A 19-year-old UW-Madison student was punched in the face by a mugger Tuesday night while she was exiting an underground parking garage near campus.
The mugging happened at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 900 block of Spring Street, just off Park Street. Madison police said the victim was leaving the garage when the suspect grabbed the hood of her coat.
Madison and Milwaukee are both ranked among the top 20 metro areas in the country for business, according to this yearâ??s study by MarketWatch.com.
That result flies in the face of critics who are constantly deriding the state over its reputation for not being kind to the private sector.
So, whatâ??s a coastie?
Chances are until this fall, most folks, even in Madison where the term appears to have originated, would have told you itâ??s one of two things:Anyone not from around here.
Or, a privileged East or West Coast transplant, often a woman of a certain look: black tights, Ugg boots, oversize sunglasses and sporting a Starbucks cup.
As the end of the semester approaches, some UW-Madison students took it upon themselves to grade Chancellor Biddy Martin.
Members of the Student Labor Action Coalition gathered on Bascom Hill Monday to give Martin a 4-foot tall, hand-drawn report card on her performance on workersâ?? rights.
Disappointed with her action regarding UW-Madisonâ??s contract with Nike, she didnâ??t fare well in the studentsâ?? assessment.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison now has enough H1N1 flu vaccine on hand to begin innoculations for students of all ages.
University Health Services (UHS), announced on Monday that all students are now eligible for the free H1N1 shots, available without appointment at the UHS clinic.
The announcement comes on the heels of the stateâ??s Department of Health Services “freeing up” the H1N1 supply to allow for all residents to get immunized through public and private health care clinics.
A bill with support from both parties that would have required some members of the University of Wisconsin Systemâ??s Board of Regents to come from particular geographic regions of the state was vetoed Monday by Gov. Jim Doyle.
Those pushing for passage of Senate Bill 223 had argued that all regions of the state should be represented on the Board of Regents.
The First Business Bank Economic Survey of Milwaukee and Waukesha counties is based on responses from 566 businesses across the two counties and was conducted by the A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed a bill Monday that would have required members of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents to come from different parts of the state.
Although Wisconsinâ??s 72-63 victory over Marquette gave the Badgersâ?? bragging rights for a year and gave UW fans the opportunity to tweak their rivals from Milwaukee if they choose, poll voters werenâ??t as impressed or enthused.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents took an important and timely step Friday when it unanimously approved UW-Milwaukeeâ??s $50 million plan to develop a new School of Freshwater Sciences.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The story also mentions a recent UW Badger Poll done by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center.
Even if President Barack Obama doesnâ??t deliver the change he promised, at least he could restore basic oversight in key financial areas.
The need was highlighted by a story out of Cleveland last week. On Friday, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. regulators seized the AmTrust Bank, the fourth-largest U.S. bank or savings institution to fail in 2009. The AmTrust debacle — the FDIC had dutifully guaranteed the bankâ??s deposits at a cost of more than $2 billion — vividly reflects the Obama administrationâ??s steadfast commitment to the status quo.
(Stanley Kutler is a UW-Madison history professor emeritus. This column first appeared on truthdig.com.)
Fifty years after graduating from UW-Whitewater, a 72-year old Milwaukee man will finally get to cross the stage at commencement Dec. 19. Frank W. Schultz missed out on the chance in 1959 because of a clerical error.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukeeâ??s preliminary $50 million plan to develop its new School of Freshwater Sciences now calls for a three-story addition to UWMâ??s Great Lakes WATER Institute, on the cityâ??s south side lakefront.
Fifty-one percent of students in a UW System survey told researchers that they had a binge drinking episode within the two previous weeks. Thatâ??s a lower number than in previous surveys – and one that gives the researchers “guarded optimism” that efforts to stem dangerous drinking and drug use might be working.
A decline in invasive breast cancer cases has been linked to a dramatic drop in the use of hormone therapy, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers report, and that is certainly good news for women and their families.
Whatâ??s troubling is that so many women were pushed into this therapy in the first place by drug companies, doctors and even universities such as UW-Madison.
The Tiger Woods sex scandal has been a boon for online publications, even though it hasnâ??t generated the same amount of Internet traffic as Michael Jacksonâ??s death or President Barack Obamaâ??s inauguration, the Associated Press reported.
Provocative remarks by Yahoo Inc. CEO Carol Bartz at an investor conference in New York this week illustrate how major Internet channels and niche publications are benefiting from the Woods controversy.
Known for her off-color commentary, the UW-Madison graduate told financial analysts Tuesday that the Woods story is “better than Michael Jackson dying” for helping Yahoo make money, because it is easier to sell ads against salacious content than morbid stories, AP reported.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukeeâ??s preliminary $50 million plan to develop its new School of Freshwater Sciences now calls for a three-story addition to UWMâ??s Great Lakes WATER Institute, on the cityâ??s south side lakefront. Thatâ??s according to a funding request that the UW System Board of Regents is to review at meetings in Madison on Thursday and Friday.
Bo Ryanâ??s basketball team got what it deserved Wednesday night – a loss to unranked UW-Green Bay.
It might go against the adage “oil and water donâ??t mix,” but a University of Wisconsin professor and the City of Beloitâ??s fleet manager are experimenting with technology that allows motor scooters, cars and trucks to use a combination of gasoline and water as fuel.
Theyâ??re testing a system that uses voltage from a vehicleâ??s battery and alternator to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Those molecules are then burned as supplemental fuel – reducing the amount of gasoline needed and resulting in a cleaner-running engine.
Some fortified themselves by wearing goggles and using dining hall trays as shields.
Others attempted to intimidate by waving skull and crossbones flags.
Colin Griffin went shirtless.No matter the approach, thousands of University of Wisconsin-Madison students took advantage of an unplanned day off and hurled snowballs at one another today in a massive melee. Classes had been canceled due to more than a foot of snow and blizzard-like conditions that brought sub-freezing temperatures and winds of more than 20 mph
Students at the University of Wisconsin – Madison made the most of their snow day, by studying the physics of spheres in flight. With a YouTube video.
No word yet whether classes will be canceled Wednesday on the UW-Madison campus, but students are making plans for a major snowstorm, nonetheless. And that doesnâ??t mean getting their homework ahead of time.
More than 2,000 people have joined a group on Facebook for a campus-wide snowball fight on Bascom Hill at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
When I was back home two weeks ago, my mother mentioned John — the cute boy with red hair and freckles on whom I had my first crush in grade school. I was sorry to hear that he has spent years battling alcoholism. I gather it began in college, which doesnâ??t surprise me, after visiting my sonâ??s college this fall.
We enjoyed so much about visiting Martinâ??s school. The wonderful concert in the auditorium, the birthday messages written by friends on the sidewalk in front of his dorm, the bulletin board notices of creative activities and organizations, the engaging academic community, the sense of belonging. But there was another side to college that Martin said disturbed him, and it too was in evidence — the broken chair in the kitchen, destroyed by a few drunken students a week or two earlier, the bloated face of a hall mate, the beer bottles left in odd places. Even at a college based on principles of simplicity, emphasizing personal restraint and responsibility to community, excessive college drinking is rampant.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin has decided to give Nike four months to clear up problems of reported workersâ?? rights abuses at two factories that the sports apparel giant subcontracts with in Honduras.
If the situation isnâ??t remedied, the university could end its apparel contract with Nike — a deal which brings the university nearly $50,000 per year.
Martin said Monday that she hopes to build a coalition of interested schools from the Big Ten Conference and other peer institutions to put pressure on Nike.
Some east side residents welcome a recent change to UWMâ??s student code, which allows the university to punish students for off-campus incidents. The policy took effect Sept. 1 and is part of a continuing effort to curb bad behavior as university enrollment swells.
Forty years ago, I conducted the first comprehensive study of Wisconsin hunters for a masters of science degree from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A popularized version was published by the Department of Natural Resources. I have been a keen observer of hunting regulations and hunter success ever since. [An opinion column by Lowell Klessig.]
The declining use of hormone therapy among women has led to 6,000 fewer invasive breast cancer cases a year, according to an analysis by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In a 30-second span between tapings of the campus talk show â??Office Hours,â? host Ken Goldstein thanks guests from the first program, gets a last-second rundown of talking points pertinent to the second show and exchanges a purple tie for the red one heâ??s wearing.
â??Heâ??s gotten lazy,â? one student teases Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor. â??Now he just changes his tie between shows. He used to change shirts, too.â?
Wisconsinâ??s quaking aspens are growing much faster than in the past, and scientists think that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere provide the explanation.
A sample of nearly 1,000 aspen trees in different parts of the state showed an annual growth radial rate of 53% over the past five decades, according to scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota Morris.
The destination (Orlando, Fla.) and the bowl (Champs Sports) might not titillate Wisconsin fans who watched UW get thumped in the 2008 Champs Sports Bowl and saw the Badgers play in Orlando after the 2005 and â??06 seasons, too.
The opponent, however, offers an attractive matchup and tremendous opportunity for UW coach Bret Bielema and his players.
UW (9-3), which moved into the USA Today top 25 coachesâ?? poll (No. 22) and The Associated Press top 25 media poll (No. 24) on Sunday, will face Miami (9-3, No. 14 AP, No. 15 USA Today) in the 2009 Champs Sports Bowl on Dec. 29 in Orlando. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
Deploy the models of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and BizStarts Milwaukee to encourage a national corps of mentors – seasoned entrepreneurs – to help high-growth ventures get out of the starting gates. Veterans with lots of scar tissue can help entrepreneurs avoid critical start-up mistakes, thereby improving the win ratio.
While the past year has left millions fretting over their financial futures, itâ??s proven a boom time for economists.
Long derided as the â??dismal science,â? economics has gone decidedly mainstream as Americans seek an explanation for falling home values, shrinking retirement account balances and long lines at the unemployment office.
Among those enjoying the newfound fame is Menzie Chinn â?? professor of public affairs and economics at the UW-Madisonâ??s Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs â?? whose blog â??Econbrowserâ? has developed a national following.
David Wilson sounds like a man who is seriously considering leaving Madison to become the next president of Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Morgan State announced in early November that Wilson was one of three finalists to lead that institution.
How worried should we be that the debt load for college graduates keeps increasing — while job options keep decreasing?
According to this report recently released by the Project on Student Debt, the average debt for graduating seniors with loans rose from $18,650 in 2004 to $23,200 in 2008.
In Wisconsin, 62 percent of the students graduating from a public, four-year institution had debt. And of those, the average debt was $19,789. Of those who graduated from a private, nonprofit institution in Wisconsin, 70 percent left school with debt. Of those, the average debt was $26,802.
The rocket-like roar rose up from the floor of the Kohl Center on Wednesday night, drifted out over the streets of Madison, across the Big Ten Conference and perhaps to every corner of the nation.
Dukeâ??s unblemished record is history, this season and in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. With senior point guard Trevon Hughes alternating between point guard and shooting guard and hitting big shot after big shot, unranked Wisconsin stunned unbeaten Duke, ranked fifth and sixth in both major polls, 73-69, in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.
UW-Whitewater has named a new provost, the top academic post at the university. Beverly Kopper, the associate provost for academic affairs at the University of Northern Iowa, will start April 1.
Young people today donâ??t know a world without hip-hop. Itâ??s simply the “mechanism and medium right now,” said Rafael Casal, and as creative director of the First Wave program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, heâ??s pushing to get this recognized on campus.
“Weâ??re trying to make a shift in the lens through which they see the world,” said Casal, a 24-year-old San Francisco Bay Area native who had been a successful touring emcee and spoken word poet for years when he landed in Madison and in his current job.
Some of the student emcees of First Wave, at its core a bridge between academics and the arts, are putting on an end-of-semester hip-hop show at the Rathskeller on Saturday, Dec. 5. Their efforts are two-fold: theyâ??re using their music as a vehicle for academic inquiry, and theyâ??re also giving Madisonâ??s off-campus hip-hop scene a shot in the arm.
During the Civil War and Reconstruction era â?? best described as our â??Second American Revolutionâ?â??the political parties marched in virtual lockstep in consistent, rigid opposition to each other. Democrats steadfastly resisted the Republicansâ?? organic program for a new nation, including the Homestead Act, the land-grant college program, a protective tariff, a transcontinental railroad, a national currency and a reordering of judicial power.
Party discipline soon weakened, and legislators again comfortably crossed party lines. Even at the New Dealâ??s high point, the Republican minority, after opposing many of the details, often supported major reforms, such as Social Security. More recently, in the mid-1960s, conservative Midwestern Republicans helped break filibusters and the obstructionist tactics of conservative Southern Democrats (many still mired in â??lost causeâ? nostalgia).
We have now regressed. Rarely in our history has partisanship been more narrow and rigid.
Deidre Green got off to a rough start with a bad case of infant jaundice that overwhelmed her mother. She went to live with her grandmother, who showered her with attention that likely changed the arc of her life.
â??I suppose I got pretty spoiled,â? the UW-Madison freshman says with a laugh. â??My grandma played with me all the time â?? she did puzzles with me, read to me. She always told me I was smart, so when I got to school, that was what I expected. It was what she expected, too.â?
For Green, a variety of serendipitous factors â?? her own talent and hard work, supportive mentors in and out of school, a core group of good friends and key opportunities â?? helped her excel in Madison public schools. An educational pioneer in her family, she intends to also do well in college and then go to law school.
Quoted: Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Patrick McBride, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Thousands of people all over the state wake up every morning with Jim Fleming.
Fleming chooses the soundtrack as they start their day: Mozart, Haydn, Boccherini, Gershwin. His voice, cadenced and comforting, introduces each symphony and concerto. But after Thursday, Dec. 3, Wisconsinites will have a new morning companion. Fleming, after nearly 41 consecutive years at Wisconsin Public Radio, is retiring.
Itâ??s been 35 years since the first time Ben Sidran didnâ??t meet Bob Dylan.
….When Sidran was an artist-in-residence at the UW-Madison in 2003, he taught a course about Jewish-American musicians entitled â??Jews, Music and the American Dream: From Irving Berlin to the Beastie Boys.â? Heâ??s now in the middle of writing a book on the subject.
â??I love it and itâ??s the hardest thing you can do,â? he said. â??Iâ??m totally captured by the ideas. I love the freedom to spend my time with ideas. It feels as good as playing piano in a club.â?
Of course, Dylan himself will play a major role in the book. And, if Sidranâ??s personal brushes with the man wonâ??t make it into the book, perhaps the insight he gained from living inside his songs for a while will have an influence.
Since the summer, 211 state workers have been given notice that they are at risk of being laid off — a number that will rise in the coming months, state officials said.
“We are headed toward some layoffs in state government. How far and how deep theyâ??ll go, I really canâ??t predict,” said Jennifer Donnelly, director of the Office of State Employment Relations. “That number is going to continue to rise.”
….Numbers for the UW System could not be obtained because of the Thanksgiving holiday and furlough day.
Mirk Buzdum and Dick “Cappy” Capstran, a pair of garage entrepreneurs in Milwaukee, know full well that their designs for drill bits and cutting tools are good.
“Itâ??s obvious that these technologies are valid, because people are stealing them and theyâ??re in production,” Buzdum said.
But their anger isnâ??t directed only at the multinational companies that they say are ripping off their ideas. A big part of the blame, they say, falls on the agency that is supposed to protect them and the rest of the nationâ??s innovators: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The patent applications drafted by Buzdum and Capstran are among the 1.2 million applications pending at the agency – a backlog that was the subject of a Journal Sentinel investigation published in August.
Members of the Wisconsin Legislature are weighing the merits of two bills aimed at clarifying the extent to which parents can legally deny, because of their religious beliefs and practices, conventional medical treatment to their sick or injured children.
As the debate over these measures unfolds, lawmakers should not allow the self-serving and dubious claims of a single, small church to shape laws meant to safeguard the health and welfare of our children. That happened once before in Wisconsin, and the results were a public policy debacle. [A column by Shawn Peters, who teaches on UW-Madison’s School of Education]
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, a professor of applied economics at the University of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin football fans can only hope Monday was just the beginning for tailback John Clay and linebacker Chris Borland. Clay, a third-year sophomore from Racine Park High School, was named the Big Ten Conference offensive player of the year. Borland, a freshman from Kettering, Ohio, was named the leagueâ??s freshman of the year.
The boasts of teenagers on Facebook about their risky behavior such as drinking may or may not be real. But teens who view them take them for the truth, according to a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Washington. The article quotes Megan Moreno, a pediatrician at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and lead author of the study and Karyn Riddle, an assistant professor of journalism at UW-Madison who studies the effect of media on children.
Academic research and development, one of the few bright spots in Wisconsinâ??s economic landscape, doesnâ??t need to be a political football.
Political games abound in the absence of clear strategic direction, and thatâ??s what happened with the idea that the University of Wisconsin System should spread dollars for fresh water technology to all four-year campuses in the state.
The idea that fresh water technology should be proliferated, rather than focused, demonstrated a lack of understanding of the concept of clusters that grew out of the four economic summits early in this decade.
Upon further review, Wisconsinâ??s two-point Big Ten Conference loss to Northwestern looks and feels the same: Squandered chances killed UW and left an unsightly blemish on what to this point has been a solid season.
Four years ago on these pages, we launched a crusade to create a school of public health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Then as now, we argued that the public health challenges in our city are so severe, the need so great, that only a research institution located in the heart of the city has a chance to battle them.
That school is a reality now. Its first seven students are studying for doctorates; the first six faculty have been hired or soon will be.
But UWMâ??s new School of Public Health requires another investment from state and private donors if it is to take flight and serve students, the community at large and the state of Wisconsin. Important decisions await.
Mentions a Sept. 27-29 political poll by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.
Donâ??t be surprised if you catch a glimpse of a man wearing 19th century garb on the UW-Madison campus next week. UW-Madison botany professor David Baum said he plans to dress as Charles Darwin — complete with mutton chops and coattails — in honor of the 150th anniversary of “The Origin of Species,” Darwinâ??s seminal book on evolution. Baum has reason to celebrate. In addition to the anniversary, UW-Madison is on the cusp of creating a new institute to study evolution.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin tobacco researchers said that they have encouraging news for smokers trying to quit.
The Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention recently released the findings of a major study that followed smokers in Madison and Milwaukee. The study participants were given five different kinds of treatments to see which worked the best to help smokers quit.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has received a five-year, $9.5 million grant Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant to develop an early warning system for pandemic flu, the school said in a news release Thursday.
Dear Editor: What is more important: $400 a month to a multi-billion-dollar company, or our nation educating its best and brightest? A pound of flesh, or increasing diversity in academia?
I now face this choice: abandon my field of study to meet obligations to a student loan company, or ruin my financial future.
My graduate program in Latin American history at UW-Madison is arguably the nationâ??s best, and I have excelled in it, receiving numerous awards and fellowships while maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA. I have a record of service locally and internationally. Were it not for my loan burden, I would be well positioned to become one of the nationâ??s few Latino Ph.D.s (1,157 according to the 2000 census).
UW-Madisonâ??s long-standing focus on â??targeted minoritiesâ? is a much-too-provincial view of â??diversityâ? in the global world of the 21st century. This narrow approach ignores the many channels through which students are exposed to the wide range of subject matter, ideas, people, cultures, and attitudes that characterize UW-Madison.
For starters, in 2008-09 UW-Madison undergraduates came from cities large and small, spread across Wisconsinâ??s 72 counties and all 50 states, plus Guam and Puerto Rico, and more than 100 foreign countries.
The most â??targetedâ? of the â??targeted minorityâ? groups — African-Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics — included 2,088 students. â??Targetedâ? Southeast Asians added another 528 students. To this must be added the 1,149 Asian-American undergraduates who are not counted among â??targeted minoritiesâ? but bring with them a rich cultural heritage and unmatched academic prowess.
My body is sitting in an environmental health lecture in Bascom Hall with 250 students, but my mind is deep in the woods of northern Wisconsin. The glow of my headlight guides me through the early morning darkness as I walk quietly along the mixed maple trail to my deer stand. The air is cold. I can see my breath as I climb the ladder. Wrapped in layers and blaze orange, wearing heavy boots, and with pockets full of hand warmers, I get cozy and prepare mentally for a dusk-till-dark sit. I load my gun. As I wait for the sun to rise, my excitement builds.
I snap back to Environmental Studies 113 and scramble to take notes to catch up. Thanksgiving break is coming, I tell myself. I anticipate it not for the turkey, but for the hunt that excites me every year and for the chance to escape city streets.
