Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who enjoys shaking up the status quo, exceeded expectations when he suggested recently that women might lack the right stuff when it comes to math and science. How else to explain the scarcity of females on his faculty?
It seems that nobody in state government, even public higher education leaders, gets it. The state must not foist its budget problems onto the backs of local property taxpayers.
“Capital Times Editor Dave Zweifel says I’m playing loose with the facts about the taxpayer bill of rights. Before he makes that accusation, he may want to get his own facts straight.”
Waukesha County Executive Dan Finley’s offer to sell the local college campus for a buck may tee up a needed debate about the structure and future of the whole University of Wisconsin System.
On one level, campus reconstruction-the demolition of Van Hise, the reconstruction of Ogg and the development of Lakeshore-is positive. Van Hise is so dangerous it is cheaper to demolish than refurbish. Ogg is a reputably filthy tower riddled with tiny, garret-like rooms. Lakeshore needs some new pizzazz. In short, new buildings will make this campus both more attractive and safer.
There�s been a lot of noise about expanding student seating at basketball games, but there haven�t been many numbers.
Many regard regenerative medicine as the string theory of life sciences ââ?¬â? elegant, global and controversial. Born in 1998, on the hands of Dr. James Thomson, the now world-renowned University of Wisconsin researcher, the science of stem cells already has scientists and economists gushing over its seemingly endless applications.
Commentary By Joyce King
Growing up, Daddy said that it was just the order of the universe: ââ?¬Å?Men are smarter than women.ââ?¬Â Now that Harvard University President Lawrence Summers has apologized for recent remarks about differences that might make women less capable in math and science, I can’t help but wonder how many men believe women are less productive or lack the mental ability to compete.
As more states line up to promote human embryonic stem-cell research, policymakers and investors will ask, ââ?¬Å?Will it pay off for all?ââ?¬Â The most likely answer is no. But among those states poised to compete with Californiaââ?¬â?¢s $3 billion initiative, Wisconsin may be the best positioned for success.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation’s medical research agency that conducts and funds research at institutions around the USA to improve people’s health. As a leader of medical research, NIH aims to make discoveries that will help prevent, detect and treat disease and disability. That includes funding research on existing human embryonic stem cells.
Once President Bush makes a decision, he doesn’t like to look back. But the time has come for Bush to revisit the policy he set in 2001 on stem cell research. The basis for it has disappeared.
Last month I had the opportunity to go to a forum where police and students discussed what might have gone wrong this past Halloween. For the third straight year, Halloween ended with a riot on State Street. I went because I was curious whether students and police could see that they both could have handled themselves better. That didn�t happen. Those who were pepper sprayed were convinced that they shouldn�t have been, and the police were sure, with few exceptions, which were layered with qualifiers, that they handled themselves correctly.
W. Lee Hansen, Madison
In defending its race-based Lawton Scholarship program, the UW System missed an opportunity to educate the public about the appropriate use of race in public programs. It should have but failed to answer these tough questions.
Doesn’t anybody in state government get it? The state must not foist its budget problems onto the backs of local property taxpayers.
by Daniel Finley, Waukesha County executive
I am saddened and ashamed that Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez chose to trave to Georgia to golf at Augusta National Golf Course.
…There are other ways to address the problem of escalating property taxes and the never-ending need for education dollars, our investment in the future. Two state commissions have made some suggestions, but legislators have simply put them on the shelf, opting instead for a simplistic solution they call a Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
What it really should be called is the Taxpayer Bill of Frights.
Quoted: Psychologist Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin
Over the past few years, UW students have seen their tuition increase at unprecedented rates. In the face of drastic budget cuts that originate in the statehouse, the university has been forced to continually demand more money from students while offering fewer, more crowded classes. A fourth-year in-state student now pays $2,933.12 per semester-a 64.4 percent increase from a semester’s tuition when he or she entered the university in the fall of 2001.
The bidding has commenced. Now it’s time to ban local minimum wage laws before the city councils of our state succumb to the easy politics of giving people more money without having to raise taxes. It’s just too tempting when you’re giving away other people’s money.
While delivering his annual State of the State address, Gov. Jim Doyle declared “there’s no greater investment we can make than in the University of Wisconsin.”
The immediate causes of Wisconsin’s budget deficit are twofold. First, along with many other states, our tax receipts fell when the dot.com bubble burst, and we now struggle to fund our growing needs from a shrinking tax base. Second, some bad budgeting decisions postponed a confrontation with the deficit, which had swelled to more than $1 billion. These immediate issues have put us in a deep hole.
Nichols is director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, and a professor of economics and public affairs at the UW-Madison.
As a leader progressive education UW-Madison should have been the first Big Ten school and one of the first in the nation to guarantee health insurance to partners of gay and lesbian faculty. Instead, it is currently the only school in the conference not to offer such benefits.
No sacred cows Wayne Madsen objects to the portrayal of environmentalists as villains in Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear.” As most of us know, Crichton is largely a writer of fiction. Characters from many walks of life – politicians, businessmen, athletes, lawyers, celebrities – play the villains in various fictional works. Madsen, however, seems to think that environmentalists should be granted unique protections against such portrayal, even in a fictional context.
Richard Amasino, professor, Department of Biochemistry, UW-Madison
Officials at Wisconsin’s two medical schools have it backward when it comes to determining when meetings should be open to the public
Campus faculty and student can’t feel too reassured abut their prospects this week after Gov. Jim doyle skipped the only section of his State of the State speech that made a real financial commitment to higher education.
The link between alcohol and sports represents an unnatural and destructive alliance, especially for children, and alcohol advertising on televised sports reaches them, encouraging them to drink and masking the risks.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? Five years ago, it wasnââ?¬â?¢t necessary to use terms such as “entrepreneur,” “venture capital” or “knowledge worker” when talking about the state economy. That was before the recession of 2000, the war on terror and other global trends fundamentally changed the Wisconsin landscape.
\In terms of higher education, many define the term “Wisconsin Idea” as the university’s service to the state or the borders of the university being the borders of the state. This notion separates Wisconsin and the UW system from other institutions.
The jobs market is uneven, and the U.S. education system needs a tune-up. What to do? The most intelligent answer may not be found within the nation’s most august learning institutions. The answer might be vocational education.
The Christmas Eve news that the Bush administration is going to cut back on Pell grants for low-income students this year underscored just how out of kilter this country has become.
We’re spending billions upon billions fighting a war that should never have been started and lavishing billions upon billions on giving the least needy people in America breaks on their income taxes. As is almost always the case, the people who can afford it least wind up bearing the burden.
Neglect is defined in state law as the failure, refusal, or inability by one to provide necessary care for another. Wisconsin’s governor and Legislature are guilty of 160,000 counts of “neglect” in terms of UW System students and campuses.
Most of us work harder at our jobs when we can see we are succeeding. So Wisconsin policy-makers and business executives should work harder on the job of economic development in the upcoming year than their counterparts in any surrounding state.
A Chinese student studying at Harvard had to go back home last year to attend his father’s funeral. It took him five months to get permission from U.S. immigration authorities to return to his studies here.
It’s stories like that that are causing a drastic drop in the number of foreign students studying at universities in the United States.
Extend benefits to all In response to the Monday editorial, “Allow the UW system domestic partner insurance benefits,” we need to go one step further and allow all state employees the same. It is already set for city and county government employees. Why not the UW and state?
God must love government, reasons Waukesha County Executive Daniel Finley, because that�s why we have so much of it in Wisconsin.
Wage too low, even for students Mac VerStanding claims raising the minimum wage would ruin State Street, which he describes as “lined with locally owned stores staffed largely by college students doing homework behind the counter.” He goes on to suggest that these college students are well taken care of with financial aid and pre-paid room and board: Even paid a mere $5.15 an hour, these students greatly appreciate the wage, which goes to textbooks or walking-around money.
The recent Wisconsin State Journal story on county health rankings carried the headline “Go to college and you might live longer.” It displayed data that in Dane County, people with less than a high school education are three more times likely to die before age 65 than those with more than a high school education. How could a social factor like education be so important in producing longer and healthier lives?
Kindig is an emeritus professor of the UW-Madison Medical School’s Department of Population Health Sciences.
It should be clear by now that the “religious right” has nearly succeeded in hijacking the concept of Christianity.
Williams, a UW-Madison professor of professional development and applied studies, also is a moderator for the Community of Hope United Church of Christ, Madison.
“The response has been less than overwhelming to Governor Jim Doyle’s proposal to invest nearly $750 million in public and private money in the state’s biotechnology future…,” says Wisconsin Technology Council president Tom Still.
“Doyle should address all legitimate gripes about the specifics of his plan, but he shouldn’t back down a nanometer on the core idea behind it: Wisconsin has a chance to be a national leader in biotechnology, including stem cell research, and that opportunity won’t wait forever while we wring our hands.” (12/26/04 Opinion)
Of the many complaining questions that faculty members ask, the one I used to hear most often was, “Why do you administrators make so much more money than we do?” The answer is simple: Administrators work harder, they have more work to do, and they actually do it. (Subscription required.)
End race-based scholarships Race and ethnicity-based admissions practices are permitted under certain conditions by last year’s Supreme Court decision in the University of Michigan case. By contrast, race and ethnicity-based scholarship programs are in clear violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin.
W. Lee Hansen, Madison
Picture 750 UW-Madison 18-year-olds roaming State Street, . Warming hands by a community campfire. Crawling into cardboard boxes insulated with old newspapers for the night.
WASHINGTON The person to watch in American medical science today is a California real estate developer named Robert Klein II. As the driving force behind the initiative to invest $3 billion in stem cell research over the next decade, the builder-financier has just been nominated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to head the citizens’ committee overseeing the state’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
Jonathan Chait: A few weeks ago, a pair of studies found that Democrats vastly outnumbered Republicans among professors at leading universities. Conservative gleefully seized upon this to once again flagellate academia for its liberal bias. Am I the only person who fails to understand why conservatives see this finding as vindication?
“Dear Editor: Now that the Republican Party has established itself as the party of religion, the Democrats have an opportunity to position themselves for the backlash. Let’s face it, the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration are destroying America’s ability to do basic research – particularly in the physical and environmental sciences.”
You have to wonder what’s going on at the UW System these days. In August, there was the Board of Regents’ recommendation to boost tuition 4.3 percent and have taxpayers provide 7.2 percent in additional funding in each of the next two years. The regents want money for a 5 percent pay raise for all employees in the new budget at a cost of around $50 million, with UW officials saying it’s needed to help keep faculty from leaving the system.
Hoboken, N.J. ââ?¬â? AS we fret over the nation’s fitful economic growth and the growing number of jobs moving overseas, few are discussing a matter that may be a better indicator of our future in the global marketplace: the declining number and quality of patents awarded to Americans.
Quoted: Norm Fost, pediatrics professor and medical-ethics expert at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, is confounded by the paroxysms over steroids in sports.
What is Gov. Jim Doyle doing to higher education in Wisconsin? What does he think higher education is for?
A few weeks ago, the governor proposed a $375 million research initiative called the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. The aim of this institute, a public-private partnership, is to bolster the state’s competitive position in medicine — especially stem cell research — and development.
It isn�t a shortage of venture capital that�s holding back Wisconsin business start-ups, it�s a flow of deals that comes in drips, not gushers.
I’ve been hanging around Madison for more than four years now and writing for The Daily Cardinal for several of them. In my last column for the Cardinal and I just wanted to make an observation and talk about a few of the issues I am passionate about.
As the end of the semester is approaching and finals are looming in the not-too-distant future, I can’t help but feel a little nervous. Last semester after finals were over and I was eagerly checking my grades, I was horrified to discover I had received a D in one of my classes. Having had an AB in the class going into the final I was in total shock.
Commentary By Julianne Malveaux
Fewer African-American students were admitted to state universities this year, prompting concern that their presence is endangered on many campuses.
Daily Cardinal staff opinion:
For all its advantages, the UW-Madison campus is not very diverse. The administration has made attempts to devise programs to attract students of different backgrounds and lifestyles to UW System campuses. The fact remains, however, that most students here are middle class white people.
As college costs have soared in recent years, so has student aid, which now totals $122 billion a year. Given the new, more costly environment, it’s time for Congress to conduct a comprehensive updating of student aid programs to keep college opportunities open in a manner that is cost- effective for taxpayers.
Last summer, the Wisconsin Legislature was mulling over a proposal for a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. TABOR is a Republican-led initiative intended to constrain state spending through the adoption of a constitutional amendment. TABOR stems from the aspiration for fewer and lower taxes, but it is a drastic proposal that spares no consideration for those reliant upon state services. The proposed TABOR would strip the UW System down to its bare bones and force UW-Madison to become a private university.
If you allow your imagination to wander, you can imagine a world ten, 15 or 20 years from now that is quite different from what we know today. Imagine a world where we are not going to our doctors to find out how to treat heart disease or diabetes, but how to prevent them
It was inevitable that Governor Jim Doyle’s proposal to build a $375 million interdisciplinary research center on the UW-Madison campus would be characterized as a ââ?¬Å?responseââ?¬Â to California, where voters passed a $3 billion, 10-year initiative to fund human embryonic stem cell research.
When the Wisconsin Historical Society responded to Gov. Jim Doyle’s demand for a 10 percent budget cut by voting to close the society’s popular museum across from the Capitol, state budget director Dave Schmiedicke accused the board of acting irresponsibly.
“It does appear to be a scare tactic,” griped Schmiedicke. “We’re really expecting a more responsible process.” But it is Schmiedicke, not the Historical Society board, who is acting irresponsibly.
Wisconsin has excellent schools, technical colleges and public and private colleges and universities. The state has two nationally ranked medical schools, now well-endowed with more than $600 million from the Blue Cross conversion. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the country�s leading research universities. However, Wisconsin lags in transferring technology to the private sector, says Thomas Hefty, co-chair of the Governor�s Economic Growth Council.
