David Olien, a longtime deputy to former University of Wisconsin President Katharine Lyall, will step down from his position in March….After he stops down, Olien will spend one year as a regent professor, researching issues like fund raising and changes in public institutions. (11/10/04 Capital Times print edition)
Author: jnweaver
California triggers stem cell gold rush
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A 21st century gold rush is on in California after voters approved $3 billion for human embryonic stem cell research. At least one out-of-state biotech company is already making plans to move to California…And universities are hoping to recruit some of the field’s brightest minds to take part in the biggest state-run research project in U.S. history. (Provost Peter Spear is quoted in this article in the 11/10/04 Capital Times print edition.)
UW men’s basketball: Ryan says no to experimental rules
Capital Times
The Wisconsin men’s basketball team won’t use any of the experimental rules that the NCAA wanted to look at during exhibition games this season.
Historical Museum’s future in air
Capital Times
The Wisconsin Historical Museum on the Capitol Square could be one of the casualties of continued state budget cuts.
GOP keeps Gard at the helm
Capital Times
Assembly Speaker John Gard was unanimously re-elected to his leadership post by Assembly Republicans Tuesday. Gard, R-Peshtigo, is known for hard-line stands and comments that have offended some people. But his colleagues say he is an effective leader who is leading the state toward fiscal responsibility and is clear about the party’s goals.
Hard right awarded key roles in Capitol
Capital Times
Sen. Dale Schultz, the moderate Republican who was elected Senate majority leader in an upset Tuesday, quickly awarded three key appointments to champions of the hard right.
Men’s college basketball: UW’s class No. 3 in down Big Ten
Capital Times
To say that the talent level of this year’s national class of high school seniors is a bit down is like saying Tom Daschle’s loss in a Senate election last week was a bit of an upset. Recruiting analyst Van Coleman chuckled when he sized up the basketball talent in the Midwest and said, “Let’s face it, where’s the most talent in the Big Ten area this year? It might be in Wisconsin.”
Alcohol excess still a killer on campuses (Associated Press)
It’s a sad but recurring campus story: This autumn, students are again drinking themselves to death. (11/9/04 Capital Times print edition)
Gard hit for remark on partner benefits
Capital Times
Assembly Speaker John Gard’s quick criticism of a University of Wisconsin budget request drew return fire today. Last week, the UW Board of Regents endorsed seeking domestic partner health insurance for lesbian and gay employees, and Gard quickly denounced the idea by calling it a “raw deal for students.”
Schultz, Robson will lead Senate
Capital Times
In two upsets Tuesday morning, both Republicans and Democrats in the state Senate picked dark-horse candidates to lead them.
Aberle, UW ag and life sciences dean, will retire
Capital Times
Elton Aberle, dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will retire next September. Aberle made the announcement in a written statement on Monday. The college is home to 2,200 undergraduates and about 1,000 graduate students. It has an annual budget of more than $150 million.
Pennies That Aren’t From Heaven
New York Times
Mentions a study published last year by Terry Warfield, assistant professor of accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Qiang Cheng, assistant professor of accounting at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, that found that managers with high equity incentives are more likely to report earnings that meet or just beat analysts’ forecasts than are managers who have low equity incentives.
Jim Souhan: Setting just says college football
Star Tribune
MADISON, WIS. — Saturday afternoon, a member of the Gophers football traveling party looked around Camp Randall Stadium and asked, “How do you compete with this?”
FYI: Police own horses they ride
Capital Times
The Madison Police Department has no mounted unit, but the UW-Madison and Capitol Police do. UW’s Sgt. Edie Brogan says she gets about six inquiries a week about the mounted patrol, which she started in 1989.
‘Threepenny’ tries but fails
Capital Times
When it premiered in 1928, “The Threepenny Opera” created quite a stir with its cast of low characters, music hall style and anti-bourgeois social agenda. University Theatre’s production of the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill classic also will draw strong comments, but for all the wrong reasons.
Editorial: Cieslewicz & Halloween
Capital Times
….It may turn out that Cieslewicz finds he cannot bar next year’s Halloween party altogether. But if it does go on, Cieslewicz will try to make it a very different event. Those efforts will be most successful if the University of Wisconsin, the State Street business community and other interested parties work closely with the mayor.
UW regents hike top salary ranges
Capital Times
Despite student protests, the UW Board of Regents has raised executive salary ranges and declined to commit to a 5 percent tuition cap.
Regents give 7 UW chancellors raises
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Seven chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System will get pay raises after regents approved plans Friday to adjust salary ranges of top executives and recommended a new pay plan for other UW staff. Regents also approved construction of a $133.9 million Interdisciplinary Research Complex at UW-Madison.
Heart-wrenching talk
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: Lewis Leavitt, medical director of the Waisman Center on Human Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine.
It’s time to move beyond election
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
What a relief that the election is over! And, thanks to Sen. John Kerry�s swift and gracious concession, we were able to feel that relief early the day after the election. An op-ed piece by UW Law School Professor Ann Althouse.
WARF licenses new glaucoma patents
Capital Times
Inspire Pharmaceuticals Inc., a publicly traded firm based in Durham, N.C., has reached an agreement to exclusively license several patents from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for use in developing new therapeutics for treating glaucoma.
A ‘Threepenny’ for your thoughts
Capital Times
In light of the momentous presidential election, this show may be must viewing. “The Threepenny Opera” opens tonight in Vilas Hall’s Mitchell Theatre, 821 University Ave., and will run through Nov. 20….The joint production of the University Theatre and the University Opera has been described as futuristic. In this show Germany’s future resembles America’s present, the director says.
UW reinvests in Tyson Foods
The University of Wisconsin System has reinvested in Tyson Foods International, after divesting from its bonds last year in solidarity with striking workers….On Thursday, at the regents’ annual investment forum, the university’s reinvestment in Tyson appeared to catch even some regents by surprise.
(11/5/04 Capital Times print edition)
UW exec on leave but will return
Paul Barrows, University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor for student affairs, is taking an unspecified period of paid leave from the university. Barrows is well known for his leadership of campus diversity efforts. (11/5/04 Capital Times print edition)
Regents likely to OK pay hike
Capital Times
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents was criticized Thursday for its plans to raise executive salary ranges. The regents’ Business and Finance Committee endorsed the raises; the full board was expected to approve the raises today.
The regents hedged on a plan released by the committee’s chairman earlier this week to seek a 5.5 percent tuition increase for each of the next two years to pay for an increase in faculty and staff salaries.
UW players know when to Hold ‘Em: Beat poker champ
Capital Times
Brian Lomas and four other UW students beat nine-time World Series of Poker champion Phil Hellmuth Jr. at his own game Thursday night in a campus tournament.
UW, Ryan are trying to satisfy fans’ hunger
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The line started Monday morning outside Gate B at the Kohl Center, and it’s been growing all week, possibly at some expense to labs and lectures around the University of Wisconsin campus. Bo Ryan, whose job it is to keep these customers happy, not eligible, is delighted to see it.
Proposed UW raises clear first hurdle with regents
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Proposals to increase the salaries of seven chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System, adjust salary ranges for top executives, and recommend to lawmakers 5% average annual pay raises for faculty, staff and administrators, were approved Thursday by a committee of regents.
Doug Moe: Life is suite for ex-Badger, 93
Capital Times
This story begins with a 93-year-old former Wisconsin football player, Harold Lautz, who wanted to go to the Illinois game at Camp Randall Stadium because it wasn’t on TV. It will end Saturday with Lautz in a luxury box for the Badgers’ game against Minnesota.
Josh Healey: Affordable higher ed needn’t be a dream
Capital Times
….Because of the unwillingness of our elected and unelected officials to take a stand for struggling students, we are organizing to stand up for ourselves. We have formed a growing coalition of student organizations, unions, PTAs, local Green parties and progressive Democrats around the state to demand that the state reinvest in the UW System.
Lung cancer bigger risk to women
Capital Times
Continue getting mammograms, but don’t ignore a constant cough. This is a health message that women shouldn’t ignore, says Dr. Joan Schiller, a medical oncologist at University Hospital….To help raise awareness, she recently founded a nonprofit organization called Women Against Lung Cancer. Its mission is to encourage more research funding.
What now? Three local progressives reflect and talk about the future
Capital Times
What does the progressive movement do now, after suffering a major political loss in Tuesday’s election? The Capital Times posed this question to three prominent professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all with ties to the political left — Alta Charo, Joseph Elder and Frank Tuerkheimer.
Ticket traders : A chance at a face value seat for the big game
Capital Times
Scott Diffley attended the Super Bowls won and lost by the Green Bay Packers in ’97 and ’98, paying $1,700 and $1,500 to scalpers the day of the game for seats with a face value of about $300…. So when Diffley saw a special season in the making for the UW football team and decided he wanted to go to his first Badgers bowl game, he figured he would face the same situation.
GOP wants to tighten voting laws
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison political science professor.
Colescott, Myers donate 178 works to museum
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Painter-printmaker Warrington Colescott — a retired UW-Madison faculty member — has capped his 44-year relationship with the Milwaukee Art Museum by donating 178 works in a variety of media to the museum’s Herzfeld Foundation Print, Drawing and Photography Study Center.
Students do us proud: Poll-working reporter comes away impressed
Capital Times reporter Bill Novak writes: “Instead of working at my home polling place on the city’s southwest side, I wanted to be in the ‘belly of the beast,’ right in the heart of the UW campus, to see if students followed through on their promises to actually vote after they registered during summer and fall. The students promised and the students delivered.” (11/3/04 Capital Times print edition)
Voice of the People
“Dear Editor: I’m a downtown resident who loves the isthmus, the campus, and our city as a whole, and I’m angry about what a group who likes to have fun has done to our neighborhoods and to the public image of our city,” writes just one of many whose Halloween-related letters appear in the 11/3/04 Capital Times print edition, page 13A.
Sound Off! on Halloween
Readers call in to sound off about Halloween on State St. and the merchants who “are making tons of money” from it while taxpayers foot the bill for police services. (11//04 Capital Times print edition)
Calif. stem cell vote worries UW officials
California voters have decided to give their state a huge infusion of money for stem cell research there. University of Wisconsin officials are concerned that could put Wisconsin at a competitive disadvantage in a field pioneered here.
(11/3/04 Capital Times print edition)
New Web site helps UW grads find jobs
Capital Times
The Wisconsin Alumni Association is running a new Web site that will help UW-Madison graduates find jobs and enable employers to find those job seekers.
Violin virtuoso Midori plans week here
Capital Times
Normally, when the world-famous violin virtuoso tours the globe, she stays in the best hotels, eats in the best restaurants and plays with the best orchestras in the best concert halls. But for six days Midori will live as a student on the campus of the University of Wisconsin.
Campus Dems down in dumps
Capital Times
Almost all the University of Wisconsin students had left the Memorial Union once TV commentators began arguing that Bush would win in Ohio, and as bars began locking up, State Street was nearly silent.
Don’t scare away revelers, merchants say: Many want Halloween tradition to remain
Capital Times
State Street merchant John Williamson doesn’t think Mayor Dave Cieslewicz’s threat to discourage Halloween festivities on State Street next year will work. “There is nothing like throwing the gauntlet down to college kids,” said Williamson, owner of Sports World at 510 State St.
First-time voters find motivation in closely contested presidential race
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Massive get-out-the-vote campaigns by both Democrats and Republicans seem to have paid off in this closely contested presidential race. Late afternoon exit polls in Wisconsin indicated that 9% of those at the polls said they were voting for the first time. Nearly all the rookie voters interviewed shared this sentiment: Every vote counts.
Republicans pick up seats to keep control of House (Bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg News
Quoted: John Coleman, UW-Madison political science professor.
Maverick Feingold secures easy victory
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: Joseph L. Lindstrom, who teaches a course on Wisconsin history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Flu summit necessary
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
An editorial supporting a World Health Organization summit of nations and flu vacccine makers. Mentions UW-Madison research on the 1918 flu virus.
Rob Zaleski: Rail still good idea, still stuck
Capital Times
Much as he tries to disguise it, Jonathan Barry is frustrated. And he suspects others are, too. It’s been eight years since the former Dane County executive co-chaired a county committee that evaluated the feasibility of a commuter rail system. And he not only concluded it was worth pursuing, but predicted in a 1997 interview with this reporter that we’d have a such a system up and running no later than 2003.
NimbleGen gets $12 million venture fund boost
Capital Times
Just months after signing a deal with an industry leader, Madison-based genetic technology company NimbleGen Systems announced that it has raised another $12.75 million in venture funding.
UW men’s basketball: Ticketing company gives students a free pass
Capital Times
The University of Wisconsin athletic department and the company that processes the tickets for the school’s athletic events took the extraordinary measure Monday of announcing that the 2,100 students selected to receive season tickets to the men’s basketball games will not be charged.
High hopes, dashed dreams: Class of 1999 recovers from dot-com bust
Capital Times
…To survive the workplace now, many young people have had to start over on the bottom rung – not exactly the position many expected to be in five years after graduation. According to Alexandra Levit, a Northwestern University graduate who recently wrote the book “They Don’t Teach Corporate in College,” her age group has aspirations that are “way out of whack with reality.”
On the street: shock and spray
Capital Times
Although Police Chief Noble Wray praised his officers for using “great restraint” on State Street, none of the people interviewed there used that term to describe their encounters.
Halloween fines may total $125K
Capital Times
The city could take in a total of $125,000 in fines if all the 519 charges stick after two nights of Halloween trouble on State Street, police said. And, while the mayor was making noises about canceling it next year, State Street business people were looking on the brighter side of the annual Halloween bash.
Doug Moe: UW lab houses world’s worst flu
Capital Times
…You probably don’t need to hear that a British scientific journal just listed Madison as ground zero for a plague that, when last unleashed on the world, killed 40 million people.
Charles Franklin ‘Takes Five’
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Interview with UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin on campaigns, political ads and the Electoral College.
UW System leaders in line for pay boosts
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The salaries of several chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System could rise several thousand dollars if salary ranges for top university executives are shifted upward under items up for discussion this week by the system’s regents. The regents also may tell Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration and the legislature’s Joint Committee on Employment Relations that all employees – faculty, staff and executives – need 5% annual increases, on average, in the 2005-’07 biennium.
Talk about scary: Madison
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
An editorial says what’s been happening in Madison the past three Halloweens is unacceptable. It canââ?¬â?¢t happen again.
Necropsy shows giraffe was bruised
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Spinal cord bruising that occurred about five to 10 days before a euthanasia procedure was responsible for the deteriorating condition of a Racine Zoo giraffe, the zoo announced Monday. The announcement was based on a report commissioned by the zoo from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Research Animal Resources Center.
Menn loved aviation, UW Badgers football
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Driven by success and energized by his love of aviation, John B. Menn seldom missed Wisconsin Badgers home football games, often flying his twin-engine Cessna airplane from his Florida home to Madison in time for a kickoff. The University of Wisconsin-Madison was a defining time in his life, and he had a lifelong relationship with the school, his son said.
Cell transplants at UW-Madison free diabetic from daily insulin injections
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Dan Quigley is eating ice cream again. After three pancreatic islet cell transplants, the Door County man has become the first Wisconsin resident with Type 1 diabetes to be declared free of the need for insulin injections.