Speaking to a crowd of nearly 12,000 at the Kohl Center on Friday, the Dalai Lama talked about improving our lives by caring about those around us. The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet says compassion is the ultimate source of living a happy life.
However, the Dalai Lama warned about being too concerned with the future. He says we are often content with the present, but look ahead to the next day or even next decade too often.
Boston, Mass. – At last year’s Biotechnology Industry Organization convention in Chicago, it wasn’t intimidating for Wisconsin to be strutting its high-tech stuff. While Chicago is a business leader in almost every sense of the word, it’s not well known for its biotech. Pharmaceutical companies, yes; biotech firms, not really.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Sierra Club sued the University of Wisconsin on Thursday, saying the school is failing to live up to its progressive tradition by illegally operating a 53-year-old power plant that is a major source of pollution.
With its lawsuit, the Sierra Club is targeting the school where its founder John Muir studied in the 1860s.
The San Francisco-based group claims the university violated the Clean Air Act by failing to install modern pollution controls when it performed several upgrades to keep the power plant built in 1954 in operation.
Quoted: John Karl Scholz, economics professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who contends that most Americans are preparing well for retirement.
The University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Business is just two hours from Chicago, an appealing draw for students who want to secure a job in the Windy City. Couple the location with the school’s innovative MBA specialization programâ??where students pick a concentration before they enter schoolâ??and the school is an ideal fit for many driven students from the Midwest.
“Students don’t have to know exactly what they want to do in life, but they need to be fairly sure how they want to start out,” said Blair Sanford, director of career services.
MADISON, Wis. – This college town will try new regulations to combat the growing national problem of textbook theft, hoping to deter and catch book thieves who sell them to bookstores to make quick cash.
The city council voted Tuesday to require people selling books to show identification and fill out a form listing each book’s title and author. Stores will keep the information and share it with police to help find thieves and recover stolen books.
MADISON, Wis. — In what could be a blow to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s effort to land a high-security national animal disease research lab, the Dane County Board on Thursday night debated a resolution opposing the university’s proposed 40-acre lab site in the Town of Dunn.
Earlier this week, the federal Department of Homeland Security was greeted by a handful of protesters as it toured the site. It’s one of 18 sites vying for the Bio and Agro Defense Facility.
The Town of Dunn is against the proposal, saying it flies in the face of its land-use farm preservation plan, WISC-TV reported. County board officials agree, and they criticized the university for relying on only one site.
An electrical device that zaps the brain to induce deep sleep may some day give a whole new meaning to the term “power nap.”
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered they can artificially stimulate the production of slow brain waves that characterize the deepest form of sleep.
For the study, the researchers used a transcranial magnetic stimulation device on a group of sleeping volunteers. When placed on top of the head, the instrument sends a painless and apparently harmless magnetic signal through the skull and into the brain.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – In a case closely watched in higher education, the University of Wisconsin-Madison agreed Thursday to award $250,000 in student fees next year to a Catholic group to settle its religious discrimination lawsuit.
Both the university and the UW Roman Catholic Foundation praised the agreement, which settles a federal lawsuit filed after the university refused to recognize the group despite a campus presence dating to the 1880s.
The dispute has been watched closely because it could set clearer standards on whether student fees at a public university can go to religious groups – and for what activities – without violating the constitutional separation of church and state or discriminating against religion.
Madison: A Sierra Club lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday says the UW violated the Clean Air Act by not installing modern pollution controls on the Charter St. Power Plant when they made upgrades in the past.
The Sierra Club calls the UW Charter St. Power Plant a 53 year old coal-fired dinosaur, and a lawsuit filed in federal court says the UW has violated state and federal law in keeping that dinosaur alive.
“The university for the last decade has been unlawfully modifying this power plant, a 50 year old power plant that still today lacks modern pollution controls,” says Sierra Club member Bruce Nilles.
MADISON, Wis. — A controversial University of Wisconsin lecturer challenged a state lawmaker to a debate on Thursday amid the still simmering debate about his views regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Kevin Barrett, who has previously claimed the federal government actually orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, issued the challenge outside state Rep. Steve Nass’ office at the state Capitol, WISC-TV reported.
Barrett held a news conference outside Nass’ office and called the Whitewater Republican his nemesis. Nass had previously called on the UW and any other college not to employ Barrett after he went on a Milwaukee radio show last year and asserted the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy.
Gundersen Lutheran and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health will form a new partnership in the fall in which medical students will spend more time learning primary care in rural areas.
In their third and fourth year, UW medical students interested in rural primary care will work at Gundersen clinics in such Wisconsin communities as Viroqua, Prairie du Chien, Whitehall, Sparta and Tomah. Five medical students will enter the Wisconsin Academy of Rural Medicine program at Gundersen Lutheran in the fall, which will be expanded to 25 students a year.
It almost seemed like a dare last month when Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said he had reached a settlement with the Omaha-based lender, the National Education Loan Network. At a time when New Yorkâ??s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, had been filing subpoenas and dishing out charges against lenders and colleges right and left, the settlement â?? which the Nebraska official said resolved â??very minorâ? mistakes by Nelnet and â??closes the bookâ? on Nelnetâ??s potential legal problems â?? seemed to say: â??Back off, Mr. Cuomo, Iâ??ve got my local lender covered.â?
Thursday, however, Cuomo opened what he called a â??new frontâ? in his ever-expanding investigation into the student loan industry â?? and this time, Nelnet was a central target, as were dozens of college and university alumni associations with which the Nebraska lender has formed partnerships.
Gas prices shot up another dime today at stations on University Avenue, now hitting $3.15 a gallon for regular. But, just a little further up the road, the University of Wisconsin thinks it just might have the answer to lower prices.
“It may save us money, it may stabilize prices, and it certainly may reduce the risk,” said Molly Jahn, dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Cow waste, soybeans, prairie grasses, or corn might hold the answer to new fuel sources. The UW is one of a handful of universities being considered for a national $125 million grant over five years to study the development of these fuels made from BioMass. The U.S. Dept. of Energy will make a final decision this summer.
Madison, Wis. – Has the United States Supreme Court strengthened the case against stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation?
The answer is yes, according to the California consumer watchdog organization that is challenging the patents, but that’s not necessarily a consensus opinion.
On the eve of the biggest games of their seasons â?? if not their hockey careers â?? members of the four squads that make up the Robertson Cup National Tournament got to hear Wednesday from a man whoâ??s played in, and coached, his fair share: Mark Johnson.
Johnson touched on everything from college life to his time as a member of the 1980 â??Miracle on Iceâ? U.S. Olympic team in front of a throng of Ice Dogs fans and players with newly bleched blond hair.
â??It was amazing,â? Ice Dogs forward Kyle Schmidt said. â??Iâ??m really glad he had an opportunity to come up here.â?
A local university official will play a key role in how Wisconsin colleges move forward after the April 16 massacre at Virginia Tech.
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Chancellor Bruce Shepard has been selected to co-chair Gov. Jim Doyle’s Task Force on Campus Safety. Doyle announced the formation of the new body on Wednesday.
MILWAUKEE – In the wake of the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, Gov. Jim Doyle said Wednesday that he was creating a task force to ensure safety and preparedness on Wisconsin campuses.
The group of 10 to 15 students, parents, law enforcement agents, university officials and mental health experts will look at all options – including whether campus security officers should carry guns, Doyle said.
MADISON, Wis. — The Dalai Lama arrived in Madison on Wednesday with a message of peace, healing and love.
It’s the sixth trip to Madison for Tibet’s leader, who will spend three days in the Madison area.
The Dalai Lama is not his name, but rather a title. His real name is Tenzin Gyatso, and he is both the spiritual and political leader of Tibet.
MADISON, Wis. — West Side parents are gathering signatures on petitions requesting that the Madison School Board reconsider the name of the city’s new elementary school.
The board voted to name the school after Hmong leader Gen. Vang Pao.
Pao lead CIA-supported Hmong forces who fought beside U.S. troops in Vietnam. A few years ago, Hmong protested a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor’s book that claims Pao was involved in drug trafficking and war crimes.
When BIO 2006 was held in Chicago last April, it was no great surprise that Wisconsinâ??s commercial and academic biotech community wanted to have a major presence at the international conference. It was, in a global sense, just down the road.
And while there will be some drop in attendance at this year’s BIO gathering in Boston, the Badger State again will be putting on a good show, officials say. The conference starts Sunday and will run through Thursday.
Last year, Wisconsin spent more than $270,000 — triple its investment from the 2005 conference in Philadelphia — to tout its research and business prowess. This time around, the total budget is around $250,000, officials said. But the state did not have the cost of a building a new pavilion this year.
Fifty-three “John Doe” subpoenas issued Tuesday against the UW System will force the System to give up the names of students the Recording Industry Association of America says have illegally downloaded music, a UW-Madison official said.
Brian Rust, communications manager for Madison’s Division of Information Technology, said Wednesday that 16 of the students are from Madison, but he could not confirm any numbers from any other UW schools.
MADISON, Wis. — With days away from the Mifflin Street Block Party, Madison police are urging residents to do their part to help keep the annual bash safe.
With great weather in the forecast, high turnout is expected on Saturday, but police said they hope revelers will keep problems to a minimum.
“I don’t think we’ve had a block party in recent years that hasn’t attracted at least 10,000 partiers throughout the day, and I think with the nice weather, we’ll more likely double that figure,” said Alderman Mike Verveer.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison Athletic Department offered an explanation for the controversy over football tickets and said it will hold a limited lottery for those affected.
The nearly 11,000 tickets went on sale on April 21 and sold out in three days. But some students complained that they didn’t get the e-mail notifying them of when tickets would go on sale, causing them to miss out.
The Athletic Department said that it staggered the e-mails to keep the server from overloading, but said it appears that some didn’t get sent.
If campus technology officers have been feeling left out as their colleagues in the financial aid office get all the fan mail from Congress, never fear. Now itâ??s their turn.
Madison, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who has been called the â??father of stem cell researchâ? has reportedly agreed to operate a research lab as an adjunct professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
The Santa Barbara Independent is reporting that Thomson, who remains a tenured faculty member at UW-Madison, will be in Santa Barbara about one month out of the year and lead an interdisciplinary team of four postdoctoral researchers.
Jamie Thomson, the reputed â??father of stem-cell research,â? will soon be operating a research lab in Santa Barbara as an adjunct professor at UCSB. Thomson will be in Santa Barbara about one month per year, leading an interdisciplinary team of about four postdoctoral researchers. The bulk of his work will remain centered at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he remains a tenured senior faculty member.
Members of the Mifflin-area community will have an opportunity to voice concerns about the upcoming Mifflin Street Block Party tonight.
City Council President Mike Verveer, whose district includes Mifflin Street, and members of the Madison Police Department will be on-hand to answer questions at the meeting.
The City Council passed an amendment Tuesday requiring all dealers of used textbooks in Madison to keep records of individuals who sell books to them.
The amendment, originally sponsored by former City Council President Austin King, District 8, was sponsored Tuesday by newly elected Ald. Eli Judge, District 8, and new City Council President Mike Verveer, District 4, among others.
The University of Wisconsin is the ninth most affordable public university in America, according to annual rankings released by the Princeton Review last month.
The list is based on institutional data collected from colleges and universities from fall 2005 through summer 2006 and surveys of students attending the schools.
Police arrested four Madison men early Tuesday morning after a fight occurred on Lakelawn Place involving a machete and a pitchfork.
The Princeton Review ranked UW-Madison No. 9 for â??Best Value Collegeâ? in the 2008 edition of its annual book, â??Americaâ??s Best Value Colleges,â? claiming UW-Madison â??offers an essential education at rock-bottom rates.â?
Senior Editor of â??Americaâ??s Best Value Collegesâ? Adrinda Kelly said the review looked at 650 colleges across the country and identified 30 factors that were applied to each of the universities. The universities were then narrowed down to the top 165, which are the schools that actually appear in the book.
Madison police responded to a call early Tuesday morning about a scuffle in which pitchforks and knives were drawn to stop vandals from ruining a tent near a fraternity on the 200 block of Lakelawn Plaza near Langdon Street.
Madison police spokesman Mike Hanson said the fight started because residents of ACACIA fraternity spotted vandals attempting to tear down a tent in front of their house. The ACACIA house, 222 Langdon St., is in the vicinity of the area, but no one confirmed it was in fact ACACIA property being vandalized.
The property-rights movement, said the speaker, “is not going away.” He added, “At some level I think they’re going to be successful.”
It was a notable statement, because the speaker, professor Harvey Jacobs of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is not a supporter.
Here are some questions for state legislators:
-Do you think Wisconsin would be better off if more people had college degrees? The percentage of state residents with college degrees was
25 percent in 2005. That compares to 27.7 percent nationwide. Minnesota had 34.2 percent. Could that have anything to do with the fact that Minnesota is well ahead of us in terms of income and the economy?
The Big Ten Conference announced starting times to three 2007 University of Wisconsin football games today.
The Badgers’ home game with Iowa on Sept. 22 will kick off at 7pm CDT and be televised live on ABC. Wisconsin has won 19 of its last 20 night games, including nine straight.
A good night’s sleep may be as simple as flipping a switch, say scientists.
By sending magnetic pulses through the skulls of sleeping volunteers, US researchers were able to stimulate the slow brain waves seen in deep sleep.
Such a machine-generated “power nap” could one day be an insomnia treatment, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study suggests.
A disturbing, allegedly drunken burglary spree by a UW-Madison student, could affect his standing on campus.
20 year old Nathan Castner is accused of turning a night of drinking into a somewhat shocking morning of crime.
With a house full of college men hanging out upstairs in Ryan Jelinek’s apartment at 139 Langdon Street early Sunday morning just after bar time, Jelinek told 27 News a stranger snuck in downstairs and looted rooms. “He took two iPods, took a laptop (computer), he took a Play Station-2 out of another room, another iPod, he took an Xbox out of another room and a digital camera.”
Castner made an initial appearance in Dane County court on three felony charges and one misdemeanor charge.
Two years ago, Castner was a valedictorian student at Green Bay Preble High School.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison Athletic Department offered an explanation Tuesday for the controversy over football tickets.
The nearly 11,000 tickets went on sale on April 21 and sold out in three days. But some students claimed they didn’t get the e-mail notifying them of deadlines.
The Athletic Department said that it staggered the e-mails to keep the server from overloading, but said it appears that some didn’t get sent.
A decision is expected on Wednesday as to how to handle the ticket problem.
Peter J. Gomes has been at Harvard University for 37 years, and says he remembers when religious people on campus felt under siege. To be seen as religious often meant being dismissed as not very bright, he said.
No longer. At Harvard these days, said Professor Gomes, the university preacher, â??There is probably more active religious life now than there has been in 100 years.â?
Quoted: Charles L. Cohen, a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who for a number of years ran an interdisciplinary major in religious studies.
Wisconsin is rolling out the nation’s most expansive guarantee of higher education to students in hopes of raising aspirations and improving preparedness. The state’s 75,000 eighth-graders can sign the Wisconsin Covenant starting May 10. They promise to earn a B average, take courses to prepare for college and be good citizens.
TOWN OF DUNN, Wis. — Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were in Dane County on Monday to scout out a home for a new $400 million human and animal disease research lab.
If the University of Wisconsin gets its way, the national lab will be located at its Kegonsa Research Campus just off Highway 51 in the Town of Dunn.
However, some nearby residents said that is no place for such an enormous and high-security facility. They continued their effort on Monday to take the UW site out of contention. Some critics of what would be the largest facility of its kind in the U.S. staged a small protest at the site near Stoughton on Monday, WISC-TV reported.
The protestors said that they hope the show of community concern will mean the UW site won’t make the federal government’s final list of three to seven sites, which is due out next month.
Quoted: Hannah V. Carey, an expert on ground squirrels at the University of Wisconsin.
MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin is rolling out the nationâ??s most expansive guarantee of higher education to students in hopes of raising aspirations for low-income families and improving college preparedness.
The stateâ??s 75,000 eighth-graders – of all incomes, in public schools and private – will be able to sign the Wisconsin Covenant agreement starting May 10. Theyâ??ll promise to earn a B average in high school, take courses to prepare for college, stay out of trouble and perform community service work.
While he was a University of Wisconsin administrator in the fall of 1968, the National Guard occupied the Madison campus for 10 days during a strike by African American students.
From writing textbooks to composing music and directing the nationally recognized UW Marching Band, Mike Leckrone does it right.
A national icon in the land of college band directors, Leckrone was in Fond du Lac on Monday spreading the kind of enthusiasm he generates as a professor of music and director of bands at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A California group that is challenging three key stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation wants the director of the University of Wisconsin patent licensing arm to resign from a U.S Patent Office board while the patents are being reconsidered.
Maurer was a secretary to the Dean of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, while supporting her husband in school. In 1958 she left the work force to become a full-time mother.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The flip of a switch could become all it takes to get a good night’s sleep, according to a study released on Monday.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a way to stimulate the slow waves typical of deep sleep by sending a harmless magnetic signal through the skulls of sleeping volunteers.
Scientists may have discovered a way of triggering deep sleep in people suffering from chronic insomnia.
A study has found a way of stimulating the brain so that sleep-deprived people can feel the full restorative powers of an eight-hour period of slumber.
The researchers have developed an electronic device that stimulates the brain with harmless magnetic pulses which cross into the nerves that control a type of deep sleep called “slow-wave activity”.
MADISON, Wis. — The UW is a bargain — that’s the word from the Princeton Review.
Each year the Princeton Review ranks the top colleges that offer the best education for the dollar.
This year the UW is No. 9 for public colleges.
Your college experience isnâ??t complete until you take over at least one campus building. At least, that might have made sense back in the 1960s, when the student movement spilled over into the public consciousness and it seemed, if only for a moment, that everything was worth protesting.
If times have changed, so have the tactics for both modern-day campus protesters and those who find themselves on the receiving end of student activism: college administrators. â??Many of the people who now are leaders of universities were students in the â??60s when demonstrations seemed to be â?¦ extremely energetic,â? said Kent Hubbell, dean of students at Cornell University. â??Hopefully, we will have learned from that experience in our current roles.â?
The Boldt Co. received a Top Project of 2006 Award from The Daily Reporter, a construction industry publication, and Wisconsin Builder at an awards dinner this week in Pewaukee.
The company was recognized for its work on the University of Wisconsin Park Street mixed-use development project. The Top Projects awards, now in its eighth year, recognize projects that faced and overcame significant challenges, used new materials and tech
Quoted: John G. Webster, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, has tested Tasers on the hearts of pigs and said there is a “very small chance” that a shock from a Taser can stop the heart.
Quoted: Menzie Chinn, a University of Wisconsin economist.
Quoted: Jamie Peck, a professor of geography and sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Quoted: Leah Whigham, a research scientist who studies nutrition at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.
Quoted: Ben Kempinen, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor.
Researchers reported Friday they have found four promising antibiotics in chemical families never used before against germs through a novel testing tool that can screen dozens of compounds at once.
The four compounds appear to kill bacteria, at least in a lab dish. Because they probably attack bacteria in different ways, germs should take some time to develop resistant strains.
“These represent whole new classes of antibiotic agents,” said Helen Blackwell, lead author of a University of Wisconsin-Madison report on the discoveries published in the journal Chemistry and Biology.
