Author: jnweaver

State employees, retirees and dependents will continue to enjoy low-cost health insurance benefits, thanks to a combination of innovation and use of a reserve fund to help reduce increases.

The state Group Health Insurance Board today approved a health insurance program cost increase of 7.4 percent, most of which is paid by the state.

You’ve likely heard that Forbes.com has named Milwaukee the drunkest city in the country. Nothing anyone should be proud of. But if you’re looking for a Wisconsin silver lining of sorts, University of Wisconsin-Madison slipped from the No. 1 party school to No. 4.

The statement that best defines the problems facing college women’s volleyball was uttered Thursday by Geoff Carlston.

The Ohio coach lamented that ESPN televises “14 hours” of poker per day, “and we can’t get our championship on prime time.”

It’s the best sport nobody pays attention to.

Dear Editor: So Rep. Steve Nass is picking on yet another leftist UW professor, eh?

Police are trying to figure out what prompted a man to attack a young woman early this morning at her campus area apartment building.

The 20-year-old woman told police she was walking in the 100 block of Langdon Street about 1:15 a.m. when she noticed a man watching her. She avoided the man and crossed the street to get to a better-lighted area, then went to the apartment of a friend.

About 20 minutes later, she was again walking on Langdon Street. She didn’t see the man and safely entered her apartment building but, as she went up the stairs to her apartment, the man ran up behind her and punched her in the face several times.

Letter writer says people are not going to become more multicultural because their lab partner is Native American, because they stand next to a Hispanic student in choir or because an extra African-American student lives on their dorm floor. Would college students at Grambling or Morehouse become more multicultural because they helped pay to have 100 white students show up for classes this fall? Not a chance.

Badger fans will be able to park behind Randall Elementary School – a stone’s throw from Camp Randall Stadium – this football season, but spaces are likely to become fewer after that.

There is little doubt that the University of Wisconsin System needs to increase the diversity of its campuses. But a plan approved by the system’s Board of Regents last week represents a surrender flag of sorts.

How has it become the students’ and families’ responsibility to make sure the University of Wisconsin schools have diversity? (“Regents OK tuition raise for diversity,” Aug. 18)

Dear Editor: As the TAA representative who signed the open letter to Mayor Dave Cieslewicz regarding his proposed plans for State Street on Halloween that was discussed in your Aug. 9 article “Halloween plan gets thumbs up,” I must clarify that the Teaching Assistants’ Association has taken no position on Mayor Dave’s Halloween plans.

University of Wisconsin Regents were poised today to approve what officials called the smallest tuition increase in the past 25 years, but students say it’s still too much.

“We’re fired up, can’t take it no more,” chanted a group of about 35 UW students from the Oshkosh, Madison and Milwaukee campuses as they held signs outside Van Hise Hall this morning.

Dear Editor:

….Farrell, who previously endorsed Barrett as being qualified to teach his course despite his beliefs, now states that he sent Barrett a letter warning him to stop associating himself with the school while promoting his beliefs and to stop seeking publicity for his views. Farrell said he will reconsider his decision to allow Barrett to teach unless Barrett complies with his requests.

….I certainly hope the University of Wisconsin is not succumbing to the pressure from some nervous individuals to suppress one of its most fundamental assets, the freedom of its employees, from the president to the dustman, to express their views on matters of public interest.

The university is a place where all ideas are welcome and subjected to the scrutiny of all who care to engage in debate. The University of Wisconsin prides itself in its commitment to “sifting and winnowing.” Anything that stands in the way of this can only be considered a negation of freedom of speech and thought. Nothing could be more stifling in an intellectual environment.