Many students starting college this fall could have grown up playing with a Nintendo Game Boy in their crib. For them, “The Tonight Show” has always been hosted by Jay Leno.
These are some of the 60 items on Beloit College’s 11th annual Mindset List, which brings together 60 cultural landmarks in the lives of the incoming 2012 college class.
Possible Republican vice presidential pick Tim Pawlenty toured the UW-Madison nuclear reactor Monday and said the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, would “slam the door shut” on expanding nuclear power and off-shore oil drilling.
The Madison Fire Department’s Hazardous Incident Team contained a chemical spill inside a pharmaceutical company building Monday afternoon in University Research Park on the city’s West Side, but two people were injured and taken to UW Hospital.
College presidents from about 100 of the best-known U.S. universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.
The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the U.S. drinking age, which is among the highest in the world.
Students entering college this fall have lived their whole lives in a digital world â?? where GPS has always been available, phones have always had caller ID and tax returns could always be filed online. The incoming freshmen, born mostly in 1990, also grew up knowing only Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. Those are some of the 60 cultural landmarks on the Beloit College Mindset List.
Noted: The University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty has a program called Families Forward that experiments with ways to reduce child support debt.
The emerald ash borer may be a tiny insect, smaller than a penny, but it looms large in the lives of researchers such as Chris Williamson, an entomologist with UW-Extension in Madison.
Richard A. Peterson, age 76, lost his battle with cancer on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008. In 1983, Richard was hired at the University Hospital and retired there after 13 years of service in 1996.
University of Wisconsin System students seeking mental health counseling are routinely forced to wait a week or longer to get appointments and that delay is likely to increase, a report warned Friday.
A University of Denver official with Wisconsin roots will be the first leader of the state’s new program to promote access to higher education.
It took only 2 1/2 hours for chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley to defeat 14 players in a simultaneous tournament Friday afternoon at Memorial Union.
Spending only a moment or two on each move, Ashley stepped from one game board to the next until those 14 players bowed his or her king to Ashley’s mastery.
Madison has a reputation as one of the best college football towns in America.
That reputation will receive especially high-profile display this fall in two prime time games that promise to attract national attention — the Oct. 4 game against Ohio State and the Oct. 11 game against Penn State, both starting at 7 p.m.
But Madison also has a stain on its reputation that has been growing in recent years: A minority of fans have engaged in alcohol-fueled behavior that has appalled, threatened and occasionally physically harmed not only opposing fans but also other Badger fans.
UW-Madison’s typical place in college rankings is near the top of lists (and not just when it comes to partying).
But in a recently released list of America’s Best Colleges by Forbes, it found itself at number 335.
Hartland native Brandon Nolde’s acceptance letter from UW-Madison was followed by a disappointing phone call.
University housing told him, “Sorry, we’re full.”
UW-Madison’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies summer workshop is a four-day event covering meteorology, astronomy and geology. It’s open to high school students who stay on campus in a dormitory. They participate in hands-on activities working directly with scientists, graduate students and professors.
A comprehensive study of suicidal thinking among college students found more than half of the 26,000 surveyed had suicidal thoughts at some point during their lifetime.
The web-based survey conducted in spring 2006 used separate samples of undergraduate and graduate students from 70 colleges and universities across the country.
Quoted: Monica G. Turner, a University of Wisconsin fire research specialist, wrote along with others in an Ecological Society of America paper.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) University of Wisconsin System students seeking mental health counseling are routinely forced to wait a week or longer to get appointments and that delay is likely to increase, a report warned Friday.
The UW System report also said counselors should do more to monitor troubled students who are referred to off-campus mental health providers for advanced treatment. Those students do not always end up getting help, and some campuses do little to follow up, the report said.
The report comes in the wake of last year’s massacre at Virginia Tech, where a troubled student killed 32 others before committing suicide. That tragedy served as a wake-up call for colleges to do more to help students showing signs of potentially dangerous behavior; one focus has been to refer more students to counseling early.
Beijing – Beau Hoopman was going through freshman orientation at the University of Wisconsin, trying to figure out which end was up, when he noticed a man with a clipboard staring at him.
â??I thought, â??Uh-oh, whatâ??s this guy want?â?? â? Hoopman recalled. â??He said, â??You look like an athlete.â?? I said, â??Uh . . . yeah?â?? He said, â??Would you be interested in crew?â??
The Americans followed their gold medal in the Athens Games with a bronze medal. Beau Hoopman, Matt Schnobrich, Micah Boyd, Wyatt Allen, Daniel Walsh, Steven Coppola, Josh Inman, Bryan Volpenhein and coxswain Marcus McElhenney finished in 5:25.34.
Quoted: The forums show that gamers are “creating an environment in which informal scientific reasoning practices are being learned” by playing the online games, said Sean Duncan, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Materials which have the remarkable ability to assemble themselves spontaneously into microscopic structures are promising to make possible higher-capacity computer hard disc drives at lower cost. The new fabrication method comes as manufacturers reach the limits of hard disc miniaturisation using traditional manufacturing techniques and look to so-called “patterned media” – regular arrays of magnetic material on the disc surface – as the way ahead.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Hitachi scientists have combined the conventional way of creating microelectronic devices – lithography – with these unusual materials, called block co-polymers.
Quoted: But those who have toiled in this field the longest â?? psychologists such as Worthington in Virginia and Robert Enright of the University of Wisconsin Madison â?? are bullish.
In an e-mail from Northern Ireland, where he spent much of the summer working on a forgiveness curriculum for schoolchildren, Enright says he now is more impressed with the power of forgiveness to heal than when he began his research two decades ago.
Quoted: R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Obama’s view echoed the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
The renewed focus on developing entrepreneurs at the Wisconsin School of Business is an important ingredient for a state that needs more home cooking.
Incomes in Wisconsin lag the national average, making economic growth an imperative. But with the exception of communities like Hudson and Kenosha that border large metropolitan areas, most communities in Wisconsin traditionally haven’t been able to attract companies from outside the state. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try, but realistically, most growth has to come from existing businesses – or by creating new ones.
Under the leadership of University of Wisconsin-Madison business school dean Michael Knetter, and with the strong support of UW’s vast network of alumni, the school is trying to produce more graduates interested in starting companies.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has released an outline of his higher-education policy.
http://www.channel3000.com/health/17205528/detail.html
MADISON, Wis. — Researchers at the University of Wisconsin may have found the answer to why aging men get prostate cancer, the most commonly found cancer in men.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 190,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and roughly 29,000 die each year from it. Nearly one in six men will be diagnosed with the disease, making it the most common cancer detected in American men.
MADISON, Wis. — A new safety campaign launched by the University of Wisconsin Dean of Students is the first one in years to target students one on one on off-campus move in day.
It’s all part of various measures being taken now to keep UW students safer.
After the Brittany Zimmermann homicide last April, property managers were flooded with calls for maintenance service.
Nearly six months later, some property managers said they’ve been working hard to stay on top of building security as the fall migration transforms downtown.
MADISON, Wis. — Authorities are investigating after a man was found dead on a porch Saturday after a night of drinking.
The house is near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The man was discovered at a house attached to the Triangle Fraternity house, located across the street from Camp Randall Stadium.
A person who lives there called 911 about 5 p.m. Saturday after finding the man on the porch, not breathing.
On a day filled with excitement over a fresh start, many students are being met with a sad reminder that tragedy can happen anywhere.
Just four months after the murder of UW student Brittany Zimmermann in her own apartment, those moving into the neighborhood are getting a welcome message from police.
It’s move in day near the UW Campus and amidst the big boxes and hefty loads are police, with a heavy message.
On couches and lawn chairs, UW students wait, wait and wait some more.
“Between 12pm and 12pm, we have no place to stay so for 24 hours we’re homeless,” says UW student Dana Hanson.
But as some pass the time outside- inside property owners like John and Carrie Bartels are working quickly.
Quoted: Critics like Dr. June Dahl, professor of pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin, fault the insurance companies for favoring methadone simply because of its monetary cost.
MADISON (WKOW) — University and city officials used “Move In Day” to promote a new safety campaign called “Safety 24/7”.
They handed out bottled water and magnets with basic safety advice like walking with friends and locking doors.
In the midst of mattresses and boxes, volunteers with the university and city spoke to students and parents about campus safety.
It’s a topic university officials say becomes even more important following the murder of UW student Brittany Zimmermann last spring.
Lawrence A. Riddle, age 74, passed away on Monday, Aug. 11, 2008. Larry worked for the University of Wisconsin.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A new report says the number of students seeking mental health services on University of Wisconsin campuses is increasing but staffing levels are not.
The report warns the wait for services is likely to increase if campuses do not add more counselors or find ways to better manage their existing workers. Already, most students have to wait a week to get an appointment in non-urgent cases.
Madison’s move-out day is just another day of car hijacking, violence and general thievery for UW-Madison senior Jeff Sellman.
Of course, that was only in the virtual reality of his Xbox 360 video game Grand Theft Auto 4.
Talk to UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley on any given day, and he knows exactly how many days remain before his reign as head of the state’s flagship university ends.
Today, it is 16.
Former Wisconsin running back Lance Smith was sentenced Thursday to 20 days in jail for assaulting his girlfriend last year. The 20-year-old pleaded guilty last year to charges of misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct.
For people with high blood pressure, exercise can be the most important lifestyle change they can make, researchers say.
Yet two-thirds of doctors don’t take the time to tell their patients with high blood pressure about the importance of exercise and physical activity, a new study finds.
“Patients do follow physician recommendations to exercise when instructed to, and patients who follow exercise recommendations tend to have lower systolic blood pressures than those who do not,” said lead researcher Dr. Josiah Halm, a hypertension specialist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Lindley Joseph Stiles, a pioneering former dean of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, died April 6 in Boulder, Colo., at the age of 94.
After his years at U.Va., he served as dean of the University of Wisconsin’s education school. He retired as professor emeritus of education from Northwestern University in 1979.
MADISON â?? University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly says he’ll ask taxpayers to invest more to continue plans to produce more college graduates.
Reilly is recommending the system ask the Legislature and Gov. Jim Doyle for $37.5 million in tax money and $13.4 million in student fees to support the so-called Growth Agenda through 2011.
TOWN OF MENASHA â?? Lesley Lathrop has no plans to return to Japan because she won’t go where she’s not wanted.
However, part of her heart is still there.
Three years ago today Lathrop’s 20-year-old son, Andy, who took a year off college to teach English in Japan, went missing just a few days before he was scheduled to return home.
Quoted: Despite the heavy emphasis placed on the test score, associate dean of admissions at UW-Madison, Thomas Rearson described what admissions staff looks for at his university and noted, as did Schwarz, that ACT scores are not the only indicator of success.
MADISON â?? If younger voters help Barack Obama win this state in November, the presidential candidate will be sure to thank a 20-year-old college student.
University of Wisconsin-Madison junior Bryon Eagon is taking off the fall semester to organize college campuses statewide to get Obama elected.
As state coordinator for Students for Barack Obama, he is the point man for an effort that Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said could take the youth vote to its “absolute peak” in Wisconsin.
Construction work will be halted along the 500 and 600 blocks of State Street for the next three days.
Vehicles will be allowed on State Street but only while actively loading and unloading.
While moving furniture all day is backbreaking enough, finding a place to store and transport goods looks to be a problem for some students.
It is a chaotic 24 hour period that every year floods the streets around campus with garbage, moving trucks and cleaners.
Students move from one home to another in the same day, if they’re lucky, because the trash isn’t the only thing spending the night on the curb.
People take over the streets. Landlords make final checks and sidewalks are lined with garbage. Students are all packed up, many with nowhere to go.
MADISON (WKOW) — Former UW running back Lance Smith was sentenced to 20 days in jail in Dane County Court Thursday afternoon for beating up his girlfriend.
Smith, 20, had been given the opportunity to avoid convictions on battery and disorderly conduct charges through a first offender program, but failed to follow program rules and was kicked out of the program.
MADISON (WKOW) — Students and other downtown Madison residents are hoping it will be dry Thursday and Friday morning, sow that many are homeless for the next 24 hours.
It is, afterall, ‘move out day,’ when many apartment leases expire. New ones won’t begin until tomorrow.
Many of the streets for blocks in any direction from the largely student neighborhoods have been turned upside down over the past few days as their apartment leases end August 14.
DNA testing has helped exonerate more than 200 people wrongfully convicted of criminal acts. The Wisconsin Innocence Project says of those 200 cases, more than 80 involved a victim of one race misidentifying a perpetrator of another race. While defense lawyers and prosecutors agree that something needs to be done about false eyewitness identifications, theyâ??re split on a proposal for a new courtroom procedure aimed at addressing the problem.
Keith Findley of the Wisconsin Innocence Project says one way to tackle the issue is for judges to tell juries about the unreliability of cross-racial identifications, and consider that during eyewitness testimony. (10th item.)
UW-Madison scientists are working on a way to make your cell phone and other high-tech devices even smaller and more powerful.
Theyâ??ve come up with a way to assemble microscopic patterns onto the chips used in the disk drives of those gadgets. Some experts say the technique has the potential to mass produce smaller drives at a reasonable price.
In the city’s biggest yearly migration of people, thousands of UW-Madison students will be moving in and out of their campus-area apartments starting today and likely through the weekend.
And if getting all their clothes, books and ratty, old, second-hand couches from one place to another wasn’t work enough, major construction on two blocks of State Street is sure to make the task even more challenging.
Q. Do some people get allergies later in life — for example, a reaction to penicillin?
A. About 25 percent of all people who struggle with allergies develop them after age 30, said Dr. Thomas Puchner, clinical professor of allergy and immunology in the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
Obama’s campaign has identified North Carolina as one of 18 battleground states where it’s spending money on TV advertising early in the general election campaign. North Carolina ranked in the middle of the pack in Obama TV spending during June and July, led by Florida with $5 million, according to an analysis by the University of Wisconsin’s Advertising Project.
Students arriving on campus this month are seeing green â?? and not just from the money they’re spending on tuition. For example, students coming to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., will start their school year with the university’s first “Green Move-In.”
With a little more than two weeks to go before the University of Wisconsin football season begins, the clock is ticking â?? again â?? in the ongoing dispute between the Big Ten Network and Time Warner Cable.
The Badgersâ?? season begins at home on Aug. 30 against the University of Akron, followed by the Sept. 6 UW-Marshall game. The Big Ten Network, which debuted last year, has the broadcast rights to both games.
MILWAUKEE — When the University of Wisconsin football team hits the field against the University of Akron on August 30, most of the state of Wisconsin will not be able to find the game on their televisions.
Fans are still upset that the Big Ten Network and Charter Communications, as well as Time Warner Cable, have not reached an agreement.
Quoted: Gerald Kulcinski, director of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
UW-Madison’s new pedestrian-bicycle path parallel to Campus Drive is impressive for a variety of reasons, none more striking than the array of solar-powered light fixtures installed by Madison Gas & Electric.
Extending from University Bay Drive to a series of sidewalks near the barns on Linden Drive, the 10-foot-wide asphalt ribbon links the university’s agriculture campus to the southeast fringes of Shorewood Hills by way of the VA and UW hospitals. Along the way, peds and cyclists encounter an at-grade crossing of Highland Avenue, and traverses Walnut Street via a new bridge, with a staircase on one side of Walnut and a ramp on the other providing access between the street and the new path.
As the crisis over Georgia grinds on, a UW expert says he doesn’t think Cold War rhetoric will ease tensions with Russia. Professor David McDonald, who chairs the History Department at UW Madison, says Georgia’s leaders probably miscalculated when they decided to reoccupy their breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Quoted: Dr. Michael Fiore, the director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, in Madison.
