Category: Campus life

Life in the Capitol, while spirited and invigorating, also can take its toll, especially as some of the protesters begin their second week of overnights. The lights never go out, making sleep a challenge for some. The restrooms accommodate only so many at a time. Privacy hardly exists, with strangers in pajamas sprawled along the walls and corridors, wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags. As most of the crowd slept, volunteers with the Teaching Assistants? Association, composed of UW-Madison graduate students, sat in a room together working away on laptops, sending calls via Facebook and Twitter to marshal volunteers and help distribute the massive quantities of donated food, water and coffee that have poured in daily.

Amidst all the protesting centered on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker?s Budget Reform Bill, a more heinous act of treachery has been stealthily executed in an attempt to damn the University of Wisconsin ? Madison into the obscurity of bottom-tier education quality.

So, lost in the activity at the capital is the important question of what becomes of UW-Madison and the System with the new budget.  I?ve heard from sources in the Walker camp that Madison will likely have the Public Authority model that UW-System originally asked for. Apparently, the Governor decided that it would be too much for the entire system to go that route without a test case, which led to Madison?s choice. Seeing it from that perspective, it makes perfect sense to have a trial run, and to do it with the school most able to do it, before committing all students down that path.

The UW-Madison Teaching Assistants? Association called for “teach-out” Tuesday to protest Walker?s bill. The teach-out means that teaching assistants will gather at the Capitol, but it?s not a strike.

* Not everyone on the UW-Madison campus is pumped up about all the protesting that?s going on. And one student had the guts to say as much in an opinion piece which appeared in the Daily Cardinal.

** Meanwhile, a group of faculty leaders and the student government at UW-Madison, among others, are urging the campus community to join a rally and march to the Capitol on Tuesday.

Public Representation Organization of the Faculty Senate, a membership organization consisting of UW-Madison faculty, has scheduled a march to the Capitol Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. in response to the budget repair bill.

Camped out at the Capitol in a room strewn with backpacks and sleeping bags, surrounded by signs with caricatures of Gov. Scott Walker and reminders to keep the peace, the Teaching Assistants? Association called for a general assembly meeting Sunday.

Members of the Teaching Assistants? Association voted to endorse a third teach-out for Tuesday classes and said University of Wisconsin officials cannot provide a guarantee that tuition remission will not be eliminated should the budget repair bill pass.

The UW-Madison Teaching Assistants? Association is calling for a teach-out today ? for all action on campus to cease for a second day. “We are doing it as an act of solidarity with our Democratic senators who have left the state of Wisconsin in order to protect public workers in the state,” said TAA member Magda Konieczna.

The fourth day of protests against Walker?s budget repair bill attracted more people from outside of the Madison area than those earlier in the week. As word spread mid-morning that Democratic senators had fled the state to prevent quorum and delay a vote on Walker?s bill, protesters continued to pile in via school buses, with student groups parading around Capitol Square. Students got creative, with one UW-Madison teaching assistant holding a “Teaching Assistants are Sexier With Benefits” sign. A group of high-school cross-country runners from Madison held a “Runners Against Walker” sign.

UW-Madison could be forced to raise tuition by 20 percent over the next two years if the state cuts $50 million from the university?s budget ? one scenario laid out in a memo from UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin to Gov. Scott Walker?s administration. The memo outlines how UW-Madison could separate from the rest of the University of Wisconsin System, giving the state?s flagship university more freedom from state oversight to set tuition, make personnel decisions, purchase goods and construct buildings. Martin and other System leaders have long sought such flexibility in exchange for something that has become a grim reality for them ? declining state aid.

University of Wisconsin officials have told students to expect classes on Thursday even though teacher assistants are calling for a “teach out” on campus.

UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said today she?s hopeful that the campus will be split into a new public authority in Gov. Scott Walker?s budget bill, arguing that questions of administrative structure aren?t as important as the strength of the state?s research university.

With continued uncertainty over the fate of the budget repair bill reigning over the Capitol, University of Wisconsin students organized a mass walkout from classes Thursday morning, and teaching assistants called for all activity on campus to halt.

If UW-Madison is granted the authority to set its own tuition rates, a key Republican legislator won?t be backing Gov. Scott Walker?s apparent plans to break Wisconsin?s flagship institution away from the UW System.

The third day of mass protesting against the budget repair bill on the Capitol steps on Wednesday was marked by another day without arrests or any major disturbances and an emphasis on the importance of the state?s educators and student life.

Despite professing a lack of details about UW-Madison?s relationship with the state at three student forums, a drafted letter obtained by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed Wednesday that Chancellor Biddy Martin advocated for the university?s separation from the UW system, and knew it was likely.

At 10 a.m. today, drop everything.Stand up and walk out of that classroom door to meet your fellow students at Library Mall at 10:30 a.m. Walk up State Street. Wave some signs. Yell at the top of your lungs. And protest the budget repair bill with everything you have got.

Amid protests in and around the Capitol Tuesday, hundreds of citizens testified their concerns with the budget repair bill to the state?s main financial committee, lasting the majority of the day and into the early hours of this morning.

Hundreds of Wisconsin?s public employees clogged a hearing for hours and camped out in the state Capitol overnight in a desperate attempt to delay action on Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to strip away most of their collective bargaining rights. The Legislature?s finance committee is preparing to vote on the measure, which would end collective bargaining for all state, county and local workers except for police, firefighters and the state patrol. “So many people are against this,” UW-Madison senior Kylie Christianson said early Wednesday as she sat in the Capitol rotunda on her blanket, putting the finishing touches on a protest sign. “His job is to help us, not to hurt us.”

Hundreds of Wisconsin?s public employees clogged a hearing for hours and camped out in the state Capitol overnight in a desperate attempt to delay action on Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to strip away most of their collective bargaining rights. The measure would end collective bargaining for all state, county and local workers except for police, firefighters and the state patrol. Two floors below the hearing, dozens of University of Wisconsin-Madison teaching assistants and students surged into the Capitol rotunda late Tuesday evening, putting down sleeping bags and blankets. Many were still asleep on the floor when the hearing ended.

Protests have engulfed the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where students are standing against a proposed bill that threatens teacher?s unions. The outcries come as the state?s new Republican Governor Scott Walker announced a plan to end collective bargaining for most of the state?s 175,000 public employees.

Thousands of protesters gathered on the steps of the Wisconsin State Capitol here on Tuesday to voice their opposition to a fast-moving proposal that would strip the union bargaining rights for University of Wisconsin faculty and staff members, while almost eliminating bargaining rights for nearly all other state workers, including graduate students.

The Teaching Assistant Association (TAA) calls on Chancellor Biddy Martin to take a strong stance in opposition to Gov. Walker?s budget repair bill. Her response to the bill to this point has been anything but.

Hundreds of Madison residents, including UW students and faculty, rallied at the state capitol to protest Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill Monday, kicking off what promises to be a turbulent week for the new governor.

The voices of University of Wisconsin staff members, students and community members shouting ?Kill this bill? reverberated through the Capitol rotunda Monday as nearly 1,100 protesters marched down State Street to the governor?s office door.