The four Democrats vying for a shot at unseating Republican Gov. Scott Walker in a recall election are set to clash in a debate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Tom Barrett, Kathleen Falk, Kathleen Vinehout and Doug La Follette all are expected to appear at a Wisconsin Public Television debate Friday evening. The debate will mark final go-round between all four candidates ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
A poll released Wednesday by the Marquette Law School offers a glimpse of just how divisive politics has become in the state. According to the poll, nearly one-third, or 29 percent of respondents, say they have stopped talking to someone about politics due to disagreements over the recall of the governor. There?s no baseline for that figure — pollster Charles Franklin says the question has never been asked before on a survey — but he argues the 29 percent figure is probably ?up from the norm.?
STURGEON BAY – William (Bill) T. Treptow, 70, died at home in Sturgeon Bay on Tuesday, May 1, 2012, with his soul mate and love of his life Judy by his side. He worked at the UW Transportation Department until his retirement.
For the new 3D version of “Titanic” that?s now in theaters, director James Cameron marshaled an army of visual effects technicians who spent over a year converting the 1997 film, frame by frame, into 3D.And those technicians would probably buy the owners of a Madison-based software company a round of beers, to thank them for making that time-consuming job a little easier. If the rotoscopers are doing their jobs right, audiences won’t even notice their work, said Perry Kivolowitz, one of the four partners in SilhouetteFX and a computer science professor at UW-Madison.
Native American arts, crafts and food will be celebrated Saturday at the 29th annual Wunk Sheek Spring Pow-Wow at UW-Madison. The 12-hour event, which is free and open to the public, starts at 10 a.m. in the Shell, 1430 Monroe St.
A proposal to fold academic and classified staff into the same employee category is raising some eyebrows on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The pitch is contained in draft recommendations released in April by one of the 11 work teams helping UW-Madison design a new human resources structure that?s separate from the state and UW System. Among other concerns, such a move would eliminate collective bargaining rights from roughly 400 classified staff on campus.
?That?s the recommendation that?s gotten the most attention during the vetting process the last few weeks,? says Darrell Bazzell, UW-Madison?s vice chancellor for administration. ?Most of the feedback, at least anecdotally, tends to suggest collapsing these groups into one is not something staff would support.?
FITCHBURG – Dr. Charles Douglas Schoenwetter, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at University of Wisconsin-Madison, died May 1, 2012, surrounded by his loving family. Chuck was a pediatrician in private practice at Associated Physicians in Madison from 1960 ? 1970. True to his genuine love of children, he moved his family to Washington, DC, to undertake a fellowship in developmental neurology. The family returned to Madison after completion of his fellowship, and Chuck became the director of the Learning and Behavior Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. He helped children throughout the state reach their full potential based on his wholehearted belief that each child possesses special talents.
1969 marked Richard Nixon?s first year in office. ?Sugar Sugar? by The Archies topped the music charts. And in May, UW-Madison students threw the first Mifflin Street Block Party. The block party was born out of the climate of social protest, the shadow of the Vietnam War and a polarized national political system.
UW-Madison?s embattled dean of students is taking a second stab at telling students not to go to the Mifflin Street Block Party on Saturday. It?s ?Don?t go,? take two. Except this time, Lori Berquam is using a more traditional approach: sending a written message warning students of the safety risks and suggesting there are better things to do.
After months of handwringing and heated debate between scientists and biosecurity experts, UW-Madison bird flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka finally had his controversial H5N1 influenza virus research published in full Tuesday by the journal Nature.
Four mutations in a bird flu virus enabled the virus to spread among ferrets in a lab, UW-Madison researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. The study, which identifies the mutations, was published after months of international controversy
After a five-month-long debate, a study that shows how mutations in the H5N1 influenza virus, known as the avian flu, can be transmitted in the air was published Wednesday. The study shows mutations to the natural avian flu virus spreads easily among ferrets, which suggests the virus is could also be airborne-transmissible among humans since both react similarly to flu viruses.
BALSAM LAKE ? ABC for Rural Health and community partners received a $449,000 federal grant to support a mental health benefits counseling project in western Wisconsin.
Madison?s Transit and Parking Commission is conducting a special meeting on proposed service reductions to routes 80 and 85 serving the UW-Madison campus from 7 to 9 p.m. at UW Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St. More details on the proposed reductions will be presented at the meeting.
Four mutations in a bird flu virus enabled the virus to spread among ferrets in a lab, UW-Madison researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. The study, which identifies the mutations, was published after months of international controversy that delayed public release of the findings.
After months of handwringing and heated debate between scientists and biosecurity experts, UW-Madison bird flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka finally had his controversial H5N1 influenza virus research published in full Tuesday by the journal Nature.
If you?re driving on the Beltline near the Arboretum Tuesday afternoon, there?s no need to call 911 if you see a field on fire. A controlled burn is scheduled to begin at noon on Tuesday in the Curtis Prairie portion of the UW-Madison Arboretum, an area of the grounds that?s right up against the northern edge of the Beltline just west of the Todd Drive on ramp.
Four-legged stress busters will be looking for head and haunch scratches and faces to lick on the UW-Madison campus. Dogs on Call, a local non-profit that brings man?s best friend to nursing homes, schools, hospices and hospitals, will be bringing dogs to campus through May 15, according to a news article from UW-Madison.
UW-Madison police are advising bicyclists on campus to be on the alert and secure their bikes after an increase in thefts.
Carol Bartz, the former CEO of Yahoo! and a graduate of UW-Madison, will speak at her alma mater?s four commencement ceremonies on May 19-20 at the Kohl Center.
A Middleton man?s $1.3 million gift to Agrace HospiceCare in Fitchburg will help expand a training program for doctors specializing in hospice and palliative care. The endowment will help the one-year fellowship program expand from two doctors this year to four next year, said Dr. Bruce Agneberg, vice president of medical services at Agrace. The fellows train at UW Hospital, Madison’s Veterans Hospital and Agrace, learning how to manage symptoms and pain at the end of life, Agneberg said. Such fellowships soon will be required for board certification in hospice and palliative care.
The former chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is now the chief academic officer the University of Wisconsin System. Mark Nook has been named the system?s senior vice president for academic and student affairs. He has held the position on an interim basis since last summer.
In many ways, Serra Crawford is like thousands of other graduating college seniors. She says, “I have worked very, very hard for the last four years.” But there is something that certainly separates Serra from the rest of the UW-Madison class of 2012. In May, she?s not only graduating from U.W., she?s also turning 16. Classmates think it?s pretty amazing she?s graduating from college at just 16. Serra says, “A lot of people are really shocked. I have had a couple of jaws literally drop.” Then, she tells them she started college course work at age 10.
Lisa Stone appears to be getting back in the coaching game. Stone, the former University of Wisconsin women?s basketball coach, is expected to be announced this week as the new women?s coach at Saint Louis University, according to sources involved in college women?s basketball. Stone, however, said it is not yet a done deal.
Like the blue M&Ms introduced in 1995, blue chairs have joined the famous traditional orange, green and yellow seats on the Memorial Union Terrace. But unlike the popular candy, the 300 “Mendota Blue” terrace chairs will be in use for only a limited time. The new chairs are part of the public fundraising phase of the Wisconsin Union?s capital campaign, “A Blueprint for the Next 100 Years,” which seeks to raise $25 million by the end of 2015, Union Director Mark Guthier said.
Madison police are reaching out to college students across the upper Midwest with a heads-up about the tighter guidelines for Saturday?s Mifflin Street Block Party. Spokesman Joel DeSpain told Madison.com a dozen emails were sent on Monday to college campus newspapers.”We want our out-of-town visitors to know the protocol we are expecting this year,” DeSpain said. “We need to do things differently this year to make sure everybody stays safe.” A quick check Tuesday morning of campus newspapers receiving the email showed none had posted the information online.
An identity theft investigation that stretched back almost five years on the UW-Madison campus ended with the conviction of a Chicago woman already spending time in prison. Katelin Nading, 24, was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday by Dane County Circuit Judge William Hanrahan after she pleaded guilty to three counts of misappropriating ID information to get money.
Some Occupy supporters began an effort Sunday to see if the encampment could be relocated to a former Army Reserve Center at 1402 S. Park St., next to a Copps grocery store. Noah Phillips, 19, the UW-Madison student leading the effort, said the group did not have permission to occupy the land and acknowledged it would be illegal to do so. But the homeless have few other options, he said.”It?s an abandoned lot, and it?s ludicrous that it?s just sitting there,” he said. City officials apparently got wind of the idea Monday morning and put a quick halt to it.
Regina Millner of Madison and John Behling of Eau Claire begin seven-year terms on the UW Board of Regents on Tuesday.
Kaleem Caire, president of the Urban League of Greater Madison, is justifiably proud of the league?s new ?ACT Prep Academies? to give local students a better shot at doing well on their all-important ACT exams and, hence, a leg up on getting into college. Some 75 students began the four-week (30-hour) classes this week, after which they will take their tests in June. A new group will begin more classes in June.
So what is the secret of Promega?s success? How has it blossomed from its beginnings as a small enzyme business in 1978 to become “the granddaddy of biotechnology” in the Madison area, as Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, has termed it? Good timing “Bill Linton had the idea of starting a research products company in the right place at the right time,” said Richard Burgess, emeritus professor of oncology at UW-Madison. “He?s done a marvelous job of guiding this company through the ups and downs of the economy and everything else.”
I asked three UW-Madison educators who know a lot more about alcohol abuse and teenage behavior than I do what they thought of social host ordinances. In general, they were fans, although they were not able to point me to any research on their effect on teen drinking and its consequences. Social host ordinances are aimed at “adults who allow a very large group of underage people to consume alcohol typically with no supervision at all, just no questions asked,” said Nina Emerson, director of the Law School?s Resource Center on Impaired Driving. Brad Brown, a professor of educational psychology, thought it was “naive to believe that an adult can adequately monitor the behavior of any more than a small group of teens at an event where the teens are drinking.”
MADISON – For a dozen years, Bill lived with colon cancer. He lived with strength, grit, humor, happiness, gratitude and, when called for, surrender. He died on April 21, 2012, in deep peace, curious about and ready to explore what came next. He was 59. Bill especially enjoyed his positions as Department Chair and Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Research in the School of Human Ecology. He dedicated himself to the common good, helping people realize their dreams, and transforming the academic community into a place of compassion. He reluctantly retired due to health in 2009.
MADISON – Ed Beers, a spiritual guide to many, preacher of the Gospel, intercessor and embracer of humanity, died Monday, April 16, 2012, at the age of 86. He served as a campus minister at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 26 years. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama during the civil rights movement and counseled students opposed to the Vietnam war.
If UW-Madison Dean of Students Lori Berquam didn?t know it last week, she sure knows it now: Presentation matters to people raised in an era of image management, “strategic communication” and social media posturing.
A: Many times after a rain, there is a distinctive odor in the air ? a sort of musky smell. This pleasant fragrance is most common in rains that follow a dry spell. If you are a gardener, you may find this smell similar to the smell you sense when you turn over your soil.
The Panos legacy lives on at the University of Wisconsin. George Panos, the son of former captain Joe Panos, committed to the Badgers as the first member of the Class of 2014 on Saturday afternoon, announcing his intentions in a Twitter post.
Wide receiver Nick Toon eschewed the No. 87 his father wore at the University of Wisconsin, except for a touching tribute to his dad during his final home game against Penn State last season. Nick wanted to establish his own identity with the Badgers and he did that, catching 171 passes for 2,447 yards in his career. But after getting drafted in the fourth round by the New Orleans Saints on Saturday, Nick Toon has decided to wear his father?s number to start his NFL career.
University of Wisconsin junior Mohammed Ahmed obliterated the school record in the 10,000 meters on Sunday night, cutting nearly 30 seconds off the mark while racing in an elite field at the Payton-Jordan Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.
Longtime University of Wisconsin men?s basketball assistant Greg Gard?s name has come up as a potential candidate for the head coaching vacancy at Illinois State. The Illinois State job opened up Thursday when Tim Jankovich left to become the associate head coach at SMU. Jankovich is expected to be the head-coach-in-waiting at SMU under Larry Brown, who?s 71.
Seattle stunned the NFL draftniks with its third-round selection of former University of Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson on Friday ? not just because he went earlier than expected, but because the Seahawks already have three quarterbacks.
Ignore the headlines about job losses. For guys like Forrest Woolworth, these are exciting times. Woolworth, 26, is brand manager at PerBlue, a mobile and social gaming software company based on Odana Road in Madison. Launched by a group of computer science friends from the UW in 2008, PerBlue has grown from five to 35 full-time employees. And it?s hiring still.
In the sea of Daily Cardinal alumni who gathered in Madison for the newspaper?s 120th anniversary last weekend, a small group of two dozen, reconnected by hope, comforted each other in a time of tragedy. A group of approximately 50 alumni created the ?Shadid Brigade? on Facebook last spring, after their friend, former Cardinal colleague and The New York Times Foreign Correspondent Anthony Shadid was kidnapped in Libya. But tragedy soon struck when Shadid passed away in February from an asthma attack in Syria.
ASHWAUBENON ? If Brad Toll and Ken Wachter get their way, the WIAA will have an easy decision to make in a few years. Toll, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Green Bay & the Lakeshore Convention & Visitors Bureau, and Wachter, who has the same title but with PMI Entertainment Group, are two of the leading players in the saga that over the past five months has pitted the state?s oldest community against its most political, caused debate and resulted in harsh criticism of the WIAA, UW-Madison Athletic Department and Madison city leaders.
Ryan Silber says he rarely cooks, but there he was at Hillel, the Jewish community center at UW-Madison, kneading a tub of flour and other ingredients. He?d had a hard week of tests and was ready to ?beat up on some dough,? he said. Silber, a freshman, is among a couple dozen students who spend every Thursday afternoon at Hillel baking 70 to 100 loaves of challah, the traditional Jewish egg bread….The UW-Madison students are part of a nationwide effort called ?Challah for Hunger,? with chapters at dozens of universities. In addition to raising money for charities, the effort keeps Jewish students connected to their cultural roots, both as bakers and customers.
Kala Van den Heuvel and 20 of her UW-Madison classmates were confronted with images of Hurricane Katrina. They interviewed survivors of the 2005 natural disaster. Their goal: design a temporary shelter that could serve future disaster victims. The final project, a 14-by-10-foot cardboard structure, is on display until Sunday in the lobby of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State St., as part of the museum?s third ?Design MMoCA,? a juried design showcase.
Now that the WIAA has made the decision to keep the boys basketball tournament in Madison, it?s time for UW-Madison, city officials and local businesses to get off the bench. According to reports, the boys basketball tournament brings in over $6 million to the Madison area. So you?ve got to ask, what is going to be done to keep the money in Madison versus losing it to Green Bay or even Milwaukee?
It?s not clear what will happen at this year?s Mifflin Street Block Party, so Julia Mercer and her roommate are taking no chances. They live on the 400 block of West Mifflin Street ? party central ? and after last year?s trouble-filled bacchanalia, they?re planning to lock all their valuables in their bedrooms, including their dishes and the TV. ?We?re kind of freaking out,? Mercer, a UW-Madison junior, admitted to police officers who stopped by her house Wednesday to talk about rules for the May 5 event.
The White House has threatened to veto a Republican bill keeping federal student loan rates from rising this summer. A White House statement blamed the way the legislation would pay its $5.9 billion costs: by cutting a preventive health fund created under President Barack Obama?s health care overhaul law of 2010.
HOLLYWOOD, Fla.? College football is on the verge of finally having a playoff, its own version of the final four. For the first time, all the power brokers who run the highest level of the sport are comfortable with the idea of deciding a championship the way it?s done from pee-wees to pros. And the way fans have been hoping they would for years.
If you?re one of the thousands hanging out at the State Capitol on Saturday morning, waiting to take part in the Crazylegs Run, you might find yourself in the company of Pat Richter, the former University of Wisconsin athletic director who is serving as grand marshal. While stretching your quads and hammies for the 31st annual rite of spring in Madison, you may be inclined to chat up the man most responsible for the robust financial health and national acclaim for UW Athletics.
There are about 8,000 living alumni of the Daily Cardinal, UW-Madison?s oldest student newspaper. And that?s not a wild guess. “I?ve spent 18 months looking up every byline and photo credit and masthead from 1959 to 2011,” said Anthony Sansone, president of the Daily Cardinal Alumni Association, which this weekend welcomes more than 200 former staffers for a weekend of events celebrating the paper?s 120th anniversary.
Catching up on a couple higher education-related items:
** A months-long battle between UW-Madison student government and the Multicultural Student Coalition over whether or not the organization should receive funding for the 2012-13 fiscal year was finally resolved Wednesday night, the Badger Herald and Daily Cardinal reported.
** President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats continue to push efforts to keep interest rates low on student loans.
** From 1975 until 1988, William Proxmire — the Democratic senator from Wisconsin — made headlines by promoting his ?Golden Fleece Award,? which ripped scientists who used federal funding to produce what he viewed as wasteful research. Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee told the Chronicle of Higher Education he ?pleaded with universities to fight back with their own award to celebrate the widespread societal benefits of research.? Although those efforts fell flat, the Democrat earlier this week announced a new “Golden Goose Award” that?s designed to ?honor research that turns out to have been an especially productive use of federal money.?
Who could have predicted at this time last year that Wisconsin would experience the nation?s largest percentage decrease in employment over this 12-month period? Um … actually, UW-Madison economist Steven Deller could have. And did. Last March, Deller, a professor of applied economics, studied the ripple effects of Gov. Scott Walker?s budget-repair bill and two-year budget proposal.
Two red-tailed hawks are keeping a watchful eye over their three recently hatched chicks on a ledge outside Weeks Hall, 1215 W. Dayton St., and a webcam is keeping an eye on them. “The chicks didn’t hatch until the last week or so, and the popularity has boomed from there,” said John Lalande of UW-Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center.
Kudos to UW-Madison Dean of Students Lori Berquam. She had the courage to say, publicly and clearly, what everyone in the university, city and police department was thinking but didn?t have the courage to say. That?s what deans of students do ? I know, I?ve been there. Students were not being told what to do, they were being told that going to the Mifflin Street block party was not in their best interest, nor in the best interests of the community.
– Paul Ginsberg, Madison, UW-Madison emeritus dean of students
Wisconsin is doing a good job of providing a safety net for the state?s most vulnerable people, according to the fourth annual Wisconsin Poverty Report released this week. The study, conducted by UW-Madison?s Institute for Research on Poverty, is designed to measure poverty rates more accurately than the official federal numbers that are compiled using only pretax cash income figures.
?There?s no doubt we?d all like to see more people working and less dependent on government to help them not be poor,? says Tim Smeeding, the lead investigator for the study and the director of the Institute for Research on Poverty. ?And if the economy recovers and employment picks up, that is what we?ll see. But for now we?re doing a real good job of holding the line at the bottom end and Wisconsinites should be very proud about these results. These programs work. Government works.?
Les Muses” at the UW-Madison Dance Department is an entertaining short program of eight modern dance works, all with cryptic titles “Imagen Corporal,” “relentless equanimity” and danced to mostly textural music. The line-up includes two solos, a quartet, a trio and several larger works, all choreographed by students save “not enough of,” a new piece by artist in residence Pamela Pietro.
Stabbings at last May?s Mifflin Street Block Party mired the future of the event in uncertainty for the past 12 months. Its occurrence now all but certain, the block party is still unable to outrun controversy, as the first Saturday in May of 2012 happens to be the fifth ? also known as the date of Cinco de Mayo. The combination of events in plans for the upcoming celebrations has members of the university community concerned with cultural insensitivity.
Let?s start out with what should be an obvious truth. If there?s any trouble at this year?s Mifflin Street Block Party, it won?t be the fault of the UW Dean of Students or the mayor or the police. The fault will be with the perpetrators. Look, if it helps, I?ll take my share of the blame for last year?s mess. I?m not sure if the bad stuff would have happened if it hadn?t been for the transition between myself and the incoming mayor. Paul Soglin was legitimately focused on other more demanding issues and I was busy looking for more bubble wrap and packing boxes.
