The SERF and Natatorium are in need of renovation, according to the UW Division of Recreational Sports. The Recreational Sports Board presented its annual report at a Faculty Senate meeting Monday, citing the indoor facilities as outdated and â??too small to meet demand.â?
The University of Wisconsin Recreational Sports Board recommended Monday the construction of an extension onto the Natatorium facility.
A University of Wisconsin junior was assaulted at gunpoint by two males on Langdon Street late Monday night.
WHITEWATER â?? University Police arrested Stephen D. Schuerr, 39, of Burlington on Tuesday morning on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and possessing a firearm in a state building.
The arrest took place on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus without incident just after 8 a.m.
Schuerr is a student at UW-Whitewater and came to the attention of University Police after they received information that Schuerr had been carrying a weapon in a backpack that he also brought to campus. The University Police followed up on the information and were able to detain Schuerr before he went to class on Tuesday morning.
…the names of some newly registered voters have not appeared on the new statewide voter registration list, created in response to a federal law passed in 2006. That’s likely happening because these individuals, most of whom are UW-Madison students, registered with groups that collect registrations and then mail them en masse to the municipal clerk’s office; if these registrations were mailed after Oct. 15, the official cut-off date, voters have to register again on Election Day.
A 20-year-old female UW-Madison student was robbed at gunpoint Monday night while walking in a parking lot near her residence, police said.
Madison police said the robbery happened about 11 p.m. in the 100 block of Langdon Street downtown.
Thanks to University of Wisconsin track team senior Chavon Robinson’s idea, roughly 110 UW student-athletes were joining the rest of America in voting in Tuesday’s historic election.
Robinson’s Sport the Vote program, initiated as an attempt for her to get involved after having a discussion with a “more politically aware” friend, allowed UW student-athletes to register to vote at convenient locations on campus.
“Everyone wants to be a part of this huge election, and registering was the first part,” Robinson said. “I was just excited to be able to give them this opportunity so they could exemplify their enthusiasm at the polls.”
A University of Wisconsin junior was assaulted at gunpoint by two males on Langdon Street late Monday night.
The victim, a member of sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, was held by two black males at approximately 11:09 p.m. outside the Kappa Alpha Theta house on 108 Langdon St.
With a lower number of arrests and increased ticket sales at Freakfest 2008 Saturday, police are hailing the event as a â??hat trickâ?â??the third successful Halloween celebration in a row since the city began gating off State Street and charging admission to the event.
Federal law requires universities to have 60 days of crime data available for public view during business hours, but a new online incident log from the University of Wisconsin Police Department aims to make UW-Madisonâ??s data more accessible.
A national personal finance magazine ranked the University of Wisconsin 14th last week in terms of affordability in public universities.
After a strict departure from Madisonâ??s traditional Halloween celebrations, city officials, police and event organizers were delivered a â??hat-trickâ? through increased attendance and decreased arrests Friday and Saturday night.
Wilco doesn’t really do overtly political songs, Jeff Tweedy told the crowd Saturday afternoon at the Wisconsin Union Theatre during a show organized by the Obama campaign. The band had done their best to find songs in their repertoire that would fit a political audience, the lead singer said, but came up short.
“There’s a hope gap,” he joked.
In these last few days before the election, that hardly matters. Politics seem to spark like a current through everything, grasping everyone with unadulterated enthusiasm and nervous electricity leading up to Tuesday. This was never more evident than in the mostly student crowd of about 900 that turned out Saturday, corralled by a bevy of clipboard-clutching campaign volunteers. The event also featured appearances by Sen. Russ Feingold and Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, and was aimed at getting young voters out to the polls early.
Couples ruled the night at Freakfest on Saturday.
There were the monk and nun dancing lasciviously to the Blueheels’ sticky, thick beat of rock ‘n’ roll debauchery on the local stage. In the same crowd, former national Green Party co-chair Ben Manski played a secret service bodyguard to his Wasilla beauty queen. Out on State Street, an Ernie spotted a Bert. They ran to each other with hollers of recognition, chest-bumped each other and high-fived.
State Street was glimmering early Sunday morning, still damp from an even earlier street cleaning that took place after Freakfest ended. The street was almost empty, save for a few dog-walkers and half-costumed students walking to catch a bus or meet up with friends. Workers from city engineering drove around in trucks, picking up the stacked orange barrels that were the only sign that Saturday night was different from any other weekend in Madison.
….While city workers had State Street sparkling by 8 a.m., some students began a cleanup of nearby streets later in the morning. Michael Lasecki, a junior at UW-Madison, helped organize a campus clean-up effort with the Wisconsin Union Directorate. WUD works with the city streets department on this cleanup, leaving trash bags in designated spots for pickup, but Lasecki added it’s important that students are involved in the event cleanup directly.
Freakfest has achieved a “hat trick” of three consecutive years of increased attendance and decreased arrests, Madison police announced early Sunday morning.
More than 38,300 people bought tickets to see O.A.R. and other bands at the event, comparing favorably to the 34,000 tickets sold in 2007, and the crowd overall was “good-natured, responsible and well behaved,” police said in a statement.
Despite a few fights, arrests were down considerably from 2007, with only 77 arrested as of 2:45 a.m. Sunday compared to 181 in 2007, 235 in 2006, and 566 in 2005, the year before Freakfest began.
Despite his overall impression that “things went absolutely fantastically” at this year’s Freakfest, there was one thing that Downtown Ald. Mike Verveer couldn’t help notice was missing, he said.
For the third year in a row â?? or ever since the city chose to tame the Halloween event on State Street by gating it off and charging admission â?? too many UW-Madison students are choosing to skip Freakfest the way they might cut an unpopular class, he said.
Briefs package includes stories on Google Book Project, new COO of the Division of Information Technology.
AT A GLANCE
The proposed $60 million expansion and renovation to the Natatorium would include the following:
â?¢ Four new gymnasiums
â?¢ Locker rooms
â?¢ Several multi-purpose studios
â?¢ Racquetball courts
â?¢ Four-lane walking/jogging track
â?¢ A wellness suite (could also go in UHS space)
â?¢ A large fitness center for cardio and weight training
â?¢ An indoor artificial turf facility
USAGE TRENDS
â?¢ 85 percent of students use recreational services
â?¢ Of those, 55 percent felt the facilities were too crowded
â?¢ 18 percent of students exercise off-campus
â?¢ Additional spaces for fitness programming was a top priority
â?¢ In 2001, there were about 30 group fitness classes per week. Now, there are about 100 and students must pay $20 a semester to take them.
UW Recreational Sports facilities are “antiquated and too small to meet demand,” according to the annual report from the Recreational Sports Board.
Oshkosh lenders say national reports of a dismal student loan forecast do not reflect the local market.
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Institutions that provide Oshkosh public university students with subsidized, unsubsidized and Federal Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students, or PLUS loans, actually made more loans available this year, said Scott Chicoine, president of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Credit Union, which now has total outstanding loans at $7 million.
Statistics can tell you a lot, but statistics do not grieve. That was the power of a group of activists who emerged in the early 1980s. They called themselves Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and they described what numbers alone could not.
Halloween in Madison didn’t live up to its sometimes infamous reputation Friday night and early Saturday morning as the holiday remained relatively quiet with authorities reporting a few dozen arrests.
In year’s past, the sight of costumed revelers wandering the city’s downtown sometimes got out of hand and improvised street parties turned into small-scale riots, leading to arrests, property damage and hefty costs for the city and police.
A national personal finance magazine ranked the University of Wisconsin 14th last week in terms of affordability in public universities.
On a mild Saturday night, large crowds in costume flocked to State Street for Freakfest, the city-sanctioned annual Halloween party.
This was the third year that the city of Madison gated off State Street and charged admission to what was previously a spontaneous street event. Rechristened as Freakfest, the event has become more of a downtown happening with live music than the near-riot it was sometimes in the unregulated years.
The Wisconsin Covenant continues to expand. The program has now enrolled 35,000 eighth grade students around Wisconsin, according to Amy Bechtum, Director of the Office of the Wisconsin Covenant.
MADISON (WKOW) — There was litter on Library Mall and beer bottles in nearby bushes, but overall a group of student community service volunteers for the Wisconsin Union Directorate found Freakfest 2008 didn’t leave much of a mark on Madison.
“It’s not too bad surprisingly, but we’re trying to keep it as clean as possible,” said Mike Lasecki, the group’s director, on Sunday morning.
Q. Why do people like to scare themselves by watching horror movies or going on thrill rides?
A. First of all, it’s important to remember that many people don’t enjoy these experiences, said Jack Nitschke, a UW-Madison professor of psychiatry and psychology. But those who do may be seeking thrills provided by the amygdala, a brain region that controls our emotional responses to salient objects and events.
Madison has a great chance to finally and emphatically declare the annual State Street Halloween party a success this weekend.
But that will require another large and cautious police presence.
It will require cooperation from bar and other business owners.
A group of UW students, unhappy with the direction of Freakfest, wanted their own party on Mifflin Street Saturday night.
But after meeting with city officials, they’ve had a change of heart.
Alex Kaufer says he won’t be at Freakfest on State Street this year.
He says, “I don’t think so. I’m gonna do on my word and not go because I don’t agree with how it’s being put on.”
A group of UW students, unhappy with the direction of Freakfest, wanted their own party on Mifflin Street Saturday night.
But after meeting with city officials, they’ve had a change of heart.
Alex Kaufer says he won’t be at Freakfest on State Street this year.
MADISON, Wis. — Organizers who were planning an alternative party to Freakfest, the city-sanctioned Halloween party on State Street, on Thursday pulled the plug on the party.
The purpose of the alternative party on Mifflin Street Saturday had been to protest the admission price and organization of Freakfest, which is set for Saturday.
After an hour long meeting with the mayor, Madison police and city alders, UW student organizers pulled the plug on an alternative Freakfest party planned on Mifflin Street Saturday.
“We’re doing this out of concern to the resident on mifflin street,” says Christian Von Preysing-Berry, one of the event planners.
Promotional fliers were plastered all over campus and the party was getting a lot of attention. Which is one of the main reasons it was canceled.
With Plan 2008 coming to an end, UW-Madison students voiced their opinions and possible solutions to increase the diversity of the campus during a student forum Wednesday.
City officials responded Wednesday to a student movement to combine elements of two of Madisonâ??s biggest partiesâ??Freakfest and the Mifflin Street Block Partyâ??into one celebration for a Halloween block party on Mifflin Street Saturday.
Some University of Wisconsin-Madison students are planning an unsanctioned Halloween block party Saturday night on West Mifflin Street, promoting the gathering as a free alternative to the Freakfest event on State Street.
“We all love the Mifflin Street block party, so we’re just letting people know that we think it would be a great place to hang out and party on Saturday, instead of everyone going to State Street,” said Xiyang Chen, a UW-Madison student who is trying to spread the word about the event. “I’ve been to Freakfest two times, and it’s pretty regulated and very well-organized, and many people find it enjoyable.
“But there are certain things some of us don’t like about Freakfest — mostly the $7 admission fee and the entertainment.”
Negotiations took place Wednesday night between Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, and the student organizers of an unregulated party scheduled for Saturday night on Mifflin Street.
A former Madison man who dealt hundreds of pounds of marijuana and who authorities believe has information about the unsolved Amos Mortier murder was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to two years and three months in prison and four years probation and fined $3,000.
Brian Hutchinson, 34, now of Fontana, Wis., was a University of Wisconsin student in August 2000 when he shared a house on Wingra Avenue with Reed Rogala, a man heavily involved in marijuana trafficking, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Graber.
The house served as transfer point for the 100-pound shipments of marijuana that regularly arrived from suppliers in New York.
Donna Freitag, a former UW-Madison women’s basketball assistant, has been hired by the UW-Madison Dean of Students Office to help promote a positive culture change in the UW Marching Band.
MADISON, Wis. — As the city of Madison makes final preparations for Freakfest, news that students might congregate on Mifflin Street for an alternative Halloween party Saturday is posing a big unknown for the city.
Downtown city Alder Mike Verveer said he will meet with the student organizers Wednesday night and ask them to pull the plug on the party. Organizers don’t have a permit for the alternative party, and city leaders said they are concerned that problems will arise.
The Daily Cardinal reported Wednesday that UW-Madison students Alex Kaufer and Xiyang Chen feel students need an alternative to the official city-sponsored Freakfest, which features large music stages with bands like O.A.R. and is sponsored by Mountain Dew. Freakfest turns State Street into a fenced-off party on Saturday, Nov. 1, and charges attendees $7 admission.
“Are we watching the Mifflin thing?” said Madison Police Capt. Mary Schauf, addressing reporters on State Street at a Wednesday Freakfest press conference. “Oh yes, we are.”
About 400 law enforcement officers and other staff will blanket the downtown area for Madison’s annual Halloween party on Saturday.
Only about 2,000 tickets to Freakfest have been sold so far, but city officials said most sales happen Friday and the day of the event. Tickets cost $7 and $10 the day of Freakfest. Organizers said 50,000 tickets are available.
A group of UW-Madison students are organizing a Mifflin Street block party for Halloween this Saturday in an effort to provide an alternative to the Freakfest festivities on State Street and revive old traditions.
With the buzz around Freakfest 2008 sweeping through the University of Wisconsin campus, UW Housing, private residence halls and apartment managers will continue to enforce limited guest policies this weekend.
University of Wisconsin senior Nicholas Bartholomew expected to be a student at Swedenâ??s UmeaÃ¥ University this semester. Instead, he became a teacher there.
At just the time when students and their families might need some relief from rising college costs — they’re not getting it.
According to new figures out today, those costs jumped 6.4% this fall.
For the current academic year, the average list price of tuition and fees at 4-year public universities rose by nearly $400 to just under $6,600. At private colleges prices rose 5.9%, to more than $25,000.
WHITEWATER, Wis. (AP) — A 22-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is being treated for a probable case of the pneumonia-like Legionnaire’s disease.
….Walworth County health officer Pat Grove said the campus was alerted to watch out for possible cases of the disease, which can range from mild to fatal. Grove said the student’s case has not been confirmed by additional testing.
As the Nov. 6 opening of “The Greeks” at Madison Repertory Theatre quickly approaches, all of the third-year Masters of Fine Arts acting students at UW-Madison are polishing lines and working on stage blocking.
All, that is, except for Katheryn Bilbo. Last year, Bilbo accepted a role at the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre in “Rabbit Hole,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire.
Barack Obama retains a solid lead in Wisconsin, but it is less overwhelming than a week ago. A new Strategic Vision poll of 800 Wisconsin voters has the Democrat at 50 percent and Republican John McCain at 41 percent.
….Members of the rock band WILCO are not coming to the UW-Madison campus this weekend for fun. Nationally, the Obama campaign is concerned that young voters are not rushing to the polls in the numbers they had expected. There are concerns that this could lead to exceptionally long lines at polling places on Tuesday.
So the campaign is making a major push to get students to vote early.
The last time Halloween fell on a Friday was in 2003, and by the time that weekend was over, thousands of late-night revelers had turned State Street into a mob scene, downtown business windows were smashed, and police broke out pepper spray to tame the drunken, costumed crowd.
The good news for Madison this year: This isn’t Halloween anymore. This is Freakfest.
Many college students don’t gain the dreaded freshman 15 their first year away from home, but they do pack on 6 to 9 pounds, two studies show. Why? Key reasons include dramatic increases in beer drinking and significant decreases in physical activity
MADISON, Wis. — The Chicago alternative-rock group Wilco will perform a surprise show at the Wisconsin Union Theater on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on Saturday afternoon to rally support for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama.
The show, dubbed a “Concert for Change,” will be held at noon on Saturday, according to officials in the Union Theater box office.
Quoted: â??When I walk down the street carrying my campaign materials, people yell at me,â? said Katie Nix, 22, the statewide co-chairwoman of Students for McCain who is a senior majoring in molecular biology and French at the University of Wisconsin. â??I just keep hearing, â??Obama! Obama!â?? â?
Dean of Students Lori Berquam is reminding students to look out for their personal safety during Halloween and Saturdayâ??s Freakfest in the wake of recent downtown crimes.
Wilco will be performing this Saturday, Nov. 1, at the Wisconsin Union Theater on the UW-Madison campus as part of a “Campaign for Change” event geared to get voters to the polls early.
Senator Russ Feingold and congresswoman Tammy Baldwin will speak at the event — scheduled to start at noon — before a performance from the stripped-down version of the Chicago alt-country band (Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt and Pat Sansone).
After the concert, Baldwin will lead the audience in a march to the City County Building so that voters can cast early votes before the polls close at 3:00 p.m.
While students at most colleges and universities in Wisconsin will have to find time between classes to cast ballots Nov. 4, those at the 2,700-student Alverno College in Milwaukee get the day off to vote and get involved in the political process.
It’s a first for the women’s college, which appears to be the only college in Wisconsin, and one of few in the nation, to make election day a holiday.
More students took the Graduate Record Examinations in September than in any month in the last eight years, Educational Testing Service spokesman Mark McNutt said.
The increase in grad school interest comes as students are finding it harder to pay their high debt burdens.
http://wistechnology.com/articles/5167/
Madison, Wis. – Seven prominent Wisconsin companies have listings already posted for 80 available internships across the state as part of a new online career and job “matching” service.
The service, provided in partnership with Wisconsin Careers (WISCareers) officially was launched today by Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton and the Bill Mortimore, acting president and chairman of the board of the Information Technology Association of Wisconsin (ITAWi).
Wisconsin Careers, part of the Center on Education and Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will provide technical assistance and communicate the program to students throughout the University of Wisconsin system and at the state’s technical colleges.
MADISON, Wis. — A herd of University of Wisconsin Law School grads took over Camp Randall Stadium right before Saturday’s homecoming game against Illinois.
The homecoming tradition calls for all law school graduates to run across the field, toss a cane over the north goalposts and catch it. Legend has it that law students who catch their cane will win their first case, WISC-TV reported.
Among Saturday’s cane throwers was Johnny Walsh, who conquered many obstacles, not the least of which is being legally blind, to get to the big day.
Trick-or-treating with the Greeks doesn’t mean a toga party. But if kids wear the traditional party-going garb to the sorority and fraternity houses opening their doors for after-school program kids on Wednesday, they’ll probably get extra candy in their pumpkins.
The annual Halloween event Trick or Treat with the Greeks will bring about 300 kids on campus from 2 to 6 p.m., with the kids decorating cookies, painting pumpkins and touring haunted houses in the row of frat and sorority houses on Langdon Street.
