Cellular Dynamics International, the company started by UW-Madison stem cell pioneer James Thomson, has raised another $30 million in private financing. Just last year, the company raised more than $40 million; the latest financing brings the total to $100 million since 2004. CDI makes human heart cells for use by medical researchers and drug development companies.
Quoted: Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management at the UW-Madison School of Business.
…Walker is mugging Wisconsin?s educational tradition. He has proposed cuts of nearly $1 billion in state aid to local school districts while capping their levels of taxation. Apparently he is supporting the idea of spinning the university off from the state system, largely because he now will include all university employees as part of his ?250,000 new jobs.? The state and municipalities have yet to see the impact of his program on recruiting and retaining good teachers. The outcome is all too apparent.
Life goes on. The grass is sprouting on the trampled grounds at the state Capitol, the Legislature is in recess and the governor wants nothing less than a do-over of the 20th century. Meanwhile, killing the bargaining rights of teachers, providing a one-sided grievance and disciplinary process and reducing their incomes apparently are vital parts of the governor?s plan to open the state for ?business.?
(Stanley Kutler, a UW-Madison professor emeritus. This column first appeared on Truthdig.com.)
I?m guessing most people who heard about the study last week showing UW-Madison generates some $12.4 billion in state economic activity and supports 128,146 jobs annually didn?t exactly smack their foreheads in surprise. Likewise, they probably wouldn?t have done any head-smacking if the numbers were $5 billion or $20 billion, or if the (surprisingly specific) jobs numbers had been a few thousand higher or lower. Massive numbers about huge institutions and the complicated means by which they are arrived at tend to produce a numbing effect on the human brain.
Though its regulatory powers have been watered down over the past few decades, the Public Service Commission is still the body that provides a check on basic telephone rate increases and, among other things, makes sure that people?s heat is not turned off during cold Wisconsin winters because of unpaid utility bills. That?s why some find former state lawmaker Phil Montgomery?s appointment to chair the Public Service Commission hard to swallow.
Quoted: UW-Madison telecommunications professor Barry Orton
A new report says that UW-Madison generates more than $12 billion a year in economic activity in Wisconsin and supports nearly 130,000 jobs across the state. The school?s chancellor says those numbers are a good reason for the campus to have more independence.
MILWAUKEE — Some members of the State Employees Union are warning businesses in Wisconsin to either support collective bargaining for public employees or face a boycott.A letter from Council 24 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees asks businesses to express support by displaying a sign in their window. The letter said failing to support the union will mean a public boycott of the business. It also said that neutral means ?no? to supporting the union.
UW-Madison and affiliated organizations contribute $12.4 billion annually to Wisconsin?s economy, according to a new study, the first of its kind in eight years. The report, conducted by Madison-based NorthStar Economics Inc., found that the university, UW Hospital and Clinics and related groups support 128,146 jobs. The results come as UW-Madison officials seek to affirm the university?s importance to the state in the face of a $125 million budget cut under Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed two-year state budget.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison released a report Wednesday claiming that the campus contributes $12.4 billion to the state economy, as officials argued for flexibility measures in the next state budget to preserve that impact. The NorthStar Economics study also credits the university for creating, directly or indirectly, some 128,000 jobs across the state.
On April 5, voters in Madison and in Dane County will have a chance to begin reclaiming their democratic voice. In 2010, by the barest of majorities, the United States Supreme Court decided that private corporations could spend unlimited and unregulated amounts of their corporate funds to influence American elections. The case, ?Citizens United v. FEC,? was based on the ideas that corporations are just like real people when it comes to having constitutional rights, and that money is the equivalent of speech.
(Michael Olneck is a UW-Madison professor emeritus of educational policy studies)
MADISON ? The University of Wisconsin-Madison released a report Wednesday claiming that the campus contributes $12.4 billion to the state economy, as officials argued for flexibility measures in the next state budget to preserve that impact.
The Design Committee for the Memorial Union Reconstruction met Monday to approve designs and make recommendations to the team of two architectural firms selected for the project.
The Wisconsin Center for Education Products and Services is being established at UW-Madison to help license and market educational products and services created by faculty and staff that cannot be patented but may be copyrighted. The products may include testing programs, educational computer games and statistical processing. The center plans to play a role parallel to that of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which works to license and sell technology developed at UW-Madison.
For decades the theory that farmers are getting old and there are no young people taking over has been a popular subject of discussion presented by so-called ag experts. However, the line of young people waiting to take over the home farm or set out on their own career in farming or agribusiness is long and enthusiastic.
The recent 15th Badger Invitational Holstein heifer sale hosted by the UW-Madison Badger Dairy Club is a showcase of good dairy cattle and the 75 or so students who put the event together.
City Council candidates from four downtown districts worked to distinguish themselves on key neighborhood and city issues, from the city budget to the downtown entertainment district, at a forum Thursday night.
The Chronicle of Higher Education posted a short Q & A with Duke professor Charles Clotfelter, who just published a new book titled “Big-Time Sports in American Universities.” The cover of the book features a packed Camp Randall Stadium on a Badgers football game day.
….In his book, Clotfelter said he tries to explain to readers what role commercial sports play at American universities, and what the costs and benefits associated with big-time athletics are.
UW-Madison is embarking on an external study to look for areas where the university could function more cheaply, effectively and efficiently. There are no cost estimates yet for the contract that university leaders signed with Huron Consulting Group earlier this month. Instead, the company will bill the university on an hourly basis, giving the university flexibility on how much it wants to spend, said Darrell Bazzell, vice chancellor for administration.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison signed off on a deal earlier this month which asks the Huron Consulting Group to study if the university is running as efficiently and effectively as possible. There is no estimate for how much this project might cost the university at this time, said Darrell Bazzell, UW-Madison?s vice chancellor for administration. However, university administrators told faculty leaders in September that such an endeavor could cost upwards of $3 million. Taxpayer dollars will not be used to pay for the project, said Bazzell.
All the city approvals are in place for a new four-story 44-unit apartment at 424 W. Mifflin St. Now, developer Pat McCaughey just needs to line up the financing.
Leadership of St. Paul?s University Catholic Center announced Monday they are considering reducing the scope of their proposed 14-story, $45 million facility to be located on the State Street Mall.
Quoted: Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management at the UW-Madison School of Business.
The State Building Commission approved the governor?s capital budget recommendations las Wednesday, which detail public building construction and maintenance funding to generate economic activity and jobs.
They went public within three months of each other, each with a host of eager investors buying into the promise of their radiation therapy systems.
Four years later, one is about to swallow the other.Accuray Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., said this month it will purchase TomoTherapy Inc. for about $277 million.
Farmland will be less expensive to develop and harder for farm families to permanently protect under a series of proposals in Gov. Scott Walker?s budget. The governor?s plans to eliminate the farmland conversion fee and a farmland preservation program still in its infancy gut key components of the Working Lands Initiative. The moves hand developers a victory and deal conservationists and those who want to keep farmland in the family a blow.
….The WSJ promotes watching basketball as a means of ?pulling us together? is a case in point. A reminder that the owners (media included) are encouraging us to go back to sleep, believing in the American Dream — a euphemism for the American Nightmare. The busting of unions, the raiding (of the Employee Trust Fund) are problems we must confront — awake.
Three stem cell researchers have been awarded the annual Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research for their pioneering work in human stem cells. The winners announced Wednesday are Elaine Fuchs of Rockefeller University in New York City; James A. Thomson of the private, nonprofit Morgridge Institute for Research and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health; and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco.
Quoted: Paul D. Mitchell, associate professor in the Agricultural and Applied Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dear Editor: For many of us the last month has been a surreal roller coaster ride. We?ve seen the highs of being part of historic protests surrounded by so many of Wisconsin?s hard-working citizens, followed by the lows of watching the governor and his followers strip the rights of those same citizens. We are so proud of the public employees of the state of Wisconsin. Many of them have had a significant portion of their income and dignity stripped from them in the past week and yet they responded by turning out in record numbers for a peaceful protest this weekend. We were proud to join them.
WASHINGTON ? Two months ago, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker invited businesses in Illinois to ?escape to Wisconsin? as a result of the recently enacted tax increases in Illinois. Admittedly, I don?t know whether Walker?s offer has been effective. My own experience, though, as a business executive and as a governor, tells me that businesses are interested in a lot more than a low tax rate when they decide where to locate.
New owners have surfaced for the long-dormant boutique hotel project across from Camp Randall Stadium. Red Hospitality LLC of Houston, Texas announced Monday that it would complete work on the 48-room “HotelRED” at the corner of Monroe and Regent streets. The goal is to open by this summer.
Dear Editor: The Wisconsin budget repair bill (AB 11) gives the secretary of the Department of Administration sole power to sell the state-owned power plants for any price without hearings, bids or oversight. Moreover, the bill would preclude the Public Service Commission from overseeing and approving the services and prices of the new owners. Such a sale exposes each of the 37 University of Wisconsin campuses, prisons, and health service facilities to great risk.
Once the darling of the Madison area high-tech scene, TomoTherapy has been sold to a Silicon Valley-based company in a deal both firms say will help them in the competitive medical devices space.
The new owner, subject to regulatory approval, is Accuray Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., which trades under the ARAY symbol. The firm has about 450 employees and sells the “CyberKnife system,” an image-guided radiosurgery system used for the treatment of solid tumors. TomoTherapy, a UW-Madison spin-off which has been struggling to turn a profit, has about 350 employees at its headquarters off Old Sauk Road.
TomoTherapy is likely to keep making its radiation therapy machines in Madison even after Accuray buys the company, but there could be other staff cuts, the head of the Sunnyvale, Calif., company hinted Monday. ? TomoTherapy, established in 1997 based on technology with UW-Madison roots, has a Hi-Art system that spirals around a patient firing radiation beams at cancerous tissue.
Madison-based TomoTherapy is being sold to Accuray in a deal valued at about $277 million, it was announced Monday. The companies signed a definitive agreement that calls for Accuray to buy TomoTherapy for $4.80 per share in cash and stock. The companies said the transaction will create a premier radiation oncology company.
(TomoTherapy was a university-based start-up company co-founded by UW-Madison researchers Rock Mackie and Paul Reckwerdt.)
TomoTherapy was
It is hard to know who is pulling the strings on the Walker/Fitzgerald puppet show, but someone other than Gov. Scott Walker and Family Fitzgerald has cooked up a radical agenda that just doesn?t seem like a ?Wisconsin idea.?
I would really like to know who drafted the manifesto. Seems more like the Koch brothers and the CATO Institute than Lee Dreyfus, Warren Knowles or Mike Ellis.It just doesn?t seem like it fits the definition of this ?special place? called Wisconsin as Bob La Follette described us. It isn?t John Muir, Aldo Leopold or John Bascom.
….Let us join together and declare they do not have the right to dispose of the great state university of Wisconsin. This is not a power plant ? it is the font of ideas and dreams. It is us. The real stakeholders are the people of this state and students of the future. Not David Koch.
If you like burning fossil fuels – hey, aren?t those Koch brothers in the pipeline business? – then you?ll love Gov. Walker?s proposed budget. The 1,345-pager takes a whack at scores of environmental efforts, from nixing the state Office of Energy Independence to actually encouraging state vehicles to use more gasoline.
Seriously, you can?t make this stuff up. And with pump prices marching toward $4 a gallon, you wonder if any thought went into the long-term fiscal impacts.
Sen. Glenn Grothman is hoping to introduce legislation that would guarantee those from the private sector have a much stronger voice in how the state?s 16 Wisconsin Technical College System districts operate. A draft of the legislation, which is being circulated by the Republican from West Bend, mandates that six of the nine members appointed to each college?s district board be “business persons.”
Add support for the arts to the list of items getting slashed under Gov. Walker?s proposed budget. The budget unveiled Tuesday calls for a 68 percent cut in state funding for the Wisconsin Arts Board while rolling the agency into the Department of Tourism.
Walker also wants to eliminate the Percent for Arts Program, which provides $500,000 annually for public art in new state buildings. Among the projects funded by the Percent for Arts program is the “Nails Tails” sculpture in front of Camp Randall Stadium.
Quoted: Harry Argue, a former banking executive and retired president of the Graduate School of Banking at UW-Madison.
Run by three UW-Madison students, local online ordering service BadgerBites.com has seen unprecedented traffic in the wake of demonstrations at the Capitol over the past two weeks.
The student government asked the Wisconsin Union to consider giving lifetime memberships to every student who graduates from the University of Wisconsin during a meeting Monday.
While hundreds of people protested on the sidewalk, a maintenance worker with Urban Land Interests stood Thursday outside the building housing the lobbying offices of Koch Industries, Inc. A security guard stood inside.
“We?re watching out for our tenants,” said the maintenance worker, who declined to be identified. “He is hired by us to keep people out of our building and to protect the privacy of our tenants – not necessarily for Koch, but our tenants in general,” he added, of the security guard. “We can?t have people walking through who don?t belong there.”
Economists continue to sift through Gov. Walker?s budget repair bill, wondering what impact a pay cut for thousands of public workers might have on the local business community. If workers have less disposable income in their pockets, the thinking goes, they?ll have less to spend on furniture, eating out or a new car.
One analysis released Wednesday by a UW-Madison Extension economist suggests that laying off 1,500 state employees, as Walker has threatened, would actually have less negative impact on the economy than subjecting some 350,000 public employees in Wisconsin to a 7.7 percent cut in take-home pay. That pay cut figure is based on employees contributing to their pensions and more to their health insurance.
Quoted: Steven Deller of Extension’s Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics
The Madison Vending Oversight Committee approved a proposal to improve football gameday vending regulations for safety purposes Wednesday.
A new smart phone application developed by three UW-Madison students can help shoppers find local products at a grocery store and learn more about them. The True Local iPhone app was launched Wednesday at Fresh Madison Market, the only store that has been licensed to use it. The app can scan a barcode, list local products by categories and provide coupons that can be scanned off the phone at checkout.
Former UW-Madison Business School dean Michael Knetter railed Tuesday against partisan politics, saying the rancor and uncertainty endangers the nation?s economic recovery. Knetter said it?s harder than in the past to predict how the economy will recover because of contentious politics and what he calls “policy uncertainty.”
No wonder Gov. Walker was in such a hurry to get his budget repair bill passed. Every day new stuff comes out about it. The labor issues were obvious and got all the attention for a while. But then people started uncovering the fact that the bill would hand the Walker administration sweeping powers to revamp Medicaid with little public and legislative input. Now a third piece of the 144-page bill is making headlines ? a power grab some critics believe could be political payback to the conservative Koch brothers.
FluGen, of Madison, has received $7.8 million to begin human clinical trials, probably this fall, of its product: a painless, microneedle skin patch the size of a poker chip that will be used to deliver vaccines against influenza and other illnesses. Its technology is licensed through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
The UW Athletic Board approved a $2 ticket price increase for men?s hockey tickets and a budget proposal of $93.4 million for the 2011-?12 season Friday.
University of Wisconsin athletic officials grappled with adopting a budget for the 2011-2012 year of competition in the midst of uncertainty surrounding state budget cuts to the UW as a whole.
The city?s Alcohol License Review Committee voted Wednesday night to extend an ordinance aimed to limit the growth of new taverns in the student-heavy Downtown district and reverse an uptick in alcohol-related violent crime. The alcohol license density ordinance, passed by the City Council in 2007 and scheduled to sunset on March 5, was extended to July 5 and will be up for a final council vote at the March 1 meeting.
File this one under either the A) it could be worse category or B) coming soon from a legislator near you.
Should Gov. Scott Walker focus on cutting state spending ? rather than raising taxes ? to balance Wisconsin?s $3 billion-plus shortfall? The state?s fiscal house is in trouble. That is undeniable. Suggestions to balance the books through large-scale cuts to the university, however, are misguided. Every dollar spent on the UW returns $21 into the state?s economy, according the 2010 NorthStar Economic Impact Study of UW-Madison.
Students can expect construction on the new Gordon Commons and Lakeshore residence hall to begin in the coming weeks as part of a vast University of Wisconsin Division of Housing plan to overhaul the campus neighborhoods.
STEVENS POINT ? A recently completed gig called Voices of Rural Wisconsin sent me to all corners of the state and points between for conversations with rural folks. The project, sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, was simple in scope: We asked participants to talk about their life experiences and to envision what is needed to ensure a healthy future for rural Wisconsin.
….As state and local elected officials deal with tough budget challenges in the coming days, one can only hope they?ll recognize the value of this outreach arm of the UW System.
Of the 150 or so people in the room attending the annual Quality Milk Conference in Madison this week, most were employees of dairy processing plants across the state. They were members of the Wisconsin Association of Dairy Plant Field Representatives. These are people who are milk quality experts who work closely with dairy producers to ensure that milk meets the highest standards for consumption in the form of milk, cheese, ice cream and a wide array of dairy products.
Biddy Martin?s actions to hire a firm for what is estimated to be $3 million dollars is not the wise way of figuring out how to save money.
President Obama has appealed to the goodwill of the business community, asking the Chamber of Commerce to do its patriotic duty and hire more workers. Gov. Walker has proclaimed Wisconsin “Open for Business” and is offering up tax breaks for companies that add more employees. He has also vowed to reduce regulation.
But ask local businesses what matters most and they will tell you: it?s the revenue, stupid.
After the arrival of Greyhound Bus Lines caused the the elimination of several parking spaces along Langdon Street throughout the past several weeks, city officials have intervened to begin solving the controversy.
As the University of Wisconsin invokes the Wisconsin Idea to justify its growing scientific collaboration with corporate America, and the once famously publicly oriented government of Wisconsin declares itself ?open for business,? it may help to revisit the true spirit of Wisconsin?s progressive idea.
In 1912 Charles McCarthy, head of the state?s Legislative Reference Bureau, wrote a short book explaining ?The Wisconsin Idea,? the state?s innovative effort to counteract a growing corporate tyranny.
