Spring break next week will be a good time to go down on campus, find parking and check out the extensive show of University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty art at the Chazen Museum of Art, 800 University Ave.
I’d be interested in knowing what your favorite art work is and why?
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Harvard University is notifying thousands of graduate students and applicants that their personal information may have been exposed by a data breach.
Experience is the word du jour in this political season. The debate over experience cuts two ways — it is, of course, a politician’s, not a historian’s, argument.
John McCain and Hillary Clinton have used it as a major talking point in support of their own candidacies and to build a case against Barack Obama. But presidential history attaches little importance to experience; it is strikingly absent in the historical credentials of our most honored presidents.
Certainly, inexperience blighted some recent presidencies, including those of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and, more memorably, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
(Stanley Kutler is a retired history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This column originally appeared on truthdig.com.)
The rush to produce corn-based ethanol as an alternative to oil will likely worsen pollution in the Gulf of Mexico and substantially expand a summertime “dead zone” that kills fish and other aquatic life every year, researchers say.
A study by Chris Kucharik of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead author Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia modeled the effects of biofuel production on nutrient pollution in an aquatic system.
The University of Wisconsin is increasing its stock of courtside seating at the Kohl Center for men’s basketball games by 33 percent, with half of the 16 additions close enough to the Badgers’ bench that you might be able to hear coach Bo Ryan shout instructions during timeouts.
And make no mistake, these $10,000 per year investments — introduced via e-mail alert to fans just three days after the Badgers claimed the outright Big Ten Conference regular-season championship — were not built on spec.
“We’re confident that interest is high enough to put them in there next year,” UW associate athletic director Vince Sweeney said.
Barack Obama lost the key battleground of Ohio on March 4 despite a 2-to-1 advantage in ad spending over Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a new study by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Assembly Republicans passed a last-minute plan to plug a hole in the state budget late Wednesday that would reduce state spending by $250 million through mid-2009.
The bill, which passed 51-46 mostly along party lines, would also nearly empty the state’s rainy-day accounts and beef up an accounting trick by $125 million.
Wisconsin’s capital city will host an international stem cell research summit this fall, which will bring up to 1,000 of the world’s top researchers, investors and industry representatives to Madison.
The World Stem Cell Summit, to be hosted by WiCell and the University of Wisconsin Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center on Sept. 22 and 23, will mark the 10th anniversary of James Thomson’s isolation of human embryonic stem cells at UW-Madison.
Two local arts organizations — one that performs classical music and the other that exhibits fine art — find themselves about to expand their reach to national and international audiences.
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, conducted by its musical director Andrew Sewell, has just released its third CD, which is its first recording to have a national and international distributor, the New York-based company VAI Records. The two-CD set features three early Mozart piano concertos — Nos. 6, 8 and 9 (“Jeunehomme”), called the “Salzburg Concertos” and composed in 1776, done with prize-winning soloist Adam Neiman — and the Symphony No. 38 “Prague” (1787). The recording was made in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center, the WCO’s home venue, and was engineered by Madison-based Audio for the Arts.
The University of Wisconsin’s Chazen Museum of Art, in turn, has found itself the object of attention from two international art publishers that have expressed continuing interest in the museum’s world-class collection of 17th, 18th and 19th century colorful Japanese “ukiyo-e” (pictures of the floating world) woodblock prints.
Former University of Wisconsin coach Jane Albright was let go Tuesday from her position as coach at Wichita State.
The Shockers (9-21, 3-15) finished last in the 10-member Missouri Valley Conference this season under Albright, who leaves with a 48-94 record in five seasons at Wichita State.
Madison — internationally known for stem cell research at the University of Wisconsin — will host a World Stem Cell Summit in September aimed at bringing together top researchers, advocates, investors and others to advance stem cell research and promising technologies that could save lives.
“Embryonic stem cell research holds the potential to cure some of the world’s oldest and deadliest diseases — from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s to multiple sclerosis,” said Gov. Jim Doyle when announcing the summit at a State Capitol press conference this morning. “Stem cell research represents the promise to not only save lives, but to create economic opportunity for innovation and job growth as well.”
People feel strongly about their religious faith and are deeply offended if you insult it, Oxford University scientist Richard Dawkins told a full house Tuesday night at the Wisconsin Union Theater.
Dawkins asked: Why is it that people are so offended when you insult their religion but don’t get as upset if you insult the music, art or books they like?
“What is so special about religion?” he asked, noting that it’s respected even by the nonreligious among us.
The British biologist and atheist wrote the best-selling book “The God Delusion” in 2006 and is on a university tour speaking out against organized religion.
If people didn’t know before, they should know now to never count out one of Bo Ryan’s teams.
The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball coach has done some impressive work during his seven seasons as Badgers coach, but it’s hard to top him when the chips are supposedly down.
The opening salvos have been volleyed. The snipers are poised in the masts, and the grappling hooks are at the ready.
No, not Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar. We’re talking about Gov. Jim Doyle, the Legislature’s Democrats and Republicans and the potential for open warfare anew as all parties dive back into the state budget to take care of a projected $650 million shortfall.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation said Tuesday the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected challenges to its two key embryonic stem cell patents.
It would have fit the team ideals and principles that the University of Wisconsin basketball team used to win the Big Ten Conference regular-season title if none of the Badgers received any individual honors from the conference Monday.
It was better that six were honored, led by Brian Butch being named as a first-team all-conference selection, because they served as another tribute to what has been a remarkable season so far for the Badgers.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office today upheld the final two stem cell patents taken out by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation that had been challenged by foundations in California and New York.
The actions are the second time in two weeks that the patent office has supported the claims of key stem cell patents held by WARF, a private supporting organization of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. On Feb. 25, the office affirmed the claims of a third patent also relating to Dr. James Thomson’s work with human embryonic stem cells.
These days, Russell Panczenko is a man on a mission who goes armed with both good and bad news.
The good news is that the membership of the University of Wisconsin’s Chazen Museum of Art has a renewal rate of about 55 percent.
“That’s very high by any standard,” says Panczenko, the museum director, citing national statistics.
The bad news, however, is that the total number of museum members — about 1,200 — has remained at a plateau for the past dozen years or so, he adds.
There finally may be some light at the end of the tunnel for Charter Communications and the Big Ten Network. But if there is, it’s still dim, said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications who closely follows cable issues.
BTN appears poised to land a carriage deal with Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal reported Monday.
….Such a deal could provide a framework for a deal between BTN and Charter and Time Warner, Wisconsin’s two major cable providers, Orton said.
A University of Wisconsin student who allegedly threatened an assistant dean in Bascom Hall has been charged with disorderly conduct and ordered stay away from Bascom unless he has a class there or has written permission to be there.
Alan B. Dubrow, 20, was arrested at Bascom Hall after he allegedly threatened to beat Assistant Dean Ervin Cox and made threatening gestures toward another member of the staff of the Dean of Students Office. Dubrow’s actions took place on Feb. 21, a week after the tragic shootings on the Northern Illinois campus.
A grant available for the next school year sounds like a college student’s dream come true, but it may be too good to be true.
The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) grant program was established by Congress to encourage bright college students to go into the teaching profession, especially in schools in low-income areas.
The grant provides $4,000 per year to undergraduate students willing to commit to earning a degree in education and then teaching full time for four years in high-poverty schools in a specific subject area. Mathematics, science, foreign language, special education, bilingual education and reading specialists are among the high-need fields.
….But if the student does not fulfill the terms of the grant, it would immediately be converted to an expensive unsubsidized loan, with interest accumulated from when the loan began, University of Wisconsin-Madison officials warned.
Helping reduce reliance on fossil fuels is expected to create jobs in the renewable energy sector as well as training opportunities for the state’s technical college system.
With that in mind, the state Technical College System and others will host a three-day Wisconsin Renewable Energy Summit beginning Wednesday at the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee. Among the presenters will be UW-Madison’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.
The final seconds of Wisconsin’s victory over Texas have been replayed over and over, and for good reason.
That moment, and really that game, not only foreshadowed what was ahead for the Badgers, who would go on to win the Big Ten championship, it also embodied what Michael Flowers has meant to them this season.
Gov. Jim Doyle offered a $527 million package Monday to repair the state budget by cutting or delaying programs, as well as taxing hospitals and transferring $243 million from the state’s transportation fund.
University Research Park in Madison announced Friday that it has published “The First Fifteen Years: 1984-1999” a retrospective about the award-winning research park.
The non-profit research and technology park was established in 1984 and now is home to more than 114 companies that employ more than 4,000 people. Many of the companies are the result of research done at UW-Madison. It contributes more than $680 million each year to the state’s economy.
….After another poor performance filled with turnovers, bad shots and a lack of hustle, the women’s UW basketball team will now again compete in the WNIT, even though many experts predicted they would win the Big Ten title.
Lisa Stone’s teams have been plagued by sloppy play throughout her tenure. Some say teams are defined by their coaches and this is why the UW needs to make a change at the head coach position. The girls deserve the same chance as the men to win a championship.
It will be several weeks before coroner’s officials in Arkansas can make an official determination of what caused the death of a Madison marathoner who collapsed eight days ago as he crossed the finish line of a 26.2-mile race.
Adam Nickel, 27, had no medical problems that would have caused concern about him running marathons, his family said after his death on March 2 in Little Rock, Ark. It was his sixth marathon.
Nickel’s mother, Cynthia Nickel of Kaukauna, said the day after Nickel’s death that an emergency room physician told her Nickel may have died from a potassium buildup, which can cause abnormal heart rhythms. But Pulaski County, Ark., Coroner Mark Malcolm said today that results of Nickel’s autopsy last week were inconclusive and he hoped that toxicology tests would shed light on the cause of Nickel’s death. The tests should take about four weeks to complete, he said.
WASHINGTON — Colleges and universities are anxiously taking steps to address a projected drop in the number of high school graduates in much of the nation starting next year and a dramatic change in the racial and ethnic makeup of the student population.
In Wisconsin, the number of high school graduates is at a peak of 67,283 this year and is projected to drop by 8 percent by 2018, according to the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education. The high school graduating class of 2018 also will be more racially diverse — down from 88 percent white to 78 percent, fueled almost entirely by rapid growth in the number of Hispanic students, UW-Madison officials said in interviews.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Whether the Wisconsin Badgers play Michigan or Iowa in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament Friday, they’ll be facing a team they nearly lost to in their last meeting.
Big Ten champs, Big Ten champs, they began chanting with less than 4 minutes left.
Make that outright Big Ten champs.
“One team stands alone, and thats the team in that locker room, and it feels pretty good,” UW coach Bo Ryan said when it was over Saturday, the 65-52 victory against Northwestern that closed the deal for the Badgers.
….Sen. Hillary Clinton talks of her “experience,” Sen. Barack Obama offers “hope,” Sen. John McCain promises “economy” and to capture Osama bin Laden. Each very much wants to be president of the United States.
Who knows? Their thin words might or might not yet deliver a leader to restore our standing and image abroad, to stimulate economic recovery, to spurn torture, to respect the separation of powers, to rein in the malevolent growth of the American empire, and begin to heal the conflicts and divisions that have haunted us for the past quarter-century and more.
They should consider Franklin Roosevelt as a worthy model to emulate.
(Stanley Kutler is a UW-Madison professor emeritus of history)
The head of the state’s 13 two-year colleges told the UW System Board of Regents Thursday that those institutions should be able to provide a type of bachelor’s degree for place-bound or under-served students.
The University of Wisconsin Colleges are open admissions institutions that provide an access point for higher education for much of the state, said David Wilson, chancellor of the UW Colleges and UW-Extension.
But the colleges could do more to help fill the state’s needs for college graduates to build Wisconsin’s economy, he said.
Senior guard Jolene Anderson’s illustrious time in college basketball might have ended Thursday as her Wisconsin Badgers fell to Illinois, 73-58, in the opening round of the Big Ten women’s tournament.
For several years, scientists have suspected that our hyper-hygienic world of vaccinations, antibacterial soap and bottled water actually might be making some people sick by bewildering their immune systems and causing them to turn on their bodies.
Now, doctors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are about to carry that theory to the ickiest extreme.
Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are opening up their wallets to provide financial aid for low- to middle-income students, hoping to fuel a push for more access to the state’s flagship university at a time when tuition has squeezed some out.
An advisory group recommended Thursday that the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents consider new ways to increase tuition revenue at a time when less of the systems funding comes from the state.
The UW Board of Regents today approved a land swap allowing construction of an underground holding facility for thousands of rats and mice for research use on the UW-Madison campus.
The project will be located in the 1200 block of Campus Drive at North Orchard Street, as part of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, a biomedical research complex.
Approval of the land swap between the UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation was needed so a $20 million plan that includes a receiving dock as well as the 10,000-square-foot “vivarium” — a facility for live animals for observation and research — could proceed.
Gov. Jim Doyle is calling lawmakers into special session next week to take up a budget repair bill that would fix the state’s $650 million deficit.
But with just a week to go before the March 13 special session, exactly how Doyle and lawmakers plan to plug that hole remains unclear.
Aides to Doyle and top legislative leaders say the Democratic governor is still negotiating details of the package with Assembly Republicans and Senate Democrats.
Doyle has said he hopes to put together a plan that will win quick approval from the divided Legislature instead of repeating last summer’s partisan standoff in which passage of the budget was delayed by more than three months.
Cancer has caused popular former East High School Principal Milton McPike to resign from the UW System Board of Regents, which honored him today for “his many life achievements” and service to the board.
McPike, a 23-year principal and one-time pro football player, was appointed to the board in 2004 by Gov. Jim Doyle after retiring from East High in 2002. He has missed meetings in the last few months because of his illness.
He was named one of 10 “American Heroes in Education” by Reader’s Digest in 1990, one year after the U.S. Department of Education named East High a National High School of Excellence.
The phrase “something for everyone” is horrendously overused, but how else can you describe the lineup for the 10th annual Wisconsin Film Festival? How else can you describe a festival that includes a documentary on old Apple Macintoshes, another documentary on Madison urbanites who raise chickens and “Planet of the Apes”?
Those are just three of the 220 films scheduled for this year’s festival, which will run Thursday, April 3, through Sunday, April 6, at 11 screens downtown and on campus, including the Majestic Theatre and Chazen Museum of Art.
Jolene Anderson has an aw-shucks, nothing-fazes-me attitude and probably always will.
When she learned Port Wing officials want to erect a sign proclaiming the village — located along the south shore of Lake Superior, with a population of 481 — as the “home of Jolene Anderson,” the all-time leading scorer in University of Wisconsin basketball history simply smiled and tucked away the information.
When the All-Big Ten Conference awards were announced live on the Big Ten Network, she didn’t tune in, but received news about her media Player of the Year honor in a telephone call from her mother Julie.
After winning all season by taking ownership of the teamwork principle, the players from the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team celebrated the fruits of their efforts Wednesday night by dusting off a seldom-used ‘I’ to spell title.
“It’s absolutely awesome. Point blank, that’s all I can say,” said jubilant senior forward Brian Butch after the 10th-ranked Badgers clinched a share of the Big Ten Conference regular-season title with a 77-41 victory over Penn State at a raucous Kohl Center.
“This is why we play,” added Butch after slam dunks, 3-pointers and nifty assists highlighted the game, and jubilant students storming the court, a Big Ten trophy presentation and a net-cutting ceremony highlighted the postgame celebration.
A company formed by UW-Madison stem cell pioneer Jamie Thomson today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Roche Palo Alto, one of pharmaceutical giant Roche’s five research facilities, to test candidate drug compounds for cardiotoxicity, or damage to heart tissue.
Under the agreement, Roche will supply Madison-based Cellular Dynamics International Inc. with two sets of 25 well-characterized drug compounds to validate CDI’s current toxicology products and services.
The list of who’s who in the movement for social justice continues at the YWCA of Madison, which announced today the five honorees of its 2008 Women of Distinction awards.
….The YWCA will honor the award recipients at its 34th annual Women of Distinction luncheon May 29 at the Concourse Hotel, 1 W. Dayton St.
Among the honorees is Cheryl Rosen Weston, CEO of Douglas Stewart Co. and a University of Wisconsin Law School professor. She’s also an attorney with Cullen, Weston, Pines & Bach and is a longtime board member and former president of Jewish Social Services of Madison. She is an alumna of the Law School.
The University of Wisconsin earned a share of its third regular-season conference title of the decade with a 77-41 pasting of Penn State on Wednesday night in front of a sellout crowd of 17,190 at the Kohl Center.
UW-Milwaukee senior Amanda Maslowski was one of about 80 undergraduates from throughout the University of Wisconsin System who came to the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday to share the findings of their research at the annual Posters in the Rotunda, an event designed to spread the word about student work to alumni, legislators and other state leaders.
LAKE GENEVA — Stem cell researcher Jamie Thomson, conservationist Aldo Leopold, flamboyant Liberace. Visionary architecture, below-zero tailgating, cheese curds that squeak. House on the Rock, Taliesin, Harley.
Wisconsin is a place where you can feel free to be yourself and express yourself. This is the conclusion of a five-month branding project undertaken by the state Department of Tourism and announced Tuesday night by Gov. Jim Doyle at the annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism.
After a year without a key leader in place, North Milwaukee State Bank has hired a chief executive who wants to help the bank get more deeply involved in small-business lending and urban economic development.
In Erbert Johnson, who spent the past decade in Cleveland working in public finance and banking, North Milwaukee also found a local guy who has returned to the community wanting to do some good. Johnson majored in aacounting at UW-Madison.
The University of Wisconsins current seniors are double threats. Not only do they play with heart, they touch them, too.
Just as uniquely female sass can in the real world, the impudent, sexy chorus in University Theatre’s opening night performance of “The Bluest Eye” made the misery, irresponsibility and corruption of the world exposed by Toni Morrison’s words tolerable.
Charter Communications lost nearly 3 percent of its cable TV subscribers in Madison during the fourth quarter — a period during which its numbers had been essentially steady in the previous three years, the city of Madison reported.
Charter cable TV subscribers in the city went from 57,156 last October to 55,559 last December, a decline of 2.7 percent. By contrast, the company posted slight increases in the same period in 2006 and 2005 and a slight decrease in 2004 (see accompanying chart).
The obvious difference last year compared to the prior three years was the Big Ten Network, which Charter does not have a deal to carry but competitors such as satellite providers DirecTV and DISH Network have been carrying since last summer.
In his contribution to “Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me,” UW-Madison alum Ben Karlin writes about his old girlfriend, Jill, whom he fell hard and fast for “in the waning light of life in a college town after you’re done with college.”
He reminisces about how they “walked hand in hand through the farmers’ market, envious of no one, living in the goddamn now.”
One question slowly built in his mind, he writes: “What if this is the person I never run out of falling in love with?”
Still, it’s not a happy tale, and he hints about this early on.
The UW-Madison Faculty Senate today (Monday) approved a campaign to raise money for need-based scholarships for students as a way of resolving concerns about lack of access to the university for low-income residents.
The senate — the governance body of the university faculty — voted almost unanimously in favor of a resolution that would launch a campaign to provide and raise funds for such scholarships.
The University of Wisconsin Foundation would match contributions to the initiative.
UW-Madison students who have classes scheduled in Van Vleck Hall will be able to attend their classes today, after a power outage Monday forced the university to cancel classes in the facility.
The outage was caused by flooding early Monday morning when water leaked into the basement of the building. Van Vleck is home to the university’s math department.
Transformers were damaged in the basement of Van Vleck, which also knocked out power to a half-dozen other buildings.
Coaches and media from the Big Ten Conference have heaped awards upon Jolene Anderson since the standout joined the University of Wisconsin women’s basketball team as a rookie during the 2004-05 season.
As the Port Wing native’s collegiate career winds down, the accolades keep coming her way.
Anderson, who led the Big Ten in scoring for a second straight season, was selected Big Ten Player of the Year Monday night by a 22-member media panel. She is the first Badgers women’s player to earn the honor.
Quoted: UW-Madison political scientist Ken Goldstein, who directs the Wisconsin Advertising Project, a program that tracks political ad spending.
Another year, another Big Ten Conference track and field championship for the University of Wisconsin. The Badgers won their eighth consecutive indoor conference title on Sunday in Madison.
Although the University of Wisconsin fell far short of preseason expectations with a disappointing tie for seventh in the Big Ten Conference women’s basketball race, the play of senior guard Jolene Anderson did not go unnoticed or unappreciated.
Anderson, the most decorated player in the history of UW women’s program, on Monday was named the media’s player of the year and a consensus first-team all-conference pick for the second consecutive season.
Joining the ranks of a growing number of schools, the University of Wisconsin-Madison will soon be able to send instant text alerts to the cell phones of students, faculty and staff in campus emergencies.
