Category: Campus life

Lauren Bern of Madison traveled with her family to Postville, Iowa, over the July 26-27 weekend to protest a mid-May immigration raid there on a kosher slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant.

The raid is widely considered to be the largest and most punitive in United States history.

More than 100 residents from Milwaukeeâ??s Riverwest and east side neighborhoods packed a community meeting Tuesday night to discuss providing more input on a proposed dormitory that would house 500 to 700 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students.

The parents of a slain University of Wisconsin-Madison student have dropped their lawsuit against Dane County and a former sheriff’s dispatcher.

An attorney for Kevin and Jean Zimmermann has filed a stipulation in federal court in Madison saying there’s an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit.

An emergency text messaging system on the UW-Madison campus is nearing 10,000 subscribers, after being launched less than three months ago.

The service, WiscAlerts-Text, was started so students, staff and campus-based affiliates such as UW Hospital and Clinics can get alerts on their cell phones in case of a campus emergency.

“We are glad to see strong participation and expect to add even more users as we market the service aggressively throughout the fall semester,” said UW Police Lt. Michael Newton.

The parents of slain UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann dropped their federal civil rights lawsuit against Dane County and a former 911 dispatcher on Monday, about a month after the county’s attorneys moved to dismiss the case.

UW-Madison may be losing its reputation as a hard-partying school.
For the second-straight year, it didn’t make the list of top party schools in the annual Princeton Review rankings.

Every year, the Princeton Review releases a list of Top Schools in certain categories.

For UW administrators, unfortunately, the University has topped or been close to the top of “Top Party Schools” for several years. In 2005, it was #1.

Not in 2008.

UW-Madison didn’t even make the Top 20 list.

MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison police said they arrested two suspects Monday in connection with the robbery of a graduate student on campus more than two years ago.

Authorities said that a 31-year-old graduate student was walking in the 1400 block of Observatory Drive on July 6 when a man wielding a pipe struck him in the head several times, knocking him to the ground. After a short struggle, police said the attacker fled with the victim’s wallet.

MADISON, Wis. — The parents of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who was killed in her campus-area apartment this spring have dropped their lawsuit against Dane County and a 911 dispatcher regarding the alleged mishandling of a call from the victim’s phone.

MADISON (WKOW) — More than two years ago, on Thursday July 6, 2006, UW Police responded to a 911 call from a campus emergency phone regarding an armed robbery.

The victim was a UW graduate student who was walking in the 1400 block of Observatory Drive when police say the male suspect hit him in the head with a pipe several times, knocking him to the ground. We’re told the suspect then took off with the victim’s wallet.

The victim was hospitalized, and his credit card was later used at several locations in Madison and Fitchburg by a female suspect, police say.

After DNA analysis, police arrested 24-year-old Otis Darnel Williams and his girlfriend 21-year-old Amanda Porrazzo. Police say neither has any affiliation with UW.

The administration of County Executive Kathleen Falk continues to stymie media efforts to learn more about longstanding problems at the countyâ??s 911 Center. And what little information is being released following revelations that UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann called 911 before she was killed is not comforting.

The growing crowd gathers in the sparse room devoid of any decoration save for two plaques on the wall quoting the Koran. Mimicking the neat lines of shoes by the door, nearly 150 Muslims are drawn together for the Jumma, or Friday prayer. As the second of five daily prayers starts, Sarrah AbuLughod, head wrapped in a bright blue scarf to hide her hair, joins in the rising drone of the crowd giving thanks to Allah.

It’s a scene AbuLughod, a recent UW–Madison graduate and former vice president of the Muslim Student Association, has been a part of her entire life and as long as she’s lived in Madison. But the Islamic faith is but one component of Madison’s growing and active Middle Eastern community. Just like the geographical region of the Middle East, the community has distinct parts, coming from both Persian and Arab backgrounds with no one country overly represented in the city.

A Madison woman has been charged with four counts of misdemeanor theft by fraud after scamming a number of sympathetic citizens out of nearly $3,000.

According to a criminal complaint filed Monday, 35-year-old Crystal Cox, (aka Tonya Dexson, Tonya Deyson, Kathy Dixon, Allisha Dixon) convinced at least four people to lend her money for a variety of reasons but never followed through with her promises to repay the loans.

….Cox said her friend had advised her that “UW students are stupid,” and are an easy mark for a scam.

The College of Engineering and Madison Area Technical College (MATC) will sign an agreement Monday that will guarantee qualified MATC students admission to University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering programs.

Hezzy Smith was willing to move halfway around the world to learn how to speak Bengali.

But when the recent Harvard graduate didn’t get a spot this summer in a program in Dhaka, Bangladesh, he was less enthusiastic about moving halfway across the country to study this South Asian language.

“I’m from New Jersey, went to high school in New York and college in Boston,” said Smith, who needs to learn Bengali before moving to Mymensingh, Bangladesh, where he will begin working with people who have cognitive disabilities in April 2009. “And now I have to go to Madison? I was like, ‘I’ve never been out west.’

“I remember how everyone kept asking me, ‘Why are you going to Madison to learn Bengali?’ ”

On a recent sunny afternoon, concoctions of chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and marshmallows were melting in foil-lined boxes at the top of the steps leading to Chamberlain Hall.

Inside the UW-Madison building, middle-school-aged students were looking out a classroom window through pinhole cameras they built. Roller coasters made of flexible pipe were taped to a wall. These activities were all part of the Wonders of Physics workshop during College for Kids â?? a summer program sponsored by the UW-Madison School of Education.

MADISON, Wis. â?? Multiple confessions and a DNA match were enough for a judge to order a college dropout from Minnesota to stand trial today in a murder that left Wisconsin’s capital city on edge for weeks.

Adam Peterson, 20, told his parents during calls from jail and detectives who arrested him that he stabbed Joel Marino in his home in a robbery attempt, according to transcripts and testimony during a preliminary hearing in Dane County Circuit Court.

MADISON, Wis. — Former University of Wisconsin-Madison student Adam Peterson has been bound over for trial in connection with the January stabbing death of Joel Marino.

Twenty-year-old Peterson faces one count of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Marino.

Peterson is accused of attacking Marino at the victim’s south side home on Jan. 28.

Assistant district attorney Corey Stephan on Friday played tapes of calls Peterson made from jail to his parents in which he confesses to killing Marino in a robbery.

MADISON (WKOW) — A former University of Wisconsin-Madison student has been bound over for trial in connection with a January stabbing death.

Twenty-year-old Adam Peterson faces one count of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Joel Marino.

Assistant district attorney Corey Stephan on Friday played tapes of calls Peterson made from a Minnesota jail to his parents in which he confesses to killing Marino in a robbery.

Madison police officials told 27 News there are no plans for any detective to travel to Wood County to further check out the presence of a newspaper clipping on UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann’s murder in the home of a suspected kidnapper.

“No one’s going to Wood County, at least at this point,”  Madison police spokesperson Joel DeSpain told 27 News.

Transfer agreement to help MATC students to UW College of Engineering

Todd Finkelmeyer â?? 7/17/2008 8:34 pm

Madison Area Technical College is set to provide its students with a road map for earning access into UW-Madison’s highly regarded College of Engineering.

On Monday, MATC and UW-Madison officials plan to sign an engineering transfer agreement which will guarantee qualified MATC students admission to 10 degree programs at the College of Engineering.

Investigators in Wisconsin are working to determine whether 46-year-old Edward Lanphear, accused last week of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two men, is connected to the murder of a female college student in April.

According to Dean Berres, an investigator with the Wood County sheriff’s department, inquiries into a link between the two crimes began with a small, but ominous piece of evidence.

“We don’t have the indication that this case is linked to the homicide other than the small newspaper clipping we found at the suspect’s residence,” Berres told ABC News.

WISC-TV’s Neil Heinen talks with members of a University of Wisconsin-Madison group who are making life significantly better for the people of Rwanda. (Video.)

Colleges are willing to do a lot to capture the eye of potential students, even if it means creating temporary illusions of students who don’t really exist.

In September of 2000, the University of Wisconsin attempted to illustrate how diverse it was by using some old-fashioned cut and paste strategies.

Madison police are investigating whether there is a connection between a Wood County man charged with kidnapping and sexual assault and the homicide of UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann, based on a newspaper clipping about Zimmermann ‘s death found in the man ‘s home.

MENOMONIE, WIS. – Three college students who died in a house fire in April had blood-alcohol levels from two to almost four times the legal limit in Wisconsin drunken driving cases, authorities said Tuesday.

Dunn County Medical Examiner Chris Kruse, who released toxicology test results, said the deaths of the three University of Wisconsin-Stout students have been ruled accidental.

MADISON, Wis. — Authorities said that a newspaper clipping about the death of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann was found in a search of the Wood County home of a man accused of abducting and sexually assaulting two men.

Edward Lanphear has been charged with 12 felonies in connection with the abduction and sexual assault two young men, who police said were chained naked inside his home.

Lanphear is being held on a $1 million bond.

MADISON (WKOW) — Madison police are investigating whether a Wood County man accused of kidnapping two young men is connected to college student Brittany Zimmermann’s unsolved murder.

Edward Lanphear is accused of holding the men captive in his home near Wisconsin Rapids and sexually assaulting them. Court records show investigators found a newspaper clipping about slain University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann in Lanphear’s home.

Could Edward Lanphear have been involved in the murder of Brittany Sue Zimmermann? The 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison student from Marshfield was found dead in her apartment in April.

A newspaper clipping taken from the home of a 46-year-old Saratoga man charged in connection with the kidnapping of two men is raising some questions about a Madison homicide.

A Madison detective involved in the investigation into the murder of Brittany Zimmermann, 21, of Marshfield is looking into why Edward J. Lanphear, 46, of Saratoga had a newspaper clipping regarding Zimmermann’s homicide, said Joel DeSpain, Madison Police Department spokesman.

MADISON, Wis. — Authorities said that a newspaper clipping about the death of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann was found in a search of the Wood County home of a man accused of abducting and sexually assaulting two men.

Edward Lanphear has been charged with 12 felonies in connection with the abduction and sexual assault two young men, who police said were chained naked inside his home.

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed against Dane County and a former 911 dispatcher by the parents of homicide victim Brittany Zimmermann should be dismissed because the county has no constitutional obligation to protect individuals from the acts of others, a response to the lawsuit states.

Cn yu rd ths?

If you can, thatâ??s the first step to learning Arabic or Persian, where vowels often are not found in the languageâ??s written form.

Add that to a totally new alphabet, new sounds and â?? by the way â?? learn to write from right to left.

Now, you might have a glimpse into the lives of 33 students from University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s Arabic and Persian program being held this summer at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse campus.

(MADISON) The UW-Madison and several downtown businesses say they have a new tool which will help crack down on underage drinking. Priced at $1,000 apiece, the Tokenworks scanners are calibrated to recognize several forms of ID, that people need to present in order to buy alcohol or cigarettes.

MacTaggarts Market is one of seven Madison area liquor stores and grocery stores that are getting the scanners for free. At the checkout counter, general manager Richard Schrober tests different ID cards in his new Tokenworks scanner. He says it helps clerks speed along the process as they screen for underage customers. (Sixth item.)

UW-Madison has outfitted seven liquor stores and a grocery store in Downtown Madison with free electronic scanners designed to boost the alcohol retailers ‘ ability to weed out fake IDs.

The hand-held scanner units sell for $1,000 apiece and are similar to those used since 2007 to discourage underage drinking on campus at Memorial Union and Union South, officials said.

MADISON, Wis. — The former University of Wisconsin-Madison student charged in connection with the fatal stabbing of a Madison man last winter will have a preliminary hearing next Friday.

Adam Peterson’s attorneys and the Dane County district attorney met behind closed doors on Wednesday to quickly schedule the hearing.

A year ago Wednesday, the body of murder victim Kelly Nolan was found in a wooded area in the town of Dunn, providing her family with some closure but little emotional relief from the tragic death of their 22-year-old daughter.

….Nolan, a UW-Whitewater student who had been living in Madison for a month, disappeared after a night out with friends in downtown Madison. She was last seen walking with someone downtown in the early morning hours of June 23, 2007. Although nearly 600 people have been interviewed and 200 tips investigated relating to her disappearance and death, the police currently have no suspects.

(Madison Police spokesman Joel) DeSpain said the police did receive new leads following a press conference that was held June 13. He said detectives continue to work the case, stressing it is by no means a cold case. He instead classified the Nolan case as difficult because of the fact that her body was left in the countryside south of Madison, preventing her body from being found for several weeks. That made it difficult to gather forensic evidence.