Wisconsin would pay for all public high school juniors to take the ACT college admissions test starting in two years as part of a $7 million budget initiative State Superintendent Tony Evers announced Wednesday. The proposal also includes administering three other tests offered by ACT to measure college and career readiness in high school.
Mythomania about college has turned getting a degree into an American neurosis. It?s sending parents to the poorhouse and saddling students with a backpack full of debt that doesn?t even guarantee a good job in the end. With college debt making national headlines, Megan McArdle asks, is college a bum deal?
Love them or loathe them, U.S. News & World Report on Wednesday unveiled its annual rankings of ?America?s Best Colleges.? UW-Madison inched up one spot from a year ago and is tied for 41st in a ranking of 281 national doctoral universities. Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University and the University of Chicago took the top spots in this year?s rankings. Northwestern University (No. 12) and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (No. 29) were the only Big Ten Conference schools ranked higher than UW-Madison.
Madison?s financial committee continued deliberating Mayor Paul Soglin?s proposed 2013 capital budget at their meeting Tuesday, hearing presentations from city departments that affect areas of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
University of Wisconsin junior tight end Jacob Pedersen didn?t have to see the difference in practice on Tuesday. He could hear it. ?Finally, you were hearing some pads hit again,? Pedersen said of the offensive line following the workout. ?That was good to see.? The Badgers returned to the practice field after a tumultuous few days that started with an ugly offensive performance in the 10-7 loss on Saturday at Oregon State.
The tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001 devastated a nation and resulted in the shipment of thousands of U.S. soldiers to the Middle East, a region where Islam and Arab cultures dominate. While U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq has created controversy over the past decade, it also sparked great interest among University of Wisconsin-Madison students. Since Sept.11 and the nation?s declaration of war against terrorism, student enrollment in Middle East Studies and Arabic language programs increased dramatically, from 35 students in 2000 to approximately 145 in 2009, according to Professor of African Languages and Literature Dustin Cowell.
In the midst of a contract lawsuit between the University of Wisconsin-Madison and its primary licensing partner adidas, a union representing unpaid workers at an Indonesian factory contracted by adidas requested to be part of the university?s lawsuit against the apparel company, a move UW-Madison?s Labor Licensing Policy Committee supports. The request comes nearly two months after negotiations between UW-Madison and adidas failed to resolve the dispute over whether or not adidas owes more than 2,700 workers nearly $2 million in severance pay after an adidas-contracted Indonesian factory, PT Kizone, closed down in January 2011.
University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema made an admittedly risky move when he replaced a veteran offensive line coach in Mike Markuson with an unproven graduate assistant in Bart Miller. It has the makings of a boom-or-bust decision, something capable of turning around the Badgers? season, or blowing up in Bielema?s face. When asked during his Monday news conference for the worst-case scenario, Bielema said, “We don?t get better.”
A man who told police he didn?t want to walk anymore was arrested Friday after allegedly stealing a $900 bicycle off the bike owner?s front porch. Craig Greengrass, 46, no permanent address, was tentatively charged with theft of moveable property, according to a news release from the Madison Police Department. The theft was reported at 3:54 p.m. Friday by a 20-year-old UW-Madison student, living in the 100 block of West Doty Street.
Residents in the State-Langdon Neighborhood heard a proposal Monday for a new student apartment complex, which would require the demolition of three buildings. Developers Jeff and Chris Houden presented a proposal to deconstruct 145 Iota Court and 619 and 625 Henry St. to make way for a new eight story student apartment building. They also plan to add two stories to the Cliff Dwellers building at 140 Iota Court and construct a pedestrian walkway near the complex.
Future University of Wisconsin-Madison students may have an easier time registering for introductory chemistry courses and be able to conduct more experiments in new lab facilities if building project plans receive additional funding from the UW System. The UW System Board of Regents approved the 2013-15 Biennial Capital Budget in their August meeting, but it remains subject to further approval by Gov. Scott Walker and the state legislature.
It was a very mixed picture for state programs designed to help poor and minority students with college. In one program on the federal funding chopping block ? Ronald E. McNair Scholars program for undergraduates hoping to head to grad school ? the state did remarkably well. In another program ? Upward Bound for high schoolers hoping to head to college ? the state?s programs took a big hit. Of 13 state universities that currently had funding for the McNair Scholars program, 12 of them will keep their federal funding despite steep cuts to other programs nationally, it was announced recently.
The sexual assault of a Madison woman in a downtown park early Sunday was a very violent attack, the spokesman for the Madison Police Department told Madison.com. “This rape is a bad case,” Joel DeSpain said. “It is as serious as any other one I?ve seen.”
Charges expected to be filed Monday against three UW-Madison students arrested for an attack last month on Badgers running back Montee Ball were delayed for a week, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said. Ozanne told a court commissioner he did not receive all the police reports.
The Ironman Wisconsin triathlon had an unwanted participant Sunday night ? an alleged drunken driver who drove past barricades and over traffic cones onto the marathon course, nearly striking runners and spectators before coming to a stop. Michael Potter of Madison was tentatively charged with his alleged fourth drunken driving offense after his arrest at about 10:30 p.m. Sunday at North Park Street and Langdon Street, according to a news release from the UW-Madison Police Department.
Where my concern comes from is that we are working with Chinese government officials as our relationship grows. After all, this is the same Chinese government that engenders such a high level of corruption that even its own autocratic system believes that corruption is a major threat to the country. On top of this, multinational corporations love to advertise the image that they are cleaning up China, when the reality is China is on the verge of an environmental catastrophe.
National business leaders who understand the importance of research universities to our economic future are telling Wisconsin lawmakers that they need to put more state money into the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?America is driven by innovation ? advances in ideas, products and processes that create new industries and jobs,? the report says. ?In the past half-century, innovation itself has been increasingly driven by educated people and the knowledge they produce. Our nation?s primary source of both new knowledge and graduates with advanced skills continues to be our research universities.
Tunnel Bob ? really Robert Gruenenwald ? is one of those campus apparitions that new students occasionally hear about, but few see. His 6-foot 6-inch frame notwithstanding, Gruenenwald, 55, has always seemed comfortable below the geographical and social radar. More of a surprise than a threat, he has been making unauthorized patrols of the labyrinth of heating and cooling steam tunnels beneath campus since the 1970s.
Some Physicians Plus members will have some access to UW-Madison doctors next year, despite a judge?s ruling Thursday that the UW Medical Foundation?s threat to stop treating the members next year is legal. Mary Reinke, spokeswoman for Meriter Health Services, which owns Physicians Plus insurance, said Friday that access for about 97,000 Physicians Plus members is guaranteed next year.
Potential entrepreneurs, inventors and tinkerers will gather in Madison the weekend of Sept. 22-23 for Build Madison, a community ?create-a-thon.?
“The cool thing about this event is: there isn?t really a focus,? said Sector67 founder Chris Meyer. He said Build Madison is being publicized on the UW-Madison campus in hopes of interesting more students in entrepreneurship.
The study of economics has been derisively called the ?dismal science? since the mid-19th century. But no one would describe labor economist Laura Dresser, associate director of the UW-Madison?s Center on Wisconsin Strategy, as dismal ? even if the statistics she produces these days aren?t particularly cheerful. Dresser?s work at COWS focuses not just on the numbers but on providing policy ideas to help close the ever-widening wealth gap in the U.S.
From the Civil War to the war on terror, new books this fall from the University of Wisconsin Press attempt to ensure that the ravages of war stay firmly in the public eye.
“This column avoids politics, but we are equipped to speak about science….Climate change is a serious issue, and policymakers would do well to plan for the challenges it poses to our way of life.
A: The first known scientific use of hurricane naming arose in the Pacific during World War II. It was an easy and effective way to distinguish one tropical cyclone from another on the weather maps, said Steve Ackerman, a UW-Madison professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and director of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies. The system was simple and alphabetical: The name of the first storm of the season would begin with A; the second, B; the third, C; and so on.
A technological glitch is confounding information technology experts and causing major headaches for some students and professors across the UW System as the 2012-13 academic year gets under way. The problem lies within the university?s online learning and course management system, which is provided by the company Desire2Learn and managed by UW-Madison?s Division of Information Technology (DoIT). According to this university update posted Friday at noon: ?DoIT technologists continue to work daily with experts from Desire2Learn (D2L) and Microsoft to address the issue of slow application response. We?re keenly aware of the problem and regret the impact on the UW educational community.
Mike Markuson is out as the offensive line coach for the University of Wisconsin football team after only two games, a source close to the UW football program said late Sunday night. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity and cited a difficult transition as the reason for Markuson?s departure.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is attempting to increase awareness and prevent sexual assault violence on campus with a new online program that all first-year students are expected to complete. University Health Services and the Division of Student Life at UW-Madison helped produce the “Tonight” program based on UW student and staff input as well as statistics about sexual assault on campus.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry professor crossed the finish line in just over nine hours Sunday at Madison?s annual Ironman triathlon, where thousands of family members, supporters and volunteers packed the streets to wildly cheer on approximately 2,900 competitors. Thomas Brunold, 43, is a chemistry professor at UW-Madison. He has crossed an Ironman triathlon finish line 12 times, and this year he finished tenth overall and first in the amateur division.
Add it all up, and it seems clear that K-12 education in Wisconsin ? like in most parts of the country ? has taken a financial hit in recent years. And as UW-Madison researcher Carolyn Kelley notes, these state-level cuts hit hardest the districts that need the most help.
?I think young voters are very hungry for new ideas and solutions to address long-term problems,? said Jeff Snow, chairman of the College Republicans at UW-Madison. ?Our main objective is asking students if their future is brighter than it was $5 trillion ago?? He?s referring the ballooning federal deficit, which along with bleak employment prospects for young people are the issues Republicans plan to stress in their outreach to young voters. College Republicans will be trumpeting those messages on campuses across the state starting this week, he said, joining a coordinated effort in Wisconsin that started with a prime-time appeal to young voters by Janesville Republican and vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan at last month?s Republican National Convention.
A quick cover-to-cover flip through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated produced two prominent references to the University of Wisconsin football team. One was a photo of Camp Randall Stadium in the Lineup section entitled “American Idyll.??It was taken during the season opener with Northern Iowa on Sept. 1. The other was in the Scorecard section where Dan Patrick interviewed former Badgers quarterback Russell Wilson, now the surprise rookie starter in Seattle. There was another UW reference in the magazine, but you had to dig fairly deep to find it. When you did, you couldn?t help but be saddened.
The Student Services Finance Committee hosted a direct services demonstration night Thursday to give campus organizations the opportunity to display the services they provide to the student body.
The fictional Ironman of movies can fly; Madison drivers probably would like that ability on Sunday to avoid congestion and delays when the Ironman Wisconsin triathlon hits the streets. Close to 3,000 of the world?s best athletes will be in Madison on Sunday for the 12th annual Ironman, which will push city buses out of downtown and cause traffic delays downtown, on the UW-Madison campus and along the 112-mile bicycle race route.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced a new First Wave full-tuition scholarship Thursday named for hip-hop artist MC Lyte. The $100,000 scholarship was created by a partnership between UW-Madison?s Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives, which includes First Wave, and the Hip Hop Sisters Foundation, an organization created by MC Lyte.
A judge on Thursday dismissed a Physicians Plus lawsuit against a UW-Madison doctor group, saying the doctor group?s threat last year to stop treating Physicians Plus? 107,000 members next year isn?t illegal. With workplaces about to choose insurance plans for next year, the ruling could have a major impact in Dane County and surrounding areas. Negotiations between both parties are expected to continue.
?As healthier persons opt out of the comprehensive coverage market, the segment with greater needs will put actuarial pressure on the rates for comprehensive coverage and quickly exceed the 150 percent threshold,? says professor Donna Friedsman, director of health policy programs at the UW Population Health Institute, of the likely outcome of the Thompson health care proposal.
UW-Madison students cross the street wherever they please, blithely ignoring the traffic. Gaggles of them moseying down State Street can be hard to get around. And, inadvertently, their very fresh-faced existence can make the rest of us feel horribly, horribly old. But there?s one incontestably good thing about the students coming back in the fall; they bring a lot of great movies with them.
West Bend native and 1999 UW grad Matt Krueger has a slew of suggestions on how to spend your free time around his adopted hometown, from sightseeing at the International Rose Test Garden and Powell?s Books (which encompasses an entire city block), to formal restaurants and the noted food-cart scene, and of course to the area?s legendary, hop-laden microbreweries.
When I attended my Student Orientation and Registration (SOAR) session three years ago I was told the requirements to form a student organization on this campus were minimal. The University only demanded that the organization be composed of at least three students, and I don?t even remember hearing that an adviser was needed. Because I have held ?leadership? positions in two organizations, I can tell you first hand that the requirements to form and register an organization have expanded dramatically. This is my complaint letter.
Student government heard legislation proposing a new Associated Students of Madison constitution at a meeting Wednesday night that calls for a complete restructure of the current student government institution. The proposed constitution would establish four different branches of ASM, which include the executive, legislative, judicial and appropriations branches. These would replace the institution?s three current branches: Student Council, Student Services Finance Committee and Student Judiciary.
Associated Students of Madison Chair Andrew Bulovsky signed a document Wednesday night that could lead to a lawsuit with University of Wisconsin System administration over last year?s Wisconsin Union and Recreational Sports budgets. The Student Services Finance Committee voted last February to deny funding increases for both budgets because the committee felt neither budget provided adequate details for a sound evaluation, according to former SSFC Chair Sarah Neibart.
UW-Madison, Madison College and more than two dozen other institutions of higher education are taking part in a pilot project to evaluate digital learning materials as an alternative to the more traditional ? but costly and bulky ? textbooks students have relied on for as long as most can remember. ?By working as part of a community like this where numerous other institutions are involved, this gives us more leverage with the publishers than if we were working alone on examining e-texts,? says Bruce Maas, UW-Madison?s vice provost for information technology.
MADISON, Wis.-Three businesses in the University Research Park are making changes that reinforce the companies? commitment to Madison, according to the University Research Park director. Epicentre and Aldevron will move operations into the research park?s 80,000-square-foot Accelerator building. Exact Sciences will move into space Aldevron is vacating.
University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema has been asked several times lately about his Twitter policy regarding his players. The issue came up again on Tuesday, during the Big Ten Conference coaches? teleconference, after some Michigan State players were admonished by Spartans coach Mark Dantonio for some disrespectful tweets about Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson. Bielema?s Twitter policy essentially is that he has no policy, just some time-worn advice about only tweeting things that would not be objected to by players? mothers.
It?s the first day of the fall semester at UW-Madison. The university posted this YouTube video featuring some familiar UW-Madison faces — including Bucky Badger, the Abe Lincoln statue, football coach Bret Bielema, Heisman Trophy candidate Montee Ball and interim Chancellor David Ward -? welcoming students back to campus. But the video saves the best for last. That?s when Dean of Students Lori Berquam pokes fun at herself by looking at the camera as it backs out of her office, saying ?Don?t go. Don?t go. Don?t go.?
New Legislation has recently been proposed to the UW-Madison student government concerning the creation of a new committee. The Sustainability Committee of the Associated Students of Madison would focus of issues concerning sustainability on campus. There are four areas of focus that this committee plans to address while in existence. These are campus water use, energy use, land use and food sourcing. Solutions to these important issues will come through policy mechanisms in student government and working with UW-Madison faculty and administration.
UW-Madison professor Kathy Cramer-Walsh, who has extensively studied political opinions in Wisconsin in recent years, says homosexuality almost never came up in her many political discussions with rural Wisconsinites.
UW-Madison professor Charles Franklin, who conducts political polling and is doing so this year while serving as a visiting professor at Marquette Law School, says one should be skeptical that otherwise committed Democrats would vote differently because of one issue.
Mayor Paul Soglin told a campus learning community at Gordon Commons Tuesday afternoon, among various social justice issues affecting Madison residents and University of Wisconsin-Madison students, lack of housing poses the biggest threat to the area. Soglin discussed various social issues including lack of housing and pollution, with students from the Multicultural Learning Community, a campus learning community focused on social justice and diversity at all levels of society.
Larry Davis, a current Residence Life director and founder of the MLC, said the purpose of Soglin?s visit was to inspire them to get involved with campus, like he did when he was a student at UW-Madison.
It?s not hard to find the most difficult portion of the 2012-13 Big Ten Conference schedule for the University of Wisconsin men?s basketball team. A five-game stretch from mid-January through the end of the month likely will go a long way in determining whether the Badgers can contend for the league title.
No daring life-saving breakthroughs. No supply closet trysts. No Clooney. The documentary ?The Waiting Room? doesn?t contain any of the melodramatic flourishes that we?ve become accustomed to from TV medical dramas. But it?s still riveting and important viewing. The film doesn?t officially open in New York until the end of September and will be part of PBS? ?Independent Lens? series in 2013, but the UW-Cinematheque is hosting the Madison premiere of the film on Friday, Aug. 30 at 7 p.m. at 4070 Vilas Hall to kick off its humdinger of a fall schedule.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (CNN)- Penn State will have to return all of the football trophies won during a 14-year span as a result of sanctions handed down by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for school?s role in the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, a school official said Wednesday. The move is another blow to the State College community, which has been plagued by the scandal for nine months.
The man pulled out of Lake Mendota and taken to UW Hospital Thursday morning has died. Eric Dahl of the Madison Fire Department told Madison.com the victim was a UW-Madison student. The identify of the victim will be released after notification of family, said UW-Madison Police Sgt. Aaron Chapin.
MIDDLETON – Duane Clifford Jahnke, 51, was born July 14, 1961, in Lancaster. He died Aug. 28, 2012, in Madison, of pancreatic cancer. In 2007, he closed his successful consulting company and proudly accepted the position of managing senior director of information technology at the University of Wisconsin Foundation in Madison, where he had served as a consultant for the previous 20 years.
A 19-year-old Madison man riding his longboard (skateboard) on a street near UW-Madison was mugged Monday night by a group of young men standing along the street, Madison police reported. The victim was treated at a local hospital for a chipped tooth, facial and hand injuries, according to a police news release.
The story of the Catonsville Nine ? a group of Catholic activists who entered a draft board office in Maryland in 1968 and burned some of their records ? may seem like an event mostly lost to the mists of history. There are no active draft boards deciding which young men should be compelled to enter the military. The kind of Catholic activism that dominates the news these days is bishops speaking out on abortion or gay marriage or birth control mandates. Yet in his compelling retelling of this dramatic event from the Vietnam era, author Shawn Peters has not only brought into sharp relief issues around the ethical limits of protest, he also has provided a thoughtful look at the religious roots of protests as current as this summer?s headlines.
?He?s not even the most conservative in the Wisconsin delegation,? said Ken Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?That would be (Rep. James) Sensenbrenner.? An analysis of all roll call votes throughout each term shows Ryan typically ranks on the far but not extreme right, according to Mayer. Ryan typically ranks ?around 380 or 390? among the members of the House of Representatives, with 435 being the most conservative. Mayer also cautioned that ?extreme? is a politically charged term, used by both sides to define their opponents? views in a way that repels the people in the middle.
The MPD is taking steps to provide information to residents in this off-campus area to ensure students are aware of how to prevent themselves from being victimized, including sending South District community police door-to-door Wednesday with safety information for residents, DeSpain said.
Looking back on her childhood, Julianne Carbin now recognizes that some of the people she was closest to probably struggled with mental illness but,”We never talked about it.” Now Carbin, 32, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Wisconsin, works to erase the shame and misunderstanding and advocate for funding and treatment for people with mental illnesses and their families.
UW-Madison, thanks to its partnership with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, remained among the national leaders in commercializing its academic research during the 2011 fiscal year, according to an annual survey of the Association of University Technology Managers released earlier in the week. Only one Big Ten Conference institution had more licensing income than UW-Madison?s $57.7 million, with Northwestern University bringing in a whopping $191.5 million -? tops among all colleges and universities.
?The list changes year-to-year, but the thing about WARF is we have remained consistently strong because UW-Madison is a world class university,? says Carl Gulbrandsen, the managing director of WARF. ?We wouldn?t be able to do any of this without a great university.?
A swimmer who failed to surface from Lake Mendota after swimming with friends Thursday morning was pulled from the water and taken to UW Hospital, authorities reported. The incident was reported at 6:49 a.m. in front of the UW-Madison Limnology Building, 680 North Park Street, according to the Dane County 911 Communications Center.
