Category: Campus life

More than 100 UW students are back from a weeklong trip to Louisiana.

The group from the Wisprig program lent a hand in the hurricane striken neighborhoods around New Orleans.

University of Wisconsin System will pay $2,500 in legal fees to a UW-Eau Claire resident assistant to settle his lawsuit challenging a campus practice banning him from hosting Bible studies in his dormitory.

The settlement, made public in U.S. District Court in Madison on Friday, also calls for UW System to pay a symbolic $1 in damages to the student, Lance Steiger.

“We’re pleased to have this matter resolved,” UW System spokeswoman Kate Dixon said Friday.

Issues of shared governance between the student government and the administration could hinder a referendum that aims to ensure a living wage for UW-Madison employees and goes to a student vote Tuesday.

Formerly a well spring of political activism, the Mifflin and Bassett Street neighborhoods have settled down into adult, residential neighborhoods as students have moved out and new construction has begun in the historic area.

Throughout her professional career, Board of Regents member Eileen Connolly-Keesler has successfully worked to expand and improve several non-profit organizations and is now looking to do the same with the University of Wisconsin System.

The Wisconsin Union Facilities Improvement Plan would raise student segregated fees by a maximum of $96 per student per semester for a period of up to 30 years, if passed.

Parking tickets are commonplace on the UW-Madison campus as students park in restricted lots, overstay their time limits or fail to plug their parking meters. But many students never pay their tickets.

UW-Madison students and Wisconsin Union employees rallied against a proposal to overhaul the unions and encouraged students to vote for the living wage referendum Thursday at Memorial Union.

Members of a local union joined forces with University of Wisconsin students Thursday to protest the treatment of limited-term employees at the entrance of Memorial Union.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison will host a conference later this month on improving race relations on campus. Lani Guinier, a noted Harvard University law professor, will be the keynote speaker.

The conference, “Creating Institutional Change,” will be held March 31-April 2 at Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave., and the Concourse Hotel, 1 W. Dayton St. It is sponsored by the UW’s Diversity Education Program.

On an overwhelmingly white campus, many students of color at the University of Wisconsin-Madison saw Paul Barrows as the indispensable man. Barrows, who is black, was a mentor to many students who needed direction or just felt overwhelmed.

….The vice chancellor for student affairs’ high-profile removal, as well as the dismantling of his office, has left people of color without their primary advocate in administration, said several students who lead diversity efforts on campus.

Madison residents can now access wireless Internet in the downtown and parts of the campus area as the city marked completion of the first phase of its citywide wireless network Wednesday.

UW-Madison recently became one of eight universities nationwide to support an initiative requiring licensees to purchase at least 25 percent of goods from unionized factories and logo apparel only from factories paying its workers living wages, according to a University Communications statement.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison won first place in the annual Clean Snowmobile Challenge sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Michigan Tech University, the host school, placed sixth in the competition to design cleaner and quieter snowmobiles, which ended Saturday. Twelve teams competed.

A group of Madison Area Technical College students had been working in New Orleans for several days and they were getting tired of eating frozen sandwiches.A man was nice enough to offer them barbecue. So the students returned the favor: They picked up their tools and gutted his house

UW-Madison and community voices offered opinions on favorable social settings at a symposium Tuesday night intended to stimulate discourse on the Wisconsin Union Facilities Improvement Plan.

Universities around the country have begun to open up scholarship and financial aid opportunities, originally intended for ethnic minorities and women, to students of any race and gender. UW-Madison, however, has not yet followed suit.Since two 2003 Supreme Court cases dealing with race as a criterion for admission at the University of Michigan, many schools have changed their affirmative action policies to avoid legal challenges.

One out of eight female undergraduates will be sexually assaulted while at UW-Madison, according to Kelly Anderson, director of the Dane County Rape Crisis Center. Nationally, one in three women is sexually assaulted in her adult lifetime, Anderson added.

ââ?¬Å?I want to make a difference.ââ?¬Â Taking these words to heart, the UW-Madison College Democrats united with thousands of students from across America to rebuild the communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina during spring break

The lights were dim, the music was pounding and the models were barely clothed. One after another, pairs of models sauntered down the rickety pink tulle-edge runway, stopped at the end, ignored the hands that attempted to grab them, pouted and scampered off the stage.

After being somewhat politically inactive his first two years at the University of Wisconsin, senior Eric Varney soon began to realize the importance of student involvement on campus.

About 100 UW students are back from spring break; but rather than rest, they spent their time in the trenches of New Orleans, helping in the rebuilding process.

The students who went on the trip learned progress in the area is slow. They say they were briefed before leaving, but nothing could prepare them for what they found in the city.

The People Asked: Are students helping out in Louisiana instead of whooping it up for spring break?

The Focus Responds: The short answer: Some are.

We received a press release from Cathy Collentine, the student chair of WISPIRG (the Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group), who believes that many students at the University of Wisconsin defy the college spring break stereotype.

Seventeen students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison chose not to spend their spring break on white sand beaches soaking up the sun. They decided to preserve Selma’s history instead.

High housing costs are only part of the reason young adults are staying home in greater numbers than ever before. Some may be ââ?¬Å?boomerangsââ?¬Â who tried life on their own and came back to the nest, but experts are increasingly aware of the adults who never really left. They’re the ones who may have gone to college but were never really independent or fully launched from the nest because Mom and Dad paid the bills.

An increasing number of professors at Duke and other college campuses are experimenting with making lectures and study materials available to students via iPods and other MP3 players.

MADISON, Wis. — About 110 University of Wisconsin students are spending their spring break this year on the Gulf Coast to help clean up what Hurricane Katrina left behind.

The students are spending their time volunteering in order to help those who need it. They’ll be cleaning up homes and businesses damaged by the hurricane, WISC-TV reported.

When Kurt Keppler attended college more than 25 years ago, parents rarely phoned administrators or monitored their childââ?¬â?¢s schedule, he said. ââ?¬Å?If I found out that my mom or dad had called the dean of students, I would have had some strong words for them,ââ?¬Â said Keppler, who is vice president for student affairs at Valdosta State University and president of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

Madison’s newspaper by and about the homeless is now “StreetPulse.” The renamed monthly even has a home: an office at Gilman Plaza, 520 University Ave.

Formerly “Homeless Cooperative,” the monthly newspaper is hawked in the State Street area by homeless people who get to pocket 75 cents from the $1 suggested donation per copy.

The newspaper was founded by students and homeless people active in the Madison Warming Center Campaign. Mel Motel, a founding editor and UW-Madison student, said that circulation has climbed from about 2,000 to 3,000 in the four months the newspaper has been published.

MADISON, Wis. — A local man just released from prison in December is in trouble again for allegedly attacking and sexually assaulting a woman near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

Steven Ruiz is accused of choking and sexually assaulting a woman as she returned to a North Francis Street apartment near campus, WISC-TV reported.

MADISON � Resident assistants are free to host Bible studies, sales events and political meetings in their rooms under a policy adopted Friday by the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents.

But the policy warns that RAs, who receive stipends in exchange for supervising students in residence halls, should create an inclusive environment and they may not use their positions to coerce other students to participate in events.