As a scientist, I shouldn?t have a stake in the upcoming midterm elections, but unfortunately, it seems that I — and indeed all my fellow climate scientists — do.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has threatened that, if he becomes chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he will launch what would be a hostile investigation of climate science.
….about 300 guests gave Andrew ?Sandy? Wilcox a big send-off during a reception and dinner at the Memorial Union last Thursday night.
Wilcox has served as president of the UW Foundation, the university?s fundraising arm, for the past 21 years. During that time the foundation has experienced phenomenal growth with its assets growing from $190 million to $2.5 billion. Additionally, the foundation pumped roughly $2 billion into the university. That?s been a great help for a campus that has seen its state-supported funding drop from 35 percent of its budget to less than 19 percent, as former Chancellor John Wiley pointed out during a brief program honoring Wilcox in the union?s Great Hall.
On Dec. 2 the University of Wisconsin will celebrate the opening of the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery. I wish David Iverson, a former news reporter for Wisconsin?s public television, would be invited to speak on this auspicious occasion.
While many will see this event as a huge investment in innovation technology and higher paying jobs for Wisconsin?s shrinking economy, many of us who suffer daily from disabling chronic diseases see it as a day of hope — hope that this new science facility?s foremost mission is to shorten the period before we are once again whole and free of pain.
A state website operating since 2007 is supposed to be informing citizens how state government spends some of their taxpayer dollars by disclosing information on state contracts worth $10,000 or more. But that is not happening. And for a state that strives to be a leader in government transparency, this is not a pretty story.
Noted: Obama “drew a large crowd to a rally at the University of Wisconsin, traditionally the home of boys and girls in unwashed black turtleneck sweaters, pretending to be Marxists on their daddies? capitalist dimes (and many dollars).”
Almost 50 years ago, the young director of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Leslie Fishel, and three other leading Madisonians asked the United Givers Fund — the predecessor to the United Way of Dane County — to fund a study of discrimination in Madison and the needs of the city?s growing African-American population. The request was initially rejected on the grounds that ?discrimination as it exists in other communities does not exist in Madison.?
Fishel, already one of the nation?s pre-eminent historians of Northern segregation and discrimination, begged to differ.
(Fishel died of complications from colon cancer at his Seattle home on Sept. 8. He was 88.)
WASHINGTON ? A couple of hours before President Obama offered a boffo revival of his 2008 campaign persona during a boisterous rally at the University of Wisconsin, Sen. Bernie Sanders was analyzing why the president was in a political pickle in the first place.
If you did not feel great urgency about the Wisconsin economy three years ago, the impact of the Great Recession has probably changed your mind. It has changed ours. That is why we both agreed to serve on the steering committee consisting of representatives from business, government and education that commissioned the Wisconsin Competitiveness Study. We strongly support the recommendations of the completed study, entitled ?Be Bold Wisconsin? — especially the two recommendations that would radically alter the economic development infrastructure in the state.
(Wisconsin School of Business Dean Mike Knetter and Marquette University School of Business Dean Linda Salchenberger)
The great Massachusetts comic Eugene Mirman has a routine about people who quote half-remembered statistics. He says he likes to tell those people that he read somewhere that 100 percent of Americans are Asian.
As I write, the leaves are turning color, and the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers are actually ahead in the early stages of the first half against Southern Cal in Twin City Federal Stadium, also known as the House That Bob Built (for Bob Bruininks, the U of M?s president).
The fate of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research in the United States will be decided in the coming weeks, beginning with an oral hearing in court next Monday. For years, federal funding has supported all hESC research that does not involve the destruction of new human embryos. In other words, the government funds research for stem cell lines obtained from human embryos destroyed in the past, but not research that involves destroying new ones.
From a Sept. 14 editorial (“A key job in the region”) and an Across the Board blog posting the same day (“Aren?t the faculty just picking their own boss at UWM?”), it is clear that the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board has an incomplete understanding of the authority and responsibilities of faculty within the University of Wisconsin System as well as the role they play in selecting chancellors.
In a recent address to the Associated Students of Madison, Chancellor Biddy Martin summarized a lengthy PowerPoint presentation she plans on selling around the state. While glossing over the substantive changes she ultimately sought, Martin spent most of her 30 minutes in front of ASM lauding UW?s substantial impact on Wisconsin?s culture and economy. However, flipping through the slide packet that was temporarily distributed to council members, one could see the eerie outlines of Martin?s master plan. The overall objective was to sever UW?s ties with the rest of the UW System to become independent while still benefiting from an umbilical tether to state coffers.
Wisconsinites are concerned about the direction of the state, its economy and their family?s own economic well-being. Furthermore, Wisconsinites do not think that their state government is doing a particularly good job and are frustrated with a state government that they do not believe is particularly innovative. Still, Wisconsinites report being relatively happy and rate life and schools in the Badger State better than in other states. [A column by Ken Goldstein, a UW-Madison professor of political science.]
In March, 16 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students were taken into custody during a protest over rising tuition costs. As silly as college student protests can be, this one actually made some sense. Tuition costs across the entire country are sky-high.
I write in support of Resolution 35, by which Dane County would set up a citizens? panel to discuss the ethics of experimentation on monkeys. As lead sponsor, I believe it addresses justifiable citizen concerns about what a public institution in our community is doing in our name with our tax dollars.
It is appropriate for the county to deal with this issue. Many citizens have expressed concern about the monkeys held in captivity on the University of Wisconsin campus. It is natural that citizens should contact their local government officials, who are closest to them and most approachable.
If my parents thought it was hard to keep track of my major, they should try keeping tabs on the availability of embryonic stem-cell research funding.
Last Thursday, the Obama administration formally challenged a court order by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to suspend the federal funding of stem-cell research. Lamberth?s injunction, issued on Aug. 23, blocked President Obama?s push for public endowment on the basis that such funding violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. The amendment was a ?rider? to a 1995 bill, meaning that it would never have passed as its own legislation, and thus was added onto a distantly related proposal. Dickey-Wicker specifically bars public funding for the creation and endangerment of embryonic cells for research purposes.
On May 15, 1985, trainers at Hawaii Sea Life Park were stunned when a 400- pound gray female bottlenose dolphin named Punahele gave birth to a dark-skinned calf that partly resembled the 2,000-pound male false killer whale with whom she shared a pool.
More than half of the monkeys shipped by UW-Madison from the Vilas Zoo to the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio back in 1998 appear to be dead, Rick Bogle writes in his Primate Freedom blog. Bogle, the co-director of the Madison-based Alliance for Animals, wrote last week that the “United States Department of Agriculture is scrambling to find homes for approximately 204 primates and an additional 114 other large animals after years of serious violations of the US Animal Welfare Act including inadequate and improper food. Twenty-two of those monkeys are the survivors of the large colony sent there by the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1998.”
A constant complaint among Wisconsin state budget planners for the past several decades is how little the state gets back from the taxes its residents send to Washington.
Because it has only a couple of small military bases and a relatively small federal work force, the state has historically been locked into receiving about 80 to 85 cents back for every $1 that the taxpayers pay in federal taxes.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, a UW-Madison economist
STEVENS POINT ? Dave Obey was on hand here a few days ago as University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point officials, faculty, students and community leaders celebrated the launching of the Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology in ceremonies on campus.
Obey?s presence was fitting. He directed about $1.4 million of federal funds to support the institute at the university, which will take an interdisciplinary approach as it creates and commercializes sustainable technologies and connects the campus to the business community.
What will the next Wisconsin Legislature be like? Will it be any braver, wiser, and/or more productive than the Democratic-controlled 2009-2010 Legislature, the divided 2007-2008 Legislature or the Republican-run 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 legislatures?
Let?s face it. Madison is more often than not deemed a fabulous university on account of its outstanding academic reputation and its plethora of beer. Yet, there is more to the University of Wisconsin than high GPAs and a nice, cold brew. The unique, passionate, and truly creative minds and personas of the students that bring this campus to life are something to observe with awe. It seems to me that Chancellor Biddy Martin agrees, as this past week she has deemed this fresh school year ?The Year of the Arts?.
One hundred years ago, following a whirlwind visit to 155 medical schools, Abraham Flexner issued a report that reshaped American medicine. His observations and recommendations led to major changes in U.S. medical education. Our nation?s medical schools subsequently provided innovations that have dramatically transformed the practice of medicine, thereby greatly improving public health.
Nevertheless, according to a recent Commonwealth Fund report, the U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world and consistently underperforms other countries on most measures of performance. Thus, our medical schools, which currently lead the world in biomedical research and health professions education, are faced with a challenging mission if they are to continue their leadership in improving health.
Noted: Co-author Charles Cohen is a professor of history and religious studies and director of the Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at UW-Madison.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen was right recently when he declared, “Murderers should fear forensic science.” Forensic science evidence can be a powerful tool against the guilty. It has also proven to be a powerful tool for exonerating the wrongly accused and convicted. [A column by Keith Findley, co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project. He is also president of the Innocence Network, an affiliation of more than 60 innocence projects around the world which filed a brief in the court of appeals challenging the ballistics expert’s claims in the case discussed.]
Wisconsinites, it turns out, have been paying attention to schools, except in one interesting way.
That we have been paying attention is heartening news out of that big survey this summer by University of Wisconsin-Madison political science guru Ken Goldstein. The headline from the survey was that a solid majority – 62% statewide, 68% in Milwaukee – believe the state?s “best and brightest” leave to find work. Presumably soured on who is left, a supermajority are either frustrated or angry at state government.
STEVENS POINT ? The good sisters at St. Mary of the Angels in Green Bay didn?t teach science well. They were better at drills for diagramming sentences. But on Friday afternoons, when we put down the pencils and had open discussions about topics of the day, we learned to discern and distinguish, to sift through information and get to the core of an issue.
Boldness is a word often used in discussions about Wisconsin?s economic future. Of course, boldness means different things to different people.
If I were doing research for the Wisconsin Department of Commerce, would it be bold to compare key statistics of neighboring states with those of Wisconsin? Or would it be bold to research former agrarian countries like Taiwan and South Korea to find out how they transformed into technical powerhouses and created the jobs and corporate brands we desperately seek here in Wisconsin. [A column by Walt Ferguson, former Silcon Valley executive, in response to a column by the business school deans at UW-Madison and Marquette.]
During The Daily Cardinal?s recent interview with Chancellor Biddy Martin, there was one answer that stood out above the others in both its frankness and its unexpectedness: ?No.?
That was Martin?s answer to the question of whether the University of Wisconsin can continue its low tuition model while still providing adequate financial aid for underprivileged students.
The Church of College Football is about to open for services. It is perhaps the most passionate religion we have in this country, a seductive blend of our most popular sport and the romantic notion that the young athletes are playing for their schools, not for money.
Two BCS championship coaches recently launched attacks on sports agents for allegedly defiling this house of worship by giving college players what the NCAA calls ?impermissible benefits? — benefits that make those players pros and not amateurs.
?The agents that do this, and I hate to say this, but how are they any better than a pimp?? Alabama?s Nick Saban so memorably put it last month. And Florida?s Urban Meyer said that the problem is ?epidemic right now? and that agents and their associates should be ?severely punished.?
Time to get rid of these notes to myself cluttering my desk: Congratulations are in order for my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin?s School of Journalism and Mass Communications. It was recently named the top school in the country for its doctoral program, according to a study of 102 doctoral programs involving 2,194 tenure-track faculty members. The study was conducted in 2007 and only recently was published in the Journal of Communication, a trade publication.
The University of Wisconsin?s National Survey of Families and Households show that today, the number of hours a woman spends on housework still outnumbers a man?s by almost 2 to 1, and that?s when both partners work outside of the home full time. When it comes to child care, such as feeding, clothing and bathing the kids, women spend 15 hours a week tending to children. Dads spend two. In families where both parents earn a paycheck, the mother does an average of 11 hours of child care a week, while the father does three.
The shocker? Researchers say the ratios are similar to those of 90 years ago.
It?s no secret that university educations cost a lot more than they used to — the price has steadily risen faster than the increase of most other prices. It?s no secret why, either, suggests new research from University of Arkansas education policy guy Jay Greene: Administrative costs at major schools are out of control.
The questions University of Wisconsin System leaders are asking might pertain to how higher education is funded in our state, but the ramifications are much deeper than the dollars and cents ultimately approved. They get to the heart of who we are and how we plan to economically compete now and in the future.
WITH the academic year about to begin, colleges and universities, as well as students and their parents, are facing an unprecedented financial crisis. What we?ve seen with California?s distinguished state university system ? huge cutbacks in spending and a 32 percent rise in tuition ? is likely to become the norm at public and private colleges. Government support is being slashed, endowments and charitable giving are down, debts are piling up, expenses are rising and some schools are selling their product for two-thirds of what it costs to produce it. You don?t need an M.B.A. to know this situation is unsustainable.
With unemployment soaring, higher education has never been more important to society or more widely desired. But the collapse of our public education system and the skyrocketing cost of private education threaten to make college unaffordable for millions of young people. If recent trends continue, four years at a top-tier school will cost $330,000 in 2020, $525,000 in 2028 and $785,000 in 2035.
The head of the University of California-Berkeley?s Graduate School of Journalism is floating the idea of charging students a $5,000 annual fee — above and beyond what most students pay — for those who enter the program starting in 2011. And why not? (Please turn on sarcasm meter.) Those who hold journalism degrees these days virtually have a license to print money. Right?
The small woman in blue tennis shoes sat in her wheelchair and smiled as people leaned in to hug her. She smiled when the mayor of Madison and governor of Wisconsin saluted her. And she smiled as the cameras clicked while she held the wooden plaque signifying her induction into the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame.
As residents of Green Bay and members of the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board ? one of the entities that oversees Wisconsin Public Television ? we are proud of the success of LZ Lambeau.
In May, 70,000 people took part in events on the Lambeau Field grounds and throughout Green Bay. On the evening of May 22, more than 26,000 people came together to thank the state’s Vietnam veterans and pay tribute to the 1,244 service people who were killed or are missing in action.
Unfortunately, recent news reports and community conversations erroneously have reported on the LZ Lambeau budget, claiming that it resulted in a financial shortfall or deficit. This isn’t the case.
The DNA exonerations not only have corrected injustices on a scale previously unimagined, they also have provided an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the causes of and remedies for error in criminal cases. These cases reveal not isolated mistakes, but systemic flaws. They reveal that wrongful convictions have identifiable causes, causes that can be addressed. Because so much is at stake, they must be addressed.
The cases teach that the leading causes of wrongful convictions include eyewitness identification error, police interrogation tactics that produce false confessions, flawed forensic science evidence, false jailhouse snitch testimony, prosecutorial misconduct and inadequate defense counsel. [A column by Keith Findley, clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project and president of the Innocence Network.]
One crucial lesson from the BP oil spill is that measures to speed licensing, cut corners on safety and undermine regulation can lead to tragic consequences. Yet Congress appears on the verge of repeating mistakes that led to the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf. Federal lawmakers are weighing a BP-type deregulation of new nuclear reactors — the one energy source in which damage from a major accident could dwarf harm done by a ruptured offshore oil well.
(Dr. Jeffrey Patterson is president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. This column was provided by the American Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization.
….I?ve been biking to work for about seven years now. I?ve been honked at, yelled at, spit on, squeezed to the curb until I?ve lost my balance. I?ve been cut off repeatedly by right turners. Drivers sometimes stop at a stop sign, look straight at me as I pedal their way, then bolt, forcing me into a skid.
Quoted: David Noyce, associate professor of civil and environment engineering, and alumnus Bob Mionske
The death of Rod Nilsestuen, who drowned Wednesday while swimming in Lake Superior, leaves a huge hole in state government.
Of all the tributes to Nilsestuen, I was particularly struck by what Molly Jahn, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, had to say….
Jahn would be an appealing choice, although she is just back from a stint as deputy undersecretary of research, education and economics in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
One crucial lesson from the BP oil spill is that measures to speed licensing, cut corners on safety and undermine regulation can lead to tragic consequences. Yet Congress appears on the verge of repeating mistakes that led to the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf.
In February 1907, a New York physician discovered that his longtime dairy supplier had switched to pasteurized milk. He so detested the practice?not to mention the taste?that, as he wrote to the New York Times, he would rather “run the risk of typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and tuberculosis rather than [endure] the evils that I believe would follow the systematic and prolonged use of pasteurized milk.”
I went searching our archives last week, typing in the search box the names of UW football coach Bret Bielema and state Rep. Steve Nass.
What I hoped to find was a story about Nass, R-town of La Grange, the fearless basher of all things University of Wisconsin, calling on the attorney general to investigate Barry Alvarez?s hiring of Bret Bielema to replace him as the Badgers? football coach. But, as I figured, no story popped up.
Megan Abel. I even remember her name.She was the red-headed girl I met at college orientation.
The American Empire is alive and well — and as expansive as ever. We have established more than 700 military bases across the world, largely encircling the peripheries of Russia and China, which are now central to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. The Cold War in the aftermath of World War II drove the expansion as we searched for security — and markets, to be sure. Perhaps we now are the largest imperial power the world ever has known.
(Stanley Kutler, a UW-Madison professor emeritus, is the author of ?Judicial Power and Reconstruction Politics? and other writings. This column first appeared on truthdig.com.)
Here?s how five citizens answered this week?s question posed by Capital Times freelancer Kevin Murphy. What do you think? Please join the discussion.
The Wisconsin Technology Council will publish a new set of white papers this month including bold ideas to stimulate venture capital investment in the state.
Inevitably, some may question Wisconsin?s ability to afford these proposed programs.
But the better question is whether we can afford not to pursue new ideas as we try to transform the economy. We have no shortage of innovations. We have one of the world?s greatest research universities, one that became increasingly entrepreneurial in the 1990s. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation began accepting equity in lieu of upfront fees for University of Wisconsin-Madison spinoffs at that time and began investing directly near the end of the decade. Initiatives such as the Burrill Business Plan Competition helped to create a more entrepreneurial culture.
Noted: The UW-Madison has one of the nation?s best training programs in reproductive health care for medical residents, but our state is among the most restrictive when it comes to abortion services.
….This summer, one of the largest state universities in the country — Ohio State — is launching a new program to encourage every incoming freshman to get a U.S. passport. The program, ?Gateway to the World,? is designed to encourage the roughly 6,600 freshmen — 30 percent of whom are first-generation college students — to get used to the idea that their community is a global one.
….OSU is encouraging, but not requiring, entering students to get the passports. Part of the reason is cost. U.S. passports cost about $100, which does not include the price of required photos. Evanovich said OSU is exploring ways to help those students in need, with passports and studies abroad.
I hope that OSU figures this out sooner rather than later and that other colleges and universities across the country follow suit in starting their own passport programs.
Something needs to be done, was the conclusion reached by many attendees at the recent dairy forum held in Madison. Not an unusual conclusion in that that same sentiment has been expressed at hearings, meetings and forums held across dairyland for the past 50 years or more.
What was different about this gathering was that it was under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Justice and sponsored by the U.W.-Madison Law School and held at the Memorial Union in Madison, which is not a regular ag meeting place.
The use of animals in scientific research is a contentious and emotional issue. It is also indispensable, because of its life-saving benefits to human health, writes UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin.
Pardon me if I shed no tears over the death of Dwight Armstrong. As the Associated Press reports in todayâ??s Gazette, Armstrong was a heavy smoker and died Sunday at UW Hospital in Madison after battling lung cancer.
Most of you would agree that todayâ??s culture is rife with information overload and relentless distractions, but what, if anything, should that mean for the news business?
Last year, the terrible overall economy combined with a changing business model to produce a deep newspaper industry slump. In 2010, the industry has regained its footing and is eagerly telling its story. Yet for journalists, the print and broadcast trend away from calm objectivity toward an emotional, black-or-white style is unmistakable and provocative.
Quoted: UW-Madison journalism professor James Baughman
Wisconsin taxpayers and health care groups that are following the recent challenges to UW-Madisonâ??s patents on embryonic stem cell lines may not be fully aware of the much larger and more fundamental issues at stake.
Should human body parts or tissues be patented and then bought and sold to the highest bidder in the marketplace? Human tissue samples are taken from blood tests, biopsies or during surgeries. How many of us really know how many tissue samples we have given away or how they were used? Are informed consent agreements now signed in the donation process legally binding? Lastly, should patients be compensated for allowing another to use her or his human tissue samples?
The new “Karate Kid” with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith has supposedly learned from the past, setting out to poke holes in some stereotypes about Asians.
Hereâ??s to UW-Madison professor Tim Smeeding for his comments to the LA Times about the wealthy rebounding quickly from the Great Recession while the rest of us continue to struggle.
Smeeding, a national expert on poverty and income equality, was given top line quote in a story showing the wealth gap again widening.
