Category: Campus life

In the weeks leading up to former Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz?s speech at commencement, senior class officials and the university have disagreed over the process for selecting future commencement speakers. The University Committee, made up of six professors and with the help of senior class officials, selects commencement speakers from a pool of notable UW-Madison alumni and local figures. Senior Class President Steven Olikara said this selection process allows the university to obtain speakers without paying them an honorarium, because speakers want to give back to their alma mater. But according to Olikara, this policy needs to change.

Ten years ago, Edgewood College officials struggled to bring minorities to the small liberal arts college. Only one student showed up for the Madison school’s first minority recruitment day in 2000. The next fall, only 11 students of color were part of the roughly 300-student freshman class. But over the past decade that has changed. In the fall, 55 minorities were part of Edgewood College’s freshman class, almost 20 percent of the total.

….Dora E. Zuniga, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Dane County and mom to Edgewood freshman Ariana Silva, said she knows several minority students who enrolled at Edgewood because they didn?t get into UW-Madison, and flourished there. “You have the best of both worlds,” she said. “The kids who end up at Edgewood, because the place down the road doesn?t take them, actually it?s a great service to them because they?re not going to get lost.”

Although approximately 20,000 fewer people attended the Mifflin Street Block Party this year than last, arrests were over ten times as common, according to the Madison Police Department.

During the past year, University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly has led the UW System in the face of $300 million of funding cuts and budgetary lapses. The Badger Herald sat down with Reilly to discuss the impact of these trends and possible solutions being offered. Here are the highlights in part two of a two-part series.

Mixed feelings over this year?s Mifflin Street Block Party stemmed from increased arrests and stricter rules, but an overall safer atmosphere.

There were fewer people and only one report of violence. But the relatively uneventful Mifflin Street Block Party on Saturday did little to dissuade Madison?s top cop that the decades-old event needs to end. An estimated 5,000 people filled porches, homes and yards in a two-block section of West Mifflin Street. Unlike last year?s sponsored event, no drinking was allowed on sidewalks or the street. That resulted in Madison police as of 7:45 p.m. Saturday arresting and citing more than 400 people.

“Be careful,” my fiancée told me as I walked out the door of my downtown apartment, heading to report on the Mifflin Street Block Party. I dismissed the advice and descended on the madness, determined to check out a party that my neighbor, a UW-Madison senior, would be attending. Drunken revelry was in the air well before I reached the iconic 400 block of Mifflin. Students were drinking and blasting music in backyards and porches all along Gorham Street, free of the relentless police surveillance that partygoers on Mifflin had been warned of ad nauseam by city and university officials.

Students and other members of the UW-Madison community told officials Thursday they have concerns with proposed cuts to the campus bus services.

Given the trend of burglaries increasing at the end of the academic year, police in Madison?s southern district are reaching out to residents in student-heavy areas, telling them to take extra precautions against theft.

Throughout its history of more than 40 years, the Mifflin Street Block Party has been considered a Madison tradition by many, but now others are calling for a drastic change to the event?s stigma.

The time has come for the much awaited and much debated 2012 Mifflin Street Block Party, when students and residents from throughout the region will be met with a very different atmosphere than in previous years.

Students and other members of the UW-Madison community told officials Thursday they have concerns with proposed cuts to the campus bus services. UW Transportation Services Director Patrick Kass said Transportation Services is currently operating in a deficit and needs to cut about 10 percent of the bus services to help balance its budget. Proposed cuts could include combining services on routes 80 and 85 or eliminating half of the route 81 trips while also eliminating half of the route 85 trips after 10 a.m.

A week after creating a YouTube video she admitted was ?disastrous,? Dean of Students Lori Berquam resorted to her usual mass e-mail to warn students of the dangers associated with the Mifflin Street Block Party.

Many students who are Mifflin residents signed a protection plan with police at the last Mifflin Street Block Party information meeting Wednesday.

As part of a newly launched scholarship initiative, one student could win up to $3,000 for creating a plan to solve a problem on the University of Wisconsin campus.

Madison police are working to prevent a porch collapse at this years Mifflin Street Block Party.

1969 marked Richard Nixon?s first year in office. ?Sugar Sugar? by The Archies topped the music charts. And in May, UW-Madison students threw the first Mifflin Street Block Party. The block party was born out of the climate of social protest, the shadow of the Vietnam War and a polarized national political system.

UW-Madison?s embattled dean of students is taking a second stab at telling students not to go to the Mifflin Street Block Party on Saturday. It?s ?Don?t go,? take two. Except this time, Lori Berquam is using a more traditional approach: sending a written message warning students of the safety risks and suggesting there are better things to do.

Madison?s Transit and Parking Commission is conducting a special meeting on proposed service reductions to routes 80 and 85 serving the UW-Madison campus from 7 to 9 p.m. at UW Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St. More details on the proposed reductions will be presented at the meeting.

MADISON ? Madison police are bracing for a big weekend. Saturday, May 5th is Cinco de Mayo, and also the annual Mifflin Street block party.

Starting next fall, moped users will only be able to park in designated campus lots, and moped permit prices will increase.

UW alumna and former Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz will return to Madison to deliver the address at the university?s commencement ceremonies May 19 and 20.

City officials are inviting students and Mifflin residents to an informational meeting on the upcoming Mifflin Street Block Party where residents can register their house parties with police.

Last June, senior Danez Smith was walking down Langdon Street when a hanging figure caught his eye.

Four-legged stress busters will be looking for head and haunch scratches and faces to lick on the UW-Madison campus. Dogs on Call, a local non-profit that brings man?s best friend to nursing homes, schools, hospices and hospitals, will be bringing dogs to campus through May 15, according to a news article from UW-Madison.

UW-Madison police are advising bicyclists on campus to be on the alert and secure their bikes after an increase in thefts.

Although newly passed legislation surrounding voter ID requirements is tied up in court, college students may still face a number of other obstacles while heading to the polls for the upcoming recall elections. 

The UW-Madison Police Department is reporting an increase in thefts of bicycles on campus.The UWPD is asking you to be aware of suspicious activity and report the behavior to police.

The former chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is now the chief academic officer the University of Wisconsin System.

A report from a University of Wisconsin faculty committee has recommended the university eliminate the Division of International Studies? administrative function. 

The University of Wisconsin will bring in world-renowned astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson as the keynote speaker for its first-ever Senior Day for graduates next Thursday.

Some Occupy supporters began an effort Sunday to see if the encampment could be relocated to a former Army Reserve Center at 1402 S. Park St., next to a Copps grocery store. Noah Phillips, 19, the UW-Madison student leading the effort, said the group did not have permission to occupy the land and acknowledged it would be illegal to do so. But the homeless have few other options, he said.”It?s an abandoned lot, and it?s ludicrous that it?s just sitting there,” he said. City officials apparently got wind of the idea Monday morning and put a quick halt to it.

Ryan Silber says he rarely cooks, but there he was at Hillel, the Jewish community center at UW-Madison, kneading a tub of flour and other ingredients. He?d had a hard week of tests and was ready to ?beat up on some dough,? he said. Silber, a freshman, is among a couple dozen students who spend every Thursday afternoon at Hillel baking 70 to 100 loaves of challah, the traditional Jewish egg bread….The UW-Madison students are part of a nationwide effort called ?Challah for Hunger,? with chapters at dozens of universities. In addition to raising money for charities, the effort keeps Jewish students connected to their cultural roots, both as bakers and customers.

It?s not clear what will happen at this year?s Mifflin Street Block Party, so Julia Mercer and her roommate are taking no chances. They live on the 400 block of West Mifflin Street ? party central ? and after last year?s trouble-filled bacchanalia, they?re planning to lock all their valuables in their bedrooms, including their dishes and the TV. ?We?re kind of freaking out,? Mercer, a UW-Madison junior, admitted to police officers who stopped by her house Wednesday to talk about rules for the May 5 event.

One hundred-twenty years of printing a daily newspaper has generated thousands of loyal writers, contributors and editors for The Daily Cardinal. That loyalty showed strong last weekend as nearly 250 alumni returned to their journalistic roots in Madison for the newspaper?s 120th anniversary celebration.

Lori Berquam, dean of students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, posted a Youtube video in which she somberly asks students not to attend the school?s massive Mifflin Street Block Party, saying she?s seen smart students make stupid decisions at the booze fest.

University transportation officials are looking for input from students on changes to campus bus routes that could double the wait time on two major routes.

There are about 8,000 living alumni of the Daily Cardinal, UW-Madison?s oldest student newspaper. And that?s not a wild guess. “I?ve spent 18 months looking up every byline and photo credit and masthead from 1959 to 2011,” said Anthony Sansone, president of the Daily Cardinal Alumni Association, which this weekend welcomes more than 200 former staffers for a weekend of events celebrating the paper?s 120th anniversary.