Controversy has beset The Badger Herald for publishing an editorial accompanied by a cartoon of Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as bomb. Critics have hurled several accusations at the Herald, including questions about the timing of the speech act, the motivations of the editorial board and the claim that the board could have achieved its purpose by describing the image rather than publishing it.
Colorado squeezed its state finances into a straitjacket called the taxpayer bill of rights in 1992. TABOR, a constitutional amendment limiting the growth in public revenue, worked even better than advertised. Government shrunk drastically.
There were side effects, however – fiscal and political. First, services – health care, roads and bridges, schools and universities – worsened. Next, for the first time in 30 years, the Republican Legislature turned Democratic.
Two politicians believe university administrators should respond to a ââ?¬Å?higher callingââ?¬Â rather than a higher paycheck in serving the University. State Reps. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia, and Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, have introduced two separate bills that suggest capping state-funded administrative salaries.
Yet, public education administrators already responded to a higher calling: leadership in higher education. For this civil service, top administrators deserve competitive compensation supplied by the state, not private donors.
Last Thursday, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents� Business, Finance and Audit Committee assembled to discuss lowering nonresident student tuition and adjusting UW executive salaries. The committee voted and concluded 5-1 that the tuition decrease will take effect at every UW campus except UW-Madison for the 2006-07 school year and made a unanimous decision to raise pay ranges for top administrative positions that will take be effective July 1, 2006. On Monday, Rep. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, announced plans to introduce a bill that would limit the arranged salary increases proposed by the Board.
The two issues here reflect very different subjects. The resolution on tuition will benefit UW schools in more ways than one. First off, the draw to UW schools will increase for out-of-state students while not decreasing the number of in-state students.
The University of Wisconsin is competitive in pretty much everything. Our academics, athletic teams and even our party habits are ranked nationally. It�s about time our campus begins to compete with other universities nationwide in yet another category: campus development.
We lack adequate dorm space for incoming students, apartment space for older students, retail stores that make life more convenient for students, parking, reliable transportation and a centrally located health center. With class sizes growing each year, UW has no choice but to develop the campus and the surrounding areas to not only cater to the studentsââ?¬â?¢ wishes but also make UW a more aesthetically pleasing place ââ?¬â? or simply one that looks like it has finally left the 1970s behind.
Entrepreneurial? The People’s Republic of Madison, entrepreneurial?
Yes, argue some people close to Wisconsin’s growing biotech industry: The reason research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has led to a slew of new companies is that the university and the community are congenial to entrepreneurs. The rest of Wisconsin can take a lesson from that.
“Our policies,” says Phil Sobocinski, assistant director of the UW Office of Corporate Relations, “are all entrepreneur-friendly.”
They’ve been to Ireland and China and the thoughts of creative class guru Richard Florida, and Milwaukee’s leaders are urgent that we need more brainpower.
People in Wisconsin’s largest city are way behind on getting degrees, our graduates leave and our economy’s in danger of looking at Mississippi’s taillights.
Well, here we go again. The taxpayers bill of rights, or some form of it, is back on the table in the Wisconsin Legislature.
While I have serious problems with such legislation in general and am sure that it will have negative consequences for both taxpayers and state and local government, I am most frustrated with the narrow scope of the discussion surrounding the debate.
Rep. Jeff Wood argues for the need for constitutional revenue limits. Quoted is Andrew Reschovsky, professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a critic of TABOR.
The president’s ââ?¬Å?broad-gauged initiativeââ?¬Â to teach Americans through language training to be more culturally aware of exotic countries ââ?¬â? in order to spread democracy there ââ?¬â? would distort the market for specialty linguists and be a waste of tax dollars.
(Ivan Eland is director of the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute, a think tank based in Washington.)
Students are flocking to newly formed Arabic classes on high school and college campuses. But in the best programs, only 25% of first-year students reach the third-year level. In a majority of college programs, students have no choice but to stop after the first year because their university doesn’t offer a second year.
At the Madison Greyhound station, riders frequently play checkers as they wait in the depot. In lieu of checkers pieces, white riders square themselves on the west side of the station, while metaphorical black checkers follow suit, taking seats on the east side.
It seems like too often the curricula and teaching methods of today�s university professors are selectively critiqued by supervisors who have little insight into what constitutes the appropriate content and atmosphere of a college classroom. The raging debate over academic freedom has spawned an influx in public pressure to manipulate teachers� coursework for means of centrism. Cries of political bias in the classroom have caused many lecturers to become virtually paranoid in what they say and how they say it.
The Republican legislators who find great sport in bashing the University of Wisconsin ought to take a look at a column in this month’s Inc. magazine, one of the nation’s leading business journals.
The Steve Nashes, Ron Kreibichs and Robert Cowleses of the world might be interested in knowing that the UW does a remarkable job translating its research and patents into business development and job creation, something that’s usually near and dear to a Republican’s heart. But they’d rather punish the school over social and personnel policies that don’t fit their own prejudices.
Did the Irish read the Wisconsin Blue Ribbon Report on Jobs for the 21st Century, published back in 1997?
The strategic blueprint laid out almost a decade ago sounds like a carbon copy of the strategy that has propelled Ireland to the top of the prosperity pyramid in Europe.
The Irish have been focused. They have beefed up investments in universities. We have been going the other way, except for the BioStar initiative at UW-Madison.
Curiosities column: Produced by University Communications.
There is a school of thought out there that Bret Bielema isn’t the right man to replace Barry Alvarez as football coach at the University of Wisconsin, a belief based almost entirely on the fact that UW’s defense – Bielema’s defense – fell apart last season.
If current trends continue, by 2010 more than 90% of the world’s scientists and engineers will live in Asia, warns the Business Roundtable, which represents the nation’s leading companies. Failing to reverse that trend will result in a ââ?¬Å?slow witheringââ?¬Â of U.S. economic might, the group warns. Strong stuff. And that’s just the beginning of the complaints from the business community.
Glaringly absent from his pep talk were any incentives or enthusiasm for stem-cell research, which shows such promise here in Wisconsin.
Instead, Bush announced his steadfast opposition to “human cloning in all its forms.” What that apparently and unfortunately means is that therapeutic cloning at UW-Madison won’t get federal help. That’s wrong because the technology, involving days-old embryos created by injecting human eggs with a living person’s cell to grow stem cells, can combat terrible disease and afflictions.
….If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 44 years in this business, the quickest way to spread disinformation, gossip and rumors is for public institutions to hold secrets, a fact too often ignored by the otherwise publicity-seeking UW Athletic Department.
Today, we’re giving out awards for bad math, good intentions and bad intentions that look good.
Gov. Jim Doyle wants to promote embryonic stem-cell research in Wisconsin.
In his recent State of the State address, the governor pledged to spend $5 million taxpayer dollars to “find, fund, and recruit” stem-cell companies. He expects high gains for the state in money and prestige, especially at the University of Wisconsin, a major hub of embryonic cell research.
Student speech codes were supposed to be a thing of the past on this campus. But sometimes the causes of repression continue to rear their problematic heads ââ?¬â? often in a different form.
In order to flush a truly humiliating experience out of your system, you need to tear it down, examine it from every angle, give it some context and move on.
Since disciples of the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team have already razed and analyzed that 62-55 non-conference loss to North Dakota State Saturday at the Kohl Center, here is some context: It was the biggest upset loss, in any major sport, in the modern era of UW sports.
When the search and screen committee for a new provost reported back with a list of three candidates that did not include Virginia Sapiro, an active wound was inflicted upon the University of Wisconsin by denying the most qualified applicant the job that she would so ably perform.
A TREND TOWARD privatization and a shift in spending priorities is putting California’s public colleges and universities at risk of forsaking their mandate to deliver a quality public education to the state’s growing ranks of would-be college students.
Author: Paul Boyer is professor of history emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
When Gov. Doyle announced his “Wisconsin Covenant” to help teenagers go to college, Republicans suspiciously asked how he would pay for it.
Nice touch by new University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema to announce his assistants one at a time. Not only does each new face and resume get enhanced, it puts the program on the front page for days at a time when things are ordinarily quiet. …
Mitch, a 2003 UW-Madison Law School graduate, changed his name during college, legally taking the nickname friends gave him by shortening his former last name Mitchell. “I was an orphan, my father passed away when I was young and my mother got sick and passed away when I was a teen. I finished high school, college and law school on my own.”
Although he worked a mere quarter of the year in Madison, Paul Barrows did much to harm the University of Wisconsin in 2005. The actions of the former vice chancellor for student affairs, who spent last summer embroiled in a high-profile scandal over allegations of inappropriate behavior with a graduate student and coworkers, led more than a few officials in the state Capitol to publicly criticize the school.
If ever a school needed a year to end, it was the University of Wisconsin System in 2005. In what will surely go down as one of the most trying and difficult years in school annals, UW became a personal punching bag for the media, lawmakers and others throughout the state as one sordid scandal after another erupted in headlines throughout the year.
If you have the time and know where to look, you can easily find hundreds of statistics to define the now completed career of Barry Alvarez as University of Wisconsin football coach.
Some are obvious: Alvarez led the Badgers to 118 victories in 16 seasons and had a .520 winning percentage in Big Ten Conference games (65-60-3).
It is true that the United States is losing its advantage in drawing foreign students, but a major point was not stressed enough in USA TODAY’s recent article (ââ?¬Å?USA losing its advantage drawing foreign students,ââ?¬Â News, Jan 6).
(In letters to the editor.)
MADISON ââ?¬â?? The world now knows about Hwang Woo-suk, the South Korean researcher whose stem cell work may have been falsified. It was a confidence-shaking revelation for some who support human embryonic stem cell research, and a gleeful ââ?¬Å?I-told-you-soââ?¬Â opportunity for those who do not.
If thereââ?¬â?¢s a positive side to the alleged research abuses in South Korea, it is the contrast with how stem cell science is conducted elsewhere. Hwangââ?¬â?¢s transgressions support what bona fide researchers in the United States have been saying all along: ââ?¬Å?We operate under clear, ethical rules that may take longer to produce research results, but you can count on those results once theyââ?¬â?¢re announced.ââ?¬Â
Legislation championed by Sen. John McCain to stop physical abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody around the world was signed into law nine days ago by President Bush. It marks the third time in 30 years that Congress has voted to prohibit torture. Twice before, in 1975 and 1994, investigations of horrific abuse, secret prisons and CIA complicity led to legislation with hidden loopholes — a history we may be about to repeat.
Alfred W. McCoy is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror.”
Chairman Dick Wagner said that while the committee has learned that Madison has an official flower, the Babcock hollyhock, no one seems to grow them anymore. The plants were named after famed UW-Madison agricultural chemist Stephen Babcock. You can see photos of the tall, deep- pink flowers on the UW-Madison Web site, but no one seems to know where to find any seeds.
It’s the dawn of a new year, when anything seems possible, even reforming our oldest and worst habits.
MADISON, Wis. — Before I transferred to the University of Wisconsin, I had visited the campus several times to see some of my friends who had made the wise decision to attend college in Madison.
David Cox, professor of biochemistry:
Even though the conclusion seemed pre-ordained, it was with no small measure of relief that I read about Judge John Jones’s decision banning the inclusion of intelligent design in the science classrooms of the school district in Dover, Pa. Unfortunately, I know this one decision won’t end the conflict, but it is nevertheless a welcome development.
Christmas is past, and the new year soon to arrive. It’s time for a long winter’s nap and some comforting dreams about how the datelines of 2006 might read. Wake me up Jan. 2, when the Badgers play. Please save some eggnog.
Hmmm, let’s see …
….MADISON – UW United, a new organization comprising University of Wisconsin System alumni, announced today a statewide effort to build support for Wisconsin’s higher education system. It’s time to end decades of erosion in support for the system, organizers said, promising to target legislators who have sought to dismantle the system.
Lawyer jokes aren’t just good for a laugh — they can tell us much about the state of the legal profession. In researching my new book, “Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture,” I found that the preeminent subject of jokes set in large law firms is the tension between older partners and younger associates.
My various mailboxes are not just filled with bills, electronic spam, catalogues, press releases and the stray holiday card these days.
They also are crammed with sarcasm, ridicule, anger, profanity and protest, all in the name of readers blowing off some steam.
Jacqueline King is a researcher who carefully sifts data for the American Council on Education in search of trends that colleges and universities might find helpful. One recent discovery jumped out: Over the past eight years, the percentage of middle-class males on campus shifted dramatically downward. Even more surprising, the sharpest drop occurred among white males.
….If nothing else, the Christmas card tradition seems to force us to renew old friendships, get up to date on growing families and, yes, sometimes hear sad news as we all get a year older. The memories those cards induce are precious.
I can see it on the nightly news:
An army of middle-class people marches on the student neighborhood south of Regent Street. They’re armed with paint scrapers and floor sanders and wearing tool belts and Menards’ hats. And they’re chanting: “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Student housing’s got to go!”
Since UW-Madison planners first talked about a Workforce Housing Initiative to encourage employees to buy and rehabilitate dilapidated student housing in the Vilas and Greenbush areas, they’ve been swamped by people who want to sign up.
The Man of the House was reading the morning sports section when he mashed the paper in his lap and yelled for his wife.
“Honey, get in here,” he said. “Hurry.”
A weary figure, carrying an overloaded clothes basket, appeared in the doorway of the adjacent laundry room.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley made a bold step toward guaranteeing worker rights to collectively bargain in the 3,300 factories around the world that produce UW apparel by announcing Tuesday the university�s plan to begin a pilot program endorsed by the United Students Against Sweatshops. The program will require companies producing officially licensed apparel products to purchase 25 percent of their goods from factories that allow a union.
Column by Adam Edelman, a senior at UW-Madison and an editorial page intern for the Wisconsin State Journal.
Here’s some advice for the Republican leadership in Wisconsin’s Legislature: get serious.
Today, Jim Hirsch will teach his fifth and final class of the semester at the UW-Madison. The Hollywood writer/producer is teaching a screenwriting class as a guest lecturer.
A byline that’s been a familiar one to readers of The Capital Times for just short of 45 years will, unfortunately, go away soon. Matt Pommer, the dean of the Capitol press corps, is retiring.
….He was in the UW’s Commerce Building when the so-called Dow riot occurred, phoning developments back to the newsroom. There were no cell phones then, and a good reporter had to commandeer a land line. When he moved from the copy desk to the reporting ranks, one of his duties was covering the UW Board of Regents.
I’m having a hard time being alarmed by reports of binge drinking at UW-Madison, my alma mater.
What is it about the concept of privatization that makes the brains of public officials turn to jelly?
….Last week I heard Katharine Lyall, former UW System president, push her new book, “The True Genius of America at Risk.” The subhead suggests that our public universities are headed toward “de facto privatization.” It almost sounds like she is opposed to privatization but after listening carefully and looking over her handouts, it was my conclusion that her message really is, “Hey, it’s inevitable so why fight it?”
Monthly book column by Merri Lindgren and Megan Schliesman, librarians at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I don’t recall dorm life as being for the faint of heart.
Apart from hall surfing, contact highs and “the walk of shame” following an ill-advised romantic encounter, living in a dormitory requires young people to learn to put up with beliefs and behavior that may make them uncomfortable.
The New York Times last Sunday printed an expose on a “high school” that turns athletes with poor grades into players with academic records good enough to qualify for a college scholarship.
The school is University High School in Miami, which has no educational accreditation and no classes, but athletes who are struggling at their regular schools are able to take correspondence courses from it which, in turn, are recognized by major colleges for scholarships.
….The NCAA, not surprisingly, is oblivious.
“We’re not the educational accreditation police,” the NCAA’s managing director for membership services told the newspaper.
Who should go away and never again be seen in the public eye? That’s the question UW-Madison professor John Coleman put to the 460 freshmen and sophomores in his Political Science 104 class this fall.
I guess Facebook isn�t only for stalking and poking. As demonstrated by the Student Labor Action Coalition late last week, some people believe the popular website can also be used for pressuring university officials to take action on important issues and proposals. Debatable, though, is whether creating mock Facebook profiles for university administrators is the best way to get them on your side.
Short of No. 1 USC or No. 2 Texas getting upset in the final two weekends of college football or Oregon and the Pacific-10 Conference twisting the arms of Fiesta Bowl officials right off, the Big Ten Conference will get two teams — Penn State and Ohio State — into the Bowl Championship Series.
