Are you interested in what’s going on in the world but don’t feel informed? Do you want to hear what your peers are talking about and express ideas of your own? You may want to keep an eye out for The Wisconsin International Review (WIRe)!
The WIRe first began as a blog for the UW Madison Chapter of The Alexander Hamilton Society (AHS), an organization that facilitates discussion of United States economic, foreign, and national security policies. At the time, the goal of the WIRe was to provide curious students and faculty with the details of and context behind discussions and panels that AHS hosted throughout the year. Brief, punchy descriptions of international issues seemed to be a perfect strategy to capture more attendees, but publishing post after post made WIRe creators wonder if it would be possible to expand their blog into something more substantial and into a separate entity.
Today, The Wisconsin International Review is one of the fastest growing student publications on campus. Its mission is twofold: first, to give students a platform to express their opinions and gain not only valuable writing skills but also the satisfaction of seeing their ideas published, and second, to expose students and faculty on the Madison campus to both well-known and under-reported international issues. On this score, the WIRe publishes a wide variety of articles and produce a bi-weekly podcast, the WIReCast, both of which can be found on The Review’s website (and in terms of our podcast, on iTunes as well!).
In future, the WIRe team hopes for expanded readership, for increased involvement by student writers, pod-casters, and editors, and overall for the WIRe to continue to grow as a respected forum for discussion and knowledge on international issues.