In a time of war and unrest on issues like immigration, the UW dance faculty’s spring program might have dripped with social and political commentary.
This is Madison, after all. But Thursday night in a packed Lathrop Hall, the audience got something entirely different.
They got great dancing for the sheer love of it, with no visible agenda. With little use of multimedia and with minimalist backdrops, it was an evening all about movement.
At first it might seem strange to see a cow fly over the moon. Then again, seeing a “Duke” of Hazzard sing “Over the Rainbow” and hearing Barry Alvarez’s flawless Porky Pig impersonation is pretty weird, too.
Considering this all happened in 3 1/2Ã? hours, it’s easy to understand why the University of Wisconsin Band’s 32nd annual spring concert Thursday night at the Kohl Center was a spectacle to behold.
What is so disheartening about politics today is the failure of most of our politicians to step back and propose some new ideas that might actually make things better for our future.
Instead, they act like kids on the playground. “Yes, you did.” “No, I didn’t.” “Yes, you did.” “No, I didn’t.”
A case in point were press conferences this week by likely Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green and Gov. Jim Doyle.
A two-strikes-and-you’re-out policy for drunk, obnoxious and disruptive ticket holders at University of Wisconsin athletic events took a step toward becoming reality Wednesday afternoon.
The UW Athletic Board’s facilities committee unanimously approved a new athletic department policy that will revoke season tickets from anyone who engages in unruly or illegal conduct at UW events.
In addition, the policy will hold season-ticket holders responsible not only for their own conduct but the conduct of all others who use their tickets to gain admission to athletic events.
The state’s contracting process is sound, but officials could boost public trust in it by increasing transparency, according to an independent review released Thursday. The reviews was conducted by Mark Bugher, director of University Research Park and former administration secretary.
The maximum amount of state financial aid available to students in the University of Wisconsin System, Wisconsin Technical College System and Tribal Colleges increased from $2,500 to $3,000 under a bill signed Thursday by Gov. Jim Doyle. (Third item)
All students who have not had their mumps shots updated prior to attending college are urged to get a shot, and the Milwaukee Health Department is recommending that all colleges and universities in the metro area set up special mumps vaccination clinics.
Nearly 3,000 Wisconsin students have been denied financial aid for college under a federal law that remains controversial even as it undergoes reform.
The law prohibits people who have been convicted of selling or possessing drugs from receiving Pell Grants and other forms of federal financial aid. Since 2000, it has been used to refuse assistance to more than 189,000 needy students, including 2,897 in Wisconsin, according to a state-by-state breakdown released for the first time by the U.S. Department of Education.
Rumor du jour: Former UW-Madison chancellor Donna Shalala is being mentioned as a possible replacement for outgoing Harvard president Larry Summers. The possibility was discussed recently on the irreverent political Web site wonkette.com, which mentioned that Condoleezza Rice is also in the mix. …
Akiya Alexander was granted a request to transfer by the University of Wisconsin women’s basketball team and will join NCAA Division II Southern Indiana next season.
The 5-foot-9 sophomore point guard from Evanston, Ill., was academically ineligible during the second semester of the 2005-06 season. Alexander averaged 4.4 points and 17.3 minutes per game and had one start in 13 games with the Badgers.
Alexander informed UW coach Lisa Stone of her intentions on Wednesday and the compliance office approved the request today.
Global warming is putting the planet in crisis, and most people have little solid knowledge about it, says a group of UW-Madison professors.
They are trying to change that by banding together Saturday, which is Earth Day, to hold a five-hour teach-in to educate the public on what needs to be done to solve the problems global warming causes.
Other off-campus groups also face loss of rent, utility money
A Catholic group serving University of Wisconsin-Madison students cannot receive student government funding for religious activities, Chancellor John Wiley has declared.
And if it does not become a registered student organization by next fall, it will not be eligible for any funds.
If the chancellor’s cut stands, it would overrule a decision by the UW Student Judiciary, and possibly send the matter into litigation.
You could hardly ask for a better textbook example of mishandling a personnel issue than the way the UW top brass treated Paul Barrows. The entire story reeks of conflict of interest. The university used unsubstantiated claims to ruin Barrows’ reputation and spent more time covering its derriere than it did on properly investigating Barrows.
William K. Johnston, who began his newspaper career 33 years ago in Madison, is returning as publisher of the Wisconsin State Journal.
Johnston, currently publisher of the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star and regional executive for Lee publishing operations in Nebraska, begins his new duties May 22, succeeding James W. Hopson, who announced in March that he will retire at the end of the year.
Johnston has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in social work from UW-Madison.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and Madison Area Technical College announced a new agreement today that will allow MATC students to follow a path that will guarantee them transfer admission to UW-Madison.
Although many MATC students already transfer to UW-Madison, the path can often be confusing, with questions about which credits are transferable, said UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley. The new plan tells the students exactly which courses they need at MATC to satisfy basic requirements at UW-Madison, Wiley said this morning at a news conference at the MATC downtown campus.
DALE CHIHULY, the celebrated glass artist whose sprawling sculpture, “Mendota Wall,” helped open the Kohl Center in 1997, is having some tough times.
The good news, according to a lengthy front page story in Monday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is that Chihuly, 64, is working through his problems, which include lawsuits, feuds and depression.
The bad news is the story in the Seattle paper included this paragraph: “Chihuly didn’t start the studio glass movement. Harvey Littleton did in the 1960s in Madison, Wis. But Littleton’s work never went anywhere, and Chihuly’s made the studio glass movement catch fire.”
When Anne Lambert arrived at the University of Wisconsin’s Elvehjem Museum of Art in the fall of 1975, it had been open for just four years and had about 2,000 works in its permanent collection.
Today, the museum, renamed the Chazen Museum of Art last year, has about 18,000 works of art.
It is up to Lambert, the museum’s longtime curator of education, to help the public appreciate those works of art, which run from the ancient world to contemporary society and which cross many cultures.
A team of UW-Madison MBA students placed first in the annual Center for International Business Education and Research MBA International Business Case Competition, held here earlier this month. MBA student teams from across the globe took part.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Gov. Jim Doyle named a University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh student on Tuesday as the first nontraditional student member of the UW System Board of Regents.
….The governor said Thomas Shields of Oshkosh would be the first to join the board under a law he signed in December requiring a student over age 24 to represent the views of nontraditional students on the board.
The other new members are Jeffrey Bartell, a Madison lawyer who served as a Wisconsin assistant attorney general and the state securities commissioner; Brent Smith, a La Crosse lawyer who is president of the Wisconsin Technical College System board; and Mary Quinnette Cuene, an instructor at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay.
Off-stage, Tommy Thompson gave Donna Shalala a polite kiss on the cheek Monday, then took his seat, stage right, and she took hers stage left.
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The seating arrangement left them separated by party, ideology and a moderator: Democrat John Breaux, the former senator from Louisiana.
The two former Health and Human Services secretaries met as part of a discussion series dubbed “Ceasefire on Health Care,” sponsored by American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies with a grant from drug giant Pfizer Inc.
The University of Phoenix is opening a new Madison campus as the anchor tenant of a new 69,500-square-foot building at 2310 Crossroads Drive on the far east side.
The new site gives Phoenix the capacity to educate 700 students per week. It will offer 42 programs, including various online courses.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison ranked fifth among American universities in the number of patents it was awarded in 2005, up from eighth in 2004, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has announced.
He’s a Republican. She’s a Democrat. Tommy G. Thompson and Donna E. Shalala, the last two previous U.S. health and human services secretaries, left top jobs in Wisconsin to take the post. He was state’s longest-serving governor (1987-2001), she was University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor (1987-1993). Today Thompson is with a law firm and a consulting firm and serves on a host of corporate boards. Shalala is president of the University of Miami. (Second to last item)
On Monday, they’ll trade ideas as part of the “Ceasefire on Health Care” series of public discussions.
“Everything you need to know about a culture can be found in its rubbish pit,” Patricia (Sara Phillips) tells artist Jonathan Waxman (Josh Aaron McCabe) in the University Theatre’s production of “Sight Unseen,” which opened Friday to a half-full Mitchell Theater on the University of Wisconsin campus.
It’s a message that resonates both physically and metaphorically throughout the troupe’s vibrant production of Donald Margulies’ play.
….Although much of the red-sweater crowd was glued to the TV during the Badgers’ thrilling, 2-1 win over Boston College in last Saturday’s NCAA Frozen Four title game, it’s somewhat surprising to learn how few nationally took the time to tune in.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the BC-UW game had a national television rating of just 0.5 – which means there were approximately 746,000 viewers.
Granted, three-quarters of a million people is nothing to sneeze at. But as a comparison, the April 3 NCAA men’s basketball final on CBS had an 8.2 rating – which translates to 13.1 million viewers.
When Bob Rennebohm traveled to Fort Atkinson last April to pay his final respects to longtime friend and former University of Wisconsin teammate Fred Negus, it was clear age had taken its toll.
Rennebohm, 82 at the time, moved hesitantly, spoke softly and appeared almost fragile. On Saturday, Rennebohm passed away at his home in Madison. He was 83.
Transport 2020 meeting set
Planning for future transportation needs in Dane County and Madison is going into high gear.
Transport 2020, the long-range study jointly sponsored by Madison, Dane County and the state, will concentrate on refining its initial recommendation over the next 16 months, hoping to come up with a final recommendation in summer 2007.
More than a dozen governors made appearances last week at Bio 2006. But states now chase molecular biologists the way they once chased smokestacks. And biotechnology’s progress and its potential has states and countries’ scrambling to establish themselves as centers – or at least participants – in what is considered the industry of the future.
Joseph Kearney, dean of Marquette University Law School, is adamant: His school is on the rise.
Sit down with the animated, ruddy-faced native of Chicago’s south side and he’ll point to numerous signs of success. So it was with much frustration that Kearney received this spring’s edition of the controversial yet influential U.S. News & World Report college rankings, in which Marquette’s law school dropped from the second to third tier.
This year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison tied Fordham University for 32nd, which placed it in the top tier.
Attorney Lester Pines has a message for members of the state Legislature.”Until you know what you’re talking about, keep your mouth shut,” said Pines.
He was referring Friday to pressure from lawmakers last summer for Chancellor John Wiley to fire Pines’ client, former vice chancellor Paul Barrows.
Wiley didn’t fire Barrows, but he did cut Barrows’ pay by about $120,000. After an investigation, Provost Peter Spear reprimanded Barrows for allegedly sexually harassing two women. On Friday, the Academic Staff Appeals Committee voted 5-0 to say Spear lacked just cause for disciplining Barrows.
Robbie Earl called it “pretty much a disaster” when he fell to the sixth round of the 2004 NHL entry draft. Today, the teams that kept passing on the speedy winger that weekend almost two years ago might be thinking the same thing about their decisions.
Earl told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif., he would sign today with the Toronto Maple Leafs and forgo his senior season with the University of Wisconsin.
Prison is the last place a grown man wants to be seen crying. So Christopher Ochoa often wept alone in his cell, asking God how this could have happened to him.
Ochoa, 39, missed the 1990s while spending more than a decade in prison as punishment for a brutal rape and murder he didn’t commit.
Ochoa likely will cry publicly next month when he is handed his law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School. The commencement address he gives won’t intimidate him because he has grown accustomed to giving speeches.
An appeals panel this morning repudiated a sexual harassment reprimand against Paul Barrows, saying the University of Wisconsin-Madison administration failed to provide just cause for its discipline.
The committee voted 5-0 that Peter Spear, who retired as provost in October, failed to meet all seven tests of just cause in punishing the former vice chancellor for student affairs. The tests included whether there was a fair investigation, whether the university offered proof of offense, and whether the penalty was reasonable.
Junior winger Robbie Earl, who last week helped the University of Wisconsin win its sixth NCAA men’s hockey championship and was named most outstanding player in the Frozen Four, is mulling a contract offer from the Toronto Maple Leafs and could turn pro within days.
With many students and part-timers working at his company’s restaurants, Brian Zach expected a lot of employees borrowing at high interest rates to get at their tax refunds this spring.
“We didn’t want people going out getting loans against their tax refunds,” said Zach, human resources administrator for Food Fight Inc., a Madison company with nine Madison-area restaurants. To help the workers get their full refunds – and more – Zach contacted the Center on Business and Poverty.
The center, part of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, brought trained volunteers to Food Fight and helped workers prepare and file their taxes. Those who qualified also got earned income tax credits, which can be as high as $4,400 for low-income workers with two children.
Four days after guiding the Wisconsin men’s hockey team to the NCAA championship, Mike Eaves was named head coach of the U.S. national team by USA Hockey.
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Eaves will coach the United States at the International Ice Hockey Federation Men’s World Championship from May 5-21 in Riga, Latvia.
State Rep. Frank Lasee says he has submitted more than 50 questions to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau about the Taxpayer Protection Amendment approved by the Assembly Ways and Means Committee on a 7-6 vote Wednesday. Although we disagree with Lasee over whether the state needs such an amendment in the first place – he thinks the state does; we remain unconvinced – we think he’s exactly right to raise the questions.
As to the amendment on the table now, even supporters should shy away. As Lasee argues, it is too complex, too long and currently lacks sufficient input from the public and legislators. Every one of Lasee’s questions deserves an answer from the fiscal bureau. That will take time. But it is time that needs to be taken lest we risk amending the constitution in a way that will harm rather than help citizens.
A constitutional amendment that would limit state and local government limped out of a state Assembly committee Wednesday, although it was unclear whether it would pass the full Legislature and eventually go to voters.
The price of natural gas is expected to remain both volatile and high for years, making it all the more urgent for businesses and homeowners to take steps to reduce their usage, energy experts said Wednesday.
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“High energy prices are not temporary, they are the new reality,” said Dan York, senior research associate with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, during a forum sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Public Utility Institute. “Midwest states must plan accordingly.”
“We need our own Jerry Frautschi. We need our own Morgridges,” Adam Smith, director of development for Porchlight Inc. said today.
Smith was invoking the brand of generosity that brought millions from Frautschi and his wife, Pleasant Rowland, for the development of the Overture Center for the Arts, and provided seed money for the newly planned Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery from UW-Madison alums John and Tashia Morgridge.
Smith was talking about the infusion of new funding that will be needed to fulfill an ambitious plan to end homelessness in Dane County by 2015.
Dear Editor: Your April 7 article on the family medicine clinical practice at UW Health Research Park reported that the clinic may be closing. This gives readers, some of whom are our patients, the impression that we are discontinuing the services. This is not true, and we regret any concern this has caused.
USA Hockey is turning to one of its most successful coaches, and Mike Eaves has a chance to win a second major championship in a span of less than two months.
Eaves, the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey coach who won the national championship last Saturday, was tabbed today as the head coach for Team USA at the IIHF World Championships next month in Riga, Latvia. There, he’ll try to bring that tournament’s gold medal stateside for the first time in non-Olympic competition since 1933.
UW-Madison moved up to fifth last year from eighth in 2004 in the rankings of universities or university systems with the most intellectual property activity, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced.
UW-Madison was awarded 77 patents in 2005, up from 64 in 2004 and the most in the Big Ten.
State Republican lawmakers have introduced another draft of their plan to amend the Wisconsin Constitution to limit how much money governments can raise, in hopes of garnering votes within their own party.
The latest version of the plan, nicknamed the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, includes rules that could limit public employees’ salaries, prevent transferring money from one state fund to another and set up a statewide cap on school district revenue.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison attorney told an appeals panel that the university has a solid case against Paul Barrows.
Nancy Lynch implored the Academic Staff Appeals Committee to uphold former Provost Peter Spear’s September reprimand of Barrows for sexual harassment against two women, which Barrows is appealing. Lynch also said Spear was right to require Barrows to swap 92 hours of sick time for vacation time.The committee heard closing arguments on Tuesday afternoon.
The five-member panel is expected to announce its decision on Friday and back it up with a written statement in May.
There were a few shrugs, a few approving smiles and even one “Uh, dude, that isn’t exactly a revelation.”
But not one of the 12 UW-Madison students I interviewed Monday at the Memorial Union expressed even mild surprise at the news that, according to the current issue of Playboy magazine, Wisconsin is the No. 1 party school in the country.
California’s $3-billion stem cell program has encountered repeated setbacks since it was approved by voters 17 months ago. Now it faces an entirely new and potentially even more worrisome challenge arising from two powerful patents ââ?¬â? patents No. 5,843,780 and No. 6,200,806, to be exact ââ?¬â? which cover all human embryonic stem cells and the method by which they’re made.
Patents are supposed to stimulate innovation. That’s why they exist. But it appears that these two patents, held by a foundation affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, may exert a dangerous monopoly over all future research in the field ââ?¬â? one that may pose an even greater long-term threat to stem cell science than the Bush administration’s federal funding ban.
The Wisconsin men’s basketball team will travel to Italy for an exhibition tour Aug. 17-27. The tour will feature five games against Italian pro teams in Rome, Florence and Lake Como.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison enjoys a national reputation as top-flight. Yet it falls short in one vital area – racial diversity – which is giving recruiters pause. In fact, as the Journal Sentinel’s Megan Twohey recently reported, the problem has prompted some leading companies to cross Madison off their list of must recruiting stops.
Wisconsin investors stepped up to grow their own, putting at least $50 million into young companies in 2005, according to a report that will be released today at the biotechnology industry’s annual conference.
The state fell short, however, of a goal developed five years ago of having $200 million in annual venture capital funding. In fact, Wisconsin’s venture capital ranking dropped to 35th in 2005 from 26th in 2004, according to the study, called “Risk Capital in Wisconsin: A Progress Report.”
In other news, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery will encourage collaboration with researchers from other centers in the state such as the Medical College of Wisconsin and Marshfield Clinic, said Elizabeth L.R. Donley, general counsel at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
Thumbs up to University of Wisconsin alumni John and Tashia Morgridge, for their generosity to their alma mater. The Morgridges donated $50 million to the university to help build two research centers. Their money, along with $50 million from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, will help build the first phase of the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery. According to the UW, there will be a private center and a public center, both devoted to scientific and medical research. The donation from the Morgridges ââ?¬â? John is the board chairman of Cisco Systems ââ?¬â? is the largest in school history.
It’s not one of the big players, but Wisconsin has big biotech dreams.
Armed with a budget that’s nearly three times bigger than last year’s and its largest delegation ever to the 14-year-old event, Wisconsin will begin marketing its growing biotech effort today to a global audience of more than 17,000 in Chicago at BIO 2006, the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s annual conference.
University of Wisconsin System regents on Friday fired a professor convicted of sending naked pictures of himself to a detective posing as a 14-year-old boy. (Last item in Regional Briefs)
To ensure he savored every moment of Wisconsin’s sixth NCAA men’s hockey championship, Mike Eaves didn’t leave the Bradley Center ice until he looked into the eyes of each of his players and shared an intimate bond outsiders can’t truly understand.
Quoted: Norman Fost, a pediatrician and medical ethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Donald Downs, professor of political science, law and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Steve Meili.
Growing up in Tuskegee, Ala., Ninrat Datiri dreamed of becoming an inventor. He attended high school at the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile. When it came time to pick a college, he chose the University of Wisconsin-Madison for its engineering program.
“I’ve had a great experience here,” said the 21-year-old African-American senior. “It’s going to be hard to say goodbye.”
If only UW-Madison could find more students like Datiri.
Celebrate National Landscape Architecture Month, now through April 14, with a visit to the displays in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda.
You’ll find award-winning projects by the Wisconsin Chapter of Landscape Architects, works by University of Wisconsin Landscape Architecture Extension, UW senior capstone projects and historic plans by landscape architects on the formation of Madison.
