic contributions by around a dozen individuals who have written mainly when they felt inspired by current events.

Our resolution for 2012 is to increase the range of voices and the breadth of topics and opinions represented and to ensure a somewhat steadier supply of new and thought-provoking commentary.  To that end, we are recruiting a volunteer board of Contributing Editors, each member of which will commit to writing (or soliciting) short but regular posts on topics of their choice.

If you know someone — faculty, staff, student, alum, or informed member of the public — whom you believe could write thoughtfully and knowledgeably about issues and events that matter (or should matter) to those who care about the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we invite you to submit your nominations to admin@siftingandwinnowing.org.  We are especially interested in potential contributors who would bring a fresh, entertaining, and/or provocative perspective to issues and policies we seldom stop to think about.  Self-nominations are encouraged.

Those who work and/or study at UW-Madison can be forgiven for feeling like pinatas.  It’s hard to imagine more drama in one year.  Like the sticks wielded by small children seeking easy loot, the blows came from many directions, sometimes seemingly all at once.

It’s also hard to imagine a clearer and more succinct summary of the year than that provided by Todd Finkelmeyer over at the Capital Times:

• Campus Connection: UW-Madison’s 2011 Year in Review

There are some who still believe, despite the evidence, that the split from the UW System championed by both Chancellor Martin and Governor Walker would have been a good thing, on balance, for the University.  But as Finkelmeyer put it, (more…)

Title: “The National Attack on Public Higher Education: Effective Strategies for Fighting Back.”

Featured Speaker:

Cary Nelson, President,
American Association of University Professors.
Prof. U. Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

Panel:

Sara Goldrick-Rab, Assoc. Prof. Educ. Policy
John Wiley, Former Chancellor, UW-Madison

Time and place: Thursday, October 13,  4 PM Memorial Union (TITU)

Download/view printable publicity flyer here.

I have heard a lot of bitter grumbling today concerning the parking and traffic problems associated with today’s Badger football game.  The biggest gripers are those employees with paid parking permits who are being forcibly evicted from their assigned lots to make way for fans.

So as a public service, I’d like to remind everyone of these two oft-overlooked facts:

• The primary mission of UW-Madison is to field a truly awesome football team, and to do so in a time slot that is convenient for the commercial cable channel ESPN.
• The primary responsibility of UW-Madison faculty and staff is to ensure that their work schedule and parking habits don’t interfere with the above mission. (more…)

If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past six months, it’s that the University of Wisconsin-Madison cannot ignore or escape the political storm that has been buffeting Wisconsin.   Regardless of one’s political leanings, one cannot fail to recognize that the outcomes of the November 2010 elections and the recall elections last Tuesday (with two more next Tuesday) all have groundshaking consequences for this campus and, of course, for the entire state.

Many will be surprised and disappointed by last Tuesday’s results; many others will be encouraged by them.  But too few will ask the question, “Can we even trust the reported outcomes?”

“Sifting and winnowing” is partly about challenging comfortable assumptions in the search for truth and insight.  With that goal in mind, I urge you to read this October 2010  interview with Jonathan Simon, a leading expert on election integrity.

I cannot ethically quote the entire interview here, so here is a short excerpt that, I hope, will be sufficient to compel you to read the entire interview:
(more…)

It goes without saying that the outcomes of the nine Senate recall elections scheduled in Wisconsin will be of intense interest to most of the UW-Madison community.  Forecasting the outcome of elections weeks in advance is always a risky business; nevertheless, we offer the following bold prediction:

In at least some cases, the candidate receiving the lesser of the actual votes cast — perhaps, in fact, the candidate you passionately opposed — will be declared the official victor.

Chances are, you either think we are nuts or you are already upset with the dismal state of elections in Wisconsin, if not the country.  Either way, we hope this article will change your view of  both (a) the security of the elections and (b) the ability of ordinary citizens like you to improve that security. (more…)