Category: Campus life

In the 20 years I’ve been doing this column, I’ve never met so many college-age individuals who are committed to making the world a better place. These are, I think most would agree, difficult times to be an optimist.

And yet, for the first time in eons – well, since Election Day, Nov. 7, 2000, actually – I’ll be celebrating Christmas filled with hope.

MADISON, Wis. � A national fraternity has suspended its University of Wisconsin-Madison chapter, saying members broke several rules in hosting a Halloween party that police described as dangerous.

A national fraternity has suspended its University of Wisconsin-Madison chapter, saying members broke several rules in hosting a Halloween party that police described as dangerous.

The Wisconsin Union is pushing to rebuild Union South on its current site rather than renovate it, its director said.

The project, which would also include renovations to the Wisconsin Union Theater, would require funds from a student referendum. Students voted down a similar measure last spring on a 2,385-2,200 vote; union officials are gearing up for a new referendum in spring 2006, although the details of how much students would pay are unclear.

Numerous of pieces of evidence that helped send Ralph Armstrong to prison for the 1980 murder of Charise Kamps, a 19-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison student, are being sent to the State Crime Laboratory for re-analysis and will help prosecutors decide whether to pursue a second conviction against Armstrong.

UW-Madison housing director Paul Evans remembers the gift he said he was “thrilled” to get starting his freshman year at UW-Eau Claire a manual typewriter.

MADISON, Wis. – Members of a University of Wisconsin fraternity face more than $94,000 in fines after police busted a Halloween party at their house.

After 10 years of alcohol education programming, the project known as PACE: Reducing the Consequences of High-Risk Drinking, will no longer have funding from university grants. Over the past decade, PACE has worked together with university officials, UW-Madison and City of Madison Police, the City Council and many other organizations and committees to offer alcohol-free opportunities for university students.

It has been nearly four months since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, and displaced students are eager to return to their southern schools. With the spring semester approaching, the students who found temporary refuge at UW-Madison must decide whether they will stay.

UW-Madison students are encouraged to participate in city government, but many choose not to, local representatives said.

The City of Madison allows unelected citizens to serve on city committees, but few students have taken the opportunity.

Non-resident students currently make up approximately 22 percent of the undergraduate student population at UW-Madison.

After Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois, New York and California are the two most represented states among the undergraduate student population and since the fall of 2003-�04, student representation from California has increased by 160 students, according to numbers provided by the Office of the Registrar.

Although both the undergraduate and graduate schools do not participate in international outreach recruitment programs, UW-Madison continues to attract thousands of international students every year.

For students looking to do a good deed while earning some extra spending money, donating plasma could be the answer.

(MADISON) A University of Wisconsin-Madison peace group is one of more than forty nationwide that have had their activities monitored by the Pentagon. Peace activists in Madison say they�re angry that peaceful protests are being spied on. (Second item.)

A Madison anti-war protest was one of many such gatherings investigated by the Department of Defense as the military stepped up monitoring of civilian activities, according to a classified database obtained by NBC News.

“This is just a further example of how a war abroad creates paranoia at home,” said Ashok Kumar, a member of the Student Labor Action Coalition, which, along with Stop the War, a UW student group, coordinated the April 26 rally that came under Pentagon scrutiny.

….Participants in the rally numbered only about 20, but a planned Air Force recruiting drive was abandoned as a result.

Last night, NBC reported that the U.S. Defense Department is conducting ongoing surveillance of American peace activists. A 400 page department document acquired by the network lists more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” by a variety of anti-war and counter-recruitment organizations over the last ten months, while an eight page document (available on MSNBC as a PDF file) lists 43 anti-war meetings across the nation.

This database lists the date of occurrence, date of report, threat status, and other information on each of the surveillance instances. While most of the listed events are in larger states such as California, New York, and Texas, one details a planned protest in Madison last spring.

Although keg registration has momentarily become a nonissue, one city alder said he hopes to pass a law limiting access to kegs of beer.

UW-Madison staff members responded to Wisconsin Student Interest Research Groupââ?¬â?¢s ââ?¬Å?Big Red Go Greenââ?¬Â campaign with a message of realism over idealism at a Tuesday night panel discussion. The panel, which was preceded by a video about the applications of solar power, set the tone for the discussion.

Students planning to apply to graduate school next year can expect to take a revised entrance exam.

Companies who manufacture officially licensed apparel products will be required to purchase at least 25 percent of their goods from factories that allow some form of unionization for workers, under UW-Madison�s pilot program, Chancellor John Wiley announced Tuesday.

When John Wiley ventured to South Africa earlier this semester, Interim Provost Virginia Sapiro essentially became the acting chancellor of the University of Wisconsin. With Peter Spear having just retired, Ms. Sapiro is so new to the position of provost that, at the time of this editorial�s writing, the chancellor�s official website still listed her predecessor as holding the job.

The Madison Common Council made decisions directly affecting the livelihood of University of Wisconsin students at a meeting Tuesday.

Chancellor John Wiley met with members of the Labor Licensing Policy Committee Tuesday to announce the University of Wisconsin will be taking the first step in conciliating student labor activists nationwide.

An upgraded version of UW-Madison�s Integrated Student Information System resumed functioning on Monday after being offline since Dec. 2.

As the fall semester winds down, students are once again asked to fill out professor and teaching assistant evaluation forms and are often left wondering exactly what purpose these evaluations serve.

UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley will unveil a definitive policy Tuesday in a press conference regarding how the university�s logo apparel will be manufactured, according to LaMarr Billups, special assistant to the chancellor.

Beginning next year, professors at various United States universities, including the University of Wisconsin, will be able to give lectures in classrooms other than 400-plus-seat lecture halls as a result of the ââ?¬Å?Indo-U.S. Inter-University Collaborative Initiative in Higher Education and Research.ââ?¬Â

A recent U.S. Supreme Court case has propelled the issue of military recruitment on university campuses, an ongoing controversy at UW-Madison, onto a national stage.

With the stress of finals quickly approaching, University of Wisconsin students are hitting the books hard, but not without some partying to relieve the stress. The Madison Police Department, however, is hoping for more studying than partying.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is considering new ways to make the UW System more affordable, including charging students different tuition rates based on their family’s income.

Two UW-Madison students — Anne Reiland from Sparta and Ryan Huibregtse of Brookfield — have agreed to share their freshman-year experiences with us, with the help of freelance writer Scott Carney, a UW-Madison graduate student.