Although the phrase ââ?¬Å?backup positionââ?¬Â never technically existed at the University of Wisconsin, the Board of Regents passed a resolution Friday permanently banning future use of the highly scrutinized form of job security.
After months of being stalled for retooling, a proposed constitutional amendment to limit state and local tax revenue in Wisconsin is back on the fast track and will go before the Legislature early next year.
Stay in school, kids – it’s good for your health.
That’s the premise of a study being released today that ranks Waukesha County as Wisconsin’s healthiest county, partly because of its low high-school dropout rate.
The theory behind the University of Wisconsin-Madison study is that educated people are more likely to make smart choices about cigarette smoking and other unhealthy lifestyles.
It is not true that officials at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire will be conducting room checks to make sure that students aren’t reading their Bibles or the Qur’an on state property; nor will those officials be conducting bed checks to make sure the kids aren’t praying before they close their eyes to sleep. But officials are doing something almost as silly by enforcing a non-written policy barring resident assistants from holding religious or political activities in the dorms where they work, even when those activities take place on the students’ own time.
The Medical College of Wisconsin has come of age.
The school that in 1996 was luring genetics expert Howard J. Jacob from Harvard University is now working to keep its best researchers from going to other institutions.
Steven Avery already had a tough challenge in trying to prove his civil rights were violated when he was wrongly prosecuted for and convicted of a Manitowoc County rape in 1985.
And that case just got a whole lot harder, now that prosecutors say they will charge Avery with homicide, two legal experts said Friday. Also quotes Gordon Baldwin, emeritus law professor at UW-Madison.
Steven Avery was freed last year after volunteers from the Innocence Project at the UW-Madison Law School found evidence that another man – not Avery – committed the rape for which Avery was convicted.
“It’s a tragic turn of events,” Keith Findley, co-director of the Innocence Project, said Thursday. “We’re very saddened to hear that they found human remains” on Avery family property.
Project co-director John Pray added, “It’s a very sad day for everyone involved, and our hearts and prayers go out to the (Teresa Halbach) family.”
The wave of patriotism that swept over the country in the wake of terrorist attacks and war has resulted in a tide of Wisconsin laws aimed at helping veterans.
….”This current budget probably has the most major changes for veterans in Wisconsin since the GI Bill of 1946,” John Scocos, secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, said in an interview this week as today’s Veterans Day observances neared.
For instance, he noted, the budget provided 50 percent tuition waivers at University of Wisconsin and technical colleges for veterans who entered service in Wisconsin and free tuition for spouses and children of vets who are killed or significantly disabled in action.
The University of Wisconsin System would not grant future academic administrators backup jobs, a controversial perk in which administrators got lower-level jobs if fired, under a proposal a regents’ committee approved Thursday.
Instead, the system would give administrators up to six months’ notice before it fires them under a resolution approved by the regents’ business and finance committee at a meeting in Madison.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will vote today on a resolution to cease granting backup appointments, the much-maligned UW policy of allowing some administrators lower-ranking positions should they be terminated.
A committee of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents on Thursday accepted an agreement in which the UW Medical School would spend an additional $920,000 a year on public health initiatives in Milwaukee, including plans for a possible public health school at UW-Milwaukee.
A key committee of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted Thursday to accept an agreement that will pour hundreds of thousands of additional dollars and resources into dealing with Milwaukee’s myriad public health problems.
For that, everyone in Milwaukee should be pleased. But the committee should have gone a step further and recommended an even firmer commitment to the creation of a school of public health at UW-Milwaukee, a new entity that could improve the state of public health in the city all the more.
Many in the Capitol struggled Thursday with the news that Steven Avery was being questioned in the suspected homicide of a woman who disappeared after visiting his family’s auto salvage operation.
Lawmakers and others came to know Avery after his wrongful conviction prompted a major reform of the criminal justice system.
Authorities declared Teresa Halbach’s disappearance a homicide Thursday after finding human bone and teeth fragments on the Manitowoc County property owned by Steven Avery’s family. Her car’s ignition key was found in Avery’s bedroom, they said.
MADISON – The discovery of a woman’s remains at a salvage yard owned by the family of Steven Avery is a great shock, but it doesn’t change the mission of the group, said a co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project.
The group won Avery’s freedom from prison two years ago.
Gov. Jim Doyle�s current nine-day trade mission to Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic will expand relationships that may benefit Wisconsin businesses and UW-Madison research facilities.
Although a formal request to speak has yet to arrive at Van Hise Hall as of late Wednesday, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents is prepared to accommodate state Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, or one of his colleagues at the monthly board meeting today or Friday.
Investigators searching for a missing woman arrested Steven Avery on an unrelated gun charge Wednesday and ordered him and seven of his family members to provide DNA samples.
Department of Administration Deputy Secretary Gina Frank-Reese told 27 News she was never told about dissatisfaction with the process used to pick Milwaukee-based Adelman Travel for a lucrative state contract, despite claims to the contrary by top UW-System officials.
A March 8 e-mail from UW-System Assistant Vice President Doug Hendrix to members of a contract evaluating committee indicates that System Vice President Deborah Durcan was instructed to protest the travel contract process: “Debbie will verbally communicate our dissatisfaction with the process to a higher level within DOA.”
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will consider an agreement later this week that could bring a school of public health in Milwaukee closer to reality.
The board should approve it without delay and then closely monitor events to make sure the school actually gets established.
The University of Wisconsin Medical School would spend an additional $920,000 a year on various public health initiatives in Milwaukee under an agreement worked out with the City of Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
UW System President Kevin Reilly gave his first official State of the University System address to UW-Madison faculty Monday at the Faculty Senate Meeting, addressing how the tightening budget has affected hiring capabilities.
The U.S. House of Representatives will consider a bill this week that would include $14.3 billion in cuts to federal student aid programs throughout the nation over the next five years.
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly delivered a State of the University System address to the UW-Madison Faculty Senate in Bascom Hall Monday, speaking about such topics as stem-cell research and relations with the Legislature.
Students in the University of Wisconsin System binge drink at a higher rate than their peers across the nation, with 6 in 10 of them admitting doing so, a new survey shows.
The heavy drinking is taking a toll on college students at UW campuses from Platteville to Green Bay, often leading to poor academic performance and risky personal behavior, according to the survey of undergraduate students taken last spring by UW System staffers.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Ken Mayer.
Investigators said over the weekend that Steven Avery was among the last people to see Teresa Halbach, who took a photograph Oct. 31 at his home. She had been to his home several times in the past year to take photos of vehicles Avery sold.
Volunteers found Halbach’s Toyota Rav4 on Avery family property Saturday, but the 25-year-old woman is still missing. She was reported missing to Calumet County authorities Thursday.
Avery was freed — through the work of the UW Law School’s Wisconsin Innocence Project — after being jailed and falsely accused of committing a sexual assault.
MADISON, Wis. – Students in the University of Wisconsin System binge drink at a higher rate than their peers across the nation, with 6 of 10 of them admitting doing so, a new survey shows.
The heavy drinking is taking a toll on college students at UW campuses from Platteville to Green Bay, often leading to poor academic performance and risky personal behavior, according to the survey of undergraduate students taken last spring by UW System staffers.
MADISON – Most University of Wisconsin System leaders should continue to receive backup jobs, a controversial perk in which administrators get lower-level jobs if they are fired, UW System President Kevin Reilly said Friday.
TWO SATURDAYS ago, on a movie set in Chicago, a UW-Madison student named John H. Bradley ate a catered late lunch with a film crew that included the director, Clint Eastwood.
The scene being shot was at Union Station on Canal Street. The lunch break was just a half hour, but when Bradley sat down at a table he found himself seated next to the actor Ryan Phillippe, and that was an interesting experience, because in the movie being filmed, “Flags of Our Fathers,” Phillippe plays a 21-year-old U.S. Marine named John H. Bradley – young Bradley’s grandfather.
As part of a decades-long practice in state government, at least a half-dozen political appointees of Gov. Jim Doyle were given higher-paying civil service jobs for as little as one day to ensure they could return to better state jobs than the ones they left to serve in his administration.
Quoted: Vicki Bier, University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering professor.
27 News has uncovered UW-System President Kevin Reilly and his cabinet of advisers discussed the process which rewarded Adelman Travel a lucrative state contract and expressed concerns about the contract to a deputy secretary in the Doyle Administration.
This is how the Wisconsin Idea was described by many people after it was coined in the early 20th century. In order to put into words what was already done in practice, UW President Charles Richard Van Hise and the author of the Idea, Charles McCarthy, worked to describe the relationship between the state and the university.
He�s done it again.
Governor Jim Doyle vetoed AB 499, an initiative that would have banned all methods of human cloning. In doing so, Doyle has once again made the right choice for Wisconsin. Thanks to Doyle, stem-cell research in Wisconsin will continue to prosper and, it is hoped, find cures to life-threatening diseases, as well as continue to help the state�s economy.
After several weeks of waiting, Governor Doyle finally did the expected last week and vetoed AB 499, which would have effectively banned human cloning.
Two Wisconsin legislators expressed outrage last week over University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire�s policy of prohibiting residential assistants from leading bible study groups in their dorm rooms.
With 20 years of experience in the Wisconsin Legislature, Regent Peggy Rosenzweig serves an important role on the Board of Regents. She brings the background of someone who intimately understands and recognizes the relationship between the UW and state lawmakers.
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is reviewing the legalities of its policy banning resident assistants from leading Bible studies in their dorms, a spokesman said.
The university’s associate director for housing and residence life sent a letter last July to several resident assistants who had been leading Bible studies.
Most University of Wisconsin System leaders should continue to receive backup jobs, a controversial perk in which administrators get lower-level jobs if they are fired, UW System President Kevin Reilly said Friday.
Republican lawmakers have called for the UW System to get rid of the perk, saying the university should not reward failed administrators with other campus jobs. UW System officials insist backup jobs are needed to recruit out-of-state talent, offering job security to employees who could be fired at will by chancellors.
University of Wisconsin information technology managers are urging the UW System to dump a payroll software system that already has cost the university $25 million.
Fifteen chief information officers, representing all UW campuses but one, signed a letter urging the UW System to dump the Lawson payroll system software. They said that it’s too expensive and doesn’t operate well and that the company doesn’t have enough presence in the field of higher education.
27 News has uncovered UW-System President Kevin Reilly and his cabinet of advisers discussed the process which rewarded Adelman Travel a lucrative state contract and expressed concerns about the contract to a deputy secretary in the Doyle Administration.
ââ?¬Å?There were concerns about whether the contract process was fair and objective,ââ?¬Â Reilly told 27 News. ââ?¬Å?I remember the discussion.ââ?¬Â
UW-System officials told 27 News their high level meeting on the travel contract took place March 8. The awarding of the contract to Milwaukee-based Adelman was announced to competing travel companies March 15.
Saying the state shouldn’t stand in the way of stem cell research in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle on Thursday vetoed a ban on all forms of human cloning in the state.
Supporters of the ban said it would have prevented unethical research from being conducted here. Doyle went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Biotechnology Center to veto the bill (AB 499).
DENVER, Nov. 2 – The national movement to impose caps on state taxes and spending took a sharp blow in Tuesday’s election, conservatives and liberals say, when Colorado voters decided that the tightest spending cap in the nation was just a tad too tight.
Madison: Republican Frank Lasee (R-Bellevue) is the chief sponsor of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Bill of Rights. He holds up a triangle showing government at the top of the pyramid to show how his bill would work. “What we want to do is flip it around so the people are on the top, because it is our government that works for us. So we should decide how much our government is going to cost.”
An internal bombshell of sorts involving the UW system’s largest IT project ever is part of a News 3’s I-Team investigation. News 3’s Linda Eggert first reported that after tens of millions of dollars, the so-called “Lawson” based appointment, benefits and payroll system was still not working after six years. Now, the IT chiefs of nearly every UW campus say they want out of the Lawson software altogether.
A travel agency passed over for a state contract called the state of Wisconsin�s procurement practices into question Tuesday, alleging the state Department of Administration unfairly gave another company the contract.
Those arrested during last weekend’s State Street Halloween celebration provide a snapshot of just how far the party’s reputation has spread, police say.
Those arrested came to the celebration from 15 states, including Wisconsin; 25 states if you add the hometowns of those attending universities in Wisconsin.
“It clearly shows this has become a well-known, large event, as people from all over the country attended,” police spokesman Mike Hanson said.
Four state legislators are calling for a new ââ?¬Å?independentââ?¬Â investigation into the Paul Barrows controversy following UW System President Kevin Reillyââ?¬â?¢s acknowledgement Saturday that he was aware of the reasons for Barrowsââ?¬â?¢ sick leave.
After more than a year of staunch deliberation and a summer of idling, the Teaching Assistants Association and the Office of State Employment Relations agreed to resume negotiations for a new contract today.
The University of Wisconsin may see a second internal investigative report into the Paul Barrows scandal after a letter was sent to Board of Regents President David Walsh Monday.
Three lawmakers lashed out Monday at University of Wisconsin President Kevin Reilly for failing to disclose his own knowledge of the Paul Barrows matter as part of the investigation concluded in September.
Executives of the losing firm in a state travel contract process which is under federal investigation told 27 News they were denied important contract facts and given inaccurate information.
State officials responded that all procurement rules were followed in connection with Virgina-based Omega World Travel’s bid for the contract to book airline flights for state employees.
Quoted: UW-Madison telecommunications professor Barry Orton.
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly raised no objections to the plan to demote UW-Madison administrator Paul Barrows and let him take a personal leave when Reilly was told about the situation by Chancellor John Wiley last November.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Teaching Assistants Association is scheduled to resume bargaining Tuesday with the state for the first time since March.
A bill that would extend the tax break Wisconsin residents receive for investing in the EdVest college savings plan to all such plans has caused a split among board members overseeing the program.
The University of Wisconsin System took a major step forward in the merger between UW Colleges and UW-Extension Thursday, as it released the names of four finalists for the new chancellor position, which will oversee both institutions.
As a federal investigation into the state’s current contract with Milwaukee-based Adelman Travel Systems continues, a former state senator told 27 News similar questions about the propriety of Adelman’s affiliation with a state entity were raised twelve years ago.
In 1993, UW-Madison officials took the unprecedented step of leasing UW Athletic Department office space inside Camp Randall to Adelman to serve as the department’s in-house agency.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s technical colleges are a ââ?¬Å?secret weaponââ?¬Â for economic development, cranking out more than 20,000 graduates annually, nearly 90 percent of whom stay and work in the Badger State.
That was the thrust of a talk by two of Wisconsin�s technical college leaders who spoke Tuesday at a Wisconsin Innovation Network luncheon
