Quoted: University of Wisconsin political science professor Barry Burden, regarding the February blowout.
Author: jplucas
UW System announces finalists for Parkside top spot (AP)
A search committee has named four finalists for the chancellor’s position at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha.
The UW System says they are Robert D. Felner, a professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville; T.J. Bryan, an English professor at Fayetteville (N.C.) State University; Gloria J. Gibson, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Arkansas State University-Jonesboro; and Maurice C. Taylor, dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
The candidates will participate in forums with faculty, academic staff, students and community members at UW-Parkside next week.
The Paper Trail: Wisconsin Cancels ‘Sex Toys 101’ Event
U.S. News and World Report
A University of Wisconsin Law School “Sex Toys 101” talk was shut down by the school, and the event organizersâ??who say the event was an attempt to promote safe alternatives to sex and discuss laws concerning sex toysâ??are not happy about it, the Badger Herald reports.
The official reason the seminar was canceled was that policy “prohibits the promotion or sale of commercial products by a private company.” But many students suspect it’s possible that the event’s racy fliers had something to do with it, too. Accompanied by a photo of wrists in shackles, one advertisement asks: “Finals got you tied up at the library all night? Wouldn’t you rather be tied up at home?” The other, littered with photos of sex toys, is probably too scandalous for me to repeat.
Intelligent-design film fuels debate over how life came to be
Scripps Howard News Service
Quoted: Sean Carroll, who teaches molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin, said the movie’s references to intelligent design are a “smokescreen” to promote religious views. Intelligent design is a theory that certain features of the universe are best explained by an intelligent cause, not random mutations or natural selection as proposed by evolution.
Tenn. administrator chosen to lead UMass-Amherst
Boston Globe
The University of Massachusetts yesterday tapped Robert C. Holub, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, as chancellor of the state’s flagship campus in Amherst, landing a veteran administrator who has held high-ranking positions at two major public universities.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Holub specializes in 19th- and 20th-century German intellectual, cultural, and literary history
Wehrwein won Pulitzer for series on Canada
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The same year that Ernest Hemingway won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Old Man and the Sea,” business reporter Austin C. Wehrwein brought home a Pulitzer to The Milwaukee Journal.
That was in 1953. Wehrwein won the prize for international reporting, writing a 25-part series called “Canada’s New Century.” Wehrwein died of natural causes Tuesday at home in St. Paul, Minn. He was 92.
Wehrwein studied economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, also working journalism jobs. That included serving as The Milwaukee Journal’s university correspondent before graduation in 1937.
Colleges Step Up Fund-Raising Efforts to Support Student Aid
Chronicle of Higher Education
With the economy sputtering and Congress pressuring colleges to be more affordable, many institutions feel a heightened need to provide more financial aid â?? and they are turning to alumni and other private donors for help.
While specifics vary from college to college, all types of institutions are feeling the pressure. Many smaller, private colleges find themselves in the tough position of having to dedicate increasing sums from their operating budgets to pay for such aid. They know they must become more affordable if they want to attract talented students of lesser means. And if they can’t offer the best students a good aid package, those students will go somewhere else.
A Classroom Path to Entrepreneurship
New York Times
The college campus, it turns out, can be an ideal incubator for hatching small businesses.
Naninaâ??s Gourmet Sauce, a pasta sauce company based in Belleville, N.J., was started, for instance, in 2005 by students taking an entrepreneurship course at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, N.J. Naninaâ??s products are now sold in nearly 400 supermarkets and gourmet shops in New Jersey and Manhattan, and the companyâ??s director of operations is 23-year-old Nick Massari, a student in that class.
The Kauffman Foundation is spending $50 million to finance such programs at 19 universities, including Arizona State, Oberlin, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Rochester.
Veterans Museum Collaborates On War Education Initiative (WPR)
The effects of war on soldiers and their families at home is the focus of a new, million-dollar teaching project. The Wisconsin Veterans Museum is teaming up with the Madison Area Technical College and the University of Wisconsin on â??Life During Wartime,â? which will use veteransâ?? testimonies, photographs, and artifacts in creating a unique curriculum. Coordinators plan to connect state veterans and historians with 150 history teachers during the three-year program.
Stanley Schultz, professor emeritus of History at UW-Madison, says war is such a valuable tool to learning American History. He says they believe that using the wartime experience as a window or a lens onto the American past, they can get people, both teachers and ultimately students, far more excited about the history of their nation, the history of their parents, their grandparents, and ultimately the history of themselves.
Just-5 Serves Up Time For Kindergarten Redshirts
WISC-TV 3
Quoted: UW professor Beth Graue advocates for sending children to school on time.
Graue believes programs like McFarland’s Just-5 aren’t needed.
“They tend to have nicely developed curriculum, but if you look at the evidence for whether they work or not, it hasn’t been borne out in the literature,” said Graue.
Veterans Museum Collaborates On War Education Initiative
Wisconsin Public Radio
The effects of war on soldiers and their families at home is the focus of a new, million-dollar teaching project. The Wisconsin Veterans Museum is teaming up with the Madison Area Technical College and the University of Wisconsin on â??Life During Wartime,â? which will use veteransâ?? testimonies, photographs, and artifacts in creating a unique curriculum. Coordinators plan to connect state veterans and historians with 150 history teachers during the three-year program.
Feds give $1-million to teach history
Wisconsin Radio Network
A million-dollar federal grant helps to get public school students excited about the study of American History.
The experimental program, “Life During Wartime,” is designed specifically to raise student achievement first by improving his teacher’s knowledge and understanding of American history.
Madison Rep revamps season lineup
Wisconsin State Journal
Acting artistic director Trevin Gay announced a new slate of plays that includes only two shows from Corley’s original list: the Lerner and Lowe musical “My Fair Lady” and “The Greeks,” stories adapted from Euripides and Homer, to be produced in collaboration with the UW-Madison department of theatre and drama.
Federal grant supports teaching of ‘Life During Wartime’
Wisconsin State Journal
On Tuesday, Vietnam veteran Jim Kurtz was among those presenting a plan to teach an estimated 150 fifth- through 12th-grade history teachers in the region about American wars since the Civil War and how they played out at home. The three-year collaboration is being paid for with a $934,966 federal education grant.
Noise rules for Mifflin Street Block Party objected
Wisconsin State Journal
Some UW-Madison students and Mifflin Street residents are upset with noise limits that police said will be enforced at the upcoming Mifflin Street Block Party on Saturday.
Madison police will allow an elevated level of music from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m., but if music can be heard more than three houses away, revelers will risk getting a $172 noise citation.
Mendota Court apartment named ‘Worst House in Madison’
Wisconsin State Journal
For months, Karley Gifford says she put up with annoyances at her Madison apartment â?? water-stained ceiling tiles, peeling paint, ripped linoleum.
But it was two burglaries in three days that broke her, she said. Gifford, 20, a UW-Madison sophomore, claims her landlord failed to fix a broken door pane for more than two months, giving burglars an easy way to reach in and unlock the door.
UW students want apology for canceled sex toy seminar
Wisconsin State Journal
A group of UW-Madison law students asked for an apology from the university for the abrupt cancellation of a sex toy seminar scheduled at the Law School last week.
Calling it a misunderstanding, Law School Dean Kenneth Davis said the group can hold the event if no commercial products are promoted or sold.
Gov. Doyle’s efficiency program falls short, is quietly killed (AP)
Appleton Post-Crescent
MADISON â?? The headline-grabbing claim from Gov. Jim Doyle in March 2005 couldn’t have been clearer.
At a news conference, Doyle said his administration would save taxpayers up to $200 million over four years through better management of the state bureaucracy under the so-called ACE Initiative.
Wisconsin rates highest in nation for drinking and driving (Marquette Tribune)
Quoted: Drinking is ingrained in Wisconsin culture and heritage, said Nina Emerson, the director of the Resource Center on Impaired Driving at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
How science gets swiftboated (msnbc.com)
MSNBC.com
Quoted: “If you have a losing hand, you’re going to use every amount of rhetoric you can to distract people from the fact that you don’t have any facts,” Sean B. Carroll, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me in his lab last week. “And that’s what ‘Expelled’ is all about.”
Dogs give students at Boca Raton’s Lynn University a stress break (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
Students at Lynn University say they’ve been working like dogs to prepare for final exams. So who better to relieve some of that stress than a couple of four-legged friends?
Therapy dogs have been used at other universities, including Albright College in Reading, Pa.; Indiana University in Bloomington; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to published reports.
Scholar:Faith healing defense strong
Wausau Daily Herald
Quoted: Shawn Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison instructor who studied faith healing cases for his book “When Prayer Fails,” called the legal hurdles faced by Falstad “significant.”
Feds give $1-million to teach history
Quoted: Stanley Schultz, UW-Madison History Professor, hopes to “light a fire” under the 150 teachers in the test project.
Some Parents Stave Off Kindergarten Another Year
http://www.channel3000.com/news/16069040/detail.html
MC FARLAND, Wis. — Redshirting is a common term in sports. It’s the practice of having the youngest players on a team sit out their first year in order to gain another year of eligibility when they’re older and most likely stronger.
The Badgers count basketball star Mike Wilkinson and football standouts Tyler Donovan and PJ Hill among their recent redshirts.
Now the term is being applied to children whose parents hold them out and enter them into kindergarten at age 6, rather than age 5.
Studies have found the practice, called redshirting, happens more often for boys with birthdays in June, July and August.
The practice means the youngest children in a class will then become the oldest in the class the following year.
“They’ll look at the kindergarten entrance age and say, ‘My child is not ready yet. I’ll wait a year and then have them go to kindergarten the following year,'” said UW professor Beth Graue.
Suchita Shah Blogs About Preparing For JEOPARDY!
NBC-15
I was speechless. I, a campus tour guide, was at a loss for words when I first found out that I was selected to compete in the 2008 Jeopardy! College Championship. I mean, what can you really say to that phenomenal news? I think Iâ??m still trying to figure out how to express my elation.
Recording Industry Steps Up Campus-Piracy Alerts, Straining College Technology Offices
Chronicle of Higher Education
George Washington University usually receives five to 10 notices per week from the Recording Industry Association of America complaining that a specific song or movie is being illegally traded by a computer user on the campus. But in the past week alone, the university has received 123 notices.
Colleges and universities around the country are reporting similar increases in complaints from the industry group. Because most colleges investigate every incident and take action against the online pirates, the surge is putting a sudden strain on their resources as the semester winds down.
Still: In a biotech state, computer guys get respect
Wisconsin Technology Network
Madison, Wis. – If you Google the office addresses for Google, the world’s largest search engine, a listing for Madison, Wis., might soon pop up on your computer screen.
For the second time in a week, a major information technology company has planted a flag in Wisconsin, a state reputed for being a biotech preserve. It was formally announced April 23 that Microsoft had set up an advanced development lab in Madison. On Monday, word finally got out that Google has set up an engineering office, also in downtown Madison.
Madison woman charged in hospital theft ring
WKOW-TV 27
University of Wisconsin police arrested a Madison woman last week, for her alleged part in a burglary ring, targeting medical clinics and hospitals in Dane and Columbia counties.
Tuesday, Dane County prosecutors charged 26-year-old Lindie Wollin with two counts of felony identity theft. She could face further charges, as well.
The investigation was a joint effort of UW-Madison Police, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs Police Department, Village of McFarland Police and City of Columbus Police.
Madison Police: No Foul Play in Student’s ’06 Drowning
WKOW-TV 27
Two former New York police detectives have compiled a list of college age drowning victims which the former cops believe were actually the victims of a serial killer or killers. Madison foreign exchange student Kenji Ohmi is on the list of forty victims.
But a Madison police official said Ohmi’s death was investigated – and there was no sign of foul play.
New honor for UW’s Thomson
Wisconsin Radio Network
A pioneering UW-Madison stem cell scientist has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 1998, Dr. Jamie Thomson became the first scientist to isolate and culture human embryonic stem cells.
A Too-Good-to-Be-True Nutrient?
Washington Post
Imagine a nutrient that could help prevent cancer, heart disease and tuberculosis, preserve bones, and thwart autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile diabetes.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?
But that’s the potential now being attributed to Vitamin D, whose usefulness was once thought to be limited to prevention of rickets in children and severe bone loss in adults. Known as the sunshine vitamin because it is produced when the skin is exposed to ultraviolet light, Vitamin D has been garnering increasing attention recently, because of what it may be able to do and because many people appear to be getting too little of it.
“There are a lot of benefits to Vitamin D that have surfaced in the last 20 years,” notes Hector DeLuca, a University of Wisconsin biochemist who has been a pioneer in Vitamin D research.
Obituary: Margaret McLean Bender
Madison.com
Margaret McLean Bender, age 91, died peacefully at Capitol Lakes Terraces on Monday, April 28, 2008. Dr. Margaret Bender was an Emeritus Senior Scientist in the Institute for Environmental Studies. She retired from the Institute at the UW Center for Climate Research in 1981. She was the Director of the UW Radiocarbon Laboratory from 1963 until her retirement.
UW System may lose another chancellor
Wisconsin State Journal
A sixth chancellor may leave the University of Wisconsin System.
UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard H. Wells said in a statement that he was named one of three finalists to lead the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, where he would serve as chancellor of Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities.
2 UW students to compete on Wheel of Fortune
Wisconsin State Journal
Two UW-Madison students will try to solve the puzzles this week on Wheel of Fortune’s College Week.
Kelly Clinton-Cirocco, a junior biology major originally from Gurnee, Ill., will appear in tonight’s episode. Nick Lamantia, a senior finance major originally from Arlington Heights, Ill., will appear in an episode airing Thursday night.
Cops Chase ‘Smiley Face’ Murder Mystery
ABCNEWS.com
Chris Jenkins was a popular student at the University of Minnesota who disappeared one night in 2003.
Four months later, he was found dead in the Mississippi River. At first police thought Jenkins was just a drunk college kid who accidentally fell into the river and drowned after a night on the town.
UW Professor Says Climate Change Could Spur Potential Health Crisis
WISC-TV 3
MADISON, Wis. — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call climate change “a serious public health concern” and one of the experts who best understand why lives in Madison.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Jonathan Patz was part of the team sharing former Vice President Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize and he’s now calling for global change to avert a health crisis.
Patz recently spoke with WISC-TV anchor Susan Siman and offered answers about what the future might hold.
Buildings & Grounds: Shop Talk: Erasing the 1960s From the Campus Map
Chronicle of Higher Education
Erasing the 1960s from the campus map: Because so many buildings from the 1960s and 1970s are slated for demolition at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, future students may miss out on an entire era in the universityâ??s architectural history, says Arnold Alanen, a professor of landscape architecture at the university.
Nationalism in China
Washington Post
Quoted: Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese nationalism at the University of Wisconsin, says when Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1977, “anti-Japan nationalism became a great legitimating glue to hold the society together, eventually ending up in the really ugly April 2005 anti-Japan racist riots in China.”
U. of Wisconsin at Madison Mistakenly Releases Name of Applicant for Chancellor Job
Chronicle of Higher Education
Whether to make public the list of applicants for the top job at a university can be a tricky proposition, as the University of Wisconsin at Madison has just been reminded.
The university said last week that 55 people had applied to be the next chancellor of the Madison campus. University officials also released the names of nine candidates who they said had not requested confidentiality. But, unfortunately, one of the now-public candidates had indeed asked that his name be kept private.
UWO Chancellor Wells is finalist for position in Pennsylvania (Oshkosh Northwestern)
The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard Wells is one of three candidates for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education chancellor position.
Wells was unavailable to comment because he is traveling out of state, said Jeanette DeDiemar, executive director of UWO integrated marketing and communications.
Panel debates public financing, other election reforms (WisPolitics.com)
State Sens. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, and Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, again pushed for action on their campaign finance reform legislation Monday night as part of a Common Cause in Wisconsin forum crafted to discuss changes to promote good government in Wisconsin.
Common Cause Executive Director Jay Heck said the forum on the UW-Madison campus was in response to the recent Supreme Court contest between Justice Louis Butler and Justice-elect Mike Gableman, which he called the “most expensive, nasty and demoralizing campaign in state history.” Heck said that the forum was called to address the need for campaign finance reform and would have been held regardless of the election’s outcome.
UW-Madison apologizes to top job applicant for revealing identity (AP)
Capital Times
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and a private search firm apologized Monday for mistakenly releasing the identity of an applicant for the school’s top job.
UW-Madison said last week that 55 people had applied to succeed John Wiley as chancellor. The university also released the names of nine applicants it said did not request confidentiality.
Among the names made public was Jorge Jose, the vice president for research at the University of Buffalo in New York.
Consumers Seek To Be Watchful Of ‘Greenwashing’
WISC-TV 3
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison environmental educators Tom Eggert and Dan Anderson said that there’s too much boasting about being green — from food to packaging to products.
Google joins Microsoft in opening Madison office
Wisconsin Technology Network
Madison, Wis. – For the second time in a week, a major technology firm has announced the opening of an office in Madison.
Last week, it was Microsoft. This time, it’s search giant Google, which cited the local labor pool and the community’s focus on education for the opening of an engineering office that will concentrate on hardware and software systems design.
Chinese Students in U.S. Fight View of Their Home
New York Times
LOS ANGELES â?? When the time came for the smiling Tibetan monk at the front of the University of Southern California lecture hall to answer questions, the Chinese students who packed the audience for the talk last Tuesday had plenty to lob at their guest:
If Tibet was not part of China, why had the Chinese emperor been the one to give the Dalai Lama his title? How did the tenets of Buddhism jibe with the â??slavery systemâ? in Tibet before Chinaâ??s modernization efforts? What about the Dalai Lamaâ??s connection to Hitler?
Old UW murder revisited
Wisconsin Radio Network
Ralph Armstrong was convicted nearly three decades ago of raping and killing UW-Madison student Charise Kamps in her downtown apartment. But now defense attorneys claim Armstrong’s brother, Steve, confessed to the murder in 1994 or 1995.
Wisconsin stem cell industry has been slow in developing
Wisconsin Technology Network
Madison, Wis. – With the stated goal of capturing 10 percent of the stem cell technology market by 2015, Gov. Jim Doyle used a 2006 visit to the Medical College of Wisconsin to announce an important executive order. It directed the state Department of Commerce to spend at least $5 million to recruit new stem cell companies to Wisconsin.
Madison student’s death possibly linked to 39 other suspected murders
WKOW-TV 27
A Madison foreign exchange student found drowned in Lake Mendota is on a list of college students possibly murdered rather than accidentally drowned.
You may remember the name Kenji Ohmi – he was here from Japan learning English when he disappeared.
The Stress of College Applications
New York Times
As the frenzied admissions season winds to a close, many students finally know where they will be attending college in the fall.
But there remains a troubling question: how much damage was done along the way?
On Hiring: Administrative Flight at U. of Wisconsin?
Chronicle of Higher Education
According to an article in the Wisconsin State Journal, professors arenâ??t the only ones departing the University of Wisconsin for greener pastures; chancellors, apparently, are saying sayonara at an alarming rate, too.
Obituary: Peggy Joyce Olday
Madison.com
Peggy Joyce Bender Olday, age 77, passed away on Thursday, April 24, 2008. Peggy graduated from Central High School in 1948 and went on to work for UW-Madison.
Obituary: Gelsy Verna
Madison.com
A Memorial Service is scheduled for Gelsy Verna, Professor of Art. The public is invited to attend a Memorial Service at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, May 2, 2008, in the banquet room of the University Club, 803 State Street on Library Mall. Verna died on Tuesday, March 11, 2008, from a chronic health condition in her home. She came to the UW-Madison Art Department in 2001 after teaching painting and drawing at the University of Iowa for six years.
Public casts colder eye at homeless
Chicago Tribune
MADISON, Wis. â?? The late-afternoon regulars on State Street â?? Lonnie, Ron, Bruce and dozens more, nearly all of them men with outstretched hands or jiggling styrofoam cupsâ??know all too well that they’re not the most admired members of the community.
They may be drug addicts, alcoholics, ex-cons, mentally ill or homeless, but they can sense when public sentiment has shifted against themâ??like now.
Crazylegs Classic: See wins men’s race, bragging rights
Wisconsin State Journal
Near the finish line, Codie See was asked if hot chocolate was more in order than bottled water.
“No, but I am expecting some beer,” said the 24-year-old See, a Madison resident and former University of Wisconsin runner who said he still runs about 80 miles per week.
Man crashes SUV into campus building
Wisconsin State Journal
A 23-year-old Madison man was arrested Saturday morning on a tentative charges, including drunken driving, after the vehicle he was driving crashed on University Avenue.
UW football: Ikegwuonu leads quartet of Badgers drafted
Wisconsin State Journal
fter suffering a serious knee injury during a workout in late January, questions abounded about when â?? or if â?? Jack Ikegwuonu would be selected during the NFL draft.
That answer was provided early Sunday afternoon when the Philadelphia Eagles selected the former University of Wisconsin cornerback in the fourth round, with the 131st overall pick.
Is Wrong Brother Doing Time?
Wisconsin State Journal
Defense attorneys say that the brother of the man accused in the 1980 rape and murder of a UW-Madison student confessed to the crime and that state prosecutors have withheld that information for the past 13 years.
In a motion filed April 17 with the 4th District Court of Appeals, attorneys for Ralph Armstrong also say that a state prosecutor knowingly destroyed DNA evidence that might have proved that it was Armstrong’s brother, Steve, who killed Charise Kamps.
Man Gets Prison For Attacking Woman
Wisconsin State Journal
A Fitchburg man who attacked a stranger in the stairwell of her apartment building in 2006 was sentenced Friday to seven years and six months in prison.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Markson also placed Paul C. Aud, 34, on nine years and six months of extended supervision after prison. Markson found Aud guilty of second degree attempted sexual assault and substantial battery in November.
Uw Worker Recovers; No Co-workers Get Tb
Wisconsin State Journal
Eight months after a UW Hospital employee became ill with tuberculosis, she has recovered and returned to work, and none of her co-workers acquired the potentially fatal lung disease.
U Design Union South
Wisconsin State Journal
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Union South will be demolished next year. What should replace it?
Initial planning concludes soon. Because I’ve written on campus history, architecture and planning, Union officials have asked me to sit in on design sessions.