Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point voted Thursday to form a union with collective bargaining rights through AFT-Wisconsin, a statewide labor federation affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. The vote was 283 to 15 in favor of union representation, AFT-Wisconsin said in a news release.
MILWAUKEE — Some members of the State Employees Union are warning businesses in Wisconsin to either support collective bargaining for public employees or face a boycott.A letter from Council 24 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees asks businesses to express support by displaying a sign in their window. The letter said failing to support the union will mean a public boycott of the business. It also said that neutral means ?no? to supporting the union.
Dear Editor: People of Wisconsin, stand strong. Millions of us outside Wisconsin are so proud to see the determination of the union workers. It is heartwarming to watch Wisconsin?s brave citizens stand up to Gov. Scott Walker and his administration as well as his benefactors, the Koch brothers. Not satisfied with giving tax cuts to large businesses on the backs of the working people, they also want to eliminate collective bargaining. They are counting on workers? energy eroding. Do not fold; wait them out. You have been an inspiration to many people.
Dear Editor: The Republican Party attack on Professor William Cronon is another dark chapter in the book of hardball politics being written by the Republicans. Attacking Professor Cronon in this manner is cowardly and unfair.
Roger Dean Biddick, age 88, of Madison and formerly of Livingston, died Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at Upland Hills Health in Dodgeville. Roger received the Honorary Recognition Award from the UW College of Agricultural and Life Sciences in 1975. He also served on the first board of the UW College of Agriculture and Life Science Alumni Association.
It was a bibliophile?s delight, with nary a Kindle in sight. For those of us who love to hold on to a real book, turning each page of a ?page-turner? to find out what happens next, the big Friends of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries used book sale at the UW-Madison Memorial Library was heaven on earth.
Now, we?re not saying modern technology is a bad thing. It?s a lot easier carrying an electronic book collection on a reader than a backpack full of tomes, or listening to your tunes through an iPod instead of a bulky CD player.
Supreme Court Justice David Prosser is more interested in protecting the Catholic Church from scandal than protecting children from a molesting priest, and he?s a “rubber stamp” for Republican Gov. Scott Walker. His opponent in the April 5 election, JoAnne Kloppenburg, is a judicial flop, turned down for several judgeships, and she hasn?t vowed to be tough enough on crime. She?s also a job killer who as an assistant attorney general has prosecuted hard-working farmers for violating the state?s environmental laws.
If you vote on the basis of radio and TV ads, and apparently some of you do, keep your eyes open.
Quoted: Dhavan Shah, director of the Mass Communication Research Center at UW-Madison
What?s the hottest issue for local candidates as the April 5 election approaches?You guessed it. Gov. Scott Walker?s war on workers, education, BadgerCare, SeniorCare and the rule of law.
On April 5, voters in Madison and in Dane County will have a chance to begin reclaiming their democratic voice. In 2010, by the barest of majorities, the United States Supreme Court decided that private corporations could spend unlimited and unregulated amounts of their corporate funds to influence American elections. The case, ?Citizens United v. FEC,? was based on the ideas that corporations are just like real people when it comes to having constitutional rights, and that money is the equivalent of speech.
(Michael Olneck is a UW-Madison professor emeritus of educational policy studies)
For film lovers in Madison, the beginning of spring is a time not only to enjoy warmer temperatures but also to pour over the extensive Wisconsin Film Festival guide and finalize viewing plans. The 13th annual Wisconsin Film Festival begins Wednesday, and as with past years, it offers a dizzying amount of films in a variety of categories, such as narrative, documentary, experimental, short films, animation and world cinema.
While trying to decide which films to see out of the 209 playing over five days can seem like a somewhat daunting task, many find that browsing through the possibilities and going out on a limb to see movies they may not otherwise watch is half the fun of the experience and can lead to unexpected surprises.
If it wasn?t clear last time, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi made it clear on Tuesday: Any further implementation of Gov. Scott Walker?s law limiting public employee unions is barred, and anyone who violates her order risks sanctions.Sumi made her ruling at the end of a day of testimony in the open meetings lawsuit brought by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne. The hearing is scheduled to conclude on Friday.
Meg Hamel has always had a novel philosophy for the Wisconsin Film Festival; make it a festival, featuring films, located in Wisconsin. That sounds obvious. But at other film festivals like Sundance, South By Southwest and Tribeca, showing movies is just one part of the experience. Those fests also include a wealth of festival parties, music performances, screenwriting competitions, celebrity sightings, filmmaking classes, swag giveaways and other side events. Not so at the Wisconsin Film Festival, which runs Wednesday, March 30, through Sunday, April 3.
Luna the labradoodle took an unexpected and very chilly dip in Lake Mendota on Tuesday after falling through what?s left of the ice, before being pulled to safety by the Madison Fire Department lake rescue team. The rescue happened just before noon on Tuesday near Picnic Point on the UW-Madison campus, according to Eric Dahl, spokesman for the fire department.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor William Cronon isn?t the only academic being targeted these days by folks wielding public records requests. A free-market oriented think tank has made a broad public records request to at least three Michigan universities which house departments that specialize in the study of labor relations, report both Talking Points Memo and Mother Jones.
Milwaukee voucher students are more likely to graduate and enroll in college than their public school counterparts, according to a new study from researchers the state asked to evaluate the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.The finding is one of eight that researchers with the University of Arkansas? School Choice Demonstration Project say demonstrate the ?neutral to positive? results of the 20-year-old voucher program.
They start gathering just before noon: families touring the Capitol, downtown workers on their lunch hours, protestors of Gov. Scott Walker?s agenda who won?t say die. Some days the number gathered to raise their voices in song barely rings the rotunda, but on Tuesday, a social network call for a “Sing-In” day to object to the arrest of protesters brandishing signs in violation of new restrictions brought in a crowd.
?They Marched Into Sunlight,? David Maraniss?s history about a Vietnam War ambush in 1967 and the simultaneous Dow Chemical riots in Madison, has been translated many times. But for the first time on Saturday, the stories of the soldiers and those they left behind were told in the language of dance.
A thorough airing is needed before any legislative action is taken on a plan to keep the University of Wisconsin System united while still allowing the flexibilities sought in a proposal to split off its flagship campus.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin has launched an all-out attack on William Cronon, arguably one of the most prominent and respected academics not just on the University of Wisconsin campus but nationally.
Why the attack? Because Cronon, the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Rhodes Scholar and MacArthur Foundation fellow who has for decades been one of Wisconsin’s most beloved public intellectuals, dared to raise questions about whether national right-wing think tanks and interest groups might be influencing the choices made by Gov. Scott Walker’s administration to attack Wisconsin unions and initiate a power grab that even some Republicans worry will diminish democracy at the local level.
One block of North Lake Street on the UW-Madison campus will be closed to through traffic on Tuesday and Wednesday due to construction.
Twin brothers were arrested Friday after a Langdon Street fight that was apparently tied to the popular dance video “Teach Me How to Bucky.” Steven and Andrew Schecher, 21-year-old twins from Madison, were both accused of battery after an incident early Friday morning in which one man was knocked unconscious, the Madison Police Department reported.
The Wisconsin Badgers likely will open the 2011 football season on national TV on Thursday night, Sept. 1, the Las Vegas Sun reported Sunday.
Monday?s New York Times features a column by Paul Krugman headlined “American Thought Police” about the matter of William Cronon, the UW-Madison history professor whose writing about the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC, a right-wing think tank, has drawn the ire of the Wisconsin Republican Party. This follows an editorial by the same newspaper on the topic last Friday.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor said if her school is allowed to spin off from the rest of the UW System she won?t recommend a tuition increase of more than 8.5 percent next year. Biddy Martin said the in-state rate hike would match what Madison students absorbed in the past year. She said grants would cover students from lower-income families.
NEW ORLEANS ? The University of Wisconsin men?s basketball team, like just about everyone else in the Crescent City, was swallowed up by Jimmer-mania this week. Instead of getting Jimmered in the NCAA tournament?s Southeast regional, however, the Badgers got Butlered.
Just how attractive is the University of Wisconsin women?s basketball coaching job? The easy answer is that it?s one of the four best jobs open, along with the other BCS schools with vacancies ? LSU, Virginia and Washington.
The more nuanced answer is that attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder. To an upwardly mobile mid-major coach or an accomplished assistant at a major program with a winning tradition, UW could be a dream job.
For decades the theory that farmers are getting old and there are no young people taking over has been a popular subject of discussion presented by so-called ag experts. However, the line of young people waiting to take over the home farm or set out on their own career in farming or agribusiness is long and enthusiastic.
The recent 15th Badger Invitational Holstein heifer sale hosted by the UW-Madison Badger Dairy Club is a showcase of good dairy cattle and the 75 or so students who put the event together.
The Wisconsin Republican Party, apparently stung by a blog post written by UW-Madison history professor William Cronon, has responded by asking the University of Wisconsin-Madison for copies of all of Cronon?s office e-mails that mention prominent Republicans or public employee unions. Cronon revealed the GOP?s Freedom of Information Act request in his Scholar as Citizen blog post late Thursday evening along with a lengthy, and typically scholarly, defense.
Riley V. Whitehead, age 19, of Albany, passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday, March 22, 2011, in Madison. Riley was currently a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying political science. He was also a member of the UW-ROTC.
The Natural Resources Board honored the late Harold “Bud” Jordahl on Wednesday by unanimously approving a proposal to name a section of the Lower Wisconsin Riverway after the long-time conservation leader. Jordahl served on the Natural Resources Board from 1972 to 1976 and was instrumental in numerous landmark conservation efforts, including the creation of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and the creation of the state?s Outdoor Recreation Act Program in 1962, the forerunner of the popular land-buying Stewardship Program.
(Jordahl, who was a professor of urban and regional planning at UW-Madison, helped create conservation organizations such as the 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin and the Gathering Waters Conservancy.)
City Council candidates from four downtown districts worked to distinguish themselves on key neighborhood and city issues, from the city budget to the downtown entertainment district, at a forum Thursday night.
The Chronicle of Higher Education posted a short Q & A with Duke professor Charles Clotfelter, who just published a new book titled “Big-Time Sports in American Universities.” The cover of the book features a packed Camp Randall Stadium on a Badgers football game day.
….In his book, Clotfelter said he tries to explain to readers what role commercial sports play at American universities, and what the costs and benefits associated with big-time athletics are.
Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls voted overwhelmingly Thursday to form a union with collective bargaining rights through AFT-Wisconsin, a statewide labor federation affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. The vote was 148 to 16 in favor of union representation, AFT-Wisconsin said in a news release.
Gov. Scott Walker has fired the lawyers defending the state in a challenge to Wisconsin?s domestic partnership law. But the governor?s spokesman said his office “is still working to appoint a new counsel to the case.” Madison attorney Lester Pines informed Dane County Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser in a March 22 letter that his firm, Cullen Weston Pines & Bach, had been “terminated” by Walker as counsel for the state in the lawsuit filed in 2009 by Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, a conservative advocacy group.
Richard C. Berry, age 86, passed away on Saturday, March 19, 2011, at Hebron Oaks, Oakwood Village, Madison. Berry’s career took a new turn in 1969, when he joined UW-Extension and ran Management Institute executive programs. As he moved up to full professor, Dick published over 150 articles and five books, mostly on service management and industrial marketing. After a campus reshuffling, he moved to UW-Madison’s Business School.
Now that a Wisconsin judge has temporarily blocked a state law that would strip public employee unions of most collective bargaining rights, it?s worth stepping back to place these events in larger historical context. Republicans in Wisconsin are seeking to reverse civic traditions that for more than a century have been among the most celebrated achievements not just of their state, but of their own party as well.
(This column first appeared in The New York Times)
UW-Madison is embarking on an external study to look for areas where the university could function more cheaply, effectively and efficiently. There are no cost estimates yet for the contract that university leaders signed with Huron Consulting Group earlier this month. Instead, the company will bill the university on an hourly basis, giving the university flexibility on how much it wants to spend, said Darrell Bazzell, vice chancellor for administration.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison signed off on a deal earlier this month which asks the Huron Consulting Group to study if the university is running as efficiently and effectively as possible. There is no estimate for how much this project might cost the university at this time, said Darrell Bazzell, UW-Madison?s vice chancellor for administration. However, university administrators told faculty leaders in September that such an endeavor could cost upwards of $3 million. Taxpayer dollars will not be used to pay for the project, said Bazzell.
UW-Madison, we don?t want you to go. That?s the gist of a letter today to state legislators, signed by all the other chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System, except UW-Madison?s Chancellor Biddy Martin.
If there was any doubt remaining, it?s now gone: Biddy and Bucky are going it alone.
In an opinion piece sent to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents President Chuck Pruitt and Vice President Michael Spector said chancellors at 12 of the system?s four-year campuses, plus the head of the UW Colleges and Extension, are backing a proposal the regents announced March 10 called the Wisconsin Idea Partnership. This plan would give campuses long-sought freedoms from state oversight but would keep all of the institutions under the umbrella of the UW System.
All the city approvals are in place for a new four-story 44-unit apartment at 424 W. Mifflin St. Now, developer Pat McCaughey just needs to line up the financing.
This is the time of year when almost everyone is a sports fan. It?s hard to miss the NCAA tournament, and who would want to? It provides some of the best entertainment around. And it was hard not to come to work Monday morning without a bit of a glow after the way Wisconsin?s teams performed.
Campus and near west side motorists should expect traffic delays from Thursday through Saturday thanks to the closing of a one-block stretch of Old University Avenue. The Madison Traffic Engineering and Parking Division said a construction company is erecting a tower crane in the 1500 block of Old University Avenue near Breese Terrace, forcing the closure of the eastbound traffic lanes and the westbound left turn lane onto Breese Terrace.
MADISON, Wis. — A scientist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been awarded the 2011 Stockholm Water Prize , the top award for scientists studying water-related activities. Limnologist Stephen Carpenter is the Stephen Alfred Forbes Professor of Zoology at the UW. The award, which comes with $150,000 and a specially designed crystal sculpture, honors individuals and organizations “whose work contributes broadly to the conservation and protection of water resources and to improved health of the planet?s inhabitants and ecosystems,” according to the group.
Officials from Northern Illinois have narrowed their list of potential head coaches for its men?s basketball program down to four and one of them is Greg Gard, according to Dave Kaplan of csnchicago.com. Gard, the associate head coach for the University of Wisconsin men?s basketball program, was listed in the report along with Gonzaga assistant Ray Giacoletti, Purdue assistant Paul Lusk and South Dakota State head coach Scott Nagy.
Movie fans, get lots of sleep this weekend. Because the 13th annual Wisconsin Film Festival starts next Wednesday, March 30, and with over 160 screenings of 209 different films in nine theaters, including the Orpheum, Wisconsin Union Theater and Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, you?re going to need to be rested and ready.
The most compelling aspect of the new Big Ten Conference for men?s hockey may be how its members will co-exist with peers in their soon-to-be abandoned leagues. Will it be business as usual with the Central Collegiate Hockey Association and Western Collegiate Hockey Association, or will there be resistance when it comes to scheduling and other administrative matters?
Leadership of St. Paul?s University Catholic Center announced Monday they are considering reducing the scope of their proposed 14-story, $45 million facility to be located on the State Street Mall.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Teaching Assistants? Association voted Sunday to pass a motion opposing the university being granted public authority status and breaking away from the UW System.
The motion reads: “The TAA opposes the New Badger Partnership, especially the separation of UW-Madison from the UW System, the formation of the public authority model, and the threat to affordability and accessibility it poses to public education and the lack of protection for labor unions on campus. The TAA also objects to the non-transparent and undemocratic process by which the New Badger Partnership was designed.”
….I am certain that to make any major change in the status of the UW-Madison that brings the university under the governance of a board on which the majority of members is appointed by the current governor is irresponsible, and that if Chancellor Biddy Martin believes that Gov. Walker?s influence through such a board will be benign, she has drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid.
** Eight UW-Madison graduates are receiving the Wisconsin Alumni Association?s 75th annual Distinguished Alumni Awards. This honor is the association?s highest accolade.
** A long-running battle over how student fees are distributed at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is intensifying, with student senate leaders threatening the chancellor with a vote of “no confidence,” reports the Superior Telegram.
** Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is speaking on the UW-Madison campus about ethics and race during a lecture on Thursday. Gates is to discuss issues aired in his PBS documentary “African-American Lives,” which showed how blacks are using genealogy and genetic science to understand their past.
TRIPOLI, Libya ? The Libyan government released four New York Times journalists on Monday, six days after they were captured while covering the conflict between government and rebel forces in the eastern city of Ajdabiya. They were released into the custody of Turkish diplomats.
Like many Western journalists, the four had entered the rebel-controlled eastern region of Libya over the Egyptian border without visas to cover the insurrection against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. They were detained by forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi in Ajdabiya.
As she took what would turn out to be her final shot in college, Alyssa Karel hoped for the best, but deep down inside knew she was going to come up short.It was only fitting the ball would end up in Karel?s hands as the University of Wisconsin women?s basketball team attempted to finish off a furious rally against Illinois State in the final moments of their second-round WNIT game Sunday at the Kohl Center.
Another late March, another welcome home celebration for the NCAA champion University of Wisconsin women?s hockey team.It?s a scene that certainly never gets old for Mark Johnson, his players or the Badgers? loyal fan base.This year?s edition will be held Monday at the Nicholas Johnson Pavilion adjacent to the Kohl Center. The event, which starts at 6 p.m., is free and open to the public, and free parking is available in lots 88 and 91 starting at 5:30 p.m.
It?s great that the University of Wisconsin women?s hockey team will have a civic celebration Monday to celebrate its fourth NCAA title in the last six seasons, as well as Patty Kazmaier Award winner Meghan Duggan. One way to make the 6 p.m. get-together at the Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion even more special is to include UW swimmer Maggie Meyer.
ERIE, Pa. ? For months it?s been said that the heart, soul and character of the University of Wisconsin women?s hockey team is its rare chemistry. There was absolutely no reason to debate that Sunday afternoon when the top-ranked Badgers finished off one of the greatest seasons in history with a dominating 4-1 victory over Boston University in the NCAA championship game before a crowd of 3,956 at Tullio Arena.
Farmland will be less expensive to develop and harder for farm families to permanently protect under a series of proposals in Gov. Scott Walker?s budget. The governor?s plans to eliminate the farmland conversion fee and a farmland preservation program still in its infancy gut key components of the Working Lands Initiative. The moves hand developers a victory and deal conservationists and those who want to keep farmland in the family a blow.
….The WSJ promotes watching basketball as a means of ?pulling us together? is a case in point. A reminder that the owners (media included) are encouraging us to go back to sleep, believing in the American Dream — a euphemism for the American Nightmare. The busting of unions, the raiding (of the Employee Trust Fund) are problems we must confront — awake.
….Scrub the Legislature.
Another institution we have depended on ? the most important of all our institutions ? is the University of Wisconsin. UW has educated hundreds of thousands; found solutions to problems through research; brought great minds to Wisconsin, where they could work without looking over their shoulders for Joe McCarthy. Academic freedom and Wisconsin have been synonymous for over a century.
But we are about to lose our flagship campus to the privatizers, who argue that somehow things will be better if corporations can name the Board of Regents. Nonsense.
The father of Anthony Shadid, a New York Times correspondent missing in Libya, said his son told him “not to worry” Monday, one day before he and three journalists disappeared.
“I told him it?s so crazy there, no one knows who?s friend, who?s foe,” Buddy Shadid told the Associated Press. “But he said he knew what he?s doing. We?re all just praying for his safety.”
Anthony Shadid, Stephen Farrell, Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario were reporting on the fighting in the eastern part of the country, the Times said in a statement Wednesday.
