Gerry Roesing still remembers the moment 25 years ago when Madison won his heart. He was a newcomer, out on a house-hunting trip on the west side.
Author: jplucas
The Accidental Film Star
Chronicle of Higher Education
He’s a movie star, but you won’t find W. Nicholas G. Hitchon chasing the villain or sweeping the heroine off her feet. Instead, he taught an undergraduate electrical-engineering course this morning, and now he chats with two students in a cafeteria at the University of Wisconsin here.
Two days later a camera crew arrives and films Mr. Hitchon talking with the same two students at the same cafeteria — only this time at an outdoor table, where the light is better.
GOP moves to cut UW by $25M
The Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee today moved to trim Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposed budget for the University of Wisconsin System and student aids.
Doug Moe: Movie coming to town
Capital Times
IT APPEARS Madison is going to be host to some of the hottest young Hollywood actors starring in a film scripted by one of the industry’s hottest screenwriters. Although a call Friday to the Wisconsin Film Office brought a “we can’t talk about it” response, a film production chart in the showbiz newspaper Variety lists Madison and Montreal as the location shoots for the new movie “The Last Kiss,” scripted by “Million Dollar Baby” screenwriter Paul Haggis and starring Zach Braff, Rachel Bilson and Jacinda Barrett. The movie is currently shooting in Montreal, so the Madison scenes will presumably be shot this summer.
Doug Moe: Sunsets and great memories
THE MEMORIAL Union has announced plans for a “sunset celebration” on the terrace this summer, Saturday nights starting June 11.
The celebration is patterned after the nightly sunset ritual in Key West, Fla., where tourists and assorted oddballs gather on the Mallory Square waterfront to toast the day’s end and gaze at the color-splashed dusk sky.
UW students compete to design neckwear
A class of University of Wisconsin-Madison students has been designing ties for a world-class neckwear company as part of an annual competition.
The class, Printing and Dying II, is in its fifth year of designing ties for the company XMI, which is based in Chippewa Falls. The company also has a marketing office in Greenwich, Conn., and a showroom in New York. The class, led by Professor Jennifer Angus, is in the Department of Environment, Textiles and Design.
Campuses could lose funds for denying ROTC (AP)
MADISON ââ?¬â? The Legislatureââ?¬â?¢s budget committee voted Wednesday to deny state funding to University of Wisconsin campuses that turn away ROTC programs.
The 15-1 vote was a symbolic slap at UW-Stout Chancellor Charles Sorensen, who last month rejected a proposed Army ROTC chapter over the military�s stance on gay soldiers.
Highlights of funding changes for UW System (AP)
St. Paul Pioneer Press
The Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee, continuing its revisions to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget bill, voted on a host of changes to funding for the University of Wisconsin System on Wednesday. Here are highlights from those votes.
Letter: ‘Making choices based on benefits’ (Beloit Daily News)
Once again, the Beloit Daily News has issued an editorial in which their dislike of homosexuals has overruled reason and logic. They claim allowing the University of Wisconsin to provide health insurance benefits that include domestic partners is short-sighted and misguided and hurts taxpayers, and that benefits aren’t a decision in choosing a job.
Diversity or Conformity (Inside Higher Ed)
Inside Higher Education
If you want a diverse faculty, you need to pay more attention to search committees, according to speakers at a panel Wednesday at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education.
About 60 faculty members and administrators attended the session, in a Manhattan hotel, which was organized in a circle so audience members could fully participate. They traded stories of searches marred by inappropriate questions and faulty assumptions.
Research on Undergraduate Research (Inside Higher Ed)
Inside Higher Education
Amid the plentiful and highfalutin rhetoric about the educational value of involving undergraduates in research, sound evidence that proves that value is harder to find. But researchers at the University of Michigan have produced a series of quantitative studies suggesting that involving undergraduates in research early in their college careers makes them more likely to stay in college, get their degrees, and go on to graduate school.
The Decline of Affirmative Action (Inside Higher Ed)
Inside Higher Education
Starting around 1995, the percentage of colleges that considered studentsââ?¬â?¢ minority status in admissions decisions fell dramatically ââ?¬â? so dramatically that it appears to have gone beyond those states where court rulings or constitutional amendments barred the use of racial preferences.
Joint Finance Committee rejects UW tuition cap (WRN)
Wisconsin Radio Network
Madison Democrat, Representative Mark Pocan, said legislators have voiced more concerns over an increase in the cost of a deer hunting license, than in increases in tuition on UW campuses. “A lot of us are here because of that education,” said Pocan. “We’re making it harder and harder for people to get the same opportunity we had. And I think that’s unfortunate.” (Audio.)
Tomotherapy considers IPO with medical-device business on the rise
Wisconsin Technology Network
A technology that could bring better, safer treatments to cancer patients worldwide might have fallen through the cracks. Now Tomotherapy, a Madison medical-device firm with more than 200 employees that has grown to $44 million in sales, could go public within a year, its founder said.
The company is run by Thomas “Rock” Mackie, a UW-Madison professor who was spurred into going commercial when GE Medical cut off its funding for his radiology projects.
Committee Slashes $45M From UW Budget
WISC-TV 3
MADISON, Wis. — State legislators have voted to slash $45 million from the governor’s budget that would have gone to the University of Wisconsin System.
The Joint Finance Committee’s vote means less financial aid and less money to hire professors at UW schools.
Paul Peercy: Science, technology and health care evolve
Wisconsin Technology Network
Do advances in health care technology amaze you? It would be hard not to be impressed. Advances that would have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago are now a part of routine care. That said, you should prepare yourself to be amazed again ââ?¬â?? and often.
College Enrollments Grow More Diverse, More Numerous, and More Female
Chronicle of Higher Education
The number of college students rose 15 percent in the decade ending in 2003, according to data released on Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The data, which appear in a report titled “School Enrollment — Social and Economic Characteristics of Students: October 2003,” show that the number of graduate and undergraduate students increased over the 10-year period to 16.6 million, from 14.4 million, and that enrollments of minority students grew to make up nearly 30 percent of the total.
Corpse flower set to bloom….again
WIBA Newsradio
The Corpse Flower…which drew crowds to the U-W Madison’s Botany Greenhouse when it bloomed four years ago…is set to bloom again. Terry Devitt is director of research communications for the U-W. (Fourth item.)
UW System faces cuts
WIBA Newsradio
UW System officials would already have to eliminate $65 million under Governor Doyle’s budget proposal…and that number could climb by another $25 million. The legislature’s joint finance committee approved the extra cuts yesterday…and panel co-chair Scott Fitzgerald calls it “manageable.” (Second item)
Camp Randall Stadium Renovation Approaches Final Stage
UWBadgers.com
MADISON, Wis. – With the August 1 deadline for the start of fall football camp coming up fast, work crews are scurrying to make ready the new team dining facilities and all the inside-the-bowl Camp Randall Renovation projects. (Athletic Communications)
Ryan Named Director of Basketball Operations
UWBadgers.com
MADISON, Wis. – Will Ryan, who has spent the last two seasons as Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s video coordinator for menââ?¬â?¢s basketball, has been hired as the teamââ?¬â?¢s director of basketball operations. (Athletic Communications)
‘The Scholar’: You’re tuitioned! Reality show pays for college
USA Today
So it’s one thing to eat bugs for $50,000 or humble yourself before Donald Trump. But can anyone imagine a reality show with 10 gifted, teenage brainiacs competing head-to-head for a four-year college scholarship? Well, yeah.
Alumni turn to alma mater: Career counseling, other life advice help foster ties with graduates
USA Today
As this year’s college seniors pick up their diplomas, many of them may think that their future relationship with their alma mater will be limited to periodic class reunions and solicitations for funds. That may have been true in the past, but no longer. Colleges and universities have come to realize that their relationship with their alumni is a two-way street. If they want support from their graduates, they must give them something back in return.
Rank-smelling flower borders on No. 1 ranking
Wisconsin State Journal
UW-Madison has set its share of records, from athletics to academics, so why not one in botany?
Big Bucky, a malodorous tropical plant of the species Titan arum, is blooming again, and this time, as surely as Badger football great Ron Dayne ran for his place in history, this strange tropical plant is going for the botanical gold – the world title for the tallest Titan arum flower.
No funding increase for System
Wisconsin State Journal
The University of Wisconsin System would have to make do with what it currently gets in state funding despite sharp increases in costs and mandated changes in how it spends money, under provisions adopted by the Legislature’s budget committee Wednesday.
The action by the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee threatens to contribute to the “systematic dismantling of public higher education in this state,” UW- Madison Chancellor John Wiley said in a statement.
Lamenting ghost grads
USA Today
My commencement address ââ?¬â? had I been asked ââ?¬â? would have paid tribute to college athletes. Higher education for them is often a high life on campus but little in the way of an education. Graduates leave with their degrees, while athletes are often left on the sidelines.
Woman sexually assaulted on North Bassett (WSJ, 06-01-05)
Madison police are looking for a man who sexually assaulted a woman on Monday night, the second sexual assault by a stranger reported to police in Madison in the last two weeks. At 10:30 p.m. Monday, a caller to 911 said a woman was screaming in the 10 block of North Bassett Street, said police spokesman Mike Hanson.
Our view: Too-stringent UW budget cuts could hurt the economy
La Crosse Tribune
Wisconsin higher education and even economic development could be threatened if Republicans in the Legislature follow through with threats for additional cuts to the University of Wisconsin System.
UW campuses already have borne the brunt of budget cuts in the past few years that have been even more severe than other parts of state government.
Letter to the Editor: Smith captures benefits issue well
Wisconsin State Journal
Thanks for Susan Lampert Smith’s Thursday column about domestic partner benefits. It elevated and explained not only the personal/emotional issues but also the statistics about enrollment rates and costs at other universities. I’ve been working on this issue for many years in my spare time and, as a UW employee with a domestic partner, I’m happy to see the facts finally getting out there.
Researchers Explore Tools to Identify Individuals at Risk for Heart Disease (JAMA)
Quoted: James Stein, MD, principal investigator and codirector of the Preventive Cardiology Program and director of the Vascular Health Screening Program at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, in Madison.
Collaboration Council Wants To Aggressively Promote Area
Wisconsin State Journal
Why doesn’t Dane County’s economic development corporation do more to retain and attract businesses with high-paying jobs?
The answer is as simple as it is disturbing: Unlike so many other regions across Wisconsin and the nation, Dane County doesn’t have an economic development corporation.
The glaring absence of such a force for prosperity is one of the top concerns of the Collaboration Council, a 40-member group of regional business and community leaders. The group is developing ways to promote economic growth in Dane County while preserving its quality of life.
“We are lethargic at promoting ourselves,” said University Research Park Director Mark Bugher, who heads the council’s business retention and recruitment committee. “We’ve relied too much on the public sector for our economy. Those days are over.”
Student reaction varied on UW contraception ban (Appleton Post-Crescent)
MENASHA ââ?¬â? A bill that would ban the University of Wisconsin System from advertising and prescribing emergency contraceptives has been generating debate and receiving mixed reaction, especially among students.
JS Online: Tyina Steptoe ‘Takes Five’
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Tyina Steptoe had plans to become a documentary filmmaker – that is, until her research uncovered how little most people knew about cultural history. Determined to understand more and be able to pass along her knowledge to others, she left Texas in 1999 for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received her master’s degree in Afro-American studies in 2001 and is now earning her PhD in history with an emphasis on African-Americans. Steptoe, 29, and a fellow student developed a “traveling classroom” that will take 36 students to more than 15 historical sites in the American West. She hopes the discussion, films and interactions with key historians will help enlighten the students about how history has shaped their lives and that they’ll share what they’ve learned with their family and friends. Steptoe – who aspires to become a tenured professor who does documentary filmmaking on the side – took time out of her busy tour planning to speak with reporter Kawanza Griffin-Newson.
UW Web site honored again (WSJ, 6/1/05)
UW-Madison’s weekly online science magazine, The Why Files, was for the second time named one of the World Wide Web’s top 100 sites by PC Magazine. “This down to earth science site was a PC Magazine pick way back in 1997, when you had dialup and about 12 bookmarks. With tons of articles and activities, Why Files will take you from ignorance to expertise in dozens of subjects,” the magazine states.
Uw System Budget Cuts Go Too Deep
Wisconsin State Journal
The state needs the University of Wisconsin System to increase the number of college graduates it produces, to help create high-paying jobs that will keep our graduates in Wisconsin, and to attract other degree holders from out of state to build their careers here. Unfortunately, states that do not use their public universities as this kind of galvanizing force will be the backwaters of the 21st Century.
Expert In School Law To Lead Uw Education School
Wisconsin State Journal
The top lawyer for the National School Boards Association has been chosen as the next dean at the UW-Madison School of Education, Chancellor John Wiley said Friday.
Julie Underwood, associate executive director and general counsel for NSBA and a former faculty member at UW-Madison, is expected to begin work in early August. Underwood, who will make $210,000 a year, replaces W. Charles Read, who plans to retire this summer after 10 years at the helm of the school.
Badgers enter new financial era
Wisconsin State Journal
In the past 15 years, the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department has made its way through two distinct stages of health.
There was 1990, when reality was a $2.1 million budget deficit, a pathetic football program, an antiquated business model and more than $3 million in deferred facilities maintenance.
“They were more in triage mode,” UW deputy athletic director Jamie Pollard said of a time defined by the cutting of five sports and the infusion of new blood, led by athletic director Pat Richter and football coach Barry Alvarez. “They just had to fix things.”
Research Hits Preservation Snag
Wisconsin State Journal
A bid to preserve a historic drug store may complicate UW-Madison’s proposal for a $375 million state-of-the-art research center that will help discover drugs for some of the world’s most serious illnesses.
The state and university are proposing to build the massive, 750,000-square-foot Institute of Discovery on a wedge-shaped piece of land bordered by University and Randall avenues and West Johnson and Charter streets.
Badgers enter new financial era
Wisconsin State Journal
In the past 15 years, the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department has made its way through two distinct stages of health.
There was 1990, when reality was a $2.1 million budget deficit, a pathetic football program, an antiquated business model and more than $3 million in deferred facilities maintenance.
Conklin: ‘Prince Mike’ and ‘Lady Alexis’
Wisconsin State Journal
This may just be as close as Madison will get to a Prince Charles and Lady Di moment. Call it our Wedding of the Decade.
Guests are dodging Farmers’ Market customers, heading towards streams of bubbles emanating from machines outside the doors of Grace Episcopal Church early Saturday afternoon. A guy in a black T- shirt labeled “SECURITY” is standing by the door.
Inside, Badger basketball star Mike Wilkinson is preparing to wed the gorgeous, anthem- belting UW-band’s Alexis Schrubbe.
On the edge: President of regents fears UW quality is slipping away
SUPERIOR – At one time, Toby Marcovich figured his University of Wisconsin law degree might take him far from his family’s furniture shop, far from the iron ore shippers, to more sophisticated locales.
UW may be facing a deeper budget cut
Wisconsin State Journal
State lawmakers will propose deeper spending cuts and a cap on tuition when the Legislature’s budget committee takes up the University of Wisconsin System’s budget next week, several committee members confirmed Friday.
The committee’s majority Republicans remain divided, however, over how deep those cuts will be and how much tuition will be allowed to increase, with negotiations continuing this weekend.
Gov appoints two as UW regents
Gov. Jim Doyle has appointed to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents a former Green Bay School Board member with ties to Madison and a retired Milwaukee area lawyer.
Student loans to change July 1
Wisconsin State Journal
oving? Job hunting? Getting married? It doesn’t matter how swamped you’ll be in the next few weeks. It doesn’t matter if you’ve gone to medical school or gotten an undergraduate degree or are still a junior in college. If you have student loans, you have one more homework assignment to finish before July 1:
See if you, too, can take advantage of some historically low rates by consolidating those student loans now. Locking in now, experts say, can save borrowers thousands of dollars over the life of a loan.
New push to expand corporate base here
Wisconsin State Journal
Students at Madison-area colleges might be purifying proteins or crafting computer programs in their spare time, as interns for local startup companies, a couple of years from now.
And a new organization – a Dane County economic development corporation – could be aggressively chasing pharmaceutical and engineering companies in other states, trying to lure them here, using a new “brand” identity to market the area.
Taking the heat off Wisconsin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Four new power plants costing more than $900 million will be online this summer to address Wisconsin’s growing appetite for electricity.
The first of the new plants, Madison Gas & Electric Co.’s 150-megawatt facility on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, began generating power in late April, utility spokesman Steve Kraus said.
Give UW partner benefits
Wisconsin State Journal
When will certain Republicans in the Legislature finally start treating gay and lesbian people fairly and respectfully?
We get the queasy sense it’s going to take far too long and cost the state a good deal of money, talent and reputation before that happens.
Too many of our state leaders — Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo, and Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, come immediately to mind — continue to step backward on gay and lesbian fairness while the state of Wisconsin and its citizens slowly but surely move ahead.
University’s ban on ROTC stirring furor in Wisconsin (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
MINNEAPOLIS – What started out as a little-noticed ban on the military at a small University of Wisconsin campus in Menomonie has erupted into a statewide controversy ââ?¬â? which may be on its way to being defused.
Scientists of tiny tech aim for big grants
Wisconsin State Journal
A UW-Madison center focused on the science of the very small is going after big money.
Local professors are going to Washington, D.C., this week to compete for a federal grant for research into the emerging fields of nanotechnology, said Juan De Pablo, director of UW- Madison’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. The group is asking the National Science Foundation for $18 million over six years.
Does Science Trump All?
New York Times
Quoted: Ronald L. Numbers, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Wisconsin.
Million dollar question (Freeman Newspapers)
Greater Milwaukee Today
At first pass, Jessica Zigman seems to be a fairly typical young woman from a nice middle class family. Sheââ?¬â?¢s attractive, outgoing and smart. As a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Zigman is majoring in medicine. There is one other thing ââ?¬â? she is a highly skilled competitive boxer with the tools to flatten most of her male classmates.
Morning-after pill ban debated (AP)
A state lawmaker said Thursday the Legislature needs to send a message of disapproval to the University of Wisconsin System after a school clinic urged students to get advance prescriptions for emergency contraception before leaving on spring break.
Editorial: Stem cell extremism
Pardon us if we have trouble understanding the president of the United States.
He has been in office for more than four years now and has almost gleefully signed every piece of legislation that has crossed his desk, no matter how bad some of it happened to
Controversial Study Suggests Seeing Gun Violence Promotes It (Science Magazine)
Quoted: Economist Steven Durlauf of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Genetics discovery could lead to better corn (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
KRT) – ST. LOUIS – In one hand, plant geneticist Michael McMullen holds black teosinte kernels, the seeds of what scientists say is the grassy ancestor of corn. In the other, he holds needlenose pliers – definitely needed to crack the tough hulls into a few starchy bits.
The work, a joint project among the University of Missouri, the University of California at Irvine and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is published Friday in the journal Science.
Reforming Journalism Education (Inside Higher Ed)
Inside Higher Education
Quoted: Jim Baughman, director of the University of Wisconsin at Madison�s journalism school.
Asexual evolution (Albany Times-Union)
Quoted: John DeLamater, a human-sexuality expert from the University of Wisconsin — Madison.
Are 12-month leases fair to students? (Gainesville Sun)
Vincent Patoka, an information guide at the Campus Information and Visitor’s Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the university department that handles off-campus housing, said almost everyone who lives off campus has to sign a yearlong lease.
“Certain apartment complexes will offer an academic-year lease, but the student will have to pay up to several hundred extra dollars a month for nine months, instead of a smaller rent for 12 months,” Patoka said.
Burning Man at 20 (San Francisco Chronicle)
San Francisco Chronicle
Quoted: Cultural anthropologist Robert Kozinets of the University of Wisconsin- Madison.
Many reasons for fans striking out (Contra Costa Times)
Contra Costa Times
A fan may feel a sense of empowerment, as if he has the right to act on his emotions, said Susan Riseling, the chief of police at the University of Wisconsin and co-presenter of the audio conference, “Better Fan Behavior: Interventions That Work.”
“If today’s fans are looking for empowerment, then maybe we should give them some,” she said. “We can encourage them to police themselves and report bad behavior. It may be the best way to reverse the trend.”