Author: jnweaver

UW-Madison alum Carol Bartz, former chief executive of Yahoo!, will be the commencement speaker at the university?s four graduation ceremonies Saturday and Sunday at the Kohl Center. Bartz, who received her degree in computer science, told UW officials that she missed her own graduation ceremony here in 1971, but will enjoy marking graduation with the class of 2012 instead.

The UW-Madison student unions will stay open until 3 a.m. on four consecutive days so students can use the unions to study for final exams.

The iPhone theft craze continued early Sunday morning on West Gorham Street. Madison police said a 20-year-old UW-Madison student had his iPhone stolen while he was texting and sitting on steps outside an apartment building in the 400 block of West Gorham Street.

In the weeks leading up to former Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz?s speech at commencement, senior class officials and the university have disagreed over the process for selecting future commencement speakers. The University Committee, made up of six professors and with the help of senior class officials, selects commencement speakers from a pool of notable UW-Madison alumni and local figures. Senior Class President Steven Olikara said this selection process allows the university to obtain speakers without paying them an honorarium, because speakers want to give back to their alma mater. But according to Olikara, this policy needs to change.

Ten years ago, Edgewood College officials struggled to bring minorities to the small liberal arts college. Only one student showed up for the Madison school’s first minority recruitment day in 2000. The next fall, only 11 students of color were part of the roughly 300-student freshman class. But over the past decade that has changed. In the fall, 55 minorities were part of Edgewood College’s freshman class, almost 20 percent of the total.

….Dora E. Zuniga, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Dane County and mom to Edgewood freshman Ariana Silva, said she knows several minority students who enrolled at Edgewood because they didn?t get into UW-Madison, and flourished there. “You have the best of both worlds,” she said. “The kids who end up at Edgewood, because the place down the road doesn?t take them, actually it?s a great service to them because they?re not going to get lost.”

There were fewer people and only one report of violence. But the relatively uneventful Mifflin Street Block Party on Saturday did little to dissuade Madison?s top cop that the decades-old event needs to end. An estimated 5,000 people filled porches, homes and yards in a two-block section of West Mifflin Street. Unlike last year?s sponsored event, no drinking was allowed on sidewalks or the street. That resulted in Madison police as of 7:45 p.m. Saturday arresting and citing more than 400 people.

“Be careful,” my fiancée told me as I walked out the door of my downtown apartment, heading to report on the Mifflin Street Block Party. I dismissed the advice and descended on the madness, determined to check out a party that my neighbor, a UW-Madison senior, would be attending. Drunken revelry was in the air well before I reached the iconic 400 block of Mifflin. Students were drinking and blasting music in backyards and porches all along Gorham Street, free of the relentless police surveillance that partygoers on Mifflin had been warned of ad nauseam by city and university officials.

Students and other members of the UW-Madison community told officials Thursday they have concerns with proposed cuts to the campus bus services. UW Transportation Services Director Patrick Kass said Transportation Services is currently operating in a deficit and needs to cut about 10 percent of the bus services to help balance its budget. Proposed cuts could include combining services on routes 80 and 85 or eliminating half of the route 81 trips while also eliminating half of the route 85 trips after 10 a.m.