Rick Bogle doubts the UW-Madison paid much attention to the stateâ??s animal cruelty statute until last year, when the local Alliance for Animals began questioning the legality of sometimes-fatal decompression experiments involving sheep (see Watchdog, 8/27/09, 9/24/09 and 10/8/09).
In 2008, 31-year-old Jodie Zebell appeared to have a full life. The UW-Madison graduate was married with two young children and a part-time job as a mammographer at a La Crosse clinic, where she was praised as a model employee.
But soon afterward, Zebell became the target of co-workers who unfairly blamed her for problems at work. After she was promoted, the bullying intensified, her aunt Joie Bostwick recalled during a legislative hearing Wednesday attended by members of her nieceâ??s family, including Zebellâ??s mother, Jean Jones of Spring Hill, Fla.
Lack of a major statewide race and nonpartisan elections were some of the key reasons for low turnout, said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden.
We hate to argue against a goal to graduate more students from University of Wisconsin System colleges. After all, study after study have shown the benefits a higher education degree will have on a personâ??s lifetime income.
The owners of a Madison bar Tuesday dropped a lawsuit filed against the state for using eminent domain to acquire their property for a construction project.The trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday in Dane County Circuit Court.
The owners of a popular campus-area bar have agreed to drop their lawsuit and accept the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s $2.1 million offer for their property.
A face off between a popular downtown Madison bar and the University of Wisconsin-Madison wonâ??t happen after all. The owners of the Brothers Bar & Grill have decided to dismiss their lawsuit that sought to stop the University of Wisconsin-Madison from taking their property through eminent domain.
University of Wisconsin schools want to bump the number of graduates. By the year 2025, the UW-schools want to confer nearly 33,700 undergraduate degrees per year, up from the current 26,000 per year.
The University of Wisconsin announced over break a member of Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s cabinet would be awarded the 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award.
Calling it an â??ambitiousâ? goal, University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly said he wants to increase the number of UW graduates by 30 percent over the next 15 years to create a better-educated and higher-paid workforce in the state. But he said reaching that goal will take buy-in from Wisconsin families and a renewed investment from the state, which didnâ??t provide funding for the universityâ??s growth plans â?? called the Growth Agenda â?? in the most recent biennial budget.â??If we do nothing, Wisconsin will fall further behind,â? Reilly said.
The village of Plain in Sauk County will get a $1.1 million state grant to help build a green technology training and enterprise center to address the need for new manufacturing workers, Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s office announced Thursday. The project will include partnerships with several high schools, Madison Area Technical College, UW-Madisonâ??s Green Construction Management program, the Association of General Contractors and several private industry partners, who also will be able to use the center for training.
At least $2.4 million in costs related to federal programs administered by the state are being called into question, an audit released today says. The audit examines fiscal year 2008 – 2009, a period in which state agencies administered $13.6 billion in federal financial assistance. That involves more than 1,600 federal programs, including 919 grants awarded to the University of Wisconsin System.
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly is challenging campuses to find new ways to graduate more students as part of a long-range plan to increase the number of degree-holders in the state. Reilly said he wants the system of 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges to increase the number of degrees issued by 30 percent by 2025. That would bump the number of graduates up from the current 26,000 per year to 33,700 and produce 80,000 more graduates in the next 15 years, he said. The system must act, Reilly said, for the good of the stateâ??s economic future.
Swine flu seems so 2009 and is hardly talked about today, but state health officials say the H1N1 virus isnâ??t gone and people should get vaccinated.
State health officer Dr. Seth Foldy said in a release on Wednesday that the lull in cases in Wisconsin may only be temporary.
“We should not be complacent,” Foldy said. “Many of us have a little extra time during school spring break, so we should take advantage of the time by getting ourselves and our families vaccinated.”
Some southern states have reported an increase in new H1N1 pandemic influenza cases, prompting the Wisconsin Department of Health Servicesâ?? call for people to get their flu shots.
Some Wisconsin parents are complaining that state grants for college tuition are falling far short of what they thought Gov. Jim Doyle had promised, the Associated Press reported. The Wisconsin Covenant program has enrolled 50,000 eighth graders over the past three years, but Governor Doyle, a Democrat, only recently announced details of the grants it would pay. Those range from $250 to $2,500, based on family income. At a legislative hearing on Monday, some parents complained that they had thought the grants would cover the entire cost of college.
The director of the Wisconsin Covenant program acknowledged Monday sheâ??s heard from “a lot of parents” who believed it would give their children a free ride to college, but insisted that was never the intent. Gov. Jim Doyle proposed the Covenant in 2006 to motivate students to attend college and help them afford it. He promised “the neediest families will receive grants to pay the costs of education” and others would receive a mix of loans, grants and work study opportunities. Sharon Billings, who runs a service with her husband that helps parents plan for their childrenâ??s higher education, testified Monday that sheâ??s heard from many parents upset about the size of the state grants. The “word on the street” was that students would get a full ride for fulfilling the Covenant requirements of a B average and good citizenship during high school, Billings said. Covenant Director Shannon Loredo responded that she had heard from a lot of parents with similar comments, but the Covenant “was never intended to be the only piece.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will be closed Friday, one of four designated campus-wide furlough days scheduled this year in accordance with the mandate approved in the 2009-11 state budget.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will be closed Friday, one of four designated campus-wide furlough days scheduled this year in accordance with the mandate approved in the 2009-11 state budget.
Campus workers also have to take four furlough days of their own this year, part of the 16 unpaid furlough days in the two-year budget cycle for all state workers including those on University of Wisconsin campuses.
MADISON, Wis. — The director of the Wisconsin Covenant program said sheâ??s heard from “a lot of parents” who mistakenly believed it would give their children a free ride to college.
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Historical Museum in Madison is celebrating next monthâ??s 40th anniversary of Earth Day with an exhibit on its founder.
APPLETON (WKOW) — A tragic end to spring break for seven Wisconsin college students returning home over the weekend, after a deadly crash in Missouri killed one and injured six others.
STEVENS POINT â?? One of natureâ??s great choruses will soon echo again across the verdant woods and wetlands. The spring peepers, wood frogs and their fellow amphibians will be at it again, carrying on one of natureâ??s most glorious and resonant love fests.
Across Wisconsin, volunteers will fan out to record the sounds on 120 routes, all of them part of the Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey coordinated by the Department of Natural Resources. But for the first time since the surveyâ??s inception in 1981, the woman who initiated it and nudged it along for many years wonâ??t be among us.
Michelle Reisen-Garvey removes moles, treats chest pain, puts casts on broken bones, makes house calls, assists in surgeries and works in the emergency room. But sheâ??s not a doctor. Sheâ??s a physician assistant at Family Health of Lafayette County, working under a doctorâ??s supervision while helping a rural area meet medical staffing needs. Reisen-Garvey graduated from UW-Madisonâ??s two-year physician assistant masterâ??s degree program, which is trying to place more graduates in rural areas, said director Virginia Snyder.
Medical student Clay Dean is a pioneer in a new program to increase the number of rural doctors in Wisconsin. Raised on a beef farm near Blue River, a town of 400 people about 65 miles west of Madison, Dean is in the first class of the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. The students are getting much of their training in northern Wisconsin.
A group of state senators is pushing a bill to ensure that state employers do not use money provided by the state to interfere with the collective bargaining rights of employees. Unionization is an important issue. But Senate Bill 523 raises procedural questions that need to be addressed and clarified. In particular, what effect might the bill have on academic freedom in the University of Wisconsin System?
An Assembly committee has voted to significantly enhance Wisconsinâ??s higher education benefits for veterans. The Assemblyâ??s veterans affairs committee last week approved a plan that would give veterans 128 credits of free tuition after they exhaust federal tuition benefits. The vote came after the committee amended a bill by its chairman, Rep. Steve Hilgenberg, that would have given 64 free credits in the state program.
The University of Minnesota faculty senate voted Thursday to allow a 1.15 percent reduction in salaries for faculty in the academic year 2010-11. Mentions employee furloughs at UW-Madison.
For now, the diploma privilege remains exclusive to graduates of Wisconsinâ??s law schools and no others. The privilege, unique in the nation, allows graduates of the stateâ??s two law schools to join the state bar without taking the exam required of new graduates from all other law schools.
A lawsuitâ??s settlement leaves intact Wisconsinâ??s “diploma privilege” policy, which allows graduates of either of the stateâ??s two law schools to practice law without taking the bar examination but requries graduates of all other schools to take the exam.
State attorneys have settled a lawsuit challenging Wisconsinâ??s policy of granting in-state law graduates licenses without passing the state bar exam. The agreement leaves Wisconsinâ??s so-called diploma privilege rules intact. The deal calls for the state to pay the woman who brought the lawsuit $7,500 and prohibits her and her husband from challenging any provisions governing admission to law practice in Wisconsin ever again. Under Wisconsin rules, law students who graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Marquette University donâ??t have to take the bar exam before they can go into business. Instead, the state Supreme Court sets the law school course requirements at both universities and students must pass them with certain average scores.
Points out that the University of Wisconsin has not done comparison tests of raw and pasteurized milk because the testing would cost several hundred thousand dollars, would take several years to complete, and no one has asked for it. Story also quotes Rusty Bishop, director of the Center for Dairy Research at the university.
Following the passage of landmark health-care legislation Sunday, groups and individuals across the state are beginning to take a look at how the bill will impact Wisconsin residents, businesses and health-care providers.
Reactions to the passage of a significant health care reform bill Sunday remain divided in Wisconsin, with some heralding the bill as a long-awaited insurance solution while others claim it is a dangerous move away from American ideals.
HOBART, Wis. (AP) â?? The family of a 21-year-old Wisconsin woman says she died in her sleep while on a spring break trip to Florida.
Marie Sumnicht says her daughter, Julia Sumnicht of Hobart, died this week while visiting Miami.The Green Bay Press-Gazette says tests to determine the cause of death could take several weeks. Julia Sumnicht was a junior at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
The idea behind the Milwaukee and Racine initiatives is the work of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy founder Joel Rogers, a MacArthur Fellow whoâ??s also a leader of Emerald Cities Collaborative, a national initiative.
The case of a young Wisconsin girl who died in 2008 from untreated diabetes after her parents opted for prayer rather than medical care is likely headed to the state Supreme Court, say Constitutional experts and others, with the UW-Madison Law School representing the mother in the appellate process.
Quoted: Howard Schweber, UW-Madison associate professor of political science and legal studies, and Byron Lichstein, director of the UW Law School’s Criminal Appeals Project
March is National Social Workers Month, so I wasnâ??t surprised when my favorite social worker, Ada Deer, stopped by the office recently to make sure I didnâ??t forget.
Ada has always been proud of her chosen profession and the wide variety of services that it provides everyone from the very poor to the frail elderly and all walks of life in between.
The state Medical Examining Board improperly sanctioned a Madison physician last October after he was accused of fondling female patients, a Dane County judge ruled Tuesday.
The board suspended Frank Salvi for 90 days and required him to undergo a mental evaluation and five years of supervision. Four female patients accused Salvi of fondling them, charges Salvi vigorously denied and successfully defended against in a peer review at his then job at UW Hospital.
Quoted: Shawn Francis Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison instructor and author of “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law,” and Barbara Knox, a University of Wisconsin Childrenâ??s Hospital doctor who reviews child abuse cases.
The UW System said they are unable to comply with a 2005 law requiring all state agencies to post their contract agreements online because of technology problems.
Lake lovers will hear how they can preserve Wisconsinâ??s waters at the annual Wisconsin Lakes Convention later this month in Green Bay. The Wisconsin Lakes Partnership, a collaboration between the Wisconsin Lakes Association, the state Department of Natural Resources and the University of Wisconsin-Extension, is sponsoring the gathering.
The man appointed to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents says he hopes to be a role model for Native American students. Eau Claire attorney Edmund Manydeeds is an enrolled member of South Dakotaâ??s Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Heâ??s also a 1973 graduate of UW-Superior and the UW-Madison law school. Wisconsin Public Radio reports that one of Manydeedâ??s top priorities is accessibility to higher education.
More than 80 state agencies, including UW-Madison, are not in compliance with an open records law that requires all state agencies to report their contractual agreements on an aggregate website maintained by the Government Accountability Board.
Quoted: Laura Dresser, a labor economist for the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The second of two bills circulating the Capitol that deals with the right of parents to choose prayer rather than medical treatment for a sick child will be before the Assembly Committee on Children and Families Wednesday.
Among the invited speakers will be Dr. Barbara Knox, with the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Shawn Peters, author of “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law” and a UW-Madison lecturer.
Peters will be speaking in favor of Berceau’s bill.
A state lawmaker wants to require public buildings be constructed to green standards despite fears by project owners that the law would bust their project budgets.
The poll was directed by political scientist Ken Goldstein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A civil trial attorney from Eau Claire will be the newest member of the UW Board of Regents. Gov. Jim Doyle announced the appointment of Edmund Manydeeds today and reappointed current Regent Mark Bradley. Both appointments will expire May 1, 2017.
A civil trial attorney from Eau Claire will be the newest member of the UW Board of Regents.
Gov. Jim Doyle announced the appointment of Edmund Manydeeds today and reappointed current Regent Mark Bradley. Both appointments will expire May 1, 2017.
….Manydeeds has served on the governorâ??s Judicial Selection Committee and with the Office of Lawyer Regulation. He has a bachelorâ??s of arts from UW-Superior and a law degree from UW-Madisonâ??s law school. He will replace Eileen Connolly-Keesler, whose term expires this year.
A bill in the state Legislature would restore some college tuition benefits for Wisconsin veterans that were eliminated in the latest state budget. Under legislation sponsored by Rep. Steve Hilgenberg, D-Dodgeville, some state veterans who attend Wisconsin public colleges and universities would be eligible for roughly six years of college tuition-free, an increase from about four years under current state law.
For the second year in a row, the Wisconsin Retirement System will reduce monthly payments to retirees invested in the systemâ??s Core Fund annuity beginning May 1.
Mentions that among members of the stakeholders panel, seven including representatives of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Wisconsin Deer Hunters Association, Wisconsin County Forest Association and Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association voted to hold the line at the board-adopted goal of 745,636 deer.
Faculty at University of Wisconsin campuses in Eau Claire and Superior could be the first to form unions under a new law giving academic workers that right, organizers said Wednesday.
It sure seems like Gov. Jim Doyle promised 50,000 Wisconsin schoolchildren more than he could deliver, but his spokesman insists the promise is being fulfilled. Itâ??s too soon to tell.
One of the hallmarks of Doyleâ??s tenure as governor has been something he called the Wisconsin Covenant: If you graduate from high school having maintained at least a “B” average, take all the college prep classes you need and stay out of trouble, youâ??ll be guaranteed a place in a Wisconsin college or university and youâ??ll get the financial aid you need to pay for that education.
University of Wisconsin research assistants could be the first state employees in Wisconsin to form unions without an election. The Democratic-controlled Legislature last year granted research assistants collective bargaining rights for the first time. But unlike other state employees, lawmakers gave them the ability to unionize immediately if a simple majority of them signs a card in support.
University of Wisconsin System research assistants could be the first state employees in Wisconsin to unionize without holding an election under a little-noticed law passed last year.
The average 2009-10 salary of a University of Wisconsin professor has decreased from previous years due in part to state mandated furlough days.
State lawmakers on Monday proposed tighter restrictions on high-capacity wells, including reviews of well plans that would affect smaller springs and allowing anyone to challenge applications. The billâ??s authors, Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, and Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, announced the legislation during a news conference at a spring in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum woods.
A bill that aims to restrict ticket scalping was not voted on by the state Assembly Thursday, but lawmakers did propose amendments.
Legislation that would place stronger checks on the University of Wisconsin Systemâ??s use of eminent domain has apparently stalled in committee.
