Native Madison ? a new camp run by the Madison Children?s Museum ? originated from a fascination with the effigy burial mounds on Observatory Hill on the UW-Madison campus. The camp, which ran July 16-20, was designed for third-, fourth- and fifth-graders who toured the effigy burial mounds with guide Aaron Bird Bear, a Native American who works in the School of Education.
A 21-year-old woman escaped a man who held her at knifepoint near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus early Saturday morning.
INDIANAPOLIS ? The NCAA slammed Penn State for the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal Monday with an unprecedented series of penalties, including a $60 million fine and the loss of all the school?s victories from 1998-2011, knocking Joe Paterno from his spot as major college football?s winningest coach. Other sanctions include a four-year ban on postseason games that will prevent Penn State from playing for the Big Ten title, the loss of 20 scholarships per year over four years and five years? probation. The NCAA also said that any current or incoming football players are free to immediately transfer and compete at another school.
Juan Zalapa, a child of Texas and Guadalajara, now studies the genetics of cranberries at UW-Madison. The horticulture professor credits a federally funded grant program he was admitted to as an undergrad at Texas Tech University for setting him on his unlikely journey north. “I had no concept of more education beyond a bachelor?s degree,” he said of his mindset before entering the Ronald E. McNair Scholars program, designed to smooth the path to graduate school in the sciences for minority and low-income students. “It really changed my perspective.”
The same program, named for a black astronaut and physicist who died in the 1986 Challenger explosion, has helped more than 1,370 undergraduates throughout the University of Wisconsin System over the past two decades ? but it could end or be significantly reduced in the coming school year.
Noted: Laura L. Dunn, a sexual-assault survivor who founded the advocacy group SurvJustice, said her experiences illustrate the need for reform. When she was sexually assaulted, as a freshman at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, she had little awareness of what assault was, let alone how to press charges.
?The single most important experiment in higher education,? reads the headline to this piece posted at TheAtlantic.com. Slate.com asks: ?Will online education startups like Coursera end the era of expensive higher education?? Those posts were related to the news announced earlier this week that a dozen more universities have signed on with Coursera to deliver free, online classes to the masses that are known as MOOCs (massive online open classrooms).
?The news certainly caught my eye,? says Paul Peercy, the dean of UW-Madison?s College of Engineering, which has a long tradition of delivering master?s degrees and continuing education online. ?I?m convinced that the rapid advances in information technology are going to change the world. And they?re going to change education at all levels.?
Noted: #3: The University of Wisconsin: A diverse student body full of men who are ?passionate and enjoy opening new doors in their school?s community?? I?m sold.
Noted: Attitudes are similar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Wisconsin School of Business. ?We don?t look at what we?re doing as a training program,? says Steve Schroeder, assistant dean for the bachelor?s of business administration program and director of its Business Career Center. ?We?re different than that. We?re not in the profession of training students for a particular job. I think what we do?and do particularly well?is train students on how to think, how to solve problems and how to analyze situations.?
Noted: After much soul-searching, runner Mohammed Ahmed, a competitor for Canada in the 10,000-meter race, decided to take the exemption.
University of Wisconsin senior safety Shelton Johnson?s day wasn?t finished last season at the end of practice. Johnson, from Carrollton, Texas, who was in his first year as a starter for the Badgers, accumulated the most community service hours of any player on the team. Because of that, Johnson has been named as one of 117 nominees to the 2012 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team.
Wisconsin has a “long way to go in all our racial/ethnic groups,” said Adam Gamoran, director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UW-Madison. My hope is that, given Wisconsin?s overwhelmingly white population, proficiency problems among white students will spur more people to push for policies inside and outside of school that help children ? all children ? learn.
Matt Stoltz isn?t earning his arm and leg tan lines while at the beach this summer, but by biking on the side of the road.
Noted: Samantha von Sperling is an image consultant in New York, but lately her bread-and-butter Wall Street clients have asked her to help their daughters get ready for rush at schools like Harvard; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; and New York University, which has added three chapters since 2006 and more than doubled the number of sisters, to 570.
Nearly two-thirds of Wisconsin students who took the state reading test last fall scored below proficient, and less than half were proficient in math, according to recalibrated results released Tuesday by the Department of Public Instruction. In previous reporting of the same results, about 80 percent of students scored proficient on the reading and math tests. The difference is a change in the yardstick used to measure “proficiency” ? what students in a certain grade level should know and be able to do ? rather than a change in how students performed on the tests.
Still, the new results should be a “smack in the face” for Wisconsin, said Adam Gamoran, director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UW-Madison. “It?s going to be a wake-up call,” Gamoran said. “It?s a more honest reckoning of where Wisconsin students stand relative to other students across the nation and relative to the goals we want for all of our students.”
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay students aren?t just spending money on tuition and books when they return to class in the fall.
In 1951 a young Yale undergraduate wrote the book God and Man at Yale, which was a scathing criticism of the liberal ideological bent held by the instructional staff at Yale. The author, a young William Buckley, would go on to become the leading voice of the conservative movement during the second half of the 20th century. Unfortunately for those who share Buckley?s sensibilities, today the majority of collegiate institutions retain their liberal partisanship. As a young and eager student stepping out of my sheltered Waukesha County home onto this campus, I was in for a cultural shock. The two locales couldn?t be more politically polarized. The difference was night and day.
Madison?s top police official said in a July 12 letter to the Wisconsin State Journal the Mifflin Street Block Party could be ?eliminated? unless it is ?drastically? changed. Most significantly, Madison Police Department Chief Noble Wray wrote police are looking to find a new venue for the block party to spare its costliness to the city and foster a safe environment.
Ever wonder what Big Ten Conference mascots do during the offseason? This summer, they play out their addiction to the song “Call Me Maybe” in a hilarious music video posted Wednesday.
In my first semester at UW-Madison, my dorm?s resident assistant or some other upperclass stand-in for the university escorted a bunch of us to the local polling place or to register to vote ? I forget which.It was a nice gesture in a presidential election year for kids who?d only recently arrived from out of town or out of state, but I would have voted anyway.
The former name of a Madison casino will now be the name of a new residence hall at UW-Madison. Dejope Residence Hall on the campus? west side near Lake Mendota will be home to 408 students beginning Aug. 26, according to a UW-Madison news release. The Ho-Chunk Nation Legislature approved the name in May, saying “it was in the best interest of the nation to support and promote the education of its members and the education of others about the Ho-Chunk Nation.”
“We worked with the Ho-Chunk Nation on a name for this facility because this area was home to the Ho-Chunk for thousands of years,” said UW-Madison housing director Paul Evans in the release.
A study of UW-Madison students found no link between Facebook use and depression, calling into question a warning by a national doctor group last year that the popular social media site could cause depression. “We?re not really sure ?Facebook depression? is something parents or patients really need to be advised about yet,” said Lauren Jelenchick, a UW School of Medicine and Public Health researcher who led the study.
Recent news stories have praised the announcement by the University of Wisconsin Colleges to offer high school students the opportunity to obtain high school and college credits simultaneously through dual-enrollment programming. We applaud the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the University of Wisconsin Colleges for their efforts to improve access to higher education, because more degrees lead to a stronger economy….UW-Madison accepts more transfer students from our campus than from any other institution, including all of the UW Colleges combined. And full-time students who complete their associate degrees at Madison College save thousands of dollars a year in tuition compared to UW-Madison, making us a high quality yet affordable point of access to a four-year degree.
In a bid to boost voter turnout, Madison City Council members are proposing that landlords must provide voter registration forms when tenants move into a residence. The move could have an impact around UW-Madison, where thousands of students take new apartments each year, as well as other parts of the city with concentrations of rental units, supporters said. Nearly half of the city?s dwelling units are rentals, the U.S. Census says. But many landlords are opposing the proposal because it strays dramatically from the city?s core responsibility to regulate housing conditions, fair housing, ethical practices, public health and safety.
When his brother returned from a mission trip to Central America with photos of kids playing baseball with equipment fashioned out of trash, Matt Stoltz discovered a mission of his own.
Stephen Lee says some of the scariest parts of his experience serving his country have nothing to do with military combat: “Right now to me, I am far more scared of sitting in an interview room getting interviewed for a job, than when I?ve had people shoot at me.” After he left the service in 2009, Lee, now 32, came to Madison to attend the University of Wisconsin. In May, he completed his final semester of coursework in political science. Alongside his responsibilities as a student and parent, for two years Lee also served as Wisconsin?s state director for the Student Veterans of America, and was active in its campus chapter, UW Vets for Vets. Lee?s accomplishments are testament to his work ethic, as well as to the resources and encouragement provided by fellow student veterans. He is among the 30 percent of veterans in the civilian labor force who have a bachelor?s degree or more. But, for Lee, having a diploma has not been a guarantee of employment.
On the 30th anniversary of her death Monday, University of Wisconsin police again asked the public for any information about the killing of Donna Mraz, a UW-Madison student who was stabbed to death outside Camp Randall Stadium.
With red and blue lights flashing, the Wisconsin Rapids Police Department and Wood County Sheriff?s Department escorted Matt Stoltz out of town late Sunday morning.
People know me as: Ka Man ?Melody? Ng, doctoral student in piano performance and pedagogy at UW-Madison, studying with professors Jessica Johnson and Christopher Taylor. I?m also coordinator for the university?s Sound Health Community Program, a teaching assistant at the piano department, a continuing studies instructor, a piano teacher at the Piano Pioneers/Piano Lab Program, and president of the Music Teachers National Association UW-Madison Collegiate Chapter.
Teams of UW-Madison students won big in Las Vegas last week ? not at a casino, but at two national food science competitions. UW students had one first-place finish and two second-place finishes in separate contests sponsored by Disney and the Mars company, at the Institute for Food Technologists? annual meeting, according to a UW-Madison news release.
Flexibility has not been the hallmark of higher education. Rather, tradition and familiar processes tend to rule the day on college campuses. All of which makes the recent announcement of a “flexible degree” program throughout the UW System so exciting. The concept put forth by UW System President Kevin Reilly and UW Extension Chancellor Ray Cross, with a strong endorsement from Gov. Scott Walker, makes so much sense.
Donalvin Weatherby was found safe on Madison?s east side Thursday afternoon, according to the UW-Madison Police Department. UW-Madison police had asked for the public?s help in locating Weatherby, a 17-year-old student from Milwaukee who was reported missing Thursday.
Congressional leaders have come to a tentative agreement on freezing student loan interest rates.
Swimmers and shoreline users are being warned to be careful along the Lake Mendota shore after toxic algae was discovered in the water.
The announcement isn?t going to silence all of the NCAA?s many critics. But after years of tough talk without meaningful action, it appears college sports? governing body is gradually getting more intentional about ensuring athletic programs take academics seriously. The NCAA announced earlier this week it has barred 15 teams — including the perennially powerful University of Connecticut men?s basketball program — from postseason play due to poor academic performance.
?When a university as prominent as Connecticut is sanctioned due to low rates of academic progress, it?s a signal to all universities that the NCAA is serious about this and that colleges need to ensure that their students are making academic progress,? says Adam Gamoran, co-chair of the UW Athletic Board’s academics and compliance committee, and the director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
The announcement last week of the University of Wisconsin System?s new “flexible degree” is a worthy start. The program, to be rolled out over the next year, will allow students to learn online at their own pace and provide college credit for proving they?ve mastered skills learned at work. It?s about time the public education establishment started really shaking up the standard high school-to-college-to-career path. Economists and education-reform types have been saying for years that a changing world requires changing education models.
The University of Wisconsin plans to start a ?flexible degree? program online focused on allowing undergraduates to test out of material they have mastered.
For one local swimmer, her lifelong goal of making it to the Olympic Games comes down to a solid performance at next week?s Olympic Swimming Trials.
“This is the first public university in the country, actually in the world, to do this,” said Ray Cross, the chancellor of U-W Colleges and U-W Extension.
With federal college loan rates set to double in less than two weeks unless Congress takes action, some Democrats are using the time until then to draw political capital from the hot-button issue.
Considering that Wisconsin is below the national average in the percentage of adults who have college degrees, almost any move to make college more accessible should be applauded.
The University of Wisconsin System on Tuesday announced a new flexible degree program aimed at graduating nontraditional students. It will focus on competencies rather than class work and allow students to move at their own pace. As WUWM?s LaToya Dennis reports, the program is in its early stages, but the hope is, to have online classes ready to go by fall.
MILWAUKEE (AP) ? Working adults, military veterans and others pursuing college degrees in the University of Wisconsin System will soon be able to get college credit for knowledge already gained through work or life experience.
The University of Wisconsin System wants to churn out more degree-holders with a new online plan that will grant students college credit for their work and life experiences.
People soon will be able to improve their job prospects by earning college degrees at their own pace, wherever they are, through a new University of Wisconsin System Flexible Degree program.
Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) announced the creation of a new, online degree program for University of Wisconsin system students Tuesday morning.
(CNN) – The former Rutgers University student convicted of spying on and intimidating his gay roommate was released from jail Tuesday after serving a 30-day sentence, a jail official said. Dharun Ravi, 20, was found guilty in May of invasion of privacy, witness tampering, hindering apprehension and bias intimidation.
A former UW-Madison student who faked a mental illness in order to escape punishment for child pornography distribution was sentenced Monday to 12 years in federal prison. From the time of his arrest in 2010 until pleading guilty in November, Matthew P. Hendrickson, 23, of St. Cloud, Minn., had blamed his downloading and extensive sharing of child pornography on visual and auditory hallucinations. Hendrickson was expelled from UW-Madison in fall 2010.
College tuition and student loan costs have been a hot topic this year, even becoming a signature issue of the presidential campaign.
Ralph Armstrong, whose convictions for the 1980 rape and murder of a UW-Madison student were overturned, filed a $58 million federal civil rights lawsuit against the state of Wisconsin on Friday seeking compensation for about 30 years behind bars for the convictions. Armstrong filed the lawsuit by mail from his prison cell in New Mexico, where he is serving a sentence for a parole violation for earlier criminal convictions in that state in the 1970s.
Jessie Barndt was walking to class at UW-Madison one day when she saw her destiny drive by. It was shaped like a hot dog. Barndt, 23, followed the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile to a career fair where a recruiter persuaded her to apply for a job criss-crossing the country in the driver?s seat of a 27-foot-long fiberglass hot dog.
Matt Beilfuss is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this summer, but you won?t see him hanging out at the Memorial Union terrace after classes. Beilfuss isn?t in Madison or Wisconsin. He isn?t even in the United States.
It?s hard to believe, but the University of Wisconsin-Madison Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE) program is already 13 years old.
After I posted my previous blog entry, ?Priced out of education? (which also was published in Monday?s hard-copy edition of the Leader-Telegram), I received a couple of emails saying I?d missed half of the picture in my rant about the rising cost of college. I?m accustomed to complaints about my writing, but in this case they were exactly right.
Victoria Haler, 18, was crowned Miss Teen Minnesota United States in February, was selected a Princess Kay finalist in May, and graduated from Waconia High School in June. Haler plans to continue her studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she?ll major in international studies and Spanish.
It?s a small yet significant step toward boosting Wisconsin?s brain power. High school students across the state will have more access to college coursework by 2013, the state Department of Public Instruction and University of Wisconsin Colleges announced this week. Some of the UW courses will be offered online at high schools. Others will be taught by high school teachers with oversight from college professors. And here?s the cool part: The new classes will count toward high school and college diplomas at the same time. It?s called “dual enrollment,” and it?s something Wisconsin needs more of ? individualized instruction using technology to help control cost.
I can?t open the paper lately without reading about how the American economy is doomed unless we get more kids into the so-called STEM fields ? science, technology, engineering and math. On Tuesday, it was news touting five University of Wisconsin System campuses who are taking part in a nationwide science and engineering initiative led by a group of university and private sector bigwigs who want to boost the United States? competitiveness.
….”Skills and methods associated with the humanities aren’t soft, despite the convention of referring to them as such,” said Sara Guyer, director of the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities. “The importance of the humanities … is not just about empathy or imagining others, but it is about deepening our real understanding and fostering rigorous, critical analysis.”
The base tuition for state universities in Wisconsin is going up another 5.5 percent this fall, continuing a trend of tuition outpacing inflation that has been the norm for some time.
College will become more expensive this fall for students attending Wisconsin?s public universities. Last week, the UW Board of Regents boosted tuition by 5.5 percent, to offset cuts in state funding.
A UW-Madison delegation traveled to China Monday where it opened the UW-Madison Shanghai Innovation Office, which will function as an outpost for the university?s growing commitment to enhance educational opportunities in China. The delegation is made of up UW-Madison representatives, including interim Chancellor David Ward along with other state and business officials. The group worked in conjunction with members of Minhang District of Shanghai to celebrate the opening. China is the third most-popular location for students studying abroad at UW-Madison and opening the office will allow for increased study abroad and internship opportunities, according to Kerry Hill, the Communications Coordinator for the Division of International Studies.
Bright lights, thick black curtains and a large open stage. That?s all it takes for Jasmine Mans to feel right at home. The UW-Madison junior has been involved in all areas of the arts throughout her life, but today, she?s honing her craft as a poet and author.
