Proponents of a merger between University of Wisconsin campuses kept up the pressure Tuesday as a state task force prepared its first progress report on the hotly debated concept.
Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas and the Waukesha County Action Network both released statements urging state officials to combine the UW campuses in Milwaukee and Waukesha.
Dan Brunner would have understood if incoming University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema had been a no-show at the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association all-state banquet this past weekend inside the Lambeau Field atrium.
….Bielema, who officially will take over as the UW’s coach on Wednesday, was the guest speaker at the banquet, which included all-state honorees and their families, in addition to coaches from around the state.
“He’s got such enthusiasm and energy, it was almost like it didn’t matter what he was saying,” Brunner said. “I think it was just the energy that he was exhibiting that they picked up on. That’s the way you want your players to be – energetic and positive – and I think that’s just what he portrayed when he talked to the kids (Sunday).”
Bill Clinton told an audience of corporate executives and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this weekend that climate change is the world’s biggest problem. But a researcher who studies global warming here said the former president overstates the case.
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” said Stephen Vavrus, an associate scientist at the UW-Madison Center for Climatic Research. “There are so many problems that exist and will exist regardless of climate change.”
….Vavrus, 38, meanwhile, calls global climate change an “overarching environmental issue” of the century. “It ranks among the top few, if not the most important one,” Vavrus said, noting that problems of disease, economic inequality and toxic waste also loom large.
….If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 44 years in this business, the quickest way to spread disinformation, gossip and rumors is for public institutions to hold secrets, a fact too often ignored by the otherwise publicity-seeking UW Athletic Department.
Dear Editor: A recent article in The Capital Times (Jan. 16) highlights important links between Mexico and the dairy farmers of Wisconsin and other states. Your readers may like to know what their university is doing to maximize the benefits of these links….
Kenneth H. Shapiro
Associate dean and professor
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
UW-Madison
Within just a few years of Christopher Columbus’ journey to the New World, West African slaves appeared in the Western Hemisphere. And researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Autonomous University of the Yucatan, in Merida, Mexico, may have found one of the earliest gravesites of these unwilling travelers.
In a Yucatan church graveyard, dated between 1550 and the late 1600s – around the time of Shakespeare – four bodies of African origin have been discovered. Their racial identity was confirmed by dental chemistry and appearance.
AMHERST, Mass. – No more drinking games at the University of Massachusetts. The school is cracking down on alcohol abuse on the Amherst campus with a list of new rules that go into effect this semester.
Along with banning games meant to get players drunk as quickly as possible, the rules include prohibitions on taps and funnels and large gatherings where more than 10 people are in a dormitory room with alcohol.
Academics from across the country met at the University of Wisconsin-Madison over the weekend to discuss whether public funding of campaigns could remove the influence of special interests from politics.
But the only thing the scholars seemed to agree on was that it is nearly impossible to measure the influence that campaign contributions have.
Wisconsin earned a gold star in the latest rankings from the Corporation for Enterprise Development, landing on its honor roll after being graded in 68 measures of economic vitality and quality of life.
Economist David J. Ward aid the investment measures should improve as networks of angel investors and venture capitalists expand. He also said the state is getting better in transferring ideas from the university laboratory to businesses, where the rankings placed the state 36th.
The gap between Wisconsin’s most successful and least successful high schools is growing, and economics and race are the factors that match up most closely with the gap, a new study concludes.
Gov. Jim Doyle canceled a controversial contract with Adelman Travel on Monday, overruling aides who had insisted that the contract did not need to be dumped after a state employee was indicted on allegations of steering business to the company.
In addition to canceling the deal, Doyle announced that Mark Bugher, a former secretary of the Department of Administration for former Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson and director of the UW Research Park, will review the agency’s bidding and contracting process to ensure that decisions about state work are “insulated” from political considerations.
Tailback Booker Stanley appears to have played his final game for Wisconsin.
UW coach Bret Bielema hinted at the departure of Stanley, who has been suspended from the team since his arrest on Dec. 21, during comments the coach made Friday to the UW Athletic Board.
A week ago, Gov. Jim Doyle left on what he hoped would be a trip that could only help his image in an election year, as he met with troops in Iraq and surveyed earthquake relief efforts in Pakistan.
But by Tuesday, the dream trip organized by the federal government had become a nightmare. Hours after news organizations got pictures of him dining with Wisconsin soldiers in Iraq, U.S. prosecutors indicted a member of his administration on charges of manipulating her scores in a bidding process so a state travel contract would go to Adelman Travel.
Quoted: Rick Nordheim, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
New findings on chronic wasting disease only add emphasis to points that the state Department of Natural Resources (and we) have made before: Don’t eat meat from an infected deer. All animals killed in an area where the disease has been found should be tested.
In November, researchers at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and the University of Wisconsin-Madison said they had found that the disease could infect squirrel monkeys, a member of the same biological order as humans.
At last, a key missing piece of Milwaukee’s school voucher program – an evaluation – may fall into place. No, the circumstances are not ideal. The main drawback is lack of state sponsorship, due to Gov. Jim Doyle’s refusal to cooperate. But a research institute has stepped forward, offering to tap foundations to fund the study – the second-best way to go. The team also includes John Witte, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who conducted evaluations in the early years of the program, before its expansion into religious schools.
When it comes to credit card marketing, companies are dangling everything from free T-shirts to video rental discounts to nab new young consumers.
College students and recent graduates are often the targets of such offers, receiving pre-approved card offers in the mail, on the Internet and at booths on campus.
Quoted: Donald A. Nichols, professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Gov. Jim Doyle left open the possibility Friday that he could return donations from two Adelman Travel executives who each gave the maximum $10,000 to his campaign.
Opponents of legislation that would let phone companies avoid local franchising when they offer TV services in Wisconsin gathered today to bring attention to the issue.
Bills that would let phone companies franchise on a state or federal level have been introduced in Congress and several states, but not yet in Wisconsin, where time is running out on the 2006 legislative session, which ends in March.
However, “We’re expecting one,” said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications who advises many communities in their dealings with cable companies.
The relationship between doctors and medical suppliers is often tainted by money, said ethicists from around the region.
A New York Times report this week noted that a University of Wisconsin surgeon received $400,000 per year for consulting with a medical device company.
Also this week, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article pointing to health industry practices that create conflicts of interest. The authors called for more stringent regulation of small gifts, drug samples, and payments for speeches, research contracts, and attending seminars.
Norman Fost, a UW-Madison professor of bioethics, said the case highlighted in the New York Times might make one think such an arrangement is unusual.
….Mohammed Abed, a graduate student and lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it is untrue that Hamas has refused to negotiate with Israel or recognize the Jewish state.
“The leadership of Hamas has been willing to go for a negotiated settlement, at least one that will end hostilities, for 20 or 30 years,” said Abed, who is a member of Students for Alternative Palestinian Agenda.
He also disputed the notion that Hamas derives its power from violence.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison panel told a high-profile back surgeon in 1998 to drastically scale back a $400,000-per-year consulting arrangement with a medical device designer, a Graduate School official said.
But the arrangement continued for about six years before the panel told him in 2004 to make the change.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Medtronic, a Minnesota company that makes spinal implant equipment, had an arrangement with Dr. Thomas Zdeblick, chairman of the department of orthopedics at UW Hospital. The 10-year deal included $400,000 in pay for two days of consulting work every three months, the Times reported.
Susan Crowley, project director of PACE (Policy, Alternatives, Community and Education) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, identified some overall drinking trends among students.
An annual UW alcohol survey found the binge drinking rate to be 66 percent. The national average is 44 percent. Binge drinking is defined as four drinks in one sitting for a female and five for a male.
Meanwhile, admissions to detox so far this year have been twice as high as for the same period last year, 30 compared to 14. The good news was that students who reported five or more problems as a result of drinking fell from 30 percent in 1999 to 25 percent in 2005.
Madison has a drinking problem. There’s no doubt about that.
And much like a loved one with an addiction, everyone sort of tiptoes around it, not quite sure what to do.
Well, Thursday night a group of downtown residents met with Madison police and city and UW-Madison representatives and discussed whether an intervention is necessary.
University of Wisconsin’s women’s hockey coach Mark Johnson, unassuming in appearance, slipped through the courtside patrons at halftime of Wednesday’s Big Ten men’s basketball game between Penn State and the Badgers at the Kohl Center. Johnson, understated by nature, was the interview subject of the ESPN Regional television crew. Or, rather, his No. 1 ranked women’s team was. And the recognition was a sign of growth for his program and the sport.
Although three players who started the season on the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team have been declared academically ineligible to play this semester, the director of the athletic department’s academic services does not believe that points to any breakdowns within his group.
Coach Bo Ryan is equally confident in how he and his staff handle academic issues even though sophomore Greg Stiemsma, redshirt freshman DeAaron Williams and freshman Marcus Landry became the program’s first academic casualties in 11 seasons.
First in a three-part series that takes a look at the principles on which new University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema will base his program, the lifestyle adjustments he had been made since being promoted and the challenges he faces as successor to the winningest coach in school history, Barry Alvarez.
Quoted: Judd Aiken, a UW prion disease researcher.
Quoted: Kurt Squire, an assistant professor of educational communication and technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
A first-ever effort to make electricity from hydrogen is generating power in Madison, using a sophisticated chemical process with a little help from a four-cylinder Ford engine.
The renewable energy system, developed by Virent Energy Systems, a Madison-based energy start-up, began sending electricity to the power grid in late December, said Virent Chief Executive Eric Apfelbach.
Virent is a start-up firm founded by Randy Cortright after he and other scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison invented a chemical process for converting the sugar contained in corn plants into hydrogen.
Wisconsin boasts the fourth most equal distribution of family income in the country, but it’s still seeing wider disparity between the rich and the poor – and the middle, according to research released Thursday.
The wealthiest fifth of Wisconsin families had a 48.2% income boost in the last two decades, compared with a 14.3% increase for the poorest fifth and a 23.4% raise for the middle, according to a report from the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Gabriela Cezar left a great job at Pfizer Inc. and took a pay cut to join the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s not like I didn’t have the opportunity to go to the coasts,” said Cezar, a 33-year-old, Brazilian-born scientist who uses stem cells to test drugs and study diseases.
Cezar chose Madison because she sees so much potential for the biotech industry in Wisconsin.
The gap between rich and poor in Wisconsin is widening while income growth for all state residents continues to lag the rest of the nation.
A report released today by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families showed that real incomes for the upper fifth of families in the state have grown 48 percent to $110,653 since the early 1980s. That compares to a 59 percent increase nationally over the same 20-year period.
But at the other end of the spectrum, the bottom fifth of Wisconsin families experienced just a 14 percent income growth over the past two decades. That compares to a 19 percent increase nationally.
….The Center on Wisconsin Strategy is a research and policy institute based at UW-Madison dedicated to improving economic performance and living standards in the state.
Rapid population growth and higher per person consumption create a dangerous bottleneck that threatens biodiversity, emeritus Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson warned a rapt Madison audience Wednesday night.
The one hope for easing the bottleneck is that as women’s liberation spreads across the globe and women gain control of their reproductive lives, the world’s birth rate will eventually go down, Wilson said during a Distinguished Lecture Series presentation to a nearly full house in the Wisconsin Union Theater.
Beneficiaries of deceased state workers in the Wisconsin Retirement System are not entitled to collect the increase in value on retirement accounts between the time of the death of the worker and application for a lump sum payment from the system, the state Supreme Court ruled today in a case involving a Madison widow.
….The case involved Mary Fazio, the widow of longtime University of Wisconsin Professor Anthony Fazio, who died on Jan. 2, 1999.
Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor is encouraging the public to demand a greater investment in higher education.
Barbara Lawton, a Democrat, is in Washington, D.C., today to give the keynote address to about 1,200 people at the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ annual meeting.
She plans to announce that Wisconsin will be a pilot project state for the Liberal Education and America’s Promise campaign. It is a drive for public awareness about the value of a higher education at a time when states are spending less on their colleges and universities.
….Herbert Lewis, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, made the discovery and selected 65 chronicles that give a picture of Oneida Indian life from the 1880s through World War I and the Great Depression, to the beginning of World War II.
These histories are edited by Lewis in a new book, “Oneida Lives: Long-Lost Voices of the Wisconsin Oneidas” (University of Nebraska Press, 2005; paperback, $29.95).
The original study was conducted through the UW.
Greg Stiemsma put an end to speculation about his possible return to the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team this season when he issued a statement Wednesday saying he was academically ineligible to compete with the team this semester.
Stiemsma, a 6-foot-11 sophomore center, said in the statement that he was dealing with depression. He said that affected his grades and caused him to take a leave of absence from the team starting last Wednesday.
If you had to pick one week to designate as “Mozart Week in Madison,” this would have to be it. It is centered around Jan. 27, the actual 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, which falls on Friday.
Curiously no Mozart concert is taking place that particular night. Still, this week there will be no shortage of Mozart in Madison:
ââ?¬Â¢ Tonight at 7:30 in Mills Hall, eight faculty members of the University of Wisconsin School of Music will join in various ensembles to perform some lesser known chamber music. (One wonders: Wouldn’t a weekend booking have brought in a bigger audience?)
I used to think that there were two things you never discussed in mixed company — politics and religion.
It appears now that there’s a third taboo subject — science. I had always been under the impression that science was not open for debate, that facts are facts. Right?
Well, not so fast. The Republicans have decided that facts are only facts if they help the GOP political cause. And if they go against those tendencies, either political or religious, then those facts can be disregarded as “junk science.”
According to the federal grand jury indictment of Georgia Thompson, the state Department of Administration employee who has been charged with felony counts of misapplication of funds and fraud in connection with the awarding of a state travel contract, Thompson abused her position of public trust by allowing “political considerations” to influence her actions.
Thompson’s trial will, we hope, bring out the details of those “political considerations.”
…the governor should put himself in the forefront of those seeking a precise and thorough explanation of the “political considerations” that are mentioned in the indictment.
Quoted: UW-Madison fleet program manager Jim Bogan.
Malee Lee stressed out last fall about which colleges to consider, and how to weigh their pluses and minuses.
Now, the Menasha High School senior is in a panic, thinking maybe that was the easy part of her college search.
“What if I can’t afford the one I want? What if I have to get a college loan? I haven’t thought that far ahead,” she said.
Scientists have solved the genetic puzzle of how influenza A viruses ââ?¬â? including the H5N1 bird flu ââ?¬â? replicate inside cells, which could help to speed up the development of new drugs to avert a pandemic.
“We’ve found that the influenza virus has a specific mechanism that permits it to package its genetic materials,” said Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka, of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, who headed the research team.
The short-handed Wisconsin Badgers have lost yet another player to academic shortcomings.
Greg Stiemsma, a 6-foot-11 sophomore center, is academically ineligible and will not play for the rest of the season. He can practice with the team but cannot travel. The Randolph native attributed his academic struggles to a mental condition.
After a year of debate about merging University of Wisconsin campuses in Milwaukee and Waukesha, a task force is preparing to issue its first report analyzing the complex and sometimes emotional issue.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiago on Thursday will launch an uphill effort to win new state taxpayer funds for a $300 million effort to transform the school into a major 21st century research institution.
The manner in which the influenza virus packages its cell-invading missiles, called virions, is highly selective and not random, as many virologists had previously thought.
The new insights, reported Thursday in the journal Nature by a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison and international researchers, may enable scientists to speed up the development of medicines and vaccines to thwart the virus and prevent its spread.
Gov. Jim Doyle distanced himself Wednesday from an indicted state administrator, saying he’d never met the woman federal prosecutors say manipulated a bid process to award a state travel contract to a firm whose executives contributed to the governor’s re-election campaign. Article also qutoes UW-Madison political scientist Katherine Cramer Walsh.
A federal grand jury indicted a Doyle administration employee Tuesday on two felony counts for her role in awarding a travel contract to a company whose executives donated $20,000 to the governor, saying she wanted to “cause political advantage for her supervisors.”
The indictment alleges Georgia Thompson, who was hired in the previous Republican administration and serves as chief of the Department of Administration’s procurement bureau, was also trying to help her own job security.
But the indictment does not mention anyone else, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office cautioned in a release that the indictment applies only to Thompson and does not allege wrongdoing by any others.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley acted lawfully when he forced a former top aide to step down and use sick leave during an absence in which he looked for other jobs, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge John Shabaz dismissed a lawsuit claiming Wiley violated the due process rights of Paul Barrows when he made him use his own assets to cover a nearly eight-month absence.
The ruling is the latest development in a messy personnel case that has embarrassed UW-Madison, the state’s 40,000-student flagship university. The case already has led to a series of personnel reforms, a reprimand against Wiley and a torrent of criticism from state lawmakers and Gov. Jim Doyle.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has shed light on how a flu virus copies itself into other cells.
That knowledge could be important in developing and mass-producing vaccines more quickly, which could be important in the event of a pandemic, the researcher said.
The discovery, made by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine professor, was reported in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.
It doesn’t take much: A single note can turn a major key into a minor key, or vice versa.
These days, Baoli Liu, the head piano tuner at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is hoping to hear the one note that could turn his sad story into a happy one.
A native of mainland China, Liu first came to the United States sponsored by the Chinese government and received a U.S. visa that required him to return to his homeland for two years if he ever chose to stay and apply for green card. That day has arrived, but with a Catch-22: Going home to keep his job will mean losing his job.
Badger basketball fans on a budget may need to skip that box of popcorn next season.
An increase of $2 per game for men’s basketball tickets is part of a proposed budget that was unveiled Tuesday at a UW Athletic Board finance committee meeting. Student tickets for men’s hockey will also hike by $1 per game, but no other ticket increases were proposed.
….John Jentz, UW assistant athletic director for finance, did not rule out the possibility of additional ticket hikes making their way into the budget in the next month. He did say they were unlikely though, even as the athletic department tries to erase a $1.37 million shortfall in the preliminary 2006-07 budget.
It’s standard operating procedure for the head coach to meet with the team at the start of the second semester. But, for the first time in 16 years, a different voice was addressing the Badger players. “I don’t want any surprises,” Bielema told them. “You guys understand what we’re going to do and where we need to be, and I expect the (right) attitude to be there when we get there.”
….Last week, two UW redshirt freshmen, Antonio Freeman and Jameson Davis, were pulled over for speeding and arrested after marijuana was found in the car. Both have been suspended from the team for violating the school’s student-athlete discipline policy.
“One of the things that has to be a mainstay is consistency in discipline to make sure there is an understanding and everybody is on the same page,” said Bielema, who brought the incident to the attention of everyone in the room just in case somebody wasn’t aware of the consequences: the subsequent publicity, media scrutiny and the ramifications to the program.
Growth in high-tech exports is happening faster in Wisconsin than in other Midwestern states, a report tracking the state’s economic progress says.
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Of Wisconsin’s $12.7 billion in total exports in 2004, about $2.6 billion, or nearly 21%, were high-tech products and services, according to the report “Business, Finance & Entrepreneurship in Wisconsin: Shaping the New Wisconsin Economy
Fans who attend University of Wisconsin men’s basketball games at the Kohl Center probably will pay more to see the Badgers play next season.
UW officials on Tuesday included a $2 increase in a preliminary 2006-’07 budget projection for the UW Athletic Department. That budget projection was presented to UW’s Finance Committee, which is to vote on the proposed increase and the overall budget at its Feb. 21 meeting.
Season tickets cost $22 for 100- and 200-level seats and $20 for 300-level seats. Single-game tickets cost $24 for 100- and 200-level seats and $22 for 300-level seats.
In addition, UW officials proposed a $1 increase for men’s hockey tickets for students, to $9 per game.
The state Assembly on Tuesday approved a bill that would provide an income and franchise tax credit to businesses that pay tuition costs for their employees.
A state Department of Administration official was indicted Tuesday on felony fraud charges in connection with a state travel contract valued at $750,000.
Georgia Thompson, 55, a purchasing division supervisor with the state Department of Administration, has been charged with two federal felonies: causing misapplication of funds and participating in a scheme to defraud the State of Wisconsin of the right to honest services.
