It’s not like Luke Homan to just disappear.
He always checked in with his parents, or else his roommates knew his whereabouts. But when the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse athlete didn’t show for a golf outing Saturday morning, friends knew something was wrong, and reported him missing.
In 1997, Mitzi Pool, a freshman at the University of Central Oklahoma, hanged herself in her dorm room, a pile of credit card bills splayed on her sunflower-print bedspread.Her mother, Trisha Johnson, of Enid, Okla., blames Mitzi’s despair about $2,000 in credit card debt for the loss of a daughter whom friends nicknamed the ââ?¬Å?Jokerââ?¬Â because she was always smiling. ââ?¬Å?The companies at the student union had stands up, offering free hats, free T-shirts,ââ?¬Â Johnson says. ââ?¬Å?She got one, maxed it out, got another and then a third.ââ?¬Â
Despite rising concern about college students’ debt loads, the nation’s largest four-year colleges are disclosing students’ contact information to credit card-issuing banks and earning up to millions each in annual fees by giving the banks the right to market on campus. A USA TODAY survey reveals that each of the largest 10 universities ââ?¬â? through its alumni or athletic association ââ?¬â? now partners with a bank to issue co-branded cards to alumni and students. The deals exist at hundreds of colleges.
In the state of Wisconsin, minoritiesââ?¬â?including Blacks, Latinos, American Indians and Asiansââ?¬â?comprise 9.8 percent of the population. At UW-Madison, the flagship of the UW System, minorities comprise a comparable 10 percent of the student body. And yet university administrators continue to vigorously strive for greater diversity.
The University of Wisconsin Welcome Center opened its doors to the public Thursday, about a year after initially breaking ground.
While most University of Wisconsin students know exactly what it feels like to receive grades on subjects like history, engineering and political science, few students expect to see their own university handed the grades. More unexpected, is to see the university graded in the subject of sex.
WILL STOVALL, a history student in his fifth and final year as an undergraduate at the University of Texas, returned from studying in Mexico last fall determined to go to law school. In service of this goal, he resolved to work harder, which meant he would have little chance to see old friends or to acquire new ones, and that, in turn, seemed to require a very particular kind of domestic arrangement.
Some UW Madison students are using crutches to rally support for a campus referendum.
It is the UW’s oldest and largest student organization…or it was.Ã? Now the UW says it will not recognize the Roman Catholic Foundation as a registered student group.Some members of the Roman Catholic Foundation say they feel as though they’re being pushed from campus life.Ã? But the UW says they’re simply following the rules, and the Roman Catholic Foundation is not.
University of Wisconsin lecturer Kevin Barrett and fellow Scholars for 9/11 Truth member James Fetzer will discuss their thoughts on the events of Sept. 11, 2001 Sunday.
Those little white earphones are about as common as yellow leaves this semester on the UW-Madison campus. “This the best technology for listening to music,” said UW senior Sarah Pumroy. Ã? Pumroy, who was sporting the latest in video iPods, however, said her device is for fun, not school, so don’t expect her to be listening to a professor’s podcast anytime soon.
It’s 11:30 p.m. on a recent Friday in Madison, and many parties are just picking up steam in the student neighborhoods west of the Capitol.
But when Madison police pull up to an address on Mifflin Street, one young woman is already out cold.
High school seniors: Have you thought about using college as more than a place to learn, but also as an opportunity to contribute to society?
If you are creating a list of colleges to which you might apply, I hope you will look for colleges that encourage community service or volunteerism. If you want to make a difference in the lives of others, consider a college that challenges students to take an active role in organizations that exist to facilitate social and political change.
Tickets to be admitted onto State Street for Madison’s Halloween party will go on sale Monday at Library Mall and the Parks Office in the Madison Municipal Building, 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Suite 210.
The UW-Madison community received pointers on dealing with a state legislature increasingly hostile to the university from one of the legislature�s own, 1986 UW-Madison graduate state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison.
Tickets for Halloween 2006 will go on sale Monday, marking the first time visitors to the event will have to pay to get onto State Street.
Markets and superstores across the country offer consumers a variety of milk choices, but the UW-Madison community is left with only one.
With the organic food market so lively Wal-Mart hopes to expand into it and backlit by a UW-Madison report identifying Wisconsin as a principal source of organic dairy products, the flagship university of one of the most organically friendly cities in the United States has yet to dabble in the field of organic dairy.
Sunday morning, at 3 a.m., three to five men encircled a 22-year-old UW-Madison student just outside of MacTaggart�s, 230 W. Lakelawn Place. Almost immediately, the student felt a sharp instrument against his back and handed his wallet over to the men.
Across the United States, there has been an explosion in the number of students interested in Arabic. At the University of Wisconsin, all four sections of first semester Arabic filled up so quickly many students had to be turned away.
After experiencing particularly bad flooding damage in a rainstorm this July, the University of Wisconsin began launching a pilot project Wednesday to protect parking lots from future occurrences.
In the week since the Madison Common Council approved the final part of the city�s plans for the 2006 Halloween parties on State Street, one major element of planning has focused on the fencing and admissions system for access to the event. On Tuesday, Madison alcohol policy coordinator
(and key Halloween organizer) Joel Plant confirmed that there will be a total of 13
access points along State Street.
Answers to a few campus financial misconceptions
The typical university student is surrounded by financial jargon and buzzwords as they maneuver through his or her college years. By the end of four years, students know that professors are paid obscenely high salaries, parking costs are impossible and segregated fees are why we all have to eat Ramen. All these topics sound familiar enough, but upon further investigation, the average student�s knowledge about the actual facts surrounding these issues is minimal at best.
People passing by the Kohl Center in the past week may have noticed a lot of folding chairs and eager hockey fans. Some UW men�s hockey student season ticket holders have been waiting in line since Tuesday, Sept. 19 in hopes of scoring seats that would put them touching the glass in the front row.
Major League Baseball Commissioner, former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and UW-Madison graduate Bud Selig spoke to a crowd of students Tuesday, mentioning he had spoken with his ââ?¬Å?good friend Hank Aaronââ?¬Â earlier that morning.
More than 50 years ago, Bud Selig was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin, spending his nights in the campus library preparing for a career that never came.
“I was one of those rare people. I came here to study,” Selig recalled. “I thought I was going to be a history professor. Obviously my career took different twists and turns. Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined where my career would have taken me and what would have happened.”
Despite all the grim headlines from Iraq, Derek House said he wanted to enlist in the Army Reserve.
The 19-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison student went to an east side Madison recruiting center on Aug. 28, attempting to enlist. When the recruiter asked about “personal relationships,” House whispered “I’m openly gay,” he recalled.
“Personally, I couldn’t care less,” House remembered the recruiter saying. “We don’t have to disclose that.”
Before long, I encountered a scene far less welcoming than that which had preceded it. Standing unhappily next to a bike was a student apparently receiving a ticket from a police officer. How had I forgotten? There was word on the street that the local police had recently vowed tougher restrictions on bicycling, including a prohibition of the act altogether on Library Mall.
The Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education held an open forum at the University of Wisconsin Tuesday to discuss the need to design new university buildings that cater to the needs of today�s students.
Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., issued a statement Tuesday directly condemning the University of Wisconsin for not firing Kevin Barrett, a controversial lecturer who drew nationwide media coverage to UW this summer.
A suspect in the Sept. 4 University Avenue sexual assault case appeared in court Tuesday and is being held on $45,000 bail until his preliminary hearing.
City of Madison Police issued misdemeanor trespassing citations to five University of Wisconsin students during an organized protest at a military recruiting office Tuesday.
After more than 40 years of working in the same industry, it�s easy to get worn out, lose passion and throw in the towel.
Not for Bud Selig.
Sustainable might sound like New Age jargon, but college students are embracing the idea: food grown locally with ecologically sound and seasonally sensitive methods. The concept also includes humane treatment for workers and animals and fair wages.
The victim of a beating and alleged sexual assault attempt last month said Tuesday she willed herself to stay conscious, despite numerous blows to the head, so she could fight off her attacker.
A federal plan to improve higher education can’t work without more financial aid, the University of Wisconsin-Madison provost said today.
Patrick Farrell was responding to reports that U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was expected today to endorse some of the recommendations of a panel charged with improving higher education. But she is expected not to commit to one major recommendation, increasing Pell Grants.
….One of the major recommendations Spellings wants to move ahead with is a massive database that would pull together students’ academic data. The intent is to create a picture of how well a college or university is performing. It would also give institutions the ability to track transfer students or dropouts.
Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications, said he was worried when he read that Spellings believed the plan would allow parents and students to shop for colleges like they shop for cars.
Robert Phansalkarââ?¬â?¢s op-ed on the new ââ?¬Å?Think Respectââ?¬Â program (Sept. 22) was welcome. It was good to finally see that a student journalist has grasped the fact that the program, as presently conceived, poses a threat to honest discourse and privacy on campus.
The University of Wisconsin received another boost in the scientific community Monday, winning a $30 million donation for a collaborative project along with 10 other universities and laboratories nationwide.
The University of Wisconsin is not the only campus to witness increases in crime this fall, as two other Midwest schools are facing many of the same problems.
The University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate discussed proposed changes to the disciplinary process for felonious faculty at their first meeting of the academic year Monday.
With a recent resurfacing of public interest in energy conservation, the University of Wisconsin hosted a panel discussion Monday in an attempt to inform the public of global warming and its effects.
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., officially celebrated the re-opening of the newest section of State Street in a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday.
Accidental discovery cuts research times
Drug research takes a lot of time. The process of creating a new drug candidate takes up to six months of tedious chemistry, and most candidates produced end up without therapeutic effects. But a recent discovery in UW-Madison�s pharmacy department may change all that.
Most students are familiar with many of the long-term study abroad options available at UW-Madisonââ?¬â?a semester in London, studying French in Paris or Spanish in Spain. However, there are lesser known programs available for venturing outside the country that many students are not as familiar withââ?¬â?programs that can cater to every major, interest, time constraint and monolingual speaker.
Perhaps college professors need to take a cue from second grade and start hanging colorful banners proclaiming ââ?¬Å?Reading is Fun!ââ?¬Â around their classrooms. A recent study shows college students are embarrassingly lacking reading skills: MSNBC reports that ââ?¬Å?more than 50 percent of students at four-year schools … lacked the skills to perform complex literary tasks.ââ?¬Â
Tucked amid faculty and student housing on the UW- Madison campus is a form of early childhood education that has survived by adapting to one of the fundamental economic shifts of the last 40 years.
University Houses Preschool is one of 13 cooperative preschools in Dane County. The preschools, which operate on the premise that parents are the primary educators of their children, require parents to take a hands-on approach to their child’s education.
The fact that the UW-Madison Roman Catholic Foundation was denied university funding and recognition Friday is disappointing. However, even more upsetting was the journey to the decision, which now puts the nation�s largest religious student group without funding.
The latest phase of State Street�s long-term facelift ended Monday in a ceremony marking the end of construction on the 300 block.
Today’s college students are failing to graduate with a knowledge of and appreciation for America’s history and institutions, a new report says. Warning of a ââ?¬Å?coming crisis in American citizenship,ââ?¬Â it blames U.S. colleges and universities for neglecting to prepare students for their civic responsibilities.
Student Services Finance Committee chair Zach Frey sent an e-mail Monday to the leaders of student organizations clarifying SSFC�s role in determining the fate of student organization funding, particularly for Resgistered Student Organizations.
Usually a college dorm-room conversation like this …
“It’s been changing colors,” said Becky Wachowiak, UW Freshman.
… is about a sandwich that someone left in the fridge for the better part of the last year.
Dear Editor: For far too many years now I have had to listen to Madison residents, officials and “authors” spout off about the issue of Halloween on State Street. It is entirely ridiculous to think that the downtown bars are what is causing the riots and other poor behavior.
The University Subcommittee on Dating and Domestic Violence at the University of Wisconsin is holding a used cell-phone drive to support domestic violence victims through the month of October.
A study in which more than half of surveyed graduate business students nationwide admitted to cheating on MBA exams is set to be released this week.
Howard Martin, dean of the University of Wisconsin Division of Continuing Studies, recently announced plans to retire July 31 after a 42-year tenure at UW.
MADISON – University of Wisconsin-Madison will not recognize or give money to the oldest and largest religious group on campus, for now, in a move that is sparking a debate over the separation of church and state.
During her freshman year four years ago, UW-Madison student Dani Koel would routinely stroll across campus at all hours of the night before returning to her residence in the lakeshore dorms.
And while she was often alone, she can’t recall ever being scared or even nervous, the 21-year-old senior from the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield said in an interview at a State Street coffee shop.
“For some reason, Madison seemed safer then,” says Koel, who handles several duties with the university’s SAFEwalk Escort program, which between sunset and 1 a.m. provides a pair of student escorts to just about any destination on campus.
In recent months, sexual assaults have been prominent on the UW-Madison campus. This is a timely reminder to all students: Be safe.
Madison�s Downtown Coordinating Committee previewed several options Thursday to improve the city in the coming months, including further plans for Halloween 2006 and several transportation concerns.
The University of Wisconsin Athletic Department suspended linebacker Elijah Hodge from the football team for violating the Department of Athletics� Student-Athlete Discipline Policy after he reportedly stole a student�s moped Monday. Hodge has not yet been legally charged for the incident.
