Outlook Magazine - Fall 2025

Leading The Conversation

Space tourism’s growth blurs the line between scientific and symbolic achievement By Associate Professor Betsy Pudliner ( Hospitality) On April 14, 2025, Blue Origin launched the first all-female crew on a suborbital journey to the edge of space. The headlines called it a historic moment for women in space. But were they astronauts or space tourists?

pon arriving at UW-Stout as dean of the College of Arts & Human Sciences, it was clear to me that Stout would benefit from amplifying our faculty expertise through The Conversation, an invitation-only, independent news pub lisher. My colleagues immediately saw the value of impacting a broader audience through their research and, since joining The Con versation’s network in January 2025, Stout professors have amassed more than 500,000 readers from across the globe through some of the most respected publications on the planet, including Scientific Ameri can, Fast Company, Ars Technica, Medical Xpress, News Break, Astronomy Magazine, Phys.org, and others. And there’s so much more to come. Dean Jason Schmitt College of Arts & Human Sciences In addition to serving as UW-Stout’s dean of the College of Arts & Human Sciences, Jason Schmitt is a filmmaker and journalist. Schmitt has written for numerous news outlets, includ ing The Guardian, Forbes Asia, Huffington Post, Slate, BoingBoing, EuroDoc and DBusi ness. His photographic work has appeared in National Geographic, and his documentary, "Paywall: The Business of Scholarship," was released in 2018. U

How single-stream recycling works — your choices can make it better By Associate Professor Alex Jordan (Plastics Engineering)

Every week, millions of Americans toss their recy clables into a single bin, trusting that their plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard boxes will be given a new life. But what really happens after the truck picks them up?

23

Outlook 2025