Hundreds of UW students marched last winter to convince state lawmakers to save affirmative action. After tonight’s special committee meeting, many of them may have reason to march again.
Sen. Glenn Grothman, the committee’s chairman and a Republican, plans to introduce several proposals. He wants to force students or workers seeking government contracts to prove they are at least 1/4 minority.
A legislative committee takes a step tonight toward eliminating Affirmative Action.
Committee chair, State Senator Glen Grothman (R-West Bend), says Affirmative Action has outlived its usefulness. It’s time to make everyone truly equal.
The committee’s recommendations would apply to University admissions, state contracts and state government jobs.
The tide appears to finally be turning in favor of the University of Wisconsin System, making the chances of an appropriate budget for the next biennium better than they’ve been in years.
Earlier this year, the UW System fared well in its capital budget requests.
UW-Stevens Point got the go-ahead for several projects, including relocation of the military science program to the Health Enhancement Center and addition to the Maintenance and Materiel Building.
Affirmative action in the University of Wisconsin System and state contracting would be abolished or significantly scaled back under legislative proposals to be taken up today by a committee of state lawmakers and citizens.
The Wisconsin Idea Seminar was launched 23 years ago by the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a way to introduce new faculty members and academic staff to the state and to the widespread connections between the university and the people of Wisconsin.
The annual five-day traveling seminar emphasizes the “Wisconsin Idea”: that the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state.
This year, 33 faculty and staff members, plus several lecturers and trip organizers, traveled by bus from Madison to Baraboo, Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Oneida, Door County, Green Bay and Milwaukee to visit agricultural, educational, ethnic, manufacturing and business sites and talk to the people who work to make them a success.
MADISON, Wis. – Pollution from a University of Wisconsin-Madison power plant has spiked in recent years after plant managers illegally failed to install new pollution controls during a major construction project, the state Department of Natural Resources said Thursday.
The DNR notified state and university officials in a letter Wednesday they violated the Clean Air Act by failing to obtain a construction permit from the agency for a major overhaul to the coal-fired plantâ??s boilers in 2004.
Peter Konz gave Bret Bielema some news Wednesday morning that caught the University of Wisconsin football coach by surprise.
Konz, a prospect from Neenah who was in town visiting the campus, verbally committed to the Badgers in Bielema’s office, an announcement that even those closest to Konz didn’t know was coming.
The Milwaukee region, once known as the “machine shop to the world,” must remake itself as the industrial “design shop of the world” if it is to compete in a landscape transformed by global economic forces, civic leaders said Wednesday in unveiling the Milwaukee 7s strategic economic plan.
The report by the seven-county economic development group said southeastern Wisconsins future hinges on its engineering talent, research-and-development capacity, its universities and its collective impulse to generate products and ideas.
MADISON (AP) â?? Gov. Jim Doyle called on lawmakers Wednesday to support his plan to increase funding for the University of Wisconsin System, warning the universities need “a major investment” to remain competitive.
Doyle used an appearance at UW-Madison to try to build support for his plan to spend an additional $225 million for the UW System and financial aid, a request the Legislature’s budget committee is expected to consider in the coming days.
The Governor is calling on lawmakers to increase funding for Wisconsin colleges and universities. Governor Jim Doyle says the state is at a critical point for higher education, and more investment is needed. He says the state and its students will suffer the legislature doesn’t approve the additional funding he’s requested in the state budget.
Governor Doyle is asking state legislators to invest $225 million into it’s UW system. the governor says the state’s 26 institutions are unable to take in all the students who want to join nursing, engineering and teaching professions and that problem could lead to a shortage in the near future.
The funding will be distributed between all 26 schools in the UW system, with the largest chunk likely staying right here in Madison. It’s money that will be used to create more seats in programs that are seeing shortages in the real world, like nursing.
MADISON, Wis. – University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been an attractive target for elite schools like Harvard and Stanford looking to steal faculty. But Arizona State? Pittsburgh? Florida State?
Dozens of UW-Madison professors left in the past two years, and Chancellor John Wiley said a growing number of them are going to schools that traditionally could not compete with his campus. More than 115 professors reported receiving outside offers last year, the most in 20 years and more than double the number from five years ago.
The trend has alarmed Wisconsin administrators who say some departments are in a crisis after losing prominent teachers and researchers. At stake, they say, are the quality of the stateâ??s flagship university, which has traditionally ranked among the nationâ??s top public schools, and coveted research dollars.
Gary Kohlenberg has devised a financing structure and a branding concept that would help Gov. Jim Doyle as he tries to push guaranteed funding for students pursuing higher education through the Legislature.
Doyle’s Wisconsin Covenant has been running into heavy resistance in the Legislature, mainly because its financing has been purposely left unclear.
Providing a package of loans and subsidies for every eighth-grader who signs a pledge to earn a B average and exhibit good behavior in high school makes a lot of sense in a state where only 25% of the population holds a baccalaureate, two points below the national average.
There is almost unanimity that education is the ticket to prosperity in an innovation economy.
With area students now counting time until summer vacation in days â?? rather than weeks or months â?? it’d be no surprise if considering their academic future isn’t priority No. 1.
But for hundreds of local eighth-graders, that’s exactly where the focus has been heading into the summer holiday.
They’re the students who have signed or are thinking about signing the Wisconsin Covenant, a deal with the state that offers admission to a state post-secondary school and applicable financial aid in exchange for meeting certain academic and attendance criteria throughout high school.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky.
(MADISON) Funding for new University of Wisconsin residence halls, repairs to the UW-Madison student union and a Hmong Cultural Center all got the axe in budget talks last week.
Republicans on the Legislatureâ??s budget panel voted to strip out millions in bonding that Governor Jim Doyle set aside to pay for the projects. Among those cut include suite-style dorms at five campuses including the UW-Madison and UW-Oshkosh.
(Final item.)
Results of the tests on the brown trout were learned Wednesday night. The test was conducted by the University of Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. A backup test has been sent to a federal laboratory in Ames, Iowa.
Story mentions that the Legislature’s Joint Fince Committee refused to endorse other projects: building new dorms at six UW campuses; building or expanding student centers at UW-Madison and UW-Eau Claire; and providing $500,000 toward a planned Civil War museum in Kenosha.
MADISON – No new dorms for the University of Wisconsin System. No student union renovations. And no Hmong cultural center or Civil War museum to boot.
The Legislatureâ??s budget-writing committee on Thursday wiped all those projects out of the 2007-09 state budget. Republicans on the panel argued that they had to set priorities and draw the line on state debt, while committee Democrats said their GOP counterparts were being cheap.
â??You want to save money but at the same time you donâ??t want to be petty,â? said committee member Rep. Pedro Colon, D-Milwaukee.
Plans for a major renovation of Memorial Union and the replacement of Union South suffered a setback Thursday when the state Legislature’s budget committee rejected the proposed bond funding for the projects in the 2007-09 state budget.
In October, UW-Madison students voted to increase student fees to pay for the projects, but construction won’t move forward unless the state issues $126.2 million in bonds, Wisconsin Union Director Mark Guthier said Thursday.
MADISON (AP) – A report detailing misconduct that prompted the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point to remove the chair of its biology department must be made public under the stateâ??s open records law, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Dane County Judge Richard Niess rejected a lawsuit by professor Robert Bell seeking to keep secret the reasons the university stripped him of his duties as department chair in March.
Madison, Wis. – Will Wisconsin join the biofuels parade as the marketplace elephant passes by – or follow behind with a shovel?
That question was raised by state Sen. Bob Jauch, the veteran Democrat from Poplar, during Tuesday’s Capitol debate over the state’s 2007-2009 budget bill. So far, the answer isn’t pretty.
(UNDATED) Wisconsinâ??s only statewide organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights has a new director, but Eva Shiffrin says Fair Wisconsinâ??s mission will stay the same. Shiffrin started her new job last week, after serving as the staff attorney for the Wisconsin Coalition against Sexual Assault since 2002.
Shiffrin says Fair Wisconsin will work for LGBT equality in all aspects of life. Right now, her focus is on keeping a provision for domestic partner benefits for University of Wisconsin employees in the state budget. She says currently, the UW is the only Big Ten school which does not offer those benefits, and itâ??s having a â??huge impactâ? on the university system, in terms of attrition, and the failure to provide employees stability. She says itâ??s unfair and unjust, and is causing the UW to lag behind other Big Ten schools in terms of recruitment. (Seventh item.)
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison business professor Rodney E. Stevenson.
CLEVELAND â?? Gov. Jim Doyle advocated a larger workforce training budget Tuesday, as he led a roundtable discussion of area manufacturing leaders at Lakeshore Technical College.
“Manufacturing is the heart and soul of this state,” Doyle said during his appearance as part of Capital for the Day events in Manitowoc County. “Wisconsin has the second highest percentage of workers in manufacturing, twice the national average. That’s what we do here … we make things.”
Gov. Jim Doyle generated excitement last year when he proposed the Wisconsin Covenant, which guarantees a spot in a Wisconsin college — with a financial aid package if needed — to any state high school graduate who has fulfilled a pledge to maintain at least a B average and meet other standards of behavior.
However, as state lawmakers prepare to endorse the plan, the excitement has been superseded by questions.
MADISON, Wis. — As of Wednesday, residents can enjoy the give and take of legislative debate from the comfort of their own homes over the WisconsinEye Web site.
The question is, does anyone really want to watch it?
Jay Heck with Common Cause said he thinks there will be state political junkies who will tune in. He said it might not be as popular as “Desperate Housewives,” but those with an interest will watch.
MADISON, Wis. — The long-awaited beginning of public affairs coverage of state government starts Wednesday with the launch of WisconsinEye.
The nonprofit network will feature live coverage of the State Assembly and State Senate online Wednesday. Cable coverage agreements have been finalized with both Charter Communications and Time Warner.
A power plant operated by University of Wisconsin-Madison is allowing coal dust into the environment, polluting one of the city’s prized lakes, state regulators say.
The Department of Natural Resources has warned the plant is violating the Clean Water Act by allowing dust from its coal pile to spill into a nearby neighborhood. When it rains, the coal dust runs into storm sewers that drain into Monona Bay, a popular fishing and recreation spot.
A Senate committee took testimony Tuesday on a proposal to protect the rights of breastfeeding mothers. The legislation would make it illegal to harass or stop women from breastfeeding in public.
State Senator Fred Risser (D-Madison) is the sponsor of the bill. He says mothers should be allowed to breastfeed in any public location they’re otherwise able to be in. The Madison Democrat says the health benefits of breastfeeding have been clearly shown, but many women avoid doing it in public because they’re afraid of accusations of indecency.
Pressed by lawmakers for details on the proposed Wisconsin Covenant, Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration has slapped a price tag on it: $139 million over six years. The estimate didn’t quiet critics, who want more details about the workings of a program in which an eighth-grader pledges to maintain at least a B average in high school and meet other benchmarks in exchange for a guarantee of a seat in a Wisconsin college and, if eligible, a financial aid package.
Wisconsinites have an opportunity to shape the future of agriculture policies affecting the lives of rural and urban dwellers alike.
This message opened the Future of Farming and Rural Life in Wisconsin Conference this morning at Monona Terrace. Speakers urged farmers, policy makers and agriculture advocates to use research and recommendations presented at the event to shape a public private partnership to address challenges.
“If you’re looking for slick, that ain’t us, folks,” said Steve Stevenson of the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This is an effort to bring people to the table to look at what it will be like five, 10, 15 years down the road.”
A Madison stem cell start-up company will get a $1 million boost from the state, Gov. Jim Doyle announced this morning.
Top University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Gabriela Cezar co-founded Stemina Biomarker Discovery Inc. in November with Beth Donley, the former executive director of WiCell, the stem cell subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
With the aid of two WARF stem cell patents, the company is developing ways to help drug manufacturers screen drugs for toxicity. The aim is to save millions of dollars in drug development costs by developing a library of biomarkers that discover toxins in the early stages of pharmaceutical development.
Stemina Biomarker Discovery Inc. will receive $1 million in loans and grants from the state, Gov. Jim Doyle will announce today.
The Madison company was founded in November by a former top executive at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s patenting arm and a high-profile UW scientist. It is the third company started in the state that uses embryonic stem cells.
State officials are trying to come up with a universal policy on criminal background checks for current and future workers – and the emotional issue is giving union leaders and some state workers nightmares.
When it comes to marketing Wisconsin, what should the state play up? Its great outdoors? The emerging research economy? Its agricultural and manufacturing history?
Those are questions some state leaders want to begin to answer as a way to move Wisconsin past its current image of the cheesehead, beer and brats state that was home to “Laverne & Shirley” and “That ’70s Show.” They want to create a state brand to be an umbrella marketing tool for selling opportunities for economic development, tourism, educational and other things that contribute to quality of life in Wisconsin.
Eighth grade students have begun siging up for the Wisconsin Covenant program, which guarantees a middle schooler college admission in the state, if the teen finishes high school, maintains a “B” average and has good conduct, and takes college prepatory courses. Proponents said it could mean an increase in the number of students entering college in Wisconsin in the future.
But beyond college admission, questions remain over what students will get, in exchange for their guarantee of good grades and clean living.
Over a thousand students gathered on college campus statewide Thursday to sign the agreement. Governor Jim Doyle says the Wisconsin Covenant guarantees them enrollment at a UW campus or technical college, if they meet certain requirements after high school.
Citizen involvement has been an underpinning of the two-year Future of Farming and Rural Life in Wisconsin Project. People from around the state had a hand in fashioning the list of recommendations released last week and featured on the front page of The Capital Times.
The recommendations — essentially action steps offered to policymakers, community leaders and interested citizens — will be discussed at the statewide Future of Farming and Rural Life conference May 14-15 at Monona Terrace. Information on registration is available on the project Web site. A report this summer will include the final recommendations.
(MADISON) The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been making the case for how the state can help the institution attract and keep top-notch faculty. Now, some are hoping to broaden the focus on recruitment and retention to the people who help the professors.
Graduate students do everything from teach in the classroom to help out in the lab as research and project assistants. Judith Kornblatt says theyâ??re part of the backbone at UW-Madison, which has more grad students than any other UW campus, and where she works as an associate dean of the graduate school. She says if one were to stop a faculty member on campus and ask whatâ??s really important to them, many would say graduate students. Also, she says if the same question were asked of an undergraduate, theyâ??d likely point to their teaching assistants in various courses.
The University of Wisconsinâ??s Faculty Senate passed a resolution Monday that will check the criminal background of all new employees and current ones moving into â??positions of trust.â?
The state of Wisconsin and its flagship university — UW-Madison — ought to be in the forefront in meeting at least the spirit of the nation’s Clean Air Act.
….right here in Madison, the UW and the state’s Department of Administration jointly operate one of the oldest and worst polluting plants — the more than 50-year-old coal-fired Charter Street plant just south of campus.
MADISON, Wis. — A year after he was demoted for misspending, a former University of Wisconsin-Whitewater dean has kept a job as a professor but still owes the university $117,000, according to school officials.
UW-Whitewater released a letter on Monday showing it has renewed its order that Howard Ross reimburse the school for money misspent on travel, technology, personal cell phone use and other items over several years.
Ross’ lawyer said that the claims are false and he will fight any attempt to collect the money. He said that the letter is retaliation for a racial discrimination complaint Ross, who is black, filed against the university.
Thousands of eighth graders can sign up for the Wisconsin Covenant program this week but is there money to pay for it?
Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton says the goal is to enroll all 75-thousand eighth graders but she has no idea how many will actually sign up.
And that’s what’s frustrating republicans on the Joint Finance Committee who are demanding more information before they vote to put it in the budget.
This week Madison will have the opportunity to see living examples of the University of Wisconsin’s best tradition. In a gathering at the Memorial Union, we at the Wisconsin Alumni Association will be handing out the university’s Distinguished Alumni Awards.
But the awards aren’t the tradition I’m talking about — they’re just a bit of recognition, a highlight on UW-Madison’s true source of greatness. The university’s strength flows from its students, graduates, faculty, and staff. They’re the heart of the UW’s best tradition, which is encapsulated in the Wisconsin Idea, the principle that the university’s true purpose is to spread the influence of education and research to serve the entire state and indeed the world.
On Thursday, Wisconsins 75,000 eighth-graders will get their first opportunity to participate in the Wisconsin Covenant, a program that Gov. Jim Doyle hopes will lead to dramatic progress in college participation in the state.
State Sen. Russ Decker, D-Weston, and state Rep. Kitty Rhoades, R-Hudson, co-chairpersons of the 16-member Joint Finance Committee, have agreed to remove 48 non-fiscal items as identified by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau from the 2007-2009 state budget.
Among the items removed is a proposal to grant state employees in domestic partnerships access to health care benefits similar to those offered to other state employees.
The aging Charter Street Power Plant in the heart of the UW-Madison campus has become a lightning rod for environmentalists looking to reduce the state’s reliance on coal-burning and its growing global warming footprint.
Wisconsin’s greenhouse gas emissions grew at a faster rate than the national average during the 1990s, jumping 26 percent compared to 20 percent nationally. About 70 percent of the state’s electricity is generated by coal burning, with at least three new coal-fired power plants in the works here.
To address the pollution issue, the Sierra Club on Thursday filed a lawsuit accusing the university and state of violating the Federal Clean Air Act.
Madison: A Sierra Club lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday says the UW violated the Clean Air Act by not installing modern pollution controls on the Charter St. Power Plant when they made upgrades in the past.
The Sierra Club calls the UW Charter St. Power Plant a 53 year old coal-fired dinosaur, and a lawsuit filed in federal court says the UW has violated state and federal law in keeping that dinosaur alive.
“The university for the last decade has been unlawfully modifying this power plant, a 50 year old power plant that still today lacks modern pollution controls,” says Sierra Club member Bruce Nilles.
MADISON, Wis. — A controversial University of Wisconsin lecturer challenged a state lawmaker to a debate on Thursday amid the still simmering debate about his views regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Kevin Barrett, who has previously claimed the federal government actually orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, issued the challenge outside state Rep. Steve Nass’ office at the state Capitol, WISC-TV reported.
Barrett held a news conference outside Nass’ office and called the Whitewater Republican his nemesis. Nass had previously called on the UW and any other college not to employ Barrett after he went on a Milwaukee radio show last year and asserted the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy.
Gundersen Lutheran and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health will form a new partnership in the fall in which medical students will spend more time learning primary care in rural areas.
In their third and fourth year, UW medical students interested in rural primary care will work at Gundersen clinics in such Wisconsin communities as Viroqua, Prairie du Chien, Whitehall, Sparta and Tomah. Five medical students will enter the Wisconsin Academy of Rural Medicine program at Gundersen Lutheran in the fall, which will be expanded to 25 students a year.
Following the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech, Gov. Jim Doyle recently signed an executive order creating the Governorâ??s Task Force on Campus Safety. The goal is to ensure campus security and preparedness in emergency situations on all Wisconsin college campuses.
After the tragic events that occurred at Virginia Tech last month, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle announced plans Wednesday to form a task force aimed at developing safety practices for all Wisconsin colleges.
Testifying before a state legislative committee Wednesday, University of Wisconsin System officials said that a multimillion-dollar software project derailed last year due to insufficient planning, nonstandard business practices and poor communication.
Itâ??s a bright Monday morning in the town of Dunn, warm but windy. The sun shimmers on the surface of Lake Kegonsa in the distance and on the hoods of a stream of cars being parked along the shoulder of Schneider Road.
A local university official will play a key role in how Wisconsin colleges move forward after the April 16 massacre at Virginia Tech.
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Chancellor Bruce Shepard has been selected to co-chair Gov. Jim Doyle’s Task Force on Campus Safety. Doyle announced the formation of the new body on Wednesday.
MILWAUKEE – In the wake of the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, Gov. Jim Doyle said Wednesday that he was creating a task force to ensure safety and preparedness on Wisconsin campuses.
The group of 10 to 15 students, parents, law enforcement agents, university officials and mental health experts will look at all options – including whether campus security officers should carry guns, Doyle said.
MILWAUKEE — In the wake of the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, Gov. Jim Doyle announced today that he is creating a task force to develop practices to ensure safety and preparedness on Wisconsin campuses.
The task force of students, parents, law enforcement agents and university officials will look at all options — including whether campus security officers should carry guns, Doyle said.
“I don’t want anything off the table with the task force,” he said.
The Princeton Review ranked UW-Madison No. 9 for â??Best Value Collegeâ? in the 2008 edition of its annual book, â??Americaâ??s Best Value Colleges,â? claiming UW-Madison â??offers an essential education at rock-bottom rates.â?
Senior Editor of â??Americaâ??s Best Value Collegesâ? Adrinda Kelly said the review looked at 650 colleges across the country and identified 30 factors that were applied to each of the universities. The universities were then narrowed down to the top 165, which are the schools that actually appear in the book.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials will visit Dane County today to review a possible site in the town of Dunn for a federal animal disease research facility.
