Laura Rortvedt of rural Plymouth is the 2009 Sheboygan County Fairest of the Fair.
Rortvedt, the daughter of Lori and Jeff Rortvedt, is a graduate of Plymouth High School and is a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is majoring in animal science and dairy science.
The state of Wisconsin is sweeping nearly $2.2 million from a fund at UW-Madison that pays for programs such as University Health Services, the Wisconsin Union, university housing and recreational sports, which could mean an increase in campus fees to avoid service cuts, an administrator said.
The state is taking the money from the universityâ??s reserves to pay for student financial aid. In total, the state is transferring $23 million from similar funds at all UW System campuses to cover financial aid grants, including a new program that will protect families earning $60,000 or less from paying tuition increases.
As part of Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s new biennium budget, all University of Wisconsin System schools must give back money from their auxiliary funds, money that the UW-Madison student government does not have.
Designated Fund 128, the budget calls for a sweep of money from University Auxiliary Units throughout the system, including non-allocable and allocable segregated fees, in order to support financial aid.
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) – The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has stopped taking most freshman applications but is still offering to make room for students from 11 counties in the region.
Admissions director Pam Harvey-Jacobs said the university has heard from some students who’ve had to change plans because of the economy and now need or want to attend college closer to home.
When Jolene Anderson went off in pursuit of her dreams of playing professional basketball, she made a promise to her coach, Lisa Stone.
She’s making good on that promise this summer, as she has returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to get the three credits she needs to earn her degree in sociology.
“It’s very important for me to graduate from the University of Wisconsin,” said Anderson, the leading career scorer in UW history — male or female — with 2,312 points. “If I didn’t come back this summer, I don’t know how far along the line I would’ve gotten before I came back.”
She could be your best friend. Or she could make your freshman year miserable.
This summer, incoming college freshmen will learn the name of the person with whom they will spend nine months living in a roughly 15-foot by 10-foot dorm room.
The experience is both exhilarating and frightening. Thoughts of independence â?? yes! â?? are followed shortly by questions about who this stranger is, and what sort of irksome idiosyncrasies do they possess?
Children of parents in this country illegally will be able to pay in state UW tuition, under a provision of the budget signed by Governor Jim Doyle Monday. “Unquestionably it’s a step forward and opens the doors of educational opportunity for those students,” said Christine Neuman Ortiz is with Voces de la Frontera. And it’s a benefit to the state as a whole, as part of a broader strategy to make education more accessible.”
The UW Hillel Foundation has moved to its new home located at 611 Langdon Street in the heart of the UW Madison campus.
Named after a longtime leader and activist for Jewish causes, The Barbara Hochberg Center for Jewish Student Life offers updated and environmentally-friendly amenities to UW-Madison students, faculty, and the community at large.
As a freshman, I came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus without much direction and with minimal knowledge of who I was or what lay ahead for me.
However, it didnâ??t take long before I began to take great pride in the exciting community and the collective spirit of volunteerism on campus. In particular, I came across the UW Hillel and found that Judaism can be a guide to address ethical and moral issues and face them.
A conservative college group is threatening to sue the University of Wisconsin-Madison, claiming the school wiped out its funding as retaliation against its stance on global warming and other issues.
Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT, promotes the idea that environmental issues are better handled by the free market, not by government interference.
One of its prominent issues is global warming. CFACT national director Bill Gilles called the phenomenon “overblown” and said government responses would be so obtrusive they’d do more harm than good.
While Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed items in the state budget, at least one legislator was protesting a university decision to deny a UW-Madison student group funding.
Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, a group that advocates for smaller government to solve environmental problems, was denied funding last year by a UW-Madison student government committee in charge of doling out student fees.
They were one of a number of groups â?? including Vets for Vets, Engineers Without Borders, the Legal Information Center, and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Student Council â?? that lost funding last year because of stricter criteria.
Admissions directors at public universities around the country are reporting bumps in transfer applications, said Barmak Nassirian, a spokesman for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Indiana University has seen a 23% increase in transfer applications for next fall; the University of North Carolina had a 15.3% increase; and the University of California system saw an 11% increase in transfers of in-state students.
Several Wisconsin students are leading a project to help restore New Orleans wetlands that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison students launched two “floating islands” last week that were made from recycled plastic and marsh grasses. The islands are intended to foster plant growth and provide wildlife habitats.
MADISON (WKOW) — Your favorite radio station has a dire warning: they might switch to talk radio or shut down completely if Congress passes a new law charging them to play music.
It’s part of a new bill called the Performance Rights Act. Congress would authorize a special agency to collect fees from radio stations to play copyrighted music.
(WSUM general manager Dave Black is quoted)
This Saturday, a picture display at one corner of the Dane County Farmers’ Market will bring the wonders of the universe all the way down to State Street.
Forty images of galaxies, planets and other space sites will be on display at the corner of State and Mifflin streets from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. In the event of rain, the exhibit will be on display on Saturday, July 4.
The exhibit, “From Earth to the Universe,” is part of a celebration of the International Year of Astronomy, which marks the 400th anniversary of when Galileo used a telescope to see beyond the Earth.
Students with the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a maker of buoyant marsh mats are teaming up to launch two “floating islands” in an experiment to help restore the badly eroded Bayou Bienvenue near New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward.
The floating islands will be launched Tuesday by the students and Floating Islands Environmental Solutions, a Baton Rouge company.
Students with the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a maker of buoyant marsh mats are teaming up to launch two “floating islands” in an experiment to help restore the badly eroded Bayou Bienvenue near New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward.
The floating islands will be launched Tuesday by the students and Floating Islands Inc., a Baton Rouge company.
As a group of university students work on their capstone thesis program this year, the City of Tomah might also benefit from their work.
The Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently requested proposals for community-focused undergraduate and graduate thesis projects. Students in the professional program are required to complete a two-semester service learning senior thesis capstone project. In the fall semester, each student will coordinate between the capstone faculty and a steering committee in a community of their choice to develop a project proposal. Earlier this month, Tomah City Administrator Jim Bialecki applied to include the city in the project.
Students who weren’t able to score season tickets for UW-Madison football this fall will have to wait another year. Tickets went on sale Monday morning, and were gone in just three hours.
Football season tickets for University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduates sold out in 2 hours and 35 minutes, the fastest sale in memory, said spokesman Vince Sweeney.
Traffic was so heavy on UWBadgers.com this morning that some students who tried to log on to buy tickets may have been put into a â??waiting roomâ? while they tried to access the site. The sale began at 8:30 a.m.
â??What that meant was it wasnâ??t as timely as we would have liked,â? Sweeney said.
Three hours after they went on sale, all football season tickets for UW-Madison undergraduate students are sold out .
Some UW-Madison students who logged on to UWBadgers.com this morning to buy tickets may have had some trouble accessing the site. It was temporarily down, apparently overwhelmed with people trying to buy the tickets, which went on sale this morning at 8:30 a.m.
After admitting 550 to 600 students from its waiting list, UW-Madison officials say they have filled next fallâ??s freshman class.
In late May, the State Journal reported the university had admitted about 300 Wisconsin students and about 50 out-of-state students.
Since then, UW-Madison has admitted roughly 200 more students from out-of-state, after exhausting the list of qualified Wisconsinites.
Noted: The Hillel chapter at the University of Wisconsin at Madison was faced with the same challenge when it designed a new building, which is expected to open soon.
Unlike Jewish institutions that have roadblocks and physical barriers that make the entrance look like an Israeli Embassy, the Wisconsin Hillel opted for security cameras and doors that could be locked quickly and turned into entranceways that require permission to enter, executive director Greg Steinberger said.
Perhaps I’d be working as an engineer these days instead of a reporter if I could have had access to WolframAlpha during my college years.
Or not.
Anyway, as The Chronicle of Higher Education pointed out in an article posted Friday: “The long-running debate over whether students should be allowed to wield calculators during mathematics examinations may soon seem quaint.”
The article continues: “The latest dilemma facing professors is whether to let students turn to a Web site called WolframAlpha, which not only solves complex math problems, but also can spell out the steps leading to those solutions. In other words, it can instantly do most of the homework and test questions found in many calculus textbooks.”
When Suzanne Fields’ son died of an alcohol overdose last year, a few days after completing his first year of college, she decided she wanted to keep other students from suffering the same fate. The result was the Red Watch Band movement, which aims to give students the skills to intervene when someone passes out from binge drinking. Students volunteer for the program, which involves 2½ hours of CPR training and an hour of alcohol-related emergency training.
Kayla Jenerson of Green Bay, an incoming University of Wisconsin-Madison freshman, will sing the national anthem during President Barack Obama’s stop at Green Bay Southwest High School this afternoon.
Jenerson told UW officials that she received a phone call from the principal of her alma mater, Preble High School, offering her the opportunity.
The wretched economy has taught many of the nation’s college-bound seniors a hard lesson: You can’t always get what you want. In a survey to be released Tuesday, 71% of high schools reported that more of their students are forgoing their “dream schools” this year than in previous years. And there is little doubt money is a big reason.
On the Badger Herald’s opinion blog, Muckrakers, Jason Smathers takes an interesting look at the chain of events that will bring former District 8 candidate Mark Woulf onto the Alcohol License Review Committee as a non-voting member/technical advisor. Former Ald. Eli Judge worked to get a student member on the committee and the amendment passed in late March just before Judge left office. In the course of about a week in late April, Woulf was chosen by the former ASM chair Brittany Wiegand, although it doesn’t look like from the city’s website that he has been confirmed into that position.
When University of Wisconsin-Madison students return to school this fall, the residence halls will no longer offer kosher dining.
The university ended a short-lived foray into kosher food service in November when the last of a string of Mashgiachs, or kosher supervisors, left the university.
Replacing an outdated, bursting-at-the seams facility, the new four-floor University of Wisconsin-Madison Hillel has a kosher cafe, a rooftop basketball court and room to grow.
The Barbara Hochberg Center for Jewish Student Life, 611 Langdon St., is now the largest Hillel in the country, said Greg Steinberger, executive director.
Looking to add a little Badger spirit to your summer TV viewing habits? If so, the Big Ten Network will be showing several programs this summer created during the 2008-09 academic year by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. According to a university press release, UW-Madison has produced more original programming for the network than any other Big Ten school, totaling about 30 hours.
A groundbreaking on Tuesday marked the next phase of building a new Union South on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
The new building is being built at the site of the old Union South at Dayton and Randall streets.
The old union south was built in 1971 and was torn down to make way for a new, larger building that will better serve students, staff and alumni.
The wretched economy has taught many of the nation’s college-bound seniors a hard lesson: You can’t always get what you want.
In a survey to be released Tuesday, 71 percent of high schools reported that more of their students are forgoing their “dream schools” this year than in previous years. And there is little doubt money is a big reason.
“With the exception of one or two students, it was THE determining factor in their decision,” one high school official wrote. Said another: “Parents were willing to pay for prestige in the past. This year they wanted prestigious schools IF the financial aid packages would work for them.”
University of Wisconsin campuses will be able to discipline students for serious off-campus misconduct for the first time under a controversial policy adopted Friday.
University of Wisconsin campuses will be able to discipline students for serious off-campus misconduct for the first time under a controversial policy adopted Friday.
After more than two years of review and debate, the Board of Regents voted 15-3 to adopt the first rewrite of system rules governing student misconduct since 1996. The rules now go to the Legislature for a final review but are expected to be in place for the upcoming school year.
The revised University of Wisconsin System student conduct code will go to the full Board of Regents for approval Friday, with an extra provision that would give hearing examiners more power to control how witnesses are questioned during student disciplinary hearings.
As the 2009 Student Orientation and Registration session begins, officials say some challenges may arise as extensive construction projects continue throughout campus.
According to Wren Singer, director of the Center for First Year Experience, about 5,700 incoming freshmen and 1,200 transfer students will visit UW-Madison this summer for SOAR between June 3 and July 31.
She said she expects many travel problems to occur for students and families coming to SOAR this summer because of the campus construction.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students will soon have the option of using their school identification as debit cards.
UW-Madison is entering into a contract that gives UW Credit Union the exclusive right to provide the service for up to 10 years. In exchange, the university is expected to receive as much as $6.4 million in revenue.
Implementing furloughs for all University of Wisconsin System employees will be difficult to track, hurt the competitiveness of researchers and raise legal concerns, system leaders said Thursday.
UW System President Kevin Reilly and chancellors at several campuses also acknowledged they were preparing for the possibility of employee layoffs. The comments came as the UW System Board of Regents was briefed on the two-year budget plan approved by the Legislature’s budget committee last week.
Students faced with suspension, expulsion or criminal charges for non-academic misconduct could have legal representation during hearings at University of Wisconsin System schools, but students would be expected to answer questions on their own, according to a revised policy the Board of Regents will consider this week.
Gov. Jim Doyle has tapped a University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire student to join the UW System Board of Regents.
Doyle says Aaron Wingad will replace UW-Madison graduate student Colleene Thomas as the student representative on the 18-member board that sets policy for the UW System.
No one knows how many study abroad-related lawsuits are settled before landing in court. But you can probably count on two hands the number of cases where courts have ruled, several legal experts say. None of those rulings creates “a binding precedent nationwide,” says William Hoye, executive vice president and chief operating officer of IES Abroad, a Chicago-based non-profit that offers more than 80 study-abroad programs in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand.
A University of Wisconsin System student who faces suspension, expulsion or has been charged with a crime could have a lawyer speak for him or her at a campus hearing, according to new language that will be presented to the UW Board of Regents on Thursday.
Thatâ??s a change to the current law, which most System officials interpret to mean that lawyers can be present at hearings but canâ??t speak on behalf of students.
The City Council overwhelmingly passed liquor license suspensions for two downtown bars at its Tuesday night meeting, but not before a heated debate over the policeâ??s role in patrolling licensed establishments in the city.
Madison Avenue, 624 University Ave., and Ram Head Rathskeller, 303 N. Henry St., will have their liquor licenses suspended from July 1 to July 30, in addition to having several restrictions added to their licenses. Johnny Oâ??s, 620 University Ave., will also see several restrictions added to its license.
University of Wisconsin campuses have made progress on plans to prevent and respond to mass shootings but budget problems will slow down some of them, according to a new report.
UW’s 13 four-year campuses are giving students more information about safety, have teams to identify and intervene with potentially dangerous students and plans to notify students about emergencies, according to the UW System report.
Even as colleges nationwide celebrate commencement season, hundreds of schools are failing to graduate a majority of their students in six years, a report says today. Nationally, four-year colleges graduated an average of just 53% of entering students within six years, and “rates below 50%, 40% and even 30% are distressingly easy to find,” says the report by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Its based on data reported to the Education Department by nearly 1,400 schools about full-time first-time students who entered in fall 2001.
A Dane County judge on Tuesday dismissed elements of a lawsuit filed by the parents and fiance of slaying victim Brittany Zimmermann.
Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi dismissed parts of the wrongful death lawsuit that was filed in January by Kevin and Jean Zimmermann and Brittany Zimmermanns fiance, Jordan Gonnering.
A lawsuit filed against Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk by the family of Brittany Zimmermann has been dismissed.
Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi issued a ruling today saying the Zimmermann family cannot sue Falk or Dane County over an alleged lack of funding for the 9-1-1 center.
Brittany Zimmermann made a 9-1-1 call just moments before she was murdered in her apartment in April of 2008. The 9-1-1- operator did not hear any sound on the call and when the call was disconnected she failed to call back or dispatch police.
MADISON, Wis. — A Dane County judge on Tuesday dismissed elements of a lawsuit filed by the parents and fiance of slaying victim Brittany Zimmermann.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin campuses have made progress on plans to prevent and respond to mass shootings but budget problems will slow some of them, according to a new report.
The UW System has done well on its goal of producing more graduates than ever before, while falling short on enrolling, retaining and graduating students of color.
Thatâ??s according to the Systemâ??s annual report on its progress in key areas.
A record number of students â?? 175,056 â?? enrolled in the UW System in 2007-2008. The largest number of students â?? 32,475 â?? also graduated.
But graduation rates for African American, American Indian, Southeast Asian, and Hispanic/Latino students were below target. While 65 percent of students graduated within six years of entering the UW System, only 33 percent of African Americans graduated and 41.5 percent of American Indians.
Madisonâ??s Alcohol License Review Committee is recommending tough discipline for another troubled Downtown bar.
The ALRC on Monday voted 5-2 for a rare 30-day license suspension plus new license conditions for Ram Head Ratskeller, formerly Bull Feathers, 303 N. Henry St. The suspension, which would run July 1 through July 30, and license conditions that would require better technology to detect fake IDs, will be considered by the City Council on Tuesday.
Ram Head, owned by former non-voting ALRC member Richard Lyshek, is one of three campus-area bars to face license non-renewal hearings this spring.
With costs threatening to detour millions of students off the college route altogether, itâ??s time to open the educational express lane.
Some American universities are planning to give more students a chance to graduate in three years rather than four. Graduates would still be saddled with a sizable student-loan boulder, but it would be quite a bit lighter.
Like many others interested in change, Colleene Thomas pondered whether to devote herself to working from within or outside the system.
“You can work against something you are concerned about — like joining the Sierra Club and protesting the Charter Street Power Plant,” says Thomas. “Or you can work through the system, maybe gain office and a position of power, and be able to impact policy that relates to the power plant.”
Jennifer Jenkins took a break between her third and fourth years of medical school to practice what is called “street medicine” with an organization in Pittsburgh. She made “house calls” on the streets, handing out medicine, socks and sandwiches. And she was glad to do it. Jenkins, 35, was once there herself.
“There’s nothing special about me,” says Jenkins, sitting in a cafe on Willy Street just days after graduating from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “You should see the resilience of the homeless people on the street.”
The University of Wisconsin announced groundbreaking plans Friday for the new Union South.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the new larger, improved and environmentally sustainable south campus union is scheduled for Tuesday, June 9, at 3:30 pm, at 1308 W. Dayton St., future site of the building.
The $94 million new building, as yet unnamed, will open in spring 2011.
Chris Meyer uses the word â??funâ? a lot.
Working all day on dirty, smelly engines is â??fun.â?
Learning the business, software and electronics sides of inventing is â??fun.â?
Even working with the bureaucracy to get his latest invention established on the UW-Madison campus is â??fun,â? he says with a grin that makes you not quite sure heâ??s being sarcastic.
Boy power! The Chicago Tribune is reporting that a group of students at the University of Chicago thinks the campus could focus a little more attention on men. So Steve Saltarelli, a junior from Lake Bluff, Ill., formed the student organization “Men in Power.”
The group’s Facebook page now has over 350 members — a nearly three-fold increase since the Tribune’s article on the group was posted late Wednesday. The Facebook page states: “Men in Power (MiP) is a gender advocacy organization founded in the University of Chicago that seeks to address issues and challenges that contemporary men face in the society, while also providing a pre-professional platform for its members.”
Nearly 300 Wisconsin students on the waiting list at UW-Madison have been offered a spot in its freshman class, marking the third time in four years the school has turned to the list.
Routinely taking students from the waiting list is a relatively new phenomenon for the stateâ??s flagship university, where for many years the list was as good as a rejection.
It reflects the â??volatility and unpredictability of this whole process,â? said Tom Reason, associate director of admissions.
After not admitting any students from the waiting list for five years, UW-Madison accepted students off the list in 2006 and in 2008. Last year, the university admitted about 500 students from the waiting list.
College students more often enter fraternities as heavy drinkers, rather than blossoming into boozehounds after initiation, report psychologists.
(Third item down.)
