Black and Hispanic students in a special Madison School District college preparatory program have higher grade point averages, attendance rates and test scores than their peers who aren?t in the program, according to a UW-Madison analysis.
A smaller footprint for a new Union Theater lobby was approved by a UW-Madison committee Thursday in response to public outcry over the original plans.Members of the public said the initial design, part of $52 million in renovations to the Memorial Union, would obstruct views and inhibit seating on the Union Terrace.
Aspirus Wausau Hospital is studying the possibility of a third medical school in Wisconsin. Hospital officials and the Wisconsin College of Osteopathic Medicine expect the study on whether to create a $70 million medical school in Wausau will be done in four months.
Add another Gatorade state player of the year to the University of Wisconsin football family. Wisconsin Rapids senior Vince Biegel was announced today as the state winner of the 27th annual award. The Red Raiders linebacker has orally committed to play for the Badgers and is expected to sign his National Letter of Intent on signing day in February.
MADISON – After 38 years of treasured life, Rebecca Joy Holz, passed away peacefully, surrounded by her loving family on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. Rebecca began her career with the UW Health Sciences Libraries in July 2002 as a research intern for the Access Services unit; then in 2004, she accepted a permanent position as an Information Architecture Librarian.
A new medical school in Wausau would open in 2013, admit up to 150 students a year and reduce Wisconsin?s looming doctor shortage, according to organizers of the plan announced Wednesday. The Wisconsin College of Osteopathic Medicine, likely to be built next to Aspirus Wausau Hospital, would be the state?s third medical school….Dr. Robert Golden, dean of the UW medical school, said it would be cost-prohibitive for the new school to set up enough residency programs for the additional training required after medical school.
“A brand new medical school at this point would be a bridge to nowhere,” Golden said.
Though the Big Ten patently denies it is paying people to fill empty seats amid a soft ticket market for Saturday?s inaugural football title game between the University of Wisconsin and Michigan State, it appears that somebody was poised to do so. An ad on the Indianapolis Craigslist under the heading “Event-Seat Filler” that was visible until Wednesday evening asked for candidates to wear “red or dark green casual clothing” and be able to “tolerate loud noise and crowds” for an event in downtown Indianapolis that runs from 8 p.m. to roughly midnight.
World champion poker player and Madison native Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth is coming home to host his second annual tournament to raise funds for a local hospice care. The marathon “Phil Hellmuth?s Hold?em with HospiceCare” Texas Hold?em tournament will be on Dec. 17 from 2 p.m. to midnight at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery Town Center, 330 N. Orchard St. on the UW-Madison campus.
AquaMost, a Madison company developing a new type of water purification technology, has received another $4 million in investment funds and grant money. AquaMost?s technology, called photoelectrocatalytic oxidation, was invented at UW-Madison.
The race for Democratic U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin?s seat has another contender, this time a political newcomer with military experience. Matt Silverman, 29, of Madison, has decided to run for Congress. The UW-Madison graduate joins a field of Democratic candidates who include state Reps. Mark Pocan and Kelda Helen Roys, both of Madison, and Dane County Treasurer Dave Worzala. No Republicans have entered the race yet.
Stern emails and promises of a free trip to a bowl game were apparently not enough to stop the UW-Madison student section?s sophomoric tradition of yelling chants laced with four-letter words. Saturday?s Badgers game against Penn State at Camp Randall was the last chance for students to abstain from the chants-that-shall-not-be-named at least in a family newspaper, per the request of Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema.
The Big Ten has announced that Wisconsin junior running back Montee Ball is the Big Ten?s Offensive Player of the Year. Ball is the second Badger running back to win the award in three years. This year the award was renamed the Graham-George Award after Otto Graham and Eddie George.
Ann Hauck, a conservationist who calls Madison home for most of the year, is no fan of the speech Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson gave earlier this month on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. And Hauck let Jackson know as much in a scathing letter she sent to the head of the EPA and shared with the Cap Times.
State tourism officials said director David Zucker is slated to return to Wisconsin to film a commercial. Tourism Department spokeswoman Lisa Marshall said Zucker will direct and edit a commercial depicting winter activities in the state.
An Edgewood College student claims another student ripped up a recall petition he was circulating against Gov. Scott Walker. But law enforcement officials have not determined whether they will file charges in the incident.
As the University of Wisconsin football team concludes another regular season, that can mean only one thing: more job rumors involving offensive coordinator Paul Chryst. Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas fired Ron Zook as head coach on Sunday and reportedly started an immediate search for a new coach. A UW source confirmed Illinois has interest in Chryst.
The Big Ten Conference might not have been the equal of the SEC this football season, but it was infinitely more interesting. While LSU beat Alabama by the speed-inducing score of 9-6 in the SEC?s game of the year, the Big Ten had some national powers crumbling, some recovering and one getting its eyes opened in its first year in the conference. It had iconic coaches bounced unceremoniously from their jobs. It had down-to-the-wire races in the two new divisions, even if no one can remember their names.
Additional 2011 grants totaling $185,800 to 25 area nonprofit organizations have been announced by The Evjue Foundation, the charitable arm of The Capital Times. The new grants bring total giving to just under $1.3 million for the year, according to John H. Lussier, longtime president of the foundation. Among the grant recipients is the UW School of Journalism: $10,000 in general support of the school’s new ethics center.
….for Wisconsinites, the Independent Spirit Awards, which always take place the day before the Oscars to celebrate indie film culture, might be more interesting because of several Sconnie connections.
It?s not uncommon for state and local governments to provide such incentives, said Barry Gerhart, Ellig professor of management at the UW-Madison School of Business. “It is a reality that companies like Spectrum Brands can be mobile. There?s nothing that I know of that requires them to produce batteries here in Wisconsin,” he said.
Even after the old-fashioned method of checking out books, journals and resources with cards catalogs ended at UW-Madison?s Memorial Library in 1986, the library continued to house millions of cards on the second floor. The collection will soon be removed to create space for new library services that will facilitate innovative research methods, the university announced Tuesday.
Second-year UW-Madison student Leland Pan announced his candidacy for a seat on the Dane County Board of Supervisors Tuesday. Pan is running for the fifth district, an area where almost all residents are students. Incumbent Annalise Eicher has not yet announced whether she will run for re-election or step down from the seat.
As a frequent visitor to your city, I have a message for Madison and UW-Madison leaders: The Memorial Union was never intended to be a bus terminal. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving there were eight buses in front of the Union at 1 p.m., clogging the street in addition to the city bus traffic that came by.
….Steve Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at UW-Madison, agrees there are areas in southwestern Wisconsin enjoying the benefits of the local food trend, but adds that there is little research proving it?s an economic driver.”Twenty years ago, all the research said local foods was such a small market it wasn?t worth worrying about,” he says. “But over the past five or more years, there has been a ?push back? on large-scale commercial agriculture.”
Kevin M. Roley, M.D., age 54, of Madison, died Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Kevin completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kevin was chief resident, won many teaching awards and then went on to have a distinguished career in medicine.
Call it a case of overconfidence, but some Badgers football fans are already booking tickets to the Rose Bowl. Oh sure, the football team still needs to beat current nemesis Michigan State in the inaugural Big Ten Conference title game before securing a Rose Bowl berth, but that?s just a mere formality in some fans? eyes.
Controversial leadership decisions at Penn State and the University of California at Davis dominated headlines over the past month, yet the damage may extend well beyond those two institutions. Both crises have raised broader questions about the moral credibility of college leaders, adding weight to the nation?s brewing discontent with higher education at the very time when public disaffection for banks, government, and other institutions is also on the rise.
“It?s not a good time to lose credibility in America,” says Daniel Yankelovich, a pollster and scholar of public opinion. And “this just adds to the credibility problem” for colleges.
Badger fans are gearing up for the Big Ten Championship Game against the Michigan State Spartans this Saturday. It?s the first ever title game, to be held this year in Indianapolis. Tickets went on sale for the general public at www.uwbadgers.com Monday morning, and are going fast. The Athletic Department had 15,000, and by late afternoon, had already sold 13,000. Many organizations, like the Wisconsin Alumni Association and student-run Badger Trips are offering package deals. But agents say they?re close to sold out.
Wisconsin?s backfield tandem of senior quarterback Russell Wilson and junior running back Montee Ball each were named the best at their positions and highlighted a list of 17 Badgers named All-Big Ten on Monday as the league announced its postseason awards and all-conference teams. After scoring a Big Ten-record 34 touchdowns this season, Ball was named the inaugural winner of the Ameche-Dayne Running Back of the Year award. Wilson, who is on pace to break the NCAA record for passing efficiency, became the first recipient of the Griese-Brees Quarterback of the Year honor.
Success in national collegiate entrepreneurial competitions landed two UW-Whitewater students at the White House on Monday. Andrew Hoeft of Onalaska and Daniel Fink of Ashwaubenon were selected to represent the university?s Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, or CEO, at the “I Am An Entrepreneur” event.
The University of Wisconsin football team is home to more than one dynamic duo. Quarterback Russell Wilson and running back Montee Ball have received most of the attention this season, and it was no different on Monday night, when they led a record-setting number of Badgers picked to the All-Big Ten Conference first team. Both were also named the top players at their respective positions, leading a group of nine Badgers selected to the first team by either the coaches or media ? including five consensus picks.
A 29-year-old Madison man was arrested on Saturday after he allegedly tried to take a video projector from a UW-Madison classroom. Asanta Platt was booked into the Dane County Jail on two counts of burglary, according to a press release from the UW-Madison Police Department. Officers responded to Noland Hall on Saturday after getting a report that someone was trying to steal a video projector.
Research on impoverished women in Madison with postpartum depression is one of six projects funded by UW-Madison?s Morgridge Center for Public Service. The projects, totaling $141,032, are part of the Morgridge Challenge Grant program to support community-based research or service-learning courses. Philanthropists John and Tashia Morgridge pledged to match 50 percent of the researchers? grants and gifts. The program is in the third of five years.
The Student Services Finance Committee approved a bylaw that would change how student services are funded Monday. The Campus Services Process, formerly the Campus Services Fund, would distribute contracts to student groups that would allow them to provide student services. The bylaw would allow student groups to “bid on” services to provide to students. Some SSFC members were concerned the bylaw would not allow groups receiving contracts to continue to be supported by the General Student Services Fund.
UW-Madison students have the opportunity to win a dinner with the editor in chief of The Onion by submitting stories to a writing contest hosted by the popular satire newspaper, which was founded by two UW-Madison alumni.
In response to a recent letter regarding pay raises for UW assistant coaches, yes the budget is tight. But the 25 percent raise the coaches got did not all come from the taxpayers. Much of it came from booster clubs and private individuals. You have to realize what these coaches bring in ? millions of dollars in revenue to the athletics program and the university. Without that we are going back to the old days when you could not give a ticket away.
Physicians Plus is threatening to sue UW-Madison?s doctor group, saying the group might cut off members? access to UW doctors because the insurance company rejected a contract it deemed too expensive. The threat of legal action, made in a Physicians Plus news release Monday, comes less than three weeks after UW?s doctor group sued Meriter Health Services, which owns Physicians Plus. The lawsuit claims Meriter Hospital wouldn?t provide night coverage for UW?s family medicine patients or allow more UW doctors to provide the coverage. The new conflict, according to Physicians Plus, involves an “ultimatum” from the doctor group, UW Medical Foundation.
The Onion is returning to its roots. Joe Garden, an Onion editor and Badger alum, and Carol Kolb, from the Onion News Network, will present a behind-the-scenes look at the satirical news outlet on Monday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. at Memorial Union through the university?s Distinguished Lecture Series. The newspaper was launched by UW-Madison students in Madison.
When it comes to Occupy Wall Street, everyone?s got an opinion. In his recent op-ed in the Wisconsin State Journal, for example, Karl Garson called the movement “raucous and inarticulate ? and bound to fail.” The reason, Garson claims, is “screw-you wealth” ? Wall Street doesn?t care what the people think. We agree that Wall Street doesn?t give a fig about Main Street, but we disagree with Garson?s conclusions. Occupy Wall Street, in its second month, is facing police repression, cold weather and other stumbling blocks, but it shows no sign of giving up the ghost.
(Susan Kepecs, MFA, Ph.D., is a freelance arts and culture writer, an honorary fellow in the Department of Anthropology and author of numerous scholarly and popular articles.)
Senior Day for Russell Wilson was much like his football career at the University of Wisconsin. Short and oh-so-sweet. After the Senior Day festivities at Camp Randall Stadium were over Saturday, after he had quarterbacked 15th-ranked UW to a shockingly easy 45-7 victory over 20th-ranked Penn State, after he had helped the Badgers qualify for the Big Ten Conference championship game and a shot at redemption against Michigan State, Wilson reflected on the final home game of a one-and-done UW career that will never be forgotten. “This,” he said, “is definitely one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”
Boxes are stacking up in Murfie.com?s airy offices on the eighth floor of the U.S. Bank building on Capitol Square. But that?s a good thing. The brown packing boxes hold dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of music CDs that Murfie will catalog, store and make available for their owners to download or sell. It?s the latest business venture for serial entrepreneur Matt Younkle, a UW-Madison graduate and Ashwaubenon native who invented the TurboTap beer dispensing device and began selling it to sports stadiums in 2005.
The state?s spring primary is nearly three months away, with more high-profile votes — including a possible recall attempt of Gov. Scott Walker and the 2012 presidential election — even further down the road. Yet major efforts already are underway to make sure college students who want to vote will be able to do so under the state?s new voter ID law. State elections chief Kevin Kennedy says the law is the biggest administrative change for voting since 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote in 1971. Some fear that it could keep students away from the polls.
MADISON – Mark Rosa, age 61, passed away from complications of multiple sclerosis on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. He worked at UW-Madison Mills Music Library before retiring in 2005.
MADISON – Richard ?Arthur? Dodd died at home in Madison on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011, as a result of cancer first diagnosed in 2007. Arthur was active in initiating a graduate program in Materials Science at the UW and later, in 1974, he became chairperson of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He had many graduate students from countries throughout the world. He was awarded many research grants and published more than 150 technical papers. In 1974 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science by the University of London for contributions to metallurgical science.
Wayne Feltz is a self-described weather geek. Last week, he stood one afternoon on the wind-whipped roof of UW-Madison?s Space Science and Engineering Center, where he works as a researcher, and stared up through the canopy of dish antennas that top the building like some crazy, bristly hairdo.
“We?re running out of room!” Feltz shouted. There was a hint of geeky pride in the pronouncement. And why not? Thanks to what researchers such as Feltz are accomplishing in this building, you will be accurately forewarned this winter of the snowstorms that will turn your driveway into a ski hill. Hunched over their computers, scientists here have advanced meteorology to where we can now literally peer into the future and predict everything from the landfall of hurricanes to the formation of tornados.
Just about everything has turned up in the UW-Madison Stock Pavilion since it opened in 1909. Prize cattle. Bill Clinton and Harry Truman. All genres of music. But when it comes to spectacle, it would be hard to surpass the regular practices of the armed combat group of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). This is not your ordinary fight club.
A. “Carbonated” beverages get their name from dissolved carbon dioxide. The bottling process increases the pressure and amount of carbon dioxide in the liquid and air inside the can to levels much higher than in the air outside.
A. The most common way to define the start of winter is to appeal to the solstice, the day on which the noontime sun is positioned at its farthest southern point of the year. This is the astronomical start of winter ? Dec. 22 this year. On that day, the noontime sun will be directly overhead at 23.5 S latitude.
Shoppers at Sunday?s third annual Close to Home: Arboretum Local Products Expo were abuzz about the light, floral flavor of (Nathan) Clarke?s raw, unfiltered Urban Honey made by bees that gather nectar from Madison?s flowers, trees and gardens.”Very good,” said Susan Fischer of Madison. Like many others in the steady crowd of shoppers who perused more than 30 booths throughout the Arboretum?s Visitor Center, she was drawn by the locally produced offerings.
In a sense, this movement was inevitable. Higher education has been transformed over the last 50 years, reshaped in many ways that bring into question what it?s for, how it works, who should lead it, and most importantly who it is serving. It is the failure of colleges and universities to sufficiently grapple with and address those key questions that led students to Occupy Colleges, and faculty to stand with them, and that set up college administrators to be largely inept in response.
Sara Goldrick-Rab is an associate professor of education policy studies and sociology at UW-Madison.
A proposed plan for Downtown Madison proposes dramatic lakefront improvements, new parks and more, but Mayor Paul Soglin says tight finances will prevent the city from doing big public projects any time soon. The plan calls for a bicycle-pedestrian path along the Lake Mendota shore connecting James Madison Park and UW-Madison’s Memorial Union. Fourteen city committees will review the plan. The City Council will consider it as soon as this spring.
Tickets to the inaugural Big Ten football championship game between the Wisconsin Badgers and Michigan State Spartans go on sale to the general public at 8:30 a.m. Monday. UW-Madison students bought up all of the available student tickets at $40 each when those tickets went on sale Sunday night, so the student tickets are sold out. Tickets for the general public cost $80 for regular seating, $175 for club level seating.
Homework doesn?t stop, even for a newly minted Rhodes Scholar. After surviving a nerve-wracking interview and learning she won the coveted award, Alexis Brown had to set aside her excitement momentarily to finish the task at hand: a paper due before Thanksgiving break. “I was completely stunned,” said the 21-year-old UW-Madison student a few days after the announcement. “Still am.”
Hunched over their computers, scientists at the Space Science and Engineering Center have advanced meteorology to where we can now literally peer into the future and predict everything from the landfall of hurricanes to the formation of tornados.
Dear Editor: I echo your call for elected officials? positions on ?personhood? (?Where do state leaders stand on ?personhood???). After solid defeats in Colorado and Mississippi, this absurd notion has come to Wisconsin, courtesy of state Rep. Andre Jacque, R-Bellevue. I have treated the women of Wisconsin for 18 years. I must know: Does our government want to rob my patients of basic medicine, just to give legal rights to fertilized eggs?
The Board of Trustees considered canceling Penn State?s final three football games, two people with knowledge of the situation told The Chronicle of Higher Education. If trustees had ended the season, it would have meant no game Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium between the Nittany Lions and University of Wisconsin. The move also would have forced Penn State to forfeit its home finale against Nebraska on Nov. 12 and last week?s game at Ohio State.
University of Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez is urging fans to show “class and dignity” on Saturday when the 15th-ranked Badgers football team host No. 20 Penn State. Alvarez said the school has hung a large blue ribbon on the outside, south wall of the UW Field House, near Camp Randall Stadium, to encourage awareness of the “serious issue of child abuse.” Blue is the ribbon color used to highlight child abuse awareness.
….Dean of Students Lori Berquam echoed Alvarez’s plea for attendees at Saturday’s football game to conduct themselves in a respectful manner.
Green gifts: Celebrate locally produced goods and businesses a few days after the Black Friday shopping rush with the UW-Madison Arboretum?s Close to Home: Arboretum Local Products Expo on Sunday, Nov. 27, at the Arboretum Visitor Center.
Shawn F. Peters was so captivated by the HBO series “The Wire,” he was sure his students would be, too. So the UW-Madison instructor decided to make the Baltimore-centric drama the centerpiece of his fall course, Integrated Liberal Studies 275: Narratives of Justice and Equality in Multicultural America. Peters, 45, coordinates teaching and learning at UW-Madison?s Center for Education Opportunity.
COLUMBUS – Lawrence “Larry” Greischar Ph.D., of Columbus, born on March 6, 1949, died on Nov. 21, 2011, after several unsuccessful treatments for vocal chord cancer. He loved his job brain mapping in the Lab for Affective Neuroscience at the Psychology department, the Brain Imaging Lab and the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center at UW-Madison.
