The dean of the Wisconsin School of Business will lead a task force charged with studying ways to raise private money for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chancellor Biddy Martin announced Wednesday at a Rotary Club luncheon.
The effort comes at a time when the university must increasingly look to private revenue sources to fund the university, she said, as state and federal funding have stagnated.
Many Downtown residents didn’t comply with snow emergency parking rules during Tuesday’s storm, and the city said they would tow violators on Downtown streets Wednesday night and early Thursday.
In order to better serve potential students, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced it is creating a new “front door” by merging its Visitor and Information Programs with the office of admissions.
The impetus for the merger is to create a smoother experience for students who are applying to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, officials said. The university has gotten record numbers of applicants in recent years.
University of Wisconsin-Madison officials are hoping it becomes a hub for student life. But for now, it is just a nexus for cardboard boxes, dollies, work gloves and shelving units.
The new Student Services Tower on the southeast end of the University Square complex stands poised and ready for business, except for the fact that it is still mostly empty. On Wednesday, the university began the process of moving units into the tower, which will take 117 truckloads and the better part of six weeks to complete.
The start of a commuter rail line between Madison and Milwaukee, a new UW-Madison medical research tower and expansion of Interstate 94 are among the local projects Gov. Jim Doyle says could be started within months if federal lawmakers pass a massive economic stimulus bill for states.
Ausrele (Mary) Guckel passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008, at Meriter Hospital in Madison at the age of 73. She taught German at the University of Missouri and the University of Wisconsin
The freefalling economy might force college sports to bend or drop some opposition to creeping commercialism on campuses. That was the warning Wednesday from Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart, a panelist at the seventh annual IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum’s session on trends in financing and fundraising.
A group of college presidents and other top education officials says the USAs “economic, democratic and social health” could worsen over the next several decades if more Americans dont earn a college degree. The group is pushing to increase the percentage of young people who earn a degree from 40% to 55% by 2025.
Quoted: Mucus in the nose and sinuses forms a blanket or coating over the mucous membranes lining the upper airways, explained Dr. Thomas Pasic, an ear, nose and throat specialist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
A team of scientists from the United States and Uruguay may have found a way to delay the onset of chronic neuron-killing diseases such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, according to one of the researchers.
In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, scientists at the University of Wisconsin found that by increasing a protein called Nrf2 the lifespan of Lou Gehrig’s disease sufferers can be extended and onset of the disease delayed.
Scientists have discovered extraordinarily precise data on rainfall in the Mediterranean region from 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. which suggests that the fall of the Roman and Byzantine empires may have been partly caused by climate change.
It is not likely to end the debate among historians, some of whom believe the fall was more of a transformation than a collapse, but it is a tantalizing bit of evidence. And the way it was collected is as intriguing as the fact that researchers can now analyze rainfall on a year-to-year basis, season to season, even many thousands of years ago.
For more than 15 years geology professor John Valley of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been studying stalactites from a cave near Jerusalem, along with scientists at the Geological Survey of Israel and Hebrew University. His Israeli colleagues have dated some of the stalactites to about 185,000 years ago, and they have reconstructed broad climate fluctuations over many years because the formation of the calcite deposits depends partly on rainfall.
Quoted: But participating in fantasy sports is often about more than personal satisfaction. University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor Erica Halverson, who researches â??competitive fandomâ? and fantasy sports, says fantasy sports leagues engender a sense of community. â??With the explosion of access online, people are able to have deeper participation in activities they care about,â? Halverson says. â??People have a desire to be members of cultures and participate in activities that matter to them. That mirrors the experience of fantasy sports.â?
Quoted: “The ability to build energy infrastructure is pretty limited in this country,” said Michael Corradini, chairman of the Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s not just a shortage of nuclear engineers, but of all the trades involved in building, because coal plants, nuclear plants, all need pipefitters, carpenters, civil engineers.”
Gov. Jim Doyle today presented members of President-elect Barack Obamaâ??s economic team with a list of almost 1,800 projects in Wisconsin that could benefit immediately from an infusion of federal money.
The projects include constructing passenger rail lines connecting major cities in the state and Chicago, converting state power plants from coal to other fuel sources and addressing deferred maintenance on state buildings.
A judge refused on Wednesday to immediately release a recording of a 911 call from a slain University of Wisconsin-Madison student’s cell phone.
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess said it would be irresponsible to make the tape public before he hears arguments from police on how it could hurt their search for whoever killed Brittany Zimmermann, 21, in April.
Gov. Jim Doyle on Wednesday gave Washington officials a sweeping wish list of $3.7 billion in highway, education, environment and energy-saving projects that he said could be started by spring, if President-elect Barack Obama and Congress agree on a stimulus package for states.
Princeton University will pay $50-million and almost as much in legal fees to foundations controlled by the heirs of a major donor to the institution, in a settlement that ends a closely watched lawsuit over how strictly colleges must adhere to a donor’s wishes.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison must increase private sources of revenue to remain a world-class university, Chancellor Biddy Martin said Wednesday.
Martin named UW-Madison business school dean Michael Knetter as a special assistant for long-term strategy and development.
The three-month â??interregnumâ? between Barack Obamaâ??s election and George W. Bushâ??s last day in office makes one long for a parliamentary system, where the defeated prime minister leaves and his successor takes over at once.
Author: John Milton Cooper Jr., a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, is writing a biography of Woodrow Wilson.
Robert James “Bob” Anders, age 75, passed away at the University Hospital in Madison, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008. Bob’s studies at N.D.S.U. prepared him well for work in research at the University of Wisconsin, and later at Oscar Mayer.
University of Wisconsin women’s hockey head coach and 1980 gold medal hockey Olympian, Mark Johnson, has been named the recipient of the 2009 Red Smith Award, according to banquet chairman Mike Reese.
It’s 40 degrees F below zero (with the wind chill) at the South Pole today. Yet a research team from the University of Delaware is taking it all in stride.
The physicists, engineers and technicians from the University of Delaware’s Bartol Research Institute are part of an international team working to build the world’s largest neutrino telescope in the Antarctic ice, far beneath the continent’s snow-covered surface.
Dubbed â??IceCube,â? the telescope will occupy a cubic kilometer of Antarctica when it is completed in 2011, opening super-sensitive new eyes into the heavens.
Direct climate data from the past is not readily available. We cannot measure the humidity on June 14th, 267 AD; in order to get around this, a variety of indirect techniques are used.
The University of Wisconsin enacted a Snow Action Day on Tuesday. School officials didn’t cancel classes on Tuesday, but they encouraged students, staff and faculty to use caution.
Officials said that those driving to campus were encouraged to park in cleared parking areas where possible, and commuters were also encouraged to leave their cars at home and ride the bus to campus.
“The new snow emergency program has making a lot of good changes because last year was just horrible,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison student Aaron Stransky. “Not enough attention was paid to the sidewalks so it was really, really difficult to walk around.”
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison meteorologist Steve Ackerman. (First item.)
State Senate President Fred Risser has been in office for 50 years, but he’s never seen budget problems such as the ones facing the state right now.
The Madison Democrat says it will take two million dollars a day in new revenue, or spending cuts, just to balance the budget by the end of the current biennium, next June.
Already in court in a patent infringement lawsuit, computer chip giant Intel fired back at UW-Madison on Friday with a lawsuit of its own, this one alleging that Intel was denied the use of UW research that the company funded.
Virent, established in 2002 based on patented UW-Madison research, is off to such a strong start that it has lured an executive from BP, the world’s third-largest oil company, to become the new chief executive officer.
A University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor will oversee the Assembly Colleges and Universities Committee, and he’s expected to provide a dramatic contrast to his predecessor.
Joseph Salmons, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has done a study that indicates that many German immigrants who arrived in the 1800s didn’t learn English and that their children and grandchildren often didn’t learn English, either. The findings probably apply to other waves of immigrant groups of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Salmons said.
Betty J. (Blaul) McCutchin, age 88, of Madison, passed peacefully Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008. Betty worked as a nurse at the University Hospital in Madison.
Religious beliefs are important to public support of nanotechnology, as well. Dietram Scheufele from the University of Wisconsin-Madison led a research team that found a correlation between the strength of religious beliefs and the acceptance of nanotechnology across Western nations.
A record number of students earned degrees from the University of Wisconsin System during the last school year.
A report released on Monday shows the UW System awarded 32,433 degrees in 2007-2008, up 400 from the previous year and an all-time high. More than 24,000 of them were bachelor’s degrees, which was also a record.
UW System senior vice president Rebecca Martin said that the graduates will provide skilled labor to help Wisconsin businesses succeed
Noted: In 2005, the University of Wisconsin became one of the first of the Big Ten schools to reopen its program. Still other institutions, including the University of Texas at Austin, have taken a middle road. In 2005, U.T. Austin did not reinstate its program, but made it easier for students to study in Israel.
Quoted: The event inspired Brahe to commit himself further to studying the stars, launching a career of meticulous observations that helped lay the foundations of early modern astronomy, said Michael Shank, a professor of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
It’s official, the UW Madison Badgers will head to Orlando to take on Florida State in the Champs Sports Bowl.
On Monday, fans began looking at travel packages from the university.
In 2006, the Capitol One Bowl Game in Orlando was Coach Barry Alvarez’s last game with the Badgers.
The Badgers, who were the underdogs went on to upset Auburn 24-10.
Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan has announced who will chair the various committees in the Assembly.
Kim Hixson will take over for Steve Nass as head of the Colleges and Universities Committee. Hixson gets the post because Democrats have regained control of the Assembly. He is a professor at UW-Whitewater. Nass, who represents part of the Whitewater area, has been critical of the UW System in the past.
More regulations may expand the thicket of student-privacy law, but the U.S. Department of Education hopes a new 289-page guide will help colleges and universities find their way.
The Education Department plans to release today its new rules on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects the disclosure of student records. After announcing initial regulations in March, the department received more than 120 comments from higher-education associations, university systems, and other groups, and postponed the final publication originally slated for September.
The internet is a perfect breeding ground for certain dialogue including interpreting prophecies about the end of the world, according to Robert Glenn Howard, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at UW-Madison.
The incoming state Assembly speaker announced Monday the committee chairs for the 2009-10 legislative session.
Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan, D-Janesville, and Democrats will control the state Assembly for the first time since 1994.
The new appointments include Rep. Kim Hixson, D-Whitewater, as chair of the Colleges and Universities Committee and Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, as chair of the Natural Resources Committee.
Business owners are meeting today to discuss the pros and cons of “going green.” UW Madison’s Business School is hosting its first “sustainability” conference to encourage companies to make real commitments to the environment.
Businesses from Harley Davidson to local cheese makers will be at the meeting. It’s hosted by the Center for Business, Environment, and Social Responsibility. Department co-chair Tom Eggert says the idea is for executives to learn from each other on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to sustainability. (Second item.)
During a two-day conference in La Crosse last week, the U-W Board of Regents again passed a resolution supporting domestic partner benefits for state employees.
While Governor Doyle has proposed such benefits in his last two budgets, the legislature has rejected the idea each time. Regent President Kevin Reilly says with a Democratic majority now in both the Assembly and Senate, the time might be right for it to pass. (First item.)
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is the only university in the Big Ten Conference that doesn’t offer domestic partner benefits. Reilly says offering them for UW employees should cost a little more than a million dollars a year.
As Wisconsin observed the 10-year anniversary of James Thomson’s embryonic stem (ES) cell discovery, some wonder whether the ensuing controversy over the destruction of human embryos has been worthwhile. In those 10 years, no therapies have come from the discovery, so were opponents correct that this research was not only unethical, but also irrelevant?
A college dropout pleaded guilty Monday to fatally stabbing a 31-year-old Madison resident in his home – a stranger killing that shocked the city and remains something of a mystery.
Adam Peterson, 20, acknowledged that he walked into Joel Marino’s home near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and used a knife to stab him in the abdomen and chest on Jan. 28. Marino, a musician and employee of a medical device company, was found dying in a nearby alley.
Quoted: Some other races werenâ??t competitive because strong challengers never emerged, dissuaded by the incumbentâ??s fundraising position. At the same time, the rise of the Internet as a low-cost fundraising tool may fuel some insurgent candidacies, said Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin political science professor.
The University of Wisconsin football team will play Florida State in the Dec. 27 Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, Fla.
It is the seventh straight bowl appearance for the Badgers (7-5), the longest streak in school history.
Quoted: “There’s been a political vacuum in Thailand since June or July,” said David Streckfuss, a Thai historian with the University of Wisconsin.
The Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) has honored several overseas Koreans who’ve made exemplary contributions in their respective fields.
The KBS Overseas Compatriots Award is given to ethnic Koreans living overseas who have made a distinguished contribution in promoting the image of the people and culture of Korea.
In the humanity and social science category, Professor Lee Dong-heon from the University of Wisconsin won the award.
Quoted: “Thaksin was seen as a competitor to the throne. His popular regime was seen as dangerous to the monarchical institution in a longer term. Monarchists worried that with the king’s passing and uncertainty of succession, the Thaksin camp would gain so they were anxious to suppress him,” said Thongchai Winichakul, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.
Attitudes to nanotechnology may be determined by religious and cultural beliefs, suggest researchers writing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Professor Dietram Scheufele from the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin, who led the research, said religious belief exerted a strong influence on how people viewed nanotechnology.
Geologists say a discovery in a cave near Jerusalem suggests climate change may have caused the fall of the Roman and Byzantine Empires.
Geochemical analysis of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve reveals increasingly dry weather from A.D. 100 to A.D. 700 that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region, the University of Wisconsin-Madison said Friday.
Quoted: Steven Durlauf, an economist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, questioned whether the study proved that people became happy because of their social contacts or some unrelated reason.
Quoted: “A lot of school finance policies were set up to reflect the number of kids enrolled in school because, in large part, it worked. There were always more kids the next year, so districts were always getting more money,” said demographer Richelle Winkler of the Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Richard Hartel, professor of food engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Phil Pellitteri, head of the insect diagnostic laboratory at UW-Madisonâ??s entomology department.
Even in the humble heartland, there is no escape from the academic arms race.
Twenty years ago, annual operating expenses for the University of Kansas campus here were $204-million. Today the institution spends more than triple that, even though its enrollment, 26,000, is almost exactly the same.
During the same period, tuition and fees for in-state students have increased fivefold.
A 38-year-old Rolling Meadows man died Saturday when the car he was driving on I-90 in Arlington Heights, was involved in a crash with a school bus carrying college students, police said.
An autopsy for Hai Qiu is scheduled for Sunday. Illinois State Police notified his family in Harris County, Texas, Master Sgt. Edward Petrik said. Also notified was Qiu’s employer, for whom he’d been working only a month, he added.
The crash involved a bus carrying 17 German club students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a four-door Honda driven by Qiu, Petrik said.
Chicago media outlets are reporting that a bus carrying students from UW-Madison was involved in a fatal crash Saturday afternoon near the northwest Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the driver of a car that collided with the school bus on U.S. Interstate 90 was pronounced dead at the scene. Seventeen people were on the bus, with only some suffering minor injuries.
A man accused of making death threats to U-W Athletic Director Barry Alvarez has been ordered to take a mental competency exam. Leonard Taylor was arrested in Indiana last Friday. He made his first court appearance in Dane County on Thursday, on charges of stalking and telephone harassment.
A new survey shows a high rate of sexual assault on Wisconsin college campuses, but the real numbers may be greater. Kelly Anderson of Dane County’s Rape Crisis Center says the numbers are probably higher than the voluntary survey of 13,000 UW System students indicates.
