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Author: jplucas

Investigating behind enemy lines (Marquette Tribune)

Four times as many students.

Four times as many parties.

Four times as liberal. OK, way more than four.

We’re all familiar with the University of Wisconsin-Madison stereotype: vast crowds of students who attend class between partying and attending liberal protests. So The Marquette Tribune decided to find out if the university lived up to the rumors. Two reporters drove to Badger Country to investigate how different the two schools really are. The Daily Cardinal, a UW-Madison paper, decided to play along and sent its own reporter to find out what Marquette is really about (see story at rig

Music industry threatens student downloaders at UC (San Francisco Chronicle)

San Francisco Chronicle

The music industry has sent hundreds of threatening letters to college
students across the nation, including dozens at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz,
as part of its campaign against illegal music downloading.

Representing music labels such as Sony and EMI, the Recording Industry
Association of America said Wednesday it is going after students who have
downloaded pirated music from the Internet at colleges, including UCLA and
Columbia, sending more than 400 “prelitigation” letters that order the students
to pay a settlement fee or face a lawsuit.

Carbon monoxide: Generators can poison you even when they are outside (Biloxi Sun Herald)

WARNING: Carbon monoxide kills hurricane survivors.

The irritating buzz of portable generators is a necessity in the powerless hours following a blackout for those attempting to save refrigerated foods, or power a TV or air conditioner. But you and your family could pay the ultimate price for such luxuries.

Quoted, David Van Sickle, Robert Wood Johnson Health & Social Scholar at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Pre-Litigation, Round 2

Chronicle of Higher Education

The Recording Industry Association of America is moving full speed ahead with its new campaign of sending pre-litigation notices to campus song-swapping suspects: Today the trade group sent a second batch of 405 notices to 23 different colleges.

Director Of Community Relations Leaving UW-Madison

WISC-TV 3

MADISON, Wis. — A senior special assistant to the chancellor and director of community relations at University of Wisconsin-Madison announced he is leaving.

LaMarr Billups will become the assistant vice president for business policy planning at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

UW-Madison proposes major tuition hike for engineering majors (AP)

La Crosse Tribune

MADISON, Wis. – University of Wisconsin-Madison wants engineering students to pay $1,400 more in tuition per year under a plan that would make the popular major more expensive to study than all others.

The stateâ??s flagship university has long charged higher tuition for students seeking professional degrees in areas such as law, medicine and pharmacy.

Students Compete for City Council Seat

WKOW-TV 27

Lauren Woods, 22, and Eli Judge, 19, are competing to replace Alder Austin King when he steps aside from the Madison Common Council in April. Woods is a senior from Chicago. Judge is a sophomore, also from Chicago. They are running for the open seat from downtown Madison’s District 8.

Greenbush Neighborhood Modernized But Remains Diverse

WKOW-TV 27

The Greenbush neighborhood is more than a century old.

The “Bush” encompassed a triangle of streets on Madison’s near westside including Washington and Park to Regent Street.

The first Italian immigrant settled there in 1905. But, the “Bush” was also home to Jews and African Americans.

Oates: Sans duo, Ryan needs to tweak

Wisconsin State Journal

His career is over, but Alando Tucker is still showing the way for the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team.
Asked how hard it would be for the returning Badgers to shed the extreme disappointment of their early exit from the NCAA tournament and start preparing for next season, sophomore Joe Krabbenhoft invoked Tucker’s name.

Recognizing Tribally Centered Cultures (Diverse Issues in Higher Education)

The drive from the Menominee Indian reservation to the University of Wisconsin-Madison may only be three and a half hours, but for American Indian students like Fawn Youngbear-Tibbitts, the journey towards completing a college degree canâ??t be measured in mere miles.

Youngbear-Tibbitts is one of a growing number of tribal college graduates pursuing a four-year degree. After earning her associate degree from the College of Menominee Nation, Youngbear-Tibbitts â?? who is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe â?? set her sights on UW-Madison.

Truth In Advertising (Diverse Issues in Higher Education)

Picture this: A group of ethnically diverse students studying together in expansive, state-of-the-art libraries or strolling across perfectly manicured campus lawns engaged in intelligent conversation â?? congregating as one in all higher education has to offer. This is an image colleges and universities often portray in recruitment brochures, and sometimes itâ??s even true. But when itâ??s not, these marketing materials can be embarrassing or worse.

Drake University has been criticized for running ads depicting more diversity than there really was. As a result, president David Maxwell now personally approves each ad.

Pay the reason Iowa is losing university faculty (AP)

AMES, Iowa (AP) — The loss of 48 faculty members at Iowa State University and 67 from the University of Iowa last academic year is being blamed on low pay by university leaders.Gov. Chet Culver has promised that he will fully fund university salary requests, which university officials hope will help stem the loss.

Sherman: Explaining the Crackdown on Student Downloading (Inside Higher Ed)

Inside Higher Education

As many in the higher education community are well aware from news coverage here and elsewhere, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of its member labels, recently initiated a new process for lawsuits against computer users who engage in illegal file-trafficking of copyrighted content on peer-to-peer (P2P) systems.

In the new round of lawsuits, 400 of these legal actions were directed at college and university students around the country. The inclusion of so many students was unprecedented. Unfortunately, it was also necessary.

Can Stem Cells Cure Heart Disease? (MIT Technology Review)

Technology Review (MIT)

It’s a tantalizing thought: injecting stem cells isolated from a person’s own blood into an ailing heart in hopes of repairing years of accumulated decay. But so far, human trials testing cell therapies for heart attacks have yielded mixed results, creating controversy over various aspects of the treatment: the types of cells that are used, the way they are delivered, and when in the course of the disease they are given. With the next round of trials, scientists hope to nail down the precise set of conditions needed to effectively heal a sickly heart.

“If it works, it could revolutionize cardiology,” says Amish Raval, a cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who is running a stem-cell trial for heart failure.

UW to RIAA: No way

Badger Herald

As the University of Wisconsin waits to receive a batch of settlement offers addressed to 15 of its students from the Recording Industry Association of America, university officials have made one thing clear: They wonâ??t play along.

Chancellor John Wiley met with Provost Patrick Farrell and Interim Chief Information Officer Ken Frazier Tuesday morning to affirm UWâ??s decision not to forward pre-litigation settlement letters to anonymous students who the RIAA believes are illegally downloading music online.

UW doing all it can with Adidas

Daily Cardinal

After the recent disclosure of potential worker exploitation in El Salvador regarding UW contracted sports giant Adidas, university officials must place workerâ??s rights high on their list of priorities. However, by harassing Chancellor John Wiley an hour after he announced the initiation of his own investigation, the Student Labor Action Coalition only demonstrated that protest is not always warranted.

City Clerk Sees Increase In Absentee Voting

WISC-TV 3

MADISON, Wis. — With just a few weeks before the spring election, city officials said that more voters are taking advantage of absentee ballots this time around.

Spring break for many area schools, from Edgewood to University of Wisconsin-Madison, lands on the April 3 election, which is why one group advocating absentee voting is asking students to “Vote Naked.”

UW official: ‘Knowledge economy’ vital to state’s future (Green Bay Press-Gazette)

Green Bay Press-Gazette

A further foray into attracting “knowledge economy” businesses â?? biotech and computing, for example â?? to the state in the coming years and decades is one way for Wisconsin to become more successful economically in the future, the dean for the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school said Tuesday.

While that change won’t happen overnight, Mike Knetter, a Rhinelander native and dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s business school, said the state needs to focus on finding those industries.

Recording Industry Goes After UW Students For Music Sharing

WISC-TV 3

MADISON, Wis. — A recording industry trade group is going after University of Wisconsin System students suspected of copyright infringement.

The Recording Industry Association of America has sent a letter to UW System President Kevin Reilly and Madison Chancellor John Wiley warning them the group is targeting 68 people on system campuses.

The letter is in response to UW-Madison’s refusal to serve alleged violators with settlement letters from the association. The letters give violators a chance to avoid getting sued if they pay the group.

Welcome Home, Back to Back Nat’l Champs!

WKOW-TV 27

Just more than 24 hours had passed since the UW Women’s Hockey Team clinched the 2nd Nat’l Title in a row, and fans lined up outside the Kohl Center were calling for a three-peat.

But the team is still soaking this one in.
”To win it was definately another dream come true.” Said Jr. Jinelle Zaugg.

The players say an added bonus to this win, was the location.
They played at Lake Placid, New York, the same place their Coach, Mark Johnson played in 1980, during the game now know as the “Miracle on Ice.”

A New Trend: In College, Fewer Men

WKOW-TV 27

Walk into a public relations class at the UW and you’ll see an example of a growing trend in higher education: there are 28 girls, and only 5 guys. At college campuses nationwide, the number of women is growing while the number of men is shrinking.

At the UW, there are 54 percent women to only 46 percent men. It might seem like a small difference, but remember there are 28,000 undergraduates.

UW researchers examine value of computer games (AP)

Wausau Daily Herald

MADISON — Nobody ever accused computer games of being too educational. The most that most players learn from hours in front of the gamepad is the best way to defeat a Strogg alien army or find the blue key that unlocks Level 17.

But professors at the University of Wisconsin are on the vanguard of research into the idea that computer game technology can be a powerful learning tool, one that could transform education as we know it.

Businesses predict future of economy

Badger Herald

With the help of projections, hundreds of figures and statistical graphs, economic experts presented data at the University of Wisconsin Friday on the outlook for the economic future of the nation.

Executive Development Program Director Chuck Krueger organized the event and said the dozens of business professionals in attendance represented a cross section of people from Wisconsin and Illinois.

Generators can be deadly

Wisconsin State Journal

Gasoline-powered generators are a staple on many Wisconsin farms and are always hard to find in stores after storms, such as Midwestern tornadoes.

But a study by a UW-Madison researcher has found that, even when used properly, such generators can be deadly.

Author Questions Katrina Response

Wisconsin State Journal

Michael Eric Dyson, author of “Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster,” will keynote the second annual Creating Institutional Change conference Friday through Sunday at UW-Madison.

We’re No. 1 again!

Wisconsin State Journal

Speaking of repeat champs, the UW-Madison women’s hockey team skated in dramatic fashion to its second straight NCAA championship Sunday.
Mark Johnson and his gutsy Badgers dominated Minnesota-Duluth 4-1 to win the Frozen Four in Lake Placid, N.Y., where Johnson once won Olympic gold.

UW men’s basketball: Picking up the pieces

Wisconsin State Journal

This season, more than the Big Ten Conference title campaigns of 2001-02 and 2002-03 or the run to the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight in 2004-05, established the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team at the forefront of the collegiate basketball landscape.
The Badgers established a school record for victories (30), Big Ten victories (13), reeled off a school-record 17-game winning streak, and achieved the first No. 1 ranking in school history. Along the way, there were nationally televised specials on ABC and HBO, and ESPN did an all-access piece daily from the Big Ten tournament through the NCAA tournament, which ended with Sunday’s 74-68 second-round loss to UNLV at the United Center in Chicago.

Badgers bounce back for next season

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Sunday one season ended. Monday another began.

In the world of big-time college basketball, the NCAA regulates the length of the playing season but has no control over the guy who decides to get into the gym on his own and put in an untold number of hours working on his game.

This has been the Wisconsin Badgers’ time to shine.

Violent crime spiked in Wis. capital in 2006, police say

St. Paul Pioneer Press

MADISON, Wis. – A series of downtown muggings last year contributed to a dramatic increase in violent crime in the city, police said Monday, injecting an issue into the upcoming mayoral election.

Fueled by a record number of robberies, violent crime jumped by 16.5 percent and all parts of the city saw increases, police said.

Easier College Admission for Athletes Sparks a Review by NCAA (Bloomberg News)

Bloomberg News

March 20 (Bloomberg) — The longstanding practice at U.S. colleges of admitting athletes with substandard academic credentials is coming under fresh scrutiny.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has launched a review that might limit the number of these so-called special admits. At the University of Oklahoma, which just completed a four-year review of admissions, Athletic Director Joe Castiglione
says some students read only at a fifth-grade level.

Attorney saddened by Avery verdict (Appleton Post-Crescent)

Appleton Post-Crescent

MADISON â?? The director of the project that freed Steven Avery from prison in 2003 says Avery’s homicide conviction doesn’t affect his project’s charge.

A Manitowoc County jury found Avery guilty Sunday of killing Teresa Halbach in 2005, the culmination of a six-week trial. Avery becomes the first person in the United States exonerated by DNA evidence to be charged subsequently â?? and convicted â?? of homicide.

“(Avery’s conviction) doesn’t change the support of that mission,” Keith Findley, director of the Wisconsin Innocence project said Monday from his office at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

All four-year U.S. colleges now accept ACT test

USA Today

The ACT college entrance exam, long the Avis (“We try harder”) to the SAT’s Hertz, is celebrating a bit of a milestone this year: It now says it is accepted by every four-year college and university in the USA that requires such a test.
All but a handful of colleges have long allowed applicants to submit either test.

NIH chief: Stem cell ban hobbles science

USA Today

Lifting the ban on taxpayer funding of research on new stem cells from fertilized embryos would better serve both science and the nation, the chief of the National Institutes of Health told lawmakers Monday. Allowing the ban to remain in place, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni told a Senate panel, leaves his agency fighting “with one hand tied behind our back.”

New College Dorms Attracting Believers (Christian Broadcasting Network)

College dorm life often runs cutting-edge wild.

One of the newest trends: “gender-neutral” housing that allows men and women to share rooms.

But there’s also a faith-based housing movement that’s gaining momentum: churches building dorms designed to attract seekers and believers alike.

Who would have thought? The newest dorm going up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a Christian dorm. The Presbyterian Church USA is building it right next door to its campus chapel.

Mayhem Patrol (Law Enforcement Technology)

“Mob mentality gone wild” were the words a newspaper article used to describe the 2002 riot during Madison, Wisconsin’s annual Halloween party on State Street.

That year, drunken costumed revelers harassed police, threw bottles, overturned bicycle racks and vandalized stores along the street, which runs between the State Capitol building and the University of Wisconsin (UW) â?? Madison campus.

Reports state it took more than 100 police officers armed with tear gas to finally disperse the crowd, estimated at approximately 65,000 people.

Students call on UW to cut ties with Adidas

Wisconsin Public Radio

(MADISON) A national students group is calling on the University of Wisconsin-Madison to cut ties with sportswear maker Adidas. Theyâ??re accusing a former Adidas subcontractor of mismanagement and corruption, and UW- Madison officials say theyâ??re looking into the claims.

The UW Chancellorâ??s office says itâ??s sending a representative to El Salvador in April. Sheâ??ll visit former workers of Hermosa Manufacturing and neighboring apparel plants. The fact-finding tour is to help university administrators address the complaints with Adidas executives. The companyâ??s contract with the UW system runs through 2011.

But United Students Against Sweatshops and its Madison charter, the Student Labor Action Coalition, say reports of worker rights abuses have already been verified by the Workers Rights Consortium Molly Glasgow, a regional organizer and UW student, says Adidasâ?? disregard of workerâ??s rights makes it clear the University should cut ties with the manufacturer immediately. She says she realizes the university is in a very tough position, but so are the workers. She says she thinks itâ??s the Universityâ??s responsibility because theyâ??re in a position of power to change something now.

NIH Director Calls for Loosening Bush’s Restrictions on Funds for Stem-Cell Research

Chronicle of Higher Education

Breaking with his boss, Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, told members of Congress on Monday that President Bush’s restrictions on funds for research on human embryonic stem cells are blocking progress in the field and should be relaxed.

At the same hearing, four university scientists and Dr. Zerhouni testified that the agency’s flat financing also threatens to slow the pace of research advances in cancer and other diseases just as scientists are poised for major strides.

Work? Not With Badgers In Action

Instead of trying to carry on with work as usual, offices across Madison showed their spirit by turning the afternoon into a chance for employees to celebrate their Badger pride.
For employees at Quarles & Brady law firm, the game was a chance to support both the team and the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure fund. The firm threw a pre-game pizza party to raise money, and, for $5 a person, employees could sport Badger gear rather than suits and skirts.

War protests planned around the area

Wisconsin State Journal

A rally and march to protest the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq will begin at 12:30 p.m. today at Library Mall. The rally observes the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Members of the Madison Area Peace Coalition say the rally will include music, spoken word performance and street theater. The march will leave Library Mall at 1:30 p.m. This event is being held in conjunction with other anti-war demonstrations around the state and country.

Greenbush Day celebrates history

Wisconsin State Journal

The first of what organizers hope will become the annual Greenbush Day celebration will be held on Wednesday from 4 to 6 p.m. at UW-Madison’s new Welcome Center, 21 N. Park St. The event is free and open to the public.
“This event will celebrate the neighborhood’s past, present and future,” said Ruth Olson of the UW-Madison Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, one of the organizers. “It will provide an opportunity to learn about the rich history of the area, experience its current vitality and see some of the prospective plans for future development.”

Milfred: Hard budget still has some wiggle room

Wisconsin State Journal

Madison is home to UW-Madison, the state’s premier and largest university with reams of employees with children. Education is highly valued and encouraged here. Many parents are politically active and willing to fight hard to advocate for advanced and special programming.

Column: Bo Ryan Happy With the Present (AP)

CHICAGO — After some 30 years in the business, Bo Ryan still doesn’t have the wanderlust that seems to be found in every coach’s DNA. Probably never will, either.

And hundreds of players across Wisconsin are all the better for it. Maybe even the entire game.

LocalLinks
Loyalty and staying power are rare traits in college coaching. Most coaches spend their careers with one eye on the next job, jumping from one school to another in hopes it will bump them up a spot or two on the coaching ladder. The boxes aren’t even unpacked before they’re plotting their next move.

Fear centre ‘shrinks’ in autism

BBC News Online

A part of the brain associated with emotional learning and fear shrinks in people with autism, research suggests.

Teenagers and young men with autism in the study who had the most severe social impairment were found to have smaller than normal amygdalae.

The researchers from the University of Wisconsin suggested the amygdalae may shrink due to chronic stress caused by social fear in childhood.

Longtime Saddam ally and former prime minister Hammadi dies (Lebanon Daily Star)

The Daily Star (Lebanon)

Saadoun Hammadi, a longtime ally of Saddam Hussein and one of the most senior Iraq Baath party leaders, was reported dead on Friday. He was believed to be suffering from leukemia. Hammadi left Iraq in 2004 for medical treatment in Germany, but settled in Qatar in early 2005. Hammadi earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1956.

Wyoming is fixin’ to fight over its pony (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Star Tribune

To Breckenridge High School in western Minnesota, it’s a horse of another color. Whoa, not so fast, partners, say Wyoming state officials. That green bucking horse and rider on Breckenridge High’s football helmets is a dead ringer for the black bucking horse and rider that is Wyoming’s federally registered trademark.

UW Experts Says Food System Works, But Doesn’t Work (Wisconsin Ag Connection)

Wisconsin Ag Connection

Is the nation’s food safety system working or is it broken? The answer is both if you ask Michael Pariza, director of the University of Wisconsin Food Research Institute. During his testimony during last week’s ‘safety of fresh produce’ hearing in Madison, Pariza–who serves as a professor of food microbiology and toxicology at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences–says there are good and not-so-good things happening in the food service industry.

Posted in Uncategorized

Laurels and laments

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Even someone who wonders whether multiplication tables come in mahogany would have to be impressed by the accomplishment of two numbers theorists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ken Ono and Kathrin Bringmann have unraveled a mystery that’s eluded mathematicians for more than 80 years. As Journal Sentinel reporter Mark Johnson explained in an article this week, the mystery involves strange, complex formulas known as mock theta functions first described in 1920 by Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ono and Bringmann have written three papers on their work. It’s heady stuff, but it may have practical applications by helping to find ways to make the Internet more secure, calculate the energy in black holes and understand how particles interact with one another.

Posted in Uncategorized

Virginia Hinshaw named UH-Manoa’s new Chancellor (Honolulu Star-Bulletin)

The newly appointed University of Hawaii-Manoa chancellor told a campus crowd yesterday that she will collaborate with the university community to identify priorities and accomplish goals.

“The goals and values of this university, which match my own, are really why I’m here today,” said Virginia Hinshaw, who was introduced at a Bachman Hall news conference attended by about 70 Manoa administrators, faculty and students. “Clearly this university is highly accomplished in many areas, particularly in research, but obviously aspires to be among the most impressive, highly respected universities. Working with folks here to make that aspiration a reality is tremendously exciting to me.”

Posted in Uncategorized