University of Wisconsin Medical School Dean Dr. Philip Farrell is expected to relinquish his post in December 2005. That’s when Farrell’s second five-year term will end. He said in an interview he would stay until June 2006 if a successor is not in place. He is the fourth longest-serving Medical School dean in the nation.
The University of Wisconsin System’s university relations chief will continue drawing her pay for a year after she steps down in February.
Vice President of University Relations Linda Weimer announced Tuesday she will leave the job Feb. 1. She plans to take a position to help launch a collaborative initiative by a number of national education groups, including the American Council on Education and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
A Madison woman is being detained in an Israeli prison awaiting a judge-ordered deportation. Kelly Bornshlegel, who has an Israeli visa, was arrested last week in the village of Bil’in, west of Ramallah.
Reached by cell phone Friday at the Hadera Deportation Prison, Bornshlegel said she was arrested while filming a protest against construction of the separation wall between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Quoted: Susan Nitzke, a UW-Madison professor of dietary sciences and a registered dietician.
The University of Wisconsin has a new distinction;� � it will soon be the last Big� Ten university not offering health insurance to employees with domestic partners.
Madison lawyer Brady Williamson will be among 25 observers from the United States going to the Ukraine to oversee polling places Sunday to try to prevent widespread voting problems in the country’s second national election. Williamson has taught federal and constitutional law at the UW Law School since 1984.
One of the main backers of a so-called taxpayer bill of rights unveiled a strict version of the proposal Tuesday, saying he was prepared for a “brutal” fight with some of his Republican colleagues who favor a softer approach to spending limits.
Imagining the effects of being able to manipulate materials just atoms at a time got a bit easier with the opening of Exploring the Nanoworld, an exhibit on display at the University of Wisconsin-Madison�s Engineering Centers Building.
An economist at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has an upbeat financial message: More than 80 percent of U.S. households are saving enough for retirement.
Many households, in fact, are saving more than they need, according to John Scholz.
…How presidents sell wars to a skeptical populace dominates the first half of “War Is Sell,” which is split into three parts. Part two is an extended discussion with University of Wisconsin anthropologist Neil Whitehead about the nature of war and how it manifests itself in human culture….
National Peace Corps director Gaddi Vasquez congratulated graduates Sunday and encouraged them to celebrate the diversity of America.
“I urge you to dedicate some time to eradicate racism and discrimination in our nation,” he told more than 1,000 students who received University of Wisconsin-Madison degrees in two winter commencement ceremonies at the Kohl Center on a frigid December day.
Elected on a platform of consensus building, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz now finds himself branded a spoiler. Cieslewicz is being roundly rebuked for pushing an inner-city streetcar system that critics say is on a collision course with a longstanding countywide proposal for regional rail.
In a departure from its regular practice, Madison Area Technical College will not hold graduation ceremonies this month. December graduation will go ahead as scheduled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Edgewood College on Sunday.
MATC spokeswoman Janet Kelly said all of this academic year’s graduates will be eligible to participate in the May ceremonies. It was primarily a cost-saving, more efficient measure, she said.
Columnist Dennis McCann gives Badger fans some pre-Outback Bowl tips for enjoying attractions in the Tampa area.
Two years after promising to slash 10,000 state jobs within eight years to help cut government spending, Gov. Jim Doyle has fallen off the pace he would need to keep to live up to his campaign pledge by hundreds of jobs.
Spc. Amy Jagielski, 23, is the fourth of five sisters and has always spent Christmas with her family in Marinette. If she wasn’t in Iraq with the Waukesha-based Company B, 118th Medical Battalion, she would be studying for finals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she’s majoring in clinical laboratory science.
In an unusual disclosure, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s student health center is telling patients that, because of the USA Patriot Act, if government officials ask for their medical records, they’ll get to see them, and the patients will never know. Quotes Anuj Desai, UW-Madison law professor.
Hongdi Liu’s artistic style is located on an island somewhere between traditional Chinese art and modern abstraction. It is inhabited by sensual yet demure maidens and mythical animals. His current exhibit, “Science and Nature,” is influenced by his work in ophthalmology and visual sciences at the UW-Madison Medical School and his experiences in a labor camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
City officials, anxious to head off another Halloween disaster, considered options Thursday ranging from closing off the entire isthmus to moving the bash away from its State Street home.
…The pack of about 40 caroling University of Wisconsin students had a message for the governor: Give the UW more state funding, and decrease or freeze tuition. In Doyle’s last budget, the university took a $250 million cut, and raised tuition by 37.5 percent over two years to help cover that cut.
Edgewood College failed until recently to keep a public log of crime on campus, in violation of federal law. In addition, the college chose not to issue written alerts to the campus community after two women reported to campus security that they were sexually assaulted in separate incidents earlier this year.
Jeff Erlanger writes, “Dear Editor: Recently I attended a forum where police and students discussed what might have gone wrong on State Street this past Halloween. I chose to attend because as president of the State-Langdon Neighborhood Association I am committed to helping find the right prescription for Halloween. While the forum was interesting, its focus wasn’t on what I thought it should be….”
WHEN JEREMY Hinzman walked into the Toronto law office of Jeffry House, he, Hinzman, was not yet the most famous deserter from the U.S. military over the war in Iraq. It was earlier this year, and prominent stories about Hinzman in the Washington Post and on “60 Minutes” were still months off. House, 57, had yet to be called “a dopey lawyer” by Bill O’Reilly.
The first report in 25 years examining who pays Wisconsin taxes finds that the state’s tax structure is fair, as long as tax credits protect low-income residents. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and Republican Assembly Speaker John Gard disagreed on how to interpret the study.
Some high-profile studies have cast a cloud over the charter school movement, a Journal Sentinel story recently noted. A study released the other day by the U.S. Education Department says needy students in charter schools have done more poorly in math and reading than did needy students in regular public schools. Other studies, including one on this state�s charter schools by University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher John Witte, have come to the opposite conclusion.
Dane County, despite its prominent medical facilities and university medical school, is not among the top five counties in new health rankings by the Wisconsin Public Health and Policy Institute, though it did make the top 10. The report, “Wisconsin County Health Rankings – 2004,” is a health checkup of the state’s 72 counties by the University of Wisconsin Medical School faculty and staff.
Jacob Stockinger: The older I get, the more I value the gifts of time and companionship. Whether it is a play or a movie, a concert or a dance performance, an art show or a gallery reception, the best gift you can make is to go in person with someone you know to one of the ever-growing arts and entertainment events in the Madison area.
For more than nine months, Dwayne Smith maintained his innocence and his faith. ââ?¬Å?I said I was not guilty the whole time, and Iââ?¬â?¢m just glad itââ?¬â?¢s over with,ââ?¬Â the former UW tailback said Tuesday, minutes after a Dane County Circuit Court judge dismissed a charge of second-degree sexual assault against Smith. ââ?¬Å?(My faith) did not waver. There was no reason for it to.ââ?¬Â
The business end of a well-aimed flyswatter was but a mild distraction to Wisconsin insects fighting for survival last spring against the titanic forces of nature. “We had so much rain so quickly, and that can be a lot of stress for insects when they’re young,” said Phil Pellitteri, a University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist.
Jonathan Chait: A few weeks ago, a pair of studies found that Democrats vastly outnumbered Republicans among professors at leading universities. Conservative gleefully seized upon this to once again flagellate academia for its liberal bias. Am I the only person who fails to understand why conservatives see this finding as vindication?
“Dear Editor: Now that the Republican Party has established itself as the party of religion, the Democrats have an opportunity to position themselves for the backlash. Let’s face it, the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration are destroying America’s ability to do basic research – particularly in the physical and environmental sciences.”
The honors continued Monday for University of Wisconsin defensive end Erasmus James, who was named to the Associated Press All-America football team. The Big Ten defensive player of the year, James previously had been named a first-team All-American by the Walter Camp Foundation, the American Football Coaches Association, ESPN.com and the Football Writers Association of America.
Asking residents to increase the state sales tax to lower property taxes and boost school funding is a short-term fix that would only make the educational funding base more volatile, a report to be released Tuesday says. Quotes Mark Bugher, the director of the University Research Park who sat on a gubernatorial task force that backed raising the sales tax.
Retired state and local public employees could see about a 2 percent increase in their Wisconsin Retirement System pensions next spring, assuming there are no major changes in the stock market before Jan. 1.
“…The sentiments driving the sometimes somber but always powerful 65-minute composition seemed to have found similar inspiration among members of the University of Wisconsin Choral Union, who gave a flawless performance of the work before nearly sellout crowds over the weekend at Mills Concert Hall on the UW campus.
The UW Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Beverly Taylor, supported the 200-voice chorus with what may have been their most outstanding performance.”
The UW Police Department is once again fully equipped with automatic defibrillators after getting stuck with two dozen of the life-saving devices that were recalled last month. The bad news is that the company that sold the bad ones is not going to make good on them.
A coalition of business associations has filed a lawsuit to try to stop a minimum wage increase in the city of Madison, striving to overturn a hard-fought victory by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.
It is easy for the legions of math-challenged adults to dismiss findings that show they have a lot of company among the nation�s 15-year-olds. Sadly, however, this country�s status as a global technological leader is imperiled by how relatively poor U.S. teens are doing in math.
Quoted: UW-Madison porfessor Jim Kitchell and Jim Lubner, education coordinator for the UW-Madison Sea Grant Institute.
It’s not sheep the sleep-deprived are counting, but jelly doughnuts and Cheetos. New research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Stanford University and the University of Chicago are boosting earlier findings of a relationship between sleep and weight: The less sleep a person gets, the more weight is gained.
Can giving home computers to heart failure patients to track their diet, weight, medications, vital signs and symptoms improve their health and the management of their disease? Researchers with Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have won a $1.7 million federal grant to find out.
Researchers have devised a non-invasive way for disabled people to communicate simply by thinking about it, a technology that someday might even allow them to regain control of limbs.
Quoted: UW-Madison education researcher John Witte.
Top honors were awarded to Po-Ling Loh, a senior at Madison’s James Madison Memorial High School, in the 2004-’05 Siemens-Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology. She didn’t win the grand prize, but she did get a total of $54,000 for college. Quotes UW-Madison matematics Professor Martin Isaacs.
It isn�t a shortage of venture capital that�s holding back Wisconsin business start-ups, it�s a flow of deals that comes in drips, not gushers.
Leaders of the TABOR effort have offered different versions of a constitutional limit on government spending, tying spending to inflation or to growth in personal income. In fact, the goal of the less stringent standard – that taxes grow slower than personal income – was accomplished from 1992 to 2002. Quotes UW-Madison economists Steven Deller and Andrew Reschovsky.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is scaling back its involvement in a development near its campus, dropping plans to own residence halls on the site. [Third item in Regional Briefs]
WAUSAU — To most people, a chest is just a place to stash polished silverware, tattered underwear, love letters, junk, jewelry, secrets, treasures. It is furniture with a predictable purpose, not interactive artwork. Until now.
“More Than Drawers: Wisconsin Cabinets,” a new exhibit at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, is an exercise in broken stereotypes. Eight of the show’s nine woodworkers live in Dane County. (One of them is UW-Madison art professor Tom Loeser)
California-based Wells Fargo & Co. will take over Wisconsin’s college savings programs once its acquisition of Strong Financial Corp. is finalized, providing a seamless transition for investors, state officials said Thursday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has canceled its plans to put a 700-800 bed residence hall into the University Square development, said Alan Fish, associate vice chancellor for facilities, planning and management. Instead, the project will go forward with private apartments, said Susan Springman, spokeswoman for the developer, Executive Management Inc.
An abrupt change in policy by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has upset University of Wisconsin pain experts, who fear the result will be that patients won’t get the pain relief they need.
Athletes are often identified by a distinguishing skill. Such as Sharif Chambliss, a cheery 22-year-old senior on the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team. When you think Chambliss, you visualize his jump shot; personalized by a feathery touch. And while his range appears limitless on the court, the depth of his jumper may be no match for the depth of his character, which, like his game, is slowly emerging for all to see.
Republican lawmakers say Gov. Jim Doyle�s plans for a $375 million biomedical and technology research institute at UW-Madison might have a hard time getting funding.
People who don’t sleep very long are more likely to be overweight. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that sleep deprivation makes you fatââ?¬â?it could be that both are caused by being a couch potato, by eating badly, or by something else entirely. Researchers at Stanford and the University of Wisconsinââ?¬â??Madison looked at how sleep deprivation affects levels of hormones that regulate appetite.
The tongue. It wiggles and waggles and shapes words conveying our brain’s thoughts.It also sends signals to the brain. And by manipulating those signals electronically, Wisconsin scientists say they may be able to help chronically dizzy patients walk again, help Navy divers find their way in murky waters and help the blind to see.
Dear Editor: Trust is in short supply these days for many good reasons, but in the case of the experiment to kill carp in Lake Wingra, the public should place its trust in our lake researchers. I can think of few risk/reward situations where one could be more assured that trust was well placed.
…A South Bend (Ind.) television station reported Monday that a “very close friend of (Barry) Alvarez told NewsCenter 16 (WNDU-TV) that if he were offered the job, he believes Alvarez would take it.” That’s hard to believe. Really, really hard to believe.
It doesn’t really matter if they’ve been naughty or nice. American pets are increasingly being treated as members of the family, and that means participating in holiday celebrations, including getting, and sometimes giving, gifts. UW-Madison lecturer Patricia McConnell is quoted.
Wisconsin’s reputation as a “tax hell” is a hoax that’s being used to justify efforts to downsize state and local government, according to a study released today…. The new study weighs in during the debate over the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which Republicans and the business lobbies have made their top priority in the current session of the Legislature.
Police and city officials want to meet with concerned citizens tonight to discuss exactly what went wrong during this year’s Halloween celebration….Police have since received at least a dozen formal complaints about their reaction.
