Want to make sure no one implants a microchip in your body without your consent?
Do you think schools should present abstinence as the preferred choice of behavior for unmarried pupils?
How about a state income tax credit for health savings accounts, or letting the owners of billboards cut down trees along the highway so you can see their advertisements better?
Inaugurated in 1904, University of Wisconsin (UW) President Charles Van Hise gradually changed the role of the school from pure academics to service to the state.
Van Hise thought UW research should improve the lives of all Wisconsin citizens through research into better ways, for example, to farm, catch fish, and manage forests. Academics could also improve Wisconsin law and government. It came to be called the Wisconsin Idea.
A report from the Academic Staff Appeals Committee at UW-Madison states former Vice Chancellor Paul Barrows had to burn vacation and sick leave to solve the University’s “public relations difficulties.”
MADISON, Wis. — Former University of Wisconsin-Madison Vice Chancellor Paul Barrows said he wants an apology from the university after a report released on Monday said there wasn’t enough evidence to punish Barrows for alleged sexual harassment.
Ah, the magic of film.
Shoot Wisconsin from the right angle, and it can look like a farm community in New England, a bustling Midwest college campus, big-city mean streets or a remote windswept beach.
Old buildings? Got ’em. Jam-packed sports arena? Of course.
(Incentives approved by the legislature last week include use of state-owned buildings and locations free of charge as available.)
Taxes are too high in Wisconsin, and they seem to fall inordinately heavy on the property taxpayer. Businesses cannot flourish when people spend too much on taxes. And if businesses don’t grow, jobs don’t grow. In fact, jobs disappear. When that happens, poverty increases, and the demand on social services does as well. So at the same time that demand for government services goes up, there are fewer wage-earners to provide the necessary revenue. That’s a deadly combination.
Admittedly, we don’t know what the answer is, but we suspect there is more than one. Some states rely far more heavily on sales taxes or fees or special tax districts. Others perhaps rely more on business taxes or income taxes.
We do know this: It’s time to start talking about just what services government should be providing and to change the way we pay for those services.
Gov. Jim Doyle signed 16 state employee labor contracts Friday granting thousands of state workers pay raises of about 6.25 percent while increasing health-care premiums.
The deals cover more than 24,000 state workers represented by 12 unions. The raises come after state employees had received a total 1 percent pay increase between 2003 and 2005 as the state struggled with budget problems.
Quoted: Dhavan Shah, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of journalism and mass communication.
MADISON, Wis. – Gov. Jim Doyle said Friday he would expand his plan to guarantee college financial aid to low-income students to include private schools and technical colleges.
Doyle earlier this year unveiled a plan designed to make college affordable to the low-income families in the face of skyrocketing tuition in the University of Wisconsin System.
High-profile fights between the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle over voter identification requirements, stem cell research, medical malpractice damages and concealed weapons highlighted the legislative session that neared its end last week.
Everybody who works hard and behaves well ought to have a fair chance to attend college, Gov. Jim Doyle told the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.
On Friday, Doyle formally requested the regents include funding for the Wisconsin Covenant program, designed to get more Wisconsin residents enrolled in college, in their 2007-09 budget.
MADISON, Wis. – Legislative leaders have awarded nearly $100,000 in salary increases to top leaders in the University of Wisconsin System after blocking them for 10 months.
The Joint Committee on Employment Relations, which blocked the raises last summer amid criticism of the system’s personnel practices, released the raises to 31 academic leaders at a meeting that lasted only a few minutes last week.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is seeking an additional $8.8 million in state taxpayer dollars to boost its research, according to budget documents released Thursday.
In other actions, the regents’ business, finance and audit committee approved a measure to scrap the combined $700 monthly car stipends and mileage reimbursement that the chancellors and the UW System president receive. Under the measure, which will come before the full board today, these administrators would start leasing cars through the state Department of Administration.
In the midst of their lengthy wrangling over a bill to ban smoking in restaurants statewide, state senators stopped briefly to recognize one of their own – Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison.
Risser, who will celebrate his 79th birthday on Friday, is also marking the 50th anniversary of his election to the Legislature this year. He is tied with John J. Marchi of New York as the nation’s longest-serving state lawmaker.
….Risser, his family and fellow senators celebrated with a visit from Bucky Badger, UW-Madison cheerleaders and a huge cake in the shape of the Capitol.
University of Wisconsin System campus administrators are raising student fees without appropriate oversight by students and the Board of Regents, an audit says.
The report from the UW System’s auditor, which was scheduled to come before the system’s Board of Regents today, recommends that the regents and students be given more oversight.
Regent Thomas Loftus called for the audit in November after a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report said annual student fees have doubled in the last decade.
Out of Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s 33 state senators, Fred Risser gets first pickââ?¬â?first choice of office in the minority party and even where he parks his car at the Capitol. But Risser has earned it, serving his 49th year in the state Legislature. At 78, he is both Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s and the United Statesââ?¬â?¢ longest-serving state lawmaker, in office for almost one-third of Madisonââ?¬â?¢s history.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents is set to meet today and tomorrow, hosting Gov. Jim Doyle in open session Friday.
A plan to write limits on state taxes and fees into the state constitution is effectively dead in the state Senate.
Surrounded by friends and colleagues Wednesday, Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, celebrated 50 years of service in the Wisconsin Legislature, becoming the longest serving state lawmaker in U.S. history.
A “university center” that combines resources from several education providers could emerge as the primary alternative to a hotly debated college campus merger idea.
Members of a merger task force appointed at Gov. Jim Doyle’s urging say the alternative concept would boost services at UW-Waukesha without allowing a complete takeover of the campus.
State lawmakers grilled University of Wisconsin System officials Tuesday over the system�s alleged mismanagement of its information technology audit and faculty disciplinary policy.
After all that has occurred in the past two years, one might expect Paul Barrows to hold a deep-seated resentment against the University of Wisconsin.
According to Barrows, however, the exact opposite holds true.
The Assembly’s proposed constitutional amendment to limit state spending could force University of Wisconsin officials to choose between books and Badger sports, according to UW Board of Regents President David Walsh.
Under the Assembly version of the spending limit passed last week, every dollar of outside “program” revenue the UW picks up – including federal research grants, multimillion-dollar alumni gifts, and lucrative radio and TV contracts for Badger sports – would mean a dollar less of state taxpayer support for educational programs.
“It’s a disaster,” Walsh said in an interview. “It’s a very serious blow.”
The University of Wisconsin System has halted the implementation of new payroll software that has cost $26 million in taxpayer and tuition dollars, a top UW official told lawmakers Tuesday.
Organizers of the planned $375 million Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery in Madison said Monday that they are looking for researchers from around the state to compete in a new seed grant program.
Twice as many women as men have been diagnosed with depression in Wisconsin, according to national and state studies.
A task force appointed by Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton analyzed why that is and suggested preventive and treatment measures in a report issued today. Lawton said the report creates a road map to progress toward effective treatment and the end of “old-fashioned prejudices attached to mental illness.”
….The 15-member Task Force on Women and Depression in Wisconsin was chaired by UW-Madison Professors Janet Shibley Hyde, Ph.D., and Joy K. Rice, Ph.D.
Shirley Abrahamson wanted an answer, but then-Gov. Patrick Lucey wasn’t ready to give it.
Was he, or was he not, going to endorse her 1979 bid for the Wisconsin Supreme Court?
Just three years earlier, Lucey, a Democrat, had appointed Abrahamson to fill a vacancy on the court, and he intended to endorse her. But Lucey, in an interview this month, said it wasn’t his style to quickly answer such pointed political questions.
The lack of response didn’t sit well with Abrahamson, who wasn’t used to getting the runaround. In addition to her three years on the court, she had more than a dozen years’ experience as an attorney and UW Law School professor.
Science students from West High School will be competing against students from all 50 states in May after winning the 2006 Wisconsin Science Olympiad state tournament last weekend at the UW Engineering Department.
La Follette High’s A team finished second and its B team was sixth, while Memorial High was seventh out of 46 teams.
MADISON, Wis. – The Legislature is moving to approve new union contracts granting thousands of state workers pay raises of about 6.25 percent over two years while increasing premiums for their health insurance.
Many state employees who are not represented by unions would also see an additional 1.25 percent raise to bring their pay in line with the increases given to union workers.
Transfer deals, also known as “articulation agreements,” have become popular among higher education institutions seeking to attract students who started their education elsewhere. UW-Madison last week disclosed that it was working on a major agreement to begin accepting liberal arts transfers from Milwaukee Area Technical College.
MADISON, Wis. – The state Assembly narrowly approved a hastily crafted, stripped-down version of a constitutional amendment to limit state spending shortly before dawn Friday after a brutal all-night session.
Former UW-Madison professor Keith Cohen is behind bars, after allegedly breaking probation rules.Ã? Corrections department spokesman JohnÃ? Dipko told 27 News Cohen’s alleged violations include using crack cocaine, having sexually explicit magazines and using computers.Ã?Â
In preparation for possible legislative action on the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, the UW Board of Regents released a resolution lambasting the proposal and the possible negative effects it could have on UW System schools.
A former University of Wisconsin professor who was previously convicted of child enticement admitted to violating the terms of his probation by using a UW computer on campus, according to a state Department of Corrections official.
He was the highest-ranking African-American employee on campus, and because of that, the downfall of Paul Barrows comes with a whole slew of additional issues.
A new effort to limit government spending intensified debate Wednesday between the University of Wisconsin and the state.
Gov. Jim Doyle signed an executive order making a commitment to market Wisconsin as the leader in the stem cell industry Tuesday. Doyle signed the order after touring the Cell Biology lab at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Wis.
Undergraduate student researchers from 22 University of Wisconsin System schools presented their findings during a public event at the Capitol Tuesday.
In keeping with his plans to expand biotechnology research in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle announced Tuesday the state�s new goal to capture at least 10 percent of the stem cell market by the year 2015.
Gov. Jim Doyle signed an executive order Tuesday directing the state Department of Commerce to spend at least $5 million over an indefinite period of time to encourage more stem cell companies in Wisconsin.
In a darkly hilarious scene from the 1975 comedy “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” a collector of dead bodies wheeled his cart through a plague- ravaged medieval neighborhood. As he stopped to pick up another body, he was startled to hear the words “I’m not dead.”
He had encountered “the dead body that claims it isn’t.”
Something similar is taking place at the state Capitol with another “dead body that claims it isn’t.” But this time no one is laughing.
Although manufacturing and farming quickly come to mind whenever one thinks of Wisconsin exports, some of the state’s most valuable products are its advances in life sciences.
The state must do a much better job of harnessing that scientific capital for its own economic well-being and future prosperity. These issues were outlined in a series of articles this week by Journal Sentinel reporters Kathleen Gallagher and Susanne Rust.
WAUWATOSA, Wis. ââ?¬â? Gov. Jim Doyle directed the state Tuesday to spend $5 million to help recruit stem cell researchers to Wisconsin.
The state Department of Commerce will spend the money marketing the state as a leader in stem cell research under the executive order the governor signed at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
The faltering effort by the hard-core right in Wisconsin to put a constitutional cap on local government spending – ala Colorado’s TABOR – is rooted in the idea the state has too many lazy, entrenched, overpaid public employees.
Of course, few Republicans, including gubernatorial candidate Mark Green, have the guts to actually come out and say it that way. Instead, they talk about the need for government to “live within its means” just like all the “hard-working families” in Wisconsin, which we assume means white, suburban, SUV-driving GOP voters, who also own a small business.
But if you read between the lines or listen to the AM radio hate-jocks, it always comes back to the same blame game: too many liberal teachers, too many shovel-leaning streets workers, too many pencil-pushing bureaucrats.
Susan Armacost and Ed Fallone are passionate about the morality of human embryonic stem cell research. They are also worlds apart.
Armacost, legislative director of Wisconsin Right to Life, says the destruction of embryos necessary to obtain the cells is murder. Her organization has added embryonic stem cell research to its traditional issues of abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Fallone, president of Wisconsin Stem Cell Now Inc., says it’s wrong to put limits on research that many believe has the potential to cure diseases, including the juvenile diabetes that afflicts him, his father and his son. He formed his group to advocate for stem cell research in the state after President Bush was re-elected.
The Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda will be alive with displays of undergraduate student research today for this yearââ?¬â?¢s ââ?¬Å?Posters in the Rotunda.ââ?¬Â
Although the long-term future of human embryonic stem cell research in Wisconsin depends on a political consensus, the issue does not fit neatly within the lines of Republican or Democratic, conservative or liberal.
In an effort to reaffirm the state�s commitment to stem-cell research, Gov. Jim Doyle will be making a major announcement today at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
Former UW-Madison employee Chandrika Mahadeva told 27 News she is disappointed the Academic Staff Appeals Committee sided with disciplined administrator Paul Barrows after a hearing into Barrows’ situation.
During the April hearing, Mahadeva testified Barrows had sexually harassed her on more than half a dozen occasions.
MADISON — Former UW-Madison administrator Paul Barrows said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he believes the controversy surrounding his demotion in 2004 stems in part from racism.
Appearing on Madison Ch. 3 WISC-TV’s “For the Record” in the aftermath of his victory before the Academic Staff Appeals Committee, Barrows said, “I think there is a racial dimension to what has happened to me.”
MADISON, Wis. — Former University of Wisconsin-Madison Vice Chancellor Paul Barrows said he believes race played a role in his reprimand following allegations of sexual harassment, and that three top UW officials “acted in concert” against him.
For years, two of Wisconsin’s least-known exports have been among its most valuable: the intellectual and investment capital that help power the economic engines of states such as California and New York.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, among this country’s most successful university patenting and licensing organizations, has licensed most of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s life sciences technologies to out-of-state companies.
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board – the 25th biggest pension fund in the world, managing $76 billion – has used firms that focus on places such as Boston and the Silicon Valley to make virtually all of its venture capital investments in young businesses.
The work of Wisconsin stem cell scientists is re-emerging as some of the most promising in the world, eight years after the era of human stem cell research dawned in a lab here.
The focus on fundamental research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been eclipsed at times by the quest for dramatic breakthroughs and massive government funding elsewhere.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=418178
For years, two of Wisconsin’s least-known exports have been among its most valuable: the intellectual and investment capital that help power the economic engines of states such as California and New York.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, among this country’s most successful university patenting and licensing organizations, has licensed most of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s life sciences technologies to out-of-state companies.
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board – the 25th biggest pension fund in the world, managing $76 billion – has used firms that focus on places such as Boston and the Silicon Valley to make virtually all of its venture capital investments in young businesses.
Now human embryonic stem cells, first isolated in UW research labs, are providing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change that dynamic.
What is so disheartening about politics today is the failure of most of our politicians to step back and propose some new ideas that might actually make things better for our future.
Instead, they act like kids on the playground. “Yes, you did.” “No, I didn’t.” “Yes, you did.” “No, I didn’t.”
A case in point were press conferences this week by likely Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green and Gov. Jim Doyle.
U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wisconsin, sent a letter to UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley Thursday, challenging the University�s alleged efforts to persuade UW-Madison�s Associated Students of Madison to withhold funding from the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholic Foundation. Green claimed withholding money from the UWRCF could violate Supreme Court rulings.
Despite the project�s recent approval, some state legislators are still concerned with details regarding the construction of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
The state’s contracting process is sound, but officials could boost public trust in it by increasing transparency, according to an independent review released Thursday. The reviews was conducted by Mark Bugher, director of University Research Park and former administration secretary.
The maximum amount of state financial aid available to students in the University of Wisconsin System, Wisconsin Technical College System and Tribal Colleges increased from $2,500 to $3,000 under a bill signed Thursday by Gov. Jim Doyle. (Third item)
All students who have not had their mumps shots updated prior to attending college are urged to get a shot, and the Milwaukee Health Department is recommending that all colleges and universities in the metro area set up special mumps vaccination clinics.
