Free tuition in exchange for 10 years of living and working in Wisconsin ââ?¬â? sound like a fair deal? This is one of many ideas the state education reform commission is considering to improve Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s schools and economy.
What if Wisconsin voters in the recent election had been asked, as Michigan voters were, to amend the state constitution to “ban public institutions from using affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes”?
Quoted: Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Buildings across campus sport signs proudly proclaiming UW-Madisonââ?¬â?¢s ââ?¬Å?We Conserveââ?¬Â campaign to slash energy consumption 20 percent on a per-square-foot basis by 2010. UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley said the program, announced in May, ââ?¬Å?will encourage smart energy use that will help protect the environment.ââ?¬Â
The Student Rights Coalition published a column Tuesday expressing their distaste for a recent decision by University of Wisconsin Chancellor John Wiley. The group criticized Mr. Wiley for enforcing an order by the Board of Regents to disallow the use of student-segregated fees to fund off-campus facilities for student organizations.
Much of the rhetoric surrounding the gay marriage ban last month claimed that its passage would eliminate the possibility of UW-Madison ever offering its employees domestic partner benefits. In meetings beginning Thursday, the UW Board of Regents may try to skirt the amendment and offer those benefits anyway in its unclassified pay plan.
In writing for the majority in the U.S. Supreme Court�s landmark 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O�Connor found the University of Michigan Law School�s use of affirmative action as part of its admissions process to be constitutional, so long as it is narrowly tailored and not reliant on a quota system (as was the downfall for Grutter�s companion case, Gratz v. Bollinger, in which the court struck down Michigan�s undergraduate bonus point system for minority applicants).
When Tom Flynn hears “Merry Christmas!,” he hears an implied insult coming from conservative Christians reasserting their dominance at a time when America is growing more diverse.Flynn is waging “war on Christmas,” and he says his side, the “Happy holidays!” crowd, is winning.The secular humanist will bring his message to the UW- Madison campus tonight, when he talks about “The Real War on Christmas.”
University of Wisconsin administration sent a memo Nov. 16 to the Student Services Finance Committee (SSFC) stating that university segregated fees can no longer be used to fund the rent of groups in non-university buildings.
Professional poker playerI grew up in Madison. While I now live on the West Coast, I love Madison, return regularly (every Christmas and summer) and will always consider Wisconsin home.It is also the state where I lived my formative years, attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, learned the art of poker at the Memorial Union, and launched my poker-playing career at locations throughout the state.
As second-year medical students at the Medical College of Wisconsin, we speak on behalf of many other medical students in support of the college’s circulatory control laboratory using dogs. An opinion column by three medical students.
Another election season has come and gone. In Wisconsin, there was little intelligent discussion about our environment and how we should protect, manage and use our incredible natural resources to maintain the quality of life and recreational opportunities most Wisconsinites cherish.
….Gov. Jim Doyle and his agencies, along with a new Legislature and new local leadership, now have a responsibility to lay out their vision for Wisconsin’s environment, including what actions they plan and what resources they propose to commit.
(Born is a UW-Madison emeritus professor of planning and environmental studies)
So much to skewer, so little space:
Animal rights activists last week won a court battle moving them closer to opening a “cruelty museum” next to UW-Madison’s primate lab.
It’s a free country. If the activists want to spend a rich California man’s money on a museum virtually no one will go to, so be it. As long as taxpayers aren’t footing a penny of the bill, let the museum fail on its own.
Chancellor John Wiley got two Christmas stockings filled by local Sierra Club Santas this week. One contained more than 700 postcards from students and community members seeking to close the Charter Street coal plant that was the subject of a mid-November permit hearing. And the other was filled with coal.
Engines of Inequality, a report by the non-profit Education Trust, recently gave UW-Madison a poor score for serving African Americans, Hispanics and American Indians.
The report, which focused on the country�s 50 state flagship universities, based its ratings on enrollment and retention rates for minority and low income groups.
You’re a Wisconsin public official who happens to be gay or lesbian.
When the time comes to be sworn in again, you get to swear to uphold a new constitutional amendment that forbids you from forming a marriage or a civil union.
So what do you do?
You’re a Wisconsin public official who happens to be gay or lesbian.
When the time comes to be sworn in again, you get to swear to uphold a new constitutional amendment that forbids you from forming a marriage or a civil union.
So what do you do?
President Bush is expected to sign legislation updating the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, now renamed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. The name change alone is evidence the act is unnecessary and victimizes the rights of protestors by deeming their actions ââ?¬Å?terrorism.ââ?¬Â
Now that animal-rights activists have won the right to buy land for a museum next to UW-Madison’s primate labs, you have to wonder who’s going to visit.
It’s hard to imagine dad offering to pack up the kiddies for a fun day at a display of cruelty to animals.
For those who don�t think dirty political campaigning is a problem in the Midwest, look no further than a recent study conducted by the University of Wisconsin that found especially high rates of political advertising to low rates of election news coverage on television newscasts.
It’s not every day that Wisconsin has a chance to attract a major federal laboratory. It has been more than 30 years since the National Wildlife Health Center was established in Madison, and nearly 100 years since the University of Wisconsin was selected over the University of Michigan as the site for the National Forest Products Laboratory. Both labs have contributed immensely to the world’s knowledge of wildlife diseases and forests – as well as the state’s economy.
Ah, my favorite time of year is finally here. The semester has been long and difficult, but I can finally sit back, relax and vent ââ?¬â? itââ?¬â?¢s time to fill out class evaluation forms.
If you are one of those people hacked off because the University of Wisconsin football team isn’t getting its due this postseason, here’s a glass-half-full thought:
The Badgers may be on the outside looking in at the Bowl Championship Series party – despite winning 11 of 12 games – but just wait until a year from now.
She’s pleased to announce a breakthrough in the “breast wars” at Camp Randall Stadium.
With purple Waukee W’s covering them from head to toe, tireless Mike Hughes, his wife and their two young sons took off for Madison, Wis., last weekend in hopes of catching a few more trademark violators.Officially, Hughes was visiting his old hometown to watch the University of Wisconsin play a football game.
Since I became dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health on July 1, no issue has received more of my attention than the relationship between the school and the Milwaukee community and our role in addressing the health care needs of its underserved populations. A column by Robert Golden.
In his recent state of the university address, Chancellor John Wiley said that he was considering making it mandatory for all students to participate ââ?¬Å?in at least one documentable ââ?¬Ë?out-of-classroom activity.ââ?¬â?¢Ã¢â?¬Â
I don’t know about you, but it rankles me that the juggernaut known as the University of Wisconsin athletic department is picking on little high schools whose names just happen to begin with a W.The W, we are told, particularly the red W that for some absurd reason is called the “motion W,” belongs to the UW Badgers and no one else can use it.
I don’t know about you, but it rankles me that the juggernaut known as the University of Wisconsin athletic department is picking on little high schools whose names just happen to begin with a W.
Even in Madison, the University of Wisconsin’s non-conference football game against Buffalo ranks third on most people’s agendas today, right behind watching Ohio State and Michigan in this year’s Battle of the Century and heading to the woods to help thin the state’s deer herd.
Unlike in 2001, when Cooper was born, Amy Olson was turned away this fall when she wanted to sit in a Camp Randall Stadium first-aid station to pump her breast milk during the game.
On Wednesday evening, more than 60 people took their own time to find the DNR offices, show up for a public hearing, stand up, and be heard. Every last one of those people voiced their concerns about the UW�s antiquated, dirty coal-fired power plant and asked the UW to take a lead on combating global warming, and to start by cleaning up the Charter Street plant
Mentions that Steven Avery was freed in 2003 after University of Wisconsin-Madison students involved in the Innocence Project proved he wasn’t guilty of the rape and assault for which he served 18 years in prison.
ON Nov. 1, just two months shy of its 50th birthday, the plastic pink flamingo went extinct. Or more accurately, it stopped reproducing, when its manufacturer, Union Products, shut down the factory in Leominster, Mass.
While the rest of the University of Wisconsin campus was going about yesterday like any other day ââ?¬â? attending class, studying at the library and going to work ââ?¬â? a fellow Badgerââ?¬â?¢s life came to an abrupt end.
My university is extremely disappointed — in me. And that is not fair.
After months of deliberation over my position on the state’s ballot initiative concerning the definition and recognition of marriage in Wisconsin, I voted “yes” on Nov. 7.
Yesterday, the Associated Students of Madison Student Judiciary decided to uphold the election results from the Student Union Initiative referendum that students voted on in October.
I do get mad, but I also like to get even.
That’s why I’m saluting the folks over at Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, the girls of Alpha Chi Omega on the UW-Madison campus, and Avon.
Not far from where I live, two girls live with their undocumented immigrant parents from Mexico in a rented cottage behind a city duplex.
Maria, 7, is in the second grade at a Milwaukee public school. She speaks Spanish at home while rapidly attaining English fluency at school. She is bright, social and intelligent.
Imagine who Maria could be in 10 years – confident, close to her family and recently accepted to the state’s best university, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is one of many diverse faces of the next generation of Americans – Hispanic, bilingual and educated, despite coming from what many Americans would consider a very poor background.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley�s State of the University speech Monday was impressive overall, but had an important flaw.
I recently chaired a committee of the National Academies – the research complex that includes the National Academy of Sciences – that was charged with gathering and analyzing the best available information on the status of women in academic science and engineering.
To prove once more that the media wouldn’t know a good story if it smacked it upside the head like a Britney Spears text message to Kevin Federline’s chops, Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema says he has been asked about his Hawkeyes tattoo all of three times during Iowa week.
Step aside Florida 2000ââ?¬â?The case seeking to overturn the Student Union Initiative, Elliott v. Student Elections Commission, is challenging legitimate election results for baseless reasons.
Six students stepped forward last week to challenge SUI�s election campaign, citing five petitions that they argue should nullify the student vote.
As increasing late-night violence threatens the safety of UW-Madison students, the Madison Police Department is joining forces with a number of fraternities to provide more resources to help students avoid danger.
BARRING the discovery of a secret cache of uncounted ballots in Northern Virginia, the Democrats will have control of the US� Congress for the first time since 1994.
Professor Kenneth R. Mayer, of the Political Science Department, University of Wisconsin, Madison, is the visiting Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Political Science at the Australian National University, Canberra.
Wisconsin’s war on those wascally wobbers who are making off with Wisconsin’s “motion W” has expanded far beyond that wily corn growing state to our west.
It is a sorry state of affairs for the First Amendment on the University of Wisconsin campus.
Halloween is over and, surprisingly, ended without pepper spray or riots ââ?¬â? an achievement that students and city officials should be proud of. With that said, it is now time for Madison officials to put away their riot gear and return to the more pertinent issues facing the downtown area.
You may not have noticed UW- Madison has eight teams ranked nationally in the top 25 of their sports. Say what you want about the meaning of polls and ratings, but that’s pretty impressive.
At 2:00 a.m., pre-daylight savings time Sunday morning, the 500 Block of State Street looked like a bad case of dÃ?©jÃ? vu. A frenzied crowd of partiers alternatively chanted ââ?¬Å?Fuck the policeââ?¬Â and ââ?¬Å?We want tear gasââ?¬Â while throwing chunks of pumpkin and debris from the street.
Whew, it worked.
The city of Madison successfully executed Mayor Dave Cieslewicz�s plan for Halloween 2006, and despite some reservations about the new system, the night went off without a hitch.
The sculpture of Barry Alvarez that stands outside the main entrance to Camp Randall Stadium is remarkable not only in its detail, but its message.
From the pair of regulation Adidas shoes on his feet, to the watch on his left wrist that says it’s 7:24, to the stressed expression on his face, Alvarez looks much like he did on the sidelines during his final seasons as University of Wisconsin football coach.
Early on during the 20 or so years I worked in Washington, D.C., I concluded that the main function of the many statues in that monument-obsessed city is to give pigeons a place to poop.
Here in Madison, we know the two statues recently erected at the University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall — one a tower of spheroid objects, the other a likeness of former coach and current athletic director Barry Alvarez — serve a higher purpose. That would be the glorification of big-time college football.
Can you feel it yet? That ââ?¬Å?itââ?¬Â is a spotlight honed in on Madison from the national media as a result of recent events that have taken place at the university.
Diversity is a notoriously sticky issue on campus, and the university deserves to be commended for its continual willingness to grapple with it.
The last day that I spent with Paul Wellstone began on a sunny morning in the living room of his St. Paul home. I’d arrived to join him as he campaigned for re-election in what was widely seen as the most hotly contested Senate race in the nation.
….This week, as we mark the fourth anniversary of his death in a Minnesota plane crash, stem cell research is finally emerging as the sort of political issue that Wellstone thought it should be.
And Michael J. Fox, whose book the senator was reading on that sunny morning that now seems so very long ago, is at the center of the debate. This week, Fox began appearing in televised campaign commercials for Democratic supporters of embryonic stem cell research including Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle who are locked in tight races with Republicans who want to limit support for scientific inquiry.
After months of planning and speculation, Halloween 2006 is finally upon us. Considering the blitz of national and local news coverage highlighting the negative aspects of the party, it�s easy to forget it hasn�t always ended with pepper spray.
Wisconsin deserves a competitive edge in the knowledge economy, and the University of Wisconsin System and its institutions are ready to lead the way. The solution we are proposing to the Wisconsin Legislature is a “Growth Agenda for Wisconsin” that will contribute to the state’s economy in three ways.
After taking numerous classes at this university, chances are at one point you have taken a class in which a professor gave a lecture or assigned a book that you did not agree with.
