Suspended University of Wisconsin freshman women’s basketball player Lesha Jones was charged with one count of burglary today for allegedly going into the dormitory room of another student and taking her purse.
Jones, 18, who was reshirting this season to rehabilitate an injured knee, was suspended from the team after her arrest on Feb. 14. (2/21/05 Capital Times print edition)
A year and a half ago, UW-Madison student Greta Hafeman spent 17 hours unconscious, the victim of a “date rape” drug. Although she was not sexually assaulted, she nonetheless felt violated. She has focused much of her free time and energy since trying to draw attention to “drug-facilitated sexual assaults.”
The 20-year-old Hafeman, who was crowned Miss Madison Saturday night, will use her new title to shine more light on the subject. She beat out four other contestants due in part to the platform she titled “Silent Crimes: Advocating Awareness for Positive Change.”
IF YOU are trying to get something done in this city, it would not exactly hurt to have UW athletic director and football coach Barry Alvarez and his wife Cindy out on point. But of course everybody knows this, and consequently the Alvarezes are approached by groups and organizations all the time.
It took only two songs before the first members of the Wisconsin Union Theater audience got up to dance to the music of Habib Koite and his band, Bamada. The number of dancers grew larger as the evening wore on.
…Koite is lending his image to an Oxfam America brochure calling for caps on federal trade subsidies for U.S. cotton exports to central and west Africa, where local farmers are unable to sell their own crops due a glut of cheap, subsidized U.S. cotton. Oxfam volunteers circulated in the crowd, collecting signatures to send to legislators.
FYI: On Todd Drive there’s a Culver’s restaurant billboard that has Bucky Badger on it. Does Culver’s pay a fee to use Bucky’s image or is it part of a sponsorship package? Since Bucky is trademarked or copyrighted, how does the arrangement work?
(Another question relates to the recent protest at a U.S. Navy recruiting booth at a campus recruitment fair.)
Preliminary figures from the University of Wisconsin athletic department show that it received a $1.4 million payout from the football team’s appearance in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1 – the sixth highest payout of all the bowls.
The bad news is that the expenses to play at Tampa, Fla., are among the highest of all the bowls, too.
In order to handle skyrocketing expenditures, the University of Wisconsin athletic department Friday got initial approval to hike Badgers football tickets and single-game hockey tickets starting next season.
In addition, the UW also plans to cut costs by ending the long tradition of holding its preseason football camp at the Bishop O’Connor Center.
Madison’s third Cuban Film Festival will be held Feb. 24-March 4 on the UW-Madison and Edgewood College campuses. The festival will offer eight films with English subtitles, produced on and off the island in 2003 and 2004.
An Orthodox synagogue near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has offered money to young Jewish adults willing to take time to learn about the Jewish faith.
The Finance Committee of the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department on Friday approved raising ticket prices for football, men’s hockey and women’s basketball for 2005-’06.
Quoted: John Young, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and director of the State Climatology Office.
California may be the state ready to spend $3 billion on stem cell research, but Wisconsin is in line to get a piece of that action. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation may be positioned to play a big role in, and perhaps even profit from, the huge cash infusion California is making in stem cell research.
“The Church and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic,” an unprecedented conference with speakers from as far away as Nigeria and Kenya, will be held Saturday at High Point Church, 7702 Old Sauk Road.
This is a multidimensional event whose participants will range from Roman Catholic to Pentecostal. The organizer is New College Madison, a 1-year-old “experiment in stimulating prophetic inquiry.” It is associated with the University of Wisconsin but not an official part of it.
The state Assembly voted 58-37 Thursday to advance a Republican bill aimed at limiting property tax increases.
Little debate accompanied the controversial proposal, which majority Republicans were sure they could pass and the minority Democrats counted on the Democratic governor vetoing.
This year’s lecture series at Chadbourne Residential College at UW-Madison grows from several years of developing relationships in south Madison.
“It’s a way of making connections with the community,” said student Meena Pandian. The series, at Chadbourne Hall, 420 N. Park St., includes local and visiting scholars and community residents who share their experiences.
For years, the promise of embryonic stem cells has been corrupted by the inescapable reality that most, if not all, lines of those cells are so contaminated by animal cells that they never would be usable for human research. But scientists at the WiCell Research Institute and University of Wisconsin-Madison may have leaped over a substantial hurdle in the dream to someday use those cells to treat human diseases.
The Assembly on Thursday passed a plan that would freeze December property tax bills but wouldn’t earmark any more state aid to public schools next year – an omission that drew a veto promise from Gov. Jim Doyle. Story quotes UW-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky.
University of Wisconsin-Madison and WiCell researchers have developed a way to grow human embryonic stem cells without using large amounts of mouse cells, which could contaminate the lines.
It’s a significant step because a recent study by University of California-San Diego researchers showed that human embryonic stem cells used for research have been contaminated with the animal cells in which they were grown. That made them acceptable for use in research, but not for potential clinical applications.
Lisa Steinkamp, director of the physical therapy program in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, is featured in this “Snapshot.”
…Madison has its own reasons not to feel warm and fuzzy where the New Yorker is concerned, and yet, next month, the magazine’s 2005 “College Tour” is coming to town, to the UW-Madison campus, for three days of lectures and readings featuring the magazine’s writers and editors.
(Professors Robert Enright, Don Nichols and James Baughman are mentioned in this column about the upcoming New Yorker event.)
WASHINGTON – If you’re a college student looking for tuition help, beware the fine print. Despite proposed increases to the Pell Grant program, President Bush’s budget plan might still leave students to foot large tuition bills because of additional cuts to campus-based financial aid and the rising cost of education.
“His budget proposal will end up with a reduction in financial aid in general,” said Steve Van Ess, director of student financial services at UW-Madison.
Now that the University of Wisconsin football team will operate with co-offensive coordinators for the first time since Barry Alvarez took over the program in 1990, the question is: What is needed to make the arrangement work?
Wisconsin’s dairy farmers received record prices for milk last year, thanks to a combination of weaker supplies and more consumption, but 2005 isn’t expected to be quite as rosy, dairy economists predict in a new report. “For many farmers, 2004 was a very good year,” according to Status of Wisconsin Agriculture 2005, an annual report published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s department of agricultural and applied economics.
UW women’s basketball player Lesha Jones has been suspended from the team after an arrest Monday on a tentative burglary charge.
…University police would provide no details today about the arrest. Jones has not been formally charged. (2/16/05 Capital Times)
UW-MADISON graduate student Dave Beck thinks of himself more as a sculptor than a performance artist, but he does not deny the element of performance art that’s in one of two pieces he has in a campus show that opens Saturday night.
Ann Althouse may be one of the most-read writers in the English language. But you’d be hard-pressed to find her work at the local bookstore.
The University of Wisconsin Law School professor, who writes about politics and law with a centrist point of view, has a Weblog that recently surpassed 1 million visitors. Her site gets about 5,000 hits a day. According to www.truthlaidbear.com, as of Tuesday afternoon, she had the 79th most-read blog among the millions who keep one.
After the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s chancellor decided to allow a controversial professor to speak on campus, Nass set out to block the speech.
….Nass, whose acquaintance with the Constitution is not what it ought to be, may not find a lot of takers from his crusade against the Constitution in Wisconsin. But he’s found a forum in New York City.
Brian White, the University of Wisconsin’s offensive coordinator for the past six seasons and a member of the football staff for the past 10 seasons, has reportedly interviewed for a position on the Dallas Cowboys’ staff.
Republican legislators were told Tuesday that Gov. Jim Doyle’s property tax limits would lower the December bill on a median-valued Wisconsin home by $3 – a drop that gave the governor the political high ground on the issue.
As Afghanistan struggles to rebuild itself after years of political turmoil, a team of Wisconsin doctors and nurses is playing a key role in advising how to lower the death rate at the country’s largest women’s hospital. Among them is Doug Laube, chair of the obstetric and gynecological department at the UW-Madison.
A professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is among the recipients of the 2003 National Medal of Science, while the university’s patenting and licensing arm has won a 2003 National Medal of Technology, the school announced Tuesday. Carl de Boor, a computer scientist and mathematician, was informed about his medal by President Bush’s science adviser, John Marburger, via telephone. He’ll receive the honor, considered the nation’s most prestigious science award, during a White House ceremony on March 14.
When software maker Intuit Inc. decided to create a Web site to help young people use its Turbo Tax program, the company turned to two University of Wisconsin-Madison students for ideas on how to appeal to Generation Y.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona criticized the lack of local broadcast coverage of election campaigns Tuesday and submitted legislation that would tighten the Federal Communications Commission’s process of licensing broadcasters. McCain’s remarks coincided with the release of research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison showing that local evening and late-night news broadcasts spent far less little time covering 2004 political elections than they did reporting on sports, weather and accidental injuries.
….On Friday, a 27-year-old UW-Madison student named Maia Patrick Donohue is hosting an exhibit and sale of some 150 paintings, done by orphaned children in Guatemala who were taught by Donohue’s mother, Nancy Donohue, an artist who lives in Fond du Lac.
The show, from 3 to 7 p.m. Friday at the Catacombs Coffee House, 731 State St., is a fund-raiser, the second one Donohue has hosted.
Hector DeLuca may be retiring as chairman of the biochemistry department, but the man who brought the University of Wisconsin millions in royalties will continue to do what he does best.
DeLuca will remain on the faculty as a researcher, studying the healing properties of vitamin D compounds. DeLuca, 74, said he had to scale back because he has been undergoing chemotherapy for a treatable form of lymphoma.
…while I probably disagree with Ward Churchill more than most of his right-wing critics, I recognize him as a challenging public intellectual who has prodded and provoked my thinking in ways that I have to respect.
So, as a Wisconsinite, I was pleased when the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Chancellor Jack Miller became the first campus administrator in the country to resist the right-wing crusaders who have been campaigning to deny Churchill a right to speak at institutions of higher learning.
Susan Cook has been named director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arts Institute. She succeeds Tino Balio, who founded the institute in 1998.
Cook will hold the position for five years, with reappointment as a possibility. Her appointment is effective May 23. She is a professor of music and director of graduate studies at the UW-Madison School of Music.
The first Laurie Carlson Progressive Ideas Forum will celebrate the 10th anniversary of South Africa’s constitution by featuring South African Ambassador Barbara Masekela, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and UW-Madison constitutional expert John Kaminski in a conversational discussion on the UW campus.
It will begin at 4 p.m. on Friday, March 11, in room 2260 of the Law School and will be followed by a public reception.
Gov. Jim Doyle’s plan to control December property tax bills tightly has at least slowed the march of Republicans to out-freeze the Democrat. But Doyle’s surprise rush to embrace a top goal of Republicans – strict controls via limits on the levies of local governments – has also created a dangerous political expectation for a first-term governor up for re-election in 21 months.
The good news remains good, and the bad news has gotten better when it comes to high school graduation in Wisconsin. A new report concludes that the black graduation rate in Wisconsin has risen from 40% in 1997 to 50% in 2002. For whites, it rose from 85% to 91%, while the rate for Hispanics was steady at 58%.
Quoted: Retired University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Gordon Baldwin.
TOLEDO, Ohio — A growing number of public universities are requiring that students have health insurance before they stop into the classroom, a move aimed at saving the uninsured from huge bills and college hospitals from getting stuck with the cost.
Most public universities still leave the decision up to students, who can buy into a school’s student health care plan or obtain their own insurance. (2/14/05 Capital Times print edition)
Capitol politics took a sharp turn last week when Gov. Jim Doyle outlined his budget proposal for a “freeze” on government spending.
WASHINGTON – There are funny stories, like the one about the state attorney who bought an MBA for his cat, and then there are the horror stories like tales of New York City cab drivers who moonlight as dentists.
These days you can be anything you want by simply clicking on a mouse and buying a degree from a “diploma mill.” Institutions sell phony diplomas, usually by mail, and recently they have been popping up all over the country.
Paul Chryst’s role in coordinating the University of Wisconsin offense in 2005 will be greater than originally believed. According to sources, Chryst will coach the team’s quarterbacks and likely have final say on play-calling. UW officials announced Thursday that Chryst had decided to step down as Oregon State’s offensive coordinator and return to UW as co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach.
A group of University of Wisconsin System administrators is pushing for a new look at how financial resources – including tuition and state-appropriated tax dollars – are distributed among Wisconsin’s public universities.
Quoted: Mike Mihelbergel, executive director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Real Estate.
At $73,500, the fines issued to seven university students may be a record for a single house party. But the residents of the house, busted for a Jan. 29 bash, will probably avoid paying the entire amount.
An Oklahoma educator will take over at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls as the highest-paid chancellor in Wisconsin outside of Madison and Milwaukee.
The Board of Regents selected Donald Betz, the provost at the University of Central Oklahoma, to succeed the late Ann Lydecker. Betz will make $175,000; Lydecker, who died last spring, earned $156,600 at the time of her death.
Gaylord Nelson, the father of Earth Day, would have been thrilled to be in Tripp Commons Friday to see how a new generation of Wisconsin university students channeled his environmental vision and passion into ideas for a campus center here named in his honor.
A Colorado professor who likened Sept. 11 victims to Nazis will be allowed to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, a decision the chancellor said was repugnant but necessary under First Amendment principles of free speech.
The decision Thursday sparked outrage among state lawmakers, who said they would appeal to UW System President Kevin Reilly to intervene and would also make other formal protests to block the speech by Ward Churchill.
University of Wisconsin football player Gino Cruse allegedly smashed his girlfriend’s car window after she confronted him when she became suspicious he was cheating on her.
Cruse, 19, a redshirt freshman defensive lineman from Phoenix, Ariz., was charged Thursday with criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct for last Sunday’s incident.
Neha Kapoor, a research assistant in the UW-Madison Department of Biological Systems Engineering, is featured.
Budgets, as they are proposed by the executive branch of government at the federal and state levels, are at best frameworks for structures that will end up looking very different from the initial plan.
…Unfortunately, the Legislature is not likely to improve on what Doyle has come up with.
Dear Editor: The article detailing Gov. Doyle’s plan to trim public relations staff lacked some key information on the critical role PR professionals play in building relationships between state government and its citizens. Those of us who work in this profession feel strongly that cutting PR staff would be a mistake.
One of the worst kept secrets in Madison was officially confirmed today with the announcement that Paul Chryst will be rejoining the University of Wisconsin football coaching staff, replacing Rob Ianello.
Chryst, who coached the Badgers’ tight ends during the 2002 season, will be returning as the co-offensive coordinator with Brian White, who has held that role since 1999 in addition to coaching the UW running backs for the past 10 seasons. The 39-year-old Chryst has spent the last two seasons as Oregon State’s offensive coordinator.
For the second time in three years, a team of accounting students from the UW-Madison School of Business has won the national xTAX competition aimed at finding the best solution to a real-world tax policy problem.
Michael Knetter, dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Business, is a strong believer in the good old Midwestern work ethic.
He believes bright and able MBA students from Wisconsin need to work both harder and smarter than their counterparts at big name business schools to land the kind of challenging, high paying jobs that are a primary goal of an advanced degree in business.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley says wholesale job cuts at the university are unwise and unrealistic in the effort to balance the state budget.
On Tuesday, Gov. Jim Doyle unveiled his executive budget, in which he told the university to cut $65 million in administrative and purchasing positions. The money would be reallocated to other areas of the university.
Gov. Jim Doyle’s plan to provide domestic partnership benefits to University of Wisconsin employees would cost more than triple the $1 million he has budgeted, according to new figures from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
