Dear Editor: Joel McNally’s recent column, “Down is up as Grothman fixes’ affirmative action,” addressed important issues about the diversity of university students in the state of Wisconsin. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, we are doing better than was reported but still not good enough for the future of Wisconsin.
ST. PAUL (AP) – The governors of Minnesota and Wisconsin said Friday that they settled a long-simmering tuition reciprocity dispute without making students pay more to attend universities in either state.
Their pact means that starting in the fall of 2008, Wisconsin students attending higher-priced University of Minnesota schools will see a bigger number on their bills — but the state will kick in the difference in the form of a “tuition reciprocity supplement.”
Governor Pawlenty says an agreement has been reached that would continue the program known as “tuition reciprocity.” And the governor says he’ll announce the deal on his radio show on WCCO Radio at 9 o’clock this morning.
Minnesota has been threatening to pull out of its reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin. The agreement allows students to attend college across state lines without having to pay nonresident tuition. The University of Minnesota contends the existing agreement is unfair because Wisconsin undergraduates pay about 12-hundred dollars less to attend the Twin Cities campus than in-state students do.
Don’t look now but Wisconsin’s once beleaguered College Savings Program is suddenly a hot commodity.
The state’s “529” savings plans — EdVest and Tomorrow’s Scholar — now boast nearly 228,000 accounts. That’s up about 7 percent from a year ago and 45 percent over the past four years.
The growth is even more impressive when you consider the history of the Wisconsin 529 program, named after its section number in the IRS code that allows earnings to grow tax-free.
Dear Editor: Recently the University of Wisconsin’s Charter Street power plant has come under public scrutiny due to notices of Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act violations….they symbolize the broader environmental problem of dirty coal plants in Madison and throughout Wisconsin.
….Yet Wisconsin citizens can make a difference, and help to reduce the state’s carbon footprint. Households can increase energy efficiency with simple, cost-effective actions.
The former chairman of the biology department at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point was removed from his post in March after having sexual relationships with two students.
A university report made public today (6/16) shows Robert Bell started one of the relationships with an undergraduate student at a time when he was her adviser. The report says their first kiss was in his university office and the woman later sneaked Bell into her dorm room.
Gov. Jim Doyle appeared Friday in the U.S. Capitol to tout biofuels, saying the U.S. is poised to become the “the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy,” with Wisconsin playing a key role.
Doyle said Wisconsin’s $51 billion agriculture industry, its manufacturing sector and the University of Wisconsin’s research capacity made the state poised to take a leading role in energy independence.
Mark Bradley, recently elected president to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents stopped by the Wausau Daily Herald on Friday to discuss the UW System’s mission and its challenges.
Among his hopes are to ensure access is provided to capable students and to make sure the Regents’ Growth Agenda, an initiative that would provide greater access, growth and affordability, becomes a reality. All components of the agenda have been approved by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.
Despite pressure from supporters of a bill that would require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch says he is reluctant to move the bill forward because of constitutional concerns.
“There’s no protection for those who would not do this and who are exercising their constitutional right to not do this on religious and moral grounds,” Huebsch told The Capital Times.
Huebsch, R-West Salem, said the bill, if passed, would usher in a “radical change” in state policy.
The legislature’s budget committee recently put limits on free tuition for veterans, and now the governor says those lawmakers raised a legitimate issue.
Governor Jim Doyle questions whether tuition remission for veterans should be “completely open-ended” for Wisconsin veterans enrolling in our universities and colleges.
The state Supreme Court strengthened the open meetings law Wednesday, ordering governmental bodies to be more specific in notifying the public about the subject matter of upcoming meetings.
The court said governments at all levels should be “reasonably specific” in meeting notices about the topics they will discuss and most specific when matters of great public interest are on the agenda.
They are part-time artists or craftspeople with full-time jobs of another kind — typically Caucasian women with bachelor’s degrees who are over age 50, producing their arts/crafts from home.
Their impact usually remains under the radar, because they work in isolation and independently, but these creative endeavors pump more than $31 million per year into northwestern Wisconsin economies.
For 40 years, students in Minnesota and Wisconsin have traded states and traded schools, crossing the border for college and, thanks to a program called reciprocity, still paying their home state tuition rates.
Schools use one tuition system for home-state residents, and another for students from out of state. Reciprocity deals treat students from neighboring states like they’re home-state residents.
MADISON– Investing in Wisconsinâ??s higher education through the University of Wisconsin System should be a â??no-brainer,â? but thatâ??s not the case these days.
Last week, the Wisconsin Legislatureâ??s Joint Committee on Finance voted to increase UW funding by $149 million, but the issue has fallen into the partisan political pit now masquerading as the Legislature.
Governor Doyle said information on potentially violent, college students needs to be shared, at least with roommates. The governor’s challenge to navigate privacy protections and find more ways to disclosure was issued to his new task force on campus security.
“They can lock down a high school. Faculty have keys. Everybody’s trained. They know what to do … On a college, it’s so much different,” UW Milwaukee Police Chief Pam Hodermann says.
Two months after the tragedy at Virginia Tech, Wisconsin begins its closer look at campus safety.
The issue is complex — how to keep your child’s campus safe. Wednesday, a panel of experts — charged with looking at ways to improve campus safety — began its work.
The enterprising Big Ten Network signals a beginning, and an ending. The network, scheduled to launch this fall, is offering a comprehensive package of televised events and a new funding source for financially strapped athletic departments.
But, locally, it will come at the expense of WHA-TV, which no longer will be allowed to carry tape-delay broadcasts of University of Wisconsin football and men’s basketball games, thereby ending a long sports relationship between public television and Badger fans throughout the state.
Key legislators vowed Tuesday to keep a program that waives tuition for military veterans in graduate programs, reversing a money-saving recommendation by the Legislature’s budget committee.
Instead of the Joint Finance Committee’s plan to charge veterans in graduate programs full tuition after Jan. 1, lawmakers said Tuesday they want to find a way to give them some tuition help – maybe at the same level as undergraduates and for up to two years.
MADISON, Wis. –Lawmakers have moved to scale back tuition benefits once lauded as some of the nation’s most generous to veterans, saying they proved far more popular and costly than expected.
The state Legislature’s budget committee voted 16-0 last week to approve changes to the benefits, including eliminating a promise of free graduate school tuition for veterans and setting a limit on how much time they would have to apply.
A state lawmaker is vowing to fight a move to cut education benefits for veterans.
The state legislature’s budget committee has voted to limit the amount of credits involving free tuition at universities campuses or tech colleges. â?¦ also eliminate free tuition for and limit free tuition to ten years after leaving military service.
At 46, Peter Kind admits he’s older than your typical graduate student.
After 20 years of flying F-18s in the Navy, he turned in his retirement papers and moved to Madison with the family all because of the promise of free tuition at UW’s Law School.
However, the legislature’s budget committee just voted 16-0 to cancel that benefit.
MADISON, Wisc. — A special state task force has been created to look into the information technolog troubles that have emerged in the state in recent years.Problems began with a $30 million computer project failure for the University of Wisconsin System nearly two years ago, and the IT troubles have continued to pile up ever since, WISC-TV reported.
The task force will examine the failed IT projects and decide what can be done to stop wasting taxpayer money.
MADISON, Wis. â?? Lawmakers are moving to scale back a fast-growing tuition benefit program for Wisconsin veterans, eliminating the promise of free graduate school and a lifetime to use the aid.
Their plan also would shortchange the landmark program by tens of millions of dollars, forcing universities and technical colleges to raise tuition or make cuts to other programs to accommodate the veterans who are enrolling in greater numbers than expected.
Members of the private business community have joined with state officials to try to help Wisconsin get past millions of dollars lost in failed information technology projects.
State officials told members of the Assembly Speaker’s Special Task Force on Technology that audit teams within state departments are checking on projects, and less ambitious computer projects are being considered, to make sure things get done right.
Wisconsin veterans could lose a benefit before it even takes effect.
A law signed by Governor Jim Doyle last year guaranteed free tuition to any Wisconsin veteran who enrolls in a public university. It was supposed to start this fall. Now many men and women seeking graduate or professional degrees say they will not have the chance.
Twenty- seven year-old Patrick Wilcox joined the Army Reserves to fund his education.
The Dairy State has one up on its California competitors.
Though California has stolen the lead in cow milk production from Wisconsin, we outrank California and — apparently — all other states in sheep milk.
Quoted: UW-Madison professor of animal science Dave Thomas
Madison – Now that the Joint Finance Committee has wrapped up its work, hundreds of state budget provisions make their way to the full Legislature.
MILWAUKEE (AP) â?? New rules will prohibit University of Wisconsin campuses and employees from accepting payments from private lenders, a response to a national scandal over ties between universities and companies offering student loans.The UW System Board of Regents, which governs 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges, approved the rules during a meeting Friday at UW-Milwaukee.
Madison – The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee on Friday forwarded a $58 billion budget that largely strengthens Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s position on many key issues.
Hundreds of budget provisions are a step closer to becoming law, including higher fees for residents registering their cars and renewing their driver’s licenses; a rise in the cigarette tax; and increasing University of Wisconsin System tuition.
Three senior Milwaukee County political leaders and philanthropist Michael Cudahy on Friday threw their support behind a proposed engineering school and research park that the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee wants to build just west of the city as an incubator of economic growth.
The officials addressed the UW Board of Regents ahead of a meeting Monday of the Milwaukee County economic development committee, which is scheduled to vote on a motion to begin talks to sell a parcel of unused county land in Wauwatosa for the UWM campus.
Did Sen. Glenn Grothman really want the government checking bloodlines?
He’s proposed that those seeking a racial preference show that their ancestry’s at least 25% of the favored minority or that they show some knowledge of the culture they’re said to be diversifying a university with.
Does he mean this? The West Bend Republican wouldn’t say directly. But everything else he said suggests he’s really calling the race charlatans’ bluff: “If we don’t stop this thing, it’ll ruin America,” he says.
More than 300 hulking, refrigerator-size “graffiti magnets” could soon sprout in Madison yards if state lawmakers pass a controversial cable TV deregulation bill, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz is warning.
Quoted: UW-Madison telecommunications professor Barry Orton.
A bid by Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) to provide domestic partner health benefits to state workers has been thwarted in the legislature.
The House budget committee voted along party lines to reject the measure. Democrats were in favor of the plan but they failed to get the one Republican vote they needed to insert the policy into the budget.
MINNEAPOLIS — An analyst said the University of Minnesota is losing $7.5 million a year in tuition under an agreement that allows Wisconsin students to attend Minnesota schools for the same tuition they would pay in Wisconsin.
A university analyst provided the figure to the Board of Regents Thursday as he outlined details of a four-part proposal for tuition reform.
Minnesota and Wisconsin are in talks about changing the reciprocity agreement. Analyst Peter Zetterberg said the board would be asked on Friday to withdraw its approval of the current reciprocity agreement, beginning with freshmen who enter in the fall of 2008.
State legislators on both sides of the political aisle appear to be in agreement that maintaining a strong university system at an affordable cost to students is in the best interests of all Wisconsinites.
The Joint Finance Committee this week voted to direct nearly $150 million in additional tax revenue over a two-year period to the University of Wisconsin System to hold down tuition increases in a time of rising energy prices and health care costs. The committee agreed to spend $29.4 million to finance a plan to expand enrollment at many of its campuses, and it approved Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s request for $10 million over two years to boost pay for high-demand faculty members.
Wisconsin’s Blue Book, the venerable chronicle of all things state government and so much more, becomes a fully searchable online database today — all 56,000 pages of 87 editions.
For the first time, every word of the biennial almanac, including the rare inaugural edition of 1853, will be available free on the Web.
When a legislative session ends, thoughts at the University of Minnesota turn quickly to tuition. It was a good session for the university, and the pricing ideas emanating from Morrill Hall this week are mostly good too, to wit:
â?¢ Wisconsin Discount Days should come to an end at the University of Minnesota. The arrangement officially called “reciprocity” tilts too far in the Badger State’s direction. President Robert Bruininks is right: If the two states’ higher education negotiators can’t come up with a new agreement that’s fairer to Minnesota, the Board of Regents should unilaterally charge Wisconsin students Minnesota resident rates, beginning with the 2008 freshman class.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley is praising lawmakers for voting to create a $10 million to retain faculty and staff in the UW System.
Wiley said Tuesday’s 16-0 vote by the Legislature’s budget committee is an important step in addressing a serious threat to the quality of UW System campuses.
He said the money will help his campus keep the very best and most productive faculty from being hired away by out-of-state institutions.
The $10 million will be split up between the system’s campuses over the next two years to help chancellors match offers from universities trying to hire away Wisconsin professors.
The legislature’s Joint Finance Committee this week rejected a budget measure that would have created domestic partner benefits for state employees. Despite that, a UW faculty group says they’ll continue their fight to have the state recognize the need for those benefits.
Louise Robbins is President of Profs, Inc, a group on the UW-Madison campus. She says the vote this week from Republicans was disappointing. But she says the battle’s not over and the group will work to get the provision added back into the budget.
Despite getting a one-year reprieve earlier this year, the college tuition-reciprocity agreement between Minnesota and Wisconsin is again heating up.
The University of Minnesota Board of Regents is expected to take up whether or not to continue the agreement at their June 27 meeting.
In recognizing the University of Wisconsin football program’s renewed interest in the Fox Valley, stemming from the verbal commitments of Menasha’s Tyler Westphal and Neenah’s Peter Konz, it was noted that the Badgers have had limited success recruiting this area of the state.
Click through the Internet profiles of attorneys at Madison law firms and a clear picture emerges: white face after white face fill the rosters.
The scenario is different, but not much, at the Milwaukee offices of those same firms. Local law firms say that in recent years they have actively recruited minority attorneys — in state among graduates of the University of Wisconsin Law School and Marquette University Law School — as well as nationally.
But even as Wisconsin’s top firms woo minority attorneys, they are leaving the firms during the years young attorneys traditionally have been expected to hustle to make partner.
A new study on higher education needs in Waukesha County has been fully funded and could begin soon.
But whether agreement is possible between those seeking to preserve the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha and those hoping to transform it remains unclear.
The Legislature’s budget committee on Tuesday agreed to give the University of Wisconsin System about $149 million more in tax funds over the next two years – an increase that would likely raise undergraduate tuition this fall by an average of about 5%.
State Budget Director Dave Schmiedicke called the 5% average increase in undergraduate tuition a “best guess,” because final details of the two-year faculty pay raise plan won’t be decided for months. Tuition would rise another 3% in the fall of 2008.
The Legislature’s budget committee today refused to allow domestic partner benefits for state employees.
The committee voted along party lines to reject Governor Doyle’s plan to make health insurance and other benefits available to the partners of gay and straight state employees.
Democrats were in favor of the plan but they failed to get the one Republican vote they needed to insert the policy into the budget.
MADISON, Wis. â?? Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s plan to promise higher education to eighth-graders who meet certain goals during high school moved a step closer to reality on Tuesday after clearing the Legislatureâ??s budget committee.
The Joint Finance Committee also kept alive Doyleâ??s plans to increase state funding by $21.4 million to begin plans to add more seats and programs at University of Wisconsin System campuses and give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants who graduate from Wisconsin high schools.
MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposal to extend domestic partner benefits to all state employees failed to pass the Legislature’s budget-writing committee on Tuesday.
The Joint Finance Committee is evenly split with eight Republicans and eight Democrats and the committee members voted along party lines. This essentially blocked the proposal from being included in this version of the state budget. A tie vote means current law remains in place, WISC-TV reported.
Domestic partner benefits get shot down in the legislature’s budget committee. Governor Jim Doyle included language in his budget, to allow the state to offer benefits to domestic partners of state employees. Madison Democrat, Representative Mark Pocan, said it wouldn’t cost much, noting the University of Minnesota claimed the total cost for providing domestic partner benefits in state was $189,000.
Governor Jim Doyle’s Wisconsin Covenant has survived the budget committee. There was plenty of back and forth over the plan, which Democrats like Sen. Lena Taylor love. “It goes with the legacy of Wiconsin, ” said Taylor.
After almost forty years of agreement, Minnesota just might end its tuition reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin .
The program helps to expand education opportunities and affordability for about 28-thousand students per year. Wisconsinites can go to college in Minnesota , and vice versa, for an in-state rate. But Wisconsin state senator Sheila Harsdorf ( R-River Falls ) is worried, now that Minnesota officials say it’s no longer fair and they could ax the program.
MADISON â?? A state committeeâ??s votes to amend the University of Wisconsin-La Crosseâ??s Growth and Access plan ended in stalemate Tuesday, sending it on as proposed to the state Senate.
Democrats and Republicans on the Joint Committee on Finance each made motions to change the plan, but each drew tie votes along party lines.
So the plan remains as proposed in Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s budget, which supports it.
(MADISON) A legislative panel studying affirmative action shot down a proposed constitutional amendment Monday (6/4) night that would have ended the practice in Wisconsin.
The special committee on affirmative action broke out over and over again into all-out cacophony. Most of the yelling had to do with process. Opponents of affirmative action accused GOP Senator and Committee Chair Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) of stifling debate in an effort to ram through his own agenda. Grothman accused them of some kind of filibuster.
The University of Wisconsin System’s Plan 2008 diversity effort, launched in 1998, has brought more students of color into the state’s universities but has failed to keep them there.
A progress report that the UW System Board of Regents will consider Thursday and Friday in Milwaukee shows that minority students increased from 7.5 percent to 9.4 percent of undergraduates during the nine-year period, while graduate and professional students of color increased from 8.9 percent to 9.4 percent.
However, the overall retention gap between students of color and white students increased 2 percentage points to 8.7 percent.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The University of Minnesota is ready to end its tuition reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin starting with freshmen who enter in the fall of 2008 unless Wisconsin agrees to restructure the 40-year-old pact, school officials warned Monday.
Tens of thousands of students from both states use the agreement to attend schools in the other state without having to pay higher nonresident tuition rates.
But University of Minnesota officials say that because of the way the agreement is structured and because Minnesota’s tuition increases have exceeded Wisconsin’s over the years, Minnesotans now pay $1,200 to $2,700 more to attend schools in the University of Minnesota system than Wisconsin students do.
A committee of Wisconsin legislators and citizens formed to review the states affirmative action policies approved at least two reform measures Monday night as members fought viciously over whether race and ethnicity should be considered in government contracting and university admissions.
State Sen. Lena Taylor D-Milwaukee and other supporters of affirmative action accused the committees founder and chairman, state Sen. Glenn Grothman R-West Bend, of trying to ram through proposed legislation that would abolish or scale back affirmative action.
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s Affirmative Action laws could take a drastic turn under new proposals.
A special legislative committee on affirmative action is considering a handful of proposals.
The sometimes controversial committee spent hours on Monday night in a heated debate.
The fight over tuition reciprocity between Minnesota and Wisconsin has come to a head, with University of Minnesota officials saying that unless the agreement changes they will pull out of the 40-year-old pact in the fall of 2008.
Tens of thousands of students in the two states use the agreement to attend college across state borders without paying nonresident rates. But U officials say the agreement is unfair. Because of the way it is structured and because tuition increases in Minnesota have outstripped those in Wisconsin, Minnesotans now pay $1,200 to $2,700 more to attend U campuses than Wisconsin students do.
MADISON, Wis. â?? Property taxes most likely will go up, and it will cost more to get a driverâ??s license and register your car and boat.
But getting a copy of your birth certificate will be the same, and more schools may have security guards on duty.
And if Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle continues to get his way, the University of Wisconsin will get more money, more children will get health insurance, and smokers will pay more to light up.
University of Wisconsin campuses would be barred from accepting payments from student loan companies in exchange for recommending them to borrowers under a proposal to be considered for approval this week.
The policy aims to reassure the UW system’s students, who took out a record $592.7 million in loans last year, that campus administrators are looking out for their best interests amid a national scandal in the industry. The plan would also guide UW employees and companies on how to avoid unseemly relationships.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been an attractive target for elite schools like Harvard and Stanford looking for top academics. But now other public universities are among the faculty poachers, and school administrators are worried.
Dozens of professors have left in the past two years, and Chancellor John Wiley said a growing number are going to schools that traditionally could not compete with the state’s flagship university. 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.
