MADISON, Wis. – A professor who used his university computer to send naked pictures to a boy he tried to meet for sex has been allowed to work at a University of Wisconsin-Madison library while on work release.
In an effort to provide financial equality for UW-Madison students from low to moderate income homes, state Reps. Joe Parisi, D-Madison, and Spencer Black, D-Madison, met with students on Library Mall Wednesday about their new legislative bill requiring the state to match financial aid to tuition increases.
Although the University of Wisconsin says the term ââ?¬Å?back-up appointmentââ?¬Â does not exist, the expression has been a sore point for both the state and UW System for the last three months.
Three institutes of higher-education research released a report Monday asserting that states must improve how well their public-school systems prepare students for college. The report calls for greater coordination between high schools and colleges, attempting to ensure that what is expected of students in high school correlates with what is needed to be successful in college.
State Reps. Spencer Black and Joe Parisi, both D-Madison, announced legislation Wednesday that would provide more financial aid funding for students.
The Associated Students of Madison passed a motion to lobby against Wisconsin Senate Bill 317 during a meeting Wednesday night.
Eight of 10 metropolitan areas across the nation with the highest physician prices are in Wisconsin and Madison ranks fourth, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
….Ralph Andreano, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said competition has little impact on health care costs because medical facilities have the same equipment and techniques.
“What usually is the case is that high cost means high quality. The state-of-the-art is costly. High-quality medicine is very costly and it’s difficult to contain it,” Andreano said.
Former state Sen. Ray Heinzen of Marshfield, a longtime advocate of educational causes in Wisconsin, died earlier this week at the age of 87.
Heinzen served four terms in the state Assembly from 1961 to 1967, and was then elected to the state Senate in 1969. During his long tenure in the Capitol, the moderate Republican championed many causes in the education field and was the prime author of legislation sought by then Democratic Gov. Patrick J. Lucey that merged the University of Wisconsin campuses with 10 former state colleges under one administration and one board of regents.
The state might want to consider stripping the University of Wisconsin faculty’s statutory right to share in the governance of the university, a top lawmaker said.
Faculty and academic staff have long had the right to participate in the policymaking process at the university. That right is more than just an administrative rule; it is enshrined in state law.
But Rep. Suzanne Jeskewitz, R-Menomonee Falls, said the faculty’s right to shape university policy could be an obstacle to making important changes to the university’s employment practices.
The chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Wednesday warned that state budget cuts, combined with a sense of denial by some over the urgency of the city’s economic challenges, threaten his efforts to upgrade UWM into a major research university.
Mentions Madison’s competitive health care market, and UW Hospital and Clinics.
27 News has uncovered UW-Madison literature professor Lewis Cohen, a convicted sex offender, works on campus as part of a state work release program and has access to student records.
“To give this person, who’s been convicted of a serious crime against children, access to student records, simply doesn’t make sense,” Rep. Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford)
University administrators, analysts and scholars gathered on the UW-Madison campus Tuesday to debate the future of the university as a public institution as it battles growing budget cuts that limit public funding.
State lawmakers grilled UW- System President Kevin Reilly on employment practices and policies Tuesday at a public hearing of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
After two years of talks, allegations of negotiating in bad faith and a disastrous and illegal two-day strike in April 2004, the Teaching Assistants Association and Wisconsin�s Office of State Employment Relations are still no closer to an agreement for the 2003-05 contract period.
A prominent anti-war speaker is testing the mettle of the University of Wisconsin�s dedication to a free marketplace of ideas.
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly testified before the Joint Legislative Audit Committee regarding the university�s employment policies at the State Capitol Tuesday. The meeting marked the first stage of a nonpartisan audit Reilly requested Aug. 23 to coincide with the system�s internal investigation of its personnel practices.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley is defending biting remarks he made against the Republican-controlled Legislature in the latest edition of the UW alumni magazine, but legislators are pushing back.
In a column titled “Don’t Punish the Good,” Wiley said that during the recently completed budget cycle, lawmakers attempted “to take an injurious swipe at UW-Madison as a matter of petty politics.”
Thank you. Good morning. I want to thank the Committee Co-Chairs, Senator Roessler and Representative Jeskewitz, and all members of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, for the opportunity to continue the dialogue on the important issues before us.
Some state lawmakers angered that three jailed professors remain university employees, turned up the heat on U-W System administrators.
Members of the Legislative Audit Committee complained that it takes far too long for the U-W System to fire convicted felons.
Lawmakers and University of Wisconsin officials sparred over the UW’s controversial employment practices this morning.
They disagreed in some areas, but appeared to agree that giving administrators fixed-term contracts rather than backup positions would be more palatable to taxpayers.
Steve Bablitch will succeed Marc Marotta as the new secretary of the state Department of Administration. Flanked by Bablitch and Marotta, Gov. Jim Doyle announced the changing of the guard at a news conference Monday.
Doyle called Bablitch, the former secretary of the Department of Corrections and CEO of the Cobalt Corp., “one of Wisconsin’s great success stories.”
(Bablitch received his undergraduate and law degrees from UW-Madison.)
The “tissue issue” has been resolved at the Dane County Coroner’s Office.
Coroner John Stanley told the County Board’s Public Protection and Judiciary Committee Monday night that area hospitals will continue to honor their arrangements of providing tissue and organ donations to any of three tissue banks operating in Wisconsin, and not be limited to a new company, American Tissue Services Foundation.
Gov. Jim Doyle on Monday named Stephen Bablitch, a close friend who once ran the state’s prison system, to lead the powerful Department of Administration.
The UW System Board of Regents voted Friday to change its employment policies to address criticisms regarding backup jobs and felons, but some state legislators remained skeptical of the proposed changes.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents is considering adding Wisconsin to a list of states including Minnesota and North Carolina, whose public university systems would waive tuition outright for Hurricane Katrina victims, but they must await dialogue with the state Legislature.
State Department of Administration Secretary Mark Marotta planned to resign Monday afternoon, a spokesman for Gov. Jim Doyle said.
Doyle’s office issued an announcement that the governor planned to appoint a new Cabinet-level secretary at an afternoon press conference
Marotta has served as the governor’s administration secretary since Doyle took office in 2002.
(9/12/05 Capital Times print edition)
WEST BEND – No more backup jobs for now. Get the convicts off the payroll. And nobody will get paid for not working.
Reining in employment practices that have embarrassed Wisconsin’s public universities, University of Wisconsin System regents on Friday put limits on perks granted to administrators and ordered campuses to expedite the firing of employees guilty of criminal activity.
Concerned over a proposed bill banning emergency contraception, and possibly all forms of oral contraception from University of Wisconsin Health Services, students and members of the grassroots organization Our Bodies, Our Rights! rallied at Library Mall Friday in opposition to the bill�s potential passage.
State Sen. Ron Brown (R-Eau Claire) believes Western Wisconsin Technical College should be allowed to offer liberal arts courses.
If that happens, what would distinguish technical colleges from two-year campuses in the University of Wisconsin system?
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents passed a resolution Friday mandating that the system administration establish policies to assure the public and Legislature that any employee charged with a felony is immediately investigated and that disciplinary action, if any, be determined in a timely manner.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents set in motion a variety of reforms Friday to curb backup appointments and paid leaves given to university administrators and to speed up the removal of employees convicted of felonies.
WEST BEND – University of Wisconsin System regents said Thursday that they will put new limits on how universities grant backup positions and paid leaves to administrators, as they began reviewing personnel policies that have come under scrutiny.
Representatives of the 17-member board also indicated they would try to speed up the firing of employees convicted of felonies as part of an effort to restore public confidence in the 13 four-year universities they govern.
In all, regents said, negative coverage of the system’s missteps in recent weeks had added up to erode public support for university funding and distract the schools from their teaching and research missions.
University of Wisconsin teaching assistants are reacting with horror to a bill proposed by state Sen. Tom Reynolds that would eliminate the collective bargaining rights of student assistants employed by the UW System.
Current law expressly guarantees the right of self-organization and collective bargaining to program, project and teaching assistants employed by the UW System. There are separate bargaining units for UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee, as well as a separate unit that represents the other campuses.
West Bend – The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents pledged Thursday to rein in backup appointments and paid leaves granted to university administrators as early as today, saying recent news reports highlighting the perks showed that change was needed.
It has been 18 months since the Teaching Assistants’ Association walked back into classrooms following an unsuccessful and unpopular strike. Still operating under a contract negotiated in 2001, teaching assistants are scheduled to enter mediated discussions with UW officials in upcoming weeks. Given that recent talks have proven unfruitful for the TAA, we anticipate that upcoming negotiations will be highly sensitive affairs, invoking passionate pleas from union members and student supporters. However, if one state lawmaker has his way, the TAA’s right to collective bargaining will soon disappear.
In response to a 2004 strike by UW-Madison teaching assistants which he deemed illegal, Senator Tom Reynolds, R-West Allis, introduced a bill Wednesday to eliminate the ability of the Teaching Assistants’ Association to collectively bargain.
Following criticism of the UW System for holding “backup” jobs for some UW administrators, a committee of the UW System Board of Regents agreed in West Bend, Wis., Thursday to draft immediate and long-term changes for UW employment practices.
After being ââ?¬Å?blastedââ?¬Â by Fox News Channel program ââ?¬Å?The Oââ?¬â?¢Reilly Factor,ââ?¬Â the University of Wisconsin released an official status report Thursday concerning university employees convicted of felonies.
In recent days, state Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, has gained a lot of media attention by attacking the University of Wisconsin-Madison for allowing George Galloway, an anti-war member of the British Parliament, to speak on campus on Sept. 18.
He has based his objection on the fact that the Havens Center, which is based in the sociology department, is a co-sponsor of the event, leading him to claim that taxpayer money is being used to “shove” Mr. Galloway’s “pro-terrorist” views “down our throats.” I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.
(Patrick Barrett is administrative director of the A.E. Havens Center, which promotes critical social thought throughout the social sciences and is part of the sociology department at UW-Madison.)
State legislators are considering a bill that would modify state regulations regarding service dogs used by handicapped people so the rules conform to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The bill, proposed by Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, would extend the public accommodations law to cover any type of service animal, not just guide dogs. It also would eliminate requirements that a guide dog accompanying a person with a disability must wear a harness or leash and that the person with the animal must present credentials issued by a guide dog training school.
The Teaching Assistants’ Association is set to renew negotiations with the state this fall in an effort to break a two-year stalemate over a contract for TAs and program assistants. But a proposed new bill could strip the TAA of its right to bargain, according to a TAA statement.
The Teaching Assistants� Association denounced a prospective bill that would eliminate collective bargaining for graduate employees in the University of Wisconsin System Wednesday.
UW-Madison’s 3,000 teaching and project assistants hope upcoming mediation sessions will break the stalemate between their union and state labor negotiating officials.
But before those meetings are held, TAA leaders want to talk to their members, many of whom have just returned from being away for the summer. The meeting with members is slated for late September.
As part of a much-publicized system audit, University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly disclosed the number of UW System employees who are provided with back-up appointments and acknowledged the completion of the Paul Barrows report during a Tuesday teleconference.
Imagine sending people who have been assimilated into the most stable demographic population in America into cities and towns all over the United States that are as unprepared as the victims to understand their sense of dislocation and their support needs.
….The University of Wisconsin anthropology and sociology departments may have a role to play in helping the community understand the new cultures moving into their midst.
(Shari Julian earned her doctorate in public/educational administration UW-Madison in 1979. She also earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees here. She later earned a post-doctorate degree in clinical counseling and has been a hospital clinician for 20 years. She is now a faculty member in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Texas in Arlington.)
Top University of Wisconsin officials were grilled by state legislators Tuesday regarding the cost and management of developing a new payroll system that is not usable.
The Appointment, Payroll and Benefits System for the 26-campus university system has already cost $25 million over a five-year period. And UW System President Kevin Reilly and Executive Senior Vice President Don Mash told the Assembly’s Colleges and Universities Committee that they could not at present say how much more it will cost because there are too many unknowns.
MADISON, Wis. — In July, News 3 reported that after spending $25 million tax dollars, the UW System’s Appointment, Payroll and Benefits System is mired in problems and delays. ( Read Original I-Team Report )
On Tuesday, the state Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities started asking questions, but got few definitive answers. Rep. Robin Kreibich, R-Eau Claire and chairman of the committee, asked UW officials, “What would you tell the taxpayers of this state?”
Tuesday morning, Kevin Reilly, UW President and Don Mash, UW Sr. Vice President went before the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities.
They told the committee the reason the new system is behind schedule, is because there wasn’t anyone in charge of keeping the project on track or on budget. Reilly and Mash said more money is needed to complete the transition. But committee members were not convinced.
The University of Wisconsin System came under fire Tuesday for spending $25 million in taxpayer and tuition dollars on a payroll system that may never materialize. Speaking at a state Assembly hearing, UW System leaders said they had taken steps to get an overhaul of the payroll system back on track after five years of mismanagement and $5 million in excess spending. They insisted that even “with its fits and starts,” the project “wasn’t too far off the mark in terms of time and cost.”
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly on Friday released information requested by lawmakers showing that about 80 percent of administrators — more than 1,000 of them — have guaranteed backup jobs required by state law or individual contracts.
Reilly’s three-page letter to the leaders of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee also provides some explanation of how a person with rights to a backup job could be paid for a period of time after leaving the System — but it did not include a count of former employees who received such a benefit in the past three years, as lawmakers had requested.
A rush of help for hurricane victims has jammed telephone lines at Red Cross offices in Madison and across the country and prompted relief efforts by local groups ranging from Methodists to pagans to Hindus.
“This is a huge, huge outpouring of support,” said Jane Richardson, director of community development for the Badger Chapter of the American Red Cross.
UW-Madison students and professors return to school this year to find the university squirming under a level of state scrutiny not seen since the 1960s, when the flagship campus was ripped apart by war protest and civil unrest.
Almost 1,100 administrators in the University of Wisconsin System have backup positions waiting for them in case they resign or are fired, UW System President Kevin Reilly said Friday.
On August 30, Judge Susan Steingass delivered her final report to UW System President Kevin Reilly and UW-Madison Provost Peter Spear concerning the Paul Barrows investigation. (Under Top Stories tab.)
The president of the University of Wisconsin System released on Friday the first official numbers on back-up appointments – a university perk that has inspired much controversy this summer, saying the release was part of an ongoing commitment to university transparency. Nearly 80% of university administrators – 1,092 employees – have been guaranteed fallback jobs should they decide to step down from their current jobs, according to data compiled by the system. Many work at UW-Madison.
Quoted: Ken Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin has been adding jobs better than most of its neighbors have. But income and wages are sagging, medical benefits are waning and racial inequality continues to mount – all of which helps explain why the state’s poverty rate has grown more than anywhere else, according to a new report from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Like the Watergate scandal, it wasn�t the crime, but the cover-up.
For the third consecutive year, the University of Wisconsin System has taken another slew of budget cuts, but officials say there were fewer cuts than in the past.
