Quoted: Scott Spear, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a volunteer member of the national medical committee for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Blowing the whistle on a professor’s alleged scientific misconduct has taken a toll on the careers of six University of Wisconsin-Madison students.
Columnist Steve Chapman says that even at private colleges, alumni, donors and other interested parties are inclined to question the value of academic freedom when it leads to lunacy.
The tension erupted into open hostilities recently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which discovered that one of its instructors has an unorthodox view of recent history. Kevin Barrett, who teaches a course on Islam, thinks the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were “an inside job” masterminded by the Bush administration to justify U.S. aggression in the Middle East.
Mentions that a recent Badger Poll by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center showed support among respondents for civil unions.
Support for cloning is an essential aspect of the movement for embryo-destructive stem cell research. This week, Gov. Jim Doyle started to run a shamelessly manipulative attack ad against his challenger, Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.), accusing Green of wanting to “outlaw stem cell research.”
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee wants to dramatically boost research spending in an effort to spin out more ideas into companies. One piece of the plan will face the scrutiny of the Board of Regents on Wednesday in Madison. A vote is expected two weeks later. The school suffered a setback this month when Abbas Ourmazd, a respected researcher with experience at Bell Labs and Oxford, stepped down. Nevertheless, Chancellor Carlos Santiago’s plan should move ahead. The regents should approve the school’s request for $10 million in additional state funding.
Some moments, whether they wrought anguish because of life lost or brought joy because of opportunity gained, won’t ever fade from Bret Bielema’s memory:
Such as the day, during his senior year at tiny Prophetstown High School, Bielema was invited to join the University of Iowa football program as a walk-on.
I’d like to think that we have survived an endless stream of theories in the classroom – from President Franklin D. Roosevelt allowing Pearl Harbor to be attacked (Ã?¡ la 9-11) to the fact-light, race and ethnicity lectures that do little to offset bias and segregation nationwide as vocalized recently by President Bush at the NAACP convention.
What seems to be of greater concern is the accepted practice of talking about issues as if there are only two sides: One is right and the other is selling a pack of lies.
When Latinos in Dane County were being sold tools and videos that telemarketers falsely claimed would lead to careers in auto mechanics, Steve Meili and his team of University of Wisconsin-Madison law students sued.
Fortunately for Kevin Barrett, UW-Madison apparently discovered that he is a fair teacher and does not indoctrinate his students. But, unfortunately, the administration’s response since then has been remarkably tone deaf.
If the university does not reverse course – which it can, easily – the present melee will continue to escalate and, even worse, occur again.
Two patients have died in recent years following medical errors that resulted in citations against Meriter Hospital and UW Hospital. The possibility of dangerous errors became a local concern after a 16-year-old died July 5 at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center after medication was given incorrectly during childbirth.
University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics was cited by the state in 2000 because “failure to properly document medication and infusion administrations created an incomplete and inaccurate medication record.” The error was a contributing factor in the patient’s subsequent neurological deterioration and death, a state report says.
A suspected serial stalker has been seen driving a 2004 red Chevy Avalanche pickup truck with a Wisconsin license plate that bears, in part, “AD29,” according to Madison police. The incidents have taken place in the State Street and Langdon Street area, and at East Towne and West Towne.
….Professor injured: A UW-Madison engineering professor sustained serious head early Thursday morning when his motorcycle crashed on Haight Road in Madison.
….Intruder: UW Police are investigating an intruder who broke into a woman’s bedroom Thursday at the university’s family housing facility.
Thursday’s intense rains came down so hard and so fast that the storm created “its own little climate” in downtown Madison with new fronts streaming out from the central city, a meteorologist said today.
The cold front that went to the south dumped up to 6 inches of rain on southern Dane County later in the afternoon, but didn’t cause nearly as much flooding as in Madison, said Brian Olson of Weather Central.
“It was a storm that was pretty humbling,” Olson said, describing the downpour that wouldn’t budge out of the downtown sky for nearly an hour.
The UW campus bore the brunt of the flooding, with 79 buildings out of 300 on campus reporting flooding or water coming in through roofs and windows.
Some were crouched with their heads in their hands, some were hugging friends, and some were drinking a beer on their porch, but the residents at Park Terrace West, 45 N. Randall St., all seemed in shock as flood waters stood in their downstairs apartments Thursday afternoon.
“I don’t have anything,” said David Kruser, a resident of the building. “All I have is my wallet, my cell phone, and my keys.”
A new idea for constructing post buildings won two University of Wisconsin-Madison students second place in competition for the best engineering design project related to agriculture. Aaron Flouro and Kyle Bunnow, who are majors in Biological Systems Engineering, placed second in the AGCO National Student Design Competition sponsored by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.
A faster magnetic resonance imaging data-acquisition technique can deliver more precise 3-D images, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Doctors are testing a radical new way to help smokers quit — a shot that “immunizes” them against the nicotine rush that fuels their addiction.
Thunderstorms that hit southern Wisconsin Thursday produced downpours or rain and flash flooding that caused police in both cities to ask motorists to stay off streets.
When it comes to academic freedom, several local educators are siding with the rights of a University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer who believes the U.S. government staged the Sept. 11 attacks.
Too many of the state’s top high school seniors are finding the doors to the top University of Wisconsin campus shut to them. As a result, they often leave the state to pursue their degrees. The danger is they won’t come back – contributing to the state’s brain drain.
University of Wisconsin hockey player Jeff Likens pleaded no contest to a charge of underage drinking on Tuesday and was ordered to pay a $249 fine, according to court records.
Heavy rains inundated areas in southeastern Wisconsin on Thursday, hitting the city of Waukesha particularly hard with up to 6 inches of rain, the National Weather Service reported.
The storm also hammered Madison with up to 5 inches, flooding parts of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and leaving pools of standing water up to 5 feet deep.
….Barrett’s association with the university should be discontinued, not because he speaks from an irrational political position, but because he demonstrates an astounding degree of intellectual poverty that offends the morality of U.S. citizens who lost loved ones in 9/11.
Our university officials erred in their decision to continue Barrett’s appointment because they were incapable of recognizing the enormity of the crimes against humanity that was evidenced in both the Holocaust and 9/11. Perhaps if they “had been there and done that,” their decision might have been correct.
Paul Grindrod Madison
Editor’s note: A concerted e-mail campaign is calling on state Rep. Steve Nass to debate University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer Kevin Barrett about the 9/11 attacks. Barrett asserts the U.S. government was behind the attacks; Nass has called on the UW to fire Barrett because of his views. Nass’ office, as well as this newspaper and other media outlets, have been inundated with e-mails from all over the country demanding a debate between the two men.
On Wednesday, Nass’ office sent this response: Thank you for contacting me with your request that I debate Kevin Barrett regarding his 9/11 conspiracy theory. A debate is a process of discussing facts and attempting to interpret those facts. It would be silly to debate Mr. Barrett on his fiction relating to the events of 9/11.
…maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by anything we learn about Bielema, the Badgers’ first-year coach, since everybody is learning on the fly about his likes and dislikes, his strengths and weaknesses, his tendencies and timetable.
That’s a function of starting with a fresh slate. We may think we know Bielema, especially since he has spent two seasons here as the defensive coordinator. But, in reality, we’re just getting to know him.
Marketing professors at the UW-Madison School of Business have been racking up national honors.
As of this fall, four of the faculty members will serve on the editorial review board for the Journal of Marketing, the leading scholarly journal in the field. Only a handful of marketing programs in the country will have as many representatives on the board.
Sixteen elected leaders from Madison and Dane County are asking American Transmission Co. to consider using new technology to boost power on existing high-voltage lines instead of building controversial new lines across the southern half of the county.
….ATC has proposed three routes for a 345-kilovolt line, the north route along the Beltline, the central route through Fitchburg and Verona and the southern route through towns from Christiana to Montrose.
Local activist Ben Masel said today he plans to sue Memorial Union officials and two police officers for an incident last month during which union employees asked him to leave the terrace, and the officers pepper sprayed him.
On June 29, Masel was collecting signatures for his U.S. Senate run at the terrace, a common venue for such activities for politicians.
Due to this afternoon’s storms, there are numerous reports of stopped traffic, signals out, wires down and live wires on vehicles.
Additionally, a semi-truck lost a load of corn, closing� the Beltline between Fish Hatchery Road and Park Street. Cars are reported covered in water up to their windshields in the Randall-Monroe street area.
Police urge citizens to not drive until conditions have stabilized. If travel is essential, be cautious with regard to downed wires, traffic signals not working and standing water on roadways.
Poetry performances and Latin music are planned to celebrate the creation of a new diversity office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The “multicultural extravaganza,” called Rhythm and Poetry Sin Fronteras, will be Friday at 7 p.m. at the Majestic Theatre, 115 King St. It will highlight the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiative (OMAI).
His contract signed and his bags packed, Milwaukee native Brian Calhoun’s next destination is the big time.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=477039
Many scientists believe embryonic stem cell research has great potential for healing. But because it’s controversial and not well understood by the average voter, the issue also has great potential for political mischief and spin.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=477039
Many scientists believe embryonic stem cell research has great potential for healing. But because it’s controversial and not well understood by the average voter, the issue also has great potential for political mischief and spin.
If Gov. Jim Doyle and Democrats have their way, the biggest issue in the campaign against Republican Mark Green will be smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
With the hope of attracting undecided voters and driving a wedge into Green’s support, Doyle has launched a relentless effort to paint Green as an opponent of stem cell research, which is seen as holding the promise of treatments for a host of debilitating diseases.
Vitamin D is poised to strike again for Madison.
Harry Steenbock’s groundbreaking discoveries at UW-Madison early last century laid a foundation that led to vitamin D becoming by far the biggest moneymaker for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
The advice to get your tickets early never has been more appropriate for fans of the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team.
More than 11 weeks before the home opener, the sale of season tickets for the defending national champions already has reached record levels, a development that should provide an unbudgeted boost to the athletic department’s coffers.
Dear Editor: I can only hope that when a lecturer comes to UW to teach about intelligent design, or to argue that abortion is wrong, or against affirmative action, or that welfare payments should be cut, that such an individual is defended as vigorously in the pages of your paper.
Peter Healy Fitchburg
Dear Editor: I would like to formally request a debate between Kevin Barrett and state Rep. Steve Nass.
I am still undecided about this issue (9/11), but the more I read Barrett’s point of view and see that his side of the argument isn’t being confronted and refuted with anything more than name calling and claims of irrationality, I begin to wonder who it is that is unfit for his job.
Dear Editor: The UW made the proper decision to allow Kevin Barrett to teach his course on Islam, even if he includes his belief that the U.S. orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. As Voltaire is reported to have said to Helvetius, “I disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it.”
To allow politicians, columnists and the general public to dictate course content is to embark on a slippery slope. UW students are intelligent, thinking adults. As such, most of them will not swallow Barrett’s beliefs any more than they will accept that the Holocaust never happened or that the world is flat. Which leads me to one more quote: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
Wisconsin discovered last week that being at the point of cutting-edge biological science such as embryonic stem cell research can be a two-edged sword. Two out-of-state foundations challenged the stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
State and federal prosecutors are probing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration over a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee building project and a meeting Doyle’s campaign fund-raiser arranged for Doyle’s top deputy in his state office.
Laura Dunn didn’t get the result she was seeking, but she’s hoping her efforts will help future victims of sexual assault.
A year ago, the UW-Madison senior reported that she had been sexually assaulted 15 months earlier by two men while she was drunk. The District Attorney’s Office has declined to prosecute.
The Dean’s Office closed the case without imposing any sanctions on the one suspect who was still enrolled at the university last semester.
Robberies are on the rise, especially in the northern, central and eastern parts of the city, according to a report compiled by Madison police.
The recent report, prepared by Lt. Joe Balles, shows a 60 percent increase in robberies in the first half of 2006 compared with the same time period in 2005.
Dear Editor: In spite of the seriousness of the issue, I can’t help being amused by all the hullabaloo about Kevin Barrett. Three politicians are trying to have him fired.
We would do much better to fire the politicians. Hoping to rein in the bounds of thinkable thought, politicians Jim Doyle, Mark Green, and Steve Nass of course also hope to gain a bit of a boost in popularity from the incitement they are generating.
Less than three months ago, University of Wisconsin defensive end Joe Monty was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident that could have led to his death.
“He is very lucky to be alive,” an official with the Madison Police Department said at the time.
Yet despite suffering serious facial injuries that required surgery and his jaw to be wired shut, the fifth-year senior is expected to practice when UW opens pre-season camp Aug. 7.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison student has been elected vice president of the College Democrats of America, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin said today. Awais Khaleel, who will be a senior at UW-Madison, was elected vice president at the group’s national convention in St. Louis over the weekend. (Part of the PoliticsWatch blog)
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It was just two weeks ago when Aviad Shapira watched his wife prepare to return to the couple’s home in Israel after their brief reunion in Madison. For both, duty was calling.
Reuma Shapira craved to return to Haifa, where she practiced medicine in a hospital. He needed to continue his research in engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
They sensed the violence in Israel would escalate, but neither said a word about postponing her trip. The couple met while serving in the Israeli armed forces more than 30 years ago, had weathered worse times, but Aviad Shapira still worried.
WAUSAU – After two decades of steadily declining numbers of dairy cows in America’s Dairyland, the trend is slowly reversing itself, providing new optimism that an embattled industry in Wisconsin is on the rebound, farm experts say.
UW-Madison dairy economist Robert Cropp is quoted.
“Islam: Religion and Culture” course description: Introduction to Islam as a religion – a 14-centuries-old holistic worldview that is also a system of belief and practice. Examination of the major creeds and theologies within Islam as well as its characteristic social and mystical expressions. Consideration of Islam’s contributions to world culture, its modern-day image in the world media, and its American faces.
It’s hard for an instructor to keep personal views entirely out of the classroom, several University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members said today.
They were challenging the central theme of a Sunday opinion column in the New York Times that took issue with UW-Madison’s decision to hire a 9/11 conspiracy believer on grounds of academic freedom.
PHIL HELLMUTH is such a Madison kid that when Bob Soderstrom wrote a screenplay about Hellmuth, the once precocious and always colorful poker brat, he called it “The Madison Kid.
….The script was good enough to win a 2002 Wisconsin Screenwriter’s Forum contest, and now, in a business where it is said you can die of encouragement, it is this close to being made into a movie with a hot young actor named Hayden Christensen playing Hellmuth.
One of the questions still up in the air is where the movie will be filmed. You might think that a script titled “The Madison Kid” – with scenes set around the State Capitol and Union Terrace – would be a natural to be shot at least partly in Madison, but it’s more complicated than that.
….Why shouldn’t students at the University of Wisconsin learn that, with whatever evidentiary bases exist for (Barrett’s) assertion, as they also study the conclusions reached by the 9/11 Commission to which most of us subscribe? Why shouldn’t Kevin Barrett have to answer his students’ questions about how such a horrendous and far-reaching disaster could be orchestrated by our government without even one person “blowing the whistle” and bringing the conspiracy to an end?
I predict that classroom dialogue on this subject will reveal that our UW students have the intelligence and analytical powers to sort out fact from fiction and paranoia – what the university refers to as “sifting and winnowing.”
(Jeffrey Bartell is a UW-Madison alumnus and a member of the UW System Board of Regents)
Dear Editor: I agree with Michael Meeropol that the UW should not fire Kevin Barrett for his classroom content (July 11).
Part of being a college instructor is being able to have academic freedom to state what you believe.
Part of being a college student is learning that not every instructor is right and discerning who to believe based upon the facts that they present.
The reorganization of the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey office has brought in a familiar face.
Former Badgers forward Mike Cerniglia has been named the team’s director of hockey operations, a multi-faceted position that was created out of the splitting into two roles of the previous job of the same title.
Wisconsin students will continue to pay less in tuition at Minnesota schools than their Minnesota counterparts under an extension of the two states’ tuition reciprocity agreement.
A new agreement that went into effect July 1 for the coming school year means Wisconsin residents will pay between $2,700 and $1,000 less than Minnesota students, depending on the campus.
Sixty-one lawmakers signed on to a legislative resolution this week calling on the University of Wisconsin-Madison to fire lecturer Kevin Barrett.
The resolution “condemns” Provost Patrick Farrell for his decision to allow Kevin Barrett to teach his fall-semester course on Islam. Barrett, who says the United States government was complicit in the Sept. 11 attacks, has a one-semester appointment for $8,247.
“It’s important to do what’s right, and to follow the truth, no matter what,” Kevin Barrett said in a recent interview….”Cheating for strategic advantage is unacceptable.”
….Barrett has recently emerged from obscurity to gain worldwide attention for his belief that some top U.S. government officials orchestrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team will play eight non-conference games against teams that played in the post-season last season, including six that reached the NCAA tournament.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, an economics professor who specializes in tax policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
As Washington grappled last week with whether to ease restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, two foundations launched an assault on Wisconsin’s embryonic stem cell patents.
Such a move, which was expected, is common when there are broad patents on a technology with so much potential, and it probably won’t be the last.
It also signaled increasing awareness among scientists and companies that the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s patents make this state the biggest interchange through which all stem cell commercialization must travel.
