The UW Board of Regents voted Tuesday to increase tuition by 5.5 percent at the state’s four-year universities â?? the smallest boost in several years â?? despite great uncertainty over their budget.
As August creeps towards its final days, university students across the state are already starting to turn their thoughts to returning to campuses, hitting the books and readying themselves for careers.
Some of those students will be minority students, as well they should be.
Just as the Wisconsin idea espouses the theme that the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state, we would like to think that the makeup of the student body on our campuses reflects the diversity of people within those boundaries if our colleges are to truly serve the interests of the state.
As housing officials at colleges around the country send out roommate assignments to freshmen this summer, a growing number of schools say they’re getting more requests for changes â?? from parents who don’t like the roommates’ Facebook profiles.
“They were getting an impression â?? false or accurate â?? of what the student would be like to live with,” says Magda Manetas of The College of New Jersey in Ewing.
Administrators at some schools have begun to talk to students and parents in advance about the tendency to look up roommates online. Paul Evans of the University of Wisconsin-Madison now includes a statement about social-networking sites in orientation literature for first-year students.
“It can be a problem, and we’re just trying to warn people about taking everything that they see on there as fact,” he says.
MADISON, Wis. â?? University of Wisconsin System regents voted Tuesday to increase tuition by 5.5 percent at the stateâ??s four-year universities, the smallest boost in several years despite great uncertainty over their budget.
The Board of Regents voted 14-3 to approve the increases totaling $330 for the coming school year for in-state students at UW-Madison, $323 at UW-Milwaukee and $251 at the 11 other four-year universities.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents today approved a 5.5 percent tuition increase this fall for the four-year universities in the system.
The UW System Board of Regents ruled today that student fees cannot be used to rent off-campus facilities by student organizations at UW-Madison.
The annual tradition of moving days — when student apartment leases end on Aug. 14 and begin Aug. 15 — is approaching, with its familiar mess of clogged traffic downtown and some hapless students sleeping outdoors with their stuff.
UW-Madison junior Joe Xaypharath doesn’t want to think about how much debt he’s piling up as he works toward his pharmacy degree. He’s not even sure how much he owes right now, except that it’s a lot.
Officials at St. Paul’s University Catholic Center plan a new center on the State Street Mall and a residence hall for UW-Madison students.
For many years, environmentalists have fought the stereotype that they are always saying “No”:
“No” to power plants and power lines, to new freeways, to urban sprawl, to bulldozing the desert, to toxic waste dumping, to gas-guzzling cars, to air pollution and to open-pit copper mines, to name a few.
But since mid-June, 13 environmental advocates in their 20s have had a chance to travel around the country and inspect a host of eco-friendly and American Indian-run projects whose leaders are saying “yes”:
Quoted: Julie Curti, 23, a graduate in environmental studies and geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Undergraduate students attending the four-year universities in the UW System will likely face a 5.5 percent tuition increase this fall.
That is the increase system President Kevin Reilly will recommend to the Board of Regents when the board meets Tuesday at 10 a.m. in Van Hise Hall on the UW-Madison campus.
Reilly also is recommending that tuition be frozen at the two-year colleges, which often function as “feeder” schools for the larger institutions.
Tucked away in Madison ‘s University Heights neighborhood is a $10 million home that is one of the few remaining houses created by Louis H. Sullivan — the man referred to as the “father of modern architecture ” and known as Frank Lloyd Wright ‘s mentor.
This house, named the Harold C. Bradley House in honor of its first owner, however, is not sitting collecting dust but is in fact home to 22 brothers — the members of the Sigma Phi fraternity.
UW-Madison junior Joe Xaypharath doesn’t want to think about how much debt he’s piling up as he works toward his pharmacy degree. He’s not even sure how much he owes right now, except that it’s a lot.
“I wanted to come to this school, so no matter how much it cost, I just took out the loans. Loans and more loans,” said Xaypharath, of Merrill.
The UW-Madison PEOPLE program helped Nana Asante struggle against a feeling of non-acceptance at the mostly white Verona Area High School.
Asante, who will be a senior at the high school this fall, said that being able to interact with other academically achieving minorities from other schools through the program helped her confidence grow.
“I had experience with people like myself,” Asante said.
The UW Board of Regents is expected to consider a proposal next week that would hike undergraduate tuition at all four-year UW campuses by 5.5 percent. State Representative Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) says that’s too much of an increase.
Nass prefers a GOP plan to cap tuition at four percent over the next four years. He says it’s an opportunity to have the UW System live within its means.
Undergraduate students attending the four-year universities in the UW System will likely face a 5.5 percent tuition increase this fall.
That is the increase system President Kevin Reilly will recommend to the Board of Regents when the board meets Tuesday at 2 p.m. in Van Hise Hall on the UW-Madison campus.
Reilly also is recommending that tuition be frozen at the two-year colleges, which often function as “feeder” schools for the larger institutions.
UW System President Kevin Reilly said Thursday he will recommend a tuition increase of 5.5 percent for resident undergraduates at all four-year UW campuses for the upcoming academic year.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) Engineering Department Formula SAE Team, supported by signature sponsor United Wisconsin Grain Producers LLC (UWGP), won its first world championship in Romeo, Mich., in May. Running on E85, the UW-M team finished first in a field of 130 participating teams from around the world.
Madison – University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly is recommending tuition be raised 5.5% at four-year universities this fall even though state lawmakers have yet to agree on UW funding.
Legislative leaders on the eight-member conference committee debating the state budget met for several hours Thursday, but took no action on the UW budget or other areas of funding. Republicans and Democrats on the committee remain far apart on key spending issues.
Some University of Wisconsin students could see a 5.5 percent tuition hike this fall.
The UW Board of Regents will be asked next week to consider tuition increases at all four-year campuses. System spokesman Dave Giroux says that will amount to about a $251 annual increase for students at smaller campuses, while students at the UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee could see tuition climb by up to $330.
Campus file sharing briefly hit prominence in Congress last week as colleges lobbied against a proposed amendment in the Senate to the Higher Education Act reauthorization that would have required universities to use â??technology-basedâ? systems to try to block illegal downloading activity. While the amendment was withdrawn, it may be revived in the House â?? and certainly the entertainment industry has no intention of letting the issue go away.
Life can change in an instant.
That message was brought home this summer with news of three Wisconsin women – Kelly Nolan, Mahalia Xiong and Francine Tate – who disappeared in separate and unrelated incidents within weeks of each other.
(MADISON) University of Wisconsin chancellors say the upcoming state budget will be a tipping point for the UW System. They gathered at the Capitol yesterday (M) to give the Governor and the press a taste of cuts they say theyâ??d have to make if Assembly Republicans have their way.
University of Wisconsin chancellors warned Monday the budget approved by the state Assembly would require them to cut courses, increase class sizes and delay or scrap needed building projects.
Gov. Jim Doyle said the budget would also hurt access to the UW System by limiting financial aid for low-income students and denying resources that campuses need to make room for additional students.
The Democratic governor hosted university officials from around the state at a roundtable event to discuss the potential impact of the Republican-controlled Assembly’s budget on the system of 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges.
Echoing his childhood board game, “Clue”, the dispatcher’s voice was clear as cab driver Ramy Renor headed for the Karaoke Kid to pick up a fare about 1:30 Friday night.
“On State with a snake.”
“Too bad I can’t take that,” the 34-year-old, 6′ 1″ woman, who has been driving for Union Cab for seven and a half years, said. “I’ve never picked up a snake, but I did pick up ‘Whitesnake’ once,” she added.
The University of Wisconsin System is asking campuses to look at ways to lower the cost of textbooks after a report showed disparities in book costs among university locations.
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has upheld an informal opinion on the University of Wisconsinâ??s admissions policy, which includes race as one of many factors to be considered.
One of the Republican legislators who sought the opinion, Sen. Glenn Grothmann of West Bend, says he is â??disappointedâ? with Van Hollenâ??s ruling and promises to introduce legislation to stop the policy.
His effort will only make it more difficult to ensure that UW enrollment reflects the state population as a whole.
LA CROSSE, Wis. — The city of La Crosse has started to build barriers to help stop the spate of students drowning in the Mississippi River after drinking.
Work began Friday on building gates, rails and chains at three entrances to a levee at the city’s Riverside Park, which is two blocks from downtown bars.
GREEN BAY (AP) — The car pulled from the Fox River with a missing 21-year-old student inside was found 95 feet from the shoreline, suggesting there was “some speed involved” as it plunged into the river, police said Friday.
A prominent senator proposed legislation last week that would have required some colleges to buy tools to curtail illegal file sharing. But at the last minute, outrage by college officials forced the senator to back down.
The proposal was made by Sen. Harry M. Reid, a Nevada Democrat and Senate majority leader, as an amendment to the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. (See related article, Page A21.) The amendment called for the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America to provide annual lists of the 25 institutions that received the most notices identifying cases of copyright infringement, usually by students passing around music and movies. Colleges would be ordered to plan a “a technology-based deterrent” and submit those plans for review by the secretary of education.
A major worry was that no software could stop illegal file sharing without interrupting legitimate file sharing as well. “We don’t know of any such software that’s reliable,” said Brian Rust, communications manager in the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s information-technology division. “We would not want to solve the illegal-file-sharing problem by creating a whole other problem that could hinder a student’s ability to learn.”
MADISON, Wis. — The state attorney general said a new University of Wisconsin System freshman admissions policy requiring an applicant’s race to be considered is legal.
The policy adopted by the Board of Regents requires a comprehensive review of each applicant seeking admissions. Academic factors are the most important but other factors such as race, income and special talents must be considered to help achieve diversity.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen told lawmakers Thursday that the consideration of race does not violate a 1974 law that says no race-based tests shall be allowed in admissions requirements.
The Attorney General says it’s legal for the UW to use race as an admissions factor. One lawmaker says change the law.
Republican Senator Glenn Grothman is not really surprised at the Attorney General’s opinion.
He says it’s difficult to get anyone to declare what he calls reverse discrimination illegal. So, he wants to make a new law to spell it out.
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Green Bay student who disappeared two weeks ago was inside her car that plunged into the Fox River near downtown Green Bay, police said Friday.
An autopsy positively identified Mahalia Xiong, Capt. Karl Fleury said at a news conference….After the recovery of the woman’s body, Brown County Medical Examiner Al Klimek said preliminary indications suggested an accidental death with no sign of foul play, pending results of the autopsy and toxicology tests.
As dozens of Hmong met with University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley Thursday night, one of them asked for a public apology for remarks by law professor Leonard Kaplan that offended some students early this year. Others said Kaplan should be fired.
University of Wisconsin secondary coach Kerry Cooks can still recall the anxiety and culture shock that he experienced when he left home for the first time as a college freshman. Cooks, an Iowa football recruit, was a long way from his roots and comfort zone, too. Home was Irving, Texas for Cooks, the product of a middle-class upbringing. While making the adjustment to a different environment and lifestyle in a different region of the country, Cooks, an African-American, didn’t see many people who looked like him in Iowa City.
Not guilty pleas were entered for UW sophomore running back Lance Smith to charges of misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct (Thursday) stemming from a July 14 incident between him and his girlfriend at his Randall Avenue apartment.
Wisconsin’s attorney general issued an informal legal opinion Thursday that the UW System freshman admissions policy does not violate the state law prohibiting the use of “tests based on race.”
But Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen cautioned the University of Wisconsin System to ensure that each application for admission is given individualized consideration in order to comply with federal constitutional requirements.
One of the gaming design group’s lead instructors at a New Berlin technology camp for youth was the aptly named Alex Games, a former high school teacher and software engineer. Now he’s researching the educational application of video design curriculum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“This is more than playing games,” said Games, who explained that students had to work on their own, then team up and decide how to combine their products to make a more effective and complex game. Students also had to write critiques.
Dear Editor: Madison Metro’s No. 80 bus route sounded like a dream come true for a University of Wisconsin-Madison student: A free bus that circles the UW campus and comes around every eight minutes sounds like a blessing since the UW campus is almost 1,000 acres.
Being guaranteed not to have to wait more than eight minutes before another bus arrives means the world when a student is at the bus stop in below-zero temperatures. However, actual experience may bring a change of view of the No. 80 bus route.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Tuesday announced the establishment of a charitable trust for scholarships, funded by the $3 million donation of a former electronics company building.
Dear Editor: UW-Madison is enduring a devastating financial crisis. Recent articles have focused on the exodus of many top faculty, but another aspect is equally important: Our ability to fund graduate education is collapsing. UW-Madison has some of the world’s premier graduate programs, and to continue to excel at teaching, research and service to the state of Wisconsin, we must continue to attract and keep top graduate students.
Monica Macaulay, UW linguistics professor
Joseph Salmons, director, UW Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures
STEVENS POINT, Wis. (AP) – A 59-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point died from a heart attack in Krakow, Poland, during a group trip to Europe.
David Pupp of Marshfield had been participating in the annual summer College of Natural Resources European Environmental Studies Seminar, a six-week program. He enrolled in the fall 2006 semester at UWSP as an urban forestry major.
Big Brother will soon be watching for crime in downtown Madison.
The plan calls for video cameras to multiple areas of State Street and University Avenue.
Police hope to catch some of the crime that frequents the high-trafficked area.
In presenting 17 high school students and a recent high school graduate with a rare, close-up look at one of the science world’s most cutting-edge fields, the WiCell Summer Science Camp also hopes to ignite their interest in pursuing a career in the sciences.
Every spring during his academic career at UW-Madison, Ying Chan makes sure he is sitting at a table at the Memorial Union terrace on the warm day when the ice on Lake Mendota disappears for the season.
To him, the moment has grown to symbolize the strong connection in Wisconsin between everyday life and the natural world. “Wisconsin has a love affair going on with the environment,” Ying said.
MANY OF you probably already suspected that you lived in the greatest college sports town in the universe, or at least the Big Ten, and you didn’t need a national radio host to confirm it. But last week, one did.
I finally got a chance to listen to Scott Van Pelt’s recent ode to Madison on ESPN Radio, and it was an amazing thing to hear. Van Pelt sounded like a local tourism official who occasionally takes a second drink.
It started with college kids, spread to high schoolers and is now infiltrating communities across the country. It is Facebook and it has taken hold.
Family members of a missing UW-Green Bay student say they’re starting to lose hope for her safe return.
Family and friends have been hitting the pavement and going online in their search for 21-year-old Mahalia Xiong. She was last seen about a week ago after bowling with friends in Ashwaubenon.
It’s been a bittersweet summer for Jolene Anderson, who won her third gold medal earlier this month with Team USA basketball.
The decision to play in the FIBA U21 World Championships in Moscow was a tough one for the senior-to-be with the University of Wisconsin women’s basketball team, who normally doesn’t turn down a chance to compete.
Anderson learned in late May that her grandmother, Nancy Rantala, was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and the Port Wing native was torn about whether she should make the trips to France and Russia to compete in team trials and the championships.
By football season, Madison police hope to have eight wireless video surveillance cameras monitoring the lower State Street and University Avenue area near the UW-Madison campus to keep an eye on late-night revelers.
Is downtown Madison safe?
Madison Police Chief Noble Wray says, “From my perspective as chief police it’s a resounding yes.”
A review of the last 6 months shows a decrease in crime downtown. City leaders credit it to the downtown safety initiative.
“The results are that it’s working, the downtown safety initiative is working, the numbers bare that out, dramatic decreases,” says Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.
MADISON, Wis. — Madison police, business leaders and safety experts from University of Wisconsin-Madison announced a new safety initiative for downtown Madison on Wednesday.
As part of the initiative, surveillance cameras could be installed downtown to help detour crime, WISC-TV reported.
The safety effort is being renewed after the recent disappearance of Kelly Nolan. The UW-Whitewater student was last seen partying in downtown Madison and was later found slain.
Madison community leaders are using crime statistics to try to dispel any notion of a dangerous downtown, in the wake of college student Kelly Nolan’s disappearance and murder.
Nolan, 22, a UW-Whitewater student, disappeared after a night of socializing downtown, and was murdered. Nolan was last heard from, around bar time. “Downtown Madison at bar time is a very different downtown Madison than many of the Madisonians and many of the UW-Madison community might know,” said UW Dean of Students Lori Berquam.
Lance Smith, the Badgers second leading rusher from last season, has been suspended from the team after violating the UW Department of Athletics’ Student Athlete Discipline Policy, Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez announced Wednesday afternoon.
Smith is suspended from competition and practice pending the availability of further information relating to his case.
The district attorney’s office and the University of Wisconsin both plan to do more fact-finding before casting judgment on Lance Smith.
The sophomore running back was released from jail Tuesday after a court commissioner allowed him to sign a recognizance bond while police continue to investigate an incident this weekend in which Smith allegedly battered his girlfriend and took money from her.
University of Wisconsin running back Lance Smith was arrested after a weekend dispute with his girlfriend over cab fare, Madison police said.
The 19-year-old Warren, Ohio, native was being held today in the Dane County Jail on tentative charges of false imprisonment, robbery and battery as he awaits formal charges.
Smith is subject to the UW’s student-athlete disciplinary policy, and faces possible suspension from the team. Athletic department spokesman Justin Doherty said Monday afternoon that the school is aware of the incident and is “in the process of gathering facts about what happened” before making any decision on Smith’s status.
Piper Smith has had one recurring, frightening thought since the murdered body of Kelly Nolan was found Monday: That could have been me.
For most of last year, Smith, a 21-year-old UW-Madison senior, drank to excess almost every night on State Street, occasionally going home with strangers and sometimes waking up the next day not knowing where she was or what had happened, she said.
Friends and family of a missing University of Wisconsin-Green Bay student are putting together a reward fund for anyone who has information on her whereabouts.
Mahalia Xiong, 21, disappeared after a night out at a bowling alley early Friday.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Green Bay student leader disappeared this weekend after a night out with friends.
Mahalia Xiong, 21, was reported missing after she didn’t return from a night of bowling and drinking at Ashwaubenon Bowling Alley.
If universities are to prevent a repeat of the Virginia Tech shooting, the first thing they need to do is ditch the idealistic notion of campuses as a haven, said UW-Madison Police Chief Sue Riseling. Then they need a multi-pronged strategy of prevention, intervention and response.
