Category: Campus life

A member of the Wisconsin Badgers football team, Jake Irwin, was arrested on two counts of disorderly conduct and two counts of battery for his role in a fight outside the Red Gym on Sept. 1, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department.

MADISON, Wis. — The parents of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student killed more than three years ago are renewing their plea for help in solving the case.

Kevin and Jean Zimmermann drove down to Madison last week from their home in Marshfield, exactly 41 months to the day since their daughter, Brittany, was killed in her campus apartment.

The parents of slain UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann are renewing their plea for help in solving her 2008 murder while urging participation in a fundraising run in her name. The second annual Brittany Zimmermann 5K Run/Walk will take place Sept. 17 starting at 9 a.m. at the Memorial Union. The course will follow the scenic Howard Temin Lakeshore Path. The $20 entry fee benefits the Madison Area Crime Stoppers reward fund, which helps law enforcement agencies solve crimes by offering money for information leading to arrests.

The parents of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student killed more than three years ago are renewing their plea for help in solving the case. Brittany Zimmermann was strangled and stabbed after someone forced open a door to her apartment building in April 2008. Her mother, Jean Zimmerman, says someone knows who killed her 21-year-old daughter and she?s begging for someone to come forward with information.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison fraternity has a new home after fire burned down its chapter house three years ago.

UW-Madison police are investigating a battery that happened early Thursday outside the Red Gym, 716 Langdon St. Sgt. Aaron Chapin said that two men, both UW-Madison students, were victims of an unprovoked attack by a group of four to seven males about 12:19 a.m. Thursday.

UW-Madison Police have arrested one person for involvement in the assault of two students outside the Red Gym, 716 Langdon St., early Thursday.

If you?re wondering why the first day of class at UW-Madison is the Friday before a holiday weekend — and the day after the Badgers season opener — UW-Madison has an explanation. It?s because state statute dictates that the semester must start after Sept. 1. But faculty need to fit in a certain amount of instructional days before Christmas Eve. Instructors would not be able to fit in the full course content if class started on, say, Tuesday, Sept. 6, according to UW-Madison.

The 1928 building at 800 Langdon Street is the only student union in the country to have a vital, active member program, and many of those members packed the second-floor Tripp Commons Tuesday night along with UW-Madison students and staff to talk about an expansion scheduled to begin construction next summer.

The Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity is hosting an open house and tour today of its new house, which was rebuilt on the ashes of the old building. The fraternity house, 237 Langdon Street, was destroyed in a late night fire on May 12, 2008. The Madison Fire Department has not released a cause for the blaze, said Ryan Sugden, a member of the fraternity?s alumni board.

As a student and an employee of UW-Madison, I have spent many hours on the Terrace enjoying the wonderful, unique and laid back surroundings. To replace this with glass and concrete is crazy.

Ted Crabb isn?t surprised about the outcry over a proposed addition to the Memorial Union which could affect the iconic facility?s popular lakefront Terrace.

“When we expanded the Terrace 25 years ago, there were complaints about what we were doing then,” says Crabb, the director of the Wisconsin Union from 1968 to 2001. “We?d hear how we were using too much concrete or altering someone?s favorite space on campus and turning it into something else. That?s kind of par for the course. Change is difficult.”

Sarah Omernick maybe describes it best when she says: “its insane.”

Long before 9/11, America was struck by a domestic terror attack in the name of peace. Forty-one years ago this week … at the height of the Vietnam War protests … an explosion rocked the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Peter Greenberg was a student there, and this morning he reports our Cover Story:

In honor of dorm move-in days, check out this photo album UW-Madison Archives created of “100 years of student housing at UW-Madison.” It includes photos of Leila Bascom arranging photos and decorative dishes in Chadbourne Hall in 1898. We?re guessing fine china is off the “must-bring” list for most students these days.

Citing increased violence and cost to the city, Madison police say the annual Mifflin Street block party “simply cannot continue.” The statement, made in a Madison Police Department report on the 2011 event, echoes the call Mayor Paul Soglin has made to end the annual bacchanal. The 42-year-old event occurs annually near the end of the UW-Madison school year ? with or without official sanctioning. This year?s block party in April was marred by a large, drunken crowd and violence that included two stabbings, three sexual assaults, three substantial batteries, four strong-armed robberies and numerous reports of property damage during and after the event, according to the report. Police arrested 162 people, including 37 UW-Madison students. Soglin said he wants the event to occur on its traditional date ? the first Saturday in May ? when students will be studying for final exams. Ald. Scott Resnick, who represents the student-dominated 8th District near UW-Madison, said he believes the party needs to be more “Madison-centric.” He said he would like to see less advertising of the party on social media sites to people outside of Madison.

A Madison police department reports cites binge drinking and other increasing problems as reasons to end the Mifflin Street block party.

MADISON, Wis. — The Madison Police Department is recommending the city shut down the annual Mifflin Street Block Party after recent violence and overconsumption of alcohol.

Nervous parents and their excited offspring will be swarming all over the UW-Madison campus beginning Thursday during the annual migration known as Move-In Day. By the time it?s all over next Wednesday, more than 7,000 students will unpack boxes and set up speakers in the university residence halls, according to the UW-Madison news service.

Only 18 days away from the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history, Madison on Wednesday is quietly commemorating the 41st anniversary of one of its darkest days: the bombing of Sterling Hall on the UW campus. Early in the morning of Aug. 24, 1970, four anti-Vietnam War radicals ? Karleton Armstrong, his brother Dwight Armstrong, David Fine and Leo Burt ? used a van filled with almost a ton of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil to bomb Sterling Hall, killing researcher Robert Fassnacht and injuring three others.

For students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, going to class has taken on multiple meanings. Since Rabbi Mendel and Henya Matusof moved to campus in 2005, it?s just as common to find Jewish students studying for their final exams as delving into a classical work of Jewish thought.

MADISON, Wis. — Madison police are looking for two men wanted in connection with a sexual assault early Monday morning on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

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.

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.

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.

UW-Madison offers programming in its Center for the First-Year Experience to help students make a smooth transition to college.