Laura Schaefer, a romantic with an appreciation for history, has found near-perfect work. She writes history textbooks and standardized tests for Learning Express and other publishers. She writes 500-word advice columns for Match.com, an online dating site.
The 25-year-old (a UW-Madison communication arts grad) also has found a way to combine these passions: She has researched the history of personal ads and written a book that compiles some of the most distinctive to ever be written.
Leaders from business, government, non-profits and education are aiming to grow Dane County’s economy while preserving and advancing the quality of life here by working together in the Collaboration Council.
(Chancellor John Wiley is quoted in this story.)
While most of us can’t seem to function with less than seven hours of sleep, some people seem just fine with three or four. The difference, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is genetic.
A new west campus student union will be created and UW-Madison’s McClimon Track and Soccer Complex will be moved north to accommodate medical research buildings under a final master plan, university officials announced at a news conference today.
“….Assembly Bill 361 would raise the minimum retirement age to 59 from age 55.
“Don’t bother negotiating contracts, refuse to provide wage increases commensurate with inflation, and rub that mixture in the faces of municipal employees by telling them that they have to take it for an extra 4 years….”
Don Chatfield, Madison
“….Restricting stem cell research to existing lines will send the message that Wisconsin does not care about lifesaving research and is not interested in retaining its place as a leader in bioscience. It will weaken our efforts to retain a highly educated work force and discourage the best students and scientists from coming here.
“As a registered nurse, I firmly believe in pursuing the promise this research holds for preventing debilitating diseases, easing suffering, and preventing premature death….”
Police are investigating the death Tuesday of a 20-year-old woman at a campus area residence as a possible heroin overdose. Sara M. Stellner was found dead in the 200 block of Langdon Street.
….A search warrant filed today in Dane County Circuit Court revealed that Stellner’s roommate told officers that she injected Stellner with heroin early Tuesday. The roommate, whom The Capital Times is not identifying because she has not been arrested or charged with a crime, also injected the drug in herself, she told officers.
Many of the 264,600 public employees in the state retirement system would not be able to retire as soon as they can now if a bill proposed to the state Legislature is enacted.
AB361, proposed by Rep. Gene Hahn, R-Cambria, would increase the minimum age at which people in the Wisconsin Retirement System could qualify for a state pension from 55 to 59. The bill would not change the retirement age of 50 for protected occupations such as law enforcement and firefighters, nor would it affect those who have already retired.
Milwaukee’s Violent Femmes, a popular 1980s band, will headline this year’s student-planned All-Campus Party. The “Badger Blowout Concert” will be from 7 p.m. to midnight Friday on the Memorial Union Terrace.
“The Violent Femmes are wild, experienced performers with a classic and upbeat style – a perfect fit” for this year’s party, said co-director Kris MacDonald.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has announced it will add two new stem cell programs.
Clive Svendsen, a professor of anatomy and neurology, said on Tuesday that UW-Madison will add a regenerative medicine program and an interdisciplinary postdoctoral program that will advance stem cell research. He made the announcement at a meeting of stem cell researchers.
By changing the date of the Mifflin Street block party, students hope to avoid a finals-week hangover. But a group of Madison alders wants to hand students a different kind of rude awakening.
Eleven of 20 City Council members sent a letter Tuesday to Mayor Dave Cieslewicz asking that an itemized bill be sent to Associated Students of Madison for the cost of moving the Mifflin Street block party from May 7 – the Saturday before finals week – to April 30.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is establishing two new stem cell programs – a regenerative medicine program, which will draw on faculty from the Medical School and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, and an interdisciplinary postdoctoral training program funded by a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Concerned about inadequate regulation of privately funded human embryonic stem cell research, a panel at the National Academies issued guidelines Tuesday for American scientists, universities and private institutions. “We know this research is going to occur,” said Norm Fost, a medical ethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the academies’ advisory panel, so, “how do we make sure it gets done ethically?”
Final item in Regional Briefs package.
Bo Ryan and the rest of the Wisconsin men’s basketball team’s coaching staff better enjoy eating sweet potato pies.
“When we played well or Howard played well there were always a couple of sweet potato pies waiting for us in the office from adoring fans,” said Tim Buckley, the Ball State coach who was an assistant at Wisconsin during Moore’s junior season in 1993-94.
“Howard was well thought of because people appreciated not only the way he played the game but how he carried himself,” Buckley added.
More than 100 people turned out Monday night for a public workshop to tell city planners and consultants what they’d like to see in the redeveloped Villager Mall on South Park Street.
Overwhelmingly, neighborhood residents and other interested parties want a grocery store, farmers’ market, teen center, day care center, incubator for start-up businesses, education and training facility, family restaurant, coffee shop, health club and senior center.
The scientific community would more closely regulate human embryonic stem cell research under guidelines released this morning by the National Academy of Sciences.
Two University of Wisconsin-Madison science ethicists, Norman Fost and Alta Charo, participated in the formation of the guidelines. The academy is trying to assuage public concerns about stem cell research, as well as to create uniform codes of ethics for all institutions. The guidelines also cover cloning.
Bo Ryan scored on two fronts when he hired Loyola (Chicago) assistant Howard Moore as an assistant men’s basketball coach.
Madison – Although Temple appears to be the leading candidate to fill the Week 2 opening on the University of Wisconsin’s 2005 football schedule, the Owls remain under contract to play host to North Carolina State that weekend.
We last left Eric Anderson as he got ready for a research project to prove that cougars once again roam parts of Wisconsin. Over the winter, he and students from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point spent 100 hours on weekends looking for the big cats near purported hotspots such as Rhinelander, Tomahawk and Vilas County.
….For decades, many unfairly considered state schools to be, as they say at Oxford, “redbrick” — second rate diploma mills. Now, just as U.S. public universities are finally winning the global recognition they deserve for quality, their very future is suddenly in doubt.
What is happening? State by state, the social compact that supported higher education is being dismantled.
(This Washington Post guest column by Paul Trible, president of Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, appeared in the 4/25/05 print edition of The Capital Times)
Former University of Wisconsin men’s basketball player Howard Moore was named an assistant coach for the Badgers today. Moore, whose interview last week was first reported in The Capital Times, played for the Badgers from 1992-95, and was part of the 1993 NIT team and 1994 NCAA tournament squad.
The future of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s two miles of undeveloped natural areas will be the topic when a panel meets Tuesday night. The Campus Natural Areas Committee is at the start of forming a master plan that will govern the lands over the next 25 years.
The public input session will cover a wide range of issues, from invasive species to trail development, from prairie to savannah to forest, and how the university’s west campus development will affect the natural areas, said Bill Cronon, committee chairman.
Dance is easy to watch if it doesn’t rise above superficial entertainment, choreographer Collette Stewart suggests in “Surrendering Discomfortabilities,” one of eight pieces presented Friday in the UW Dance Program’s spring concert. Add a political or social statement, and the audience may squirm in their seats, Stewart goes on. But once past that initial anxiety, they’ll accept the expanded reality and will better appreciate the art, she says.
Time and again Friday night at Lathrop Hall’s Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space, the audience was challenged to see the connection between the movement of dancers and the often profound message they hoped to convey.
Dear Editor: The time is long overdue for state employees who have same-gender partners to receive treatment and benefits equal to their married counterparts.
When thousands of state employees gathered outside the Capitol in Madison last week, the signs read, “Wisconsin Works – Because We Do.” The message was as heartfelt as it was true.
….This state’s public employees display their respect for Wisconsin every day.
Unfortunately, the state’s top elected officials fail, on a regular basis, to show even the barest measure of respect for the workers.
Dear Editor: I believe UW-Madison’s Chancellor Wiley is mistaken in his claim that removal of ROTC from campus is illegal.
As far as I have read, to do so is not illegal, though the Solomon Amendment does call for withholding some federal funding from universities that prevent recruiting on campus.
Working with a new coach in a stunning new boathouse, the University of Wisconsin women’s crew team is riding on smooth waves this season.
Coach Bebe Bryans has brought a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to the Badgers, and considering the choppy waters and coaching carousel the past several seasons at the UW, the transition during her first year has gone well.
The Kasarov brothers turned University of Wisconsin assistant men’s tennis coach Danny Westerman into something of a prophet Friday by posting one of the biggest upsets in recent program history.
A University of Wisconsin Varsity Band member fined $41.38 after a rowdy road trip doesn’t have a federal case against band director Michael Leckrone, District Judge Barbara Crabb has ruled.
Crabb dismissed on Thursday a lawsuit brought by business school graduate David B. Gauder. He and 28 other band members were collectively fined $1,200 by Leckrone after he learned they had used the “f-word” six times during a return bus trip from the 2004 Big Ten women’s basketball tournament in Indianapolis.
Anttaj Hawthorne paid dearly for his mistake. After testing positive for marijuana at the National Football League scouting combine in February, the University of Wisconsin defensive tackle, who once was considered at least a second-round talent, slid all the way to the sixth round of the National Football League draft Sunday.
As much as it might pain them to do so, fans in this football-crazy state who cheered Erasmus James’ rise from obscure prospect to All-American defensive end at the University of Wisconsin now have no choice but to root for his downfall.
The killing of a woman who was married, jailed and strangled in a matter of hours presents a new test for the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which has freed two men from prison but has never taken a wrongful conviction case to trial.
Mentions the West Campus Cogeneration Facility, a joint venture between Madison Gas & Electric Co. and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will boost power supply in Madison and provide steam and chilled water to heat and cool campus buildings.
Quoted: James A. Stewart, an oncologist and professor of medicine at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
….While the knowledge that an overwhelming majority of our genes are the same as most other animals’ is not really new, what UW scientist Sean B. Carroll tells us is.
Carroll, professor of molecular biology and genetics and investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin, shows how genetic material is similar among species that are vastly different, such as humans and fruit flies, and how they change over the course of time.
In his book “Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo,” Carroll explains how there is a basic genetic “tool kit” that is responsible for the development of all creatures.
U-rah-rah! UW Band Spring Concert gives 8,000 fans their money’s worth. It took over 30 years, but somebody finally managed to make UW Varsity Band director Mike Leckrone look reserved and subdued by comparison.
As always, Leckrone was the energetic master of ceremonies at Thursday’s UW Band Spring Concert at the Kohl Center. He conducted the 200-piece orchestra, he sang “Hit the Road Jack,” he told bad jokes, he did the chicken dance and he soared over the heads of the crowd on a motorcycle.
State employees made a little noise in town this week. Their message was a simple one: We’re tired of all the disrespect.
Government workers have always been easy targets. Because they work for the taxpayers – which, incidentally, includes themselves since they pay taxes, too – they’re subject to more scrutiny than the average worker.
The news media are constantly looking over their shoulders and are quick to point out when they mess up. And there’s a perception, often fostered by our elected officials, that they don’t work hard enough.
University Theatre business manager and former Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission Chairman Barry R. Robinson died of heart failure Tuesday at his Verona home. He was 49.
Robinson was the business and public relations manager at University Theatre for 25 years. In 2003, he won the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Service to the University.
The Sierra Club believes that clean air is not a high priority in the Bush administration, so the group hopes a little Earth Day pressure on the University of Wisconsin will help clear the air in Madison.
….The group planned a rally on Bascom Hill at noon today, followed by a march to the UW’s nearly 50-year-old coal-fired power plant on Charter Street, which it calls one of the dirtiest power plants in the state.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T. About 2,000 state employees and fellow union supporters from all over Wisconsin gathered at the State Capitol on Thursday to ask for just that, and for a respectable income, too.
Their consistent message was that their work is important, and that quality of life in the state will suffer if the governor and his department heads continue to cut state jobs and replace employees with outside contractors.
Daniel Okoli took a stroll down the lakeshore path of the UW-Madison campus Thursday and, like so many others, came under its spell.
“I’d want to live here if I were coming to the University of Wisconsin as a student,” he said. “What a wonderful place to walk, meditate and focus your mind.”
Settings and buildings were much on the mind of Okoli, a native of Nigeria with strong Midwestern ties whose appointment as university architect was announced today.
Finally bowing to pressure from University of Wisconsin-Madison students who want to party hearty a good week before final exams begin, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has agreed to an April 30 date for the official Mifflin Street block party.
James Burgess, former publisher of the Wisconsin State Journal and executive vice president of Lee Enterprises, has made a $1 million gift to the UW-Madison School of Journalism to establish an endowed professorship in ethics.
The James E. Burgess Ethics in Journalism Chair will be part of an envisioned center devoted to issues of fairness, accuracy and integrity in the media. A nationwide search is planned to award the chair.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee decisively advanced its aspirations to become a nationally recognized research school with the announcement Thursday that it hired a technology entrepreneur with a broad international background for a newly created vice chancellor post. The school hired Abbas Ourmazd, an Iranian-born U.S. citizen who worked for Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs in the U.S. before taking on a leadership position with the German national technology labs, as UWM’s first-ever vice chancellor for research.
Quoted: David J. Bordwell, professor emeritus of communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment.”
I have two good friends who are transferring out of UW-Madison after this semester because they can no longer afford to attend school here.
I have three friends who are currently over in Iraq in a war they never wanted to be in because they thought joining the Army was the only way they could pay their tuition bill. And I have many more friends in my hometown of Washington, D.C., who constantly faced the barriers of poverty, isolation and violence and were lucky to graduate from high school, let alone think about college.
It was with those friends in mind that I joined with other UW-Madison students in crashing a luncheon talk by UW System President Kevin Reilly entitled “Keeping the public in the public university.”
The University of Wisconsin has strengthened its role in protecting the environment to ensure that we safeguard the quality of our air, water and land for future generations, says Associate Vice Chancellor Alan Fish in an op-ed piece in the Badger Herald.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the technology transfer and licensing arm of the UW-Madison, has filed a lawsuit against Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., charging it with breach of contract and other violations of its agreement with WARF.
Attorneys for WARF said the suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Madison, seeks to ensure that the interests of UW-Madison and its inventors are protected and that WARF receives its contractual share of a $157-million agreement entered into by Xenon, which is in British Columbia, Canada.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking domestic partnership benefits for state of Wisconsin employees.
“We are attempting to vindicate Wisconsin’s tradition of fairness, which is embodied in the equal protection guarantee of our state constitution,” ACLU of Wisconsin attorney Larry Dupuis said in an interview.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley spent an uncomfortable hour fending off angry questions from students who want the ROTC and military recruiters off campus.
Many of the students cited the military’s ban on openly gay and lesbian soldiers as a violation of the university’s anti-discrimination rules. Wiley said that was true, but that the UW’s hands were tied.
Six lesbians who work for state government filed a lawsuit Wednesday to try to force Wisconsin officials to provide them and their partners the same health insurance and family leave benefits as married state workers.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this morning seeking domestic partnership benefits for state of Wisconsin employees.
“We are attempting to vindicate Wisconsin’s tradition of fairness, which is embodied in the equal protection guarantee of our state constitution,” ACLU of Wisconsin attorney Larry Dupuis said in an interview this morning.
Partners of state workers, including University of Wisconsin employees, are not covered under the state’s health insurance program and do not qualify for such benefits as family leave.
The contracts haven’t been signed but barring unforeseen developments, the exhibition opponents for the University of Wisconsin men’s and women’s basketball teams are set for next season.
The University of Wisconsin athletic department, which had taken heat for an outdated cell phone plan that led to enormous bills, made a service switch that it projects will save $100,000 per year.
The change comes two months after a state audit found one coach – men’s hockey assistant Mark Osiecki – rang up a monthly bill of $1,455.85.
The fate of a University of Wisconsin-Madison landmark is sealed.
The City Council Tuesday night approved a demolition permit for Ogg Hall, the two towers of concrete on West Dayton Street that have served as a student dormitory for four decades. Demolition is expected to begin in the summer of 2007.
Emergency room co-payment fees for those covered in the state employee health insurance program will increase by 50 percent next year, the Group Insurance Board decided Tuesday.
Those in the program now have a $40 co-pay fee; it will increase to $60 in 2006. The fees are waived if a person is admitted to a hospital, the board was told. Many plans in the private sector now have a $75 co-pay fee for emergency room use, according to the Department of Employee Trust Funds.
The Doyle administration is offering 5 percent raises to state employees over the 2005-07 budget period, a big step up from 1 percent during the current biennium.
The proposal is aimed first at non-union employees, including University of Wisconsin faculty and academic staff, but it is also an opening position for union negotiations. Union representatives weren’t impressed Tuesday, noting that 11 of 19 contracts are not yet settled for 2003-05, and that Gov. Jim Doyle continues to cut a mammoth number of state jobs.
COMING LATER this spring: A new documentary on Camp Randall Stadium titled “In the Red Zone: The History of Camp Randall.”
The 90-minute DVD is produced by Madison-based Tweedee Productions, and the genesis for it came a few years ago when Tweedee founder Gregg Schieve, a former WKOW-TV/Channel 27 photographer, was driving past the historic stadium. The ongoing renovations were in the early stages and it dawned on Schieve that Camp Randall – old and new – had a tale worth telling.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a way to insert healthy neural stem cells into diseased rats, and keep those cells alive.
The rats were afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease. The researchers successfully transplanted genetically modified neural stem cells into a rat’s spinal cord and kept the stem cells alive, releasing a neuron-protecting protein.
