Category: Campus life

UW-Madison students, staff and faculty will be able to get emergency warnings as text messages on their cell phones beginning this fall.

The WiscAlerts-Text system will allow enrolled users of the service to get critical safety information from the UW-Madison Police Department through text messaging on the user’s cell phone.

“The safety and security of the campus community is our top priority,” said Lt. Michael Newton of the UW-Madison Police Department. “WiscAlerts-Text will be a quick way to reach people who might be in class, on the bus or away from a computer. This is one more way we will be able to communicate in an emergency.”

In what is becoming a high-stakes back-and-forth between Madison police and the Dane County 911 Center, Madison’s police chief said this afternoon (Thursday) that a 911 dispatcher should have sent police to respond to a call from the cell phone of a student later found slain in her campus-area apartment.

“It would be accurate to state that there is evidence contained in the call, which should have resulted in a Madison police office being dispatched,” Police Chief Noble Wray said. “That would have been consistent with both Madison Police Department policy, and national 911 standards.”

Dane County’s 911 Center director admitted late Thursday that his agency made a mistake in fumbling a call from Brittany Zimmermann’s cell phone at about the time she was killed on April 2.

But after a month of internal investigation, the dispatcher who hung up on the call, after hearing nothing, remains on the job without disciplinary action, and the agency has made no changes in policy, training or procedure, director Joseph Norwick acknowledged.

Madison has tamed its raucous State Street Halloween celebration, but this weekend’s 40th annual Mifflin Street Block Party remains a booze-infused wild child.

On Saturday, thousands of college students are expected to converge on the Downtown neighborhood to drink heavily and get arrested in droves.

Apologize from the heart.
Find out what went wrong and fix it.

Those are the instructions the Madison community should give to Dane County ‘s 911 Center and the Madison Police Department in the aftermath of Thursday ‘s revelations about the day UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann was murdered.

Police said Thursday that a 911 call from a college student’s cell phone the day she was murdered should have triggered the dispatch of a police officer, but police weren’t notified of the call.

The existence of the April 2 call from Brittany Sue Zimmermann’s phone prompted questions about how local officials handle emergency calls from cell phones, as well as about the call itself.

This year one of Minnesota’s most important cultural institutions, the Schubert Club, is celebrating its 125th anniversary. A vital component of the organization’s activities, the Schubert Club Scholarship Competition, is also observing a major birthday.

Five of the winners came by the Maud Moon Weyerhaeuser Studio. The fourth young musician is soprano Caitlin Cisler. She’s a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She won first place in the advanced voice category. She sang the music of Richard Strauss and Handel, and talked with classical music host Steve Staruch. (Audio.)

At a press conference this afternoon, Madison Police Chief Noble Wray responded to the growing media feeding frenzy over the Brittany Zimmermann case by tossing a body to the assembled hungry reporters. His name was Joe Norwick.

Wray provided information markedly at odds with statements made earlier in the day by Norwick, director of Dane Countyâ??s 911 Center, regarding Isthmusâ?? report that the UW-Madison student called 911 prior to her murder on April 2.

Norwick had told reporters that the Madison police have specifically asked that officers not be dispatched to certain calls made from cell phones, in part because of technological limitations.

MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison launched its WiscAlerts text messaging system on Thursday but said it needs students and staff to volunteer for the service.

University officials said that those who want to receive the free alert need to access My UW Portal to register a cell phone that is able to receive texts. Then, in the event of an on-campus emergency, they will be notified immediately.

“We’re kind of an on-the-go society — people are out and about. This is one of the several means that we’re going to use to communicate with people in an emergency,” said Lt. Michael Newton, of the UW-Madison Police Department.

MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison Safewalkers are walking off the job, citing bad management as their main concern.

“For the past nine months, they haven’t listened to our concerns,” says Dana DeMet, a UW-Madison senior and former Safewalk employee.

DeMet said management has cut positions even though requests for Safewalks have increased, especially in light of the recent slaying of UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann.

“On an average night, we used to see seven or eight calls. But in the past month, we’re seeing double that,” DeMet said.

MADISON, Wis. — A 911 dispatcher received a call from the cell phone of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student sometime before she was killed last month but the call was apparently ignored, according to officials.

An official with the Dane County Public Safety communications said Thursday that a call for service was made from Brittany Zimmermann’s apartment to 911 on the day that she was killed in early April, but mistakes in how the call was handled resulted in no police officers being sent to investigate.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is now enrolling users in its emergency text messaging system, WiscAlerts-Text.

Students, faculty and staff can sign up by logging into the My UW Portal and looking for the WiscAlerts logo. Registration is simple and takes just a few moments.

We sat down with Jenna Krasselt, Brittany Zimmermann’s best friend, and her fiance’s sister, Thursday afternoon.

Krasselt says she doesn’t know the specifics about the 911 call Brittany made the day she was murdered. All she knows is that a call was made. Krasselt says it saddens her that her friend tried to call for help, and it wasn’t answered but didn’t know any other details about the call. She said Zimmermann did not have a land line phone in her Doty Street apartment.

In a news conference with media Thursday morning, Dane County Public Safety Communications Director Joe Norwick confirmed that a 911 telephone call was made from Brittany Zimmermann’s cell phone to the center the day of her homicide.

Norwick said that a 911 dispatcher couldn’t hear a voice on the other end of the line, and proceeded to answer other waiting 911 calls without calling the Zimmermann number back.

When you call 911 in an emergency, you trust help will come regardless if you call from a cell phone or land line.

Local police say you’re putting too much trust into the system.

Middleton’s 911 Dispatch Center has enhanced 911 which gives them the ability to track where calls come from.

Madison Police are investigating the shooting of a 19-year-old male Wednesday evening on the 600 block of West Washington Avenue.

The University of Wisconsinâ??s SAFEwalk program is facing hard times as a large number of its most experienced employees are quitting over dissatisfaction with the way the program is being run under its current supervisor.

The Dane County 911 dispatch center director said a UW-Madison student slain in her campus area apartment April 2 made a 911 phone call on her cell phone, but dispatchers failed to call her back.

Director Joe Norwick said today that when Brittany Zimmermann made the call, the dispatcher, who was unnamed, had no way of knowing the call wasn’t one of many non-emergency or misdialed phone calls that the center receives every day.

Norwick declined to say how long Zimmermann’s phone call lasted, or whether there was any communication from Zimmermann. He said the dispatcher, after a time, discontinued the call to answer another 911 call, which turned out to be a non-emergency call.

Madison police believe Brittany Zimmermann called 911 before she was stabbed and beaten to death inside her Doty Street apartment, but the 911 Center failed to send help after erroneously concluding the call was a mistake.

Fifteen of the countrys brightest college students will compete in the 2008 “Jeopardy” College Championship, which taped at the University of Wisconsins Kohl Center in Madison on April 11 and 12. The winner will take home a grand prize of $100,000.

A University of Wisconsin Law School “Sex Toys 101” talk was shut down by the school, and the event organizersâ??who say the event was an attempt to promote safe alternatives to sex and discuss laws concerning sex toysâ??are not happy about it, the Badger Herald reports.

The official reason the seminar was canceled was that policy “prohibits the promotion or sale of commercial products by a private company.” But many students suspect it’s possible that the event’s racy fliers had something to do with it, too. Accompanied by a photo of wrists in shackles, one advertisement asks: “Finals got you tied up at the library all night? Wouldn’t you rather be tied up at home?” The other, littered with photos of sex toys, is probably too scandalous for me to repeat.

After several separate incidents over the weekend at Sellery Hall, officials reminded residents to lock their doors and take caution while walking at night . According to Sellery Hall Area Coordinator James Franzone, two Sellery Hall residents were harassed by an individual in the ally near the Double Tree Hotel last weekend. One of the victimsâ?? bags was stolen and they left the scene with bruises to the head.

More than 50 Mifflin Street residents and students gathered Tuesday night to learn how to avoid behavior that could possibly cost them hundreds of dollars in fines at Saturdayâ??s block party, and a petition to relax the cityâ??s noise ordinance for the party failed to garner police support.

The University of Wisconsin Law School canceled an event with controversial sexual content last Wednesday, and some students are calling the action a possible First Amendment violation.

Want to tell a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention how to vote?

University of Wisconsin student Awais Khaleel is, by virtue of his status as the current vice president of College Democrats of America, in the same league as former President Jimmy Carter, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and other prominent Democratic officials and party insiders. He’s an unpledged superdelegate to the convention that will decide whether Illinois Sen. Barack Obama or New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

Unlike most superdelegates, Khaleel remains genuinely uncommitted.

Bands and other music at the Mifflin Street Block Party aren’t any louder than popular Madison events like Concerts on the Square, Rhythm & Booms or even the noise coming from Camp Randall on game days.

At least that’s the argument being put forward by Tom Wangard, a UW-Madison junior and Mifflin Street resident who has petitioned the city for a noise ordinance amnesty for the annual party this Saturday.

“The Mifflin Street Block Party is a historical event here on campus,” he said. “We realize that we can’t be completely out of hand with noise, but it would be reasonable to have the hours of 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., the daytime hours, set aside for no noise violations at all.”

Some UW-Madison students and Mifflin Street residents are upset with noise limits that police said will be enforced at the upcoming Mifflin Street Block Party on Saturday.

Madison police will allow an elevated level of music from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m., but if music can be heard more than three houses away, revelers will risk getting a $172 noise citation.

A group of UW-Madison law students asked for an apology from the university for the abrupt cancellation of a sex toy seminar scheduled at the Law School last week.

Calling it a misunderstanding, Law School Dean Kenneth Davis said the group can hold the event if no commercial products are promoted or sold.

Students at Lynn University say they’ve been working like dogs to prepare for final exams. So who better to relieve some of that stress than a couple of four-legged friends?

Therapy dogs have been used at other universities, including Albright College in Reading, Pa.; Indiana University in Bloomington; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to published reports.

I was speechless. I, a campus tour guide, was at a loss for words when I first found out that I was selected to compete in the 2008 Jeopardy! College Championship. I mean, what can you really say to that phenomenal news? I think Iâ??m still trying to figure out how to express my elation.

George Washington University usually receives five to 10 notices per week from the Recording Industry Association of America complaining that a specific song or movie is being illegally traded by a computer user on the campus. But in the past week alone, the university has received 123 notices.

Colleges and universities around the country are reporting similar increases in complaints from the industry group. Because most colleges investigate every incident and take action against the online pirates, the surge is putting a sudden strain on their resources as the semester winds down.

The UW-Madison dean of students is urging Mifflin Street block party revelers to play nice and be aware of individual safety in the wake of Brittany Zimmermann’s murder April 2 a block away.

Madison police will be out in force for the block party on Saturday, with more than 100 officers on duty, and three security cameras will observe the goings-on instead of one camera, but Dean of Students Lori Berquam said today it’s important for students to watch out for each other.

Two UW-Madison students will try to solve the puzzles this week on Wheel of Fortune’s College Week.

Kelly Clinton-Cirocco, a junior biology major originally from Gurnee, Ill., will appear in tonight’s episode. Nick Lamantia, a senior finance major originally from Arlington Heights, Ill., will appear in an episode airing Thursday night.

Ralph Armstrong was convicted nearly three decades ago of raping and killing UW-Madison student Charise Kamps in her downtown apartment. But now defense attorneys claim Armstrong’s brother, Steve, confessed to the murder in 1994 or 1995.

A Madison foreign exchange student found drowned in Lake Mendota is on a list of college students possibly murdered rather than accidentally drowned.

You may remember the name Kenji Ohmi – he was here from Japan learning English when he disappeared.

A man convicted of attacking a University of Wisconsin student in 2006 was sentenced Friday to seven and a half years in state prison and nine and a half years of extended supervision.

MADISON, Wis. â?? The late-afternoon regulars on State Street â?? Lonnie, Ron, Bruce and dozens more, nearly all of them men with outstretched hands or jiggling styrofoam cupsâ??know all too well that they’re not the most admired members of the community.

They may be drug addicts, alcoholics, ex-cons, mentally ill or homeless, but they can sense when public sentiment has shifted against themâ??like now.

A Fitchburg man who attacked a stranger in the stairwell of her apartment building in 2006 was sentenced Friday to seven years and six months in prison.

Dane County Circuit Judge John Markson also placed Paul C. Aud, 34, on nine years and six months of extended supervision after prison. Markson found Aud guilty of second degree attempted sexual assault and substantial battery in November.

MILTON â?? For Jenna Zanton Mood, it all started in elementary school.

She used to see the Milton High School show choir, Choralation, perform for the younger students, and she dreamed of being a member.

â??Thatâ??s kind of where I first thought, â??That looks so cool. I want to do that in high school,â??â? she said.

Today, Jenna, 27, makes her living arranging show choir numbers for teams across the nation, including UW-Madisonâ??s Wisconsin Singers.

An attorney for Ralph Armstrong claimed in a court motion Armstrong’s brother, Steve, confessed to two women he was the one who raped and killed UW-Madison student Charise Kamps in 1980.

Attorney Jerome Butig’s motion to a Wisconsin appellate court includes affidavits from the two women, including Debbie Holsomback of Fort Worth. In Holsomback’s affidavit, Holsomback says Armstrong’s brother, Steve Armstrong told her several years after Ralph Armstrong’s murder conviction and imprisonment his brother may want revenge against him. “Steve…responded with words to the effect of: ‘The DNA testing is going to show he didn’t do it. I did it,’ .”

MADISON, Wis. — A man convicted in a brutal attack of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student in the stairwell of a campus apartment building was sentenced Friday.

Paul Aud, 34, was sentenced to 7 ½ years in prison after being convicted of attempted second-degree sexual assault and substantial battery.

On Aug. 23, 2006, prosecutors said that Aud followed the woman into a Langdon Street apartment building and repeatedly beat her, pulling her down some stairs.

Madison, Wis. – How many start-up companies can boast the competitive advantage of being first to market, have its own fan club on Facebook, and take advantage of three established technologies – electronic games, mobile phones, and global positioning systems?

One of them, PerBlue, recently took home second place and $7,000 from the 2008 G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.