University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Thursday, January 29, 2026
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BOYD, BADGERS BELONG
BYE BYE BACKPACKS
The transfer guard has been key this year, helping ease Tonje loss, lead Wisconsin’s backcourt
Hello luxury totes and purses. Why Badgers are ditching backpacks for a new kind of book bag.
+ SPORTS, PAGE 8
+ LIFE & STYLE, PAGE 6
Mnookin to leave UW, become next Columbia University president By Annika Bereny & Zoey Elwood CAMPUS EDITOR & COLLEGE EDITOR
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin was chosen to be Columbia University’s next president, according to a Sunday New York Times article. Mnookin first joined UW-Madison in 2022 after serving as dean of the University of California, Los Angeles Law School and will stay chancellor through spring commencement. Following Mnookin’s departure, UW System President Jay Rothman, along with other stakeholders, will appoint an interim chancellor while the Board of Regents searches for a permanent successor. “As Chancellor Mnookin begins her next chapter, we thank her for her contributions and wish her every success. We look forward to ensuring that UW-Madison continues to
thrive and to carry forward the tradition of excellence it is known for worldwide,” Rothman said in a statement. She struck a delicate balance during a tumultuous time in higher education at UW-Madison amid large-scale pro-Palestine protests, a funding deal to freeze and eliminate DEI positions in exchange for state funding and federal funding cuts from the Trump Administration. She advocated for UW-Madison to Wisconsin’s Republican Legislature, piloting initiatives focused on free speech and pluralism in response to criticisms that the university lacked ideological diversity. Mnookin also expanded the university’s federal lobbying efforts and focused federal funding grants on the Department of Defense grants and university research around Artificial Intelligence, allowing UW-Madison to rise in
research expenditure rankings. “It has been a true honor to be a part of the Wisconsin family,” Mnookin said in a statement Sunday. “I am proud of what we have accomplished together, even in a challenging period for higher education, and I know great possibilities lie ahead for the UW–Madison campus community.” As Columbia’s president, Mnookin is poised to enter a similarly uncertain environment, leading initiatives in growth and stability at a university whose handling of pro-Palestine student protests in 2023 and increasing hostility from the Trump Administration has thrust the campus into the national spotlight. Columbia’s campus has since encountered numerous, large-scale pro-Palestine demonstrations. Mnookin will replace Nemat “Minouche”
AN ODE TO HIMAL CHULI
Shafik, Columbia’s last president who resigned in 2024 after intense national scrutiny surrounding the university’s approach to pro-Palestine protests. A former Ivy League student herself, Mnookin holds a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a JD from Yale — as well as a doctorate from MIT. “My time at UW–Madison has been lifechanging and so much of that is attributable to the talented and deeply committed faculty, students and staff who call our institution home, and who strive to bring the Wisconsin Idea to life,” Mnookin said. “I will continue to work hard each and every day prior to my departure and I look forward to partnering with President Rothman, the Board of Regents and others to ensure a smooth transition.”
‘ICE will kill more’: Over a thousand gather at Library Mall Students, community members, activists protested recent ICE violence By Ellie Huber & Alexa Cattouse STAFF WRITERS
JAKE PIPER/THE DAILY CARDINAL
By Elizabeth Baumberger STAFF WRITER
Amidst clanking pots, echoing laughter and piping hot food circling the restaurant, Himal Chuli owner Bishnu Pradhan — known more fondly as ‘mother’ or ‘grandmother’ — can be seen adding ‘a little of this and a little of that’ to each dish she cooks. Bishnu and her husband Krishna Pradham opened Himal Chuli, the first Nepali restaurant in the U.S., in March 1986. For 40 years, customers and friends were synonymous as the cultural carveout occupied an important presence in downtown Madison, bringing a taste of the Himalayas to the Midwest. But this past December, the restaurant closed its doors for good, three years after Bishnu’s passing. Bishnu’s cooking was widely loved by the Madison community. From her husband’s colleagues to hungry college students
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, there wasn’t a demographic that didn’t cherish her Nepali cuisine. Rajan Pradhan, restaurant owner and son of Bishnu and Krishna, told The Daily Cardinal simply, “she had the touch.” Himal Chuli started as a small food cart on Library Mall in the early ‘80s with a limited menu before moving into their State Street location, where they remained for the duration of the restaurant’s existence. The local community quickly embraced the restaurant. “It was a very comfortable, tight space. The laughter carried. It was always full of joy and happiness, because mother’s cooking in there, so it can’t go wrong,” Rajan said. When Bishnu was teaching Rajan to cook in the kitchen, he said it was often very difficult keeping up with his mother’s
tempo and habit of measuring with her heart. “Oh it was tough, but that’s mother and son,” Rajan said. “We loved each other very much and she molded me into who I am now.” Rajan, the oldest of his brother and two sisters, spent the first 10 years of his life in Nepal before immigrating to the United States. He grew up on a plateau in the clouds where trekkers and climbers from all over the world passed through on their way to scale mountains. But Rajan was more interested in scaling fish. “Hiking up to my village is good enough for me,” he said. He’d rather be in the kitchen watching his grandmother or aunt cook.
+ Himal Chuli page 4
More than 1,000 students, community members and activists protested Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence in American cities, holding a solidarity vigil on a cold, snow-covered Library Mall Tuesday evening. The “No I.C.E. on Campus” rally and solidarity vigil, hosted by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), provided handwarmers, candles and flyers to attendees. Many activists held anti-ICE and pro-immigrant signs expressing messages of solidarity and opposition to racial profiling. Speakers addressed the crowd from the foot of Memorial Library’s steps, denouncing ICE brutality in cities across the nation and what they described as illegal detentions and acts of racial profiling under the Trump administration. “ICE will kill more. They will attack protestors more, drag people out of their homes, separate children from parents and rape women and children in custody,” SDS Co-chairman Luca Motivala said to the crowd. “They will escalate endlessly until we, as a people, stand up together in a unified resistance.” Motivala later told The Daily Cardinal, “It’s illegal, unjust kidnappings, rape and murder of citizens and non-citizens of the United States. Everyone’s entitled to the protection of the Constitution, and [ICE] continually violates not only that, but local states’ rights.”
+ Protest page 2
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”