University of Wisconsin System students seeking mental health counseling are routinely forced to wait a week or longer to get appointments and that delay is likely to increase, a report warned Friday.
It took only 2 1/2 hours for chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley to defeat 14 players in a simultaneous tournament Friday afternoon at Memorial Union.
Spending only a moment or two on each move, Ashley stepped from one game board to the next until those 14 players bowed his or her king to Ashley’s mastery.
Madison has a reputation as one of the best college football towns in America.
That reputation will receive especially high-profile display this fall in two prime time games that promise to attract national attention — the Oct. 4 game against Ohio State and the Oct. 11 game against Penn State, both starting at 7 p.m.
But Madison also has a stain on its reputation that has been growing in recent years: A minority of fans have engaged in alcohol-fueled behavior that has appalled, threatened and occasionally physically harmed not only opposing fans but also other Badger fans.
Hartland native Brandon Nolde’s acceptance letter from UW-Madison was followed by a disappointing phone call.
University housing told him, “Sorry, we’re full.”
UW-Madison’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies summer workshop is a four-day event covering meteorology, astronomy and geology. It’s open to high school students who stay on campus in a dormitory. They participate in hands-on activities working directly with scientists, graduate students and professors.
A comprehensive study of suicidal thinking among college students found more than half of the 26,000 surveyed had suicidal thoughts at some point during their lifetime.
The web-based survey conducted in spring 2006 used separate samples of undergraduate and graduate students from 70 colleges and universities across the country.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) University of Wisconsin System students seeking mental health counseling are routinely forced to wait a week or longer to get appointments and that delay is likely to increase, a report warned Friday.
The UW System report also said counselors should do more to monitor troubled students who are referred to off-campus mental health providers for advanced treatment. Those students do not always end up getting help, and some campuses do little to follow up, the report said.
The report comes in the wake of last year’s massacre at Virginia Tech, where a troubled student killed 32 others before committing suicide. That tragedy served as a wake-up call for colleges to do more to help students showing signs of potentially dangerous behavior; one focus has been to refer more students to counseling early.
The renewed focus on developing entrepreneurs at the Wisconsin School of Business is an important ingredient for a state that needs more home cooking.
Incomes in Wisconsin lag the national average, making economic growth an imperative. But with the exception of communities like Hudson and Kenosha that border large metropolitan areas, most communities in Wisconsin traditionally haven’t been able to attract companies from outside the state. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try, but realistically, most growth has to come from existing businesses – or by creating new ones.
Under the leadership of University of Wisconsin-Madison business school dean Michael Knetter, and with the strong support of UW’s vast network of alumni, the school is trying to produce more graduates interested in starting companies.
MADISON, Wis. — A new safety campaign launched by the University of Wisconsin Dean of Students is the first one in years to target students one on one on off-campus move in day.
It’s all part of various measures being taken now to keep UW students safer.
After the Brittany Zimmermann homicide last April, property managers were flooded with calls for maintenance service.
Nearly six months later, some property managers said they’ve been working hard to stay on top of building security as the fall migration transforms downtown.
On a day filled with excitement over a fresh start, many students are being met with a sad reminder that tragedy can happen anywhere.
Just four months after the murder of UW student Brittany Zimmermann in her own apartment, those moving into the neighborhood are getting a welcome message from police.
It’s move in day near the UW Campus and amidst the big boxes and hefty loads are police, with a heavy message.
On couches and lawn chairs, UW students wait, wait and wait some more.
“Between 12pm and 12pm, we have no place to stay so for 24 hours we’re homeless,” says UW student Dana Hanson.
But as some pass the time outside- inside property owners like John and Carrie Bartels are working quickly.
MADISON (WKOW) — University and city officials used “Move In Day” to promote a new safety campaign called “Safety 24/7”.
They handed out bottled water and magnets with basic safety advice like walking with friends and locking doors.
In the midst of mattresses and boxes, volunteers with the university and city spoke to students and parents about campus safety.
It’s a topic university officials say becomes even more important following the murder of UW student Brittany Zimmermann last spring.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A new report says the number of students seeking mental health services on University of Wisconsin campuses is increasing but staffing levels are not.
The report warns the wait for services is likely to increase if campuses do not add more counselors or find ways to better manage their existing workers. Already, most students have to wait a week to get an appointment in non-urgent cases.
If approached by a police officer while moving into your new apartment, don’t be alarmed. The officer just wants to say “hi” and give some pointers about staying safe in the campus/downtown area.
The initiative is known as Safety 24/7, the first time UW-Madison has conducted an organized welcome for students moving into their new digs on moving day, the first day most leases commence for hundreds of apartments both downtown and on campus.
The effort is to educate students how to keep themselves safe while living and studying in Madison.
Madison’s move-out day is just another day of car hijacking, violence and general thievery for UW-Madison senior Jeff Sellman.
Of course, that was only in the virtual reality of his Xbox 360 video game Grand Theft Auto 4.
TOWN OF MENASHA â?? Lesley Lathrop has no plans to return to Japan because she won’t go where she’s not wanted.
However, part of her heart is still there.
Three years ago today Lathrop’s 20-year-old son, Andy, who took a year off college to teach English in Japan, went missing just a few days before he was scheduled to return home.
MADISON â?? If younger voters help Barack Obama win this state in November, the presidential candidate will be sure to thank a 20-year-old college student.
University of Wisconsin-Madison junior Bryon Eagon is taking off the fall semester to organize college campuses statewide to get Obama elected.
As state coordinator for Students for Barack Obama, he is the point man for an effort that Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said could take the youth vote to its “absolute peak” in Wisconsin.
Construction work will be halted along the 500 and 600 blocks of State Street for the next three days.
Vehicles will be allowed on State Street but only while actively loading and unloading.
While moving furniture all day is backbreaking enough, finding a place to store and transport goods looks to be a problem for some students.
It is a chaotic 24 hour period that every year floods the streets around campus with garbage, moving trucks and cleaners.
Students move from one home to another in the same day, if they’re lucky, because the trash isn’t the only thing spending the night on the curb.
People take over the streets. Landlords make final checks and sidewalks are lined with garbage. Students are all packed up, many with nowhere to go.
MADISON (WKOW) — Students and other downtown Madison residents are hoping it will be dry Thursday and Friday morning, sow that many are homeless for the next 24 hours.
It is, afterall, ‘move out day,’ when many apartment leases expire. New ones won’t begin until tomorrow.
Many of the streets for blocks in any direction from the largely student neighborhoods have been turned upside down over the past few days as their apartment leases end August 14.
In the city’s biggest yearly migration of people, thousands of UW-Madison students will be moving in and out of their campus-area apartments starting today and likely through the weekend.
And if getting all their clothes, books and ratty, old, second-hand couches from one place to another wasn’t work enough, major construction on two blocks of State Street is sure to make the task even more challenging.
State Street residents moving in or out of apartments this week will be able to use the whole length of the six-block-long street to get their moving vehicles close to their quarters.
The lower half of State Street (the 500 and 600 blocks) has been a construction zone all summer, but construction will be halted at the end of the day Wednesday and won’t resume until Monday, allowing vehicles to be able to use those two blocks for the massive move, as most leases end Thursday (Aug. 14) and renters start moving in Friday.
Only residents with State Street addresses will be allowed access to the street for their moving vehicles, said Madison Police Department spokesman Joel DeSpain.
Average scores on the ACT college entrance exam dipped slightly for the high school class of 2008 as the number of students taking the exam jumped by 9% compared to last year.
High school graduates’ average ACT scores held steady in Wisconsin last year and remained among the highest in the country.
The average composite score for Wisconsin students who graduated this year was 22.3 out of 36. That’s the same as last year and 1.2 points higher than the national average.
As in past years, there were large disparities among the races in Wisconsin and nationally.
Sixty-seven percent of graduates took the test in Wisconsin
Was it the stained, aging carpet in the hallways, the sweltering heat and lack of air conditioning or the fight for sinks in the shared bathrooms each morning that kept reminding you, â??thereâ??s no place like homeâ?¦.â??â??
These days, students also have come to dread the stress of moving every year in a relentless search for housing that accommodates their needs.
A major new apartment project on the UW-Madison campus reflects the changing expectations students and their parents have for living arrangements that can enhance academic life and provide a transition into the professional world. As UW-Madison attracts a growing share of world-class intellectual talent, the bar is being raised on the amenities and housing options these savvy students are seeking.
Zach Bearson and the University of Wisconsin hockey team are parting ways.
The forward said that UW coaches told him at the start of the summer that they would continue on without him, a decision that Bearson said was disappointing.
“I’m sure they have their reasons upstairs,” said Bearson, a seventh-round NHL draft pick who dressed for only one game in his sophomore season after appearing in five as a freshman.
Some people in Aaron Henry’s situation would be curled up in the fetal position, wondering when the next instance of pain and suffering would be arriving.
Not Henry, who somehow manages to keep a smile on his face instead of a permanent scowl. The latter would be understandable considering how rotten the past eight months have been for Henry, a sophomore cornerback on the University of Wisconsin football team.
A former Madison man in the middle of a marijuana sales network that moved at least one ton of pot between 2000 and July 2003 pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to conspiring to distribute a controlled substance with a second man who’s suspected of involvement in an unsolved murder.
Brian Hutchinson, now of Fontana, Wis., was a UW-Madison student in August 2000 when he moved into a house on Wingra Avenue shared with the second man, Reed Rogala, who was already heavily involved in marijuana trafficking, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Graber.
Bicyclists traveling from the West Side to the UW-Madison campus now have an easier and brighter passage.
The new Campus Drive Pedestrian and Bicycle Path, which runs along Campus Drive from University Bay Drive to a network of sidewalks on Linden Drive, officially opened Friday.
Rental projects have become a popular choice for area developers as the struggling economy and housing market troubles continue to make some prospective home and condominium buyers wary of making purchases. A market study also showed “more than adequate demand” for more student housing near UW-Madison.
Dane County’s emergency dispatch center has kept incomplete and disorganized records of police complaints about its shortcomings, limiting its ability to prevent potentially life-and-death mistakes such as those that happened at the 911 center the day Brittany Zimmermann was killed.
Attention, bike thieves.
In a new program on the UW-Madison campus, university police are planting Global Positioning System satellite units on bikes to catch thieves in action.
This summer, police have arrested 16 people through the program.
By DORIE TURNER
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP) — Emory University is hoping to make bikes the must-have back-to-school accessory this fall.
The school is selling discounted bicycles to students and faculty, adding bike lanes to campus roads and stocking bikes that can be borrowed for free. The university is pushing its $250,000 “Bike Emory” initiative, launched a year ago, in hopes of convincing students and faculty that the eco-friendly bikes are a better alternative to their four-wheeled, gas-guzzling counterparts.
Cycling already has a foothold at many colleges, where hefty parking fees, sprawling campuses and limited roads make it tough to travel. Still, most students are reluctant to leave their cars parked.
Nick Gabel enjoyed UW-Madison’s Fun with Forensic Science camp so much it made him think about a career in the field.
“I think this camp has inspired me” to become a crime scene investigator, said Gabel, who will be a seventh-grader in New Glarus.
MADISON â?? The entrepreneurial spirit is rising at UW-Madison and other campuses, and not just among faculty and staff who want to start new companies.
Students are also chomping at the bit to create their own firms, officials say, which is one of the reasons why the University Research Park is opening 10 incubator suites in a former manufacturing site on East Washington Ave. in the capital city.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley is predicting an â??explosionâ? of student-run companies. He says there has been a â??sea changeâ? over the past decade in attitudes of students, many of whom now want to run their own companies rather than work for someone else.
MADISON, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Madison student from China is wishing she was home to enjoy the Olympic festivities.
Yuli Na said her family and friends are thrilled with the games and although the world may be scrutinizing China right now, she thinks having so many people looking at China could open communication and promote understanding, WISC-TV reported.
The UW is working to improve diversity on campus starting with its faculty and staff.
Adin Palau is UW Madison’s recruitment manager. He filled a new position created six months ago to help recruit a more diverse workforce on campus.
Working while in school no longer means serving food at the Union.
A new UW program helps students pay for school and improve their resumes.
It’s called “RISE” – the Recruitment Initiative for Student Employees.
Locking a bike is routine for UW graduate Carrie Lorig, but one night this summer, it still wasn’t good enough. “I was just really devastated because that’s how I get around town, and I really love my bike,” said Lorig. She said she locked her U-lock to itself because the bike rack at the downtown grocery store she visited was full.
“A lot of my friends, there was a lot of bike stealings after that,” said Lorig.
There are other students with similar stories of victimization and frustration.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison police are taking extra steps to keep bikes safe from thieves.
A special GPS device has helped police catch at least 18 thieves since May, according to UW police.
The police leave what they call bait bikes around camp
Every year hundreds of bicycles are stolen on campus. Very few of these bikes are ever recovered and even fewer arrests are made. But a new program created by the UW Police has changed all that.
“It was actually stolen out of my basement in my apartment,” said Shawn Vesely. “I was pretty upset. I was wondering where my bike went. Who came into my house and took it.”
Stories like this are all too common as bicycles are one of the most stolen items on the UW Campus. But, University Police may have found a way to make sure your ride home doesn’t ride away.
How Lucky can you get?
Lucky, a four-ton marble elephant carved in India was put on its pedestal Wednesday in the lobby of the Lucky Apartments at 777 University Ave., part of the $190 million University Square redevelopment project on the UW-Madison campus.
The marble elephant is the mascot for the 359-unit apartment building and is a symbol of good luck in parts of Asia, with good fortune expected to follow those who rub its trunk.
High schools and colleges are steering students away from cars to save money on gas, save the environment and promote physical fitness.
This fall, Ripon College in Ripon, Wis., is offering freshmen free mountain bikes, helmets and locks in exchange for a promise not to bring a car to campus. The $300-per-student cost is funded by private donations.
MADISON, Wis. — A 21-year-old bicyclist was injured on Wednesday morning when she fell off her bike and slid underneath a truck’s rear tires on West Washington Avenue, according to Madison police.
The woman was riding her bike at about 9 a.m. when, witnesses said, a truck began to make a right turn onto Henry Street from Washington Avenue. The cyclist was riding close by and apparently hit her brakes to prevent hitting the truck and she flew over the top of the bike’s handlebars, hit the ground and slid beneath the truck. (Victim is UW student.)
Extending for almost a month, Wisconsin Welcome goes above and beyond making new students feel, well, welcome to campus. By offering a slew of activities, some campuswide and others residence-hall focused, there are plenty of chances to wade into the waters of college-level socialization.
The largest fraternity on the University of Wisconsin campus expects to have a new home by 2010 after a late-night blaze destroyed their residence and caused more than $1 million in damage last May.
The University of Wisconsinâ??s new emergency text messaging service is approaching 10,000 subscribers, marking a number university officials hope to increase by thousands this school year.
The University of Wisconsinâ??s flagship campus will be welcoming a new chancellor this fall.
Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin begins later this summer, filling the spot left vacant by outgoing chancellor John Wiley.
Madisonâ??s homicide count for 2008 increased to five this summer, after a man allegedly stabbed his girlfriend at their home a few miles south of the University of Wisconsin campus.
An arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for a man thought to be living in Massachusetts who is charged with raping a drunk young woman after she left the Kollege Klub in March of 2007.
Anderson R. Dasilva, who turns 29 Saturday, is charged with second-degree sexual assault for the incident, which occurred after the woman and several of her friends had been out drinking the night of March 9 and into the early hours of March 10. After bar time, the woman said she became separated from her friends and could not find them when she left the bar.
April Nett is a college student turned part-time detective.
Her investigative, take-matters-into-your-own-hands attitude is a recent transformation sparked by what hundreds of college students and city residents experience every year in Madison. Her bike was stolen from outside her University Avenue apartment, and she felt if she didn’t do something, nobody else would.
After watching the apartment building’s surveillance tape of two guys breaking her bike lock, then walking off with her bike, she attempted to file a report with the Madison Police Department. Without knowing the serial number for her bike, however, she knew there wasn’t much hope.
The Posse Foundation is an innovative scheme brought to fruition almost 20 years ago by Deborah Bial, an education specialist who was troubled by the high failure rate of promising minority students recruited by top-tier universities.
One such student explained to her that he would have stayed in school if he’d had his posse with him — using the popular urban expression for his network of neighborhood buddies. That’s when Bial hit on the idea of recruiting a cross-section of kids from urban public high schools, bonding them into cohesive groups of 10 or 12, and sending them off, en masse, to some of the nation’s best universities.
this year’s crop of Posse Chicago’s 72 scholarship winners will be heading to Carleton College in Minnesota, DePauw University in Indiana, Oberlin College in Ohio and Pomona College in California, as well as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
For her senior project in biological systems engineering before graduating from UW-Madison in May, Danielle McIntosh designed and built a bike rack to transport hula hoops. This Hoopla rack won her $5,700 at the College of Engineering’s Innovation Days.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Real Estate Foundation on Monday released a list of eight proposed locations for the schoolâ??s new dorm in Milwaukeeâ??s east side and Riverwest neighborhoods, with sites as far west as the Holton Terrace apartments and as far east as the old Prospect Mall.
Ten days before the big day, Madison recycling coordinator George Dreckmann is asking for help from the legions of students who will be moving.
“We really need everyone’s help so we can get things cleaned up and keep the downtown looking good,” Dreckmann said. “We will be handling approximately 800 tons of trash during the move out, so we need everyone’s cooperation to make things work smoothly.”
Student’s leases tend to expire on Aug. 14, and that is the big day for students moving out of one apartment and into another.
As one would expect of a recycling coordinator, Dreckmann is urging students to reuse items or share them with others.
After years of skyrocketing arrest numbers and city and community frustration, the Mifflin Street Block Party is taking the first steps toward an overhaul.
According to Joel Plant, aide to Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, Madison officials have been meeting with the owners of the Majestic after they raised the possibility of the local music venue sponsoring the event.
Although planning is still in preliminary stages, the event would become a live music event, with two stages alternating music throughout the day and culminating with a nationally recognized headliner.
The Mifflin Street Block Party in Madison may have a sponsor next year.
The owners of the Majestic Theatre want to change the partyâ??s focus from alcohol to music.
They are talking with leader of UW-Madisonâ??s student government. The student leaders plan to survey their classmates soon about their thoughts on a more organized party.
MADISON, Wis. — The federal government is cutting off college aid for some of the nation’s worst sex offenders.
A little-noticed provision of a broader higher education bill makes such offenders ineligible for Pell Grants, the nation’s premier financial aid program for low-income students, starting July 1, 2009.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The top suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks was obsessed with a sorority that sat less than 100 yards away from a New Jersey mailbox where the toxin-laced letters were sent, authorities said Monday. Multiple U.S. officials told The Associated Press that former Army scientist Bruce Ivins was long obsessed with the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma, going back as far as his own college days at the University of Cincinnati.
MADISON (WKOW) — Classes at UW-Madison don’t start for 33 days, but already the rumor mill is spinning about a building that will house hundreds of students for the fall 2008 semester.
Ten stories tall and more than a million square feet, Lucky Apartments will house more than 800 people when the site opens in August.
Or, as many UW students, have heard, “if” it opens in August.
