Category: Campus life

Who said it’s difficult to defend a championship title?

For the second consecutive time, Mississippi State University won the General Motors and U.S. Department of Energy’s Challenge X competition, which saw 17 teams from different colleges and universities attempt to transform an ordinary Chevrolet Equinox into the most efficient hybrid SUV available.

The University of Wisconsin and Ohio State University won second and third place, respectively. Both universities also chose to power their vehicles with the same GM-sourced 1.9-liter turbocharged diesel engine.

Money was flying everywhere at this week’s University of Wisconsin Board of Regents meeting.

The board gave new Madison Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin a $437,000 salary — about $100,000 more than outgoing chancellor John Wiley made this past year — and hiked UW System President Kevin Reilly’s annual paycheck by $73,000 to $414,593.

At the same meeting, the board approved raising tuition for most students in the system by 5.5 percent. It will now cost most in-state undergraduates $6,678 in tuition alone for the next school year.

While it would be easy to criticize the regents for raising salaries in the face of the nation’s and state’s economic downturn and balancing higher costs on the backs of the students, if fingers need to be pointed, they need to point directly at the State Capitol.

MILWAUKEE â?? Engineering students at University of Wisconsin-Madison will pay higher tuition than all other undergraduates at the state’s flagship school.

The Board of Regents approved a $1,400 tuition surcharge for students accepted into the College of Engineering.

27 News has found the investigation into Brittany Zimmermann’s April 2 murder has included six court-sanctioned searches for evidence in the first week after her homicide.

Documents show one of the searches requested by a Madison police officer and approved by a judge was a search of Zimmermann’s West Doty street apartment on the day of her killing.

Members of a neighborhood association representing residents north and east of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus protested Thursday against the university’s enrollment increase and its policy on off-campus behavior by students.

MENASHA â?? Students at the University of Wisconsin colleges won’t see the tuition increase university students will see next year, and they’re sighing with relief.

The UW Board of Regents decided Thursday to freeze the tuition at the 13 UW colleges for the second consecutive year in a push to provide affordable education for low-income and nontraditional students.

MADISON, Wis. — Madison police and Madison Fire Department are asking for the public’s help with the ongoing investigation into the blaze that destroyed the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house last month.

The cause of the fire near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus is still under investigation. Fire officials said that they’re not ruling out arson as a possible cause.

Fire destroyed the house on May 13.

Fire investigators are looking for help from the public in the investigation into the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house fire May 13.

The Madison Police and Fire Investigation Unit issued the request for help Thursday.

To make the cut for the nationally televised Jeopardy! Collegiate Championship is no small feat. Suchita Shah reflects on her 15 minutes of fame.

I’m a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the host school for this year’s Jeopardy! College Championship.

The adventure really kicked off when some members of the Clue Crew, and the contestant coordinators, landed in town a couple of months ago to audition the many brilliant Badger hopefuls. I had passed the online test in the fall of 2007, so I had an audition spot reserved.

WASHINGTON — Trevor Mahoney is spellbound.

The Marshfield resident is part of a young crew working to keep the Scripps National Spelling Bee a smoothly running operation.

He’s majoring in actuarial science and risk management and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mahoney, 20, will be a junior this fall.

The Dane County Board wants to hear from the public about the 911 communications center.

A public hearing about the emergency communications system is set for 6 p.m. today in Room 201 of the City-County Building, followed by a presentation from Richard Tuma, the Waukesha County director of emergency preparedness, and a review and possible approval of what should be included in a planned internal audit of the county’s 911 system.

County Board Chair Scott McDonell said the public is invited to talk about anything regarding the 911 center, which has come under fire since a call that came from Brittany Zimmermann’s cell phone April 2 was mishandled. Zimmermann was murdered in her downtown apartment right about the time the phone call came in to the 911 center.

When Tim Fish made the difficult decision to leave his parents’ home on the Osage Nation Indian Reservation in Oklahoma after his junior year of high school, he did so with the dream of bettering his life.

“I didn’t want to leave home, but I knew that I had to if I wanted something better, something much bigger in life,” said Fish, who noted that unemployment was high and opportunities were scarce on the reservation.

Last Thursday, outgoing UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley announced his decision to allocate a $400,000 unrestricted university grant to help WSUM move into a new studio this summer. According to WSUM general manager Dave Black, that was more than the student radio station had originally requested from Wiley.

A college can spend millions of dollars a year polishing its image, but one viral video on a user-generated Web site like YouTube can undo it all in a minute and a half.

Some colleges, like the University of Wisconsin at Madison, are lucky enough to have user-generated campus tours come up on their first YouTube hit. Others have set up their own YouTube channels: Auburn University has uploaded more than 150 videos to the site.

Madison police officials say the Brittany Zimmermann homicide investigation has not turned into a cold case, two months after the UW-Madison student’s April 2 killing.

“They’ve come up with fifty people who you could describe as persons of interest,” Madison police spokesperson Joel DeSpain told 27 News.

Students at four-year schools in the University of Wisconsin System could see a tuition increase of 5.5 percent for the coming school year.

The plan released Tuesday would keep tuition at the 13 two-year UW colleges frozen at current levels for the second straight year.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — University of Wisconsin System leaders want lawmakers to pay the full cost of tuition benefits they’ve given to veterans.

Wisconsin veterans can attend the UW System and Wisconsin Technical College System for free under a 2006 law.

Madison police are looking for a man involved in a stabbing that injured a 26-year-old on State Street early Sunday morning.

Thousands of miles away from the tapped kegs and beer gardens of Wisconsin, Erika Campbell happened upon a business idea perfect for Madison.

She saw an advertisement in a London restroom for a designated-driver service that takes people – and their vehicles – home safely after a night out on the town.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison senior was stabbed early Sunday morning while walking in the 700 block of State Street.

Jason H. Lawler, 26, suffered stab wounds to the left side of the lower back and left elbow.

Police custody was relatively brief for most of the transient men rounded up by Madison police nearly two months ago as they were investigating the violent killing of Brittany Zimmermann in her Downtown apartment.

But two of the men remain behind bars, one likely to be deported, because of events that were set in motion after their arrests.

When you’re soaring through the air at 120 miles per hour, there’s nothing on your mind but blue skies, beautiful clouds, and the incredible rush. The Madcity Skydivers are looking for just that: the simultaneous thrill and peace of flight, and they want to share it with others.

Three times a year, this UW student organization holds Leapfests, a chance for students of all experience levels to go skydiving together and enjoy the rush.

MADISON, WIS. — There was a time when residents in this liberal college city would greet homeless people by name.

They’d stop to chat with Scanner Dan, the grizzled guy with a walkie-talkie buzzing at his hip as he asked for change. They’d offer odd jobs to a man known as Snowball, who was rumored to have been a smuggler for the Chicago mob during Prohibition.

Then two violent slayings in less than three months shook residents in the state capital, which is also home to the main campus of the University of Wisconsin.

UW-Madison is reviving a proposal that would require engineering students to pay the highest tuition among undergraduates on campus.

The proposal, which will go before the UW Board of Regents next week, would eventually raise tuition by $1,400 per year in the College of Engineering. The money would go toward hiring more faculty and improving academic programs.

The School of Business was the first undergraduate school at UW-Madison to bump tuition higher, a practice known as differential tuition, when it required students to pay $500 more per semester this past school year.

After their weeklong Memorial Day holiday, members of Congress will duke out the details of the enhanced federal GI bill.

Wisconsin’s GI Bill already offers some of the best benefits in the nation, and because of that, University of Wisconsin System spokesman David Giroux says there are capacity concerns. He says they’ve already seen tremendous enrollment growth from military veterans as the result of Wisconsin’s generous benefits.

News reports lately have talked about three recent unsolved murders in Madison with ties to the area around the University of Wisconsin, but a decades-old murder of a student on campus is still unsolved. Christine Rothschild was found stabbed to death 40 years ago this week.

On a Wednesday afternoon, Bridget Maniaci sits in a State Street coffee shop among UW-Madison students paging through textbooks and staring at computer screens preparing for exams. Less than one year ago, Maniaci was one of them.
But now, Maniaci, a UW-Madison graduate with a degree in political science and economics, munches on a baguette and talks about life in Madison after her departure from the student demographic.

Up against a tight deadline, the city’s Alcohol License Review Committee will take one shot in the coming month at cracking down on the places that sell booze Downtown to the chronic street alcoholics officials say are plaguing the area.

There may be hope yet for high school students who received the disappointing letter from Wisconsin’s flagship university that reads, “we think you’re qualified, but …”

UW-Madison is poised to admit more students from its waiting list than ever before.

Natalie Ammerman, a 2004 graduate of Holmen High School, has been accepted as part of a group of professional students to tour Uganda and help in hospitals, medical clinics and pharmacies.

Ammerman, 22, is a doctor of pharmacy candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. The university has an ongoing project in Uganda for pharmacy, medical and nursing students and sends students for three weeks each summer. Ammerman and 15 other UW students will travel to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, on May 24.

She knew her Brewers, Bucks and Packers. She even surprised herself by knowing Flavor Flav. But a bit of history that involved President John Tyler and Texas stumped Suchita Shah, and the UW-Madison senior saw her run on â??Jeopardy!â? end in a semifinal that aired May 14. By making it that far, she won $10,000 at the college tournament that was filmed at the Kohl Center last month.

“Now we know. Now we are going to do something about it,” says County Board Supervisor, Eileen Bruskewitz.

Help is on the way for the county’s 911 center. It’s something many say is long overdue since the recent botched 911 call from Brittany Zimmermann the day she was murdered in her home.

WSUM General Manager Dave Black has confirmed that the UW-Madison student radio station will broadcast a “major announcement” by Chancellor John Wiley during the 2 o’clock hour this Thursday afternoon.

The announcement will occur during “Raveathon,” a seven hour broadcast marathon to be hosted by music industry veteran Bruce Ravid, from 1-8 p.m. Thursday. Ravid graduated from UW-Madison in 1974 and was an early pioneer of student radio on campus.

For the fifteenth straight meeting spanning parts of three years, the Madison city council representative to a 911 Center oversight board failed to show up Wednesday.

It was also the first meeting of the Public Safety Communications Center Board since a 911 dispatcher mishandled an April emergency call from the cell phone of murder victim Brittany Zimmermann.

A group of students and others called on Madison alderperson Eli Judge to resign, after 27 News revealed Judge missed nearly a year’s worth of meetings of the 911 Center’s oversight board.

Judge’s last absence from his assignment to the Public Safety Communications Center Board was less than two weeks before a 911 call from the cell phone of murder victim Brittany Zimmermann was mishandled.

More than two weeks after revelations that Dane County’s 911 Center may have mishandled a call from the cell phone of UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann around the time she was murdered, the community is still asking questions about the efficacy of the 911 center and demanding quick action from public officials.

Nearly 100 people — including at least a dozen reporters — packed the basement of the Fitchburg Community Center on Monday night for an unofficial public hearing on the 911 system. More than 30 people spoke, and another 30 registered their concerns.

FITCHBURG â?? Can a 911 call from a cell phone be traced to an exact location?

How quickly are police being dispatched to 911 calls about suspicious activity?

Has Dane County spent enough on its 911 system?

Those questions and several others were on the minds of about 80 people Monday at the first town hall meeting since it was revealed the county’s 911 center mishandled a call from the cell phone of homicide victim Brittany Zimmermann on April 2.