Homicide investigators have launched a new project that aims to bring closure to Wisconsin cold cases through the use of playing cards. Some of the cases are more than 50 years old. One case included in the program is the Madison disappearance and slaying of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student Kelly Nolan.
Among the unsolved murders of UW-Madison students are those of Brittany Zimmermann (2008), Donna Mraz (1982), and Christine Rothschild (1968).
The early morning sexual assault of a young woman near the UW-Madison campus has prompted police to issue another warning to area residents to keep their personal safety a high priority.
Ellie Arkin doesn?t speak Latin, so upon entering Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Madison on a recent Sunday, the 21-year-old UW-Madison student opened a Latin-to-English translation book provided by the church. For the next hour, she and many of the other parishioners followed along in the book as the Mass unfolded mostly in Latin. For centuries, this was the only way Catholics around the world experienced Mass. Reforms ushered in by Vatican II in the 1960s largely eliminated Latin Mass, but now, across the country and in the Madison Catholic Diocese, traditionalists are seeking its comeback.
The Union Terrace is scheduled to get a makeover next year, prompting an outcry from some Memorial Union users who worry that spectacular lake views from one of Madison?s signature spots will be obscured. At issue is a planned expansion to the north of the Union Theater for a glassed-in student lounge and theater lobby. Mark Guthier, Wisconsin Union director, said the addition will not reduce terrace seating. He said a study found that views of sunsets over Lake Mendota will be changed ?very little.?
Madison police are investigating the sexual assault of a UW Madison student. It happened early Monday morning as the woman was walking home alone.
Madison police are looking for two men wanted in connection with a sexual assault early Monday morning on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Police said the incident happened just after 3 a.m. on Monday in the 1000 block of West Dayton Street. According to police, the victim was walking near the corner of State and Frances streets when two men began to follow her. Police said she tried to run from them, but they were able to keep up.
A 20-year-old Madison woman was sexually assaulted early Monday morning while walking downtown, police say. The assault was reported at 3:12 a.m. Monday. According to the police incident report, the victim was near State and Frances streets when two suspects began following her.
Sarah Lamers called home a little more often than she?d originally anticipated her freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
The 3,000-member teaching assistants union at UW-Madison has voted narrowly against seeking official state certification under a controversial new law that prohibits most collective bargaining for most public sector employees. Under the law signed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, teachers and other public workers would need to vote for their unions each year in order to bargain for cost-of-living raises. The law no longer allows negotiations on working conditions, benefits or anything else.
A 20-year-old downtown resident suffered a broken ankle and possible head injury early Friday morning when he fell off a fire escape trying to get into his apartment.
Madison Police spokesman Joel DeSpain told madison.com this incident should serve as a reminder to college students heading back to campus in a few weeks not to take chances if out drinking, such as climbing fire escapes, balconies, etc.
A 21-year-old UW-Madison student suffered a broken jaw early Friday morning when he was punched in an apparent unprovoked attack on State Street, police reported.
….Jeff Graves, spokesman for Saturday?s Madison Mini-Marathon, said race officials alerted the more than 4,500 participants about the construction via email, but aren?t ?overly concerned.?
About 85 percent of the participants are from the Madison area, but there are ?definitely people who are not familiar with the Madison streets,? Graves said. The race route is not affected by the construction, but after starting on the UW-Madison campus it directs runners to the Capitol and down State Street.
Since 2007, when a campus-area fire in a home with disabled smoke detectors killed a 23-year-old man, the city has been on a mission to require tamper-resistant or hard-wired smoke detectors in apartment buildings and homes. That effort culminated in 2009 with a city ordinance that officials say has helped prevent any fire deaths since. But a proposed state law could wipe that ordinance off the books, according to Madison Fire Marshal Ed Ruckriegel.
Zak Showalter sat in Bo Ryan?s office at the Kohl Center earlier this week and listened as the University of Wisconsin men?s basketball coach made a proposal. Ryan said he couldn?t offer a scholarship ? at least not right away ? but that he really wanted Showalter in the program. That was all the Germantown senior needed to hear.
Wisconsin students who attend public universities and colleges in Minnesota will start paying more for their education in years to come under a new tuition reciprocity agreement between the states that was announced Monday. The good news is Wisconsin students currently going to school in Minnesota, and even those enrolling this fall, won?t be hit by the tuition hike.
Whether high school students are any less prepared for college than they were in years past ? and if so, why ? is a “huge topic” in education, said Sara Goldrick-Rab, an associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology at UW-Madison.
Every year I hear loyal Madisonians joke about “Hippie Christmas,” the annual late-summer event where disgusting conglomerations of soiled carpeting, liquor bottles, tattered clothes, smashed cabinetry, stained mattresses and malfunctioning neon beer signs litter the curbs of Downtown Madison by the truck loads. As a Madison resident and someone who works on campus, I have never seen this event as anything to laugh about, but instead as a serious embarrassment to the city and the UW-Madison campus as the poorest possible representation to the outside community by our students.
Monday is move-in day in downtown Madison, but as University of Wisconsin-Madison students move into their new apartments, health officials are concerned about the spread of bedbugs.
Although the market for single-family homes and condominiums remains slow, developers continue to move forward with new apartment construction.
….Meanwhile, construction continues on a couple of other major apartment projects, one on the west end of the UW-Madison campus and another in the ‘Miffland’ neighborhood.
A $76.8 million building project on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus that once was slated to house space for the College of Engineering and contain a sports medicine clinic in conjunction with UW Hospital now is solely going to benefit the university?s athletic department and its student athletes.
UW-Madison offers programming in its Center for the First-Year Experience to help students make a smooth transition to college.
Philip Kara, 23, a UW-Madison graduate and cook at the Tornado Room, was moving with his girlfriend, Allison Vogel, 23, into an apartment on Gilman Street Sunday. They were among thousands of students and other campus-area renters moving between apartments this weekend. Many students move-out/move-in weekend ? many housing leases end Aug. 14 and begin Aug. 15, giving landlords a few hours in between to clean, paint and make necessary repairs.
Despite the weather, thousands of UW students are working to move out of their apartments.
The annual college student shuffle known as “moving days” added chaos to downtown Madison on Saturday, as organizations focus attention on reusing old items.
The movement to go green has hit the student move out. This weekend, Downtown Madison will undergo its annual transformation into piles of sofa cushions, overflowing trash cans and used microwaves as students move out of their apartments on Sunday and start new leases Monday. But this year, a new campus group is trying to reduce the amount of unwanted household goods going to the landfill by donating the items to charity.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison reported a violation to federal officials last month related to the operation of its campus nuclear test reactor, but officials say no one was endangered. According to university officials, students were performing routine safety checks on the reactor on July 14.
Dear Editor: As we have seen from the debt debate debacle, there is no easy way to fix the financial crisis we have gotten ourselves into. This is going to be tough and we need true innovators and leaders in our Congress….As a struggling college student, I?d like to eat healthy, to help my brain function and to perform my best, but with these big ag subsidies, overly sugared groceries are all that I can afford. Where do our priorities as a nation lie when a bag of carrots costs more than a six-pack of Ramen noodles?
R
Rain could dampen the throng of UW-Madison students moving out of their apartments on Friday or Saturday, but those waiting until Sunday likely will have to worry more about sunburn.
Meanwhile Sunday evening the Madison Club is hosting a dinner organized by Slow Food UW Madison to support a sister community project with Dakar, Senegal. This is about shared food and international friendships to bring people together to make the world a better place. Proceeds will help build a community center in Senegal. Call the Madison Club for details.
It?s Moving Days in Madison. This weekend, most downtown apartment leases are up. That means thousands of people will be sorting through their stuff and finding a lot they no longer need.
Moving away from home for the first time and starting college can be difficult for many young adults. It?s not always an easy time for parents, either. On Thursday, the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Parent Program is hosting a live web chat designed for parents of first-year students.
While speaking to gun rights advocates in Washington DC, State Rep. Evan Wynn (R-Whitewater) praised Wisconsin?s recent passage of concealed carry but doesn?t think it ?went far enough.?
Ahh, August. The month that brings the hustle and bustle of UW-Madison students moving in and out of their Downtown apartments. This year, there will be a few locations for people to donate unwanted items to community groups during the hectic August shuffle.
Ahh, August. The month that brings the hustle and bustle of UW-Madison students moving in and out of their Downtown apartments. And with it, comes the garbage. This year, there will be a few locations for people to donate unwanted items to community groups during the hectic August shuffle. The idea is minimize the amount of materials going into landfills.
You?re joking with friends about how running is an exercise, not a sport, and bravado gets the best of you. You agree to run a full marathon in exchange for a bottle of vodka and another of Kahlua. But can you imagine actually going through with the bet? Joe Vanden Avond, a 21-year-old student from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wis., did yes, he was at a bar at the time.
College campuses in Wisconsin are now trying to make changes to student IDs for students to be able to use them to vote.
With the school year less than a month away, the UW-Madison police department hopes to roll out an upgrade to its WiscAlert system soon.
According to this Huffington Post article, a good number of young people, mostly women, are paying for college or paying down student debt by hooking up with “sugar daddies” ? wealthy men who pay for companionship and sex. And according to information provided to the Huffington Post, the University of Wisconsin is among the national leaders in producing “sugar babies” ? young adults willing to provide these services.
Quoted: Janet Hyde, UW-Madison professor of psychology and women’s studied
UW-Madison will provide the seventh most Teach for America participants among similar colleges and universities, according to a UW-Madison news release. The 70 recent graduates from UW-Madison joining Teach for America is up from 56 last year.
The PEOPLE Recognition Banquet July 29 at the Madison Marriott West in Middleton was host to 138 high school seniors and 87 University of Wisconsin-Madison freshmen along with popular Native American civil rights and social activist Ada Deer.
A 22-year-old Madison man was beaten Monday night by three men, one of whom the victim had an ongoing dispute over money with, Madison police reported. The trio fled when police arrived, but two suspects were found and arrested. The home invasion happened Monday at 7:20 p.m. at an apartment in the 400 block of West Johnson Street, police said.
Arrested were Peter Lorenz, 22, of Madison, on charges of strangulation-first degree endangerment, substantial battery and burglary, and Ander Saleh, 21, of Madison, on charges of substantial battery and burglary.
College students like to drink. Sometimes they drink too much. And sometimes they pay the price ? academically, socially, and sometimes, with their lives. No matter how well-intentioned they are, educational prevention methods like posters and lectures alone will not stop all this from happening.
A 22-year-old man was kicked and beaten by three men during a home invasion on West Johnson Street Monday night, according to the Madison Police Department. The victim and Peter L. Lorenz, 22, of Madison, were in a dispute over money at about 7:30 on Monday, police said. Both were inside the victim?s apartment, when two other associates of Lorenz burst through the door.
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — Some students will start owing more on their loans while they?re in school under a last-minute debt ceiling deal to keep the country out of default and reduce deficits by at least $2.1 trillion over a decade.
As part of the savings to trim the deficits, Congress would scrap a special kind of federal loan for graduate students. So-called subsidized student loans don?t charge students any interest on the principal of student loans until six months after students graduated. Congress would also nix a special credit for all students who make 12 months of on-time loan payments.
It?s clear that a crucial path to healing historic racial injustices and overcoming current ones is to create more educational opportunities so people of color can compete in employment markets. At a time when radical forces are pushing for less funding for public schools, creative solutions are especially needed now.
So for me, last Friday was a red-letter day. Few events have so clearly showcased creative, responsive government at its best as the luncheon I attended for UW-Madison?s PEOPLE program, which stands for Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence. The program was launched in 1999 with 66 high school students from Milwaukee and has grown to engage over 1,300 students statewide, from second-graders to undergrads.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is in the process of eliminating most free handicapped parking spaces across campus in a move that?s being criticized by some with mobility disabilities.
“It?s just a shame the university wants to put in another obstacle, in this case a financial one, limiting my ability to have independent access to the campus,” says Monica Kamal, the founder of Madison?s Spinal Cord Injury Group and a volunteer on the UW-Madison campus.
Developers are proposing a shorter apartment building on the site of the Episcopal student center at UW-Madison following opposition from a neighboring church and defeat at the city?s Plan Commission. The altered plan calls for an eight-story building, down from 12 stories.
UW-Madison?s ranking as a top party school is slipping. In the Princeton Review?s annual ranking, UW-Madison was listed as No. 14 among top party schools, dropping from No. 12 last year and No. 8 the year before.
Ohio University, set in an Appalachian town known for its rowdy Halloween bashes, has been named the nations No. 1 party school, pushing the University of Georgia down a slot in the 2011 Princeton Review survey released Monday.
Do those buttons that pedestrians can push at busy intersections make any difference in the timing of the lights? A: Yes, they make a huge difference, said traffic engineer Dan Dettmann. At some intersections Downtown or on the UW-Madison campus, the walk sign comes up every cycle because of heavy pedestrian traffic all day.
The White House and Congress reached a deal Sunday to raise the nation?s borrowing limit and shrink the federal deficit, just two days before the August 2 deadline.
CHICAGO ? When Jim Delany started the national discussion on cost-of-attendance scholarships in May, it was perceived as the Big Ten Conference commissioner trying to divert attention from the NCAA-related mess at his premier football school, Ohio State. If the proposal was a smokescreen, however, it hasn?t blown away yet. At separate media days events in the last week, Delany?s counterparts in the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences trumped him by calling for far-reaching changes in the way intercollegiate sports are conducted.
In 1998 law professors Keith Findley and John Pray founded the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Since then, with the help of law students, the project has reviewed thousands of cases and helped free 16 people who were imprisoned for crimes they didn?t commit.
Findley, a former public defender, now serves as president of the Innocence Network, which includes 55 innocence projects in the U.S., and 10 others in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
Gov. Scott Walker?s top administrator said Monday that Wisconsin is well positioned to continue providing services to residents, even if federal lawmakers fail to increase the U.S. debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline.
….Some have argued that if Congress fails to approve an increase to the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, the government will be forced to stop paying for services. Federal money makes up almost 30 percent of Wisconsin?s $66 billion budget, much of it earmarked for programs such as Medicaid, UW-Madison research grants and student financial aid.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and applied economics
Norway?s tragedy has struck a chord in Wisconsin, where we have historical, cultural, economic and institutional connections with a nation known for promoting peace and understanding. Our kinship with Norway is rooted in our communities and remains vital today through educational, governmental and other official relationships, as well as individual ties.
For UW-Madison, these ties are institutional and personal, with our students and scholars involved in research and exchange there, and Norwegian scholars and students coming here to study and live.
Mindset Lists began as a simple way to help professors at Beloit College better relate to their students. Now, on a larger scale, the lists have proven to be a mesmerizing way to retell American history. College officials Tom McBride and Ron Nief developed the first Mindset List in 1998. It offered scores of one-liners describing events that happened before the incoming freshmen were born, reminding professors that references to those events could draw blank stares.
Jered Lex and several of his schoolmates started a fishing club at UW-Platteville in the spring.
“The club grew to about 10 people and we got some different companies to sponsor (us) by sending us free fishing gear and stuff at discounted prices,” Lex said in an email last week. Now he?s hoping to reel in a few more members and a little publicity in the fall.
When she speaks to groups about the legal gulf separating whites from blacks in Dane County, Celia Jackson likes to pull a bleach-stained T-shirt over her tailored business suit.
“We have a stain in this community,” she says. “We need to own it. “It?s a simple but effective prop, illustrating the incongruity of a county that likes to consider itself enlightened on matters of social justice locking up young black men at a rate beyond almost any other place in the country.
….Former Dane County Circuit Judge James Martin said he retired in 2009 in part because of his frustration over the problem. He cited a 2006 hazing incident among members of the UW-Madison marching band that included young women being forced to kiss other women, and male upperclassmen forcing freshman women to drink alcohol. The scandal was handled as a school disciplinary matter rather than a crime.
“If that had happened on Allied Drive,” Martin said, naming one of Madison’s poorest neighborhoods, “you’d have criminal charges.”
Three UW-Madison students have agreed to pay nearly $9,000 in fines as part of a plea bargain stemming from citations issued by Madison police alleging 130 local ordinance infractions for dispensing beer to minors during a house party in September. Each of the three men faces another $12,651 in penalties if he is cited with any similar offense through May, said assistant city attorney Marci Paulson, who prosecuted the case.
Alyssa Ricketts? $18,049 first-year tuition bought her anonymity in law school lecture halls teeming with aspiring lawyers in the past year. It was hard enough to carve out elbowroom, much less a comfort zone with the University of Wisconsin-Madison professors. There were close to 100 students in six of her nine classes.
