Category: Campus life

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Farmers at Fresno State have answered every child?s wish: They grow a vegetable that tastes like candy.Sweet, buttery, crunchy. Every day the university sells 10,000 to 30,000 ears of super-sugary corn grown on its campus farm smack in the middle of this Central Valley city. People line up for it at the university?s Gibson Farm Store, helping to make it one of the most profitable student markets in the nation. The farm earned $4.5 million in the fiscal year just ended, twice as much as the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dear Editor: The Dane County Coalition to Reduce Alcohol Abuse is excited that Mayor Paul Soglin and other city leaders are working to address Madison?s alcohol problem on a wide scale. The proposed ordinance, which would curb dangerous house parties and reduce risky drinking, is the beginning of what we hope will be a collaborative effort among the entire community.

A hot charcoal grill is being blamed for a fire that caused $500,000 in damage to a campus area house early Monday morning. The Madison Fire Department said the fire at 1521 Jefferson St. was caused by a small charcoal grill being placed on top of the wooden cover for a hot tub, causing the cover, hot tub and deck at the back of the house to catch fire.

Students looking for a workout Tuesday on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus couldn?t use campus facilities. The Division of Recreational Sports has shut down all facilities “as air-conditioning demand continues to outpace supply,” according to UW officials. With a chiller at the Charter Street Heating Plant out of service for two weeks, UW-Madison continues to struggle to cool all of its buildings.

A fire that damaged a house near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus early Monday morning was caused by a small charcoal grill, the Madison Fire Department said.

Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday, July 13, named Katie Pointer of De Pere one of two student representatives appointed to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents. Pointer, who is replacing Aaron Wingad, will serve a two-year term as the traditional student representative. After spending one year studying political science, public administration and finance at UW-La Crosse, Pointer will continue her education at UW-Madison in the upcoming academic year.

A fire that damaged a house near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus early Monday morning was caused by a small charcoal grill, the Madison Fire Department said. Madison Fire Department spokeswoman Bernadette Galvez said an unstable grill was placed on top of a wooden hot tub cover, catching the empty hot tub and back deck on fire. The fire quickly spread into the home, causing a total estimated $500,000 in damage to the home, the detached garage and surrounding homes.

About 40 buildings across the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus continue to be affected by air conditioning problems on Tuesday after failures at several power plants. While a heat wave continues to cook southern Wisconsin, UW officials warned in a news release Tuesday that the warm conditions in the buildings are likely to continue for several days “as air-conditioning demand continues to outpace supply.” The result has been that many students and staff members have had to endure summer heat outside and inside campus buildings.

UW-Madison?s 330 or so buildings that rely on a central heating-cooling system were being provided with less than a big chill in Monday?s heat. Four of the system?s chillers were down at three power sources, putting the university?s cooling capacity at 77 percent for most of the day. One chiller was fixed Monday, another will take several days to repair, one was out for scheduled repair and the fourth was waiting for a part, said Alan Fish, vice chancellor for facilities, planning and management.

A Madison firefighter suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a downtown fire damaged a house near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus early Monday morning.

Ali Johnson graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in December with a degree in biomedical engineering. Now she?s back home – living with her parents, working as a prep cook for a cafe in Red Wing, Minn., and still hunting for a job in her chosen field.

“It?s hard. You never expect to have to move back in with your parents,” she said. “It?s stressful.”

For these four UW-Madison students, what began as an introduction in a virtual reality class morphed into a real-life trip to Disneyland ? and a behind-the-scenes look at the technology behind the fantasy of the Magic Kingdom. Liana Zorn, Joe Kohlmann, Rachina Ahuja and Samuel Sclenker were among 20 college students this summer chosen from across the U.S. by Walt Disney Imagineering to travel to Glendale, Calif., as part of Disney?s ImagiNations Competition, a talent search of sorts. During their four-day, expenses-paid trip, the UW-Madison students had the chance to network with “Imagineers” ? the people who dream up and engineer the “three-dimensional attractions” for Disney parks and resorts across the globe ? and to present their concept for a high-tech ride called “Operations Discover E.”

Mayor Paul Soglin and other Madison officials want to give police authority to quickly shut down dangerous or rowdy house parties, fine hosts and attendees, and hold landlords accountable for future problems. But some say the proposed law is too tough. Under the proposal, police could declare a party a nuisance if attendees are violating one of 17 existing laws, including providing liquor without a license, providing alcohol to underage or intoxicated people, obstructing entrances or stairways to buildings, disturbing the peace and overcrowding. The proposal puts a spotlight on kegs, letting police deem a gathering a nuisance if an open keg is visible from a public sidewalk, street or neighboring property and one of the 17 existing laws are also being violated. Ald. Scott Resnick, who represents the student-dominated 8th District near UW-Madison, is cool to the proposal.