For about 6,000 eighteen-year-olds, the boot camp of adulthood has just started.
Citizen Dave: Welcome to Madison, and to the rest of your life
Isthmus
Category: Opinion
Rob Nixon: Rachel Carson’s Prescience
Chronicle of Higher Education
Fifty years ago, on September 27, 1962, Houghton Mifflin published Rachel Carson?s Silent Spring, among the 20th century?s most influential books. To honor the anniversary, the University of Cape Town invited me to lead an interdisciplinary forum this past June on Carson?s environmental legacy.
The value of supporting our public universities
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
When I finished high school, it wasn?t clear that I would ever attend college. I had no savings and no prospects for significant financial aid.I did have a job at McDonald?s, and I made enough to get by while still living with my mom. With few other options, and putting aside my longstanding interest in science, I seriously considered simply working my way up to manager and being satisfied with that. [Acolumn by Grant Petty, atmospheric science professor at UW-Madison.]
Madison360: Race, rural identity shape Wisconsin politics
Capital Times
If, after all that?s happened, you still can?t understand the appeal of Gov. Scott Walker and his arch-conservative allies, you might consider the roles of race and rural identity in Wisconsin. They seem to be crucial drivers in the anti-government tidal wave that has washed over our political landscape. That is a central finding of a major paper by Katherine Cramer Walsh, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who has been widely applauded for a research style that relies more on personal interaction and group observation than on polling.
Chris Rickert: Higher education, but lower standards
Wisconsin State Journal
It struck me as pretty ironic last week that even with Wisconsin?s new looser, alternative path to a teacher?s license, public school teachers probably are more likely to know what they?re doing than the public university teachers many students will get just a couple of years later. Such is the way of the American education system, where K-12 teachers must have years of training and meet multiple state licensing requirements, but the teaching assistants responsible for handling much of the introductory course material in college can know next to squat about teaching. The discrepancy didn?t seem odd to Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, UW-Madison School of Education associate dean for teacher education, but then, “it?s a system I grew up in. Is it best practice? I doubt it,” she said.
Advances in medicine doesn’t do anything for longer lifespans if we continue to be self-destructive
Sheboygan Press
Dr. Richard Weindruch is a professor of gerontology and geriatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who can tell you off the top of his head that a French woman by the name of Jeanne Calment lived the longest life of any known human, 122 years. But, smart as he is, he can?t tell you why she didn?t live any longer.
Chris Rickert: Real pot preferable to new synthetic
Wisconsin State Journal
“Bottom line: More bad reactions, more unpredictable reactions and far less known as compared to marijuana,” said UW-Madison physician and addictions specialist Richard Brown, summarizing data from the National Institutes of Health. Now, real marijuana doesn?t exactly come with a list of ingredients and growing methods, either. It?s just that it doesn?t help to outlaw one high of questionable origin if it results in another, even more questionable high.
Brad Schwartz: Embrace scientific research despite politics
Wisconsin State Journal
The National Institutes of Health provides over $400 million in support for biomedical research in Wisconsin (over $260 million at the University of Wisconsin), resulting in jobs, intellectual property and the formation of more new companies and medical advances. Take a break from partisan politics and publicly endorse support of our nation?s investment in scientific research. Let our politicians know that research needs to be supported, regardless of who wins the election.
— Brad Schwartz, Stoughton, UW-Madison professor of medicine
Madison 360: Wray offers insights into ‘troubled’ University Avenue
Capital Times
Over the years, various Madison neighborhoods have been described as ?troubled,? but the adjective has usually been applied to low-income and transient residential areas. Troubled, of course, is a catch-all descriptor for places where bad things are repeatedly happening, and this year we have the ?troubled? 600 block of University Avenue. University is a heavily traveled urban thoroughfare, and the block in question has student bars sprinkled on one side and the upscale Fluno Center ? an executive education building that is part of the University of Wisconsin?s School of Business ? dominating the other.
Alfred W. McCoy: Impunity at Home, Rendition Abroad
Huffington Post
After a decade of fiery public debate and bare-knuckle partisan brawling, the United States has stumbled toward an ad hoc bipartisan compromise over the issue of torture that rests on two unsustainable policies: impunity at home and rendition abroad.
Andy Baggot: Badgers? Ball can’t carry on this way
Madison.com
If all of this is a sign of things to come in Montee Ball?s pursuit of the Heisman Trophy, then shut down the hype machine and shutter the campaign headquarters right now. In the seven months since he announced he was returning for his senior season with the University of Wisconsin football team instead of declaring for the NFL ? a revelation as welcome as it was unexpected ? Ball has lived a star-crossed existence that is nothing short of jarring.
Madison360: UW athletic department hits back on ‘reseating’
Capital Times
A few days ago I blogged in reaction to UW Athletic Director Barry Alvarez predicting he?ll advance a ?reseating? proposal for Badgers football and men?s basketball in coming years because the most frequent complaint he gets is from season ticketholders who cannot improve their seat locations. My summary response was that Alvarez might be out of touch with a loyal and mainstream fan base which cherishes its seat locations and feels jerked around in recent years by unrelenting increases in tickets, parking and mandatory donations in a bad economy. Response to my blog was strong and fairly passionate.
Wagner: How Long Will UW’s Pervert Professor Stay On The Payroll
WTMJ-AM Milwaukee
47-year-old Kennedy Waliaula was arrested by Madison police July 10th after exposing himself to a UW-Madison student on a street corner. Waliaula acknowledged flashing this young woman and several others. He admitted to police that he “has a problem exposing himself in public”.
Madison360: Is Alvarez’s desire to ‘reseat’ UW fans out of touch?
Capital Times
“Don?t Flinch” was the title of Barry Alvarez?s autobiography, the saga of his successful and lucrative career in college football. But I bet flinching was exactly what many Badgers fans did after reading an insightful State Journal column in which the University of Wisconsin athletic director sounded intent on advancing an aggressive “reseating” scheme for UW?s two biggest sports. His plan would apparently force football and men?s basketball season ticketholders to pony up yet again or risk losing their seat locations.
Blum: Bad Chemistry
Wired
The start of the story is this: In December 2008, a 23-year-old research assistant named Sheri Sangji accidentally set herself on fire while working in a chemistry laboratory at the University of California-Los Angeles. She died 18 days later in a hospital burn unit.
Andy Baggot: Fill Camp Randall before reseating it
Madison.com
With all the summertime chaos going on in your life, it?s possible you didn?t have adequate time to digest a significant piece of data offered up recently by University of Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez. He told members of the UW Athletic Board last month the renewal rate for general public season football tickets for the coming season was 97 percent. Brian Moore, the ever-thorough assistant athletic director for ticket operations, subsequently bumped that up to 97.5.
Plain Talk: Cops know it?s high time to close Brady law loophole
Capital Times
A delegation of top law enforcement officers from throughout Wisconsin descended on our offices a few days ago to tell us about their push to get a federal law passed that would eliminate the loopholes to the 18-year-old Brady law that requires background checks to purchase firearms….
UW Police Chief Sue Riseling added that a federal law is needed to make the background requirements uniform throughout the country. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates that 30 percent of the guns recovered at crime scenes have crossed state lines. Additionally, the background checks strengthen the national database, ensuring that guns don?t get in the wrong hands.
Evan Jager took to the steeplechase in short time
Charlotte Observer
LONDON – It?s not unusual for a track athlete to win a car for an exceptional performance. But at 13? That?s how old Evan Jager was when he took possession of a 1989 5.0-liter Ford Mustang, which instantly made him the most popular kid in his eighth-grade class in Algonquin, Ill.
Kindred: Grandpa ready to watch grandson run in London
Bloomington, Ill. Pantagraph
The London Olympics are off and running. Jerry Tegenkamp would love to be there, matching the thousands of spectators stride for stride.
Tom Oates: Time to look at realigning the Big Ten
Madison.com
CHICAGO ? Legends and Leaders? Ha. The Big Ten Conference divisions look more like Legends and Losers now. The geographically challenged football alignments the Big Ten so painstakingly pieced together don?t look quite as even now that Penn State has been busted by the NCAA for covering up the atrocities committed by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. The Nittany Lions? sudden fall has created short- and long-term competitive-balance issues for the conference.
Plain Talk: ?Too big to fail? sports brought to you by NCAA
Capital Times
Listening to NCAA President Mark Emmert?s speech announcing the penalties handed down against Penn State, I couldn?t help but wonder if he was doing it with a straight face. For at one point he said: ?One of the grave dangers stemming from our love of sports is that the sports themselves can become too big to fail, indeed, too big to even challenge. The result can be an erosion of academic values that are replaced by the value of hero worship and winning at all costs. All involved in intercollegiate athletics must be watchful that programs and individuals do not overwhelm the values of higher education.?
Really!
Richard E. Rieselbach, Patrick L. Remington, Patrick E. McBride, and John G. Frohna: Talk with your primary care physician about health care reform
Capital Times
The ACA is far from perfect, but by extending coverage to an estimated 93 percent of all legal U.S. residents, it is a major step forward in providing affordable coverage to nearly all Americans. It is the first U.S. law to attempt comprehensive reform touching nearly every aspect of our health system. The law addresses far more than coverage, including health system quality and efficiency, prevention and wellness, the health care work force, fraud and abuse, long-term care, biopharmaceuticals, elder abuse and neglect, and many other issues. Most physicians recognize that the road ahead will require congressional Democrats and Republicans to collaborate and modify some ACA elements, as is required after any major law.
Citizen Dave: How the University of Wisconsin should respond to Penn State
Isthmus
The sanctions that the NCAA meted out against Penn State for covering up Jerry Sandusky?s abuse of children were inadequate because they didn?t do much of anything to correct the unhealthy culture that permeates big-time college sports everywhere. Even in Madison.
Chris Rickert: Kohl’s gets deal; retirees get … job?
Wisconsin State Journal
A recent UW-Madison study projects 766,326 of the 808,914 additional people living in Wisconsin in 2040 will be over 65 ? a demographic shift that almost certainly will require more taxpayer-funded medical, housing and income help for this group whose working days largely will be over. So clearly, giving a multibillion-dollar company up to $62.5 million in tax credits over 12 years is the prudent thing to do.
Tom Oates: All campuses have lesson to learn from Penn State scandal
Wisconsin State Journal
Penn State got exactly what it deserved. The tattered image of the Big Ten Conference suffered yet another blow. And, after years of bowing to the lords of college football, the NCAA finally found religion. Well, hopefully, anyway….As for the Big Ten, which has taken image hits due to its failures on the field and NCAA scandals off it, the disgrace of consorting with Penn State will extend to the other 11 schools, including the University of Wisconsin. That will make the conference’s climb back to respectability that much tougher. There could be short-term benefits for UW, though.
The Precarious Profession of University President
Chronicle of Higher Education
Noted: The case of Carolyn A. (Biddy) Martin at the University of Wisconsin at Madison demonstrates the limits imposed on the discretionary actions of senior university leaders. Last year, then-Chancellor Martin, with the apparent prompting of the governor, proposed to expand the university?s autonomy by breaking away from some restrictions imposed by the UW system. The key proposal would permit UW-Madison greater tuition autonomy, given its special status as a flagship research university.
Chris Rickert: Will lowered test scores bring about broader change in Madison schools?
Wisconsin State Journal
Wisconsin has a “long way to go in all our racial/ethnic groups,” said Adam Gamoran, director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UW-Madison. My hope is that, given Wisconsin?s overwhelmingly white population, proficiency problems among white students will spur more people to push for policies inside and outside of school that help children ? all children ? learn.
How to survive as a non-liberal on a liberal campus
Daily Cardinal
In 1951 a young Yale undergraduate wrote the book God and Man at Yale, which was a scathing criticism of the liberal ideological bent held by the instructional staff at Yale. The author, a young William Buckley, would go on to become the leading voice of the conservative movement during the second half of the 20th century. Unfortunately for those who share Buckley?s sensibilities, today the majority of collegiate institutions retain their liberal partisanship. As a young and eager student stepping out of my sheltered Waukesha County home onto this campus, I was in for a cultural shock. The two locales couldn?t be more politically polarized. The difference was night and day.
David Ahrens: UW should retain progressive employment policies
Capital Times
Although the Legislature killed Gov. Scott Walker and then-Chancellor Biddy Martin?s proposal to split the Madison campus from the UW System, an important element of the original idea survived. Like an evil spawn, the budget bill retained two important provisions. [A column by David Ahrens.]
Chris Rickert: It’s not landlords’ job to get us to vote
Wisconsin State Journal
In my first semester at UW-Madison, my dorm?s resident assistant or some other upperclass stand-in for the university escorted a bunch of us to the local polling place or to register to vote ? I forget which.It was a nice gesture in a presidential election year for kids who?d only recently arrived from out of town or out of state, but I would have voted anyway.
Andy Baggot: Playoff is better, but not easier
Madison.com
I can?t tell if Barry Alvarez really wants the assignment or if the University of Wisconsin athletic director is just sandbagging. When I asked him recently if he?d accept an invitation to be part of the selection committee that will determine the participants in the four-team football playoff that will debut in 2014, his answer sounded as if he was pleading the fifth. “I certainly would consider it,” Alvarez said. I thought he?d jump at it.
Bettsey Barhorst: Multiple approaches to college best
Wisconsin State Journal
Recent news stories have praised the announcement by the University of Wisconsin Colleges to offer high school students the opportunity to obtain high school and college credits simultaneously through dual-enrollment programming. We applaud the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the University of Wisconsin Colleges for their efforts to improve access to higher education, because more degrees lead to a stronger economy….UW-Madison accepts more transfer students from our campus than from any other institution, including all of the UW Colleges combined. And full-time students who complete their associate degrees at Madison College save thousands of dollars a year in tuition compared to UW-Madison, making us a high quality yet affordable point of access to a four-year degree.
Michael Bernard-Donals: University of Virginia’s experience resonates here
Wisconsin State Journal
The University of Virginia?s board recently pressured the university?s president, Teresa Sullivan, to step down because it didn?t think she was making changes quickly enough. After an outcry from faculty, students and citizens of the state, the board backed down and reinstated Sullivan. I?d argue that what happened in Virginia should matter deeply to us here in Wisconsin because it highlights the crisis in public higher education both locally and across the country. The actions of Virginia?s board were an attempt to mandate change from the top and to run the university on a business management model. In this model, what matters is the bottom line, efficiency and return on investment.
Chris Rickert: Does the ?God particle? lessen faith?s bearing?
Wisconsin State Journal
If physicists have found the ?God particle,? does it lessen the need to find God? This was basically the question an anthropology professor friend of mine posed after news broke Wednesday that evidence of the elusive particle, also known as the Higgs boson, apparently has turned up in experiments at the renowned European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. As someone for whom high school physics was one big misunderstanding, I?m not qualified to adequately explain what a Higgs boson is.
Madison 360: Just maybe, things are brightening a bit
Capital Times
A Madison teacher and administrator for 29 years, Jane Belmore, will take a leave as education dean at Edgewood College. She strikes me as the Madison schools? version of David Ward, the deeply experienced and highly respected interim chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Speaking of UW, I think there is also good news in the absence of grousing by Republican legislators over UW-Madison?s plan to target pay raises to about one-third of faculty and academic staff in an aggressive effort to retain employees. When the plan was announced a month ago, one might have expected the usual GOP suspects to pounce. The GOP seldom misses an opportunity for a cheap, anti-intellectual stunt.
Tom Still: Online degree plan at UW is positive start
The University of Wisconsin System was a bit late to the digital education party, but at least it?s not a no-show.
Biz Beat: Pension advocates worry Walker will still push for changes
Capital Times
Although a new report gives the state pension system high marks, union leaders and Democratic legislators remain concerned Gov. Scott Walker may push for changes in his next state budget. ?You may have won the battle but the question is will you win the war?? says Rich Eggleston, a spokesman for participants in the Wisconsin Retirement System.
Buzz Davis: Open Wisconsin Retirement System to private sector workers
Capital Times
All workers deserve financial security in their retirement years. Wisconsin should use the Wisconsin Retirement System as a model and expand the WRS to cover workers in the private sector to ensure that all Wisconsin workers ? public and private ? will have financial security. Wisconsin could be the first state in the nation to provide a ?defined benefit? pension plan with guaranteed fixed payments for life to all retired workers.
Dave Zweifel’s Madison: Puzzled cabbie seeks State Street solution
Capital Times
Ron the cabbie, one of my morning coffee buddies at Park Street?s Cargo, is having trouble figuring out why Mayor Paul Soglin is so adamantly opposed to allowing taxis to ?cruise? for fares late night on State Street. ?Think of all the drunks that those cabbies keep off the road,? he said the other morning. ?Why wouldn?t you think that was a good idea.? Since the mayor is a former cab driver himself (he drove when he was at the UW back in the ?60s), I wondered why he was so adamant about this. He replied that, first of all, there?s an ordinance that makes that activity illegal and no cab company can unilaterally decide that it can be violated.
Chris Rickert: Don’t ‘fix’ successful pension system
Wisconsin State Journal
Leave it to Wisconsin’s controversial governor to turn one of the least sexy topics in government ? public pensions ? into a nail-biter. There are plenty of things in state government in need of reforming, but Wisconsin?s pension system ain?t one of them. But even if you?re not particularly concerned about getting the best returns for WRS beneficiaries, you should know that the system?s administrative costs are low, according to UW-Madison public affairs and consumer science professor emerita Karen Holden.
Castronovo: ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ feeds our social fantasies
Juneau Empire
?Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? is what happens when the nightmare of our nation?s past gets scripted as a Hollywood horror movie. The jarring confusion of race slavery with a supernatural evil constitutes both the cleverness and silliness of the film.
What?s with the global spread of English?
The Jakarta Post
The speed at which English has spread all over the world as a global language is simply breathtaking. With this phenomenon comes the fact that English no longer exclusively belongs to the native speakers of the language. (The writer is a fulbright presidential scholar and a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US.)
Chris Rickert: UW System’s new ‘flexible degree’ a good start
Wisconsin State Journal
The announcement last week of the University of Wisconsin System?s new “flexible degree” is a worthy start. The program, to be rolled out over the next year, will allow students to learn online at their own pace and provide college credit for proving they?ve mastered skills learned at work. It?s about time the public education establishment started really shaking up the standard high school-to-college-to-career path. Economists and education-reform types have been saying for years that a changing world requires changing education models.
Katherine Cramer Walsh: Listen to the legitimacy of other voters
Madison.com
Two-and-a-half weeks past the recall election and many Wisconsinites are doing their best to move on. They?ve taken down their yard signs, and even peeled off their bumper stickers.
Fost: Stop the steroid witch trials
USA Today
Whether or not Roger Clemens and Lance Armstrong are lying when they deny they used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) is beside the main point, which is why we are prohibiting, and even criminalizing, the use of these products.
Olds: On the Failure of Legacy Governance at the University of Virginia
Inside Higher Education
Crises and controversies are almost always useful learning moments, including in the world of higher education. Im learning much this week while observing a roiling debate about the de facto removal of the University of Virginias President Teresa A. Sullivan after a mere two years in her leadership position.
Suri: Why public university presidents are under fire
CNN.com
We know an industry is in crisis when its top institutions cannot establish stable leadership. That is the case with some of our nation?s best public universities today.
Donald J. Wuebbles and Jack Williams: Wild Wisconsin weather demands action
Wisconsin State Journal
At coffee shops, truck stops and around backyard grills, many people are asking the same question: As the climate changes, can we expect more of this? The answer: Yes. There is a strong probability that climate change is influencing certain extreme weather events. Along with other leading scientists at Big Ten universities, that?s what we know. We?re not alone. Insurance industry leaders think so, too, and they have been meeting with U.S. senators to call for action.
Donald J. Wuebbles is a professor of atmospheric sciences as well as electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois. Jack Williams is director of the Center for Climatic Research Geography at UW-Madison.
Madison360: From the rubble, a new kind of Democratic leader is needed
Capital Times
The first few days featured Republican gloating and Democratic finger-pointing, but now — two weeks after the recall vote — two mega-themes have taken shape that will resonate in Wisconsin politics for years. First is what to do about the apparently unprecedented antagonism that exists between people who live in the same communities, the same neighborhoods, even the same households. On talk radio and in Internet comments, that antagonism seems to border on hatred.
Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin
Tom Giffey: Priced out of education, redux
Eau Claire Leader-Telegram
After I posted my previous blog entry, ?Priced out of education? (which also was published in Monday?s hard-copy edition of the Leader-Telegram), I received a couple of emails saying I?d missed half of the picture in my rant about the rising cost of college. I?m accustomed to complaints about my writing, but in this case they were exactly right.
Chris Rickert: Science push can’t neglect the ‘soft’ side
Wisconsin State Journal
I can?t open the paper lately without reading about how the American economy is doomed unless we get more kids into the so-called STEM fields ? science, technology, engineering and math. On Tuesday, it was news touting five University of Wisconsin System campuses who are taking part in a nationwide science and engineering initiative led by a group of university and private sector bigwigs who want to boost the United States? competitiveness.
….”Skills and methods associated with the humanities aren’t soft, despite the convention of referring to them as such,” said Sara Guyer, director of the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities. “The importance of the humanities … is not just about empathy or imagining others, but it is about deepening our real understanding and fostering rigorous, critical analysis.”
Madison Politiscope: Combative Dem spokesman Graeme Zielinski pushes the envelope
Capital Times
….he (Zielinski) has long-claimed that UW-Madison professor Charles Franklin, who conducts the Marquette University Law School poll as a visiting professor, is a Republican “hack” whose polls showing Gov. Scott Walker winning the recall election by five to seven points in recent weeks were “as reliable as a three-dollar bill.” As it turned out, Franklin?s poll results matched Walker?s 7 percent win. When I asked months ago for justification of his allegations against Franklin, Zielinski told me that several of Franklin?s students had informed the party that Franklin boasted about consulting for GOP groups. “If he denies this, we don?t believe him,” Zielinski concluded in an email. Indeed, Franklin says he has never worked for any party or partisan organization.
Chris Rickert: A touch of irony on UW?s road to China
Wisconsin State Journal
UW-Madison is pressuring its athletic apparel contractor, Adidas, to contribute to the approximately $3.2 million in severance pay owed to 2,800 workers at a former Adidas subcontractor in Indonesia. Meanwhile, interim chancellor David Ward is leading a delegation of state officials in China, where the university will open its first foreign office ? the UW Shanghai Innovation Office ? and kick off an entrepreneurship and innovation conference. Anyone else see the irony here? Indications are that the university probably doesn?t.
Madison360: To reunite Wisconsin, elite leaders must step up
Capital Times
?Together apart. ?Those words popped to mind in the aftermath of Wisconsin?s recall election as describing our political culture. The phrase was part of the title of a reporting project 20 years ago by the New Orleans Times-Picayune about myths on race and segregation in the south. I met the project?s editor shortly after it appeared and the title stuck with me. Now it seems to aptly describe Wisconsin?s gaping political divide. We are together, but very far apart.
….One compelling suggestion is that major business and academic leaders, people with the cash and clout to speak freely, need to step forward. The idea is not from a political scientist but rather a historian, a professor who left the University of Wisconsin-Madison last year.
Dr. Jonathan L. Temte: Don’t underestimate whooping cough’s threat
Wisconsin State Journal
Thanks to the Wisconsin State Journal for Monday?s excellent article on pertussis. The resurgence of whooping cough may be due to a change in our childhood pertussis vaccine 15 years ago. In 1997, the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended a safer vaccine for prevention of pertussis. This emphasis on safety came at the expense of a shorter period of protection following vaccination.
Tom Giffey: Priced out of education
Eau Claire Leader-Telegram
It?s a cliché to say that paying for college keeps parents awake at night. As is often the case, this became a cliché because it?s true — even if, as in my case, the child is barely a year and a half old.
Leland Pan: Why UW should put Adidas on notice now
Capital Times
Over the past year, Wisconsinites have seen unprecedented attacks on workers? rights. But these attacks have not just been on public employees; since August, students at the University of Wisconsin have been pushing Interim Chancellor David Ward to hold Adidas, the primary producer of UW apparel, accountable for withholding $1.8 million in severance pay to 2,700 Indonesian garment workers. The company?s refusal to pay its workers is an explicit violation of Adidas? contract with the university, which states, ?Licensees shall provide legally mandated benefits.?
The struggles against sweatshops abroad and against corporate power in our own country may seem separate, but the rights of foreign workers are intimately connected to the conditions of workers in our own state. As corporations relocate to countries with weaker labor standards, workers in the U.S. endure major rollbacks to their own workplace standards.
John L. Gann Jr.: City should get retiring alumni to move back
Capital Times
If Madison is complacent about economic growth as Paul Fanlund and others concluded in these pages on May 9, the city is hardly alone among its peers. My research for ?The Third Lifetime Place: A New Opportunity for College Towns? suggests that this tendency is common in college towns nationwide. But the substandard new growth that disturbs Fanlund may not be the only economic peril. Another is the potential gradual withering of what the city already has: the economic payoff from a 40,000-student university.
Robert Mathieu and Steven Ackerman: Doctoral research, teaching both valued
Wisconsin State Journal
As two of many faculty and staff long engaged in preparing UW-Madison graduate students to be both excellent researchers and excellent teachers, we were disappointed with the headline in the May 27 newspaper: “Interest in research wanes among UW-Madison Ph.D.s.” The headline missed the point and an important sea change in graduate education: Interest in teaching is increasing among UW-Madison Ph.Ds.
Plain Talk: It?s Walker?s policies that turn back the clock
Capital Times
During the only two debates that he would agree to appear in, Scott Walker spent a lot of time claiming that Tom Barrett wanted to return to the past and that it was now time to move ?forward,? something Walker claims he?s been doing these past several months. If only it, like a lot of things he says, were true. Frankly, in less than a year and a half Walker and his allies in the state Legislature have done more to turn back the clock on state policies ? everything from fair taxation to environmental safeguards ? than any administration in recent history.
….A biofuel power plant at the UW-Madison was scrapped even though it would have provided a market for Wisconsin farmers to sell some of their crop waste and other material that is now discarded. Instead, Walker ordered the plant to be converted to natural gas.