Lasha Carey wasn’t especially interested in community service work before she enrolled last year as a freshman at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, N.J. But that’s changed in a big way through the power of peer influence.
Inspired by classmates who gave her a taste of their work in Trenton neighborhoods, Carey now tutors inner-city kids, helps the homeless learn basic job skills and leads fellow students on one-day, urban outreach trips.
Nearly one in five college seniors and 25% of freshmen say they frequently come to class without completing readings or assignments, a national survey shows. And many of those students say they mostly still get A’s.
The survey doesn’t address whether those students are lazy, busy, intimidated, bored or geniuses. But it supports other studies that suggest a gap between what college professors expect from students and what students actually do.
This year, 386 four-year colleges and universities in 46 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are participating in an ongoing collaboration between USA TODAY and the National Survey of Student Engagement to provide new tools and information to help college-bound students assess the quality of the undergraduate experience at schools they’re considering.
The long-term research initiative, known as NSSE (pronounced “Nessie”), is grounded in studies that show that the more engaged students are on their campuses, the more likely they are to learn.
A University of Wisconsin student was killed by a motor vehicle in Hong Kong. Kurt Leswing, 21, was traveling as part of the Semester at Sea program.
Hong Kong authorities said the driver of the vehicle that struck Leswing was intoxicated. The driver was arrested at the scene.
About one in five University of Wisconsin-Madison freshmen have parents who did not attend college.
The university says that’s consistent with previous incoming classes. It has been tracking enrollment of first-generation college students for three years and says they usually make up about 20 percent of the incoming class.
This year, about 5,800 new students enrolled at UW-Madison, and 1,170 are first-generation.
Admissions director Rob Seltzer says the number of first-generation students shows the university’s “commitment to ensuring that all residents have an equal opportunity to get an education.”
MADISON, Wis. — According to Men’s Health Magazine, Madisonians are addicted to their cellular phones.
The November issue of the magazine gave Madison an “F” for being fixated on cell phones, ranking the city 98 out of 100 â??Cell-Addicted Cities.â?
“I call people, I text message, I look things up,” said UW student Ally Root.
The latest directives from Falk to the 911 Center comes seven months after the 911 Center came under fire for not dispatching police after a call from University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann, who was later found slain.
The Zimmermann family said it can’t believe Falk hadn’t conducted the review already and that another person is dead.
“It’s absolutely incomprehensible,” said Zimmermann’s aunt, Kim Heeg, of Marshfield. “I’m angry; very angry. I cannot believe after everything that has come up with Brittany’s murder and mishandling that occurred with her phone call that again they could do this
Class rank still matters when it comes to being accepted at destination universities, such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but most admissions officers take a holistic approach to determine which students have the most potential, educators say.
New statistics report first-generation students, students whose parents did not earn a college degree, comprise roughly 20 percent of the University of Wisconsinâ??s freshman class.
Of the freshman class of 5,577 new students, 1,170 of them share this distinction as first-generation college students.
A sketch of the suspect who robbed a University of Wisconsin junior at gunpoint on Langdon Street was released by the Madison Police Department Thursday.
The woman robbed was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, and she was getting out of her car in the parking lot outside of the sorority house on the 100 block of Langdon Street when the incident occurred.
The seven leaders of the University of Wisconsin group Action in Sudan set out on the road â?? literally â?? to end genocide in Darfur Thursday night as they traveled to a national conference on the topic in Washington.
Nearly five years after being warned the Dane County 911 center was short-staffed, and seven months after a communicator mishandled a call from a homicide victim’s cell phone, county officials are being told that staffing levels at the beleaguered center are insufficient.
According to university officials, over the last three years the UW-Madison Office of Admissions has accepted many freshman students with first-generation status or whose parents did not earn a college degree.
The admissions office not only takes test scores and course rigor into account, but also factors in the importance of the diversity that a first-generation status provides to each freshman class.
Rob Seltzer, director of admissions, said the office has an interest in the success of first-generation students because it affects the stability and strength of the freshman class as a whole.
The enthusiastic atmosphere of the celebration on State Street Tuesday following the 2008 presidential election has illicited comparisons to the campus political activism of the past.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will convene today to examine two major issues challenging the system, including the graying and retention of faculty.
Madison police have released a sketch of one of the suspects involved in an armed robbery of a female UW-Madison student Monday night on Langdon Street.
Dane County’s 911 center, created to respond to emergencies, has now become an emergency in need of a response.
A recent foul-up follows last spring’s mishandling of an emergency call from the phone of UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann on the day she was murdered in her Downtown Madison apartment.
On American college campuses, where some two out of three students voted from Democrat Barack Obama, it wasn’t so much “get out the vote” in this election but rather “text out the vote.”
The savvy use of text messaging and Facebook networking combined with a political activism not seen at universities in decades roused what may be the biggest youth voter turnout since 1972, according to exit polls.
Bryon Eagon, 20, took off a semester from University of Wisconsin at Madison to work for Obama, citing his “unique ability to connect with our generation” on issues like the war, affordable education, health care and green jobs.
Although the official numbers aren’t in yet, those who obsess over such things say that the youth vote was out in full force yesterday and might prove to have been the key to Barack Obama’s presidential victory. Polls on and near college campuses saw significantly more voters than past presidential elections, while exit polls show that young voters preferred Obama over John McCain approximately 2 to 1â??the highest share of the youth vote obtained by any candidate since pollsters started recording such data in 1976.
The chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse told students Wednesday heâ??s more open now to supporting a national discussion on how the 21-year-old drinking age is not working.
A campus forum Monday on the Amethyst Initiative demonstrated itâ??s an issue worth looking at, Chancellor Joe Gow told the UW-L Student Senate.
â??If you want to do this and others do, too, I think we can do this as a model for other universities,â? Gow said. â??There is a way to talk about this without getting drawn into the emotion.â?
With safety being one of the most important concerns on the minds of students, any initiative on behalf of university and city leaders to combat crime is worthy of recognition. Such is the case with a recent initiative by Ald. Eli Judge, District 8, to improve lighting conditions for residents of downtown Madison. The Downtown Residential Lighting Initiative, as it is called, provides grants for downtown property owners who wish to install lighting around their residences to ward off potential intruders.
A 20-year old UW-Madison student walking in a parking lot near her residence in the 100 block of Langdon Street was robbed of cash and her laptop computer at gunpoint by two men at about 11 p.m. Monday night, Madison police reported.
Alysia Mann Carey, 19, a UW-Madison sophomore, voted in her first presidential election Tuesday and watched the returns from her dorm. “I can’t even explain how proud and excited and happy I am,” said Mann Carey, who is black. “It’s a step toward getting rid of racism.”
At 10 p.m. Tuesday, when the major networks projected that Barack Obama had won the presidency, Sharmarke Hamud, 19, and his five roommates grabbed an American flag and hit the streets.
What started at the Palisade Apartments, an upscale building at Johnson and Marion streets just off campus, turned into a spontaneous parade that made two trips to the Capitol, went up and down State Street, paused outside the beer garden at State Street Brats, went through the Union Terrace, picked up more revelers at Helen C. White Library and stopped traffic as it headed up University Avenue.
It gained and lost strength, but at its height, the parade was more than a thousand strong.
Barack Obama won this election in a landslide as well.
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s International Student Services held a mock election Tuesday for those on campus who are unable to vote because they’re not American citizens.
With 160 people casting mock ballots between noon and 8 p.m., the Obama-Joe Biden ticket received 134 votes — or 83.7 percent. The Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin received 15 total votes (9.4 percent), while the independent ticket of Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzales got five votes (3.1 percent). No other candidate received more than two votes.
“I think an Obama win would really change how others view the United States,” said Debbie Cheung, a native of Hong Kong and a UW-Madison finance major who has been living in the U.S. for four years. “Obama is from such a diverse background that he would definitely bring some different, diverse thoughts.”
After encouraging students to sign up for WiscAlerts in light of recent downtown crime, the University of Wisconsin did not send out a text last night when a UW junior was held up at gunpoint outside her Langdon Street sorority house.
Lt. Michael Newton of UW Police said WiscAlerts are only issued in cases such as a shooter on campus or a bomb threat.
Political groups on the University of Wisconsin campus spent the daytime hours of Election Day pointing fingers at who had posted signs in unauthorized places and illegally torn signs down.
Members of Students for Obama, Students for McCain, Students for Nader, College Democrats and College Republicans were allegedly posting signs in places they shouldnâ??t have, such as street signs, bus shelters and areas too close to polling places.
By 4 p.m. Tuesday, voter turnout for the city of Madison had reached 51 percent of all registered voters with many more expected in the final four hours, said Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl.
Students for McCain and College Republicans were left visibly shaken by the election of Sen. Barack Obama as president of the United States Tuesday night.
The groups gathered as a crowd of about 60 at the Cabana Room in downtown Madison, where a feeling of anger came across after Fox News declared Obama the victor.
Approaching City Hall this past Monday to vote early in this yearâ??s presidential election, I was initially repulsed by what I saw. Foolishly thinking that going at 3 p.m. would rid me of the early voter rush due to classes, I was unpleasantly surprised to see the line snaking outside to the bottom of the steps.
My impatience grew quickly, and I could not erase any hint of irritation as I slowly treaded through each section of the municipal building. This feeling of boredom and threat of doom that I would never get out of Madison City Hall alive suddenly vanished, though, when I thought of what such a crowd implied.
Despite being hundreds or even thousands of miles away from American soil, UW-Madison students studying abroad were still involved in Election Day Tuesday through absentee voting and keeping an eye on results from their host countries.
Junior Hannah Smith, who is currently studying abroad in Madrid, Spain, said she thought voting through an absentee ballot was quite simple and did not take her much time with the help of Democrats and Republicans abroad.
Although international students were ineligible to vote in the elections, they were able to participate in a mock election that closely replicated the city of Madisonâ??s official polling centers and ballots hosted by International Student Services at the Red Gym Tuesday.
Reports of illegal campaigning by UW-Madison student political groups has led to an investigation by the University of Wisconsin Police Department.
Posters hung by members of Students for Obama became the subject of controversy Monday night when unidentified students began ripping the posters down at various locations around campus.
Thousands of UW-Madison students turned out to vote for Election Day 2008. Although there were small glitches and delays at polling stations during the day, officials said the process was an overall success.
The elections provide an opportunity to voice our hopes and aspirations. On Election Day 2008, four essayists explore their beliefs in the democratic process.
Nora Lupi is an art history major at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has attended rallies and volunteered for campaigns on campus during this election season. Lupi says she continues to debate politics with her parents, who live in Manhattan.
MADISON, Wis. — Students are lining up to vote at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where many are casting their first ballots in a presidential election.
Freshman Lamel Adkins said that he’s proud that his first vote for Democrat Barak Obama. Adkins said that it’s a historic election because no other black candidate has gotten as far as Obama.
UW-Madison has had one of the most active Students for Barack Obama groups in the country, and Obama’s team is hoping to win big there.
Hundreds of people, most of them UW students, poured onto State Street in downtown Madison for a joyously spontaneous celebration of Sen. Barack Obama’s historic election victory. The celebrations included chants of “yes we can,” and “USA” — even singing the national anthem.
Voter suppression has gone viral at the University of Florida.
Several students have received text messages from friends or anonymous numbers urging them to vote on Nov. 5 — the day after Election Day — when their votes would not be counted.
UF senior political science major Delaney Rohan received the following text message from a number with an Orlando area code Tuesday afternoon: “Due to high voter turnout Republicans are asked to vote today and Democrats are asked to vote tomorrow. Spread the word!”
Chancellor Biddy Martin encouraged students via e-mail Monday to take part in the election and vote Tuesday.
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.
