As a freshman, one of the first things I was told was ?Don?t walk Rapeshore alone at night.? As unflattering as that nickname is, ?Rapeshore? doesn?t only describe Lakeshore Path anymore.
Dangerous areas need lighting
Badger Herald
Category: Opinion
Expect Sweet 16 for Marquette, Wisconsin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Sunday was another very good day for college basketball in the great state of Wisconsin.bMarquette is a No. 3 in the West. Wisconsin is a No. 4 in the East.
Doug Bradley: Holler If You Hear Stewart Francke
Huffington Post
What do Bruce Springsteen, leukemia, the Funk Brothers, Afghanistan and Iraq, Chuck Berry, bone marrow transplants, and blue-eyed soul have to do with Stewart Francke and his music?
Anecdotes don’t reflect UW reality
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Task Force on UW Restructuring should be using its time to refocus the state and UW on the needs of Wisconsin students and families. It should be working to open the university doors to all Wisconsinites, instead of protecting the prestige of UW. It should be focused on rebuilding the relationship between our communities and the universities in them and reprioritizing public investment in UW. [A column by Allie Gardner, ASM chair.]
UW-Madison professor?s low pay negatively affects academic merit
Daily Cardinal
This week, a Faculty Senate committee outlined its Commission on Faculty Compensation and Economic Benefits report, a report describing the growing problem that UW-Madison has and will be facing in regards to the salaries and compensation of its faculty. The report states that the salaries of instructors, specifically professors and assistant professors, are significantly lower compared to other Big Ten and public institutions.
Time for UW drinking culture to change
Badger Herald
The University of Wisconsin made headlines a couple weeks ago when it was named the fifth-best value of public colleges in America by Princeton Review. The university gave itself a pat on the back for this, as it should have. However, we also came out as the 14th best party school in America. Now, I am not opposed to a little partying and drinking, but I realize that the extent to which Badgers do it is ridiculous. I think we as a campus should slow down.
Chris Rickert: Most UW-Madison professors must love something more than money
Wisconsin State Journal
….In choosing low-paying career paths ? social services and journalism ? I aimed for a full life, if not necessarily a full-bank-account life, and I?m happy I did. So I?m puzzled by these cries coming from that expanse of state-owned land on the shores of Lake Mendota that the quality of UW-Madison is in jeopardy because its miserly professorial salaries are not enough to keep and recruit the best faculty. I had always assumed that college professors, like me, saw money-making as a fairly low priority.
Judge makes the right decision on voter ID law
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
It?s entirely possible that the temporary injunction against Wisconsin?s voter ID law issued Tuesday won?t stand. The decision has obvious flaws. And, no, Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan should not have signed a petition to recall Gov. Scott Walker. Nevertheless, Flanagan raised enough issues in his 11-page decision to call Wisconsin?s version of voter ID into question and to warrant this action. We think that?s good news for the state?s voters, especially the 220,000 who, according to one expert quoted by the judge, don?t have the proper ID to vote.
Doug Bradley: Johnny Cash & Vietnam
Huffington Post
Earlier this week, members of Johnny Cash?s extended family gathered in his boyhood home of Dyess, Ark., to commemorate what would have been the singer?s 80th birthday. That celebration jump-starts a tsunami of Cash activity this year, including the release of new and old music and the opening of a Johnny Cash museum in Nashville. “The Man in Black” will be toasted and lionized and, hopefully, appreciated.
The Badger Herald: Effects of unprecedented cuts approaching
Badger Herald
In order for Gov. Scott Walker to balance the state budget, the University of Wisconsin has been handed $46.1 million in cuts. As of yet, no UW group is sure how to shoulder the setback, and right now, all anyone can do is plug leaks in the levy while the flood of consequences is ready to break loose.
Trubek: Contraception War Goes On
New York Times
Can we still be arguing about a woman?s ability to control her own fertility? Almost 50 years ago in Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court struck down state restrictions on contraception because they violated a right to privacy. (Louise G. Trubek is a public interest lawyer and an emerita professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.)
Effects of unprecedented cuts approaching
Badger Herald
In order for Gov. Scott Walker to balance the state budget, the University of Wisconsin has been handed $46.1 million in cuts. As of yet, no UW group is sure how to shoulder the setback, and right now, all anyone can do is plug leaks in the levy while the flood of consequences is ready to break loose.
Norman Stockwell: Attack on ?Art in Protest? is an outrage
Capital Times
….Since the Republicans have achieved absolute power in our state, they have sought to destroy the labor movement and any political opposition to their corporate agenda. They have crippled public employee unions and have now attacked the School for Workers, the oldest university-based labor education program in the country. It was also one of the first outreach programs created by the Wisconsin Idea. The Wisconsin Idea was developed during the governorship of Robert M. La Follette. It is based on the belief that the people rather than special interests should control government institutions. In 1904 UW President Charles Van Hise declared: ?I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every home in the state.? He decreed that the boundaries of the university should be the boundaries of the state. The Wisconsin Idea gave birth to such innovations as workers? compensation, unemployment insurance and collective bargaining laws, as well as the formation of cooperatives, vocational education and apprenticeship programs for worker training.
Crime and Courts: Death of teen wearing headphones highlights ‘inattentional blindness’
Capital Times
It seems amazing that it doesn?t happen more often. We all see them, especially around campus: young people crossing the street wearing headphones, sometimes oblivious to what?s going on around them. I?ve hit the brakes more than once for bicyclists and pedestrians who have floated in front of my moving car on University Avenue, never glancing in my direction. They can?t hear you honk. All you can do is shake your head and hope that person doesn?t end up dead.
Crime bog
Badger Herald
Looking through the University of Wisconsin Police Department?s daily crime log is, for the most part, pretty boring. The one-line incident descriptions show just how much of their time is spent on routine tasks such as detox conveyances and fire alarm checks.
Dr. Richard L. Brown: Less binge drinking key to DUI problem
Wisconsin State Journal
The State Journal editorial board is right to express outrage over our continuing DUI epidemic. But when our lawmakers do react, let?s make sure their actions are effective. Clearly Wisconsin needs stronger DUI penalties, but that alone won?t help. Ample research has shown that increasing penalties doesn?t change behavior unless people think they might get caught. Toward that end, we need sobriety checkpoints.
Andy Baggot: These are critical, trying times for Alvarez
Madison.com
His legacy could be defined by the issues involving John Chadima, Adidas and the WIAA….Between the looming Adidas fiasco, the John Chadima investigation and the WIAA controversy, Alvarez has some sizeable, hard-to-digest entrees on his administrative plate at the moment.
Cuts to UW disproportionate, unfair
Badger Herald
Today, the Joint Committee on Finance will hold a hearing regarding the disproportionate budget lapse to the University of Wisconsin System. It is proposed that the UW System take a $65.6 million cut, 38 percent of the total lapse. This, after the System received a $250 million cut in the current biennial budget, bringing UW funding down to 7 percent of the total state budget.
Barbara Smith: Follow Wisconsin Idea and pay living wage
Wisconsin State Journal
Since UW-Madison has $77 million to give Camp Randall a facelift, I assume there is no reason any longer for the university to deny a living wage to workers who serve the facility. Currently, temp workers making around $8 an hour are used to clean up after sporting events and graduation. UW should do the decent thing and use staff custodians to do the work.
University Committee’s Mistake Could Cost Badgers
Bleacher Report
If the University of Wisconsin?s Labor Licensing Policy Committee has their way, the Wisconsin Badgers football team, and the rest of the athletic department, will lose their apparel company once again.
Michael Knetter: Every donation adds value to UW-Madison
Wisconsin State Journal
Chris Rickert?s Thursday column, “Big donors don?t make a big impact on tuition at UW-Madison,” misses the mark by focusing on the fact that philanthropy does not lower the price of tuition. In 2011, the UW Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to raising, investing and distributing donor gift funds to support UW-Madison, transferred more than $220 million in philanthropy to enhance the quality of the people, programs and facilities at the university. It is this enhanced quality funded by a source other than tuition that makes UW-Madison a great value (i.e., quality per unit of cost).
Stan Jones: College completion is top issue ? less than half graduate
Capital Times
President Obama?s plan to make college more affordable is noble in intent but misses the mark in design. If the president and Congress were to focus on the real culprit of high college costs ? poor college completion numbers ? they could find rare common ground and make substantial headway on a problem that threatens to sink U.S. economic competitiveness.
….College presidents point to what seem like reasonable arguments for rising tuition: shrinking state budgets, for one, and the increasing costs of energy, pensions and health care. But if these circular arguments simply go round and round, an important opportunity will be missed. Data show that time, not tuition, is the enemy of college completion. Today?s college students are dramatically different from the archetype of the U.S. undergraduate.
Liquor lawsuit ineffective in ending underage drinking
Daily Cardinal
The same guy who requested Planned Parenthoods across Wisconsin be drained of state and federal Maternal and Child Health funds is now on a mission to green light civil lawsuits against underage drinkers.
Adidas? passing down of accountability
Badger Herald
By the end of this month, Chancellor David Ward might be lucky enough to receive a freshly-baked cake from his friends at the Student Labor Action Coalition.
Apple iPads won’t help our failing schools
Daily Cardinal
Apple, over the past couple of weeks, has begun to unveil its strategy for getting into the textbook business. It hopes to electronically transform this industry, similar to the other sectors it has systematically revolutionized since the turn of the century. It is no secret that educators and academic institutions are looking for ways to invigorate the classroom experience and to capture the attention spans of today?s students.
Ray Cross: Two-year campuses an economic choice
Wisconsin State Journal
State Journal reporter Deb Ziff?s Sunday article, “Paying for college: Tough lesson,” did a great job of capturing the tribulations of a student trying to finance a UW education. But people should know there is something students can do to avoid high costs and heavy debt. The UW Colleges ? the UW System?s network of 13 freshman-sophomore campuses ? offers the first two years of a UW liberal arts education at a much lower cost, $4,503 per year in tuition.
UW tackling disaster preparedness
Badger Herald
A planning team consisting of University of Wisconsin staff and consultants are in the middle of a two-year Federal Emergency Management Agency-funded grant to develop a Disaster-Resistant University plan for the Madison campus and outlying properties. The goal of this plan is to help mitigate and minimize potential damage from natural, technological or political hazards or disasters.
Andy Baggot: Brave acts glossed over in Chadima scandal
Madison.com
….It required a sense of bravery on the part of the alleged victim, a UW student employee, to speak out immediately about being sexually assaulted and verbally threatened by Chadima, a high-ranking athletic department official who has since resigned in disgrace. That the student, a 22-year-old man, insisted the incident be kept quiet until after the bowl game, lest it be a distraction to the UW football team for its Jan. 2 game vs. Oregon, strikes me as an extraordinary personal sacrifice. The same goes for his desire not to make a criminal complaint against Chadima.
Chadima incident reminds us that all of campus must combat sexual assault
Daily Cardinal
By now, everyone has heard that Senior Associate Athletic Director John Chadima resigned after he allegedly sexually assaulted a student employee at a Rose Bowl party. Quickly forgetting the fact that senior athletic officials, including Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, knew of other parties, the athletic department and university handled the situation well. An investigation was completed and released in a timely fashion, and offices are considering multiple alcohol policy changes.
Ignorance of Rose Bowl party should not be Alvarez’s excuse
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Barry Alvarez should be ashamed of his comments regarding the drinking party involving underage Wisconsin students just before the Rose Bowl.
Then he should be reprimanded by the university.
P.E. cuts hurt UW-Madison
Daily Cardinal
The additional $25.5 million UW-Madison will have to cut over the next two years is already having a major impact on campus, and one of the most tangible ways in which students will feel the cuts is the elimination of 29 for-credit physical education classes after 2012.
Nichols: UW investigation
Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter
Neither the cops nor prosecutors out in Los Angeles know anything about some Wisconsin guy by the name of John Chadima. Never got a complaint or a request for an investigation. Three different people in the police department and the district attorney?s office out there checked for me. Nothing.
Chris Rickert: Chadima saga reveals much about UW’s power
Wisconsin State Journal
My take earlier this month on the then-unspecified allegations of misconduct against UW-Madison senior associate athletic director John Chadima was that anyone with that many words in his title can?t be high enough on the totem pole to merit much of a scandal ? especially since he wasn?t charged with a crime. Boy, was I wrong. We don’t yet know the extent of the fallout from Chadima’s alleged sexual assault of a student employee during the football team’s trip to the Rose Bowl. But I feel pretty confident a primary factor behind the incident and the university’s response to it is clear enough: hubris.
Letter: Student involvement is key to taking Wisc. back
Daily Cardinal
Last week, thousands gathered near the Capitol to celebrate as nearly two million signatures were delivered to the Government Accountability Board in the culmination of the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, and three other state senators. Representing a stunning 46% of the 2010 electorate, the more than one million signatures submitted for the recall of Scott Walker announced loud and clear that Wisconsinites are ready to put their state back on track. Students at UW-Madison have been hurt badly by Walker?s policies, and they played an important part in the recall.
Madison360: On UW-Madison’s future, David Ward is the smartest guy in the room
Capital Times
David Ward first came to Madison from England as a graduate student in 1960, before John Kennedy was president and before freshman Paul Soglin showed up from Chicago to embark on his adult destiny as our intermittent mayor. Today, at 73, the self-effacing interim chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison laces his vision for UW with repeated references to his advanced age. But make no mistake: Ward?s 2012 ideas to remake UW are distinctly anti-nostalgic.
Worry over flu virus experiments was unwarranted
Los Angeles Times
If you were paying attention to the flap over two recent flu experiments involving ferrets, you may have come away with the impression that scientists all but waved a red flag in front of terrorists and said, “Here?s a perfect biological weapon ? help yourselves.”
Paul Soglin: Waxing America: WIAA Tournament in Madison in Jeopardy?
The city of Madison and the University of Wisconsin are in a continuing partnership. UW Athletic Director Barry Alvarez needs to balance the university?s interests and its need to generate revenue with the Wisconsin Idea – reaching to the boundaries of the state. The UW serves the entire state of Wisconsin and these high school basketball players work for years to be able to earn the chance to play at the Kohl Center. State high school basketball tournaments were meant to be played on the hardwood floor of the major state university basketball team. This is an instance where the city and the university partnership to serve the state must take precedence.
Ken and Janet Grosse: Repay scholarships if you turn pro
Wisconsin State Journal
With the recent announcement by Badger running back Montee Ball that he has decided to remain at UW-Madison and finish out his senior year, rather than enter the NFL draft, we have nothing but respect for this outstanding young man. When Ball and others accepted scholarships to attend UW and play football, they took on serious obligations, which Ball has seen fit to honor and complete. He is indeed a role model for athletes who will attend the UW now and in the future.
Andy Baggot: Shifting Big Ten hockey to neutral site would eliminate WIAA conflict
Madison.com
There are two kinds of people in this world: Those with problems and those with solutions. This is one of those rare moments when I think I might be able to do something besides complain. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association and University of Wisconsin Athletic Department have a dilemma on their hands.
Doug Moe: Famous geneticist James Crow remained engaged until his death at 95
Wisconsin State Journal
The note came early last month, and I couldn?t have been happier. “Hi Doug,” the email began. “On the small chance that you missed it, today?s New York Times reports Awonder Liang just won the 8-year-old world chess championship. I remember your playing with him some time ago. “It was signed, “Jim.” I was happy because I was always happy to hear from Jim Crow. This in no way made me unique. James F. Crow was known around the world as a great scientist, tops in his field ? genetics. But his wide circle of friends knew him as a warm, generous, humorous man with many and varied interests. You couldn’t ask for better company.
Benefits of H5N1 research do not outweigh the risks
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Should we purposefully engineer avian flu strains to become highly transmissible in humans? In our view, no. We believe the benefits of this work do not outweigh the risks. (A column by Thomas V. Inglesby, the chief executive officer and director of the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC in Baltimore and Anita Cicero, chief operating officer and deputy directo and D.A. Henderson, a distinguished scholar.)
Goldrick-Rab: Finding ways to make financial aid more effective (Shreveport Times)
As a conservative and a liberal, policy wonk and professor, Washingtonian and Midwesterner ? there isn?t much we can agree on. Where we do see eye to eye is that most aid programs are less cost-effective than they could be. With money scarce and demand for college graduates high, now is the time to fix financial aid.
John Ehle: Local doctor helps deliver medical supplies to Cuba
Capital Times
Madison doctor Bernie Micke has allegedly retired after practicing medicine here for 33 years, but he continues to pursue a passion that?s been with him for years ? improving the medical services in Madison?s sister city, Camaguey, Cuba. Over the years, he and the Wisconsin Medical Project, a nonprofit organization whose origins began with the Sister Cities program, have made 30 trips to Cuba, bringing with them medical equipment and supplies for doctors and nurses who do everything from basic pediatric care to treating people suffering from cancer and other major illnesses.
Tom Oates: After uninspired bowl season, will college football finally go to playoff system?
Madison.com
During the 14 years of the Bowl Championship Series, no league has benefited more from the most flawed, detested postseason system in major American sports than the Southeastern Conference. So how ironic is it that the SEC’s domination of the BCS will be the mechanism that finally brings it down, at least in its current form?….The only possible conclusion one can draw from all this is that college football fans are tiring of a bowl system that gives them unsatisfying championship games, prevents deserving teams from having a chance at the title and renders all other bowls virtually meaningless. The greed-driven BCS system may have perpetuated the best regular season in sports ? and I’m not even sure about that anymore ? but there is no doubt it has drained college football’s postseason of any drama it once had.
Ben Bromley: Even colleges flunk geography
Wisconsin State Journal
….the recent college conference realignments don?t seem so well-intended. The NCAA has become a campus meat market at bar time, with everyone hooking up out of desperation. “You say you need a 12th school so you can establish a conference championship football game and secure a 10-year TV deal with ESPN? Here?s the key to my apartment, big boy.” As always, money and college athletics make strange bedfellows. This is why San Diego State is sleeping with Rutgers. And it?s why our kids will have to learn geography someplace other than universities.
Josh Miner: Grant will facilitate healthier choices
Wisconsin State Journal
While State Journal columnist Chris Rickert made interesting points in his piece on the $23.5 million federal disease prevention grant UW-Madison is applying for, I take exception to his claim that fixing health insurance is a more cost-effective way to prevent disease than “disease prevention.”
Susie Earley: UW’s Young, Crow fondly remembered
Wisconsin State Journal
Former UW-Madison Chancellor Edwin Young and professor James Crow died a few days apart this week. For those of us who grew up in a post-World War II neighborhood on the West Side near Hoyt Park, when Sunset Point looked out at farms, they were the last of our fathers. We have been reminiscing via the Internet. Growing up, we all knew the UW faculty was working hard to revive and make this a great university. We all salute the contributions of these two great men.
Clegg: Take the Fisher Case (National Review Online)
The Supreme Court should grant the petition for review that has been filed in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case in which students have challenged a university?s use of racial and ethnic preferences in undergraduate admissions.
Bordwell: A Front-Row Seat at the Movies
Wall Street Journal
With award season upon us, movie-lovers are rushing to the theaters to see the big contenders. And if you?re like most people, you sit fairly far back, maybe even in the very last row.
Mike Hanson: Young helped make UW-Madison great
Wisconsin State Journal
The Madison community lost a legend this week with the passing of former UW-Madison Chancellor Edwin Young. For those who witnessed the protest era of the 1960s, Young was a strong leader who stayed committed to higher education. University students today don?t recall Young, but they should know his dedication to excellence in education helped form the great University of Wisconsin as we know it today.
Doug Moe: Officials have been known to make egregious mistakes
Wisconsin State Journal
Anyone with more than one clock in the kitchen can sympathize with the confusion at the end of Tuesday night?s men?s basketball game between Michigan State and the Badgers. Of course, the stakes were a bit higher at the Kohl Center than when you?re trying to hit the sweet spot getting a pizza out of the oven. Apparently the officials had no choice but to go with the clock that showed time had run out just prior to Ryan Evans? improbable bank shot that would have tied the game for Wisconsin. According to another ? unofficial ? clock, Evans got the shot off in time. In the end, it didn?t matter. The official clock said Wisconsin lost, and that was that.
Anthony S. Fauci, Gary J. Nabel and Francis S. Collins: Dangerous flu virus research a risk worth taking
Capital Times
A deadly influenza virus has circulated widely in birds in recent years, decimating flocks but rarely spreading to humans. Nonetheless, because of its persistence in bird flocks, this highly pathogenic virus has loomed as a major public health threat. Seasonal influenza kills less than 1 percent of the people it infects. In contrast, human infections with the H5N1 virus, though exceedingly rare, are fatal in most cases. Should this virus mutate in a way that allows it to be transmitted as efficiently among people as seasonal influenza viruses are, it could take an unprecedented toll on human life.
A number of important scientific and public health questions regarding this virus remain unanswered, including the likelihood of such mutations arising and the mechanisms by which they may occur. Two recent studies co-funded by the National Institutes of Health (including research conducted by UW-Madison bird flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka) have shed light on how this potentially grave human health threat could become a reality.
Chris Rickert: $23.5 million of misplaced prevention
Wisconsin State Journal
I have to admit, I?m a little disappointed in our new budget-conscious secretary of the state Department of Health Services. So, Dennis Smith is cool with cutting government health insurance coverage for the poor to save the state money, but when it comes to saving $23.5 million aimed at getting people to do what they already know they should do ? stop smoking, eat right and generally live more healthful lives ? he caves? A few months ago, Smith declined to write a letter supporting UW-Madison?s bid for the $23.5 million, five-year federal grant.
Citizen Dave: We might have been a part of it, New York, New York
Isthmus
Imagine if the University of Wisconsin had a campus in New York City dedicated to competing with MIT and Stanford for being the premiere science and high tech research campus in the nation. That possibility was on the table recently when Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a competition to create a new world-class science campus on underutilized acreage on Roosevelt Island in the East River. The land for the new campus would be given free to the university that competed successfully for it. Bloomberg was offering a $400 million grant in land and infrastructure.
Steve Clark: Madison Prep could be better than status quo
Wisconsin State Journal
Early in the debate, the state Department of Public Instruction said it could support the school only if it could prove that single-sex classes were effective. UW-Madison professor Janet Hyde was quick to point out such research did not exist. Yet we have ample proof that the current school model fails minority students, especially boys.If Hyde and the DPI applied the same test to Madison schools, the whole district would be shut down!
Doug Moe: All we want for Christmas is a sculpture moved
Wisconsin State Journal
Let?s try a new spin on a familiar verse: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house” Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. “The stockings were hung from the chimney with care. “In hopes Nails? Tales would no longer be there. “Yes, judging by reader reaction, what Madison residents want for Christmas ? even more than a grilled Danish from Rennebohm?s ? is for the controversial sculpture adjacent to Camp Randall Stadium to go away.
Chris Rickert: ‘Nail’s Tales’ may be loved or hated, but it’s still art
Wisconsin State Journal
The pile of my children?s new toys was reaching near-obscene heights, I?d drunk enough egg nog to float a small ship, and if I heard Karen Carpenter sing “the logs on the fire fill me with desire” one more time, I might take a Christmas tin to the kitchen radio. It was time for a little holiday detox. So on Monday, the State Journal?s official Christmas day off, I boarded my Schwinn and pedaled into work, intent on making a slight detour to see a Madison controversy that knows no season.
The Wisconsin Idea Turns 100 (Madison magazine)
WISC-TV 3
There is, arguably, no school in America as connected to an underlying philosophical statement of mission as the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Idea.
Best of 2011: ?Fakespearean? comedy, abstract paintings mark arts scene
Wisconsin State Journal
It?s that time of year again ? one last chance to look back and remember all the highlights of the year in Madison.
* Hilary Hahn and Valentina Lisitsa Feb. 17 at the Wisconsin Union Theater
* ?They Marched Into Sunlight? March 26, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Department
* Sean Scully Paintings and Watercolors Oct. 22 through Jan. 15, 2012, at the Chazen Museum of Art
Sen. Mary Lazich: Self-funded UW athletics a boon for economy
Capital Times
The UW athletic department is self-funded. The athletic department operating budget does not receive state aid. During the 2010-2011 academic year, the athletic department revenues were $81.7 million. The largest chunk, $27.3 million, was ticket sales, and its share of Big Ten Conference revenue was $23.3 million. Other revenue is derived from private and corporate gifts, $13.8 million, and concessions, $6.8 million. The athletic department?s revenue covers salaries, operating expenses, and athlete scholarships.During recent years, returns on investments have been twofold. UW teams have been very successful on the field. On-field success leads to more merchandise sales, more paid attendance, and more television and postseason revenue. Businesses throughout the state, including bars, restaurants and clothing stores, benefit from UW athletics.
According to an April 2011 study by NorthStar Economics Inc., the UW athletic department has a total economic impact of nearly $1 billion on the state of Wisconsin. The NorthStar study revealed 8,853 jobs were created and supported, and nearly $53 million of tax revenue was generated by the athletic department.The last line of a popular song played at UW sports games is, ?When you say Wisconsin, you?ve said it all.? The self-funded athletic department might not literally do it all; however, it has a significant impact on the state?s economy, without costing taxpayers a dime.