Dear Editor: Shame on you, alma mater, shame! Fines of up to $4,000 for faculty who wrote excuses for our ongoing protests ? indeed, UW-Madison! Loss of leadership positions! This is what a friend of mine used to call ?a fearful willowing and shifting!?
Scoot across the floor in a device similar to a hovercraft. Drill a hole in ice using hot water. Learn how to photograph the transit of Venus in June, when the planet will appear to glide across the sun. UW-Madison?s Science Expeditions on Saturday will feature five major open houses, six science spectaculars, more than 20 venues and 60 hands-on exploration stations ? the largest collection of activities ever for the 10th annual event.
This year?s Mifflin Street Block Party is sounding less and less like a party. City officials say there now will be no food vendors at the party to facilitate policing and lessen the draw after violence and excessive drinking at last year?s event brought calls for an end to the 42-year tradition. Among those not showing up this year will be UW-Madison Police, whose officers assisted in some past years at the annual drinkfest marking the end of the school year for UW-Madison students.
Since playing in the national title game in 2010, the Badgers have twice failed to make the 16-team NCAA tournament field. In addition, they have finished in the lower half of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association standings the last two seasons and seen attendance at the Kohl Center fall from 13,226 per game to 11,772, which is their lowest average since 2003-04 (11,701).But UW athletic director Barry Alvarez said recently that he has no concerns about the work of Eaves and his staff. “I’ve coached long enough to know that (when) you lose the players we’ve lost, you’re going to have a dip,” Alvarez, the former Badgers football coach, said. “You can’t depend on just freshmen and that’s a fine line in hockey.”
During my poly sci days in Madison, I loved Wisconsin?s history as the Progressive state, the home of the Wisconsin Idea, and I can?t bear to see how the Walker/Ryan creature has walked all over that tradition. Please restore Wisconsin to its former glory and get rid of all political imposters who are ruining your future.
Dear Editor: The most significant part of Richard Vedder?s argument (in Todd Finkelmeyer?s “Campus Connection”) is that he wants more of your money for himself. After retiring from a career as a professor at a state-supported university, he now wants to shift public money from universities to services to retirees.
MADISON, Wis. — A college instructor said she will run for an open seat in the state Senate this fall. Democrat Lisa Theo teaches geography and geology at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She announced Thursday she plans to run for Sen. Jim Holperin?s seat. Holperin, a Democrat from Conover, announced last month he won?t seek re-election in November.
The state medical school disciplined 20 doctors, including fining 11 faculty members up to $4,000, for handing out sick notes to demonstrators at last year?s labor protests, newly released records show. The records, requested by the Journal Sentinel last year under the state?s open records law, show for the first time the extent of the discipline given to those doctors by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema was struggling at a recent news conference to come up with linebacker Derek Watt?s first name. “I?ve got too many Watts in my head,” Bielema joked. Indeed, the memory of J.J. Watt still looms large and fresh, after he left early a year ago following his junior season and was a first-round draft pick of the Houston Texans.
A monthly social outing and fund-raiser that used to attract hundreds of minority adults is making a comeback starting Friday night at a Far East Side banquet hall.”It fills a void,” said Dwayne Williams, a UW-Madison budget analyst who also works part-time as a disc jockey and promoter. “In Madison there aren?t a lot of places people of color can go and enjoy themselves.”
For the first time, Madison has been included in a survey of cities? business costs by the global accounting firm KMPG. Issued every two years, the Competitive Alternatives survey rates more than 110 cities in 14 countries on the cost of doing business. The study looks at 26 components — from tax rates and labor costs to construction prices and energy costs — to create a comparative index. That Madison was included — it?s the only Wisconsin location mentioned — is a coup of sorts for the city. Madison does score well for the low cost of research and development, including biotech R&D and clinical trials management. That is likely a reflection of the presence of the UW-Madison and Covance, the contract research firm.
Roger Molander, a 1963 nuclear engineering graduate of the UW-Madison, had what you might call the mother of mid-career epiphanies. Molander, who died recently at 71, was an influential nuclear arms analyst in the White House and Pentagon during the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations only to become one of the nation?s most prominent nuclear arms protesters.
UW-Madison sanctioned 11 faculty doctors and nine residents for writing sick notes for protesters last year, with three doctors receiving the harshest discipline: loss of five days of pay and removal from leadership positions for four months. All 20 doctors had to attend an ethics seminar after writing sick notes during Capitol Square protests against Gov. Scott Walker?s collective bargaining bill in February 2011.
The photograph grabs you immediately. Much of the frame is in darkness, and on the left side, what looks like an IV drip is out of focus. In the lower right-hand corner, in a patch of light, a woman in obvious pain grips the shoulders of a man. Titled “Too Much,” that one photo is among hundreds of thousands that professional photographer Lexia Frank, a Hillsboro native and UW-Madison graduate, has taken in her career. But that one photo has taken her places she never expected to go.
Dear Editor: This letter is submitted as a rebuttal to the recent comments by state Rep. Don Pridemore, R-Hartland, who has gone on the record as opposing divorce even in the event of an abusive spouse. It is submitted by the UW-Madison School of Social Work, Family Problems in Social Work class under the direction of class instructor Darald Hanusa. The idea advanced by Pridemore is that if you are a woman regularly being abused by your husband, you are a bad mother if you seek a divorce.
Significant attention has been paid to a horrific case of child abuse and neglect in Dane County. This child deserves the public?s attention, and it is always fair to ask: “How did this happen?” It also is important to understand the role and parameters of Child Protective Services before casting blame.
(Orlin is an adjunct faculty member at the UW-Madison School of Social Work)
A Wisconsin superintendents survey last fall found state budget cuts prompted school districts to eliminate thousands of staff positions, increase class sizes, raise student fees and reduce extracurricular offerings this school year….To offset the cuts, most districts in the state negotiated higher pension and health insurance premium contributions from employees. Andrew Reschovsky, a UW-Madison economist, said the pension contributions could explain why they didn’t raise student fees or cut extracurricular programs as they did in past years when teacher contracts guaranteed annual raises. Reschovsky said interpreting last fall’s survey results has become a “glass half-empty or half-full” scenario.
On a sunny spring day on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library Mall, an adventurous eater can sample bayou jambalaya, Peruvian cilantro rice, Thai spring rolls, Indonesian nasi goreng and crunchy balls of falafel, all without traveling more than a city block.
The argument against organized labor that resonates more with voters, however ? especially independents ? is that public workers simply cost taxpayers too much money. UW-Madison political science professor Kathy Cramer Walsh, who spent time last summer doing field research on political views in northern Wisconsin, says the general sentiment among the voters she talked to was that public workers need to “suck it up” and accept a pay cut.”
A new study suggests we will never get the new workforce this region and this region?s economy need to be competitive in the future without more highly educated and skilled workers. The La Follette School of Public Affairs study shows twenty percent of American men ages 25 to 54 are not working, compared to less than five percent in the 1950?s….This is a challenge for our education system as well as our job training and employment policies. But it?s clear that as we continue to create more jobs, the next crisis will be in finding workers qualified to fill those jobs.
Dear Editor: It was wonderful to see the energy and high spirits of runners in the Spring Sprint for the Arb event on Saturday. The event is a real celebration of our beautiful Arboretum, which hundreds of Madisonians enjoy every day. Therefore it was a surprise to hear some caveman in the parking lot beep his horn loudly and repeatedly and shout, ?What are bicyclists doing here? Runners rule!? He sounded angry, and not one bit as if he were joking.
The University of Wisconsin men?s basketball team finished at No. 12 in the final ESPN/USA Today coaches poll released Tuesday, moving up one spot after reaching the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament for the second straight year. The Associated Press doesn?t conduct a post-tournament poll. The Badgers (26-10) were ranked No. 14 in the final poll on March 12.
With spring break in full swing, turnout at polling places on the UW-Madison campus area was dismal ? just 1 percent at Gordon Commons, 2 percent at Memorial Library, Student Services and Porchlight, and 3 percent at the Memorial Union, Holt Commons and the Lowell Center by late Tuesday afternoon.
* Plans to open a UW-Madison office in China by mid-June are on track, university officials say. The Shanghai office will be UW-Madison?s first foreign outpost, and officials are planning a conference on innovation to coincide with the opening.
* Institutions honored for service work: Edgewood College, Madison Area Technical College and UW-Madison all landed on the President?s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, which recognizes colleges and universities for community service work.
Hey big spender! UW-Madison spent the third largest amount on research among U.S. universities, spending $1.03 billion in 2010, according to new figures from the National Science Foundation.
MADISON, Wis. — Four years later, Madison police are still looking for answers in a killing that rocked the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Police are still trying to find Brittany Zimmermann?s killer.
Oh Danny boy, the fans, the fans are cheering. From dorm to dorm, and up to Bascom Hall. The summer?s gone, and all the fans are clamoring. Tis you, ?tis you must play and make the call….
Thank you to the University of Wisconsin women?s tennis team. You served it up well! The team and its coach, Brian Fleishman, organized their first drill March 18 to beat breast cancer.
She was a spirited and lively woman who wanted to be a physician. A dean?s list honoree, she was majoring in medical microbiology and immunology at UW-Madison. Engaged to a fellow student, she was looking forward to being married and having children. Her random murder on April 2, 2008, in her campus-area apartment, would add to a growing Madison homicide count, the most Madison police had seen in decades.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison plans to honor two Spanish literary masterpieces and a critic who wrote key reviews of the texts at a symposium later this month.
The analysis, from the UW-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs, said the current U.S. unemployment rate of eight percent masks a far greater problem, the precarious situation faced by men with few skills and modest education.”Twenty percent of American men ages 25 to 54 are not working, compared to less than 5 percent in the 1950s, and 35 percent of those men lack high school diplomas,” said UW-Madison Prof. Robert Haveman, co-author of the study.
Stem cells derived from the skin and blood of blind people are morphing into retina-like balls in Dr. David Gamm?s lab at UW-Madison. WiCell Research Institute and the Waisman Center, both connected to the university, are growing stem cells to help researchers around the country prepare for clinical trials.
(This story first appeared in the Sunday edition of the Wisconsin State Journal)
If you?re looking to inject some spice into a higher education conference, adding Richard Vedder to the lineup of invited speakers is never a bad idea. Vedder ? the director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and a retired professor of economics at Ohio University ? doesn?t fit the stereotype of the liberal college professor. Not even close.
For now, if you want to buy tickets for the 2012 Wisconsin Film Festival, you?ll have to do so in person at the UW Memorial Union. The festival?s new online ticketing system was taken offline Sunday afternoon, the day after tickets went on sale, after numerous reports of problems by customers.
The text message from Danny O?Brien over the weekend was short, sweet and crammed with humility. How does one obtain a college degree in three years all while playing a major role in an ultra-demanding sport? “Nothing special,” he wrote. “Just work and focus.”
Ted DeDee didn?t know it at the time, but a puppet show he saw in third grade would change his life. Paul Beard, a Wisconsin native and UW-Madison grad who just helped open the $470 million Smith Center for the performing arts in Las Vegas, called DeDee’s task at Overture “no small challenge,” but one he’s prepared for.
With finances tight, Mayor Paul Soglin is exploring if the city should create a program to have nonprofit property owners make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes. Madison, like Boston, relies heavily on the property tax to cover its budget and exempts a lot of government, college and university and nonprofit from tax payments. Soglin said his task force will focus on nonprofits. But the city will continue to lobby the state for higher payments in lieu of taxes for government and UW-Madison buildings, he said.
The U.S. government?s biosecurity advisers said Friday they support publishing research studies showing how scientists made new easy-to-spread forms of bird flu because the studies, now revised, don?t reveal details bioterrorists could use. The decision could end a debate that began in December when the government took the unprecedented step of asking the scientists not to publicize all the details of their work.
This is the Year of Glass. From Wausau and Newark, N.J., to Sacramento, Calif., and Kalamazoo, Mich., scores of museums are honoring the 50th anniversary of studio glass, a transcendent art form that is powerfully malleable, notoriously fragile and stunningly young. And it was born here. “You have to remember that when Harvey Littleton started this in 1962, there were no art galleries carrying glass. There were no collectors buying glass. That world has exploded,” said Michael Monroe, guest curator for Madison’s upcoming tribute to the studio glass movement titled “Spark and Flame: 50 Years of Art Glass and the UW-Madison,” which opens April 21 at the Chazen Museum of Art.
Making studio glass in the early days of the UW-Madison glass program was a scrappy affair. Artists had to build their own tools, including furnaces, from the ground up. Learning how to handle glass was a matter of experimentation, trial and error. It all started in a homemade studio on Harvey Littleton’s Verona farm in 1962. But within a few years the university glass program moved to a Quonset hut on North Randall Street next to Jingles Stadium Bar, which became something of an “annex,” said Steve Feren, the sole faculty member for glassmaking at UW-Madison today.
The University of Wisconsin made it 3-for-3 with the sons of John and Connie Watt. Pewaukee tight end T.J. Watt, the youngest of their three boys, gave an oral commitment to the Badgers on Sunday before the family left on a week-long cruise over spring break.
MADISON – Dr. Richard J. Thurrell, age 83, passed away on Saturday, March 24, 2012. Richard deeply appreciated his time as head of the UW Psychiatric Department Residency program both as a teacher and colleague; he had great respect for his many students and professional partners. During his career as a psychiatrist he was involved in the treatment of the mentally ill and incarcerated.
“Research has found that individuals tend to drive drunk 80 to 100 times before they are caught,” according to Richard Brown, a UW-Madison physician and clinical director of the Wisconsin Initiative to Promote Healthy Lifestyles. “There just aren?t enough police officers around to catch most people most of the time.” Moreover, most of the people responsible for alcohol-related traffic deaths have never before been picked up for drunken driving, he said.
Running an Ivy League university isn?t all it?s cracked up to be, at least not for Meredith Ruth Neukirchen, known as M.R., the protagonist of Joyce Carol Oates? new novel, ?Mudwoman.? She?s the first woman to be president of an unnamed school in New Jersey, an obvious stand-in for Princeton, where Oates, who received her master?s from UW-Madison in 1961, is a professor.
UW-Madison?s Richard Davidson, who remains on the cutting edge of brain research that sheds light on understanding our emotions, on Tuesday will be giving his first local talk about his latest book, ?The Emotional Life of Your Brain,? a work that?s co-authored by Sharon Begley, the former Newsweek science writer.
A:….If the nighttime temperatures are too warm, the sap will not flow. Our March weather has been terrible for harvesting sap for syrup. Minimum temperatures throughout Wisconsin were 10 to 15 degrees above normal, and maximum temperatures soared into the 70s and 80s.
I enjoy reading the “Ask the Weather Guys” column. Last Monday, however, I was disappointed that professors Jonathan Martin and Steven Ackerman inserted their opinion that the recent warm spell in the midwestern United States is indisputable evidence of man-made climate change and that skeptics (some of whom are presidential hopefuls of major political parties, they state), are unreasonable if they don?t agree.
A: There are fish fry traditions in lots of places, and some ? but not all ? are related to the Lenten season and its Friday meat ban. But what sets Wisconsin apart is that it happens year-round and is so pervasive. “In the vast majority of restaurants you can get fish on a Friday night, and I just don?t think you can find that anywhere else,” said Janet Gilmore, an associate professor in the UW-Madison Folklore Program and Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures.
Doctors are warning that too few people are undergoing colonoscopies and without the test, might fail to detect colon cancer. University of Wisconsin doctors said that they know it?s not an easy subject so they?ve hoping to address some popular colonoscopy myths in the hope that more people will schedule the test. For patients, preparing for a colonoscopy can require patients to drink as many as 4 liters of liquid the night before to clear out the colon. Doctors said that many skip the test simply because of this step. It?s not pleasant, but there?s an upside, according to Dr. Mark Benson of UW Health.
Danny O?Brien is not Russell Wilson. O?Brien, a transfer quarterback from Maryland, made that clear after his signing with the University of Wisconsin was announced on Wednesday. College football fans can point to the obvious similarities: O?Brien left a school from the Atlantic Coast Conference and will be able to play right away in 2012, because he will graduate in mid-May. Wilson came to UW last summer from North Carolina State and led UW to the Rose Bowl in his only season.
As UW-Madison students awoke with pounding heads the morning after St. Patrick?s Day, one house fellow began a floor-wide initiative to encourage students to find alternative activities to drinking. Ogg Hall House Fellow Bob Freidel planned educational but fun activities for his house, Rundell House, during the week of March 18 through March 25 that encouraged students to enjoy Madison without consuming alcohol.
Is the concept of fair-minded political reporting in today?s social media world outdated? Noted journalists and social media experts will tackle the issues of partisan journalism and “combat” politics at the fourth journalism ethics conference April 13 at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery on the UW-Madison campus.
Michelle Felber posted a recap of the fate of bills that PROFS monitored and lobbied on during the recently completed 2011-12 legislative session. PROFS is a voluntary, non-profit membership organization of the UW-Madison faculty.
UPDATE 10 a.m. Thursday: A spokesman for the Wisconsin Union said reserved seating is not allowed on the Terrace. People can come early but they can?t reserve a whole area or supplant others sitting there. He said Union staff members will be making sure everyone complies.
Demand is so high for tickets to hear Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul speak at UW-Madison Thursday that his speech was moved to a larger venue, according to his campaign. Paul will now be speaking at the Union Terrace, rather than the original location of the Stock Pavilion.
Cellular Dynamics International has expanded its distribution agreement with iPS Academia Japan. The Madison stem cell company will begin providing its iCell neurons and endothelial, or blood vessel, cells to the Japanese company in addition to its heart cells, distributed through an agreement reached last June.
Dane County Board Supervisor Carousel Andrea Bayrd is asking Barry Alvarez to ?apologize for mocking and belittling an alleged sexual assault victim? following comments the UW athletic director reportedly made to the Wisconsin State Journal. Bayrd, herself the survivor of a date rape attempt as a high school student in Los Angeles two decades ago, mailed a letter Monday to Alvarez and UW-Madison interim Chancellor David Ward expressing disappointment with Alvarez?s comments about an alleged victim of John Chadima, the former UW senior associate athletic director who resigned early this year after being accused of sexual assault at a pre-Rose Bowl party in Los Angeles.
A comment in Tuesday?s story about the resignation of Madison schools Superintendent Dan Nerad caught me short. “You can?t behave as a social worker and run a massive complex organization,” said Don Severson, head of the conservative watchdog group Active Citizens for Education. First, Severson’s comment speaks to a long-standing disrespect for the profession and what Kristen Slack, director of the UW-Madison School of Social Work, called an occasional “misunderstanding.”
“I think (Severson’s) comment itself is a gross mischaracterizing of the skills social workers bring to a role,” she said.
Dear Editor: The student population at UW-Madison has a justifiable concern about sweatshops and feudal factories employed to make clothes and other gear for the UW. At the same time, taking Chancellor David Ward to task for these abuses, or violating the terms of a contract with Adidas, will not get compensation to those laid-off Indonesian workers, who deserve to be paid for their efforts. The real problem is that these practices cannot be adequately monitored by UW-Madison.
Appeals courts sent two lawsuits challenging Wisconsin?s blocked new voter ID law directly to the state Supreme Court on Wednesday, determining it was imperative to resolve the cases quickly given the slate of important upcoming elections, including the state?s presidential primaries next week. If the Supreme Court agrees to take the cases, it could reinstate the state’s new requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls just days before Tuesday’s election. However, attorneys challenging the law said it is unlikely a decision would come that quickly.
