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.)
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.
Except for a dip in the first few years after 9/11, the number of students receiving credit for study-abroad programs has been rising steadily. It jumped nearly 150%, to 241,791, between 1996-97 and 2006-07, the latest year for which data is available, says the Institute of International Education, a New York-based non-profit. The House and Senate each have introduced a bill this year that aims to boost that figure to 1 million in a decade. As more students consider study abroad, international education experts say, a confluence of trends could lead to more risks for students.
A Jamaican police report sums up what happened on the last night of Jenee Klotzs semester abroad her junior year of college: She was robbed, sexually assaulted and stabbed while walking back to her host familys home. She says she spent nine hours in a Kingston hospital, and the next morning, the programs academic director dropped her at the airport â?? still wearing pajama bottoms and with dried blood on her neck and chest. Klotz, 23, knows that no program can guarantee 100% safety. But two years later, she and her family remain bitter about the way they say the incident was handled.
Will college students take the train? More specifically, will they take high speed rail? The answer is yes, according to UW Madison student Tony Uhl, who helped to organize a statewide tour of college students advocating for high speed rail
A nutritious, mouse-eared waffle could win a team of UW-Madison students $2,500.
The student-created snack, called Mickioli, is a finalist in a food product development competition sponsored by Disney and the Institute of Food Technologists Student Association.
Mickioli is a waffle snack shaped like the head of Mickey Mouse. The waffles are made from quinoa, a gluten free grain, and are layered with strawberry and yogurt filling.
A nutritious, mouse-eared waffle could win a team of UW-Madison students $2,500.
The student-created snack, called Mickioli, is a finalist in a food product development competition sponsored by Disney and the Institute of Food Technologists Student Association.
During a night of partying, college students can get rowdy. We’ve all seen it. Many of us have lived it.
They can be loud, obnoxious and, to delicately put it, forget their boundaries.
Irritating? No doubt. But should a university punish students for unruly behavior outside of campus?
If the behavior is serious and repeated, it should.
A judge will decide next month whether to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the family of murdered UW student Brittany Zimmermann.
The suit accuses the Dane County of mishandling the 911 call Zimmermann made from her cell phone the night she was murdered.
Student loan defaults are at their highest rate since 1998, and likely will go higher. And though federal student loans offer some payment modification options, private loans are far more onerous, because even filing for bankruptcy rarely wipes out the debt. Congress might tackle bankruptcy law reform again this year, but it decided as recently as last year not to allow student loans to be easily discharged through bankruptcy filings.
Soon, credit won’t be so easy to get. Last week, President Obama signed legislation that restricts a number of controversial credit card practices, including issuing credit cards to college students. The law prohibits lenders from issuing credit cards to individuals younger than 21 unless they can prove they can make payments or get a parent or guardian to co-sign.
College students who frequently drink to extremes and are inclined to be thrill-seekers are more likely to be physically injured as a result of their alcohol use, a new study shows.
U.S. researchers found that students who binged heavily on alcohol at least four days a month were five times more likely to be physically hurt than their peers. Male students who had at least eight drinks on each of these drinking occasions and females who had a minimum of five drinks on each of these occasions were considered “frequent extreme heavy drinkers” in the study.
Universities and colleges are “missing the mark” in their fight against binge drinking on campus, which a new study says leads to 500,000 injuries in one year in the U.S. alone.
The research suggests that blanket efforts, such as cutting down on drink specials at campus pubs, may not be enough to curb consumption or prevent alcohol-related injuries. Universities have to pinpoint the students who are most at risk and perform some basic interventions with them, said one of the study’s authors.
Despite some efforts, drinking on campus has remained a problem. An estimated 500,000 college students in the United States suffered alcohol-related injuries in 2001 according to Marlon P. Mundt, assistant scientist in the department of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author for the study.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison student who was threatened last year with deportation to Nigeria has graduated from the School of Pharmacy, but her future remains unclear.
Temitope “Tope” Awe, 24, made headlines in April 2008 when Immigration Customs and Enforcement planned to deport her and her family, even though she had lived in Milwaukee with her parents since she was 3 years old.
After a first effort failed, Madison police are again threatening liquor license renewals of troubled Downtown bars.
But one targeted bar owner calls the efforts â??selective enforcementâ? and a â??fascist state action every person in the city of Madison should worry about.â?
Three campus-area bars might not have their liquor licenses renewed because of alleged violations, according to papers filed by city officials.
When the University of Wisconsin-Madison makes its financial aid offer in the coming weeks to rising sophomore Kate Konetzke, it probably wonâ??t account for the fact that the postal service in Neenah recently cut her momâ??s hours or that her dadâ??s working less at a steel fabrication plant.
So the Konetzkes, who live near Oshkosh in Winneconne, may ask the school to reconsider the aid offer, given the fact theyâ??ll likely make less money this year than anticipated.
â??Itâ??s worth a shot,â? said Konetzkeâ??s mother, Sue, as she helped her daughter move out of Sellery Hall last week. â??Otherwise, it looks like weâ??re sitting in a situation weâ??re no longer in.â?
Economic hardship is prompting a growing number of UW-Madison students and families to appeal financial aid decisions â?? which for the 2009-2010 academic year are based on 2008 earnings â?? school officials say.
Most borrowers are required to start repaying the loans within six months after graduation. If you’re unemployed or suffering other economic hardship, you can apply to have payments deferred for up to three years. But depending on the type of loan, interest may continue to accrue during that period, which means you’ll have an even bigger balance when you resume payments. Starting July 1, borrowers will have a new option: a repayment program that caps monthly payments based on income. It targets borrowers who would have a hard time paying basic living expenses if they had to make standard monthly payments on their loans, says Lauren Asher, acting president for the Project on Student Debt.
A legislative analysis says Gov. Jim Doyle’s plan to allow some illegal immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition would affect few students and cost very little.
The study of the La Isabela skeletons grew out of a project in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, where in 2000 researchers were surprised to find the remains of West Africans among those buried in a mid-16th-century church cemetery in Campeche. Vera Tiesler and Andrea Cucina from the Autonomous University of Yucatan invited T. Douglas Price, director of the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, to do isotopic analysis of those skeletons’ teeth.
Story quotes James Burton, a geochemist at the University of Wisconsin involved in the La Isabela and Campeche projects.
When two first-year French horn players in Southern University’s marching band were beaten so badly they had to be hospitalized in intensive care, it exposed a dirty secret: Hazing isn’t reserved for fraternities.
Included in list of incidents: The University of Wisconsin-Madison last year briefly suspended its marching band after allegations that underclassmen were forced to drink huge amounts of alcohol.
The new law, which could potentially more than double the amount covered in the current GI Bill, could open college doors to thousands of veterans, many of whom would not otherwise have considered college because of the expense.
The law provides the equivalent of in-state tuition at the highest-priced public college in the state where the veteran lives, based on undergraduate tuition and fees. There is also a monthly housing allowance and a $1,000 stipend for books and supplies.
