…The repugnant discrimination represented by the state’s “reserving benefits” for (presumably) straight, married employees is the “real issue.”
Michael Olneck: UW policy means unmarried earn less
Capital Times
Author: jnweaver
Todd Milewski: Lambeau game a leap for Wisconsin hockey
Capital Times
GREEN BAY – It takes a special event to elicit chills more than eight months ahead of its occurrence.
Special is precisely what everyone involved hopes the Frozen Tundra Hockey Classic will be. And with the formal announcement Wednesday of the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey game at Lambeau Field, there’s one more thing for college hockey fans to look forward to in the state next season.
Christian group wants in on partner case (AP)
Capital Times
An Arizona-based Christian group that provides legal help to fight same-sex marriage and similar causes asked Wednesday that the Wisconsin Legislature be made a co-defendant in a lawsuit seeking benefits for gay partners of state workers.
Six lesbian workers in the University of Wisconsin System and the Corrections and Transportation departments filed the lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court in April. The American Civil Liberties Union is backing them.
Parkside student is newest UW regent (AP)
Capital Times
Gov. Jim Doyle appointed a University of Wisconsin-Parkside English major as the newest student representative on the UW System Board of Regents Wednesday.
Christopher Semenas will replace Beth Richlen, a UW-Madison law student, according to Doyle’s office. Her term expired in May.
Semenas, of Rosendale, is the first student regent appointed from UW-Parkside, Doyle said. He’s a fourth-year student, majoring in English and history.
Stem cell expansion supported by UW scientist, urges senators to back bill
Capital Times
WASHINGTON – At the Senate’s first hearing Wednesday on a bill that would expand embryonic stem cell research, Dr. Su-Chun Zhang of the University of Wisconsin-Madison spoke in support of the measure, saying the United States was first to conduct breakthrough research on embryonic stem cells and shouldn’t be left behind.
“We Americans actually led the world by first establishing this human embryonic stem cell work. We should not be left out,” Zhang told the Senate Aging Committee. “The senators won’t let us down in leading the world in this area of promising research, which includes saving lives for all Americans.”
Zhang is a colleague of Dr. James Thomson, noted for founding the field of stem cell research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Mike Lucas: Tegen’s successes easy to translate
Capital Times
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is probably at the top of Peter Tegen’s list of greatest composers of classical music; Viennese classical division. Not that you would find Tegen listening to “The Marriage of Figaro” overture in his headset while running.
“I never put a headset on and run,” he said. That’s because Tegen, the former University of Wisconsin women’s track and cross country coach, has something else in mind. “I love to think when I run,” he explained. “I do a lot of thinking, a lot of reviewing.”
Given his many triumphs as a coach-educator, a Tegen review session might be endless.
….Tegen retired last summer. But he has since filed an an age-discrimination lawsuit against the UW. Has there been any reconciliation whatsoever on his part?
“No, not really,” said Tegen, volunteering that he had just returned Tuesday afternoon from a hearing on his case.
Alzheimer’s drug firm takes top state award
Capital Times
Mithridion Inc., a Fitchburg-based company that is developing drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, has won the second annual Governor’s Business Plan Contest.
Mithridion, the top-scoring plan in the Life Sciences category, will receive $20,000 in cash and a year’s free rent at 525 Science Drive in University Research Park – an $80,000 value.
The firm’s co-founders are Jeff Johnson, an associate professor in the UW-Madison Pharmaceutical Sciences Division, and Trevor Twose, company CEO.
Margaret Krome: New UW dean must engage high complexity of ag school
Capital Times
The University of Wisconsin’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is in the process of choosing a new dean. Its outcome will signal much about the university’s intentions for rural Wisconsin.
….The university recognizes that agriculture is more than a $51 billion industry in the state. It affects cultural, recreational, community and consumer values statewide. The next dean must commit to engage that complexity, not instead of biotechnology, but along with it. He or she must lead in listening to farmers, landowners, consumers and others and bring together teams across academic disciplines to address these diverse needs. That is the course of continued relevance for the UW-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Labor department awards UW $1.37 million
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded the University of Wisconsin System $1.37 million to boost its university nursing programs and efforts to recruit and train health care educators. [Fourth item]
Manufacturers put time on their side
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Coverage of a conference sponsored by the Center for Quick Response Manufacturing, which is part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Quick-response manufacturing emphasizes reducing lead time throughout the entire production process, from design and purchasing to the manufacturing floor and deliveries.
Private Industry Council cuts 34 from staff as federal grant ends
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Mentions a report last summer by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed a statewide decline in federal funding for workers, a slide that preceded the economic slowdown and budget deficits.
Drug developer among governor’s award winners
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A Fitchburg company that is developing drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease will get one year of free office space in University Research Park, valued at $80,000, and $20,000 in cash as the top finisher in the Governor’s Business Plan Contest. Mithridion Inc., formed in November 2004, is developing drugs based on discoveries at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a protein in the brain that appears to halt the progression of Alzheimer’s. Trevor Twose, Mithridion’s chief executive officer, and Jeff Johnson, an associate professor in pharmaceutical sciences at UW-Madison, co-founded the company.
UW men’s hockey: Game at Lambeau Field finalized
Capital Times
One of the worst-kept secrets surrounding the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team’s 2005-06 schedule will be revealed Wednesday.
The school has called a news conference at Lambeau Field a Feb. 11 game at the historic home of the Green Bay Packers. The Badgers will play Ohio State in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game.
Ed Garvey: Battle for state’s soul is a fight for UW
Capital Times
Friends are in a daze. No one can believe the great University of Wisconsin, our finest institution and the glue holding this state together, is in real danger of becoming a second-tier university. They know the reality – as goes the university, so goes Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin, known throughout the world for research, innovation, academic freedom and a world view of education, was described in the 1919 autobiography of Bob La Follette, former governor and U.S. senator. He wrote: “It is difficult, indeed, to overestimate the part which the university has played in the Wisconsin revolution – a sense that somehow the state and the university were intimately related, and that they should be of mutual service.”
…without a champion fighting for the university in the governor’s office, all is in danger of being lost. The governor and the lobbyists’ Legislature are now playing chicken with our children’s futures. “I can cut more than you can” is the game. And, of course, the mantra of “I will not raise taxes” rises above the din of fundraising.
Stem cell ethics vary from abortion debate (AP)
The State (South Carolina)
At first glance, the nation’s emotional debate over stem cell research seems a mere rerun of the unending dispute over abortion. Both involve the questions about protecting the development of human life, after all.
But there are important moral and religious distinctions between the two issues, and some groups that oppose abortion are not offended by stem cell experiments — even though they necessarily destory human embryos.
Madison Sports Hall of Fame: Tegen, Kolpin, Sheild, Collins in class
Capital Times
The Madison Sports Hall of Fame will induct four new members in ceremonies tonight at Monona Terrace, among them former Wisconsin women’s cross-country and track and field coach Peter Tegen.
Several others will be honored as well, including former Badger basketball star Mike Wilkinson as Area Sportsperson of the Year.
AG: Denying partner benefits not breach of state Constitution (AP)
Capital Times
The state’s refusal to grant domestic partner benefits to its employees does not violate the Wisconsin Constitution, the attorney general argued in urging a Dane County judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging the decision.Six state employees filed suit in April claiming a state law excluding gay partners of state employees from health benefits violates the constitution’s equal rights protection clause, which guarantees equal treatment for people in similar situations.
In a brief filed late Friday, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager denied the plaintiffs’ claim and pointed out a state appeals court rejected similar arguments in a 1992 decision.
Editorial: Are they dismantling UW?
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
At a time when there is broad recognition that universities can be the engine that drives communities to higher economic gains, the Joint Finance Committee cut $11 million that was to create 120 faculty positions and added $25 million to the $65 million in cuts already proposed in Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget, though it did leave in $2.5 million to bolster salaries of high-achiever faculty members in danger of being hired away.
This makes no sense. The state has a $1.6 billion budget deficit in large part because the Wisconsin economy has not gained steam and produced expected tax revenue. So the committee’s response is to further lessen its investment in one of the best instruments available to produce more college graduates to energize the economy and pay higher taxes.
Editorial: GOP hacks at higher ed
Capital Times
Gov. Jim Doyle has not exactly been generous with the University of Wisconsin System. His first budget cut$250 million from the UW System’s allowance in just two years, Now, with his current budget, Doyle has sought an additional $65 million in cuts over the next two years.
The cuts hurt: Students have already been forced to pay out $100 million in tuition increases, and they face the prospect of being tapped again.
But, with his current budget, Doyle sought to limit the harm.
State workers face layoffs, jobs as LTEs
Capital Times
The state’s labor department plans to lay off 11 permanent workers and offer them the chance to stay as limited term employees (LTE) without benefits.
That’s a sharp change from the past practice of laying off limited-term employees first, and union officials don’t think it’s a very good idea, to put it mildly. They contend that this is simply a way of meeting Gov. Jim Doyle’s campaign promise to cut 10,000 state employees in eight years, because permanent employees count as state workers but LTEs do not.
The union leaders also allege that the new procedure threatens the state’s civil service system.
Gary A. Brown: W’s grand days will come again
Capital Times
…Here on campus we are trying to establish “neighborhoods of design.” We know we’ve lost the ability to have one style of architecture on campus. Who would want all our buildings to look the same, anyway? It would be downright boring.
But if we can have neighborhoods of buildings that use the same types of materials, have similar massing, scale, roofing systems and window patterns, maybe we can bring the campus together better on a more human scale….
UW-led team advances tiny tech
Capital Times
A UW-led team of international researchers has found a way to get extremely small materials to assemble themselves into patterns for use in electronic circuits.
The finding is important because electronics must be built on an ever-smaller scale, especially if they are to be used in the rapidly growing field of super-small nanotechnology.
The team, led by UW-Madison Prof. Paul Nealey, reported today in the journal Science that it can show how to create complex patterns vital in the production of nanoelectronics.
“Rock Star”: Three cheers for Humanities
Capital Times
As far as I can tell I’m possibly the only person in town willing to step up to the plate and say that I like the Mosse Humanities Building.
Can I explain why I like it? Possibly it’s for the same reasons that I like the CUNA complex. Possibly it’s because of good memories associated with my 20 years of experience in and around the building.
Is it reminiscent of a prison? Yes, the classrooms are like prison cells and all the concrete forces those inside to feel the cold reality of the world deep in their bones.
Biomass fuel advance at UW
Capital Times
A UW-Madison team has taken another step forward in producing power from biomass such as cornstalks.
Corpse flower set to bloom (AP)
Capital Times
“Big Bucky” is back.
The rare, big and extremely stinky flower that caused a sensation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when it last bloomed in 2001 could become the world’s largest flower when it blooms again next week.
The titan arum stood at 6 feet 4 inches Thursday in a UW-Madison greenhouse, on pace to rival the world record for cultivated flowers when it blooms and releases its trademark roadkill scent in the coming days.
Group pushes stem cell limits
Capital Times
Computer camp: Tech-minded kids pass up great outdoors (AP)
Capital Times
With the summer camp season fast approaching, kids across the country will be stocking up on hiking shoes, bug spray and other necessities for adventures in the great outdoors. Thousands of others, however, will be enjoying adventures of the indoor variety: creating video games, building robots and designing Web pages.
Computer camp, as it was known to an earlier generation, just isn’t what it used to be. With the booming growth of video games, the Internet and digital media, technology-minded kids have an enormous variety of things to learn at technology camps, which are often taught on the campuses of major universities.
UW System needs cure, not Band-Aid
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
I am virtually certain that most people in Wisconsin are tired of hearing about the state’s continuing budget deficit and wish fervently that the seemingly endless complaints of state agency heads, teachers, local government and others about the destructive consequences of declining state support would simply go away.
UW leader wants Doyle to veto merger deadline
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
One day after a key legislative panel approved merging college campuses in Milwaukee and Waukesha, the University of Wisconsin System’s top administrator said Thursday that he opposes a major element of the plan.
Cloning big possibilities
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A cloning product that David A. Mead developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is generating about $40 million of annual revenue for California-based Invitrogen Corp.
Limits sought for stem cell research
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A contingent of the Legislature’s budget committee said Thursday it was putting together a package to ban the use of state resources for embryonic stem cell research. Democartic Gov. Jim Doyle said he would veto the Republican provision if it was included in the budget. “If you talk about moving us backwards, that’s about the most backwards we could move,” Doyle said in a news conference at UW-Madison.
Mayor weighs in on ‘Madison style’
Capital Times
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz believes he sees the future of Madison architecture in five buildings.
The mayor said readers’ lists made him realize he “left out a lot of great buildings” the first time around. They included the UW Lakeshore Dorms and the UW Field House.
“The Memorial Union was on my list but I think people vote for it more for what they’ve done in the building than the building itself. It’s kind of like sex – it’s all close-ups and parts.”
UW site helps make science fun
Capital Times
Still trying to make sense of stem cells and cloning?
Log on to The Why? Files, www.whyfiles.org, a Web-based magazine featuring a news-you-can-use approach to science, math and technology information.
The site, around since 1996 when the Internet was in its infancy, was highlighted in PC Magazine this spring as one of its top 100 sites. It’s the second time the site produced at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has earned the distinction.
Medical College, UW med school join forces
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin Medical School have crafted an agreement to make it easier for their researchers to collaborate and for the schools to market their intellectual property together.
UW’s Ryan adds son to his staff
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
In filling one position on his staff, University of Wisconsin basketball coach Bo Ryan opened another. The Badgers coach announced Monday the hiring of his son, Will, as the Badgers’ director of basketball operations. Will Ryan, who played for his father at UW-Milwaukee and UW-Platteville, spent the past two seasons as Wisconsin’s video coordinator.
Cuts in UW budget to hit Madison hard
Capital Times
The newest Republican cut in the University of Wisconsin budget will cost the Madison campus about $9 million, according to Madison Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell.
“That will be a difficult challenge for us to manage,” Bazzell said in a Capital Times interview.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley lamented that the school is a victim of a lack of will by lawmakers and the governor to dig deep to come up with long-term solutions to fund the state’s needs, including higher education.
DNA doesn’t match woman convicted in 1991 murders
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
DNA evidence from the 1991 murders of two elderly sisters in Kewaunee County does not match the DNA of the woman convicted of the slayings, lawyers in the case said Wednesday. The new test results could signal another victory for the UW Law School’s Wisconsin Innocence Project, which is seeking a retrial for Beth LaBatte, who is serving a life sentence for the murders of Ann and Ceil Cadigan.
Students are likely to bear brunt of UW cuts
Capital Times
University of Wisconsin students will most likely have to pick up the tab for an extra $40.3 million in state funding cuts approved Wednesday by Republican lawmakers.
Lawmakers cut UW spending
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Legislature’s budget-writing panel Wednesday voted to cut more than $45 million from the University of Wisconsin System and student aid spending plans that were proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle, reducing suggested increases in aid and rejecting a cap on tuition increases.
Editorial: Illegal immigrants’ children shouldn’t be political pawns
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Illegal immigrant students in college will not burden the state budget greatly. Like immigrant students of the past, they repay this country in dividends of creativity, economic vitality and hard work.
The Morning Mail: Letters on stem cell research
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Three writers express their views.
Common drugs are seeping into our lakes, fish and water supply
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
It was barely a drop, but the effect of the drug was astonishing. Pointing to a digital recording of fathead minnows gasping for breath in a milky, murky stew, researcher Rebecca Klaper said: “We had planned to keep them in there for a week, but we had to pull them the next day. They were going to die.” Refers to UW-Madison research by Stanley Dodson and Joel Pedersen.
Opinion: Embryo destruction bill advances the culture of death
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Back in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has become a leading center for research where human embryos are destroyed to harvest their body parts, namely their stem cells. Not only does UW-Madison engage in this lethal research, it has vigorously lobbied at the federal level to force taxpayers to fund it. An op-ed piece by the legislative affairs director of Pro-Life Wisconsin.
Wisconsin lawmaker would cut Legislature to save money
Duluth News
A Wisconsin lawmaker isn’t winning any friends in the Legislature with his proposal to save money by cutting the body nearly in half. “This is the only time I’ve asked for co-sponsors on a bill and didn’t get any,” veteran state Rep. Spencer Black, a Madison Democrat, said as his proposal went before a committee Thursday.
It would reduce the state Assembly from 99 seats to 57 and the state Senate from 33 seats to 19. Black estimates it would save about $10 million a year that could be used to boost student aids at the University of Wisconsin System or save other programs threatened by the current state budget crisis.
The promise of stem cells
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The significance of the House vote this week to allow federal research on stem cells taken from discarded human embryos was perhaps best illustrated by Rep. James Langevin of Rhode Island. He cast his vote from a wheelchair.
Panel debates curbs on ‘morning-after’ pill
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A state lawmaker said Thursday the Legislature needs to send a message of disapproval to the University of Wisconsin System after a school clinic urged students to get advance prescriptions for emergency contraception before leaving on spring break. (Fourth item)
New UW System regents named
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Michael J. Spector of Shorewood and Judith VanderMeulen Crain of Green Bay have been named University of Wisconsin System regents, the governor’s office announced Thursday.
Chemical linked to abnormalities in boys
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: Tim Osswald, professor and co-director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Polymer Engineering Center.
Abortions in state lowest in 30 years
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Biomedical alliance may get state funds
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A fledgling organization that wants to provide early-stage capital to high-tech start-ups and eventually spur development of a new research park could get $2.5 million in the next state budget. The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee has recommended funneling the money to the Biomedical Technology Alliance, which is seeking to forge various high-tech research efforts in the area into a stronger, more collaborative undertaking. Joining in the effort are the Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
‘Youth quake’ led voter surge
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Turnout among young Wisconsin voters in last fall’s presidential election was second highest in the nation, with nearly two-thirds casting ballots, a census report released Thursday says. Quotes Jennifer Knox, a UW-Maadison junior who led Vote 2004.
Plan to lower tuition for illegals criticized in ads (AP)
The battle over immigration issues is heating up in Wisconsin as lawmakers consider a proposal to let illegal immigrants who graduate from state high schools pay in-state tuition to attend public colleges.
Give mayor, police power to close bars
Capital Times
Judy Ettenhofer: Wisconsin Idea trip shows passion in state, for state
Capital Times
Assessing their weeklong trip around Wisconsin last week, new faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison kept choosing the same word: passion.
They found it in the farmers and businesspeople and teachers they met across the state. But they also felt it in the history of Wisconsin and in their fellow faculty members – the phenomenal Bill Cronon, a font of knowledge about the state’s history and geology, and the incomparable Ada Deer, a lifelong fighter for American Indian rights – who revealed that history to them while they rode on the bus from stop to stop.
…Tagging along on the trip, I witnessed why the UW-Madison has earned its reputation as a top university. The handful of faculty and staff I met from the sprawling campus astounded me with their devotion to research, their deep curiosity and their dedication, ultimately, to making this world a better place.
Forbes’ criteria change hits Madison
Capital Times
A change in Forbes magazine’s criteria for selecting its seventh annual “Best Places for Business and Careers” helped push Madison from the top spot last year to No. 10 this year.
Forbes this year replaced doctoral degrees per capita with engineers as one of the nine statistical measures it uses in ranking the 150 largest U.S. metro areas. Madison was No. 1 in the former, but is just No. 50 in the latter.
Baldwin hails House stem cell vote
Capital Times
WASHINGTON – Madison researchers and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin hailed the passage by the House of Representatives of two bills that would relax restrictions on stem cell research.
After more than six hours of debate, the House voted Tuesday to pass two stem cell bills allowing federal funding for researchers to explore umbilical cord cells and extending embryonic stem cell research beyond limits imposed by the Bush administration.
A bipartisan group of senators is pushing the Senate leadership to take up the bills, but President Bush has vowed to veto the kind of bills that passed Tuesday.
Animal rights activist pleads not guilty to terror charges
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
An animal rights activist pleaded not guilty Tuesday to domestic terrorism charges that he freed mink from Midwestern farms in 1997, causing thousands of dollars in damage and spreading fear among the nation’s fur farmers.
Wisconsin vote splits on party lines
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Fifty Republicans joined a heavy majority of Democrats in passing a House bill Tuesday that would allow federal funding to support research using new lines of embryonic stem cells.
Editorial: Nass is out of line on UW
Capital Times
State Rep. Steve Nass, R-Palmyra, has made it his mission to be the Legislature’s attack dog against higher education.
The bombastic Republican never misses a chance to pick on the University of Wisconsin-Madison and other campuses in the UW System. For the most part, everyone recognizes that Nass is just chasing headlines, and his outbursts are treated accordingly. But every once in a while, he gets out of line.
That’s what happened last week when Nass denounced UW President Kevin Reilly for urging the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to avoid further cuts in the system’s 2005-2007 budget.
Russell Panczenko: Museum name change doesn’t dishonor Elvehjem
Capital Times
It is most unfortunate that this commentary did not appear in The Capital Times sooner. I submitted it to the paper via e-mail on Friday, May 13, the day after Jacob Stockinger’s article appeared on the renaming of the Elvehjem Museum, thinking it important that the public have all the facts. Evidently, the dog ate it. I guess these things happen, and I do accept Dave Zweifel’s e-mail apology.
There is no question that Conrad A. Elvehjem was a great biochemist, a respected member of the UW faculty, an outstanding administrator, and, together with his wife Connie, well loved in the Madison community.
And thus it is very appropriate that a building on campus be dedicated in his honor the same way as many buildings are named for distinguished faculty members, deans and administrators. However, there is no particular reason for an art museum to be named for him.