A federal trial is scheduled next week involving major makers of scientific equipment, the University of Wisconsin and an entrepreneur, all over who can profit from a device most people know from high school chemistry.
At stake is millions of dollars in U.S. sales of the adjustable pipette, the syringe-like instrument that researchers around the world use to measure and transfer liquids from one container to another.
Rob Carpick says he thought he might persuade state lawmakers to allow the University of Wisconsin to begin offering domestic partner benefits on the basis of simple economics.
So Carpick, who is gay, wrote the co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget committee earlier this month to explain that he’s brought in more than $2.5 million in research grants during the five years he’s been an assistant professor of engineering at the UW-Madison.
(Carpick) says the finance committee’s action – a 13-3 vote Monday against the proposal – came as a slap in the face.
Any gym rat would jump at the chance to play basketball on a continual basis throughout the summer. But to be able to travel to many spots on the globe while doing that is an added bonus for Jolene Anderson.
The University of Wisconsin sophomore-to-be was selected as a finalist to the Under-19 World Championship women’s basketball team Sunday after a four-day tryout in Colorado Springs, Colo.
MEDFORD – Gena Lynn Cooper, 22, of Mukwonago, was selected Friday night as Wisconsin’s 58th Alice in Dairyland over five other finalists.
Cooper graduated this month from UW-Madison with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry.
FBI director Robert Mueller mentions that Wisconsin’s vibrancy and universities could make the state a terrorist target.
The Precollege Scholarship Program will be expanded to serve more students from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as Iris, but race will no longer be a criterion. The decision to change the program came last year as the result of a reverse-discrimination complaint that will affect students coming into the program as of July 1. The program’s shift has met differing views. Some believe the change will reduce the number of minority students who get a chance at a college education, while others say the fight for equal rights is no longer based on race, but class.
Using remarkably efficient cloning techniques, South Korean researchers have created the first lines of embryonic stem cells customized to specific patients, a major advance that could accelerate the long-awaited dream of using genetically matched healthy cells to replace human cells and tissues damaged by disease and injury. Quotes Norm Fost, a medical ethicist and professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Terry Gawlik has been promoted to associate athletic director at the University of Wisconsin, where she has worked for the last 11 years, including the last eight as an assistant athletic director.
Gawlik also will assume senior woman administrator duties as part of a shuffling in the senior staff at the department that addresses the departure of longtime senior associate athletic director Cheryl Bailey, whose resignation is effective Aug. 31.
Dr. Elizabeth Pritts, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Teresa Woods, director of cancer psychology at the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center, are quoted.
Concern over recurring Halloween violence has led to a proposal to give Mayor Dave Cieslewicz greater power to shut down downtown businesses during “a state of emergency.”
In the next few weeks, the Madison City Attorney’s Office plans to send out letters to more than 50 downtown bar and restaurant owners informing them that in the event of such an emergency, the city will have authority to evacuate customers.
A conservative lawmaker (Rep. Steve Nass) is denouncing University of Wisconsin President Kevin Reilly for urging the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to avoid further cuts in the university’s 2005-2007 budget.
In a letter Wednesday to the committee, Reilly said there are elements in the proposed state budget that would help the university, but added “there are also several aspects that are already challenging us, such as having to cut at least 200 jobs and the lack of funding for a competitive pay plan, which is seriously affecting our ability to recruit.”
Jim Weinert, a prominent entrepreneur and philanthropist, and Bob Pricer, a longtime teacher of entrepreneurship, were inducted into the UW-Madison Business School’s Entrepreneur Hall of Fame at the eighth annual celebration of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship.
Legislative leaders voted Wednesday to accept pro bono legal services from a group linked to evangelical Christians to represent the Legislature in opposition to a lawsuit that aims to force the state to provide employment benefits to domestic partners of state workers.
For the second budget in a row, lawmakers have rejected Gov. Jim Doyle’s bid to balance the state’s books by diverting money from a fund that pays medical malpractice claims.
But members of the Joint Finance Committee warned Wisconsin’s doctors that they might not be able to parry another “raid” on the Patients Compensation Fund in the future, and urged physicians to consider privatizing the program.
The University of Wisconsin was one of four Big Ten Conference teams selected to participate in the 12-team field for the NCAA women’s rowing championships May 27-29 in Rancho Cordova, Calif.
The Badgers made the NCAA field for the second straight year, joining Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State, and will send two varsity eight boats and one varsity four.
The UW-Madison School of Business was ranked 15th in the U.S. and 26th in the world in the Financial Times’ annual list of top executive education providers for the fourth consecutive year.
Last year, UW was rated 17th in the U.S. and 32nd in the world. In 2003, UW was rated 17th in the U.S. and 34th in the world.
A UW-Madison student was charged Monday with breaking into a physics professor’s office on three occasions to steal exams.
Nicholas Z. Hanson, 22, faces three counts of burglary in the failed Dec. 17 theft from a Sterling Hall office, as well as two earlier burglaries during which he allegedly took exams from the same office.
The state should get another $126.4 million in revenue over the next two years, thanks to an unexpected increase in tax collections that lawmakers can use to whittle away at a $1.6 billion deficit.
New revenue estimates from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau and economic forecasts by Global Insight Inc. show the state will collect $349 million in taxes it didn’t foresee. But shortfalls in several state agencies and programs will draw that down to a net gain of $126.4 million, the fiscal bureau said.
BEN SCHUMAKER was helping out in an orphanage in Guatemala when he had the conversation that changed his life.
This was 18 months or so ago, and Schumaker, 23, had just graduated from UW-Madison with a psychology degree. He found out that a month in a Central American orphanage can affect your psyche every bit as much as four years on a college campus.
The University of Wisconsin has added Temple to its 2005 football schedule to fill the vacancy created last month when UW officials let Western Michigan out of its contract, a source confirmed Monday.
With experience on both campuses, the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha’s interim dean is setting out to negotiate a compromise with those aiming for a UW-Milwaukee takeover of its suburban neighbor.
As legislators begin to decide how much they can spend on schools and health care, a report Monday said the state’s rebounding economy will net an additional $349 million in taxes by mid-2007.
Dear Editor: I respect the grief Sarah Stellner’s parents are going through (Rob Zaleski’s column) but I need to address some of the things mentioned in the article.
Sarah’s mother, Cindy, says: “We knew she was partying, of course, because 95 percent of the college kids in Madison do that.” The false perception that everyone is doing it has been found to actually promote heavy and binge drinking among college students, and campaigns to correct this misperception have actually led to reduced drinking, as noted in your newspaper in a 2003 article. The truth is that most people and students vastly overestimate the amount of risky drinking going on and so promote more risky drinking.
Early this morning, 40 professors, administrators and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison boarded a bus on campus and embarked on a weeklong discovery of what makes Wisconsin special.
The Wisconsin Idea Seminar bus tour rolled off for its 21st year of providing new faculty and staff (and a few longtime faculty who come along) with a heightened appreciation of the unique and ongoing experiment known as the Wisconsin Idea.
…to say that the Badgers didn’t offer up some drama Sunday in dominating the final day of the meet would be a severe misstatement. In fact, there were plenty of thrilling pieces to what became a runaway, 63-point victory over runner-up Indiana that secured the their second straight Triple Crown – a sweep of the cross country, indoor and outdoor track titles.
For the first time in program history, the University of Wisconsin softball team will host an NCAA regional.
The Badgers, who earned their third berth to the 64-team NCAA tournament field but first since 2002, will host DePaul on Friday at 5 p.m. to open a double-elimination regional at Goodman Diamond.
The cash-starved Wisconsin Historical Society has $1.1 million more in its endowment fund than officials thought was there.
The state Legislative Audit Bureau said this week that an audit identified an error in the society’s internal accounting records.
The Historical Society which has suffered severe cuts in its budget in recent years because of a state fiscal crisis – relies on donations and endowment fund earnings to finance many activities such as managing historic sites and operating the library and museum.
Jian Yang stood with his wife and their friends early Friday evening in front of the Kohl Center, proudly wearing the cap and gown of a University of Wisconsin-Madison Ph.D. candidate, about to get his doctorate in civil and environmental engineering.
“This is one very important day,” the 28-year-old from China said, ready to join hundreds of other graduate students inside the Kohl Center for the 152nd commencement of the state’s largest university Friday night.
More than even the graduates, the Wisconsin Idea took center stage Sunday in graduation ceremonies at UW-Madison.
The Wisconsin Idea is the tradition-steeped notion that the boundaries of the university extend to the boundaries of the state and beyond – that the University of Wisconsin has a duty to share its knowledge to make the state a better place.
Ed Nuttycombe figured that his University of Wisconsin men’s team had a good chance to repeat as Big Ten track and field champion. But he never dreamed the Badgers would dominate in the fashion they displayed Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, as they finished with a meet-record 174 points and six individual titles.
Lawmakers seeking reform of Wisconsin’s higher education system hope to reach out to Minnesota in a first-of-its-kind interstate alliance aimed at improving service and efficiency.
Parts of Wisconsin’s Capitol go on sale Saturday. SWAP — Surplus With A Purpose — sold surplus fixtures from the state Capitol.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has dropped an adviser from his proposed Taser experiment on pigs after a newspaper reported the adviser was a paid consultant for the company that makes the stun guns.
USA Today reported that the experiment protocol listed Robert A. Stratbucker as a consultant. It did not list that Stratbucker, an Omaha, Neb., physician, also is a medical consultant for Taser International.
The UW Police Department is joining forces with Special Olympics to recycle cell phones, many of which can be refurbished and resold. The phones can be dropped off at the department’s headquarters, 1429 Monroe St., 24-7 through Jan. 31, 2006. A “Recycle for Special Olympics” box will be located in the lobby.
Special Olympics will receive a minimum of $1 to a maximum of more than $100 for every cell phone collected.
The University of Wisconsin has streamlined its summer fundraising efforts with the introduction of “Badger Days,” a series of four regional events at which donors, alumni and fans will have the chance to mingle with almost all of the Badgers’ head coaches and participate in a silent auction and raffle.
A taste of success creates a desire for more success. A bump in pay brings more expectations. That’s the scenario for University of Wisconsin men’s hockey coach Mike Eaves, who has experienced the former and should soon take in the latter.
Eaves is expected to get a pay raise sometime soon – the UW Athletic Board could give its approval at its meeting Friday – that would put him among the highest-paid coaches in college hockey. He said Wednesday a reported $250,000 salary figure wasn’t accurate, but there’s little doubt the pay bump from his original contract will be sizeable.
Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of continuing studies who advises many communities in their franchise negotiations, is quoted.
A deal appears to be in the works to straighten out the troubled downtown music venue Luther’s Blues, but there is confusion about who is currently running the show.
“We want to improve the tarnished image of the place. It is definitely tarnished,” said Michael Loveless, who lives in Seattle, Wash., and is calling himself one of the new owners.
Employees walked out, creditors say they went unpaid, and the phone lines were disconnected for a time.
It wasn’t long ago that Luther’s was the darling of the local club scene. It opened in late 2000, just a few months before the fire that destroyed O’Cayz Corral, and rose to prominence as one of a handful of live downtown music venues.
A change of operators appears to be in the works for the club at 1401 University Ave., and a power struggle has ensued. How it plays out remains to be seen, and the straight story is elusive.
Pig tails are often docked to prevent biting, according to Peter Bahnson, assistant professor of swine medicine with the University of Wisconsin Veterinary School.
“It’s poor for the pig’s health if they chew on its tail,” he said. “It’s not well understood what starts tail biting, but once they get started, they continue more frequently.” Bitten tails are painful and can become infected, Bahnson said.
Forget those visions of peacefully feeding dairy cows with tails gracefully swishing through the air. Those tails are most likely docked – leaving a stump instead of a swisher.
“It is relatively common in Wisconsin dairy herds,” said Dr. Ken Nordlund, a clinical professor in the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine.
“Probably the primary reason is convenience. The tail is a tail, and as milkers work around the udder, the cows flip the tail and it is like getting swatted in the face with a flyswatter.”
That’s the reason farmers started docking tails, but modern milking parlors have removed that potential problem, said Bill Endres, a Waunakee dairy farmer. Tail docking is now regarded as a way to keep cows clean and – consequently – comfortable, he said.
….Whatever happened to the days of honoring public service, not just private wealth? (I half seriously joke with friends that if you have enough money to buy a public building, you’re not being taxed enough.) Will the UW now sell naming rights to Bascom Hall and Bascom Hill, to Vilas Hall and Witte Hall, to Helen C. White Hall and the La Follette Institute? Why not, if the state deficit gets big enough and state funding small enough?
… let the museum and me know what you think, pro or con, and I will publish the results and pass them on to the museum.
Dear Editor: I’m writing in response to Barbara Golden’s letter on a perceived racist motive behind the publishing of a article about a UW athlete getting into trouble.
I, like many people in the area, believe that racism is a problem. You can see it in many aspects of our daily lives. However, I find it totally insane that someone would think that there was any racist thought in the publishing of the article about Booker Stanley’s arrest. Change the color of the young man’s skin and you would get the exact same amount of coverage. Any UW athlete, much less a prominent football player, would be treated in the same way.
As I see President Bush traveling about the country telling us of Social Security’s impending bankruptcy and describing, although not precisely, what he wants to do about it, I wonder what my teacher, Wisconsin’s own Ed Witte, would have to say….
(David B. Johnson, emeritus professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studied under Edwin E. Witte as a graduate student.)
Wauwatosa East coach George Haas believes his player, Jerry Smith, is confused — and it has led to an epidemic of confusion.
As the star guard attempts to decide where he wants to play college basketball, the plot thickens regarding the last available scholarship for the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball program’s 2006-07 freshman class.
University of Wisconsin freshman Jolene Anderson has been invited to participate in the USA Basketball women’s national team trials next week in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Anderson, the Big Ten freshman of the year, is one of 57 players invited to the four-day tryouts starting May 19.
“I HAVE an idea for next year’s Mifflin Street block party that may help end the ceaseless cycle of drinking and fines, and news stories about drinking and fines, that drives everyone around here batty this time of year.
What the Mifflin Street party needs is something for the residents and visitors to focus on besides getting drunk.”
It has taken all of two weeks, but Cindy and Duane Stellner have finally accepted that their 20-year-old daughter, Sarah, is dead. What they haven’t come to terms with is the probable cause of death: a heroin overdose.
“We knew she was partying, of course, because 95 percent of the college kids in Madison do that,” Cindy Stellner said in a phone interview from the family’s home in Gays Mills, a small farm community about 15 miles east of the Mississippi River in southwestern Wisconsin.
But heroin?
Campaign contributions can’t fix the University of Wisconsin’s credibility problem, said the chairman of a legislative higher education panel.
….Rep. Robin Kreibich, R-Eau Claire, pointed to a state audit released last week that revealed the UW System provides $700-a-month automobile stipends to its chancellors. That’s a lot of money, Kreibich said. The audit shows the UW still is unaware of its greatest liability, he said.
“Their problems go much deeper than political involvement. There’s no amount of contributions that will spare them the wrath of the Legislature when it comes to incidents like this,” said Kreibich, who is chairman of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities.
Police today said the cost of staffing the April 30 Mifflin Street block party exceeded $99,000. Police Chief Noble Wray said the cost was in line with expectations.
The tally, however, “does not reflect the numerous hours spent planning by our command staff,” he said. “For an event like this to occur and to ensure the safety of all involved, it takes a copious amount of resources to plan, manage and execute.”
What’s important is not who you are now, but who you want to become. Combine that message with the fact that cancer is a big motivator for wanting to take positive action to prevent a recurrence and you’ve got a topic for an interesting discussion about health.
Facilitating the body’s resiliency will be discussed during a presentation on “Life After Chemotherapy,” which will be part of the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center’s annual Cancer Hope, Cancer Health Week this week.
….According to news reports, there were more than 300 citations issued during that weekend, with more being planned. Also, anyone observing video coverage could see that whites greatly outnumbered blacks and other people of color during the party. Then why is it that the face of “misbehavior” at the block party is black and that of a UW athlete? Is there some other agenda at work here? I ask the question for rhetorical purposes only, because I strongly believe the answer is yes.
Robert Mandel is stepping down as director of the University of Wisconsin Press, effective May 26.
Susan Cook will serve as interim director while the UW-Madison Graduate School conducts a national search for Mandel’s replacement. In the meantime, Mandel will spend a year as a special consultant to the Graduate School.
Mandel said that budget cuts had forced the press to scale back the number of publications. He said that at the time he was hired five years ago, the Graduate School had decided to expand the press.
MUSKEGO, Wis. (AP) – A University of Wisconsin-Madison sophomore was critically injured after crashing during a bicycle race in an accident similar to one in which he was badly hurt a year ago.
Matt Wittig, 20, of Mequon, was breaking away from the pack in a Wisconsin Cup race in Muskego County Park when his right foot slipped out of the pedal, his right knee hit the handle bars and he was flung over the bars onto the pavement, said Hans Higdon, the event’s organizer.
Dear Editor: Surprise, surprise, another Badger football player caught behaving badly. This individual receives a full-boat scholarship to attend a top-notch university, and chooses to represent the school that gives him this fabulous opportunity by beating the living daylights out of someone. What was Booker Stanley’s high school GPA, I wonder….
A couple who graduated from Marquette University in the 1950s donated $28 million to their alma mater, while one of the co-founders of Liz Claiborne Inc. and his wife gave the University of Wisconsin-Madison $20 million, school officials announced Friday.
The University of Wisconsinââ?¬â??Madison and Elvehjem Museum of Art announced a $20-million gift from alumni Simona and Jerome A. Chazen to fund a major expansion of the museum. To commemorate the gift, the university said that effective immediately, the name of the museum will become the Chazen Museum of Art. The Elvehjem name, however, will live on ââ?¬â?the present facility will retain its dedication and will be called the Conrad A. Elvehjem Building.
I’ve been thinking about all the different things we could do with the UW Colleges, the 13 different two-year campuses scattered around the state. We could:
� Turn them into combination Elderhostel/assisted living facilities, to accommodate the aging boomer population.
� Partner them with minimum security prisons, since the funding is more assured in corrections.
� Turn them over to Illinois, Michigan, Indiana or Minnesota if those states do a better job of granting baccalaureate degrees to their citizens.
A three-day, 39-hour radio telethon on Z104 raised $400,428 for the University of Wisconsin Children’s Hospital.
“We are blown away,” David Berry, vice president of UW Children’s Hospital, said Friday night. Berry said it was estimated the radiothon might bring in about half of that.
A New York couple has donated $20 million to expand the Elvehjem Museum of Art, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison has renamed the facility in their honor.
With the donation from Simona and Jerome Chazen, the university hopes to finish the expansion project by 2009. The museum is now named the Chazen Museum of Art.
