University of Wisconsin–Madison

Month: May 2026

On Witnessing, Sanctuary, and Future-making

Three scholars deliberated recent and present American movements in “Migration, Resilience, and Community Building in Times of Crisis”, a title Sociologist Dr. Stephanie Canizales acknowledged from the podium. “What can I say to meet this moment,” she asked. Her answer was a question: “How was it?” Canizales has been listening for six years: her research …

CLS Faculty, Student featured in “Fueling Discovery”

Every May, the College of Letters and Science publishes inspiring stories about research and other achievements by its faculty and students in a supplement to the Wisconsin State Journal called “Fueling Discovery.”  This year’s issue highlighted the work of CLS Director Theresa Delgadillo and Program faculty member Alfonso Morales. The feature on Prof. Delgadillo included …

Revel Sims’ and his Students Study Housing Insecurity with the Tenant Resource Center

CLS Core faculty member Revel Sims’ teaching was featured in a recent article by the College of Letters and Science’s Instructional Design Collaborative on community-based learning in UW-Madison classrooms. Prof. Sims and his students partnered with Madison’s Tenant Resource Center to quantify and map evictions in Dane County, interviewing Spanish-speaking residents of the county about …

Lola Loustaunau Publishes Research on Farm Labor

CLS Program faculty member Lola Loustaunau published a paper on wildcat strikes in 2020 by Latina apple pickers in Washington state, and she presented the results from the Wisconsin Farmworker Coalition’s community-driven survey project on April 1st. The Washington study examined the ways that the COVID-19 crisis moved the apple workers to strike after a …

Denia Garcia Examines the Effects of Social Capital on Benefit Use

CLS affiliate faculty member Denia Garcia has recently published an article in the journal Poverty and Public Policy examining the way social capital influences the decisions poor residents of U.S. cities to seek such public benefits as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). Drawing on data from the Future …

National Academy of Education gives Prestigious Award to Christopher Saldaña

CLS Program Faculty member Christopher Saldaña was honored this semester with a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Academy of Education. The fellowship supports early career scholars working in critical areas of education research. In addition to a monetary award, the fellowship will offer Prof. Saldaña to participate in professional development retreats with distinguished education …

Nidia Bañuelos Finds Ways to Measure Community Cultural Wealth

Dr. Nidia Bañuelos and her colleagues from the School of Education, Kyoungjin Jang-Tucci and Dr. Ross Benbow, have created a quantitative measure of Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) that can be included in student surveys and assessments. Instead of focusing on the problems faced by undergraduates of color, the research seeks to understand what strengths …

Alfonso Morales Enriches Local Press Coverage of Public Markets

CLS affiliate faculty member Alfonso Morales shared his expertise on urban markets with the online news outlet Madison365  late this semester, providing perspective on the approaching debut of the Madison Public Market at 202 North First Street. A much-awaited addition to the commercial landscape in Madison, the Public Market is a city-sponsored nonprofit intended to create …

CLS Certificate Student Roselyn Pacheco Listed Among Notable 2026 Graduates

The University has included CLS certificate and Racine native Roselyn Pacheco in a list of some notable Spring 2026 graduates. Pacheco says that coming to UW–Madison as a first-generation Latina freshman “meant stepping into spaces I wasn’t always sure I belonged in.” She struggled her first year on campus but soon realized that “the beauty …

CLS Faculty Honored with Vilas Awards

CLS affiliate and budgeted faculty are prominent among those recently honored by the University with Vilas Awards. These include Aurora Santiago Ortiz (CLS/Gender & Women’s Studies) and Christopher Saldaña (Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis), who received Vilas Early Career Investigator Awards, and Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, (History), who received the Vilas Faculty Mid-Career Investigator Award.  Both awards …