Members of the Board of Regents are meeting to try to pick the next University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor.
A five-member committee chaired by Madison lawyer David Walsh is trying to reach a consensus on one of four finalists for the top job at the state’s flagship university. Its members are deliberating in a private conference call.
A UW-Madison expert says it now appears inevitable that Barack Obama will be the Democrats’ choice for President.
Political scientist Charles Franklin says it would probably take a major scandal of some sort to keep the Democratic presidential nomination from Barack Obama. Franklin says the Senator continues to pick up super delegates across the nation and maintains a lead over Hillary Clinton for pledged delegates. He’s predicting a flood of super delegates for Obama to pick up over the coming weeks.
Indiana had nearly 31,000 applications, an 8-percent rise over 2007, and expects to admit very few students from its waiting list. Virginia Tech received 7 percent more deposits than last year, so it had no slots to offer any of its wait-listed applicants. As of this week, neither did the University of Virginia, which saw only a slight drop in yield despite ending its early-decision program.
Other public universities, however, were able to free many applicants from admissions limbo. The University of Wisconsin at Madison plans to admit nearly 800 students from its waiting list, one year after taking only a handful.
After overenrolling by 400 students last year, Madison needed to admit more conservatively this spring, says Robert Seltzer, director of admissions. And he perceived that more students were applying to multiple colleges. “Just because you’re up in applications,” Mr. Seltzer says, “doesn’t mean you’re going to be up in bodies.”
Fay M. Denzer, age 65, passed away on Tuesday, May 20, 2008. He worked for at time as a custodian for the UW Physical Plant and received an award from UW-Madison for saving a man’s life while at work.
Some Madison officials want to make it harder for people to get a cheap buzz and cause problems Downtown.
The move comes amid rising concern about aggressive behaviors and panhandling by chronic alcoholics.
Ending a long tradition, Wisconsin Public Radio did not use volunteers to staff its phone banks during its pledge drive this month, hiring a call center instead.
The decision, which has saddened volunteers and station officials alike, grew out of concern over a rise in identity theft cases nationally, said Jennifer Dargan, manager of on-air fundraising and volunteers.
Quoted: Virginia Terry Boyd, the curator of the traveling exhibit who is a professor and chair of the Textiles and Design program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Quoted: Dietram Scheufele, a professor of life sciences communication and journalism at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, says public awareness of nanotech hasnâ??t changed at all since 2004, when he began his surveys. Scientists are more apt to be concerned about health and safety issues than the public is, he says.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison Med Flight staff members began confidence flights without patients onboard Tuesday afternoon.
It’s the first step since a crash near La Crosse killed three members of the air ambulance team.
The 10-to-15-minute flights are available to staff members through Thursday. They give staff members the chance to fly before regular patient service resumes.
Here’s a bright spot in an otherwise brutal college-admissions season: More students are being accepted from wait lists at elite schools this year because colleges found it harder to predict how many graduating seniors would join the freshman class.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison expects to take 800 from the wait list this year, compared with six students last year.
Quoted: For Majid Sarmadi, a UW-Madison textile chemist and professor of design studies, it’s his concern for the future health of the earth and its inhabitants that serve to drive his research.
MADISON, Wis. — A federal agency has granted $1.4 million in disaster relief to Madison, Dane County and other municipalities hit hard by a severe February snowstorm.
Madison will get the bulk of the federal aid — almost $500,000. Dane County will get about $170,000, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will receive almost $60,000.
MIAMI (Reuters) – A new forecasting tool launched by a U.S. university on Tuesday will track clouds of African dust over the Atlantic Ocean as a possible indicator of the severity of a coming hurricane season.
The technique launched by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may help weather watchers, energy and commodities traders and anyone else riveted by hurricane predictions to gauge what might be coming in cyclone-prone areas of the Atlantic and Caribbean.
MADISON, Wis. — Florence Chenoweth, who has been a Badger alum for nearly four decades, is the focus of WISC-TV’s Inspiring Women series.
After getting her Masters in agricultural economics In 1970, Chenoweth went back home to Liberia to serve as the country’s Minister of Agriculture.
Civil war in Liberia left her a refugee in Sierra Leone, but that didn’t stop Chenoweth from returning to Madison.
A group of students and others called on Madison alderperson Eli Judge to resign, after 27 News revealed Judge missed nearly a year’s worth of meetings of the 911 Center’s oversight board.
Judge’s last absence from his assignment to the Public Safety Communications Center Board was less than two weeks before a 911 call from the cell phone of murder victim Brittany Zimmermann was mishandled.
Madison, Wis. – To the casual visitor and even some insiders, the University of Wisconsin-Madison doesn’t seem like an institution under pressure. Construction cranes rise above the 933-acre campus, where a combination of gleaming new buildings and refurbished landmarks leave the impression that all is well within sight of Bascom Hill.
Appearances can be deceiving. Behind the hustle and bustle that characterizes Wisconsin’s largest and oldest public university are signs of strain – not unlike those that also shadow other major research universities, but nonetheless troubling.
When the State Journal this week published the list of the top 4 percent of this year ‘s graduating seniors from Dane County high schools, girls outnumbered boys by nearly two to one.
That academic gender gap highlights a national problem with costly consequences: Boys are falling behind in the American educational system.
Nurse Mark Coyne, 53, was remembered Monday evening at a spirited and poignant memorial service at the Crossroads Church in Madison attended by more than 600 people, including more than 150 Med Flight, EMS, fire department and other emergency medical personnel from southern Wisconsin.
I was interested to read in Daily Variety, the show business newspaper, that Madison native Kevin Farley is making a new movie with David Zucker.
The short Variety item last month noted that Farley will play the lead in “An American Carol,” a satiric comedy directed and co-written by Zucker, the UW-Madison graduate who with his brother Jerry and their friend Jim Abrahams made earlier comedy hits like “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun” series. The new movie, which spins off “A Christmas Carol,” is due out for the holidays in December.
FITCHBURG â?? Can a 911 call from a cell phone be traced to an exact location?
How quickly are police being dispatched to 911 calls about suspicious activity?
Has Dane County spent enough on its 911 system?
Those questions and several others were on the minds of about 80 people Monday at the first town hall meeting since it was revealed the county’s 911 center mishandled a call from the cell phone of homicide victim Brittany Zimmermann on April 2.
MADISON, Wis. — The no. 2 official in the University of Wisconsin System is retiring in June, and that’s letting system officials do some reorganization.
Don Mash has been the system’s senior executive vice president since 2005. He was in charge of the daily operations of the UW System, which includes 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges.
MADISON, Wis. — A vice president at Texas Tech University will soon become a top administrator in the University of Wisconsin System, officials said Monday.
UW System President Kevin Reilly named Thomas Anderes senior vice president for administration and fiscal affairs. Anderes has held a similar position at Texas Tech since 2004.
You don’t know Bill Nayes, and that’s a good thing. It means he’s doing his job well.
They might not notice Nayes in the University of Wisconsin football offices, but they know he’s there. Coach Bret Bielema sits in an office just a few feet from him. Bielema has to be within yelling distance of the guy who takes care of all those dirty details that keep his team humming.
Thirty percent of teens are considered by peers to be part of ethnically oriented groups, as opposed to jocks, brains or nerds, U.S. researchers say.
Lead author Bradford Brown of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says ethnic crowds were linked to students doing poorly in school or with discrimination, but also linked to pride in one’s ethnic background.
I donâ??t think Iâ??m blowing a scoop by confirming that Greta Van Susteren, host of Fox Newsâ?? On the Record, was in town last week investigating the murders of Kelly Nolan, Joel Marino and Brittany Zimmermann.
Kohl’s Department Stores said Monday that it is donating $3 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to establish the Kohl’s Department Stores Center for Retailing Excellence.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and 911 Center director Joe Norwick came under heavy fire Monday night as Dane County citizens and employees complained about Falk and Norwickâ??s failures to address longstanding problems at Dane Countyâ??s 911 Center.
â??The 911 dispatch chief quite frankly doesnâ??t have the shoes for the job,â? said citizen Gary Berliot. Norwick is not entirely to blame, Berliot said, because of Falkâ??s failures to commit adequate resources to the center.
â??Iâ??d like to see both of them retire or resign.â? The audience inside the Fitchburg Community Center applauded.
MADISON, Wis. — Members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors held a meeting on Monday night to give area residents a chance to ask questions about the local 911 system.
It’s the second meeting in regards to the alleged mishandling of a 911 call.
But it was the first opportunity the public had to comment on the 911 controversy surrounding the Brittany Zimmerman 911 call.
Local officials and residents have raised questions about the 911 system after an operator was accused of mishandling a call from the cell phone of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who was later found dead.
27 News has uncovered the last two Madison alderpersons assigned to a 911 Center oversight board have missed more than a year of recent meetings.
A review of the minutes of the Public Safety Communications Center Board show the common council representative to the board has missed the past fourteen board meetings.
Four Dane County Supervisors held what was supposed to be a Q&A session on Monday night in Fitchburg to address problems with the county’s 911 center. But there were many more questions, than answers.
None of the invited county and city leadership showed up, including the Madison Police Chief, 911 Center Director, County Executive, or Sheriff.
The meeting is being held three weeks after it was revealed that UW student Brittany Zimmermann called 911 the day she was murdered and police weren’t dispatched.
Elaine M. Christofferson, age 78, passed away on Tuesday, May 13, 2008. She retired after 25 years of service as the secretary for the 4H extension at UW.
Kathryn Marie Buck Andersen Sayles, known as Kay to her legion of friends, died on Friday, May 16, 2008. She worked as a rare books cataloger at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library in the 1940s.
For the last year, a movie filmed in Madison stars someone more recognizable here than Johnny Depp.
That’s Bucky Badger, sporting the permanent grin and silenting spreading goodwill, who ranks as Madison’s most famous figure. Now a Chicago film company will present the tentatively titled “Being Bucky” in 2009 after editing 100 hours of footage for the independent documentary.
At the base of a State Street lamppost, beneath a banner that says “Celebrate Madison,” Darrell Regulus works the only job he knows.
He calls it “shaking the cup.” Others call it panhandling or begging for money.
“How’re you doing, sir?” he says to a middle-aged man walking by. “Can you help me out?”
Nothing.
Then Robert Weiss, 19, a UW-Madison freshman, gives him $5. Regulus’ mood improves â?? if he can get to $10, a motel owner near the Beltline will rent him a room for the night, he says.
Produce doesn’t get more local than when it is grown on the roof of the supermarket where it will be sold.
Keith Agoada and Troy Vosseller, business students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, developed that prize-winning idea for the university’s annual G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition last month. First place earned them $10,000 to invest in their business model, which they call Sky Vegetables.
Quoted: Marvin L. Birnbaum, a critical-care physician at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and president of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine.
Thumbs Up: To the organizations that put together the Brain to Five speaker series, for educating the Fox Cities on early child development.
The Appleton Education Foundation, the Wisconsin Academy of Letters and Sciences and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Waisman Center teamed up to bring world-class researchers to Appleton for lectures on different aspects of child development.
Molly Somers is a woman who likes a challenge, and as the new University of Wisconsin-Madison marching band manager, she’ll certainly have one.
The Plover native will be responsible for scheduling the popular marching band’s performances, both in and out of Wisconsin, in addition to completing her studies as an elementary education major with a minor in French and education policy studies.
A few days ago Ashley Kay Huibregtse was chasing calves on a visit to her family’s dairy farm in the Town of Lyndon.
On Friday night, Huibregtse was chosen to wear the amethyst-studded tiara of the state’s preeminent ambassador for agriculture, as the 61st Alice in Dairyland at the selection finale at the Stefanie H. Weill Center.
MADISON, Wis. — Although this year’s college graduates are entering the workforce amid rising unemployment numbers and fears about the economy, graduation is still a day of joy and optimism.
This weekend thousands of students will trade in textbooks for briefcases as graduation ceremonies were held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at Madison Area Technical College.
At the UW, about 5,000 Badgers received diplomas on Saturday as proud families looked on.
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, a university of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who studies the Jewish vote.
A former Wisconsin resident working in Shanghai was shaken by last Monday’s tremor in China, but at first he didn’t even realize it was an earthquake.
“I thought I was not feeling well because I suddenly felt dizzy. I felt the room was reeling for no reason,” wrote Frankie Ko, a 1973 University of Wisconsin-Madison chemical engineering graduate working in Shanghai, hundreds of miles from the quake’s epicenter.
As UW-Madisonâ??s academic year comes to a close, its future leadership is the focus of a Chancellor search that has been underway since February. The UW Board of Regents will pick a replacement for UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, who is leaving in September, at its meeting early next month in Milwaukee. On consecutive days this week, the final four candidates — out of more than 50 applicants — took part in meet-and-greets at Memorial Union.
All four identified the same top priorities: raising faculty salaries, putting extra effort into fundraising and corporate sponsorship, and maintaining the universityâ??s status as a premier research institution. But they differed in nuance and style. The Daily Page was there to size up each candidateâ??s selling points and setbacks.
LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) A theater student who died in a fire has been awarded the first ”extraordinary” degree from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
Peter J. Talen, 23, was killed in a house fire near UW-Madison in November.
Talen had been a student at UW-La Crosse, but took a break in the fall of 2007 and was planning to return in January 2008, said Bill Clow, interim associate dean for the College of Liberal Studies and director of the School of Arts and Communication.
Thousands of students marched out of college and into the school of life this weekend in Madison.
The Class of 2008 received their two year and four year degrees from MATC and UW Madison.
About 5,000 UW students will graduate this weekend during four commencement ceremonies held at the Kohl Center.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Ultimate Frisbee club team, the Hodags, are returning to the Ultimate Players Association College Championships this weekend in a bid for a second-straight national title.
MADISON, Wis. — Madison police have released more information about the slayings of 31-year-old Joel Marino and UW student Brittany Zimmerman.
Police said Marino and Zimmerman’s deaths do not appear to be connected.
However, in a statement released on Sunday, police said they cannot totally rule out any connection, mainly because of certain similarities.
Those similarities include that the victims were killed inside their homes, were in close proximity to each other and there was nothing in either case to suggest the victims had enemies or were at risk due to their lifestyles.
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — A few days ago Ashley Kay Huibregtse was chasing calves while visiting her family’s dairy farm in the Sheboygan County Town of Lyndon.
Friday night in Sheboygan, Huibregtse was chosen to wear the amethyst-studded tiara of Alice in Dairyland, the state’s pre-eminent ambassador for agriculture.
The 23-year-old Huibregtse is graduating Saturday with a degree in education and communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Madison, Wis. – In an earlier column about the recent Stem Cell Symposium held on the Promega Campus, I extolled the exciting frontier of stem cell basic science that was on display; however, it was just as interesting to catch up with local stem cell researchers who attended the Symposium because I caught a glimpse of the current status of stem cell science in the Madison area.
For instance, I ran into Tim Kamp, an associate professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine’s Department of Physiology. Kamp, who along with Professor Jamie Thomson, recently developed a reliable way to derive human heart cells from embryonic stem cells (ESCs).
Madison Police believe the murders of Joel Marino and Brittany Zimmermann are not connected.
However, according to an incident report issued on Sunday, police cannot completely dismiss a connection between the cases due to similarities both share.
Both Marino and Zimmermann were attacked inside their homes during daylight hours, with the two murders being committed in a reasonably close geographic area.
Also, police believe there was nothing to suggest that Marino or Zimmermann had enemies or were at risk due to eitherâ??s personal lifestyle.
UW Madison engineering students are in a national vehicle competition that’s winding down this weekend. The UW Madison team is among 17 schools to re-engineer a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox, using advanced propulsion technologies to increase fuel efficiency and reduce environmental impact. Team Leader Dan Mehr Mehr says it’s been a challenge getting all the components biodiesel-electric hybrid entry to work together smoothly.
A UW Madison researcher played a role in the this week’s decision by a federal agency, to list polar bears as a threatened species. UW Climatologist Eric DeWeaver used climate models to predict how global changes in coming decades will likely affect the Arctic, particularly with regard to summertime sea ice, a critical component of polar bear habitat.
How is the Iron Man suit made? We admire the result in the movie (still number one this week at the box office); the comic book version states that the Iron Man suit circuits were created using a process called biological circuit fabrication:
“Micro-Scale suit tiles fabricated by genetically engineered metal affinity bacteria which assemble themselves in specific orderly arrays, then expire, leaving behind various metallic deposits which form all the metal shapes and microscopic circuits.”
Now, a group of scientists led by Michael Sussman, director of University of Wisconsin, Madison’s Biotechnology Center, and oceanography professor Virginia Armbrust of the University of Washington, are seeing if diatoms will help make even smaller integrated circuit chips by a similar process of biological fabrication.
There has been a whole lot of debate over Wisconsin’s “brain drain” issue. Is it an issue? Are we really bleeding thousands and thousands of smart, college grads? Are they or aren’t they coming back to Wisconsin after getting a diploma, adding talent and paying taxes? Is the bigger problem simply generating a higher percentage of degree-holding citizens (as our rate is comparatively low in the Midwest). Some signal a “red alert” on the brain drain matter. Others argue there are bigger fish to fry.
Lyle W. Ekleberry, age 84, of Madison, passed away on Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Lyle worked for the University of Wisconsin – Madison from 1960 until 1985.
Mark W. Coyne, age 53, passed away on Sunday, May 11, 2008, as a result of a UW Med Flight accident. In June 1981, Mark joined the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics as the orthopedic unit charge nurse. From 1983 through 1986, he was a nurse clinician in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. In June 1986, Mark was recruited to the UW Med Flight program where he currently worked as a flight nurse for the last 22 years.
Madison fire investigators have learned that the fraternity whose Langdon Street house was destroyed by fire early Tuesday recently suspended a member for an alleged sexual assault.
Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter President Mike Miesen said he doesn’t believe there’s any link between the assault allegation and the subsequent fire, and he said the fraternity didn’t tell fire investigators about the assault allegation until after a Wisconsin State Journal reporter asked about it.
Nearly 400 emergency services personnel from across southern Wisconsin honored three of their fallen comrades Thursday night at a commemorative ceremony on the roof of Monona Terrace in Madison.
The public memorial service, which was organized to commemorate the lives of Dr. Darren Bean and Med Flight pilot Steve Lipperer by their families, was attended by more than 1,450 friends, family, colleagues and members of the public. It featured outpourings of sympathy and sadness, and showed how close to home the tragedy has hit for some.
Saturday’s crash of a Med Flight helicopter near La Crosse should heighten Wisconsin’s sense of urgency about providing medical helicopters with recommended safety equipment.
When the helicopter leased to UW Hospital crashed into a hillside, killing all three on board, it was not equipped with night vision goggles or terrain warning technology.
The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended both devices for medical helicopters since 2006.
Instead of donning a white lab coat after today’s graduation ceremony for UW-Madison’s Master of Science in Biotechnology program, one student will be writing a business plan. Abdalla Saad hopes to start a company in Madison that would market a better drug delivery system.
The system would be
