Category: Opinion

Should College of Engineering students pay higher tuition than other undergraduates? If Engineering Dean Paul Peercy has his way, that would be the case.

After losing faculty members, the College of Engineering left many positions vacant due to lack of funding.

As students head into that happy place known as â??Spring Break,â? the sense of relief is practically palpable. Sleeping, partying and even homework are just waiting to be caught up on. Whether youâ??re headed to Cancun, California or just your parentsâ?? basement, thoughts of campus will, with any luck, be driven far from the collective student mind.

In early March, the Recording Industry Association of America launched a new â??deterrence programâ? to discourage illegal file sharing on college campuses. In response, UW-Madison officials deterred the program itself, refusing to hunt down and turn in the offending IP address users in campus networks. We support the universityâ??s decision, and hope the RIAA recognizes its folly in pressuring UW-Madison officials to infringe on studentsâ?? privacy with pre-litigation letters.

The problem is money. Sanyer said UW-Madison requires international undergraduates to put up nearly $70,000 to be admitted. Now the hope is to have Shoaib enroll at Madison Area Technical College, which is requiring about $10,000 up front.

Segregated fees are continually a hot-button issue â?? and rightfully so. They are the additional charges tacked onto our tuition to fund student activities that, in theory, further the education experience at the university.

The controversy over a University of Wisconsin Law School professor’s remarks has played out painfully for many concerned. Yet, in a very real sense, it has provided an example of much of what is right with the academy.

Much has been said about the new University of Wisconsin holistic admissions policy. Is there even anything left to say? Well, yes. While these pages have been used to simultaneously praise and denounce the new policy, the arguments against it have only hinted at the policyâ??s fundamental flaw: Itâ??s racist.

STOP THE MADNESS. Wait, what madness, stop March Madness? No, â??STOP THE MADNESSâ? is the slogan of a new advertising campaign that reprimands universities for allowing major alcohol corporations to advertise during collegiate athletics. The advocacy ads state the commercials derail attempts to curb high-risk drinking among American youth.

Unless the National Security Agency records college lecturesâ??as it does many digital communicationsâ??we may never know what really happened in professor Leonard Kaplanâ??s controversial Legal Process class Feb. 15.

The large endeavor taken on by The Daily Cardinal to explore campus crime and safety had many goals in mind. We wanted to acknowledge the crime problem on campus, highlight current efforts to keep students safe and, perhaps most importantly, suggest what students and campus officials can do in the future to ensure studentsâ?? safety.

The racial diversity at the University of Wisconsin can only be characterized as shamefully lacking. Itâ??s no secret. According to university statistics, African-Americans and Hispanics make up a mere 6 percent of the student body.

On Monday, University of Wisconsin law professor Leonard Kaplan finally broke his public silence.

On Sunday afternoon, students trudged up and down Spring Street, weighed down by laundry, groceries and backpacks full of books.
I stood in their path, like the scary nagging mom they thought they left at home.

I asked, “Have you heard?”

I told them, “A student said she was attacked here early Saturday morning.”

I demanded, “What are you doing to be safe on campus?”

To a one, all of the dozen or so college girls I talked to said yes, they were aware, and yes they were being more careful about their safety.

A veritable Pandoraâ??s Box of ethnic strife has been opened in the wake of law professor Leonard Kaplanâ??s comments.

A column by Timothy Tyson says:

My first job after getting my Duke Ph.D. was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I taught for 10 years. Wisconsin is the un-Duke: a public school in the Midwest with 40,000 students. But this matter of women getting sexually assaulted by classmates did not change. It was not just a Duke thing.

One of my students at Madison was raped by a highly touted running back and one of his friends. She had dated him before. She let the two men into her apartment. The violence that followed seared her soul. I walked her to classes for two weeks afterward because she was afraid to leave home. The district attorney thought it was “too confusing” to prosecute. I watched her recover, graduate, complete her doctorate and land job offers at major universities across the country. But her pain is still there, eight years later. Not that it matters, but so is mine.

I would like to respond to Emily Friedmanâ??s Thursday column, â??Incident puts UWâ??s dedication to safety in question.â? Emily and I agree on more than we disagree, but there are several points I would like to call attention to.

Newsflash: The University is not proposing a new alcohol policy because you were too hung-over to make that 8:50 class last Friday morning. Rather it is because we have a definite alcohol problem on this campus.

Keeping secrets is a bad idea. First, facts are hardly ever worse than rumors. Second, secrets usually donâ??t stay secrets forever.

Put down that beer and trade it for an ice cold sodaâ??the new alcohol policy brought forth by the Office of the Dean of Students and the Student Organization Office looks to severely limit alcohol consumption among student groups. At least that is what the controversy makes it seem like so far.

Earlier this week, students learned of a new proposal by the University of Wisconsin administrators that would set limitations on the amount of drinking done by student groups.

Spring break is coming up, and if youâ??re anything like me, itâ??s been on your mind since Jan. 22.

With 30-mph wind gusts and temperatures plunging below minus 35 degrees, the past few weeks of Madison weather have certainly been no picnic for UW-Madison students.