MADISON, Wis. — A college instructor said she will run for an open seat in the state Senate this fall. Democrat Lisa Theo teaches geography and geology at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She announced Thursday she plans to run for Sen. Jim Holperin?s seat. Holperin, a Democrat from Conover, announced last month he won?t seek re-election in November.
The state medical school disciplined 20 doctors, including fining 11 faculty members up to $4,000, for handing out sick notes to demonstrators at last year?s labor protests, newly released records show. The records, requested by the Journal Sentinel last year under the state?s open records law, show for the first time the extent of the discipline given to those doctors by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Newly released records show the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s medical school disciplined 20 doctors for writing sick notes for protesters during last years? labor demonstrations at the state Capitol.
For the first time, Madison has been included in a survey of cities? business costs by the global accounting firm KMPG. Issued every two years, the Competitive Alternatives survey rates more than 110 cities in 14 countries on the cost of doing business. The study looks at 26 components — from tax rates and labor costs to construction prices and energy costs — to create a comparative index. That Madison was included — it?s the only Wisconsin location mentioned — is a coup of sorts for the city. Madison does score well for the low cost of research and development, including biotech R&D and clinical trials management. That is likely a reflection of the presence of the UW-Madison and Covance, the contract research firm.
UW-Madison sanctioned 11 faculty doctors and nine residents for writing sick notes for protesters last year, with three doctors receiving the harshest discipline: loss of five days of pay and removal from leadership positions for four months. All 20 doctors had to attend an ethics seminar after writing sick notes during Capitol Square protests against Gov. Scott Walker?s collective bargaining bill in February 2011.
Efforts to restore and clean up the state Capitol after last years demonstrations cost about $200,000, far less than a state officials controversial estimation of $7.5 million.
Dear Editor: This letter is submitted as a rebuttal to the recent comments by state Rep. Don Pridemore, R-Hartland, who has gone on the record as opposing divorce even in the event of an abusive spouse. It is submitted by the UW-Madison School of Social Work, Family Problems in Social Work class under the direction of class instructor Darald Hanusa. The idea advanced by Pridemore is that if you are a woman regularly being abused by your husband, you are a bad mother if you seek a divorce.
A Wisconsin superintendents survey last fall found state budget cuts prompted school districts to eliminate thousands of staff positions, increase class sizes, raise student fees and reduce extracurricular offerings this school year….To offset the cuts, most districts in the state negotiated higher pension and health insurance premium contributions from employees. Andrew Reschovsky, a UW-Madison economist, said the pension contributions could explain why they didn’t raise student fees or cut extracurricular programs as they did in past years when teacher contracts guaranteed annual raises. Reschovsky said interpreting last fall’s survey results has become a “glass half-empty or half-full” scenario.
The argument against organized labor that resonates more with voters, however ? especially independents ? is that public workers simply cost taxpayers too much money. UW-Madison political science professor Kathy Cramer Walsh, who spent time last summer doing field research on political views in northern Wisconsin, says the general sentiment among the voters she talked to was that public workers need to “suck it up” and accept a pay cut.”
A new study suggests we will never get the new workforce this region and this region?s economy need to be competitive in the future without more highly educated and skilled workers. The La Follette School of Public Affairs study shows twenty percent of American men ages 25 to 54 are not working, compared to less than five percent in the 1950?s….This is a challenge for our education system as well as our job training and employment policies. But it?s clear that as we continue to create more jobs, the next crisis will be in finding workers qualified to fill those jobs.
To better understand Wisconsin?s G.O.P. electorate, FiveThirtyEight spoke with Dennis L. Dresang and Charles Franklin, both of whom are professors in the political science department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
If you?re looking to inject some spice into a higher education conference, adding Richard Vedder to the lineup of invited speakers is never a bad idea. Vedder ? the director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and a retired professor of economics at Ohio University ? doesn?t fit the stereotype of the liberal college professor. Not even close.
With finances tight, Mayor Paul Soglin is exploring if the city should create a program to have nonprofit property owners make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes. Madison, like Boston, relies heavily on the property tax to cover its budget and exempts a lot of government, college and university and nonprofit from tax payments. Soglin said his task force will focus on nonprofits. But the city will continue to lobby the state for higher payments in lieu of taxes for government and UW-Madison buildings, he said.
“Research has found that individuals tend to drive drunk 80 to 100 times before they are caught,” according to Richard Brown, a UW-Madison physician and clinical director of the Wisconsin Initiative to Promote Healthy Lifestyles. “There just aren?t enough police officers around to catch most people most of the time.” Moreover, most of the people responsible for alcohol-related traffic deaths have never before been picked up for drunken driving, he said.
A: There are fish fry traditions in lots of places, and some ? but not all ? are related to the Lenten season and its Friday meat ban. But what sets Wisconsin apart is that it happens year-round and is so pervasive. “In the vast majority of restaurants you can get fish on a Friday night, and I just don?t think you can find that anywhere else,” said Janet Gilmore, an associate professor in the UW-Madison Folklore Program and Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a visiting political scientist at Marquette University.
Michelle Felber posted a recap of the fate of bills that PROFS monitored and lobbied on during the recently completed 2011-12 legislative session. PROFS is a voluntary, non-profit membership organization of the UW-Madison faculty.
Appeals courts sent two lawsuits challenging Wisconsin?s blocked new voter ID law directly to the state Supreme Court on Wednesday, determining it was imperative to resolve the cases quickly given the slate of important upcoming elections, including the state?s presidential primaries next week. If the Supreme Court agrees to take the cases, it could reinstate the state’s new requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls just days before Tuesday’s election. However, attorneys challenging the law said it is unlikely a decision would come that quickly.
“The mystery of this campaign will be how these candidates play outside that energized, engaged, group of Democrats,” says the pollster, Charles Franklin, a visiting political science professor. “We expect to see some of the lack of name recognition disappear fairly quickly as they now begin to campaign, but name recognition is going to remain the biggest problem for the Democrat who heads into the general election against Walker. It won?t be where the candidate wants it to be by Election Day.”
Wisconsin kids enrolled in private school choice programs aren?t performing as well as their public school counterparts on standardized exams, according to data released Tuesday by the state?s Department of Public Instruction, sparking another round of partisan debate about whether taxpayers should be funding voucher programs. John Witte, a UW-Madison political science professor and a national expert on voucher programs, counters that some of his most recent research is suggesting that while math scores between public and voucher school students in Milwaukee are similar, kids attending the private schools are starting to make strides in reading.
About 150 people gathered Tuesday on the UW-Madison campus to call for repeal of a state law that allowed a homeowner to claim self-defense in the March 3 killing of Bo Morrison, a 20-year-old from West Bend. Morrison?s shooting death came roughly a week after a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., shot and killed Trayvon Martin, 17, in another disputed case of self-defense. Both young men were black and unarmed, which has ignited charges that the shootings were racially motivated.
The results of the poll showed Mitt Romney leading Rick Santorum 39% to 31% in the Wisconsin primary, a shift that Craig Gilbert in the The Wisconsin Voter blog says was helped by a big edge in ad spending and a growing acceptance among GOP voters.
Student government?s Legislative Affairs Committee discussed plans to advocate making a campus-wide policy to protect underage students who have been drinking from being punished after reporting an incident into a state law Monday.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas will hold a public rally in support of his presidential run at UW-Madison on Thursday night, his campaign announced.
The UW-Madison campus can be a hotbed of political activity, but there are limits to what you can do in promoting one candidate or another, or in gathering signatures for causes. The university issued guidelines on Monday on what?s allowed on campus, eight days before the presidential primary is held in Wisconsin on April 3.
Editor Steve Lovejoy of The Journal Times in Racine is the winner of the first Anthony Shadid (shah-DEED?) Award for Journalism Ethics. The Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced the award Monday.
As the April 3 presidential primary approaches, the Republican candidates are bringing their campaigns to Wisconsin, including U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who will visit the UW-Madison campus Thursday. Paul, currently lagging in the polls behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., will hold a town hall meeting on Thursday at the Stock Pavilion.
One can see why Laurel Rice does not follow politics closely, considering that what she calls her ?day job? is performing gynecological cancer surgery. Dr. Rice is chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Who better, I thought, to ask about the bill that majority Republicans in the Legislature recently passed requiring that doctors take unnecessary steps and abide by new restrictions before performing an abortion.
Republican presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas plans to campaign in Madison next week. Paul?s campaign said Friday that he would hold a town hall meeting Thursday on the UW-Madison campus.
Wisconsin will play host to former Gov. Tommy Thompson and two Republican presidential hopefuls over the next week, as pivotal primary elections loom ahead. Thompson, one of the frontrunners in the Republican U.S. Senate race, will be on campus Saturday to speak to College Republicans from across the state about his campaign….?We are extremely excited to host a fellow Badger at his alma mater,? UW-Madison College Republican Chairman Jeff Snow said. ?Governor Thompson?s appearance has garnered a lot of intrigue and enthusiasm.? The event is part of a larger Wisconsin Federation of College Republicans? campaign weekend in Madison.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents heard a sobering message about student debt at its March 8 meeting. The regents were told by UW officials that the average student loan debt at graduation in the UW System has increased from less than $5,000 in 1982 to $27,000 in 2011.
A state commission approved plans to renovate a Camp Randall facility as part of the second phase of the University of Wisconsin?s plan to build a new center for student athletes to train.
UW-Madison Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell defended the university?s process for coming up with new work rules for UW-Madison?s 17,000 employees in a statement released Wednesday afternoon. His statement is in response to an allegation that the school may be violating the Open Meetings Law by holding committee meetings in private.
Paul “Rufus” Terry?s first WIAA state boys basketball experience was hard to top. Terry was a senior at Beloit Memorial High School and sitting in the University of Wisconsin Field House on March 22, 1969, when Lamont Weaver launched the most famous shot in tournament history. Terry, 60, has had an affinity for the state tournaments ? and state sports teams ? ever since. He works for UW-Madison, in Arena Control at the Kohl Center. His duties include working the state football, wrestling and girls and boys basketball tournaments.
All of us well-educated Madison liberals can “tsk, tsk” at the regular bashing our beloved UW-Madison takes from the likes of such “anti-intellectuals” as Republican state Rep. Steve Nass. But for being so smart, university types sometimes seem dumb enough to bring it upon themselves.
Despite her popularity with organized labor, UW-Madison?s teaching assistant?s union decided not to endorse former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk Tuesday, at least for the time being. The UW-Madison Teaching Assistants? Association voted against two gubernatorial recall-related resolutions at its general membership meeting Tuesday: one to establish the terms of endorsement, and a second on endorsing Falk.
When University of Wisconsin-Madison officials embarked on developing a new personnel system to govern the work lives of more than 15,000 people across campus in the wake of the end of collective bargaining rights, those taking the lead on the project promised it would be ?transparent and collaborative.? But an organization that advocates for the rights of faculty and academic staff at the university argues the process has fallen well short of that ideal, pointing out that meetings of the Advisory Committee to the Human Resources HR Design Project have — for purposes of the state?s open meetings law — been closed.
Gary Sandefur, the dean of the College of Letters and Science, who chairs the Advisory Committee, says the body decided to close its meetings for two main reasons after the university?s office of legal services advised that the state?s open meetings law applies to gatherings of governmental bodies — and that this committee doesn?t meet the definition of such a group.
The state Medical Examining Board decided Tuesday to investigate 11 additional doctors for writing sick notes during Capitol protests last year. The doctors are not among the nine the state sanctioned last year. The additional doctors were named in records the Madison School District released to the State Journal and other media in December after a lawsuit by the newspaper.
Members of the university?s Faculty Senate fear that professors at UW-Madison will soon leave the university in search of better paying jobs at competing schools. This fear came shortly after a report was released showing that faculty at UW-Madison are paid significantly less than their peers at other universities. In fact, salaries here are about 11 percent lower overall than at competing institutions.
A UW-Madison group of faculty and staff says the university may have been holding illegal, private meetings to develop new personnel policies for its 16,000 employees. The Wisconsin University Union, which is an employee education and advocacy organization of faculty and staff, filed a petition Monday asking Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to determine whether the meetings should be public under the state?s Open Meetings Law.
Agronomists believe farmers should stick to their schedules even though the ground is warming up quickly and there are no signs it?s going to cool down anytime soon. “This weather is odd,” said Shawn Conley, an assistant professor in the UW-Madison agronomy department. “I think we have to be cautious and just know what the risks are out there.”
Students can have a strong impact in politics. Nationally, they were a major part of the coalition that carried Barack Obama to victory over Hillary Clinton and later John McCain in 2008. And many Democrats in the state Legislature with districts near college campuses had students to thank for their victories in 2006, when young people turned out in droves to oppose the state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, which ultimately passed. But in local politics, unless there is a hotly contested mayoral race or massive protests at the Capitol, students are hardly a blip on the radar. In fact, turnout in the County Board election for the student-dominated 5th District seat has steadily declined in recent years.
It may not salve the wounds of potentially losing the WIAA state basketball tournaments but Dane County has landed one of the state?s most prestigious farm shows for 2015. County officials on Monday said they filed an application to host Wisconsin Farm Technology Days, which old-timers might remember as ?Farm Progress Days.?
In the never ending battle for customers, Wisconsin?s largest telecom providers are touting their investment in new equipment as the number of official consumer complaints are falling. Fewer complaints are a bit of a surprise to Barry Orton, a professor of telecommunications at UW-Madison. He maintains it?s more difficult than ever to tell what companies are doing following the telecom reform bill passed here in 2007. Orton speculates that consumers today may have become numb to problems or simply change providers rather than filing a complaint. He also admits it?s possible companies are actually providing better service.
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While March Madness is now underway with the NCAA men?s basketball tournament, the city of Madison?s own annual version of basketball mania also began on Thursday. The first rounds of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association?s high school basketball tournament officially began on Thursday morning. However, while the tournament has called the state?s capital city its home for years, ongoing questions about whether this year could be Madison?s last as host hover over much of this year?s activities.
With hindsight being 20/20, cartoonist Mike Konopacki isn?t laughing at the fake press release he sent the Capital Times in February, now that he knows his forgery of a state representative?s official document could cost him $10,000 and three-and-a-half years in prison.
According to Wisconsin State Statute 946.69, a person commits a Class-I felony if they ? assume to act in an official capacity or to perform official functions.? It is this law could be used to implicate Konopacki, though its application would be ?nitpicking,? according to UW-Madison journalism and law professor Robert Drechsel.
Public workers in Wisconsin aren?t alone in facing changes to their pension plans. The New York state legislature at 3 a.m. Thursday morning approved an overhaul of its retirement system, including raising the retirement age from 62 to 63 for new hires and requiring employees to increase by up to 3 percent more the portion of their salaries that goes toward their pension. It also allows some higher-paid new hires to opt out of the system in favor of personal accounts, like a 401(k).
You could win a state high school championship in any city in Wisconsin. All you need is the right facility. Baseball crowns its champions in Appleton, gymnastics and cross country in Wisconsin Rapids and track and field in La Crosse. There are soccer titles crowned in Milwaukee and volleyball in Green Bay. But you can?t replicate in Green Bay what took place Thursday with the WIAA boys state basketball tournament in Madison.
Madison is offering new hotel, food and parking deals to fans as the WIAA state boys and girls high school basketball tournaments return to the city for perhaps the last time. As the tournaments begin on Thursday, 24 hotels are offering “fan packages” with discounted rates and no two-night minimums, 14 restaurants are offering discounts and special offers, and the city is charging $4 for daily event parking at its Overture Center and Lake Street parking garages.
Members of the University of Wisconsin?s student government weighed ways to improve the UW System-wide Lobby Day, following last week?s event at the Wisconsin Capitol.
COLUMBUS ? Beer hasn?t been commercially brewed here since Kurth?s Brewery closed in 1949. But a Columbus couple have changed that with the opening late last year of Hydro Street Brewing Co. & Eatery in downtown Columbus at 152 W. James St. Aaron and Sandye Adams, former researchers at UW-Madison, drained their savings, maxed out their credit cards and pestered family and friends to help them raise $86,000 to renovate a former clothing store into a business that likely will be a draw for local residents and the antiques shoppers who flood the city of 5,036 to visit the many shops.
Quoted: Ken Mayer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.
I?m not sure anyone who watched the massive protests unfold at the Capitol a year ago in response to Gov. Scott Walker?s political agenda figured the people who marched, sang and slept their way into history there would knuckle under when a GOP legislator forced the sponsors to pull the plug on a planned exhibit of art from the protests. They didn?t. The exhibit ?Art in Protest,? planned for UW-Madison?s Pyle Center later this month, morphed into a protest itself. It opened as ?Censored Art Show? Friday at the Goodman Community Center on Madison?s east side.
In August, when the new federal mandate that insurance plans offer free contraceptive services kicks in, it will save women in Wisconsin hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars. But it also adds fuel to a long-simmering debate over religious freedom in the state. And the effect on Catholics in Wisconsin could be surprising….Among those applauding the new requirement is Grace Colas, a UW-Madison junior who co-chairs the campus chapter of Advocates for Choice, an affiliate of Planned Parenthood. She pays about $45 every three months for birth control under her insurance plan. Colas, 20, welcomes the mandate but said more should be done to help poor women pay for contraception.
“I think it’s important to remember that this is a matter of making basic health care accessible,” she said.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee both end their spring semester May 19. Kennedy said students who will be off campus and potentially out of state at the time of the election would be able to vote absentee.
The average student loan debt at graduation from Wisconsin?s public campuses has increased dramatically over the past 30 years along with tuition rates that have consistently outpaced inflation, University of Wisconsin System officials say.
University of Wisconsin women?s basketball recruit Nicole Bauman of New Berlin Eisenhower has been named the state Gatorade Player of the Year. Bauman, a 5-foot-10 guard, was selected for her combination of athletic and academic achievement, personal character, sportsmanship and community leadership.
The UW Board of Regents approved two UW-Madison building projects at its meeting Thursday: an addition to a campus power plant at a cost of $64.6 million and the second phase of a student athlete performance center at a cost of $34.9 million.
Early in his speech to AIPAC this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a mysterious reference to the state of Wisconsin that left some people scratching their heads.
The Task Force on UW Restructuring should be using its time to refocus the state and UW on the needs of Wisconsin students and families. It should be working to open the university doors to all Wisconsinites, instead of protecting the prestige of UW. It should be focused on rebuilding the relationship between our communities and the universities in them and reprioritizing public investment in UW. [A column by Allie Gardner, ASM chair.]
