Who doesn’t like a good lawyer joke?
On the other hand, who doesn’t like a good lawyer when you’re in a legal scrape?
Lawyer Bit Already Stale
Wisconsin State Journal
Author: jplucas
How To Avoid Campus Tragedy
Wisconsin State Journal
If universities are to prevent a repeat of the Virginia Tech shooting, the first thing they need to do is ditch the idealistic notion of campuses as a haven, said UW-Madison Police Chief Sue Riseling. Then they need a multi-pronged strategy of prevention, intervention and response.
Tuition Boost At Uw May Be 6%
Wisconsin State Journal
Students at UW System schools likely will face a tuition increase of at least 6 percent, a member of the Board of Regents said Friday.
At UW-Madison, that would mean about $400 more per year for resident undergraduates.
Local high school forced to change logo in dispute with university (KTRK-TV, Houston)
A single letter has led to a logo dispute between a local high school and a Big 10 college, and the little guy lost this football fight. Who knew the letter “w” could cause so much trouble?
The Woodlands High School is having to change its letter logo because it’s just too close for comfort for the University of Wisconsin. It might seem funny, but it’s serious business for the University of Wisconsin. We spoke to the Conroe ISD superintendent, and he said he first found out about the problem a year ago. He contacted Barry Alvarez, football coach and athlete director for the University of Wisconsin, and was told not to worry about it.
Anheuser-Busch, craft brewer spar over trademark of ‘No. 1 beer’ (AP)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Quoted: Craig Fieschko, an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Baggot: UW lacks quantity to win Directors’ Cup
Wisconsin State Journal
When Barry Alvarez began his first full year as University of Wisconsin athletic director in 2004, he and his staff penned a memorable document.
It was a mission statement outlining 12 priorities – from academic achievement and customer service to financial responsibility and commitment to diversity – that would serve as a guide to future decision-making.
UW hockey: Long-awaited facility next on agenda
Wisconsin State Journal
The next major capital project for the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department will be a multi-purpose hockey facility, and all signs point to it being built as part of the Kohl Center complex.
When consultants hired by the school unveil a comprehensive campus master plan for UW Athletics next month, the plan is expected to feature a practice and competition rink situated parallel to the Nicholas-Johnson Facility on the west side of the Kohl Center.
UW officials and legislators must reach an understanding
La Crosse Tribune
Why does there seem to be such enmity between Republican legislators and the University of Wisconsin System?
During the past several years, the University System has been subjected to budget cuts higher than many other agencies. Republicans have criticized the university central administrators for what they see as waste, and some legislators have been unhappy with what they see as overly liberal professors and speakers on campuses.
But what is at the heart of the disputes? We asked Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch that question during an editorial board session Friday.
Fantasy Gaming Gives Insight Into Learning (HealthDay News)
CBC News
Fantasy baseball leagues could bring scientists a better understanding of how people learn.
Erica and Rich Halverson, assistant professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are conducting a study of the organization and rules of play of three different fantasy baseball leagues, as well as participants’ strategies, degree of competitiveness, and what they get out of the game.
Study: UW System should split (River Falls Journal)
A conservative Wisconsin think tank is charging that the stateâ??s university system has an â??outdated, inefficient management structure.â?
The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute report recommends that UW-Madison be broken off from the University of Wisconsin System.
Town of Dunn escapes infection (Isthmus)
Isthmus
Good news! Dane County is out of the running for that new $400 million Homeland Security bio-hazard research center.
UW-Madison officials are shaking their heads in disappointment that its 200-acre site in the town of Dunn was not a finalist for the animal-disease research facility. They had visions of landing 300 to 400 jobs involving research into the deadliest and most contagious diseases.
Trans-Atlantic Rift
Chronicle of Higher Education
Last May delegates to the inaugural annual conference of the University and College Union, which represents 120,000 British academics, stoked international controversy by voting to consider a boycott of Israeli institutions and academics. The move was the latest attempt by British faculty unions in recent years to penalize Israeli universities. And, like previous efforts, it has angered and puzzled many academics in the United States.
Simpson: California group turns up heat on WARF stem cell patents
Wisconsin Technology Network
Santa Monica, Calif. – The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights and the Public Patent Foundation have filed our formal comments with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office supporting its rejection of human embryonic stem cell patent claims asserted by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation because the claimed advances are obvious in the light of previous stem cell research.
Too many lawyers? (Wisconsin Radio Network)
Wisconsin Radio Network
State Representative Frank Lasee (R-Green Bay) stands behind his proposed budget cuts to the UW Law School.
Lasee says it’s simple. There are just too many lawyers. He believes taxpayers should not be subsidizing the law school to produce more lawyers to just do busy work. In fact, he says, many who graduate end up doing something else any way.
Students Concerned About Downtown Safety, But Many Still Taking Risks
WKOW-TV 27
UW students say they’re being more cautious following the murder of 22-year-old Kelly Nolan.
Her body was found Monday–two weeks after she disappeared after a night of drinking downtown.
But, when 27 News visited State Street Sataurday night we saw women walking alone, talking on cell phones–all things Madison police officers say are risky behaviors.
Police also say downtown Madison is, for the most part, safe.
UW-Madison Senior Dies In Crash In Africa
WISC-TV 3
MADISON, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Madison senior participating in a study-abroad program in South Africa was killed in a vehicle crash on July 1 during a guided tour in Botswana.
Andrea Sperka, of West Allis, had completed her spring semester-aboard program and was traveling with a friend to the neighboring countries of Zambia and Botswana, according to the news release from UW-Madison.
Caught On Tape In Downtown Madison
NBC-15
Following two recent murders with connections to Madison’s downtown, the city is gearing up to install the first of ten video surveillance cameras in the downtown.
Security cameras are just one part of the Mayor’s Downtown Safety Initiative, it also includes funding for police overtime and beefing up downtown neighborhood watches. It’s a $100,000 investment the city and State Street restaurants say is well spent.
Vying to Counter Barnyard Plagues (Science)
ScienceNOW
U.S. federal officials yesterday announced a short list of five possible sites for a new high-security agricultural biodefense lab. One of them will be awarded the $450 million facility, slated to open in 2012, which will study deadly animal diseases such as hoof-and-mouth disease, Nipah virus, and African swine fever.
Prominent Researchers Join the Attack on Stem Cell Patents (Science)
Four prominent stem cell scientists have filed “declarations” in support of a citizens’ group that is trying to break the University of Wisconsin’s hold on patents for human embryonic stem (ES) cells.
Joining the fray are Harvard researchers Chad Cowan and Douglas Melton, as well as Alan Trounson of Australia’s Monash University. A new statement was also submitted by Jeanne Loring of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in San Diego, California, who has been advising the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, which filed the initial complaint last July.
Study says mortality rates for Wisconsin minorities are higher (AP)
St. Paul Pioneer Press
MADISON – Mortality rates for blacks and American Indian residents are substantially higher than for non-Hispanic whites in every age category in the state, according to a new study by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
The study released this week noted the infant mortality rate for blacks was 17.6 deaths per 1,000 live births, or more than three times the rate for whites, and the American Indian infant mortality rate was second highest among ethnic groups in the state.
Madison Students Playing it Safe (WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee)
MADISON – Kelly Nolan’s death has people in Madison thinking twice before walking home alone.”You hear about that and you take an extra precaution,” University of Wisconsin student Brooke Saias said.
Especially knowing Kelly Nolan’s killer is still on the loose.”I make sure I’m always with a friend and if not I’ll call someone to walk home with,” Saias added.
Since Kelly went missing three weeks ago along State Street, UW Madison’s Safe Nightime Services has been extremely busy. The service offers students and staff free walks and rides home at night.
Tired of lawyers, state lawmaker wants to cut law schoolâ??s funding (AP)
La Crosse Tribune
MADISON, Wis. â?? A lawmaker who persuaded the Assembly to eliminate all state funding for the University of Wisconsin law school says his reasoning is simple: Thereâ??s too many lawyers in Wisconsin.
â??We donâ??t need more ambulance chasers. We donâ??t need frivolous lawsuits. And we donâ??t need attorneys making peopleâ??s lives miserable when they go to family court for divorces,â? said Rep. Frank Lasee, R-Green Bay. â??And I think that having too many attorneys leads to all those bad results.â?
Thousands Of UW Students Might Be Left In Financial Aid Limbo
WISC-TV 3
MADISON, Wis. — Thousands of University of Wisconsin college students from across the state might be heading to college this fall without knowing if they can afford it.That’s because the battle over the state budget has prompted some officials to put all state financial aid grant applications on hold.
Escalating Cost of Birth Control at Campus Clinics Worries College Health Officials
Chronicle of Higher Education
College students returning to campuses this fall will see steep increases in the cost of prescription birth-control pills as a result of regulations issued last week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Keep door open for biofuel plants
Wisconsin State Journal
Wisconsin cannot afford to let a “not in my backyard” reaction to ethanol plants shut down the state’s effort to be in the forefront of biofuel development.
That is a lesson Wisconsin communities should learn from the feud that threatens to squelch plans to build an ethanol plant at Sparta.
UW hopes for better budget deal from conference committee (Wisconsin Radio Network)
Wisconsin Radio Network
Under the republican version of a state budget passed last night, the University System would take a hit of at least ninety six-million dollars.
UW System spokesman David Giroux says the university is at the stage that any cut would impact students and if the Assembly budget cuts became law the impact would be huge.
Giroux says it would affect nearly every element of campus life from academics to paying the utility bills to hiring campus police to keep students and staff safe. Not to mention the ability to attract high quality professors.
Education may be the key in making Wisconsin a healthier state (Wisconsin Radio Network)
Wisconsin Radio Network
The UW-Madison’s Population Health Institute gives the state a B for overall health. But Dr. Patrick Remington says there are some segments of the population that get failing grades.
For example, he says the infant mortality rate for African-Americans is three times higher than it is for non-Hispanic whites.
YOUNG PLANNERS PRESENT IDEAS
Wisconsin State Journal
Making Madison more bike- and pedestrian-friendly, cutting taxes and eliminating Lisa Link Peace Park were three of the ideas that middle schoolers presented to the mayor Thursday after working as city planners for four weeks through a UW-Madison computer simulation.
Curiosities: Ceiling height plays small role in heat loss
Wisconsin State Journal
Q. Why do big-box stores have such high ceilings? Doesn’t a lot of heat rise and then get trapped and wasted?
A. Not necessarily, says UW-Madison biological systems engineering professor and building design expert David Bohnhoff. Inside any well-insulated building with good air circulation, the temperature between floor and ceiling usually only differs by a couple of degrees — even when the building is a cavernous store.
UW-Madison snubbed; why?
Wisconsin State Journal
UW-Madison officials want to learn more about why their bid for a national disease research facility failed to survive the latest round of cuts.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday the selection of sites in Texas, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi and North Carolina for an environmental impact study before a final site for the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility is selected in early 2009.
$24 million lab set to open in ’08
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Mentor Corp. began construction this week on a plant in Madison that will make remedies from the toxin that causes botulism, University Research Park officials said Wednesday.
UW loses bid for bio-threat laboratory
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Anthrax, bird flu and other deadly biological threats are headed for another state.
That’s a bad thing, according to people involved in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s failed bid to win a $450 million grant for a lab that will study deadly animal illnesses, such as bird flu, and other contagions such as anthrax and smallpox.
The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday it has whittled down to five the list of 17 finalists for the 520,000-square-foot National Bio- and Agro-Defense Lab. The lab will replace an aging facility at Plum Island, N.Y., that was criticized for security lapses after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Veterans’ tuition breaks expand
USA Today
A growing number of states are cutting college tuition for recent veterans in a show of gratitude, but also in some cases to fill gaps in the federal GI Bill.
Included: “In Wisconsin, where a 100% waiver kicked in this month, some lawmakers want to pare back eligibility.”
Down to Earth: The Car of Tomorrow…Today
WKOW-TV 27
In an era of rising gas prices, a team of UW engineering students is trying to help a car company build a vehicle that gets better gas mileage. It’s part of General Motors Car X Challenge. As part of the multi-year contest, teams from 17 universities are taking a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox and trying to increase its mileage by 50-percent.
With the changes the UW team has made so far, faculy advisor Glenn Bower said the SUV can get about 40 miles to the gallon in lab tests, a little more than 30 in real time road tests.
Colleges Use Courts To Keep Agents, Boosters Away From Student-Athletes (Diverse Issues in Higher Ed)
Quoted: John Chadima, an associate athletic director at the University of Wisconsin.
Verizon move riles competitors (The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.)
Quoted: Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sites in 5 states are finalists for national germ lab (AP)
Racine Journal Times
WASHINGTON (AP) – The federal government has selected sites in five states as finalists for a $450 million national lab where killer germs like anthrax, avian flu and foot-and-mouth disease will be studied, members of Congress said Wednesday.
Sites in Texas, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi and North Carolina were chosen as possible hosts for the 520,000-square-foot National Bio- and Agro-Defense Lab, said senators from Texas and Kansas and Texas House members.
Time To Bring the Forward Back Home (Forward, NY)
Author: Tony Michels teaches American Jewish history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of â??A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New Yorkâ? (Harvard, 2005).
Mentor building new plant at UW research park
Milwaukee Business Journal
Mentor Corp., a California medical products company, will expand its presence in Madison with the construction of a 37,000-square-foot plant at the University Research Park.
Construction of Mentor’s facility began this week and is expected to be completed during the summer of 2008, park officials announced Wednesday. Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Mentor will employ about 40 at the expanded site when it becomes fully operational.
UW-Madison Passed Over For Bio-Defense Lab
WISC-TV 3
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison did not make the list of finalists to be home to a federal lab that will study deadly animal diseases.
UW-Madison proposed putting the national bio- and agro-defense lab on land it owns southeast of Madison in the Town of Dunn.
A number of residents near the proposed site protested the idea, WISC-TV reported.
Police Offer Reward For Information Leading To Student’s Killer
WISC-TV 3
MADISON, Wis. — Madison police are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the person responsible for the death of a college student who vanished last month.
Dane County Coroner John Stanley confirmed late Tuesday night that the body found in a wooded area south of Madison on Monday was that of 22-year-old Kelly Nolan. He is still working to determine the cause of death, but police said she was killed.
Will Gee Give the Buckeyes’ Massive Sports Program the Vanderbilt Treatment?
Chronicle of Higher Education
E. Gordon Gee’s decision to leave the top job at Vanderbilt University for the presidency of Ohio State University has caught the attention of many college-sports officials, who wondered what impact the move might have on the Buckeyes’ $98-million athletics operation.
Four years ago, as Vanderbilt’s chancellor, Mr. Gee declared war on college sports. He fired the athletics director and folded the intercollegiate sports programs into the office of student affairs. His idea, which was lampooned by fans of other Southeastern Conference programs, was to shave costs and more closely integrate the sports program into the rest of the university (The Chronicle, October 17, 2003).
While schools combat low tech enrollment, are businesses contributing to IT workforce woes?
Wisconsin Technology Network
Milwaukee, Wis. – Will members of the so-called Xbox generation ever be as interested in helping companies create information technology as they are in consuming it?
Judging by the growing number of technology activities in Wisconsin’s K-12 public schools and institutions of higher learning, there may be more hope than many IT labor-starved employers think.
Feds reject WI bid for animal disease lab (Wisconsin Radio Network)
Wisconsin Radio Network
Wisconsin won’t be getting a new federal facility for the research of animal diseases. A site in the Dane County Town of Duun was one of seventeen in the running for the Department of Homeland Security’s new National Bio and Agro Defense Facility.
Doyle calls for quick action on the budget (Wisconsin Radio Network)
Wisconsin Radio Network
With vastly different versions of the state budget coming out of the Assembly and Senate, Republicans and Democrats will now head to a conference committee. As legislative leaders get set to begin that process, Governor Jim Doyle says he wants a budget soon, maybe even by August 1st.
The Republican-controlled Assembly this week passed a budget that cut many programs the Governor and Senate had proposed. Instead, Doyle says the GOP inserted controversial policy issues. He says they may have to re-fight all the battles Republicans have lost over the past five years just to pass the budget.
Unhealthy disparities (Channel 3000.com)
WISC-TV 3
It really doesn’t make any difference how well the State of Wisconsin scored in the latest health report card. The racial disparity is glaring, alarming and unacceptable. And so, Wisconsin has failed.
The UW Population Health Institute report finds Wisconsin as a whole doing better than average across al age groups with an overall grade of B-minus. But disparities due to race, gender geographic location and education lower that grade to a D.
UW won’t get federal disease lab
Wisconsin State Journal
UW-Madison was not selected as a finalist for a national disease research facility, officials are expected to announce later today.
The Department of Homeland Security selected five finalists in Texas, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi and North Carolina, according to wire reports quoting Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Assembly OKs its version of budget
Wisconsin State Journal
Nearly $10 billion — that’s the likely difference in spending and taxes between a version of the state budget passed by Senate Democrats last month and one that Assembly Republicans have pledged to pass today.
That figure released Monday by the Legislature’s budget office, equal to about one-sixth the total state budget and likely the largest gap ever between such proposals, underscored the “great chasm” that separates the leaders from the two parties that control the two houses of the state Legislature.
Senator McCain’s Campaign Manager, Strategist Resign (Bloomberg News)
Bloomberg News
Quoted: Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Football: Bielema says little about Clay rumors (Green Bay Press-Gazette)
Green Bay Press-Gazette
University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema tried to temper speculation all-state tailback John Clay will be ruled academically ineligible.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Tuesday reported the former Racine Park High School star failed to meet NCAA eligibility standards.
“When John’s eligibility is finalized, I will comment accordingly. Right now, I’m trying to deal in fact, not speculation and anonymous sources,” Bielema said in a release issued by the school.
Assembly passes GOP budget plan (AP)
Appleton Post-Crescent
MADISON â?? A budget proposal that rejects tax increases but that critics argued would be devastating for education and health care cleared the Assembly on a partisan vote Tuesday.
Because it is not identical to the budget Democrats passed last month in the Senate, a special eight-member bipartisan committee will meet â?? perhaps as early as next week â?? to negotiate a compromise.
Body identified as that of missing UW student (AP)
Star Tribune
MADISON, WIS. – A decomposed body found in a densely wooded area Monday morning was that of a college student who vanished two weeks earlier, the Dane County coroner confirmed late Tuesday.
The body was positively identified as University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student Kelly Nolan, 22, coroner John Stanley said in a prepared statement.
Australians Snub New York Offices, Find Value in Mineral Wells (Bloomberg News)
Bloomberg News
Quoted: Francois Ortalo-Magne, a professor of real estate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s business school, and the author of a January survey for the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate.
Fund program changes leaders
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A new Mark is about to be stamped on the Applied Security Analysis Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.
Mark Fedenia is stepping down after 21 years at the helm of the nationally known program that has graduate students managing a portfolio of more than $44 million in university money.
Reporter’s pool visit results in departure (Chicago Tribune)
Chicago Tribune
Quoted: Kathleen B. Culver, a former reporter who teaches journalism ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Budget now heads to 8-member special committee (AP)
La Crosse Tribune
MADISON, Wis. â?? Now that 128 state lawmakers have voted on the state budget, eight of them will get to work on the version that will actually become law.
On a partisan vote the Assembly on Tuesday passed the Republican plan, over objections from Democrats that its spending cuts would devastate education, health care and the environment.
Condemned UW Dorm Perfect Training Ground for Firefighters, Cops (WPR)
Wisconsin Public Radio
Ogg hall is just about ready for the wrecking ball. The college students are gone, and the empty residence hall is relatively quiet. Outside there’s the soft, staccato sound of automatic sprinklers across the street. But that sound is drowned out when a piercing alarm goes off as the dorm’s emergency door is opened by firefighters who are getting practice at using hoses and suppressing blazes. (Third item.)
Coroner Confirms Body That Of Missing College Student
WISC-TV 3
FITCHBURG, Wis. — Dane County Coroner John Stanley positively identified the body found in a rural Wisconsin area Monday as that of missing college student Kelly Nolan Tuesday night.
Investigators on Tuesday took the body from the heavily wooded area were it was discovered to a morgue for an autopsy. A team of experts worked all day Tuesday to gather evidence at the scene 10 miles south of Madison on Schneider Drive.
Uw Study Trumpets Role Of Internet In Political Campaigns
Wisconsin State Journal
A soon-to-be-published UW-Madison study says the Internet is playing an increasingly important role in political campaigns and in building a knowledge base for voters.
The study, which is to be published in the July issue of the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, indicates that Web users in the last election cycle had a more thorough understanding of presidential politics than users of other media.
Anti-Smoking Program Offers Free Medication For Veterans
WISC-TV 3
MADISON, Wis. — A state program aims to help military personnel and veterans kick the smoking habit.Operation Quit Tobacco is a state effort that provides free coaching as well as nicotine patches or gum.So far more than 300 state troops and veterans have signed on.
Badger State vets can get a free two-week starter kit by calling 1-800-QUIT-NOW from a Wisconsin area code. Participants also get free coaching from advisers who help them develop an individualized quit plan.