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Category: State news

UW-Madison search: Chancellor vacancies aplenty at other schools

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Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison will face stiff competition for the best national candidates as it searches for a new chancellor, according to higher education experts. That?s because an ?extraordinary? number of similar universities also are looking for new leaders, said Jan Greenwood, a search consultant who specializes in university presidencies. Finding the right candidate is important because university presidents must be able to fill a range of roles: CEO and academic, politician and cheerleader, public speaker and master fundraiser.

Capitol security costs for protests expected to top $8 million

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Wisconsin State Journal

The months of protests over Gov. Scott Walker?s budget and collective bargaining measures around the state Capitol are expected to cost the state more than $8 million to reimburse nearly 200 law enforcement agencies and seven state agencies brought in to provide around-the-clock security.

Braveheart in Wisconsin State Fair parade

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WKOW-TV 27

Braveheart?s remarkable recovery will be on display on UW-Madison Day at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis on Wednesday, Aug. 10. In addition, Braveheart, along with UW?s Bucky Badger will lead the daily parade around the fairgrounds that day.

Task force will review if UW System should be restructured

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Wisconsin Public Radio

A special committee is looking into restructuring parts of the UW System. Lawmakers added the task force to the state budget after they decided not to split UW-Madison from the rest of the system. The 17-member committee will be made up of legislators, former educators and private citizens.

Braveheart to be part of Wisconsin State Fair parade

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WKOW-TV 27

Braveheart?s remarkable recovery will be on display on UW-Madison Day at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis on Wednesday, Aug. 10. In addition, Braveheart, along with UW?s Bucky Badger will lead the daily parade around the fairgrounds that day.

Campus Connection: Should flagship public universities remain public?

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Capital Times

It had been a few weeks since I spent much time thinking about Gov. Scott Walker and Biddy Martin?s attempt to break the University of Wisconsin-Madison away from the UW System. But on Sunday, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a commentary headlined “Why flagship public universities should stay public.”

The opinion piece is penned by Kevin Carey, the policy director of Education Sector, a think tank in Washington. It examines the topic of public flagship institutions looking to garner more autonomy from state oversight, and focuses much of its attention on the debate that took place earlier this year in Wisconsin.

Crime and Courts: Ron Johnson puts the kibosh on Louis Butler and another judicial nominee

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Capital Times

While President Obama has been successful in getting women and minorities confirmed to federal judicial posts, as this NPR story shows, two nominees in Wisconsin, a woman and an African-American, are going nowhere. That?s because of a Senate procedure that allows a single senator to thwart judicial nominees that would serve in the senator?s home state.

In this case that senator is Ron Johnson, a Republican businessman who narrowly defeated veteran Democrat Russ Feingold last fall. Johnson has vowed to block the confirmations of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler and UW law professor Victoria Nourse.

Campus Connection: Year of the Wisconsin Idea

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Capital Times

The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced it will be celebrating the Year of the Wisconsin Idea over the next 12 months. The Wisconsin Idea is the principle that the university should improve people?s lives beyond the boarders of the classroom. Kicking off the year-long event is UW-Madison Day at the Wisconsin State Fair on Wednesday.

Recall elections won’t affect union bargaining

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Control of the state Senate – now up for grabs in recall elections – could affect issues ranging from a possible voucher school expansion in Green Bay to proposed cuts in state health care programs serving more than 1 million Wisconsin residents.

But the recall elections won?t immediately affect the issue that gave rise to them – union bargaining by public workers, legislative leaders said.

That?s because Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans who control the Assembly would ensure that the controversial repeal of most collective bargaining remains in place through this year, even if Democrats do manage to take back the Senate.

Sober assessment busts budget myths

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Wisconsin State Journal

The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance broke down the $64.3 billion state budget, which the Republican governor signed into law in late June. Among its findings, the nonprofit research group calculated a 3.8 percent cut in state support for the University of Wisconsin System.

Study: Wolf hunt gathers support

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Wisconsin State Journal

There is wide support for a regulated wolf hunt in Wisconsin, according to a new study published by UW-Madison researchers, although that approval was more tepid among non-hunters and those who live outside wolves? range. In a study published in the journal Society and Natural Resources, Adrian Treves and Kerry Martin surveyed hunters and non-hunters in Wisconsin, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming between 2001 and 2007 to gauge their attitudes toward wolves.

Out-of-state groups send in cash to deliver recall message

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Capital Times

Sandwiched between Klinke Cleaners and Check ?n Go in a strip mall in Sun Prairie is one of the biggest financial players in Wisconsin?s historic round of recall elections. But don?t be fooled by the 1223 W. Main St., #304 address. The conservative, pro-business Wisconsin Club for Growth boasts no posh suite, just a simple mailbox at a UPS store. While its office presence may be lacking, its political influence is not.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, UW-Madison professor of political science

Campus Connection: UW-Madison phasing out most free handicap parking spaces

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Capital Times

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is in the process of eliminating most free handicapped parking spaces across campus in a move that?s being criticized by some with mobility disabilities.

“It?s just a shame the university wants to put in another obstacle, in this case a financial one, limiting my ability to have independent access to the campus,” says Monica Kamal, the founder of Madison?s Spinal Cord Injury Group and a volunteer on the UW-Madison campus.

UW study finds large dairy farms produce higher quality milk more often than small operations

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Wisconsin State Journal

A UW-Madison study has found that milk produced on Wisconsin?s large farms, including the controversial industrial-size operations, is often of higher quality than milk from smaller farms. Steve Ingham, who led the study while working as a UW-Madison food science professor, speculated that the bigger farms may have more money to spend on equipment or may be better able to identify and remove cows with illnesses that affect milk production, such as mastitis. Ingham, who is now the food safety division administrator at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, added that all of the state?s farms, whether large or small, produce milk that easily meets federal food safety guidelines.

Interim chief Olver appointed Madison?s new economic development director

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Wisconsin State Journal

Aaron Olver has been appointed Madison?s new director of economic development by Mayor Paul Soglin.Olver has held the post of interim director for the past five months. Previously he served as Wisconsin?s secretary of Commerce under Gov. Jim Doyle, as well as in other positions within the state Department of Commerce.

Law prof committed to freeing wrongly convicted inmates

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Capital Times

In 1998 law professors Keith Findley and John Pray founded the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Since then, with the help of law students, the project has reviewed thousands of cases and helped free 16 people who were imprisoned for crimes they didn?t commit.

Findley, a former public defender, now serves as president of the Innocence Network, which includes 55 innocence projects in the U.S., and 10 others in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Top official says Wisconsin could withstand no increase in debt ceiling

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Wisconsin State Journal

Gov. Scott Walker?s top administrator said Monday that Wisconsin is well positioned to continue providing services to residents, even if federal lawmakers fail to increase the U.S. debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline.

….Some have argued that if Congress fails to approve an increase to the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, the government will be forced to stop paying for services. Federal money makes up almost 30 percent of Wisconsin?s $66 billion budget, much of it earmarked for programs such as Medicaid, UW-Madison research grants and student financial aid.

Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and applied economics

Gilles Bousquet: Support offered to Norwegian friends

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Wisconsin State Journal

Norway?s tragedy has struck a chord in Wisconsin, where we have historical, cultural, economic and institutional connections with a nation known for promoting peace and understanding. Our kinship with Norway is rooted in our communities and remains vital today through educational, governmental and other official relationships, as well as individual ties.

For UW-Madison, these ties are institutional and personal, with our students and scholars involved in research and exchange there, and Norwegian scholars and students coming here to study and live.

Lawsuit to stop UW broadband expansion

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Wisconsin Radio Network

A group of telephone companies has filed a lawsuit claiming the University of Wisconsin System is unfairly using tax dollars to compete with private companies in developing broadband access. Access Wisconsin claims the UW is piggybacking off existing networks rather than laying real groundwork.

UW Prof moonlights for Prosser

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WKOW-TV 27

State campaign finance records show UW-Madison political science professor Kenneth Mayer was paid $6,500 as a consultant to state supreme court justice David Prosser?s campaign committee.

Law prof committed to freeing wrongly convicted inmates

Posted on
Capital Times

In 1998 law professors Keith Findley and John Pray founded the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Since then, with the help of law students, the project has reviewed thousands of cases and helped free 16 people who were imprisoned for crimes they didn?t commit.

Findley, a former public defender, now serves as president of the Innocence Network, which includes 55 innocence projects in the U.S., and 10 others in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Beloit College officials explore history and perspective in book of Mindset Lists

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Wisconsin State Journal

Mindset Lists began as a simple way to help professors at Beloit College better relate to their students. Now, on a larger scale, the lists have proven to be a mesmerizing way to retell American history. College officials Tom McBride and Ron Nief developed the first Mindset List in 1998. It offered scores of one-liners describing events that happened before the incoming freshmen were born, reminding professors that references to those events could draw blank stares.

Chris Rickert: An Idea whose time still is here

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Wisconsin State Journal

As a born-and-bred Illinoisan with roots in the Chicago area, I have to ask: What is this Wisconsin Idea you speak of? So far as I can tell it has something to do with Robert La Follette, or the University of Wisconsin, or clean government ? or maybe all three. Whatever it is, it has increasingly been an occasion for mourning among the more left-leaning types I?ve interviewed, especially since Gov. Scott Walker took office.

Quoted: Kathy Cramer Walsh, UW-Madison associate professor of political science.

Footnote: Why were fake candidates allowed to run in recall primaries?

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Wisconsin State Journal

Q: On July 12, six Republicans ran as so-called “fake Democrats” against six real Democrats to force Democratic primaries in six recall races. Their participation was orchestrated by the state Republican Party to delay the general recall elections against six Senate Republicans. Why were people who acknowledged up front they were not Democrats allowed to run as Democrats?

A: Wisconsin requires only that a candidate in a state Senate primary collect 400 signatures to get on the ballot. The candidate must choose a party to represent but does not need to attest that he or she affiliates with or supports that party, said John Coleman, a UW-Madison political science professor.

Chris Rickert: Both parties guilty in map showdowns

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Wisconsin State Journal

The Republican-controlled Legislature has passed its redistricting maps and Republican Gov. Scott Walker is set to sign them into law. The response from Democrats can be appropriately summed up by that hackneyed, old threat delivered by Sen. Spencer Coggs, D-Milwaukee, to his GOP colleagues: “We?ll see you in court.”

Quoted: David Canon, UW-Madison professor of political science.

State trims back plans for Charter Street power plant

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Wisconsin State Journal

The state will cut back significantly on its plans for electrical generation at UW-Madison?s Charter Street power plant, the state Department of Administration announced Friday, saying there?s plenty of reserve energy already available. Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch made the call to forgo a steam turbine generator, which should save the state between $8 million and $10 million, said Christopher Schoenherr, Huebsch?s executive assistant.

Wis. judge rules against telecom company

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Madison.com

A Dane County judge has ruled against a telecommunications company that wanted to slow down a broadband project in rural communities. The University of Wisconsin System and others were awarded more than $37 million in grants for the project. Its goal is to deliver telecommunications capabilities to schools, hospitals and emergency services. But Wisconsin Independent Telecommunications Systems, which operates as Access Wisconsin, filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the project.

Judge rules against telcoms in broadband suit (AP)

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A Dane County judge has ruled against a telecommunications company that wanted to slow down a broadband project in rural communities. The University of Wisconsin System and others were awarded more than $37 million in grants for the project. Its goal is to deliver telecommunications capabilities to schools, hospitals and emergency services.

Power grab: Is UW?s involvement in providing Internet access an invaluable public good?

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Capital Times

No matter how vocal the opposition, the state?s new Republican leadership rarely blinks when pushing through measures it deems important. Return federal high-speed rail money? Check. Slash public sector unions? rights? Done. Implement a voter ID bill? No problem.

So, when members of the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee inserted language into their version of the state budget that would have been a boon to state telecommunications providers and a blow to decades-old investments made by University of Wisconsin institutions to help deliver and expand Internet access to entities such as schools and libraries, people across Wisconsin reached for the panic button.

Campus Connection: UW-Madison’s Ward names Bugher special assistant

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Capital Times

Interim UW-Madison Chancellor David Ward named Mark Bugher, the director of University Research Park, as his special assistant, the university announced in a news release Monday. Bugher won?t be paid for assisting Ward and will continue to lead University Research Park, the university said.

Bugher is expected to advise the chancellor on everything from strategic priorities and political issues to the challenges of implementing newly awarded administrative flexibilities, which were granted to the university in the 2011-13 state budget.

Loftus says proposal to break up UW System was politically unfeasible

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Capital Times

Tom Loftus? six-year run as a member of the University of Wisconsin System?s Board of Regents came to an end on Friday. Loftus, 66, was regarded as one of the most politically savvy regents and earlier this year emerged as an outspoken critic of the plan contained in Gov. Scott Walker?s 2011-13 budget proposal that would have granted UW-Madison public authority status and split it away from the rest of the UW System.

“A proposal to remove UW-Madison from the UW System in the budget bill is a guarantee that we will return to the tribalism of the past, when each campus and their legislators fought for their turf and decried any perceived advantage one campus might get that they did not,” Loftus said after news of the plan broke in February.

Madison 360: Biddy Martin leaves Madison as an enigma

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Capital Times

Gauging by decibel level, the best moment in a 21-point Badger basketball victory last Dec. 8 was a free-throw contest between Biddy Martin and her fellow chancellor from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Badgers? foe that night. Madison?s chancellor hardly missed, drilling 12 free throws with a rapid-fire, line-drive delivery to win easily. As with most things during her three years in Madison, Martin came prepared. Just before the shootout, she had sneaked off to warm up on the Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion practice courts next to the Kohl Center.

When a UW official first shared that anecdote last winter, it fit my evolving impression of Martin as a person who left nothing to chance. That, plus being smart, broadly experienced and charismatic, won her the chancellor?s job. Yet she also seemed oddly cautious and sensitive to what others said about her.

Now she?s history. Her last day here was Friday, and the one-word summary that comes to mind is ?enigmatic.?

Public workers retire in droves

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

One out of about every 14 public employees in the Wisconsin Retirement System asked for “the numbers” – estimates of what their pensions would be if they retired – in the first half of this year.

A new report from the Department of Employee Trust Funds, which runs the pension system, says the 18,759 state and local government workers who asked what their pension would be was 75% more than those who made the same request in the same period last year.

The ad wars heat up in the Wisconsin recall campaigns

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Spending on broadcast TV for just one race ? the northwestern Wisconsin seat now held by Republican Sen. Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls ? has totaled roughly three-quarters of a million dollars in recent weeks, according to estimates by CMAG, the national firm that tracks campaign spots.

?We are in uncharted territory,? says political scientist and CMAG president Ken Goldstein, referring to the unusual dynamics of these legislative races: mid-summer, stand-alone, quasi-nationalized elections in which nobody is quite sure who will vote and how big the electorate will be.

Some insiders expect combined spending of all kinds to top $20 million for the nine recall elections, much of it outside money, much of it undisclosed.

GOP lawmaker says UW gets enough money

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Wisconsin Radio Network

There?s partisan feuding over everything it seems these days, including the cost of a UW education. Some members of the UW Board of Regents are ?crying wolf? about the impact of cuts under the Republican state budget. So says GOP Representative Steve Nass of Whitewater. ?We fund the UW System by more than a billion dollars every year, and historically every single session we hear from the university about how they cannot survive without more money. And they certainty have survived very well.?

UW tuition increase draws concern

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Wisconsin Radio Network

Tuition will go up five-and-a-half percent at University of Wisconsin system campuses this fall, under a budget approved by the Board of Regents Thursday. The vote was 11-4, with John Drew of Milwaukee in opposition. ?I have supported similar tuition increases in the past when they were part of responsible budgeting process that recognized the importance of the UW System and public higher education,? said Drew. ?But this tuition increase is nothing more than an attack on middle class Wisconsin citizens, and a giant step away from high quality, affordable public education.?