MADISON â?? University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly says he’ll ask taxpayers to invest more to continue plans to produce more college graduates.
Reilly is recommending the system ask the Legislature and Gov. Jim Doyle for $37.5 million in tax money and $13.4 million in student fees to support the so-called Growth Agenda through 2011.
With a little more than two weeks to go before the University of Wisconsin football season begins, the clock is ticking â?? again â?? in the ongoing dispute between the Big Ten Network and Time Warner Cable.
The Badgersâ?? season begins at home on Aug. 30 against the University of Akron, followed by the Sept. 6 UW-Marshall game. The Big Ten Network, which debuted last year, has the broadcast rights to both games.
MILWAUKEE — When the University of Wisconsin football team hits the field against the University of Akron on August 30, most of the state of Wisconsin will not be able to find the game on their televisions.
Fans are still upset that the Big Ten Network and Charter Communications, as well as Time Warner Cable, have not reached an agreement.
In July, the University of California System announced an initiative to measure and report publicly the performance of its 10 campuses. This would be the first such report of its kind for that system. Previously, in June, the Minnesota State Colleges and University System announced a new “accountability dashboard” to monitor its 32 colleges and universities.
These efforts come as people in higher education appreciate having clear, quantifiable performance data. Increasingly, students, lawmakers and taxpayers use such information to evaluate their return on investment.
Wisconsinites sometimes envy places like California and Minnesota. In this instance, however, we can take pride in Wisconsin’s long-standing leadership position in public accountability reporting.
Wisconsinâ??s average score on the Midwestâ??s most popular college entrance exam still ranks among the highest in the nation, but that could change in coming years: Milwaukee Public Schools plans to offer the ACT to the majority of its juniors next spring, a move that could lower the statewide average.
High school graduates’ average ACT scores held steady in Wisconsin last year and remained among the highest in the country.
The average composite score for Wisconsin students who graduated this year was 22.3 out of 36. That’s the same as last year and 1.2 points higher than the national average.
As in past years, there were large disparities among the races in Wisconsin and nationally.
Sixty-seven percent of graduates took the test in Wisconsin
Getting a good job as a teenager can be difficult enough, let alone when the teenage job-seeker has a disability such as autism.
But thanks to a three-year study at-UW Madison, the issue is being examined with the intent of turning the problem around.
Project Summer, run by the Community Inclusion Unit at the university’s Waisman Center, aims to increase the levels of school, employment and community involvement for youth with a variety of disabilities.
The state of arts education in Wisconsin public schools is “at a crossroads” according to a study released Monday.
The report shows music and art classes are readily available in almost all Wisconsin public schools, however, there has been a 5 percent decline in participation over the last four years. The study, which was commissioned by the arts advocacy group Arts Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Alliance for Arts Education — a statewide organization dedicated to arts education — also found that dance and theater classes are very rarely offered.
Here’s how Plymouth native and UW-Madison grad Beau Hoopman sums up his journey to the Olympics, which opens in China today: “Four years, countless hours of practice, thousands and thousands of miles rowed – all for five-and-a-half minutes.”
It’s that kind of no-nonsense attitude that drives so many of Wisconsin’s amateur athletes as they chase their dreams of Olympic gold.
MADISON â?? Gov. Jim Doyle, a longtime opponent of building new nuclear power plants in Wisconsin, said today he was open to studying that possibility.
But Doyle was quick to repeat his oft-used line that no nuclear power plant has been built in the country in 30 years and Wisconsin would not be the first place one goes up.
The state’s wolf population has grown to more than 500, expanding their habitat beyond a limited area of northern Wisconsin.
David Mladenhoff of UW-Madison’s forest ecology department has researched wolf habitat for more than 16 years.
The University of Wisconsinâ??s flagship campus will be welcoming a new chancellor this fall.
Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin begins later this summer, filling the spot left vacant by outgoing chancellor John Wiley.
Midcontinent Communications, a cable company serving more than 200,000 customers in more than 200 communities in North Dakota, South Dakota and western Minnesota, announced Monday that it has signed a deal to begin carrying the Big Ten Network on Aug. 15.
However, there are no new developments in negotiations between BTN and Charter Communications, the Madison area’s dominant cable provider.
Environmentalists say the decision by Gov. Jim Doyle to scrap the use of coal at the state’s power plants in downtown Madison will help the city’s long-suffering air and water.
“We’ll have no more coal dust running into the lake. We’ll have no more air pollution from the coal. We’ll have no more mercury going into our air and lakes. We’ll cut our global warming pollution drastically,” rejoiced Jennifer Feyerherm, director of the Sierra Club’s Wisconsin Clean Energy Campaign. “All these problems will be solved by simply moving away from coal.”
Doyle said last week that the state would end coal use at the pollution-belching Charter Street heating plant, built in 1954, and the 106-year-old Capitol Heat and Power Plant, and replace them with cleaner systems. No target date has been set for the conversion.
he emerald ash borer, an invasive insect that has destroyed millions of ash trees in Michigan and other states in the Upper Midwest, has been discovered for the first time in Wisconsin.
When he first ran for governor in 2002, Jim Doyle said his goal would be to shrink the size of the state work force to 1987 levels over the course of four budgets – amounting to about 10,000 jobs in eight years.
But nearly three-quarters of the way through his first two terms, the number of state government jobs will have fallen by 2,730 jobs by the end of the budget that expires June 30, 2009.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has named the son of prominent Democratic political figure to lead its public relations efforts during a pivotal election season.
Alec Loftus, a former spokesman for two state agencies and a former political reporter, will be the state party’s communications director. His appointement comes as Democrats try to make a clean sweep of the state government this fall by gaining the Assembly majority, which has eluded them for 14 years. Success on that front would give Democrats, if they can maintain their majority in the Senate, a monopoly on setting the state’s policy agenda.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Gov. Jim Doyle’s announcement Friday that Wisconsin will stop using coal at its power plants in Madison was hailed as a pivotal victory for the environment that makes the state a leader in seeking clean energy alternatives.
â??This is great news,â? said Jennifer Feyerherm, director of the Sierra Club’s clean energy campaign. The national environmental group that sued the state last year over pollution violations at one of its plants.
The announcement means that the Charter Street Heating Plant will have to be shut down and refitted to burn something other than coal.
MADISON, Wis. – A faculty union is suing the University of Wisconsin-Platteville over the way its chancellor wants to award merit pay increases.
The case could help decide how a new $10 million fund is awarded across the University of Wisconsin System. Lawmakers created the fund last year to help recruit and retain faculty members and researchers, whose salaries are lagging behind those at rival schools.
The UW System told campuses to use the money to give raises to key employees or to sweeten the salaries of incoming workers.
The Governor wants to stop using coal to generate heat for some state facilities.
As the UW-Madison and Department of Administration consider new ways to fuel state-owned heating plants in Madison, Governor Jim Doyle says coal is not an option. Doyle says the state needs to move away from that energy source.
Using coal at state-owned heating plants is not an option that should be considered as a fuel source, according to a directive issued Friday by Gov. Jim Doyle.
The directive to move away from coal is in line with recommendations made by the governor’s task force on global warming.
“The state should lead by example and move away from our dependence on coal at the state-owned heating plants in Madison,” Doyle said. “Global warming demands leadership, and as we plan for the future of the Madison heating facilities, we must chart a course that lowers greenhouse gas emissions and encourages new alternative energy sources.”
The Wisconsin Tobacco Quit Line sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention has announced expanded services for pregnant women who smoke, in light of statistics which show Wisconsin is in the top 20 states in that category.
With a year and a half remaining, American Players Theatre has raised more than 75 percent of the financial goal for its $4 million “Touchstone Campaign.”
The Touchstone Campaign focuses on collecting donations for a new, 200-seat indoor theater, expanded scene shop and additional rehearsal space. Contractors have laid foundations for the buildings, and organizers at APT hope to open them next summer.
Quoted: Andrew Taylor, director of the UW-Madison Bolz Center for Arts Administration
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Roland Day, who has died at age 89, will be remembered not just for his legal acumen but for the political skills that proved essential in the early days of a 22-year career on the state’s highest court. And rightly so.
In 1976, the good-humored Madison lawyer won one of the most intense court contests in the state’s history.
Appointed in 1974 by former Gov. Pat Lucey as “a liberal who can win,” Day was chosen over state Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, and a young University of Wisconsin law professor who was favored by feminists to be the first woman of the Supreme Court, Shirley Abrahamson.
(Both Day and Abrahamson received degrees from the UW Law School.)
The sign on the front door of the Copps Food Center on Aberg Avenue says it all: “Bug spray is located in Aisle 11.”
Gardeners, walkers, runners and golfers alike are being bugged this summer by swarms of irritating insects. Besides being bitten by mosquitoes, horse flies and black flies, city residents are also contending with an onslaught of Japanese beetles devouring their plants.
Quoted: UW-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri
For their all their political differences, Vicki Pietrus and Allison Nelson have a lot in common. Both are smart, engaged University of Wisconsin-Madison seniors from suburban Chicago. Pietrus is majoring in political science and English, Nelson in political science and film production.
But while Nelson, a Republican, is trying to get her Students for John McCain effort off the ground, Pietrus, a volunteer for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, is trained and field-tested.
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Roland B. Day is remembered by Court colleagues for fostering collegiality and working toward more prompt release of opinions. Day is remembered by friends and family for his good sense of humor, commitment to public service and dedication to family. He died July 26 at the age of 89.
Day chose to serve just one year as chief justice before retiring, but he used that time wisely to help improve the administration of justice and to encourage better public understanding of the courts, said Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson.
MADISON â?? Gov. Jim Doyle interviewed the four finalists for the University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor job in May, days before Biddy Martin was selected, his calendar shows.
The interviews raise questions about whether the governor had any influence in Martinâ??s selection. A regent said Monday that was not the case, but one Republican aide still criticized Doyleâ??s involvement as inappropriate.
The process used to pick university leaders is under scrutiny after a new chancellor at another campus resigned his appointment because he is under federal investigation.
Gov. Jim Doyle interviewed the four finalists for the UW-Madison chancellor job in May, days before Biddy Martin was selected, his calendar shows.
The interviews raise questions about whether the governor had any influence in Martin’s selection. A regent said Monday that was not the case, but one Republican aide still criticized Doyle’s involvement as inappropriate.
The process used to pick university leaders is under scrutiny after a new chancellor at another campus resigned his appointment because he is under federal investigation.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Badger cows have a spiffy new home.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will dedicate a state-of-the-art, $5.1 million barn at its Arlington Agricultural Research Station on Wednesday.
The Integrated Dairy Research Facility has housing for 500 cows, a milking parlor and research areas.
The money is an unsung resource, totaling more than $700 million, and the stateâ??s two medical schools are responsible for using it wisely.
The investment income from that money is funding grants for medical education, research and public health throughout Wisconsin that total more than $100 million so far.
Now the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health must decide how to use that income for the next five years.
….to really gain some insight into Wisconsin’s workforce, one need only look at the recent analysis by Gannett Wisconsin Media of the state’s drinking culture — where boozing goes hand-in-hand with tailgating, snowmobiling, deer hunting and even children’s events.
Gannett scored Wisconsin No. 1 in the nation for imbibing, a ranking based on the price and availability of alcohol, its economic importance and its criminal justice, social and health effects.
Following Wisconsin on the list of top drinking states are North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota. That’s not exactly the kind of company to keep when you’re pitching yourself as the next biotech hotbed.
After years of roadblocks, the stars are aligning for a commuter rail system in Dane County.
On Aug. 7, a state legislative study committee will begin work on drafting a bill to allow regional transit authorities — local taxing districts that will manage and fund transit systems.
As a Wisconsin taxpayer, I am grateful and proud of Dr. James Thomson and UW-Madison’s bioscience community for their human embryonic stem cell discoveries. But as I study the funding issues relating to Wisconsin’s stem cell enterprise, I have become increasingly concerned with how our state is managing the intellectual property associated with these potentially lucrative discoveries.
One of my questions has to do with why did Wisconsin agree to give exclusive rights to the Geron Corp. in Menlo Park, Calif., for using Wisconsin-patented stem cells to treat heart disease, diabetes and neurological disorders? My concerns have to do with both the nature of the diseases chosen and the potential economic and health care implications involved.
I am also concerned with the potential conflict of interest involved and exactly by who and why this decision was made and whose interests are best being served.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Milwaukee-area medical helicopter service Flight for Life plans to open an air base in Fond du Lac next month. The base will have a $5 million twin-engine helicopter and the equivalent of 15 full-time workers.
But competing services based in Neenah and Madison complain that the addition isn’t needed.
State legislators on Thursday questioned whether state employees were abusing sick leave and said they wanted a review of sick leave use by early next year.
State employees on average use 65 hours – or a week and a half – of sick leave each year. Lawmakers said they believe that is higher than the private sector and want to see a further analysis of the issue.
MADISON, Wis. — If Gov. Jim Doyle ever has a tough science question, he doesn’t have to go far for the answer.
Doyle has named University of Wisconsin professor James Dahlberg as his science adviser.
Doyle signed an executive order Wednesday creating the unpaid position.
The position is designed to keep the governor and administration informed on ongoing scientific research and to serve as a liaison to the scientific research community.
Dirt is finally getting its due with an exhibit opening this weekend at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Several Madison scientists are spearheading “Dig It! The Secrets of Soil,” and the Soil Science Society of America, based here in Madison, is a founding sponsor.
It’s about time for this “misunderstood” science to get its own exhibit, according to Arboretum director and soil scientist Kevin McSweeney. Even the common name for soils, dirt, has a “contemptuous meaning.”
Christine Quinn has been named the new provost/vice chancellor for the University of Wisconsin-Extension.
After a national search, Quinn replaces Robin Shepard, who was interim provost/vice chancellor. Shepard was not a candidate for the position.
UW Colleges/UW-Extension Chancellor David Wilson announced Quinn’s appointment Thursday morning.
A new map produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s WisconsinView program shows just how much the water from flooding last month had a widespread and devastating impact across southern and central Wisconsin.
By Sharif Durhams
Madison police plan to see whether there’s a tie between a man accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two men in Wood County and a 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison student who was killed in April.
Edward Lanphear, 46, is being held on $1 million bail at the Wood County Jail, charged with 12 felonies ranging from kidnapping to sexual assault to false imprisonment and battery.
Wood County sheriff’s investigators who searched Lanphear’s home last week found a newspaper clipping of a story about the death of Brittany Sue Zimmermann, a UW-Madison student found dead in her apartment in April, according to court filings.
Another highlighted newspaper found in Lanphear’s home, dated July 7, contains news about the search for a missing 23-year-old Grand Rapids man who later turned up in Lanphear’s basement.
Madison police plan to see whether there’s a tie between a man accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two men in Wood County and the murder of Brittany Zimmermann in Madison, who was killed in April, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Web site reported Tuesday.
The newspaper reports that Edward Lanphear, 46, is being held on $1 million bail at the Wood County Jail, charged with 12 felonies ranging from kidnapping to sexual assault to false imprisonment and battery.
The Wisconsin State Employees Union has raised more than a few eyebrows over its dogged insistence that its union contract can trump the state’s open records law.
Although it has lost in Circuit Court, it has now appealed all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to defend contracts with the state — contracts that should never have been accepted by the state in the first place — that prohibit the public release of the names of its rank-and-file members.
In 2004, the nation took notice as California and Wisconsin independently announced major investments in stem cell and biotechnology research. In California, voters approved Proposition 71, a massive $3 billion commitment over ten years to fund stem cell research. In Wisconsin, Governor Jim Doyle announced a $750 million state investment in biotechnology in order to help the state maintain a leadership position in the life sciences. Four years later, let’s take a look at what is going on inside Wisconsin and around the country to gauge just how well Wisconsin’s biotech leadership is holding up.
UW-Madison scientist David Mladenoff has been warning for years that some trees common to northern Wisconsin — balsam fir, spruce and jack pine — could disappear from the state as the climate warms.
But now Mladenoff and fellow UW forest ecologist Robert Scheller are adding that it will be difficult for southern Wisconsin species — oaks and hickories for instance — to move northward to replace them.
A fiscal watchdog says Wisconsin “budgets right to the brink,” and today’s Wisconsin Supreme Court decision serves to point out the precariousness of state finances. “The state leaves itself unnecessarily vulnerable,” says Todd Berry with the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. “This would not be an issue, nor would most of the economic downturn, if Wisconsin had budgeted reserves of the kind that the typical state did.”
Recent news coverage and editorial opinions have suggested that the University of Wisconsin system must increase the salaries of its chancellors statewide. Writers imply that the departure of six campus chancellors the past year was due to their sub-national-average salaries.
For example, Bruce Shepard, who earned about $210,000 at UW-Green Bay, has taken a position at Western Washington University for more than $300,000. Similar salary increases were in store for the other campus chancellors who left the UW system this past year. Proponents of higher salaries suggest that greater pay will somehow improve retention of our chancellors.
But consider another distinct possibility. Perhaps after 6-8 years leading a specific campus, a chancellor will look for a new challenge no matter what his or her salary.
Sun Prairie â?? Key state agencies and University of Wisconsin schools will buy electricity generated from wind turbines, solar panels and landfill gas systems under a major purchase of green power announced Wednesday.
Over time, more and more people started questioning if anything less than complete funding is any way to reward those who had put their lives at risk to serve their country.
Elizabeth O’Herrin, executive director of Student Veterans of America, noted that the Montgomery GI Bill — which provides education funding for those who have served in the military at any point since July 1, 1985 — was created during a relatively peaceful time, near the end of the Cold War.
“There was a feeling that the Montgomery GI Bill wasn’t a sufficient education benefit — especially when one considers what service we are now asking of our military since the advent of the war” in Iraq, said O’Herrin, a 2007 UW-Madison graduate and a member of the Wisconsin Air National Guard.
The upcoming race for control of the state Legislature could be a big one.
The deadline to file a candidacy for the State Assembly or Senate is at the end of the day, and Mike McCabe with the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign says it already shaping up to be a crowded field. He says there are more people already running for the Legislature than there have been in the last decade.
Help college students with child care, says the Appleton Post-Crescent.
We know Wisconsin is lagging in college graduation rates. Only about 25 percent of adults age 25 or older in the state hold a bachelor’s degree, compared with 30 percent in Minnesota. The national average is about 27 percent.
The state will subsidize child care for full-time college students — but only for two years — while low-income parents working full time can receive unlimited day care assistance.
A state health-care program for the poor – already projected to be $78 million in the red – will have to put up an additional $53.3 million to help the state solve its budget crisis.
The University of Wisconsin System will also be hit with $25 million in additional spending cuts, with at least some affecting UW-Madison, a System spokesman said.
Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration capped a drawn-out budget fix Thursday by telling state agencies to implement a total of $270 million in cuts.
Quoted: Steve Melli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
If citizens want to know how much front-line public employees are paid, it ‘s not hard to find out. Pay ranges are public record.
If a newspaper wants to find out if law enforcement officers are among those who no longer are allowed to drive state cars, a reporter can request and find out the job classifications of those covered by the prohibition.
But if the newspaper wants to know exactly what a particular state correctional officer is paid, or exactly who is being prohibited from driving, that ‘s when the line is crossed between legitimate public knowledge and the protection of personal privacy.
Ex-Marine and University of Wisconsin-Madison junior Jake Warner gets a monthly check for $1,185, enough to cover his living expenses ($510 for rent $250 necessities) plus four 30-packs of Miller High Life. But, he says, â??you canâ??t survive off just the GI Bill.â? After financial aid, his tuition bill ends up around $2,000 a semester. He tutors a seventh grader to make up the difference.
Even states without California’s mega-bucks are hoping to become stem-cell havens. Last month Wisconsin’s governor announced that a combination of state and private funds would be dedicated to build a $375 million “Wisconsin Institute for Discovery,” to be housed at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, where pioneering biologist James Thomson first isolated human embryonic stem cells in 1998.
A new report has prompted the Doyle administration to ask four state contractors to look into whether their suppliers produce sweatshop goods.
Wisconsin is far better positioned in the knowledge economy than it was four years ago, with larger pools of risk capital and better coordination of the stateâ??s best research.
That’s one way to read a new report from the well-respected Milken Institute. The state finished five spots higher at No. 22 in Milken’s State Technology and Science Index (www.jsonline.com/765102).
To ensure that Wisconsin’s dairy industry will not be left without professional veterinary care in the future, a group of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine has partnered with the school’s Office of Academic Affairs and dean’s office to introduce youngsters to the positive side of a career in agriculture, including that of large-animal veterinarian. The group calls itself Veterinary Medicine Outreach, Recruitment and Education (VetMORE) and has already organized numerous outreach events.
