Category: Campus life

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – After years of rising tuition, University of Wisconsin System considered on Wednesday Gov. Jim Doyle’s call to hold down tuition increases to below the rate of inflation for the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years.

Regents, who govern the UW System of 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges, considered a budget plan that would increase tuition by 3 percent for 2007-2008 and then 1.75 percent in 2008-2009.

Several regents expressed support for Doyle’s call, but the board will not formally vote on the budget request until later this month.

New students who think they’re about to spend their college life in a tranquil Midwestern town are going to get a wake-up call when they arrive later this month.

City officials are putting out the word that Madison at night is not always a safe place, especially at bar time, and it’s the students’ job to avoid falling prey to criminals.

“It’s not real welcoming, but it’s reality,” said Lt. Carl Gloede of the Madison Police Department’s Central District.

The Madison City Council officially heard the plans to transform the Halloween party on State Street into a ticketed event.

No action was taken, but the move opens the door to plans many students want to block — namely a $5 admission with a limit of 50,000 tickets to the party.

It’s about all the stuff kids take to college.

You wouldn’t believe it.

Those who lived in the garden level apartments at Park Terrace West spent much of the day picking through a soaking wet mess that just 24 hours ago, was their home.

In and around the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, crews and students are still working on Friday to clean up the damage caused by Thursday’s flash flooding.

UW-Madison senior Anil Bhatoya was working on his computer near a window in his room on the lower level of Park Terrace West when Thursday’s deluge of rain hit the area around North Randall Avenue.
“I saw the street flooding,” Bhatoya said. “Ten or 15 minutes later, when I looked up, the water was past the window. Then it started gushing in.”

In another 10 or 15 minutes, the floodwater, which had also begun pouring in through a back door of the apartment building at 45 N. Randall, covered the floor of his room.

Six lebanese students at UW Madison are spearheading relief efforts here to help refugees in their home country.

The students are from the American University of Beirut and are at UW doing engineering internships for the summer.

t was a race against time in Madison Thurday, and the water won.

At Park Terrace West, Ryan Woodhouse of Stillwater, MN had 6 six inches of water in his basement bedroom when he got home from work. 30 minutes later it was up to three feet.

UW Police issue a warning to residents in an 800 unit apartment building after a student woke up with an intruder inside her bedroom.

This is one of the “lucky” students, who was still able to get to his car in a flooded parking lot just north of Regent on the UW campus.

Anyone who had a garage spot in this complex, doesn’t have that opportunity.

Some were crouched with their heads in their hands, some were hugging friends, and some were drinking a beer on their porch, but the residents at Park Terrace West, 45 N. Randall St., all seemed in shock as flood waters stood in their downstairs apartments Thursday afternoon.

“I don’t have anything,” said David Kruser, a resident of the building. “All I have is my wallet, my cell phone, and my keys.”

Not even the most strict of professors could possibly blame students for leaving a classroom that’s quickly filling with water.

And that was exactly the case as a powerful thunderstorm dumped three andââ?¬â??aââ?¬â??half inches of rain on the UW campus today.

University of Wisconsin police are investigating a home invasion early Thursday morning.

A UW-Madison resident of Eagle Heights told police she was awakened at about 4 a.m. by a man in her bedroom.

Thunderstorms that hit southern Wisconsin Thursday produced downpours or rain and flash flooding in Madison and Waukesha that caused police in both cities to ask motorists to stay off streets.

Lebanese students at UW Madison for summer engineering internships are organizing relief efforts.

In wake of the recent violence in Lebanon, some Lebanese students in Madison are taking action.

Six engineering students from the American University of Beirut have begun organizing relief efforts to help Lebanese civilians. They are completing summer internships at UW-Madison.

Six lebanese students at UW Madison are spearheading relief efforts here to help refugees in their home country.

UW Madison alumni might find it more difficult to see their children follow in their footsteps. The state’s flagship school has become more selective.

Nowadays, it takes more than good grades to get into UW Madison. The school is seeing more applicants, but the number of freshmen admitted is staying the same.

Laura Dunn didn’t get the result she was seeking, but she’s hoping her efforts will help future victims of sexual assault.

A year ago, the UW-Madison senior reported that she had been sexually assaulted 15 months earlier by two men while she was drunk. The District Attorney’s Office has declined to prosecute.

The Dean’s Office closed the case without imposing any sanctions on the one suspect who was still enrolled at the university last semester.

Robberies are on the rise, especially in the northern, central and eastern parts of the city, according to a report compiled by Madison police.

The recent report, prepared by Lt. Joe Balles, shows a 60 percent increase in robberies in the first half of 2006 compared with the same time period in 2005.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison student has been elected vice president of the College Democrats of America, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin said today. Awais Khaleel, who will be a senior at UW-Madison, was elected vice president at the group’s national convention in St. Louis over the weekend. (Part of the PoliticsWatch blog)

——————–

Wisconsin students will continue to pay less in tuition at Minnesota schools than their Minnesota counterparts under an extension of the two states’ tuition reciprocity agreement.

A new agreement that went into effect July 1 for the coming school year means Wisconsin residents will pay between $2,700 and $1,000 less than Minnesota students, depending on the campus.

Flash back 25 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and you’d find admissions standards that are sure to shock aspiring Badgers of today.

The university guaranteed admission to all high school graduates in the top half of their class. It accepted more than 80% of applicants.

“I walked upright,” Dan Conley, a 1981 graduate, said with a chuckle. “That’s how I got in.”

How times have changed.

More than 5,500 students received degrees during the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s spring commencement ceremonies, May 12-14.

Amanda Pratt graduated from Arrowhead High School with scholarship offers, a 4.0 grade-point average and acceptance letters from colleges that included the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University.

But when she reports to school in the fall, it won’t be to any of those better-known institutions of higher education.

Instead, Pratt’s off to a small, unaccredited college outside of Boston that graduated its first class of students this spring – 66 out of a beginning group of 75 students.

Each summer ââ?¬â? and sometimes into the year ââ?¬â? a college-age army nearly 150,000 strong spills out across the nation hawking wares for such companies as Southwestern, Mary Kay, Avon and Cutco Cutlery. Some go door to door. Many others set up appointments or hold ââ?¬Å?product partiesââ?¬Â to reach customers.For the companies, the students provide a windfall.

Every Halloween, the 500 block of State Street transforms into a rebellious, outrageous, often riotous party.
As general manager of State Street Brats, Matt Goetsch has a front row seat.

MADISON, Wis. — On Tuesday, Madison’s mayor announced significant changes in the way the city will handle the annual Halloween party on State Street.

It’s a big change, but a change city officials say is necessary to gain control of the crowds on Halloween weekend. A gated perimeter will be set up around State Street — and unless you pay up, you’ll be forced to keep out. Police will provide three access points for people who purchase tickets to the event.

It will cost $5 to trick-or-treat on State Street this Halloween. And you’ll have to pass through a gate to get in.

Sources close to the mayor’s office confirmed, in advance of Mayor Dave Cieslewicz’s noon news conference today, that the mayor would announce plans to fence off and charge admission to the hugely popular, but sometimes chaotic party scheduled this year for Saturday, Oct. 28.

The latest Middle East crisis has led the U.S. to start evacuating some citizens from Lebanon, but officials with University of Wisconsin-Madison student organizations say they’re not aware of any students who have been hurt or who are in danger.

The president of UW’s Arab Student Organization, Karima Berkani, said there are currently no UW programs operating in Lebanon and that the only UW students in the area are Lebanese citizens or students pursuing independent studies.

As professor John Decker reviewed bail guidelines and other criminal procedures one recent evening, some students in his DePaul University College of Law class had other things on their minds.

MADISON, Wis. — A number of tips have come in regarding possible suspects in an assault on Observatory Drive earlier this month, University of Wisconsin police said.

Spc. Megan Papierniak, 20, of Osseo takes the vital signs of a 10-month-old Afghan boy this week at a free clinic for residents near Camp Salerno in Khost, Afghanistan. Papierniak is a UW-Madison sophomore who hopes to become an orthopedic surgeon someday.

Campus police want the public’s help in finding two people suspected in the violent mugging of a 31-year-old UW-Madison graduate student on Observatory Drive last week.
On Thursday, police took the unusual step of presenting the victim, Stephen England, who spent eight hours in the hospital after the attack, at a news briefing at the scene of the crime. He spoke about the case and made a plea for help in finding the pipe-wielding man who hit him multiple times and a female accomplice who may have helped the attacker get away in a red sedan.

Most beating victims are reluctant to tell their story, but Stephen England says there’s a dangerous man still on the loose and he hopes his story will help catch him.

UW Police are asking anyone on campus late at night not to walk alone after a mugging and beating last week.

MADISON, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student who was the victim of a campus attack one week ago has spoken publicly for the first time about the attack with the hope that someone will recognize the man who attacked him.

College graduates, shaped by such events as Sept. 11, Hurricane Katrina and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are applying to service organizations such as AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps in record numbers.

Downtown does appear to be thriving, even amid recent reports of late-night violence.

MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin police are investigating another violent mugging in Madison’s downtown area.

Emily Bawden wrote the following essay when she applied to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she will be a freshman in the fall:

Mind. Body. Spirit. Built like a triangle, these gifts support each other, as one cannot be had without the other.

Clark University sophomore Julia Charvat and her boyfriend make a point to always use a condom when they have sex � always, that is, except for one lapse in judgment last fall during the semester break.

Wisconsin college students will need to pay between $1,999 and $2,406 more for federal student loans starting today, according to a report released Friday by the research arm of the Campaign for America’s Future.

MADISON, Wis. The last of four men arrested last year for their roles in an anti-gay hate crime at the University of Wisconsin at Madison was sentenced Thursday for his part in that incident.

MADISON, Wis. — July 1 is the deadline for a decision that could mean big money for those with student loans.

Each year, thousands of students decide whether to consolidate their student loans, but this year, it’s thousands of dollars ride on making that decision by the Friday deadline.

“I had no idea that I had to consolidate until a few weeks ago when I got all these notices in the mail,” said recent UW graduate Katie Doherty. She has about $30,000 in loans, so saving money in repayment is important.

Demographers differ on just what ages they include in this next generation. Some include those born since 1980; others start with 1982 and go to about 2000. Most researchers have focused on the ââ?¬Å?first-waveââ?¬Â millennials ââ?¬â? those roughly ages 16 to 25. Although there’s no one set of traits that everyone shares, research has suggested some commonalities in areas ranging from home life and education to workplace behavior and leisure-time interests.