Baldwin grants continue legacy of the Wisconsin Idea

One University of Wisconsin–Madison professor will attempt to capture mainstream public opinion through the real conversations taking place in Wisconsin’s local diners, while another professor will enlist Internet-based citizen journalists to expand the dialogue on community issues.

The projects offer two uniquely different approaches to the same goal of improving the connection Wisconsin residents feel to state and local government. They also represent the future of the Wisconsin Idea, as two of nine new projects funded through the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. More than $600,000 in grants was disbursed this year through the endowment.

Now in its fifth year, the Baldwin endowment has supported 40 diverse projects designed to bring UW–Madison knowledge, expertise and resources to bear on matters of importance to Wisconsin residents, whether it be good government, better schools or accessible health care. The grants are meant to further the century-old Wisconsin Idea, which holds that the impact of the university should extend beyond its borders.

“The Baldwin grants provide a great opportunity for students, faculty and staff to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives, particularly those of state citizens,” says Peyton Smith, assistant vice chancellor for campus outreach. “As a public university, it’s also a chance to give back to the state that supports us.”

One of the new projects, titled “Putting the Public Back in Wisconsin Public Opinion,” will take political science professor Katherine Cramer Walsh out to 23 Wisconsin communities during the year. Her goal will be to capture political conversation in neighborhood gathering places, such as local diners and retail stores, to understand the real challenges people face that public policy might address.

Cramer Walsh currently partners with the UW Survey Center to conduct the Wisconsin Badger Poll, one of the key political polls that informs state politics. This new approach will lead to a more robust and in-depth look at state public opinion, she says. It may also lead to different, more relevant questions for the Badger Poll.

One specific set of questions will ask people about their perception of and relationships with UW–Madison, and the information will feed back into the Wisconsin Idea Project, a campuswide effort to re-energize the university’s relationship with the state.

“I chose this approach because I want to hear the concerns of Wisconsinites of as many walks of life as possible,” Cramer Walsh says, noting that her dissertation and first book came from similarly styled “listening sessions” with local residents in Michigan.

“I’m so honored to receive this funding, because it is allowing me to pursue a lifelong dream of using my resources and skills as a political scientist and Wisconsin native to serve the people of the state,” Cramer Walsh says. She says she is also excited about visiting hometown diners and “discovering some wonderful pie.”

In the project “Building a Wisconsin Information Commons,” journalism professor Lewis Friedland will take an established local online community journalism project called “Madison Commons” to other state communities, starting with Milwaukee the first year and a northern Wisconsin community in the second.

Friedland says a citizen journalism movement is already in full swing thanks to Web resources, but the content is uneven and deals more in opinion than fact. His commons model works to change that by providing training for citizen journalists and integrating content from both mainstream news outlets and community sources. More than 50 people have been trained through the Madison program.

“We are trying to reach out to more ultra-local neighborhood newspaper writers and are making some headway,” he says. “It’s a constant process of just digging.”

The project has had remarkable support from local Madison media, and he hopes to continue the partnership with news outlets (often competing) to collectively share their content through this project.

“It’s hard to stress how rare it is for diverse local news media to collaborate this way, when they are also working to carve out their own audiences and identities,” Friedland says. “Also, we hope this year to begin to involve other local institutions, since the commons is about news, not news media.”

Other 2007 Baldwin projects include:

• “Biology Outreach Club: Today’s Outreach, Tomorrow’s Outreachers.” This project is run entirely by UW–Madison graduate students in the Biology Outreach Club, a group that connects young learners across the state with UW–Madison research labs. During the next three years, the Baldwin grant will allow this team to design new outreach materials on a range of biology topics and make the materials available to teachers statewide. The group also plans to conduct 20 outreach events per year with the expanded funding.
• “Finding a Port in the Storm: Guidance for Wisconsin Families Navigating the Health Care System.” This project will expand on the efforts of the UW–Madison Center for Patient Partnerships in the Law School. It recognizes that good guidance, information and assistance can make or break a family’s ability to respond to serious health challenges and navigate through the complicated health care process. In this project, the center will partner with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to develop a case-based curriculum that will give EAP staff practical, plain-English tools to support their own employees going through difficult medical issues.
• “Green Affordable Housing in Indian Country.” In this project, the UW–Madison Department of Landscape Architecture will work with Native-American communities to demonstrate best practices in community planning, conservation design and “green” housing construction. This project will lead to demonstration houses on reservations as well as teams of trained trades people able to integrate the affordable housing strategies. Final products will include a variety of teaching tools and a documentary video supporting green housing.

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  Children look through a microscope during a science event on campus. A tribal youth science media camp geared toward middle and high school students is one of the projects funded with this year’s Baldwin grants.

  Photo: Jeff Miller

• “Improving Nutrition in Uganda.” The project will bring nutritional health support to 165 villages in Uganda, a country with extreme malnutrition rates. Statistics show that a third of people are undernourished and one in seven Ugandan children die before their fifth birthday. This project will help guide the country’s efforts to build a nationwide nutrition education program.
• “Masters of Story Time.” Graduate students from the School of Library and Information Studies will steer a one-year project to produce a DVD called “Masters of Story Time,” which will showcase professional librarians who demonstrate creative early literacy techniques to which children respond, including puppetry, finger plays, poetry and music. This effort will address the lack of early literacy training for teachers and highlight the importance of developing basic literacy skills in preschool children.
• “Native Invasive: Forest Art Wisconsin.” In this project, UW–Madison faculty artists will work to draw greater attention to Wisconsin’s 16 million acres of forest, as well as some environmental threats to the resource. Partnering with the Department of Natural Resources and others, the project will develop works of art that can be showcased within the forest itself, along some of the heavily used trails on public land.
• “Tribal Youth Science Media Camp.” In collaboration with Lac Courte Oreilles Community College, staff in the Department of Life Sciences Communication will bring a weeklong science media camp to 48 middle and high school tribal students. There has traditionally been a disconnect between tribal communities and pursuit of science careers, and this camp “will offer science education within a cultural context.” Working in teams, the students will create eight scientifically themed media projects that may be broadcast as part of a national initiative by the Public Broadcasting Service.