The State of Working Wisconsin 2016

The long shadow of the Great Recession is finally lifting in Wisconsin. The state has more jobs than ever before,unemployment rates have fallen to pre-recession levels, and workers that want full-time work are having an easier time finding it. To be sure, recovery here is incomplete and comparatively unimpressive. Many populations and places remain isolated from opportunity, and Wisconsin's growth is slow relative to the national pace. Still, labor market opportunities are more clear and consistent than they have been in nearly a decade. Given the brutality of the Great Recession and the slow recovery from it, this is welcome news for working Wisconsin.The longer-term challenges that Wisconsin faces, and that COWS has long documented, remain daunting. Wages have been stagnant over the last three and a half decades and workers have very little to show for increasing productivity. Women earn less than men and the gap is slow to close. African Americans have suffered declining wages and growing disparity. The wage reward for higher education is evident, as is the difficulty of making ends meet without completing some post-secondary education. One-in-four workers toils in a poverty-wage job and low-wage sectors are growing faster than better-paying ones. Racial disparities, while hardly unique to Wisconsin, are particularly extreme here. A variety of economic and social indicators of racial inequality consistently identify us as among the most racially unequal states in the nation

Class Notes

News about Linfield alumn

Class Notes

News about Linfield alumn

Class Notes

News about Linfield alumn

Making STEM for everyone: Resources for supporting people from under-represented groups to engage with Science, Technology, Mathematics and Engineering

A resource compilationThis document provides a compilation of resources for supporting people from under-represented groups to study STEM subjects, enter STEM careers and see that STEM subjects can be ‘for them’.The list is arranged in a series of sections designed to make the wide range of resources in this area easier to navigate:BackgroundGeneral information on under-represented groups in STEM and what influences participation in STEMScience capitalUnderstanding the term 'science capital' and its applicationDiversity in science, positive role models and case studiesExamples of people from under-represented groups in STEM, and resources to support the concept of 'STEM for all'What could a STEM career look like?Examples of roles using STEMEngineering in a different lightEngineering might not be what you think it is...Inclusion in the classroomInclusive STEM teaching supportBreaking the mouldChallenges to stereotypes in popular cultureEncouraging people into STEMResources to support interests in STE

Women Like Me Executive Summary 2019

Only 11% of engineers in the UK are women. For democratic, utilitarian and equity reasons this is not enough. Both recruitment and retention are important – more girls need to connect with engineering as a creative, socially conscious, collaborative discipline, and more women need to be supported to make a difference in the workplace. The ‘Curiosity Connections – Women Like Me’ project aimed to change this through tiered mentoring and role modelling. Previous Ingenious research by Laura Fogg-Rogers indicates how important peer group and leadership support is for women, providing vicarious experience and changing social norms. This means that women need peer support to thrive in the workplace, and that girls need to see women succeeding in STEM careers in order to feel that engineering is for them. This project therefore paired 21 mid-career (senior) women engineers with 21 junior women engineers (less than five years’ experience) in order to provide career and public engagement mentoring. The outreach activities resulted in over 10,240 children being engaged in public engagement with women engineers. the junior engineers reported that they feel significantly more equipped to take part in public engagement, with 54% of junior engineers feeling fairly well equipped before the project, but this increased to 68% after the project, with 38% indicating they were very well equipped. Similarly, the mean score on the Engineering Outreach Self-Efficacy Scale significantly improved from 6.80 to 8.41 (out of 10). This indicates that the engineers are now much more confident to undertake education outreach, and are then more likely to continue public engagement following the project. We therefore conclude that mentoring is highly important to ensure a supportive workplace, which means that women are more likely to be retained in the engineering industry

Spotlighting shared goals for science education and communication

van den Sanden and Vries curate reflections and insights about the shared goals, practices and processes which bring together academics and practitioners in science education and communication. The book spotlights areas of productive overlap but is just the beginning for meaningful collaboration

Seasonal phenology and bionomics of clearwing moths in Tennessee

Larvae of clearwing moths (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae) attack and cause serious damage to more than 100 deciduous trees and shrubs in North America. Clearwing moth larvae, commonly referred to as borers , damage plants by tunnelling beneath the bark while feeding. These borers can destroy vascular tissue and cause loss of vigor, structural weakness, branch dieback or complete girdling and death of trees (Wallace 1945, Schread 1971, Purrington and Nielsen 1977, Potter and Timmons 1983). With the isolation, characterization and synthesis of the first clearwing moth sex pheromone by Tumlinson and coworkers (1974) additional information concerning borers and their life history could be obtained (Nielsen 1979). Using these sex pheromones, numerous researchers have monitored and reported the seasonal incidence of selected adult Sesiidae (Gentry et al. 1978, Sharp et al. 1978, Neal 1981, Riedl et al. 1985, Meyer et al. 1988). A clearwing moth, Synanthedon scitula (Harris) (the dogwood borer), is one of the most serious pests of flowering dogwoods, Cornus florida L., in the eastern United States, especially in Tennessee (Pless and Stanley 1967, Williams et al. 1985). Due to the availability of a synthetic pheromone attractive to dogwood borer and the lack of information available on clearwing moths in Tennessee, a two-year study was conducted to monitor the seasonal incidence of clearwing moths in eastern and middle Tennessee and to assess infestation levels of dogwood borer on dogwood in commercial nursery, urban, and forest habitats. Eight species of clearwing moths were collected during 1987-1988 and included: Podosesia syringae (Harris), lilac borer; Paranthrene simulans palmii (Grote), an oak borer; Synanthedon scitula, dogwood borer; Synanthedon rhododendri (Beutenmilller), rhododendron borer: Synanthedon exitiosa (Say), peachtree borer; Synanthedon fatifera Hodges, a viburnum borer; Synanthedon acerni (Clemens), maple callous borer; and Synanthedon decipiens (Hy. Edwards), a borer of cynipid galls on oak. Lilac borers were the most abundant species collected during this two-year study and represented ca. 70% of the moths collected in the nursery and urban habitats and ca. 41% of the moths collected in the forest habitat. The dogwood borer represented ca. 10% of the moths collected in the nursery and urban habitats but was not collected in the forest habitat. Approximately 45% of the moths collected in the forest habitat were rhododendron borers. The high percentage of rhododendron borers collected in the forest habitat is a result of the large number of rhododendrons found in the forest areas sampled. The dogwood borer exhibited a bimodal period of emergence with the first peak occurring in mid-May and the second in the beginning of August. This information is important from a managerial standpoint and suggests the application of two properly timed chemical treatments for the control of dogwood borer. The highest infestation level (ca. 60%) of dogwood borer on dogwood was found in the urban habitat. The high infestation level in the urban habitat is due to adverse environmental stresses placed on the tree growing in an unnatural environment. Dogwood trees planted as ornamentals in the urban habitat are usually planted in full sun and subject to mechanical injuries (e.g. damage by lawnmowers) which increase the susceptibility of the tree to borer infestation (Potter and Timmons 1983). All nursery blocks examined were infested with dogwood borer and percent infestation averaged ca. 7%. Approximately 1% of the trees examined in the forest habitat were infested with dogwood borer