Not long ago, Sarah Roberts of Madison went online to check the UW Systemâ??s budget Redbook, as sheâ??s done in the past, and discovered that salary data for individuals is no longer posted. She called the UW and was purportedly told it was removed for â??privacyâ? reasons but still available at public libraries. To her, this makes no sense at all.
University of Wisconsin System leaders never informed the Board of Regents about a troubled $28.4 million software project until they canceled it last year, a report released Friday shows.
The regents did not receive a single update on problems with the system to track payroll and benefits information, the report said, despite warnings the project was in danger as far back as 2004. Some campus officials doubted it would ever work even earlier.
Second-generation Hmong and those known as the 1.5 generation – they were born in Laos and moved to the United States at a young age – are becoming increasingly vocal and visible in standing up for their heritage and demanding respect.
The first woman dean in the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences’ century-plus history remembers very well a meeting with a Wisconsin farmer as she was about to take the reins of the college last year.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a building at the Hancock Agricultural Research Station, the middle-aged potato grower came up and gave her a hearty handshake, Molly Jahn recalled.
“He said, ‘Thank you!’ and I said, “I haven’t done anything yet.” He said, ‘I am the proud father of two incredibly capable young women. And I have to thank you for the example you’ve set for what is possible for them.'”
Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday he supports a plan permitting Madison and other cities to offer more domestic partner benefits to employees and same-sex partners.
More than a quarter of Wisconsin school districts responding to a statewide survey have considered consolidation or dissolution as a result of budget shortfalls in the past few years.
Despite a reported increase in administrative salaries nationwide this past year, administrators at the University of Wisconsin continue to earn less than their peers around the country.
At noon every weekday, Randall Davidson comes on the air on WHA/AM 970 and gives the Wisconsin Public Radio statewide weather forecast. It sounds like a little thing, and it is.
But it’s also a big thing. Because the weather was the first thing ever heard on WHA/AM back when it started in 1921. And, for a while, it was the only thing.
The UW-Madison School of Business has scheduled its semi-annual “Economic Outlook” briefing featuring four prominent economists for March 16 at the Fluno Center on campus.
For more than 40 years, the event has been helping business leaders and owners translate economic trends into competitive intelligence, the UW said in announcing the event.
The economists will explore factors impacting the economy such as oil prices, federal budget deficits, interest rates, employment outlook, and the war on terrorism.
Low-income students continue to face increasing difficulties with getting into college and having the resources to complete a degree, according to new research conducted at the University of Wisconsin.
Patrizio Piraino and Matthew Steinberg, researchers from the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, have been dissecting the factors contributing to the decline in enrollment of lower-income students.
Dear Editor: It has been reported the UW football coach has been given a $550,000 increase in salary after his first year at Wisconsin. That amounts to a 73 percent addition for winning 12 football games and losing one. This record was very commendable even though it was a relatively easy schedule.
It would be interesting to compare this increase to the proposed raise of 3 percent for thousands of citizens in the Wisconsin Retirement System or the 2-3 percent raise in Social Security benefits for millions of people.
The Department of Justice received a letter Thursday requesting the legal opinion of Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen regarding the University of Wisconsin Systemâ??s new admissions policy.
The letter, signed by state Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, and 18 other state legislators, questions the Board of Regentsâ?? decision to use race and ethnicity in evaluating applicants to all 26 UW System campuses. It is set to go into effect this fall.
The state Supreme Court said Wednesday it will take up a politically charged and complicated gay rights case.
The court said it will decide whether the city of Green Bay and other Wisconsin municipalities, including the town of Cottage Grove, can intervene in a lawsuit in which gay and lesbian state employees are seeking health insurance benefits for their partners.
Members of the Minnesota state Legislatureâ??s Higher Education and Work Force Development committee debated a bill Wednesday that has the potential to make Wisconsin residents pay the University of Minnesotaâ??s higher in-state tuition rate.
Lawmakers and activists encouraged the Wisconsin State Investment Board to divest from companies that facilitate genocide at the Capitol Wednesday.
A bipartisan bill spear-headed by state Sen. Shelia Harsdorf, R-River Falls, and state Rep. Fredrick Kessler, D-Milwaukee, stipulates that state money be invested in companies that donâ??t indirectly fund genocide in Sudan.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Minnesota lawmakers might insert themselves into a dispute over a tuition reciprocity agreement that has some Wisconsin students paying less to attend Minnesota universities than their home-state classmates.
A House higher education panel heard testimony Wednesday on a proposal to raise Wisconsin students’ tuition rates to Minnesota levels by fall 2008. Under the reciprocity pact, a Wisconsin student pays about $2,000 less a year to attend the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.
Seventeen legislators want the state attorney general to offer a legal opinion on whether a new University of Wisconsin admissions policy violates a 1973 law that says race and certain other factors can’t be used as a test for admission of students.
UW regents recently voted to adopt a new freshman admissions policy that requires officials to consider nonacademic factors such as race and income to increase diversity, although they first must consider academic factors.
A state lawmaker introduced legislation Monday that would make Election Day in November a state holiday.
In a symbol of political protest against the alleged genocide in Sudan, Wisconsin legislators introduced a bill Wednesday that aims to divest state funds from companies associated with the countryâ??s central government.
Nineteen state legislators asked the state attorney general Wednesday for a formal opinion on the legality of using race and ethnicity as factors in University of Wisconsin admissions decisions.
The Wisconsin state Senate confirmed Milwaukee banker Michael Falbo as a UW System regent Tuesday, replacing former Regent Gerard Randall, who refused to step down after Gov. Jim Doyle rescinded his position in 2003, the Associated Press reported.
For the first time in four years, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will be made up of a governing body fully confirmed by the state Legislature.
Wisconsin users of the popular iTunes music downloading service will be required to pay new state taxes next year for every song, music video or television episode purchased â?? at least under the current version of Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s proposed budget.
A Republican legislator says Governor Doyle’s plan to extend domestic partner benefits to state employees “flies in the face” of a decision by Wisconsin voters. State Representative Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) predicts majority Republicans in the Assembly will kill the Governor’s plan. Nass says people of the state spoke clearly on the issue when they voted in favor of last November’s Constitutional ban on gay marriage.
Nass says extending the benefits to partners of state employees is too expensive when the state is facing a large budget deficit. It’s estimated the plan could cost the state up to $15 million a year, just for the university system.
With Wisconsin ascending to the top of the heap in men’s college basketball, it’s time to look at other No. 1 rankings attained by the Badger State.
….Beyond boosting the state with its basketball program, the University of Wisconsin has its own list of superlatives. For starters, it has more CEOs of Standard & Poor 500 companies than anywhere else.
The UW is also the school that “parties the heartiest,” according to Playboy magazine.
And, making sure no category is too specialized to brag about, the Financial Times says that Wisconsin has the best food and accommodations for executive education facilities in the country.
With nearly 500,000 deer killed, the 2006 deer-hunting season recorded the third highest harvest in Wisconsin history, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
A state Senate committee is expected to approve legislation today in an effort to further attract the lucrative film production industry to Wisconsin later this year.
Although the University of Wisconsin’s new admissions policy that considers the race of the applicant has been widely panned, a spokesman for the system said the policy is more holistic than race-based.
David F. Giroux says the new policy was no more a race-based policy than it was a veterans-based or a football player-based policy.
It’s been just over 50 years since I first laid eyes on – and fell in love with – Wisconsin.
After the dull ride through bleak Illinois, my college buddy, Marty, and I entered the green, rolling, exuberant countryside of Wisconsin in its late spring glory and thought we had suddenly entered paradise. The prosperous-looking farms with their gleaming white houses, bulging Holsteins, just-emerging corn and carpets of new alfalfa quickly erased the gloom of Illinois.
Even the University of Wisconsin was a sort of bucolic haven.
Students may have to hand over an extra $500 over two years to pay for their tuition if Gov. Jim Doyles budget gets passed as it is written.
MADISON â?? Some illegal immigrants would get reduced tuition, gay partners of university employees would get health insurance and professors would be able to form unions under Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s budget plan.
Doyle has touted his proposed funding for the University of Wisconsin System as allowing campuses to add students, expand research and increase financial aid. But the fine print reveals far more plans for the 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges.Tuition would go up at the flagship UW-Madison campus by nearly $500 over two years. Similar annual increases of
The prospect of new nuclear power plants rising on the Wisconsin horizon sent sparks flying on the UW-Madison campus Friday.
UW engineering physics professor Michael Corradini irked many in the audience at Grainger Hall with his call for expanding nuclear energy, saying that concerns over safety and waste disposal have been overblown.
….”This is an industry that built two bombs that killed a lot of people and since then they have been trying to make something good out of it,” said Jim Pawley, a UW professor of zoology.
The University of Wisconsin appears headed for a prolonged fight with Republican state lawmakers and conservative activists over its decision this month to adopt a freshman-admissions policy directing each of its campuses to consider the race and ethnicity of applicants.
Two prominent Republican state legislators announced Thursday they are seeking a formal opinion from the stateâ??s top cop regarding the University of Wisconsin Systemâ??s new admissions policy.
Fair Wisconsin today released an updated list of employers based in Wisconsin that offer domestic partner health insurance. Gov. Jim Doyle has announced he will include a request for state employee domestic partner benefits in the 2007 budget.
Covering the domestic partners of state employees under the state’s family health insurance benefit is an inexpensive proposal that will produce good value for taxpayers.
The Legislature should approve it.
Gov. Jim Doyle proposed in his state budget to extend health insurance to the domestic partners of gay, lesbian and heterosexual employees, including those in the University of Wisconsin System. Currently, family health insurance offered to state employees is restricted to spouses and dependents (generally meaning children). Domestic partners do not qualify under those terms.
Recent statistics from the Wisconsin Department of Health showed a statewide increase in the number of diagnosed cases of AIDS/HIV.
Some proposals Gov. Jim Doyle made at Tuesdays budget address were made to benefit the UW system, but they may be dead upon arrival as the budget still awaits approval from a Republican-controlled state Assembly.
In his budget address Tuesday, Gov. Jim Doyle promised a large monetary commitment to higher education in Wisconsin.
Doyle specifically targeted the University of Wisconsin System in his speech, proposing the allocation of $21 million to the UW Board of Regents, $44 million to student financial aid and an additional $10 million to the Madison campus specifically.
…public education must be our highest priority, and somehow we must find the money to fund schools properly; the UW and civil servants could develop a computer system to overhaul Workforce Development, create voter rolls and figure out who is eligible to vote.
We need strong civil service and confidence in our university. Not more outsourcing or privatization.
After four years of job cuts across state government, the budget introduced Wednesday by Gov. Jim Doyle proposes a change in course, increasing the number of positions for the first time in his tenure and essentially bringing the state full circle.
The budget proposes that by June 2009, there would be 68,085 jobs in state government including the UW System and UW Hospital and Clinics in Madison – seven fewer than when Doyle took office in January 2003.
Gov. Jim Doyle’s request for lawmakers to include health insurance coverage for the domestic partners of state employees, including the UW system, should be made a priority as part of Wisconsin’s 2007-2009 budget.
Touting tax cuts and increased funding for education, Gov. Jim Doyle claimed Tuesday night that his two-year opportunity budget would take the squeeze off middle-class families and college-bound Wisconsinites. Doyle did not, however, mention where he intended to plant the money trees that will fund the tax cuts and university aid.
Gov. Jim Doyle unveiled his �fiscally responsible� budget Tuesday at the Capitol, promising to cut taxes, invest in schools and jobs and create a $130 million surplus by 2009. However, critics questioned whether Doyle�s controversial measures of obtaining revenue are at all possible.
Republican leaders are gearing up for a fight over more than $1 billion in proposed tax and fee increases in Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget for the next two years
.But some acknowledge that because of how Doyle has targeted the tax increases – taking aim at oil companies, hospitals and smokers while offering tax breaks and other help for middle-class families – his proposals may be hard to beat back.
Tom Fairchild, one of the state’s top judicial minds, spent 70 years in public service, right up until his death Monday in Madison at age 94.
(A group of Fairchild’s former clerks set up the Fairchild lecture series at the UW Law School, where every April or May they bring in important legal speakers.)
After the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents passed a revised admissions policy last Friday, UW professors and state lawmakers have begun to discuss the legality of using race as a factor in admissions decisions.
As Gov. Jim Doyle officially announced $225 million toward higher education in his budget Tuesday, University of Wisconsin System officials began working on a strategy to convince lawmakers that the investment is worth every penny.
Wisconsin’s motto is “Forward.” And, despite the wrongheaded efforts of conservative legislators to turn their petty bigotry into public policy, Gov. Jim Doyle has chosen to keep Wisconsin in step with forward-thinking states on the question of how to treat same-sex couples.
As part of his budget proposal, Doyle is calling on members of the Assembly and Senate to extend domestic partner health insurance to all state employees.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=565381
Contrary to what critics say, the University of Wisconsin campuses will not start taking race into account as a result of a new admissions policy the Board of Regents adopted the other day. The campuses started doing that about 35 years ago.
The new policy merely means that admission officers will take a closer personal look at each student who applies. In the past, outside of UW-Madison, admission was basically by the numbers: scores on the college entrance exam, high school grades, class rank, etc. In other words, a simple computer program could select the students.
The holistic approach treats the applicant as a person, not just a set of numbers. Human judgment beats a computer program for choosing a freshman class.
WASHINGTON â?? Matt Guidry wants Congress to make college less costly so new graduates who choose modest paying jobs such as teaching won’t be burdened with expensive student loans.
Guidry, a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, joined other college students Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol to express support for legislation that would increase federal funding for Pell grants to low-income college students.
In his budget address Tuesday, Gov. Jim Doyle prescribed more than $1.7 billion in new state and federal money into Medicaid and health programs to make medical coverage available to nearly every state resident without it.
The Democratic governor’s two-year budget, which also calls for new money for public schools and universities, would include some $1.2 billion in new taxes on cigarettes, oil companies and hospitals.
The University of Wisconsin System has taken hits about a controversial new admissions policy. Rep. Stephen Nass, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, has promised that â??this is only the beginning of the fight.â?What does it all mean? If you want to understand what the UW System is trying to do, you have to ask this question: Do we want UW enrollment to resemble the state as a whole?
Contrary to what critics say, the University of Wisconsin campuses will not start taking race into account as a result of a new admissions policy the Board of Regents adopted the other day. The campuses started doing that about 35 years ago.
Gov. Jim Doyle met with a British politician and world-renowned stem cell researchers Monday to discuss research collaboration possibilities between the two countries, closing the gap between Abbey Road and State Street.
British Honorary Consul Michael Bright, the self-described â??eyes and ears of the British government in Wisconsin,â? said the meeting witnessed the first talks between two top stem cell research facilities, the U.K. Stem Cell Bank and the UW-Madison based-WiCell Research Institute.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents unanimously voted Friday to extend the â??holisticâ? admissions policy already in place at the UW-Madison to other system schools.
Yesterday, Gov. Jim Doyle announced a breakthrough collaborative effort between the University of Wisconsinâ??s WiCell stem-cell bank and the United Kingdomâ??s stem-cell bank. For most present, the press conference was another strong push in the direction of improved stem-cell research.
Gov. Jim Doyle will propose allocating $1.7 million to increase enrollment at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay when he presents his budget today.
While hosting officials from the United Kingdom at the state Capitol Monday, Gov. Jim Doyle announced University of Wisconsin-affiliated laboratories would team up with its U.K. counterparts on embryonic stem-cell research.
Students from Wisconsin could see their tuition jump at the University if lawmakers have their way.
African studies sophomore Ryann Streicher, from Madison, Wis., attends the University because of the reciprocity agreement that allows her to pay, on average, $1,190 less per year than Minnesotans.
