Letter to the editor: With all due respect to a UW-Madison student who spray-painted several buildings and was arrested on vandalism charges — costing taxpayers thousands of dollars to clean up — my suggestion, learned in kindergarten, is: Let he who makes the graffiti erase the graffiti.
Letter to the editor: The responses of faculty in support of McDonald reveal we inhabit different planets — or different Madisons. Through #TheRealUW campaign, the Race to Equity report, and other narratives of racial inequality in Madison, it is clear people of color experience the city differently than their white counterparts. McDonald’s messages reflect these experiences, as well as the frustrations of living under a university structure that has done little to protect and support its students of color.
On Tuesday, Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, defended Cross and the Regents, described the changes to tenure as “minor” and criticized faculty for bringing the no confidence vote.
Despite a recent stretch of toned-down, relatively tame celebrations, Madison Police Chief Mike Koval is worried that this year’s Mifflin Street block party on Saturday may be a bad one, and increased police presence is planned as alternative programming put on by UW-Madison to divert attention from the spring party shrinks.
The concept of “two Madisons” separated by race and class divisions that has shadowed civic discourse in recent years now has entered the debate around whether Madison Area Technical College should close its downtown facility and expand in south Madison.
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval said this year’s Mifflin Street Block Party will likely see an increase in police presence, coinciding with a scaled back music festival sponsored by the Wisconsin Union. Koval said the police department will continue efforts to downsize and eventually eliminate the event, saying the unsanctioned block party has “all the earmarks of a very real public safety concern.”
UW-Madison’s Memorial Union Terrace should reopen in May, officials say, but it’s still unclear whether the major reconstruction project that has kept it closed for months will be finished in time for the university’s graduation weekend in less than three weeks.
City officials should seriously consider creating a pedestrian mall the entire length of State Street, from the UW-Madison campus to the Capitol Square.
The company, at 3571 Anderson St., has 37 employees. It was founded in 2002 based on UW-Madison research and has forged partnerships with several major companies including Cargill, Shell, Coca-Cola and Honda.
The governing body for UW-Madison faculty is moving forward with a vote of no confidence on University of Wisconsin System president Ray Cross and the System’s Board of Regents — despite a warning from Chancellor Rebecca Blank that approving the resolution could prompt a backlash from state lawmakers.
Chancellor Rebecca Blank, UW-Madison Police Chief Sue Riseling and others faced tough questions and listened to recommendations about improving the campus’ climate at a community meeting at the Urban League of Greater Madison on the South Side.
The final numbers on the University of Wisconsin athletic department’s apparel contract with Under Armour were staggering when released in October. The 10-year deal worth as much as $96 million was Under Armour’s largest ever given to a university’s athletic department. At minimum, UW will receive five times as much cash per year as in its current deal with Adidas.
The driver of a garbage truck stopped at the 7-11 on State Street Monday when a bystander told him smoke was rising from the truck’s cargo area, the Madison Fire Department said.The driver dumped the burning load onto a nearby UW-Madison parking lot in the 400 block of North Lake Street, where firefighters responded about 11:45 a.m.
Chancellor Rebecca Blank is inviting members of the community to talk with her Monday about needed changes to the climate for minority students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Blank, along with UW-Madison Police Chief Susan Riseling, chief diversity officer Patrick Sims and director of community relations Everett Mitchell, will host a discussion from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday at the Urban League of Greater Madison, 2222 S. Park St.
The University of Wisconsin Athletic Board extended the contracts of women’s hockey coach Mark Johnson, wrestling coach Barry Davis and men’s and women’s swimming and diving coach Whitney Hite on Friday.
Investigators looking into the reported April 8 incident used 44 minutes of surveillance video to track the alleged victim’s movement from a Downtown bar to a location where she was found by police and found no evidence an assault took place, the department said Friday.
The proven detection technology that also can detect chemical and nuclear weapons and drugs was successfully miniaturized and designed to fly on small unmanned aircraft by Fusion Technology Lab graduate students about five months ago, according to Jerry Kulcinski, an emeritus professor of nuclear engineering and the lab’s director.
It doesn’t look good for the state’s foremost institution of learning to be cracking down on one student while continuing to employ a staffer who deceived another.
Merry attended UW-Madison for graduate school and then taught in the English department. She later went to UW Law School and upon graduation became a clinical professor of law. Within several years, she was named Director of the Frank J. Remington Center where she worked until her “retirement” in 2012. She continued to teach at the law school until 2014.
Peggy had a long and productive career, first as an administrative assistant at UW-Madison …
Bobbie Kelsey-Grayson, fired from her position as University of Wisconsin women’s basketball coach last month, is staying in Madison and joining the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County.
Former University of Wisconsin women’s basketball coach Bobbie Kelsey has been hired by the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County as the interim vice president of corporate and wellness programs and will start May 9. A press release from the organization said Kelsey will help fundraising efforts and aid partnerships to support its programs. She will help the organization in its relationships with the UW athletic department, the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Bucks.
A first of its kind multi-media presentation inspired by #TheRealUW will take place Friday at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art. The show was organized by a group of students who wanted to use their art to capture the racial climate and rights movement that has sprung up on the UW-Madison campus and social media.
Hundreds of University of Wisconsin-Madison students, joined by a handful of faculty members, occupied a campus library Thursday to disrupt its studious atmosphere in protest of a graffiti-related arrest.
In April 2013, four days after her mother was struck and killed by a car driven by former Lutheran bishop Bruce Burnside, UW-Madison student Megan Mengelt received an email from a UW administrator she had never met, asking if she needed help. What College of Letters and Science assistant dean Tori Richardson didn’t tell Mengelt, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month, was that he had been at the other end of a text message conversation with Burnside as he was driving, shortly before Burnside struck and killed Mengelt’s mother, Maureen Mengelt, in Sun Prairie on April 7, 2013.
It was a simple error that led to University Communications using a photo of an employee who no longer works at University of Wisconsin-Madison to publicize a new website designed to improve communications with campus workers, said executive director John Lucas.
UW-Madison police issued two alerts Wednesday night about 20 minutes apart, one for an assault and the other for a fight, with the two incidents not related to each other.
Letter to the editor: The caption describes this example of graffiti as “anti-racist.” Only now, in our culture that is afraid to speak the truth that racism cuts both ways, would such a blatantly racist statement be deemed “anti-racist.”
It’s all on camera, documenting the arrest of Denzel McDonald in more detail and clarity than any written police report could ever provide. That’s the power and benefit of recording video and audio of officer interactions — and why more departments should equip their patrol officers with the technology.
Social media roundup from #TheRealUW protest.
University Wisconsin Madison Police sent out a crime alert warning people to avoid Memorial Union in response to two reports of a man grabbing women on campus.
It seems reasonable enough for police to wait until class is over to arrest a suspect who isn’t otherwise causing a problem. But if you’re going to suggest the hearing of constitutionally protected political speech is more important than the cops’ interest in enforcing well-established and legal limits on how that speech can be expressed — like in spray paint, on state property — then you can’t really discriminate based on the content of the speech.
The University of Wisconsin women’s golf and volleyball teams recorded perfect Academic Progress Rate scores, according to data released by the NCAA on Wednesday. The scores were calculated for a four-year period from 2011-12 through 2014-15 academic years.
Over the years the event grew into a major fundraiser that regularly attracted 6,000 or more to the UW Field House in conjunction with the annual spring football game. The organizing committee, which began with just Strickler and his wife Ruth, evolved into a 200-person operation and a six-month planning window.
A special afternoon meeting of the college’s district board gave community members a chance to express their thoughts about the proposal by MATC President Jack E. Daniels that would lease the school’s existing Downtown campus and expand operations on the city’s South Side.
UW-Madison junior Deshawn McKinney has been selected to receive the prestigious national Truman Scholarship. The Harry S. Truman Scholarship, created by Congress in 1975 as a memorial to the former president, is intended to support the next generation of public service leaders.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine have found a way to simulate the Zika virus in mice, a step that should help researchers better understand the disease and even gain a foothold in the effort to develop vaccines and antivirals.
UW Health and UnityPoint Health-Meriter are affiliating with Agrace Hospice and Palliative Care, the organizations said Tuesday.
According to a report by Sports Business Daily, Fox will purchase 25 football games and 50 basketball games each year starting in the fall of 2017 for $250 million per year. The deal will run for six seasons.
Bo Ryan returned to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville campus as a distinguished lecturer. It turned out to be less of a lecture and more of a nearly 2-hour storytelling session.
On Tuesday, former University of Wisconsin head basketball coach Bo Ryan spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville as the university’s Sesquicentennial Distinguished Lecturer. It was a homecoming of sorts for the basketball coach. Ryan coached at UW-Platteville from 1984-1999, achieving a 353-76 record, while winning four NCAA Division III national championships.
School of Journalism and Mass Communication Director Hemant Shah introduced Riseling, who was joined by UWPD Public Information Officer Marc Lovicott and Assistant Dean of Students Kipp Cox. Riseling spent about 15 minutes talking about the recent campus and national climate before discussing the incident.
To prevent this waste, UW-Madison dining halls are taking steps to reduce the amount of food that gets thrown into dumpsters. Associate Director of Dining Julie Luke described how the university is working to achieve this goal.
Nigel Hayes will enter the 2016 NBA draft while also leaving open the possibility of returning to the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team for his senior season.
About two dozen activists, students and professors met in Vilas Hall Tuesday to listen to University of Wisconsin Police Department Chief Susan Riseling discuss how UWPD is working to address the campus’ racial climate.
Bud Selig is just not the retiring type.So even though it’s been 15 months since he stepped down as commissioner of Major League Baseball after nearly 23 years on the job, it would be a stretch to say he’s retired.
Noted: Dennis Dresang, a UW-Madison emeritus professor of public policy and political science, said reversing the termination could be difficult because Wall’s action in trying to circumvent the state public records law “borders on grounds for dismissal.”
In 1970, Butch took a few rings of venison sausage to a favorite Badger haunt, Rhode’s Steak House. A hat was passed and $45 was collected, launching Butch’s Badger Bologna Bash. Over the course of 30+ years, the Bash raised more than $3 million for UW athletics and Band. Today a fully endowed “Butch & Ruth Strickler” scholarship is awarded to a UW athlete each year.
Stories of racist incidents on campus have been shared using the Twitter hashtag #TheRealUW for much of the past month … #TheRealUW has allowed students of color to vent their anger and frustration about incidents of racism on campus. It has been exhausting to read and draining to live, they said. #TheRealUW has pushed race incidents into the public sphere, past the bounds of confidentiality or denial that typically protect targets and transgressors alike. Nobody now can claim that they have not heard the stories.
Dropout rates for students at for-profit colleges have remained high in recent years, as just over 40 percent of Wisconsin students who enrolled at the institutions left school without finishing their programs, according to state officials.
Spokesman Alex Hummel said he never saved the video of chancellors rehearsing their presentations because the talks were canceled, and later deleted the files to clear space on a camera so he could record the Board of Regents meeting where the chancellors planned to speak.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s chief of police issued a formal apology Friday because an officer entered a classroom after a class had started Thursday, and asked a black student to step outside for questioning about 11 anti-white supremacy graffiti statements that popped up across campus in recent months.
A wave of criticism from UW-Madison students and professors prompted an apology from the campus’ police chief Friday afternoon for the way an officer disrupted a class to make contact with a student suspected in a string of anti-racist graffiti.
Palmer, a Watertown native, joined the UW staff last season as recruiting coordinator for Bobbie Kelsey.
Noted: “If it’s run by a student group, it’s a constitutionally protected ‘see you at the pole’ gathering,” said UW-Madison lecturer Shawn Peters, who studies religion and the law. But “the law is murkier if the group is not student-initiated.”
One season after making a noticeable step forward in getting fans to use their tickets for its six major sports, the University of Wisconsin athletic department slid backward in the 2015-16 season.
Photo gallery the year’s Engineering Expo at UW-Madison on April 15.
Video: As part of the UW-Madison athletic department’s “Badgers Give Back” initiative, athletes hosted a special event Friday with patients from the American Family Children’s Hospital to raise awareness of pediatric cancer. The “Badgers Go Bald” event ended with haircuts for some players with a little extra help from special guests.
State Journal editorial from 1956: Recently the state Emergency Board granted $250,000 to the University of Wisconsin to be used for pay raises to professors who are being tempted by greener pastures elsewhere — pastures offering more of the long green, that is.This is a problem that a lot of schools at all levels are going through, as they fight to retain their best teachers. But it is not the whole problem by any means.
Last week, the director of the National Weather Service (NWS), Louis W. Uccellini, visited his alma mater as the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award winner. Uccellini presented the story of the intellectual and professional journey that led him to the leadership of this extraordinarily important government agency … Uccellini’s visit reminded us all, we strive to do great things at Wisconsin and we usually succeed.
