When Tam Flarup becomes a hall of famer next month, she will do so with a sense of worthiness shared by her one-time roommate.
There was a time in the late 1970s when Flarup was the lone woman in the University of Wisconsin sports information office and Jan Helwig was only female on its athletic training staff. As such, they bunked together in hotels when traveling with the UW women’s basketball team.
For more than a decade, there have been faculty members at UW-Madison who have incorporated Hmong language, culture and history into their teachings.
Some now believe it’s time to take that interest to the next level.
MADISON â?? Students at University of Wisconsin System schools can expect higher tuition rates this fall semester â?? possibly by 4 percent or more â?? but the exact increase won’t be determined for several weeks.
Full-time undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay qualifying as Wisconsin residents paid $2,857 for the spring semester. A 4 percent hike would increase tuition by $114.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced Friday that a deal has been reached between the two states over tuition reciprocity.
Under the deal, beginning in fall 2008, Wisconsin students attending University of Minnesota schools, which are more expensive than University of Wisconsin, will get a “tuition reciprocity supplement” from Wisconsin to cover the higher tuition.
A reciprocity agreem
Earlier this month when the University of Wisconsin Systems Board of Regents reined in overly cozy relationships between state campuses and private lenders who make loans to students we praised them for some necessary housecleaning.
The lenders were giving some state universities a share of revenues for putting them on the school’s preferred lender list and paying for training sessions for financial aid officials, out-of-state meetings, printing of brochures and other services.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The University of Wisconsin at Madison is considering adding a Hmong studies program following a controversy earlier this year with a professor at the Law School.
Gary Sandefur is dean of the College of Letters and Science. He says the controversy over Professor Leonard Kaplan’s comments has led to renewed interest in such a program on campus.
Quoted: Stanley Kutler, a retired professor of law and history at the University of Wisconsin and the author of “The Wars of Watergate.”
MADISON, Wis. — Doug Beard, senior associate athletic director at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the UW athletics administration since 2001, passed away unexpectedly at his home Friday night. He was 46.
“Everyone in our department is shocked and greatly saddened at the news of Doug’s passing,” UW Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez said. “Doug was a quality person and someone we all leaned on. He was dedicated and loyal and a valued member of our staff. We will miss him a great deal. On behalf of our entire department, I want to express our sincere condolences to all of Doug’s family and friends, especially his wife, Pat, and his daughter, Lindsay.”
We return again to the case of Goldie Gopher vs. Bucky Badger. You may recall that followers of Goldie, the University of Minnesota’s mascot, were upset with supporters of Bucky, his counterpart at the University of Wisconsin. The issue was a successful and longstanding tuition agreement that Minnesota and Wisconsin have had for nearly four decades, known as reciprocity.
A Minnesota child, should he or she choose to abandon poor Goldie, can attend a public college or university in Wisconsin for the same tuition rate charged back in Minnesota. And a Wisconsinite who wishes to bolt from Bucky can attend Minnesota colleges and universities at the prices charged back in Wisconsin.
Quoted:University of Wisconsin dairy economist Robert Cropp, Ph.D.
The University of Wisconsin-River Falls has gone green.
Campus leaders have pledged to reduce and eventually eliminate the school’s share of the emissions believed to contribute to global warming. The move is part of a national initiative to create “climate-neutral” campuses. About 300 other colleges and universities have joined in.
“Global warming is a defining challenge of our time,” Chancellor Don Betz said. “Serious action is needed to stop adding global warming pollution to the atmosphere and University of Wisconsin-River Falls is committed to leading the way.”
The University of Wisconsin system will pay $135,000 to settle a messy and much-publicized dispute with a black administrator who was ousted from his position on the system’s main campus following allegations of sexual harassment.
The university system’s Board of Regents agreed, as part of a settlement, to pay the administrator, Paul W. Barrows, $124,000 plus $11,000 in back pay and to remove a letter critical of him from his employment records. And Mr. Barrows, who was vice chancellor for student affairs at Madison, will drop a number of pending employment and racial-discrimination claims against university faculty members and administrators.
WAUKESHA – Waukesha native Becky Gunn has known all of her life that she was going to help people in one form or another.
When Gunn graduated from high school in 2003, she decided that she was going to pursue a career that would help people, such as working in the medical field.
However, Gunn decided that she could make more of an impact by working in a field that could help prevent people from getting hurt as opposed to just healing their wounds – mechanical engineering.
Minnesota parents planning to send their kids to the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse can breathe a sigh of relief. The governors of Min-nesota and Wisconsin said Friday they settled a long-simmering tuition reciprocity dispute without making students pay more to attend universities in either state.
â??The river shouldnâ??t be a barrier,â? UW-L Chancellor Joe Gow said. â??It should be a bridge that brings us closer together.â?
Thumbs Down: To the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for a frustrating â?? and expensive â??end to the fiasco involving a former administrator who had an affair with a student and was accused of sexual harassment. As part of a settlement of racial discrimination claims that the administrator, Paul Barrows, made against UW-Madison, the school will pay him $135,000. In a dispute that lasted more than two years, Barrows was removed from his job as a vice-chancellor, given a leave of absence and then a lower-paying job before he left the university. Along the way, it shined a light on the university system’s sick leave policies and its practice of providing “backup jobs” to administrators who failed at their previous jobs. At least, let’s hope this ends the whole unfortunate saga.
STOUGHTON – Douglas A. Beard, age 46, passed away at his home in Stoughton on Friday, June 22, 2007. Loving husband of Patricia (Mitchell); father of Lindsay Mitchell; and son of Frank Beard and Althea Edgar (Bill). He is further survived by his identical twin, Ron (Lil and Matthew), of Maine. Doug will be missed by family, friends, and the entire University of Wisconsin- Madison athletic community.
With action heating up in Congress on the biggest overhaul of patent laws in half a century, universities are joining the chorus of companies and organizations pushing for changes in the proposed legislation. And, separately, the presidents of the Big Ten universities are adding their voices to the choir.
Without some adjustments, the institutions and companies argue, the new laws will undermine the value of patents and “hinder innovation across the diverse sectors of the American economy we represent.” One issue that unites universities and industry is their concern over a proposal to establish a new system for challenging patents after they are granted. Universities and companies say they fear such a system, as now designed in the legislation, would allow third parties to “harass the patent holder” and create too much uncertainty about the value of an issued patent.
A forty year tradition between Wisconsin and Minnesota will remain intact.
A joint announcement from St. Paul and Madison today that will impact college students from both states. Wisconsin and Minnesota reach an agreement on tuition reciprocity.
Carla Vigue, spokesperson for Governor Doyle, says the agreement means Wisconsin residents wishing to attend a public college in Minnesota can do so and still pay the lower Wisconsin in-state tuition fee.
Quoted: Kurt Squire, a professor at UW-Madison. He’s studied video games and also is a gamer himself.
Like others who from time to time find their way to newspaper offices, John Christian Saxer believes he grasps truths that elude almost everyone else. (Invariably, these folks dismiss the simpler explanation â?? that theyâ??re wrong â?? as wildly implausible. â??Absolutely not,â? says Saxer, when asked if this is possible.)
Q. After rains, why do worms slither out onto the pavement and “commit suicide?”
A. After a strong rain, the corpses of worms strewn across the pavement are a disgusting sight — or a pathetic one, depending on your sympathy for these slithery invertebrates.
But what’s the advantage of suicide? Teri Balser, an associate professor of soil and ecosystem ecology at UW-Madison, says the answer starts with the fact that worms breathe through their skin.
Governor Pawlenty says an agreement has been reached that would continue the program known as “tuition reciprocity.” And the governor says he’ll announce the deal on his radio show on WCCO Radio at 9 o’clock this morning.
Minnesota has been threatening to pull out of its reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin. The agreement allows students to attend college across state lines without having to pay nonresident tuition. The University of Minnesota contends the existing agreement is unfair because Wisconsin undergraduates pay about 12-hundred dollars less to attend the Twin Cities campus than in-state students do.
People with type 1 diabetes who smoke are more than twice as likely to have an episode of severe hypoglycemia, or very low blood sugar, as those who have never smoked, according to a new study.
Hypoglycemia can cause mental confusion, or even coma or seizures in severe instances. “Smoking, through its effect on hormone regulation and insulin clearance, has been hypothesized to result in severe hypoglycemia,” Dr. Ronald Klein, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and colleagues write in the journal Diabetes Care.
In a little more than two months, the Big Ten Network, a channel devoted to Big Ten sports, will go on the air from a Chicago studio.
How much extra would you be willing to pay each month for the Big Ten Network: $0; $1; $2; $3; or, more?
September Saturdays without Badger football are like the Fourth of July without fireworks.
But just as the NFL Network left many sports fans unsure whether their cable operator carried the network’s slate of games last season, the Big Ten Network is in position to bring about a similar situation for its fans.
In light of the 27 News investigation which uncovered abuse of an 18-month old baby by a local child care provider, there is concern about how parents can know if there children are being mistreated. Knowing what to look for is key.
Dr. Barbara Knox is the Medical Director for the UW’s Child Protection Program. She’s been the point person for law enforcement investigating a recent, high-profile child abuse cases â?? investigative paperwork released to 27 News states she examined the 11-year-old boy recently found severely abused in a home in Portage.
Members of the U.S. Senate are making another attempt at persuading President Bush to allow greater flexibility on the use of embryonic stem cells in federally supported research.
On Wednesday, Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have expanded federal financing for research on stem cells derived from human embryos. The president said the provision would encourage the destruction of embryos, which he called human lives.
The Senate Appropriations Committee overwhelmingly approved a 2008 spending bill Thursday that, as expected, would increase funds for the National Institutes of Health by $1 billion but keep most higher education at their 2007 levels. But the committeeâ??s action Thursday may be most noteworthy because of two tactical policy proposals made by committee members.
President Bush vetoed a bill that would allow new federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School, talks about what the federal ban means to researchers. Charo spoke with Steve Inskeep.
A biofuel that outperforms ethanol could be easily made from fructose and, in future, glucose derived from the woody parts of plants, researchers claim.
Ethanol has been the biofuel of choice for many years and can be made from corn and other crops. Enzymes are used to break down the plant material to sugar, which is fermented to a boozy fuel. But ethanol has a number of problems, not least its low energy density, its volatility and its water-absorbing nature.
A recipe for fuel: take the carbohydrates like starch and cellulose that make up the majority of plants.
“It should be a great fuel,” says James Dumesic, a chemical engineer at the University of Wisconsinâ??Madison, who, along with his colleagues, discovered the new process, “DMF has the energy density of petroleum.”
The sugar found in fruit such as apples and oranges can be converted into a new type of low carbon fuel for cars, US scientists have said.
The fuel, made from fructose, contains far more energy than ethanol, the scientists write in the journal Nature.
A way of turning simple plant sugar into a fuel as powerful as petrol has been discovered by scientists.
Researchers in the United States have developed a way of converting fructose, the sugar that gives apples and oranges their sweet taste, into a fuel that can be burned to generate energy.
For years, chemists have been searching for a way to sidestep the use of crude oil as the root source of chemicals for fuels, aiming to replace it with inexpensive, non-polluting plant matter that is more environmentally friendly.
University of Michigan stem cell scientist Sean Morrison recently got a telephone call from a woman offering to donate her leftover embryos from a fertilization procedure for his studies on Parkinsonâ??s disease. What she didnâ??t know was that Michigan law prohibits research on human embryos. Morrison suggested that the woman contact a lab in another state.
Next door in Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) is promoting embryonic stem cell research in an effort to lure scientists and investors, in some cases from neighboring states. In 2005, Blagojevich sent a letter urging Missouriâ??s top scientists to move to Illinois rather than work under a cloud created by Missouri legislatorsâ?? ultimately unsuccessful efforts to ban research on human embryos.
Quoted:Jed Colquhoun, a horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said people should be careful and learn to identify the plant so that they don’t put themselves at risk.
A group of ninety Chinese academics will be touring Wisconsin later this week as part of the â??U.S.-China Environmental and Natural Resources Policy Conference and Tour,â? where the delegation will be whisked across the state as part of a cross-cultural exchange of ideas on environmental protection and rehabilitation.
The group was featured Wednesday at the Multi-State Working Groupâ??s workshop on environmental performance in Madison, where several panels examined whether U.S. and Chinese markets can deliver on ecological results and chemical regulation. The nature of future trading between the two countries in the environmental goods and services sector was also discussed.
Terry Shelton, outreach director from the LaFollette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison, said the delegation will help facilitate an open dialogue that will take them to areas such as the Horicon Marsh and Fox River to learn how those in Wisconsin rehabilitated their own heavily polluted rivers, a subject of special importance to the Chinese as their river systems are consistently regarded as some of the most heavily polluted throughout the world.
Like many of you, I was inspired when, as a freshman, I first read the plaque placed on the UW-Madison’s Bascom Hall. The message, declared by the Board of Regents in 1894, is worth repeating:
“Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”
A couple of college kids are trying to make restaurant-goers healthier … or at least give them that option.
It’s touted as a business-friendly alternative to implementing an outright ban. UW-Madison students Dan Chavas (chuh-VAHS) and Eli Persky are co-founders of Informed Consumers Equal Improved Health. Chavas says we can check the food labels and control what we eat at home, but when we go to a restaurant, there’s no way of knowing the amount trans fats in our meal.
Wisconsin reaction, to President Bush’s latest stem cell research veto. “It’s a bad day for researchers, and it’s a bad day for patients across the country,” says John Rogers, president of Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek Government Affairs in Milwaukee.
It could limit the number of bars in downtown Madison, but only if it ever gets past the revision stage.
Madison’s Alcohol License Review Committee again discussed the Alcohol Beverage License Density Plan tonight, but there was still no vote on the proposed law.
Last Fall, the committee proposed limiting liquor licenses to help decrease downtown crime.
Downtown businesses do not support the plan.
WASHINGTON, June 20 â?? President Bush on Wednesday issued his second veto of a measure lifting his restrictions on human embryonic stem cell experiments. The move effectively pushed the contentious scientific and ethical debate surrounding the research into the 2008 presidential campaign.
â??Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical,â? Mr. Bush said in a brief ceremony in the East Room of the White House. He called the United States â??a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred.â?
At the same time, Mr. Bush issued an executive order intended to encourage scientists to pursue other forms of stem cell research that he does not deem unethical. But that research is already going on, and the plan provides no new money.
As President Bush vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have loosened his restrictions on stem-cell research, he offered an alternative policy that he said would strengthen the field in an ethical way, but that critics called nothing but spin.
The alternative policy, expressed in an executive order, calls for expanding certain types of stem-cell research that do not require the destruction of human embryos. But it proposed no new money for that research, which is already eligible for, and has received, federal financing.
“This was a political fig leaf and a redundant policy designed to give the president political cover” as he vetoed the bill, said Sean B. Tipton, a spokesman for the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which supported the bill. “He’s not going to fool American scientists.”
The University of Iowa will end a lengthy and contentious presidential search with the hiring of Sally Mason, provost of Purdue University, according to news reports. Ms. Mason’s selection, which is to be voted on by Iowa’s Board of Regents today, comes after a previous search was scuttled last November, provoking widespread outrage and faculty, staff, and student votes of no confidence in the board (The Chronicle, January 5).
Board officials were not immediately available to comment on the news, but the presidential search is on the board’s agenda for today.
This week, the UW- Madison’s Office of Multicultural Initiatives is teaming with the Hip-Hop Association and Urban Word NYC, in offering a program on spoken word programs and how they can be used by educators.
Quoted: Thomas Kaplan, a historian and associate director of UW-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, said the decision could affect many more people.
When the Most Powerful Man in the World tells you he might stop by for a visit, do you start clearing your calendar or do you write it off as some harmless political flirting?
Members of the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team will likely vote for the latter, but that’s not to say they didn’t appreciate a little sweet talk from President Bush.
“I Got a Crush … on Obama,” the viral music video that exploded onto the Web last week with a risque beauty crooning her adoration for Sen. Barack Obama, has been watched by roughly 20 million people on YouTube, CNN, ABC, MSNBC and at its original home, barelypolitical.com.
The guy behind this phenomenon is Ben Relles, a 32-year-old New York advertising executive at Agency.com, who dreamed up the idea while walking home from work one day and co-wrote the song. What’s not as well known about Relles is that he was born in Madison and lived here for six years before moving to Philadelphia, then returned here for college, getting an undergraduate degree from UW-Madison in 1997.
NimbleGen Systems has hit its home run.
Spun out of UW-Madison research, it was announced Tuesday that the DNA microarray company will be purchased by Roche, of Basel, Switzerland, one of the world’s giant drug and diagnostics companies, for $272.5 million.
They didn’t call for an all-out boycott, but presidents of dozens of liberal arts colleges signaled their intent Tuesday to stop cooperating with U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings. What that means exactly is not spelled out. Because most college presidents must answer to trustees, faculty and other constituents, “the decision to participate or withdraw from the U.S. News rankings rests with the individual institutions,” says a statement released Tuesday by the Annapolis Group, whose members include 121 liberal arts colleges.
States that have banned gay marriage are beginning to revoke the benefits of domestic partners of public employees. Michigan has gone farthest, prohibiting cities, universities and other public employers from offering benefits to same-sex partners. In all, 27 states have passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as the legally sanctioned union of a man and a woman. A Michigan court ruled in February that public employers may not offer benefits to unmarried partners, gay or straight, because of a 2004 amendment defining marriage.
MADISON, Wisconsin: Gene-chip maker NimbleGen Systems Inc. said Tuesday it will be bought out by pharmaceutical giant Roche in a deal worth $272.5 million (â?¬203.3 million).
Madison, Wis.-based NimbleGen announced in March it would file for public offering and had hoped to raise $75 million (â?¬56 million). But the company remained private and will be sold in its entirety to Roche, it announced in a news release.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin School of Business dean Michael Knetter.
MADISON, Wis. â?? Wisconsin Republicans have a better impression of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani than they do of hometown political giant Tommy Thompson, a poll released Tuesday showed.
Instead of asking respondents who they support for president in 2008, the University of Wisconsin Survey Centerâ??s Badger Poll asked for impressions of three front-runners in each party, as well as Thompson and Al Gore.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Dr. Jon C. Gould and colleagues of the University of Wisconsin in Madison in a report to the annual meeting of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery.
Quoted: Ann Althouse, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison.
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh officials on Monday defended a contract that allows students to use their college Ids to open accounts at U.S. Bank following a newspaper’s report that the university was promoting the bank’s services even though no other bank in the Oshkosh area charges students a higher overdraft fee for checking accounts.
University officials said the arrangement, which pays the university $15,000 plus royalty payments, generates revenue that helps pay for campus services.
The presidential election is more than a year and a half away but a video spoof about presidential candidate Barack Obama is big nationwide … and the creator is a UW grad.
Ben Relles says he never intended to generate so much political buzz. Relles simply wanted to make a funny video.
It’s called “I got a crush … on Obama” – a spoof on the hype surrounding Barack Obama’s presidential bid.
Quoted: Frank Emspak of UW-Madison’s School for Workers.
If you’ve followed University of Wisconsin sports long enough to remember when Camp Randall Stadium had walk-up ticket booths, when Bucky Badger was the center court logo of choice and when six-figure coaching salaries were rare, then you have endured a lot of changes.
MADISON, Wis. â?? A former University of Wisconsin-Madison vice chancellor will receive a $135,000 payment in return for dropping several legal claims against the university, according to a settlement made public Friday.
The UW System Board of Regents and Paul Barrows agreed to the settlement earlier this week, ending a messy case that had rocked the stateâ??s flagship university and forced the regents to review their personnel policies.
