Category: Campus life

Downtown Madison is once again the stomping ground of numerous bookworms, wannabe poets and published authors as the third annual Wisconsin Book Festival comes to town. The festival, which started Wednesday, continues with a weekend full of readings, lectures, discussions and book signings as well as storytelling, exhibits and children events, offering something for every reader.

As a result of student pressure, College Library, 600 N. Park St., became UW- Madison’s only 24-hour library last fall, staying open from 10 a.m. Sunday through 11:45 p.m. Friday. Three semesters later, the experiment is still going strong – especially this week as students take midterms.

Technophobes beware, UW-Madison students are now more computer and Internet-oriented than ever, according to a UW-Madison Division of Information Technology survey.

The survey, conducted between February and April 2004, revealed students polled averaged 26.5 hours per week on the Internet, an increase of almost 87 percent since 2000, according to a DoIT press release.

A flu vaccine shortage will likely affect University Health Services’ ability to give out free flu shots to UW-Madison students, according to UHS spokesperson Jonathan Zarov.

n its “Need to Know” press conference Wednesday, Associated Students of Madison announced goals for campus diversity, Halloween safety and shared governance.

Halloween safety was the most immediate of the aforementioned topics, as ASM touted several initiatives to curb the possibility of riots erupting this year.

Have you ever closed your eyes for a really long time and tried to imagine what it is like to be blind? You probably thought of a world without colors, where you recognize people only by their voice, not knowing what anyone looks like. Navigating around your room with your eyes shut, you would trip over a lot of stuff and be scared of not being in complete control. If you haven’t met Beth, an 18-year-old freshman, that might be how you imagine it.

According to a recent study, a majority of college students know how to play it safe while tailgating. The National Collegiate Athletic Association and brewing company Anheuser-Busch, released the 2004 Safe Celebration Study, showing 90 percent of students tailgate safely.

Al Franken brought his nationally syndicated radio talk show to Madison Wednesday, delivering his program live in front of listeners at the Memorial Union Great Hall.

For many students, the University of Wisconsin�s Policy, Alternatives, Community and Education program is a group attempting to control alcohol consumption in Madison. But the program does more than curb alcohol-related policies � it also addresses health and safety concerns of high-risk binge-drinking.

The Associated Students of Madison unveiled its plans for the upcoming semester during a press conference on Library Mall Wednesday. The conference highlighted a long list of goals the group placed on an eight-foot tall checklist, covering topics ranging from Academic Affairs to Halloween.

More than a dozen ASM members lay out their goals for the fall semester and ask their classmates to hold them accountable. The students held a press conference Wednesday on Library Mall.

A proposal that would require landlords in Madison to install locks on common-entry entrances….could cost those property owners plenty of money….depending on what would be needed. That’s what Steve Beckmann from J&K Lock and Security told the city’s housing committee last night.Ã?  He says the actual situation with the locking is not the huge deal it’s basically the electronics as the doorbells and the intercoms…andÃ? then it gets a little pricier for the landlords and he thinks that’s where the big issue is coming in.Ã? Ã? Beckmann addsÃ? it would cost on average…$500-dollars to make the security upgrades for a four-unit building. In addition Beckmann says a 60-day deadline for having the locks installed is impossible to meet and says it may take up to a year to have them in place at every building. The city’s housing committee is still considering the proposal.

The Votergasm campaign has people pledge to have election night sex with a voter, and to withhold sex from non- voters, as part of a nationwide effort to mobilize the youth vote. The goal is to sign up 100,000 first-time voters ages 18 to 25 on campuses in Wisconsin and seven other “swing states.”

Violations will carry stiffer penalties this Halloween after the Madison City Council amended ordinances last night.

“We’re very pleased [the ordinances] were approved,” said Noble Wray, acting Madison police chief. “Now we need to spread the word so people will plan properly and voluntarily change their behavior.”

UW-Madison’s undergraduate class of 2003-’04 graduated with an average student loan debt of more than $17,000, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. The average debt for the 1993-’94 class was $10,800, said Susan Fischer, associate director of the Office of Student Financial Services.

UW-Madison administrators announced the university will not sponsor any Halloween-related events that occur on campus, rejecting Associated Students of Madison’s proposal to have a large national act perform in the campus area.

When Landon Lueck, a UW senior majoring in landscape architecture, cut ahead of people waiting in line for MTV�s Real World casting call at State Street Brats last year, he did not think he would actually make it on the show. Little did Lueck know he would spend his summer with seven strangers in Philadelphia and receive a glimpse into the life of a celebrity.

With the threat of increased bail-amount deposits for drinking-related citations looming on the Halloween horizon, City Council members decided to instead implement the increased fines recommended by the Madison Police Department, where most tickets will increase more than $100 from the old fines.

He may be gone…but not forgotten. One of the credits to Rodney Dangerfield…is putting UW-Madison on the big screen. In the movie Back to School…Dangerfield plays the character of the world’s oldest, and richest, living freshman to the hilt. In the 1986 movie…the Madison campus is highlighted scene after scene…despite the fact that Dangerfield is supposedly attending Grand Lakes University. Some call the film his biggest achievement on the movie screen.

For most of those who rocked the Kohl Center on Tuesday night, the partisan concert by the Dave Matthews Band was the perfect blend of party politics and party music.

An annual survey of computer use at UW-Madison shows an eye-popping 87 percent increase in the time the average student spends online every week, from 14.2 hours four years ago to 26.5 hours now.

University of Wisconsin-Madison administrators will not sponsor any Halloween events on campus, not even alternative programming designed to keep people away from State Street. That has upset some students who believe the university is trying to avoid responsibility for the annual Halloween weekend problems on State Street.

The average student-loan debt for students who took the loans out on their way to earning a bachelor’s degree from UW-Madison in 2003-04 was more than $17,000, up 6.9 percent from the year before.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz revealed yesterday the creation of an alcohol policy coordinator, a new position created to connect the city administration, local police force and UW-Madison with area businesses that serve alcoholic beverages.

As the University of Wisconsin battles with college binge-drinking, police deem the fight to eliminate fake identification a major facet in the war against high-risk alcohol consumption.

Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore will visit the University of Wisconsin-Madison Oct. 16 as part of his nationwide tour of college campuses before the Nov. 2 presidential election.

It�s October, and for most University of Wisconsin students, that means the time for Halloween madness is quickly approaching.

During a press conference Monday, Madison and university officials announced the creation of a new position in city government to act as a liaison between alcohol-selling establishments and local government.

UW-Madison freshman Ben Emmrich skipped two classes this morning — including one exam — just so he could hear Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s message. Well, sor of. It helped that actress Natalie Portman, best known as Queen Amidala in the “Star Wars” series, was on campus to deliver the message for Kerry. (10/4/04 Capital Times print edition)

Madison police have finalized a plan for defending State Street from Halloween rioting – while preserving it as a revenue-builder for businesses – that includes using horse patrols and high-powered spotlights.

If the leaders of tomorrow are bred in the universities of today, the future looks very bright, indeed. UW-Madison is at the forefront of this bright future, enrolling talented and qualified students to fill university ranks.

High atop Van Hise Hall, with a picturesque view of Lake Mendota in the background, recently-appointed UW System president Kevin Reilly met with members of student media from around the state Friday in an effort to maintain open lines of communication.

Students gathered in the Witte Hall backyard yesterday to raise medical funds for the family of UW-Madison freshman Jason Gratzl who fell Aug. 28 from a second-floor Mifflin Street balcony and is currently in a coma.

Kevin P. Reilly, the University of Wisconsin System president, jokingly said his new position is ââ?¬Å?a little like drinking out of a fire hoseââ?¬Â during a Friday teleconference with student journalists from around the UW System.

Another University of Wisconsin student was the victim of criminal activity this weekend, adding to the list of recent robberies and assaults downtown.

Students united in the Witte Residence Hall backyard Sunday to help raise more than $1,400 for the medical expenses of University of Wisconsin freshman Jason Gratzl, who was seriously injured when he fell from a Mifflin Street balcony in August.

MADISON, Wis. — The family of a University of Wisconsin student who suffered severe brain damage when he fell from a balcony in August says he is making progress.

Recently released statistics show this year�s freshman class as the most competitive and diverse the University of Wisconsin has ever seen.

With 30 days to go until Halloween, the city of Madison is doing all it can to keep the newly redesigned 100 block of State Street free from Halloween vandalism.

I am writing in response to your staff opinion on the Halloween riots (“Dressing up the problem,” Staff Opinion, Sept. 29).

University of Wisconsin students may feel like they have seen it all on campus, from Halloween hysteria to Mifflin Street madness, so students fighting naked in the streets may not come as a surprise.

Because of the recent boom in popularity of individually-owned housing in the downtown Madison area, many new condominium complexes being built, such as the new Capitol West development, may also cause a boom in the rise of vacancies in rented apartments in the downtown area as well as on the University of Wisconsin campus.

Officer Scott Kleinfeldt thought he was heading to a fight, but it turned out to be an innocent little LSD-fueled romp by two immodest men. The men, both 19-year-old UW-Madison students, were arrested without pants Monday….” (9/30/04 Capital Times Police Report print edition)

Though most parents send their kids to college to prepare for the real world, for many students, the University of Wisconsin represents the chance to take a long vacation before entering reality.

Officials involved in reconfiguring and redesigning portions of the University of Wisconsin campus are set to field questions and suggestions from students and Madisonians on what they believe belongs in UW�s physical future.