Category: Campus life

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.

More than five months after Joel Marino was stabbed to death in his Monona Bay home, neither police nor prosecutors have said what accused killer Adam Peterson’s motive was in the crime.

It’s not clear how soon that information will be forthcoming. Peterson, 20, is due in court for a status conference on Wednesday, July 9, to decide how the case should move forward.

Details about the case have come out slowly, even after Peterson’s arrest on June 26.

MADISON, Wis. — The former University of Wisconsin student charged with the killing of Joel Marino will not waive his right to a preliminary hearing, according to his attorney.

Lawyers on Wednesday will set a date to determine whether there’s probable cause to put Adam Peterson on trial on a murder charge.

Peterson’s attorney, Dennis Burke, said that hearing will likely be set for the week after next, WISC-TV reported.

(STATEWIDE) At least two U-W System schools are expecting record enrollment for this fall, and are trying to figure out where those extra students will sleep.

Last year about 1300 freshmen enrolled at U-W River Falls, creating a 200-bed shortage in its residence halls. Alan Tuchtenhagen, Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Services, says his staff will soon discuss just where to put this yearâ??s batch of freshmen. He adds that while first and second-year students are required to live on-campus, even upperclassmen are staying in dorms, which he attributes to the economy. (Fourth item.)

Young dancers who dream of making a career in the field got a taste of the experience at Dance Millennium, a week-long summer program at UW-Madison.

“We ‘re treating them as professionals, ” said Karen McShane-Hellenbrand, Dance Millennium director. “It also sort of doubles as a pre-college experience. “

Preliminary findings from an autopsy Monday indicate that University of Wisconsin student Hao Yu, 19, who was found dead in an Eagle Heights apartment Sunday, died of natural causes, the Dane County Coroner’s Office said.

Coroner John Stanley said the autopsy indicated Yu’s death “did not involve trauma and was consistent with a natural manner of death.”

MADISON, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin student from China was found dead on Sunday night at a campus-area apartment, according to UW police.

Officers responded to an emergency call at an Eagle Heights apartment, but the victim was already dead.

The student, identified as Hao Yu, was a guest at the apartment.

The Dane County Coroner has identified the UW student found dead Sunday night at the Eagle Heights apartment complex as 19-year old Hao Yu. Police say Yu was from China and was staying at a guest at the apartment.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison police tell 27 News they found Yu’s body around 10:00 p.m. Sunday night. The coroner says preliminary autopsy results show Yu likely died of natural causes and foul play is not suspected.

MADISON — The Dane County Coroner has identified the UW student found dead Sunday night at the Eagle Heights apartment complex as 19-year old Hao Yu. Police say Yu was from China and was staying at a guest at the apartment.

A University of Wisconsin student was pronounced dead Sunday night after campus police responded to an emergency call from an Eagle Heights apartment.

The cause of death of the man was not yet known, but police said they do not suspect foul play. An autopsy was scheduled for Monday morning.

The man was a guest at the apartment. UW Police officials said the man’s identity is known, but will not be released until his family is notified.

While police say Adam Charles Peterson stabbed a stranger to death in late January, those who grew up with the 2006 Stillwater Area High School graduate find it difficult to believe he was capable of such a violent act.

Still, the 20-year-old now faces a first-degree murder charge in Madison, Wis., where authorities say Peterson’s DNA was matched to samples found on the knife that was used to kill 31-year-old Joel Marino in his Madison home on Jan. 28, and on a backpack and cap that were found near the scene of the crime.

At Marquette, the Milwaukee School of Engineering, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison, the percentage of women with undergraduate degrees in the field has declined or stayed static since 1998. Twenty percent of engineering graduates from Madison were women in 2006-’07, while UWM graduated just 6% women that year – a big drop from previous years.

The shock over Adam Peterson ‘s arrest Thursday in the murder of Joel Marino was especially great among the people he grew up with in the Stillwater, Minn. area, who said they never thought he was capable of such violence.

A former college student charged in a home-invasion slaying in Wisconsin five months ago has been arrested in Washington County, authorities said today.

Adam C. Peterson, 20, was arrested Thursday about 7:30 a.m. without incident at the Grant home of his mother, where he recently moved from Madison, Wis., the Washington County Sheriff’s Office sai

A University of Wisconsin-Madison dropout from Minnesota was charged Friday with a high-profile stabbing death, one of several unsolved cases that had frightened city residents.

MADISON, Wis. — A 20-year-old Minnesota man was formally charged on Friday with first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the fatal stabbing of Madison resident Joel Marino last January.

Adam Charles Peterson, who’s currently a resident of Grant, Minn., was arrested on Thursday in Minnesota, according to Madison police.

During a Friday morning news conference, Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said that Peterson is a former Madison resident who had multiple addresses in the area. He said that Peterson was a University of Wisconsin-Madison student, but wasn’t an active student at the time of killing.

DNA extracted from the handle of the knife that killed Joel Marino, along with hairs found on a backpack and knit cap, tied a former UW-Madison student to Marino’s death on Jan. 28, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday.

Adam C. Peterson, 20, of Grant, Minn., was charged with first-degree intentional homicide for allegedly stabbing Marino, 31, to death at his home on West Shore Drive.

Itâ??s hard to miss the glow from emergency phone kiosks on campus these days.

Nor can families of incoming freshman easily evade required seminars or orientation programs discussing campus safety and emergency protocol.

For the most part, campuses are safe, educational havens.

But, in the wake of the tragic killing of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student this year, new discussions on improving emergency communication have erupted.

Itâ??s natural. Itâ??s good.

In a signal that more copyright infringement lawsuits could be coming against students in the UW System, the Recording Industry Association of America filed a lawsuit in federal court in Madison Wednesday seeking the names of people it believes illegally downloaded music at UW facilities.

The John Doe lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Madison by the RIAA, seeks the identities of 48 people who were monitored downloading copyrighted music over Internet-based file-sharing networks in 2007 and 2008.

When first-year UW-Madison law students arrived in Anuj Desai’s constitutional law class last semester, he told them to shut their laptop computers and next time, leave them at home.

The directive may have come as a surprise to students who are used to having a keyboard â?? and the Internet â?? at their fingertips in class.

MADISON, Wis. — While the police investigation continues, Monday marks the one-year anniversary when University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student Kelly Nolan disappeared from downtown Madison. The 22-year-old was later found dead.
The search for the missing Waunakee native began last summer. Nolan was reported missing on June 23, 2007, after a night of partying in downtown Madison. Her body was found on July 9, 2007, in a wooded area near Schneider Drive in the Town of Dunn.

The concrete canoe competition is simple: Design and build a concrete canoe that can float and withstand the wear and tear of numerous races.

This year the University of Nevada, Reno, won first place, putting an end to the five-year winning streak by the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

A mass of proud parents, friends and attorneys paraded through the state Supreme Court for the swearing in of more than 130 University of Wisconsin Law School graduates earlier this month.

However, the law school holds its public ceremony almost a month after graduation and approximately half of the class did not attend on June 11.

So where were the 126 other graduates from the spring 2008 class?

Assistant Dean for External Communications Carolyn Lazar Butler said there are a variety of reasons, both deliberate and inadvertent, as to why graduates miss the opportunity to be sworn in among their peers.

The UW Foundation announced Thursday it’s launching a money-raising campaign focused on financial help for undergraduates and keeping talented professors and graduate students at UW-Madison.

Donors are invited to channel their contributions to those needs or designate them for an east campus gateway plan as the university undertakes major renovations, additions and building projects.

The drive is called “Great People. Great Place.” It’s aimed at nurturing human capital and bolstering the profile of a vital academic neighborhood, the university said.

Following a number of high-profile crimes at some state university campuses, administrators are trying to ease the fears of parents whose students are going off to college in the fall. Parents and students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee can now sign up for emergency text alerts on their cellphones. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has a similar service for students but not parents.