Special Projects

Earlier this year, the Port Washington Common Council announced its controversial partnership with Vantage Data Centers, based out of Denver, to build a new AI data center for OpenAI, north of the town. This announcement was met with uproar from residents in Port Washington and the surrounding communities with fear about how this data center […]

The City of Racine is being sued by Midwest Environmental Advocates on behalf of Milwaukee Riverkeeper after the city allegedly failed to deliver a document describing the estimated water usage at the then-proposed data center in Mount Pleasant under open records laws. Wisconsin law states that a response to a record request must be made […]

AI’s rapid growth is driving a surge in massive data centers, boosting innovation but raising environmental concerns. Expanding energy and water demands strain local resources, while Big Tech’s dominance concentrates power. As AI infrastructure scales, questions about sustainability, accountability, and equitable access are becoming increasingly urgent for communities and policymakers. Believe it or not, a […]

Over the course of a semester, three UW-Milwaukee students committed themselves to a three-month investigation into the deaths of Milwaukee youth. Their focus was urgent: children and teenagers, ages four to 17, all who were school-aged. While the team drew initial inspiration from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s “The Lost Class,” their project quickly evolved into […]

Wisconsin State Senator Dora Drake began her career the way many Milwaukee-born senators do, with roots that run deep and a community that she has never been able to turn away from. “I lived in the district I represent now, the 4th Senate District,” she said. “It comprises the north portion of Milwaukee to the […]

Meeting Professor Leslie Harris in her Johnston Hall office felt less like an academic interview and more like sitting with someone who had spent years listening, really listening to Milwaukee. Her space was warm, filled with books, and somehow made the conversation feel bigger than the room itself. As soon as we asked about her […]

Daran Wiley is remembered as a protector with a big heart by his mother, Rashawn McKenzie. “He wasn’t just my protector; he protected his siblings,” McKenzie said. “I learned that it didn’t just stop there, that he genuinely cared about everyone around him. He wanted everybody to be treated equally and fairly, and he stood […]

Two Black men both raised in Milwaukee, both shaped by hardship, grew up on different sides of the city, yet their paths eventually converged around a shared mission. Their childhoods echoed similar realities: sirens at night, boarded windows, and the constant tension of living where many children learn the sound of gunfire before they learn […]

Student reporters, Brooke Hargraves and Akira Quinn, discuss their project, “Revisiting the Lost Class” and why they chose to do it.

Milwaukee is struggling handling its lead crisis, with it devastating its most vulnerable residents and having long-lasting impacts on children. In recent studies, lead has been linked to criminal activity in Milwaukee. According to Amy Kalkbrenner, a professor of public health at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Zilber College, lead primarily affects children’s brain cognitive abilities and […]

We met Jennifer Koss on a quiet afternoon at the UWM Golda Meir Library. A former Milwaukee Public Schools teacher of 17 years, she greeted us with the warmth of someone used to listening, observing, and carrying more stories than most people ever will. We sat around a table in a small study room, and […]

Timothy Shum lost his son, Dave, to suicide many years ago. Shum is now the chapter leader of the Milwaukee branch of The Compassionate Friends, a worldwide organization for peer support groups to deal with the loss of a child. However, it took Shum time to end up in this leader position due to the […]