MADISON, Wis. – Pollution from a University of Wisconsin-Madison power plant has spiked in recent years after plant managers illegally failed to install new pollution controls during a major construction project, the state Department of Natural Resources said Thursday.
The DNR notified state and university officials in a letter Wednesday they violated the Clean Air Act by failing to obtain a construction permit from the agency for a major overhaul to the coal-fired plantâ??s boilers in 2004.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said Thursday that it has been awarded a $6.5 million grant from NASA to join a collaboration studying the origins and evidence of life on Earth.
With the National Aeronautics and Space Administration funds, Wisconsin researchers will become part of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute. The Institute focuses on the hunt for extraterrestrial life and early life on Earth by developing techniques and instruments to read the chemical signatures living organisms leave in rocks and minerals.
The University of Chicago has received an anonymous $100-million donation from an alumnus. In an announcement of the gift on Wednesday, the university said the money would be used for scholarships, jump-starting a $400-million fund-raising campaign for student aid.
The institution is following other leading public and private colleges, such as Princeton University and the University of Virginia, in replacing loans with grants for lower-income students.
The gift — the largest in the University of Chicago’s history — will help eliminate loans entirely for students from families with annual incomes of less than $60,000. It will also help cut in half the amount of loans taken out by students whose families earn between $60,000 and $75,000 annually.
MADISON, Wis. — Research started at the University of Wisconsin-Madison could offer a breakthrough in the fight against osteoporosis.
Current drugs can only slow the effects of osteoporosis, but a clinical trial being done at UW-Madison could bring something completely different.
A drug developed by biochemistry professor Hector Deluca, 2MD, is a Vitamin-D derivative drug that would work as a “road-patching” agent that would regenerate aging bones. The drug has been successful in rats and is now being tested in a clinical trial being run by Dr. Neil Binkley, who said the drug is at least potentially one of the most, if not the most, promising agents in the osteoporosis research pipeline.
Speakers described mental-health issues as a growing concern among providers of study-abroad programs. More students are disclosing pre-existing mental-health problems, and are seeking help in finding counselors overseas or taking medication into a foreign country, said Julie Z. Lindsey, assistant director of international programs at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
She and two other administrators at the university talked about the importance of preparing for potential problems, and working out legal, insurance, and logistical issues.
Quoted: Carin Clauss, Nathan P. Feinsinger chairwoman in labor law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MADISON (AP) â?? Gov. Jim Doyle called on lawmakers Wednesday to support his plan to increase funding for the University of Wisconsin System, warning the universities need “a major investment” to remain competitive.
Doyle used an appearance at UW-Madison to try to build support for his plan to spend an additional $225 million for the UW System and financial aid, a request the Legislature’s budget committee is expected to consider in the coming days.
The Governor is calling on lawmakers to increase funding for Wisconsin colleges and universities. Governor Jim Doyle says the state is at a critical point for higher education, and more investment is needed. He says the state and its students will suffer the legislature doesn’t approve the additional funding he’s requested in the state budget.
Governor Doyle is asking state legislators to invest $225 million into it’s UW system. the governor says the state’s 26 institutions are unable to take in all the students who want to join nursing, engineering and teaching professions and that problem could lead to a shortage in the near future.
The funding will be distributed between all 26 schools in the UW system, with the largest chunk likely staying right here in Madison. It’s money that will be used to create more seats in programs that are seeing shortages in the real world, like nursing.
Bruin applicant No. 1 had an A-minus average at a good high school. His transcript showed numerous honors and accelerated classes, and his SAT score was 2040 of 2400. He was an athlete and clearly engaged at his high school and his church.
In his essays, he wrote movingly about his family and its influence on his life and choices.
But did he have what it took to become a UCLA freshman?
A group of admissions readers was asked to answer that question in December, when it met to be trained for a difficult task: choosing about 11,800 students for admission to the fall freshman class from the nearly 51,000 who applied.
Cited:Diane G. Heatley, associate professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
MADISON, Wis. – University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been an attractive target for elite schools like Harvard and Stanford looking to steal faculty. But Arizona State? Pittsburgh? Florida State?
Dozens of UW-Madison professors left in the past two years, and Chancellor John Wiley said a growing number of them are going to schools that traditionally could not compete with his campus. More than 115 professors reported receiving outside offers last year, the most in 20 years and more than double the number from five years ago.
The trend has alarmed Wisconsin administrators who say some departments are in a crisis after losing prominent teachers and researchers. At stake, they say, are the quality of the stateâ??s flagship university, which has traditionally ranked among the nationâ??s top public schools, and coveted research dollars.
An administrator and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been named vice president for research at the University of Kentucky.
UK has chosen James W. Tracy, associate dean for research in the veterinary medicine school at UW-Madison. He has been a professor of comparative biosciences there since 1994.
UK’s Board of Trustees must approve the appointment, which will take effect Oct. 1, said UK Provost Kumble R. Subbaswamy.
Quoted: Donald Downs, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, started his own Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights 10 years ago, bypassing the AAUP.
A new study at UW-Madison will try to find answers to some of the most important questions women approaching menopause may have about hormone replacement therapy.
The UW-Madison Formula SAE Racing team recently claimed the prestigious SAE Foundation Cup at the international racing competition in Detroit, which featured 130 schools from 11 countries on five continents.
Q. Why do snakes shed their skin?
Joey Feuling
Grade 7
Sennett Middle School
A: Like a growing child outgrows clothes, a growing snake outgrows its skin.
If you’re lucky enough to live long enough, sometimes the world will come around to your way of thinking.
Professor Max Carbon retired from the UW-Madison nuclear engineering faculty 15 years ago and during both his working and retirement careers has been a rather lonely voice touting the virtues of nuclear power.
Quoted: Jim Seward, director of the UW’s Nicholas Center for Applied Corporate Finance.
Quoted: Researchers, at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, concluded that the supplement â??produces a modest loss in body fat in humans.â?
Quoted: James Kossin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, recalibrated recent and early satellite data on hurricanes using information from the National Climatic Data Center, a NOAA archive in Asheville, N.C.
Quoted: Peter Carstensen, a University of Wisconsin law professor who has followed the Smithfield-Premium Standard merger.
Wisconsin is leading the way in the cutting-edge science, WISC-TV reported. A 7-year-old University of Wisconsin Veterinary School and state Agriculture Department course is now teaching high-level animal health experts, public and private, how to test for VHS.Experts said that it’s important to collect a good tissue sample from some tiny fish organs.”Because of where the virus likes to live, they prefer that we get those organs because it’s more likely that they’ll be able to isolate virus from it,” said Patricia Fox, who works for veterinary services for the USDA in Madison.UW veterinarian Michael Maroney and Indiana Board of Animal Health veterinarian Jennifer Strasser said that VHS testing is easier said than done. But they said that learning the correct process is crucial, saying they need all the tools they can muster to battle their biggest fish threat ever.
Vying to build the best bridge to nowhere, engineering students from across the U.S. and Canada on Saturday joined trusses to struts and abutments to beams, creating sturdy 20-foot spans as they raced against the clock in the finals of the National Student Steel Bridge Competition at Cal State Northridge.
The 16th annual contest drew teams from 43 schools that had drilled and pounded their way through regional contests to reach the finals, held for the first time at the campus’ main athletics building, Redwood Hall.
The UW-Madison team came in third.
With area students now counting time until summer vacation in days â?? rather than weeks or months â?? it’d be no surprise if considering their academic future isn’t priority No. 1.
But for hundreds of local eighth-graders, that’s exactly where the focus has been heading into the summer holiday.
They’re the students who have signed or are thinking about signing the Wisconsin Covenant, a deal with the state that offers admission to a state post-secondary school and applicable financial aid in exchange for meeting certain academic and attendance criteria throughout high school.
Quoted: Ronald Numbers, a professor of the history of science and medicine at the University of Wisconsin, said Ross is the latest in a growing list of creationists who have tried over the last 40 years to get a foot hold in science.
The ticks that cause Lyme Disease appear to be getting more common throughout Wisconsin. Phil Pellitterri, University of Wisconsin-Madison bug expert, says higher deer populations are a factor and thatâ??s true in cities as well as the country.
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Badger fans have celebrated success in several campus sports — men’s and women’s hockey championships; men’s basketball in the NCAA tournament; and back-to-back Capital One Bowl wins — but athletes of a more unique sport are taking the national stage this weekend in hopes of bringing another championship back to Madison.
Quoted: Dr. Maryl Johnson, professor of medicine and medical director of heart failure-heart transplantation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Isabel Jacobsen has a solid coach in Jeff Kirsch, who has been helping her since September. Kirsch was a finalist as a child in the National Spelling Bee and was in the National Senior Spelling Bee in 2004, for contestants age 50 and older.
Kirsch said they have been studying phonetics and spelling patterns of foreign words, including German, Italian, Japanese, Slavic languages and French. Kirsch said that more than 10 percent of contestants are eliminated by misspelling a word with a French origin.
â??French words are notorious for having strange and difficult spelling,â? said Kirsch, who teaches Spanish and Portuguese in continuing studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He said Jacobson has a born ability and love of words, which has helped her improve since they started working together.
Quoted: Phil Pellitteri of the insect diagnostic lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: John Witte, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
During this frantic admissions season, it is easy for our applicants to think that the most important moment in their college career is when they rip open the mail to find out where they got in and where they didn’t.
But we in higher education understand that the admissions process has less to do with rewarding each student’s past performance â?? although high performance is clearly essential â?? than it does with building a community of diverse learners who will thrive together and teach one another.
When it comes to creating the kinds of diversity we sorely need in this country, however, disturbing trends and setbacks are making it difficult for many public schools and universities to succeed. The reality is that as much as we may want to believe that racial prejudice is a relic of history, conscience and experience tell us better.
A doctor’s near-death experience reminds a local company about the importance of their product. 5 years ago, Dr. George Warren was running in the Madison Crazylegs Classic when he suddenly collapsed from cardiac arrest.
Warren was saved by a nurse who also happened to be running the race, as well as a device that was manufactured in Deerfield, Wisconsin.
Quoted: UW entomologist Dr. Phil Pelitteri.
(MADISON) Funding for new University of Wisconsin residence halls, repairs to the UW-Madison student union and a Hmong Cultural Center all got the axe in budget talks last week.
Republicans on the Legislatureâ??s budget panel voted to strip out millions in bonding that Governor Jim Doyle set aside to pay for the projects. Among those cut include suite-style dorms at five campuses including the UW-Madison and UW-Oshkosh.
(Final item.)
Quoted: Dr. Perry Pickhardt, the lead author of the Cancer study and a radiologist at the University of Wisconsin.
Philip M. Kaiser, a retired diplomat and high-ranking Labor Department official who served as an ambassador to four nations, died of aspiration pneumonia May 24 at Sibley Memorial Hospital. He was 93.
He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, where he won a Rhodes scholarship.
Lewis Wolff is 69, made his money as the founder of a company that is involved in the development, acquisition and management of commercial office, parking and hotel properties and has known a certain influential baseball man since they were practically kids.
Wolff, Selig and Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl were fraternity brothers at the University of Wisconsin.
While inhaled corticosteroid medications are a mainstay of effective asthma treatment, they can’t prevent the disease from occurring or recurring in high-risk children, new research found.
Two presentations Wednesday at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference in San Francisco included an additional year of information from previous research. The studies confirmed that youngsters given inhaled corticosteroids may do well while they’re taking the medications. But the drugs’ beneficial effects wear off soon after they’re stopped, and they don’t appear to have any long-term effects on the progression of asthmatic disease.
After a May 16 meeting that ran well into the night, the Alcohol License Review Committee will meet again tonight to discuss an “unprecedented” number of establishments singled out for individual review.
According to Ald. Mike Verveer, a voting member of the committee, the ALRC approved the “overwhelming majority” of liquor licenses for Madison bars, restaurants and grocery stores in a single motion at last week’s meeting, but many more establishments than usual were singled out for separated license renewals.
The killing of a man on State Street Tuesday night was shocking to people hanging out in the area today, but many said it did not indicate a larger problem with violence on the popular pedestrian mall.
In fact, there seems to be a strong police presence on State Street, especially at night, some said.
Several UW-Madison streets are also being torn up for the West Campus utility project, which is improving underground electrical infrastructure from the cogeneration power plant to the western part of campus including University Hospital.
Now that classes are over for the semester, construction is beginning on the “ring road” of Highland Avenue around the hospital complex, as well as on Observatory Drive, said Alan Fish, associate vice chancellor for facilities.
“We will always have two lanes of traffic open,” Fish said. “Traffic on Highland going from University Bay Drive to the new children’s hospital will not be affected.”
A $300,000 contribution to the Urban League of Greater Madison to help build a new headquarters and “center of economic development” in south Madison leads a list of 120 grants totaling about $2 million announced today by The Evjue Foundation, the charitable arm of The Capital Times.
The grants, which are made possible by the will of the late William T. Evjue, the founder and longtime editor and publisher of The Capital Times, include $708,805 to the University of Wisconsin for 32 special projects during the coming year and $1,222,500 to 88 civic, cultural and nonprofit organizations, mostly in Madison and Dane County.
MADISON – No new dorms for the University of Wisconsin System. No student union renovations. And no Hmong cultural center or Civil War museum to boot.
The Legislatureâ??s budget-writing committee on Thursday wiped all those projects out of the 2007-09 state budget. Republicans on the panel argued that they had to set priorities and draw the line on state debt, while committee Democrats said their GOP counterparts were being cheap.
â??You want to save money but at the same time you donâ??t want to be petty,â? said committee member Rep. Pedro Colon, D-Milwaukee.
A former UW-Madison employee will stand trial for charges connected to an attack on Mound Street.
John Mulvihill faces 1 felony charge for burglary and 2 felony charges for recklessly endangering a woman’s safety.
Police say John Mulvihill broke into a UW student’s house in March.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison officials said that they’re taking the unusual step of seeking a restraining order to keep an alumnus off campus because of safety concerns.
University officials said that Albert Wellstein, 51, represents a danger to students and employees. They said in a court filing that Wellstein’s recent actions show that he is “genuinely dangerous and capable of violence.”
The alleged actions include sending a threatening poem to a female acquaintance and making a death threat to a campus police detective.
Get ready for a new round in the race debate. A grass-roots movement wants more states to outlaw racial preferences in public education and hiring. But state universities that seek more minorities are fighting back, hoping to “deflect … defeat … and debunk” this drive for race neutrality.
A strategy paper issued in March by the College Board and more than 30 educational institutions calls for targeting “those who attempt to step into the fray and deprive higher education leaders of the tools … to achieve the benefits of diversity.”
Madison, Wis. – Employers who wonder where their future technologists will come from, take heart.
Fourteen Madison area high school students soon will graduate from an intensive information technology training program offered through the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Information Technology Academy.
Plans for a major renovation of Memorial Union and the replacement of Union South suffered a setback Thursday when the state Legislature’s budget committee rejected the proposed bond funding for the projects in the 2007-09 state budget.
In October, UW-Madison students voted to increase student fees to pay for the projects, but construction won’t move forward unless the state issues $126.2 million in bonds, Wisconsin Union Director Mark Guthier said Thursday.
The oldest sport at the University of Wisconsin and its most dominant program have a couple of things in common.
They have the sweetest digs on campus. You probably couldn’t guess them without a hint. They don’t get a lot of love or attention from people like me.
The oldest sport at the University of Wisconsin and its most dominant program have a couple of things in common.
They have the sweetest digs on campus. You probably couldn’t guess them without a hint. They don’t get a lot of love or attention from people like me.
Reynolds has helped gather 500 signatures asking the Madison School Board to reopen the naming of the school because Pao has been accused by UW-Madison professor Alfred McCoy and others of running drugs and permitting summary executions during the Vietnam War. Other researchers and Hmong dispute the allegations against Pao.
A guy with a gun in his kilt is not the State Street poster child the Chamber of Commerce wants for Madison’s main street.
That said, Tuesday night’s shooting won’t stop me from going down to State Street tonight to catch dinner and CTM’s production of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
MADISON (AP) – A report detailing misconduct that prompted the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point to remove the chair of its biology department must be made public under the stateâ??s open records law, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Dane County Judge Richard Niess rejected a lawsuit by professor Robert Bell seeking to keep secret the reasons the university stripped him of his duties as department chair in March.
WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) – When someone has all the signs of acute appendicitis, waiting to get a CT scan to confirm the diagnosis is not a good idea, researchers report. Compared with a straight-to-surgery approach, the CT strategy is linked to delayed surgery and increased risk of a burst appendix.
“There has been a somewhat reflexive use of CT since it has become widely available,” Dr. Herbert Chen of the University of Wisconsin at Madison said during a presentation at Digestive Disease Week 2007, which is underway here.
MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Jim Doyle has appointed Colleene Thomas to the University of Wisconsin System’s Board of Regents. She will replace Christopher Semenas as the student representative. Her appointment is effective immediately and will expire May 1, 2009.
Thomas lives in Poplar. She is a student at the UW-Madison where she is majoring in political science and geography.
Madison, Wis. – Will Wisconsin join the biofuels parade as the marketplace elephant passes by – or follow behind with a shovel?
That question was raised by state Sen. Bob Jauch, the veteran Democrat from Poplar, during Tuesday’s Capitol debate over the state’s 2007-2009 budget bill. So far, the answer isn’t pretty.
MADISON, Wis. — In the wake of Tuesday night’s fatal shooting, some University of Wisconsin-Madison students and downtown business owners said that they’re worried about safety.
UW student Steve Caringello said on Wednesday that for the first time at school, he was scared on State Street as he and his friends walked past the crime scene where a 23-year-old man was shot and killed. (For more on this story, click here.)
MADISON, Wis. — Madison police Wednesday said that the suspect accused in a fatal overnight shooting in downtown has been tentatively charged in the case.
Police identified the suspect as Daniel A. Kelly, 31, of Madison. He was booked and tentatively charged with second-degree intentional homicide, WISC-TV reported.
