Allocable segregated fees—the approximately $90 each UW-Madison student pays along with their tuition every year—go toward funding many clubs, resources and services across campus.
The Minnesota football case was a microcosm of many of the issues surrounding athletics and sexual violence. Most profoundly evident in both the disturbing reports of the incident and in the boycott itself was the potential danger of that close-knit, familial bond among teammates. Jessica Luther, author of “Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape,” says that when that team mentality goes unsupervised, it can have horrifying consequences.
Following a 2015 survey that revealed high rates of sexual assault at UW-Madison—particularly in residence halls and Greek houses—campus groups have been working to build prevention programs aimed at reducing these numbers. This programming aims to reach a significant portion of the campus population, as 90 percent of freshman choose to live in university housing and approximately 13 percent of undergraduates are members of the Greek community. University Health Services, UW Housing and Greek councils are working to combat sexual assault before it occurs through education and legislation. First-year students receive double dose of preventative measures In the fall of 2016, UHS held the first educational sessions they created for first-year students.
Although the statistical majority of perpetrators are men, anyone can be a survivor of sexual assault.
After a night of drinking, a UW-Madison student was sexually assaulted in a campus dorm room. She didn’t recall much about the evening, but she remembered vomiting in the dorm’s trash can. The student reported the assault to the university’s Office of Compliance, which then investigated the incident.
About 60 percent of reported sexual assaults at UW-Madison were committed by a friend or acquaintance of the survivor, according to a 2015 American Association of Universities’ survey. But the cultural narrative around sexual assault de-legitimizes women assaulted by someone close to them, UHS Violence prevention and Survivor Services Team Manager Carmen Juniper Neimeko said.
Student groups and university administration, faced with the possibility of these cases never being fully investigated, are working to fight sexual violence on campus.
UW-Madison has a reputation of being a renowned university academically, both nationally and globally, and attracts students of many different identities, personalities, and backgrounds.
It’s football Saturday in Madison, Wis., and the Badgers are set to kickoff at 11 a.m. All around campus, thousands of students wake up unusually early.
For Sunny Singh, a senior at UW-Madison, the school’s party culture is hard to avoid. The social life on UW-Madison’s campus is synonymous with drug and alcohol use, to Singh.
I remember my first time in Wisconsin, when I was surprised to discover something different about the grocery store.
Carter Kofman was 20 years old when he had to put his education at UW-Madison on hold to get sober.
Passed out on a stranger’s bathroom floor. Stumbling down the street, held up by friends. Leaning over a plastic Walgreens bag in an Uber.
In addressing the county’s swelling heroin epidemic, Madison police are looking to economics. Despite training and deploying a narcotics task force specifically designed to curb the number of drugs available in the city, Madison Police Department saw a 77 percent increase in overdose rates in 2016 from the previous year. One MPD officer has an idea behind why—local law enforcement has focused on just one side of the issue. “Our narcotics task force targets people supplying drugs into the city,” MPD Capt.
What happens when you drink too much black-out? How does one get addicted to something?
When Michael Penn II was nine years old, he had his first sip of alcohol. Mistaking his father’s glass of Hennessy in the fridge for a glass of Coke, the young Penn confidently took a sip of the dark beverage.
Matthew Klimesh—a registered nurse who has worked in the trauma unit of UW-Hospital since 2013—said during his short time in acute care, so far, he has already seen several lives put on the line because underagers who have had too much to drink are afraid to get medical treatment. “I’ve seen a lot of young people end up in liver failure, with permanent brain damage or even dead,” Klimesh said.
Instead of using information campaigns deemed fruitless, the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project uses quantitative data to implement evidence-based policies aimed at curbing excessive alcohol use. The program coordinates with municipalities, law enforcement, public health agencies and community leaders across Wisconsin.
But, according to Carter Kofman, chair of recovery group Live Free, substances still find their way into classroom discussions where, for sober students like him, it is both uncomfortable and unavoidable.
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Solutions by The State News
