After all the smoke clears from the budget battles, we may find that, other than Gov. Scott Walker?s astounding move to crush public sector unions, no proposal will have as profound an effect on the future of the state as Walker?s takeover of the UW-Madison.
Thirteen University of Wisconsin chancellors asked state lawmakers Wednesday to support a new plan that would give all their schools more autonomy but wouldn?t spin off UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System.
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison know their school can hold its own as a first-class public research institution rivaled by only a few dozen universities across the world. But our state?s current budget debates forecast spending cuts that could slash into the core of what makes the campus great.
Local company CareFusion is hosting a cupcake-selling fundraiser with the proceeds going toward seizure research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison, please don?t go. That?s the gist of a letter to state legislators Wednesday, signed by all of the chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System ? except UW-Madison?s Chancellor Biddy Martin.
Quoted: In the plainest sense, heirlooms are just old seeds. What has changed is the way we venerate them, said Bill Tracy, 56, a sweet-corn breeder and professor of agronomy at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Tracy knows the old sweet corns well. He estimates that, over the decades, he has grown 75 to 80 percent of these varieties.
Quoted: Around one-third of panelists expect home prices to increase in 2011. Bill Cheney, chief economist of John Hancock Financial, and Abdullah Yavas, and professor of real estate at the University of Wisconsin, are calling for a 3% annual gain. Another dozen economists, including the National Association of Realtors? Lawrence Yun, expect home prices will be flat for the year.
Noted: “Also in the Governor?s budget is a plan to privatize the University of Wisconsin Madison. People who work at UW Eau Claire told me they think this is a very bad idea. ?We are afraid Madison will become unaffordable for average Western Wisconsin students,? the man said. ?And the Governor will use this plan to make the rest of the UW campuses far inferior; starving us of resources and making it harder to attract good faculty and students.?
Japanese students who attend the University of Wisconsin, Madison are doing their part to help donate to the Japan relief efforts.
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.
Noted: As a part of the unit, Mrs. Raduly, the music teacher at Jefferson E.S., contacted the Center for South Asian Studies, the Center for East Asian Studies, and the African Studies programs at UW-Madison and lined up presenters from China, Ghana, South Africa and India to speak to the students about the different cultures and demonstrate some traditional and contemporary music and dance.
In the world of vague, anonymous Internet threats, few profiles are written. Here?s one of the rare exceptions: Dan Riehl, a writer for BigGovernment.com, says he tracked down Jim Shankman, the Madisonian who penned a threatening ultimatum for UW-Madison law professor and nationally-followed conservative blogger Ann Althouse. Big Government is a national conservative website that has covered the Wisconsin protests and was apparently worried about those threats to Althouse.
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism also analyzed more than 50,000 emails obtained through an open records request, and the watchdog group said the majority of emails supported the governor and his plan to curb collective bargaining rights.
“We crunched a lot of numbers over the weekend,” said Andy Hall, who heads up the group. “In broad terms, the governor enjoyed a margin of support of about 2-to-1.”
Some members of the UW Marching Band used their music skills to brighten the day of those in need.
Announced to the world earlier today, a new collection of New Badger Partnership student supporters has launched a website to promote the NBP and counter the lies and deceit being spread by the TAA, and radical leftists with no real plans and hallucinations of Utopian paradises.
The proposed settlement in the long-standing class-action lawsuit over Google?s vast book-scanning project is dead, at least in its current form. In a ruling on Tuesday, the federal judge overseeing the case rejected the settlement, saying that it “would simply go too far,” even though “the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many.” But he also urged the parties to consider revising the settlement, and suggested an approach that would deal with his major concerns.
Google says that by scanning and enabling digital access to millions of books from research library collections, it will give students, researchers, and others unprecedented power to search and discover within digital archives.
Thirteen University of Wisconsin System chancellors have endorsed a plan that would give the state?s public universities more autonomy but would not formally split the state?s flagship campus from the oversight board that runs the rest of the campuses.
To borrow a line from Martin Sheen and Michael Douglas, is Bud Selig set to become the most popular history teacher at the University of Wisconsin?
Quoted: Howard Schweber, a professor of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
American environmental scientist Stephen Carpenter has been named this year?s winner of the Stockholm Water Prize for his research on lake ecosystems and how humans and surrounding landscapes affect them. Carpenter is a professor in Zoology and Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.
The union for teaching and project assistants at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Sunday voted against a proposal from Gov. Scott Walker to separate Madison from the UW system, but members did not vote to authorize a strike, the group announced Monday.
Two UW-Madison graduates are among the four New York Times journalists released by the Libyan government Monday, according to the Times. They were released into the custody of Turkish diplomats and crossed safely into Tunisia, according to the Times, six days after they were captured while covering the conflict. The UW-Madison alumni are Anthony Shadid, Beirut bureau chief for the Times, and Lynsey Addario, a photographer.
Bowing to height concerns, officials with St. Paul?s University Catholic Center said Monday they likely will drop all student rental housing from their project on State Street Mall. The project would replace the outdated chapel and student center on the same site, 723 State St. The initial proposal had been heavily criticized by some students, neighbors and city officials as too tall for its surroundings.
Mary Peckham Graye, an early female bank executive who invited all comers to her magnificent Shorewood Hills tulip garden, died Thursday at HospiceCare. She retired as senior vice president of First Wisconsin Bank, now part of U.S. Bank. Graye was the first woman accepted into the Wisconsin School of Banking.
Quoted: UW-Madison philosophy professor Harry Brighouse.
Quoted: Greg Harrington, chairman of the water board and a UW-Madison environmental engineer.
Quoted: Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management at the UW-Madison School of Business.
It?s not often you get to see a breakthrough act and dynasty appear on the same stage, but that?s what the marquee said Monday. In a stroke of promotional smarts, the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department took a moment to acknowledge two of its best stories. Nearly 600 people came to the Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion to appreciate two keepsake moments: The UW women?s hockey team, fresh off winning its fourth NCAA title since 2006, and senior Maggie Meyer, who became the first athlete in the history of UW women?s swimming and diving to win an NCAA individual title.
Lisa Stone was brought in to lift the University of Wisconsin women?s basketball program to a new level. But after eight seasons of modest success mixed with disappointments, UW athletic director Barry Alvarez concluded it wasn?t going to happen. So one day after the Badgers completed a tantalizingly frustrating season with a loss to Illinois State in the WNIT, Alvarez decided it was time for a change.
The Libyan government freed 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 and crossed safely into Tunisia in the late afternoon, from where they provided a harrowing account of their captivity.
Quoted: “I honestly don?t understand how they can say they?re not involved in the race if they?re running these advertisements about Justice Prosser,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin said.
After teaching at the University of British Columbia and the University of Wisconsin, he joined the University of Washington faculty in 1972.
Of all the hockey-related things that Meghan Duggan has been able to accomplish during her remarkable young career, she did something late Saturday morning that she never had before.
On the face of it, the budget proposal that Ohio Governor John Kasich released this week looks like terrible news for state universities. Not only would Kasich?s plan slash higher education spending by 10.5 percent but it also would cap tuition increases at 3.5 percent a year.
To lay the groundwork for a nerve-electronic hybrid, graduate student Minrui Yu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues created tubes of layered silicon and germanium, materials that could insulate electric signals sent by a nerve cell. The tubes were various sizes and shapes and big enough for a nerve cell?s extensions to crawl through but too small for the cell?s main body to get inside.
Molly Jahn, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and administrator, has been named to a newly created Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, a group of international experts on agriculture, climate, food, economics and natural resources.
Members of the Teaching Assistants? Association graded papers, looked over exams and passed around pizza boxes on the floor of the Bascom Hall rotunda at a protest Monday against cuts in state education funding.
View a chart of Scott Walker’s influence on board appointments.
The University of Wisconsin Law School will have to do more with less under Gov. Scott Walker?s state budget proposal. His 2011-13 budget includes a $250 million cut in state aid to the University of Wisconsin System that includes the state?s only public law school.
Much of the attention given to Gov. Scott Walker?s budget initiatives has been directed at the implications to K-12 education. That is understandable given the intensity that teacher?s unions have directed toward limitations on collective bargaining and cuts in state aid to schools.
American environmental scientist Stephen Carpenter has been named this year?s winner of the Stockholm Water Prize for his research on lake ecosystems and how humans and surrounding landscapes affect them.
The Teaching Assistants? Association announced Monday it opposes Chancellor Biddy Martin?s New Badger Partnership and the proposal to separate the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus from the UW System.
University of Wisconsin women?s basketball coach Lisa Stone is out of a job after her team again failed to make into the NCAA tournament.
The Friends of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries are hosting a used book sale Wednesday-Saturday, March 23-26, 2011.
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.
Amongst the many cuts in Governor Walker?s budget is one clearly good idea: the New Badger Partnership, converting UW-Madison to a public authority.
Quoted: “What needs to be done is monitor the radiation levels in the evacuation zone and spot-check individuals there,” said Paul DeLuca, a medical physicist who is provost of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I fully support the new nursing school on the UW-Madison campus. But I am surprised that Gov. Scott Walker has so much state money to throw around.
Four New York Times journalists who were reported missing while covering the Libya conflict have been found, the newspaper said Friday. The Times reported on its website that the four were captured by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and will be released Friday. The journalists include UW-Madison graduates Anthony Shadid and photographer Lynsey Addario.
Though it was removed from the budget repair bill, Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to privatize Wisconsin?s state-owned power plants remains alive. The controversial plan was the focus of another dustup this week when the State Building Commission approved spending $9 million for upkeep and improvements at the plants prior to their sale ? a move slammed by Democrats. The proposal as it appeared in the budget repair bill called for selling all 37 power plants, including the Charter Street Heating and Cooling Plant on the UW-Madison campus, to private operators with no bids and with no review by the Public Service Commission.
UW-Madison?s Babcock Dairy is bringing back its Wisconsin Film Festival ice cream flavor: In The Dark. The limited-edition festival-themed flavor is chocolate ice cream with brownie pieces, pecans, chocolate chips, and a fudge ripple, and is available now at the Memorial Union Scoop Shop and Babcock Dairy.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison political scientist.
Quoted: UW-Madison Police Chief Susan Riseling.
Quoted: Steven Deller, a UW-Madison professor of applied economics who studied the ripple effects of Walker?s budget-repair bill and two-year budget proposal.
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Quoted: Tim Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison.
Quoted: Max Lagally, a professor of materials science and engineering at UW-Madison and an expert on roughness.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at UW-Madison, and Dhavan Shah, a UW-Madison professor who runs the Mass Communication Research Center.
The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team drained 3-pointers from all over the court, played suffocating defense and methodically wore down Belmont for a convincing 72-58 victory in their NCAA tournament opener Thursday night.
