United Way is providing funding for some UW-Madison students to serve as tutors, Atkinson said. But there are only about 60 math tutors to work with middle school students – a number Atkinson would like to see restored to last year’s level with volunteers, for whom United Way provides training.
Quoted: Physiologist Leah Whigham of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Chemistry professor Samuel H. Gellman of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a specialist in the synthesis of �²-peptides and peptide-inspired foldamers.
MADISON, Wis. – Against a backdrop of scandal from Madison to Washington, academics from across the country met at the University of Wisconsin to discuss whether public funding of campaigns could remove the influence of special interests from politics.
But the only thing the scholars seemed to agree on was that it is nearly impossible, in a scientific way, to measure the influence that campaign contributions and lobbying efforts have on elected officials’ behavior.
MADISON, Wis. ââ?¬â? Federal charges against a purchasing official were not the first setback in a cost-saving plan pushed by Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration to cut the number of travel agencies used by state employees.
The state has already canceled one travel agency’s contract and the University of Wisconsin System, which accounts for the majority of the state’s travel, is not yet using the program.
Francesca P. Rothenbacher hesitates to even discuss the hot-button issue of affirmative action. She says she was not out to prove a point when she sought admission, as a white woman, to an on-campus summer enrichment program previously advertised as reserved for black, Hispanic, or American Indian students.
A biology major, Ms. Rothenbacher says she applied to the research in science and engineering program, jointly operated here each summer by Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, because “I just wanted to further my career. That is the most important thing to me.”
Madison: Public financing for elections has been around for quite a while. In Wisconsin you can check off a box on your state income tax returns to put money into a fund.
But a crowd of Professors gathered at the Fluno Center Saturday were skeptical. “It’s pretty clear that the Wisconsin system doesn’t work. The amounts of funding just aren’t enough to make it worthwhile for candidates to take them,” says UW Political Science Professor Ken Mayer.
Quoted: UW Professor Judd Aiken, a prion researcher.
Department of Administration Deputy Secretary Gina Frank-Reece released a statement describing an October, 2004 high level meeting as a broad discussion of the state’s travel needs that did not include discussion of Adelman Travel Systems.
One of the meeting’s participants, DOA contract procurement expert Georgia Thompson, faces two federal felony charges for allegedly manipulating a travel contract process so that Milwaukee-based Adelman Travel Systems could win.
Some state employees have told 27 News they resent that Milwaukee’s Adelman Travel Systems has used reservation agents in Tampa, Florida to book their state travel.
Sources in the travel industry have confirmed what state employees have grumbled about, and have told 27 News Adelman relies on what’s called “virutal” travel agents in Tampa. Virtual agents typically work out of their homes and save a travel firm overhead costs.
Public universities in the United States may be at a turning point, write Katharine C. Lyall and Kathleen R. Sell in The True Genius of America at Risk: Are We Losing Our Public Universities to De Facto Privatization? (Praeger). The new book comes at a time that many leading public universities are conducting billion-dollar fund raising campaigns while finding it difficult to match their states� ambitions with legislative appropriations.
John Magnuson worries about winter. Unlike some people, though, he wishes winter were snowier, icier and longer — that it could be a season that offered more sledding, more skiing, more iceboating and ice fishing. In other words, says Magnuson, it is time to be urgent about climate-change data. He is pushing people to look locally and see how a global problem is affecting an upper-Midwestern city that is inextricably linked to winter.
“We can’t wait until climatologists get it correct and highly precise. If so, it’s going to be way past where you want to start intervening.”
Most people who participate in the Wisconsin state pension system probably do not know how their money is invested, and this lack of knowledge has devastating consequences, according to Amanda Leipold, a leader of the UW-Madison group Action in Sudan.
Most of us think scientists are people – really smart people – who conduct experiments and then analyze the results. But for Daniel Lee Kleinman, scientists are the experiment.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of rural sociology, Kleinman spent months back in the 1990s studying a group of biologists in a plant pathology laboratory. He investigated their motivations and observed their interactions. Eventually, he published a book about his discoveries titled Impure Cultures: University Biology and the World of Commerce (UW Press, 2004). Now Kleinman and the lead subject from that study, UW microbiologist Jo Handelsman, have collaborated to launch a series of books about controversial scientific topics.
I recently dropped off my son at a college four states away, and I thought about my own early drinking experiences (ââ?¬Å?First year in college is the riskiest,ââ?¬Â Special report, Cover story, News, Wednesday).
Madison’s third-annual Teen Spoken Word Finals will feature winners from tournaments this week in four area high schools, as well as the college-prep People Program and the Warner Community Center. The 7 p.m. show will be followed by a performance of the Senegalese hip-hop group Daara J, with an after- show dance party.
It’s the culminating event this year for Youth Speaks Wisconsin, an organization designed to integrate the art of spoken word into the classroom and into young people’s lives. Tonight’s winners will receive an expenses-paid trip to the Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival in New York in April, where they’ll compete with teens from more than 40 cities in the United States and England.
Quoted: Dr. Eric Heiligenstein, head of psychiatry for the University of Wisconsin health service
Quoted: Kurt Squire, an assistant professor of educational communication and technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Greg Stiemsma is accustomed to hearing cheers for how he handles opponents on the basketball court. But the UW-Madison sophomore deserves to be cheered this week for how he has confronted a more challenging opponent – depression.
The genetic dance a flu virus performs when it replicates is more like the mambo than a mosh pit, according to a new study by UW-Madison researchers.
When the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department introduced its student-athlete discipline policy in August of 2003, Walter Dickey was one of the policy’s critics.
Quoted: Joanne Cantor, professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin, specializes in the impact of the media on children.
Quoted: Philip Moy of the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.
Quoted: Allan Odden, a University of Wisconsin expert on performance-based funding initiatives.
Quoted: Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin.
Animal rights campaigners are calling on the Journal of Neuroendocrinology to retract a research paper it published in April last year by Ei Terasawa from the University of Wisconsin, saying it violated the journal’s editorial policy against studies that cause unnecessary pain and suffering to experimental animals. Terasawa was temporarily barred from serving as a primary investigator in animal research, but has maintained the research met local and national guidelines.
Depression on campus. Like anyone else, UW-Madison students are vulnerable to becoming depressed, and that certainly includes student-athletes.
Badger Basketball Sophomore Greg Stiemsma says depression contributed to his being declared academically ineligible this past week.
From vandalism to fights, residents near the Capitol say they’re seeing more alcohol-related crime downtown.
Thursday night, the Capitol Neighborhood, Inc., which represents residents living near the capitol, held a meeting with police, city leaders, and UW to talk about a solution.
Members of CNI say they don’t feel safe.
“A number of our neighbors have been chased off of the street because of the violence that they’ve seen,” says Jamie McCarville, a member of CNI
Department of Administration Deputy Secretary Gina Frank-Reece released a statement describing an October, 2004 high level meeting as a broad discussion of the state’s travel needs that did not include discussion of Adelman Travel Systems.
As the ripples from a federal grand jury indictment of a state official involved in awarding a controversial state travel contract ran through the Capitol on Wednesday, Republicans and a watchdog group questioned whether the investigation into Gov. Jim Doyle’s fundraising would move higher in the administration.
Wisconsin is one of five emerging biotech hot spots to be detailed today by e-mail newsletter FierceBiotech, according to a Forbes.com story Tuesday.
Lapeer – (01/25/06)–After 11 years, Lapeer West High School may be forced to change its logo because it’s too similar to the logo at the University of Wisconsin.
Despite pressure from lawyers, the school is still hoping it won’t have to make that change because it could cost a lot of money.
Back in the mid-1980s, encouraging economic development was not a high priority for most Wisconsin public utilities. But then Plant Sites & Parks magazine featured a story about high-tech business concentrations across the U.S.
Quoted: Dennis Dresang, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of political science and public affairs.
Malee Lee stressed out last fall about which colleges to consider, and how to weigh their pluses and minuses.
Two out of three college freshmen say it is essential or very important to help others who are in difficulty, the highest percentage in a quarter-century, and a record number — 83 percent — say they volunteered at least occasionally during their senior year of high school.
In an interview with 27 News as he visited Wisconsin troops serving in Iraq, Governor Doyle said he would consider returning campaign contributions and re-bidding a travel contract in the wake of a federal indictment against a state employee for allegedly carrying out a scheme to pervert the contract process.
The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team suffered its second significant loss of the week, announcing Wednesday that sophomore center Greg Stiemsma will sit out the rest of the season after being ruled academically ineligible.
This year’s entering college freshmen show ââ?¬Å?a distinctive and widespread riseââ?¬Â in commitment to social and civic responsibility, a new survey finds.
With one month remaining in the budget process, the University of Wisconsin athletic department is grappling with a projected deficit of almost $1.4 million for 2006-07.
MADISON – Wisconsin’s second-largest newspaper is letting readers help decide what to put on the front page.
A federal grand jury indicted a state employee Tuesday, charging her with manipulating the process of awarding a state travel contract to ensure it went to a company whose officials gave heavily to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s election campaign.
Before coming to Oak Creek High School, he worked as the assistant band director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under director Mike Leckrone.
Steve Malchow was hired as Iowa State�s senior associate athletics director for communications in November. The Sioux City native came to ISU from Wisconsin.
The Dalai Lama is here to give a speech titled “The Neuroscience of Meditation.” Over the past few years, he has supplied about a dozen Tibetan Buddhist monks to Richard Davidson, a prominent neuroscience professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Davidson’s research created a stir among brain scientists when his results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains.
Nellie Y. McKay, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who introduced African-American literature to college students around the world, has died, a university official announced Monday.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? The Wisconsin biotechnology and medical device industry, which already produces $7 billion in annual sales, is poised to grow in 2006.
And by 2015, it could be a $10 billion industry in the state, top industry and government officials have predicted.
ââ?¬Å?We have the critical mass to get serious about this sector of our economy,ââ?¬Â Jim Leonhart, a biotech executive said Tuesday at a Wisconsin Innovation Network luncheon.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters) — Nearly two-thirds of U.S. college students are affected by sexual harassment — ranging from offensive jokes and gestures to touching and grabbing, according to a study released on Tuesday.
Men are more likely to harass than women, but women and men are equally likely to be harassed on U.S. campuses, according to a report by the American Association of University Women.
WASHINGTON ââ?¬â? President Bush, caught off guard Monday by a question about cuts in higher-education student-loan programs, said the reduction in costs would come at the expense of lending institutions, not students.
Representatives of higher-education associations disagreed moderately. Leaders of student groups took vehement exception.
MADISON, Wis. – University of Wisconsin-Madison’s chancellor acted lawfully when he forced a former top aide to step down and use sick leave during an absence in which he looked for other jobs, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge John Shabaz dismissed a lawsuit claiming Chancellor John Wiley violated the due process rights of Paul Barrows when he made him use his own assets to cover a nearly eight-month absence.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? Growing up in the Brazilian state of Goiana, Gabriela Cezar was deep in cattle country. And as far back as she can remember, she wanted to be a veterinarian.
ââ?¬Å?My father was head of the national beef cattle research center in Brazil, so I was always exposed to animals,ââ?¬Â said Cezar, who earned her veterinary medicine degree in her native country and has additional graduate degrees from Scotlandââ?¬â?¢s University of Edinburgh and UW-Madison.
But Cezarââ?¬â?¢s career path took a turn toward stem cell research early on. She has since worked on three continents ââ?¬â?? including a stint with the giant Pfizer pharmaceutical company. She also worked at the Roslin Institute in Scotland with the cloning team that produced ââ?¬Å?Dolly the Sheep,ââ?¬Â an early attempt at cloning a mammal.
ââ?¬Å?Stem cells are incredibly interesting territory,ââ?¬Â said Cezar, who joined the faculty of the animal sciences department at UW-Madison late last year. Her specialty is developmental biology.
An animal rights group says leaked government reports detail experimental procedures on animals, at UW-Madison.
Michael Budkie with Stop Animal Explotation Now (SAEN) says documentation details primates being confined in restraint chairs, paralytic agents being used in cats, and both primates and cats being deprived of water. Budkie says such practices are not illegal, but are sanctioned by the federal government, and he claims the UW could halt animal experimentation, if it wished.
UW’s Dr. Eric Sandgren says that assertion is unrealistic.Sandgren says the document cited by Budkie is not hidden or covert, but simply a form the university sends to the federal Food and Drug Adminstration each year.
Nearly two-thirds of undergraduates, male and female, say they have been sexually harassed either verbally or physically while in college, and another student or group of students usually is the perpetrator, a new report says. And though more than 70% of women and 40% of men said they ââ?¬Å?would be somewhat or very upsetââ?¬Â to be on the receiving end of sexual comments, jokes, gestures or looks, 51% of men and 31% of women had harassed someone. Most (59%) said they did so because they thought it was funny.
Medical school faculty must set an example for their profession by distancing themselves from drug companies’ marketing efforts, a group of academic medicine leaders urges in a paper today.
The USA TODAY analysis of student deaths finds that a disproportionate number of freshmen die. They represent 35% of undergraduate deaths in the study ââ?¬â? but only 24% of the undergraduate population ââ?¬â? from such causes as illness, suicides and accidents. Parents should be ââ?¬Å?aware of the potential risks to college students and take reasonable measures,ââ?¬Â says Ann Franke of Wise Results, a Washington-based education law and risk management firm.
A USA TODAY study of deaths of four-year college students found that fires were a leading cause, especially for seniors. Seniors account for 36% of the fire fatalities in the study, which also found that when students die in fires, it usually happens just off campus. Near-campus housing often lacks smoke alarms, sprinkler systems and easy escape routes. Ed Comeau, director of the Center for Campus Fire Safety in Amherst, Mass., says such houses are often older buildings, packed with electronics and young adults hosting parties and cooking for the first time in their own kitchens.
Weeks before they show up for their first class at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the 7,500 or so incoming freshmen, along with their parents, are called to campus for an early July flurry known as ââ?¬Å?Summer Welcome.ââ?¬Â Though it’s mostly a friendly affair, the two-day welcome also features frank talk from upperclassmen, campus police and counselors about binge drinking, partying and bad behavior in general. ââ?¬Å?We hit them with that in the summer before they even get on campus,ââ?¬Â says Kim Dude of the university’s Wellness Resource Center.
Students away from home for the first time are more likely to die of accidents or illness. For Danny Reardon, a fraternity ritual was fatal. Daniel Reardon’s nightmare began at 5:30 a.m. with a call from the University of Maryland police. His 19-year-old son, Danny, had taken part in a fraternity drinking ritual and was unconscious.
MADISON – James B. Bower, age 84, passed away peacefully with his family at his side on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2006, in his home in Madison.
He joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. For the next 41 years, he was an outstanding educator and teacher. He served the University with distinction, including work as the Chairman of the Department of Accounting and as a leader in Health Care Fiscal Management. He served on many university committees and was particularly proud of his work on the Athletic Committee where he helped to lead an increase in facility growth and participation in intramural athletics.
Quoted: James Baughman, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
