With all due respect to the lawmakers now proposing various incentives to force their colleagues to do their jobs and pass a state budget in respectable amount of time we have to wonder if it will really matter. We applaud the intentions of State Representatives Joe Parisi, Jennifer Shilling, Mark Pocan, Dean Kaufert, Louis Molepski and others who are clearly feeling the heat from constituents and citizen throughout Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has now entered its fourth month without a budget for 2008, leaving the state with last yearâ??s provisions and a guarantee for fiscal failure before next summer. Students can be forgiven for largely ignoring the political spitting match unfolding between Democrats and Republicans at the Capitol since July, but now the budget â??impasseâ? threatens to directly affect UW-Madison, and it is time to take note.
Wisconsin has now entered its fourth month without a budget for 2008, leaving the state with last yearâ??s provisions and a guarantee for fiscal failure before next summer. Students can be forgiven for largely ignoring the political spitting match unfolding between Democrats and Republicans at the Capitol since July, but now the budget â??impasseâ? threatens to directly affect UW-Madison, and it is time to take note.
I donâ??t mean to shock anyone, but Wisconsin is a pretty white state. Itâ??s telling that the University of Wisconsin, which itself is nearly 90 percent white, seemed like an oasis of diversity when I first moved here from my Green Bay suburb.
Here’s another example of why we know that Wisconsin legislators have too much time on their hands.
Rep. Frank Lasee, the same guy who wants to do away with the UW Law School because he feels we have more lawyers than locusts, e-mailed a letter to the Brown Deer School Board a few weeks ago “to bring to its attention” that black students at the school were, he claimed, having sex in a segregated hallway at its high school.
In the past week, sections of UW-Madison campus were locked down twice. The first was last Tuesday after Jesse A. Miller called the Dane County Crisis Center and saying he was at the UW Hospital, had a weapon and wanted to be killed by police.
The second occurred Friday after a man robbed an Italian deli on Regent Street. Following the robbery, police locked down the Welcome Center, Newell Smith Residence Hall and Ogg Hall because a suspect of interest was inside the Center.
Over the last few weeks, Bret Bielemaâ??s thoughtless, harmful comments regarding the violent actions of UW Badger running back Lance Smith have made it perfectly clear where his priorities lie: The head football coach certainly doesnâ??t care about the devastation of domestic abuse when football is at stake.
Wisconsin ‘s military veterans deserve our gratitude and support. One way we recognize their sacrifice is by helping them earn their college degrees. Those educational benefits should be preserved, and they should be paid for.
Together with state legislators on both sides of the political aisle, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has steadfastly supported veterans.
With time running out in the first half, University of Wisconsin wide receiver Kyle Jefferson ran a shallow crosser; a high percentage throw designed to create a mismatch in space. Releasing off the line of scrimmage, Jefferson came under the route of tight end Travis Beckum and worked his pattern, from right to left, across the middle of the field. Jefferson barely avoided contact with the umpire (Jim Krogstad) before catching the ball. As he turned up field, Jefferson was flattened by Michigan State strong safety Nehemiah Warrick (No. 3) who clearly led with his head, thus producing the impetus for a helmet-on-helmet collision.
What happened next should not have been open to interpretation during Saturday’s game at Camp Randall Stadium. Warrick’s hit was illegal and the Spartans should have been penalized 15 yards.
I’ve got an idea for those Saturday night football games that are scheduled solely for the benefit of corporate television.
Since the games are aimed at nothing more than padding the bottom lines of the networks and the NCAA’s Division 1 schools, then what could be more fair than sending them the bills for the costs incurred by the cities in which the universities are located?
Why should Disney-owned ABC, the NCAA, the Big Ten and the UW’s athletic department, for example, make a bunch of extra bucks while the taxpayers of Madison pick up the tab for extra cops, overstaffed detox centers, and the dozens of other added costs that those late games in college cities require?
Student rights are under attack. Thatâ??s right, I said it.
Dean of Students Lori Berquamâ??s recent comments on student activism indicate that either she is willfully ignorant of student organizing around issues affecting this campus or she would prefer to divert attention away from campuswide activism completely.
Ald. Mike Verveer admits “the timing is absolutely atrocious, it couldn’t be worse.”
On Sept. 19, just hours after voting for a Alcohol Density Plan that Verveer promised would stop State Street from turning into Bourbon Street by freezing the number of taverns, he voted with the majority of the city Alcohol License Review Committee to allow Madhatters tavern to open at 651 State Street.
And if the timing is bad, the location is worse.
her piece, Ms. Turcotte describes the moral oppression of the universityâ??s policy toward drinking. The policy states that if a student is ejected from or receives a ticket during a football game, the student will take a Breathalyzer test before they enter the stadium for the next game.
I got out of work around 9 last night, ushering for a show in the Humanities building. Before I left, I checked my phone, as many do religiously. Seeing that no one had called, I began my walk home. It was dark out and the sidewalks eerily empty, although Iâ??ve never felt particularly uneasy at night in Madison. I arrived at my dorm to a group of house fellows asking if I was aware of what was happening on campus. They informed me of the suicidal man, the campus lockdown and the additional information that could be found on the University of Wisconisnâ??s webpage.
Roger Tikum does have family here, including his wife, Green Bay native Adriana Peguero. The two met as UW-Madison students, where she earned a law degree and he earned a degree in economics. They married in 2003. Tikum worked with disabled people for TLC Community Living Connections; Peguero is an assistant city attorney.
You may have heard about UWâ??s new questionably titled â??Show and Blowâ? policy, which requires students with a previous ejection or citation during a football game to blow into a Breathalyzer before games to prove sobriety. Mess up just once and youâ??ll be blowing into a tube for the police before kickoff.
Lori Berquam ought to be careful what she wishes for.
One week ago, this newspaper ran a news story in which Ms. Berquam, the University of Wisconsin dean of students, bemoaned the lack of student activism regarding the ongoing war in Iraq.
Ethnic movies at Memorial Union, live international bands on the terrace and a variety of food stands on State Street are just some of the perks of attending school at UW-Madison. After being immersed in other cultures, I did not anticipate seeing the outright bigotry as I have.
Thanks to years of bashing from political opportunists in the state Legislature, the University of Wisconsin has a public relations problem on its hand.
Legislative leaders, particularly on the Republican side, have succeeded in cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from the UW’s budget over the years. Unfortunately, not enough people are bringing pressure to bear on those politicians who find sport in bashing and cutting one of the state’s crown jewels.
Wisconsin lawmakers are not much closer to finalizing a budget today than they were two and a half months ago, when the 2007-09 biennial budget was supposed to take effect. Senate Democrats continue to demand increased funding for the UW System, stewardship and health care while Assembly Republicans continue to demand a budget that works â??within the means of taxpayers.â?
I was reading the Wisconsin State Journal this weekend, and a column by Scott Milfred caught my attention. In the column, he argues that Republican legislators must be careful when criticizing the University of Wisconsin because Bucky will bite back.
The deadline for fall tuition has passed for many universities in the UW System, but with the state budget in deadlock, as many as 5,000 students are still unsure if they will be able to completely finance their first semester.
Part of the ongoing confusion regarding the state of Wisconsinâ??s 2007-09 budget involves a proposal meant to increase the safety of University of Wisconsin-Madison students and downtown residents.
The Kauffman Foundation has already stepped into the Wisconsin scene by helping to get the Urban Entrepreneur Partnership going in Milwaukee by giving a $5 million grant to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of a five-year, $30 million program to make entrepreneurship available to all parts of the university, not just the business school.
Conservatives have long accused college professors of turning young minds into liberal mush.
But a much more real and direct threat to the right wing are the professors ‘ wallets.
University employees are giving far more money to political campaigns than a decade ago. They ‘re actually giving more than the oil industry and drugmakers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks donations.
The surprise came a bit late. Usually the Russian political system is upended in August, but this year we had to wait until the second week of September to discover who would replace the inevitably outgoing prime minister, Mikhail Fradkov. But a surprise it was, nonetheless.
Author: Scott Gehlbach is assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsinâ??Madison
The University of Wisconsin is the only Big Ten Conference school that does not have a Division I baseball program. Baseball is Americaâ??s national pastime, yet one of the nationâ??s premiere universities boasts no baseball team. How can that be?
….One of the issues, it seems, is that no one is taking ownership of this problem. Gov. Jim Doyle should either step in himself or direct someone else in authority to deal with it.
This is, after all, a facility owned by the taxpayers of Wisconsin, not some private corporation.
There’s no excuse for a UW facility, especially one that harbors some of the top engineering and environmental minds in the country, to be a major polluter of our air and water.
Dear Editor: Rep. Frank Lasee’s recent proposal to cut funding for Wisconsin’s one public law school because there are “too many lawyers” attempted to draw on popular negative sentiments toward lawyers.
While Lasee’s proposal has few if any supporters in the Capitol, there is likely broad agreement that it is always best to resolve disputes without the expense and drama that attorneys bring.
For this reason, Lasee and others should support the state Senate proposal to extend collective bargaining rights to University of Wisconsin faculty and academic staff since there’s robust evidence that the process of collective bargaining lends itself to more expeditious and less costly resolutions of conflict.
Love has a way of pushing us out of our comfort zone and making us do things that are daunting and scary and selfless.
It explains why Tyler Turner found himself at the wheel of a rental car, driving through a wintry March night from suburban Detroit to Lake Placid, N.Y.
Turner had just capped his University of Wisconsin wrestling career in euphoric fashion, earning All-America honors with a sixth-place finish at 149 pounds.
As the new academic year kicks off, University of Wisconsin students have high hopes for an enjoyable start to the semester. As penny-pinching college students, we are always looking for a bargain. Unfortunately, our tuition is still mounting, and relief is nowhere in sight.
It is old news that the state budget is in limbo. It is two months past the due date, and Wisconsin is the only state to be tardy in producing a budget. The question now is, who or what is to blame. Many are quick to blame the Republicans and Democrats for reaching an uncomfortable stalemate.
After indulging myself in HBOâ??s â??Hard Knocks,â? I have come to two realizations: The NFL depth chart is the most scrutinized aspect of the sports world, and it is a near impossibility that the time spent altering a teamâ??s depth chart eclipses the amount of time I have spent modifying my class schedule.
….This Legislature shouldn’t always be looking for new ways to close the doors on higher education. Let’s swing them open and make sure the sons and daughters of Wisconsin’s hard-working families have the opportunity to earn an affordable college degree.
If we’re serious about growing our economy and bringing new jobs to the Badger State, we better get serious about the University of Wisconsin.
….Investing in the University of Wisconsin and making college more affordable and accessible should be values everyone in the Legislature shares.
If it weren’t for the fact that everywhere you turn, you — and your kids — can see and hear beer advertising, I could get excited about those Madison city buses wrapped in a Miller Genuine Draft ad.
Let’s not come unraveled, though, over a beer ad that is presumably helping to keep bus fares down because it might corrupt the children.
….We pack our kids off to college and tell them not to touch a drink until they’re of legal age, even when they’re walking past all those tailgate parties on the way to the football game or sitting behind the Memorial Union with a 21-year-old classmate or two.
Critics on Wall Street have often quipped that the Ford Motor Co. is not a car company with health care problems but a health care company with car trouble. Strangely, the universities of the Big Ten sports conference seem to be in danger of falling prey to a similar problem as they launch an expensive new sports channel: becoming a publicly funded sports franchise with classrooms.
For four months this year, while Congress was overhauling student loan laws, I traveled the country in a beat-up RV meeting with citizens and legislators. My mission was simple: Persuade Congress to restore consumer protections to student loan borrowers. After 22,000 miles, 42 states and five flat tires, I can’t help but feel that my efforts were a waste of time. And gas.
The recent State Journal story on ethanol should have read, “Are we too energy dependent?” The answer is yes. Wisconsin consumers paid $19 billion for energy in 2005 with at least $12 billion leaving the state, costing us 300,000 jobs.
Wisconsinites can take pride in so many of our state ‘s achievements, but our drinking status is not among them. The Badger state regularly lands at or near the top of national rankings on high-risk or heavy drinking, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And it ‘s not just college students
Head coach Bret Bielema made an example of Jamal Cooper last weekend when he dismissed Cooper for conduct detrimental to the team. Although Bielema decided to kick Cooper off the team, this was not his first infraction.
With effort, tax cutters and easy-answer advocates could learn the value of genuine partnership and mutual service.
Like time and money, such relationships are the alpha and omega of a vibrant community life.
And state support of the university can get us from here . . . to there, according to a column by Richard S. Brooks, the 2006 recipient of the Robert Heidemann Award of Excellence in Public Service at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is an outreach program manager in the division of continuing studies and teaches service learning.
Madison-based movie producer Nick Langholff helped make a dream come true for UW-Madison senior Justin Daering this week.
Daering, a Verona native, had saved some money and was trying to make a film, but things weren’t working out. So Langholff stepped in to help.
“We met at my office above Mickey’s Tavern and I told him that I get to spend whatever amount he has, however I can. I ‘ll hire everybody,” Langholff says. “And I guaranteed him, It will feel like you ‘re spending three to four times the amount.'”
In one sense, the public stare-down between the soon-to-be-launched Big Ten Network and the nation’s cable television providers is reminiscent of the contract battles between the owners and players in professional sports.
It’s hard for the little guy to figure out which side to root for when billionaires are fighting millionaires over who gets a greater share of the pie.
….It makes good sense that the state should encourage new businesses to emerge from the wellspring of research and innovation that erupts from the university. A friend of mine left the university in the late 1990s, mortgaged all his family’s worldly assets and, with seven employees, started a medical products company that now has 500 employees and assets of $1.8 billion.
But what if the state had been unwilling to invest in the university infrastructure that supported his education and research all those years prior to his start-up? What if the sagebrush rebels that impoverished university systems all across the western United States had succeeded in crippling the University of Wisconsin’s budget such that his professors had left, his program was cut prematurely, or his research had not reached the necessary level of development?
Tommy Thompson and I — and actually, most of my social friends — attended UW-Madison at approximately the same time. Even Vice President Cheney was on campus at that time.
Longtime reader Chris Wren is alarmed, and the rest of us should be, too. Wren caught the op-ed column by Stanley Fish in the New York Times on Aug. 1 about the sad state of affairs in the Florida state university system.
“The following comment caught my attention,” Wren wrote.
“Florida does not have a single campus that measures up to the best schools in the systems of Virginia, Wisconsin and Georgia, never mind first-tier states like California, Michigan and North Carolina. Climbing that hill will be an arduous task, and the key will be a persistence few states are up to.”
So, there we have it, Wren commented. “A new motto in the making: ‘UW: Setting the standard of excellence for the second tier,'” he complained.
Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Unfortunately, in the University of Wisconsin System, we have reached critical mass on the insanity meter.
Faculty begin each academic year believing that shared governance means we have a say in what happens on campus. (It doesn’t.) The Republicans in the Legislature begin each biennium by casting their first stones at UW System faculty and academic staff. When will faculty members wise up and realize that collective bargaining will actually give us a say in what goes on and will remove the bull’s-eye painted on our backsides?
Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Unfortunately, in the University of Wisconsin System, we have reached critical mass on the insanity meter.
Santa Monica, Calif. – Faced with dwindling federal support for research, more and more states like Wisconsin are stepping up to fill the shortfall with state money. But as state commitments soar higher and higher, a basic question often is left unanswered.
Who should control, profit, and otherwise benefit from discoveries made in state-funded laboratories across Wisconsin? How you settle such matters are known as intellectual property policy, and like most states, Wisconsin apparently doesn’t have a coherent, across-the-board policy.
Author: Theodore P. Gerber is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
On Monday night’s “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert listed badgers as his No. 1 threat of the week in his “Threat Down,” citing an Australian report of human flesh-eating badgers terrorizing the Iraqi port city of Basra.
Citing the importance of fighting the badgers “over there” so “they don’t burrow here,” he changed his tune mid-sentence.
“Just to be safe, as a preemptive measure, I say we carpet bomb the University of Wisconsin,” added Colbert. “Bucky. Bucky — that sounds like an Arab name.”
The facts simply don’t support the State Journal’s July 24 editorial praising the so-called “Video Competition” bill. A column co-written by telecommunications expert Barry Orton.
It ‘s not news that Rep. Frank Lasee hates lawyers.
On his blog, he compares them to “a plague of locusts. ”
The Green Bay Republican says we ought to cut the UW-Madison Law School out of the state budget because we have more than enough lawyers already.
In July 1971, Henry Kissinger, acting as President Nixon’s special representative, secretly traveled to Beijing. Kissinger’s voyage provided the basis for a dramatic opening in relations between the United States and China – two nations estranged from one another for more than 20 years.
Convulsed by internal upheavals and surrounded by regional threats, Chinese leaders viewed relations with Washington as a possible anchor for stability.
Some people might be surprised to realize what I have in common with bandleader Lawrence Welk, author Andrew Sullivan and radio host Larry Meiller.
Recently, the state Assembly proposed a version of the 2007-09 state budget that makes $120 million in cuts to the University of Wisconsin System. As part of those proposed reductions, this budget slashes all state support from a number of fine educational programs.
Historian Jeremi Suri writes:
President Bush confronts a civil war in Iraq with no end in sight, American standing abroad has plummeted and domestic opposition to present policies is growing. America’s long time adversary, Iran, similarly contends with a clash of generations and worldviews at home, as well as a cast of external challengers, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council.
Leaders in Washington and Tehran need one another. The White House should pursue a “China opening” with Iran.
My first reaction to last summer’s news that former UW-Madison scientist Denice Denton had committed suicide by jumping off San Francisco’s tallest apartment building was disbelief.
Wisconsinâ??s families want, and deserve change. But instead of charting a new course during this budget season, the Republicans who have been running the State Assembly since 1995 are up to the same old tired budget games they have been playing for the past 12 years, the Assembly’s Assistant Minority Leader Jon Richards says in a column.
They passed a state budget in the Assembly that is chock full of accounting tricks, bad policy and pork-barrel spending and deep cuts to vital services. It contains off-the-wall ideas like ending state support for the University of Wisconsin Law School and for the AMBER alert system. At the end of the day it will threaten the long term financial stability of our state and force cuts to the priorities that middle class families in our state care most about.
But the most troubling finding from the University of Wisconsin survey is that people who hold fatalistic beliefs about cancer are more likely to put their lives at risk by smoking, not eating enough fruits and vegetables, and making other unhealthy choices.
President Bush confronts a civil war in Iraq with no end in sight, American standing abroad has plummeted, and domestic opposition to present policies is growing, even within the highest ranks of the Republican Party. America’s long time adversary, Iran, similarly contends with a clash of generations and worldviews at home, as well as a cast of external challengers, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council. Leaders in Washington and Tehran need one another. The White House should pursue a “China opening” with Iran.
