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Category: Opinion

Madison360: UW athletic department hits back on ‘reseating’

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Tom Oates: Time to look at realigning the Big Ten

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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

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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

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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.

Chris Rickert: Kohl’s gets deal; retirees get … job?

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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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.

Buzz Davis: Open Wisconsin Retirement System to private sector workers

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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

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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

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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.

What?s with the global spread of English?

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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

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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.

Donald J. Wuebbles and Jack Williams: Wild Wisconsin weather demands action

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Tom Kleese: Much to consider in college selection

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Wisconsin State Journal

Last Thursday?s editorial titled “Interest rate debate a sideshow” cuts through the political nonsense to focus on the cost of a college degree. What is more important, however, is the potential value any degree may hold. As a former UW System professor who now helps families navigate through the college admissions process, I fear some opt for a “pretty good school” and then aim for a “good grade point average.” Neither is sufficient when the price tag of a UW-Madison degree has surpassed six figures.

Chris Rickert: Class discrimination moves to the fore

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Wisconsin State Journal

More than 20 years ago when I was in college at UW-Madison, the debate du jour was over so-called “speech codes.” Were race-, gender- or religion-based slurs protected free speech? Punishable offenses under a public university?s rules? Both? The fight raged. I remember a classmate locking herself to some fixed object in front of a Langdon Street fraternity to protest an event the frat held in which some members wore blackface. And I ? just another white boy from the suburbs ? felt positively righteous wearing a “Celebrate Diversity” button on my leather jacket.

Craig Werner: Don’t Believe the Hype: Springsteen’s Politics

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Huffington Post

Call Bruce Springsteen whatever you want, but make sure to call him a professional. Early in our class we had a conversation on whether or not he was as erudite as we were making him out to be. There were plausible arguments on either side. In interviews he claimed not to have read much, but he also lifted most of The Grapes of Wrath. For me I don?t think it matters too much, because he actively tries to be both. Springsteen is no fool, and he plays up his country or working-class image in spite of being ridiculously informed on music, as exhibited by his most excellent keynote address at the SCSW music conference.

Chris Rickert: Kindness at your gamer’s fingertips

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Wisconsin State Journal

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving two UW-Madison researchers a $1.39 million grant to develop two video games to help teach eighth-graders compassion, empathy, cooperation, mental focus, self-regulation, kindness and altruism. I can?t help but wonder, wouldn?t a puppy work just as well, and be a heck of a lot cheaper? Besides, if your kid is going to be a mass murderer, derivatives trader or some other empathy-less sociopath, isn?t that mold pretty much cast by the time he?s 13 or 14?

Mike Nichols: Why UW-Madison is seeing applications spike

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Twincities.com

My 17-year-old daughter and I sat on the Memorial Union Terrace on a warm spring day at the University of Wisconsin-Madison last week, and I didn?t want to ruin the tranquil beauty of the moment. But I had a disturbing vision of something large washing up on the shores of Lake Mendota.

Madison360: Walker?s fate aside, rich conservatives are defining the debate

Posted on
Capital Times

In December 2010, weeks before Scott Walker dropped his self-described ?bomb? eviscerating bargaining rights for public workers, the single divide that defines contemporary state politics today was already crystallizing in my mind. The truth is that, more than ever, we in Wisconsin are split into two tiers — wealthy conservatives who leverage their money and the influence it buys to control our policy debates — and the rest of us. Back then, my column was describing a series of interviews with regular people across the state by a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

UW-Madison political science professors Katherine Cramer Walsh, Barry Burden, and Çharles Franklin are included in this column.

Another Idea for Wisconsin

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Since 1994, the UW budget has expanded from $2.1 billion per year to $5.5 billion in 2011, an increase of 114% over that time. During the same time period, state aid to the UW system has increased by 27.2%, even when Walker?s “draconian” cuts are figured in. [A column by Christian Schneider, senior fellor at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.]

Go Bucky! Defend The Wisconsin Idea!

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

I grew up in a home where the University of Wisconsin-Madison held god-like status. My mother and father met in Madison, and I learned to sing ?On Wisconsin? long before I could even hum ?The Star Spangled Banner.? I and most of my siblings graduated from Madison, and my father-in-law is a UW-Madison soils scientist who spent much of his career traveling the back roads of Wisconsin to talk with farmers.

Plain Talk: Tinkering with state retirement courts disaster

Posted on
Capital Times

All government workers in Wisconsin, except those in the city and county of Milwaukee, contribute to the state?s own pension plan, which administers and invests the funds. The state system is currently 99.5 percent funded. A special committee is currently looking at the state system and is due to issue a report in mid-June, but 401(k) options have already been touted in the Legislature, although so far they?ve fallen by the wayside….The Walker administration has signaled that it isn?t going to push changes, at least in the near future. But it would be best to keep a close lookout.