MADISON â?? Allen Dines, assistant director at the UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations (OCR), is a veteran of the high-tech start-up world, having created and sold two biotech firms.
Before that, he worked for another company that was spun out of a UW-Madison research lab. Even earlier, he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton in Bethesda, MD as a high-tech consultant. (Audio.)
I’ve got an idea for those Saturday night football games that are scheduled solely for the benefit of corporate television.
Since the games are aimed at nothing more than padding the bottom lines of the networks and the NCAA’s Division 1 schools, then what could be more fair than sending them the bills for the costs incurred by the cities in which the universities are located?
Why should Disney-owned ABC, the NCAA, the Big Ten and the UW’s athletic department, for example, make a bunch of extra bucks while the taxpayers of Madison pick up the tab for extra cops, overstaffed detox centers, and the dozens of other added costs that those late games in college cities require?
Two dormitories are under immediate lockdown on the UW campus as police search for an armed robber who went into a UW administration building on Park Street.
Students and staff are asked to stay out of the area around 21 N. Park St., and students in Ogg and Smith halls are asked to find shelter in a safe place.
UW police issued an emergency campus alert at 12:15. People on the street around 21 N. Park should follow on-scene police instructions.
(Since this was written, the situation has been resolved. Fraboni’s Italian Deli was the robber’s target. )
Madison’s economy grew about three times faster than Milwaukee’s in the recovery from the last recession, although it remains less than half as large, according to a new set of government data released Wednesday.
A small Madison biotechnology company called Ratio is working to commercialize a painless way to administer drugs. The system, which is touted as being simpler and less expensive than others on the market, was invented by David Beebe, a UW-Madison professor of biomedical engineering, and his colleagues at UW-Madison and the University of Illinois.
Pottygoers looking for a loo after the Badger football game Saturday night won’t have to keep their legs crossed when eyeballing porta-potties inside closed and empty bar beer gardens.
The toilets can be used, according to Madison City Council President Mike Verveer, bringing relief to thousands of fans who might otherwise contemplate going behind bushes, cars, each other, etc. and risk getting not only embarassed and possibly wet shoes but city cop fines as well.
Even with the toilet reprieve, Stadium Bar owner Jim Luedtke is still upset his beer garden has to shut down before the game is over, which will result in a jammed-up Monroe Street as fans try to find their friends and family pouring out of Camp Randall stadium right across Monroe St. from the bar.
Dear Editor: It appears that the money changers are back in the temple — the Temple of Alvarez. As a Wisconsin sports fan for many, many years, and a football season ticket-holder for 37 years, I highly resented being unable to see a home game last Saturday.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A couple hundred students jammed into a University of Wisconsin-Madison building Thursday to protest Halliburton Co.’s recruiting at a campus job fair.
The protesters sat in front of the company’s booth, virtually blocking access to the its four recruiters. Engineering student and protest organizer Chris Dols led the group in song.
“I said, ‘From high to low, Halliburton got to go,'” the crowd sang.
The memory of William “Curly” Hendershot is alive and well on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
Hendershot was the Dow Chemical Co. recruiter whose 1967 visit here sparked one of the most important protests of the Vietnam War era. A sit-in against the company that made napalm used in Vietnam ended in a bloody clash with police that turned many students into radicals.
On Thursday, students plan to carry signs reading “Curly, off campus!” as they protest a recruiting visit by a company they see as a villain in the war in Iraq: Halliburton Co. Protesters plan to disrupt the company’s visit to an engineering career fair by discouraging students from talking to its representatives.
The Big Ten Network, the NFL Network and Fox Sports Net Wisconsin will soon be offered in high definition on DirecTV, as the satellite provider begins launching dozens of new HD channels.
Trade media have reported that Wednesday is a possible launch date for the first new HD channels.
The Big Ten Network vs. major cable TV providers.
The Citadel vs. Wisconsin.
What do these two matchups have in common?
Both are all about the money.
And both — um, how shall we put this — screw Joe Fan.
Not that the Big Ten Network, your cable provider or the UW truly care.
More than 230 national and international employers will network with UW-Madison students Monday night at the 2007 Fall Career Forum.
The Kauffman Foundation has already stepped into the Wisconsin scene by helping to get the Urban Entrepreneur Partnership going in Milwaukee by giving a $5 million grant to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of a five-year, $30 million program to make entrepreneurship available to all parts of the university, not just the business school.
The national housing sector is in serious trouble. That was one of the few unified messages Friday at the semiannual Economic Outlook Conference hosted by the UW-Madison School of Business at the Fluno Center.
MADISON â?? A top University of Wisconsin economist predicted today that the U.S. economy would slide into recession next year, led by the downturn in the housing market.
How severe that recession becomes remains to be seen, however, said Don Nichols, an emeritus professor of economics and former director of the LaFollete School of Public Affairs. He spoke as part of the universityâ??s semiannual economic forecast conference at the Fluno Center on the UW-Madison campus.
Dear Editor: When I found out that the superintendent of the University Ridge Golf Course was being replaced in September of 2006, I was surprised to say the least. When I found out that general manager Mike Urben and food and beverage manager Rick Schafel were forced to resign recently, I was floored.
I worked for these upstanding gentlemen from 1996 to 2004. I learned everything from having an upstanding work ethic to the nature of the golf business from these gentlemen. I’ve worked for three other golf facilities, and none compared to the operation and management that Mike and Rick instilled in their staff. They were looked up to and respected greatly by every member of their staff.
Wilson Miller is legally blind, but didn’t think that would stop him from getting a college education.
Think again.
He had trouble finding usable textbooks, a problem that, according to state officials, could affect as many as 10,000 students in the University of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Technical College systems who are blind, vision impaired or have other reading difficulties.
The UW-Citadel game is an emotional touchstone for Badgers fans because those who don’t have a ticket and don’t have the right cable provider will have to make special plans to watch it live. It’s expected that at least one more UW football game will be televised on the BTN this season.
UW-Madison economist Morris Davis doesn’t want to become known as the most bearish real estate pundit out there.
But considering past housing slumps and the depth of the current crisis, Davis isn’t looking for any recovery for at least another three years.
….Has there been any research to show what the alcohol industry means to the university in terms of financial support and student employment? If there is any doubt about the city of Madison’s position on the effects of alcohol — check out the Metro bus sporting the full body paint beer ad: “Drink Miller Genuine Draft!!!”
Now I know a suggestion to make the UW campus area a tavern- and alcohol advertising-free zone will be met with all kinds of sensible reasons why the idea is absurd. However, if the city of Madison, state of Wisconsin and University of Wisconsin were serious about the health of the students, and a vegetable, not alcohol, was the source of the ills, I think we would see a unified effort to rid the campus area of the product.
Scott Seyforth: I work for UW-Madison University Housing at four halls — Friedrick, Tripp, Adams and Slichter — as residence life coordinator. UW-Madison has a high population of transfer students and it ‘s my responsibility to coordinate programs at these halls to help students get to know each other and feel comfortable in the learning environment.
UW-Madison will host four economists during its semi-annual Economic Outlook Conference on Friday. The speakers will be Caroline Baum, a columnist for Bloomberg News; James F. Smith, a professor at Western Carolina University and author of the economic newsletter “Outlook “; Clare Zempel, an accountant and principal at Zempel Strategic; and Donald A. Nichols, professor emeritus of economics at UW-Madison.
The Big Ten Network will broadcast at least 20 games involving the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team this season, including the first seven, the university announced today.
That could be bad news for area fans, because negotiations to add the new network to the lineup for Charter Communications — the largest cable provider in Madison — remain at an impasse.
Wisconsin is about to gain some much-needed pharmacists.
Officials at Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon announced today that the university’s Board of Regents has approved funding to start a pharmacy school in the 2009-10 academic year.
The state currently has just one school of pharmacy, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That school graduates about 130 pharmacists annually, but more than three applicants apply for every available seat in the school, said UW-Madison Pharmacy Dean Jeanette Roberts.
Founded in 2000 by UW-Madison professors Nicholas Abbott, Christopher Murphy and Barbara Israel, Platypus has 21 employees and expects to add several more by the end of the year.
Madison, Wis. – Eric Singsaas is the kind of professor you might not expect to find at a University of Wisconsin System campus outside Madison or Milwaukee. He’s a Ph.D botanist and biochemist at UW-Stevens Point with expertise in the biological production of hydrocarbons ordinarily made by plants. That puts him on the cusp of the emerging biofuels industry, a potential source of economic growth for Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents had some good ideas Thursday for the UW System’s proposal to develop a “Strategic Framework to Advantage Wisconsin,” but the task force plan was pretty much set when the board got a presentation about it.
Seven task forces are to submit proposals to system President Kevin Reilly and his leadership team of system administrators and university chancellors, who in turn will present to the regents in February a five-year plan for the future based on the input.
The task forces are to deal with topics aimed at planning how Wisconsin can thrive in a global economy with the help of the University of Wisconsin.
Perhaps Charter Communications will be next for the Big Ten Network.
BTN on Thursday announced that it had reached an agreement with EchoStar Communications to be carried on its DISH Network satellite TV service. DISH is the No. 2 satellite provider behind DirecTV.
The deal increases BTN’s reach from about 17 million households to about 28.5 million. In the eight Big Ten states, the number of households increases from about 3.5 million to about 6.2 million. EchoStar does not release numbers by local market.
BTN remains mired in stalemated negotiations with the nation’s top cable companies, including Madison area provider Charter and Milwaukee area provider Time Warner. BTN does have deals with more than 120 smaller cable companies.
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison continue to go wireless, and show increasing concern over computer security according to the most recent survey of student technology trends.
The report, released this week and conducted online through the school’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT) with about 350 students last spring, shows that more than three quarters (77 percent) of students own a laptop, up from 64 percent in 2006. As a result, reliance on campus wireless network connections increase. Wireless access was up from 30 percent in 2006 to 50 percent in 2007, according to the survey.
Meanwhile, a recent survey of faculty and staff technology trends at UW-Madison revealed that nearly 60 percent use a laptop, more than double the 29 percent in 2006, and 49 percent use a cell phone, up from 20 percent reported last year.
….This Legislature shouldn’t always be looking for new ways to close the doors on higher education. Let’s swing them open and make sure the sons and daughters of Wisconsin’s hard-working families have the opportunity to earn an affordable college degree.
If we’re serious about growing our economy and bringing new jobs to the Badger State, we better get serious about the University of Wisconsin.
….Investing in the University of Wisconsin and making college more affordable and accessible should be values everyone in the Legislature shares.
Fans hoping for a breakthrough in negotiations between Charter Communications and the Big Ten Network seemingly will grasp at any straw.
One favorite theory of bloggers involves the pending deal in which News Corp. is selling its 38.4 percent stake in DirecTV, regional sports networks FSN Pittsburgh, FSN Northwest and FSN Rocky Mountain, and more than $500 million in cash to Liberty Media in exchange for Liberty’s 19 percent voting interest in News Corp.
Quoted: UW-Madison telecommunications professor Barry Orton
Virent Energy Systems, a UW-Madison spinoff company with a new type of renewable fuels technology, is powering up after receiving $21 million in venture financing.
Dear Editor: Charter Communications has been under fire from some subscribers as well as some local media for its inability to close a deal with the Big Ten Network. That may be a bit unfair when one considers an article from AP that appeared in the Aug. 26 edition of a Quad Cities newspaper.
Critics on Wall Street have often quipped that the Ford Motor Co. is not a car company with health care problems but a health care company with car trouble. Strangely, the universities of the Big Ten sports conference seem to be in danger of falling prey to a similar problem as they launch an expensive new sports channel: becoming a publicly funded sports franchise with classrooms.
Name: Connie Nadler
Age: 44
Occupation: Director of LearningRx, 37 Kessel Court
Web site: www.learningrx.com
I am a personal brain trainer. As the director of LearningRx, a company that helps people of all ages learn better, I provide individualized one-on-one training to improve cognitive skills such as auditory and visual processing, memory, attention and reasoning.
I earned my degrees in audiology and speech language pathology from UW-Madison in 2003.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Business is unique, say its administrators, for its specialized courses in the second year. Students can focus on disciplines from brand management to entrepreneurship. Some students who responded to the 2007 BusinessWeek survey praised the school for its practical, applied lessons and personalized touches.
The university that produces the most blue chip CEOs and university professors, the most Peace Corps volunteers, and the most productive and long-running patents isn’t Stanford or MIT — it’s the University of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin workers filled more jobs in 2006 but earned less than in 2005 and, for the first time since 1983, experienced more unemployment than the nation as a whole, according to a Labor Day statistical update released today.
The Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison compiles data from various government agencies to offer “The State of Working Wisconsin” in even-numbered years and a less comprehensive update in odd-numbered years.
Once upon a time in America, when worker productivity rose, wages followed. Not any more, says Joel Rogers, who directs the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The typical worker today is doing what almost two workers did three decades ago, but is getting just a teeny bit more pay than what one worker got back then. Rogers is explaining why a good many people who toil for pay are singing the Labor Day blues.
On Wisconsin Avenue, leading to the Capitol, orange cones fill the street, signaling detours through the normal traffic pattern.
The recent State Journal story on ethanol should have read, “Are we too energy dependent?” The answer is yes. Wisconsin consumers paid $19 billion for energy in 2005 with at least $12 billion leaving the state, costing us 300,000 jobs.
The Big Ten Network has landed its biggest cable deal yet and reportedly on its terms.
Regional cable operator Insight Communications currently is the nation’s ninth-largest cable operator with 1.4 million households, but its deal with BTN covers just 640,000 households, with the most notable markets being Columbus, Ohio — home to Ohio State University — and Evansville, Ind., not far from Indiana University.
Dear Editor: As a former University of Wisconsin football player, I am looking forward to another great UW football season and being able to catch this year’s games on the new Big Ten Network.
This network is a welcome idea as it will further elevate the Badgers on a national platform to highlight all of the amazing research and developments that take place at the UW to a much wider audience.
The Big Ten Network is looking to be included on expanded basic cable in Wisconsin and the other Big Ten states. Some have called this network a niche network. They are wrong. The Big Ten Network is definitely not just for sports enthusiasts. This network has mass appeal and deserves to be included among the basic tier along with stations like HGTV, MTV, ESPN, the Travel Channel and others.
Together, the public schools of southeastern Wisconsin have a regional economic impact nearly as big as the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to a report released Wednesday
Like a graduate earning a diploma and heading off to explore new worlds, UW spinoff Quintessence Biosciences is about to reach a major milestone and tackle a new frontier.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — Big Ten Network officials say the new TV network won’t be available to Comcast Cable subscribers when it starts broadcasting Aug. 30.
The new network and the cable company have squabbled for months over where viewers would find BTN and how much it would cost them.
The network, co-owned by the Big Ten conference and Fox Cable Networks, wants to be a basic cable channel for Comcast subscribers, while Comcast wants BTN to be part of a sports-channels package that subscribers pay more to see. According to Comcast, the network also wants the cable company to pay it $1.10 per subscriber.
Yet another high-end, high-rise apartment building could be going up soon on the UW-Madison campus.
A local real estate group is proposing a 14-story, 169-unit apartment building at the corner of West Johnson and Mills streets.
The project at 1022 W. Johnson would require demolition of two older homes while also encompassing an existing surface parking lot. Parking — always an issue on campus — would be provided underground with space for mopeds, bicycles and 125 vehicles.
The class was part of this week ‘s Senior Management Seminar presented by the Graduate School of Banking at UW-Madison. The school, founded in 1945, is separate from the university.
Malicious, self-propagating worms and other lethal attacks are the stuff of Paul Barford’s daily existence.
Since the Web site-defacing Code Red worm in 2001 terrorized computers around the world, the University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant computer science professor has focused on finding ways to defeat such nemeses.
It wasn’t that long ago when few people embraced alternative medical practices such as chiropractic services, acupuncture and massage.
Today, such services, like many advanced traditional medical practices, are moving into the mainstream of pet care as more and more people pamper their pets — although medical care isn’t seen on the same plane as some other pampering practices.
Quoted: Dr. Sandi Sawchuk, School of Veterinary Medicine
The blood thinner warfarin, which this week became the first widely used drug to carry a label encouraging doctors to perform a genetic test on patients before prescribing it, was discovered at UW-Madison.
Here are the biggest projects in Madison that received building permits between July 11, 2006, and June 30, 2007:
The University Square project, in the 700 block of University Avenue, with two floors of shops, restaurants and other businesses; 420 parking stalls; a nine-story tower housing UW-Madison functions such as the bursar ‘s office, registrar and a student health center; and a 10-story tower with 359 apartments.
UW-Madison ‘s Interdisciplinary Research Complex, in the 750 block of Highland Avenue, whose $158 million first phase is being built. The eight-story tower will house the Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center and will unite experts in different medical specialties to work together on cancer research. Two floors of the second tower, also in the current phase, will house research animals.
If you are selling property now in a market bedeviled by huge inventories of homes and a credit crunch, you could do better if you dumped your real-estate agent.
With a wide range of flat-fee and Internet-based services, you may fare well on your own, yet it’s still important to know your options.
Researchers Aviv Nevo and Igal Hendel of Northwestern University, and Francois Ortalo-Magne of University of Wisconsin-Madison examined sales conducted from 1998 to December 2004 through the Web site
Dear Editor: As a huge Badgers fan and UW alumnus, I’m excited by the prospect of a new TV network that will deliver all the Big Ten sports I love. It would especially be great if those with only expanded basic cable could catch Big Ten action without having to pay extra to see it on premium channels. So I hope the Big Ten Network is allowed to be part of expanded basic cable.
Mike Gomoll, Sun Prairie
Letter to the editor: “I’ve seen all the hoopla surrounding the Big Ten Network and don’t understand why it’s such an issue. Many people, including UW-Madison alumni like me, want to see Badger games on Wisconsin television stations as part of basic cable. It’s a no brainer.”
Dear Editor: The Badgers are incredibly popular in Madison and throughout the entire state. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, regularly watch Badger games and keep up with their favorite local sports team.
Many of us loyal Badger fans are looking forward to the launch of the Big Ten Network on Aug. 30 and can’t wait to see the Badgers in action when they take on the Citadel on Sept. 15. I just hope that we’ll be able to watch this game on our television.
The plan to water down Madison’s downtown by limiting the number of liquor licenses in the central commercial district continues to get watered down.
After several members of the business community asked for further amendments to the Alcohol Beverage License Density Plan, as it is officially called, the Alcohol License Review Committee on Wednesday voted to loosen one of the proposal’s primary restrictions.
In one sense, the public stare-down between the soon-to-be-launched Big Ten Network and the nation’s cable television providers is reminiscent of the contract battles between the owners and players in professional sports.
It’s hard for the little guy to figure out which side to root for when billionaires are fighting millionaires over who gets a greater share of the pie.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana University and the human-powered Internet search engine ChaCha are partnering to create a one-stop virtual reference desk that connects students with an array of experts and other help.
They will debut a Web-based search platform this semester allowing students, faculty and others to look for information using a machine-based search that marks the results recommended by IU experts. Visitors who need help finding information or refining their search can chat online with an expert in real time.
Dear Editor: Stop the presses! The Capital Times has discovered that sports leagues are greedy. What a shocking revelation.
….The Capital Times has sat silently by for the last two years as both the NFL and the Big Ten attempt to squeeze even more money out of cable subscribers by establishing their own cable networks. Apparently ever-rising ticket prices and special seating fees aren’t enough to satisfy their ever-growing appetites.
