Passing through the Union the other day, I ran into two friends who asked me about Chancellor Biddy Martinâ??s Undergraduate Initiative, unveiled Tuesday to student leaders and the subject of immense speculation since. They were not enamored of the plan, and their objections, coming from people I consider perfectly rational, seemed rather bizarre.
Some years back, the University of Wisconsin awarded special status to six of its athletic programs.
Because they were given additional resources, those tier-one programs â?? football, volleyball, menâ??s and womenâ??s basketball and menâ??s and womenâ??s hockey â?? automatically became the face of UW athletics.
Therefore, it was fitting that the last of UWâ??s tier-one sports still standing in this academic year â?? the womenâ??s basketball team â?? squandered a 15-point lead in the second half and lost to St. Bonaventure in the WNIT last week. It was appropriate because, with one notable exception, athletic director Barry Alvarezâ??s highest-profile teams just couldnâ??t finish what they started this year.
UW-Madison was first in the nation to establish a Tibetan language and culture program, and Wisconsin played an active role in resettling Tibetan refugees. The Dalai Lama has visited us seven times, including right after the Nobel Prize. And I have been personally involved in the Tibetan plight since 1968 when I was UW student.
It is in all of our best interest to stop TB.
The Dalai Lama has recognized the great challenge that TB poses to his people and is committed to helping fight the disease. The global community and the Tibetan government-in-exile must join forces to control TB in the Tibetan community.
You can help reinforce the commitment to fight this disease by writing to Congress and stressing the importance of acting now.
Paster is professor of family medicine at UW-Madison.
Following up on recent Herald coverage and a campus forum held on March 10, we write today in the hopes of furthering campus dialogue on the subject of sexual assault.
Armed with a Democratic majority in both houses, Gov. Jim Doyle is feeling confident about his chances with ideological addendums to this yearâ??s state budget. So confident, in fact, that he believes fourth timeâ??s a charm for a provision that would allow illegal immigrants from Wisconsin high schools to pay in-state tuition at UW System schools. The provision, voted down in three previous budgets due to ideological disagreements in the state senate, comes at a time when higher education is becoming more and more difficult to afford for the average high school graduate.
In lieu of the recent article, â??Victim comes forward, reveals shocking story,â? published on March 4th in the Badger Herald regarding the alleged rape at Sigma Chi, the Office of the Dean of Students (ODOS) received much flak regarding its role in the investigation and its pursuit of action. In many respects, ODOS was accused of belittling the incident and trying to suppress the inception of an investigation into the case.
When Tino Balio convinced United Artists to donate its early films, photographs and corporate records to the University of Wisconsin Center for Theater Research in the 1960s, it put UW-Madison on the map as a major film research center.
Before long, the center’s name would be changed to reflect that status, becoming the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.
But it’s likely that not even Balio — who came to Madison to run the center in 1966 — knew the extent to which the United Artists’ donation would continue to reverberate. It’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.
As part of national Sunshine Week (sunshineweek.org), March 15-21, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is bestowing its third annual Opee Awards in recognition of people and institutions that have had an impact on open government in Wisconsin during the last year.
….Media Openness Advocates of the Year (the “Mopee”): Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WISC-TV, WTMJ-TV. These four media outlets refused to take “You can’t know” for an answer when they tried to learn more about why police were not dispatched in response to a UW-Madison student’s call for help shortly before she was murdered.
With our country’s health care system at a crossroads and fewer physicians going into the area of primary care, one of the best places to look for answers may be today’s medical students â?? our future health care providers. I have been fortunate to work alongside one of these dedicated students recently, and I thought she may be able to provide a glimpse into her world â?? and into the world of health care in the United States.
Freedom native Abby Schuh is in her final year at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. I’m confident that many medical students across the country share her thoughts, which follow.
â??We arenâ??t going awayâ? wrote an anonymous commenter on The Badger Herald website last week Friday (â??SSFC votes down increased seg feeâ?).
It has been more than three years since the inception of the Student Union Initiative saga â?? during which students have endured systematic deception, incredible theft and blatant infringements on the jurisdiction over their segregated fees â?? and not once has the good side come out ahead. Every effort made to uphold student democracy and defend accessibility to this university has failed. The student voice has been bruised and then battered, while our pocketbooks have turned emptier and then empty. Ultimately, the valiant efforts of countless and diverse students proved to be too little, too late or both, and now the powerful Wisconsin Union appears destined to get away with it all.
f you ever wondered whether scientists knew how to party, Monday night was your chance to find out (I like to think they serve drinks in beakers and play â??pin the hydroxylysine on the glycoproteinâ?). On a day that will go down in lab coat-and-goggles history, President Barack Obama continued his â??Undo Everything Bush Did â??09â? Tour by lifting the federal funding limits on embryonic stem cell research.
Wisconsin’s drunken driving problem is at long last attracting legislative attention. Most proposals involve strengthening penalties, which clearly is warranted. For example, the first offense is only a violation, not even a misdemeanor, in Wisconsin. Unfortunately the sharp focus on penalties is hindering consideration of more comprehensive and effective measures.
Richard L. Brown is an associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
With soaring oratory, President Obama on Monday removed a substantial practical nuisance that has long made life difficult for stem cell researchers. He freed biomedical researchers using federal money (a vast majority) to work on more than the small number of human embryonic stem cell lines that were established before Aug. 9, 2001.
In practical terms, federally financed researchers will now find it easier to do a particular category of stem cell experiments that, though still important, has been somewhat eclipsed by new advances.
President Obama got a lot of applause for declaring in his inaugural address that he would “restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.”
That was uplifting rhetoric, worthy of embrace and encouragement.
But the louder applause should come now, as the president follows through on his promise.
I am in an uncomfortable situation when it comes to discussing the horrendous acts of which brothers of the Sigma Chi fraternity have been accused. On one hand, I am a staff writer for The Badger Herald; I pride myself above all else on giving a perspective, regardless of whether or not anyone agrees with me, that will make people talk and make people think outside the box. On the other hand, the extracurricular activity I care most about is my role as president of one of the biggest fraternities on this campus, Alpha Epsilon Pi. My house is located almost directly across the street from Sigma Chi, and we have a very good relationship with them. When it comes to the extraordinarily unfortunate situation facing the victim I want to be able to write a completely unbiased piece, but unfortunately my proximity to the situation does not allow me to do that.
PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment) was saddened by the front-page article, â??Alleged Rape at Sigma Chi,â? published Wednesday, March 4 in The Badger Herald. While the report of the assault itself was extremely disturbing, some of the comments posted by UW students on The Badger Herald website in response to the article were equally troubling. Many of these responses reveal we live in a culture in which we are more apt to blame sexual assault victims than to hold perpetrators accountable.
I would like to thank The Badger Herald for Tuesdayâ??s coverage of a critical campus issue (â??Alleged rape in Sigma Chi,â? March 3). This article provides a powerful reminder of the toll of sexual assault on a survivor.
Among many items guaranteed to cause a fuss in Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s plan to fix the troubled state budget is the inclusion of a provision that would allow faculty members in the University of Wisconsin System to collectively bargain with the university administration. Currently, UW relies on a haphazard assortment of payment structures and hiring processes for its untenured professors that rely primarily on their merit as instructors and researchers. Doyleâ??s plan in essence allows staff of all ranks to unionize for improved benefits.
After watching friends and colleagues lose their jobs, their retirement savings and increasingly their hope, I’ve got only one thing to say to any state worker worried about paying more for their health insurance: Cry me a river.
Here in Dane County, where a quarter of the workforce draws paychecks from the government, one can sense the growing rift between the public and private sector as the economy worsens. And we’re doing better than just about everywhere else in Wisconsin.
Lee Hawkins, a UW-Madison graduate and former Wisconsin State Journal reporter, will anchor an hour-long documentary, “NEWBOs: The Rise of America’s New Black Overclass,” which looks at the challenges and opportunities facing a generation of young blacks, many in the sports and entertainment industries, who have made a lot of money in a hurry.
Back in the mid-1990s, a young African-American UW student named Lee Hawkins wrote some gutsy, provocative op-ed columns for us. We knew then he had a great future ahead of him.
….Today he works as the Journal’s correspondent with CNBC and at 8 p.m. this Thursday night he will anchor a one-hour documentary that is based on a book he’s written called “NEWBOs: The Rise of America’s New Black Overclass.”
Last Friday, Gov. Jim Doyle announced the Charter Street Heating Plant will convert from burning coal to biomass by 2012. The plant is run by UW-Madison and is responsible for the heating and cooling of the UW campus.
Imagine that you are a patient needing routine surgery at an outpatient facility. At the Madison Surgery Center, you receive treatment to enhance your health, while in the next room or down the hall, a fully formed 19- to 22-week unborn baby is being dismembered, experiencing significant pain from the abortion procedure. Your treatment payment is pooled with the abortion money, making you indirectly complicit in the horrendous practice.
The UW Hospital and Clinics, Meriter Hospital and the Madison Surgery Center recently approved such a venture. The second-trimester abortion program was discussed for months, shrouded in secrecy. Since becoming public knowledge, information from facilities’ officials has been incredibly inconsistent and filled with public relations puffery.
President Obama ran on the coattails of the buzzword â??change.â? After unveiling his two-year budget plan for Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle is pushing his budget on the tagline of â??sacrifice.â?
“I just came home, the door was bashed in and my girlfriend has been shot.”
Those were the words of Jordan Gonnering, speaking to a 911 dispatcher last April after he found the body of Brittany Zimmermann in the downtown Madison apartment that he shared with her.
Increasingly, the media use transcripts and audio of 911 calls as part of their coverage of public safety, a strategy that some applaud but others fear harms crime victims and violates their privacy.
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly observed recently that the 38,000 research-and-development jobs in the state now outnumber the paper industry’s total.
The observation has great import for a state trying to figure its way out of a deep recession and a heavy dependence on its historic manufacturing sector. The innovation economy is upon us, and Wisconsin, with its world-class educational infrastructure, is well positioned to take advantage of its brain power.
A statement released Wednesday by the University of Wisconsin indicated a sharp decrease in the amount of in-state applications the University has received compared to years past. Roughly 1,000 less applications were received by the Feb. 1 deadline. University officials could not offer any explanation for the dwindling numbers other than the sagging economy. This notion may be a good rationalization, but biased funding among the universities departments â?? among other factors â?? is the likely culprit.
The big news last week was unemployment, which hit its highest rate â?? 7.6 percent â?? since 1992.
I remember 1992 well. That was the year I graduated from the UW-Madison journalism school, entering a tough job market and a profession notorious for low pay. I remember seeing a long list of UW-Madison majors next to their expected annual entry-level salaries.
Journalism was dead last â?? below even philosophy majors.
Quoted: John West, a 1991 graduate of the UW-Madison Law School who now lives in Los Angeles.
When we talk about the future of public universities, we are usually talking about the flagship state universities. They have greatly increased expenditures in the past decade. A case in point is the University of Kansas, which has tripled its spending and raised its tuition and fees by a factor of five since 1988.
Author: Howard H. Schweber is an associate professor of political science and law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
A few days ago, Chancellor Biddy Martin announced the University of Wisconsinâ??s intent to end business relations in March with Russell Athletics, a clothing manufacturing company contracted to supply apparel donning UW-Madison logos. The reasoning behind the termination of this relationship was the companyâ??s aggressive action against workersâ?? movements to unionize, particularly shutting down a plant in Choloma, Honduras, where workers were beginning to form a union.
Last week, UW Chancellor Biddy Martin announced her decision to terminate UW-Madisonâ??s Russell Athletics contract over worker rights violations in the apparel companyâ??s Jerzees de Honduras factory. The factory was the subject of an investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium, which confirmed that Russellâ??s union-busting behavior clearly violated not only UW-Madisonâ??s Code of Conduct for apparel producers, but also Honduran law and internationally recognized labor standards. Chancellor Martin made the right call.
Biddy Martin needs to start talking.
“Stroszek,” in all its bizarre glory, is going to be featured at the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival, which runs April 2-5 in Madison.
All along, I’ve thought the most important player for the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team this season was Keaton Nankivil.
The reasoning went like this: Replacing 6-foot-11 post men Brian Butch and Greg Stiemsma was going to be more difficult than anyone imagined and Nankivil, a wide-shouldered 6-8 sophomore, was the best “big” the Badgers had to drop into the middle of their four veteran perimeter players.
Everyone knew what would happen back in the 1960s when a good family from Wausau or Rhinelander sent their son or daughter to school at UW-Madison.
It has become one of the most iconic symbols in college athletics, but few people know its origins, which are fairly humble.
The Motion W came into being, at least in part, because the top executive of an electronics company in Madison didn’t like the helmets worn by the University of Wisconsin football team.
The column got me thinking about some of the iconic events in Madison’s recent past, and how many I attended, or if maybe I only believe I was there. I have settled on six outstanding Madison events, of which I must say I was only at two, although I’m pretty sure I was actually there for those, as opposed to imagining I was there.
A new Donald Lipski sculpture has left the manufacturer and is headed for a sports stadium.
This qualifies as news in Madison, where some of us are still puzzling — to put it kindly — over the Lipski sculpture that was unveiled in front of Camp Randall Stadium in November 2005.
It’s a question we ask ourselves at least once every day of our adult lives.
It’s posed, one way or another, after a restaurant meal or concert, after the driveway is plowed, after a sporting event or vacation, after you visit your financial planner.
Was it worth it?
….Maybe people are too busy to take the time to pay attention to what’s going on around them, even if it is at their own risk. Maybe the corporate takeovers of media have driven deep wedges between citizens and “their” newspapers. Maybe people really believe they can get all they need to know from the Internet and radio and TV talk shows. Perhaps the de-emphasis of journalism programs in high schools and universities across the country has led to a general devaluing of the trade’s important place in society. Whatever the reasons, we are losing or witnessing the downsizing of important sources of information, arguably at a time when we need them more than ever.
During my 14 years at the helm of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council I came to realize that the battle against government secrecy would never end.
As soon as you’d win one open records or meetings fight, another would pop up in a heartbeat.
….When it comes to clean energy, the Badger State has a unique combination of assets that can help us capitalize on such a plan and lead the way into the new energy future. We have vast renewable energy potential from wind and solar power, the research laboratories to develop new energy technologies, the manufacturing base to build them, and the farms to grow the next generation of fuels.
As President-elect Obama acknowledged in his election-night speech, our country is facing some of the greatest financial challenges in our lifetimes.
The next Congress will make difficult decisions about where to invest and where to cut. Leaders in Wisconsin face similarly vexing questions, as Gov. Jim Doyle anticipates a $5.4 billion shortfall for the upcoming two-year budget cycle.
The simple reality: We’re all going to have to do more with less. For years, the University of Wisconsin System has been doing more for our students with less public support. At our four-year campuses, taxpayers today invest $500 less per student than they did 10 years ago, at a level that is now $1,500 below the national average.
To say last year wasn’t the best men’s basketball season for the Big Ten Conference would be an understatement.
Only four of its teams earned NCAA tournament berths. None advanced further than the Sweet 16. Its RPI as a conference was the worst of the six BCS conferences.
ORLANDO, Fla. â?? The University of Wisconsin football team arrived at the Champs Sports Bowl looking for its first signature victory in a season that was supposed to be full of them.
Well, the Badgers have stopped searching for that statement win, but only because their season ended Saturday without a single victory worth texting home about.
University of Wisconsin sophomore left tackle Gabe Carimi wants to be part of the solution.
But it’s going to take a change in the mistake-filled culture that dragged down the Badgers this season, leading to a 7-6 finish and a humbling 42-13 loss to Florida Staten Saturday in the Champs Sports Bowl.
“Spring ball,” Carimi said firmly, when asked how to stop what is now a two-year downward slide under coach Bret Bielema. “I think we need to preach more â?? I feel to the bottom of my heart â?? we’ve never been known for having the best talent. But we’ve been known for doing things right. Too many times this year, we had too many mental errors. That isn’t how Wisconsin has played.
Think Wisconsin is having buyer’s remorse about the multi-million, multi-year rollover contract it gave Bret Bielema?
All the embarrassments of a regular season gone wrong, the kind of mistakes that should’ve been fixed and therefore redeemed with a month to prepare, were compounded and repeated to an astonishing degree Saturday on the final proving ground for 2008, the Champs Sports Bowl.
Just when there was a realistic expectation for a brighter future, the outlook dimmed like sunshine over Citrus Bowl Stadium as the 42-13 beating by a Florida State team that was Florida State in name only wore into the night.
A source close to the toy industry has once again leaked a copy of Santaâ??s perks list for Wisconsin politicians and newsmakers. Hereâ??s what the good boys and girls in Madison and Washington will reportedly find in their stockings this Christmas week. Chancellor Biddy Martin is on the list for a “long honeymoon.”
Even my overactive imagination gets a little boggled at the possibilities awaiting the occupants of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery and the Morgridge Institute for Research. This is where things get a little science fiction-y as scientists talk of cures for disease and improvements in our bodies and brains. Pretty stimulating stuff.
But the real reason Madison is perfect for some kind of event with Michael Mann and “Public Enemies” is that Madison is where Mann first fell in love with movies and made it his life’s dream to be a director.
I had known Mann was a UW-Madison alumnus, but until the other night, when I saw a documentary on his career on the Reelz channel, I didn’t realize the profound impact Mann’s campus experience had on his career.
Last weekâ??s column about the UW-Madison student who a decade ago won a prize on campus for an idea that would allow snowplows to avoid burying the end of peopleâ??s driveways brought a spirited response.
UW System President Kevin P. Reilly says in an op-ed column: As President-elect Obama acknowledged in his election night speech, our country is facing some of the greatest financial challenges in our lifetimes. The next Congress will make difficult decisions about where to invest and where to cut. Leaders in Wisconsin face similarly vexing questions, as Gov. Jim Doyle expects a $5.4 billion shortfall for the upcoming two-year budget cycle.
The simple reality: We’re all going to have to do more with less.
Column about UW-Madison alumnus Peter Parker, who came up with an invention that would put an end to driveways being buried by snowplows. The competition was the 1996 Schoofs Prize for Creativity in the UW-Madison School of Engineering.
The three-month â??interregnumâ? between Barack Obamaâ??s election and George W. Bushâ??s last day in office makes one long for a parliamentary system, where the defeated prime minister leaves and his successor takes over at once.
Author: John Milton Cooper Jr., a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, is writing a biography of Woodrow Wilson.
….In these tough times, maybe we’re ready to listen more closely to advocates of a system called “steady state economy.” It is described as “a transdisciplinary field of study that addresses the relationships between ecosystems and economic systems in the broadest sense.” In short, it incorporates ecological principles into economic theory and focuses on sustainability.
One of its foremost spokespersons is Brian Czech, a conservation biologist who grew up in the Green Bay area. He got his undergraduate training at UW-Madison and his Ph.D. in renewable natural resources from the University of Arizona. He is a conservation biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech.
Hopefully, everyone knows by now that the Wisconsin State Journal endorsed Barack Obama for president.
….But all the hullabaloo over Obama by this city’s morning newspaper pales in comparison to its recent audacious demand that the University of Wisconsin needs to fire its marching band director, Mike Leckrone, the next time any member of the band steps out of line.
This isn’t the biggest case I’ve brought before the court of public opinion, but it’s been bugging me for a while, so here goes:
Why doesn’t the most dominant, most successful sports program at the University of Wisconsin draw more of an audience?
The women’s hockey team has been to three straight NCAA title games, winning championships in 2005-06 and ’06-07.
Apparently, Plan 2008 â?? the University of Wisconsin Systemâ??s much heralded diversity initiative intended to eradicate educational disparities in the state â?? came up short.
The financial firms were first, now it’s the automakers. We hear estimates of anywhere from 1 million to 3 million jobs at stake, and other industries are lined up to make their own claims about their importance to the long-term health of the economy.
