Q: How do the Chinese alphabetize?
A: The Chinese don’t have anything resembling the Roman alphabet of European languages; instead, their language has been written for centuries in symbols known as Chinese characters.
An assistant dean in UW-Madison’s College of Engineering who worked on diversity programming died unexpectedly Monday, according to a news release from the university. Steven Clark was 44.
Clark came to the College of Engineering in 2006 from the University of Miami-Florida where he was director of the Department of Multicultural Student Affairs. At UW-Madison, he developed and implemented a recruitment and retention model for underrepresented students, the news release said.
The presidential campaign is taking on a growing role in Wisconsin classrooms this fall, as teachers find ways to interest young students in elections while leading older students through potentially divisive discussions of issues such as abortion, the Iraq war and immigration.
“We want kids to talk about it better than adults do, actually,” said Diana Hess, an associate education professor at UW-Madison who organized a recent workshop attended by more than 180 classroom and student teachers from 30 school districts.
Stung by the crisis in the national economy, the state faces a possible $3 billion shortfall in its next two-year budget, a gap that could spell shared pain for students, state workers and the poor and unemployed, Gov. Jim Doyle said Wednesday.
The Democratic governor, facing what is at least the worst state budget since he assumed the office in 2003, said he would have to consider a long list of difficult fixes â?? job cuts, delays of approved expansions in health programs for the needy and scaling back new state money for public schools and universities.
The UW Marching Band will be allowed to perform at a half-time show at Lambeau Field on Sunday, but it better be on its best behavior, said Director Mike Leckrone.
The announcement means that a temporary travel ban, which was adopted last week because of hazing among band members, is lifted.
Quoted: “The house is like a Honda Accord â?? it deteriorates over time. It’s the land that appreciates,” says Morris Davis, a real estate professor at the University of Wisconsin who has studied land values. During the boom home builders and speculators spent lavishly to accumulate land.
MADISON â?? The University of Wisconsin marching band is getting another chance to behave while traveling.
The university announced Wednesday the band would be allowed to play at halftime during the Green Bay Packers game at Lambeau Field on Sunday.
The university temporarily suspended the band’s travel privileges last week after an investigation uncovered inappropriate hazing and alcohol-related activities. Some of the behavior occurred during the band’s last road trip to Michigan in late September.
Quoted: “The same factors that are driving non-Latino voters to favor the Democrat right now are driving Latinos in the same way,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin.
Quoted: This was McCain’s big chance to get back in the presidential contest, and it was important for him to come across as a leader, as assertive and someone on the offensive â?? all of which he did, said Dietram Scheufele, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a professor of political science and polling expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says these voters are probably in the same boat they were before the third and final showdown between the senior Arizona senator and the Illinois senator.
Noted: Mr. McCain is currently running all negative ads, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But he has run a number of positive ads during the campaign.
For the state of Wisconsin the outlook is now pretty bleak as well.
Today Governor Jim Doyle said the state is likely facing at least a 3-billion dollar budget deficit and to climb out of that hole cuts will be made that will affect everyone.
After holding strong for several months, Wisconsin is now too falling victim to economic struggles.
Doyle says, “There is no doubt it is going to be very, very severe here in the state.”
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The University of Wisconsin-Madison is establishing a student exchange program with a university in Beijing.
Lieutenant Gov. Barbara Lawton announced the new agreement with Tsinghua University in Beijing on Wednesday.
She recently returned from a National Lieutenant Governors Association mission to China where the deal was signed.
Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton recently returned from a mission to China as head of the National Lieutenant Governors Association. While there, Lawton signed a student exchange agreement between the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Lawton says China understands that their development as a country depends on importing knowledge and technology, which is something Wisconsin can export.
State sales tax collections in Wisconsin were down ten percent in the month of September, and income and corporate tax collections are down for the year. Governor Jim Doyle said that means the state could be facing a three billion dollar deficit in the next two year budget cycle.
“Since September collections reflect August economic activity, we are I think justifiably concerned, that the full impact of the credit and stock market crisis is yet to be felt in tax collections,” Doyle said during a press conference Wednesday in his state Capitol office. “We are certainly looking at more than three billion dollars in deficit, and it could grow well beyond that, if the nation’s economy continues to spiral downward.”
MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Jim Doyle said the nation’s economic woes are taking a toll on the state and could greatly impact the state’s budget.
Doyle laid out the state’s financial picture Wednesday afternoon saying the last two months have hit the state harder than expected, and that he anticipates a deficit of more than $3 billion.
Doyle said Wednesday that job cuts and spending reductions across all of government could be part of the mix. Doyle said he wants to protect his priorities, including education, but he can’t promise anything will be off limits.
Phyllis Amelia Legler Conrad passed away on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008, in Vancouver, Washington at the age of 99. She worked as a nurse at the University of Wisconsin Hospital beginning in the 1930s.
Robert “Bob” Alan Bonebrake, husband, father, grandfather, friend and physician, age 70, died on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008. During his career he was also a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin.
Jean Mary Helf Snyder, age 90, passed away on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008. Among other jobs, Jean worked as a pastry cook for Chadbourne Hall at UW-Madison.
Almost half of Wisconsin’s minority working families are not earning enough to meet their basic needs, according to a new national report.
Overall, 24 percent of working families in Wisconsin were identified as low-income. But among minority working families, that number was nearly double at 47 percent.
“The national economic crisis is not just a problem for Wall Street, it is a problem for Wisconsin’s hard working families,” said Laura Dresser, associate director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at UW-Madison.
Quoted: UW-Madison comparative biologist Hannah Carey.
It would probably help Anatole Beck get a street in Madison named for Karl Paul Link if he, Beck, had his own radio show.
The last successful drive to have a street renamed for someone in Madison came more than 20 years ago, and it was fueled by a popular morning radio host.
Quoted: Jim Seward, UW-Madison School of Business finance professor.
Add this to the growing list of undergraduate courses we’d like to take: “Zymurgy, the Science of Brewing.” Where else can you taste a frothy beer while earning credit?
After the University of Wisconsin at Madison christened a new microbial-sciences building last year, the beverage giant MillerCoors donated about $100,000 in brewing equipment to the university’s bacteriology department. The company hoped to both highlight brewing and train potential employees, while the university gained equipment to give students hands-on preparation for careers in Wisconsin’s nearly $7-billion-a-year brewing industry, says Jon T. Roll, a faculty associate in the department and a Ph.D. in bacteriology and biological sciences.
Local economies, those dominated by stable industries, could be relatively well-cushioned. BusinessWeek.com worked with data from PolicyMap.com, a demographics and data site run by Philadelphia’s Reinvestment Fund, to identify the best places to live during a recession. We looked at places where large portions of the population worked in anticyclical industries such as government, health care, education, agriculture, and legal services.
Madison has a second recession buffer: the University of Wisconsin. More than 17% of the working-age population works in education, according to PolicyMap. Colleges don’t necessarily flourish in bad times, but they don’t go out of business either.
A recent series of allegations of misconduct by college marching bands across the country has raised questions about the culture and practices the groups adopt.
In several instances, university officials have responded by suspending the bands criticizing the groups’ behavior.
The marching band at the University of Wisconsin, Madison also landed a suspension on Oct. 3 amid allegations of misconduct, including inappropriate use of alcohol, serious hazing and sexualized behavio
Each Wednesday we’ll bring you a Q&A with a Ravens player to help you learn a little more about the team. Today’s subject of this series is strong safety Jim Leonhard, who has 19 tackles and a sack while filling in for injured starter Dawan Landry. Leonhard ponders his still-strong connection to the University of Wisconsin, his possible career path in baseball and his current nickname.
The 2000 US presidential election highlighted one of the most unusual aspects of American politics: the fact that the president is selected, not by popular vote, but via a complicated 18th-century formula known as the Electoral College.
In an interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Professor Franklin explains how the Electoral College works:
Quoted: With three weeks left to the election, the chances of a dramatic shift are slimmer â?? but that doesn’t mean McCain can’t regain some of the ground he appears to have lost, said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Maggie Hawkins, a UW-Madison professor of education who specializes in bilingual education.
“The program at Verona is a model program,” Hawkins said. “The universities know it, the state knows it. It has a lot of eyes on it right now looking at the process that you’re going through.”
Quoted: “You can already observe that people do feel the effects of (a plant closure), even when it’s projected a year off,” said Laura Dresser, labor economist at UW-Madison’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy. “That already changes behavior.”
Respected Madison photographer Bob Rashid died last Thursday, October 9. In 1994, Isthmus contributor George Vukelich devoted one of his â??Listening Inâ? columns to Rashid on the occasion of his “Rustic Roads of Wisconsin” photo exhibition at Olbrich Gardens.
Crediting his wife, the artist Holly Cohn, for helping him to view and compose subjects with a painter’s eye, Rashid provides insight into the challenges and rewards of untertaking such an ambitious project, explains his preference for morning light and notes the beauty awaiting those who follow back roads instead of major highways.
Quoted: In the meantime, modern technology, and the skills it fosters, is evolving even faster than we are. There’s no telling whether future iterations of computer games, online communities and the like will require more or less of the traditional social skills and learning strategies that we’ve spent so many eons cultivating. “Too many people write about this as if kids are in one country and adults are in another,” says James Gee, a linguistics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. What the future brain will look like is still anybody’s guess.
A UW forum looks at what climate change means for Wisconsin.
UW climatologist Steve Vavrus will serves as moderator for the third annual Wisconsin Climate Change Forum, sponsored by the Center for Climatic Research. “The goal of this forum is to try to pitch it to the general public, and we’ll be covering a variety of topics, mainly related to impacts in Wisconsin and the Midwest,” says Vavrus. “No one needs any particular scientific background to attend and get something out of it.”
Quoted: The survey released by Quinnipiac University has Barack Obama with a 17-point lead over John McCain in Wisconsin. However, UW-Madison political scientist Ken Mayer says we shouldn’t count McCain out just yet with three weeks to go before Election Day. Mayer says something can always change before then.
Sara Rimer of The Times wrote an article last week that gave us a startling glimpse of just how mindless and self-destructive the U.S. is becoming.
â??The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.”
UW alumnus Bob Rashid, a well-known and respected photographer in the Madison area, died Thursday when he suffered a tear in his aorta. He was 59.
The Dane County Food Council will be addressing hunger in a public meeting Oct. 27.
Jane Voichick, a retired professor at the UW-Madison department of nutritional sciences will discuss economic security for families, federal nutrition programs and emergency food assistance. The meeting will also highlight healthy and affordable food options.
A group of business and community leaders is calling for sweeping changes to stabilize the Overture Center’s finances and ensure its long-term success.
“There are issues there,” said Mark Bugher, director of University Research Park and a former top state official who led the 11-person citizens group. The enterprise needs some “tough love.”
Why canâ??t religion and the Enlightenment be friends? Whatâ??s that, you say? They were friends? Why didnâ??t anyone tell us?
Well, David Sorkin has. A professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Wisconsin, he argues in a new study that religion and the Enlightenment were even more than friends.
Quoted: The few states that fund stem cell research are more likely to be able to connect donating families to specific research programs that need embryos. People in other states do not have a clear pathway to donation, says R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Most IVF clinics are not hooked up to a research team and they may not be able to refer couples to a clinic who can do it for them,” she said.
Quoted: Former student leader Thongchai Winichakul, an historian at the University of Wisconsin, said he believes the PAD would try to provoke more violent confrontations so that it could provide a pretext for a military intervention, just as they did before the 2006 coup.
Four years after California residents captured worldwide attention by voting to spend $3 billion on stem cell research, many of the anticipated new therapies are at least 10 years away and numerous hurdles must be overcome.
Yet the optimism remains.
Quoted: Thailand-based analyst David Streckfuss, a historian at the University of Wisconsin, said the queen’s appearance at the funeral was unusual.
Quoted: “This race is not being moved by television advertising, with the fundamental factors so much to the advantage of the Democrats,” said Ken Goldstein, who directs the University of Wisconsin’s advertising project. “It’s just adding to the fog of information out there. . . . Obama’s huge spending makes McCain have to scream even louder to get his message heard.”
Quoted: “When government money is involved, the government sets the terms,” said Ken Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Quoted: The scope of that rescue will narrow the government’s options in stimulating demand, says University of Wisconsin economics professor Menzie Chinn. Chinn says the best way for the feds to stimulate the economy is to support infrastructure spending via aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, because that will increase economic activity more than a tax cut would.
Quoted: Most commercially available milk is fortified with vitamin D, but most children and teens do not drink enough of it â?? four cups daily would be needed â?? to meet the new requirement, said Dr. Frank Greer, the report’s co-author.
Author: Sarinna Areethamsirikul is a PhD candidate in Development Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States.
Quoted: Stephen Ward, a media ethics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said there is nothing so compelling in the interview that it would warrant a reversal of a commitment not to air it.
Quoted: Eliot Finkelstein, instruction coordinator at the College Library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said animal books are the “new breed” of self-help books.
Mamas, you might want to let your babies grow up to be mathematicians, especially if theyâ??re girls.
“We are wasting this valuable resource,” said Janet Mertz, senior author and professor of oncology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a news release. “Girls can excel in math at the very highest level. There are some truly phenomenal women mathematicians out there.”
Quoted: “Supplementation is important because most children will not get enough vitamin D through diet alone,” says Dr. Frank Greer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison pediatrician and co-author of the new recommendations.
Quoted: So to fund all those massive programs, the trick is to reassure China, Saudi Arabia and other foreign lenders that the United States remains creditworthy, said Mike Knetter, dean of the Wisconsin school of business at UW-Madison.
Quoted: After a seemingly endless campaign season, the number of undecided voters is shrinking by the day. Bello is one of about 8 percent of voters nationally who call themselves undecided, said Charles Franklin, political science professor at UW-Madison and co-developer of the Web site Pollster.com
MADISON, Wis. — On Saturday night, the University of Wisconsin Marching Band made a comeback after being suspended from last weekend’s Badger football game.
School officials said the investigation into serious hazing allegations is still ongoing, but the UW Marching Band is once again permitted to play at football games.
Some fans said that they were glad to have the band back. One fan said of the band’s return, “It was invigorating. It was so much fun. It just wouldn’t be the same if they weren’t there so we were really glad that they were there tonight.”
According to Madison Police, a 20-year-old woman was walking home at 2:16 a.m. when she was confronted by the suspect in a dark alleyway shortly after two o’clock Sunday morning.
The UW student was going home to her residence in the 400 block of N. Henry when she said she was approached by somebody at the back of the residence. This person — a stranger — assaulted her and fled.
The UW marching band is practicing hard for their return to Camp Randall.
They missed the big ten home opener against Ohio State because of a suspension.
The first missed home game in 40 years.
Any Badger fan will tell you, there’s nothing like a gameday at Camp Randall Stadium. “Being at a Badger game is that’s about as good as it gets,” said Ron Green, a parent of a UW-Madison student.
As the details of hazing within the band began surfacing over the past week, many fans felt band director Mike Leckrone did the right thing by suspending the band. Leckrone and UW administration lifted the suspension Thursday after the team missed the previous game against Ohio State University. A suspension for away games is still in effect.
A UW forum looks at what climate change means for Wisconsin.
UW climatologist Steve Vavrus will serves as moderator for the third annual Wisconsin Climate Change Forum, sponsored by the Center for Climatic Research. “The goal of this forum is to try to pitch it to the general public, and we’ll be covering a variety of topics, mainly related to impacts in Wisconsin and the Midwest,” says Vavrus. “No one needs any particular scientific background to attend and get something out of it.”
