Category: Campus life

The last phase of an eight-year project to revamp State Street began Monday, closing all vehicle traffic on the 500 and 600 blocks until September.

Mondayâ??s pouring rain was no obstacle for more than 60 University of Wisconsin students protesting in support of a pharmacy student arrested last week and facing deportation to Nigeria.

The answer is, “This popular television game show needs UW-Madison students as contestants.”

The question is, “What is Jeopardy?”

The quiz show is taping the 2008 collegiate championships at the Kohl Center April 11-12, so the show’s Brain Bus will be here Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Memorial Union to give Badger students a chance to audition for the show.

If you’re a UW-Madison student or faculty member who believes you should have the right to carry a concealed weapon on campus, there’s a new group for you.

But you’ll have to overcome several hurdles, including the fact that Wisconsin is one of only two states with a ban on concealed weapons.

Dozens of people gathered Monday at the Memorial Union in support of UW-Madison pharmacy student Tope Adesola Awe, who is at risk of being deported.

Awe was arrested Thursday and is being held at the Dodge County Jail with her brother, Oluwagbenga Awe. Both have orders of deportation against them, said a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman.

A former Milwaukee star high school athlete now studying to be a pharmacist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is in custody along with her brother and faces deportation, friends and family say.

And although students have held a rally and gathered signatures, and a state legislator is in their corner, immigration officials say the two have exhausted their options.

An official at the Dodge County jail confirmed that Tope Awe, 22, and her brother, Oluwagbenga Awe, were detained Thursday on immigration hold and were still in custody Monday afternoon.

UW-Madison students to rallied to stop the possible deportation of classmate Tope Awe to Nigeria, and claimed such a move would punish a nearly life-long Wisconsin resident, and derail a promising career.

Awe, 22, a student of the school of pharmacy, is an inmate at the Dodge County jail in Juneau. Dodge County officials have a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally.

Tope Awe is a third year pharmacy student at the U-W Madison. She left her native Nigeria and came to this country with her family when she was three years old.

But, her family never obtained legal residency for her and now she is in custody in the Dodge County Jail.

Said her friend Nurilign Ahmed, “I feel like losing her would be like losing a very important person from the health care profession and U-W Madison school system.”

UW-Madison students mobilized this weekend to help save Tope Awe, a pharmacy school student, from deportation.

A University of Wisconsin graduate student was arrested late last week and risks deportation to Nigeria, her family said this weekend.

A UW-Madison student summoned to Milwaukee for questioning about her immigration status is in danger of being deported, friends say.

Tope Adesola Awe, a pharmacy student, and her brother Oluwagbenga Awe, are being detained at the Dodge County Jail after being unexpectedly placed in custody Thursday, said Selamawit Zewdie, a UW-Madison senior and close friend of Tope Awe.

A UW Madison program is bridging the digital divide one student at a time.

The Information Technology Academy is a four year program for Madison high school students.

Every year, 30 eighth graders are selected.

They receive a free, desktop computer loaded with software and attend college prep classes throughout high school.

Since 1990, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have abandoned the luxury of sandy beaches to travel across the country and volunteer during their precious week of spring break.

According to the campus’ news service, Alternative Breaks, a program sponsored by the Morgridge Center for Public Service at the University of Wisconsin, challenges hundreds of students every year to step outside their comfort zones, pick up a shovel, hammer or kitchen apron and experience hands-on volunteer experiences in environments drastically different from their home.

UW-Madison announced two new vice provosts Wednesday.

The University of Wisconsin selected a new vice provost for faculty and staff programs Wednesday, filling the position from within their own ranks.

The University of Wisconsin expanded the vice provost for diversity and climate position Wednesday, naming Damon Williams to the job, ending a nine-month search process.

Student candidates vying for a position on the Dane County Board of Supervisors went head-to-head on transportation, safety and environmental issues in a debate Wednesday.

Madison is tightening its grip on the beer tap and getting stingier with the key to the liquor cabinet.

The city, which has long struggled with how control alcohol-related crime while encouraging a vital Downtown nightlife, is at a defining moment.

With nearly half the seats on its powerful Alcohol License Review Committee coming vacant — three of the more liberal voting members are leaving — Mayor Dave Cieslewicz now has a chance to reshape the committee.

A UW-Madison undergraduate became the 16th UW-Madison student Monday to win a prestigious Truman Scholarship.

Representatives from the State and Langdon Street neighborhood formally presented a plan to separate from a downtown neighborhood association at an executive body meeting Tuesday.

A Madison student neighborhood announced its gradual transition into an independent association to Capitol Neighborhoods, Inc. Tuesday.

Attention all students interested in attending or auditioning for the 2008 Jeopardy! College Championship. A limited number of free UW-Madison student, faculty and staff tickets will be distributed Tuesday for the College Championship taping at the Kohl Center in April.

An electric snowmobile designed by a team from UW-Madison may be used to help further climate change research in Greenland.

The snowmobile, Bucky EV, won the zero-emissions competition at the Society of Automotive Engineers Clean Snowmobile Challenge earlier this month in Houghton, Mich.

University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student Margertha Consona McLean, 23, of Madison, was chosen as Miss South Shore 2008 last weekend at the Marian Center for Non-Profits in Milwaukee. McLean becomes the first black woman to win the crown.

In the talent portion of the event, McLean sang “God Bless The Child.” She is a 2006 molecular biology graduate of Tennessee State University in Nashville and is a Ph.D. physiology graduate student and research assistant at UW-Madison.

She now advances to the 2008 Miss Wisconsin pageant, June 21 in Oshkosh.

Outgoing Supervisor Ashok Kumar, who is stepping down after two years as a rabble-rousing representative of this campus area district, leaves with a great message: “Student issues aren’t exclusively campus issues — they are inevitably intertwined with broader systemic concerns that affect the community we all share. Students are undoubtedly affected by county environmental, housing and criminal justice policy. We have a half a million residents in Dane County, and ‘campus safety’ translates to livable jobs, affordable housing and basic civil rights for residents on the other side of the tracks, maybe slightly beyond the campus comfort zone. Contrary to privileged opinion, the world does not end at Emerald Street.”

The UW-Madison area will be represented by a new Dane County Board supervisor this April, as two students vie to replace the first-term supervisor Ashok Kumar in District 5.

Conor O’Hagan and Wyndham Manning will face off April 1, with the winner being next in a line of UW students on the board.

….O’Hagan, 19, is originally from Appleton and is a freshman. He’s one of the freshman representatives on the ASM Student Council. Manning, 22, hails from Jacksonville, Fla., and is a senior majoring in communication arts and environmental studies.

Walking across the Kohl Center stage to receive a diploma is a highlight for many UW–Madison graduates. But it isn’t their final interaction with the university–at least if Paula Bonner has anything to say about it.

As president and CEO of the Wisconsin Alumni Association, or WAA, Bonner seeks to forge connections between alumni and the university in ways both large and small.

THE VILLAGES â?? The Wisconsin Singers is more than just singers and dancers. It is like one big family.

â??It sounds corny, but weâ??re all doing what we love to do,â? dance captain Sean Pinnow said. â??We can all come together and bond.â?

â??Theyâ??re going to be there for you whether you want them to or not,â? vocal captain Leah Miller said. â??There is always someone in life you can count on, and thatâ??s what the Singers have done for me.”

Dear Editor: Madison Metro is in trouble and refuses to admit it. A recent article compared ridership levels to the record set in 1982.

These numbers are so disingenuous and unsophisticated, it’s enough to make my head spin.

In 1982, Metro did not have thousands of UW student riders hopping on the bus every day to go every few blocks, as is the case today. Metro didn’t have large employers such as the UW and the city of Madison offering free bus passes to riders. And Metro didn’t have the infamous transfer point system, which forces more to make transfers to get from point A to point B.

A rift over alcohol crackdown proposals may cause some student neighborhoods to break from Capitol Neighborhoods Inc.

Jessica Pavlic, who represents the State and Langdon street neighborhoods on the Capitol Neighborhoods council, said the plan to secede is partly a response to the council ‘s proposal to double the fine for underage drinking and increase the beer tax as a way of controlling alcohol abuse Downtown.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, UW-La Crosse, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Stevens Point and the 13 two-year UW colleges will conduct campuswide climate surveys this spring to find out more about how comfortable their campuses are for students, faculty and staff from different racial, ethnic, gender and other groups.

Call it an electrifying win for UW Madison. Last week at Michigan Tech, team Bucky ran away from the competition in a face off of electric sleds, at the Clean Snowmobile Challenge. “We’d watched for two years while other teams had tried to make electric sleds, and we just concluded that they weren’t doing a very good job,” said faculty advisor Glenn Bower.

Most students in U.S. colleges are just plain stressed out, from everyday worries about grades and relationships to darker thoughts of suicide, according to a poll of undergraduates from coast to coast.

On March 18th at 2:11 a.m. Madison Police were called to the 400 block of West Mifflin Street where two UW-Madison students had just fended off a would be purse thief.

Two purse-wielding UW-Madison students fended off a would-be purse-snatcher early Tuesday morning, with one of the women “blasting” the attacker with repeated blows from her purse weapon.

According to Madison police,the two 21-year-old females were walking in the 400 block of N. Broom St. at 2:10 a.m. when they were approached by a stocky man, either Latino or Asian, wearing a white “hoodie” jacket.

Spring Break is in it’s second big week all along the Gulf Coast and while the beaches are crowded, there’s an alternative Spring Break that is building memories of a different kind in Baldwin County.

While most spring breakers are headed to the beach, a group from the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin are building something more substantial than a sand castle.

Lance Cpl. Scott Kruchten keeps a worn photo in his wallet of what looks like a twisted heap of metal. Except for two wheels hanging cockeyed above the mess of parts, it is a barely recognizable image of its former shape: a humvee.

The 32-year old Madison man has carried the picture with him for more than three years.
It is a reminder of the explosion that killed four other Marines south of Baghdad in November 2004. Kruchten was the only one in the truck who survived, although with lasting injuries.
Kruchten considers himself lucky to be alive, though he still lives with the aftermath of his service in the Iraq War. He shows no outward signs of disability, but tests have shown him to be cognitively disabled in several areas. He is on medication to prevent seizures. He tried to return to a pre-military job at Sauk City Harley-Davidson but found it difficult to face the work that had once been so easy for him.
Instead, he enrolled at UW-Madison where he is majoring in Middle Eastern studies.