The Student Labor Action Coalition hosted a protest and sit-in at Bascom Hall Thursday to demand Chancellor David Ward cut ties with Palermo?s Pizza Company, citing allegations of labor violations.
On Tuesday, Madison?s City Council approved a project that will build a six-story apartment building where the soon-to-be demolished Stadium Bar is currently located.
MADISON ? One of China?s oldest and biggest medicine companies agreed Monday to sell only genuine Wisconsin ginseng at its 1,800 retail stores, an estimated $200 million deal that was finalized during Gov. Scott Walker?s trade mission to the world?s second-largest economy.
The UW-Madison School of Pharmacy has experts at every level of drug development ? from the lab bench to clinical testing to use in the real world. And those experts are available to help companies large and small, the school?s dean told a state bioscience industry meeting of the trade group BioForward on Wednesday.
Ken Kavajecz was named the next dean of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina announced Friday morning. Kavajecz is currently chair for the Department of Finance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is also a professor of finance. He will begin his time as dean in July.
?It?s wrong to profit from wrecking the planet.? So says Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. Climate change has become, front and center, a moral issue: Will human society turn away from burning fossil fuels in time to prevent catastrophic changes to the Earth?s climate, human society and the ecosystem? What kind of world will we leave for future generations?
MADISON ? The State of Wisconsin Investment Board?s announcement this week that it would help capitalize an early-stage venture capital fund focused on information technology had a bit of a ?Bachelor? feel to it.
Students called for Interim Chancellor David Ward to cut the University of Wisconsin?s ties with Palermo?s Pizza at an administration luncheon on Wednesday in an ongoing workers? rights dispute which has sparked controversy from student groups.
The Wisconsin Energy Institute, which represents the sustainable and collaborative research it houses to find new ways to reduce and conserve energy, will open to the public in early April.
City Council approved plans Tuesday to demolish three downtown apartments and build new student-oriented housing in its place.
PricewaterhouseCoopers US is donating more than $1 million to the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Business. The money will pay for a professorship and support programs for students.
PricewaterhouseCoopers presented the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school with over $1.1 million Wednesday to help pay for another professor within the school and programs to support students.
In my column this week, retired business executive and University of Wisconsin-Madison alum Thomas Hefty contended that UW has under-performed in helping re-engineer the Wisconsin economy.
A city committee convened for the first time in nearly a year to begin making plans for reconstruction of the 700 and 800 blocks of State Street.
A Minneapolis-based real estate company released its final proposal for the apartment building slated to replace the Stadium Bar Wednesday.
Fenaba Addo, a fellow at the University of Wisconsin, recently took a look at the mating habits of college graduates to determine if their tuition bill financing methods impacted their future romantic lives. The result? Ladies with student loans, it appears, are less likely to marry than their gal pals lacking debt. Men still paying their college tuition bills suffer no such fate.
The University of Wisconsin?s Athletic Board approved an increased budget in their meeting Friday, in addition to announcing major changes to football scheduling for upcoming seasons.
Construction of Madison?s first new general hospital in about 35 years is set to begin in April on the Far East Side, with preparations already under way.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Interim Chancellor David Ward released a statement Thursday updating campus groups about the university?s involvement with Palermo?s in light of a new report that claims the pizza company violated UW-Madison?s codes of conduct.
The vigil outside the chancellor?s house Wednesday to protest the University of Wisconsin?s alleged exploitation of former Palermo?s Pizza employees appears not to have changed the status quo.
Frustrated Palermo?s Pizza employees and members of two workers? rights groups held a candle vigil outside the University of Wisconsin chancellor?s mansion Wednesday to protest alleged university code of conduct violations.
A new study released by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity CCAP reveals 48% of recent college graduates are working in jobs that dont require a college diploma. While 38% of people surveyed are working in jobs that dont require a high school diploma.
Community members voiced their concerns and support at a neighborhood meeting Wednesday as yet another high-rise apartment building looks to make its way into downtown Madison.
With Wisconsin closing out 2012 as one of the worst states for job creation, critics are once again rapping the UW-Madison for failing to turn its research dollars into new companies that could offer jobs.
As you pull on your jersey or take a sip from your favorite UW mug in preparation for the 2013 Rose Bowl, remember every Bucky Badger and Motion W has a grand purpose: real need-based financial aid for UW-Madison students.
The success of University of Wisconsin athletics is driving record sales of UW merchandise, according to Cindy Van Matre, UW trademark and licensing director.
Wisconsin, we?ve still got a problem. Despite private businesses receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, tax credits and other incentives since the 2007 recession, the state?s economy continues to sputter…The Center on Wisconsin Strategy in its latest “Wisconsin Job Watch” says the state remains down 161,000 jobs since the 2007 recession as well as lacking another 86,500 jobs needed to keep up with population growth since then….”It’s not just that we’re giving out so much money to business, it’s that our job creation remains so much worse than the rest of the nation,” says Laura Dresser, associate director of COWS, a liberal UW-Madison economic think tank.
A key legislator is asking state and UW-Madison officials to review the process through which a subcontractor was selected to build a new scoreboard and sound system at Camp Randall Stadium, to see if the jobs should be rebid. Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, chairman of the state Assembly?s Committee on Colleges and Universities, ?is very concerned with the appearance of how this bidding process worked out,? said Mike Mikalsen, Nass? spokesman.
Cellular Dynamics International (CDI), Madison, has agreed to license stem cell patents from GE Healthcare Life Sciences. Terms of the arrangement were not disclosed. GE Healthcare has had a long-term agreement, recently expanded, to license the stem cell technology developed by Geron Corp., a biopharmaceutical company in Menlo Park, Calif.
A UW-Extension manager with a wealth of experience working with county government was named Monday as the next general manager of Wisconsin Farm Technology Days Inc. Matt Glewen, 56, who has worked for the UW-Extension for the past 32 years, said he is excited to lead an organization that must decide soon whether to continue to hold its show at a different county each year or create a permanent location.
An idea for a printable prosthetic hand, first dreamed up when Eric Ronning was bored during an entry-level freshman engineering course, has now been recognized with a national inventors prize for the UW-Madison junior, who?s also parlayed it into a start-up company. “I feel like you could change the world with this idea,” said Ronning, a mechanical engineering major from the Chicago suburbs, in a university release. “And that?s what keeps me going.”
A contractor hired by the state to manage a $76.8 million renovation of Camp Randall Stadium agreed to accept a higher bid for a new scoreboard over a competing offer that an outside consultant advised was of better quality. The contractor, J.P. Cullen & Sons of Janesville, is a listed subcontractor on the winning bid, for which it stands to receive more than a half-million dollars.
A large Downtown Madison Catholic church wants to convert a historic school building on its property into rental housing for college students, three years after a different housing proposal by the church hit snags and was abandoned. The latest proposal by leaders of Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, 120 W. Johnson St., would turn the former Holy Redeemer School into apartments at an estimated cost of $4.2 million, according to Monsignor Kevin Holmes, Holy Redeemer?s priest….The student housing would be open to anyone but targeted especially for students of St. Paul’s University Catholic Center on the UW-Madison campus, Holmes said. St. Paul’s recently had to eliminate a student housing component to its proposed new building due to concerns over the building’s mass and height.
If you want to sell a T-shirt with Barry?s name on it, either shell out for a royalty fee or wait until after the Rose Bowl. That?s what Sconnie Nation found out. On the heels of Barry Alvarez?s announcement that he would coach the Badgers at the Rose Bowl, the printing shop, located on State Street, put shirts reading ?Barry Knows,? and ?Keep Calm and Barry On? up for sale, as well as a third shirt that referenced the Rose Bowl, but didn?t use Alvarez?s name. That was on Thursday. By Friday, the shirts were pulled.
Quoted: Trademark Licensing Director Cindy Van Matre and Financial Aid Director Susan Fischer
Jan Marshall Fox calls the home of her great-grandparents a ?touchstone.? ?Every time I?m in the neighborhood and drive past it, I think about how it used to be.? That corner house at 201 S. Mills St. was torn down by J.H. Findorff & Son on Wednesday to make way for a day care center for the children of nearby Meriter Hospital employees. Fox, who turned 78 on Sunday, said the house belonged to her great-grandparents, Henry and Ella Pickford, who sold their Monticello farm and moved to Madison around 1887 so their two daughters could attend UW-Madison. The emphasis on education has continued through the generations, and Fox notes her daughter, Erica Fox Gehrig, was the fourth generation of women in her family to graduate from UW.
….Most vocal was UW-Madison Police Chief Sue Riseling, who called her objections “a size issue, a noise issue, and a huge parking issue,” and said she couldn?t envision anything higher than four stories in the location next to the UW police station. “Forty spaces? That?s crazy. I don?t even want to think about game day,” she said, referencing UW football Saturdays, which bring 80,000 people into the neighborhood. “There is nothing about that block that says eight stories makes any sense? I just think it?s completely out of proportion for that block.”
A neighborhood meeting Thursday night allowed students and city residents to voice their opinions about the unknown future of the Stadium Bar.
A university architect detailed the process of planning future construction projects on the University of Wisconsin campus at a Thursday-evening talk.
At a public meeting Thursday night UW-Madisons Police Chief Susan Riseling and others criticized plans to replace Madisons Stadium Bar with an eight-story building with apartments and commercial space.
Two Madison labor groups released a new kind of dining guide Tuesday that rates 139 central Madison restaurants on how they treat workers. The guide awards up to seven stars based on factors such as starting wages, health insurance coverage and sick pay. Food quality doesn?t play a role. The big winners: Ian?s Pizza, Ancora Coffee, the Dayton Street Grille, the Plaza Tavern, all of the Food Fight restaurants and the numerous public dining establishments operated by UW-Madison.
Madison craft brewer Ale Asylum has more than doubled its staff this year and online apparel retailer Shopbop has added 50 employees, mostly in Madison. But they are the exception to the rule. More Dane County businesses say they expect to show a profit for 2012 and their sales are higher than last year?s. But most have not added workers. Those results are part of the 2012 First Business Economic Survey being released Wednesday. “I?d call this a positive report,” said Scott Converse, director, project management for the UW-Madison School of Business.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison chapter of the Climate Action 350 and Madison residents joined in a protest Monday presenting the UW Foundation with more than 1,200 petition signatures requesting the foundation end its investment in fossil fuels to help decrease the threat of climate change. Climate Action 350-UW is a student group that works to reduce climate change resulting from the unsafe amount of carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere, according to UW-Madison junior Emmy Burns.
Palermo?s Pizza reached a settlement agreement Friday with the National Labor Relations Board acknowledging it committed labor law violations, following allegations of labor practice violations from employees. The agreement came after workers from Palermo?s factories went on strike, accusing the pizza company of unlawfully firing workers for their attempts to unionize, as well as over immigrant audit threats.
Going to the Rose Bowl: once-in-a-lifetime or not again? It?s a question facing many Wisconsin Badger fans, who so far have appeared a bit tepid in booking tickets to Pasadena, Calif., for this year?s edition of the New Year?s Day game. “I don?t want to say the frost is off the pumpkin but this is the third year they?ve gone,” said Michael Lee, owner of Concorde Travel. His company, which again is selling all-inclusive trips for about $2,300 a person, had received about 40 calls about booking trips by Monday afternoon, he said.
MADISON, Wis.- Madison city alder Scott Resnick, representing District 8, said there is a committee looking into the need for high-rise student housing around the city and the impact of those residences on surrounding neighborhoods. As discussions continue about potential redevelopment of the Stadium Bar property on Monroe Street, Resnick said the city continues to look at housing markets and how many student apartments may be too many around town. Resnick adds that students are often looking to be close to campus no matter the cost.
Downtown Madison?s rental housing boom is continuing with a $40 million-plus, 12-story project being proposed for a third of a city block near State Street. Developer David Schutz is seeking to demolish three existing apartment buildings to construct a project with 320 to 340 apartments and 215 underground parking spaces catering to students and young professionals on the 400 blocks of West Dayton and West Johnson streets and the 200 block of North Broom Street.
The Search and Screen Committee for the next University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor met with Madison community members earlier this week to further its outreach efforts to university constituencies, according to the committee?s chair David McDonald. McDonald said the committee met Wednesday with the greater Madison city and business community because the university relies heavily on its support and partnership.
The Milwaukee Common Council voted Wednesday to support University of Wisconsin-Madison activist groups in urging Chancellor David Ward to terminate the university?s contract with adidas.
Madison is home to tons of history and sentimental hotspots. We have the big ones such as the Capitol, Memorial Union, Bascom Hill and many others. However, it?s the smaller, more unnoticed areas that are under attack. Real estate developers have made plans to destroy the Stadium Bar on Monroe Street and put a six-story apartment complex in its place. The Minneapolis-based OPUS Group plans to create a complex with retail space on the first floor and five floors of apartments. This brings the entire building to a total of 100 units and 150 bedrooms with 40 underground parking spaces.While it is extremely important that every student finds a place to live while attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this continual construction of more and more apartment complexes is getting out of control.
The University of Washington and Rutgers University announced plans Tuesday to cut ties with adidas following allegations of labor violations from a factory contracted by the apparel company, a move some members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison have encouraged Interim Chancellor David Ward to pursue. The issue began January 2011 when a factory contracted by adidas suddenly shut down without compensating over 2,700 workers. Since then, other colleges and universities, including Cornell and Oberlin, have cut ties with the company for violating contracts with the schools to ensure all workers are paid.
America needs more workers with expertise in science and math. America needs more entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to start businesses and create jobs here. And that?s why America needs Congress to pass the bipartisan Startup Act 2.0 bill ? with or without a larger package of immigration reforms. The proposal would provide more visas to foreign students who graduate from American universities with advanced degrees in science, math, technology and engineering.
One of Madison?s most storied Camp Randall-area watering holes is facing the wrecking ball. Plans are in the works to demolish the Stadium Bar at 1419 Monroe St. and replace it with a six-story mixed-used student apartment complex. The tavern operated for decades as Jingles Stadium Bar before being sold by owner Bill ?Jingles? O?Brien in 1999 for $200,000. O?Brien died in 2010 at age 86. A public meeting on the proposed project is scheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m. at Union South.
I am not a Black Friday kind of person. Nor do I see myself partaking of any of the increasingly popular shopping opportunities on Thanksgiving Day ? which I am christening Bloated Thursday, as much as for the swelling of the lines at the mall as for the gas and indigestion I imagine one experiences during a sale-crazed shopping spree immediately following a meal big enough to feed a small African village.
“For families with healthy emotional connections and constructive, mature communication, any opportunity to engage in a joint activity such as shopping will generally be experienced as pleasurable, even when stressful,” said Darald Hanusa, a senior lecturer in social work at UW-Madison. But he emphasized it’s not the shopping that makes for happy families; it’s the happy families that make for pleasant shopping.
Q: How will the Chamber become policy proactive?
A: After one year on the City Council, in 2004, Mark Bugher (then chairman of the city’s economic development commission) and I initiated a report on how to make Madison more business-friendly. I think we’re at that point again….Madison is an under-performing city, based on its potential. It’s about the right leaders, the right vision. There’s a significant overhaul in our leadership system now, with a new school superintendent, UW-Madison chancellor, U.S. senator and U.S. representative coming in and a new leader of Thrive (the eight-county regional economic development organization). People are not entrenched; they will be willing to think differently.
….The Wall Street Journal this past week called the SWIB purchase the most expensive college campus housing purchase on record. It also referenced the American Campus Communities Inc.?s $165 million purchase of an Austin, Texas, student housing property known as ?The Block.? The presence of UW-Madison has led to similar ? though not as large ? high-end complexes for millennial college students here, like Grand Central and Lucky Apartments. Vicki Hearing, spokeswoman for the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, says the pension fund purchased the dormitory in large part because of its value as a rental property.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan H. ?Bud? Selig will give the keynote address for Ethics Week to Wisconsin School of Business students and faculty Tuesday, focusing on ethics and professionalism in the business world. The 1956 UW-Madison alumnus has served as the MLB Commissioner since 1988 and will discuss his efforts to build ethical principles within the Milwaukee Brewers organization and MLB?s headquarters.
A regional labor relations board?s decision that Palermo?s did not violate workers? rights in firing a group of employees will likely not change student labor activists? approach to the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s ties with the pizza company, one activist said Sunday.
Madison officials mourned the loss of booming Epic Systems to Verona in the mid-2000s, but the medical software colossus is having a huge, unexpected impact on its original hometown. Smart, young Epic employees with cash in their pockets and an affinity for Madison?s culture, restaurants and nightlife are fueling demand for rental apartments in the Downtown area. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of visitors to the Epic campus are booking Madison-area hotel rooms, boosting city room tax revenues in a tough economy.
The anti-Black Friday shoppers didn?t have to line up in the cold outside of Best Buy or Toys R Us with their sprinting shoes on. They weren?t looking for the best deals on electronics or toys made in China. Dedicated to buying homemade gifts made locally, these shoppers simply moseyed through the UW Arboretum?s Visitor Center on Sunday looking over the mostly handmade arts, crafts and edibles sold by 41 vendors during the ?Close to Home: Arboretum Local Products Fair.?
Dick Leazer, one of the state?s first angel investors, has been named as the first inductee to the newly created Wisconsin Investor Hall of Fame.
Before starting the angel group, Leazer was managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the technology transfer arm of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Under Leazer, WARF for the first time took stock in a company instead of an upfront fee. The company, Third Wave Technologies Inc., later went public and became an example for other Wisconsin high-tech start-ups.
