Two young UW-Madison graduates who had a vision about what complications could result from life in the digital world ? after death ? have sold their digital estate planning company to a Swiss competitor. Entrustet, 30 W. Mifflin St., will become part of SecureSafe, an online data storage service founded by DSwiss, of Zurich. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
SolRayo, a Madison technology startup company, is getting a $500,000 Phase 2 Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Science Foundation to bring to market the coatings it has developed to make batteries last longer.
UW-Madison is considering adding an official winter term, which officials say could help students graduate faster and bring in extra tuition dollars to campus. If approved, the term would be the first in the school?s 164-year history. Every other four-year campus in the University of Wisconsin System offers courses over winter break ? sometimes called winterim or J-term (January term).
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin wants to end it. So does Police Chief Noble Wray. So do UW-Madison officials. Even Downtown Ald. Mike Verveer, who has represented the neighborhood and its many college-aged residents for more than a decade, wishes the annual Mifflin Street block party would go away.
….The Mifflin Street party, unfortunately, seems little more than an excuse for heavy drinking, something that spiraled out of control last year when the city tried to add more structure and distractions from alcohol. There’s no easy answer. Yet it’s easy to see more limits and law enforcement are needed ? with elimination as the ultimate goal.
#UWRightNow: UW-Madison?s University Communications office will host a multimedia project to chronicle 24 hours on campus on Wednesday. A special website for the day will feature reporting, photography and video about students, faculty and research. The university community can contribute by using the Twitter hashtag #UWRightNow.
Wireless prize: Nearly 30 UW-Madison students are to compete Wednesday for more than $17,000 in prizes in the second Qualcomm Wireless Innovation Prize contest at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. Students plan to show off their smartphone apps and other wireless technology products.
Mifflin Street resident Michael Stulka witnessed the horror of the 2011 Mifflin Street Block Party, and he wants to make sure the stabbings, beatings, sex assaults and other lawless behavior don?t happen again. ?We need to get students more actively involved and turn it around to give it a positive community direction,? he says.
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is among a growing number of campuses turning to foreign agencies to recruit new students. UW-Stout is also looking at recruiting agencies to attract international students, which can cost more than $1,000 per individual. But, universities say it can also mean more revenue.
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville is pleased to announce a special Agriculture Education Town Hall meeting featuring Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education, and Tom Vilsack, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, on Wednesday, April 18, at 12:15 p.m. at the Pioneer Farm.
Who should control mandatory student fees at UW-Madison ? administrators or students? That?s the fundamental question behind a dispute between student leaders at UW-Madison and interim Chancellor David Ward over funding the Wisconsin Union and Recreational Sports.
It took mere seconds for a bull to kill Avoca farmer Alfred Albrecht….Unpredictable and lethally powerful, dairy and beef bulls have been killing farmers for centuries. Since 2000, bulls have killed at least 19 people in Wisconsin, according to a report by UW-Madison agriculture safety expert Cheryl Skjolaas. No other kind of animal has killed more than four people in the state during that span, the report said.
Businesses and organizations that would like to become more sustainable are being offered a golden opportunity by an online degree program offered through a partnership of University of Wisconsin System institutions.
Max Williams was talking to himself in the bathroom mirror when his brother?s roommate walked by, overheard and changed his life. Williams? life, not the roommate?s. This was maybe 15 years ago in Anchorage, Alaska.
Interim UW-Madison Chancellor David Ward said there has been progress on mediation with Adidas but admits it is slow going. ?While the mediation process, by nature, seems to move slower than most of us would prefer, there has been progress,? he wrote in an update to the campus Labor Licensing Policy Committee (LLPC).
Hospitals and clinics have mass quantities of data about their patients now that electronic medical records have become relatively common. So why not use that information to figure out which patients may be at the highest risk for a serious illness ? and try to prevent it?That?s the idea behind Forward Health Group, a Madison company established in 2009.
When Pa Her first started at UW-Madison, her parents didn?t come with her to freshman orientation. They picked her up from campus but never saw the inside of a classroom. They didn?t know what she meant when she said she was stressed out by final exams. “My parents, they don?t speak English,” she said. “They had no idea what this university means. They know it?s a great university.” Her?s experience is common among Hmong students, a campus research team has found.
“It became very clear to us from this research project that we needed to bring Hmong parents onto campus for them to be able to see what buildings were, to see what the resources were, to find out about their son or daughter’s educational experiences first-hand,” said Alberta Gloria, a professor of counseling psychology who leads the Hmong Research Team.
Imbed Biosciences has been working on an antibacterial coating that would prevent wounds from becoming infected as they heal, and a phase one Small Business Innovation Research grant will help push the project ahead, said Ankit Agarwal, president and chief executive officer. Imbed?s technology has been developed at the UW-Madison over the last four years by a group of chemists, veterinarians and surgeons. Agarwal, currently Imbed?s sole employee, said the grant will let him hire a second employee and contract with the UW for further studies.
The United States may be one of the richest nations on the planet, but we aren?t the happiest. Neither are Britain, Japan, Germany or many other wealthy countries, according to a new “World Happiness Report” commissioned by the United Nations. The United States ranks 11th in the report. Not surprisingly, the world?s poorest countries are far less happy than their well-to-do counterparts.
(Gregg Mitman is interim director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison.)
A cross section of community leaders said they like seeing Cieslewicz?s commentary. Founder and sole employee of Dave Cieslewicz and Associates ? the associate is his dog, Calvin, he said ? Cieslewicz also is leading an effort ? funded by local hospitals, the university and Madison Gas and Electric ? to revitalize the Greenbush and Vilas neighborhoods on the Near West Side. The broad goals are to start a community development corporation to help convert former student housing back to single-family homes, redevelop some areas with workforce apartments, and revitalize Regent Street, he said. As an adjunct professor, he?s teaching two courses at UW-Madison: Introduction to the City; and Politics and Policy of Green Urbanism.”I love the environment,” he said. “It?s a lot of fun to be around young, bright people.”
A: Let?s agree ? like a jury did in Texas ? that it?s not Michael Doyle, a Chicago biologist who pressed into the courts a claim for his 1993 patent for an “interactive web.” Doyle lost his suit against Google, Playboy, Office Depot, Amazon and other companies in February. To be as straightforward as possible, according to Lawrence Landweber, a UW?Madison professor emeritus of computer science, one has to read back through academic publications.
“I’ve seen a lot of science museums, and I think this could be a model for the country, maybe the world,” said Jonathan Martin, chairman of the UW-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. “I was just struck by how inspiring this is going to be to someone who is thinking about the science of the environment instead of the politics of the environment.”
In his first year in office after 14 years away, Paul Soglin has been active and bold, controversial and full of stamina ? like he was as mayor for 14 years in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
Wisconsin Film Festival organizers say they can?t predict which movie will be this year?s breakout film. But with 160 titles showing in eight Madison theaters Wednesday through Sunday, thousands of people will get a chance to find their favorite.
A: There were northerly winds over North Atlantic in the months before the RMS Titanic left port. These winds likely played a role in pushing icebergs farther south than normal and into the Titanic?s path. When the Titanic left port in Queenstown, Ireland, on Thursday, April 11, 1912, it sailed under brisk winds from the north-northwest at 15-20 knots and a temperature of about 50 degrees.
The UW-Madison athletic department was granted permission to increase the scope and budget of its Student Athlete Performance Center project on Friday by the UW System?s Board of Regents. The Capital Planning and Budget Committee on Thursday signed off on a resolution allowing the university to add another $9.4 million to the budget for the final phase of the project, pushing the overall cost for all three phases of the undertaking to $86.2 million.
Jarrod Uthoff, who was expected to be a big part of the University of Wisconsin men?s basketball team?s future, has decided to leave the program. Badgers associate head coach Greg Gard confirmed through a team spokesman Thursday night that Uthoff, who redshirted this past season as a freshman, asked for and was granted a release from his scholarship on Wednesday.
Michala Johnson, a sophomore forward at Connecticut, has decided to transfer and join the University of Wisconsin women?s basketball program. The 6-foot-3 Johnson will join her sister, Malayna, a 6-4 forward who made an oral commitment to join coach Bobbie Kelsey?s program in 2013. Michala Johnson will sit out the upcoming season and then have two years of eligibility remaining.
Nobel Prize winners have walked the hallowed halls of UW-Madison, pondering the big questions of the universe. What to use to dry your hands probably never entered their minds. In an effort to cut costs and promote sustainability, UW-Madison is surveying faculty, staff and students on two major fronts: do you prefer hand towels or blowers to dry your hands in restrooms, and how much of a problem would it be if desk-side trash cans were removed?
The American Chemical Society?s president was justifiably proud when four UW-Madison chemistry professors won awards during the ACS spring meeting in San Diego in March. The ACS president is Bassam Shakhashiri, a UW-Madison chemistry professor. “The selections are done by anonymous peer review,” Shakhashiri said in a UW-Madison news release on Thursday. “I had nothing to do with it except to sign the awards.”
A proposal to relocate the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions to an office building in Middleton is being decried by state and local officials as a needless expense and contrary to a state policy that urges keeping agencies in central Madison. The DOA’s office space request stated a preference for three non-central locations: on Madison’s Far East Side near the American Center office complex; on the West Side near the University of Wisconsin Research Park; and a far west area that includes parts of Middleton.
The ink on Madison School superintendent Dan Nerad?s resignation letter is barely dry and already the hand-wringing over finding his replacement has begun. The applicant market is tight, the job is tough, other places offer more attractive terms, warn the school administrators professional association and executive search firms, who arguably have something of a vested interest in tight markets that drive up school administrators? salaries and require executive search firms to navigate.
….District leadership is correlated with student achievement, according to a 2006 summary of research forwarded to me by the director of UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, Adam Gamoran, but that’s not the same as saying good superintendents cause higher student achievement.
BELOIT ? Officials unveiled Thursday one of the most expensive highway projects in state history, but it is designed to do more than ease congestion. The $715 million reconstruction and expansion of a 45-mile stretch of Interstate 39-90 between Madison and the Illinois state line will aid state tourism and help create more economic development along the corridor, one of the busiest stretches of highway in the state, officials say.
Cited: A study by the Center for Freight & Infrastructure Research at UW-Madison that found the roadway is responsible for moving $650 million to $800 million worth of commerce each day.
If you want to learn more about the issue, you can attend an Occupy Madison Teach-In Saturday at the UW-Madison Humanities Building, 455 N. Park, Room 1651, where at 1 p.m. a workshop on The Occupy Movement and the Homeless will be offered. A full schedule of the teach-in is available here.
After public outcry, a UW-Madison student committee voted Thursday to restore funding for a long-standing campus service that provides free late-night cab rides for students. The Student Services Finance Committee voted March 26 to eliminate the SAFEride cab service, citing cost inefficiencies and declining use.
The four Democratic candidates vying to take on Gov. Scott Walker in the June 5 recall election made their pitches for the job before a friendly crowd of local Democrats Wednesday night at the Concourse Hotel in Madison. Each expressed similar views on a host of issues, including support for clean, green job policies, a return to higher state funding for public schools, technical colleges and the University of Wisconsin System, and the restoration of collective bargaining for all state workers.
March Madness, the incredibly successful college sports event that produces hundreds of millions of dollars for the NCAA and many of its member schools, is behind us for another year. This year?s tournament proved once again there are few sports as entertaining as college basketball. Despite all the accolades lavished on the annual tourney, the NCAA leadership has been seething because a New York Times op-ed columnist, Joe Nocera, has been relentlessly questioning how the supposed ?guardian? of ?student athletes? really operates.
It was the biggest issue about former University of Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson heading into the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. It was still the biggest issue going into UW?s pro timing day. And it remains the biggest issue with the start of the NFL draft two weeks away. “The only issue with Russell Wilson is his height,” ESPN and “Monday Night Football” analyst Jon Gruden said Wednesday.
In an effort to avoid layoffs and reduce its base budget in the years to come, Madison Area Technical College is implementing a voluntary early retirement program that will give full-time workers who are eligible a lump sum incentive payment of $25,000 to retire by the end of 2012.
UW-Madison?s annual real estate conference on June 1 will explore ways to build workable national housing policies in a polarized political environment. Boasting industry, government and academic perspectives, the conference will feature high-profile speakers including Karl ?Chip? Case, co-founder of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, and Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. Organizers hope ideas shared at the conference will translate to policies and actions that could spur the lagging housing market and help generate stronger U.S. economic growth.
After returning from an extended spring break, it?s time to catch up on a couple higher education-related items.
Bud Selig, by his own admission, is a newspaper kind of guy in a Twitter world. As such, he believes he?s been well-positioned to help shepherd Major League Baseball into the 21st century, and all the societal and technological changes that have occurred in his 20 years as the sport?s commissioner.
Most people are familiar with the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene because of its routine but important work testing everything from well water for contaminants to blood samples for alcohol levels. But tucked away in various corners of the laboratory on Madison?s Far East Side are hints of a lesser-known and stranger science. Ice cores from the Greenland ice cap, for example. Scrapings from the walls of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. Air samples from the refectory of Santa Maria Delle Grazie Church in Milan, Italy, home to Da Vinci?s “The Last Supper.” Though they may seem connected, these collections have ended up in Madison because of unique and sought-after research skills for which the state laboratory is internationally known.
Animal research programs at UW-Madison will be fully accredited for the next three years after two site visits from the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, according to a university news release Tuesday. The accrediting organization conducted an intensive, four-day inspection in October 2011, giving the program 18 commendations but finding areas for improvement.
UW-Madison graduate students studying the humanities have been leading educational outreach programs at Oakhill Correctional Institution since 2005. Over the past few years, those efforts have centered on a project called “Literature in Life” that has been headed by students from the university?s department of Slavic languages and literature.
An old publisher once said, “When the legend is better than the story, print the legend.” Is that where we are heading in our political beliefs, especially when it comes to the political leaders in America? Possibly, according to a new study from UW-Madison…..”The fact misperceptions about Obama’s religious beliefs are higher among less-informed liberals than more knowledgeable liberals poses a problem for the president,” said Dominique Brossard, professor of life sciences communication and an expert in media, science and policy.
Three finalists for director of Public Health Madison and Dane County were scheduled to be interviewed Tuesday by Madison Mayor Paul Soglin and Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, said Travis Myren, director of administration for the county. A committee of the Board of Health interviewed seven candidates Friday and Monday and chose the finalists. Among them is Muriel Nagle, a staff director for UW-Madison’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. She previously was director of community health for Madison and Dane County.
Tessa Cichy, a 5-foot-10 guard from Hill-Murray High School in Maplewood, Minn., will join the University of Wisconsin women?s basketball program as a preferred walk-on. Cichy, who averaged 22 points in leading the Pioneers to a 21-8 record, was named to the Associated Press all-state second team and the Minneapolis Star Tribune?s all-metro first team.
Two headline moments in University of Wisconsin men?s hockey history will be revisited when the NHL playoffs begin Wednesday. First-round matchups in the Stanley Cup postseason will pit standouts from the 2006 national championship team and two of a school-record three first-round NHL draft picks in 2007.
MIDDLETON – Gloria J. Myer, age 74, of Middleton, passed away on Friday, April 6, 2012, at UW Hospital in Madison. Gloria worked as a nurse and nursing supervisor for many years at the UW Hospital.
….My mother?s ordeal reminded me again that more health care does not necessarily mean better health. ?It may in fact lead to worse outcomes in that an ever-expanding supply of specialists and tertiary services can lead to excessive testing and procedures that are not necessary, are duplicative, and are costly,? said Donna Friedsam, the health policy programs director at the UW Population Health Institute. It?s that last unintended side effect that bothers me most ? the extent to which the human body has become a sort of raw material for economic development.
UW Athletic Director Barry Alvarez apologized in a letter to a Dane County supervisor who complained he mocked and belittled the alleged victim of sexual harassment in a State Journal article.
Seven University of Wisconsin System campuses pay foreign agencies to help them recruit international students, sometimes spending more than $1,000 per student, according to a State Journal survey of the 13 four-year campuses and the System?s two-year colleges. The practice of paying commissions for each recruited international student is common yet controversial. It?s banned within the U.S. but largely unregulated abroad.
The State Journal found the use of commission-based agents varies widely across the System. Some campuses, such as UW-Madison and UW-Whitewater, don’t use them. It’s far more common for a regional university to use commission-based agents than a university with a well-established foreign presence such as UW-Madison, experts say.
MADISON, Wis. — The Online News Association has awarded a University of Wisconsin-Madison student with a $20,000 scholarship. Emily Eggleston won the money for her plan to combine digital technology, journalism, and geography.
The University of Wisconsin softball team completed its largest comeback in program history while earning its sixth straight victory.
A: The next generation of weather radars, which are currently being installed throughout the United States, will improve observations of the interior of storm systems. These radars are called dual-polarization radars. Radar, an acronym for Radio Detection And Ranging, consists of a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter emits pulses of radio waves outward in a circular pattern.
Almost every night for the last six weeks, Lauren Anderson and several friends have gathered at midnight at Faith Community Bible Church in Madison for an informal, self-led communion service. The UW-Madison students break bread together and pray, believing the intense, focused devotional time elicits tangible results, from deeper personal connections to God to greater unity among believers. In the past, the focus of the prayers primarily was on the UW-Madison campus and the spiritual health of its students. This year, due in part to the partisan rancor in the state, the congregation broadened the focus to include the healing of relationships throughout the city and state.
Grand historic houses designed by architects usually get all the attention. But in June, the focus will be on the humble abodes of Wisconsin?s settlers during the Vernacular Architecture Forum conference in Madison. ?Third Lake Ridge was a working-class neighborhood,? said Anna Andrzejewski, an associate art professor at UW-Madison, who has been planning the conference for five years with a committee of about a dozen colleagues, students and community members. ?We want to call attention to the ordinary, the everyday. Madison?s history is not just Mansion Hill. The purpose of the forum is to generate interest in these homes within the community.?
Joshua Lowe Posner, a professor of agronomy at the University of Wisconsin and an international agricultural expert, died in his home April 3, 2012, of Hodgkin?s Lymphoma, a disease he battled for two years. He was 64. Josh was hired by the UW in 1986 to participate in a research project in Banjul, Gambia and arrived in Madison in 1988. His pioneering work on the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems trial is a 20-year research trial, one of his most important domestic legacies. The research has involved many of his students and colleagues, on and off campus and has examined a large number of issues related to low input (organic) agriculture in the Midwest. His most recent international work was as the principal investigator of a National Science Foundation training grant to support University of Wisconsin graduate students to learn Chinese and conduct their dissertations in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods in Yunnan Province.
James E. Kuntz passed away April 4 at Oakwood Village-West in Madison. He earned a doctorate in plant pathology at the UW in 1945. He developed the Wisconsin 55, a tomato variety which is still marketed while a plant breeder for the Wisconsin Seed Company in Racine. In 1947, he returned to the university with a joint appointment in plant pathology and forestry. As an associate professor, his department sent him to observe and study forestry schools and field stations in Western Europe. He was a professor for 40 years and was known for his enthusiastic and vivacious approach to working on disease projects with his numerous graduate and doctoral students. Together, they discovered the causes of oak wilt, butternut canker, maple and walnut die-back, poplar canker, and other forest and shade tree diseases.
Dear Editor: A recent review of UW-Madison Law Library articles documented that candidates for primary elections who declare they represent one political party while, in fact, they do not, are violating the law. I?d welcome various local candidates who proudly displayed their patriotism recently to step forward again and remind the candidates who attempt to disrupt primary elections: That?s a felony.
A. So long as the non-response is unrelated to the subject of the poll, accuracy will not be affected, says Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at UW-Madison. “As long as the willingness to answer is not correlated with partisanship, or anything else you might be polling about, then it does not affect the validity.”
