MADISON, Wis.- Madison police are investigating a sexual assault reported by a 19-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison student. The woman told police she was walking on North Brooks Street between Fahrenbrook Court and Spring Street Sunday at 10:15 p.m. when she was approached by two men.
When the NCAA was in the process of adopting new safety rules for college football involving players losing their helmets, University of Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema had somebody go back and look at all of the Badgers? plays last season. According to the NCAA, helmets came off an average of twice per game, which added up to more than 200 times during the season. Bielema said some teams had helmets come off 30 or 40 times in a season.
Also unlike previous years, most buildings have air conditioning, which is the most important thing for people to have during a heat wave, according to Richard C. Keller, a medical history and bioethics professor at UW-Madison. Keller is currently compiling an account of the heat wave that spread across France and central Europe in 2003. An estimated 70,000 people in Europe ? 15,000 in France alone ? died in early August from temperatures reaching 104 degrees. There is no death toll for this summer?s heat wave in the United States. ?There wasn?t an epidemic of heat wave deaths this summer,? said Keller. ?There is much more air conditioning in the U.S. and it is more widespread.?
University of Wisconsin-Madison College Republicans Chair Jeff Snow credited the success of the three fresh-faced Wisconsinites to their willingness to risk their political careers to make bold moves…UW-Madison Political Science Professor Ken Mayer said while you cannot deny the national prominence of the three Wisconsin conservatives, it does not necessarily signal a shift in the electorate in the state. ?I don?t think the emergence of Ryan, Walker and Priebus signifies an enduring shift in the Republican direction,? Mayer said. ?That might happen, but I don?t think that this is a sign that that has happened or a cause that it has happened.?
James Knickmeyer, an associate dean for administration with UW-Madison?s Graduate School, died on Monday, the university announced in this news release. Knickmeyer, 61, joined the UW-Madison staff as an accountant in 1980. This obituary states he died of a heart attack at home.
Sarah Koran was excited about applying for entry into the veterinary technician program at Madison College in 2010 but her application was denied. That meant hopes of starting the popular associate degree program, which often has a waiting list, was likely pushed down the road for two years. So instead of putting her life on hold, she decided to investigate other options and was thrilled to learn that Globe University in Middleton, which is part of the burgeoning for-profit higher education industry, also offered a vet tech degree ? and she could start classes almost immediately.
Three 21-year-old Madison men were arrested Tuesday on tentative charges of being a party to substantial battery for the Aug. 1 attack on University of Wisconsin running back Montee Ball. Madison police arrested Deonte J. Wilson, Robert A. Wilks and Wendell J. Venerable. Police said they believe the men were involved in the 2:15 a.m. attack, which occurred in the 500 block of University Avenue as Ball was walking home from a Downtown bar and restaurant.
On ?Through the Trees Pt. 2,? Phil Elverum, the Washington-based artist behind Mount Eerie, spells out his musical ethos, singing, ?I meant all my songs not as a picture of the woods, but just to remind myself that I briefly live.? Like Walt Whitman with a guitar, Elverum frequently views his life through the prism of nature, and the songs on his latest record, ?Clear Moon,? are filled with references to fog, passing clouds and rich, earthy moss.
One minute, Camp Randall Stadium was filled with unbridled excitement, the kind not felt in the football program in three decades. The next minute, sheer terror. What should have been a glorious postgame celebration stamping the University of Wisconsin as legitimate Rose Bowl contenders after beating Michigan, turned horrifying when students tried to storm the field, trampling people in the front rows.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students could see fewer mopeds and less congestion between classes this fall, after UW Transportation Services established a new Moped Parking system that aims to cut down intra-campus moped transportation. Under the new policy, which will take effect Sept. 1, students can purchase a $120 moped parking permit and choose one lot from a list of approved parking lots located throughout campus.
MADISON – James F. Knickmeyer, age 61, passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack on Monday, Aug. 27, 2012, at home. Jim worked for UW-Madison for 37 years culminating in his position as Associate Dean for Administration in the Graduate School.
You know it?s the end of summer when hundreds of confused drivers try to find parking on the UW-Madison campus. Football? No, move-in days. The annual migration of underclassmen to campus ramps up on Wednesday, with more than 7,100 students lugging boxes, computers and mini-fridges into residence halls.The students have assigned days when to move into their rooms, either Wednesday or Thursday, with the halls opening at 8 a.m. each day to accept the eager freshmen and sophomores.
The 22-year-old and 24-year-old victims are from an Asian country and are students at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Police said nine similar robberies have occurred in the same area the past couple of years and that several of those have also targeted Asian women.
?Quakers believe there?s a god in every person, so everyone is who they are supposed to be,? said Joe Elder, a UW-Madison professor marching with the group. Parishioners from five Madison-area Episcopal churches marched together, many wearing T-shirts that read, ?God loves you. No exceptions.? …The group from the UW-Madison chapter of Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics included a marcher with a beard and shoulder-length brown hair. He wore a white tunic and carried a sign saying, ?I approve.? ?It?s a long-time joke that I look like Jesus but I?m a hardcore atheist,? said the marcher, Chris Calvey.
Pete Carroll and John Schneider were overjoyed during the April NFL draft when the Seattle Seahawks were able to grab Russell Wilson in the third round. Even they couldn?t anticipate that Wilson would be the Seahawks? Week 1 starter. Carroll announced Sunday night that the undersized, but highly successful rookie quarterback from Wisconsin will be the starter when the Seahawks open the regular season on Sept. 9 at Arizona.
If, after all that?s happened, you still can?t understand the appeal of Gov. Scott Walker and his arch-conservative allies, you might consider the roles of race and rural identity in Wisconsin. They seem to be crucial drivers in the anti-government tidal wave that has washed over our political landscape. That is a central finding of a major paper by Katherine Cramer Walsh, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who has been widely applauded for a research style that relies more on personal interaction and group observation than on polling.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. ? It may be small (and shared). But for at least one academic year, for thousands of college students, it?s home. Over generations, the dorm room hasn?t gotten bigger. But the amount of must-have stuff ? including technology ? that needs to squeeze into that space has morphed into a much longer list.
Brian Ward, assistant director of housing at UW-Madison, said dorm rooms vary in size by building, but average 12 by 16 feet for a two-person room ? 192 square feet in all. Including a meal plan, the university estimates living in the dorms will cost students about $8,000 for the coming school year. Ward said rooms come with the basics for each resident: a bed, desk, chair and either a dresser or closet with shelves built in; roommates share a mini-fridge. The challenge is to make that Spartan room feel like home.
Deborah Blum was raised by an entomologist father and a literary mother, she writes on her website, which left her little choice but to grow up and become a science writer. Blum?s 2010 book, ?The Poisoner?s Handbook,? received rave reviews for its melding of science and mystery in the telling of the story of a pair of Jazz Age scientists fighting to catch killers and create the science of forensic detection. Here, Blum chooses three books that speak to the drama science creates.
MONONA – Charles Bainbridge Grunow, age 99, passed away peacefully at his home on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012, at Heritage Assisted Living. Charles worked as an accountant in the UW’s controller’s office in Madison. Later as a member of the administrative budget office, he played a major role in writing instructions for implementing the new computer accounting system used throughout the newly merged UW System.
It struck me as pretty ironic last week that even with Wisconsin?s new looser, alternative path to a teacher?s license, public school teachers probably are more likely to know what they?re doing than the public university teachers many students will get just a couple of years later. Such is the way of the American education system, where K-12 teachers must have years of training and meet multiple state licensing requirements, but the teaching assistants responsible for handling much of the introductory course material in college can know next to squat about teaching. The discrepancy didn?t seem odd to Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, UW-Madison School of Education associate dean for teacher education, but then, “it?s a system I grew up in. Is it best practice? I doubt it,” she said.
A: On a day with high ice clouds, you are likely to see shiny, colored regions at either side of the sun. These are sundogs, an optical effect caused by refraction and dispersion of the Sun?s light through ice crystals. When the light rays strike the boundary between the air and water, like an ice crystal, several things can happen. Some rays are turned back in the direction from which they came, the familiar process of reflection. Other rays are transmitted into the crystal. Some of the transmitted rays change direction, a process known as refraction.
A. You probably don?t, according to Yaohui ?Gloria? Xu, dermatology professor at UW?Madison. ?You may get a few new freckles, but it?s more likely the ones you have already are just getting darker,? Xu said. Exposure to the sun triggers the release of a brown skin pigment called melanin, the reason people with darker skin have fewer sun-related skin problems. ?It?s a defense mechanism,? Xu said. ?Melanin is a natural photo-protector. It does what the chemicals in sunscreen do, and even better. It disperses the high energy of the sun?s rays.?
UW-Madison will offer a few three-week classes in January, experimenting with a small-scale ?winterim? term that could grow in future years, said Aaron Brower, vice provost for teaching and learning. The idea of offering classes during the typically dormant month on campus arose last school year as part of discussions about ?educational innovation,? a term interim Chancellor David Ward used to describe how the university can operate more efficiently and creatively in a time of diminishing state funds.
Tuesday?s article describing UW-Madison?s state-mandated ?performance report? was both enlightening and disturbing. UW System spokesman David Giroux deserves the understatement of the year award for his observation that UW-Madison serves ?a very different population of students compared to most other UW System campuses.? Make that all other. For one thing, median family income for UW-Madison students is pushing $100,000 per year. UW System President Kevin Reilly proclaims ?we?re making progress toward the goals we?ve set.? Would one of those goals be spending billions on new construction at UW-Madison over the last decade?
In the minutes between classes at UW-Madison, hundreds of students hop on mopeds and scooters to drive from building to building, creating a chaotic scene along with pedestrians and bicyclists. Now UW transportation officials, citing what they call inefficient and dangerous use by moped owners, are looking to end the practice of students riding between their classes this year by requiring owners to apply for parking in just one of 52 campus lots starting Sept. 1. The idea is to get moped owners to park in one place and walk or ride buses between buildings, UW Transportation Services Director Patrick Kass said.
The startups have gone through three months of intensive training and mentorship to reach “Launch Day,” at which each entrepreneur made a five-minute pitch to investors, entrepreneurs and potential customers.
“Their progress over the past three months has been truly remarkable and inspiring and (has taken) a tremendous amount of hard work,” said gener8tor co-founder Joe Kirgues. One of the companies is SpanDeX (pronounced SPAN-deck), started by two UW-Madison students who developed a simple typeset format for technical scientific manuscripts. The company was “in its infancy” when the students began the gener8tor program, said SpanDeX co-founder Joshua Gross.
Scratch the surface of just about any branch of science and you?ll find chemistry. Yet it remains in some ways the invisible science as its practitioners toil away ? too often unnoticed and underappreciated ? figuring out the chemical underpinnings of the natural world and chemical solutions to some of our thorniest problems.
On the UW-Madison campus, for example, chemistry is showing us a way to better understand and fight one of the most dangerous of the many bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics. The bacterium is called Acinetobacter baumanni, or A. baumanni, and it proved a terror in front-line hospitals in Iraq, earning the nickname “Iraquibacter.” But in her laboratory at UW-Madison, chemist Helen Blackwell and her colleagues have spent a decade unlocking some of the chemical secrets of A. baumanni and may be on the verge of finding a new weapon against the stubborn pathogen. Chemistry, it turns out, underlies that bacterium’s ability to become deadly.
University of Wisconsin senior running back Montee Ball did not vote for himself to be a team captain, even though it was allowed. For a while, as the captains were being announced to the team on Tuesday night, Ball had to briefly wonder if many of his teammates voted for him, either.
The official state bird of Wisconsin is being called the primary culprit in spreading a deadly virus across the Northeast and Midwest. The American robin is being called the West Nile “super spreader,” based on research conducted by a team headed by UW-Madison infectious disease expert Tony Goldberg. “Robins are in the sweet spot,” Goldberg said in a news release from UW-Madison. “They are abundant, mosquitoes like to feed on them and they happen to support virus infection better than other species.”
Madison Police Chief Noble Wray wants to put more surveillance cameras Downtown and have them monitored in real time so officers on the street quickly can respond to areas where problems might be developing. “We?re trying to be as efficient with our limited resources as possible and have more eyes out there,” Wray said Wednesday. The number of potential new cameras, their locations and costs have not yet been determined, he said. The city currently has 118 surveillance cameras, police spokesman Joel DeSpain said. Among them are 34 surveillance cameras on Downtown streets, said Central District Capt. Carl Gloede. The Downtown cameras include those requested by police earlier this year in the troubled 600 block of University Avenue, where at least three people were hurt in a May shooting.
RACINE ? Steve Lovejoy, editor of The (Racine) Journal Times, announced plans Tuesday to retire from the newspaper at the end of September….In April, Lovejoy was honored with the first Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics by the University of Wisconsin?s Center for Journalism Ethics.
Junior wide receiver Manasseh Garner and sophomore defensive back Jameson Wright, who each endured injury problems and had fallen down the depth chart, have left the University of Wisconsin football team and plan to transfer. UW coach Bret Bielema made the announcement on Tuesday.
One of five proposals for developing Union Corners might have emerged as a front-runner, though not all proposals have been heard by a selection committee. Three of the five proposals for the vacant 11.4-acre site at the corner of East Washington Avenue and Milwaukee Street were presented to a selection committee Tuesday, while the other two will be presented Aug. 29.
Two professors and a program designed to help new students transition to college have been honored by the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents. The 2012 recipients of the 20th annual Regents Teaching Excellence Awards are Donald Hanlon, professor of architecture at UW-Milwaukee; Jennifer Kosiak, associate professor of mathematics education at UW-La Crosse, and the First Year Interest Groups Program at UW-Madison.
Two professors and a program designed to help new students transition to college have been honored by the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents. The 2012 recipients of the 20th annual Regents Teaching Excellence Awards are Donald Hanlon, professor of architecture at UW-Milwaukee; Jennifer Kosiak, associate professor of mathematics education at UW-La Crosse, and the First Year Interest Groups Program at UW-Madison. The First-Year Interest Groups (FIG) program, directed by Greg Smith, was established at UW-Madison in 2001, with 75 students living and learning together, usually during their first semester, in four pilot FIGs. This spring, more than 1,200 students were enrolled in 66 FIGs.
Think of this as a garage sale and a bunch of items related to the current University of Wisconsin football team are arranged neatly on a table. Look them over and see if there?s anything you?d like to take home.
Freshmen entering college this fall have never seen an airplane ?ticket? and they probably have a tough time picturing people carrying luggage through airports rather than rolling it. To these first-year students, there have always been blue M&M?s, but no tan ones, while Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Richard Nixon have always been dead. And to these young adults, the Green Bay Packers have always celebrated with the Lambeau Leap. These factoids and many others are part of this year?s Beloit College Mindset List, which is designed to provide a glance at the cultural touchstones that help shape the lives of students entering college this fall.
(CNN)- Perhaps right now in Morgantown, West Virginia, they are raising a glass, or rather a mug, to celebrate their No. 1 ranking from the Princeton Review. Not as the best university for academics, but for being named the best party school in the United States. The 22,000-plus students there like to let some steam off every now and now, according to the survey, which asked questions of about 325 people on 377 college campuses.
MADISON (WKOW) — Some health experts are concerned about a study released Monday on binge drinking in college. Researchers from Colgate University say college students who binge drink report being happier than those who don?t. “Oh, the drinkers were happier? Wow,” says Tyler Mitchell, a former UW-Madison student. “Everything is so glamorized,” says Lee Stovall, another former UW-Madison student. “It?s hard to take a step back and say, ?Maybe I could be happier bowling for a night or something random.?”
“When we look at alcohol use, there is a lot about the institution, public or private, small or large, urban or rural, that really affects alcohol use patterns. This is one study at one university,” says Sarah Van Orman, UHS executive director.
MADISON – Ben-Tzion ?Bentzi? Karsh, age 40, passed away at his home, after a battle with cancer, on Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012, surrounded by family. Bentzi was a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin?Madison.
MADISON – Victor Scherer passed away at home with family at his side on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012, after a long and courageous battle with leukemia. He continued to work at UW-Madison as a computer consultant for more than 30 years and loved his work and colleagues.
The announcement raised some concern at the UW-Madison School of Education, Associate Dean for Teacher Education Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell said. “At the same time that they are ratcheting up requirements for students going through the traditional route, it looks like they?re reducing the cost and requirements for those going through alternative-route programs,” Hanley-Maxwell said.
College costs keep rising. More students pile on student loan debt to get through. It?s a much-chronicled story in higher education. But a new study by UW-Madison professor Jason Houle reveals surprising findings about who gets soaked the most by these trends. It?s not the poor. Or the rich. It?s the middle class. On average, students from middle-income families leave college with $6,000 more in loan debt than their peers from poor families. Compared with higher income peers, the difference is even greater: middle-class students rack up $12,000 more.
Student leaders at UW-Madison recently moved a step closer to suing the university over having some student fees raised with what the group claims was inadequate student input. At a meeting last Saturday, the Associated Students of Madison voted 11-1 to file a “notice of claim and circumstances” against UW System Board of Regents, UW-Madison interim chancellor David Ward and the University of Wisconsin System.
When the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents meets later this week, it will for the first time be presented with a separate, Legislature-mandated performance report on UW-Madison in addition to the one regents typically see annually for the 13-campus university system. Both reports were released publicly late Monday. At first glance, they paint a picture of the flagship UW-Madison campus living up to its reputation, with students more likely to stay put from freshman to sophomore year, more likely to graduate in six years and more likely to say they?d recommend the school to others when they?re done.
“Bottom line: More bad reactions, more unpredictable reactions and far less known as compared to marijuana,” said UW-Madison physician and addictions specialist Richard Brown, summarizing data from the National Institutes of Health. Now, real marijuana doesn?t exactly come with a list of ingredients and growing methods, either. It?s just that it doesn?t help to outlaw one high of questionable origin if it results in another, even more questionable high.
The National Institutes of Health provides over $400 million in support for biomedical research in Wisconsin (over $260 million at the University of Wisconsin), resulting in jobs, intellectual property and the formation of more new companies and medical advances. Take a break from partisan politics and publicly endorse support of our nation?s investment in scientific research. Let our politicians know that research needs to be supported, regardless of who wins the election.
— Brad Schwartz, Stoughton, UW-Madison professor of medicine
A $66 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System?s budget will not be made permanent, Gov. Scott Walker said in a letter to state agencies. The university is one of a handful of agencies Walker wrote to Tuesday to declare them exempt from permanent cuts going into the next two-year budget cycle. The Associated Press obtained that letter Friday.
A: “The short answer is, exactly what is listed on the label,” said Jeff Sindelar of the University of Wisconsin?Madison Meat Science and Muscle Biology Laboratory. The most common hot dog formula is poultry and pork meat, salt, sugar or other sweeteners, spices and other flavorings such as mustard or garlic, and two additives called sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite.
A: As we head into the second half of August a subtle transition in our weather begins to occur ? a transition that is probably hard to detect at first but that eventually becomes very obvious and then lasts for approximately eight months. We are not talking about the gradual reduction in daytime high temperatures or the increasingly cooler to cold nights, though these are also beginning to invade. Instead, we are talking about the nature of the storms that deliver our precipitation.
Over the years, various Madison neighborhoods have been described as ?troubled,? but the adjective has usually been applied to low-income and transient residential areas. Troubled, of course, is a catch-all descriptor for places where bad things are repeatedly happening, and this year we have the ?troubled? 600 block of University Avenue. University is a heavily traveled urban thoroughfare, and the block in question has student bars sprinkled on one side and the upscale Fluno Center ? an executive education building that is part of the University of Wisconsin?s School of Business ? dominating the other.
The Jim Dan Hill Library has reopened but is still recovering. And when the university?s 2,800 students return to classes in a few weeks, they?ll find the bulk of the book collection missing. Only a few Dewey decimal signs, another telling visitors this is a “quiet floor” and the tracks from the movable shelving give a hint that the basement space had been home to thousands of books. UW-Superior had 16 buildings damaged by the floods and the cost could hit $25 million, the majority of it covered by insurance. But the library and the university?s heating plant took the brunt of the damage, collecting 1.8 million gallons of water.
University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema announced on Sunday that junior transfer Danny O?Brien would be the team?s starting quarterback for the opener against Northern Iowa on Sept. 1.
The Dane County Narcotics & Gang Task Force is putting area retailers on notice after seizing more than $60,000 worth of an illegal marijuana-like drug being sold at 10 area gas stations and shops. They also want the public ? including parents ? to know that federal and state laws prohibit the possession or sale of so-called synthetic cannibinoids, which are marketed as incense. Also known as “Spice” or “K2,” the chemical-laden plant substances are usually smoked in joints or pipes, and can cause heart palpitations, strong hallucinations and amnesia as well as feelings of euphoria, said UW-Madison police Det. Carol Kashishian.
Forty-five artworks traveling from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, will be featured in “Offering of the Angels: Painting and Tapestries from the Uffizi Gallery,” a historically important exhibition that opens Friday Aug. 24 at the Chazen Museum of Art, 750 University Ave. “It?s thrilling and a very rare opportunity to be able to show works of art from this period of such high quality ? and from the museum that is really at the foundation of our idea of museums,” said Chazen curator of paintings and sculpture Maria Saffiotti Dale, whose expertise is in Italian Renaissance art.
This story has historic puppets on loan from England, a Benedictine monk on sabbatical from Minnesota and a new play set in Mazomanie about some famous brothers from Baraboo. It has just about everything except someone cheating death by eating fire. Strike that. Sunday afternoon, Brother Paul-Vincent Niebauer will eat fire.
“I?m looking at Mendota now,” lake expert Steve Carpenter said Thursday from his UW-Madison office. “It?s windy and wavy, and it?s looking pretty good.” But we?re not going to have ? nor would we want ? a drought every year, Carpenter stressed. The extremely dry weather damaged crops, lawns and the economy. “So what we want to do is find a way to improve the quality of the lakes without having a drought,” said Carpenter, the director of the university?s Center for Limnology.
MADISON, Wis.-The full Madison Marathon is moving to November in 2013. In the past, hot weather has plagued the Madison Marathon in May. Organizers have twice called it off mid-race, and they cancelled the full marathon this year. So, some suggested moving the marathon from spring to fall. Late Wednesday, Madison Festivals Inc. board members unanimously agreed to move the marathon to Nov. 10, 2013.
After hearing that the Madison Police Department was going to expand the bike policing program by tripling its bike fleet and instituting a formal training program, I got curious. What exactly do these men and women do? So I asked to tag along for a Saturday night shift….Within minutes, it’s quiet no more. In the next hour and a half, the officers flush a guy hiding in downtown backyards into the waiting arms of a patrol officer, send a State Street scam artist packing, and break up a gathering of drinkers at “Concrete Park,” which involves an angry dog, lots of citations and a trip to the hospital for Fiore.
UW-Madison officer Erik Pearce says 15 cops and 11 security officers patrol the campus regularly, logging above 2,200 hours on bikes last year, and more than 3,100 in 2010. The UW police have used bikes since 1992. Pearce likes to point out that bike policing is green and cost-effective. According to Madison police officials, purchasing and equipping a squad car can cost about $47,000, not to mention the approximately 2,400 gallons of gas each burns in a year.
