Category: Campus life

The starter yelled, ââ?¬Å?Go!ââ?¬Â and nine 96 oz. glass boots filled to the brim with beer were lifted from the bar and pressed against the lips of nine patrons.

MADISON, Wis. — A drinking contest set for Wednesday night in a downtown Madison restaurant and bar located near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus is set to go on despite criticism from anti-binge drinking forces.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are trying again to pass a requirement that workers paid with student fees earn a living wage.

Students overwhelmingly passed a referendum last spring that required workers at the Wisconsin Union, University Health Services and the Division of Recreational Sports to be paid a living wage, as defined by the city. That now comes out to $10.23 per hour.

But the Student Judiciary overturned the referendum on a technicality, said Josh Healey of the Student Labor Action Coalition. So now, the group is trying a different tactic to enact the change.

Mac VerStandig met his critics head-on and both sides refused to budge.

VerStandig, the editor-in-chief of The Badger Herald, was part of a panel discussion Tuesday sponsored by the Dean of Students’ office to discuss the Badger Herald’s decision to reprint a Danish cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. Publication of the cartoon and others like it in a Danish newspaper last year has led to international furor and deadly riots in several countries.

Multiple experts and student representatives weighed in on the issue at Bascom Hall, but the central focus of the night belonged to the heated and often contentious debate between VerStandig and those at the panel discussion and in the audience.

Offended and enraged readers voiced their opinions surrounding The Badger Herald�s controversial Feb. 13 republication of the recent Danish Muslim cartoons during a expert opinion panel discussion sponsored by the Dean of Students office Tuesday night.

Along with an overview of the drinking scene at UW-Madison, the Policy Alternatives Community Education meeting Tuesday saw the resurfacing of a controversial keg registration ordinance.

As part of their continued efforts to draft a citywide alcohol policy, university and city representatives heard keg registration and downtown liquor licensing presentations Tuesday from top city officials.

As part of their continued efforts to draft a citywide alcohol policy, university and city representatives heard keg registration and downtown liquor licensing presentations Tuesday from top city officials.

A wide range of panelists assembled Tuesday to discuss the wisdom and ethics of the decision to reprint a controversial cartoon in The Badger Herald last week.

Dear Editor: Embassies burn, publishers of newspapers abroad are imprisoned, student editors are suspended for printing the Danish cartoons and The Capital Times says that it believes in free speech under certain conditions. In the shriveled world of newspapers, this substitutes for courage.

Nita Larson
Belleville

….I would suggest to Mr. Basir and others who hold his opinion that these cartoons should never have seen the light of day, that they consider why the right to free speech was in the First Amendment of our Constitution, rather than, say, the Eighth, or not at all. It is because that right, like the freedom to assemble or the freedom of religion, was considered of paramount importance by the framers.

Sometimes, it requires that we develop a somewhat thicker skin, since free speech is and ought to be granted to people whose opinions of us are less than we’d like. But that is also a lesson worth learning.

Frigid winter weather froze the remnants of the Feb. 16 snowfall, much to the chagrin of students walking to class Monday.

Last weekend�s sub-zero temperatures caused flooding and minor property damage in several University of Wisconsin buildings after pipes froze over and burst.

Police are searching for a man who allegedly exposed himself to a female University of Wisconsin student at a Madison Metro bus stop Feb. 16.

The Muslim Students’ Association at UW-Madison worries that recent publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad are “alarming signs of rising Islamophobia in our community.” Several events are planned to discuss the issue and bring more understanding of Islam.

Dear Editor: The Muslim Students Association is right to protest the Badger Herald’s publication of a cartoon of Muhammad. They should protest almost as loudly as they protested the murder of 3,000 innocent people by Muslims on 9/11….

….Acts of murder and terrorism degrade Islam far more than any cartoon, and Muslim silence convinces non-Muslims that most Muslims condone the slaughter of innocents. There’s a nasty joke going around that a moderate Muslim is one who’s out of ammunition. When Muslims display more outrage over cartoons than over murder, they give such slander of Islam credence.

They won’t be the first people to sell their foreheads to the highest bidder. But UW- Madison seniors Liah Hansen and Chloe Britzius are counting on the Internet and their winning personalities to help sell enough temporary noggin tattoo ads to pay for a yearlong trip around the world.

A Dodge County women has been selected as the 2006 American Honey Queen. Jolene Hoefs of Ashippun was crowned with the honor during the American Beekeeping Federation’s national convention in Kentucky last month.

Jolene is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is majoring in life science communications

FOR TWO UW-Madison students, a journey of a thousand miles will begin with a single tattoo.

But Liah Hansen, 23, and her friend Chloe Britzius, 22, hope there will eventually be many tattoos and that the journey will take them tens of thousands of miles – all the way around the world.

Hansen and Britzius have created a Web site in the hope of selling temporary tattoos on their foreheads as a way to fund a trip set for September that would take them to New York, California, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe.

An outbreak of an equine herpes virus has struck horses owned by the UW-Madison Hoofers riding club, imposing a quarantine on a barn owned by the organization, according to the Capital Times.

UW-Madison animal experts euthanized two Hoofers horses Feb. 7 and 10, after they supposedly contracted the virus.

The Langdon Street area was once the heart of UW-Madison student activity. While the construction of off-campus apartments and dormitories has shifted some of the focus away from Langdon Street fraternities and sororities, the neighborhood is still alive and well.

A Hoofers Riding Club horse and one horse which had been boarded at the organization�s barn were put to sleep after University of Wisconsin veterinarians believed the horses contracted a neurological virus.

University of Wisconsin Chancellor John Wiley gets high marks for defending the right of student journalists to publish one of the controversial cartoons that have sparked outrage and violence in much of the Islamic world.

At the same time that two student editors of the University of Illinois campus daily were suspended for publishing the cartoons, Wiley was quick to defend the right of Badger Herald editors to reprint a drawing that depicted the Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.

More than a century after Wisconsin created a public university to serve all its citizens regardless of income, evidence is mounting that some students can no longer afford the bill.

Financial aid has not kept pace with the rising cost of the University of Wisconsin System. By its own account, the system is serving a smaller percentage of poor students.

This comes as Wisconsin struggles to compete in a global economy and business leaders say they need more educational firepower than ever before.

By most measures, UW-Madison’s billion-dollar-plus private fundraising campaign couldn’t be going much better.
This month, the tally stands at $1.65 billion, well beyond the campaign’s $1.5 billion goal – which was achieved in May, 18 months ahead of schedule.

But Susan Fischer, UW-Madison’s director of student financial aid, has a concern. Even though one of the campaign’s main goals is increased student financial aid, her office isn’t being guaranteed anything from the proceeds, she said.

Over at Memorial Union on campus, the Hoofers’ Club winter carnival was also cancelled. But the cold didn’t force everyone in doors. An impromptu dance party broke out at a softball tournament on the frozen diamond of Lake Mendota.

MADISON, Wis. — The mayor’s newly appointed “bar czar” has been on the job for five months, and WISC-TV caught up with the man to see what it is he actually does.
Joel Plant is Madison’s new alcohol policy coordinator. He makes $52,000 per year, with half being paid for by the University of Wisconsin.

While cruising down the Mekong River in Laos in a rickety old motor boat six years ago, Greg Pepping had an epiphany.

“It doesn’t really happen to people very often,” notes Pepping, a 34-year-old UW-Madison grad student who serves as the school’s Peace Corps representative. “But everything sort of crystallized for me at that exact moment.”

A few months earlier, Pepping – who grew up in southern Iowa and attended Drake University – had quit a high-paying insurance job in Washington, D.C., because he felt empty and unfulfilled.

As the snow accumulation rose to over five inches Thursday, many had difficulty traveling across campus. Workers from the UW-Madison Physical Plant, who are responsible for campus snow removal, cleared roads and sidewalks in the early morning but fell behind when a second heavy fall hit at 8 a.m.

Physical Plant Director John Harrod said his department fell behind in their total grounds maintenance and focused on primary snow removal areas.

ââ?¬Å?You can anticipate it, you can get ready for it, but you can only do so much,ââ?¬Â Harrod said. ââ?¬Å?Weââ?¬â?¢ll do general maintenance all day, slow down as people leave campus, and hit it hard again around midnight. Thatââ?¬â?¢s our general procedure.ââ?¬Â

A day-long snowstorm resulted in the cancellation of all UW-Madison evening classes Thursday, as five to seven inches of snow buried the campus.

UW-Madison Interim Provost Virginia Sapiro cancelled classes after 4:30 p.m. because of unsafe travel conditions caused by high winds and low visibility accompanying the storm.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Feb. 16 � Since the morning the cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad were republished in the student newspaper at the University of Illinois here, response has been swift and split.

Officials at the University of Wisconsin were organizing a forum in Madison for next week after The Badger Herald on Monday ran one of the cartoons, one that portrayed Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb.

Students trekking to class through freezing winds and icy sidewalks Thursday evening may have been in for a surprise when they walked into an empty lecture hall.

With more than half a foot of snow on the ground and reports of continued snowfall, strong winds and ââ?¬Å?extremely hazardous travel conditionsââ?¬Â coming from the National Weather Service yesterday afternoon, the University of Wisconsin cancelled all classes scheduled to begin after 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

(MADISON) Muslim students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are demanding an apology from a campus newspaper for publishing one of the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. But the editor of the Badger Herald defends the paper�s action and welcomes the debate it�s sparked among students. (Fourth item.)

UW Madison takes action, to respond to its own cartoon controversy.

Muslims in many countries react angrily and sometimes violently to cartoons which appeared in a Danish newspaper, depicting the Prophet Muhammad. On Monday, UW’s Badger Herald newspaper printed one of the offending cartoons.

A thick file at The Badger Herald offices suggests history is repeating itself.

The file is labeled “cartoon controversy,” and it is full of articles from past run-ins with readers at the UW-Madison student newspaper. Such as the 1990 cartoon that portrayed Allah, the Islamic God, as the movie character Eraserhead, and the 1993 comic strip that included a drawing that supposedly looked like the racist Sambo character.

A thick file at The Badger Herald offices suggests history is repeating itself.
The file is labeled “cartoon controversy,” and it is full of articles from past run-ins with readers at the UW-Madison student newspaper. Such as the 1990 cartoon that portrayed Allah, the Islamic God, as the movie character Eraserhead, and the 1993 comic strip that included a drawing that supposedly looked like the racist Sambo character.

The file is about to grow.

The only thing certain about the four-man primary race for the 5th District supervisor seat on the Dane County Board is a UW-Madison student will win it, a UW-Madison student will finish second and two UW-Madison students will get bumped from the race.

The 5th District hugs the Lake Mendota shore and comprises the UW campus.

Snubbing police officers is not nice, and now hosts of a downtown house party may pay the price.

A Feb. 4 house party at 621 E. Johnson St. netted five people a total of $54,000 in fines after police arrived, but no one would answer the door.

….All those ticketed had not reached the legal drinking age. Citations were for noise, furnishing alcohol to minors, dispensing alcohol without a permit and underage drinking.

(Among those ticketed was UW-Madison student Kale Bodendein, 19, of Lone Rock.)

Muslim students are upset by the Badger Herald newspaper’s decision to reprint one of the notorious cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad.

Muslim students at UW-Madison have met with campus officials, are planning a campus forum on Tuesday, and are considering whether to stage protests.

Chancellor John Wiley issued a statement Tuesday chastising the Badger Herald for reprinting a cartoon Monday that has incited riots in the Middle East in past weeks.