The parents of a slain University of Wisconsin-Madison student want authorities to release the 911 call she made before she was murdered.
Kevin and Jean Zimmermann want to intervene in a lawsuit brought by media groups seeking audio of the call from Brittany Zimmermann’s cell phone.
The trailer for sleeper hit sci-fi movie Zero Trooper F has just landed online.
The film wowed audiences at the 2008 Wisconsin Film Festival in late April — even though it was shot by a group of students for under a grand.
MADISON, Wis. — The dormitories on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus will soon be following the trend of other college campuses around the state in ditching their landline phones.
After an extensive two years of surveying students on their phone usage habits, university officials said that the $400,000 a year to operate the phones isn’t necessary. They said that about 98 percent of students rely on their cell phone instead of their free dorm phone.
Well, here we are again. In November 2004, Madison Magazine columnist John Roach issued a negative opinion piece titled “The State of State.” In the January 2005 issue of the magazine I responded. Now in the May 2008 edition Roach attacks the downtown again (“A Safer Madison”). It too requires a response.
Quoted: Nick Nowakowski, 19, a pre-med student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, talks about the possibilities of going pro on the competitive video gaming circuit.
On a blessedly rain-free Friday afternoon, two dozen or so friends and neighbors of slain UW-Whitewater student Kelly Nolan’s family gathered under a gazebo at Centennial Park in Waunakee to mark the upcoming one-year anniversary of her disappearance and death.
Kelly Nolan, 22, disappeared in the early hours of June 23, 2007, about one month after moving to Madison, after a night of partying on State Street with friends. Her body was found in Fitchburg on July 9 after a massive search.
UW-Whitewater ‘s popularity among high school seniors has increased significantly in recent years, with applications up about 10 percent from last year.
Overall applications to the rest of the UW System, including UW-Madison, increased slightly.
Until a few months ago, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay freshman Kate Higgins was a rarity: Unlike an estimated 88% of college students in the country, she didnâ??t have a cell phone.
Kate Higgins, 18, of Milwaukee, checks her e-mail Thursday at the Wauwatosa Public Library. A laptop and cell phone became necessities for Higgins while at UW-Green Bay, where landlines in dormitories will be disconnected this fall.
Higgins, 18, kept in touch with her family in Milwaukee the old-fashioned way â?? a call home once a week from the landline in her on-campus apartment.
But last winter, Higgins heard the news: The university would soon disconnect landlines in residence halls and use the savings to pay for something more useful, like wireless Internet.
Hey, high school graduates. Quit texting and listen up. Todd Hanson, lead writer of The Onion, has some advice for you.
“Get ready to start suffering,” Hanson told nearly 500 students at Madison West High School’s graduation ceremony Saturday afternoon at the Kohl Center.
Hanson later reneged on that statement and admitted “unbelievable, wonderful things are also going to happen to you,” but not before sharing his own personal suffering with the graduating class.
It’s time to go. I spent the past four months dreading this moment. School had become comfortable, and I didn’t want to leave. I had class only two days a week, and my day started at 2:30 p.m. Life was easy, and I didn’t want to go back to the real world. Now I can say I’m happy the time has come. It is time to move on, time to be a grown-up again, time to step into the unknown, time to continue to grow
MILWAUKEE â?? The family of a murdered University of Wisconsin-Madison student has filed a federal lawsuit against Dane County and the 911 operator who handled a call from the student’s cell phone.
Kevin and Jean Zimmermann of Marshfield claim negligence by the county and 911 operator Rita Gahagan contributed to their daughter’s death two months ago.
MADISON, Wis. — The family of a slain University of Wisconsin-Madison student is suing Dane County and the 911 operator who handled a call from the woman’s cell phone.
Kevin and Jean Zimmermann are the parents of Brittany Zimmermann, a 21-year-old killed in her Madison apartment on April 2.
The federal lawsuit filed Friday alleges that operator Rita Gahagan took Brittany Zimmermann’s 911 call but lost contact with her, then failed to call back as required or send police to investigate.
The suit requests a jury trial and seeks unspecified damages.
The family of Brittany Sue Zimmermann, a UW-Madison student who was killed in her downtown apartment in April, will file suit against Dane County and one of its former emergency dispatchers Friday in U.S. District Court, according to preliminary papers filed.
Zimmermann, 22, made a 911 call on her cell phone before her death, but the call was disconnected, and the dispatcher did not call her back. No police officer was sent to Zimmermann’s home until after her death.
No one has been arrested in the case.
Friends and family of Kelly Nolan will hold a memorial service for the young woman from Waunakee who was found murdered almost a year ago.
Nolan, 22, disappeared early in the morning on June 23, 2007, after bar-hopping with friends in downtown Madison the night before. Her body was discovered two weeks later on July 9 in the town of Dunn.
Her murder remains unsolved.
The financial credit crisis is squeezing student loan programs that offer breaks to borrowers who enter critical fields such as nursing and teaching.
In at least six states this year, state-affiliated lenders have dropped or scaled back programs. Some repay or forgive part of a federal student loan for borrowers who take jobs in specific fields. Some reduce interest rates if students pursue certain subjects.
Matt Beyer is the first to admit he’s catching his breath just a bit as he wraps up a whirlwind senior year at UW-Madison.
“I’m not going to lie, it was really intense,” said Beyer, who is taking two courses this summer to complete his undergraduate degree. “When the year was over, I felt a little burned out.” A little burned out?
Not only was Beyer putting the finishing touches on a triple major of Chinese, East Asian studies and journalism, but from October through April he served as the interpreter for Milwaukee Bucks 7-footer Yi Jianlian, a rookie from China.
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.
The firm that built the world famous Santiago Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum has been named construction manager of the new South Campus Union at the UW-Madison.
Milwaukee-based CG Schmidt will head the $82 million project, which includes demolition of the existing Union South and building a replacement at the same site on Randall Avenue. It will manage the job out of its Madison office, with work to begin in January, 2009.
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.
A year ago University of Wisconsin and state technical college officials cautioned legislators that unless there was a funding mechanism for a proposal to give free tuition to Wisconsin veterans, state campuses would have to bump up tuition for underclassmen.
So it was not surprising this week when the UW System Board of Regents stood with a tin cup in one hand and a larger tuition bill in the other as they adopted an operating budget for 2008-2009 academic year.
Under the Regentsâ?? vote on Thursday, tuition at the stateâ??s four-year campuses would go up by 5.5 percent â?? adding $265 to $350 to the tuition bills of undergraduates. More than half of that tuition hike will go to pay for the underfunded veteransâ?? benefit which, according to news reports, is going to sap the UW System of about $31 million over the next two years.
A year ago University of Wisconsin and state technical college officials cautioned legislators that unless there was a funding mechanism for a proposal to give free tuition to Wisconsin veterans, state campuses would have to bump up tuition for underclassmen.
So it was not surprising this week when the UW System Board of Regents stood with a tin cup in one hand and a larger tuition bill in the other as they adopted an operating budget for 2008-2009 academic year.
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.
Thumbs Up: To University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly, for his generosity to help students in need.
The UW Board of Regents last week voted Reilly a huge raise, from $341,864 a year to $414.593. The increase was in part to put him closer to the middle of the pay range for leaders at peer public universities and part because new UW-Madison Chancellor Carolyn Martin is going to make $437,000.
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.
MILWAUKEE â?? Most University of Wisconsin System students will pay higher tuition next school year, helping to subsidize free college education for veterans, the Board of Regents decided Thursday.
The regents approved a $4.7 billion operating budget for the UW System that includes a 5.5 percent tuition increase for undergraduates from Wisconsin. Students will pay about $350 more at UW-Madison, $340 more at UW-Milwaukee and $265 more at 11 other four-year universities next year.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. – About 1,200 low-income college students in Wisconsin will receive grants for the first time this fall from a private scholarship fund.
The Fund For Wisconsin Scholars says it will give $3,500 grants to about 600 students in four-year University of Wisconsin System schools. Another 600 students attending two-year colleges will receive $1,800 grants.
The fund was created last year with a $175 million gift from University of Wisconsin-Madison graduates John and Tashia Morgridge.
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.
MILWAUKEE — Carolyn “Biddy” Martin was formally approved as next chancellor of UW-Madison at a Board of Regents meeting here on Thursday.
Martin, the current provost of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., was recommended as the next leader of Wisconsin’s flagship university by UW System President Kevin Reilly and a Board of Regents search committee, led by chair David Walsh, on May 29.
On Thursday, the full board unanimously approved Martin during a closed session.
Although Martin will take a cut in base salary to come to Madison, she will be the first UW-Madison chancellor to make more money than the leader of the UW System as a whole — in this case, President Kevin Reilly.
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.
The credit crunch has driven dozens of lenders out of the student loan market. But a number of new websites are trying to sidestep the traditional players, facilitating loans between students and anonymous investors or even friends and family members.
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.
Students on four-year campuses of the University of Wisconsin System could see a 5.5 percent tuition increase for the coming school year. That’s under the terms of a budget plan which the Board of Regents is expected to approve this week.
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.
A number of admissions deans at elite private schools have accepted more students than usual from their wait lists this year. Harvard, for example, will take about 220 students from its wait list, compared with 50 last year.
Last month, many admissions experts predicted that the large number of students being accepted from the wait lists of highly selective schools would create a ripple effect at second and third choices. Some students might not know where they were going until as late as August, experts say.
It was a gorgeous Saturday morning and one of his two days off a month from work, but Lakhwinder Singh had to spend it inside a clinic on South Park Street, waiting.
….Singh’s bright orange turban was a welcome splash of color in the clinic, where about a dozen people with illnesses from diabetes to stomach pain waited … and waited. For Singh, it took 4 hours before he got his pills. But patients at South Side MEDiC Clinic rarely complain. Although only open on Saturday mornings, the clinic is free, the medical care is expert and caring, and few patients there can afford to go anywhere else.
After two years in the lurch, Madhatters finally has a new home.
The popular campus bar at 3 University Square closed in June 2006 with the redevelopment of University Square mall. Ted Gervasi, who has owned the establishment for 20 years, plans to reopen it at 328 W. Gorham St., before UW-Madison students come back in the fall.
The license was approved last month by the Alcohol License Review Committee and was adopted without discussion by the City Council Tuesday night.
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.
Most University of Wisconsin System students would see their tuition go up 5.5 percent under a plan released Tuesday, in part to pay for an unfunded mandate giving free tuition to veterans.
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In all, the plan would increase resident undergraduate tuition by $348 at UW-Madison, $340 at UW-Milwaukee and $265 at 11 other four-year schools for the coming academic year. Undergraduate students from other states would see the same dollar increases.
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.
Members of the UW Board of Regents are raising concerns about a program that offers free tuition benefits to veterans.
Under a state law passed in 2006, the University of Wisconsin System must provide those benefits to military veterans, but the program was not fully funded by lawmakers in the current state budget. As a result, UW System spokesman David Giroux says campuses across the state have to absorb the extra cost. State funding is only covering about a quarter of the cost of the program, leaving the UW to cover near $40 million in extra costs.
Students on four-year campuses of the University of Wisconsin System could see a 5.5 percent tuition increase for the coming school year. That’s under the terms of a budget plan which the Board of Regents is expected to approve this week.
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.
Dear Editor: Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to work at a bar on campus. I have witnessed the Madison Police Department at work. On a normal weekend there will be six to eight officers patrolling the bars for underage drinkers. On at least one occasion I witnessed them in an undercover sting operation with plainclothed officers waiting to ID suspected underage drinkers. Typically these officers will only find one or two people who are not of age.
The problem I am baffled by is that at a time where there are two unsolved murders, the department has decided that instead of focusing on problem areas they would rather find those two 20-year-olds with fake IDs.
Now that school is almost done many are finding it a little difficult to enter the workforce.
“The biggest frustration is going there seeing ‘Oh there’s a job open’ and someone says ‘Well not really we forgot to take a sign down’ or ‘We forgot to remove that listing,” says UW senior, Jason Smathers.
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.
As the frenzy of final exam week approached, UW-Madison student Colleene Thomas informed her Introduction to Africa instructor, sorry, but she couldn’t take the test as scheduled.
She would be busy choosing the next chancellor of UW-Madison that day.
