Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 26. Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 02m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 28.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1903, the Wright brothers make the first controlled powered, heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
The first powered, controlled, sustained airplane flight in history. Orville Wright, age 32, is at the controls of the machine, lying prone on the lower wing with hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. His brother, Wilbur Wright, age 36, ran alongside to help balance the machine, having just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing. The starting rail, the wing-rest, a coil box, and other items needed for flight preparation are visible behind the machine. (Orville Wright preset the camera and had John T. Daniels squeeze the rubber bulb, tripping the shutter.) Public Domain via Wikipedia.
Rich Kremer reports UW-Madison remains 8th in nation for research spending (‘University reported $1.38B in research expenditures during 2021 fiscal year’):
Wisconsin’s flagship university ranked eighth in the nation between July 2020 and June 2021. The university reported nearly $1.4 billion in annual research spending across all fields, a $16 million increase over the prior fiscal year.
The Higher Education Research and Development survey, or HERD, shows nearly $646 million in research spending from federal grants and awards and more than $412 million in spending from institutional funds.
Steve Ackerman, UW-Madison’s vice chancellor for research and graduate education, said the rankings add a sense of pride among researchers across the university.
“There’s always that idea of how does our research make the world a better place, and in particular the state a better place?” Ackerman said. “And this HERD survey is one of the metrics that we look at now.”
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UW-Madison was ranked fourth in the nation for research spending in 2014 but fell to sixth the following year. At the time, former Chancellor Rebecca Blank credited the drop to large cuts in state funding to the UW System.
In 2018, the university fell again to eighth in the nation and has stayed there ever since.
Ackerman said things are turning around. He said during the pandemic, many faculty members spent time away from the lab writing and submitting research grant applications.
“Now we’re looking at changing that trajectory,” Ackerman said. “We’ve been at eight now for two years and looking to catapult ourselves to number six in a short time frame.”
While this libertarian blogger has long been critical of mediocre administrative leadership on our campus and at the UW System, that criticism is founded first against injuries to individuals and then second against failures to fulfill a competitive academic position.
A legislative bias against the University of Wisconsin–Madison holds Wisconsin and America back, variously against other states or nations. Some of the same politicians who list UW System schools on their profiles are the first to pander to anti-university constituents. They should pick a lane.
A competitive spirit to win research grants advances knowledge nationally and Wisconsin economically and culturally.
Ant milk: The mysterious fluid that helps them thrive: