Just two days away from UW’s homecoming, the Badgers are in need of some help after stressful games the past two weeks. They are in luck — a sort of divine intervention is on their side. They call themselves, the Badger Nuns, or, after a certain head football coach, the Sisters of Chryst.
“We are real nuns, the order of Chryst,” insists their so-called mother superior, Sister Mary Bucky. The other two go by Sister Mary Touchdown and Sister Hail Mary.
Noted: Majid Sarmadi, a University of Wisconsin-Madison textile expert who studied the visibility of blaze pink for Milroy and Kleefisch, told the committee that blaze pink is more visible against the orange fall landscape than blaze orange.
“The pink is more visible when everything is turning yellow and orange,” Sarmadi said. “The orange will get lost between those oranges that are there in nature. Therefore, it will be less safe.”
For what has been a divided and on-and-off issue for months, University of Wisconsin College Democrats and College Republicans now agree on what should qualify for student voter IDs.
But, the university says otherwise.
Though all three groups offer a variety of alternative IDs, each are determined to do what they believe is best for students to be able to vote when election time comes.
The University of Wisconsin Athletic Department is looking for some of the Badger Men’s Basketball team’s biggest, smallest fans. Your kid could win the chance to take the court at the Kohl Center thanks to their new contest.
Sixteen kids from across the state will be randomly selected and invited to participate in an on-court presentation as part of the 2015 NCAA Finalist banner ceremony. That’s happening before the game on Friday, November 13, when Wisconsin takes on Western Illinois.
Quoted: UW Political Science Professor Mike Wagner is voicing opposition on Twitter.
“Am I worried, about it? Yeah, I would be worried about going into a classroom knowing 120 students are not enjoying a lecture…or worrying themselves, yeah I worry.”
And UW Madison Police Spokesman Marc Lovicott says his department opposes the bill.
“We don’t feel putting more weapons in the hands of our students, even though they legally have a permit to do so elsewhere will make our campus safer.
Two players from the University of Wisconsin and one from Marquette are on watch lists for national basketball awards.
Badger Nigel Hayes is among 20 candidates for the Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Award, while teammate Bronson Koenig is on the watch list for the Bob Cousy Award, recognizing the top point guard.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin, U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say warmer weather earlier in the year might have consequences for farmers as well as wildlife.
“Our projections show that winter will be shorter—which sound great for those of us in Wisconsin,” Andrew Allstadt, a [postdoctoral] researcher [in forest and wildlife ecology] at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an author on the paper, said in a statement “But long distance migratory birds, for example, time their migration based on day length in their winter range. They may arrive in their breeding ground to find that the plant resources that they require are already gone.”
(Video) The state Senate’s health committee has approved a bill that would outlaw research using tissue obtained from aborted fetuses.
Several downtown streets will be closed Friday afternoon for the University of Wisconsin Homecoming parade, according to a release.
The parade starts at 6 p.m. and will close Langdon Street, Wisconsin Avenue, West Gilman Street and North Lake Street, officials said.
A federal jury has found Apple Inc. infringed on a technology patent held by the foundation that protects the University of Wisconsin’s intellectual property.
The company could face up to $862 million in damages over the patent by the University of Wisconsin-Madison that improves processor efficiency.
It was another record-setting day at the fourth-annual “Shooting Down Cancer” event hosted by Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan and his wife, Kelly.
It took place at the Kohl Center Monday.
This year the UW-Madison student body helped raise Ryan’s donation to the American Cancer Society to $60,147. Combined with matching donations, the 2015 grand total was $694,117.
At a press conference on Monday, the University of Wisconsin – Madison announced it is joining a campaign called, “It’s on Us.” The program is a national campaign aimed at stopping sexual assault.
During the press conference, the university stated it would begin playing a video during this weekend’s homecoming football game against Purdue University that will highlight the “It’s on Us” campaign. UW’s athletic program will play a key role in getting the message out to student’s on campus.
(Video) University of Wisconsin students helped fight cancer at a fundraiser called Make Bo Pay.
Noted: P.J. Liesch directs the Insect Diagnostic Lab at the University of Wisconsin. Liesch told Minnesota Public Radio the beetles were first spotted in the Upper Midwest in large numbers in the mid-1990s. The insects can bite and will secrete a foul-smelling odor if they’re disturbed.
Noted: Police who protect the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus in Madison are urging state lawmakers not to allow concealed weapons to be carried into campus buildings.
UW-Madison Police spokesman Marc Lovicott issued a statement Tuesday coming out against the bill circulated Monday by Republican lawmakers.
How would you like to paddle down the lake in a huge pumpkin? That’s what UW students do at the annual Giant Pumpkin Regatta.
UW students grew giant pumpkins that they then paddled in on the lake Saturday.
In just nine days, five people were injured on the UW campus while walking or biking. On Friday UW Police released surveillance video of two of those crashes.
“The videos are a little tough to watch but they bring up a really good point about safety on our campus.,” said Marc Lovicott, a spokesman for UW-Madison Police.
Fans at Lambeau Field for the Packers-Rams game got a special show this Sunday.
The UW Marching Band made the trip up to Green Bay to perform their traditional Badgers favorites during, and of course after, the game, with the Fifth Quarter.
The visit is always a treat for both the fans and the band.
Wisconsin’s public university and technical college systems said each system has emergency plans that include how to respond to a campus shooting.
University of Wisconsin System officials said each campus has an all-hazards plan with responses for emergencies including an active shooter. They said the campuses share the plans with faculty and students several ways including posting the plans online, presenting them during student orientations and sending them out via campus-wide email.
Noted: During his work on the committee, [Maj. Bradley] Podliska [an intelligence officer in the Air Force Reserve] said he worked closely with [UW-Madison alumnus] Rep. Jim Jordan, a conservative Republican who often bucks GOP establishment leaders. And long before joining the committee, Podliska was chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College Republicans during his time there and later interned at the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog.
Chemotherapy drugs usually succeed at killing cancer cells, but some cancers have a tendency to develop a resistance to treatment, according to a University of Wisconsin Health release.
“If a patient will not be sensitive to a treatment, they should not be placed on that treatment. They should not be over-treated,” said Dr. Wei Xu, professor of oncology at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center and McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research and senior author of the study. “Also, we want to give timely treatments, because if you match the patient to the right treatment, you’re more likely to save someone’s life.”
A $3 million grant will allow the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center to coordinate research among six of the nation’s top research institutions, according to a UW Health release.
The Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute, officials said. The project is looking to prevent cancer by pinpointing its environmental causes and factors.
Noted: UWPD police Chief Susan Riseling said the frequency of crashes and injuries is an indicator that bikers, pedestrians and motorists aren’t following laws, “and people are getting hurt.”
“Safety on our campus roads is everyone’s responsibility,” Riseling said.
The department said it plans to increase bicycle enforcement patrols on campus.
The University of Wisconsin System’s Board of Regents has approved a report detailing campuses reserves and balances at the close of the 2014-15 fiscal year.
The regents approved the report unanimously during a meeting Thursday at UW-Madison. The report now goes to the Legislature’s fiance and audit committees.
A state scholarship program for top students would undergo big changes under a bill at the Capitol.
The changes are meant to retain top students in districts across the state by offering a $2,250-a-year scholarship to one or more students, depending on the size of the district. The program allows students to use the scholarship money at any in-state school, public or private.
A UW Regents business and finance committee approved an agreement that would switch athletics apparel to Under Armour after 15 years under a contract with Adidas. The decision will go to the full Board of Regents Friday.
According to a resolution, Under Armour would outfit and equip all 23 Badgers teams. In the first year alone, the Baltimore-based company would pay the university’s athletics department $4 million cash in the first year, along with providing $3.3 million in uniforms, shoes and equipment.
Noted: UW Chancellor Rebecca Blank told the committee Thursday the waiver would push the institution to recruit harder within and outside of Wisconsin. She added her institution is “uniquely situated” to make sure Wisconsin’s best and brightest don’t leave for colleges in other states, and to bring students from other states into Wisconsin and get them to stay for work.
“I’m looking at all sorts of ways to partner with industry in the state, with professional organizations in the state, to put industry and Wisconsin businesses in front of my students in a way when they get to their senior year, they’ve heard of these companies, they know something about them, they are more likely to go work for them,” Blank said.
Noted: “If they did not have those trial drugs and didn’t do that extra work [at the Carbone Cancer Center], I don’t think she would have ever had that time. I actually don’t think she would have made it past that first summer.”
Because of that, Rich decided to honor Sherri by participating in the Carbone’s Race for Research, a 5K run and walk. Money from donations is used to continue the cancer research.
Noted: UW officials said in a statement that they offer a separate ID for voting, but there are concerns with revising their regular student ID cards.
“Adding the signature, as is required to be voter ID compliant, in combination with other information on the card increases the identity theft risk to students,” the statement said.
Noted: The vests are developed by Virginia Tech. The DOT says it would consider the vest, since worker safety is a top priority. The DOT works with a lab at UW-Madison to test safety innovations.
College rankings are in no short supply, from U.S. News & World Report to Princeton Review to the international Times Higher Education.
But one set of newly released rankings are chosen by a different kind of experts: College students themselves.
Instructor-ranking site Rate My Professors’ 2014-2015 college lists include best universities, top junior and community colleges and — of utmost importance — hottest professors.
Recent campus shooting incidents remain on the minds of many, while a new review out of UW-Madison finds first-person shooter games could actually improve cognition.
“You have to identify targets, clutter and make very quick, accurate decisions,” psychology professor Shawn Green said about the fight-or-flight styled games.
“These games will trigger the fight-or-flight response, when that response is triggered, lots of things change,” Professor Green said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students are blasting a plan to eliminate the school’s limit on out-of-state undergraduates.
UW System rules currently cap the number of out-of-state students to 27.5 percent of the undergraduate population at each campus. UW-Madison officials plan to ask the Board of Regents this week to lift that school’s cap, saying in-state enrollment is dropping and they need new young talent that can bolster Wisconsin’s workforce. They would still enroll and maintain at least 3,500 Wisconsin residents in each new freshman class.
William C. Campbell, who shared a Nobel Prize in medicine announced Monday, said that his time as a graduate student at UW-Madison helped shape his career.Arlie C. Todd and Chester A. Herrick, the professors who oversaw his research as a veterinary science and zoology student in the 1950s, gave him the freedom to be intuitive in his work, Campbell said in an interview from his home in Massachusetts.
Police are looking for a Badger fan who attacked a 15-year-old local Iowa fan at Saturday’s football game on Camp Randall according to a release from the UW-Madison Police Department.
Police say around 2:30 p.m. the teen wearing a Iowa Hawkeyes gear was exiting Camp Randall Stadium with friends when an unidentified man punched him in the face.
Quoted: “It’s in all of our interests to ensure that those who are wrongfully convicted are given the assistance they need,” said Keith Findley, director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project [at the UW Law School], who joined lawmakers for a news conference on the bill at the State Capitol Thursday morning.
Quoted: UW pharmacy professor Jeanette Roberts says because [supplements] haven’t been approved, we just don’t know what side effects they could have.
“I say that we’re experimenting on ourselves, because we really don’t know a lot about these plants or products in a lot of cases,” said Roberts.
Noted: Friends and family held an event Sunday at Mid Town Pub in Middleton to raise money for a memorial scholarship set up in their name through the UW Foundation.
Kotila says she hopes to raise at least $25,000, to support two freshmen every year in memory of the Dorresteijns.
UW-Madison Police are asking for assistance from Badgers fans after a 15-year-old Iowa fan was attacked by a Badgers fan at the end of Saturday’s game.
They say around 2:30 p.m., the boy, wearing Iowa Hawkeyes gear, was exiting the stadium with friends when an unidentified man punched him in the face. The teen victim says he was mildly teasing his friend, who is a Badgers fan, about the Iowa win. That’s when the suspect approached him, striking him in the face. The attack was unprovoked and the suspect then fled into the crowd.
Quoted: The UW-Madison police have put out a video to help educate students on what to do.
“So you know what it is you should do if you’re confronted with this terrible situation,” UWPD Chief Sue Riseling said.
The five-minute video recommends what to do steps by step. First, run if you can. . . .If all else has failed the police recommend fighting back.
“Don’t just sit and believe you’re going to talk your way out of this because you’re not. The folks who do active shooting are interested in one thing and that is death,” Riseling said.
Madison is seeing a huge spike in high-end apartment construction. And the high cost of those leases is one of the reasons why UW Housing said more students want to live in the dorms.
Dorms are a quintessential part of freshmen life but this year 1,300 sophomores, juniors and seniors are swiping back in to student housing, rather than private apartments.
University of Wisconsin Police are looking for help finding a man who attacked a 15-year-old Iowa fan after Saturday’s game at Camp Randall Stadium.
Police said the Iowa fan was leaving the stadium with friends after the game when an unidentified man punched him in the face. The teen told police he was mildly teasing his friend, a Badger fan, about the Iowa win, when the attacker approached him and struck him in the face.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin has the advantage of having its own force. Chief Sue Riseling has her team run smaller active-shooter drills four times a year and bigger simulations every few years.
“We’ve practiced at the Kohl Center, this last time we practiced at Camp Randall, we keep trying to move the venue around because we’re never quite sure what venue it’s going to be when and if God forbid the days actually come,” she said.
A UW legend has passed away. According to a UW news release, Leon Varjian died in New Jersey of a suspected heart attack. He was 64 years old.
The man behind such famous Madison pranks as the 1,000 pink flamingos on Bascom Hill and the Statue of Liberty head on frozen Lake Mendota has died. A relative says Leon Varjian (VAHR’-zhan) was found dead at his home in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, on Tuesday. He was 64.
Quoted: Sarah Bradley, clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology; Laurel Rice, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology.
A famous University of Wisconsin-Madison student prankster died suddenly in New Jersey Tuesday, according to a release from the university.
Leon Varjian is best known for putting a foam Statue of Liberty on a frozen Lake Mendota and 1,000 plastic pink flamingos on Bascom Hill.
The oldest federal student aid loan in the country got the ax in Congress Tuesday. A bill introduced by Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., to extend the Federal Perkins Loan was given unanimous support in the house, only to be shot down by Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., in the Senate. The decision effectively ended the program.
About a quarter of University of Wisconsin students rely on Perkins loans to help fund their education. Each year $9 million in those loans are distributed to low-income students. University officials said they are worried about what the end of the program will mean for current Badgers that benefit from it.
(Video) UWPD drug detection dog Casey checks the News 3 studio for narcotics to promote this Sunday’s Dog Jog on the UW campus.
No mention of UW-Madison but a germane and particularly good examination of the use of fetal tissue in research: The National Institutes of Health alone funds about $76 million in fetal cell research each year. This type of scientific study has gone on for decades.
A scientist at UW-Madison says while there’s been proof of water on Mars for almost 20 years, Monday’s announcement could determine whether there’s life on Mars.
“We had suspected that there was some ice underneath the surface that was melting and causing the water to flow down the slopes,” said Dr. Sanjay Limaye, a Distinguished Senior Scientist at UW-Madison. “I think most people had accepted that fact the fact that scientists can prove it that it is liquid water that is substantial.”
Some of America’s greatest innovations have come from garages, or basements. The makerspace called Garage Physics at UW-Madison is both.
It’s giving young scientists like Felix Tsao the ability to reach for something brand new. “It’s like a virtual reality project where basically it extends a digital experience to your vision,” said Tsao.
Quoted: Duncan Carlsmith, professor of physics.
In the second half of the show, UW Foundation President and CEO Mike Knetter talked to host Greg Neumann about a $250 million donation that will go towards faculty endowments.
Those with UWPD say it’s no secret, a late start adds extra hours of drinking and usually means more work for officers.
“Night games bring a unique challenge to us,” UWPD, public information officer, Marc Lovicott, said.
A challenge those UWPD say they’re ready for.
“It could lead to and we’re expecting to lead to a few more fan issues inside the stadium,” Lovicott added.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren visited Madison this weekend.
Warren stopped by UW-Madison to rally voters in support of former senator Russ Feingold, who’s running for his old seat again, which was taken by Sen. Ron Johnson in 2010.
A new group on campus is trying to tackle the issue of sexual assault, by encouraging men to be part of the solution.
“We’re Better Than That”- Men Against Sexual Assault is a relatively new group on campus and so is their approach to tackling to tackling the problem.
“We want men to take on this issue of sexual assault, but we want them to take it on no because they feel compelled but because they feel like it’s their responsibility,” said Hasan Nadeem, one of the group’s founding members. “It’s their issue.”
Noted: A study from the University of Wisconsin found that a person’s chances at a callback interview for an entry-level job dropped by 50% when that applicant had a criminal history. And much like the criminal justice system itself, re-entry employment discrimination has a disparate impact on Americans of color.
That same study found that while 17% of whites with a criminal record were given a call back, only 5% of African Americans were given that same opportunity to continue in the interview process.
[The study in question is “The Mark of a Criminal Record,” a 2002 sociology dissertation by Devah Pager later published in the American Journal of Sociology. Pager is now a professor at Harvard.]
(Video) University of Wisconsin police focus on safety during Badgers’ first night football game of the season.
A power outage affected “a significant amount” of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus Saturday, an official said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison communications spokesman Chris Barncard said the extent and cause of the power outage wasn’t clear at about noon but crews were working to restore power.
UW-Madison police spokesman Marc Lovicott said the department received reports of loss of power at about 11:15 a.m. The outage was focused on the southwestern portion of campus.
Noted: “There’s nothing to replace those funds. There aren’t institutional loans to cover that kind of money,” UW-Madison Associate Financial Aid Director Michelle Curtis said.” A couple of thousand dollars helps pay your housing. Buys your books. Buys a lot of food.”
Curtis said her office is now urgently reaching out to 389 students who have not signed up yet for assistance this year, and would immediately lose this loan if they do not sign up by the time the program is set to expire Thursday.
