Category: Campus life

A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and University of Wisconsin alum will be sharing his experiences and knowledge with students next week.

FBI analysts will review the La Crosse police investigation report into the most recent alcohol-related drowning death of a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student, although no foul play is suspected in his death, police said Tuesday.

A University of Wisconsin summer intern has traded a comfortable life and advanced study abroad for Beirut and the burden of rebuilding a country ravaged by war.

When Lebanese student Samer Sobh traveled to Madison July 9 to participate in the UW College of Engineering summer research internship program, he left behind a country poised to capitalize on a booming tourist season.

He returned three months later to a land seeded with cluster bombs and its economy in ruins.

Despite a few problems at Freakfest 2006, the new State Street Halloween festival will largely remain the same next year.

While most University of Wisconsin students have already put Halloween behind them until next year, city officials are just beginning to dissect and discuss the details of the successful event.

Past Halloween celebrations in Madison, Wis. have been notorious for arson, looting and drunken brawls, sometimes instigated by students singing the Minnesota Rouser.

But this year�s festivities were much different.

MADISON, Wis. — Madison city officials said Monday that they were pleased with this weekend’s Halloween celebration on State Street, calling this year’s “Freakfest On State Street” an overwhelming success.

With attendance topping 35,000 and fewer arrests and damage reported than in previous years, city leaders said they met all their goals for the new “Freakfest,” which was a city-spearheaded attempt to corral the sometimes infamous annual event near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

Arrests were down, goals were met, and no one left State Street choking on pepper spray. Now there’s already talk of again charging for Halloween 2007.

Cold weather helped to keep a reduced crowd chilled to good behavior during this weekend’s Freakfest, although it could have been scarier when raucousness briefly roiled on State Street.

(This contains links to a series of articles.)

I want to thank UW students. This weekend�s Halloween celebrations on State Street were peaceful and fun. Arrests were down by more than half, the level of serious over-consumption of alcohol was noticeably reduced and we recovered some of the costs through the $5 tickets.

Halloween in Madison is more than just a party. It�s a phenomenon.

Despite pre-party grumblings from disgruntled veterans, $5 seemed to be a reasonable price to pay for controlled revelry that stopped short of destroying the city itself Saturday night.

Freakfest 2006 wrapped up peacefully early Sunday morning, marking the first time in five years Halloween has ended without pepper spray.

I want to thank UW students. This weekend�s Halloween celebrations on State Street were peaceful and fun.

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh police are investigating a death threat against the school�s College Republicans chair.

Bar patrons still talk about Luke Homanââ?¬â?¢s drowning. Students patrol Riverside Park. But the more things change, the more they stay the same when it comes to downtown La Crosse’s bar scene.Erin Tapper left a downtown bar early Oct. 15 after six hours, six mixed drinks and four beers. She headed west down Pearl Street.

Halloween is an excuse for many to put on a costume, be someone or something they�re not. For the City of Madison, it is no different.

After months of planning, the annual Halloween celebration on State Street ended peacefully for the first time in four years Saturday, finally allowing the city � and University of Wisconsin students � to breathe a sigh of relief.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jon Stewart and staff from Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” fielded questions from Ohio State University students at a special appearance Saturday, but the comedian also had a query of his own.

“A buckeye is a gay acorn, right?” Stewart asked about 12,000 people gathered at Value City Arena.

The popular news parody is gearing up for a week of broadcasts from Ohio for its “Midwest Midterm Midtacular.” The appearance, not planned for broadcast, was added after spaces for the four nights of tapings at the university’s more intimate Roy Bowen Theatre filled up.

The crowd was a lot smaller, but so were the problems, at an annual Halloween party that ended without violence or the use of pepper spray as it had in recent years.

MADISON, Wis. — A group of UW Madison journalism students will cover the Halloween celebrations in Madison this weekend.

During the last hour of the city’s first Halloween party to end peacefully in five years, drunken revelers who had been chanting “we want tear gas” seemed to lose their edge and mellow as they petted the police horses that stood among them.

Initially, the mounted Capitol Police officers seemed to further incite an already rebellious crowd as they strode through a mosh pit on the 500 block of State Street shortly before 2 a.m. Daylight Savings Time.

As the early Halloween crowd began to trickle up and down State Street Friday night, most of the costumed young women looked cold dashing between bars while others warmly welcomed whatever this weekend will bring.

Tom Meersman and Mike Boyle, two students visiting Madison from the University of Illinois, said the draw of the Halloween party on State Street brought them to town, even though they aren’t sure whether they’ll have a place to stay.

No tricks this year.

For the first time in four years, Halloween revelers were cleared from State St. at the end of the annual party without the use of pepper spray. Because of a significantly smaller crowd, police said they could clear the street with a horse patrol instead of the spray.

MADISON, Wis. — The months of planning by city leaders and students appears to have paid off as the annual Halloween party on State Street concluded early Sunday morning without the riots and mayhem that marred the event in past years.

MADISON, Wis. — Former UW football player Levonne Rowan was arrested Saturday night following a disturbance on the UW campus.

When officers arrived another fight broke out. Officers used pepper spray and a taser to break up the fight after several officers were hit.

Madison Ald. Mike Verveer was almost gleeful.

“I’m exceedingly pleasantly surprised,” he said at 2:40 am, early Sunday morning. “I’m in the command post now and they’re packing up and going home. The only police left on State are those patrol cars avoiding the street sweepers. Half of State Street is clean and it’s only bartime now.”

In recent years, Verveer had been among the group of city officials and police leadership fretting over the necessity of using pepper spray and other measures to quell a late-night crowd intent on destruction of property at worst and a brush with confrontation at best.

A group unhappy with plans to charge admission to State Street has put the street up for sale.

Bidding was at $15.61 this morning for the deed to the venerable downtown thoroughfare, which lists access prices to such events as Maxwell Street Days, football game days, rallies and marches as $0, then ends “Keeping a straight face while selling tickets to a spontaneous occurrence: Priceless.”

If you fence it, will they come? That’s the question surrounding the new Freakfest, in which State Street will be closed off on Saturday night for a giant Halloween-themed block party — basically like past years, but maybe without that ugly aftertaste.

It won’t be the free-for-all of old, but the city-sponsored event, running from 7:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., looks like a lot of fun, with two stages of local bands and lots of food. Madison just has to supply the freaks, who will have to pay a $5 admission to get in. Behave yourselves, now.

Fraternities and sororities along the six blocks of Langdon Street are bracing for what could be a wild Halloween weekend.

After every Halloween since 2003, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has openly thrown around the idea of closing Madison�s downtown area to protect citizens and maintain the city�s order.

With Mayor Dave Cieslewicz�s new plan for Halloween 2006, the Madison Police Department does not know what to expect � and with the event only one day away, they are prepared for anything.

While making no guarantees of a problem-free event, police and city officials say they’re as prepared as they can be for the first staged Halloween bash Saturday on State Street.”We’re excited about it,” Madison police spokesman Mike Hanson said Thursday. “This is something we have planned for so many months, and now it’s time to play ball.”

For establishments such as State Street Brats, preparations for Saturday’s Halloween celebration have been weeks in the making.”Halloween is probably the biggest weekend,” said Tyler Kneubuehl, a manager at the tavern. “We will probably do about four or five times the business we do on a regular Saturday.”

Police and security guards won’t be the only people keeping an eye on State Street during Halloween.

“The cameras that we have in place allow us to zoom in very close to help identify individuals and help track officers well, but their also able to scale back to see the size of the crowd so they’re a very useful too, Mike Hanson said.”

MADISON, Wis. — As the annual Halloween party on State Street draws near, police are busy settling into their command center where they will keep a watchful eye on the event.

In plain view of neighbors who thought they were witnessing an abduction, eight Carroll College students carried out an apparent hazing incident that led to their arrest early Thursday, police said.

Russell Rueden, the longtime University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student leader at the center of an investigation into a possible $10,000 embezzlement, was suspended from his position as speaker of the Student Senate after financial records were released that raised additional questions about his use of student funds.

MADISON – To avoid the drunken violence and mayhem that previously marred a downtown Halloween party that attracts up to 100,000 people, city leaders are imposing new restrictions and tighter controls this year.

Aside from how the night ends, one of the foremost concerns among those running the city’s Halloween party is whether they can sell tickets quickly enough to avoid a pileup at the gates.

With only a few thousand advance tickets sold, organizers now anticipate a huge crush of demand as the party gets started Saturday on State Street.

That worries some, including City Council President Austin King, because if crowds are forced to wait long for tickets, they could become unruly or simply give up and take the party elsewhere.

Forgot your ticket to State Street Halloween 2006???Do not plan on getting an exception from the city or Madison police. Rightly so, considering all the planning and publicity invested in this yearââ?¬â?¢s ââ?¬Å?Freakfestââ?¬Â celebration.