Anybody who wondered if Bret Bielema is ready for his first head-coaching job at the University of Wisconsin – and to follow a legend no less – needed only to watch how he handled himself at Thursday’s news conference.
Bielema, who has spent the past year as the defensive coordinator for the Badgers, spent the last two months talking to UW football coach Barry Alvarez about becoming the team’s next head coach.
You don’t need words to describe the legacy of Barry Alvarez as football coach at the University of Wisconsin. All you need is one stark and painful picture.
It was taken from the north end zone of Camp Randall Stadium on Nov. 25, 1989. If you look closely, it seems as though you can count all 29,776 souls who witnessed the final game of the pre-Alvarez Era.
In retrospect, it’s hard to recall what was more wrenching for diehard Badgers fans: The 31-3 loss to Michigan State, which brought the curtain down on the Don Morton Error, or that so few gave a hoot.
University of Wisconsin Athletic Director and football coach Barry Alvarez can’t remember which friend gave him the advice.
Alvarez has a group of friends, mostly businessmen, that meets regularly and talks about a variety of things. One day the subject was retirement. The sentiment was that Alvarez would know when the time was right to walk away from his job as football coach.
That time is now. After months of discussions with his wife, Alvarez, 58, announced Thursday he would step down as football coach at the end of the upcoming season, while retaining his duties as athletic director. He named defensive coordinator Bret Bielema as his successor.
MADISON, Wis. — Barry Alvarez announced Thursday that this will be his last year coaching the University of Wisconsin football team.
He will remain director of the athletics department.
U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, the majority leader, blocked a vote on Thursday on a bill to expand President Bush’s limits on federal financing of stem-cell research, effectively delaying any vote until at least September. Dr. Frist said he was still working with other senators to package that proposal with related bills, at least one of which has been criticized by researchers.
Sean Carroll is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. In a review for Science & Theology News, Michael Ruse called Carrollââ?¬â?¢s recent book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, ââ?¬Å?an attractive and accessible introduction to the field of evo devo [shorthand for evolutionary development].ââ?¬Â
The University of Wisconsin (UW) is reassessing an overdue and overbudget ERP software project that has so far cost the school $25 million and missed its go-live date.
Quoted: Beth Graue, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Hospitals that are trying to increase organ donations usually look up the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, whose organ-donation efforts cover the state except for the Milwaukee area. Last year, the system persuaded 78 percent of potential organ-donor families to donate their dying loved ones’ organs, tying for the nation’s highest rate with San Diego’s Lifesharing Community Organ Donation. The national average was 56 percent. If the U.S. rate equaled Wisconsin’s, almost no one who’s on the organ transplant-waiting list would die. Instead, 6,529 died last year.
Quoted: Alberto Palloni, professor of population and international studies at the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle tells WIBA News…he’s one of Barry Alvarez’s biggest fans and offered his congratulations to the Badger’s long time coach for taking the program beyond anyone’s expectations. Doyle says…as a life long resident and UW Alumnus…he suffered through some of the program’s lean years. But he had this message for the retiring head coach. “Well, as I said to Barry…and the same is true for the Packers…it’s a lot easier to govern this state…on a Monday after the Badgers and the Packers have won a football game. You know people are really committed to these teams in Wisconsin.” Doyle says he has confidence that Defensive Coordinator Bret Bielema will continue the winning tradition at the UW.
15 years ago, Barry Alvarez inherited a run of losing seasons, empty stadium seats and red ink. “About 15 years ago, I looked at the UW as a sleeping giant,” said Alvarez. He managed to wake up that sleeping giant. 15 years later in Madison, as Alvarez prepares to leave the field, he’s a household na
“This is one of my favorite pictures, this was Barry greeting me or me greeting Barry, I don’t know which way it was, but it was right after the Michigan game in 1993,” tells Michael Leckrone holding onto a picture from that day.
MADISON, Wis. – The following is the complete transcript of Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Barry Alvarez’s news conference on Thursday announcing he will step down as football coach at the end of the 2005 season. Current defensive coordinator Bret Bielema has been named his successor.
Larry W. Cox, director of the UW-Madison Business School�s Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship for the past two-and-one-half years, is leaving his post to teach at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
Cox will also head the school�s Midwest Entrepreneurial Education Center, which is ranked fourth in the nation behind MIT�s entrepreneur center.
It will come as no shock that high school students spend a lot of time online. But a new survey of juniors suggests that they have mixed feelings about using colleges� Web sites to pick places to apply.
For instance, 56 percent of those surveyed said that they prefer looking at a college Web site to reading a brochure that comes in the mail. But while only 44 percent of all juniors prefer viewbooks to Web sites, that number rises 49 percent for students with A averages.
There was a deep breath and a long pause at the other end of the line before University of Wisconsin men’s hockey coach Mike Eaves addressed the obvious question.
Calling it an act of “tough love” for a longtime friend and trusted lieutenant, University of Wisconsin men’s hockey coach Mike Eaves has fired associate head coach Troy Ward.
“In my mind, I’m relieving (Ward) of his duties and asking him to go and find where his passion is,” Eaves said Tuesday.
Gov. Jim Doyle is like the mouse that got away with the cheese, leaving the Legislature standing in shock at the triggered, empty trap they had so carefully set for him.
Doyle sliced and diced the state budget 139 times with one of the nation’s most powerful veto pens this week, shifting huge amounts of money around and often reversing the Legislature’s intent.
When members of the UW Board of Regents start their study of administrative backup jobs in the University of Wisconsin System, they won’t have far to look for examples of the now-controversial practice.
After all, nearly 50 of their top assistants enjoy the perk. From System President Kevin Reilly to board secretary Judith Temby – plus the dozens of planners, directors and assorted vice presidents in between – almost all of the highly paid administrators who scale the System’s bureaucratic heights have backup jobs to act as parachutes if they fall.
The new state budget is putting the squeeze on Madison and other Dane County municipalities.
Many leaders are already talking about service cuts and layoffs.
“We’re starting to get a pretty stark vision of the impact of the state budget on the city of Madison,” a still-fuming Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said Wednesday.
Quoted: Joel Rogers, director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at UW-Madison,
The Dalai Lama, who once said he would have been an engineer if he hadnââ?¬â?¢t become a monk, has been invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in November ââ?¬â?? to the distress of some society members who are boycotting the meeting.
Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and lead investigator in the study, said he shares concern about the ââ?¬Å?slippery slopeââ?¬Â of involving religion in science. However, he helped set up the talk by the Dalai Lama because it could ââ?¬Å?encourage increased attention to these domains of inquiry,ââ?¬Â which he thinks hold potential for improving health.
MADISON, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin’s research foundation has signed its first licensing agreement with a private company to develop commercial products using embryonic stem cell technology developed at the school.
The iPod generation will soon be getting some help in selecting which college is the right fit for their music-obsessed lifestyles. Schools that Rock: The Rolling Stone College Guide, which arrived Wednesday, adds a new dimension to selecting a college. The book details music programs, courses and local music scenes at colleges and college towns across the nation.
Smithback was a registration specialist at the UW-Madison until his retirement on June 29, 1983.
Calling it an act of “tough love” for a longtime friend and trusted lieutenant, University of Wisconsin men’s hockey coach Mike Eaves has fired associate head coach Troy Ward.
“In my mind, I’m relieving (Ward) of his duties and asking him to go and find where his passion is,” Eaves said Tuesday.
The University of Wisconsin System will see $12 million more in state funding over the next two years under the final budget signed by Gov. Jim Doyle on Monday — not a cut like the last budget cycle, but certainly not enough to grow, university officials said.
“It’s not been a good budget year for the university,” System President Kevin Reilly said Monday. “I think everybody recognizes that. We were hoping for better.”
David Brown, UW-Madison professor of finance, said Randall’s notes “seem to be valid to the extent that you believe that location matters.
Soybean agronomist Roger Borges agreed. The UW- Madison professor said soybeans could still have a strong showing around the state, though he expected they had already lost 10 percent or more of their potential yields.
When it comes to gothic horror, “The Mystery of Irma Vep” has everything but Frankenstein’s monster. But it’s written for chuckles, not chills – and University Theatre’s production is loads of laugh-out-loud fun.
Admissions numbers not all they could be? Retention statistics poor? Maybe your campus needs better outdoor seating. And fountains or ponds or streams. And an outdoor amphitheater.
Landscapes can influence recruitment and retention, said Phillip S. Waite, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at Washington State University, during a presentation here on Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Society for College and University Planning.
A report to be released today by the Center for Science in the Public Interest calls on the National Collegiate Athletic Association to ban beer advertising at sporting events and during televised sports broadcasts.
The report, “How the NCAA Recruits Kids for the Beer Market,” argues that the NCAA actively tries to attract young consumers to its brand, and by doing so exposes young people to beer advertisers.
Steve Malchow, associate director of communications at the University of Wisconsin, shot his first hole in one on June 20 at University Ridge Golf Course in Madison, Wis. Malchow aced the 180-yard 17th hole using a 5-iron.
Ironically, Malchow nearly aced the hole in a previous round during an outing in which a Lexus was to be given away. His shot ended up two inches past the hole.
The Dalai Lama is at the centre of an unholy row among scientists over his plans to deliver a lecture at a prominent neuroscience conference.
His talk stems from a growing interest in how Buddhist meditation may affect the brain, but researchers who dismiss such studies as little more than mumbo-jumbo say they will boycott the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in November if it goes ahead.
The research peaked in November last year when a team led by Richard Davidson, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, published research in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that suggested networks of brain cells were better coordinated in people who were trained in meditation.
MADISON, Wis. ââ?¬â? The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents on Tuesday ordered all UW campuses not to award backup positions to administrators until the controversial personnel policy can be reviewed.
It took more than three years, but now UW Rock County will receive funding for a new electrical engineering degree program.
Governor Jim Doyle approved a budget that will include $370,000 dollars to kick start the four year degree program.
Madison, Wis. – The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has licensed the California immunological research firm Chemicon to commercialize research products using WARF’s stem cell patents, Chemicon’s parent company Serologicals announced Tuesday.
Students from Wisconsin pay less in tuition at the University of Minnesota than students from inside the state, and a chorus of school officials, parents and legislators say that needs to change.
Wisconsin students pay less because of tuition reciprocity agreements. Wisconsin students pay about $1,000 less per year at the Minneapolis area campus; $1,600 less at the Duluth campus, and $2,400 a year less at Morris.
The student government president on the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus pays $1,000 less in annual tuition and fees than the Minnesotans she goes to school with.
It’s not that student government types get a tuition break. Emily Serafy Cox is from Wisconsin. Tuition reciprocity agreements between the two states mean students from the Badger State pay less to go to school here than Minnesotans do.
The UW System Doyle restored $34 million in spending increases sought by the University of Wisconsin System and added through vetoes $8 million in financial aid for System students.
Overseeing a team of employees may be a no-brainer for an experienced business executive, but for an engineer whose skills and education have focused on technical subjects, making the transition to a supervisory role can be daunting.
“A lot of engineers and scientists are successful in college when you crank out great reports and numbers, and you don’t always necessarily have to work on a team,” said Jan Kucher, senior project engineer at the Madison engineering firm RMT.
Quoted: Dr. Thomas Lillesand, Director of the University of Wisconsin Department of Environmental Studies,
Exposure to loud sounds is the single biggest reason for adult hearing loss, said Michael Chial, an audiology professor at UW-Madison. While federal and state laws limit workplace noise, “none of that applies to motorcycles and snowmobiles and power tools and entertainment systems,” he said.
Drivers routinely disobey the 55 mph speed limit on the Beltline, where traffic increased by 40 percent from 1999 to 2003, according to a UW-Madison study.
Quoted: Joe Lauer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison corn agronomist.
Quoted: Pam Oliver, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Quoted: Dr. Patrick Remington, director of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute
The University of Wisconsin System was put on notice Monday that its policies for paid leaves and backup appointments could face broad scrutiny by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau.
If so, that would bring to three the number of high-level probes or reviews under way since lawmakers learned in June of the seven-month paid leave of UW-Madison administrator Paul Barrows. Already, Madison attorney and Law School professor Susan Stein- gass is investigating the matter for UW-Madison and the System, while the UW Board of Regents – the System’s governing board – plans a review during its regular meeting in September.
In contrast, the rate that contractors such as UW- Madison and other institutions pay for unlimited passes for employees or members would increase from 0.825 to 0.88 cents per ride, he said, adding that those rates could be increased further and still provide a tremendous discount.
“The UW alone accounts for about 1 million rides a year,” Jacob said.
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS – Experts say the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. Just jump in and force your ears to listen.
But jetting off to Paris for a French lesson can be impractical. Fluency, after all, doesn’t happen in a week.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison opened one of the oldest ones, its French House, in 1918,
Quoted: Dr. Norman Fost, a professor and bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin
Quoted: Douglas E. Jorenby, director of clinical services for the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin Medical Schoo
Quoted: R. Alta Charo, a lawyer and bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin.
At a time when the University of Wisconsin is already under a microscope, there’s yet another complaint against the UW. A UW-Madison academic staff member is charging the UW with violation of the state’s public records law. (Audio.)
Quoted: Dr. Hans W. Sollinger, the Folkert O. Belzer Professor of Surgery Chairman for UW-Madison’s Division of Transplantation.
Early last month Dan Saftig, president of the Iowa State University Foundation, sat in his office reviewing a list of 8,400 donors, who contributed a combined $2.6-million in May. The records contained the names of donors, the dollar range of each donation, and the designated use for each gift.
MADISON, Wis. – Cross country/track and field runner Simon Bairu and swimmer Carly Piper have been named the University of Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s Athletes of the Year, the school announced recently. (Athletic Communication.)
A combination of law enforcement and peer education has reduced alcohol abuse throughout the California State University System, according to a report prepared for the Board of Trustees.
The exact steps taken vary from campus to campus, but all involve increased enforcement by police and campus security, and ââ?¬Å?social normsââ?¬Â marketing, which teaches students that not everyone drinks to fit in.
Cutting more than half the pages from a school media guide was no easy task, sports information directors say.
