Category: State news

A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor is being held on a $20,000 bond after being arrested in a Milwaukee suburb while allegedly trying to meet a 14-year-old boy for sex.

Lewis Keith Cohen, a professor of comparative literature, was arrested Tuesday and is being held on tentative charges of two counts of using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime and one count of exposing a child to harmful materials.

The Republican-controlled state Legislature’s strong-arm recommendation that the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater cancel Professor Ward Churchill’s recent visit because of his insensitive reference to World Trade Center victims as “little Eichmanns” is mere folly in comparison with the more chilling effect of legislative attempts at “fixing” higher education. To suggest (as Assembly Joint Resolution 15 did) that the antics of one man in Colorado should provide the basis for a systematic review of the tenure and promotion system is as unnecessary as it is dangerously short-sighted.

Republican legislators vowed Wednesday to offer new property tax and tuition breaks to Wisconsin’s military veterans, their children and surviving spouses.

Over the years, the University of Wisconsin system has absorbed more than its share of state budget cutbacks, the thought being that the university can always restore a chunk of the cuts through tuition hikes.

Students on the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha campus are sounding off about an administrative reshuffling idea that would make the two-year campus part of UW-Milwaukee or perhaps a standalone university. Concerns about tougher academic standards, higher tuition and bigger classes are stirring opposition to the idea of transforming the campus into “UWM West,” as some are calling it.

Republican lawmakers who have railed against Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposed budget for including too many fund transfers put a figure on them for the first time Tuesday: $879 million.

The state could pay counties to treat nonviolent criminal offenders with drug and alcohol problems as an alternative to incarceration under legislation to be reintroduced next week.

MADISON, Wis. � Gov. Jim Doyle signed off on an agreement between the University of Wisconsin System and a Mexican university that allows them to exchange students and faculty and possibly conduct joint research projects.

As he wrapped up a trade mission to Mexico, Gov. Jim Doyle announced today the University of Wisconsin System had signed a sister school agreement with the University of Guadalajara

Wisconsin would spend just more than $1 billion over the next two years to construct new buildings and maintain current ones under the governor’s capital budget proposal. More than half of the money would go to projects within the University of Wisconsin System.

Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposed state budget is balanced on more than $304 million in new tax and fee increases, according to figures released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

….Doyle’s budget calls for more than $14 million in tax cuts, including $10.2 million in increased deductions for families and individuals paying college tuition.

A bill that could change the way new power plants are financed in Wisconsin – and save money for customers paying for those plants – could be voted on as soon as today by the state Senate. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay), would guarantee utilities a set rate of return every year for 30 years, instead of the traditional rate-setting approach used by the state Public Service Commission. To some, the new approach represents an indictment of the leased-generation concept employed for Wisconsin Energy’s new power plants and for the Madison Gas & Electric Co. plant being built on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

When Meg Gaines was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1994, she was determined to fight the disease.

Downloadable music, movies, e-books and clip art may soon accrue sales tax if Gov. Jim Doyle�s proposal to expand Wisconsin�s taxes to downloadable Internet materials is approved by the state legislature.

The demolition of Ogg Hall and the construction of its replacement comes before the Board of Regents for approval later this week.

UW-Madison planners are seeking authority to spend $35.9 million on building a 615-bed residence hall at the corner of Dayton and Park streets, greenspace and a pedestrian mall.

To get the attention of state lawmakers, about 20 UW-Madison student leaders have committed themselves to a three-day hunger strike that kicked off Monday morning in the Capitol rotunda.

Demand for educated workers is rising and presenting the best job market for new college graduates since before the 2001 recession. But campus career counselors warn it’s still no cakewalk for the class of 2005.

The debate over the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha’s future is prompting the college’s dean to warn that a merger with UW-Milwaukee would hurt students who need extra help getting into college.

Mentions that some University of Wisconsin-Madison students, staging a hunger strike in the Capitol to protest tuition increases, said they should not be asked to pay the sales tax on any music, movie or other materials they download from the Internet. They noted that Doyle’s budget would increase in-state undergraduate tuition next year by 5% to 7%.

NEW YORK ââ?¬â?? From Bryan-College Station, Texas, to Madison, Wis., America’s college towns are producing more than diplomas – they have become job machines.

A computer network consultant who evaluated bids for a $116 million state project ended his government work in the midst of final contract negotiations to work for SBC – the firm that had landed the huge deal two months earlier. UW officials have had major concerns with the project since its inception because they believe it gives too much control to the telecommunications firm. Instead, they wanted to have state employees manage at least part of the network.