Category: Campus life

Last week, a group of nine students from the University of Wisconsin â?? Madison drove 1,500 miles from the stiff 25-degree chill of the Midwest to Brownsville â?? but they didnâ??t come for the weather.

â??We came on a service learning trip,â? said Cathy Collentine, a 21-year-old political science and Spanish double major at the university. â??But weâ??re really down here for personal learning. Education is the only way to create change.â?

The group of students is part of an organization called Action Environmental Justice, which aims to create more equitable conditions for people living in areas under environmental distress.

Politically driven violence across Kenya, which has claimed more than 500 lives, has forced the country’s universities to shutter their campuses and caused some American colleges to cancel or delay their study-abroad programs there.

Universities in Kenya have postponed their January opening dates for fear that students and academic staff could be caught up in the turmoil that grew out of last month’s presidential elections.

Following last yearâ??s cancellation of the Pub Crawl, the consumption of alcohol by students has been an alarming issue on the minds of the administration, and now theyâ??re going to do something about it.

UW-Oshkosh collaborated with UW-Madison in a program called CHIPs, College Health Intervention Projects, which according to Dr. John Swanson of the Health Center was research that asked students about their alcohol consumption and how their use of alcohol impacted their lives.

“I would like to go to UW Madison cause I’ve always wanted to go there since I was a little kid,” says 17-year-old Jacob Salzmann.

And now, in his senior year of high school, he’s hoping his dream will come true. But after filling out his college application in early October, he’s still waiting now in January to find out if he’s been accepted.

“It’s just disappointing that I’m waiting to hear from them and I haven’t heard anything. I would like to know so I could know if I should pursue my other options yet or not.”

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine ranks three Wisconsin institutions among its 100 best values for public colleges in its February issue:

UW-Madison ranked 19th for in-state students and 23rd for out-of-state students.

A new University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study has found that black students are nearly three times more likely than whites to have off-campus jobs that interfere with their studies.

It is one of several issues uncovered through an experimental new approach to boosting minority enrollment in Wisconsin’s university system.

“It’s ultimately not about what color you are. Everybody brings something to the university community.”

Cydny Black was reflecting on her first semester at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, after starting out last fall with a scholarship from the Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE) program, which recruits, readies and funds tuition for minority and low-income students for the university.

One of three PEOPLE students from Madison high schools interviewed by The Capital Times at the start of the fall semester, the 18-year-old African-American said she has really enjoyed herself on a campus that is more than 80 percent white.

Nairobi, Kenya – Jessie Brenden didn’t spend late December celebrating the end of 2007. Instead, the University of Wisconsin-Madison student studying abroad in Kenya holed up in a home until New Year’s Day, watching post-election violence unfold and listening to gunshots outside.
UW-Madison student Ryan Miller (left) and Marvin, whose last name is unknown, perform skits and conduct discussions about social issues in Kisumu, Kenya, through the Tuungane Youth Project. Miller has lived with host families on both ends of the political spectrum.

However, at a restaurant days later, all seems back to normal in Brenden’s life – the nursing major is about to start her internship at a hospital and she’s looking forward to celebrating her 21st birthday Saturday.

Not so long ago, when parents sent their children away to college, their biggest fears probably were of the rowdy party and failing grades variety. That paradigm was shattered last spring when a troubled student at Virginia Tech shot and killed 33 people, including himself, in a rampage that started in a dormitory and continued in an engineering classroom building.

At least two major campuses within the University of Wisconsin system â?? Madison and Green Bay â?? are using the Virginia Tech tragedy as an opportunity to improve their own campus security measures in the event of a shooting or natural disaster.

On Monday morning, the hands of 20 University of Wisconsin students pushed up one wall of a house that will be nearly completed by weekâ??s end.

The ninth annual Putnam Habitat for Humanity Blitz build is on, said Jim Melfi, Putnam Habitatâ??s executive director.

Student volunteers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Milwaukee are escaping subfreezing temperatures to help one Palatka family realize their dream of home ownership, he said.

Badger Watch, a voluntary neighborhood watch network that spans the UW-Madison campus, started back in 2002 in just four buildings and now has more than 700 volunteers in more than 30 buildings campus-wide. Most are faculty and staff members but students are also welcome to participate.

Mequon – Weeks after his partially burned body was found in a New Mexico ditch, a memorial service for 22-year-old Michael J. Mowers will be held today in Mequon with his family, and with investigators knowing little more now about the University of Wisconsin-Madison student’s death than they did then.

Mowers’ body was discovered Nov. 21 in a culvert near a construction site in Las Cruces, N.M., by a woman walking her dog. But it took police until Dec. 7 to identify the body, using a national employment fingerprint database.

Against the backdrop of a national goal to more than quadruple the number of American undergraduates studying abroad to a million by 2016-17, Cultural Experiences Abroad, a for-profit study abroad provider, has been building a network of study centers best described as independent branch campuses. Once all 12 are fully operational â?? six are open now â?? itâ??s expected that the GlobalCampus Centers combined could accommodate up to 20,000 students a year, assuming every seat were filled every summer, winter and fall. For comparisonâ??s sake, consider that in 2005-6, 223,534 American students studied abroad in all.

A large number of CEAâ??s students are coming from the Big 10 universities, Bannister said, including the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Rob Howell, director of international academic programs and a professor of German at Wisconsin, said that the university does not have a relationship with CEA. But about 300 Wisconsin students do attend non-university programs each year, he said, with about 70 of those heading to Barcelona â?? where Wisconsin doesnâ??t offer any of its own programs because Spanish faculty would prefer that students not study in a Catalan-speaking city. â??Undoubtedly we have students who go on [CEA programs], but theyâ??re not programs we promote,â? Howell said.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) â?? A potentially fatal accident has inspired one University of Wisconsin-Madison student to pursue a career as a firefighter and paramedic.

Bill Schrack spent Saturday scrubbing floors, cleaning the bathroom and washing dishes at Fire Station No. 1. It was his way of thanking the rescue workers who saved his life.

Schrack, 20, of Barrington, Ill., was hurt in a mo-ped accident on July 1. He had been headed home to the Delta Tau Delta fraternity house when his mo-ped hit a dent in the concrete and he vaulted over the handlebars.

Peter Rickman is taking his enthusiasm for presidential candidate John Edwards and hunkering down in Iowa until the Jan. 3 caucuses. He left Saturday morning.

“I will be working through caucus night and the victory party,” said the optimistic Rickman, 25, who, besides having a full-time job at a software company, is a master’s degree student at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.

The UW-Madison rejected a complaint by Law School students who asked for discipline against Professor Leonard Kaplan for remarks allegedly insulting the Hmong, according to a document obtained by The Capital Times from an open records request.

Several Asian students were offended by statements they said Kaplan made about Hmong culture during a February lecture. After heated forums about the incident, which Kaplan did not attend, he released a statement saying his comments were misquoted and taken out of context, and that he was trying to illustrate the difficulty nations have in integrating immigrants.

After hearing that developers had secured a new location for the historic “Conklin House,” the Madison Plan Commission Monday night OK’d plans for a new $24 million, 14-story apartment building at the bustling corner of West Johnson and Mills streets on the UW-Madison campus.

Close to the UW chemistry building, the Ten Twenty-Two West Johnson apartment is aimed at students, professionals and researchers with families. It calls for 163 apartments from efficiency to four-bedroom units, with underground parking.

College binge drinking has been on the public health radar for years, but new research sheds light on the extent of the problem on campuses today â?? especially “pre-partying,” participating in heavy, rapid drinking before attending a real party where the drinking continues.

So, you might be wondering: Who was the commencement speaker at the University of Wisconsin-Madison? (Trust us, you were wondering this.) Well, it was, of all people, our old pal Scott Van Pelt … and we’re not ashamed to say it was a pretty amusing speech.

A UW-Madison student who reported being sexually assaulted in the Ogg Hall dorm has decided not to press charges after telling police she couldn ‘t remember exactly what happened.

Alcohol is believed to have played a significant part in the Nov. 30 incident, police said.

If the fire alarms go off at UW-Madison ‘s Witte Hall these days, no one is sure if it ‘s fire or really a matter of crying wolf.

That ‘s because the fire alarms there have blared on 15 occasions this semester.

“What does it sound like?”
“It’s the most ungodly sound in the entire world!”
“It’s annoying..it’s loud.”

What these UW Madison students are describing isn’t your typical alarm clock.

In fact it’s a malfunctioning fire alarm system that has been going off all semester in the Witte dorms downtown.. forcing students to evacuate their rooms.

MADISON, Wis. — UW Housing officials are conceding they’ve been dealing with a troublesome fire alarm problem at Witte Hall on campus.

Housing officials told WISC-TV that an inspection on Monday showed the system is finally back on track, but not before 18 false fire alarms were reported this semester.

The semester-long problem has some students wondering why it took so long to get action and answers.

Kristin Matuszak, who received a bachelor’s degree from UW-Madison Sunday, said she always felt like a fish out of water in Madison. It became so overwhelming that she left school after three years, vowing she’d never come back.
Whenever she thought about her time at UW, it was the zaniness she remembered most — the Mifflin Street block party, Halloween on State Street and the time she went to a football game and a student two rows in front of her opened up a cooler, pulled out a live fish and threw it up into the stands.

“But while I was away, I kind of felt that there was something missing,” Matuszak said while giving the commencement address on behalf of her fellow graduates Sunday afternoon at the Kohl Center.

In America’s Dairyland, 160,000 people are employed in the dairy industry. According to the UW’s department of agriculture, that’s almost half the agriculture jobs in the state. But the number of students studying to enter the field was dwindling – until the Dairy Science Department decided to do something about it.

Now, they’ve implemented a new strategy to attract students and it seems to be working. In the past three years, the number of students in the Dairy Science recruiting classes have more than tripled.

Ted Halbach, an extension Dairy Youth Specialist and Instructor in the Department of Dairy Science at the University of Wisconsin says, “In 2004 we had a recruiting class of 8 students”. With enrollment numbers so low, the dairy science program partnered with an unlikely source, a marketing firm.

Years of hard work and dedication paid off Sunday at the Kohl Center for a couple of thousand U-W Madison Students. Sunday was graduation day.

ESPN Sportscenter anchor Scott Van Pelt, who has called Madison, America’s Best College Sports Town, delivered the commencement address.

Van Pelt stressed patience and the idea that the process of achieving a dream is just as important and the dream itself. But, overall, he emphasized the value of time.

Roughly a year after a string of disturbing sexual assaults shocked the downtown area, police, the university and students continue to work toward creating a safer environment for the UW-Madison campus.

The UW-Madison Student Labor Action Coalition plans to gather for â??labor justice carolingâ? outside Chancellor John Wileyâ??s office Monday to protest against the universityâ??s Adidas contract and the alleged union busting by New Era Cap Company, a UW licensee.

The University of Wisconsinâ??s decision Tuesday to pay nearly $1,300 in security fees for a student event has sparked concern among representatives of some liberal-oriented groups on campus.

Rachel Butler, a junior at the UW-Madison, is worried that students are losing their right to decide how their money is used.

“Right now, the ability to use our student fees to support student life and our campus experience is being threatened,” says Butler, coordinator for the Student Rights Campaign, part of UW-Madison’s student government, Associated Students of Madison (ASM). “This presents a huge problem in students’ ability to provide the services we want for our university.”

Of all the institutions in America, the university should be the last place where you would find policies that discourage the free exchange of ideas.
UW-Madison administrators should bear that in mind as they review fees charged to provide security for speakers invited to campus to deliver controversial views.

In the latest flap over university students and free speech, there is a claim that it is conservative speech which is threatened at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Liberals may gloat a bit because two years ago it was they who were in the crosshairs over a speech in Whitewater by a controversial Colorado professor.

The fundamental principle at stake supersedes political ideology, however, and both sides should unite on this issue. Conservatives have a point â?? not the whole point extending to the left-wing conspiracy claimed by one Republican senator â?? but enough of a point that there should be some serious reconsideration of UW System policy.