UniverCity Year

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WHAT TO DO: Project Monona

UniverCity Alliance is a UW-Madison initiative connecting academic faculty, staff and students with municipalities for project research and planning. The first city to participate was Monona, and the final UniverCity Year reports — with focus areas of parks and recreation, housing and economic development, “Connected Monona” and active transportation — will be presented.

press release: The public is invited to an event focusing on the entire UniverCity Year (UCY) and all its projects. The presentation will be Wednesday August 16th, 7 PM in the Monona Public Library – Municipal Room.

UCY program director Jason Vargo, assistant scientist with the Nelson Institute and the Global Health Institute UW-Madison, will lead the presentation summarizing the courses. Staff leads will highlight projects that are most useful, realistic for implementation, gained the most interest at committee levels, or that need more discussion. A question and discussion period will close the presentation.

The UCY program paired academic courses, faculty, staff and students with projects identified by the community. Monona was the first community to participate in the new UW-Madision program. Twenty-three UW–Madison classes participated, working on 30 projects. Monona identified four project focus areas: parks and recreation, housing and economic development, “Connected Monona” and active transportation. Students, faculty and staff worked on the projects through courses as well as individual projects.

Some of the projects included recommendations for improvements to the master plans for Ahuska and Winnequah parks; improvements to Monona’s transportation infrastructure for safe and accessible biking and walking; improving the usability of the city website and providing programming for the community radio station WVMO; and examining affordable housing and preservation of single-family neighborhoods.

All reports are available on the UCY website for reading and downloading at univercity.wisc.edu/monona/#projects.